Divine Science Its
Principle and Practice
Return to
Textbook Index
Copyright 1957 by Divine
Science Church and College
Denver, Colorado
Made available here
by the ministry of
Rev. Lawrence C. Terry, M.Msc.,
D.Min.
P. O. Box 68324
Indianapolis, IN 46268-0324
www.DivineScience.net
Chapter 5 - Story of
Progress
Speaking generally, the thinking of man
has run riot; it has been uncontrolled.
Man has not known that he needed a fixed
basis for his thinking. Usually he has
based his thinking upon appearances and
circumstances. When circumstances are
made the basis for conclusions, and these
conclusions are in turn the basis for
further ones, then the whole structure is
in danger because the foundation is
unreliable. This method which ignores
Truth, whether indulged in ignorantly or
otherwise, bears bitter fruit; a sense of
lack, ungratified desires accompanied by
fear and doubt, and much confusion and
turmoil in the affairs of man.
The truth is that the perfect Mind is
implanted within each individual and can
always be trusted to think true to the
purpose of the Whole. When we, as
individuals, trust the inner guidance of
God-Mind which thinks perfect thoughts,
we shall produce results in harmony with
God’s plan for creations.
The acknowledgment of but one Mind, one
thought, one word, all divine, is making
it possible for man to say as Jesus did,
"The words that I speak unto you, I speak
not of myself: but the Father that
dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." John
14:10 After practicing until the right
habit of thought is established, man
will, like Jesus, think as God thinks,
speak as God speaks, work as God works.
This leads to success. In this
consciousness he will say as Jesus did,
"He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." John 10:30
Divine Science predicates everything on
Perfect Being and shows the true relation
of all things to their Source. The true
and full use of our spiritual and mental
faculties is the means through which this
relationship is enjoyed.
Keep in remembrance the truth that God is
All in all.
Chapter
5
The Work of Thought
Commit
thy words unto the Lord, and thy thought
shall be established. Prov. 16:3
Questions to Alert
Your Thinking
1. Where does everything
have its true and permanent
existence?
2. What trinity expresses
the process of God-Mind creating?
3. Why is consciousness of
Truth our great need?
4. List four changes
necessary to enlighten man’s.
thinking.
5. How can God be both
personal and impersonal?
6. Upon what basis should
our thinking rest?
To reason aright we must find cause. To
understand creation, we must study its
source. To know what is possible to
man, we must search his origin and
therein know his nature. To understand
the work of thought, we must discover
its function in the God-Mind and
realize that the same laws apply on the
plane of the individual.
Divine Science is based upon the
principle that God is All in all. This
One is God, the Creator; God, the
creative action; and God, the creation
– a trinity in unity. The value
of Divine Science lies in its unfailing
principle, its never-changing basis,
its exactness, certainty, and universal
applicability. Divine Science teaches
that creation is Spirit expressing;
that creation is Spirit-Substance in
manifestation. It explains the law and
order of perfect Mind in this work of
self-manifestation; it reveals the
method by which invisible Life,
invisible Source, and invisible
Spirit-Substance are made visible. It
teaches the method by which the Creator
reveals Himself in creation, known as
the law of expression, the law of the
trinity expressing as unity. This is
the law of the one perfect Mind and it
manifests throughout all creation for
it is one law. Man then must
necessarily know Truth and understand
the principle of unity in order to
experience the fulfillment of law
within himself.
An infinite Source and Cause must be
one which contains perfect intelligence
and limitless idea. Everything in
existence is contained within the
infinite Source as idea. Idea is the
natural product of Mind, and
consciousness is the knowledge of its
power to carry that idea into visible
form. Without idea Mind would have
naught of which to think; and without
consciousness it would not know
anything of which to think. Therefore
they trinity of divine Mind combines
these three which work as one –
Mind, Idea, and Consciousness. These
three compose one perfect intelligence
ready for expression. The Creator as
infinite Mind, the Source, is God the
Father. The perfect idea inherent in
God-Mind, which is to be created or
pressed forth, is God the Son. That
knowledge which enables Mind to carry
out its idea is perfect consciousness,
or God the Holy Ghost. Hence, the
Universal or Absolute Trinity is all
pure Spirit, Absolute and Uncreate,
Eternal and Changeless, and is the
basic urge underlying all life:
Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Mind, Idea, Consciousness
The process by which the Creator
reveals or produces creation is called
the LAW OF EXPRESSION. By this law it
is seen that like produces like, or
that which is born of Spirit is Spirit.
This law shows the relationship
existing between Cause and effect,
between God, the Creator, and God, the
creation. It works from the Invisible
to the visible, from Principle to
example, from the Inner to the outer.
This is universally true and as we
study we shall see that it works in the
same way on the plane of the
individual.
Infinite Being, Spirit, is the state of
perfection known as the Creator. Its
creation is the manifestation of itself
and this manifestation must be as
perfect as is the Source. God is
infinite Mind and manifests as thought
and word. God is infinite Spirit and
manifests as living soul and body. Thus
by the law of expression we have these
important trinities:
Mind, thought, word
Spirit, living soul, body
Since by law like begets like, the
living soul and body that comprise
individual man are image and likeness
of Spirit. The image of God is God
expressed in individuality and as
visible form; it is infinite Idea
expressed and expressing itself in
mentality and visibility. The likeness
of God means that all inherencies and
qualities of God, all His ideas and
potentialities, are implanted within Hi
image. The nature of the image is
exactly like the nature of its source;
that is, the nature of man is exactly
like the nature of God. God is Life,
Love, Truth; the image of God is life,
love, truth. Infinite Source brings
forth after its kind that which is
inherent within itself. God is
constantly expressing man in His image
and likeness. Man then is not something
that has Spirit, but is Spirit. He is
not something that has body, but is
body. The law of expression reveals the
body to be Spirit expressing; that is,
substance, as vine, branch, and fruit
are one and the same substance. If the
vine is grape, then the branch is grape
and the fruit is grape. There is but
one Substance invisible and visible.
The substance of the vine is not
changed by coming forth into ranch and
fruit; the Substance of infinite Source
is not changed by coming forth into the
individualized expression of itself
– MAN.
The All is Good and the All is here.
God is omnipresent and we are in His
presence from everlasting to
everlasting. This proves the unity of
God and man, for man’s existence
is right where God is, I in God and God
in me. Man could not exist as the
reverse of God. This new interpretation
of life leads to a consciousness of
what the Real is, and of the true
nature of all existence. If we rely
upon the real nature of what is, we
have a fixed basis for peace, and a
source of faith.
Let us review in order to clarify our
thinking and bring about the
realization that "I and the Father are
one." It is well to study carefully
this law of expression, the divine
order of creation, which explains so
exactly how it is possible and cannot
be otherwise, that man is made "in the
image and after the likeness" of the
Father
GOD IS THE ONE MIND, THE SOURCE OF
EVERYTHING.
ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR ORIGIN IN THIS
ONE MIND.
MIND HAS IDEA.
MIND’S ACTION IS THINKING.
THINKING BRINGS THE IDEA INTO THE
VISIBLE, OR "THE WORD MADE
VISIBLE."
IT IS LAW THAT LIKE PRODUCES
LIKE.
"In the beginning was the word and the
word was with God and the word was
God." John 1:1 Creation is the word of
the Eternal made visible, or the word
become flesh. Spirit manifests as
flesh, for though the form is changed
the Substance remains ever the same.
This is the new revelation, even the
visible form is made of
Spirit-Substance. We may have a dim
realization of this at the present time
but the truth is forever awaiting our
recognition. Our divine nature can
never be lost, and sooner or later all
shall awaken to its presence within
them. Let us study and contemplate the
truth until full revelation (of the
Truth) dawns upon our minds.
Although Truth is omnipresent and
changeless, thought "we live, and move,
and have our being" in God, the
All_Good, yea, thought we dwell in the
Kingdom of Heaven but lacking many good
things, and losing the blessedness that
is ours. Consciousness of Truth then is
our great need, not that more good may
come to us, not that we may have more
strength or wisdom or life or health
sent to us, but that our comprehension
may be opened to see that All is within
our very nature and that all God is, is
forever ours.
As we reason from the order of this One
in Self-expression, the conclusion is
that there is but One All. Since all
things are produced by the power of
God’s creative action, the result
is an exact image of the idea of the
Creator, and never is it otherwise. The
Father is the universal. The son is the
individual. In and of universal
Substance, Life, Intelligence, and
Power the individual is formed. Hence,
each individual is a center of
Life’s activity, of Mind’s
intelligence and power, and is of the
purity of infinite Substance. And while
each individual must acknowledge that
"My Father (the universal) is great
than I," yet each may also say "I am
exactly what the Universal is. There is
naught else to be, since man is the
individualized expression of
God."
The purpose of creation is that the
Creator may express, and the purpose of
individual creation is that the Creator
may be expressed through and by the
individual. Man is created to carry on
the work of the Creator and he should
know that he, too, is a triune being,
that he is cause, action, and result on
his plane of existence, in his world of
experiences, conditions, and affairs.
The law of expression works through man
as certainly as it does in God’s
process of creation.
As we study we understand that it is
logical for man to be a triune being
for as we look at nature we discover
many units which are made up of three
phases. All life on the planet is
classified as mineral, vegetable or
animal; the very atoms into which
so-called matter is organized manifest
in terms of three-ness, protons,
neutron, and electrons; the family
comprises father, mother, and
offspring; the plant is composed of
root, stalk, and fruit or flower; the
functioning process of any of
man’s five senses consists of
stimulus, response, and reaction over
nerves which are themselves made up of
neurons, axons, and dendrites. There
are innumerable other illustrations of
such trinities, but these are
sufficient to help us understand the
importance of the three-in-one
principle upon which all creation is
based.
Of course we cannot in truth divide
life, but to give clarity to our
thinking we may divide our concept of
life into God and man, Invisible and
visible, Absolute and relative,
Universal and individual. As we have
seen that God functions through the
Absolute Trinity – Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost – or through the
trinity of divine Mind – Mind,
Idea, Consciousness – we now find
that man on a lower level of awareness,
the plane of the individual, functions
through a similar trinity – the
Super-conscious, conscious, and
subconscious levels of mind. Each
individual, being an expression of the
Father, possesses for his use these
three levels of mind:
Superconscious, or Christ Mind, the
Father expressing on the plane of the
individual.
Conscious level of mind, the son
expressing on the plane of the
individual.
Subconscious level of mind, the Holy
Ghost manifesting on the plane of the
individual.
This truth of being gives man power to
say "I am the thinker, the thought, and
the word." Every object that is made,
every book that is written, every
picture that is painted began as idea
in mind before being expressed visibly.
There is no visible thing but had its
source, its form, and its substance in
the invisible. While man apparently
originates an idea, in reality he
receives it from infinite Intelligence
because he sought it and was ready to
receive it. He brings it into
expression by the inherent power of his
consciousness. Man’s thinking
then is creative action and should have
a reliable base from which to operate.
Unless that base is scientifically true
to principle, God’s law of good,
man produces varied conditions in his
life. The one Thinker is God; the one
God-Mind produces ideas in man. Whether
man thinks about ideas truly or falsely
the results will come forth according
to his thinking and will manifest
scientifically by the law of expression
in his experiences, conditions, and
affairs.
Without doubt the majority of people
have proved to themselves the effect of
thought when learning to ride a bicycle
or to steer an automobile. How easily
one steers directly into the very
object he wishes to avoid if he looks
at that object and concentrates his
thought upon it. Every beginner learns
by experience, or by the good advice of
an experienced "steerer," to look away
from that which he wishes to avoid and
to fix his eye and his attention upon
the place where he wishes to go in
order to reach it safely. The same law
applies to our thinking: look away from
appearances of evil and keep "eye" or
thought fixed upon the good we wish,
and we shall reach the goal. Hitherto
we have not known that the goodness,
truth and love of God-Mind is set in
action by our thinking and speaking,
but such is God’s law. All good
is ours of which to think and speak, so
why waste opportunity by any thinking
or speaking which is contrary to
Good?
Not until we acknowledge the infinite
Source as the I that I am are we in a
condition to think and act divinely;
for we shall always think and act
exactly in accordance with that which
we believe ourselves to be and to be
related to. Not until we hold ourselves
individually as divine Being can we
solve the problems of life
satisfactorily, or enter the way that
leads to knowledge of Life Eternal
which Jesus gave to the world.
The rue realization of oneness is
knowing the true nature of the Creator
and creation, and conforming our ways
to it. It is being lifted up to know
that all that really is, is Good. It
enables us to act justly and correctly
in unity with the whole of power and
correctly in unity with the whole of
power and the all of Good according to
scientific law. Many is one with God
before or above all law, but the law of
expression shows the method by which
man is to express himself in individual
life, through truthful thinking and
speaking. It explains to him how he has
control over all conditions and how he
may show forth his Perfect State in all
things. Man is one with God before he
is born of God, and he can never be
outside of God. "I had planted thee a
noble vine, wholly a right seed." Jer.
2:21 Man is to cultivate this right
seed by his correct thinking and thus
fulfill the purpose for which he was
created, to be a fixed center of action
in the Infinite One. Thus man started
out, so to speak, with unlimited
possibilities of Good. His Eternal
State is Perfection for God is his
Being or Nature which is
changeless.
As long as man does not realize that he
is an individualized center of
God-activity and that he is to share in
fulfilling the Father’s purpose
of bringing love, peace, harmony, and
good will to all, he is prone to use
his thinking power for his own selfish
purposes. As long as man’s
thinking is based upon anything less
than God’s idea of Good, he will
experience confusion, turmoil, and
adverse circumstances in his world of
affairs, for as Emerson says, "Law
obeyed or disobeyed brings opposite
results."
Man has unknowingly made his own
conditions of life and affairs. He is
to work out his state of perfection,
and this is done by recognition of his
true Self through right thinking and
right speaking. The same order by which
God is manifesting in existence must be
maintained in man’s thinking in
solving the problems of life and in
demonstrating his true freedom. The law
of expression fully understood is of
the greatest value to us. It is the way
by which we have come forth; and we
need to apply it for the purpose of
realizing our true and harmonious
relationship, not only with our source
and Cause, but with humanity. The
Source of all idea being God, the
omnipresent Mind, then the true mental
image of an idea will always bring
realization of that idea, and it will
be actualized in the spoke word and in
our dealings with each other. When
God-Idea is brought forth into form it
is the Real expressed and known.
Fellow student, by now your own
thoughts have come to the place where
they see that if thinking turns aside
and busies itself with outer "causes"
it fails in its work and gains nothing,
for the outer cannot supply anything to
thought. It is the work of thought to
look within, to gather from within, to
be illumined from within; then does it
become the outlet for Divine fullness,
just as the branches of the tree draw
from the tree all the life and
substance that is to make good fruit.
There is but one laws. It is
omnipresent. The work of thought is to
recognize and carry from the inner to
the outer all the good that infinite
Love holds for its offspring.
Our thought can be enlightened in truth
only by turning to the Christ within to
unfold a consciousness of our oneness
with the Father; a realization that we
are extensions of Him, functioning here
to carry on His work of love; a
knowledge of truth that is based upon
the Eternal; an understanding of
changeless Life and Being that reveals
Spirit as presence and power. These are
to be the light of our thinking. We
must remain true to our basis, the
omnipresence of God; know what we are
and fully believe in what we are, and
with faith in the knowledge that like
produces like, trust what we are.
Thought is to be diligent in perceiving
knowledge of one Presence and one
Power; to hold to the consciousness of
ever-present fullness; to form the
habit of thinking of love, life, purity
and perfection.
Thought is to recognize the unity of
spirit and body and to declare fullness
of life and perfection for all things.
True thoughts partake of the real
nature of the Source and give form to
divine ideas and attitudes. "By their
fruits ye shall know them." Matt.
7:20
As important as thought is, we must
remember that that which represents the
nature of Being cannot control or guide
Being; consequently neither thought nor
word can rightly control or guide. "I
am the Way" should be understood to
mean that the right way is being the
Way and expressing what I am. I am
before I think or speak. I precede by
thought therefore I cannot be the
result of my thought. Thought has power
to express the Self but not to make it.
What I am cannot change; it waits
forever upon recognition. Our divine
nature – our real Self – is
the Christ our "hope of glory." Jesus
declared this real Self when he said,
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life." This divine nature is a
universal Presence saying "Lo, I am
with you always." Matt. 28:20 As soon
as we recognize it, it is our glory,
and then we shall have true control,
which is doing as the Father does,
being the Way and demonstrating the
God-Self.
We are now accepting Omnipresence as
our basis of thought, and the law of
expression as showing the exact place
and work of thought. The power of
thought is derived from Mind; its
substance also comes from Mind. We
assume the responsibility of
controlling thought simply by thinking
correctly; of controlling words by
speaking true to principle, and of
controlling deeds by acting in accord
with the unity of the spirit. When this
is done we shall be able to perceive
and read the silent and invisible
language or idea that lies back of all
nature, the language which is in the
beginning, before thought, prior to
expression. The highest truths of the
Unmanifest will reveal themselves to
the perception of one whose mental
condition is purified by perfect
thought.
May we rejoice in the beauty of this
truth which is becoming more and more
clear to us. May the light of
inspiration which glows in the words of
the founders of Divine Science be the
spark which will set our hearts aflame,
bringing realization of harmony to
ourselves and others. Listen inwardly
as Malinda Cramer instructs us in these
forceful words:
"Let us cease to be prodigal in our
conclusions and beliefs and awaken to
our Reality. Each of us, being the
thinker of true thoughts, can change
his way of believing and know himself
divine, a son or daughter of God, and
know that his life is God. Then, think
of your life as perfect, unlimited, and
unending. There is but One Life. This
is Truth, which to know, makes free and
brings peace that passeth
understanding. What is it to find the
Kingdom of Heaven and dwell therein but
to get understanding and to become
fully conscious that we live, move, and
have our Being in God? To thus know
that the Kingdom of Heaven is a hand is
to think, speak, and act, that is, to
live in the realization of the power
and glory of Being.
"Our work resolves itself into this: we
are to make the thought, love, and
motive of Spirit our thought, love, and
motive, and thus produce the fruits of
Spirit – effects which harmonize
with the Supreme All. Awaken to thine
own inheritance of pure and perfect
Being; lay hold upon it, it is thine to
use and to enjoy. Be true in thought,
and free from anxiety and fear; look
steadfastly into the Unity of Being,
the perfect law of liberty, and thou
shalt see that all that is, is divine.
‘Be still and know that I am
God.’ "
Questions For
Review and Discussion
1. List all the trinities
mentioned in this chapter, then think
of three other trinities. Discuss
each.
2. Explain in your own
words the expression, "Man is made in
the image and likeness of God."
3. Discuss this statement:
Our conditions in life are the
automatic fulfillment of our states of
consciousness.
4. As Divine Scientists
what is the basis of our
thinking?
5. May one right say, "I
am what my thoughts have made
me."?
6. What gave you the
greatest thrill in this chapter?
Chapter 6
* * * * *
Divine Science - Its
Principle and Practice from the writings
of Nona Brooks and Malinda
Cramer
Please donate with PayPal now.
|
