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Keep A True Lent
Chapter 8
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[Keep A True Lent]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Man
Chapter 8
GOD IS PRINCIPLE; Christ is the idea of principle as it is
brought into creation, and man is that creation on its way
to the perfect expression of the Christ.
This being true, man must learn that he has within himself
all the potentialities of Being. When this tremendous truth
is revealed to him he sometimes forgets that his
potentialities are to be expressed according to plans
inherent in Being and he proceeds to make his world after
his own design.
This is the first step in the fall of man--the belief that
he can act wisely without first knowing the plan of God.
This fall takes place in his own consciousness. He follows
the dictates of the animal nature rather than those of the
higher wisdom, and in indulging them he eats the fruit of
"the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which is a
consciousness of nakedness and separation from God.
Man is Being in miniature, and all the powers of God are
available to him. These powers and possibilities are made
manifest through man. It therefore follows that man is a
most important factor in creation. It also follows that he
should become acquainted with his part of the work and do
his very best to carry it forward.
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All the powers of Being are summed up and concentrated in
the one word I. All possibility lies in this one word, and
from it issues forth everything that appears. From the
standpoint of the visible universe this I is man, and by
reason of his divinity he makes and unmakes as he wills. At
work with the powers of Being, man is the transformer of
all things. In this lies his greatest strength and his
greatest weakness.
The ego of itself is possessed of nothing; it is a mere
ignorant child of innocence floating in the mind of Being,
but through the door of its consciousness must be passed
all the treasures of God.
How small, how insignificant is man--yet again how mighty,
how important, how powerful. As Jesus truly said, "I can of
myself do nothing"; "all authority hath been given unto me
in heaven and on earth."
As this I, this man, comes into consciousness of the life,
love, and wisdom of God, it builds for itself a
consciousness; it begins to say "my" and "mine."
This is selfhood, the son taking his inheritance and going
into a far country. But the Father does not condemn
selfhood. In His eyes the son who stays at home and the son
who exercises his freedom are equal. If the Father is free
to do as He wills, the same privilege must be the son's
inheritance, else he would not be "the fulness of the
Godhead bodily."
Ignorance as to his place in Being and the powers
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delegated to him is the one great giant that keeps man from
his own. If he would acknowledge God in all his ways, in
every thought and act, there would be revealed to him a new
world, an undiscovered country lying all about him, ready
for his occupancy.
This is the promised land that God reveals to those who are
willing to be led by Him out of the bondage of ignorance,
which is termed Egypt.
Egypt exists in the consciousness of every man, but his I
AM does not have to remain in that dark place. God calls
him up out of that animal condition in which his desire is
for "pottage," and invites him into "a land flowing with
milk and honey."
Whoever answers that call is guided by the Spirit of God;
it may be through seas of error and deserts of wasted
possibilities, but if he is faithful to that inner wisdom,
he is finally led to the Jordan of demonstration and
through it into his promised land.
But the real man is not flesh and blood; he is not body and
brains. These are but his outer garments. Man is just as
undefinable as God. The I within you is as great a mystery
as the infinite I. You are just as great a mystery to
yourself as you are to others. You do not conceive of your
possibilities, nor can the most high archangel conceive of
them. You are just as fully the son of God as was Jesus or
any other Christlike man who ever existed. The I AM is the
same in all men and all women. It
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is without limit in its capacity to express the
potentialities of God.
Why, then, are you not doing the works of Jesus? Simply
because you have not taken advantage of your privileges.
The way is open to you as it was to Him. All things are
provided for you in the great storehouse of Being. You have
but to go about getting them in an orderly way.
This "way" is revealed by the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit
of truth, which Jesus said the Father would send in His
name. This Spirit of wisdom has always existed. Jesus did
not create it, nor was it created for His special benefit,
but through His demonstrations of an inner and higher power
than men had been accustomed to, He opened the way into
their consciousness for this Spirit of wisdom. They saw His
works and "believed on him," and this belief made it
possible for the Spirit to come to them.
This Spirit of wisdom is right now a part of the
consciousness of everyone. It is in you and about you, and
you will come into conscious relations with it when you
believe on it and its powers.
If you ignore it and thereby deny that it exists in you and
for you, you remain in the darkness of ignorance. It is
exactly as if a man lived in the basement of a large house
and refused to go upstairs, declaring that because the
upper rooms did not come down to him they were not there.
You are to "go up . . . and possess" this promised
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land. It is yours all the time, and you live in the world
with it, yet you do not choose to see it. "The light
shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it
not."
Great is man; great are his privileges.
"I said, Ye are gods,
And all of you sons of the Most High."
Great is man; great are his privileges. But he must realize
his spiritual nature before he can reap its benefits.
"Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you."
So long as man is not conscious of the Spirit of God, he is
in the flesh; that is, he is conscious of his body and its
material surroundings only. This is the carnal
consciousness that does not know God.
But it is man's privilege to rise out of this animal plane
onto the spiritual plane and thereby come into an open
communion with the Father and know as Jesus knew and have
all the powers that He had--and greater ones.
Man is I. By itself I is potentiality only; associated with
its cause, it is all-comprehensive.
God is life, love, Truth, substance, wisdom. Man is the
potential I that recognizes these inherencies of Being and
makes them manifest.
Wisdom, life, and substance are incorporated into man's
consciousness as spirit, soul, and body; each takes form in
him according to his recognition of it.
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If man takes cognizance of body only, he becomes a mere
living, breathing, eating, drinking animal. He lives in the
flesh, and through his ignorant use of its full privileges
he perverts it to the most base ends. He builds up within
its pristine purity lustful images, and in carrying them to
fulfillment in act and deed he fills the world with
disease, discord, selfishness, poverty, and death.
If man rises a step higher and takes cognizance of mind as
well as body, he cultivates the ambitions of the intellect
and the lust for power. Government, commerce, art, and
literature become his ruling stars, and he is not always
careful about the means that he uses to attain his ends.
It is when he recognizes his supremacy over both these and
abides in the inner Spirit, the Father within, that he
finds his true estate and shines forth the image and
likeness of the Most High, which he truly is.
The question is frequently asked, "Why, if God is perfect
and man is His likeness and image, should there be
imperfection in man?" The answer is that there is no
imperfection in man. He is perfect potentiality proving
itself. In the course of bringing forth this perfection
there are processes he must go through. Life and
intelligence are factors entering into this process of
man's manifestation and they seem to fall short of accurate
consummation in certain stages of the work. This, the
limited consciousness, looks on and pronounces it failure.
In a sense
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it is error, as is the boys' assertion that two plus two
equals three. When, however, the correction is made and the
work proceeds according to the principle, success is always
the ultimate result.
When man fails to submit the impulses of the lower nature
to the analysis of the higher, he is beguiled by the
serpent and eats of the tree whose fruit is a concept of
good and evil.
Man never indulges in his animal nature without having a
reaction of discomfort, which he sees is opposed to that
which is comfort. When this is extended into the
experiences of a race the reaction takes on the aspect of
good and evil. Thus, man in the Adam consciousness has come
to look on the world in which he lives as subject to two
opposing principles, which he has named God and Devil. When
he discovers that principles are the basis of existence he
pronounces these opposing appearances good and evil.
The so-called principles of good and evil are nonexistent
outside the sense mind. The true God cannot be known to the
sense consciousness, and whoever postulates a being who is
good or not good, according to his sense concepts, is
building a "man of straw."
Man is made in the image and likeness of God, and when he
seeks to know himself he will find the true God and will
know that he is one with Him.
God is life, and man is life. But life in its essence and
life as seen in the living are not identical.
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The sense man looks on living, moving things and says,
"This is life." It is not life, but only the evidence of
life. Man may know the life that is back of the living.
When he feels the thrill of that life within him he has
touched the divine energy that changes not.
God is substance, but not that which the sense mind
perceives and calls matter. Material things are but the
evidence of the substance that God is, and not the
unchangeable foundation of Deity. God is intelligence, but
not that shifting opinion which the sense mind calls
intelligence.
Hence, to know the nature of Him whose image and likeness
he is, man must detach his I from the Adam consciousness
and attach it to the Christ consciousness. Then he will
learn the meaning in the steps in creation that preceded
him in the divine planning. Then he will learn that he is
not a "worm of the dust" but that with God he is helping to
form the divine plan of existence, which ever rests in
Being.
Man is the executive power in Being and only through his
willing co-operation can the designs of the true God be
carried out. These designs are based on principles that
cannot be changed, and man must come into such close touch
with the wisdom of God that he will consciously co-operate
in bringing the perfect creation into existence.
Man is the will of God externalized or projected into
visibility, and this will must respond to the
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slightest impulse of the divine power within the depths of
his own being.
The sense mind has long been the realm of man's labors, and
it has truly made him earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow.
In this realm he has formed a center of consciousness,
which is termed the will. This seeming will must be given
up, and the pure will must find its rightful place in the
realm of God-Mind. Jesus was passing through this
dissolution of the false will when He cried out, "Not my
will, but thine, be done."
So each of us must become so obedient to the Spirit of God
within himself that the image and likeness which he is will
shine forth in its pristine glory and the sons of God take
their place in the Father's house.
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[Keep A True Lent]
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