1959 New York Closed Class
Joel S. Goldsmith
289A – The Infinite Way Principles of God – The Fabric of Being – 4/4
Impersonalization & Nothingization

You can never truthfully say that you are spiritual. That is egotism at its height. You are spiritual; you are perfect. I’d like to see it. You are not spiritual and you are not perfect, God is Spirit, and nobody is evil. Evil is an impersonality; evil is impersonal error.

Now, Paul, who wrecked his career on just one statement, just one statement was enough to wreck his whole career: “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” That’ll do it for you; that’ll do it for you; and even if you want to get modern and call it mortal mind, it’ll do it for you. Watch what happens if you start to fight mortal mind, or protect yourself from it; that’s a good one too. Protect yourself from mortal mind, while of course saying, “God is the only mind, God is the only truth, God is the only life;” and now let’s do some protective work from mortal mind.

I have witnessed metaphysicians fighting the carnal mind and mortal mind and I’m sure…I haven’t been in the orthodox world, but I’m sure there are plenty there fighting the devil. It’ll get you too, because you can’t win. You have set up your own enemy, built it in your own mind and authorized it to stay there until something other than you gets rid of it. You put it there; you built it; you called it carnal mind or mortal mind and then gave it evil propensities. Had you accepted God as Omnipotence, you would have said, “Why certainly there can be a devil, there can be a carnal mind; there can be a mortal mind, but what of it? It must be that arm of flesh the Hebrew Prophet was talking about that we don’t have to war against—just rest in this word.” You rest in this word that the carnal mind is not enmity against God.  It’s the arm of flesh or nothingness. That mortal mind isn’t to be protected from; mortal mind is to be understood as an impersonal source of evil—impersonal without a person. Meaning without you and me. We’re the person it’s without when we impersonalize it. And then watch the difference, when you have been able to obey the Master, “Resist not evil.”

Oh I know you have heard it said of old, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” fight back, fight back, and if they sue you, sue them twice, and quadruple damages. But I say unto you, resist not evil. Why? Devil, carnal mind, mortal mind—they have only the power you give them.  To begin with they have the power that universal belief gives them—that’s why you suffer from it without even knowing that it exists. But, once you awaken, once you are told that devil, Satan, mortal mind, carnal mind is not power, but is a suggestion offering itself to you for acceptance, you can just as well say “no” and then forget it.

Now, so as not to leave you in the dark on this subject and carry it to its ultimate conclusion, I will tell you that devil, carnal mind, mortal mind have no existence. In all of this world it would be impossible to find a carnal mind or a mortal mind, or a devil. Then what is this devil, carnal mind, mortal mind, we’re talking about? It is a belief in two powers; it is the very thing that hit Adam and Eve—a belief in two powers. When you have a belief in two powers, you have a mortal mind, or a carnal mind, that will tear you to pieces. And in proportion, as you understand God never made a power to destroy God, or God’s creation; and God is the only creative principle of this universe for God is Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence.

God never created a power, to destroy God or God’s creation; therefore there isn’t any power of evil. In proportion as you accept this, work with it, apply it, you will gradually by proof, attain the consciousness of it. In other words, as you yourself witness error dissolve, for instance, if you are dealing with a cold or grippe, flu, and you are willing to sit quietly and it’s easier to deal with somebody else’s than your own in the beginning—ponder, reflect, meditate, cogitate on this truth: God, infinite being, besides which there is no other; God Omnipotence, and there can’t be another power; nothing can be empowered to do evil…How could it be in a God of infinity, a God of infinite good, a God of infinite power, of Omnipotence. How could anything be empowered? Why God constitutes all being; God constitutes all being; Good constitutes all being. Then what I’m faced with is not evil. It’s not a germ; I am faced with a belief in two powers, and I’m not accepting it. I’m not accepting it. There can’t be two powers; there can’t be God and any other power; there can’t even be a power for good anywhere. There can only be God Itself, maintaining and sustaining the integrity of Its own being.

And watch this cold or grippe or flu, as it dissolves. And after you’ve watched it a few times, you’ll begin to have less faith in the power of evil, and a lot more assurance that the principle of oneness is the principle of life. Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one…one—one infinite being, beside which, there are no others.

You see the idea of power always suggests one power doing something to another power and that is why you have to get used to the idea of non power, because we don’t even want a God power to do something for us. We are satisfied that God in His infinite power is already doing all that God is supposed to do; therefore, we never call upon God or God’s power to do anything. And so we get used to the idea of not turning to a God power, or the power of truth over error or good over evil, or God over devil. No, no, no, our whole consciousness is built on the realization of God constituting all being and therefore there is neither good nor evil; there is only God.

Now, you build this consciousness; you build this consciousness by working with it. You may wake up in the morning now—any day this month, next month, a month after, and find some pretty frightful weather outside, but the very first thought that must come to you is: “Yes but is it power?” Ah if it isn’t power what difference does it make whether the newspaper calls it good weather or bad weather, it can’t be good weather or bad weather, it’s just weather. Who put that qualification on it—good or bad? The man who needs rain doesn’t call rain bad; no but the newspaper does—bad weather tomorrow, it’s going to rain; the umbrella manufacturer doesn’t say that.

Adam, Adam calls things good and evil, Adam gives them their names. And Shakespeare said: “Nothing is good or bad, nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so,” only what we put into this naming good or bad…is it good or bad? You know the story of the fisherman, who had a wonderful day fishing, but the fish didn’t say so. What constitutes good? And then it depends on whose ox is gored.

No, The Infinite Way from its beginning and long before its beginning was based on my own experience in healing, and the revelations which were given to me which indicated beyond all question of doubt that the world was wrecking itself looking for powers. Of course it looked for powers, all the way from bows and arrows up to atomic bombs and it found powers and the powers found them too.

It isn’t power. The victory in this age is going to rest with those who understand nonpower, because if we discover powers greater than what they’ve already got, here or in Russia, it can only destroy all of us. We’re already at the stage of a power that can’t be controlled. Why look for greater powers? And that would make it seem as if the world was in a hopeless mess. Heaven forbid, it’s just entering the stage of heaven. We’re just getting ready for heaven; now that we’ve learned that power isn’t the secret of harmonious living.

Now we’re going to have a rest for a little while.