Talks on Truth, by Charles Fillmore, [1912], at sacred-texts.com
Talks on Truth, by Charles Fillmore, [1912], at sacred-texts.com
THE TEACHING of Christianity is that the human race was originally in a beautiful garden, a state of consciousness described as Paradise. There were placed before the race two ways of attaining knowledge--one through experience, the other through the inspiration and guidance of God; and the race chose the diverse or hard way of experience. They followed Satan, thinking that through experience they would get wisdom and pleasure. In their ignorance they fell short of the law. They did not know how to take advantage of the forces of mind, and the result was the death of their bodies.
2. But there was promise of restoration; that men should come back into that paradise or place where eternal joy and satisfaction exist, that through Jesus the original life of man should be restored. Jesus understood the law of God, and came to show us the way to live our lives, to resurrect ourselves out of sin and death into immortality. He
resurrected His body and promised that those who keep His sayings and follow His law shall likewise resurrect their bodies; yet nearly two thousand years have passed and no man has demonstrated the resurrection, so far as we know. The teaching has been sidetracked and misunderstood. The popular Christianity of the day tells us that resurrection is of the soul, that it is to take place after death, or at some future time, and that everybody must die.
3. Now a new consciousness, a new understanding of this great teaching of Jesus is needed. We are beginning to understand it scientifically. Our physical scientists are showing us in their laboratories that life should be continuous. They tell us that the functions of our body are self-perpetuating if rightly directed. There is no reason why it should be destroyed. All about us are the forces that enter into the body, and the elements that are found in chemistry are also in the body of flesh.
4. The inner intelligence is able to reconstruct the body; the elements for rebuilding are around us and in us. All conditions join to make possible the development of an immortal structure that shall express man in his true nature. The intuitions of the soul emphasize the point that deathless life here and now is the life that God has appointed us to recall and to develop. Not until we have done this can it be said that we have availed ourselves of the Jesus Christ redemption or that we have our abiding place in the Lord's body.
5. Why have we failed for these two thousand years? Because we have not understood and applied
the divine law. The early disciples evidently caught sight of the great fact that man has within himself this resurrecting power to overcome disease and sickness, but they did not fasten it strongly enough in the race experience, and man has slipped back into the old adverse thought.
6. We must first reduce our religion to facts. What do we know about it? Verily, "by their fruits ye shall know them." The fruit of your thought is your body, and you can judge your thought by the character of your body. So also you can change your body by changing your thoughts. Then here is the key to the situation: To resurrect the body we must change our thoughts. Every thought must be in accordance with absolute Truth; there must be no adverse thought. We must separate ourselves from all thought of sickness, weakness, and death. They must have no part in the consciousness of the one who would follow Jesus. "And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins."
7. Divine metaphysicians take special care that they are logical in their reasoning. They hold that all truth has its origin in Divine Mind. Whatever we can conceive as being true must work itself out in creation, and if the creation seems to fall short of the divine perfection in any way, that is our fault; either we are not seeing the whole or we are lacking in understanding. If we hold to our logic that the good can create nothing but good, it will bring us to the right conclusion, and the manifestation will always prove itself. Holding to this logic of the mind
and the conclusions of the mind, we find that there are two creations; Divine Mind idealizes that which it afterward brings forth, just as a man works out his invention in his mind before he makes the model. God is the all-potential mind. God creates first in idea; His idea of creation is perfect, and that idea exists as a perfect model upon which all manifestation rests. The body of man must rest upon a divine body idea in Divine Mind, and it logically follows that the inner life, substance, and intelligence of all flesh are perfect. But you say, "I have not a perfect body; my body is not the perfect idea, because I can see that it is material." It may be that you do not understand; that you do not discern the Lord's body, which lack, Paul said, is the cause of weakness and sickness and death.
8. Every person has a perfect body in mind, and that perfect mind body is expressing itself through his I AM or the Lord God in him; it is bringing itself into manifestation just as fast as he will let it, just as fast as he perceives God in the flesh. Do you not see how closely you must follow and hold yourself in the true logic? Plato said, "Pure reason is the highest faculty of the mind." Many people wander away from pure reason because it does not seem to agree with the sight of sense. They say that there is evil and error everywhere; that it cannot be, then, that good is the reality of God, of man, and of the universe. The creative law makes man responsible for the bringing forth of the divine perfection. God finished His work--in the ideal, and we are making it manifest. If your body is not perfect, it is because
you have not let into your consciousness all the perfections that exist for you in Divine Mind, perfections that would be fully expressed in you, as they were in Jesus, if you would discern the truth of the ideal real body called the Lord's body.
9. Then if I want to see the real expression of Divine Mind in my body, all I have to do is to image it mentally. I must put my I AM identity into it and affirm that the perfect body, as idealized by God, is now manifest in my hands, in my feet, in my heart, and in every part of my organism. Is that good logic? Of course it is. Will it work? Of course it will. This is the real secret of metaphysical healing. In the beginning the Word was God, but the Word became flesh and dwelt among men and they saw His body, His glory, and His perfection. Then Jesus Christ was the Word or idea of Divine Mind made manifest in form. Jesus saved His body from dissolution and raised it up to the heavenly estate, which is substance so pure that no disintegrating force can be found in it. This gives an importance to the body beyond the usual estimate. People think that soul salvation is the object of the Christian life, but Jesus, in speaking of the body, mentioned His ability to "lay it down, and . . . take it again," even this "temple of God"; and on another occasion He said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also: and greater works than these shall he do."
10. Can we save our body from death? Yes; by seeing it as the very temple of God; and that means more than looking at it as if we were looking
through telescopes. We must see our body with our mind; see it with something more than the intellectual mind; see it with Jehovah, the Lord God within us.
11. When the perfect man is conceived in pure reason, the reason of Spirit, and man sees himself as he is in God's mind, the Lord's body begins at once to appear. We all can see our body with the single eye of which Jesus spoke, and through this faith in the reality of the invisible body we can regenerate the flesh. The body is wonderfully obedient to the I AM mind, hastens to do its bidding, and is renewed and transformed by a thought. But so many of us see the body as it appears to mortal sense, and by thus seeing it, we put it under the laws governing the sense body. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
12. The real continues; the seeming passes away. We know that we are healed by right thought, that we can and do raise these sick bodies and restore them to health. Where is the limit to that healing? There is none. We can go right on and perfect the manifestation of the body idea as it is conceived in Divine Mind. That is where pure reason and logic sustain us. No matter how many people have died or how many are going to die, the logic is good if it proves the healing of even one ill. It is a real pleasure to know that there is a power behind this universe; that there is a real God; that life is something more than the mere piling up of material things; that we can become the real man and that all pure ideals can be fulfilled here and now.
13. The real body of God is a live body. It knows. It is a living body. Above all, it is a beautiful body. God Himself is to be in that temple, and it will not be necessary to have any external light, for the light celestial will illuminate the redeemed body in which God takes up an eternal habitation. It is wonderful how quickly the body responds to thoughts of life and health, and how you can get a flow of health instantly if you hold the right thoughts. Just closing the outer sense and holding the thought that you are the perfect manifestation of Divine Mind will often heal the body of its ills. Sense mind sees the disease and clings to it, when it is trying to get away. Disease is not natural, and it knows it. Then relax the will of the flesh and let Spirit carry on its perfect work in you, and evil or sick conditions will disappear and you will be whole. All good healers will tell you that their best work is done by simply letting go of sense appearances and realizing that there is but one universal Mind, and that that Mind makes a perfect body for every man.
14. We see this law proved again and again in the healing power of nature. Virtually all doctors admit that the body is naturally restored to health; that neither they nor their drugs do the healing. What causes this restoration? The divine idea of perfection. So our body really is the temple of the living God. This so-called material body has within it and about it the divine perfection. Do not make any separation. Hold that your body is spiritual, and hold nothing less, no matter how much your flesh cries out. It may be that flesh and blood and
bones can be expressed in a larger and better way; that is for you to determine--but insist upon the truth. Carry out that living, true Word which every one of us knows to be the offspring of Divine Mind. "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we behold his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth."