Christian Science Perspective audio edition

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Original content on Christian Science written for this column by one of our readers.

A while ago, I happened on to a researcher’s online presentation just as he was saying to his audience, “You cannot not think about something.” He gave an example of what he meant: “You cannot not think about the elephant that is not in the room.”

After a long pause, the audience began to laugh. Then he smiled and said, in essence, “You’re thinking about that phantom elephant, aren’t you?”

To not think about something, he explained, you must erase that thought and substitute another one. How we regard the impressions related to everyday experience that are coming to consciousness – whether positive or negative – determines the quality of our day and our life. He suggested that diverting thought to more accurate or positive considerations overturns unreliable or unwanted thoughts. He basically presented a plan for managing the human mind – that is, for managing the belief that consciousness resides in a personal brain.

The phantom elephant example hints at what Christian Science teaches – that it matters what we accept as both our own thoughts and the source of them. Recognizing that God, infinite Mind, is the actual source of our thoughts and that they must therefore be true, reliable, and health-giving lifts consciousness far above the human model to inspiration, clarity, direction, and healing. The pure intuitions of the divine Mind are our real consciousness, and they are always good.

In answer to the question “What is the distinction between mortal mind and immortal Mind?” Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, points out that thoughts based on material constructs do not express God, Spirit, who creates all that truly exists. She explains, “Immortal Mind is God; and this Mind is made manifest in all thoughts and desires that draw mankind toward purity, health, holiness, and the spiritual facts of being” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” pp. 36-37).

If infinite Mind is the one source of real, good-producing thinking, the necessary corollary is that the destructive, matter-based thoughts that humanity wrestles with are unnatural and foreign to true consciousness. We must identify and challenge such thoughts on this basis.

Christ Jesus established this spiritual reasoning when he taught that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). As we lean into our spiritual nature as God’s likeness, we bring to light this kingdom within as thoughts that reflect God’s qualities, and this naturally leads to better outcomes.

Such conscious spiritual leaning on divine Mind and listening for God’s thoughts, in contrast to simply substituting a positive human thought for one that is threatening or demoralizing, will challenge suggestions that good is not knowable and cannot be experienced and expressed now. And what God knows is not something we “get,” something that we don’t have but need to obtain. It is the spiritual understanding that is innate in each of us. It is already our reality.

Quoting Jesus’ words, “The kingdom of God is within you,” Mrs. Eddy has written of Jesus’ teachings and their effect if lived, “Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love” (“Pulpit and Press,” p. 3).

Everyone has the capacity to assess the thoughts coming to their own consciousness. Ungodlike thoughts and their outcomes are not negated just by trying not to think about evil, mistakes, disease, hatred, lack, sorrow, etc. But recognizing such thinking as an imposition and persistently acknowledging instead what we understand Mind to be knowing and saying brings solutions to all sorts of difficulties. Step by step, we can claim the “sovereign power” we have been given to become more consistently conscious of God’s thoughts.

Christian Science explores how good God is and how we can experience that good by practicing – thinking and therefore acting – more consistently in the way Jesus taught his followers to do. Jesus’ teachings and healing works confirm that negative suggestions can be corrected, not by trying not to think about them, but by turning our attention to and replacing them with God’s thoughts. Jesus showed that physical problems, troubled relationships, financial needs, and even personal wilderness experiences can be resolved by holding thought to Mind’s all-powerful, entirely good reality.

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Mrs. Eddy wrote from her own experience, “He advances most in divine Science who meditates most on infinite spiritual substance and intelligence” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 309). So what we think matters. As we acknowledge the always-present power and activity of divine intelligence and practice the goodness Jesus taught, we will express that divine intelligence in our lives. We will be thinking God’s thoughts and thus will become more conscious of the kingdom of God already within us and all.

Going forward, these weekday articles offering a Christian Science perspective on our lives and the world are being published without a byline and read for audio by volunteers. Each Saturday this column will feature a poem with the byline and recorded for audio by the author. In both cases, the goal is the same, to bring a touch of God's healing light into the lives of our readers through the shared thoughts and healing demonstrations of fellow readers. If you want to know more about contributing, please email  JSHWrite@csps.com.

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