The Senses
March 27, 2003
We live in an age of Love's divine adventure to be All-in-all.
Our thrust from last week was to discern and make use of the spiritual senses which are the foundation of Christian Science. This was made urgent by the constant swirl of war news.
We started with a discussion of the so-called "Myers-Briggs" typology test which places the senses within the context of four mental functions — including intuition (the opposite of the senses) as well as thinking and its opposite feeling. One member illustrated how all the functions interplay by holding up his cup of coffee and saying he's aware of it through the senses — sight, touch, smell, taste and even sound (as he slurps with exaggeration). He could also activate some intuitive fantasies — say coffee beans dancing to Latin music. Or engage feelings as to the value of coffee in his life. Or think of its production and distribution. We had to conclude that it would be rare to find any purely sensual experience, unmodified by strong influences from the other functions.
It was clear that one of our goals as human beings should be to exercise, develop and keep in balance the various mental functions — even though Myers-Briggs shows each of us to have a dominant and an inferior function, with the other two as less powerful auxiliaries.
We were now ready to consider whether our senses — or rather our four mental functions — were owned by mortal mind or divine Mind. We saw immediately the value of extending our inquiry beyond the senses to cover the whole panoply of mental functions. "Why should I limit myself to spiritual seeing or hearing while my other functions drag along in a dualistic state of collapse?" is how one member put it. The whole mind needs reassignment from the mortal to the divine.
Here's an interesting point made by one member, "I contort myself into a fictional dualistic entity who must then judge other dualistic entities — whether people or things — and when I get a good result I say, 'Whew, am I lucky!' or, 'Thank you God,' or even, 'That's Christian Science for you.' It's a crap shoot!" He mentioned medical paraphernalia (e.g., x-rays, MRI's, CAT-scans) as examples of this, but another member pointed out how much larger the problem is than that. For instance, the childish and naive reactions of everyone — military and political experts included — to the first couple of days of the war (as in, "I give it a week to ten days").
Another member chipped in the excesses of the internet bubble as an example of all the mental functions going awry. Think of all the wild fantasies, bogus thinking and triumphant manic feelings.
To defend against excessive exuberance and unbalance in the functions and senses we felt it was necessary to get off the mortal basis of belief and live our divinity. Mention was made of taking our case — or our life — out of the court of matter and placing it in the court of Spirit (see Science and Health, p. 434:8-11). The following was read from Christian Science Re-Explored, by Margaret Laird, CSB, pp. 202-203: "The Christian Scientist, who is Science, knows that he sees, hears, feels thought, ideas, not things. He recognizes that knowledge , understanding, is permanent sensibility or Soul. ...Hearing is intuitive. It is listening in silence to one's very own Soul. ...We cannot rely on eyes for sight since the seeing or sight that is their existence, is Infinity continually giving itself new identity."
We discussed comments by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in recent op-ed pieces and interviews on the causes of 9/11 and proposals for healing. He discovered what he calls "three rivers of rage" converging on the US from the Arab world. They emanate from our uncritical support for Israel, including its settlement policies; our propping up of repressive regimes in Arab countries; and the humiliation Arabs feel as their once great civilization fades before the technological wonders of the US. He feels the Iraqi war presents an opportunity to rip open the wounds and start the healing process. He celebrates that Tony Blair is apparently keeping Washington moving towards healing and not mere pyrotechnics and bombast. One of our members added he hoped and prayed that the West would, in its much teaching, also absorb something of Islam's holiness. This could be a very valuable two-way street.
Here are some healing experiences.
1) One member had a deep, four hour discussion of spirituality with a new friend. They mentioned their religious backgrounds in passing — our member's friend is Roman Catholic — but that was the extent of their references to anything organized. They were able to talk in normal language, not laden with a lot of jargon and found themselves in substantial agreement on a variety of profound truths. Our member feels students of Christian Science should strive to find new ways of wording the Science, so we relate to others who might be put off by an overly zealous adherence to our familiar verbiage.
2) Two members were able to "wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept." (Science and Health, p. 454:22-23) One member has recently completed law school and realizes whatever job he now takes could shape his career for the next ten to fifteen years. So he's praying and listening, doing his regular job and taking legal courses in the meantime. The other member needed an apartment when he moved here in December. In several cases apartments he was ready to close on were snatched away by higher bids. He stopped the active search and worked in Science. Within days he had just the right place.
3) Another member was beating himself up this week over the way he treated a dying friend in a hospital several months ago. The man was trying to tell our member to bring him his distance glasses, so he could make out what was going on around him. To catch our member's attention he was waving his reading glasses in the air. Our member took these and placed them on a table where they remained as the friend went on to die. This week our member realized that although the friend could not talk, his doctors had devised a finger squeezing code with him to elicit information. A few questions and squeezes would have turned up the problem about the glasses and a solution. As our member was sinking into full-scale self-hatred over his lack of caring response, something stopped him and the message came through loud and clear: "OK that was pretty bad. But you can learn from this and go forward, paying attention to what people's real needs are — asking as appropriate, and helping where you can!" And that was the end of it.
4) This same member described his recovery from the flu during the week. He had help from a Christian Science practitioner. The second night of the bout, he lay in great discomfort mesmerized by the problem. He recalled that he'd heard during the day of an approaching battle in the Karbala pass south of Baghdad. He was moved to pray for the safety of all concerned. Soon he realized the "whole system" of his body, Iraq and the world were involved in his prayer. He went to sleep and awoke healed. No recuperation was necessary. He resumed eating normally and took a workout at the gym that afternoon.
For next week, we'll work on and practice Watchfulness.
And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth.
Then Job answered the Lord, and said,
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
Sound is a mental impression made on mortal belief. The ear does not really hear. Divine Science reveals sound as communicated through the senses of Soul—through spiritual understanding.
How transient a sense is mortal sight, when a wound on the retina may end the power of light and lens! But the real sight or sense is not lost. Neither age nor accident can interfere with the senses of Soul, and there are no other real senses.
From the infinite elements of the one Mind emanate all form, color, quality, and quantity, and these are mental, both primarily and secondarily. Their spiritual nature is discerned only through the spiritual senses.
Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of man, are eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immortality are in Spirit and understanding, not in matter,—hence their permanence.
In Science all being is individual; for individuality is endless in the calculus of forms and numbers. Herein sin is miraculous and supernatural; for it is not in the nature of God, and good is forever good. According to Christian Science, perfection is normal,—not miraculous. Clothed, and in its right Mind, man's individuality is sinless, deathless, harmonious, eternal. His materiality, clad in a false mentality, wages feeble fight with his individuality,—his physical senses with his spiritual senses. The latter move in God's grooves of Science: the former revolve in their own orbits, and must stand the friction of false selfhood until self-destroyed.
An incontestable point in divine Science is, that because God is All, a realization of this fact dispels even the sense or consciousness of sin, and brings us nearer to God, bringing out the highest phenomena of the All-Mind.