Through studying Christian Science and practicing its teachings, I’ve been having what feels like a spiritual awakening. But it’s more than uncovering a sense of my own spirituality. I’m becoming more aware of the real, spiritual nature of everything.
The Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy make it clear that we are destined to find that the universe is actually made up of God’s good qualities. God, infinite Mind, expresses Himself throughout all creation. As you or I might appreciate the idea of a flower or a friend, the divine Mind upholds us all as spiritual ideas, each playing an essential role in one universal family.
As the Discoverer of Christian Science, Eddy really forwarded humanity’s awakening. A crucial point in her own spiritual development, which led to her discovery, came while turning to the Bible for help after a life-threatening injury. She writes: “When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present; that the opposite of Truth,—called error, sin, sickness, disease, death,—is the false testimony of false material sense, of mind in matter; that this false sense evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this same so-called mind names matter, thereby shutting out the true sense of Spirit” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 108).
I’ve found that with my spiritual awakening, I’m less focused on surface appearances and more on discerning the thinking that is related to everything. Christian Science reveals that what we are always dealing with are the consequences of a range of mental forces. Events today point to the great need to confront the beliefs and attitudes that underlie what’s happening. If I hear of an acquaintance in trouble, a discord among neighbors or even nations, or an incidence of disease, I know I need to take stock of the thoughts underlying the situation.
Well-being depends on seeing through fears, jealousies, ignorance, and so on, by understanding the spiritual essence of what we all are as the expressions of God. Prayer enables us to go beyond the testimony of false material sense and find God’s good reality.
I’ve found prayer to be a great help especially when it has gone beyond trying to see God acting in just one individual life, whether ours or another’s. Prayer needs to be along the lines of seeing God as the only Mind, the creator of everyone’s real identity. The important work of treating, through prayer, our own or another’s thought (when asked) in order to heal and bless depends upon grasping this universal sense of what’s true.
Abundant good is not so much something we obtain for our own lives as it is something we prove for ourselves by perceiving it true for all.
When I was suffering from a very bad cough a few years ago, my healing began when I realized how weighed down I was with the sense that our world was overrun by things going on that were outside God’s care and control. My well-being required more recognition of God at work, not just with me but with everyone. The question was, Am I coming to understand and demonstrate more that God is all that’s truly going on everywhere? More effort to deepen this understanding brought an end to that persistent cough.
Our well-being falsely appears to be just a function of one’s body and circumstances. But well-being actually depends on putting off this material sense of identity and embracing the reality that all is Mind or Spirit, reflected in universal peace, goodness, and harmony. Troubles are born of a limited sense of good, and salvation from troubles depends on seeing the infinitude of good.
When we address a problem, we expect the healing to particularly touch us, and so we might mistakenly focus too much on ourselves. But the needed change in thought has to do with our sense of all of life. We want to look for a better, spiritual sense of the universe in which we find ourselves.
Our true life is the reflection of the divine Mind knowing its own beauty, order, and wholeness. We strengthen our prayers as we cherish this awareness. Abundant good is not so much something we obtain for our own lives as it is something we prove for ourselves by perceiving it true for all.
Plain and simple, we need a deeper sense of divine Love. This is why we have Jesus’ two great commandments, to love God and our fellow man. St. John said, “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (I John 4:20). To experience God’s reality is to love, or to know the universality of Love as God. In other words, there’s a heavenly consequence for having loved. We find that all there really is, in fact, is lovable or heavenly, so there’s nothing unheavenly working against us.
Our globally connected lives today include a sense of intense personal and political differences, violence, disaster, and viruses. And to effectively address such things, it’s important to see how none of this can happen without a consciousness to experience it. As we let God reveal to us the truth that there is actually no consciousness anywhere to experience such mortal error, we see there is no place for error to be real. And so, we’ve done more than overcome a difficulty or two. We’ve glimpsed that all discord is, at base, unreal.
There are a number of reasons why we might be slow to drop that false, material consciousness. First, it seems to be correct. The physical senses suggest we’re material. But the senses do not take into consideration that everything is a consequence of mental forces and that our well-being depends on prayerful, spiritual thought instead.
Perhaps the biggest challenge in embracing the consciousness of universal Love is the daunting ramifications
—that as we seek this reality, we become aware of the ways that this universal, divine Love seems to be missing in our lives. And the prospects of fully changing our sense of things to correct this can seem too difficult. It can even seem as if something were preventing this change or awakening.
Jesus was familiar with such resistance in thought. Quoting the Gospel of Matthew, Eddy writes: “In a certain city the Master ‘did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief,’—because of the mental counteracting elements. . .” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 294).
It’s a startling comment, worth some thought. Although the only real, lasting power is the good of God, we presently experience “counteracting elements.” We should take stock of these, such as the false beliefs of God’s absence or that good and evil are both legitimate and powerful, which we may be harboring or notice others harboring. By endeavoring to see through these falsehoods, we’ll find ourselves less vulnerable to them.
The divine Mind, expressing peace, joy, and love, can be sensed in some way everywhere, reflected by everyone. The need is essentially one of thoughtfulness, spiritual hunger, and commitment to finding that the only Life is God and that we live and move in the universe of Love. With even just a little more of this devotion, we at least find our prayer for ourselves strengthened. And as we continue, we will more and more clearly see God’s good universe. What we come to sense of the divine Spirit or Mind universally, we more fully find as the one reality for us, here and now.
