If you want to see what is true about yourself, be sure to rely upon spiritual sense to get the facts straight.
Spiritual sense sees what God sees. It sees health, beauty, order, dominion, intelligence.
Material sense sees the opposite. Material sense sees disease, reasons for suffering, disorder, conflict and darkness.
As children of God, we have native spiritual sense, and it works well. Be sure to use it!
As Mary Baker Eddy reminds us, “What is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 298).
To get the facts straight, be sure to rely upon a reliable witness. Spiritual sense!
Thank Evan, this is so helpful! Not only for myself, yet also for others whom I love and care about.
When tears or concerns threaten to overwhelm my thought, I turn to a favourite poem of Mrs Eddy’s,
“Mother’s Evening Prayer”.
The line, “O make me glad for every scalding tear”, is like a call to arms, shaking me from my material gloom, revealing;
“O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour”
Beautiful ! Eddy sure gave us the tools to see thru the darkness into
The ever present light .
Thanks Evan – wonderful reminder of what is REALLY going on – despite
The false narrative sometimes .
Thank you Shelagh for your helpful comment
Thank you Evan for your wonderful inspiring daily blog
If we want more good in our lives then spiritual sense is the only way to find it and maintain it.
Thank you Evan for this insight into spiritual sense – the infinity of God’s Being.
The above photo inspired me to think of the vast forever of Eternal Good. It is
impossible, through material sense to count all of the leaves, or grains of sand,
or blades of grass, or stars in the heavens and this immeasurable Goodness is
with us all, despite sometimes the seeming limited thinking that would try to
keep us from seeing the Spiritual View of things.
I love that quote Evan, thank you. It just sums it all up.
And Shelagh, love that line, O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour.
Beautiful to contemplate. ❣️
Thank you Evan for continually reminding us to focus on what spiritual sense is telling us! In my own experience, I’ve listened for what spiritual sense is telling me and heard it. But quickly thereafter I’ve allowed the material sense testimony, that often screams so loudly and repeatedly, to make me stop focusing on what I heard from spiritual sense. Recently I’ve heard myself asking myself, “What am I supposed to think when spiritual sense tells me one thing but then material sense bears opposite testimony?” The answer may seem obvious in the abstract, so let me give you an example to show that it can often be difficult to decide.
Suppose you injure your foot and you listen for spiritual sense and it tells you your foot cannot be injured because you manifest God and God is always in perpetual harmony and therefore you as God’s manifestation must also be 100% harmonious. You think, wow, that’s cool! Thank you spiritual sense! But then you go to take a step and you feel excruciating pain. That illusion of pain is material sense screaming and trying to convince you that what you heard from spiritual sense is false and it (material sense) is what conveys to you what is actually true. So what do you do? What do you think at that point? Unfortunately each situation is unique so it’s not possible to provide one pat answer to this question. It can be easy to think we have to be “practical” and listen to material sense. But this actually happened to me and in my case I recognized the pain as merely an “aggressive mental suggestion” and therefore I refused to let the pain dictate my thinking and action. Material sense (viewpoint) also argued that continuing to walk on an injured foot would cause even more damage. But I felt in this case that I so thoroughly understood what spiritual sense was telling me I could ignore that dire material sense prediction. So I continued to walk, all the while knowing the pain was just an “illusion” and with each step I “clung steadfastly” to what I knew was true about God and God’s idea…which includes me! In other words, I did exactly what Mrs. Eddy tells us to do on page 495 of S&H:
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When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 495:14)
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For about two days I continued to walk as normally as possible on what material sense was screaming was an injured and painful foot. I want to be very clear that I wasn’t doing this via human will. I literally knew the truth as we’re taught in CS was true and therefore I didn’t need to give in to the aggressive mental suggestions of material sense, so I didn’t. And very early on after making this stand (no pun intended) the pain did lessen considerably, but the severe pain would still return if I stepped certain ways. On the second night I awoke and while praying it became so clear to me that I was completely spiritual and therefore didn’t need to worry about dire matter based predictions. That truth was just so clear to me that the next day I hopped out of bed and had been walking around the house for about 5 minutes before I remembered I had a painful foot for the last two days. My foot was completely fine. I think this was an example of becoming conscious for a single instant of the truth and it resulting in healing.
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Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 14:12–15)
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A few weeks ago I shared the link below to Rosalind Fogg telling about how she “knew the truth because it was true” and not because she was trying to change matter.
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/pp9ivp44z4?s=copylink
At about the 3 minute mark she mentions she put her screaming baby down and continued to pray. What kind of mother puts down her screaming baby when it appears to be in need of comforting? I think it’s a mother that knows the baby is NOT in need and is already in perfect harmony. As in my example, this is exactly what we need to do at times. Put down the material sense testimony. Put it completely out of thought, just like Jesus put out the naysayers when he raised Jairus’ daughter from death.
So don’t be afraid to “put the baby down!” But don’t do that from a standpoint of human will. Do it based on a conviction that the truth IS true!
This is very helpful Robert. Thank you for sharing. Linda.
Thank you, RobertH, for reposting this excellent article. I missed it the first time, and am grateful not to have missed it the second time. Very helpful to recognize the healing result a subtle shift in thinking can produce. Thank you.
Thank you, Robert, for sharing your testimony of the application of spiritual sense. It is very helpful!
Thank you Evan and all and especially Robert. I don’t comment often but am a faithful SpiritView reader. I appreciate this daily uplift.
Wow. Brave one, for “putting it out there,” for others to at least ponder this strong approach to error’s aggressiveness. I salute you. You were obviously praying “each step of the way!” “Step by step…” as Mrs. Eddy says!
It would be foolhardy to use human will to do this, though, as we know. (A hw-approach would harm our CS Movement, too.)
Love is Guiding.
Thank you Evan for this and all your daily messages. And thanks to Robert for sharing your testimony to the healing power of persistently listening to spiritual sense when the material sense is shouting the opposite. What a joyful outcome and helpful to us all.
As always thank you Evan. and RobertH thankyou. I went thru a similar problem where my reasonimg was somewhat like yours, I am much better now but I realize that I may not have
carried my truthful thoughts far enough and I need to do some more work on the subject. I
need to be more persistent and see this thru to the end. Thank you all. What a treasure
Evan has given us with SpiritView!
Thank you Evan. I only want to know what is true about me (and everyone), so I will take your wise advice and put the full weight of awareness on Spiritual Sense. I am so tired of praying, seeing some progress, then seemingly being tempted back into material beliefs.
I know as God’s child I have a divine right to see and experience what God sees and knows about me. Mrs. Eddy said in S&H p. 227, “Citizens of the world [arise and] accept the glorious liberty of the children of God and be Free! This is your divine right.” ; The words in brackets are my addition.
Very late on yesterday’s SV I shared an article called ‘Man, the Expression of God,’ because I’ve been working with a statement in S&H p. 470,
“Man is the expression of God’s Being.”
I was so struck when I heard that line (heard it on Oct. 22 Daily Lift by Elizabeth C. Schwartz), and have been pondering it ever since. To me it seemed so vast and truth-filled. It lifted up my thought to entertain that I am not just the expression of God (which I hear often), but it seems to go deeper to think I am the actual expression of God’s BEING. I noticed that when I say it, error/mortal mind goes completely silent, it can’t say a thing because the statement is so powerful.
Here’s the link again for the article, hope it works.
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1957/12/59-51/man-the-expression-of-god
Thank you Rose, for you clear, sweet “to me statement,” “I am the actual expression of God,.” expanded deeper “to think I am the actual expression of God’s BEING. Helpful in so many ways, I can’t express just how “point on” it meets my need today. Thank you again, ROSE!
Dear chilesands, I am very grateful to know that my comments were helpful to you. Thank you for sharing, and blessings to you.
‘born in the garden we never have a chance of leaving…’
imagine Tinkerbell visiting Peter while he’s in prison, he smiles and stays for 2 years and helps others who needed him. We have a group meeting weekly to discuss the book’Painting a Poem’
MBE and James F Gilman the artist, were joining together to create the illustrated Book of
Christ and Christmas.. we are adding selected works at the same time …chosen by a loving guide. Like the whole of the Unity of Good. As James is just at the doorstep of Science and Health looking for the key to the scriptures,, we glimpse at the transformation . Mrs Eddy like the mother the sister his friend and guide, and James having innocence and clarity as he already is a friend of the blank canvas.. his eyes is aware of the Light.. and away they go. We see the beautiful correspondence of Letter writing ..is a gift, in the practice of communicating… The goodness of this opportunity to study with the Christian Science Church , by Zoom, from Victoria BC, is a wonderful honour and kinship. This is a once a week for 10 weeks…we reach Day 3 this Thursday.
The 150 anniversary of Mrs. Eddy’s book..150 years Young, from the C S Monitor .. CS Audio ..
What Joy! Thank you all SpiritViewers and Evan for constantly.Beaming Up…
What a wonderful, spiritually uplifting conversation is being presented here. So helpful! I am bookmarking this to read again and again with all of the wonderful comments. And thank you, Evan! I am such a big fan of SpiritView. It is so helpful and such a comfort to me. I print many, many of your posts out and put them in a folder to read again and again when dismaying, untrue thoughts try to enter into my consciousness. These are so helpful and calming … a good “time out” as you often mention to do when thought strays from our true identity as a child of God and what God knows about us. This whole presentation today is so “on point” about what to do when error is screaming at us for attention and trying to mesmerize us with its untruth lies! Very, very helpful, Evan, and everyone! Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful, uplifting thoughts. Love and Blessings
Thank you everyone. I am so thankfull and gratefull and free.