Chapter 11
HEALING POWER OF JOY
Charles Fillmore
Jesus Christ Heals
I REJOICE and am glad because Thy harmonizing love makes me every whit whole.
All healing systems recognize joy as a beneficent factor in the restoration of
health to the sick. "The joy of Jehovah is your strength." This statement is
based on a principle recognized by all who help to bring about strength of mind
and health of body. An old country doctor used to tell how he healed a woman of
a large cyst by telling her a funny story: at which she laughed so heartily that
the fluid broke loose and passed away.
The mind puts kinks in the nerves in ways beyond description. A thought of
fear will stop the even flow of life in some nerve center deep down in the body,
forming a nucleus where other fears may accumulate and finally congest the blood
concerned in some important function. The impast of energy of some kind is
necessary to break the dam. Physical exercise will sometimes do it, or massage,
or electricity; but these are temporary remedies. None of them has touched the
cause, which is mental: fear.
There are various methods of erasing fear from the mind and preventing its
congestions in the body. One of the most direct and effective shatterers of fear
is laughter. Laugh your fears away. See how ridiculous they are when traced to
their source.
Nearly all persons have some pet fear, and they give up to it without trying
to find its source.
The nerves surrounding the heart are most sensitive to thoughts of fear, and
when mind and body are strenuously excited the fearfully charged nerve cells
grab the heart and hold it like a vise. Businessmen who live in a world of sharp
competition and constant risk of loss with few exceptions are subject to this
kind of fear.
Christian metaphysicians of course know that the only permanent cure for the
ailment is a heartfelt trust in God as the one and only source of good to man. A
daily prayer for wisdom and divine guidance in the conduct of one's affairs will
restore peace and harmony to mind and body, and health must of necessity follow.
I will sing unto the Lord a new song of harmony and health.
That there is an intimate relation between happiness and health goes without
question. When you feel good you sing either audibly or silently. Singing
promotes health because it increases the circulation, and a good circulation is
a sign and promoter of health. If the blood stream were never congested and all
the nerves and pores were open and free and were swiftly carrying forward their
appointed work, there would never be an abnormal or false growth in the body. It
follows logically then that we should cultivate those mind activities which
stimulate naturally the currents of life in the body. One of these, and a very
important one, is joy.
No one likes to take medicine even when sugar-coated, because there is an
instinctive feeling that it will do no good. Besides it usually tastes bad. But
nearly anyone can sing a little song, and those who have tried it right in the
face of suffering will tell you that it is a marvelous health restorer.
The reason that singing restores harmony to tense nerves is that its
vibrations stir them to action, thus making it possible for the ever-waiting
healing Spirit to get in. The organ of the human voice is located right between
the thyroid glands, the accelerators of certain important body functions. To a
greater or less degree every word you speak vibrates the cells up and down the
body, from front brain to abdomen.
The Spirit of health, or as the doctors call it, the restorative power of
nature, is always right at hand awaiting an opportunity to enter in to make
whole and to harmonize all discords in the body. Back of every true song is a
thought of joy. It is the thought that counts in the end, because it is the
thought that invites the healing Spirit. Consequently we should sing with the
thought that the Lord is right with us and that His joy is giving our words the
healing unction; as Jesus said, "that my joy may be in you, and that your joy
may be made full."
When men think a great deal about spiritual things and especially about God
as an indwelling spiritual presence, both mind and body are thrilled with joy, a
feeling of satisfaction, and a tendency to break out in songs of gladness. This
is not confined to Christians; persons everywhere, in every age, have told of an
inner glory and happiness when they got into the habit of concentrating their
mind on God. The great philosopher Spinoza wrote so much about God that he was
known as the "God-intoxicated man."
Pythagoras taught that the universe is God's symphony and that all the suns
and planets sing as they swing their way through the heavens. All nature has a
language and a song for those who listen. Shakespeare says:
"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in
trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in
everything."
Shakespeare often quoted from the Bible, and he may have got his idea that
trees have tongues from I Chronicles 16:33: "Then shall the trees of the wood
sing for joy before Jehovah."
"My mind is cleansed by Christ;
My life flows swift and strong;
The peace of God wells up within,
My soul bursts forth in song."
Some people think it almost a sacrilege to sing when they feel bad. They
think that that is the time to groan, and they usually do. That is the way the
mortal looks at it, and that is the way you may happen to feel, but you can
quickly be released from the prison of pain or grief if you will sing and praise
and pray.
First sing in your soul--you can sing 'way down inside of yourself--then you
will soon be singing with your voice. So we lay down the metaphysical law that
everybody should know how to sing. Everybody can sing. It does not make any
difference what your previous thoughts have been about your ability to sing, it
does not make any difference what you think about it at present, and it does not
make any difference whether you can sing or not; cultivate the singing soul and
you will some day break forth into a singing voice.
This is a creative law, and it is a law that everyone should know and use,
because through the vibrations of the voice joined with high thinking every cell
in the body is set into action, and not only in the body but out into the
environing thought atmosphere the vibrations go and break up all crystallized
conditions.
The whole universe is in vibration, and that vibration is under law. Chaos
would result if the law were not supreme. Each particular thing has its rate of
vibration. Heat, light, and color are different rates of vibration in one field
of primal energy. Different colors are caused by the different frequencies of
the vibrations as they strike the eye. But what causes vibration? We answer
Mind.
The cells of the body are centers of force in a field of universal energy.
There are no solids. That which appears solid is in reality the scene of
constant activity. The eye is not keyed to the pulsations of this universal
energy and is therefore deceived into believing that things are solid. All
energy and life are governed by laws of spiritual harmony. If the mind that
receives sound vibrations is in spiritual consciousness, the body responds to
the higher activity. If our mind were trained to think thoughts that harmonized
with Divine Mind, we could hear the music of the spheres.
You can drive away the gloom of disappointment by resolutely singing a
sunshine song. I believe that we could cultivate the power of music in
connection with the understanding of Truth and thus rend all the bonds of sin,
sickness, and death. The world needs a new hymnal, with words of Truth only and
music so strong and powerful that it will penetrate to the very center of the
soul.
Our body is now tuned to the divine harmony; we shall find the keynote by
listening in the silence to the singing soul.
The new life in Christ fills me with zeal to live, and I am healed.
In putting on Christ--that is, developing the supermind--every faculty has to
be raised to supermind proportions. The exact mathematical degree of power
necessary to "synchronize" oneself with the "kingdom of the heavens" in which
the supermind functions has not been revealed to human consciousness, if indeed
it can be. An eminent British astronomer says that he has discovered that God is
a great mathematician, and the logical conclusion of all wise philosophers is
that everything in the universe both seen and unseen is under mathematical law.
"The very hairs of your head are all numbered," said Jesus.
Jesus also said that He came to bring more life to slow-moving humanity. More
vital force now is and always has been the crying need of people everywhere.
Disease germs run riot in anemic persons. The cause of such conditions is
mental: there is a lack of vital interest in life and a disinclination to assume
its responsibilities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that no great work was ever accomplished
without enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is another word for zeal, and zeal is a great
stimulator of man. You cannot think of or repeat the word zeal without evoking a
certain mental thrill that spurs you to action in some direction if you repeat
it over and over. This brings us back to the point we mentioned about everything
having a mathematical infusion; that is, everything is impregnated with
mathematics. Every word we speak goes forth from our mouth charged with atomic
energies that vibrate at a definite numerical rate. According to science every
atom is composed of protons and electrons, the number of electronic elements in
an atom determining the character of the substance. Now we see that modern
science is proving the truth of Jesus' statement that we shall be held
accountable for every word we speak. Our minds determine the character of our
words and what the mind determines the mouth obediently utters, its words loaded
with constructive or destructive electrons all mathematically arranged to build
up or blow up both ourselves and our aims and ideals. We are perfectly aware
that some persons are overzealous, that they consume their vitality by talking
and acting without wisdom: "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up." Such
persons are so enthusiastic in externals that they lose contact with the source
of things, the inner mind, and they destroy the body, the temple of the living
God. However these are the minority. The great majority lack zeal in doing even
the most ordinary things, and even the overzealous would find a much-coveted and
needed poise by linking their minds with the Christ.
The beginning of the culture of the mind that enables it to make contact with
the realm of creative ideas is faith, and faith is superenthusiasm. You must
have such confidence in your ability to make union with creative Mind that you
fuse the two and the invisible elements melt and fall into the mold you have
made for them.
When we know that every word is mathematically linked with certain creative
ideas and that Divine Mind has made it possible for every one of us to draw upon
these ideas mentally, we have the key to all creative processes. "Whosoever . .
. shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to
pass; he shall have it." Here in a nutshell Jesus has stated the law and its
fulfillment. The one and only reason that we do not always succeed in our
demonstrations is that we do not persist in our mental work. If we have never
tested our faith in God and His mathematical laws, we must begin to discipline
our minds and raise our thoughts to the point where they abandon the slow
inertia of the natural man for the speed and spring of the spiritual man. This
is accomplished by prayer, meditation, and the repetition of true words. It is
not the vain repetition of words over and over, parrotlike, but the quiet
realization that there is a listening Mind and a ready host of great ideas at
all times waiting for us.
I am at peace because I trust divine justice to regulate my mind, body, and
affairs.
The mind may be compared to the sea, which is calm or stormy according to the
wind that moves it. Thought utilizes the substance of the mind and forms that
which man ideates.
A restful state of mind is greatly to be desired because of its constructive
character. When the mind is lashed by a brain storm the cells of the whole
organism are shattered and exhaustion ensues. Nervous prostration is the result
of exhausted nerve force.
Man's whole character is determined by the thoughts for which he allows a
place in his mind. A strong man or a weak man is what he is because of repeated
thoughts of strength or weakness. Steadfast affirmations of peace will harmonize
the whole body structure and open the way to attainment of healthy conditions in
mind and body. The reason that prayers and treatments for health are not more
successful is that the mind has not been put in a receptive state by
affirmations of peace.
The Mind of Spirit is harmonious and peaceful, and it must have a like manner
of expression in man's consciousness. When a body of water is choppy with fitful
currents of air it cannot reflect objects clearly. Neither can man reflect the
steady strong glow of Omnipotence when his mind is disturbed by anxious
thoughts, fearful thoughts, or angry thoughts.
Be at peace and your unity with God-Mind will bring you health and happiness.
We all should practice delightful, happy, joyous states of mind. It is such
thoughts that open the way for the ever-present Father-Mind to pour out its
splendid resources into our mind and through us into all our affairs.
Thou art my life unfailing, and I rejoice in Thy abundant, buoyant health.
No one can understand the real character of God without a metaphysical study
and analysis of mind and its properties. To think of God as an enormously
enlarged man, as most persons do, entangles one in a maze of wrong conclusions
concerning the nature and creative processes of Being.
Think of Being as an aggregation of ideas with potential creative capacity
but governed in its creative processes by unalterable laws. Mentally see those
ideas projected into action in a universe evolving a self-conscious creature
possessed of free will called man. As man develops through the combination of
those original ideas, behold him arriving at a place in his evolution where he
realizes his power of self-determination and consciously begins to choose as his
own field of action the many pleasant activities of the universe and to combine
them in his own way.
This phase of man's development is symbolized in the Edenic allegory as Adam
and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The
tree that bears the fruit of pleasure in the midst of man's body garden is the
sympathetic nervous system. Satan, sensation, tempts Adam and Eve--man--to
appropriate or eat of this tree without listening to the voice of wisdom,
Jehovah God. The result is unbridled and unlawful development of the sympathetic
nervous system with excess of pleasure (good) followed by a corresponding
reaction of pain (evil).
Jesus regained this lost Eden and showed us how to regain it by likewise
identifying our minds with God-Mind. His prayer was "Not my will, but thine, be
done."
Christ is the name of the God-Mind imaged in everyone. When we identify
ourselves with that image, we rise superior to the Adamic man and become unified
with the spiritual man. It is in the strength of this supermind that we can say
to the man of flesh, "I will; be thou made clean." This is the decree of the
Christ in you to your conscious mind and its visible body; it is the exercise of
the authority given to every child of God. "Decree a thing, and it shall be
established unto thee."
And manifest substance flows from a realm of light, according to the most
modern conclusions of physical science. James says, "Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." God ideas
are the source of all that appears. Accept this mighty and all-productive truth
and consciously connect your mind with the Father-Mind, and you will realize
abundant health and true joy.
The Holy Spirit life heals me, and I radiate health to everybody and
everything.
Some persons think that when they quit lying they are demonstrating Truth. To
quit lying is commendable but falls short of fulfilling the complete reformation
of the Spirit of truth. In chapter after chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus
repeats the promise that He will send a Comforter, whom He names "the Spirit of
truth," to those who believe on Him. In the 15th chapter we read, "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." In the
16th chapter we find these words: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but
ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall
guide you into all the truth." "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit of
truth . . . for he abideth with you, and shall be in you."
The Spirit of truth is the mind of God in its executive capacity: it carries
out the divine plan of the originating Spirit. It proceeds from the Father and
bears witness of the Son. We have in the operation of our own minds an
illustration of how Divine Mind works. When an idea is fully formulated in our
minds and we decide to carry it out, our thoughts change their character from
contemplative to executive. We no longer plan but proceed to execute what we
have already planned. So God-Mind sends forth its Spirit to carry out in man the
divine idea imaged in the Son.
It is very comforting to know that Spirit is cooperating with us in our
efforts to manifest God's law. God in His divine perfection has seemed so far
removed from our human frailties that we have lost heart. But now we see that
Jesus taught that God is intimately associated with us in all our life's
problems and that we need only ask in His name in order to have all needs
fulfilled.
The Spirit of truth is God's thought projecting into our minds ideas that
will build a spiritual consciousness like that of Jesus. The Spirit of truth
watches every detail of our lives, and when we ask and by affirmation proclaim
its presence, it brings new life into our bodies.
Again the Spirit of truth opens our minds to God's law of supply and support,
to the existence of a universal etheric thought substance prepared for man's
body sustenance by infinite Mind. We have thought that in answer to our prayers
God in some mysterious manner brought about the marvelous demonstrations that we
had. Now we see that there has been prepared from the beginning an
interpenetrating substance that, like a tenuous bread of heaven, showers us with
its abundance.
But we must not only ask but bring the Spirit into our consciousness by
affirming its abundance to be the source of all our good. Then perfection will
begin to be manifested right in the face of apparent negation. Remember the
invitation of the Master "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye
shall receive, that your joy may be made full."
