Contents

FOREWORD

LESSON 1- BASIC PRINCIPLES

LESSON 2 -  IN HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS

LESSON 3 -  TRUTH

LESSON 4 -  FAITH

LESSON 5 -  WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING

LESSON 6 -  THOUGHT

LESSON 7 -  BE FREE

LESSON 8 -  UNITY

LESSON 9 -  CONCENTRATION

LESSON 10 -  HEALING



FOREWORD TO THE 1926 EDITION

This course of "Ten Lessons in Truth" was compiled by Mrs. (T. M.) Isidora Minard in 1903. The book was written with one great objective: to lighten the pathway of those who are in search for "Truth." The book filled a long felt want and several editions were quickly exhausted. For several years the book has been out of print, but ever and anon requests have come for copies, until the urge for reprinting this course of lessons could no longer be resisted.

The lessons stand as they were written in 1903. The slight changes that were made are simply to bring out some points of these lessons more clearly, according to the further study of Truth. Truth, as every one knows, never changes, but man's conception of Love and Truth has passed through many stages, from the earliest historic times up to the advent of Jesus, the Christ; and mankind through his daily search for Wisdom is receiving a greater and greater light and understanding of  the "Principle" the Gentle Nazarene gave to humanity.

To one whom we loved and who has gone on to do her greater work in the Master's vineyard, we dedicate this book.

T. M. and M. D. Minard
Pastor and Assistant Pastor
The First Divine Science Church of Portland, Oregon.
November, 1926.


LESSON 1

BASIC PRINCIPLES

In man's investigation of the Science of Life, he is simply going on with a subject matter which has occupied his attention throughout all ages. He has been unceasing in his efforts to understand this Source of all life. What and where this power is, is the all-absorbing question. However, Jesus and  Paul answered these questions in simple statements which no one can  misunderstand. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or lo there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you." This shows plainly that the kingdom of God is a cause, not a place.

Paul tells us God is not far from any one of us, for: "In Him we live and move and have our being." From this we learn that God is Substance. That there is an invisible Creative Substance is not doubted, not even by those who profess not to believe in God. This "Substance" has been given various names: "Life Essence, Great Spirit, Creative Power, Deity, Brahma, Buddha, or God. As all of these names refer to the same Substance or Life, the term used is non-essential. However, as the name God is universally known and recognized, we prefer to use it in these lessons in referring to the Great Creative Substance from which all life emanates.

The ancients conceived of God as a person endowed with passions like unto themselves. Many have been taught that God is a person ruling the universe as might a mortal king---loving, hating, rewarding, punishing,---a God more to be feared than loved. The world today is rapidly awakening to the realization that both the theory evolved by the ancients concerning the nature of the Creator, and that advanced by modern theology, are widely different from the new understanding of the truth. The ancients taught worship of the inanimate creations of man; the theologians taught worship of a God whom none could understand,---a personal, far-off being whose abiding place is heaven, where none can enter until after the spirit's departure from this earth plane; while those who teach like Jesus and Paul say God is not a person, not afar off, but that the words `God' and `Good' are synonymous. Then God is Good, God is the Law (Lord) that governs the universe. "God is Spirit," which "giveth life." All things come into being through God.

Truth teaches that God is the principle of Being; the Spirit or Substance we call life. The God of tradition is fast becoming a thing of the past, and God as He is is being accepted by many who hitherto had claimed to have no belief in God. The truth is that all mankind believes in life, all men have some faith in goodness, and the degree of this belief indicates man's belief in God. Therefore, all believe in God (Good). So, however varied man's idea of God has been or is, all culminate in the universal belief of the Supreme Being. All are searching for freedom from the limitations of sectarianism which are stumbling blocks to the quickening of man's spiritual unfoldment.

The words of Paul, so long overlooked, are now being applied: "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Liberty means freedom to serve God as one's inner conscience dictates. God is Substance, invisible substance, which fills all space, and without which "Was not anything made, that was made." This Substance is expressed in the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdom. It is life, spirit, unchangeable, "From everlasting to everlasting," without limit, Omnipresent (everywhere), Omnipotent (all power), Omniscient (all knowing).

The vegetable kingdom is life expressing itself in myriad forms,---trees, flowers, grass, plants. These are all composed of tiny cells, each separate and distinct, but all working in harmony to complete the perfect whole. In the mineral kingdom the same law holds sway. We have been taught to look upon a rock as solid, but a rock is made up of molecules that are constantly vibrating, though they never touch each other. What fills the space between the molecules and yet holds them in place? One says: "The Law of gravitation," another defines it as "ether." What is this subtle substance,---ether, or the law, that is able to create?

There is but one Creator or one Substance, which is in and through everything. Everything expresses life or spirit either on a low plane, as rock, or on a higher plane, as Man. Life is Omnipresent--- therefore, life is unchangeable, unlimitable, immortal, invisible. However, it is this invisible force which makes it possible to bring forth the visible manifestations.

The basic principle of Jesus' teaching was to bring home to each one his nearness to God and God's nearness to him. Words fail one to express his ideal of God in the highest. Yet it is well to remember this Truth that, "He is not afar off, and all can find Him, if happily they might feel after Him," in spirit and in truth. To know God as He is, man must disabuse himself of the one great fundamental error that God is a person of changeable temperament, and learn to look upon Him as The All Good, Jehovah. The Self-Existent.Man is created "In the image and likeness of God." Reasoning from a false standpoint, man declared, "If I am made in the image and likeness of God, God must be like me, prone to error." According to the author of Genesis: "God created man in His own image, (note carefully) in the image of God created he him." Having accepted God as Good---perfect, too Pure to behold evil; and knowing that man is created "in the image of God," we then know that he is created like unto his source for "like begets like." Therefore, all of God's attributes, Love, Life, Wisdom, Power, Health, Peace, Light, and Purity, God gives to man.

Jesus said: "There is none good but one, that is God." In using the word `good' we refer to the Good which is the heritage of all people for all time, and not to the word as it is commonly understood; or that which is good for one and not for another; good for a shorter or longer period, then to be cast aside as worthless. If God is Good, He must be Goodness.

I remember when a tiny child hearing an old man, a veritable reflector of good, telling of God; he likened the voice of God to the fluttering of a tiny bird, and said: "Children, when you feel this fluttering in your heart, listen to it, and always obey what it says; then you will grow into the image and likeness of God. Never fear, it will not lead you to do anything but good." If we obey this "still, small voice" we will become one with God, who is Love, Life, Wisdom, Power, Goodness itself. The mission of man is to manifest the God qualities innate within him.

The Life of God and the life of man is the same in essence, but different in degree. God is all Life, man a portion of that Life, a separate entity, an individual, but not severed from the whole. "God is Love, and he that dwelleth in Love, dwelleth in God and God in him." He that dwelleth in Love recognizes no foe, but radiates it to all humanity excluding no one, for Love knows only Good. "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all." This is that Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, which lights the pathway of  intelligence, wisdom and knowledge.

Christ, the Truth, is the wisdom of God. Man has erroneously believed that wisdom was to be gained through searching in the external, while Truth declares God is Omniscient,---all knowing. Hence, God being within, true wisdom must be evolved from within.

God is health, perfect, changeless, immortal. The "I am," the life, in each one of His children is like unto Himself, perfect, changeless, immortal. Only material substance is subject to change.

God is all Power for God is Omnipotent. The Creator never undertook anything and made a failure of it. Man, in His image and likeness, possessing all the God-qualities, would be a power as God intended he should be, if he did not let these qualities lie dormant.

God is the Prince of Peace, not of inharmony. Dwell in Peace, "The peace of God that passeth all understanding," and which increases only in the proportion as we let it penetrate our whole being. God is Purity, the purity of Love, Life, Light, Wisdom, Health, Understanding and of Truth, which brings to man the full realization of the words "I am satisfied," filling the human heart and only understood by those who have a full realization of their true meaning. To be satisfied is to have every need of the human heart fulfilled (filled-full). Man may attain to this spiritual height by ever holding before himself the highest, purest ideal of good, and living up to this ideal.

Man's mission is not to sit with folded hands idly waiting, not to be content with the false theories of God and heaven in some future realm, but to so live day by day that he feels God's presence here and now.

We would suggest that each of you make some Truth in this lesson your very own by taking the statement that appeals the most forcibly to you as your daily watchword. In thus taking up the work at once you will indeed be greatly blessed. After choosing your word it would be well to write it, not only in your heart, but upon a bit of paper as well, and fasten this upon the wall of the room most frequented by you during the day, so that it may recall your mind to the Truth.

Truths

"God is Good." "God is Love." "God is the only reality, all Life, filling all space, hence all is Good." "God is Spirit, Omnipresent." "God is Truth."



LESSON 2

IN HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS.

In briefly reviewing our first lesson, we find that God is Good, all life, the only reality. That God is not a person, but that God is the "Absolute," nothing being comparable to God. In this second lesson we shall endeavor to know man.

We read: "God created man in His own image." We say: "God is Spirit," "God is Mind." Using Webster as authority, we find these words are synonymous. Spirit: -- an intelligence conceived apart from any physical organism or embodiment; the intelligent, immaterial part of man. Mind: -- the entire spiritual nature; that which thinks, feels, wills and desires; "Spirit." From this we deduce the following: God (Mind) is the Creator; man is that which is created. Man is an expression of thought generated in Mind (God). Therefore man, the true creation, is God-likeness.

Grasping this idea, man reasons truly that there can be but one conclusion at which to arrive, that he is the son of the Creator. "Now we are the sons of God." As a Son of God, man has as his rightful inheritance all the attributes of the God-head. "For if children, then heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." To know man as made in the "image and likeness of God," is to know him as expressing all of God's Divine Qualities, Love, Life, Health, Wisdom. However, unless man accepts the gifts bestowed upon him and uses the privileges given him; unless he manifests his divine mission, thereby living as the heir apparent, the masses will remain in ignorance of the Truth regarding God.

When man lives in at-one-ment with God he understands himself, and understanding himself, he knows God and can say with Jesus: "I and my Father are one." In speaking of man as divine, as perfect, created in the Image and Likeness of God, we do not mean it in the general acceptance of the term. The external man, the fleshly or carnal self, prone to wander through experiences of dis-ease, impurity, sin, death,---this is the man of limitation; the false self which of itself has no reality, and is only the habitation wherein the true man, the Spirit of God, dwells. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth within you?"

The Spirit in man is like unto its source,---perfect, true, illimitable. This consciousness of "Truth" inspires him to a higher and nobler life. This true self can see only good, for this is created in God's Image and Likeness. There are not two realities, one good, the other evil, therefore the false self is a seeming, not a reality.

Man's duty is to overcome false-thinking. This he can do by refusing to recognize it. Jesus in his ministration to mankind gave the false self no recognition, thereby banishing to the realm of nothingness this seeming evil, by knowing only the good. He gave out these words for the encouragement of those following after him: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Having overcome, he knew that others could do likewise and receive the same reward. Jesus never spoke of himself as apart from the Father; he recognized his divine sonship to the degree that he was not able (even in thought) to have an idea of separateness.

The "I am" Spirit of Good or God: -- "I am Life," "I am the Spirit of Truth," that dwelt in Jesus, the Christ, dwells in each and every one of us, and we manifest the truth of our being in God-likeness to the degree that we recognize it as a truth and no more. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne;" that is, Man will be where God intended him to be, for then he is using his God-given qualities or power.

Jesus taught perfection without limitation. He said: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Also, "I am the light of the world," and "Ye are the light of the world." He recognized the source of his intelligent understanding (his light) and therefore recognized the same quality in all mankind. "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." "I and my Father are one." He was not giving these concrete statements to his twelve disciples only but knew that these principles applied to man before his advent on this plane as well as for the generations yet unborn. "Before Abraham was, I am," or since the beginning Spirit manifested through man. To say "I am not" is to deny a creation of God.

Man, through his false reasoning, and in direct contradiction to the admonitions of Jesus, has been led to believe that no one can possibly attain to the perfection the Christ did; that it is impossible to overcome human nature with its beliefs in disease, temptations, and passions. Man has placed a limitation upon himself,---he might, perhaps, pass beyond a medium point of advancement in spiritual things, but it
seemed doubtful. He has ridiculously overreached himself by judging the works of the Creator to be imperfect and by putting a veto upon the words of the Master (whom he dared not follow) but who said: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

The words "believeth on me" simply means the "I am," the "divine spark" in each one. Every one who recognizes this "I am" within himself knows he is a Son of God born in "His image and likeness" and will be able to do the works as Jesus did. One reason man has withheld from himself his rightful position as heir and son of God, to whom all things are possible, is that while believing the words the Master spoke to be true, he failed in this, that he did not do the works. We are told to "Be doers of the word." Therefore, in accepting the teachings of Jesus we must put them into practice (and they are practicable) which is "doing the works." Man must rid himself of the old threadbare idea that man is of the earth, earthy. The Master, in saying: "I am from above," acknowledged his own divinity. Emphatically he proclaimed the divinity of all mankind when he said: "I am in my Father, and ye in me and I in you." Also: "Ye have been with me from the beginning."

The Jews took great exception to Jesus' laying claim to his oneness with God and said: "Why do you listen to this man? He is mad, he hath a devil, he is only a man as we men, but would make us believe him to be a God." As they pressed him with questions that he had already answered, he said: "The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me;" that is, they could be done through no other power except Divine power; but the people failed to understand him. Then he said plainly: "I and my Father are one." The Jews would have stoned him because they said he blasphemed. People were willing that "Good works" be done---but not that any mortal should set himself up to be as God. In the present day, let one boldly take the stand, "I and my Father are one," and he will be accused just as was the Christ.

The daughter of an old countryman was healed by a Truth student of a trouble of several years standing. When she told her father he went to the healer and asked by what power the cure had been effected. The healer answered, "There is but one power, God, and your daughter was made perfect through Divine power." Whereon the man became indignant, exclaiming: "Nay, nay! You are a blasphemer; no man can be God, you hypocrite!" This state of ignorance concerning the reality of being that impelled people to accuse Jesus of having a devil, and of blasphemy because he claimed before men his divinity, causes man to say "hypocrite" to all those, who, knowing themselves to be in God-likeness, would do the works of the Father.

Man, as the highest expression of God, Universal Mind, can think, and will, and do, because he is a "Son of the Universal Source and Cause of all entity in being." Man is the Son of Intelligence, therefore intelligent. He loves, or is capable of loving, because the Essence of his being is Love; the inspirator of his highest idea, of his best impulse, is Universal Love. Jesus spoke of himself many times as the "Son of Man" for man being created in His image and Likeness is Life, Power and Intelligence. He is a part in the great Universal Whole. Fully realizing this great Truth, each one individually can say as did Jesus of Nazareth, "I and my Father are one."

At another time he gave them this to ponder on: "Is it not written in your law, I have said ye are God's, and all of you are children of the Most High?" "Though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him." Yet man will make a bold stand for everything except this: his divine heirship. Why should it be so? Because, man has not said like the Master when tempted, "Get thee behind me, Satan; Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."

We have all heard this expression: "He is a self made man." Let it be known, that no one is self-made, else he would be all of God; would have the power within himself to recreate. Man is not able to do this for he absolutely does not own his body nor anything else. He may and does say: "This piece of property belongs to me, these houses are mine, this money is mine." But he is living under a delusion else he
would be able to take with him, when he passes out from this plane, all over which he claimed ownership. Know the Truth. Man is brought forth in the Image and Likeness of his Creator, he is not in possession of any qualifications except the Divine attributes. As he comes, so will he go in God-likeness. This fact may be recognized or not, yet the Truth never changes; it is unalterable. Then why should man be ashamed to own his divinity? He is ready enough to claim: "I am sick," "I am poor," "I am poor, or weak, or nervous". He is not ashamed that "I am not," shall name a disease and tell about the symptoms, thus forging another link in the chain of materialism with
which to keep him from expressing perfection. But man is ashamed to claim: "I am
God-likeness."

The thing that stands between man and God is the personal self, and only by putting it under control of the Divine self can man hope to stand in God-likeness. As we look on the bodily manifestation of man, he is personal; but in his spiritual being he is an individual. The personal is not the real man; it is the spirit which is in the Image and Likeness of God. To overcome personality does not mean losing individuality. God (Good) radiates life to the individual; again, the individual should radiate Good to those about him, and this he will do when he understands his oneness with the Creative Power. "This is life eternal, that they might know the only true God."

The idea has been instilled into many minds that the teachings of Jesus concerning the divinity of man referred only to the immediate disciples. In the "Christ prayer" he distinctly says: "Neither pray I for these alone, but, for them also which shall believe on me through their word." In claiming the Truth of our being, we take nothing from the divinity of Jesus, the Christ. We are the children of God; brothers of Jesus. He unfolded spirituality to a much greater degree of understanding than any one has yet manifested. In comparison, the rest of God's children are as the blossom is to the ripened fruit, or as an unknown quantity in a mathematical problem is to the known quantity. However, there is no reason to doubt that man is making rapid progress in spiritual development.

To advance along the line of truth we must get a thorough understanding of the Principle of Being; must know that the true Self (the "I am," "Spirit of Christ," "Son of God,") is in the "Image and Likeness of God." The highest good, therefore, is divine. To unfold spiritually, man must separate himself in thought from the "I am not," the unreal, and know only the good. So long as man allows the material self to deny the Christ, or true Self, just so long will he be kept out of his inheritance. Now is the time to assert yourself and be what God knows you to be. Express in your body the power you have within yourself by claiming for it Purity, Love, Health, Strength, and all good. Man must cease to look upon himself as other than the Son of God, made in His Image and Likeness. Know that man is complete in Him; then will he grow into God-likeness.

Truths.
"I and my Father are one." "I am a child of God created in His Image and Likeness." "The Spirit is the same in me as it was in Jesus." "I claim my divinity." "I know only the good."