DOMINION being God-bestowed, it is our spiritual and inalienable right and duty to exercise it, claiming freedom from material beliefs and influences which would hold us in bondage.
Nothing, perhaps, is more reassuring and satisfying than the correct sense of dominion. But in our endeavor to demonstrate dominion, it is well to make sure that we have a correct sense of it. God's man, who fully represents divine Mind, has dominion over "all the earth;" but the demonstration of this fact does not mean domination over one's fellow men. From the standpoint of Truth, all are created equal in the sight of God. From this it must follow that for one to attempt to exercise dominion over another through the counterfeit sense of personal power, would be to pervert the might which belongs by reflection to God's man. Again, submission to any perversion of true dominion places the victim in the plight to which our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, refers on page 485 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" thus: "If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents, called disease and sin."
The attempt to exercise personal domination over another and, on the other hand, the tendency to submit to such domination are equally demoralizing. When groups of people are assembled together it is not long, perhaps, until a dominant thought begins to assert itself. Indeed, it seldom occurs that two people can be in each other's company for any length of time without a certain tendency to domination appearing on the part of one or the other. Consciously or unconsciously, the aggressive mentality attempts to control. Mrs. Eddy has given a sharp rebuke to both the perpetrator and the victim of this condition when she says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 119), "We are responsible for our thoughts and acts; and instead of aiding other people's devices by obeying them,—and then whining over misfortune,—rise and overthrow both."
When it is recalled that dominion is defined as supreme authority, supremacy, it will be seen that mankind should recognize God alone as having such power, and that this power, which spiritual man reflects, is bestowed directly by God on man. Right thinking is the expression of divine intelligence. Proportionately, then, as one allows another to do his thinking for him, he separates himself from God and becomes susceptible to evil instead of to good alone, descending in the scale of usefulness to the world and to himself.
Christian Science teaches us not only how to exercise man's God-given dominion, but how to protect ourselves against the counterfeit, which so often wears the mask of intellectuality or affability, or both. The intent to control another's thinking is usually cloaked in an outward friendship, which lasts as long as the control is submitted to, and no longer. This deception is unmasked and overthrown by the Christian Scientist, who habitually goes directly to God with his problems. How to do this is clearly taught by Mrs. Eddy; and it is summed up in the Scriptural command, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." One could not picture the Master submitting to or acknowledging any control other than that of God ; and he never attempted to exercise personal control over others. Rather did he always turn their thought Godward; and the keynote of his mighty words and works was, "Not my will, but thine, be done."
The Christian Scientist who is striving to be entirely free from mortal mind interference in his thinking, finds reward for his efforts by turning for his intelligence unreservedly and with the utmost consecration to God. The course which he thus follows by communing with infinite Mind will not only be to him the course of wisdom, but it will also be a protection from any human attempt that may be made by another, uninvited, to supervise or guide his thinking for him. To attain to this spiritual freedom requires effort. Principle rather than person must be present in thought. There must be a keen alertness to detect all that savors of suggestion, flattery, intellectualism, pride, and the many et ceteras that are employed in mortal mind influences. Apathy and sluggishness of thought have to be guarded against, for they may lead one into subjection to the thought of others. Self-centered thinking, ambition, egotism, and dishonesty also draw the individual away from God, and subject him to the connivance of wrong influences.
That all evil qualities of thought need to be expelled from consciousness is an elementary statement of Christian Science. In the "mind... which was also in Christ Jesus," will be found the reward of full reliance upon God, whose ever present and ever operative wisdom and intelligence spiritual man reflects.
