GOD AND MAN ARE ONE

As students of science we start with a new concept of man, an idea which may be new to our thought, but which is eternal in Truth. As man understands that his true state, his eternal nature, is perfect since he is one with his perfect Source, he claims his own perfection as something innately his, implanted within him by the divine Mind, not something which he has earned or which comes to him from outside himself.

As his vision enlarges the perfect unity between the Divine and all mankind is revealed to the consciousness of man, He begins dimly at first, to glimpse the truth of his sonship; gradually he sees the everlasting nature of all things. The divine nature can never be lost for it is an eternal truth, and sooner or later everyone must awaken to its presence within him. Eventually each one will be able to say, “I am because God is, God is the reason or the cause of my being, the source of my existence. All that I am must be found in God, and most truly I cannot be something that my source is not. My source decides my nature. The stream is like the fountain from which it flows.”

Jesus was quoting from the Old Testament when he gave but two commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” Deut. 6:5, and “…thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself…” Lev. 19:18. These commandments are fulfilled as man recognises the perfect nature in all creation. When we realise the oneness and divinity of Life in all things we sense a universal justice, strength, and harmony back of all creation which when understood will be expressed as love. Understanding that the whole of Truth must be found in infinite Mind, we have a standard by which to judge all things, a basis from which to reason of Truth.

We now turn from appearances and” judge righteous judgement”; we decide what is true from our knowledge of an omnipresent principle of Truth rather than from a personal opinion or feeling. Whatever God is, is Truth.

All Truth is eternal in nature; true love can never change; true understanding cannot fail; true life can never end. This is al true now. Conscious awareness of the Truth and the opening of our hearts and minds to the acceptance of the fullness within our own nature is our greatest need. All good, wisdom, strength, life, health, love are ours now. Let us accept them.

Begin each day with an acknowledgement of omnipresent Good. Think of yourself as a son of God. Think of your children, your friends, and all persons, not as they seem by observation, but as they are in God. Think of them as that which is, was and ever shall be; as that which thinks and knows; as that which the Expresser expresses perfectly.

Know that what is true of God is true of you and of them. From this standpoint you can intelligently master the problems of life. From this standpoint it is right for you to accept for yourself all thoughts and feelings of divine love, truth, knowledge, power, strength, health, happiness, success, and perfect harmony. By making this your daily practice you will partake of the free gift of eternal life, you will be remembering God the Good. Through this consciousness the healing of body and affairs takes place and Good is made manifest. End

From Divine Science Its Principles and Practiced: from the works of Malinda Elliot Cramer and Fannie Brooks James

GOD AND MAN ARE ONE

And God said; let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Genesis 1:26

In order to understand and accept the truth concerning the reality of good and the unreality of evil, it will be necessary to consider the source or beginning of all that is. In order to reason aright we determine the first and originating cause.

In the beginning God – God the Uncreate, the perfect Mind, the only Source, the omnipresent Principle, the eternal Spirit – created. All is contained within God, the perfect Mind, the cause of all that is, the source of all form. God, the Good, eternal and changeless; God, the beginning out of which were all things made which were made. “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. Genesis 1:31

Creation is the emanation of life and substance from the one original Source which can only be the infinite, omnipresent, eternal and changeless God. Creator being the Source is therefore the substance of the stream; as the tree is the source and substance of its branches and fruit; as the bay is one with the ocean of which it is an extension.

The emanation of the life and substance of God into creation must mean that the life and substance of creation is as perfect as that of the Creator, God Himself. The essence of all created things must, by logical reasoning, be eternal Spirit-Substance and the idea of each created form must be held within God-Mind in order to maintain existence. All creation is within the Creator, or Source, before coming into form, for in the Invisible is the eternal Idea of all that makes up creation, while in the visible is the expression or living form of Idea. Reason tells us that it is necessarily true that all living forms are included within Omnipresence, since Omnipresence embraces ALL within itself.

Creation is God in Self-manifestation. Divine Science explains the law and order of perfect God-Mind involving itself within creation, revealing itself in form as nature and mankind. “I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last. “ Rev 22:13. The universal Spirit, the only life and substance is the beginning, the source. That which emanates from this One is the end; it too is Spirit, for there is but one presence, one life, and one substance. Creation is Spirit. Everything begins and ends as Spirit. God is omnipresent Principle. The source and origin, that from which anything proceeds; the beginning, the first.” It is first cause wherein we find the true nature of all things. Then with God as our beginning our nature is decided by His.

Divine Science has taught these truths that Spirit and Substance are two aspects of the same reality, God. It has always taught that so-called matter is pure divine energy manifesting as form, repeatedly pointing out that Substance is Spirit, eternal and changeless in essence. The outward form may seem to change, but the inner form, which is God’s thought, remains eternally the same. “… whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever; nothing can be put to it, nor taken from it:…” Eccl. 3:14. All substance is one. All substance is pure, whole, and perfect. The visible universe is the Spirit of God in action. All is God and God in action.

Man then is eternally one with the infinite Source and in nature is the image and likeness of the Eternal as it expresses in living form. This is the truth of which Jesus was fully conscious for he declared, “I and my Father are one.” John10:30. There is but one source of all. God. Man is one with God, hence he is like God. That which begins in Spirit is Spirit to the end. Since all that is has its source in Spirit, we can confidently say, All is Spirit.” God and man cannot be separated. God is Spirit Universal and is expressed and manifest as living soul and body. Spirit contains within itself all souls and bodies before they are expressed, just as the vine holds branches and fruit within itself before they are expressed or pressed out.

All of man’s possibilities lie in the truth that he is divine as is his Creator with whom he is one. He is one with God whose nature is love, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, power, life and joy. These are known as inherencies of God, and they are attributes which man inherits by nature of his oneness with God. Man is one with God who is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.

Concentrated thinking upon the broadness of this thought brings out some degree of God’s infinitude, some idea of the fullness that is all in all.

There is only one Mind, one Substance, one Source, one Presence, one Power, one Life – All Good.

Although Truth is omnipresent and changeless; although man lives, moves and has his being in God, the All Good; although he dwells in the kingdom of heaven, if he is conscious of it, he may go on his way lacking many things and losing the blessedness that IS his. “Heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ,” men may, through ignorance of the truth, be slaves of misery, doubt, and poverty. It is KNOWING the truth that makes man free. Man gives a sense of reality and power to evil when he fails to recognise that his source, his life, his very existence through time and eternity is God the Good. Truth must be recognised in order to be realised and to become a power in the lives of men.

Ignorance of the truth of his Being does not alter man’s true nature, for the REALITY of man never changes. Ignorance is the seeming great delusion of the world. It unknowingly takes this for what they are not; that is, takes the expression for the Expresser, the body for the source of Self, the brain for the source of Mind, the letter for the Spirit and, in general, causes a sense of disorder of disease.

To be continued…..


Source: Divine Science: Its Principles and Practice – from the works of Malinda Elliot Cramer and Fannie Brooks James