In our more quiet hours each one of us may have pondered the questions, "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" These questions are timeless, as evidenced by persistent efforts of sage and philosopher of every age to answer them. Individually, each is fundamental, for it probes the very depths of being. It demands that each one discover for himself his true identity and demonstrate it in what appears to be his present environment.
Christ Jesus understood and acknowledged his identity to be spiritual when he declared (John 8:42), "I proceeded forth and came from God." He demonstrated it by his marvelous healings midst the spiritual ignorance and materialism of his day. Since our great Master is our Way-shower, we must likewise understand and demonstrate our spiritual identity here and now if we are ever to awaken to our God-given dominion.
Success in this glorious assignment is assured by Mrs. Eddy's revelation of Christian Science. In consonance with the Master's statement just quoted, she writes in Science and Health (p. 477), "Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love."
Genuine reflection is giving back to God the image of Himself. In varying measure, humanity expresses the intelligence of Mind, the discernment of Spirit, the peace of Soul, the wisdom of Principle, the joyous activity of Life, the freedom and assurance of Truth, and the tenderness of Love. Such mental qualities constitute true consciousness and are therefore the components of our spiritual identity.
By taking us back to primordial Principle as the source of our being, Christian Science answers the question, "Who am I?" in positive terms of our indestructible divine sonship. Further elucidating this concept, Mrs. Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 46,) "The scientific man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being."
Obviously, we cannot go back of Principle, nor can we go beyond it. Principle is, and there can be nothing outside of Principle. Further, Principle, or Mind, is self-conscious good. If God possessed an infinitesimal element of evil, He would include within Himself the seed of self-destruction.
Principle, or Mind, being infinitely self-conscious it logically follows there is no other consciousness but self-conscious good. God, reflecting Himself infinitely as self-conscious good, is inevitably expressed in the self-conscious idea, which is man. Since there can be nothing outside of Principle, there can be no past and no future for Principle's manifestation. Ever-presence is the nature and condition of all that Principle, or Mind, knows.
Infinite self-conscious Mind is ever conscious of all its ideas as they are and forever unfolds them as they appear in the infinitude of being. Entirely independent of mortal concepts, Principle's ideas are limitless and timeless and their government is the undeviating law of Principle, the law of Love and Life.
In explaining our individual relationship to Principle, 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."
God's gift of spiritual identity is individual and impartial. Implementation of its presence and power comes humanly with our individual responsiveness to Truth. The Apostle John declared (John 1:12), "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God."
Hours of self-surrender and grateful acknowledgment of God's qualities as the very essence of our being intuitively clarify vision. This is prayer, the pinnacle of praise. It not only heals our sicknesses and sins, but enables us to recognize and accept our place in the unfolding activity of Life. Humanly, it ultimates in a meaningful and productive career.
Indisputably, nothing can enter experience except by way of consciousness. If we accept as true the claim of material conception and birth, we identify ourselves with mortality, thereby accepting the suppositional law of mortality with its sin, sickness, and death. Wisdom demands that we challenge that which appears on the horizon of consciousness. If the presentation proceeds from fear, or if its destination is fear, it is not thought but illusion, no matter how celestial it may appear to be.
In answer to Nicodemus' inquiry, Christ Jesus clearly differentiated between the apparent mortal personality and spiritual identity when he said (John 3:7), "Ye must be born again." The conversation greatly puzzled Nicodemus; but the Master explained that the new birth reckons life from the spiritual rather than from the material basis. And, further, it is not accomplished through any external mode of salvation. It is realized through transformation of consciousness.
The Apostle Paul grasped this truth when he wrote to the Christians of his day (Rom. 12:2), "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Discernment of our spiritual identity robs evil of its claim to have a mind, or intelligence. When illusory concepts are robbed of a suppositional mind, they are robbed of their arrogant claim to presence and power. If there is no mind to initiate evil, and no mind to respond to evil, then there can be no victim of evil.
Through our faith in good and our unswerving fidelity to it, we establish in consciousness the real and true and thereby emerge from the mortal nightmare of spiritual ignorance. Acute spiritual awareness unfolds the scientific order of being, wherein conscious effect gives back to its divine cause the image of Principle. Thus our unfolding spiritual identity genuinely reflects the glory and foreverness of Life.
Because our spiritual identity is God-created and God-crowned, it must be fulfilled. It cannot go unrecognized, nor can it be inhibited and influenced by any material circumstance. It glows with the radiance of Love and Life, which is for the healing not only of the individual but of the nations.
In this troubled world of ours, in which aggressive materiality arrogantly insists that it is the be-all and end-all of life, it is highly important that the benign rays of Truth be shed abroad by the demonstration of our spiritual identity in the minutiae of daily life. This is the purpose of our being, as the prophet Isaiah declared (43:10), "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord."
Reflecting the resplendent glory of all-inclusive Love and the ever-lastingness of Life, our spiritual identity is the seal of our divine sonship. To know ourselves as God creates us is the vital, the stupendous fact of life, for it replaces the weary pilgrim, searching hopelessly for a lost Eden, with the true spiritual identity, conscious of being the loved of Love. It proves that the truth which makes free is the glorious fact that now and forever we are free.
We can walk this earth without fear, for the recognition of our spiritual identity steadies our steps through the evil outcroppings of our times. What inner peace is conferred upon one who understands that the beautiful presence of Love in which our spiritual identity forever dwells is the source and substance of all good!
