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.
There is in this Christly consciousness no second, or opposing, mind that can suggest, argue, undermine, tempt, control, frighten, lead in the wrong direction, or sicken and destroy. There is only the recognition that God is the one and only Mind of man and the universe. When this standpoint is held to with determination and discipline, we can dispel the fears and doubts that would shake our faith and our resolve. Great healings result.
Let me share with you one of the landmark experiences in my own life, one in which healing came over a long, difficult period through the daily, minute-by-minute exercise of spiritual discipline. At a time of crisis for me, a time when my mental processes were in almost complete chaos, I was convinced that I was going insane and that my life was getting progressively worse. The worst feature of this condition was that I seemed to have no control over the awful, negative thoughts that bombarded me day and night. Many times I considered suicide. In my state of thought, that began to seem like a perfectly rational way out.
Although I had attended a Christian Science Sunday School when growing up, I had not pursued the study of this Science. Now I found myself reaching out to its comforting teachings like a man crawling across the Sahara on hands and knees and finding an oasis with blessed shade and cooling water.
Healing through prayer comes along as we turn resolutely away from the picture of chronic disease, failure, personal turmoil, and keep thought fixed on the allness of God, who is man's real and only Mind. Quite often this healing inspiration comes suddenly, even after a long struggle. And so it happened in my case.
One day, at the bottom of my despair, I came across this sentence written by Mrs. Eddy: "Unless one's eyes are opened to the modes of mental malpractice, working so subtly that we mistake its suggestions for the impulses of our own thought, the victim will allow himself to drift in the wrong direction without knowing it." And then she adds: "Be ever on guard against this enemy. Watch your thoughts, and see whether they lead you to God and into harmony with His true followers." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 213.
It hit me that these terrible thoughts I was thinking were not even my own thoughts! But what was "mental malpractice"? If these awful, unwanted thoughts were not the impulses of my own thought, where were they coming from?
I could see that "mental malpractice" in this context was not a personal thing, aimed solely at me; it was the whole impersonal, arrogant fabrication of materialism with its gross actions and suggestions. It was hypnotic. It was coming unwanted and uninvited, and would convince me that I was trapped in a hopeless situation with no control over my thinking.
But none of this was true! I was in fact the much-loved, wholly spiritual child of God. In mistaking mortal mind's suggestions for my own thought, I was pleading guilty to thoughts that weren't even mine. My job was to face that foe and to deny its supposed power by being alert to its undermining suggestions and by correcting and disciplining my thoughts. Above all I could joyfully insist upon God as my one and only Mind. The suggestion that I was a suffering mortal, trying to use God for healing, began to give way to the understanding that I was God's beloved idea, whole, sane, and perfect right then.
The mighty spiritual truths of Christian Science and its healing power became the anchor of my life.
From that time, I began to improve. I started watching my thoughts—I mean really watching my thoughts—minute by minute and hour by hour. This took considerable discipline—discipline of a degree and a consistency I had never dreamed I'd be called upon to exercise. The mighty spiritual truths of Christian Science and its healing power became the anchor of my life. When an evil suggestion would try to come in, I would sternly rebuke it with something like this: "You are not my thought, and I refuse you entrance. I accept as my thought only that which comes from God, the all-knowing Mind."
Sometimes, when one faces the accumulated false beliefs of the carnal mind and makes a determined stand against them, one may experience discouragement or aggravated symptoms. This happened to me. But daily prayer and study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings had the needed effect of spiritualizing my thoughts so that I could more quickly dispose of the fears that knocked at my mental door for admission.
This was not a quick healing; but at length the whole dark cloud cleared completely and disappeared. I gained deep peace. The suggestions left, never to return.
It has been said, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Good advice for the practicing Christian Scientist! It can be hard work, indeed. But what rewards! As healing progresses, we reach that glorious time when we see that our foes were never anything but illusions and had no power to touch or harm God's perfect child.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing:
therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey
his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him:
for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.
Deuteronomy 30:19, 20
