Observation shows that many persons, ourselves often included, have quite a habit of believing that their discordant conditions, their misfortunes, their unhappiness, even their sickness and sin, are due to other people's thoughts or actions, to surroundings or circumstances. This is a much more serious fault than is usually realized.
When we recognize that our consciousness constitutes our awareness of existence, we see also that each one's outward condition is determined largely by the state of his consciousness. We experience what we admit into thought, what we mentally invite or entertain. By way of illustration, let us consider an actual case. A bookkeeper working under a very disagreeable superior was taken ill and for the first time had Christian Science treatment, which helped him mentally as well as physically. When he returned to the office after a week or two, it seemed to him that his superior had greatly changed, was, in fact, quite pleasant and approachable. Upon his expressing this opinion to some of the other workers in the office, they emphatically replied that there had been no change at all— that the superior was just as disagreeable as ever. It is evident, then, that what the bookkeeper thought he observed was really the effect of the improvement in his own consciousness, due to the new light which illumined his own thought of everything with the hue of harmony. We shall experience harmony in the degree that we correct our own sense of things and establish in ourselves "the mind of Christ."
In further support of this point of view, let us suppose two persons to be stranded in a strange city under similar circumstances. Their experiences will not necessarily be alike on account of similar circumstances, or because they find themselves in the same place. On the contrary, what they experience may vary largely, owing to their differing mentalities. Equal success, for instance, might not come to both, even should they be offered similar opportunities. Outward differences would still appear and would still persist, because of the different mental characteristics of the two concerned.
