Chapter 3
REALIZATION PRECEDES MANIFESTATION
Charles Fillmore
Jesus Christ Heals
GOD'S MAN is hale, whole, hearty. This is Truth. A spiritual realization is a
realization of Truth. A spiritual realization of health is the result of holding
in consciousness a statement of health until the logic of the mind is satisfied
and man receives the assurance that the fulfillment in the physical must follow.
In other words, by realizing a healing prayer man lays hold of the principle of
health itself and the whole consciousness is illumined; he perceives principle
working out his health problems for him.
However when man lays hold of the principle of wholeness, he finds that he is
automatically working with God and that much new power is added. He realizes:
"My Father worketh even until now, and I work." After man has applied his mind
diligently for a season, he exhausts his resources or powers of realization for
the time being and rests from all his work; but his accumulated thought energy
is completed or fulfilled in a higher realm, and he has a double assurance that
health must become manifest.
Jesus understood and demonstrated this law perfectly. He was so much at one
with the principle of health that He needed only to say, "Thy faith hath made
thee whole" or "Lazarus, come forth," in order to bring into evidence the
perfect demonstration.
Realization means at-one-ment, completion, perfection, wholeness, repose,
resting in God. A realization of health brings to the consciousness an inner
knowing that the divine law has been fulfilled in thought and act. Then as man
lays hold of the in-dwelling Christ he is raised out of the Adam or dark
consciousness into the Christ consciousness. This at-one-ment with God brings a
lasting joy that cannot be taken away.
God-Mind rests in a perpetual realization of health, and that which seems to
be sickness does not exist in Truth. When man becomes so much at one with
God-Mind that he abides in the consciousness of health he enters the eternal
peace in which he knows that "it is finished."
In order to understand God-Mind we need to study our own mind. The more we
analyze the processes of the mind the more plainly the mind with its mental
"compounds" appears as the source of health and of all other things. In the
realms of dense matter intelligence may be so faint as to have lost all contact
with Mind. Yet the poet sings about there being "sermons in stones." Again
science announces that life is present in and is disintegrating the solid rocks
and the whole earth groans and creaks in her struggle with inertia. So if we
want to know the secrets of health and how right thinking forms the perfect
body, we must go to the mind and trace step by step the movements that transform
ideas of health into light, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and
finally into the perfect physical organism.
Although there is almost universal skepticism with reference to the mind's
ability to know consciously how relative substance is formed, there are those
who have made contact with the thought processes and can apply them in
transforming the cells and tissues of their own body. The almost insurmountable
obstacle to explaining to others how this is accomplished is the paucity of
language. The mind functions in ways that are so strange and unbelievable that
the pioneers on this frontier of metaphysics choose as a rule to remain silent.
Jesus is the outstanding pioneer in this realm where the health-producing
processes of cells are released and imbued with supermind vitality.
He spent years in becoming acquainted with His body and freeing its cells
from the material bondage to which the race thought had bound them.
Yet He gave no scientific explanation of the purifying through which He put
His body to transform it before Peter, James, and John, as stated in Luke 9:29:
"And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his
raiment became white and dazzling." Modern metaphysicians do not excuse their
ignorance by claiming that this and many other instances in which Jesus showed
mastery over His body were miracles. Scientific Christians regard as mortal
superstition the prevalent view that miracles are the abrogation by God of His
laws and are performed as a sort of legerdemain to attract and astonish the
people. The marvelous things that Jesus did we can do when we understand the
law. "The works that I do shall he do also; and greater" still holds good.
Much that is attributed to the subconscious, strictly speaking, springs from
the all-knowing or spiritual Mind. When we cannot intellectually account for our
knowledge we assume the subconscious to be its source. Yet we should know that
the subconscious is the storehouse of past knowledge and past experiences. So it
knows only what has filtered through the conscious mind. It cannot therefore be
the source of knowledge except through reflection or memory. This memory of what
man has passed through in the aeons of his experience is often called intuition;
it is the instinct of the animal soul.
The world today looks up to science; that is, it does not accept or believe
anything unless it can be demonstrated by well-known universal laws. There are
no known laws governing religion that can be scientifically explained; hence it
is not acceptable to the scientific mind. But there is a technique for molding
thought stuff by means of the mind, and metaphysicians follow it in their
scientific thinking and in healing. The metaphysician handles omnipresent Spirit
life and substance very much as the electrician handles electricity. Energy is
locked up in all this life and substance and its release enables the
metaphysician to utilize it in demonstrating health and in achieving success.
All the chemical elements adhere to their particular form and endeavor to
retain it. Electricity is supposed to be a universal invisible energy whose
unity can be broken up by the whirl of a dynamo. The electronic units exert all
the force of their nature in a pull to regain their original status. Thus the
power generated by a dynamo is gained from the force exerted by the electrical
units in their rush to establish their primal equipoise.
Only a certain percentage of this energy is utilized because of the pull of
the electrical units to get back home to their mother principle. The dissipation
of energy is one of the great problems of the engineer. The loss of electricity
in transmission is so great that only a small part of the original current
reaches its destination.
We exist right in the midst of forces that would yield us power to do all our
work if we knew how to conserve and properly utilize their energies. This is not
only true of our use of the many elements in the natural world all about us but
especially of our utilization of the energy generated by our minds. If we could
utilize this dissipated energy constructively it would restore the body,
illumine the mind, and establish us in a lasting consciousness of dominion and
mastery.
With every thought there is a radiation of energy. If a person is untrained
in thinking and lets his mind express all kinds of thoughts without control, he
not only uses up his thought stuff but fails also to accomplish any helpful
result.
Conservation of thought stuff is essential to right thinking. Right thinking
is using the mind to bring about right ends idealized by the thinker. All the
elements necessary to the restoration of health exist in the higher dimensions
of the mind. Through concentration and conservation of thought force man regains
the consciousness of health in his mind, and health then becomes manifest in his
body.
Laws fixed by infinite Mind automatically accomplish whatever man desires
when he becomes obedient to the inner guide. Concentration, one-pointed
attention, forms a mental magnet in the mind to which thought substance rushes
like iron filings to a loadstone. Then follows confidence or faith in one's
ability to accomplish the desired end. According to the Scriptures this is the
law by which the universe was brought into manifestation. In the 11th chapter of
Hebrews it is written: "By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed
by the word of God."
Modern science by its most daring proponents is launching out into the deeps
of the invisible and describing in detail the electrical processes that ultimate
in the atom and its aggregations in visible things. In substance they tell us
that when points of light gather about a certain nucleus an atom is created, and
from this a cell, and cell aggregations make tissues and these merge into the
realm of things.
Here we have the scientific explanation and the Christian metaphysician's
formula for making the invisible visible. The greatest of all physicists cannot
tell what electricity is. Even Edison said he was ignorant of its real nature.
Some find it sometimes acting very much like mind and have so stated. The head
of the General Electric research department was asked by a reporter to give him
a definition of electricity. The professor replied that to his mind electricity
was like what the Christians describe as faith.
The scientific metaphysician fixes his attention powerfully on the
consummation of a certain idea until he has a realization, which means that the
idea has nucleated a certain amount of thought substance. When this realization
is had the metaphysician rests "from all his work." Through faith and work he
has fulfilled the law of mind and he rests in the conviction that his ideal of
health will appear in manifestation in due season.
To a metaphysician realization is the conviction that a person gets when he
has persistently concentrated his attention on an ideal until he feels assured
of the fulfillment of that ideal. Elohim God pronounced His spiritual creation
"very good"; then rested from all His work. There was as yet no manifestation,
"no herb of the field had yet sprung up," and "there was not a man to till the
ground"; yet the planning Mind had the realization that the spiritual law had
been fulfilled and that it should rest from all its works.
That all things visible are held in place by a force invisible is the
conviction of the majority of logical thinkers. In other words, everything is
ensouled.
When we understand that the soul has consciousness, that it thinks, we have
the explanation of many mysterious phenomena. Some 150 years ago Franz Mesmer
announced in Germany that under certain conditions he could induce a magnetic
sleep in persons and control their minds. His demonstrations attracted the
attention of doctors and mental scientists the world over. In this day the
system is practiced under the name of hypnotism. It is full of pitfalls for both
operator and patient because its tendency is to weaken the positive control that
the mind should always exercise over its own brain structure. However it is one
of the many proofs that the mind can produce conditions in the mental world that
ultimate in the material world. A great physical scientist stated recently that
it may be that the gods that determine our fates are our own minds working on
our brain cells and through them on the world about us. This is very close to
the Truth.
Every Christian metaphysician knows that back of the personal mind there is a
great creative Mind that also recreates. This creative Mind has been named and
described by men all down the ages. God-Mind not only can restore and heal but
can establish us in the consciousness of permanent health. Do not allow your
conception of God to be handicapped by what men have said about Him.
"There is a spirit in man,
And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding."
Let the Spirit of God in you reveal to you His true character. God was never
sick a day; He is the source of life and health and joy. God wills that we
express His "image" and "likeness," in which we were created.
The prayer for realization attains its consummation when with concentrated
spiritual attention one has affirmed that God Spirit is present, that with all
His power He is bringing to pass the perfect health desired, and that all is
well. When your thoughts radiate with the speed of spiritual light, they blend
with creative Mind (called by Jesus "heaven"), and the thing you have asked for
will be done. Jesus told Peter that whatever he bound (affirmed) in earth would
be bound in heaven and whatever he loosed (denied) in earth would be loosed in
heaven. Peter had unbounded faith in Jesus (who represents spiritual man). When
any man has unbounded faith in spiritual power his words, uttered in the
limitations of matter, are flashed to heaven (creative Mind) and they accomplish
whatever he puts into them. The fulfillment of this spoken word in the world of
activities may take moments, hours, days, years, centuries; Jesus said that the
Father only knew when these things would come to pass. Do not think because you
do not get an instant response to your prayers that they are not answered. Every
sincere desire and every effectual prayer for health that has ascended to heaven
(creative Mind) is fulfilled, and will be made manifest whenever material
limitations permit. Shakespeare had an inkling of this law of the relation of
thoughts and words when he wrote,
"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go."
The kingdom of heaven (the heavens) so often referred to by Jesus and
described by Him as very near to us is far more accessible and is more often
contacted by us than we imagine. Not only those who pray but those who
persistently concentrate their thoughts on mathematics, music, or philosophies
based in principle, are often rewarded with the marvelous intuitions of genius.
These persons apparently break into a realm where no effort is required to gain
the answer to their questions. The mathematical genius is called a prodigy. He
solves instantly the most complex mathematical problem, yet cannot explain how
he does it. He simply knows the answer, often before the statement of the
problem has been completed.
Henri Poincare in his book "Science and Method" says that his discoveries in
mathematics came to him in flashes after he had spent long periods of study and
concentration on the subject. Concentrated attention of the mind on an idea of
any kind is equal to prayer and will make available the spiritual principle that
is its source in proportion to the intensity and continuity of the mental
effort. Anyone can attain spiritual understanding and become conscious of the
light who will persistently pray for it. "He that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." The
emphasis here is on the word "diligently."
The mind is the seat of perfection, not only of health but also of talents
like music, art, writing, and the like. The idea of health and the idea of music
are interblended, for instance. Music is a great aid to the healing force.
Musical and health ideas interblend, and their establishment in order produces
this kingdom of the heavens.
Our spiritual realizations produce that silent shuttle of thought which,
working in and through cell and nerve, weaves into one harmonious whole mind and
body and is expressed as health and wealth and genius.
The musical genius says he hears the music in a flash and is often at his
wit's end to transcribe it fast enough. Many an immortal poem and prose work as
well has been flashed from the mind of the author without any apparent effort on
his part. But if all the prayers and mind efforts of literary geniuses were
inquired into, it would be found that there had been heroic mental effort
somewhere at some time. So it is with healing. The realization of perfection
takes root in the soul and may come forth in a flash as perfect health. We
should not confine ourselves to the present life of the individual but go into
previous incarnations in which the work was done that made the genius in this
incarnation.
Professor Einstein was considered the greatest mathematical genius of our
time. The scientific world does not connect his insight into scientific
principles with his religious life, but he freely stated that he worshiped God.
He said: "The voice of God is from within. Something within me tells me what I
must do every day." For him God is as valid as a scientific argument. On the
subject of spiritual realization he once said:
"Every man knows that in his work he does best and accomplishes most when he
has attained a proficiency that enables him to work intuitively. That is, there
are things that we come to know so well that we do not know how we know them.
Perhaps we live best and do things best when we are not too conscious of how and
why we do them."
The supreme realization of man is his unity with God. Jesus had this
realization and proclaimed it before there was any manifestation. When He told
His followers, "I and the Father are one" and "He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father," they demanded that He show them the Father. They could not then
understand that He had spiritually united with creative Mind. Men in our day are
having this realization in a more universal way than ever before in the history
of the race, and they are affirming it in the face of ridicule and condemnation.
When this inner consciousness is attained by any man the foundation has been
laid of the Peter church or temple that is man's immortal body, which will never
pass away.
Metaphysically realization is expectancy objectified. The mind conceives a
proposition and then marshals all its forces to make that conception a reality
in the objective world. All things material are first thought pictures, carved
by the imagination from omnipresent thought substance. Shakespeare in "Much Ado
about Nothing" brings out the idea as follows:
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of
imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life,
Shall come appareled in
more precious habit,
More moving-delicate and full of life
Into the eye
and prospect of his soul.
This realm of realization is so real to the mind that it requires a trained
metaphysician to detect the difference between its creations and the manifest
realm of things. We all have a body in the ether that is the counterpart of the
physical. It is through this psychic body that we have sensation in the
physical. It is possible to think of the psychic body and cultivate its
sensations until it appears as real as the physical. Many persons have done this
until they have formed a psychic world consciousness and they are often unable
to separate it from the physical. They search materially for the treasures they
see psychically. To them the realm of thought forms is the finality of creation
instead of the mental pictures of that which is about to appear.
The trained metaphysician is no stranger to this picture gallery of the mind
and he is not deceived into believing that it is any more than a mental
reflection. One who enters the realm of spiritual ideas does not allow his
consciousness to become confused with the mind pictures that flash into psychic
sight. They are part of the process of making ideas manifest. When a Christian
healer realizes that his treatment has firmly formed the picture of health, he
relaxes his decrees and statements of Truth and trusts the divine law to make
health manifest.
Paul urges in many of his writings that we have the Mind of Christ: that we
let Christ be formed in us. This has usually been taken to mean that we are to
imitate Christ. This is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.
To follow Jesus Christ in the regeneration or new birth we must fulfill the law
of body building, which is a reconstruction of the corrupt cells: "This
corruptible must put on in-corruption." To accomplish this and make the body
conform to His perfect body we must see Him as He is in His perfect body. This
perfect body exists as an ideal body in us all. By mentally concentrating on
this perfect body and focusing all our powers on it as the vital life of the
physical a transformation will begin that will finally raise the physical to
divine stature. Paul points the way in II Corinthians:
"But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the
Lord the Spirit."
