THE MYSTERIES OF THE FOUR GOSPELS
Lesson Four. Luke 13.
Unity Interpretation of
Progress Unfoldment
CHARLES and CORA FILLMORE
February 5, 1942
CHARLES FILLMORE: OPENING SONGS
The general theme of our lesson today will be "Progress" that is "Unfoldment". Number 82 ... 8-2 ONWARD COMRADES ONWARD 8-2.
1. Onward, comrades, onward
Marching evermore.
With love's healing message
Ever to the fore;
Truth the only standard;
We can have no foe,
Forward, ever forward,
See love's banner go.
CHORUS:
Onward, comrades, onward,
Marching evermore
With love's healing message
Ever to the fore.
2. Like the changeless ocean
For the truth of God,
Comrades, we are treading
Where the Christ has trod.
Ours the hope eternal
Of God's seas to sail
Ours the faith supernal
That can never fail.
3. Onward, comarades, onward
Till all men are free.
We shall see faith triumph,
Love's great jubilee.
Glory in the highest
Unto Christ within —
This through endless ages
If the song we sing.
Charles Fillmore: We will join in the Lord's Prayer: (in unison). Amen.
CORA FILLMORE: MEDITATION:
This is the fifth lesson in the course, the fourth one we have given, however, in the "Mysteries of the Four Gospels". You remember Mr. Robinson gave our first lesson, because we were out on a lecture trip. But these who are working for credits, please mark your paper today the fifth lesson, and also please bear in mind that this is a new term, which opened January 8th and it is not a continuation of the course of lessons we finished just before Christmas.
Again today our lesson is based on the 13th chapter of Luke, the 31st verse to the end of the chapter. This has been a very interesting chapter indeed and there is much in it. Here in the Bible we read:
13:1Now there were some present at that very season who told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 13:2And he answered and said unto them, Think ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they have suffered these things? 13:3I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all in like manner perish. 13:4Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them, think ye that they were offenders above all the men that dwell in Jerusalem? 13:5I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
(The foregoing not read, but inserted as brief review.)
13:31In that very hour there came certain Pharisees, saying to him, Get thee out, and go hence: for Herod would fain kill thee. 13:32And he said unto them, Go and say to that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I am perfected. 13:33Nevertheless I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. 13:34O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not!13:35Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Now of course the very first point in this Scripture is the Pharises saying to Jesus, Get thee out, and go hence: For Herod would fain kill thee." Of course at this time, Jerusalem, which was then the spiritial cultural center of the world, we might say the spiritual center among all the nations, was infected with aliens. In truth the city was under the Roman yoke at this time. Roman soldiers every place, and crime rampant — I presume it was sometimes like the city of Paris is right now.
In this connection, we know the Pharisees are intellectual thoughts. In individual consciousness, we know Pharisees, intellectual thoughts in you and me, are warring with the Indwelling Christ, symbolized by Jesus, to dominate the City of Jerusalem, the great control station within the soul, which should be the City of Peace. Here Herod, representing the ruling age in sense consciousness, would kill him — kill out the Christ.
Of course the indwelling Christ neither slumbers nor sleeps. We know that it is all-knowing and perhaps induces, at the same time, this warring state, and this mind power always is working from principle and always knows what is best to be done. We know it was not the first time that Herod tried to kill out the Christ. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Wisemen came hunting the Christ Child. Herod instructed them to bring him news of the Babe. You know Herod, the thought in Herod's heart was that thought of slaying the royal Babe. Then of course, we know Joseph was warned in a dream to take Mary and the young Babe down into Egypt so that Herod could not harm the Child.
As all this was an old story, and is in all such cases, the Herod consciousness instinctively fears this new spiritual power because eventually it will upset the ruling out in consciousness of error whatever kind and naturally the mortal man — the mortal consciousness in man — mocks, scorns, belittles and really tries to kill out that of which is is jealous — that which it fears. There seems to be a mortal law along that line.
But here in the scriptures, Jesus answered: "Go and tell that fox, Behold I cast out demons, perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day, I am perfected." We who know the way of the silence, understand this, do we not? We get a strong spiritual realization one day; the first day we know that realization is not firmly established in consciousness. The next day we tread very softly, trying to make that realization a part of our very soul. The third day, we come into the realization that it is established firmly in consciousness, that it is a part of our very self. Thus we see just what Jesus meant in these words, "It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." That seems to have been a law at that time, that all prophets must be killed in Jerusalem. We know Jesus was a prophet, a great spiritual prophet. We know his to be a great spiritual mind with discernment, discerning truth, and knowing in advance everything taking place in this manifest world, first takes place in the mind realm. If we are keen enough spiritually and have this prophetic ability awakened in us, Spirit lets us know through dreams, or in some way just what to expect. That seems to be a law. Once we have finally honestly made a demonstration that is established in the soul, God's word holds fast.
The very last part of this Scripture: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not!" and so on. In Mr. Fillmore's book, TALKS ON TRUTH, He brings this out. He brings out this picture in a most wonderful way. He says:
This is a picture of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem; a picture of a great love welling up in the heart and flowing out to all the earth — the love of God, the love of the good Father for His erring and willful children. Such is the love of Christ for his own: such is the love of God through Christ for all creation. ...
Love is a divine principle and man can know it in its purity by touching it at its fountainhead. There it is not tinged in any way by man's formative thought, but flows forth a pellucid stream of infinite ecstasy. It has no consciousness of good or evil, pure or impure, but pours itself out in great oceans of living magnetic power, to be used by whosoever will. (Talks on Truth 52)
This is one of the most wonderful descriptions of unselfish love we have ever found. We know we are, in each soul, a spirit center into which all our spiritual thoughts naturally gravitate and phsyically this is the heart. As you truly unfold spiritually and begin to redeem this bewildered state of consciousness, there is a quickening of the soul which is really at the solar center, for through our thinking we image all the twelve great powers of man of which love is one. You know the others are faith, strength, wisdom, power, imagination, etc., but when these twelve great ideas are working here in your being, working in perfect harmony and in perfect balance, all coordinating with each other, it gives your soul character, tone and shape. Yes, it gives to our thinking a rare and beautiful coloring which is all its own. And it is through this power we really draw from the great universal source the spiritual material out of which we build soul structure — texture.
This is the first step toward what we call attaining eternal life. It is a state in which we say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." And so for our silent period we are going to take that one thought:
BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.
Go within; hold our minds steadily on the Christ-Self, even on Jesus Christ. BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. All together please (repeat). Very softly: (repeat). In His Name. ... Amen.
LESSON: CHARLES FILLMORE:
I would like to call your attention to the fact that these lessons are for the purpose of revealing or getting at the inner spiritual man of the Four Gospels.
Of course, we touch upon the historical, but the emphasis is upon that hidden meaning, that meaning that pertains to the universal Principle.
Jesus was undoubtedly a man, and he enacted a certain part in the volution of man. At the same time there was an inner spiritual quality to all his work that takes a certain amount of spiritual development to ascertain and explain.
Now I don't think there is yet a language developed that will fully cover the meaning of this inner mystical life of the Christ. So our descriptions vary in degree, but they all tend to the one thing, and this is the revelation — the revealing of the spiritual man.
We claim that there is a spiritual identity, not only a spiritual self, but this Higher Self in us has identity, that is, it has I AM capacity, and when we unify with it in consciousness, it becomes the Master Mind in us. It is the Higher Self, it is true, but it is the Master Mind and our very salvation, that is that which saves us from all the ills of mortality depends upon the union wih this higher Self.
Now Jesus, in the lesson today, was meeting certain obstacles, certain obstructions in the development of his Higher Self. Jesus was a man born like you and me, but he also had a perception of his Higher Self, his Spiritual Identity, and he was making his union with that spiritual identity, and that the spiritual identity became so dominant in his consciousness that it displaced the personal ego. It became the one spiritual Mind, the only Mind that the man had. So we must study the history of Jesus with this understanding that he was going forward just as we are; that he unfolded as we unfold, and that he had to meet a great deal of opposition, doubtless more than we are meeting, because he made higher claims for himself, and the old thoughts, the old religious dogmas refused to open up to the new Gospel. It has taken two thousand years nearly for us who are the people that he doubtless dealth with — it has taken nearly two thousand years for us to undertand the real spiritual side of his teaching.
Now in the lesson today, we are taught that Herod, representing the ruler on the natural plane, sought to kill him. Well why should this ruler on the natural plane seek to kill the spiritual Man? One would think he would welcome and be glad to have spiritual consciousness. But if you didn't understand what the spiritual man was, and he didn't come in the name of the law, he would think he was an enemy; that is, he was going to destroy his rule, set up a new kingdom. That is what the followers of Jesus thought at the time, that he was going to set up a kingdom that would rule for the Jews.
Jesus couldn't explain all that. But gradually he showed them that his kingdom was of an entirely different characer, and when the word came to Jesus, that this natural man, this Herod, was seeking to kill him, that he had better get out of Jerusalem, he saw and he knew what was going on. He said, "Tell that old fox I cast out demons and perform miracles today, and tomorrow, and the third day I am perfected."
Now here is a point that we need to take into consideration in there, because we are everyone, as we have our eye on that high state of consciousness we call the Christ, we want to be like it. Well it is here as a man principle, but he creative idea of the Infinite Mind in the beginning of everyone of us is that we should have a spiritual goal. We should everyone of us become spiritual. But sometimes we have taken that to mean that we are all born perfect, that we are all the perfect children of God. Now is that true? No. Paul said that he had to attain. He said, "I haven't yet attained. I am putting behind me all old things and I press forward to the goal of the high mark which is Christ."
So we, everyone of us, are going forward. And Jesus in this stage of his unfoldment was casting out demons, healing, making cures today and tomorrow, and the third day, perfection. We find in our development we are the same, we have these demons of injustices, personal suspicion, hate, greed and all that sort of thing. Now these have to be cast out. These are demons that are infecting this mind that really is perfect. It is perfect. It couldn't be anything but perfect because it came from a perfect God. A perfect mind — at the same time, it has not realized that perfection. Consequently, we must be, as Jesus, casting out these demons of sense and that when they are cast out the healing always follows, the cures are right there waiting for us to be made perfect.
So, as I say, there is a difference between being perfect children of God, and children of God. We are not yet perfect in our manifestation, although we see the divine law. So let us make that distinction and not quarrel with any proposition that would seem to oppose it, because it is absolutely true, based upon the fact of man's real identity and his real creative act processes, that he is right now in the sight of God a perfect being. Is he in his own sight perfect? No. Then he must go forward.
Jesus said, "Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." This is a very mystical statement and requires a little analysis. He shows that after he attains that perfect state which we call "the heavens", that state in which the man realizes that is no longer under mortal law, yet he has to go forward to "glory after glory". We are never placed where we will have to stop, cease to unfold. There is never a place where we will sit down in the kingdom and then play a harp; never a place where we will go forth and say that man went to heaven, the other went to hell.
Henry Ward Beecher once asked a company like this to think on this question. He said to the congregationist: "The man who is upright, honest, generous, does good every day of some kind, he is one of the best supporters in the church; he is really almost a saint; yet he doesn't believe in the accepted dogmas of the church. Now where will that man be after death?" Mr. Beecher said, "I have never yet aimed to claim to know where any man would be after death. But so far as this man is concerned, he has my best wishes wherever he is!"
That's a nice way to get out of this question of where we go after we are dead. But we know. We know positively. People say, "How do you know?" We know through analogy. We know through inspiration, and a whole lot of us know through absolute experience. As people "shuffle off this mortal coil" as Shakespeare says, they come again onto the stage of existence but they go in and come round and come out. It is a circuit which continues from round to round. When you become acquainted with it, it is a round of spiral character. You don't go the same round always. History does repeat itself, but it is always rising to a little higher plane, if you have got hold of this one divine principle. If you are coming as Jesus said of those people who refused him, who refused to recognize him as the great Spiritual head, their house was left desolate. Well, our house is the body, and your body really is desolate if you haven't this realization which is of the spirit. That it is a state of consciousness, and it is not a wornout garment, because we get through with it at certain times. It is a living representation of the spiritual man ... and so it is.
If you will understand that there is no reality in what is called death, there is no reality in a cessation of activity. Wherever you are, you should be progressing. You should be finding out new avenues of expression of this unlimited soul within you, and so this question that was given in our last Thursday's meeting: "What is the 'few that are saved'?" That was asked of Jesus. We are told there is a text in the library of Illinois University which says not one in a hundred thousand that will be saved. Someone has made a book on that which says not one in a million! (Laughter)
That is all theory. We are saved wherever we are. If you understand the law of spirit and comply with it, conform to it, it wouldn't make any difference, as Paul says, if you are in the body or out of the body. The question is: what is your attitude? What are you doing to bring about this perfection of the spiritual man? Now that's the great question with us. Are we developing spiritually? Or are we developing in the spirit yesterday, today and tomorrow? Or are we putting it off and thinking, "Well I am busy with practical life that really is all that should be required of me." But you have a soul. That soul is your mind. Are you developing your mind, getting the right angle on what life is and how to take advantage of life? Doing it through physical man on a low plane, you might be getting on the plane of ideas. Now these ideas we handle are real, and they are just as tangible, more enduring, more beautiful than any physical thing. We look at the physical side of things and say: "That's the side I am getting everyday results from." It isn't at all. And the real source, the source of things is this mystical, this inside, this side that so little is known about, and what might be called the scientific side. We can't pin it down. It is abstract truth. We can't say this is true; that is true; that that is absolutely true. That is absolute truth. ... You have to deal with it in a general way, through intuition. Sometimes your intuition will not get the results you are expecting, but use it. USE IT. Use the higher faculties and TRUST THE LORD FOR RESULTS. That is what we are finding is the way to get on. To be optimistic, don't look at the dark side. Don't take things too seriously.
The newspapers, the radio in regard to the war tell us we in America don't take the war seriously. We are not war-minded! Do we want to be war-minded? I say NO, we don't want to take it seriously ... We want to know there is a higher Power here that will take care of us. We don't have to burden ourselves with all the issues of war and or carnage. We don't have to follow Winston Churchill with this "blood, and sweat and tears." We want an easy way, we want to see things in a spiritual way. We can only get that easy way by looking at it in reference to the mystical working in the life of Jesus Christ — something that has to do with the spiritual man. And we are not so interested in his material activities, his experiences in Jerusalem, but what is He doing? What is he doing today? That's what will count with us.
Gandhi, the great Indian leader, was asked what made Christianity dear to the Indian people. He siad, "Christians who have Christianity." That's it. Are we living Christianity, or following the historical side? Are we finding out more about what Jesus experienced? What did he experience? We can only know by getting in unity with this spiritual man in us, the I AM Man that was in him — the same Man that was in Christ Jesus. Then we will understand Jesus — understand what he said through understanding he is the Father of this race. And by acknowledging him, coming in the name of the Lord, we shall have [unreadable] Lord, we shall have every good thing. That's what we want, something good, and we get it through the mystical side of being.
Don't be afraid of this mystical side of the Scriptures. In all your studies, keep yourself in Spirit. Don't follow the historical part. That doesn't make any difference. What counts is, what ideas you get? How you waken in you the Christ? How you bring that Christ into manifestation? That is what counts. That is what we are striving and working with you to bring into manifestation.
CORA FILLMORE: OFFERTORY:
We now have an opportunity to give our love offering. We ask you to take your offering in your hands, to bless it: DIVINE LOVE THROUGH ME BLESSES AND MULTIPLIES THIS OFFERING. Again (repeat); once more (repeat). Blessing the offering: We thank Thee, for this generous outpouring of They substance. The givers and receivers are blessed in His Name. Amen.
HEALING POOL.
CHARLES FILLMORE: We will all now join in our healing meeting. Now the lesson today is right in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ, that he is spirit. He attained spiritual consciousness. Through that spiritual consciousness, he can be whatever he wants to be. In other words, if he thinks he is in a certain place, he is there. He is there with his dynamic being. His dynamic body. He is there with his great propering and healing and restoring power. We believe and teach this is true. People ask me: "Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe Jesus is up in the stratosphere several thousand miles above the earth? Well, yes! He went up, I supposed. But that stratosphere is a spiritual consciousness and it is interpenetrative. It is a refined spiritual presence. You might say it is finer in its activity than electricity. But it is just like electricity, it is here, it is right here at all times.
When we speak in the Name of the Lord, or speak with the though of the presence of the Lord and — by the Lord — I mean the spiritual man, the spiritual Man of which Jesus Christ became a part — when we speak of that, that idea, that presence is with us. So we are going to use for our healing word today: "WHOSOEVER COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD BLESSED IS HE." WHOSOEVER COMETH.
BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.
That word of blessing, that means blessing for the good: "BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD."
As we enter into the spirit of that we begin to emanate and radiate the spiritual qualities. These qualities that are locked in our soul are not expressed unless we identify ourselves with the Lord, that is, Spiritual Principle. BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD." So let's speak that together. Let's speak that quietly within ourselves for just a moment (repeat). Lift yourselves up in spirit. Realize the Spirit of the Lord is here and that you are coming in His Name.
We are pouring out blessings as we unify with that refined Presence, that Name, that Divine Character. The name represents the character. "BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD."
Now these names that we have here, let's say to them:
BLESSED ARE YOU WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.
Blessed good health cometh to you. Blessings. Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord. Let's all speak that aloud and then hold it in the silence. Realize the Spirit. We are all receiving now great blessings of health and prosperity. "BLESSED ARE YOU WHO HAVE COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD." Jesus Christ is here pouring out a blessing through his Presence. His presence is unified with the Holy spirit, healing.
CORA: I will read the names asking for health, prosperity, illumination: BLESSED ARE YE THAT COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.
CHARLES: If you have friends anywhere you want to bless with this healing spiritual presence, speak the word to the Lord. Speak the name. Speak the words: BLESSED ARE YE WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. Now FEEL that blessing. Feel that Lord is here pouring out his spirit on you, pouring out is spirit upon us, all who are here, you're receiving a healing now. It doesn't make any difference what your name is. Ask the Lord for Prosperity. "BLESSED ARE YOU WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD." Think of anybody anywhere you want to help. Speak the word for these (repeat). Let's speak that word for all people everywhere (repeat), May we all rise?
BENEDICTION: Let us each know for himself, each one for himself take the thought: BLESSED ARE YE WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. Take that silently as you go out, any place, anywhere, say: BLESSED ARE YE WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. Let's speak that aloud: (repeat). Now hold that silently just a moment. BLESSED ARE YE WHO COME IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. Amen.
You are dismissed.
Transcribed by Virginia Urban on August 26, 2016.
