1960 Maui Work

Tape 369 Side 2

Contemplation Develops the Beholder

By Joel Goldsmith

Part 3 of 5

Now, you must remember that in the human picture—in the human picture there is a law called “self-preservation is the first law of nature.” And it is that law—if we can dignify it by the name of law—which is responsible for all of the evil that’s in the world, because a person would never steal if it wasn’t that they are preserving their human sense of life—they’re preventing themselves from starving or being a failure, they’re preventing themselves from lack and limitation. In other words, they’re preserving their own sense of identity.

There never would be a war, because nobody ever goes to war—except to preserve what they believe is their human life or their human supply. The horror of it is, you can see, that they’re always willing to send their children off to get killed, as long as they can stay home and be saved. People’s children are never as important to them as themselves! The children must go off and get killed or wounded or demented, so that we can stay home and have abundance and preserve our lives.

And that’s behind every war, “self-preservation.” They call it “patriotism” because [it] they say “it’s the preservation of a nation.” But there is no nation, a nation is only a group of individuals. So really then it’s the perpetuation of ourselves that makes us willing to sacrifice our children—so that we can be preserved.

Now, in the storm then, the disciples aren’t really fearing a storm. What difference would a storm make to them, if their lives weren’t in danger? Who cares about whether the wind is forty miles an hour or a hundred miles an hour, if there’s no danger to one’s life or limb? It is only when the danger comes in to one’s selfhood that the storm becomes “evil.”

Now… to realize, “be not afraid it is I”. . . I-God is the only life, I-God is the life of individual being, and it can’t be lost and it can’t be destroyed. Therefore fear not, let the storm do what it will. Once the fear of the storm, or that is the fear of losing one’s life is gone, who cares whether the storm goes on or not? Nobody! It was only while one’s life or limb was in danger that they cared whether the storm went on or did not go on.

So it is the same way, who cares how many germs there are in the world—except in the degree that we can be made to believe that the germ can destroy our life? Ahh, that sets up the antagonism in us, and we are going out now to wipe all the germs off the face of the earth. Why, what have we got against germs? Nothing except that they threaten destruction to our own life, or our own self.

But supposing we came to the realization that my life is indestructible, that neither life nor death could separate me from God—now what difference would germs make? And in that realization, the battle against error, that particular form of error—would cease. And we’d say, “none of these things move me.”

None of these things move me, my life is God, my life is in God, my life is with God. . . “and neither life nor death can separate me from God.” And do you not see that in that realization—death itself has no longer any fears or terrors? No one can possibly fear death once they realize that “neither death nor life can separate one from the life which I am, the life which is my being.”

And so it is, that when the Master says, “MY Kingdom is not of this world,” therefore, you don’t have to fight, remove, overcome anything in the external world. When the Master said “be not afraid, it is I,” in other words, “I” am the life of you, “I-God” the Spirit God is your life, your being, the substance of your body—be not afraid for anything in the external world.

Then you are automatically adjusted to a state of consciousness that is no longer glorying over the good appearances out here, or fearing the evil appearances out here. But you are looking out at them with a sense of detachment, as if you were an onlooker, a beholder—with no interest in changing, improving, destroying. Just a beholder!

And in the attitude of a beholder, your personal-mental powers come to a stop, and it is as if you were watching a sunrise or a sunset. Now nobody in their right mind has any belief that they can hurry up a sunrise or a sunset, or that they can slow one down, or that they can make one more beautiful.

Therefore, in order to watch a sunrise or a sunset, you completely become a beholder—watching nature at work, watching God at work.

You never enter into the picture, you never seek to change it, improve it, heal it, remove it, destroy it, or make it better. Always, you are at the absolute center of your own being as a beholder. And as a beholder you can truthfully say, “what a beautiful sunset, what a beautiful sunrise God is bringing about, or nature is bringing about.”

You could be in an art gallery, and you could watch the works of the great masters, you could stand before them—but you would be a beholder. Because all that you are trying to do is draw from the picture what the artist placed there. You’re not trying to improve the picture for him, you are not trying to destroy it, you are not trying to give it qualities. All that you are trying to do is draw forth from the picture what the artist created and placed there for your vision.

Therefore, you do not enter the picture, you behold it! You behold it! If you enter anything, you may find yourself eventually entering into the consciousness of the artist, and beholding exactly what he beheld—because you are now of one consciousness, one mind.

When you hear a symphony, you do not enter the symphony, you stand off as a beholder, this time listening—listening for what the composer had in mind. You’re not trying to improve his work, nor are you trying to destroy it—you’re merely trying to understand it. Even if it sounds like bad music to you, incorrect music, offbeat music, you still are not trying to change it—you’re standing still without judgment, trying to grasp what the composer had in mind.

And, it would not be surprising if eventually you found yourself right inside the consciousness of that composer—and hearing the music as he heard it when he wrote it down. Then you’d have the same understanding of it that he had.

End Part 3