The awakening to true being includes conscious identification with that "I" which dwells with the Father; this is the vital step in the line of spiritual progress. Of her own taking of this step our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has written in her brief autobiography, "Retrospection and Introspection," under the heading "Emergence into Light" (p. 23): "The character of the Christ was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit. My heart knew its Redeemer." As a result of this inspired recognition, she added: "Being was beautiful, its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea. I had touched the hem of Christian Science."
Peter's enlightened discernment of the Christ, the Son of God, had long since shown the foundation on which the Christian church was built. It identified Jesus with the Messiah of prophecy, the Christ, the spiritual idea of God. This inspired understanding of Truth was acknowledged and blessed by our great Master.
Man is God's son now and forever. Men awake gradually to the truth of being, through discernment and demonstration of the actual status of man, as the spiritual idea, the reflection or likeness of God, the divine Ego. Then they begin to learn something of what Christ Jesus meant when he said, "I go unto my Father." They take steps, through better beliefs, towards proving this basic reality. The student of Christian Science experiences, and expects further to experience, advancing phases of this divine awakening. His aim is to recognize and to prove in everyday living, in his own individual way and under divine guidance, the attributes that he possesses by reflection as a son of God. He seeks to identify himself progressively with the divine sonship, and this is a joyous effort, deeply rewarding, in the exchange of the substanceless shadows of human belief for the treasures of real being. It offers the attainment of a peace and joy so satisfying that all the intents and purposes of the heart grow toward God, as a plant's leaves and tendrils turn to the sun. Such progress is divinely natural, for, as the real man always shows forth God and knows no other state than the spiritual, what may appear humanly as a growth in grace is but a clearer seeing of the actual truth. The "I," or true selfhood, is with the Father throughout eternity, yet to aroused human sense there appears to be a going to the Father, experienced individually as progressive stages of unfoldment and exaltation.
