True Success

George Shaw Cook

Some of the definitions of the word "success" given by Webster refer primarily to material prosperity or human achievement. They pertain to a relative sense of things rather than to the absolute, spiritual facts of being. Success, from the ordinary point of view, is something which has to be attained, perhaps through long years of effort, not something which is inherently characteristic of man.

On page 462 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, lifts the word "success" somewhat above its usual meaning. She says, "Some individuals assimilate truth more readily than others, but any student, who adheres to the divine rules of Christian Science and imbibes the spirit of Christ, can demonstrate Christian Science, cast out error, heal the sick, and add continually to his store of spiritual understanding, potency, enlightenment, and success." Grouping the word "success," as she does in this passage, with spiritual understanding, potency, and enlightenment, which are, in their true sense, divine qualities, it is evident that Mrs. Eddy understood success to be something more than it is usually believed to be.

The kind of success which has to be attained or achieved cannot, strictly speaking, be said to partake of absolute reality. Indeed, success as generally regarded is very far from being absolute, or spiritual. And Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., p. 239), "Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations, which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we get clearer views of Principle." In the next paragraph she adds, "Let it be understood that success in error is defeat in Truth."

It is obvious that true success and real prosperity cannot be ensured by legislation or by human planning. They can only be realized as properties of divine Mind which spiritual man possesses, by reflection. However, it is in accord with divine law that men should express and enjoy a righteous sense of prosperity and success. And it is equally true that divine Principle does not engender, permit, or tolerate either failure or the kind of success which sometimes seems to be attained through the employment of reprehensible means. The law of divine Principle is, then, when applied in human experience, a law of success to all that is good, unselfish, loving, and honest, and a law of failure to that which is evil, dishonest, unloving, and selfish.

Greed, false ambition, and ruthlessness have no place in the achievement of permanent success, even though they may seem temporarily to aid the attainment of success. The Psalmist must have discerned this fact when he wrote: "Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb." This passage from Psalms, interpreted in the light of Christian Science, refers to evil conditions of belief rather than to persons, but those persons who persist in wrong thinking and in the use of wrong methods ultimately find themselves discredited.

With reference to real success, which is inseparable from perfection, it may be said, without the least irreverence, that when God "saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31), He recognized His creation to be, in the very highest degree, successful. Man, then, created in God's likeness, cannot rightly be thought of as a failure. On the contrary, he must be regarded as being altogether a success. And Mind's successful—perfect—creation is not something which came into being in the obscure and indefinite past, and then ceased. "Creation," our Leader says (ibid., p. 507), "is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source." It is the eternal unfoldment of divine Mind as consciousness, in right, true spiritual ideas. It is Mind's expression of its own infinity—of the divine wholeness and allness of being.

Apprehension of the divine facts of being and acknowledgment of the supremacy of spiritual law preclude the possibility of believing oneself limited or thwarted by the supposed operation of mortal laws, such as the so-called law of hereditary incapacity or inability. Divine law frees one from the asserted influence and control of astrology and other forms of occultism and superstition. It lifts one above the assumed consequences of adverse industrial, social, governmental inhibitions. And the divine law of perfection, humanly applied, ensures one's legitimate success in all right forms of endeavor, whether expressed in healing the sick and sinning through spiritual means, or in some other form of unselfish service. In short, this law enables one to "add continually to his store of spiritual understanding, potency, enlightenment, and success."

George Shaw Cook

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