1950 First Portland

Joel S. Goldsmith

4B – Meditation 1/4

We never undertake anything without meditation. We begin with meditation and we meditate again in the middle and we meditate again at the end. Almost, you might say, our life is devoted to meditation, but that’s not exactly true. Our life is devoted to God, but it is through meditation that we make the contact. In this work, it is not sufficient to declare or affirm or state that I and the Father are one, or that God is ever-present or God fills all space. It is true that God is ever-present. It is true that God fills all space. It is true that there is no place we could go and get away from God, but it is also true that the world of men and of women is destroying itself with sin, disease, death, war, lack, and limitation, in spite of the fact that God is ever present and God is all power and God is ever available. How do we connect up this seeming discrepancy? How do we account for the fact of God’s omnipresence, and yet, the presence of war, panic, discord, inharmony, sin, fear, doubt, disease? I suppose that the thing for which I am most grateful in my entire experience is that I have found a satisfactory answer to that question. At least it’s a satisfying answer to me.

Just as electricity is omnipresent in this room, there would be no electric light without the contact, without turning on the switch. Just as there is a machine here to take down and record every word I speak, there would not be one word on that tape but for the touching of the switch, the opening of the switch that makes the contact, or closing of the switch, whatever it is: open or close, a contact must be made and established and then comes through the power.

And so it is with us. As human beings, now mark this: as human beings, we are not one with God. As human beings, we are not under divine protection or guidance. If we were, there never would be a sick human being or a dead human being or an aged human being, nor would there be a baby born deformed or stillborn if human beings were one with God. Unless you are willing to see that point and make that admission, you cannot take the next step toward the unfoldment of your harmony, because the next step is making your oneness with God a conscious thing; making your oneness with God an activity of your consciousness; making your contact with God a living, vital part of your being. Once you make that contact, you are no longer a mortal. You are no longer a human being; you are no longer at the mercy of chance or change or circumstance. Once you make your contact with the Father, you are living under grace; you are living by divine orders; you have been ordained. Watch the miracle when you learn to meditate and find within your being an answering response that assures you that God is on the field. Watch the miracle that takes place in your experience once you actually know by experience, by seeing God face to face, or hearing the still small voice, or feeling that little glow within. Watch then the miracle that comes into your life. You will understand what I mean.

As human beings we are living the life of the prodigal son who wandered away from the Father’s house, and he had nothing to live upon except the little inheritance or substance that he carried with him. But every time he used up an ounce of strength or a dollar of money, he had an ounce of strength less and a dollar of money less. Every time, we as human beings permit twenty-four hours of the day to go over our head, we have used up one day of our allotted humanhood. We have raced one day closer to the grave. We have raced one day closer to old age or middle age, to sickness, to weakness. Why? Because we are not being renewed from within; because we are living on the little substance that forms our human identity. Whereas, the moment we make our contact within; the moment we feel an answering response, it is as if all of the Godhead were flowing into us and through us and we are renewed day by day. Day by day the manna fell. Day by day we are renewed physically, mentally, morally, and financially. We don’t have to live on yesterday’s manna. Every day the manna falls. We don’t have to live on the strength that we piled up in athletics as a youth because every day new strength comes into our system, spiritual strength.

Well, as human beings, we cannot avoid the past, present, and future. The only way that we can collapse them into the eternal now, is when we rise above the human way, the human mind, the human will, the human soul or consciousness into the divine, and there become so at one with It, that It becomes us, It becomes our awareness, and then of course, there is no more change, no more time, no more space. It is for that reason that in this work, in our class work, I ask those students who intend to be serious students to start meditation not less than three times a day. To begin with, in the book, The Infinite Way, pages 97-103 [or pages 94-99] there are passages that begin on waking in the morning, and for those five pages, it gives an outline, not a formula to be followed, but an outline, of some process of thought that should engage us from the moment we awaken in the morning. And I recommend that before anyone steps their foot out of bed, that they lie there awake for one, two, three, or five minutes and begin pondering the idea of the omnipresence of God.

Here where I am, God is. Here in the beginning of this new day, God takes over. Here God becomes the directing influence of my day. I dedicate this day to the work of the Father. I dedicate this day to the life of the Father. And of course, in this day, I hold within myself, no condemnation, no criticism, no judgment, no fault finding, but in so far as it lies within my power, forgiveness, understanding, cooperation. I dedicate this day to maintaining the integrity of my own being, and I promise myself, that insofar as I’m given grace, I will not violate my own integrity; my own highest sense of right.

Then it is time to get out of bed.

While we are preparing for the day, making our physical preparations; there is no reason why we should give thought to the problems of the day. Sufficient unto the hour is the evil of the hour. There is no reason why, while we are making our physical preparations for the day, that we can’t again contemplate the idea of God; the idea of God being the only presence and the only power; the idea that only God can bring something to our attention during the day; the idea that only God will be active in us or in those we contact during the day. And then, instead of saying grace, we teach in this work that we are never to eat a bite or drink a drop without at least blinking the eye as a conscious, “Thank you Father.”

We take nothing for granted. In this work, we do not believe in oral prayers; we do not believe in even giving thanks publicly or audibly since our feeling of gratitude to the Father is our own business. It’s our own sense of relationship; it isn’t something we expect our friends or family to pat us on the back for. And if we do, our gratitude isn’t sincere. We do very little in the way of giving testimonies except where the giving of a testimony illustrates some principle that was involved in the demonstration. Never do we give a testimony merely for the sake of showing forth a healing. And in the same way, we do not utter public prayers. We do not utter prayers aloud. Why? Why should we? Our relationship with God is a secret one. The Master said, “Go into thy closet, shut the door and pray.” And that’s what we should do. And therefore, our form of grace is usually nothing more than blinking the eye and saying, “Thank you Father,” an acknowledgement of God as the source of our good.