When people meet for the first time, sooner or later the question comes, "And where are you from?" The immediate answer is usually geographical: a town, city, state, or nation. This, however, simply identifies the location of one's birthplace. Taking the question in its most fundamental sense, the place of man's true origin is not geographical but spiritual.
This knowledge is uplifting. Pursued and understood, it frees us from the labels humans often attach to place and to nationality. For instance, we may believe that nationality stamps us with certain unfavorable or favorable characteristics, which stay with us and inescapably govern our lives: not only what others think of us but what we think of ourselves.
According to Christian Science, the real origin of man is God—the infinite Father-Mother Love, the everlasting source, and ruler, of the spiritual universe, including man as Spirit's likeness. To determine his identity, a student of this Science begins with Spirit and reasons from Spirit's allness to the real man, Spirit's expression.
