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Atom-Smashing Power of Mind
Chapter 16
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[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The Seed Is the Word
Chapter XVI
BEING HAS two aspects: the invisible and the visible, the
abstract and the concrete. The visible comes forth from the
invisible, and this coming forth is always according to a
universal method of growth from minute generative centers.
All forms are built according to this law. From center to
circumference is the method of growth throughout the
universe. The one who studies form alone and expects to
learn from it and its transformations the secret of
existence never goes back to the "seed"; never catches
sight of the Spirit moving upon every generating center.
Causes are always invisible: spiritual. "God is spirit,"
and "the seed is the word of God." Thus that which produces
the seed is the Spirit. It is popularly presumed that the
seed produces after its kind that which appears. This is a
superficial conclusion, and a moment's logical
consideration will convince anyone that a thing so small, a
cause so insignificant as compared with the effect, could
not produce without being possessed of an anterior
principle results so large and varied. The oft-repeated
illustration of the acorn's having folded within its heart
the oak is not correct. The acorn of itself is powerless to
produce anything, but as an avenue through which interior
forces become exterior it is important.
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We should never lose sight of the fact that things are but
the evidence of intelligence and power. In and of
themselves they are without causative power in any way. The
seed is the symbol of the Word of God, and in its
generative qualities it represents the apparent
insignificance of the Word as it goes forth from its
invisibility and silence. But this Word is a generative
center with all the possibilities of God at its call. It is
the idea of God, the image and likeness. It is just like
God in its essentials, and needs only to be planted in
fertile ground to produce the living picture of which it is
the image. In its highest degree of expression this is man.
Christ is the Word of God. It was in the beginning with
God, and is now with God. It came forth from God. It became
flesh and dwelt among men. It always dwells among men; it
is the real originating center through which man draws all
his intelligence, life, love, substance. It is the one
point at which we tap the divine storehouse; it is the
inlet and outlet of God.
So the "seed," that is, "the word of God," is man; not the
external thinking personality that has a consciousness of
separation, but the internal spiritual germ. The central
seed is the generative center from which the personal man
forms himself. He draws upon the universal forces within
and without, just as the tree draws upon the invisible
Spirit, manifesting itself in earth, air, and water. He may
be totally
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unconscious of this situation in certain stages of his
building, but this does not nullify the fact. The fact that
the babe is not conscious of the method of its sustenance
during the first months of its prenatal life has no weight
with those who have observed the law.
Man is the idea of God, and the idea of God is the word of
God. Man is not a thing of small beginnings but of infinite
beginnings. His resource is the Infinite, and he draws his
substance from an inexhaustible store. He is never at a
loss for supply, be it ever so scarce in the markets of the
world.
At the heart center of everyone is the "seed . . . the word
of God." It is there as a door opening into the infinite.
Man opens this door or closes it at his will. Some open it
just a little crack and others not at all. Some open the
door wide, and they manifest such rare powers that they are
exalted, even deified, by those who have closed their own
doors. This little inner door is a door of great promise;
he who opens it wide finds on its inner side the kingdom of
God. It is the way into the kingdom. It is the Christ
Spirit speaking through those who have opened: "I am the
door."
It is strange but true that the inner "seed" of God may
have been so neglected as to have been entirely forgotten
by some people. They may have a slight recollection of
having at some remote period been in a state in which they
did not have to endure
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the burdens of self-sustenance, but this is so faint that
it is like a dim, faraway dream. When a man has thus
forgotten the seed and has sought other means of growth, he
loses his symmetry. He becomes gnarled and crooked. His
body is filled with knots, and his limbs die before their
time. This is the paralysis of nonrecognition of the
generative seed. No true growth results from earth and air
alone. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word
proceeding out of the mouth of God. This "word of God" is
the "seed"; that is, man's real self, because it is the
umbilical cord that forever connects him with the infinite
fountain of supply. No growth takes place except through
this "seed," this high idea of what man is. Any other idea
is a reflection, and there are reflections in descending
degree, until man finds himself comparing himself with his
own creations--worm of the dust.
As Emerson says:
Whilst a necessity so great caused the man to exist, his
health and erectness consists in the fidelity with which he
transmits influences from the vast and universal to the
point on which his genius can act. The ends are momentary;
they are vents for the currents of inward life which
increases as it is spent. A man's wisdom is to know that
all ends are momentary, that the best end must be
superseded by a better. But there is a mischievous tendency
in him to transfer his thoughts from the life to the ends,
to quit his agency and rest in his acts: the tools run away
with the workman, the human with the divine. I conceive a
man as always spoken to from behind, and unable to
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turn his head and see the speaker. In all the millions who
have heard the voice, none ever saw the face. As children
in their play run behind each other, and seize one by the
ears and make him walk before them, so is the spirit our
unseen pilot. That well-known voice speaks in all
languages, governs all men, but none ever catches a glimpse
of its form. If the man will exactly obey it, it will adopt
him, so that he shall not any longer separate it from
himself in his thought; he shall seem to be it, he shall be
it. If he listen with insatiable ears, richer and greater
wisdom is taught him; the sound swells to ravishing music,
he is borne away as with a flood, he becomes careless of
his food and of his house, he is the tool of ideas, and
leads a heavenly life. But if his eye is set on the things
to be done, and not on the truth that is still taught, and
for the sake of which the things are to be done, then the
voice grows faint, and at last is but a humming in his
ears. His health and greatness consist in his being the
channel through which heaven flows to earth, in short, in
the fullness in which an ecstatical state takes place in
him. It is pitiful to be an artist, when by forbearing to
be artists we might be vessels filled with the divine
overflowings, enriched by the circulations of omniscience
and omnipresence.
Let not this seed of God within you lie fallow for want of
conscious recognition on your part. You want to express all
the possibilities of Being, which you can do if you will
acknowledge the source through which they methodically come
forth.
Many people think man grows a little differently from other
things. They are sure he is a special creation, formed by
the Lord God in a miraculous way, from the "dust of the
ground" and "set up against
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de palin's to dry"! This style of creation will do for the
backwoods preacher but not for thinking people. Man is the
creation of God. God creates in a definite manner. Man is
created in a definite manner. He comes forth into the
visible world in a regular, everyday sort of a way, through
the simple process wrapped up in the mystery of this inner
"seed."
To think that man is created in any but a methodical way is
to think without reasonable consideration. There is no
evidence anywhere of a miraculous creation of anything, and
it is folly to assume that the Almighty stepped out of His
course to make man. Man in his divine selfhood makes
himself. His process is precisely that of God's, through
the power of his word. Without the Christ word man has no
life in him. Man does not make anything that lasts unless
it has its point of departure in this inner seed idea of
the Father. Men think they are building, but they are
deceived. They may spend thousands of years rearing states
of consciousness that in the day of judgment between the
real and the evanescent must be dissolved into the vapor of
nothingness.
Every idea is a seed, and will bring forth according to its
character, modified somewhat by the kind of mind soil in
which it is planted. There is a law of growth in mind
parallel with that of earth. A thistle seed will always
produce thistles, regardless of the character of the soil;
a low ideal will likewise work out low conditions in a high
type of mind. You
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may be a giant in strength today, but if you get into your
mind the thought of sickness it will bring you down as
surely as if you were a weakling. So with every thought
that finds lodgment and at the same time credence in your
mind; it will produce fruit of its kind just as surely as
will the material seed planted in the earth. It goes
through a similar process of growth also. It does not
always spring forth at once and rapidly come to fruition,
but it goes through a methodical series of changes, from
inertness to tiny sprout, away deep down in the
consciousness, where it is not observed by the external
thinking mind. In due course it sends out a shoot in the
direction of external consciousness, which finally comes to
the surface in some discord or some harmony. The time of
planting is usually so remote that even he who knows the
law of growth from thought to thing cannot remember when he
sowed the seeds that are manifest in his consciousness as
thistles. When told that certain thoughts have produced
certain effects in his case, the patient will invariably
respond, "But I was not thinking those thoughts."
One of the first lessons to be learned by the student of
metaphysics is that the "seed is the word." The next is
that this kind of seed is hid in the darkness of the mind,
where it germinates, sprouts, and comes into visibility
with all the scientific accuracy of detail of the ordinary
plant. The fruit is a living organism too and has the power
to throw off seeds
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that find lodgment and produce crops in other receptive
minds.
But each man is a gardener who has absolute charge of his
mind and can determine just what kind of seeds shall be
planted in his domain. What he says is law in the garden of
which he has control. If he is lax, shiftless, and ignorant
of his privileges, he may let the thistle seeds from
foolish minds blow over his fence and take root in his
garden. But it is not at all necessary. By his simple word
of command he can protect his domain from all intruders.
Not all men know this, nevertheless it is true.
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