The truth about pain

Hymns and Readings from the Testimony Meeting of March 23, 2022
Hymn 134
I look to Thee in every need, / And never look in vain; / I feel Thy touch, eternal Love, / And all is well again: / The thought of Thee is mightier far / Than sin and pain and sorrow are.
Thy calmness bends serene above, / My restlessness to still; / Around me flows Thy quickening life / To nerve my faltering will: / Thy presence fills my solitude; / Thy providence turns all to good.
Embosomed deep in Thy dear love, / Held in Thy law, I stand: / Thy hand in all things I behold, / And all things in Thy hand. / Thou leadest me by unsought ways, / Thou turn'st my mourning into praise.

The Bible
Job 2:7,8; 3:1-3; 6:2,3, 8-10 (to ;); 32:6 (to :); 33:12 For; 36:4-7 (to ;), 8-11; 37:23; 38:1,3,4; 40:10; 42:1-3, 5, 10 (to 1st .) NKJV
...Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job spoke, and said:“May the day perish on which I was born, And the night in which it was said, ‘A male child is conceived.’
Oh, that my grief were fully weighed,
And my calamity laid with it on the scales!
For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea--
“Oh, that I might have my request,
That God would grant me the thing that I long for!
That it would please God to crush me,
That He would loose His hand and cut me off!
Then I would still have comfort;

So Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, answered and said:
​For God is greater than man.
For truly my words are not false; One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.
“Behold, God is mighty, but despises no one; He is mighty in strength of understanding.
He does not preserve the life of the wicked, But gives justice to the oppressed.
He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous; 
And if they are bound in fetters, Held in the cords of affliction,
Then He tells them their work and their transgressions--That they have acted defiantly. He also opens their ear to instruction, And commands that they turn from iniquity.
If they obey and serve Him, They shall spend their days in prosperity, And their years in pleasures.
As for the Almighty, we cannot find Him; He is excellent in power, In judgment and abundant justice; He does not oppress.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, And array yourself with glory and beauty.

Then Job answered the Lord and said:
“I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You."
And the Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. 

Psalms 4:1, 3 the Lord, 4 (to :)
Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. 
... the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him. 

Romans 8:1, 5, 9, 11
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ...
... they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. ...
...ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. ...
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Revelation 21:1 (to :), 3–5
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: ...
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints.
(SH 14:12–15)

Spirit's senses are without pain, and they are forever at peace.
(SH 214:32–1)

If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.
The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is seen in this: If one turns away from the body with such absorbed interest as to forget it, the body experiences no pain. Under the strong impulse of a desire to perform his part, a noted actor was accustomed night after night to go upon the stage and sustain his appointed task, walking about as actively as the youngest member of the company. This old man was so lame that he hobbled every day to the theatre, and sat aching in his chair till his cue was spoken, — a signal which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity as if he had inhaled chloroform, though he was in the full possession of his so-called senses.
(SH 260:31–20)

Suffering is no less a mental condition than is enjoyment. You cause bodily sufferings and increase them by admitting their reality and continuance, as directly as you enhance your joys by believing them to be real and continuous. When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, “I am hurt!” Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real.
Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be.
(SH 397:8–22)

Nerves are not the source of pain or pleasure. ... A tooth which has been extracted sometimes aches again in belief, and the pain seems to be in its old place. A limb which has been amputated has continued in belief to pain the owner. ...
... When the nerve is gone, which we say was the occasion of pain, and the pain still remains, it proves sensation to be in the mortal mind, not in matter.
(SH 211:32 (only); 212:2–5, 12–14)

You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply manifests, through inflammation and swelling, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its own pain — that is, its own belief in pain.
(SH 153:16)

The medical schools would learn the state of man from matter instead of from Mind. They examine the lungs, tongue, and pulse to ascertain how much harmony, or health, matter is permitting to matter, — how much pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, one form of matter is allowing another form of matter.
(SH 159:23)

The sinless joy, — the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness without a single bodily pleasure or pain, — constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence is scientific and intact, — a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Christ in divine Science.
(SH 76:22–29)

I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn, who had been confined to his bed six months with hip-disease, caused by a fall upon a wooden spike when quite a boy. ... The physician had just probed the ulcer on the hip, and said the bone was carious for several inches. He even showed me the probe, which had on it the evidence of this condition of the bone. ... Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and sightless. The dew of death was on his brow. I went to his bedside. In a few moments his face changed; its death-pallor gave place to a natural hue. The eyelids closed gently and the breathing became natural; he was asleep. In about ten minutes he opened his eyes and said: “I feel like a new man. My suffering is all gone.” ...
It has been demonstrated to me that Life is God and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its strength with matter or with human will.
(SH 192:32–2; 193:4–7, 8–14 (to 2nd .), 32–2)

You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then you consult your brain in order to remember what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own, and the human mind is all that can produce pain.
As a man thinketh, so is he. Mind is all that feels, acts, or impedes action. Ignorant of this, or shrinking from its implied responsibility, the healing effort is made on the wrong side, and thus the conscious control over the body is lost.
(SH 165:16–7)

Before deciding that the body, matter, is disordered, one should ask, “Who art thou that repliest to Spirit? Can matter speak for itself, or does it hold the issues of life?” Matter, which can neither suffer nor enjoy, has no partnership with pain and pleasure, but mortal belief has such a partnership.
(SH 181:2)
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There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality — to have no other consciousness of life — than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses.
(SH 242:9)
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As human thought changes from one stage to another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, — from fear to hope and from faith to understanding, — the visible manifestation will at last be man governed by Soul, not by material sense. Reflecting God's government, man is self-governed.
(SH 125:12–17)
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Hymn 257
O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind / There sweeps a strain, / Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind / The power of pain,
And wake a white-winged angel throng / Of thoughts, illumed / By faith, and breathed in raptured song, / With love perfumed.
Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show / Life's burdens light. / I kiss the cross, and wake to know / A world more bright.
And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea / I see Christ walk, / And come to me, and tenderly, / Divinely talk.
Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock, / Upon Life's shore, / 'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock, / Oh, nevermore!
From tired joy and grief afar, / And nearer Thee,— / Father, where Thine own children are, / I love to be.
My prayer, some daily good to do / To Thine, for Thee; / An offering pure of Love, whereto / God leadeth me.
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Hymn 221
O Jesus, our dear Master, / Thy works, now understood, / Reveal their full effulgence / Through love and brotherhood. / Today Christ's precious Science / Thy healing power makes plain: / With joy may all obey thee / And cast out sin and pain.
The Christ, eternal manhood, / As God's own Son beloved, / A tender ever-presence / Within each heart is proved. / O God, our Father-Mother, / Thy name we see expressed / By man, who in Thy Science / Is perfect, holy, blessed.
O Science, God-sent message / To tired humanity, / Thou art Love's revelation / Of Truth that makes us free. / Thy kingdom, God, within us / Shows forth Love's sweet control. / God's idea, man, rejoices; / He knows the reign of Soul.


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