1952 New Washington Series

Joel S. Goldsmith

7A:A – Treatment 1/4

Good Afternoon.

Here we are in the middle of a week and nothing done yet. It seems like we’ve wasted a lot of time this week. But the work this week is a continuation of last week and a continuation of all previous weeks in that the entire secret of the work lies in the fact that success comes through the development of spiritual consciousness so that all of our work is really of a continuing nature. It is not so much adding new knowledge to what we already have. There isn’t too much knowledge of truth to be added to what we’ve already had, but it is really the unfolding or the developing or cultivating of a spiritual consciousness.

Now, the measure of progress lies in this: in the degree in which the discords and inharmonies, the sins and the diseases of the world become less real to us, in that degree is the power of God becoming more real. Or it might be the other way around, that in the degree that God is becoming more real to us, these discords become less real. However, there is a function that we play in there, and that is the degree of our practice. For instance, as we go about our daily living, we are meeting people in all walks of life and on all levels of consciousness, and in these contacts we behold some who are good and some not so good, some healthy, some not so healthy, and ordinarily we just accept each person as they appear to be.

Now the longer we continue that, the longer we remain in our state of humanhood with its good and evil, sickness and health…. Only as we consciously, specifically, change our thinking along that line to where we do not look at people and judge them as they seem to be, but rather translate the picture into what we know spiritual man to be; in that degree are we coming into the awareness of the allness of God and of the non-power of that which is.

Let’s see if we can make it a little bit clearer. There is no power in anything of an evil or erroneous nature. Let us say we are thinking of germs, infection, contagion: Now actually, there is no power in a germ—no power for evil—there may be power in it, but if there is, it’s a power of good. There is certainly no power of evil in it. Why? Because of the first chapter of Genesis: God made all that was made and all that God made is good, and anything God didn’t make wasn’t made. Now that’s the first chapter of Genesis.

If then, God made a germ you can rest assured it’s good. If God didn’t make a germ you can rest assured there aren’t any, so in either case, we have nothing to fear from what the world calls “a germ.” Now then, as we go about our living, we are continuously witnessing people suffering from diseases of infection or contagion. It might be colds or grippe or flu or scarlet fever or measles or typhoid fever or consumption—all of these so called germ diseases, and you say, but if they are not power, how come these diseases? They are not power unless we give them the power through our ignorance of truth. In other words, when the world says that a condition can cause illness, and accepts that belief, we automatically come under it, but if we, as truth students, set it aside, then we are no longer under the law, we are under grace.

Now let’s understand this point won’t you? Here we have the entire … call it mode or method of attaining the spiritual or perfect life. When we are under Moses, we are under the law, and that means that every so called human law operates upon us. If there is a law of germ disease, then we come under that law. If there is a law of sitting in the draft and catching a cold, we come under that law. If there is a law that certain foods make you fat and certain foods make you thin, we come under that law.

Never think that because we’re truth students that that in and of itself removes us from the law. Oh no! No, it isn’t that easy. You just cannot join a truth center or a Unity Church or a Christian Science Church and say, “Oh now I’m a member. None of these things are going to bother me.” Ah-no! There’s no such thing as wholesale salvation or buying immunity from sin, disease, and death by joining some pet church or other. Immunity from all evil can be attained by anyone, but it must come as a direct result of an activity of truth in their own consciousness. In other words the individual must do something about it, and just joining a truth movement isn’t that something—no, no, no, no. The something is a definite, a specific activity of truth in your consciousness or mine, an activity specifically indulged in.

Now, let’s put it again this way: I said that as human beings we are under the law, and that means that anything that materia medica calls a law is a law unto us. Anything that theology says is a law unto us, like living three score years and ten—that is a law unto us. Sometimes if the world has a strong enough belief in astrology, that can be a law unto us. Whether or not we accept it—it doesn’t make any difference whether you go to a fortuneteller or an astrologer or even say I don’t believe in it; that in and of itself does not remove you from the law.

Removing yourself from the law is a specific act of consciousness which you do daily—you can’t do it once and be free forever. You have to pray without ceasing, and there’s no fooling about that “without ceasing” business, because the moment you stop praying you bring yourself back under the mesmerism of the world, and you come right back under the law again. That is what the Master meant when he said, “Go and sin no more.” You would think that after he had healed a person of sin that they didn’t have the capacity to sin any more. Oh yes they did, and he warned them that if they went back to their sins that even worse things would come upon them. And so it is, if you bring yourself out from under the law and then sin again, which means go back under the law again, you’re apt to bring more things on you than you had in the first place.

Now, to come out from under the law and to come into grace means this: that every single day of the week you consciously remember your real relationship with God and that you consciously remember that God’s law is a spiritual law, not a material law. God’s law is the reign of Christ, not the law of Moses. Now let’s not misunderstand this, this has nothing to do with whether we’re Jewish people or Christian people. There are just as many Christian people under the law of Moses. There are more under the law of Moses than there are Jews because there are more Christians than there are Jews, and every Christian is under the law of Moses whether or not he knows it or whether or not he believes it; they’re under the law of Moses until through a specific act of your own consciousness, you remove yourself, and you have to remove yourself by realizing, “I am not under the law of Moses, but under the divine grace of Christ. I am governed by Spirit, not by law. I and my Father are one, and all of the good of the Father is made manifest in my experience. Why? I’m the child of God, a joint-heir with Christ to all the heavenly riches, and I live and move and have my being in Spirit, in God.”

Now these are things that we have to bring to conscious remembrance every day of the week. Every time we leave home we have to remember, “I’m not going out into a world of material laws. I’m not going out into a world of legal laws or even traffic laws. I’m going out into a world God governed, God maintained, God sustained.” Then, when you step out of your home into the world you will find yourself divinely protected, divinely sustained, and even spiritually fed and clothed and housed, but the same thing applies when you come back into your home. There is no use of thinking, “Oh, I’m inside my home now, I’m out of that terrible world.” That terrible world is just as much in your home as outside of your home unless, again, you realize that the kingdom of God is here where I am. The place whereon I stand is holy ground, whether it’s in the kitchen or the living room or the bathroom. The place whereon I stand is holy ground. Right here and now, the kingdom of God is made manifest in my experience.