Original Iwihub.com Transcript. Transcriber: Hilda Soon, Proofread by Zane Maser. Photography: Inez Marques

pdf-49px   417A When the Spirit is upon you

When Spirit is Upon You 4/5
1961 London Open Class
Joel S. Goldsmith
Tape 417A

And it isn’t my body, and it isn’t your body. It is God’s body. We have surrendered control to the Spirit. We have said, “Father, this body is yours, even as I am yours. I am the temple of the living God, because Thou dwelleth in me. My body is the temple of God, because I have surrendered it to Thy use. Send it where you wish it to be. Instruct it to do what you wish it to do.” And then you find that when you take up your pen to write, you aren’t writing things that came out of what you learned in school or business. Now, you are writing things that only God knew, and your hands are just an instrument holding the pen or the typewriter keys. But, there is a Spirit in you that is using these hands to produce God’s words, just as the Spirit that dwelled in Jesus Christ used his mind and his body. And this Spirit that dwelt in Jesus Christ sent him about the Father’s business, up and down the Holy Land, doing the works of the Father. And the Master could see this, because he said, “I of my own self can do nothing. The Father within me is doing the work.” This message and this mission is not mine but His that sent me.

And so it is, in all cases, I do nothing of myself, only that which I see the Father do. In other words, that which is imparted to me within, I am performing without. Why is this? Because the spirit of the Lord God dwelleth in me. I am ordained. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me. I am ordained to heal the sick, not of myself but by the spirit of God. It is the spirit of God that is the power. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, that giveth life. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are Spirit, and they are life, and the whole function of this message of The Infinite Way is to bring us to a point of receptivity where the Father speaks to us.

It really makes no difference whether God speaks in an audible voice, or whether we’re just receiving impressions, or whether we’re just instinctively doing that which the Spirit forces us to do. It comes in so many different ways that no one can outline it. But, the point is that this message is to bring us to a period, a point of surrender, in which our soul, mind, and body belongs to the spirit of God, because the spirit of God dwelleth in me. And I am the temple of God, and my body is the temple of God, and the spirit of God that dwelleth in me preformeth the works that are given me to do. He performeth that which is appointed for me to do. He protecteth that which concerneth me. Do you see why there is no worry about the outside world? There is no concern about the things of the outside world, because the spirit of God that dwelleth in me, It doeth the works. The government is on Its shoulder.

So it is, in our contemplating of these truths, we reach a place where no more truth comes. We seemed to have reached the end of our contemplation, contemplating all that we can remember at the moment. And then we have come to the place where we enter the real meditation. “Now, I have said all I can God. I have repeated all these promises. I have brought Thy Word to my conscious remembrance. Now, speak Thou, Lord, and I will listen. Speak Thou to me, Lord, and I will listen. Make Thy will known to me. Make Thy way known to me. Quicken the Spirit within me. Let Thy spirit bear intercession with my spirit. Quicken, quicken me.” And then you listen.

And you see the Silence deepens, or, as it is said, the Silence sometimes thunders—and with just a complete state of receptivity. Listening, expectant. “Thy will is done in me. Thy Spirit dwelleth in me. Thy Spirit goeth before me to make the crooked places straight. Thy Spirit prospers my way. Thy Spirit feeds me, clothes me, houses me. Thy Spirit is my talent, my art, my capacity, my ability. It is Thy Spirit that quickeneth. Thy Spirit that giveth life. The flesh is nothing. The flesh is dead. Thy Spirit giveth life. And Thy Spirit is closer to me than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. Speak Lord, thy servant heareth.”

And so we go one, two, three, or four minutes; and then we get up, and we go about our business. Have no feeling, if at first you seem to receive no response, nothing seems to happen. Do not let that disturb you. It has happened. From the very first moment that you have engaged in contemplative meditation or prayer, as I have illustrated it tonight, something is happening. It’s only a question of whether it is going to be made visible in the external.

Continue this practice, until the day does come when that Spirit of the Lord God is upon you, and you consciously feel it. You actually feel the presence of God. Each one feels it in a different way, so there is no such thing as a particular way to identify it. It is enough to know that you do know that something has happened. You do know that there is now a Presence with you, and even though it doesn’t remain, by returning day after day to your contemplative meditation, you do enter the full meditation and receive the Word of God, which is the Life.

Now, during this time, there is a step about which we must be watchful, because we are in this world, and we are aware of the sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, wars, and rumors of wars that are going on about us. And it is in this period that we must consciously remember not to react to outer appearances. Now, this is the difficult part, but this is the part that when you achieve it, and all serious students do sooner or later, when you achieve it, you can do healing work. You can do spiritual healing work when you achieve this point of not reacting to appearances.

In other words, if you see a man steal, if you can refrain from calling him a thief, if you can say to yourself, “I’m not to be fooled by appearances,” you’re starting on the way. If you can see sickness, or phases of sin, alcoholism, and all the rest of these things and not react to them, as if you wanted to heal them or change them but always consciously remembering, “No, no, no, I am not to be taken in. I’m not to judge after appearances. The Master says, ‘I am to judge righteous judgment.’ Who made me a judge over you? No, I am not to accept appearances. I am to accept the truth that the spirit of God is within you.” It makes no difference who “the you” is—prisoner in prison, thief on the street, alcoholic in the corner. It makes no difference—dying person in the hospital. You are not to react to appearances. You are not to try to save them or change them. You are to remember within yourself that since God is omnipresence, if God is where you are, then God is where he is, or she is, or it is.