1957 Chicago Open Class

Joel S. Goldsmith

183A - The Fruit of the Art of Meditation

Good evening.

Lorraine says it’s getting to be a habit, a good habit, and one that’s given me a great deal of joy. Probably you won’t mind if I take a few minutes to speak on a subject that is very close to me, and one that is not always understood, more especially by our students. Too often I hear the word “impersonal” in our work; impersonal truth, or impersonal God, or impersonal relationship, and I’m not very strong for that impersonality.

First of all, I don’t know whether I’ve said this in a Chicago meeting or not, but I know that I have on some other occasions; to me God is very personal. I would never be at all understood if I were to say that I understand an impersonal God—I don’t. I can understand the impersonal nature of God in the sense that God would not have favorites, or God would not pick out some one person on whom to confer Its, or His, benedictions and blessings. I can understand that the nature of God is impersonal in that Its rain must fall on the just and the unjust. Its blessings must be equally those of the saint and the sinner, and if there is any shade of difference, it would be on the part of the sinner getting the benefit. Saints often have a way, you know, of being very self-righteous and “goody-goody,” and thereby lose much of God’s grace. I remember the Master saying something to the effect that God has more pleasure in one sinner that was redeemed, lost, than the ninety-nine good ones, and I think the proportion still holds good.

I have found in the ten years in which I am teaching this message that my relationship with the students is not impersonal. There’s something very, very personal about it. Personal in this sense … that every student that comes to my attention, or that brings themselves to my attention, their life becomes important to me. Their spiritual progress becomes important. I glory in every step of spiritual unfoldment that they experience, and every bit of fruitage that comes into their lives. And when they’re struggling toward that, it’s my joy to work with them, whether in person, as I have done with many with whom I’ve had the opportunity to be present, or by mail. And those here who’ve experienced that know that there’s no limit to the amount of letter writing that I can do when the occasion warrants it, and when the student is able to accept the instruction, even if sometimes it comes in a very severe way. All of that to me is personal.

In the same way, when students are going through difficulties, that becomes personal to me, and I go far out of my way to help them through those periods and to stand by with them. And it’s just as personal to me when they fall by the wayside, as some inevitably do. I’m sure there was nothing impersonal in the relationship between Jesus Christ and his disciples, and his apostles, and the two hundred. I’m sure that his teaching and his relationship with them was both close and personal, and I’m sure that when he saw Judas about to fall away, that he grieved in a very personal way too; not for his own life, but for what he knew Judas would have to go through to get back on the beam again. Having had three years with Judas, I’m convinced that he knew that Judas was made of good stuff, that Judas Iscariot had deep spiritual possibilities and potentialities, and that therefore he knew that eventually Judas Iscariot was going to be back in the fold.

I’m sure that he must have grieved as he stood there and saw Peter hiding—Peter denying him. I’m sure that was a very personal feeling, and not for himself, but for Peter. I’m sure that he must have rejoiced in a very personal way when he saw Peter come back into the fold so quickly and show as clearly as he did, that it was a momentary aberration with him, and one quickly to be forgotten. I am sure that the spiritual teachers whom I have met around the world feel a deep love for their students, a deep rejoicing in those that prosper spiritually, a deep regret for those who do not seem to have the capacity to grasp the meaning of a spiritual way of life. And I know that it has always been that way with me. As a matter of fact, I am aware of the fact that it is often said of me that I have pets, and that I have favorites. And you may be assured of this that it’s true—I have.

There has never been a time when I haven’t had favorites and pets, and I don’t believe there ever will be a time. And the reason is that having gone through deep struggles to achieve even a tiny measure of this spiritual light, I can remember clearly those practitioners and teachers who were faithful, loving, kind, generous in their work with me. I can remember the patience that some of them had to exercise with me, because I wasn’t an easy student. And knowing what I went through to achieve even a small measure, I have that same feeling every time I see a student anywhere, trying to break through this mesmeric sense—this personal sense of self. And it is for that reason that when I find students struggling, with sincerity, that it is my joy to work harder with them, and perhaps outwardly seem to be making a pet of them.

Really, it isn’t so much making a pet of them as it is giving them the additional time or effort that they may require at some particular point of their unfoldment. A year or two later, that may not be necessary, and probably by that time it is said I have another pet. So it is in this work I have a very tender feeling, and I call it a personal feeling, when I think of cities like San Francisco, that gave us First, Second, and Third San Francisco Lectures, Metaphysical Notes, Consciousness Unfolding, The Master Speaks. Now you know, you just couldn’t sit in the presence of several hundred students who could bring such a message out of you, without feeling a deep personal feeling of warmth for them and for the city that brought it through.

In the same way, I don’t suppose that I ever will be able to pass through Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon without stopping, for the self-same reason. Hundreds upon hundreds of students have been through class after class with me there, and some of the finest messages that are in The Infinite Way writings, have come out of those cities. So it is that here, where we also have had very special messages, I’m thinking now of that little, small group at the Reading Room, and then this last Chicago Class, when several wonderful experiences took place on this platform. It would be an impossibility to think of this city, and think of the students who have been here in this work, without a personal feeling of love, of warmth, and of a desire to pour out all that the Father could possibly give. Because it has already been demonstrated, the degree of receptivity there is here in this room among you, who have been through so much of this work with me.

Now I bring this to your attention for this reason. As you know, I do not like to hear the message of The Infinite Way referred to as an “absolute teaching,” because I have seen, through inner revelation, that the only absolute teaching there can be is one that is imparted without words and without thoughts. We have had teaching of that kind in our work. Every once in a while I find a student, or two, or three, able to receive such teaching, and we have it. We have long periods of complete silence in which no word is spoken and none thought, and yet the message is conveyed. That’s an absolute teaching, because no personal sensing enters into it, either in imparting or receiving. It is completely accomplished on the spiritual plane.

You may recall the fact that the things of God are foolishness with man, that the natural man cannot receive the things of God. Well when you come to the absolute, and you are in the divine consciousness, and the human sense of truth has dropped away, truth itself imparts itself through the teacher consciousness. And where the student is receptive, that teaching is received; not in their mind, and it is for that reason that they couldn’t sit down and pass an examination in it tomorrow, because they didn’t receive it in the mind; they received it in the soul, and the only way you have of knowing that they received it is that the light is shining in their face, and the fruits of the spirit are appearing in their experience.

In the same way, to me this teaching is personal. It is not impersonal. It has to do with an individual who today is a teacher, working with one who today is a student, meeting them on the level of the spirit, of the soul, thereby forming a bond greater than any human relationship that has ever been known. It’s closer than the relationship that exists between man or wife, or parent and child. It is a deeper relationship, because it has in it none of the personal sense of selfishness that sometimes, and very often, comes into those relationships of man and wife, and parent and child. There is no sense of self in it. And the reason is, neither teacher nor student gains anything of a temporal nature from that contact of spiritual unfoldment. They receive only the spirit and the fruits of the spirit, and it isn’t something they receive, so much as something that they, in turn, give … impart to others.

Very often it is believed, more especially since some of this unrealistic literature is available about masters; sometimes it is believed that one should aspire to be a master, that one should have as a goal the attaining of mastership. And very few realize, because this particular literature doesn’t mention it, that in becoming a master, one has become a servant. One no longer has a life of one’s own. One no longer has the right to consider oneself, and everything that concerns one at that stage, is not for oneself, but for the activity of the message. And so it is that in this relationship that becomes so personal, it becomes beautiful because neither one can personally benefit by it. It requires a greater sacrifice, both on the part of the teacher and the student, because of the greater demands that are made upon them through the very activity of the Christ functioning in their consciousness.

So it is … this is personal. It is not sensual, but personal in the sense that it creates a bond of friendship and a bond of love that is absolutely … well beyond all human thought of those relationships. There is a bond that exists, and I’m finding it now all over this globe, not merely from the students toward me, or from me to the students, but as our students are beginning to travel and meet with students in other parts of the globe, they come back and tell of that same bond that they have found in visiting in other cities or in other countries. This year especially, and last year, several of our students had the opportunity of traveling in foreign countries and meeting our groups in these different countries, and coming home with the same story that we here have found in these groups, of friendships and relationships established deeper than anything that could possibly be accounted for on the human plane.

So it is in our relationship with each other, let us not be afraid to make it personal, yet spiritually personal in the sense that we make no demands upon each other beyond the demands of spiritual unfoldment, spiritual exchange, spiritual love, spiritual friendship, and more the giving sense than the demanding sense; and yet always the willingness to share. If we can successfully do that with ourselves, we can more successfully do it in our relationship with God. To say that one loves God, whom one has not seen, but not to love one’s fellow man, whom one has seen, it says, you’re a liar.

So it is, the deeper the love that exists between students on the spiritual path, the deeper will the love be that they feel toward God. And here you have a strange subject, this thing of love toward God or for God. You know there aren’t many people in the world that really and truly feel a warm love toward God or for God. Love is something of an abstract word, an abstraction itself, and certainly the love of an unknown or invisible God is something not very tangible or warm. And yet, eventually there must come into individual consciousness a love for God that is deeper than any love that any human has ever known on earth.

Now that cannot be if we persist in thinking of God as an impersonal principle, or an impersonal law, or an impersonal life. Of course God is all that—God is an impersonal law, God is an impersonal love, God is an impersonal life. But God is more than this. Our poet says that “God is closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet,” and I’m sure that he wasn’t thinking in terms of something as cold as mathematics, or even as impersonal as music. I’m sure that he must have felt a warmth that was close to his heart. He must have felt almost, you might say, a personal presence.

We wonder sometimes, that Christians, some Christians have found a deep personal love toward the man, Jesus. Now when you stop to think that he hasn’t been on earth for two thousand years, that might seem strange, that a real, true, warm, love could develop toward one who hasn’t been around for these two thousand years. And yet it is a fact that there are Christians who have come into such close contact with what associates itself in their mind as Jesus Christ, as to bring about a depth of love toward that man beyond anything they have known in human experience.

We find this same thing in the Hindu’s love of Gautama, the Buddha, or Krishna. We find the same love with certain mystics toward St. John; once in a while even toward Paul, although Paul seems to have brought forth less of a deep personal love than these others. And sometimes we wonder that that can be, that you can love John, that you could love Buddha, that you could love Krishna; you could love Jesus. And so far as we know, they are only names. Be assured of this, where this love has evolved they are not merely names; they are actual identities. They are actual identities that we meet within our own being, with as great a living-ness as if they were physical forms in front of us. And it is for that reason that this love is generated.

Now I’m not speaking of emotional neurotics, who develop a religious complex. I’m talking now of deep, sincere Christians or Hindus, who actually attain the center of their own being, and there meet with that mind which was in Christ Jesus, meet with that very soul which was the soul of the beloved John, or the other. In this same way, God, in the experience of most of us up to a certain point, God is just a word. God is something or other from whom or through whom we expect to receive something. God is an unknown, toward which we are striving to reach, and for a purpose. God, it would appear, has within Its power the gift of health to give us, the gift of supply, of companionship, of home. Always it seems that God has something, and we’re trying our best to reach God in order to get it.

Sometimes, in the orthodox sense, there are those who reach some point where they really demonstrate that which they’re hoping for. And certainly in the metaphysical world there is a great deal of demonstration of things and persons and conditions. And I suppose it generates a feeling of gratitude, “Oh thank you God, I got what I wanted.” That’s far from being love. The love of which I speak is a love that comes of a union, when like meets like, when we are in the highest state of our spiritual being, and we come face to face with that which is truly God, it’s God the Father and God the Son meeting in that union, and that is when the love is generated. That is when the love is felt. Not for a reason, not because we received our demonstration, not because we gained that which we sought, but for the reason that we have found our home.

Poetically we might say we found our home in his bosom, and it seems like that too. It’s very much like that. Actually, since only God can tabernacle with God, it is only when you and I rise above our humanhood into a state of spiritual being—spiritual awareness, that we can meet God. And then it literally is that it is God fusing with God, God coming into conscious union or oneness with God. In our human experience of course, the same idea would be when we meet a person of our own level of thought at the moment, and fall in love, or form a deep and life-lasting friendship.

And those things happen over and over and over again, that some woman meets another woman, or some man meets another man, meets another man, or some woman meets a man, or man meets a woman, and in one instant there is a fusion, and they know that they’ve known each other since time began. And as time evolves, they find that they have the same things in common; they like the same music, or they like the same literature, or they like the same religion, or they like the same home life, or the same sports. And so life is lived as one, instead of two. It is that, on a higher plane that takes place when we come face to face with God. We have met our own. We have met our own self in another form. We have met our own state of being, and then comes a communion. It is as personal a communion as friends can know.

It is an actual meeting within, in these periods of meditation, and it would seem in those moments, as if it were an interchange, that is as if there were something flowing from the person to God, and then something flowing back from God to the person. It seems a little difficult to believe that God would need anything that we have, and probably it isn’t so that God needs, but rather that since I and the Father are one, Oneness which is of the Father that flows to the son is likewise flowing back from the son to the Father, in the same way that love passes from the parent to the child, and then is reflected back to the parent again.

So it is that it would seem that there is this interchange—this flow. Always something going out from oneself to God, something flowing back from God to oneself. And in that communion there is ultimately the realization that we have nothing of ourselves, that whatever it is that we have, whether of love, or wisdom, or guidance, or direction, is really of the Father, and that what we have or use, is actually the capacity, the ability of the Father, rather than of our own.

There is a height that is sometimes reached, when that communion is transcended, and when the personal self disappears, and nothing is left but God. That is a rare experience in anyone’s life. Some who have known it have known it only once in their lifetime. Some have known it twice, or three times, or four times. Some few know it almost at will; can enter into the relationship almost at will. Actually, it is a rare thing, and you will find it in mystical literature in these passages in which the mystic describes himself as the life of the blade of grass, or the life of the flower, or the life of the bird, and feels himself a part of a bird life, or animal life, or plant life.

You find that in Walt Whitman, and you find it in some of the English mystics, those particular periods in which you can almost feel yourself flowing through the ocean, through trees, through clouds, through the sun. They’re rare moments, but they are probably the periods of preparation for the life that ultimately awaits every spiritual student, which is the life of Melchizedek.

Remember that our goal on the spiritual path is never achieved until we come into the realization of the life of Melchizedek, that is the life in which we actually know that we were never born and will never die, and we can watch the body as impersonally as we can watch our automobile. And as the day inevitably comes when we trade in that old car for a new, we can just as impersonally watch as we trade in this sense of body for the newer, and higher, and more spiritual sense of body that must inevitably come to those who realize that even as individual identity with form, that they were never born and will never die.

You can see now, why The Infinite Way has its entire basis in meditation, why meditation had to be its underlying principle. In September, the Reader’s Digest had an article showing the value of meditation, and this article went so far as to show that even a hard-headed businessman could benefit in his business by breaking into his periods of the day with meditation; excusing himself from conferences to have an inner meditation, or period of spiritual contemplation. In other words, the Reader’s Digest was trying to show that meditation is a very practical thing. I believe it was the month of March; the Reader’s Digest again published an article on the value of meditation and the value of contemplating nature, and that, which underlies nature.

Strange that a magazine like the Reader’s Digest should find such a tremendous interest in the subject of meditation. But when you understand that they have their finger on the pulse of this entire world in all languages, you will know that they would never have published the first one, and certainly never the second one, unless they had definite indication that meditation is about to enter conscious human awareness, and be recognized to a great enough extent to warrant their publishing it and helping to bring this subject into a wider knowledge.

Now in between these two articles, as you know, the great publishing house of Harpers, also saw fit to introduce meditation to the world through this book The Art of Meditation, and to arrange with the British publishers, George Allen and Unwin, for its British publication. Probably elsewhere in the literature of today you are finding more and more references to meditation, more and more references to a contemplation of reality, or contemplating God. Well, it was in 1934 that this work of meditation revealed itself to me, and has been the basis of my work ever since, and I feel that our work has been one of those instruments of unfolding consciousness through which meditation is going to be brought to the Occidental world, to the Western world.

It will come through many avenues, but up to this present time, this book, Practicing the Presence and The Art of Meditation, are really the only two textbooks available on that subject. Now as a further step, some of you have not heard probably, I’m sure all of you will be glad to know that when the editor of the Episcopal Church News, the official Episcopal organ, was asked to choose, I believe it was twenty books out of nine hundred, as recommended reading for all Protestants, The Art of Meditation was one of those books. And so The Art of Meditation, or the book The Art of Meditation, now goes into the wider field of Protestants all over the United States and Canada.

But what is much more important than what happens to my book is that the subject of meditation is being introduced, not merely into the metaphysical world, but into the entire Protestant world of the United States and Canada, and through the British edition, into all of the British Commonwealth. Now see what I’m driving at. That we should be an instrument through which this happens to the whole world is a beautiful thing, but of far greater importance, is the fact that this subject should now be given worldwide awareness, regardless whether it comes through us or through others.

It just happens to be a fortuitous circumstance and a joyous one for us that we are an instrument, and perhaps at the present time, the largest instrument through which this is coming. But let us not rejoice so much in that as the fact that meditation itself is now being presented to this world, not only into the world of metaphysics, but the entire religious world, or Protestant religious world as a subject for study and for reading. Do you know why this is so important? For the same reason that it was important in our experience in our work. You cannot meditate for many months or many years, until you come in contact with that Father within you.

Now we have been reading about the Father within you ever since the Bible was published in 1611, over four hundred years ago. That means that the Protestant world and the Catholic world has been hearing for over four hundred years about the Father within you, and the Kingdom of God within you. And how many people have ever found that Father within them, or the kingdom of God within them? Only those who through contemplation and meditation, actually found their ability to go within themselves, reach the center of their own being, and there meet face to face this God of whom we have been speaking tonight.

Do you know what you feel toward those in this room with whom you sat before in classes, tape recordings, readings? As you remember that they know the same things you know, that they love the same things you love, that your interest is in the same direction; do you know the feeling you have for each other? Do you know the feeling we have for each other? Can you imagine what is going to happen in this world after just a few years of everybody meditating and finding the secrets that you and I have found? Have found that love that we find because our interests are in the same direction, because our goal is the same? Do you know how impossible it would be for us to steal from each other, cheat each other, defraud each other? … That’s all kind of unthinkable, isn’t it? That’s really out of the question.

If there is any place in the world where there is an absolute union of interests, it’s in this room. Yes, but what made it? Only one thing made it was our meditation, because in going within ourselves, we found each other. We found the same God, we found the same son of God, we found the same interests, we found the same path, we found the same goal. We found the same interests in life, and instead of people who, or a group of people, who are intent on getting from each other, it is probably as true as anything ever can be that in this room and in the other groups that have been like us here, that our major purpose is to share with everybody in this room whatever of unfolding good is given to us.

Can you imagine what a world we’re going to be living in when everybody is meditating and finding that same desire to share with their neighbor, that we have, to share with each other? When everyone has that same feeling of wanting to give to each other that we have, instead of get from each other? All of this is going to be brought about through meditation. You might say, “Don’t you mean it’s going to be brought about through God?” No I don’t. I mean through meditation. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God isn’t going to add anything new to this world. God isn’t going to do a thing tomorrow that God isn’t doing today. It is through meditation that we are going to come into the actual experience of God … the meeting with God, the union with God, and with each other through God.

Meditation is going to bring that to us. What we find when we get into meditation has always been there, awaiting our readiness to do some meditating. So it is, in the degree of our meditation, is going to be the degree of our God-awareness. In the degree, in the time, effort, love; that we pour into meditation, is going to be the fruitage that we derive from it. But at any level, and even a little drop of meditation, is going to work wonders for this world, because in going inside of our own being, and finding even the tiniest touch of God, we’re going to find a release from fear, a release from hate, a release from self-seeking, from self-preservation. We’re going, even with that first little drop, that first touch of God in us, we’re going to lose a great deal of the material sense that has acted as a separation from our good.

In this Practicing the Presence, there is a chapter that to me is of highest significance. The title of it is “Love Thy Neighbor.” And of course, if you listen to that in an orthodox sense, you’ll say “Well that’s an old story. We’ve always been told to love our neighbor, but how do you do it?” And then we begin to hear how difficult it is, because of what our neighbor has been doing to us. Of course that leaves no room in us for remembering what we’ve done to our neighbor. But through meditation, this chapter revealed within me, the impossibility of loving our neighbor until we came to the realization that our neighbor is our self, and that our self is our neighbor.

And this brought me back to probably the basic passage of all spiritual literature, I am. I am in thee, and thou art in me. I in thee and thou in me... and all the rest of “thees” in me and I in them. And that brought forth this entire chapter’s unfoldment, that what I do of good or of evil, I do unto me. For, Is there any beside me, says Isaiah, I know not any. There is only me, there is only I. And the I of me is the I of you. When I realized that, I instantly realized, let’s call it “my sins.” And I began immediately to see how important it is that I either forgive myself or hang myself, one or the other, because I must do one or the other. If I remember my sins, I either must say, “Well I can’t stand facing myself much longer,” or “I must forgive myself.” If I forgive myself, then I can see that if I can’t do that with my neighbor, I haven’t really done it with myself.

Now watch this very carefully. You will come to that point where you will say to yourself, “I can’t look at myself much longer unless I can forgive myself.” And when you have forgiven yourself, you’ll realize, “If I could forgive myself, I’m sure that I can forgive everyone else that’s ever been on this globe.” That leads to the ultimate realization that there never was another that it always was the self of me that was acting against me, even when it appeared to come through Jones, Brown, or Smith. Always it was something in my consciousness that drew to me that which I got, for good or evil.

The Master knew this when he said, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” He knew this when later it was given to us that: If you sow to the spirit, you reap life everlasting, if you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption. He knew that. He knew that everything that took place, took place within our own being. Well of course, at first glance you’re apt to deny that that’s true, because you can look at the vast amount of good you’ve done in the world, and the little amount of evil you’ve done, and you say they don’t balance. But unfortunately, it isn’t quite that way. It isn’t how much good you’ve done or how much evil you’ve done; it is how much of ignorance you have entertained about your relationship with God and man.

One need never have been an actual sinner to be reaping all the punishments that hell ever knew, not through conscious sin, but through ignorance for ignorance is as much a sin as sin itself. In other words, to believe that there is another is to separate ourselves from the love of God, and that can be done just through the ignorance that has been placed on the religious teachings of all the world. As you come to this, you will learn the importance, at least I learned the importance of the word, I and I came to see that when I said I, I meant “you” as well as I meant “Joel;” that there was only this one divine ego, this one—call it mind, call it spirit, call it soul, but that was you as well as it was me. And everything that I was doing of good, when I thought I was doing it to patients or students, I was doing it to myself.

Every bit of evil that has ever come through my thought, even when it seemed to me that others must be paying a penalty for it, I know now, was coming right back into my own selfhood. For so it is, there is an inner activity always taking place within us, and this activity appears outwardly as love, but sometimes self-love, and sometimes selfish love. Even in the indulgence of that, we are in the end, wronging ourselves.

I would like, between tonight and tomorrow, those of you who have this Practicing the Presence, that you read this chapter, “Love Thy Neighbor,” because I would like, when we come together, that we be even more united than we are at this moment in the realization that I am you, and that you are I. And the reason is this. To break down the sense of duality in this experience, you must eventually come to see that there is no law of evil operating against you. But you must also come to see that there is no law of good operating for you, that actually, I, that Infinite, Invisible, divine presence within us, is the only power, and it doesn’t operate for us or against us. It operates as our very being. It is our selfhood.

The power of good, the presence of good, the power of God, the presence of God is our real identity. It isn’t something outside that acts for our good, nor is there an evil power outside that can act for our destruction. Scripture says I create good and I create evil. In the sense then, that I realize one infinite identity, and that, God, manifest as the son of God, which you are and which I am, in that realization then, I have broken down the power of good and the power of evil, and in exchange I have taken on immortality or divine Sonship.

You see, The Infinite Way is not really a message of exchanging our human evils for human good. It appears so to many, more especially to those with a metaphysical background, that are accustomed to thinking in terms of giving up the evils, the lacks and limitations, the ills and sins of our experience, and turning around and enjoying abundance, or enjoying health, or peace and harmony. In the earliest experience, actually that happens to us on our path in The Infinite Way. The first experiences we have appear as the overcoming of evil, the overcoming of discord, the overcoming of ill-health, the overcoming of lack, the overcoming of unhappiness, the overcoming of hate, envy, jealousy, malice, and it would appear from that, that that is our goal; just the overcoming of those, and the substituting of an abundant supply, and an abundant health, and so forth and so on.

Actually, this is a temporary stopping place on the path toward spiritual awareness. It is a beautiful place to be when you first find some of your sins leaving you, hates, animosities, jealousies, intemperance, violence, lack, limitation, sickness, and feel the greater sense of human health, human virtues, human supply. But for those who linger there too long, the kingdom of God is lost for a long, long time, because very quickly it must become evident, more especially to those of us who look upon Christ Jesus as the greatest, or certainly one of the greatest spiritual revelators of all time. To us who look upon him in that way, we must go back to his message, and note that he says, My peace give I unto you, but not as the world giveth, give I unto you. My kingdom is not of this world.

And when you stop to think of those passages, you are really up against a period of deep spiritual meditation and contemplation, until you discover the meaning of those words. And you’ll find then that he didn’t consider a sufficiency of money, or a sufficiency of health as anything to do with the kingdom of heaven. He went further into the realm of My kingdom and My peace, and then you’ll realize what was meant by, we can’t know the things that God has stored up for those who love God. You cannot know the things that await the person who can glimpse the spiritual Kingdom and realize what is meant by just those short passages: My Peace, My kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world. My peace, not as the world giveth, no, no, no, My peace, spiritual peace.

And then you’ll find that there is a state of being that transcends, not only the evils of this world, but it transcends the good of this world, and shows you a good that the human mind can never dream of, the human mind can never be aware of. And our neighbors, who have not yet penetrated this inner kingdom, will never even know what we have discovered or be able to enjoy it if you could show it to them, because it takes a spiritual capacity to be able to enjoy the things of the spirit. The human mind can’t do it, and the human body can’t do it. The things of God are foolishness with man. The natural man receiveth not the things of God.

And only when you rise, not only above the sins and diseases of the natural man, but when you rise above his virtues and his good, then do you begin to perceive what the kingdom of God is like. You will remember that the Master spoke of this in the Sermon on the Mount, when he said that your goodness must be greater than that of the Scribes and the Pharisees. Well as a matter of fact, there wasn’t any good greater than theirs in those days, because of all the Hebrews; they were the strictest in being good. They would no more desecrate a holiday, or forget one; they would no more break one of the laws of the Hebrew church or the Hebrew teaching; they were sticklers for absolute perfection in the carrying out of the Hebrew teaching; and yet he said, “Your goodness has to be greater than these.”

What is the goodness that’s greater than that? It is the goodness that we find when we transcend just being good in the sense of the Ten Commandments goodness, or obedience to legal laws.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 1961 Oklahoma City Open Class

Joel S. Goldsmith

406A - Principles of Healing

Well, first of all, good afternoon.

As you know, a great deal of our work in the message of The Infinite Way has to do with spiritual healing. And spiritual healing is a subject that is arousing interest all over the world today, more so than ever before.

In ancient days there was a great deal of spiritual healing accomplished by religious leaders and their followers. The entire ministry of the Buddha was a healing ministry, and he developed many, many, many wonderful spiritual healers, and they did great healing works all across India.

Five hundred years later, Christ Jesus set up a healing ministry across the Holy Lands and he carried it to a further extent than it had ever been done before.

Throughout the Hebrew era there have been some individual prophets who had done healing work, but not on a broad scale, and not as a major part of their activity. But with the coming of the master, this was changed because his intention was to usher in a new era of religion. One that would make a complete break with the past, and it would reveal new principles. It would reveal the mystical side of religion more than the organizational side…the side of ceremonies, and rites, and forms of worship.

Because of this, he used healing as an exemplification of the principles he was teaching. You will remember that he was very clear in his statement, that I of my own self can do nothing. That if I speak of myself, I bear witness to a lie, that it is really the Father within that doeth the works, it is really the Spirit, and that he himself was probably the messenger, the way-shower, the exemplifier of that which had been revealed to him from the Father within. And so, when he heals the sick, it is not because he himself was something great, or different, or set apart, but that he was showing forth a healing principle revealed by the Father for all mankind.

In the same way, when he forgave sin, it wasn’t that he as a man was so kind-hearted that he could overlook sin, but rather that he had received the message and the mission to reveal on Earth that sin is not to be condemned or punished, but that it is to be forgiven. Not that people are to be held in bondage forever and forever for their sins or even held in this lifetime to a punishment beyond the time of their own choosing.

In other words, at any moment that an individual could turn from sin, in that moment they were to be forgiven; even though their sins were scarlet. They were to be made white as snow. Not after centuries of punishment; not after centuries of being in hell, but right now, while they’re on earth in a moment of their turning, they were to be forgiven. It is for this reason that we were told that our part in this forgiveness was to go even unto seventy times seven.

In the same way, when the master raised the dead, it wasn’t that he of himself was the power, but rather that he was exemplifying the power of the Father within, who doeth the works.

When he fed the multitudes, again, he was showing forth a principle. As a matter of fact, you will remember that after he fed the multitudes once, they followed him across the lake and the next day asked to be fed again, and he rebuked them. In other words, his mission wasn’t just to be on Earth feeding the hungry every day, it was to show forth a principle, whereby man can be fed every day.

And so we find from his ministry that he was showing forth a principle—a knowledge of God, heretofore unknown. And one that was to enable us to find, first of all our freedom, and then bring some measure of freedom to those who would come to this message or to this principle, seeking this particular light.

Now one of the passages of Scripture that requires a great deal of thought and study is this: that to know Him aright is life eternal. There is an indication in that statement, that perhaps we do not know Him aright. And there is another: that when we know Him aright, just by the knowing, we will find life eternal—just by knowing Him aright, by knowing the true nature of God we will find our life eternal. Again, following that line, we read: ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. And again remember, he, the master, is setting forth the truth that is to be known.

Now, if you do not see the advent of the master on Earth was really the ending of a religious era and the beginning of a whole new era you will not be able to discern God aright or to know Him aright.

We of course, have unfortunately, had seventeen hundred years in which the old and the new have been combined. So that we have not been able to make a break with the past and enter the Christian dispensation. So that those today who are ready to break with the past may start that Christian era on earth now.

The master made it clear that ye have heard it said of old and then he told us all of the things that we were told of old, which now under the new dispensation is outmoded. But I say unto you, now all of this that ye have heard said of old is outmoded, it belongs to an older dispensation. It belongs to a people who had not come far enough forward in the mystical light. And therefore, the teachings of old were to be replaced with a new dispensation—a new era.

I might illustrate that for you by a little experience that took place in California last month. We were there just at the time that a man and woman were being tried for murder. And at the same time when the Governor of the state was trying to have the death penalty wiped off the books of the state, and not once was it brought to the attention of the public (Ed. referring to the possibility of the death penalty for the accused) that all such discussion was out of order, that no one even had the right to discuss the question, because as a Christian government they were under the orders to abolish death. No longer is it permissible...and this is two thousand years ago it was stated…no longer is it permissible: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. No longer is it permissible to commit murder as a punishment for murder. But we’ve gone along for these two thousand years disobeying that and now when the public has really caught up with the Christian idea and ideal, there are those still back in spiritual darkness, so that they cannot even be made to accept that which they, with their lips, proclaim.

The reason that this was so…such outstanding experience was that all of this coincided with Easter. And here were all of these legislators and others, undoubtedly, dutifully, and probably pleasurably, attending their Christian services and fighting with all of their might to retain the old Hebrew dispensation. It didn’t seem ridiculous to them, but it did to me, and it must to you or the retaining of any of those ye have heard it said of old in place of, but I say unto you.

Now, there is a reason behind all of this and that is this: to know God aright you have to study the four Gospels separate and apart from the Old Testament, because if you use the two together, you will gather the impression that God is a punishing God, that God is a rewarding God, that God punishes evil and God rewards good. You will also actually believe that you can pray to God to destroy your enemies. Now all of this is part of the “ye have heard it said of old”. All of this is a part of the ancient scriptures that were given to us long before man had awakened to his spiritual nature. 

If you know God aright, the first thing you will discover is that God has never punished a sinner. That in the entire scheme of spiritual living, there is no provision for punishment. You will also learn that God does not reward—that there is no provision anywhere in the kingdom of God for reward. You will also learn that God does not destroy your enemy. Of course, those of you with a little gray in your hair ought to know by now that all of the years, the decades of praying that our enemies be destroyed hasn’t destroyed them yet. And if they’re to be destroyed, we’ll have to look to something other than God to do the destroying.

Certainly, there have been enough prayers on both sides raised up to God to destroy enemies, so that if they were to be any such answer it would have appeared by now. As a matter of fact, if you cannot all use Christ Jesus as a way-shower, you’d be surprised to learn that the only way in which you can become a child of God is to pray for your enemies, not pray for their destruction, but pray for them. “It profiteth you nothing,” he says, “to pray for your friends.” “It profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends, you must pray for your enemies, if you would be children of God.”

Just to take hold of that one revelation of the master can change not only an individual’s experience on Earth, it can change the history of the world. We already know, what changes take place in the life of an individual who begins to set aside a period of prayer each day for the enemy. We know that, because we have the opportunity of living closely with quite a few thousand people who have adopted that and we know what transformation has come into their lives. We do not yet know what transformation could come into the life of a nation if a call were sent out requesting all churchgoers to report to church once a week to pray that the enemies eyes be opened, that their hearts and souls be opened to spiritual revelation. If a sincere prayer were ushered out of the hearts, and out of the minds, and out of the souls of every one of us: give us understanding of one another, give us light, give us the power of forgiveness unto seventy times seven. 

Now, when I say to you that we already know the miracles that take place in the lives of individuals, it is because to some extent, metaphysicians of all schools of metaphysics, some at least of them, have adopted such programs and have witnessed transformations within their own experience.

Again, to know Him aright would be to change the concept of prayer, as it has heretofore been known, into one that would agree with the master when he teaches, take no thought for your life: What you shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed. Seek ye the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be added unto you. But take no thought for them; do not pray for food, or clothing, or housing. Do not pray for safety or security. Do not pray for health or harmony, but seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added.

Again, we do not know what would happen to a nation or a race of people who followed that program, but we do know what happens in the lives of many thousands of individuals who have changed their mode of prayer to conform to this. That is, to seeking only the realization of God, seeking only the conscious awareness of the presence of God, and uttering and thinking no prayers for food, or clothing, or housing, or companionship, or supply, or transportation or any other thing that concerns this world.

It may be that the master was trying to tell us this also when he said, my kingdom is not of this world. If this is a true statement of the master’s it would indicate why praying to his kingdom for something of this world hasn’t worked in the past and probably won’t work in the future. My kingdom is not of this world.

To know God aright would be to start at least with the understanding that God is spirit. The very moment that we perceive the nature of God as spirit, we would lose all of our antagonisms toward other religions, or those of other religions. We would lose our biases and our bigotries, because if you can accept God as spirit, then God must be the God of all people, regardless of their religion or even of their non-religion if they choose to have none.

If God is spirit, there cannot be more than one spirit, and if God is spirit, then omnipresence must be the truth. In other words, spirit can never be confined to time or place or space. Spirit must be that which fills all space, and therefore, if God is spirit, God must be here where I am. And of course that must be true, whether I’m Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic, Vedantist, Taoist, or any other faith or lack of faith, still, God must be present where I am. And no church can give that and no lack of church can change that. But one thing alone can make it demonstrable: ye shall know the truth. If you know the truth, and it makes no difference who you are or what your previous condition may have been—saintliness or sinfulness, poverty or lack, disease or health. If you know the truth of omnipresence, by knowing that truth you have set in force the motion that will wipe out not only the penalty for sin, but the sin itself. 

And probably one of the few things or if not the only thing that actually will transform the sinner is that realization of omnipresence—That where I am, God is; the place whereon I stand is holy ground. 

Once we know God as spirit—infinite, omnipresence, we are standing on holy ground, and we can then understand why it could be taught, know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the living God. Here where I am, where I sit or stand or lie, here where I am, in prison or out, in sin or out, in disease or out, here where I am, omnipresence is—God is, spirit is. And this spirit is the transforming agency of the entire world. This spirit is the only redeeming agency in this world.

Ah yes, but it goes further. Once we acknowledge God as spirit, we are acknowledging omnipotence, all power. And just think, if you can accept spirit, as the all-power, what becomes then of either physical discord or mental discord in the place of, or in the face of. omnipresence. That is the all-presence of God or Spirit, and the all-power of God or spirit—omnipresence, omnipotence. 

Think for a moment: If spirit is omnipotent of what power is either material law or mental law? Ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. Free of what? The universal belief in material and mental forces and powers. 

What else is it that is binding man to personal sense other than that belief that there are other powers than God? Was it not this that took Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden? Was it not this universal belief, accepted by them, in two powers, that caused us to live this life of humans. And is it not a continuance of the belief in two powers that causes us to have sin, disease, and ultimately death?

What happens to us if we know the truth? The truth of omnipotence, that is, spirit as the only and all-power. What becomes of us—what becomes of our discords and our inharmonies if we continuously know this truth…pray, pray without ceasing that spirit is omnipotence. Spirit is the all-power and the only power, and the omnipresent power. Not out there in a holy mountain, and not here in a holy temple, ah no; the kingdom of God is neither lo here nor lo there—it is omnipresence, it is within you. If within you is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God is omnipotence, what then becomes of this belief in two powers, or three powers, or four powers?

Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. But the truth that is to be known is omnipresence and omnipotence. And when we abide in this word and let this word abide in us, we bear fruit richly. If we do not abide in this word, and if we do not let this word abide in us, we are as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth and dies.

Now, the human race is the branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth. And it can only be returned to its status as child of God, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. If so be you accept the Spirit of God as indwelling, the master called it the Father within, but Paul called it the Christ within, same thing, two different names to different languages. If you accept the Father within as an indwelling spirit, you accept omnipotence, and omnipresence. If you accept Christ as indwelling, you accept omnipotence, and omnipresence. And after you have done that, you have one more step to take, and that is omniscience—all-knowledge, all-wisdom. 

And this of course is what completely changes the nature of your prayers. Once you can acknowledge that God is the all-knowing, that forever ends your ever telling God anything, or asking anything of God. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things, and it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

In other words, the break with the old dispensation must someday come to every individual. And when that break comes, and you know God aright, and you know God to be the allknowing, all you can do is ask forgiveness for all of the times that you have thought that God was of lesser intelligence than you, yourself. For you could tell God what you needed. You could tell God what we needed. You could tell God even what day we needed it.

You’ll feel very humble within yourself and be of a very contrite spirit, once you can acknowledge God as omniscience; you’ll know how far you have failed in your understanding of God and in your understanding of prayer. And eventually you will come to see that since God is the allknowing, that He knoweth our needs. And God is love, and it is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Then prayer becomes a whole new practice, because prayer now means a settling back—a quietness within ourselves. 

And let me answer a question here: How can the student produce a complete, total, mental vacuum? (In the first place a student is not supposed to produce that.) Even after contemplative thinking, setting the stage so to speak for a be still and know, and listen, even wispy thoughts keep knocking out the door of consciousness. How can we eliminate them?

We do not eliminate them. We are not concerned with thoughts that pass through the mind; they may come and go as they wish. The mind will be stilled and quiet in prayer when we have no desire and not until then. No one will ever be able to find an inner peace, an inner harmony, an inner stillness, while they go to God with a desire; except perhaps the desire to know Him aright. But any other desire is a barrier separating us from the necessary peace and stillness that would bring to us the experience of God’s grace.

It is not difficult to attain an inner stillness when you go into meditation or contemplation without a desire. It is the desire that sets up the conflict within us.

Why would we have a desire if we knew God aright? When we know God aright, our highest goal is to commune with God—to be consciously one with God. Not to seek something. Our whole goal is that since the kingdom of God is within us, that we can unite with God, with that Spirit within, become consciously one. But we can only do that really through love—the love of God, the love of communion with God. Not going to God to seek something.

You know, if we had a friend and continually went to our friend to get something, we would soon lose our friend. Friends like to be friends without always being thought of in connection with what can I get from them or what can they get from me. Friends enjoy a communion separate and apart from what they can do for each other.

Much more so is this true of our relationship with God. As a matter of fact, there is no true relationship with God that has at its base, a seeking for anything except communion with God—with the Spirit of oneness, an inner at-one-ment, an inner peace. With this comes the assurance of divine grace, but not because we are seeking divine grace, but because we are seeking to abide in the word and let the word abide in us. To abide in the Spirit and let the Spirit abide in us. It is really a holy experience of communion. And undoubtedly was what was referred to as communion before it became merely a form of worship; when it was actually an experience; as it must become again to every one of us. Communion must be something far greater than a church experience. It must be an actual experience of communion with the Spirit that is within us. Until then, it is not really fulfilled.

It isn’t only that the master, in two places, reminded us that our heavenly Father knoweth our need and it is His good pleasure to give it to us; but later, we are reminded again: Thy grace is my sufficiency. Thy grace is my sufficiency. It isn’t a going to God for things, it is a realization that in having the presence of God we have the grace of God and that is sufficient. That grace will take form in this outer world, the form needed at the moment.

If the form needed is supply, it will come as such. If it is companionship, it will come as such. If it is a home, it will come as such, but the barrier to the demonstration of abundance and harmony is the very going to God for those things. The demonstration of harmony and abundance really begins when we know God aright to the extent that we can settle down in peace to an inner communion, and realize I need pray for nothing else—thy grace is my sufficiency, and it does appear as whatever form is necessary.

The master, in giving a new dispensation, was not unmindful of the fact that there had been Hebrew prophets, who had realized the full and complete truth—all of the truth that ever could be known. We cannot doubt…well it goes further than that. We know beyond all doubt that Moses knew the truth—The full and complete truth and so did Elijah and so did Isaiah, and how many others we don’t know. 

Had those truths been understood, correctly interpreted and written down, we might have been on our way centuries ago. But unfortunately, these principles were not really clarified for the people until the master’s era, and then after 300 years they disappeared from the face of the earth for many different reasons. Therefore, we return to the four Gospels in order to learn what really was taught on Earth 2,000 years ago. And insofar as possible, at least for awhile, we confine ourselves to that authority until we have that opportunity to prove whether or not the truth was revealed—whether the truth is practical, whether the truth is a truth for all time. And the more you practice it, the more you’ll find that the truth revealed then is the truth for all time. And that it never will be outgrown.

There may be, and there undoubtedly will be as time goes on, many, many, many individuals who will demonstrate more of it than has ever been demonstrated on Earth. Even the master acknowledged that we might do greater works than he did because of a better environment—an atmosphere in which to do it. And those works will not be greater in degree of demonstration, but greater in the measure of attainment by the majority of people. In other words, it will not be the attainment on the part of one man or a group. But eventually it will be the demonstrated consciousness of the entire world. And the things that were considered miracles then will not be considered miracles now.

As for instance, the revelation that the master of himself, did not do these mighty works—that they were done through him by a power within him. The Hebrews expected that, and they rightly named it the Messiah. But they made the same error that the Christian church later made, or let us say the Christian church later made the same error that they made: they personalized Messiah as if it were to be one man. Just as even now, the Christian church personalizes Christ, which is only the Greek name for Messiah and names it as one individual. When it never was one individual. It was a Spirit in man. And the Messiah then, and the Messiah now under the name of the Christ, or the Buddha, whichever you’d like, is a Spirit in man. And it is in you. It is “closer to you than breathing and nearer than hands and feet.” And what the old Hebrew mystics tried to tell, and what the Christian mystics again told, and what twice has been lost is now repeated again: the Messiah, or Christ, or Buddha is the Spirit of God in you. And It is ordained to heal the sick. It is ordained to raise the dead. To feed the hungry, the multitudes. It is ordained to forgive the sinner. The very Christ of your being is ordained to forgive you your sins, and certainly me, mine.

This Christ or Spirit within us—this Messiah, is the Son of God that has been planted in the midst of us. And Its function is to raise us out of the tomb of material belief into the resurrection and revelation of our true identity as children of God.

As humans we are buried in the tomb of mortality, mortal flesh, mortal sense. Through the activity of the Christ, the Spirit of God that is in the midst of us, by knowing this truth, we are raised out of that tomb of mortality; we are resurrected out of the mortal frame and our true identity as children of God is revealed to us. And then the next step will be the realization of our spiritual identity, and form. For it is literally true that we do not have material bodies. We have a material sense of body, which the Christ will destroy and thereby enable us to witness our own spiritual identity and form.

The resurrection is not an experience that must necessarily come after the body is buried in the ground or otherwise disposed of; the resurrection is an experience that is meant to come to us at any moment of our recognition of the Christ. The master says, who do men say that I am? Well, of course these ignorant people standing here in material sense can only see that you’re a carpenter or an ex-carpenter or a Hebrew Rabbi. But who do ye say that I am? And I can say to you that every spiritual healer who has had any success in healing would answer you and say I know who thou art: you are the Christ the son of the living God, the child of the living God. You in your true identity, you are spiritual. You are an offspring of God.

It was for this reason that the master could say to you, call no man on Earth your father. There is only one father—Spirit. And if this is true, you are spiritual, you are of Spirit, formed of Spirit, born of Spirit. And this is your heritage, and this is your inheritance.

If only you could know what happens in our lives when we really understand that our human parents were only the means of bringing forth our bodies on Earth. That they did not create us, the man. That was God’s job, God’s task. God created us in his image and likeness and we are the offspring of God.

We, as parents, are only the means of delivering bodies on Earth, but the soul and the spirit and the true identity was formed in the beginning before Abraham was—co-existent with God, immortal, eternal. Our true name is Melchizedek, for that is our true identity. We were never born of man, and will never die, for Spirit is God and the offspring of Spirit is spiritual. And that is not an experience in time or space, but an experience that coexists with God in the beginning before Abraham was.

Now today, we will begin to affirm with the master, I and my Father are one. I and my Father are one. And that’s not speaking of a human father. That is speaking of my true Father in heaven, the spiritual origin of all being.

So you see then, that we are entering not merely a period of spiritual healing, but we are entering a period of spiritual healing, because the world is now in readiness to accept the teaching that was so completely given on Earth 2,000 years ago. The world is ready to accept spiritual identity.

I am in this work long enough to remember when the subject of spiritual healing was not even respectable in the church world, in the religious world. But I’m happy to tell you that I am traveling the world—every continent except South America and very often…not just once, but often, and as much as ten months a year, and I am witnessing spiritual healing being accepted in Protestant churches in every part of the world. And the whole subject of spiritual healing and spiritual living being accepted. And the literature of the spiritual healing world being accepted. And this alone is proof positive that human consciousness is ready to accept, not only spiritual healing…spiritual healing is only…well, what was it they used to say, “don’t let a camel stick his head in your tent or he will soon have his whole body in”—well spiritual healing is only the head of the camel. Carrying with it the whole body of truth, of the spiritual nature of man and the identity of God as revealed in the New Testament.

This is the body of the new religion: the nature of God so that no church will ever again pray only for its friends, and never open its doors to a day of prayer for the enemy. Oh no. The entire world will rise up and say ye have heard it said of old, but we are in the new dispensation, and that dispensation is taking place now. And not only in one country, in all countries.

And it isn’t only that the churches are recognizing this—governments are recognizing this. I don’t know how many of you know that this President Kennedy’s new program of youth, peace—the young college people who are being sent abroad on government business are all being given a three-week spiritual indoctrination period before they are sent overseas. And that even includes the latest group that was chosen last week to go to Russia—twenty-one who are going to Russia, but are right now in the process of receiving their three weeks of spiritual indoctrination before they go over. And I’m very happy that it was one of my books that was chosen for their particular study, The Thunder of Silence. But all of these people are receiving spiritual indoctrination and you know what that means: that means carrying the message of God, of peace, of spiritual peace, out into the world.

Now, here is another mistake: (Ed. Joel reads a question) “believing and knowing that my sight is God’s sight, and God’s sight is mine. I seem to be facing a progressively failing eyesight.” And with that treatment you won’t help it much. That is not a spiritual form of treatment. It is an outmoded form in the metaphysical world, but a long since outmoded form.

If God had anything to do with your physical eyesight, it would be perfect. And, to experience eyesight, take no thought for your eyesight and stop trying to heal it, and start seeking the kingdom of God. Start seeking the realization of God’s presence and God’s grace. Stop trying to use God for a servant. Stop trying to get God to do you a favor, and try to bring yourself into harmony with God’s laws. Don’t try to bring God into harmony with you, but you bring yourself…ask yourself, how am I failing…in what way and to what degree am I not in tune with the Infinite? What must I do to bring about regeneration within myself?—spiritual regeneration.

You see, God’s doing all right, He’s in His heaven—all is well with the Earth. But not with you or me entirely and that is because in some degree, we are not yet in complete attunement with the Father.

Now, Paul went probably further than many would be willing to go, when he said, neither life nor death can separate me from the love of God. He wasn’t going to be concerned whether he was on this side of the veil or the other. On either side he knew that he would be in God’s care.

And so it is that we, each one of us must come to the place where we stop being concerned with what is physically or mentally wrong with us and say that whether I’m physically ill or mentally ill, I still cannot escape from God’s care. And with that ability to relinquish this eternal seeking for human happiness and human health, you’d be surprised at the degree of divine health and divine wealth that ascends upon us.

Do not believe for a moment that anyone has ever claimed to have attained 100% of their spiritual demonstration or heritage. To my knowledge it hasn’t yet been accomplished, and I do know quite a few in the spiritual world. But that is really not the most important thing—that we attain 100% of our spiritual freedom, because probably if we did, we’d ascend somewhere and then be of no use to anymore to those who are behind us.

I believe that it is because there is within each one of us on this path a fellow-feeling for all mankind, that we stay here on earth, or stay here among people, when we might retire to a nice cave or mountaintop resort…(Ed. end of recording.)