The search for unity
Deep within us is the intuition that unity and harmony are synonymous. Consciously or not, we sense a spiritual link to God—the infinite One, divine Love—who made man (and that means you and me) and sustains him. The search for unity— whether it be in the framework of families or in social, religious, political, national, or international arenas—is a Love-induced search for harmony. But it's a search that often seems frustrated by forces that would separate rather than unify.
Looking at centuries-old conflicts in the world, for example, we could easily become convinced that there is a power working against the many sincere attempts to unify peoples who are so obviously well equipped to love and enjoy each other but who remain divided. Even two people, married and in love, may in some instances find it difficult to get through a day without some kind of controversy. Is there really a disintegrating force at work to frustrate humanity's search for unity?
No. The only "force" that works against this search is humanity's own misconception of the fundamental nature of unity and harmony—of God and of man's relationship to Him.
If we restrict to mutual compromise our attempts to achieve unity, we are depending on means by which most peace treaties and alliances are negotiated, much legislation achieved, and many marriages "saved." For a while, things may seem more orderly than they were before, but the stress of new circumstances can quickly bring about renewed strife. Only as we relinquish misconceptions and turn instead to the truth of God and man will our brotherhood with others as children of one Father-Mother God come to light, and with it the harmony we all seek.
The underlying misconception that frustrates the search for unity is the belief that man is merely what the physical senses indicate: an extremely limited material personality, having a temporary life and intelligence separate from God. If man really were as limited as the physical senses say he is, unity and harmony would be unattainable. Harmony is infinite, a quality of God; and a limited man could never fully experience it.
Man, as the spiritual image of Him whom Jesus called Spirit (John 4:24), is infinite in quality. All that really exists—all real substance, intelligence, action, and man himself—is spiritual, already unified. What seems to separate humanity into divisive factions is the incorrect concept of man as material personality, governed by material laws. Such misconception does not destroy reality; it is an illusion—a separation from reality. To progress humanly toward a higher and more permanent realization of the spiritual unity with God, in which man is forever embraced, requires not that we attempt to accommodate the material misconception of man but that we strive to discard it.
Employing the imagery of Jesus' parable of the tares and the wheat, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes: "Mortal belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth (the spiritual sense) are the tares and the wheat, which are not united by progress, but separated.
"Perfection is not expressed through imperfection." Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 72.
How can we most effectively discard the erroneous material concepts of man that obscure our true spiritual unity? Smarting from another's rebuff or burning with remorse at having hurt someone, human sense argues that something in man needs to be changed, that the love he continually expresses has been interrupted by something evil, and that somehow love needs to be restored. We do need to be alert to our shortcomings, but the conviction that Love is in any one of us to be lost, replaced by evil, and then regained, is a basic error implicit in the materially limited concept of man.
Love is God, ever present and uninterruptible, always reflected by man—but never encapsulated in him. By turning to the true concept of man as the reflection of inexhaustible Love, by striving our very best to realize that concept in our own behavior, and by overcoming the anguished false sense of love cut off by circumstance, we find the evidence of man's unity in Love becoming more instead of less apparent in our lives. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." I John 4:8.
To the mortal sense of things, everything is limited and therefore losable, separated from God. When human relationships seem to be at their best and we bask in the warmth of mutual caring and sharing, it is tempting to believe that the love and security we share come from person and not from God. But embodied—in belief— in others, love becomes—in belief—separated from its source and therefore finite, precarious, and capable of transformation into hate. What is hate or any other evil but the belief that love has been lost? "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," Rom. 8:39. wrote Paul.
Just as important as knowing man's inseparable relationship to God is the gaining of experience as a result of this knowing. Because God is omnipotent, the truth of man's identity as His reflection is actually unopposed. Held up and glorified in human consciousness, the Christ-idea destroys what claims to be able to fracture mankind's unity. Human attempts at unification have always fallen short, because they have overlooked the absolute Christ-power implicit in Jesus' demonstration of immortal life, the power able to destroy all spurious evidence of disintegration.
As we view any human situation, from an unruly kindergarten to disturbances in Northern Ireland or the Middle East, we can know that the components of harmony are always there, waiting to be recognized. When he prayed, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are," John 17:11. Christ Jesus was reaffirming the irresistible ability of the Christ-power to bring man's preexistent unity and harmony into human view. "There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way," writes Mrs. Eddy. "It is to know no other reality—to have no other consciousness of life—than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses." Science and Health, p. 242.
As we strive to give dominance in our consciousness and our behavior to the Christ-idea and realize man's perfection as Love's reflection, the Christ will teach us—by destroying the errors of material sense—to let go of the misconception that strife and disintegration have any real purpose, place, or power. Spiritual perception will progressively and gently wipe from anguished human consciousness the false sense that Love has gone and bring into human view—within our families, our nations—the unmistakable evidence of man's inseparability from infinite good. Our purified ability to love and be loved will grow as we realize unity, and praise the harmony that has always been here, to which we have been awakened.
The God of patience and consolation grant you
to be likeminded one toward another
according to Christ Jesus:
that ye may with one mind
and one mouth glorify God.
