“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 20, 21).
In an earlier article, “Divine Sufficiency and the Knowing Mind” (October 2003 on this website), I wrote of the first time the revelation of a spiritual Self came to me. I was fifteen, at the time, and the healing which occurred following this ‘Eureka moment’ is described in that article, if you’d care to read it. I will never forget the message that came to me prior to the healing (I paraphrase): “There is a You, that is always safe in God’s love, and is never touched by anything in this world…a spiritual You, not a physical you.” And as I stood and absorbed what these words could mean, the healing took place in the flesh. For twelve years after that, I searched for a human religion which could take me deeper into this enlightenment about a spiritual identity that cancels out, as real, the mortal, physical identity we seem to be; where, in the process, realization of this immortal identity heals the flesh. After studying many world religions and coming up empty on any references to actual healings which involve our spiritual sense of identity, I prayed to be led to whatever worldly religion might touch on what I’d been experiencing. Following that prayer, I was led, rather dramatically, to Christian Science, which was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866. This doctrine explained in such thorough detail what I had experienced in that previous healing—the revelation of a spiritual Self, which heals the physical body and outer world of earthly discords by the realization or comprehension of this spiritual, rather than fleshly, identity. Our real, spiritual selfhood is the Christ identity, right where a material being seems to be, but is not. This is the meaning of the Christ, which Jesus came to reveal to all mankind. It is our shared, divine heritage. This Christ identity of each of us is the true image and likeness of God. Our Christ identity is immortal and perfect. It is immortal and perfect because Spirit, God, is our one and only true source of being—our only true Parent. We’ve never lost this spiritual identity. It is who and what we really are. It is our divine inheritance. But one must realize this (See this mentally) to bring any healing results to the flesh, or material countenance of mind and body that are ‘in the world.’ I have stayed with this doctrine of Christian Science because, to me, it is the closest thing to divine Truth that one can encounter in human religions. Many proofs of its validity (in the form of physical healings, supply and harmonious outcomes of turbulent situations) have come to me, throughout the years. Other religions have even been born out of the principles of Christian Science. The teachings of the Infinite Way, founded by Joel Goldsmith sometime in the mid 1940s, incorporated the same, basic principles as those of Christian Science. This was not surprising, since Joel Goldsmith had been a Christian Science practitioner for many years prior to taking on his new mission of lecturing around the world and establishing an individual self-study way of life. The Infinite Way movement soon brought the message of spiritual being to many who would never step inside, or join, a church organization. It filled a large void that was in the world at the time. In my opinion, both movements are worthy of exploration for anyone wishing to learn the way of spiritual healing—and the greater revelation of the universal, Christ identity which awakens us to our spiritual Self, place, and eternal health in God’s forever creation. One crucial, very-similar point which is made in both movements is on the subject of divine Truth. Both doctrines point to the spiritually, immortal, universal Christ identity within, as the fount of Truth. Our divine Self already knows all Truth, because it is already at one with the Source of all Truth, God. It is God-with-Us. At any moment we can go to this higher Self and call forth the spiritual Truth we need to heal our bodies or human situations. Thus, while human religions help to guide the material mentality out of itself (through lectures and the written word of writers) the greater source of the spiritual Truth we need, the real enlightenment we need to experience, comes from within us—from within the mind that was also in Christ Jesus—our spiritual consciousness, still at one with God’s Intelligence, Wisdom, Love and Eternal Life. This is the real fount of Truth. Christ Jesus was the greatest revelator of this universal, spiritual identity of mankind. He demonstrated, through his brief ministry, what the knowledge of our true, immortal status could do in the human ‘condition’; that’s why this spiritual identity within is called the Christ identity. It was not Jesus, the mortal, material sense of man that was important; it’s the Christ of his being…the spiritual one he truly was (and still is) that we are to learn and emulate. His Truth is our Truth also. His healings are our healings. When speaking of the Christ of us and how it pertains to healing, Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” (John 14: 12). The spiritual power over material illusion belongs to all God’s children, on whatever mental plane they are dwelling. Knowledge of this spiritual Self enabled the Master (and those disciples who learned his teachings) to heal anyone, because the Christ identity belongs to everyone. Fleshly ills can never fasten unto the spiritual one we truly are. God is Spirit. God’s children must be spiritual also. No material condition (not even the condition of physical health) can belong to Spirit, the substance of all God’s children. We can’t actually have physical circumstances; our true, only circumstances, are spiritual. Human, physical identity is a mortal counterfeit; spiritual identity is the real Self, and it is eternally whole. Thus, we live in eternal life now; we just don’t realize it. Physical deformities and diseases never touch us. Physical death never touches us. After physical death, we disappear from material sight and perception, but our Christ Consciousness, our true body, soul and mind, goes on as before. Jesus could bring back ones who disappeared from sight in the physical death process. He called physical death “sleep” and this account was given of Lazarus’s death: “…he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.” (John 11: 11-14). Later, standing before the tomb of Lazarus, the account continues: “…And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.” (John 11: 43, 44). When Jesus spoke these last words, “Loose him, and let him go,” wasn’t he speaking to the peoples’ consciousness? Wasn’t he telling them, Loose him from your old beliefs about his identity; see the spiritual one he truly is, whom death cannot hold. Let him go from your own finite, fleshly views of him. Behold the Christ of Lazarus, who can be awakened, even from the sleep (mentally false condition) called death. Paul the Apostle was one who spoke often of this seemingly material identity and the true spiritual identity. Take a look at this brief letter-sermon he wrote on the subject of identity to the Corinthians. (The complete sermon is Chapter 15 of 1st Corinthians; I left out passages 15:23-43 for brevity):
(I Corinthians 15:22). “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (I Corinthians 15:44-54). “…There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
Now, in evidence of such beliefs, the apostle Paul and other disciples of Christ Jesus were able to heal (undo) evidences of disease in and on physical bodies wherever they went. After Jesus ascended to the fullness of his own Christ identity, the disciples who were left behind were able to heal (with the truth of universal, spiritual health and wholeness) for a few hundred years after Jesus left. As time went on, however, the followers of this knowledge of spiritual identity were stopped from practicing spiritual healing by corrupt, power-seeking officials in the churches of the day, who wanted no such spiritual power to descend upon the people. Spiritual healing seemed to have died out for good, and mortal, material methods became the only alternative. Still, one can’t kill Truth—nor can one stop God’s Authority over creation. The Christ of us is alive in every individual, whether one knows it or not. Eternal life exists, thus eternal wholeness exists. But like a deeply buried secret, it’s been hidden so well beneath material so-called law and seeming physical powers that only those who seek the Kingdom of God within their own spiritual consciousness will ever find it. When we do, all things become new, including our own being—and the health we knew not of, just a moment before, will spring forth into earthly form.
[Note: As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the brief account of the healing that occurred for me at the age of fifteen (which involved a spiritual healing of a cracked bone) is told in the October 2003 article entitled, “Divine Sufficiency and the Knowing Mind,” which appears on this website. This was my first actual spiritual healing, where the sudden, mental recognition of our higher, spiritual identity healed a severe physical injury. At that time (in the late 1950s) I knew nothing yet of the Christian Science religion. It was about twelve years later that I was led to study Christian Science and found that the physical healing of my leg had resulted from my sudden realization of the Christ identity within us all—something already known to many in this world, but unknown to me until I perceived it. My life has never been the same since that moment in time.]
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