1963 Instructions for Teaching The Infinite Way

Joel S. Goldsmith

511A – The Infinite Way Pearls

While you cannot give this to the beginning students, you must evolve some way, in your own consciousness, as to how and when to introduce this.

There are two major contributions that have been made to the world through The Infinite Way. One does away with God and a belief in God and a faith in God and a hope in God—as God. But reveals, instead, that the illumined consciousness of the individual is the God. When an individual has the mind that was in Christ Jesus, they have the God mind, and when they do not have the mind that was in Christ Jesus, they do not have the God mind and they have no God, for there is no God separate and apart from the illumined consciousness of an individual.

The unillumined consciousness of the individual is not God, but there is no God except the illumined consciousness of the individual. And this agrees with Buddhism in that there is no God separate and apart from the individual, but that the individual has God in proportion as they have the Buddha mind, the illumined mind.

Now, once we know that God constitutes individual consciousness, then God is the consciousness of the individual. Then the consciousness of the individual is his God, and how much God does he have? As much as he can accept and become aware of. He can have a little bit of God, and he can have a whole lot of God, and eventually he can have the whole of the mind that was in Christ Jesus if he can keep on developing to that point.

Therefore, we come back to this in The Infinite Way teaching, that anything that you can think about God, cannot be God, because it’s only an idea in your mind, and an idea in your mind cannot be God. A concept in your mind cannot be God, because whatever is in your mind is an effect, and it is the thinker that is the cause of that effect. Therefore, if there is a God it has to be the thinker, but not the human thinker. Oh no, the illumined mind of the individual. So that our attainment isn’t finding a God, our attainment is developing our individual consciousness to its Christhood, or some degree thereof.

It is true that no individual can undertake this except by the grace of God, because without the grace of God he has no interest in it. The things of the Spirit are foolishness with man. Therefore, there is no use trying to develop spiritually the person who does not hunger and thirst after It within themselves, and they, themselves, give some indication of the degree of their hungering and thirsting, and their appreciation of what it is that they are seeking.

Now, when the spark touches an individual and awakens them—not merely to being healed by God, that’s merely saying I can’t be healed medically, and so I’m willing to be healed spiritually—as we often receive in letters. That I don’t think it makes any difference whether we’re healed materially or spiritually, but being healed spiritually is easier, and I think they mean less expensive. But it does make a difference!

It doesn’t make a difference if all we’re trying to attain is our health. But to the person seeking illumination, there is no God to heal them now any more than there was a God to heal them yesterday, or the day before yesterday. If there is a God to heal you tomorrow there must have been a God to heal you yesterday, and where was It?

Therefore, the healing agency is the illumined consciousness of an individual, and if you go to Jesus you’ll probably have an instantaneous healing, and if you go to the disciples, most of them, you might have a very good healing. And so with us, if you come to us, you go to one, you’ll have far better healings than going to some of the others, and the difference isn’t in God. The difference is in the degree of illumination of the individual.

Now, this is one of the major contributions of The Infinite Way to the world, to stop the seeking after a God and start to realize that what we are seeking is illumination. Then the next question come up: Of what does illumination consist? What do we mean by illumination, or illumined consciousness? How do we attain it? What constitutes it? And here again you have the second contribution, major contribution of The Infinite Way to this world.

An illumined consciousness—and it states this all the way back in the book The Infinite Way—is the state of consciousness that does not hate, fear, or love error in any form. That is illumination. That is Christ consciousness or spiritual consciousness or the Buddha mind.

When consciousness is awakened to the realization that since God is too pure to behold iniquity, then individual consciousness must be lifted to that place in consciousness where it is too pure to behold iniquity, and it does not have evil to overcome, rise above, or destroy.

Illumined consciousness is that state of consciousness which is always at rest in the realization that there is My kingdom, and that this is My kingdom. This is only “this world” when you have two powers, then it becomes “this world.” It isn’t a second world.

It’s an imaginary world held in our minds, and in the degree that we have only one power, one presence, one cause, one effect, one reality, in that degree are we illumined, and in that degree does “this world” be overcome.

Now remember, you are of “this world” when you judge by appearances. You are the unillumined mind when you see sin, disease, death, lack, and limitation as something to be overcome, as powers.

You are the illumined consciousness—you have attained, in some degree, the mind that was in Christ Jesus, the Buddha mind when you have perceived, inwardly, that all appearances are illusory appearances. They are not forms, conditions, or persons, but they are states of illusion.

Because once you recognize this you can be obedient to the Master’s revelation, Resist not evil. Put up thy sword. You are not illumined when you have to take up the physical sword or the mental sword, or when you have to protect yourself from the evils of this world.

Now, once you have perceived that individual illumined consciousness is Christhood, you have nothing further to do. Christhood does it all. Once you perceive the nature of individual consciousness as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence…Ah, yes, but in the beginning you are telling your students that God is omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence. You are telling the students that the nature of God is omniscience and that is why you do not have to pray to It or tell It anything, and you are teaching the student that God is omnipotence, and that is why there is no evil, because God is the only power, but as you reach the teacher, practitioner consciousness, you, yourself, must know that the God you’re talking about is My consciousness.

In My consciousness there is nothing to be influenced or taught or used, no powers to be used, because My consciousness is Itself, omniscience. It knows my need, and so forth and so on.

So that, when you understand God as individual consciousness you will understand why I and my Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine, because all that God is is my consciousness, and My consciousness embodies the Godhood.