All the world seeks happiness. But what is happiness and how is it to be obtained? One of the priceless blessings of Christian Science is that it answers these questions.

Mortals believe that happiness comes from material pleasures, pursuits, and conditions. It is often assumed that the source of happiness lies in money, attractive material environment, possessions, intellectualism, worldly position and prestige, or the pleasing testimony of the personal senses.

But this viewpoint leads inevitably to the belief that unfavorable material conditions and circumstances can take away our happiness. In the changing scenes of human experience, the shifting tides of fortune and friendship, happiness often appears to be frail and temporary.

But genuine happiness is not to be found in this medley of mortal beliefs. Nor is it subject to material circumstances. Mary Baker Eddy presents the truth concerning happiness when she writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 57), "Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love." We learn in Christian Science that happiness is man's God-given heritage, divinely bestowed by an all-loving creator.

What is happiness, after all? Christian Science shows that it is the sense of peace and satisfaction, right activity and security, which comes perpetually to man from his divine source. It is the joy and harmony, the spontaneous sense of pure goodness, derived from superabundant divine Love, God. It is a state of spiritual wholeness, of God-given consciousness. One may experience it here and now by turning with spiritual understanding to man's divine source.

Contrary to worldly expectations, happiness is to be found not through indulgence in materiality, but through dominion over it. Happiness comes not through pleasing forms of bondage to matter, but through freedom from matter's claims. It comes not through material sense—which is blind to the nature and source of genuine happiness—but through spiritual sense, which enables us to rise above the material. True happiness is found not in selfishness, but in the joy of loving unselfishly and demonstrating man's at-one-ment with divine Life, Truth, and Love.

What brings happiness into our experience is the entertaining in consciousness of the ever-present Christ, the spirit of Truth and Love. Christ Jesus counseled his followers to abide in love: to love one another, even as he had loved them. And he also said (John 15: 11), "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

Seeing clearly that happiness comes from the divine source, as a bestowal of God to His beloved child, we begin to realize that our happiness is not dependent upon other persons, what they may say, think, or do; nor is it at the mercy of material circumstances. The corporeal senses do not give genuine happiness, and they cannot take it away.

This understanding gives us the right approach to the demonstration of happiness. In Christian Science we do not set out to demonstrate money, possessions, personal prestige, or a particular set of material circumstances in order that we may derive our happiness therefrom. We do not start by admitting that happiness is derived from material conditions or is dependent upon them.

In Science, we demonstrate, through Christlike living, man's unity with Truth and Love. We learn to harmonize our thoughts and actions with divine Love, the Principle of all being. We strive in daily life to express God's qualities, to prove His power and allness. This is our goal, our life purpose.

We work to regenerate the material sense of self and to bring to light man's true selfhood, which is goodness, in the image and likeness of God. We do this by filling human consciousness with pure affection, humility, love, spiritual joy, obedience. We express this inspired understanding in Christlike love for our fellow men.

Mrs. Eddy tells us in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 17), "Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can."

This right approach enables us to wipe out the arguments of error that would deprive us of happiness. Realizing that happiness is inherent in the exact and scientific relationship of God and man, we see that nobody and nothing can ever rob us of it. Man's happiness is undisturbed, unalloyed, because man's relationship to his Maker is forever unchanged; and in this divine relationship, there is no room for discord, unhappiness, disappointment, lack, or loneliness. Man's being is forever harmonious because it is governed by God.

This understanding also makes it clear that there is no need to postpone our happiness. The truth is that man enjoys this blissful state of consciousness now and forever because divine Love is forever imparting all good to its own reflection, man.

As we gain this true understanding of happiness, we are able to see more clearly the nothingness of corporeal sense, with its illusive promises. And as a result, its discords progressively disappear from our lives. We lay hold of spiritual sense, which is always harmonious, and its beneficent influence increasingly pervades our experience.

Working on the basis that all good is of God, one finds he does not deprive himself of anything good when he turns from matter to Spirit. On the contrary, he thus aligns himself with the infinite source of all good, and this brings increasing peace, abundance, and harmony into his daily life. It brings to light the spiritual treasures of divine Love, unfolding these treasures in ways that meet the human need. Thus one finds more in life to love and enjoy, and he realizes that God imposes no restrictions on man's full enjoyment of spiritually unfolded good.

The inevitable outcome of demonstrating man's at-one-ment with God—of proving scientifically in daily life the divine relationship of God and man—is heaven here and now. This scientific understanding brings to light in our experience the operation of God's law of perfect adjustment. This all-powerful law corrects whatever may seem to stand in the way of happiness. It heals discordant human relationships. It reveals the government of divine Love.

Looking to divine Love, the great Giver of all good, as the source of all that we can truly desire or need, we learn more of what genuine happiness is and how it is to be obtained. We learn that happiness is the fruitage of spiritual love— love that is pure and Christlike, reflecting divine Love.

As our Leader says in the Message for 1902, on the same page referred to above: "Jesus said, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' He knew that obedience is the test of love; that one gladly obeys when obedience gives him happiness. Selfishly, or otherwise, all are ready to seek and obey what they love. When mortals learn to love aright; when they learn that man's highest happiness, that which has most of heaven in it, is in blessing others, and self-immolation— they will obey both the old and the new commandment, and receive the reward of obedience."