THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAS

[rv.ros...@gmail.com]

Beloved Friends,

Surprise! Look and see how kindly this prominent Christian
evangelist and preacher has taken to my initial Christianly scientific
overture as seen below. I know some of you dislike being barraged
with voluminous amounts of prose. Please, be patient, and
long-suffering, and join with me in knowing that if I knew how to be
and do better, I would! Honestly, I would! However, take heart!
There's an old adage that avers: "The devil is in the details!"
Oh, at last the truth is out! Those who so dislike having to plow
through so many and so much of the excessive amount of detail that
goes into correctly translating truth into Truth, and matter into
Mind, is because you've been doing your very best to avoid, if at all
possible, an unpleasant run-in with the Devil!

How is it that we humans will spend good, hard-earned money on
something so frivolous as a jig-saw puzzle that can consist of as many
as thousands and thousands of little oddly shaped pieces or parts with
non-identifiable imagery printed upon their surfaces, and then, devote
precious moments that soon turn into days, weeks, and sometimes even
months of labor and intensely focused concentration on the meticulous
and time-consuming task of assembling each and every piece of the
puzzle until the moment finally arrives when the last piece is
inserted into the last little vacant spot within the enormous
undertaking when the puzzle is seen, for the first time, in its
exquisite entirety, beauty, completeness! -- as this is the reward
for the tremendous investment of thought and time that has been
invested in delivering the project to its perfect conclusion!

Well, my entire life has been spent scouring everything I could get my
hands on that contained anything, whatsoever, that concerned or had to
do with Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, the Holy Scriptures, and
other less important, yet ancillary subjects, that are related
thereto! And, for what? For only having ended up today with an
enormous assortment of bits and pieces of data and information that,
when evaluated individually, don't seem to make too terribly much
sense or even be relevant. However, when the bits and pieces of what
constitutes the Christian Science puzzle are placed meticulously in
their proper order and position, suddenly something exquisitely
fantastic and awesome transpires, because then, and only then, does
the Christian Scientist even begin to gain a mere glimpse of Being in
all of its pristine perfection and scientific precision, for this,
dear friends, constitutes the most awesome, majestic and unimaginable
splendor and glory which every human is entirely capable of reflecting
divinely, but this, ONLY in Science!

To approach Science with the intent of using an atomistic or
piece-meal method of study in the hope of eventually acquiring an
accurate and focused perspective of all that Science is and includes
of its "beauty, grandeur, order . . . ." -- would be a terribly
frustrating and futile approach and one that a 'religionist' would be
most likely inclined to undertake.

Contrariwise, Scientists pattern their approach to learning and
assimilating an accurate discernment as well as a correct and purely
undefiled spiritual understanding of Being. They would be found
patterning their modality of study by fashioning it as closely as
possible after "the pattern that was showed . . . in the mount" that
was so meticulously and sublimely exhibited and demonstrated, first,
by the Master Metaphysician, Christ Jesus, and then later, by Christ
Jesus' God-ordained successor and "finisher of our faith," Mary Baker
Eddy. No one would believe that either or both of these human
embodiments of our Father-Mother God's one divine Christ would ever
approve or employ any form, modality or system of study that partook
of even a trace of slip-shod or lazy and inferior reading habits for
the acquiring and accessing of the most important information that
both exists and is possible of being acquired, assimilated, understood
and demonstrated by each and all of the infinitude of conscious
identities which exist, inter-dimensionally and omni-dispensationally,
within and throughout the wholeness and the infinitude of Being!

So, slow down and enjoy the details, and beat the devil at its own
game! Animal magnetism's strategy is to attempt to prevent Christian
Scientists from realizing the fact that reading is God's intended
means of fertilizing, nourishing and enriching everyone's conscious
awareness! When Science burst in to appear upon earth, it met with
no competition from the radio, television, or the Internet! It
captivated humanity's attention and conscious awareness and did so
simply through the faculty of reading! The only then known way of
"leaving the old world behind" was to read, and thus, reading, more
than healing, teaching, church building, or the giving and hearing of
lectures, is what was singly responsible for doing more to prosper,
flourish and spread the Cause of Christian Science than any other
known means or mode of conscious engagement or activity!

In Unity of Good,

Dave Nolan

Begin forwarded message:

From: Eli James <eli-ja...@sbcglobal.net>
Date: March 31, 2007 10:52:34 AM PDT
To: David James Nolan <tcsuchancel...@charter.net>
Subject: Re: "The Sign Of The Prophet Jonas"

Dear Mr. Nolan: Thank for your comments. I will read your article.
I will probably want to share it with my readership. I am quite busy
right now with taxes and ministry, I may quote some of your lines on
this Thursday's Voice of Christian Israel Broadcast.

Pastor Eli James

ps. I will take the liberty of putting you on my email list.

David James Nolan <tcsuchancel...@charter.net> wrote:

Pastor Eli James,

Today's post "The Riddle of the Sign of Johah Solved," by Jen
Shroder, immediately reminded me of an article which I wrote some
years ago. I am taking the liberty of sending along a copy of it to
you, as I so deeply respect and appreciate the remarkable depth of
understanding and spiritual discernment which you so invariably bring
to and impart, in such a prolific and abundant degree, within all of
your truly God-inspired, if not directly revealed posts that appear
upon the Kingdom-Identity Yahoo Group Domain. Please accept my
intensely heart-felt and sincere gratitude for all you have done, and
continue to do, to bring clarity to all of Christ's offspring -- the
latter-day children of Israel!

With the atrocious antichrist Zionist counterfeit and illegal
pretense of a regime now propagandizing the entirety of Christendom
into accepting as true the damnable lie that the restored Israel
exists upon blood-soaked and stolen Palestine, . . . is, beyond any
shadow of doubt, the most atrocious crime of the Age! Every
Christian under the anointing of God's divine Comforter knows beyond
cavil that the Scriptures prophecy that the restoration of the Nation
of Israel would transpire within a land of un-walled cities; a land of
milk and honey; a land with rivers that run deep with the freshest
water upon earth! -- that Land being the united States of America! --
the restored Israel !

When this dynamic and God-foreordained Christian Republic was
brought forth by divine Providence, the Scriptural requirement that
the restoration of Israel be fulfilled before the Christ could make
its triumphant Second Advent upon Earth was most assuredly and
honestly fulfilled! This prophecy was fulfilled with the united
States of America [13 in number] the next number beyond 12, that
represents the Twelve Tribes of Israel prior to the Diaspora, and
during the entirety of the dispersion -- is now completely and
permanently restored!

Did not remnants from every one of the twelve tribes emigrate into
this divinely prepared Christian Republic, and thereby, did not their
reunification constitute the restoration of the Israel which had
become fragmented and fractured as each of the Ten Northern tribes
meandered throughout the then known Earth after the great Diaspora?
Well, now those twelve tribes are reunited, here in this majestic
Nation that's being undermined from every side by antichrist agents
resolved with a dedication and a deception that Satan alone could
concoct, to destroy this Christian Republic -- the divinely designed
and constituted "cradle" into which the Second Advent of the Christ
appeared upon earth, precisely at the moment which had been ordained
by God, from the foundations of the Earth, when the morning stars sang
together, and all the Saints of Heaven shouted and sang for Joy! --
that moment in history occurring on 4 February 1866 -- the only month
in the chronicles of the history of humanity that had no full moon!
-- "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with
the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of
twelve stars." Rev. 12:1. The "crown of twelve stars" symbolize and
represent the reunification into one whole and undivided Nation of the
previously dispersed Twelve Tribes!

The greatest crime ever committed upon this Planet has been the
satanic thievery being implemented so strategically by International
Zionism [the members of the "synagogue of Satan" [See: Rev. 2:9; and
3:9] as attested to and by orthodox Christianity's true and divinely
sacred Heritage, and thus, its Destiny going entirely unknown to
today's so-called Christians! Scholastic theologians claiming to be
the Nation's foremost Christians [Falwell, Robinson, Hagee, etc.], are
deceiving their flocks by directing the thought and prayers of global
Christianity to a falsehood that is claiming to be true; to a
counterfeit that is claiming to be genuine; to a colossal antichrist
regime and its stolen territory that exists at the eastern-most end of
the Mediterranean Sea, and is self-identified under the false colors
of both being and constituting "Israel!" God forbid! Until and
unless individuals like you are given by Grace the spiritual
opportunity and occasion to deliver the true facts about Israel, its
dispersion, its wanderings throughout the then known and distinctly
remote regions of the world, and finally reunited and restored within
the true Zion whose latter-day New Jerusalem, is Boston,
Massachusetts, then the fate of this once vitally essential, important
and sacred Christian Republic is doomed!

May God anoint your every breath, thought, action, and deed!

In Unity of Good,

Dave Nolan

"The Sign of the Prophet Jonas"

"O ye hypocrites,

ye can discern the face of the sky;

but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign;

and there shall no sign be given unto it,

but the sign of the prophet Jonas."

Christ Jesus

Matt. 16:3-4

What did Christ Jesus mean when saying that, "no sign shall be
given . . . but the sign of the prophet Jonas?" What is the sign? What
does it mean? What relevancy, if any, does "the sign" hold for man
today?

BACKGROUND

The Book of Jonah was written at a critical time in the history of
the children of Israel. Prior to it having been written, Israel's
priests and prophets believed and taught that the God of Israel was a
'territorial god,' that presided only over the land which was then
being physically occupied by the children of Israel.

The nation of Israel had sprung from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and it was comprised of twelve tribes which were the direct
descendants of Jacob's twelve sons. The then prevalent belief
throughout the land of Israel was that the "arm of the Lord" [God's
authority] held sway only within the territorial boundaries of that
region of land then being occupied by the children of Israel, and that
God's influence ceased to exercise any control over, or provide any
protection to, a traveling Israelite who deemed it necessary to depart
the land of Israel and journey into an adjoining territory, nation or
kingdom.

Thus, when departing Israel and entering into Assyria, the
Israelite believed that he was no longer under the influence of the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but rather, that he was subject to
and under the control of Baal - the god in whom the Assyrian people
were then investing their belief. When in Egypt, the Israelite
believed that he was subject to Adam-Ra and Isis, the two prevalent
gods in whom the Egyptian people were then investing their belief.

The belief in 'territorial gods,' was then prevalent, not only
amongst the children of Israel, but also, throughout the entire
"Fertile Crescent" region of the then known world. These commonly held
polytheistic belief systems were securely established and firmly
endorsed in the minds all the peoples and tribes which lived in that
region when the Prophet Jonas appeared upon the scene. A vivid example
of this is seen in the First of the Decalogue's Commandments which
bears out the fact that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob didn't
deny the existence of there being 'other gods,' rather, He simply
commanded that the children of Israel were forbidden to place one of
the 'other gods' BEFORE Him!

Thus, the Book of Jonah is unique. It is the only prophetic Book
of the Old Testament that uses the personal experience of the Prophet
to illustrate the spiritual lesson the Book is intended to impart. The
Book's spiritual import is unequaled in that it holds the chronicle of
the first appearance upon earth of pure, uncontaminated and
unadulterated monotheism!

Jonah was the first of Israel's Prophets to disclose the then
startling fact that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not only
the God of the Israelites, but that He is the one and only God of all
the earth! - indeed, of all the Universe! This truth having once
dawned, it was responsible for causing some remarkable and radical
changes to transpire initially within Jonah and ultimately ,
throughout the whole of humanity! However, in keeping with all genuine
progress, Jonah experienced these changes one step at a time. They
began to transpire when Jonah began to engage in the spiritual
translation of his mistaken material beliefs in exchange for the
spiritual understanding which invariably anoints one's thought as it
undergoes a divestiture of matter-based believing and reasoning.

The Book of Jonah chronicles seven distinct changes that occurred
deep within Jonah's subjective, self-conscious awareness. We observe
these changes transpiring in Jonah as seen in his obstinate resistance
and disobedience beginning to stir and yield until, finally, they
culminated in his complete and humble surrender in obedience to God.
The stirring shift, or spiritual translation, which Jonah experienced,
wherein his disobedience was transformed into obedience, was a
conscious mutation which transpired subjectively, deep within Jonah's
mental makeup. Christian Science correctly identifies such a mental
transformation as that which Jonah experienced as constituting a
conscious, "change of base."

Science reveals:

"Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with
Truth. . . .The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a
change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine
Mind." S&H 162:5.

Proportionally, as Jonah's material beliefs yielded to spiritual
translation within the private subjective precincts of his own
intelligent, self-conscious awareness, did he commensurably discover
himself anointed and possessed with spiritual understanding!

UNLOCKING THE "SEVEN SEALS OF ERROR"

To discover "the sign" which Christ Jesus said would be given -
"seven seals of error" that forbid access to the Book's treasure must
first be unlocked and opened in order that they may yield up the
hidden treasure which Christ Jesus prophesied as being, "the sign."

The "seven seals of error" were and are seven mental influences,
or predispositions, which confronted not only Jonah, but also, every
individual ever to have lived upon earth. These 'seals' act as mental
barriers which postpone humanity's discovery of its own divinity. In
the case of Jonah, these seven restrictive influences were, each and
all, mental impediments that he exclusively encountered within his own
mind. It is at the pinnacle of individual, self-conscious awareness
where the human experiences the Only Uncreated, Self-Conscious
Being/being the self-conscious human. The nature of this perpetual
coincidence is one of "Reciprocal Necessity!"

Throughout the Book of Jonah, whenever and wherever a reference is
made that depicts God either coming to or speaking with Jonah from
some point outside or beyond the immediacy of Jonah's own
self-conscious awareness - from a point or place located within that
identified as the objective realm or dimension - such misconstructs
and misinterpretations are entirely incorrect, misleading and most
seriously, they are inimically prohibitive to the discovery of, "the
sign."

Throughout the Book of Jonah, the God that spoke to Jonah; that
heard and answered his prayers; and with whom Jonah engaged in an
on-going intelligent interaction, is impossible of being anything
other than that Consciousness reflecting as Jonah's self-conscious
awareness! Thus, the Book of Jonah is a travelogue, not across the
face of the earth as the story line would have one believe. Rather, it
is an allegorical depiction of the conscious journey Jonah undertook
as he advanced through and across the mental dimensions of his own
developing and expanding self-conscious awareness!

The Book of Jonah opens with this remarkable statement:

"Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai,
saying,"

Where was the contact between God and Jonah made, were it not
within Jonah's own self-conscious awareness? What uttered the "word of
the Lord?" From whence did it come? Where was the "word of the Lord"
heard? Could it be anywhere other than within Jonah's own
self-conscious awareness? Had such contact between God and Jonah
occurred outside of Jonah's self-conscious awareness, Jonah would have
remained unconscious of that which God was saying! Why is this so? For
the simple yet profound fact that man is capable of experiencing only
that which transpires, exclusively, within his own self-conscious
awareness.

The phrase, "came unto Jonah," describes the birthing process of
an 'idea' matriculating, or emerging from out of that unconscious
darkness called the "Unknown" See: S&H 596:1, to dawn as a light to
brighten and expand Jonah's self-conscious awareness as it became
'known' and understood.

The Book reads as though a talking god existed somewhere outside,
detached and separated from Jonah that occasionally and unexpectedly
spoke to him from afar. No such occurrence ever transpired; neither
did a talking god then exist to speak to Jonah, nor does any such god
exist now to speak to anyone, or to speak at all!

To wait patiently for such a god to begin speaking from a point or
place 'outside' of one's own self-conscious awareness, is an archaic
religious practice that is fraught with frustration, deferred hope,
and utter disappointment. A predisposition to listen patiently for
such a god to speak from somewhere outside of one's own self-conscious
awareness constitutes an exercise in futility. Furthermore, it only
serves to epitomize gross mythological superstition extended to its
zenith.

The destiny of every human is to experience a complete and
irreversible healing of every vestige of scholastic theological
belief, dogma and creed which depict Self-Conscious Being/being
anything other than their own, immediate, intelligent, self-conscious
awareness!

Consequently, humanity's most immanently important and imperative
healing is to undergo a complete divestiture of all erroneous belief
in the fictitious and mythological god currently being espoused and
propounded by orthodox, scholastic theology! To believe that god is
other than one's immediate self-conscious awareness, rather than
drawing one closer, it pushes one farther away from actually
experiencing God, divine Mind/minding Itself, man and the Universe!

Christian Science is here to heal humanity of every "doctrine and
time honored system" S&H vii:14, that subscribes to or advocates the
belief that man exists separate and detached from God! To persist in
such a belief is to insist that billions of minds exist outside of and
apart from God, the One and Only Mind. Such an erroneous
miscalculation merely serves to further complicate and entangle human
thought with the delusional fantasy that it can either give itself
over to the contemplation of, or to a fervent belief in, a god from
which it fancies itself as being extremely distanced and detached!
Mind's omnipresence renders such mistaken beliefs an utter
impossibility!

Never was a truer assertion made than that declared from within
the German camps of dialectic materialism and philosophical secular
humanism decrying, "god is dead." Indeed, the god of scholastic
theology is dead, for, indeed, it never lived! It was, is and forever
will be a construct of ignorance, superstition, theosophy and falsely
educated scholastic theological beliefs currently being espoused by,
"time honored systems." S&H vii:14.

Being/being is One, inclusive of God, Man, and the Universe. This
sacred and holy truth is revealed in Christian Science in the
following:

ALL CONSCIOUSNESS IS MIND; AND MIND IS GOD, - AN INFINITE, AND NOT
A FINITE CONSCIOUSNESS. THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS REFLECTED IN INDIVIDUAL
CONSCIOUSNESS, OR MAN, WHOSE SOURCE IS INFINITE MIND. Un. 24:12-15.

The conscious awareness which is noticing, reading or listening to
this article IS THE ONLY GOD THAT EVER HAS BEEN, IS NOW, OR EVER SHALL
BE! -- "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." Heb. 13:8.
Mysticism, with its superstition, and scholastic theology with its
intellectualism, would attempt to engage man in an endless mental
quest, forever searching to find God somewhere outside of the
Consciousness of which each and every seeker is, already, immediately
and immanently, a self-conscious reflection! There is absolutely no
God to be found either anywhere or in any realm apart from the
immediate Consciousness of which every individual is self-consciously
aware.

The most important healing anyone can ever have is to be healed of
a belief in God! To believe that God is other than one's immediate
Consciousness does not draw one closer, but rather, it pushes one
farther away from actually experiencing God, divine Mind.

Thus, man's quest to find God continues either in vain or in
failure - its every step leading him farther away from the actual
discovery that God, Mind, constitutes the one, indivisible
Self-conscious Being/being the self-conscious human! As strikingly
simple as it is profound is the Scriptural command:

"Be still, and know that I am God." Ps. 46:10.

When understood in Christian Science, the seven mental impediments
that Jonah encountered were not exclusively incidental to Jonah.
Indeed, they are the identical seven mental obstructions that every
individual must eventually and fearlessly face and overcome. Christian
Science enables such redemptive recognizance to occur - and the
process for accomplishing this is revealed in Christian Science as
being, 'spiritual translation.' Unless and until 'spiritual
translation' occurs, it is impossible to discover and experience the
Self-Conscious Divine Being/being the self-conscious human.

Deciphered and spiritually translated, the Book of Jonah discloses
seven mental plateaus that Jonah encountered while making his way,
circuitously, to Nineveh. On each mental plateau Jonah confronted one
of the suppositions opposites, or inversions, of the seven-fold
elements which comprise the Nature, Essence and Wholeness of Deity;
namely, Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.

The seven mental inversions, or obstructional impediments, if left
spiritually untranslated, would have prevented Jonah of attaining
success on his divinely ordained mission - a journey that led, not to
Nineveh, as the story indicates, but rather, to Self-conscious
Being/being satisfied and fulfilled as a self-conscious and contented
Jonah! The universal "Law of Reciprocal Necessity" discloses:

One Self-Conscious Awareness inclusive of an infinitude of
individual self-conscious states of awareness existing perfectly
pacified, content and perpetually preserved.

Should any one, or any combination of the seven erroneous
inversions remain 'sealed' by escaping spiritual translation in
Christian Science, the "sign of the prophet Jonah" which Christ Jesus
prophesied, will go undetected. To remedy this, Science reveals:

"The testimony of the corporeal senses cannot inform us what is
real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science
UNLOCK the treasures of Truth." S&H 70:2-5.

"Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key
Christian Science has opened the door of the human understanding. None
may pick the lock nor enter by some other door." S&H 99:9-12.

Describing further the reopening of that which was sealed, Science
reveals:

"Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality,
even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of
divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed."
S&H 171:4-7.

"ALL CONSCIOUSNESS IS MIND, AND MIND IS GOD!"

The Book of Jonah, when read through the lens of material sense,
depicts a legend about a man named Jonah and the perilous and
circuitous route he took to a distant city to warn its wicked and
heathen inhabitants of their city's impending destruction. The story
line is so attention grabbing that, literally interpreted, it conceals
"the sign" which the Book has to impart.

When read through the lens of spiritual sense, an entirely
different scenario is unfolded. It discloses the Jonah story as being
a prototype example of the dilemma which transpires within every
individual's conscious awareness when material sense goes untranslated
and spiritual sense remains inactive.

We can trace the Book's deeper, spiritual implications by charting
the course upon which conscious awareness is drawn as it progresses on
its journey from sense to Soul. Science declares:

"The "still small voice" of scientific thought reaches over
continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound. The inaudible voice
of Truth is, to the human mind, "as when a lion roareth." It is heard
in the desert and in dark places of fear. It arouses the "seven
thunders" of evil, and stirs their secret tones. Then is the power of
Truth demonstrated - made manifest in the destruction of error." S&H
559:8-16.

The story of Jonah is the story of every man's conscious journey
from material to spiritual sense. It is not as it appears literally;
namely, a legend about one man's journey across the face of the then
known earth vis-a-vis the belly of a great fish.

Rather, spiritual sense interprets it to be a depiction of every
individual's conscious journey wherein the transition is made from
material sense beliefs to the conferment of spiritual understanding
which is the hallmark of spiritual sense. This is the only way by
which the one and only God is Self-discovered and Self-realized.

HOW EFFECT REFLECTS

The Book of Jonah is not about a man of the world, but rather, it
is about the conscious awareness of the man! Therefore, to chart our
way, we can follow the course outlined in the First Chapter of
Genesis. In the Book of Genesis the One and Only Consciousness -
called God - unfolds the 'Creation Story' to reveal that which
constitutes the effect of Cause - the man of God - the idea of Mind.
Furthermore, it illustrates brilliantly how effect functions and
responds to Cause; in a word, reflects!

The seven days depicted in Chapter One of the Book of Genesis
correspond precisely to the order of the seven synonyms found on page
465 of the textbook - this order being: MIND, SPIRIT, SOUL, PRINCIPLE,
LIFE, TRUTH, LOVE.

To examine closely what transpires within each of the seven days
will disclose precisely how conscious awareness functions and expands
as it progresses on its journey from material to spiritual sense.
Movement of this type and nature most honestly and accurately
identifies the real Christian Science movement.

TRUE MOVEMENT

THE MOVEMENT OF TRUTH

The real Christian Science movement is not the mutilated
machination of material organization as it currently is being humanly
misconceived. Rather, the genuine Christian Science movement is the
move of Christ, Truth within individual conscious awareness as seen
evidenced by the retirement of material sense and the activation,
cultivation and full-time utilization of that rarefied discernment
which is the hallmark of spiritual sense!

Let us join Jonah on his conscious journey, remembering as we move
along that Jonah's journey was a conscious journey, and from that Path
we shall not wander. Before embarking, let's consider what was
imparted by one who has already completed the course which yet lies
before us:

"Beloved students, you have entered the path. Press patiently on;
God is good, and good is the reward of all who diligently seek God.
Your growth will be rapid, if you love good supremely, and understand
and obey the Way-shower, who, going before you, has scaled the steep
ascent of Christian Science, stands upon the mount of holiness, the
dwelling-place of our God, and bathes in the baptismal font of eternal
Love.

As you journey, and betimes sigh for rest "beside the still
waters," ponder this lesson of love. Learn its purpose; and in hope
and faith, where heart meets heart reciprocally blest, drink with me
the living waters of the spirit of my life-purpose, - to impress
humanity with the genuine recognition of practical, operative
Christian Science." Misc. 206:24-6.

CREATION OR REVELATION?

Before exploring the Book of Jonah, we would be greatly benefited
by first cultivating an understanding of two important factors which
have crucial bearing on what the Book of Jonah includes and is
intended to impart. The first concerns Jonah's concept of God. The
second concerns Jonah's concept of creation.

What did the Israelites of Jonah's day believe about creation?

Was creation an act that had transpired in a single instant? -
which was a prevalent belief throughout the Orient at that time!

Or,

Was creation a gradual process that transpired over a period of
time, and if so, was it still taking place while Jonah lived?

To understand the Book of Jonah it is imperative to come to grips
with these two preliminary concepts. To neglect to do so would prevent
the discovery of "the sign of the prophet Jonas" of which Christ Jesus
not only prophesied, but which he also understood and expected his
disciples and followers to do likewise.

For the sake of brevity let it be understood that the belief that
all of creation transpired in a single moment was and is an Oriental
teaching. It constitutes the foundation of today's commonly accepted
hypothesis in the "big bang theory." When traced, its root is found
leading directly into the heart of one of the world's oldest
scriptures - the Vedas of India, where we read:

"In the beginning there was a single God, existing of Himself;
Who, after having passed an eternity absorbed in the contemplation of
His own being, desired to manifest His perfections outwardly of
Himself; and created in an instant the matter of the world. The four
elements being thus produced, but still mingled in confusion, He
breathed upon the waters, which swelled up into an immense ball the
shape of an egg, and, developing themselves, became the vault and orb
of Heaven which encircles the earth. Having made the earth and the
bodies of animal beings, this God, the essence of movement, gave to
them, to animate them, a portion of His own being. Thus the soul of
everything that breathes being a fraction of the universal soul, none
perishes; but each soul merely changes its mold and form, by passing
successively into different bodies. Of all forms, that which most
pleases the Divine Being is Man, as nearest approaching His own
perfections. When a man, absolutely disengaging himself from his
senses, absorbs himself in self-contemplation, he comes to discern the
Divinity, and becomes part of Him." Baga Vedas, Vol. 4, p. 332.

The important word in the above is "absorb," for all Oriental
religious and philosophical teachings advance the idea that man's
individual identity is eventually lost through a process of being
absorbed into an 'over-soul' that in the Vedas is called "nirvana."

The fragment which commences the Book of Genesis, consisting of
Chapter One, and the first three verses of Chapter Two, assign the
creation of the Universe to Elohim, the plural Divinity which
declared:

"Let US make man in OUR image after OUR likeness." Gen. 1:26.

Students of the Scriptures trained in metaphysics, interpreted the
"us" and the "our" in the above Scripture to be referring to God's
Fatherhood and Motherhood. Christian Scientists are more inclined to
interpret the "us" and "our" as depicting the seven-fold elements
which constitute the one absolute Deity. This certainly is an advanced
and an improved interpretation, however, it still sees man as being
the product of a creation. This is an utter impossibility if what
Science reveals is true!

An absolute existence, wholly immaterial, is in no way within the
reach of our material senses; a Cause, but not an effect, that never
was not, but existed during an infinity of eternities, before there
was anything else except time and space, is wholly beyond the reach of
man's material senses and their conceptions. Prior to Christian
Science, man's mind was wearied in speculation as to what constitutes
God's nature, God's essence, and God's wholeness. Such speculation
ended with man being no wiser than when he began.

In the impossibility of conceiving of immateriality, man felt at
sea and lost whenever he went beyond the domain of matter. And yet he
knows that there are factors in Being that are themselves not matter!

The Israelites were unique in that they were so fortunate to know
that it does not follow that they could not believe that which they
could not explain to themselves, or even know that which was beyond
the reach of their comprehension. If man believes only that which his
intellect can grasp, measure, comprehend, and have distinct and clear
ideas of, he should believe scarce anything. The material senses are
not the witnesses that either bear testimony or produce evidence to us
of the loftiest truths!

The Israelites of yester-year, and the Israelites of to-day share
the identical difficulty! Their language was and is not adequate to
express their ideas; because words refer to things, and are images of
what is material.

When we use the word, "emanation," our mind involuntarily recurs
to something material, flowing out of some other thing that is
material. If we reject materiality, or the reality of matter, nothing
is left of the emanation but an unreality.

The word, "thing" itself suggests to us that which is materially
existing within the awareness of the senses. If we take away matter,
it presents itself to us as no thing, but an intangible unreality,
which the human mind vainly endeavors to grasp.

Existence and Being are terms that have the same tone of
materiality; and when we speak of a Power, the mind immediately images
to itself one physical and material thing acting upon another.
Eliminate the idea; and the Power, or God, devoid of physical
characteristics, seems as unreal and substanceless as the shadow that
dances on a wall, itself a mere absence of light! To the scholastic
theological Christian thought, Spirit is that which is not matter!

This brings us to the contemplation of two creational dimensions
which are primary obstructions to spiritual understanding; namely,
space and time. Material sense formalizes them thus: add body to body
and sphere to sphere ("Fast circling on, from zone to zone") Christ
and Christmas v. l, in continuous extension until the imagination
wearies; and still there will remain beyond, a void, empty, unoccupied
SPACE. limitless, because it is void!

These two ideas, the boundlessness of space and the endlessness of
time involve the idea that matter and events are limited and finite.
We cannot conceive of an infinity of worlds or of events; but only of
an indefinite number of each; for, as we struggle to conceive of their
infinity, the thought ever occurs, in despite of all of our efforts -
there must be SPACE in which there was no world; there must have been
TIME when there were no events!

Material sense cannot conceive how, if this earth moves millions
and millions of miles a million times repeated, it is still in the
center of space; nor how, if we lived millions and millions of ages
and centuries, we would still be in the center of eternity - with as
much space on one side of us as on the other; with as much time before
us as behind; for that seems to say that the world has not moved nor
we lived at all! Material sense communicates NO truth! Furthermore,
Truth uses not the medium of material sense to communicate Itself!

Until the Revelation of Christian Science it was impossible for
man to form any idea of that which is immaterial. We use the word, but
it conveys only the idea of the absence or negation of matter; which
when vanished, space and time alone, infinite and boundless, seem to
us, to be left!

BEGINNINGLESS BEING

Material sense says that man cannot conceive of an effect minus a
cause. Material sense believes that how far soever we run back along
the chain of effects, it cannot be infinite; but we must come at last
to something which is not an effect, but the First Cause: and yet,
Science refutes that belief! Material sense refuses to grasp the idea,
indeed, is incapable of grasping the idea of Self-existence, of
existence without a beginning!

Yet, Science reveals Being a construct of coexistent and coeternal
Cause and effect - a never created, but always existing effect. A
never ending for never beginning effect. To bear witness to One
beginningless and endless Being, we must acknowledge NOW the
foreverness of Cause/effect.

Since the revelation of Science in 1866, the age-old mistaken
calculation could no longer be indulged; namely, that Cause is eternal
and Its effect, or creation, a finite construct that came into
existence through a process called, 'creation.'

The religious monotheism of the Israelites revealed to the world
the First Cause, but only the First. Israel, as stated previously, was
still plagued with a polluted monotheism. As stated before, the
Decalogue begins by stating:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3.

This command did not deny the existence of 'other gods,' it merely
illustrated the jealousy of the Lord who reminded the Israelites that
it was He who had brought them:

"out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Exodus
20:2.

This "Lord God" demanded priority in the affections of the
Israelites. He did not demand the extermination of the "other gods,"
but He merely demanded to occupy the position of primary importance,
"before" any of the other deities.

It was this jealous "Lord God" who is depicted as speaking to
Jonah and commissioning him to undertake the journey to Nineveh. This
"Lord God" is the deity of Genesis 2, beginning with verse 4. This
"Lord God" or Jehovah, is not the Deity Elohim of Genesis, Chapter
One, inclusive of the first three verses of Chapter Two.

With our perspective now focused in regard to what the Israelites
of Jonah's day thought about the progressive nature of the creation
process, and the inferior deity who vied with other deities for
primary positioning in the Israelites' affections and reverence, we
will now focus upon the Book of Genesis, Chapter One, and see what it
has to reveal when examined through the lens of spiritual sense.

GENESIS' SEVEN-STORY CREATION

The first day of creation is an initiation. It is the start of a
process the Scriptures identify as creation. The day dawns upon an
invisible void, and out of the Only Uncreated there emanate three
distinct identities; namely,

1. heaven (Father) "Our Father which art in heaven."

2. earth (Mother) "mother earth"

3. light (Son) "I am the light of the world."

Are these creations? Or, are they eternal identities which, upon
entry into conscious awareness, departed the darkness of the unknown
which had only concealed them from view?

Upon leaving the darkness and entering into the ever-expanding
radius of light, did their appearance constitute new effects, the
existence of which man attributed to an activity he identified as
creation, but for which he has absolutely no empirical evidence or
proof of it [creation] ever having actually taken place?

Creation is a subject far too fascinating and too all-absorbing to
be fairly dealt with through the mere cursory overview this Discourse
can provide. However, to help provide a frame of reference for our
examination of the seven-staged account of creation presented at the
beginning of the Book of Genesis, a few of the more relevant and
frequently asked questions that have been posed throughout the ages
concerning creation will now be recited. These questions merely touch
upon the enigmatical subject of creation. They are posed to merely
hint the breadth, depth and perpetuity of man's inquisitive probing of
this inexhaustible subject.

It is impossible for man to relinquish his inquisitive
investigation into the origin or genesis of existence. However, it is
not impossible for man to attain an understanding that existence is
beginningless - neither the result nor the evidence of there having
been a creation! Christian Science is this understanding!

CREATION: ORIGIN OF TIME AND SPACE

The belief in either an event or a process called creation gives
rise to two dimensions that would be indefinable or unknowable if not
preceded by the belief in creation. Christian Science reveals that the
senses of 'time,' as well as that of 'space,' arise from the belief of
there having been a creation that transpired sometime in the remote
and distant dimension called the past.

Since mortals are unable to see all things at once, they see them
as a succession and as an extension of experiences. This succession of
finite experience gives rise to the sense of time; that of extension
to space!

To infinite Mind, eternally embracing all things in one and in
every instant of Consciousness, there is no possibility of the human
sense of either time or space! In the Kingdom of God the only time is
NOW and the only place is HERE. Both here and now are dimensions of
Consciousness, and are therefore, entirely and purely subjective.

Consequently, why would or how could the Infinite use a series of
finite periods, called 'days of creation' to impart the nature,
essence, or wholeness of Itself? Creation is the point when effect
misidentifies itself to be a matter construct and begins to record its
imaginary history.

Cause/effect - The Only Uncreated - is historyless. By exploding
the myth of creation, Christian Science reveals 'effect' to be
coexistent and coeternal with the Cause from which it emanates and of
which it is fabricated, and to which it re-flects (throws back) idea:
"the immediate object of understanding." Webster.

Inasmuch as the finite can neither contain nor explain the
Infinite, what recourse is there for the Christian Scientist other
than to realize that the seven days comprising the creation story
impart information about that aspect of Being identified as effect?

Material sense testifies to the coming and going of everything
constituting existence, save Cause. The creation story in Genesis
would plunge the indefinable Infinite into the definable finite and
claim for effect something that, in reality, it does not have; namely,
a beginning.

This question, among the earliest, occurred to man, and insisted
on being answered:

"Is this Universe self-existent, or was it created? Is it eternal,
or did it originate?"

And then in succession came crowding on the human mind these other
questions:

"Is this Universe a mere aggregate of fortuitous combinations of
matter, or is it the result and the substance of an intelligent Mind?"

"If there be such a Mind, what and where is it?"

"Does effect act upon itself, or is there a Cause beyond it that
acts upon it?"

"Was the divine Mind active or quiescent before the creation; and
if quiescent during a previous eternity, what in Mind's nature moved
Mind at last to create a Universe?"

"Was matter coexistent with Mind, or absolutely created by Mind
out of nothing?"

"Did Mind create matter, or only mold and fashion and shape chaos
already existing with Itself, into cosmos?"

Questions such as these haunted the human mind until the Comforter
was revealed to humanity as Christian Science and thereby were the
eternal answers to humanity's temporal and troubling questions made
abundantly available. Man, though ignorant of the constitution of the
dust on which he treads, ventures to speculate on the nature, essence,
and wholeness of Deity while by-passing the Science of Being. Man's
history has been to grab each succeeding moment to immortalize
dogmatically in creeds, the subject least within the compass of his
faculties; and then to hate and persecute those who will not accept
his views as true.

Outside of Christian Science an understanding of Being is
impossible. However, tracing the conceptions of material sense
respective of God can prove note-worthy. They serve as indicators of
the development of conscious awareness. Science discloses the history
of religion as being the history of the human mind; and the conception
formed by it of Deity is always in exact relation to its moral and
spiritual attainments. The one is the index and measure of the other.

Christian Science makes it possible for conscious awareness to
never engage in concessions. Hence, both the standards and the
evidence of spiritual sense remain perfect and eternal. Yesterday,
they were required of Jonah as today they are required equally of
every conscious identity of Mind.

The following correlations are drawn from the seven days of
creation as depicted in Genesis, Chapter One, and the story which
unfolds within the Book of Jonah. While undertaking this conscious
journey it is helpful to keep before thought what Science reveals:

"The numerals of infinity, called seven days, can never be
reckoned according to the calendar of time. These days will appear as
mortality disappears, and will reveal eternity, newness of Life, in
which all sense of error forever disappears and thought accepts the
divine infinite calculus." S&H 520:10.

MIND

Self-conscious Awareness

The Initiator/Instigator

Spontaneous Conception

Unfathomable Producer

Creation's First Day is one which, before ending, discloses three
distinct identities consisting of: 1. the heaven; 2. the earth; 3.
light. All three are Mind constructs, but through a process of
differentiation, these three mutated from the invisible Nature of Mind
to initiate their existence as a triad of distinct Essences - visible
things, elements, or identities.

Science rightly identifies them as ideas of Mind. The "deep" upon
which the darkness was, regards only one, not all three identities to
appear on this First Day when they emerge out of the darkness of the
"Unknown" into the light of the known.

The "deep" that darkness was upon, refers to that one of the three
identities called, "earth." Obviously, darkness could neither have
been upon the light, nor could it have been upon the waters on which
Spirit (Mind), moved and saw its own face reflected, or bent back upon
Itself. That reflection, Science identifies as Mind's "image and
likeness," which God identified as man.

Later, in Genesis, Chapter Two, the "earth" - a non-reflective
surface or substance - attempted to imitate the reflective capacity of
water, by sending up a "mist" to water the whole face of the ground.
This dampening effect did not result in endowing the earth with the
capacity to reflect. Rather, it did result in the production of the
'mud-man' named Adam - a misty-eyed, or mystified mentality!

Comparing earth to water, only one of the two has the capacity to
reflect, and that one is water. Therefore, when Scripture depicts the
Spirit of God moving upon the 'face' of the waters, what face did God
behold?

Science reveals that man is the eternal reflection of Mind.
Therefore, in the First Day the face reflecting Mind, as seen upon the
waters, is the face of Mind! This 'face,' or reflection, Science
identifies as man! At this moment - which is every moment - Mind
experiences Itself as Its own reflection, or MAN-ifestation. Thus, the
scientific fact and the spiritual truth which Science reveal:

"Immortal man was and is God's image or idea, even the infinite
expression of infinite Mind, and immortal man is coexistent and
coeternal with that Mind." S&H 336:9-12.

The Book of Jonah opens with Jonah's Consciousness (called in the
Scripture, the LORD) instructing him to "go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me."

Obviously, Jonah was greatly offended by what was going on in
Nineveh. So offended was he, that he commenced listening not to his
own conscious awareness, but rather, he does the diametrical opposite
of what he was first instructed to do! Why?

His own unconscious resistance operating as his own mind, drew
Jonah into darkness and caused him to travel in the exact opposite
direction from which his conscious awareness initially instructed him
to go. Had Jonah obeyed his conscious awareness, his pathway would not
have led into darkness, but always and onward unto ever intensifying
Light!

He did, however, identify Tarshish to be a more desirable
destination and proceeded to head in that direction. He made his way
across the earth, and then paid the fare to enter a ship at the port
of Joppa and to sail to Tarshish.

His fare paid, Jonah was enabled to "move upon the face of the
waters" in an effort to execute the exact opposite of what he had been
divinely authorized and instructed to do. However, rather than 'face'
what was transpiring upon the water, Jonah opted to go below and sleep
the storm out. Hence, our need to recognize that any attempt to merely
become 'unconscious' of error, does not constitute either its proper
or its permanent handling as called for in Christian Science.

The decision Jonah made, to listen to other than the word of the
Lord speaking as his own conscious awareness, resulted in him turning
his back on the light, and so, his journey began with him walking in
the direction of his own resistance and disobedience, straight into
the pit of hell, or darkness! However, let it be understood that the
darkness he faced and into which he journeyed was merely the darkness
cast by the disobedient and resistful elements still actively a part
of his own ego.

Resistance and disobedience are impediments to understanding that
darken thought and cast long shadows. Johah's journey began with him
pursuing a path that, from its point of origination, had been darkened
by the shadows cast by his own ego. Had he been familiar with Psalm
119, as a Prophet of God should have been, he would have known before
embarking:

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." Ps.
119:105.

Jonah was dealing with other undisclosed factors which, when
known, account for the direction he went, rather than not go to
Nineveh as divine Consciousness first directed!

Remember, during Jonah's time, the Lord of Israel was merely just
that - the God of the Israelites. He lived exclusively in Israel, and
when crossing borders into other nations and lands, the Israelites
believed they left their God behind in Israel and that they had
entered into and were then under the jurisdiction and control of the
god of the country or nation into which they had entered or through
which they were sojourning.

It was Jonah's guilty conscience, occasioned by not having obeyed
Mind - his own conscious awareness - to go to Nineveh, that prompted
him "to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord!" A guilty
conscience is not a good bed-fellow. Doesn't everyone attempt to
escape the penalties and repercussions of their own ignorance,
mistakes and sins? Jonah wasn't any different.

Where, we may wonder, did the idea to go to Tarshish originate,
and why did it appear so attractive to Jonah that it compelled him to
set Mind - his own conscious awareness - aside, and to undertake a
journey in a diametrically opposite direction? Again, as human beings,
don't we too often find ourselves doing what Paul so adeptly described
two thousand years ago?:

"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not;
but what I hate, that I do. For the good that I would I do not: but
the evil which I would not, that I do." Rom. 7:15,19.

Of great significance is the word: Tarshish. The Metaphysical
Bible Dictionary (p. 645) records it to mean:

"gravitational force."

This definition provides the story of Jonah and the implications
it holds today for all human beings, with very deep spiritual meaning,
when considered in light of what Science reveals:

"It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization of
daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce of
material existence; it is chastity and purity, in contrast with the
downward tendencies and earthward gravitation of sensualism and
impurity, which really attest the divine origin and operation of
Christian Science." S&H 272:19-25.

Tarshish was a city in what we know today as southern Spain where
tin and other metals were mined. In Jonah's day, tin was one of the
earth's most durable and desirable metals. Well might we ask:

"Was it sensualism and impurity, acting as crude alloys or dross
within Jonah's ego, that pulled on Jonah, like a "gravitational
force," drawing him away from his Mind Mission and onto an opposite
course?"

Regrettably, today it isn't tin that lures humanity away from God,
but gold! The metal has changed, but the devastating result of
investing a metal with value remains to this day, man's first love and
the root of all pain and woe. The universal untranslated belief that
substance and value are inherent within matter, continues to this hour
as the strongest adverse and negative influence that operates upon the
mind of humanity to draw its affections and aspirations in an
earthward direction! Filthy lucre continues to remain Lucifer's most
successful lure!

SPIRIT

The Gatherer

The Separator

The Diversifier

The Individualizer

The Non-amalgamator

The Second Day of creation records the processes of division and
gathering. A firmament appeared in the midst of the waters and divided
the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament. To do this, Spirit positioned Itself as
"firmament" directly between the upper and lower waters. In each
instance, water represents the potential of energy when properly
channeled.

The firmament of Day Two is Spirit - the Gatherer, which
separates, diversifies, and individualizes all of Mind's ideas. This
prevents, yea, forbids Mind's ideas from being mixed or fused either
together with each other or fabricated of any substance other than
Spirit. Spirit clothes Mind's ideas with Its own substance. Spirit
forbids whatever would either externally act to pollute or contaminate
any idea of Mind, or act upon it internally as a corrosive influence.

Spirit, in fulfillment of its nature, operates through the
principle of differentiation, and insodoing, confers upon every one of
Mind's ideas their distinctness, disallowing any idea to blend into or
bleed with any other idea of Mind, or to absorb back into Mind. Thus,
Science reveals:

"Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper
channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a
holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear." S&H 506:18.

Those 'above' the firmament are the ideas of Mind already
operating within man's conscious awareness and understanding.

Those 'below' the firmament are 'sub-conscious' or latent -
neither having dawned upon nor focused within man's immediate
conscious awareness. There, in this vast, unfathomable 'Unknown,'
these identities await their discovery, at which moment they are
overtaken by the ever-expanding radius of light and they appear as a
'new' person, place, or thing upon the thought-scape of conscious
awareness.

Jonah had no sooner embarked from the seaport of Joppa on his sea
journey to Tarshish, when Spirit, functioning as Jonah's conscious
awareness, divided (separated) him from the rest of the mariners. He
had "gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast
asleep." Jonah 1:5.

Having turned his back on the one Mind - his own! - Jonah had only
mortal mind to listen to as he planned and executed his escape from
God. Mortal mind, passing itself off as Jonah, thought, "To heck with
this bad storm, I'll go below and sleep this one out!" Mortal mind
knows only two kinds of music, 1. lullabies, and, 2. funeral durges.

While at sea a terrible wind occurred that threatened the safety
of the ship (ship representing everything within Jonah's immediate
awareness from which he was drawing support), yet Jonah slept on.

The textbook defines "wind" in part as, "mortal passions." S&H
597:29. The heathen and non-Israelite mariners were afraid, yet they
prayed! They prayed, "every man unto his god." All the while, Jonah,
the Israelite, slept on.

Was Jonah a procrastinator?

Did he hope to postpone a confrontation with the sensuality and
impurities that contaminated his mentality? Did he hope to miss or
avoid these "mortal passions" or "wind," by escaping into
unconsciousness and sleeping through the storm? Isn't sleep in this
story the ultimate anesthetic? Is it any different than what happened
to Adam when he fell into a deep sleep?

The mariners, however, would not allow Jonah to continue sleeping.
The shipmaster and others barraged Jonah with questions asking him why
the storm had come upon them? Jonah's guilty conscience knew full well
that it was he who was being chastised for attempting to flee from the
presence of God, and also that the innocent mariners didn't deserve to
suffer such a fate as death at sea!

At Jonah's suggestion the mariners 'divided' themselves from Jonah
by casting him into the sea, and immediately the sea 'divided' itself
from the wind and the tempest "and ceased from her raging." Jonah
1:15.

SOUL

The Identifier

The Beautifier

The Preserver

The Sinless

On the Third Day, the absolute Heaven of Day Two now appears as a
relative heaven. Are there two realms? Does man live in two places?
Yes, on this planet he does. He either lives by drawing upon the sea
or he lives by drawing upon the land. These two opposite dimensions
support all of the life that is on this planet. That which is dry,
Soul identifies as Earth. That which is liquid, Soul identifies as
Seas.

Soul commanded the earth to bring forth. From the earth grass was
seen to grow. Also, the herb yielded seed, and the fruit tree yielded
fruit. Grass, seed, fruit. Each produced after its own kind because
the seed each produced was programmed, or engineered, to reproduce
exactly, and replenish only a duplicate of itself, and none other. The
identity of these three were organic, but not self-conscious,
therefore, they did not receive the instruction of Soul regarding how
to reproduce or when to do it.

The capacity to duplicate through exact mirror replication is
integrated into the seed of each of these life-forms and this data,
when fertilized by the dark, moist warmth of the nourishing earth,
were seen to yield and continue to yield, each according to its own
kind.

However, the capacity to reproduce was not in the seed of that
which grew, nor did that capacity stem from the earth - the seed's
incubation chamber. The seed guarantees the exact replication of
itself, and the earth initiates, cradles, and nourishes the seed as it
develops.

However, it grows because of an invisible something that alone
produces it throughout every and all stages of its development. It is
Soul that charts the dimensions and the directions of all
life-development and distinguishes the rate and rapidity of growth. It
causes growth to transpire from the inside out, as can be seen visibly
on a cross-cut section of a felled tree by exposing the tree's yearly
life-rings. These rings form at the tree's center, or core. They do
not form upon its circumference directly below the bark. Science
decrees:

". . . the emphatic declaration that God creates all through Mind,
not through matter, - that the plant grows, not because of seed or
soil, but because growth is the eternal mandate of Mind." S&H 520:23.

At this point, Jonah thought he had left the Lord God behind when
he departed his own nation where he believed the Lord God lived and
reigned. We next hear Jonah when praying from the belly of the fish
that had swallowed him when he was cast out of the ship and into the
sea.

In the midst of his most profound and threatening problem (intense
darkness) the Scriptures record that Jonah felt that he had literally
reached the end of his endurance and that he had, indeed, entered into
"the belly of hell." Jonah 2:2. While there, Jonah was able to "feel
no ill, - since God is good, and loss is gain." Mother's Evening
Prayer, v. 3.

Remarkably, while still in this state of total encapsulation
within his problem - one he described as hell (loss), Jonah's
affliction pushed him - if for no other reason than to find relief -
deeper and deeper into his own self conscious awareness. There, he
experienced nothing short of complete transformation (gain), and with
the change came hope! No longer did Jonah run away FROM his own self
conscious being, but rather, INTO his true identity with intense
fervor and enlivened faith and commitment. At this point we hear Jonah
saying:

"I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her
bars were all about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from
corruption, O Lord my God." Jonah 2:6.

Here, Jonah claims the Lord to be 'his' God! The Lord was not just
the God of Israel! The Lord was not just the God who dwelt at
Jerusalem in a holy temple!

At a moment when no mercy seemed justified, Jonah found mercy.
However, it derived from nothing or no one in the mythological realm
regarded as being the objective. It was a self-consciously
administered and self-consciously experienced mercy:

"They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy." Jonah
2:8.

Notice, no longer was it God's mercy that was at stake, but
rather, HIS OWN MERCY derived from the place from which every blessing
flows - one's own conscious awareness!

At the point of his deepest affliction, Jonah had found "my God" -
his own true spiritual and perpetual identity which became consciously
self-realized when Jonah was at the very depths of hell. Indeed, it
was his affliction that so intensely urged Jonah to depart the world
of objectivity and escape into the safety and security which are found
only within his own subjective state of conscious awareness. At this
moment his own vanities (the sensualism of resistance and the impurity
of disobedience) were translated, or converted, into self-surrender
and obedience!

Jonah, now born again, sings:

"I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will
pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord!" Jonah 2:9.

The rebellious and disobedient ego that opted to do other than
what Jonah's conscious awareness initially told him to do - the
assumptive ego that had cast the shadow that darkened Jonah's path -
completely vanished! To say that it died implies that it had once
lived. It had never lived a life of its own but had always existed
parasitically by drawing upon Jonah for whatever of life it appeared
to possess.

Consciousness redeemed Jonah, but it did not redeem his prior
mental conditions of disobedience, defiance and resistance. Those
shadow foes never departed the fish's belly with Jonah. Jonah's new
identity now reflected both the beauty of Soul as well as the
universal tempo, or rhythm, of living and moving in accord with right
activity. God would never cast aside such a finely tuned instrument!

PRINCIPLE

Heaven's Hymn of Harmony

Universal Unifier

Sole Governor

Source of all Solutions

"A Loyal Ray"

The Christ

The Fourth Day of creation produces lights in the heavens
distinctly different from the light as recorded appearing in the First
Day. The light of the First Day is subjective light. The lights of Day
Four, were "to give light upon the earth." Gen. 1:14. They were
intended to be determinators for the seasons, the days, and the years,
and were therefore indicators of the orderly government of the
Universe, wherein every Mind identity experiences harmony which
results from a universal equilibrium which is perpetually maintained
due to the preponderance of Mind and Love interacting upon each other
and pinnacled upon Principle.

One light, identified as being the greater, was to rule - to
preside by illumination - during the Day. The lesser light was to rule
- preside by illumination - during the Night. The stars preside
always, though not seen with the naked eye during the time the greater
light is in view.

Principle, the highest name for God, cannot be known directly by
individual conscious awareness, for it contains and imparts,
omni-directionally and omni-dimensionally, the blazing intensity of
all the seven elements of Deity. Mind, Spirit, Soul, Life, Truth,
Love, combine as divine Principle - the greater light - and "there
shall be no night there." Rev. 22:5.

Science reveals:

"When understood, Principle is found to be the only term that
fully conveys the ideas of God." No. 20:11-12.

The "lesser light" refers to "idea":

"Principle and its idea is one." S&H 465:17.

With this statement, the Nature - All-Cause (Principle), and the
Essence - All-Effect (idea) - is ONE and this Wholeness, ONE BEING!
See: S&H 465:17-1.

Jonah is now ready to trade in the concept he entertained of
himself in exchange for the idea Principle communicates:

"So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of
the Lord." Jonah 3:3.

"So Jonah arose," is descriptive of the process one undergoes in
conscious awareness upon awakening to his own self-realized identity.
It is ascension all the way from the moment of awakening on into
eternity.

Upon reaching the edge of the city of Nineveh, Jonah began crying,
"Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Jonah 3:4. Everyone
within Jonah's conscious awareness heard him as he cried, because
Principle excludes not a single idea. So, "the people of Nineveh
believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the
greatest of them even unto the least of them." Principle covers the
whole ground, always and completely.

What began in Jonah's Consciousness as one individual consciously
turning from his own evil ways of disobedience and resistance to God,
is now seen taking place within the conscious awareness of everyone,
including the King, his nobles, every man, beast, herd, and flock!
Every citizen of Nineveh was under the King's decree, which demanded,
"Let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that
is in their hands." Jonah 3:8.

His conscious awareness, "repented of the evil that he said he
would do unto them; and he did it not." Repentance preserved Nineveh.
Jonah's warnings were not the cause of the improvement as his own
personal sense of ego would like him to have believed. Jonah's God -
his own conscious awareness - saved those he set out to warn - those
he regarded as heathen!

At last, Jonah had discovered God was infinitely bigger than
Israel could contain. He discovered in his own withinness the
all-pervading and all-prevailing divine Principle that blesses all and
injures none!

LIFE

Indestructible Individuality

Self-existent

Multiplier

Provider

Sustainer

Irresistible

Inexhaustible

The Fifth Day discloses Life filling the Seas and the skies with
infinite varieties of Itself. Whatever within the Seas and skies that
is living, is being lived by the one Life! - from plankton to whales!
From penguins to ostriches!

Foul flew above the earth, of every type and description. These
were the products of the Fifth Day when Life animated into
Self-expressed in a profusion of indescribability!

These were the first identities to receive God's blessing.

The divine method of their replenishing is described as
'multiply,' not divide. At this present time, human procreation is
believed accomplished through cellular division. This mistaken concept
is ripe for spiritual translation and the divine Idea is ready to
break in upon human awareness everywhere throughout the earth!

Science is declaring:

"Another change will come as to the nature and origin of man, and
this revelation will destroy the dream of existence, reinstate
reality, usher in Science and the glorious fact of creation, that both
man and woman proceed from God and are His eternal children, belonging
to no lesser parent." S&H 529:6.

Jonah could not deal with Nineveh being saved through God's Grace
rather than by virtue of its inhabitants personal goodness and
upgraded behavior which he believed resulted from the grave warnings
he had given. Life knows only how to multiply, it knows nothing of
division. Therefore, Life can only give, it never takes away! Life
never reduces one to less than whole. We hear this truth spoken by
Jonah when he said:

". . .for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow
to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil."
Jonah 4:2.

Consequently, even the prayers of the heathen reached the throne
of Grace, for Life lives all and is never Self-destructive against one
element or expression of Itself at the risk of rendering the remainder
of Itself less than eternal, infinite, whole and All.

Jonah's anger and pride had not died with his resistance to God
and his disobedience. He had retained a personal sense of pride, which
when pricked, resulted in anger! Consequently, after the forty days he
prophesied that were to lead to Nineveh's downfall had come and gone,
and Nineveh remained unscathed, his pride was so damaged that he
wanted to die. He wanted to become unconscious of what he had just
seen transpire. Also, he wanted to remain unconscious of the
enormously expanded idea of God than what he had known before, that he
just wanted to cease being conscious!

Had Jonah not gotten all of the sleep out of his eyes?

TRUTH

Perpetual Unchanging Standard

Universal Change Agent

Manly Dominion

Cause of Change

Divine Director

Divine Ideal

Justice

The Sixth Day is a day of climax in the Creation Story. Man
appears after divine Consciousness, the "utter" Being, consulted with
Itself - Its entire Seven-fold nature that formed and fabricated all
of existence, and the 'frame' Being placed around all that was made
was: MAN! Thus, the masterpiece of creation was finally framed with
the Man-frame - "the compound idea that includes all right ideas."

MAN, the 'image and likeness' of Itself that It first discovered
as It "moved upon the face of the waters," is now fully explained and
entirely understood. It took six progressive stages of activity to
fully describe this 'face' that Spirit first saw reflected upon the
water.

Jonah believed that his own personal sense of God, or his own
self-conscious awareness would retire from the city he had sentenced
to doom, and, from a standpoint outside the city limits, sit and watch
as it fell into destruction. He had already grown to know his own
conscious awareness as adequate to saving himself, but he did not
confer that same redemptive Grace to the inhabitants of Nineveh, who
were, after all, not Israelites! Yet, he failed to recognize they were
all ONE CONSCIOUSNESS and that in every individual the name of that
ONE CONSCIOUSNESS is "I AM."

Jonah did all within his might (his personal sense of manliness)
to resist the fact that One Consciousness is the savior of everyone,
everywhere, not just the nation and people of Israel. A personal sense
of merit may, at one moment, be to us as a gourd to shade our head
(darken our memories of the past) and at other times a personal sense
of merit or good can appear as a worm that delivers to us great grief,
stress, and the indescribable heat of humiliating exposure.

Jonah is again found learning that no sheltering shade exists for
anyone in the realm of the oppressive objective. The "cloud by day and
the pillar of fire by night," are to the objectivist, unrealities!
They are nowhere to be found!

However, to the subjectivist, the vivid, actual realities of the
fire and the cloud are forever present. They exist a presence that
goes before him on his Pathway, leading him away from the oppressive
and obnoxious realm of the objective into the sanctity, salvation and
security found exclusively in the Kingdom within - a pure, spiritual,
subjective state of Consciousness that states:

"I am All. A knowledge of aught beside Myself is impossible." Un.
18:25.

Had the Consciousness of Adam known this, there would never have
been an Eve!

LOVE

Adorable One

Perfection

Self-contentment

All-embracing

Absolute Totality

The Seventh Day is one when the "one absolute God" had concluded
the exploration of Itself, and having discovered all that It is and
all that It includes, rested in absolute contentment of All of Its
Allness! The infinite Mind had undertaken and successfully completed
the fathoming of what, to individual human conscious identity, will
and must forever remain, unfathomable! This fact alone is the one
responsible for Life being eternal. It requires eternity to even
participate in the exploration of Being!

Love makes Itself universally available instantly to every one of
Its ideas, leaving not one idea outside or excluded access to
universal redemption being an act of Grace - not an earned product for
which man's highest aspirations and deepest yearnings 'earned' for
him.

The impartiality and impersonality of Love, spoke finally to
Jonah, as his own conscious awareness, and brought him to the highest
sense of himself that he experienced anywhere along on the entire
journey he set out to accomplish. He was healed of criticism and Love
is what liberated him of this heinous habit. Love can be heard
speaking, as if to say to Jonah, "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant."

Here is what Consciousness, speaking as Love, in fact and indeed
did declare:

"And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more
than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right
hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" Jonah 4:11.

Here is the "sign of the prophet Jonas." This sign is nothing
other than the discovery made by individual identity as it first
recognizes, then acknowledges, and lastly understands its own
self-conscious being to be an individualization of the Self-conscious
Being, or Mind, which is God!

Upon this discovery - made possible exclusively through spiritual
sense discernment - the Christian Scientist ceases to think and
identify himself thusly:

. . . . Man is an individual expression of God.

And begins to understand and express:

. . . . Man is God individually expressed!

The former statement, although sounding perfectly accurate and
metaphysically correct, is entirely incorrect! It is the foundation of
all dualistic thinking and acting. The word, 'of' separates God and
man and insodoing perpetuates the dream of existing apart from God and
further extends the nightmares that live within that dream.

There is no separation of God and man in the latter statement, and
therefore, it is the only foundation, or Rock, upon which the correct
and successful application of Christian Science can be made and the
incontrovertible demonstration of its divine Principle unequivocally
established.

Also, herein lies "the sign's" imperative significance to everyone
associated with the movement of Christian Science. The words, 'hand'
and 'manual' come from the same Latin root: manualis. Today, the
Christian Science movement appears to be suffering severe
deterioration and decay, all the while, opposing factions spat and
squabble amongst themselves in a self-righteous and pretensive
warfare. One side pitting itself against another side. At the core of
this debate are these questions:

"WHAT IS THE RIGHT INTERPRETATION OF THE CHURCH MANUAL?"

As contrasted to:

"WHAT IS THE WRONG INTERPRETATION OF THE CHURCH MANUAL?"

The tragedy of the entire dispute being this:

"And should not I (Consciousness)

spare the Cause of Christian Science,

that great movement, wherein are more than sixscore thousand
persons (currently estimated world-wide membership)

that cannot discern (no spiritual discernment)

between the right interpretation (right hand)

and the wrong interpretation (left hand)

of the Church Manual;

and also much cattle (those entirely disinterested in doing any
thinking at all along these crucial and critical lines of honest
investigation),

as the intensity of this hour so desperately demands?"

LET IT BE THOROUGHLY UNDERSTOOD: The incorrect interpretation of
the Church Manual cannot harm the movement! What can harm it is the
combined non-thought expressed in Jonah as CATTLE - those just willing
to stand around in the Field and be fed!

For as long as every individual Christian Scientist continues to
graze in the Field of self-executed and self-instituted ignorance,
which he tragically is interpreting as being, "bliss," the Christian
Science movement will continue to decline in number and decrease in
activity! Take heart! This entire situation can be spiritually
translated into a latter-day Nineveh!

THE TIME FOR THINKERS HAS COME. S&H vii:13.

Every Christian Scientist can become repentant of having continued
to believe that God was or is existent somewhere 'out there' in the
objective realm, and begin at once the exhilarating journey into the
unfathomableness of the Self-conscious Being which they are being!
There is no God 'out there' to save us, hear our prayers, or to answer
them!

The God revealed in Science is the Consciousness reading this
Discourse and only this Consciousness can carry and prosper the Cause!
Why? Because the Cause it is carrying and prospering is ITSELF! - THE
ONE AND ONLY CAUSE!

God, Mind, will neither turn away from Itself nor abandon Itself.
Mind has no idea of being in need of salvation. Nor would man, if he
turned with all of his heart, and soul and mind, to the infinite
vastness of the Self-conscious Being which he is being! To do so means
to cease looking for fulfillment, pleasure, contentment, and riches in
or from this world - the very spot Christ Jesus opted to leave, to
return to the Father. Nothing in this world could keep him from going
home! Nothing in Heaven and earth, combined, can keep Christian
Scientists from being Christ Science!

Yet, false loyalties, disobedience (both conscious and
unconscious), and obstinate resistance to the imperative demands of
Consciousness are what are destroying the Christian Science movement.
We can all take a giant step forward by dropping the false
responsibility we feel for how we are going about the business of
conducting our own Consciousness, and begin immediately to let our own
Mind, divine Consciousness, direct and conduct us! When that
attainment is realized, the day will have dawned when, "they shall be
all taught of God." John 6:45.

With such a decision in the right direction being taken by
individuals, and eventually by all identified with the Christian
Science movement, a Pentecostal glory will descend upon this mighty
Cause, and like the gushing wind experienced in the "upper room" it
will again remove all unlovely and ungodlike contaminants from
individual conscious awareness and usher in the ascent of all
individual conscious identities upward on the Path that leads to the
successful attainment of pure, undefiled, God-realization!

Dr. David James Nolan, Chancellor
The Christian Science University

1.888.592.4215

A sincere welcome is extended to all to visit and enjoy the
remarkable spiritual blessings that await all "honest seekers for
Truth" at the following Internet address:

http://www.christianscienceuniversity.org/

The Christian Science University is not affiliated with
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts.

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Pastor James,

Wisdom dictated that I daresn't post the above on the
Kingdom-Identity Group, as I desire with all my heart to not cause a
single precious soul on that beloved domain to suffer at all, no, not
even a single iota, from the mental indigestion that my writ could so
easily occasion within and amongst those who continue to be immersed
within the deep sophistry of scholastic theology's so-called orthodox
Christianity! The Christ is, at this very moment I am writing to
you, removing the scales from off the eyes of the sighted blind, and
unstopping the ears of those who hear, yet are deaf! Praise God!
All good is foreordained to unfold in God's good time, just as God
unfolds the petals of a rose, so too does God unfold with meticulous
precision the developments of His Holy Purpose!