"The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter." This statement of Mrs. Eddy's is found in Science and Health (pp. 306, 307).

To avoid all human discord, it is incumbent upon every Christian Scientist to devote his time and energy to breaking up the Adam-dream rather than enhancing it. Why? Because the Adam-dream claims to be able to take one out of the realm of Spirit, God, and to confine one within a mortal, material sense of selfhood entirely separate from God. And in such a deluded state of thought, human discords appear real and conclusive. Thus the only way to stop their Adamic deceptiveness is to get busy and break up the Adam-dream in which they inhere.

How can one do this? Why, in the same way that one breaks up any dream: to awaken from it. In other words, one must cease to give credence to any power but God or to any sense of selfhood apart from Him. Christ Jesus put it this way: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Knowing the truth of God's presence and power and of one's perfection as His image and likeness will free, or awaken, one from the Adam-dream of being separated from God.

A bona fide question at this point might well be: "But how shall we learn to know the truth?" Christian Science gives the answer, for it unmistakably shows us the way. It says (Science and Health, p. 428): "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, 'whose builder and maker is God.'"

Does it seem incredulous, then, to think of devoting one's time and energy to breaking up something that doesn't really exist? It should not! For one should never forget that although the Adam-dream is nothing, it claims to be something; hence one needs to handle its claim. If it truly were something—representing man's real being—one could do nothing to change it. But because the Adam-dream is a counterfeit, a misrepresentation of man's being, one can through spiritual understanding be so alert to the truth that he will not be deceived by such a dream.

Only as one practices Christian Science from the standpoint that no human discord has an origin or source in Truth is he able successfully to handle discord as nothing. On the other hand, if one were to go along with the claim that human discord is real, he would have no basis upon which to challenge it. Thus he would never find freedom but would always be in bondage to the Adam-dream and would leave himself open to all of the ramifications of suffering associated with it.

Within the Scriptures lie the precedents for awakening from the Adam-dream. For example, Paul enthusiastically enjoined upon the Romans just such a task. He implored, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Rom 12:1). Then he added, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

To Paul, the breaking up of the Adam-dream was proof that one was ready and willing to serve God. Hence one can approach this task with full assurance that as he conforms less and less to the material sense of existence—sacrificing the Adam-dream, as it were, in order to do God's will—it will cease to exist as far as he is concerned.

Christian Science stands firmly behind Paul's call for this "reasonable service" to God and declares: "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality" (Science and Health, p. 492). Rousing oneself from the Adam-dream, therefore, is essential if one is to obey the will of God.

Christ Jesus vividly illustrated the need of allegiance to God. He said (Matt. 6:24): "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

One should ask himself: "How much of the Adam-dream am I accepting? Am I trying to serve both God and mammon? Do I think of myself as being separated from God? Am I experiencing suffering of any kind?" If one is truly honest with himself, he will know the next step to take and begin at once to disassociate himself from the Adam-dream.

If one doesn't know just where to begin, the Book of Proverbs illustrates an area in which to work. It says there are seven things which "are an abomination" unto the Lord: "A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren" (6:17–19). In view of this statement, everyone has something to do. These errors must be destroyed until they no longer appear to exist anywhere.

Understanding that reality begins with God as All, one may purge his own thought of all agreement with the discords of the Adam-dream and eliminate them from his experience. This enables him to lift his thought to behold God's goodness and demonstrate it in his own life. And his individual demonstration contributes toward the breaking up of the Adam-dream universally.