Charles Fillmore – The Metaphysics of Order
(From Unity magazine August, 1918)
A man who stands united with his thought conceives magnificently of himself.—Emerson.
The hand of God is upon all them that seek him for good.—Ezra 8:22.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this center.
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form.
Office and custom, in all line of order.—Shakespeare.
ALL SANE people acknowledge the necessity of observing some law in their daily living, but the great majority have a human standard. Now the whole race is awakening to the knowledge of a Higher Source, and more people are every day giving attention to the law of Spirit in their lives.
Order is heaven’s first law. When we receive more spiritual life it is necessary that it be put in right relation. If not so ordered, mental discord will ensue. This applies to all we do. Everything must be in order. If you affirm prosperity, that too must be brought into orderly conditions. You may be declaring life and prosperity and at the same time be holding some disorganizing thought. This will produce inharmony and discord in your affairs. Lack of orderly arrangement of thought is responsible for many delayed demonstrations. We find in the Scriptures constant reference in symbols, and also direct commands, to order as a fundamental law of the universe and of man. There must be order in the spiritual life as well as the material. All peoples have observed this, and especially the people of God. Paul said, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”
The whole world has changed in the last decade in the matter of order. Not so many years ago the average business man piled his letters together on his desk and had to tumble them all over to find what he wanted. Now he has a card index and he knows from a glance at the card just where to find the particular letter or paper that he wants.
You have probably all had experience with people who sell books, encyclopedias for instance, for one dollar down and one dollar a month as long as you live. These firms have a “follow-up” system. You get a nice letter telling you the merits of the book, and if you do not answer you get another one, in just one month, suggesting that you cannot get along without their book. If this letter is not heeded, a third one comes telling you that you simply cannot exist without that book. By this time, perhaps, the “follow-up” system has begun to take hold of you and you have a feeling that after all that book is an absolute necessity in your life. You have come under the spell of the “follow-up” suggestion system of the man behind the letter.
This orderly system of thought-suggestion is widely used in the business world, and unless you are strong in your own conviction as to what your needs are, you will be loaded up with many things for which you have no use. The remedy is, establish yourself in the spiritual law. You will come under one or the other of these laws, the man-made or the spiritual, and it is for you to choose which is best.
You want to know, then, the metaphysics of order. How shall you order your life by the Divine plan? By laying down as a truth that there is such a plan and by making it yours through affirming your oneness with the Omnipresent Divine Mind, in which that plan exists in its righteousness. Say: “I, as the offspring of God and his executive power, am one with his perfect wisdom now ordering my life into Divine Harmony.” Ask for—then affirm the Divine Order. Put yourself in touch with Spirit. Then you will come into consciousness of a new world in thought and act and find yourself doing many things differently, because the orderly mind that directs the universe is working through you. It will not be long until you break forth in original ways of doing many things; changes will come in the way you eat and dress, in the way you write your letters, and in everything that you do. A harmonious relation will be established in all of your ways. Things that were out of harmony will easily adjust themselves when you open the way in your mind for the manifestation of Divine Order.
There is an orderly procedure in bringing forth man, even in the material sense. The birth of Jesus Christ is an example. His coming was foretold and arranged beforehand. It was not left to chance. His mother “magnified” the Lord before he was born. This illustrates that it is necessary to have order from the very beginning. The bringing forth of John the Baptist is an example of the coming of another state of consciousness, and the necessity of law and order in prenatal culture.
The same law holds good in our houses and our food, in our daily intercourse with our fellows, in even the mottoes on our walls. Dr. Morgan, of London, was married when a young man, and his father, a strict religionist, came to see him. The father went all through the new home, then said to his son, “No man could tell whether this house was dedicated to God or the devil. There is nothing on the walls to indicate it.” Dr. Morgan says he saw the point and did not fail to have his wall mottoes express his loyalty to God. The power of the Word should be expressed in our houses. We should surround ourselves with words suggestive of spiritual things? If words count, and we know they do, should we not be careful of all, every idea, taken into consciousness through the eye as well as through the ear?
From their inception to their expression, words are important. The law is fulfilled not only in mind but in manifestation also. Every suggestion that enters the mind brings forth like expression in act. The time is coming when it will be unlawful to print in the daily papers any record of crime or of anything that will bring discord into the lives of readers. Recently I read of a man who committed a crime, and in his pocket was found a newspaper clipping describing almost identically the same criminal act. This was the fruit of suggestion. How many such suggestions does one large daily paper carry to its thousands of readers in its recital of the daily horrors that make up intense news? As the world comes more and more under the spiritual law, editors and publishers will not ask their readers what they want, but will give them what they should have for mental food. And as the people are raised to higher planes of consciousness they will demand reading of uplifting character. They will be just as careful what they read as they are now beginning to be of their foods. There will be the same demand for pure reading as for pure food. If it is against the law of thought to adulterate foods, how much more is it against the law of thought to adulterate the Truth. We can see the necessity of order and law according to Spirit. Every deteriorating thought should be kept out of our mental food, even more carefully than such elements are kept out of our material food.
This applies also to music. Is music in Divine Mind? Certainly. The religious tendency of man’s soul reaches out for expression in music. When our thoughts are in right relation, our nerves will not be twinged by inharmonious song. We bring about whatever we hold in thought. Our own does come to us. If we lay hold of Spirit only the Divine Harmony will be expressed in us, and the song celestial shall be sung by us.
This spiritual law is operative in food and clothing. If we think about order and harmony our taste in seeming material things will change. We will desire the purest foods, and there will be more harmony in the colors we choose to wear. “If God so clothe the lilies of the field will he not much more clothe you?” Some people think it impossible for man to be clothed like the lilies of the field. But if man stands above all creation has he not power to clothe himself in the richness and glory of Spirit? Out of the air we may manufacture the things we eat and wear. This is not a flight of fancy. Chemists are already considering the possibility. It is not an assumption of theoretical metaphysics that we may be able to make our food and clothing from the air, but a logical conclusion following the understanding of God as the Omnipresent Resource of all that appears. So long as we believe in the slow processes of what we call Nature, we shall place ourselves under that kind of a law. But if we know the spiritual law, and the power of the Word, we shall bring into operation in our lives an entirely different law. Where is the limit to the power of thought?
So let us begin anew, and lay down the law of order in all that we do. If there is a tendency to hurry, stop and affirm Divine Order and rest yourself in its poise. Geologists tell us that our world has been whirling around the sun for over five hundred million years, and that man has been on the planet for over fifty million years. So you see there is no hurry. Remember that you live in eternity now. This thought of omnipresent eternity will alleviate nervous tension. Put every thought and act under the Divine Law. Even if you think you are going to miss a car, do not hurry; another car will be right along, and if your mind is in Divine Order, it will be your car.
If you are disorderly and indefinite along any line, put yourself at once under the Order of Divine Mind, by affirming daily that the same Law that swings the stars in the cushioned ethers, is operative in and through your life and all your affairs.
The End