Article March 5, 1984 Issue

Obtaining the key to the kingdom

ELEANOR LESTER-SMITH

Why, one might ask, is it necessary to obtain the key to the kingdom when Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you"?^{Luke 17:21.} The allegory of Adam and Eve tells how they were tempted by the serpent, or corporeal sense, to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Similarly, through succumbing to the persuasions of corporeal sense, with its belief of life, substance, and intelligence in matter, much of humanity today finds it is virtually locked out of the kingdom of heaven.

Didn't Jesus warn us in the Sermon on the Mount of the culprit that would steal the kingdom—the pure consciousness of God's allness—from us? The culprit is corporeal sense, or personal sense, a sense of mortal personalities or many minds—in contrast to the healing truth of one infinite Mind, God, good, reflected by the true man.

What would cause us to break the Ten Commandments? What would cause our salt to lose its savor, our wholehearted commitment to Truth to fade? What tempts us to be touchy and impatient and angry with our brothers or to be scornful of them? What would cause us to be concerned with material pleasures at the expense of spirituality, to break the Golden Rule, or to build on false foundations? Is not the answer to all these questions personal sense?

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