Self-Abnegation ELLA W. HOAG, CSD          There is nothing that the Christian Scientist desires more earnestly to attain than real self-abnegation. He knows that between him and the realization of all spiritual good there claim to stand the beliefs in selfishness, which shut out from his present consciousness that heavenly sense which belongs to him as the child of God. When the light of Christian Science first dawns upon him, he may imagine himself to be very unselfish. He may even have believed that he was living entirely for the purpose of making others comfortable and happy. Although from a human standpoint he may appear to have sacrificed himself in service to others, unless that service has been based upon the truth of spiritual being it cannot be said to have been truest self-abnegation.          Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 231), "Unless an ill is rightly met and fairly overcome by Truth, the ill is never conquered." Unless self-abnegation, therefore, includes the truth of man's necessity to express only that which is of God, good, unless one sees that only as he knows and demonstrates the truth that apart from God he can do nothing, one has not yet touched the hem of the garment of self-abnegation, nor can he prove scientifically the unreality of the claims of evil. No ill can possibly be truly met and mastered without sufficient relinquishment of a false sense of selfhood to enable one to start with the recognition of the true selfhood as existent in divine Mind.          That self-sacrifice which believes it is giving up something real in order that it may bless others, which looks for recognition by others of what it considers its worthy acts, — this is not that unselfed love which seeks its own blessedness in reflecting love to others.          Jesus' injunction, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me," has stood as a light for nearly twenty centuries, and thousands of Christian men and women have endeavored to obey it. Inasmuch as their efforts have been honest and sincere they have attained to some measure of obedience, and the world has been proportionately blessed. As in all things else, however, the Comforter must appear in Christian Science before the words of Jesus can be fully understood; for did not Jesus himself declare that "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you"?          Under the light of the revelation of Christian Science the command to deny ourselves becomes divinely simple. Instead of basing self-denial on the beliefs in a material selfhood, both of one's self and others, it begins with the truth that man is the perfect image of perfect God. As the meaning of this unfolds, it enables each one to deny and refuse properly the beliefs in a selfhood apart from God and His perfections, and shows the true method of self-renunciation, namely, the relinquishment of any possible belief in an existence separate from Spirit, from divine Life, Truth, Love.          Christian Science therefore does not in any way lessen the ordinarily accepted sense of self-abnegation. It does not allow men to dwell in the contemplation of themselves as either good or bad mortals; neither does it permit the forgetfulness of one's neighbor's need. Nevertheless, it draws the line very definitely between the self-sacrifice which has in it any element of selfishness or self-consciousness, and the self-abnegation which is the turning from the thoughts of self-interest in every form.          True self-abnegation does not spend its time in judging its neighbor and in attempting to correct what it considers that neighbor's faults by criticism and condemnation. Self-abnegation is occupied in rebuking its own beliefs in evil and in relinquishing its own sense of a selfhood apart from divine Mind. It is constantly learning more of man as the likeness of this Mind, — as the expression of spiritual goodness, of divine perfection, of all that is true and pure; it is learning of that selfhood which has nothing to deny, nothing to relinquish, since it exists not because of any power whatsoever of its own, but simply and entirely as the reflection of Deity.          Complete self-abnegation is therefore won in the degree that the Christian Scientist does all his mental work from the standpoint of the truth of being, dropping meanwhile the beliefs in a false selfhood as rapidly as they are uncovered. This is to obey our Leader's injunction and to obtain the promise she presents in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 298), where she says: "Abide by the morale of absolute Christian Science, — self-abnegation and purity; then Truth delivers you from the seeming power of error, and faith vested in righteousness triumphs!"   "Self-Abnegation" by Ella W. Hoag, CSD Christian Science Sentinel, January 10, 1925

 

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