Have you ever wondered what single act could bring the most good into your life the fastest?
Mary Baker Eddy told one of her students, “Your greatest need is to destroy your greatest temptation.” We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Volume II, p. 546.
In thinking about why she made this statement, I realized our greatest temptations give us our greatest grief and suffering. The mind that angers easily, for instance, allows for uncontrolled temperament to quickly destroy relationships, cause conflict in the home, get co-workers upset, and more, all leading to protracted and mounting suffering, whether acknowledged or not. The mind that beholds lack has a tough time finding supply. The mind that is tempted to believe disease is real experiences its belief, and so on.
So, if you want to make the most progress the fastest, face up to the temptations that are giving you the greatest grief. Elimination of those will eliminate the most suffering.
“Because a belief originates unseen, the mental state should be continually watched that it may not produce blindly its bad effects. The author never knew a patient who did not recover when the belief of the disease had gone. Remove the leading error or governing fear of this lower so-called mind, and you remove the cause of all disease as well as the morbid or excited action of any organ.” Science and Health, p. 377.
“Remove the leading error…”
This reminds me of something a volleyball coach that worked with middle school children once told me. She said when coaching a student in volleyball, she would find the worst thing they were doing (i.e. the volleyball technique or strategy they were most failing to perform correctly) and work to correct that. Once that was corrected, she would then find the next worst thing they were doing and correct that, etc. Her point was that it is often easiest to focus thought on one objective and if you’re going to do that, you might as well pick the error that if corrected would produce the biggest result.
I thinks it’s human nature to sometimes shy away from tackling the worst problem (or leading error), but it makes sense that if we can eliminate the “leading” error that the situation will improve dramatically. Thanks for pointing this out!
Good reminder of the unreality of error, no matter how long it has seemed to be a fact. Changing thought is the remedy for all problems in our lives. Never get discouraged; divine Mind is working with us to root out these mistaken beliefs and to show us our true being as His image and likeness.
Very helpful, thank you!
Can you write part 2, on how to eliminate your greatest temptation, Evan? How do we destroy our greatest temptation? I love the idea of facing up to it, but then I don’t know what to do!
“Remove the leading error”……how?
Let me think on that! The answer lies in understanding Mind’s mastery of the situation.
I remember reading a talk by a CS practitioner and he was describing getting calls from 3-4 people one day all with severe heart problems. He realized the the “leading error” in this case was the belief that heart problems can lead to death. The antidote to “death” is “life”. So he wrote a list of every single synonym of “life” he could think of, even including the word “evergreen”. Then he used a concordance to look up those words in Mrs. Eddy’s writings and in his thinking he replaced every thought of “death” (heart trouble, etc.) as related to his patients with the truths he was learning from this study. And every patient was healed.
The same process works for leading errors we term “sin”. Except with sin you first must realize you need to deal with some sin, whereas sickness/disease tend to scream for your attention.
On page 201 of Science and Health is this statement:
The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of love. Christian perfection is won on no other basis.
If I were to put C.S. treatment into a step-by-step process, it might boil down to this:
1) be still and listen for God to guide you in identifying the leading error
2) study the Bible and Christian Science writings (Mrs. Eddy’s writings, periodicals, etc.) to find and understand the truth (i.e. the opposite of the leading error) that nullifies the claim that the leading error is real or has a cause, etc. Like the practitioner nullified the claim of death by understanding more about Life and its reflection “life”.
3) pray to identify with the truth you learned in step 2. Don’t forget to include both the spirit (Love) and the letter (Truth) in this step. Realize God’s love for you and that as a result of Love, His creation (i.e. YOU) is not subject to error. Continue until you are no longer “thinking” the truth but actually “know” the truth. At some point you will feel “a sense of peace” and at that point you have probably prayed enough for the moment.
You may have to repeat these steps multiple times before you are entirely free from the invasion of a “leading error” in your consciousness. But don’t get discouraged…learn to love the process of realizing the truth and it will become a joyous process instead of a burden.
Thank you, Brian, the explanation is quite clear “learn to love the process of realizing the Truth and it will become a joyous process instead of a burden.”
This has been the way my study is past years, I am enjoying the process. I remember as a teen I used to complain and get help every time something needed attention.
My complaining went something like this, “do I really have to read all this…! And, of course, I ended up leaving the work to my mom because soon I’ll be overwhelmed of so much reading -not really studying.
Now I approach my study from the point of a peaceful, “buoyant” research, I love the process and I see results.
You make a great point, Elena, in regard to getting help with this process. If we are new to Christian Science, or we are more experienced and can’t seem to overcome some error by ourselves, Mrs. Eddy provided in the design of her Church the role of “practitioner” to assist us with healing (i.e. the role your mom performed when you were a teen). Christian Science Practitioners can help us with both the “what” and “how” of eliminating error from our experience. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (pg 420):
If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves, they need only to know that error cannot produce this unnatural reluctance.
Just for information: The talk Brian is referring to is from Daniel Jensen, C.S.B., given at The Principle Foundation 1990 Annual Meeting, and entitled: “Beginning rightly”. I have found the following link to this talk on the internet:
http://danieljensenassociation.com/jensen_wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/DLF-Beginning-Rightly.pdf
However, Mr Jensen’s experience with the healing of several people with heart disease is not in this shortened version of the talk. The whole talk was much longer. Maybe someone could give more information about this?
Perhaps he gave this talk multiple times and altered it slightly each time? Here is another transcript of the talk that includes the missing reference:
http://spiritualhealing.tripod.com/lectures/beginrightly.htm
Wonderful! Thank yo so much, Brian!
Thank you so much for this. As I read, I realized in a flash that the leading error of my recent bout with so called flu was not the flu itself. That was merely error trying to hide from me the fact that I was being tempted to think ill of people. Once that came to light I was able to dismiss all ill and illness suggestions!
If it is not like God, then it is error. I find all error based on fear. How that fear is expressed could be anything. I try without making it a ‘should’ to ask myself if this is a quality of God, and if it is not, try to let it go.
Wonderful post Evan! providing a spirit direction for our thoughts when we might instead just flounder in error. Certainly goes with the idea of spiritview!
I really love all the comments since I woke up feeling like I wasn’t feeling completely well. I am grateful for all of the good thoughts that were shared. I know the Truth will set me free. I am feeling those results right now!
For some reason this reminded me of the “Thought for Today” in this morning’s paper: “The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it.” (Josh Billings/Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818-1885) We must choose the right road!
The greatest temptation is to agree with your peers no matter if the’re right or wrong. Progress happens when you listen to God because he’s always right.