MEN have talked a great deal about mind. Some have believed it to be located in brain and have supposed it capable of thinking both good and bad thoughts. Through indefinite cycles of time mankind has attempted to discover how to educate and cultivate mind, imagining that thereby its thoughts could be improved. It has, however, been forced to acknowledge that often the most earnest efforts in this direction have seemed to result in disappointment and failure. As to finding out just how thoughts were to be brought under control, this has seemed quite impossible of accomplishment. Even the most profound thinkers have generally recognized their inability to govern perfectly their own thinking, and, instead, have found it often proving itself most erratic and puzzling.
All this has been the result of the more or less dense ignorance which has ever seemed to surround the subject of mind. No conclusion could apparently be reached in regard to it that in the course of time would not be upset by some supposedly new discovery or theory. Consequently, all consideration of it has been of a more or less speculative nature, and the world has gone on in comparative darkness concerning the most important of all questions: What is mind? Where is mind? How can its thoughts be properly controlled?
When God gave to Mrs. Eddy the marvelous truth that He is the one infinite and only Mind, the way to the solution of every human problem was revealed. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 492) our Leader writes, "God is Mind, and God is infinite; hence all is Mind." And again on page 143: "If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name."
The very grandeur of this revelation causes one to pause in deepest awe before it; and yet, withal, how simple it is! Just that our great, good God is all the Mind there is! Then He is the very, origin and creator of all thought, the intelligence which controls all thinking, the Mind which knows all! Never has there been any thought of good, of truth, of wisdom, of power,—any thought of any right name or nature,—that it has not been Mind conceiving, producing, expressing itself. To Mind, then, must be all "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." Mind alone is and always has been responsible for and the cause of every true thought that has ever shed its light upon the world, that has ever been held or expressed by any one at any time, anywhere. All must be of Mind, and nothing can be separate therefrom.
Since God is the one infinite Mind, man is never Mind. Consequently, man is never source, origin, or cause of thought; but inasmuch as man has wise, intelligent, true, good, loving thoughts he is reflecting Mind and is expressing Mind's originality, goodness, intelligence, wisdom, truth, and power. Then all the glory must be God's—never man's. All thoughts that are good are the thoughts of God, of Mind. So called thoughts which are evil in nature are therefore not real, not true, not power—do not belong to Mind, but are simply the lies of a so called counterfeit, which Paul calls "carnal mind" and Mrs. Eddy names "mortal mind," in order to designate that which claims to be but is not.
Then, as men reflect God's good thoughts they are dwelling consciously in Mind; but when they entertain evil imaginations they are permitting themselves to think they can be outside of Mind in an unreal realm, a realm where only ignorance and evil can claim to be. They are failing to honor Mind.
In Christian Science, then, the all-important questions are answered. There is but one Mind, because there is but one God; this one is infinite, everywhere; and all His thoughts are absolutely and perfectly controlled by Him, by Mind. They can never wander from Him, can never be outside of Him, can never be governed by anything but the one perfect divine Mind in and by which they forever exist.
This is the truth with which mankind learns to examine all its thinking; it is the light which shows how to divide between good and bad thoughts, and which enables it to hold to the one and reject the other. Christian Scientists accept all this as true; but we still often spend valuable hours wondering whether it is this or that error of thought which should be dealt with, or just how we are to find out what specific thought should be handled under certain circumstances. There is only one thought which needs to be watched— that is one's present thought. If that is cared for properly,—if it is kept allegiant to divine Mind,—could any lack of right thinking by any possibility even seem to occur?
Then the earnest Christian Scientist will always be watching that he is accepting, entertaining, reflecting, only the thoughts of divine Mind. Always he will be on guard that he is never taking Mind's holy name in vain; that he is never claiming any good, wise, true, loving thought as his apart from God, or failing to recognize that since it is the thought of Mind all the power of Mind is with it. In other words, he will never doubt that His God given thoughts are the expression of the very law of God, of Mind, and consequently must bring forth perfect manifestation.
The veriest tyro in the practice of Christian Science may prove this true by learning thus to worship Mind, thus to honor Mind's every thought, to love and cherish even the smallest evidence of right thinking which comes into his own experience. Does he awaken to a thought of good as belonging to Mind? Then let him begin to thank God for it; let him begin to declare that it is indeed Mind working in him; that it is the very power of God, of Mind, and that it can and will prove any supposititious opposite unreal. Such practice as this has only to be continued—and continued—until the last mortal thought has been proved untrue, unreal.
It is a simple process, this process of rendering to Mind "the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name." It is, however, a process which must be carried on indefatigably, loyally, honestly, devoutly. It is the way of the joy, of the peace, of the continually unfolding power and might of divine Mind; it is the way of proving Mind's everlasting dominion.
