Original IWIhub.com Transcript. Transcriber Eunice Lee and proofread by Zane Maser.

pdf    628A The Secret Companionship
The Secret Companionship
1954 Third New York Closed Class
Joel S. Goldsmith
Tape 628A

Many years I was in the business world, and it went along beautifully for many, many, many a year and never made a really serious mistake, and then I made one, but that was a good one, and I made another good one this morning.

Question: The question was, “I have planted, Apollos watered, and God giveth the increase.”

Answer: And the correct answer to that is this. Apollos was a minister, a minister who worked with Paul, and the books say of him that he was an eloquent man, an efficient worker in the early church, a converted Jew, eloquent, fervent, mighty in the scriptures, instructed in the Gospel by Aquila and Priscilla, very popular in Corinth where a faction gathered around him, and it says he probably hesitated to return there for that reason. That’s one of the reasons I guess we’ll have to stop returning someday to the factions around us.

Anyhow, Apollos was a minister along with Paul and evidently a helper of Paul, and that corrects that mistake, only this one won’t be as serious, if you would just forgive me. The other one, no one could forgive, I was held to it.

Question: “Would you please explain your understanding of the eating of flesh from a spiritual standpoint?”

Answer: No, I can’t explain it. I only know this that the higher we are in consciousness, the less of flesh we eat, and when we get really high in consciousness, it is impossible to eat any. On the other hand, the Master said that it isn’t what goes into the stomach, into the mouth, that defileth but that which cometh out.

And so, probably, in our human belief, there isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t eat meat, but there isn’t any doubt about the fact that the further you go in spiritual work, the less taste you have for it, even if you do eat it. There are many reasons why you eat it, even after you have no taste for it, and part of the reason is that the system seems still to require it. I have met many of the teachers from the Orient who are not meat eaters when they’re in the Orient, and then soon after they come here, they take up the eating of lamb or fish. There may be some who do not, I don’t know, but I know some who do, and their explanation is that they find that our food here, our vegetables and fruits, do not really have food values, and the things that they eat, like rice, definitely have no food value over here. In polishing, the food value is taken from the rice, and so again, like wheat, it remains nothing but a bulk rather than a food, but whatever the reason, that’s what happens over here.

Now, I know many people in our work who have no taste at all for meat, and if there were a way of having a satisfactory food arrangement would not eat any but still continue to eat some from time to time. I suppose the answer is that, as we go higher in consciousness, we need less and less of bread, that is of the outer food, and more and more we are fed by that inner meat, and inner wine, and inner water. If there’s any other explanation, I don’t know it.

Last night, we saw the idea of agreeing with our adversary, that is the idea of not taking up the sword, mentally or physically, to fight error, and we saw the reason for it that there is no such thing actually as an error.

There is no evil in any condition or in any person, except insofar as we accept the universal belief about it, and as we come to that state of consciousness, naturally, there is no fight. There is no argument left. There is just an acceptance of the situation as it is.

Now this brings us to a very important point in our healing work. In our later recordings and in some of the writings, you will find that the secret of healing work lies in the one word—reaction. You will note that the quality of healing work that you do is dependent on your reaction to the claim when it presents itself to you. Now let me explain first of all that all healing work must be done at the point of contact with your consciousness. Healing is never done an hour from now. Healing is never done tonight or tomorrow. It is never legitimate to tell anyone, “I’ll give you a treatment in a few minutes,” or “I’ll give you a treatment tonight,” or “I’ll give you a treatment tomorrow.” Never, never is that a legitimate thing in this work.

Every treatment must be given at the point of contact. In other words, the very moment you say to me—“I need help”—it is in that split second that the treatment must take place, because my reaction to the request determines to a great extent the degree of healing and the time of healing. If my reaction is purely a spiritual one, now you understand what I said the other evening about Christ Consciousness is that state of consciousness, which does not find something out here to battle with, does not find it necessary to argue or battle with an error, recognizing the Allness of God’s power. Now, if I am in a Divine state of consciousness or some measure of it, when you tell me that you need help, whether this happens consciously or not, somewhere within my consciousness is the realization of one Power. Therefore, no actual circumstance exists requiring any help, except the awakening out of the dream of material selfhood.

Now, if I am in that state of consciousness, I do not fear the sin, or the disease, or the unemployment, or the lack, or the limitation that you have presented to me. I instantly see through it as an illusory appearance, not as an actual condition that you want me to do something to. Now then, if this room is as peaceful, and quiet, and harmonious as it is now, and somebody should stand up and say, “oh, the horrible ogres in this room, oh, the horrible dangers in this room,” the rest of you would certainly not jump up to fight it. You would more or less, at least inwardly, smile knowing that whoever made the statement was having some kind of a waking dream or illusory experience. At any rate, it would be something nonsensical, because you’re aware of the fact that there’s nothing in this room but love, peace, joy, harmony.

Now, your treatment, then, if that happened in this room right now, and you’re in this frame of consciousness that you’re in, your treatment would really be a smile that anyone could be so ridiculous as to think such a thing or that anyone could actually believe such a thing, and that would be the end of your treatment. Now, if you were not in that state of consciousness, you might respond by saying, “oh, where is it?” or “let me at it.” Now, you see, in that frame of consciousness, you would not readily meet the situation. Whoever was under the illusion of a separate, a presence apart from God would still be under it, whereas you actually would break the spell for them, if you could just merely smile at the idea of such a preposterous thing as anything but love being in this room.

Well now think of anything but love being in the kingdom of God. Think of anything but the divine Presence and Power being anywhere but in the kingdom of God. Just suppose for a moment that you actually believed that as in heaven, so on Earth, God was Omnipotent and Supreme. Suppose you actually believed that God’s power was the only Power. Could anybody frighten you by talking to you about a cold, or consumption, or cancer? No, they couldn’t. Not if you actually were convinced that there is only one Presence, one Being, one Power in all this universe, because then you would know that anything other than that was purely illusory, and so your reaction would not be a denial of error or an affirmation of Truth. It would more or less be a smile of unconcern.