When Jesus said to his disciples (Matt. 17:20), "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you," he uncovered the nature of matter as mental, a phenomenon of mind. To the physical senses, what could have looked more firmly grounded, more substantial and absolute than a mountain? But Jesus said faith could move it. His statement therefore revealed matter as a subjective state of mortal mind, not a substance outside mortals. Faith, being a state of consciousness, could not possibly have an effect on or exercise dominion over something outside or apart from consciousness.
In several of his healings, Jesus pointed out that it was the faith of the ones who were healed that had made them whole. He did not say, "I have made thee whole"; he referred in these cases to the individual's own state of thinking as the deciding factor in the healing.
Sometimes Jesus examined the thought of those who came to him for help before he dealt with their cases, as when he asked the two blind men if they believed that he could heal them. When they answered in the affirmative, he assured them that their experience would be in proportion to their faith. One can gain much light by studying the instances in the Gospels where Jesus speaks of faith and the importance of cultivating this quality of thought in order to exercise dominion over material conditions, or mental states that seem to be material conditions.
