|
Talks on Truth
Lesson 10
[<- Go back to Lesson 9]
[Talks on Truth]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Lesson X
The Lord's Body
THE TEACHING of Christianity is that the human race was
originally in a beautiful garden, a state of consciousness
described as Paradise. There were placed before the race
two ways of attaining knowledge--one through experience,
the other through the inspiration and guidance of God; and
the race chose the diverse or hard way of experience. They
followed Satan, thinking that through experience they would
get wisdom and pleasure. In their ignorance they fell short
of the law. They did not know how to take advantage of the
forces of mind, and the result was the death of their
bodies.
2. But there was promise of restoration; that men should
come back into that paradise or place where eternal joy and
satisfaction exist, that through Jesus the original life of
man should be restored. Jesus understood the law of God,
and came to show us the way to live our lives, to resurrect
ourselves out of sin and death into immortality. He
Page 115
resurrected His body and promised that those who keep His
sayings and follow His law shall likewise resurrect their
bodies; yet nearly two thousand years have passed and no
man has demonstrated the resurrection, so far as we know.
The teaching has been sidetracked and misunderstood. The
popular Christianity of the day tells us that resurrection
is of the soul, that it is to take place after death, or at
some future time, and that everybody must die.
3. Now a new consciousness, a new understanding of this
great teaching of Jesus is needed. We are beginning to
understand it scientifically. Our physical scientists are
showing us in their laboratories that life should be
continuous. They tell us that the functions of our body are
self-perpetuating if rightly directed. There is no reason
why it should be destroyed. All about us are the forces
that enter into the body, and the elements that are found
in chemistry are also in the body of flesh.
4. The inner intelligence is able to reconstruct the body;
the elements for rebuilding are around us and in us. All
conditions join to make possible the development of an
immortal structure that shall express man in his true
nature. The intuitions of the soul emphasize the point that
deathless life here and now is the life that God has
appointed us to recall and to develop. Not until we have
done this can it be said that we have availed ourselves of
the Jesus Christ redemption or that we have our abiding
place in the Lord's body.
5. Why have we failed for these two thousand years? Because
we have not understood and applied
Page 116
the divine law. The early disciples evidently caught sight
of the great fact that man has within himself this
resurrecting power to overcome disease and sickness, but
they did not fasten it strongly enough in the race
experience, and man has slipped back into the old adverse
thought.
6. We must first reduce our religion to facts. What do we
know about it? Verily, "by their fruits ye shall know
them." The fruit of your thought is your body, and you can
judge your thought by the character of your body. So also
you can change your body by changing your thoughts. Then
here is the key to the situation: To resurrect the body we
must change our thoughts. Every thought must be in
accordance with absolute Truth; there must be no adverse
thought. We must separate ourselves from all thought of
sickness, weakness, and death. They must have no part in
the consciousness of the one who would follow Jesus. "And
you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your
trespasses and sins."
7. Divine metaphysicians take special care that they are
logical in their reasoning. They hold that all truth has
its origin in Divine Mind. Whatever we can conceive as
being true must work itself out in creation, and if the
creation seems to fall short of the divine perfection in
any way, that is our fault; either we are not seeing the
whole or we are lacking in understanding. If we hold to our
logic that the good can create nothing but good, it will
bring us to the right conclusion, and the manifestation
will always prove itself. Holding to this logic of the mind
Page 117
and the conclusions of the mind, we find that there are two
creations; Divine Mind idealizes that which it afterward
brings forth, just as a man works out his invention in his
mind before he makes the model. God is the all-potential
mind. God creates first in idea; His idea of creation is
perfect, and that idea exists as a perfect model upon which
all manifestation rests. The body of man must rest upon a
divine body idea in Divine Mind, and it logically follows
that the inner life, substance, and intelligence of all
flesh are perfect. But you say, "I have not a perfect body;
my body is not the perfect idea, because I can see that it
is material." It may be that you do not understand; that
you do not discern the Lord's body, which lack, Paul said,
is the cause of weakness and sickness and death.
8. Every person has a perfect body in mind, and that
perfect mind body is expressing itself through his I AM or
the Lord God in him; it is bringing itself into
manifestation just as fast as he will let it, just as fast
as he perceives God in the flesh. Do you not see how
closely you must follow and hold yourself in the true
logic? Plato said, "Pure reason is the highest faculty of
the mind." Many people wander away from pure reason because
it does not seem to agree with the sight of sense. They say
that there is evil and error everywhere; that it cannot be,
then, that good is the reality of God, of man, and of the
universe. The creative law makes man responsible for the
bringing forth of the divine perfection. God finished His
work--in the ideal, and we are making it manifest. If your
body is not perfect, it is because
Page 118
you have not let into your consciousness all the
perfections that exist for you in Divine Mind, perfections
that would be fully expressed in you, as they were in
Jesus, if you would discern the truth of the ideal real
body called the Lord's body.
9. Then if I want to see the real expression of Divine Mind
in my body, all I have to do is to image it mentally. I
must put my I AM identity into it and affirm that the
perfect body, as idealized by God, is now manifest in my
hands, in my feet, in my heart, and in every part of my
organism. Is that good logic? Of course it is. Will it
work? Of course it will. This is the real secret of
metaphysical healing. In the beginning the Word was God,
but the Word became flesh and dwelt among men and they saw
His body, His glory, and His perfection. Then Jesus Christ
was the Word or idea of Divine Mind made manifest in form.
Jesus saved His body from dissolution and raised it up to
the heavenly estate, which is substance so pure that no
disintegrating force can be found in it. This gives an
importance to the body beyond the usual estimate. People
think that soul salvation is the object of the Christian
life, but Jesus, in speaking of the body, mentioned His
ability to "lay it down, and . . . take it again," even
this "temple of God"; and on another occasion He said, "He
that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also:
and greater works than these shall he do."
10. Can we save our body from death? Yes; by seeing it as
the very temple of God; and that means more than looking at
it as if we were looking
Page 119
through telescopes. We must see our body with our mind; see
it with something more than the intellectual mind; see it
with Jehovah, the Lord God within us.
11. When the perfect man is conceived in pure reason, the
reason of Spirit, and man sees himself as he is in God's
mind, the Lord's body begins at once to appear. We all can
see our body with the single eye of which Jesus spoke, and
through this faith in the reality of the invisible body we
can regenerate the flesh. The body is wonderfully obedient
to the I AM mind, hastens to do its bidding, and is renewed
and transformed by a thought. But so many of us see the
body as it appears to mortal sense, and by thus seeing it,
we put it under the laws governing the sense body. "Be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind."
12. The real continues; the seeming passes away. We know
that we are healed by right thought, that we can and do
raise these sick bodies and restore them to health. Where
is the limit to that healing? There is none. We can go
right on and perfect the manifestation of the body idea as
it is conceived in Divine Mind. That is where pure reason
and logic sustain us. No matter how many people have died
or how many are going to die, the logic is good if it
proves the healing of even one ill. It is a real pleasure
to know that there is a power behind this universe; that
there is a real God; that life is something more than the
mere piling up of material things; that we can become the
real man and that all pure ideals can be fulfilled here and
now.
Page 120
13. The real body of God is a live body. It knows. It is a
living body. Above all, it is a beautiful body. God Himself
is to be in that temple, and it will not be necessary to
have any external light, for the light celestial will
illuminate the redeemed body in which God takes up an
eternal habitation. It is wonderful how quickly the body
responds to thoughts of life and health, and how you can
get a flow of health instantly if you hold the right
thoughts. Just closing the outer sense and holding the
thought that you are the perfect manifestation of Divine
Mind will often heal the body of its ills. Sense mind sees
the disease and clings to it, when it is trying to get
away. Disease is not natural, and it knows it. Then relax
the will of the flesh and let Spirit carry on its perfect
work in you, and evil or sick conditions will disappear and
you will be whole. All good healers will tell you that
their best work is done by simply letting go of sense
appearances and realizing that there is but one universal
Mind, and that that Mind makes a perfect body for every man.
14. We see this law proved again and again in the healing
power of nature. Virtually all doctors admit that the body
is naturally restored to health; that neither they nor
their drugs do the healing. What causes this restoration?
The divine idea of perfection. So our body really is the
temple of the living God. This so-called material body has
within it and about it the divine perfection. Do not make
any separation. Hold that your body is spiritual, and hold
nothing less, no matter how much your flesh cries out. It
may be that flesh and blood and
Page 121
bones can be expressed in a larger and better way; that is
for you to determine--but insist upon the truth. Carry out
that living, true Word which every one of us knows to be
the offspring of Divine Mind. "And the Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us (and we behold his glory, glory as of
the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and
truth."
Page 122
[Go forward to Lesson 11 ->]
[Talks on Truth]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|