Recording 465A, “The Infinite Way of Life,” is from the 1962 Pacific Palisades Special Class. It is the basis for Chapter 11, “The Infinite Way of Life,” in Spiritual Discernment.
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The 1962 Pacific Palisades Special Class comprises four wonderful sessions on The Infinite Way as a way of life. All the teachers Joel personally chose to carry on the teaching work attended this class, and the high consciousness of the participants drew forth a beautiful message.
Joel works with the idea that The Infinite Way is not just a teaching for us to study, but a way of life lived through prayer, meditation, inner stillness, the recognition of one power, and release from dependence on outer conditions. He teaches that as we stop seeking God for things and begin yielding to God as the very life, substance, and consciousness of our being, we 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.”
At the end of the class, Joel spoke to the importance of this class when he said: “This is the first Saturday night in sixteen years of classwork that I can truthfully say, ‘I’m sorry.’ With every class, Saturday night has been my joy. I’ve been released from something terrific. But tonight is an exception—the first one is sixteen years. Tonight I feel that if we could go on for another week, something great would happen.”
Joel seemed to regard this class as an opportunity for students to move from metaphysical understanding into mystical living; from simply knowing truths about God to living as the transparency through which God’s grace flows.
Recording 465A is the basis for Chapter 11, “The Infinite Way of Life,” in Spiritual Discernment. That chapter is nearly a transcript of the recording and provides an excellent review. If you do not have that book, you can create your own summary or use the one below as a review.
The Infinite Way is a Way of Life
The Infinite Way is an actual way of life. It is a way of life to which we are led at some time in our experience when we are ready for it.
The purpose of this message is to bring about a transition in consciousness from a material sense of life to a spiritual consciousness of life. We are seeking to move away from material and mental powers to spiritual power, which is really not a power to be used for any purpose whatsoever.
We Can Control Our Mind
In the material sense of life, we can use material powers. As we advance, we learn to use mental powers and gain jurisdiction over our mind. We find that we can control what goes into and comes out of our mind. You can choose to read spiritual literature, or to refuse to entertain the world’s thoughts of disease, sin, fear, or anything undesirable, and you can express right, pure, truthful thinking. You make these choices, and at some point, declare:
“I refuse; I refuse to be a victim of universal beliefs, the malpractice of the world, or the domination of the minds of men. I refuse to be taken in by false advertising. I refuse to be taken in by the millions of unseen and unheard thoughts that travel through the air.”
In other words, you assume responsibility for what goes into and comes out of your mind. This enables you to change and control the nature of your experience because you can reject universal beliefs and avoid being dominated by the thinking of others, individually or collectively.
New students sometimes believe that there is a mysterious power, called “God,” “Mind,” or some other term, which will do things for them. It takes a while to realize that there is no such thing as an outside force, not even a good one. The only power there is, is that which we possess within ourselves. By learning how to choose, maintain a consciousness of truth, and refuse the world’s negative beliefs, we can, to some extent, become masters of our own fate. Most of the world has not learned this and is at the mercy of both material and mental powers.
We Do Not Use One Power to Overcome Another
It may appear that we are using one power to overcome another, but we are not. If you believed that two times two are five, and then learned that two times two are four, you have not used any power to change five into four. You have simply learned the untruth of five and the truth of four.
In the same way, once you learn that God, or Spirit, constitutes the reality of being, that all power is in God, and that what the world calls evil in any form is not power, you do not need a power to overcome anything. Evil has only the power we give it by our acceptance of the universal belief in two powers.
For example, a practitioner never heals a cold. A practitioner has no power over colds, and neither does God. Nobody has power over colds any more than we have power over two times two is five. The practitioner merely knows the truth that since God never made a cold, it has no spiritual power, presence, or law. Therefore, it has no existence in the kingdom of God, and it exists only as a universally accepted belief in two powers. We never use the power of truth over error, nor do we ever seek the power of God to do something to error. We simply know the truth and become free of the erroneous belief.
Exactly How Is The Infinite Way a Way of Life?
If you were just beginning to live this way of life, you might have to make many changes. If you still want to influence God to do something, or use some power over a negative appearance, you have to give that up and assume the way of life in which you recognize no power in any appearance. Your attitude would become:
I no longer need a power to change, alter, improve, or heal anything. Now I am in a way of life in which I recognize the non-power of whatever I have feared or felt required healing, change, improvement, or reform.
This is a way of life because you cannot simply make this declaration and remove error from your experience. You have to live with these truths and apply them until your consciousness changes.
We do not remove the discords, inharmonies, and inequalities of life by finding a god to pray to. Rather, we know the truth taught by the Master: “Resist not evil,” ‘What did hinder you? Pick up thy bed and walk,” “Open your eyes.” He never appealed to God to do anything. Scripture says, “To know Him aright is life eternal.” It does not say, “Pray to a God power to do something.”
Accepting God as Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience
“Knowing Him aright” becomes a new way of life, in which you know God to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. If God is omnipotent, all power and the only power, could you influence God to do anything God is not already doing? Could you move God to hold back the sunlight for five minutes or set the sun five minutes earlier than its appointed time? No. When you accept God as omnipotent, you will never pray to have evil removed. Rather, you would declare within yourself:
“Omnipotence means all power, so there is no power in this appearance, any more than there is power in the appearance of the sky sitting on the ocean, or the railroad tracks coming together.”
Accepting God as omniscient also changes your way of life. Omniscience means all knowledge, all wisdom, all intelligence, all-knowing, all-wise. As Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father knowest that you have need of these things.” So you must pray differently. You can’t tell Omniscience anything, so your prayer becomes a settling into stillness in the attitude, “Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth,” until something stirs within you to let you know the prayer is answered.
In this way of life, you train yourself to sit in quietness and full confidence that your heavenly Father knows your need before you do, and to receive divine grace without asking for it. Your only function is to be still.
The Role of the Letter of Truth
In The Infinite Way, we approach this way of life through a great deal of knowing the truth. We do not use the “letter of truth” to heal anyone or change anything. We use it in contemplation to lift ourselves to a state of consciousness above the mental, where we can be still and let God’s grace perform Its function. The ultimate of our work is to pray and treat without words and thoughts.
In this class, Joel talks about how he gives help. He says that if you want to ask him for help, don’t use words or thoughts. Reach spiritually in his direction. Don’t mention any particular problem. Just look in his direction and then turn within yourself. He is knowing the truth that “your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things, and it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” and he is turning within in this attitude:
“Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth. Let me be the instrument of thy grace toward those who have reached out to me, for we are one. These are in me, and I am in Thee, and we are all one. Thou art in me and in them, and we are all one, so that there is no them and me and thee, but them and me and thee become one, and “I,” the Father, am that one.”
Then he sits in complete silence, and there comes an inner feeling of release, or peace, the evidence of God’s presence consciously realized.
One Secret of The Infinite Way
In this way of life, the healing agency is God’s presence consciously realized. If there is any secret to the message of The Infinite Way, this is it. God is omnipresent, here where we are. Despite that, God is not available to you until God is consciously realized. This discovery started The Infinite Way.
Despite omnipresence, the great works of Jesus were not performed before his time, because the Hebrews were waiting for the coming of God and did not acknowledge omnipresence. Even though they sang it in their Psalms, they didn’t really believe it. We, too, sing beautiful words in our church hymns and don’t believe a word of them. But in this way of life, you have to not only accept omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, but also act in accord with that belief.
What To Do If You Haven’t “Got It” Yet
We hear, “Here where I am God is. The kingdom of God is within me, closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. Son, thou art ever with Me and all that I have is thine!” Upon hearing that, some might say ‘What’s wrong with me if I haven’t got ‘all that God has’?” The answer is simply that they haven’t been still enough to accept it. It can help to have dozens of short periods a day of stillness—even just for thirty seconds each—during which you recognize that since God is already omniscient, you are not going to try to tell God anything. Since God is omnipotent, you are not going to try to influence God, and since God is omnipresent, you are going to recognize that.
Do not be discouraged if, at first, your meditations do not seem to have any effect. Be assured that your prayer has registered, even if you have no inner feeling about it or receive no inner message. Your listening ear is the assurance that your prayer will be answered.
The Temple of Truth
This class began with a question about whether it was necessary to be with others in meditation or classes if one prefers to be by oneself. Joel answers that whatever suits an individual’s needs is what the individual must follow.
There are periods in our spiritual journey when coming together lifts everyone to a higher state of consciousness. In the degree that the teacher is lifted up in consciousness, so are the students. People are attracted to classes because, at some level, they know that truth students would be gathered, and a truth message would be given. They come to be in the presence of God, in the temple of God, or in the consciousness of God.
The teacher’s consciousness and the students’ united consciousness become the temple of truth, and participants in the class are part of that temple. When they are in the class, they are abiding in the truth, and the truth is abiding in them, and they will bear fruit richly: “If you abide in the word, and if you let the word abide in you, you will bear fruit richly.”
If periods of this nature are helpful to your spiritual development, engage in this activity. However, if after one or more classes you feel that being alone in meditation is more helpful, or you are moved to participate only occasionally, that is the way for you. You must be led by the Spirit within you. So the answer to the question is: Follow whatever you discover that deepens and enriches your own consciousness.
Spiritual Endowment
If you follow a spiritual path far enough, you will find that at first you have a choice about how to follow it and to what extent, but eventually it will take over and tell you how many hours a day you need for study or meditation, or whether to unite with others or remain alone. In other words, you will be spiritually endowed.
At a certain time in your life, the Spirit will take over and give you your work. Then you will have no choice about it, even if it interferes with your home life, social life, or leisure time. When you are ordained, you will be “under orders,” and you are not in control. It may put you inside a church organization or religious movement, or it may not. That is the business of Spirit, because you have entered a way of life that is not your own; it is God’s way of life through you.
Then you will understand what the Master meant when he said, “Nevertheless, not my will be done, but Thine.” Sometimes we say that too, but we don’t mean it. We never mean it until the day of ordination, when we understand that moving contrary to God’s will would be as destructive to us as it was to Judas Iscariot. So, while at first you have a choice about where and when you will meditate and study, when the finger of God touches you and points a way, you must follow it.
This Is a Way of “Is”
This way of life is the way of no power, and if you adopt it, you have to realize the word “is.” God is; we don’t doubt that. Where is God? If God is omnipresent, God is where I am. Now, what is God? God is omnipotent, the all-power and only power. God is omniscient, the all-knowing, all intelligence, all wisdom. But really, to say all those things, all I have to say is, “God is.”
Whenever we behold some form of sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation, our instantaneous response must be, “God is.” In saying that, we have said God is present right where the appearance seems to be. God is the power, the knowledge, and the wisdom necessary right where the appearance seems to be. We can release the entire situation into that truth.
The appearance testifies to sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation. It is “two times two is five” staring at you. But in the face of this appearance, you have to say with Paul: “None of these things move me,” or with the Master, “What did hinder you?” You have to be able to stand in the is-ness of God. This is a way of life that requires change. In the face of a negative appearance, you can no longer go off to a corner and think, “If only I could contact God.” Now you live this way: “Here where I am, God is, and since God is no respecter of persons, that applies to everyone.”
Remember, the only reason that God isn’t effective is that God is not recognized as omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” In this way of life, you can no longer flounder mentally. You must know and live the truth of isness. You have to accept that God is just as much God to a sinner as to a saint. You have to give up the theological superstition that there are people outside of God’s grace. No one is outside of God’s grace. All that is required to bring ourselves under grace is lifting our eyes, as did the woman taken in adultery and the thief on the cross.
Once the Spirit of God has set you on a spiritual path, it will not let you turn back to the consciousness you have outgrown. A tremendous change takes place within you as you learn to refrain from reaching out for a God power and rely on the word “is.” God is. God is, I am—not I will be, or I might be at some time. I already am. Regardless of what confronts you, you abide in “God is; therefore I am.”
You have heard Joel say many times that it is the degree of practice that separates those who make spiritual progress from those who do not. He often reminds us not to leave truth in the book, recording, or transcript, but to bring it to life by applying and practicing it in our daily lives.
As we have said before, we are more likely to be successful if we take just one or two practices each day and work with those, rather than trying to take on too many at once. You can choose those that appeal to you or choose one that will help you work on something you may have glossed over in the past.
In working with this class, remember that, once again, Joel is not presenting a lesson merely to be understood intellectually. He is offering a way of life, but one that you must want and be ready for. The purpose is to “bring about a transition from a material sense of life to a spiritual consciousness of life.”
So first, ask yourself the question, “Is this a way of life that I am willing to embrace? Am I ready for it?” There is no right or wrong answer. As Joel says in this very same class, “whatever it is that suits the need of an individual is what the individual must follow.” So even if you feel that this way of life is not right for you at the present time, you can still get value from learning about it. You might choose to experiment with one or two of these practices and see how they resonate with you.
Here are some possibilities for practice:
1. Practice the transition from material sense to spiritual consciousness.
Joel says, “Probably one of the most important features of this particular way of life is that we are seeking to get away from material powers and mental powers.”
Several times a day, pause and ask: “Am I looking to matter, mind, people, conditions, or appearances as power?” If so, inwardly release that reliance, remembering that this way of life is to lead us away from material and mental powers.
2. Practice guarding the doorway of thought.
Joel emphasizes the importance of learning to control and take jurisdiction over our minds. Not only can we choose to focus the mind on spiritual truth, but we can also refuse to entertain worldly thoughts of fear, sin, and disease.
Each day for one week, notice what you permit into consciousness. Are you entertaining fear or anxiety? World beliefs? Thoughts about disease, negative news reports, or erroneous personal opinions? If so, the next time they appear, gently refuse them entrance, remembering: “I have jurisdiction over my mind.”
You might use Joel’s suggested declaration to help you get started:
“I refuse to be a victim any longer to the universal beliefs, to the malpractice of the world, to the domination of the minds of men. I refuse to be taken in by false advertising. I refuse to be taken in by the millions of unseen and unheard thoughts that travel through the air. I assume responsibility for my own mind.”
You need not fight or argue with a thought. Gently dismiss it, bring something of a spiritual nature to mind, and rest.
3. Engage in a short stillness practice.
Joel reminds us that if God is omniscient, the all-knowing, there is really nothing we can “tell” God. He says that in this way of life, “You have to train yourself to be able to sit in quietness and confidence. . . Your whole function is to be still.”
Throughout the day, practice being still, even if only for thirty seconds. Do not try to tell God anything, influence God, or seek anything from God. Just be still and rest in the silence with the attitude, “Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.” Joel says that even if there is no feeling or message at first, “your listening ear is the assurance that your prayer will be answered.”
4. Practice recognizing the power within.
Joel says that there is no God or external force that will take hold of us and do things for us. He teaches that “the only force or power there is, is that which we ourselves possess, that we ourselves have within ourselves—the Redeemer, the Savior, the power unto our own existence.”
When a need, problem, or desire comes up, ask yourself, “Am I waiting for something outside myself—even God as an outside power—to handle this for me?” Then sit quietly and realize, “The kingdom of God is within me. The Christ, the Redeemer, the Savior, is within my own consciousness. The solution lies within.
5. Practice recognizing there is no need for power.
Joel says, ”This is the way of no power, and if you adopt the spiritual way of life, you have to sing your way through life in the realization of the word ‘is.’ We can say that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, but really, all we need to say to encompass them is “God is.” God is, and I am; not “I will be, or I might be,” but I already am.
Take one condition that has seemed to require healing, improvement, reform, or change. It might be fear, resentment, or concern about the body, finances, global conditions, or relationships. Sit quietly and realize, “I no longer need a power to change this. I recognize the non-power of the appearance, and I stand still in the isness of God. God is. I am.”
6. End each day with spiritual inventory, not confession.
Before sleep, quietly review the day. The review is for learning; refrain from judging yourself. Give yourself credit for being willing to try and live this way of life!
7. Be open to other practices coming from within.
As you work with the recording, other ideas for practice may come to you. If so, it may be Spirit prompting you with something that would benefit your particular unfoldment. You might write it down, live with it for a day or two, and see whether it deepens your practice.