Hi Friends -
This tract, Justice in Finances, was published by Unity in 1940. By then, Unity had reached the 50-year mark, Charles Fillmore was enjoying a new life with Cora as a writer and lecturer and Lowell Fillmore had been running things at Unity for six or seven years.
As far as I can tell, Unity had never resorted to legal proceedings to seek justice, to protect its lawful rights or to force compliance on anyone. This tract explains why. The message of the tract is that God is justice and regardless of the rightfulness of our particular claim, we must “Let go all standards of justice that have been formulated according to man’s law with its complement of courts, prisons, penalties, and human adjustments and wreckage, and quietly know God as omnipresent justice.”
This is a hard teaching. I devoted the better part of an afternoon reflecting on what our Unity teaching is calling us to do. Perhaps one day I will feel compelled to resort to the legal process. I hope not. If it were to happen then I hope that this tract and the reflection it generated somehow comes back to remind me to “trust the goodness and power of God to right every wrong.”
So I have placed this tract and a few copies of it in the files I keep called "legal". I hope that some day way in the future, when I am pressed to review my legal files, when I have forgotten this post, this tract and this teaching, that I will find them there to remind me. I encourage you to do the same.
Sunday, August 5, 2018
ONE OF the principal points in making a demonstration of prosperity is not to cling to material things. “If riches increase, set not your heart thereon.”
A certain teacher of metaphysics has often told a story that well illustrates how one may open the way for a larger blessing by letting go of a smaller one. He said that one summer evening he was walking with his wife, when she expressed a desire for a dish of ice cream. He took from his pocket a coin and told her to buy the cream. She refused, because she knew that that was all the money he had. He insisted upon her taking it, and finally said that if she did not take it he would throw it away, because he would not hold himself in bondage to a coin through fear of parting with it. After the ice cream was eaten, they walked along the street and in a few minutes met a former patient, who paid ten dollars to the teacher for treatments received. The demonstration was speedy, because of the absolute fearlessness of the demonstrator. He knew in whom he believed.
A lady who was inspired by this teacher to trust God implicitly for her supply also demonstrated the law of prosperity. When her pocketbook was nearly empty she spent from it freely for such things as seemed most needed. In a short time after beginning to act thus on her faith, she had a position, and in a year a home. In two years she had a better position and in four years more a much better home.
The habit of clinging to things causes many lawsuits. Rather than give up, the natural man will fight until there is nothing left to fight for. The Teacher of wisdom said, “If any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.” This was a very forceful way of saying, “Let go.” He promised again and again that nothing should be lost by letting go, and that much should be gained, even a hundredfold.
To worldly wisdom it seems foolish to spend money freely unless there is a large sum laid up, but “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Spiritual wisdom and understanding reveal the source of riches, which is God, the omnipresent substance. Those who discern this supply and put themselves into harmony with divine law can never fear lack or experience it. They know that to try to store up supply is folly. It is contrary to the law of manifestation. Riches thus stored cause all kinds of trouble and finally take wings and fly away. The gathering of manna for the morrow in the wilderness is a perfect illustration of the folly of laying up for the future. “Sufficient unto the day” is the measure with which men must be satisfied. Greed and worldly ambition for possessions cannot stand before the truth about omnipresent supply, which is always ready for all men to the full extent of their needs.
When comes the fearless freedom born of faith in God as the ever present source of supply, it opens the way not only to prosperity, but also to health, for many ills come from fear of lack. The letting go process is mental. There is a letting go first of ideas, then of things. When an old error idea is loosed in consciousness, body and affairs feel a glad sense of freedom, and this is the forerunner of a new realization of health and of prosperity.
“There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want.”
“It seems hard to lose what we have, after working hard for it.”
The thought of loss comes from the personal man, who believes that he can own something. Deny away all belief in loss, not only by word but by placing yourself in the mental attitude that recognizes ownership only in the universal. As a personal man you own nothing, and have nothing to lose. As the son of God you own all things and can lose nothing.
We do not advise resorting to law or other external methods of inducing honesty in business relations. The appeal to force excludes Spirit; it is the “mine” and “thine” of Mammon. Commit your business affairs to the integrity and tender justice of the Infinite. God’s scales provide perfect equilibrium; trust their decisions.
The human race has come to a time when the self no longer is to be ruler. Christ is Lord of all, and He is now taking His ruler-ship. He must be enthroned in the heart of every man, and the self must be cast out. The light of the indwelling Christ reveals the subtle efforts of self to hold dominion in man’s consciousness. The mortal man’s ideas of justice, which he so often sets up as an excuse for continuing in a state of antagonism, must be broken up and eliminated, that universal ideas of justice may have place. False notions of justice get their hold on men largely through belief in personal possessions. Men think that they own houses and lands, their wives and their children; and wives believe that they own their husbands and their children. When man lives in this selfish thought he resents everything that he thinks interferes with his personal possessions; but when the Christ mind opens up the individual mind so that it can understand the universal ownership of the fullness of God and the freedom of all men in Christ, the consciousness expands and loosens its tense hold on people and things, and harmony begins to reign where once there was only discord. Much of the suffering in the world comes from the resistance of man to the expanding of his consciousness in its growth from the selfish to the universal. When he sees the benefits that are to come from such a change, he ceases to resist and begins to rejoice in the larger life that opens before him and within him.
Be just and honest in all your ways. Do not try to get something for nothing, but give value for everything received.
Some persons, who would not deal unjustly with others, believe that others can deal unjustly with them. This thought of injustice must be entirely erased from the consciousness. If one is true to Spirit and is bringing forth that which is spiritual, having confidence in God as his protection and guide, he will find the justice that he is seeking, because he will have placed himself under the law of divine justice.
Some think that justice excludes mercy, but this is not true, for it is just to be merciful. “Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.” We can fulfill the law by mercy; we cannot fulfill it by refusing to extend mercy. God is just, and He is also merciful. “It is of Jehovah’s lovingkindness that we are not consumed.” “He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us after our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his lovingkindness toward them that fear him.”
“When a man’s ways please Jehovah, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” “If . . .a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully.” We do not contend lawfully when we seek to establish peace by working in the external. The only way to be crowned with the consciousness of mastery is to go within and set ourselves in order, showing mercy and kindness to all. Then our ways please the Lord, and all the seeming enemies, whether they be people or conditions, are harmonized. “He that giveth heed unto the word shall find good,” and the wise way to deal with all people and conditions is the way of love and mercy.
Trust the goodness and power of God to right every wrong; help to make divine law operative in the world by declaring your faith in it. “Let your light shine.”
Divine Justice
In nearly every case settled in the courts there is one loser, one person who is dissatisfied and embittered. Perhaps his faith in man is shaken; perhaps his reputation is stained; perhaps his freedom is taken from him; perhaps his very life is forfeited—regardless of the fact that he is one who seems especially to need God, that he needs to receive understanding and comfort and guidance from the God of love.
In nearly every case settled in the courts there is a winner; one who is elated because he has regained that which he has termed “mine,” one who is gratified that his personal idea of justice concerning himself has been upheld, one who is in a measure pleased that another must pay the penalty of attempt to evade the law. The so-called loser and the so-called winner both lose.
He who comes into Truth is freed from the need of righting wrongs in this manner. The one law of divine love will cover and fulfill every righteous man-made law. This law will make law-abiding citizens of all who co-operate with it; moreover, it will make them wise, lenient, and merciful to those who have not found the way.
Divine love and understanding working together in well-balanced relationship within us reveal a sense of justice that we have never realized before; they make us realize that God is justice.
God is justice. Repeat these words quietly to yourself and let them be made alive in your consciousness. Let go all standards of justice that have been formulated according to man’s law with its complement of courts, prisons, penalties, and human adjustments and wreckage, and quietly know God as omnipresent justice.
You begin to know God as justice when you willingly and quietly seek Him for any adjustments that need to be made in your life and affairs. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Since God is love, the foregoing sentence may be rearranged to read, “Vengeance is mine, saith love.”
How well love makes its adjustments; how impersonal are its decisions! It imposes no prison bars or humiliation; rather, it removes the limiting bars of unfairness and misunderstandings; it leads into the freedom of Truth. The Spirit of love shows how to pay debts; how to forgive; how to gain forgiveness; how to wipe out old grudges, jealousies, and misunderstandings. It points to the upward path; in him who has sinned it creates new desire to do right.
Join with us in the following prayer, holding each word lovingly in your thoughts until it becomes alive with divine meaning to you.
God is justice; God is understanding love. I abide in the omnipresence of justice. Wherever I am, justice prevails because the Spirit of justice works in and through me toward all persons, and in and through all persons toward me. God is justice. Gladly I know that His law is operating in all my affairs. He is silently planning for all concerned, and His plan is very good.
UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY
917 Tracy, Kansas City, Mo.
PRINTED IN U. S. A. JS-3600-I-40
