It is apparent, even to the human sense, that the kingdom of heaven can enter consciousness only as the truth or reality of being is understood. Erroneous belief, under whatever name, being without truthfulness and therefore without substance, is incapable of expressing aught but a false and ephemeral view of persons and things, and never reaches beyond the boundary of illusion, of the things which never are and never have been. That which we prove to be false today we know must have been false always. When we have been sufficiently enlightened to discern the delusive nature of all material things, there would seem to be no reasonable excuse for holding longer to a material record of one's existence as true; but so prone is human thought to hug its delusions, and to brood in self-pity over the remembrance of former misery, that we are frequently led to live over the failure or unhappiness of past days.
As the deeper meaning of Christian Science dawns upon the student, and he gains a glimpse of the real significance of the truth that God, good, is infinite, and its practical application to his own problems and experience, he begins to see that what is called evil was never real, and in the absolute sense it never existed. Instead of worrying over past sins and mistakes, we should recognize that they were never in fact a part of our being or experience.
If, therefore, we have truly set out to follow the Christ-idea, we should heed the Master's advice to "let the dead bury their dead," and not attempt to resurrect or to keep alive what we know never had life. To believe that evil was once true, gives it the opportunity, through that belief, to attack us in the present. We are admonished in the Scripture to forget "those things which are behind," and to reach out for "those things which are before," that is, for the things which are real and eternal; and the Master declared that no man, "looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Even on a material plane one would make but slow progress if he kept returning to points passed on his journey; how, then, can one expect to progress in the understanding of the allness of God if he is continually looking back to some belief of evil as if it were real?
