Until the advent of Christian Science in one's life, it has been customary to think of oneself primarily as a human being living in a world composed of other human beings and material things, with human events comprising one's experience.
At first, therefore, perhaps it seems somewhat startling to read in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, that man is not a material personality living in a material universe, but that "he is," as Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 475), "the compound idea of God, including all right ideas." Because this fact is so foreign to the way we have habitually thought of ourselves and others, this statement may give one a feeling of bewilderment and vacuum. To most of us, the thought of relinquishing the human concept of self, with its personal sense of identity, meets with strong reluctance on our part, for by so doing we feel we are going to lose something of great value.
But what do we really give up upon relinquishing a human sense of things for the spiritual? What does it mean to be "the compound idea of God, including all right ideas"? What are those spiritual ideas?
