AMONG the problems which confront the Christian Scientist, one that seems most difficult is that of loving his neighbor as himself. He learns that his "neighbor" means every fellow man and woman; yet so many of the people whom he meets appear to him disagreeable and even repellent, that it seems impossible to love them all in the commonly accepted sense of loving.
All the difficulty lies in the wrong sense of what constitutes love, for this sense is nothing else than the mortal counterfeit of true love, namely, personal attachment; and in Christian Science mere personal attachment not only is not required, but is recognized as a counterfeit. On account of the human belief in duality, personal attachment divides people into two classes, — the attractive, to be cultivated and associated with, and the unattractive, to be avoided and hated. Looking with the eyes of mortal mind, this mistaken sense justifies itself by pointing to appearances, to the mortal man or woman. Being only a counterfeit of unchangeable Truth, the belief of personal attachment often changes in an instant from extreme affection to violent hatred. As he recognizes all this more or less clearly, the young Christian Scientist can see no good in cultivating a perfunctory feeling of affection for every one he meets.
The truth is that no such thing is required. The "universal Love" that is "the divine way in Christian Science" (Science and Health, p. 266) is a very different thing from personal attachment. Based upon Truth through right thinking, and expressed through right feeling, it is spontaneous instead of perfunctory, and because it is unlimited it is universal in its very nature. It does not depend on its object so much as on its own nature as reflection. True love is the expression of the divine Mind through man, and as soon as we learn, even in a degree, the nature of the real man by learning something of the true nature of his origin, God, we cannot help loving him. Moreover, since man has no real self apart from God, it is possible in this way to love one's own self as well as the neighbor's without false self-estimate.
