A protective and enabling prayer

The crowd wanted to kill Jesus but the armor of TRUTH sheltered him.  The modern “crowd” – negativity, diseases, fear, divisiveness and hatred -- cannot harm us when we put on our divine armor.  Like Jesus, we can become conscious of the spiritual fact that we abide in the all-encompassing, spiritual ambience of infinite GOODNESS/GOD.   

When I am synchronized with LOVE’s preeminence, the same divine armor shelters me throughout the day, wherever I go and whomever I am with.   Invidious, treacherous, beguiling and perfidious attacks are nullified by it.  My understanding of the imperial presence and might of TRUTH crushes evil’s deceitful (serpentine) and boisterous (dragon-like) aggressions.    

I know that all spiritual authority and dominion emanates from comprehending and living the Christ-spirit.  When I am expressing Christly love and wisdom I am part of a universal network of spiritual torch-and-sword carriers.  This spiritual brotherhood/sisterhood strengthens and invigorates me.  

Not blind faith, but active spiritual reasoning counters stress, worry, fear and doubt.  I am upheld by GOD-PRINCIPLE, who blesses me.  Everything I do which spreads righteousness, justice, intelligence and love is infused with divine victory. 

The eternal WORD rouses me with empyrean wisdom and health, and it meets all my daily needs.  Awake to divine TRUTH I can impart healing power and grace.  In fact, the slightest inspiration from MIND/GOD expresses what M. B. Eddy described as “the immortal, unerring, and infinite.’”

Humility toward the divine PRINCIPLE quashes personal pride and ego, while it opens us up to limitless divine resources.   The divine EGO cancels the feeble, mortal ego and makes me an instrument of divine wisdom, grace and might. 

LOVE proclaims and reveals its divine governance and restorative grace through each humble and caring heart.  There are millions of such people.  When I behave like them I am protected among them.  But what is more outstanding is that together we are a triumphant army of LOVE’s intelligent and generous doers. 

We can nullify materiality’s temptations with divine TRUTH/WISDOM.

"Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. ² There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. … ¹³ After finishing every temptation, the devil departed from him until the next opportunity. ¹⁴ Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside" (Luke 4:1-2, 13-14).

Devil/Satan = fraudulent materiality attempting to deny us our spiritual heritage, which we possess as manifestations of SPIRIT/TRUTH.


M. B. Eddy: “The Science Jesus taught and lived must triumph over all material beliefs and about life, substance, and intelligence, and the multitudinous errors growing from such beliefs.”


Our spiritual intelligence can laser through the fraudulent temptations of materiality. 

To the first temptation, to turn the stone into bread, Jesus replied, “It’s written, ‘People won’t live only by bread.’”   When hungering for something good we can have more of it by perceiving and striving for its spiritual substance, and by comprehending that MIND produces limitless goodness.

To the second temptation, to bow to materiality so as to possess all that is in the material world, he responded, “It’s written, “You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”  Since materiality is a mortal illusion it does not have anything but illusions to offer.  We can have infinite, spiritual substance by discerning the allness of SPIRIT. 

To the third temptation, to jump off the highest peak of the temple, Jesus’ riposte was, “It’s been said, ‘Don’t test the Lord your God.’”  The paramount wholeness and concord of our existence in MIND cannot be grasped by the dullness of materiality. 

Spiritual cognition, or Christ, radiates the divine power and bounty of eternal TRUTH.  It annuls material hindrances as it propels our wellness and progress.

We are divinely authorized.

John 8:44, New King James Version (NKJV)

⁴⁴ You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

Eddy: “Devil.  Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism ….”  And, “Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity.”

Evil = a lie, a deflection from TRUTH.  All problems are deflections of inviolate, unsurpassable TRUTH/GOODNESS.  We pertain to supreme HARMONY/LOVE.  This comprehension augments our good and banishes evil/discord.  Great results ensue when we understand and declare, “Sinful and sickly mortality, you have always been a lie, fathered by the lie of materiality.  Your attempt to deceive me is nullified because I am aligned with TRUTH.  You cannot destroy or harm me because I am awake to the sovereignty of GOOD/LOVE.  My spiritual understanding unmasks and vanquishes all lies, and asserts illimitable SPIRIT-GOOD.” 

John 8:3-11, The Message (MSG)

^3-6The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, "Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?" They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him. ^6-8Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, "The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone." Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. ^9-10Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. "Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?" ¹¹"No one, Master." "Neither do I," said Jesus. "Go on your way. From now on, don't sin."

Eddy: “I am Spirit.  Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness.  He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity.  The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory, -- all are Mine, for I am Truth.  I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love.”

Unfathomable and preeminent GOOD/SOUL subsumes our constitution, and this unity makes it outstanding and glorious.  Ignorance, sin, guilt, failure and illness are eradicated by the understanding of our intrinsic, celestial wholeness.   

Our MIND-enforced wholeness

“How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!   Yes, how warm, tender, and sanative is the ambience of MIND.  Its therapeutic laws enforce our divine constitution, which is saturated with empyreal health, wisdom, love and plentitude. 

MIND’s instructive concepts cultivate our ability to see ourselves as unlimited beings, constructed of divine elements.  When we are conscious of our spiritual composition it is natural to be and feel whole. 

Materialistic theories attempt to deceive us by affirming that we have a fragile, bio-chemical, DNA-shaped structure.  Of course, these deceptions cannot change our MIND-enforced and intrinsic perfection.  But they can fool us temporarily.  Unaware that we’ve been defrauded by corporeality we accept limits, fears and faults that are foreign to our spiritual wholeness

Physical identifiers also cause us to feel empty and hungry for more material this or that.  The emptier and more fearful we feel the more stress we experience.  This generates psychological, psychiatric and other physiological breakdowns.  There are billions of dollars spent on material remedies every day by people attempting to fix their material bodies and minds, without meaningful results. 

SOUL-PRINCIPLE is the legitimate identifier and producer of man and the universe.  It holds everything within its harmonious unity. 

M. B. Eddy wrote, “In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above what it reflects, all is one grand concord.”

Spiritual metaphysics educates us with provable, spiritual laws and facts.  It asserts that we have nothing to do with a DNA-constricted, skin-sack of flesh, blood and bones; and everything to do with MIND. 

We experience outstanding healings when we are convinced of what St. Paul realized: “... we have a building (a divine individuality) of God (SPIRIT-MIND), an house (a spiritual structure) not made with hands (not subject to material beliefs), eternal in the heavens (made of LOVE’s immortal elements).” 

MIND is sovereign everywhere.  Its intelligence, love, dominion and harmony abound.  Its prosperous and concordant universe furnishes us with amazing resources and attributes with which we can advance our lives and everyone else's.

All good is possible now

91^st Psalm: “Because thou hast made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”

Eddy: “The power of God brings deliverance to the captive.  No power can withstand divine Love.”  And, “Man is, and forever has been, God’s reflection.”

In spite of the troubles that we encounter, PRINCIPLE’s alterative laws remain active on our behalf.  They are continually with us to direct, illumine, inspire and enable our healings, advancement and victories.  

Evil’s seeming reality is uncovered and negated by TRUTH’s educational effects.   Divine understanding causes evil to coward, and it flees from us.  Distresses do come to an end; our physical sufferings are exterminated; and dilemmas are given effective answers.  This happens because divine TRUTH-MIND never stops redeeming, uplifting and regenerating our lives.  

The 38-year invalidism of the man at the pool of Bethesda was healed in an instant.  Although the others at the pool rejected the spiritual illumination that Jesus brought to them, this man welcomed it.  Those bad 38 years were suddenly nullified because he accepted his innate, spiritual wholeness.  He experienced the sanative effects of the ever-present Christ.  

All-mighty and all-active MIND exudes excellence in our incorporeal composition and throughout our unbounded, spiritual universe.  It showers us with spiritual goodness.  Every moment belongs to interminable and timeless LIFE-MIND.  At this very moment we are being supplied with MIND’s brilliant answers and sanative power. 

We can enjoy PRINCIPLE’s harmonizing of our human body, and of our personal and business affairs.  PRICIPLE is the generator of our health, peace, confidence and wholeness. 

Discovering the healing power inside the 91st Psalm.


91st Psalm: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee."

LIFE-LOVE, your all-encompassing goodness encircles me and all.  We are safe and advancing within your sovereign harmony.  PRINCIPLE-TRUTH, you reveal in us unbounded wisdom, intelligence, resources and power.  I am humbled by how our expression of YOU, THE I AM ALL, defeats all enemies (error's magnestism, malicious suggestions, hypnotism, material imperfections), and draws out our spiritual endowments and generates outstanding achievements. 

Also,

"With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation."

Thank you, unconfined LOVE, for helping me to feel the nearness and sweetness of your grace.  Thank you for rescuing me from desperate circumstances; for forgiving me; and for renewing me.  Thank you for engineering me with your matter-erasing, SPIRIT-overflowing health, life and might. 

An example of the 91st Psalms' ideas applied:
       
         He was eating dinner alone and struggling with the burden of so many problems.  Suddenly he could not swallow the bite of fish. A piece of fish bone was choking him to death. He felt impotent to get up to get a drink of water. 

He regretted dying without having been able to do more for those back home who depended on him.

He said mentally to himself, “I may be dying, but I cannot be separated from infinite, divine LOVE.”

His quick turning to the ever-presence of TRUTH brought to him this healing verse from the 91st Psalm:

¹¹For He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways.

He also remembered Jesus Christ’s reference to the many “angels” protecting him.  Jesus said it to Pilate right before his crucifixion.

He intuited that these same celestial, benevolent forces of LOVE were rescuing him. Then the fish bone slid right on through. Now he felt safe and comforted by loving, divine agencies (“angels”).

Instead of dying, he lived. Feeling grateful and safe within LOVE’s sovereignty, he fell asleep.

An hour later he woke up and his outlook on his troubles was changed. He was convinced an army of compelling, intelligence influences was directing his life, and available to everyone.

                             Our Christly triumphs

Sometimes negative elements seem overpowering.  It may be the wrongs we’ve done.  Or the anger and hurt we feel from the wrongs done to us.  Or it may be long-term fears, weaknesses, and past setbacks. 

LOVE-TRUTH is all-mighty, fathomless and triumphant.  We can rely on LOVE’s transformational might, which every Christly outlook induces. 

A Christly attitude generates victory.  It bathes us with holy love and truth, and it arms us with spiritual wisdom. 

Christ can re-make us from head-to-toe, inside and outside.   TRUTH’s unsurpassable power works through our Christly inspiration, and it liberates us from sin, illness, fear, poverty and even death. 

Christ manifests LOVE’s intelligent outcomes.  It proves that evil’s influences and circumstances are impotent and, ultimately, unreal. 

Jacob’s victory over evil has much to teach us.  First, we should recognize that Jacob’s attacker is comprised of carnal mentality – that is, of sinful and entrenched ways of thinking and behaving.  He has spent his life being selfish, self-centered and greedy, and doing harm to many. 

Bad character traits were encouraged by his mother, Rebecca, from his earliest years.  In fact, it is she who puts him up to the act of betraying his father and brother. 

As he sits by the river bank despairing that he will be killed by his avenging brother (or by his uncle, Laban), he realizes that this is the first time in his life when he has no escape.  In the past he had outwitted those standing in his way, he had seized advantage from every chink in their armor, and he’d been faster and more deceiving. 

Yes, he’d alienated many, but they feared him.  He was also financially wealthier for it. 

His conniving, wealth and power had made for an impenetrable barrier.  His armor is now shattered.  He is disgusted by his past and dreading death. 

Self-pity says to him: “You did what you did because you were not loved.  Maybe, you are not worthy of love.”  It hurts to think this.  It opens up the old wounds he believed he had sutured with success.  

Moral questionings and self-doubts had arisen in his mind before but he had quickly discarded them.  This time he cannot.  They are too many and too loud.  The fear and greed that had motivated him are now expired. 

 Christly humility and repentance allow him to admit and cast off his sins. 

An inner stillness settles upon him.  He wants more of it.  The light of self-awakening is shining into his darkest mental chambers.  Hope and reformation are bursting forth. 

What was “out of joint” in his life is now being mended.  He can feel the power of LOVE’s grace.  He is being re-engineered by all the angel messages of redemption.  Christ is triumphing.

He remembers how LOVE had visited him decades before when he was only a young man.  It happened when he had been alone and afraid in the desert.  Yes, it was a holy ladder he climbed in his dream.  From the top of it he saw something of the illimitableness of LOVE’s providing.  He discerns that perfect LOVE is with him now as it was then. 

LOVE says to him, “You are my beloved expression of Christly goodness.”   He holds onto this vision until it takes away even the ashes of the old, sinful, counterfeit personality.  Not even the smell of it is left. 

He is a new man and his new name is Israel (meaning that SOUL-LOVE has prevailed in him).  He has “seen God face to face.”  He is able to express Christly grace, power and immortality. 

LOVE-SOUL imparts Christly goodness to all.  Certainly, we are ordained by SOUL with the spiritual capacity to be victorious over evil. 

We obtain from SOUL all manner of heavenly goodness.   This includes health, love, wisdom, might and an interminable spiritual identity. 

Christ is our true nature.  This conviction brings forth Peniel-like, transformational moments wherein we perceive LOVE’s overflowing goodness, and our immortal and immaculate identity. 

LOVE’s redemptive power – that is, Christ -- triumphed in Jacob and it is doing so now in every humble and yielding heart. 

Hearts ablaze with divine LIFE

Two despondent men journey one afternoon from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, about 7 miles distant.  Unexpectedly, another man joins them, whom they do not recognize and regard as a stranger. 

The two men are forlorn disciples of Jesus.  They tell the stranger about Jesus of Nazareth, a great prophet who was condemned and crucified three days before.  They add that they visited the tomb on rumors that he might be alive, but found it empty.  They are convinced that they will not see him again. 

After rebuking their meager faith, the stranger lovingly elucidates all the Scriptural prophecies about the Messiah and his spiritual triumph over materiality and death.  He reveals to them how Jesus fulfilled all those prophecies. 

They now see Jesus' career in a new light and are able to accept the promise of the resurrection made possible by the events of the past three days. 

Sometime later, while dining, they recognize that the stranger who has just broken bread and offered a blessing is Jesus Christ, the risen Savior!

At this moment Jesus disappears.  But they are left with a vivid perception of interminable SPIRIT-LIFE.  Turning to each other they say, "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures" (Luke 24: 13-32)?

Yes, their hearts were now ablaze with immortal LIFE.  Their consciousness was ignited by the realization that life was much more than a material body.  It was comprised of spiritual transcendence.  The promise of the resurrection had been fulfilled! 

Life could no longer be regarded the same old way--a cycle of material birth, growth, maturity, decay and death.  More than before they could now see that we are the empyrean oeuvre of perennial LIFE-PRINCIPLE.  Just as this divine and imperial LIFE-PROVENANCE is exempt from beginning and end, then so is its celestial expression – non-material man and universe. 

They experienced the divine propulsion that comes from knowing that man's life is indestructible and eternally in LIFE's tender and sheltered embrace.

By appearing to the rest of the disciples, Jesus also invigorated them with the understanding that man's life is the outcome of SPIRIT/TRUTH.  This deepened their love for divine LIFE and man and re-routed their lives.  Armed with the Holy Ghost--the realization that existence is LIFE’s harmonious and unstoppable force--they spread the inspiring news (gospel) and lifted others from sin, sickness, and death. 

The New Testament explains, "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all"  (Acts 4:33).

The writings by Mary Baker Eddy (a 19^th century theologian and metaphysical healer) have elucidated the spiritual message of the Bible for many people, and, consequently, have transformed their lives.  Studying them has been like a walk to Emmaus, for it has opened their eyes to LOVE's imperial allness and man as His spiritual and deathless expression.  Their view of existence has been de-materialized and this has resulted in moral regeneration and physical healing.

Speaking of Jesus' resurrection, M. B. Eddy writes, "...he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter.  This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love"  (S&H 54:14-17).

In a sense, we too are resurrected (awakened) to a new life of divinely empowered consecration and achievement.  We realize that man's true being is in SPIRIT-MIND, and not imprisoned in matter.  This realization brings to bear upon human experience the redeeming power of Christly understanding.

Like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, our hearts begin to burn with a deeper love for GOOD/GOD and man.  And we are propelled by a clearer realization of our unbounded, spiritual possibilities.    

It is LIFE-SOUL's animus that impels us to value and associate with illimitable, divine goodness (GOD) more.  In turn, our spiritual affections are renewed and strengthened, and society's conventional attitudes no longer hinder us from accomplishing the seemingly impossible. 

Fear of social stigma, peer pressure, and limiting beliefs are disarmed by the luminosity and energy of a Christ-filled consciousness.  Now infused by Christ’s might, we go on to exceed material restrictions. 

We exude newfound courage and determination because we know that infinite TRUTH is sustaining and carrying us forward.  And in the process we are delighted to find that “miracles” are natural outcomes of a heart/consciousness aligned with supreme SPIRIT/LIFE. 

A life fired by the spirit of Christ cannot avoid radiating healing grace and power.  It propagates LOVE’s love.  This ignites the hearts of others.  And because it is more than the letter of Christianity, but its spirit that is being multiplied, the outstanding results will remind us of those experienced by the early Christians after Jesus' ascension.

Our inward voice of SOUL

 Psalm 25:1 (21st Century King James Version): “Unto Thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul;”

Eddy: “As astronomy reverses the human perception of the movement of the solar system, so Christian Science reverses the seeming relation of Soul and body and makes body tributary to Mind.”

SOUL is the fountain and all-substance of existence.  By reversing material distortions with spiritual facts we realize that we are the outstanding outflow of SOUL.  As such, we can experience SOUL’s currents of celestial health, vigor, intelligence and success.  This understanding removes pains, impediments and failures.

SOUL communicated with Moses as it does with every accepting heart.  Moses’ 40 years of spiritual development after he fled Egypt awakened in him the inward voice of SOUL.  This inward voice opened up his mind to extraordinary lessons. 

He grasped that SOUL has endowed us with wondrous capacities.  Among these are empyrean health, courage, intelligence and power. 

A spiritually enlightened consciousness is a sanative force to the human body, and it expresses divine power against troubles.  Moses conquered the venomous serpent, leprosy, diseases, and Pharaoh’s military might with spiritual prowess. 

The inward voice of SOUL imparts wisdom and power to us.  It communicates and manifests everything we need to conquer our difficulties and to advance our lives. 

Encompassed and propelled by LOVE

From The Message (1 Corinthians 13): “If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

   Love never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
   Love doesn't strut,
   Doesn't have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
   Isn't always "me first,"
   Doesn't fly off the handle,
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
   Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
   Puts up with anything,
   Trusts God always,
   Always looks for the best,
   Never looks back,
   But keeps going to the end. Love never dies.

Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.”

By M. B. Eddy (Misc. Writings p. 249: 27-2np):

“Love.  What a word! I am in awe before it. Over what
worlds on worlds it hath range and is sovereign! the un‐
derived, the incomparable, the infinite All of good, the
alone God, is Love.”

LOVE commands and impels our being.  Therefore, all dynamic, loving, intelligent, bold and creative advances are generated by INTELLIGENCE/LOVE.   

Foibles, failures, ignorance and suffering are cancelled by our expression of the qualities of MIND/LOVE.  This therapeutic process generates magnificent rewards.

LOVE is LIFE. LIFE is LOVE.  LIFE/LOVE generates excellence and immortality in all of us.  It colligates us, and voids conflicts, loss and betrayals.  Even in spite of death, LIFE/LOVE holds us in spiritual unity. 

We belong to the wisdom and spirit of LOVE/LIFE.  This understanding crushes material adversities and induces closeness and happiness. 

LOVE is the core, thrust, and splendor of our impeccable and victorious being.    

  

Comprehensive wellness

By

Julio C. Rivas, CS

We need a comprehensive approach to health.  Without it what we do right is diminished by what we do wrong. 

A highly-exercised person can be unhealthy for multiple reasons, among which include smoking, excessive alcohol, eating poorly, hateful and dishonest living, and a highly stressful life.  A slim person can be unhealthy due to the above reasons and a lack of exercise. 

A person with above-average weight doing many right things can be healthier than one who possesses an attractive body shape.  

Caring relationships and love for ourselves, whether one is underweight or overweight, always promote health. 

The comments by these experts emphasize certain aspects to a comprehensive approach to health.

Eddy: "Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense."

NY Times columnist, Gretchen Reynolds, says, “Two-thirds of Americans get no exercise at all. If one of those people gets up and moves around for 20 minutes, they are going to get a huge number of health benefits, and everything beyond that 20 minutes is, to some degree, gravy.”

Victoria Pitts-Taylor is a professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, says, “Our body shapes are influenced by a whole range of factors, including genetic, economic and environmental factors, as well our lifestyles, which are themselves pretty complicated arrangements. Our perception of health should be broader than the medically and statistically determined body mass index.”

Marilyn Wann, a fat activist and author says, “An approach called Health at Every Size” offers an alternative that, based on scientific evidence, is better for both health and happiness. Developed in the last 25 years by experts in health, psychology, nutrition and fitness, “Health at Every Size” invites people to stop dieting, love their bodies, end weight prejudice and find enjoyable food and fitness habits. In preliminary research, “Health at Every Size” improved long-term health and happiness, where weight-loss methods did not.”

Erika Nicole Kendall, a wellness author, says, “Having a healthy body image means appreciating the beauty you have now, and any beauty you may acquire while you are taking care of yourself. You love the body you have, and you make that love an action verb by taking care of it: you feed it what it needs, you do your best to avoid what it doesn't, and you keep it engaged.”

Overall wellness requires a comprehensive approach.  The take-off premise is spiritual health.  Spirituality nurtures mental/emotional/physical health. 

 It motivates us to involve ourselves in intelligent and caring activities that better our world.  This induces affectionate, rewarding and trust-based relationships.  

To this mix we can add the exclusion of poisons like drugs, alcohol and tobacco; fueling ourselves with moderate amounts of fresh and healthy food; and engaging in moderate, daily exercise.

Spirituality anchors and propels comprehensive wellness.  A spiritually calibrated life is fueled by infinite SPIRIT-LOVE, which we can regard as the divine ALL-GOOD.  It is a goodness-generating, matter-transcending LOVE-POWER.  We are its metaphysical and immortal oeuvre. 

We are not souls trapped in a decaying, mortal, physical body.  From SPIRIT/LIFE we derive a beautiful, celestial essence.  Hence, spiritual wholeness is the core and substance of our genuine being.  This recognition can help us re-mold our lives, including our physical bodies. 

Spiritual cognition harmonizes our mind, emotions and body.  It causes us to be more alert to and ameliorate such harmful impositions as insecurity, envy, greed, hatred, revenge, and fear.

The ALL-LOVE/INTELLIGENCE enhances our capacities to build honest and trust-filled relationships.  Family and friends are made more solid by it.  It also promotes the wisdom and perspicacity to guide us through the mine-fields of professional relationships. 

We are the immortal outcome of the infinite PRINCIPLE/LOVE.  This gives us divine abilities and purpose.  Yes, we can love ourselves and each other.  But we also can employ our divine abilities to enhance ourselves and the world. 

Comprehensive wellness motivates, capacitates and activates us.  It happens naturally when we know that we are outstanding, beautiful, spiritual beings.  And that we are essential to infinite SPIRIT/LOVE and to one another. 

“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together …”

Eddy: "Who lives in good, lives in God, -- lives in all Life, through all space.  His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns.  His existence is deathless, forever unfolding its eternal Principle" (P&P p. 4)

LIMITLESS GOOD (LOVE-PRINCIPLE) subsumes all being.  We cannot avoid living in SOUL-PRINCIPLE.  Our copious, spiritual composition (identity) is propagated by it. 

Our challenges and dilemmas are drowned out by the profuse uniqueness, love, health, strength, ageless being, wealth and freedom we obtain from PRINCIPLE. 

Even the smallest apprehension of these celestial forces releases amazing goodness into our experience.  

We are LIFE-empowered

1 Corinthians 15:51-53, The Message (MSG)

^51-57But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?  It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

Eddy: “God, the divine Principle of man, and man in God’s likeness are inseparable, harmonious, and eternal.”

We belong to superlative LIFE.  We manifest LIFE’s immaculate, luminous, and timeless wholeness.   This insight quashes sin; elides the heavy weights of guilt; and gives us the freedom to express TRUTH’s interminable and flourishing majesty. 

 Having life in its fullest 

“… I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest” (Jesus Christ).

A metaphysical, enlightened interpretation of Jesus' teachings reveals the steadfastness and intensity of LOVE's love.  And the innate wholeness of man in LOVE's divine image. 

We learn to appreciate Jesus' instructions as universal truths flowing out from timeless WISDOM-LOVE. 

They alter every open heart/mind with divine grace, health and might.  They fill us with luminous, Christly energy.  This divine energy elides illnesses and foibles, overcomes obstacles, and induces marvelous achievements. 

The Christ-spirit morphs us into a better man/woman.  It makes us more patient, forgiving and generous.  We also find ourselves more able to manifest creativity, mental elasticity and acuity, and courage.  

Jesus' wisdom helps us sense the divine zest within ourselves and others.

Shattering materiality’s hypnotism

          For a long time it has been a recognizable fact that perceptions are manipulated by suggestions and expectations.  Now neuroscience has taken a fresh interest in hypnotism. 

Modern findings verify that people can see, hear and feel what is not there.  Even more significant is that neuroscience is discovering that the human mind is hypnotized most of the time by the unquestioned beliefs it clings to. 

          In the 18 century German physician, Dr. Franz Mesmer, employed mental suggestion to improve the health of his patients. 

Using the Greek word for sleep, the word hypnosis was coined in 1842 by English ophthalmologist, Dr. James Braid.  While he did not understand how it worked, he mesmerized people by looking into their eyes steadfastly. 

Some physicians today employ hypnotism to treat many mental and bodily disorders, including pain.  In the 19^th century they even used it as anesthesia for a variety of medical procedures until it was replaced by the discovery of ether.     

Certain entertainers, magicians among them, use hypnotism as part of their acts to the delight of their audiences.  People are made to do things unawares until the performer awakens them. 

Modern neuroscience distinguishes between bottom-up and top-down brain processing.  The former represents sensory data from the eyes, ears and body carried by nerves to the functionally higher regions of the brain for interpreting into information.  Top-down processing refers to our entrenched beliefs and how they distort what we experience.   Most of what we think we see, hear and feel is impacted by the framework, or imbedded filter, of our preconceptions. 

Spiritual metaphysics alerts us to how much of what we believe is real is constructed of the distortions produced by a mental filter of materiality.  Material existence is a hypnotic trance.  It is the top-down processing of a materialized set of beliefs.  In order for us to experience the beautiful and tangible authenticity of SPIRIT-GOODNESS we must replace this material filter. 

Spiritual education and daily meditation/prayer replaces a material-sense filter with one that is spiritually acute.  Doing so is a therapeutic process which welcomes into our lives the cascading currents of spiritual life, health, love and beauty. 

Divine metaphysics emphasizes that final reality for everyone and everything is immortal and magnificently good.  It cannot be otherwise since ultimate reality is the manifestation of immeasurable SPIRIT-LIFE.  An acute, spiritual sensibility connects us to preeminent INTELLIGENCE/SPIRIT and to our incorporeal, divine wholeness. 

A spiritual filter keeps us tuned in to our SPIRIT-enforced, outstanding and divine manhood/womanhood.  The false, bottom-up, material data of disease, fear and human weakness is subjected to the enforceable and healing facts of spiritual existence. 

19th century writer and metaphysical healer, M. B. Eddy, wrote this poignant and alterative statement, "The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the fables of mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths, singe their own wings and fall into dust."

MIND/SPIRIT has endowed us with limitless, superior abilities.  Complex problems, obstructions and failures cannot hypnotize us when we are expressing our divine talents. 

A sharp, penetrating, spiritual intellect shatters materiality’s hypnotism.  Our spiritual filter keeps us synchronized to LOVE’s harmonious, preeminent reality.