From – Living The Illumined Life
(aka 1972 Letters)
Excerpt of Chapter 4 – Life Unfolding As the Fruitage of Attained Consciousness
By Joel Goldsmith
Jesus Preparation

Consider the Master, Christ Jesus. The truth of his preparation for his ministry is being revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other writings. It is believed that the Master was in an Essene monastery from the time he was twelve until he was thirty and, along with his cousin, he learned the laws and the teachings of the Essene movement.
When he left the monastery, he began his preaching or rabbinical career, because he was ordained a rabbi in the Essene movement, a movement unpopular in those days because of its great austerity. It was based on highly spiritual teachings rather than on ceremonies, rites, and rituals of religious worship. This you can gather from the fact that the Master continuously reminded the people that God had no pleasure in their sacrifices and that God is not to be found in a holy temple. Certainly he overthrew the money changers’ tables and the selling of doves to show that the church method was wrong and that the spiritual way was right.
By the life and mission of the Master, by his healing works, and by his exaltation into the consciousness of Reality, we know that he was probably the deepest and richest spiritual consciousness ever to walk the earth, and if not the greatest, at least one of the greatest.

What Becomes of an Enriched and Ripe Consciousness?
What do you think happened to that rich, ripe consciousness after the crucifixion, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension? What do you think happened to that consciousness? The answer was given at the tomb: “He is risen.” You cannot entomb a consciousness. Consciousness is not material: consciousness is incorporeal. Consciousness is not in your body: consciousness governs your body. Therefore, if some part of the body is taken away, you still have consciousness. Eventually the entire body may be taken away, but you still would have consciousness, because your consciousness never was in that body. No surgeon has ever found consciousness entombed in a body, no matter on what part of the body he has operated. It is not there; it was not there; it cannot be there. As a matter of fact, your consciousness is not even confined to the room in which you are sitting. It is for this reason that you can travel the globe while sitting in your home because you are not confined to a body or a place.
When you leave your body somewhere, you will find that your consciousness goes on, and the consciousness that was the mind that was in Christ Jesus, that consciousness which God gave to man, has never been withdrawn from man. It is not dead: it lives!
The consciousness of Jesus Christ, having evolved to the extent that it did, still lives at the level of consciousness, or if possible, at an even higher level. I bring this to your attention so that you will know that whatever measure of attained spiritual consciousness you reach on this plane of life, because of your present sowing to the Spirit and to truth, is the measure that will accompany you into your next experience around that circle of life.