Business has sometimes been looked upon as that which is able to provide unlimited opportunities for one to become independent without an altogether righteous or even strenuous effort and from a material standpoint. But again, the same structure may be one's torment, seeming to render him dependent upon others and withholding from him the opportunity for fruitful labor. These extremes represent a false sense of business that has become somewhat general because individuals have been misled by erroneous theories and have allowed so-called mass hypnotism, the general world thought, to darken their consciousness through distorted concepts.
The healing effect of gaining a correct view of man is shown by the following statements from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." The spiritual lesson contained in this statement may also be applied to business; and whether or not one is gaining a correct view of business depends upon the lens through which one is looking. Through the lens of material sense one may be seeing and experiencing loss of employment, investment, or opportunity; injustice, inequity, suffering. But through the lens of spiritual sense, which Science provides, one will see the manifestation of divine Love meeting every human need.
Business men who have become students of Christian Science, and to whom the name "Christ" has become synonymous with that which directs, blesses, protects, preserves, and makes fruitful every righteous thought and human footstep, have had revealed to them what constitutes the foundation and corner stone of true business. They are not mourning over their own or others' experiences, for they are in a position to gain much through the overcoming of difficulties. The unfolding of the Christ, Truth, in their consciousness is enabling them to gain a proper estimate of the enduring characteristics of business, and to detect and defeat its destructive phases. The right and wrong elements in business are seen by these students to be, primarily, spiritual and material thoughts latent in consciousness which have become objectified.
