The apostle Paul has said, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.'' Heaven is harmony; a state or condition of peace, joy, health, happiness.
The question, What must I do to enter heaven? has come down through all the ages past. It has puzzled saint and sinner, rich and poor, great and small, young and old, Jew and Gentile, but it has never been answered except through the light of divine knowledge, nor has heaven ever been entered except through God's doorway. Having entered the state of bliss called heaven, one is safe, saved, unselfed. If one has not yet entered, there is something from which he must be saved. What is it? What is salvation? In Science and Health, the Christian Science text-book (p. 593), salvation is defined thus: "Sin, sickness, and death destroyed." It has been said that all that is necessary in order to experience salvation is to get rid of self. Then the question arises, What are the elements that make up self, and how shall we get rid of them?
It may be answered that the elements of self are everything in the human consciousness that is wrong, that is not good. They are the material senses themselves, when not governed by the spiritual or the good. There is nothing to separate one from eternal life except the erring mortal senses, which carry the baggage of sin, fear, ignorance, and death. These represent the "strong man" that must be bound before one can "dwell in the house of the Lord forever," or "in the consciousness of Love forever," as Mrs. Eddy puts it (Science and Health, p. 578). Ignorance, fear, sin, disease, and death are things as common to mortal belief as the air, and never a day passes but that they confront mankind! In order to be able to bind this "strong man," one must guard his temple of thought, and keep all his armor on; then when he finds this foe trying to enter his house, he must wage battle against him with all his spiritual strength.
