A: Has anything happened to them? Is it not that we are giving the help to ourselves about them? They do not claim to have anything wrong with them. They may not even know that we think they have passed on. They may have no idea that they have passed on. And they have not. Heaven forbid that anyone should ever pass on! It would be proof that there is no God. God is life eternal, and that life is yours. Nothing can ever happen to that life. No, one thing that you are always aware of is that you cannot die. Never will you believe that you have died. You may think you are going to die, but you will never come to the place of dying.
What about those who are not with us any longer? Only to our sense is that so. We are the ones who are blind, and so we do not see them. We do not have to help them. They are all right now. We lift ourselves to the point of realizing that they are already in God consciousness. They know it. It is we who are entertaining a belief that they are dead and so it is we who need the treatment. …
[A practitioner] knows that the only thing to handle is a belief that someone can die. He knows that life is eternal. We cannot arrive at any degree of spiritual being, body, or universe, by an appraisal of the human scene. Always remember that. Never look at the human scene, and from it, try to judge of spiritual reality. You may look at a cemetery and say, “There is death”; you may look at hospitals and be sure there is disease; but if you want to know the truth, get quiet within your own being and let God reveal spiritual truth to you. Then you will find that in the history of reality, there never was sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation. …
Our sense of eternal life has nothing to do with life after death. Our sense of pre-existence has nothing to do with life before birth. Our sense of pre-existence, of immortality, of life eternal, has nothing to do with time or space. It has to do with now. Now are we the Sons of God; now am I life eternal. In that nowness, there is no past; there is no present; there is no future. There is just the continuous unfolding of consciousness–just as we go from nursery school to elementary school, and then to high school and college. It is just an unfolding consciousness, and in it there is no past and there is no future, when we look on it in its wholeness.
Is it possible then to receive communications from those who, to sense, have passed on? Certainly, since they have not passed on. They are right here where they have always been. They are always a part of our consciousness. If ever you come into agreement with the teaching of Jesus Christ, which is immortality and life eternal, you will never, never believe that anyone has died or has left consciousness or has left your consciousness. It will be like the woman who says, “My husband is in China.” She is not grieving over that. She continues to enjoy his integrity, goodness, and culture. Just because he is out of her physical sight, does that mean death or separation? It means only that he is out of physical sight. Even though she
does not see him daily, she is occasioned no grief because of her conviction that he is still with her.
So, as you go higher and higher, you realize more and more that there is no death. Then it makes no difference if, for some reason, your loved one has gone out of your sight. You will feel no sense of separation. You will still have the sense of his presence.
The whole secret lies in your ability to understand that we exist as states of consciousness. If I am in your consciousness now, I can continue to be a part of your consciousness, whether I am in Los Angeles or in New York, or sitting in your living room. And you can be a part of mine. With that understanding, there is no reason why we could not communicate with each other, even at a distance, if there were any occasion for it. I am sure that many of you have had just that experience.
That which we call “mother,” “father,” or “child,” is really God. It is eternal life made manifest. How can God die? How can “the mind that was in Christ Jesus” go anywhere? It is always omnipresent being. Death itself is based on the belief that human beings were born at some point in time. We are refuting this through spiritual wisdom. What is the whole secret of spiritual healing? It is that we are infinite, individual, spiritual being.
Then is there death? Is there a passing on? No, no, no! Any sense we may have of a death or a passing on is our acceptance of a universally imposed belief–that is all. Begin to understand that God is your wife, your husband, and your children; in other words, life eternal made manifest is the only person you know. You must do that in treatment, so why not in thinking about those closely related to you?
Death is based on the belief that you and I are human beings and that we were born at some point in time. Eternal life is based on the spiritual revelation that you and I are life eternal. “Before Abraham was, I am.2 Unto the end of the world, lo, I am with you.3” How can you reconcile death, or passing, or separation with such assurance? Since that is true, why is it not possible for Jesus to appear to those who are in tune or at-one with his state of consciousness? Why should he not appear, even in physical form, in the sense of being a divine presence and protection? Why should not Moses appear to those of the Judaic faith, if that is their concept of deific power? Why was Jesus enabled to make the demonstration on the Mount of Transfiguration? How was it possible to bring back Moses and Elijah and Elias? They had not gone any place! They never were human beings who had died. They were always the divine Consciousness Itself, individually manifest and expressed.
If you want to demonstrate health and harmony for yourself or for your loved ones, immortal life for yourself and for them, give up the belief that your wife or your husband or your children are human beings. Begin to accept that which you must use in your treatment, and that is that you are the Christ of God. Y ou are immortal and eternal. Begin to believe that about yourself and your family. Have you ever given a treatment without the declaration that your patient is immortal, eternal, and the manifestation of God? Is that not included in every treatment? How can the eternal manifestation of God die?
The only death, then, is our acceptance of the universal belief that we are human beings. From there, we go on and accept the rest of the belief that we have three score years and ten to live under scriptural law, or sixty-four to sixty-seven years to live as an insurance statistic. We bring ourselves under those universal beliefs by our acceptance of them as law.
But as you gain the conviction that the words you use in treatment are true, if you really can gain the conviction that I am life eternal; that all that God is, I am, how can there be a death? Death will be the last thing that is overcome, and the only way that it will be overcome is when you analyze your treatment and say, “Do I really believe it, or am I just saying it?” When you accept the truth of the eternality and infinity of your being, you cannot come under the belief of death.
Let us think, now, in terms of God as truth and see what new idea regarding your individual being will be revealed to you. If we think of God as truth, and if we think of ourselves as the manifestation or the revelation or unfoldment of that Truth, can we at the same time think of ourselves in terms of living or of dying? Can Truth die? Then, have we not been thinking of God as some kind of a limited being, and of ourselves as some kind of a human being?
Let us take this idea and ponder on what it would really mean to know that God is Truth, and what Jesus meant when he said: “I am . . . truth.”4 Because if you can understand the truth of being, you never again will be disturbed by the idea of mortality. You will know no such thing in your life as death.
There is nothing limited about God, Truth; therefore, there is nothing of a personal or limited nature about the infinite and individual Truth: I am the way; I am the truth; I am life eternal. As truth, you cannot be confined to time, place, or space; and you are truth. You are following the teaching of the Master, Jesus Christ: “Before Abraham was, I am. . . . Lo, I, Truth, will be with you until the end of the world.” As Truth, you cannot be limited in form or in expression. As infinite Truth, there is nothing outside your own being to act upon you for good or evil in any way. All power, law, cause, and effect are the manifestation and activity of your own being appearing as your universe. That is what you are when you are declaring: I am truth; I am life eternal; I am Soul; I am Spirit; all that God is, I am.
Close your eyes and say “I.” Then remember that at six years of age you could have closed your eyes and said “I,” in exactly the same way in which you are saying it now, and it would have been the same “I” that you are talking about at this moment. That “I” has never changed, and it will never change and never die, but it will unfold infinitely. If you ever permit your body to slip out, you will find that I amstanding right back there watching it. To catch even a glimpse of yourself as Truth will destroy all sense of discord, inharmony, ill health, and the grave.
This is likewise so in understanding the statement: “I am the light of the world.”5 Can you ever think of a light becoming dark, or dying, or passing out? Or going somewhere? Take the word right into meditation and see yourself as light. No longer, then, will you accept a sense of limitation.
By understanding ourselves as Truth and as Light, we shall gain an entirely new idea of self. Then, instead of being concerned with the appearance, we shall turn away from it and gain the spiritual idea that is the light of the world. We cannot reform, heal, or change whatever the human mind thinks of itself. Do not attempt to improve the old concept of self. Rather, gain the new idea that Jesus gave us two thousand years ago: “I am the way; I am the truth; I am the life.”6 How can you destroy any of that?
1 This excerpt is from Chapter 12, “Questions and Answers,” in the book Consciousness Unfolding. It is posted with kind permission from Acropolis Books and the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copyright on the books.
2 John 8:58.
3 Matthew 28:20.
4 John 14:6.
5 John 8:12.
6 John 14:6.