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Atom-Smashing Power of Mind
Chapter 14
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[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The Body
Chapter XIV
A GREAT DEAL is said in the Bible about man's body. In
fact, the Bible is a mystical record of the various bodies
in which the souls of men have lived. Bodies show the
different states of mind of those who inhabit them, ranging
all the way from the Adam embodiment and environment up to
the Christ body and its freedom from environment. It is
fair to say that the Bible is the allegorical record of man
under many aliases, in many bodies.
In all the history of man he has appeared under all sorts
of masks, which he has called his bodies, ranging from a
corrupt and distorted body up to the "glorious body" of
Christ.
The resurrection of the body is the paramount theme of the
New Testament and in fact the all-embracing yet veiled
subject of the entire Bible. Immortality has been the
engrossing subject of man's thought since the record of the
race began. Passage after passage might be cited from the
Bible illustrating what man's body potentially is and how
it should be controlled and governed so as to gain for its
possessor the greatest amount of harmony in life.
Now, mark you, man is not solely his body, for man is more
than body, but without a body there could be no visible
man. Yet the body is not man, but man will forever possess
a body. If the body is
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not man and man could not be without a body, and since the
body is constantly changing, what is man?
You see at once that man is not body, but that the body is
the declaration of man, the substantial expression of his
mind. We see so many different types of men that we are
bound to admit that the body is merely the individual's
specific interpretation of himself, whatever it may be. Man
is an unknown quantity; we see merely the various ideas of
man expressed in terms of body, but not man himself. The
identification of man is determined by the individual
himself, and he expresses his conception of man in his body.
Some persons have tall bodies; some have short ones. Some
have fat bodies; some have slim ones. Some have distorted
bodies, some have symmetrical ones. Now, if the body is the
man, as claimed by sense consciousness, which of these many
bodies is man?
The Bible declares that man is made in the "image" and
after the "likeness" of God. Which of the various bodies
just enumerated is the image and likeness of God?
The New Testament maintains that man's body is the dwelling
place of the Spirit of God: "Know ye not that your body is
a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you? . . . glorify
God therefore in your body." Yet it is written that the Man
of Galilee
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casts devils out of this temple of God. How could devils
infest the temple of God?
Some persons contend that man's body is corrupt from birth,
and others affirm that it is the glorious masterpiece of
God.
We find however that those who say that they despise the
body are loath to part with it, for the reason that they
cannot adequately conceive of man without a body, and it is
better to have some kind of a body than to run the risk of
not having any. The body that these persons possess is
their only means of identifying themselves. They do not
fancy the idea of risking another, and possibly a worse
body, so they hold onto the one they have as long as they
are able, regardless of its frailties. The chances of
getting a new body seem so uncertain that we all strive to
keep the one we have.
Let us repeat that the body of man is the visible record of
his thoughts. It is the individual's interpretation of his
identity, and each individual shows in his body just what
his views of man are. The body is the corporeal record of
the mind of its owner, and there is no limit to its
infinite differentiation. The individual may become any
type of being that he elects to be. Man selects the mental
model and the body images it. So the body is the image and
likeness of the individual's idea of man. We may embody any
conception of life or being that we can conceive. The body
is the exact reproduction of the
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thoughts of its occupant. As a man thinks in his mind so is
his body.
You can be an Adam if you choose, or you can be a Christ or
any other type of being that you see fit to ideate. The
choice lies with you. The body merely executes the mandates
of the mind. The mind dictates the model according to which
the body shall be manifested. Therefore as man "thinketh
within himself [in his vital nature], so is he." Each
individual is just what he believes he is.
It is safe to say that nine hundred and ninety-nine persons
out of every thousand believe that the resurrection of the
body has something specifically to do with the getting of a
new body after death; so we find more than ninety-nine per
cent of the world's population waiting for death to get
something new in the way of a body. This belief is not
based on the principles of Truth, for there is no
ready-made-body factory in the universe, and thus none will
get the body that he expects. Waiting for death in order to
get a new body is the folly of ignorance. The thing to do
is to improve the bodies that we now have; it can be done,
and those who would follow Jesus in the regeneration must
do it.
The "resurrection" of the body has nothing whatever to do
with death, except that we may resurrect ourselves from
every dead condition into which sense ignorance has plunged
us. To be resurrected means to get out of the place that
you are in and to
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get into another place. Resurrection is a rising into new
vigor, new prosperity; a restoration to some higher state.
It is absurd to suppose that it applies only to the
resuscitation of a dead body.
Paul hints at a time when the body will be changed, and he
says it is when "death is swallowed up in victory." Here
are Paul's words: "When this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality
. . . Death is swallowed up in victory."
This transformation is worked out by the individual
himself, and is not the result of physical death but rather
of the death or annihilation of the erroneous beliefs that
ignorance has stored in the cells of the body. It is first
a mental resurrection, followed by a body demonstration.
It is the privilege of the individual to express any type
of body that he sees fit to ideate. Man may become a Christ
in mind and in body by incorporating into his every thought
the ideas given to the world by Jesus.
"But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror
the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit."
Divine mind has placed in the mind of everyone an image of
the perfect-man body. The imaging process in the mind may
well be illustrated by the picture that is made by light on
the photographic
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plate, which must be "developed" before it becomes visible.
Or man's invisible body may be compared to the blueprint of
a building that the architect delivers to the builder. Man
is a builder of flesh and blood. Jesus was a carpenter.
Also He was indeed the master mason. He restored the Lord's
body ("the temple of Jehovah") in His mind and heart (in
Jerusalem).
When we call ourselves fleshly, mortal, finite, we manifest
it bodily upon a fleshly, mortal, and finite plane. We sow
to the flesh and of the flesh reap corruption. The time has
arrived for the whole human family to repudiate the
estimate of man as corrupt and instead to think of him as
he was designed by creative Mind. "This corruptible must
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality," said Paul.
We must stop calling the body flesh and blood, and see it
as it is in Spirit-mind, pure and incorruptible. This
realization of man's perfect body will arrest decay,
disintegration, and death.
We must rise above material thoughts into spiritual
realization, and live, move, and have our being in a divine
reality. When our views of man are elevated to spiritual
understanding, we shall begin to express bodily perfection.
Our thoughts must be perfect before we can expect to
manifest perfection in body. The issues of life are within
man; the body is merely the record of the mind of the
individual.
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Jesus demonstrated for us the highest type of embodiment.
He brought His body under the mastery of His mind. He said,
"I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it
again." What Jesus did we all can do, and it is fair to say
that His is the normal standard for every individual and
that every other expression of life is abnormal, the result
of insufficient Christ elements. Paul says, as quoted, "Ye
are the body of Christ," and he says this to emphasize the
fact that Christ is the one true pattern for man and that
each of us should achieve the fulfillment of the divine
design. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Jesus was the only man who ever proclaimed with authority,
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Jesus was the
divine oracle; His mind was unified with the universal Mind
principle; this same principle obtains in a degree today in
those who identify themselves with Spirit instead of with
the flesh. We need not "look . . . for another" in whom to
witness the Christ, as did John the Baptist, but we must
look for Christ in ourselves, precisely as the man Jesus
found the Christ in Himself.
The statement "Ye are the body of Christ" promises the
possibility of a universal incarnation of the Christ and
does not in any sense narrow it down to one single
individual.
Again Paul's words "Glorify God . . . in your body"
proclaim the fact that the God nature may
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become manifest in every individual. What is the chief
object of man? To glorify God in his body; this is the true
answer. Have the courage to make the heroic attempt to give
personal expression to God. And how shall we do this? By
mentally agreeing that we are potentially the Christ and
capable of making a divine presentation of ourselves to the
Father. We must rise to the conscious realization that
every thought of mind, every atom of body, every molecule
of being, every function of nature, and every force is
divine, and that all of these do and shall vibrate to the
harmonies of Spirit. This is the resurrection of man; there
is none other.
By so doing we establish our ego, our I AM identity with
Divine Mind, and enter with Jesus into joint heirship to
the heavenly inheritance of power, peace, prosperity, and
perfection.
All the so-called human or earthly spheres of operation are
reflections of the divine, and by considering them we may
gain an intellectual concept of spiritual realities, but we
should ever remember that spiritual things are "spiritually
judged." By this higher renewal of the mind we shall be
bodily transformed, and prove those things that are good,
perfect, and true.
The resurrection of the body is not dependent for its
demonstration on time, evolution, or any of the man-made
means of growth. It is the result
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of the elevation of the spiritually emancipated mind of the
individual.
Step by step, thought added to thought, spiritual emotion
added to spiritual emotion--eventually the transformation
is complete. It does not come in a day, but every high
impulse, every pure thought, every upward desire adds to
the exaltation and gradual personification of the divine in
man and to the transformation of the human. The "old man"
is constantly brought into subjection, and his deeds
forever put off, as the "new man" appears arrayed in the
vestments of divine consciousness.
All have hope and find deep consolation, aye, assurance in
the belief of the final redemption of the body; and this
universal feeling is born of the legitimacy of the faith
that this redemption must eventuate, that perfection is the
ultimate goal of man's being, and that death and separation
must disappear from human experience.
How to accomplish the resurrection of the body has been the
great stumbling block of man. The resurrection has been a
mere hope, and we have endeavored to reconcile a dying body
with a living God, but have not succeeded. No amount of
Christian submission or stoical philosophy will take away
the sting of death. But over him who is risen in Christ
"death no more hath dominion."
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[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
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