Editorial August 4, 1962 Issue

Self-knowledge

Helen Wood Bauman

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus taught the need for self-knowledge, the knowledge of the true self, which God makes, and the knowledge of the false self, which counterfeits the true. In this sermon the human being is instructed to search deeply within thought and to root out hidden mental sin on the basis of man's perfection as the child of the perfect Father.

No doubt one of the paralyzing obstructions to spiritual progress is an unwillingness to do this searching. Self-deception may hold an individual in a state of blind satisfaction with himself, even though his experiences should be a sharp reminder of his ignorance of man's likeness to God, which the Bible teaches.

Reluctance to perceive latent or active faults and blind spots disappears when one honestly desires to prove through Christian Science that he is actually the idea of divine Mind, God, and is therefore sinless and Christly. The revelation of real manhood uncovers the spuriousness of the sinful, mortal sense of self and impels one to quit justifying it. After all, it is a lie about God's man and has no actual connection with him.

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