Only One Ego

IN "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 588) Mary Baker Eddy defines "I AM" as "God; incorporeal and eternal Mind; divine Principle; the only Ego;" while previously, on the same page, in giving the metaphysical interpretation of "I, or EGO," she states, in part, "All the objects of God's creation reflect one Mind, and whatever reflects not this one Mind, is false and erroneous, even the belief that life, substance, and intelligence are both mental and material." Again, in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 20), she writes, "The Christian Scientist is alone with his own being and with the reality of things." This reality of things is the reflection of the one Mind. Therefore the metaphysical axiom, "I think; there fore I am," if stated in the light of Christian Science, would be, "I reflect the one Mind; therefore I am."

Then what of the false I, or ego, which seems so real to us and gives us so much trouble? The answer given to that question by Christian Science is entirely simple and can be illustrated by considering the science of mathematics. In arithmetic, every problem has its correct solution. That does not mean that every child can immediately solve it. When a child says, "Two times two is five," he does not create a two times two which is five; he simply holds to an erroneous concept of the arithmetical idea that two times two is four. He fails, through ignorance, to understand the one and only true idea about two times two. This mere statement does not do away with the necessity for the child to learn that two times two is four, nor does it aid him in his task.

In the Science of being, in the reality of things, every problem has its correct solution—is already solved. That does not mean that every mortal has consciously solved his present problem of being, though it does mean that he has the potential capacity to do so, for since his true selfhood reflects the one Mind nothing can prevent him from understanding the true idea.

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"The brow of the hill"
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