A: Well, there is no one particular way. Everyone’s experience differs in that regard, but the beginning of developing the ability to rise above these discords comes with an understanding of what you are, or what I am, in life. Let me illustrate that. Each of us has a certain standard of integrity and no one from the outside can make us violate that. We ourselves may come under some temporary condition or temptation and make ourselves violate it, but no one from outside of ourselves could make us violate it. It wouldn’t make any difference who would come here and tell us to steal, they just couldn’t succeed. They would have no control over us. …
Now let us say that I use the word “I”—I, Joel—and that I, Joel, have a certain degree of integrity, which no one can make me violate. As I say, I may sometimes be in a position to violate my own integrity, but no one outside of me can come to me and make me violate it, and that is because there is an I,Joel, in control of me.
And so there is a you. Somewhere about you or in you, there is a you, a you that is called Mary, James, Frank, Bill. And that you is an individual identity. Spiritually, truthfully, it is a God-identity. It is a God-Selfhood. But we, in our Prodigal Son experience, have wandered from that and set up an identity called Joel, Bill, Mary.
Now when it comes to a matter of integrity, you will assert that and say, “No, don’t ask me to steal. I won’t. I will not come down from my standard. I will not steal. I will not bear false witness. I will not lie.” Ah, but a draft blows through this room, and some will say, “Hmm, I’ve caught a cold.” You will not assert your integrity and your dominion there and say, “No, you out there, draft, have no control over me! Oh no, I don’t allow you to come into my household, my mind, or body, and govern me! I am not subject to drafts. I am not subject to the will or belief of somebody outside my own being, and so I’m not going to accept that so-called law of sitting in a draft. I assert myself. I have dominion.”
Now in the same way each one of us has this body, and in many ways instead of being master of it, we are victims of it. That is only because in the older teachings, both theological and medical, it was believed that we are victims of it; that it is greater than we are. And if it wants to tell us that it caught a cold, it can do so. If it wants to tell us that it controls us, it can do so. We’ve become accustomed to that. It’s almost now the way the Russians obey their government. They’re accustomed to the fact that they cannot even keep their own crops. When the government says, “We want it,” their people give it up. So it is. You can very easily become a victim of giving yourself to somebody else’s control. …
Now we have done that over the ages with our bodies, and we have come to the place where we no longer know even that the body is a servant and we are the master. We have dominion over this body. We have dominion over the sun, the moon, the stars, and yet many people will run to an astrologer or fortune-teller to find out what the sun or moon or stars is going to do to them, whereas the very first book of the Bible gave man dominion over the sun, the moon, the stars, the tides, the planets, the plants—over everything there is in life. But you see, gradually we have given up a little dominion here, and a little dominion there, until ordinarily we live in fear of most people, most things, most thoughts.
Yes, even in this last generation people have come to fear the thoughts of other people. They’ve come to fear mental malpractice. They’ve come to fear that if somebody had a thought of envy or jealousy or malice against them, it would hurt them. Why, you would think that we weren’t children of God, joint-heirs with Christ in God to all of the God dominion! You would never believe that God gave us dominion over everything on the earth, everything in the air, everything in the sky, everything beneath the waters! You wouldn’t believe that, if you really examine your own thought and see how many things you fear in the external realm. Now you don’t fear that anybody can reduce your state of integrity or make you violate it, but you do permit the world to have dominion over your thinking and over your body.
Now, one of the first steps in spiritual living is to say the word “I”silently within yourself. Say “I”—I,Joel; I,Bill; I, Mary—whatever your name is. And now remember that that “I”is God in manifestation, God expressed. That “I”that you have declared—that is the Son of God. That is the Christ of God. That is the immaculately conceived God. Remember, close your eyes and say “I,”and you’ll realize that it was never conceived physically, and it was never brought forth from anybody’s womb. That “I” is spiritual; that “I”is the Spirit of God in man; it is God Itself, individually appearing as the Son.
I will give you a quotation. Follow me now—silently—in this: “God the Father, God the Son.” Do you see that? God is the Father, and God is the Son. In other words, God manifests or expresses Himself immaculately as you, as the I of you, the identity of you. Your true identity is God expressing Itself, God revealing Itself, God unfolding and disclosing Itself, and therefore this I of you has every property and every quality of God—not only quality, but quantity also, because there is no such thing as dividing up God into bits. So God appearing is the infinity of God. …
When God manifests Himself, God manifests all His qualities, quantities, activities, as Himself, as you and as me. So, if I then close my eyes and say “I,” and then remember, “Why, this I is the Son of God, the offspring of God, the manifestation of God’s being, immaculately conceived, not born of the flesh. Even unto the end of the world, this I is with me, and this I is the direct offspring, manifestation, expression of God. This I of me was given dominion in the beginning over the things of the earth, and the waters beneath, the air above, and the skies above. I was given dominion, and that dominion is God-given, God-maintained, God-sustained, and by the power of God, I have dominion.”
Now remember, I of my own self can do nothing, but I, given dominion by God and with God’s grace, have dominion over everything, over every condition. Nothing shall by any means come nigh your dwelling place; nothing shall enter you to defile or make a lie. … It isn’t anything of earth that bothers us; it is what our state of consciousness is. That determines the degree of the harmony or inharmony in our experience.
Now, if you sit around fearing what other people’s thoughts can do to you, you can make yourself a victim of anybody’s thoughts. If you sit around and let yourself be influenced by beliefs of weather, climate, germs, you make yourself the victims of those things. But you can assert your dominion through your Christhood, through your I. “I and the Father are one, and the Father has given me dominion over all that is. Therefore I am the law unto my universe. Nothing shall come nigh my dwelling place; nothing can enter me that defileth or maketh a lie, because through the grace of God I have dominion. I am the Son of God, joint heir with Christ in God.”
1This excerpt is from Recording 76A: 1954 Honolulu Lecture Series, ”What Have We in the House?” 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 at The Infinite Way Office website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.