The author of the book of Proverbs showed the depth of his wisdom when, recognizing how busy mortals are in their efforts to get, he said, "With all thy getting get understanding" (Prov. 4:7). Each advancing era of human history records the insatiable hunger and unquenchable desire of men to know and to understand. In many lands the facilities for human education are taxed to the utmost. Yet only a small segment of the human family has yet gained even the rudiments of a meager education in human knowledge. How much greater is the need for an understanding knowledge of the cause of all that really is! The world's gaunt want was sensed by Cecil Rhodes, who said, "So little done—so much to do."
Ask an alert student of Christian Science what of all things he most desires and his reply will be "more spiritual understanding." He has gained, through his study of the Bible and the works of Mary Baker Eddy, enough knowledge of spiritual truth to know that far more precious than material possessions, human success, or transient worldly satisfaction is an understanding of God, man, and the basic laws of being.
The student may at first feel that understanding is something more or less apart from himself. Men are educated to believe that they are somewhat apart from God. Since God is Mind, they believe they are separated or apart from Mind and the understanding or enlightenment which Mind is always causing in its expression, man. It is inevitable that man, the image of deific Mind, be perpetually endowed with the understanding that is Mind's primal attribute.
The carnal, mortal mind certainly has no understanding of Spirit and spiritual man, and never can have. Complete lack of understanding, which is indigenous to it, is the cause of the sense of lack of understanding which the mortal feels who believes the so-called mortal mind is his mind. It can thus be seen why, from a human standpoint, understanding seems to be something which a mortal lacks, while from the standpoint of reality it is something divinely bestowed on man, and so something which he never lacks. It is the Christian Scientist's duty not to accept or voice the lying assertion of mortal mind that he is a mortal with little understanding who finds it a hard, slow process to get more. Any thinking of this sort is siding with the darkness and ignorance in which mortal mind would ever envelop its concepts.
Christian Science shows us that increased understanding appears in our experience as we persistently claim it as our God-given possession, even as we claim health. Supreme, all-intelligent Mind does not make an understanding-lacking man any more than it makes a health-lacking man. Mind's representative presents the attributes of Mind, foremost of which is understanding. No amount of ignorant, evil suggestion to the contrary can change this verity. Understanding and man are coincident.
God enables man to know; to know his cause, his own and his brother's spiritual nature, and the spiritual nature of the universe wherein they live. Mind eternally provides the ability wherewith man can and does thus know. Recognizing this, Mary Baker Eddy, interpreting that part of the Lord's Prayer which says, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10), gives this meaning: "Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 17). Every time this statement is understandingly affirmed by an individual he recognizes that it is God who enables him to know the spiritual, heavenly facts of being which reveal God's omnipotence, and to know that right here on earth —where the realm of material belief seems to material thought to be—God is equally supreme. It is God, our only Mind, that is constantly causing our only true consciousness to know the thoughts and ideas which inspire and exalt us to a sense of living oneness with our deific Father.
Because God, Mind, is man's Life and intelligence, He must be the source and substance of man's understanding. This understanding is not a humanly personal possession; it is the essence of man as Mind's reflection. On this spiritual truth is based Christ Jesus' petitioning prayer, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5). The selfhood of the Father is glorified in the understanding of the Son.
Every student of Christian Science will do well daily to realize that man's understanding already is one with his individuality as the reflection of all-knowing Mind. In this ever-present understanding are the spiritual ideas and Mind-provided thoughts which, to human sense, lighten our way and lead us out of the darkness of misunderstanding into a clearer and clearer apprehension of the health, harmony, and immortality that are the work of God.
If error says to someone that he cannot understand Science and Health, or that after some years of study he has gained a little understanding and seems unable to gain more, he should not accept such restricting, Truth-denying lies. He should know that infinite Mind impartially bestows on every individual expression of Life the understanding of Life and the individual manifestations thereof. He should realize that this fact cannot be reversed by evil's lie that man is a mortal personality destined to flounder in material-mindedness, unable to understand whence he came, the laws that govern him, or whither he is bound.
We must take our stand for all wherewith omnipresent Mind endows its manifestation. We must realize more and more clearly our God-given capacity to understand the Word of our Father in the Bible and our Leader's works, and to receive with understanding the unfoldment of ideas which Mind is ever causing to appear in the consciousness of man, ideas through which our consciousness is illumined, our health established, our joy confirmed, and our salvation assured.
Because God is today and forever enabling us to know Him, His Word, and His man, let us never deny this truth, but rather realize it. Our work is to prove that the understanding which is God's, our individuality is Mind-enabled to reflect. This is a truly great discovery.
