Looking back over my life, if I were asked to sum up what ingredient has been most indispensable to me in opening the door to healing, I would be inclined to answer "spiritual discipline."
The hardest thing for most of us is getting and keeping control over thoughts which argue that we are weak, sinful mortals. These thoughts are invariably intrusive. Quite often they are tempestuous. And they can interrupt prayer, loudly insisting on being both heard and obeyed.
How can we silence this clamor for our attention? The answer lies in disciplining our thought, bringing it more and more into line with God through prayer. One of the most fundamental points in Christian Science is that God, Spirit, is the All-in-all, the only Mind, and that man is God's spiritual likeness. We need to realize in prayer, then, that in reality we have no personal material consciousness, subject to intrusion. It's important that we take with the utmost seriousness Paul's counsel to the Philippians: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Phil. 2:5.
