There are two levels of life: the human level which is made up entirely of mind and body, and the level which is the Son of God or spirit. If you have discerned that there is a “man of earth” and that there is “a man who has his being in Christ”–if you have discerned why it was taught that you must put off mortality and put on immortality–then you are ready to understand the message as you will receive it from now on. You will now approach that time in your own spiritual development when you will be taught of God, as indeed everyone must be eventually.
The Master provided for that by saying: “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.” The Master did not provide for his remaining on earth forever to be our shepherd. Therefore, in the end every knee must bend, every consciousness must open to receive instruction, guidance, protection, illumination, from the Father within. Then eventually we will all be able to say: “I am instructed, guided, protected, and illumined by God.”
Let us take the subject of protection. I am sure that most of you in this room have no fear of atomic bombs. I do not see how you could have such a fear after being with us this past year, because you definitely must have attained the conviction that God is; and if God is, that means omnipotence. Is there then any power to fear? Each one must answer this for himself: “Is the teaching of The Infinite Way truth or fiction?” No one can convince you of this, either way. You yourself must have an inner experience which is not a blind faith. Blind faith has been a terrible thing through the centuries, a blind faith because “my” mother or “my” minister told me to have faith.
Why not have our own convictions? It must be possible for everyone on the face of the globe to receive an assurance from God that there is a God. “Fear not, for I am with thee.” What is this, fact or fiction? Are we to accept the Bible as the word of God, or as pleasant fiction? All the really great Hebrew leaders, and all the great Christian leaders have been able to say without exception: “Fear not, for I am with thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will be with thee unto the end of the world. Fear not the armies of the alien; they have only the arm of flesh,” they have only temporal power.
As long as you are the natural man thinking with your mind, you cannot accept these passages of scripture and you cannot adopt them as your way of life. Even though the human race repeats scriptural quotations, you know the world does not accept them. Why? Because the passages of scripture were not made for “man whose breath is in his nostrils.”
According to the Old Testament you must live and move and dwell in the secret place of the Most High, and the Old Testament made it very clear that, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” The New Testament is equally clear that “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.” That is what you are witnessing of the human world. The Bible recognizes two levels of life as we do. That level of humanity which is not consciously abiding in the word, and which does not consciously accept God as the life which is “closer than breathing,” is cut off. The Bible also recognizes the second level of life–those who live and dwell in the “secret place of the Most High.”
As you come to the state of consciousness revealed to us this year, and given to us as a mode of life, remember that God is the life of individual man or men, saint or sinner, Jew or Greek, bond or free. God is the life of every individual. When Moses received the name of God, the Hebrew followers who had been in slavery were certainly not prepared to understand that name. They could have misunderstood it so easily that Moses refused to allow them to know the true name of God, and they were given a substitute name. Only the high priests were permitted to know that name.
We learn now that, one hundred years before the Master came to earth, there was another Hebrew master who was crucified because he attempted to impart this secret to the Hebrew world. For one hundred years the name was again secret, but then Jesus was determined to follow in the footsteps of this great master and he revealed the secret for three years until he too was crucified.
The importance of the name is this: Unless you know it, you never can fully relax the tension of living, nor can you relax in the spirit and be God-governed, God-taught, God-protected, God-supported, and God-maintained. Only when you receive the revelation of Moses and Jesus as to the identity of God, will you be able to realize why it was taught: “The place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” You now know why it was taught; you have had it all year. You also know why the Master said: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” You know the import of that, but you cannot know it with your mind.
You will have to have the same discernment that Peter had when the Master said: “Whom say ye that I am?” Peter answered “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” to which the Master replied: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Nothing in the mind could reveal this, it was the Father within, it was the divine consciousness. In other words, “Whereas I probably look and talk like a Hebrew rabbi, you have discerned that behind this face and this robe I am the Christ.”
J. S. Goldsmith: Consciousness Transformed. Spiritual Discernment; Kindle location: 5307-5353