The Power of Oneself. Charles Fillmore
Hindu, Hebrew, and many other religious and mystical systems of the past. Advocates of these systems are attempting to perpetuate their so-called secret knowledge through the occult societies springing up on every side in our day, but they meet with indifferent success. The modern Truth seeker takes very little on trust. Unless the claimant to occult lore can demonstrate his power in the world of affairs, people are suspicious of him. Religious awe for the priesthood, which is prevalent in Oriental countries, is lacking in the majority of Western people. In India, a yellow-robed holy man is regarded with reverence by both adults and children; in this country adults stare and small boys throw stones until he seeks the protection of the police. This seems irreverent, almost heathenish, yet it is the expression of an innate repudiation of everything that seeks to establish itself on any other foundation than that of practical demonstration.
11. The mind of God is Spirit, soul, body; that is, mind, idea, expression. The mind of man is Spirit, soul, body--not separate from God-Mind, but existing in it and making it manifest in an identity peculiar to the individual. Every man is building into his consciousness the three departments of God-Mind, and his success in the process is evidenced by the harmony, in his consciousness, of Spirit, soul, and body. If he is all body, he is but one-third expressed. If to body he has added soul, he is two-thirds man, and if to these two he is adding Spirit, he is on the way to the perfect manhood that God designed. Man has neither Spirit, soul, nor body of his own--he has identity only. He can say, "I." He uses God Spirit, God soul, and God body, as his "I" elects. If he uses them with the idea that they belong to him, he develops selfishness, which limits his capacity and dwarfs his product.
12. In his right relation, man is the inlet and the outlet of an everywhere-present life, substance, and intelligence. When his "I" recognizes this fact and adjusts itself to the invisible expressions of the one Mind, man's mind becomes harmonious; his life, vigorous and perpetual; his body, healthy. It is imperative that the individual understand this relation in order to grow naturally. It must not only be understood as an abstract proposition, but it is necessary that he blend his life consciously with God life, his intelligence with God intelligence, and his body with the "Lord's body." Conscious identification must prevail in the whole man before he can be in right relation. This involves not only a recognition of the universal intelligence, life, and substance, but also their various combinations in man's consciousness. These combinations are, in the individual world, dependent for perfect expression upon man's recognition of and his loyalty to his origin--God-Mind. Man is in God-Mind as a perfect idea. God-Mind is constantly trying to express in every man its perfect idea, the real and only man.
13. The perfect-man idea in God-Mind is known under various names in the many religious systems. The Krishna of the Hindu is the same as the Messiah of the Hebrews. All the great religions of the world are founded upon spiritual science, but not all of that science is understood by their followers. The Hebrews had been told again and again, by the spiritually wise, that a Messiah, or Christ man, would be born in their midst, but when He came they did not recognize Him, because of their lack of understanding. They understood only the letter of their religion. A similar lack of understanding prevails generally today. The Christ man, or perfect idea of God-Mind, is now being expressed and demonstrated by men and women as never before in the history of the race. Those who claim to be followers of the true religion should beware of putting the perfect-man idea out of their synagogues as the Jews put out Jesus Christ. The ancient Pharisees asked Jesus: "By what authority doest thou these things?" Modern Pharisees are repeating the same question. The substance of Jesus' answer was: "By their fruits ye shall know them." (Read Mt. 21:23-46.)
14. This perfect-idea-of-God man is your true self. God-Mind is, under the law of thought, constantly seeking to release its perfection in you. It is your spirit, and when you ask for its guidance and place yourself, by prayer and affirmation, in mental touch with it, there is a great increase in its manifestation in your life. It has back of it all the powers of Being, and there is nothing that it cannot do if you give it full sway and make your thought strong enough to express the great forces that it is seeking to express in you.
15. A most important part of the law of mind action is the fact of thought-unity. It is absolutely necessary to understand the nature of this fact before one can demonstrate the power of the superconscious mind. Among our associates, we like and are attracted to those who understand and sympathize with our thoughts. The same law holds good in Divine Mind--its thoughts are drawn to and find expression in the minds of those who raise themselves to its thought standard. This means that we must think of ourselves as God thinks of us, in order to appreciate and to receive His thoughts and to bring forth the fruits. If you think of yourself as anything less than the perfect child of the perfect Parent, you lower the thought standard of your mind and cut off the influx of thought from Divine Mind. Jesus referred to this law when He said: "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
16. When we go forth in the understanding of man's perfect nature, we find a new state of consciousness forming in us; we think and do many things not according to the established custom, and the old consciousness rises up and asks: "By what authority?" We have so long looked for man-made authority in religious matters that we feel that we are treading on dangerous ground if we dare to think beyond prescribed doctrines. Right here we should appeal to the supreme reason of Spirit and proclaim what we perceive as the highest truth, regardless of precedent or tradition, mental ignorance or physical limitation: I AM is the "image of God," the "only begotten Son" (the expressed, or pressed out, Mind) of the Most High. This is our true estate, and we shall never realize it until we enter into it in mind, because there it is, and nowhere else.
17. Only through the superconscious mind can we behold and commune with God. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." It is taught that Jesus was exclusively the "only begotten Son," but He Himself said: "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, Ye are gods'?" He proclaimed the unity of all men in the Father. "I am the light of the world." "Ye are the light of the world." Paul says, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." We are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
18. In this matter of sonship is one important point that we should not overlook; that point is the difference between those who perceive their sonship as a possibility, and those who have demonstrated it in their lives. "Ye must be born anew," was the proclamation of Jesus. The first birth is the human--the self-consciousness of man as an intellectual and physical being; the second birth, the being "born anew" is the transformation and translation of the human to a higher plane of consciousness as the son of God.
19. The second birth is that in which we "put on Christ" It is a process of mental adjustment and body transmutation that takes place right here on earth. "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" is an epitome of a mental and physical change that may require years to work out. But all men must go through this change before they can enter into eternal life and be as Jesus Christ is.
20. This being "born anew," or "born from above," is not a miraculous change that takes place in man; it is the establishment in his consciousness of that which has always existed as the perfect-man idea in Divine Mind. God created man in His "image" and "likeness" God being Spirit, the man that He creates is spiritual. It follows as a logical sequence that man, on the positive, formative, creative side of his nature, is the direct emanation of his Maker; that he is just like his Maker; that he is endowed with creative power, and that his very being is involved in God-Mind which he is releasing by his creative thought. It is to this spiritual man that the Father says: "All things that are mine are thine."
21. Understanding of the status of all men in Divine Mind gives us a new light upon the life of Jesus of Nazareth and makes plain many of His seemingly mysterious statements. This spiritual consciousness, or Christ Mind, was quickened in Him, and through it He realized His relation to First Cause. When asked to show the Father, whom He constantly talked to as if He were personally present, He said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." His personality had been merged into the universal. The mind of Being and the thought of Being were joined, and there was no consciousness of separation or apartness.
22. Everything about man presages the higher man. Foremost