IT is a well-known axiom that like produces like. It is not so generally perceived that only like knows like. And yet, taken in connection with Jesus' declaration (John 17:3), "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent," this is an important truism, the implications of which penetrate with unfailing clarity the mist hampering mankind's efforts for salvation.
All through mankind's struggles runs the theme reiterating the desire for human betterment. No one has ever done anything or committed a single act with the avowed purpose of hurting himself. Always the aim has been improvement. The thief steals in an attempt to enrich himself; the ascetic abstains in order to attain holiness; the martyr endures suffering to gain a heavenly reward; the would-be conqueror resorts to war to gain a favorable position, if not for himself, then for his people; and even the suicide thinks that by destroying himself he can find release from an intolerable condition. That the desired results have not been forthcoming does not do away with the fact that the intentions have been for improvement of oneself or others.
Naturally the question poses itself here, What is the reason that these attempts, even those which are utterly unselfish and honest, have not been truly satisfying and successful? The answer given in the Bible is just as thought provoking now as when it was written almost nineteen centuries ago. We read in James (4:3), "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." The failure lies not in the urge for improvement but in the methods employed.
It is to the credit of Mary Baker Eddy that in this age everyone can find through the study of Christian Science the way to human betterment and to ultimate perfection.
Basically, this is Mrs. Eddy's discovery: that God is All, and evil is nought. That is the acme of revelation, and any truth which is subsequently revealed as the result of individual research must be contained in that statement, since nothing can go beyond the allness of God, good.
In the truth that God is All and evil is nothing lies liberation from any feeling of uneasiness, sorrow, or fear. This, understood and lived, constitutes the everywhere present and always available means whereby successfully to oppose evil forebodings and to overcome conditions which claim to be an established reality.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy defines God on page 587 thus: "The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence." Pondering the essence of God, we perceive that since "the great I am" is the All-in-all, no room is left for an entity or person outside, or in addition to, His own infinite self-containment. In the summation of creation as found in Genesis (1:31) we read, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." It is well to note that it is God who saw everything and declared it good. To that which thinks of itself as a human person with a human intellect, true creation never appeared and can never appear as spiritual and wholly good. The reason for this is that the human person uses the false material senses with which to perceive anything, and that therefore everything must appear material, finite, unlike the true creation.
The mortal consciousness to which life and its expressions appear as a succession of hopes and fears, good and evil, pleasure and pain, prosperity and want, activity and stagnation, is not the reflection of the divine Mind, or God. Neither is it man created in God's image and likeness, the man each one of us in his real being uninterruptedly is. To begin to question the validity of suffering and to doubt misery's role as an educational agent of an all-wise and all-loving God is to begin to liberate oneself from the effects of false human theories and opinions, a liberation all may experience through the study of Christian Science.
To those who will study the Science of Life, or Christian Science, the life of the Master becomes of much more importance than appears when it is viewed as a mere personal biography. The standpoint Jesus took in regard to the significance of his being differed strikingly from that of those around him. Until they had gained some understanding of the Christ, Jesus' spiritual selfhood, even his disciples regarded him primarily as a good man and a wise teacher. Not so did Jesus think of himself. Referring to this spiritual selfhood, he said (John 14:6), "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." And of his fellow men he said (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He did not say, "Try, or pray, or hope to become perfect," but be perfect, that is, accept the fact of man's perfect selfhood.
When one accepts a scientific fact and acts upon it, the mistaken opinions one may have entertained about it yield to the truth. The only condition is that one be willing to accept the fact unreservedly and to let mere opinions go. When that requisite is fulfilled, opinions have no power to resist the conviction arrived at through enlightenment. Moreover, when the truth is perceived to be much more beneficial than the former beliefs, there will be a joyous yielding of the old views. Nothing is lost but a falsehood which had no substance to begin with, and all is gain.
It is recorded that when Jesus on one occasion was called "Good Master," he rebuked that statement immediately, saying (Mark 10:18), "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." He recognized that only the spiritual and divine is truly good and real, and that therefore there is nothing in the mortal material consciousness which is derived from God. By this rebuke he corrected the assumption that good originates with a human person and pointed to God as the source and substance of all real good.
From the fundamental truth that God is Mind we may conclude that existence is mental, a spiritually mental experience, and that God is conscious only of Himself. Any claim to existence of something or someone outside of that Divine Being must therefore be false, unreal.
The Master utterly refuted the suggestion of an anthropomorphic God, and by reasoning from cause to effect he concluded rightly that the All-God, Spirit, can have only one Son, or manifestation, and that is His infinite reflection. Jesus' understanding and demonstration of this fact resulted in what appeared as the healing of the sick, the reforming of the sinner, the feeding of the multitude, and the raising of the dead. Although it took that form to human consciousness, it was not really the creating of something new, but was actually the perfect nature of creation becoming apparent in human experience.
Jesus demonstrated that the consciousness of Truth, the only consciousness there is and therefore the real consciousness of everyone, could not be mesmerized by mythological mortal mind into accepting its false suggestions appearing as matter, evil, or opposition. By his rejection of evil and demonstration of man's oneness with God, Jesus became the way of salvation for all.
Humanity's endeavors for release from suffering have met with little success, because it has regarded material creation with its evil elements as a reality, and one can never get rid of something that is real. Because the human mind has been regarded as real, it has been accepted as the only means whereby to take cognizance of God, man, and existence. The impressions received, therefore, take on of necessity the color and quality of the medium through which they are viewed, and God appears as a punishing potentate, man as a sinning mortal, and existence as precarious.
Deceived by the argument and testimony of material sense, mankind has locked itself out from that real state of spiritual consciousness described by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health as the bride. On page 582 she explains that term as follows: "Bride. Purity and innocence, conceiving man in the idea of God; a sense of Soul, which has spiritual bliss and enjoys but cannot suffer." When the idea of completeness becomes more real and the bridegroom is seen as "spiritual understanding; the pure consciousness that God, the divine Principle, creates man as His own spiritual idea, and that God is the only creative power" (ibid., p. 582), then the loving invitation to the wedding feast to partake of the understanding of man as a spiritual individuality, not as a corporeal being, can be joyfully accepted. With the coming of this understanding all ignorance regarding the unreal status of sin, suffering, and death, classified by Science as mortal beliefs, will disappear, for the Mind of Christ will come to be accepted as one's own consciousness, eliminating the distressing mortal mind pictures in individual experience as well as in the world at large.
Seeing that like produces like, and understanding that the divine Principle, God, manifests itself in its own likeness, and that only this manifestation knows God, Life, like knowing like causes the human mind to yield its tenacious claim to reality and entity. The acknowledging of the perfection of God and man is our privilege, and we can begin now to demonstrate this verity.
