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Dynamics for Living
Health
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[Dynamics for Living]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
MAN, the apex of God's creation, was created in His image
and after His likeness. Man is God's supreme creation. He
may know God and become the vehicle and expression of God,
the unlimited fount of life, health, light, and love. God
is the health of His people.
The God Imprint
When Elohim God created man in His likeness, He imprinted
upon man's supermind two body pictures: first the picture
of a natural body, and second the picture of a spiritual
body. In the primal cell He then enclosed the elements
necessary to the building of the natural and the spiritual
body.
To man was given dominion and authority
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over these living atoms and cells out of which he must
build mind and body into visibility. As God created man,
His image and likeness, by the power of His word, so man,
God's image and likeness, projects his body by the same
power.
Our physical body is carried in our mind as thought and it
obediently reflects every mental attitude. When in the
course of our evolution we discern that an all-wise Creator
must have designed perfection for all His creation and we
begin to affirm that perfection, then the transformation
from the natural to the spiritual body begins. It continues
until our body is wholly regenerated and appears
objectively in its divine perfection.
Object of Existence
The object of man's existence is to demonstrate the Truth
of Being. This demonstration takes place through
experience. There are two ways of working out experience.
The first is by knowing the law of every process, and the
second is by blindly testing the process without
understanding the law. All experience develops personal
identity--the consciousness of the power of Being in the
self. This is the bringing forth of free will, which is
inherent in all. In the course of his demonstrations of
Being, man
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arrives at the place where he feels his own ability. He
knows that he can exercise it without restraint.
The Human Body
Through man, God is forming or manifesting outwardly that
which exists in the ideal. Every idea projects form. The
physical body is the projection of man's consciousness. He
carries the body in the mind. The body is the fruit of the
tree of life which grows in the midst of the garden of
mind. If the body-idea is grounded and rooted in Divine
Mind, the body will be filled with a perpetual life flow.
The human organism has a world of latent energies waiting
to be brought into manifestation. The human body is
undoubtedly the most powerful dynamo in existence for the
carrying on of life. By thought, speech, and deed the
Christ Mind is brought into manifestation.
The body is made up of cells. The presiding ego of I AM in
each organism determines the particular kind of impulse
that the cells shall radiate. Some are in a radiant state.
Some are in a crystallized form. The field of dynamic
energy is limitless.
Crystallizing of these radiant thought forms is the result
of affirmations in man's mind that his body is material
instead of spiritual. The
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affirmative state of mind is a binding, holding process. It
involves all thoughts and all thought manifestations that
come within its scope. If man affirms his unity with the
life, substance, and intelligence of God, he lays hold of
these spiritual qualities. If he affirms the reality of
matter and of the physical body he forms a material picture
that works itself out in flesh.
Thought Builds
Thought is the builder of the body. The body is moved by
thought. Thought not only moves the external members of the
body, but it controls the fluids flowing within the body.
Man's body has power to replace worn parts. When it is in
harmony it never wears out. The harmony referred to is
self-adjustment to the law of Being, to the law of divine
nature, to the law of God. It does not matter what you call
this fundamental principle underlying all life. The
important thing is to understand it, and to put yourself in
harmony with it. Nature is not a blind force working in
darkness and ignorance. All her works indicate
intelligence--mind in action.
Jesus is the outstanding pioneer in the realm where the
health-producing processes of cells are released and imbued
with supermind vitality. He spent years in becoming
acquainted with His body, freeing its cells from the
material
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bondage to which the race thought had bound them.
Birthright
Health is fundamental in Being and is man's divine
birthright. To be healthy is natural. Health is the normal
condition of man and of all creation. It is the orderly
state of existence. It is a state of being sound or whole
in mind, body, and soul. God's man is hale, whole, hearty.
Health, real health, is from within and does not have to be
manufactured in the without. Health is the very essence of
Being. It is as universal and enduring as God.
There is in man a capacity for knowing God consciously and
communing with Him. Man must learn to use the knowledge of
Truth to sustain his consciousness of health. This alone
insures health, joy, and satisfaction.
To heal is to bring forth the perfect Christ man that
exists within each of us. Christ in us is the little seed
through which is brought forth the strong, healthy Christ
man.
To know God as health one must take up the study of the
healthy mind. When he lays hold of the principle of
wholeness, he finds that he is automatically working with
God and that much new power is added. He perceives
principle working out his health problems for him.
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By realizing a healing prayer man lays hold of the
principle of health itself and the whole consciousness is
illumined. When man becomes so much at one with God-Mind
that he abides in the consciousness of health, he enters
eternal peace in which he knows that "it is finished."
Illness
There is but one body-idea. The conditions in body express
the character of thought. The spiritual body of man is the
conception of Divine Mind, the creation of Spirit for us.
Our work is to make this spiritual body manifest.
A majority of the ills that afflict the body have their
origin in erroneous thoughts about life. Man thinks his
body into disease. Instead of basing his thought on what is
true in the absolute of Being, he bases it on conditions as
they appear in the formed realm about him. The result is
bodily discord in multitudinous shapes. Pervading all
nature is a universal thought substance. Thought substance
transcribes the slightest vibration of thought. The message
is transcribed and carried into action.
Sin
Jesus always connected sin and sickness as cause and
effect. All the ills of humanity are the effect of broken
law, of sin. That word sin covers more ground than we have
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usually granted it. There are sins of omission and
commission. If we fail to cultivate the consciousness of
the indwelling spiritual life, we commit a sin of omission
that eventually devitalizes the organism. To be
continuously healthy we must draw on the one and only
source of life, God. God is Spirit. Spirit pours its
quickening life into mind and body when we turn our
attention to it and make ourself receptive by trusting
Spirit to restore us to harmony and health. The more
enlightened man becomes, the greater his desire for health.
Sin is a missing the mark, a falling short of divine
perfection. Sin is man's failure to express the attributes
of Being. Sin (error) is first in mind and is redeemed by a
mental process, or by going into the silence. Error is
brought into the light of Spirit and then transformed into
a constructive force.
Through the Christ Mind, our sins (wrong thinking) are
forgiven or pardoned (erased from consciousness). When we
have cast all sin (error thought) out of our mind, our body
will be so pure that it cannot come under any supposed law
of death or corruption.
Indulgence
Like a child who refuses to take the advice of one who
knows, man falls into indulgence of the sense
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of pleasure and excess. The reaction of sense indulgence is
pain. Through these experiences man comes into a
consciousness of an opposite to the good. The dual
mentality naturally sets up positive and negative forces in
his mind. These opposing forces are reflected into the body.
Sin is the result of desire manifesting itself in erroneous
ways. When the error is discovered and there is a
willingness to correct it, under the law of forgiveness man
erases it easily.
In spiritual understanding, the I AM of man forgives or
"gives" Truth "for" error; then the mind is set in order
and the body is healed.
Do not hold anyone in bondage to the thought of sin. If you
do, it will pile up and increase in power according to the
laws of mental action.
Right images become active through the power of thought.
Man has unlimited power through thought. He can give his
power to things or withhold it. If he thinks about the
power of sin, he builds up and gives force to that belief
until it engulfs him in its whirlpool of thought substance.
He forgets his spiritual origin and sees only the human.
Thus he thinks of himself as a sinner.
The way out of this maze of ignorance, sin, and sickness is
through man's understanding of his real being, and then the
forgiving or the
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giving up of all thoughts of the reality of sin and its
effects in the body.
If anyone tries to free himself while holding others in the
thought of sin, he will not demonstrate his freedom. You
must build upon faith in the reality of the spiritual. Put
your selfishness away. There cannot be two in this kingdom.
It is the kingdom of God, and man must give up. The kingdom
is for the larger man. The personal man must be eliminated.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness really means the giving up of something. When
you forgive yourself, you cease doing the thing that you
ought not to do. Man has power to forgive sin. Sin is a
falling short of the divine law. Repentance and forgiveness
are the only means that man has of getting out of sin and
its effect and coming into harmony with the law. All sin is
first in the mind; the forgiveness is a change of mind or
repentance. We forgive sin in ourself every time we resolve
to think and act according to the divine law. The mind must
change from a material to a spiritual base. Change must all
be on the part of man and within him. The moment man
changes his thoughts of sickness to thoughts of health the
divine law rushes in and begins the healing work.
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The law is Truth. The Truth is that all is good. There is
no power and no reality in sin. If sin were real and
enduring (like goodness and Truth), it could not be
forgiven but would hold its victim forever.
Duty
Lack of health is not prevalent in God's universe. If such
lack appears anywhere it is the work of man. It is our duty
to do away with it. There is something wrong in a world
where suffering and sorrow prevail. We would not create
such a world. We all want to see these things blotted out
in this world. This is the index pointing the way to the
possibility of doing so. Just accept the promises of
Scripture. Proceed to carry them out in faith. Act as if
they were true. Trust God in all things. Whatever we see as
wrong is for us to right. The new Christianity elevates man
to a realm in which seeming miracles of healing become
possible to those who train their mind to think spiritually.
Presence of Health
God is never absent from His creations. His creations are
never absent from their habiliments. Wherever you see the
evidences of life, there you may know that God is.
Health has a source that is perpetually giving
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itself forth. A perpetual giving forth implies a perpetual
presence.
There is no absence or separation in God. His omnipresence
is your omnipresence. There can be no absence in Mind. If
God were for one instant separated from His creations, they
would immediately fall into dissolution. In spirit and in
truth you can never for one instant be separated from the
life activity of God.
God lives in you. You depend on Him for every breath you
draw. You could not think a thought or speak a word or make
a movement were He not in it. Your body is the soil in
which God's life is planted. Your mind is the light for
which He supplies the oil.
Draw upon the omnipresent God for every need.
A good healing drill is to deny the mental cause first.
Then deny the physical appearance. The mental condition
should first be healed. Then the secondary state, which it
has produced in the body, must be wiped out and the perfect
state affirmed.
Nature and Health
We have been so persistently taught that nature heals that
we do not as a rule give the question of the origin of her
healing power any serious thought. If we center our
attention on
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nature as the healing principle, we stir up natural
activities that are secondary to the one cause of all
action, that is, infinite Mind. It is our privilege as
creations of supreme Mind to bring into action all its
forces, primary and secondary. By our thought and the
mighty mind energy back of thought we can stir to action
all the power of Being and get the results of their
concentrated healing currents instead of the weakened,
segregated seepage from one.
Spiritual Healing
Nearly everyone needs both mind and body healing. Those who
give faithful attention to the law as it operates in man
are rewarded by demonstrations of healing.
Man and the universe are under the creative direction of a
supreme being. Man needs but to conform to the laws of
creative Mind in order to be healthy, happy, and wise. All
healing methods consist in establishing the unity of the
individual and the universal consciousness. No man heals
himself or another. The supreme Mind does the work.
The first step in all spiritual healing is to believe. The
next step is openness and receptivity to the stream of
healing life. Through the exercise of faith and our words,
our spiritual quality is fused into unity with the power of
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Christ and the work is marvelously accomplished.
All healing is based on mental cleansing. When the mind is
free from error thoughts, harmony in the body ensues.
Permanent healing is never accomplished until the mental
cause of the disease, the error thought, is removed. The
true way to heal is to find the mental cause and destroy it
forever.
Consciousness and Health
Man's consciousness is formed of mind and its ideas. These
determine whether he is healthy or sick. Mind is the common
meeting ground of God and man. Only through its study and
the observation of all the conditions and factors that
enter into its operation can we come into the realization
of God as abiding health and sustenance.
You are mind. Your consciousness is formed of thoughts.
Thoughts form barriers about the thinker. You are compassed
about with thought barriers, your heredity, your education,
your own thinking. Your degree of health is determined by
your thoughts, past and present. These thoughts may be true
or false, depending on your understanding and use of divine
law.
God created man in His image, in the image of perfect
health. We make living cells through
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the imaging power of thought. We nourish a good thing by
thinking how good it is. Suppose we take the negative side,
shall we then get results also? Yes, absolutely! We get
just what we think about. The thought of nourishing is a
very good thought, because it shows us just what we do.
Either we tear down our bodies or we build them up.
Withdraw the error; then build in the good.
Processes of Mind
There is a definite relation between the thoughts of man
and the conditions in his body. The body is moved by the
mind. All the conditions of the body are brought about by
the mind.
Jesus was the great teacher and example of obedience to the
law of constructive thinking. The reform of Jesus is an
inner transformation. If we follow Him we shall give our
strength and substance and thought force to constructive
activity. The movement of every mind in bringing forth the
simplest thought is a key to the great creative process of
universal Mind. In every act is involved mind, idea, and
manifestation. The mind is neither seen nor felt; the idea
is not seen, but it is felt; and the manifestation appears.
The mind functions in ways that are strange
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and unbelievable. In order to understand God-Mind we need
to study our own mind. The more we analyze the processes of
the mind the more plainly the mind with its mental
"compounds" appears as the source of health and of all
other things. If we want to know the secrets of health and
how right thinking forms the perfect body, we must go to
the mind and trace step by step the movements that
transform ideas of health into light, electrons, atoms,
molecules, cells, tissues, and finally into the perfect
physical organism.
We exist right in the midst of forces that would yield us
power to do all our work if we knew how to utilize properly
their energies. This is not only true of our use of the
many elements in the natural world all about us but
especially of our utilization of the energy generated by
our mind. With every thought there is a radiation of
energy. If a person is untrained in thinking and lets his
mind express all kinds of thoughts without control, he not
only used up thought stuff but fails also to accomplish any
helpful result. Right thinking is using the mind to bring
about right ends idealized by the thinker. Through
concentration and conservation of thought force man regains
consciousness of health in his mind, and health then
becomes manifest in his body. Concentration, one
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pointed attention, forms a mental magnet in the mind to
which thought substance rushes. Then follows confidence or
faith in one's ability to accomplish the desired end. This
is the law by which the universe was brought into
manifestation.
To think is to express.
There is a chain of mind action connecting cause and effect
in all the activities of life. This chain is forged by man,
and its links are thoughts and words.
If I can conceive a truth, it follows that there is a way
by which I can make it manifest. If I can conceive of
omnipresent life as existing in the omnipresent substance,
there is a way by which I can make that life appear in my
body. No one ever fully sees the steps he is to take in
reaching a goal. He may see in a general way that he is to
go on from one point to another. The details are not
definitely clear to him unless he has gone over the ground
before. In demonstration of the spiritual powers that are
ready to find expression through man he must be willing to
follow the directions of one who has proved his efficiency
by demonstration.
Faith
The blessing of health comes through the exercise of faith
on the part of the man who seeks it. Faith opens the
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mind to the influx of power from on high. The power of the
Highest heals all diseases both of soul and of body. When
faith is sufficiently strong to dissolve all adverse
conditions and to open the mind fully to the power of God,
healing is instantaneous.
Through faith in the reality of things spiritual we begin
soul evolution. We must have faith in Spirit and through
our thinking build it into our consciousness. Then our body
will be restored to harmony and health. In order to create
as God creates, man must have undoubting faith in God-Mind
and the obedience of the creative electrons hidden in the
atoms of all substance. Although we all get definite
results in body and affairs from the words we utter, those
results would be infinitely greater if we understood the
power of words and had undoubting faith in their creative
power.
Imagination
Through the power of the imagination we impress upon the
body the concepts of the mind. A man can imagine that he
has some evil condition in body, and through the imaging
law build it up until it becomes manifest. On the other
hand, he can use the same power to make good appear.
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Order
If we desire to demonstrate health when we receive more
spiritual life, we must order this life rightly. If it is
not so ordered, mental and physical discord will ensue.
This applies to all that we think and do. Everything must
be brought in order. There must be order in the spiritual
life as well as the material life.
How can you order your life by the divine plan? By
accepting it as a truth that there is such a plan and by
making this plan yours through affirming your oneness with
the omnipresent Mind in which this plan exists in its
righteousness.
Ask for wisdom; then affirm divine order. Put yourself in
unity with Spirit. Then you will come into the
consciousness of a new world of thought and act and find
yourself doing many things differently because the orderly
Mind that directs the universe is working through you. A
harmonious relation will be established in all your ways.
Holding some disorganizing thought will produce inharmony
and discord in body and affairs. Lack of orderly
arrangement of thoughts is responsible for many delayed
demonstrations of healing.
The bringing forth of man even in the material sense is an
orderly process.
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So long as we believe in the slow processes of what we call
nature we shall place ourselves under a law of slowness.
Let us begin anew and lay down the law of order in all that
we do. If there is a tendency to hurry, let us stop and
affirm divine order and rest ourself in its poise. There is
no need to hurry. You live in eternity now. This thought of
omnipresent eternity will alleviate nervous tension. Put
every thought and act under the divine law.
Healing Words
The usual conversation among people creates ill health
instead of good health, because of wrong words. If the
words speak of disease as a reality, disintegrating forces
are set in action. These in the end shatter the strongest
organism if not counteracted by constructive forces. The
word of one in authority carries weight and produces
far-reaching effects. Man has the power to deny and
dissolve all disintegrating, discordant, and
disease-forming words. Knowledge of this fact is the
greatest discovery of all ages. You can make yourself a new
creature.
Every word has within it the power to make manifest
whatever man decrees. Spiritual words have this power. When
one understands the power of words spoken in spiritual
consciousness
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the results are in fulfillment of divine law. The quick and
lawful way to attain health is to put your creative words
to work and bring into swift action the superman Christ.
To understand the new life in Christ we must give attention
to that mystical Word, or Logos. In it are wrapped the
principles that, planted in our mind, will spring into new
life in mind and body. Next to Spirit the Word of Spirit is
the most powerful thing in existence. Man is the incarnate
Word of God.
Our words bring forth whatever we put into them. Words are
quickened by those who speak them. They pick up and carry
the viewpoints of the speaker, weak or strong, ignorant or
wise, good or ill.
One who heals by the power of the Word should become
familiar with the inner meaning of all words and use those
that appeal to him as possessing the greatest healing
potency.
Every word we speak goes forth from our mouth charged with
atomic energies. Our mind determines the character of our
words. What the mind determines the mouth obediently
utters. Its words are loaded with constructive or
destructive electrons all mathematically arranged to build
up or blow up ourself, our aims, and our ideals.
Some persons are overzealous. They consume
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their vitality by talking and acting without wisdom. They
would find a much-coveted and needed poise by linking their
minds with the Christ. Such persons are so enthusiastic in
externals that they lose contact with the source of things.
They destroy the body. However, these are the minority. The
great majority lack zeal in doing even the most ordinary
things.
When the mind of man is set on high, he never gives up or
allows defeat to thwart his righteous ambitions. A failure
state of mind throws the whole organism into a panic. Its
functions are weakened in their life action. To one in
spiritual understanding there is no loss. The going and
coming of material and intellectual things are but changes
in the panorama of life.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving will keep the heart fresh. True thanksgiving
may be likened to rain falling upon ready soil, refreshing
it and increasing its productiveness.
All things have their cause. Every cause is mental. Whoever
comes in daily contact with a higher order of thinking
cannot help but take on some of it. Ideas are catching. No
man can live where true ideas of wholeness are being
without becoming infected with them.
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Words which express thanks, gratitude, and praise release
energy of mind and soul. Their use is usually followed by
effects so pronounced that they are quickly identified with
the words that provoke them.
Let your words of praise and thanksgiving be of Spirit. The
increase will be even greater than when they are addressed
to man. The resources of Spirit are beyond our highest
flight of imagination. You can praise a weak body into
strength, a fearful heart into peace and trust, shattered
nerves into poise and power.
It is an easy matter to give thanks for what we have
already received. It is not so easy to give thanks for what
we hope to receive. Giving thanks in advance brings to pass
a present expectation. Pray believing that you have
received, and you shall receive.
Praising and giving thanks liberate the finer essence of
soul and body when we center our attention upon Spirit.
Spirit is the dynamic force that releases the pent-up
energies within man. The energies have been imprisoned in
the cells and when released are again restored to action in
the body by the chemistry of creative Mind. The perfection
of this restoration is in proportion to the understanding
and industry of the individual.
Every thought we loose in our mind carries
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with it a certain substance, life, and intelligence.
Whenever praise is bestowed it is carried to every part of
the body and through a large area of our soul aura, and our
whole consciousness and everything about us is tinctured
with praise. Praise and thanksgiving divinely directed tap
the mighty reservoirs of infinite Mind.
Joy
Nearly all persons have some pet fear. They give up to it
without trying to find its source. There are various
methods of erasing fear from the mind and preventing its
congestions in the body. One of the most direct and
effective shatterers of fear is laughter. Laugh your fears
away. See how ridiculous they are when traced to their
source.
We should cultivate those mind activities which stimulate
naturally the currents of life in the body. Joy is a very
important one. There is an intimate relation between
happiness and health. When you feel good you sing, either
audibly or silently. Singing promotes health because it
increases the circulation. A good circulation is a sign and
promoter of health. Nearly anyone can sing a little song.
It is a marvelous health restorer. Singing restores harmony
to tense nerves. Its vibrations stir them to action, thus
making it possible for the ever-waiting healing Spirit to
get in.
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Back of every true song is a thought of joy. It is the
thought that counts. It is the thought that invites the
healing Spirit. We should sing with the thought that the
Lord is right with us and that His joy is giving our words
the healing unction.
When men think a great deal about spiritual things and
especially about God as an indwelling spiritual presence,
both mind and body are thrilled with joy, a feeling of
satisfaction, and a tendency to break out in songs of
gladness.
Everybody can sing. Cultivate the singing soul. Through the
vibrations of the voice joined with high thinking every
cell in the body is set into action, and not only in the
body but out into the environing thought atmosphere the
vibrations go and break up all crystallized conditions. The
whole universe is in vibration. Vibration is under law.
Each particular thing has its rate of vibration. What
causes vibration? We answer: Mind.
Sing in your soul. You can sing 'way down inside yourself.
Soon you will be singing with your voice. Persons
everywhere, in every age, have told of an inner glory and
happiness when they got into the habit of concentrating the
mind on God.
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Will
Every organ of the body is affected by the action of the
will. Willfulness makes tenseness. A tense mind ties knots
in the nerves, muscles, and tendons of the whole organism.
Contrariness is another name for perverted will. Persons
who are contentious for their personal rights place
themselves in bondage to material conditions and stop
spiritual growth. The will is not to be broken, but
disciplined.
Peace
The Mind of Spirit is harmonious and peaceful. It must have
a like manner of expression in man's consciousness. If we
are not anchored to supreme and immovable reality, we shall
be exposed to the storms of mortal thought and shipwrecked
on the rocks of materiality. The mind may be compared to
the sea, which is calm or stormy according to the wind that
moves it. Thought utilizes the substance of the mind and
forms that which man ideates. A restful state of mind is
greatly to be desired because of its constructive
character. When the mind is lashed by a brainstorm the
cells of the whole organism are shattered and exhaustion
ensues.
When a body of water is choppy with fitful currents of air
it cannot reflect objects clearly. Neither can man reflect
the steady strong glow
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of Omnipotence when his mind is disturbed by anxious,
fearful, or angry thoughts.
Steadfast affirmations of peace harmonize the whole body
structure and open the way to attainment of health
conditions in mind and body. Cast out enmity and anger and
affirm peace, and your healing will be swift and sure. Be
at peace, and your conscious unity with God-Mind will bring
you health and happiness.
Love
The word is the mind seed from which springs every
condition. It is the most enduring thing in existence.
Words make cells, and these cells are adjusted one to the
other through associated ideas. When divine love enters
into man's thought process, every cell is poised and
balanced. Love overcomes hate, resistance, opposition,
obstinacy, anger, jealousy, and all states of consciousness
where there is mental or physical friction.
Through the joining of the creative forces of Spirit by
souls attuned in love, the new body in Christ is speedily
formed. The work can be done through individual effort.
There must always be continuous constructive action between
the faculties of soul and body. If in quietness and
confidence the presence and the power of divine love are
affirmed, the law will be fulfilled.
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Some of the most terrible ills are brought upon the body by
the misuse of love.
Love wins when everything else fails. Nearly all sick
people lack vital force, hence the life treatment is good
for all. Hate, anger, jealousy, malice, and the like are
almost universal in human consciousness, and a treatment
for love will prove a healing balm for all.
Old Age
The marks of old age can be erased from the body by one's
mentally seeing the body as youthful. If you want to be
healthy, do not imagine so vain a thing as decrepitude.
Make your body perfect by seeing perfection in it. The work
must be an inner transformation. Actually old age is a
false belief deeply embedded in the race mind. It accepts
biological law as the ultimate for man instead of the law
of God which is eternal life in the body.
Vitalization
We all need vitalizing. How shall we get life? What is the
source of life? The life source is spiritual energy. It is
composed of ideas. Man can turn on its current by making
mental contact with it.
God is life and they who worship Him must worship Him in
the life consciousness, that is, in Spirit. When we worship
God in this way,
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we are vitalized all at once. There is no other way to get
real, permanent life. We cannot get life from the outer man
or from anything external. We must touch the inner current.
We turn on the life current by means of thoughts and words.
We can have fullness of life by realizing that we live in a
sea of abundant, omnipresent, eternal life, and by refusing
to allow any thought to come in that stops the
consciousness of the universal life flow. We live and move
and have our being in Mind life.
You can think of your life as mental; every faculty will
begin to buzz with new life. Your life will never wane if
you keep in the consciousness of it as Mind or Spirit; it
will increase and attain full expression in your body. If
you have faith in the life idea in your consciousness, your
body will never be run down but will become more and more
alive with spiritual life.
We must think life, talk life, and see ourself filled with
the fullness of life. When we are not manifesting life as
we desire, it is because our thoughts and our conversation
are not in accord with the life idea. Every time we think
life, speak life, rejoice in life, we are setting free, and
bringing into expression in ourself, more and more of the
life idea. Here is the place of abundant life, and we can
fill both mind and
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body, both our surroundings and our affairs, with glad,
free, buoyant life by exercising faith in it.
Truth
Many have learned how to hold the truth about health
steadily in faith even in the midst of the most adverse
appearances. They clearly understand that they are not
telling falsehoods when they deny sickness right in the
face of the appearance of it. Persons who are quickened
spiritually can do very much greater works through the law
of faith than those who are still in the material
consciousness. Once having discerned the power of Spirit,
we should be on our guard and send forth on every occasion
exalted ideas of the spiritual.
The one and only reason that we do not always succeed in
our demonstrations is that we do not persist in our mental
work. We must begin to discipline our mind and raise our
thoughts to the point where they abandon the slow inertia
of the natural man for the speed and spring of the
spiritual man. This is accomplished by prayer, meditation,
and the repetition of true words.
It is not the vain repetition of words over and over,
parrotlike. It is the quiet realization that there is a
listening Mind and a ready host of great ideas at all times
waiting for us.
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Praying for Others
One who prays for the health of another should understand
that it is not the fault of the healing principle that his
patient is not instantly restored. The fault may be in his
own lack of persistency or understanding; or it may be due
to the patient's dogged clinging to discordant thoughts. In
any case the one who prays must persist in this prayer
until the walls of resistance are broken down and the
healing currents are tuned in. In treating others see
patients as perfect.
Miracles
The universe was not created through illogical assumptions
of law. Law is its foundation. There are no miracles in
science. Jesus did no miracles. All His marvelous works
were done under the laws that we may learn and use as He
did. As the body is moved by mind, so the mind is moved by
ideas. Right here in the mind we find the secret of the
universe.
In reality miracles are events that take place as a result
of the operation of a higher, unknown law. All true action
is governed by law. Nothing just happens. All happenings
are the result of cause and can be explained under the law
of cause and effect.
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Mighty things have been wrought in the past by those who
had mere blind faith to guide them. To faith we now add
understanding of the law.
Jesus Christ
Quite a few Truth students ask why we emphasize Jesus
Christ so strongly in our writings and statements of Truth.
Spiritual psychology proves that the name of a great
character carries his mind potency. Wherever his name is
repeated silently or audibly his attributes become manifest.
We are all, in our personality, wearing the mask that
conceals the real, the spiritual, I AM Any declaration man
may make in which the name Jesus Christ is used reverently
will contact the Christ I AM and will open the mind and
body to the inflow of spiritual healing rays. When man
thinks or says "I am" he is potentially giving freedom to
the seed ideas that contain in their spiritual capacity all
of Being. The natural man in his narrowed mental
comprehension barely touches the seed ideas that expand in
the Christ man to infinite power. The more we dwell upon
and expand our I AM the greater looms its originating
capacity before us. The Christ substance and the Christ
life are accessible at all times and in all places to the
one who
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awakens his I AM to spiritual omnipresence.
Proofs
We find as we study and apply the doctrine of Jesus that
our body must be included. Faith in the omnipresent pure
substance precipitates the substance in the body and we are
transformed.
Proofs may be found in profusion that the divine law of
body restoration is in action in a large way right here in
our midst. The literature of Unity teems with testimonials
of persons who have been healed and are grateful to God for
renewed health, strength, prosperity, and happiness. Thus
it is not necessary to strengthen your faith by reading
about the work of God in ages past; you can personally
consult your neighbor, who can doubtless tell you of
marvels fully as great as any recorded in the Bible.
The majority of cases that come to us belong to the class
of the discouraged woman told of in Luke 8:43 (A.S.V.),
"who spent all her living upon physicians, and could not be
healed." Doctors have pronounced them incurable, and as a
last resort they turn to God. The hardest part of the work
in their healing is to get out of mind the verdict of
doctors that their cases are incurable. We have discovered
that there are no incurables. Any experienced metaphysical
healer will tell you that he has been the instrument
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through which all the "popular" diseases have been healed.
Personal Testimony
When a boy of ten I was taken with what was at first
diagnosed as rheumatism but developed into a very serious
case of hip disease. I was in bed over a year, and from
that time an invalid in constant pain for twenty-five
years, or until I began the application of the divine law.
Two very large tubercular abscesses developed at the head
of the hip bone, which the doctors said would finally drain
away my life. But I managed to get about on crutches, with
a four-inch cork-and-steel extension on the right leg. The
hip bone was out of the socket and stiff. The leg shriveled
and ceased to grow. The whole right side became involved;
my right ear was deaf and my right eye weak. From hip to
knee the flesh was a glassy adhesion with but little
sensation.
When I began applying the spiritual treatment there was for
a long time slight response in the leg, but I felt better,
and I found that I began to hear with the right ear. Then
gradually I noticed that I had more feeling in the leg.
Then as the years went by the ossified joint began to get
limber, and the shrunken flesh
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filled out until the right leg was almost equal to the
other.
Then I discarded the cork-and-steel extension and wore an
ordinary shoe with a double heel about an inch in height.
The leg became almost as large as the other, the muscles
were restored.
I am giving minute details of my healing because it would
be considered a medical impossibility and a miracle from a
religious standpoint. However I have watched the
restoration year after year as I applied the power of
thought, and I know it is under divine law. So I am
satisfied that here is proof of a law that the mind builds
the body and can restore it.
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