In Christian Science we learn to view ourselves and others not as mortals, frustrated and incomplete, but as divine ideas of God, satisfied and complete.
True identity partakes only of the divine elements of being. It is wholly good—not an amalgamation of good and evil, Spirit and the flesh. It represents the spiritual nature of God, good. The understanding and progressive demonstration of this true selfhood break up and destroy the destructive and limiting so-called laws of mortal mind and matter.
Health, happiness, completeness, and all other spiritual qualities of God are in no way dependent upon or adversely affected by matter. Every spiritual quality of God is intact. The self-complete and self-contained creator and His expression, man and the universe, constitute the totality of being. No other being exists. Qualitatively, each one of us in reality reflects all the completeness there is.
Mrs. Eddy explains how the spiritual understanding of being brings a rich completeness to one's life. In Science and Health she writes, "When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence with the spiritual and works only as God works, he will no longer grope in the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven." Science and Health, p. 263.
Most of us know what it's like to feel incomplete—to feel dominated by human circumstances or the condition of the body. The world of mortal mind and matter may seem very true and real until spiritual sense is cultivated and utilized. Incompleteness appears to be the generally accepted state of affairs for most people.
Incompleteness originates in such false beliefs as these: that there is more than one Mind; that one person is endowed with more good than another; that he or she is a male or female, lacking something; that past, present, or future human circumstances determine well-being and completeness.
But through the study and practice of Christian Science, Spirit and its formations become increasingly real to us. The ever-presence of God's good, coming to light in individual consciousness, exposes the unreality of material existence and its false beliefs. Through spiritual perception the dream of mortality with its erroneous, finite sense of identity and time yields to the true facts of being. True identity is understood to be the embodiment of God's spiritual qualities; it is intact, complete, and uncontaminated by the measurement of years, by matter, sin, sickness, and death.
In the degree that the completeness God outlines as man's individual identity is understood and demonstrated by us, it becomes the governing law in our lives. This spiritual law brings to us what is right for us to have. It also frees us from that which is not right for us. This spiritual understanding of being enriches our relationship with others, improves our environment, and opens up fruitful opportunities. Our experience blossoms in good.
Our sense of completeness is strengthened as we understand that real being is complete in every particular and needs no help from mortal mind or matter. It's impossible for the all-knowing and all-controlling Mind, which man reflects as the idea of divine Mind, to be impeded, resisted, or tampered with.
Through dedicated, scientific prayer, man's real being can be so consistently understood and demonstrated that the integrity of our consciousness is protected from the attacks of the carnal mind. Clinging to the truth of man's spiritual completeness is of paramount importance, especially when we are confronted with the carnal mind's claim to reality either in our own experience or in that of another. A rich sense of completeness is an effective antidote for such errors as impurity, anger, jealousy, revenge, and even a sense of devastating loss. With this understanding, difficult challenges are met successfully. We are able to express more of Christlike qualities such as love, well-being, and integrity, which bring adjustment and healing.
In this way, the spiritual, healing law of God effectively extricates us from the snare of so-called mortal mind—the very basis of incompleteness and frustration.
Mortal mind would claim to oppose the appearing of God's spiritual qualities in consciousness. But this impersonal evil cannot imprison us with its belief in unsolvable, frustrating, or annoying human situations, or pain and pleasure in matter. Science reveals that these superimposed illusions are devoid of mind and totally separate from the individual.
In truth, there's one divine Mind and its infinite manifestation—not many minds in conflict with one another. There's one will—God's will—which richly endows us with abundant good, and which asserts with unchallenged power and presence the completeness and integrity of individual consciousness.
The Psalmist points us to this sacred unity of God and man when he says: "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee." Ps. 139:17, 18.
As one matures in his study and application of Christian Science, the law of divine Love awakens him to a far more meaningful experience. Home, friends, family, things, business, and so forth are found to be neither the source of completeness nor the destroyer of it. But they can hint at the wholeness of true being.
A growing awareness of this fact proves that genuine enrichment of our lives comes from spiritualized consciousness—and not just from human relationships, possessions, or events in and of themselves. A deeper sense of the spiritual completeness of being harmonizes and enriches our life as nothing else can.
How comforting it is to learn in Science to exchange any limited sense of human dependence on others for total reliance on God, divine Love. In this way, we are freed from all sorts of limitations, inadequacies, and fears. As the well-being and completeness reflected from Love become substance in our consciousness—tangible and ever present—a true sense of self-sufficiency comes to light.
The world may seem incomplete and unstable. Nothing and no one may appear to offer a reliable, continuous good. In fact, the more incomplete one feels, the more determined he or she may be to search for security in people, in things, or in activities.
But, whenever one looks for completeness "outside" real selfhood, confusion and instability compound frustration and unhappiness. If one allows his sense of well-being to be determined by people or events, human emotions can be torn to shreds.
Yet Science and Health reassures us: "The loss of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is spiritual.
"The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good, 'rejoicing the heart.'" Science and Health, pp. 265-266.
When a rich sense of spiritual completeness is understood and felt, one is less vulnerable to the damaging emotions of excitableness, rebellion, and sensualism. He copes more successfully with hard knocks and disappointments. He is not lured into disobedient and unproductive thinking and living. He is more able to gain spiritual vision and to exercise dominion over the physical senses—over the belief of pain and pleasure in matter.
There's tremendous spiritual strength and power in the completeness of the divine Mind—the only Ego—which sustains us under all circumstances. As this Ego is acknowledged to be supreme, our consciousness teems with the newness and freshness of spiritual good destroying the false sense of a mind or life separate from God. Then it's easier to love, to be patient, to be gracious under pressure, to be unruffled and pure—and above all, to be fulfilled.
Wasn't Christ Jesus describing the completeness of true being when he told the Pharisees, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you"? Luke 17:20, 21.
There's nothing more fulfilling and rewarding than to discern and demonstrate the completeness of true identity moment by moment. This brings much beauty, harmony, enrichment, and achievement into our experience.
No longer do we measure completeness by circumstances. But increasingly, our circumstances express the kingdom of heaven within.
The Lord God is a sun and shield:
the Lord will give grace and glory:
no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
Psalms 84:11, 12
