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Talks on Truth
Lesson 3
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[Talks on Truth]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Lesson III
The I AM in Its Kingdom
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
--Shakespeare
IDEAS ARE hinged; they swing in and they swing out. Not
everyone has observed this. But everyone must observe it,
and note also the swing of his particular ideas. An idea
that swings in has a mission. It is of Spirit, and has
power to do far beyond an idea that swings out and
dissipates its forces in the whirl of the periphery. On the
inner side, ideas behold the great wisdom and attach
themselves to it; then they lose their identity as limited
things and take on the unlimited.
2. A single idea born of wisdom is irresistible.
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No one can estimate the power for good that is in an idea
generated in the center of the home of ideas, the inner
man. When an idea comes from that great galaxy of supreme
ideas it goes forth in strength and harmony. It is a
perfect sphere with no point liable to friction or
collision.
3. A man once conceived the idea of building a ship,
water-tight above and below. He put his idea into
visibility and sent the ship forth on the waves. At first
it rode the sea with comparative safety; but storms came,
the waves dashed against it, and it went down. Why? Because
he had not ballasted it. It was secure above and below from
the elements, but it was not equalized in the rolling waves.
4. You are daily, hourly conceiving ideal ships and sending
them out upon the waves of the angry sea of human thoughts.
They are apparently water-tight; they carry your highest
aspirations and desires. You look longingly for their
return, but they do not come. Why is it? They were
staunchly built according to human plans. But something was
lacking. You failed to put your soul into them. They were
shells, without depth or hold or cargo of love.
5. All the mental ships that you send out upon the
turbulent seas of human thought must be ballasted with your
heart's love or they will eventually founder. They may
float safely for a season, but the reefs wait for them in
the distance, and you may watch in vain for their return.
6. I AM is expressed through I will; it is the business of
I AM to know when the I will activities are ideally true.
In its right relation in Being, I
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AM never possesses or owns anything. All things in the
universe are its to use, but it must not claim them as
personal property.
7. If the wheel that rests in the water and communicates
energy to the machinery of the mill should suddenly become
possessed with conscious volition and proceed to dip out a
portion of the stream as its individual property, it would
well represent the position of the I AM that attempts to
separate its powers and capacities from universal Mind.
8. The I AM is pure Spirit, without parts or passions. It
is the prism through which the white light of Being is
focused and refracted on the screen of visibility in many
colors.
9. But the I AM is not inertia--it is ever spurred on by an
original impulse to know. Knowing is not complete as long
as a single factor of Being is left out by him who seeks to
know.
10. The I AM has its being in heaven; its home is in the
realm of perfect ideals, the Christ within, but it has its
freedom. It loves to be. To be is to enjoy. To enjoy is for
the time to be that which we enjoy. When you are absorbed
in the recital of an interesting story, you are lost to all
else. The I AM is for the moment identified with that which
it enjoys. Here is the solution of a great mystery--how the
I AM ever came to separate itself from its sphere of wisdom.
11. But it is wonderfully simple when you understand it.
You are demonstrating the so-called fall of man every time
you lose yourself in the whirl of sense pleasure. The
mission of the I AM is happiness.
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It seeks joy and bliss; they are set before it in unstinted
measure, and it revels in their intoxicating draughts, but
the mastery of the higher mind should ever be maintained.
12. But sensations of pleasure originate in and depend for
their vitality upon the central I AM, and when man follows
things and forgets the source, he eventually finds the
pleasure waning. The impetus grows less and less until that
which in the beginning was pleasure becomes so slow of
action that its inertia leaves the impression of pain.
13. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the
inherent birthright of every one of us. We exist to that
end, and by our constant effort to attain perpetual joy we
recognize it as our natural state.
14. That our efforts are not always crowned with success
should cause us to pause and consider. Have we not left out
some factor necessary to happiness? If so, what is it?
15. We think of heaven as a place of unending happiness,
and we have been taught that it is somewhere in the skies.
But in the geography of the universe, heaven has not been
authoritatively marked. Jesus Christ, of all those claiming
intimate acquaintance with spiritual things, gave heaven
definite location. He often referred to the Father dwelling
in Him; He also told others that the Spirit of God dwelt in
them. As a climax He definitely located heaven "within you."
16. This statement has always been looked upon by the
world's people as a figure of speech, and
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even metaphysicians who have delved into the abstractions
of mind have had vague ideas about there being such a place
as heaven within them. They have said it was a state, a
condition.
17. So it is, but it is also a place. It is not outside
your body today, and inside it tomorrow, nor is it possible
for heaven to exist anywhere but right at the center of
what seems to you to be the physical. This insistence upon
the location of heaven is a startling proposition to those
who have postulated mind as universal, without bounds.
18. We are seeking to get into the kingdom of heaven where
all things shall be added, and it is proper that we should
know where that kingdom is. All that we really know about
ourselves at present comes to us by comparison with the
"things which appear." We have a body, which we clearly
perceive is moved by an invisible principle called mind. We
have never seen this mind or felt it or sensed it in any
way.
19. We know that certain combinations of thought produce
effects upon the sense nature. The action takes place from
the center of consciousness, the physical body. Then, so
far as we are concerned, the mystery of Being is wrapped in
and around that which we are wont to call clay. Do not
mistake the proposition and assume that the physical man as
he now appears to your comprehension is the summum bonum of
existence. This is not the claim. The claim is that to your
consciousness the corporeal man surrounds and gives
definite place to that which you seek--"the kingdom of God
. . . within you."
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20. The argument is frequently brought forward that the
"lesser cannot contain the greater." This is but a play
upon words, so far as the relations of mind are concerned.
We know that in Being there can be no greater and no
lesser. Mind is not a thing; Mind is. It is that which,
through orderly process, produces the thing. This orderly
process, we have learned by observation, is from an
invisible center to a visible circumstance. So if anywhere
in the universe you behold a form, you may know that within
that form there is a potential center from which spring all
its qualities. That the invisible cause is or is not
confined to that form is not essential to the proposition.
So far as the sentient identity of the form itself is
concerned, its source of intelligence and life is always
within, and it can never know anything about its cause
except from that center.
21. When an astronomer sees a system of planets describing
geometric circles, he knows without looking that there is
at the center of those circles a power which holds them in
place. Every atom in the human body is like a miniature
planet revolving about its own invisible center, and all
the atoms revolve about a great center within. I have
discovered this to be an absolute fact in my own
experience. I have, by persistent practice, learned to drop
my attention from the head to a point under the heart. This
is separating the I AM from the personal, or limited
consciousness, and connecting it with the universal, or
spiritual consciousness, with which it forms a union at the
point mentioned. When my I AM touches this inner center
there springs into its
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consciousness a wonderful vibration, and to every part of
the body strong currents of energy are transmitted. At this
point I seem to be in touch with all creation; the barriers
of form are as nothing; there is only a great sea of
throbbing life.
22. I am but a novice in this inner exploration, but I have
penetrated far enough to know that it is the undiscovered
country for which all are seeking. I have not only found
the invisible center of my consciousness, but many
subcenters, and so many marvelous things in connection
therewith that I could not, for lack of comparisons,
describe them, even if I knew a language that would convey
to the natural man a conception of their marvels and the
joy and the satisfaction that they give to the soul.
23. I have proved to my own satisfaction that when Jesus
said, "The kingdom of God is within you," He meant it
literally and not figuratively. There is within every one a
place, a conscious sphere of mind, having all the
attractions described or imagined as belonging to heaven.
My most exalted ideas of the joys of heaven never
anticipated the ecstatic thrill that suffuses my whole
being while I rest in Spirit at this center within. In the
redemption of man from sin, the outer thoughts are made to
conform to the inner ideas. This is regeneration, in which
man is saved from his evil thoughts--Satan--and permanently
united with his good thoughts--Christ. This is my work and
your work--to conform to the within.
24. It seems marvelous that we should be so totally
unconscious of this undiscovered country right
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under our heart. When I drop down there and feel its
sweetness and light, and the inner voice tells me that this
heaven exists in everyone else, as it does in me, I cannot
comprehend how we have been so long ignorant of it. Yet I
know that before the discovery of the circulation of the
blood, men knew nothing about the intricate canal system
within their own bodies. Then why should it be improbable
that still deeper within exists another realm on a
different plane?
25. But this kingdom within is not material--it is
spiritual. In it is the seat of the king, and when we
become sufficiently acquainted with it, we shall be able to
reign from the throne that was prepared for us from the
beginning.
26. This inner country is the domain of that superior
wisdom which we term the Christ. Jesus called this place of
wisdom the Father within Him, and to it He ascribed all His
power and wisdom.
27. It is not created for our especial benefit, nor do we
evolve it through thinking! it is that Word which was in
the beginning with God, which is with God, which is God; we
simply recognize it, and through recognition we realize its
presence.
28. The theory that we are progressing from a lower to a
higher state is not tenable when viewed from this inner
place of understanding. When we touch its shining shore, we
suddenly seem to know that we are at home again; that there
has somehow been a departure, a separation of the I AM from
its rightful place in the bosom of the Father.
29. That man has wandered away from and lost
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consciousness of his wisdom sphere, is claimed by all
ancient teachers of inner truths. The banishment of Adam
from the Garden of Eden is an allegory based upon this
truth, and the four Gospels reiterate again and again that
the mission of Jesus of Nazareth was to find that which was
lost; not that the real man is lost or in condemnation, but
the I, the man identity, has gone "into another country"
and is lost to his spiritual consciousness.
30. That this sphere of wisdom is present in what has come
to be known as the subjective consciousness of man is
demonstrated in a certain measure in hypnotic experiments.
The I of the hypnotized subject is temporarily separated
from the external and thrown onto the internal plane, where
it functions in marvelous manner in matters pertaining to
mental action. This has given rise to the theory of two
egos, the subjective and the objective.
31. The fact is that there is but one ego, one I, and its
domain of consciousness is not limited to the things of
sense, but is meant to range all creation from the within
to the without. Instead of considering these sporadic cases
of a higher sense in man as abnormal, we should know that
they are normal and that the limitations and ignorance of
the five-sense man is the abnormal.
32. The regaining of this lost consciousness is a matter
that rests between God and man. We cannot get into this
"kingdom" through such artificial means as mesmerism,
hypnotism, mediumship, or any other "short cut" to
spirituality.
33. The I AM can never be coerced or robbed of
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its perfect freedom, and all attempts in that line will
meet with final disaster. When we have once decided to
return to the Father's house, to regain this lost estate
within, it is an easy road. It may seem hard at the start,
because we have to throw away so much baggage, but it grows
easier as we get closer and closer to the great heart of
the loving Father. A Helper has been provided, the "Spirit
of truth . . . shall guide you into all the truth"; all we
have to do is to seek honestly and sincerely to enter in.
"Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened
unto you." This promise is to everyone.
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