Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/368

364 nervous, you will kill me.” Why? “Because I don't like to hear you talk so. My mind is all made up and I do not want to be disturbed in this way.” Do you mean your flesh and blood are disturbed? “Oh you disturb my mind and body.” Then your mind is one thing and your body another. You believe in the soul? “Yes.” You believe it goes to heaven when you die? “Yes.” I thought you said heaven was a state of mind. “Oh, yes, but we must die.” What dies? “This flesh and blood.” Well, has it life? “Yes.” Has it feeling? “You would think so if you suffered as much as I.” Then this that suffers is the flesh and blood? “Yes.” Then it is conscious of all these bad feelings? “Yes.” Are the feelings its consciousness or has it another consciousness independent of itself? “No.” Then at death you mean that all of these aches and pains leave you and you will be happy? “Yes.”

Then these aches and pains are the body's identity and belong to the flesh and blood? “Yes.” Are you happy when you feel so badly? “No.” Then you are not in heaven? “I don't expect to be happy until I get to heaven.” Can you get there and have these pains? “No.” Then when the pains leave you it will be heaven on earth? “Yes, if that ever takes place.”

Now, let us see where you stand. You have admitted enough to show that your mind is in a confused state like a person in trouble. You have not one particle of true knowledge. Your supposed knowledge is the effect of an impression on the senses, due to the opinion of some one who explained some one's ideas according to his own view of truth. This opinion taken for truth makes you nervous and brings about all your suffering. You are afraid of your enemies and you pray to the God whom you admit keeps you in misery. You are taught to believe that God is watching all your actions, that He has laid down certain laws and regulations for you to follow and if you disobey you will be punished. This keeps you in bondage and all your life subject to disease. But to suppose God selects you to be punished above your companions is to believe God is partial. This you cannot believe.

Now look at those who worship God; they have a false idea of the God they worship. God is not in any kind of worship that man has established. God is not an identity