| Talks on Truth, Charles Fillmore
1. Reform Your God Thought
2. Microorganisms
3. The I AM in Its Kingdom
4. How Shall the Dead Be Raised?
5. The Development of Divine Love
6. The Ministry of the Word
7. Ye Must Be Born Again
8. Obedience
9. The Church of Christ
10. The Lord’s Body
11. The Restoration of God’s Kingdom
12. The Holy Spirit
13. Attaining Eternal Life
14. Jesus Christ’s Atonement
Lesson I
Reform Your God Thought
THIS IS distinctly the age of reforms. Never before have there
been such widespread and persistent efforts by both men
and women to right the wrongs of religion, society, and
politics.
2. From the hearts and the souls of millions goes up the cry,
“Set us free from our burdens!” Every imaginable scheme of
release is proposed, and each advocate of a panacea for the
people’s ills stoutly affirms his to be the only remedy that
has virtue. It is observed that the majority of these reformers
are clamorous that laws be enacted to force their theories
upon the people. In this they are following the same methods
to cure the ills of the body politic that they have followed in
curing the body physical, and the results will surely be of like
impotency.
3. Laws, whether natural or artificial, are but the evidence of
an unseen power. They are simply effects, and effects have no
power in themselves.
When man looks to them for help in any condition of
inharmony, he is departing from a universally recognized
principle of sequence. God, Spirit or Mind–whatever you
choose to name it–is the supreme dictator, and thought is its
only mode of manifestation. Mind generates thought
perpetually; all the harmonious and permanent affairs of
men, and the innumerable systems of the infinite cosmos, are
moved in majestic measures by its steady flow.
4. All power has its birth in the silence. There is no exception
to this rule in all the evidence of life. Noise is the dying
vibration of a spent force. All the clatter of visibility, from the
harangue of the ward politician to the thunder’s roar, is but
evidence of exhausted power. As well try to control the
lightning’s flash by wrapping the thunder about it, as
attempt to regulate mind by statutory enactments.
5. All reforms must begin with their cause. Their cause is
mind, and mind does all its work in the realm of silence,
which in reality is the only realm where sound and power go
hand in hand. The visible outer world, with all its social,
religious, and political laws, customs, and ceremonies, is but
the flimsy screen upon which mind throws its incongruous
opinions. God’s thought is love, the inherent potentiality of
the God man, which knows neither persons nor things, mine
nor thine, but a universal brotherhood in which perfect
equity and justice reign in joint supremacy. All philosophers
and sages have recognized this silent cause, this perpetual
outflow from center to circumference.
Emerson says of Plato: “He was born to behold the selfevolving
power of Spirit, endless generator of new ends; a
power which is the key at once to the centrality and the
evanescence of things.” Jesus Christ said: “The kingdom of
God is within you.” “Seek ye first his kingdom, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Elijah found God, not in the whirlwind, or the earthquake, or
the fire, but in the “still small voice.”
6. All men who have moved the world to better things have
received their inspiration from the Spirit within and have
always looked to it for instruction. God is not a person who
has set creation in motion and gone away and left it to run
down like a clock. God is Spirit, infinite Mind, the immanent
force and intelligence everywhere manifest in nature. God is
the silent voice that speaks into visibility all the life there is.
This power builds with hands deft beyond the
comprehension of man and keeps going, with all its intricate
machinery, universe upon universe, one within another, yet
never conflicting. All its building is from center to
circumference. The evidence for this runs from the molecule
and the atom of the physicist to the mighty swing of a
universe of planets around their central sun.
7. Every act of man has its origin in thought, which is
expressed into the phenomenal world from a mental center
that is but a point of radiation for an energy that lies back of
it. That point of radiation is the conscious I, which in its
correct relation is one with Cause, and has at its command
all the powers potential in Cause. The conscious I can look in
two directions–to the outer world where the thoughts that
rise within it give sensation and feeling, which ultimate in a
moving panorama of visibility; or to the world within,
whence all its life, power, and intelligence are derived. When
the I looks wholly within, it loses all sense of the external; it
is then as the Hindu yogi sitting under his banyan tree with
his eyes riveted on the point of his nose, denying his very
existence until his body is paralyzed. When it looks wholly
without, upon sensation and feeling, it loses its bearings in
the maze of its own thought creations. Then it builds up a
belief of separateness from, and independence of, a causing
power. Man sees only form, and makes his God a personal
being located in a city of dimensions. This belief of
separateness leads to ignorance, because all intelligence is
derived from the one Divine Mind, and when the soul thinks
itself something alone, it cuts itself off in consciousness from
the fount of inspiration. Believing himself separate from his
source, man loses sight of the divine harmony. He is like a
musical note standing alone, looking upon other notes but
having no definite place upon the great staff of nature, the
grand symphony of life.
8. Life is a problem solvable by a principle whose essence is
intelligence, which the wise man always consults. The
ignorant and headstrong trusts to his intellect alone to carry
him through, and he is always in a labyrinth of errors.
9. A belief prevails that God is somewhat inaccessible;
that He can be approached only through certain religious
ordinances; that is, a man must profess religion, pray in a
formal way, and attend church in order to know God. But
these are mere opinions that have been taught and accepted
by those who perceive the letter instead of the spirit. For if
God is Spirit, the principle of intelligence and life,
everywhere present at all times, He must be just as
accessible as a principle of mathematics and fully as free
from formalism. When a mathematician finds that his
answer to a problem is not correct, he consults the principle
and works out the correct solution. He knows that all
mathematical problems inhere in mathematical principles
and that only through them can they be worked correctly. If
he persistently ignored principles and blundered around in a
jungle of experiments, he would be attempting to get up
“some other way,” and he would prove himself a “thief and a
robber,” for there is but one way. Jehovah God, infinite Mind
in expression, is the way, and this Mind is always within
reach of every man, woman, and child.
10. It is not necessary to go in state to God. If you had a
friend at your elbow at all times who could answer your
every question and who loved to serve you, you certainly
would not feel it necessary to go down on your knees to him
or ask a favor with fear and trembling.
11. God is your higher self and is in constant waiting upon
you. He loves to serve, and will attend faithfully to the most
minute details of your daily life. If you are a man of the
world, ask Him
to help you to success in any line that you may choose, and
He will show you what true success is. Use Him every hour of
the day. If you are in doubt about a business move, no matter
how trivial, close your eyes for an instant and ask the silent
one within yourself what to do, just as you would send a
mental message to one whom you know and who could catch
your thought. The answer may not come instantly; it may
come when you least think of it, and you will find yourself
moved to do just the right thing. Never be formal with God.
He cares no more for forms and ceremonies than do the
principles of mathematics for fine figures or elaborate
blackboards.
12. You cannot use God too often. He loves to be used, and
the more you use Him the more easily you use Him and the
more pleasant His help becomes. If you want a dress, a car, a
house, or if you are thinking of driving a sharp bargain with
your neighbor, going on a journey, giving a friend a present,
running for office, or reforming a nation, ask God for
guidance, in a moment of silent soul desire.
13. Nothing is too wicked or unholy to ask God about. In my
early experience in the study of Christian metaphysics, I was
told that through the power of Divine Mind I could have
anything I desired. I had a lot I wanted to sell and I asked
God to dispose of it to a certain man who I thought needed it.
That night I dreamed that I was a bandit holding up my
customer. The dream showed me that I was asking God to do
what was not right and I thereby gained a lesson. A
saloonkeeper came
to me for health treatments and was helped. He said: “I also
need treatments for prosperity, but of course you could not
prosper a man in my business.” I replied: “Certainly. God will
help you to prosper. ‘If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he
will give it you in my name’ does not exclude saloonkeepers.”
So we treated the man for prosperity. He afterward reported
that he was out of the saloon business, and had found
prosperity in other lines of work.
14. If you are doing things that are considered wicked, you
will find swift safety in asking God first, then acting or
refraining, as you are moved. Some people act as if they
thought that they could hide themselves from the one
omnipresent intelligence, but this is the conclusion of
thoughtlessness. God knows everything you do, and you
might just as well have His advice. God does not want you to
reverence Him with fear. God certainly never can get your
confidence if you constantly stand in quaking fear of Him. He
will do you a favor just as quickly if you ask in a jolly,
laughing way as He would if you made your request in a long,
melancholy prayer. God is natural, and He loves the freedom
of the little child. When you find yourself in His kingdom it
will be “as a little child.”
15. God’s kingdom of love and unity is now being set up in
the earth. His hand will guide the only ship that will ever sail
into the Arcadian port, and the contented, peaceful, and
happy people that throng its decks will sing with one voice:
“Glory to God in the highest.”
End of Sample, for Complete Audio of this lecture click on the links above to access Members Area or Join Us Today!
|
