It is not unusual for children to fix up a place to which they can go and be by themselves. It may be an improvised shack or a house up in a tree. As they grow up, the need for a sanctuary is still there, but it is more difficult to find such a place. As one becomes interested in Christian Science and experiences the value of quiet communion with God, he realizes that what he needs is not a place so much as a state of consciousness in which he can find rest and security in the realization of who he really is and what the purpose of his life is.
For ages the ninety-first Psalm has given encouragement to those in need of comfort. This well-loved Psalm begins with this reassuring promise: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
Christian Science teaches us that to dwell "in the secret place of the most High" is to dwell in the consciousness of our true identity. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 244), "The 'secret place,' whereof David sang, is unquestionably man's spiritual state in God's own image and likeness, even the inner sanctuary of divine Science, in which mortals do not enter without a struggle or sharp experience, and in which they put off the human for the divine."
At times one's human consciousness may seem to be so darkened by false mortal concepts that man's spiritual status becomes completely obscured. But through the light of Christ, the spiritual illumination which Truth brings to human thought, the obscuration gradually disappears, and the understanding of one's true individuality, derived from God, becomes clearer and clearer.
This transitional state, in which the human yields to the divine, is one in which the individual's true spiritual selfhood appears, and with this appearing come healing, redemption, transformation. Spiritualization of thought enables one to identify himself with God's perfect government. But it does not take one out of the world with which he is familiar. What it does is to give him a higher sense of his environment, in which the true spiritual nature of familiar things appears, and he is enabled to see things he had not seen before. Mrs. Eddy puts it this way in Science and Health (p. 264): "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible."
Entering "the inner sanctuary of divine Science," we find ourselves "under the shadow of the Almighty," where the dangers and difficulties which beset human existence yield to the freedom which is ours by divine right.
The material sense most people have of themselves is the sense they must put off. Yet they want to hold on to it as long as possible. But this would not be so if they were assured that a spiritual selfhood belongs to them now which is far better than the insecure sense of themselves that they instinctively seek to preserve. This selfhood is eternal, deathless. A realization of this fact quiets fear and brings greater harmony into our present experience.
Divine Science brings to light the Scriptural truths of man, which change the whole human concept of being. This Science enables one to realize that even while believing that he lives in the flesh, subject to hereditary and environmental influences— either favorable or unfavorable—he actually has a life that he has derived from God, a life that is indestructible, incorruptible.
Why, then, should there be a struggle to enter this "secret place"? Because we are accustomed to accept concerning ourselves what the physical senses take in rather than what the inspired Word of the Bible reveals to us. John declared (I John 3:1, 2): "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. . . . Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." It does not seem easy to accept such an exalted concept of ourselves. To do so requires a struggle with false beliefs. But the struggle is well worthwhile.
To become adult, one must grow out of his childhood. When he grows up, the things that seemed so important as a child are no longer regarded as necessary. Paul spoke of this in his first letter to the Corinthians when he said (13:11), "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
In the same way, we part with the human sense of ourselves as we gain a sense of our sonship with God, of our true spiritual identity. This true sense of ourselves is so much better than the sense we may presently be entertaining that we willingly engage in whatever struggle is necessary in order to put off the one for the other.
As we yield the human sense of ourselves to the divine, the divine appears right where the human seems to be. It may seem as though the human were becoming divine. But in reality there are not two, the human and the divine. There is only one, and this one is "man's spiritual state in God's own image and likeness."
Mrs. Eddy declares (Science and Health, p. 232): "In the sacred sanctuary of Truth are voices of solemn import, but we heed them not. It is only when the so-called pleasures and pains of sense pass away in our lives, that we find unquestionable signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life."
