Article January 24, 1948 Issue

AWAKING TO MAN'S PERFECTION

PHILIP ERNEST SMITH

How deeply engrossed in materiality the world often seems! Those who believe themselves unfortunate victims of its pains and sorrows may seek escape by delving even further into the pit of materialistic thinking. But how simply does the revelator of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, dispose of this false realm of thought in these words (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 21): "It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being."

The demonstrable truth of this statement is readily proved as mankind awakes from its dream of materiality to the understanding of being as the perfect and complete expression of the one Father-Mother God. As this true sense begins to dawn upon human consciousness, the mortal may try to account for or justify the dream. He often asks, "Whence comes this mortal sense of man, which seems so real?" A false concept of any truth is merely a reversal, a misconception, or ignorance of Truth itself. Just as a mistake in mathematics arises from ignorance or misconception of the mathematical fact, so a mistaken concept of God and man has its basis in ignorant false belief about God and the universe. Since God is infinite Truth and includes all, an opposite belief or believer is merely a supposititious dream state, entirely separate from man's spiritual selfhood.

The dream of material existence bears a similarity to the sleeping dream, as may be illustrated by the following incident. One night the writer dreamed that he and some friends were witnessing a disaster which threatened to envelop them all. Extreme fear and worry were expressed by him and his dream companions, until he suddenly found himself saying to them: "After all, this experience is only a dream, from which we shall soon awaken. There is no cause for worry." With this thought the dreamer's fear was dispelled, and he awoke to find himself entirely safe. Neither he nor his friends had ever been in the dream situation.

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