The Essence of The Infinite Way Part One 4/4

1961 San Diego Special Class                                          Photo By Inez Soares
Joel S. Goldsmith
400A – The Essence of The Infinite Way Part One 4/4 , 

Q:  How do we not pray for things, when a seeming need arises, or a seeming desire comes to mind?

A:  By instantly dropping thought of that thing or condition, and realizing Omnipresence. Everything of which I have need, from now until the end of time, is right now embodied within my consciousness, that is, the substance and law of it is. Therefore, as I dwell on this subject of Omnipresence, Omnipresence. God is omnipresence, God as omnipresence as my consciousness, this omnipresent consciousness is the substance of all form and the law unto all form. And it is infinite: infinite in essence, infinite in manifestation, infinite in expression. It is unlimited by any human belief. It is unfettered by any human conditions. It is the free and full flowing of the divine consciousness as my individual consciousness, and I do not have to go anywhere for it or ask anyone for it, because the place whereon I stand is holy ground.

Son, this is the Father speaking, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. And with this I rest. I rest in this word. I do not think in terms of things, wants, desires. I think only in terms of Omnipresence, Thank you Father. All that the Father hath is mine. And wonderful, wonderful once you’ve come out of old theology, it isn’t really dependent on whether you’ve been good or bad. Your realization of Omnipresence, if you have been bad, it will make you good. Being good won’t bring omnipresence, but the realization of Omnipresence will bring goodness. You cannot earn or deserve God’s goodness or God’s gifts. You cannot, by obeying the Ten Commandments, reach heaven. You can be a good citizen, and you can be a good, worthy man and woman, but you cannot enter heaven by obedience to the Ten Commandments.

Entrance into heaven, harmony, is attained by the realization of Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, that where I am, God is, that all that God is, I am, not by virtue of myself, but because I and the Father are one. And this relationship of oneness fulfills the statement, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. Then, regardless of how scarlet my sins may be, my turning to this realization of Omnipresence makes me white as snow, and brings forth God’s grace. You must remember that God has more pleasure, it is said, in one lost sheep that is restored, than in the ninety-nine who never went astray.

This does not literally mean that God likes the reformed sinners better than others, but it does mean that the ninety-nine good people may never have overcome their self-righteousness to the degree of admitting God into them. Self-righteousness, the belief that one is good, that one is moral, that one is honest, is the barrier that separates us from God’s grace, just as the belief that we are evil or that we’re sinners or that we’re worms in the dust, this too, separates us from the grace of God. So whether we believe that we’re bad, or whether we believe that we’re good, this belief that we have any qualities of our own, separates us from the love of God.

It is when we can understand and emulate the Master: I of my own self am nothing; I of my own self can do nothing. If I speak of myself, I bear witness to a lie. It is the Father within me that doeth the works. Why callest thou me good? There is but one good, the Father within me. And this state of humility opens our consciousness to receive God’s grace. It is the nothingization of personal selfhood and the opening of oneself to the realization of our true identity, and remember that our true identity is spiritual sonship. We are sons of God, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in us. If we realize that whatever qualities we have, these are the qualities of God, this represents our divine sonship.

Q:  Do we just know that our daily needs are supplied?

No! No we don’t. All we know is Omnipresence; Where I am God is. All that the Father hath is mine. The place whereon I stand is holy ground, and stay up there on the spiritual level, and you will find that as you proceed hour by hour through the day, fulfillment will take place. And here I give you another passage of scripture: In thy presence is fullness of joy. In other words, as I am abiding in Omnipresence, automatically there is fullness, whether it’s of supply or companionship or anything else. Because there would be no joy if there were anything lacking. Therefore, in the realization of God’s presence I find my joy. But certainly I would not be finding my joy if there were anything missing. Therefore I have this joy because of fulfillment. Therefore, in thy presence is fulfillment. Therefore I must not seek fulfillment; I must seek Thy presence, seek the realization of Thy presence.

The Presence, remember, is always here with us. We have been cheated of it by believing that it was up there, or that it was outside in holy temples or holy mountains or holy teachers, whereas all of this time it has been revealed, the kingdom of God is neither lo, here, or lo there. Not in holy mountains or holy temples. The kingdom of God is within you, and your knowing this truth is the truth that makes you free of lack, limitation, discord, inharmony in every and every form.

Q:  In our present accelerated atomic age, many find it necessary to pay attention to the selection of non-sprayed and non-treated foodstuffs. At what point does the seeker of truth draw the line and let God take over to protect him from our modern-day food poisons?

A:  And the answer is this: You do not go into a drugstore and buy poisons to put into your system. You know they’re there; you know they’re poisonous, and you stay away from them. We have the right to exercise that same privilege when we go into the supermarkets. Our magazines have been very open and free in revealing to us the foods that are poisoned, that are processed, that have no food value left in them. There’s no secrets about this. Every month some national magazine or other is telling us about them. And certainly we have learned through personal experience or we have heard of it from others, that there are places where we can go and get pure foods, unprocessed foods, non-poisonous foods, and the answer is that in our common sense way, we should choose the purer foods and leave alone those that we know are without value or are poisoned. And that is all there is to that.

For the balance, eat what is set before you. Eat what is set before you, because the power isn’t really in what food is set before you, any more than there is power in poisons. We, in our spiritual ministry, every one of us, has to prove that poisons aren’t power. In other words, someone swallows a poison, accidentally or on purpose. Some child gets a hold of poison and ignorantly swallows it. But in every case that I know anything about, the poisons have been proven to be of no effect; they’re quickly eliminated and harmony restored. But that doesn’t give us the excuse to take up a bottle of poison every day to drink it in order to prove that it isn’t power. The Master warned about this thing in the three temptations in the wilderness, where he was told to jump off a cliff, “because it isn’t power,” and God would take care of him.

Now, if you fall off a cliff, you have the right to expect that you will land safely and without injury. But don’t go out to the cliff every day and jump off just to prove it, because the very exercise of your ego will defeat you. If you swallow poison ignorantly, innocently, or sometime in a moment of madness on purpose, you can turn to a spiritual healer and be saved, but don’t indulge your ego to the extent of saying, “I’ve proven I’m power over drugs, so I’ll do it every day, and inflate my ego.” Don’t do that. It won’t work.

So it is, we, as we travel on the road, we eat what is set before us, even some of the foods that we know are of no value, and that aren’t even wise to eat. But this is because the situation is such that here it is, and it is necessary to prove that they are of no power. When we’re in our own home and have the power of choice, I can assure you that we prefer the foods of known purity. And this is a matter of common sense, not of spirituality.

We are going to have a little intermission. You remember, we are going to have a long session this evening, and so we are going to have a little intermission right now, and then another meditation.