#7 – Wisdoms of the Infinite Way
Prayer is the inner vision of harmony. This vision is attained by giving up the desire to change or improve anyone or anything.
From the book – The Infinite Way
Joel S. Goldsmith

From – Living by Grace
By Joel Goldsmith
P. 54-56

Living The Mystical Life

The goal of the mystical life is for us to become beholders of God in action, where we ascribe nothing to ourselves—not even good motives. We no longer have desires. We no longer have needs because every need seems to be met before we are even aware of a need. This is called “living by Grace,” but you can live fully by Grace only as that selfhood that has a desire, a hope, an ambition disappears. Then life is lived entirely by Grace, because It functions to its end, not yours or mine.
You see, if I prayed for something, it would mean I have a desire, an end, an object in life that I am seeking. But I have nothing to pray for. I have only this minute to live, this minute in which I must be fulfilled by the Spirit. If I have a tomorrow, it will be the same life, no matter whether it takes place here or in California, South Africa, or England. I will be there not because I desire to be there, but because I am sent. I do not desire to be any place except where I am sent. In that degree of desirelessness, selflessness, or unselfedness is the mystical like lived. That is what the mystical life is—attaining that degree of desirelessness in which every day you find yourself not wondering about tomorrow, because the is no tomorrow for you; there is only a tomorrow for God.
Even when God is living your life, God is a mystery. Who can fathom God? It is useless to try to fathom God with the mind. This takes us back to the beginning of this lesson of going beyond mind and thought.
When someone asks me for help, the first thing I do is stop thinking. I think no thoughts of Truth. I merely listen and let the Presence and Power of God through. The moment I try to think a thought, even of Truth or of The Infinite Way, I am trying to make thought a power, I am trying to make a statement of Truth a power. No statement or thought of Truth is God-power. Only God is God-power. So if you want God, be still and let God function. Otherwise, you are letting your ego in. What is worse, you are making graven images. Whether you build a wooden image and make it God-power or whether you put together a sentence and call it God-power, there is no difference. They are all graven images made by man. The only thing that is not made by man is what functions through man in the silence. That man has nothing to do with.
Any thought of God that is in your mind is a thought you created, and it is a graven image. Any word of God that is in your mind is a word you created. It is therefore a graven image. You must be absent from thought. Then whatever God is, and however It functions, takes place out there, and it is a miracle to human sense. But it is not a miracle that I performed, because this power is not mine. It is God’s, and the more I refrain from thought and become a receptivity, the greater the Presence and Power comes through.
So, when I am asked for help, no matter what I am doing, all thought immediately stops, and whatever comes through is the Presence and Power of God, which does the work.
If you know in advance through the principles of The Infinite Way that no words or thoughts that go through your mind will influence God, it will be easier for you to stop thinking words and thoughts and pray without them. But as long as you believe that your words and thoughts will reach God and influence Him, the more difficult it will be. However, the sooner you realize that you are just wasting time, the sooner your thoughts will come to a stop and your prayer will be a receptivity, a listening, an awaiting the still, small Voice. Then the Spirit of God enters your consciousness, and you become consciously aware of it.
When I am giving a class or when I am in meditation or giving a treatment, at first there is a “me” listening for the still, small Voice, a “me” inviting God to speak. Then as I get into that listening attitude, this “me” disappears and there is only the Presence fulfilling Itself. In periods of meditation when you are no longer aware of the “you” of yourself, this will happen to you, especially when the work is for others and for the world. The “you” will disappear, and the Presence is all there will be.
The “pearl of great price” cannot be given to those who have lived their entire lives by thought, by the intellect, by the mind. When you tell beginners that God is present only when all thought has been done away with, some become very angry and insulted. So when you are imparting to beginners, you must start by giving them principles of The Infinite Way as they are given in my writings until the students can be carried further, step by step, until they are able to understand and accept this fruitage of my nearly forty years of spiritual searching.
When you become less concerned about what God is and what The Infinite Way is, and as you gradually surrender yourself unto God, while at the same time using all the letters of Truth and all the principles of The Infinite Way, then can you lead those who come.