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“Through prayer we develop the highest phase of character” – now there’s one reason. If you can’t change God, why pray? Here’s one reason: through prayer we develop our highest phase of character, now that’s worthwhile praying, isn’t it? I mean, that’s very nice.
And then, “Prayer softens and refines the whole man.” Then he goes on, “Prayer is not supplication or begging but a simple asking for that which we know is waiting for us at the hands of our Father and an affirmation of its existence.”
Now, first of all, Mr. Fillmore said why to pray, and then he also brings in mediation a little later. Now he said that there are two main purposes for prayer and two main purposes for meditation. There are more than two, but these are the two that Mr. Fillmore had in mind when he [said this].
The two-fold purpose of prayer is: number one – to ask for Divine help, second – to bring desired good into manifestation. This is the two-fold purpose of prayer. Now this goes for prayer for self and prayer for others, right.
To ask for Divine help. Most people pray when they need help, and they ask for Divine help, and that’s prayer. The second is: to bring forth desired good into manifestation, and there is where you do not do asking as much as you do affirming. You ask for Divine help, but you affirm the good, to bring it into manifestation.
Meditation, the two-fold purpose of meditation is number one: consciousness conditioning, consciousness conditioning and soul refining, the purifying of your soul. Consciousness conditioning, soul refining.
These are the two-fold purposes of prayer and meditation.
Now, is prayer for God’s benefit? No, it’s for our, for man’s benefit. So why pray? Because that will help you attain your highest good. And thank God, He is not changed, can’t be changed. Now, here’s something else that is not in the book but Mr. Fillmore said this in one of his, well, many of his classes, that human beings today, even the most illumined among us today, still have no conception of how much power is latent in human consciousness, that nobody alive, yet, has the faintest conception of how much power is latent, waiting to be developed, waiting to be brought forth in human consciousness.
That human consciousness actually has almost as much power as the Creative Spirit, but nobody knows that, nobody realizes it yet. We have only one example of one human being who did realize it to a great degree: Jesus, see? But Jesus assured us that everything that was in Him is in all of us.
But we have, Mr. Fillmore said, we have no idea, not the faintest conception of how much power we all really have in our consciousness. And of course, you always have the students that say, “Why don’t we know?! Why can’t we know?! Why is it kept hidden in us??” And Mr. Fillmore said, “Because if it could suddenly be revealed to you, you’d go nuts. They’d have to carry you off in a straightjacket.” You couldn’t take it, and that’s true.
But see, what we’re doing, we’re learning that we have this power piecemeal, as we’re ready to handle it, we realize it, you see? If too much of it came all at once, you’d be so overwhelmed you’d be petrified. So those are the two reasons why we should continue to pray, because Mr. Fillmore said, prayer at this time, prayer as we know it at this time, prayer as we teach it in Unity, especially, is the highest use man can make of his mind, at this stage of evolution; there’s no higher, that’s it.
When you are praying, you are using the highest level of your mind, as it is, at this stage of your evolution. So the more you pray, the more you are exercising that highest level of your mind. And what happens to something that is properly exercised? Gets stronger and grows, see? And this is why prayer is so important, so essential, especially to people who are interested in metaphysical Truth; you can’t do anything more sublime than pray and meditate. Pray and meditate every day, and the results are cumulative, like your deposits in your bank account - that’s cumulative, interest is paid on that, and so the power and the benefits of prayer are cumulative.
Okay, now I’ll go over that very quickly again. The two-fold purpose of prayer, today, is to ask for Divine help and to bring forth desired good into manifestation. You see, all of the good any of us ever need or ever want, already is here, of course, but most of it is still unmanifest. And so that’s why we pray for self and other, to bring more and more of it into manifestation. And then meditation’s two-fold purpose is: consciousness conditioning and soul refining.
Okay, now Mr. Fillmore says that, “Jesus advised asking for what we want and being persistent in our demands.” Now right here I want to make another statement that he added later, he says, “Persistence in prayer requests is for our benefit, it in no way affects God.” That is, if you persist in prayer a thousand times for a prayer request, doesn’t mean anything to God; God isn’t keeping score. But the persistence may be needed by whom? By us, to break through any resistance, to break through any barriers that we are not aware of in our receptivity, you see? So our persistence in prayer is for our benefit, our consciousness conditioning.
Then he goes on, “People, ignorant of the relation in which man stands to God, wonder why we should ask, and even importune a Father who has provided all things for us. This is explained when we perceive that God is a great Mind reservoir that has to be tapped by man’s mind, and poured into visibility through man’s thought or word. If the mind of man is clogged with doubt, lethargy, or fear, he must open the way by persistent knocking and asking.”
Now of course Mr. Fillmore is referring to a statement, well, actually two statements made by Jesus. In Matthew 6:8 He says, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask Him.” Does that mean you don’t have to ask because we’ve already got it all? No. Jesus would not have used the word “ask” if we didn’t need to ask. Am I making this clear? Jesus would not talk about asking if asking wasn’t necessary. Alright. Okay.
Now, then later He says to His followers, “If you then being evil know how to give good to your children, then how much more will your heavenly Father give to those who ask of Him?” So notice something, this question keeps coming up: If God already knows, why do we have to ask? Well, God only knows what we have need of. Jesus’ statement is not: “God’s going to give you what you have need of, without you even asking,” it says that, “God knows what you have need of,” period! I’m not getting this across. It doesn’t say, “God does this.” God only …
See, omniscience is all-knowing, and God knows what you have need of, period. But that’s not the story, the story is: God knows what you have need of, but what about you? See? Why should I bother to have to ask when God knows? Well, I don’t know why, but you better. God knowing doesn’t mean you’ve got it; you’ve got it, but only in potential, only in the idea behind it, and what we need is the idea to become the fact, and in order for that, we have to use our minds.
Mind is the connecting link between God and man. And the power of man’s word results in manifestation of the spiritual ideas. And so don’t think that just because God knows what you have need of, that it’s in your pocket, before you ask.
And then I love that statement made by Jesus, although nobody accepts it, when He says, “If you then being evil” – Who! Me? – “know how to give good to your children” – that’s a compliment. Friends, in metaphysics, the word ‘evil’ means, any human attempt to negate any Divine ideas. We are doing it all the time. We don’t call it that, but we’re doing that. We are all experts at this, camouflaging our attempts to negate some Divine ideas in our life.
Any time you are feeling sorry for yourself, which is as easy as rolling off a log, you are emotionally trying to negate some Divine idea. Any time you let your feelings get hurt because, “I ain’t being treated right,” I am inwardly trying to negate. “Oh, but I don’t call it that, I don’t call it that;” I call it, “I stand up for my rights!” You see, “I deserve the bla bla bla bla.”
We make all kinds of excuses and the excuses sound so beautiful, and so valid, but that doesn’t change the climate; the climate is still sin, attempting to negate some Divine idea. I think I’ve told you this in a former class but since we’re on this, and this happened years ago and still it’s so vivid in my mind, that every time I think of it, it’s just like it happened five minutes ago.
I was a minister in Toronto and one of the loveliest, most useful ladies in our church was having marital problems, and she made an appointment with me. She should have made the appointment with my co-minister Jim Sherman, I mean, he was [a] ten times better counselor than I’ll ever be, and I’m not ashamed to admit that, but she liked me better because she knew me longer.
And so I counseled with her and she told me the situation. It was ugly, very ugly. Come on folks, call a spade a spade! If it’s ugly, call it ugly. Her situation was ugly! She was lovely, but her situation was ugly. And I heard it, and I remembered all the things I had learned in my counseling classes: what the books said, what the teachers said, and all the papers I had to write.
And my intuition, my heart, was telling me to say certain things to this lady, but my training said, “No, you say what you were taught in the classes.” Am I making any sense? Alright. So I ignored my intuition and compassion, and replayed my programming. And I said all the right things, I said all the things that the teacher would have approved of in those classes, I said all the things that got me good grades on my papers, I said all the things that the Ordination Committee wanted me to say at my ordination interview, and I was very proud of myself.
Well, the lady listened, and afterward, she was a very, very polite, wonderful woman, she got up. The expression on her face had not changed though; this should have clued me, because usually when you’re helping a counselee, the facial expressions change, the body language changes too. This hadn’t happened.
But yet she was so gracious and smiling, and she thanked, she said, “Your words were very wise,” and so forth. And she got up and she went over to the door of the counseling room, opened it, and just before leaving she turned around and she said, “But Ed, I want you to understand one thing: I will never be happy again!” Out the door.
Now this was a wonderful, wonderful lady, who did not deserve to be treated as she was being treated in this relationship. I had said all of the right things to her, according to the rules, and her final words to me were: “I will never be.” Now do you think that that woman had any conception that she was sinning? That she was being evil? But she was. She was sinning, she was being evil, because what was she doing? What were those words proof she was doing? She was rejecting a Divine idea, she was negating a Divine idea.
She didn’t realize she was doing it, she was sticking up for her rights, or expressing her “real” feelings. I like that very much! Get in touch with your feelings and express your “real” feelings and you’ll die quick and go to hell. You won’t get cured; you’ll suffer more.
Anyway, so after she left I was depressed all day, just couldn’t keep my mind on anything. And I felt so self-righteous. Here I’ve spent a whole hour with her, I took all those courses in counseling, I bla bla bla bla bla, I didn’t even let her give me love offering! And then suddenly I realized, my God! I’m doing exactly the same thing that I’m criticizing her about, in my mind. I am negating the Divine idea of peace of mind and freedom of guilt. And I said, we’re in the same boat.
Now, “physician, heal thyself,” counselor, straighten yourself out. And I did, I worked on myself. I thought, she has a right to this, I have a right to this, but it’s no good for either of us. So what I did, I prayed and I blessed her over and over and over again, [and] forgave myself. That night, when I got home, she was one of the few people in the church that I gave my home telephone number to. I don’t like telephone calls! Got the hint? Because friends, I have received, let me make a guess, I have received at least ten thousand telephone calls in my short life, and 95% of those telephone calls were bad news, so I don’t like telephone calls.
So anyway, I got this telephone call and she told me exactly what I’m telling you, practically, do you hear what I’m saying? She said, “I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I was doing is one of those things that you and Mr. Fillmore warned us about: don’t try to negate any Divine idea, never say no to any Divine ideas; say always, say one thing only: “Yes, yes.” And she said, “That’s what I was doing,”
And I said, I said, “Now you’ve corrected it, you’ve changed it?” And she said, “Yes.” I said, “Well, how do you feel now?” “Happy!” [So] you can guess why I’ve never forgotten that little incident. So sometimes you get a kick in the ego, it’s good for you, see? I mean even a spiritual counselor, sometimes you get a kick in the ego and that’s what you needed; that woke you up. Alright, let’s go on now.
Let me see, number three in my book is… okay. Here, I want to give you another example of something Charles Fillmore did many times in his writings and in his teachings, he comes up with concise and masterful descriptions of the Creator’s greatest creation, which is the whole human being. This is the Creator’s greatest creation.
I think I’ve said to you, I’m not sure of this, but compared to a whole human being, even a planet is piffle, even a solar system is insignificant, even a cosmos is just big, but a whole human being is a Divine masterpiece.
The masterpiece of the Creator is the whole human being. What Bible words do we have to confirm that? In Genesis, right in the beginning, “Let us create man in our image and after our likeness,” says the Creative Spirit of the universe, so that man, a whole human being, is the Creator’s greatest creation. Alright.
Listen to how he puts it, now he does this many times in different words, this is just one example; it’s on page 71, in my book. He says, “Man sets into action any of the three realms of his being: spirit, soul, and body, by concentrating his thought upon them. If he thinks only of the body, his physical senses encompass all his existence. If mind and emotion are cultivated, he adds soul to his consciousness. If he rises to the Super-Consciousness (book says, “Absolute”) and comprehends Spirit, he rounds out the God-man.” Spirit, soul, and body – a whole human being.
Alright, let’s go on, and my pollen allergy is still with me, but it is not illness; it’s just runny nose. Okay, now, Mr. Fillmore also, especially later in his life, tried to impress his listeners, his students, with understanding the difference between the God who is the God written about in the Old Testament, and the God who is being spoken about and demonstrated by Jesus in the New Testament.
Although there is only one God, there are many different interpretations and conceptions and levels of understanding of God, and the God of the Old Testament, which is Elohim in the First Chapter [of Genesis], and then Jehovah from then on, is not at all, not at all, like the God which is in the New Testament. There’s no resemblance even; they’re two entirely different conceptions.
Mr. Fillmore says, [he] quotes Jesus, “God is Spirit,” and that’s the first time in the Bible that God is designated as Spirit. Up until then, God is designated only as a person, a person, a big, mean person, a dangerous person. And friends, don’t scowl at me, I have read the Bible at least fifty times and I’ve taught it for thirty years, so I know what the Bible says! Is this clear?
When I say something about the Bible, don’t frown at me; I know what I’m talking about or I don’t say it. The God written about in the Old Testament is a mean, old man – dangerous, unpredictable, moody, and He is not Spirit, He is not the principle of absolute good; He is a dangerous critter.
But Jesus refutes all that and brings a quantum leap into a realization of God: God is Spirit, God is the only good there is, Jesus says this. Friends, somebody says, “Good Master, how can I obtain eternal life?” And Jesus comes right up, “Why callest thou Me good? There is none good except God,” so God is the only, absolute good. God is Spirit and God is each one of our individual’s Father, our heavenly Father. Not the Father of the nation, you understand? Not the Father of the Israelites, but the Father of each what? Individual, no matter what, no matter where; a one-to-one religion of Jesus, individuality.
Okay, so he quotes from John 4:24: “‘God is Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.’ Then the real foundation of all effective prayer is the understanding that God is spirit and that man, His offspring, is His image and likeness, therefore spiritual.”
You are not spirit, but you are spiritual. You have a spiritual identity, you have a spiritual nature. So get that word ‘spiritual’ when you’re talking about human beings; you use that word ‘spirit,’ when you’re talking about God, okay.
“Such a concept of God gives man a point of contact – that’s what we have with God, a relationship of what? Oneness, through a point of contact. Now if you and I were God, we don’t need a point of contact; we’re it! But we’re not It, but we’re one with It – point of contact. Okay, that’s your Super Consciousness, Christ Mind. Alright.
“A point of contact that is never absent; in all places and under all conditions man (book says “he”) has the assurance of the attention and help of God when he realizes the Father’s spiritual presence and comradeship.” I love that word ‘comradeship;’ that’s not typical of Charles Fillmore. He almost sounds that he’s reverting back to God as a person, but we do have the comradeship of Omnipresence, see, which is much greater than a comradeship with another person.
Alright. Now Mr. Fillmore goes on in the next page talking about faith, and this is a very useful instruction, especially for newcomers to the twelve powers. He says, “The majority of people think that great spiritual faith is necessary to get marvelous results. But Jesus taught differently. ‘The apostles said unto Jesus (book says, “the Lord”), “Increase our faith.” And Jesus (book says, “the Lord”) said, “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed”” – you could do all things with it, you see?
So Mr. Fillmore said, “The amount of faith you need to get marvelous results through your prayers” – now get this - “is exactly the amount you now have. And never wait for more faith, but pray with the faith you now have;” that’s all that matters to the Law of Spirit.
{Inaudible question} Seventy-five – that’s not on the page.
Alright. Now on page 76 he says, “If in thinking about God we locate Him in a faraway heaven and direct our thoughts outward in the hope of reaching Him, all our forces (book says “force”) will be driven from us to that imaginary place and we shall become devitalized.”
I wish he had said more on this in the book but he didn’t, but again, he did in his classes. Can you see now why I’m so grateful that I came to work here when we still had so many of his old students, with their notebooks, and willing to share them with anybody who was interested? Ah, I think back on that; I could not have had better luck than that, but it wasn’t luck, I’m sure, but I call it that. Certainly I didn’t deserve it, but I got it, anyway.
He said this, “Remember that God is not located anywhere.” There’s nothing about location where God is concerned because God is omnipresence. Omnipresence - you can’t use the word ‘location’ if you’re going to use the word what? Omnipresence, but if God is a person, then you can talk about location, right?
So you don’t use the word ‘location’ in thinking of God. So when praying, don’t try to locate God somewhere, don’t try to determine where He is or how far away or even how near; just you are in God. See? You are praying in God.
So, but Mr. Fillmore’s warning is very revelant here, relevant. Relevant or revelent? Relevant! Very relevant.
Now Mr. Fillmore often taught that too many human beings are in a pattern, in a thought and emotional pattern where they continually sustain externalized direction of their attention and expectation. That is, they are constantly, constantly externalizing their energies outwardly - their attention, their concentration, their expectation, “seeing is believing.” See, the externalizing of the powers of consciousness go on too long and with no break, for many people, except when they’re asleep, and even then, they do it in their sleep. Freud knew this, Jung knew this, you hearing me?
And there are many symptoms of illnesses and fatigue and depression which can be traced back to this continuous, nonstop what of consciousness? Externalizing, externalizing, externalizing. And Mr. Fillmore said, “Sustained externalized direction of attention or expectation will devitalize any person.” So what is the preventative for that kind of thing happening to any of us? Take time to internalize the direction of your consciousness.
Turn within, become still, acknowledge the loving presence and power of God. In the Old Testament this is called “observing the Sabbath.” Sabbath is any moment in your life when you have ceased externalizing all of yourself and doing a bit of what? Internalizing, in silence and stillness.
And Mr. Fillmore says, “Then, instead of devitalizing yourself, you constantly revitalize yourself,” and you will always receive back more energy and power than you used up during the day. In other words, by living longer, you get larger, if you do that, but if you always externalize yourself, by living longer, you wear out, and then down you go - the wine runs out, the wedding is over.
Okeydoke, now, again he reverts in the next page to that quote we already gave, “For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him,” and then he repeats the question often given to him in regard to that, which I’ve already told you, but he said, “If Divine Mind knows our needs, why should we have to ask them to be supplied?”
And then, again, now this is not in your page; this he said in class but I’ve written it in my page. He said, “Why should we ask to have them supplied?” Then Mr. Fillmore said, “Why indeed? Because it is the mind of man and the power of his word which activates the process of manifestation.” You see, that’s no semantic accident that that word starts with ‘man:’ man-ifestation. Not ‘God-ifestation,’ but what? Man-ifestation. Man manifests that which God has already created, okay.
“The mind of man and the power of his word which activate the process of manifestation from formless into form, invisible into visible, potential into actual,” see? See, nothing can become actual if it ain’t potential. Nothing can become visible if there’s nothing called ‘invisible. Nothing can move if there ain’t something first called ‘stillness.’ See? Are you getting me?
See, what we’re talking about is the realm of man or the realm of spirit, and so this is, but man is the conduit, the connecting link to bring forth into visibility.
“Asking is a powerful method of speaking the word, just as affirming is.” I’m so glad he added that, because the Unity Movement went through a period at one time when, “Oh, you don’t ask! Oh, you don’t ask! Oh, no, you don’t ask! That means your faith is weak; you only speak the, you make your claim, you state your claim, you affirm.” That’s wrong, that’s wrong, because Jesus taught asking, affirming, and giving thanks in advance. These are the three methods of prayer taught by Jesus and used by Him and demonstrated and proved by Him – they all work: asking, affirming, giving thanks in advance.
Okay, let’s go on and Mr. Fillmore said,
{Responding to an inaudible audience question, Ed says,} Powerful method of speaking the word, just as affirming is, and giving thanks is a powerful method of speaking the word, but only if you’re giving thanks when? In advance. If you give thanks after you’ve got the goodies, that’s not speaking the word, that’s being polite. Speaking the word means prayer, and that’s in advance, giving thanks.
Alright now. Mr. Fillmore goes on and he says, “We observe that all things come out of the formless, but our knowledge of the formless is so limited that we do not conceive of its infinite possibilities.” I think you probably have observed as I have, that most people who aren’t really into Truth highly mistrust the invisible, the intangible; they are afraid to trust it.
And so the State of Missouri adopts a motto for the whole State called: Show Me, Seeing is Believing, because we mistrust that which is still invisible, intangible, potential, and we’ve got to learn that that’s not the way to use your faith; you use your faith when you are turning to the invisible, intangible, omnipresence, you see?
Once a thing becomes tangible, manifest, who needs your faith? Are you hearing me? It’s there, you don’t need faith; it’s there already, but you need your faith for that which is not yet seen. Paul said, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen,” so give your faith to the invisible, says Jesus, and says Charles Fillmore. Okay.
I’m going to read some of Mr. Fillmore’s statements that I have copied out of the notebook: “We must learn to believe more in the reality of and dependability of the invisible Spirit, the invisible Presence, the same is true of silence.” Silence is golden. Sound is tin. Are you hearing me? Silence is golden, but when you’re making noise, you’re turning the gold into tin; you’re using up the power when you are making noise and performing too much movement - silence and stillness.
He said, let me see, oh, he says, “All form has its source in the invisible” - that is the form-less. All form has its source in the invisible! All strength has its source in stillness. All power has its source in silence.” So, pure power is silence, pure strength is stillness, perfect form is invisible substance. Okay.
This is why Unity stresses so much becoming still, putting your faith in the invisible omnipresence, and become silent when you need to have more power and more strength.
And now we’re come to one of Mr. Fillmore’s classic of classics regarding healing. The first one I’ve already given you and I hope you all remember it, is: “The mind of peace precedes bodily healing.” Never forget this, never! The mind of peace precedes bodily healing. So what are you going to seek first when you have a healing need? The mind of peace, and this is for yourself or for others, doesn’t matter. You must have a mind of peace if you are praying for yourself or for others.
The next one is this, and I’ll give you the page here, it’s on page 80. The opening sentence of the last paragraph: “The first step in prayer for health is to get still.” Then he quotes the Bible: “Be still, and know that I am God.” The first step – now does he say, the whole prayer is to get still? No. The first step is to get still, the second step is: speak the word! Get still, then speak. Get silent, then speak, because speaking the word is using up power, right? But when you use it up, where do you get new from? Silence and stillness; silence and stillness within.
Now he quotes from Isaiah; Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9. Before I go on, I have often been challenged, not by a nice class like you, but in some of these kookier classes, I’ve been challenged about a definition I give of the word ‘God.’ Now you understand, there is no such thing as a definition of the word ‘God,’ but there are many, many, many insights and perceptions which can be given as a definition from this point of view or that point of view.
So I received in prayer, a definition for God that I incorporated into my metaphysics classes some years ago. Now every time I give it, I’m challenged, but I’m going to still give it, which is: ‘God’ is a word that we use to refer to that which is always greater than anything that is.
If anything is, no matter how great it is, God is always that which is greater. I don’t know why some people don’t like that. I think maybe because they’ve never heard it somewhere else; they want to hear, they always want to hear somebody quoted or somebody already published, and when you try to give them something original from yourself, a lot of them will react to [it with], you know, resentment or reluctance.
Yes? God is the word we use to refer to that - see? Not “Him,” but “that” - which is always greater than anything that is. Whatever is, God is that which is greater. Alright. Now [they ask], “Where did you get that from? How did you? How much greater?” Bla bla bla bla bla. So I said, I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from. It popped up in my noodle, if you don’t like noodles, throw it in a disposal.
But then I found this quote from Isaiah and I have never seen it in the light that I now see it in, because of what I just told you. Listen, this is Jehovah speaking: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
There, whoever wrote that Book of Isaiah realized this, that God is higher and greater than anything concerning man. That’s Isaiah 55, [verses] 8 and 9.
Now here’s another classic statement made by Charles Fillmore, and then his commentary on it later in a class. He says, on that same page, “Divine Mind is serene, orderly, placid, while sense mind is turbulent, discordant, and violent.”
“Divine Mind is serene, orderly, placid, while sense mind is turbulent, discordant, [and] violent.” Then this is the comment he made regarding this, in one of his classes, he says, “To gravitate toward negativity takes no effort, but, to get established in the true and the positive takes constant effort.” Isn’t he correct?
See, Mr. Fillmore never means to be critical, he’s just observant and he reports what he observes. He didn’t pat people on the back all the time and call everything good. He called a spade a spade, and he shared his insights in his own incomparable language.
“To gravitate toward negativity takes no effort.” How long does it take for somebody to make you angry? How long does it take you to forgive somebody? Sometimes it takes, you know, takes effort. So “to gravitate toward negativity takes no effort, to get established in the true and the positive takes constant effort.”
Okay, one more point and then we’ll dismiss. Oh gee! My big problem now is, what should I end with? Okay. Mr. Fillmore quotes Jesus and He says, in John 14, “I go to prepare a place for you.” And Simon Peter said, “Lord, whither goest thou?” And Jesus answered, whither I go, you canst not follow Me yet (book says “now)” – did you get that? Yet. “But thou shalt follow afterwards.”
Now all of Jesus’ words that He speaks in the Gospels, no matter who He’s talking to, who is He always talking to? All of us, all of us. So, “Whither I go you can’t follow Me yet, but thou shalt follow afterward.”
Okay, now Mr. Fillmore said, “When Jesus had purified His body sufficiently, He ascended into this place in the spiritual ethers of our planet” – Mr. Fillmore, unfortunately, did not know anything about the fourth dimension, at this time, but he talked about spiritual ethers and place, nowadays he would have said, the fourth dimension, right, which is connected to the third dimension but transcends it in every way.
Okay, so, “In our high spiritual realizations we make temporary contact with Him and His spiritual character, represented by His name” - the name “Jesus Christ” represents the spiritual character of this being. Okay.
“But we, like the disciples, are not yet able to go there and abide” – we can touch it, but we can’t stay there, not yet; we’re not equipped yet, qualified yet. “To go there and abide, because we have not overcome earthly attachments.”
Now, overcoming earthly attachments does not mean to get rid of them, to ignore them, or to evade them; only to overcome attachment to them. Are you with me? In the Bible, the word that is now translated from Aramaic or Hebrew or whatever as “attachment,” in the original language, does not mean exactly what it means in English; this is true of many of the English translations that are in our Bible.
The English translation is correct but the meaning is not the same as the ancient language, are you with me? Like ‘repentance,’ it doesn’t mean in English what it meant in Hebrew and in Greek and in Aramaic, but it’s the correct translation, but the meaning, alright.
Now, in the ancient languages, the word translated as ‘attachment’ means bondage; bondage. I am attached to you, I’m fond of you, but I’m not in what? Bondage. But in the ancient language that’s what the word ‘attachment’ would mean, bondage. So, what the teaching is, that you overcome any bondage to earthly things, and it is being in bondage to earthly things that’s keeping us out of, come on, heaven, see?
See, I hope all of you are wealthy, I hope all of you are loaded with big bucks, and I hope all of you live in very luxurious houses with fine furniture and gorgeous clothing, and I hope all you girls have lots of jewels, but don’t you dare get yourself in bondage to any of that crap or I’ll clobber you. Enjoy it and share it, but don’t get what? Attached, [get] in bondage to it, and you’ll fly into heaven before you know it.
Okay friends, our time is up. So let’s take a moment of prayer and thanksgiving. We say, Heavenly Father, for all of the Truth that we have now understood, and all of the Truth that we shall yet understand, we know that all, all, will be revealed in Divine order, and we shall accept and we shall share, and we shall give our thanks always, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Transcribed by Mary Salama on September 16, 2018.
