The previous article explains how spiritual under-standing provides infinite stability at all times. This article will take it one step further and will look into the meaning and conditions of spiritual understanding.
In order to understand something, one needs to first know the element that is understood. Without knowing there is no understanding. How could it be otherwise? Whatever is unknown is consequently not understood. Understanding indicates our knowing.
Then what does it mean to know something? Can we know something unlike ourselves? Can the sun know cold and darkness? No, the sun can only know what the sun is, and the qualities that come forth out of that being, like heat, energy, and light. Everything unlike the sun is unknown to the sun, and moreover, is destroyed by it.
And so it is for God. God, which is omniscience, all-knowing, can only know what God is, for God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Hab 1:13). Indeed, if God is good, how can it see and know anything less than good? How can the pure eyes of good perceive evil? How can divine Love know any hate? And who can convince eternal Life of death?
God, good, can only know and see good, because it is good. Love can only know Love and its tender warmth, because that is Love’s nature and being. The same for Life; Life explains itself because its being defines itself. And by doing so, Life describes that all unlike itself must be dead and non-existent.
Therefore, knowing the qualities of God requires being them. That, which knows the divine, is the divine. Consequently, that which would know or see evil and things that are not of God cannot be the divine. Then what is that mind which knows or experiences evil? Mary Baker Eddy describes it as mortal mind. It is not an existing mind, but the seeming lack of the divine Mind — the suggestion that there are minds and “gods many” (I Cor 8:5) — the suggestion that we have a mind our own, separate from God.
Spiritual understanding and knowing are positive qualities of being, not the result of human study and mortal thinking. Intelligence is not dependent on electric pulses traveling in the brain. Celestial insight cannot be achieved or increased, simply because spiritual being cannot be achieved in the first place. God is all knowing and causation of all knowing. And we can all realize that God needs no brain to do so! This is so plain, that we are not aware of knowing it. Our knowing is dormant, in a sense.
Accordingly, writing and reading this article will not enhance understanding; but rather, writing and reading it is the exercise of being that knows and understands itself — in the degree the article is written and read in the light of Truth.
In the Blue Book we find a letter that Mary Baker Eddy wrote to the Christian Science Board of Directors: “Be strong and clear in your convictions that God . . . is influencing your actions. In order to be this, you surely must pray daily that God, good, divine Love . . . be lived by you” (DCC 128). “In order to be this,” she stated, instead of the expected: “in order to do this;” a significant choice of words. Doing something means being it. Being expresses a higher level than doing. Mrs. Eddy also shows here how good and divine Love are requisite for divine direction. Because God is good and God is Love, good and Love are indispensable to knowing and doing right.
All is connected and positioned into one line; knowing, understanding, thinking, realizing, perceiving, doing, loving, all stem from the first and foremost essential part, namely, divine being, God. Just as the ray of the sun, every successive piece in the ray is lined up straight. When we trace the line, it will lead us straight to its origin, the sun. Without the origin, there can be nothing coming forth. The way is straight and narrow, because the line to trace back to God goes to one point only, namely: God is All.
So we must stop thinking it is up to our thoughts and actions. When we start form the divine being that is God, that is “I AM THAT I AM” (Ex 3:14), divine thoughts and actions will follow naturally. And since God is good and perfect, its manifestation is inevitably good and perfect. The ray of the sun does not think: I must shine harder or stronger, because I am not perfect. When it would think that, it no longer is a sunray, since it is not sunlike. The sun’s being is the center that brings forth its infinite manifestation of energy and light.
Now, turn away your thoughts and efforts to work things out humanly. Start gently from the center of divine being, and be naturally godlike and perfect, made in Her “image and likeness.” “And God saw every thing that [she] had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31).
From the center of Love,
the Hanna
Abbreviations:
DCC: ‘Divinity Course and General Collectanea of Items by and about Mary Baker Eddy’ compiled by Richard F. Oakes.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
6. What Is Your Base?
When standing on something that is sinking, like a boat on the sea, or a house on the drifting soil, what will you do? The most natural response will be to get out of the sinking structure and to move to a more firm and stable base that will give you better support. You will reach for solid ground. This new solid ground under your feet will offer a stronger support for you to stand and walk on.
When you feel like you are sinking or even drowning in problems, conflicts, poverty, loss, pain, an overload of work, emotions of fear, sadness or anger, the same tactics need to be adapted. Every sense of sinking or drowning means your standing is unstable. You need to shift your base to a more stable ground to place your feet upon, namely, under-standing. Indeed, understanding provides stable ground to imbalance.
For a child to understand there are no monsters in the bedroom hiding in the shadows, will help the child to exchange fear for knowing and trusting there is no need for fear. But as long as the child does not understand there cannot be any monsters in his bedroom, the fear will stay. Without the child’s own understanding, even the caring words of a parent will not be sufficient, because to the child, the danger will still be lurking when the parent is gone. Understanding is what ensures a stable standing.
Sure, a child’s imagination and fear for monsters is to us evidently an unnecessary fear. What about problems that we are confronted with that are presented as ‘more real?’ The solution is the same. To find ourselves in imbalance, suffering and hardship, is due to standing on unstable ground. We need to reach for under-standing ground. No imbalance can occur that we cannot find stable ground for.
Now, if you do not change base when sinking, all is not over. At some point of the sinking, you will hit the bottom. The bottom of the pit is also a ground from which to move up. That is why people who have lost everything, who have nothing left in their life to go on for, have the opportunity to find a rejuvenating foundation to stand on. This point where there is nothing left to lose, support can be found. Just like a burnt forest that has lost its vegetation turns into fertile soil. The worst situation we find ourselves in, the nearer we are to discovering the answer that is waiting for us. When all is lost and burnt, we are more eager and receptive to the more stable under-standing.
To change ground materially — to change from one material base to another — has its limitations. Even the strongest rocks are inclined to erosion; a boat can get damaged; the soil under a house can start moving. This is why we need to look to what is most stable of all, if we do not want to keep exchanging one sinking floor for another. The most stable ground to stand on, is Holy Ground. It provides us with spiritual under-standing that turns all instability into stability.
Spirit is not less stable or tangible because it is not material, and cannot be grabbed or perceived with the senses. In fact, it is more stable, because it is immaterial. Because the nature of Spirit is immaterial, it cannot be limited by place or time; it is always available, and it is unchanging. Spiritual strength, Love, and stability cannot be deteriorated by any conditions of the weather. No mortal, limited power can touch an infinite spiritual power. That is why Spirit is the most stable ground that can stand under.
For every need, at some point, we will need to reach for spiritual foundations. We can change one material means for another. But no material help will ever be complete or lasting. And every material help can also be of harm in the same extent as it would fill a need.
We can change the locks on our doors for metal bars, shooting equipment, or an ingenious technical security system. It might give a higher security for a while, but it will not last. Any invented system, can be unlocked by invention. And as it might secure the inhabitants, it can also become a tool to capture them, or trap them with fire. True protection and security can only be found in spiritualized thought.
The stable support from below as described, can also be symbolized as uplifting from above. A hot air balloon, a cable pulling from a helicopter, can also lift us from sinking or drowning. Reaching for the under-standing stability of Spirit, has an uplifting and revealing experience, not in the vertical sense of the three or more material directions, but in a sense of a superior and stable force which operates despite all material and mental directions that seem to allow destabilizing forces.
Jesus walked on the water. He did not invent a floating device; he did not support on something reaching to the ground. His support was one of a purely spiritual nature. He radically relied on the support of God, through under-standing and knowing His Father in heaven. Material science declares it impossible for this event to take place. Whether or not this actually happened, is not the issue of this story. Yet, the spiritual under-standing explains how spiritual activity does not stand on any material base or rule.
Peter, encouraged by his Master, took a step on the water too. But the wind was strong, and he feared. Peter’s doubtful standing on God, resulted in a less constant walk than his teacher’s. But his teacher being present “stretched forth his hand, and caught him” (Matt 14:31), showing him the true under-standing — a stable standing, even on a surface of water, hit by wind or storm. For “the storm may roar without me, no change my heart shall fear” (hymn 148, by Mary Baker Eddy).
Then what is your base? Are you depending on material laws and rules? Or are you standing on spiritual Truth? Does your happiness depend on material events and situations that need fulfilling according to custom and expectation? Do you serve fear, stress, hunger, lack, pain, captivity? Or does your happiness and peace rest on the everlasting divine Principle that governs all — that quietens the storm and lightens the dark?
Search your heart, actions and motives, and find their source. When they stem from an eternal unsinkable base, then those actions and motives will be part of that base, and complete security and stability will be found. If your actions and motives do not come from the heavenly base, then your heart will keep searching and changing base, until at last the divine foundation is revealed.
Whether it be “through Science or suffering” (Mis 362:27), spiritual stability will be found. The scientific realization that we can only start from the spiritual base, is ‘through Science.’ When sinking experiences leave us feeling empty and abandoned, we are encouraged stronger to find that new base, which is ‘through suffering.’ Regardless we do it now or later, the divine foundation is inevitable, because everything outside God is empty.
The waters in the rivers always flow back to the sea. Even when interrupted and deviated, it always finds its way to where it comes from. Likewise, we eventually will “gravitate Godward” (S&H 264:5), to find where we come from.
Tender stable Love,
the Hanna
Abbreviations:
S&H: ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ by Mary Baker Eddy.
Mis: ‘Miscellaneous Writings’ by Mary Baker Eddy.
When you feel like you are sinking or even drowning in problems, conflicts, poverty, loss, pain, an overload of work, emotions of fear, sadness or anger, the same tactics need to be adapted. Every sense of sinking or drowning means your standing is unstable. You need to shift your base to a more stable ground to place your feet upon, namely, under-standing. Indeed, understanding provides stable ground to imbalance.
For a child to understand there are no monsters in the bedroom hiding in the shadows, will help the child to exchange fear for knowing and trusting there is no need for fear. But as long as the child does not understand there cannot be any monsters in his bedroom, the fear will stay. Without the child’s own understanding, even the caring words of a parent will not be sufficient, because to the child, the danger will still be lurking when the parent is gone. Understanding is what ensures a stable standing.
Sure, a child’s imagination and fear for monsters is to us evidently an unnecessary fear. What about problems that we are confronted with that are presented as ‘more real?’ The solution is the same. To find ourselves in imbalance, suffering and hardship, is due to standing on unstable ground. We need to reach for under-standing ground. No imbalance can occur that we cannot find stable ground for.
Now, if you do not change base when sinking, all is not over. At some point of the sinking, you will hit the bottom. The bottom of the pit is also a ground from which to move up. That is why people who have lost everything, who have nothing left in their life to go on for, have the opportunity to find a rejuvenating foundation to stand on. This point where there is nothing left to lose, support can be found. Just like a burnt forest that has lost its vegetation turns into fertile soil. The worst situation we find ourselves in, the nearer we are to discovering the answer that is waiting for us. When all is lost and burnt, we are more eager and receptive to the more stable under-standing.
To change ground materially — to change from one material base to another — has its limitations. Even the strongest rocks are inclined to erosion; a boat can get damaged; the soil under a house can start moving. This is why we need to look to what is most stable of all, if we do not want to keep exchanging one sinking floor for another. The most stable ground to stand on, is Holy Ground. It provides us with spiritual under-standing that turns all instability into stability.
Spirit is not less stable or tangible because it is not material, and cannot be grabbed or perceived with the senses. In fact, it is more stable, because it is immaterial. Because the nature of Spirit is immaterial, it cannot be limited by place or time; it is always available, and it is unchanging. Spiritual strength, Love, and stability cannot be deteriorated by any conditions of the weather. No mortal, limited power can touch an infinite spiritual power. That is why Spirit is the most stable ground that can stand under.
For every need, at some point, we will need to reach for spiritual foundations. We can change one material means for another. But no material help will ever be complete or lasting. And every material help can also be of harm in the same extent as it would fill a need.
We can change the locks on our doors for metal bars, shooting equipment, or an ingenious technical security system. It might give a higher security for a while, but it will not last. Any invented system, can be unlocked by invention. And as it might secure the inhabitants, it can also become a tool to capture them, or trap them with fire. True protection and security can only be found in spiritualized thought.
The stable support from below as described, can also be symbolized as uplifting from above. A hot air balloon, a cable pulling from a helicopter, can also lift us from sinking or drowning. Reaching for the under-standing stability of Spirit, has an uplifting and revealing experience, not in the vertical sense of the three or more material directions, but in a sense of a superior and stable force which operates despite all material and mental directions that seem to allow destabilizing forces.
Jesus walked on the water. He did not invent a floating device; he did not support on something reaching to the ground. His support was one of a purely spiritual nature. He radically relied on the support of God, through under-standing and knowing His Father in heaven. Material science declares it impossible for this event to take place. Whether or not this actually happened, is not the issue of this story. Yet, the spiritual under-standing explains how spiritual activity does not stand on any material base or rule.
Peter, encouraged by his Master, took a step on the water too. But the wind was strong, and he feared. Peter’s doubtful standing on God, resulted in a less constant walk than his teacher’s. But his teacher being present “stretched forth his hand, and caught him” (Matt 14:31), showing him the true under-standing — a stable standing, even on a surface of water, hit by wind or storm. For “the storm may roar without me, no change my heart shall fear” (hymn 148, by Mary Baker Eddy).
Then what is your base? Are you depending on material laws and rules? Or are you standing on spiritual Truth? Does your happiness depend on material events and situations that need fulfilling according to custom and expectation? Do you serve fear, stress, hunger, lack, pain, captivity? Or does your happiness and peace rest on the everlasting divine Principle that governs all — that quietens the storm and lightens the dark?
Search your heart, actions and motives, and find their source. When they stem from an eternal unsinkable base, then those actions and motives will be part of that base, and complete security and stability will be found. If your actions and motives do not come from the heavenly base, then your heart will keep searching and changing base, until at last the divine foundation is revealed.
Whether it be “through Science or suffering” (Mis 362:27), spiritual stability will be found. The scientific realization that we can only start from the spiritual base, is ‘through Science.’ When sinking experiences leave us feeling empty and abandoned, we are encouraged stronger to find that new base, which is ‘through suffering.’ Regardless we do it now or later, the divine foundation is inevitable, because everything outside God is empty.
The waters in the rivers always flow back to the sea. Even when interrupted and deviated, it always finds its way to where it comes from. Likewise, we eventually will “gravitate Godward” (S&H 264:5), to find where we come from.
Tender stable Love,
the Hanna
Abbreviations:
S&H: ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ by Mary Baker Eddy.
Mis: ‘Miscellaneous Writings’ by Mary Baker Eddy.
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