Focus on Metaphysics:
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Question #7: How can my individual study help others and the world?

Since all creation is interrelated, what one individual learns increases the understanding of the whole. What one does affects everyone and everything in the universe. This concept seems abstract at first, but it was readily grasped by the Native American Indians, who realized that they must be responsible in their use of natural resources. They understood that their actions either improved creation for everyone else, or harmed it.

Isn't this the concept of stewardship described on the opening pages of the Bible, when man was given dominion over all the earth? Even though the word dominion has been abused for centuries as an excuse for domination and selfish squandering of natural resources, others understand this concept in a different light.

Dominion, from a spiritual perspective, means first of all that man is the highest form of divine creation. Man possesses the highest degree of intelligence. He is therefore given a charge to use that intelligence to protect and preserve creation as God's fullest representative on earth. Man is meant to enjoy all creation, surely. But he is meant to enjoy it as a steward, with respect and responsibility.

Intelligence itself is one of the most important resources at man's disposal, perhaps second only to unselfish love. These are God's own qualities, and together, they enable us to overcome whatever challenge presents itself.

Man is charged with the task, the privilege, and the great, great joy of making the most of the divine intelligence and love offered him in unlimited supply. This means that man is directed by God not only to develop the fullness of these faculties individually, but to share them freely with others, and all creation.

The more we each grow into the full exercise of our divine nature as God's image and likeness, the more the whole world will prosper.

King James Bible:
"In that day the wolf and the lamb will lie down together, and the leopard and goats will be at peace. Calves and fat cattle will be safe among lions, and a little child shall lead them all. The cows will graze among bears; cubs and calves will lie down together, and lions will eat grass like the cows. Babies will crawl safely among poisonous snakes, and a little child who puts his hand in a nest of deadly adders will pull it out unharmed. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so shall the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord."
	Isaiah 11:7-9
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
"God is one. The allness of Deity is His oneness. Generically man is one, and specifically, man means all men."
	p.267:5-7
Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy
"Because God is Mind, and this Mind is good, all is good and all is Mind. God is the sum total of the universe."
	p. 105:31-1