A: There isn’t any way, except the same way of studying, meditating, perhaps a little occasional treatment to help, until the recognition comes of God as the omnipresent Being, the only Being. When we have that, it doesn’t make any difference whether you call it nervous exhaustion, consumption, or anything else. It all disappears.
The naturalness of this message of The Infinite Way is in this: It is a recognition of the fact that we are already in heaven, and that we are not striving to get there. We are not trying with a lot of statements of truth, and self-hypnosis, and all the rest, to bring about something that is already established.
Our work, principally, is relaxing. That sounds easy. It isn’t as easy as it sounds, but that is our function—to relax and to let. Just the same as if we plant a seed in the ground and cover it, we go away and let nature take its course. There is a thing called nature; there is a law of nature that acts upon that seed that brings it forth into fruitage.
And so it is, that there is a law of God that operates in, through, and as our being, and it really is responsible for governing us. We are trees of His planting. We are His creatures; we are not our own. And as we recognize these great truths, we let His law take over, and as we let It take over, It becomes the law unto us, and It has the responsibility, and It functions, and ultimately we come into living by grace.
Now, to live by grace is really to do those things that are given us to do, and let the law function and show us what to do and how to do it. In other words, we still will hold jobs, or we still will have homes to take care of. We still will run businesses and governments, but we’ll do it always with the right intelligence, the right direction, the right integrity. That is living by grace. It doesn’t mean to be taken out of the business world and be set up in a park, and have all our good brought to us there. It means to continue in the same line of life we are in now—probably advancing from one thing to another higher thing—but doing always that which is given us to do today, and letting this grace provide that which we have to do tomorrow, and also provide us with the intelligence, the wisdom, the financing, and all the rest that goes with it.
Now, I brought that out in the point of being a beholder. To be a beholder really means to live by grace. So that if you wake up in the morning and a demand comes for you to visit somebody for some purpose, your function is to do the visiting, and do it to the best of your ability, and go on about your next task. If you are in business and your call is to go out and sell, you go out and sell, leaving the result with this Principle, not to be concerned whether or not you make the sale. That is not your concern. Your concern is to go out—if the hour is to go out—and do your work, always leaving the result to that Principle and not being disturbed if it isn’t in accord with the way you have outlined.
Never forget that even salesmen go out and have days where they do not make a sale according to human appearances, but they have, in some way or other, built up a reserve that tomorrow or the day after is going to result in two, three, or five sales. No one knows the real result of any work that they do today, just the same as a person on this platform has no way of getting up and saying, “How much good did you receive from this lecture series?” No matter what you say, it may not be correct, because the effect of this work is cumulative. You may wake up tomorrow and find your entire experience changed, or it may lead you to the purchase of some book that will change your whole experience.
You cannot tell at this minute what the ultimate fruitage of this lecture will be. You have to be questioned about it a year, or two, or three from now, and then see what took place as a direct result of this. You might be aware of a direct healing and an immediate one, but heaven knows there are loads of healings that have taken place that will not be made manifest for days or weeks because they take place inwardly. You lose sight of the problem and one day wake up and find it isn’t there, and you wonder when it happened. And then you’ll remember, “Well I went to church yesterday. That’s when it must have happened.”
No, you may be healed of something here today that was the result of going to church two months ago, and we’ll say, “Oh, it was the result of going to that lecture.” No. We don’t always know when healings take place; when the healing actually took place. We know when it becomes manifest in our experience—and not always even then. How many people are carrying complaints and then wake up someday and say, “I haven’t got that. I wonder when that left.” No, we have no way of knowing the fruitage.
And so it is. I’ve been in the business world, and I know there’s no telling by the fact that you may go out all day and have no business today; you have no way of knowing how far-reaching those calls may prove tomorrow, the day after, or next week.
Therefore, to bring about this living by grace, we stop watching the results and we watch only our activity, being sure to do that which we are called upon to do, and do it now—not leaving for tomorrow what can be done today—getting everything out of the way as rapidly as it comes to us to be done, clearing the decks for an hour from now, or for tomorrow, or for the day after tomorrow. In that way then, the responsibility is on Its shoulder, and we find our harmony, our good, unfolding to us day by day without anxious thought or without concern.
1This excerpt is from Recording 5B: 1950 First Portland Series, “Questions and Answers.” 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 Office website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.