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Atom-Smashing Power of Mind
Chapter 17
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[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The Resurrecting Power of the Word
Chapter XVII
IT IS PLAINLY taught in the Bible that God created a
spiritual, undying man; that death came into the world
through transgression of the law, called sin; that sin was
the work of one man, and that sin would be overcome by one
man. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made
alive." Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that promise.
The race has so long existed in the negative mental
conditions that bring sickness and finally death that it is
very difficult to convince men that they can live forever
in their bodies. They have been taught that death is
natural, that death is part of the scheme of life, that
through death we progress to better conditions. This
negative teaching has been a part of the race thought so
long that death has been accepted as the necessary end of
existence. But such is not the teaching of Christianity.
Every organ of the body is capable of being constantly
renewed through the inflow of an unseen force called mind
or life or Spirit. Therefore we should be continually
renewing and spiritualizing the body. But we are not doing
so because of our lack of faith in our possibilities as
offspring of universal life. We find it hard to believe
that the renewing
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and spiritualizing of the body can be accomplished, yet the
history of the Hebrew race (considered as an allegory)
shows that this is possible.
We look on the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the
wilderness as typical of our wanderings through the
wilderness of materiality and ignorance on our way to the
Promised Land; but we have always put the Promised Land
away off somewhere in heaven! The teaching of Jesus is that
we can demonstrate over all the ills of the body, all the
discords and inharmonies of the flesh, and finally overcome
death as He did, here and now.
The lesson of Easter, when learned, convinces us that one
man demonstrated what has been taught throughout the
centuries in the religion of Christianity. Jesus evidently
did not know in the beginning of His life that He was to
make this great demonstration. He was a carpenter and
worked with Joseph, but for thirty years He must have been
growing in spiritual power. In meditation He doubtless
caught glimpses of the great Truth, and it dawned on Him
that He was the man who had been selected, or that through
His own demonstration He had attained the ability, to
overcome the negative thoughts, the sins that were tearing
down the bodies of the race, and that He had the power to
gain complete mastery of the human weakness called death.
When Jesus received the illumination and stepped forth as a
teacher, He found it very difficult
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to impress on others that He was anything more than one of
the common people. He claimed immortality, He claimed that
He was the Messiah they had been looking for, and they said
in effect: "This is ridiculous. We know this man. He is
Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph. We know Him and His
brothers and His sisters. We have been brought up with Him.
It is absurd to think that a man can step right out of the
common herd and become the Messiah."
It is an adage that a great man is not without honor except
in his own country. From the physical viewpoint we are part
of the common people and we will not concede that one of
our number can by any possibility become divine. The
Scriptures plainly teach that Jesus' own followers did not
believe His claim that He was divine. They admitted that He
was a great teacher. He taught truths that they accepted in
the abstract, but they were not ready to concede that one
of their number had attained the demonstration of Truth. In
a sort of wonderment Jesus' disciples followed Him, but
they had not grasped the underlying truths that He was
teaching: that the body is the temple of the living God,
and that the man Jesus could lay it down or take it up;
that He was going to make a demonstration over death that
would satisfy not only them but the whole world; that when
He was ready He was going up to Jerusalem to be crucified
there. Christian metaphysicians
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see symbology in all this, but it actually took place.
Jesus knew that He must demonstrate over death and that He
must prepare for that test. He told all His friends that He
was going to accomplish this thing, but they were
incredulous. Peter attempted to dissuade Jesus from His
announced purpose of going to Jerusalem to be crucified,
but Jesus would not be swerved from His course. We often
think that if Jesus would only come now and make a
demonstration over death, we should all believe. Probably
only a handful of us would accept Him if He came among us
today and made such a demonstration. The newspapers would
say it was a fake, a trick. The scribes and the Pharisees
and the doubters reported that the soldiers were paid to
open the tomb and let Jesus escape. Incredulity exists
today. That is the reason why the demonstration of eternal
life is so difficult. That is the reason why after two
thousand years the world at large is not convinced that it
is possible for man to be raised out of the thought that
death is inescapable. Even after Jesus demonstrated
resurrection the disciples found it hard to believe Him.
A woman was the first person to come to Jesus' tomb after
His resurrection. Women are more receptive to Truth than
men. Women have more spirituality and faith than men, but
if today a man died who had claimed that he would resurrect
his body
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on a certain day, it is doubtful whether even the women
would go to the tomb to see that resurrection. Mary and the
other women did not go to the tomb of Jesus expecting Him
to be there alive. They did not expect to see Him come out
of the tomb; on the contrary they had spices and herbs for
the embalming of His body. The body was not there and they
began to inquire about it. The angel told them, "He is
risen"; but they could not believe it, and they looked into
the tomb. There were the grave clothes, but the body of
Jesus was gone. The disciples, when told that Jesus had
risen, were skeptical. We are told that Jesus walked with
two of them on the way to Emmaus and explained the
Scriptures to them. After a time they recognized Him; then
He disappeared from their midst.
Shortly after the incident at Emmaus Jesus appeared again
to the Eleven, and to prove to them that He had the same
body that He had had before His resurrection, He "showed
them his hands and his feet," and He ate a piece of broiled
fish. After that He disappeared again. All this would be
thought "spooky" in our day, and we cannot blame the
apostles for being "amazed."
Followers of Jesus do not understand the difference between
the astral or ghostly body of the dead and the resurrected
body of Jesus. There is a difference made by the mental
power of the individual and the way he thinks about life,
soul, spirit, and matter.
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If we believe that the body is the temple of the living
God, we shall follow Jesus in the resurrection.
Why are we not resurrecting the body? Why are we giving it
up to disintegration? Sin is the cause of death; then it
must be that through the elimination of sin we shall come
into eternal life and save the body from the disintegrating
effects of death. In fact we are all striving for the
resurrection of the body when we try to overcome its
oncreeping feebleness. But our efforts are material instead
of spiritual. We should remember that "it is the spirit
that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing." We try in
many ways to renew the life supply within us.
Some very absurd methods have been advocated by so-called
scientists to perpetuate man's life, to make him healthier,
wealthier, happier. We all want more life, more happiness,
more good; and we can have everything we want if we comply
with the divine law as Jesus did. The body is composed of
elements that are essentially perfect. We have not
understood the law of harmony and have therefore thrown
these primal perfect elements out of adjustment. By our
thoughts we are continually moving the cells of the body.
The original impetus is given by the conscious mind, hence
we must regulate our thinking to the end that harmony be
set up in the cellular life throughout the organism.
It is very evident that Jesus understood the science of
right thinking. We hate our enemies and have
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bodily disorders as a result. Jesus said, "Love your
enemies." This is but one of many laws of mind activity
that Jesus carried out in His life. We must first follow
Jesus in controlling our thoughts; then we shall be able to
follow Him in the resurrection.
Jesus controlled His thoughts by harmonizing them, by
continually thinking constructively, by continually
bringing into action in His conscious mind all the mental
factors that lead to the new life, to the understanding of
what life is. We know that the body is destroyed by
discord, by fever, and by other inharmonies. Fever is but a
clashing of the cells of the organism, a tearing down
process; but back of fever are harsh thoughts. We can trace
every ill to some thought. We must eliminate these sinning
thoughts. The sinning thought is the thought that fails to
measure up to the high calling; it is not a true thought.
We have limited our ideas to a small realm. We have thought
that sin covered only the transgressions of the moral man.
But I assure you that sin becomes visible in the physical;
hence we should look for a physical resurrection after we
have crucified the carnal mind.
Jesus laid great stress on the power of the word. The word
has two activities: One is that of the still small voice in
the silence, and the other is that of the "loud voice" that
was used by Jesus when He raised Lazarus from the dead. In
the beginning "God said, Let there be"--and there was.
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We are the offspring of God, and our words have power
proportionate to our realization of our in-dwelling
spiritual kingdom. In the world today there is ample
evidence of the power of words to move multitudes. That
same power can heal and make people happy. If you will
recognize this power and increase it and apply it in all
your thoughts and acts, the impetus given to your spoken
thought will produce a body so constructed, so harmonized
that it will renew itself and never allow you to go to the
grave. Jesus did a work of this kind. He said that a man
would be held accountable for his slightest word. Jesus
sent His word to heal people. He said, "If a man keep my
word, he shall never taste of death." What were His words?
They were words of life, of peace, or harmony. "Ye have
heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for
a tooth," but "This is my commandment, that ye love one
another." So long as we have destructive thoughts, so long
as we war in thought with our neighbor next door or on the
other side of the earth, just so long shall we have
inharmony, just so long shall we fall short of being true
followers of Jesus. We must love, we must forgive, we must
harmonize our thoughts under the divine law; then we shall
heal and resurrect the body.
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[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
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