The revelation of Christian Science that God is Mind, and that consequently all is Mind and its manifestation, opens vistas of possibilities hitherto undreamed of. In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," under the caption "The Mind unbounded," Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 84), "To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which we discern man's nature and existence." If all is Mind, then Mind is not acting on or controlling something else, but Mind itself constitutes all that exists. Mind is substance. Mind is the Ego, or I AM. Within its own infinitude Mind expresses itself and sees its own glory. The infinite expression or effect of Mind, being one with its cause, partakes of the limitless, indestructible nature of Mind.
The mortal is educated from the start to accept the personal sense of himself as a self-important, finite ego, living in a world which exists outside of himself, a world peopled with millions of other finite egos, and in his own little corner of that world he seeks to assert himself and exercise dominion to further his own selfish interests. This mistaken sense fosters personal clashes, rivalries, inferiority complexes, egotism, factions, schisms. It engenders a false sense of nationalism, mass mesmerism, world conflagration, unrest, rebellion, and ruin. The point of view of a finite self to which has come the revelation of Christian Science to improve that self in health and ability and to make it more successful in a world of other selves reasons from an incorrect premise and loses the Science of Christianity and its blessing. This false point of view must yield to reason and revelation.
In an article of deep spiritual import entitled "One Cause and Effect," included in her "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy expounds the allness of Mind and makes the arresting statement (p. 26): "The only logical conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato-patch." Thus she challenges the belief of an external world of matter and explains the universe from the basis of Mind. She shows that all that exists is embraced in Mind, is formed of Mind, and partakes of the nature of Mind; that whatever appears to be matter is simply an inversion, a misconception, or misstatement, of Mind. The spiritual, scientific acknowledgment of this fact and the demonstration thereof mean that the crops cannot be ruined by drought or rain or sun, that they are immune to blight and destruction, for Mind conceives of and recognizes no destructive, destructible, or unpredictable element. When we grasp the full import of this truth, we shall not need to resort to material means, either for removing blight on the potato patch or healing the body, for perfect Mind sends forth no imperfection. Furthermore, the mortal sense of toil and effort and time will yield to the spontaneity and immediacy of Love.
The oneness of Mind demonstrates the dominion of Love in every situation and circumstance, and this dominion is not the will of one mortal imposed on the will of another. It is one Mind, one Ego, conscious of its own supremacy, expressing itself in infinite variety of beauty, and maintaining the foreverness of Life and Love. The spiritual understanding of this fact means the demonstration of harmony and of abundant good in our daily affairs: we shall be conscious of fresh opportunities, shall meet the people we should meet, shall have the things we need, and shall exercise in unrestricted measure the potentialities of our talents and abilities, for Mind is unrestricted and unlabored in its satisfying self-completeness and self-expression. Our daily experience is not what it appears to be, a running hither and yon. In reality it is an unfoldment of Mind, the Mind which experiences within itself the rhythmic rest and unbroken harmony of its own omniaction. This will be clearly seen from a careful pondering of the definition of "day" in the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 584).
Mind is conscious only of Life, for it is Life; it is conscious only of Love forever reflecting itself in love. All that feels or knows or sees is Mind, for Mind is the Ego or intelligence. Reflection has no inherent ability to cognize Mind, but Mind contemplating the glory of its own vast all-inclusiveness constitutes its reflection and embraces it in intelligence and warmth. The finite belief of a limited mortal self looking out upon a world of persons and things extraneous to itself, a world which is outside of its control and beyond its grasp, and of which the finite self is to a greater or less degree the victim, must yield through Science to the all-inclusive, conscious infinitude of divine Mind.
The Mind which is God has never entertained a sense of danger or defeat, of tragedy or loss, of separation, frustration, or limitation. It has never experienced these. It could not, for the moment it did so it would cease to be divine. Of the passing away of the inverted, limited concepts of the mythical human experience Paul wrote (I Cor. 13:12): "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then [in Mind's ever-present allness] shall I know even as also I am known." In Mind exist the indestructible faculties of Mind, the immutability of being, the continuity of Life, the affluence of Love. All these exist in Mind as Mind's manifestation. It is impossible for perfect Mind to be conscious of anything but perfection, or for infinite Mind to be conscious of anything but infinity, because to be conscious of imperfection or finity, Mind would have to include these within itself.
Then what is the human personality that sins and suffers and dies? It is mortal mind, an illusion, not Mind, God, the one and only Ego. That which appears as person is the conception of personal sense, fallible and mortal. Spiritual sense discerns spiritual individuality, the deathless image and likeness of God.
There is food for thought in Mrs. Eddy's words written in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" to a clergyman who wished to see her (p. 119), "Should I give myself the pleasant pastime of seeing your personal self, or give you the opportunity of seeing mine, you would not see me thus, for I am not there." This passage finds a correlative in lines 7 to 11 on page 285 of Science and Health.
All through her writings Mrs. Eddy makes clear that individuality and identity are wholly spiritual, embraced in Mind, and that life and man neither begin with birth nor end with death. In Christ Jesus' sublime prayer, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John, he prayed (verse 5), "Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Furthermore, he included all his followers in this sublimity, for he continued (verses 22, 23), "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." Spiritual selfhood is continuous, safe, beloved, cherished, forever beyond the reach of mortality.
Until we comprehend that the Ego is Mind, one Ego infinitely expressed, we cannot lose the sense of separation. All presence is Mind. Even humanly speaking, it is the consciousness of another's presence that constitutes the joy of that presence. There is no presence whatsoever without Mind to constitute and cognize it. Even the so-called tangible physical presence of personal sense is purely a mental experience, for when the belief about it changes, mortal mind says the presence has gone—it can no longer be seen or felt or communicated with; and according to mortal mind's belief so it appears to be, but in reality nothing has changed. Mind is still Mind, constituting its idea and manifesting itself in the reflected presence of Love.
Superficial mortal thought thinks of matter as the thing that exists outside of mind upon which this so-called mind acts—the tree, the chair, the table, the person, the thing which physical hands can touch, in belief, and which physical eyes behold. Consequently the tree succumbs to the woodman's ax, the forest is ravaged with flame, the chair collapses, the precious ornament is dropped and smashed, things wear out, and the person, or body, disappears in death. From first to last this is the illusion of material sense; it is so-called mortal mind constituting and beholding its own fragile, destructible, mortally mental misconception of substance and life.
Here Christian Science is the panacea, for it reveals one Mind and that one immortal, all-inclusive, incapable of a destructive or destructible element. There are not two minds, one that is mortal and the other immortal, for Mind is God, good. When this fact is understood, and safety and security are sought in Mind, the fragility of human concepts will give place to the everlasting grandeur and glory of reality, and God's kingdom will be acknowledged "in earth, as it is in heaven."
