"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
Early one morning I did some solid work about a concept I called the 'mask'. It was a feeling that had weighed upon me for some time, that of having been deceived by someone important in my life, as if they had been pretending to be good when actually underneath they weren’t. It was as if over time the good ‘mask’ had slipped to show their bad ‘true colours’, and this in turn had cast doubt over the verity and reality of all my past experiences with this person.
In order to heal this belief, which included a sense of incredulity – "How could I ever have come to such a pass?” – I needed to eradicate every possible trace of it in my thinking, to go beneath the surface of just ‘reading’ and to understand the spiritual reality. The following treatment turned this belief upside-down, and quickly. It started with a kind of questionnaire:
Q: Who created man? A: God
Q: How was man created? A: Good
Q: What is real in man’s nature – good or bad? A: Good
Q: Can good be a ‘mask’ or a pretence? A: No
Q: What is the pretence or deception? A: Error, evil,claiming man is bad
Conclusion: Man is good and real, and the “mask” is error and unreal, not the other way round!
God, good, creates only good ideas, and that good is real, not a disguise. Error, or mortal mind, is an unreal deception trying to hide the reality of good. There are many very powerful statements in Science and Health which helped me, citations of which are listed below, including this 360° statement:
“ ..the sinner would make a reality of sin, - would make that real which is unreal… He is joining in a conspiracy against himself, against his own awakening to the awful unreality which he by has been deceived. Only those, who repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand the unreality of evil.” SH 339:12-19
This statement embraces the perpetrator, the so-called victim, and even the by-stander! If I believe that sin is real with regard to anyone, that makes me a sinner too and ‘subject’ to the seeming effects of sin. The deception never changed God or his child, and can have no effect past, present or future. We can also be assured that God, Truth and indeed Jesus “strips all disguise from error" (S&H 343:14). It is also clear that to be successful as a healer any form of or belief in deceit must first be eradicated from my own thoughts and actions, and that this in itself brings progress and many blessings.
I’m very grateful for these precious insights, which are bringing comfort and peace to my thought, and restoring my faith in the certainty of redemption and the necessity of forgiveness for all. They helped me understand more about how to love my neighbour, in spite of seeming sick or sinful behaviour, through claiming the truth about man’s real being and changeless relationship to our Father-Mother God. This has further opened the way for positive and constructive change in our lives.