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Twelve Powers of Man
Chapter 10
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[Twelve Powers of Man]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Chapter X
Spiritual Law and Order
THE 23d chapter of Matthew is a philippic against
ritualism. Jesus arraigns the scribes and the Pharisees
before the bar of the divine law and charges them with a
long list of crimes committed in the name of religion. He
makes charge after charge of delinquency in spiritual
observance of the law and warns His disciples and the
multitudes to beware of the works of these blind leaders of
the blind. Among other accusations He says:
Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and
lay them on men's shoulders . . . all their works they do
to be seen of men . . . they . . . love the chief place at
feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues . . . and to
be called of men, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for
one is your teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no
man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even
he who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one
is your master, even the Christ. But he that is greatest
among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt
himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble
himself shall be exalted.
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye
enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are
entering in to enter.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
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compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is
become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than
yourselves. . . .
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the
weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and
faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have
left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the
gnat, and swallow the camel!
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but
within they are full from extortion and excess. Thou blind
Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the
platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. .
. .
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
build the sepulchers of the prophets, and garnish the tombs
of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of
our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in
the blood of the prophets.
All these "woes" are to those who are living in the letter
instead of in the spirit of the law. But Jesus did not
condemn religion, nor religious organizations. His
denunciations were aimed at those who profess to teach and
to follow the law but fall short in carrying it out in
their lives.
Right here, however, religious teachers should be on their
guard in framing tenets for religious organizations. Do not
dogmatize in creed, or statement of Being, as a governing
rule of thought and action for those who join your
organization. These things are limitations, and they often
prevent free development because of foolish insistence on
consistency. The creed that you write today may not fit
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the viewpoint of tomorrow; hence the safe and sure
religious foundation for all men is that laid down by
Jesus, "The Spirit of truth . . . shall guide you into all
the truth." A statement setting forth the teaching of a
religious institution is essential, but compelling clauses
should be omitted.
The Mosaic law had been framed for the benefit of the
Hebrews, but their priesthood made it a hindrance to
spiritual progress. Jesus was an iconoclast, and He made it
His special business to break nearly every rule of action
that the priests had evolved. For example, they had
thirty-nine prohibitions in regard to the observance of the
Sabbath. These were nearly all trivial, such as preparing
food, riding on a beast, drawing water, carrying a burden,
going on a journey; yet death was the penalty for
transgression. Labor of any kind on the Sabbath was
punishable by death. To roll grains of wheat in the hand
was considered labor, so when the apostles of Jesus plucked
the ears of grain the Pharisees said to Him: "Behold, why
do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?" Then
Jesus gave them a sermon on freedom from their narrow rules
governing the Sabbath day; He ended with, "The Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the sabbath."
The fact is that the Sabbath as an institution was
established by man. God does not rest from His works every
seventh day, and there is no evidence that there has ever
been a moment's cessation in the activity of the universe.
Those who stickle most
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for Sabbath-day observance are met on every hand by the
evidence of perpetual activity on the part of Him whom they
claim to champion.
We are told that trees, flowers, planets, suns, stars, and
sidereal systems are the work of God; that it is God who
sustains and governs, controls and directs them. Yet trees,
flowers, planets, suns, and stars are active the first day
and the seventh day of the week, just the same as on other
days.
It would seem proper that, if God ordained a certain day of
rest and rested on that day Himself, as is claimed, He
should give some evidence of it in His creations; but He
has not done this, so far as anybody knows. The truth is
that Divine Mind rests in a perpetual Sabbath, and that
which seems work is not work at all. When man becomes so
at-one with the Father-Mind as to feel it consciously, he
also recognizes this eternal peace, in which all things are
accomplished. He then knows that he is not subject to any
condition whatsoever and that he is "lord even of the
sabbath."
Man can never exercise dominion until he knows who and what
he is and, knowing, brings forth that knowledge into the
external by exercising it in divine order, which is mind,
idea, and manifestation. Jesus horrified the Jews by
healing the sick, plucking grain, and performing other
acts, which to them were sacrilegious, on the Sabbath day.
The Jews manufactured these sacred days and observances,
just as our Puritan fathers made life a burden by their
rigid and absurd laws governing the religious
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acts of the people. For centuries the Jews had been binding
themselves to the wheel of religious bigotry, and the
Puritans accomplished a like task in a shorter time. The
length of time was the only difference.
But Jesus knew all the exacting ecclesiastical rules to be
man-made. "He himself knew what was in man" and He
attempted to disabuse those benighted minds of their error.
He tried to make them understand that the Sabbath was made
for man, not man for the Sabbath. They had wound themselves
up in religious ceremonies until their ecclesiastical
machinery dominated every act of their lives. Not only were
they subjects of their sacred law, but they were its
absolute slaves.
It was the mission of Jesus to break down this mental
structure which had been reared through ages of blind
servitude to form and ritual. The Mosaic law had been made
so rigid that it held the Jews in its icy bonds to the
exclusion of all reason and common sense. Jesus saw this,
and He purposely overstepped the bounds of religious
propriety in order that He might more effectively impress
on them the fact that the old Mosaic dispensation was at an
end. He told them that He did not come to break the law,
but to fulfill it. He was speaking of the true law of God,
and not their external rules of sacrifice, penance, Sabbath
observance, and the like. He knew that these rules were of
the letter--purely perfunctory; that they were in reality
hindrances to the expression of the inner spiritual life.
Man cannot grow into the understanding of
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Spirit, nor be obedient to its leading, if he is hampered
by external rules of action. No man-made law is strong
enough, or true enough, or exact enough, to be a permanent
guide for anyone.
If in your path toward the light you have fixed a point of
achievement that attainment of which you think will satisfy
you, you have made a limitation that you must eventually
destroy. There is no stopping place for God; there is no
stopping place for man.
If the church goes back to Moses and the old dispensation,
ignoring the lessons of Jesus, it is no guide for you. If
you want to be His disciple, you must unite your spirit
with His.
Paul, with his dominant beliefs in the efficiency of the
old way, at times loaded those beliefs upon the free
doctrine of Jesus, but that is no reason why you should be
burdened with them. You can never be what the Father wants
you to be until you recognize that you stand alone, with
Him as your sole and original guide, just as much alone as
if you were the first and only man. You can hear His Word
when you have erased from your mind all tradition and
authority of men, and His Word will never sound clearly in
your mind until you have done this.
It is not necessary that you despise the scriptures of the
Jews, of the Hindus, or of any people, but you are to take
them for what they are--the records of men as to what their
experiences have been in communing with the omnipresent
God. As Jesus said to the Pharisees: "Ye preach the
scriptures, because
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ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are
they which bear witness of me; and ye will not come to me,
that ye may have life." From all sacred writings you can
get many wonderfully helpful hints as to the work of God in
the minds of men. You should treasure all pure words of
Truth that have been written by brothers in the Spirit, yet
they are not authority for you nor should you be moved to
do anything simply because it is written in the Scriptures
as a law of God for the specific guidance of man.
Mortal man loves to be dominated and whipped into line by
rituals and masters, but divine man, the man of God,
oversteps all such childish circumscribings and goes direct
to the Father for all instruction.
It is your privilege to be as free as the birds, the trees,
the flowers. "They toil not, neither do they spin," but are
always obedient to the divine instinct, and their every day
is a Sabbath. They stand in no fear of an angry God, though
they build a nest, spread a leaf, or open a petal, on the
first day or on the seventh day. All days are holy days to
them. They live in the holy Omnipresence, always doing the
will of Him who sent them. It is our duty to do likewise.
That which is instinct in them is conscious, loving
obedience in us. When we have resolved to be attentive to
the voice of the Father and to do His will at any cost, we
are freed from the bondage of all man-made laws. Our
bonds--in the form of some fear of transgressing the divine
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law--slip away into the sea of nothingness, and we sit on
the shore and praise the loving All-Good that we are never
more to be frightened by an accusing conscience or by the
possibility of misunderstanding His law.
But we are not to quarrel with our brother over observance
of the Sabbath. If he insists that the Lord should be
worshiped on the seventh day, we shall joyfully join him on
that day; and if he holds that the first day is the holy
day, we again acquiesce. Not only do we do God's service in
praise, song, and thanksgiving on the seventh day and the
first day, but also on every day. Our minds are open to God
every moment. We are ever ready to acknowledge His holy
presence in our hearts; it is a perpetual Sunday with us.
We are not satisfied with one day out of the seven set
aside for religious observance, but, like the birds, the
trees, and the flowers, we join in a glad refrain of
thanksgiving in and out of season. When we work and when we
sleep we are ever praising the holy Omnipresence that burns
its lamp of love perpetually in our hearts and keeps
forever the light of life before us.
This is the observance of God's holy day that the divinely
wise forever recognize. It is not in churches nor in
temples reared by man in any form, that he finds communion
with the Father. He has found the true church, the heaven
within himself. There he meets the Father face to face; he
does not greet Him as one removed to a distant place, to
whom he communicates his wishes through some prophet or
priest,
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but each for himself goes to the Father in closest
fellowship.
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have eternal life." This does not mean that a personal man,
named Jesus of Nazareth, was sent forth as a special
propitiation for the sins of the world, or that the only
available route into the Father's presence lies through
such a person. It simply means that God has provided a way
by which all men may come consciously into His presence in
their own souls. That way is through the only begotten Son
of God, the Christ consciousness, which Jesus demonstrated.
This consciousness is the always present Son of the Father,
dwelling as a spiritual seed in each of us and ready to
germinate and grow at our will. The Son of God is in
essence the life, the love, and the wisdom of the Father
himself; through us the Son is made manifest as a living
individuality. He cannot be killed out entirely; He ever
grows at the center of our being as the "light which
lighteth every man, coming into the world."
To believe on the Son is to come to His terms of
expression. It is the simplest thing in the world. Just
believe that He is the only begotten Son of the Father. Do
not believe that there are other sons wiser than He is, and
that from them you can get wisdom, guidance, and
understanding, but know that He is indeed the only begotten
Son.
This distinction is a vital point for you to apprehend, and
when you have once apprehended it your
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journey back to the Father's house is easy. "No one cometh
unto the Father, but by me," the only Son is constantly
saying in your heart, and you must not ignore His presence
if you would know the sweets of the heavenly home where the
love of God forever burns its incense of peace, plenty, and
contentment. Let Christ be formed in you, was Paul's
admonition. This is not hyperbole or an abstraction, but a
statement of a definite rule of procedure, which you can
discover and prove by making terms with this indwelling Son
of the Father. His terms are not severe. They are simply
obedience, obedience.
Jesus of Nazareth found this inner flame and let it burn
all through His body. It so lighted Him up that His
presence warms all sin-sick men to this very day.
But no one lives by reflection. You could not live a moment
if it were not for this only begotten Son of the Father
within you. So you cannot live and grow on the reflected
light of Jesus of Nazareth. The only begotten Son of God
must come forth in you as it did in Jesus. Then your life
will be permanent, and the discords of the flesh will drop
away forever; then will your Sabbath be revealed to you.
The redemptive, restorative, and regenerative work that the
Christ of God did through Jesus is not ignored by Christian
metaphysicians. However, the salvation of men from the sins
of mortality was not accomplished by the man Jesus alone;
it was through the power of the Christ in Jesus that God
provided purified life and substance for the corruptible
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bodies of men. Jesus' body was used as the vehicle through
which a fresh and pure life stream and a regenerative
substance were made available to all those who will accept
them. The redeemed substance of the body of the Lord is
just as essential to full salvation as His blood. Also,
this is a salvation that is to be attained here in the
earth, and not after death. Jesus' body was metamorphosed
or changed from the corruptible flesh of the average man to
the incorruptible substance of divine man. When we eat and
drink of His body we shall become like Him in body
perfection. This process of restoration of the body of man
to its original purity is the basis of divine or spiritual
healing. The complete redemption of the body may not be
accomplished in one incarnation, but whoever accepts the
Christ as life and substance, and conforms to righteous
living as taught by the Spirit of truth, will finally sit
with Jesus on the throne of dominion over disease and death.
There is a law of spiritual and mental growth constantly at
work in the mind, a law that is raising man from sense
consciousness, or Egypt, to spiritual consciousness, or
Canaan. Moses means "drawn out," and represents in
Scripture symbology this progressive or drawing-out
process, which works from within out. As applied to the
universe, this upward trend of all things is called by
material science the evolutionary law. In our spiritual
interpretation we observe the working of the law in the
individual, because by that method we can bring home the
lesson.
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Through intelligent use of the hints given, we apply the
lesson to ourselves with great profit.
Involution always precedes evolution. That which is
involved in mind evolves through matter. Joseph down in
Egypt portrays the involution in matter of a high spiritual
idea. The spiritual idea attracted other ideas like it
(Joseph's relatives), and they greatly multiplied in the
land of Egypt. It is estimated that the Children of Israel
increased from a few score to at least two millions. This
illustrates the fact that spiritual thoughts grow with
tremendous rapidity in consciousness when they have Truth
as a nucleus.
Yet these true thoughts, which have so greatly multiplied
are in slavery to the Egyptians (sense nature), and a
special effort has to be made to free them. We have our
high ideals, but because the temporal life seems so
important those ideals are made to work in the most menial
ways to carry on this passing show. A time comes, however,
when we rebel at this tyranny; we rise up in so-called
righteous indignation, and in violent ways we kill out the
opposing sense nature, as Moses killed the Egyptian. But
this is not the right way. We are not to be liberated by
suppression of sense, or by violent overcoming, but by a
steady step-by-step demonstration over every error. The
Lord recognizes the rights of the physical man, and He
hardens Pharaoh's heart that he may sustain for a season
his rightful place in consciousness.
The fleeing of Moses to the wilderness represents
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the discipline that we must undergo when we seek the
exalted One. Horeb means "solitude"; that is, we have to go
into the solitude of the within and lead our flock of
thoughts to the back of the wilderness, where dwells the
exalted One, the I AM, whose kingdom is good judgment.
There we are in training forty years, or until we arrive at
a four-sided or balanced state of mind. Then the light of
intuition or flame of fire burns in our hearts, yet it is
not consumed--there is no loss of substance. In brain
thinking there is a vibratory process that uses up nerve
tissue, but in the wisdom that comes from the heart the
"bush" or tissue is not consumed. This thinking in wisdom
is "holy ground," or substance in its spiritual wholeness;
that is, the idea of substance in Divine Mind. When this
holy ground is approached by man he must take off from his
understanding all limited thoughts of the Absolute--he must
put his shoes off his feet.
It is at this wisdom center within us that God proclaims
Himself to be the Father of fathers, the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob; thus our real Father is revealed to us as
Spirit.
In our communion in the silence with the light within us,
the bondage of the higher to the lower is made clear to us,
and the true way of release is indicated. We see the
possibilities of man and the goodness of the "promised
land," to which we can raise every thought. But Moses was
very meek--we feel our inability, and we say, "Who am I,
that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring
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forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Then we have
the assurance that God's power is with us--"Certainly I
will be with thee." It is in the recognition of the power
and the presence of God that all our strength and all our
ability lie. Jesus, the great spiritual master, said, "The
Father abiding in me doeth his works."
All great structures are erected on firm foundations.
Anyone whom the Lord calls to a work will succeed in the
end, if he lays his foundation deep and strong in spiritual
understanding. This understanding is attained through
meditation and study in the silence. Moses was forty years
separated from the busy haunts of men, learning to know God
"face to face."
In our silent meditations and prayers we must infuse into
the inner mind realms the same energy that, used without,
would make us notable in some worldly achievement. But
unless we do this inner work and lay the foundation of
strength and power in the subjective mind, we shall find
ourselves in failing health when called upon for extra
exertion in some great effort.
The angel of the Lord, the flame of fire, and the bush, are
all within the consciousness of man, becoming manifest
through interior concentration. The bush is a nerve center
through which the universal life energy runs like
electricity over a wire, making a light but not consuming.
The angel is the presiding intelligence that is always
present in every life action or function.
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Man is first attracted by the phenomenal side of spiritual
things; then, when he gives his attention for the purpose
of knowing the cause, the Lord reveals Himself. When Moses
turned aside and began to investigate, he found that he was
on holy ground. The forces of Spirit at the center of man's
body are so intense that the outer consciousness cannot
stand the current and hold itself together; absolutely pure
in essence, this inner fire must be approached by the pure
spiritual thought. Removing the sandals is symbolical of
taking all material concepts from the understanding.
The Spirit of the Lord has been evolving in the
subconsciousness, incarnation after incarnation. This I AM
was the moving factor in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the
Lord is present in all.
Egypt is strictly material consciousness. It pertains to
the physical sense of life, the corporeal organism. Canaan
is life and substance in a radiant state; here Spirit finds
its natural expression. The thoughts that belong in the
radiant body have become slaves of material sense, and the
higher self, the Lord, would set them free. But to do this
the higher understanding must become part of their
consciousness. All things are created by and through
certain states of mind or consciousness.
The higher spiritual consciousness is infused into the
mortal or personal consciousness. Personal I must take on
supreme I AM. When this is first experienced there is a
feeling of inefficiency. But the Lord's promise to be
present under all circumstances
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is a mighty inner assurance of spiritual law and order.
Christian metaphysicians have learned by experience the
power of words and thoughts sent forth in the name of the
supreme I AM. The word of the Lord spoken by naturally weak
men has produced marvelous results, because they set their
minds not on their own weak ideas of man and his abilities,
but upon the mightiness of the great I AM. The Lord God,
speaking through them, does the work of the Master. "I
speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me
[supreme I AM] doeth his works."
Moses and Pharaoh represent two forces at work in the
consciousness--especially that part of it pertaining to the
body. Moses represents the evolutionary force of new ideas
that have grown in the subconsciousness; these forces
struggle with the old states of limitation and material
ignorance, trying to rise out of their depths into a higher
life expression. The rising into a higher life is
symbolized by the man Moses, whose name means "drawn out."
As a child he was drawn out of the water, a negative yet
universal condition of life evolution. Pharaoh represents
the force that rules the body under the material regime.
The Lord is the universal law, whose impulse is always
upward and onward. It is found, by those who are undergoing
the regenerative process that in the story of Moses the
Scriptures symbolically describe, that these two forces are
constantly at work in consciousness, one holding to old
ideas and striving to perpetuate them in form, and the other
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idealizing the new and bending every effort to break away
from material bondage and rise above its limitations. Paul
says, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh." Looking at it from the personal
standpoint, we are likely to cry out in this struggle, "Who
shall deliver me out of the body of this death?" But as
philosophers, with an understanding of the law of change,
we balance ourselves between these two forces and let them
work out under the equilibrium of the universal preserver
of all forms, the Lord.
Here is consolation for those who chafe under the whips and
cords of the regenerative law. Because of their many
defeats and the snail's pace at which they progress, they
think that they are off the track. However, they are not.
They will attain their good if they persevere and patiently
wait upon the Lord. If the energy of Spirit were instantly
poured into the body it would destroy the organism because
of the impurities of the flesh, but, by and through the
evolutionary adjustment of the natural man, the Spirit not
only preserves but raises up the substance and life of the
organism. The purpose of our spiritual thoughts (the
Children of Israel) down in the body (Egypt) is to raise up
the body--gradually to infuse into it a more enduring life
and substance. At the same time our spiritual thoughts get
the substance (corn) that is to sustain their existence in
the world of phenomena.
When you affirm the spirituality of the body and yearn for
release from its bondage, you are making
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demands on Pharaoh. In fear that he will all at once lose
his hold on life, he hardens his heart, and sometimes the
Lord, the universal law of equilibrium, hardens it for him.
Then there seems a failure to attain that which you have
tried to demonstrate. But a step has been taken in the
evolution of the body, and you will find that you are
gradually becoming stronger, both physically and
spiritually.
There are climaxes in this refining trend of the
consciousness, and in these we make a signal effort and
realize a great uplift. "Jewels of silver, and jewels of
gold" represent wisdom and love in an external sense, which
are to be asked or demanded by the Children of Israel. (The
word "borrow" in the Authorized Version is an error.) The
meaning is that we are to affirm that all wisdom and all
love, even in their most external manifestations, are
spiritual. By so affirming we put Spirit into control both
within and without ourselves, and do away with the external
ruling power, which is the "first-born in the land of
Egypt." The first-born of every state of consciousness is
the personal I. When the flood of light from the universal
is let in through our declaration of the one wisdom and one
love, this I of every mortal state of consciousness is
slain, and there is a "great cry throughout all the land of
Egypt."
We may mentally have made our truest statements and
seemingly complied with all the law, yet Pharaoh does not
let our people go--there is no realization of freedom in
the body consciousness. Another step toward freedom is
necessary, which is
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typified in the feast of the Passover.
In every change of consciousness on the physical plane,
there is a breaking down of some cells and a building up of
other cells to take their place. Mentally this is denial
and affirmation, and this process in the body is the result
of these two movements in the mind which have occurred at
some previous period. We let go of the animal life and take
hold of the spiritual by giving up consciously to this
"passing over" process, which takes place when the old
cells are replaced by the new. The lamb that is killed and
eaten in the night represents giving up the animal life in
the obscurity of the mortal body. The command is that the
lamb shall be without spot or blemish, and be wholly eaten
after being roasted with fire. This refers to the complete
transmutation and surrender of the human life after it has
been purified by the fires of regeneration. Fire represents
the positive, affirmative state of mind, as opposed to the
negative or watery state. The Children of Israel were
commanded not to let the lamb be "sodden." "Sodden" is an
Old English past participle of "seethe." We are not to
allow the life in our organism to simmer and stew with the
worries and negative words of mortality, but we must set it
afire with strong words of absolute Truth.
This is to show us that there must be a physical as well as
a mental sacrifice, and that "the whole congregation of the
children of Israel" will join in it; that is, the whole
consciousness of spiritual desire will acquiesce. Many
metaphysicians think that it is
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not necessary to change the habits of the sense man--that
one has only to keep one's thoughts right and the flesh
will thereby be wholly regulated. But the Scripture teaches
that there must be a conscious physical change before the
complete demonstration in mind and body is manifest.
Thoughts work themselves out in things, and we get the full
result of their work only when we follow them consciously
every step of the way and help them along. Watch your
thoughts as they work their way through your organism, and,
if you find that some pure thought of spiritual life is
striving to free the life in the appetites and passions of
your physical Egypt, help it by consciously elevating that
life to the open door of your mind. This is typified by
putting the blood of the lamb on the two side posts and on
the lintel of the door of the house. Do not be afraid to
express your inner life to the Lord, for only in perfect
candor and childlike innocence can man come under the
protection of the divine law.
So long as there is a hidden, secret use of God's life in
our habits and ways that we are not willing that all should
know, just so long will the bondage of Egypt's Pharaoh hold
us in its clutches. The whole man must be pure, and his
inner life must be made so open and free that he will not
be afraid to blazon it upon the very doors of his house
where all who pass may read. Then the Lord will execute His
judgment, and those who have purified the life of the lamb
of the body will escape the messenger or thought of death.
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