1960 Maui Work
Tape 368 Side 1
Starting The Contemplative Life

By Joel Goldsmith
Part 2 of 5

The Kingdom of God is a Spirit, not a super human being, but a Spirit! And this step constitutes the very first step in attaining spiritual Light. It is the very first step in attaining an awareness of the presence of God because if you cannot accept this, then you would have to say, “Well, only Jews can have the presence of God,” or “Only Baptists can have the presence of God,” or “Only Buddhists can have the presence of God.” But this is nonsense. The presence of God is within you . . . whoever the “you” may be.
Now, when you have taken that as a point of meditation, and you have come to the place where you actually feel the truth of this – where you actually feel the presence of God in the air, or in your body, in your business, in your home, in your competitor, or in the enemy across the sea or across the street – when you begin to perceive that, you have the next step which everyone must take before enlightenment can come. And that is the realization that since the Kingdom of God is within me, it must be permitted to flow out from me; it cannot come to me. And, I must at some stage in my unfoldment – I must stop looking for it to come to me.
Now, I have illustrated that for you in classes, where I have said there are many, many people who come to us as practitioners and would like us to demonstrate companionship for them. And I’ve always said to them, to each one in turn, it’s no use because I know you don’t want companionship. If I could show you how to attain it, you would refuse it. What you want is a companion. And probably he has to be five-foot-eleven to six feet, and probably weigh 180 pounds and have nice blue eyes – you have it all decided in advance.
But companionship you don’t want! No one who ever asks for the demonstration of companionship, not anyone I’ve ever known, has really wanted it. They’ve merely wanted a companion. And that we can’t get for them.
Companionship is so simple to demonstrate. All it requires is that we be a companion; that’s all. Once we become a companion, we have companionship. Once we find something or somebody to companion with . . . it doesn’t have to be a human being at first, or a member of the opposite sex, or a stranger. We can begin to find companionship with some members of our own family, or with the birds that come to our lawn. We can find companionship with the stars.
The point is that companionship is an emotion, an experience, a sharing of one’s self. That’s what constitutes companionship – the sharing of one’s self. It could be on the level of neighborliness; it could be at the level of friendliness; it could be at the level of husband or wife or brother or sister – all it means is a sharing of one’s self with someone else.
So therefore companionship is always available to us because it is within us – it’s a gift of God within us. And we are the ones who determine whether we will keep it locked up there, or whether we will be a companion. The moment we decide to be a companion, we have companionship.
And of course the wonderful part of it is that the very moment we start being a companion, there are those who find us also desirous of being a companion and of sharing. And then it’s no question of give and take; it’s a question of both giving. There’s no taking; they’re just both giving.
So it is, then, that the Kingdom of God is locked up within us. There is no way for us to demonstrate supply for anyone. The reason is that everyone on the face of the earth has all that the Father has – infinity. And to try to get something out here when there’s nothing out here but space is folly. Supply is demonstrated not in the getting, but in opening out a way for the supply to flow out from its source, which is the Kingdom of God, which is within you.
Therefore, illumination can never come to a person who’s seeking it; it can only come to those who realize the Kingdom of God, of Light, of Truth, of Wisdom, of Love is within me – all that the Father hath is mine. Then just as we have to find a way to express companionship, so do we have to wait to find a way to express supply.
We do it in many ways. The Master has indicated all of that in “The Sermon on the Mount.” Give, but be sure that no one but God knows about your giving. Pray, but be sure that no one but God knows about your praying. Forgive – all of it. Pray for your enemies. All of it – he gives us as an action that takes place from within ourselves to the without. And nowhere does he indicate that there is a getting of something! “If you would be Children of God” he says, “pray for your enemies.” And he says, “Forgive 70 times 7.” And he says . . . oh, all of these things that we must do; even knowing the Truth – “Ye shall know the Truth.”
So that, the entire secret of spiritual illumination is bound up in that realization: the Kingdom of God is within me, and I must find a way to let this imprisoned splendor escape. Therefore, whatever it is I am seeking, that I must find a way to give. So that even if I am seeking spiritual Light, the way to gain it is to give it.
Well I know many of you are teachers, and so surely it must have come into your experience that the subjects you’re teaching by the end of the term, you know more about than the pupils in the room. You learned more by teaching than they learned by being taught. It’s inevitable; it has to be so because a teacher has nothing to teach if they don’t know. Therefore, they must know before they can give it out; therefore they must find that they know . . . by the end of the term they really know their subject, even if they didn’t at the beginning of the term.
And it is just the same in this. Those who teach this learn far more than any student or group of students because in the very act of letting out, there’s a constant inflow. And really not in; it’s only that the Infinite source is within, but it can’t flow out if you don’t prime it and let it out. The moment you start letting out a little of what you know, all the rest begins to flow – more than you ever knew that you knew.
End Part 2
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