Series 1 - Lesson 5 - Annotation 14
What is flesh heredity? How is it overcome?
14. Flesh heredity is the belief that man has his origin in flesh, that he is created through the will of mortal man; that through his ancestral lineage he inherits disease, traits of character, good and evil qualities, as manifested by his fleshly ancestors.
There is no foundation for the belief that one inherits diseases or characteristics from the flesh. The flesh profits nothing; it has no life of itself, is not lastingly causative. Spirit, Divine Mind, through the action of the Christ idea, is the cause of all that is divinely perfect. Science teaches that the body with which we were born is not the body that we have at the age of seven years. The later body is an entirely new set of atoms in motion. By another kind of growth man gradually begins to see himself as Spirit. The composite idea of the Christ man holds together in one body the atoms of the physical organism as well as all the ideas that inhere in the spiritual body, in order that the individual may be consciously a true instrument of expression and manifestation of Spirit. Seeing that he does not inherit his earthly father's mind -- for his father still possesses his own mind -- man begins to look for the source of his mind or consciousness and is forced to acknowledge an origin common to all. This is universal Mind, the ideas of which are for the use of the entire creation. He goes still further and sees himself as the composite idea of universal Mind, and he knows that as such he inherits divine ideas more powerful than any human concepts. At last he gets the vision of himself as a Son of God, the inheritor of the presence (mind substance), and the power (thought, words, or idea) of his Father, Divine Mind, the cause and creator of all that he is.
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Preceding Entry: How do race beliefs become a part of the consciousness of the individual?
Following Entry: What two mental steps are taken in overcoming?
