What peace, happiness, and health would be ours if we learned to dwell consistently in the eternal now! Instead of this, how often we waste precious moments in stewing about what might have been, in mentally rehashing past shortcomings and hurts, or worrying about the possibility of future trouble, thus ignoring the infinite potential of the present moment! Then at other times the past seems so wonderful or the future looks so promising that the poor neglected present seems drab indeed.

How foolish this is! The past is irretrievably gone. The future hasn't arrived. But the eternal now, the moment of Truth, is here waiting to be appreciated and utilized. As Paul puts it, "now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." ^{II Cor. 6:2;}

Christian Science shows us how to curb an inordinate preoccupation with the past and future. These two robbers of harmony can be silenced as we grow in our understanding of God and man. This Science teaches us that at this precise moment we are spiritual beings created by and constituted of Spirit. We are God's perfect ideas, reflections of the one divine Mind, and as we learn to cling mentally to this fact and let its glorious implications fill our thought, we can shut out false, disturbing suggestions.

This understanding of man's true selfhood and its inseparable relationship to God is revealed by the Christ, the saving Truth that can only be realized and applied in the now. The Christ is not something that once existed but now has gone away; nor is it something that is about to happen but has not yet arrived. It is the scientific fact of being at this very moment. The Christ never comes or goes, because it is as infinite, therefore as ever present, as God Himself. We must train ourselves to perceive this fact. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The scientific man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being." ^{Unity of Good, p. 46;}

The subordination of mortally mental suggestions is a real challenge. It is an interesting experiment to pause and discover how long one can hold thought to a single spiritual concept in the now and bar from his thought every suggestion of a mortal past and future. One may find it to be a period of extremely short duration, the reason being that the human mind has not sufficient spiritual content to master and control itself. It must begin to see its own unreality and acknowledge the omnipresence and omniscience of the one divine Mind before sufficient inner peace can be demonstrated. The All-Mind is utterly still, infinitely tranquil, and as one humbly recognizes it to be the very "I" of his being, the clamor and restlessness of human thinking gradually abates. A very perceptive poet writes,

When giving a treatment, a spiritual healer must remain mentally in the now of spiritual realization and not allow his thought to be led off by extraneous suggestions. He must strive for a vivid realization of Love's presence and power, and of man's real identity as the expression of Love. This oneness of divine cause and effect must be seen as the immediate and only fact, and any mental intrusions from the past and future must be vigorously denied and ejected from thought. Mrs. Eddy puts it plainly when she writes, "We own no past, no future, we possess only now." And further on she adds, "Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to 'act in the living present.'" ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 12;}

When Christ Jesus healed the man who was born blind, he rejected the claim that a negative past can influence present experience. When his disciples asked him, "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" ^{John 9:2.} Jesus rejected this suggestion of prenatal influence. He set aside the so-called law of heredity and proved the present perfection of man as the expression of all-seeing Mind. To Jesus, the human body, and indeed all matter, was a mesmeric illusion, a mental phenomenon that could be adjusted and renewed by spiritually enlightened thought. By remaining steadfastly in the now of spiritual reality, recognizing his own and his patient's present unity with omnipotent Principle, Jesus destroyed the illusion of blindness and set the man free.

Our ability to emulate the Master will develop as we stop our mental drifting and learn to poise thought in "the living present." Although remembrance of past events and wise planning for tomorrow may be practical and necessary on many occasions, still we can contribute greatly to our spiritual growth by spending more and more moments in the now of Love's presence. We will then say with the poet, "I am calm, beholding the stars"!

Alan A. Aylwin