Chapter 5
CONSCIOUSNESS
Charles Fillmore
Dynamics For Living
CONSCIOUSNESS is the sense of awareness, of knowing. It is our knowing that we know. The ideas that are held in mind are the basis of all consciousness. The nature of the ideas upon which consciousness is formed gives character to it. Consciousness is the knowledge or realization of any idea, object, or condition. It is the sum total of all ideas accumulated in and affecting man’s present being. It is the composite of ideas, thoughts, emotions, sensation, and knowledge that makes up the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious phases of mind. It includes all that man is aware of in spirit, soul, and body. The total consciousness of man is the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious, phases of mind working as a whole, as a unity. The harmonious working together of these three is necessary to the bringing forth of the latent possibilities of man.
Superconsciousness
The superconscious mind, Christ consciousness or spiritual consciousness, is a state that is based on true ideas, upon an understanding and realization of spiritual Truth. It is man’s only sure guide through the maze of the creative process. By trusting to the infallibility of this guide, man opens himself to the inspiration of the Almighty. This phase of mind is built in accordance with the Christ ideal, or in absolute relationship to the Father. It is the perfect mind.
Conscious Mind
We are all well acquainted with the conscious mind. Through its use we establish our relations with the outer realm and recognize our individual entities. The conscious mind makes one know of one’s mental operations. It is that phase of mind in which one is actively aware of one’s thoughts. It is the mind through which man establishes his identity. The conscious mind should look ever to the superconscious for all direction and instruction. The Spirit of wisdom rests in the superconscious.
Subconsciousness
The subconscious mind, or subjective consciousness, is the sum of all man’s past thinking. It may be called memory. The subconscious mind has no power to do original thinking. It acts upon what is given it through the conscious or the superconscious mind. All our involuntary, or automatic, activities are of the subconscious. They are the result of our having trained ourself by the conscious mind to form certain habits and do certain things without having to center our thought upon them consciously.
The subconscious is the vast, silent realm that lies back of the conscious mind and between it and the superconscious. It may be called the sensitive place of mind. Its true office is to receive impressions from the superconsciousness and to reproduce them upon the canvas of the conscious mind.
Man, however, having lost the consciousness of the indwelling Father as an ever-present reality, has reversed the process and impresses the subconscious from the conscious mind. In this way the former is made to register impressions according to the thought held in conscious mind at the time the impression is made.
It is the purpose and the nature of the subconscious mind to reproduce.
Twelve Centers
Inherent in the Mind of Being are twelve fundamental ideas, which in action appear as primal creative forces. It is possible for man to ally himself with and to use these original forces, and thereby cooperate with the creative law. In order to do this he must detach himself from the outer forces and enter into the consciousness of the idea lying back of them.
Man has twelve great centers of consciousness. They are centers of action. Each of these has control of a certain function in mind and body, in soul and body. These twelve powers are all expressed and developed under the guidance of Divine Mind.
You must keep the equipoise. You must in all the bringing forth of the twelve realize that they come from God. They are directed by the Word of God. The twelve centers are: faith, strength, judgment, love, power, imagination, understanding, will, order, zeal, renunciation (or elimination), and life.
Faith
Faith is the perceiving power of the mind linked with the power to shape substance. It is spiritual assurance. It is the power to do the seemingly impossible. It is a magnetic power that draws unto us our heart’s desire from the invisible spiritual substance. Faith is a deep inner knowing that that which is sought is already ours for the taking.
Faith is the foundation of all that man does. It is closely related to the enduring, firm, unyielding forms of substance. The development of it is a key to spiritual realization. Faith in God is the substance of existence. To have faith in God is to have the faith of God. We must have faith in God as our Father and source of all the good we desire.
Faith is more than mere belief. It is the very substance of that which is believed. Faith working in spiritual substance accomplishes all things. This is the faith that cooperates with creative law. When it is exercised deep in spiritual consciousness, it finds its abode. Here it works under divine law, without variation. It brings results that are seemingly miraculous.
An understanding faith functions from Principle. It is based on knowledge of Truth. It understands the law of mind action. Therefore, it has great strength. To know that certain causes produce certain results gives a bedrock foundation for faith.
The term blind faith is an instinctive trust in a power higher than ourselves. Because blind faith does not understand the principles of Being, it is liable to discouragement and disappointment.
Strength
Strength is the energy of God. In man it causes freedom from weakness; stability of character; power to withstand temptation; capacity to accomplish. Strength is physical, mental, and spiritual. All strength originates in Spirit. Strength and faith are brothers in the mind. When this bond of unity is established it carries one along, even though one may encounter the most adverse experiences.
Judgment
Judgment is a faculty of the mind that can be exercised in two ways–from sense perception or spiritual understanding. If its action be based on sense perception its conclusions are fallible and often condemnatory. If based on spiritual understanding, they are safe. Judgment is a mental act of evaluation through comparison or contrast. Spiritual discernment is the inner voice through whose expression we come into a larger realization of ourselves. We also call this faculty discrimination. It is that quality in us which carefully weighs a question and draws a conclusion. The prevailing tendency of judgment is toward caution, fearfulness, criticism, and condemnation, when it draws its conclusions from the effect side of existence. We should therefore faithfully seek the spiritual aspect of this faculty, the guidance and good judgment of spiritual light and understanding.
Wisdom, justice, judgment are grouped under one head in spiritual consciousness. Intuition, judgment, wisdom, justice, discernment, pure knowing, and profound understanding are natural to man. All these qualities, and many more, belong to every one of us by and through his divine sonship.
Love
Love is an inner quality that sees good everywhere and in everybody. It insists that all is good, and by refusing to see anything but good it causes that quality finally to appear uppermost in itself, and in all things. Divine love will bring your own to you, adjust all misunderstandings, and make your life and affairs healthy, happy, harmonious, and free. Like the sun, its joy is in the shining forth of its nature.
Love is a divine attribute. It is an idea in the one Mind, a quality in Being. The difference between divine love and human love is that divine love is broad and unlimited, a universal and harmonizing power. Human love is based on personality. When man expresses divine love in limited ways he makes a separation in consciousness and his expression of love is personal instead of universal. When love is established in the consciousness it will draw to us all that we require to make us happy and contented, all that really belongs to us. Unselfish love is fearless, because of its forgetfulness of self. A sense of oneness is a natural product of love. It is accompanied by a consciousness of security.
Power
Man is the power of God in action. The mind and the body of man have power to transform energy from one plane of consciousness to another. This is the power and dominion implanted in man from the beginning. It is man’s control over his thoughts and feelings. A quickening from on high must precede his realization of dominion. Power is increased through exalted ideas. The power of the voice controls all the vibratory energies of the organism. It is the open door between the formless and the formed worlds of vibrations pertaining to expression. Every word that goes forth receives its specific character from the power faculty.
Imagination
Every form and shape originated in the imagination. It is through the imagination that the formless takes form. Man is continually making and sending forth into his mind, his body, and the world about him living thought forms embodied and endued with his whole character. These images are formed in the imaging faculty.
In the realm of the real, the imaging power of the mind is innocent of error images. It is open and receptive to the beauty and perfection of Being. This faculty makes the great, when the soul is lifted up with spiritual fervor. Exercised without the Christ understanding, it is personal credulity. It is not in itself error, but may be used in erroneous ways. In the communication of God with man this faculty plays an important part.
Understanding
That in man which comprehends is understanding. It comprehends and knows in wisdom. Its comparisons are not made in the realm of form, but in the realm of ideas. It knows how to accomplish things. Spiritual discernment reveals that knowledge and intelligence are auxiliary to understanding.
There are two ways of getting understanding. One is by following the guidance of Spirit that dwells within, and the other is to go blindly ahead and learn through hard experience.
Intellectual understanding of Truth is a tremendous step in advance of sense consciousness, and its possession brings a temptation to use for selfish ends the wisdom and power thereby revealed.
Spiritual understanding is the quickening of the Spirit within. Spiritual understanding is the ability of the mind to apprehend and realize the laws of thought and the relation of ideas one to another.
Will
The will is the executive faculty of the mind and carries out the edicts of the I AM. All thoughts that go in and out of man’s consciousness pass the gate at which sits the will. If the will understands its office, the character and value of every thought are inquired into and a certain tribute is exacted for the benefit of the whole man. When the will of man adheres to wisdom faithfully and carries out in its work the plans that are idealized in wisdom, it creates in man a consciousness of harmony and peace.
The will may be said to be the man, because it is the directive power that determines character formation. When man wills to do the will of God, he exercises his individual will in wisdom, love, and spiritual understanding. He builds spiritual character.
What man wills or decrees comes to pass in his experience. The will is the center in mind and body around which revolve all the activities that constitute consciousness. It is the avenue through which the I AM expresses its potentiality.
Order
The inner spirit of order is the spiritual way of life. The divine idea of order is the idea of adjustment. As this is established in man’s thought, his mind and affairs will be at one with the universal harmony. The faculty of order in the mind holds every thought and act strictly to the Truth of Being, regardless of circumstances or environment. The development of man is under law. Man can never exercise dominion until he knows who and what he is and, knowing, brings forth that knowledge into the external by exercising it in divine order.
Zeal
Zeal is intensity, ardor, enthusiasm; the inward fire of the soul that urges man onward regardless of caution. It is the affirmative impulse of existence. Its command is “Go forward!” When zeal and judgment work together great things can be accomplished.
To be without zeal is to be without the zest of living. Zeal and enthusiasm incite to glorious achievement in every aim and ideal that the mind conceives. Energy is zeal in motion. Energy is the forerunner of every effect. Never repress the impulse, the force, the zeal welling up within you. Praise it for its great energy and efficiency in action.
Let your zeal be tempered with wisdom. Do not let your zeal run away with judgment. Man is a dynamo of pent-up power, but he needs judgment in its use. Always exercise zeal in spiritual ways. Extraordinary zeal in the accomplishment of some ideal develops what is called genius. Genius is the accumulated zeal of the individual in some chosen field of life action. Genius is the breaking forth of the accumulated achievements of a man in that field of activity for which he has been very zealous.
Renunciation
Renunciation is a letting go of old thoughts in order that new thoughts may find a place in consciousness. A healthy state of mind is attained when the thinker willingly lets go the old thoughts and takes on the new. This is illustrated by the inlet and outlet of a pool of water. Renunciation, sometimes called elimination, carries forward the work of elimination of error thoughts from the mind and waste from the body.
It is just as necessary that one should learn to let go of thoughts, conditions, and substances in consciousness, body, and affairs, when they have served their purpose and one no longer needs them, as it is that one should lay hold of new ideas and new substances to meet one’s daily requirements. Therefore it is very necessary that the eliminative faculty be quickened in one, and a right balance between receiving and giving, laying hold and letting go, be established.
Life
In the phenomenal world, life is the energy that propels all forms of action. The life ego is the most subtle and most variable of all the powers of man. It presides over the life of the body. The pure life of God flows into man’s consciousness through the spiritual body idea. Only those who have come into consciousness of the spiritual body idea can feel this holy stream of life. Its nature is to vivify with perpetual life all that it touches. It knows only to give, give unceasingly and eternally, without restraint. To desire to be instructed by God is the first step in exalting the inner life force. Life is divine, spiritual. Its source is Spirit. The river of life is within man in his spiritual consciousness. He comes into consciousness of the river of life through the quickening of Spirit. He can be truly quickened with new life and vitalized in mind and body only by consciously contacting Spirit.
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Dynamics For Living by Charles Fillmore
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