HOW OFTEN have I asked myself the question “Have I really made any progress, not so much in the study and theory of Truth, but in its application to my daily living?”

During the last week as I examined myself as to this, in some way I could not get away from the term “An open mind!” Every moment when I was alone this term presented itself to me, and I meditated upon the value of having an open mind, willing and receptive to learn new ways. I remembered that line from the old hymn:

At first I had only thought to give myself a rather self-congratulatory pat on the head for having achieved a more open mind on certain tasks near at hand, but becoming more serious as the phrase lingered with me I meditated upon just what the term could mean.

“Why,” I said to myself, “it means that the little mortal mind has opened itself to let the great Universal Mind take complete control!”

Again I thought of the word “open.” Open to the wide glorious spaces where every barrier has been swept away, the great open spaces of the sky where only glimmering stars remind us of the vastness of the Universe.

Then I received the revelation that there can be no bondage when the mortal mind has opened itself to the inflow of the Universal Mind. Intolerance, slavery to age-old superstition, to fear, self-consciousness, self-pity, resentment—such barriers that obstruct clear vision are swept away. One feels the mind swept clean of all that would obstruct the flow of revelation from the Universal Mind.

Humbly I accepted the lesson, for sometimes my mind folds itself together as a flower turns from the sun and refuses to open itself to the loving Voice that cautions, “Be patient, be kind, be tolerant, be receptive.”

I prayed, “May I preserve an open mind at all times.”—Cerena I. Driscoll.