Life does not inhere in the body. Life is God, infinite consciousness, which is reflected by man, God's idea. Consciousness is not the unstable and unreliable awareness of a material sense of existence. The distinction between the false consciousness of life in matter and the true consciousness of life in God is clearly defined in Christian Science. If we admit a mortal and material origin for man, this admission carries with it the belief in a temporal and material consciousness.
In order to understand spiritual consciousness, which is the awareness of the spiritual man and of the universe of Spirit, we must accept a concept of man's origin which is entirely distinct and separate from the sense testimony of human procreation. The evidence of material birth may seem unquestionable. Our parents testified to the event; a birth certificate adds evidence to their testimony; we remember little incidents of our infancy, perhaps vague and visionary with the passing of time, but still seemingly stamped upon our memory. Christian Science, however, reveals the true origin of man and a higher and permanent destiny. It reveals the fact that consciousness is not what mortals believe it to be.
Mary Baker Eddy correctly describes consciousness in a brief and striking statement. She writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 24): "All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God,—an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This consciousness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose source is infinite Mind."
