1952 New Washington Series

Joel S. Goldsmith

7A:A – Treatment 2/4

So it comes again when evening comes, we cannot afford to say, “Oh, I knew the truth this morning.” Ah no. That same truth is the truth now, but the same mesmeric influence of the world will come back and steal in on you through the radio, through the newspapers, through the talk at the dinner table—all of the errors of the world will crowd back upon you unless you consciously and specifically rule it out.

You say that’s a little bit too much work. That’s a little too difficult. That calls for too constant a realization. I guess it does for a while until it gets to be such a habit of thought that you do not any longer have to consciously make the effort. It is automatic. There does come a time when you will find that ideas of truth fill your consciousness throughout every one of your waking moments, and very often in your dreams at night, but the first few months, maybe even the first year is one of continuous effort, continuous reminding yourself that I am not in the world, or if I am, I am in it but not of it, that I’m not subject to the world’s influences. I am not under the law, but under grace.

Now, no one can do this for you. You can be told about it, and if whoever is on this platform is elevated high enough in consciousness at the time they’re here, they can bring about a great deal of freedom for you from discords: mental, moral, physical, financial, but that is only of a continuing nature as you continue to keep yourself in that elevation of thought, of consciousness. In other words you can sin again even if you have been set free by the consciousness of the person on the platform just as Jesus set them free, but they were free to go back to their erroneous ways.

So here, you can come here for a week, a month; you can come regularly two and three times a week, and you can be set free, but you must maintain that freedom yourself. You have to keep yourself lifted in that atmosphere of truth. How? Through the conscious remembrance of the great truth that, because of your relationship with God, you are not under the law. Now remember, there’s only one reason you’re not under the law. There is only one reason you’re under divine grace, and that is because of your relationship with God. God is the Father/Mother principle of existence and we are the offspring. We are the divine children of an infinite and an eternal and an immortal Principle, and because of that we are in the world, but not of it. We are under divine grace.

Now then, if we had not come under this Adam belief of separation from God, we would be in the full enjoyment of divine grace. None of us would ever have to work for a living or struggle for one or take thought for what we shall eat or drink or wherewithal we shall be clothed. These things would all follow in their normal, natural way, and our work would not be for a living; it would be for the purpose of expressing something that we had the ability to express and to find joy in its expression. But that is not the case only because we have come under the sense of a separation from God.

Now then, to bring yourself back is an act that you yourself must perform. When the prodigal son got low enough in the scale of troubles, discords, inharmonies, he bethought himself of his father’s house. He thought of it himself, came to his own awareness that he’d wandered far from this home of harmony and abundance, and he picked himself up and started back toward home. He did that himself. He did it all, and it was only while he was yet afar off that the father came out to meet him.

In other words, we start the ball rolling. We are the ones who consciously say to ourselves, “Now wait a minute, how much of sin or disease or lack must I let come into my life before I start back to the Father’s house? Just how far down in the scale must I get before I think about the return to my Father’s house, and probably this is far enough, and while I still have the capacity to do it, I’m turning around, and going back to the Father’s house.”

Well, that of course, is the start. Then from there on is the journey back to the Father’s house, and if you make that journey, and it’s a mental one, a spiritual one, it’s an act of your consciousness, of your conscious thinking; if you take that journey every day in the remembrance, “I’m not under the law because of my relationship with my Father, with God; I’m under grace. I live and move and have my being in God. I dwell in the secret place of the most High. I don’t dwell in a city; I don’t dwell in a house; I dwell in the secret place of the most High. I don’t live in Seattle; I live and move and have my being in God.”

Now, as we continue that line of spiritual activity, even while we are yet a long way off from complete realization, the Father begins to come out to meet us, and from then on the load gets lighter, and instead of our having to do all of the thinking and all of the remembering, now the Father starts to speak to us, and instead of our thinking about the spiritual things of God, the first thing you know we’re hearing them. We’re hearing them in the ear. The still, small voice begins to assure us that I will never leave you. I, will never forsake you, and when that comes you may then say, “Ah ha, I’m still far off, but the Father has come out to meet me, and now the Father is imparting Its assurances to me, and then you’ll find that one sweet day you’ve awakened and the Father has placed upon you the robe and the ring, and you’ll know that you’re once more restored to the realization of your divine Sonship.

Strangely enough, never forget that there has never been a break in that relationship, never; not any more than there is a break in the relationship when we leave home, or leave mother and father. The relationship is the same. We’ve merely left home and taken ourselves away from it, but the relationship exists, and we can return at any time, and usually find the mother and father waiting for us very eagerly, sometimes with a lamp in the window.

So we do in our spiritual journey—it does seem at times as if God had removed Itself from us and was not too much concerned about us, but that is no more true spiritually than it is true about our human parents—even though they keep quiet and don’t write us and do not interfere in our lives, you may be assured that in their heart they’re waiting there for our return. So it is spiritually. While the Father does not interfere in our existence and anybody who wants to get down far enough to eat with the swine has royal permission to do so. Anyone who wishes to go down into sin, disease, death, lack, limitation will find that they have the right and the privilege, and they can go as far as they like, but that has no significance spiritually. It doesn’t mean that the Father doesn’t care. It doesn’t mean that the Father isn’t standing there ready to help. It only means that we haven’t attained the realization of David when David says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art there.”

If we, in our sins and sicknesses, lack and limitation were to constantly remind ourselves, “I will not fear these conditions because God is right here with me and going through the experience with me,” we would very quickly be lifted out. It is only because we go through our discords and inharmonies and leave God out of the picture that we are not quickly lifted up.

It is only in the ability to understand God as consciously present within your own being, within your own consciousness; it is only in the degree of that awareness that we find God helping us at every step, otherwise it appears as if God were standing in the background waiting for us to get far enough down on the ladder to turn around and say, “Father, I’m coming back up.”

Now actually there is no such thing as separation from God. Actually there is no such thing as wandering off and wasting our substance. Actually there is no such thing as going down to eat with the swine. That is all an experience that we bring on ourselves through permitting the sense of separation from God to creep in, and therefore, the Bible has given us, if you like, formulas by which we not only can return to the Father’s house, but once we achieve a measure of it, remain there. And you will find those formulas in just such statements as: Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee. Let anyone keep their mind stayed on God, and I really mean “stayed on God,” and they will find that harmony will be restored to them, and once it is restored, that harmony will remain as a permanent dispensation. You have another one in: Lean not unto thy own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He will give thee peace.

In the same way, let a person make up their mind that from the time they awaken in the morning until they sleep at night, they will acknowledge that God gave them their rest at night, and God awakened them in the morning, and God provided meals, and God provided clothing, and God provided housing. We still say thank you to the human person who is responsible for our welfare, but always acknowledging that behind that human person is God, and that it is actually from God that we derive our good, then the continuous recognition of God’s presence as protection, as safety, as security, the constant recognition of God as the only real power.

Now just with those two statements: Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, and Acknowledge Him in all thy ways, and He will give thee peace—just the remembrance of those two ideas will bring us back to the Father’s house, and once we get back will keep us there. It isn’t too difficult, especially when you realize the good that is to be received, because from this activity of truth in our consciousness, we eventually drop more than ninety percent of the sins, diseases, deaths, lack, and limitation that mankind usually runs into, and so it’s really worthwhile.