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.' "
Christian Science proves that we are free to reject the dream and its egotistical declaration of selfhood apart from God and to accept, instead, the Christ, Truth. God is All, and He is the one Ego, Spirit, good, always declaring, "I am." Christ reveals man as God's reflection.
Sin's egotistical, "It is I," appears most vividly in human immorality. Ranging from blatant violence to silent unkindness, each immoral act attempts in some way to destroy an individual's capacity or freedom to say, "I am a child of God." But the Christ is present in human consciousness, enabling the individual to see himself as he is and to recognize the nothingness of sin. The false ego that says, "I enjoy sinning," may then be seen as no part of the individual man, and one may say with authority, "I know no pleasure in sin; I know too well the joys of Soul."
In our attempt to solve a family problem, the claim that a particular member of the family is a sinful mortal must be recognized as one of the claims of the Adam-dream. We support this dream's supposed right to say, "It is I," if we believe it. We strengthen the false claim when we insist that the problem cannot be solved until this particular person changes his attitude.
But when we understand the Christ and reflect the Christ-image, we can see the falsity of the claim. We can affirm the oneness and allness of Principle and the perfection of man in Science. Thus we separate sin from our concept of man, and we obey Christ Jesus' command (Matt. 5:44), "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you."
Since each one's problem is individual, and each must tread his own pathway from error to Truth, we cannot rightfully deprive our neighbor of the lessons he must learn if he is to overcome sin, nor can we prevent sin's self-destruction and the suffering that comes to one who persists in indulging in sin. But through the Christ we can destroy our own indulgence in the belief that sin is real and that it has power and thus remove from our neighbor the burden of our own false belief about him. This will solve our problem, and it will do much to hasten the moment when the light will dawn in our neighbor's consciousness.
Disease is the direct result of sin's egotism. That man is material is the seeming reality to millions of mortals who say, "I believe it." If we are ignorant of the spiritual truth of God and man, this belief becomes partially our own, and the diseases included in it will seem real. Accepting in part the belief that man is material, we may be afraid of the possibilities portrayed in the dream, and our fear is apt to produce sickness until Truth destroys the fear. If we knowingly indulge in the pleasures of the material belief, we identify ourselves with the sinful dream, and we are subject not only to the diseases and discords that exist in that dream but also to the suffering which attends sin's destruction.
We find our way out of the material dream by seeking first the one true Ego, which is God, pure, perfect Mind. As we find this Ego, we begin to recognize man's identity as Mind's idea. Then our beliefs in material selfhood are seen to be false, and honesty, meekness, affection, temperance, thoughtfulness of our neighbor, faith in the truth, increasingly characterize our behavior.
If we are welcoming this transition, we are identifying ourselves with the true Ego as its reflection, and we gain the truth which destroys evil. Christian Science shows that it requires more than human goodness to heal sin and disease, but it also shows that the spiritual consciousness which heals is unattainable without conscious and persistent effort to bring out our true selfhood as God's likeness. This is manifested humanly as better and better human beings.
The ego of sin would seem to be rampant in the world today. We can pray to destroy this false ego by facing in our own consciousness whatever thoughts we label "I" or "he" or "they," then asking ourselves whether these thoughts begin with the one Ego or whether they begin with the Adam-dream. As we refute every argument that sin has an ego and claim as our own the one sinless Principle, we shall become better healers. We shall learn to solve our problems more effectively. And our lives as well as our prayers will contribute much to the peace of the world.
