The Power of Oneself. Charles Fillmore

that it is your inheritance from God to judge wisely and quickly, and do not depart therefrom by statements of inefficiency in matters of judgment. When you are in doubt as to the right thing to do in attaining justice in worldly affairs, ask that the eternal Spirit of justice shall go forth in your behalf and bring about and restore to you that which is your very own. Do not ask for anything but your very own under the righteous law. Some people unconsciously overreach in their desire for possessions. When they put the matter into the care of Spirit, and things do not turn out just as they had expected in their self-seeking way, they are disappointed and rebellious. This will not do under the spiritual law, which requires that man shall be satisfied with justice and accept the results, whatever they may be. "There is a divinity that shapes our ends"; it can be co-operated with by one who believes in things spiritual, and he will thereby be made prosperous and happy.

      Judgment And Justice Statements

       (To be used in connection with Lesson Eleven)

      1. "Teach me thy way, O Jehovah; and lead me in a plain path."

      2. The righteousness of the divine law is active in all my affairs, and I am protected.

      3. "Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness."

      4. "The meek will he guide in justice."

      5. "I will sing of loving kindness and justice."

      6. My judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father.

      7. "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

      8. "Behold now, I have set my cause in order; I know that I am righeous."

      9. I believe in the divine law of justice, and I trust it to set right every transaction in my life.

      10. "There is . . . now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

      11. I no longer condemn, criticize, censure, or find fault with my associates; neither do I belittle or condemn myself.

      Lesson Twelve

      Love

       Table of Contents

      1. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.

      2. He that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.

      3. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.

      4. Love, in Divine Mind, is the idea of universal unity. In expression, love is the power that joins and binds in divine harmony the universe and everything in it.

      5. Among the faculties of the mind, love is pivotal. Its center of mentation in the body is the cardiac plexus. The physical representative of love is the heart, the office of which is to equalize the circulation of the blood in the body. As the heart equalizes the life flow in the body, so love harmonizes the thoughts of the mind.

      6. We have found that the twelve sons of Jacob represent the twelve faculties of mind. When Levi (love) was brought forth by the human soul (Leah), his mother said: "Now this time will my husband be joined unto me." We connect our soul forces with whatever we center our love upon. If we love the things of sense or materiality, we are joined or attached to them through a fixed law of being. In the divine order of being, the soul, or thinking part, of man is joined to its spiritual ego. If it allows itself to become joined to the outer or sense consciousness, it makes personal images that are limitations. The Lord commanded Moses to "make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount." This "mount" is the place of high understanding, or spiritual consciousness, whose center of action is in the very apex of the brain.

      7. In the regeneration, our love goes through a transformation, which broadens, strengthens, and deepens it. We no longer confine love to family, friends, and personal relations, but expand it to include all things. The denial of human relationships seems at first glance to be a repudiation of the family group, but it is merely a cleansing of the mind from limited ideas of love when this faculty would satisfy itself solely by means of human kinship. If God is the Father of all, then men and women are brothers and sisters in a universal family, and he who sees spiritually should open his heart and cultivate that inclusive love which God has given as the unifying element in the human family. Just to the extent that we separate ourselves into families, cliques, and religious factions we put away God's love. Unless there is specific denial along every line of human-thought bondage, one will still be under the law of sense. Direct affirmation of spiritual unity, based upon obedience, should be made by everyone who desires to realize this true relation. Jesus said: "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."

      8. Among the apostles of Jesus, John represents love--he laid his head on the Master's bosom. When this apostle is "called," love is quickened in consciousness. The calling of this apostle consists in bringing into one's consciousness a right understanding of the true character of love, also in exercising love in all the relations of life. One should make it a practice to meditate regularly on the love idea in universal Mind, with the prayer, Divine love, manifest thyself in me. Then there should be periods of mental concentration on the love center in the cardiac plexus, near the heart. It is not necessary to know the exact location of this aggregation of love cells. Think about love with the attention drawn within the breast, and a quickening will follow; all the ideas that go to make up love will be set into motion. This produces a positive love current, which, when sent forth with power, will break up opposing thoughts of hate, and render them null and void. The thought of hate will be dissolved, not only in the mind of the thinker but in the minds of those with whom he comes in contact in mind or in body. The love current is not a projection of the will; it is a setting free of a natural, equalizing, harmonizing force that in most persons has been dammed up by human limitations. The ordinary man is not aware that he possesses this mighty power, which will turn away every shaft of hate that is aimed at him. We know that "a soft answer turneth away wrath," but here is a faculty native to man, existent in every soul, which may be used at all times to bring about harmony and unity among those who have been disunited through misunderstandings, contentions, or selfishness.

      9. Henry Drummond says that Paul's 13th chapter of I Corinthians is the greatest love poem ever written. In his book based on this chapter, "Love, the Supreme Gift," Professor Drummond analyzes love and portrays its various activities. We quote:

      10. THE SPECTRUM OF LOVE. Love is a compound thing, Paul tells us. It is like light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colors--red and blue and yellow and orange, and all the colors of the rainbow--so Paul passes this thing, love, through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements. And in these few words we have what one might call the Spectrum of Love, the analysis of love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you notice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we hear about every day; that they are things that can be practiced by every man in every place in life; and how, by a multitude of small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, the Summum bonum, is made up? The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients, viz.:

      11. Patience--"Love suffereth long." Kindness--"and is kind." Generosity--"Love envieth not." Humility--"Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Courtesy--"Doth not behave itself unseemly." Unselfishness--"Seeketh not her own." Good Temper--"Is not easily provoked." Guilelessness--"Thinketh no evil." Sincerity--"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth