An adage that has circulated for centuries in various forms says:
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
There is much food for thought in this quip.
On the same line of reasoning, Mary Baker Eddy writes:
Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 86
How important it is to reason things out spiritually, rather than materially, for the material senses objectify what the mind behind them believes. And what that mind believes could be entirely wrong.
Truth is always right! But Truth is Spirit, not matter.
To be safe in your reasoning, start with the evidence Truth presents, rather than what the material senses present. Truth is reliable. Material sense is not.
Thanks Evan for this reminder. I remember how true Mrs. Eddy’s statement on what Mortal Mind see what it believes, and believes what it sees.. One Sunday many years ago, I wore a pair of dangly earrings to Church and from a distance a fellow member approach me thinking I had some sort of brace on my neck. Upon seeing it was just a shadow of the earrings on my neck she laughed and stated Mrs. Eddy’s statement noted: Mortal Mind about seeing and believing. Sometimes we are deceived and cannot recognize the Truth until the Truth becomes clearer to us. The correction in thought does bring healing.
Great illustration Suzie!
Thank you Evan! This message is so valuable and so timely!! So grateful!!
I love that quote from Eddy. It certainly reminds us that our thoughts determine our experience. I have two other quips written on stickies in my office.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
“Do not let a lower perspective lower your perspective.”
Eddy also states “Your decisions will master you, which ever direction they take.… Stand Porter at the door thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously” SH 392:22
Thank you for sharing Linda from New Jersey. Love the great quips and the quotes by Mrs. Eddy. 🙂
“Start with the evidence Truth presents, rather than what the material senses
present. Truth is reliable. Material sense is not”. (Thank You, Evan!)
Sometimes there seems to be such turmoil, anxiety, evil vs. good, of late. So many
things seem out of order – out of what Mrs. Eddy’s representation of what Truth is.
When we get caught up in the material “belief” of things, life can seem very chaotic,
questioning as to why things are seeming to be, and concerning in thought. Instead
of unity and working together, so much seems to be conflict, when not seeing through
the lens of the spiritual. But our thinking is like the empty pages above. What we think determines what we put on those pages. Each chapter of Truth (spiritual discernment) determines a better outcome, of which the world craves – harmony and peace, in
understanding each other … understanding God’s Goodness for us.
Each day, each hour, each minute determines how we are thinking about others, ourselves,
the world – so our efforts should be to try to be on the same page as Truth, Love, Oneness
with God’s Being as His perfect reflection.
“What’s driving your prayers?” by Michelle Nanouche, from the December 2015 issue of The Christian Science Journal:
https://journal.christianscience.com/shared/view/ebsg75n3gm?s=copylink
Thank you, J, for posting Michelle Nanouche’s Journal article. It was so helpful and a good reminder to “…work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p.254:22)
Dear J, thank you very much for the very helpful article by Michelle Nanouche! I read it and will now listen to it.
Thank you, dear Evan, for this clear SpiritView saying “how important ii is to reason things out spiritually, rather than matterially.” And how very comforting it is “Truth is always right! But Truth is Spirit, not matter.” Yes so good, matter is nothing – Spirit is all!! Thanks dearly again!♡
Evan, Thanks for bringing up this subject. It reminds me about a comment by George Wendell Adams I have read in We Knew Mary Baker:
“Mrs. Eddy said there were times in teaching when the deep things of Christian Science were being considered that the mesmeric sense of too continuous seriousness must be broken. She illustrated this in her teaching of this class by telling several amusing stories.
I recall one story in particular which she used to illustrate human philosophy. She said there once was a man who had a fox. He made a hole in the door of his house and stuck the tail of the fox though it from the inside. Very shortly a crowd had gathered outside and he went to ask why they were there. The reply was that they were trying to figure out how the fox was able to get though such a small hole. This, said Mrs. Eddy, was human philosophy, always trying to figure out things that never happened.”
* We Knew Mary Baker Eddy
We (I) often see things through the filters of “world thought,” which is constrained, narrow, limited, material. Where is God in that view? Nowhere. That is the sad life of mortal mind living.
The quote from Mrs. Eddy above says mortal mind feels, hears and sees its own thoughts. So I ask God to help me see that those are not my thoughts, but are just external false beliefs. My actual thoughts are only from God, only what is in divine Mind: unlimited, joyful, free, abundantly good, full of ease.
I know what you mean, Rose, about “world thought” being so persistent
at times, especially in regard to wars, the economy, control, weather, etc.
Being a bit of a “news junkie”, to keep up on current events, but also to see
what needs correcting … there are so many Positive things that are not
mentioned with a lot of the media, but the negative, a lot of times, seems to
be focussed in on. Keeping thought, as Evan states – to reason things out
spiritually, rather than materially, is what is most important in keeping a Good
thought for seeming worldly “problems”. The key is to listen for that “still,
small voice” of [Truth] of scientific thought that “reaches over continent and
ocean to the globe’s remotest bound”. [and even into space]. And also from
S&H pg 559, Mrs. Eddy, responds to the book of Revelation, ” [This] angel had
in his hand, “a little book”, open for all to read and understand. Did this same
book contain the revelation of divine Science, the “right foot” or dominant
power of which was upon the sea, – upon elementary, latent error, the source
of all error’s visible forms? The angel’s left foot was upon the earth; that is, a
secondary power was exercised upon visible error and audible sin”.
As Evan teaches us above, Truth/Spirit IS always right.
Thank you, Evan!