In this Christian Science Sentinel podcast, Rita Polatin talks with Christian Science practitioner and teacher Neera Kapur, who spends her time in the Philippines and Mumbai, India.
In recent years, the middle class around the world has grown in number, but still the gap between the very wealthy and the middle class and poor has become much larger. My question to you is: Are the people who aren’t in the top percentage of earners dependent on what wealthier and more powerful people do? Is there a way to approach life that gives everyone enough to meet their human needs?
Living in India, and having belonged to what you would call a middle class family, I can understand where this is coming from. I believed that one just has to live with the fact that there are those who are extremely wealthy, those who have richer lives than others. But as I began to study the teachings of Christian Science, I realized that God is really a loving Father and Mother for all, for everyone. In God’s eyes, there aren’t segments and segregated places where some are loved more and some are loved less.
When I think of the sun and the rays of the sun, you can’t differentiate one ray from the other, because the light, the source of the light, is the sun, not the rays. And so there is that equality—equal supply and every part of the world receives the same “sunlight,” the light of God. In the same way, God’s love is universal. It’s impartial, and we all have access to this love.
One of the definitions of prosperity is “success.” Success really is dependent on a growing understanding of the true nature of God, Love—constant, consistent Love that is there for everyone.
So we’re really looking at the world not through a limited material perspective. You’re really going higher—you’re going to what God has made.
Absolutely. That’s the way my experience changed. It began to grow, to blossom. I remember one instance which will probably shed some light on this. I was very new in my study of Christian Science. I used to take a bus to get to work every day, and I began to see this little boy who would cry out for money, so I would give him money. But after a while, I realized that there was no change; the boy just kept asking for money. Then I began to buy him ice cream. But there was still no change. So I began to really pray about this situation, to turn to God for a clearer understanding of how I could view this boy, how I could help him grow to be successful instead of having to stay at the same level, to continue to beg and plead.
I then spoke with him. I said, “You know I would like to help you. I’ll pay for your studies and get your school uniform—whatever you need. You can also do a little work, if you like.” So he was very excited. I asked him to talk to his family and let me know what they said. When I met him again, I asked when he would like to start school. He looked at me and he said, “My parents told me that I can’t study.” So I asked, “Why?” He said, “Because we’ve never had anyone study in the family.” I realized that an old ancestral belief needed to be addressed through prayer. The belief of, “This is where you belong in life, and this is where you’ll have to stay.”
There’s a beautiful statement in Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry” (p. 63). Although the boy did not start school right then, I prayed with that concept a lot. I really wanted to get a deeper understanding of our ancestry, our belonging—that God is our divine Parent, and God is good and supplies good for everybody. Good is not limited. It’s constant. It’s consistent, like the sun and its rays.
Much later, I saw this boy working, and he told me that he had started studying also. I was so glad!
We all can apply these laws of God, of good, because they are universal. There’s a statement in Science and Health that has helped me so often, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (p. 494).
Tell us more about the foundation you’re talking about—these laws of God explained in the Bible and Science and Health.
In Genesis 1 in the Bible, we learn that God created man in His own image and likeness. The last verse in Genesis 1 starts, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (verse 31).
Neera, that’s a radical approach to start from. I think people sometimes make God manlike, but what you’re saying here is that, really, man is actually Godlike. In other words, we are all spiritual, not material. So then, approaching life from this basis opens us up to see the good God is always giving us.
Absolutely. Very often when I’ve studied this first chapter of Genesis, I have seen an uninterrupted continuity of good. Each verse brings that out. So that is the spiritual foundation on which we build our spiritual understanding, and as our understanding grows, that is what meets our human need—the inspiration that comes from our daily study. Because I’m searching, I’m really seeking for an answer to some problem that I’m faced with, and the answer is always there. That is what supply means to me today.
Did you have another experience that you wanted to share too?
Yes. I recently moved to a new location in the Philippines, where I spend part of the year. The landlady was really very nice to me, very kind, but she kept saying she didn’t have enough business. She needed money. It was like a record playing over and over again, and I just felt the need to be supportive through prayer because I didn’t have lots of extra money to give her, and that would not have completely solved her problem anyway. So one day my heart was just moved with love, with compassion—moved by the truth that God is merciful. God does not keep back good from anybody.
The last two lines from this part of a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal came to me:
See, the streams of living waters,
Springing from eternal Love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters,
And all fear of want remove.
(John Newton, No. 71)
The word want stood out. Psalm 23 in the Bible says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (verse 1). God, divine Love, does meet that human need. But what does “all fear of want remove” really mean?
I thought about Christ Jesus’ words, “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). In other words, the consciousness, the pure Christ consciousness, is complete in you. You are complete and you don’t lack anything, you don’t want for anything. I was praying along these lines for a few days, when I suddenly noticed that my landlady’s business increased.
Since then she has hired more people to work. She has a large property, and she’s using it much better. The supply has just multiplied, and she is happy. In fact, she has expanded her business and is also now going to be able to use some land which was lying useless before. Good ideas are coming to her, and as I listen to God, I am just in awe of God’s goodness and His love. As we open our thought to this love, amazing things happen.
Sometimes people feel like there’s only so much they can do …
You know, we need to see the world from a higher, more spiritual basis. I remember that there was a Christian Science practitioner who was asked many years ago, How do you use Science and Health? And she said that when she holds the book in her hands and ponders what it explains, she sees the spiritual universe and spiritual man. She just sees completeness in everything.
I always love to think about this divine Science, Christian Science, and how it lifts our thoughts. Even if it’s one person’s thought that is lifted. We can embrace the whole world through righteous prayer. Such prayer brings a change. We may not always know who it reaches, but it is a blessing. Prayer expands thought and sees “the windows of heaven” open, as the Bible says. We all have one Father, one God, one source, one cause. We are all on the same level, and that is “very good.”
