Sermons of Charles Fillmore

This lesson from Charles Fillmore was featured on Bob Brach's Unity Classic Radio broadcast on July 21, 2015. Bob writes, "Here is the PDF transcript I will read from on tomorrow's (July 21st) show. Mr. Fillmore has some nice comments about the connection between our individual consciousness and race (or collective consciousness as we would say today) See pages 3 & 4. Blessings, Reverend Bob"

Let us enter into the presence of the Spirit with the prayer of recognition and affirmation. We must affirm in our conscious minds that which we would have manifest in the suhconscious and in the affairs. True prayer, or spiritual affirmation, is the affirmation of that which is true in and under the Divine Law.

We will take this morning a central idea which will be this: "May the peace and harmony of thy law he made manifest in me and in all that I do; May the peace and harmony of thy law he made manifest in me and in all that I do".

We will all enter into the Secret Place of the Most High, and hold that thought.

(Silence).

We have a continuation this morning of the demonstrations of Truth. All the lessons in the life of Jesus Christ pertain to what is called "Regeneration". They are not intended for the instruction of the one who needs moral training alone, but for that deeper instruction of the soul in its onward journey to God.

We have all recognized that there is a progressive development of the mind of man; our philosophers have again and again called our attention to the rise and fall of nations, to the advent into some nations of a new spirit, like that which for about three hundred years possessed the greeks, and then passed away. What is it that gives this inspiration? What quickens these people? It seems almost an outside force, as if something had come like a wave into their midst, and then died away. Well, a process similar to that does go on in human consciousness. We see evidences on every side of this wave process of the mind. The fact is that we live in a mind energy, or a mind substance similar to the water, and it is referred to in the Scriptures and compared, this mind substance, to the waters of the sea. We are told that the one who is unstable in his thought is like the waves of the sea.

Now, this inspiration which we find coming to men and to people, is caused by the quickening or the rapid movement of this great sea of Mind. If the people, when this quickening takes place, rise in consciousness and chord with it, then we have a new movement of the whole race. Where even one man receives in his consciousness, in his mind, this new impetus, and lets it, through his thought and his word, go forth, there is an onward step taken. Everybody in that race-consciousness receives, if they place themselves in proper attitude, the immersion or the baptism.

Now, in this Scripture, and especially the New Testament, we have illustrated the movements of this immersion of the mind in the great sea of thought from the Fountain-head, God, and how it affects the individual consciousness. John, the Immerser, we are told, comes first, and then Jesus, the Demonstrator. Where do we find this in human consciousness? You will discern it in the movements of the two great departments of your mind, when you receive spiritual truth.

Now, John represents the conscious mind, this mind that is dealing with every-day affairs, and which the ego is conscious. That mind receives the first immersion, or illumination of this great wave coming forth from God, and then that illumination descends into the subconscious mind, of which we know but very little, and it is quickened and unified with the Suhstance and the Life of the man. And here is where the second movement takes place, or the real demonstration.

Now, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, as you know, were cousins, and John was six months older than Jesus, and it is presumed that they were well acquainted with each other, at least their mothers were, according to the Scriptures; and they worked together. You will remember that Jesus was baptized or immersed by John. That means that his mind was illumined, that he received the quickening of this great new wave that passed into the race consciousness about that time. So we are told that Jesus was baptized of John, and yet he was greater than John. And when in the onward growth and development of this mind substance, into which John comes, - and this, of course, refers to the individual man - the symbology of cousins and this relation simply means that there was a close relation between the conscious and the subconscious; and yet, at a certain stage of which our lesson refers, John asked if this one whom he had heard of, apparently, was the Messiah?

Then where shall we get an explanation of this apparent ignorance upon his part? Why, it was simply to carry out the symbology, or just what takes place in every individual's mind when he receives the illumination in consciousness. Now, this illumination in consciousness quickens all the thoughts. But the subconscious is not aware of what is going on, unless it be informed. It knows that there is another step necessary. It realizes that it doesn't fulfill the law. It is not satisfied with its demonstrations. You have received, for example, the truth, and you, in your intellectual consciousness, have clearly discerned just what the law is. You see that law, and yet you can't demonstrate it up to your ideal. You seem to lack a certain power, a certain capacity to take hold of the working forces of the natural world. So you look for another, and that other is the Christ, and that Christ is the Spirit taking possession of the sub-conscious. When this question from John came to Jesus, he sent word back by those disciples of John calling - or sent word back that certain signs were following his work, and that these should be testimony to John that he was the Messiah, that he was the one for whom he was looking; and he said, "Tell John that the sick are healed, the lame are made to walk, the deaf to hear, the eyes of the blind are opened, and the Gospel or the good tidings are preached to the poor."

Now this means that when the power of the Spirit descends into the subconscious, that it opens the eye of the understanding, that blinded state of mind which is usually found in the un-illuminated subconscious. All at once it has the light; you discern in your subconscious certain truths and then the lame are made to walk; that halting of the mind, that impediment which has stopped your expression of power, of strength, of life, is all at once made free. And the deaf are made to hear, means that you become receptive to the inflow of Truth in your whole being. And the lepers are cleansed, means that you have the whole system, the body itself goes through a cleansing process, through the reception into your consciousness of the pure water of life, the only serum that will ever cleanse man from disease. And the poor have the gospel preached to them. That means that the poor thoughts of the subconscious, that thought that you are in a state of, well, lack, in your general possession of substance and life, and those things for which you have desire - you look upon yourself as being bereft of all these the gospel of Jesus Christ reveals to you that you have everything that all the possessions of Being itself belong to you, and the avenues through which these are made manifest to you are opened up and you find yourself a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Now, this is the revelation and the demonstration to the conscious mind of subconscious activity, and subconscious power. Jesus then called attention to the characteristics of John. He said "What went ye forth for to see? A reed shaken in the wind?" He meant by that, "Did you expect this conscious mind to be waivering, to bow to every wind?" If you did, you are mistaken. Now, when your conscious mind receives the illumination of the Spirit, you are sure of the Truth that you receive. If you are receiving the direct inspiration of Almighty God, you will know definitely. It won't be a question of whether you think is true or not true. You won't be asking others about it, but you will absolutely know, and you will always know if you listen to your inspiration.

John didn't come asking anybody's opinion about the doctrine that he taught, but he taught the Absolute Truth. "And did you expect to see a man clothed in soft raiment?" (Matt. 11:8) This means that his mind or the mind of the one who receives the truth, becomes in its outer realms established in an original natural state of mind. There was nothing artificial about John. He wasn't up-to-date in his clothing; he had simply a camel's hair garment. Now, this is true of your thought, when you receive the inspiration or the immersion of the Mind of the natural man. That is what John received. He was the Divine Natural, - nothing superficial or artificial, but he clothed his thought in the pure original substance of the One Divine Mind.

Then Jesus said, "He is a prophet"; he represents Elijah. And if you can receive it, he is Elijah. Now, we are told that John the Baptist was prepared before he was born - or his mother was - to receive the soul of Elijah, the Prophet. And here Jesus Christ reiterates this. He says that John in his personal character was the incarnation of Elijah the Prophet; but he also goes on in the symbology, and he says further that John came to hear the message in his faith of the Father, or things to come. He was the forerunner in other words, he discerned the coming of this deeper Principle, and when the mind of man is illumined with Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, he naturally falls into a state where he discerns this coming of the Inspired One. And yet, when this power enters into the consciousness, and takes up its place in its working, and the whole man is immersed in new life, and he is restored to his youth, if he is past the meridian, and a quickening of the whole subconscious follows, there is a tendency, if one is not on the watch, to stumble. And so, Jesus said, "Blessed be he who findeth nothing to stumble at in me" (Matt. 11:6). He meant by that that we who receive this new impetus, this new life, should not use it in sense ways, in that we make it a stumbling block.

Now, I would like to call your attention especially, because you are a people who are receiving this immersion - you have nearly all of you received the baptism of John, your conscious minds have been quickened, and many are now entering into the subconscious quickening. When you feel this new life in you, and every center of energy is set into a new action, be on your Guard that you use not this Life in sense ways. Don't go back into the old life with the new. Don't use the new life for the benefit in any way of sense consciousness. If you do, it will become a stumbling block to you. And that is what Jesus meant. And Jesus again called the attention of his disciples to John, in that he told them that of all of the prophets that had gone before him, John was the greatest. In other words, those who are illumined of the Spirit are the greatest of all who intellectually perceive the truth, but they are not yet into the Kingdom, because they haven't received the subconscious, they haven't quickened the inner forces of the man, consequently, they fail short.

Now, Jesus called the attention of his disciples to a certain other truth, which is, that up to the time of John the Baptist, the Kingdom of Heaven had suffered violence, and the violent have taken it by force. But what has been the result? They have had to come back again and become like the little child. So John, - or so Elijah the Prophet, who took the Kingdom of Heaven by force, - he used methods in getting into what we call the superior forces of the mind, that were violent; and if you, in an intellectual way, are seeking to know the secret processes of Being, if you are trying to conjure up forces and powers of occultism in any way, you are trying to take the Kingdom of Heaven, or this Kingdom of Mind - "because that is what Heaven is here referred to - you are trying to take it by force.

You will remember the forceful ways in which Elijah used the Power of God. He was destructive in his methods. When he found opposition in the Priests of Baal, he slew four hundred of them, and called down the fire of heaven upon their alters. Yet God didn't condemn him for it. And we are told that Elijah went up into heaven in a chariot of fire. Well, that means that through the violent activities of the mind, he set the cells of his body into such rapid activity, that he burned them up. He didn't save his body alive, did he? He went up into the realms of mind and disappeared.

Well now, Elijah took the Kingdom of Heaven by violence there by force. He had to come back again; he had to come back as John the Baptist. He didn't remain in the Kingdom. Orthodoxy tells us that Elijah went to heaven. Well, I know he didn't. I know Elijah had to come back as John the Baptist. He simply tore open a place in his consciousness that let him temporarily see the forces of the Infinite Mind back of the invisible world, but he didn't abide; and he didn't abide, because he didn't come under the four-fold law, the perfect law of the immersing mind of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, when we are immersed by John, when the doctrine of the Spirit, as revealed through this gospel, is understood by the conscious mind, then followed up in the subconscious, there is an harmonious, a perfect opening of the whole man to the Divine Law, and when that man goes into the Kingdom of God, he abides, he remains in this life everlasting, according to Jesus Christ.

Then Jesus calls attention to the fact that there is a certain fault-finding among the people, of the habits of John, and of Jesus himself. He says that "John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, and ye say he hath a devil, while the Son of Man came both eating and drinking and he is a wine-bibber and the associate of publicans and sinners". Now, the meaning of this is that when the conscious mind receives the truth, it is absteminous in applying it. It is timid in receiving the whole influx of this immersion, or this new inspiration. Then comes the -- it doesn't take the fullness, of substance, it doesn't eat of the Divine life, nor does it drink of it. It doesn't receive the full life. It just receives an intellectual perception of it. So we find people cutting off, when they are simply illumined in the intellect, cutting off the Divine Substance, cutting off the Divine Life in its fullness. But when that Divine Life and that Divine Substance is received by the subconscious, when man opens his whole being to it, then he takes it gladly. He eats and he drinks of it, and those who look at the appearance would say, "Why, that man is a glutton, that man is an associate of sinners, because as the new life and the new inspiration goes down into the subconscious, it becomes an associate of all the sinful thoughts there, that they may be lifted up. And that is why we say to you that it is necessary that you watch, that you know that this new life and new substance which you are receiving is to be used in righteous ways, because if you don't use it in those ways you are apt to come under the condemnation of the law, and when the condemnation of the law is set up in your mind, you will condemn yourself and you will condemn others, - you will see the wrong results of a good thing.

Now, John was the intellectual man perceiving that there was evil in the marriage of Herodias, the wife of Herod, who was the divorced wife of his brother, King Phillip. And John condemned him in the prison, we are told. That means that through his condemnation, through the seeing of evil by the intellectual man, he the was put in prison, of that condemnation, and, insisting upon that as evil he finally had his head taken off. This means that we, as we get the illumination of the Spirit, and see the righteousness of the law, should be very, very careful how we condemn others, because every word that you speak comes back to you; every thought that you think comes back to you; and if you condemn others - it doesn't make any difference how worthy of condemnation they may be - you get that effect, you get the thought in your own mind and body. If you feel a tightness sometimes across your forehead, you may know at once that you have been affirming something that isn't of the Universal - you have been proclaiming something that isn't true of the Divine Law. The only remedy is to put yourself into the immersing substance and life of the one Infinite Christ. Now, this Christ Mind, this Christ Spirit is always with us. We are living in an age when it is coming to fruition. I am speaking to a people whom I know understands the law, and I am assured that we shall bring forth the fruits of the immersion into spirit of those people in the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. This sowing and reaping goes forward in the race, in great seasons, lasting about two thousand years, and the time is coming right at hand for the harvest of a crop of human Gods. You are Gods when you have received and demonstrated the law of God. When you have fulfilled this immersing of the Spirit, and brought forth in your life its fruits, you shall stand side by side with the Lord Jesus Christ.

11:43 A. M.
12:17 P. M.