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Teach Us To Pray
Thought Images
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[Teach Us To Pray]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
I see myself as God sees me, perfect in mind and body.
What I image in mind is molded in omnipresent substance,
and I behold plenty for everybody.
EVERY TIME we go to a movie we are witnessing a likeness of
what is constantly taking place in our mind. A likeness is
an imitation or repetition of a thing. The projection into
visible action of a series of small images by a
motion-picture machine is the copy of a process that we all
use, the picture-making ability of our mind. However the
picture-making ability of our mind is a far more
substantial thing than the weak imitations of the movie
camera. We clothe our mental pictures with flesh and blood,
while the movie is merely shimmering shadows.
It is true that persons who are shallow in their grasp of
the deep things of life image weakly, and the projections
of their mind are transitory. But those who have meditated
seriously upon the source
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of existence and stirred up the inner substance and life
make very substantial pictures in the universal ether or
"kingdom of the heavens." An image projected from the head
alone, which has not made union with soul substance, is a
mere flickering will-o'-the-wisp that shimmers for a short
moment in the mental marshes and then fades away.
There is a vast difference between the thought images of an
intellectual thinker and those of one who has got access to
the spiritual substance and life within. One may make
brilliant pictures in the ether, but they are without the
substance and life that is so essential to the structure of
things eternal. Jesus illustrated this in His comparison of
the man who builds upon rock with the man who builds upon
sand. The house built upon sand soon falls, but the one
built on rock (substance) endures when the winds and floods
descend upon it.
Spiritual insight or discernment shows us that Divine Mind,
which created in the beginning, must still be carrying
forward the universe and the man that it originally
conceived. It also shows us that by projecting the perfect
picture of ourselves that God projected we shall behold its
perfect manifestation.
Paul says that we shall attain the glory of the Lord by
degrees: "from glory to glory." Jesus said, "In your
patience ye shall win your souls." So many of us have
visions of the perfect man, as had John on Patmos, and we
are so eager to be like him that we get impatient and
eagerly grasp at the many
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"promising" short cuts into the kingdom.
But we should be constantly reminded that there are no
shorter cuts than those taught by Jesus. He said that the
kingdom of heaven suffered violence under John the Baptist
and the other prophets up to the time of John and that the
violent took it by force. Then He called attention to John
the Baptist as the reincarnation of Elijah. Of all the old
prophets Elijah was the most violent and destructive. He at
one time called down the fire of Jehovah and destroyed four
hundred of the prophets of Baal. This violent and
destructive rise of the power of the word finally reacted
upon the cells of Elijah's body and burned them up, and he
was taken up into the heavens in a chariot of fire.
It is popularly taught that Elijah is a saint in heaven,
but this cannot be true because, as Jesus plainly taught in
Matthew 11:14, he appeared again in the earth as John the
Baptist. Neither did John get into heaven. He expressed the
Elijah spirit by condemning Herod and then having his head
cut off by way of reaction to his destructive thought. All
this instructs us in the power of our mind to bring peace,
harmony, and health into our life by right thinking. All
that Jesus taught about man and his mighty mental capacity
is being confirmed by modern psychology and by the
discoveries of science in the realms invisible. For us it
is not only a privilege but an absolute necessity to bring
forth that perfection of character and form which was
originally imaged in our soul by God-Mind.
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[Teach Us To Pray]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
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