MARY BAKER EDDY LETTER

Letter Number Three, May, 1997

"These things saith He that is holy,... I know thy works: Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." -Revelation.

Again my thanks to the many who responded so lovingly and heartily to the first two Mary Baker Eddy Letters. The flood of notes of encouragement and requests to become regular subscribers shows the love and gratitude students feel for Mary Baker Eddy who fulfilled Bible prophecy in bringing the Second Coming of the Christ, the "Comforter," promised by Christ Jesus. If you will send names or mail lists of fellow church members or association members, we will be glad to send them a copy of this "Letter." I thank those able to help support this effort with donations. People everywhere are yearning for the spiritual, and your letters of encouragement and support are helping this work unfold.

An Investment in Joy

When a Sunday school teacher asked "What is a prophet?" one little boy quickly replied, "When someone makes a good investment."

This is exactly what we want these "Letters" to be-a good investment, an investment in joy. What joy it is to learn through the Second Coming of the Christ that we already really ARE and have always been, in reality, God beings, spiritual and perfect!

The Bible has many references to joy. Paul speaks of being "exceedingly joyful." Isaiah speaks of "all the houses of joy in the joyful city [our true consciousness]." Long ago Ignatius Loyola said, "It is characteristic of God and His angels that in their activity they give true joy and spiritual exultation, while removing the sadness and affliction that the enemy [the anti-Christ] excites."

According to Eastern church tradition Lazarus laughed heartily after Jesus raised him from the dead, and that is why his home in Bethany is called "The House of Laughter." As we nail each "Letter" to the church door, I hope it will give at least one good laugh. A good laugh heals. Norman Cousin's book Anatomy of an Illness has influenced many health professionals to rediscover the healing power of humor and laughter.

Let us not forget that Jesus on the very eve of his crucifixion, knowing that within hours he would be nailed to a cross, assured his disciples: "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full." Even while he was bleeding profusely from the wounds of the scourging he had undergone, and sinking beneath the weight of the heavy cross, he continued to teach and comfort the women standing by who bewailed him. Think of it! How completely Jesus must have been aware of Life as Mind, before the Adam dream of human birth and life in matter overtook him.

We know we will have this understanding and joy when we depart this world, but Mary Baker Eddy in the Second Coming of the Christ wanted us to see that this joy can be ours here and now as we gain understanding of what we already are and have always been. When we see the glory we had before the belief in human birth pulled the wool over our eyes, what joy will be ours!

Today, because we are beginning to view ourselves spiritually there is a great spiritual movement afoot on the earth-a power to change the direction of mankind, and because we can change ourselves, we can change the world.

What Did Mrs. Eddy Mean By: "You, My Students, Are God"

I have been asked to explain what Mary Baker Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) meant by this great spiritual truth: "You, my students,...are God, and not man." Since this all-encompassing spiritual statement concerning your real God-identity underlies everything in both the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, let's take a minute to fathom its deep, glorious, spiritual meaning.

This statement is recorded in Essays and Other Footprints: "You, my students...are God and not man. Holding intelligence thus, all error, sin, sickness, and death [would be] destroyed. This is Science. You should so hold yourself [as] infinite wisdom, Love and Truth, that the idea of this would be ever present to you" (EOF, Oakes, p.227).

To the casual reader this statement appears to contradict statements in her textbook. This confusion arises because these readers are not familiar with the fact that in Science & Health Mrs. Eddy is writing on four different levels: (l) the highest level-Science itself-where the relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea are understood, (2) the divine Science level, where God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea (S&H 476:4), (3) the level of absolute Christian Science where consciousness, on the level of the divine, translates itself as the saving element, as the Christ, and (4) Christian Science, which shares the common denominator-"Christian"-a saving sense. "...Divine Science...reduced to human apprehension...[is] named Christian Science." (See S&H 471:30.) Here the human need is in focus, and relative statements are made to meet the present human need.

Relative Statements Often Misunderstood

Relative statements presented on the Christian Science level may sometimes be misconstrued to imply something clearly contrary to Mary Baker Eddy's true teachings. This happens because in these relative statements Mrs. Eddy is descending from the highest absolute statement of truth in order to reach people at their present level of understanding, where she must "make do" by adapting concepts with which readers are already familiar.

A second source of confusion arises because of misconceptions about the word "man." On the Christian Science level, Mrs. Eddy sometimes finds it necessary to use "man" to mean, roughly, the beings we perceive ourselves to be. At the higher, more absolute levels she tells us that "man" is the full, spiritual image or reflection of God, Mind, our true Mind; this spiritual "man" is the effect which can never be separated from its cause. (My book, Humanity's Divinity explains this clearly.)

A correspondent asks: "What about Mrs. Eddy's statement (S&H 480:19): "Man is not God, and God is not man"? The answer to this is: effect is not cause, and cause is not effect; your reflection in the mirror is not you, and you are not the reflection, although they are one, as Mrs. Eddy insists: "Principle and its idea is one." On page 250:12 Mrs. Eddy writes, "Man is not God, but like a ray of light, which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God [your real Mind], reflects God." Here again "man" should be understood as that which your true Mind that is God, images forth. These statements do not contradict her teaching, "You, my students, are God."

What Our Real "I" Is

To the more materially-minded reader the statement, "You, my students, are God," may sound like pantheism. But Mary Baker Eddy was not a pantheist. Pantheism is the false belief that the universe, taken or conceived of as a whole, is God. Pantheism-the opposite of Christian Science-is, Mrs. Eddy says in Science & Health, "the belief in the intelligence of matter....that there is mind in matter....The theory that Spirit [Mind, your own real Mind] is not the ONLY substance and creator is pantheistic heterodoxy....Atheism, pantheism, theosophy, and agnosticism are opposed to Christian Science."

Speaking of her great discovery of our true being Mrs. Eddy says, "Centuries will intervene before the statement of the inexhaustible topics of [Science & Health] become sufficiently understood to be absolutely demonstrated" (Mis. 92:4). This should not surprise us. Even Jesus found his teaching was not understood by the multitudes. Hear his cry: "O Jerusalem, Jeru-salem...how often would I have gathered thy children together...and ye would not!" (Luke 13:34) Our age is at the threshold of a great spiritual transformation, laboring heavily to realize that materiality must give way to total spirituality.

What did Mrs. Eddy mean when she repeatedly taught this PRESENT, divine Truth: "You, my students, are God"?

Science and Health, p. 588:9-21, tells us what our true identity is-what our true "I or Ego" is. It tells us that our real "I, or Ego" is "Divine Principle; Spirit; Soul; incorporeal, unerring, immortal, and eternal Mind. . . . [The] I Am is God; incorporeal and eternal Mind [our real Mind]; divine Principle; the only Ego."

In the great revelation that came to Mrs. Eddy in 1866, she saw that infinite good is All; that "All is infinite Mind [her Mind, and your real Mind, since there is only ONE Mind], and its infinite manifestation." This statement is the crown jewel of Mary Baker Eddy's divine discovery.

This naturally led to the divine conclusion that "You, my students, are God"; that everything she beheld, if seen rightly, spiritually, was one with the infinite good we call God. "Principle and its idea IS ONE, and this ONE is God" (S&H 465:17). How, in reality, can there be anything but God, infinite good, if "infinite good is All"? This infinite good, we learn in Christian Science, is the Mind of each one of us; "GOD IS INDIVIDUAL MIND" (Mis. 101:31).

In all her writing Mrs. Eddy is trying to show us that God isn't something up in the sky; but rather, that God is our own real Mind. Here and now, rightly understood, we are Spirit, God. Our own real Mind is God, infinite good, and gives us "sovereign power." (See S&H 469:12 for Mrs. Eddy's definition of "Mind," remembering it is YOUR Mind she is defining.)

Mrs. Eddy had seen that your real "I" is the infinite good we call God. She defines this "I" (S&H 588:9) as, "Principle [your true Mind]; Spirit [a synonym for God, meaning true substance, understanding]; Soul [true identity]; incorporeal, unerring, immortal, and eternal Mind...." Whose Mind? Your real Mind.

Mary Baker Eddy herself demonstrated this real "I." Judge Ewing one night, before a hostile audience, delivered a lecture in which he was called upon to defend Mrs. Eddy. When he called on Mrs. Eddy the next day, before any news of his lecture could have reached her, she surprised him by telling him what he had said in the lecture. He asked Mrs. Eddy how she knew what he had said, and she answered, "Suppose I told you that "I" heard you?" Mary Baker Eddy had demonstrated the one "I" that is omnipresent, and so can hear what is said anywhere.

The 1870's and Today

A hundred and thirty years ago people were too sunk in a material view of everything to grasp Mrs. Eddy's great spiritual truth about themselves, namely, that "You, my students, are God." They were not ready for the revelation of this fundamental truth. How is it today? Doesn't the sensuality and materiality of this present age still resist in marked degree this great spiritual Truth?

But this resistance to Truth is in fulfillment of scriptural prophecy. Jesus said, "Scripture cannot be broken," and Revelation 12:12 prophesied that the devil would "come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he hath but a short time." Centuries before, Isaiah (16:14) foretold: "The remnant shall be very small and feeble."

What kept the people in Jesus' time, and what has kept world consciousness to this day from seeing the truth about ourselves, namely, that "You, my students, are God"? It is the utterly convincing flood of the great red dragon (false intelligence) that is presented, around the clock, with such great authority that we tend to mistakenly accept it as Truth, as our own thinking. All must awaken to see that this false view is nothing other than hypnotic suggestion. Only then will the great spiritual FACT inherent in Mrs. Eddy's all-encompassing, timeless words: "You, my students, are God," be understood and demonstrated.

Jesus said, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another [one lie about your true identity], that shall not be thrown down" (Matthew 24:2). Because the people were not ready for this fundamental spiritual Truth, Mrs. Eddy hid it in the textbook and in her other writings. Nevertheless, everything she wrote since 1866 was an effort to teach this salient Christ truth: "You, my students, are God." Like the dull disciples of Jesus' time mankind today still seems unable to accept this truth, but we are all destined to realize our God identity, our PRESENT perfection, as we awaken from the Adam dream.

Our True Mind, the Only "I"

"Reasoning from cause to effect in the Science of Mind, we BEGIN with Mind [the only I or Ego], which must be understood through the idea which expresses it" (S&H 467:29). "When we fully understand our relation to the Divine, we can have no other Mind [but the Mind of infinite good]-no other Love, wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no consciousness of the existence of matter or error" (S&H 205:32). Then we will see why Mrs. Eddy could teach: "You, my students, are God."

Mind is defined in the Glossary (S&H 591:16) as: "The only I or Us, the only Spirit [substance, understanding], Soul [your true identity or spiritual understanding], divine Principle, substance, Life, Truth, Love; the one God...." When we read this, do we realize that it is telling us what WE ARE?-not what we are going to be, but what, in reality, we are HERE AND NOW when beheld rightly?

Continuing Mrs. Eddy's definition of Mind (and remember she is talking about your Mind, that which she has just told us is God), she says this Mind is, "not that which is in man, but the divine Principle or God of whom man [your Mind's idea] is the full and perfect expression. [Then note:] "DEITY, which outlines but is not outlined." If the one Mind that is your true Mind is "DEITY," does it seem strange that Mrs. Eddy could say: "You, my students are God," when we look from the standpoint of divine Principle?

How many of us, when we read this, actually realize it is the truth about ourselves?

In the Bible we read (Hosea 11:9): "I am God and not man." Do we believe it? Do we believe Mary Baker Eddy's statement: "You, my students, are God"? Isaiah (42:8) also proclaimed this great truth, that "I am God and not man," saying: "I am the Lord; that is My name and my glory will I not give to another." Is the great prophet, Isaiah, saying something different from Mrs. Eddy's "You, my students, are God"? If we actually realized that Bible statements such as these by Isaiah and Hosea and the other great spiritually-minded prophets were TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT US, we would heal every disease and distress just as Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy did.

I, My, Mine

It is only when we reason from the standpoint of Principle that we have the authority to say I, Mine, or My. Only Mind [your real Mind] can say: "The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory,-all are Mine, for I am God ["man" is the name given to my reflection]" (S&H 253:2).

"Infinite Mind [your real Mind] made all and includes all" (S&H 206:28). "All that is real is included in this immortal Mind" (S&H 399:28). Whose "immortal Mind" is Mrs. Eddy talking about? Your true Mind. We have already quoted: "God is individual Mind," (Mis. 101:31). "The divine Mind [your true Mind] includes all action and volition" (S&H 187:22).

The consecrated student of Christian Science can recall many more such statements that explain Mrs. Eddy's statement: "You, my students, are God."

Jesus, in order to demonstrate his "mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh" (S&H 117:21), had to understand these divine statements, had to understand his oneness with infinite good, divine Life, Truth, and Love. He knew that he and "the Father" [Jesus' own real Mind] were one. He knew there is no God up in the sky-for as he told us, "the kingdom of God is within you [within your consciousness, not something up in the sky]."

Today that kingdom may lie latent within our consciousness, but it is there, just as the multiplication table lies latent within any preschool child. And because Jesus had seen and proved that "the kingdom of God is within you [within consciousness]," Mary Baker Eddy in the Second Coming of the Christ could state as a spiritual FACT, "You, my students, are God." Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy "beheld in Science the perfect man who appeared to [them] where sinning mortal man appears to mortals."

How Do We Practice This Science?

Mary Baker Eddy, in the Second Coming of the Christ, fulfilling Jesus' promise and prophecy of the "Comforter," shows us how to practice the great spiritual truth that here and now we are spiritual and perfect. She points to Jesus as our example. It was because Jesus understood and declared himself TO BE the Christ, and because he understood and declared himself TO BE the Life and the Truth, and the way-the concrete manifestation of God-that he was able to demonstrate, to give proof of this divine fact.

We, like Jesus, must practice from the standpoint of our PRESENT DIVINITY. Jesus never based his practice upon the belief that he was a human being, advancing toward the Christ. He did not believe that sometime he would become the Christ. No! He WAS the Christ, and the Christ is always in evidence as concrete being. When once we gain the understanding that our own real Mind is God, we can follow the example of Jesus who said that greater works than he did we would do.

The "Comforter," the Second Coming of the Christ, with the advent of Mary Baker Eddy has revealed our Christ selfhood. Because of her divine teaching, we will practice from the standpoint that we are divine beings HERE AND NOW. As we ponder in thought our infinite, harmonious, Christ-expressing selfhood and claim this Christ selfhood, our divinity will be in evidence as tangible human expressions.

In Christian Science we learn that the Mind "I" now have is the true Mind, hidden only by eons of wrong teachings and beliefs. The sight "I" now have is actual sight, and so it is with every needed faculty. As Christian Scientists we strive to get an understanding of our own life and being in order that the manifested form of these may be our bodies and our daily living.

If we really discern and understand the truth about ourselves, it has an accompanying tangible manifestation. The truth of abundance that appeared in the consciousness of Jesus was expressed in concrete form: "wine" at the wedding, loaves and fishes, and tax money. Mary Baker Eddy and her students made, and we continue to make, similar demonstrations of supply.

We must practice from the standpoint that our true divine Mind is the Christ. With this correct starting point, our divinity will express itself simultaneously as our humanity. "The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless,-as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker [your own true Mind that is Love]" (Un. 49:8).

Unless we perceive our perfect, manifested state as already established, we have no Principle to demonstrate. How can we use the Principle Mrs. Eddy in the first edition repeatedly tells us we are, unless we discover it within our own consciousness, thus placing it under the control of our own divine Mind? Could this be the reason Mrs. Eddy states (S&H 544:16), "All is under the control of the one Mind, even God"? Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you."

As Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy demonstrated the Christ, so must we, never surrendering our true humanhood but changing it from glory to glory, on through the resurrection and ascension.

"Ye Must Be Born Again."

Jesus said: "Ye must be born again." What is this rebirth? Being reborn is the discovery that you are a perfect being, immortal now, and that divinity is in practice, or conscious operation, as humanity. In John 1:1 we read: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." "The Word made flesh" is divinity appearing as humanity, appearing as true humanhood. God, individual Mind, your real Mind, is evidencing itself as individual consciousness, seen by us as humanity.

There is only one Mind. The Mind we now have, when free from illusions, false education, hypnotic suggestions, materiality, is God, the only Mind. Only the error of the Adam dream tells us otherwise. Christian Science teaches us how to subordinate our fleshly perceptions, but we must comprehend that the Mind that is here now is the only Mind. We need only to lose the false education and eons of false beliefs that hide it; we must lose our MATERIAL SENSE of things that keeps us from recognizing the power and perogative of our real and only Mind.

Once we learn in Christian Science what we already ARE, and have always been, we will "awaken to our present ownership of all good." Although Christian Science is so far in advance of human knowledge that mortals must work for the discovery of even a portion of it (see Mis. 22:8), reality IS at hand. How could we "let Truth uncover and destroy error," if our own Mind wasn't Truth? (S&H 542:19)

This is what Mrs. Eddy instructs us to do in her chapter, "Christian Science Practice": "Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind [the liar, the illusion; the aggressive mental suggestion]. Again, "Rise to the true consciousness of Life as Love." How could we rise to the "spirit of Truth," or "rise to the true consciousness of Life as Love," if it was not already true that "You, my students are [Truth, Life, Love] God"? Do we catch these spiritual light balls-these revealing statements in Science and Health-or do they roll unnoticed to the fence?

The Root of All Sorrow

What is it that keeps us from waking up to "our present ownership of all good"? All we need to realize is that Love is the most powerful force. Why is this so difficult? Why, as said the sage of Walden Pond, do "most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? Why do so few view themselves as God-beings having sovereign power to think and act rightly?

The root of all sorrow and distress is the belief of a life in matter-the belief in human birth that ends in death. This belief in human birth and a matter creation causes us to "see through a glass darkly." Mary Baker Eddy calls human birth the first death; she taught that it would be the last enemy to be destroyed. Many today, as of yore, disagree with Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy on this issue of human birth, feeling that bringing a child into the world is a blessed event.

"Ignorant sin," Mrs. Eddy said, "we can heal, but wilful sin must be suffered out of." A searching passage asks: "Dear reader, which mind-picture or externalized thought shall be real to you,-the material or the spiritual? Both you cannot have. You are bringing out your own ideal. This ideal is either temporal or eternal. Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you practically have none" (S&H 360:13).

In the Divinity Course, preserved by Lida Fitzpatrick, Mrs. Eddy said: "What I am teaching is the spiritual; the material fights it and I fight the material; it will do it to you; the more spiritual the thought, the more will you be fought. That which takes the place of God [your real true Mind] and creates men and women, and sees everything material, will fight the spiritual. We must see everything spiritual."

Jesus, knowing his own Mind was the infinite good we call God, said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth." Because Jesus had demonstrated his oneness with God, we can trust his authority. "A person who has a cat by the tail knows more about cats than someone who has just read about cats." Jesus knew that his own true Mind was the only God there is, namely, infinite good. His own Mind, "the Mind that was in Jesus," knew that it (this true Mind) was the only creator. And Mind cannot create its opposite, matter. It cannot create flesh, blood, and bones, that which cannot inherit the kingdom. Ask yourself: Can Mind create its opposite? No. Then material creation, human birth, must be illusion, must be the Adam dream that Scripture, from Genesis through Revelation, tells us we seem to be mired in.

Mrs. Eddy writes (Mis. 278:13), "I once wondered at the Scriptural declaration that Job sinned not in all he said, even when he cursed the hour of his birth; but I have learned that a curse on sin is always a blessing to the human race." "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science," she tells us in Rudimental Divine Science (2:25), "...The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the HEALING OF SIN; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they do not love to be sick."

Mary Baker Eddy's and Jesus' Teaching on Human Birth

When Laura Sargent asked Mrs. Eddy, "Mother, what do you mean by 'sin, sin, sin?'" Mrs. Eddy answered: "I mean the connubial relationship." (An item recorded and preserved by Gilbert C. Carpenter, CSB, secretary to Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View).

Mrs. Eddy asked: "Is the connubial relation sin?" "Yes," she answered (EOF, first edition, p.79).

"The departure from Truth commenced with the words sex, sexuality, sensuousness, matter: and these are the objective state of what is called mind separated from God, the one Mind." (Ibid., p.45).

Regarding human birth, she wrote: "There is nothing jubilant attached to the birth of a mortal-that suffers and pays the penalty of his parent's misconception of man and of God's creation. But there is a joy unutterable in knowing that Christ had no birth, no death, and that we may find in Christ, in the true sense of being, life apart from birth, sorrow, sin and death. O may your eyes not be holden, but may you discern spiritually what is our Redeemer." (DCC, first ed. p.256)

Mrs. Eddy received a letter asking her congratulations on a Christian Science baby. "She read it aloud; then with apparent indignation uttered: 'A Christian Science baby! A crime! Just as much a crime as murder would be!' She paused a few moments; then raised her hand and shaking her finger declared with great emphasis: 'No loyal Christian Scientist will ever marry'" (ibid., p. 256).

"If today, we should openly declare that God, good, could annul the curse of sin, shorten the earth's period of propagation, and find matter no factor in forming the objects of earth, what would be said of such a radical truism? Precisely what is said: there is no thus saith the Lord for this matter-annihilating Truth of divine Science, even though Jesus declared it and explained its Principle" (Essays and Other Footprints, Oakes, p.127).

Coming now to Jesus and his teaching on human birth: In a booklet entitled Fragment of a Lost Gospel, we find the following: "When Salome asked when those things about which she questioned should be made known, the Lord said, 'When ye trample upon the garment of shame, when the two become one and the male and the female, neither male nor female,' the meaning being that Christ's kingdom on earth would not be manifested until man has returned to the state of innocence in which sexual ideas and relations have no place. When Salome asked how long death would prevail, the Lord said, 'So long as ye women bear children, for I have come to destroy the works of the female'" (Logia of Jesus, Christian Science Journal. Vol. 25.)

"Jesus was asked, 'When shall the dominion of death cease?' Jesus saith, 'As long as (material) birth continues, for I came to destroy the works of birth'" (DCC, p. 14, footnote).

What does this mean?

In Matt. 5:17 Jesus says, "I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill,"- to fulfill the realization of our present divinity, our Godhood by proving that human birth and death are material misconceptions-the Adam dream.

In many different ways Jesus in the Gospels is saying what Mrs. Eddy said to her early pupils, "You, my students, are God." He knew that before human birth veiled his true divine identity he had the glory of being one with his heavenly Father, his true divine Mind, that is God.

In Luke 23:29 Jesus taught: "The days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare."

In Mark (13:17) we read: "Woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck....Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away." Jesus said, "For when they shall rise from the dead [from the Adam dream of life in matter], they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mark 12:25).

Luke 20:34 repeats the warning: "Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world [the world of material sense] marry and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that [spiritual] world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage."

To make sure they understood that "human birth is the first death and the last enemy to be destroyed," Jesus in Luke 17:27 reiterated: "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all." Luke 21:23 again repeats the warning.

Jesus knew that what is born of the flesh must go the way of all flesh. "Heaven," Mrs. Eddy taught, "is not a breeding ground for mortals." But this teaching is still little understood.

The high priests of Jesus' time understood it thoroughly, however, and being materially-minded, feared for the future of their nation. Seeing that the people were beginning to believe on Jesus-especially after his raising of Lazarus who had lain in the grave four days-they decided it was time to take action, saying: "If we let this man go, soon all people will believe on him; then what will happen to our nation?"

The Christian world, with few exceptions, has never seen the true import of Christ Jesus' teaching. It has not seen that it was this teaching that "death would never cease until ye women cease your child bearing," that caused the high priests to fear and hate Jesus, and that it was for this teaching that Jesus was willing to be vilified and crucified.

How Many Today Grasp Jesus' Teaching?

How many today see that this was the crux of Jesus' teaching? Everything he did and said indicates that he would have understood Mary Baker Eddy's statement: "You, my students, are God." Jesus understood that the "I" of each one is God. He understood that what is called "man," is your Mind's image and likeness, as we learn in Mary Baker Eddy's definition of man. (See S&H 475.)

When Jesus stood before Pilate the people screamed, "Crucify him!" How many today, mired in the Adam dream of the reality of human birth and a flesh, blood, and bones man, would not also cry, "Crucify him!"-for don't we still believe, as they did, that bringing a child into the world is "a blessed event"?

But Jesus stood firm. Even while carrying the heavy cross under which he fainted, he continued to teach the women who lamented his fate, saying to them (Luke 23:28): "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold the days are coming, in the which they shall say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck."

This understanding was the basis for "his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant EXIT FROM THE FLESH" (S&H 117:21) "The phenomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only Life. Jesus demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above the illusion of matter" (Mis. 28:9).

Jesus knew that Mind, his true being, could not give birth to a matter being, to that which was the opposite of Mind, the All-in-all. If God, infinite good, your own right Mind, is All-in-all, how can it give birth to a matter creation, a flesh, blood and bones body that eventually gets sick, dies, and is buried? How can such a body or creation be anything but an illusion? How can it be anything but hypnotic suggestion, no matter how real our time-honored false education has made it seem?

It is the eons of false education that make it so hard for mortals to comprehend the truth that death begins at birth, the truth Jesus tried to teach us when he prayed, "And now, O, Father, glorify thou me with the glory I had with Thee [I had with reality] before the world was [before this Adam dream of birth into matter, this dream of life in matter, overtook me]."

Of all things Jesus and the prophets taught, perhaps the hardest for mortals to grasp (even though it is the central point in Scripture) is this teaching that human birth will end when spiritual understanding reigns. A few spiritually-minded people have glimpsed it. As long ago as 550 B.C. Pythagoras and the Pythagorean brotherhood taught and practiced celibacy, seeking "by rites and abstinences to purify the believer's soul and enable it to escape the wheel of birth" (Encyclopedia Br.). Indeed, monks and nuns of all religions have aspired to celibacy throughout the ages, without perhaps fully understanding why it was so important. But for the less spiritually-minded this practice has seemed alien and unnatural.

Jeremiah suffered dire persecution for his teaching of cursing the hour of his birth; tradition has it that he was eventually put to death, by being "sawn asunder," for this teaching. The early Christians met with barbaric persecution and death when they preached these spiritual facts. Each of Jesus' disciples except St. John met with a cruel and violent death for preaching sexual abstinence, as the Apocrypha makes clear.

"Corporeal Creation 'Cast Out'"

In the chapter "Marriage" (S&H 56:11) Mrs. Eddy equates human generation, corporeal creation, with that which was "cast out." What was "cast out" of heaven? Revelation 12:9 tells us: "And the great red dragon [human birth and generation] was CAST OUT, that old serpent [human birth] that deceiveth the whole world: he was CAST OUT... And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God [infinite good] day and night."

The "accuser" is the belief in a matter body and a material sense of things. Yes, "day and night" we are "accused"-we believe we live in a matter, flesh, blood, and bones body that can sin, get sick, be painful, and die.

Until Mary Baker Eddy revealed the non-existence of matter it seemed we stumbled into human birth without a strategy for ending it. But today, with the developing understanding of our true identity as God beings and that a matter body is pure illusion, we are on the threshold of a most momentous spiritual advance that will bring heaven on earth. We will begin to understand the kingdom of God that now lies latent within our consciousness, waiting to be awakened through the teaching of the "Comforter," the Second Coming of the Christ with the advent of Mary Baker Eddy.

We will be immeasurably blessed when we have learned and believe the teaching for which Jesus came-the teaching that our own Mind is God. This divine instruction gives us all- power, power we can only grasp when we see that human birth is, as Mrs. Eddy said, "the last enemy to be destroyed." Only when we reject the illusion of birth in matter will we find ourselves reborn in the reality of Spirit; then will we fully grasp the glorious truth of her statement of divine Science, "You, my students, are God."

Children's Corner

Einstein's Advice to Parents

"The most important thing parents need to do is to teach their children about God [infinite good]" -Albert Einstein.

A January 5, 1996 New York Times article headlined: "Physicists Manage to Create The First Antimatter Atoms" states, "Physicists at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics announced Jan. 5, 1996 that they had created for forty-billionths of a second, the first complete atoms of anti-matter ever made by human beings...."

This, of course, was no news to Christian Scientists. Over one hundred and thirty years ago Mary Baker Eddy declared there was no matter, and proved it when millions were healed by her and her students. Christian Scientists know that everything Mrs. Eddy saw and declared will be proved to be true.

Neither would the news have surprised Albert Einstein, who many times said, "Mrs. Eddy had it right; there is no matter."

There are many reports that Einstein frequented Christian Science Reading Rooms, and often asked the attendants: "Do you people know what you have in these books?" This brilliant physicist with the kindly face rejected established religions, preferring always to think for himself, but he was a deeply religious man and when he found the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, he quietly embraced Christian Science. It is reported that he kept the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, by his bed, and read it daily. Many people recall him standing in the foyer after a Christian Science church service, repeating his question: "Do you people know what you have in these books?"

This beloved "absent-minded professor," so far in advance of his times in physics, also harbored an advanced inner life. The depth of his understanding is evident in the way he handled the professional antagonism of fellow-physicists who regarded him with envy. "Arrows of hate have been shot at me," he said, "but they have not hurt me, because they come from a world with which I have no connection."

Einstein's Advice to Parents

His advice to parents to "teach children about God," means to teach them habits of obedience to moral and spiritual law. This alone can ensure their lasting happiness and self-worth. Tapping the strength within children and drawing out these strengths must be our aim.

The March and April, 1997, issues of Reader's Digest have excellent articles on "These Teens Know How to Say No," and "How to Raise Drug-Free Kids." These articles give special attention to those youngsters who seem eager to prove how tough they are and who are especially vulnerable to peer pressure, youths who all too often land in a stainless steel jail cell, where their only hope is to learn, as in Psalm 40:1,2, "...he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." How much better if we can set their feet upon a rock so they don't become mired in the pit.

If your child is in a talkative mood, and by some miracle is not on the phone for forty-five minutes, hanging up only in case the house is on fire, he'll probably tell you how little he learned in school today. But this is your chance to help him.

Parents are advised: "Talk to your children, listen to them. Set standards of right and wrong. Keep in mind that they learn by example. Love, support, and praise them so they will have a sense of self-worth. Loving attention is important in developing lifelong self-worth. The lack of self-worth is a major reason for drug use. Long before your children are ready for school establish family guidelines for behavior: honesty, fairness, respect for order and for law. Keep them busy. Be involved with their lives. Don't let your silence be acceptance." Though teachers often achieve hero-like status, it's what children encounter at home that counts the most. With young children it is not what parents say but what they do, that counts.

How Anyone Can Help

Those of us who have chosen not to have children, or whose children have grown and left, can help too. Sometimes as children become teenagers they find it harder to talk to their own parents. In fact it is natural at this age for children to turn away from family to the outer world for guidance. All too often this may mean turning to peers as confused as themselves, or to the questionable role models of pop culture. This is when caring adults who are not their parents can make a crucial difference.

Researchers studying why certain youngsters are able to blossom out of settings of poverty, neglect and abuse that destroy most children, consistently find one factor-some caring adult who has significantly touched that child's life.

What can we do? Take time to listen. Share an interest. Give encouragement and respect. Teens want guidance. They want someone to learn from as they struggle to figure out how to live in the world. They want someone to look up to but they also desperately want someone to see them as persons to be valued and respected, someone to believe in them and urge them to develop their talents.

Even in the least promising teenager hidden treasures may be revealed. How many of us would have seen the promise in Albert Einstein? He was a shy child, very slow learning to speak, a daydreamer who resisted schooling and challenged authority. His Greek teacher told him, "You will never amount to anything." The headmaster told his father that his choice of profession would not matter because he would never make a success of anything. By fifteen he had not only dropped out of high school, he had also turned his back on religion and renounced citizenship of his country!

What would have happened to this talented boy without the adults who believed in him: the mother who praised his successes, the uncle who introduced him to algebra and geometry at an early age? What would have become of him after he failed the entrance exam for a Swiss university if the director had not recognized his potential and urged him to go back to get his diploma at a Swiss high school?

We can never know beforehand whether the hand we extend to a child will make a difference, but the possibility is always there. By reaching out in love we put ourselves in the service of infinite good.

A Mighty Voice

Mary Baker Eddy awakened attention to the life of Jesus, to his divine humanity, humility, and healing power, and she called the age to contemplate and imitate the Christ character. Our true purpose as Christian Scientists, the reason we keep getting up every morning, is that we want to be a force for change, the change that brings about the divine understanding that our own real Mind is God, infinite good, and this gives us all the power there is, to lead and guide us heavenward.

What The Serpent Tries To Do

In Revelation 12, verses 15 and 16, we are told: "And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." This is what is happening today as those who usurped Mary Baker Eddy's place do everything they can to deprive her of her rightful place in human consciousness and human history. Many inspired accounts of our Leader, such as the 57 pages concerning "Mrs. Eddy's Place," are deliberately hidden from the field. Any show of gratitude for her work on earth is denounced as "worshipping" her, or "deifying" her.

"The Earth Will Help The Woman"

In issues 1 and 2 of this Letter it was clearly brought out that for the world to understand Mary Baker Eddy would do more than all else to promote the healing work of Christian Science. It has been the hiding of her character and divine life work that has caused the decline of healing in the Christian Science movement.

Mrs. Eddy knew that healing in Christian Science would be lost if she was not seen rightly as "that idea on earth" who fulfilled Bible prophecy in bringing the "Comforter," the Second Coming of the Christ.

It is so-called Christian Scientists within the movement who have stopped the healing by refusing to see our Leader as fulfilling Bible prophecy in bringing the "Comforter," the Second Coming of the Christ. The enemy knows that the more Mrs. Eddy's life and character are hidden the more our Cause will suffer.

But our Cause will not fail, for the prophecy of Revelation 12 continues, "And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth."

The great "battle of Armageddon" began when Mary Baker Eddy's first edition of Science and Health was published, and nearly one hundred twenty-five years later that battle is still raging.

Looking "Through The Lens Of Spirit"

"We should thank God for persecution and for prosecution, if from these ensue a purer Protestantism and monotheism....A siege of the combined centuries, culminating in fierce attack, cannot demolish our strongholds" as we see man "through the lens of Spirit [understanding], enlarged, and [see] how counterpoised is his origin from dust, and how he presses to his original, never severed from Spirit" (My. 127:19, & 129:15).

This is an historical moment. The positive side is spectacular as more people seek the spiritual. We have today entered a golden age that will continue until all men know themselves as having the Christ consciousness-the same consciousness Jesus had.

Because Christendom has not understood the teaching that Jesus demonstrated-namely, that his own Mind was God, and this gave him all power-we today, as dedicated Christian Scientists, have the opportunity to be in the forefront of this global realization that nearly two thousand years ago Jesus tried to teach mankind.

May the spiritually-minded readers of this "Letter" add their voice to that of Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, and together we will be a mighty force to help bring the realization of heaven here on earth.

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