My teenage Sunday School students and I probed the question of eternity. How far back could we remember? I recalled looking at the towering legs of a horse and being hoisted up into my granddad's saddle when I was just three years old. Several pupils could also clearly remember events when they were about that age.
Could anyone in the class remember existence prior to birth? No. Was it possible to know anything other than this mortal experience? We agreed that yes, somehow it was possible.
As we continued our discussion, the Bible gave us some insights. And later I pondered Jeremiah's glimpse of eternal existence when he discerned God's words "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Jer. 1:5. The Gospel of John records Jesus' profound words "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." John 17:5. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy makes specific reference to the fact there is life before birth (see 429:19—30).
But as we talked, exactly what it meant to think of an earlier experience seemed fuzzy and needed to be clarified. An answer to the question of preexistence won't come through various theories of psychology. It won't come through popular views advanced by the New Age culture. The answer is not esoteric. It comes through inspired Christianity. Through spiritual awakening impelled by the Christ.
Instead of trying through a mortal mentality to recall a prebirth, material history that doesn't actually exist, our need is to begin yielding to the spiritual truth that man's real Mind, his true substance and existence, is immortal, not mortal. It is our awakening to the fact that God is Mind and that man expresses this limitless consciousness that enables us to know the meaning of "being" prior to this human view of things. Instead of discovering simply a preexistence, we find an eternal coexistence—a unity with God that has never been broken. Instead of remembering in a mortal way, we are knowing in an immortal way.
The human mind is incapable of knowing anything outside of itself. Its limited approach to remembering might be illustrated this way. Suppose you are walking along a winding path with foliage on each side. As you look back from where you've come, the view gets somewhat obscured by the underbrush. As you look forward, the trail takes twists and turns that prevent you from knowing exactly what's ahead. Mortal memory involves storing up a collection of perceptions. On the path of material life, this personal effort to remember is like an attempt to keep track of just what the scenery has looked like so far.
An immortal hue to memory might be thought of as an illumined consciousness that has roots in the allness of God instead of a human mind trying daily to figure things out.
Suppose we want to see what things look like just before the beginning of a trail we're walking—or what the view is like beyond the end. One option would be to break out of the way we are viewing the scenery. We could do this by climbing into a helicopter. As it rises above the ground, we begin to see things from an entirely fresh perspective. We are getting away from the limits that confined our view.
Such an analogy may at least offer some hints in helping us think about how to consider this question of existence before birth. Did we have existence before human birth? We surely did. More accurately, we surely do. There needs to be a radical shift of thought that turns us away from a mortal to an immortal basis; then we see existence in a wholly different light. Life isn't represented by a material trail of past, present, and future events. We realize that a memory—or a consciousness—of something before this human experience is vastly different from the recollection of material episodes by a human mind. It is more adequately described as our expression of divine Mind's ever-present knowing of spiritual reality. This isn't to imply that existence becomes unsubstantial and abstract. Man exists. Substance exists. Form, color, and outline exist. But we begin to perceive or know this existence from a very different perspective. From a Godlike, spiritual view, which eliminates a mortal-like, material view.
The capacity to express this knowing of reality is inherent in each of us. This ability cannot be lost or taken from us. For example, Christian Science affirms: "If delusion says, 'I have lost my memory,' contradict it. No faculty of Mind is lost." Science and Health, p. 407.
Beyond a personal mind
Isn't Mrs. Eddy pointing to something greater than just a personal mind's capacity to keep track of events? She's speaking of a "faculty of Mind." Mind is a synonym for God. And her statement appears alongside the marginal heading "Immortal memory." Mrs. Eddy continues, "In Science, all being is eternal, spiritual, perfect, harmonious in every action." Then she urges, "Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite."
To ponder the "perfect model," or immortal being, to rise above that little path symbolizing a life of mortal events, enables us to think more intelligently about what was "happening" before birth. As we gain a higher or more spiritual view, this pure model becomes not only present in thought, it becomes the very substance of our thought. We find ourselves knowing and therefore expressing more of real, eternal Being.
Today's material life is not some kind of reincarnation from a past material life. Nor is it an authentic interruption in the eternal now of our genuine, spiritual life. We might think of it as essentially a mortal perception, with its limitation, sin, sickness, and death constituting a drastic misperception of what real life always is. The human mind will never be able to define adequately the nature of existence prior to the experience called birth. Why? Because the human mind itself is a fallacy; it cannot see beyond its own self-limiting beliefs.
Spiritual truth is not reality to mortal mind. This supposed mind says reality begins in matter, is defined by matter, and ends in matter. But that description is false. Spirit is reality. Genuine being is recognized from the standpoint of spiritual instead of material sense, immortal Mind instead of mortal mind. What can be known about our existence prior to birth if we are seeing things within an eternal memory resting in pure spiritual sense? Our view would not be based in some point down on a material time-line, but would be anchored in the higher standpoint of a timeless spiritual now. In other words, that which was "before birth" is this eternal now. Immortal, divine consciousness sees all existence from the perspective of God's ever-present reality. A limit-based assumption of being loses its meaning in the discovery of limitless Being.
When we are willing to think of man as expressing infinite Mind, God, we begin to discern that real existence is not limited after all. It actually isn't confined to a set of mortal events. That tiny span of material perceptions collected in a relatively few decades is a misinterpretation of our ever-present, real being. Mortality can't be defined as God-given reality. What seems so real—this time-line of beginning and ending in matter—loses its appearance of substance when viewed from the standpoint of eternity. But we see this fact only from a spiritually elevated, awakened, enlightened perspective.
Spiritual renewal
Instead of getting into a helicopter, how can we break free from a mortal approach to defining reality? Wouldn't it be to see things from the perspective of boundlessness instead of boundaries, infinity instead of finiteness? The Christian calls it spiritual transformation. Christian renewal and regeneration. Christly rebirth is the only possible way to begin seeing, remembering, knowing beyond the limits of mortality. There really is no other way. To know our full life (actually our only real life, which has nothing to do with the mistaken perspective of a mortal past and future, birth and end) requires outgrowing a confining, material mentality.
Such spiritual growth is no easy job. A Christly transformation of thought is the most demanding task any of us will ever have. But it isn't hard to begin. The whole process of spiritualization can start with a little more kindness. A thoughtful word. Resisting an impure impulse. Replacing it with respect for our fellowman. Gratitude. A growing love for God. A stronger emphasis on inspired daily prayer and study.
As consciousness becomes increasingly imbued with such qualities, we embrace a view of life more expressive of immortality and less of mortality. We glimpse that our complete, God-defined being is actually existing now. It always has been existing now. This is what Christ Jesus is teaching us about the continuity and permanency of true, spiritual identity. It is from this vantage point he could say, "Before Abraham was, I am," John 8:58. and "Lo, I am with you alway." Matt. 28:20.
What might be referred to as a kind of immortal memory is really not a capacity of the human mind at all. It is an awakening impelled by God-given spiritual sense that lifts us not only above the limited, even mistaken, description of existence as starting with birth, but also above the perspective of an uncertain future or an end to existence. It enables us to see all things more from the standpoint of divine Mind, and to express this ever-conscious Mind. We begin outgrowing this supposed path of mortality, seeing things from a spiritual outlook. And we gain deeper insight into what the preacher was calling on us to relinquish: "There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." Eccl. 1:11. An immortal hue to memory might be thought of as an illumined consciousness that has roots in the allness of God instead of a human mind trying daily to figure things out. This spiritually imbued consciousness manifests the nature of all-knowing Mind.
Sooner or later each of us must begin rising above the relatively short, mortal view of existence. In the final analysis, this is a false view. Even a trillion years of mortality recede in meaning as we go about the invigorating job of Christianizing our life and we begin moving above that little mortal pathway with its limited set of beliefs about existence. The smallest facets of our daily lives can begin taking on a more timeless, pure tone.
Instead of identifying with the human mind trying to remember reality, we must put off this belief of a mind apart from God. Then spiritual truths will begin dawning as our real consciousness coming to light. Mrs. Eddy describes man's genuine being as perfect and spiritual. Then she writes, "Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and is always beyond and above the mortal illusion of any life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter." Science and Health, p. 302.
If we want to be conscious of the real facts of existence before the event called birth—or the true facts of the future—we will begin yielding to the knowing of divine Mind and its infinite, all-embracing now. This means a transformation of thought that sees the ever-presence of God's spiritual creation all around. It means deepening our Christianity, increasing our spiritual integrity, innocence, intelligence, and affections.
