Function Of Mind Part 1

From – Tape 399-1

1961 Los Angeles Closed Class – Function of Mind – Part 1

By Joel Goldsmith

Q: When we attain pure Spirit will we have a mind?

A: I don’t know, I don’t know. And all of these have to do with the subject of mind and the confusion that has arisen out of the statement that mind is not God… thought is not power. Try to follow this, with me. It is an impossibility to make a statement that God is this or God is not this because God being infinite is beyond any capacity to define, analyze, or explain. Anyone who would attempt to explain what God is has just gone far beyond anyone who has ever lived. And they’re going to introduce probably a new era, because it is not possible.

It is possible to experience God. As a matter of fact that is the goal of all of our work. It is possible to know God aright, it is possible to be consciously one with God so that there is no place where God leaves off, and we begin. But it is not possible to analyze, dissect, or describe God.

With mind that is something different—we know all about mind. Mind is an instrument of awareness: through mind we know, we become aware; with mind we reason, we think. Therefore, mind must be an instrument or an effect—it cannot be a cause. Mind cannot cause anything. And the reason is I am behind the mind. When I say “I,” I’m speaking now of “you.” I am behind the mind; I can think through the mind and with the mind; I can reason with the mind and through the mind; I can use the mind. And therefore I am greater than the mind.

And you want to know something, that even as a human being, I am greater than the mind. Because a human being can control his mind if he sets out to, wants to, is willing to study and practice. A human being can use his mind for a reasoning purpose, a thinking purpose, a contemplating purpose—therefore, even a human being is greater than his mind.

Now then, when we come to this next point, it settles once and for all the fact that mind can never be God. Mind can be the instrument of either good or of evil. You can think good thoughts with your mind or bad thoughts; you can perpetrate good deeds or bad deeds through the instrumentality of your mind. Mind can be the awareness of something good or something evil.

Now try to imagine God in that light, and you’ll see how utterly fantastic it must be to think of God as mind. If mind is the creator of thoughts, and we can have good thoughts and evil thoughts, then God is certainly not mind. God is too pure to behold iniquity … God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. In other words, when you penetrate beyond mind, you are in the realm of neither good nor evil; you are in the realm of pure being.

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