The story goes that a psychiatrist, baffled in his efforts to help a totally self-absorbed patient, finally said, "I can't do anything for you except advise that you go to Niagara Falls and take a long, lingering look at something bigger than yourself."
Yet even the dynamic force of Niagara Falls pales before the gentle power of divine Love. When Love touches the human heart it changes a selfish and self-centered person into a considerate, caring individual. Our true selfhood is spiritual. Man is the reflection of God— inseparable from Him, the only Ego. This is very far from the self-centered, mortal ego, which is concerned only with material needs and satisfactions. When we learn our true identity, the false concept gradually diminishes, giving place to the real man and the true sense of the "I" or God. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The 'I' will go to the Father when meekness, purity, and love, informed by divine Science, the Comforter, lead to the one God: then the ego is found not in matter but in Mind, for there is but one God, one Mind; and man will then claim no mind apart from God."Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 195-196
Much is being written and said today about the human ego, particularly its more destructive and self-oriented aspects. In Christian Science the capitalized Ego means God, the divine Mind, the source of all true individuality. Which is the true "I": a negative, illogical, and immoral self, dependent on the instincts governing it, or the divine Ego, which originates our ability to know reality, to reason intelligently, and to obey the moral laws of God?
