THE average individual spends a large amount of time thinking about his body —its weight, its appetites, its pains and pleasures, its beauty and appearance. When one becomes a sincere student of Christian Science, thought about the body begins to lessen, for he sees, in the light of this Science, that the material body is an illusion formed by the material senses and is not part of man at all.
God is Spirit, and man, His image and likeness, is spiritual. Matter has no reality. To mortal sense the body is that which makes an individual recognizable to others, but one learns in Christian Science that the material body is not man's true identity. Man's real body or identity is spiritual.
Mary Baker Eddy says (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 477), "Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love." Man is identified by the qualities of God which he reflects. Reflecting God's qualities, purity, wisdom, man is identified by them. These qualities are spiritual, infinite, and indestructible. Man will always reflect them and will always be identified by them.
