What Charles Fillmore Said About Jesus Christ
§3 We believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God made manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, who overcame death, and who is now with us in His perfect body as the Way-shower in regeneration for all men.
Meditation in the Silence
1. Choose a time and a place where you will be alone and undisturbed for at least 20 minutes.
2. Assume a comfortable position so that there is no feeling of tension or strain in your body.
3. If sitting, place both feet flat upon the floor. Put your hands comfortably in your lap with either both palms up to receive blessings, or with the left palm up and the right down to receive and give a blessing.
4. Close your eyes, be still, and relax.
5. Focus your attention upon your head and begin to relax the muscles in your scalp, face, and neck. Say softy or silently:
In the name of Jesus Christ relax, relax, relax,
Peace, be still; wait upon the Ijord only.
6. When you are ready, move your attention to trunk, arms and legs and repeat:
In the name of Jesus Christ relax, relax, relax. Peace, be still; wait upon the Lord only.
7. Now bring your attention to the throat and the power center where the creative Word is forming to give life, substance, and intelligence to your declared word of faith. Affirm softly and then several times silently:
Jesus Christ is my way-shower and my guide; I open my mind and my life to his inspiration and guidance.
8. Rest in the silence letting the affirmation reveal its Truth to you.
9. When you are ready, return your awareness first to your physical body, and then to your surroundings as you re-enter your world.
In some schools of thought there is a controversy as to whether or not Jesus ever really lived. Unity has not been part of this controversy. Unity has always accepted that Jesus was a real man who lived and taught in the world. There has been a similar controversy concerning Shakespeare and whether he wrote what has been attributed to him. Some believe it was Francis Bacon who created the Shakespearean works. What difference would it make whether Shakespeare wrote himself or if Bacon wrote Shakespeare? The work itself still stands no matter who wrote it. The same is true of the Jesus controversy. The most important part is that the teaching itself stands as a light to the world. However, Unity has consistently taught that Jesus is both an historical character and a metaphor for man raised in consciousness out of human limitation into the awareness of the divine spirit which is his true nature.
Many years ago a dear friend arranged a song for Robert Schuller’s choir at the Crystal Cathedral. The words were written by James Allen Francis who called his poem, One Solitary Life.
Jesus Christ never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today He is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the columns of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that ever were built,
All the parliaments that have ever sat, and all the kings that have ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as that ONE SOLITARY LIFE.
First was God, then the Christ, and now Jesus. In his own time Jesus was never called Jesus Christ nor was he called Christ Jesus. It wasn’t until many years after the resurrection that he was referred to as Jesus Christ. He had always been known as Jesus of Nazareth.
In this statement we affirm our belief in the great role Jesus has played in the spiritual evolution of mankind. Jesus, the son of man, recognized the spiritual perfection and divine Self (the Son of God) within himself and everyone to such a degree that his spiritual nature (the Christ) overshadowed his humanness (Jesus). From this consciousness of the spiritual nature of man, he performed what appear to be miracles to human eyes, in other’s lives as well as his own. He became our way-shower by blazing this path and saying, “Follow me.” (Luke 9:23) He knew that we could because we have the same essence, the Christ within, just as he.
In his address at the opening of the Unity Conference in 1928 Charles Fillmore said:
“But,” you say, “Jesus is gone.” I assure you that he has not gone. He is in our midst today. He has been seen again and again standing on this platform, and we absolutely know that he is in the fourth dimension, that he has a body. He has the same body that you would have if you would reconstruct your body as he reconstructed his. I tell you that Jesus Christ is in our midst and Jesus Christ is the head of this Unity work.... By following what Jesus taught and demonstrated we can so raise our spiritual awareness that we transcend anv limitations perceived from our previous human viewpoint. We unify Spirit, soul, and body in spiritual oneness and experience the “more abundant” life that Jesus promised.
Jesus did not claim to have the exclusive supernatural power that is usually credited to Him. He bad explored the ether energy, which He called the ‘kingdom of the heavens’; His understanding was beyond that of the average man, but He knew that other men could do what He did if thy would only try. He encouraged His followers to take Him as a center of faith and use the power of thought and word.
—Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind, page 10.
Jesus was the great way-shower to the attainment of this realisation of Spirit, and we shall miss “the prise of the high calling” if we do not enter the path that He trod and that He pointed out in many parables, illustrations, and experiences.
—Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind, page 152.
Instead of thinking of the Lord as the personal Jesus Christ who is away in some distant place called heaven, begin to think of the Lord as your own God-given Christ Mind, and as Jesus Christ as ever with you in the spiritual consciousness which he has established.
—Myrtle Fillmore in Neal Vahle, Torch-Bearer To Light The Way, page 56.