Imperishable identity
476:21 Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual
status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood.
Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal
476:24 man: "As for man, his days are as grass: as
a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
476:27 know it no more."
The kingdom within
When speaking of God's children, not the children of
men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;"
476:30 that is, Truth and Love reign in the real
man, showing that man in God's image is
unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the per-
477:1 fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal
man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour
477:3 saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man
healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom
of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
477:6 Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself
spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect
nor material.
Material body never God's idea
477:9 Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal
senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but
Christian Science reveals man as the idea of
477:12 God, and declares the corporeal senses to be
mortal and erring illusions. Divine Science
shows it to be impossible that a material body, though
477:15 interwoven with matter's highest stratum, misnamed
mind, should be man, - the genuine and perfect man,
the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal.
477:18 Were it otherwise, man would be annihilated.
Reflection of Spirit
/Question/. - What are body and Soul?
/Answer/. - Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the re-
477:21 flection in multifarious forms of the living Principle,
Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelli-
gence of man, which is individualized, but not
477:24 in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to
Spirit.
Man inseparable from Spirit
Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught
477:27 some glimpses of the underlying reality, when
they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile
of the Great Spirit." Separated from man,
477:30 who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonentity; man,
divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is,
478:1 there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with
God.