1958 New York Closed Class
Joel S. Goldsmith
222B – Mind Imbued with Truth & The Temple
Good evening. On the final evening of this class, and I suppose for the first time in our twelve years, I’m going to say I’m sorry that this is the last evening of the class. Usually I’m very happy to see that evening come around. I feel free. But not tonight, unless we clear this up before this evening is over.
You see some of you, and this applies more especially to those of you who have a Christian Science background, this idea of mind has not been clear to you. I have spoken to a couple who have seen very clearly what was meant, but I can understand why some of you have not caught it. So let us see if we can clear this up.
We have understood that what is called the human dream, the Adam dream, humanhood, is a state of mortal illusion. We have been taught that sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation are the products of a mesmeric dream; a state of illusion, mortal mind. And this is true; it is exactly what it is. What you do not often realize is that the good side of that dream is just as illusory. It isn’t only sin, disease and death that are illusion; but health and wealth are illusion if you are thinking of these from the standpoint of physical sense. But just remember that a physical heart that beats normally is just as much an illusory sense as a physical heart that is diseased. And one way you can know this to be certain is that the sick heart can get well, and the well heart can get sick. They are interchangeable; therefore they all must be part of the same fabric; the fabric of nothingness, the fabric of the dream; the fabric of hypnotism. The mere fact that humans can be completely well one minute and drop dead the next or be hit with an automobile and killed the next, must be evident to you that the entire fabric of that dream is illusory.
In our Infinite Way work you will notice that I not only stress that sin, disease and death are states of mesmeric illusion, but the physical health and wealth are equally so and that we must rise just as much above physical harmony as above physical discord until we reach the altitude or atmosphere of spiritual harmony. When do we reach that atmosphere? Never as long as your life is dependent on your heart or liver or lung or brain. Never! And that is why Mrs. Eddy wrote one time that someday you must rise even above the insanity of health, the insanity of health.
That is exactly what health is in The Infinite Way. Good health is just as much of an illusion as bad; wealth is just as much of an illusion as poverty if…if, if your wealth is dependent on your dollars; your wealth is an illusion. Why? Because your dollars can be made to disappear. Not only can you lose them in investments or in property, but your whole government can go out of existence as governments have done before, and you find your money wiped out. So if you think of your money as your wealth, you are living in a realm of illusion. You may wake up someday and be disillusioned.
If you believe that by going to a doctor and having him tell you that you are in perfect health, that you really are demonstrating spirituality, let me tell you that you may soon be in for disillusionment for health does change to sickness, virtue does change to vice, and anyone whose faith is in their heart or their lung, body, anyone whose wealth, whose faith is in the wealth of their bank account is living in a state of illusion and delusion.
Now, does this mean that your body is illusion, or that your wealth is illusion? No. No, it does not. It means that your sense of it is the illusion. Your belief that harmony is in the body, or harmony is in the bank account; that is the illusion. Your money isn’t, and your body isn’t. Your sense of money, your sense of supply, your sense of health that is the illusion and it is never externalized. It is always up here.
When you look out at the railroad tracks that come together in the distance, and somebody who has been over a railroad before says to you, “Don’t you believe it, that’s an illusion.” You don’t believe for a minute that the illusion is out there, in there, in the railroad tracks? No, no. Out there, the rails are in perfect order all of the way to the end of the line. The illusory sense of them coming together is in your mind. Is that clear when you stand at the water’s edge and you see the horizon, the sky come down on the water, and somebody who has been at the seashore before, comes up to you and says, “Please, don’t believe that. It isn’t so. That’s an illusion.” They aren’t trying to tell you that the sea out in front of you is an illusion, for it isn’t. The illusion is in your perception of what you are beholding. Does that add up?
