I feel it to be a great honor to have this opportunity of speaking at the Unity headquarters. As Charles Fillmore has said, I am very familiar with the Unity message, for I have read it for over thirty years.

Of course that is giving myself away quite a bit, but people on the platform always give themselves away sooner or later, so it may as well be sooner.

I have lived all my life in London until recently, and we were there, I suppose, about forty-five hundred miles from Kansas City. So this gives me the opportunity to realize how far-flung this work has been. I doubt if you people here at Unity realize how great and how big a work the Unity work is.

The Truth movement, as we call it, is the most important thing 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 building up might and power, and have used it to wreck themselves. Man has built up intellectual power; and especially since four centuries ago, since the Renaissance, education has been intellectual. People are surprised when you tell them that there is any other kind of education.

Those of us who have had the advantages of a higher education know that so-called intellectual study gives very, very little help in the practical business of living. This Truth movement comes along, takes hold of people and changes them. It 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 them that there is something in life worth living for.

Among the various sections of the present-day Truth movement Unity is probably the most important. Your work is practical. It has the character and quality of Jesus Christ, because it is kindly 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, and become quiet, and turn to that power; and that is the highest message that you can teach.

I am one of Mr. Fillmore’s spiritual children, so I just thought I would say that before getting on to the thing that I actually came to say.

I am not speaking to the general public now but to the people who are devoting their lives to the study and expression of this Truth.

I think it is well for us to remind ourselves what it is that we really believe and have. The answer is that we really have the key to life. We do not just approach life from a particular angle as other schools of healing do, but we have the key to life; and that key is the knowledge that life is a state of consciousness.

The explanation of all your problems, the explanation of your difficulties, and the explanation of your triumphs in life boil 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 but lead up to that.

Isaac Pennington, the 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 that are superficially correct, but ultimately the truth is that 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 that you love, or whether you are doing drudgery that you hate—is the expression of your consciousness at that point. The kind of people you meet, the people you attract into your life, are the expression of your consciousness about your fellow men.

If you came to me and told me that you can’t get along with people, I should tell you to get a card about the size of a post card, and write this on it, “Like attracts like,” and then put it inside your closet—not where other members of your family will see it, because that would sometimes be embarrassing. When you are grumbling and finding fault they could point their finger at it, and that 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 of all things is that life is a state of consciousness.

Take this table. You say this is solid wood, and that is true as far as it goes. But the next step, going deeper, is that we find it is really made up of molecules with great distances, relatively between them. So it is not solid at all. It is made up of molecules, and that is true as far as it goes. But these again are made up of atoms, and these of electrons and protons, and so on. We hear talk of vibrations, of rays, of all these things, and they are good descriptions as far as they go; but in the ultimate, beyond all these things, we come back to a state of consciousness.

Before you change your state of consciousness nothing else can change.

All trouble, all disappointment, all depression, all limitation is a state of consciousness that must be changed. 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 will power, 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. Then Wall Street made its famous nose dive. The prosperity that had been built up was not true prosperity. People had been gambling on the stock market and elsewhere and had attracted or dragged to 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 right lung weakens, 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 right of consciousness.

When you want to solve your problems you can see at once that the only scientific way is to start in to change your consciousness. Likewise you must change the consciousness of a patient if you want to heal him. Nothing can come to you securely, nothing can stay with you permanently, except what you are entitled to by your consciousness.

Emerson said, “No man and no institution was ever ridden down or talked down by anything but itself.” People may slander you, but nobody can hurt you except yourself. Nobody can wreck a 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 go, 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 spoil it for you.”

Your body, your home, your city, your country, the universe are pictures of consciousness. Your private life out-pictures your own consciousness. The national life is the outpicturing 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 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 on his knees 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 to 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 before. 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. An old cowboy in the front row pulled out his gun and fired six shots into the villain. Everybody laughed, because in those days a gunshot didn’t mean much. There were only a few bullet holes in the wall, 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 outer things instead of changing the inner. Then 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 didn’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 wanted.

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 so-called 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 this, the problem disappears. In the Bible a valley always stands for trouble, sin, limitation; and the mount for uplifted thought, and prayer for understanding. We must go up the mount; raise our consciousness.

Most people who have a problem concentrate on that 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 a Unity publication, or by repeating some favorite inspirational hymn, your consciousness is rising. If a diver goes down 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 lead shoes, and then we begin to be healed, or the patient begins to be healed; but it is the consciousness that you have to heal.

There is no other way. The great key to consciousness lies in the “Word,” which Unity has been teaching for more than fifty years. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things are made by it, and without it is not anything made that is made.”

The 1st chapter of John is a reflection of the 1st chapter of Genesis; both deal with creation: “God said.” John explains the Logos. 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 in Deuteronomy, and Jesus identified Himself with it. Jesus was a great reader of the Psalms and 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 very nigh unto you. It is with you all the time. I AM is the great secret. I AM is the famous Lost Word.

All through history mankind has felt intuitively that there is a way out, if only it can find it. 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. The lamp was the creative word. 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.

Always men and women have 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 that man should fight and grab for prosperity and food. What is life worth if living is to be a constant struggle for necessities? Men and women have always known intuitively 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. And this 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 word is “I am.” Whenever you say “I am,” you are calling upon the universe to do something for you and it will do it. Whenever you say “I am,” you are drawing a 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,” then 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 with health and plenty for you.

Remember you don’t have to use the actual grammatical form “I am.” Every time you associate yourself in thought with anything, or think of yourself as having anything, you are 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, and you always do what you are.

That is the significance of “I am,” and today more people have come to know about it than ever before, and this is a wonderful thing. Unity has taught it. In the Truth movement in London we taught it. But few people realize what it means. Whatever you associate yourself with, that you are bringing into your consciousness. What is the first thing we do when we talk at all? We say, “I am this,” “I am that.” Perhaps my father was Mr. Jones. Therefore I am a Jones. The neighbors across the way are Robinsons. They are strangers to me, because I am a Jones. Immediately the baby picks up all the prejudices of old man 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 and the Englishman, the German gets prejudices concerning the Frenchman and the Englishman, and the Englishman gets them concerning the Frenchman and the German. Why pick up any prejudices?

Then the child grows older, and of course his family is 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 throw down the walls of resentment.

It is your “I am” whatever way you use it, and there is one thing that nobody can do for you, and that is save your soul, because nobody can speak the “I am” for you. Nobody can say “I am” for you or another; he would have to say “You are” or “He is,” and that would not be “I am.”

In Revelation we read, “To him that overcometh … I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.” The white stone means the ascension of the divine nature, because of its understanding. The new name is the new character and the new life. You speak for yourself and you save your own soul, and it is said to be secret because only you can use it.

Teachers can write books for you, they can talk to you, but they cannot save your soul, because they cannot think for you. When anyone uses “I am” for you, it becomes “You are.” It is your “I am” that must save you, and nobody on earth 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, a new creation. Whatever you believe, that you create. You are the I AM. God knows Himself in your consciousness, and that is knowing God. God is I AM THAT I AM, but you are I AM.

I want to emphasize this point. You build your consciousness with your “I am.” Nobody else can do it for you, and you can’t cheat. Sometimes you can cheat in business, sometimes you can cheat 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 this has been a weakness in our movement, that we have tended to overrate affirmations. We have to use them because they are a memorandum of what we are to think. The class thoughts in Unity magazine are a memorandum. But you are using the “I am” in every action all day long. Every action that you do all day long you are building into your consciousness. You will never build anything into your consciousness until you do it in practice. Meditating an hour in the morning before breakfast helps very little unless you carry the realization with you into your everyday living.

If you lie or cheat or are selfish, then that is what you are building into consciousness. We have dwelt much on thought (what we call words), but we haven’t always insisted that it is the practical conduct all day long that builds up consciousness. People tell me that they spend an hour every morning building up their 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. Let us build true consciousness and hasten the day of freedom.

EMMET FOX