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Prosperity
Chapter 4
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[Prosperity]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Lesson Four
Man, the Inlet and Outlet of Divine Mind
THE POSSESSIONS of the Father are not in stocks and bonds
but in the divine possibilities implanted in the mind and
soul of every man. Through the mind of man ideas are
brought into being. Through the soul of man God's wealth of
love finds its expression.
It is well said that the mind is the crucible in which the
ideal is transmuted into the real. This process of
transformation is the spiritual chemistry we must learn
before we are ready to work intelligently in the great
laboratory of the Father's substance. There is no lack of
material there to form what we will, and we can all draw on
it as a resource according to our purpose. Wealth of
consciousness will express itself in wealth of
manifestation.
One who knows Principle has a certain inner security given
him by the understanding of God-Mind. Our affirmations are
for the purpose of establishing in our consciousness a
broad understanding of the principles on which all life and
existence depend. Our religion is based on a science in
which
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ideas are related to Principle and to other ideas in a
great universal Mind that works under mental laws. It is
not a new religion nor a religious fad but points out the
real and the true in any religion. If you know Principle,
you are able to know at once whether a religion is founded
on facts or has a basis of man-made ideas.
In order to demonstrate Principle we must keep establishing
ourselves in certain statements of the law. The more often
you present to your mind a proposition that is logical and
true the stronger becomes that inner feeling of security to
you. The mind of man is built on Truth and the clearer your
understanding of Truth is the more substantial your mind
becomes. There is a definite and intimate relation between
what we call Truth and this universal substance of Being.
When the one Mind is called into action in your mind by
your thinking about it, it lays hold of the substance by
the law of attraction or sympathy of thought. Thus the more
you know about God the more successful you will be in
handling your body and all your affairs. The more you know
about God the healthier you will be, and of course the
healthier you are the happier, more beautiful, and better
you will be in every way. If you know how to take hold of
the universal substance and mold it to your uses, you will
be prosperous. Mind substance enters into every little
detail of your daily life whether you realize the Truth or
not. However, to establish yourself in a certain security
in the possession and use of universal life, love,
intelligence, and
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substance, you must get a consciousness of it by first
mentally seeing the Truth.
All true action is governed by law. Nothing just happens.
There are no miracles. There is no such thing as luck.
Nothing comes by chance. All happenings are the result of
cause and can be explained under the law of cause and
effect. This is a teaching that appeals to the innate logic
of our mind, yet we sometimes feel like doubting it when we
see things happen that have no apparent cause. These
happenings that seem miraculous are controlled by laws that
we have not yet learned and result from causes that we have
not been able to understand. Man does not demonstrate
according to the law but according to his knowledge of the
law, and that is why we must seek to learn more of it. God
is law and God is changeless. If we would bring forth the
perfect creation, we must conform to law and unfold in our
mind, body, and affairs as a flower unfolds by the
principle of innate life, intelligence, and substance.
The United States Congress establishes laws that rule the
acts of all American citizens. Those who keep the laws are
rewarded by the protection of the law. Congress does not
see to it that men obey the laws. That is left to the
executive department of the government. The same thing is
true of the universal law. God has ordained the law but
does not compel us to follow it. We have free will, and the
manner of our doing is left entirely to us. When we know
the law and work with it, we are rewarded by its protection
and use it to our good. If we break the
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universal law, we suffer limitations, just as a convicted
lawbreaker is limited to a cell or prison. The Holy Spirit
is the executive official through whom Divine Mind enforces
its laws.
You can see from this consideration that God has bestowed
the power of Divine Mind on every man. You are using your
organism, body, mind, and soul, to carry out a law that God
established as a guide for all creation. If you righteously
fulfill this mission, you cannot fail to get the righteous
results. If you fail to live in accordance with the
law--well, that is your affair. God cannot help it if you
are not following the law and by it demonstrating health,
happiness, prosperity, and all good. Blackstone said that
law is a rule of action. So with God's law: if you follow
the rules of action, you will demonstrate Truth. You will
have all that God has prepared for you from the foundation
of the world.
What are the rules of the law? First, God is good and all
His creations are good. When you get that firmly fixed in
your mind, you are bound to demonstrate good and nothing
but good can come into your world. If you let in the
thought that there is such a thing as evil and that you are
as liable to evil as to good, then you may have conditions
that conform to your idea of evil. But remember, evil and
evil conditions are not recognized by Divine Mind. If you
have thought of evil as a reality or as having any power
over you, change your thought at once and begin to build up
good brain cells that never heard about anything but good.
Pray thus: I am a
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child of the absolute good. God is good, and I am good.
Everything that comes into my life is good, and I am going
to have only the good. Establish this consciousness and
only the good will be attracted to you and your life will
be a perpetual joy. I cannot tell you why this is true but
I know that it is and that you can prove it for yourself to
your satisfaction.
If you will start right now with the idea of universal and
eternal goodness uppermost in your mind, talk only about
the good, and see with the mind's eye everything and
everybody as good, then you will soon be demonstrating all
kinds of good. Good thoughts will become a habit, and good
will manifest itself to you. You will see it everywhere.
And people will be saying of you, "I know that that man is
good and true. I have confidence in him. He makes me feel
the innate goodness of all men." That is the way in which
the one Mind expresses itself through man. It is the law.
Those who live in accordance with the law will get the
desired results. Those who fail to do so will get the
opposite results.
The law also applies to our demonstrations of prosperity.
We cannot be very happy if we are poor, and nobody needs to
be poor. It is a sin to be poor. You may ask whether Jesus
cited any example of poverty's being a sin? Yes. You will
find it in the story of the prodigal son. That is often
used as a text to preach to moral sinners, but a close
study of it shows that Jesus was teaching the sin of lack
and how to gain plenty. It is a wonderful prosperity lesson.
The prodigal son took his inheritance and went
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into a far country, where he spent it in riotous living and
came to want. When he returned to his father's house he was
not accused of moral shortcoming, as we should expect.
Instead the father said, "Bring forth quickly the best robe
and put it on him." That was a lesson in good apparel. It
is a sin to wear poor clothes. This may seem to some to be
rather a sordid way of looking at the teaching of Jesus,
but we must be honest. We must interpret it as He gave it,
not as we think it ought to be.
The next act of the father was to put a gold ring on the
prodigal's finger, another evidence of prosperity. The
Father's desire for us is unlimited good, not merely the
means of a meager existence. The ring symbolizes the
unlimited, that to which there is no end. It also
represents omnipresence and omnipotence in the manifest
world. When the father gave that ring to the son, he gave
him the key to all life activity. It was the symbol of his
being a son and heir to all that the father had. "All that
is mine is thine." The Father gives us all that He has and
is, omnipotence, omniscience, all love, and all substance
when we return to the consciousness of His house of plenty.
"Put ... shoes on his feet" was the father's next command
to the servants. Feet represent that part of our
understanding that comes into contact with earthly
conditions. In the head or "upper room" we have the
understanding that contacts spiritual conditions, but when
we read in Scripture anything about the feet, we may know
that it refers to our
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understanding of things of the material world.
The next thing the father did for his returned son was to
proclaim a feast for him. That is not the way we treat
moral sinners. We decree punishment for them; we send them
to jail. But the Father gives a feast to those who come to
Him for supply. He does not dole out only a necessary
ration but serves the "fatted calf," universal substance
and life in its fullness and richness.
The parable is a great lesson on prosperity, for it shows
us that people who are dissipating their substance in sense
ways are sinners and eventually fall into a consciousness
of lack. It also proves that they may become lawful and
prosperous again by returning to the Father-Mind. When
there are so many lessons in the Bible for moral
delinquents, there is no need to twist the meaning of this
parable to that purpose. It is so plainly a lesson on the
cause of lack and want. Jesus expressly states that the
youth wasted his substance in a "far country," a place
where the divine law of plenty was not realized. There is a
very close relation between riotous living and want.
Persons who waste their substance in sensation come to want
in both physical and financial ways. If we would make the
right use of the divine substance and the divine law, we
must come back to the consciousness of the Father and
conserve our body substance. Then health and prosperity
will become naturally manifest. If we are not resourceful
or secure in our use of the one divine substance, we are
not secure in anything. Substance is a very important
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thing in our world, in fact the foundation of it. Therefore
we should be secure in our understanding of it and use it
according to God's law.
Then let us enter into the very Truth of Being and observe
the divine law. Let us realize that our Father is always
here and that we are in a "far country" only when we forget
His presence. He is constantly giving us just what we will
acknowledge and accept under His law. We can take our
inheritance and divorce ourselves in consciousness from the
Father, but we shall suffer the results, for then we shall
not do things in divine wisdom and divine order, and there
will be a "famine" in that land. Let us rather seek the
divine wisdom to know how to handle our substance and the
law of prosperity will be revealed to us. To come into this
realization, declare with faith and all assurance: The
all-providing Mind is my resource, and I am secure in my
prosperity.
Primitive men did not contend for the products of nature so
long as they could easily pick the fruits from the trees
and sleep beneath the branches. When they began to live in
caves contention arose over the best places, and the
strongest were usually the victors. "Success leads to
success." Those who were able to take the best did so and
proved the law that "whosoever hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have abundance." This seems at first thought
to be an unjust law, but it has always prevailed in the
affairs of the world. Jesus, the greatest of
metaphysicians, taught it as a divine law and gave it His
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commendation. He could not have done otherwise, for it is a
righteous law that man shall have what he earns, that
industry, effort, and ability be rewarded and laziness
discouraged.
This law operates in every department of being. Those who
seek the things that the material realm has to offer
usually find them. Those who strive for moral excellence
usually attain that goal. Those who aspire to spiritual
rewards are also rewarded. The law is that we get what we
want and work for, and all experience and history have
proved it a good law. If this law were removed, world
progress would cease and the race become extinct. Where
there is no reward for effort, there will be no effort and
society will degenerate. We may talk wisely about the inner
urge, but when it has no outer field of action it
eventually becomes discouraged and ceases to act.
When men evolve spiritually to a certain degree, they open
up inner faculties that connect them with cosmic Mind, and
attain results that are sometimes so startling that they
seem to be miracle workers. What seems miraculous is the
action of forces on planes of consciousness not previously
understood. When a man releases the powers of his soul, he
does marvels in the sight of the material-minded, but he
has not departed from the law. He is merely functioning in
a consciousness that has been sporadically manifested by
great men in all ages. Man is greater than all the other
creations of God-Mind because he has the ability to
perceive and to lay hold of the ideas inherent in God-Mind
and through faith bring
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them into manifestation. Thus evolution proceeds by man's
laying hold of primal spiritual ideas and expressing them
in and through his consciousness.
In the exercise of his I AM identity man needs to develop
certain stabilizing ideas. One of them is continuity or
loyalty to Truth. In the Scriptures and in life we have
many examples of how love sticks to the thing on which it
has set its mind. Nothing so tends to stabilize and unify
all the other faculties of mind as love. That is why Jesus
gave as the greatest commandment that we love God.
When you first begin to think of God as everywhere present
substance, your mind will not adhere continuously to the
idea. You will drop your attention after a while and think,
"I haven't enough to meet all our bills." There you have
made a break and have lost momentum in your ongoing, and
you must patch it up quickly. Affirm, "I am not going to be
led astray. The old ideas are error and they are nothing.
They have no power over me. I am going to stick to this
proposition. God is love, the substance of my supply."
Ruth, the Moabitish woman, became so attached to Naomi
(spiritual thought) that she would not leave her but
accompanied her back to Palestine. She was loyal and
steadfast because of her love. What was the result of her
stick-to-itiveness? She was at first a gleaner; then became
the wife of a very rich man and was immortalized as one of
the ancestresses of David. This lesson of abiding in our
highest ideals is one that we must understand. Nothing
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is so important as sticking to the ideal and never giving
up the work we have set out to accomplish. Affirm the law
continuously and be loyal to it and you will become
successful in its demonstration.
You have doubtless found that there is a spiritual law that
brings into manifestation the thoughts we concentrate our
attention on, a divine universal law of mind activity that
is unfailing. Some adverse condition of your own thought
has prevented a full demonstration. Do not let this swerve
you from your loyalty to the law. You may seem to attain
results very slowly, but that is the best reason for
sticking closely to your ideal and not changing your mind.
Be loyal to Principle and the adverse condition will break
up. Then the true light will come and the invisible
substance you have been faithfully affirming will begin to
reveal itself to you in all its fullness of good.
Jesus stressed the idea that God has made abundant
provision for all His children, even to the birds of the
air and the lilies of the field. The Lord has clothed you
with soul substance as gloriously as He did Solomon. But
you must have faith in this all-providing substance of good
and by your continuity of imagination set it to forming the
things you desire. If you are persistent in working this
idea in your conscious mind, it will eventually drop down
into your subconscious mind and continue to work there
where things take form and become manifest. Invisible
substance, when your subconsciousness becomes filled with
it to the overflowing point, will
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ooze out, as it were, into all your affairs. You will
become more prosperous and successful so gradually, simply,
and naturally that you will not realize that it derives
from a divine source and in answer to your prayers. We must
realize all the while however that whatever we put as seed
into the subconscious soil will eventually bring forth
after its kind and we must exercise the greatest caution so
that we do not think or talk about insufficiency or allow
others to talk to us about it. As we sow in mind so shall
we reap in manifestation.
Some of our well-meaning friends have a way of loading us
up with "hard-times" ideas that disperse this prosperity
substance that we have accumulated. Sometimes even one
adverse thought will cause it to escape; then we must go
back and patch up the broken reservoir of substance
thinking. We have to hold it in our mind in all its
fullness and we should not let go of it for a minute lest
the work of demonstration be delayed. When you retire at
night, let your last thought be about the abundance of
spiritual substance. See it filling all the house and the
minds of all the people in the house. That potent thought
will then sink into your subconsciousness and continue to
work whether you are asleep or awake.
The law of supply is a divine law. This means that it is a
law of mind and must work through mind. God will not go to
the grocery and bring food to your table. But when you
continue to think about God as your real supply, everything
in your mind begins to awaken and to contact the divine
substance,
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and as you mold it in your consciousness, ideas begin to
come which will connect you with the visible manifestation.
You first get the ideas in consciousness direct from their
divine source, and then you begin to demonstrate in the
outer. It is an exact law and it is scientific and
unfailing. "First the blade, then the ear, then the full
grain in the ear."
When you work in harmony with this universal law, every
needed thing is abundantly supplied. Your part is simply to
fulfill the law; that is, to keep your mind filled with
mind substance, to store up spiritual substance until the
mind is filled with it and it cannot help but manifest in
your affairs in obedience to the law "Whosoever hath, to
him shall be given." But you are not fulfilling the law
when you allow poverty-stricken thoughts to dwell in your
mind. They draw other like thoughts, and your consciousness
will have no room for the truth that prosperity is for you.
Poverty or prosperity, it all depends on you. All that the
Father has is yours, but you alone are responsible for the
relationship of the Father's good to your life. Through
conscious recognition of your oneness with the Father and
His abundance you draw the living substance into visible
supply.
Do not hesitate to think that prosperity is for you. Do not
feel unworthy. Banish all thoughts of being a martyr to
poverty. No one enjoys poverty, but some people seem to
enjoy the sympathy and compassion they can excite because
of it. Overcome any leaning in that direction and every
belief that you were meant to be poor. No one is ever
hopeless
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until he is resigned to his imagined fate. Think
prosperity, talk prosperity, not in general but in specific
terms, not as something for the other fellow but as your
very own right. Deny every appearance of failure. Stand by
your guns and affirm supply, support, and success in the
very face of question and doubt, then give thanks for
plenty in all your affairs, knowing for a certainty that
your good is now being fulfilled in Spirit, in mind, and in
manifestation.
A Prosperity Treatment
Twenty-Third Psalm
(Revised)
The Lord is my banker; my credit is good.
He maketh me to lie down in the consciousness of
omnipresent abundance;
He giveth me the key to His strongbox.
He restoreth my faith in His riches;
He guideth me in the paths of prosperity for His name's
sake.
Yea, though I walk in the very shadow of debt,
I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me;
Thy silver and Thy gold, they secure me.
Thou preparest a way for me in the presence of the
collector;
Thou fillest my wallet with plenty; my measure runneth over.
Surely goodness and plenty will follow me all the days of
my life,
And I shall do business in the name of the Lord forever.
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[Prosperity]
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