Teachings of Jesus - SOM

The Far Country
“And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.”

When the son had received his share of goods, he went into a “far country.” We are all in this “far country,” for it symbolizes the descent of the soul, or the outer rim of spiritual existence. It does not mean a place, but rather a state of consciousness. If God is omnipresent, we cannot escape the Divine Presence, so this “far country,” means a consciousness which has been separated itself from the eternal good. The “true meaning’” I believe, of the “far country,” would be a conscious separation from God, an isolated state, one in which there appears to be no remembrance of God as an actual, living, and ever-present Reality; one where man feels himself to be separated and entirely apart from the Eternal Good.
     This “far country,” has a real meaning today, for all of us have hills of Galilee, nearly two thousand years ago, for all of us have come from heaven and nearly all feel the isolation of this seeming apartness from the Eternal Good, the whole endeavor of mankind is to return to the Father’s House.
Science of Mind