Suffering can be overcome by destroying the suppositional ego that declares the necessity for sin.
This ego is the Adam-dream, and it includes the sinning dreamer called mortal man. Mortal man is also a character in the dream. The conditions of the dream include the merciless pressures of mortal existence—temptations, false pleasures, pains, selfishness, uncertainty, discord, disease, death. Anyone who identifies himself as a mortal is to that extent subject to these pressures. But when he is awakened from the dream, the ego that says, "I dream," is destroyed. This awakening demonstrates that man is not mortal. He is not in the dream but is the ever-conscious idea of divine Principle, Love, God.
The mortal dream is sin because it violates the commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). In "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 67), Mrs. Eddy writes, "Sin was, and is, the lying supposition that life, substance, and intelligence are both material and spiritual, and yet are separate from God." And in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 250), she writes, "Mortal existence is a dream; mortal existence has no real entity, but saith 'It is I.' "
