265B - Spiritual Power – Mental Power, Side One Continued

1959 Hawaiian Village Closed Class

Joel S. Goldsmith

I’m going to digress for a moment in order to answer a very important

question.

In my former metaphysical training, we were told not to specifically

treat anyone, unless they asked for it—that it hurried them along too
fast spiritually, like dragging a child by the arm.

Well there were other reasons too, but that would be absolutely the
right procedure, if you were working in the mental realm. In other words,
you have no more right to enter a person’s mental household uninvited,
than you have to enter their home. Each person should be permitted to
maintain the integrity of their own mind, of their own body, of their own
home, of their own supply—without anyone in any-wise intruding,
uninvited.

Now, if a person is ill, and for all you know they are depending upon
materia medica, you have absolutely no right to try to heal them by your
means any more than if you were ill, and were relying on spiritual means,
that you would want somebody to stuff medicine in your mouth or take
advantage of your being unconscious to otherwise medicate you. You
wouldn’t want that, because you have determined on your way of life; and
in some cases, even to the extent that you would rather pass from this
scene, under your own type of help, than to remain here. And I’ve known
many cases like that—under medication or surgery.
Now to give a person a treatment means that you are entering their
mental household, and you are interfering with their mental processes,
probably even disturbing them, and you have no right to do that. And
therefore, if you are working from a mental standpoint of giving
treatments to people, don’t do it unless you are invited to do it, it is not
your right. But as long as you are following the teaching of The Infinite
Way, you will never give anyone a treatment, not only uninvited, but not
even if you’re invited, because we do not give treatments to anyone;
never under any circumstance do we give treatments to anyone, even if
they should ask for it. Why? That is not the procedure of the healing
principle of The Infinite Way. The message of The Infinite Way teaches
this: if I am the practitioner, I must know the truth; if I do not know
the truth I have no right to be a practitioner.

Now, if I know the truth, then it makes no difference where I am or

under what circumstances—the moment I witness a lie, I correct it
within myself. Therefore, if I see a person who is ill, I don’t give them a
treatment—not even my patients; I don’t give them a treatment. When
my attention is called to their illness, I turn within myself for a
realization of the truth.

Now what is the truth? “God constitutes individual being, God is your
being, your soul, your mind and even your body is the temple of God.” I’m
not saying this to you, I’m not giving you a treatment, I am repeating this
to myself; this is the truth that I am knowing, but it isn’t only the truth
about you; it’s a universal truth.

The only reason I’m even reminding myself of it, is that there is an
appearance to the contrary, and I correct that within myself; the same
as if I saw a big sign saying “two times two are five,” I would inwardly
say, “No, it’s four.” I didn’t give a treatment to the five, or to the sign;
I corrected this appearance within myself.

Now, you ask for help or you don’t ask for help; makes no difference to
me if I witness the discord or inharmony, my inner reaction is that God
constitutes individual being; therefore, all being is perfect, spiritual, and
intact, and this appearance that faces me is this carnal mind, which isn’t
mind, and which has no law, no cause, no effect, no avenue of operation,
no channel of expression. And then I’m through.

Actually, at this stage of my work, I don’t go that far, because it isn’t

necessary. I have been doing this for thirty years; so that now when I
behold an appearance of error, to me it is just an evidence of
malpractice, that’s all it is. It’s just a mental imposition, touching my
thought, and I don’t accept it, and that’s the end of it, in the ordinary
case. If there is not a response, and I’m speaking now of those people
who appeal to me for help, if that does not result in the healing, and they
come back again for help, then I may have to sit down, remind myself of
this, get quiet and wait for that click. But I’m not suggesting this to you
as a mode of treatment, because you won’t succeed with it until you’re
at that stage when it’s absolutely apparent to you that the discords that
touch us aren’t really conditions or people, they are just this universal
malpractice.

Your procedure must be—whether or not you are called upon for help—
to remind yourself that God constitutes individual being, and God is
eternal, even as individual being, and immortal and perfect; and then
remember that any phase or facet of discord, any appearance that
touches you is nothing more or less than a picture sent out by this carnal
mind.

And you know what the carnal mind is: it isn’t really a mind; it’s a belief
in two powers. There is no carnal mind anywhere around the individual
who does not have two powers. So that all there is to the evils of this
world is the belief in two powers. That’s what sent Adam and Eve out of
Eden—accepting the powers of good and of evil, and there aren’t such
things; there is only good.

Now, because of this human existence, we’re eternally being faced with
sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, wars, and man’s inhumanity to man!
But actually, these are not evil conditions; these are the mental
impositions that strike your thought. And that’s why, if you battle them
or fight them, you lose; that is why, if you struggle with our treatments,
you can’t win your case.

Our treatments are based on: Resist not evil, Thou couldest have no
power over me unless it came from the Father, Put up thy sword, and we
do not fight error; nor do we use truth to overcome error; nor do we use
God to heal disease. Our entire recognition is that so far as God is
concerned, His universe is perfect, eternal, and harmonious; and what we
are being confronted with is that we’re seeing this perfect universe
through a glass darkly instead of face-to-face.

Therefore, we’re not dealing with powers to be overcome; we are dealing

only with a negative appearance that has to be recognized as such, and
nothingized in that way.
That is why I have said to you, “I can only teach this to you after you
have a sufficient background of the writings as to be able to accept it.”
To the human mind uninstructed in our message, this that I am saying is
absolute nonsense, and no one knows it better than I do.

I can well remember my very first experience, when we had just received
a cable from England that my father was dying; he had been seventy-
seven days in a hospital, had surgery, and finally the cable came, “Send
for the body.” It was in the First World War, and I immediately
arranged for my mother to go over and get his body, because that was
the nature of the cable. That evening I had an appointment with a girl
for dinner, and called for her at her home, and her father was visiting
there, and I was introduced to him. While sitting there for a few
moments I mentioned that I had put my mother on the steamer that
afternoon to go to Europe to bring back my father’s body.

And this man said, “Is your father dead?”

Why I said, “No, but he must be dying or he may be dead by now.” I told
him what the cable was. “Oh” he said “No you’re a young man, and your
father must be a very young man, he doesn’t have to die.”
That was strange language to me. “He doesn’t have to die? The doctors
say so; he’s been seventy-seven days in a hospital.”
“Well have you never heard of prayer, and prayer healing?”
“No, the only prayer I know is ‘Now I lay me down to sleep...’”
So, he looked at me and that was a very strange thing, then I said “Oh,
do you mean Christian Science?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, mind over matter, I’ve read about that in the paper. Well you don’t
really think that would help anybody do you?”
He said “Well I’m a Christian Science practitioner, I do believe it.”
Well now, you know how that must have struck me, out of the blue! But
I said, “Well if you can help him of course it’d be a marvelous thing if he
could come home.”

When my mother landed in England, my father was up and dressed and

ready to come home. And for twenty-five years my father never knew a
day of illness... never, never. And if he had a cold or one of these slight
things, he could just pick up the book and read a few pages and he was
healed.

So I know, of course he didn’t try to explain the principle to me, or

probably I wouldn’t have even asked him to help my father. I thought he
really was just going to pray to God, and if he was holy enough maybe
God would answer him.

And so I know how foolish this must all sound to a person who hasn’t a
background of Infinite Way writings. Not even those who have New
Thought or Christian Science can completely understand what I say
unless they have a background of The Infinite Way; because this
principle is not mind over matter, nor is it the power of God to heal
disease; nor is it the power of truth over error; it is none of those things.
This is a direct revelation that was somehow unfolded within me that,
“Ye need not fight... there is no power in this devil, this impersonal
source of discord.” It is the fighting of it that perpetuates it!

It was the revelation given me, just as the nature of God has been given
me in revelation, in a different way than you will ever find it in any
writings on earth: a God that you do not have to pray to; and a God who
wouldn’t answer your prayers if you did pray; a God who is always being
God, and doesn’t have to be reminded of it by man; a God who is the
infinite intelligence of this universe, and who man cannot instruct, nor
can man influence. And therefore, this whole teaching is not a turning to
God—that God should do something; it is a turning to God to be in God
consciousness where nothing needs to be done. That is where this
message differs from any of the religious approaches on the face of the
earth.

Now, if you ask me “Do we pray?”…of course my books are full of it.
Prayer is our major mode of life; prayer is something that I am
personally doing almost all of my waking hours and many of my sleeping
hours, because I know how to live inside of me, and maintain a contact of
prayer, but, a prayer that is known only, or mode of prayer known only
to the mystics. I will show you my idea of prayer, as expressed by Dr.
Alexis Carrel, in his book Man the Unknown:

“Prayer should be understood, not as a mere mechanical recitation of

formulas, but as a mystical elevation, an absorption of consciousness in
the contemplation of a principle, both permeating and transcending our
world. Such a psychological state is not intellectual! It is
incomprehensible to philosophers and scientists, and inaccessible to
them. But the simple seem to feel God, as easily as the heat of the sun
or the kindness of a friend. The prayer which is followed by organic
effects is of a special nature—first, it is entirely disinterested.”
See what I said before, about you can’t use prayer or God for selfish,
personal, or destructive thing?

“Man offers himself to God, he stands before Him, like the canvas
before the painter or the marble before the sculptor. At the same time
he asks for His grace, exposes his needs, and those of his brothers in
suffering. Generally the patient who is cured is not praying for himself,
but for another. Such a type of prayer demands complete renunciation,
that is—a higher form of asceticism. The modest, the ignorant, and the
poor are more capable of this self-denial than the rich and the
intellectual. When it possesses such characteristics, prayer may set in
motion a strange phenomenon—the miracle.” That is Dr. Carrel.

Now, let me read you from the diary of Sanford Dole, the former
pineapple king of Hawaii, whom few realized was inwardly a deeply
spiritual man. He is writing on the subject of prayer:

“Doubtless a great deal of doctrinal teaching of the time is a hindrance

rather than a help to the spiritual life. It does not seem to me that
anyone can talk to me dogmatically about God with any benefit. It is not
an intellectual acquirement to know God, but it comes to use with great
and inspiring force when we are in line with the great purpose and
movement of the universe, which is God’s activity, and which we may
study, and so in some measure know God. It is perhaps not easy to believe
that the events which we regard as the evils of life are in the line of
universal purpose. I suppose that sin, scientifically considered, is
resistance to the movement of this universal purpose, or neglect to join
in it. It is apropos these thoughts to refer to a text of the Bible, which
shows the way of progress, “He that doeth My will, shall know the
doctrine,” or words to that effect.”

Listen: “Prayer, in its highest exercise, is an opening of the gates of the

soul to the divine influence. The mere asking of favors from God is
tiresome and discouraging.”
Prayer, as we know it in The Infinite Way, is an inner communion. It is
an inner abiding in the spiritual law or spiritual presence; it is not a
seeking of something; it is not a desire for something; it is not an
attempt to get something. That is not prayer. Prayer is merely that inner
quietness which comes from the assurance that there is a God, and
therefore as long as there’s a God, there can be nothing wrong in the
kingdom of God. Abiding in that inner assurance, a sense of peace
envelops us, and that sense of peace dispels these pictures of sense.

Now I said before, we come to that state of prayer by some mental

activity. That mental activity is “consciously knowing the truth;” so that,
supposing now that you know that the human mind can be used for both
good and evil, and now that you know that there are people using the
human mind both for good and evil, and now that you know that even
those who aren’t using it consciously for evil, merely by the nature of
their sensuality, or lust, or greed are sending out subliminal activities,
which are harmful.

Now that you know this, it is your first responsibility in the message of
The Infinite Way to protect yourself.

And for that reason in the July Letter, I have asked our students to
make a careful and prolonged study of Chapter 3 of “Infinite Way
Letters, 1955,” which is on “Protective Work.”

Not to protect yourself from evil, for you will only get into the mess of
having twice as much evil. But protecting yourself in the realization that
the God mind is the only power; and that this mind of man—this mesmeric
mind, mortal mind, carnal mind—is not power.
The protective work that is often done in metaphysics is often harmful
and dangerous, because the moment you acknowledge an evil to be
protected from, you have made yourself the center of that evil.

It is only in proportion as you understand that the world’s concept of

evil—the powers of this world, temporal powers, the fleshly mind, or the
arm of flesh—in proportion as you know that this can’t be power if the
mind of God is the only power—that is your protection. And not one of
our students has any right to start their day without a conscious
realization of the fact that the mind of God is the mind of man and is
the only mind and the only power; and that which is called the devil,
Satan, mortal mind, or carnal mind is not a power opposed to God; it’s
just not a power. Therefore you need not fight it; you need not rise
above it; you need not protect yourself from it; you need only consciously
remember: it’s the arm of flesh, nothingness and then rest in that word.

Now, when you have done that, and you are completely at ease in the
realization: “There are no evil powers, and such as are humanly
experienced, are only experienced because we have given them power,
and now we understand their nothingness;” now you can relax inside of
yourself and commune—not for any reason, no healing, no protection, not
at all, not at all! You might say, for the same reason for which you are in
this room, now. Why are you in this room now? Answer that to your own
satisfaction.

Why? Because in this room, you know there is spiritual integrity, there
is truth; there is the companionship of students who are devoting time,
money, effort, to the living in God—not to selfish purposes, not for self-
aggrandizement, not for wealth. You know that everyone in this room is
giving of money, time, effort, for only one purpose—to know more about
God, and therefore in this room, you’re safe, you’re secure, to some
extent you’re in the very presence of God, Itself or Himself, and you
know it.

And that’s all you want out of this room—to be in a holy atmosphere.
Well that’s the reason to go to God: only to be in the household of God,
in the consciousness of God, in the atmosphere of God. When you
accomplish it, you will be able to say afterward: “In His presence is
fullness of joy; In His presence is fulfillment; Where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty.” It won’t be a quotation, it will be an experience
which you have had; just as all of these students who have come from so
many far places can say to you that they have been in these classes
before and found peace, and harmony, and love, and to some extent
health or supply, and that’s why they’re back again—Only to be in that
atmosphere.

You too will find that when you submit yourself to God for no other
purpose than a few moments of resting in God, you will find that in
attaining the presence of God, you have also attained liberty, freedom,
justice, health, harmony, wholeness, peace, guidance, direction—all of
these things that enabled Paul to say, “I live yet not I, Christ liveth my
life.” Once you have attained the presence of God, you will not have to
take conscious thought for what you shall eat, or what you shall drink,
or wherewithal you shall be clothed. You will always find that this
invisible Presence has gone before you and prepared a way for you; and
you’ll also prove that He that is within me, is greater than he that is in
the world; He performeth that which is given me to do. But, remember
that these are only quotations until that “He” has become a real
experience.
And it is for this reason then, that our first step is: “consciously knowing
the truth.” I ask our students to go through those writings over and over
and over until they know the nature of God. Know it so thoroughly that
they’ll never again turn to God for anything; that they’ll never ask God
for anything or expect God to step out of Its orbit. Then secondly, to
know the nature of error, and to know it so thoroughly that you’ll never
fight it again, that you’ll never argue against it, that you’ll never war with
it; but that regardless of what form it assumes, you will instantly
recognize it as only the activity of the carnal mind.

The clearest way to understand that is to understand that the ancients

ascribed all evil to the devil—the devil was the source of all evil, and the
devil acted as a tempter. Try to see it in that light; that there is an
impersonal source of this evil; that impersonal source is the universal
belief in good and evil, but it acts as an impersonal tempter, saying to
you: “Believe in health and sickness, believe in accident and harmony,
believe in life and death, believe in abundance and lack, believe in good
and evil.”

And your only answer has to be: “No! No, now I know the first
commandment is truth: There is no other God but one; there is no other
law, but the law of God, which is a law of life eternal.”

Once you understand that and can keep away from that old Hebrew
concept of God that rewards and punishes, that even calls you home to
Himself someday, and is even responsible for youngsters who pass on.
Once you understand there is no such God; that God cannot act
detrimentally to Its own experience; that God cannot be destructive to
His own creation; that God is the infinite eternal life of all being, and
the law unto all being, and then you’ll know that spiritual law even governs
nature; spiritual law governs weather; spiritual law governs everything
there is and brings it into harmony.

But only when you have attained obedience to the first commandment:
acknowledging no other power, no other law, no other Presence, no other
being, in spite of the fact that you’re always going to be tempted by the
devil to see sickness and sin, death, bad politics, man’s inhumanity to man,
and all the rest of these evils. It is the way in which you respond to
these temptations that tells whether you’re going to fall for the
temptation or pass right by untouched.

Now in the message of The Infinite Way we do not fight error, we do

not call upon truth or God to overcome evil. We abide, as we would in the
23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd,” and that’s the end. “I shall not
want,” that’s the end of the whole thing. “The Lord is my shepherd,” and
that’s all there is to it, there’s no more fight. And even “if I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” for I know I can’t
die, it is an impossibility to die. And then our passing from this scene will
be a progressive experience into a higher state of consciousness.

Now, you see why it isn’t necessary to give a treatment to anyone; it isn’t
necessary to correct them, or improve them; it isn’t necessary to tell
them to be better, or more loving, or more gentle, or more forgiving; it
isn’t necessary. As you consciously know the truth, the truth that you
know becomes the law unto those within range of your consciousness.
That is why you will find, first of all, that animal life is the most
responsive life to this work. The dogs and the cats and the birds will
respond to this, virtually instantaneously. There is no resistance in them
at all. Next to this is nature life, plant life and so forth, it responds
beautifully. And then children. Adults are tough. Now they’ve already
learned to fear God; they’ve already learned to fear both God and devil;
they’ve already learned about two powers, and they have to be reborn.

They really have to be reborn before they can be childlike again; until
they can come in an absolute realization of why Jesus Christ disposed of
nine of the Ten Commandments—outmoded them; and said there are only
two commandments, and out of the ten he only used one. “Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind.
Thou shalt love God.” You can’t love God without trusting God; you can’t
trust God without a firm realization of God as the one and only power;
but when you have that, you are loving God supremely. Then he dug up
another old Hebrew commandment which wasn’t included in the Ten
Commandments, and said “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Well, once you have acknowledged God as the only power, you can’t give
power to evil; therefore, you’re compelled to “love thy neighbor as
thyself,” because you can’t introduce any evil into your relationship with
your neighbor—not once you have acknowledged God as the only power.

So if you understand the nature of God so that you can love God
supremely, and love must carry confidence, trust, assurance,
understanding, then of course it’s an easy thing to “love your neighbor,”
because all you have to do to love your neighbor is to know the truth,
which is the truth about yourself. This is the truth about your neighbor,
and this is loving your neighbor; and to understand that your neighbor is
the child of God, whether or not he’s appearing as friend or enemy, that’s
the difficult part—you have to carry through with Jesus Christ.
And when he says, “It profiteth you nothing to pray for your friends,”
he’s giving you a terrific statement; and when he says that you have to
“pray for your enemies in order to become the children of God, ” it means
just that one thing: that your prayers, which are not, of course, that
your enemies prosper, but that your prayers are the realization of God
as the very heart and soul and mind of that individual now appearing to
you as an enemy, and who later becomes your friend.

So we will not treat anybody, whether they ask for it or they don’t ask
for it, but we will always consciously know the truth, and eventually we
will pray, and we will remain in prayer. Even when we are in conversation,
even when we are about the activity of business, there will be a center
of consciousness within us, a little area that’s always reserved for being
in prayer, regardless of what the rest of us is doing. It makes no
difference, we can “Suffer it to be so now;” we can do all of the things
of this world, but we can always have one area in consciousness, where
regardless of appearances, we’re smiling in the realization that: God
constitutes individual being; God is the substance of this universe; God
is the only law of this universe, and that is a spiritual law of good.

And we can be doing that regardless of whatever other activity the mind
and body is going through.

You mentioned none has ever died, please explain.

To die means to become extinct, and so what I have said is that “nobody
ever becomes extinct.” We pass from experience to experience, but we
are always actively and consciously doing it. In this too I speak to you
from experience. I have witnessed many times, those who have passed
from sight, and in every case an identical experience took place, and that
is that the individual, for a short while, was suspended above their
bodies; their body was where it was, but they were suspended here.

And this too I know, through experience, that at that point they have a
choice of going on or returning. And, when the occasion requires it, such
as often a mother with a family that she cannot feel right about leaving;
that she will return, and sometimes it’s called a miraculous healing—she
chose to return. Sometimes a man, with family responsibilities, who
cannot leave his family, who just feels the horror of leaving them
unprotected, unsupplied, will return to fulfill that function.

But mostly people will not return, because they do not reach that estate,
until really they are ready for it and have desired it; and that is the
reason they do not return.

They do not even experience it until they themselves are ready for it,
except in the case of violence, accidents, and things of that kind.

Now, we never die! If I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will be there; and if I leave this plane of consciousness, I will be leaving
it, and I will be conscious of it; I will never be other than I, nor will I
ever be unaware of my I-ness, of my identity, of my selfhood. This I is
an indestructible oneness with God that was coexistent with God in the
beginning, and will be with God until the end.
Therefore, even those who leave on the human plane continue an
afterlife which is just as human as this one, until they evolve. We have
the choice, we who are here, to continue to evolve spiritually, so that
when we leave this plane, we will not live as humans, but will be living as
divine beings. But those who do not mature spiritually still continue to
live mentally, and even physically. And, they have the same opportunity
as we have and have always had. Any day in the week, any month in the
year, everyone on earth is given the opportunity to turn to spiritual living.
They may not be aware of it, but the opportunity is there; just as it has
been for us, and we’ve accepted it.

So that, as we leave this plane, we find ourselves still living, and in some
measure further advanced for having left here. But never forget that
you cannot get away from yourself; that is why so many people go on
vacations and do not benefit by them, and go away for a rest and take a
trip around the world. They’ve had to take themselves with them, and it
was themselves that caused the trouble. It isn’t going to cure it, just by
putting themselves in another place.

We witness that here in Hawaii! I’m sure that all of you visitors must
know what a beautiful place this is: the harmony, the joy, the beauty,
the atmosphere, the love, the aloha, you’re all aware of it all around you.
And so it must surprise you if I say to you that there is just as much
unhappiness here, just as much poverty, just as much sin, just as much
disease as other places, because they bring it with them—it is
themselves! And there are loads of people who find no beauty in Hawaii;
who are here merely because they have to be, and are glad to get away.
It isn’t the place that makes any difference; it’s the state of
consciousness you bring to the place.
So when you leave this plane, you will find the next plane to be what you
bring to it. But don’t think for a minute that you will ever bring
extinction, or unconsciousness, for there is no such thing. That would be
then God, infinite life being death; consciousness becoming
unconsciousness—there is no such thing.

Do we ever meet our loved ones again?

We do if we want to and if they want us to. It is the same life there as

here. We have relatives right here whom we never meet, and sometimes
don’t want to, and I don’t see any reason to meet them after either. But
if I have anyone in my heart and in my soul here, I can assure you they’re
going to be right with me on my travels. Whether I’m on the road or
whether I pass to another existence, I will never let them get out of my
heart and soul and mind, and why should I if I love them? And if they
love me, then there is a mutuality, which means that we can never be
separated; so be it here or hereafter, we will be together.

But the mere fact that they are blood relatives, doesn’t insure it—not
any more than we want them all around us here.

Will you please say something about parenthood?

Now this is a very difficult subject for me. I have only been a parent by
proxy, and I don’t have the feelings that most parents do have for
children. I don’t know that kind of a sensation, and so I can’t speak about
it. I love children and they love me; but it has nothing to do with that
emotion of love that is ordinarily felt by parents for their children, or
children for their parents.

It is of a different nature. A child, to me, is very much like a bud, a

blossom; it is new and fresh, and has infinite potentialities and it can be
molded—not molded to my will—too often it is molded to the will of its
parents, and sometimes unfortunately so, but it can be spiritually
molded. I don’t know whether parents can do that. Some can because
I’ve seen it done, but how many can, I don’t know, because what I see of
parenthood, it is much too much of just an animal emotion, and it doesn’t
permit the parent to be objective or to see their child spiritually.

To see the child spiritually means to understand the child, not as your
child, but as a child of God; as another of the infinite forms and varieties
of God-being, sent to earth with all the potentialities of God-being.

If one can see their child that way, and as I say, never having been a
parent I don’t know, but I have known some parents who could, some few.
To be able to love a child that way, to understand that its nature came
forth from God, that it was sent to this plane of consciousness, not to
be anybody’s child, but to be an instrument for good on earth; just as
much of an instrument as Jesus Christ was an instrument, or Moses or
Buddha—every child is that potentiality.

Now to understand that that child is not limited mentally by its parents
or grandparents or great-grandparents, since it is the offspring of God,
and its mind is God, and its source of intelligence and wisdom is God, is
to free that child from the limitations of family relationships. In the
same way, to be able to raise a child without making it fear—fear to
cross the street, fear to talk to a stranger, fear to go swimming, fear
to this, but rather with a spiritual understanding of releasing it into God,
there again, parenthood at that level is quite a different thing than
human parenthood.

Human parenthood is a selfish emotion, almost entirely selfish; and one

has to rise far above that in order to be able to see that we are the
“caretakers” of children; we are their “providers,” until such time as they
can take over that responsibility; we are their “guides.” And, to be able
to do it spiritually means to do it through inner communion with God. It
doesn’t mean to be a dominating person, dictating to them out of your
human knowledge what they should do or should not do. But it means
rather to raise them with a minimum amount of talk and conversation;
and a maximum amount of holding them in that inner communion with the
Spirit, and permitting them to be God governed instead of man
dominated.

Now, I can’t speak about human parenthood, because it is presented to

the world through so many different angles, that I feel the same way
about that as I do about world peace. I don’t believe it’ll ever be
accomplished humanly, it can’t be. It’ll have to come through spiritual
means. And so I don’t believe that there is going to ever be a way of
raising children found humanly that is going to bring them forth into
their rightful heritage.

Therefore, for us in this work, the only way we have of bringing up

children, the only way we have of giving them their freedom, is to give
them the Spirit of God, to give them prayer, to give them communion, to
hold them fast in that relationship; and to continually teach them the
nature of these worldly evils, so that in recognizing them, they have no
temptation to fall into their way.
Now I have known children who, at the age of sixteen, when asked to go
out and get some aspirin for a visitor, said “What is aspirin? I never
heard of it.” Hadn’t even seen an ad for it, it hadn’t come into their
awareness; they had been so brought up in the spiritual life. They
wouldn’t even know the purpose of an aspirin, or any other form of
medicine. I’ve seen that. I’ve witnessed over and over again, homes that
have gone for fifteen, eighteen, and twenty years without knowing
anything in the nature of serious illness or accident or anything of that
kind, merely because the parents were holding that household and that
family in spiritual realization.

Now, it can be done. It can be done in the same way that a practitioner
can hold their patient body—whether it’s twenty patients, or fifty, or a
hundred—can keep them almost immune from the world’s discords.

A teacher can hold an entire student body relatively free for long
periods of time, more especially if there is any cooperation on their part.
Why? The higher consciousness lifts the lower consciousness to its level,
I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me; and as I am lifted up in
this consciousness, knowing the nature of God and the nature of error
and abiding in this God consciousness, all those, or most of those who
are abiding with me, rise in some level of demonstration in better health,
in better supply, in better human relationships—not all alike certainly,
and not all to the same degree, certainly not; but tremendously, if they
themselves are working with me in the understanding and in the practice
and demonstration of this principle.

The only reason we are not wholly immune from the world’s discords is
that this universal mesmerism is a very strong belief in this world, and
you have to live on a tremendously high level, probably higher than any
one of us have ever been able to live, in order to be completely immune.
Our blessing is that when we do occasionally fall by the wayside, we have
something with which to pick ourselves up, and others.

Well, looks to me like there’s going to be more to talk about, and I

thought I was all talked out. (long pause)

I just want a minute of summary. There wouldn’t be a trace of discord

in this world, of any nature, if it weren’t for this impersonal mesmerism
that has evolved out of the belief of good and evil. And because we are
born on that level, we are receptive and responsive to that influence, and
therefore some of us become sinful, and others become sick, and others
become poor.

There is a way of nullifying nearly all of the world’s discords, most of

them entirely, and the rest of them in some degree, through our own
conscious realization of the nature of God, the nature of the evil; and
nothingizing this whole hypnotic mind or mortal mind or carnal mind; and
realizing that since it is not of God’s creating, since it is not endowed by
God, it has no law of God to maintain it or sustain it.

Living in that consciousness will not only free us, but it will so completely
put us at peace that we can attain this inner communion with God. There’s
nothing separating anyone from this inner communion with God, except
the turmoil of the mind. The mind won’t let us rest long enough, it won’t
stop long enough to let us get quiet inside; it’s always in a turmoil about
something or other.
But this enables us to become quiet: the ability, always, to have that
faith, that understanding in God that enables us to say, “The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want,” and drop it there. And the ability to realize:
I know the world is full of appearances, a thousand are falling at my side
and ten-thousand at the other side, but I’m realizing that none of these
evils are power; they are the emanation of the fleshly mind, the arm of
flesh, nothingness.

Then you’re at such peace that you can settle down inside and enjoy a
communion with God. When this takes place repeatedly, then comes
this—I call it more or less, “permanent state of consciousness” in which
you are never entirely outside the atmosphere of God; and, when on some
occasions you are, it is only in a slight degree.

Never! Never after the experience are you entirely separated, even for
a moment, from God.

There come momentary disturbances, and it would seem in those

moments that you are separated from God, but you’re not very far away,
not very far away; you never do again get very far away.

Thank you! Thank you, until tomorrow night.