Discarding Material Time-Tables
On page 246 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy states very definitely that "chronological data are no part of the vast forever," and that "time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood."
God is the ever living presence. Therefore, man as His image and likeness must always be living in the present, in the presence of God. Neither past nor future exists in this infinite presence that is always All-in-all; and our habit of thinking of the past with regret or longing, and of the future as uncertain, is a prominent factor in many discordant conditions. These false beliefs can be corrected by spiritual understanding. As this understanding grows, false beliefs fade out of human consciousness, just as darkness disappears from a room when light is brought into it.
The Bible declares that God gave the real man dominion over the whole earth. Christian Science teaches that this dominion is possible of realization. It gives us an understanding of God which enables us to prove dominion according to the measure of our understanding and practice of its teachings. In claiming spiritual dominion, one must begin with one's self. As each one exercises his God-given power to make his own thinking more Godlike, he is able to prove, to some extent at least, his God-given dominion over earth and time, including the beliefs called "yesterday" or "tomorrow."
Real life—and there is no other—is the expression of divine activity, and cannot be interfered with or impaired. Mrs. Eddy refers in "the scientific statement of being" to this ever present divine activity as follows (ibid., p. 468): "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." As we accept, understand, and practice this truth we find the seemingly insistent mortal belief that chance and change are inevitable gradually yielding to the higher understanding and demonstration of man in God's image and likeness.
It is neither progressive nor Christianly scientific to permit the belief either of age or of youth to narrow or limit one's viewpoint. Forward footsteps are taken by insisting that to-day is God's day, and therefore that its experiences must of necessity broaden one's outlook, enlarge one's capacities, and increase one's conscious power over every form of error that would enter thought to hamper or retard one's demonstration of the truth.
But, says the young student, how can I apply this truth literally to the belief of fatigue and discouragement? Let us see! It is plain that nothing can grow weary, discouraged, old, diseased, or limited, except as human belief gives its involuntary or voluntary consent. As the comprehension of his real self as a wholly spiritual and perfect idea of divine Mind dawns upon the student, he perceives that what he needs is not to do something to his body or his environment, but to turn away from the false concept of himself as material and of his environment as limited or discordant, and to keep his thinking filled with the realization of the perfect, immortal man of God's creating, living, moving, and having his being in the eternal harmony of infinite divine Mind.
The only place in which any erroneous condition can even claim to exist is in a false consciousness of existence. Any wrong condition, whether it is of mentality, body, or environment, is healed by the spiritual understanding of true substance, which is not matter, but Mind. This fact was undoubtedly seen by Isaiah, whose writings have been called "the Gospel of Promise," when he wrote, "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall," thus calling attention to the futility of believing in the power of matter or the belief of youth to sustain or strengthen, and followed this statement by the declaration of the fruits of Godlike thinking in the inspired words, "They that wait upon the Lord ... shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." This demonstration over material sense is not made without conscious and earnest endeavor, nor is it accomplished in a moment; but progress is sure as each individual grows in spiritual understanding of the immutable and eternal law of God, good, and practices what he understands.
The pilgrim traveling the road from mortal belief to spiritual understanding turns to the Bible and its scientific interpreter, Science and Health, for guidance and encouragement. As he journeys, to the mortal sense of things, from the dreary wilderness of false beliefs into the promised land of understanding of God's spiritual creation, he finds his horizon widening and his human experience becoming enriched. He learns that he need not accept the limitations that evil suggestion would seek to impose upon him at every step. With consecrated effort to think rightly, that is, in accordance with divine Principle, as taught and practiced by Christ Jesus and elucidated by Christian Science, he makes signal progress in reflecting the freedom of divine Mind. He becomes less and less troubled with various forms of so-called aggressive mental suggestion, such as that termed "advancing years," for he learns how intelligently to resist such attempts to disturb his activity, peace, and well-being.
The greater degree of spiritual discernment daily attained by the student in his constant work to know the truth which the Master promised would make us all free, enables him to detect and arrest wrong thoughts and bar them out of his thinking before they become manifest as discordant conditions. The alert Christian Scientist recognizes that false beliefs are enemies to progress, and he refuses them either lodging or entertainment in his consciousness. Spiritual vigor is a quality of Mind. It is important, therefore, that our material sense of body and self be changed to the spiritual understanding of the perfect man of God's creating, and that the false sense of existence in matter be eliminated by Christianly scientific methods of thinking, in order that this real man may appear. God-taught, God-inspired thought reflects vital, vivid, blessed intelligence and power.
