Charles Sherlock Fillmore Quotes

When we have purified our mind and body and cast out every evil thought, our body will become transparent to human sight, as is Jesus' body. The idea that a transparent body is thin air, a ghost, is wholly wrong. Science says that the invisible electrical units composing the atom are millions of times more powerful than any visible thing. When the atomic energy in the atomic bomb was released great cities were destroyed.

All growth and unfoldment from atom to sun is based upon this law of soul urge. What you earnestly desire and persistently affirm will be yours, if you "faint not."

When we frame our desires in sound words and place them before our indwelling Lord, we are using intelligently the supreme law of God in bringing into manifestation that which He has implanted in us. A prayer without desire in it, a prayer without sincerity in it, a prayer without soul in it, a prayer without Spirit in it is a fruitless prayer.

We have been so persistently taught that prayer consists in asking God for some human need that we have lost sight of our spiritual identity and have become a race of praying beggars.

We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop killing animals for food.

When Jesus' disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray He warned them against making a display of their praying in order to be seen of men. They should retire to their "inner chamber" and pray to the Father who sees in secret and rewards openly. Then He said, "After this manner therefore pray."

The laws instituted in the aeons and ages of the past still prevail in the present. Interpreting Being from a personal standpoint, we have ignored the principles and laws at the very foundation of all creation and substituted a personal God, and many contradictions have followed. Now through the unfoldment of the spiritual man implanted in us in the beginning we are discerning the unchangeable laws of the good and the absolute necessity of conforming to them.

Understanding shows us that prayer is more than asking God for help in this physical world; it is in its highest sense the opening up in our soul of an innate spiritual umbilical cord that connects us with the Holy Mother, from whom we can receive a perpetual flow of life. This is the beginning of eternal life for both soul and body, the essential teaching of Jesus, which He demonstrated in overcoming death. We have earnestly sought to know and tell others how to pray, and this book is our very best exposition of the subject.

No extended definition of good is necessary to those who follow Jesus; even converted savages understand good and do it.

God is Spirit in whom we "live, and move, and have our being." We are the offspring of this Spirit and can make conscious contact with it by turning our attention away from material things and thinking about Spirit. As we practice this kind of prayer our innate Spirit showers its life energies into our conscious mind and a great soul expansion follows.

Jesus revealed the mind of the Father. This mind is the life and intelligence of man as well as the substance that provides for all his needs. This providing power of the Father Jesus brought out prominently, and He showed in various ways how easy it is to obtain supply by trusting God. This teaching is not an encouragement to man to be idle, but rather to be active and trustful, constantly looking to Spirit instead of matter as the source of his good. p. 182

The Lord's Prayer was given as a sample: not to be followed literally... according to Fenton's translation it is a series of affirmations, as follows:
Our Father in the Heavens; Your Name must be being hallowed; Your kingdom must be being restored; Your will must be being done, both in Heaven and upon the Earth.
Give us to-day our tomorrow's bread;
And forgive us our faults, as we forgive those offending us, for You would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from its evil.

Language has not yet been invented to tell all the wonders that we have found since we began opening our minds to the Spirit in prayer. We have discovered enough to convince us that the body can be so charged with spiritual life through prayer that it will overcome death, as promised by Jesus Christ.

As in all matters where we seek divine help we are free to use any words we choose or no words at all...Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed... Prayer in man is a conscious expression of the upward trend of nature found everywhere. So every impulse or desire of the soul for life, love, light, is a prayer.

The universal desire among awakened Christians to love God and man is part of the law constantly operating through man when he finds his right relation to God.