There is absolutely nothing more joy-producing or important than the opportunities we have to pray for ourselves, others, and our world, and gain some deeper insight into the universe, including ourselves and everyone around us, as God sees it. Recently, I had such an opportunity.
For two days I’d been facing a strain in one leg. I had been doing more cross-country skiing and running than usual, and it felt as though I might have pulled a muscle. I was concerned that it might restrict our plans to go skiing for a couple of days.
Then the evening before we were to leave for the trip, I received a call to pray for someone else struggling with a physical problem and a feeling of burden at work. A very specific line of thought came to me at that moment: There is only one I am in the room.
When Moses faced the daunting task of explaining to the children of Israel who had sent him to deliver them from Egypt, he inquired of God what he should say if they asked him God’s name. Then, “God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14). And the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, defines God as “the great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence” (p. 587).
If God is doing all the knowing, seeing, acting, loving, etc., then we don’t do our own acting, seeing, etc., here in a room separate from God. Rather, we reflect the one I am’s infinite doing, being, seeing, acting. We are, in fact, the wholly spiritual reflection of the all-good God, made in His likeness, as the first chapter of Genesis has it.
When that very specific thought came to me—there is only one I am in the room—it did not mean that the infinity of God was in a finite, material room with a mortal someone, or that the infinite God is expressed through a fleshly mortal. Rather, it meant that the infinity of God, the great I am, was the only presence right where each of us found ourselves.
And if the I am was the only presence there, and completely good, then certain things were definitely not in the room. No pressure, fear, worry, burden, separate little egos, limitation, disappointment, pain, cruelty, sin, sickness, etc., could possibly exist in the room with the all-encompassing, all-good I am. It also meant that certain things definitely were present in the room: joy, peace, freedom, intelligence, wholeness, strength, accuracy, unlimited good.
In the space where the omnipresent, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving I am is, there are only infinite ideas flowing freely and fruitfully, fully expressing all that the I am is. The divine energies of Truth (another name for God) are exclusively present.
I had a clear sense that God was truly all that was going on both there and everywhere. God was it!
I found a number of citations from Mrs. Eddy’s writings so liberating from this sense of being separate from the one I am, stuck in a mortal body in a mortal “room” of some sort. They pointed clearly to there being only one I am filling all space, and to our oneness with that I am.
The infinity of God, the great I am, is the only presence right where each of us finds ourselves.
For example, Science and Health states, “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis” (p. 258), and, “Science reveals the glorious possibilities of immortal man, forever unlimited by the mortal senses” (p. 288).
The appearance of an isolated mortal in a room trying of herself to carry the burdens of responsibility and perform too many tasks, is an inaccurate take on things. We are not separate from the source of all identity. We are the very expression of this source of identity—Soul, God—and absolutely at one with infinite, unlimited Soul.
We never need to be afraid that a fleshly, mortal sense can enter the real man (the true, spiritual selfhood of each one of us), who then needs to recover from a real problem. Mrs. Eddy writes, “Into the real and ideal man the fleshly element cannot enter” (Science and Health, p. 332). Rather, we prove the power of Spirit over the flesh, over the delusion that our life or anyone’s is in or defined by the flesh. Our real life is the infinite spiritual reflection of infinite Spirit, at one with Spirit. Realizing this, even to a degree, we experience greater freedom from the belief that we are mortals limited by the flesh.
These spiritual insights resulted in a quick physical healing and a lifting of the sense of burden and strain for the individual I was praying with. They also brought efficient and fruitful results in her work, which represented a turnaround in a challenging situation. The next morning I realized that I, too, was entirely free of the leg strain. I went ahead to vigorously ski and hike many miles over the next few days.
“In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply,” our Leader writes (Science and Health, p. 206). Why is it that whatever blesses one blesses all? Because every blessing results from a divine law of good that is universal, operating everywhere and for everyone. So, every blessing is a universal blessing, touching and lifting all, bringing tangible goodness broadly, not narrowly. The fundamental law of good—that God is infinite good and that man is the infinite and unlimited expression of God’s goodness—when applied specifically to individual experience, can have far-reaching effects that are greater than just the resolution of whatever particular situation we may be praying about or be aware of.
In my case, it was natural that seeing the universality of that basic law of man’s oneness with the source of all doing, being, moving, etc., although not consciously applying it to my challenge, should so lift my perspective about God and man, all of us, that the limiting view not only of the individual I was praying for but also of myself as a mortal with a strain, should fade from thought and experience. You can’t conceive of both limitation and limitlessness at the same moment. Seeing the actual limitless nature of God and man at one frees us from a view of ourselves as limited mortals.
According to one of her household workers, Mrs. Eddy once made this statement: “I am different from other mortals in many respects, one of them being that I more frequently get out of God’s way” (William R. Rathvon reminiscence, We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. II, p. 531). Isn’t this what we all want to do—to so get out of God’s way that we see Soul’s shining as us and everyone?
In the days that followed the healings related above, I found it helpful to pray in the following way, slowly and thoughtfully, letting each line sink in: God is the only I am in the room, and there is no other god. Life is the only I am in the room, and there is no other life. Truth is the only I am in the room, and there is no other truth. Love is the only I am in the room, and there is no other love. And so on, for Principle, Mind, Soul, and Spirit. This prayerful reasoning opened my consciousness to the presence of God in a moving way, eclipsing all that would claim to replace God’s all-presence.
Our loving Father-Mother is perpetually welcoming us home to this view. Healing, universally blessing one and all, is the natural result of responding to God’s welcome in the infinite “room” of the great I am.
