Chapter 9
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DENIAL
Charles Fillmore
Keep a True Lent
A GREAT NUMBER of things that you look on as realities are simply transient shadows that can be dissipated into nothingness by your telling them the truth as to their unreality.
The one cause, the unmanifest mind, from which springs all manifestation, is Principle whose inherencies are potentially perfect. Like the principle of mathematics or of music, it enters not into error or discord. “Thou . . . art of purer eyes than to behold evil.” That is, Principle is supreme good, absolute substance, mind, life, love, intelligence. Its ideals are like it, perfect. The Christ man or true man is the perfect ideal, and humanity is that ideal on the way to realization. The ideal man, the perfect man of Divine Mind thus appears in the process of manifestation as subject to the conditions produced by his conscious thinking.
Although potentially perfect and incapable of producing a single condition of permanent consciousness out of harmony with divine Principle, many persons are impregnated with a belief of limitation, and they need the dissolving power of denial to set them free. By and through the imaging power of thought man can produce illusions that confuse him. This occurs only when he fails to look to Divine Mind for the source and nature of his ideals. Obviously, many are deceived into thinking that they are indeed bound, and the unhappy conditions claimed do show forth in them. This is only consciousness entangled in its own effects. We know that pure mind cannot be subject to lack in any form, and that which so appears must in some way be a departure from creative Mind.
It is an axiom in physics that action and reaction are equal. Thought is the working power of mind; it is mind in action. Your ancestors thought that which was not in harmony with the All-Good, and their thought showed forth in their bodies and affairs. You have admitted the error, and you must deny it in order that your consciousness may be restored to its clear, spiritual perception.
Denials may be made in many ways. It is not always necessary to say specifically, “I deny so and so.” The conscious acknowledgment that you have been incorrect in your conclusion is denial. Refusing to entertain longer any thoughts of a sensual nature is denial. Withdrawing mental sustenance from low ideals is denial.
There is but one Mind, and we can deny away error conditions for one another. For instance, you have a patient who is in the consciousness of fever. You acknowledge to the mind of perfect serenity that there has been a departure therefrom, and that peace is now restored. The acknowledgment by you that there is but one universal Mind, and that your clear consciousness of this frees everybody and everything from sin and sickness, will release you, or another you hold in thought, from any belief you may have reflected. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
If you are not at all times conscious that God is the source of your being, and that He is universal justice, purity, peace, wisdom, and love, you wander from your course and are aware of danger, you are dashed upon the rock of selfish personality. Then you give way to a fit of anger or jealousy; you lust after the flesh, or envy your neighbor his possessions. “We have sinned [gone into error, fallen short], because we have forsaken Jehovah.”
You cannot have consciousness without thinking. It is the nature of mind to think; your every thought, no matter how trivial, causes vibrations in the universal ether that ultimate in the forms of visibility. You know that the working power of mind is thought and that through thought all the conditions that seem to encompass you were formed.
If consciousness departed from Principle and formed images that were manifested as disease, discord, any limitation of the perfect, is it not possible for that same consciousness to undo its faulty work and build anew according to wisdom’s plan? It certainly is, and we know by experience that when guided by the Spirit of truth, or Christ within, our consciousness rebuilds the weak and tottering structures of materiality and vivifies them with an undying energy and life.
You have been deceived into believing that you were born of fleshly parents, and that you are subject to the peculiar mental and moral trials and physical ills of your ancestors. The Spirit of truth, which is, yesterday, today, and forever, pure perfection, and which is now present in you, sets you free from this delusion.
You have been deceived into believing that mind is subject to matter. You have been told that the brain produces thought, and that mind is evolved from matter. You have not taken these claims right home to your own innermost intelligence and thought about them logically. Now that your identity as mind, as invisible unconditioned spiritual substance, is made clear to you, these surrounding delusions are cleared away. You now say daily and hourly, “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth.”
You have been deceived into believing that there are those among your associates who are your mental, moral, or social superiors; that they have by acquired or conferred authority the right to dictate to and to influence you in matters religious, social, or moral. But the meek and lowly yet dignified and all-wise Spirit within you now burns with its own clear light, and you henceforth understand that you are one with the supreme mind that knows only original thought–that is influenced by nothing outside of itself. This is Truth, and the Spirit of truth in you now flames forth in acknowledgment.
You have been deceived into believing that you have certain traits of character to which you are bound by nature, and through them are confined or hampered in life. You may suppose, for instance, that you are naturally timid and fearful, therefore nervous and unfitted to face the world; or that you are cold and unsympathetic; or that you lack language or expression for your ideas; or that your memory is poor; or that you lack perfection in some other way.
Now these illusions crumble into nothingness, and your clear consciousness recognizes its own. At the center of the mind of every man is the light, the white light of Spirit. Fan to a flame this white light at the center of your being by proclaiming your identity with Christ. The salvation of the world rests with those who join Him and thereby bring peace and good will to all men. When the light of Christ comes to any man, it does not confine its rays to his consciousness alone but those who sit in darkness and negation see and feel its power.
You now know the law of righteous thinking that will bring you into a consciousness of your perfect dominion. Life is worth living because you can surround yourself with your highest ideals. Henceforth you are to keep in mind the consciousness of your spiritual origin. Now that you know your being is pure transparent mind, you can intelligently deny any undesirable trait and center your consciousness on the perfect Spirit within.
We have been burdened too long with the rubbish of antiquity. Cast it out of your consciousness and assume the mental dominion that was yours before the worlds were formed and you were one with the consciousness of the Father.
The same Holy Spirit that glorified Jesus, and through which He overcame the world, is now right here with us. It is here awaiting our recognition. It will cleanse our mind of all beliefs of heredity if we acknowledge its presence and power. Bathe yourself in this boundless ocean of wisdom, love, and light by holding for a few moments in the silence the thought:
“Thy Spirit sets me free:
Thou, only, healest me.”
You are not afraid when your consciousness is centered in the principle of good. You know that God is all; that there can be no opposing power. The plague and pestilence do not then reach you, for you have nothing in common with the cause that brings them about.
Man ought never to show forth sickness, poverty, discord, or death, and he never would have done so had his consciousness remained in its primitive relation to cause.
It is now dawning on the consciousness of those who in these latter days listen attentively to Spirit, that, when understood in its right relation, even the form symbol or body will take on the appearance of immortality. Consciousness will become so intensely alive and so thoroughly at one with the supreme life that the form idea, which is potential in mind, will reflect bodies whose perfection will be divine. Many are now coming into an understanding of the law that will ultimate in their physical translation, like Elijah, in chariots of fire. This does not come under the head of the miraculous, for if history is to be credited, many in the past went through this change; and as God is Principle and “no respecter of persons,” we should expect at any time a recurrence of that which has been. Progressive men in the ranks of physical science are being led by analogy to the conclusion that this is a possibility. Edison said that his investigations had convinced him that atoms are centers of intelligence; that the human body being composed of atoms (each of which is an intelligent entity), a man could, by getting control of these atoms through the will, live forever.
This is the legitimate outworking of perfect Principle–the steady onward march of mind from stage to stage in the unfoldment of its infinite possibilities. In the harmonious working of life’s problems according to Principle, there are no backward steps.
“God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” said the illumined Jesus. The God of the living is always present with you, awaiting your conscious recognition. Let the divine life substance flow into your mind, and it will cleanse you of all false race beliefs. You will become renewed in thought and in action; your face will again show forth the freshness of youth, and immortal life will be written upon your brow.
When your consciousness rests in Spirit, your dominion is sure and certain; then you do not come under the law of denial. You can simply conform to the command, “Be still, and know that I am God,” and the work is done.
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Keep a True Lent
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