Recording 465B, “The Way of Peace and Meditation,” is from the 1962 Pacific Palisades Special Class. It was not used as source material for any book.
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Review of Previous Session
In the previous class, Recording 465A, Joel focused on the idea that The Infinite Way is not just a teaching to be studied, but a way of life lived through prayer, meditation, inner stillness, the recognition of one power, and release from dependence on outer conditions. He taught that by living this way of life, we can come to the realization: “That which I am seeking, I already am” and “My conscious oneness with God constitutes my oneness with all spiritual being and idea.”
The Current Session
In this class, Joel continues with the theme of The Infinite Way as a way of life. He expands on that theme, describing it as a life of prayer or meditation—not an occasional practice but the central function of daily living. He teaches that prayer unites us consciously with our Source, and that through this union, harmony, peace, and fruitage appear in our experience as the natural expression of living in conscious oneness with God.
This recording was not used as source material for any book. To review the recording, you can create your own summary or use the one below as a basis, adding points that stood out for you.
In providing these summaries, our intention is not to replace the transcript. It is to provide a kind of “guided map” of the recording that can help you remember, revisit, and practice what Joel emphasized.
We Can Be Free of Discord
Joel repeats what he said in the first session: that The Infinite Way is a way of life, and then elaborates that it is a life of prayer, or meditation. Prayer or meditation unites us with our Source and makes harmony, peace, and fruitage possible in our lives.
In human experience, from infancy up, there seem to be many difficulties and discords, and the world has come to think of these as a natural part of human experience that few escape. But none of them are necessary! Years of history in the metaphysical and spiritual movements have shown that everything from childbirth to the transition out of this world can be painless and free of disease.
No discord is in God’s plan. Discord enters our experience because, at some point, a sense of separation from God arose, and man accepted the belief in two powers. We learn from Genesis that in the beginning, man was perfect. But when the belief in two powers entered in, Eden was lost, and man had to earn a living by the sweat of his brow and experience discords from birth to death. Discordant conditions are preventable, but only if you have discovered the laws of life that enable you to bypass them.
No teaching has yet been discovered that will free anyone. It is the degree to which we study, embody, and practice the principles revealed to us that brings us our freedom. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Not someone else shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free, but ye shall know the truth. It is a matter of individual responsibility. In The Infinite Way, we have specific principles that form the basis of our work, but the primary practice that enables us to make use of these principles is the life of prayer or meditation.
Individual Consciousness Brings the Qualities to a Space
Peace, love, and beauty are not in places; they are brought by the consciousness of those who gather there. When students gather for a class, there is peace in the room. But it has nothing to do with the room; it has to do with the students. Whatever peace and love they feel, they brought with them and expressed.
“I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto Me.” Wherever there is one individual, or two or more individuals of spiritual enlightenment in prayer and meditation, they lift the atmosphere around them, and those who are receptive are lifted. Joel says that even while talking, reading, or doing mail, some area of his consciousness is always in meditation and prayer. This is what enables receptive students to feel the presence, quiet, and peace.
Many Infinite Way students dedicate themselves to prayer and meditation, insofar as is possible, every hour of the day and night. When they meet before and during a class, they are uplifted, and anyone who enters the room with any degree of receptivity will benefit from that high consciousness.
Prayer and Meditation Bring Us Into a New Life
We avoid the major problems of this world in proportion to the degree of our meditation and prayer. You may be tempted to think that you don’t have the time for this way of life, but it does not take time from your work, duties, or family. You don’t have to set aside obligations. This way of life is lived in the course of an ordinary day, and we can pray and meditate even while performing our functions at home or in business. Furthermore, we decide how to spend the hours in our day, and it may be possible to give up some of the time we spend on television or other pastimes and devote it to spiritual work.
Prayer and meditation carry us into a whole new domain of life. They bring a transcendental presence and power into our experience, a “something” not available to the “natural man” living in humanhood. As Paul said, “The natural man receiveth not the things of God. This natural man is not under the law of God, neither indeed can be.” So we have to rise above being the natural man. Paul continues, “If so be the Spirit of God dwells in you, then do you become the children of God, and if children of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs to all that God has and is.”
How Do We Have the Spirit of God in Us?
The Master told us that one way is to pray for our enemies. We can set aside a few minutes every day or night to consciously pray for our enemies, not that they succeed over us, but that the Spirit of God dwell in them; that their eyes and ears be opened to see the vision of God and hear the still, small voice; that they be forgiven their sins and awaken to their spiritual identity as children of God.
Paul says, “Pray without ceasing,” and the Master confirms this: “If you abide in the word and let the word abide in you, you will bear fruit richly.” We are also told, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee,” and “Lean not unto thy own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all thy ways, and He will direct thy path.” These are other ways to have the Spirit of God dwell in us.
This way of life does not ask you to give up your business or household responsibilities, but to consciously remember while going about your duties, “The presence of God is closer to me than breathing, nearer than hands and feet;” “I cannot flee from His spirit. If I mount up to heaven, God is there. If I make my bed in hell, God is there. If I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God is there,” because “I and the Father are one.” This indestructible relationship of oneness makes it impossible for me to be outside the realm of God. We can never be separated from God’s life, care, or protection. But the presence and power of God do nothing for the one who is not praying without ceasing. It takes a conscious activity of thought, conscious abiding in the word of truth.
Listening Prayer and Meditation Bring About a Transition in Consciousness
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” To receive that word of God, we must listen for it. Listening is prayer, and listening is meditation. You are praying whenever you open your ear: “Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth,” and then listen, even for one second. Praying does not mean stopping your activities or neglecting anything or anyone. It means listening.
God is not in the whirlwind of this world. God is in the still, small voice, and to have God means to hear that still, small voice. A moment of listening creates a vacuum into which the Spirit of God, the invisible Presence, enters. Then you begin to perceive that “something” new is operating in your life, going before you to make the crooked places straight, preparing mansions for you, solving problems, and overcoming difficulties for you.
You have made the transition from the man of earth to the man who has his being in Christ. You no longer “live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” You no longer live by your own brain power, physical strength, or education. You have a transcendental something that can give you far more wisdom, strength, judgment, and inner peace than personal ability or outer circumstances could provide. This transcendental presence has been within you since you were formed in the image and likeness of God, but you had been separated from it by material living and accepting two powers.
Beliefs Have No Power
In ordinary life, it is difficult to accept God as omnipotence, the all and only power, because we have been taught to believe in powers of disease, fear, storms, germs, hate, jealousy, bullets, and bombs. We are subject to the belief that if you are born, you must die. We have also been taught that there is mental power, or power in thought. But there is no power in any of these things. The only power they have is the power that universal consent gives them. Even so, if we have accepted such beliefs, we will demonstrate them.
The way out from under these beliefs is by an act of your own consciousness. To be free, you must know the truth and declare within yourself that you accept no power other than the power of God, no law but spiritual law. If God is infinite and the only lawgiver, and if God is Spirit, the only law that can exist is spiritual law. And, if you accept the omnipotence of Spirit, you must accept the omnipotence of spiritual law.
In the presence of light, there is no darkness. When material or mental law touches the consciousness of one who knows the truth, it dissolves because it is untrue. Then miracles begin to unfold in your experience.
But this happens only by your acceptance of truth, and the continual remembrance of it in the face of evidence to the contrary. This doesn’t mean that you will be saved from all future discords, but it does mean there will be fewer of them in your experience, and you will meet them more quickly. You will also meet the claims of others in proportion to your ability to ignore the appearance and stand fast in the truth.
You Are Not Limited or Dependent on Anything in “This World”
Meditation brings something entirely new into your experience. Human selfhood is limited to personal education, experience, resources, and integrity. When demands are made upon you for knowledge, money, or something else, you can respond only within the limits of your personal resources. But in the life of meditation and prayer, we recognize a kingdom, an infinite realm within our consciousness, which exists because “I and my Father are one.” In humanhood, we seem limited; in truth, we are not.
Joel likens this to an invisible tree of life, with us as branches connected to the tree. As a branch, we have access to all that the tree has. The branch of a fruit tree will never bear fruit of itself, but by virtue of its connection with the trunk of the tree, fruit will appear. Likewise, we of ourselves are nothing, but by virtue of our connection with God, our Source, we, too, will bear fruit. Jesus said, “I of my own self am nothing,” but also “I and My Father are one.” He knew that all that the Father had was his, and that he was not doing the works of himself, but that the Father was working through him.
If you want to bring forth something new—an invention, a building, a work of art, music, or literature, you can’t do it of yourself. Books might help, but eventually, you have to go to your Source for new designs, inventions, discoveries, melodies, or plots. Consciously knowing “I and my Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine” brings these into manifestation.
The principle is, “My conscious oneness with God constitutes my oneness with all spiritual being and idea.” This is both a meditation and a prayer. Whatever work is given you to do is given by virtue of your conscious oneness with God. Dwell in that relationship of oneness with God, rather than manipulating the outer scene, and God draws to you your own in every department of life.
By a life of prayer and meditation, we unite ourselves with the Source of all life. We no longer take thought for our lives or look to man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for our good. We no longer live in a world where we depend on each other or have anxiety about our well-being. We live in a new consciousness in which we are one with the infinite Source of life, and we can release every person from obligation to us because the Father supplies our needs. Then, in some normal way, those who can benefit us and whom we can benefit are drawn into our orbit.
Evil Is Impersonal
This leads to a major healing principle of The Infinite Way: evil is impersonal. No person is evil. The source of evil is “mortal mind” or “carnal mind,” the impersonal source of all evil. When we are confronted with any evil appearance and consistently separate the appearance from the person, recognizing the individual as the incarnation of God, the offspring of God, the very Christ of God, and knowing that the evil is impersonal, we have that appearance “three-quarters licked.” You lick the other quarter by realizing that God is not the source of evil, that God is “too pure to behold iniquity,” that God is the only creative principle, and that God ”looked at all that He made and found it very, very good.” The belief in two powers is what brought about sin, disease, and death.
Think of any claim, appearance, or disease, yours or someone else’s. If God is omnipotence, the only and all power, what power can the claim have? None. Then why be concerned about it? Sit with the claim, whatever it is, and look right at it. Ask yourself: Did God make this? Is there more than one power within me, a kingdom of God and a kingdom of sin, disease, and death? Or is God the only power?
Abide in the Word in Quietness and Confidence
In proportion to your realization of one power, negative powers fade away by virtue of their nothingness. Never try to use truth over error, or God over sin, disease, or death. Abide in the word that God is Spirit, and beside Spirit, there are no other powers. Abide in that and watch healings take place—but you must abide in it. Pray and meditate as you go about daily life, maintaining some area of consciousness in the realization of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, recognizing that since God is Spirit, all power is spiritual, and since God is law, all law must be spiritual. Mortal men and conditions have no power; they only act as power while we accept two powers.
The Infinite Way is a way of life based on prayer and meditation that helps us maintain inner stillness and quiet. It is in quietness and confidence that you receive your strength, your peace, and your harmony.
These practices are derived from the suggestions that Joel gave in the class. As always, it is helpful to choose just one or two that appeal to you and practice those for a while, rather than trying to practice all of them.
Try to remain relaxed as you do whatever practices you select. The idea is to let prayer and meditation become the atmosphere of your life and the way of peace.
Joel made it clear that no teaching has yet been discovered that will free anyone; that it is the degree to which we study, embody, and practice the principles revealed to us that brings us our freedom. In The Infinite Way, we do have specific spiritual principles, but the primary practice that enables us to use them is the life of prayer or meditation.
Each morning, sit quietly for five to ten minutes and ask within:
Then be still. Let the answers unfold during the day.
Joel says that this way of life does not require leaving home, work, family, or duty. Rather, he suggests that while engaged in our duties, we turn within and remember some spiritual truth.
Choose three ordinary activities—washing dishes, driving, answering email, walking, preparing food, beginning work, or something else. During each activity, pause briefly and inwardly remember one truth, such as:
Feel its meaning, then continue your task.
According to the Master, one way to have the Spirit of God dwell in us is to pray for our enemies. We can set aside a few minutes every day or night to consciously pray for our enemies. We do not pray that they be defeated, corrected, or made to serve our purpose. Rather, we pray that the Spirit of God be realized in them, that they awaken to their spiritual identity, and that we be free of condemnation.
If you have not been doing this and are willing to, here is a way to start:
Refrain from rehearsing the offense that has caused your resistance to them.
Joel points out that coming out from under the world’s beliefs requires an act of your own consciousness. To be free, you must consciously know the truth and refuse to accept any power other than the power of God, or any law other than spiritual law, even when appearances seem to contradict that.
Joel points out that “My conscious oneness with God constitutes my oneness with all spiritual being and idea” is both a meditation and a prayer. It is not a “formula” for getting things, but a way of resting in the truth that all right ideas, relationships, supply, creativity, and activity are included in oneness with God.
Joel teaches that when we are confronted with a claim or evil appearance in ourselves or in another, we separate the appearance from the person, recognizing the individual as the offspring of God, the very Christ of God, and know that the evil is impersonal.
Ask yourself: