Just as one standing in front of a flawless mirror beholds a clear, accurate reflection of himself, so man as revealed in Christian Science is seen to be the perfect, harmonious reflection of God, the source of his being. The blurred or distorted reflection in an imperfect mirror does not accurately depict the figure of the person standing in front of the glass; neither does the false, discordant view of man presented by the material senses truly represent man's real selfhood, made in the image of God, perfect Mind.
Through his understanding of the unvarying harmony and freedom of man's spiritual identity as God's perfect reflection the student of Christian Science is able to overcome the claims of error and heal himself and others. Thus he follows the example of Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, who healed the sick and sinning through his correct view of man as God's true likeness. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."
Even though it may seem that one has been in bondage to disease or sin for a long period of time or has many wrong traits, he will at once begin to emerge from his troubles as he turns wholeheartedly to Christian Science and comprehends even in a degree his real spiritual being as God's perfect reflection, or expression. Discord of any kind is only a false belief, an illusion of mortal mind, having no power, reality, law, cause, intelligence, or basis in Truth because it is not of God, omnipresent good. The distorted or unnatural reflection appearing in the imperfect mirror does not affect in any way the person whose figure it misrepresents. Neither does the discord apparently belonging to a material sense of selfhood ever alter in any degree man's real status as the perfect, harmonious, eternal likeness of God.
