1960 TORONTO PRIVATE CLASS

TAPE 335 SIDE 2

ADVANCING ON THE PATH

By Joel Goldsmith

Part 3 of 4

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 a 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 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.

End Part 3