Almost everyone at some time is faced with the suggestion of having been separated from a loved one, and the human sense of loss may seem very real and almost insurmountable. If we have been inclined to look primarily upon human associations for our joy and happiness, this experience may force us into spiritual growth. Through inspiration and revelation we need to gain an understanding of the reality of all things; to learn the lesson that God is the only Life, and that Life is eternal.
When in our extremity we turn to our loving Father-Mother God for comfort and guidance, we learn through the Christ-consciousness that the real man has never been touched by death. We must eventually awaken to the recognition of true spiritual identity in order that we may begin to lose the false consciousness of man as mortal. The attainment of spiritual sense frees one from bondage to false beliefs. Through enlightened understanding we find that matter and death are illusions and not the realities of being. In this way divine Love meets the human need and fills the seeming vacuum with spiritual truths. But as long as we continue to believe that man is created materially, and therefore is subject to birth and maturity, we shall continue to believe that he dies, and by reason of such conclusion the human sense of loss or separation will cling to us.
In the eleventh chapter of John's Gospel we read of Lazarus being separated from Mary and her sister Martha. They believed that their brother had died and they grieved because of this misapprehension. Christ Jesus, however, did not accept the mortal or material point of view, but immediately turned away from the appearance of death and lifted his thought in prayer to God in the following words: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.'' Then we read: "And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes."
