Nona L.
Brooks
(Newspaper Article)
Oct. 1898
DIVINE SCIENCE AND THE
TRUTH
Doctrines of The New Religion
Explained by an Earnest
Believer
Man and
God Are One in Being, in Eternal
Identity, Says This Scientific
Creed.
The individual begins life as a child,
thinking childish things. As he develops
into manhood he thinks as a
man.
It is with the
race as with the individual. Its
consciousness is at first immature, but
is ever ripening. Ideas are changing
because of this growth. Truth is not
changing, for it is unalterable.
Man’s conception of truth
varies.
Who would have
it otherwise? Who would wish to retard a
child’s natural growth, or to
restrict the development of the race in
consciousness? This growth must enter
into the domain of religious ideas as
well as into all other realms.
The present
universal fermentation of religious
thought is due to this increasing
consciousness of the race. What place has
Divine Science in the advancing ideas?
Many steps have led from the first
consciousness to the final understanding
of truth. Divine Science knows itself to
be a final step into the full
consciousness to which the race is now
awakening.
Divine Science
is a perfect and complete science. In its
reasoning it never departs from its basis
or premise. It judges of truth wholly
from principle, and teaches the divine
law and order of
demonstration.
To know the
truth is to be free. So Jesus declared.
Man’s present bondage to all ills
proves, then, that he does not know the
truth! “My people are destroyed for
lack of knowledge” is as true today
as ever.
When we can say
“I know,” our captivity to
sin, sickness and death, to dissension
and discord, shall come to an end; our
division into hundreds of creeds, or
beliefs, shall be dissolved. Our freedom
from all such things must come simply
through knowing the truth.
Knowing what
truth? The truth of God, and of
man’s relation to God.
How may we find
this truth, and how shall we know we have
found it? We find the truth of God by
learning what and where God
is.
God is all
truth. What God is, is truth, and what
God is not, is not truth.
The
Infinite Being
The Divine
Science measurement, or estimate of
truth, is nothing less than Infinite
Being. God is the Infinite Being. The
foundation of all truth is this Infinite.
What is Infinite Being? It is the Truth,
Life and Substance of everything. In the
Infinite truth that Being is Divine we
find a scientific reason for knowing all
things to be divine.
This is
understanding God as “all and in
all,” “Besides me is none
else,” says this Infinite Being.
What is this that declares itself to be
the All? It is whatever God is. What is
God? We certainly know God as Infinite
Mind, since He is all Intelligence, and
we find this Mind declaring, “I am
Mind and besides Mind is none
else.”
It affirms,
“I am Life and besides Life is none
else. I am Goodness, Peace and Truth, and
besides these, is none else.” No
other truth but God, hence, Life, Love,
Goodness and Peace are truths; and death,
hate, evil and discord are not
truths.
Mind finds
expression of itself in thought and word.
Mind is the Creator; thought and word Its
creation. Every word and thought is in
Mind before coming forth. Creation is in
the Creator before it appears in the
visible. Creation, or the visible, is the
thought and word of the Infinite Mind and
Intelligence. The visible form is the
expression of Infinite Spirit.
The accepted
definition of religion is, “The
recognition of God as an object of
worship. Any system of faith and worship.
The rites of religion.” In Science,
religion is known as that consciousness
which binds the individual soul to
Spirit, its source, and holds it in
unwavering oneness with God, its Life,
Substance, or Being.
The God of
scientific religion is not an
“object,” but Omnipresent
Power and Knowledge, indwelling, all
pervading Spirit; present in, through and
around man as Soul; present in everything
as Life and Substance; the very Essence,
or Being, of everything that
is.
Man finds God
first, by withdrawing from the outer
(entering into the closet), shutting the
“door” of his consciousness
to the visible (which represents his past
misconception of Creator and creation),
and within this inmost chamber of the
soul realizing the one Presence and Power
as All.
When this truth
is a realization, he is ready to deny all
claims of mortality, because he sees the
unreality of all but good, and is able to
destroy such claims. Thus is evil
overcome by good. Thus does he know that
he has found the truth that makes free,
because it is proved by him.
All Truth
is Demonstrable.
We know the
truth of a rule in mathematics when we
can work it out. God is not personality,
but Divine Principle, and the perfection,
wholeness, and peace of the Divine Nature
may be, nay, must be, expressed in each
life, when its law and order of
demonstration is understood and applied.
The beginning of this demonstration is to
understand God aright.
The scientific
statement of truth in Divine Science is
to this effect--God and God manifest is
all there is. God and man are one in
Being. In universal Life, Love, Truth,
Intelligence and Power, man is in eternal
identity with Supreme Being. As an
individual, man is the expression of
Divine Being, its very image and
likeness; therefore, manifests its nature
in wholeness and perfection of soul and
body.
This is the
relation of the individual man to the
universal Spirit, as branch to root; and
it is written, “If the root be holy
so are the branches.” If the source
is perfect so is the stream.
Spirit is known
as the only Source. Like begets like, or,
as Jesus expressed it, “That which
is born of Spirit is
spirit.”
Scientific
religion was something unimagined until
recently. Life governed by divine law and
order has not been comprehended; yet,
such an understanding is essential to
harmonious and peaceful conditions. A
scientific religion deals with cause to
understand effect. Its worship is not a
“system” nor a
“rite,” but a constant
recognition of the Holy Presence and
Power of Omniscient Spirit, and the
demonstration of this truth in the
healing of all ills and in the
destruction of all evils.
We have had the
assurance in the Divine Word that when
“the Lord is in the midst of thee,
thou shalt not see evil any
more.”
If God is good
and is all presence, where is there a
place for evil as a reality? If God is
all-Power, and if, as Paul says,
“There is no power but of
God,” where can any opposite power
be or whence came it? If God is the First
Great Uncreated Cause, and, as the Bible
states, He “made all that was made,
and saw all that he had made and behold
it was very good,” what real cause
of evil is there?
Evil has been
met and fought as a great reality for
many centuries, and is no more conquered
today than at the beginning. It might be
wise to at least try a new
way.
Science meets
evil in the dignity of the consciousness
that God is All and in all. That the
Infinite Presence is the all-presence,
else it would not be infinite. That the
Infinite Power is the all-power; that the
Infinite Cause is the all-cause. It sees
God (Good) as all-truth and the
manifestation of good as the only
reality.
As all truth is
contained in God and all that is true has
source in God, that which does not exist
in God, or is not a quality of
God’s nature, is not Truth, though
it may have a temporary existence. Sin,
evil, sickness and death are no part of
God’s nature, do not exist in God,
have no source in God; hence are not
truths and have no place in man’s
real Being or Life, which is
God.
Conscious
of God.
Man is lifted
out of these as he becomes more conscious
of God, because they exist only in
unconsciousness of Truth. We dwell
forever in God, but may be
“blind” to that Presence.
Every man dwells in Light, and the Light
is in him. “But if the light that
is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness.” How shall we banish the
“darkness” and dissipate the
images of fear that have appeared in
it?
How to
Destroy Sin, Sickness and
Death.
How do we drive
darkness out of a room? Do we fight it
out or do we not rather bring in a light?
Upon the darkness of evil let us
“bring in” the light of
good--How? By being positive about the
Omnipresence of Good and in that
“light” denying evil
presence. Upon hate and envy bring in
Love, by firmly recognizing the Love that
is All in all, and denying a hating mind.
In Divine Science we do not protect
ourselves against anybody’s hate or
malice, and leave the
“brother” in such a claim;
but we recognize the One Mind,
Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient,
therefore, his Mind, as well as mine, is
Love.
Upon sickness
bring in Health, by knowing that
Omnipresence means that the Wholeness
(Health) and Perfection of God fills all
at all times, and there is no room for
anything else.
“Neither
give place to the devil.” We soon
see that evil can claim no place since
the Good of God fills all. Our prayer
changes from pleading, which is
uncertainty, to grateful recognition of
Truth as it eternally is. We do not pray
for anything to be changed, since
God’s perfection fills all, but we
ask that our eyes be opened to
see.
Divine
Science Healing Is Not Thought
Transference.
The persistent
practice of this consciousness brings
health to body, and peace to mind,
because it is recognition of Truth.
Divine Science heals not by thoughts, but
from Divine Consciousness. It does not
teach the holding of thoughts to produce
changes in the outer, but the abiding in
Infinite Consciousness, by which our
thought is illumined to see the outer as
it truly is. Personal self is put out of
the way with its opinions and beliefs
about good and evil, that Divine Mind may
express its own Consciousness into every
thought and word.
Divine Science
presents, as the central fact of its
teaching, the Law of expression, or the
method and order in which Infinite Mind,
the Cause, is made visible in effect.
This teaching is so logical that the
Truth of Being and its manifestation is
proved beyond dispute.
Cause of
Evil.
Jesus explained
the “origin” of evil in the
parable of the Wheat and Tares. The
Master planted only good seed. Man is
made guardian of this field. He falls
asleep and in his sleep sees an enemy
planting tares! How much reality has
that? In his “sleep,” or,
unconsciousness of Omnipresent Good, he
dreams of many false things, and seeks
out “many
inventions.”
Now is the
awakening time, when man begins to
understand that the “tares”
have no real place in the Divine
Presence. The “burning” is
the destruction that comes to our false
suppositions as Truth is realized.
“I shall be satisfied when I awake
in thy likeness.”
Man must learn
that he is in God’s likeness.
Divine Science explains man as being the
expression of God, not reflection. He is
not something upon which God’s
Truth, Life and Love falls and finds
reflection, but he is of the very Life
Substance and Truth that God
is.
In Divine
Science healing, no mental or personal
influence is used. Its work is
accomplished by being still and knowing
Truth heals, not thought; the Infinite
Being or Mind, not the individual. One
must think truly when he knows truth, but
it is the prayer of understanding that
heals the sick, and forgives sin. In true
healing sin is destroyed. “The
prayer of faith shall save the sick, and
if he have committed sins they shall be
forgiven him.” James 5. This is the
permanent healing, for it is Divine
healing. It is the exercise of
consciousness.
The
“prayer of faith” that heals
sickness and forgives sin is the
recognition of Divine Omnipresence, of
the eternal state of Being as Divine
Nature, image and likeness of God, never
sick nor sinful, and the casting out of
consciousness such false beliefs as have
claimed “two masters”--two
Powers, two opposite
realities.
Because man has
for so long believed in something else
besides God, he must now persistently
deny the truth of such belief, and affirm
the verities of Divine Being. As soon as
sin, sickness and death are cast out of
each consciousness, they will exist no
more. “To the pure all things are
pure.”
“If thine
eye be single thy whole body, shall be
full of light.” We have been seeing
double! As soon as we see but
One-Knowing, One Power, One Presence, One
Intelligence, One Life and One Truth, our
“eye” is single.
The
Millenium
“But,”
one says, “this will bring the
millenium.” What is the millenium?
Heaven on earth. Heaven is already on
earth! Heaven is wherever God is, and God
is everywhere! The sun shines whether the
blind man sees or not. When God is known
as Omnipresence, Heaven is known as
Omnipresence. “Lo I am with you
always.” God’s dwelling place
is within the consciousness that
recognizes that Presence. “The
kingdom of God is within you.”
God’s “throne” is that
heart in which God alone rules, because
God is acknowledged as All.
Nineteen
hundred years ago, one who understood
said, “The kingdom of heaven is at
hand.” Today the Spirit is bringing
these words to our remembrance,”
or, is impressing upon us their deep
significance. Heaven must be sought
within and not without--right at hand and
not far away. We shall “go to
heaven” by going to God, and we
“go” to God by recognizing
and accepting the God Presence here and
now, and His likeness or manifestation as
All in all.
Divine
Science Teaches Man to Look
to the Invisible.
Man has been
attracted by the outer; he has dwelt in
the visible and soul has been but feebly
cultivated. He has worshipped an outer
God, trusted an outer Saviour and looked
to the outer Word for guidance. He has
believed the outer to be a source of good
as well as ill. He has depended upon the
visible. Slowly does he turn now to
acknowledge the absolute Power of the
Invisible.
Divine Science
is a high call. It bids man to look to no
other source or cause of wisdom, truth,
goodness, peace, health and harmony, but
Spirit. It teaches that there is no outer
or physical causation, and in its light
we cease to depend upon any outer thing
for help. It recognizes the outer as the
perfect effect of an inner perfect
Cause.
God reaches man
directly through man’s own soul and
supplies every need. Infinite Mind is the
Only Source and Cause, hence there is
nothing in the outer to either help or
hurt us.
Jesus tried to
show His followers the great benefit that
would come to them when they had but the
inner guide to depend upon. He said to
them, “It is best for you that I go
away.” When they could no longer
claim Him personally as the great Leader
and Teacher they would be forced to
accept the leading of the Spirit within
themselves. He wrote no book nor left any
written rules that might hold them to
Himself. He constantly tried to turn
man’s homage from His wisdom and
goodness to the Universal Good--which, if
Universal, is given equally to
all.
Jesus Christ is
one, and the eldest, of the Great family
in heaven and earth. He taught by life
and word, the wonderful power of God in
man. He repelled any insinuation that He
individually had special power, or was
particularly favored of God. “Thou
has loved them as Thou hast loved
Me.” He is God manifest in the
flesh, and is proof that God is to be
manifest in all flesh. Truly one has said
“As the first coming of Christ is
God manifest in one, the second coming
will be God manifest in the
race.”
Individuality
Not Exalted.
Truth has
always come to the world through some one
individual consciousness. Divine Science
duly acknowledges the great spiritual
leaders in all the past and present, but
comes with a new voice, because it is a
new light, saying that what has been
shall not always be in man’s idea
of Truth. Light has come to man in the
way he could receive it. The new
revelation in Divine Science proves that
man is ready for a higher
leading.
No individual
is chosen to be the interpreter of Divine
Will to others. “A nation shall be
born in a day” is a prophecy for
the latter days, or later consciousness.
Thousands shall see the Truth--the same
Truth, for there is but one--at the same
time in all places, because the
Omnipresence of Truth is
recognized.
Divine Science
has stepped into this advanced
consciousness, and can no longer limit
Truth to channels. The
“flood” of Truth is at hand
in the realization of Omnipresence, and
if we limit its outflowing to certain
“channels” we cannot yet
receive the full immersion. No man has
freer access to Divine Intelligence than
has any other. The One Source is
Omnipresent to all alike. He is chosen
who chooses to receive! Any other belief
is erroneous and has led the great
majority to receive truth at second hand.
But this is not scientific
religion.
The Watchword
of Divine Science is Charity, for it
teaches with Paul that “Though I
have all knowledge, and can remove
mountains and have not charity, I am
nothing.” “He that saith he
is in the light and condemneth his
brother, is in
darkness.”
Divine Science
teaches man to hold very loosely all
outer helps, knowing that as the soul
expands into knowledge of the Infinite
these must be done away. It does not
ignore the fact that man needs the outer
support in his early consciousness which
is feeble, just as a child needs the help
of its mother’s hand when learning
to walk. But all know there is a better
possibility for the child and expect to
see it walk alone in due time.
A Helping
Hand.
Divine Science
reaches a helping hand to the weak or
beginning consciousness, but is all the
time encouraging it to find its strength
and light within itself. It gradually
leads the seeker after Truth away from
dependence upon another’s
understanding, to the light “that
lightest every man that cometh into the
world.”
Divine Science
stands for that teaching which is
pointing man directly to Divine Source,
without intervention of any other leader
than Spirit. It feels that the world is
ready for this step, and that spiritual
progress has been heretofore impeded by
the clinging of the masses to individual
authority. Isaiah’s words are
significant: “The leaders of this
people have caused them to err, and they
that are led of them are
destroyed.”
The teachers
and the books in Divine Science are held
as secondary to the individual
consciousness that is guided by Spirit.
Divine Science is a step beyond that
consciousness which looks to the
individual as authority.
It is sometimes
asserted that Divine Scientists say
“I am God.” This is incorrect
and arises, as criticisms generally do,
from misunderstanding. Divine Science
perceives and teaches that the Great
“I Am” is God, and is the One
that includes all else. No individual,
therefore, can claim to be this I Am, nor
can he say “I am God.” In our
present consciousness the individual man
is known as the expression and
manifestation of Universal Spirit, which
Spirit is the only “I
Am.”
A
much misunderstood teaching of Divine
Science is, that there is no
matter.
This is plain
enough when we see that God is Spirit and
not matter, and that God is All and in
all.
In denying
matter, however, we do not in Divine
Science deny form. We do not deny the
body. “I have a body
eternal,” Paul says. When we deny
matter, we simply deny our belief that
there is a substance separate and apart
from Spirit. There are not two
substances. All that is, is Spirit and
its manifestation, in form.
What is
the Body?
As there is but
one Life and one Substance, even Spirit,
whatever Life and Substance the body
possesses is spiritual. Divine Science no
longer separates between Spirit and body.
“Ye are the temple of God,”
and the veil which separated the Holy of
Holies from the rest of the temple is the
type of ignorance that believed the body
to be separated from Spirit’s Life
and Substance; that supposed the visible
to be of a different nature from the
invisible. “Being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them.”
This veil is
done away in Christ, “the
Truth,” which reveals that there is
no separation between Creator and
creation--between Invisible and
visible.
Ignorant
thought is being destroyed as the truth
is perceived that All is
Spirit.
Divine Science
claims not to be a new religion nor a new
Truth. It is a new light upon religion
and Truth. Divine Science is not
imitative, but includes all Truth that
ever was, agrees with all that is true
everywhere, and is an outreaching into
new realms of Truth.
Divine
Science Heals.
Does Divine
Science heal? Yes, as hundreds are ready
to testify. Many demonstrations over the
most so-called incurable diseases, relief
from mental disturbances and outward
calamities of all kind, give proof that
Divine Science is a demonstrable truth.
Most who have come and have been healed
have been pronounced incurable and many
in acute diseases have been speedily
restored and saved long weeks of
illness.
The first step
in Divine Science is the healing, which
attracts those that are weary with
life’s burdens. As soon as they
find relief they naturally are led to
investigate so beneficent a power, and
then realize, as was not possible at
first, that, grand as the healing is, it
is but a small part of the whole Truth,
which its teachings reveal.
(Formerly at
Northwoods Divine Science Resource
Center)
