Recording 613A, “The True and False Sense of I,” from the 1951 First Northwest Series, is the major recording used as source material for Chapter 2, “The False and Right Sense of I,” in Consciousness Is What I Am.
PLEASE NOTE: Because of the variable audio quality on Recording 613A, we have received permission from the Estate of Joel S. Goldsmith to post the transcript for that recording so that, if you wish, you can read along as you listen to the recording.
This transcript is under copyright and is provided to Goldsmith Global participants for their exclusive personal use during our study of Consciousness Is What I Am. We are most grateful to Sue Ropac at The Infinite Way Office for permission to offer this transcript to participants.
When you access the transcript, it will appear on a new tab, so that you can listen to the recording on one tab, while following the transcript on another. You can view, download, or print the transcript by using the link on the Recording page.
To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.
In the recording that is the primary basis for this chapter, Joel says, “There is a miracle-saving grace in this lesson. There is a miracle of rebirth in this lesson, if we can take the word ‘I’ as me and drop it.” He acknowledges that “we cannot do it in one grand burst,” but in this lesson, he gives us guidance as to how we can begin. Joel says that if you were to study the religious and philosophical revelations of the world back as far as there are written records, you will never find any deeper teaching than this lesson.
That is quite a recommendation! It compels us to study deeply this chapter and recording. But as Joel often says, it is not enough to simply read the chapter and/or listen to the recording. We must make it our own, and as you know, we do this by contemplating what we have read or heard and by working with any recommended practices.
A Study Tool
You may already have a study method that works for you. If not, you might want to consider using one that we find most helpful. It consists of eight study points to consider when working with a chapter.
If you are so inclined, it can also be helpful to capture the essence of the lesson in some form of art.
Recommended Practices
Joel recommends several practices in this lesson that can help us “die daily” to the personal sense of I. We have identified some of these, and you may find others.
Making Decisions
Joel says that if you have a decision to make, you might turn to God and say, “God, what decision should I make?” But if you do that, you will probably not make the right decision because the word “I” is in there.
If I—that is, the I of personal sense—makes a decision, that I will try to carry it out. So you are making two mistakes. First, I—as personal sense—am making the decision, and then I—as personal sense—am trying to carry it out, when the whole time I—as personal sense—had no right to make the decision or to carry it out. So the word I, meaning the personal sense of myself, is what gets me into trouble.
Instead, accept the fact that God governs and directs your experience and say, “Father, show me what decision You have made today, since this is Your life. It’s Your universe; it’s Your world. How would You like it run with respect to this matter? What decision would You like to have made manifest? Show me Your decision. I know that not only will you show me Your decision, but You will even carry it out.”
Contemplate the Meaning of Dying Daily
We must die daily to personal sense in order to be reborn of the Spirit. So we have to take that idea of dying daily into contemplation and say to ourselves, “I’ve quoted and read ‘die daily’ so many times! Do I really know what it means? How would I go about actually dying daily? What did Paul mean by dying daily? What is the process of being reborn of the Spirit?” Through this contemplation, see if you can learn more about how to die daily and how to be reborn, so that you are not merely quoting that passage.
Solving Problems
When a problem faces you, look it squarely in the face, and ask, “Would there be such a problem if there wasn’t a ‘me’? Would there be such a condition if ‘I’ were out of the way? Would there be such a situation if the only ‘I’ involved in this were God? Would there be such a dilemma if the entire thing were up to God?”
In that way, we will gradually come to see that as far as the problem is concerned, there is no problem except what concerns the sense of “I” as man or woman. Take away that sense of “I” and let “I” be God, and then what happens to the problem?
Take one of your pet peeves or problems and see how much of it involves an “I” that is so limited in power and wisdom that it can’t solve the problem. And then, wonder what would happen to the problem if there were no such “I”; if the only “I” involved was God.
Joel says that one way to die daily is that whenever a problem comes up, we should begin with, “God what is the solution? Where do I go from here—or even better, where do You go from here as my form? Where do You want me to carry my body in the next week or month?”
Whatever might face us, the great release comes with the realization, “Thank you, Father. This burden is not on my shoulder for action. Show me what action You have chosen. Show me what my labors are to be for the next hours, because it is Your action manifest as me. It is the activity of Your being shown forth through my action.”
Go Into the Silence
If you can be silent on the subject of I as personal sense for even half an hour, drop “I-[your name]” completely out of the picture, and sit and contemplate the I which is God, you would have the kingdom of God on earth in your human experience.
Healing Work
In this lesson, Joel spends a fair amount of time showing us how to apply the message to healing work. In essence, he tells us to remember first, that there is no personal I, and second, that we never take the person or the claim into our healing work.
This lesson about healing implies that someone is asking you for help. But even if no one is asking you for help at this time, you can apply Joel’s suggestions to yourself or to the issues that seem to be troubling the world.
There Is no Personal I
Joel says that when somebody calls on you for help, first know that there is no such person; there is no personal I. If you realize that, you have started on the way to healing. But if you see them as the personal I and think, “How am I going to heal them, or improve them, or enrich them?” you will not succeed, because there is no such personal I. You are the blind leading the blind. They had an idea of a selfhood apart from God, and you have an idea of a selfhood apart from God, and you will both land in the ditch. The only I is God, and that I does not need healing, teaching, or enriching. When you know that, you permit Reality to come into expression and manifestation.
The only way to heal from a high spiritual level is to agree that there is no I apart from God. There is no selfhood apart from God. If there is, there is no God, because you cannot have an infinite God and a mortal being who is sick, sinning, or dying.
Wipe Out the Person and the Claim
So in our work, we not only wipe out the claim; we wipe out the person who has the claim, and we come to the realization of their true identity. Never do we try to improve a human being and make them healthier, or wealthier, or wiser. We reveal God as infinite individual being. We are interested only in seeing the God of their being come into permanent manifestation.
Whenever anyone calls for help, whether for a mental, physical, moral, or financial condition, the approach is: “There is no such I. There is no such person. There is no such condition in all of God’s kingdom. There could not be any such thing.” By maintaining that attitude, harmony begins to appear.
If the Claim Has Not Been Met
If someone has asked for help, and you have given it, and the individual pops back into your thought, probably the claim has not been met, and there is something more for you to do. Joel’s approach is to merely say, “All right, get out! Get out! Let’s get back to God.” Then he gets back to the God that has no problem, the God that has no physical body, the God that has no finite life, the God that has no age, the God that has no problem, and he stays right there with God. If the patient keeps trying to come in, he keeps pushing them out. He won’t let them come in—not their face, their figure, their name, or their problem—and all he says is, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” In other words, he does not want that false concept of I to come in. He wants to see and tabernacle with the real I of their being, which is God. He does not want to commune with their so-called human identity and woes. He wants to commune with that which they really are—God being—and as he does that, the harmony begins to appear.
In keeping the patient out of thought as a human being with a problem and holding fast to them as joint heir with Christ in God, as the spiritual reality of God, gradually you bring to light their true identity; you bring it into manifestation as their life.
Every Treatment Begins and Ends with God
We can think of the word “treatment” as a contemplative meditation done in response to a request for help. In a treatment, we use the mind to establish ourselves in the letter of truth. However, it is important to remember that the actual healing work begins when we stop using the mind and settle into a silent, receptive, listening attitude.
In this lesson, Joel reminds us that all treatments should start and end with the word “God.” At no time in the treatment does anything but God get in. He tells us that we should never, never take a problem or the person who seems to have the problem into our healing work. Take nothing into meditation but your pondering of God and God’s world: What is God? What is the kingdom of God? What is the government of God? What is the result of God’s government? What is the result of the kingdom of God on earth? What is the meaning of divine love? How would you live the statement, “Love thy neighbor as thy self?” Take those things into meditation.
Joel says, “The moment you ask for help, I say, ‘God. God needs help? No. No! God is life. God is eternal life, but God maintains and sustains Its own life. God doesn’t need any help from me. Life doesn’t need any help from me. Life is Spirit, and Spirit is immortal and eternal, and It doesn’t decay, and It doesn’t age, and It doesn’t change. There’s no room in Life for aches or pains.” He reminds us that God is the substance of all form, so all that exists in the universe is God-formed—a formation of Spirit, or Life Itself, of Truth, governed by the eternal laws of God, and it can never get outside of the realm of God.
If this issue is one of inactivity, know that since God is the source of all activity, there could be no such thing as anything other than perfect activity. You have no activity of your own; only God has activity, and God is the activity of being. You have no strength of your own. Scripture says that God is my strength, and God alone is strength. So you have no strength to increase or decrease. If the issue is a person in danger of dying, how could that be, if their life is God? The life of God is not in danger of dying.
Bad drivers on the road? No. There is only one mind, and that mind is infinite intelligence, and it is the mind of individual being. Do not acknowledge any other mind. According to appearances, there are minds many, and there are other minds on the road, but do not accept that belief. Hold to the truth that God is the mind of individual being, and therefore, there is only the infinite intelligence of God being made manifest. Man has no intelligence of his own. He can’t be smart or dumb, good or bad, sick or well. Only God is infinite intelligence; only God is good; only God is immortal life.
God Manifests AS Individual Being
Joel says, “I won’t acknowledge that you are spiritual, or you are perfect, or you are good. I will acknowledge only that God is good, and God is life, and God is love, and God is infinite wisdom, and God is intelligence, and there is no you, except as a manifestation of that God. So I won’t give you any credit for good or condemnation for evil. I will not give you any ‘you.’ I will hold that God is the only ‘you’ of you, and the only thing that can be made manifest through you is God, but it is God manifesting Itself. It isn’t even you. It’s God manifesting Itself as you, so you can’t even have credit for manifesting God, because you’re not. God is manifesting Itself as you. No personal glory, no personal condemnation.”
Whatever evil we see has no existence. Our acceptance of it as evil is causing the trouble. Whatever of good we see is God manifesting Itself and by ascribing that good to a person and saying, “You are healthy,” or “I am healthy,” or “You are wealthy,” or “I am wealthy,” you are falsifying the truth that only God is healthy, and only God is wealthy. God is health and God is wealth. You don’t express that health, and you don’t reflect that health, and you don’t manifest that health. God does, because there is no “you.” There is only God manifest as you.