Looking across a chasm, we may be able to identify landmarks on the other side. Even though we've not been there before, maps, drawings—even that firsthand glimpse at a distance—may have given us at least a beginning feel of just what it is like over there. But no matter how much we may learn about the other side, only by being there will we truly know what it is. There is always a basic difference between talking or learning about something and actually experiencing it.
In some ways, this is the kind of relationship we appear to have with reality. We catch glimpses of it. We are learning more about it. But we must not stop short of experiencing it. The revelation that came to Mary Baker Eddy sets on record for all time the truths of being, the divine Science of reality. In conjunction with the Bible, we study her writings; through that study we draw deep drafts of spiritual discernment. The revelation gives us an accurate description of reality. We seem to be on this side of the chasm, reality on the other side. How do we get from here to there?
In a way, we get there by discovering we are there. And by realizing that actually there is no chasm—no separation between God and man. This is a process of spiritual awakening. In this awakening we begin to realize that immortality is always the fact. Being never did, never will, end. We find that good alone is substantial, permanently present. From the purely spiritual perspective we are not mortals trying to cross over into immortality. Man never is mortal. In reality, God is All, and individual being is expressive of God's perfection.
