Chapter VII
IS DISEASE REAL, OR APPARENT?
W. John Murray
The
Realm of Reality
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1922.
“It is the Spirit that
quickeneth, the flesh profiteth
nothing.”
--John 6:63
[75] In
dealing with the reality or unreality of
disease, the first thing to be
established in the mind is the sense in
which we are to use the word
“reality.” It is destined in
various ways, so that it is difficult to
understand in what sense one is
privileged to use it. One may speak of a
mirage as a real illusion, for such it
is, but the definition of the word
“illusion” discloses the fact
that it means that something which
seems to be real is not real.
Alluding to a real illusion is like
speaking of a true lie, and yet the lie
may be real as a lie, but when it is
discovered to be a lie it is seen to have
no truth in it; therefore the only
reality about it is the suffering it has
caused, and this would never have been if
all concerned had known it as a lie. A
lie would hurt no one if no one accepted
it as truth. Even the liar would not tell
his lie if he knew that no one would
believe him, and so we see that it is not
the lie which hurts, but the belief in
it.
[76] If we
can accept the definition of the word
“real” in its philosophic
sense as that which is insusceptible of
discord and decay, dissolution or
disintegration, we will have a sense of
reality which admits only that which is
perfect and permanent. According to
Plato’s idea, the real is the
ideal, of which the
materialist’s real is a more or
less imperfect representation to the
sense. The real, as we know it through
the senses, is in a constant state of
change, but, as science reveals it, it is
“the same, yesterday, today, and
forever.” To the senses the distant
mirage is as real as the adjacent
landscape, and far more attractive when
one is thirsty and the adjacent landscape
offers no promise of relief.
As the word
“real” is susceptible of so
many meanings, so is the word
“apparent.” Seeking to
establish the guilt of a man charged with
a crime, a prosecuting attorney may say,
“It is apparent from all the
circumstances that the accused is
guilty,” but the use of the word
“apparent” in this connection
may leave room for doubt in the mind of a
juror who may want something more than
the apparent upon which to convict the
accused. Another sense in which the word
is used shows that it is not synonymous
with the real or actual as when one,
speaking of the length or weight of an
object about which he has only a general
idea, says, “It is apparently about
three feet long.”
Probably one
of the simplest ways to define these
words would be to say that the word
“real” [77] is “that
which is,” while the word
“apparent” is “that
which appears to be.” It is in this
way that the exact sciences use them.
Therefore we are not taking liberties, as
some might imagine, with the English
language, when we use them in this sense
in analyzing the subject of disease. To
our senses disease is all too apparent
and too disagreeable for us to say that
it does not exist on the plane of the
particular or objective. We say, with the
most material man, that disease is one of
the most apparent things in the world of
sense, but we do not agree with the
materialist that the world of sense is
the only world, for we know what he does
not know about the world of sense, we
know that it is only apparent,
while he believes it to be real.
If we accept
the definition of the word
“real” as that which is
insusceptible of disintegration and
dissolution, then it follows that the
world of sense cannot be classified under
this heading, for no matter how
apparently beautiful it is, or how
apparently permanent it is, it is
evanescent and transitory. “The
world passeth away, and the lust thereof;
but he that doeth the will of God abideth
forever.” The best that can be said
of the apparent world is that it is an
inverted image of the real world
of ideas which John the Apostle saw with
the eye of his mind when he said,
“I saw a new heaven and a new
earth; for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away; and there was no
more sea.” The first heaven and
first earth is that which becomes
apparent [78] to our senses, the
new heaven and the new earth is that
which becomes real to our science,
so that no matter how apparent
imperfection is, we know that perfection
reigns supreme.
When Jesus
said, “Judge not according to
appearances, but judge righteous
judgment,” he was giving advice,
which if it had been acted upon from that
time to this would have averted all sin
and disease in the individual and all war
among nations. It was ever the design of
the Master to elevate human consciousness
above the plane of the senses to the
perception of Truth. He well knew what so
many of our foremost scientists are
learning today concerning the
unreliability of the senses. The science
of optics reveals how unreliable is the
sense of sight. For centuries it was
believed that the sky which arches
overhead was a solid body, and it
remained for the science of optics to
reveal that what appears to be a solid
blue dome is nothing more nor less than
the appearance that the atmosphere
assumes when human vision has reached its
limit. If it were possible for us to
travel in the direction of what appears
as the sky we should find it to be just
as far away as ever, and if it were
possible for us to travel to the
uttermost boundary of space we should
discover in practice what the science of
optics has discovered in theory, namely,
that there is no sky at all, as a thing
in itself. A sky appears to [79]
be there, but what actually is there is
boundless space.
The more a
man studies, the more convinced he
becomes that reason is more reliable than
the senses, especially if reason works
from the inside out, instead of from the
outside in. The most necessary part of
the individual is that to which none of
his senses testifies, and yet nothing
could convince him that he is devoid of
it. Neither sight nor hearing, touch nor
taste nor smell bears testimony to the
existence of the mind of man, but despite
this lack of sensible evidence man knows
that he has a mind, for otherwise how
could he think? Indeed how could he take
issue against those very senses, when
reason, a purely mental faculty, assures
him that their report is not true?
Is it not an
accepted truth that the most important
things in the world are those to which
the senses do not testify? How important
is the atmosphere to the continuance of
physical existence! We can live longer
without food or water than without air,
yet none of our senses testifies to its
existence. We may say we feel it when it
blows on our cheeks. What we actually
feel is motion or vibration. Scientists
tell us that we do not see color in a
rose, for the simple reason that there is
no color there. All color and all sound
is the result of vibration. “The
tympanum of the ear, with all the
auditive apparatus, is as unknowing of
the nature and cause of sound as the wall
is in the case of the echo, [80] and this
is true of the rest of the organs of
sense,” says a noted scientist.
Now, despite
all the scientific proof of the
unreliability of the senses, is it not
strange that so many people will reject
whatever is not supported by their false
testimony? It is only fair to state,
however, that there is a steady
improvement going on, for there are more
persons today who are ready to reject the
testimony of their senses when these
senses conflict with science than there
were in the days of Copernicus and
Galileo. Perhaps the most grievous charge
we can lay at the door of the senses is
the charge that they do not testify to
the greatest Truth, but the senses never
evidence Him. If we desire to know
anything about God it is to reason we
most appeal.
Helen
Keller, despite her great handicap, knew
that God is. When she was able to
understand her friend and teacher, who
developed a system of communication
independent of the senses, she was told
about God, and the girl, who could
neither see, hear, nor speak, made it
plain to her friend that she knew all
about Him, but not by the name which the
teacher used. Intuition, that inner
sight, which is not dependent on the
optic nerve for its existence or
continuance, had assured her of the
reality of that to which the most perfect
senses in the world would never
testify.
He only is a
philosopher who knows that the visible
world with all that it includes is a
mental picture. The world exists for us
as the representation [81] of our own
states and stages of consciousness. Rob
us of consciousness, and our world
disappears. Rob all men of consciousness,
and the world, as we view it, would
collapse, for where there is no mind to
perceive a world there is no world to be
perceived. Swedenborg declared that God
creates the visible world through man,
according to pre-existent patterns. Plato
seems to have taught that the visible
world is a more or less poor reproduction
of the archetypal universe of Ideas,
which Ideas antedate the so-called
material world and will survive its
discontinuance. In Plato’s
philosophy, moral or spiritual beauty is
the only real beauty, of which all
physical beauty is so much copy or
imitation.
We have some
idea of Plato’s conception of
Reality when we look at a work of art. We
stand enraptured before a landscape or a
portrait. They seem so true to life that
we feel the spirit behind and in them. It
is in some such way that the spiritual
philosopher regards the material world.
He does not sneer at it, any more than we
disregard a work of art simply because it
is not the real thing. The spiritual
philosopher is able to appreciate all the
beauties of the external world because to
him they suggest those rarer and more
eternal beauties of the spiritual
universe; therefore he, in a sense, is
able to live in two worlds at the same
time. It is as if a man stood upon the
soft turf of a beautiful meadow,
surrounded by the most gorgeous scenery,
while an artist was putting the finishing
touches on a canvas [82] depicting the
scene. The man might look from the beauty
of the natural scenery to the beauty of
the painting on the canvas, that is, from
the real to the imitation, without losing
for a moment his ability to distinguish
the one from the other.
Now, just as
the picture on the canvas is a poor
representation to the senses of the
natural landscape, so the natural
landscape is a poor reflection on a
higher plane of that “better
country” of the mind whose
“maker and builder is God.”
And lest we delude ourselves into
thinking that this better country is
something we can see only after we die,
it might be well to state that it is that
Realm of Reality, or Kingdom of Heaven
within, of which Jesus spoke, and
to which we have only to open the inner
eye of the understanding in order to
perceive. If any ordinary person can
appreciate the painting of a landscape
while realizing that it is not the real
landscape, that same person, with just a
little more enlightenment, might easily
appreciate that what he calls the real
landscape is just a good picture to his
mind of that more lasting beauty of the
spiritual universe. We know that the
painter’s canvas will not last
forever, and, in like manner, we are
persuaded that the material world, which
Schopenhauer called a “disordered
dream of humanity,” will one day be
lifted, as is a curtain at a theater, so
that we may see what is back and behind
all that is so apparent and, to the
spiritually ignorant, so deceptive.
[83] The end
of the world, which has been predicted so
often, may not come to pass as many have
prophesied, all of a sudden and in bulk,
but gradually and a little at a time. The
end of the world is now being interpreted
as that gradual decrease of materiality
which is to so thin the veils from before
the faces of mankind that what cannot be
seen, while those veils of materiality
obscure the view, may be plainly
discernible. The new heaven and the new
earth are not going to be created,
for that was done in the Beginning; they
are going to be revealed, much as
anything else will be revealed when the
thing which conceals it is removed. That
which obscures the Real is the apparent.
The apparent or material world and the
knowledge of this is the first step in
the direction of that Dominion which God
has promised to them that love Him.
Somewhere I
have read that Herbert Spencer once said
that, “What is real is permanent,
what is not real is not permanent;”
but this is only an echo of what Paul
said nearly two thousand years ago when
he declared, “The things which are
seen are temporal; but the things which
are not seen are eternal.” If we
can accept Spencer’s declaration
that what is real is permanent it will
help us to take a new view of disease
that will be of great service. If disease
is real, then it is permanent; but we
know that in most cases it is not
permanent, for it comes and goes, while
God goes on forever. The fact that
disease is not [84] permanent proves that
it is only apparent, and the knowledge
that it is only apparent, and therefore
unreal, in the truest sense of this word,
confers upon the knower the power to
overcome it.
One great
truth about Reality is its persistency.
This is why God and the things of God
will stand forever, while the things that
are not of God will disappear when man
knows they are not of God and says to
them what Jesus said, “Get thee
hence.” The knowledge that disease
is only apparent and not real has a
practical side. For Jesus to know the
truth concerning this important point was
for him to apply this Truth in the
healing of the sick. Our consideration of
the question, “Is disease real or
apparent?” should not be in the
form of an idle and useless speculation;
rather should it be for the purpose of
becoming acquainted with such facts as
will stand us in good stead in the moment
of trial and tribulation.
Humanity is
divided in thought on this point. Today
the majority believe in the reality of
disease, just as in Galileo’s day
the majority believed the earth was flat;
but belief does not make real a thing
which cannot be real, no matter how
apparent it is. Take two children, one of
whom believes in the reality of a ghost,
and the other who believes in nothing of
the kind; which of those children will be
most free from fear and consequent
misery? Consider two men, one who
believes in the reality of disease, and
the other who knows that it is only an
appearance due to [85] some wrong mental
attitude, and which of these men is the
more likely to recover from it?
We may
easily know whether disease is real or
apparent by asking a very simple question
of our own sanity. Is God the author of
it? If God is the author of it, it is
real, and therefore incurable; if God is
not the author of it, then it is only
apparent and therefore curable, and the
more quickly this fact is accepted and
emphasized. It will help us to
demonstrate this truth if we remember
that just as a photograph is not the
flesh and blood man, so the flesh and
blood man is only a representation to the
senses of that real man or spiritual
entity which lives, and moves, and has
his being in God where he is exempt from
disease.
When this
truth about man is more generally known
we shall no longer judge after
appearances. We shall see ourselves as
the perfect expressions of Him in Whom is
no disease, and to Whom disease is
unknown. We shall treat disease as the
wise man treats any other illusion, and
it will flee from us. We shall regard it
as a mirage of the carnal mind, an
appearance without actuality. The
apparent will vanish and the real will
take its place, just as apparent darkness
takes its leave at the approach of
light.
Chapter
8
* * * * *
The Realm of Reality
Table of
Contents
(Formerly at
Northwoods Divine Science Resource
Center)
