Chapter 11
LAYING UP
TREASURES
Charles Fillmore
Prosperity
AFTER the multitude had
been fed by the increase of the loaves
and fishes, Jesus commanded that they
gather up the fragments so that nothing
might be lost. "And they all ate, and
were filled: and they took up that
which remained over of the broken
pieces, twelve baskets full." Any form
of waste is a violation of the divine
law of conservation. Everywhere in
nature there is evidence of stored-up
energy substance, ready for use when
needed.
This reserve force is
not material but spiritual. It is ready
to be called into expression to meet
any need. But when it is not put to use
or called into expression, there is a
manifestation of inharmony or lack
either in the body of man or in its
outer supply. It is in his wrong
conception of this spiritual force that
man makes the mistake of falling into
the habit of hoarding instead of
conserving. He tries to gather things
together in the external in a vain
effort to avert an imagined shortage in
the future and he counts himself rich
by the amount of his material
possessions.
Spiritually awakened
people are coming to know that all
riches are spiritual and within the
reach of all as divine ideas. They
study the law of conservation as it
pertains to the spiritual and seek to
build up a large reserve consciousness
of substance, life, strength, and
power, rather than laying up material
treasures that "moth and rust consume"
and "thieves break through and
steal."
Men and women scatter
their energies to the four winds in the
effort to satisfy the desires of the
flesh, and then wonder why they do not
demonstrate prosperity. If they only
realized the truth that this same
thought force can be conserved and
controlled to express itself in
constructive channels, they would soon
be prosperous. Spirit must have
substance to work on and there must be
substance in the ideas of your mind. If
your substance is going here, there,
and everywhere, being spent in riotous
thinking, how can it accumulate to the
point of demonstration? Such a waste of
substance is a violation of the law of
conservation, a law that all should
know. When you overcome your desire for
dissipation, not the overt acts only
but the inner desire, then you will
begin to accumulate substance that must
manifest itself as prosperity according
to the law.
One of the fundamental
principles in the study of Christianity
is that God's great objective is the
making of a perfect man. Man is the
apex of creation, made in God's image
and likeness, and endowed with full
authority and dominion over his
elemental thoughts. We sometimes think
that we must succeed in some business
or occupation before we can become rich
or famous. This is a missing of the
mark of "the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus," which is to demonstrate
the divine idea of a perfect man. The
real object of life is not making money
or becoming famous but the building of
character, the bringing forth of the
potentialities that exist in every one
of us. A part of the divine plan is
substantial provision by the Creator
for all the mental and physical needs
of His creation. We are not studying
prosperity to become rich but to bring
out those characteristics that are
fundamental to prosperity. We must
learn to develop the faculty that will
bring prosperity and the character that
is not spoiled by
prosperity.
Faith is the faculty of
mind that deals with the
universal-substance idea. Faith is the
substance of things hoped for.
Everything in God is ideal, without
form or shape but with all
possibilities. He is omnipresent in our
mind and in our body. It is in our body
that we bring God into visible
manifestation. Faith is the faculty
that does this. It lays hold of the
substance idea and makes it
visible.
The scramble for wealth
seems to be the only object of
existence for certain minds. Writers of
Biblical times were incessantly
preaching against the evils of money.
Yet Jehovah was always promising riches
and honor to all those who kept His
commandments. The gold and silver that
God promised were spiritual rather than
material. God is mind, and mind can
give only ideas. These ideas can be
translated into terms of gold or of
anything else we desire, according to
our thought. The only treasures that
are worth saving are those we lay up in
the heavens of the mind. The only gold
that can be trusted to bring happiness
is the gold of Spirit. Jesus says, "I
counsel thee to buy of me gold refined
by fire, that thou mayest become rich;
and white garments, that thou mayest
clothe thyself, that the shame of thy
nakedness be not made
manifest."
Paul tells us that "the
love of money is a root of all kinds of
evil." That means of course that by
loving money man has in some way
limited it. He has not loved the true
source of money but has loved the thing
rather than the Spirit that it
expresses. He has broken the law by
trying to grasp the thing and failing
to acknowledge the idea that lies back
of it. We must know this law, observing
it in the handling of money, and make
love the magnet of supply instead of
becoming entangled in that selfishness
and greed which is causing so much
inharmony and suffering in the world
today. We should know that there is a
universal money substance and that it
belongs to all of us in all its
fullness.
In the parable of the
sower Jesus uses a most striking
phrase. Part of the good seed was
choked out by thorns and the thorns
represent the "deceitfulness of
riches." Money is indeed a cheat. It
promises ease and brings cares; it
promises pleasures and pays with pain;
it promises influence and returns envy
and jealousy; it promises happiness and
gives sorrow; it promises permanence
and then flies away.
Metaphysically, it is
better or at least safer to be poor
than to be rich. Jesus taught this in
the parable of the rich man and
Lazarus. The rich man is pictured in
torment, crying for the poor man to
give him a drink of water. But if the
rich are miserable, the poor who
greatly desire to be rich are equally
so. Poverty and riches are the two
poles of a magnet whose pivot is a
belief that the possession of matter
will bring joy to the possessor. This
belief is a delusion, and those who are
attracted by this belief and allow
their minds to be hypnotized by the
desire for material possessions are to
be pitied whether their desire is
realized or not.
The real possessor of
wealth is the one who feels that all
things are his to use and to enjoy yet
does not burden himself with the
personal possession of anything.
Diogenes was a most happy man though he
lived in a tub. His philosophy has
outlived the influence of the rich and
powerful people who were his
contemporaries. He walked around with a
lantern at midday looking for an honest
man, so they seem to have been as rare
in his day as in ours.
However, the widespread
desire for material possessions
indicates that there is somewhere some
good in it. The natural man is from the
soil, formed of the dust of the ground,
and loves his native element. The
spiritual man is from above,
originating in the heavens of the mind.
He is given first place and like Jacob
supplants the natural man. Men should
not condemn the earth because of this,
yet they should not love it to the
exclusion of the heavens. They should
understand that substance is the day
from which the Father makes the body of
His people. "Your heavenly Father
knoweth that ye have need of all these
things ... But seek ye first his
kingdom, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto
you."
The divine law holds
that the earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof. If this truth were
thoroughly understood, men would begin
at once to make all property public,
available for the use and enjoyment of
all the people. The early disciples of
Jesus understood this and their
religion required them to bring all
their possessions and lay them at the
feet of their leaders, to be
distributed and used according to the
needs of all. Paul's companion Barnabas
gave his field. Ananias and Sapphira
sold their land and brought part of the
price to Peter but held back part of
it. They had not overcome the fear of
future lack and had not put their faith
fully in the teaching and promises of
the Master.
When we have recognized
the truth of the omnipresence of God as
substance and supply for every need,
there will be no occasion for holding
back part as Ananias and Sapphira did.
We cannot hoard money in its material
phase without breaking the law, which
is that we have all the substance
necessary for our supply. We ask the
Lord for our "daily" bread and expect
to have it but we do not get an
accumulation that will spoil on our
hands or that will deny the proper
supply to any other man. The
metaphysical idea of this part of the
Lord's Prayer is "Give us this day the
substance of tomorrow's bread." We ask
not for bread but for the substance
that Spirit arranges to manifest as
bread, clothing, shelter, or the supply
for any need we may have.
Substance in the form of
money is given to us for constructive
uses. It is given for use and to meet
an immediate need, not to be hoarded
away or be foolishly wasted. When you
have found freedom from the binding
thought of hoarding money, do not go to
the opposite extreme of extravagant
spending. Money is to be used, not
abused. It is good to keep one's
obligations paid. It is good to have
some money on hand for good uses, such
as hospitality, education, for
developing industries that will
contribute to the good of numbers of
people, for the furtherance of
spiritual work, for helping others to
build useful and constructive lives,
and for many other purposes and
activities. But in such conservation of
money one should keep ever in mind the
necessity of a constructive motive back
of the action. Money accumulated for a
definite and definitely constructive
purpose is quite a different thing from
money hoarded with the fearful thought
of a "rainy day" or a prolonged season
of lack and suffering. Money saved for
"rainy days" is always used for just
that, for fear attracts that which is
feared unfailingly. "The thing which I
fear cometh upon me."
Money saved as "an
opportunity fund" brings an increase of
good, but money hoarded from fear as a
motive or with any miserly thought in
mind cannot possibly bring any
blessing. Those who hold the thought of
accumulation so dominant in the world
today are inviting trouble and even
disaster, because right along with this
thought goes a strong affirmation of
the fear of loss of riches. Their
actions bespeak fear, and the loss they
dread is certain to be manifested
sooner or later. The worldly idea of
prosperity is based on the wrong idea
of supply. One may have the right idea
about the source of riches as spiritual
and yet have the wrong idea about the
constancy of supply as an ever-present,
freely flowing spiritual substance. God
does not clothe the lilies in a moment
and then leave them to the mercy of
lack; He gives them the continuous
supply necessary to their growth. We
can rest assured that He will much more
clothe us and keep us clothed from day
to day according to our need. When we
doubt this and place our dependence on
stored-up money instead, we shut off
the stream of divine supply. Then when
our little accumulation is spent,
stolen, or lost, we are like the
prodigal son and we begin to be in
want.
Jesus did not own a foot
of land. Yet never did He lack for
anything needed. Without laying up
treasures on earth He was rich in His
consciousness of the treasures of
heaven within Himself, treasures ready
to be manifested in the outer whenever
He needed them.
We know perfectly well
that sooner or later we shall have to
let go of our earthly possessions. Does
this bring the thought of death and of
leaving the world behind? Then it shows
what a powerful hold this race belief
of worldly wealth has taken in your
mind. Men can think of letting go of
their material possessions only in
connection with death. They seem to
prefer death to giving up their idea of
wealth. When they make such a choice
they decree what shall come to pass for
them. That is why it is hard for a
"rich man" to enter into the kingdom of
heaven. He has laid up treasures on
earth and not enough in heaven. He has
not made it possible for his mind to
lay hold of the positive pole of
wealth, the true idea of wealth. He is
holding to the negative side of the
wealth idea, and that side is always
changing. Material things pass away
unless they are firmly connected with
the unchanging, positive
Source.
True riches and real
prosperity are in the understanding
that there is an omnipresent substance
from which all things come and that by
the action of our mind we can unify
ourselves with that substance so that
the manifestations that come from it
will be in line with our desires and
needs. Instead of realizing the
inexhaustible, eternal, and omnipresent
nature of that substance, we have
limited it in our thought. We have
thought that there is only about so
much of it and that we had better hurry
to get our share. We have thought that
we must be careful how we spend it and
put some of it away for a time when
there won't be any more. In building up
this consciousness of a limited supply
we have concluded that it is necessary
to be economical and more and more
saving. We begin to pinch in our mind,
and then our money becomes pinched, for
as we think in our mind, so we manifest
in our affairs. This attitude pinches
the channel through which our substance
comes to manifestation and slows down
the even flow of our supply. Then comes
depression, hard times, shortage, and
we wonder why, looking for some way to
lay the blame on the government, or on
war, or on industry, or even on the
Lord, but never by any chance do we put
the blame where it belongs: on
ourselves.
The "pinching attitude"
of mind does even worse than bring
people into want. If people would relax
in mind, they would loosen up the
nerves and muscles of the body. They
must learn the cause of their strained,
pinching mental attitude and let go of
that first. Then the relief of the
outer condition will become manifest as
the condition itself did.
Nearly all of us have
been brought up in the belief that
economy is an important thing, even a
virtue. We should save our money and
have a bank account. Saving money is
the recipe for success given by many of
our wealthy men. It is not a bad idea.
There must be money available in banks
to carry on business and industry. By
having a bank account we contribute to
the welfare of the community, if we
have the right idea; which is that the
Lord is our banker.
The word miser is from
the Latin root from which also comes
"miserable." It describes the condition
of those who love and hoard money,
lands, or other material things. The
stories that are told about misers are
almost beyond credence, but nearly
every day the press recounts the story
of the pitiable straits to which misers
have reduced themselves in order to add
to their riches. They sometimes starve
themselves to add a few dollars or even
a few pennies to their hoarded store.
The papers recently carried an item
about a miser in New York worth eleven
million dollars. He goes from office to
office in one of his great office
buildings and picks up the waste paper
from the baskets, which he sells for a
few cents. Another almost as wealthy
will not buy an overcoat but keeps his
body warm by pinning newspapers under
his house coat. Such men are not only
themselves miserable but they make
miserable all those around them. A New
York paper tells of a miser worth
millions when he died. Once burglars
broke into his home, but they succeeded
in getting out again without losing
anything.
You do not need to lay
up treasures for the future when you
know that the law of omnipresent good
is providing for you from within. As
you evolve into this inner law of mind,
you draw to yourself more and more of
the good things of life.
In your mind see plenty
everywhere. Yes, it is hard sometimes
to overcome the thought that there is
not enough, for it is an insidious
thought that has been in consciousness
for a long time. But it can be done. It
has been done and is being done by
others. The prosperity law is not a
theory but a demonstrated fact, as
thousands can testify. Now is the time
to open your mind and to see plenty. As
you do so you will find that there is
an increase in your supply. Deny out of
mind every thought of lack and affirm
the abundance of all good. The infinite
substance that infinite Mind has given
to you is all about you now, but you
must lay hold of it. It is like the
air, but you must breathe the air to
get it. It is yours for the taking, but
you must take it. You should cultivate
this wonderful power of the mind to
know that everything is bountiful and
this power to lay hold of invisible
substance in the mind and by faith
bring it forth into manifestation. Know
with Job that we have as much now, in
reality and in Truth, as we ever had.
There is no shortage, lack, or
depression with God.
Do not be fearful,
regardless of how outer appearances may
affect others. Keep your head when all
about you are losing theirs. Refuse to
load up your mind with the old material
thoughts of economy to the point of
denial of what you really need.
Eliminate the old limiting ideas.
Assert your freedom and your faith as a
child of God. Do not spend foolishly or
save foolishly. The farmer does not
throw away his wheat when he sows a
field. He knows how much he must sow
per acre and does not stint, for he
knows that a stinted sowing will bring
a stinted harvest. He sows bountifully
but not extravagantly and he reaps
bountifully as he has sown. "Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
"He that soweth sparingly shall reap
also sparingly; and he that soweth
bountifully shall reap also
bountifully."
We cannot help but see
that apparent lack and hard times are
the result of states of mind. We have
such things in the manifest world
because men have not squared their
action with divine Principle. They have
not used spiritual judgment. When they
invest in stocks and property, they get
the opinions of other men, sometimes
those who call themselves experts. Then
comes the crash, and even the experts
prove how little they understand the
real laws of wealth. We can go to an
expert who really knows the law because
He ordained it in the first place. And
He is not far away, but right within
ourselves. We can go within and
meditate on these things in the
silence, and the Lord will direct our
personal finances. He will show us just
how to get the most and give the most
with our money and He will see to it
that we have the supply that we need so
that we may not be in want of anything
needful to our good. This may not mean
riches piled up or "saved for a rainy
day," but it will insure our supply for
today, the only day there is in
Truth.
As we continue to grow
in the consciousness of God as
omnipresent life and substance we no
longer have to put our trust in
accumulations of money or other goods.
We are sure that each day's need will
be met, and we do not deprive ourselves
of today's enjoyment and peace in order
to provide for some future and wholly
imaginary need. In this consciousness
our life becomes divinely ordered, and
there is a balance in supply and
finances as in everything else. We do
not deprive ourselves of what we need
today; neither do we waste our
substance in foolish ways nor deplete
it uselessly. We do not expect or
prepare for adversity of any kind, for
to do so is not only to invite it but
to show a doubt of God and all His
promises. Many people bear burdens and
deny themselves sufficient for their
present needs in order to prepare for
dark days that never come. When we look
back over the past we find that most of
our fears were groundless, and most of
the things we dreaded so much never
happened. However the things we
prepared for probably did happen and
found us not fully prepared even after
all our efforts in that direction. This
should enable us to trust God now and
rest in the positive assurance that He
will supply every need as it
arises.
Things are never so bad
as you think. Never allow yourself to
be burdened with the thought that you
are having a hard time. You do not want
a soul structure of that kind and
should not build it with those
thoughts. You are living in a new age.
Yesterday is gone forever; today is
here forever. Something grander for man
is now unfolding. Put yourself in line
with the progress of thought in the new
age and go forward.
