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Spiritual gravitation

From the March 1988 issue of The Christian Science Journal


In the material world, gravitation is conceived as a force manifested in the attraction or acceleration of material bodies toward each other. But the material world is a false or counterfeit sense of creation. The universe of reality is the creation of the one creator, God. Since God, Spirit, is ever present and has all power in His creation, all true force is spiritual. Spirit could not and did not create matter, any more than light produces darkness. Therefore, the only force or power manifested in God's creation is the law of Spirit, governing its expression, including Godlike man—and this is spiritual gravitation.

In a paragraph in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, bearing the marginal heading "The fall of error," Mrs. Eddy writes: "If man's spiritual gravitation and attraction to one Father, in whom we 'live, and move, and have our being,' should be lost, and if man should be governed by corporeality instead of divine Principle, by body instead of by Soul, man would be annihilated. Created by flesh instead of by Spirit, starting from matter instead of from God, mortal man would be governed by himself." Science and Health, p. 536.

It is recognition of "man's spiritual gravitation and attraction to" his Father-Mother God that enables mankind to emerge from the darkness of a personal and material sense of existence. When we are deceived into believing we are material or finite persons, quite independent of God, we can be misgoverned by personal will, personal aims and ambitions. We can then seem vulnerable to false attraction, to harmful relationships, to discordant and nonproductive activities. When, however, disappointed with the mortal and erroneous, we yearn to escape that which is proving to be dissatisfying and unfulfilling, then we yield to the truth of spiritual gravitation, and we find it has the power to break the mesmeric, downward pull of the world and its darkness. Seeking spiritual enlightenment and living what we learn of God, we become more and more certain of the presence of God and His good, and He is revealed as the All-in-all.

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