Recording 466B, “Transition to Christhood,” is from the 1962 Pacific Palisades Special Class. It is the basis for Chapter 12, “The Transition to Christhood,” in Spiritual Discernment.
To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.
In the first session, recording 465A, Joel focused on the idea that The Infinite Way is not just a teaching to be studied, but a way of life. 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.”
In the second session, recording 465B, Joel continued with the theme of The Infinite Way as a way of life, describing it as a life of prayer or meditation—not an occasional practice but the central function of daily living. Through this way of life, harmony, peace, and fruitage appear in our experience as the natural expression of living in conscious oneness with God.
In the third session, recording 466A, Joel went deeper into the meaning of a spiritual, mystical way of life and showed how it differs from the human way of living. He emphasized the importance of recognizing the oneness of all mankind and explained how we must regard and treat others. Joel reiterated the theme that the harmony of our experience is determined not by how others act toward us, but by how we act toward them.
In this session, Joel describes a transition in consciousness: from sitting at the feet of the Master to sitting beside the Master as a co-worker, where our function is no longer to receive, but to bestow and bless; not to get, but to give. He also explains several ways in which we can help bring about this transition.
Recording 466B is the basis for Chapter 12, “The Transition to Christhood,” in Spiritual Discernment. That chapter is very nearly a transcript of the recording and provides an excellent review. If you do not have that book, you may want to support your review of the class by ordering the transcript, preparing your own summary, or using the summary below as a starting point and adding any points that spoke to you personally.
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.
That Which I Am Seeking, I Already Am
A student asked the question: Are we still under the law, or are we under grace? Joel references the work of this class thus far and then asks, “Can you think of a prayer such that you are not asking for anything, expecting anything, desiring anything; a prayer that would have in it no element at all of wanting to benefit from the prayer?” In other words, a prayer that has the attitude of releasing God, of knowing that there is nothing you need. If this is difficult, it is because for centuries, people have believed that God could give them something.
In The Infinite Way, it says, “That which I am seeking I am.” If you understand that and develop the capacity to live it, it can change your sense of prayer and your entire life. If you are seeking truth, you find that “I am the truth.” If you are seeking God, “I and the Father are one.” If you are seeking supply, “I am the bread, the meat, the wine and the water.” If you are seeking health, “I am the resurrection and the life.” When you realize “That which I am seeking, I am,” you see that you cannot desire anything or go to God for anything; you already have it.
If I, the Father, and I, the Son, are one, does I, the Father, have anything that I, the Son, does not? No, but you must live in that constant remembrance, which keeps you from reaching out to God or expecting anything from man. You know that all that is embodied in the Father is embodied in the Son, and your prayer must be the constant recognition. “Thank you, Father, I am”—not “I need,” or “I want,” or “I should be,” or “I deserve,” but “I am.”
Even a person in prison can have the attitude “I am free. Since I and my Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine, the freedom of the Christ is the freedom of my individual being, and despite all appearances, I have to live and move in that consciousness.” We can be in a prison without being confined behind bars. A false appetite, a sin, or a disease can be a prison. But despite the appearance, we must know we cannot pray to God to release us from it.
There is a different way to pray than praying to God for something. The spiritual freedom of the Father is the spiritual freedom of the Son. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” and since I, the Father, and I, the Son, are one, the Spirit of the Lord is where I am. Here, where I am, God is. The place whereon I stand is holy ground because I and the Father are one. Then you are abiding in truth, and as you abide in truth, the prison bars—whatever their nature—begin to break. Sometimes it happens instantaneously; sometimes it takes days, weeks, or months.
Abide in the Truth of Your Oneness with God
There must be a constant living, moving, and having your being in the truth that I am the truth—not believing that there is some truth that will free me, or a God that will heal me, but living in “I and my Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine. The place whereon I stand is holy ground because the Spirit of the Lord God is here where I am. The kingdom of God is within me.” Then, why do I need to pray for anything when I have Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence within me? I do not. I must abide in the truth of my oneness with God.
Nothing enters your experience except through your consciousness. Whatever you experience in your life, you must experience through your own consciousness. There is no outside God, no outside devil, and no outside law. Whatever is operating in you is operating through and in your own consciousness. Either you have a consciousness of truth, or you have an ignorance of truth, and if you are ignorant of truth, you are not made free.
You must consciously know the truth. You cannot wait for some mysterious God to do something for you because you are charitable, kind, or moral. You must abide in the truth, abide in the word, and let the word abide in you; abide in God and let God abide in you.
When you stop “preying” on God, you have the secret of answered prayer. When you consciously know the truth “That which I am seeking, I am. I, the Father, and I, the Son, are one,” you are abiding in the consciousness of truth. You are abiding in the word, and the word is abiding in you. But you must hold to that even in the face of appearances that would testify to lack and limitation. We can’t deny our lacks and limitations, but we can begin to ignore them while we abide in the truth and let the truth dissolve them.
The Spiritual Way to Supply
To live under grace means to give up the use of the law. It may mean giving up beliefs as well. We may have believed that because we were in spiritual work, God would see to it that we had ample supply. But if the supply was not there, we may have concluded that God didn’t care whether we were in spiritual work or not. To God, there is no such thing as spiritual work, and no one needs supply.
You have to discard the belief that God owes you a living or supply, or that because you are a good human, you deserve supply. Nobody “deserves” supply. Everyone who recognizes their relationship to God has infinite supply. Humanly, there are many ways to get supply, but spiritually, there is only one way, and it is not by earning it, deserving it, or being worthy of it. It is not by tithing, sacrificing to God, or spending a certain amount of time each day in prayer. There is only one way to enjoy the infinite abundance of God, and that is through knowing the truth.
The truth you have to know is your relationship to God: I and the Father are one,” and “Son, all that I have is thine.” As long as I keep looking to the I of my being, I will be abundantly supplied.
For centuries, we have been taught that a husband owes his wife supply. It may take effort for a woman to release her husband from the obligation to support her, to release him from human or legal responsibility because she accepts her divine relationship to God and realizes that the Father has infinite ways of bringing us our own. Men, too, have a belief to give up. Often, they believe that their supply is from their business, profession, inheritance, or investments. They have to release that belief and affirm their relationship with God: “I and the Father are one.” A salesperson must release his customers, knowing that his supply comes from his conscious awareness of the truth. Living by this truth of oneness, you bring yourself out from under the law of human belief, human relationships, and human channels of supply, and bring yourself back under grace. Only you can do this.
You Must Move from Living Under the Law to Living Under Grace
When a practitioner brings about a healing for you, the practitioner releases you from whatever law was operating and brings you under grace, where that law does not operate. However, the practitioner cannot do this permanently; eventually you have to do it. At some point, you have to move from being under the law to being under grace. You must release yourself from seeking something and realize that you are one with the Father, and all that the Father has is already yours. Then you begin to live under grace and find yourself less under the law. This is a gradual process, but at some point, in the “twinkling of an eye,” you are completely under grace.
The Transition to Christ-Consciousness
Day by day on the spiritual path, we drop some phase of humanhood and make a transition to where our prayer is a benediction to the world. We no longer pray that we receive anything. We know, “That which I am seeking, I already am. All that God is, I am, and all that the Father hath is mine. Here, where I am, is holy ground, because the Spirit of the Lord is here, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Then we can pray, “Father, forgive my enemies, forgive those who have despitefully used me. They know not what they do. Bring them under Thy grace.”
Then we are no longer sitting at the feet of the Master. We have made the transition in consciousness to being a co-worker with the Master, and we are healing, freeing, and forgiving. We are the Christ-consciousness, seeking nothing for ourselves because we know that all that the Father has is already ours. Our whole life is pouring forth God’s grace to this world, silently and secretly. Then, as someone on the outer plane is led to us and asks questions, we can begin to share with them, giving “milk to the babes and meat to the adults.”
This life of prayer that has been the focus of these classes is the life of prayer that enables us to be a blessing, walking the earth silently and secretly saying, “Neither do I judge thee; neither do I condemn thee. Thy sins be forgiven. Thou art the temple of God, and God is in His holy temple. The peace and presence of God is with you. The place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Father, open their eyes.”
No longer are you a selfhood apart from God, seeking, needing, or desiring. You are the way, the truth, and the life. But you can only be that if you keep it secret until somebody evolves to the extent that you can reveal it to them. While you have prayed to have Christ consciousness, now you are attaining it, accepting it. But you can accept it only by saying, “I and the Father are one, and all of God’s grace that flows to me will flow out from me, through me, to this world.” This is the only way you can pray for the world. You can’t pray that peace come on earth, because there can be no peace until man’s consciousness changes to a consciousness of peace. Peace treaties are of no avail unless men and women are ready for peace.
All these years, we have been preparing our consciousness to receive the Christ, to accept the truth that the Christ is the truth of my identity. Now is the time to actually accept it; to move from being an individual who prays to God for things, to being the individual who is consciously aware that I and the Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine. Then life becomes one of bestowal, benediction, and sharing.
Praying for the World
Peace will come into your life when you are ready for it and not before. When you stop taking up the sword of criticism, judgment, condemnation, or malpractice, the sword will not be taken up against you. When you decide to live under grace, under love, judging no man, peace will come into your individual experience. No matter how many bombs fly or how many thousands fall at your left or right, it will not come nigh thy dwelling place, and you will be the means of saving many others who are embodied in your consciousness.
Peace will come to you when peace is established within you, when you establish peace with your fellow man. Spiritual prosperity will come to you when you are fit to receive it by giving the first fruits to God, by giving your conscious awareness to mankind, when you become the master or the disciple who is an instrument through which God’s grace flows to mankind. When you are in peace, you hasten the day when peace will come to mankind.
If there is not peace and love in human consciousness, doing away with the military or signing peace treaties will not bring an era of peace. War cannot enter your life if it has been ruled out of your consciousness, and it cannot be ruled out of your consciousness while you are living on the human plane under the law. It can only be ruled out if you accept yourself as Christ, or a disciple of Christ, and your life has become a forgiveness, a benediction, a blessing, and you are no longer seeking anything.
In praying for the world, there is one mode of prayer that will do more to break the evils of the human mind than anything else: Realize that God, Spirit, is Omnipotence, and therefore neither the mind of man, the will of man, nor the way of man is power. All power is in God, Spirit. Therefore, there is no power in mortal mind. Yet the Christ is not a temporal power that destroys enemies, nor a power that can help you get something at someone else’s expense. Christ is the gentle presence that dissolves what is adamant in human consciousness, establishes peace in the hearts, minds, and souls of men, and cements them in their spiritual relationship.
To pray for the world means to look out at the world, almost to see the globe in front of you and feel your love going out around that globe, saying: “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. I pray that thy sins be forgiven thee. I pray that Christ dwell in thy heart. I pray that no penalties ever be inflicted upon you for the past. I pray that you know spiritual freedom, spiritual justice, spiritual life, and spiritual law.”
Hold the globe this way in a whole armful of love, understanding, and forgiveness. Never think of victories; think of peace. There never can be peace when there are victories because with every victory, there is a loss, and the loser must always think about the next gain. Rather, “My peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth, but my peace, spiritual peace, the peace that brings forgiveness and comfort. My grace is thy sufficiency—not charity, benevolence, or somebody’s generous pocketbook. My grace is thy sufficiency.” You have the right to address the world in this way because you are no longer sitting at the feet of the Master. You’re sitting on the platform with the Master. You are speaking as a disciple of the Master.
Living in the Third Degree of the Spiritual Life
In the early months of this transition, it may be difficult to consciously resist the temptation to desire something, as if you were still at the feet of the Master. You have to consciously remember that you are no longer there; you are now a co-worker with the Christ of God. Your function is no longer to receive but to bestow; not to get but to give. Every morning, ask yourself, “What have I in the house?” Then throughout the day, as the opportunity comes to bestow the bread of life, the meat, the wine, the water, the life, the resurrection, remember that that is now your path.
Like a fraternal order, the spiritual life is lived in degrees, and you have voluntarily surrendered your rights as a first degree or a second degree and claimed for yourself the title of the third degree, discipleship with the Master. You can no longer go back to being the person in the first and the second degree. Now, you must be the one who shares the light of the third degree with those coming up through the first and second degrees, and each day, you have to remember, “What have I in the house from my new standpoint as a disciple?” You will find yourself living in a different dimension, under grace.
Are We Under the Law or Under Grace?
There is an answer to the question that began this session: “Are we still under the law, or are we under grace?” It depends on where you are sitting. Are you looking at people, remembering what they owe you and seeing to it that you get it, or have you come to realize your relationship with God and understand yourself to be the bestower, the giver, the sharer of His glory?
You are not giving anything of yourself, and will not be poorer after you give, because what you are giving is not yours. That, too, determines whether you’re under the law or under grace.
Do you believe that your personal possessions are yours, or do you see that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and Son, all that I have is thine? God is expressing through you, making you a “transfer agent.”
Keep your eyes on that word “I.” All that I have is thine. Since I and the Father are one, I have allness to give, to share, to bestow.
These practices are drawn from suggestions Joel gave in this class. As always, it may be most helpful to choose only one or two that speak to you and practice those for a while, rather than attempting to practice them all at once.
1. Practice prayer without petition
Joel asks, “Can you, for a moment, think of praying in some way that you will not be asking for anything, expecting anything, desiring anything? Could you possibly think in your mind of a prayer that would have in it no element at all of wanting to benefit from the prayer?”
2. Contemplate “That which I am seeking, I am”
Joel says that if we understood this statement and developed the capacity to live it, our lives would be transformed. He explains that if we are seeking truth, supply, health, life, peace, or God, we must recognize that these are already embodied in our spiritual identity.
Joel says that wheneverathought arises such as “Ineed,” “Iwant,” “Idesire,” or “IwishIhad,”we can remember, “That which Iam seeking,Iam.”
3. Release one person or channel
Joel says, “There is only one way to enjoy the infinite abundance of God, and that is through knowing the truth. The truth to be known is your relationship with God: I and the Father are one,” and “Son, all that I have is thine.” Joel then speaks about releasing the belief that another person or material channel is the source of our supply, whether a spouse, an employer, a business, customers, investments, or some other visible avenue of good.
4. Change prayer from receiving to bestowing
Joel describes the transition to Christhood as an “about-face,” marked by becoming a blessing rather than continually seeking blessings for oneself. Prayer ceases to be a means of receiving and becomes a benediction to the world.
5. Ask, “What have I in the house?”
Joel says, “The secret of the law of supply spiritually is in the passage: What have you in your house?” Then he tells us to ask ourselves, “What have I now in my house?” He explains that “house” means consciousness, and he tells us to ask each morning, “What have I in my house?”
6. Consider the Transition to Christhood
Joel points out that we are always praying for the realization of the Christ within, and that many students have prepared their consciousness for years. He says that there comes a time to fully accept that truth. That requires surrendering prayers for something and becoming the one who recognizes, “I and the Father are one, and all of God’s grace that flows to me will flow out from me, through me, to this world.” Then, your life becomes one of bestowal, benediction, and sharing. You are no longer only at the feet of the Master; you begin to sit with the Master as a co-worker, sharing God’s grace with humanity.
7. Pray for the World
Joel suggested a way to pray for the world, should you wish to do that. He explained that to pray for the world means to look out at the world, almost to see the globe in front of you and feel your love going out around that globe, saying:
“Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. I pray that thy sins be forgiven thee. I pray that Christ dwell in thy heart. I pray that no penalties ever be inflicted upon you for the past. I pray that you know spiritual freedom, spiritual justice, spiritual life, and spiritual law.”
Joel tells us to hold the globe this way in a whole armful of love, understanding, and forgiveness. Never think of victories; think of peace:
“My peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth, but my peace, spiritual peace, the peace that brings forgiveness and comfort. My grace is thy sufficiency—not charity, benevolence, or somebody’s generous pocketbook. My grace is thy sufficiency.”
You have the right to address the world in this way because you are no longer sitting at the feet of the Master. You’re sitting on the platform with the Master and speaking as a disciple of the Master.