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Story of Progress Long has mankind been
content to think of himself as a human being born in this world to experience
the many vicissitudes of life – some good, and some bad. He has expected to live
his life span, then to have death overtake him. The goal of the majority
apparently has been to provide the necessities for a comfortable physical
existence, to enjoy life, and to submit to old age and inevitable death.
Man’s expectations of a future life are according to his individual beliefs
and religious training or lack of it. Thus he may expect to go out into
oblivion or to live on in a glorious heavenly realm. Now, new light of
understanding is dawning upon man’s consciousness, and in that light man is
beginning to see life as something much bigger than heretofore conceived.
"Now we are the Sons of God" living this portion of everlasting
life, which provides the opportunity for unfoldment into that sonship day by
day. Life goes on unendingly and each individual will have the opportunity to
achieve his sonship; he will know that he is an individualized center of
God-Being, and that he shares God-Life, God-Mind, God-Power, and God-Love.
His true purpose in life becomes the discovery of himself as he is in God,
and his object is to express that Self in everyday living. He understands
that he is born of God, is brought forth into expression without ever getting
outside of God, and lives forever in the omnipresence of God. Jesus’ great achievement
proves that he realized his true Self, his potentialities, and his divine
heritage. "As he is so are we in this world." 1 John 4:17 Man needs
only to know and obey the law by which Jesus achieved, to bring about his own
achievement as a Son of God. Chapter Eight Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Eph. 4:13 As He (Jesus) is, so are
we in this world. 1 John 4:17 Let this mind be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus. Phil. 2:5 Unfoldment Watch For Answers As You Read Give several proofs that man is capable of growth and development.
All
of us have looked at a full-blown flower and marveled that such beauty could unfold
from the tiny, brown seed, or from the lifeless-looing bulb. But we have seen
this happen so often that we have come to accept the fact that the complete
pattern of the perfected plant and blossom is implanted within the dormant
seed or bulb, and that the impulse for growth which will bring it to fruition
is also involved within its very nature. We
have not always realized that the same is true in the case of man, that is,
that the pattern of his beautifully perfect Christhood is implanted within
his innermost nature. That the Spirit of Life within him, as within the see,
acts as law to manaifest the fullness of its potentialities. Man's
Christ-like characteristics and nature will unfold through the process of
growth and development until the consciousness of the indivdual brings forth
the outpicturing of the Christ as his own person. Just as Jesus became the
Christ, so this is the latent possbility and destiny for the individual -
each one will become Christed. Divine
Science acknowledges an infinite Presence and Truth ever present with all
creation, but it also acknowledges the process by which the creature grows,
unfolds, and comes into a full-blown, conscious realization of himself and
his place in the cosmic order of life. This process is called spiritual
evolution, unfoldment, increasing awareness of Truth, or the law of spiritual
maturity. To substantiate the process of unfoldment is the fact that all
creation proceeds from the Infinite, but before visible creation could
possibly appear there must have been first the spiritual pattern for it in
God-Mind. Thus we see that greater by far is the God-Idea or prototypal man
implanted within us than is our present human expression of it. Man is the
Son of God, but as a son of man he has not yet put on that completeness which
is latently his in God-Mind. Within
the thought of evolution is the recognition of a persistent urge in all
living things to move on, to progress to new things and new experiences.
Emerson says, "The creation is on wheels, always passing into something
else, streaming into something higher." There is something in the very
nature of life itself that compels it and its creatures to move on. There is
an innate urge that speaks in every soul; aspirations in every human heart
which indicate the evolutionary tendency of the universe. The indefinable
Spirit which keeps us moving onward and upward is the great guardian of
humanity. It forwards creation's spiritual evolution for the purpose of
ultimately bringing out all the hidden wonders and beauties of the God-Mind.
For God holds all His ideas within His consciousness and is zealaous for the
development and fulfillment of their every potentiality. Divine
Science teaches that this creative drive is the God-idea, an infallible truth
moving throughout all the created realms, and calls it the Christ principle.
The Christ principle is the essential part of human nature. It is the
fundamental God-idea of MAN imbedded within the spiritual constitution of
that which appears to us as a human being. Christ is the truth that reveals
and expresses the life, purity, perfection, and power of the perfect Mind. In
the heart of all humanity are stirring dreams, ambitions, visions which are
of a higher order than man's present material environment. The source of such
dreams and visions is the Christ principle stirring within him to make him
aware of his true Self which is yet to be realized and manifested. This
Christ within is the motive power which constantly pushes man toward higher
evolvement. When
things move along very well, objectively speaking, man may deny or even fear
the deeper intuitions of his soul and continue to live by false values. He
may still work for outer goals, but if these goals, when achieved, turn out
to be disappointing, in that they do not give the inner peace and
satisfaction he had anticipated, he is not happy. By this very fact he should
realize that he is being urged to progress: "Be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Rom. 12:2 He
is now ready for a new state of consciousness and will not be happy until he
adjusts himself to becoming more nearly his real Self in thought and
practice. We
are to understand that man is a threefold being with three distinct aspects
to his nature. First, there is the physical aspect in which he seems to be
primarily a body - a body which is "fearfully and wonderfully
made." But man discovers that his body is subject to his mental states,
so the mental is man's second aspect. These two, the physical and the mental,
are referred to as the human personality and many people live a lifetime and
do not realize that there is still a deeper and more fundmental side to their
being, the spiritual aspect, the true Self of every man - the Christ. The
true Self is that part of man which speaks, unfolds, and expresses, not from
a world sense, but from a divine awareness. It knows beyond logic. It lives
not under the confines of time and space limitations but functions in the
freedom of Spirit. In the early periods of unfoldment this true Self, the
Christ, is so buried beneath mental concepts and sense training that it has
to be literally unearthed or resurrected and brought up to its rightful place
in our lives. As
indivduals journeying through life from a purely natural and objective vision
of life to the Christ Consciousness, or purely spiritual viewpoint, we seem
for a long time to be deadened by the material sense of things and to live
mainly at the level of physical sensation. Man begins his path of individual
experience and unfoldment in the material order of life where
self-preservation comes first. Moral, intellectual, and ethical values come
along at higher stages of natuaral and human development. Sooner or later the
intuitive urge for growth arouses the soul of man to be aware of a need for
something higher than his present material concept. He begins to realize that
he is destined for something more than the worldly life about him. Eventually
the Christ, the higher than the human or the natural, begins to dawn, and a
spiritual order is perceived, a rebirth occurs and a new set of values comes
to consciousness. As man is able to silence the personal and material senses,
the spiitual aspect of his nature as it comes to conscious level and makes
itself known as an active presence within his very soul. For a man to accept
the spiritual reality of his being evokes inspiration, mighty strength, and
an awareness of his true talents and abilities which spring out of the Son of
God, the Christ, within him. With
growth comes faith in our God-nature, in the Christ, the potential man within
us. We begin to believe in it, to declare it, and wait. "For ye have
need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God ye might receive
the promise." Heb. 10:36 "First the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear." Mark 4:28 So is the order of creation, or
unfoldment; there is first the Universal (Cause), then the individual
(effect). At first we discover "the I Am that I am" and faintly
realize it – "the blace," but as revelation is received thought
expands – "the ear," until we recognize the All as all – "the
full corn in the ear." Babyhood of understanding first, gradually more
and more perception, then finally, realization or conscious possession of Truth,
thus does the individual evolve. It
is scientifically true to teach that the Infinite expresses what it is and
neither does nor can express that which it is not; that there are no
qualities inherent in man except God qualities, no attributes in man’s nature
that are not attributable to God. The way we grow and release ourselves from
our limited experiences is by the changing of our thought patterns. Each
unfoldment of thought is a resurrection. Out of some dead concept our
mentality rises to a greater realization of the living Truth. The more
conscious we are of the Truth of Life, the fuller our understanding of the
forms of life. It is man’s thought of life that awakens in consciousness to
fuller comprehension of what is. The revelation of truth by which man sees
more and more clearly is evolution. We ascend to realize our perfect Self,
the Christ. All things await man’s recognition and acceptance. As
students of Divine Science we have continuously been taught to affirm the
reality of the I Am, the indwelling Christ, the true Self. Now, we can better
understand the reason for this, for since our lives are unfolding states and
stages of our spiritual Selfhood, as we let the Christ enlighten the
conscious levels of our being, we are renewed, inspired, and prospered by the
divinity within us. As we grow in consciousness of our unity with God and
develop power to express the Christ in our daily living, the blessings of the
Most High, which are our inalienable rights, come into our experience more
easily and naturally. In the cosmic order of the universe it is intended that
God should express through man, or that God’s will be done through the
consciousness of His son, the individual. "To this end was I born, and
for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
truth." John 18:37 The
wonderful experience of awakening to the truth that we ourselves incorporate
the God-idea of MAN, Christ the Son, must come to everyone at some time in
his unfoldment. All through life we, as individuals, do the things we do according
to the general tenor of our understanding, our level of unfoldment, our
growth in consciousness. Each individual life is a journey in consciousness,
and many changes and adjustments will be necessary as we grow. Each
adjustment affords new growth and opens new vistas. Each understanding of God
and His overwhelming generosity in the manifestation of His Spirit in the
life of the individual brings new concepts with lift the soul into higher
levels of consciousness. When
our life and behavior rise from a spiritual basis, we see life as something
greater than a birth-and-death arrangement. We begin to think in terms of a
spiritual universe, rather than of a material world; we think in terms of
eternal life and the immortality of the individual soul. We then understand
that since God is infinite perfection and creates perfection, we are all
potentially perfect in Christ, the perfect pattern of MAN. As the soul’s
evolution is realized in daily living, we begin to take on the likeness of
the God-image within us. We begin to see that even during this period of
gradual development, we are nevertheless innately perfect; our perfection is
the spiritual truth of us, and we look up to this omnipresent and indweling
nature as our true being. "We have this treasure in earthen
vessels." 2 Cor. 4:7 Strict adherence to principle and faithful practice
bring out what is potential within. We unfold the fullness of what is within
us. The
law of growth and unfoldment is the law of Self-expression, or God acting and
revealing Himself; God creating within and unto Himself. The process of
calling forth that which is potential within is true education. The only true
growth is the unfoldment of the powers and possibilities that we are. All
unfoldment is the work of an Unfolder, God. All growth reveals the effect of
the activity of God. Therefore, direct expression of God in creation by means
of divine activity is the law of growth and unfoldment. We, as individual
expressions of this divine activity, are accountable for our actions as we
grow and unfold in consciousness. We may often "miss the mark" as
we feel our way while growing; even so we always reap as we sow and thus we
learn our lessons in life with law as our schoolmaster until our motives
coincide with God’s purpose of All Good. "Be not deceived; God is no
mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal. 6:7 Human
life, objectively considered, is a growing unfolding, progressive process. It
never remains static. As we grow and unfold our individuality (that which we
innately are) it is a satisfaction to know that only that which is involved
into the Christ pattern of man by the Creator can be evolved or unfolded into
permanent manifestation. Reason tells us that there must be a basic
consciousness, or first mind, out of which this continuous unfoldment takes
rise. As God alone is, it is God who is manifested in an ever-present
creation. The rule of the creative process is that all proceeds out of the
infinite All; visible creation appears according to the spiritual pattern for
it, the image in the mind of the Infinite. The
Bible presents the history of this gradual unfoldment of the race into more
and more consciousness, from the awakening of its mentality in Adam to its
great perception by Jesus. The Bible is the story of man’s unfolding
consciousness of his God and of his own innate divinity, his Christhood. As
we study the Bible, giving special attention to the life and teachings of
Jesus, we find there the evidence that he came to a higher understanding of life;
that he became aware of his own divine nature and lived in accordance with
its guidance. His teachings and works show how the love of the Father causes
life to overflow with spiritual blessings; prove the power of God to lead men
into all truth; and demonstrate the power of spirit to heal dis-ease and to
manifest the wholeness of the body. Jesus taught that Spirit is always
affirmative; taught that it is God’s will that man should be whole and that
when he accepts and rejoices in the Wholeness within him, he allows it to
manifest. He showed man’s ability to use Truth would reveal the light of
truth regarding any circumstance or condition; he showed that God is
all-sufficient in all things as He gives the light needed to illumine the
way. Jesus literally became the Christ made flesh; became the personification
of the Christ. By his resurrection Jesus revealed that life is greater than
death and that death is but life’s effort to free itself from man’s
self-imposed limitations. Jesus’
disciples accepted the fact that Jesus knew that what was true for him was
also true for all mankind, for it was John who said, "As he is, so are
we in this world." 1 John 4:17 The indwelling Christ is the same
creative channel and quality of Spirit working in us which worked in and
through Jesus. The same Christ principle which evolved in Jesus is in each of
us and as wholly capable fo guiding our unfoldment to its destined goal. We
now see that Jesus is our wayshower because his clear realization of the
Fatherhood of God and the sonship of man demonstrated how the Christ
manifests in the flesh, when given opportunity, until the man, the effect,
become the true embodiment of the Christ, the indwelling Cause. In Jesus the
inner and outer became one and indivisible – Jesus Christ! Jesus is the
perfect example of man’s potentiality. Paul assures us that we may accomplish
our Christhood, when he says, "For if the first fruit (Jesus) be holy,
the lump (mankind) is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the
branches." Rom. 11:16 Our work is to find and prove our own divinity, to
unfold our own latent powers, and to bring forth our own indwelling Christ as
the second coming. Through
the guidance of the Christ Spirit within we are awakened to the spirit of all
Good. This Christ Consciousness is the fullness of the riches of divine Mind
active in our souls. The attainment of Christ Consciousness is our goal.
Christ Consciousness is spiritual perception in contrast to intellectual
analysis; it is awareness of the spiritual nature and function of the
universe. Consciousness is the measuring stick of our unfoldment. The levels
of man’s consciousness may vary from the lowest and slowest to a cosmic
quality. Cosmic Consciousness, toward which we are unfolding, is the
awareness of the cosmos, or the life, nature, and beauty of the universe. It
is supreme intuitive knowledge of the divine order that transcends the mere
intellectual faculty of comprehension. Cosmic Consciousness gradually dawns;
we grow up into it. In this new consciousness we willingly subscribe to a
wholly spiritual way of thinking, acting and being. Those
of us living in the world order are travelers on the path of unfoldment. Our
perfection is as yet only a spiritual truth and not a complete manifestation.
When the highest that we know seems show in manifesting perhaps it is because
we are still accepting more of the old order than we realize. Let us be
patient if there are seasons when we seem to lack the power of perfect
demonstration in all ways. We are still growing, but complete education along
spiritual lines comes slowly. When we arrive we shall live in a spiritual
order of life here and now. When man comes to that place in growth where he
discovers his real being and, living from this viewpoint, will use the
natural order for greater accomplishments rather than be used by laws over
which he seems to have no control, he will have come to the place where he
knows that there is nothing to fear. He will have overcome the former bad
habits of envy, jealously, hatred, and revenge with their resulting illness.
Then shall peace come upon the earth, for the true way of life will be known
and proven right here. We shall eventually reach the stage of development
where we demonstrate with the skill of the Christed man. There
are many ways in which we may hasten the process of growth: 1.
We
can regularly be still and know. 2.
We
can uphold that which we know to be within us, for we have a living example
of it in Jesus Christ. 3.
We can
expect a coming forth of this miracle-working power in the wake of
affirmation and realization of its divine nature. 4.
We
can act from the basis of a Son of God within ourselves and release more and
more of it through the conscious and subconscious levels of human personality
until the outer takes on the perfection of the inner. "Until Christ be
formed in you." Gal. 4:19 5.
We
can see that Jesus’ attitude brought him assurance of his good. His attitudes
can be our attitudes: a.
Certainty
of the Father’s care. b.
Nonresistance
to conditions or appearances "Be no overcome of evil, but overcome evil
with good." Rom. 12:21 c.
Dependence
upon the Fathers guidance. "I can of mine own self do nothing."
John 5:30 1.
We
can practice seeing the Christ within another. This means to accept the
divinity which is potential within everyone and to uphold the integrity,
wholeness, and latent possibilities that are there though they are not yet
manifested. 2.
We
can practice keeping our thoughts, actions, and reactions positive so that
they heal adverse situations. In negative circumstances, to do as we have
been done by only adds fuel to the fire. 3.
We
can remember that unkind, untrue, chilish, petty, angry, and ugly remarks
have no place in our new vision of life. 4.
We
can prove for ourselves, as did Jesus, that when human life is lived in
realization of the omnipresence of God as Life, then spiritual demonstrations
bless our human existence. 5.
We
can practice mentally to come unto the Christ. The Christ within speaks,
saying, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." John 14:6 6.
We
can examine carefully the undercurrent of our thought. Until false opinions
and beliefs based upon human experiences are uprooted, we are not free. Every
new awakening in thought is a birth on a new plane of consciousness. This is
the way to the Christ Consciousness. "Be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that ye many prove what is that good, and acceptable, and
perfect, will of God." Rom.12:2 7.
WE
can meditate regularly upon the truth which we have already accepted and more
light will dawn upon us. 8.
We
can "Be still and know that I am God" – nothing less than the
Christ, the unlimited Spirit of Truth. Individual
life, like the branching of the tree, has a beginning in consciousness that
is the bud of the coming branch and fruit. Its growth is fuller unfoldment
from within. This is evolution, the becoming conscious of what is. Each
individual begins as "Adam" in understanding; each shall end as
"Jesus" in full consciousness. Paul says that we "may grow up
into him in all things." Eph. 4:15 or into his understanding of divinity
as man; the revelation of truth by which we see more and more clearly. Again
we turn our thought to the dormant seed or the apparently lifeless brown bulb
and we "consider the lilies how they grow." If we wish a beautiful
lily, how may we obtain it? Shall we being by trying to make the flower? No,
we cannot reproduce the blossom in that way. We must plant deep in the earth
a lily bulb which in due time will unfold its stem, its buds, and its full
bloom. It is a natural process; all growth is from within outward. All of us
have the perfect Christ implanted within us. Christ
in you, your hope of glory. Living from the basis of our spiritual being, the
true Self, the Christ within, we are no longer prisoners to the senses but
glorious souls of consciousness; each one a Christ mind in a Christ body
achieving the work of the Christ. You are now prepared for the wonderful
experience of awakening to the truth that you, yourself, incorporate the
God-idea, Christ the Son. It will come to you, for it must come to each one
sometime in his unfoldment. Only you can develop your individual
consciousness. No one can do this for another. A
study of Divine Science brings new light, new understanding, new purposes, new
goals, with new and accepting the truth of our oneness with the Christ
within, we shall ascend from joy to joy, from glory to glory until we, too,
have attained conscious Sonship and our Christhood is demonstrated. Statements of Truth I
daily declare my true nature as that of the Christ within. The
Divine Idea of me (the Christ) is forever held in the Living Consciousness in
which I live and move and have my being. Since
God is infinite perfection and creates in perfection, I am potentially
perfect in Christ. Direct
expression of God in creation by means of divine activity is the law of
growth and unfoldment. I
bless and praise the action of God within me. Man
from the basis of his spiritual evolution has not yet put on the completeness
which is latently his in God-Mind. Our
human existence is our relative degree of unfoldment of the Christ Self
within us. Within
the Christ are all the potentialities of our being which God works to unfold
through spiritual evolution. As
I silence my personal senses and turn to the divinity within me, by Christ
Self, I receive new inspiration, increased health and strength, and my
inheritance in God is made real to me. Question for Review and
Discussion
Divine Science Its Principle and Practice
Copyright ã1957 by Divine Science Church and College Denver, Colorado Made
available here by the ministry of Rev.
Lawrence C. Terry, M.Msc., D.Min. P. O. Box
68324 Indianapolis,
IN 46268-0324 |
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