"Overcoming the Thought of Lack"
from Charles Fillmore's book "Prosperity"

THE KINGDOM of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was filled, they drew up on the beach; and they sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but the bad they cast away."

         The mind of man is like the net catching every kind of idea, and it is man's privilege and duty under the divine law to separate those that are good from those which are not good. In this process the currents of unselfish, spiritual love flowing through the soul act as great eliminators, freeing the consciousness of thoughts of hate, lack, and poverty, and giving the substance of Spirit free access into the consciousness and affairs.

         In another parable Jesus explained the same process as a separation of the sheep from the goats. When this divine current of love and spiritual understanding begins its work, we must make this separation. We put the sheep, the good and obedient and profitable thoughts, on the right, and we put the goats, the stubborn, selfish, useless thoughts, on the [Page 174] left. Each must handle his own thoughts and overcome them by aligning them with the harmony and order of the divine thought. There is an infinite, omnipresent wisdom within us that will deal with these thoughts and guide us in making the discrimination between the right and the wrong when we trust ourselves fully to its intelligence. We can establish a connection between the conscious mind and the superconscious mind within us by meditation, by silence, and by speaking the word.

         The superconscious mind within you discriminates among the kinds of food you assimilate, controls your digestion, your breathing, and the beating of your heart. It "doeth all things well," and it will help you do this important work of directing you in the thoughts you should hold and the ones you should cast out. As you develop this mind within yourself you will find that you can gradually turn over more and more of your affairs to its perfect discrimination. Nothing is too great for it to accomplish, nor is anything too trivial for it to handle with perfection and dispatch. This mind of the Spirit will guide you in perfect ways, even in the minute details of your life, if you will let it do so. But you must will to do its will and trust it in all your ways. It will lead you unfailingly into health, happiness, and prosperity, as it has done and is doing for thousands, if and when you follow it.

          It is just as necessary that one should let go of old thoughts and conditions after they have served their purpose as it is that one should lay hold of [Page 175] new ideas and create new conditions to meet one's requirements. In fact we cannot lay hold of the new ideas and make the new conditions until we have made room for them by eliminating the old. If we feel that we cannot part with the goats, we shall have to do with fewer sheep. If we insist on filling the vessels with the bad fish, we shall have to do without the good. We are learning that thoughts are things and occupy "space" in mind. We cannot have new or better ones in a place already crowded with old, weak, inefficient thoughts. A mental house cleaning is even more necessary than a material one, for the without is but a reflection of the within. Clean the inside of the platter, where the food is kept as well as the outside that people see, taught Jesus.

        Old thoughts must be denied and the mind cleansed in preparation before the affirmative Christ consciousness can come in. Our mind and even our body is loaded with error thoughts. Every cell is clothed with thought: every cell has a mind of its own. By the use of denial we break through the outer crust, the material thought that has enveloped the cells, and get down into the substance and the life within them. Then we make contact with that substance and life which our denials have exposed, and by it express the positive, constructive side of the law. When we consistently deny the limitations of the material, we begin to reveal the spiritual law that waits within ourselves to be fulfilled. When this law is revealed to our consciousness, we begin to use it to demonstrate all things that are good.
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That is the state of consciousness that Jesus had, the Christ consciousness.

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Charles Fillmore