Mortal mind is a term used in Christian Science to sum up all material thoughts, fears, and impressions. Disease, anxiety, resentment, hate, selfishness, greed, hardness of heart, are mortal mind.
People often feel at the mercy of mortal mind, as if they can’t do anything about material sensations overwhelming their senses. But in truth, each of us has spiritual ability to resist material sensation, and to reverse it.
To do so, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “To remove the error producing disorder, you must calm and instruct mortal mind with immortal Truth” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 415).
Rather than cowering in fear over feeling anxious and angry, master negative emotions with Truth and Love. Instruct mortal mind with spiritual truth rather than letting mortal mind instruct you with temporal fears and false beliefs.
Mortal mind is not your friend. It’s not your ruler either.
Mrs. Eddy also writes, “Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, inherited consumption, or disease arising from any circumstance, and you will find that mortal mind, when instructed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers the body into health”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 425).
Don’t let mortal mind take command of you. Instruct it with truth. Master its fears and false beliefs. Live under God’s influence.
Oh my goodness how I need this!! Thank you Evan❣️
Thank you Evan. This is most welcome.
Thank you very very much, Evan for your wonderfully vehement pushing us to the side of God, divine omnipotent Truth! Oh yes, with great pleasure let`s live under God`s blessing and healing influence! Thank you God for your Everpresence!
Hi Uta, thanks for the word Everpresence, it really jumped out at me when I read it it.
Immediately the thought came – if God is Everpresent, then nothing can actually be wrong.
Just a wrong perception of reality. God is All, and All is well, thank you!
Yes, Thank you, Uta and Rose –
So many here and those who came before us .. Jesus, Mrs. Eddy
and so many others who have stood for Principle, which is always
in favor of and speaking up for the Truth/God/Love keeps that
Everpresence alive and well.
From Abraham Lincoln:
“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest
concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right”.
This is brilliant, clear instruction. Thank you so very much. To read truth is one thing to know how to practice. It is quite another. Thank you for practical instruction with great quotes. I’m very grateful for this tonight.
Yes Dinah , practical practical practical and nothing less!
Thank you ! And thank you Evan for the “ good instruction “
“Mortal mind is not your friend. It’s not your ruler “
“We Live under God’s influence “
Those are precious thoughts, Great weekend to all preCIOUS participants at SV !
Thank you Evan:
i am so grateful for these quotations from Science & Health with key to the scriptures, by Mrs Eddy.
This is really an eye opener for me: not to allow error to take control of our thoughts, but dismiss those thoughts with abiding Truth
..
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
God has given us the constant conscious capacity to understand and follow these guidelines.
“each of us has the spiritual ability to resist ”
I saw,, to reset, until I read it again.
It would seem like we have a reset button, until we learn, there is no out side in All, One, God. We are, set.
This is very, very good and true. I will work with this. Thank you Evan!
Wow i just experienced and still am, this!
We learn that mortal mind does not actually exist, but is just a bunch of false beliefs about the children of God. I have at times wondered how can we instruct or teach anything to a “mind” that does not exist? So I find that wording confusing. Maybe it is more of a metaphor. Any thoughts?
But I do understand that the essence of the message is that we master and dissolve these false beliefs by learning and understanding what God knows about us and applying those truths (which are always true) to whatever seems inharmonious. “RISE in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.” (S&H p. 393).
Thank you for for the reminder that we can only “live under God’s influence.”
When I reread that quote by MBE, i put in “material thoughts” where it says “mortal mind”.
“To remove the error producing disorder, you must calm and instruct mortal mind [material thoughts] with immortal Truth”
Words are not always prefect to express spiritual ideas but i thought this substitution helps bring out the meaning, to me at least. With love, L
I am finding this substitution very useful because there IS NO MORTAL MIND! Thoughts come to our consciousness to be entertained and we decide to accept the spiritually true and reject the false, as faithful porters, eh? There is no power or Mind apart from God/Good and because of the understanding of the SCIENCE of the Christ, we enabled to discern this!
As you have said, Rose, and as L has said – mortal mind, so-called is just a load of false
thoughts or beliefs. Evan said in effect in a previous blog that we all have thoughts, but was need to make sure they are truly our thoughts. There is only one Mind, and our true thoughts must
come from God. So if our thoughts aren’t in accord with the perfect thoughts of God, they
are not our true thoughts. So we have to correct these thoughts with the spiritual real
thoughts that accord with God. This, it seems to me, is instructing ‘mortal’ mind, which
seems to be our thoughts but are not, with the spiritual facts.
Thank you Maggie:” This, it seems to me, is instructing ‘mortal’ mind, which
seems to be our thoughts but are not, with the spiritual facts.”
Thank you very much Maggie, L, Penelope and everyone for your replies to my wonderings about instructing mortal mind, and many other helpful comments today. I guess it is in a way a metaphor and as we pour truth into our consciousness through flood tides of Love (as Linda mentions, thank you) we can more clearly distinguish truth from lies. That is a form of instruction, but ultimately hopefully we will see that there is nothing left that can be or needs to be instructed, since divine Mind is all there is. Grateful for all of you.
I’ve found helpful to consider this false mind, as the mind that seems to be “me” in a a night sleep. It’s not really me or my mind, it’s part of the dream, though “impersonating” me, or appearing as me. (That’s why MBE says “the dreamer and the dream are one.” ) But here’s the thing about instructing. If we begin to wake up but are not fully so yet, we may find telling ourselves “it’s just a dream!” That’s my true consciousness “instructing” myself to be alert/awake, though it can be seen as instructing/rebuking the false consciousness appearing as me (or mortal mind.)
This is such a clarifying declaration of what mortal mind Appears to be. Thank you so much
Evan and fellow Spiritview seekers of Truth! : )
I used to think of mortal mind as being a power or a force – “out there”, that tries to influence
us, not realizing it is really within our thinking as something to instruct or rule over. WE have
the God-given authority with Mind, to overcome and resist anything that is unlike what God –
Mind, Soul, Principle, Truth, Life, Spirit and Love, is. Anything that would try to keep us from
our Spiritual identity is this “mortal” mind that is limiting and disruptive of what God has
created us to be and isn’t really True, because not from God.
This is really good… never thought much about the word ‘instruct’. Something to noodle more on. Thank you for pointing this out.
Clear application, dividing the mortal from the immortal. Recent experience at work with the divine intervention needing quick healing of an aggressive cough/gag/blockage. In the midst of congestion wrecking/hacking/waves of gnarly disturbances, I listened, Then I heard the Truth, at the height of trying to gently breathe, the recognition was lightening. . . how are you trying to trick me? I asked. . . realizing something was “hiding” in plain sight, making me believe something that couldn’t be my real self. I booted out that gnarly disturbance, evicted the belief that I was inhabited by a cough, which was NEVER a part of my real self. The wave calmed, the urge faded, the seas receded, and the cough was gone, out of thought, rid of the urge even, and once again enjoyed the quiet. i gave thanks to GOD for the guidance, to take a stand, to relinquish hiding any false belief about needing to cough. GRATEFUL to un FOOL myself, and revel in the Truth, NOTHING claiming to be SOMETHING has no ability to reside in my thought nor appear within me. All cleared up, rest was easy, and activities resumed. The belief disappeared into it’s native nothingness. My gratitude to God for identifying my REAL self, unapproachable by a lie, or an attacker trying to trick me. PRAISE GOD
That’s a very good demonstration of Christian Science practice, chilesands – thank you for sharing.
Thank you, chilesands, for describing in detail how you conquered what appeared
to be mortal mind’s attempt on your peace. Lovely experience of “dividing the mortal
from the immortal.”
Wonderful Spiritview today, Evan, thanks so much. Here’s a verse about mortal mind that’s also instructive:
“All disease is the result of education, and disease can carry its ill-effects no farther than mortal mind maps out the way.”
(SH: 176:25–27)
If mortal mind is unreal, how does it have the power to map out the way of disease and its ill effects?
It doesn’t have any power to map out effects. For those people who believe it does, Mrs. Eddy is reminding us to not get pulled into that dream. To not let mortal mind, so-called, map out anything for us. Stick with Truth and prove mortal mind powerless. That’s the healthier path to pursue.
Evan, thank you for these powerful quotes from Science and Health. Mrs. Eddy proved every statement in this book, and we are so privileged to be able to study and ponder and practice these gems of wisdom and truth.
Mortal mind is a false sense of reality which believes and fears it’s own misconceptions. We are not this mind. As we “pour in truth through flood-tides of Love” we instruct and correct this false mind and it’s “notions” of sin, and disease. As Mrs. Eddy says, the body is then steered into health.
Man is enveloped by the thoughts of God and therefor expresses only Gods thoughts ( Mind and its ideas ). We must cling to this to negate the continual illusive bombardment of mortal mind. We can only think one thought at a time…I try to always choose the right one❣️
Thank you BarbaraUK, that’s so correct that we actually express as God’s reflection only God’s thoughts. And I also try to always choose the right thought 🙂
It is interesting what you said Barbara, that we can only think one thought at a time. I will ponder that. Sometimes it seems like lots of thoughts (and not good ones) are racing at me (error tries to operate that way in its sneaky approach), but probably there is one underlying thought there. It is a relief to think there is only one at a time, makes it easier to choose the True and Right one, the God thought, every time. Thank you.
Calming from heaven
Freeing from mortal mind
Power only – from our God-given kind
Commanding
Peaceful
All in Truth and Love
Ceasing lies – gentle being, like a precious dove
Stating facts that help and heal
Being joyful with God’s passionate zeal.
Thanks very much, dear Angel. Such a comforting, inspiring poem!:)
Yes, it is only possible to think one thought at a time (though it seems otherwise.) I once had a practitioner tell me “It’s impossible to sing a right note and a wrong note at the same time.” Obviously, I never forgot that and find it helpful to remember when attempting to “instruct” or discipline my thoughts. We can choose the right thought, not the wrong!
Thank you Evan. This is good. Thank you.
“The time for thinkers” by Lois S. Johnson:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/tmyho0dtrk
Thank you, Evan.
Thanks Evan for this gorgeous SpiritView and that refreshing foto!
They two have definitely good, joyful and loving thoughts which come certainly from God!!
From J’s great article, “The time for thinkers” … Thank you J :
“…there is only one Mind: that all intelligence comes from God; that one can avail
himself of this intelligence by learning more and more of the true nature of God
and of man’s relationship to Him”. A lovely thought to hold on to. It also mentions
about machines and they reflect only what is programmed into them. Even tho
this article was written in 1962, it is even more relevant now with so-called
artificial (trying to replace God) intelligence. This seems so prevalent in society
today with so many things.
Being aware of motal mind’s temptations in trying to degrade our thoughts into
what mm wants, is something to keep in mind (i.e. stand porter at the door of
thought).
Angel, thank you for this important point about “ai” (lower case on purpose) – we have to see this in the light of Truth too, rather than being mesmerized by its glitzy appearance.
So True, AD, Thank you. There really is only One Mind, Intelligence and Truth,
with no imposters, lies, to artificially pretend to be in control. God is our
divine source of everything Good.
A lovely Sunday to you and everyone! : )
Thank you Evan … makes me dig deeper into your post plus all the comments , as we have the extra days over the weekend.
It came to me this morning that it’s often mentioned and I’ve said it here myself before now that we have much work to do , with a clear spiritual path before us to prove the nothingness of mortal mind. But sometimes I think that this is almost a ‘putting off to another day ‘ .Almost a dualing of man and God perhaps and this certainly in my case can prevent demonstration. My first thought today was my individuality as Gods child is here, now. Impenetrable to error of thought or deed. It was a bit of a Wow moment….❣️
Thank you Evan, for this helpful, practical pointer!