LITMIR.BIZ

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      This life's a dream, an empty show;

       But the bright world, to which we go,

       Hath joys substantial and sincere.

       When shall I wake and find me there?

      Mortal existence is a dream without a dreamer. It is the dream, that saith “It is I.” The Ego never dreams, but understands all things. It never slumbers, is ever conscious. It never believes, but knows. It was never born and never dies.

      Sleep is a phase of the dream that Life, Substance, and Intelligence are material. The dream — not the sleep of this mortal existence — is nearer the fact of being than the waking thoughts. The dream has less matter as its accompaniment. It throws off some of our material fetters. It falls short of the upper skies, but makes its mundane flights quite ethereal.

      The mortal body and mind arc one. This body is weary or pained, enjoys or suffers, according to the dream it entertains in sleep. When that dream vanishes, the man finds himself experiencing none of those dream-sensations. The body lies on the bed, in the mind's absence, undisturbed and sensationless.

      Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream than in this sleeping dream? There cannot be, since there is no mortality, either of mind or body, and whatever appears to material sense is a mortal dream; for as man, matter has no more sense (aside from his belief) than it has as a tree. Truly says Bowring: —

      . . . What am I then? Naught:

       But I live, and on hope's pinions fly

       Eager towards Thy presence; for in Thee

       I live and breathe and dwell, aspiring high,

       Even to the throne of Thy divinity.

       I am, O God, and surely Thou must be. Thou art; directing, guiding all, Thou art! Direct my understanding then to Thee; Control my reason, guide my wandering heart.

      If one would not quarrel with his fellow-man for waking him from the cataleptic nightmare, he should not resist the Truth that destroys the so-called evidences of matter with the higher testimony of Spirit.

      Many theories, relative to God and man, neither make man harmonious nor God lovable. The fancies we entertain about happiness and life afford no evidence of either, scathless and permanent. That which secures the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found in Divine Science.

      Children should be taught the Christ-cure among their first lessons, and kept from discussing or entertaining theories or thoughts of sickness. To forestall for them the experience of error and its sufferings, take care to keep out of the mind of your children sinful or diseased thoughts. The latter should be excluded on the same principle as the former. This is Christian Science. Remember that, either by suffering or by Science, mankind must sooner or later be convinced of the error that needs to be overcome.

      Learn how the human mind governs the body — whether through faith in what it terms matter as law, through drugs, or through faith in itself; whether mind governs the body through a belief in the necessity of sin and sickness, death and pardon, or from the higher understanding that the Divine Mind makes perfect, and moves upon the human mind through Truth, and leads it to relinquish error. This process improves the mortal mind until error disappears, and nothing is left that deserves to perish or be punished.

      Ignorance, like intentional wrong, is not Science. Ignorance must be seen and corrected before we can attain harmony. The beliefs that rob Mind, calling it matter, and deify their own notions, imprison themselves in what they create. They are at war with Science, and have established, as our Master said, “a kingdom divided against itself,” that cannot stand.

      The human triumphs, achieved over the body, elevate and consecrate both mind and body, so that they present better the true ideal of man, until the creature finally disappears, and the eternal man, created by and of Spirit, is seen in the true likeness of his Maker.

      Human ignorance of Mind, and of the recuperative energies of Truth, occasions the only scepticism regarding the pathology and theology of Christian Science.

      The metaphysics of Christian Science, like mathematics, prove the rule by reversion. For example: there is no pain in Truth, and no Truth in pain. There is no matter in Mind, and no Mind in matter; no nerve in Intelligence, and no Intelligence in a nerve; no sorrow in Truth, and no Truth in sorrow; no matter in Life, and no Life in matter; no matter in Good, and no Good in matter.

      If you venture upon the quiet surface of error, what disturbs the waters? What is there to strip off error's disguise?

      On the contrary, if you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of Truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up, and bear it, for it wins and wears the crown. Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven. A stranger, thou art the guest of God.

      CHAPTER III.

       CREATION.

       Table of Contents

      Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth, —

       Matter unformed and void. Darkness profound

       Covered the Abyss; but on the watery calm

       His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,

       And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,

       Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purged

       The black, Tartareous, cold, infernal dregs

       Adverse to Life. — Paradise Lost.

      The eternity of Truth is changing the universe. Thought expands into expression, as mortals shake off their swaddling-clothes. “Let there be light” is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order, and turning discord into the music of the spheres.

      Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the Infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the mortal to the immortal, and from the personal to the impersonal. All things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the Creator. The Divine Principle, not person, is the Father and Mother of man and the universe.

      Who is it that demands our obedience? He who, in the language of Scripture, “doeth according to His will, in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him What doest thou?”

      A form or a person is not equal to this infinite Love and Wisdom. A finite or material sense of God leads to formalism and narrowness, freezing the heart of Christianity.

      The theory of three persons in one God (that is, the Trinity or Triunity) suggests a heathen god rather than the one ever-present I AM. “Hear Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.”

      A limitless Mind cannot proceed from limits or personality. Finiteness cannot present the idea or person of infinity. A mind that originated from a finite source, or from a person, would be limited and finite. Infinite, impersonal Mind is the Creator, and creation is the infinite idea of His Mind.

      That God is material, no man should affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: “Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me, and live.” We know Him only as divine, as Life, Truth, and Love. Let us then obey and adore in proportion as we apprehend these qualities, and love Him understandingly, warring no more over a person, but rejoicing in the affluence of Deity. Then shall religion be of the heart, and not of the head. No longer shall theology be tyrannical and proscriptive from lack of love, — straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

      The everlasting I AM is not bounded, or compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity or mortal concepts. What the person of God may be is of small importance, when compared with the sublime question, What is Infinite Mind, or divine power?

      If Mind is within and without all, then all is Mind; and this classification is scientific. If so-called

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