1950 First Portland Series

Tape 5 Side 1

Atmosphere of God

By Joel Goldsmith

Part 2 of 5

You have not chosen God, God has chosen you and it comes about in this wise: Always there is a development going on in consciousness. Always there is an unfoldment going on and at some period or other, something readies us, prepares us for the birth, for the conception of the Christ within our being. Before that, we were just a vacuum, we were a human being, seemingly cut off from the Father. And at the moment of assumption, at a moment that ye know not of, when the bridegroom cometh, a seed of truth is planted within our consciousness and to us, we interpret it as a drive, some sin, some disease, some lack, turning us to find a healing, to find God. Actually, it wasn’t that, it was God itself, Truth itself first touching our consciousness, touching it lightly, just as the planting of a seed.

From then, what seems to be our struggle for truth goes on. Just as watching the seed in the ground, you would also gather that a struggle were going on since the first thing you know the seed breaks open, and then the seed starts to take root, and all of that process is as if a struggle were going on. It isn’t. Just a normal, natural process of nature is taking place. And then begins the formation and the growth and the development and the pushing up through the ground, and then the bush and the branches and the leaves and the flowering…All in due order.

So with us. Every time we turn to the Father. Every time we turn to the Christ, it is just as if some shoot or root were lifting itself up to the sunlight and saying, “Pour yourself down on me so that I can develop.” And so every time a problem comes to our experience—and it isn’t a problem at all, we ought to rename it in this work. We ought to call it an opportunity—every time an opportunity comes that drives us to reach out for more light, more light, more light. Every such opportunity gives us more light and with every overcoming, there is an advance in the line of light. There is more wisdom, more judgment, more patience, more tolerance, more kindness, more gentleness, more peacefulness. And all of that grows upon us; grows upon us as the sunlight of truth, as the presence of God gives us grace.

You’ve all watched your gardens grow and you know that they grow only by grace. You know that nothing in your garden, in and of itself, is bringing about its own development. All of that comes to it from the very nature of nature; from the very nature of spiritual law. The law must express itself; life must express itself. Why grass and flowers come up even through rocks. Life must express itself, and life must express itself as you and as me.

You know, if you and I were ever taken out of the world, God would be out of the world, since I and the Father are one … The kingdom of God is within you, and if anything ever happened to you, what would become of the kingdom of God within you? It would just disappear. It couldn’t be, could it? God is infinite, God is omnipresent, God is eternal and immortal, and God is in his kingdom, and therefore, God is the center of your being. Nothing can happen to you without it happening to God. Nothing can happen to you without it happening to God since I and the Father are one.

Never let us forget that only in the degree that we realize this oneness can we maintain our spiritual integrity. As long as it can be made to appear that there is a you here and a God somewhere, just that long can disagreements, inharmonies, and discords appear in our experience.

No, the sun and the sunbeams that come to us are just one, and that one is the sun itself. Sunbeam is just the sun’s way of appearing to us. And so you and I as individual beings are just God; just God appearing in this form—in your form and my form. There is nothing more important than this to learn; there is nothing more important than this to know. It is the secret of all the ages. It is the secret of all the ancient religions. It is the foundation of all of the modern religions. No religion would be religion; no truth would be truth if it did not reveal that there is not an infinite God and something else.

And the infinitude of God includes all being. We can no more escape from God, and therefore, we can no more escape from our good than the warmth and the light can escape from the sunbeam. Warmth and light are constituent elements of the sunbeam, and life and truth and love and harmony and peace and joy and dominion are constituent parts of our being. Eternality and immortality are constituent elements of our being, and we can no more be deserted by eternality and immortality than God could be bereft of Itself.

Let us know this. Let us be sure of this too: that we are that center of consciousness through which the infinite good of God is pouring Itself to this world. I would like you to think of this sometime: all of the Godhead, all that God is, is pouring Itself through individual me to you. All of that which we call truth; all of that which we call life eternal; all of that which we call love; all of that which we call Spirit is manifesting and expressing Itself as my individual being and it’s pouring Itself through to you. Just think how wonderful this is when I tell you that all that God is, and all that God has is pouring Itself through individual you to me.

There is the beauty of this relationship: That you are that point of God consciousness through which God is pouring Itself through for the world. If that’s true, just think, everyone in this world is that point of God consciousness through which God is pouring Itself through to you. Think what that means in your relationship to the world. Think what it means in the infinity of good that this moment is pouring itself through to you.

Why, if only the infinity of God were pouring Itself through everyone in this room to individual you, think what you would be receiving. And it’s true; Ye are the light of the world. Remember? Ye are the light of the world. All of the light that we call God: God is light.God is light and in him there is no darkness and ye are the light of the world. Therefore, you must be that God light. And that God light that is pouring through you is pouring itself through you to me, to each other. All that is in and of God is pouring itself through me to you. And doesn’t that make us all one in Christ Jesus? Doesn’t that make us all one in truth? Doesn’t that make us joint heirs with Christ in God to all of the heavenly riches? Doesn’t that make us all friends? Doesn’t that make us all fellow citizens of the household of God? Yes it does, according to scripture, only we must make the acknowledgment; we must make the recognition; we must call each other friend.

End Part 2