Article June 6, 1908 Issue

False consciousness, or the false sense of life, is of the...

Rev. G. A. Kratzer

Fitchburg (Mass.) Sentinel

False consciousness, or the false sense of life, is of the "carnal mind." True life, or true consciousness, is of God. The false sense of life is gradually replaced and destroyed by the knowledge and realization of true life. The process may be illustrated as follows: Suppose a farmer had a wagon which was wearing out. He might discard that wagon and buy a new one. In this case, there would be an abrupt break, a sudden and complete change of identities in his wagons. Or the farmer might replace each part of his old wagon, as it became specially worn, with a new part — first a wheel and then another wheel, and then a tongue, and then a box, and so on, until no part of the original wagon remained. In this case, there would be no sudden change in the identities of the wagons, but, in the end, the change would be complete. Let us now carry the supposition a little farther. Suppose each part of the old wagon, as it was cast aside, was not merely thrown on the scrap heap, but was utterly destroyed, even as to its substance, and suppose each new part placed in the wagon were of such a character as to be indestructible and eternal. Then, when the process of change was complete, the old, temporal wagon would be destroyed, and a new, eternal wagon would have been gained, and, all the time, the farmer would have had a wagon to use.

So the consciousness or so-called life of the "natural" man is wholly temporal and perishable, because all his ideas are temporal and perishable. As these old, false ideas, based on matter, are replaced one after another by ideas of truth based on Spirit, the old ideas eliminated from the consciousness are utterly destroyed, and the new ideas coming in are absolutely eternal. When the change has been completed, the old, the mortal man will have been entirely eliminated, and "the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," will have appeared, and this new man, this new consciousness which is wholly identified with ideas of eternal truth, will be absolutely eternal. But during the change from the old to the new, the consciousness has been continuous. So neither the socalled death of the body, nor any other circumstance, has power to interrupt the stream of consciousness or life, while the change from the false to the true is being made. The eternal, changeless, satisfying life which eternally exists, without beginning and without end, and the realization of which we are gradually and, in the end, completely to attain, is the perfect knowledge or comprehension of God and His Christ.

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