THE Scriptures refer to human existence as a sleep or dream, which evidently implies that so-called life in matter is an abnormal state of thought, in which the normal conditions of being are not cognized and from which mortals must awake to become conscious of man's spiritual identity and dominion as the child of God. David must have realized this when he wrote, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness;" and Tolstoi evidently caught a glimpse of the same truth when he said, as recently reported, that he looked upon this life as but one of many dreams. This thought has been expressed by poets and philosophers of different ages, so that Mrs. Eddy is neither unscriptural nor peculiar in teaching that the sense of material life, with its dire details of sin, suffering, and death, is of the nature of a dream, and not real being. The distinctive feature of her teaching is that she has scientifically analyzed the dream, pointed out its false basis, and revealed the truth which is already awakening mankind to spiritual reality.
Our Master declared of mortal man that he must be "born again;" in other words, he must become spiritually conscious of life before he can enter the kingdom of heaven. If his first birth were the true one, if it were the point where individual man begins to live, a second birth would not be necessary. Jesus' words indicate that mortal birth, life, and death do not express God's creation, but are the illusions of a false, material sense of that creation. In the first chapter of Genesis the normal state of man is defined as "the image and likeness of God," but no mortal presents or embodies this ideal condition. Christ Jesus was the highest approximation that has been or can be manifested in the flesh, and he rose altogether above physical sense in perfecting his demonstration of spiritual being. His mission was to bring to human recognition the truth of man's divine origin and sonship, and as he declared that his followers must repeat his works, it is evident that mortals must likewise overcome physical sense before they can fully realize what man as God's likeness is. It is only reasonable to conclude that what Jesus overcame and rose above was not truth but error, an unreal sense of man and the universe, and not a divinely created condition.
Advanced scientists agree that "things are not what they seem;" that what appears to mortals as a physical universe and physical man are not the substantial realities of things. Thus even human wisdom directs mortals to reject the evidence of physical sense and to seek reality apart from matter. Mankind as a whole have an intuitive sense that there is a life higher than that of which they are now conscious, and that they must some time reach that plane of being in order to attain to immortality. The most sought after of mundane pleasures and achievements falls so far short of satisfying the human heart or intellect that humanity instinctively turns toward an unknown beyond for the possible realization of its hopes and ideals. This tends to confirm the position of Christian Science, that the truth of being, the secret of eternal life, which has so long eluded the material search of scientist and philosopher, is not in matter, but in the unseen realm of Spirit.
