PAIN AND PLEASURE

BY E. D. WAGNALIS

Does it make any difference to the body whether it is forced to indulge so-called pleasant dissipations, or is pierced with a sword? Does the flesh recognize either? Certainly not. This, then, clears the body of all guilt. But you say that I can recognize the difference. Who or what is this "I" that claims to be cognizant of pleasure or pain? We have already admitted that the body could have nothing to do with it. We feel that we can prove that this "I" lied from self-deception.

To be able to cognize anything there must be intelligence. There is but one Intelligence, and that one is God. God made all that was made, therefore it must be in His likeness, hence all that ever was made is good. There is nothing else above, below, or within this grand creation,—no place for anything else, for God is All-in-all.

Thus we see most conclusively that God is All and that there is naught beside Him. It is equally apparent that pain or sensual pleasure, sickness or sin, are not His creation, which embraces all. We must admit, therefore, that these claims do not, cannot exist, never existed, never came from anywhere but from our self-deceived consciousness. Remove this self-deception by pouring in the real, the undeniable spiritual facts, and we find in its stead the peace, joy, and love which were always there, but which we refused to recognize, preferring rather to make this deception a reality.

Now, why cannot pain and sensual pleasure exist? Why are not sin and sickness realities?

Can a thing exist and yet destroy itself? A claim of sickness is quite like a soap-bubble. It gets larger and larger until, by its own expansion, it bursts into its native nothingness, and the place thereof knows it no more. Can that which is real become in a few moments an unreality, or can it ever change? That which is unreal must be unreal still, and that which is real must ever remain so. The product of two times two is four. Has that fact ever changed, or can it ever change? The lie says that two times two is five. This statement must ever remain the false because it can never be changed to the true. Likewise if anything is, was, or ever shall be false, it never has, can, or will possess reality; vice versa, if anything is, was, or ever shall be real, it never has, can, or will possess unreality, self-deceived sense saying what it may, contrariwise.

Again, God is the Principle of His spiritual universe, and there is no other universe. He is the Principle of existence, for God is Life. Can sickness or iniquity exist in the Principle which is too pure to behold iniquity?

Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad that these claims are self-deception, for they have no God, no Principle, no Life, no Truth, no Love.

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BELIEF AND UNDERSTANDING

September 22, 1898

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