1. By Alva Romanes

At the dawn of the world's foundation

I was wrought for Your purpose, O Lord;

And perfection was mine in that morning divine

When I woke by the power of Your word.

With the ages my stature has risen,

As through forms without number I've ranged;

And though countless the creeds I have made for my needs,

I am perfect, and ever unchanged.

In the fires of a thousand aeons

I was tempered with woe and weal,

As the ore dull and crude, by the furnace subdued,

Grows at last to the burnished steel.

And today, through the mist of my senses,

I can vision the truth sublime:

With a faith sure and calm stands the man that I am,

As I was in the morning of time.

Through the indwelling Christ I am perfect;

For the years cannot change or mar

The immaculate man who was shaped in the plan

That makes perfect all things that are.

From the fetters of time's limitations,

From the seeming and false made free,

I go on unafraid, in perfection arrayed,

To the tasks of eternity.

2. All religions have their scriptures or sacred writings. In the Christian religion we call these sacred writings the "Bible." The Bible came out of religion, not religion out of the Bible; it is the product of religion, not the beginning of it.

3. Man has ever been searching for the origin of himself; seeking to know why he is here and how he came to be here. In this search some men have gone beyond the field of human knowledge and have sought information in the realm of ideas. All that is known as religion is the work of the imaging faculty of man working in the realm of ideas. No man has ever seen God with his physical eyes, nor has he ever seen a soul or a spirit. The imaging faculty reads the symbols which are everywhere evident and interprets them as the outpicturing of ideas.

4. Our Scriptures came out of the East and reflect the literary customs and habits of Eastern people who are accustomed to parables and allegory. Men have gone into this unlimited realm of ideas and have brought back with them wonderful revelations, mysterious thoughts; and in the expression of these thoughts they have found it more convenient to use the symbology by means of which these ideas were communicated to them. From this it is evident that it is not the words that are inspired but the men who received the ideas and put them into words.

5. In transmitting these messages to the world it was necessary to use symbology. The intellect or reasoning mind (conscious phase of mind) in an unenlightened state can comprehand only the relative. So when the men who received the revelations undertook to interpret them, they couched them in a language that would show to what they might be likened, to what they might relate. The transmitters of the message knew that those who were seers would catch the idea that was back of the symbol, while those who were not so enlightened might get another meaning — a meaning that would fit in with their degree of knowledge; but Truth would remain undefiled.

6. Our Scriptures contain in symbols a most wonderful description of the creative action of Divine Mind. One who studies the Bible merely as an historical record or as an ethical guide fails to sound the depths of these ancient writings.

7. Paul was a Hebrew and a scholar, learned in the Scriptures, and he understood their allegorical character and value. Speaking of Abraham and his two sons, one born of a bondmaid and the other of a freewoman, Paul says, "Which things contain an allegory" (Gal. 4:24 A.V.). He explains that these two sons are symbolical of two covenants. Then he opens up a teaching rich in spiritual import, which is entirely lost on one who reads the story of Abraham merely as an historical narrative. Read carefully the 4th chapter of Galatians and see the spiritual import or idea that is back of the story as told in the Old Testament.

8. All Christians recognize, in a measure, that Bible history is something more than just history. They may see in the journey of the Israelites to the Promised Land a picture of man's progress from sense consciousness to spiritual consciousness or, as sometimes expressed, from earth to heaven. (It must, however, be kept in mind that "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21 A.V.).

9. We should seek to get back of the letter of the Scriptures and to discern the spiritual meaning of every passage we consider. In symbology, in allegory, in parable was the word transmitted, and in like manner must it be translated. The visions of the prophets were plainly allegorical. Jesus throughout His ministry taught in parables and allegories, reserving for His immediate followers the inner ideas or "spirit" of the teaching instead of just the "letter" of it.

10. If we study the 1st chapter of Genesis in the light of Spirit, we find that it describes in symbol the creative action of universal Mind in the realm of ideas, and does not pertain to the manifest world any more than the inventor's idea pertains to the machine which he afterwards builds. Keeping in mind the trinity of mind, idea, and expression we know that creation takes place in the realm of mind and that we can understand the story of creation given in Genesis only by applying it to the realm in which it belongs.

11. All creation starts first with an idea. The idea is in Divine Mind. The idea begins to "press out" or "express" itself in mind; that is, it begins its development by drawing to itself from the mind substance thoughts that assist it in its growth toward its own completion or fulfillment in mind. The final step will be manifestation as mentioned in the second paragraph below.

12. The six days of creation described in the 1st chapter of Genesis represent six great, ideal projections from Divine Mind, six steps that are necessary in the working out in mind of any ideal. The starting point is like a seed, and this seed idea must unfold in all its details in mind, in much the same way as the details of his plan unfold in the inventor's or the architect's mind before he makes the drawing or blueprint. The assembling together of these ideal projections is climaxed in the creation of "ideal man." This ideal man is created in the image and after the likeness of God, and he is the lord of creation. To him is given dominion over every created thing. Dominion belongs to every man, but only he exercises it properly who understands himself to be essentially this "ideal man." So man is to take dominion and have authority over all the ideas that are included in his own divine nature, "ideal man," the image of God — God's idea of Himself. Man's dominion begins in the realm of ideas, and through inspiration from his source, Divine Mind, he is to familiarize himself with and learn the character and nature of all the ideas that make up the nature of God (which is his own true nature).

13.That the creation outlined in the 1st chapter of Genesis is in the realm of ideas is shown in the 5th verse of the 2d chapter, where it is written that "no plant ... was yet in the earth and no herb of the field ... for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground" (Gen. 2:5). This statement is made after creation is described as complete. "Manifestation" is the result of the expression of ideas in mind. We may say that the inventor's machine that appears in physical form, or the house of brick and stone that the builder sets up, is the "manifestation" of ideas first expressed in the mind of these persons.

14. In the 1st chapter it is God Elohim who creates. God is the one source from which the character of everything proceeds; He is inwrapped in every living creature as its life and primal idea. In the 2d chapter, after the work of God is said to be finished, it is the Lord God (or Jehovah) who is named as Creator. This Lord God (or Jehovah) is the Christ, spiritual man; God immanent as the law of one's being; the divine idea as the creative power in all living forms.

15. Ideal man is I AM; manifest man is "I will." I AM is the Lord God (Jehovah) of the Scriptures, and "I will" is the Adam man. One represents the inner man, and the other the outer, or formed man. It is the I AM that forms and breathes into the "I will" man "the breath of life" (Gen. 2:7). In the realm of the ideal, we are I AM; when we are expressing and interpreting the ideas of Divine Mind in our thoughts and in our acts, we are "I will." The I AM is the archetype, the perfect pattern, the reproduction of God. It is that Spirit which is implanted in each human being and which is to unfold into the likeness of all that is God's nature. I AM is pure Being. (Charles Fillmore Christian Healing 33-34). Manifest man is in a state of becoming; he is unfolding according to his stage of enlightenment. Just to the extent that he awakens, or to the extent that he wills to receive these divine ideas, they are revealed or "breathed" into him. Man's part is to form them, or make them manifest in the physical realm.

<16/a>. I AM is the pre-existent spiritual idea of God in man; it is that which holds man together as an entity. The body is held together as an aggregation of ideas and forces by the power of the central I AM. I AM in expression is the will of man, and everything centers about the will. I AM moves itself forth into the "I will" through its innate power to express itself. Thoughts of life vitalize and energize both mind and body. Thoughts of power give mastery and dominion. Thoughts of intelligence impart the knowing quality. Thoughts of abundant substance give the consciousness of plenty. Thoughts of love and peace unify and harmonize all the forces of man and his relations to his fellows.

17. Thought is a magnet working in accordance with the law of attraction, so that each idea, desire, or feeling exerts its attractive power to draw to itself everything of its own nature or character in order to develop itself. All thoughts of strength are attracted to one another, and make in consciousness a strength center which builds cells of like character in the body, and we say the man is strong and muscular.

18. An aggregation of ideas in mind is metaphysically termed a "thought center." The center of anything is the point in the middle or at the core of it. A "thought center" is the nucleus or central idea around which revolve or cluster other thoughts, which cause desires and feelings and make states of mind corresponding to the central idea. As the thought centers group ideas of a kindred nature, they build up cells in the body by which the ideas may become manifest; the cells in turn group themselves together and thus organs are formed in the body for the purpose of bringing into manifestation the particular idea that is at the center. We think of love as expressing itself through a center in the body that we call "the heart." The head is symbolic of the intelligence center, the back represents the strength center, and the throat is thought of as the center of the expression of power. We manifest in our body and affairs all the dominant states of mind that we have built up in consciousness through acceptance, consciously or unconsciously. Should we at any time manifest a lack of any of the qualities of Divine Mind in our body, we can build them into our consciousness through our affirmations until they come into manifestation in the physical body. I AM is the creative power and "I will" is the executive power that brings these divine qualities into manifestation.

19. When the will gets so absorbed in the realm of manifestation (or the effect side of life) that it loses sight of the ideal and centers its attention wholly upon the external, it is Adam (unenlightened) listening to the voice of the serpent and hiding from the Lord God. This breaks, in consciousness, the connection between Spirit and manifestation, and thus man fails to experience the harmony which is his under divine law.

20. To maintain conscious contact with the physical (the manifest), man has developed the organs of sense, so that he may be able to function in the realm of manifestation. When not functioning consciously under the direction of the I AM, the "will" may be led away from a consciousness of the spiritual. In this state of mind, man is no longer consciously in touch with the source of wisdom and power, the Lord God. In Mysteries of Genesis 57, Charles Fillmore interprets Gen. 3:22-24 as follows: "Will became independent of wisdom, and an unbalanced condition in both mind and body was set up." We find man in this adverse state of mind being temporarily cut off in his thoughts and feelings from the real source of his supply, the life principle, the "tree of life." Man is thus described as being driven from the Garden of Eden, or paradise.

21. This is what man has termed the "fall of man." It means that man has separated himself in his own consciousness from the "tree of life," from I AM, Lord God, the divine in man. This leaves man with only a knowledge of the manifest realm. Because man believes that he is separated from the unlimited source of divine ideas, he may misinterpret the evidence of his senses. When man lets his senses rule him and indulges their demands, he is misusing his powers, thus limiting the expression of his life substance. This reacts on his consciousness in the form of pain, fear infests his mind, and inharmony results in all phases of his existence. When man leaves God out of his calculation, when he feels that he is quite sufficient in himself and does not need any divine help or guidance, he naturally loses his conscious connection with infinite and eternal life and depends on what he thinks is his own power. Man must draw from Divine Mind day by day, through prayer, the ideas that will enable him to live abundantly.

22. Adam is the name we give to the "type man." "Adam is perfectly legitimate in his right place, and that place is the consciousness of the omnipresence of the Father; here he is back again in the Garden of Eden" (Talks on Truth 15).

23. Man's real problem is to become aware that he belongs in the "Garden of Eden" (Gen. 2:8). The "garden" represents mind substance, which man is to cultivate as he would a garden. It has in it infinite possibilities, and it is the true sphere of man. Through this "Garden of Eden" (harmony) man is to live in the consciousness of universal Spirit or Mind, in which there are unlimited ideas. He is to carefully plant and care for these ideas in his consciousness, so that he may eternally progress to greater and greater satisfaction. The "way back" in consciousness is through the knowledge of Truth.

24. "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth ... He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13, 14).

25. Man must know the truth about himself and not rest in the false belief that he is only what he appears to be. He must consciously know himself as he is in Divine Mind. As he discovers the truth of his being, he will in like degree throw off the limitations that he has accumulated through turning his attention away from his true source.

26. There is but one man, one divine Idea: the only begotten, the Christ; the real of every man which is to come forth through "manifest man" in his thinking, feeling, speaking, acting, and reacting. When we understand this truth and conform all our thinking to it, order and harmony will characterize all our manifestations in mind, body, and affairs. Through man God is bringing into outward manifestation that which exists in the ideal. To measure up to his possibilities, man must understand divine law and his relation to it.

27. Jesus Christ understood God and man. He not only recognized man's relation to God as son but He knew what man's true work is in expressing that sonship. When "manifest man" looks at the universe in which he lives, he often discounts his own value to the Creator. He thinks he is only here for a brief span in which time he must strive for material possessions, must "make a living." When enlightenment comes, man sees that life is eternal; that he need not strive for material possessions and position for they are the "added things" that come from seeking God's kingdom (realm of divine ideas) and His righteousness (right use of the ideas). He realizes that he is not here to "make a living"; as Charles Fillmore once expressed it, "Man is here to live his making and his making will make his living."

28. Having established the truth that divine ideas are his inheritance, man comes to appreciate material things as the manifest forms of those ideas. Only as he takes hold of the ideas that are the spiritual patterns for all form will man find the satisfaction he sought in the search for things of themselves.

29. With the new viewpoint of his own purpose in life, man sees other people in a new light. Especially does he see children as belonging to God, and not personal possessions. He no longer makes idols of his children or of his possessions.

30. Jesus taught that man is here to express God. The spiritual conception, then, is regeneration, which is the reproduction of God's perfect ideas, the making of God manifest. Regeneration also includes the restoration of the earth to the glory that it has as a creation of the one perfect Mind, that God may be known in the manifest as well as in the ideal realm. All men should be about the Father's business even as was Jesus, and they will be when they realize Truth. All work for personal gain alone becomes meaningless beside the great universal work of bringing about the restoration of all things "that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old" (Acts 3:21).

31. This work of restoration must be done by each individual; that is, each one must first awaken to the knowledge that he is a spiritual being. Studying the complete, perfect man that is the real of each individual we find that man is a trinity, a triune being: spirit, soul, body (Lessons In Truth Lesson 3 Annotation 4).

32. Man's spirit is God immanent in him; the Seed of God, the Word (Logos) of God, the image of God, Christ, the Son of God, Lord God (Jehovah), law of God, I AM, spiritual man. Man's spirit is Divine Mind individuated as spiritual man, unchangeable, eternal, infinite, without limitation of any kind. It is the composite Idea of Divine Mind, in which are infolded all the ideas of God Mind awaiting conscious recognition and use by each person. It is the Superconscious or Christ Mind.

33. Man's soul is his self-consciousness, that phase of his being in which he thinks and feels and knows himself to be I am I or I will, the individual, thus producing a consciousness of himself as a spiritual being. Man's soul is the second emanation of the creative law of God, the second movement toward expression and manifestation of the life, substance, and intelligence of Divine Mind. In man's soul are the conscious phase of mind, where thinking and reasoning are done, and the subconscious phase of mind, or realm of feeling.

34. Man's body is primarily the "temple of God" (I Cor. 3:16). It is life, substance, and intelligence in form and shape. It is formed spiritual substance, but in its appearance it manifests or shows forth in the visible realm as a physical body according to the stage of consciousness that the soul has reached.

35. As the soul of man develops a consciousness of the powers and abilities that are within it, and unfolds in the understanding and use of them, his body or physical organism shows forth this development in health and wholeness. If man in his soul nature (i.e., his mind) fails to recognize and accept the Truth about himself as a spiritual being and lets his thinking (conscious phase of mind) and feeling (subconscious phase of mind) be governed by appearances of lack and limitation, then his physical organism will fail to show forth the health and wholeness that are really his by divine right as a son of God. The body of man is the obedient servant of the soul and it takes the form or appearance that the soul images for it. It shows forth in manifestation whatever state of consciousness the soul forms through thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting.

36. The consciousness of this trinity of man's being should never be broken in his thinking, feeling, word, action or reaction. Man should consciously hold fast to the spiritual ideal of himself. By recognizing the spirit within as the Real, the unchanging, eternal Self, he will live in a constant and continuous realization of the Source of his good and of his oneness with it. By recognizing the soul as an integral phase of his threefold nature (life, substance, and intelligence in expression) he grows more refined in his thinking and feeling, thus bringing forth the "likeness" of the perfect image within. By recognizing the body as the "temple of God" as life, substance, and intelligence in manifestation, or form, he no longer thinks of the body as separate from its source. He consciously identifies it with Spirit, by which it is sustained with spiritual food (divine ideas) in a condition of health and wholeness in the manifest realm.

37. Salvation (the innate divinity within each of us) makes us safe and sound in both soul and body when we believe ourself to be the son of God and respond to the activity of the Spirit within us. (Lesons in Truth Lesson 9 Annotation 10 and How I Used Truth Lesson 1 Annotation 10 on "salvation.") We must believe in God's indwelling Presence and Power and in our oneness (sameness) with Him; that is, we must understand that the real and eternal Self of each of us is the Christ, the Son, the I AM, the image-likeness of God, and we must continually identify ourself with this eternal Self, our only salvation. To "identify" is to make to be the same, to coalesce or grow together in interest, purpose, use, effect. We consciously identify ourself with the I AM, our own spiritual nature, as we use the power of I AM to direct our thoughts, feelings, words, based on the divine ideas inhering in Christ (I AM).

38. When the human consciousness is unenlightened we take on limited beliefs of what we really are. There is a great truth in the scriptural statement of Jesus: "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt. 12:37). We condemn ourself to sickness, weakness, and poverty when we speak such words as "I am sick," "I am weak," "I am poor," because we identify ourself with the beliefs that produce these adverse conditions. What we believe acts as a mental law for us, a law that we make for ourself only. The law is that whatever the belief may be with which we identify ourself, we will manifest in mind, body, and affairs a like condition either "condemned" or "justified." This is the mental law of cause and effect at work.

39. The privilege and responsibility of consciously establishing this at-one-ment and right identification rests with each of us. If we would manifest divine perfection, we must affirm and accept the Truth embodied in the following statements:

I am the offspring of God.

I am the Son of God.

I am perfect even as my Father in heaven is perfect.

I have the Christ Mind.

I am one with the Father.

I am life.

I am intelligence.

I am power.

I am substance.

I am love.

I am strength.

40. This is recognizing the Son, the perfect-man ideal, Christ 'the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). We further acknowledge this Son of God by acting on the faith that these affirmations are true; by manifesting our divine nature in all departments of our being. There is no purpose in affirming our strength and then being weak and fearful when a seemingly hard task confronts us; no use in declaring that we are substance, and then feeling limited in our consciousness. Whoever really acknowledges the Son will be acknowledged by the Father. Man will come into his divine inheritance only by laying hold of his heritage (divine ideas) in thought, in word, and in deed.

41. In the Scriptures the word man is used sometimes to refer to him in his true state as a spiritual being, the "Son of God," and sometimes it refers to him as the "son of man," the unfolding and growing man that is known as a human being. Paul charged Timothy in this wise: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth" (II Tim. 2:15). When we read such passages as "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward" (Job 5:7) and "As for man, his days are like grass" (Psalms 103:15), we need to follow Paul's counsel and "divide" and apply Scripture texts aright, thus avoiding the confusion that arises from apparent contradictions in the Bible.

42. This "rightly handling" is important, because many read passages about man as a sinner condemned to die for his sin, and overlook the passages that call man righteous and heir to eternal life through the indwelling Christ. Their way of "rightly handling" (or "rightly dividing" as the Authorized Version reads) the word of Truth is to see man helplessly and hopelessly a sinner until he dies, and then perfect and eternal after death.

43. This "division" will not hold good, as we shall find when we follow the revelations of the spirit of Truth. Here and now is salvation, but we must believe in it, accept it, lay hold of it. Death is the wages of sin, the result of sin, and cannot open the way to glory and to eternal life.

44. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).

45. "For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes him should have eternal life" (John 6:40).

<46. "He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life" (I John 5:12).

47. "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26).

48. Man must consciously abide in the knowledge that he is a spiritual being, that there is but one life, and that through his Christ self he is that eternal life. This consciousness can only be attained by €Fe practice of withdrawing oneself from externalities and by frequent periods of meditation and prayer in which one fixes one's attention on this divine Indweller until the Christ becomes an actuality as well as an ideal.

49. Ability to discern the Son, the indwelling Christ, comes from God, Spirit. When Peter confessed, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16), Jesus answered "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17).

50. In seeking to bring forth the perfect man, "the Christ of God" (Luke 9:20), we must keep before us the true standard, the one ideal man, the image of God, the Divine Indweller that was created "In the beginning" (Gen. 1:1). We are not to look to anything outside of ourself as our guide but to take the same image that Jesus took. By constantly beholding this indwelling pattern, God's idea of Himself, we identify ourself with it until we become in manifestation that which God is. We will grow in consciousness until, like Jesus, we can say, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9); "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). It is this Christ within us that is to be brought forth into the flesh, and nothing outside our own consciousness can do this.

51. In reading the Scriptures we find the expression "Son of man." In the Old Testament it occurs in the prophecies of Ezekiel some eighty-nine times; it also appears in the Book of Daniel. In the New Testament we find the same expression used in connection with Jesus some eighty times. In some instances the Old Testament, in writing the phrase "son of man," used a small "s". In the New Testament we find it written "Son of man," the capital letter being used invariably in the word "Son". "The son of man" indicates that which is essentially human in man's character or consciousness.

52. The "Son of God is spiritual man, the Spirit, I AM, Christ, the image of God, God immanent.

53. The "Son of man" is the soul of man as a human being awakened and illumined to the divine nature andxf character of man, consciously showing forth the "likeness" of God, by seeking to conform his thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting to the divine standard. It is the highest concept of the human or moral man blending into the divine by expressing the divine nature in thought, word, deed.

54. The "son of man" is also the soul or the human being, but one who is not awakened and illumined to his innate divinity and is not yet conscious of the powers and abilities within him. It is to such a soul that Paul said, "Awake O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light" (Eph. 5:14).

55. We need to bear in mind that even though each individual may not always be aware of it, it is the aim and purpose of the son of man to be awakened to Truth; Paul knew this when he said "Awake, O sleeper"; when awakened the son of man (the soul or human mind) begins to learn and live the Truth and in the unfolding becomes the Son of man, seeking to express consciously the divine ideal or Son of God so that He may come forth in manifestation -— "the Word made flesh."

56."HIS LIKENESS"

How does God look?" said my little lass.

At her questions I often smiled;

But this time I offered a prayer, instead,

For guidance to help my child.

"God's face is seen in the heart of a rose,

In the bud of a lily white,

In the brightness of sunshine after rain,

And the charm of a moonlight night;

In the beauty of everlasting hills,

The trees with their leafy shade,

In the sky above and the earth beneath,

And all things He has made.

But the dearest picture I ever saw,

The clearest and finest too.

Is His likeness in hearts that hallow His name

And seek His works to do."

"Now I know how God looks," said my little lass—

Her sweet words dropped like dew,

And left a song in my weary heart—"I think God looks like you."

Nettie Cole King.

1. An allegory is a description of one thing or event, under the image of another which resembles it in properties and circumstances. In the Bible an allegory is the presentation of abstract principles under the guise of concrete forms.

A symbol is a visible sign, one that is conventional or traditional, of something invisible — as an idea, a quality, or an inner spiritual ideal that may not be adequately expressed in language or form. For example, the lion symbolizes courage; a nimbus enclosing a cross symbolizes Christ. Philosophers considered the ideal as being so perfect that they deemed it impossible to reproduce or duplicate the ideal in the exterior.

"What is stated in the Book of Genesis in the form of allegory can be reduced to ideas, and these ideas can be worked out by the guidance of mental laws" (Mysteries Of Genesis 9).

The word scriptures has come to mean any sacred writings. Before these sacred subjects were writings, they were handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, especially in the East. The symbols used became confused with traditions. The result is symbolical allegories in which original ideas that were revealed to inspired men are mixed with events, characters, and cities. These finally became "scriptures." In these allegories and symbols there is given a plan for man to follow in order that he may live an enriched life religiously, economically, politically, and socially.

In Lesson 6, Part 1, of Unity's New Testament Bible course we read:

A parable is a short story dealing with familiar subjects or situations, and is told for the purpose of illustrating or making clear some important truth or phase of teaching. Thus, the value of the parable is to be found not in the actual story, but in the truth or teaching which it pictorially presents. A popular definition is: "A parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning."

In interpreting the allegories, symbols, and metaphors given in our Scriptures, many have done so from an undeveloped state of consciousness. They have accepted and insisted on the "letter" of the word instead of the spiritual meaning that it is intended to convey. The meaning was "veiled" behind forms, rites, ceremonies, and creeds, and was not deduced from the story that was told.

2. The first chapter of Genesis is considered to be an allegorical description of the ideal or spiritual phase of creation—the blueprint stage. It is a record of the creation of spiritual man (the Jehovah, the I AM, the Christ, the Lord God, the only-begotten Son, the man created in God's image and after His likeness, the direct offspring of Divine Mind). It is considered to be a statement of the ideas upon which evolution is based. This description does not include manifest, objective, or evolutional man, the human being. Rather it deals with involution—ideas involved in creation. This creation takes place in the one creative Mind, Spirit, where God (Elohim) acts in His capacity as creative power.

We are to understand that God (Elohim) created the substance that produces the appearance (matter). God (Elohim), Spirit, creates the spiritual idea which is afterward made manifest through Jehovah God, spiritual man, the created. God created the ideas that produced creation, including ideal man, and He pronounced this creation "good" and "very good." That perfect or ideal man is the essential spiritual image in every individual, with the potential to come forth into manifestation in compliance with spiritual law.

3. The first chapter of Genesis describes the ideal creation of man and states that God "finished" His work in the ideal or planning stage. The second chapter makes the announcement that "there was not a man to till the ground" (Gen. 2:5). This shows that while spiritual man had been created as the image of God, he had not yet been manifested; he had not yet evolved as a human being, as man living in a three-dimensional form or body who could "till the ground" so that it might yield its increase.

Often words are regarded as synonymous that, strictly speaking, are not. The words expression and manifestation are examples. Expression means the pressing out or fulfilling of an idea in all its details in consciousness. It is the process of the formative power of thought, the making of an image of what is expected to be brought forth later on. Manifestation is result, the fulfillment of expression, the formed word, the living object that appears in the sphere of the senses.

"A man to till the ground" (Gen. 2:5) would necessarily be a manifest man. It would take a natural man to work in the natural sphere of creation—a man equipped with a body or form that would make connection with and have somewhat of an understanding of nature.

This is the evidence that the Bible presents to us that there is first the ideal creation (expression in mind of the plan), and later on the manifestation makes its appearance.

4. Jehovah, the Lord God of the Scriptures, is the name that is given to spiritual man, the image of God. "Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). The Lord God, or Jehovah, is God individuated in man as the creative power of God, the law of man's being. The Lord God, or Jehovah, is the creative life principle that originates and sustains all life, all consciousness, from the highest to the lowest levels of intelligence. The Lord God, or Jehovah, is the one Presence and one Power individuated in man as his spiritual nature, his power to express and manifest his perfection as the image of God.

The man that God created in His own image and likeness and promounced good and very good is spiritual man. This man is the direct offspring of Divine Mind, God's idea of perfect man. This is the only-begotten Son, the Christ, the Lord God, the Jehovah, the I AM. In the 2d chapter this Jehovah or divine idea of perfect man forms the manifest man and calls his name Adam (Mysteries Of Genesis 12).

In the Scofield Reference Bible, page 6, we find this definition of Jehovah or Lord God:

The primary meaning of the name Lord (Jehovah) is "the self-existent One" ... But Havah, from which Jehovah, or Yahwe, is formed, signifies also "to become," that is, to become known, thus pointing to a continuous and increasing self-revelation. Combining these meanings of Havah, we arrive at the meaning of the name Jehovah. He is "the self-revealing One" who reveals Himself.

The people of the Old Testament times did not recognize Jehovah, the Lord God, as the creative, executive, and causative power, the law of their being. They did not recognize this very Presence and Power of God working in and through them to bring to them the very highest good that was possible for them to have at their level of consciousness. They thought of Jehovah as their special tribal God, somewhere apart from them. They attributed to Him the power to bless and to curse, to send happiness, peace, and prosperity, and also to send floods, fires, and other forms of destruction. Sometimes we find Him pictured as a God of vengeance, visiting His wrath upon mankind; sometimes we find Him pictured as a God of lovingkindness. Sometimes He is pictured as a punisher, sometimes as a deliverer. This same concept is prevalent among many people today.

Unity's explanation of these varied concepts of the Lord God, or Jehovah, is that in the evolving soul of man, the human being, the creative power of God becomes a causative power as it works in man's mental realm, the realm of cause and effect (the realm of man's thinking and feeling). It produces for man that which accords with his thoughts, feelings, and words. "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he" (Prov. 23:7 A.V.) in manifestation, or in other words, as he thinks and feels so is he in his everyday experiences.

The writers of the New Testament had evolved in soul growth and had come to the place in consciousness where they caught a glimpse of the perfect working of this causative power in man, and they called it the Christ.

The Christ is the name of the perfect working of the creative and causative power of God in man's spirit, soul, body, producing only good. The Christ is this self-revealing One, revealing Himself to man in all His power, in all His fullness, working and producing the image of God in the likeness of God.

5. "Ideal man" is a spiritual creation of God, the man God created in His own "image" (Gen. 1:27). Since God creates in ideas, ideal man is non-physical, an idea involved or enveloped in God Mind, a pattern, an archetype, a creation coexistent and coterminus with God. "Ideal man" is the Lord God, or the Christ, the I AM.

"Manifest man" is the human being, the physical man, the man evolving, expressing, reproducing, and developing according to his individual understanding the pattern of the ideal man implanted within him.

"Ideal man" dwells eternally in manifest man as the God-created "image" whose "likeness" manifest man is continuously unfolding and evolving. The "ideal man" is an impression of God; "manifest man" is an expression of God at the level of unfoldment of the individual soul. "Ideal man" embraces all the spiritual attributes or ideas; "manifest man" is an expresser of these attributes or ideas. "Ideal man" is the source of God ideas in man; "manifest man" is the user of the ideas. "Ideal man" is eternal, infinite, universal, changeless; "manifest man" is in the process of change, evolving and unfolding his consciousness of his divine nature as a self-conscious entity.

6. A thought center is an idea or an aggregation of ideas, beliefs, or concepts that is the nucleus around which substance (mind essence) gathers to form a mental structure. Thought is the act or process prompted by the one creative Mind. It does not relate alone to thinking as done by a self-conscious entity. It is any movement in the one creative Mind working toward consciousness. The essential principles of the Christ Mind, inherent in manifest man and the universe, become consciousness through these mind processes.

A center is that point within a sphere which is equally distant from every other point of its circumference, a focal point from which radiate the life and light that animate all parts of the sphere of its activity.

The primal "thought center" is spiritual man, the image-likeness of God. In the Old Testament he is named Lord God, or Jehovah God; in the New Testament he is named Jesus Christ. The Lord, or Jehovah God, functions as the "beginning" of God's ideal of man working in wisdom. Jesus Christ functions as the "fulfillment" of God's ideal of man working in love.

God's sphere of activity is man and the universe. The ideal is the pattern that is centered in God consciousness as I AM, the focal point. This pattern is to be expressed in the soul of man and manifested in his body and affairs.

7. Thought centers are formed by the creative power of God moving ideas toward expression through man's consciousness for manifestation in the realm of form. What are called "thought centers" in the body are formed because of the experiences through which the body has passed, in its long evolutionary journey toward expression and manifestation, from a single cell to its present complex organism, man learns much through experience, and he knows for himself only that which he experiences. Before man had the power to reason, which is a mark of self-consciousness, his body had a feeling nature led by desire. As the biological body evolved, desire was the chief characteristic and ruled its life. In order to grow, the body desired food, so the biological cell wrapped itself around what would sustain it and cause it to expand. A repetition of this process, through countless ages, resulted in the formation of a stomach. Other organs were formed through similar processes until an organism was evolved with a highly developed nervous system and brain. Need to function preceded organization.

In the early stages of man's unfoldment on this earth his reasoning consciousness was expressing but dimly. The senses were paramount and instinct was the highest degree of intelligence functioning through the body. When the body was bruised or wounded, it experienced a sensation of "not good." When it found a choice morsel of food that satisfied hunger, it experienced a "good" and "very good" sensation. There was no reasoning done about it, just the establishing of reactions to sensation experienced. The cells and organs of the body were formed through these instinctive experiences, not through selfconscious thinking, as we understand thinking today, but as desires and feelings.

Manifest man feels, desires, thinks, speaks, acts, and evolves because of the movement of the creative I AM, Jehovah, or Lord God, the Son of God, spiritual man within seeking expression.

8. Man does not manifest harmony in his life when he fails to think on divine ideas only, when he does not keep consciously in touch with I AM as the life and light of his being.

Divine harmony is the result of a consciousness that is united individually and collectively with the life principle in all creation. Consciousness is the direct knowing of each one for himself, attained through thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting according to his beliefs.

Very often a young person reaches a time when he thinks the rules of his father's house place too many restraints on him. He feels that he knows more than his father does. Therefore, he leaves his father's house to seek his fortune. So it is sometimes with man in relation to his heavenly Father. As a self-conscious entity he is in an adolescent stage of development spiritually. He depends on his own present consciousness, acquired through what he has experienced, and does not turn to the Lord of life, the I AM. He goes out from his Father's house (God consciousness) into a "far country" to make his own laws and to reap the results of a consciousness apart from the Lord. He loses conscious contact with the I AM and forgets his own innate divinity by keeping his attention and interest on the external; thus he loses consciousness of the harmony that is his divine inheritance.

9. The "tree of life" (Gen. 2:9) is a figurative expression denoting God immanent (indwelling) as the Creator and Sustainer of life in all living forms; it is the inherent life of all organisms. We also refer to it as the life principle, the I AM, the spiritual center in every man.

The "tree of life also in the midst of the garden" represents the absolute life principle established in man consciousness by Divine Mind (Metaphysical Bible Dictionary 663).

Life is a continuous stream of energy, and emanation of God, energizing all the forms that have evolved that they may live and fulfill the purpose for which they have come forth. Inherent in the "tree of life" is the intelligence that reveals to each manifestation or form the way of life and growth and the capacity to fulfill this way. Also inherent in the "tree of life" is the law of each species by which it lives, evolves, and reproduces according to the type or pattern of its kind.

Life in its branching—as a tree—in the threefold nature of man, is in man's spiritual nature termed the I AM, the Christ, the life principle; in his soul nature (his mind, conscious and subconscious) it is the assimilation he makes of the life principle and which he expresses psychologically; in his body nature, life is physiologically manifested and neurologically expressed in man's nervous system.

10. Man is restored to divine harmony through returning in consciousness (thinking and feeling) to God and learning the right use of his creative and causative power. When man gets an understanding of his own threefold nature (spirit, soul, body) and his relation to his Father-Mother God, then he becomes reestablished in his thinking, feeling, and acting to a state of agreement with the rhythm of iife. He becomes an integrated and harmonious being; he lives in the Garden of Eden (harmony).

The Hebrew "Gan-heden" commonly rendered Garden of Eden is a compound of surpassing greatness. The word Gan means any organized sphere of activity, a garden, a body, a world, a universe. The word Heden, Eden, means a time, a season, an age, an eternity, as well as beauty, pleasure, an ornament, a witness ... When man is bringing forth the qualities of Being in divine order, he dwells in Eden, or in a state of bliss in a harmonious body ... The Garden of Eden is the divine consciousness" (Metaphysical Bible Dictionary 181).

The Scriptural promise reads, "you will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart" and the endeavor of man to search for God within himself, with steadfastness, results in the restoration of harmony in all areas of his life.

11. The true object of man's existence is to express all that God is in mind, body, and affairs here and now. The average person's conception of this object is that man is to be successful in material ways, to acquire prestige and position. Cognizance is not taken of the fact that a person achieving these things may still not be finding any real satisfaction for himself.

The object of man's existence is to demonstrate the Truth of Being (Charles Fillmore Christian Healing 55).

The spiritual conception of existence is that man is to fulfill himself by expressing the divine attributes (ideas) that are an inherent part of his nature—the qualities of life, love, power, intelligence, and so forth. In the process of this fulfillment, position and possessions may very well come as a by-product (they frequently do), because the true meaning of existence is found in the inner values such as security, comfort, love, life. These values must in turn bring forth manifest results.

"Creation is not complete until it becomes manifest in the outer" (Addenda to Metaphysical Bible Dictionary 1).

One conception of the object of man's existence is to impress the world in a superficial way. The approach from a deeper standpoint is that man is to express his spiritual resources (divine ideas) that are his inheritance from God in ways that make a contribution to mankind as well as to the individual. In the first viewpoint, the aim of man is determined only by outer results; in the other, by inner results, the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22).

Jesus states as the object of His existence: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). We may express abundant life by coming into understanding of our true purpose in life. In expressing the true object of our existence, we become wiser, happier, more loving and positive in our approaches to life.

What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands (Psalms 8:4-6).

12. As brought out in the lesson material (page 6) the threefold nature of man is expressed as: spirit, soul, body. The lesson gives each phase very clearly, and suggests that Lessons In Truth Lesson 3 Annotation 4 be studied for more expansion on this part of the question.

13. Failure to recognize the oneness of man's being as spirit, soul, body (and the place of each phase in making up the whole man) causes us to experience a sense of lack, separation, and unfulfillment. Then, as the lesson points out, our physical organism (body) will fail to manifest the health that is ours as a son of God.

A feeling of separateness reveals itself to us in many ways. At one extreme, it may take the direction of an attempt to retire within the self, to become an introvert. The first phase, or spirit, is thought to be found entirely here, and soul and body phases are left undeveloped. A person becomes thus an introvert often seeks to escape from participation in life; he may become a recluse.

At the other extreme, through our non-recognition of our triunity of spirit, soul, body we may give ourself over to the view that the gratification and comfort of the body is our paramount interest; we would then become an extrovert. Or there may be a search for soul satisfaction by the intellectual pursuit of knowledge, thus developing the intellect (thinking faculty) to such an extent that anything of the spiritual side of life is ignored or counted of little value.

We need to know that the essence of our being is the Spirit of God, the source of the life, substance, and intelligence that permeates our soul and body. It is in recognizing the values of spirit, the pursuits of the soul (mind), and the development of the body that we find integration, the unity of our threefold nature bringing harmony into all levels of life.

14. Believing on Christ unto salvation is believing so firmly in the spiritual principles, ideas, that make up our Christ nature that they become the motivation of our thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting. The freedom we find in expressing these principles is our salvation.

Wrong attitudes and limiting concepts about man bind us and keep us from experiencing the spiritual mastery we seek. Our faith is not being placed on the life, love, and intelligence constituting our Christ nature, nor on the potential of these ideals and ideas to become actual in experience. Conversely, right attitudes, the conviction that the latent good can become manifest, redeem us from limitations.

"He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world" (I John 4:4) was an insight of John. The greater "he" is the Christ. This realization will meet any issue that has to be met. This is "believing on Christ unto salvation."

15. This lesson has brought out that I AM is the name for ideal man, the Christ, the creative power of God in man (the first phase of man's threefold nature). Thus, to use the powers of the I AM in an unwise way is to bring into our life experiences that which we do not want, Charles Fillmore emphasizes:

It is possible for man to take I AM power and apply it in external ways and leave out the true spiritual law. In our day we are proclaiming that man can use I AM power to restore health and bring increased happiness ... But some people are using this power in a material way, neglecting soul culture, building up the external without taking the intermediate step between the supreme Mind an its manifestation in the outer. Jesus Christ Heals 123-124

As sons of God we were given the I AM powers as our spiritual heritage. With this heritage goes the responsibility of administering it wisely. It is vital, therefore, that we use the I AM powers wisely, righteously, and constructively, for that which we experience in our everyday life is the result of our use or misuse of spiritual powers. We come to see the reason for the almost magical results from sincere affirmation when we realize our responsibility in the use of our I AM powers. We say for our body: "I AM God's life, substance, and intelligence in form." For our affairs we might affirm: "I AM prosperous, successful, harmonious." If we are desirous of having God's revelations of Truth, we might declare: "I AM one with God's light, life, and understanding." In such statements there is no thought of powers outside of ourself, but rather the present tense acceptance of them as available now. (A review of Lesson Three of How I Used Truth 41-46 would be very enlightening here.)

16. We establish first that the Absolute is God. Webster says of the word absolute: "Not dependent on anything else; not determined by or effected by anything outside itself; fundamental; ultimate; intrinsic; unqualified; self-contained and self-sufficient." Through our studies we have come to see that this definition applies to God as the Absolute of all existence, the self-existent One. How then do we identify ourselves with the Absolute? We are always so identified, but if we are not conscious of this oneness with God, then we need to seek quickening through prayer. We need to become alive and alert to this relationship we have with our Father-Mother God; then we are truly "identified with the Absolute."

The Son is a term for our own divine nature, our God-Self, the divine pattern in us; but only as we become consciously identified with God (the Absolute) can we express and manifest this nature.

To "acknowledge the Son" requires that we first identify ourself consciously with God (the Absolute), then proceed to manifest our sonship in thought, word, and deed. Acknowledgment, so far as spiritual growth is concerned, is never merely in words, but must be the actual living of that which we would acknowledge. Thus to truly "acknowledge the Son" we must be living according to the divine pattern in all phases of our life, our business relationships, our human relationships, our social relationships.

17. Life eternal, everlasting, timeless is God, the one life without beginning and without ending. This source of life is within man as the Christ, the I AM, the life principle. Here within our own being we appropriate the life idea moving from the Source, God, the one creative Mind, into expression and manifestation. "I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life" (I John 5:13).

God "moves" through creation as the eternal movement of His nature as life to find expression. This movement is spoken of as the Spirit of God. Every form of creation is expressing and manifesting life, the Spirit of God, according to its degree of development.

Consciousness is the direct knowing of each one for himself, attained through thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting according to his beliefs. A consciousness of anything, be it of life, of health, of peace, of prosperity, or of a negative nature such as sickness, lack, and limitation, is developed by using the tools of thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting. The difference lies in the mold or the pattern that man uses as a standard for these activities. The I AM, the creative power of God, is the power that enables men to build all states of consciousness according to the thoughts provided by man. We need to remember that consciousness is never just thinking alone, but feeling must be added.

The building of a consciousness of eternal life must be dene in the same orderly way in which our consciousness deals with any qualities we wish to manifest. Through study, meditation, entering the Silence, we become acquainted with tie life idea. We see its source in the Christ, or I AM, within us. We may need to use denial to erase any misconceptions we might have had about life being limited. As we use our affirmations of the eternalness of life, that is, life without beginning or ending, we begin to take on conviction that life is ours by divine right. Our whole consciousness changes; we begin to see the truth of Paul's statement in Rom. 12:2, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." When we are faced in our outer life with challenges that seem to belie the eternalness of life, our expanded consciousness of the truth of life sustains us. We are no longer tossed by uncertainty; we have built a consciousness of eternal life as being ours now, not at some time in the future.

18. The term man is used in the Scriptures with two references. In some instances the reference is made to manifest man, the human being, the evolutionary man, the outpicturing of the unfolding soul of man. In other instances, it is made to the unmanifest man, the spirit of man, the Christ, the involutionary image. Statements that otherwise appear contradictory are reconcilable in this framework of reference.

As an example of this, "man" is sometimes referred to as being of the earth, earthy, no health in him. Again he is referred to as the image-likeness of God, alive forevermore as the Son of God. Jesus sometimes referred to Himself from the two levels of His nature, the human and the divine. John 5:30 records His saying, "I can do nothing on my own authority." But Matt. 28:18 quotes His stating, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

The Scriptural references to man that proclaim his limitations are made from the human viewpoint without consideration of spiritual possibilities. The references that proclaim his divine potentialities are made from the viewpoint that sees man as primarily a spiritual being, expressing and manifesting through a soul and body.

19. "Christ" is the "anointed" one, a name translated from the Greek with this meaning. The Hebrew word is Messiah, the expected king, deliverer, and savior. John identified Christ with the Logos, The Word. Simon Peter identified the Christ as the "Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Paul wrote of "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (I Cor. 1:24). In modern usage the name is often used synonymously with Jesus.

The Unity teachings identify "Christ" as spiritual man, the man created in the image and after the likeness of God. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). "Christ" is the primal man Idea, the pattern, the archetype, the ideal, the I AM. As the spiritual essence of all mankind, the indwelling "Christ" becomes to each individual king, deliverer, and savior.

When God is defined as Divine Mind, "Christ" can be understood as the Idea, the Logos, the Word, or Divine Mind as it expresses in each man. When God is defined as Father, "Christ" is the offspring, or the Son of God.

To man in his relationship to God, "Christ" is the divinity of his nature, the power, the life and the wisdom indwelling. In Christian thought, the man Jesus most fully identified Himself with the "Christ." The two terms, as a result, have come to be often used interchangeably as referring to Jesus.

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). "Christ" represents all the principles or powers of God as individuated in each human being, the image or spiritual pattern and the resources or means for developing it into manifestation, for producing only good. This is man's salvation, and it comes to man as a gift from God. This is God's will or plan for man by which man is to evolve, grow, and unfold into the very likeness of God. It is available to man at all times when man is ready to accept it as his way of life.

The "Christ," in the truest sense, is the only true model that man can take. "Christ" is implanted within the heart of mankind as the pattern of the design to be worked out, as the source of ideals and the promoter of aspirations. It is man's work to attain a consciousness of, accept, and make use of all the spiritual powers and qualities that are in the "Christ," so that he may live to the honor of man and to the glory of God. Points covering this question are also found in other Annotations of this Lesson.

20. The "Son of God" is Jehovah God, Christ, I AM, the composite Idea of God, the image of God, the Word of God, spiritual man, the ideal pattern of man in the Mind of God. This ideal is inherent in every man as his spiritual nature.

The "Son of man" is the human being or manifest man quickened in awareness to the divinity of himself. He is becoming conscious of himself as a "Son of God," and is gradually expressing and manifesting his real nature. This state of becoming conscious of himself as a "Son of God" is metaphorically referred to as the "new birth," "rebirth," being "born again," being "born anew."

The "son of man" is the human being, the manifest man not yet fully awakened to his spiritual nature. It is man often binding himself by human limitations rather than freeing himself by spiritual possibilities. The "son of man" conceives of himself as a species, as an object in nature, without adequate understanding of the latent inner power and character of the species to lift it to increasingly greater expression. He may be very moral in his actions, yet still he holds a belief in God as apart from himself.

The "son of man" becomes the "Son of man" when he is "renewed in the spirit" (Eph. 4:23) of his mind and puts on the "new nature, created after the likeness of God" (Eph. 4:24). That is, he comes to realize who he is and begins manifesting the Truth in mind, body, and affairs.

Awareness, awakening, glimpsing the spiritual possibilities of himself in his evolutionary progress, is not by itself enough to lift the "son of man" to new levels of expression, although this insight is a fundamental step. The insight necessarily is to be carried into fulfillment by active pursuit of the spiritual ideal envisioned. A characteristic of God is movement. Consider the attributes equated with God, those of life, love, intelligence, power—all are suggestive of activity. A concept of the ideal of love without loving, of life without expanded living, of intelligence and power without exercising them, makes these attributes only abstract principles and not actual experiences. The "son of man" must awaken to his true relationship to God and begin to use the life, love, intelligence, and power that are his divine heritage; then he is "Son of man," having acknowledged the Son of God as his true source and guide.