1959 Hawaiian Village Closed Class
Joel S. Goldsmith
263A – Three Principles and Their Practice

pdf-49px  263A Three Principles & Their Practice

It is not your wrong thinking that produced it. It is not your envy or your jealousy or your malice that produced it. It is not your greed or your lust or your mad ambition that produced it. It is not any fault that is to be found with you that produced it. You have no responsibilities for the evils which express themselves in your experience or through you. Now this sounds wonderful at this minute. It only becomes difficult when I tell you that neither is your wife or your husband responsible for any of the evils.

You see, the truth about you is that you are the child of God. God has manifested Its own life as your individual being. God has expressed Itself on earth, individually, as you. The life, which is God, is your individual life and it’s therefore eternal and immortal. Your mind is actually that mind which was also in Christ Jesus, infinitely wise, infinitely pure. Your soul is spotless, and there isn’t anything that you could ever do that would change that, because God is your soul. God is your very being, and then we’ll take one step further, and acknowledge that your body is the temple of the living God.

Now this is the truth about you and your life and your mind and your soul and your body and your being. Then, why and wherefore all of these discords? Well, in ancient days they created an entity called the devil or Satan and in modern days, or later Paul, who probably didn’t like the devil or Satan, called it the carnal mind, and in our metaphysical language it has been called mortal mind.

Now, it makes no difference which of these names you would like to use. They’re all correct. There is a devil, Satan, and there is a carnal mind or mortal mind which is the source of all evil. And therefore, if you see a man stealing do not call him a thief. He is just the instrument through which the carnal mind is operating. Regardless of what sin or disease or lack or ignorance you witness in any individual, please do not condemn them, they are but the instruments through which this carnal mind is functioning.

When Jesus was crucified, they blamed—some people, some people still blame the Hebrews, others blame Rome. Wasn’t that at all. It was the carnal mind, which is anti-Christ, which is “anti” everything of God, and which, if it is recognized as power, will destroy you.

Now, the mistake originally made was that when it was discovered that man, personally, isn’t a sinner, that there is a tempter called devil or Satan, the mistake that was made was claiming that this devil or Satan was the opposite of God, the opponent of God, and that it was God’s function to try to get rid of this devil or Satan. And religion, all down through the ages, has been dedicated to that one purpose: overcoming the devil and the devil hasn’t any power. The devil isn’t anything except what we agree to make it.

In the same way, the metaphysical world has made the self-same mistake. They will tell you in any language, that there is no devil or Satan, it’s just mortal mind, and then they will invent ways to protect one from mortal mind and have all kinds of quotations and affirmations to overcome this mortal mind and thereby take a licking from it.

It must be recognized that all evil is impersonal, comes from an impersonal source, and that source is the belief in good and evil. That is all there is to what is called mortal mind. There is no such thing as mortal mind as an entity. There is no such thing as carnal mind as an entity. There is no such thing as devil or Satan as entity.

There is a universal belief in two powers, and that belief itself is the cause of every bit of discord and inharmony that ever existed on the face of the earth. And in proportion as you recognize this, you come back to the example of our two pet examples in this work, the Hebrew Hezekiah, who, when confronted with an enemy twice as strong as his own forces, could say to his people, “They have only the arm of flesh. Fear not. Fear not. They have only the arm of flesh.” And because they rested in his word, and did not take up the sword and go out to fight the enemy, the enemy fought among themselves and destroyed themselves and left all the loot on the battlefield for the Hebrews to pick up.

In that same way, the Master said, “Resist not evil. What did hinder you? Pilate, thou couldst have no power over me unless it were given thee from heaven. Peter, put up thy sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” Then, in the degree that you fight or battle this so-called mortal mind or any of its individual forms and expressions, in that degree will you lose in the end because you have created an enemy greater than yourself, but one that God can’t help you with, because God has no knowledge of it.

God is too pure to behold iniquity. God cannot…it wasn’t the modern teaching of Jesus Christ that ever prayed to God, “Please overcome my enemies. Please destroy my enemies. Please go out before me and slay these horrible people.” It was ancient Hebraic prayers, not Christian prayers, but we indulged them. And we do expect, even in metaphysics, that God—although He’s not doing it for the Protestants or the Catholics or the Hebrews or the Buddhists—but for us in metaphysics, God will overcome this mortal mind or this sin or this disease. Don’t you ever believe it. The overcoming has to be within you. And the overcoming that has to take place within you is your recognition of the truth: I will never leave you nor forsake you. If you go through the waters, you will not drown. If you go through the fire, the flames will not kindle upon you. Why? They haven’t any such power.

As you realize this, and as you realize the mission and the message of Christ Jesus, you’ll understand why he could be so big hearted as to forgive the woman taken in adultery, or the thief on the cross, or Judas who betrayed him, because he knew, he knew by divine revelation, he knew that these are not power. Crucify me if you want. Destroy this body. In three days I’ll raise it up again.

Certainly, depressions may come and deprive us of our savings, our wealth, our background of investments, but that is only a body of supply, it isn’t supply. God is our supply, and therefore, if we lose the body we start right over tomorrow and build it again. There’s no such thing as a limit. There is no such thing as having only one chance or two or three—none of these things. The question is what we, ourselves, are able to accept of spiritual principles and then practice them until they become living forces within our own being.

I realize, of course—don’t think that I don’t realize how difficult it is to look out at the sins and disease and horrors of the world, and believe that there is no power in them. It is only after you feel within you a certain rightness about that principle, and then are willing to put it into practice until such time as you witness really the first healing with it.

The first time you heal anybody through the realization that you haven’t appealed to God to do it, or you haven’t expected truth to remove error; the first time you have been instrumental in bringing about a healing through the realization, Thou couldst have no power unless it were given thee of God, there is only one power, and are able to rest in that word, and then see the enemy destroy itself, see these appearances destroy themselves, then you say, “Ah, I have witnessed this principle. I have seen it in action, and then you have the courage to go on and on and on until you’re able to do some of the greater works.