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Keep A True Lent

THE CHRISTIAN world is once again observing the Lenten season; the season of prayer and fasting that precedes the joyous festivity of Easter. It is commonly believed that the Lenten period has to do with the events of the forty days preceding the Resurrection. This is an erroneous idea. Lent is a church institution, and there is no authorization for it anywhere in the New Testament. The idea, however, has a sound spiritual basis; Moses, Elijah, and Jesus Himself set a precedent for it. Each observed a forty-day period of prayer and fasting as a preparation for spiritual work. Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai at the conclusion of his fast. Elijah talked with God on Mount Horeb at the conclusion of his period of prayer and fasting. Jesus began His great spiritual ministry at the close of His fast in the wilderness. The ancient Hebrew writers made a practice of using numbers to symbolize ideas. Forty, in their minds, was a "foursquare" number suggesting the idea of a foundation for something to follow; an idea of completeness. So the number forty is frequently used in the Scriptures to indicate a completed preparation for something to follow. When we consider Lent as a well-rounded or "completed" season of retreat from the things of the world for the cleansing of the mind and the recollection of the things of Spirit, it becomes a true season of preparation for the glorious Eastertide; a preparation for the resurrection of the mind from the darkness of its sins, doubts, and false beliefs into the light of understanding. Lent, then, is a church institution embodying an exalted idea, the idea of cleansing and disciplining both mind and body toward the end of making them more receptive to the Christ ideas. Like many other religious practices it is too often observed in letter but not in spirit. Too many people make a fad out of Lent. It is fashionable to give up some luxuries, and when those luxuries have to do with food and drink it is profitable physically. There is also psychological value in the mental discipline involved. But such observance has nothing to do with being a Christian; atheists could get the same benefit! Every follower of Jesus who would keep Lent in the true Christian spirit follows the way of prayer and fasting that He taught His disciples. He revealed that prayer and fasting are the sure way to spiritual power, the way to keep the soul cleansed and purified that it may feel the presence of God. When the disciples were unable to heal the epileptic boy He told them that they lacked faith, that such healings could only be brought about by prayer and fasting. Jesus revealed that fasting, like prayer, is a matter between man and his Maker. He told His disciples that they were to make no show of their fasting. He said, "Appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." He gave the same instruction concerning prayer. Prayer and fasting, then, are matters of communion with God, not matters of public display. They are transactions in mind. It is of no use to go through the outer form if the feeling of communion with God is not established. In abstinence from worldly things the mind must be filled with thoughts of God, else there is no spiritual value in fasting. If we would "lose the bands of wickedness" we must learn to fast from all unworthy thought and feast on the good and the true. To observe Lent according to the spirit rather than the letter we must fast from criticism and condemnation and feast in brotherly love; fast from false beliefs in sickness and weakness and feast on the truth of God's omnipresent, perfect life; fast from false beliefs in lack and limitation and feast on the truth of God's bountiful good will. Ideas such as these form an excellent basis for Lenten meditations that help establish permanent spiritual values in heart and mind. One of the most valuable ways of observing the Lenten season is to fast from (loose and let go) the belief that men or nations can stand in the way of God's good will for man. Now is the time to affirm the power of the Christ Spirit indwelling in all men everywhere and influencing their thoughts, words, and actions to work for the good of the whole. We all want to be of some influence in establishing world peace. To do so we must learn to obey Paul's exhortation "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace." Each one of us must be concerned with improving his own life. We must learn to deny our selfish impulses and be obedient to impulses of brotherly love. When we withdraw our attention, interest, and support from the false and the unworthy, this is true fasting. When we give that same attention, interest, and support to the enduring good, we are feasting on the things of the Spirit, and this is true prayer. When we have truly fasted in the Christ way we have increased our ability to respond to God's good will. Georgiana Tree West PUBLISHER'S NOTE--Some Unity students will note that they have previously read some of the material in "Keep A True Lent." Some of the material in this book originally appeared in Unity magazine and portions of it may be found in other books by Charles Fillmore. The material was assembled in this manner in order that this book would offer the reader a well-rounded course of study during Lent. The Way to Perfection Chapter 1 I AM GOD ALMIGHTY; walk before me, and be thou perfect." In prayer we need to be deeply conscious that God is the almighty One, the supreme Creator the ruler of the universe, that He is infinite and eternal; we need to know that God is the underlying, unchangeable Truth, "with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning." God as principle is the absolute good expressed in all creation. When we know God and "worship him in spirit and truth" we recognize Him as this great goodness, which is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, ready and willing to guide, to bless, and to uplift. To walk with almighty God is to walk with Truth and to affirm the power of Spirit within mind and body as the dominating mind force; it is to walk in the light and thus to apply in our daily living the wisdom that is from above, acknowledging the Father as the source of all our knowing, as the mainspring of all our actions. This leads us to the truth that our knowing God brings peace, the serene abiding that never wearies, never questions, never strains for results. He created and controls the whole universe. In God "we live, and move, and have our being." Mind is the common meeting ground between God and man, and it is only through the most highly accelerated mind action, as in prayer, that we can consciously make union with God, the one and only Creator. Prayer is the language of spirituality and improves the quality of man's being. Prayer makes man master in the realm of creative ideas. The inner silence of prayer is a great source of spiritual power. There is no exception to this rule in all the evidence of life. "Be still, and know that I am God." The living Word of God, the creative idea in Divine Mind, may be expressed by man when he has fulfilled the law of expression. To keep the Word is to revolve it in mind, to go over it in all its aspects, to believe in it as Truth, to treasure it as a saving balm in time of need, and above all, to obey the law it sets forth. The Christ is God's divine idea of man, the embodiment of all divine ideas existing in the mind of Being. The Christ is the "Messiah," the "anointed one." The Christ is the living principle working in man. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Under the direction of the Christ a new body is constructed by the thinking faculty in man. The materials entering into this superior structure are spiritual substances, and the new creation is the body of Spirit. It breathes an atmosphere and is thrilled with a life energy more real than that of the manifest man. When we come into the realization of our true Christ body we feel the stirring within us of the indwelling Spirit. We know what Paul meant when he said, "There is a natural body, and there is also a spiritual body." The true temple in the "body" of Christ is a state of consciousness. In the inmost center of every man the indwelling Christ resides. Would you meet your God in this sacred place? Then quietly enter this holy of holies in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ. Here reality reigns supreme. Neither doubt nor fear can enter. You will be conscious only of the great omnipresence of God, where the light, joy, peace, and satisfaction of His Spirit abide, where Truth reigns supreme. In this inner realm you will find the spiritual ethers heavily charged with ideas that turn to spiritual substance. As your consciousness (awareness) expands, you touch the everlasting truths and you find that every blessing is abundantly added. What seems new is but the unveiling of that which has been forever. It is of this high realization of oneness with Spirit that Paul wrote in II Cor. 12:4, when the man was "caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter." In this realm, attention is given to concentrating the mind on Truth; the I AM, or inner entity is focalized on God's word until the inner meaning is realized and man is aware of a definite spiritual uplift. Persistent meditation on the Truth contained in the Word of God opens the mind to a greater inflow of Spirit. Then all words become quickening life and nourishing substance in both mind and body. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." Your thinking Truth zealously and affirming it audibly will dissolve error in consciousness and at the same time reveal greater spiritual illumination. In this consciousness appropriate words of Truth. "Eat them," so to speak. Partake of that with which you form the spiritual substance and which will manifest itself in the Christ, or perfect body. Let "Christ be formed in you." Know that the Holy Spirit is filling your being with its illuminating, resurrecting power and that the all-knowing One shines in you as it did in Jesus and that you manifest greater and greater spiritual understanding. When man praises the Spirit of wisdom within he expands and deepens and enriches his consciousness. As the Christ radiance lights man's mind, he sees with the inner eye and he finds that Truth is a never-failing light that makes straight his way. In this high state of consciousness he knows that the divine perfection that exists in the universal God-Mind is brought into direct contact with its image and likeness, the Christ Spirit that was implanted in him by the Creator from the beginning. The resurrection of Jesus takes place in us each time we rise to the realization of the perpetual in-dwelling life that connects us with the Father. The graveclothes of mortal sense, which are thoughts of limitation and inevitable obedience to material laws, are left in the tomb of matter. True resurrection within us lifts up all the faculties of mind until they conform to the absolute ideas of Divine Mind. This mental renewal makes a complete transformation of the body, so that every function works in divine order and every cell becomes incorruptible and immortal. For the perpetuation or the renewal of youth in mind and body it is well to affirm often: "Bless Jehovah, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless Jehovah, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases: Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy desire with good things, So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle." The Holy Trinity the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit Chapter 2 THE HOLY TRINITY is known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Metaphysically, we understand the Trinity to refer to mind, idea, and expression, or thinker, thought, and action. God is first in the Trinity. God is mind and is everywhere present. God is principle, law, Being, Spirit, All-Good, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, unchangeable, Creator, Father, cause, and source of all that is. God as Spirit is forever accessible. God as principle is the unchangeable life, love, substance, and intelligence of Being. A parallel may be found in the principle of mathematics or music. Principle does not occupy space, nor has it any limitations of time or matter, but eternally exists as the one underlying cause from which come forth all true ideas. In universal God-Mind is a substance that includes the seed of all visible substance. It is the only real substance, because it is unchangeable, while visible substance is in constant transition. God as substance does not mean matter, because matter is formed; God is formless. The substance that God is lies back of all matter and all form. It is that which is the basis of all form, yet enters not into any form as finality. It cannot be seen, tasted, or touched, yet it is the one and only "substantial" substance. Second in the Trinity is God's idea of man. It is called Jehovah in the Old Testament and Christ in the New Testament. The second in the Trinity is also called the Word, the Son, the Logos, the anointed One, and the I AM. The Word of God is the revelation to man of the powers and possibilities of his own being. The searchlight of His Word discloses the presence of secret springs and living streams of energy and life. Man's consciousness is lifted up by the wisdom of the Word, and he finds himself master of the powers and privileges of infinity. He says with Jesus, "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth." To produce works, there must be a working power. This is exactly what the Word is--the working power of God. Every known process has a regular sequence from inception to conclusion, and each step in the sequence is taken according to recognized principles. The Word of God conveys to the world the concepts of the Most High. Persistent meditation on the Truth contained in the Word of God opens the mind to Spirit. Then all words become quickening life and nourishing substance in both mind and body. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." In the silence go before the altar and lay your problems before the Lord. The altar is that place in consciousness where you are willing to let go of the lesser for the greater, to let go of personality and enter into individuality of the Christ. While in this closet of prayer, fix your mind powerfully on the consummation of a certain idea until the idea nucleates a certain amount of thought substance. This is followed by a spiritual quickening, or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, third in the Trinity. The function of the Holy Spirit implies distinct personal subsistence: He speaks, searches, selects, reveals, reproves, testifies, leads, comforts, distributes to every man, "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." In concentration the Holy Spirit works through the divine substance to bring forth the fruits of Divine Mind. The Holy Spirit is the teacher. The teacher and the student use the same principles; but the teacher arouses and inspires the student to greater achievement. The Holy Spirit today is urging us to greater spiritual effort. Another word for the Holy Spirit is "the Comforter," Jesus said: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." The mission of Jesus was to open the way for the Holy Spirit to enter into the minds of men. "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me." We may understand the relation and office of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by analyzing our own mind and its apparent subdivisions during thought action, because each person is a perfect image and likeness of this great universal first cause--God, the Father. Your word is the power through which you make your belief manifest. Simple belief in or assent to the truth of a proposition never gives understanding to anyone. There must be mental action; changes in the mind are necessary before the new state of consciousness takes up its abode in you. Therefore, in answer to that frequently asked question, "Who is the Holy Spirit, and what relation does it bear to God and to Christ?" the apostles knew the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. The Father is always the first, the Son or Word second, and the Holy Spirit third. The terms Father and Son express an eternal, reciprocal relation. The Holy Spirit is the infinite "breath" of God, as the Son of His infinite "Word." God-Mind is located and appears wherever it is recognized by the mind of man. It thus follows that whoever gives his attention to Spirit and seals his identification with it by his word (the Son) starts a flow of Spirit life and all the attributes of Spirit in and through his consciousness. To the extent that he practices identifying himself with the one and only source of existence, he becomes Spirit in expression, until finally the union attains a perfection in which he can say with Jesus, "I and the Father are one." In making your demonstrations, work for the conviction in your own heart that you are a son of God; next, declare it in word and carry it out in the acts of your daily life. After declaring it, if you fail in demonstrating yourself to be a son of God, determine why. "Ask, and it shall be given you . . . knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Perhaps you have neglected some of your spiritual powers, or you may be dissipating your energies on the sense plane. Be that as it may, when you ask in the silence of Spirit to be shown why you do not demonstrate the powers that Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated, the Holy Spirit will in some way reveal to you your lack. How that revealment will come about, no one can tell you. But if you are patient and trustful, you will be guided and directed so that all the links in the chain of your being will be brought together and harmoniously joined, and the Son of God will be revealed in you. The House Not Made with Hands Chapter 3 WE, AS METAPHYSICIANS, take special care that we are logical in our reasoning. We hold that all Truth has its origin in Divine Mind. Whatever we can conceive as being true must manifest itself in creation, and if the creation seems to fall short of the divine perfection in any way, it is a fault on our part--either we are not seeing the whole of it, or we are lacking in understanding. And if we hold to our logic that the good can create nothing but good, it will bring us to the right conclusion. Holding to this logic, we find that there are two steps in creation--mind ideates that which it later brings forth in the outer, just as a man works out in his mind his invention before he makes the model. God is the all-potential mind. God creates first in thought, and 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 is perfect. But you say, "I do not have a perfect body; my body is not perfect, I can see that it is material." It may be that you do not understand; that you fail to discern the "Lord's body," which failure, Paul said, is the cause of weakness and sickness and death. We have a perfect body in mind, and this perfect mind-body expresses itself through our I AM, or the Christ in us; it brings itself into manifestation just as fast as we let it, just as fast as we perceive God in the flesh. The real source of life is within you. Go within and close the door of materiality. Talk to God about your life problem; begin to release your hidden energies. Make it a daily process and talk little about what you are doing. The incorporation of divine life in the millions of cells composing your body was accomplished in conjunction with Spirit, and the release should be under the same law. If you want to see the real expression of Divine Mind in your body, all you have to do is mentally to image it. Put your I AM identity into it and affirm that the perfect body as idealized in God-Mind is now made manifest in your hands, in your feet, in your heart, and in every part of your organism. Is this good logic? 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 Jesus' body, His glory and His perfection. Jesus Christ was the Word of God made manifest. 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 and Paul laid great stress on the ability of man to "lay it down, and . . . take it again," even this "temple of the living God." Can we save our body from death? Yes--by seeing it as the very temple of God; and this means more than looking at it as if we were looking through a telescope. We must see our body with our mind. We must see it with something more than the intellectual mind. We must see it with Jehovah, the Christ within us. When the perfect man is conceived in pure reason, the reason of Spirit, and man sees himself as he is in God-Mind, the Lord's body begins at once to appear. We can all see our body with the "single" eye that Jesus spoke of, and through faith in the reality of the invisible body regenerate the flesh. The body is wonderfully obedient to the I AM. It hastens to do its bidding and is renewed and transformed by thought. But so many of us see our body as it appears to mortal sense, unaware that the real continues, while the seeming passes away. We know that we are healed by right thinking, that we can and do raise sick bodies and restore them to health. Where is the limit to healing? There is no limit. Why can we not go right on and perfect the body idea as conceived in Divine Mind? This is where pure reason and logic sustain us. It makes no difference how many people die, or are going to die; the logic is good if it proves the healing of a single illness. It is indeed uplifting to know that there is a divine power behind this universe, that there is a true God; that life has more meaning than the mere piling up of material things; that we can become the real man, and all the pure ideals can be fulfilled here and now. The real body of God is a living body. Above all, it is a beautiful body, a temple. And God Himself is in that temple, and it is not necessary to have any light but His light, the light of life and health. It is wonderful how quickly our body responds to a thought of life and health, how we can feel a flow of health instantly if we hold the right thought. Just closing our mind to outer things and holding the thought that we are the perfect manifestations of Divine Mind will often heal our body of its illnesses. Disease is not natural. We must let it go, relax, and let Spirit carry on its perfect work in us; and all at once evil or sick conditions disappear, and we are whole. Those who have had divine healings tell us that their best work was done by simply letting go and realizing that there is but one universal Mind and that this Mind makes a perfect body for every man. We see this proved again and again in the healing power of nature. All doctors admit that the body is restored to health naturally, that neither they nor drugs do the actual healing. What causes the body to be restored? The divine idea of perfection. Our body really is the temple of the living God. The so-called material body has within it and about it the divine perfection. We should not make any separation. We should hold that our body is spiritual and hold nothing else. We must 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." Christ in You Chapter 4 VOLTAIRE IS CREDITED with saying that if there were no God, men would invent one. The human characteristics of the gods of all religions betray their man-made origin. Not discerning the real character of God, man has thought of Him as acting as man would if he were God. The result is a God who is angry every day, regrets that He made man, drowns the whole human family, and condemns the wicked to the eternal fire of hell if they fail to ask His forgiveness. This God of many of the religions of the day is of such frightful mien that we find it difficult to accept Him as the loving Father that Jesus taught Him to be. Robert Ingersoll paraphrased "An honest man is the noblest work of God" to "An honest God is the noblest work of man." He was not so far wrong. All inventions are first pictured in the mind of the inventor. So we form a mental picture of everything we conceive, and our conception of God is no exception. We do not see persons and things as we think we see them. What we see is our own conception of them. We are forced by intuition, logic, and manifest evidence to the conclusion that the Creator of the universe in which we live was and is wise and good. This being true, we cannot accept descriptions of Him or His acts that contradict that primal conclusion. When we read that "God is angry with the wicked every day" we question the understanding of the writer, although the evidence would tend to prove the assumption. Those who transgress divine law suffer in various ways, and it might well seem that an angry Being is the executioner. However, we know that even those who frame our civil laws are not angry with the persons who break them. Those who conceive of God as a person will invest Him with personal traits, some of which are ridiculous. We can all understand that a creation which involves complex relations must be governed by laws and orderly acts. Those who get the right conception of the creative source and adjust their minds to its wisdom, purity, power, love, and completeness as the ideal source of perfect man are rewarded by a serene peace and confidence in the final supremacy of justice and righteousness. God is good, and He is the only real power in the universe; consequently, perfection must eventually establish itself in the minds of the law-abiding people and through them in the whole world. God-Mind presents its perfect ideals to all minds, especially to those that are open to the light of the Christ, by whom the bonds of error thought are broken. Those who have been trained to think of God as a person, as the parent of a family of billions can continue to think of Him as such by adding the attributes of unlimited principle. But they should not make their God a man with the limitations of the human. The natural man thinks that the world in which he lives is the real world and that the thoughts he thinks are the real thoughts. Those who expect the second coming of Jesus look forward to His appearance in a body of flesh similar to the body that was crucified, if not the same. But Jesus at the Ascension broke His physical organism into its primal electrons or ions of substance and life, which He sowed as a body seed for all those who follow Him in the regeneration. Thousands have appropriated these seeds of the new Christ body in the past nineteen hundred years and are now in the process of unfolding a redeemed organism. No one has fully developed the Christ body as it will appear when mortal life has been replaced by immortality. Many are experiencing strange sensations that they or their medical advisers do not understand. These are the transforming elements of the new life that they have incorporated into their consciousness in this or some other incarnation. The redemptive work that Jesus began will require a long period of time to be fulfilled. He told His apostles that many things would happen before the consummation of what He called the "end of the age." This phrase appears in the American Standard Version of the New Testament as the "end of the world," but is corrected in the margin. This erroneous translation, "the end of the world," has caused wave after wave of fear to sweep over the earth for hundreds of years, and many ministers are still using it as a club to scare people into conversion. Jesus never taught that God would destroy the earth, but He did teach that race evolution was being carried forward in great periods or ages, one of which was ending in His time. Jesus said that no one knew the duration of this age except the Father. Paul doubtless had this in mind when he wrote to the Colossians concerning "the mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Through Christ we are unified with God and become joint heirs with Jesus to all the treasures of the kingdom of heaven. Every follower of Jesus should strive for a better and fuller understanding of the unity He made with the Father, whereby He opened the way for us to make the same unity and help others to do likewise. People are no longer herded into heaven by persons preaching the fear of hell, but many persons are sinking deeper and deeper into the delusions of sense. The old serpent is deceiving them with the promise that they get pleasure out of sensations of the flesh. We must preach and teach and demonstrate that there is health and happiness in the spiritual life of Christ. The blood of Jesus does save. We have a striking illustration of the efficacy of human blood in the restoration of life to our wounded soldiers. The blood of the human family has become corrupt, and the race body is no longer vitalized sufficiently. It has reached a point where an infusion of purified blood is imperative. Jesus raised the blood of His body to spiritual potency. This purified blood was sown as seed in our race thought and can be appropriated by anyone who raises his thoughts to those of Jesus. This is accomplished through faith in Jesus to save one from sin, to inspire one with His Spirit, or through asking Jesus to come to the aid of the sin-sick mind or suffering body. A single atom of the purified blood of Jesus can begin a vitalizing and purifying work in mind and body that will continue until the Christ man appears. How long it will take to transform the mortal into the immortal no man can tell. We do know, however, that once the mind receives the Christ quickening it will continue to grow in grace, incarnation after incarnation, until the rejuvenating life has overcome death and reincarnation is no longer necessary. The multitudes who still labor under the logic of the personal-God consciousness continue to ask why God does not plainly reveal Himself and destroy the Adversary, who is leading so many astray. Those who have for even a short time given their thoughts to the Christ Spirit can testify that it has developed in them a new outlook on life. Where before they were doubtful and uncertain, they now have the assurance of the presence of a power that is helping them to better living in every way. Christ has become a real Comforter, working with them, rather than a historical God-man in heaven. Health and prosperity have replaced the former fear of sickness and financial worry. How great is the need for a metaphysical understanding of God and His relation to man! Jesus taught plainly that "God is Spirit." God is not a sleight-of-hand performer who makes full-grown animals instantly. God gives Himself to man, and man has the power to make himself what he will. Freedom of will is man's inheritance, and he can use that freedom to build or destroy as he determines. Jesus claimed that all authority was given to Him "in heaven and on earth." What Jesus had, we all have potentially. He developed His powers and was the great example for all of us. We can attain the same unity with the Father-Mind that He attained; and He promised us that He will help us to reach this unity with the Father. If suffering humanity could appreciate the importance of this stupendous invitation and accept it, the world and its people would soon be transformed. The Throne of Love Chapter 5 DIVINE LOVE is the force that dissolves all the opposers of true thought and thus smooths out every obstacle that presents itself. When love ascends the throne and takes complete possession of our life its rule is just and righteous. Even destructive faculties, such as resistance, opposition, obstinacy, anger, jealousy, are harmonized through love. Perfect love casts out all fear. When love harmonizes the consciousness we find that our outer affairs are put in order and that where once there seemed to be opposition and fear co-operation and trust prevail. We demonstrate nonresistance by denying all intellectual opposition or antagonism. When the substance of divine love is poured out upon all alien thoughts we are not bothered by them any more. This leads to joy, a positive force that has not been bearing fruit because of the obstructions heaped upon it by the failure to fulfill the law of the All-Good. The wonderful kingdom within man is developed through keeping the commandments; that is, commanding, controlling, and directing every thought according to the harmonious law of love to one another. The dissolving power of spiritual love is the antidote for a dictatorial will, but we must deny all selfish desires out of our love before we use it in softening the imperious will. When the consciousness of love stands in the inner court of our being we cannot help acceding to its demands. Unselfish love is fearless, because of its forgetfulness of self. Will divides its dominion with love when it is approached in the right attitude; that is, with understanding. Understanding of the law is necessary in all permanent unions. When we know Truth we know that we are all one, that there is no separation whatever. They that love without the adulteration of selfishness or the lust of sense come into the very presence of God. There is a distinction between love of the divine type, exercised by divine man, and love of the human type, exercised by the mortal man. It requires discriminating judgment to distinguish between human and divine love. All love is divine in its origin, but in passing through the prism of man's mind it is apparently broken into many colors. Yet, like the ray of white light, it ever remains pure. It is within man's province to make its manifestation in his life just as pure as its origin. This, too, requires painstaking discrimination and good judgment. We learn by experience that love must be directed by wisdom. If we give up blindly to the impulses suggested by human love, we shall suffer many downfalls. David represents love passing through some of these experiences. He let his affections go out to many wives; he attached himself through the heart to the many sources of sensation that the love nature opens. When one gives up to all the emotions engendered by love there is a saturnalia of sensation in consciousness. The first step in all reform is the recognition of the power of the law. Wisdom shows us what the law is and where we have fallen short in our use of it. Then we are shown that there is no anger against us on the part of God. Transgression of the law brings its own punishment. We are not punished for our sins but by them. God is kindness, God is love--loving-kindness is a word of rare compound. One good definition of love is that it is the feeling that excites desire for the welfare of its object. If all people would recognize love as embodying this ideal--recognize that God loves all men to the degree that He has poured out His life and substance and intelligence equally with us in the universal scheme--they would find in it the solution to every problem of life. Our greatest good comes in the welfare of all. Jesus recognized divine sonship and universal brotherhood. We confess Jesus as the Son of God, and by that confession we acknowledge that all men are sons of God. All of us want to know Truth and the help that comes from it, but when it is presented to us we object to the broad spirit that it proclaims. This is especially the case if our religious training has been narrow and pharisaical. The Jews were taught that they were the chosen people and that all others were barbarians. Such doctrine is the foundation of the caste system. When a man begins to see himself better than other men, the thought of superiority extends to his environment, and social apartness follows. What those in authority have taught and what the customs and beliefs of the past have been are of more weight than reason and logic. An innovation on old methods of thought is resisted. The whole religious nature is moved; thought runs to meet thought, and a concentration of resistance is set up in the mind. Many persons wonder why they do not develop divine love more quickly. Here is the reason: They make a wall of separation between the religious and the secular, between the good and the bad. Divine love sees no distinction among persons. It is Principle and it feels its own perfection everywhere. It feels the same in the heart of the sinner as it does in the heart of the saint. When we let the Truth of Being into our heart and pull down all walls of separation we shall feel the flow of infinite love that Jesus felt. A sense of oneness is a natural product of love, and it is accompanied by a consciousness of security. Through our sense of oneness with the All-Good, the greatest possible sense of security is realized; therefore, all fear is readily and completely cast out. John emphasizes the fact that in order to love God we must necessarily love our fellow men. A love that is adulterated in any degree by hatred for anything or anybody is not pure enough to discern the great love of the Infinite, which unifies all men. Jesus said that love of God is the greatest commandment. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth." Divine love is such a transcendent thing that words describing it seem flat and stale. But words used in right understanding quicken the mind, and we should not despise them. Affirming that we do love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our might will cause us to feel a love we have never felt before. No better treatment for the realization of divine love can be given than that which Jesus recommended. Jerusalem, the Holy City, represents the love center in consciousness. Physically, it is the cardiac plexus. Its presiding genius is John the Mystic, who leaned his head on the Master's bosom. We establish the ruling attitudes of mind throughout our body by our daily thoughts, and they may or may not be in harmony with Principle. Our dominant thoughts about love will show forth in the heart center and establish there a general character. The loves and hates of the mind are precipitated to this ganglionic receptacle of thought and crystallized there. Its substance is sensitive, tremulous, and volatile. What we love or what we hate builds cells of joy or pain in the cardiac plexus. In divine order it should be the abode of all that is good and pure. To be in subjection to the higher Power is the highest goal of human attainment. The spirit of obedience is the spirit of love. Love is the most obedient thing in the universe. It is also the greatest worker and will accomplish more for our happiness than all other faculties combined. If you want a servant that will work for you night and day, cultivate divine love. At times there may be obstacles in the mind that interfere with this fellowship of love. One of them is the thought that we owe our neighbor something besides love. For some wrong, fancied or otherwise, we think we owe him punishment. The higher Power tells us that we owe him love only, and by sending him the word of love the law is fulfilled, and the barrier is burned away. We must make friends with everybody and everything in order to have this mighty worker, love, carry out for us the divine law. When we even faintly realize the love of God we begin to love our fellow men. There is a fervent love among Christians that is not found among any other group. Love is a divine ordinance, and those who let the love of God pour itself out in charity do truly cover and forgive a "multitude of sins," not only in themselves but in others; love pours its balm over every wound and the substance of its sympathy infuses hope and faith to the discouraged heart. Divine love has a balm for every ill. The World Calls to Courage Chapter 6 OVER NINETEEN hundred years ago a man taught a religion that changed the whole trend of thought of people. His teachings were called "the Way." In the beginning He had few followers. He was, like Socrates, accused of treason and killed. His enemies took for granted that after His death His doctrine would utterly disappear, as had many doctrines before His time. However, they lacked spiritual discernment, for the teachings of the man Jesus of Nazareth possessed an element that the people vitally needed and they soon sprang up in regions far beyond the little land where they were promulgated; they spread to many lands and have been spreading ever since. It was the Word of God that Jesus was teaching; the Word of God is the creative agent, and spiritual man is its supreme creation. Moreover, the man Jesus stands far out in front, as evidenced by His teachings. He is the divine man of this race. We should impress this on our consciousness. We should study His teachings. We should understand and follow them. Jesus taught that the world belongs to man and that man is responsible for it. The human family is responsible for the poverty or the prosperity of them world. By our mental beholding and working we determine whether we shall have or have not. In the days when the Israelites were held in captivity by the Babylonians, a few of the companions of the prophet Nehemiah were allowed to return with him to Jerusalem and to rebuild the wall. They engaged those remaining in the city to help; the Bible says "the people had a mind to work." Our prosperity is the result of work--not physical work alone, but first mental and spiritual work. There is an everlasting marching on in every industry and science. We are never content with the present methods but are constantly seeking better ones; we are not content with our schools but are always finding easier ways to gain knowledge for ourselves and our children. Our nation is, therefore, progressing. We find that Christianity is surprisingly progressive, too. Our religion is constantly unfolding new possibilities, new powers, and new beauties; we are on the way to a great outpouring of spiritual development. We have not realized what a wonderful religion we have. It is filled with possibilities, and these possibilities are made known to us in mind and spirit. But we need more courage to develop these possibilities. We need more initiative. We need more awareness of this divine power in us and when we awaken to the spiritual man, which every one of us has within us, we shall see that through spiritual unfoldment all good things are possible of accomplishment, as Jesus promised. All things are possible to us, only we must believe. Believe what? We must believe in ourselves, in this innate spiritual man in us and we must encourage him. Encourage him with what? With sound words, with affirmations of almightiness; then we shall have the key to the overcoming world. Our most important study is our own mind, not only the intellectual mind but the spiritual mind. "Know thyself" was inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi; and it must be inscribed on our own temple, "over" the door of our mind. "Know thyself." We must become acquainted with our own mind. Now that it is being universally taught that with every thought our brain sends vibrations into the surrounding atmosphere, every progressive metaphysician is admitting that with this invisible thought stuff we are constantly making structures for ourselves and the world about us. The scientific world is also beginning to recognize the fact that man has within himself the capacity to re-form the world about him. Modern metaphysicians have discovered that with every thought we think there is a movement of active forces--not only a movement of those forces, but a movement of everything connected with our consciousness, our body, our world. Every time we speak we cause the atoms and cells of our body to tremble and go through certain changes. Not only do we cause the cells and atoms of our body to form new adjustments, but we even affect the cells of the bodies of those with whom we associate. We are told that "the desert shall . . . blossom as the rose" and that we shall have a millennium here on earth; that things will be changed "in the twinkling of an eye." This is a Biblical view.