“Do not be impatient if it takes a little time for you to reach home. You have already become involved with people and entangled in situations that you cannot leave suddenly. You will have to be led away from these without injury to the life, the well-being, or the comfort of others. You cannot have your life and well-being at the expense of others. That is not the law. ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ ls the law. That, you can do, if you look unto Me, if you understand that I in the midst of you am Self-sustained.” ~Joel S Goldsmith

Everyone of us still has some idea of God carried over from our childhood beliefs under orthodox and theological teachings, that we can gain God’s favour by certain acts of omission or commission. Many still believe that God’s flavour can be gained by certain forms of prayer or worship, or self-restraint. This is not true. Of this we must be sure: GOD IS NOT INFLUENCED BY MAN, that is, God is not influenced by individual you and me. GOD IS THE LIGHT, and if we walk out we will be in the light. God’s rain falls, and if we want it WE must walk out into the rain. GOD IS AND GOD IS LOVE, God is pouring forth It’s INFNITE GRACE, and we are not accepting it because of the use of such works as I, me and mine.

We must drop this belief that we play a part in obtaining God’s Love, God’s Grace, God’s Givingness, and remember that the only part we play is to accept it by opening our consciousness to receive it.

I Am The Vine

By Joel Goldsmith

Well, you know if our human prayers were of any value or our human good thoughts, would parents ever lose a child? Would a child ever lose a parent? No, certainly not! We all have good thoughts for our children and our parents and our brothers and our sisters, we all pray for them. What good does it do? They still go their way until we rise above this belief that a good thought is a blessing and a bad thought is a cursing. Don’t ever believe either one of those.

There’s only one thing that’s a blessing and a power and that is God realized; that is a realization of the presence and power of God; that is an actual God contact. Why you and I could sit here from now until doomsday and talk about the wonderful light we could get in this room from electricity, and we could be in darkness. Why? Talking about electricity and light and how wonderful they are won’t do anything for us. We have to plug in, then we get the light. You can talk about God, you can think about God, you can pray to God – you can do anything you like and still be in darkness. It is only when you make your contact that you have God, present and power in your experience.

1955 Johannesburg Closed Class
Joel Goldsmith
702B : Nature of the Messiah Continued

The presence of God is on the gallows;
the presence of God is on the battlefront
where death and destruction are
imminent; the presence of God is where
every accident occurs anywhere in the
world. The presence of God is in all
those places and circumstances, but the
presence of God is of no avail to anyone
except to those who are dwelling in the
conscious awareness of this truth. We
must abide from morning to night and
night to morning in this realization:
Where I am, God is. The presence of
God is closer to me than breathing; I
and my Father are inseparable and
indivisible because we are one. If I
mount up to heaven, I will find God, not hat I will find God in heaven, but I will
take God up to heaven. If I make my
bed in hell, I will find God, not because God is in hell, but because I will take
God with me; and if I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will find
God because where I am, God is, and
where God is, I am: we are inseparably
and indivisibly one. JSG (The Contemplative Life)

Our meditation will become easier once we realize that we can say to our mind, “Peace, be still.” Some of us have undoubtedly seen pictures, statues, or figures of Lao-tzu sitting on a horse backwards, not facing the horse’s head but his tail. The meaning of this is that Lao-tzu, the mystic, the man of God, has control of his senses. He does not need to hold reins; he does not need to look where he is going. He is in control of his senses and can forget the human element of control. He is a master and, being a master, he does not have to observe material laws by facing forward, holding the reins, or kicking the horse in the sides. He sits there and contemplates.
There are no masters except those who are in control of mind and body. And if they do not have that control, they are not masters. You and I are masters only as we can demonstrate that the mind and the body are under our dominion.

‘This body does not constitute me: this is a body which is an instrument for my use. I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. I am subject unto the Father; I do His will. I do the will of no man; I obey the will of no man. I look not to “man, whose breath is in his nostrils.”
I look not to the favor of princes. I and the Father are one, and I am subject only unto my Father because I do the will of my Father. I turn within and receive instruction and light from the Father.’

Life becomes a matter of introspection and withinness, letting infinite God, good, infinite consciousness, pour Itself through us, as us, without our having to take conscious thought, but always being obedient to its leading. When the Master was on the ship in the midst of a storm and commanded the sea to be still, he was not addressing a storm external to him. The storm was within him. A storm is a mental illusion, a mirage. It is not externalized, and no one can command it to be still. But we can say to the mind that is entertaining an illusion, “Peace, be still. My peace give I unto thee.”
When you want to meditate, say to your mind: “Peace, be still. My peace give I unto thee. The Christ-peace give I unto thee. I bring to thee peace from my Father.” As you find your body becoming unruly, do not be afraid to address the body, although actually it should not be necessary because the body is mind formed and if the mind is brought into stillness, the body will be still, just as by bringing the mind into stillness, the storm subsided.
When you learn there is an I, let I address your mind:

‘Peace, be still. The peace of God be upon thee. I live by the grace of God. I live by God’s government, and so, mind, be still. Peace be unto thee. My peace give I unto thee.’

It will not be long before the mind settles down into peace, because you have asserted your God-given dominion over your mind, not over anyone else’s mind.

J. S. Goldsmith: The Art of Spiritual Living. Chapter Three; The Peace-Be-Still of Spiritual Authority; Entering a New Dimension of Life; Kindle location: 934-961

You must forgive everyone first – everyone for everything first.

Progress Cannot Be Judged By Appearances

You have not yet attained the actual consciousness of your oneness with God, but the truth is that you are; you are still one with God. You will succeed in proving that oneness, however, only in proportion to your attainment of the actual awareness of the relationship that already exists. Therefore, you must not judge by the appearance of today, nor must you try to judge your progress, because no one on the spiritual path can ever evaluate his own progress.
Joel S. Goldsmith
Beyond Words and Thoughts
Chap 6

If you persist in going on in a materialistic frame of consciousness accepting two powers, always battling evil and most of the time observing that evil gets the better of good, that is the kind of universe in which you will live. Most of the time your experience will be on the negative side with some brief interludes of good.
If, through the power of discernment, however, you can mold your consciousness to accept the truth that God, your individual consciousness, is infinite, and besides it there are no other powers, life will unfold gloriously and abundantly.
All that is necessary is inwardly to develop a listening ear and be governed by the Father that is within you, not a Father up in the sky, even though the Master sometimes referred to God as in heaven—at least the Bible said he did. You must remember that there were no tape recorders in his day. Not only that, there was no system of shorthand and probably none of his disciples could read or write. No word of the Master was written until thirty years after the Crucifixion, and I am sure that you do not believe that Jesus could be quoted verbatim after thirty years. True he may have lapsed into the idiom of his day and said, “Your Father in heaven.” That does not mean a Father up in the sky, but the Father in consciousness. The essence of his teaching was: “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.. . . Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
If you can mold your consciousness to accept the truth that the kingdom of God is within you and then rest back and let this kingdom of God govern your life—not being indolent, but always alert, inwardly listening for the “still small voice”—you will find yourself guided, led, advised, counseled, protected, maintained, and sustained by the power that is within you. You will quickly perceive, however, that It does not go out fighting other powers. Rather, It reveals to you that I Am is the power of resurrection. There is no other power; there are no powers to fight. I Am the all-power, the kingdom of all-power within you.
Making your transition from a life lived according to appearances to a life lived according to spiritual discernment is entirely a matter of remolding consciousness, letting old beliefs die, so that truth can be born in you. You will then find that you are the same consciousness you always have been, only now you are not governed by ignorance, mythology, and superstition; now you are governed by an inner voice, direction, counsel, an inner presence, an inner power. You do not send It out to overcome the world. You have overcome the world the moment your consciousness no longer fears appearances. You have overcome the entire world in that moment when you no longer fear or hate appearances.

J. S. Goldsmith: The Art of Spiritual Living. Chapter Two; Remolding Consciousness; The Power of Discernment Must Be Developed; Kindle location: 685-709

Joel Goldsmith: IW Morsel – God’s Work Is Done
God’s work is done, finished and complete, but it is unfolding to our conscious awareness in proportion as we learn the truth and how to bring ourselves into harmony with that truth.
The Art of Spiritual Healing P.20
By Joel Goldsmith

Study & Meditation #3
– 1962 Pacific Palisades Special Class (II:2)

Nothing enters your experience except through your consciousness. Whatever it is that you are to experience in your life you must experience through your own consciousness. There is no outside God and there is no outside devil. There are no outside laws. Whatever it is that is operating in you is operating through and in your own consciousness.

There is one of two things. You either have a consciousness of Truth or a consciousness of ignorance of Truth. If you are ignorant of Truth, you are not made free. If you know the Truth, the Truth will make you free.

Therefore, it is knowing or Consciousness. You must consciously know the Truth, not sit around waiting for some mysterious God to do something for you because you are charitable or kind or moral. It won’t work. It is your abiding in the Truth. Your abiding in the Word and letting the Word abide in you. Your abiding in God and letting God abide in you. You are the one who is doing it!

Through the contemplative life, you can come to a whole new state of consciousness in which – while you are still aware that there are evils in the world – no longer do you sit in judgment on them or condemn them, no longer do you misunderstand them. Now, you have compassion; because, you understand why they are taking place. Furthermore, you know that they must continue to take place in each person’s experience until he is awakened.

When an individual is awakened to the fact that life is indestructible, immortal, and eternal, he cannot fear death. And, once he no longer fears death, he cannot know death. No one can experience anything that is not a part of his consciousness. And, when death is no longer part of his consciousness, he cannot die.
Joel S. Goldsmith
The Infinite Way,
The ContemplativeLife
Page 126