Chapter 5
THE LAW
THAT GOVERNS THE MANIFESTATION OF
SUPPLY
Charles Fillmore
Prosperity
IT IS SAFE to say that
all men are striving to fulfill the law
of their being, but few have understood
the law. The law is one of the most
important things we can study, because
only as we come to understand it and in
proportion as we understand it can we
comply with its requirements and
demonstrate our divine possibilities
through it.
In reading the
Scriptures we gradually raise our
consciousness of them as mere history
and begin to apprehend them as setting
forth the principle or law of life. We
find the great Bible characters fitting
into the pattern of our own
consciousness, where they represent
ideas. This makes the Bible a divine
Book of Life rather than merely the
history of a people. The idea of the
law is symbolized by Moses. In our
individual consciousness he is denial,
the negative side of the law that
precedes its affirmative expression.
Moses gave the law as "Thou shalt not."
Jesus represents the law in its
affirmative expression "Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God."
Moses could not go into
the Promised Land, the four-dimensional
state of consciousness, for there can
be no negation there. Joshua, whose
name has the same meaning as that of
Jesus, entered the Promised Land and
opened the way for the Children of
Israel. He represents the first step in
mind toward that full consciousness of
the omnipresence and omnipotence of God
that was attained in Jesus. Moses was
the lawgiver, and Jesus was, in His own
words, the fulfillment of the
law.
We must begin to see
this four-dimensional world within,
with its innate capacity for all
things. Everything is right here, all
that ever was or ever could be, simply
waiting to be brought forth into
manifestation. The Lord has prepared a
great feast and invited all of us to
it, just as Jesus explained in parable.
We have right here within and all
around us this substance ready for our
appropriation or eating. Eating is the
outer symbol of mental appropriation.
We begin to break bread by breaking the
substance of mind, everywhere
abundantly provided.
We have discovered that
there is within us a life force that
can be quickened into greater activity
by thinking. Everyone has at some time
demonstrated that he could overcome the
negative condition of weakness by
holding the thought of strength.
Sometimes the strength follows the
thought immediately, sometimes the
thought must be persistently held for
days or weeks. In demonstrating the law
of ever-present abundance we should and
do expect the same results. If the
demonstration seems slow in coming,
patience and persistence will win. That
may be because the poverty
consciousness has a tenacious hold and
takes effort to be got rid
of.
There is a law that
governs the manifestation of supply,
and we may learn that law and apply it
by mental determination and faith in
the logical sequences of spiritual
realities. We have thought that the
laws of God were mysterious and sacred,
far removed from the ordinary
individual, and that we had better try
first to learn the laws of food, of
medicine, of a thousand other secondary
things. A strict metaphysician looks on
all these temporal laws as secondary to
the one law of God. That one law, we
are told, is to be written in our
heart, our inward parts. Then there is
something within us that naturally
responds to the law of God. If we
accept this as true, that we know the
one law by an inner intelligence and
that all other laws are secondary to
it, we are in a position to get
results, to demonstrate
prosperity.
In the natural world
about us we see that everything is
governed by law. We are told that the
whole animal kingdom is guided by
instinct. Many theories have been
advanced to explain instinct in terms
of material thought. Some philosophers
have stated that it is something handed
down from one generation to the next,
incorporated in germ cells. Whether
this is true or not, there is every
evidence that there is a law either in
or around the cells that controls their
formation and duplicates the pattern
laid down ages ago in Mother Eve and
Father Adam. This is the law written in
our inward parts, which is not a figure
of speech but a recognized fact. We
must look within for the law and not
without. The laws we find in the outer
are the secondary laws. The infinite,
creative Mind has given to every one of
us a key to the workings of this
unfailing inner law. It is that
everything we touch mentally or
physically represents substance and
that it is limited only by ourselves in
our thought capacity. We cannot ask God
for more substance, for the universe is
full of it. We can and should ask for
understanding to lay hold of it with
our mind; that is, for an increase in
our capacity. Back of the substance is
the substance idea, and man is related
to the cause side of this idea through
his oneness with God.
You may think that you
could live better and do more good if
you had lots of money. Things would not
be a bit better with you if you had a
million dollars, unless you also had
the understanding to use it for the
good of yourself and others. Would you
give a child a million dollars to go
buy candy and ice cream for himself? We
must evolve with our possessions until
we get the ability to handle them. Then
the law is fulfilled. The supply
unfolds at the same rate as the need or
ability to use substance is developed.
Let us realize this law of unfolding
substance and get busy to fulfill it in
ourselves by developing our
understanding and appreciation of it.
We should pray for just as much each
day as we need or can handle. "Give us
this day our daily bread" is a prayer
that conforms to the divine law and
answers itself.
Infinite Mind has a
lawful way for providing its children
with supply for all their needs.
Nothing is left to chance. God feeds
the birds of the air and clothes the
lilies of the field, and He will feed
and clothe us unless we make it
impossible by our refusal to accept His
bounty. Paul said that the fulfilling
of the law is love. That is exactly
what we must do, love the Lord and love
our neighbor as ourselves, and love our
work. The law is there, in our inward
parts, in our very heart. We know what
to do. We don't have to pray or beg for
God to give us anything. All we need do
is to meditate quietly and affirm the
presence and power of the great Giver
of all, and then accept the gifts. To
be true to the law is to stop looking
to the without and to look within for
supply. Looking to the within means
fixing the mind on God as an
ever-present Spirit that is also
substance and power. Wrapped up within
each of us is a great richness of
thoughts. These thoughts are prisoners
in the subconsciousness only waiting to
be set free to go to work for us. They
are waiting for the coming of the Son
of God, who releases the prisoners and
sets the captives free. This Son is now
seeking expression in you; is you.
Release your rich thoughts, set free
your innate powers, and take from the
rich substance of the Father what you
will.
Through faith in the
overcoming power of Jesus Christ, the
sense mind will be overcome and the
spiritual mind brought into control of
your life and affairs. The sense mind
is filled with lacks and limitations;
the spiritual mind knows only limitless
abundance.
You are linked with the
universal spiritual mind through the
Christ Mind. It is through the Christ
Mind that all things come to you; it is
the channel to the all-mind of the
Father. Make the unity of wholeness
with the Christ Mind. Hold that you are
master with the Master, one with the
all-providing substance and that your
prosperity runneth over. As you begin
this process of unifying yourself
consciously with the inner life and
substance, it will begin to well up
within you and to overflow into your
affairs, so that you will be
prosperous. Remain true to this inner
life no matter what the outer
appearance may be, and you cannot help
but bring the good things of life into
manifestation.
All manifest substance
flows from a realm of light waves,
according to the findings of modern
physical science. James says, "Every
good gift and every perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the Father
of lights." This is an exact statement
of a scientific law, even to the use of
the plural form of the word "lights,"
for as science states, one or more
light particles, electrons, form the
atom that is the basis of all material
manifestation. God ideas then are the
source of all that appears. Accept this
as an absolute truth, an all-productive
truth, and consciously connect your
mind with the Father-Mind. Then you
will begin to realize a never-failing
prosperity that comes from Being
itself.
The German philosopher
and poet Goethe says, "The highest and
most excellent thing in man is
formless, and we should guard against
giving it shape in anything less than
noble dress." This is a recognition of
the truth that man has the capacity
within himself to give form to the
formless substance. Jesus expressed the
law by saying, "Whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven." This
heaven is the realm of pure ideas in
Mind. We are constantly incorporating
these ideas into our mind and giving
them form and shape according to our
loyalty to Truth.
To every metaphysician
this is a very important and very
delicate process, because it is through
this that we develop our soul. This
soul development is often compared to
the development of a photographic
plate. The light puts the image on the
sensitive plate in the first place, or
as James says, it is a gift from "the
Father of lights." There is then an
image on the plate, but it is invisible
and unmanifest until it goes through a
developing process. Infinite Mind has
imaged all its attributes in the soul
of every man. But man must develop this
image into the clear picture, and much
of that work must be done in the dark
with perfect faith in the law of
manifestation. The photographer works
in the darkroom, putting the plate
through many processes. Sometimes the
developer may make an error in some of
the operations and the plate will come
out with an imperfect image. So the
human manifestation sometimes seems
distorted, but the image of perfection
imprinted by creative Mind is there.
This perfect image is "Christ in you,
the hope of glory."
Our body and affairs are
first proofs of the development of the
picture, but floating in our mind are
the higher ideas, the real image to be
developed. Our mind is engaged more or
less in a chemical process. It is hard
to find a line of demarcation between
physical and mental chemistry, for they
follow the same law. However what has
been imaged can be brought out by the
proper method of development. Whatever
you image yourself as doing, you can
do.
In our human
understanding we have divorced this
imaging power of the mind from the
executive power. Now let us bring them
together and unify them, for when
imagination and will work together all
things are possible to man. The will is
symbolized in Scripture by the king.
King Solomon was probably the world's
richest man, and in so far as the world
is concerned he was a great success. He
demonstrated prosperity. He did not ask
God for riches. Let us note that
carefully. He asked God for wisdom, for
ideas. God is mind and His gifts are
not material but spiritual, not things
but ideas. Solomon asked for and
received the ideas and then developed
them himself. Because he was wise all
the world came to his court seeking
wisdom and bringing riches in exchange
for it. The King of Tyre brought the
material he needed to build the Temple.
The Queen of Sheba brought him great
quantities of gold. From this we should
get our cue: ask God for rich ideas
(substance) and then put them to work
in our affairs.
Do not hesitate to use
the divine ideas that come to you, but
do not forget their source or
foundation. There are many people who
are very active executives. The moment
they get an idea they make use of it,
but oftentimes they do not get far,
because they forget the foundation on
which such ideas rest and from which we
must start to build. With a foundation
of Truth, of spiritual ideas and
substance we can build an enduring
structure of prosperity. It will not be
based on a false premise. It will stand
when the rains descend and the floods
come and the winds blow and beat upon
it. We do not desire prosperity today
and poverty tomorrow. We should seek
for the steady, day-by-day realization
of abundant supply.
Jesus understood and
used this law of forming the formless
substance by the power of imagination
and will. When the woman touched the
hem of His garment, some of this
substance, of which He was vividly
conscious, flowed from Him and healed
her. He immediately remarked that
someone had touched Him. Many had
touched Him in the throng and no
substance had left His body from those
contacts, but the woman of faith was
open to receive the healing substance
and consciously appropriate it. This
proved her faith, and Jesus told her to
be of good cheer, for her faith had
made her whole. The same substance was
available to others who crowded against
Him, but only the one who recognized it
and laid hold of it received. Even so
you and I shall receive no benefit,
although substance is everywhere around
us and in us, unless we recognize its
presence by faith and lay hold of it by
the hem of its garment (outer
expression).
Jesus recognized the
omnipresence of substance when He laid
hold of it to multiply the loaves and
the fishes. He dwelt in a consciousness
of it at all times. Once He told the
apostles when they asked Him to eat, "I
have meat to eat that ye know not of."
He built this divine substance into His
body, cell by cell, replacing the
mortal flesh with the spiritual
substance, until His whole body was
immortalized. He demonstrated it and
told us how it was done. He said, "He
that believeth on me, the works that I
do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall he do." Then why are
so many people poor, distressed, ill,
or troubled? There is a way, a law, and
a wisdom to apply the law, and there is
an abundance of substance waiting to be
formed by each of us into whatsoever we
will, when we apply that law as a son
of God.
There is an inherent
faculty that instinctively lays hold of
what it calls its own. Even little
children like to have their own toys
and to keep them separate from those of
other children. There is nothing to be
condemned in this, for it is the
natural outworking of a divine law. It
proves that we know, somewhere in our
deepest being, that we have been
provided for from the foundation of the
world and are entitled to our own
portion without question. The power of
the mind to draw to us those things to
which we are divinely entitled is a
power that can be cultivated and should
be.
We are now on the verge
of a new state of mind in matters
financial. Let us do away with the
erroneous idea that men must be poor to
be righteous. Money is man's
instrument, not his master. Money was
made for man, not man for money. Only
those who put money above man and give
it power in their minds by worshiping
it, are the "rich" men to whom Jesus
referred in His story about the camel
and the needle's eye. It is not money
that controls men, but the ideas they
have about money. Ideas of poverty are
just as powerful to enslave men as are
ideas of wealth. Every man should be
taught how to handle ideas, rather than
money, so that they serve him rather
than have dominion over him.
Some physical scientists
are telling us that the time is near
when men will manufacture from the
ether, right at hand, everything that
they need or desire. Man will not have
to wait for seedtime and harvest when
he learns to use the power of his mind.
When we have that consciousness in
which our ideas are tangible, all our
demands will be quickly fulfilled by
the higher law. Throw into your ideas
all the life and power of your
concentrated thought, and they will be
clothed with reality.
When Jesus went into the
wilderness of His (then) untried mental
powers He was tempted to turn stones
into bread. We all have had this
temptation, and most of us have
succumbed to it. We get our bread out
of material things (stones) instead of
out of the words that proceed from the
mouth of God. It is the word, the idea,
that feeds the soul of man. That is
admitted. But we must realize that it
is the word, the idea, that feeds the
body and the affairs of man also, for
unless the word is recognized and
appropriated, there is a lack of the
true substance and there is no
satisfaction in the food. Fortunately
the "Father knoweth that we have need
of all these things," and in His
compassion and mercy He feeds us with
the substance even while we still try
to assimilate the stones. If we would
seek first the kingdom of God, the
substance, the "things" would be added
and we should consciously enjoy the
fullness of living, the abundant life
of Jesus Christ.
There is a universal law
of increase. It is not confined to bank
accounts but operates on every plane of
manifestation. The conscious
co-operation of man is necessary to the
fullest results in the working of this
law. You must use your talent, whatever
it may be, in order to increase it.
Have faith in the law. Do not reason
too much but forge ahead in faith and
boldness. If you let yourself think of
any person or any outer condition as
hindering your increase, this becomes a
hindrance to you, for you have applied
the law of increase to it. Fear of it
may cause you to become timid and bury
your talent, which defeats the law.
Keep your eyes on the abundant inner
reality and do not let the outer
appearance cause you to
falter.
Do not give too close
study to yourself or your present
condition. To dwell in mind upon your
seeming limitations only prolongs their
stay and makes your progress slow. A
child loses sight of everything but his
increase in size. The boy sees himself
as a larger boy, even as a man. It is
the childlike mind that finds the
kingdom. Then look ahead to the perfect
man you are to be in the Spirit and
behold yourself as the beloved son in
whom the Father is well
pleased.
God gives the increase,
we are told in the Scripture. This is
to be remembered, for we so often think
that increase is the result of our
personal efforts. Increase comes by the
operation of a universal law, and our
part is to keep that law. Use the
talent of life, and it will expand
wonderfully. You do this by talking
about life, praising it, and giving God
thanks for it. Act as though you were
alive and glad to be alive and you will
gain a new realization of life, an
increase in life itself.
Never allow yourself to
come under the control of the "I can't"
man. He believes in limitations, wraps
his talent in them, and hides it away
in the negative earth, and no increase
is possible to him. Be positive in
Spirit and you will succeed. All the
negative talents that are buried away
in the depths of material thought can
be resurrected by Spirit and made
positive, put to the right use,
contributing to the increase of your
good. Appetite and passion, which are
decreasing and destructive in the
material can be made increasing and
constructive when directed to the
things of Spirit. "Blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be
filled."
If there is any lack
apparent in man's world it is because
the requirements of the law of
manifestation have not been met. This
law is based on mind and its operation
through thoughts and words. The key to
the operation of mind is symbolically
set forth in the Genesis account of the
six days of creation. Man's mind goes
through the identical steps in bringing
an idea into manifestation. Between the
perception of an idea and its
manifestation there are six definite,
positive movements, followed by a
(seventh) "day" of rest, in which the
mind relaxes and sees its work in
process of fulfillment.
In bringing forth a
manifestation of God's abundant supply,
take the first step by saying, "Let
there be light"; that is, let there be
understanding. You must have a clear
perception of the principle back of the
proposition "God will provide." The one
universal, eternal, substance of God,
which is the source of all, must be
discerned and relied on, while
dependence on material things must be
eliminated from thought. So long as you
depend on money alone you are
worshiping a false god and have not
discerned the light. You must first
enter into the understanding that God,
omnipresent, omnipotent, and
omniscient, is the source and that you
can draw on this source without limit.
If you have established that light, you
have begun your demonstration and can
go to the second step. A "firmament"
must be established; that is, a firm
place in the mind, a dividing of the
true from the apparent. This is done
through affirmation. As you affirm God
as your supply and support, your words
will in due season become substance to
you, the substance of faith.
The third step is the
forming of this substance into
tangibility. "Let the dry land appear."
Out of the omnipresent substance your
mind forms whatever it wants by the
power of imagination. If it is food you
need, see yourself as bountifully
supplied with food. If you have already
taken the other steps, you can picture
in mind the things you desire and bring
them into your manifest world. If the
other steps of understanding and faith
have not been taken first, there will
of course be no demonstration, for
above all the creative law is orderly
and works by progressive steps. Many
people have tried to demonstrate by
visualizing and concentrating and have
failed because they have put the third
step first. They have not developed
understanding or faith. If you work
according to the law, conforming to its
orderly operation as revealed in the
degrees of creation, you cannot fail,
because when you have fulfilled the law
you have found the kingdom.
Jesus recognized order
as a fundamental factor in the law of
increase. When He fed the multitude He
made them sit down in companies. If you
study the story carefully you will see
that there was a great deal of
preliminary preparation before the
demonstration was made. There was a
recognition of the seed ideas, the
loaves and fishes carried by the small
boy. There was a prayer of thanks for
that supply and then it was blessed.
All this preceded the actual appearing
and appropriation of the supply. Every
demonstration is based on the same law
of increase and goes through the same
orderly steps.
Pray, but let your
prayer be affirmative, for that is the
prayer of faith. A begging prayer
filled with ifs is a prayer of doubt.
Keep praying until affirmations become
a habit of mind. The race thought of
lack must be penetrated and so charged
with the truth of God's omnipresent
abundance that all consciousness of
lack and poverty disappears from the
face of the earth. The more we trust to
the simplicity and infallibility of the
law the better will be our individual
demonstration and the more we shall
contribute to the transformation of the
race thought that causes lack and
famine. Those who make the greatest
spiritual demonstrations are not the
wise of the world but the obedient
children of the law on the bosom of
infinite love.
See what you need as
already manifest and as yours. Do not
put it off to some uncertain future
time. God wants you to have it now.
Remember always God's omnipresence, and
if doubts come in, do not entertain
them. Say: "I trust Omnipotence." "I
refuse to be anxious about tomorrow or
even the next minute. I know that God
does provide for the fulfillment of His
divine idea, and I am that divine
idea." This divine idea is the son, the
perfect man, the Christ, brought forth
on the sixth day. If you would have
your inheritance, you must not omit
this sixth-day realization. God
expresses Himself as man and works
through man to bring perfection into
expression.
To give up all anxiety
and trust in the Lord does not mean to
sit down and do nothing. "My Father
worketh even until now, and I work." We
are to work as God works; to work with
God, as a son follows the occupation of
his father. We are to form what God has
created. In the 1st chapter of Genesis
we see how the Father works. The
various steps in His method are clearly
pointed out, and we shall have results
only as we faithfully follow
them.
Some people think of
prosperity as something separate from
their spiritual experience, "outside
the pale" of religion. They live in two
worlds: in one for six days of the week
when man runs things, and in the other
on the seventh day when God is given a
chance to show what He can do. It is
personality's demonstration when people
find themselves complaining of hard
times and depression, but it is not the
way to demonstrate God in the fullness
of all things. Do all things to the
glory of God seven days a week rather
than one. Take God into all your
affairs. Use this thought in the
silence and bring God and His law of
prosperity into your affairs: I trust
Thy universal law of prosperity in all
my affairs.
