Those looking in the wrong direction for release may cry as did Jeremiah, "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed?" ^{Jer. 15:18;} Yet many of them really want more than release from pain. They want to find and experience the harmony that God creates and maintains.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy points the way to achieve this dual goal: "Spirit's senses are without pain, and they are forever at peace. Nothing can hide from them the harmony of all things and the might and permanence of Truth." ^{Science and Health, pp. 214, 215;}

While the senses of Spirit do not originate in man, because we are truly the likeness of God, Spirit, they are ours by reflection to use and enjoy. It's a grand accomplishment to overcome pain spiritually. But it's also a great one to forestall pain, to live above, and to put down, the erroneous mental suggestions that, in belief, give rise to it. We all can do this by discerning what is already present and active, even the harmony and perfection of man's real, spiritual being.

An aid to this is to understand the powerlessness and unreality of pain, its illusory nature. Declares Science and Health, "There is no pain in Truth, and no truth in pain." ^{p. 113;} The statement may seem difficult to accept, but when sincerely, persistently, applied, it is found effectively comforting.

Pain is mesmeric. It exists in material belief only, not in a place. God's spiritual man is not a medium for disease, accident, or pain. Because man, God's expression, can have nothing underived from Deity, pain never enters or becomes part of his being. The divine Mind is ever conscious of harmony and perfection, and this consciousness of harmony and perfection belongs to man, who reflects Mind.

God is universal Love, perfect Life, the producer only of good. Man in God's likeness forever expresses harmonious Life, and this divine activity is not usurped by any sense of pain or discord. Man is not confined in a material body but is a divine idea reflecting Spirit. With the understanding of man's present perfection the Master, Christ Jesus, brought healing and peace to discordant humanity, and so can we.

Christian Science likens pain to a dream. All that is true about a dream is the awakening part. You may ask, "Can God destroy the pain in a dream?" Not in the sense that He is aware of pain and then does something about it. But our understanding of God's truth enables us to see and prove our present harmony and perfection, untouched by the dream.

Moreover, in a dream, effect does not necessarily follow cause. If you dream that a dog bites a child, the child will not scream unless you dream so. If the child falls down, he will not be hurt unless you dream it. This is also true of false, material belief; effect does not follow cause unless we believe it. If we fall down, we do not injure ourselves unless—consciously or unconsciously—we accept the general mortal belief of accident. This helps us to see that the many reasons material thinking assigns for pain are of themselves powerless to induce pain unless belief gives its consent.

A detective in a city where I lived told me of a man who had fallen off a six-foot bridge into a brook below. There were no broken bones—just a few scratches and slight bruises. The man was intoxicated, and since an intoxicated person when falling, the detective explained, does not resist or fear the fall, broken bones seldom result. This made it clear to me that it is not a fall but the thoughts accompanying it that induce injury and pain.

The seeming causes—both physical and mental—of the belief of pain are legion. Let us consider a few of the less obvious ones. Latent fears and anxieties have not proved conducive to bodily comfort. Yet Christian Science shows how these may be overcome by realizing that the real man, the expression of ever-active Mind, God, has no unconscious mind where fear can be harbored to spring forth into discord.

Irritation and impatience are causes of pain, but when they are denied power and reality and replaced with the calm recognition of God's presence and power, harmonious bodily conditions result. Constant pressure and tension have, in belief, been known to drive the secretions of the body so much that pain has resulted. However, through scientific prayer one can prove that man in his true being is continually governed by divine Love and experiences the development of good alone.

Some suffer from an intense belief of life in matter that keeps them living in fear of their bodies. Others, to overcome pain, need to overcome the belief in unconscious bodily action. We all can understand that all real action stems from the divine omniaction. The activity of God is conscious, intelligent, harmonious action, animating every activity and function of man. Belief in the reality and power of matter gives way as it is seen that matter cannot act and cause inharmony. Moreover, man, the expression of God, is constituted of spiritual qualities and ideas; these do not function independently of each other, or press discordantly against each other, for they exist in the perfect order of Mind.

Before they give rise to a belief in pain, a sense of burden, false responsibility, extreme self-will, anger, resentment, can be detected and destroyed in our own thinking. We can replace these lies now with responsiveness to Truth. Mind, Spirit, alone governs man, and no belief of pain can usurp or interfere with God's harmonious control of His spiritual idea.

Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has been criticized for her strong stand that there is no pain apart from one's belief in it. In Miscellaneous Writings, a questioner cites a minister as saying "that pain and disease are not illusions but realities; and that it is not Christian to believe they are illusions." And the questioner asks, "Is this so?" Mrs. Eddy replies: "It is unchristian to believe that pain and sickness are anything but illusions. My proof of this is, that the penalty for believing in their reality is the very pain and disease." ^{Mis., p. 68;}

It's surely heartening to learn in Christian Science that man is not a material being subject to pain. Consistently realizing his true being, one is superior to pain. He can become impervious to painful and distressing experiences.

The sufferer's real need is to apprehend and prove his divine nature, which the mesmeric suggestion termed pain is powerless to hide. Beginning with perfect God and recognizing his perfect true being as forever expressing the comfort of divine Love, he is equipped to demonstrate his blissful spiritual selfhood. Because man reflects the senses of Spirit, divine Mind, he is actually responsive to harmony, to good, alone.

The real man is intact, the forever likeness of his Maker, hence spiritual and painless. Through discerning the harmonious, inviolate nature of man, who is superior to suffering and sickness, we experience in increasing measure the promise of the Revelator, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. ^{Rev. 21:4.}

O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

Psalm 34:3, 4, 7