Paul set an example of fortitude and unyielding obedience to his vision which seekers for spiritual truth may well emulate. In writing of his purpose to the Christians at Philippi, he related to them something of the process by which he had gained much in the right direction. "This one thing I do," he declared, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Thus did Paul impress upon the faithful the necessity of shutting the door on the past in order to realize present perfection.
Mortals are prone to hold on to the records of material existence, to believe in a past, good or bad. The mortal mind, so called, knowing only materiality, having no vision of spiritual truth, holds tenaciously to that which it believes to be its own true history. But the thought awakened to the truth of being—that God's idea, man, lives only in the ever present now—turns away from material history as one turns from a dream, knowing it to be unreal.
But, one may protest, is there not some degree of reality in my earthly experience? Is there not some phase of it real and true? What says Mrs. Eddy on page 250 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" when comparing mortal existence to a dream? Mrs. Eddy queries, "Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream?" And she answers, "There cannot be, since whatever appears to be a mortal man is a mortal dream." Then, whatever experience one may have had as a mortal, it was but a phase of the dream of material existence.
