Footsteps of Truth: an abridged chapter version from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

What is Truth? The efforts of any ology to answer this question are vain.

Understanding comes through spiritual logic and revelation. Following the signposts of divine law, we comprehend the Truth that is changing the world for the better. In this path we can find progress attended by life and peace.

The opposite of Truth is error; however knowledge of error and its operations must precede the understanding of the Truth that destroys error. Step by step we learn error is that which opposes divine Spirit and our spirituality.

This metaphysical system of healing through truth relinquishes the errors of self-serving obsessions, misleading appetites, hatred, fear, lust, superstition, etc. The progression makes a new creation.[1]

We do not need to learn our life lessons the hard way. We can stop stumbling around in drunkenness. We can stop being consumed by disease. We can stop being shocked at the evil in the world and gain an understanding that leads to productive improvement.

The way to uncover and abandon error is to saturate the mind with floodtides of Truth and Love.

As we discover there is one Mind, the divine law of loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded. We experience a relationship with all the attributes of Truth and Love, including wisdom. We become conscious of the existence of Spirit as the source of supply.

If Spirit created sickness and disorder then it would be wrong or impossible for human beings to try and remove them. Sickness and death are awful deceptions of existence, not put forth by Truth.

Through Truth you discover your ability to embrace your body and outline it with thoughts of health.

Let us prepare for the supremacy of Spirit—the government and law of universal harmony, which cannot be lost or remain forever unseen.

All the faculties of Mind are intact. No matter where we are, we can use our spiritual senses to commune with God and be governed by Love.

To be controlled by divine Mind is not to be controlled by hypnotism, human cultures, theories, crime, drugs, or fantasies. We learn to utilize spiritual sense—the constant conscious capacity to understand the all-acting infinite Spirit.

The brain, nerves, hormones, and stomach can’t talk on their own. They act because of mind. Sensations of the body are sensations of the human mind.

To rid the world of terrorists is difficult, but to destroy mental terrorism is even more difficult. The cruel narcissistic tendencies inherent in human mind are always germinating new forms of tyranny and must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind.

Healing systems must have spirituality in order to be useful. Medicines and religions dictated by money, prestige, inequality, rituals, and regulations only imitate the old-time opposition that upset Jesus two thousand years ago. “He made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coin of the money changers and overturned their tables.”[2]

Food should not be given more power than God. Let Truth regenerate the fleshly mind and feed thought with the bread of Life. The only diet that works is the diet that follows a mental plan involving honesty, wisdom, hard work, and balance. “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”[3]

It is impossible to form our concepts of Truth from what is seen between the cradle and the grave. We don’t pass from mortality to immortality, or from evil to good. Evil dies and good continues its immortal expression. The infinite never began and will never end.

We marvel at the people who live to be old and yet stay healthy and useful. They become objects of intrigue. The sciences may attribute the longevity to genes and environment, but these theories are never found to be consistent. A better theory is attached to attitude.

Why not have the attitude that soaks up the radiance of Soul and appreciates each year’s unfolding of wisdom, aplomb, and holiness? Why not shape our views of existence into loveliness, newness, and continuity, rather than into doom and gloom?

Measuring and limiting all that is beautiful and good is unproductive. Beauty and truth are eternal, but the beauty of physical things passes away. Don’t get hung up on superficial attractiveness, dictated by the media or the latest fashion. Beauty is an element of life, forever in Mind and fully expressed through us. Mind feeds the body with freshness and fairness, supplying it with comforting images of thought.

The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul. Body piercings, Botox, and breast augmentation are poor substitutes for true beauty.

Clothe yourself with Truth as opposed to wrapping yourself up in speculations or superstitions. Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hate. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves.

The advancement of Truth has nothing to do with popularity. The object is to work in the interest of humanity, not of private interests or sect. No matter what field you work in, Truth should stimulate labor and progress.

Wealth, fame, and social organizations have no pull with God. We get better views of humanity when we level wealth with sincerity, break up cliques and cults, and let worth be judged according to wisdom. Success in error is defeat in Truth, but the wicked person is not the ruler of the upright. Our motto is, “Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts.”[4]

Here are a few unrighteous or ineffective mental practices:

• Unwillingness to know the facts;
• Reluctance to hear about the deception of matter and its laws;
• Devotion to the belief of life and intelligence in human energy or auras;
• Impatience with truthful ideas;
• Dedication to temporal fixes as if they could solve all problems.

To hold yourself superior to sin, because God made you superior to it, is true wisdom. To fear sin is to misunderstand the power of Love and your relation to God. To hold yourself superior to sickness and disorder is equally wise and in accordance with the Holy Spirit. When you understand God, you will no longer fear sin and sickness, because they are no part of spiritual revelation and existence.

The pursuit of Truth requires proper gear and backup. Put up a firewall of love against sick thoughts, lusts, and horrible purposes. Regularly clean the mind of any sin and sickness. Control evil thoughts in the first instance, or they will control you in the second. Radiate uprightness and honesty. Be practical and reasonable, not a showoff. Be aware of the mental mal-practitioner who doesn’t obey Truth, but twists thoughts to suit their own narrow agenda and creed.

You’d rather ask help from a doctor who has the flu than ask help from a mental mal-practitioner, even if they claim to be a spiritual Shaman, Psychic, Sangoma, N’ganga, Christian Science practitioner, etc.

Parents are the strongest educators for their children. The thoughts of the parents form the embryo of another mortal mind. It is better to consciously form it after the model of divine Mind rather than unconsciously form it after a human model. After birth, continue to form children with divine influences, teaching self-government, happiness, receptivity, and the Truth-cure.

We move toward good or evil as time passes. Past failures will be repeated until we destroy spiritual idleness, self-gratification, shameless competitiveness, blaming others, arguing to be right, envy, hypocrisy, hate, revenge, and materialism.

Let’s compare the testimony of human mind against the testimony of Spirit:

Human mind lifts its voice with the arrogance of reality and says: I can steal, cheat, lie, commit adultery, murder, retaliate and yet avoid detection by flattering words. I am dishonest, yet no one knows it. My inclinations and sentiments can be irrational, deceitful, and fraudulent. My purpose is to make this short span of life one big fling. The world is my domain. I’m ecstatic to think of the power of sin, albeit I admit that an accident, an epiphany, or the law of God can at any moment annihilate my peace. My efforts to express life are fatal. I’m like bursting lava—I blow up only to fall to despair in a consuming fire.

Divine Spirit says: I am Spirit. Man and woman, whose perceptions are spiritual, are my likeness. You reflect the infinite understanding, for I am infinity. What belongs to me belongs to you—the beauty of holiness, the completion of being, and imperishable glory. I am immortal Truth; therefore you are immortal and truthful. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am the substance of all because “I AM WHO I AM.”[5]

Incomplete human beings get flustered when following Truth, but don’t give up. Be practical when abandoning the material for the spiritual. Eat healthy food, exercise wisely, work with integrity, use common sense, and be law abiding while you discover your spirituality.

The human footsteps are indispensable. Truth seekers are consistent who, watching and praying, can “Run and not be weary…walk and not be faint.”[6] We can gain spirituality rapidly and hold our position, or we can attain slowly and yield not to discouragement. God requires our diligence. The battle between Spirit and flesh is fought and the spiritual facts of existence are reached step by step before the victory is won.

 

 

[1] II Cor. 5:17

[2] John 2:15, NIV

[3] Galatians 5:16, KJV

[4] Isaiah 55:7, NIV

[5] Exodus 3:14

[6] Isaiah 40:31