life is consciousness by Emmet Fox

I feel it a great honor to have the opportunity to speak at unity headquarters as Charles Fillmore has said I feel very familiar with unity message for I have read it for over 30 years. Of course that is giving myself away quite a bit but people always give themselves away sooner or later. So it may as well be sooner. I have lived all my life in London until recently being there. I suppose about 4,500 miles from Kansas City gave me the opportunity to realize how far-flung this work has been. I doubt a few people here at unity realize how great and how large the unity work is. The truth movement as we call it is the most important in the world today. The truth movement which centers in the belief in the omnipresence and availability of God is the most important thing in the world because it is the only thing that can save the world. Nothing else can. Everything else has been tried.

People have tried to build up might and power and have used them to wreck themselves; people have built up intellectual power especially since the Renaissance education has been. Intellectual people are surprised when you tell them that there is another kind of education. Those of us who have had the advantages of a higher education know the so-called intellectual study gives very little help and the practical business of living. This truth movement comes along takes hold of people changes them: restores health if that has been lost; restores estate if that has been lost ; restores self-respect if that has been lost; It puts people on their feet and shows that if there is something worth living for among the various sections of the present - a truth movement. Unity is probably the most important. Your work is practical- it has the character and quality of Jesus Christ because it is kind play and friendly. You do not put fear into people. When they come, you tell them that God is the only power; you tell them to relax become quiet and turn to that power that is the highest message you can teach.

 I am one of Mr. Fillmore's spiritual children.So I just thought I would say that before getting onto the thing which I actually came to say. I am NOT speaking to the general public now but to people who are devoting their lives to the study and expression of this truth.

I think it is well we remind ourselves what it is that we really believe and have. The answer is that we have the key to life. We do not just approach life from a particular angle as other schools of healing do. We have the key to life and that key is that life is a state of consciousness- the explanation of all your problems, the explanation of all difficulties and the explanation of your triumphs and life boils down to this -life is a state of consciousness- that is the beginning and the end that is the final step in metaphysics. All the other steps lead up to that Isaac Pennington a Quaker said all truth is a shadow but the last truth and the last truth is that life is consciousness.

You are and you have and you do in accordance with your consciousness that is the beginning and the end. There are other ways of looking at life which are superficially correct but ultimately the final truth is that your state, your life is a state of consciousness. Your so called physical body is the embodiment of a part of your consciousness; your home is the embodiment of another part of your consciousness; the kind of work you are doing whether you are in work which you love or work which you hate is the expression of your consciousness at that point ; the kind of people you meet and the people you attract into your life are the expressions of your consciousness about your fellow human beings. If you came to me and told me that you can't get on with people, I would tell you to get a card about the size of a postcard and write this on it 'like attracts like' then put it inside your closet where other members of your family won't see it because when you are grumbling and finding fault they could point their fingers which would be very embarrassing. So put your card inside the closet . People come to me and say if you only knew the kind of family I have, if you only knew the kind of people I have to be with and work with, I say the law of being says like attracts like. The ultimate explanation is that life is a state of consciousness unless you change your state of consciousness nothing else can change. All trouble, all disappointment, all depression ,all limitation is the state of consciousness. people are trying to change outer conditions but leaving their consciousness unchanged and it cannot be done.

The only fundamental way to change things is to change your consciousness because you always must and always will get the conditions that belong to your consciousness. You cannot cheat nature, you can drag to you through willpower certain things that do not belong to you but you can only keep them for a short time. The moment you take your hands off , they fly away. That was the real cause of the financial collapse of 1929. The prosperity that had been built was not true prosperity. people had been gambling on the stock market and had attracted or dragged themselves prosperity that they were not entitled to by right of consciousness and of course they could not keep it. The same thing applies to health, you can compel a certain part of the body to picture health for a short time but if you do not have the consciousness of health you cannot keep it. you heal a person of rheumatism and he has sciatica; you heal him of that and he has trouble with his sight; you heal his sight and his lungs weaken and so on. These are not healings they are temporary cures because they are attempts to put into the body something that doesn't belong there by reason of justice. When you want to solve your problems or change your life, you can see at once that the only way to change yours is to change your consciousness. Nothing can come to you permanently; nothing can stay with you permanently except what you are entitled to by your consciousness. Emerson said no man and no institution was ever rotten down or torn down by anything but itself. People may slander you but no one can hurt you except yourself.

Nothing can rocket Church or a center or a movement or a country except itself. A woman said I started a center and everything went beautifully until some horrible person spoiled everything. I replied you are the horrible person who spoiled your center because if you started a Center and it didn't succeed then you did not have a right consciousness for that work. you should have changed your consciousness until you did have a good Center and then nobody else could have spoiled it for you, your body, your home, your city, your country.

The universe is a picture of Consciousness; your private life out pictures your own Consciousness; the national life is the out picturing of the national consciousness; so you see how foolish it is to try to change the outer picture without changing the inner consciousness. People come to me and say I am broke, I need a hundred thousand dollars, I need the money or I have had a quarrel with somebody which usually means that they expect the other person to bend to their will and come crawling for forgiveness. they say put these things right, I say change your consciousness. I do not treat for money, I do not patch up quarrels like that but I do help you change your consciousness. some of them smile and say oh no my consciousness is really quite good, other people are to blame- my mother or my sister. I answer no. The real trouble is in your consciousness and all the time you are trying to work on outer things and leaving your consciousness unchanged. No permanent good can come to you. The movies came to the big cities first and finally arrived in a remote mining camp in the Rockies the picture was announced and the tent was put up, the residents had never been to a movie. the tent was packed with cowboys and miners and at a given moment, during the showing of a blood curdling melodrama -the villain began to choke the heroine, a cowboy in the front row pulled out his gun and fired six shots into the villain. Everyone laughed because in those days the gunshot didn't mean much, there were only a few bullet holes in the screen. and of course the picture went on as scheduled. Why do we laugh at the cowboy? you all laughed. you know what should he have done instead of firing at the screen. he should have turned around and fired into the projector that would have stopped the picture too often you try to change other things instead of changing the inner you are firing at the screen instead of the projector so nothing happens but when you start to change your consciousness you are firing at the projector and then things happen. If you don't like the picture on the screen, change the reel; if you don't like the picture you were seeing and would like to see some other you wouldn't get a cloth and try to rub it off as if from a blackboard you would take out that reel and put in the reel you want.

The scientific way to approach life if you do not like the picture you are getting is to change the reel. How do we change the reel? by rising in consciousness. The only real healers are practical ones. I have met a few theoretical healers. I have met people who told me just how healing should be done- they understood the theory, they knew how it should be done but couldn't do it. They were purely theoretical.

The way to meet a problem is to raise your consciousness. If you do, the problem disappears. in the Bible the valleys always stand for trouble, sin, limitation, the mountain for uplifted thought and prayer for understanding. we must go up into the mountain, we must raise our conscious. Most people who have a problem concentrate on the problem they take it to bed with them and stay awake all night, thinking it over. let go of the problem, rise above it in consciousness. How can you do this? Go up quickly in a flash if you can but you can't always do it that way you will find that by reading the Bible or some available spiritual book or unity publication or by repeating some favorite hymn, your consciousness will rise. If a diver go to the bottom of the sea he wears lead shoes but if he wants to come up to the surface of the water quickly, he kicks off the lead shoes then he rises rapidly. When we rise in consciousness, we kick off our shoes and then we begin to be healed, where the patient begins to be healed but you have to heal the consciousness. There is no other way.

The great key to consciousness lies in the word which unity has been teaching. In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being John 1:1 3, the first chapter of John is a reflection of the first chapter of Genesis. the Greek word logos means the great creative word. the great creative word is I am. it is the secret of life. We are given it into tirana me and Jesus identified himself with it. Jesus was a great reader of psalms in Isaiah and Deuteronomy the key to life is not somewhere outside of life. you can't go up to it. no great seer or saint will go up and bring it down for you. It is not thousands of miles across the sea, it is with you all the time. it is the great secret all through history. Humankind has felt intuitively that there is a way out if only it can be found. All the old fairy tales tell the story again and again. Aladdin had a wonderful lamp, he rubbed it and received the things he wanted. You know about Cinderella- she was in the kitchen, miserable and unhappy like so many others and then something happened: a pumpkin turned into a carriage and a pair of white rats turned into white horses and so on. But there must have been a change in Cinderella's consciousness first. Men and women have always felt intuitively that there is a way out that it is not necessary to be angry and mean and resentful and bitter; that it is not necessary to grow old and die; that it is not necessary to fight and grab for property and food. What is life worth if living is to be a constant struggle for necessities? Men and women have always known that there is a way out if only they can find it. They have always known that God means all life to be noble and creative and joyous. It is true . The way out lies in the spoken word in the Bible. The word means any definitely formulated thought not just the drifting thought that floats through your mind. the word is creative and the strongest and most creative of words is I am. When you say I am, you are calling upon the universe to do something for you and it Will do it when you say I am.  you are drawn a blank check on the universe it will be honored and cashed sooner or later and the proceeds will go to you. If you say I am tired, sick poor ,fed up, disappointed, getting old, you are drawing checks for future trouble and limitation . When you say I am divine life, I am divine truth, I am divine freedom, I am substance, I am eternal substance, you are drawing a check on the bank of heaven and surely that check will be Honored. Remember you don't have to use the actual grammatical form I am every time, you associate yourself with anything or think of yourself as having anything, you're using a form of I am. The verb to have is a part of the verb to be in the very ancient languages there is no verb to have, it is a modern improvement like the radio and the automobile. I have means I am because you always have what you are ; do what you are. This is the significance of I am. and more people have come to know about it than ever before and it is a wonderful thing unity teaches it in the truth movement. In London we taught it, but few people realize what it means. Whatever you associate yourself with you bring into consciousness. What is the first thing we do when we talk? we say I am this I am that. perhaps my father was Mr. Jones therefore I am a Jones. the people across the way A Robinsons, they are strangers to me because I am a Jones. Immediately the baby picks up all the prejudices of Mr.Jones or we say I am a Frenchman or I am a German or I am an Englishman. The Frenchman gets a great many prejudices concerning the German of. The Englishman the German gets prejudices concerning the Frenchman of. The Englishman and the Englishman gets them concerning the Frenchman and the German. Why pick up so many prejudices? why pick up any prejudices then the child grows older and of course his family's interested in politics again he sets up in his mind a whole army of prejudices he belongs to a certain party because his father does. He goes to a particular school or college and collects more prejudice. He should use the I am to say I am for freedom; he should use it to break down the walls of resentment. It is your I am whether you use it or not but there is one thing that no one can do for you and that is to save your soul because no one can speak the I am for you no one can say I am for you or another. you would have to say you are or he is.

In Revelation we read to everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give a white stone and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it revelation 2:17. The white stone means the ascension of the divine nature because of its purity. The new name is the new character in the new live you speak for yourself and you save your own soul. Teachers can write books for you, they can talk to you but they cannot save your soul because they cannot talk for you when anyone uses I am for you, it becomes you are. This is your I am and no one can use it but you. The I am is God in action. God is not a man. God is working through you. You are not separated from God. God does not sit far up in the sky and send you a good idea. God is the I am giving you a new embodiment on your creation. whatever you believe you create. You are the I am.  God knows himself in your consciousness and that is knowing God. I want to emphasize this point you build your consciousness with your I am no one can do it for you now when else can do it for you and you can't cheat sometimes you can cheat in business sometimes ; you can in gambling but you cannot cheat with the I am; Appearances count for nothing. Your consciousness is built with the I am according to your I am so are your conditions. you are not using the I am only when you think and speak affirmations perhaps a weakness in our movement has been a tendency to overrate affirmations. We have to use them because they are a memorandum of what we are to think. every action that you do all day long you are building into your consciousness. You'll never build anything into your consciousness until you do it with practice meditating an hour in the morning after breakfast helps very little unless you carry the realization with you into your everyday life. If you lie or cheat or are selfish then that is what you are building into consciousness. We have dwelt so much on thought what we call words but we haven't always insisted that it is the practical conduct all day long which builds up consciousness. People tell me that they spent an hour every morning building up the consciousness but often as soon as the hour is up they have Forgotten it .You build your consciousness by the things you do all day long. It is by such things that we are judged. God does not judge us. We judge ourselves by the consciousness we build because life is a state of consciousness.