1956 Barbizon Plaza Private Class for “25”

Joel S. Goldsmith

154B – Contemplative Meditation 4/4

And do you see what is wrong with these made up prayers and made up statements that are sent out on cards? Do you see how valueless they are? They’re just vain repetition. That’s all they are, vain repetition. The word of God has to come individually to you and me within ourselves. We have to receive a divine impulse within us. Oh, some of them are all right to have around to look at once in a while, but it’s far better to be a reader of scripture. It’s even better to add the scriptures of the world to our own scriptures.

Get familiar with all the scriptures of the world, and then never depend on mottoes and cards, and all that business, because when your mind and heart are filled with the word of God, whether it’s the word of a Hindu scripture, or Chinese scripture, or Hebrew, or Christian, it makes no difference. When your heart and mind are full of those, when you need one, the right one will come to light, the right one will appear. But don’t depend on them after they’re out in the world of things, vain repetition. The heathens think that vain repetition will gain them something. The heathens think that affirmations and denials will get them something. They won’t.

It is the spiritual word that unfolds and discloses itself within our own consciousness. That is the word of God that comes with power. Quick, powerful, sharp—sharper than a two-edged sword, if it comes from God, not from some wall fixture. In our, let us call it spare time, for no purpose at all except inspiration, let us read scripture. Let us read some inspired spiritual writing. Not for a purpose, just for inspiration. And you’ll find that enough of it will take root in consciousness so that if you ever need a word of truth, one of those will come to your rescue.

One of the important scriptural passages is found in the front of every Infinite Way pamphlet: Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Now that came about in the way of a miracle that came with a miraculous effect. I had never heard that particular Psalm, consciously I mean. I didn’t know it. But on one of my days of making visits to homes, coming back one evening, I passed a Hebrew synagogue, and my eye was attracted to the engraving over the door, and it was that: Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. And at that very moment I was in deep trouble for one of my patients whom I wasn’t helping. I wasn’t reaching through, and with that passage came a release. Ah, ah. If the Lord doesn’t do this, it won’t be done, and I could rest. And so from then on I’ve seen that for me there must never be a forgetting of that passage, and so it’s printed on those pages, not for a motto, not for anybody to read and think powerful, but just in case somebody should pick up that thing, and right at the beginning of their reading, should find that they don’t have to read any further. They don’t have to enter the synagogue; they’ve got the message up over the door.

And so there may be some who will never have to read my pamphlets, if they just open it and strike that passage. It’s a reminder, nothing more nor less, but if you keep carrying it with you for a while, it will only become a motto. It will only become a made up passage. Do you see that? Don’t do that, because it has no power as such. It only has power when it comes to your awareness when you need it, when God gives it to you. And your preparation for that is reading and studying, filling the soul, filling consciousness with truth, so the truth can reveal itself to consciousness at another time.

And do you see how contemplation comes in? Even reading that up over the temple wasn’t a thing, and meant nothing, until it was brought into contact with the problem of a patient and connected up. And then all of a sudden it became alive. So I’m sure I had as much benefit out of that as any of the Hebrews who read it every Saturday or Friday night as they walked into that temple. Once is enough to read a thing if it comes with the grace of God.

Now by this week’s work, you can see that this is not the type of work that lends itself to discussion. It does lend itself to teaching, but it does not lend itself to discussion. Nor does it lend itself to comparison. There is no way of sitting around discussing one teaching as against another teaching, for the simple reason that each teaching is based, each legitimate teaching, is based on an unfoldment of a teacher, and has no relationship to any other teaching, even when the words used are the same.

We all use the word God; we all use the word Christ, Spirit. We all use the word prayer. But we all mean something else. And so there is no use of discussions. And in the same way, as you have seen, in this work the I is God, and therefore, all of our good unfolds and flows out from within ourselves, so that we’re immediately taken out of all teachings that demonstrate something. In the same way, our prayer is an inner communion, and that removes us from anyone who indulges prayers of any nature. Our treatments are inner realizations of truth, not the conveying of truth to another, or projecting of truth from one mind to another.

And so it is that in many, many ways you’ll find that this teaching, this unfoldment is an individual one, and while we’re not going to attempt in any wise to limit anybody’s reading, nevertheless let it be clear that in our work, we are using nothing but this particular unfoldment. Those who wish some other, let them have it, but not in our work…in their own work, in their own home, in their own way.

Often there come questions about wherein do you differ from Christian Science? Wherein do you differ from Lillian de Waters? Wherein do you differ from New Thought? It’s not your function to discuss those things with anyone. It is their function to study and discover that for themselves. Otherwise there’s no reason why you shouldn’t discuss the difference between this and Roman Catholicism, Baptism, Methodistism, and all the rest of these teachings.

We present a principle, and then it’s accepted or rejected. Sometimes permanently, sometimes temporarily. But we do not make comparisons, and we allow each to stand on its own feet, succeed or fail according to its merits, the same as we have to succeed or fail according to our merits. Now you know wherein we differ, because you couldn’t come to a place of healing without knowing those particular points that make the healing consciousness inevitable in you, in me, and in others.

Teach, share, reveal, but do not enter discussions. Also do not permit questions from the floor, or from the class. If there is a question, it can be written out, and you can answer it at that moment, or if you prefer, keep it for meditation, or looking up for the next time. But when you’ve answered it, you’ve answered it, and there’s no comeback. There is no “but this,” and “but that”, because that leads to discussion. That leads then to a mental debate, and even if you win you haven’t done anything. I mean even if you’re right you haven’t done anything. Because spiritual teaching is an inner impartation not an intellectual agreement.

So it is, I welcome all questions, but as you see, written questions that I can answer, and then that ends it. If my answer doesn’t suit, the question can be asked in another form, or nothing further takes place. But I cannot argue, cannot discuss, because that brings it to the intellectual level. Whereas in answering a question, my object is to get within myself and let the Father answer it through me. You do the same. Not by orders. This is suggestion, because it has proven very successful in nine years. Whereas I have witnessed groups that had discussions and questions and answers back and forth, and no one’s ever convinced. That’s an impossibility.

Also remember, there is more power in the silent word than in the spoken word. The spoken word we are apt to reject. It is like my asking for help, and then you saying to me, “You are spiritual,” and something in me rebels against that, because if I were spiritual, I wouldn’t be in this fix. And if you knew I were spiritual, I would be healed instantly. And so I don’t like to hear those clichés. And I’m sure you don’t like to hear them, and the students don’t.

But if you have that feeling of compassion that can enable you to say, “Drop it. Let me be with you. Let me help you.” Then take it up in the silence, and let the silence speak in the consciousness of the patient.

And of course the last word is that cooperation from headquarters is always available. That you know from past experience. Write and you will receive a prompt answer. Not so prompt while we’re traveling Africa and Asia, but as prompt as possible. Try insomuch as is possible to meet the needs metaphysically of your patients and students, without having them send to me. If there is any reason why you’re not meeting it, or can’t meet it, or feel you haven’t, let them try some of these others that are active in the work. And if not, in the last resource, send to me.

But with the work the way it is, there’s enough work coming in to me of its own accord, without you sending in more that you should be meeting in your local fields. And of course, it isn’t that at this stage that you have any excuse to say that healing work is difficult. It’s difficult, but not any more difficult for you than for me for the simple reason that we are not combating sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation. We’re not looking around for great understanding. We are understanding that if we make the contact within, that same spirit will do the work, whether it’s in me or in you.

Let us learn to rely more and more on that silence within our own being, and then we’ll have to call for less help. But by now we have a nice group of workers. Many of them have already done some very fine healing work, so that you should be able to find help among yourselves, for yourselves, for each other, and for your work. And it doesn’t mean that I’m getting ready to retire. It means that I’m getting ready for bigger activities. Bigger activities.

And not that I will do any less healing work. I will repeat to you what I have said to the classes in the beginning, nine years ago. A person who turns aside from the healing work will not long be equipped to teach. They will not have anything to teach. I will never turn away from the healing work, no matter how big it gets, but there are so many reading the writings out in the field, who have no practitioners available, or who know no other channels that write me for help, that I have enough calls from that source without coming into your particular field.

Now I am not breaking off from those who have been with me for many, many years, except under certain circumstances, because they have the feeling toward me that you have, and would like to feel their hand in mine, and so forth. But I’m taking as few new ones from your particular fields as I can, referring them more and more to you, rather than accepting them.

And I think that’s about all that I have on my mind. We’ve had a wonderful week. I don’t have to tell you that. It’s been wonderful for me. And I can tell you this, that from several different sources, all mystical sources, I have been told that this is our year. 1956 is the year of The Infinite Way, that 1956 is the year of its great unfoldment and of its great activity. And so far it looks as if it had begun that way. Thank you.