One of the most basic popular misconceptions is that the body operates separately from the mind.
Jesus disproved this. Preaching one day in Capernaum, he was approached by several people who were carrying a palsied man to him on a bed. Immediately Christ Jesus said to the man, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."Matt. 9:2, 5 Certain scribes, who were watching this young layman's activity and not liking what they saw, became a little disturbed that he was forgiving sins. Knowing what they were thinking, Jesus asked, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" He then healed the man.
Jesus' act shows that the body is not independent of the human mind. In fact, the body is a direct function, an outward embodiment, of that mind. The palsied man's belief in the power of sin and matter must have disappeared to some degree as a result of Jesus' conviction that there is no power but God. Losing its foundation, the palsy disappeared.
Mrs. Eddy states, "Palsy is a belief that matter governs mortals, and can paralyze the body, making certain portions of it motionless."Science and Health, p. 375 Disease is mental. This is a fundamental point in Christian Science healing. Mrs. Eddy continues, "Destroy the belief, show mortal mind that muscles have no power to be lost, for Mind is supreme, and you cure the palsy."
It is not enough merely to uncover error; error must be destroyed. Disease is not just mental; it is not real. It is an error of belief, a product of the ignorance of mortal mind (the general belief in the reality and power of matter). Disease is obliterated by spiritual understanding.
Material consciousness is finite, imperfect, basing its conclusions about existence on the limited physical senses. It tends to ignore what it doesn't understand. Spiritual consciousness recognizes God, divine Mind, as the one supreme intelligence who creates the universe as the very image of Himself, understanding all because He is All.
Matter and mortal thought are illusion. Divine Mind, or Spirit, is reality.
The general material consciousness doesn't understand this because it doesn't understand itself. It produces a material body and calls it man. It then produces disease and claims that this kills man. In between, it alternately suffers and enjoys, loves and hates, sins and repents. It puts itself to sleep every night. It exists only in its own world of illusion, believing that this illusion is life.
Divine Mind, the perfect, infinitely loving and intelligent creator, is All. Correct conclusions about existence must therefore come from the premise that perfection is all. Imperfection is nothing. Matter, sin, and sickness are unreal. The mortal sense of mind is "such stuff as dreams are made on."
Though the unillumined human mind believes that man is subject to matter, the real, spiritual man is in no way connected with matter. His Mind is never mortal. He is created out of God's perfection. He must therefore express all the qualities of God, including infinite intelligence, perfect health, unlimited joy. He is at one with God—the image of Mind's own existence, a divine idea.
Opinions to the contrary do not make matter real or give it any power. A discordant material belief, such as sickness, can be dismissed and—through understanding—dismissed permanently.
Sickness is illusion. Yet sometimes we are faced with a discordant condition that appears very real, even though we may be confident its basis is essentially mental, not physical. In such a situation, we may be faced with several choices as to the right path to take for healing. Let's examine a few of these.
(1) We can hope that the condition will straighten out by itself. In some cases this attitude may temporarily bring what we think is the desired result—that is, the physical evidence of the problem may go away for a while. But nothing has really been changed. Merely to hope that a disease will disappear by itself ignores error. It doesn't really solve anything. To indulge in wishful thinking is not to understand and prove the powerlessness and nothingness of disease.
(2) We can make a special effort to study Christian Science with the intention of getting rid of a problem. But if we think about it that way, we're off on the wrong foot. Christian Science then becomes to us a process, like a cold shower taken to wake us up, that will bring us out of something. If we accept the belief that we have an actual problem, we in effect accept the disease as real.
Thus this attempt at healing would imply that we're really in a diseased mental state and are trying to get out of it. This is reasoning from a basis of error, not from the standpoint of Truth and its perfection—and the conclusions therefore will not be what we want. If the evidence of disease does disappear, it may do so because we believed it would. This is only one belief replacing another, and the healing is not complete and permanent. The true Principle of healing has not been understood.
(3) If we don't heal the condition immediately by deeply feeling the presence of omnipotent divine Love, we can reason from the basis of Truth. Truth is God. This reasoning reflects the knowing of God, Mind. It is affirming that all reality is in God, and that we are part of that reality as perfect ideas of divine Mind, spiritual ideas expressing the wisdom, joy, and health of God.
This is not ignoring something that exists. It is recognizing that error—or discord, evil—has no claim to truth. It is seeing creation as God makes it and affirming that all is perfect. Reasoning in this and other ways, we see that all imperfection is illusion, based on a false premise. We see that reality proceeds from Principle, which is our Mind. This destroys false, material beliefs.
True reasoning does not say, for example, "You have been resentful. This has caused disease. Therefore you must heal the resentment." It may say that resentment, not being a quality of God, has never been a quality of man and can have no effect, therefore, on you. It may say, "Resentment's claim to be part of your thought is illegitimate. And man is never diseased. You have always manifested the love, peace, and perfect health of God."
Healings come from conclusions based on Truth. We can recognize error as that which does not conform to Truth, God. Understanding Truth negates error. Thus we can have complete healing.
Sickness may make Truth seem ridiculously intangible. If so, it's only because we are believing the evidence of the material senses, which are far from Truth. We can let our spiritual sense and Christian Science support our conclusions. This may begin just with belief in Truth. But it will blossom into understanding. "Become conscious for a single moment," states Science and Health, "that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints."p. 14
This is understanding at work.
