A: Yes, that is correct on both questions. It is said that Moses disappeared from sight without having been buried. It is said that Enoch disappeared from sight without having been buried. And certainly, we have the story of Elijah, who to sense, ascended on a cloud.
Now it is possible that an individual may attain such a high state of spiritual consciousness that what appears as their human body actually disappears from sight as a human body. But only those who are very close to that degree of spiritual awareness will know it. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, they still will see it as a body being left for burial, because remember, they will be seeing the universal concept. They will not be seeing that which is, they will be seeing their concept of that which is.
In other words, if we had Jesus present here walking on the water, that does not mean that all of the people on the shore would see him walking on the water. As a matter of fact, you can be assured that only a very few would. Those few would be those of spiritual consciousness, because as it says here, “earthly consciousness will see only an earthly concept.” So even if you have made the transition without leaving a body behind, don’t think for a minute that the world would believe it. The only ones who would believe it would be those of your own students, who had been lifted to the degree where they could apprehend it.
In other words, I told you of the experience where, in Seattle, we actually had the presence of the Christ in that room, tangibly experienced by over two hundred people. But there were four hundred and fifty people in the room, and the others did not know that anything had happened. Twice, we have had it happen in my classes that I have disappeared from the platform, and only a beam of light was left shining in the chair. And on both occasions, only about four people witnessed it. So only those of spiritual vision can behold a spiritual demonstration.
That is why, when Peter said, “Thou art the Christ,” the Master said, “Flesh and blood—that is, your eyesight, your intelligence, your ears—hath not told you this. The Father within revealed it to you”—meaning your spiritual consciousness, your Christhood. In other words, “The Son of God which has been raised up in you realized the Christ in me. Otherwise, I would be just a Hebrew rabbi.”
In the same way when he took three of his disciples to the Transfiguration—why only three? Why not twelve? And if twelve, why not the two hundred? Because the experience of the Transfiguration could only be witnessed by those in that highest consciousness, who have come to see that the past, the present, and the future are one, and therefore, all that has been, is now; all that ever will be, is now, and therefore, here in this “nowness” and “hereness,” I can behold the spiritual creation of the entire past, of the present, and of the future.
In that Seattle class experience, all that the students who had not been aware of this Christ experience wondered was why I had stopped talking in the middle of the class and waited a few minutes to resume. They knew nothing that had happened in that interval, and yet there were about two hundred there who actually had the experience of witnessing the Christ.
So it has been that on numerous occasions during our classwork, some very remarkable things have happened of a spiritual nature, but in each case, not more than six or eight or nine students in the entire room were aware of it. The rest were not aware that anything had taken place. They saw nothing and heard nothing. To them it was just another class. But to the six, eight, or nine who were high enough in Spirit, they actually witnessed something of what the world would call a miraculous nature.
So it is that I can assure you that if the Christ should appear in this room during our work, only those would behold It who are high enough in consciousness at that moment to behold a spiritual vision. The rest would never know that anything had happened, and later would say, “Well I know it didn’t happen, because I was there.”
That is exactly why the Hebrew race does not accept the resurrection, because it is said that only about five hundred people actually witnessed the Master on earth after the crucifixion. Yet you must remember that there were multitudes whom he had healed, multitudes whom he had fed, multitudes who listened to his sermons. But we are told that only about five hundred witnessed that resurrection.
So you can be assured that all the rest said that it really didn’t happen, because they were there. It must have been those of the five hundred who formed the foundation of the Christian movement; that is, the movement that left the Hebrew church after the crucifixion to follow the teachings of the Master.
So never for a moment believe that even if you were to make the transition, and like Elijah, mount on a cloud and disappear, do not believe for a minute that the world would say so in the newspapers the next day, because they would not be aware of it. They would see a body, and they would bury a body. It wouldn’t be a body; it would be the universal concept. But they couldn’t rise higher than that concept.
That is one of the reasons we have disagreements in spiritual works, because since all are not on the same level of consciousness, all do not see the same thing and do not hear the same thing. You would be surprised if you could know some of the things that I have heard people read into my books or hear in my classes that never took place. But as far as they are concerned, they read it or heard it. But of course, they didn’t. They were just hearing their own concept, their own experience come back to them.
1This excerpt is from Recording 137A, from the 1956 Melbourne Closed Class, “The Principles of ‘As’ and ‘Is’’” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel S. Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available at www.joelgoldsmith.com or by calling 1-800-922-3195.