|
Atom-Smashing Power of Mind
Chapter 19
[<- Go back to Chapter 18]
[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The End of the Age
Chapter XIX
IN ALL AGES and among all people, there have been legends
of prophets and saviors and predictions of their coming.
Anticipation of a messiah has not been confined to the
Occident, for several of the prominent religions of the
Orient have prophesied a messiah. The fact that all who
believe in the principle of divine incarnation have long
strained their eyes across the shining sands in an effort
to catch sight of the coming of one clothed with the power
of heaven, should make us pause and consider the cause of
such universality of opinion among peoples widely
separated. To dismiss the subject as a religious
superstition is not in harmony with unprejudiced reason. To
regard these prophecies merely as religious superstitions
rules out traditions that are as tenable and as reliable as
the facts of history. There is a cause for every effect,
and the cause underlying this almost unanimous expectation
of a messiah must have some of the omnipresence of a
universal law.
In considering a subject like this, which demonstrates
itself largely on metaphysical lines, it is necessary to
look beyond the material plane to the realm of causes.
The material universe is but the shadow of the spiritual
universe. The pulsations of the spiritual
Page 161
forces impinge upon and sway men, nations, and planets,
according to laws whose sweep in space and time is so
stupendous as to be beyond the ken or comprehension of
astronomy. But the fact should not be overlooked that
higher astronomy had its votaries in the past. The Magi and
the illumined sages of Chaldea and Egypt had astronomical
knowledge of universal scope. It was so broad, so gigantic,
so far removed from the comprehension of the common mind of
their day that it always remained the property of the few.
It was communicated in symbols, because of the poverty of
language to express its supermundane truths. In the sacred
literature of the Hindus are evidences of astronomical
erudition covering such vast periods of time that modern
philosophers cannot or do not give them credence, and they
are relegated to the domain of speculation rather than of
science. However the astronomers of the present age have
forged along on material lines until now they are beginning
to impinge upon the hidden wisdom of the mighty savants of
the past.
There is evidence that proves that the ages of the distant
past knew a higher astronomy than do we of this age, and
that they predicted the future of this planet through
cycles and aeons--its nights of mental darkness and the
dawn of its spiritual day--with the same accuracy that our
astronomers do its present-day planetary revolutions.
Jesus evidently understood this higher astronomy,
Page 162
and He knew that His work as a teacher and demonstrator of
spiritual law was related to it, yet not controlled by it.
He co-operated with the "law . . . and the prophets," as
far as they went, but He knew the higher law of the Christ
man and affirmed His supremacy in the words: "All authority
hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth."
Jesus evidently understood the aeons or ages through which
the earth passes. For example, in Matthew 13:39, our
English Bible reads: "The enemy that sowed them is the
devil: and the harvest is the end of the world; and the
reapers are angels." In the Diaglott version, which gives
the original Greek and a word-for-word translation, this
reads: "THAT ENEMY who SOWED them is the ADVERSARY; the
HARVEST is the End of the Age; and the REAPERS are
Messengers." In this as in many other passages where Jesus
used the word "age," it has been translated "world,"
leading the reader to believe that Jesus taught that this
planet was to be destroyed.
So we see that the almost universally accepted teaching of
the end of the world is not properly founded on the Bible.
The translators wanted to give the wicked a great scare, so
they put "the end of the world" into Jesus' mouth in
several instances where He plainly said "the end of the
age."
The Bible is a textbook of absolute Truth; but its
teachings are veiled in symbol and understood only by the
illumined. The old prophets knew that the
Page 163
earth would become spiritualized in time, and they looked
forward and saw it as a self-luminous planet. This is
plainly stated in numerous places in the Scriptures. Isaiah
says: "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory
of Jehovah is risen upon thee. . . . Violence shall no more
be heard in thy land, desolation nor destruction within thy
borders . . . The sun shall be no more thy light by day;
neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee:
but Jehovah will be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy
God thy glory." John in Revelation also saw a like
condition when he prophesied: "And there shall be night no
more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun;
for the Lord God shall give them light."
Job wrote:
"Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth ['the signs of the
Zodiac' (margin)] in their season? . . .
Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?
Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth?"
In accordance with the prophecies of the ancients, our
planetary system has just completed a journey of 2,169
years, in which there has been wonderful material progress
without its spiritual counterpart. But old conditions have
passed away and a new era has dawned. A great change is
taking place in the mentality of the race, and this change
is evidenced in literature, science, and religion. There is
a breaking
Page 164
away from old creeds and old doctrines, and there is a
tendency to form centers along lines of scientific
spiritual thought. The literature of the first half of the
twentieth century is so saturated with occultism as to be
an object of censure by conservatives, who denounce it as a
"lapse into the superstition of the past." Notwithstanding
the protests of the conservatives, on every hand are
evidences of spiritual freedom; it crops out in so many
ways that an enumeration would cover the whole field of
life.
This is surely the coming of the spirit of Christ or Truth,
just as was prophesied: "For yourselves know perfectly that
the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."
"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out
my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young
men shall see visions."
It is evident that Jesus and His predecessors had knowledge
of coming events on lines of such absolute accuracy as to
place it in the realm of truth ascertained, that is, exact
science.
That knowledge of our planet is daily becoming more
refined, is admitted by material scientists, but that it
will ever become spiritualized, as was declared by the
ancients, they do not yet admit.
The evidences of a radiant condition of matter on our
planet, are so plain that even the most skeptical are loath
to deny them, and they must eventually
Page 165
be accepted by all scientists. The physicists are rapidly
altering their viewpoint. They are working out their
researches in the mental realm. Recently one of the
greatest of them, Professor Robert Andrews Millikan, wrote
that "matter is no longer a mere game of marbles played by
blind men. An atom is now an amazingly complicated
organism, possessing many interrelated parts and exhibiting
many functions and properties--energy properties, radiation
properties, wave properties, and other properties, quite as
mysterious as any that used to masquerade under the name of
'mind.' Hence the phrase 'All is matter' and 'All is mind'
have now become mere shibboleths completely devoid of
meaning."
But these material evidences of a new era are not necessary
to the sensitive ones who feel it in the very atmosphere
and who are thrilled by the light of the Christ principle.
To those who hunger after righteousness, this Christ
principle is the elixir of eternal life; but those who are
wedded to things material would better beware! The race is
changing its vibrations to a higher rate, and the higher
types of the race must keep the equipoise by unfolding
spiritually or they will lose their hold. Cases of loss of
mental poise are now getting so numerous as to attract the
attention of the medical world, and these cases will
increase in frequency in the future, unless there is a
stronger development of the spiritual nature of men. Old
things are passing away!
Page 166
Do you belong to the old, or are you building anew from
within and keeping time with the progress of the age? The
"harvest" or "consummation of the age" pointed out by Jesus
is not far off. This is no theological scare; it is a
statement based on a law that is now being tested and
proved.
Listen to your inner voice; cultivate the good, the pure,
the God within you. Do not let your false beliefs keep you
in the darkness of error until you go out like a dying
ember. The divine spark is within you. Fan it into flame by
right thinking, right living, and right doing, and you will
find the "new Jerusalem."
That Jesus was the fulfillment in the flesh of the
long-looked-for Messiah is accepted by those who have had
spiritual illumination, and is believed by millions who
have not had this illumination. Many have not lifted up the
Son of man in themselves, but they have faith that Jesus
did. Those who study the life of Jesus in its personal
aspect, to the exclusion of the spiritual, sense the
wonderful possibilities within man and the universe. One
who does not develop his own spiritual nature cannot see
the spiritual nature in Jesus or in other men who are
following Jesus in the regeneration.
Man employs a divine-natural law of growth or evolution
before he reaches the divine spiritual. Those under the
divine-natural law are referred to in the Bible as the
"children of God." However it is
Page 167
possible for the "children of God" to forge ahead of the
average in spiritual understanding and power, and to become
those who are called "sons of God." All great spiritual
leaders have been of the latter class. They see that
"The fault . . . is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
What we all need is a fuller understanding of the spiritual
laws lying back of the phenomena of existence. "It is the
spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing."
Christians should seek the undying life and law of Jesus
and the creative substance of His body instead of the
historical man of Nazareth. Abstract Truth is good as a
beginning for the aspiring man, but Truth incarnated
through a great One is a dynamic booster, and we all
intuitively unite with such a one as Jesus, and are set
free from our human limitations by the vision and
quickening that contact with the Christ gives us.
It is a strange fact that in attempts to get the world's
estimate of great men the name of Jesus has seldom been
suggested. One would think that the army of men and women
teaching the doctrines of this greatest of men, would put
His name at the head of the list. Our attention is always
called to the classifications "secular" and "religious" to
explain why Jesus is not included among the world's great
men. In fact, Jesus is not considered a man but a god, and
in this fact we find another of the many
Page 168
separations that systematized religion has made between the
spiritual and the material.
The secular world has been taught that Jesus was so
superior to mortal man that He can be thought of only as a
god. This removes Him from us all as a man whose character
we may emulate and as an example of what we may become and
places His attainments far beyond human possibilities.
But Jesus laid no claim to that superiority over other men
with which the church so persistently invests Him. His
teaching is that all who keep the divine law as He kept it
will become like Him and His disciples. "Neither for these
only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me
through their word." "I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be perfected into one; that the world may know that
thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst
me."
By separating Jesus from the rest of the race we close the
door against the real man, the man that every personal man
must progress into. "My little children, of whom I am again
in travail until Christ be formed in you," said Paul. There
is a great awakening, in all parts of the world, to the
absolute necessity and immediate possibility of a race of
men patterned after Jesus of Nazareth. Thus is germinating
the seed of the new race that Jesus sowed. "Except a grain
of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself
alone; but if it die, it beareth much
Page 169
fruit." Jesus taught the highest Truth ever given to the
world, but in addition to His doctrines He gave the race
His purified, glorified body. He purified and spiritualized
the natural blood until it became a spiritual life stream,
into which all may enter and be cleansed. He spiritualized
the cells of His corruptible body and set them free in "the
heavens," where we may all appropriate or "eat" them. The
heavenly kingdom to which Jesus so often referred is the
unlimited spiritual consciousness where mind and body are
equal in all activities. When we come into the full
consciousness of "the heavens," the body will respond
instantly to every thought; then time, space, and all the
limitations of matter will disappear. It is in this
consciousness that Jesus now lives; His "second coming"
will be the revealing to men and women everywhere that He
has not been absent at any time. "Lo, I am with you always."
The heavenly signs of the second coming of the Son of man
are in the cosmic ether, which is now known to science as
interpenetrating all things. In the invisible ether, we
shall eventually find a complete record of the history of
the race, which spiritually developed man will be able to
read as easily as he now reads the daily paper. Sir James
Jeans in his book "The Mysterious Universe" says: "We must
think of space as being drenched with almost all the cosmic
radiation which has ever been generated since the world
began. Its rays come to us as messengers
Page 170
not only from the farthest depths of space, but also from
the farthest reaches of time. And, if we read it aright,
their message seems to be that somewhere, sometime, in the
history of the universe, matter has been annihilated, and
this not in tiny, but in stupendous amounts."
Jesus named God-Mind the "KINGDOM of the HEAVENS."
According to the original Greek, as given in the Emphatic
Diaglott, He said: "Reform! because the ROYAL MAJESTY of
the HEAVENS has approached." Bible translators have not
understood the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures, and
they have nearly always translated the word "heavens" in
the singular, making it read "heaven." This error has
misled many into thinking that Jesus, in His many parables
and comparisons, referred to a place called heaven. But it
is apparent that in these parables and comparisons He was
trying to explain to His hearers the character of the
omnipresent substance and life that has all potentiality
and is the source of everything that appears on the earth.
The coming in the clouds of the heavens of the "Son of man
sitting at the right hand of Power," as Jesus told the high
priest, is the "second coming," and we should look nowhere
else for the advent of the risen Christ. Christ is today
"sitting at the right hand of Power," which represents
spiritual power expressed; the clouds of heaven being the
obscurity in which sense consciousness holds the light of
Truth.
Page 171
Let us cease expecting Christ to come in bodily form; let
us turn our attention to His risen body already with us. In
this way we shall co-operate with Him in setting up the
kingdom of the heavens on the earth. In Matthew 24-23-27
Jesus gave the strongest kind of warning against the idea
of the personal appearance of the Christ. This passage
concludes with these words: "For as the lightning cometh
forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so
shall be the coming of the Son of man." These are Jesus'
own words, and they should have greater weight than Paul's
theory that Jesus will appear with a great shout in the
clouds of heaven, which has been interpreted literally as
the personal appearance of Jesus in the sky.
The world needs the Christ consciousness. The need implies
that the attainment is near at hand. There are men and
women who gaze up into the heavens for Christ, as did the
early disciples, instead of looking within their own heart
and mind. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into
heaven?" Only believe in the omnipresent Christ and you
will behold Him sitting on the right hand of Power within
your own being!
All who believe that Christ is here now should teach it and
preach it with all possible zeal.
The people are longing and reaching out for the healing
hand of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is great need of leadership under the Christ
Page 172
whose banner is love.
The Prince of Peace should be invited to the peace
conferences that are held by war-taxed and war-weary
peoples.
Christ righteousness should be dominant in settling the
differences between capital and labor.
Our schools in every grade need to teach the moral standard
of Christ as fundamental to all true character.
When our children have the Christ Spirit pointed out to
them as being within and as a living fount of health,
wealth, and happiness, they will quickly accept it.
Then the ambition of men will be to compete in bringing
forth Truth, goodness, and righteousness; and evil and sin,
with its sickness and poverty, will disappear from the
earth.
Page 173
[Go forward to Question Helps ->]
[Atom-Smashing Power of Mind]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|