|
Atom-Smashing Power of Mind
Chapter 11
[<- Go back to Chapter 10]
[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The Only Mind
Chapter XI
I SAY, "An idea comes to me." Where did it come from? It
must have had a source of like character with its own.
Ideas are not visible to the eye, they are not heard by the
ear, nor felt, nor tasted, yet we talk about them as having
existence. We recognize that they live, move, and have
being in the realm that we term mind.
This realm of mind is accepted by everybody as in some way
connected with the things that appear, but because it is
not describable in terms of length, breadth, and thickness,
it is usually passed over as something too vague for
consideration.
But those who take up the study of this thing called mind
find that it can be analyzed and its laws and modes of
operation understood.
To be ignorant of mind and its laws is to be a child
playing with fire, or a man manipulating powerful chemicals
without knowing their relation to one another. This is
universally true; and all who are not learning about mind
are in like danger, because all are dealing with the great
cause from which spring forth all the conditions that
appear in the lives of all men and women. Mind is the one
reservoir from which we draw all that we make up into our
world, and it is through the laws of mind that we form our
lives. Hence nothing is as important
Page 88
as a knowledge of mind, its inherencies, and the mode of
their expression.
The belief that mind cannot be understood is fallacious.
Man is the expression of mind, dwells in mind, and can know
more clearly and definitely about mind than about the
things that appear in the phenomenal world.
It is only from the plane of mind that one can know Truth
in an absolute sense. That which we pronounce truth from
the plane of appearances is relative only. The relative
truth is constantly changing, but the absolute Truth
endures; and what is true today always was and always will
be true.
It does not require scholastic culture to understand mind.
Persons who do not even know how to read or write may be
very adept in the realm of pure mind. It does not follow
that he who talks most fluently about mind knows the most.
He may theoretically perceive the underlying principles
without realizing their working factors in his own being.
Mind is not language; mind is not formulation. These are
outgrowths of mind; they are man's way of communicating to
his fellow man the concepts of his mind. Thus very simple
persons, from the world's standpoint, frequently know a
great deal about mind and its operation that they are
unable to express in language.
Women as a rule know more about pure mind on its own plane
than men, because they trust that inner
Page 89
faculty of pure knowing called intuition more fully than
men. The medically wise of the world today cannot
comprehend how a quiet little person who knows nothing
about physiology or medication can sit down beside their
dying patients and bring them back to health without
apparently doing anything. And they never will know until
they delve behind a knowledge of externality and learn mind
to mind the workings of Spirit.
Some persons confound the realm of knowledge about things
formulated through the intellect with pure knowledge.
Intellect and its plane of activity are not pure mind as
the realm of matter is not Spirit.
The same essences of being enter into both, but wisdom is
sadly lacking in the intellectual realm. Intellect has
formulated its conclusions from the sense side of existence
instead of from the spiritual side, and these two sides are
divergent.
No one can know about the potentialities of mind and how
they are manifested except through a study of mind itself
without any reference whatever to things or their relations.
One may logically deduce a system of being from abstract
intellectual reasoning, but it will lack the living fire
that accompanies pure mind.
Those who study mind know the same things; and though they
be dumb, they enjoy the communion that ever goes on in
thought. No one should for a
Page 90
moment imagine that because he lacks the technical
education of the world that he is therefore not fitted to
study the science of mind. No matter how ignorant you may
be of the world's ways or God's ways, if you will give your
mind to the attention of the one Mind, you will in due
season become wise. This great law of mind and Mind
recognizing each other and flowing together in unbroken
wisdom has been known in all ages and among all peoples.
The scribes and Pharisees who knew the life and lack of
scholastic advantages of Jesus, the carpenter's son,
exclaimed in amazement, "How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned?"
Mind is the great storehouse of good from which man draws
all his supplies. If you manifest life, you are confident
that it had a source. If you show forth intelligence you
know that somewhere in the economy of Being there is a
fount of intelligence. So you may go over the elements that
go to make up your being and you will find that they draw
their sustenance from an invisible and, to your limited
understanding, incomprehensible source.
This source we term Mind, because it is as such that our
comprehension is best related to it. Names are arbitrary,
and we should not stop to note differences that are merely
technical. We want to get at the substance which they
represent.
So if we call this invisible source Mind it is because it
is of like character with the thing within
Page 91
our consciousness that we call our mind. Mind is manyfold
in its manifestations. It produces all that appears. Not
that the character of all that appears is to be laid to the
volition of Mind; no, but some of its factors enter into
everything that appears. This is why it is so important to
know about Mind, and how its potentialities are made
manifest.
So we know that that which we term Mind is the reservoir of
the universe and man and that in it is stored up all that
we may desire. So it behooves us to study this great
reservoir and learn its laws. We call it Mind because
through our study it has disclosed to us a quality that is
not apprehended by those who study it in its phenomenal
aspect. The physical scientist tells us that there is a
universal energy in which all motion, light, heat, color,
and the like, have their origin.
We claim that what they have discovered is the power side
of God and that there is another factor that they have not
discovered but that is associated with the universal
energy. That factor is divine wisdom. They admit that there
is evidence of design in the varied and beautiful
manifestation of this universal energy, but they are at a
loss for a way to make the acquaintance of the designer. To
know this designer and manipulator of the substance and
energy of the universe is what our system of mind
development teaches. It instructs you how to acquaint
yourself with the qualities of Mind and
Page 92
through them to seize upon the substance and life of the
universe and bring them into harmonious relations in your
body and affairs. This is something that few learned
physical scientists have attempted, and here is a field of
discovery upon which few have yet launched forth. In fact
but few of the materialistic school have ever caught the
first ray of this light. They have, it is true, longed to
know more about the wisdom of the Creator, but it does not
seem to have dawned upon them that the wisdom of God is
just as much present everywhere as energy and substance. By
all the methods known to their science they have tested the
many elements of the formed and formless earth and air and
noted the methodical and orderly workings of each under
certain conditions. They speak of molecular attraction,
repulsion, polarity, and the like. Some have said that
every atom of matter is apparently intelligent; but as
these atoms do not speak their particular language, they
have taken for granted that they could not hold converse
with them on the plane of mind.
This is where we have set up a study that makes of every
atom in the universe a living center of wisdom as well as
life and substance.
We claim that on its plane of comprehension man may ask the
atom or the mountain the secret that it holds and it will
be revealed to him. This is the communication of mind with
Mind; hence we call Mind the universal underlying cause of
existence
Page 93
and study it from that basis.
God is Mind, and man made in the image and likeness of God
is Mind, because there is but one Mind, and that the Mind
of God. The person in sense consciousness thinks he has a
mind of his own and that he creates thought from its own
inherent substance. This is a suppositional mind that
passes away when the one and only real Mind is revealed.
This one and only Mind of God that we study is the only
creator. It is that which originates all that is permanent;
hence it is the source of all reality. Its creations are of
a character hard for the sense man to comprehend, because
his consciousness is cast in a mold of space and time.
These are changeable and transient, while the creations of
the one Mind are substantial and lasting. But it is man's
privilege to understand the creations of the one Mind, for
it is through them that he makes his world. The creations
of the one Mind are ideas. The ideas of God are potential
forces waiting to be set in motion through proper formative
vehicles. The thinking faculty in man is such a vehicle,
and it is through this that the visible universe has
existence. Man does not "create" anything if by this term
is meant the producing of something from nothing; but he
does make the formless up into form; or rather it is
through his conscious co-operation that the one Mind forms
its universe. Hence the importance of man's willing
co-operation with God in
Page 94
every thought, because unless he is very wise in his
thinking, he may be sending forth malformations that will
cause both himself and the universe trouble.
Thinking is a process in mind by and through which the
abstract is made concrete. It is the process of working up
into things those ideas in the one Mind which are not
things. God does not see things nor conditions as man sees
them, except through the thinking faculty in man
(represented by man in the Godhead).
The ideas of Divine Mind are whole and complete in their
capacity to unfold perpetually greater and more beautiful
forms according to the thinking capacity in man. Man
catches mental sight of an idea in Divine Mind and proceeds
to put it in terms comprehensible to him on his plane of
consciousness. All ideas have their origin in Divine Mind,
but their character as unfolded by man depends entirely
upon his acquaintance with God. The idea of a house as
formulated by man varies all the way from a wigwam to the
most magnificent castle. The original idea of a house, as
it exists in God's mind, cannot be anything less than the
perfected consciousness of man, of which his body is a
symbol. This is the temple "not made with hands," and it is
the only temple acceptable to God.
No man can acceptably serve God or do His will until he
understands the fundamental principles of thinking and how
thoughts are made manifest
Page 95
as forms or states of consciousness. This is revealed by
the Father to everyone who seeks to know His law and to
follow it. When man has thus sought the Father with an eye
single to His guidance, he begins to know that certain
relations exist between him and the Father and that only
through a maintenance of those relations can he come into
harmony with God and do His will.
The idea of the man separated in consciousness from Divine
Mind is that he was arbitrarily created by God, who could
have chosen or not chosen to create him, and that not being
responsible for his existence, man has a perfect right to
be rebellious and petulant if hardships come into his life.
This is a childish view of the great plan of creation, in
which man is such an important factor. It is only when man
becomes meek and lowly, an obedient receptacle for the
Spirit of God, that he sees the divine plan of creation and
his place in it. Then he becomes a willing co-operator,
because his understanding accepts the law as it is and
knows that it cannot be changed by either God or man. They
are so intimately linked together that the harmony of
existence depends upon their mutual understanding. When
this is established by man's willing obedience and
acceptance of his part of the work, a new order of things
is set up and a new creation inaugurated. The first step in
this new order is the realization by man that he is in the
world to do a specific work. As
Page 96
Jesus said at the age of twelve, "Knew ye not that I must
be in my Father's house?" and in His last prayer are these
words, "I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished
the work which thou hast given me to do."
The Father has sent each one of us out to do a certain
work. Are we doing that work? Have we asked what it is? Or
are we aimlessly wandering about the earth trying to find
satisfaction in the fleeting things of sense?
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."
This truth is that of the relation of man to God and of how
creation is carried forward. The God-man relation is in one
sense like that of father and child; in another sense it is
like that of creator-creative instrument and creation
manifest. Man constitutes the instrument of God through
which He brings his potentialities into visibility. As such
an instrument man is in a measure a dictator as to how it
shall be done. That is, man has discretionary power or free
will. Freedom of will is illusionary however because if man
wills to carry on creation in defiance of the divine plan
and order, his creations in due time fall into chaos
through lack of coherency. God fixes the plan of the
structure and gives into the hands of man all the materials
for building. Man may also know the plan and build
according to it, or he may go ahead without consulting the
plan.
Page 97
Humanity has built age after age only to find that its
structures do not endure. They are faulty because the
divine plan has not been consulted by the builder.
Mind is the storehouse of ideas. Man draws all his ideas
from this omnipresent storehouse. The ideas of God, heaven,
hell, devils, angels, and all things have their clue in
Mind. But their form in the consciousness depends entirely
upon the plane from which man draws his mental images. If
he gets a "clue" to the character of God and then proceeds
to clothe this clue idea with images from without, he makes
God a mortal. If he looks within for the clothing of his
clue idea he knows God to be the omnipresent Spirit of
existence.
If man gets the clue idea from heaven and hell and devils
and angels and looks without for clothing for his idea, he
makes a locality in the skies and calls it heaven, and
another under the earth and calls it hell. But if he goes
to the Father for information he finds both heaven and hell
within his own consciousness, both the result of his own
thought.
So it is of the utmost importance that we know how we have
produced this state of existence which we call life; and we
should be swift to conform to the only method calculated to
bring harmony and success into our life, namely to think in
harmony with the understanding derived from communion with
the God-Mind.
Page 98
[Go forward to Chapter 12 ->]
[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|