One of the highly important things we learn in the study of Christian Science is the necessity of a constant endeavor to discipline our thinking, in order to conform it to the pattern which Christ Jesus gave to all men that they might attain to freedom from the laws of sin, disease, and death. Indicating the importance of right thinking, Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, ''Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 248), "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives." And in the sentence immediately following she gives us the high standard by which we must measure our thinking: "Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love—the kingdom of heaven—reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear."
As we "form perfect models in thought," we shall be enabled to eliminate the imperfections which illusory mortal mind seems to have projected upon our consciousness. To do this we must proceed from the scientifically correct premise that in reality there is no mortal mind, since there is only one Mind, God, and that perfect man expresses nothing but perfection. We must recognize that God has already endowed His man with goodness, purity, holiness, truthfulness, intelligence. We must see the forever fact that God's child knows no evil. Thoughts which reflect God alone are real. And of equal importance is the necessity for seeing ourselves as in reality this perfect man, this child of God, now.
In order to lay hold upon this vision of the absolute perfection of man, we should be constantly adding to and building upon whatever degree of spiritual understanding we have already achieved. By eliminating imperfections from our thought and substituting for them Godlike thoughts, we find our consciousness more and more reflecting the qualities and characteristics of divine Mind. This calls upon us to face our thinking squarely and honestly. True self-examination does not justify weak and ungodlike attitudes, but presses toward demonstration of the fact that, in reality, we already possess the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." In this process of uncovering erroneous thinking there should be no self-condemnation. Actually, this uncovering does not reveal our real thinking, but shows us the modus operandi of mortal mind, which would delude us into believing that sinful thinking belongs to us.
