MIND AS PRINCIPLE: THE ONE CONTROL GOVERNING ALL
Now we come to Mind as Principle, which is the one control governing all. "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Gen. 1: 14).
Here in this fourth day there is a sense of power, a quality which Mind and Principle have in common. Principle as Mind is the operation of spiritual power, but Mind as Principle seems more to emphasize the one control; Mind controls according to the one Principle and its supreme government of the universe.
The first day reveals the light of Mind, and now this fourth day goes on to identify the light as "lights"—as the greater and lesser light, symbolizing Principle and idea. These lights are not only "to divide the day from the night" and to be for "signs," "seasons," "days," and "years," but they are also to rule over the day and over the night. The one Mind which is the Principle of the universe controls and governs enlightened spiritual consciousness (day) and also what sometimes seems like unillumined human experience (night), so that "there shall be no night there." The light of Mind is ever present, whether it be day or night, and as the Principle of all being, it is always in control. So whatever experience man is faced with, to recognize that behind the shadows stands God—that there is only one Mind or Principle at work, governing and controlling its universe intelligently—will show the nothingness of all that is inharmonious in that experience, and that the only factors that are ever in operation and controlling all are the ideas of Mind which are good and eternal. Jesus proved this fact to its ultimate in his dark hours when faced with crucifixion, saying beforehand to Pilate, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." He knew that there was one control, one government, at work—the government of divine Mind operating as infinitely harmonious and eternal ideas.
The word "control" means "to exercise directing, guiding, or restraining power over" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary); also "to subject to authority; to regulate; to govern" (Annandale). In Science and Health we read, "Mind's control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science. Jesus illustrated the divine Principle and the power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death" (171: 12-16). Jesus was demonstrating the government of Principle and the directing, guiding, restraining, and regulating power of Mind throughout his mission. He commended the centurion at Capernaum and healed his servant because the centurion understood what control meant in relationship to his soldiers, and evidently could discern this same factor as being operative in the realm of the spiritual. When he besought Jesus to heal his servant, he did not even deem it necessary for Jesus to come to his home where the servant lay ill. He just begged him to "speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed," adding, "for I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." His soldiers could not help but obey the authority which related to their very activity, and so the centurion realized that Jesus had but to "speak the word" of living truth, and the outcome must be compatible with its divine origin.
There is one Mind, which is the Principle of the universe, and Principle and its idea is one, therefore the idea must forever be controlled by the divine Mind only; it can never be controlled by any other principle or mind. This is obvious when one comes to think it out. When a creator creates something, the idea of that creation is an integral part of the creation and can never leave its creator. In divine creation the idea never leaves its origin, Mind, is never separated from its Principle, and therefore that which creates it continues to control and govern it. Since idea is man, as we have seen, nothing can control man but the divine Mind, the one intelligent divine cause or Principle of the universe. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind. . . . The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness" (S&H 151: 20-24). Also "The reflection, through mental manifestation, of the multitudinous forms of Mind which people the realm of the real is controlled by Mind, the Principle governing the reflection" (S&H 303: 1-5).
I remember realizing the inseparability of idea from its cause very clearly when a young relative stepped out on the wrong side of a train at a station and fell on his back onto the line. We saw that the real man as idea could never fall away from his Principle and was always held in and therefore always governed by its harmonious operation. I recalled a statement in Science and Health commenting on Jesus' declaration, "I and my Father are one" – "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being" (361: 16-18). Drops of water constitute the ocean and cannot fall out of it; similarly it is impossible for a ray of light to fall away from the sun. This inseparability of idea from its origin came vividly to consciousness and the young man suffered no ill effects.
To realize that Mind as Principle is the one control governing all is potent in human experience where many disordered and inharmonious forces claim to be in control. Not only is control a directing and guiding power, but also a restraining power, and surely the more conscious mankind becomes of the one infinite Mind controlling all, the more peaceful will be its progress. Being consciously aware of this Mind as the Principle of the universe, understanding it and living in obedience to its demands, must help to restrain those tremendous chemicalizations that occur in the world as Truth urges itself upon mankind's thought for acceptance. Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, "The pent-up elements of mortal mind need no terrible detonation to free them" (Mis. 356: 5-6). There is a persistent belief that these "pent-up elements" either in ourselves or in the world need to have a violent upheaval to free them, but if we are alert to realize that the one Mind is the Principle of the universe and is controlling everything, and that as ideas of this one Mind or Principle we cannot help but live in obedience to this control, then these terrible detonations will prove unnecessary. Thinking back to the tone of Mind as Soul, the more we are aware of the eternity and constancy of ideas and their ever-presence, the less we shall experience these instances of something confined and limited chemicalizing and bursting. The ever-presence of divine idea means peaceful progress.
Mind as Principle deals with beliefs of mesmerism, hypnotism, animal magnetism—indeed all the "isms" that would claim to control a man's mind, to mesmerize him and make him act involuntarily. The fact is that man is an idea of the Principle that is Mind and therefore his consciousness is governed by the divine Mind alone; nothing can interfere with this union nor control him other than this Mind. This relationship of idea to its Principle is most clearly seen in the illustration of the relationship of a ray of light to the sun. Nothing other than the sun can control that ray, nor can anything cut it off from the sun; it cannot touch it, nor get in between it. One would have to destroy the sun first. If something like a cloud or a material object should come along, the ray appears merely to shorten itself, but it is still attached to the sun; it can never be interfered with nor cut off from the sun. Is not this the truth about our relationship to Principle? As idea we are one with Principle, and because Principle is Mind, all our mental impulses are governed by the divine Mind. As idea we come direct from the divine Mind; in fact we are the ideas of the divine Mind in operation. We forever remain in our cause and can never come out of that infinite cause. If it were possible for a ray of the sun to be cut off from its origin and go around by itself somewhere, it would no longer be a ray of the sun, because the ray is the sun expressing itself. It has no other existence. Similarly, man is the ray of God, one could say, the idea of God, and God could not exist without man any more than man could exist without God. (See S&H 470: 21-1.) "Principle and its idea is one" (S&H 465: 17).
A man aware of his unity with the one Mind or Principle of all being cannot be mesmerized or hypnotized. If we believe ourselves to be independent entities at the mercy of stronger wills than our own, then we lay ourselves open to be mesmerized. But if we are conscious of the fact that we are Mind's idea, eternally governed by the one Principle, so that we can consciously declare of ourselves, 'I am the one infinite intelligence in operation; I am the idea or expression of the infinitely good, all-powerful Principle of the universe, never separated from it for an instant—that is all there is to me," then how can we be mesmerized by other so-called influences?
In human experience, apart from specifically directed mesmerism or hypnotism, many false systems are believed to influence man and control his destiny. One of the foremost is astrology. Astrologers claim it to be a serious science and maintain that its influence on a man's life is undeniable. We may discountenance this and say that we never did believe in "that sort of thing," but so long as we base our calculations regarding life on the belief that we are mortals, born into matter, living in matter, and that life is eventually coming to an end in matter, we unconsciously come under the influence of the myriad beliefs associated with mortal existence—heredity, environment (be these two claims favourable or unfavourable), false education, chance, fatalism, astrology, etc. The way of freedom from these influences is to rise to the consciousness of man's true selfhood as eternal idea of God, existing "before Abraham was." Our true identity as idea has always existed and will always exist as one with the eternal Principle or Mind of the universe, inseparable from it. It was never finitized in a material body, subject to all the limitations and discords inherent in such a belief. The true man as idea is above and beyond such influences, contingent as they are on mortal-based calculations. He is controlled and governed eternally by the divine Mind and the one Principle's harmonious laws.
In this connection, it is interesting to know that even one of the foremost astrologers agrees that there are certain people who are above being affected by astrological influences—those whom he calls the "saints" and those who are aware of a higher spiritual law.
In all these matters, though, of influence or non-influence, it is never enough to pay lip-service to or merely make statements about a higher spiritual law. One has not only to be aware of the one Mind or Principle of the universe, but so to understand it that one consciously lives as its idea or expression and thus lets these spiritual facts prove themselves. The mere making of statements has no power. It was the understanding awareness of being the living Christ and letting this Christ being permeate the minutiae of his daily life that gave power to Jesus' words; and it was the constant vivid conviction of his oneness with the Father, his inseparability from the parent Mind or the one Principle of the universe, that rendered all the evil forces at work around him incapable of controlling his destiny.
Mrs. Eddy speaks about "mental malpractice," what it is, and how one can protect oneself from it. She says that the way of protection lies in awareness of the one Mind and that man reflects this Mind. "In Science there is no transfer of evil suggestions from one mortal to another, for there is but one Mind, and this ever-present omnipotent Mind is reflected by man and governs the entire universe" (S&H 496: 2-5). So if we are faced with the problem of animosity and we believe we are being malpractised, then we need to know that there is only one Mind in operation and that we are all ideas of the same Principle, which governs all and is entirely good. Remaining understandingly with this fact, we cannot fear malpractice and it inevitably falls to the ground. How can we fear if we are conscious of our being as idea, and of one Mind or Principle governing the entire universe of ideas harmoniously, powerfully, irresistibly, so that all ideas fundamentally are involved in one interest, going one way, to fulfil one plan? If we believe we are being malpractised, we are really malpractising ourselves by believing in it. If anyone is fooled by mortal mind and indulges in specific hatred towards us, it is his problem to work out, one might say, and why should it frighten, trouble or harm us? In reality, though, it is neither his problem nor ours; there is only one man, whose nature is idea, and therefore it is a lie about this true nature of man, and if we are thinking impersonally, such hatred will touch us only to a greater love and gratitude for what we understand the true man to be as idea. This is why we can always obey the demand, "Love more for every hate" (Mis. 389: 16),--love the true man more.
At the end of the chapter "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health we read, "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake" (442: 30-32). How can we be a law to ourselves? Only by identifying ourselves aright as one with the eternal Principle of all being. Man does not even exist without this Principle; man is that Principle expressed, just as in the example of the ray and the sun. And when we are deeply and intelligently conscious of this, what can harm us? Nothing.
We have spoken about the belief of specific or directed malpractice, of mesmerism and hypnotism, and of various systems, such as astrology, which claim to influence man, but mortal mind also claims to operate through ignorant beliefs, and unless we are spiritually alert, we seem to come under the influence of the ignorant animal magnetism or mesmeric belief which is floating in the mental atmosphere and makes us accept many negative and untrue conditions in this ordinary human experience. The general belief in illness, depression, age, lack, and the myriad limitations which people accept as natural to human existence are all the mesmerism of mortal mind. An article in Miscellany, "Ways that are Vain," refers to this hidden influence, saying, "Animal magnetism, in its ascending steps of evil, entices its victim by unseen, silent arguments." Often we are half aware that something unlike good is talking to us and we do not deal with it at once and so it remains an "unseen, silent argument." The article goes on to say how this one liar tries to make us lose our individuality and act contrary to our highest sense. It continues, "these miserable lies [and this is all they are], poured constantly into his mind, fret and confuse it, spoiling that individual's disposition, undermining his health, and sealing his doom, unless the cause of the mischief is found out and destroyed." We so often condemn ourselves, and think we are not loving, for instance, or that we used to express patience and now we have no patience and that our disposition has changed. These lies have nothing to do with us as Mind's idea. As soon as we wake up to "the cause of the mischief,"—to see that it is animal magnetism, mortal mind, the lie that man is a mortal, cut off from his source,--we can feel these lies losing their hold on us and our dominion as man returning.
This reference continues, "Other minds are made dormant by it, and the victim is in a state of semi-individuality, with a mental haziness which admits of no intellectual culture or spiritual growth" (211: 12-32). Sometimes one experiences this feeling of mental haziness and often on such occasions one is tempted to think, "I am dull and uninspired today." But many a time, when this has happened to me, I have woken up to the fact that this mist has nothing to do with me, and I have traced it back to mortal mind, the one liar, and this has begun to deal with the lie. Then I have lifted it out of the realm of a personal problem by realizing that this haziness about spiritual reality claims to be a general mesmerism in the world, but the truth is that all men everywhere love Truth and as ideas of the one Principle or Mind are alertly and actively responding to their divine Cause in intelligent and powerful ways. The only influence or control at work with all men everywhere is the divine Mind, the one harmonious Principle of the universe. Thinking impersonally and universally in this way, one finds spiritual sense actively and strongly flowing again, and liberation comes at once.
Mind as Principle, being the one control governing all, follows logically from Mind as Soul as the definiteness of idea. When we see that the fundamental nature of the universe is idea, and that man is idea, then we also see that he is idea in its Principle, governed by this Principle, and therefore he cannot be influenced by any other mental power but the one divine Mind. He must be controlled by the divine Mind, governed by the divine Mind in every way. It is important to be consciously and consistently aware of this when there are so many channels silently and audibly claiming to put forward other influences and control. So much that we read in the press, hear on the radio, or see on the television is liable to mesmerize us so that we unconsciously accept the beliefs and lies of the carnal mind. Therefore we need to be watchful, alert, and active, knowing that we have the Mind which was also in Christ Jesus and that we can ultimately say what he was able to say, namely, "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
