The Power of Oneself. Charles Fillmore

circumscribed and limited in capacity and destiny. Philosophers have studied man in this cage of the mind, and their conclusions have been that he is little better than a reasoning animal.

      But there is a higher and truer estimate of man, and that estimate is made from what the academic school of philosophy would call the purely speculative side of existence. Failing to discern his spiritual origin, they fail in estimating his real character. As a product of the natural man, will is often a destructive force. Nearly all our systems of training children have been based on breaking the will in order to gain authority over the child and obedience from him. We should remember that the right to exercise freedom of will was given to man in the beginning, according to Genesis, and that will should always be given its original power and liberty.

      It is possible, however, for man so to identify his consciousness with Divine Mind that he is moved in every thought and act by that Mind. Jesus attained this unity; when He realized that He was willing not in the personal but in the divine, He said: "Not my will, but thine, be done."

      Many sincere Christians have tried to follow in the way of Jesus, and they have negatively submitted their will to God. But they have not attained the power or the authority of Jesus by so doing. The reason is that they have not raised their will to the positive spiritual degree. Jesus was not negative in any of His faculties, and He did not teach a doctrine of submission. He gave, to those who went forth preaching the Gospel, the power and authority of the Holy Spirit. In Mark 16:16-18 it is recorded that Jesus says: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." We must believe in the higher powers and be immersed in the omnipresent water of life. If we fail to exercise faith in things spiritual, we are condemned to the prison of materiality.

      Some Christians believe that God's will toward men varies, that His will changes, that He chastises the disobedient and punishes the wicked. This view of God's character is gained from the Old Testament. Jehovah was the tribal God of the Israelites as Baal was of the Philistines. Men's concepts of God are measured by their spiritual understanding. The Jehovah, of Moses, is quite different from the Father, of Jesus, yet they are spiritually one and the same. "It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish," is the teaching of Jesus. He bore witness that the will of God is that men should not suffer--that through Him they should have complete escape from sin, sickness, and even death. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." The sin, sickness, suffering, and death that men experience are not punishment willed by God; they are results of broken law. The law is good; men have joy, satisfaction, and life in everlasting harmony, when they keep the law. Creation would not be possible without rules governing the created.

      It is error for anyone to submit his will to the control of any personality. The personal exercise of will by personal understanding is short-sighted and selfish; hence it is never safe to allow oneself to be led by the direction or advice of another. Practice the presence of God until you open your consciousness to the inflow of the omnipresent, all-knowing mind, then affirm your unity with that mind until you know and fully realize, through the many avenues of wisdom, just what you should do. This acquirement of a knowledge of the divine will is not the work of an instant; it results from patient and persistent spiritual study, prayer, and meditation. Even Jesus, with His exalted understanding, found it necessary to pray all night. All who have found the peace and the power of God have testified to the necessity of using prayer in the soul's victory.

      One should not intellectually will to bring about results for oneself or for another. The difference between the personal will and the universal will can be known by one who practices thought control in the silence.

      Affirmations made in the head alone are followed by a feeling of tension, as if bands were drawn across the forehead. When this state of mind sinks back into the subconsciousness, the nerves become tense; if the practice is continued, nervous prostration follows.

      Stubborn, willful, resistant states of mind congest the life flow; they are followed by cramps and congestion. The will often compels the use of the various organs of the body beyond their normal capacity, and the results are found in strained nerves and strained muscles and in impaired sight and impaired hearing. Disobedient children have earache, showing the direct result that self-will has on the nerves of the ear. Deaf persons should be treated for freedom from willfulness and obstinacy. In the present state of race consciousness, all people use the intellectual will to excess. The remedy is daily relaxation, meditation, prayer.

      Will, as exercised by man, is the negative pole of the great executive force of the universe. The recognition of this in silent meditation opens the will to the inflow of this mighty, moving principle, and the power that moves to action the members of the body reaches into the invisible realm of ideas and controls the elements. It was comprehension of the will universal that enabled Jesus to say to the wind and the waves, "Peace, be still." Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the inalienable rights of man, and they should never be interferred with. Hypnotism, mesmerism, and mediumship are based on the submission of one will to another. The one who desires control demands another's submission in mind and body to his own willed thoughts and words of directive power. The effect on the one who submits is always weakening, and, if continued, results in a mental negation that makes him the victim of evil influences too numerous to mention.

      "Not my will, but thine, be done" is one of the most far-reaching affirmations of Jesus, and those who follow Him and keep His sayings are finding great peace and relaxation of mind and body.

      Jesus, the mighty helper, is always present with those who are earnestly seeking to be Christians and to keep the divine law.

      Chapter X

      Spiritual Law and Order

       Table of Contents

      THE 23d chapter of Matthew is a philippic against ritualism. Jesus arraigns the scribes and the Pharisees before the bar of the divine law and charges them with a long list of crimes committed in the name of religion. He makes charge after charge of delinquency in spiritual observance of the law and warns His disciples and the multitudes to beware of the works of these blind leaders of the blind. Among other accusations He says:

      Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders . . . all their works they do to be seen of men . . . they . . . love the chief place at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues . . . and to be called of men, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your master, even the Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted.

      But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.

      Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. . . .

      Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!

      Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. . . .

      Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,