What Charles Fillmore Said About We Live Move and Have Our Being in God
§17 We believe that m live, move, and have our being in God mind; also that God mind lives, moves, and has being in us, to the extent of our consciousness.
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 softly or silently:
In the name of Jesus Christ relax, relax, relax. Peace, be still; wait upon the Lord 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 sofdy and then several times silently:
I am in the Father, and the Father is in me; there will never be a time or place where I am separatedfrom God’s abiding presence.
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.
This paragraph contains one of the more difficult points for most of us to accept—that God-mind is within us. We may say easily that God is everywhere present, but to fully realize it is a different matter. The fact that God-mind is within us demonstrates the distinct difference between the teachings of Jesus Christ and other teachings. Jesus said, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me... (John 14:11). Other philosophers and teachers have looked outside, to the world of effects for learning, while Jesus looked within himself. There are extremes of these two perspectives. One may believe that everything is found in the outer world, while another believes that all is within himself. But there is a point of balance between the two. Only in conscious union with God can we declare, “I am God.” One drop of ocean water cannot in Truth declare itself the entire ocean unless it is in perfect unity with all other drops of the ocean.
Jesus constantly went to the Father within to keep himself charged with spiritual energy. Since God is everywhere present and “lives, moves, and has being in us,” then we do not need to go anywhere to receive spiritual light, energy, wisdom, guidance, life, substance, love, health and wholeness. It is found right where we are if we have the spiritual “eyes” to look.
The last phrase of this paragraph, “to the extent of our consciousness,” requires some qualification because it is not absolutely true. If God only lived in us according to our consciousness, we would have been dead a long time ago. There are times when people say, “I feel like I am going to die!” and they do not die; sometimes they say, “I feel like I am losing my mind!” yet do not lose it. We may cut ourselves off in thought and belief from God’s presence, but God cannot separate Itself from any part of Its creation even for an instant or that part of creation would wink out of existence. What we cut ourselves off from is the fullness of the experience of God-life, but we cannot cut the cord completely. No matter how difficult we make our experience, even in the suffenng and loneliness, God is there waiting for the opening which occurs when we remember who and what we really are—children of the Infinite.
Remember the Truth of Being: we have but one source and we can never be separated from that source even for an instant. Though never separate, we sometimes experience a “sense of separation” as a result of our thoughts and beliefs, just as there is only one air—hot or cold, fresh or stale—so there is only one mind. One person does not have a mind and another a separate mind. Each has consciousness in the one Mind, a point of awareness within Universal Mind. Because this is true, we have access to all wisdom, knowledge, and ideas within Divine Mind. The I Am or Christ is God-mind individualized. Christ in you is your individuality while what you allow to express through you of the Christ is your personality witnessed by the world.
The Unity Correspondence Course material says:
Paul (referring to his statement “in him we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28) was endeavoring to make clear to the people of Athens that God is a living presence and power, the cause or originating essence of all life as well as the sustenance of ever)’ living creature during its existence in a bodily form...[and that] God was an everywhere present intelligent, all pervading Spirit substance, a Mind essence, in which was inherent all the possibilities of God, all the ideas of Divine Mind.
—Series 1, Lesson 1, Annotation 8.
Between God and man alone is there no difference, no separation, but oneness.
—Meister Eckert.
... Being is always present. Mortal ignorance and lack op faith prevent our realisation of this truth.
—Charles Fillmore, Christian Healing, page 67.
In Beingyou cannot shirk expression. To think is to express, and you are doing that without cessation.
—Charles Fillmore, Jesus Christ Heals, page 131.
By quieting the mental man, by passing through the discipline of intellectual silence, man arrives at the very threshold of God’s workshop, the threshold of Being.
—Cora and Charles Fillmore, Teach Us To Pray, page 24.