Sermons of Charles Fillmore

The transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain is typical of a change that goes on in the regeneration of man. It precedes that great change that comes when man leaves the natural, mortal plane and enters into the eternal spiritual plane of consciousness. Now if we read this spiritually and it is a symbolical representation of what might take place in the outer but if we read it in the Spirit and get spiritual understanding we will get benefit from it in our everyday life. Especially if we are seeking to follow the ritual laid down here in this Bible.

This Bible points the way to a great spiritual transition for man. It is progressive in every way. If you read between the lines and know what the symbol means you will see that it has a practical lesson for you and will show you what you are passing through and what you may attain if you persist in the work you are doing. That is the spiritual development of your soul.

Now the soul has to be raised to a high state of consciousness and in this ascent of the soul we get a new kind of manifestation in the body. We do not always take our bodies with us in our spiritual ascent and in this we fall short because the body is the house in which you keep your dynamo. You have need of a body and you have need of a soul but above all you have need of the spiritual quickening that sets the machinery into action.

Now we read in the lesson this morning that Jesus went up in the mountain with his disciples. This going up into a mountain has a significance because we all in our higher moments ascend or look up or think about higher things. And it is found by metaphysicians that we really throw our attention into the top brain and we begin to function in higher vibration as force goes out and it is of a more attenuated form than when you ordinarily think about your daily affairs. So that the mind or the I Am in us does run, we might say, the whole gamut of the body in its expression of its innate powers.

When you are thinking along sensual lines you will descend down into the valley and you will function through the organic structure in the very lowest part of your organism, and when you think in a loving way you go midway between the two and go up into the solar plexus. If you watch your feelings, and, especially when you are in silent prayer you will find that you will be able to discern these various planes of consciousness; you will feel, after a time, the rate of vibration or I might say, the wave length that goes out from the dynamic power. Then we all do have what is called the mountain of the Lord.

In the very beginning of this scripture you will find that when a great revelation came to men, especially Moses, he went up into the mountain. The ten commandments were received from Mt. Sinai and that was the mountain of the Lord. That man, that Moses, went up into the higher consciousness and received this inspiration and he wrote down what he had received. So that the mountain of the Lord, Isaiah tells us about the mountain of the Lord---beautiful are the feet upon the mountain of those that bring good tidings.

Now in the life of Jesus Christ there is constant reference to the mountain and some of the situations are such that we must conclude that this mountain is a symbolical thing. In the lesson today we are told,---studying the geography of the situation,---that the nearest mountain from the place in which Jesus had performed his miracles and preached his previous sermon, was 26 miles away. And the mountain that people usually ascribe this miracle to, Horab, is something more than that away. Now would it be reasonable that Jesus would walk that far with his disciples just to go up on the mountain? We know that that is symbolical. We are told in a previous illustration where Jesus was tempted by Satan and Satan took him up on the pinnacle of the temple and then up on a high mountain that this was all done in the wilderness. Now it must be that Satan has mountains. Satan represents the intellectual man. The intellect has its high moments, its big ideals, and that means the mountain. So the religions man, the spiritual man, the Christ man, has its mountain.

Sometimes Jesus went down into the valley. That means that he came down in consciousness. You have a high perception; you see spiritually, and then you come down into the relation which that spiritual vision has to your outer condition. So this place that Jesus went apart, in applying lt to your own life, is the high prayer and you begin to think about spiritual things, why you need to make a contact that will bring a definite result. In other words you must, whether you have attained that high consciousness, realize that God is Spirit, that God is here, that you are being lifted up in spiritual consciousness. Then ask. Going up into this mountain might be compared to going into what Jesus called the inner closet. This mountain of the Lord is the universal spiritual consciousness but the inner closet is your own individual consciousness. So we find that there are two attitudes of mind and there are a great many attitudes of mind that the metaphysician discovers. But you need to pray. Prayer as I say is something that a great many people think they do not need, and especially certain men who hare been brought up in the worldly way. They do not know anything about prayer and they don't need it in their business. They do. The time always comes when a man needs to pray.

All great men and our leaders when you sift them down you will find that they pray. Washington wasn’t known as a praying man, yet we are told in history that at Valley Forge when he was at the last extremity and all his soldiers were ragged and hungry and it was in the midst of winter and everything seemed to be going against him, right there at Valley Forge he got down on his knees and prayed and he came out. A higher power came in. So Abraham Lincoln in the civil war when he was up against a proposition very much like that--- there were enemies right in the White House, right in the midst of his daily work, enemies on every side and Lincoln prayed. He is not known as a praying man but as you read his history you find that he believed in God and he prayed and he had his leadings and his visions and his dreams. In other words he knew; he had practiced somewhere in some incarnation this silent entry into the presence of the Spirit. So we find that prayer is common to people who really know and understand. Great minds must have attained that greatness through meditation, through seeking out the source of being. That is what prayer is. It is the recognition that there is a higher realm, that things didn't happen, that they came by law, and that that law is now operative and that that law as a law has a law maker, and that is called God. It is that omnipresent, animated intelligence that moves everything. Make contact with it. If that is true, if you can logically see that is true, put it into practice. You can't succeed in this world without that. And you can have the proof that when you pray aright there is a principle and spiritual quality that will be quickened in you.

Now this is the lesson today. Jesus took his disciples and those disciples represent what might be called the inner circle, Peter and James and John. You will find that nearly all of Jesus' miracles and great work that when he did them he had those three disciples with him. That means that there are certain qualities of mind in man that are necessary to do the work, to express the power of' the Spirit. You must have faith which represents Peter. You must have love. That is the, accumulative, harmonizing, centralizing power within you, and you must have James representing wisdom. These three, Faith, love, and wisdom, this inner circle, you take up into your higher consciousness but they are not yet spiritualized. As you pray, as you ascend in. your consciousness and realize and affirm the truth of your being, you set free, or you through your attention make a union with what might be called all the electrons in your soul.

Now the soul is made up of higher electrons. I am trying to get this down now to everyday practical terms so we can get it into action. The soul is made up of electrons. So the body is, but the body has been materialized. Through our thoughts we have slowed down the action of these electrons. The nearer we get to the truth of the thing the less we find of the material. The material is gradually being dissolved and we are coming into that living energy which exists here. The very ether is charged with this energy. It is the radiation that makes the life and the power. All come through this energy, infinite, omnipresent energy, and as I said a little while ago our minds and bodies make the dynamo and when we enter into the consclousness of this inner mind and appreciate what it is, we glorify it. Now glorify it means to magnify it and when we in our minds magnify that mind that recognition of it, what is the result? Why we close the door. Just like if I want to turn on the light here I would touch the button and you are touching the button when you pray in secret, when you pray aright, and what is the result? Just the result that is described here. Jesus' face was glorified, illumined, and his very garments became glistening and white and disciples, that is the faculties, were astounded. They were at first afraid and did not understand it.

Do we find any parallel in our daily life? Are you ever glorified when you pray? Well we don't usually look in the mirror when we are praying. We are intent upon something else, we are not looking from the vanity side of life but I assure you your face is transformed when you really pray. If you pray with that intensity, that spiritual uplift which is included in true prayer you aro glorified, you are transformed. So we are all going through this glorification of soul and body, because your face does express what you are thinking, no doubt about that. And if you are thinking exalted thoughts, if you are lifted up on this high mountain of spiritual consciousness, you will begin to radiate, in other words the electrons that make up your soul are quickened with a new spiritual life and the abmddown (p25) electrons of the body are also quickened. You will increase your circulation through prayer. You increase your vitality. It is better than eating vitamins in vegetables and meats and all those things that we read so much about. It is a shorter process. It will give you vital energy quicker and stronger and more enduring than you could possibly get through food or any kind. Because you get the direct current. Now we see beautiful people who are not beautiful from the artistic standpoint. What is it making them beautiful? It is the quality of their souls. How did they get that glory? By meditation upon glory. By thinking loving thoughts, by serving, doing His word. In other words, it is the carving on the marble because the material concept we have of ourselves as to our body is almost a marble. But the soul has such power that it can glorify and radiate itself through that material.

You have often read the work of Whittier. Now Whittier it is said was a very homely man yet his face fairly shone. That was a common remark that people made about him. Now his face shone, what was that? It was the spiritua1 consciousness that he had in his writings and his thoughts making his soul so transfigured. He was on the mount of transfiguration. Lincoln was the homliest man that ever lived, it is said, and yet his face shone. He was the most attractive man. He was the center of attention always in his circle because he had that Soul quality, and I am sure that Lincoln prayed a great deal more than history tells us. He undoubtedly was a praying man.

It is said that the face of Philips Brooks fairly glowed when he was calling to sinners from the pulpit and you have doubtless seen a few years ago Maud Ballington Booth when she was preaching. Her face glowed so you could feel it. A wonderful woman. So this spiritual quality which we get through the contact with the infinite mind does transform the man. It is a transformation that goes on in all of us.

Now what relation did that transfiguration have to the execution of Jesus in Jerusalem? We are told in this text that he spoke of his decease which was soon to take place in Jerusalem. What does that symbolize? Why this transfiguration or this transformation of the man through prayer was, well I might say, a tryout of the great transformation or that great ascent into the spiritual consciousness, not only in soul but in body, which Jesus went through. But he had to go make these tryouts. It didn't come just through a miracle. It didn't come through anything except experience repeated over and over. And Jesus in this lesson was showing us that he was looking forward in a way to a great transformation in which not only his soul but his body should be turned into well we call it the fourth dimension or into the ether, that he should overcome all the limitations of matter. And here was an experience in mind that was taking place and we are told that he got the consciousness. He said: "This prefigures or precedes a great transformation in which I shall permanently go into the fourth dimension or I shall enter into the ether, not only with my soul but I will take my body." Now that decease that he spoke of, his decease, is wrong. That is the wrong translation. You look in the Greek and you will find that it means exodus. He was speaking of his exodus which was to take place in Jerusalem. In other words he was to pass out of the material into the spiritual, not through death.

He is alive and yet the majority of the followers of Jesus Christ constantly talk about his death on the cross. He didn't die at all, did he? He overcame death. That is the whole secret of Christianity from Genesis to Revelations that through sin man entered into death and through Jesus Christ we are lifted out of that. Paul says that if Jesus didn’t raise himself up from the dead your hope is in vain. If Jesus didn't overcome death the whole plan of Christianity fails. It has no foundation. He was the great demonstrator and so we must not talk about his decease that he was going up to Jerusalem to die. He was going up to Jerusalem to demonstrate life. But he went through the appearance in passing out of this material consciousness of the body into an everlasting, eternal body. He had to go through the process.

We find that the old theory is reversed. We come out of the Spirit into material conditions and we go back along the same road. The same things seem to be passing on the way, but we must not give up to the idea that somebody has to die. There is no such thing as death in the Spirit and when Jesus saw that he was giving an illustration he was illustrating to those faculties of his own mind that they must raise up to this higher consciousness, and did they all come up at once? No, we are told that they were heavy with sleep. In other words the subconscious faculty although we recognize that we must have this wisdom, we must understand this, we must have faith in it, but maybe we don't have a great deal of faith. He had to be reprimanded again and again for his lack of faith yet Peter represents faith. And we don’t have as much love as we need. In other words those faculties are really asleep in us, aren't they? You will find that you will frequently rise away above your manifest expression.

Man is a threefold being. Now there is the spiritual consciousness: and then there is the intellectual or the coming man, the man that is growing in his consciousness, and the body man. Now you will have (to) synchronize and harmonize these in a well balanced development and as I say Jesus was right here lifting up those faculties that were asleep and when they did get awake there was a cloud around them. There was that obscure condition that we often find when we want to know more than we really can line out and definitely express. We are constantly asking: “Why can't I have more of this wonderful revelation? Why can't I (__pg 37____) it more definitely to affairs?" That is the cloud that obscures vou. You have something to learn.

Now you will find that Peter in his enthusiasm said “Now let us make three tabernacles; one for Moses and one for Elijah and one for Jesus.” The text explains that he didn’t know what he was talking about. He was trying to hold the old conditions in the new, don't you see? He didn't realize that the animating spirit was a unity that it was one Spirit. He thought that those were three personalities. According to Jesus Elijah, who died nine hundred years before, was incarnated in John the Baptist and yet Peter thought that that vision that he had of Elijah was the real man. Elijah simply represented there an executive power in the man, a spiritual execution. Moses represented the law. He used the law, the negative law. We call it the law of denial. To deny away all those old limited conditions that are set forth in the old Bible. Jesus did that.

Now he recognized the law and yet he recognized it that he might put another and a higher law into action. You do not believe everything that is in this Old Testament and follow it. You do not have to reconcile it with your life. If you do you will be up against a hard proposition. Jesus recognized the law and he said: “We will change this law." In other words, instead of giving up to the law as it was under the old dispensation he simply changed it around. He said: "It is written in your law an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say unto you that you love one another. Do good to your enemies; help those that persecute you. If a man ask anything of you give it to him. If he wants your cloak give him your cloak also. If he asks you to go a mile with him go two in." In other words give up some of those things you are clinging to. That is the law of the new dispensation. We must eliminate selfishness. Get of the little man and get into the great man of the Spirit so you will realize every step along the way you must forge ahead; you must quit holding on to personality. Even your spiritual faith man wanted to make three tabernacles or three booths as it is in the original. Peter wanted to build three little booths, that is the way it is in the original. That means he wanted to abide in that consciousness. What he needed was to go ahead, to know that there was something larger to follow that that was only a step. As you get this illumination begin to feel this wonderful power of the Spirit. Don't think this is the limit of it.