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DEAR ALL, 

REMINDER OF SUNDAY MEDITAITON  -  2:00pm EST

Please join for meditation at 2:00 your time and for an hour of study of July’s work:

1961 LAUSANNE CLOSED CLASS         Tape 423 Side 2   Meditation: Removing the Barriers To God              By Joel Goldsmith

1961 LAUSANNE CLOSED CLASS       TAPE 423 SIDE 2

 MEDIATION: REMOVING THE BARRIERS TO GOD

By Joel Goldsmith

      Good afternoon.  Now let us start with this foundational point of our entire work. As human beings we are branches of a tree cut off from our source, withering and dying. That’s the history of the entire human race from its beginning until this moment. If human beings were not cut off from their source they would never know sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, wars, rumors of wars. They would never have a drought. They would never have too much rain. They would never know such a thing as a tornado. There would be no such things in existence even here on earth. There would never be too much heat and there would never be too much cold. The only reason that we have these things is that we are cut off as the human race from the source and we wither and we die just as it is revealed in the Master’s teaching.

        When we are cut off from our source we have a human experience that may last ten years twenty, 60, 70, 80 or 90. It is composed of good experiences, bad experiences, medium good and medium bad and sometimes horrible. None of this could be true if we were not cut off from God.

        Now, the whole of the Christian teaching, that is the Master’s teaching was a revelation of this and the further revelation that it is possible to become reunited with God to once again become one with our source. We have in the fifteenth chapter of John the entire explanation of this that when the branch is separate from the vine, it is no longer spiritually fed. It withers and dies. When the branch is reunited with the vine it can bear fruit richly. Now just think of this—a branch in and of itself cannot bear fruit. A branch in and of itself can’t bear fruit. A branch of a tree in and of itself has no capacity to flower or bear fruit. It is only when it is connected to the trunk of the tree, and the trunk of course with its root, and the root grounded in the earth that the branch is able to bear fruit.

        So with us, we have absolutely no capacity for any form of good as individuals—none. Even the Master could say, why callest thou me good. Even he could not attain goodness and no one can. No one can attain goodness. No one can attain health. No one can attain spiritual riches of himself or herself. Only as he is reunited with the vine, only as he is one with God can he then by the grace of God bear fruit richly? —All kinds of fruit: fruit in the body, health; fruit in the mind, sanity, intelligence, love. The fruits of the spirit, ripeness, purity, harmony, infinite good in every form. Now, the question is brought up, how can a human being who is literally born separate and apart from God, knows nothing but sickness from the time it’s born, how can an individual return to the Father’s house, that is, become one with God?

        In the ancient schools of wisdom it was taught how this could be brought about. It is only when the church was founded 1700 years ago that man was cut off from the possibility of being reunited with God because nothing was introduced into the church teaching that would enable a person to establish themselves again in their oneness with God. It was falsely taught that if you were baptized or if you had communion or if you went through some other forms of worship or ritual or ceremony that this would establish you in God and this has been a lie from the beginning. It has never been true. You cannot become reunited with God in any outer form of worship, service, devotion, ceremony, rite or creed. And the reason is this: The place in which atonement takes place is within your Consciousness.

        There is no other place for this experience to happen. If it doesn’t happen within your Consciousness it isn’t happening as far as you are concerned. It could be happening to the person next to you and you would never know that anything was taking place. In other words, whatever of a spiritual nature is to take place within you, for you, must take place in your Consciousness. It must be an act of your Consciousness. It must be an activity of your Consciousness and it must be consciously attained. Now there are rare instances of individuals who have this experience in Consciousness without any will or desire for it on their part so far as human experience is concerned. It is an act of grace that happens to some people sometime. It happens in their Consciousness but it happens without their having had a desire for it or a knowledge of it. It would be difficult to explain why that happens from any human standpoint and it is for this reason that the most reasonable explanation of this is that in some previous existence a person had been prepared for it.

        In other words each one of us in this room is now on the spiritual path. It may be that there are some here who never were on the spiritual path until they entered this particular life. It is possible that there are others who found their way to the spiritual path in a former lifetime or ten lifetimes ago. It is for this reason that some people come into this world more spiritually endowed than others. It is for this reason that some people are materialistic throughout their span on this earth, they cannot overcome their materialistic nature. Although some day, somewhere, somehow they also will be lead to the spiritual path. And so it may be that we have lived many lifetimes and that on one or another of these we touched the spiritual path and came to this plane more ready than others.

        Now in that case it is possible that those who have had spiritual vision before they came to this plane may, by grace, have their awakening, their illumination, or initiation without even having a conscious desire for it or knowledge of it latent within them. If there is any other explanation someone else will have to give it. That is the explanation that seems most reasonable to me.

        But if it were necessary to wait for an act of Grace to attain our oneness there would be no hope for mankind on earth expect to wait throughout this lifetime or the next or the next or the next. It has been discovered, it was discovered in the days of the ancient wisdoms that there is a way whereby we can become reunited with God. You will remember that this 15^th chapter of John is one way of explaining humanhood and its sense of separation from God; that the story of the prodigal Son is another way of explaining the same thing. The prodigal son is originally the son of God, one with the Father, joint heir to all of the Father, all that the Father has, but cutting himself off from the Father’s house he wanders around as we humans do using up this fourscore and ten years substance that we originally received from the Father but which is not renewed until eventually we come to a place of barrenness. In the case of the prodigal it is described as his meal with the swine. In our experience it can be described as an incurable disease or insanity or dire poverty, some extremity of human life that brings about in us the feeling is there a way back home? Is there a way back to the Father’s bosom? Is there a way back to the Father’s house, and then we turn.

        Now in explaining this I must also explain to you that it is only by the grace of God that anyone can experience the reunion and it is for this reason that only those who have already been touched by that grace will attempt to become reunited. In other words, the fact that you are on a spiritual path, that you are seeking light through meditation, contemplation, is proof that grace has already touched you because without this you would be outside with all the millions who would never pick up a book on meditation or contemplation or mysticism. You would at first wonder why is it that they will not pick up such a book or if they do, they will quickly put it down. And the answer is they have not yet been touched by a spiritual grace, they are not yet ready and such a book would be meaningless to them. It is in the same way that we find many people who could never sit through an hour of truth teaching. They would be so restless they would have to jump out of a window if there were no other way out. And the reason is they have not yet been touched by grace even to the point of readiness to start on the path.

        In other words it is literally true what you have read: You have not chosen me, I have chosen you. You have not chosen to seek God. You have not chosen to find spiritual truth or reality, and never believe that this is of your doing. Never believe that if you are reading books of this nature that you are doing it of your own free will and accord because no one has free choice. Free choice is one thing that man does not possess.

        Either a spiritual grace touches him and puts him on the path and keeps him there or he will never seek it. Find it or remain with it. There have been enough spiritual healings take place on the face of the globe in the last hundred years so that if mankind as a whole were ready for a spiritual experience just what they have seen or heard will put them all on the spiritual path. But even the millions upon millions of those who are on the spiritual paths and whose lives show forth the benefit of it even all of this does not convince mankind. Therefore, you have also heard if you raise them from the dead they will not believe. And so it is do not think for a moment that you have the power to put others on the spiritual path that you can proselyte, that you can draw people into the spiritual path. You have no such power. Either they are touched by an inner grace and come or they never will be reached. It doesn’t mean that we cannot offer a book or a booklet. It doesn’t mean that we cannot offer a cup of cold water, but that’s all we can do. For the rest they must open up themselves and that they can only do when this grace has touched them.

        Now, if you perceive that as human beings you are the branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth, if you can further perceive that by becoming reunited with your source that you would be spiritually fed, spiritually governed, spiritually healed, spiritually supplied, then you will understand the part that meditation and contemplation play in our return to the Father’s house. This return, this becoming reunited with God, has nothing whatsoever to do with any outer activity of our body. Therefore, we need not go to holy mountains nor holy temples. The kingdom of God is within you and it is there that you must go—within you—so that by an activity of your own Consciousness you can become reunited with your source. Now this source is within you. It is neither lo here nor lo there. It is not in holy mountains or holy temples it IS within you. Therefore, there is no need to go anywhere. There is need only to learn how to retire to the withinness of your own being.

        It is true that if you find a teacher who has received some measure of illumination and you can meditate with them that your meditation will be more quickly received and your reunion with your source will be more quickly attained. In other words it is still true that I, if I be lifted up can draw all men to me. In other words a spiritual teacher in meditation with the student can lift the student up to the point of reunion.

        A question arises and that is this—the question of time. Sometimes an individual meditating for the very first time with their teacher reaches their source, attains their at-one-ment. It can be a second time, a third time. It can be a hundredth time, and there are some who may require a thousand because it has been found that with some it’s an instantaneous experience and with others it’s a matter of many, many years before the attainment of that experience. Therefore, the matter of time is a serious one. It isn’t always possible to find the teacher to meditate with. My own experience shows me that there are not many teachers on earth capable of lifting the student to that period of at-one-ment, and in the Occident there are almost none. I am sure that you could count the teachers on one hand, on the fingers of one hand in the Occident and have several fingers left over of the teachers who have attained that degree of light in meditation, or through meditation or illumination to be the avenue. The Orient has more of these because the Orient has worked with meditation for centuries. Unfortunately there are not too many in the Orient for the simple reason that all who meditate do not attain oneness. And even of those who have attained the right to call themselves teachers by virtue of their discipleship, even most of these have not attained oneness. And so the amount of teachers on earth to whom one could go for this meditation and light is certainly not many. And that throws the responsibility on each one to do as much of the meditating as they can alone or occasionally unite with others who are seriously on the path because it is still true that where two or more are gathered together in His name and nature, there is a higher degree of spiritual realization than one might attain alone. It has often happened that where two or three or twelve or twenty gather together for a meditation that the at-one-ment takes place.

        Repeating, first see that humanhood is a state of separation from God, in which the human is living each day, one day nearer the grace, each day, one day nearer old age, dissolution. Then see that the same individual reunited with their source is now fed from within not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then you will see how it is possible to live, to be directed, governed, supported, maintained, sustained by its inner fountain of life.

        It is true that you will still eat food and drink, drink. It is true that you will still use money as a means of exchange in commerce and industry. It is true you will still use human modes and means of transportation, but all of these activities in the outer world will now be fed from this inner spring, and therefore, there will be greater harmony and greater joy and greater abundance in the outer experience.

        It is for this reason then that the foundation of our work is meditation and contemplation because this is the means to bring to us the experience of reunion, of conscious oneness with God, and it is this experience of conscious oneness with God that unites us with our spiritual good—all spiritual good which is to appear outwardly as food, clothing, housing and all the needs of human experience.

        In our work in the Infinite Way we have received by grace a revelation that helps us in our meditation and contemplation in helping to attain this conscious union with God. And I can say this to you that without this I have seen the world struggling to understand meditation and attain it and finding great difficulty in it, whereas I have found our students who have the benefit of this unfoldment more quickly achieving their end. Even though they do not all attain it in its fullness quickly they do attain sufficient measure of it so that the results quickly become tangible in their lives.

        Now, I would like to tell you first the great step that will help you in attaining the very act of meditation and reunion with God. And that is never go to God with a desire for anything. Never go to God to receive anything. Never go to God as if you wanted anything because your desire is the barrier that separates you from God’s grace. Anything that you take into your thought when you go to God is a barrier and the greatest barrier is desire. It makes no difference how noble your desire may be; it is an act of separation from your source. Why is this?

        Because God is Spirit and God has only spirit to bestow or impart or awaken in us. Therefore, the moment we think in terms of anything but spirit we are separating ourselves from the kingdom of God. Take no thought for what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed because every such thought is a barrier to your attainment. But to go into meditation with the atmosphere and motive, thy grace Father is my sufficiency and thy love is my reason for being here, that I may know thee aright. That I may meet thee face to face—not for any reason.

        Ah, if you have a reason for this you’re shutting yourself off from it. If you have any reason for going to God you will lose God. There must be no reason except to know thee aright whom to know aright is life eternal. Go to God only for communion with God. To know thee aright, to abide in thy word, to let thy spirit abide in me, this must be the only motive for going into meditation. Come to the throne of God pure. And there’s no way to be pure, no way to be pure except to come to God with no desires beyond the desire to experience God. You can be assured of this: when you attain your union with God all things will be added unto you. It will make no difference if your need is for money or clothing or transportation or opportunity. Regardless of what the human picture may require, it will be supplied you without your taking thought, without your asking, without your desiring. Why—because in attaining the spirit you have attained the allness.

        The earth is the lord and the fullness thereof; therefore attain the Lord and you will have the earth and its fullness. In thy presence is fulfillment. Thy grace is my sufficiency in all things. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, liberty, from what—freedom from what?—from lack, limitation, inharmony, discord, ill health, old age, death. In other words, attain your conscious oneness with God, be the branch that is united with the tree and you won’t have to ask for blossoms or fruit. You won’t have to ask that sap be run up into you. Everything will be accomplished merely by your oneness, and you’ll never have to take thought for anything on this plane of existence. Everything will be provided you by grace before you can even have the awareness of its need.

        Now, this was not given to me lightly or easily for the simple reason that like everyone else I thought that in going to God it was for a reason and that God was going to provide something so I was going to God for something. And that was the barrier, and that was what caused the long, long period of search until finally the revelation came. Seek me, seek only me. Seek me within you where I can be found, but seek only me. Seek not ye what ye shall eat or drink. Seek not ye for tomorrow or next tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but seek me, seek me. Seek me.

        And eventually I knew that we ourselves set up the barrier because unconsciously of course we are thinking of God as a servant. God is a servant whom we can instruct: bring me supply, bring me a home, bring me companionship, bring me happiness, bring me opportunity. And God is not a servant. God is the Master and we are the servants; therefore we are not to command God or ask God or request of God. We are to be the servants of God, obedient to the will of God. We are to go to God not that my will be done, no matter how noble it may be—and some people have very noble wishes in life, but to go to God for them is wrong because God is not there to obey your will or fulfill your desire. We are here to obey the will of God and fulfill God’s desire. We are to be the fulfillment of that just as the heavens declare the glory of God. The earth sheweth forth his handiwork. So we, we must be living witnesses to God’s glory, not our glory, not my will, not my judgment, not my brilliance, not my brain, not my physical powers, oh no. No, no no. It must be God expressing Himself through us and it must be our willingness to be empty.

        The master showed us that you cannot fill a vessel already full. You cannot go to God with your own sense of righteousness or rightness, with your will and your desire, that’s not being empty. We go to God with nevertheless not my will, but thine be done in me that I may be the showing forth of thy glory, that thy life may be glorified in me, thy wisdom be made manifest through me, thy love be expressed through me and then I am as the Master said, a servant, an instrument through which God can live on earth.

        When God lives on earth as man there will be peace on earth because God does not war with himself and if each one of us in this room knew that the only life that we have in us is the life of God, we could not quarrel with each other. It would be the one life quarreling with itself and this could never be anymore than my right hand quarrels with my left hand. Why so—it’s all part of one body. And once you realize that there’s only one life, we are one body and that body is God. There can be no quarreling between us not any more than the branches of a tree could quarrel with themselves. Why so? All branches of one tree, all fed by the same source, all the one life, all receiving existence and fruitage from the same source—how can they quarrel with each other. And nothing but this realization can bring peace whether in this room, this nation, or this universe. Only in the realization that the life of me is the life of you, the being of me is the being of you, we are all one in our spiritual relationship to God. We are all offspring of the one all having the same life flow in us, the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. Only in this realization can come peace—whether between two people, two nations or two universes.

        Declaring this with our lips will not establish peace. Going out on a platform and telling this to the multitudes will not establish peace because the intellect can never accept truth. The intellect will never agree that truth is true because truth is transcendental. It transcends what the human mind can accept, and once you start to say I in thou and thou in me and we in God you have outraged the human intellect. The very moment that we say whatever I do unto you I do unto myself we have outraged the human intellect because the human intellect is sure of one thing and that is that each one of us is a separate unit and usually I’m the greatest one of the units. That the intellect can always agree on.

        Now, when you transcend the intellect, when you can discern through spiritual vision as the Master demanded of his disciples, whom do men say that I am—resurrected Hebrew, prophet, yes. But whom do ye say that I am, and he expected a different answer from the disciples than he expected to get from man. And he got a different answer: thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

        Imagine how insulting that is to the intellect to look at a Hebrew rabbi walking around in a Hebrew robe and then say thou art the Christ and that’s exactly what Peter did. Through that mask of costume, through that mask of church membership, Peter discerned the spiritual nature of Jesus the rabbi and knew that he wasn’t the rabbi. He was the Christ. So you see it is the same way if you were in a spiritual healing ministry and a person were brought to you sick, very sick, with many symptoms and appearances of sickness. You could never under any circumstances bring spiritual harmony or healing to them unless you had a Consciousness that transcended the human intellect. Because the intellect would say, “you have a fever.” or “Your heart isn’t beating correctly” or “your liver isn’t functioning” and therefore you would have to have a Consciousness that transcended the human intellect and be able to say thou art the Christ the son of the living God, thou art spiritual, thou art ageless and deathless. Thou art immortal and perfect. And how could you ever say that if you were judging by appearances and you couldn’t. But then if you were judging by appearances you couldn’t be a spiritual healer.

        Meditation develops that spiritual Consciousness, that spiritual awareness, that transcendental Consciousness and except as I said in the beginning the occasional few who attain it by the grace of God without any effort on their own part—so far as I know meditation is the only way of lifting ourselves above the intellect into the attainment of that fourth dimensional Consciousness, the Christ Mind. And the reason that it is possible for meditation to do that is this; you have your first major point when you go into your meditation—the fact that you are not going to God for anything. You are going to God only for God. You are going only for realization, only that ‘I may know thee aright whom to know aright is life eternal,’ that I might see thee face to face.

        Now the second barrier that separates us from this union with God is the belief that God is a great power that can do things to other powers. In other words that God is a great power that can perhaps remove disease or sin or fear or that God can give us supply or that God can change the weather. And you see you never will attain conscious union with God while you’re under such a delusion. God is not a great power over other powers. That is a false teaching that has been handed down through the generations that has caused men to lose their spiritual lives. Please believe me that God is infinite and omnipotent and beside God there is no other power. And so when you go into a meditation if you are seeking to have God do something—like heal the sick or reform the sinner or get you supply, you set up the barrier that will separate you as long as you keep it up.

        God is not a power that man can use. God is a power that can use man. But God is infinite power. God is omnipotent power. Beside God there is no other power. Therefore to go to God with some concept in your mind of what God can do that you want God to do is to lose Him. You will find when you attain the realization of God that all these so-called powers: powers of sin or powers of disease or powers of lack –they disappear. It isn’t that God has destroyed powers. The experience is exactly that of light touching darkness and darkness isn’t there any more. But God didn’t do anything to darkness, or rather light didn’t do anything to darkness. Darkness never existed as an entity. Darkness is only an absence of light. And sin, and disease and lack are only the absence of God. They are not entities. They are not identities. They have no form of their own. They have no power. They have no substance, and they have no law. All there is to sin and disease and lack is an absence of God, and where the presence of God is there is no sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, wars or rumors of wars.

        Therefore when you go into meditation don’t go in wanting God to be the great power. Don’t go in wanting God to do something to the errors of this world because you will fail as prayers have failed for thousands of years. How many billions of people have been on earth praying for peace without peace ever coming! How many billions of people have prayed for prosperity without prosperity coming! How many billions of parents have prayed for their children and how many billions of children have prayed for their parents, and what’s the use of it all?

        The only time that you will find a benefit, a lasting permanent benefit from prayer, is when you do not seek God to do anything, when you’re satisfied to experience God’s presence, for God is light and in Him is no darkness. God is omnipotence and when there is the presence of God there is no other power.

        You will find that meditation is not as difficult as it seems once you go to God with no desires, without wanting God to be a power over something—just for the purpose: “here I am Father that I may be where thou art. Thou art where I am, that we may be one.” That’s all. If that is your pure motive when you go into meditation, meditation will not be difficult.

        You see, God cannot be reached through the human mind. You can accept that as having been proven for a million years. God cannot be reached through any activity of the human mind. It is only when you can be still. It is only in stillness, in quietness, in confidence that God can be realized. It is only when the senses are still. It is only when you can ‘be still and know that I am God.’ Be still. This I that dwells in the midst of you is God. When it utters Its voice the earth melteth. When the still small voice utters Itself, the discords and inharmonies of sense evaporate. But you see it is not you thinking that does it. It is when you are not thinking. In the moment that you take no thought for your life the Spirit answers. When you are still and have no desire except that God reveal Himself. I, in the midst of me, am mighty. Be still and know that I in the midst of me is God.

        Let the voice of God utter itself and the earth will melteth. God is not in the storm. God is not in the whirlwind. God is not out there in the cyclone. God is in the still small voice which you hear. You don’t declare it. You don’t say it. You don’t think it. You hear it. And therefore when you go into your meditation you go in with a hearing ear. You might hold this ear open this way—not that you’ll hear God with your human ear, but this symbolizes for us spiritual listening. In other words it is the inner ear that is kept open. It merely helps us to take that attitude.

        It is the inner ear that hears. It is the inner eye that sees and therefore just be still and listen. Speak Lord, thy servant heareth. Above all, Father, I am not seeking thee for any reason. Just to be in thy presence, and know thy grace.

        And in that listening attitude a response comes within us of one nature or another. You see, God is closer to us than breathing and nearer than hands and feet and God is not hiding Himself from us. We are setting up the barrier by our desires, by our thoughts, by our false theology that has taught us that God does things to error. God doesn’t do anything to error because error doesn’t have any power to resist God with. All of the evil there ever was in the world was nothing but a sense of separation from God, the absence of God for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, harmony, peace, joy, abundance.

        Be assured of this, Moses did not pray to God to open the Red Sea. Moses merely stood still in the realization that the presence of God was within him. The place whereon I stand is holy ground and then standing there quietly, peacefully, God could operate and open the Red Sea. Be assured that Moses never prayed for manna to fall from the sky. He knew that God was not his servant. His prayer could only have been the realization of omnipotence and omnipresence. Here where I am God is and that is enough for me to know. And the being still, let the human mind be still, let all the world be still, and then the presence of God appears as manna.

        Jesus could never have prayed for anyone’s healing nor is there any record in the New Testament that he ever did pray for anyone’s healing. No, no he just looked up to the Father and declared there was no other presence—to the crippled man what did hinder you, to the blind man, open your eye, even to Lazarus he said, I need not pray. Of course not. Why should God do something after man asked him to? Isn’t that ridiculous? If God is the all knowing and the all loving, does he need man to remind Him of His function? Ah no, God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is the same from everlasting to everlasting, and then prayer is just standing there and realizing that. I need not ask you Father to heal anybody. I need only rejoice in thy ever presence. I need only rejoice that thou art too pure to behold inequity. Thou art no respecter of persons. Thy rain falls on the just and the unjust. The woman taken in adultery is forgiven in the very moment she wants it. The thief on the cross is forgiven in the very moment that he wants it—no waiting—why? God is omnipresence. God is omnipotence. God does not have to be commanded by man. God does not have to be requested by man or prayed to by man. God needs only to be realized. Here where I am Father thou art. All that thou art I am. All that thou hast is mine. Thou hast said, Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine. It means only this realization and the inner peace that follows brings this conscious union with God. For now there is no sense of separation, nothing to cause a separation. When you come to God remember this—in your purest state there is no reason for God to withhold Himself from you. Only when you—by ignorance—set up a sense of separation that God does not break through to you—and not by God’s will but by our having set up the barrier.

 End Tape 423 Side 2

1961 LAUSANNE CLOSED CLASS

TAPE 423 SIDE ONE                       PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES

 By Joel Goldsmith

           Good afternoon. We are going to take up the subject of specific work or the nature of our treatment work and I will first answer this question which is a very important one or rather the answer is very important to the understanding of that very subject of specific work, how specifically to handle problems, problems of any nature that may arise in personal experience or in the whole world experience. And the question has to do with resist not evil. To protest against evil rules.

          (oh I can’t read that) but anyhow it is the subject, is whether protesting against evil is not really cooperating with evil in remaining silent even if inwardly we disagree. Now here you must understand that you are dealing with different levels of Consciousness and when we teach we are teaching how to live from the standpoint of Infinite Way Consciousness. This would not apply to the person who has not yet attained this level. In other words, on the human level of life, if someone wrongs you, you may sue them. On the human level of life if someone threatens your pocketbook, you may shoot them. And in every experience in life there is a way to overcome the evil that threatens you, but you must remember that the Master who knew all about resisting evil, and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, he knew all about the Hebraic teaching, he was a rabbi, nevertheless, to his own followers he said, while you have heard that said of old, now I say to you. And then he revealed that in the Consciousness that he was revealing that you were no longer to resist evil, you were no longer to seek revenge, you were no longer to use any human means of refuting evil.

          Now you must understand this: no one in their human state even though they may belong to a Christian church—can follow a Christian church until they have risen that high in Consciousness. All Christian churches today operate from the standpoint of Judaism. None of them have yet accepted the Christian teaching and the reason is that they have not themselves been able to rise to the level of Christian Consciousness therefore they function in the Hebraic Consciousness even while calling themselves Christians and sometimes even while persecuting the Hebrews.

          Now, yes, we witnessed an example of that in California two months ago while at our class work there, when at the very Easter time a man and a woman who were being tried for murder were eventually convicted and the press and the people feared that the judge would only give them life imprisonment—and the storm that went up that they must be executed. They must be executed. And of course the next day was Easter and they all went to their Christian churches secure in the fact that they were Christians. There wasn’t a Christian among them. But they had not yet risen to the Christian level of Consciousness which says you do not punish murder by more murder.

          So when we come to our individual experience, if you are on the spiritual path, you will gradually, not all at once, but gradually leave the Hebraic Consciousness. And remember this: my words are not anti-Semitic. There are just as many Christians who are members of the Jewish synagogue as there are Christians who are members of the Christian church because when I speak of Hebraic Consciousness or Christian Consciousness I have no reference to what church you belong to, but only to what state of Consciousness you have risen to. If you are at the level of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, if you are at the level of wanting revenge for offenses, you are in the Hebraic Consciousness and it makes no difference whether you belong to a Christian church or a Vedantist church, Protestant, Catholic or what not.

          Now as you attain this Consciousness you will find that it is not necessary to resist evil outwardly or openly, and you are not cooperating with evil if you understand the principle and its application, but you will be helping to overcome it. When you are faced with what appears to be an evil and you would meet it spiritually you must first know that evil is not a power. You must also know that you are not trying to change a human evil into a human good. You are not trying to exchange one human condition for another human condition but rather that your function is to bear witness to spiritual sense and power, not human good. Ah, you must be careful of this. When you are faced with sin, you must not try to change it to purity. When you are faced with disease, you must not try to change it to health. When you are faced with death you must not try to change it to life. When you are faced with loss you must not try to change it to gain. What must you do? You must realize that neither human loss nor human gain is of any moment. You must realize that neither life nor death can separate you from the love of God. You must realize that if you had the best health in all of the world this minute you wouldn’t have a thing to prevent you from dropping dead in the next minute.

          Therefore, in facing a condition of evil you do not try to change it into good. You realize the non-power or the maya or illusion of both human evil and human good and then your prayer is, “let me bear witness to spiritual truth, to spiritual harmony to spiritual good.” This is rising above the pairs of opposites—this is rising above both good and evil, and you see you cannot get back to Eden until you have risen above both good and evil. While you are merely trying to exchange evil for good or turn evil into good you are not in paradise because regardless of the degree of good it can again become evil.

          Have you not seen the struggles of people trying to attain a million? And then see them end up with nothing. Have you not seen the struggle of athletes and health addicts build themselves up to what they think is a perfect physical temple and then wreck themselves? Have you not seen even the best of people—those who strive to be righteous—have you not seen that in spite of their so-called righteousness something or other pulls them down and destroys them physically or mentally or morally or financially? So you perceive that if you are living a life of merely trying to change good, or rather evil into good, if you are merely trying to overcome evil, it profiteth you nothing. If only I could recite to you a history from Genghis Khan to Hitler to show you how many evils have been overcome in the history of the world. Have they been? Has one of them ever been overcome? Have any of the evils of this world been overcome? You might tell me that there are some diseases that no longer exist, but I’ll tell you there are five times more diseases than ever were known to our grandparents.

          Now, evil cannot be overcome by might or by power. There never will be a war to end a war. There never will be a cure of disease that will cure disease. Have you not witnessed in the last twenty years the discovery of miracle drugs and aren’t you witnessing now their lack of efficacies, their inability to maintain the progress that was made, are you not witnessing one miracle drug after another unable to stand up and something else having to be done. No, the human knows no other way then fighting back and so he wins a war and then loses the next one. Or as in the case of our modern wars, World War I and II, we’ve had victorious sides. They’re both bankrupt and corrupt. Victory has been a farce. There is no such thing as a victory over evil except as we realize this that by the Spirit, by the invisible, indescribable something which right it is. In our individual experience it works this way: as we learn how to overcome disease, without fighting it, without trying to overcome it, with out medicating it or operating on it, as we learn to sit beside it in the silence until the Spirit of God, the Spirit within us bears witness then we find health being established of a permanent nature, of a different nature, a nature that does not have to be overcome again and again and again.

          In the same way when false efforts are overcome by will power, by trying, by effort, by fighting it, you know how many times it proves to be not lasting, but false appetites, false desires, when overcome spiritually remain a permanent blessing. On the human level of life to take a resist not attitude would merely mean to give your adversary the opportunity to take advantage of you. On the spiritual path this is not true. On the spiritual path when you abide within the center of your being remembering not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, sayeth the Lord. Man shall not live by bread alone, by force or by power but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God then you wait to receive some word then you begin—many times in small ways to watch evil dissolve. There was the case of the great Hebrew prophet, a man who was functioning centuries before Christ, centuries before Jesus, but functioning as in the Christian Consciousness for when his Hebrew people came you him and said, “the enemy is coming at us and they are stronger than we are, they outnumber us.” And he said, fear not. They have only the arm of flesh, we have the Lord God almighty, and then scripture says they rested in his word. They didn’t go out to fight, they didn’t go out to struggle, they rested in his word. And then what happened, the enemy fought among themselves and destroyed themselves.

          So it is that we witness in this work, whether we undertake problems of health, morals, finances, any form of evil that opposes us, injustice, inequality, we find this—that if we can resist the desire to change evil into good, and are willing to bear witness to spiritual presence and power that harmony evolves, right here on the human plane—in matters of health, in matters of commerce, industry, even in matters of government. You’d be surprised how many matters of government, how many of those in government turns to this sort of activity, to this very activity of the Infinite Way for the solving of their problems, and find problems solved not by might not by power, nor by saying this one is right and that one is wrong, but by seeking the spiritual solution.

          There is a spiritual solution to every problem. The manifestation of that solution is dependent upon the degree of our ability to withdraw from wanting a human victory. The degree in which we do not seek to change evil into good but rather wish to bear witness to spiritual presence, spiritual power, spiritual justice, spiritual equality, spiritual equity, spiritual harmony. Spiritual harmony, when it comes, translates itself on our very level of experience. Now here is a very strange thing and it’s asked in the question. When we meditate and then things harmonize in our life, we find the right parking place, the right place, the right home. Who or what decides in what form the harmony is to flow out? God of course has no knowledge of a physical universe or physical means. God has no knowledge of a physical heart that’s either functioning rightly or wrongly, properly or improperly. God has no knowledge of men who are warring with each other or striking against each other. Such things could never come into the Consciousness of God for they would be dissolved.

          So it is that when we turn for a spiritual solution to what seems to be a material problem, let us say this very subject of an industrial dispute, and we turn to spirit for a solution, who is it that decides the right or wrong or who shall win or how the victory shall be achieved?  And the answer is really the one that you will have to understand through this illustration. At one time it was said that Joan of Arc was asked does God speak to you in French and she said I don’t know. I hear Him in French. Is it not clear to you that God does not speak in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian or any other language? Is it not clear to you that God does not reveal Himself as Jesus or Buddha or Lao Tse or John or Paul? Is it not clear that God is spirit and that when Spirit announces itself we interpret it in accord with our own concepts of what we may expect?

          For instance if we are following the Christian mysticism it is not at all strange if at some time or another in our meditation we should behold the figure of Jesus Christ or of John or of Paul. It has happened to many. On the other hand, those who follow the Oriental mysticism, should it be thought strange that they behold the Buddha or some figure that represents to them the highest form of human by deity? Of course, just as when you turn in meditation if you receive the word of God, and if your normal language is English, German, French, that’s the way you’re going to receive it. And if there are a dozen of us in his room and each with a different language they will receive it in their language, yet God is not speaking in anyone’s language. God is Spirit, but we have to receive Spirit in accord with the conditioning of our own being. So it is then that while God knows nothing of disease, God knows nothing of a heart that has to beat so and so fast—if God knew anything about that you can be assured that it would be beating correctly all of the time. Nothing is outside the power of God. But we have an idea of how the heart should beat and so when God voices harmony of body it is only natural that we interpret it in that degree of heart beat, or that degree of fever or temperature, and so forth and so on.

          You know it’s a strange thing that sometimes that people who cannot sleep or cannot sleep enough turn to the Spirit and find that they sleep eight or nine good hours. And I suppose that they would imagine that God intends that we should sleep eight or nine hours. Now let it be understood clearly that it isn’t necessary to sleep at all as far as God’s concerned. God neither slumbers nor sleepeth ever nor does His image and likeness and therefore if we turn to the Spirit and find ourselves sleeping eight or nine hours it is because we have conditioned ourselves to accept that as normal sleep whereas there have been many wonderful men, accomplish wonderful achievements and have done with two or three or four hours of sleep. But I assure you that if God intended that they have eight hours sleep they would have it. Oh no, but they conditioned themselves and knew that they could function with that much sleep and they did.

          So it is then that spiritual harmony comes as infinite perfection but the degree of it and the manner of it that we experience it is proportioned to our conditioned mind, through what our minds have been conditioned through education, environment, sometimes even pre-natal experiences. In other words, each one of us is a conditioned person. We have been conditioned somewhat by our ancestry, somewhat by our nationality, somewhat by our religion, a great deal more by our education and then finally by our personal experiences in life. Put all of these together and the sum total of them is what we humanly are. Therefore when we turn to Spirit it is more than likely that the grace of God will come through in some conditioned form, conditioned by our state of Consciousness.

          So it is. If I were to concern myself with supply I’d presume that it would come to me in dollars. But if you were to concern yourself with supply, it would come to you in Swiss francs and I don’t think God has made any more Swiss francs than he has made American dollars. There again is the conditioning. There is the conditioning. Sometimes good unfolds to us and strangely enough it unfolds to one person in a beautiful automobile, another one a beautiful boat, another one a beautiful diamond—why these things or a beautiful home? Why? Why if God is giving us his grace should it not be we all receive a beautiful home? No, no, no, we condition what comes to us by something latent in our Consciousness. Somewhere within us there is an unvoiced dream of owning a beautiful home or a beautiful boat or a beautiful car or beautiful jewelry and lo and behold it happens that way.

          I know in my own case I have always even when I didn’t know why, didn’t know the nature of it, I’ve always thought of something wonderful in the form of jade. Jade to me always represented something wonderful. Why—it must have to do with some previous incarnation, but jade always seemed to represent to me something very wonderful. And you know that as the good things in life began to unfold in me through my spiritual awareness the first thing you know jades began to come. A little jade here, and a bigger jade there, and a thin one here and a thick one there until I really have a nice little collection of jades. No attempt to be just a collector of jades, but it just seems that jade has a way of finding me.

          Well I can well understand that yachts and dollars and something else would unfold to others if somewhere within them that represents their language so God speaks in Spirit but Joan of Arc hears it in French. I hear it in English and one night my wife awakened to hear me speaking French fluently though I don’t know it but it was because at that particular time something was operating at that level through me. Nothing is impossible because you see our true nature is unconditioned mind and unconditioned spirit, unconditioned soul. We are really unconditioned Consciousness but the conditioning we have received from grandparents and parents, the conditioning we have received in our national and national religious teachings, they make a state of limitation of us—an absolute state of limitation. And it is for this reason you will find as you travel people who are really free of national and religious prejudices are those who’ve traveled the most and met the most people. In other words they’ve broken through the conditioning that they received at home.

          You know in New York City we received a lot of conditioning from one of our newspapers that had as its banner every day: My country right or wrong. My country. Can you imagine if you read that every day for twenty years how little you’d think of any other country or their rights or  no, no, no only my country. And you know people who have that same religious conviction: only my people are going to go to heaven and all the rest of you people are going to burn. Do you see that?

          And so it is that the conditioning we received—I remember one time speaking to a Christian Science teacher, a man really of high state of spiritual Consciousness and something that I said shocked him and it took him two years before he came to the realization that it was true. And then he said to me, do you know who is to blame for that—my Scotch grandmother. I was brought up at her knee and she taught me those things at her knee and I believed them. Certainly, certainly some of those teachings that were given to you as children you can’t get out of your very system. One of those very things is the world’s inability to really forgive those who sin. You’d be surprised how these church teachings have made us so narrow, so bigoted, so destructive to each other that we forget that the Christian teaching is neither do I condemn thee. Thy sins be forgiven thee. And all we think to do is to ex-communicate somebody from the church or to execute them in the gas chamber or do something horrible to punish them for their sins and we don’t really realize that that’s the conditioning we have received so that it has made us even unable to read the Bible. We’ve even lost the capacity to read the Bible and what it says. We must condition what it says by what we were taught.

          Now in the facing of problems you have the overcoming of the conditioning that you have received throughout your lifetime. For instance from the moment of conception your parents were fearing two powers. They were hoping that you would be born normally, and joyously and freely, but they were fearing that something would happen to the babe. And for nine months they kept on hoping on one side and fearing on the other and not being certain then until they looked the babe right in the face and said oh thank God you’re all right. It’s really a miracle that so many are. Whereas and excuse me, now this infant is already indoctrinated with fear, already it’s been carrying nine months of its parents fears around. Now it comes out into the open and it gets the doctor’s fears, now don’t get that baby in a draft, now be sure to keep it covered. Now be sure not to have it covered too much. And from that time on until it starts to go outside to play there’s more fear over that child than there is love. The minute it gets outside then we begin to fear kidnappers and automobiles and so forth.

          Now this is conditioning and we as humans grow up conditioned that way and when you come to the spiritual path you have to undo that. You have to consciously accept God as infinity, infinite being, infinite power. You have to accept God as infinite good. That’s not easy. That’s not easy. With every problem you have to retire within yourself, God is and God is closer than breathing. God is omnipresent where I am and God is infinite. God is infinite good. Right here you have to go and wipe out most of your church teachings because according to your church teachings God is both good and evil—even in your funeral ceremonies you have God blamed for bringing this dear one home—sometimes with a cancer—he can’t do it gently, fellow. He has to hit you with a cancer, a polio, consumption, the hard way. You don’t believe that now, but you did once.

          You did when you went to the funeral of a child and you heard the minister say God is called this dear one home. You believed it and you didn’t even stop to think how horrible that God must be if that’s the way He’s got to do it. God doesn’t call any one home at any age that’s ever been known. The whole secret of the Master was that he came to do the will of His Father, and that was overcoming death—even Peter’s grandmother and she must have been as old as God—even Peter’s grandmother was saved—why?  Because God has no pleasure in your dying. God has not provided for death. God has only provided life eternal and immortal. And when we know that, when our time comes to outgrow this physical frame we will do it without having to be stricken down with all of the senilities of old age and all of the horrors of cancer and consumption and polio. When the time comes to make the transition—and it does because we are not supposed to live at the level of the physical frame forever any more than we are supposed to live at the level of infancy forever, we mature and we go on from glory to glory. But we should step out of this phase of existence without being pushed out. So with every disease that you handle for yourself or another you have to consciously remember that it’s no part of God’s will and for that reason it has no power. Only that which is ordained of God is power. Only that which is empowered of God is power. You have to train yourself to undo all that your parents taught you and all that your church taught you until you come to the absolute conviction that God is all and God is omnipresence and God is infinite but above all things God is good and the power of God is only good.

          In the same way when you are handling things specifically you usually find that some law is involved. It may be a law of infection or a law of contagion or a law of seasons or a law of weather or a law of age. You have the age of puberty and you have the age of maturity and you have the age of change of life, how do you call it, menopause? You have all these different ages and these are beliefs of age. They’re not real; they’re not of God. Therefore these transitions from childhood to maturity and maturity to a higher maturity, oh, all of these physiological changes should take place without pain, without discord, without inharmony because, while they are natural functions of the physical body, they have no law of God to oppose their action. They have no law of God under which to function and therefore there is no need for these discords.

          In specifically working with all cases that have to do with human relationships such as we have in families, marriages, parents and children and other relatives or human relationships in industry, or human relationships in government, you also have a specific truth that must be known which is an overcoming, overcoming of more conditioning. That is this. We have been brought up to believe in psychology that fosters this belief that we each have a mind of our own and a will of our own, and that isn’t true. There is only one universal mind and there is only one universal will. And to know this truth separates us from the belief of many minds and many wills.

          When you are faced with problems of relationships—marital, with children, relatives, in business in government—above all you must realize this, that it is the mind of God that is doing the functioning and that we, all of us, are but instruments of that functioning. Therefore there is but one mind and there is but one will functioning among us. That will have one of two effects. It will either bring us all into harmony together or those who are adamant will be removed from our sphere. That is why in our work we can never guarantee when couples come to us that they will remain man and wife. Sometimes the coming to us will bring about separation. Why—because if it isn’t in accord with spiritual harmony for them to function together aren’t they better off separate? If they are to remain at dagger’s end forever is that a life to live just because somebody mumbled jo jumbo over them, you’re married.

          If marriages were made in heaven there would be no divorce. There too there is a mistake in the marriage ceremony. Every church makes the same mistake. It says what God has joined together let no man put asunder. That’s utter nonsense. If God joined anyone together you don’t think they could be put asunder. Is there some God; is there some power that can undo the work of God? Heaven forbid you can’t find a power that can take light out of the sun or warmth out of the sun, can you? No, because God put it there. You can’t find a power that can take H20 out of water. Of course not, as long as water is water there’s H20 because God put it there. Nobody could put asunder what God joined together and so there never would be a broken marriage if marriages were made in heaven because what God joins together no set of circumstances on earth can ever put asunder.

          But you know as well as I do that there are loads of marriages that weren’t made in heaven. They have too many good human reasons for them to be suspected as being heavenly. In fact there’s been a book written about that in the last month or so, over in England I believe, about all of these marriages been made that haven’t even a suspicion of heaven about them. But the point is this: what God hath joined together no man can put asunder. And therefore when you are dealing with human relationships to remember that will remove every single obstacle there is to harmony. But where there isn’t a spiritual union it may dissolve the human one in order that a more satisfying experience can be had. It doesn’t mean that we all enjoy the fruitage of that benevolent act of God either. We’re allowed more than one mistake in a lifetime.

          See this however, we are conditioned into believing that there are many minds and many wills. When we are called upon to work with any case involving human relationships let us first realize this: God is the only mind and God is the only will. God is the only life and only God can function. And then you will find out that you do restore harmony.

          In the same way you have the universal claim that there are two powers in the world and you have to reduce your treatment, your realization to the truth that there is but one power in the world. Now I cannot take up with you in this brief time all of the principles that have been revealed that constitute the Infinite Way Message, but they’re all in the writings. And as you study the writings, you’ll find that the specific principles with which we work and which are responsible for whatever measure of harmony this work has been able to bring out.

          There are three major points that will come up in every problem you are called upon to meet. The first step is to realize one power. This you see is of paramount power because you’re dealing in every case with a belief in two powers, you’re dealing in every case—no matter what it’s nature—it may be a mental case, moral, financial, employment, human relationships, whatever it is you are dealing with a universal belief in two powers and you will not succeed in your work until you have brought yourself to the realization that there is but one power. Then every claim that is brought to you, every case that is brought to you, has a foundational belief in personalization. In other words, this evil is in you, or this sin is in you, or this disease is in you or this bad temper is in you or this unemployment is in you or this lack and limitation is in you. Therefore the very next thing that must be realized is that evil of any and every nature is impersonal. It does not have its foundation in any person. Those through whom it manifests are just temporary victims of a universal belief. But evil does not exist in a person; evil does not originate in a person. Evil is no part of any person.

          The nearest we can voice it is the way Paul did, even though I don’t sin, I know I’m not a sinner yet I feel a sense of sin in me; in other words, this universal belief in twoness, this universal belief in all of the sensual things of the world. But even though we feel them, even though we may have a temptation to steal, lie, cheat, don’t condemn yourself or your patient or your student, realize that this error, evil, whatever name or nature is not personal. It is absolutely impersonal. It has its origin in a universal belief in two powers. It has its origin in a universal belief in a selfhood apart from God. Just as right now there is a belief operating in this room that we are a group of people, whereas we are one. The same life that’s flowing in you is flowing in me. The same life that’s flowing in each one of us is flowing in me. The same mind that is functioning in me is functioning in you. There cannot be many minds or we wouldn’t understand each other. We wouldn’t recognize each other. We’re all looking out through the same mind and the same life functions in our veins.

          There is no such thing as Jewish life and Christian life and Mohammedan life; there is no such thing. There is only life. There is no such thing as the life of a rose or the life of an orchid. It is the same life functioning in both at different levels of expression. What happens the moment we realize this is that we find that among each other a basis of oneness, a basis of harmony, a basis of justice, equity, equality. And we only do that if we realize the life that’s flowing in me is the same life flowing in you. The mind of me is the mind of you. The spirit of God that animates me is the same spirit of God that animates you. When we know that we’ve brought harmony among ourselves and as we leave here to know that the same mind that functioned in Christ Jesus is the same mind of every man makes it possible for us to be at peace with every one we meet—in committee, in business, in social life, in government life, any other life.

          Our first step then in applying these principles specifically is to realize the one power. The second, the impersonal nature of all evil, thirdly the impersonal nature of our own being. We are not separate people. We are all people with the same mind, the same life, the same love, the same spirit, the same body, and we’re all infinite individual manifestations of the one. And that permits us to commune together, to unite together in all spiritual purposes but you will also see that it prevents us from intruding upon each other in any way. It prevents us from taking advantage of each other because this brings to light that “inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me.” Inasmuch as I do good to anyone on earth the good is returning unto me because it has been done under the same life under which it was done. Any evil I do even unto the least of these on earth I’m doing to myself because if there’s only one life, one mind, one spirit, one soul, therefore I’m doing it to my own. It behooves us then to realize this: the one power, the impersonal nature of evil, the impersonal nature of our selfhood. God constitutes our selfhood—mine, yours, and his and hers and its.

          You will see that in applying this to your problems and the problems of those who come to you that it stretches out into infinity, the different ways in which you can apply it, but always it will be these same principles that you’re applying. There are, these are the major principles. There are others that are necessary to know. Those you will find as you study the writings. I would like to say this to you that on the subject of personal relationships that this is all summed up in two chapters of my writings. One of them, “Love Thy Neighbor” in Practicing The Presence and the other, in “Relationship of Oneness” in The Art of Spiritual Healing. Those two chapters cover this entire subject of personal relationships.

          In my 1959 work which you have on tapes, you’ll find this entire subject of impersonalization and one power. Work with these and you’ll really have a basis for the development of a healing Consciousness. Remember the working with these principles develops your own Consciousness and mine to that point where we can look out here and say, “I am you so I better be very careful to what I do to you.”

 Thank you.

 

1961 LAUSANNE CLOSED CLASS    TAPE 422 SIDE TWO

 HIGHER UNFOLDMENT ON PRAYER

           Good afternoon. We’re going on now to still higher unfoldment on prayer. When we come to the subject of prayer we really come to the most important subject there is on the face of the globe. There is no subject—not only in religion, but out of religion—that can ever equal the importance of the subject of prayer. Because for one thing and you may be certain of this, whatever the world is suffering today it is suffering because of a lack of the knowledge of prayer. It is only ignorance of prayer that has the world in the turmoil not only that it is in today that it has always been in.

          On the other hand, whatever of peace, whatever of harmony, whatever of joy has been really and truly known to the world or to small groups in the world has come about through a knowledge of prayer. There never has been a lasting peace on earth between peoples. There never has been a knowledge of prayer on earth except among very small limited groups or some individuals. On the other hand, wherever there has been a knowledge of prayer, there has been peace and harmony and wholeness. And the reason is that prayer is the instrument through which God’s government reaches us—individually and collectively.

          In my writings it has been made very clear that there are many degrees of prayer and that each one serves some purpose in life. It is not possible for me in every class to review all of those steps in prayer. And it is for this reason that as yesterday I was speaking only from our highest level of prayer and not trying to embrace the entire subject of prayer—a subject which could not be embraced in one class or even in 21 classes. In this particular group here in Switzerland there are students who have been reading and studying and practicing The Infinite Way writings for nine and ten years. Therefore, I am, on the whole, speaking to them with a knowledge not only of what is in the writings but also those who have gone through many steps of prayer leading up to that degree of prayer spoken of yesterday.

          Now I could not rightly say, and should not rightly say, that the prayers of the world have been worthless or useless. It was a mistake to be quite so broad. I might point out that in a survey made of 100,000 people who went to Lourdes in one year that 15 people were healed and so you probably cannot truthfully say that prayer is wasted. It was only wasted 99,985 times out of 100,000. Fifteen people out of one hundred thousand were healed. And when the search was made it was really discovered that 15 people knew—no, they may not have known how to pray consciously, but rather they did pray correctly. Fifteen people out of 100,000 prayed correctly. Out of all the priests, out of all the sisters, out of all the others who prayed, only 15 people really knew, and if they did not know were at least led to pray correctly.

          Those 15 people who were healed did not pray for themselves Not one of the 15 people who were healed prayed for themselves. When they reached Lourdes each one of the 15 remembered someone worse off than themselves and they offered their own lives as a sacrifice. They fulfilled the teaching ‘except you lose your life, except you are willing to lay down your life, your life cannot be saved.’ It is only in the sacrifice of your life that your life can be saved and so, in praying, those who pray for themselves are ‘praying amiss.’

          The Master later said ‘it profiteth you nothing to pray for yourselves.’ The strange thing about these 15 people who were healed by praying for others is that those for whom they prayed were not healed. No, because those they prayed for were not praying, were not sacrificing, were not giving up, were not surrendering. They were probably just sitting and waiting for some mysterious God to do something for them whereas these 15 fulfilled the mission of prayer, and that is to forget one’s self even if necessary a willingness to sacrifice one’s life for another.

          You must remember that these 15 people who were incurable were virtually giving up their last hope to be healed when they gave up their prayers for themselves. It was virtually saying ‘take my life, but save this friend,’ and in that willingness to sacrifice they ‘prayed aright.’ They prayed in accord with the teaching of prayer of the Master.

          It does not really mean that everyone who prays even the old way has not made contact with God because prayer is not what we say or think. Prayer is the motive. The words we say or the words we think do not constitute prayer at any time; the prayer is in the motive that brings about prayer. So that a person may humanly have no knowledge of prayer at all and yet make direct contact with God and have answered prayer because of their motive as in the case of these 15. You can see that the words or thoughts they uttered in prayer were useless because those they prayed for were not helped by it. But the motive of their prayer brought the answer to them. The motive was the good of others: self-surrender, service, dedication.

          So it is when a person goes into prayer the answer never comes, never without exception, never, the answer never comes to what they pray for or the words they used in prayer or the thoughts they had in prayer. These never reach God. God has no awareness of our words or thoughts in prayer. The only thing about our prayer that reaches the throne of God is motive. Why do we pray? Why are we on our knees, physically or mentally, actually or metaphorically? Why are we on our knees in the presence of God? The answer to that determines the answer to prayer. If we are seeking something, we are ‘praying amiss.’ If we are praying for the bread, we are ‘praying amiss.’ If we are praying for supply or companionship or health, we are ‘praying amiss.’ When the motive is ‘to know thee aright’ we are ‘praying aright.’ When the motive is to ‘dwell in the secret place of the most High,’ when the motive is to commune with God, when the motive is to be in fellowship with God, when the motive is to ‘love the Lord thy God with all the heart and with all thy soul,’ not for any reason, oh no, there must be no reason for our love for God. And anyone who thinks that loving God because we have abundance, because we have peace or because we have health, if anyone thinks that is love or that is gratitude or that is prayer, they are mistaken.

          That would be even more foolish than to believe that we can love our parents for a reason: because they gave us a gift, because they sent us on a holiday, because they gave us a sum of money. Is that a reason to love parents? Heaven forbid, even to love our human parents, love must be something higher than “I love you because”. But when we think in terms of the divine, think then how horrible it would be to love God because of something—‘to know thee aright, to love God supremely with all thy heart, with all thy soul,’ not for a reason but because God is. God is the very life breath that we are breathing. God is the very soul; God is the very intelligence of our being. We surely do not need reasons for loving God.

          So it is then that there are many, many, many people who have never been rightly taught about prayer but who know how to pray because of their motive. The words they use may be all wrong. And some of them may sit with their shoes on and pray and some with their shoes off, and some with their hats on and some with their hats off. There are those who pray standing on their heads. What difference can that make to God? But any of these is all right if the motive is right. We can pray to God while fasting or while feasting and it is all right if the motive is.

          When the Master says ‘whatsoever we should ask we should receive,’ should we not study his teaching a little further to see what he asks for and see if he ever asked for things or condition? The only one illustration, the only one instance in which it might seem that he asked for something was when in the Lord’s Prayer he asks for daily bread. But heaven knows one would not have to study the Bible very long to know that he was not asking for baker’s bread for he clearly gave the meaning of bread in his teaching, and it is there for everyone to read. When we pray for that bread which cometh down from heaven we are not praying for bread that comes out of a baker’s oven. When we pray for the bread, the ‘Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,’ we are not praying for breakfast rolls. The Master is so clear that ‘your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things and that it is his good pleasure to give you the kingdom’ that no one ever need be mistaken on that subject. If your parents know how to give you good gifts, how much more your heavenly Father would know without being told and without having it specified what form it should be in.

          So it is that if you wish to understand prayer from the standpoint of the Master, it is necessary to study the four Gospels—not take any human person’s word for what it means. Never accept the teaching of any man on that subject. Go to the Gospels and pray, “Father reveal this to me. What is this message that came through thy Son?” and then you will find that it is just as easy for you to be taught of God as it is to be taught of man and even easier and much more correctly once you have learned that we must not trust scholars for our understanding.

          Recently I was invited to speak from the platform of a church on Mother’s Day and especially to read passages of Scripture. The first passage I was given to read was: “Who can find a virtuous woman?” Do you believe that anybody meant to place such an insane statement in Scripture? It was known all the way back in the ages that there are virtuous women. There always have been virtuous women. There are today. You cannot believe it when you read the press, but we do not believe all that we read. There are virtuous women, there are and it is folly for any one and especially Scripture to say who can find a virtuous woman. But you can understand that scholars would put that in the Bible because the word, “who” to them means a question mark, and it is very hard for a scholar to overlook the question mark when there is a ‘who’ even when the sentence makes no sense.

          Now you know the balance of that sentence in Proverbs, “who can find a virtuous woman has found that which is more precious than pearls or rubies”. That is the sentence. But you see a scholar seeing the word “who” naturally puts a question mark there. That is the trouble with reading scripture literally. Scholars did the compounding. They had no idea of spiritual values; they knew language. God forbid when we say that too that they really knew language.

          The Master in prayer was a master beyond masters. If there was one thing he excelled in as a master, it was his understanding of prayer. He knew how to pray aright and he demonstrated that, and in no case do you find him praying that anybody be made healthy. In no case do you find him praying that anybody have supply. In no case do you find him praying that God step out of his character and do something special for this one that He is not doing for all. The Master knew that the secret of prayer is in the realization of God as the same to all men. The secret of prayer is a knowing that in the kingdom of God no individual is different than another. ‘There is neither Greek nor Jew, white nor black’ in the kingdom of God; therefore, there can be no such thing as a Christian prayer or a Hebrew prayer or an Oriental prayer that has any more value one than another.

          God is no respecter of persons. God does not give to one and withhold from another. God does not give one today and withhold tomorrow. God does not withhold today and give tomorrow. There is no such God, and this whole concept of God is what has misled the world on the subject of prayer.

          If God is your Father and my Father, and at that time Jesus was speaking to the Hebrews—it sort of means that God is only the Father of the Hebrew race. All the rest of us are left out according to Scripture—if you interpret it literally. A Hebrew rabbi addressing Hebrews in a Hebrew synagogue and saying ‘your Father and my Father.’ This leaves all the rest of us out. But you do not believe that any more than I do. You know that those words were spiritual words uttered spiritually, universally and in saying, ‘your Father and my Father’ he was not addressing the ears of his listeners. He was addressing the ears of humanity—past, present and future.

          You know a Hebrew religion can be here today and gone tomorrow so can a Christian religion be here today and gone tomorrow. But you do not think for a minute that those words, ‘your Father and my Father,’ will ever pass away. They are addressed to all of us, to all mankind and prayer, in order to be prayer, must recognize that. Prayer must be a recognition that God is the Father of all mankind. Therefore, the grace of God is not only on the just and the unjust, the grace of God is on the white or black, the Jew or Gentile, the Protestant or Catholic for we are one in Christ Jesus. We are one in spiritual sonship. Anyone who draws a line, a circle, and leaves someone out has left themselves out.

           Just as we also learn from the Master that ‘inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,’ and ‘inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these, ye have not done it unto me.’ So we learn that prayer, if it includes one, it includes the Christ. If it excludes one, it excludes the Christ. ‘Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto me.’ Therefore, a prayer that does not include the realization that God’s grace is universal and impersonal, that God’s grace is for saint or sinner at any time the saint or sinner wishes to open their eyes to it, that prayer is not prayer in the sense of spiritual understanding.

          So it is that all prayer will be answered prayer when the motive is right regardless of whether or not the words are right. As a matter of fact there are no wrong words in prayer. There are just useless words because the prayer will be answered in accord with the motive that sends us into prayer. Is the motive to witness God’s kingdom on earth? Then there will be answered prayer. When we enter prayer do we want something or do we want to witness God’s kingdom revealed on earth, God’s presence revealed on earth?

          When we close our eyes in prayer with the realization, ‘Thy grace is my sufficiency. In thy presence is fulfillment. Where the Sprite of the Lord is there is liberty’ and when we pray for that realization of divine presence, when we pray for the realization of divine grace, we have answered prayer. And we do not have to stipulate that we are praying for Mr. and Mrs. Jones or Brown or Smith. The mere fact that they were in our mind when we went into prayer is the connecting link.

          We do not have to be concerned whether Jones, Brown or Smith needs housing, clothing, food, whether their left knee hurts or their right chest. Our only prayer must be the realization of God’s grace as our sufficiency, God’s presence as meeting every need. Then we find that with this desire to know God, to love God, to experience God, to witness God in action, our prayers are fulfilled.

          There are some of you who know that I have helped you with prayer without knowing the details of the situation or without knowing what part of the body was affected. Some of you know the results, the fruitage you have had. You may be assured that whatever fruitage you have had has been for one reason—that when I have gone into prayer and meditation it has been to witness God, to experience God, to know the presence of God, to realize His grace as universally present.

          Where is God, if I may ask that question? Where is God? The answer is where is God not? Is there a place where God is not? Of course not. “If you mount up to heaven God is there. If you make your bed in hell God is there. If you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God is there.” Therefore, the righteous prayer is a realization of that truth. You are not separated from God no matter what the appearances may testify to. ‘Neither life nor death can separate you from the love of God,’ and those who would pray need only pray that prayer: “Neither life nor death can separate you from the love of God.” “The place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” God is where you are.

          I do not ask whether you are a saint or a sinner and God has never asked me whether you are a saint or a sinner. I do not ask whether you are a Jew or a Gentile and God has never asked me. As a matter of fact, I have had wonderful success in praying for atheists—men who were sure there was no God, and even when they were benefited were sure that something other than God had benefited them. Actually does it make any difference what name you give to God, whether you call God, “God” or “non-God”? Does it change the essence of that which is? Does it change the nature of that which is? No, call God, “God” or call God, “non-God.” You still are left with the same thing: a universe that exists and that must exist because of a Something, name it what you will. 

          You see then that this subject of prayer is not meant to stop people from praying, it is to give them a higher concept of prayer so that more prayers will be more effective. In other words, these are serious days in the world and there are no people on the face of the earth who will not feel for many centuries the effects of all that takes place within the next year or two or three. Could you ask for anything better than the knowledge of how to pray? Are we not right if we say that the praying the world has done for many centuries has never prevented a war, a horror, a catastrophe and that it is about time someone knew something more about prayer than has heretofore been taught? Because if we are going to depend on the prayers that were uttered before World War II and World War I and the Spanish American War and the Civil War and the African War, if we are going to depend on that type of praying, we are going to have the same type of experience—just another war.

          Let us all be willing to understand that if we do not learn how to ‘pray aright,’ if we do not learn something more about prayer than we have heretofore known, that this world is facing a very sad situation. There are no humans with sufficient wisdom to stave off the troubles that face us. Only prayer is going to reveal the answer, and that prayer will have to be a prayer that has not been very widely known in the past. The reason in our work that I give you this as our concept of prayer, motive, going to God for God, realizing God, is that I have witnessed not only in personal affairs, in wider affairs in which this work has been called, that I have seen that the realization of God, the realization of God’s grace, the realization of God’s presence has worked wonders.

          [Question]: “You say so often that one should pray for our enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you as did the Master, but do we have the right to ask for their forgiveness when surely the sin is ours for seeing or reacting to something  that is only an appearance as far as we are concerned? Should we not pray for our own forgiveness instead?”

       I would say pray for our own forgiveness first. Let us at least see this: we are not really praying to a God to forgive anybody because that would be impossible. God does not forgive anybody at any time for anything. Whatever forgiveness takes place takes place because of our adherence to the law. When the woman taken in adultery turned to the Master he did not say, “God has forgiven you.” He said, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” He made no reference to God. Why?—because she had not sinned against God. She sinned against herself. There is no way to sin against God—none whatsoever. God cannot be affected by humans. God cannot be affected by anything that humans do. If humans want to throw bombs around and wipe themselves out, they have not hurt God. They have not even reached God’s awareness. God has no knowledge of it. If God had knowledge of it, it would not be.

          You never really offend against God. The offense is against one’s self and the punishment does not come from God. Nowhere does the Master say or indicate that punishment comes from God. That was a made up story of the ancient Hebrew teaching for the purpose of keeping people in line who could not be approached on any standard of intelligence. They had to be whipped in line by idle threats and that has just continued.

          When we do or think a wrong it is a violation of a karmic law, and it is very clearly stated. In fact it is the basic law in Christianity: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Do unto others as you would be done by or else. In other words, you do not violate God; you violate a karmic law, and if you violate it, you set in motion the reaction which we call punishment. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren” ye have done it to the law. Really you have conformed to the law if you have done well. “Inasmuch as you have not done it unto the least of these” you have broken the law. Therefore, actually to pray for someone else’s forgiveness has no power insofar as influencing God in their behalf.

          Praying for our enemies is a release unto us. It is an acknowledgement that we have held somebody in bondage to a wrong. It is asking our own forgiveness. You see, once you come to the spiritual life you know that no one has the capacity to harm you. No one has the capacity to do wrong to you. It is impossible. They can do wrong, and they can aim it at you, but it comes right back at them. It cannot come ‘nigh thy dwelling place.’ And here try to understand why. ‘I in the midst of me is God’. ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ ‘No weapon that is formed against me can prosper’ because it is aimed at I, and I is God. No weapon that is formed against thee can prosper for thou art God. God constitutes your life; therefore, any weapon that is formed against the life of God cannot prosper. Any weapon that is formed against the life of God cannot prosper and God is thy life.  

          God is thy Spirit. God is the substance of thy body. Your body is the temple of God. Any weapon that is formed against the temple of God cannot prosper. If you personalize yourself and set yourself up as a selfhood apart from God, then that which you have done will cause you to suffer. Otherwise, as long as you do not set up a selfhood apart from God, as long as you acknowledge God to be your selfhood, no weapon that is formed against thee shall or can prosper. Do you see that? Do you see that?

          Only in setting up a selfhood apart from God can you be the victim of the carnal mind for the carnal mind did not destroy the Christ. The lesson of the resurrection and the ascension is the proof that Christ was not killed. Christ was not harmed. Christ is risen. Christ is not in the tomb. Christ is risen. In other words, if Christ is your life, your life is not at the mercy of any weapon that can be formed against thee and the whole secret is right-identification: Who am I? Who do men say I am? Who do ye say that I am? And the answer must be “thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And you have to say that to me. And I, in order to be the Christ, must acknowledge that this is the truth of you. “Ye are the temple of God.” God is your life. “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” for no weapon that is formed against the life of God can prosper.

          “There is always some leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist and will appear. The dice of God are always loaded,” from Ralph Waldo Emerson. That does not refer to God; it refers to the law. The law is always there. As ye do so it is unto you. As you know yourself to be the temple of God so it is unto you, and knowing your right identity is the law unto your being, unto your safety, unto your security, and there is no other. The law is always there. As ye do so it is done to you. Why? You are doing it and you are doing it unto yourself because there is but one self.

          When you do good, you are doing good to yourself. It may benefit someone in some degree; it will benefit you more.  When you do injury to another, it may injure someone slightly. It will injure you more because there is a law of action and reaction, ‘as ye sow so shall ye reap.’ As ye do to another so shall it be done to you.

          When you understand this you can understand that if I say—and I may be thinking of Mr. Khrushchev this moment—I may say, “Father forgive him, he knows not what he does”—I am really, really saying, “And be sure you forgive me for blaming him because I know better. I know that all evil is impersonal and those who act evilly are acting under an impersonal influence” even as Paul indicated: “I know that I do not sin yet I feel a sense of sin in me.” And so it is.

          In my experience with people I have learned that there are no sinners. There is not in all of this world an evil person—although there are many people acting evilly. But believe me from my own experience with them I can tell you that they hate themselves more for it than we could hate them for it. Everyone who is doing wrong knows that he is doing wrong and does not want to do it. They are controlled in their ignorance by something that seems to be greater than themselves, and temporarily it is. It is the universal impulse.

          You see, unfortunately, we are all born under a horrible law that self preservation is the first law of nature. We were all born under that law and we were all taught that it was right in order to preserve ourselves that we do anything to anybody else, including murder. Ah yes, there are many ways of legally committing murder—to protect our property. Just think, we can take a human life in protecting our property or protecting our lives or protecting the lives or the honor of our family it is legitimate to murder. But you know that it is not. That is the law we were born under and that is the law that holds us in bondage to evil—even makes us believe that it is right to do evil under certain circumstances.

          Do you see what we have to overcome before we enter the spiritual life where we actually come to know that we have no right to return evil for evil? That the law of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ is an ancient Mosaic law that went out even before Jesus 2000 years ago? Even though it is still carried on our books in government and in church, yet it was outlawed more than 2000 years ago. We are carrying that in our consciousness; therefore, we are calloused. We are not yet sensitive to the fact that we have no right to touch the life of another. We have no right to touch the mind or the soul of another. Every life and every mind and every soul is of God and should be held so by us. Only when we entertain that concept of man will we enter an era of peace on earth.

          When your life, your mind, your soul, your body becomes sacred in my sight, I am living in the kingdom of heaven and you are free from any danger from me. When you understand that my life is of God, my mind, my soul, my body, that you have no right to touch it in any way, then we are all living in spiritual freedom, each one realizing the integrity of every individual. Only with that can you do away with domination, tyranny, dictatorships and all these forms of evil that have touched human society.

          But do you not see that the dignity of man is only guaranteed by our realization of the spiritual nature of man’s life? Only in the degree that we understand that we are of God do we remain untouchable. We are praying when we know this truth. We are praying when we know that God constitutes individual being and that the being of every individual is the ‘temple of God.’ We are praying.

          We may not be asking that anybody be healed of disease, but if they have disease they are going to be healed. We are not asking that they be healed of poverty, but if we are praying this way they will be healed of poverty. It is only necessary to know the truth, and the truth is the spiritual nature of individual man. And remember it has to be white man and black man. It has to be Jew man and Gentile man. It has to be Protestant man and Catholic man or you are not praying. You are making of God a respecter of persons and that takes you outside the realm of prayer. Prayer, to be prayer, must be all-inclusive.

          ‘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?’ This is prayer. The reason it is prayer is the motive. It is setting you free from any domination on the part of anyone, setting you free from control, setting you free from laws of sin and laws of disease. Just knowing the integrity of your body and of your being, just knowing the integrity of your soul and of your mind as the temple of God is setting you free. And that motive is what makes it a prayer, and that motive is what makes prayer answered.

          In The Thunder of Silence we have the subject of unconditioned mind. Some of our students who are far enough advanced in their studies have already benefited by this unfoldment. And of course those who are ready will benefit even more as time goes on because as we come to the subject of unconditioned mind we come really to the top rung of spiritual living. That is the place where we are taught of God, where we are receptive and responsive to every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. In other words where we fulfill the revelation of God, “I live yet not I, Christ liveth my life.” To be the unconditioned mind means to look out without prejudice, without bias, without opinion, and without judgment.

          In other words, sitting up here and looking out there it would be as if I were to say, “I have no knowledge of you. I do not know if you are young or old or good or bad or sick or well or alive or dead. I know nothing about you because any judgment that I would have would be based on appearances and appearances can be very deceitful and deceptive. Therefore, I will sit here with no judgment, with an open mind, an unconditioned mind and I will not call you good and I will not call you bad. I will not call you healthy or unhealthy. I will not call you saint or sinner. I will not call you young or old. I will sit here and look out without a concept. “

          That means that I am up here a state of receptivity. In other words I am expecting the Father within to tell me what I need to know about you. I have no judgment. I have no way of knowing you. You say things to me which may be true and may not be true. You present certain appearances which may be false or may be true; therefore, I have no way judging by appearances of knowing you at all. Therefore, I will listen, I will be instructed.

          You have already heard this afternoon the things that I have been told about you:

Ye are the temple of God. Your soul is the temple of God. Your   mind is the temple of God. Your body is the temple of God. Ye are sacred. Ye are holy. Ye are children of God.

          Do you see that? Those are the things I have been told about you, about everyone I meet. These are the things I have been told about the men and women of the world—even those who are in ignorance of it and who are still living in sin or by sin—even those who are living by might and by power. I have been inwardly told:  “Judge not by appearances. These are my beloved children in whom I am well pleased. My grace is their sufficiency and some day even the stupid ones will awaken and discover it.” These are the things we learn when we look out at this world without judgment, with the unconditioned mind and let God reveal.

          Now any one at all, you know, with a little psychology could sit here and tell you a lot about yourself humanly and not one bit of it would be prayer. And not one bit of it would be beneficial to you. One thing alone will benefit you. When the Master looks at you and says:

“Thou art the son of God. Thou art the child of God; thou art the temple of God. Know ye that ye are the temple of God? Know ye, ye are the temple of God and God dwelleth in you. The Spirit of the Lord God dwelleth in you, and you in Him for ye are one.”

              You see this, coming from an unconditioned mind, is the Word of God. And the Word of God is “quick and powerful and sharp.” The Word of God is the healing agency. The Word of God is the reforming agency, the redeeming agency, the regenerative agency, the restoring agency – the Word of God, not the word of man.

          Oh no, the word of man can flatter you and tell you how nice you are, but the Word of God goes right through the middle and says, “No you are not nice, you are not bad, you are mine. You are not even you, you are me. You are the Son of the living God and the Father and the Son is one. Father and Son and Holy Ghost is not three but one, and that one in you: Father and Son and Holy Ghost in you.”

          This the unconditioned mind reveals. The conditioned mind says you are so young and so old, so sick and so well, so rich and so poor, but the unconditioned mind says: “Wake, wake, wake thou that sleepest, wake, wake and Christ will give thee light” for know now that you are the temple of God, the temple of the living God, the instrument through which God lives, the instrument AS which God lives.”

          Hold to this truth and know this truth, and this truth will make you free from the belief that you are a human being. This truth will make you free from the belief that you are a young human or an old human or a sick human or a well human. It will reveal to you the spiritual nature of your being, and that is your only being, and that is the truth about your being and that is prayer.  

          God is Spirit. You are the image and likeness of God; therefore, you are spiritual and this is prayer. God is ageless and you are ageless for God and you are one and this is prayer. You see prayer has many facets, but the highest prayer is when we go beyond words and thoughts and wait for God to give us His word, and when He gives us His word it is the truth about you, the truth about me, the truth about God government on earth. Through this one day we will witness peace on earth but it will not be an interval between wars; it will really be peace. But do not think for a moment that peace can come except there are some on earth willing to acknowledge the divinity of your being, the Christliness of your being – those who are willing to acknowledge that you are sacred soul, mind and body. You are sacred. Therefore, we must never defile ourselves by thinking defiling thoughts of others. Those who we see in sin, our attitude is “Father forgive them they know not what they do.” And yet it is not so much forgiving them as it is forgiving ourselves for seeing erroneously.

          I have seen in the countries where individuals are respected and individual rights are respected and individual personalities are respected the nature of freedom even from human sense. And I have seen in some countries where no humans are respected unless they occupy a high place, and they command a false respect merely for their place. And I have seen there is no hope of freedom or justice or equity in those places, and there never will be until that respect comes for each other as individuals.

          Why are we entitled to respect as individuals? Have you or I done anything to deserve it—God forbid. It is only because we are children of God, because “the Sprit of the Lord God dwells in us” that we are entitled to love, honor, respect from each other and from everyone we contact in this world. If we give that, that is the measure that we will receive.

 Thank you. 

 End Tape 422 Side 2          

 

 

1961 LAUSANNE CLOSED CLASS        TAPE 422 SIDE ONE

 ANSWERED PRAYER

 By Joel Goldsmith 

        Good afternoon. We may think of this subject as answered prayer or it may appear to us more to be pray with the ear and not the tongue. Our meditation before we start our class is a part of prayer. Many people have wondered why for centuries so much praying has taken place—so many millions of prayers in so many millions of churches—and so few answers.

        In my mail I read every day the tragedy of people who pray for themselves and pray for their families and then someone goes out and gets killed in an automobile accident or somebody comes down with this disease or that disease and they say, ‘what is wrong with my prayer?’ Or ‘I have tried to live a good life, a Christian life, a life of benevolence for years and years and years, and I pray and tragedy strikes my home just as much as the homes of those who do not pray. What is wrong with our prayers?’

        The answer is this: Prayer—regardless of how one prays—never reaches God unless before the prayer a contact is actually made with God. We are in the same relationship to God as an electrical appliance. It may be a beautiful appliance—complete and perfect—but until the connection is made with the electric current, it cannot operate. And you can pray from now until the next century and it still would not operate unless an actual contact were made with the electric current.

        As human beings we are branches of a tree that are cut off and our prayers are worthless regardless of how sincere, regardless of how deep, regardless of how philanthropical they may be, they are worthless unless first we have made contact with our source, unless we have first made contact with God.

        ‘If you abide in the vine and if you let these words abide in you, you will bear fruit richly. But if you do not abide in the vine, if you do not make actual contact with the source, you will be as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth.’ And praying will not help.

        It is for this reason that we meditate—not only before our classes and after our classes, and sometimes in between, but actually we meditate morning, noon and night and in the middle of the night. And the further our students go in their spiritual advancement, the more they meditate until eventually it is a normal thing to meditate 20 or 30 times a day—counting a day as a 24-hour period. Why? Because the mesmerism of this world—the radio, the newspaper, the television, the neighbors, the relatives, all of these pull us right out of our contact with God.

        They do not mean to—ah no, no. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I know their intentions are good but they are disastrous because dwelling on the problems of the world and fearing them will not bring about answered prayer. Being anxious about the conditions of this world will not bring about answered prayer. Answered prayer has its basis in the Master’s revelation that we are to ‘take no thought for what we shall eat or what we shall drink or wherewithal we shall be clothed.’ We are to take no thought for our life. We are to seek the realm of God. We are to seek the realization of God. We are to seek the kingdom of God—the realm of God, oneness with God, contact with God—whatever it is that establishes a oneness with our source.

        The meditation helps to establish that contact if the meditation is intelligently practiced. Meditation is exactly like prayer in that it must never contain a desire. It must never seek anything of God. It must carry no wish to God, not even the wish that my life might be saved, or my child’s life be saved, or my country’s life be saved because this is such an utter waste of time that it does not even pay to take time to talk about it.

        You only have to review the history of the world since you are on earth to know that every parent has prayed to save its child and every child has prayed to save its parents. Every man and woman in every country has been praying to save their particular country, their particular flag. What has happened to these prayers?

        You see, and this covers a tremendous subject that you must really see, God is not here to fulfill your desires or mine. God is not here to be your servant or mine. God does not exist to please you or me. God, under no circumstances, does anything for you or for me, and there is no way of compelling God to do for you or for me or for mine or for yours.

        The only correct approach to prayer and meditation is ‘not my will be done, but thine.’ Not ‘do for me what I wish done, but prepare me to fulfill thy will. Let thy Spirit be in me that I may be a child of God, that I may be one with my Father, that I may dwell in the Father’s house and the Father dwell in me.’ God is not our servant, but it is fit that we be servants of God. God is not the son of man. It would be well if the son of man could be the Son of God.

        In every case in our prayer and in our meditation we must yield ourselves, our will, our desire to God and let God fulfill His will, His grace in us. If we had not been incorrectly taught, there would be no fear about this. Unfortunately, many have been taught that God’s will is sometimes evil, that sometimes God visits sickness on His children. It is even believed by some that God causes death. Of course if one believes this, how can one trust one’s self to God—not knowing but what God may decide to strike one down in this next minute?

        It is only when you can overcome the religious beliefs of the past 1700 years and begin to understand what Jesus taught 2000 years ago on the subject of God, that God’s will is that man live. God’s will is that man never know disease. God’s will is that man never know accidents. God’s will is that man never be punished for sin.

        When you stop to think how contrary this is to many of the older teachings you will know why it is necessary to believe the Master when he tells us that you cannot add to a vessel already full. Unless you can empty yourself of all the old Judaic teachings which are now incorporated in the Christian church, the old teachings of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ the old teachings of vengeance, the old teachings of punishment for sin, unless you can clear yourself of those, you never can understand that God is love. And only that not only that God is love, the will of God is life eternal.

        The will of God is life harmonious. In Him there is no darkness at all. God is too pure to behold inequity. There is no place in God for evil of any name or nature. And therefore if we understand that in surrendering our will to God, we are surrendering ourselves to life eternal, we are surrendering ourselves to immortal life, spiritual life, perfect life, harmonious life, we will begin to understand that it is not a question of ill health or good health. It is a question of spiritual immortality when you surrender yourself to God.

        When you surrender yourself to God there is no such thing as poverty and there is no such thing as riches. There is the infinite abundance of allness- not a part—ALL. ‘Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine’—not a little corner of it. It is not a matter of a fence around a little land and ‘this is mine,’ or even a fence around a lot of land and ‘this is mine.’ It is a question of ‘Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine.’ All that you can use and twelve baskets full left over. However, this can only be if you can accept God as love. This can only be if you begin to perceive the nature of God as God was revealed 2000 years ago.

        If you can accept the fact that Jesus Christ did the will of God, then you will accept the fact that the will of God is health, abundance, harmony, peace and forgiveness for this is all you can find in the four gospels on the subject of God and God’s law. All the rest has been added by man. It is the same way if you can follow the Master on the subject of prayer, you will note that even at the tomb of Lazarus he does not pray that Lazarus be lifted up, but he says rather, ‘I do not have to pray.’

        If you follow the Master with the crippled man, you will notice he does not pray for his recovery. He merely affirms that there is no other power than the power of God.

        Always on the subject of prayer you will not find the Master asking God for anything unless it be light or bread. And by bread you know he did not mean baker’s bread because he explained the subject of bread very clearly: ‘I am the bread.’ Bread is the spiritual substance of life. Bread is the word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone; therefore, he would not waste his time praying for that kind of bread. But the bread he prayed for was ‘every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’

        When we give up this time-wasting praying to God for baker’s bread or butcher’s meat, and realize that the bread and the meat and the wine and the water that the Master prayed for was divine grace. He did not pray that God give it to us. Heavens that would be acknowledging that God is withholding it from us! There again do you see how in order to pray aright we must know the nature of God? How can we pray to a God that we believe is withholding something and is going to give it up after we just hound him hard enough or long enough?

        Ah no, there is no withholding God. There is no God withholding anything from us. There is no God going to give us anything. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is the same from everlasting to everlasting. All that God is doing today God has been doing always and will always continue to do because the nature of God is IS. GOD IS. GOD IS—not God was and not God will be. God is.

        It is as much as if we were to pray for sunshine. We do not pray for sunshine to come in. Open the windows, open the shades and let it in. But to believe for a moment that God withholds the sun, or God withholds the rain, this is not to understand God, this is not to understand prayer. Again, because of these erroneous concepts of God and of prayer, we are very apt to believe that we can go on being the same kind of a human being we were yesterday or a year ago and then just ask God for His grace and it will flow.

        No, the kind of human beings we have been has been the very barrier that has kept us from omnipresent grace. And in order to come into the experience of God’s grace, there has to be a change in our nature. This is one of the biggest functions of prayer—to change our nature that we may ‘die daily’ and be reborn of the Sprit, that we may be renewed by the transforming of our mind or that we may be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

        You see, when the woman taken in adultery was told ‘neither do I condemn you,’ do you know what had happened before that? She had turned to the Master. That was quite a change in her life. That represented a whole change of attitude, a whole change of desire, a whole change of being. Just the act of turning to the Master was enough to say as if she had written it in a book, ‘I am through with yesterday. I want no part of it. That part of me is dead. I am now turning to you for light, for life, for regeneration.’ And with that he could say ‘neither do I condemn thee.’ He could not have said ‘neither do I condemn thee’ to the woman of the day before.

        Now think of the thief on the cross as he turns to the Master. The Master says, “This night I will take you with me into paradise.” Could he have said that to that thief the night before? No, first there had to be a turning on the part of the thief as much as to say, ‘cleanse me. I turn to you for renewal, purification. I know the old way was wrong and I know it is dead in me.’ And then the Master could say, “There will be no waiting. This very night I will take you with me into paradise.”

        Each one of us is the woman taken in adultery and the thief on the cross in some degree. Each one of us is harboring human emotions—negative or positive. Each one of us is harboring greed or lust or malice or revenge or something in some degree, and then without even a desire for cleansing, we pray, “God save me, God give me, God do for me.” The answer does not come.

        Let us, within ourselves, acknowledge regardless of how good we may have been as humans—let us acknowledge with Paul that ‘I am not claiming to really have arrived at perfection so I am asking for grace, I am asking for purification. I am asking that my old way be ruled out of me.’ Then when we do this, we have no occasion to pray to God for health or for supply or for companionship or for home because in that moment of purification, all these things are added unto us.

        God is Spirit. We are told that God knoweth our needs before we do. If God knew our needs for human things before we do, we would have them. There would be no necessity for praying.  God does not know whether we need an automobile or a new house. God knows our need like the sunshine knows the need of the earth. It knows that the sun must shine, and that is what it knows. And God knows that God must be God. Therefore as God is, God is fulfillment.

        Think of this without asking the sun for light or for warmth, the sun is light and warmth. When you have the sun, you have light and you have warmth. That is all you need—is the sun. You do not need light and warmth; you need the sun for the sun is light and warmth. You do not need food and clothing and housing and transportation; you need God. And in having God you find God as the health of my countenance. God is the bread and the meat and the wine and the water. God is instantaneity. God is where I am and God is forever saying, ‘Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine.’

        Do you not see then that before there can be answered prayer there must first of all be an awareness of the nature of God? There must be an understanding that we are not going to God for something, that we are not inferring that God is withholding something, that we are going to God in the same contrite spirit that the woman and the man on the cross went to Christ. ‘Here I am, redeem me,’ and in that redemption lies allness—fullness and completeness. If we go to God with some thought, some desire that we would like fulfilled that is the barrier that will separate us from it.

        Every time that we go to God with some desire, with some need that we want fulfilled, we have provided the barrier that keeps it from us. There can only be one way to go to God: ‘Thy will be done in me.’ Thy will be done in me that I may be one with thee, that there may be no barrier within me for thy light. You see, very quickly this leads you to a revelation that at first will startle, may even disturb, but eventually must be accepted. The God to whom you are praying is within you—closer to you than breathing. And praying out or praying up or praying down is all a waste of time because the God you are seeking is already within you and It has a name. It has a name which you must recognize otherwise you will not know the source of the good you are expecting.

        If you do not know the name of God and if you do not know the nature of God, you are praying the prayer of idolatry. You are praying to a concept instead of to God. What is a concept? Any idea that you have in mind is a concept. And let us rule out right now that any concept of God that you can entertain can possibly be God. Because remember that any concept you have, you have created. You cannot create God. You can create many concepts of God, and in one lifetime you can worship a dozen concepts of God, but none of them will be God. And none of them will answer your prayers. Because anything at all that you can entertain in your mind would be too limited, too finite to be God. To pray then, it is necessary that we rule out every concept of God and accept the revelation of the Master: ‘I am the bread and the meat and the wine and the water.’

        That is the name of God. That is the only name that is ‘closer to you than breathing.’  That is all there is that is closer to you than breathing, that is incorporeal, spiritual, infinite, the source of all good: “I in the midst of me am mighty. I in the midst of me am the bread, the meat, the wine and the water.” No use of praying out. Acknowledge within: ‘I in the midst of me. I in the midst of me is the source of life, the creative principle of life, I.’

        You see, once you say I you have no concept. You cannot have a concept of I. No one has ever been able to formulate a concept of I. I is a word that just stands there as my self, but without an explanation, without a concept, without a picture. You cannot draw a picture of I. You cannot even draw a mental picture of I. All you can do is voice I, and there is no thought of what I am. There is only the knowledge that I am. I am and that is all we know.

        That is why Lao Tse told us that if you can name it, it is not God. If you can think it, it is not God. If you can entertain the thought of it, it is not God. Only that is God which is beyond speech and beyond thought and when you have gone beyond speech and beyond thought, you have reached God. When you can say, ‘I know not how to pray or what to pray for, let thy spirit bear intercession with my spirit,’ you are praying spiritually. You are praying the prayer that will be answered.

        Only be sure you are not praying to something. Be sure you have no idea in mind what God is, or a thought of what God is or how God functions for all of this will be finite, limited, idolatrous. No one has seen God face to face. No one will ever see God and live—not in the flesh.

        To come face to face with God means to be united with God in God as God. It is for this reason that any mental attempt to define God, any mental attempt to think of God as a something that can do something must result disastrously for there can be no answer.

        Think for a moment, think, think. Is God the all-knowing? Can you accept a God all-knowing? And that means nothing for you to instruct God in. That leaves nothing for you to tell God for God has been there before you with His knowledge and already knows. Can you accept a God that you need not address—that you need not ask, of whom you need not desire because God is infinite intelligence, the all-wisdom? Think, think only if God could construct this physical universe, how much greater Its wisdom must be than ours! We could not even emulate that. And the physical universe is the very least of God’s creating. Think! God has formed us in His own image and likeness and then we look up and tell God what He has omitted from us.

        No, it will not do unless you have a God of omniscience, all wisdom, all intelligence so that when you can pray to God you can say, ‘God cut my tongue out if I try to talk to you. Let my prayers be with the ears not with the tongue. Let my prayers be listening, not speaking.’

        Can you accept a God who is divine love? This is asking a great deal. Very few seem capable of accepting a God of divine love because a God of divine love is forever bestowing, never withholding, ever caring. To accept a God of divine love means that we would cut the tongue out before we would ask God for anything. Because we know we would be dishonoring God with the inference first that God does not know our need and, secondly, that He is not loving enough to bestow it. Therefore, prayer must be with the ear not with the tongue.

        Prayer must be with the ear, and not with the mouth, and not with the thoughts, not with the mind. The mind of man will never reach God in prayer unless the mind is still so that it can be receptive to the still small voice, ’speak Lord thy servant heareth,’ not thy servant is telling me, not thy servant is asking thee. Speak Lord thy servant heareth, and let prayer be a listening attitude, a receptive state of consciousness and with it a desire that what we hear shall transform us and renew us. Not that what we hear shall bring baker’s bread or butcher’s meat. That which we hear shall transform and renew. That every word we hear shall purify us and make us fit receptacles.

        ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God?’ You know we are not very often. We are only the temple of the living God when we are letting God live our lives—not when we take over and live them. We are the temple of the living God when we let God take over and live our lives, when our prayer is listening, when our attitude is receptivity, when our willingness is to be purified, to be cleansed to do with the will of the Father.

        This is why the Master in teaching prayer said that ‘it profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends.’ Think how much time we spend praying for our friends and our allies, and it profiteth you nothing. To be children of God you must pray for your enemies. This is to do the will of God according to the Master. The will of God is that we pray for our enemies. And you know, we do not do the will of God in that connection enough.

        In this inner emptiness that we have created in pondering the nature of God and the nature of prayer, we become instruments, we become temples and then into our consciousness God pours wisdom and love. It was not absent. It never is. It is only that when we are a vessel already full—full of longings and desires and hopes and ambitions—we are not empty enough to receive God’s grace. It is only when we are a state of emptiness that we can receive the grace that is already established within us.

        Let us for a moment ponder that word, “grace“. Grace is a gift of God. But do not think of grace as something that is given to one individual and withheld from another. Do not think of grace as something you earn or deserve. It is not that at all. Grace is God’s gift which is established within each and every one of us and which we receive when we are empty. 

        The grace of God is not something that God can bestow on you tomorrow. The grace of God was bestowed upon you in the beginning when you were created in His image and likeness. It was as much a part of you as your integrity or loyalty or fidelity, and you had 100% percent of those, and still have, even though you may not be expressing 100% of them now. They’re there within you 100% just as they were with the woman taken in adultery and the thief on the cross. Both of these had 100% of integrity within them even while they were committing their crimes, but they were not sufficiently empty to let God’s grace, God’s purification flow.

        So with us—God’s grace is established within us. To think otherwise would be a sin because if every individual who ever has been, is now, or ever will be lacks any of God’s grace, it must be God’s fault. What a terrible indictment that would be to hold against the God of wisdom and the God of love! No, God’s grace is within you. The kingdom of God is within you. How could the kingdom of God be within you if the grace of God were not within you?

        The kingdom of God without the grace of God would not be the kingdom of God. It would be a stable. It would be a place of horror, but the kingdom of God and the grace of God are really synonymous. They are established within you and they are awaiting your acceptance.

        The way you accept them is to give up your will, your desire, your wish, your hope, your ambition and accept God’s grace, God’s will, God’s way. You will find that it is the way of peace and the way of holiness, and the way of righteousness, the way of harmony, the way of wholeness, the way of completeness, the way of abundance far beyond our ability to outline. 

        When we have surrendered all our desires and all our wishes and begin to receive God, we will wonder how we could have been so mean with ourselves as to desire only the meager little bit that we have desired in the face of the abundance.  Who knows what treasures God has laid up for those who love God? Who knows what treasure God has in store for those who surrender their puny desires, their puny wish and will and let God’s grace be fulfilled?

        We think sometimes that if we did not pray hard enough for our selves, our patients, our students, that perhaps they would not get all that is coming to them under God’s plan. The contrary is usually true. When we stop the kind of praying that we have heretofore known and surrender ourselves and our patients and our students and our families to God’s care, to God’s grace, we find God has a way that we know nothing of. God has a way of bringing His children home—far better ways than we know how to pray about.

        You see prayer is the only contact that we can have with God. It is only through prayer that God’s grace can reach us. But prayer must be understood. That is why we have these periods of meditation so that we may clear ourselves of our desires and hopes and longings and wishes—get all of this out of the way. Establish in ourselves:

 ’I am satisfied Father that thou art the all-knowing mind. I am satisfied thou art divine love. I am satisfied thou art closer to me than breathing. I am satisfied thou knowest my need before I do. And I am more than satisfied that thy will be done in me, that thy grace is my sufficiency in all things.’

        In this contemplative meditation we cleanse the temple of our human self and human desires. Then when we are sure that we are empty, then begins the real period of prayer—a period in which there are no words and no thoughts because prayer, in its true sense, has no words and no thoughts. It is not going to God for anything. It is letting God be revealed to us.

        Prayer is God’s means of reaching us. Prayer is God’s means of supplying us. Prayer is God’s means of fulfilling Himself in us, and the only attitude of prayer is an empty receptivity, ‘Thy will be done in me,’ and then be still.

        Be still and know this:

 I is God. I in the midst of me, the I that is closer to me than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. Be still and know where God is and what God is. God is the I at the center of your being. Be still and know this. Be still and know that I is the bread, the meat and the wine and the water. Be still and know that I is the resurrection and the life. Be still and know that I is life eternal. Be still and know that I, that I, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I.

 Try to go up to heaven and leave I behind. Try to go down to hell and leave I behind. Try to walk through the valley of the shadow of death without I going along.  You will see, when you recognize God, you will recognize a God of whom you cannot think in terms of thoughts or human limitations for the word ‘I’ cannot be defined or understood. I is selfhood and no one knows what selfhood is except that it is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient.

 Be still and know that I in the midst of me is the power. Be still and know that no power operates on me from the external world—not the power of weather, not the power of germs, not the power of a calendar. No power can operate on me from the external. Why? Because I in the midst of me is God and all God’s grace flows out.

         Open out a way,’ the poet tells us, ‘that the imprisoned splendor may escape.’ What is the imprisoned splendor but the Spirit of God? The Spirit of God dwells in you. Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God? Ye are the temple. The kingdom of God is within you. ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.  I will be with thee until the end of the world.’

        Is there anything or any body that will be with you until the end of the world except I? And could you reach any place before or after I? No, always I and my Father are one. The place whereon thou standest is holy ground because I am there within you. Be still and know I within you is there, is God, will ever be. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Fear not It is I. Fear not, it is I. I, the all-presence, the all-knowing, the all-power, the all-loving.

        Then let us go about our business each day and let the Father within do the works for this I that is within each one of us is the Father that doeth the works. Then we are cleansed, we are purified. We are a vessel that is empty. We have no words, no thoughts and for a moment, it could be a second, it can be a minute, it could be five minutes—we are just receptive. We wait and whether or not we know it, something takes place. There can be no such thing as a vacuum without it immediately being filled. And this vacuum that we have created by emptying of our finite selves is instantaneously filled with the divine presence which I am.

        There are times when we consciously know it and feel it. There are other times when we do not. It is of no importance whether we know it or whether we feel it. It has happened. There can be no such emptying out process without a filling up process for these are one.

        ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty’ and the moment you have emptied yourself of self, made room for the Spirit, the Spirit is there. You may actually hear those words: ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is there is fulfillment. In the presence of God is fulfillment. Where I am thou art.’ and this is fulfillment. ‘The Spirit of God is upon me and I am ordained to heal the sick.’

        These words are spoken continuously from generation to generation just as if they were a perpetual tape going out over the air. But they can only be heard, these words, they can only be heard in the silence by those receptive. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. Paul reveals that as creatures you are not under the law of God, neither indeed can be, but when the Spirit of God dwells in you, then do you become the child of God.

        When does the Spirit of God begin to dwell in you? It has been dwelling within you from everlasting to everlasting. But from the moment of your acknowledgement of it, from the moment of your realization of it, it consciously functions your life. From the moment of your emptiness and then your realization:

 ‘Fill me. Let thy mind be my mind. Let thy life be my life. Let thy Spirit be my spirit,’ then it takes place and it is so. Then you come to the form of life again expressed by Paul, ‘I live not yet I. Christ, the Spirit of God that dwells in me, It lives my life.’ It is my bread and meat. It is the resurrection unto my body.

 This Christ which I have now permitted to consciously enter and express Itself, this now is the substance of my life, the substance of my body, the law of my life. I live yet not I, the Spirit of God that dwells in me, It lives my life. It is my flesh as well as my bread. It is my resurrection. It restores the lost years of the locust. Let me be empty. Let the Lord enter consciously always with the realization that if there be any faults in me, any hidden faults in me that I be purified, that I be willing to surrender.’

         And then watch the miracle in transformed lives. Because you are not now a human being who knows some truths. You are now emptied out of being a human being and you have become divine by virtue of the Spirit of God which dwelleth in you.

 End Side 1

 

SAN DIEGO SPECIAL CLASS

TAPE 400 SIDE TWO

THE ESSENCE OF THE INFINITE WAY  -  continued

By Joel Goldsmith 

          Now, let us remember that there is within each one of us—and further than that within each and every individual on the face of the globe—something that is called the Son of God, or the Christ, the Messiah. When the Hebrews of old spoke of the coming of the Messiah, they were speaking of this very revelation. There is a Messiah within each one of us and by personalizing it and expecting it to appear as one man, they cheated themselves of the benefits of the Messiah. Just as three hundred years later when the Christian church personalized the Son of God as one individual, they cheated all Christianity of the benefits of the Master’s teaching for the Master’s teaching is that God has one begotten Son. And that one is in the midst of you.

          It is the self-same Son in you whether you are a Hebrew saying “Messiah,” whether you are an Oriental saying “Krishna” or “Buddha,” or a Christian saying “Christ”. It is the same Son of God regardless of race, religion or lack of religion. Each and every one of us has within ourselves the Son of God.

          Now to bring this Son of God out of the tomb of material sense where He is buried we have to find a way to let this Christ flow, let this Son of God or Spirit of God take over in our experience and fulfill Itself. In the words of the Master, “The Father within me doeth the works.” In the words of Paul, “I can do all things through Christ” or “I live yet not I. Christ within me liveth.”

          Now, each one of us must eventually and will eventually come to the place where we live ‘not by might nor by power but by this Spirit’ of God within us, where we live ‘not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ And when it was revealed to me—and that is probably or rather that is actually the reason for my being in this work—the discovery or revelation of why it is that God is not functioning in the world. God does not prevent wars and after they start God doesn’t stop wars. God doesn’t stop infections and contagions. God doesn’t prevent babies being born blind or physically or mentally damaged. In other words, traveling this world as I have—many, many countries for many, many years, it was so apparent that in spite of God, the world was a pretty sad place for most people.

          Now, this didn’t discourage me nor destroy my faith in God. Rather it was an incentive to find out why God isn’t in the world and if God can be brought into the world—into this very world of my daily living and yours. And that was the search that eventually revealed itself in what I’m saying to you tonight—that there is a Christ, but that this Christ can only be admitted into our actual experience by ourselves, by opening ourselves to It, by letting It appear.

          Now there are human footsteps leading upward, and according to the Master if we take those human footsteps, the spiritual illumination and realization of the Christ will follow. In His teaching the human footsteps were these: abiding in the word, consciously remembering this Truth, consciously living it, learning not to live by ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ In other words, not seeking revenge, not seeking vengeance even against those who wronged you but rather having an attitude of forgiveness.

          The question does come up occasionally, “How would you do that in a practical world? Would you let all the thieves and murderers free?” Of course not. There is no indication that the Master meant that at all. When a person is a menace to himself or to society, he can be incarcerated. But he can be incarcerated without hate, and without a desire for vengeance. He can be incarcerated for protection of society and for the regeneration of himself.

          Why can we not take thieves—wrongdoers of any nature that are a problem to society—and institutionalize them?—not for punishment, not to kill them, not to put them in solitary confinement, but for the two purposes of keeping them out of circulation where they can be a menace to themselves and others, and secondly for the purpose of regeneration. Then we would be fulfilling the Master’s teaching of not seeking vengeance on them, not trying to avenge ourselves on them because of their wrong, but rather loving them, forgiving them and trying to bring about a regeneration in them.

          But you can’t do this unless you can agree with the Master on another one of these human footsteps: “Father forgive them. They know not what they do.” Unless you can agree that nobody is really evil because of any desire to be evil, that whatever evil they’re perpetrating is because of ignorance of their true identity, ignorance of this Christ at hand. Once you understand that, you can never hate a wrongdoer. You can never want revenge. You can only say with pity, “Father forgive them. They know not what they do.”

          And with this very human footstep we are a step closer to spiritual realization: “Forgive seventy times seven.” This is another human thing. You have to learn to forgive. You have to practice forgiving. Sometimes you have to force yourself to forgiving. But it must be done. It’s a human footstep, but it leads to a divine unfoldment. And so He has given us many, many suggestions.

          “Praying for the enemies”—this is another human footstep. You would be surprised at the amount of freedom, real freedom that comes to us the moment that we start praying for our enemies. It makes no difference if it’s our personal enemies. Most of us haven’t any. But there are national enemies, international enemies, and to begin to pray:

 ”Father forgive them. Open their minds that they may know and understand. Open their hearts that they may feel. Open their souls that they may be spiritually governed. They know not what they do. They’re in ignorance of God and God’s laws. Father, illumine them. Open their eyes.”

You’d be surprised at the degree of freedom that comes into your own experience.

          Now, whether we ‘pray for our enemies,’ whether we ‘forgive seventy times seven, ‘whether we decide to give up the desire for revenge, to get even, to get back at—all of these are very human, or rather are improvements in our humanhood. But all of these lead to an inner preparation for spiritual guidance. And so you will find that when you practice these particular principles of the Sermon on the Mount, when you practice the presence of God, ‘acknowledging Him in all thy ways,’  ‘keeping the mind stayed on God,’ you will find that this gradually brings about a change in your inner self, and this leads to the ability to meditate.

          Now, meditation is really the secret of bringing harmony into experience. These other steps of the Sermon on the Mount, just lead us up, this practicing of the presence of God leads us up to the moment of meditation. Just like metaphysical treatment.

          No metaphysical treatment ever healed any one of anything. There has never been a metaphysical treatment discovered that would heal anybody of anything. There is no power—no healing power—in a metaphysical treatment. Why do we have metaphysical treatment? It prepares the practitioner or the individual who is giving the treatment to attain a state of consciousness in which the Christ or Son of God can be experienced, and when that takes place that is the healing agency. In other words, not the treatment we give, but the state of consciousness that is attained because of the treatment or through the treatment. So that the treatment itself we call the letter of truth, the letter of truth.

          In other words, if I sit here and realize:

          “God is Omnipotence. There is no other power and that which is presenting itself to me as error is not a power and has no law to sustain it. God in the midst of me is mighty, not anything that’s external to me and not anybody that is external to me. Only God in the midst of me is mighty and God is Spirit. The Spirit of God is power.

          The nature of power is spiritual power, and this is a law of dissolution to any belief, to any claim or temptation of any nature. This Spirit of God in me is the light, and where the light is there is no darkness. And evil of any name or nature is merely darkness—the absence of light, the absence of truth, the absence of life. And so this evil, this error, this discord, this inharmony, this darkness, this dissolves immediately upon touching my consciousness because my consciousness of truth is the light unto this darkness. It is the only power, and in the presence of this power which I am, this that appears as discord and inharmony is non-power.”

          Now having declared that, I have declared the truth, but I haven’t brought about a healing.  But I have lifted myself now above the fear of the appearance, above the fear of the claim and therefore I now can sit in silence, my attitude being: “Speak Lord, Thy servant heareth. When Thou uttereth Thy voice the earth of error melteth.”

          God is not out there in any sin or disease or death. God is in the still small voice. Life isn’t out there in forms. Life is in the still small voice. Harmony isn’t out there in the body or in the business or in the world. Harmony is in the still small voice. And now I’m still.            

         I may be still for 10, 20, 30 seconds. I may be still for a minute or two or three, but eventually a deep breath takes place or a release within me or my shoulders droop as much as to say ‘the government is no longer on my shoulders. The responsibility is no longer with me.’  And in that sense of release, in that sense of peace, those who have touched my consciousness have found their release because the presence of God in me now is fulfillment unto their experience. The presence of God in me realized is the law unto them. And so healing is based on this: the presence of God realized, the presence of Christ realized, the presence of spiritual power realized.

          You first declare it because of your belief or conviction of its truth. You declare it. You declare the omnipotence and omnipresence of God. You declare the non-power of anything and everything that is not ordained of God, and then you sit quietly, receptive until God places the seal on the treatment and it is done. It is not done because we say it is done. It is not complete because we say “amen”. But when it is done, that feeling appears and then we outwardly can say it is done. But it isn’t done until that feeling of release has taken place, that feeling of the presence or of God’s grace, and the healing power then is in that realization.

          And so we come to this question: “In regard to the death of a million Jews in Germany (and actually it was probably six million) surely many of them were close to God and yet it appears they were unprotected—even babies and little children. How do you interpret this?”  

          You are mistaken. They were not close to God. They were close to some human concept of God. It is impossible to be close to God and suffer such a fate. It is impossible to be consciously one with God and to be destroyed. It is impossible.

          The mere fact that a person is religious in a church sense is no more assurance of God’s grace and God’s protection than it was when the Master spoke about John the Baptist and said, “He’s the greatest Hebrew prophet, but he can’t get into heaven. He’s not under the grace of God. He’s merely a good Hebrew. He lives up to the law of the church. He fulfills the laws of ceremonies, rites, creeds, holidays, holy days, fast days, sacrifices. That’s not pleasing in the sight of God.” The only thing that’s pleasing in the sight of God is conscious oneness with God. That is the ability to meditate and feel the presence of God. All others regardless of how humanly religious they are or church religious they are, are branches of a tree that is cut off and withereth.

          Accepting somebody’s concept of religion doesn’t constitute a relationship with God. Following some kind of a teaching is no—well for heaven’s sakes there is enough truth in any one of these metaphysical movements to save the world. And from personal experience I know this that there are loads and loads of people following Christian Science and Unity and New Thought and Infinite Way who have proven that they’re above the law and are under divine grace. But you know as well as I do that there are hundreds of thousands in those movements who are not under divine grace, and why? Belonging to those movements is of no,…. is not an insurance policy.

          Belonging to these movements or following these teachings is no guarantee of immunity from worldly disaster. It is the practice of these teachings; the living of these teachings until one attains a conscious relationship with God—the ability to commune inwardly with God. To have the presence of God a living reality, this constitutes divine Sonship. If so be the Spirit of God dwell in you—if you can actually come to the place of realizing, “Christ dwelleth in me. The Spirit of God governs me. The Spirit of God within me is my bread, meat, wine and water. “

          When you get to that place where there is a break out here—the Orientals call it non-attachment—when you can be in this world but not of it. When you can be friendly and loving with people, but not dependent on them. When you can live without any feeling of animosity, jealousy, envy for any reason, because you have come into the awareness of God as constituting your being, then you’re one with God. Then every one of us is an individual—one with God and yet united with a bond of love, but without a trace of dependence upon each other.

          Now, you have lived through one World War, and some of you through two World Wars, and some of you through three, counting Korea, and now the Cold War. And you know that there are just as many religious people who have been killed and wounded in war as there have been irreligious people. It isn’t a matter of one’s religion. It is a matter of one’s conscious inner contact with the Spirit of God—a dwelling in God and letting God dwell in you. And all of this is attained by you in proportion to your own desire for it and the degree of your desire.

          Because of our centuries of separation from the source that is within us, it does take time and practice. It does mean getting up an hour earlier in the morning and reading our spiritual literature until we catch some idea, and then taking it into meditation or contemplation, living with it, working with it. And then having a period of silence and letting the Sprit of God descend upon us.

          It does mean going out into the world and consciously remembering throughout the day “He performeth that which is given me to do,” and “the place whereon I stand is holy ground” and “all that the Father hath is mine”—a conscious acknowledgement of truth, a conscious abiding in truth. It does mean taking a period before retiring at night—not going to bed filled up with that television business. You can’t go to bed that way and live spiritually. There’s no harm in it, in this television if it’s taken for a little amusement or entertainment for an hour or two, but don’t go to bed filled with all of that thing and believe that it isn’t having an effect on you. It is or you wouldn’t have taken it in.

          Again, it’s like these people that we hear so often, “you know food has no power so I can eat anything I like,” and then eat a pound of chocolates. If it didn’t have power who would want to sit and eat a pound of chocolates? What they mean is it doesn’t have power for evil. It only has power for good. Don’t you believe it. If you give power—it is as erroneous to give power for good as it is to give power for evil because you are not to give power to anything or anybody in the external world. All power is to be understood as being within me.

          It is for this reason that in our work I learned in my metaphysical days that it’s difficult at first to deny power to evil. But that after awhile you get to see that it’s really so. Evil hasn’t got power. But I was aware of the fact that we were giving some power of good to the external world, and as I came into this Infinite Way we made a bodily change from old metaphysics. And we decided that if you are going to declare that this external world has no power of evil, declare that it has no power of good.

          Then you will have overcome the pairs of opposites, the belief in good and evil, and you will have all power vested within yourself. No power out here for either good or evil—all power within yourself. And once you acknowledge that, you have destroyed the power of good and of evil in the external world and there is no power of evil within you because there is no power of evil. And the only power of good remaining is the power that flows out from your consciousness.

          Never believe that because a thing out here has no power for evil that there’s something over here that has power for good. You cannot acknowledge a power for either good or evil in the external world. And in the internal world you must acknowledge only the power of Spirit, spiritual power, and then you’ll find yourself living above the pairs of opposites. You’ll find yourself living in divine consciousness.

          And so we come to these two wonderful questions which belong together: “What is our duty in regard to the present world crisis?”  “Your explanation of how to treat was most helpful. Please give more examples of how to treat; for instance, world peace.”

          And be assured I’m glad to do it because it is a subject very close to our hearts in the Message of the Infinite Way, and a subject on which we are working 24 hours a day around the clock, around the world. Our duty is to know the truth. It’s more than a duty. It’s quite a privilege. It’s even more than a privilege.

          Once you begin to see the fruitage of it, it’s a great joy. But as Truth students, this is a duty and those who are not performing it are forfeiting a part of their own demonstration—ignorantly that’s true. But, nevertheless, they’re forfeiting part of their own demonstration because the greatest law of prayer is that “it profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends.” The Master gave you that as a formula. It profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends. You must pray for your enemies. How do we pray for our enemies? How do we pray for world peace?

          Be assured of this—world peace is not going to come through the defeat of anybody nor through anyone’s victory. Any one who has studied history knows that from the beginning of written history there have been defeats and victories and there never yet has been peace. And as long as there are defeats and victories, there never will be peace. Peace cannot be achieved by anyone’s defeat or by anyone’s victory. Until you can give up the idea of both victory and defeat you will lose. You will lose world peace.

          In this present argument which is international in nature as to whether we should arm with so many bombs that everyone will be afraid of us and thereby have peace or whether we should disarm and thereby have peace, the answer is that only stupid people are on both sides of that argument. There are no thinkers on either side of those arguments—just hypnotized people. Why? History reveals that there have been periods when nations have been heavily armed and it didn’t prevent a war. And there have been periods when nations were disarmed and it didn’t prevent a war. In World War I the greatest navy, the greatest armament on the face of the globe was England and it did not prevent a war. In the Second World War England was practically without armament—naval or air—and it did not prevent a war.

          You may go around with a gun on your hip. It won’t prevent your getting in trouble. But you can go around without a gun on your hip and that won’t prevent your getting into trouble. It isn’t the presence of the gun or the absence of a gun that saves you, and it isn’t the presence of armament or the lack of armament that saves a nation—of course not. And as long as the world is on a materialistic basis of believing that either armament will save it or disarmament will save it, the world is lost and heading for another war.

          What is the solution? Well let us go back again to what I said to you before: the origin of evil. And what is the origin of evil? A universal belief in two powers—the power of matter and the power of mind—whether it’s the power of armament or the power of tyrants’ minds. And believe me it isn’t only tyrants’ minds that bring about wars. You might have to face the belief one day when you look in your own history and you’ll find it isn’t always tyrants that bring about wars. More wars are brought about by ignorance than by tyranny.

          Now we, as Truth students, must pray daily in this wise:

“God is the law unto His universe and that which is not ordained of God is not power. That which is called mortal mind, carnal mind, the mind of tyrants, the mind of stupid, the mind of the ignorant—this is not power. God alone is power. God in the midst of me is power. God in the midst of man is power. The Spirit of God is power, and all of this claim of material and mental power is ignorance because there is but one power and God in the midst of me is that power.”

Because of Omnipresence, God is power everywhere on the face of the globe. We don’t have to penetrate the Iron Curtain. God has already penetrated it, but only in our conscious realization of it. Without our conscious realization of it, the presence of God will not function any more than the presence of God has functioned in the past—except where there is conscious recognition and realization.

          Therefore, if only the Truth students in the world, the students of every one of the Truth movements, and the unorganized movements and the independent Truth teachers, if they would all unite, the members, the followers, the students of these teachings would unite once a day and realize: “the place whereon I stand is holy ground. The place whereon thou standest is holy ground. The omnipotence and omnipresence of God makes of non-power the evil intents of mankind.”

          Isn’t it the 33^rd Psalm that says “horses cannot save kings, armies cannot save kings? There’s no power in armament or armies.” Well that’s exactly what it means. And that’s what Hezekiah proved when his people came to him and said, “oh the enemy is coming at us and they outnumber us.” And he said, “They have only the arm of flesh. You need not fight. They have only the arm of flesh,” and then they rested in his word. They didn’t go out and fight. They rested in His word. And then the enemy started fighting among themselves and they killed each other off and the Hebrews never did have to go out into that battle.

 And so I say unto you that this is a law and a principle. It operates in your personal life first. If you yourself in your personal life will make a practice daily of realizing that:

“‘Where I am God is, the place whereon I standest is holy ground, God in the midst of me is mighty and all them that are opposed they have but the arm of flesh or nothingness. We have the Lord God, the Almighty. The Lord God in the midst of me is mighty, and there is no might external to me–not in the mind of man or the matter of man.”

          And you will begin to prove that that which heretofore has been opposition in your life, that which heretofore has been discordant or the source of discord, that which heretofore has been a barrier to your progress, to your prosperity, to your happiness—these begin to fall away and then you will see that this principle operates. The moment you see this operate in your experience without your telling anyone, someone will be led to you and say, “Give me help.” You won’t know why they’ve picked you and they won’t because it’s an invisible occurrence.

          The darkness always finds the light so the darkness can be dispelled. And the moment you begin to prove that your understanding of this that there is no power external to you—God in the midst of you is omnipotence, and there is no power external to you for good or for evil in person, thing or condition. There is no mental power; no physical power that is power for all power is given unto you.

          You have dominion over everything that appears in your world. And the minute you begin to prove that for one neighbor, one relative, two neighbors, two relatives, you have the sufficient grace to do it for twenty. By this time you will begin to realize, “why this is a universal truth!” And you will begin to know it for your community, for your elections, for your weather, for the events of the world, always in secrecy. This is a very sacred thing. And in secrecy you realize, “the kingdom of God is within me.”

          Always remember the Master on prayer: pray secretly and pray sacredly. Never voice your prayer outwardly or openly and never pray for others to see or to know that you’re praying. Make prayer a secret practice and a sacred one. And whatsoever takes place within your consciousness God will bring to bear outwardly.

          But remember prayer must be secret. It must be sacred. It must be like a seed buried in the ground where nothing can reach it, nothing can upset it, nothing can harm it. And so your prayer kept in secrecy within you—the prayer of realization:

                   “I and the Father are one. All that the Father hath is mine. Where I am God is where God is I am and, therefore, the place whereon I stand is holy ground. All power is given unto me. All dominion is given unto me. Over what and over whom? Over the belief that there are any external powers. All power is given to me through the understanding that God is Spirit, and spiritual power is the only power.”

And be sure that no man knows that you are praying this prayer. Divulge it to no one except when someone comes into your experience in humility and wishes to be taught.

          Do not give this to the unprepared thought. Don’t try to proselyte with it.  Don’t try to convince your relatives with it. You cannot give truth to the human mind. Unless there is a spiritual preparedness to receive this truth you’re just putting your seed in stony ground or barren soil and nothing will come forth from it. Keep this truth as ‘a pearl of great price’ and don’t show it to anybody but connoisseurs because nobody else can enjoy it. Keep it within you.

          And then abiding in this truth, praying the prayer of realization, of God’s grace, God’s presence, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and the non-power of the mind or matter that is not ordained of God, and you will be fulfilling your function to this world. And you will watch the breaking up of error all over the globe and the gradual restoration of harmony.

 [Question]: “Can you conceive the beginnings of a new world religion practiced in the Fourth Dimension with its ultimate object freedom of mankind and destruction of Mosaic law?”

          I not only can conceive it; I announce it to you. It is already here. It is already here and we know it by the fact that it is breaking up the evils that have existed for the past century and century and a half.

          You are not witnessing any evils on earth today. You are witnessing the breaking up of the evils that have been here for a century or more. You are witnessing the breaking up of the old kind of capitalism that was ‘all the dividends for me and nothing for you’. You are witnessing the breakup of that capitalism that did not provide for its workers who in their lifetime could never save enough for their old age. You are witnessing the breaking up of the old age homes that formerly existed that were a blot on civilization.

          You are witnessing the breaking up of the old type orphanages that were a disgrace to mankind. You are witnessing the breaking up of slavery in one country after another. You are witnessing the breaking up of bias, bigotry, prejudice. You are witnessing the breaking up of religious differences and the greater unity existing in church circles throughout the world.

          You are witnessing the breaking up of the conditions that have existed in Africa, India, China, Japan—the evils that have existed there that have long needed correction. You are witnessing the breaking up of the evils of owning or controlling races and peoples other than our own, exploiting them, exploiting the minorities within our own borders.

          You are witnessing the breaking up of every evil about which you have read in this past century. Of course the breaking up is difficult because it is human nature to try to hold on to old patterns. It is human nature to try to hold on to positions that we have outgrown.  It is human nature to try to hold onto the ‘good old days’ if there ever were any such. But you see those who try to hold on have their knuckles broken.

          You can’t hold on. You’ve got to let loose, loose them and let them go. We’re in a new age, in a new era. There’s going to be no more use of religious organizations fighting each other. There’s going to be no more use of one nation trying to exploit another nation. All of these evils of the past are dead and gone and the appearance of them is breaking up. And that breaking up is difficult. But, like anything worthwhile, the result of it will be freedom.

          Now if these conditions were merely breaking up because of human reasons, they wouldn’t be on quite the international basis that they are. Remember there is no one nation that was the source of evil. There is no one nation responsible for the evils on earth. This was a universal belief in self-preservation or ‘let me get it regardless of at whose expense.’ It isn’t a quality of any nation or any people. It’s a quality and an activity of the human mind. Therefore, the human mind—whether it operated in the British world, or the American world or the Oriental world—has all been the same evil. It merely took different forms.

          Now, if you really read the history of the past 20 years, 25 years, or if you travel—and I don’t mean on one of these ’round the world’ air trips that you stop off at 19 cities in 19 days or anything like that. But make that air trip and spend a year on the trip so that you have the opportunity to spend a week in this city, and three days in this, and ten days in this, a month in this country or a month in that country. And begin to learn of what has changed in those countries in the last 25 years, of the limitations that have been broken, the old habits and customs that have been broken, the old poverties that are gone forever, and you will see that what is taking place in this world today is because of a spiritual activity.

          Behind what appears to be the wars and rumors of wars that are taking place in this world, there is really a spiritual activity breaking the hard crusts of human greed, human lust, human ambition, human pride and restoring the spiritual sonship of the entire world of mankind.

          It isn’t only in this country that we have freedoms. Every country is giving greater and greater and greater freedoms. Those that aren’t—like the Iron Curtain countries—remember they’re living on the edge of a volcano. They are maintaining themselves only by a force of arms temporarily, but you can’t maintain a society of that kind by force of arms forever. No one ever has. In the days of the czar the people had no arms. The czar had them all, and he’s gone. In every country where people have been downed, they had no arms, but in the end the tyrants went.

          In France of old a revolution brought liberty, and it wasn’t the people who had the arms, it was the government. In our own country in the revolutionary days it wasn’t the colonists who had all the arms and ammunitions and ships, but freedom came. Never believe for a moment that freedom is dependent on arms or ammunition. Freedom is dependent on an individual’s realization of God and the non-power of whatever it is that appears as an outside power, an enslaving power, a limiting power.

          If you admit anything at all as a power of limitation, you make that limitation unto yourself. To be free of lack, to be free of discord, to be free of inharmony, abide in this truth of God as the only reality, only presence, only power, and then the source of every form of evil, the source of every form of limitation is the “arm of flesh” or nothingness. Do not see evil as opposing good because there is no such thing. And do not believe that truth overcomes evil. There is no such thing. See truth as infinite and evil as the “arm of flesh” or nothingness, and you will bring forth harmony into your experience.

          Do not accept a God that has to battle sin, disease, death, tyranny or anything else. Accept a God infinite in nature, omnipresent in being, omnipotent in action, and then look out at all of the temptations and the tempters of the world:

“Thou hast only the arm of flesh—nothingness. I can abide in this word. God in the midst of me is the only power. There is neither power for good or for evil anywhere in the world. All power is given unto me. All power is embodied in the Christ, the Son of God, which in truth I am. The Son of God is lifted up in me out of the tomb of material sense.”

And this is the resurrection. And this is the ascension. Lift up the Son of God in you and realize that ‘He that is within me is greater than anything or any belief or any power in the universe.’ He that is within me is the all-power, and that which is external to me is not ordained of God, is not power, is not presence.

          Then you can be in this world and enjoy the things of the world and yet not give them power. God is the only power. But God is in the midst of you. God is the only power, but God is Spirit. Therefore, Spirit is the only power—not mind and not matter. Spirit is the only power. God is Law. Therefore, Spirit is the only law with power. Spirit is the only law with power.

          Now the fact that these things represent truth will not save you. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” You must abide in this truth, dwell in it, live in it, day by day, and night by night, and hour by hour until it is a very part of your being. And then all of a sudden a spiritual light dawns within you and you say:

 ”Whereas before I was blind, now I see. Now I know. Spirit is really the substance of all form, the law of all form, the cause of all form, and my error has been that I have been believing in a power outside, a power in form, a power in thought whereas all power is spiritual power.”

Now, as you abide in this word remember always that there is still one step and that is the ability to ponder this. We call this contemplative meditation—contemplate the truth about God and presence and power, and then be still and listen:

“Speak Lord, Thy servant heareth. Thou utterest Thy voice the earth melteth. Error is not in the external. Power is not in the external. All power is in the still small voice. There’s no power in that sin, no power in that disease, no power in that tyrant, no power in the external condition. Power is in the still small voice.”

And then as you abide in stillness, eventually you come to that place where a release comes within you, a feeling, and then you’ll know that God is on the scene and your work is done. You have ‘opened out a way for the imprisoned splendor to escape.’  The power within you now becomes the power in your world. And your world may be limited to your own family, but eventually you will accept the entire world as your world, and let your consciousness of truth govern this entire world.

          Thank you, dear friends. Thank you for the privilege of sharing these things with you. I’m sure you know that this is the fruitage of 30 years of meditation, of abiding in this consciousness, 30 years of experience of tabernacling with truth, with God, and all of this 30 years is poured out in two hours of unfoldment. And yet, as you take it into your consciousness, remember that what you have heard is but a seed of truth. And it will expand and expand and grow, and it will flow out of you so that you can pour it out in two hours and yet keep on for 200 hours and not quite repeat yourself.

          Thank you for the privilege of sharing with you, and certainly thank our Jack and Connie Addington for this invitation.  Thank you. 

 End Tape 400 Side 2

  

 1961 SAN DIEGO SPECIAL CLASS

TAPE 400 SIDE ONE

 THE ESSENCE OF THE INFINITE WAY 

          Good evening. The first thing that you notice about an Infinite Way class is the meditation—not merely this minute of meditation before we start, but wherever possible another meditation later, and more especially the meditations that take place before we come together. That is, while you are sitting here for the quarter hour or half hour before we start, and then more especially my meditations which take place some part of every hour and at periods for many hours—day and night—throughout the time of our lecture and classwork. And the reason for that is this.

          There is an invisible presence and power within us, within each one of us. This presence and power is within each and every individual on the face of the globe. It has been within every one who has ever been on the face of the globe. But because of the centuries of false religion, this presence and power has not been available to mankind so that we have lived as branches of a tree cut off and withering.

          In other words, we have lived by our own power. We have not lived as: “not by might or by power, but by my Spirit.” But we have rather lived by might and by power, by physical might and by mental power. We have not lived in the “secret place of the most high.” We have lived in armament or medicines or other material and mental forces and powers. We have lived by bread, but we have not had the benefit of living by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

          This is no one’s fault. This all took place 1700 years ago when the Master’s revelation was removed from the teaching world. Now, as you can prove individually—and later on collectively—we do not have to suffer the evils of this world. We can be free of at least 90% of the evils of this world, even in the present day. And eventually the world will be free 100%. If you were to make a careful check of the households of families who have lived as very earnest, serious students of Christian Science, of Unity, of some of the New Thought work, you would find that these households are at the very least 80% free of the discords of the world.

          In my 30 years I have known thousands of families who have brought up children without children’s diseases, who have brought up children without bringing into the world a juvenile delinquent.  I have known thousands of households in which there was not one alcoholic or drug addict. And certainly I have witnessed in 30 years how few of these families have been subject unto mental institutions, although the public records would make us believe that almost every family is represented there.

          I know by these 30 years of close association with Christian Science households, Unity households, and New Thought households, that it is possible in this very age, and at any time in this last 30 years (and certainly even before that) to live in some measure free of the limitations of human sense. As a matter of fact, it was my joy to witness the 10 years of the Depression and note the amount of families living the metaphysical way of life that were not touched by the extremes of lack and limitation that touched so many of the households of this country.

          In the same way if you were to examine the war records, you would discover how many injuries, wounds, deaths were not suffered, or how few the disasters in the households of those who were abiding in spiritual truth. These records are available.

          Now there is an answer to this since we know that God is no respecter of persons. We know that God will do no more for a metaphysician than for a non-metaphysician for it has nothing to do with God, and it has nothing to do with favoritism and it has nothing to do with what church that you belong to or do not belong to. It has to do with just one thing—whether or not you are “abiding in the word and letting the word abide in you.” It depends on whether or not you know the nature of error; that is, the source of error, and how to handle it.

          The Master in his entire ministry made it clear that one of the most important words in scripture is the two-letter word, “ye.”  “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  “As ye sow, so shall ye reap. If you sow to the flesh you reap corruption, if you sow to the Spirit you reap life everlasting.”  “If you dwell in the secret place of the most high none of these evils—the snare, the pit, the fall—none of these will come nigh your dwelling place.”  “If ye abide in my word and let my word abide in you.”  So you see that whether or not you become free of the discords of this world will have nothing to do with a religion, a religious teaching or a religious teacher. It all has to do with “ye.”

          There are enough religious teachings of truth. There are enough religious teachers of truth so that at any time that any of us makes the decision that we will ’sow to the Spirit,’ that we will ‘abide in the word,’ be assured of this—the teacher and the teaching will appear in the form necessary to us at our immediate state of consciousness.

          Now,  [Question]: “Would you discuss the meaning of ‘abide in me and my words abide in you’ as in ‘if ye abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it will be done unto you’?”

          And so let us start right there. “If ye abide in me, let my words abide in you.” This means if you abide in truth, if you know the truth, then the truth will make you free. But this knowing of the truth cannot be just at a moment when faced with a discord or a disaster. It is folly to believe that we can pick a truth out of the air just in a moment of need and then wait for the next disaster to come before reaching for another one. This is making an aspirin tablet out of truth.

          To abide in the truth means to live in the truth and you don’t live for an hour—living is a lifetime activity. You live 24 hours of every day. Therefore, you must live in the truth. You must abide in the truth and let the truth abide in you 24 hours of every day. Dwell in truth. You can’t dwell any place for an hour. Dwelling is a lifetime job just as living is.

          Now the question is what is truth? And how do we abide in it? And there of course you have certain statements or principles, which have been revealed as truth, and these are the principles we abide in when faced with any contrary appearance. Now to understand this you must understand that we are dealing with a world of lies. For instance, the truth is that God is Spirit, and God is infinite, and God is power; therefore, God is infinite, spiritual power. Therefore, there can be no other power. Now this is the truth. But the lie, the appearance, the tempter that we meet every day is that weather is a power. That the stock market index is a power, that the economic level is a power. That infection and contagion is a power, that epidemic is a power, that the evil that exists in the minds of men—tyrants, politicians, what not—that this is power.

          This is the temptation. This is the tempter. This is the lie. This is the appearance with which every single one of us is faced, including Jesus Christ in his ministry, when he had to face the tempter in the wilderness and had to face the tempter in Gethsemane, and had to face the tempter in the poverty and in the disease and in the deaths of his followers. Now, granting that these temptations exist, these appearances which we call discords, inharmonies, evils, to know the truth means that wherever these negative or erroneous appearances touch us—whether we see them, hear them, taste, them, touch them or smell them, our immediate realization is God is Spirit. God is power. All power is spiritual. There is no physical or mental power. Then by this knowing of the truth you have nullified the appearance. You have nullified the belief in two powers which is the source of that appearance.

          Remember, we can go back if we like and discover the original source of all evil in the world. The religious world has ignored this for reasons of which we have no knowledge because it dates back so far. But I’m sure most of you—especially those of you who have a church training—have been taught that the source of evil—the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden had to do with sex. That the fall of man had to do with sex, and I may state to you right now definitely and positively and absolutely that there isn’t and never was a word of truth in that. 

          The Bible itself is authority for the fact that the source of evil is accepting the belief of two powers—eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of two powers. And the moment you accept two powers—a good power and an evil power—you are automatically expelled from the Garden of Eden. And therefore at the moment of your conception, at that very moment if you had been in Eden before, you were expelled in that moment because the universal belief accepted by your parents in two powers operated as your consciousness. And you came into this world accepting the belief in two powers. And from the time you were an infant, you were brought up with, “be careful of this and watch out for that and this is good for you and this is bad for you”—all based on the original source of evil, the belief in two powers.

          In the very instant that you accept, even intellectually, even before you have an inner realization or revelation, but from the moment you accept even intellectually that there cannot be an infinite God and some other power, from that moment on you are lessening the power of evil in your experience because it is this universal belief in two powers that appears to you as a desire for sin or a desire for false appetite or unemployment or infection or contagion. That is why in our work we do not treat effects. To treat an effect would make of us a form of materia medica whether on the material or mental level it would still be materia medica if we treated it from the standpoint of the effect.

          We do not, in our work, ever concern ourselves with the effect. You may say, “it’s heart or liver or lungs or paralysis or insanity.” That is nothing to us because we know where it originated—how it started and how it can be stopped. It started in a universal belief in two powers. This belief in two powers is so widespread that it is virtually hypnotic, and it appears, this universal belief in two powers, in infinite forms. And it appears to one as a continuous poverty and to another one as continuous disease, one different one after another, to another one as unhappy human relationships. But behind every single bit of it is this belief in two powers.

          Now the very moment that you know this truth that God is Spirit and, therefore, the only power is spiritual power, and that which is universally accepted as material or mental power is non-power, you begin the eradication of sin, disease, death, lack and limitation or old age in your experience because there isn’t even an aging process in the world. Even the aging process is one of human belief. And you can begin to nullify that when you’re 16 years of age if you like or 20 or 30 or 50 or 80. But at any moment that you begin to realize there cannot be an immortal life and an aging process—there cannot be the power of eternal life and the power of an aging process—you have begun to eliminate the aging process from your mind—the only place that it exists.

          Now, in the same way, every one of us every day is confronted with a claim, a belief, an appearance of law. It may be some law of matter. It may be some mental law just like infection and contagion is a law—the product of a law. Epidemics are products of law. If you understand God to be the lawgiver, the only law there can be is a spiritual law, and your realization of this immediately begins to nullify what is called material and mental law.

          Your knowing this truth—ah yes let me interrupt myself to remind you that we do not know the truth about man in our work. We do not know the truth about you. We do not know the truth about a human being. Our prayer and treatment work is knowing the truth about truth, knowing the truth about God. Therefore, if God is Spirit and if God is the lawgiver, then the only real law must be a spiritual law, and this of course must be a law of life, continuity, immortality, eternality, a law of resurrection. As you know this truth and automatically realize then this universal belief of two laws or three laws—material laws and mental laws, this is dissolved in your consciousness. ‘A thousand may still fall at your left and 10,000 at your right. It will not come nigh your dwelling place’ if you are knowing this truth.

          And so it is then as you go through the entire scope of our writings, you’ll find how in every walk of life, in every phase of life, you are being confronted with twoness or duality—meaning a belief in two powers, two selves, two lives, two stratas of existence. And yet the truth is “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” and that one is Spirit. That one is infinite, that one is omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence and besides this one God, infinite good, there is none besides.

           Now this belief in two powers, as I have said, because of its universal nature is so powerful that it acts hypnotically and Paul, in summing up the nature of the one evil that confronts all of us, called it the ‘carnal mind.’ And we sometimes use that term, ‘the carnal mind.’ And by that term we mean this universal belief in two powers. We don’t mean there is an actual mind called the carnal mind. There is no such thing. But just to shorten this universal belief in two powers we call it the carnal mind. It can be called mortal mind. It means the same thing. It means a universal belief in a power which isn’t a power. In other words, when you see mortal mind or carnal mind not as a power, not as an enemy, not as something to be overcome or destroyed, not as something you have to protect yourself from, but when you see carnal mind or mortal mind as a universal belief in two powers and you don’t believe in two powers, you have already overcome the carnal mind and its effects—at least in the degree of your realization.

          [Question]: “Since the healer must not think about the patient, why or how is the patient, and not somebody else benefited?”

          It is in this wise when the centurion brought his servant to the Master for healing. Remember the servant was a far way off and the centurion, with spiritual vision, said that it wasn’t necessary for the Master to go to the servant, merely send his word. And the servant was healed in that self-same hour. When you ask a practitioner for help, you have brought yourself to that practitioner’s consciousness, and whatever takes place in that practitioner’s consciousness becomes the law unto your being and your body and your affairs.

          It is in effect as if you gave yourself over to the consciousness of the practitioner and now his consciousness or hers becomes the law unto your experience. This is why in our work I have cautioned our students not to go into the work of the practice until they are absolutely certain that their consciousness has been made ready for the experience. Because when you invite someone into your consciousness, be sure that your consciousness is the light of truth, and then they are blessed.

          It has been discovered that you can enter the consciousness of the mind and find that that mind can be used for you for good or for evil. But you cannot enter the consciousness of one who is not using the mind in the spiritual practice without benefiting. But then the individual acting as practitioner must have risen above personal sense to the degree that they want nothing of you, that there is nothing personal in their ministry. That they are not being influenced by any personal motives or reasons, but that they are living, and moving, and having their own being in this spiritual light. And then as you enter their consciousness, that light which is their knowledge of one power, their knowledge of one presence, their awareness of spiritual reality, this becomes a law unto you and you have brought it to yourself by reaching out to their consciousness. Whereas the person sitting next to you, standing next to you, who has not reached out is not in contact with it.

          And of course the illustration of that is your radio. If your radio is tuned into a station, you get what is on that station. But if you have a radio sitting right next to it that is not tuned into that station, it may be just as good a radio but it will not receive the program. The tuning in is the secret.

          Therefore, you go to the practitioner, make yourself a part of that practitioner’s consciousness and receive the light of wisdom, of spiritual truth, from that practitioner and it becomes the law unto your affairs. If you bring your child or your parent, your husband, your wife, your dog or cat, or bird to the practitioner, that makes them at one with the practitioner’s consciousness and therefore they benefit. The reason that children and animals and birds respond better than adults is that an adult—I’m speaking of an adult who has not himself asked for help—the adult has of course the prerogative of tuning out, of keeping himself out of attunement by refusing inwardly the benefits of spiritual help. And so it is that for the best results there must be a yielding of one’s self to the practitioner, to spiritual help.

          Why is the healer responsible for the healing? And be assured nobody but the healer is responsible. The answer is that the degree of spiritual illumination of the individual determines the degree of the healing power. Or let me make that plainer. In the degree that an individual has inwardly realized God as one, in the degree that an individual has realized Spirit as the only power, the only presence, the only substance, the only activity, in that degree is the healer the law unto the case.

          God doesn’t heal us. If God healed us, we’d all be healed instantaneously for God is no respecter of persons. It is the truth that heals us, but there is no truth floating around in the air.

          Truth is made manifest through and as individual consciousness. In other words, if we can believe scripture, it would only have been necessary to go to the Master for one treatment and we would have been instantaneously healed. If we had gone to the disciples we would have had some instantaneous healings, but probably others would have taken two or three treatments, and probably others more than that. And so it is that in the degree in which an individual comes to the realization of God as being infinite omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, of God as being the only law, the only life, the only substance, and in the degree that this same individual realizes that all appearances of discord of any name or nature is but the carnal mind, the arm of flesh or belief in two powers, or nothingness, in that degree do the healings take place.

          Now in our work we handle every claim—disease, sin, false appearance—that is brought to us not as a person but as the presentation of the carnal mind in one form or another. And then recognize that since the carnal mind is not ordained of God, it is not power. It has no power, is not a law, has no law and, therefore, must fall by virtue of its own nothingness. By impersonalizing evil in that way we have found that most of the claims yield quickly and thoroughly because we have not touched a person. We have not tried to change a person or psychologize a person. We have known the truth which is that all evil is a belief in two powers.

          All evil is this carnal mind operating hypnotically to make us believe in a million different kinds of sin and disease and death and lack and limitation. And therefore whether the claim is brought to us by a Jones or a Smith or a Brown is of no importance. Whether the claim that is brought to us is cancer or consumption or polio or unemployment or unhappy home relationships, is of no importance. What is of importance is this: We know that God constitutes individual being—your being and mine. And we know that any discord claiming presence is but the operation of this belief in two powers—this carnal mind which, having no God ordination, no God authority, no God foundation, is no thing, and no person and no condition and no presence and no law. And this nullifies the belief in two powers and thereby nullifies any specific appearing of that universal belief.

          [Question]: “Allegorical parts in the Old Testament have been referred to by teachers and then later commented upon as though they were physical facts. With God all things are possible. Would like to know your concept of the miracles of Jesus such as feeding the multitudes, walking on the water and changing the water into wine. Were these physical facts?”

          They could well have been. They could have been. It was possible then and it is possible now to perform many of these things, but they are not necessary. They are not necessary for us to do now. They weren’t necessary then except perhaps as an exhibition to the ignorant.

          When spiritual illumination takes place in an individual, it brings with it a knowledge of the operation of physical and mental laws. And such an individual then can make use of these physical and mental laws to bring about any of the phenomena described in the Bible. In the Orient there are people who utilize these powers of the mind for these purposes, and even to this day are able to walk on flaming coals or are able to produce forms of matter out of the air. But none of this is what you would call a spiritual thing. It is mental. But, in the first place, it was accomplished by men of spiritual illumination to whom these secrets of matter and mind had been revealed.

          Later the practice of developing one’s mental powers came about so that many perform these things now through the power of the mind who have no spiritual background whatsoever The performing of any of these is not necessarily an evidence of spiritual development. And yet those who attain inner illumination through the knowledge gained of the operation of material and mental laws can accomplish them. This is the same thing with such feats as leaving the body, traveling invisibly to other parts of the world. All of this can be done. Anyone who has attained spiritual illumination can do it if they so desire. But there are thousands of people who can do it who have no single trace of spirituality because they have learned how to control mental or physical phenomena mentally.

          So the answer is all of those things could well have been, but it does not necessarily mean that they did take place as physical phenomena.  

          [Question:] “About supply, things and money, please explain ‘your heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of even before ye ask them.’”

          This does not literally mean that God knows that we have need of an automobile. If God knew that, I am sure our ancestors would have had automobiles because their need for them was as great as ours. I’m sure that God knows nothing about our need for wireless telegraphy because if he did there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have had wireless telegraphy centuries ago.

          The meaning of ‘your heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask Him’ is this. If you will translate that word, “Father” into the divine consciousness of me, my inner consciousness, you will understand then that as the Father; that is, the universal spiritual consciousness, divine spiritual consciousness becomes individualized as my individual consciousness, it is the substance of all form. It is the substance of all form.

          Therefore, the substance of all necessary to my life from the cradle to the grave is embodied within my consciousness. And in the realization of this ‘opening out a way for the imprisoned splendor to escape,’ this spirit or spiritual consciousness flows into my outer experience. And because of our conditioning, it appears as the form needed at the moment. It is I, Joel, who condition this flowing substance. In other words, if I am standing at the Red Sea and my need is to get across, my very own divine spiritual consciousness is the substance of all that is necessary to get me across. But it is I who am knowing this Sea must open or I must get on the other side, and this consciousness flows as that particular form.  

          It is I perhaps who know it’s mealtime and, therefore, this substance appears outwardly as cakes baked on the stones or the raven bringing food or the poor widow sharing. It is not that God knows my need for food or an automobile. It is that God is my consciousness, and my consciousness is the substance of all form. And had I needed transportation in the last century, it would have come forth probably as a horse or a horse and carriage or a horse and sleigh. But in this century it doesn’t come forth that way. It comes forth as an automobile or a seat on an airplane. The consciousness is the same. The form it assumes is the conditioning which I bring to the divine substance.

          [Question]: “How do we not pray for things when a seeming need arises or a seeming desire comes to mind?”

          By instantly dropping thought of that thing or condition and realizing Omnipresence. Everything of which I have need from now until the end of time is right now embodied within my consciousness—that is the substance and law of it is. Therefore, as I dwell on this subject of omnipresence, omnipresence, God is omnipresence—God is omnipresent as my consciousness. This omnipresent consciousness is the substance of all form and the law unto all form, and it is infinite, infinite in essence, infinite in manifestation, infinite in expression. It is unlimited by any human belief. It is unfettered by any human conditions. It is the free and full flowing of the divine consciousness as my individual consciousness, and I do not have to go anywhere for it or ask anyone for it because ‘the place whereon I stand is holy ground.’ ‘Son, this is the Father speaking. Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine.’

          And with this I rest. I rest in this word. I do not think in terms of things, wants, desires. I think only in terms of omnipresence. “Thank you Father. All that the Father hath is mine.” And wonderful, wonderful once you’ve come out of old theology. It isn’t really dependent on whether you’ve been good or bad. Your realization of omnipresence—if you have been bad, it will make you good. Being good won’t bring omnipresence, but the realization of omnipresence will bring goodness. You cannot earn or deserve God’s goodness or God’s gifts. You cannot by obeying the Ten Commandments reach heaven. You can be a good citizen, and you can be a good, worthy man and woman, but you cannot enter heaven by obedience to the Ten Commandments.

          Entrance into heaven, harmony, is obtained by the realization of omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, that where I am God is, that all that God is I am, not by virtue of myself but because ‘I and the Father are one.’ And this relationship of oneness fulfills the statement: “Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine.”

          Then regardless of how ’scarlet my sins may be’ my turning to this realization of omnipresence makes me ‘white as snow’ and brings forth God’s grace. You must remember it is said that God has more pleasure in one lost sheep that is restored than in the 99 who never went astray. This does not literally mean that God likes the reformed sinners better than others. But it does mean that the 99 good people may never have overcome their self-righteousness to the degree of admitting God into them. Self-righteousness, the belief that one is good, that one is moral, that one is honest, is the barrier that separates us from God’s grace. Just as the belief that we are evil or that we’re sinners or that we’re worms in the dust, this too separates us from the grace of God. So whether we believe that we’re bad or whether we believe that we’re good, this belief that we have any qualities of our own separates us from the love of God.

          It is when we can understand and emulate the Master, ‘I of my own self am nothing. I of my own self can do nothing. If I speak of myself, I bear witness to a lie.’  ‘It is the Father within me that doeth the works.’ ‘Why callest thou me good? There is but one good—the Father within me.’

          And this state of humility opens our consciousness to receive God’s grace. It is the nothingization of personal selfhood and the opening of one’s self to the realization of our true identity—and remember that our true identity is spiritual sonship. We are sons of God if so be the Spirit of God dwell in us. If we realize that whatever qualities we have, these are the qualities of God, this represents our divine sonship.

          [Question]: “Do we just know that our daily needs are supplied?”   

          NO. No we don’t. All we know is omnipresence. Where I am, God is. All that the Father hath is mine. The place whereon I stand is holy ground. And stay up there on the spiritual level and you’ll find that as you proceed hour by hour through the day fulfillment will take place.

          And here I give you another passage of scripture. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy.” In other words, as I am abiding in omnipresence, automatically there is fullness—whether it’s of supply or companionship or anything else because there would be no joy if there were anything lacking. Therefore, in the realization of God’s presence I find my joy. But certainly I would not be finding my joy if there were anything missing. Therefore, I have this joy because of fulfillment. Therefore, in Thy presence is fulfillment. Therefore, I must not seek fulfillment. I must seek Thy presence, seek the realization of Thy presence. The presence, remember, is always here with us.

          We have been cheated of it by believing that it was up there or that it was outside in holy temples or holy mountains or holy teachers whereas all of this time it has been revealed the kingdom of God is ‘neither lo here nor lo there’—not in holy mountains nor holy temples. The kingdom of God is within you, and your knowing this truth is the truth that makes you free of lack, limitation, discord, inharmony in any and every form. 

          [Question]: “In our present accelerated, atomic age many find it necessary to pay attention to the selection of non-sprayed and non-treated food stuffs. At what point does the seeker of truth draw the line and let God take over to protect him from our modern food day poisons?”

          And the answer is this.  You do not go into a drug store and buy poisons to put into your system. You know they’re there. You know they’re poisonous and you stay away from them. We have the right to exercise that same privilege when we go into the supermarkets. Our magazines have been very open and free in revealing to us the foods that are poisoned, that are processed, that have no food value left in them. There are no secrets about this. Every month some magazine, national magazine or other is telling us about it and certainly we have learned from personal experience or we’ve heard it from others that there are places where we can go and get pure foods, unprocessed foods, non-poisonous foods. And the answer is that in our common-sense way we should choose the purer foods and leave alone those that we know are without value or are poison, and that is all there is to that.

          For the balance, eat what is set before you. Eat what is set before you because the power isn’t really in what food is set before you any more than there is power in poisons. We, in our spiritual ministry, every one of us, have to prove that poisons aren’t power. In other words, someone swallows a poison accidentally or on purpose—some child gets a hold of poison and ignorantly swallows it—but in every case that I know anything about, the poisons have been proven to be of no effect. They’re quickly eliminated and harmony restored.

          But that doesn’t give us the excuse to take up a bottle of poison every day to drink it in order to prove that it isn’t power. The Master warned about this thing in the three temptations in the wilderness where he was told to jump off a cliff because it isn’t power and God would take care of him. Now, if you fall off a cliff, you have the right to expect that you will land safely and without injury, but don’t go out to the cliff every day and jump off just to prove it because the very exercise of your ego will defeat you. If you swallow poison ignorantly, innocently or sometimes in a moment of madness on purpose, you can turn to a spiritual healer and be saved. But don’t indulge your ego to the extent of saying, “I’ve proven I’m power over drugs so I’ll do it every day and inflate my ego.” Don’t do that it won’t work. So it is.

          We, as we travel on the road, we eat what is set before us, even some of the foods that we know are of no value and that aren’t even wise to eat. But this is because the situation is such that “here it is” and it is necessary to prove that they’re of no power. When we’re in our own home and have the power of choice, I can assure you that we prefer the foods of known purity, and this is a matter of common sense not of spirituality.

          We are going to have a little intermission. You remember we’re going to have a long session this evening and so we’re going to have a little intermission right now and then another meditation.

 *******   End Tape 400 Side One

 

1960 LAUSANNE CLASS

TAPE 345 SIDE TWO

THE NATURE OF PRAYER – POWER

 By Joel Goldsmith

           Good afternoon. I think that we can complete this subject of prayer today. But it will mean a very long and probably hard period for you because it will still remain with you to prove this, to demonstrate it, to manifest it. Knowing it will only be a step but bringing it through into expression is going to be quite a different matter. That is going to entail practice—much practice, patience. Prayer as you know is our means of contact with God or bringing God into visible expression, visible manifestation.

          If we were completely consciously one with God, prayer would be an entirely different subject then it is now because prayer then would be only a communion. It would be only a communion. It will be an experience of love. There would be a continuous feeling going back and forth within us from the exterior to the interior from the interior to the exterior—in other words, from our inner spiritual self to our outer expression. But this would really be something taking place within ourselves and going no further than the boundary of our own individual completeness, and it would have no other object than communion. No other object than realization of this oneness. It is only because of the sense of separation that exists within us—a sense of being separated from God that prayer has a different connotation, a different meaning and has more the meaning of re-establishing ourselves in a relationship that already exists. In other words it is re-established; no it is establishing ourselves in a conscious relationship. The relationship already exists, but we are not conscious of it and so prayer becomes an establishment of conscious relationship or conscious oneness or conscious union. Again, because this sense of separation sets up for us a series of false appearances prayer becomes a means whereby the false appearances are dissolved and we again see him as he is. We are told that when we see him as he is we will be satisfied. We will be pleased. When we awaken in his likeness then the function of prayer in our present experience is really to see him as he is, to see ourselves, to see conditions, to see the world as it is in spiritual reality, for the purpose of prayer is to awaken ourselves in his image and likeness, awaken ourselves to behold him as Christ, to behold ourselves as spiritual sonship.

          Now God is spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth and I give this to you as a starter that you are not praying when you are speaking or thinking thoughts. No matter how holy you believe your prayers are if they have in them speech or thought you are not praying. You may be setting the stage for prayer. You may be going through a preliminary stage leading to prayer. We do that in what we call contemplative meditation which is contemplative prayer when we close our eyes and silently realize God is closer to me than breathing nearer than hands and feet, where I am God is. All that the Father hath is mine. I can never live or move or have my being outside of God for I am in God and God is in me for we are one. This is not prayer. This is a contemplative form of prayer or meditation in which we contemplate truth for the purpose of quieting our inner thoughts and fears and doubts. In other words we are faced with an appearance of the world coming to the end and we get frightened and we want to get calm. And in order to do that we close our eyes to the appearance and realize God, “thou art closer to me than breathing, thou art closer to me than the end of the world, and if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me. And if the world does end and if a bomb blows it up I will fear no evil for thou art with me and if I am where thou art I cannot be separated from life, Consciousness, love. So whether it’s in this world or the next world I will fear no evil.” And by this time our inner fears have been stilled and now we can enter prayer which is a state of union with God that has neither words nor thoughts but is merely an opportunity for the free flow of the spirit of God within us.

          In the same way someone comes to us in pain, or lack, or distress and we would give them help, and the appearance itself as it has been presented to us disturbs us. It is not only disturbing the patient but they have made it so real that it’s now going to disturb us. And so before we can enter prayer for them we have to overcome this fear, this doubt, this reaction to appearances and so we enter a state of contemplation.

          “Judge not after appearances, Joel. Judge not after appearances. The Master has taught you. Judge not after appearances. Judge righteous judgment. What do you believe about God, Joel? Do you really believe that God is infinite? Could you believe then that there is infinite good and somebody else or something else? Do you really believe there is some other power besides God or some other substance or law. No, no Joel you know better. You have been instructed. You have been taught that God is infinite Spirit. That God is the only law unto his universe and the substance of all form. You know that the body is the temple of the living God. Therefore be still. Fear not. It is I. There is not I and somebody else. There is not I and something else. Be still. Be not afraid. It is I. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will be with thee to the end of the world, and with everybody else, so be still. Be still and know that I am God. You have nothing to fear. I am God, and I am ever with thee. Wither so ever thou goest, I will go. And if you make your bed in hell I will be there with you. Be not afraid. It is I.”

          And this contemplative prayer; this contemplative meditation now brings me to an inner state of peace where I am not reacting to the outward appearance. And now I can say, “Speak Lord thy servant heareth.” Now I can rest without words and without thoughts and permit this inner flow to take place and it is in this stillness, in this quietness, in this confidence that the appearances of sense are dissolved and the spiritually real comes into expression. Now it is at this point that those who pray must be careful. If you are praying with any idea that you are going to make sick matter into well matter or a little matter into a lot of matter, you are praying amiss.

          Here is where the world has gone wrong. It has prayed to a God of Spirit to do something to materiality and a materiality which has no existence. It is like praying to God to change the mirage on the desert. Supposing there is a mirage on the desert, supposing there is a turbulent ocean out there. Can you pray to God to still that ocean when you know all of the time it isn’t there? It is only an image in you mind? How can God do something to non-existence? Supposing that out on this desert there is a great big wall that won’t let you pass or a whole big city and you pray to God to open a way for you to go through. Can God answer such nonsensical prayers when there is no wall there, there is no city there? This wall and this city is only a mental image in your thought and it has no externalized existence and your sitting here waiting for God to do something to something that doesn’t exist.

          Do you see that? You might as well sit here and decide you want to cross this mountain and pray first that God opens a path through that horizon. Well you could sit here forever because God can’t answer that prayer. There is no sky blocking your way. If you can climb a mountain go and climb. When you get to the top you will find that the way is free to go beyond.

          So it is, if you make the mistake that this world is making, praying to God to do something to an illusory something that has no existence—and that’s what it’s doing when it prays to heal disease or when it prays for supply or for bread or home or companionship—it is a waste of time. You must be careful that when you pray the object of your prayer is to behold God, to behold true being, spiritual being, not to change a condition of matter. Not to increase matter or decrease it. Prayer must be for one purpose only on this mystical path and that is—God reveal thyself. Let me behold thee as thou art or thy universe, thy law. Reveal to me thy spiritual law. Reveal to me thy spiritual self. Reveal to me divine being. Reveal to me eternality, immortality, infinity.

          Only be careful that you’re not hitching it up to and incidentally move the sky off the mountain. Or siphon the water off the desert. Be careful that you are not applying your prayer because the world is doing that and getting no answer. The world is doing that. It is praying. You have only one object in prayer and that is to behold God in action, behold the law of God in action, the life of God in action, the self of God in action, the being of God in action. You have to start with a complete humility, let’s use that word, humility. A state of being in which you say, “I do not know what God is. I do not know what spiritual man is. I do not know what spiritual law is.  Now Father, reveal thyself”. In that state of humility in which the Master says, “I can of my own self do nothing” or, “if I speak of myself I bear witness to a lie” or, “this message is not mine, his that sent me”. That wiping of the self out, the Jesus self, the John self, the Joel self, the Mary self—“I do not know how to pray”, one disciple says. “I do not know how to come in or how to go out or what to pray for”. That is really humility.

          Because actually you don’t. What you really want is the experience of God in your life, but humanly you have no way of knowing what that is and the strange thing is you never will. You never will until you have transcended the knowledge of the human mind. There is no way to grasp the things of God through the human mind. The things of God, Spirit, Infinity are foolishness to finite mind. In fact the finite mind cannot encompass God or spiritual truth. It would be impossible to get even the tiniest grain of spiritual wisdom into the human mentality—the things of God. And so you only come into God’s grace when you have come to such a place of inner stillness, quietness and peace that you are not thinking or trying to outline or bring through your idea of what harmony is or what good is. Only when you are in that complete stillness and since no one can stop the action of the human mind that’s why so much of the Oriental meditations fail. That’s why they too are not bringing through God in spite of all their meditations. They make too much effort to stop the action of the human mind. If you succeed in doing it, you just leave yourself a blank. You still haven’t brought the spiritual faculty into awakened state. But if you use this method of silent, contemplative meditation—we have many, many tapes, many, many classes that include contemplative meditation—and if you practice this contemplative meditation in which you silently, peacefully declare every truth you can about God and your oneness with God and the nature of God’s creation and so forth and then relax in quietness and confidence so that something can come through from the beyond.

          Now the only way I can explain it to you is this. Supposing right now you were asked to compose a piece of music but it must not be any piece of music that has ever been composed before or heard by the ear of man. Therefore, you mustn’t let your mind wander around to the field of music. Since you can’t get this piece of music out of your mind, out of your memory it has to come through from an unknown source and it has to be a combination of notes, remember, that have never been heard before so you can’t even use your imagination to think what it will be like when it comes through. Now if you can realize that and then wait for this piece of music to come through, when it comes through you find out how entirely different music is then what you thought music was. Other words, you’ll understand the old wise composers who said that his composition never sounds on the instrument like they did in his mind. He can’t recognize them when he hears them.

          And that’s the truth about spiritual truth. There isn’t anything that’s written down of spiritual truth that once it’s written down is anything like it was when it was received in Consciousness. And none of us seem to have the ability to write it down, and that’s what’s so frustrating. We get a most beautiful vision and we write it down and then look at and that isn’t it and that isn’t what came through and it’s frustrating. Now just imagine that you don’t know what your demonstration is to be. You don’t know the meaning of health. All that you’ve been taught is that it means a heart that beats so much or a digestive organ that does this or an eliminative organ that does that and you believe it. But you don’t know what health is. You don’t know what the health of man is—man who is immortal. You don’t know what his being is. You don’t know what his body is. Therefore, you have to be like the composer. You want something to come through that never has been known before in the mind of man. And that’s the secret of your life, your mind, your being, your body, your health, your supply. And it’s because you can’t use your imagination, you must attain an inner stillness and peace and then wait for the revelation to come through.

          Now I will show you a few practical examples of how this works. Now you all have gardens or trees or pets, cats, dogs, birds. And so you will have to make your initial experiment with these. No matter how beautiful we think this is believe me it isn’t a least bit beautiful in comparison to what it really is. If we could see this as it is we would all be shocked by what we would see. It is so far different with what we are seeing with finite eyes. Now, this is true about your cat or your dog or your bird. You have no idea what they look like and you have no idea what they act like because their present actions are not divine. They are the expression of the universal human mind that surrounds them.

          In other words your cat or your dog or your bird is just the reflection of the human belief in good and evil. And so they’re sometimes good and sometimes evil, sometimes well and sometimes not well. Manifesting human—the surrounding human Consciousness. Now you can take your cat and your dog and your bird out of that and you can put them into Divine Consciousness where they will never be good or bad, sick or well. They will always be God in expression. They’ll always be their spiritual identity. Now the way that you do that is you have a period in which you are going to meditate for your dog, cat, bird or plant or garden or tree. You sit down and then you dismiss them from your thought entirely. And now you turn only to God. You have your brief period of contemplative prayer or meditation until you feel yourself becoming still and then you sit still as if you were waiting to hear the still small voice. And you may hear it or you may not. You may just eventually get a deep breath within you. Sometimes you breath so deeply that it touches way down into your stomach, way down into the solar plexus or you may just get a feeling of release as if a weight were taken off your shoulder, a feeling of peace, and that’s the end of it.

                                                                                                                                   Now as you do this day after day for just a few minute specifically for your pets or your plants, you will begin to notice a change in them. You will notice a change in the relationships of your pets to yourself. There’ll be a closer bond and it’ll be of an entirely different nature. It won’t be entirely human. You’ll see in it that there’s something in that relationship of a divine nature or you’ll see in it a communion with that animal or bird or plant. There’s no use trying to describe it. You have to experience it. Now this is what is the mystery—this Consciousness that has come through from somewhere out in the beyond which is really the depths of your own withinness—this that has escaped up into you is the God Consciousness and it becomes the substance of this relationship and of this body.

          Let me give it to you in another form. This is easy for you to realize because many of you have had the experience. Let us suppose there is a child, a baby, a youngster, and it is feverish. Now you sit down beside it—don’t give it a treatment, give yourself this contemplative meditation first until you feel an inner peace. And wait there for just a moment or two until this deep breath takes place or this inner peace, and then watch how that child settles down into a sleep and then awakens without the fever. And you will find that it is this that has escaped from you that has now become the substance of their Consciousness, of their life, of their mind, of their body. You haven’t done anything to disease or sickness. You have dissolved material sense and brought to light a state of Divine Consciousness. Because of our eyesight it still looks to us as if we just had a healthy body now in front of us. But it isn’t so—it’s a state of divine health that has come into expression. It is as if this Consciousness which escapes through me becomes your Consciousness and becomes the law unto your being and your body. And so as it escapes from you, it becomes the law unto your animal or plant or patient or student. It’s really your Consciousness that is now their Consciousness—not your human consciousness. In this work there is no such thing as transference of thought from one individual to another. There is no such thing as the transference of good or evil thought. That is why if you are faithful in this work nobody is ever going to be harmed by any erroneous thought that may momentarily or temporarily take place in you, and there is nobody on the human plane who once in a while doesn’t have a fear thought or a sensual thought or a doubtful thought or an erroneous thought or a temporal thought or a temperament thought. There isn’t anybody who has attained purity on earth.

          And therefore, it is definite that at some time or other we all have a negative or erroneous thought, but this will never transfer itself to our patients or our students if we are remembering never to project our thought into their mind. Never project your thought into anyone’s mind either to give them a thought or to receive a thought from them because you don’t want anything they’ve got. And they surely want nothing that you’ve got humanly. And so to be sure that there is no transference of thought, be sure that your contact is with Spirit alone, with the Consciousness within you. And then as it escapes from you in this deep breath, or this release, it in all of its purity becomes the law and the life unto them. You watch it in your plants. Watch how they respond to you. Watch it in your pets how they respond to you as long as you have no human thoughts, as long as you are not addressing them humanly, as long as you are not telling them anything or asking anything of them. When you are completely pure—and that doesn’t mean that you have to be concerned if erroneous thought goes through your mind—that isn’t going to get outside of your mind, you are directing yourself to the Father within you. You are making way for the imprisoned splendor to escape, that’s the spirit of God in you, and the very moment that you are still, that you take no thought the bridegroom cometh, the Christ, the Christ, the Spirit of God comes through into expression and that is why—and you may have noticed this because many classes have—when we meditate here as a group if you respond at all and are lifted up, if you feel my meditation, what is it do you think that happened? It is no thought projected out at you. I’m not sending thoughts out here—sometimes 200 people sitting in the room, 300, 400, a thousand in February—it is I am staying in here consciously one and wait until that takes place. And when that comes out, that’s pure essence, pure God, pure Spirit of God and it lifts you up. I if I be lifted up draw all men up to that same level of Consciousness.

          Now in that uplifted Consciousness healings take place. Illumination takes place. Supply takes place. Wonderful things take place to students out here. It would be wonderful if only it could happen to every student in every class but it doesn’t, because it only happens to those who are ready at that particular time. Some students come into our classes for the first time and receive illumination and some don’t even receive it the last time. It has to do with me only to the extent that I’m the instrument through which it happens and I if I’m lifted up make it possible for you, but only for the ‘you’ who is at that moment ready.

          In other words if it were my human will then every one would be lifted up and given their illumination. That would be my human will, but I have no control over that. Therefore, when I do meditate with students and many times we have witnessed that on the very first meditation they have received their illumination—others second or third or twelfth.

          Now all that happens is it is no act of human will. It is an act of conscious union with God letting this invisible Consciousness come forth and then it performs its work. And the surprising thing is that one person has spiritual illumination another person has a fever disappear. Another one has a lump disappear. Another one has unemployment disappear. Somebody else has poverty go out the window. It is the strangest thing but the answer is that Consciousness is the substance of all form. And Consciousness is God. And therefore as we enter this meditation if we have a plant in front of us and this Divine Consciousness escapes, that plant begins to express the harmony of God rather than just the harmony of nature. It responds more, to more than just the fertilization that it got or the rain that it got or the sunshine that it got. There’s a something extra that it received that comes forth through it. That is why it is possible for those who pray to have far better crops, far better gardens than even those with the best of fertilizers, and sunshine and rain. It is possible for those who pray to bring forth more milk from their cows than others do. In other words, we live not by bread alone, not by food alone, not by fertilizer alone, not by rain or sun alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And therefore, the human body does respond in a measure to food. You can always tell that in the experience of people who give up most of the foods in ordinary markets and begin to use the foods in health food stores, the pure grain foods and so forth and so on. You can soon see the change in their bodies the change in their health because the body does respond to pure food in the same way that a plant will respond to its rightful fertilizer or its rightful amount of rain or its rightful amount of sunshine. So it is food in some measure respond to, I mean the body, respond and the health to the right foods. But there are many people who become faddists and believe they’re going to find their health or their eternality in pure foods and they get left. They lose out, because you can only go so far with food for we do not live by bread alone, we live by every word.

          But give a person pure foods, the right foods, and to that the life of prayer, then you’ll begin to see the whole man, the spiritual man. It’s more difficult to try to give’m prayer and a lot of wrong foods too unless the prayer helps him to get rid of his wrong foods and turn his appetite in the right direction, which usually happens. So it is then, don’t expect that your prayer is going to eliminate the need for sunshine and rain on your plants. Don’t think that your prayer is going to eliminate the need for food for your animals and good food.

 

          Don’t be like the man who discovered one day that he forgot to feed his horse and the horse worked just as hard the next day. So he decided each day he would limit a cupful of grain from his horse’s food, and the horse seemed to go on just the same. But you know what eventually happened. You can’t keep taking a cupful away each day and then in the end not have your horse collapse. So it is, man shall not live by bread alone, but let’s be sure that while we have the ability to eat and drink properly that we do it.

          On the other hand we have the experience of truth not only that Daniel when in prison was fed for, what was it, 40 days on nothing but toast and whereas all the other prisons who were fed that way had weakened and become thin and depressed, Daniel was his normal natural self and had no occasion to change him. And so we have the experience likewise on the war of many people who were prisoners of the Japanese who were either ill fed or not fed and countless numbers did not survive. Countless numbers came out weak and in bad physical shape and yet some managed to come out harmoniously, and when you talk to them you will usually find they were living in prayer in spite of their surroundings. Therefore, we need not feel that we cannot survive long periods even of not eating or even of incorrect eating, but as long as we’re thinking in terms of normal living let us remember this that we do not live by bread alone. We live by this conscious activity of Consciousness. Now watch it. Watch it with your garden, your trees, your animals. Watch it with every opportunity you have with children for they’re the most receptive and responsive.

          And you will see that as you attain this release, this deep breath, their fevers will disappear, their little ills will disappear, their sores will quickly heal and you will see that this Consciousness which escaped from you became the substance of their renewal, resurrection, rebirth. Then, you are not seeking with prayer or God to change something or somebody out here. You are seeking to bring out into expression this released, this inner ‘That’ which we call Spirit of God, and then you witness It in manifestation and it will appear to you as a healed person or an improved animal or plant. Only be sure that you are not trying to connect up this experience with a fever out here or a bad animal out here or something of that nature.

          Watch out that what you are trying to bring forth is this hidden splendor, bringing it into manifestation and let it appear as spiritual identity. Then it will appear to you. To your eyesight it will just be a healing. But inwardly you will know that it wasn’t a healing at all. You have now seen the spiritual life in expression: spiritual being, spiritual harmony—the only reason that after these healings that people succumb to other ills is that they do not maintain the Consciousness in which you have established them. They go back. The Master says, “Go and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you.” We do bring spiritual healings to people and they go right back to the very state of material thought or consciousness or living that brought it on in the first place. And all they do is in clearing out one evil make room for seven more to come in.

          In other words our life should be devoted not purely to healing ourselves or others but to bringing forth the divine nature of our being. And that means being renewed by the transforming of the mind, transformed by the renewing of the mind. In other words it means developing a whole state of Consciousness in which we do not put reality, power, law into the world of effect but realize that all reality, all power, all law is always invisible. You can never see law. You can see an apple formed on a tree as a bud or a blossom and then turn it into the apple, but you can never see the law that did it. You can only witness the outer expression, but never the law. You can witness, you can sit and watch sometimes as disease is disappearing out of a body and health is being, but you can’t see the law that’s performing it. Spiritual law is invisible. Spiritual law is the only law. You can’t see spiritual life. You can see the body, but you can’t see the life of the body. The life is invisible. Life is invisible. Law is invisible. Being is invisible. I am invisible. You can’t see me. I am invisible. And the reason is I am so big that I wouldn’t fit in any room. I wouldn’t fit in any arena because I fill all space. I am infinite. I am one with God. I can’t even fit into this here because I am from everlasting to everlasting. I can’t fit into this space of a century because I am before Abraham was. I am one with God in nature, in being, in life, in eternality, in infinity, in quantity and in quality. Therefore, I cannot be seen.

          I was before my body was visible. And I will continue to be when my body is no longer visible and I will be where I am now. I will not go any place. I will not depart for I did not come. I was always here—invisible just as before a few years ago I was unknown and invisible to you, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t exist. I just did not exist to you, but I existed. And so it was that I existed before my mother knew me.

          One man had the vision to say before God was I am, before ever there was a concept of God before ever there was anybody to have a thought of God, I am. So as you ponder this, you will find that the I that you really are, you really are life eternal, and you become the life of your pet, the life of your child, the life of your tree, the life of your body. You become the life of your own body the moment you realize the spiritual nature of your identity. And then since you can’t bring this out through thought—you can only bring it out through silence, you engage in a contemplative meditation until you feel an inner stillness and an inner peace and then you take the listening attitude as if, “Speak Lord thy Servant heareth,” and then wait until that Spirit fills you. When it fills you, it is removing all of the sins and diseases and deaths and lacks out here. Wherever there is receptivity there is responsiveness to it. We may not be receptive one day but we may be receptive tomorrow. We may not be receptive this year, but we’ll be receptive next year.      None of us is responsible for our receptivity humanly because it is something that is taking place within us and you may say often in spite of us. It is like this. I told you the other day we are not yet living in an age of civilization. Civilization has not yet reached this earth. We are still living in a state of pre-civilization. Mostly men are animals living by the law of self-preservation. Self-preservation is the first law of nature says man, and then he proves it by killing everybody else to save his own life, by plundering everybody else to save his own fortune. And that is the universal state of human consciousness and yet watch how it is evolving in spite of mankind.

          Within the human span of a few of us in this room we have evolved in society to where one group of nations protects another group of smaller nations. Something that never before happened, never before this century. We find great corporations protecting their employees, providing hospitals, providing retirements funds, providing all kinds of vacation schemes—something that never happened before this century. We find a greater sense of man’s responsibility to man, man’s brotherhood to man, but we find it coming into this century a little here and a little there, a little here and a little there. We do not find it worldwide. We do not find it encompassing even one-third of the world. We do not find these things taking place in China, only beginning in Japan, hardly at all in India or Russia or wherever the big populations are. But you find them coming up here and there in the United States, in England, in France, in Switzerland, here and there in the world so that you can perceive that civilization is dawning. It’s coming into human consciousness. You know there are things taking place today that if they had taken place 30 years ago this world would be at war. This world would be at war if these things that are happening on earth today took place 30 years ago. No country would stand for it. They’d shoot their armies across the border immediately. Yet they’re holding them in check—not entirely for fear of the atomic bomb—not entirely, but partly because there is that in man which is not quite so ready to spring on his neighbor and murder her. In other words you can perceive the dawning of civilization.

          Now it is only a question of time when we will go beyond civilization to spiritual realization in which my self will be your self and your self will be my self and I will understand why it is that if you do it unto the least of these my brethren you are doing it on to me because I am the least of these, and they are me for we are one. I am in you and you are in me and we are in God and therefore what I do to you I do unto myself. And if I do good unto you it is like casting bread on the water and it’s coming back to me. And if I do evil to you it is casting that kind of bread on the water and it is coming back to me. Regardless of what temporary loss you suffer from the evil of another you can be assured of this it isn’t even a marker to what they are going to suffer because as you sow so shall ye reap. And if you sow unto the flesh, you reap corruption. And if you sow to the Spirit, you reap life everlasting. And so if you sow to self-preservation, if you sow to self-gain, if you sow to selfishness, this is the flesh. When you sow to loving your neighbor, you are reaping love or life eternal.

          That is why all of the Master’s teaching was “ye”. Everything had to do with “ye.” “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”. As you do to another so it will be done unto you. “Do unto others as you want them done unto you”. Always you, his whole teaching is you, not God, You, for you can’t change God and you can’t bring God into mortality. So it is only as you change yourself into the immortal and spiritual can you come into God. Therefore, when you pray, if you’re praying for God to do something to matter, you’re out of order, for matter is only a part of the illusion.

 

End Tape 345 Side Two    

 

1960 LAUSANNE CLASS

TAPE 345 SIDE 1

 THE NATURE OF GOD – POWER

 By Joel Goldsmith

           Good afternoon. One of the greatest mysteries in all of the world throughout all time has been the mystery of God Power. From the very earliest days men have sought God Power They have sought to bring God Power into this world. They have tried to bring God Power into their personal affairs and in experiences such as we have had in this present century, men have tried to bring God Power into world affairs. They have prayed individually and collectively for world peace—which means they have tried to bring the power of God down into men’s wars. They have prayed for prosperity where there was none. They have prayed individually and collectively to overcome the evils—the major evils—of this world such as we see evidenced in the poverty of whole nations and the diseases of whole nations, in the slavery of whole nations, in the ignorance, superstition.

          Every bit of this praying has had for its purpose the bringing of God power down to earth, the bringing of God Power into the affairs of men. And on the whole, these attempts have been failures throughout all time—from the earliest recorded time to the present. And it makes no difference whether men and women have prayed in or through this church or that church or no church, the results are uniformly the same.

          I do not have to point out to you that for this past 30 years at least, perhaps 40 years, there have been groups, some separate groups and some united groups all around the world that have prayed for the ending of World War I and then the ending of World War II and then the end of the Korean War, and in between they have prayed to establish peace. And you know the results of all of this—a complete failure. Then of course we have an experience such as takes place annually in this trek to Lourdes in which usually 100,000 people all go to one place to pray for health. And out of 100,000 people each year that go there fifteen people come away healed. That isn’t a very great testimonial to the power of bringing God down into the diseases of mankind. And this is only one instance of many because in every religion and in every denomination, ministers, priests, rabbis are praying for the health of their followers. Usually if it weren’t for the intervention of materia medica there would be no help. It isn’t the prayers that save these people; it is the power of materia medica that saves them except again in isolated cases.

          Letters come to our desk—well there isn’t a week that this doesn’t happen—telling of great tragedies in families and then saying why do these things continue to happen. Does God permit them? Is God responsible for them? Or how can we bring God into the experience to prevent such things or to heal the consequences of such things? Indicating again that individually as well as collectively no way has been discovered of bringing the power of God into human affairs on any scale that could be called successful. Again, do not misunderstand me: throughout all ages there have been individuals who have been successful in understanding the nature of God and prayer and bringing the power of God into their individual experience or the individual experience of some of their followers.

          It was thought for many years that the New Thought teachings had found a way to bring God into human affairs. I think that most people will agree today that all that they discovered was how to bring mental power into their prayers—not the power of God but the power of the human mind. Only if you investigate impartially and objectively only occasionally will you find where it is actually the Spirit of God or the power of God that has been brought into these experiences. On the whole, most of the healing work and most of the great benefits that have come into the world through the study and practice of metaphysics has come really through a greater knowledge of the activity of the mind and a greater use of the power of the mind which has no relationship at all to God Power. It is true that it is often referred to as God Power. It is true that many in these New Thought teachings actually believe that they are working with God, with the presence of God and with the power of God.    

          Someday these people must awaken to the fact that they have merely widened their horizons and discovered more about the power of mind—the power of the mind of man, not that mind which was also in Christ Jesus, not that mind which was referred to as God. The question now, as the question always is, not whether or not there is a God, not whether or not there is God power, that is beyond question, but is it possible to bring the presence and power of God into human experience individually and collectively so that the reign of God could take place on earth as it is in heaven.

          Just remember you cannot declare that the kingdom of God is on earth while you are bearing witness to these sins and diseases and crimes on a world-wide scale. You can testify to the reign of God in the experience of those individuals who have solved the riddle of the mystery but the world as a whole is still as it was when Paul announced that, “man is not under the law of God, neither indeed can be”. And it is only as the Spirit of God dwells in you that you become the children of God meaning that you come under the law of God. Paul recognized when he said “I live yet not I. Christ liveth my life.” He recognized that this was only true of himself at that period of which he spoke, that is, after his illumination. He would hardly have declared that I live not yet I, Christ liveth in me when he was still Saul of Tarsus. He could never have said then I can do all things through Christ for there was no Christ alive in him until on the road to Damascus came the experience of illumination. So he was trying to tell us that there is no Christ in our experience. That is there is no spiritual power.

          There is no living by grace in our experience while we are still in our human identity. There is no God watching over us. We are not living under a law of God, a law of protection, a law of purity, a law of living without blood, sweat and tears. There is no such thing until that moment of illumination which brings about the experience of the indwelling God, the God that dwelleth in you or the Christ that dwelleth in you or the Spirit of God that dwelleth in you. Call it by whatever name you will.

          It is an actual moment, an actual moment of transition when something takes place within your Consciousness that sets you apart from what you were when you were Saul of Tarsus—when you were man whose breath is in his nostril, when you were the man of earth. Paul also separates the two in that way. One is the man of earth. The other is that man who has his being in Christ.  

          And so it is pointed out to us that when we are man whose breath is in his nostril, when we are the Son of Man, when we are the Saul man, when we are not living in the secret place of the most high, when we are not abiding in the word and letting the word abide in us, then we are the man of earth. And life is an accidental one. We can have riches today and poverty tomorrow. Then we can have double riches the day after. We can have sin today and purity tomorrow. But on the other hand there are those who will have purity today and sin tomorrow. Why? Because they are subject to circumstances of every day living. They are victims of what happens to their nation or to their race, or to their religion, or to their particular country at a particular moment—sometimes even subject to economic cycles, business cycles that moves them up one day and down the next day.

          And this could never be if the Spirit of God dwelt in them, if they were children of God because we learn this in the same Scripture that if you are living in the secret place of the most high, if you are the child of God, none of these evils can come nigh thy dwelling place. So you see that first of all it must be recognized that there are two stages of life. That one in which we are human beings the way we are born. That one in which we are in ignorance of God. That one in which we are living our lives separate and apart from God. And then that other life which begins in us when the name Saul is taken from us and we are renamed Paul, or when we have died to being man whose breath is in his nostrils and have been reborn as children of God. When we have died to our mortal selfhood and been reborn of the Spirit.

          Now since there is a God the first question that should come up in the mind of a searcher and a seeker is why then are we born into this experience of mortality? And the answer is because of the universal acceptance of two powers. It doesn’t make any difference how it came about or what date it came about. The fact is that it came about that universally there was an acceptance of two powers: good and evil. In Scripture that is referred to as the experience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they are pure and after the Garden of Eden when seemingly they are impure. And of what does the impurity consist? They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words they accepted, they assimilated this belief of two powers good and evil and thereby they lost their divine sonship and became mortals. They became man whose breath is in his nostril. And it only means that he accepted two powers.

          Now since no religion on the face of the globe has discovered this, since no religion that is now known on earth or of which there are any records—no religion has discovered the origin of evil. They have not been able to teach it. And therefore they have not been able to take their people out of mortality. They have not been able to help them die to their mortality and be reborn of the Spirit because there is only one way to die out of mortality and to be reborn of the Spirit and that is to consciously recognize that mortality consists of a belief in two powers and to renounce it. And gradually accept in your Consciousness the great truth of Omnipotence. That is there is but one power. Now of course this is going to bring about a struggle, a strife within you. This is going to set up within you a warfare which is called the warfare between the flesh and the Spirit. Heretofore you have believed that the warfare between the flesh and the Spirit merely meant overcoming a sex desire and that is utter nonsense. It is complete mythology. The warfare between the flesh and the Spirit is the warfare between your five senses which testifies to two powers and your spiritual intuitive faculty which tells you that Omnipotence is the basic truth of being. If there is any thinker in the world who does not inwardly agree that omnipotence is and must be the only truth—that is that there is but one power, an all-power, an almighty power an omnipresent all-power—if there is any one of any spiritual vision they must see this—that Omnipotence must be the truth because it is evident in every phase of life in which we can behold God at work. It is only absent when we witness man’s work. In other words, man’s ability to misuse his way of life.

          Now when once you perceive that there is a truth, and that the truth is infinite, and omnipresent, and omnipotent, and that beside this truth there is no other power, from that moment on, a warfare begins in you because you open your eyes and all around you, you see sin and you see disease. You see wealth and you see poverty. You see goodness and you see evil. You see justice and you see injustice and there is a warfare immediately that tries to prevent you accepting omnipotence as the real and only law and state of being. Now this warfare within you has been given a very good name in Scripture. It is called antichrist. Antichrist means that which is against truth and that your five physical senses that help this activity of antichrist. Because it tries to make us accept what we see, hear, taste, touch and smell instead of judging righteous judgment. We naturally tend to trust our eyes and so it is that until we know better we believe that there is a horizon where the sky is sitting on the mountains. We are apt to believe that railroad tracks come together in the distance. We believe all sorts and manners of appearances, and only as we become enlightened, do we begin to perceive that there is no horizon up there. There is no sky sitting on a mountain. If we get up to that mountain we will find that the sky has moved back, but it hasn’t moved back. It is where it always was.

          So it is we learn as we walk along the tracks they don’t really come together a few hundred yards away, because when we get that few hundred yards they still come together but now it’s a hundred, a few hundred yards more. And so you could walk to the end of the car track and still find no place where they came together, you were merely deceived by appearances. So it is the Master says, “Judge not after appearances. Judge righteous judgments”. And to apply this spiritually it really means don’t believe what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell because you are perceiving through limited senses. But close your eyes to the appearance and ask yourself, what is the nature of God? And then you will know, whatever the nature of God is, that is the nature of creation because creation is the image and likeness of God.

          All right then, what is power? Well if the nature of God is Spirit, then power is spiritual. What is the nature of law? If God is law, or if God is the lawgiver, the nature of law must be spiritual. What is the substance of the universe? If the nature of God is Spirit, the substance of the universe must be spiritual. What is the nature of your life or my life? If God is life and God is spirit, your life is spiritual. How old is God? If God is eternal and immortal, if the nature of God is eternality and immortality, your life is endless.

          In other words, if you would judge righteous judgment you can only do so by first knowing the nature of God and then realizing that the nature of God must be the nature of all creation for all creation is the image and likeness, the offspring, the outpicturing, the manifestation of God. Then all that God is, creation must be. But if you look at this world and try to perceive its nature you will be fooled by your eyesight or the hearing of your ears. But if you close your eyes to the appearance and go back and seek within yourself for the secret of the nature of God, you will know the nature of your individual life and mine—and his and hers, the human, the animal, the vegetable, the mineral. You will know that God is its being, its life, its law, its presence, its power, its substance, its cause and its effect, and all that God is then, man is and creation is.

          Now once you begin to perceive this, another conflict will be set up in you because questions will arise. Since this is true what are we to do about these appearances. And the old answer always was, let’s go to God and have God change them. Let’s go to God and get God power to do something about it. And so of old they went to Jerusalem, and later they went to Rome. Somebody else went to Mecca. Somebody else went to Boston. But the idea was always the same: let’s go someplace where God is and have God do something about it with God power. Of course the fact that Jesus the Christ said to us do not go to holy temples and do not go to holy mountains for the kingdom of God is neither lo here nor lo there. The kingdom of God is within you—this has been forgotten. But it must be revived again, and it must be revived again within you, for it is you who must avail yourself of the truth since you are the seeker.

          Now, when you begin to perceive the nature of God and you’ll notice then that the works of God are always forever. There’s no changing in the works of God. There is no exception to prove the rule. Nobody has ever discovered a fish sailing through the air. And nobody has ever discovered a bird swimming in the water. Nobody has ever found any exception to two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen being water. Nobody has ever found exception to a law of God. Therefore, omnipotence must be the nature of God. Omnipotence must be the very characteristic of God in his government of this world.

          Now, with your perception of this the battle within you begins to subside. Because instead of looking for a God now or a God power to do something to the evils of the world, you begin to perceive their unreal nature. And then you begin to work like Jesus Christ did. When he comes to a crippled man he doesn’t pray to God to heal him he just says, “What did hinder you? Pick up your bed and walk.”

          You begin to understand that why he could stand at the tomb of Lazarus and say I don’t have to pray. Lazarus, come forth. In other words, we don’t need any God power here. God already is Omnipotence.  There’s no other power for God to fight or overcome. There are not two powers in the world. There are no forces contending against God not if God is Omnipotence and God couldn’t be God unless God were Omnipotence because only that which is infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient could be deity, nothing else; anything less than that would be man.

          Now, the failure to bring God into this world and to solve its problems has its basis in the acceptance of two powers. The belief that there is a God power which is being fought or contended against by some other power—and that we are going to God and have God do something to this other power called sin, disease, false appetite, hate, envy, jealousy, malice, and so forth.

          The very moment you accept these two powers you are outside the Garden of Eden. You are not the Son of God. You are not under the law of God neither indeed can be. The only way that you can bring yourself under the law of God is to stop praying to God for God power and begin to pray within yourself the prayer of gratitude that you have been awakened to the realization of God as Omnipotence, spiritual Omnipotence. The one substance, the only substance, the only law, the only cause, the only effect, and thereby you recognize that all sense testimony whether you see it, hear it, taste it, touch it or smell it is as illusory as the sky sitting on the mountain. And then instead of wasting effort to get God to lift the sky off the mountain, let God alone. And sit back here and rejoice that you have discovered the sky is not sitting on the mountain. And rejoice that you have discovered that what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell with the five physical senses is not taking place, as it appears to be. Something is there just like there is a sky on the mountain there, but they are not what they appear to be in relationship to each other. There is a “you” out here and each one of you has a body, but it is not the way my eyes are seeing it. My eyes are deluded by their finiteness. They are deluded by what I have come to accept as normalcy. I have said this to our students and it is no joking matter that our ideas of beauty differ. There isn’t any one of you who would appear beautiful in the eyes of our Hawaiian friends. You just haven’t become heavy enough.

          And I was reading today in the little book about the Incas, you wouldn’t have been beautiful to the men then either. You haven’t got rings in your noses and holes in your ears. So you see then that we all have different ideas as to what constitutes beauty and what I am looking at when I look out at you isn’t what you or how you are. I am beholding my concept based on my education or my belief or so forth and so on.

          And so it is what you are seeing with your eyes is not what is up here. Of that you may be assured. It is nothing like what you are seeing. What you are seeing is based on the prejudices, and biases, and bigotries and beliefs that have accumulated for centuries and so you are seeing your own image and likeness reflected. But be assured of this that just as out there, there is a sky and a mountain and each in their rightful place so right in here each one of us is in our rightfully place showing forth God’s grace, God’s beauty, God’s immortality, God’s life. And if you wanted to prove it, close your eyes to the appearances.

          And then see how rapidly God will fill in for you and say this is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. Then you’ll know that you’re not seeing each other as we really are. When we awaken we will see him as he is; when we awaken from this dream of five material senses—not after we die. When we awaken here and now, when we have our Paul experience on the road to Damascus, that is when we are awakened and we see now through spiritual eyes and we see each other as we really are and that begins to make a whole new world.

          Now to bring God power into your experience into the experience of your life and into your affairs, don’t do it by trying to get God to come into your life. Don’t do it by praying to God to do something. Do it by being still. Being very still in the face of any discord, and begin to realize this:

          Be not afraid it is I. Look any storm in the face, any distress, any discord with closed eyes: Be not afraid, it is I. In other words you’re closing your eyes to the appearances. And instead of seeing bad appearances and then trying to get a God power to do something about it, you are closing your eyes to that and acknowledging Omnipotence and Omnipresence. This is I, God. Then you will soon find that when you open your eyes the storm will be still. The conditions will start to change. Why—because you have brought the only God power there is to bear, your spiritual recognition of God as constituting all creation, all being, all power, all life, all substance. The moment you surrender the desire to get a God power to do something, you are in God power. The very moment you surrender the desire to have God do something for you or to have God do something to something, you are in God power. The moment you can rest back, be not afraid it is I. Omnipotence is the only law. Spiritual law is the only law. Spiritual power is the only law.

          What power is there then in man whose breath is in his nostril? What power is there then in temporal power? Only that which appearance—the five senses give it. The very moment an individual has been touched by the Christ—that is by the realization of truth—they begin to perceive, thou couldest have no power over me unless it were given thee of God. What did hinder thee? Pick up thy bed and walk. Neither do I condemn thee. Thy sins be forgiven thee. Why? I am not acknowledging a power in you, but in God. I am not acknowledging a power in acts or deeds but in the substance of all form which is God.

          In other words the moment that you can stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord, in that moment God power is operating. The moment you are trying to get God to do something to something to somebody for somebody you are outside the kingdom of God. You are only inside the kingdom of God; you are only inside the Garden of Eden when you acknowledge God is the substance of all from. God is the only law unto all being. God is the only life. God is the animating principle of all existence. God permeates the life, and being, and body of all that is. And God is Omnipotence, God is Omnipresence. God is Omniscience. I need not tell God, advise God, implore God, instruct God. I need not seek God. I need only acknowledge ‘be still and know, I am God.’ Be still and know, I am God. Be not afraid. It is I. I in the midst of thee am mighty. I in the midst of thee am life. I in the midst of thee am wisdom. I in the midst of thee am love. I am all in all. And where thou art I am, where I am thou art, for we are one, and not two.

           Do not seek God as if God were far off. Do not seek to bring God to you. Acknowledge I and the Father are one. Here where I am God is. All that God is I am, for God is indivisible, indestructible, one.

          We need not fear material laws, mental laws, legal laws, as we recognize the omnipotence of God as spiritual law. We need not fear what man can do to us if we recognize God as constituting man. So you will discover there is no way to get God power to remove the sky from the mountain. There is no way to get God to separate the railroad tracks. There is no way to get God to do something. God already is. God already is closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet.  God already is omnipotence. God already is the eternality and immortality of your being. Only judge not after appearances or you too will go out looking for a God power and lose it.

      Be still. Be still and know, I am God. And I am closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. Where thou art I am for we are one.

      So you see then, the world has lost its way by accepting the belief of two powers. By accepting the belief of two powers it has to go around looking for a God to do something to that evil power. But the world finds its way back to the Garden of Eden once it realizes God is infinite. God is omnipotent. God is omnipresent. God is all-wisdom, omniscient. Besides God there is nothing else. Therefore we do not need a God power, we need the recognition of God as all and only. That’s why he could say to the storm or to the disciples, who were afraid in the storm, be not afraid it is I. Be not afraid. It is I. There is no other. Isaiah says, is there any other beside him? Besides me, beside the I. I know not any. There is but one and I am He. I am He. I in the midst of you am He. The very I that you declare is He. I am He. I am that I am. I am that I am. That I am that you have been talking about I am. I in the midst of you is that I am.

          The only I am that’s closer to you than breathing is the I that you declare. And as you know that and realize that in that I is embodied all of the God power that ever will be, you will know why you can travel anywhere on the face of the globe. You can live through as many decades as you wish and be free, be joyous, be harmonious just by realizing that this I is God. This I isn’t that limited being you thought it was. This I isn’t a sinner and never was. Paul also tells us he’s too far advanced to be a sinner yet he feels a sense of sin in him. And so with us—we have thought we have sinned. It wasn’t we sinning. WE have never sinned, but we have been aware of a sense of sin in us and we have falsely identified it with ourselves. The moment you recognize that you have impersonalized it, and when you’ve impersonalized it, you’ve given it no person in whom, on whom, through whom to operate. The very moment you recognize this sin is not me, this false desire is not me, this false appetite is not me, this fear is not me, this disease is not me or mine—this is a false sense of the world that I have been entertaining and giving it the label of I, me or mine. And by claiming it we have made it apparently ours, but by realizing this is not I for I is God, therefore this is but a false sense of me, entertained by the five physical senses but because it’s universal and impersonal and not of me, it must die. It must dissolve. It must disappear.

          “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. And the truth is of course omnipotence, and omnipresence, and omniscience. The truth is that God is closer to me than breathing nearer than hands and feet for it is really my identity, the I of my being. God is that which constitutes my life, my soul, my spirit, my mind. God is even that which constitutes my body for it is said that the body is the temple of the living God. And once we know that God constitutes our being we know why in our true being we are pure. We are immortal. We are eternal for we are the very manifestation of God’s own being, the very showing forth of Gods own life.

          That is why we never show forth any glory of our own. We are always showing forth God’s glory. God’s glory shines through our eyes. God’s glory shines through our bodies. God’s glory shines in our purse. There is no personal possession. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and all that you have in your purse belongs to God. The very moment you know that there’s no limit to your possessions because all that God is and all that God has is yours. “Son thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine”. Once you know that I, Is God there are no more limitation. Limitation dissolves and disappears.

          Do not then seek God power. Do not seek how to bring God into this destructive world. But rather begin to understand God as the very nature of this world and then this universal belief that there are men who control the destiny of the world—you nullify that. This belief that weather can control parts of the world—you nullify that. This belief that conditions govern the world—you nullify that because no longer do you accept appearances but you understand God as the nature, the substance, the activity and the law unto this entire world.

          Now do you see that in knowing the nature of God, in knowing the nature of God power you also know the nature of prayer because now you know the nature of knowing the truth. And it is in knowing the truth that you are set free. When you know the truth about the nature of God, when, and not the nature of God as it is taught out in the religions of the world, but the nature of God as you have now begun to perceive God, as you begin to understand the nature of God power you’ll begin to understand the nature of how to know the truth that makes you free.

          So it is that even though we haven’t spoken of specific prayer or treatment in this hour yet as you listen to this class again and again you will perceive that all that we have been doing is praying and knowing the truth for an hour.

          Thank you.  

End Tape 345 Side One

 

1960 LAUSANNE CLASS

TAPE 344 SIDE 2

 PRAYER—THE UPWARD DIMENSION: EARTHBOUND – LANDLOCKED

By Joel Goldsmith

           Good afternoon. We’ll start a few minutes early and have a few extra minutes for our little work. And let us start with a couple of questions. And the first one is on the subject of prayer:

          The question arises because I said the other day that in our world prayer we pray that thy will be done and not the will of man and we open our Consciousness so that the Spirit of God may escape from within us out into the world and perform its work. And the question is asked, “Is this the only form of world prayer?” No. No, God is infinite so there must be an infinite number of ways to pray. There must be at least a million, millon, million ways to pray. As a matter of fact, there can be no such thing as any right way to pray. There can only be suggestions how to enter prayer. But there can be no such thing as a right way or a wrong way except of course that begging God and asking God is just a waste of time, but it can’t be said to be a wrong way because it may lead to something better.

          But actually there is no right way to pray, and the reason is this: Prayer is an individual’s communion with God. That’s what prayer is, an individual’s communion with God. Now there can’t be a right way or a wrong way because any way would be relative in the sense that what might suit you today would never suit you a year from now if you are progressing spiritually, and what might seem right to you today would be kind of laughable five years from now.

          Just think of this, within you is the kingdom of God. Within you, right where you are, the place whereon you stand is holy ground. “The kingdom of God is neither lo here nor lo there”, it is within you. Now prayer is the means of contacting the kingdom of God within you. It is the means of communing with that kingdom of God. It is the means of becoming consciously at one with it. And again prayer is the means whereby we hear the still small voice, where we receive impartations from God. So you see there must be a million, billion ways of that. Each day of the week should be different than the day before. A prayer in the morning should be different than a prayer at night. Why? Because we are going within to the kingdom of God within us to receive some assurance of God’s presence—that is the purpose of prayer—going within to receive some assurance of God’s presence.

          Now, we know theoretically and we know intellectually that God is Omnipresent, but this does not give us any power of God in our life just to know that God is Omnipresent intellectually. There must be an experience with God; an actual touching, an actual at-one-ment, or oneness. There must be an actual impartation from God to you—not from you to God. You must remember the nature of God. God is already infinite wisdom. Therefore, there is nothing at all that you can tell God. Take no thought what you shall eat. Why? Your heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of. Therefore there is never any reason to go to God and tell God anything.

          Now it is God’s good pleasure to give you the whole kingdom, so therefore you never have to ask God. Now just remember this in your prayer that prayer means that you are not going to ask God for anything and you are not going to tell God what you need, and that really wipes out the old-fashioned idea of prayer. And it gives you something new to work with, and yet no formula—because nobody can tell you how to pray. They can only tell you the nature of prayer and then the rest must be spontaneous. The rest must be an inner joy between you and God. But the joy must come from God to you.

          So it is that since you do not have to tell God anything, and since you do not have to ask God for anything, you are now faced with prayer of a different nature than the world knows about. And so just imagine what happens when you close your eyes and say within yourself:

          Now there’s no need of my telling God anything because God is the infinite wisdom that made this world. God is the infinite wisdom that maintains this world. A God that could keep the sun, moon and stars in their orbits, a God that could keep roses coming from rose bushes and peaches from peach trees, a God that could keep fish in the water and birds in the air, certainly needs to be told nothing by little me. A God of such wisdom as we behold in this world needs no advice from me. And so I notice too that God does not withhold crops from the ground. God does not withhold fish, cattle, birds. God is not withholding any population from the earth. God is not withholding rain or snow. Therefore what right have I to believe that God is withholding anything from me? And actually why should God withhold anything from His own child any more than I as a human parent would withhold anything from my child? It is unthinkable that I have more love for my child than God has for me, or for all mankind. So therefore, knowing that God is the infinite wisdom of this world, and needs no help from me, knowing that God is the divine love of this world and is withholding nothing, how shall I pray?

           And an answer comes back to me immediately: “Let the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight oh, Lord. Let my silence be thy resting place. Let my feeling of assurance of thy presence be my prayer. Let my mind be still and know that thou art God. Let my ears be opened that I may hear the still small voice. Let my eyes be opened that I may seek God’s kingdom, God’s grace, God’s beauty. Let me abide in thee. Let me rest. I know that thou art infinite wisdom. I know thou art divine love. Let me feel thy presence.”

          And this is enough. And you see this would be one form of prayer, but actually it would only be one form out of millions of forms because I could conceive of another prayer along this line:

          Father I seek nothing for myself for if I had everything and the rest of the world were in trouble I could not be happy. And so now I come to thee not for myself but for some wisdom for this world. How shall the eyes of man be opened? How shall the mind of man be opened? How shall I pray so as to bless my enemies as well as my friends?

          And here comes the answer: “Relax. Relax. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, freedom from problems, freedom from sin, freedom from disease, freedom from lack. Where the Spirit of the Lord is harmony is. Abide in this word. Let this word abide in you. Harmony will come through. Recognize Me in the midst of the problems of the world. Recognize God as the intelligence of man. Recognize God as the Spirit of man. Even though appearances contradict this, realize there is a Spirit in man. There is. There is a Spirit in man. The world will be drawn to realize God.”

          And so this would be another form of prayer. Well as we read the newspapers today, and we read of this great new problem in the world, and the words, the thought that came to me was—in reading about this latest affair with Russia—that here is an irresistible force meeting with an immovable object. And now what can happen? And you know it just looks as if two powers must destroy the world and now you want to pray. I know I did. And then comes this:

          “In the human world force is power. In the human world the more force you have the more power there is. But here we have come to an irresistible force and an immovable power. Here we come to the absolute extremes of power and now what must happen.”

           And the answer comes back: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit. Fear not the armies of the aliens. Fear not temporal power. Fear not the weapons of this world for I say to you that life is not lived by might or by power but by my Spirit.”

          And with an assurance like that you rest. You rest. You must rest because if it isn’t true, nothing is going to help you. If it is true, you’re going to see a whole new dimension in life. But only those can usher in this dimension who have come to the place of recognition that life is not lived by might or by power but by my Spirit, and then stand aside and see the salvation of the Lord. Stand aside without fear, without anxiety, and believe only that life can be solved by the Spirit of the Lord and see what happens.

          This is very easy after it has happened in your own individual life; after you have individually found some disease, some lack, some sin, some false appetite disappear because you withdrew might or power because you stopped the medicine or because you did not rely on the human means, and then saw that the Spirit of God did take over. When you prove that in your individual life, it is easy to trust someone else’s life to this principle and then as you watch this year in and year out eventually you come to where your prayer enables you to trust this entire world to the Spirit of God.

          Now in this connection as I awakened this morning, well I’ll go back—as I awakened yesterday morning, and thinking as I suppose it is natural too with all of us when we waken in the morning—how can we help thinking of what is going on in this world whether it is in Russia, whether it is the election in the United States, whether it is the condition in the Belgian Congo, whether it is the condition that is facing South Africa that is probably more serious then any one of these problems that are in the newspaper—they’re just kept hidden a little bit—for the time being—but I don’t know how anyone can help thinking of these things, and as I awakened yesterday I did and a question framed itself in my mind, “what is the answer?”

           And you know it was almost as if somebody were sitting here in my chest waiting for me to ask that question, and answer it. And the answer came, “There is no awareness of God”. As simple as that? And the voice came back and said, “It is as simple as that. There is no awareness of God.” Where there is an awareness of God that is the Spirit of God. These troubles disappear. I never weary of saying to our classes, look at the peace there is in this room. Look at the peace there is between us, whether we are sitting here in this little group or last week in Holland or the week before in England and the week before in Washington, DC and the week before in Chicago, it was always the same. The room is full of peace and love and harmony, giving, sharing, cooperating. Why? And the answer is, there is an awareness of God. And the moment we have an awareness of God, we’re not fighting each other for anything because there isn’t anything that we want.

          That brought a smile a couple of Sundays ago. I was down in Dartmouth prison in England which is the prison for their very, very bad men and I had the opportunity of speaking at a Church of England service and the first thing I said to the men was I hope that you find something in what I have to say today but you won’t unless you can believe that you haven’t got anything that I want, and they just laughed. They just laughed. They were all there from 5 – 50 years and they just knew they had nothing in there that I wanted. But you see that this is the truth in any group, class, audience, once there is an awareness of God, no one has anything that you want. Oh, you enjoy their gifts, and they’ll enjoy what you have to give them but it has to be out of a joyous heart, not obligation, not duty, not desire, because where there is an awareness of God there is liberty. There is freedom, justice, equity, equality, harmony, peace. There is God’s government and so the whole answer really is to any problem, individual, collective, national, international, an awareness of God. And so this morning when I awakened two words came right into my thought and they made me sit upright to think.

          The first thing that came into my thought was, “earthbound.” You have heard that term. Earthbound-people who live in such a state of mind that nothing but the earth is real to them, nothing but what you can see or hear or taste or touch or smell is real, they, they have no, no Consciousness for beauty, for poetry, for art, for music, for the mystical because all of those are too abstract for them. They, they must have something that you can eat or drink or wear, something that glitters or shines. These are the earthbound. And then along with it came the word, “landlocked.” Landlocked. And immediately I thought of a country in the midst of a lot of other countries and then instantly it took me right here to Switzerland. And I thought, “Yes.” Here, here is an example of what I mean, landlocked. Here is a country situated right in the middle surrounded by a lot of other countries with no outside access. No access to the sea. No access to other nations, just locked up inside of all of these countries, landlocked, locked in. And then I saw the day of the railroad how that broke a little bit this landlocked condition and enabled this land to flow out into the neighboring lands through railroads.

          And then I saw how through the railroads the sea ports were reached, and then by access to ships of other nations that there was less landlocked. Now the landlocked only existed to the extent of being dependent on other people’s ships or other people’s shipping. But at least there was now a wider aspect, an outer pouring, not quite so much landlocked because there was now an access to the outer world and yet the country was landlocked. And then my mind went one step further forward and I saw the air age in which we are now, and all of a sudden Switzerland is no longer landlocked. Its ships shoot right up in the air and they have the whole free air all over the world. They have access to every place that the seaport countries have access to, and they have even more quickly with the air than with the ships.

          All of a sudden Switzerland is no longer landlocked. It’s no longer confined in space. Now in two minutes it shoots up and it has the whole freedom of the air throughout the world. And then that brought me back to ourselves. We are earthbound and we are landlocked until we break out by going upward. Only as our vision goes upward out of this body, out of this world of force, to we get up into a free strata, a free realm, where we’re no longer body locked, landlocked, earthbound, but where we are free souls. You know that all of this world, except the mystics or those on the mystical path, are locked up in their bodies. Their body is the most real thing to them. They’re fastened into it and can’t escape from it, and that’s where their misery comes—being landlocked inside of the body, being earthbound inside of the body and having no freedom. The very first freedom that an individual attains is when they can look in the mirror and say that this body is not Me. This body is not Me. I am Me. I, I am Me. I am Joel. Not this body, this body isn’t Joel. I am Joel, and if the doctors searched from head to foot they couldn’t find Joel inside of this body for I am not here.

          And that was the great mystical statement: “He is not here. He is risen”. That’s the symbology of the Resurrection. We are not entombed in this body. In our Resurrection we rise out of the tomb of this body and realize I am Joel. I am not body. I am Joel and I am not in a body. They could not search this body from top to bottom and find me for I am not here. I do not live in a body. I live in Consciousness. I live in God. I live and move and have my being in God therefore I fill all space. I am here and I am there and I am everywhere. I am where God is, God is where I am for we are one, and that one is not limited to time or to space or to place. And that’s why the materialist fears death because they think that with the end of the body, there comes an end of me. How foolish! I’m not in the body. I never was in the body. I won’t live in the body and I won’t die out of the body for I will never be in the body. And therefore, there is no need to fear death because death is just checking the body at a weigh station while we keep going on.

          We have gotten used to the idea that we can’t tell our money with us and our property—that all—even our jewelry—all has to be left at the probate court and we know that. We’re used to it, but we just can’t get used to the idea that we just leave our bodies there too while we go on, and we do go on because there is no end to the I that I am. There is no end to my identity. There was no beginning to it—no beginning, no end. It coexists with God and it will go right on as long as God is, I am, for I and the Father are one.

           And now the moment you perceive that, the moment you perceive that the nature of your identity is I you won’t be so landlocked and you won’t look for power in the body or in the pocketbook. You will understand now that you’ll attain your complete freedom by rising upward. Only as your Consciousness mounts up and realizes I am not locked in below. I am free to roam the highways and byways of the sky—the highways and the byways of heaven, of Consciousness, of life, of love.

          I am encompassed in love, encompassed in wisdom, encompassed in joy for I and my Father are one. And where God is I am and so I am not landlocked. And I’m not earthbound and therefore I’m not dependent on the weapons of this world and neither is the world dependent on it, but it takes two or more gathered together to know this truth, that we do not have to look on land to see which one has the heaviest bomb or which one throws it first. We do not have to look down here on land to see who’s fencing us in. We’re only fenced in while we’re earthbound. We’re only fenced in while we’re landlocked. The minute our vision goes up, we are free. There’s no limit to our activity, no limit to our freedom. And that’s why as we travel all around the world, we see Swissair wherever we go. So we know they’re not landlocked. We know they are wherever their imagination can send them because there’s nothing to hold them in.

          All of Russia’s wars have really been trying to find an outlet into the sea. She’s fought with everybody to get an outlet into the sea. All she needs to send are airplanes up and she’s not landlocked any more. All of this sense of limitation has been because we can’t see anything higher than down here. We look in the mirror and we see our bodies and then we wonder what’s going to happen to us. All we have to do is get out of that body, and the way to get out of it is the same way that you get out of being landlocked in Switzerland: Get in the plane and go up and you won’t be landlocked anymore.

          And go up in Consciousness. Take yourself up in the word I and try to realize that where I am God is for we are one—not two—just one. I and my Father are one, and the place whereon I stand is holy ground. It couldn’t be holy ground if it were limited or if it were locked in. And then you’ll begin to laugh at these earthly powers, earthly weapons, we have one way up there in the sky—the Spirit of God that dwells in me. This is the only power. This is the only power the Spirit of God that dwells in me—not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit.

          And so we come, just as we’ve come with Switzerland to a new dimension. First earthbound and landlocked and then squeezing out a little bit with railroads, and then squeezing out a little further with ships, all of a sudden we get complete freedom by bounding out into the sky. Well so it is that we are earthbound with force and there are always forces and powers called the weapons of this world. And the whole question is, what force do I use or what power do I use or how do I use it? And eventually they even took to praying to get a God power.

          Just last night reading about the Incas of South America I discovered that their very first prayer was praying to an unknown power to give them food, and give them water. That’s how far back this paganism goes that we indulge. It goes all the way back into antiquity this praying to an unknown power to give us something. Now, all of this indicates that having exhausted all the material powers and all the mental powers, people had to start looking for some unknown powers. And the secret lies in a new dimension: no powers, no might and no power, just my Spirit. That’s the secret of the new dimension.

          Not by might, nor by power. So when you are going to pray for world conditions, please don’t pray for any God powers. Don’t pray for any new powers or forces or mights. But make your prayer a realization of not by might nor by power but by my Spirit will peace reign on earth. Not by treaties. Not by unions. Not by any of these man-made institutions—all of which have failed.

          When they founded the League of Nations in The Hague they were men of good will. When they founded the League of Nations in Geneva, they were men of good will, and when they founded the United Nations they were men of good will. They were all of good will—just stupid. They just don’t have the ability to learn. That’s all.

          There is no way on earth to have peace or harmony or justice or equality or equity as long as we are looking out from this level. None, because every individual and every group of individuals thinking only in terms of me and mine—and so we’re landlocked again. Earthbound again. Only, only freedom will come with the realization of His Presence. Harmony will come with the realization of His Spirit. Health will come with the realization of His Spirit. There is only one secret: there is no awareness of God and where there is no awareness of God there has to be turmoil. There has to be earthbound people and landlocked people. And worst of all is when they’re confined to their bodies; their body becomes the extent of their kingdom, of their nation, of their world. And the only harmony there is, is when the body is harmonious. That’s not true, the body can be harmonious and the world collapse. Or we could be saved when the world collapses but it wouldn’t give us happiness.

          I read today where this one hundred is going to be saved tomorrow. I don’t know what joy they’re going to have after we’re all destroyed. They only have themselves to mingle with. It could get awfully monotonous, couldn’t it? There is no joy in life unless you can witness a measure of universal freedom, unless you can be a part of helping mankind free itself. Now you can’t do that by external means. You can’t do that by joining prayer groups. You can’t do that by enlisting in armies. Oh, if war comes and we’re called, we all serve wherever we can, but that’s not the answer. The answer lies in rising up out of the body, rising up out of our nationalism, rising up out of our prejudices and biases and bigotries and rising up into God and there realizing that there is but one Father and man shall not live by bread alone.

          Man shall not live by bread or bullets or bombs, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So don’t you see that when you pray, there is no uniform prayer? There is no way to pray the same way day after day. Each time you go into prayer something new evolves. Something fresh comes forth that brings you the assurance: not by might, not by power—only it says it in a million different ways. Not by might. Not by power. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. In My Presence is fulfillment. In the presence of God is fulfillment, is fullness of joy and peace and harmony.

          And so you see that The Infinite Way is a way into a new dimension. It is a way out of the old dimension of force and power, out of the old dimension of physical limitations, into an ascending. Ascend in the I that I am. Ascend out of this landlocked self, this body-locked self. Ascend in the word “I.” I and my Father are one. Where God is I am. And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, and the Spirit of the Lord covers the earth from end to end for God is the life of all being. God is the wisdom, the intelligence, the love. And so each time that you ascend through the word I into God Consciousness your prayer takes on a different form. Each time it’s spontaneous. Each time it’s new and fresh. But each time it leaves you with the same realization: not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit. Peace will come not be might nor by power, nor by treaties, nor by combinations. Peace will only come by my Spirit, “for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty”.

          And so whether you are praying individually for your own experience, for your family, for others or whether it’s worldwide, the answer to pray is receive an impartation from God. Now how you receive it—that’s individual, but receive it because it isn’t what you say or what you think that constitutes prayer. It is the impartation that comes to you from God, the revelation or realization of God’s presence, God’s power.

          There is another question: that has relationship to the part of Jesus in spiritual life, living, study, work. Try to understand the Christ as being the Spirit of God that is in every individual, not realized, not recognized of course. Only those on the spiritual path have been taught that Christ means Son of God, and that the son of God is that which is you, in your true identity. The real you is the son of God. Therefore, the real you is Christ, the spiritual son, the spiritual self.

          Now Jesus is an individual who attained a supreme realization of this. In other words, while the Christ is the true Self of every individual in the world, only those can benefit by their Chirsthood, their divine Sonship, who first of all recognize this truth and then set out developing it. Paul was the teacher who was instructed to reveal this and the manner of it. You will remember that Paul tells us that you are not children of God, that you are creatures who are not under the law of God, neither indeed can be, but when the Spirit of God dwells in you, then do you become the children of God, and if children of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.

          In other words in your human identity, you have nothing in God and nothing of God. You’re not under the law of God and can never receive a blessing of God and that is why this entire world of people—whether they’re Jews or Christians or Mohammedans or what not—there isn’t a one of them that’s under the law of God or that can have a prayer answered from God. Not a one. Except the rare individual who rises above his teaching through his individual experience and learns that it isn’t your religion that makes you a child of God. It is the Spirit of God dwelling in you regardless of what your religion may be or if you have none. That was the sad lesson that Peter had to learn. Peter thought he was a good follower of the Master. He thought he was a worthy disciple, but when he was called upon to teach the Gentiles, he refused. Why? Well, of course they weren’t Jews so therefore they weren’t children of God; therefore they weren’t entitled to all this good spiritual wisdom. Only Jews, only Hebrews were entitled to that, according to Peter—in fact, according to all the disciples. They fought very bitterly against giving this to anybody but Hebrews because only they were God’s perfect children.

          Now in his experience of the dream, Peter had revealed to him that you must call nothing filthy that is created by God and that was the first sign that he ever had that all the rest of humanity were children of God too even though they didn’t know it. So it was that when Paul set out to teach the Christians, I mean the Gentiles, the heathens, the Europeans, that the disciples fought him on it and even put him on trial because he was daring to go outside of Judaism. But he swung enough of the disciples over to his way of looking at it, so that, it was acknowledged that it wasn’t your religion or lack of religion that made you a child of God, or what your religion was or what it wasn’t, what made you a child of God was, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you, and Paul could bring that Spirit of God to dwelling in the pagans over in Rome, in Greece. And Peter then brought about an experience of the descent of the Holy Ghost to the pagans under Cornelius showing that the Holy Ghost can come to pagans. The Holy Ghost can come to sinners. The Holy Ghost can come to Mary Magdalene. The Holy Ghost can come to the woman taken in adultery. The Holy Ghost can come to the thief on the cross. It has nothing to do with your religion or not religion. It has to do with the word repentance. It has to do with whether or not we are willing to open ourselves to the vision of God and not ask each other are you a Jew or Gentile or are you a Protestant or a Catholic, but merely do you love?

          Because if you love the Spirit of God dwells in you because only the Spirit of God can love. And I don’t mean selfish love. I mean the impersonal love that’s willing that God’s grace fall on enemies and friends, that God’s grace fall on the saint and the sinner. When we love that much the spirit of God dwells in us because only the Spirit of God could love impersonally like that through us. The personal love is the one that wants to say, “No, no only our people can have God’s blessing or only my family or only my nation.”

          Now try to understand then that every person who attains some measure of spiritual light has attained some measure of the Spirit of God and that means they are in that measure children of God and that the Spirit of God is dwelling in them. Then you will understand that that term, Spirit of God, really means the Christ, the son of God, or sonship, divine sonship, call it what you will, and you have it in the moment of your repentance. That is the very moment that you are ready to let loose of these limiting beliefs, beliefs of limitation, beliefs of separation. The moment that you realize that all that God created is good and that God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust. The moment you are willing to pray more for the enemy than for the friend. The moment you are ready to accept forgiveness as a way of life—in that moment you can realize that to some measure the Spirit of God now dwells in you which means the Christ is in you.

           And Paul speaks of this: “I can do all things through Christ. I can do all things through Christ that dwelleth in me”. Now it wasn’t a man who dwelt in him. He had no man dwelling in him. He had the Spirit of God dwelling in him which he called the Christ. And I can do all things through my spiritual sonship. I can do all things through my divine sonship. I can do all things through Christ, the Spirit of God that dwelleth in me. “I live, yet not I. Christ liveth my life”. Not a man, a Spirit, a Spirit of God. You cannot worship God finitely. You cannot worship God in a place or a space. You have to worship God in Spirit and in truth. Not in a holy mountain, not in a holy city, not in a holy temple, in Spirit and in truth. And the very moment that you know God is too great to dwell in holy temples, you will know then that God isn’t confined in time or space. Neither is Christ. For Christ is the son of God and the son of God was before Abraham, and the son of God was after the Resurrection and the Ascension. In fact, Christ is from everlasting to everlasting. Christ is the son of God, the Spirit of God that dwelleth in you and is awakened and is brought to conscious expression by your recognition and acknowledgment and your willingness that it live in you.

          So it is that when we speak of being hid with Christ in God, we’re speaking of being hid within the Spirit of God, within the life of God, within the mind of God, within the Soul of God, and to understand it better, close your eyes and gently, very gently say to yourself:

          “I. And realize now I am not in my feet. I am not in my knees. I am not in my stomach. I am not in my chest. I am not in my head. Where am I? Why I and my Father are one. Wherever God is there I am. Wherever I am there God is for we are one, inseparable, indivisible one. As a matter of fact He says, ‘son thou art ever with me’. Did you hear that? Thou art ever with Me. Then I am where God is. I am with God, and all that the Father hath is mine”.

          And so I am hid with God once I know that I am not earthbound. And I am not landlocked. For I fill all space. Where God is I am. Wherever God is I am, and if I make my bed in hell, God is there. If I mount up to heaven, God is there. If I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for God is there. For where God is I am. I am in God. I am hid with Christ, with my spiritual being, identity in God.

          And you see that prayer is a realization of these truths, but you can’t have all of these realizations come in one prayer, or one period of prayer or one moment of prayer, that isn’t possible. But if you pray without ceasing, if you have a period in the morning, or a period at noon or a period at night, eventually you’ll come to where you don’t have periods but where the periods are brought to you. You awaken in the morning with some kind of prayer in your mind, with some kind of a communion with God. You’re busy during the day and thoughts will begin to intrude. And so you’ll find that prayer is never uniform. And that’s what makes prayer fascinating and interesting.   

 End Tape 344 Side 2  

 

 1960 LAUSANNE CLASS

TAPE 344 SIDE 1

 GIVING, SHARING, FORGIVING IS A FORM OF PRAYER

 By Joel Goldsmith

 Good afternoon.

           Not a warm one though. You know it has been about three-quarters of a year since we were here, and in this time you have been reading the books and many questions should have come to your mind—many, many questions because there are many things in these writings that should be strange to you. No matter what reading you have done in the past there are things in these writings that must be strange and those things are the vital things. The points that are familiar to you are not nearly as important as those things that are strange because it is [though] it is in those strange points that we find the specific parts of the message that are the most helpful to us.

          Let me illustrate that in just a small way. A letter arrived here this morning inviting us in The Infinite Way to join some groups all around the world to pray for peace, and they wanted us to give a list of all our addresses because if there is ever any danger in the world they can notify all these groups to pray. Now you know there never will be any more danger in the world than there is this minute. So if their praying was going to be any benefit this is really the time to be doing it. The world is really on fire even if it doesn’t recognize it. The world is sitting on a time bomb even if it doesn’t recognize it. The world is facing destruction even if it doesn’t recognize it, and if there are any prayer groups in the world that know how to pray to save the world this is the very best day in the week to do it. This is the very best day in the year to do it because today danger threatens from many directions.

          Now, the point that I would like you to see is this. It may not seem strange to you that there are prayer groups all around this world praying for peace. It may not even be strange to you that this has been going on for several centuries, and that peace hasn’t come. But the one point that I would like you to see is that all of that praying is a waste of time and if you haven’t found some new way to pray. If you are not finding in these books something that you haven’t discovered before the books are doing you no good and your study is doing you no good, because what has heretofore been known about prayer hasn’t done much for the individual or for the nation or for the world. And so it is that unless you are finding something absolutely new, absolutely different, then your body isn’t going to be any healthier next year than this year—at least not through this message or your world isn’t going to be any happier or any more secure. It is only in what you find of a different nature even if possible a strange nature—one that will make you ask questions—only in such a point or in such points of discovery are you going to find a teaching that can do more for you than what you have heretofore known.

 

          And that is why we are really here. Let us not fool ourselves. That had we, any of us, found the peace, the harmony, the safety, the security, the health, the prosperity in the way we were praying, in the way we were worshipping, we would still be at it. We would not be investigating or studying another teaching.

          Therefore, unless you are finding something in these writings, something to startle you, something to open your eyes to past mistakes, something to lead you into a higher or a deeper contact with God, then these books are not going to serve your purpose. And that is why this week you should have some questions to ask as a result of the reading that you have been doing. And if not, then you should be showing forth the greater degree of harmony over a year ago that should naturally follow a year of study of these writings. So do not hesitate if there are questions, write them out and put them on this table before each class so that I can answer them. Because when I leave here this time you again will have a year or maybe two in which to find out whether or not there is something in the message of the Infinite Way that can transform your life or bring into your life greater harmony, greater freedom, greater peace, greater cause for rejoicing that you are on earth.

          It is true, “a thousand will fall at your left hand and ten thousand at your right”. It is true that you will witness during your days on earth many, many terrible ordeals, trails and tribulations going on in this world, but the promise is that, “it shall not come nigh thy dwelling place”. Now the reason that we can be so certain that the problems of this world are not going to be solved overnight, are these. We have mistakenly believed that we were living in an era of civilization. That we were living in a civilized world or in a world of civilized men. Two thirds of this world today, two thirds of the population of the world today, is living in slavery. You could hardly call that civilization where two thirds of the population is in slavery, two thirds of it is in poverty, two thirds of it is not being adequately fed or clothed or housed.

          That isn’t civilization. It may be the dawning of a civilization since one third of the world has at least come out of slavery into a small measure of education, but the educated population of the world is very small. It’s mostly a world of illiterates, and those that are not wholly illiterate are horribly uneducated. And this we’re talking of two thirds of the world. You don’t expect that to be healed by tomorrow afternoon or next week. In the same way, the world hasn’t even arrived yet at a place where its governments are able to govern. There isn’t a government yet that has indicated its ability to govern its own country much more to help in governing the world. The national and the international problems before this world today are greater than they have been probably in our particular day on earth—meaning not that they were solved before but that they were merely undercover before and had not come out into the open. You know before there can be such a thing as a civilization there would have to be a combination of civilized governments, governments headed by men who were civilized, parliaments that were civilized. We don’t have such things on earth today. Each one is merely fighting for his or her own individual interests: election, reelection. They’re not even fighting for their own nation’s welfare yet, that is how far this world is from being a civilized state.

 

          And so it is that if you are to find first of all the measure of freedom, justice, prosperity, health to which your individual state of Consciousness has prepared you, you will very much need to come out from among them and be separate. You will very much need to know a higher form of prayer than the world has yet discovered. You will need to know a higher form of love, of life because this is what the world does not yet know. The only freedom that you individually are ever going to experience is the degree of freedom you help others attain. The only amount of love that is ever going to come into your life is the degree of love that you can pour out upon this world. The only—the only bit of harmony, prosperity, joy and justice that will ever come into your experience is the degree that you pour forth upon this world. There is none of these things coming to you because there is no place from which they can come to you.

          There is no such thing as love hanging around in the black space in this room.  There is no such thing as freedom or justice up here in space. And if we as a group of individuals wanted to experience love, gratitude, loyalty, fidelity, peace, harmony, prosperity, we have to share it with each other. In other words we must pour it out to each other before it could come back to us individually. Otherwise it doesn’t exist in this room. And so it is as you leave this room you are not going to find justice outside or peace or happiness, you are going to carry them there and then they are going to come back to you. That represents the bread that you cast upon the waters that will come back to you. This the world does not know. And this is why the world is in its condition. It actually sits down and prays, “Give me peace. Give me harmony. Give me health. Give me prosperity”, and who is to do the giving and where is it to come from? And the answer is centuries past and they still sit praying in synagogues, and churches, and mosques, give me this and give me that and they address their prayers to some kind of a blank space—where there’s an unknown God that they hope is listening to their prayers and going to answer them. Why?—For no good reason.

          They haven’t done anything to earn it or deserve it or be worthy of it. Just sat around to pray for it and it isn’t going to happen. When civilization touches this world it will be because of people who put civilization into this world and not sit around praying for it to come to them from some unknown God or from some other people. One nation looks to another nation for its good and that nation is looking to still some other nation for its good, and that nation is looking to a combination of nations for its good, and its all nonsense because good does not come from, “man whose breath is in his nostrils”. Good comes from our ability to place good in the world—to let good flow out from us.

          Of course, prayer is going to save the world. Of course prayer groups are going to save the world; they’re the groups who are not praying to get something—not even from God. Those are the groups that are praying God show me how to serve God and man. Show me how to bestow charity on my neighbor, whether it’s my neighbor in Africa or India or China or Europe. Show me how to serve. Show me how to put love into this world. The prayer groups aren’t serving who are praying to get good out of this world because it’s not coming from anywhere. Good flows out from the center of your and my individual being or it just doesn’t happen.

          There is no record in the New Testament of Jesus praying to God for health or for food or for clothing or for housing. To pray aright means to open one’s Consciousness to receive the gift of God and the gift of God is instruction in the Word. And instruction in the Word always compels us to action. When we receive instruction, the instruction always is, give and forgive and pray for, not pray for your friends, pray for your enemies. Forgive seventy times seven. Give bread. Give meat. Give wine. Give water. When instruction comes from the most high it is always an instruction in how to do good not how to get good. No instruction comes from God on how to receive. It is how to give, how to do, how to act, how to be. Those who have contact with God have no need for getting, have no need for seeking, they have no need for adding to themselves because if they have contact with God they have contact with allness—with all good whether life, fruit, love, and they need never take thought what they shall eat, what they shall drink or wherewithal they shall be clothed.

          Therefore those who have contact with God have it but for one purpose: to be shown how to put love into this world, how to give light into this world, how to be a transparency or an instrument through which the grace of God can touch human Consciousness and enlighten it. The world has no need of any more groups or individuals praying to God to do something. It has need of an individual here and there to acknowledge that God’s work is complete, that this earth is full of God’s grace: in the air, on the earth, in the land beneath the earth and the waters beneath the earth. God’s fullness fills this earth. There’s no need to pray to God for more of it. Love—there’s no need to pray for God’s love. Every single one of us has been given the capacity to love. If we’re not using it, praying to God for more won’t add it to us. We have to use the amount of love that is instilled in us since before we’re born. There isn’t an individual on the face of this globe who doesn’t know that they have greater capacities for love than they are using, greater capacities for giving, greater capacities for forgiving. Why bother God then? At least not until we’ve used up all of the capacity for loving and giving and forgiving that we already have.

          So it is—prayer is going to be found not in asking God to give peace on earth. Prayer is going to be found to be a realization that peace already exists if—and in the degree that—we are willing to be peaceful.

          Now your idea of peace and mine differs from that of the world. All of the world wants peace, but on its terms. If only it gets what it wants first then it will agree to peace. We have come a step further in the line of realization and we know that to ask for peace on our terms is not to ask for peace at all but for war—individually or collectively. To ask for peace means no terms, no ifs, no consideration, just peace, and then let’s work out each problem as it arises without the threat of force, without the threat of war. In other words, if any question were to come up now in this room between us, we could settle it in peace because we could thresh it out until a rightful solution came. And the only thing that would stop that is if somebody said, “But I have a gun.”

          That would stop it because then there’s no desire for peace. There’s a desire for someone to get their way, and that isn’t peace. The way of peace is this: there is no force. There is no coercion. There is only the realization that there is but one Father, one creative principle and that is God, and that we are brethren, and therefore, ours is a relationship of family relationship. Now it makes no difference whether we are white or black or Jew or Gentile The relationship of family still exists because we call no man on earth Father, only one, the Creative Principle, God, that is our common Father. Once we acknowledge that we can settle any question that comes up in this room—whether it’s one of property, whether it’s one of rights, regardless of what it may be we can settle it as long as we have started out with that we’re not trying to settle it on my idea of right, but on the idea of justice.   

          This is equally true nationally and internationally, but the world can’t come to that until it is first civilized. It first must be civilized to the point where it is ready to acknowledge that we do not prosper at each other’s expense, but in proportion to our sharing with each other. It depends on whether you are looking at life from the uncivilized side that says, nothing counts except that I get or the civilized side which says the more I give the more I have, therefore all that I seek is the opportunity for greater giving, greater forgiving, greater sharing. Certainly this is a fantastic idea in the uncivilized world. It is only in the world of absolute Christianity—not the world of Church-ianity, the world of Christianity in which it has been revealed that our only having is in proportion to our sharing, our only having is in proportion to our giving and our forgiving and our resisting not evil, and if there are still some thieves among us to let them run away with their plunder because in the kingdom of God there’s an infinity more for us. We do not have to live on yesterday’s manna.

          So it would make no difference if each day of the week everything we have is stolen from us; we have the next day to start over in. If, if we have reached a state of civilization in which we live by grace and not by might and not by power—in which we live by God’s grace, not by man’s favor. So it is, prayer must be taught. The prayer of the world must not be accepted. It must be rejected. It has failed for too may thousands of years and the reason it has failed is that its motive is wrong. Its motive is getting, and [Christianity teaching then] Christianity’s teaching is that one’s only motive in prayer should be giving, sharing, cooperating, benefiting, forgiving, holding no one in criticism, judgment, condemnation.   

          Now as you come to the study and the practice of the principles of The Infinite Way you will learn that you can have nothing but what you express, that you are one with the source of all good. You are one with the life-stream, the stream of eternal, infinite, immortal life. That you are fed not by bread alone, but by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” and that you do not have to look to man whose breath is in his nostril because you live by grace. Now to read this, I suppose is beautiful, but that kind of beauty has never appealed to me—only the beauty of practical living, only the beauty of proving principles. Beauty of words is meaningless in religion. Beauty of ideas that prove practical and demonstrable, beauty of ideas of justice, mercy, freedom, this is a different kind of beauty. And this is the kind of beauty we are looking for and this is the kind of beauty in life that I have sought, that I seek and that I hope to express—this beauty: I am one with God. I am one with all that God is, and I am one with all that God has and I am an instrument, or a transparency, through which God’s grace flows and if only I can let enough of it flow out through me, from me, enough will flow back to me to take care of my daily needs with twelve basketsful left over each day.

          Our concern must never be prayer with the idea of getting. Our idea must be prayer with the idea of giving, forgiving and sharing, otherwise we’re treating ourselves as if we were barren trees asking our neighbor for some of its fruit to hang on our limbs. Like a Christmas tree all hung up with lights, and nothing on it to eat. The only fruit that is tasty and the only fruit that feeds us is the fruit that flows out from us—not that which comes to us, that which flows out from us like the fruit that grows on trees.

          Prayer will have to be studied and practiced and understood, but prayer with a whole new meaning. We must have a new concept of prayer before we can pray aright because the old one has failed. Just as we must have a whole new concept of God before we can pray aright because the old concept of God has failed. All those who are praying to God for something are wasting their time. All those who are praying to God for something are living in past centuries.

          If God is withholding anything from us, God isn’t worthy of being prayed to. If God has anything left to give us, God isn’t worthy of being prayed to. But there is no such God. There is no such God that has anything to give. God is a givingness. God isn’t withholding sun, moon or stars, or tides. God isn’t withholding fruit from trees or flowers from bushes. God isn’t withholding grass. God isn’t withholding rain. God isn’t withholding fish from the sea or birds from the air. God isn’t withholding do re me fa so la se la ti do. God isn’t withholding two times two is four. What is God withholding? Coal from the ground. Diamonds in the ground. Pearls in the sea. God isn’t withholding. This earth is full of God’s glory. The heavens declare the glory of God. The earth showeth forth his handiwork. All that there is testifies to God’s infinite grace. Pray to God for more? It’s a waste of time and it is an insult in the face of God.

          God is already expressing infinity, eternality, immortality, and our function is to be a transparency through which that grace is poured upon this earth. Certainly there are always states of Consciousness further along than the masses. Moses was far ahead of his people, so was Elijah, so was Isaiah. Jesus was a million years ahead of his people, so was John. There always have been people far ahead of the states of Consciousness of the masses and that is why it is said, “from those who have much, much is expected”. So it is there are those who have attained some measure of civilization. You can look around the world to see how few there are, but from those who have attained some measure of spiritual enlightenment, cultural enlightenment, educational enlightenment, these are the ones who are responsible for pouring forth all that God’s grace has given them because not one of us would have what we have but for God’s grace.

          Not one of us would have what we have of awareness of life, awareness of love, awareness of abundance, awareness of God’s grace if it weren’t for God’s grace. Therefore having received it freely, it is our function to give it freely and each one according to the measure and the degree of his light.

          There are ways of praying which help to open the Consciousness of those who are still in darkness and we have to learn how to pray that way, how to bring spiritual light into darkened human Consciousness. We must learn how to pray that way.

          We can lift the burden of guilt that is carried by much of this world. A great deal of the diseases of this world are caused by people carrying guilt complexes—some for wrongs which they have done of a serious nature, some for wrongs of a very mild and unimportant nature and others for sins of omission, sins which really haven’t been executed at all, and yet their sensitiveness carries or enables them or compels them to carry a guilt complex and eventually this results in disease. This results in unease, lack of ease, discomfort, and we can, if we learn how, we can remove a great deal of that burden from the earth because we can pray the Prayer of Forgiveness. And that Prayer of Forgiveness will reach those who are needlessly laboring under their burden. The only ones who must continue to live under the burden of guilt are those who are consciously, specifically, continuously doing evil. There is no help or hope for them until they awaken because the key word is repentance: “Turn ye and live”. “God has no pleasure in your dying”. God has no pleasure in your punishment. God is not punishing anyone. That the Master made clear—we punish ourselves and God has no pleasure in our doing it, but our punishment only lasts while we are in the act of our wrongs. At any given moment of repentance or desire for forgiveness, we can be freed. And even if we can’t accept it if there are those in the world who know how to pray the Prayer of Forgiveness, they can release us from our guilt complexes and set us free to be healthier, to be happier, to be freer, and so there are those ways of blessing.

          There are always ways of giving that help to lighten man’s load. Just this very day also I received a card from way off in Korea. Someone instead of sending me personally a birthday gift had sent a care package of agricultural tools to Korea and here is some family now out in Korea with tools to dig around in their garden or farm because someone was thoughtful enough instead of sending me a box of candy that wouldn’t help sent them a box of tools that will help. It’s a way. It’s a way of being a blessing. It is being an instrument for God’s grace that farmer little knows out in Korea how God acted in mysterious ways to bring him his tools. He may really believe that it was some good-natured person who sent that to him. That isn’t true at all. It was somebody’s impersonal love for me and that’s God in action as impersonal love, so it was really God who met that farmer’s need. If he only knew that, he would be helping to free somebody else. If only he didn’t believe that it’s just some generous American with lots of money. If only he could recognize that this was impersonal love in action, he’d help to set somebody else free.

          So it is. Oh, there are so many ways in which prayer can be made effective. And on different levels of life: the very practical one of giving, sharing, benevolence, the higher more spiritual way of forgiveness, the still higher way of opening human Consciousness to receive more of spiritual enlightenment, and in between there are still a thousand ways in which our givingness can be instruments in creating a new world of civilization.

          Now, personally I don’t often give credit to those who claim they believe they’re doing good when they’re doing evil because I can’t quite see modern man as being that stupid and so I really believe that much of the evil that’s being done in the world is being done by those who know right well that it’s evil and don’t care. But, in any case, it isn’t going to stop except through prayer because human nature has a way of perpetuating itself rather than seeking ways to reform itself. And reform has to come through those who wish not merely to reform human element but who wish to introduce spiritual element into human consciousness. That is where the great reforms come from.

          One of the greatest reforms in modern centuries has been this entire idea of freedom, and justice, equality. The events which came to us out of the French Revolution, The American Revolution, the Brazilian Revolution, and all of these other revolutions that have either overthrown churches or overthrown governments or overthrown tyrannies in order to establish men’s rights on earth. Now these were not human reforms, these were spiritual reforms and in every case they were begun by individuals who were endowed spiritually. If you can go back to the beginnings of all of these movements for freedom, you will find they had their beginnings in men and women who were spiritually endowed and who thought it a privilege to die if necessary that future generations might be born free. That takes spiritual endowment because the materialist believes that with death we comes to an end. It is only those spiritually endowed who have no fear of dying because they know that living or dead they are still living. Neither life nor death can separate me from the life and the love of God and only those who are spiritually endowed are absolutely certain that whether they walk this earth or the next plane, they are still living and therefore they have no hesitancy whatsoever in giving their human frames if only it will help to establish someone else in freedom, justice, equity, equality, mercy. So it is—only those who are spiritually endowed can be the instruments through which peace on earth is to come. And no one that is spiritually endowed is sitting around praying to God for peace or praying to God for anything else.

          Those who are spiritually endowed are already sufficiently one with God Consciousness so as to know that all that can ever reach mankind must reach it through the Consciousness of the individuals who are on earth or have been or will be. It must come through our Consciousness or the Consciousness of mankind. God’s work is established and if we darken all of these windows even though it may be light outside, that light cannot come into this room. And all of God’s grace and God’s freedom and God’s abundance and God’s life is already established on earth. It cannot reach mankind except through the Consciousness of those who are willing to be transparencies to let the light into human Consciousness. And be assured I’m not speaking of the groups that are asking God for peace or telling God what we need on earth.

          So it is to be a part of the world of prayer means first of all to know God aright, to know the nature of God, to know what God is and how God operates, then to learn the nature of prayer so that we can pray aright: the prayer of efficacy, the prayer of a healing Consciousness, the prayer of restoration. And to do that we need to forget much of our religious past and see if we cannot discover a religious present and future. And of course there is no better place to begin than within one’s self because God has not hidden from you individually any of his secrets. On the contrary, God has implanted in you every so-called secret and it is within you now awaiting your bringing to life. When the master taught that the kingdom of God is neither lo here or lo there. It is not to be found in holy mountains or holy temples—that it is to be found within you, he wasn’t trying to fool anybody. He was trying to reveal. He was trying to reveal that which had been hidden from man by the church. Certainly the church says you must come and spend all day Sabbath day here. Certainly you must come in every morning and do something here and give something here. Certainly it has to find a way to perpetuate itself. And there’s no better way than hiding truth.

          Let an individual discover the truth that the kingdom of God is within you and you won’t have slaves on earth any more. You won’t have an uncivilized world. You won’t have a world groveling at the feet of political masters, religious masters. Let this truth be revealed that the kingdom of God is within you, and that you can turn to the Father within you for all of the grace that you will need throughout this world and all of the worlds to come and that you’re not dependent on favors from, “man whose breath is in his nostril”—whether he has political titles or ecclesiastical titles. You are dependent only upon the grace of God which is established within you since from everlasting to everlasting, before Abraham was I, God am in the midst of you and you can turn to that God within you. Then you will help to free mankind from the slavery in which he finds himself.

          Whether or not you believe it, it was in the newspapers just a week ago, the top representative of a big church announcing that it’s God’s will that the Negroes be slaves unto them, and although it was a Christian teaching, he proved that by the old Testament. Yes, a whole—well half of a continent is being ruled on that basis by a church: that you were meant to be slaves for us because 4,000 years ago your ancestors sinned against us. Well, that’s an exaggerated case. Oh, a factual one, but I mean it’s an exaggerated case of the wickedness of men in high places. But none of it would be possible if it were universally taught that you are not dependent on the grace of any individual in high places but that the kingdom of God is within you. And that you can learn how to pray within you, and that the place whereon you stand is holy ground. So you can pray just as well in your bath tub as you can here. And you can pray here just as well as you can in any church on earth for the kingdom of God is where you are. It’s neither lo here nor lo there, it is where you are. There’s nothing wrong about praying in churches. In fact it would be wrong to go there and not pray. The wrong is in believing that that’s the only place to pray in.

For praying should be without ceasing, in bed and out of bed, on your feet or on your knees scrubbing the floors. Praying is without ceasing because it is only effective when it is realized that the kingdom of power is within us and that it must flow out from us to the world, that nothing is being released into this world except what we release of good, of love, of life. And as we as an individual group, or as a group of individuals, as we cease turning to God for anything but turn only for enlightenment to pour out upon this world, for more grace to share with this world so that we become greater instruments for an outpouring, in that degree will we serve the world and at the same time be praying for ourselves because what we get is only the reflex action of what we give. And nothing more can come back to us then what we send out.

Someday everyone will be high enough in Consciousness to learn that what we do to another we are doing unto ourselves because there is but one Self, because there is but one Father within us. There is but one life, one being, one Soul and therefore my Self is the Self of you, your Self is the Self of me for I am in you and you are in me and we are in God. This is the great revelation: you are in me and I am in you and we are in God for we are one. And only those who learn that because this is true that we are members of one body that what I do to my right hand hurts my left, or hurts my foot, what I do to you, the harm I do to myself, but what I do to you of good I do to myself, fore there is but one Self. When we learn that the history of the world will change. When we learn why the Master said, “inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least one of these, you have done it unto me,” because we ultimately learn this is true.

 Anything that we do unto the least in this world we are really doing unto ourselves and it’s up to us to choose whether we are doing good or doing evil. So you see that in the message of The Infinite Way there is a great deal that may not be familiar at first reading. There is a great deal that is or should be strange. There is a good deal that is new in religious unfoldment and so it is that in your studies be sure that you are understanding these principles because understanding them enables you to demonstrate them. And in demonstrating them, don’t think for a minute that you’re limiting your demonstration to yourself, but whatever you demonstrate for yourself you are helping to demonstrate for mankind just as that friend and student who demonstrated her love for me with a little gift ended up by demonstrating harmony and more abundance for a farmer in Korea. And so should our lives be.

          Thank you.   

    End Tape 344 Side 1

 

1960 HOLLAND OPEN and NEW YORK UNITY CLASS

TAPE 341 SIDE 2

THE MEANING OF TRUTH TEACHINGS

By Joel Goldsmith

 Good Evening. It is a joy to be here and to all of you who are here, it is a joy to be with you, more particularly, as Reverend Paulson said, because we are uniting in the Spirit. And regardless of our approach to Truth, we can unite because the Principle of Truth, as long as we are following the Christian, mystical path, is One. There is only one Principle regardless of how many different ways we approach it.

 When the Master, Christ Jesus, was giving His message, He was a Hebrew rabbi, speaking in the synagogues and speaking on the highways and the byways of the Holy Land. And because He was a Hebrew rabbi and because He was speaking to Hebrew people, they thought that He was just giving them another slant of Judaism, another facet of the Judaic teaching.

 They did not realize at that time that He was pointing out to them the errors of the Hebrew teaching that they were receiving and that He was pointing out to them a higher dispensation, a newer dispensation, a complete change from their Judaic teachings. He made it very clear to them that this day that they spent in the Temple, the Sabbath day, was really not as important as the church made it seem, because man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man.

 He made it clear to them that all of this running to the synagogues, more especially the need for it every year, was not as necessary as it seemed, because God could not be found in holy mountains nor even in that Temple of Jerusalem, because the Kingdom of God is neither lo here, nor lo there, the Kingdom of God is within you. He made it clear to them that the sacrifices that were so much a part of the temple worship was not only unnecessary, but it was wrong. He made it clear that God hath no pleasure in your sacrifices. He made so many things clear, or tried to, so that He could lead them into a higher realization of the nature of God, the nature of prayer, the nature of true religion. And it is for that reason that the Sermon the Mount is of such importance.

 He made it clear to them that ye have heard it said of old, this is what was given to you in that ancient Hebraic dispensation, “But I say unto you … “ and then He gave them a teaching completely contrary to that in which they had been educated. And so it was, that actually, the Master gave to the world a new teaching. It was not merely the teaching of the Hebrew religion with a few new touches, it was an entirely new dispensation.

 Those who were able to perceive that were able to follow him into the higher consciousness. You will remember his own disciples couldn’t follow him all the way, that even after the crucifixion and the resurrection and the ascension, even after this, Peter was still adhering to the old teaching of not eating the meat of pig, still conforming to the dietetic laws of the Hebrew teaching. And all of the disciples, remember, refused to let the teaching of the Christ be given outside of the Hebrew dispensation. They made it mandatory that an individual be a Hebrew before he could be admitted into the teaching of the Master. And it was only years and years later, when Paul made it so clear that this teaching of Christ Jesus was not meant for a sect, a church, a religion or one people but that it was meant for all people, that some of the disciples were won over and finally consented that this message be given to the Gentiles, that this message be given to anyone or everyone that indicated an interest in the message. Some of the disciples never accepted that, and always remained what they were in the beginning, just members of a Hebrew sect.

 Now, when we come to this present age, there are still many people, including, many students of Truth, who actually believe that the Truth teaching of today is just the same teaching that they had in their former churches, only with a few additions, like spiritual healing. They still believe that the Truth teaching of today is just another of the Christian teachings with the addition, perhaps, of spiritual healing or emphasis on the demonstration of things.

 The Truth student will only begin to make real spiritual progress when they begin to realize that the Truth teaching must be studied and understood from the standpoint of a Truth teaching, and not with the regard to whatever their own religion may have been in the past. Not that a Truth teaching deviates from the teaching of Christ Jesus but that is does deviate from the teachings of the various Christian religions.

 Differs, how? And it is only when you begin to understand “how” Truth teachings differs that you will begin to understand your progress or lack of progress. You will understand why it is possible for you to be healed or why you are not being healed. And so I would like to point out to you that these differences between the ancient and the new are sometimes as startling as the differences between “What ye have heard of old” and “What I say unto you”.

 To begin with, Truth teaching reveals the nature of God. And there is no other place today where you can find the nature of God revealed except in Truth teaching. For instance, you have undoubtedly heard this of old, that God punishes you or God rewards you. But if you are entertaining that concept of God, you are not only not in Truth teaching, but as a matter of fact, you are preventing your own healing, healing that may be physical, mental, moral or financial, because there is not God that punishes or that rewards.

 The teaching, that as ye sow so shall ye reap, is an absolutely true teaching. But you will notice that is says nothing in it about God punishing you or rewarding you. It is as “ye” sow that “ye” shall reap. In other words, it is your conduct or your thought that reacts upon you, and it has nothing to do with God. Until you can see that God is too pure to behold iniquity, until you can begin to see why the Master could say to a woman taken in adultery; “Neither do I condemn thee, thy sins be forgiven thee;” until you can see why the Master could say to the thief on the cross; “This night I will take you with me into Paradise;” until you can see that, you are not understanding the nature of God. And you will be continuing to keep yourself under that karmic law of “as ye sow, so shall ye reap”.

 There is no need for anyone to accept punishment. There is no need for anyone to look for reward. Because in the Truth teaching it is revealed, God is Love, God is too pure to behold iniquity, and if you have offended, neither do I condemn thee, thy sins be forgiven thee. Not once or twice or three times, seventy times seven, the Master says that your sins must be forgiven you. Every single day you start your slate fresh and with no penalties from yesterday, only the penalties that you bring about today. Which at any moment of the day, you overcome with the realization that I of my own self, do not sin, but I do find a universal sense of sin in me, and in the realization of that, free yourself.

 In the same way, you have been taught of old to pray to God to heal your sickness, but do you not notice that all over this world there are ministers and rabbis and priests praying to God to heal the ills of the members of their congregation, and not having any success with it. That is why the churches of this world are becoming interested in spiritual healing. That is why they are interested in Truth literature because their prayers to God to heal their sick have not been fruitful. And therefore, if we as Truth students are still praying to God to heal us because we deserve it, it is not surprising if we are not getting results, if we are not finding fruitage.

 When the Master healed, he never once prayed to God to heal any of the sick who came to him. The Master healed the sick by knowing, that since God is All-power, there is no power to this condition that confronts you. And so he could say to a crippled man, or impotent man, a paralyzed man, “What did hinder you? Pick up your bed and walk.” What power is there but God? “Pick up your bed and walk.” He could say to a blind man, “Open thine eyes.” He did not pray to God to heal the blind man, he merely said, “Open thine eyes;” inferring there is no power here to keep those eyes closed.

 You dishonor God if you believe that there is a power in any condition, any power in any condition. It is only when you recognize God’s Omnipotence that you are aligning yourself with the spiritual Power that heals. Many of you can be healed of many things and help to heal others, if instead of accepting the universal belief that we are going through terrible times, times of great evils, if you will only stop that. Stop praying to God to overcome these evils, stop praying to God to overcome the evil men and women, or the evil conditions, for there aren’t any!

 These conditions that you are witnessing in the world today, which the newspapers call “evil”, they aren’t evil at all. They are the breaking up of evil. The evil was when we were indulging those things that now are being corrected. We are in an age today when the evils of man’s inhumanity to man are being corrected. We are in an age where the inequality of the races, religions and colors is being corrected. We are living in an age where those who heretofore have been refused education, culture, refinement, are now having these things opened to them. You call this evil? Oh, no, no, no, no! This is right now the age of the passing of evil and there is a reason for it.

 There is a reason why there is this breaking up of evil conditions throughout the world, and the reason is this. Since the introduction of Truth teachings, we have been given an understanding of some Bible passages which have never heretofore been explained. And it is because we now know and can demonstrate those passages of Scripture that we are bringing about; we, the Truth students. And please be assured of this, I am referring to the Christian Scientists, I am referring to the Unity students, I am referring to all the New Thought teachings that have a spiritual basis when I say to you that we, as a united Truth consciousness, are bringing about the conditions that are now looked upon as evil in the world, but which actually represents the breaking up of evil. And it comes about in this wise.

 Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Now, where is the Spirit of the Lord? It isn’t in declarations, it isn’t in reading, it isn’t in sermons. The only place where the Spirit of God is in active manifestation is where an individual is in meditation until the Spirit of God comes through and takes over.

 The Presence of God is not in the mind, the Presence of God is not in thoughts, the Presence of God isn’t in mental powers. The Presence of God is where God is realized and demonstrated. In other words, when you meditate, regardless of what method you use or regardless of how many affirmations you may use to get into the Spirit, if you meditate until there is an answering response, until you feel within yourself a release or a rest or a relaxing, or until you feel within yourself that the Presence of God is on the field, or until the still, small Voice speaks to you, if you meditate until then, you have released the Presence of God out into the world. It will do something to your own mind, It will do something to your own body, but It doesn’t stop there. It goes out, and It does not merely bless those who are in this room.

 Let me tell you of an experience that happened just two weeks ago today. We were in London and I was giving two talks, one at 7:00 P.M. to a large group, and one at 9:00 P.M. to a group of our sort of inner circle of students. Those who have been with us enough years to really understand the Principles and have a demonstrable understanding of them, and really to be dedicated to our work. And during that hour to talk, following that first hour, I myself received a tremendous uplift. I was “high in consciousness”, if we may use that term. In other words, I was more or less absent from the body and present from the Lord. It was a beautiful experience. But you can be assured that I wasn’t treating anybody or praying for anyone. I was merely giving forth a message of Truth as it spontaneously came through me. But the very next day, I had a telephone call of one patient in England that during that period was completely released from a condition of mental unbalance which was causing her to be incarcerated in a mental institute. But in that period of our work, she was completely and wholly released.

 When I arrived here in the States just a few days later, there was a letter in my mail from a student in Canada, who had some time before asked for help because she had become totally deaf in one ear. And evidently up to this minute, the help had not been realized. However on this same Sunday, and in those hours of this work in London, all of a sudden a complete release came from her, or through her, and her hearing was restored, but in its fullness, in its completeness. Then a few days later, came a letter from the West Coast, telling me of a man who had asked me for help, and who during this period had been completely freed of the presence and the pain of a cancer.

 Now, this is what happens when any individual is in meditation and feels the Presence of God. Not because the individual is a healer; God forbid that anyone should ever believe that they have healing power or spiritual power, for all Power is of God, not of man. But in the degree that a man, or woman or child meditates and feels and realizes the Presence of God, out through them escapes this whole perfume and atmosphere of God, and It touches those who have attuned themselves. In other words, It touches your relatives, your family, your friends, your patients, your students. And it may not touch all of them at the same time but it will touch those who are attuned and ready for the experience of their uplift.

 So it is! Every time that you meditate, every time that you have a period of silence in which you are not seeking things, in which you are not trying to demonstrate a home or companion or supply, you are merely trying to demonstrate the Presence of God with you, the minute you attain that, an atmosphere goes out from you. And do not be surprised if you have helped the situation in Africa, or the southern States, or the election in England, or the election in the United States. Because wherever the Spirit of God is, there is liberty.

 And again, don’t go back to what you have been taught about God punishing or rewarding, because God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust. And it may very well be that those who are called the greatest “monsters” on earth today may be the very first ones to respond to your Christ impulse. Why? They have the greatest need, they have the greatest hunger, they have the greatest awareness within themselves that something is missing!

 It has been said, you know, in truth that it is easier to heal a sinner than a saint, and it is, too. But the reason is, the saint is so blown up with their ego and the idea of their goodness and their self-righteousness, that God simply can’t get past. Whereas the sinner has really emptied the vessel. He knows, “I’m no good,” he knows, “I’m not good, I’m not worthy, I’m not deserving.” He has emptied himself out and made himself ready….but God, you come in and take over…and in that absence from self, be assured God does. Don’t you know, well, those of you who have had experience with sinners, with crime in any form, you know the great hunger there is in those people for something worthwhile, even if they cannot call it God.

 When you overcome the concept of God as one who gives or withholds, or one who punishes or rewards, and you begin to realize, why God is Being, and God is Being closer to me than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. God is really the Almighty at the center of my being. The Father within me is God, the Presence within me is God. I am never separate and apart from God. And it really makes no difference if I am the thief on the cross or the woman taken in adultery, God is still closer to me than breathing, and ready to say, “Neither do I condemn thee … thy sins be forgiven thee.”

 Remember, “Though you make your bed in hell, I am there with you. If you walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I am there with you.” And all we have to recognize is, not that ancient teaching that God is separate and apart from us because we sinned, not that God is separate and apart from us because we were ignorant, but rather the Christ message. “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” never! And He doesn’t say, “Never when you are good,” or “Never when you are healthy,” not even, “Never when you are dead …. or alive.”

 But rather, “Neither life nor death can separate me from the Life of God, or the Love of God, or the care of God, or the infinite abundance of God. Neither life nor death, nor sin, nor purity can separate me from the Love of God. And the greater my need, the greater the Love that I find embracing me. The greater my needs, the greater my sin, the greater my forgetfulness, the greater my sickness, the greater the measure of Love I find encircling me, embracing me.”

 You see, it is absolutely necessary to come out from these ancient superstitious concepts of God until you understand the God of the Gospels, the God that never leaves you, the God that never judges you, or criticizes or condemns you, the God that never punishes you in this world or the next world, and the God who does not demand that you read so many pages each day, the God that doesn’t demand that you go to church so often, the God that doesn’t demand that you belong to this church or that church. But remember, it is the God who has no church, the God who recognizes no church, where church only becomes an instrument to draw you into the Love of God, where church only becomes a vehicle into which you can move and there find a togetherness, a united-ness, a Oneness in God.

You can do it outside, but the church makes it possible to have a place where occasionally you can meet inside. As long as you do not believe that being in that church is and of itself a virtue, only when you can believe in the one, true God, whose dominion is within you, whose place is within you, whose Love and whose Law is within you, even, even when you are walking outside, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, or when you are walking outside, lost in a desert.

You see, healing work is accomplished, actually, by only one thing, and that is the realized Presence of God. You may attain your realization of the Presence of God through something that you read in your Unity writings or literature, but you could just as well attain your realization of God by something that you might read in the Christian Science literature, or the Infinite Way literature, or the Bible itself, or one of the more ancient teachings. It isn’t what you are reading that heals you, or who the author of it is, or which organization promotes it, it is what degree of vision or enlightenment do you get from what you are reading so that you can settle into a meditation until you feel the actual Presence of God. Because when you feel that Presence of God, it is in that split second of realization that the healing consciousness is at work for you, for those who look to you. It is only when you attain that moment of realization that healing takes place.

Now, I say this to you because you have the opportunity of asking your practitioners, your teachers, if it isn’t true that when they meditate and have that split second of realization, that the healings take place, or the inspiration comes through. If one needs a lecture, that comes through for that split second of realization. If one needs a sermon, if one needs the secret of an invention, whatever it may be that is our human need, it comes into our experience only because of that second of realization of God’s Presence.

You can reach that realization through….oh, I know of a thousand books of inspiration that an individual can sit and read, and then all of a sudden put aside and attain that moment of realization, but it is that moment of realization that does the work. If you have prepared the way by not being cluttered up with that ancient concept of a God that is giving or withholding, a God that will give you, if, under certain circumstances, a God that will give you if you do this, that, or the other thing, a God that will withhold if you do not do this, that, or the other thing, you first must overcome your false sense of God.

You, first of all, to succeed in any Truth movement, you must come into an awareness of God that really means a God of love and a God of wisdom. When the Master says, “Your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things,” he is saying to you that you need not tell God anything at any time. And if you are telling God anything at any time, you might as well know that you are on the wrong path for spiritual demonstration. Because you are virtually saying, “Isn’t it nice, God, that I know more about me than You do, and I know more about my needs that You do. I even know more about what the world needs that You do, and so I am telling You.”

You see, that is a concept of God that many people still entertain, that you must tell God what you need, that you must tell God what this world needs, you must even tell God that we need peace on earth. He knows it more than we do. Indeed, if God could only be personal for a second, He’d cry tears over us the way the Master did in Jerusalem when he could say, “Oh, Jerusalem, oh, Jerusalem, I would take you under my wings but you just won’t listen,” that’s what God would be if God could be personal for a little while. He’d cry real tears over us. Trying to tell God things that we know, but I suppose we must believe that God does not know.

And again, the Master follows this by saying, “It is God’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” Is there any need to ask, any need to petition, beg, plead? And so we can do away with telling God what we need, and we can do away with asking for something. Because according to these passages, God already knows, and it is God’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom.

How, then, shall we bring ourselves to receive that which God knows we need, and of which it is said, that it is His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom? How do we prepare ourselves to receive our good? First of all, by learning that power is in the Word of God, not the word of man. And thereby, learning how to meditate so that when you sit back you can say sincerely, “Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth,” and then make yourself as receptive and responsive as you can to receive God’s Grace.

Only by the impartation from God are the problems of the earth solved or dissolved. “When He uttereth His voice, the earth melteth.” The very moment that you become aware of an impartation from within, the discord out here begins to melt, the change begins to take place, but it has nothing to do with what you said to God or asked of God for that was just wasted time. It is only when you settle down into the listening, attentive attitude….ah, yes, and then become fruitful, because most of us are living a lie.

When you say to God, “Thy Grace is my sufficiency in all things,” you have to be very careful that you do not also say, “But I need a little rent, or companionship, or a home, or employment.” You have to really mean “Thy Grace is my sufficiency, and if you chop my hands off or tear my eyes out, I will not ask for anything beyond Thy Grace, and I will be satisfied with Thy Grace, with Thy Wisdom, with Thy Love.”

You see, it is just a carry-over from these ancient forms of religion that makes us say, “God, give us our daily bread.” Yes, if we could say, “Give us our daily bread,” the way the Master said it, that would be well, because he wasn’t thinking of baker’s bread. He was not thinking of the meat on a butcher’s table when he said that I am the meat. When you understand the Master and know that bread, to him, meant the Word of God, meat meant the very substance of Life, water meant the very bubbling up of joyous eternal Life, that wine meant inspiration, divine Impartation, when we stop praying for material things and begin to pray for that Water that cometh down from Heaven, that Wine that cometh forth from God, that Meat and Bread which I Am, then, you see, we can truthfully say, “Thy Grace is my sufficiency in all things.”

There is no greater prayer, there is no greater prayer than “Thy Grace is my sufficiency” and then a silence, then an absolute silence that God’s blessing may pour down upon you. Of course, God’s blessing will come first in the realization of His Presence, but then secondly, it will come as the tangible supply of everything needful in your experience. Of course, if you go to God outlining what you think you need, you may be overlooking God’s blessing, which does not always come the way we expect it. It is always wisdom, in going to God, not to have an idea of how God’s blessing is to come to us, what form it is to take. It is always better to remain in that nebulous “Thy Grace is my sufficiency,” and have no ideas at all what form that Grace is to take.

You see, we are all victims of teachings, not only religious, economic, political. We are all victims of teachings that have been handed down to us from previous generations. And the reason we are victims is that those religions, and those politics, and those economic principles may have been all right for their day; looking back on them now, I certainly do not believe it. But even granting that they may have been the best possible at that time, they are outmoded in our time, and they are outmoded for one reason.

 We are entering an era of life in which you shall not live by might or by power. You shall not live by taking thought, for who by taking thought can do even the least of these things? And if you cannot by taking thought do the least, how do you expect to do the greatest? We are entering a period of life where life will not be by struggle or strife, by might or by power, but where life will be lived as Children of God, by Grace, Heirs of God. Life will just unfold as naturally to us as the sunshine breaks through in the morning, the stars break through at night. It will just be a normal, natural unfolding process in which we will always be on the receiving end; never on the striving or the struggling end.

 And do not think it is farfetched. It was promised of old that none of the evils shall come nigh thy dwelling place, if only you make your dwelling place the secret place of the Most High. The Master promised that if you would abide in the Vine, that you would let the Word abide in you, that you would bear fruit richly. And all you have to do, and you may follow me now in doing it, first of all, see in your mind’s eye a branch of a tree, walking down Broadway, all by itself. See that branch of a tree, no matter how flourishing it seems to be at this moment, you and I looking on know that it is entering its doom. Every step it takes, it is using up some of the life that is still in it, but from nowhere is coming any renewal, from nowhere is entering into that branch anything. Therefore, all that branch can do is keep right on withering and withering and withering, until it drops.

 And this is a human being, and this is the way the human race is living. Exactly! They are walking up and down the street, and all there is to them is this. And every day they are using up a day of their life. Every day they are using up a day of their earning capacity. Every day they are using up some measure of their ability to study, or to think new thoughts, or to renew themselves. And the Master knew that and he said that they are a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth. But he said, “If you abide in the Vine…”. Now let’s visualize that branch. Let’s graft it back onto the trunk of the tree, the Vine is the trunk of the tree. In those days He had no tree handy, He was talking from the standpoint of the grape vine.

See now the branch of the tree connected to the trunk, and now look down that trunk all the way to the bottom, right down into the ground, and see the roots there. And then note that the roots are drawing up into themselves all that exists that is necessary to them from the earth around them. And as it enters the roots, there is a Force, a Presence, a Power there, call it “Nature”, call it “God”, that is transmuting what have been drawn up from the earth, sends it up through the trunk, out into the branches. And the first thing you know, green shoots appear, and leaves, and blossoms and fruit. Think of it, all this fruitage on the branch. Why? Because it was connected with the whole tree and the tree was connected with its Source. And we call that, mystically, rooted and grounded in God.

So it is, the connecting point between you as a branch, and the tree, is your consciousness. So that, if you consciously declare, remember, I said consciously, if you consciously declare, “I and the Father are One, I live and move and have my being in Him, I am rooted and grounded in God, so that because I and the Father are One, all that the Father hath is mine.” Scripture says, “Son”, branch, “Thou are ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” Now you are consciously remembering that. You are consciously remembering that you live in God, and God in you, and that you and God are One. And that you are Heir of God, and joint heir with Christ to all the heavenly riches, and because of this, your consciousness now is a receiving place through which all of the good comes up from the God-ground, pours into you and through you and out from you as fruitage. Therefore, the Master taught, “Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.”

 Therefore, when you overcome the old concepts of God, a giving God or a punishing God, or withholding God, or a rewarding God or a punishing God, when you overcome the belief that God has a certain religion and begin to understand that the only God there is, is closer to you than breathing, the Kingdom of God is within you, and you begin to abide in this Word, consciously, and let this Word abide consciously in you, you are then practicing the Presence of God. You are practicing the Presence of God, you are communing with God, you are One with God. And then and only then can you begin to live by Grace. No longer by might or by power, no longer by striving or struggling, no longer by unfair competition, no longer by mental powers, now you can relax in Him and live by Grace because you have brought yourself consciously into Oneness with Him.

 And Reverend Paulson told you that when you are One with God, we are One with each other. Ah, yes! Not only we are One with each other, because the Love of God that is flowing through me, now is flowing through you. The Love of God that is flowing through you now is reaching me. We are already One in God. But even more than this, you are One with your good. The moment you become consciously One with God, you become One with your good. And if it has to unfold, then, as home, or companionship, or transportation, or employment, it will come but without taking thought; without taking thought for what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed. You will only have to take conscious thought for the remembrance of your Oneness with God.

 And don’t waste time condemning yourself for your sins of the past, the sins of omission or commission. Always abide in the realization, “I am forgiven seventy times seven.” On the other hand, don’t hold anybody in condemnation who has wronged you, for the price that you have to pay for the realization of God’s Grace is the forgiveness, the praying for your enemies. That is the only price that is demanded of us by the Master. You must forgive seventy times seven, you must pray for the enemy, and then you are the Child of God.

End Side 2

 

1960 HOLLAND OPEN CLASS & NEW YORK UNITY

TAPE 341 SIDE 1

 UNDERSTANDING GOD AND PRAYER

By Joel Goldsmith

I think most of you know that just one hour ago we arrived, and so we have had a whole hour of holiday. But this is really only the beginning of what I know will be a beautiful week.

 Every year since I first came to Holland with this Message, we’ve had a most beautiful experience. Many of you have been listening to this message of The Infinite Way since my very first trip and I know that you are at least beginning to understand why it is that there is this message and what it is that I am trying to say that should be different in your ears. It should be different to what you have heard before if you are hearing it correctly.

 Ever since man ran into his first trouble on earth, he has looked for some way to solve his problems and history shows us that he always sought to solve his problems through material means, that his most natural instinct was to find a great power, a greater power, than his problem. And when he came to the end of human solutions, he began to seek for something super-human, something greater than human, and so began a search for what eventually became gods. Because they may have found one god to start with, but that god did not satisfy all of their needs, and so they looked for another. And they found another and another and another until men in different parts of the world were worshiping a dozen gods or dozens of gods.

 There was a different god to meet every need. If we needed a big crop of fish, why we had one god for that. And if we needed abundant crops, we had a god for that. And if it was health or beauty or fertility, whatever it was, a different god appeared. And even in war, we found gods that would help us destroy our enemy. Of course, it wouldn’t destroy our allies, only our enemies. But as you so well know, all of this proved fruitless, these gods did not really perform, these gods did not meet the needs of the people. And so instead of there being recognized certain gods who actually performed, in every part of the world there was a different god or a different set of gods, different mode of worship.

 Well, we may pass over many, many centuries hurriedly to come to the time of Father Abraham, when he, having received enlightenment from further east, accepted one God. Now actually the problems of the world would have been solved by Father Abraham had they not made the mistake of going to that one God for all the same things that previously they had been going to many gods. In other words, they were not praying aright. And when we do not pray aright, it really makes no difference whether we are praying to one God or whether we are praying to dozens of gods, there is the same lack of answer.

 It isn’t really a discovery of what is God so much as it is, first of all, the realization that there is only one God. Of course after all of the centuries that have passed since Abraham, you would imagine that this world now is in agreement that there is only one God. But if you are familiar at all with even contemporary religion, you will know that almost every sect, every denomination, every religion has a God of its own; “And your God is not that right one, it is always our God that’s right. You are undoubtedly going to hell because you haven’t the right God.” On the other hand, the very same person who is convinced that he has the right God is being told by someone else, “You are going to hell because we have only the right God.”

 In our modem age they have been trying to break down bigotry and bias, prejudice, by having organizations like “The Brotherhood of Christians and Jews”. You would think that at least as long as they are going to have a Brotherhood that they would agree that there is only one God, and they do. There is only one God but it’s “my God”. The Jewish God is not the Christian God, the Protestant God is not the Catholic God, the Catholic God is not the Vedantist God, and the Vedantist God certainly is not the Taoist God. And so even in what we like to consider this enlightened age, we have not yet agreed, not even among the intellectuals of the world, we have not yet agreed that there is one, universal God. Whether we speak of the God of Jews or the God of the Christians or the God of the pagans, there can still be but one God.

 We would be far along on the path of universal peace if only we could agree that there is one God, and that it is a universal God, and that whether you pray a Jewish prayer or Protestant prayer or Catholic prayer or Hindu prayer, still there must be but one and the same God. That, at least, would fulfill the Master’s teaching, “Call no man on earth your father, there is but one Father, the One in heaven”. And if only we could agree that this is true, then all the rest of us on earth would be brothers and sisters regardless of which church door we went into. And even if we went into none, at least we would be in agreement that whether we are white or black, or yellow or brown, that still there is but one God and we be brethren. This alone would be the breaking down of bias, prejudice and bigotry, without trying to be tolerant, just being truthful. But acknowledging one God is but the first step to the solution of our problem.

Whether the problem is an individual one or a collective one, whether it is a problem of yourself or your family or your community, or whether it is a problem of the nation or a world of nations, we have only covered one half of the ground when we have acknowledged that there is but one God and that we, all of us, are offspring of that God, heirs of that one God; joint heirs. Because the second step has to do with making contact with that God and that can only be done through prayer.

Prayer is the only means of contact with God. There is no other way, there never has been any other way, and there never can be any other way of making contact with God, other than through prayer. And here is where our next and greatest step has to be taken away from all that we have previously been taught about prayer. I am speaking now of most men and most women.

 Going back again to those of our ancestors who worshiped a dozen gods, you will find, those of you who have studied the ancient religions already know, that the people prayed for food or for crops or for rain. They always found something that they, themselves, could not provide and then sought it from their deity, as if actually God were withholding it and by their prayers they were going to get God to let loose of it.

 Then we come again to Brother Abraham, the friend of God, and we find this same mistake perpetuated. We find them still going to God to pray, not only for the things they thought they needed, but they emulated the example of their pagan brothers, they even prayed to God to give them victory in war. They prayed, as the pagans did and as pagans still do, for victory in war. “Help us to destroy our enemy”.

 We have never left the age of paganism. And we still pray as if a god, who art God, could destroy one and leave another, or as if any of us on the face of the earth had attained such goodness that we deserved to be spared while others were being destroyed. Is there a nation of people on earth who really believes that they are good, good enough to deserve God’s Grace, and their neighbor across the sea deserves the heavy hand of God’s destruction? Yes! Yes, there are people who still go to church to pray, “Save us, and destroy our enemies ….. Do this for us, but withhold it from our enemies.” It is as paganistic a prayer today as when it was voiced by those who had a dozen different gods.

 So it is, as long as men and women continue to pray for things, whether it’s for what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed, or whether they pray for homes or for automobiles or for safety or for security, as long as they are praying for some “thing”, their prayer is as paganistic as it was five thousand years ago. And as long as an individual is praying to God for me or for my family or for my nation, it is as paganistic as it ever was at any time in the world’s history because it displays an ignorance of God.

 God is not a respecter of persons. God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust.  And so if we are to bring the Grace of God into our experience, individually or collectively, we must first of all learn how to pray. And be assured of this, the world, as a world, does not know how to pray. And the proof of it is, “By their fruits, ye shall know them”. And the fruitage of the world’s prayer is certainly not peace on earth and good will to men, not yet! And it isn’t a universal abundance, not yet!

Probably one belief sets up the whole of the paganistic beliefs about God and prayer that are still entertained, and that is the belief that it is possible to get God to do something for you or for me, or for my family, or for my nation. Until this belief is wiped out of the thought of an individual, he has absolutely no possibility of receiving God’s Grace. As long as an individual believes that he can be set apart, or that because he belongs to this faith or that faith that he has an “in” with God, a pull, an influence with God, he’s far, far, far from the ability to realize God’s Grace.

So our first step really must be to turn to Scripture, and to turn within, and see if we cannot attain a higher concept of God than we now entertain. And we must know this; that our concept of God has not yet reached the kindergarten stage if we believe we can pray to God for something and get it, or if we believe we can pray to God for something for me or for you, and get it. We haven’t even entered the kindergarten stage of prayer. In fact, we have not come out of paganism. We have not even made the first move out of paganism while we believe that God is a respecter of persons, or churches, or nations or religions.

 If we believe that God is in any way responsible for the sun, the moon, the stars, the rain, the snow, we must know that these things exist not for you or me, or for your nation or my nation, or the members of your church or my church, they exist universally for all who wish to avail themselves of it. If we believe that behind the scientific discoveries of the world that have made automotive engineering possible, airplanes possible, wireless, all of the great electrical achievements, and now all of the atomic achievements, if at all we believe that behind these things there is a Principle, certainly that should teach us, then, that there is nothing personal about God’s Grace. Because these are available to anyone who wishes to open their mind or consciousness to them.

 Certainly, if we look at the history of paintings, of statuary, of art or literature in any form, and if we believe at all that God is the Source of these and the Source of the inspiration of these and the Source of the art of these, then certainly we must know that God is no respecter of persons, or religions or nations, but that God’s Grace is a universal one. And it belongs to anybody who will open their souls, open their consciousness, to receive; whether they want to receive art, or literature, or languages; whether they want to receive inventive ability or scientific discovery ability. Whatever it may be, it is open and available to anyone.

 I am sure that for awhile it shocked many people in the United States to find that one of the great scientific discoverers, a man who has added a great deal to knowledge of scientific facts in the States, is a Negro, born of parents in slavery. I am sure that it must shock a lot of people to learn that some of our great discoveries, some of our great works in the world have come from, not your religion or mine, or not your belief or mine, or not your race or mine. And must not this open us to the realization that God’s Wisdom is available to those who open themselves to receive it? The fish are in the sea in every part of the world, close to the bad people and the good ones, and the black ones, and the white ones. Fish are in the sea and birds are in the air. God is no respecter of persons. Let any individual open their consciousness to receive the Grace of God, and they will receive it and not because God is choosing them particularly, but because God is as universal as sunshine and anyone may have the warmth and the light of the sun who will open themselves to it.

 First of all, we must understand God, and we must understand God not as the pagans did, as an individual holding out the things that we need and forcing us to our knees to make us pray for it or sacrifice for it, we must understand God as love but as universal love. We must understand God as “That which is closer to us than breathing, nearer than hands and feet”, regardless of who we may be. We must understand God to be the Light and the Life of all being; the Wisdom. Then when we have found within ourselves an acceptance of God as Universal Being, as Universal Life, as Universal Love, as the Life of the human world or the animal world or vegetable world or mineral world, Universal Life, when we have acknowledged a God of that nature and the God closer to us than breathing; a God that enables us to say, “The place whereon I stand is Holy Ground;” a God that enables us to say, “Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit; if I mount up to heaven, Thou art there, if I make my bed in hell, Thou art there, if I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Thou art there; whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit and Thy rain falls on the just and the unjust;” once we have opened ourselves to that God, do you know that we are halfway home in our search for harmony, safety, security, peace, abundance? Not by desiring any of these things, merely by coming into an awareness of the God that really is. That is why Scripture says, “To know Him aright is life eternal”. The world ought to know by now that they do not know Him aright because they have not found life eternal. They are having a hard time stretching it out to three score years and ten with this bomb hanging over our heads.

 Now it is true that to know Him aright is life eternal. It is true that from the very moment we begin to understand God as the Life of our being, the Life of all being, we are beginning to understand God aright. The very moment that we acknowledge that God has placed cattle on a thousand hills, and crops in all the soil, and fish in all the sea, and birds in all the air, that God has done this not for you or me, and not for Jews, and not for Gentiles, and not for Orientals but for God’s own Grace for His children, the moment that we have acknowledged that God has done all of this for His children, not for a personal you or me, from that moment on we are getting closer to the Throne of God. Because we now can learn the meaning of praise and thanksgiving which is one of the highest forms of prayer.

 You cannot praise God or fight God for anything that you receive.  And those who are praising God and thanking God for something they have received, are praying amiss because God did not send it to you, God sent it to earth for all of us, no matter who we may be.  And the very moment that you begin to change your prayer, your praise and your gratitude, the very moment that you begin to change the form of saying grace at your table; if you do it; and instead of thanking God for what is on your table, as if God had anything to do with it, and begin to thank Him aright. Thank Him because He grew the crops, thank Him because He grew the cattle and the fish, thank Him because He made all of this universe possible for us. Then when you are thanking Him for His Grace on earth, and realize that it is here for all of us. He does not deliver it to your table or to mine; He has placed it here on earth. And He has also said, “Son, all that I have is thine”.

 Now just think. The minute we give up the idea of personalizing God, the minute we give up the idea of personalizing our sense of prayers and gratitude, and begin to be grateful with every meal we eat, be grateful that there are vegetables and fruits in all the lands on earth for all the people. Be grateful that there are fish in every sea and birds in all the air. Be grateful that the sun and the moon and the stars are governed by God, the incoming and the outgoing of the tides governed by God. Be grateful that man does not have something to do with it or it would be in a mess. Be grateful that the Laws of God are under God’s jurisdiction!  Roses come from rose bushes, peaches come from peach trees, apples come from apple trees. Why? Because man cannot interfere with that, that is the province of God. He has not done it for you or for me.  He has not even made tulips for Holland, they’re for all the world. You just appreciate them more and that’s why you have more of them!

 So it is, anything that we really appreciate unselfishly, we can have an abundance of, it is when we begin to love it selfishly that we find we’re choking off our supply. Just be assured of that, that you can watch it in your gardens, the minute you start growing things for you, you have put limitation on it. And when you plant your gardens with the realization that anybody and everybody can come along and enjoy their beauty and their fragrance and their color, in that moment, you are starting to demonstrate abundance, abundance, infinite abundance! Personalize it, and it begins to dry up.

 So it is, this thing of saying grace, “Thank you, God, for what you have on my table,” what about all our neighbors’ tables? Is that no concern of ours? “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. We should learn to say grace with very meal, but let that be a praise and a gratitude that the crops are in God’s hand, and the things of earth are in God’s hand, and because they are in God’s hand, they’re universal, impersonal, impartial, and they are meant for all men. And if all men do not have them, that’s their demonstration, or lack of it. Because it is said that if you abide in the Word and let the Word abide in you, you will bear fruit richly. But if you do not abide in the Word and you do not let the Word abide in you, you will be as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth.

 So you will discover that if you abide in this Word of prayer, if you abide in this Word of God, if you understand God to be Love and to be Life, if you are praising God, thanking God for universal good and for its ever availability, you will bear fruit richly. The very moment you try to personalize God and siphon Him down into your garden, you shut yourself off, you become as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth.

 The whole secret of life lies in understanding God aright, then in understanding prayer aright. Prayer must never be selfish. Prayer must never be a going to God to do “me” a favor, because in the very instant that I am seeking it, I am certainly neglecting my neighbor, and desiring something for myself without any thought of my neighbor. And this is not loving thy neighbor as thyself.

 That is why it astonishes many people, even many who believe they know the Bible, when they are reminded of the fact that the Master said, “It profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends, you must pray for your enemies,” and then He tells you why, “In order that you may be the Son of God.” Think on that and you will know where our mistakes have been. We have prayed for our friends and for our allies and for our families, and mighty little praying for the enemy and for the stranger without the gate. And yet it profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends.

In other words, prayer, in order to be the prayer of a Son of God, must be the recognition of God as equally your Father and mine, the Father of the enemy and the Father of the friend. And we must pray for our enemy the same as the Master prayed for Judas Iscariot, not to condone their offense but, “Father, forgive them, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

 Have you ever had the experience of feeling that you had done something wrong for which perhaps you were either being punished or from which you couldn’t get your peace? Have you ever had an experience whereby you said to yourself, “If only I could be forgiven” or “If I could only forgive myself.” If you have had that experience, you will know exactly what it means to pray for your enemy because there isn’t an individual under the canopy who has not, through omission or commission, done something or left something undone that should not have been so.

 And just think what it would mean if we, those of us who are in this room, those of us who have something to regret in life, something for which we are sorry, something we know we should not have done, think, if in this moment we could be assured, “My sins are forgiven me.” Think of it, if we could have the full and complete recognition, “There are no more offenses charged against me, I am free, I am completely forgiven.” Why, do you know there wouldn’t be a disease within a hundred miles of our bodies the very moment that we would realize that every sin of omission or commission has been completely erased from consciousness.

 And this I can say to you, forgive those who wrong you, forgive those who have persecuted you, or your race or your nation. Forgive and ask God’s forgiveness, knowing that whatever has been done has been done through ignorance, and you will fulfill the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our debts as,” in proportion as, “we forgive our debtors.” Stop and think how many times you have put a rope around your own neck in praying that very prayer. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” and then not forgiving them, and finding ourselves not forgiven. Then you will know why that you only become a Child of God when you start releasing everyone on earth from their sins, from their offenses. The moment that you begin that, you, yourself, are released.

 Actually, there is a mystical reason for it, one that is never taught in any of the religions except the mystical religions, and that is this. There is only one Self, God is the Self of every individual because there is only one Life and there is only one Mind, there is only one Soul. Therefore, God is the Self of every individual, and that means that I am you and you are me, for we are One. You are in me and I am in you and we are in God, and therefore, what I do to you, I do unto myself. What I do of good unto you, I have done good unto myself. The bread that I have cast on the water comes back to me. The evil that I do to you, or the good that I leave undone unto you, is the good that never reaches me.  Because I am in you, and you are in me, and we are one in God!

 There is only one Selfhood, and what I do unto another I am doing unto myself. And when I learn to forgive, be assured, I have learned how to be forgiven. When I have learned how to be philanthropic, I have learned how to receive philanthropy, not charity, love. When I have learned to give love, I have learned how to receive love. When I have learned to give abundance, I have learned how to receive abundance. Why? Because I am only giving it unto myself, which you are, and which I am.

 Once you learn that there is only one God, and that God is closer to you than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet, you will know that that’s the God that is closer to me than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. And therefore, there is only one God in you and in me, it is your Self as it is my Self, for we are One in spiritual Sonship. We are One in divine Being.

 Any prayer that is aimed at directing God’s goodness to someone someplace, sometime, is a waste of time. It is a waste of time! God cannot be influenced by man. Just think of the prayers that are uttered by the billions every day in attempt to get God to do something for somebody, as if God were not infinite Intelligence; as if the Master had never taught, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things;” as if the Master had never taught, “It is God’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” Yet we go on telling God, begging, pleading, sacrificing, trying to get God, trying to influence God, trying to move God, instead of learning this.

 We have to yield ourselves to God; not my will be done, Thy Will. We have to let go of what we think is good for us or our neighbor, and trust to the fact that the God that we behold out here in the sun, the moon, the stars, and the times and the tides, and the crops; this God that knows all this surely knows more than we do. And any attempt to teach God, tell God, influence God must be throwing dust in the face of God. Actually it’s an insult. But since God isn’t easily insulted, the insult comes back to us, for it is an insult to our own intelligence to believe that we are so superior to God’s Wisdom and God’s Love that we can tell God, direct Him.

 You see, this isn’t the first time in the history of the world that a civilization stood on the brink. It has happened many times before, and each time before, the civilization was wiped out. Each time before that civilizations have been threatened, civilizations have been wiped out. Not one has ever come to a place in history, such as we are in today, and been saved. Everyone has gone down to utter destruction. Out of each one there has come a remnant. And that remnant has been the start of a new civilization, and in each time an improved one but up to a certain point, and then destruction.

 Now we all read the newspapers, or perhaps listen to the news on the television or the radio, and I wouldn’t be surprised that some of us even believe that if we were president or king or emperor, that we’d know more what to do than our present ones are doing. Probably we could give them some advice as to how these human problems could be met. But if there is any man or woman here willing to face themselves honestly, they would have to admit that right now they wouldn’t like to be the president of any country, or the prime minister of any country. It would be a bad spot to be in.

 And I wonder if there is anyone in this room who really believes that there is a human solution to the problems that face the world today. I wonder if there is a thinker in this room who believes that there is any human solution to any of the major problems that are facing civilization today. It would certainly be a husky individual who could claim to know how the situation is going to come out in South Africa; well, you know, not only in South Africa, United States, Russia.

 It looks very much as if an infinite, an infinite power had hit up against an irresistible barrier.  It looks almost as if we were at that point where we are stalemated. And if there is anyone in our political world who even believes that he has a solution, you know, he’s keeping it secret. There hasn’t been one advance on any of the major points that are threatening this world. And the reason is clear, there isn’t a human solution, there just isn’t!  It is an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

 But there is a spiritual solution, and there always has been. There has been a spiritual solution to mankind’s troubles ever since the world began. And the question is, will mankind now avail themselves of that spiritual influence and receive a spiritual solution?

 It is easy enough to say, “Oh, we’d like to, show us how.” But it isn’t that simple because while I would dare say what I have said here tonight to you, be assured, it is only because you came here of your own free will and accord. You weren’t advertised for, you presumably knew something about what you would hear before you got here. I would no more go out into the public places of the world and say that there will be no solution until we change our concept of God and prayer, because believe it or not, the world is not yet ready to give up its paganistic ideas of God or of prayer.

 The only time and the only place where you find those really seeking God and the things of God are when you do find the small groups who have gathered together in many places throughout the globe, drawn together by a Spirit; not by advertising, not by somebody’s popularity, but drawn together by the Spirit.  And they seem ready to hear that we will have to go within and learn more about God, learn more about prayer, and begin to prove in our individual lives that there is a God influence available to all of those who are willing to impersonalize God and prayer. And to begin to understand the nature of a God that can’t be sought for loaves and fishes, a God that need not be prayed to for what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, but a God who must be understood as Infinite, Divine, Universal Love, Life, Being. And then relaxing in that confidence and assurance, and watching God’s Grace as it picks us up when we are no longer praying only for our friends but are praying in a universal manner.

 Throughout all ages there have been individuals who have sought and found the Kingdom of God. Every one of them has revealed that the Kingdom of God is within you. It is not to be found in holy mountains. It is not to be found in holy temples. It is not to be found in holy teachers or holy books. For the Kingdom of God is neither lo, here, nor lo, there! The Kingdom of God is within you. The very moment you acknowledge this, you must acknowledge that this is a universal Truth. It cannot be the truth about you alone, for God cannot be a respecter of persons. For God to be God, God must be closer to you than breathing, closer to me than breathing.

 Then, when we have acknowledged this…..when we have acknowledged within our own being this universal nature of God and when we have begun to pray praise and gratitude…..not for what God is doing for me or for you, or for your nation or my nation, but for what God has done in this world, and what has, God has, placed here for our benefit, that we, through the Spirit of love that we entertain for each other, may find available for us. And be assured of this, it becomes available to us in no other way than through love.

 And that is why the Master threw out nine of the Ten Commandments and saved out only one of them, and added another one. When we love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and when we love our neighbor as ourself, this love becomes our salvation, physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, in every phase of our existence.

 And so it all comes down to these words, “Ye shall know the truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” Don’t go looking to God to do something, it is “ye” that must know the Truth, and then the Truth makes us free!

 *****

 

1960 TORONTO PRIVATE CLASS

ADVANCING ON THE PATH – Tape 335-2

 By Joel Goldsmith

           Good evening. There is a Principle in that meditation which is one of the foundation stones in our entire way of living. When we are consciously One with God, we are One with all of the good that can ever be needed or experienced in our lives. In other words, the only way, except by human will or human force, except the only way to actually experience a life of good in all departments is to make contact with our Source. You can understand that, of course, in the human life as you, for instance, look at these electric fixtures and realize that there is no way for each individual light to be lighted unless it has made its contact with the electricity. Once it has made its contact with the electricity, the light can be, but without that there would be no light. Even if there were a lamp, even if there were a bulb, even if there were wires, there would be no light without that contact.

          And so it is that our supply, our employment, our business, our profession, our skills, our families, our home, they all exist but we have no way of demonstrating them, of bringing them into our conscious experience, except through making our first contact with God. And then, they come into our experience of their own accord, without might and without power, without blood or sweat or tears, without labor.  All good naturally flows into our lives just as the light flows into those bulbs without any effort, without the use of might or power, just the natural flow through the contact.

          So in this question, “Does an individual have to be crucified in seeking employment,” of course not, of course not.  In the human scale, anything may happen, but the human life is one that is lived separate and apart from God, therefore, it has no help from God.  Now the only way that an individual has help from God, and be assured that praying won’t bring it to him, the only that one can have help from God is to make actual contact with God.  Now, the Kingdom of God is within you. It is neither lo, here, nor lo, there, it is within you.  So you don’t have to go to holy mountains, you don’t have to go to holy temples, you don’t have to find holy men or women, or holy books, because the Kingdom of God is not external to you, it is within you. And therefore, the contact must be made within you. And if you make your contact within, and this you do through your meditation, if you make that contact with, you will find that your good begins to flow to you, not by effort, not by labor, but really as a gift of God; or as it is said in Scripture, “By Grace”.

       Now that brings us to this question. “The Infinite Way® study says that we are not to ask for anything of God, and yet in Matthew it says, “Ask, and it shall be given you”. Well both statements are correct, ask and not ask. As you will find, all Scripture is written in both the “yes” form and the “no” form.  Scripture always says that a thing is right and it also says that it is wrong. That is the way Scripture is written, all spiritual writings are written that way in order to reach every level of consciousness. Now, when the Bible says, “Ask, and ye shall receive”, who do you think you are asking? What do you think God is, or do you think that is unimportant? How can you ask anything of a God whose nature you do not know?

          Now, once you begin the study of Scripture, you will learn this important thing, God is Spirit. And you will find that this is so conclusive, from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation, that God is Spirit and God is infinite, that you will soon learn that there is nothing that you can ask God for except Spirit.  So it is, that when you ask, if you must ask, when you ask God, ask God for that which God can give, and that is Spirit, Himself. And beyond Himself, God has nothing to give for God is infinite.  And as a matter of fact, God hasn’t it to give, God is forever expressing.  And the function is upon us to receive that which God is already giving.

          Now, of course, the difficulty that comes in is that this world has been incorrectly taught for so many dozens of centuries that the world does not know that you and I cannot receive anything because all that the Father hath has already been given to us. “Son, thou art ever with Me and all that I have is thine.” Now what more are you going to receive? What more is there for you to receive? Have you accepted all that has been given you? Have you acknowledged that all that the Father hath is already yours?  Have you acknowledged that as a Child of God, “I am already heir to all the heavenly riches,” now what in heavens name would you ask for?  You already have that all that God has, is there anything left to ask for? Or is it not that we have not known and have not availed ourselves of all that the Father hath already given to us. And it is for this reason that you have been told that you must open out a way for the imprisoned Splendor to escape.

          You must open a way, you can never receive.  You are already filled up with infinity. You are already filled up with all that the Father hath. But whatever lack is in your life represents something you are holding onto and will not give up.  What is it that you are holding on to? Is it forgiveness that you haven’t yet given four hundred and ninety times? Is it praying for the enemy that you have not yet given up, or given out? Is it service?  Is it love?  Is it a confidence in God’s Presence? Is it a sharing? What is it? Be assured of this, lack always represent something we are clinging to, and we are not making room for any new flow. We are trying to keep our bottles filled with the old wine instead of giving it away or spilling it out and making room for the new.

          It is exactly like your rose bushes, if you don’t take some roses off of it, you can’t expect others to grow. You have to make room, you have to take the fruit off of the fruit tree before another crop can come around to it. You have to open out your clothes closet and see what is hidden back there, unused, unneeded, and yet hoarded. You have to look within yourself.

          Let us go back to Scripture again, the case of the poor widow. Now I suppose, humanly, we all ought to pity that poor widow. She is so poor that she is about to sell her son in slavery so as to get money to pay her debts; a very pitiful picture. But the Hebrew master doesn’t believe her one bit, and he doesn’t sympathize with her, but he says to her, “What have you in the house?” And if we did that to one of our students today they’d go out and say how cruel we are, we were going to take away from them their last drop of food. But that master with vision said, “What have you in the house?” And her answer was, “A few drops of oil, a little meal.” “Well, fIx’em up and get them ready for me.”

          And as she began to pour, she found it just didn’t end, it kept right on pouring. And the Master used this same Principle when there was a multitude to be fed, and seemingly, nothing to feed them with. And He said to the Disciple, “What have we?” That’s a very foolish question, you know, “What have we,” when He knew right well we had nothing. But we had a multitude to feed, and the Disciples answered, “A few loaves and fishes.” “What is a few loaves and fishes among so many,” says that state of ignorance. But the Master says, “Break, share, give,” and they were all fed, and twelve baskets full left over. And it has been our experience in this spiritual life, that it is only as we give, that the pouring can take place.

          I had an experience with a man in Boston when I was a Christian Science practitioner, many, many years ago. And this man had been all over the town to be healed of something or other, and no one had been able to heal him. And he finally heard of me and came to me.  And he told me a story and he told me of all the practitioners and teachers who had tried to heal him and they’d all failed. And then he went on to explain to me what a very good Christian Scientist he was. He never missed a service and he ushered and he did literature distribution work. And he was at every single meeting of the church, and oh, he did the lesson every day. And with all his goodness, he couldn’t be healed.

          And then this divine inspiration was given to me. And I said to him, “Why do you go to church so regularly. What do you do there?”

          “Oh, I go there to hear Truth, to learn more.”

           “You do? You mean after all the years you’ve studied these books you don’t know what’s in them? Is there still something that you’re going to learn? You only have these two books, the “Bible” and “Science and Health”. And you’ve been reading them and doing the lessons for all these years, and you still believe there is more for you to go over there and learn?”

          “Well, yes, I thought so.”

           “Well, when, when in your life do you start giving out what you have already learned?” Well, that was an idea that had never come into his mind, that there was going to be a time when he’d have to give out what he had taken in.

           And I said, “Now let’s change this program, and from now on don’t go to church to get and don’t go to church to receive, but go over there knowing that since you have been reading the books all of these years, you have something to give. You have some spiritualized consciousness to give. You have some knowledge of Truth to give. You have a treatment to give for all those who may be new or beginners, who do not yet know what Truth is. Go over there and pray for them. Pray that God open their eyes, pray that they behold the vision of the Christ. Pray, pray. Give, give, give. You’ve been taking in all of these years, unbottle it, give it out.” And just in one week, that man was healed. And he didn’t get any treatments. There weren’t treatments needed. The treatments he needed was the self treatment of giving, giving, open out, give.

          And so it is whether we are holding back money in the thought that we have too little, or whether we are holding back service or devotion, or whether we are holding back gratitude or forgiveness, be assured of this, we are holding back if we are lacking. Because there is no such thing in the heavenly Kingdom as “getting”. You are already the Child of God, and if a child, then an heir, and if an heir, you are heir to all the heavenly riches; and, “Son, thou art ever with Me, and all that I have is thine.”

          And another thing, have you accepted the teaching of the Master that I have meat the world knows not of, or are you still looking outside for more to be added unto you? Now until you begin understand that every word that the Master spoke was a lesson to us, you never will understand the New Testament. Until you understand that the Master’s only purpose in teaching was to reveal to us the Truth of Being, which we should know; “Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free;” and He was teaching us the Truth that we should know. What is the Truth? “I have meat….,” now what advantage would there have been if He’d have said, “I have meat the world knows not of, but you haven’t.” What good would He have been as a Way-show-er if He wasn’t showing us our Way? And so it is, you have to read the Master’s teaching as if you were a student of His and He was your teacher. And He is saying to you, “I have meat the world knows not of,” meaning you have meat the world knows not of, or, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

          Now just imagine, if it were possible for you to walk around this city, holding the hand of Jesus Christ, would you still be looking for something else beside that? Would you be expecting still more good than that? Or would you not feel….oh, no, that’s as much as I can handle in one lifetime, to walk around these streets holding on to the hand of Jesus Christ walking beside me. Will you have something more important than that? You have the Christ, which was in Him. The same mind that was in Christ Jesus is in you. And It is saying to you, “I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will be with you unto the end of the world. I am your meat and wine and water.  I am Life eternal, your Life eternal.  I am the resurrection.”  

          And so it is, when you learn to turn within and realize, “Just think, that I that Jesus spoke of is within me. And that I has meat the world knows not of, in fact, that I is the meat and the wine and the water, and the resurrection and the Life eternal. I, in the midst of me, is all of That. And here I am walking the street with the fullness of the Christ within me, and claiming a lack without.

          No, the reason for lack is the belief that supply must come to us from without, instead of understanding that supply must flow out from us, from within our own being. We start out every morning with the infinite Storehouse of God, pouring Itself out into expression. And all we have to do throughout the day is be sure that we give out enough, and take no thought about what shall come in. Our entire thought must be how much giving out can there be. And even though we can only give out pennies or nickels or dimes, at least let us give that and do it joyously. And then look around for the other things, the forgiveness that we must give out, the praying for others that we must do, the loving of our neighbors as we would love ourselves. And remember that all of this is giving, all of this is supply, all of this is Something you have in your house and It must flow out from you. “House” means consciousness. What have you in your consciousness; a little more love, a little more gratitude, a little more service, a little more joy. And you see that’s one of the reasons asking God for anything, after God has already given us His own infinite Being; “Son, all that I have is thine;” is a waste of time.

          “We arrive at the place where one’s desire is only the Presence of God realized. ‘Ask and it shall be given you’ is now bothersome, except that the asking need be for the holy Spirit which would interpret Itself as the thing needed, is this correct?” You see it is correct, indeed, it is, as long as we are desiring only the realization of God, the Kingdom of God, as long as we are desiring only an inner communion with God, as long as we are desiring only to tabernacle with God, to walk with God, to serve God. That is the only asking that is necessary. And then the Spirit, in Its own way, fulfills us, and always in accord with our immediate need.

           “In the practice of healing is it wrong to make one’s mind a blank in order to eliminate error from consciousness?” I have heard it is dangerous.

    As a matter of fact, it’s not dangerous, it’s impossible. There isn’t anyone that can make one’s mind a blank. It has been tried by experts. It has been tried by people for centuries. No one yet has accomplished it. Now, the mind automatically becomes still, and without thought; you can’t do that but it can be brought about by you; and that is in the way that I gave at our first Class session, through contemplative meditation.

          As you go through the processes of contemplative meditation, keeping your mind stayed on God, thinking of God and God’s Grace, and God’s Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience, gradually you come to the end of thinking. And then for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty seconds, you find yourself completely without a thought. You haven’t blanked your mind. You mind has come to the end of its thinking process for a moment, and enables you to rest in a complete silence from thought. It doesn’t last long, sometimes one second, two seconds, ten seconds, and then you are back. But, those few seconds were really enough to bring healing of any nature.

          Would you elucidate the following verse. “Among those that are born of woman, there is not a prophet greater than John the Baptist; but he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.”

         Yes indeed this is one of the cornerstones of The Infinite Way®, and I spoke to you about that also at the opening session of this Class. Do you remember that I said that if you obeyed the Ten Commandments fully and completely and perfectly, you would still be a million miles away from heaven. In fact, you wouldn’t be a bit spiritual, not by virtue of obeying the Ten Commandments. You might be spiritual in spite of it, but you would never be because of it. In other words, no matter how (good) a human being you are, that does not count one single bit in the Kingdom of heaven, and it doesn’t get you into heaven. All of the teachings that claim that good people go to heaven are pure deception. It is not goodness that gets one into heaven, it is spiritual illumination. And spiritual illumination can come to a sinner sometimes more easily than the self-righteous saint. It’s strange and it’s hard, but it’s true.

          Now, John the Baptist, born of woman, meaning human being, was the greatest prophet according to Jesus, in that he was a good man, a perfect man, and he obeyed the laws fully. He lived strictly by the law, the letter of the law. And there are loads of people who do that. But he that is least spiritual is greater than John the Baptist. And so it is that a person who has attained even a grain of spirituality is so far greater in the Kingdom of Heaven than even the best human being on earth, that there isn’t even a little space between them. There is a big space between them. This idea of being a good human being and getting into Heaven by it, just is a wrong idea. But how do we attain that least degree of spirituality that makes us greater even than all of the good people in the world?

          And the idea is revealed by the Master, Christ Jesus. Not whether you spend all day Saturday, or Sabbath day in church, not whether you go to holy mountains or holy temples to worship, not whether you abstain from meat on Friday, not whether you abstain from bread in the Passover season, not whether you sacrifice, not whether you give tithes, none of those things count in the spiritual scale. What counts in the spiritual scale is do you love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself? Ah, there’s the rub. Actually accepting God as infinite and as all power, and not acknowledging that even Pilate can do anything to us; the highest temporal law. Not acknowledging that weather or climate can do anything to us, not acknowledging that there are powers out in the world than can do anything, but living continuously in the realization, “God, and God alone, is the Power onto my experience,” and then, “Loving my neighbor as myself.” How do I love my neighbor as myself? He tells us, “Pray for your enemies …. forgive them that despitefully use you” and all the rest of those passages that ordinarily are ignored.

          The Kingdom of God has no relationship to human conduct, except that attaining the Kingdom of God, our human conduct becomes what it should be, not by virtue of our righteousness but by virtue of our new identity. How shall we put that? When one has been touched by the Spirit to the extent of real….well, let’s take this. Supposing now that I should accept this revelation that has been given to us that I have meat the world knows not of, or that I, the Christ within me, is my bread, my wine, my water, my supply. Supposing I accept the scriptural teaching that God is my Fortress, God is my High Tower, God is my abiding place. And all of this is embodied within me. And through the activity of the Christ, all of this is mine.

          Now in the moment that I accept that, is there anything that you have got that I would want, or that I would need, or that I would desire? No, because I already have all that God has, and I have within me the activity of the Christ to bring into visible manifestation all that I need. And in that realization, I have lost the capacity to steal, I’ve lost the capacity to cheat, I’ve lost the capacity to falsely advertise, I’ve lost the capacity to falsify, I’ve lost the capacity because there is no need, they’re dead, there is no reason behind them, no function. All that God is, I am. All that the Father hath is mine. And therefore, do you see how that would make my conduct perfect? Not because I am good but because now with the activity of the Christ, I am fulfilled. I have all that I can ever have. And anything I need tomorrow or next week or next year, the activity of the Christ is right now developing for me.

          Just like right now the fruit is forming within your trees, the flowers are forming within your bushes, even if they are not yet visible, you know that there is a spiritual activity forming them. And so, you don’t have be jealous of your neighbor’s garden or his fruit trees, and you don’t have to be avaricious, and you don’t have to think of staying up late at night and going out and stealing them. Why? Because you look at your own garden and your own fruit trees and you say, “I have all my neighbor has, in fact I have all God has.” And so you have no capacity to do anything other than wait for your own trees to blossom and bear fruit, and your own bushes to give forth flowers and enjoy them.

          And so it is, once you know that there is an invisible Christ within you, an invisible Presence of God, and that at this very moment It is out here preparing mansions for you, It is out here making the crooked places straight. It is out here drawing unto me my own, whether they have to come to me from Africa or Australia, from Europe, from the United States or Canada. Somewhere out in this world, the activity of the Christ is, right now, drawing unto me those who will be in my classes in London and in Holland and in Switzerland, and back in New York, and then out in Japan, and Australia, right now the Christ is doing all that. And when I get there, they will be sitting in chairs out here. And I may not know them, just as I may not know you, until this visit. And yet, here you are. And I humanly didn’t do it, but the Spirit of the Christ has been working in this city and in you to bring us together. Do you not see that?

          So it is, whether your need is for something physical, financial, mental, whether it is for instruction, whether it is for food, or clothing, or housing or raiment, you do not have to take thought for that. I, in the midst of you, the very Christ of your being, I am functioning, and I will never leave you nor forsake you. And I am out there preparing mansions for you. And I am making the crooked places straight for you. And I am seeing your own come to you. Do you not see then that that changes your whole life, and makes you the kind of human you should be, not because of your goodness but because of Its functioning, Christ functioning within you.

          The more you rely on the activity of the Christ within you; “I can do all things through Christ, He performeth that which is given me to do, He perfecteth that which concerneth me, He that is within me is greater than he that is in the world;” and as you live with those passages and learn to rely upon them from morning to night and from night to morning, your vision is drawn back from out here. And then you’ll find that your human conduct is right in line with spiritual conduct, which is Love.

          The following Bible quotations are very confusing. “Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin.” Then in the end, “I say onto you, resist not evil.” See how these contradictions come in Scripture? And of course the reason is that these illumined are speaking from different states of consciousness to different states of consciousness, and very often, these Bible passages were incorrectly translated. You do not know how many of these Bible translations are incorrect, and they are now being found totally erroneous. Why? Because the old Hebrew manuscripts were in an ancient Hebrew that went out of existence before the days of Jesus. During the days of Jesus there was a different Hebrew than the original Old Testament, the Aramaic.

          So you have two different languages for one thing. Then you have another thing, in the ancient Hebrew there were no word endings, there was no punctuation and no paragraphing, and there were no vowels. Now you just try to visualize a page of print without vowels and no punctuation and no sentence endings, and you are to make up your own sentences. You are to make up your own words and put vowels in where you think they belong, and see how many interpretations you would get. And that’s what happened. Then after all of this, these manuscripts had to be translated into Aramaic, from Aramaic into Greek, from Greek into Latin, and Latin into English. By that time you can imagine what they looked like. And one of these days when you get the translations of some of the originals, you’ll find just exactly how different they are. But in addition to that are the different states and stages of consciousness.

          Now then, if you were listening to Peter at one time, to James, you would have heard them preaching that unless you are circumcised you cannot enter the Kingdom of God and you cannot be a follower of the Christ. And a few years later, if you were listening to Paul, you would hear him say, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth you anything.” If you were listening to Peter at one stage of his missionary work, after the Crucifixion, you would have him preaching, “You cannot be a Christian and you cannot follow the Master if you eat the meat of a pig.” And then later after he has this great experience, all of a sudden, “Ah, no, even the meat of a pig is all right.” And so you see that it all depends on when these things are said, to whom they are said, why they are said, and so forth.

          But this you can accept, when the Master is speaking, He is speaking from the standpoint of the spiritual. And from that standpoint, you do not resist evil because you have come to the realization that evil is not a power. A simple illustration is this: If any of us were to go downstairs and walk through the bar room or cocktail lounge, we would not have a single twinge of desire, we would not have a single thought about reaching out. Why? Because alcohol is not a temptation to us, therefore, we don’t have to resist it, it just has no power. Why do we have to resist something that has no power? We would walk right through that bar room without ever turning around and saying, “Now, God, help me to get through, and, God, keep that devil away from me.” Why? It is not a devil to us.

          But now think of the alcoholic or the near alcoholic and try to get him through that room safely, and I’m sure he would have to call on God to help him resist the wiles of the devil. Why, there isn’t any devil there and there aren’t any wiles there. It all exists in his misperception, it’s all in his mind, it’s not outside on the shelves. Because you and I know there is no devil on those shelves, there’s no evil on those shelves, there’s no temptation, therefore, we don’t have to resist.

          Well now, a spiritual healer is an individual whose consciousness has been spiritualized to the degree where disease is not a power, therefore, it does not have to be resisted or overcome. It is a state of nothingness. It is state of illusion. It is a misperception. It is an ignorance really of God’s Omnipotence. The moment a person has the vision of God’s Omnipotence, what power can weather have, or climate, or germs, or infection, or burns, or breaks. They can’t have power. God alone is Power, and therefore, disease is not a temptation to the state of consciousness that has been touched by the Christ. Therefore, it does not have to resist evil.

          Ah, yes, the Master, when he is confronted with the devil who offers Him three temptations, you don’t find Him resisting it, you don’t find Him running away or turning His back, He just very calmly says, “Get thee behind Me.” In other words, “I am not interested, I’m just not buying today.” So in the same way, the higher you go in spiritual consciousness, the more you can see that what the world calls “evil” isn’t an evil at all, it’s just a non-evil appearance. It is just a discordance appearance. It is an ignorance of the Truth that God is Omnipotence.

          And so it is, your practitioner doesn’t have to resist evil, he has to know the Truth that what is appearing as evil is neither good nor evil, it’s an illusion, it’s a false sense, it’s an ignorance of God. So it is that you can go step by step and think of anything you like that might be at this moment a temptation to you, and just remember this, that because it is doesn’t say that it is evil. Because that same thing could be presented to a million other people and it would be no temptation to them and it would be no evil to them, and they would see right through it.

          And so it is that the evil lies in our erroneous concept of what we are beholding. That’s where the evil is, the evil lies in our ignorance of what we are beholding. And when you are spiritually illumined, you know that God is infinite. I mean, you don’t know it because it says so in the Bible. You don’t even believe it because it says so in your favorite metaphysical book. You know it because there has been an experience within you that revealed it to you. “I am the only Power. Beside Me, the I within me, there is no other power.”

          Then you come to this state of consciousness which we are revealing in the message of The Infinite Way®, which is a realm of no power. You don’t use a power to overcome any devils, you don’t use any God Power to overcome sin and disease, you relax and rest in the assurance that these aren’t power, since God didn’t ordain them. Now there’s a point, too. Have you ever stopped actually to do a little meditating on that, as to whether or not God gave disease to the world or God gave death to the world? All you’d have to do is follow the Master for three years through the Gospels. And you would find out that He says, “My doctrine is not mine but His that sent me. If I speak of myself, I bear witness to a lie. My whole mission is the God mission.” Now if you can believe that, then the next step is this. Jesus healed all of the sick that He came in contact with. And if He was doing what God ordained for Him to do, God could not have caused disease, because the Master’s mission was to heal it.

          God wouldn’t have sent anybody to destroy God’s work. Therefore, disease cannot be of God. Now if disease isn’t of God, death can’t be. Because it’s only disease that leads up to death, disease in some form even if it’s disease called “accident”, it’s always disease, even if it is old age, it is a form of disease. And if God ordained death, what becomes of I am life eternal? “I am eternal life,” how can anybody be eternal life if God ordained death? That would mean that God’s Will was being thwarted. Therefore, once you know that disease is not ordained of God, not created by God, and that there is no Law of God to sustain it, how can you fear it anymore, how can you worry about overcoming it? Does it not become natural to rest back in and say, “If God didn’t make you, you weren’t made. If God didn’t give you a Law to sustain you, you can’t last.” And drop it, drop it in that realization.

          That which God made is forever that is why there is a mistake in the marriage ceremony, a mistake that should never have been permitted to remain there. It says, “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” and that means that man is more powerful than God. If he can put asunder what God hath joined together, isn’t that ridiculous. Now it should have been, “What God hath joined together, no man can put asunder.” How can any man have more power than God? That doesn’t mean that all marriages were made by God by any manner or means. But whatever is, whatever marriage has been made by God, there’s no man, no circumstance, no condition, not even death itself, could put it asunder.

          Now when you understand that then you do declare, “What God hath joined together, nothing can break, and God hath joined me to my Life. I and my Life are One.  I and my Life are indestructible and indivisible. And God joined me to my Life. I and my Father are One. I and spiritual Life are One. I am the Son of God, and this is a God ordained relationship. I didn’t make God my Father, God made me His Son. And what God hath made is a forever relationship. We can never be disinherited by God, we can never be disowned by God, and none of us are illegitimate children of God, He didn’t have any. All that God made Is, and what God hath joined no man can put asunder, and I and my Father are One, is an indestructible, indivisible relationship.

          And so we come to this very important part of The Infinite Way® Principle. Now this is the part that all students find difficult to work with, and therefore, it takes time before you can really assimilate it. Error, evil of any nature, is not personal. There is no such thing as you being responsible for your ills. There is no such thing as any wrong thinking in you being responsible for your troubles. There is no such thing as any sin of yours being responsible for your troubles. And the reason is that whatever form of error or evil or sin or disease that is in you, had its origin, not in you, but in an impersonal source.

          Now once you remember that all evil is impersonal, it is not in you or of you or through you. You may be at this moment manifesting it by acceptance, but it does not have its origin in you, and therefore, it is no part of you. It is like putting some dirt in this clean glass of water and then saying, “It’s dirty water.” It isn’t dirty water, it never becomes dirty water. The moment you take the dirt out, you’ll see the water is as clean as ever. It was always dirt in the water, not dirty water. The dirt and the water are always separable and divisible.

          So it is, whatever the evil that we may be manifesting at any moment, is not in us or of us. It may appear to be, but it is imposed from without. And that without-ness is the impersonal source. So that if you were to see a man steal a wallet, don’t call him a thief, but look away and realize immediately that the evil lies in an impersonal source. And you might not be surprised to watch the man put it back again.  Because you can heal him in the twinkling of an eye the very minute you separate the evil from him.

          Now you watch in your family life and with your pets. If instead of saying to your dog or cat, “You’re a bad dog,” or, “a bad cat,” or instead of saying to the child, “You are a bad child,” or, “a naughty child,” if instead of that you realized to yourself this is not of them, this is an impersonal source, they, themselves; the child, the cat, the dog; Child of God, and this evil that is appearing is of this impersonal source. The very moment you do that, you bring out such a love in them for you that you’ll wonder what happened, because you voiced nothing openly. But they felt that you took the burden of guilt right away from them. You took the burden of guilt, because they knew all the time they weren’t bad, the badness was just coming through them; what Paul recognized, “I am not sinful, but I feel a sense of sin in me.” In other words, “I, myself, have gotten past the point where there’s any possibility of sin in me, but then there’s a universal belief that’s so strong that I can have a sinful sense at any moment, and I might have to deal with it.” And the only way I could deal with it is not by calling myself bad, but by recognizing, “Ah, ha, I recognize you, get back there into the worldly sense, you don’t belong in me.”

          Now when your patient or your family come to you with ills, don’t pin it onto them, but immediately separate it from them by realizing, “This is of that impersonal source.” In our work in The Infinite Way®, we say that you can call that impersonal source “devil”, or you can call it the “carnal mind” or “mortal mind”. Call it anything you like as long as you realize, number one, that it is an impersonal source, that it’s never a person. Secondly, that it’s not a power.

          In other words, when the original idea of “devil” was conceived, it was a right idea. It was saying that all evil doesn’t exist in man, but out here in an impersonal source, to which they gave the name “devil”. But later on through ignorance, people began to fight the devil as if it were an enemy instead of recognizing it as an impersonal, universal source of evil without power. Then later, the term “carnal mind” was conceived as the impersonal source of evil. But again, ignorance twisted it around until Paul said, “the carnal mind is enmity against God,” and started another whole train of error. Because the carnal mind is not enmity against God, the carnal mind is the impersonal, universal source of evil, and it is the arm of flesh or nothingness.

          Later on, Mrs. Eddy coined another term, “mortal mind”. And she used it as the impersonal source of evil. And in her early healing days, she taught her students, “No matter what the error is, just call it ‘mortal mind’ and forget it.” And they did such wonderful healing works that the movement spread around the world and had three thousand branches and eleven thousand practitioners. But her students lost it again because they took old mortal mind and made a devil out of it, and they began protecting themselves from it and getting up at four o’clock in the morning to get ahead of it. And looking out for it around all comers to see what it was going to jump at, and then blaming the Roman Catholics for it, and the Hebrews, and the Orientals, until everybody was mortal mind, except “me”, and I was too unless I was authorized.

 ******** End Side 2

                                                THE START OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE -  Tape 335-1

           Good afternoon. Because meditation presents difficulties and because meditation is so important, there must be steps leading up to the act of meditation itself, and that we have provided for in the book, “Practicing the Presence”. Now that operates on this basis. When we awaken in the morning, if before even getting out of bed, if we will instantly turn our attention to the fact that this is the day that God hath made, that it, was the activity of God that brought daylight following night, that it is the activity of God that brings the sunshine, that it is the activity of God that maintains and sustains this universe, regardless of what God may be, regardless of what one’s concept of God may be, there is a Law, there is a Being, there is a Cause, there is a Something responsible for the operation of this world. If this were not so, you could never be sure of getting roses from rose bushes or apples from apple trees, blueberries from blueberry bushes, because if there weren’t some intelligent and loving Principle at work, all of these things could be accidental. If it were not for an intelligent and loving Principle at work, we could not navigate. Certainly those who navigate by the stars would never be able to do it because they’d have no assurance that the stars were in their rightful place or that they would be tomorrow night.

          So it is, regardless of the nature of your activity in life, unless you can perceive that there is Something behind this universe, invisible; invisible but nevertheless a Presence and a Power and a Law; and that whatever This is, It is intelligent and loving in Its activity, unless you can perceive that, you have no where to go on the spiritual Path at all. But if you do perceive This, and we call it “God”, others call It by other names, and the name is of no importance, what is important is that we know Him aright—for to know Him aright is life eternal. And if you know Him or It to be this invisible, universal, Law, Life, Source, Intelligence, Love, and if you acknowledge this at the very start of your day, you bring It into expression in your life immediately. Because It only comes into expression in your life through your acknowledgment of It.

          It may be functioning perfectly for me, and yet a thousand may fall at my right hand and ten thousand at my left hand. It may be functioning perfect for you, and yet your neighbor may be in all kinds of dire trouble. Why? It isn’t that God is a respecter of persons, and it isn’t that God cares particularly what your religion is, or even if you don’t have one, the difference is in acknowledgement. “Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and you will have rest. Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.”

And therefore, those who learn to awaken in the morning and acknowledge instantly the government of a divine Intelligence and a divine Wisdom, a divine Love, a divine Activity in their experience, immediately start the day aright. And they start the day with God consciously realized. Now one is free then to get up and make their physical preparations for the day, or whatever other demands are made upon them. But no later than breakfast time, there must be another pause and that is for an acknowledgement that the Grace of God set your table. Oh, it may be that you’re convinced that you had enough money to do that with, but you will soon find on reflection that your money won’t grow crops, it won’t produce ham and eggs. It takes a Law of God to do this. Your money won’t produce the food on your table and your money isn’t digestible.

          Therefore, it isn’t your money that sets your table, it is the Grace of God operating as nature, operating as the cattle on a thousand hills or the crops in the ground. It is God, the Grace of God, the Law of God, the Life of God which sets your table. And so a momentary pause of silence just to acknowledge that it is the Grace of God that has produced this, once more keeps your mind stayed on God and keeps God alive within you.

     As you prepare to leave your home for business or profession, shopping, marketing, the spiritual student stops at the door to realize that this invisible Presence goes before me to make the crooked places straight. This invisible Intelligence and Love goes before me to prepare mansions for me, this Presence, which is divine Love, is the cement in my relationship with all those whom I am about to meet. But for the Grace of God going before me, I do not know who I would meet or what their attitude toward me would be. But sending Love before me; or, not really sending It, It fills all space; but recognizing that the Presence of Love has gone before me, carrying the message of Love, enables me to meet men and women in all parts of the world, at all levels of consciousness, in all walks of life, and find that I can get along harmoniously with them and they with me.

          Then comes this matter of our business, our task, our profession. Do we really believe that we alone are capable of meeting all of the situations in life? The ancient masters thought otherwise; “He performeth that which is given me to do. He perfecteth that which concerneth me;” always this acknowledgement that there is Something; “He that is within me is greater than he that is in the world; I and my Father are one, but He is greater than I.” All of these acknowledgements enable us to receive God’s help, God’s Grace, in every activity of our experience. It makes no difference what we are called upon to do, or even if we do not have the ability to do it, it still will be done by our recognition of an inner Grace. Not a God of far off, remember, not a God who doesn’t know your need, always remember that the Kingdom of God is within you, that He is closer to you than breathing, nearer than hands and feet, that we are always talking of what the Master called, “The Father with me,” or what Paul called, “The Christ that dwelleth in me.”

          And so our recognition of this, that I am never separate from God and God is never separate from me, this infinite Wisdom of the universe, this divine Love, is ever with me. And therefore, It knoweth my need before I do, it is His good pleasure to give me the Kingdom, to perform that which is given me to do, to perfect that which concerneth me, I need only constantly and consciously remember this. And then I find that having made room for this divine Presence, having consciously accepted Its Government and Its Grace, really does perform for me, through me, with me.

          And so we go through our three or four meals of the day, always acknowledging that but for the Grace of God this food could not be. And so we go through the day in constant praise or thanksgiving that the Presence of God walks beside me and before me and behind me, a constant hymn of praise that there is Something greater than my human intelligence, my human strength, or my human health, Something greater even than education or influence or pull, Something greater than anything and everything of a human nature, even greater than any danger. Remember the Master before Pilate, “Thou couldst have no power over me unless it were given thee of God.” And so it is that we can face sins, temptations, desires, enemies, tasks, with that same realization, “Thou couldst have no power over me, the Grace of God is the power operating, functioning in and through my experience.”

          Now you will find that just a week or two of this kind of a program will bring about a change in your inner nature. You will find yourself attaining periods of inner peace, inner quiet. In other words, this Presence will more and more take over. Then you are in the position to meditate. Because now when you sit down the mind will be freer because God has occupied a greater place in it. But for even a greater reason inner peace will come to you. Within a very short time after this that we call “practicing the Presence”, you will find that you lose the temptation to look to God for anything. You will not be reaching out to God to help you. You will not be reaching out to God to get something for you, do something. You will so live in the conscious realization that God knows your need before you do, that there will be no more future tense for you. There will be no more of what you want God to do tomorrow. There will only be the recognition of what God Is now.

          And so, you will be able to attain the ultimate of prayer and meditation, which is going to God but not for anything, going to God for the joy of communion, going to God for the joy of meditation. In other words, knowing God aright, you know God to be the infinite Intelligence that knows that following this daylight there must come night, following night there must come morning. This Intelligence, that you know now, is appearing in your gardens as leaves and fresh buds and blossoms, and that in another week or two will be berries and fruit and flowers; knowing that you do not have to pray between now and then that this take place because your heavenly Father knoweth what those trees will need a week from now, or two, that knows what we will need in the way of fruits and vegetables and plants and beauty.

          And so gradually you will learn the secret of prayer, and that is never to go to God for anything, only for a continuous recognition and acknowledgement of His Presence, His Intelligence, His Love, His Grace. Then when you sit down, you have nothing to go to God for except communion. “Here I am, Father, Thou art closer to me than breathing. If I mount up to Heaven, Thou art there because You go right with me. If I am making my bed this moment in hell, Thou art with me, for we are inseparable, indivisible, One. Where I am, Thou art. Where Thou art, I am, for we are One. The place whereon I stand is holy ground because God is here where I am. And all that the Father hath is here where I am. ‘Son,’ It says, ‘Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.’ And so, Father, I do not have to come to your Presence for anything. Being a Son of God, I am an heir of God. I do not have to ask for anything. I do not have to take thought for what I shall eat, or what I shall drink, or wherewithal I shall be clothed or housed. I do not have to take thought for what my tasks will be today or tomorrow. I live only in this conscious realization of Thy Presence.”

          This is a form of contemplative meditation; we are contemplating God and the Presence of God, and the Laws of God, the Life of God, the Omnipotence of God, the Omnipresence of God, the Omniscience of God. “Here where I am, God is”. I do not have to seek God in holy mountains, nor holy temples, nor Jerusalem, nor any other city on the globe, for the Kingdom of God is neither lo, here, nor lo there, but the Kingdom of God Is within me. Therefore, Father, I am in Thy Presence here and now, and Thou art within me here and now. And I am in Thee and Thou art in me, for we are One. And it is my joy to acknowledge this and to tabernacle with Thee, to commune with Thee, to feel Thy Presence, to acknowledge Thy Presence, and Thy dominion, and Thy Law in my inner parts. And I acknowledge Thy Law and I acknowledge Thy Life. I acknowledge Thy Presence. I acknowledge also that there are no other powers, that that which the world calls the power of evil isn’t a power, it is a belief in two powers, it is the “arm of flesh”.

          That which the ancients called “devil” or “satan”, the impersonal source of evil, was never more than a tempter, never a power. That which Paul called the “carnal mind” was never a power, it was merely a universal belief in two powers. And it operated under the name of “carnal mind”, but it wasn’t a power, it was a nothingness. And that which modem metaphysics calls “mortal mind”, this is not a power that one protects oneself from. This is not some mysterious evil or source of evil. Mortal mind and carnal mind and devil all mean the same thing, a belief in two powers, a universal and an impersonal belief in two powers. But it is merely the arm of flesh.

          To those who accept two powers, two powers function in their lives, sometimes good and sometimes evil. To those who come out and become separate and acknowledge God as Omnipotence; and thereby, recognize that the carnal mind or mortal mind is not a power or a law or a substance but is merely a universal belief of an impersonal nature, and it really has no person in whom, on whom, or through whom to operate; and as we know that, we become free of the claim of two powers. We become free of the claim that there is a carnal mind that is enmity against God or a mortal mind that is of some danger to mankind. And we recognize that “carnal” or “mortal” mind are merely names, just the same as the Hebrew prophet, Hezekiah, used, “They have only the arm of flesh,” temporal power, nothingness. And when you understand that the carnal mind, mortal mind, is but that arm of flesh, or temporal power or nothingness, because of Omnipotence, then you have started the process of being free from the operation of error in your life.

          And therefore, as you sit in this meditation you are ready for the second step of meditation. Now this contemplative meditation, which begins in “Practicing the Presence”, is continued in the book, “The Art of Meditation”, and it leads to the second step of meditation which is where the contemplative comes to an end. And having contemplated God, having contemplated Truth, you now come to a period of stillness and as if you were saying, “Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.” Now you are so innerly still that you can listen, keep the ear open, be in an attitude of expectancy. And even if it last twenty seconds or thirty seconds, it’s plenty. It’s enough to have opened your consciousness to the Presence, power and activity of God, and now you can get up and go about your work.

          If you persist in this practice, for a long enough time, you will find yourself actually in a silent meditation for two, three, four, five, six minutes without a thought stirring in your mind, without a desire, without a wish for God to do anything, just a stillness. And that will prepare you for still another step which is the actual communion with God. And it is in that communion that you begin to feel an actual Presence with you. You actually have the awareness that there is not just you here, there is Something more than you, and you sit in a very silent communion with It. And very often you feel as if there were a flood of love going from you to the Presence, and then another flood of love coming from It to you. And you will know that you are in communion with the Christ, the very Spirit or Presence of God.

          And you will know this whether you are a Christian or a Jew or an Oriental because the Christ isn’t a man, It is an impersonal Son of God, which is available to those of any religion, or no religion. Because God, as you must know, is not a respecter of any religion. For in the Kingdom of God there are no religions, there are only Children of God. And so it is, you will find that whether you have a Hebrew background, a Christian background, a Vedantist background, a Taoist background, the Christ will still be there, only you may call It “Christ”, or may call It “Tao”, or you may call It “Brahm”, or you may call it “Darshan”, you may call It “Buddha”, but it will make no difference. It is the same Christ or Son of God that existed before Abraham was, and that will exist until the end of the world. And It brings you this assurance. “Before Abraham was, I was with you, and I will be with you unto the end of the world. I will never leave nor forsake you. I am the bread and the wine of your being.” And so you will know that this great Presence, this great Power, has been within each and every one of us, from everlasting to everlasting, awaiting only our recognition to come into experience.

          Now, the human race is cut off from God and cut off from the Christ and that is why its prayers are of no avail. That is why it has been praying for thousands of years for peace on earth and never attained it. And parents have been praying for their children, and children have been praying for their presents, and it has availed nothing. Very little has ever been accomplished with the power of prayer, in the sense of the prayer that is known with the mind. “Oh, God do this,” or, “Oh, God do that.” Very little results have ever been attained. What little result has come usually is through some individual who has risen higher than their teaching and has actually, through their own spirituality, has attained a measure of this God realization.

          All of this time that we have gone through wars and depressions, all of this time that we have gone through infections and contagions, all of this time that we have gone through the tragedies of life, none of these things were necessary. Anyone could have, and many have, avoided all of them. Because once you make contact with the Spirit of God within you, none of these things can come nigh thy dwelling place. A thousand may fall at your left and ten thousand at your right, but it will not come night you. And the Master repeats this in the Fifteenth Chapter of John, “If you will abide in this Word and if you will let God abide in you, you will bear fruit richly. If you do not do these things, you will be as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth.” And that’s what the human race has been, a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth. Generation after generation it has been cut off and it has died through wars, and it has died through disease, and died through accident, and died through alcoholism, and died through drugs. Why? Only because we have forgotten the teaching of the great masters of all religions, throughout all time, “Abide in Me and let Me abide in you.” Consciously live and move and have your being in the Kingdom of God. Consciously acknowledge Me in all thy ways. Consciously call upon Me, not me up here, and not a Jewish me and a Christian me, but the Me that is within your being, the Spirit of God in you. And acknowledge It in all thy ways.

          Acknowledge Him, acknowledge this Presence, acknowledge this Power, live with It, move with It, have It in your being. Acknowledge It that It gives you the intelligence to perform your work. Acknowledge that It gives you the love that enables you to share with your neighbor, to love thy neighbor as thyself. Acknowledge that you, yourself, are not good enough to sit down and pray for your enemies, that only by the Grace of God can you take out fifteen minutes of your time every day to praying for your enemies. And if you don’t, you have no hope whatsoever of becoming a Child of God.

          The Master has made it clear that praying for your friends availeth you nothing. In order to be the Child of God, you must pray for your enemies. You must pray for them who despitefully use you. You must pray for them who persecute you, and then you have to forgive them seventy times seven for their offenses before you can become the Child of God. And if anyone thinks they can become a Child of God just by being born into this world, they have tragedy ahead of them. There is only one way to become a Child of God and that is learn the lesson of spiritual Truth. Learn to abide in God and let God abide in you. Learn to acknowledge Him. Learn to pray the prayer of forgiveness. Learn to pray for the enemy, that their consciousness may be opened to the government of the Christ, that their hearts may be opened to the government of God, that their souls may be purified by His Presence. Then you are really praying.

          The well man doesn’t need a physician and the holy man doesn’t need your prayers. It is the sick and the sinning, they who need us, and don’t forget to some extent we are the sick and the sinning, too, so that we need each other. And we need forgiveness for our offenses of omission and commission. Let no one glory in His perfection for no one on earth is perfect. And if they were humanly perfect, they still would have no entrance into Heaven.

          That was the meaning of the Master’s teaching when He did away with the Ten Commandments. If you obeyed all of the Ten Commandments, you still could not get into Heaven, for you would only have attained human goodness. And He wiped these out and said, “I’ll give you a couple that will get you into Heaven …. Love the Lord thy God with all they heart and with all thy soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself.” Obey these two and you will have entrance into Heaven, you’ll sit at the right hand of God and at the left hand of God and by God’s feet. You will know the whole Kingdom of God if you can live by these two Commandments. And the reason He gave these, He knew that if you love God and if you love your neighbor as yourself, you can’t steal, you can’t lie, you can’t cheat, you can’t defraud. You can’t do any of those things while you are loving your neighbor as yourself because you would not do to another what you would not have another do to you.

          And therefore, only in that love is there salvation. But to refrain from envy, jealousy and malice, to refrain from theft and murder and adultery, and not have love, well, Paul told about that too, didn’t he? If you did all of these things, if you gave away all of your fortune, if you did all of these wonderful human things on earth, but did not have love, you would have nothing. Love is really man’s salvation. But love…..yes, if you say you love God who you’ve not seen and do not love your fellow man whom you have, you are a liar. Now how can we love our neighbor as ourself, and only in one way, forgive him as we would be forgiven.

          How many people do you think there are in the world that put a rope around their own neck and then pull it, just by praying the Lord’s Prayer? Just praying the Lord’s Prayer is enough to send a person into hell. Why? “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”, and then don’t forgive your debtors and see if you haven’t put the price on your own neck. It’s clear. I would