The Extension of the Senses
1913-12-14
Luke 10:1-12
This lesson from Charles Fillmore was featured on Bob Brach's Unity Classic Radio broadcast on May 19, 2015. Bob writes, "Mr Fillmore talks about the meaning of 'let us pray' as he begins this lesson. He makes reference to the 12 powers (page 7) and that they may come in pairs (page 5). This is very much like the treatment that Rev Phil Pierson has done in his book "The Twelve Freedoms". Mr. Fillmore, among other things, speaks about the connection to the brain's thinking setting up vibrations in the subconscious and solar plexus (page 9). Enjoy."
LECTURE
"THE EXTENSION OF THE SENSES"
-by-
MR. CHARLES FILLMORE
-at-
UNITY AUDITORIUM
913 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri
SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 14, 1913
Let us pray, when we say let us pray, we have a little different meaning from that usually carried with the words "let us pray". We know that the mind of Being is omnipresent, and that our minds are open, and that inner communion which all people are seeking for who pray, is the result. But it is something more than a prayer of supplication, it's a prayer of asking and receiving, or supplication and realization.
The understanding of the mind comes in play when one has true prayer. You enter into the realms of the omnipresent Principle of Being, getting your mind still, putting away thoughts that pertain to the external life, and quietly realizing Spirit, you enter into the Heaven, you become one with that Kingdom which the great Master, Jesus, said is within you, the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now, this opens out to us an entirely new aspect of prayer, and we say that it means more than supplicating, asking for something that we want our God to give to us. We have it already. It is simply a matter of realizing that Truth. So that the asking is just a part of the prayer. We must not only ask, but know we have already received.
Now, through prayer we come into the power of mastery, control, dominion, which belongs to every one of us, and that mastery is over our thoughts first; then our feelings, and through the mastery of thought and feeling, the environment easily drops into obedience. So, if you get control of your mind, the thoughts of your mind, and your emotions, and your feelings, why everything ought to come easily.
Now then, with this understanding let us pray. This morning our lesson is about the control of the outer consciousness, the external man; and, as a preliminary step, we will take up this all through the mind. We will pray, enter into the consciousness of the realm where mastery is.
Now, we will take as the central idea - now these prayers that we give you are key-notes to the situation - do your own praying after you get into the Kingdom. This is the key note: "My thoughts and my feelings are spiritual, and are guided by the Spirit in all their ways." Now, this is true if you have a consciousness of the Spirit: "My thoughts and my feelings are Spiritual - that is true fundamentally - and they are guided in all their ways by the Spirit: My thoughts and my feelings are spiritual, and they are guided in all their ways by Spirit".
Everyone get still, still the outer, enter into the quietness and peace of the inner, with that statement,
"My thoughts and my feelings are spiritual, and they are guided in all their ways by the Spirit".
(Silence).
The text of our lesson is the sending forth of the Seventy by Jesus to carry on his ministry. I presume it is unnecessary to say to you that our lesson is given from the standpoint of this Scripture, and especially that pertaining to the history of Jesus, is symbolical, or an allegory of the development in each man who enters the regeneration, the expression of the soul or the body in or after a perfect ideal, that image and likeness whichw as planted potentially in every one of us in the beginning.
Now, we find that man is dual in his make up. He has an inner and an outer, a positive and a negative - masculine and feminine. Everything nearly is in pairs. I think probably all things, wherever you find a faculty, you may be sure that somewhere near at hand is its mate. The two go hand in hand.
How, there is the original spiritual man, then the reflection of that man, a secondary man. That original man was created, we will say, in the first Chapter of Genesis, the image and likeness of God, and yet there was no man to till the ground. Then another man, the Adam man, came on to the stage. There are the two men. Then that man went on in his development and progress, and it was found that he needed a helpmeet so the Eve was brought forth from his subconscious, - symbolically, one of his ribs.
Now, in the development of the Christ Man, there was, first, the spiritual faculties. Those are his disciples. But there has been another movement of mind, and this is given as the Seventy, representing an external reflection. We might take, as an illustration, the rain-bow. We know that there is always a secondary rain-bow. How, if we understood that every created thing, everything that stands forth, must have this duality, and if you could understand that you had your spiritual side and your intellectual, or your inner and your outer, or the subconscious and the conscious, it would solve a good many problems for you, especially if you would begin the study of the subconscious.
Now then, most of us live in the secondary rainbow phase. We live in the intellectual, in the outer. We haven't gotten hold of this wonderful interior, but Jesus showed us how to lay hold of the twelve fundamental principles of our being; and he gave us the Absolute. And remember, that Jesus is the I Am, the real identity; that he is involved in everything! But it must express itself, and it expresses itself in this two-fold way.
Now, in our previous - in the previous history of Jesus, he called his disciples, and they were trained and shown their work. Now we come to the outer expression. There are the feelings, and the intellectual man. They must also be directed. And this brings us to the lesson. It is a lesson on how to handle the emotions and feelings, and how to handle the activity of the mind, through the brain.
We find people giving us lessons on every side nearly, on Telepathy, thought transference, how the brain sends out vibrations, and how it can product effects. They even weigh our thoughts and they picture them, and they tell us that there is what is called an "N-ray" connected with all things, but especially moved by the mind; and, as I say, there is a great awakening here on the part of Psychologists as to the character of the emanations from the brain.
Well now, this is one of the faculties of the mind, but it is an external faculty. It has to do with this outer realm. There are seven external senses. One of them is the vibrations, or the faculty of thinking, which sets up vibrations in the head, and especially through the brain. But that same power goes into the subconscious and sets up vibrations in the solar plexus, and the solar plexus being connected through your nervous system with everything, becomes receptive, and we call it the power of man to intuitively know.
Now the brain - it has to have its thoughts related to conditions, to surroundings. It thinks in, well, in chunks; it thinks in form and shape and size and weight; but the intuitive thinker here just receives things without weighing them or without comparison. It simply knows. Now, most women have the intuitive thinking part of themselves developed much larger than men. So a woman's reason - they know that certain things are true, and they don't give any reason for it. They haven't any comparison; they haven't any related facts; but the man that thinks from the head, he will work it out in logic and in comparison, and so forth. But these really belong together. Jesus grouped them; he sent them forth before his face, two by two.
Now, this means that the I Am in us must recognise this outer realm and train it, develop it, bring it into expression. It is sent forth, and certain laws are laid down for it. And here we are given in this lesson some of those laws.
Now, let us see if we can't find some of them. Now of course that is a symbolical number, the Seventy. It really means "7" increased ten-fold. "One shall chase a thousand; two shall put ten thousand to flight". When you know that every one of your so-called senses have a dual motion, or action - the positive and negative; masculine and feminine, and that grouping them in this way, sending them out as two and two, you get a much stronger and larger result. If you know, for example, that your eye has an inner spiritual eye, and that you can increase the outer by laying hold of the inner, don't you see you increase the capacity of your eye? And you can strengthen a weak eye in that way. So we meditate on the Spirit, and we heal our eyes, and our ears, and every one of the five senses.
Then again, you have two additional senses, just as I have told you - the power of thought radiating your forces from your brain, and the intuitive knowing here at your heart's center. So that most of us must, if we send out our seven senses, as we develop them, recognize these two that are still in embryo in the majority of people have a sporadic development, but, not having been thoroughly disciplined, they will not develop; they don't always develop.
Now, trained Metaphysicians are gradually getting hold of this power of thought transference, but, as we will find a little later in the lesson, it isn't wise to use it until you have spiritual understanding, - as Jesus says, "Until you know that your names are written in heaven". Don't glory in your power to send out your thought and produce results in a higher way than the ordinary man. That is egotism and self-glorification, and it has a tendency to build you up in this personality; but rather, rejoice that you know the spiritual laws; that your names are written in heaven.
Now, the cities and places that Jesus told these seventy to go to represent primarily the centers and nerve localities in the organism. It says the harvest was plenteous, but the laborers few. There is a great need, we know, of a fuller expression of the powers of man. We needn't - we don't have to dwell on that part. Now, he told these people, this seventy, as they went forth, to take neither purse nor script, nor wallet, and to salute no man by the way. This means that we should not hamper our forces by loading them up in any way with ideas that pertain to, well, the finances or the social or the customs of the world or etiquette, or this or that. They shall he absolutely free. If you want your mind to do good work, put it into the Absolute.
Now, the average Psychometrist would tell you in the cultivation of your brain power in thought transference, that you sit with somebody in a quiet, receptive state of mind, at an appointed time, and send your thoughts back and forth. Now, a Metaphysician that understands the Christ thought, would say, "None of that; none of that". There is the recognition of personality. You are trying to carry into this new Kingdom some of the limitations of the old kingdom. We are coming into a new Kingdom where there is a new relation. What is the foundation of that Kingdom? Why, absolutely, absolutely the doing away with the limitations of matter and the material law. So, we would say to one who would develop his thought transferance, "realize Omnipresence;" don't think about persons and get, if you wish, the name of the one you wish to reach - just say the word and the Spirit will take care of it all. Don't burden yourself with any limitations.
Now, if you wish in this external way to demonstrate prosperity, why, don't load yourself up with the idea of a purse. That is a limitation. Some people have mighty small purses, and it is difficult, sometimes for them to get even a penny out of it; and those purses are representative, in a way, of the character of the mind. Did you ever see a man who will, we will say, want to pay the news boy a penny for the paper, reach 'way down in the bottom of his pocket and pull out a little purse and open it and then reach 'way down in the bottom of the purse and pull out a penny, and give it to the newsboy, and if he happened to give him a nickel, he would he sure to get the four cents back; and he would put the four cents in the bottom of hie purse, and lock it up carefully, and put it 'way down in the bottom of his pocket. What would you say of a man of that kind? Why, you would say he is a tight-wad. Well, you would strike it about right.
Now, what produced that carefulness in his mind, or why the limitation of small things? He had probably been trained from his youth up to carry a purse, and to be very saving and careful about every little cent, and he had trained his mind to do this, and the purse had been a bondage to him in a way.
So, one way to demonstrate a large state of mind is not to have any purse, and that is what Jesus Christ meant. Of course, the purse, as I say, simply represents a symbol, but it has a great deal to do with the state of the mind; and if you want to demonstrate the power of the Spirit in a large way, why get some large ideas. In other words, put away from your finances all these limitations of the intellect. Cut them all out, and don't load yourself up with the wallet in which they carried their food. Don't think about these - that is another lesson in: Don't worry about what you shall eat or what you shall drink. Why, you are going to be provided for. Just get that out of your mind. God provides for those who go forth in His name. These were going forth in the name of the Spirit.
Now, if you go forth in the name of the Spirit, why, do it with absolute confidence and freedom, and salute no man by the way. Don't spend any time in etiquette. If you have got a message, tell it; tell it right out. You know those old Jews spent sometimes as much as two hours saluting one another as they met. They had a long formula in which that etiquette of inquiring about the friends and bowing and scraping and doing this and doing that took, as I say, two hours. Now, Jesus Christ knew that was a waste of time, and he said "cut it out". Don't salute any man at all. Don't spend any time in unnecessary etiquette. Just, as I say, tell your message direct, and then you will come to the point quickly.
And he then - the next point was that when they entered into a house to say "Peace" unto it; "Peace be unto this house". Now, we have found in our experience as Metaphysicians, that in nearly all of the different centers of consciousness in man there is more or less turmoil and discord and inharmony. Now, if you are a healer, or if you wish to get quick results in healing yourself, you will find it very necessary, when you begin your treatment, to say: "Peace, Peace be unto this house, in the name of Jesus Christ". I had a case this morning where a lady hadn't slept for several days and nights, and it came to me that she needed, above all things, peace. And about all the treatment was: "Peace be unto this house, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." If you are disturbed and nervous and wrought up, and flighty, say to yourself, "Peace be unto this house, in the name of Jesus Christ". And then he said, "If they don't receive this peace, why wipe the dust from off your feet". Well, what does that mean? Why, it means that you should deny all material understanding. The reason people don't receive the peace and the power of the spirit is that they don't understand it. Well, deny all that. That is all - just deny. If there is any such thing as a lack of Spiritual understanding? If there is only one mind, and we are all from that one mind - live, move and have our being in it, it must be that we can understand. Well, why don't we understand? Because our minds are loaded up with material concepts.
Now, you can erase those material concepts by wiping the dust of materiality from your feet. In other words, denying all material thoughts from your conscious mind, your understanding mind. All at once you will come into a clearer perception of the Spirit.
Then Jesus said to them: "Heal the sick, and say unto them 'The Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you'". This, to us, is one of the important features, because it is the summing up of the work. When we have attained the power to control the thoughts of the mind, and the feelings of the body, we have reached a point where we can heal the sick; and all healing of the sick is a simple process if you have laid hold of these fundamental principles and trained your mind, trained your word, so that you can go forth and speak to these demons, which are just thoughts in the mind. Tell them that there is no longer any fear of the scorpion, of the serpent, which is this stinging sense which every one gets if he fails to observe the law. Man, in his spiritual understanding, can go into these outer realms, this feeling man, this flesh man, and wipe this all out. It isn't a very difficult proposition.
Then Jesus said, "Behold, I saw Satan as lightning falling from heaven". What does that mean? Who is satan? Why, it is personality, isn't it? The adversary is satan. And what is the adversary in man's mind? Why, that adverse state of consciousness that doesn't believe in the power of the Spirit. And when all of your faculties are under the dominion of the I Am, the Christ word, what becomes of personality? Why, it simply drops from the heavenly state that it has set up. It has set up the idea that it is the king in the kingdom of heaven, and when you declare the truth, the personality simply drops like chained lightning; disappears. You will find that you can whittle down your personality. It is a mere nothing if you will quietly deny in the name of the Spirit, all personal dominion. And the law works so beautifully; it works so quickly at times that we almost are inclined to be puffed up with our power and we come rejoicing to the Lord and say "Why, even the devils are subject to our word". Then we must be a little careful - not let the personal man, or the personal identity get puffed up with its power. In other words, don't seek the healing, don't seek these external signs, because they are only temporary. The real thing is that your name, your understanding is written in heaven. That is the real point of the lesson, that we shall bring all of these powers, not only the within, but the without, into the Kingdom of God; and we shall know that the whole man, Spirit, Soul and Body, are identified with the Universal Mind, and that we are enveloped in a great redeeming Substance and Life, and that we are brought into the Kingdom through the power of the Spirit.
11:34 A. M.
12:00 M.
UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY
UNITY ARCHIVES
