Watching Point 247

247 — WATCH lest you seek to eliminate the shadow of error, instead of the error itself. Mrs. Eddy once said, “We need not take up arms against a shadow, when it is clear to us that it is a shadow.” She also said, “Mortal thought awakened is startled at its own shadow. While it slumbered the shadow was unperceived. It must needs learn the nothingness of itself and its shadow, then the fear which in its ignorance was unconscious, and became conscious at the awakening, will pass away, for mortal mind will see that it need not be afraid of itself.”

If a random belief calling itself a cold be likened to a large fish swimming into the harbor of one’s thought, the manifestation in one’s body might be thought of as the shadow cast by the fish on the bottom of the harbor. It is obvious that you could not scare the shadow away. Nothing you could do would affect the shadow in the least. If you ignored the shadow, and challenged the fish, you could scare it away without delay.