|
Teach Us To Pray
Thoughts Are Things
[<- Go back to Health and Prosperity]
[Teach Us To Pray]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
I am no longer like Lot's wife, preserving evil in mind and
body by remembering it. I relax and willingly let go of all
effete substance, that the new, pure radiance of God may be
made manifest in me.
My mind no longer clings to the complexity of mortal
finances. I am open to the splendor of the kingdom of God
within, and a flood of plenty follows.
ONE OF the axiomatic truths of metaphysics is that
"thoughts are things." That the mind of man marshals its
faculties and literally makes into living entities the
ideas that it entertains is also a foregone conclusion.
The word "things" expresses poorly the active and very
vital character of the thoughts to which the mind gives
life, substance, and intelligence.
We see so many inanimate "things" around us in the material
world, and we compare our creative thoughts with them and
thereby get a very inferior
Page 97
conception of the marvelous ability of our mind in its
creative capacity.
Shakespeare says, "The poet's pen . . . gives to airy
nothing a local habitation and a name." At the same time
the poet's mind forms in the ether a replica of his idea,
and that replica takes up its habitation in his thought
atmosphere and henceforth injects into it a tincture of the
sentiments that the poets originally had.
This ability of the Adamic man to "name" or give character,
form, and shape to ideas is symbolically described in the
2d chapter of Genesis, where Jehovah God brought before
Adam the elemental ideas or "beasts" of the Garden of Eden
(called by metaphysicians the "ether"). "And whatsoever the
man called every living creature, that was the name
thereof."
We often refer in Unity literature to the discoveries by
modern science of the ether and its stupendous properties
as confirming in scientific terms what Jesus taught in
symbols concerning the properties of the ether, which He
named the kingdom of the heavens. The Garden of Eden is a
symbolic description of that elemental realm which modern
science has named the ether. Science says that this ether
fills all space, is not molecular, and possesses an amount
of energy beyond comparison with anything material; that
all the complex phenomena of nature may be reduced to
different kinds of waves of energy in the ether. Professor
James Jeans says, "We live in a universe of waves, and
Page 98
nothing but waves." He also says that it may be that our
mind lays hold of the atoms of our body and so forms the
world about us.
Here we see how very near to the teaching of religion
scientific minds are approaching. They are virtually
proclaiming the one life as the source of everything. Their
next great proclamation will be that one directive
intelligence is an essential cause of the harmonious
universe.
Every experienced metaphysician knows that man's mind molds
from an omnipresent element whatever takes form, shape, and
intelligence and becomes part of his thought world. That
science in a measure confirms this is a source of
gratification and a stabilizer of faith. Knowing that our
world is composed of what we have idealized should make us
more watchful of the activities of our mind. Are we still
harboring thought forms that are impeding our soul's
progress? Are we preserving our evil thoughts by thinking
about them with fear in our mind? Or it may be that we
yearn for the pleasures of the past and like Lot's wife
look back, thereby subjecting ourselves to the things of
the past or with the salt of the mind preserving them.
There are always better things just ahead for those who
build in mind the living thought entities that go before
and open the way.
Man lives in two worlds, the world of cause and the world
of effect. The world of effect is at present in a complex
tangle. Panaceas without number are offered. There is but
one panacea and that is the installation of an economic
system in which human greed will be eliminated. To
institute such a system will require men and women who have
overcome greed in themselves.
If you would help the world, and incidentally yourself, to
better economic conditions, begin to deny your selfishness
and greed and affirm,
"I am open to the splendor of the kingdom of God within,
and a flood of plenty follows."
The Supermind
I join with all the hosts of heaven in declaring that only
the good is true, and that good health everywhere is made
manifest.
The rich substance of the kingdom of God is pouring its
plenty perpetually into my mind and affairs, and I am in
all ways prospered.
THAT MAN in his spiritual nature is leagued with supermind
realms is taught freely in the Scriptures and can be proved
to the satisfaction of anyone who will submit to the
required mental discipline. That these supermind forces are
not always used to bring about good is no argument against
their existence. Anyone who develops spiritually in any way
breaks into realms of thought energy superior to the
intellectual and can incite to action subtle causes that
mystify the average on-looker. For this reason every
Christian metaphysician should acquaintance with these
facts about the supermind, which occupies so great a place
in Truth demonstrations.
Page 101
The question is often asked if the Indian medicine man or
the African witch doctor uses the same force that the
Christian healer does. The answer is yes. There is but one
primal life in which we all exist and which we use as we
will. The way in which we project this force determines
whether we are Christian or pagan. If our thought is to
destroy, we are pagan. If our thought is for peace, we are
Christian. This law is operative not only in the nations
but in every individual. As we are taught in our Bible, God
originally guided man to think good only; but man was
tempted and chose to be free and think for himself. This
freedom threw the whole race into a mental vortex of "good"
and "evil," hate and love, war and peace. Christ is the
Prince of Peace and Satan is the devil of destruction.
These good and evil states of consciousness form the
heavens and the hells of the race, and we go in mind to
heaven or hell every time we mentally project the thoughts
that "chord" with that particular state. Only a
supermastermind can overcome this law of mental affinity
and set up in our earthly discordant thought atmosphere a
consciousness of peace and love. Jesus was able to do this,
and when we think of Him, the Christ in us "tunes in" to
the Christ in Him and we are saved from the destructive
forces that tear soul and body asunder.
The mental harmony of Jesus not only radiates throughout
the earth but reaches into the heavens, where it taps the
glory of the Son of God. When we pray in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ or
Page 102
decree His presence and power in our spiritual work, we
effect a reunion with His supermind and its tremendous
ramifications in heaven and earth, and our own meager
spiritual ability is augmented a thousandfold. Jesus
understood and used this law of thought affinity when He
claimed that the works He did were not His but the Father's
within Him. It was in this consciousness that He
proclaimed, "All authority hath been given unto me in
heaven and on earth." He also affirmed a like spiritual
unity for His disciples and for all those who proclaim Him
as their spiritual leader. His last promise was "And these
signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall
they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues;
they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands
on the sick, and they shall recover." This is found in the
16th chapter of Mark, where it is also written, "And they
went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with
them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed."
Peter and John developed marvelous healing power when they
spoke the magic words to the lame man at the gate
Beautiful: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk."
"And immediately his feet and his ankle-bones received
strength. And leaping up, he stood, and began to walk."
For two thousand years those who have had faith in Jesus
and proclaimed their faith in His name have had proof that
He is present as a dynamic
Page 103
life-giving force. Men and women with no previous healing
power have suddenly become healers of marvelous ability.
They do not claim to understand how the healing is done.
They know only that through the exercise of faith and their
word the spiritual quality in them is fused into unity with
the power of Christ and the work is marvelously
accomplished.
Page 104
[Go forward to Cheerfulness Heals ->]
[Teach Us To Pray]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
|