Our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, states in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 242), "Self-love is more opaque than a solid body." Yet Christ Jesus gave as one of the two great commandments (Matt. 22:39), "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." How can we, then, reconcile these two statements? How can one love either a neighbor or a selfhood as conceived in the ordinary material sense of things with its seeming mixture of good and evil—its admirable, loving traits of character appearing side by side with the frailties and faults of the erring mortal? Since this is difficult of attainment, and to many seems impossible, it must have been that Jesus was first referring to the love of one's true selfhood, made in the image of God, and secondly was stating that we must see our neighbor in the same light and love him with spiritual rather than merely personal love.
The false, material sense of selfhood is a self-assertive expression of the carnal mind. And it not only must not be loved and cherished, but must be entirely rejected. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 185), "Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demonstrating the true image and likeness." Mrs. Eddy, in this terse statement, has outlined the over-all process for growth in Christian Science. St. Paul stated the matter in these words (Eph. 4:22, 24): "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;... and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
Self-love and selfishness bring upon mortals the sufferings and the myriad ills to which they often seem to be subjected. Knowledge of one's immortal selfhood, as our Leader points out in the reference above, starts with "the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God." And with this awakening to true self-knowledge there follows the love of this genuine selfhood. This awakening is therefore a principal step in the process of one's growth in Christian Science and the demonstration of its divine Principle. To attain this in some measure is, so to speak, putting one's feet squarely on the solid rock of Truth. Without this awakening there is great liability of much slipping and sliding and an uncertain demonstration of the truths of divine Science.
