SHORT LESSONS IN DIVINE SCIENCE

Lesson 1 - What is the Fundamental Teaching of Divine Science?

Purpose: To give the student a simple and definite statement of the Principle upon which all Divine Science reasoning and every conclusion is based.

This lesson deals with Omnipresence, our basic teaching in Divine Science, and gives our reasons for believing in this Supreme Truth of the Universe. Divine Science lays its greatest emphasis upon Omnipresence. It is vital that the student should have this fundamental truth thoroughly grounded in thought before he proceeds to consider the further unfoldment of this system of teaching.
Knowledge of Omnipresence is necessary if one is to realize his God-given power.
Omnipresence! hopefully you will get a great deal of meaning out of this word, and that you will come to love it as I do. Moreover, I hope that what it suggests will come to be the very Guiding Power of your life.
Omnipresence! The many in the One and the One in the many; the All-Knowing, All Powerful One.
All forms and forces are the expressions of Omnipresent, Intelligent Substance. There is just one Creator.
He who is religiously inclined, clothes this Supreme Truth in religious phraseology, and speaks of the All-Inclusive One as God. The scientifically inclined thinker will speak of the Infinite and Eternal Energy, the Cosmic Intelligence, from which all things proceed; while the philosopher will delight in the transcendent and immanent One.
Be certain that the idea--there is One and only One in all the universe--is clear to you, whatever form in language the thought may take.
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the Soul.”
Spirit, Living Substance, God, is everywhere, and there is no other substance. Mind, the Infinite Intelligence of God, is everywhere, and there is no other intelligence.
Hence, we live in a Universe of God-Substance and God-Thought. To one who sees this, there comes the fulfilment of the prophecy of the new heaven and the new earth.
Divine Science did not accept lightly its doctrine of Omnipresence; and the years of teaching and demonstrating this Principle have proved its certainty.
Here are some of the reasons that have led us to accept Omnipresence as Truth:
The great spiritual seers of every age have believed it.
The Bible gives the same thought in many different ways.
Poets have sung it, and philosophers have used it as the basis of their philosophical systems.
Nature in her infinite variety of expressions proves Omnipresent Intelligence and Activity.
Jesus teaches it at every point.
It is interesting to see that even the natural scientists have discovered the same truth, and while some of them might reject the thought, when given in terms other than their own, nevertheless they are expressing the same idea very definitely. They affirm one substance in place of the many once proclaimed; they find one intelligence working everywhere, with one purpose, to one end. Therefore, unity has become a principle of natural science.
Again, the concept of Omnipresence is satisfying to the one who goes back of externals, and grasps the reality of things. It gives a principle of interpretation. It opens up new fields of research. It is a continuous delight mentally and spiritually.
When we accept Omnipresence as a working hypothesis; that is, when we assume Omnipresence to be Truth and live as if it were Truth, we find that our Principle works. It is applicable to all of our experiences and problems. We find healing, happiness, power, and success for ourselves and others, through the application of this Truth, that is, through the practice of the Presence of God.
The highest reason for the acceptance of Omnipresence is that when one has truly laid hold of the God-Consciousness, he knows that the One Presence is All.
First, then, in the attainment of power is the acceptance of this Basis, the Omnipresence, as the Truth of the Universe.
[8] Or, if we cannot do this honestly, let us assume it as a working basis, in order that we may have the opportunity of proving for ourselves its truth. We who accept fully shall get easier and quicker results. We who assume this hypothesis shall, in time, discover for ourselves. We shall grow and shall finally be assured.
The reader is urged to make the contents of this chapter his own through study and practice, that he may be prepared to understand the next and to get full benefit from it. The following suggestions are given for daily practice for a week.

Think on the great Truth of Omnipresence in some such way as this--
Omnipresence is Truth.
This means that:
God includes me now.
God-Love is caring for me now.
God-Wisdom is guiding me now, in this problem.
God-Abundance is supplying my present need.
I can trust this Power and must not fear.
I am thankful for the Truth that makes me free.
These affirmations may be applied to others whom you wish to help.
Live faithfully by these truths, and you will find yourself unfolding into the realization of Power.

Source: Nona L Brooks; Short Lessons in Divine Science

CONSCIOUS CO-OPERATION

It is when simple consciousness becomes self-consciousness, and apprehension becomes comprehension, that man, unlike the young child begins to perceive the relation which one thing bears to another, whether it be in the world of art or literature, mathematics or metaphysics, all of which sciences are.

The assertion that it is as necessary for the soul to rise above the plane of sense in order to "know God," as it is for the intellect to rise above the general, in order to understand the particular, is based on the truth that the child must, through education, gradually learn that a house is a thing composed of many other things, all of which must bear harmonious relation to every other thing, before that one thing which he calls a house can become the thing it is.

Man must now rise as a spiritual being to the perception of his relation to Great First Cause. It is at this point of the perception of his relation to First Cause that man becomes religious in a true sense of the word, for it is at this point that he realises that an evolution which has gone on until this moment by Cosmic or subconscious processes must, from now on, continue through conscious co-operation. He has arrived where the responsibility of working out his salvation on a more elevated plane presents itself, and with such knowledge he springs to his task, as one who knows that all things are now within his reach and only awaiting the taking and the enjoying.

Equipped with the consciousness of his Divinity, man must commence at once to lift up his thoughts to the hills of Spirit from whence cometh his help. The ordinary man becomes an extraordinary man in the sense that he accomplishes now by the aid of his new concept of himself, what he never could have accomplished so long as he rested under the belief of himself as a material individual, subject to material laws. Apparently living in a world of chance and change, he learns that he is really living in a Universe of immutable harmony, where "All things do really work together for good".

Working for Good always on the plane of the Universal, the Law will work for Good for the individual on the plane of the particular, only as he works consciously with it. The perfect way of working with the Law is through understanding, and inviting the blessings of right thinking.

We are learning that the kingdom to which Jesus refers is not something afar-off and outside oneself and one's present experiences, but that it is something near, very near, and inside of oneself, as that state of content which is based on the knowledge that, "In the universe that is filled with the presence of God there is no room for evil".

This brings us to the understanding of the one-ness of Jesus with the Source of all-Being. That it is the one-ness of all with the Source of Being, for unless the all is one with the Source it is bereft of reality. The one-ness of each individual with the Universal is a Truth which can never be offset, but the individual must know this Truth; otherwise he will never be free from the belief that he is separate, or separated from God.

It is this belief that we are separated from God which is the cause of all our problems; therefore the conviction that "Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus", is the one which is to bring about our emancipation from all that is contrary to health, happiness and holiness.

When man learns to govern his life according to Principle rather than by personal opinion, he will not be swayed by externals. Realising that he lives and move and has his being in that Eternal order where Harmony is the only state of consciousness, he will understand what Jesus meant when He said, "Nothing shall by any means hurt you," for he will know that no thing which has proceeded from Principle, can be in any wise injurious, and he will acknowledge nothing that does not proceed from It.

It is the restoration of man to his divine rights that is the crowning glory of the mission of the Master, and this restoration can never be brought about save as it is brought about by man's intelligent co-operation with Divine Law. There can be no co-operation without understanding or true knowledge of man's divine rights; and this is what Truth is intended to convey.

One accept the fact that Great First Cause is Spirit or Mind, and we must admit that Man as Great First Effect is spiritual or mental, and that what seems to be material in connection with man is nothing more nor less than man’s material concepts of himself at a certain period of his mental unfoldment.

It is these material concepts that Truth has come to destroy, so that we may enter into the enjoyment of those things which God has prepared for us from before the foundation of the world.

We should realise that there are no material laws, but that All laws are mental for through this admission it'll enable us to avail ourselves to those mental laws, and thus rise above our accepted limitations by a purely mental process; the process of Thought, for "Thoughts are things" and the most real things in the universe.

The difference between God's universe and man’s world, is the difference between law and order, and chaos and confusion. The only way for man to conform his world to God's universe is to learn to form mental pictures of the Ideal, that is, to think of things as they are in contradistinction to things as they appear to be to his disorderly senses.

The law of Mind has no limits. We are limited in our application of the law by our belief that it has limits. We are not merely affected and influenced by our thoughts, but we are what we are, in actuality and in manifestation, that which our thoughts have made us. All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

Whether we ascend the loftiest heights or descend into the lowest depth, we shall never go out of out mental realm; it will always be our own thought that we shall perceive.

Man is free to direct his attention, which is his concentrated thought, as he chooses, but he must choose in accordance with law and order if he would have law and order prevail in his affairs.