Your health: perfect and intact?

Your health is perfect and intact – no matter how you may feel, look, or sound.

Now, before you conclude that this is a preposterous statement, let me explain.

The conventional way of thinking is that life is material, that we develop over time, having our own thoughts and bodies – and thus our own state of health – all of which are governed by genes and by our life experience. According to this way of thinking, we live biologically and are governed by organic laws that dictate that illness is normal and self-evident reality. Logically then, at best we try to manipulate the body with surgery or drugs or with less invasive methods such as physiotherapy or change of diet.

But instead of considering that all that I’ve just described is reality, could it be that it’s actually a state of consciousness, a way of thinking that we may have unwittingly adopted but that we can consciously change?

The founder of the Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, contributed not only to journalism but also to health and health care. Sick for years, she teetered between living and dying. But in the Bible, her solace, she saw that the healings of Jesus were not miraculous but a natural expression of his understanding of the true nature of health. In the 1860s, when she was in her late 40s, she came to understand her way out of the health theories prevalent at that time. This restored her health, allowing her to serve society vigorously for another four decades. She began to teach this understanding, both in person and through her books. (Her main work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” was first published in 1875.) Soon, many of her students were practicing this method of healing, and teaching others, too. Her method of healing is not faith healing as it’s popularly known. Rather, it’s based on deep spiritual insights about the nature of identity, insights that Mrs. Eddy found in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

Eddy, a keen observer of human thinking, identified the kinds of thoughts that lead to illness. She saw that sickness is an unnatural, unconscious deviation from the perfection of God and of each one of us as His image and likeness. She came upon a place in thought at which individuals adopt a concept of themselves that leads either to discord and sickness or to holiness and health. She discovered that everyone can become aware of their thoughts and respond obediently to thoughts from God, those thoughts being spiritual, pure, and healthy. For her, mental self-awareness is key – just as knowing how you’re spending money is essential to sound personal finance.

Most especially, Eddy discovered in the Bible that there’s a reliable source for healthy thoughts – God, the one divine Mind – that knows each of us, God’s children, as spiritual, perfect, free, and well. This fundamental truth, though not visible physically, gives each of us a strong platform from which to claim and even demonstrate that we are healthy.

Try this: Instead of assuming that you’re largely a set of body parts that can become ill, feel your oneness with this purely good, infinite Mind as its spiritual reflection. Start from the standpoint that your health is intact because goodness and wellness are inherent in this one infinite God that you reflect. This way of thinking has made a vast difference in my life, giving me both a more moral approach to living and better health. It can do the same for you.

For a Danish translation of this article, see The Herald of Christian Science.