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Talks on Truth
Lesson 1
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[Talks on Truth]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Lesson I
Reform Your God Thought
THIS IS distinctly the age of reforms. Never before have
there been such widespread and persistent efforts by both
men and women to right the wrongs of religion, society, and
politics.
2. From the hearts and the souls of millions goes up the
cry, "Set us free from our burdens!" Every imaginable
scheme of release is proposed, and each advocate of a
panacea for the people's ills stoutly affirms his to be the
only remedy that has virtue. It is observed that the
majority of these reformers are clamorous that laws be
enacted to force their theories upon the people. In this
they are following the same methods to cure the ills of the
body politic that they have followed in curing the body
physical, and the results will surely be of like impotency.
3. Laws, whether natural or artificial, are but the
evidence of an unseen power. They are simply effects, and
effects have no power in themselves.
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When man looks to them for help in any condition of
inharmony, he is departing from a universally recognized
principle of sequence. God, Spirit or Mind--whatever you
choose to name it--is the supreme dictator, and thought is
its only mode of manifestation. Mind generates thought
perpetually; all the harmonious and permanent affairs of
men, and the innumerable systems of the infinite cosmos,
are moved in majestic measures by its steady flow.
4. All power has its birth in the silence. There is no
exception to this rule in all the evidence of life. Noise
is the dying vibration of a spent force. All the clatter of
visibility, from the harangue of the ward politician to the
thunder's roar, is but evidence of exhausted power. As well
try to control the lightning's flash by wrapping the
thunder about it, as attempt to regulate mind by statutory
enactments.
5. All reforms must begin with their cause. Their cause is
mind, and mind does all its work in the realm of silence,
which in reality is the only realm where sound and power go
hand in hand. The visible outer world, with all its social,
religious, and political laws, customs, and ceremonies, is
but the flimsy screen upon which mind throws its
incongruous opinions. God's thought is love, the inherent
potentiality of the God man, which knows neither persons
nor things, mine nor thine, but a universal brotherhood in
which perfect equity and justice reign in joint supremacy.
All philosophers and sages have recognized this silent
cause, this perpetual outflow from center to circumference.
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Emerson says of Plato: "He was born to behold the
self-evolving power of Spirit, endless generator of new
ends; a power which is the key at once to the centrality
and the evanescence of things." Jesus Christ said: "The
kingdom of God is within you." "Seek ye first his kingdom,
and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added
unto you." Elijah found God, not in the whirlwind, or the
earthquake, or the fire, but in the "still small voice."
6. All men who have moved the world to better things have
received their inspiration from the Spirit within and have
always looked to it for instruction. God is not a person
who has set creation in motion and gone away and left it to
run down like a clock. God is Spirit, infinite Mind, the
immanent force and intelligence everywhere manifest in
nature. God is the silent voice that speaks into visibility
all the life there is. This power builds with hands deft
beyond the comprehension of man and keeps going, with all
its intricate machinery, universe upon universe, one within
another, yet never conflicting. All its building is from
center to circumference. The evidence for this runs from
the molecule and the atom of the physicist to the mighty
swing of a universe of planets around their central sun.
7. Every act of man has its origin in thought, which is
expressed into the phenomenal world from a mental center
that is but a point of radiation for an energy that lies
back of it. That point of radiation is the conscious I,
which in its correct relation is one with Cause, and has at
its command
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all the powers potential in Cause. The conscious I can look
in two directions--to the outer world where the thoughts
that rise within it give sensation and feeling, which
ultimate in a moving panorama of visibility; or to the
world within, whence all its life, power, and intelligence
are derived. When the I looks wholly within, it loses all
sense of the external; it is then as the Hindu yogi sitting
under his banyan tree with his eyes riveted on the point of
his nose, denying his very existence until his body is
paralyzed. When it looks wholly without, upon sensation and
feeling, it loses its bearings in the maze of its own
thought creations. Then it builds up a belief of
separateness from, and independence of, a causing power.
Man sees only form, and makes his God a personal being
located in a city of dimensions. This belief of
separateness leads to ignorance, because all intelligence
is derived from the one Divine Mind, and when the soul
thinks itself something alone, it cuts itself off in
consciousness from the fount of inspiration. Believing
himself separate from his source, man loses sight of the
divine harmony. He is like a musical note standing alone,
looking upon other notes but having no definite place upon
the great staff of nature, the grand symphony of life.
8. Life is a problem solvable by a principle whose essence
is intelligence, which the wise man always consults. The
ignorant and headstrong trusts to his intellect alone to
carry him through, and he is always in a labyrinth of
errors.
9. A belief prevails that God is somewhat inaccessible;
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that He can be approached only through certain religious
ordinances; that is, a man must profess religion, pray in a
formal way, and attend church in order to know God. But
these are mere opinions that have been taught and accepted
by those who perceive the letter instead of the spirit. For
if God is Spirit, the principle of intelligence and life,
everywhere present at all times, He must be just as
accessible as a principle of mathematics and fully as free
from formalism. When a mathematician finds that his answer
to a problem is not correct, he consults the principle and
works out the correct solution. He knows that all
mathematical problems inhere in mathematical principles and
that only through them can they be worked correctly. If he
persistently ignored principles and blundered around in a
jungle of experiments, he would be attempting to get up
"some other way," and he would prove himself a "thief and a
robber," for there is but one way. Jehovah God, infinite
Mind in expression, is the way, and this Mind is always
within reach of every man, woman, and child.
10. It is not necessary to go in state to God. If you had a
friend at your elbow at all times who could answer your
every question and who loved to serve you, you certainly
would not feel it necessary to go down on your knees to him
or ask a favor with fear and trembling.
11. God is your higher self and is in constant waiting upon
you. He loves to serve, and will attend faithfully to the
most minute details of your daily life. If you are a man of
the world, ask Him
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to help you to success in any line that you may choose, and
He will show you what true success is. Use Him every hour
of the day. If you are in doubt about a business move, no
matter how trivial, close your eyes for an instant and ask
the silent one within yourself what to do, just as you
would send a mental message to one whom you know and who
could catch your thought. The answer may not come
instantly; it may come when you least think of it, and you
will find yourself moved to do just the right thing. Never
be formal with God. He cares no more for forms and
ceremonies than do the principles of mathematics for fine
figures or elaborate blackboards.
12. You cannot use God too often. He loves to be used, and
the more you use Him the more easily you use Him and the
more pleasant His help becomes. If you want a dress, a car,
a house, or if you are thinking of driving a sharp bargain
with your neighbor, going on a journey, giving a friend a
present, running for office, or reforming a nation, ask God
for guidance, in a moment of silent soul desire.
13. Nothing is too wicked or unholy to ask God about. In my
early experience in the study of Christian metaphysics, I
was told that through the power of Divine Mind I could have
anything I desired. I had a lot I wanted to sell and I
asked God to dispose of it to a certain man who I thought
needed it. That night I dreamed that I was a bandit holding
up my customer. The dream showed me that I was asking God
to do what was not right and I thereby gained a lesson. A
saloonkeeper came
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to me for health treatments and was helped. He said: "I
also need treatments for prosperity, but of course you
could not prosper a man in my business." I replied:
"Certainly. God will help you to prosper. 'If ye shall ask
anything of the Father, he will give it you in my name'
does not exclude saloonkeepers." So we treated the man for
prosperity. He afterward reported that he was out of the
saloon business, and had found prosperity in other lines of
work.
14. If you are doing things that are considered wicked, you
will find swift safety in asking God first, then acting or
refraining, as you are moved. Some people act as if they
thought that they could hide themselves from the one
omnipresent intelligence, but this is the conclusion of
thoughtlessness. God knows everything you do, and you might
just as well have His advice. God does not want you to
reverence Him with fear. God certainly never can get your
confidence if you constantly stand in quaking fear of Him.
He will do you a favor just as quickly if you ask in a
jolly, laughing way as He would if you made your request in
a long, melancholy prayer. God is natural, and He loves the
freedom of the little child. When you find yourself in His
kingdom it will be "as a little child."
15. God's kingdom of love and unity is now being set up in
the earth. His hand will guide the only ship that will ever
sail into the Arcadian port, and the contented, peaceful,
and happy people that throng its decks will sing with one
voice: "Glory to God in the highest."
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