Article November 18, 1967 Issue

Love Thyself

BARBARA AVENSTRUP

The Scriptures are replete with injunctions to love God and man, and we are familiar with the admonition, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."^{Matt. 19:19;} Self-love is an evil thing, but one can love both himself and his neighbor in a scientific way. This does not mean loving the mortal, sinful concept of man, indulging this concept, and condoning its misdeeds. According to Christian Science this misconception of God's man, called a mortal, is a myth, a counterfeit that the Scriptures say must be put off for the "new man."^{Eph. 4:24;} To love oneself truly means to understand God, love Him with all the heart and soul, and love His idea, man, that perfect man whom God created in His own image and likeness. This ideal man is in truth, our neighbor and ourselves.

Learning to love this man is a spiritual process requiring consecration, self-knowledge, and a great overturning, for the human being does not easily part with his belief in a material selfhood. In this regeneration we find that self-love must give place to universal love, false pride to humility, deceit to honesty, lust to purity, and self-will to the divine demand to obey the will of God. The so-called mortal self may scream for recognition when this divine baptism is taking place. Here we have the solace and impulsion of spiritual power to support and strengthen our endeavors till the human yields to the divine, here a little, there a little. Tenderness, compassion, and forbearance replace the harshness of physical sense, and a great patience with oneself and others ensues.

Mrs. Eddy writes: "I endeavored to lift thought above physical personality, or selfhood in matter, to man's spiritual individuality in God,—in the true Mind, where sensible evil is lost in supersensible good. This is the only way whereby the false personality is laid off."^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 73;}

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