Recording 463B, “‘I’ Revealed,” was used as source material for Chapter 11, “Individuality Revealed Through Prayer” in The Altitude of Prayer.
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In this class, Joel speaks about creation as a way to help us understand prayer better and attain the goal of union with our source.
As always, we encourage you to create your own summary of the class. Remember that there are many different ways to format a summary—traditional text, a mind map, a picture, to name just a few. (A picture? Yes. Remember that stained glass windows were really picture books that told spiritual stories for those who could not read.) The summary we offer here is done through the lens of questions that Joel might have been answering in the class.
Why Do We Pray?
The object of prayer is to bring what is called Spirit, God, the Christ, divine Presence, or divine Power, to our individual human experience, so that our experience may be permeated, influenced, and protected by the Spirit. We are talking about a transcendental presence, something higher than the human; something infinite, omnipotent, and omnipresent. It enables us to feel that we have something with us that is greater than ourselves, greater than our problems; something that goes before us to make the way smooth; something that we can always rely on as a source of wisdom greater than our own wisdom, or a source of strength greater than our own strength.
The object of prayer is to bring us into contact with this Presence—this substance, essence, or activity—that which can never be seen, heard, tasted, touched, smelled, or even reasoned by the human mind, and yet is so real that It can whisper instructions in our ear, or stop us from making an investment, or lead us to the one book that will meet our every need. It heals, It forgives, and It assures us that the past is past. In the degree that we can accept It, this Infinite Invisible works with us, in us, through us.
Jesus called this transcendental presence “the Father within,” and Paul called it “the Christ.” This is the Presence that we must contact through prayer, so that it becomes alive in our experience, and not merely words in a book. We have to make actual contact with It, so that It permeates our consciousness and flows through us. Whenever we are touched by It or whenever we contact It, something in our human life improves, and the more we contact It, the more our human life is going to be an outer expression of an inner divinity.
Where Does This Presence Come From?
Joel said it would be helpful for us to better understand the nature of this Presence and the nature of prayer if we knew more about creation. To explain creation, he asks us to imagine that we have a big block of clay, and out of this clay we form figures of men and women. In this analogy, we think of God the Father as the block of clay, and we think of God the Son, or the children of God, as the clay figures. Joel points out that figures are not separate from the clay; they are the clay itself formed. Similarly, the Sons of God, the children of God, are formed in the image and likeness of God, formed of the substance of God. So just as clay constitutes the substance of the clay figures, God the Father constitutes the children of God.
Since God is an invisible substance, the children of God are also invisible. They are immortal. They are incorporeal; you cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell the children of God. Their forms are of the substance of God, so they are just as much spirit as God is spirit.
Thus we have God, infinite perfection, and his children, also infinitely perfect. Because the children of God are made in the image and likeness of their source—God—they do not need a truth teaching or truth teacher. They are already perfect, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the fall. They know nothing about material processes, or right and wrong, or sin or purity. They have nothing but divine qualities. They lack nothing and need nothing.
Why Don’t We Experience Our Perfection?
We do not experience our perfection as children of God because somehow, a belief in two powers arose. We don’t know how, or how it was possible for it to arise, but when it did, our perfect men and women came into a sense of separation from God and an ignorance of their God-identity. We were born into that belief in two powers and have accepted it, and now we are trying to find the truth that will free us of this erroneous belief and get us back to our Father’s house, our Father’s Consciousness, our original state of perfection.
It is as if we have put layers of clothing on the clay figures, until our perfect spiritual beings are entirely lost from sight. All we see is the clothing, and we have forgotten the clay body underneath. For so many generations, we have lost sight of true identity, and all we have seen is the “clothing,” the outer appearance, and we have come to believe that the appearance is all there is to an individual.
But—somehow, someone received the illumination that underneath that “clothing” is the body of God—that original clay body, that original spirit body. When we hear this, we search for that body, but we can’t find it with our eyesight. Only spiritual insight will reveal that temple made by God, formed of the substance of God. Our mirror will not tell us that story.
How Can We Come to Know and Demonstrate Our True Being and Body?
In your spiritual identity, in the truth of your being, you are Christ, or the son of God. But you can’t seem to get at it, even though over and over, you have been told about your true identity. This is because you heard only with your ears. You haven’t spiritually discerned the truth and unlocked whatever is blocking your entrance to your Christhood. So how can we see more than the eye sees and hear more than the ear hears?
The person who first caught the spiritual glimpse of truth caught it transcendentally within himself. It was an inner vision that enabled him to know that despite appearances, we are the image and likeness of God, spiritual, made of the substance of God; that we are not mortal and do not have bodies of flesh and blood; that the body is truly the temple of God. Spiritual light revealed this. So those of spiritual vision tell us not to believe the appearances or listen to men. Rather, they tell us to turn within to the kingdom of God, to the Father within you, and pray, as they did. This is how we can come to know and demonstrate our true being and body.
What Is the Nature of My True Identity, or Christhood?
Christ calls Himself by the name of I and says, “I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly.” This inner Self of you, this spiritual self, your own Christhood, hidden inside flesh, blood, and bones, is saying to you, “I am come that you might have life everlasting. I am here within you to be your life everlasting; to be your bread, meat, wine, and water. I, your Christ-self, will resurrect you out of any tomb—the tomb of sin, of disease, of poverty, of unhappiness. I will restore to you the lost years of the locust and bring you back to the Father’s house so that you will die to that belief in flesh and blood and bone and witness yourself as you are—Christ, the perfect child of God, the perfect offspring of the perfect substance, the perfect life, the perfect being.
As the son of God, your name is Christ, but you identify yourself by the name of I. You have thought of I, Joel, or I, Mary, or I, Bill as what you see in the mirror. That is not true. I is the invisible Selfhood that is within you. I is not the outer self. The outer self is the masquerade, born of the belief in two powers.
I am Christhood, spiritual identity, spiritual being. I am not what I seem to be. I am the embodiment of the power of resurrection. I am the embodiment of the power of life eternal. I am the embodiment of my own food and clothing and housing and transportation. I am the embodiment of God-quality and God-quantity. I have God-given dominion over all that is in the earth, the heavens, and the seas. I am the Christ of God. I am the spiritual offspring, and I embody the potentialities of infinity. Whereas you may have spelled “self” with a small “s,” now that you know that I am the Christ of God, you spell “self” with a capital “S.” Divine Selfhood is my being, and I can do all things through my Self.
The Self of me is the Self of you. We have the same Father; we are brothers. Figuratively speaking, we are all made of this big lump of clay; we are all of the same substance, the same essence. Each of us is endowed with dominion unto eternity. We all have the same name—“I”—and it describes our Selfhood and our relationship to our source. Embodied in the I that I am is the power to do and to be all things. I live forever, because I and my Father are one, inseparable and indivisible one.
I is not mortal; the I of you is God, and therefore, your Self is omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. It is the one infinite divine Self. So if I mount up to heaven, I have this omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence with me, but if temporarily or in belief, I walk through hell or the valley of the shadow of death, I only need to say “I” and smile at the idea that I ever accepted I to be a limited self that was born and will die. I am not limited, not sick, not dead or dying, not poor. How could I ever accept such ignorance about my Self, when there is only one Self, which is God-Self?
When Scripture refers to “the kingdom of God within,” or “the Father within,” or when Paul speaks of the “indwelling Christ,” it means that I that dwells within the masquerade you are wearing. Let this glorious I that I am shine forth, because It is Spirit; It is God in action; It is God individualized. Open out your consciousness and let this I shine forth.
When I Know True Identity, How Do I Pray?
When you declare this truth about your Self, when you contemplate it, you are praying. You are knowing the truth that makes you free. You are communing with your inner Self. In this sense, prayer is a recognition of your true identity, an acknowledgement of the infinite nature of your own being. At first, it may seem like a lot of words and thoughts, but we are discovering our true Self, the truth of our own being, the truth of the one spiritual universe, and we have to rehearse it. So it takes a lot of words and thoughts.
What Does True Identity Have to Do with Karmic Law?
True identity explains karmic law, the law of “as ye sow so shall ye reap.” Because my Self is your Self, anything I do to you, I am doing to myself. There is only one Self, and that is the God-Self, and whatever I do to you, I’m doing to the God-Self of me, and it has to react on me, because It is the same Self. If we put poison out into the world as envy, jealousy, hate, malice, or malpractice, we are pouring it into the members of our own body, for we are all members of one body. There is only one Self, and “inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me,” because there is only one of us. This is why karmic law must work—whatever you do, you are doing it to yourself, and it will come back to you. Not only do the sinful things you do come back; the good that you do to another also comes back to you. It may not come back from the same person you benefited, but it will come back, because what you have done, you have really done unto your Self, your Christ Self.
Does the Form of Prayer Evolve?
Eventually, prayer is without words and thoughts. Since my Christ is right with me, and Its name is Omniscience, why would I have to use words and thoughts? Why can’t I just rest and let It perform Its work? Eventually, that transition in consciousness does happen, and then you have nothing to do but let Christ live your life. Then you are not dealing with corporeality. You are dealing with truth and letting the truth make you free. At that point, your prayers do not need words and thoughts.
Prayer must be spontaneous and take many different forms. If a problem of relationships arises, prayer has to be a recognition that conflict is impossible, because there is only one Self. But if I have a sense of lack of transportation, my prayer has to be entirely different. I have to realize that since my identity is Christ, I am not confined to a physical body. I am spiritual and incorporeal, not locked in a body or limited to time and space. I am omnipresent, so I am already where I need to go. When I realize my omnipresence and rest quietly, the transportation appears. So there is not just one way to pray.
Prayer awakens us to the truth about the Self, and prayer is our recognition, our acknowledgement, and finally our demonstration of that truth. As you work with this principle of true identity, understanding it, and living it, and practicing it, eventually you pray without thoughts. All you have to do is say “I,” and that means You; it means God; it means oneness, omnipotence, omnipresence. If you are going to pray, to bless, to be a benediction, prayer must be the spontaneity of I flowing out from you, not a manmade speech.
When you realize that I is locked up within you, you will learn to meditate and make that I talk to you. Sometimes It will thunder in your ears, because now you know that this I is locked up inside of you, just like the clay figure was locked up inside of the clothing.
We are sacred, divine, individual beings, so when you say “I,” say it with respect and love. When you say “I,” you are in a holy presence. As divine beings, we should bow our head when we meet each other out of respect for our divinity, and we should treat each other with love.