To understand the true Ego spiritually is the key to demonstrations of divine power, awe-inspiring and profound. Such demonstrations result when the false, mortal ego yields to the divine Ego and immortal Truth replaces the errors of mortal, sinning sense.

Although human consciousness has but slightly opened its door to the tremendous possibilities thus indicated, the divine Ego is unquestionable fact and forever present. This was proved by Moses and Christ Jesus, each of whom centuries apart held conscious communion with the divine Ego. To Moses, it was the great I AM; to Jesus, it was the Father.

Christian Science reveals that this divine Ego fills all space, constitutes within itself all Truth, and embodies all power. The divine Ego is the ever-present God, the heavenly Father of the universe, completely unknown to and unacknowledged by mortal sense, faintly comprehended by human sense, though, through inspiration, recognized, acknowledged, and loved by spiritual sense.

Spiritually becoming aware of this all-embracing presence, the divine Ego, brings joy to the grief-stricken, surcease from pain to the suffering, rest to the heavy-laden, and healing to the diseased. These results follow because one cannot become conscious of the oneness and allness, the infinitude, of the Divine without surrendering to some extent the false, mortal ego that experiences difficulty.

The surrender of this false ego, of erring material personality, does not always come to mortals easily. As long as one enjoys mortality's illusion of security or experiences its ephemeral pleasures, there is little incentive for one to awaken spiritually. But when the substanceless nature of mortality reveals itself as sin, sickness, disease, pain, suffering, unhappiness, misery, thought becomes receptive. One is then ready to turn from a false sense of existence and seek release from a mortal ego.

Because of his virgin birth Christ Jesus was singularly free from the claims and impositions of a mortal ego. He was unparalleled in exercising power over material conditions. His inspiring example of meekness, his lack of both self-will and self-glorification, outlives the centuries and remains a rebuke to the boastful mortal ego.

Our Master disclaimed any personal ability. He steadfastly maintained that it was the Father who did the works. By his declaration that he and the Father were one (see John 10:30), he yielded belief of a personal ego in favor of his true identity as the Son of God.

To follow Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, truly, we too must give up belief in a material selfhood and acknowledge divine identity at one with the Father. By this acknowledgment human consciousness is purified and elevated, and the tyranny of the material senses holding sway over a mortal ego is broken.

The enslaving pleasures of material sense that inevitably result in suffering no longer tempt one when man's joyous and satisfying oneness with infinite Love as its expression is realized. The pains of sense vanish from consciousness when one perceives his true identity to be this at-one-ment with infinite Love.

When it was divinely revealed to Mrs. Eddy, in complete accord with the teachings of Christ Jesus, that God is infinite Love, the one and only Ego, and that this loving God is the only Father of man, how greatly blessed was mankind! Eventually all mankind will be grateful that Mrs. Eddy shared her revelation with the world by establishing her Church on divine Principle, Love, which causes no evil, sin, disease, or death.

In Miscellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy assures us that God cannot be the cause of imperfection. She adds: "His modes declare the beauty of holiness, and His manifold wisdom shines through the visible world in glimpses of the eternal verities. Even through the mists of mortality is seen the brightness of His coming." ^{Mis., p. 363;}

As thus indicated by Mrs. Eddy, the truth and practicality of her revelation of the purity, goodness, and perfection of the divine Ego and of man as its sinless expression can be demonstrated step by step in our daily life here and now.

The writer experienced a wonderful healing as the result of disclaiming a mortal ego, the claim of a selfhood in matter. She was home from work disabled and in great distress because of a dislocated vertebra. She had recently completed her purchase of the recordings of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and she set herself the task of listening to the recordings from beginning to end.

Little spiritual inspiration penetrated the mesmerism of suffering until she heard the words, "Truth is the rock of ages, the headstone of the corner, 'but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.'" ^{Science and Health, p. 380;} In a flash of enlightenment she recognized that in her own experience Truth had come to her as the "rock of ages" to dissolve into nothingness the claim of a mortal ego with its belief of material birth, material life, and material death and all the pains, unhappiness, and misery thereby implied.

Her heart rejoiced that this "rock of ages" had come to her to deliver her from a suffering, sinning ego and to reveal her real selfhood. She was healed as she rejoiced in the allness and oneness of the divine Ego and its expression. In a short time she was again at her desk in the office where she was employed.

To maintain a clear consciousness of man as an expression of the divine Ego demands vigilance. The five material senses constantly suggest that they are embodied in a mortal ego that claims to be one's identity; and unless one is spiritually alert, the temptation is strong to agree with them. The Master's experience in Gethsemane would indicate that the effort to subjugate the human ego to one's divine identity continues throughout earthly existence. In those dark moments Jesus had to struggle with the mesmeric suggestion of a human selfhood resisting the agonizing experience that was to lead to his resurrection and ascension. His disciples, who should have helped him, were overcome by sleep. He told them, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." ^{Matt. 26:41;}

In our dark moments when we struggle to rise above a material ego, these words of Mrs. Eddy can bring us immeasurable comfort and encouragement: "The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being." ^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 21;}

We gain the true estimate of being when we recognize that God, the Father of man, is the ever-present, divine Ego and that man, His perfect, joyous, selfless expression, is inseparable from God. To this beloved offspring comes the tender assurance of the Father, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." ^{Luke 15:31.}