Computer owners quickly learn the benefits of keeping their hard drive regularly scrubbed and cleaned for viruses and malware that would otherwise slow their computing down, and even prevent it from happening.
The same rule applies to our state of thought! It pays to keep it regularly scrubbed and cleaned for any type of mortal mind malware that would lead to fear and suffering.
By mortal mind malware, I’m talking about anger, resentment, doubt, worry, anxiety, fear of disease, apathy, indifference, and spiritual laziness. These would all oppose health and happiness and make one feel separated from God. But they have no divine power behind them and can be cleaned out of thought with spiritual truth.
It may take some effort to get thought cleaned up with truth, but that’s okay. It takes effort to keep your computer clean, which most users are happy to expend because of the huge benefits that result. Keeping one’s mental “hard drive” clean brings even bigger benefits!
To keep thought clean, be quick to align with the Mind of Love. Forgive quickly, love generously, value patience, pray, make spiritual mindedness a priority. Stay on alert for the good and the true and refuse to let anything less enter and abide in thought.
As Paul wrote, “To be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).
Chuckling now! My little dog Max recently had a healing of a belief in a bacterial “infection” that had been having very undesirable (eye-watering) consequences in elimination from the (so-called) material digestive tract.
I’d heard a very inspiring testimony about someone embracing the bacteria as part of God’s creation, actually singing hymns to these infinitesimal little beasts of the field, who are entirely spiritual and could never be harmful. That helped.
What seemed to seal the deal was a slogan that was used to sell a household cleaner; “Scrubbing bubbles!” The idea came happily to thought that tiny “scrubbing bubbles” were at work, continually cleansing thought, effortlessly, effectively, and joyously.
I know, right? And I also had help from a dedicated practitioner. But that silly thought continued to uplift. . The healing resulted. And that little slogan continues to come to thought when I am beset by the lies of mortal mind.
Carolyn…this would make a wonderful CS article — so well written too and whimsical.
dear Linda would it be possible to explaine how you got your lovely foto here into the blanc head?
Wonderful Carolyn!
Thank you for sharing,
I agree with Linda, lovely article in the making ♡
I remember that scrubbing bubbles advertisement. A perfect metaphor for today’s topic, and humor is very healing. Thanks Carolyn. Also appreciated hearing about embracing even the infinitesimal in God’s grand creation as spiritual and harmless.
I really like that idea of embracing bacteria. I’d like to expand to viruses, as well. All must work together for good in the ecological relationship of God’s kingdom.
Or better yet, focus on God’s ideas! “All is Mind and Mind’s idea,” MBE wrote.
Mind’s ideas are harmless, useful. Mind didn’t create destructive, dangerous, or harmful ideas. Just loving, helpful ones.
thank you Evan, for your above reply! It is very helpful to me that all Mind`s ideas are harmless!
Oh Evan, thank you very much for your today`s SpiritView, specially for the last paragraph and for Paul`s verse from Romans 8: 6.
I love the verse from this week`s Bible Lesson from Psalms 92:4
“Thou, Lord hast made me glad through thy work;
I will triumph in the works of thy hands”
and further Psalms 92:5
“O Lord how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.”
These verses are very suitable for Thanksgiving on 24th November.
Also our church in Hamburg will celebrate Thanksgiving Service on this day.
Gratitude to God is so important and healing, and I think that purifies our heart and thinking!
“infinitesimal little beasts of the field, who are entirely spiritual” was the message of healing for me, as fluid flowed on my face from my eyes and nose. Disturbing, but temporary. After your post, fluid stayed normal, the balance was tipped toward healing, as the unwanted fluids dried up. Each analogy and description of the true spiritual nature of the “bubbles” helped. Gratitude for your posting a perfect picture.
I too am so grateful for Evan’s great blog today. Thank you too to the dear commenter above, for her wonderful note, and her sweet healing.
I love Evan’s words “…be quick to align with the Mind of Love.” From one of Mrs. Eddy’s writings: “Immortal Mind is God; and this Mind is made manifest in all thoughts and desires that draw mankind toward purity, health, holiness, and the spiritual facts of being. …Jesus recognized this relation so clearly that he said, “I and my Father are one.” “(Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 37:4–9) How blessed we are;, pure thoughts from God, enable us to bless and heal others, as well as ourselves.
Spiritually minded means to think like God thinks rather than to reason like a mortal.
After interning a store to do some shopping I caught myself judging others as sullen and robotic.. then it dawned on me that God would never see His children in a negative light.
As my thought shifted to a spiritual point of view the scene changed.. Before leaving the store I was embraced by two very friendly people and I felt I was sounded by happiness and joy…Love had purified the stream of my thinking.
Thank you John – that is a lovely example of how important it is to keep our minds pure
and spiritually minded, and to look out from that spiritual standpoint. It changes the
whole view of everything from the dreary material outlook, to the wonderful
revelation that you experienced and brought to light. So worthwhile – not only
for our own wellbeing, but helping others also to come into that light.
Exactly what I needed this morning ~~ thank you all so much!
Tnank you Evan. Holding unto right thought is a great tool for healing in Christian Science.
We have to be sure we are not getting thoughts from a god that is separate from us. I believe there is truth in the statement “The only sin is belief in separation.”
Treat error “with sudden dismissal” by Sara Veltman Tucker: https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/4mlnxrya2o
In the New Living Translation the verse from Paul is, “…letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.” I like the idea of letting God be in charge of my mind (in truth there is no “my” mind) and everything about me. Letting, like a letting go of other things that seem to try to control our outlook.
—“We would hear no other voices, We would heed no other call.” – Hymn 58
In the photo she is letting her thought be cleansed of wrong information and resting with God.
Dear J, Thank you for posting this wonderful, confidence-inspiring article.-so clear in explaining and detailing the mental stance that paves the way to quick demonstrations of healing..
Evan,- your wise guidance on keeping thought clean and oiled with the lubricant of divine Love is invaluable and indispensable to living a harmonious life. Thank you for giving us SpiritView,–It’s a wellspring of blessings!
Oh THANK YOU, dear Evan, & EVERYONE today– today’s writings has healed a situation which has disturbed me for a day. Yesterday I got so upset during a church committee meeting and early, sort of steaming away…feeling completely dismissed for my suggestion, which had been sought, and not valued equally with the other committee members. As background, we had a spent a long year and a half of hard work to modify our very long set of bylaws; we finally arrived at some consensus on creating fewer bylaws. It had been quite an effort with many many meetings, prayer, etc; i had to summon lots of humility, agree to concessions, and willing to let go of a sense that fear was keeping this church stuck in rigid overregulation. Well, yesterday seemed to see this old fear rise again, another refusal to try something new, yet another example of old, outmoded thinking. And I left feeling resentful. I ”worked” (weakly) yesterday, wanting to shift my thinking. but it didn’t happen until I really pondered what has been written here this morning. Was I really thinking with Mind, that Mind which Christ Jesus healed EVERYTHING, even church committee work!?! (haha) I suddenly recognized in the right light: as my sweet, dear, devoted, dedicated church workers ! Each one is dearly beloved, not only by God their Father -Mother, but by me, too!! They love Christian Science and this beautiful church.
All anger, resentment, dark brooding thoughts simply evaporated into ”its native nothingness.”
What a Blessing you are Evan, for presenting such an array of ideas, daily inspiration, healing ideas, offering a beginning to our own work, and which is so wonderfully, openly, lovingly shared by this amazing SpriitView family.
I am so so very grateful to you all.
Love
left early
correction: left early
Evan certainly brings it to a modern analogy. Working with computers, it provides good food for thought in regards to malware.
I’m going to have to tread carefully when thinking about this in terms of CPUs being the “brain” of a computer, and without a program, they are lifeless.
Very quickly one could say that the only program is that of God’s – that of perfection, and that reflects into a usable system that in reality, has no malware. You’ll never encounter “operating system not found”, for it is always there, and needs no bug-fixing.
HOWEVER, one can take the computer analogy too far – so don’t think for a moment that Christian Science is one of “programming, or being re-programmed”. We are thinking spiritual beings, who are repenting (changing your thought to reflect spiritual reality), and NOT being re-programmed like a robot or cpu.
I’m going to have to think about how to approach this analogy in more detail, and be cautious about it. For instance, there is nothing “artificial” about Christian Science logic.
Interesting – I’m going to pray on this subject, and see what turns up.
Love this analogy Brian. 🙂
ONENESS
“The sun sends forth light, but not suns; so God reflects Himself, or Mind, but does not
subdivide Mind, or good, into minds, good and evil.”
(Ret. 56:22)
Thanks J – it’s still very rough around the edges. And this is only my train of thought, in a comment in a blog from a student, not a trained Christian Scientist.
But I did pray, and although more is coming, this is what stood out pretty quickly:
1) One doesn’t study Christian Science to “reprogram” the human mind to be conscious of the spiritual.
2) What we ARE is spiritual beings, shedding our concept that we have two minds – one human and one spiritual. We have only one, and that is Spirit, or God, incorruptible and eternal. That is the only program on our “hard drive” if one wants to think of it loosely.
However, what may appear to be unlike the perfect program in our existence, is not the faulty introduction of malware, but that of a flawed “artificial intelligence”, wholly mortal made (mortal mind intelligence if you will). Trying to appear as a legitimate part of the operating system, it is easily discarded, because there are no programming entry points for it to attach to the perfect program.
Still very rough in thought right now, but really wanted to avoid any thought of being “re-programmed”. I come back to the original meaning of re-pent instead.
At least these are my infantile thoughts regarding this *loose* computer analogy, but it proved fruitful to think about it – as long as my spiritual shields are in place so I don’t stray too far and get totally silly.
Whaddya’ know? My prayer led me to discover someone already dealing with computers and Christian Science, and knowing how to keep the two separate and gleaning spiritual insights from the same.
Dr. Laurance Doyle with a video on Spiritual Academics, hosted by Principia College: (he has more too!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MedXwI9BqAI
Brian, I really enjoyed how you related computer analogy and terms to spiritualizing thought. So imaginative, fun, memorable and inspiring! Thank you for adding the video on Dr. Doyle. He’s so fascinating to listen to.
p.s. Brian, the weekends are my chance to catch up on SpiritView comments from the past week, so this response is past due. Thank you for all your comments, and you’re welcome on the article, “Awakening from the dream”. I’m so sorry that you went through such a tumultuous experience with your parents. So interesting on the Row, Row, Row your boat song, as I experienced the same thought a couple of years ago. As I was quietly listening, that song seemed to randomly pop into my thought…but as I went over the verses, the message made immediate sense when I got to the “life is but a dream” part. Ah ha! … Sleeping mortal dream, waking mortal dream – both dreams, and only one reality as God’s perfect, spiritual idea. Gotta love all the inspiring and healing thoughts that come to us from our Father/Mother, divine Mind!
Trying is not good enough for this task…..Will do the needed housecleaning, etc. Thank you for the practical and welcome suggestions.
J – thanks. Thing is, I *didn’t* go through that! At least that was what God was telling me.
Imagine that – CS parents, where for years we would study on Sundays together, my mother teaching me how to mark the Bible and S&H, asking me everday if I learned something from the lesson (felt like pestering, but I digress) …
And then later seeing objects thrown around the room at each other like a heavy telephone and nearly coming to blows!
That wasn’t them. God helped me realize what a trick it was to have me abandon the truth at an early age. Everything was fine thereafter. Even when I faced a near-death accident and all I remember was my mother’s voice reading science to me and singing Hymns while I was in darkness for a week. THAT was the real them!
The drama of that incident has been swept away, although perhaps my ability to being drawn to nuggets of truth through music (bet it hymns, or others being cloaked in gross materiality) came from that. 🙂
Evan – J – Annie – I can’t thank you enough! Getting back to Evan’s subject of “Keeping your thought clean”.
That boyhood incident of mine where a CS family seemed to be falling apart, and although resolved, was swept away with God’s help as so much material drama.
Only NOW, many many decades later have I realized the “why”.
I fell victim to the subtlest trick of all: A Christian Scientist mis-judging another! As a budding teen CS student, I was still at that age where I guess I was starting to become “lovingly critical” or even “lovingly hateful” of my CS parents in other areas.
No wonder I brought that episode into my experience – it wasn’t them, it was me! God was right, although perhaps I was too young to accept that truth.
I had to think hard, but as Evan’s subject admonishes – to keep your thoughts clean. Mine weren’t, as much as I don’t want to admit (or almost not remember) it. The last vestige and crumbs of that suppositional incident are now gone.
Thanks Evan! – your subjects are always timely and helpful, even if I go off track at times.