Chapter 3
THE HOUSE
NOT MADE WITH HANDS
Charles Fillmore
Keep a
True Lent
WE, AS METAPHYSICIANS,
take special care that we are logical
in our reasoning. We hold that all
Truth has its origin in Divine Mind.
Whatever we can conceive as being true
must manifest itself in creation, and
if the creation seems to fall short of
the divine perfection in any way, it is
a fault on our part--either we are not
seeing the whole of it, or we are
lacking in understanding. And if we
hold to our logic that the good can
create nothing but good, it will bring
us to the right conclusion. Holding to
this logic, we find that there are two
steps in creation--mind ideates that
which it later brings forth in the
outer, just as a man works out in his
mind his invention before he makes the
model. God is the all-potential mind.
God creates first in thought, and His
idea of creation is perfect, and that
idea exists as a perfect model upon
which all manifestation rests. The body
of man must rest upon a divine body
idea in Divine Mind, and it logically
follows that the inner life substance
and intelligence of all flesh is
perfect.
But you say, "I do not
have a perfect body; my body is not
perfect, I can see that it is
material." It may be that you do not
understand; that you fail to discern
the "Lord's body," which failure, Paul
said, is the cause of weakness and
sickness and death.
We have a perfect body
in mind, and this perfect mind-body
expresses itself through our I AM, or
the Christ in us; it brings itself into
manifestation just as fast as we let
it, just as fast as we perceive God in
the flesh.
The real source of life
is within you. Go within and close the
door of materiality. Talk to God about
your life problem; begin to release
your hidden energies. Make it a daily
process and talk little about what you
are doing. The incorporation of divine
life in the millions of cells composing
your body was accomplished in
conjunction with Spirit, and the
release should be under the same law.
If you want to see the real expression
of Divine Mind in your body, all you
have to do is mentally to image it. Put
your I AM identity into it and affirm
that the perfect body as idealized in
God-Mind is now made manifest in your
hands, in your feet, in your heart, and
in every part of your
organism.
Is this good logic? Will
it work? Of course, it will. This is
the real secret of metaphysical
healing. In the beginning the Word was
God, but the Word became flesh and
dwelt among men, and they saw Jesus'
body, His glory and His perfection.
Jesus Christ was the Word of God made
manifest. Jesus saved His body from
dissolution and raised it up to the
heavenly estate, which is substance so
pure that no disintegrating force can
be found in it. This gives an
importance to the body beyond the usual
estimate. People think that soul
salvation is the object of the
Christian life, but Jesus and Paul laid
great stress on the ability of man to
"lay it down, and . . . take it again,"
even this "temple of the living
God."
Can we save our body
from death? Yes--by seeing it as the
very temple of God; and this means more
than looking at it as if we were
looking through a telescope. We must
see our body with our mind. We must see
it with something more than the
intellectual mind. We must see it with
Jehovah, the Christ within
us.
When the perfect man is
conceived in pure reason, the reason of
Spirit, and man sees himself as he is
in God-Mind, the Lord's body begins at
once to appear. We can all see our body
with the "single" eye that Jesus spoke
of, and through faith in the reality of
the invisible body regenerate the
flesh. The body is wonderfully obedient
to the I AM. It hastens to do its
bidding and is renewed and transformed
by thought. But so many of us see our
body as it appears to mortal sense,
unaware that the real continues, while
the seeming passes away. We know that
we are healed by right thinking, that
we can and do raise sick bodies and
restore them to health. Where is the
limit to healing? There is no limit.
Why can we not go right on and perfect
the body idea as conceived in Divine
Mind? This is where pure reason and
logic sustain us. It makes no
difference how many people die, or are
going to die; the logic is good if it
proves the healing of a single illness.
It is indeed uplifting to know that
there is a divine power behind this
universe, that there is a true God;
that life has more meaning than the
mere piling up of material things; that
we can become the real man, and all the
pure ideals can be fulfilled here and
now.
The real body of God is
a living body. Above all, it is a
beautiful body, a temple. And God
Himself is in that temple, and it is
not necessary to have any light but His
light, the light of life and health. It
is wonderful how quickly our body
responds to a thought of life and
health, how we can feel a flow of
health instantly if we hold the right
thought. Just closing our mind to outer
things and holding the thought that we
are the perfect manifestations of
Divine Mind will often heal our body of
its illnesses. Disease is not natural.
We must let it go, relax, and let
Spirit carry on its perfect work in us;
and all at once evil or sick conditions
disappear, and we are whole. Those who
have had divine healings tell us that
their best work was done by simply
letting go and realizing that there is
but one universal Mind and that this
Mind makes a perfect body for every
man.
We see this proved again
and again in the healing power of
nature. All doctors admit that the body
is restored to health naturally, that
neither they nor drugs do the actual
healing. What causes the body to be
restored? The divine idea of
perfection. Our body really is the
temple of the living God. The so-called
material body has within it and about
it the divine perfection. We should not
make any separation. We should hold
that our body is spiritual and hold
nothing else. We must carry out that
living true Word which every one of us
knows to be the offspring of Divine
Mind. "And the Word became flesh, and
dwelt among us."
