|
Dynamics for Living
Man
[<- Go back to Creation]
[Dynamics for Living]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
MAN IS an idea in Divine Mind. He is the epitome of Being.
Man is the apex of God's creation, created in His
image-likeness. Ideal man is the perfect man, the Christ,
the offspring of Divine Mind. Before there could be a man
there must have been an idea of man. God, the Father,
Divine Mind, had an idea of man, and this idea is his Son,
the perfect-man idea, the offspring of God-Mind. This Son
is the Christ, the only begotten of the Father. The Son,
being the expressed image-likeness of the
Page 44
Father, is perfect, even as the Father is perfect. All that
we find in Divine Mind we find in its offspring.
Manifest Man
Manifest man should be as the ideal. He will be when the
individual identifies himself with the Christ. When he is
identified with anything less than perfection he manifests
some degree of imperfection.
Man makes his world through the activity of ideas in his
consciousness. The realm man is the embodiment of God. All
the God-substance and the power to make it active is
inherent within him.
Image-Likeness
When we are quickened to spiritual understanding and fully
realize the true character of God and our own nature as the
image, or idea, of God we will begin to live as Jesus lived
in order that we may bring forth the likeness. To perceive
the true character of God and His attributes and then to
grasp our relationship to Him is to realize that His
attributes are our attributes. His power is our power. His
character is our character.
Man is not limited in life. He has existed with the Father
always. At the very beginning
Page 45
of creation he was born into being through the Son, the
Christ, the perfect, ideal man.
Three Departments of Man
Every man asks the question at some time, "What am I?" God
answers: "Spiritually you are My idea of Myself as I see
Myself in the ideal; physically you are the law of My mind
executing that idea." Know yourself as an integral idea in
Divine Mind. The mind of God is Spirit, soul, body; that
is, mind, idea, expression. The mind of man is Spirit,
soul, body--not separate from God-Mind, but existing in it
and making it manifest in an identity peculiar to the
individual.
Every man is building into his consciousness the three
departments of God-Mind, and his success in the process is
evidenced by the harmony, in his consciousness, of Spirit,
soul, and body. If he is all body, he is but one-third
expressed. If to body he had added soul, he is two-thirds
man. If to these two he is adding Spirit, he is on the way
to the perfect manhood that God designed.
Man has neither Spirit, soul, nor body of his own--he has
identity only. He can say "I." He uses God Spirit, God
soul, and God body, as his "I" elects. If he uses them with
the idea that they belong to him, he develops selfishness,
Page 46
which limits his capacity and dwarfs his product. In his
right relation, man is the inlet and the outlet of an
everywhere-present life, substance, and intelligence. It is
imperative that the individual understand this relation in
order to grow naturally. Conscious identification must
prevail in the whole man before he can be in right
relation. This involves not only a recognition of the
universal intelligence, life, and substance, but also their
various combinations in man's consciousness.
Spirit-Man
Spirit in man is the I AM, the individuality. The
individuality is the true self; that which is undivided
from God; our spiritual identity; the God part of us. It is
that which characterizes one as a distinct entity or
particular manifestation of divine Principle. Individuality
is eternal. It can never be destroyed. Spirit is the seat
of power. Its abode is on the invisible side of man's
nature. The I AM is the name of the spiritual self. I AM is
man's self-identity, the center around which man's system
revolves. It is established in Principle. It is divinely
guided in its acts and they are in harmony with divine law.
Spirit is the same in character as God. The Spirit is the
divine center in man and is always in the Absolute; it does
not become involved in effects but stands
Page 47
as the creative Cause of the absolute good. It is the
indwelling Christ or spiritual nucleus within each
individual.
Soul-Man
The soul is man's consciousness. It is the underlying idea
back of any expression. In man, the soul is the many
accumulated ideas of his present expression. In its
original and true sense, the soul of man is the expressed
idea of man in Divine Mind. It is that which man has
apprehended or developed out of Spirit. The soul is not of
the realm of God ideas but is the second emanation in the
creative law. The soul touches both the inner realm of
Spirit, from which it receives direct inspiration, and the
external world, from which it receives impressions.
Body-Man
The body of man is soul expressing. Soul makes the body. It
is the outer expression of the soul, or consciousness. The
body is the precipitation of the thinking part of man. God
created the idea of the body of man as a self-perpetuating,
self-renewing organism which man reconstructs into his
personal body. God creates the body idea, or divine idea,
and man, by his thinking, makes it manifest. All thoughts
and ideas embody themselves according to their character.
Material
Page 48
thoughts make a material body. Spiritual thoughts make a
spiritual body. The body is the outer court of the soul, an
exact representative in form of the ideals that are
revolving in the inner realms of its domain.
Page 49
[Go forward to Consciousness ->]
[Dynamics for Living]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|