1955 Kailua Study Group

Joel S. Goldsmith

tape 110A – One Power 3/4

Now the moment that you can be tempted to fight a person or a sin or a disease, you are engaged in battle that in the end will destroy you. Why? Because in and of itself it has no power, but you, yourself, are giving it the power against yourself.

Now remember, we are dealing not with a new religion, not with a new teaching, not with some magic formula that’s going to meet all of the problems of your existence. We are dealing with a universal truth that has been known from the beginning of time, has been introduced into human consciousness a half a dozen times by great spiritually illumined souls, and each time has been lost. Whether or not it is lost again will depend probably on what degree the grace of God has already touched human consciousness. Personally, I don’t believe it’s ever going to be lost and I believe that the day is coming when the affairs of the world will all be settled through this understanding. I believe that the day is coming when someone or some group will be called upon to establish that fact that God is the only power and God is good.

You see how drastic the change must be in your individual consciousness and mine, in order that we face life with the ability to look at evil people or germs or sins, diseases, and to be able to say, “So what, don’t disturb me I’m resting. Thou couldst have no power unless it came from the creative principle of the universe which is God.”

Now our healing work in The Infinite Way is based on that as the basic principle. That, above all, is the state of consciousness that must be achieved by one before they are capable of going out and doing healing work. That is why we have very few practitioners at this moment, the year of grace, 1955. I hope it will be different in 1956.

But we have very few practitioners today, because it is not a simple thing to give up all the generations of dualistic powers that you have held in thought—All of the ancestry that has given to you a fear of persons, places, things, circumstances, and conditions. And so it is that it is not a simple thing for an individual to look at a disease and say, “So what.” Remember, saying ‘so what’ won’t heal it. Saying ‘so what’ would only be the outward expression of an inner state of achieved consciousness. So, don’t say ‘so what’ until something within prompts you to say ‘so what’.

Because if merely saying it would do the work, then the 100,000 people who have read some kind of Infinite Way literature would all be out doing healing work. It isn’t that simple. The letter of truth merely prepares us for the actual consciousness of truth.

Now, our work in The Infinite Way acknowledges that since God is infinite and God is good, that God is the only power that this truth realized would meet every situation of our experience. But The Infinite Way also realizes that because the human nature is built on the belief of two powers, not only from a material standpoint but from a church standpoint; there isn’t a church on earth that doesn’t have two powers. They call it God and devil. Or in the metaphysical world they’ll call it the Immortal and the mortal. “Oh look what mortal mind is doing to me.” “Oh mortal mind is on the job today.” As if mortal mind were a power or an entity, any more than the devil were a power or an entity, instead of being merely a belief, a universal belief of a power apart from God.

Now, because these generations have built up in us a conviction of two powers, we now must train ourselves into the consciousness of one power. Just as if we were going to study music, or mathematics, we would have to devote a certain length of time to the studying of the principles and the practice of the principles until we became proficient in it—so with this.

In this we find that there are ways of developing our consciousness, of actually training ourselves until we arrive at the spiritual demonstration of the consciousness of one power. The message of The Infinite Way provides the method of study and of practice to attain that end. It is probably because I, myself, was so slow in coming to this realization that I believe everyone else is going to be slow in coming at it, and I do not declare anywhere that you can buy a book for two dollars and tomorrow start out healing the world. I acknowledge very freely that you must spend time and give effort to the attaining of that mind which was also in Christ Jesus.

That mind which was also in Christ Jesus is the mind that feared no powers external to its own being. That mind which was in Christ Jesus had no fear of person, place, circumstance or condition. That mind did not fear hunger, that mind did not fear disease, that mind did not fear death. That mind did not fear sin. It looked upon all of these as illusory experiences without power. To the sinner it said, “Neither do I condemn thee.” To the diseased it said, “Pick up your bed and walk.” To the dead it said, “Arise. Come forth.” Why? Because the mind that was in Christ Jesus does not acknowledge that death is a reality, and that corpses cannot get up and walk. It does not acknowledge that disease is a power to hold one in bondage. It does not acknowledge that poverty is anything that can last with an individual or be, or be present any longer than an individual wants to permit it.

Now, the attaining of that mind is with effort, plus the grace of God. The grace of God is the most important factor, because without the grace of God no one will have the fortitude to stick to it. Without the grace of God no one will have the desire to enter into the study.

You see, out of our work has come twenty-odd books with probably twenty more still unpublished, but to come. Those books are not published with any profit motive. They’re not published for the sake of selling or making money. They are the natural product of this class work, just as this work is and may later appear in book form. Not for purpose of printing more books or selling more books, but of adding perhaps one new light to what the student already has, one new facet, one new way of presenting the same old truth.

Now, whatever it was that drove me and kept me to the grindstone until the first grain of this inspiration came forth, that same power brings you here to this room. But, to what extent that power operates in you determines how much you are willing to dive and delve into those twenty-odd books or recordings or meditations until you, yourself, bring forth some measure of this consciousness of the nothingness of that which the world calls its errors.

In other words, if you continue to try to fight and win wars with bigger bombs, you’ll always be met by something bigger on the other side. If you try to fight your problems with mental thoughts, you’ll always find that the other fellow can have some stronger ones than you can. And the world can have still stronger ones than any individual can have. And so you’ll be up against strong thoughts and weak thoughts, good thoughts and bad thoughts, the pairs of opposites.

Now when you once come to the spiritual wisdom, you have no pairs of opposites, you have no concern with whether you can reach God, because you have nothing to reach God for. The day is already beautiful, the coconuts are already growing, the flowers are already growing, harmony already is, the tides are flowing, the sun and the moon and the stars already are, so why bother to go around bothering God. God’s in His heaven, all’s well with the world.

And so in this state of spiritual consciousness, you come to that place where you rest and relax in the realization God is in His heaven, all’s well with the world. And then, as through that realization, you withdraw from the battle of the things of earth, you will literally find it true in your individual experience, then in the experience of those who come to you, that it is true. Oh, you may not solve territorial or state elections; you may not solve national or international affairs yet, for the simple reason that you cannot help those with this wisdom who are still seeking their good in other ways. In other words, man does not live by bread alone, but that will not help you with the man who says, “But I like my bread and lots of it.” You cannot help the world by saying, “Leave your nets.” to that part of the world who says, “Not so, I’m looking for bigger nets and stronger ones and ones that hold more fish and bigger fish.” Ah no.

This is only of help where an individual, or someone under the influence of an individual, is willing to bring themselves to the state of consciousness which does not battle for its rights, which is willing to let that God which is in heaven govern this universe.