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Twelve Powers of Man
Chapter 11
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[Twelve Powers of Man]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Chapter XI
Zeal-Enthusiasm
THE EGO, the free I, the imperishable and unchangeable
essence of Spirit, which man is, chooses every state of
consciousness and every condition in which it functions. It
does not create the basic substances that enter into these
mental structures, for these substances have been provided
from the beginning, but it gives form and character to them
in consciousness, as men build houses of lumber, stone, or
whatever material they may choose in the manifest.
These mental states are all constructed under the dynamic
power of the great universal impulse that lies back of all
action--enthusiasm or zeal. Zeal is the mighty force that
incites the winds, the tides, the storms; it urges the
planet on its course, and spurs the ant to great exertion.
To be without zeal is to be without the zest of living.
Zeal and enthusiasm incite to glorious achievement in every
aim and ideal that the mind conceives. Zeal is the impulse
to go forward, the urge behind all things. Without zeal
stagnation, inertia, death would prevail throughout the
universe. The man without zeal is like an engine without
steam or an electric motor without a current. Energy is
zeal in motion, and energy is the forerunner of every
effect.
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If you desire a thing, you set in motion the machinery of
the universe to gain possession of it, but you must be
zealous in the pursuit in order to attain the object of
your desire. Desire goes before every act of your life,
hence it is good. It is the very essence of good; it is God
Himself in a phase of life. When they called Jesus good, He
said: "Why callest thou me good? none is good save one,
even God." So the universal desire for achievement, giving
its mighty impulse to all things, is divinely good. Divine
enthusiasm is no respecter of persons or things. It makes
no distinctions. It moves to new forms of expression even
that which appears corrupt. It tints the cheek of the
innocent babe, gleams from the eye of the treacherous
savage, and lights in purity the face of the saint.
Some have named this universal life impulse God, and have
left the impression that it is all of God and that all the
attributes of God-Mind are therefore involved as a
conscious entity in every situation where life is manifest.
In this they lack discrimination. God's Spirit goes forth
in mighty streams of life, love, substance, and
intelligence. Each of these attributes is conscious only of
the principle involved in it and in the work that it has to
do. Though it is man's mission to combine these
inexhaustible potentialities under divine law, man is free
to do as he wills. But the divine law cannot be broken, and
it holds man responsible for the result of his labors. Man
cannot corrupt the inherent purity of any of God's
attributes, but he can unwisely combine them
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in states of consciousness that bring dissatisfaction and
incompleteness to him. It is his privilege to learn the
harmonious relations of all the chords of life and to
arrange them on the staff of existence with such masterly
art that no discord can be detected. Then life becomes to
him a song of joy, and he absolutely knows that in its
ultimate all is good.
Never repress the impulse, the force, the zeal welling up
within you. Commune with it in spirit and praise it for its
great energy and efficiency in action. At the same time
analyze and direct its course. As zeal alone, it is without
intelligence or discretion as to results. As Jesus taught
His disciples and combined their various talents, so every
man must grow in wisdom and zeal. You are not to repress
but to guide the spirit of enthusiasm, which in
co-operation with wisdom will bring you happiness and
satisfaction.
Zeal is the affirmative impulse of existence; its command
is "Go forward!" Through this impulse man forms many states
of consciousness that he ultimately tires of. They may have
served a good purpose in their day in the grand scheme of
creation, but as man catches sight of higher things zeal
urges him forward to their attainment.
Let your zeal be tempered with wisdom. "The zeal of thy
house hath eaten me up" means that the zeal faculty has
become so active intellectually that it has consumed the
vitality and left nothing for spiritual growth. One may
even become so zealous for the spread of Truth as to bring
on nervous prostration.
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"Take time to be holy." Turn a portion of your zeal to do
God's will to the establishing of His kingdom within you.
Do not put all your enthusiasm into teaching, preaching,
healing, and helping others; help yourself. Many
enthusiastic spiritual workers have let their zeal to
demonstrate Truth to others rob them of the power to
demonstrate Truth for themselves. Do not let your zeal run
away with your judgment. Some persons get so fired with
zeal when they first tackle a job that they quickly grow
tired, and eventually get "fired" from every job that they
tackle.
Watch the first pull of a giant locomotive; note how it
slowly but steadily moves forward, almost by inches at
first but gradually increasing, until its mile-long train
swiftly disappears in the distance.
Man is a dynamo of pent-up power, but he needs judgment in
its use. Even love (John), the "greatest thing in the
world," is linked in the twelve-power integration of Jesus
with James (judgment). Jesus called these two brothers
"Sons of thunder," comparing the effect of their combined
power to the tremendous vibrations set up by unrestrained
electrical energy. Judgment says to Love, "Look before you
leap." Do not let unselfish zeal and enthusiasm for the
loved one run away with your judgment. Remember that these
two are brothers and that you should sit on the throne of
your I AM dominion, with love on the right hand and
judgment on the left, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
In these symbols we see portrayed the poise and mastery of
regenerated
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man, directing and disciplining all his thought-people in
wisdom and in love.
Even doctors are beginning to take notice of the emotional
contests that take place between love and wisdom in our
nervous system. Some of them say that indigestion may be
caused by the disturbance that our emotions cause in the
delicate nerve aggregations at the solar plexus, and that
permanent stomach troubles may result. Metaphysicians have
always taught that the contending vibrations or "thunder"
between love and wisdom cause not only acute but chronic
diseases of stomach and heart.
Heart says, "I love," and Wisdom says, "But you can't have
what you love"; contention follows, and night and day the
nerves are pounded by the warring emotions.
Love disappointed may lower the vitality to the vanishing
point, while some physical disease is blamed.
Innumerable combinations of thoughts and their attendant
emotions are constantly sending their vibrations or
"thundering" to various parts of the body through the nerve
cables that lead out from the many ganglionic centers.
Jesus had two apostles named Simon, but they represent
different talents or faculties of man's mind. Simon Peter
represents receptivity from above, and Simon the Cananaean
represents receptivity from below. Simon means "hearing"
and Canaan means "zeal." The Canaanites dwelt in the
lowlands, so we know that the faculty designated by Simon
the
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Cananaean has its origin in the body consciousness.
But the receptivity to, and the zeal for, the truth that
were manifested by Simon the Cananaean were lifting him to
spiritual consciousness. This is symbolized in Acts 1:13,
where it is written, "And when they were come in, they went
up into the upper chamber, where they were abiding." Among
them is mentioned "Simon the Zealot."
To grow spiritually we should always be careful to exercise
our zeal in spiritual ways, since Christians are apt to
fall into commercial ways in carrying forward the Lord's
work. We should remember that Jesus said, "God is spirit:
and they that worship him must worship in spirit and
truth." When Jesus cast the money-changers out of the
Temple His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal
for thy house shall eat me up." In this act Jesus was
casting the commercial bargaining thoughts out of His body
temple. This is explained in the context, John 2:18. The
Jews said, "What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that
thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them,
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up .
. . But he spake of the temple of his body."
Whatever takes place in the world about us has its
counterpart in some thought process in our body.
Every invention of man is a duplication of some activity in
the human body. The explosion of gasoline in an automobile
cylinder is copied from the explosion of nerve substance in
the cell centers of the body. The nerve fluid is conducted
to a nerve
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chamber, corresponding to an automobile combustion chamber,
where it is electrified and the energy liberated. In the
human body spiritual zeal, that is, enthusiasm, electrifies
the nerve substance, which breaks forth into energy.
Thoughts build nerve and brain centers that serve as
distributors of the vital substance manufactured in the
body. The vitamins in the food that we eat are stored up by
the body chemistry and liberated in thought and action.
Every thought and emanation of mind liberates some of this
stored substance. We, the controlling intelligence, with
our conscious mind direct these processes in a manner quite
similar to that employed by the driver of an automobile.
An automobile driver should be familiar with the mechanism
of his car. But in the great majority of cases the driver
knows merely enough to perform a few mechanical motions,
and the car does the rest.
So the mass of humans know but little about the delicate
mind-and-body interaction. They perform a few necessary
superficial acts, call in the doctor when anything goes
wrong, and in the end dump the old "boat" at the junk pile.
Extraordinary zeal in the accomplishment of some ideal
develops what is called genius. Jesus of Nazareth was
undoubtedly the greatest genius that this earth has ever
developed. He is not usually named among the geniuses of
the earth, because He was a genius of such transcendental
character that He is classed with the gods. He did manifest
the mind of
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God as no other has ever done, yet He was a man, and herein
lies His genius:
In His humanity He developed extraordinary ability in
spiritual wisdom, love, and power. There have been men who
have told us about God, but none who have demonstrated the
wisdom and power of God as Jesus did. His zeal in doing the
will of God made Him a spiritual genius in human form.
Like others who manifest original genius, Jesus got His
genius from within. He was not known to have been taught in
the theological schools of His day, yet He exhibited a
mental acumen and understanding of religion that astonished
His associates. They exclaimed in effect, "Where did this
man get wisdom, never having studied."
Genius is the accumulated zeal of the individual in some
chosen field of life action. The idea that God has
arbitrarily endowed some persons with abilities superior to
others is not good logic, and makes God a partisan. God has
no favorites, notwithstanding the fact that the Scriptures
sometimes so interpret Him. "God is no respecter of
persons." "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased," is the ideal or spiritual man, the Messiah, the
Christ man, who is the pattern given to every man to follow.
However, we see on every hand evidences of pronounced
diversity in human character, and, looking at life
superficially, we think that God has given advantages in
mind, body, and affairs to some men that He has not given
to others.
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But what we see with the eye of flesh is only the physical
manifestation of man. Spirit and mind must be taken into
consideration and become factors in our reasoning before we
can know a man and properly estimate the whole man.
The body represents but one third of man's being. Man is
spirit, soul, and body. The spirit is that in man which
says I AM, and has existed from eternity. Spirit is
potential man--soul is demonstrated man. Soul is man's
memory, conscious and subconscious. We have carried along
in our subconscious mind the memory of every experience
that we have had since we began to think and act for
ourselves. The soul is the mind, and the mind is the man.
The race to which we belong on this planet began thinking
and acting in self-consciousness many millions of years
ago. God alone knows the exact age of every man. Jesus
said, "The very hairs of your head are all numbered."
Every experience, every achievement, every failure, and
every success is remembered and stored up in the
subconscious mind. A new soul is not created with every
physical birth. A physical birth simply means that a soul
is taking on another body. Every man inhabiting this earth
and the psychic realms immediately surrounding it has gone
through this process of dying and being reincarnated many
times. You who read these lines have had experience as a
thinking, free-acting soul for millions of years, instead
of the score or three score that mortal man usually counts.
Emerson said, "Be not deceived by
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dimples and curls; that child is a thousand years old."
Then the question arises, "Do we always get the fruit of
our earthly acts in some future earthly life?" Certainly,
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Here in
this earth is the place of harvest. When a man relinquishes
his hold on brain and nervous system, he gives up the only
avenue through which he can adequately express himself.
So death is the great enemy to be overcome, as taught in
Scripture. Death came into the world through Adamic
ignorance, and it must go out through Christ understanding.
Genius is the breaking forth of the accumulated
achievements of a man in that field of activity for which
he has been very zealous in many incarnations. Mozart at
the age of four played the organ without instruction. Where
did he get such marvelous musical ability? A history of his
soul would show that he had cultivated music for ages,
carrying from one incarnation to another his zeal for the
harmony of sound, until he became the very soul of music.
The genius of Shakespeare was the accumulated experience of
a man who had been poet and philosopher since the "morning
stars sang together."
Let no man think that he can retire from living. Do not
shirk the responsibilities of life. You have made them and
you can unmake them. A way of escape has been provided for
every one of us. That way is to overcome mistakes by
incorporating into mind and heart the attributes of the
Christ Mind.
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"Travail until Christ be formed in you."
Simon the Zealot has his center or throne of dominion in
the body at the base of the brain, named by physiology the
medulla oblongata.
Let us think of man as a king having twelve sons or
princes, who execute his will. Each of these princes has a
throne, or brain and nerve center, from which he issues his
orders and distributes his goods.
Jesus illustrated this in Matthew 19:28: "Verily I say unto
you, that ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when
the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye
also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel."
Simon the Zealot from his throne at the medulla imparts
especial energy to the ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and sensory
nervous system. When man enters into the understanding of
his dominion, power, and directive ability in Christ, he
educates his disciples, or sons, and shows them how to
execute the law established in divine principle for man.
We all are kings in Christ. But with Him we must realize
that "my kingdom is not of this world." Our dominion is
over our own thoughts, emotions, and passions.
Our disciples will do what we tell them and continue to do
it after they have been sufficiently instructed and
assisted in the use of the Word.
Remember that mind rules in both the within and the
without, the visible and the invisible, the high and the
low.
To help Simon the Zealot do his work, center
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your attention for a moment at the base of your brain and
quietly affirm that infinite energy and intelligence are
pouring forth in zeal--enthusiasm. Then follow in
imagination a set of motor nerves that lead out from the
medulla to the eyes, affirming all the time the presence
and power of energy and intelligence now manifesting in
your eyes.
For the ears affirm energy and intelligence, adding, "Be
you open."
For the nose affirm energy and intelligence, adding, "The
purity of Spirit infolds you."
For the mouth carry the life current to the root of the
tongue, with the thought of freedom.
At the root of the tongue is situated the throne of another
disciple, Philip. When you carry the zeal current from its
medulla center and connect it with the throne of Philip, a
mighty vibration is set up that affects the whole
sympathetic nervous system. In this treatment you will
strengthen your voice, revitalize your teeth, and
indirectly impart energy to your digestion.
It was at Cana of Galilee, the nerve center in the throat,
that Jesus turned water into wine. Metaphysically this
miracle is accomplished when we in spirit realize that the
union (wedding) of the fluid life of the body with the
spiritual life at this power center makes a new element,
symbolized by wine.
When the chemistry of the body and the dynamics of the mind
are united, a third element is brought forth, and man feels
that, "in Christ, he is a new creature."
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[Twelve Powers of Man]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
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