1951 Second Portland Series

Joel S. Goldsmith

602A – Substance of Prosperity 1/5

 

Aloha, this is Joel continuing from Portland, Oregon, and presenting the message of The Infinite Way in a closed class.

Our subject this evening is that of prosperity, and so that we might not make any mistake and think that we’ve gotten into some metaphysical class on how to demonstrate parking spaces and new automobiles, the prosperity we’re talking about is purely spiritual. As a matter of fact there is really only one prosperity, and that prosperity is of the mind, of the soul, of the body, and of the pocket book. But it is a spiritual prosperity and it is spiritual for this reason: There is no prosperity separate and apart from the substance of prosperity. There is no such thing as attaining a lot of things separate and apart from the substance of which the things are formed. So any attempt to produce something in the outer realm without the achieving of the substance of such forms must result in failure.

In other words, supposing that we have need of manna, and we should now concern ourselves with demonstrating manna. We must fail, because in all of God’s kingdom there is no such thing as demonstrating anything in the realm of effect. The only demonstration that could be made is in the realm of cause, and then that cause would appear as effect. There is no such thing as demonstrating home, supply, transportation. These are all effects of one infinite substance, and without that substance, there could be no effect.

The demonstration must begin within our own being, and the demonstration must take the form of achieving or acquiring or attaining the consciousness of the presence of God. Now prosperity cannot come in any other way, whether it is the prosperity of health or the prosperity of wealth, it cannot come in any other way than that of demonstrating the substance of which health and wealth are formed.

We have learned this: that a consciousness of God’s presence always appears outwardly in the forms necessary for our immediate fulfillment. We learn that through the passage that I so often quote in the writings from the twelfth chapter of Luke, also found in Matthew: Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor wherewithal ye shall be clothed. Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things, and it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all of these things shall be added unto you.

Now, it was in that passage that the light opened to me that the first thing necessary was to understand what the kingdom of God is. What is the kingdom of God? What is meant by that term “kingdom of God?” I don’t know that there’s any way to find that out in the human picture. I don’t know what the dictionary would reveal about it. I didn’t take it up from that standpoint. I took it up from the standpoint of meditation, and first of all, asking, seeking within my own being, the depth of my own being, for the answer to that question: What is the kingdom of God? And out of that meditation came such explanations or synonyms as realm, realm of God, awareness of God, consciousness of God. And through that, it dawned on me that the first thing I had to achieve was a consciousness of God, an awareness of God. I had to get into that realm or consciousness of God. Seek ye the realm or consciousness of God, and then, having achieved God, all the things would be added.

Now, I suppose it is much like saying if you understood the principle of electricity, you could have light and you could have heat and you could have cold and you could have power. These would just be the various forms in which electricity could be made available to us. But without the principle of electricity, could we have electrical heat or electrical cold or electrical power? No, certainly not. First must come the awareness of the principle of electricity, and then would come the various forms of it, and so with this.

God is the substance of this universe. Turning back to Genesis, you find that God made this world and all that is in the world. God made the crops in the ground. God made the ground even before the crops, and the crops and the trees and the waters and the fish and man. God made all of this, but God was infinite, so what did God form this universe of except of Its own being, of the substance of Its own Self? Therefore, it is God Itself that is the substance of everything we behold. Then how could we acquire anything separate and apart from its substance? How could we acquire anything without the awareness of the principle, substance, or life of which everything is formed?

There we come to the first principle in our searching for prosperity. First of all, give up all concern for the forms of good that you are seeking. Those forms will come once you have the substance out of which they are made.

And the substance of all is God. God is infinite, divine consciousness, and it therefore becomes necessary that we attain the consciousness of God, that we achieve the consciousness, or conscious awareness of God, that we come to a place in consciousness where we can say: Yet in my flesh I have seen God face to face.

In other words, we come to the realization of God as the very presence, substance, law, reality, of our being, then that being true, having this consciousness, all forms of consciousness appear.

One of the great mistakes that we make as humans is to believe that there are things separate and apart from spiritual substance. In other words, we have accepted the belief that there is a material creation. Oh, yes, we believe that God can give us life, and God can give us love, and God can give us truth, but then when it comes to bread and butter and meat and houses, that we must go out and get for ourselves because that is a universe apart from God, and that’s not true. That is not true.

There is no selfhood apart from God, nor is there a creation apart from God, and what we call a material creation is not a material creation, it is a material sense of the spiritual creation.

In this explanation you find all sense of separation from your good. Once you come to the realization that there is not a material creation, that we merely have a material sense of a spiritual creation, but that all creation is spiritual, you will find then that everything in this universe is subject to the divine consciousness, which is God. Everything answers and responds.

If we had up here a whole roll of twenty dollar gold pieces, they could not, of themselves, come to me, or go from me to you. They would stand right here forever. It would take some activity of consciousness to draw them to me or to draw them to you.

If these twenty dollar gold pieces were material they would not respond to consciousness; they are not material, they are spiritual. We but entertain a material concept of them.

It is so with everything in life. You draw to yourself your good through your own consciousness of truth. And if there were no other thing to prove it, that would in itself prove that all that exists, exists as forms of consciousness, subject to the consciousness that formed them.