1959 Maui Advanced Work
Joel S. Goldsmith
247B – The Spiritual or Mystical Life

pdf-49px247B The Spiritual or Mystical Life

There’s only one price: sincerity, integrity. Lip service when we’re in trouble brings us few answers, if any. Too many say, “Oh Lord, Lord,” when they’re in deep trouble, but haven’t yet reached the state of integrity to mean it, as is so often proven when they get out of the trouble and then go back again, to sin again. The Master warned against that state of thought—“Go and sin no more; neither do I condemn thee, but go and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you.” Showing that there may be those who, in their distress, seem to turn to God; and either get no result, or if they do get a temporary result, sink back. I say that regardless of where you are at any given moment: on your death bed, or in sin, if the turning to God is not merely to overcome the present evil, but really in the sense of repentance, in the sense of realization, then it is possible to go from one extreme to the other, as Francis Thompson went from the gutter as a drug addict, to one of England’s great mystics.

Let us, not only with ourselves, but with those who come to us for comfort and help, let us never take the attitude of condemnation, regardless as to where they may be at any given moment. Let us accept them at face value, and give them every bit of help we can. If we help them out and they don’t hold it, that is their affair. If their own insincerity prevents their being helped, that is their affair.

Our part is not to judge, criticize, condemn, but to hold out that which we have; Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee. And whether one is crippled mentally, physically, morally, or financially, we do have our God realization to offer those who seek us. How it changes their lives—that is something for them to ponder and to demonstrate.

There are, in our work, two parts to your prayer or meditation period. The first part is that in which you consciously remember, declare or think these spiritual principles, spiritual promises, spiritual experiences of scripture—bring them to conscious memory, to conscious thought, dwell on them, ponder them, if possible even contemplate them until some spiritual factor is revealed. Then comes the period of quiet for listening. It is the beginning of a meditation in which the inner ear is opened, as if to hear that voice of God. Always remembering that when God utters His voice, the earth melteth. If you receive a spiritual impulse within you, remember that the particular problem is melting, disappearing out of your life.

Never forget that it is an impossibility to attain even a blink of an eye of God realization and not have some problem of human experience dissolve. And so it is that in that second part of our prayer or meditation, we are almost a vacuum; we are a transparency, we are a state of awareness as if expecting some inner unfoldment, or inner feeling, or inner experience. We dare not outline what it is, because we do not know the nature of God’s demonstration for us. We may think we need a home, we may think we need a trip, we may think we need employment—we dare not pray for those things—we must always have the attitude in our prayer of not my will be done, but Thine.

One thing to remember: no prayer must ever be advising God or seeking in any way to influence God. Don’t let yourself be trapped into those side issues; you cannot influence God. God is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. If you are not receiving God’s grace, it is only because you are out of contact. Bring yourself back into contact, and the grace will flow. God is the all-knowing mind; you cannot tell God what you need; you dare not ask for bread, or housing, or clothing, or employment, or health. God is the Infinite Intelligence of this universe, and He knoweth your need before you do; and it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom even before you ask.

Therefore, you must go to God a humble soul, an empty soul, “Fill me Lord, be Thou my grace”—that’s all. And when God realization takes place, you’ll find your needs will be fulfilled, for God is a law of fulfillment; God is fulfillment. Let it not be believed that mortal man is wiser than God. Let it not be believed that God will go out of His way to do for you what God is not doing for me.

God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust. Make the contact, and you will find God’s grace flowing and never will you have to tell God what you need or want. Never will you have to try to influence God on your behalf, or on behalf of another. If you open yourself as we do, that God fill your consciousness, God fills the need of everyone who has been drawn into your consciousness and you may not ever know in what way, or to what degree, nor is it your business. Nor is it your business to know how God blesses, to what extent or who, your part is to be a transparency for God.

When Jesus was healing multitudes, I am sure that Jesus did not concern himself with whether it was Jones, Brown or Smith who got healed, or to what extent. There he was, the Son of God: abiding in the word, letting the word abide in him; and the Spirit of God flowed through him, and It healed the multitude.

That is our function—“to bless.” Not that we have virtues to bless, but that our presence, when we are a humble transparency, becomes the blessing—because we are the instrument through which God’s grace flows.