GOD is All. He includes and maintains all individuality. These and other simple yet profound statements of basic truth were thoughtfully repeated many times by a student of Christian Science as he stood overlooking a blue, wind-swept mountain lake. He had recently lost a loved one and was seeking to lift his consciousness above the sense of separation into the peace and joy which come through an awareness of the all-inclusiveness of God and the indestructibility of man.
He breathed deeply of the pure mountain air and observed the colorful beauty of the pine-covered mountains, the blue sky with its billowy white clouds, and the white sails gliding over the lake. With the realization that this synthesis of beauty symbolized the all-inclusive oneness of God, who embraces within Himself infinite, diversified individuality, the loneliness of separation vanished.
As he meditated upon this symbol of oneness, the student's attention was drawn to the sparkling surface of the lake. Each sparkle was a reflection of the sun. There were myriads of individualized reflections, but there was only one sun. Actually, then, the sun constituted the individuality of each and every reflection upon the rippled surface of the lake. Without the sun, they would have no existence or identity.
He recalled a statement by Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 281), "The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things." Individuality is not separate from God; nor can individuality be conceived of as a partition or subdivision of God. Individuality is never fragmentary; nor can individuality ever be lost as long as the divine Principle of individuality, God, remains. Then the individuality of every expression of life and of every spiritual quality by which we identify our loved ones is indestructible, because they reflect God, infinite, indestructible individuality.
God is One. He is whole, complete, undividable, yet inclusive of all that is real. Man, then, as God's reflection is complete, indivisible. In answer to the question, "What is man?" Mrs. Eddy states in part (ibid., p. 475), "He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal."
Mathematics helps one in gaining an understanding of the indestructibility of individual man, who reflects the one God. Mathematics from the simplest enunciation of numbers to the most complicated equations is based upon the mental concept of wholeness, which is symbolized by the number one. Each number is individual, one of a kind, yet it is a multiple conception of the number one. The number two, for instance, is composed of two ones; five is composed of five ones, and so on.
The wholeness of man, reflecting the one Mind, is not a state of static completeness; nor is death the gateway to a so-called heavenly state of perpetual, inactive bliss. Such beliefs do not correspond to the nature of God or the plan of creation. God is omniaction. God is Life, and Life implies activity. God is Mind, and Mind is expressed in the progressive unfoldment of spiritual ideas, complete in their quality of perfection but ever unfolding in manifestation. Thus man reflects the omniaction of the creative Mind. Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., p. 258), "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." The timeless continuity of unfoldment is untouched by the illusion of death.
A clear realization of the perfect, indestructible, immortal individuality of man not only brings peace and healing to one who feels the grief of separation from one who has passed on, but it also brings the healing power of Truth to bear upon problems of health, business, and personal relationships, both individual and collective. This is because the problems of mankind stem from the basic illusion that man is mortal and that as such he is separated from God, the source of his being. The illusion of separateness marks the beginning of the dream of mortality. The awakening from this dream restores the awareness of inseparability and oneness with God and with all that manifests Him.
The efficacy of the healing power of Christian Science is based upon the discovery by Mrs. Eddy of the truth embodied in the Biblical statements (Gen. 1:27, 31): "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. . . . And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." These statements from the Bible have been quoted so often that they sometimes seem to lose their inspiration for us. Yet a clear realization of the perfect, inseparable, indestructible individuality of man, based upon these fundamental statements of truth, is essential in healing the sick in accordance with the teachings of Christ Jesus.
Many instantaneous healings occur when the perfection of man's spiritual individuality is seen as a present, timeless fact. Delay in healing sometimes results when a sense of separateness from God causes one to reject the immediacy of the fundamental truth of man's spiritual individuality with some such statement as, "I know that the real man is perfect and immortal, but—," implying by the emphasis upon the word "real" that one regards himself as an imperfect mortal rather than as the real man, which he concedes must be perfect yet not immediately present. How often, also, the acceptance of the needed truth is rejected with the little word "but"! It is worth noting that the Adam-dream narrative in Genesis starts with the word "but."
The time to accept the truth is now. Truth is. It is timeless. It has no beginning and no ending. All that is mortal—sin, sickness, limitation, death—has both beginning and ending. One who steadfastly and joyously declares and maintains his spiritual identification with the truth will realize the end of the errors of separateness and the actuality of spiritual individuality as the reflection of God. Such a one knows that there is no death, no grief, no sin, sickness, or limitation. God is All, including man in the oneness of His being.
The promise given in Revelation (2:17) to the one who is receptive is, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."
