The fact that consciousness determines our experience is fairly generally accepted today. In other words, our thinking is objectified in our environment and experience. Hence the important questions for each one of us are these: Of what am I conscious—truth or error, fact or fable, health or disease, abundance or lack, success or failure, happiness or unhappiness? Is my thinking positive or negative? Is it joyous or gloomy?

What determines the character of our lives is not so much the circumstances we meet each day as the mental attitude with which we meet these circumstances. Each moment of each day do we accept or do we challenge what is presented to our consciousness?

We have the mental ability to agree or to disagree with what confronts us, to admit thoughts into our mental home as welcome guests or to thrust than out as unwelcome intruders. This verse from the Old Testament is worthy of consideration: "Hear. O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it."  ^{Jer. 6:19;}

We learn in Christian Science that obedience to God is hearkening unto Him, listening to the still small voice of good, and conforming to it. Being conscious of good means that we are expressing the divine Mind. Then when our thoughts are good, or Godlike, the fruit of our thoughts or our experience will be Godlike. But if in defiance of His law we entertain thoughts of hatred, envy, resentment, self-will, we are rejecting Truth. These thoughts are false, ungodlike; hence the fruit of our thoughts, or our experience, will be disturbed, discordant, ungodlike.

Pursuing this discussion of thoughts and their objectification in our lives, we may well ask. Where do thoughts come from? Man does not originate thought; he expresses it. The true source, the only source of right thoughts is God, the one infinite Mind, or Principle of being, and Mind can be expressed only in mental qualities and ideas, never in matter or materiality. Lies, contradictions, mistakes, and illusions, which have their origin in what we term mortal mind, are totally false at all times. They are simply lies about the facts of existence. We all know that a lie has no power unless it is believed.

Many times throughout her works Mrs. Eddy speaks of our decisions and admissions as being the governing factors of our lives. What we accept, what we admit into consciousness, what is real to us, we realize or experience. Of a man, the Bible says, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he."  ^{Prov. 23:7;}

A familiar statement by Mrs. Eddy reads: "Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously."  ^{Science and Health, p. 392;} Here is a simple, infallible pattern of action. One that must not be intermittent or spasmodic, but constant and perpetual.

Do we accept each thought which seeks admission into consciousness, or do we challenge it? Do we accept mere human opinions, theories, and beliefs that disease, disaster, poverty, and the like, are inevitable, or do we challenge them and insist upon acknowledging only one creator, called God, Mind, and His creation, entirely good? "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."  ^{Gen. 1:31;} Let us refuse to break the First Commandment and believe in an existence apart from God.

The depressing, devastating beliefs of human existence are mere superstitions, completely false, having neither origin nor support in Principle. They are human opinions that have become solid convictions. Bear in mind, however, that if we believe a lie, we are subject to it just as primitive people, believing in a flat earth, were subject to all the limitations which this belief imposed. They were the victims of their own false believing. But this flat earth was never true, existent, real. As progress and intelligence further enlightened the people, they gave up their belief in a flat earth and accepted the truth of a round earth. Then their experience conformed to their thinking.

We too must see clearly that we give up false beliefs and accept the truth. Mrs. Eddy says, "Belief produces the results of belief, and the penalties it affixes last so long as the belief and are inseparable from it."  ^{Science and Health, p. 184;}

Each moment we have the power of deciding between right and wrong, truth and error. Let us accept wholeheartedly the truth of one creator and one creation and let us challenge anything that denies reality. Many centuries ago, Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians emphasized the importance of "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,"  ^{II Cor. 10:5;} and this should be our goal today. As we do so—make every thought Christlike—it must follow that our experience will conform to our thinking and be more Christlike, embodying peace, freedom, dominion, joy.

It behooves us all to watch our thinking and to see what we accept and what we challenge. Our experience is determined not partially but fully by the thoughts which we entertain in consciousness. In the words of Mrs. Eddy, "Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil determines the harmony of our existence, —our health, our longevity, and our Christianity."  ^{Science and Health, p. 167.}