IN searching recently to get a clearer sense of minding one's own business and a larger, truer understanding of God as Love, great light and peace and courage came to the writer; and a desire to share the bounty prompts the telling.
As thought was lifted to God, the one source, infinite and eternal, of right thinking, in honest prayer for growth in grace, for the graciousness to apprehend and comprehend good, the vital truth contained in Mrs. Eddy's statement on page 161 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," came clearly to consciousness: "He who gains self-knowledge, self-control, and the kingdom of heaven within himself, within his own consciousness, is saved through Christ, Truth." One is saved through Christ, Truth, then, if he complies with the conditions set forth in these words.
But how to comply, and just what to be saved from specifically, were the questions presented. With them came the answer. To gain self-knowledge is to examine one's own thought, one's motives and aims, carefully, honestly, dispassionately; to accept and obey the good and reject the evil: this is to be saved from false beliefs and their attendant manifestations. Self-control is thus won; and through intelligent right thinking the kingdom of heaven is found in one's own consciousness. In a word, we are to follow Jesus' intelligent command, "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." This watching of thought, then, is our work—our struggle, as it often seems to human sense; and the battle ground is our own consciousness. If we enter the consciousness of another unbidden (and we inadvertently do this when we wonder what another may be thinking about us, or concern ourselves with the solution of his affairs), we may rob that one of his God-given heritage to prove for himself his at-one-ment with God, good, the only possible means for each to find within himself the kingdom of heaven.
