A: Indeed not! Indeed not! Not by a long, long shot! My dear friend, if good thoughts were spiritual power, no parent on earth would lose a child. And no child, or very few, would ever lose a parent. And I doubt that if any one of us in this room would ever have another problem if good thoughts would stop it, because of all the things that I’ll bet are in this room, there’s an abundance of good thoughts. I just know that there’s good thought between every one of us. I just know that there isn’t an evil thought among us; that every one of us here has only the best of thoughts for everybody else. But that is not spiritual power.
Spiritual power is an emanation of God, and it operates with or without thoughts. Thoughts are not necessary to spiritual power. As a matter of fact, silence is the deepest and greatest spiritual power. When we are deepest in the silence, there is more of spiritual power evident than with speech. That’s why it is said that speech is silver, silence is gold. And really, it is true that when we can put the finger on the lips, be absolutely silent, then God-presence and God-power comes through. We may voice some thought that comes to us as a result of that God-experience. But the word we voice or the thoughts we think are not the power. It’s the consciousness of God behind it that is the power.
No, we may say, “God bless you,” and we may say, “Safe journey,” and we may say, “I wish you Godspeed,” and we may say, “The best of everything to you,” but don’t you know how meaningless that is except as courtesies between us, when it is nothing more nor less than our human good wishes for each other? No, they are not power. Power is the presence of God. And we may take our friends into our consciousness in silence and give them a greater degree of Godspeed than all the words that were ever spoken or written. And so it is wise to remember this—that when you are depending on good thoughts, you are depending on effects, and effects can never be God. No matter how good the thoughts are, they’re effects. The power is in the consciousness from which good thoughts may emanate and do emanate.
Now then, when—oh yes, sure, just listen to that—how many people express good thoughts to us today and turn around tomorrow and express bad thoughts? Why you see, the very idea that that’s possible shows that they weren’t God-thoughts, because nobody could express a God-thought today and then express an evil one tomorrow. That’s another impossibility. Why? Because in all of God there are not the pairs of opposites called good and evil.
No, do not depend on good thoughts. Depend on an actual realization of God’s presence. And be assured of this: The statements of truth that you know when you go into your meditation are only preparations for the experience of God-presence and God-power. Don’t depend on those statements of truth. Don’t depend on the thoughts of truth that you’re thinking. Just depend on those for help to get deeper into the silence. Then in the silence, the presence and power of God reveals Itself.
That is why some metaphysicians, when they’re called upon for help, immediately answer with what we call clichés—“Oh, it isn’t true;” “Oh, you know there is no such thing in divine mind;” “Oh, there are no accidents in divine love;” and “Oh, pain isn’t real.” As if uttering such things had power. As far as I’m concerned, they have power to get me mad, (laughter) because when an individual knows the truth or has the consciousness of those statements, they don’t make those statements. They just say, “All right, I’ll be with you right away!” And then you can feel the power, because they really do know that there’s no reality. But when it’s voiced out of the mind, that’s not power. That’s not power. If it were, all of these people who’ve learned out of books and then repeat the statements, they’d all be doing healing work. But all the good thoughts they can think and all the fine things they can remember from the books are not healing powers. If entertained in thought sufficiently, they would lead one deep enough into the silence so that the real power will come through.
So think upon these things. Always remember that an effect isn’t power. Somebody one time told somebody just to hold a Bible in their hands and they’d get healed. Why? Heaven knows, a Bible hasn’t any power. Not even a printed word in the Bible has power. But when you read the printed word, if it awakens something in you, if it arouses something in you, then the power is there, and not until then. That is why you may have a—well, you may be helping someone, and a metaphysical truth will pop into your head and there will be a wonderful healing. And then tomorrow, somebody will ask you for help, and you’ll think of that same truth and repeat it again, and nothing will happen, and you’ll wonder why. Well, the reason is we can’t live on yesterday’s manna, and the thing that was effective yesterday is not necessarily effective today, because it didn’t come from the same source.
When that word of truth came to you from the depth of your withinness, from God, “the word of God is quick and sharp and powerful.” But it doesn’t say anything about the power of your word or mine. Not a thing does it say about the power of your word or mine. It says the word of God is quick and sharp and powerful, and so it is. And if you can be silent, if you can be receptive, if you can be still and listen, and the word jumps out there, then don’t be surprised if the dead walk, because the word of God is that powerful. But if it isn’t the word of God, don’t expect too much from it, because it never has been promised that you or I could do anything with our right thinking. I think the Master covered that point too, didn’t he? That man seems to have covered everything in about five thousand words. I wish I had his gift; I’m using millions of words to say what he said in five thousand.
Let’s see what he said about that. “Who by taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? Who by taking thought can make a white hair black? And if you cannot do the least of these things by taking thought, why do you take thought for the greater things?” That’s how he handled the subject of thought. He just made a nothingness of it. Ah, but the word of God, that was different. That’s quick and sharp and powerful. And the Word, capital W-o-r-d, that Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. That Word becomes demonstration. That Word becomes meat, wine, water, all the rest of these things.
1This excerpt is from Recording 705B: 1955 Johannesburg Closed Class, “The Inner Meaning.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available from The Infinite Way website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.