960 Maui Work
Tape 368 Side 1
Starting The Contemplative Life

By Joel Goldsmith
Part 5 of 5

So it is that you understand the passage that says, in quietness and in confidence is your Peace . . . in quietness and in confidence. How can you be quiet; how can you have confidence? You can’t unless you have this awareness of an inner Grace. And you can only have this awareness of an inner Grace once you begin to recognize Its universal nature. Recognize that it belongs to all men, and those that are not recognizing it, we’re told . . . “a thousand of those shall fall at our left, and ten thousand at our right.” The Master tells us that those who aren’t recognizing it, who aren’t abiding in it, and letting it abide in them – they’re as a branch of a tree that’s cut off and withereth.
So it isn’t that, just because this is a truth that everybody is going to benefit by it. No! Only ye who know the truth permit the truth to make you free – you who abide in this Word of an indwelling Presence. Those of you who stop . . . well, I was going to say “annoying God,” but I’m sure God can’t be annoyed . . . but at least, going through the motions that would annoy God, if God could be annoyed – trying to influence Him; trying to bribe Him; trying to promise Him something in the future instead of realizing God is Spirit, God is Life, God is Love, and then realize all of this; we have to find a way to let It flow out from us!
Now, this really constitutes a way of life. It’s a religious way of life, except that if you use such a term, it would seem to denote a religion. And it isn’t that kind of a life at all. It is a religious life in the sense of a knowledge-of-God-life. But to get away from any misunderstanding, to get away from the belief that we have found some particular religion through which God is blessing us, to get away from that, or to giving such an impression, we should rightly call this “the contemplative way of life” because it can be lived by Jews or Greeks, or Protestants or Catholics, or Orientals or Occidentals. It can be lived by anybody. It is a contemplative way of life that recognizes God as Spirit, and that Spirit is omnipresence – that Spirit within one’s own being.
Therefore, it is a contemplative way of life – absolutely unrestricted! It is available to anyone of any faith, or no faith, as long as they can recognize that God is Spirit.

(Pause)

This very temple has God as its central theme. But not your God or my God – just God. And, a God that belongs to nobody; a God that just is, and has to be universal. That’s why this particular Order can flourish in every country on the globe where there is freedom, where one isn’t compelled to worship in a specific way. Wherever there is freedom, this Order is to be found because, it doesn’t give a name to God; it doesn’t give a religion or a faith to God; it just recognizes God as the Principle of life, the Grand Architect of the whole universe.
It is for this reason then, that the contemplative way of life is the way of life for an individual who can recognize this great fact: that wherever God is worshiped, it’s the same God. There can’t be more than one God. In whatever way God is worshiped, it’s the same God – so there can’t be more than one God.
And whether as Hebrews we go into a temple with our hat on, or as Christians with our hat off, or whether as Orientals we go in with our shoes off, or as Christians with our shoes on, it must be understood that this can make no difference – that all we are doing is worshiping in whatever way means dedication or sacredness to us. That’s all.
What represents sacredness to an individual determines his worship. If an individual can feel that he is honoring God by keeping his hat on, that’s his idea of worship and sanctity, but it doesn’t change God. If another individual feels that he is honoring God with his shoes off, that very degree of sanctity determines an individual’s degree of worship.
Therefore, when you live the contemplative life, you will respect the Moslem, who takes off his shoes and sits on the ground; and you’ll respect those who have ceremonial forms of worship; you will respect those who have no form of worship because you will know each in his own way is dedicating his sanctity, his sacredness unto God. And not his God because there is no such thing. There is only God, and God is a Spirit.
The contemplative then, is the individual who is paving the way for world peace because he is recognizing that there is only one Father, one God – equally of all – and that we therefore are brothers and sisters.
And therefore, the only relationship that is essential is that we treat each other as we treat our brothers and sisters, members of one household. Therefore, to know this is to love God supremely – the one and only God. But it is also to love our neighbor as ourself.
Therefore, the contemplative is paving the way by breaking down one of the only two causes that there are for wars or discords. There are only two reasons for wars – one is religion, one is business.
And when you have acknowledged one God, and the brotherhood of man, you’ve wiped out 50 percent of all of the causes. Then when you begin to love your neighbor as yourself, you’ve wiped out the other, because you can’t fight over business with your brother or your sister. And so it is that you have paved the way for the ending of war.
And of course, you’ve done it in another way, too, that doesn’t immediately appear on the surface. Do you know that if you can accept God as Spirit, you can never again fear? You can never fear what form of government we have, or any other country has. You can never fear what anyone does. Once you have God as Spirit, you have God animating human consciousness. And because there is only the power of God, there’s nothing left to fear. And when fear is gone, the final cause of our discords are gone. When we learn to love one another – which means not fear one another – then again we’ve set the pace for harmony.
Don’t you know that we, all of us could live in eternal harmony if we didn’t fear one another? Just let fear creep into this room, and we could have a first-class war. The first thing you know there’d be sides – your side and my side.
But, as long as there is a realization of God as Spirit, who has anything to fear, for Spirit fills all space. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there’s nothing to fear – no danger, no insecurity, no powers apart from God. Therefore, just to realize, “God is Spirit,” begins to free this whole universe of fear.
Well you can see now that the next step in our Infinite Way unfoldment is going to be to learn the nature of the life of a contemplative, and the way of life of a contemplative, and the willingness to understand that a person can be a contemplative and yet follow any religion he wants in the world, or none because it’s all based on “God is a Spirit.”
There can only be one God; there can only be one Spirit, and that must be the only Presence, and the only Power. Call it by any name you will; worship in whatever form you will; fast if you like or feast if you like – as long as you are doing it from an inner feeling of sacredness.
Thank you.
End Part 5 of 5