CHARLES FILLMORE--SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1928.

THE CHIIISTIAN LIEG.- IS A LIFE CF PRAISE

Ehil. 3:13; 4:8.

It is a day of affirmations instead of discourses. Ve should

spend all our time this morning in proclaiming the truth about man,

especially about ourselves in our spiritual supremacy. I wish I

could talk with all of you without being on the platform, face to

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face, and discuss these important natters that w e are, all of us,

up against right now.

It is customary, of course, on the New Year, to talk about

good resolutions for the coming year and casting out our had habits,

etc. That is good as far as it goes, but if you knew the keynote

to all of your bad habits and your good resolutions, and if you

understood how to establish them without fear or without the exercise

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of will power--because most results are based upon sheer will power

and will is a temporal thing in its human expression--but if you

knew that there was a law of mind, that when you made a resolution

you would establish it in your consciousness and that it would never

depart, you would be layirg hold of something that was worth while

and you would be glad to know more about that law. That is what

we are teaching here at Unity: how to lay hold of the laws of the

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mind, spiritually interpreted; how to raise our minds to higher

planes of consciousness and establish them so that they become

receptive to the Higher Mind. Paul gives us the key to the accom-

plishment of this in the word which we held in the silence: "1::hatsoever

things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things

are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good

report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on

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these things."

Think on these things. If there is any virtue in these things,

consider the virtue; and if there is am praise in these things, if

they are praiseworthy, give them praise; praise them. V:e don't

praise cur virtues enough. You know that we spend a good deal of

time praising our faults. 'alt YThitr-an once said that he envied the

animals because they didn't groan and moan over their sins .i 7"e spend

* ("They do not lie awake, in the dark and weep for their sins.")

a good deal of time groaning and moaning over our sins, over our

faults, over our shortcomings. Begin the New Year by forgetting

all your sins, all your shortcomings, all the evil inclinations

and tendencies which seer to be in you. They don't exist in the

mind of God. Theel into action that Eigher Yind and you will solve

the Whole problem. To do this, you have got to do a little thinking.

Think on these things. Think on these virtues. They are worth? of

praise, and as you praise them they expand and enlarge and grow.

That is one of the greatest things that we have to learn in our

study of Christian metaphysics, end. that is that certain states

of mind increase and enlarge the idea that you drop into them,

whereas other states of mind are depreciative, constantly making

less and less the idea which you drop into them. If you encourage

an idea and give it latitude, as we say, give it line, it will

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increase and grow stronger and stronger. On the other hand, if

you confine an idea, hamper and batten it down in your subconsciousness,

you can kill it for awhile; but sooner or later it will break out

again. You rust know how to handle your ideas; and good ideas will

grog: and grow until by and by they will occupy all the space in your

mind.

IdET.as grow in the mind exactly as the yeast grows through the

germs of fermentation. Te are told that certain yeast germs, if

allowed to expand and grow, would fill this whole universe in just

a few days. The mind has that same capacity, because it is mind

th't is causing the yeast germs to increase and multiply. t.e have

in ourselves this capacity of increase, of multiplication, of growth

of ideas, yet if you don't know it you may be decreasing your ideas--the

good thoughts in you. You may be finding fault with them or hampering

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them in some way. Change right around and follow that instruction

of Paul: "VJiatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable,

whatsoever things are just, pure, lovely, of good report, think on

these things," and praise them. Let us praise the good and forget

the bad. Forget all the old things. You would be surprised how it

would free your mind to take up a daily process of forgetting. Ve

are told that we need more memory. There are schools of memory

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culture. We need schools of forgetting just as much as we need

schools of memory. Just as much; and if you keep charging your

mind with facts, after awhile you-get so full that you can't take

on any more. What are you going to do then? Begin to forget.

It is found that people who are constantly charging their minds

with facts sooner or later have softening of the brain. Facts are

so hard and so tenacious of their life and are packed into the mind

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so close that they break down the brain cells. I say, then, a good

forgetter is just as necessary as a good memory, and Paul teaches

this in cur text: "forgetting the things that are behind and pressing

forward to the things that are ahead." To what end? "To the mark

of the high calling in God through Christ Jesus." That is the one

thing that we need above all to remember: that there is a higher

state of consciousness, or a higher mind action than what we have

ordinarily used; or we have not used it because we have not appre-

hended it. We have not understood it. It is here all the time,

always just within reach of us if we would look up; but we rust

look up and see that Higher mind.

The whole world is coming, in a slow way, into contact with

this hir-he• Lind, and it is filtering down into our daily affairs.

It comes to us first in freedo from material limitations. People,

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under the old dispensation, say fifty years ago, worked long hours.

rork was labor and the curse of Adam was visited upon them. By the

sweat of their faces they earned their bread. Now;, we are using our

minds more and more. I saw a statement the other day that the new

inventions of the last fifty years had put to work for every individual

about seven-hundred men. Just think of thatl That is a lightening

of your labor. You have got seven hundred slaves at work for you all

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the time through these labor-saving inventions. We have other in-

ventions that are riving us .pleasure, giving us conveniences in some

way.

Do we appreciate these good things that are coming into our

lives and that have come so glickly? Fifty years ago, who would

have believed that we would have flying machines; that we would fly

through the air? or that we would have submarines and people would

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go down under the ocean to live? or that we would have done away

with horses and carriages almost entirely, the streets crammed with

automobiles? or that we would have phonographs and that the human

voice and every sound that it makes could be bottled up and canned?

or that we would send messages through the air? or that we would

make electricity run our street cars, do our cooking, feed our cars,

and all_ that? If you had told that to some religious people who were

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looking after heaven away off in the skies and hell somewhere down

in the bottomless pit, they would have said that was silly. "Let

us talk sense. Let us talk about heaven and hell." They knew all

about that. They knew exactly where heaven and hell are, and they

knew whether you were on the way to one or the other; but if you

had told them about some of these real things, they would have called

you foolish. They are like a man who asked his wife who came back

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from a religious meeting what the meeting was about, and she said

she didn't remember much about the meeting except that the man said

hell was not what it used to be.

You remember the song about the "little old log cabin in the

dell"? The roof is caving in and the chimney is tumbling down, and

the "old home is not what it used to be." That is exactly the way

with heaven and hell. "The roof is caving in and the chimney is

tur:bling down, and the old home is not what it used to be."

remember a man once said that "hell" and "darnation" and "everlasting"

are not in the original of any of our Scriptures and should not appear

in any translation. He gave that as an explanation of the Scriptures,

as his word. Read any of the up-to-date translations of the Greek

Scriptures, and you will find that these words are not as they are

translated at all. They have different meanings and we are finding

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that out, so hell is not what it used to be. V:c are not consigning

people to an everlasting hell where their souls will burn and fry

as a piece of asbestos forever. We know better. e know that heaven

and hell are conditions--states of rind. Did not Jesus Christ locate

the kingdom of heaven as within you? and the kingdom of heaven is

within you: and the other kingdon is within. We don't deny that there

is a hell, but it is within man.

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Jesus was free, and He said that "out of man cone evil, murders,

thefts, adulteries, fornications; these proceed out of the man."

If you are pouring out that hind of thoughts and conditions, isn't

that hell? Some people seem to think and act as if there would be

a certain satisfaction in going to hell. You don't have to go

there; you get it right now: but it is hell to remember all of those

things. You say, don't remember them. Cut them out of your mind

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and they disappear from your affairs. That is a fact, and that is

one of the greatest discoveries of this age.

7:e loot upon these discoveries that I have enurgerated to you

as great, wonderful; but the most wonderful discovery is coming

yet, and that is that man makes his conditions through the activity

of his mind. Ever since thought force was turned loose on this

earth, the nations expand their borders and kings totter on their

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thrones and old institutions pass away. Emerson saw the truth,

that true thoughts do produce changes in the world; and there has

never been a time in the world when there were so many changes as

there are now. I often think of this radio that we are using right

now, that my voice is going over, as an evidence of God's manifestation

in the world; that we can see in each of the departments of the radio

the hand of God, the voice of God. God owns all the radio stations

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in the world. All the radio stations in the universe belong to God.

Jesus the Christ, you might say, is the individual possessor, the

Son of God. He inherits from the Father, from the great Universal

Energy, these different broadcasting stations, and Jesus is the

Great Announcer. He announces to the world the truth of Christ.

That is the reason we call Him Christ Jesus; and the angels are the

performers, and we are the recipients.

Did you ever think that you are capable of receiving messages

from the great central broadcasting Station? You are. If you would

get still and tune in, you would find that you have within you these

receiving set tubes. re call them faculties of soul and body. There

are twelve of them. A twelve tube set is pretty high, and yet every

one of us has these telve tubes, and the Announcer must call into

expression fcr every one of us a Jesus. You know the great call

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word. Do you know what the letters are? G-0-D. You will find that

in every great crisis in your life, there is a call for God. "Oh. God!"

You are calling upon Central. You care calling upon this great

invisible rind, and it comes to you if you call from within. 1-.ut

some people call only when they are in great need, at the great

crises, sore tragedy. Then they call upon God. So our doctors,

when they have given un a case, say, "Only God can heal."

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Te have found in our Christian experience that we can practice

this receiving from the Great Central Station until we can receive

at will, by opening u- our spiritual faculties. Jesus, as 1 told

you, was the Caller. He called His disciples, and He could, through

those faculties, talk with God. So every one of us has this power

of awakening in us these faculties which were given us f2or the

beginning, and then we can tune in; and we can tune in just to the

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extent that we have awakened these inner powers of the mind. Some

people are listening with little crystal sets. They have not awakened

the innate faculties; they have not called their disciples, and they

get only very faint messages. Others have a one-tube set, some

two-tube sets, and so on, but very few of us have seven-tube sets

because we have not listened to this inner Power. Ve have not asked

God to be with us at all times. Te have been following Paul's

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injunction to be instant in prayer.

Prayer is calling upon the great radio mind of God and, as

I say, the call letters are G-0-D, and we should be using it every

day, every moment of the day. Ve should give our time to this inner

combat, this inner concentration of the mind, and then our minds

would become what God intended then to be--the great open way to

Him--because it is through the mind that we know God. So, let us,

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on this, almost the last day of the whole year, remember that the

Father has given us a great illumination. He has given us a great

capacity to know Him, the Omnipresent Source of wisdom, of love,

our justice, our righteousness, our health, our happiness, that God

has given to His Son. That Son is within every one of us. This

wonderful treasure house, this wonderful Spirit in us that can

express all good: but we must use it. It is given to us to use.

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V:e rust use these tools, and then they will increase and multiply

and bring us great rewards.

Te had in our responsive service a poem from Tennyson, "Ring

out the old, ring in the new." I suppose because it was read in

unison that our radio audience didn't get that, and I am just, in

conclusion this morning, going to read it to you, because it is

right up to date. It is something that we can use, not only on

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the last day, but on the first of the year, because it gives us

the key to the new possibilities in us.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snoT;

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

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Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

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• Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

And here is an added stanza written by Yrs. Fillmore:

Ring out the ignorance that holds

From man his sonship with the Light;

Ring in the unity of Good, UNITY SCHOOL OF CHRISTIANITY

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Ring in the da7 that has no night.