Chapter 5
THE THRONE
OF LOVE
Charles Fillmore
Keep a
True Lent
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.
