Chapter 8
MAN
Charles Fillmore
Keep a
True Lent
GOD IS PRINCIPLE; Christ
is the idea of principle as it is
brought into creation, and man is that
creation on its way to the perfect
expression of the Christ.
This being true, man
must learn that he has within himself
all the potentialities of Being. When
this tremendous truth is revealed to
him he sometimes forgets that his
potentialities are to be expressed
according to plans inherent in Being
and he proceeds to make his world after
his own design.
This is the first step
in the fall of man--the belief that he
can act wisely without first knowing
the plan of God.
This fall takes place in
his own consciousness. He follows the
dictates of the animal nature rather
than those of the higher wisdom, and in
indulging them he eats the fruit of
"the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil," which is a consciousness of
nakedness and separation from
God.
Man is Being in
miniature, and all the powers of God
are available to him. These powers and
possibilities are made manifest through
man. It therefore follows that man is a
most important factor in creation. It
also follows that he should become
acquainted with his part of the work
and do his very best to carry it
forward.
All the powers of Being
are summed up and concentrated in the
one word I. All possibility lies in
this one word, and from it issues forth
everything that appears. From the
standpoint of the visible universe this
I is man, and by reason of his divinity
he makes and unmakes as he wills. At
work with the powers of Being, man is
the transformer of all things. In this
lies his greatest strength and his
greatest weakness.
The ego of itself is
possessed of nothing; it is a mere
ignorant child of innocence floating in
the mind of Being, but through the door
of its consciousness must be passed all
the treasures of God.
How small, how
insignificant is man--yet again how
mighty, how important, how powerful. As
Jesus truly said, "I can of myself do
nothing"; "all authority hath been
given unto me in heaven and on
earth."
As this I, this man,
comes into consciousness of the life,
love, and wisdom of God, it builds for
itself a consciousness; it begins to
say "my" and "mine."
This is selfhood, the
son taking his inheritance and going
into a far country. But the Father does
not condemn selfhood. In His eyes the
son who stays at home and the son who
exercises his freedom are equal. If the
Father is free to do as He wills, the
same privilege must be the son's
inheritance, else he would not be "the
fullness of the Godhead
bodily."
Ignorance as to his
place in Being and the powers delegated
to him is the one great giant that
keeps man from his own. If he would
acknowledge God in all his ways, in
every thought and act, there would be
revealed to him a new world, an
undiscovered country lying all about
him, ready for his
occupancy.
This is the promised
land that God reveals to those who are
willing to be led by Him out of the
bondage of ignorance, which is termed
Egypt.
Egypt exists in the
consciousness of every man, but his I
AM does not have to remain in that dark
place. God calls him up out of that
animal condition in which his desire is
for "pottage," and invites him into "a
land flowing with milk and
honey."
Whoever answers that
call is guided by the Spirit of God; it
may be through seas of error and
deserts of wasted possibilities, but if
he is faithful to that inner wisdom, he
is finally led to the Jordan of
demonstration and through it into his
promised land.
But the real man is not
flesh and blood; he is not body and
brains. These are but his outer
garments. Man is just as undefinable as
God. The I within you is as great a
mystery as the infinite I. You are just
as great a mystery to yourself as you
are to others. You do not conceive of
your possibilities, nor can the most
high archangel conceive of them. You
are just as fully the son of God as was
Jesus or any other Christlike man who
ever existed. The I AM is the same in
all men and all women. It is without
limit in its capacity to express the
potentialities of God.
Why, then, are you not
doing the works of Jesus? Simply
because you have not taken advantage of
your privileges.
The way is open to you
as it was to Him. All things are
provided for you in the great
storehouse of Being. You have but to go
about getting them in an orderly
way.
This "way" is revealed
by the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of
truth, which Jesus said the Father
would send in His name. This Spirit of
wisdom has always existed. Jesus did
not create it, nor was it created for
His special benefit, but through His
demonstrations of an inner and higher
power than men had been accustomed to,
He opened the way into their
consciousness for this Spirit of
wisdom. They saw His works and
"believed on him," and this belief made
it possible for the Spirit to come to
them.
This Spirit of wisdom is
right now a part of the consciousness
of everyone. It is in you and about
you, and you will come into conscious
relations with it when you believe on
it and its powers.
If you ignore it and
thereby deny that it exists in you and
for you, you remain in the darkness of
ignorance. It is exactly as if a man
lived in the basement of a large house
and refused to go upstairs, declaring
that because the upper rooms did not
come down to him they were not
there.
You are to "go up . . .
and possess" this promised land. It is
yours all the time, and you live in the
world with it, yet you do not choose to
see it. "The light shineth in the
darkness; and the darkness apprehended
it not."
Great is man; great are
his privileges.
"I said, Ye are
gods,
And all of you sons of
the Most High."
Great is man; great are
his privileges. But he must realize his
spiritual nature before he can reap its
benefits.
"Ye are not in the flesh
but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwelleth in
you."
So long as man is not
conscious of the Spirit of God, he is
in the flesh; that is, he is conscious
of his body and its material
surroundings only. This is the carnal
consciousness that does not know
God.
But it is man's
privilege to rise out of this animal
plane onto the spiritual plane and
thereby come into an open communion
with the Father and know as Jesus knew
and have all the powers that He
had--and greater ones.
Man is I. By itself I is
potentiality only; associated with its
cause, it is
all-comprehensive.
God is life, love,
Truth, substance, wisdom. Man is the
potential I that recognizes these
inherencies of Being and makes them
manifest.
Wisdom, life, and
substance are incorporated into man's
consciousness as spirit, soul, and
body; each takes form in him according
to his recognition of it.
If man takes cognizance
of body only, he becomes a mere living,
breathing, eating, drinking animal. He
lives in the flesh, and through his
ignorant use of its full privileges he
perverts it to the most base ends. He
builds up within its pristine purity
lustful images, and in carrying them to
fulfillment in act and deed he fills
the world with disease, discord,
selfishness, poverty, and
death.
If man rises a step
higher and takes cognizance of mind as
well as body, he cultivates the
ambitions of the intellect and the lust
for power. Government, commerce, art,
and literature become his ruling stars,
and he is not always careful about the
means that he uses to attain his
ends.
It is when he recognizes
his supremacy over both these and
abides in the inner Spirit, the Father
within, that he finds his true estate
and shines forth the image and likeness
of the Most High, which he truly
is.
The question is
frequently asked, "Why, if God is
perfect and man is His likeness and
image, should there be imperfection in
man?" The answer is that there is no
imperfection in man. He is perfect
potentiality proving itself. In the
course of bringing forth this
perfection there are processes he must
go through. Life and intelligence are
factors entering into this process of
man's manifestation and they seem to
fall short of accurate consummation in
certain stages of the work. This, the
limited consciousness, looks on and
pronounces it failure. In a sense it is
error, as is the boys' assertion that
two plus two equals three. When,
however, the correction is made and the
work proceeds according to the
principle, success is always the
ultimate result.
When man fails to submit
the impulses of the lower nature to the
analysis of the higher, he is beguiled
by the serpent and eats of the tree
whose fruit is a concept of good and
evil.
Man never indulges in
his animal nature without having a
reaction of discomfort, which he sees
is opposed to that which is comfort.
When this is extended into the
experiences of a race the reaction
takes on the aspect of good and evil.
Thus, man in the Adam consciousness has
come to look on the world in which he
lives as subject to two opposing
principles, which he has named God and
Devil. When he discovers that
principles are the basis of existence
he pronounces these opposing
appearances good and evil.
The so-called principles
of good and evil are nonexistent
outside the sense mind. The true God
cannot be known to the sense
consciousness, and whoever postulates a
being who is good or not good,
according to his sense concepts, is
building a "man of straw."
Man is made in the image
and likeness of God, and when he seeks
to know himself he will find the true
God and will know that he is one with
Him.
God is life, and man is
life. But life in its essence and life
as seen in the living are not
identical.
The sense man looks on
living, moving things and says, "This
is life." It is not life, but only the
evidence of life. Man may know the life
that is back of the living. When he
feels the thrill of that life within
him he has touched the divine energy
that changes not.
God is substance, but
not that which the sense mind perceives
and calls matter. Material things are
but the evidence of the substance that
God is, and not the unchangeable
foundation of Deity. God is
intelligence, but not that shifting
opinion which the sense mind calls
intelligence.
Hence, to know the
nature of Him whose image and likeness
he is, man must detach his I from the
Adam consciousness and attach it to the
Christ consciousness. Then he will
learn the meaning in the steps in
creation that preceded him in the
divine planning. Then he will learn
that he is not a "worm of the dust" but
that with God he is helping to form the
divine plan of existence, which ever
rests in Being.
Man is the executive
power in Being and only through his
willing co-operation can the designs of
the true God be carried out. These
designs are based on principles that
cannot be changed, and man must come
into such close touch with the wisdom
of God that he will consciously
co-operate in bringing the perfect
creation into existence.
Man is the will of God
externalized or projected into
visibility, and this will must respond
to the slightest impulse of the divine
power within the depths of his own
being.
The sense mind has long
been the realm of man's labors, and it
has truly made him earn his bread by
the sweat of his brow.
In this realm he has
formed a center of consciousness, which
is termed the will. This seeming will
must be given up, and the pure will
must find its rightful place in the
realm of God-Mind. Jesus was passing
through this dissolution of the false
will when He cried out, "Not my will,
but thine, be done."
So each of us must
become so obedient to the Spirit of God
within himself that the image and
likeness which he is will shine forth
in its pristine glory and the sons of
God take their place in the Father's
house.
