Article May 15, 1989 Issue

There's more to you than you know!

If we look in the mirror, we see ourselves—or do we? Isn't there more to us than just the material image we see reflected?

Bayard C. Auchincloss

When feeling low, have you ever looked in the mirror and thought, "All I've got is you"? The Bible's message is much more comforting. It declares, in essence, "Behold, God is all you've got!" And the accounts in it of people's encounters with God vividly bring out this point. The outcome of understanding their relationship to God was saving, healing, transforming. They were able to exceed their capacities and to do things that still amaze us today.

Christ Jesus, for instance, insisted on this simple fact: "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me."^{John 5:30.} Yet think of all the people he helped and healed! Consider his own resurrection and ascension. Jesus' life illustrates the results of understanding God and of letting Him, instead of our human ego, govern our lives. If we can think of God as the only Ego, a radical new view of our "self," or ego, becomes evident. This does not take away our individuality but shows us that our material "self" is not really us at all. We find that we are actually spiritual and express God. The material flesh and bones commonly regarded as "me" cannot begin to identify our actual spiritual being, which is unlimited. This fact becomes more believable when we realize how much our lives are limited by concerns of bodily pain and pleasure. As we begin to give up these limitations by identifying ourselves in spiritual terms, we find that we are less fearful and more active in ways that help us and others too.

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