Article May 11, 1929 Issue

"Know thyself!"

FRANK SADDLER

The enlightening process of knowing one's true self, the child of God, is a vital need in spiritual growth, and is the direct result of knowing God as the creator of all that is real and eternal. To know God and His creation, to understand one's true selfhood and also the pretensions of the false sense of self, is made possible by Christian Science. The spiritual is the true, and the material the false concept of existence; and we cannot grasp spiritual reality without at the same time becoming aware of the falsity of error. Thus, ignorance of mortal selfhood betrays ignorance of man's real selfhood; and this ignorance must be replaced by true self-knowledge, if we are to demonstrate in daily living our spiritual understanding of God and man.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, describes self-ignorance on pages 306 and 307 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" in these words: "The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter." It is the delusion from which the understanding of God, divine Love, provides the only way of escape.

God, divine, infinite Mind, is omniscient, including all true knowledge. In this all-knowing Mind all is immortal, spiritual, and good; and His spiritual idea, man, reflects omniscience. It is obvious that God never made a so-called mind that is mortal, material, and evil. Does not the Scripture say, "Without him was not any thing made that was made"? What, then, is there to know about a mortal self-hood? Just what there is to know about a counterfeit coin, namely, that it is not genuine but an imitation, claiming attention and value only through deception.

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