Is someone believing that something necessary for his happiness and well-being has been lost far beyond the possibility of retrievement? Or is he accepting the belief that he is being victimized by some inexorable lack? He no longer need be mesmerized by these arguments of mortal mind, but can return to his Father's house, the Christ-consciousness, and find what has in reality never been lost. He can accept the glorious imitation with its promise as given by Christ Jesus (Matt. 11:28), "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give yon rest."
Christian Science has come to arouse mankind to the glorious fact—contrary to the evidence of the material senses—that in God's ever-present kingdom nothing is ever lost, but everything is forever founded upon the rock of unvarying Truth. Losing and finding material things are only a part of the impermanence of mortal existence, governed by no mind and supported by no laws. Mary Baker Eddy, in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," tells us (p. 264), "When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness."
Our first step in working out a problem in Christian Science is to go in our thinking to the starting point, recognizing God as the All-in-all. He is the Principle of His universe of ideas, the only Mind, the only substance; and His laws are the only laws. He is omnipotent, governing all and including all in the harmonious activity of His all-inclusive being. He fills all space, and this precludes the belief that there can be room for another creation, power, substance, or intelligence.
Christian Science rouses one to the understanding that he no longer needs to accept the illusion of a life or mind apart from God. By holding to the true model of perfect God and perfect idea, he is able to cast out of his thought the vagaries of mortal mind, with their beliefs of loss and lack. As an offspring of immeasurable Mind he takes possession of his divine patrimony.
Loss is a belief that there is a place or condition in which man can be separated from something, a place not under God's control; that something real can be taken out of one's experience, leaving a vacuum or void. As we make our own the understanding that in the entireness of Mind we may find all that is real and eternal, mortal mind surrenders the error that has seemingly been divorcing us from God. Error and its seeming evidence disappear into native nothingness, and present perfection stands out as the divine fact.
Is some lonely one troubled and despondent because he has lost his home or place? Then let him go back to Jesus' statement (John 14:2); "In my Father's house are many mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you." The Way-shower knew that man's home is the Christ-consciousness, the secret place of uplifted aspirations. We enter this place through unselfed service to mankind. This secure, safe, quiet abode in Mind is the mount of holiness, the dwelling place of God's ideas; it never has been and never can be lost, wrecked, or devastated. Here, uninhibited and unhandicapped, one may live in joyous expectancy, filled with the goodness that blesses and heals.
Perhaps there is one who is sorrowing under the delusion that a needed loved one has been taken away; that his presence has been lost beyond recall. Then let him turn wholeheartedly to his Father-Mother God and realize that no separation can possibly exist, between God's ideas. It is only that a belief in someone's absence seems stronger than a realization of the presence of God's immortal idea. No obliteration or oblivion can hide the great fact that Mind's ideas dwell in the safety of the oneness of infinite perfection.
Has someone been touched with poor health or been classified under the verdict of incurability? The Bible promises that God will heal mankind of its wounds and restore health. God's great love, through the tenderness of the Christ expressed, will lead the sufferer to an apprehension of the heritage that has always belonged to man in Mind. Mankind has only accepted a mesmeric lie, which gives way before the realization of man's wholeness as idea, manifesting all that is of God. Healing is awakening—that is, awakening from the lie of life in matter—to the proved fact that man dwells right now in the realm of spiritual completeness. Being awakened from the lie, one sees that his health, his holiness, has never been lost, and the lie disappears into the nothingness from which it came.
This was proved by the writer, who was thrown while riding horseback and landed on his left arm. To all appearances the arm was broken, bruised, and misshapen. Instantly he turned from the evidence of the senses, covered the arm, and directed his thought absolutely to God and the contemplation of His compassionate care for all His children. Our Leader's definition of man beginning on page 475 of the textbook came to him. With all the understanding he could muster he held to the statement regarding man that "he is the compound idea of God including all right ideas," and to the fact that therefore he himself could not be the victim of a catastrophe and its false laws. He saw that his spiritual being was the embodiment of Godlike qualities, such as strength, gratitude, joy, assurance, dominion, and ability. Identifying and claiming each attribute separately as a component part of his real self, the writer held steadfastly to the fact that the substance of man could not be bruised, swollen, discolored, injured, or broken. Thus, because he included these qualities, he had never been touched by the dream of accident.
Mortal mind's bland denial, which poured forth its falsehoods into the thought of the student, vehemently asserted that the arm was broken and that he knew it was broken. He denied these malicious suggestions and held to the counterfacts regarding man's perfection in Mind. After about fifteen minutes of his struggling, a beautiful peace unfolded in his consciousness, a peace that brought the assurance that all was well. Looking at the arm, the writer found it healed. Pulling himself back on the horse with this arm, he continued the ride, and he has never had any more trouble from this experience.
We must not claim spiritual truths for ourselves alone. We must know that they are also the undeniable facts regarding our fellow men. Let us make sure that we are seeing all men as God made them: guided, guarded, and governed by Mind; uplifted, upheld, and sustained by Principle; under the influence of Love's revivifying animus; living at the point of perfection; and finding all good in Mind.
