A: The use of the word “transparency” is also open to misinterpretation. Ordinarily when we think of the word ‘transparency,’ we think of a clean pane of glass letting the sunshine through, and we call that glass a clear transparency for the sun. If the glass is dirty, we say it is a poor transparency. If I were to speak of myself as a transparency for God and mean it in that sense, I would be wrong, because the sun and the pane of glass are two separate things. But God and I are not two separate things; and therefore, in that sense, I would not be a transparency for God. You remember Jesus’ statement, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God“? 2 In that sense, Jesus was the clear transparency through which the goodness of God was shown forth to the world. As with any form, words have their limitations. That is the reason that the deepest teaching is wordless.
God is the reality of being – the sum total of the reality of being. The individual “I” is that place at which the totality of God is made evident to you. In that sense, God, the Reality, which is my incorporeal and invisible being, appears outwardly to you as what you call intelligence, integrity, loyalty, fidelity, gratefulness, appreciation, cooperation. In that sense, I am a transparency through which that light of God-being is flowing. If you use the word “transparency” in the sense of there being a God and an “I,” and God pouring through, you would be wrong. But if you can see integrity, spirituality, intelligence, love, as qualities of God, and then if you say, “My, what a wonderful transparency for good that individual is,” you do not have two-ness any more than you have two when you are expressing faithfulness or fidelity. There are not two of you, you and the fidelity. Fidelity is actually a quality of your character, of your nature. It is ingrained; it is inherent in you. It constitutes your being. It is not wrong to say, ‘My, you are a wonderful transparency for truth,’ because that does not mean that truth is something that is separate from you, showing through: it means that you are a visible evidence of an invisible quality.”
1 This excerpt is from Chapter 18, “The Infinite Way,” in the book The Master Speaks. It is posted with kind permission from Acropolis Books and the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copyright on the books.
2 Matthew 19:17