A: About the handling of evil—now you recognize, of course, that all evil is impersonal. It’s never personal. Evil is never brought about because of a conscious willing of evil, even when it is consciously willed. Even when it is [consciously willed], it isn’t, because even the person who’s consciously willing it is the victim of an impersonal evil that is handling him at the moment.
It is like a person who is stealing. You say, “Oh, but that’s conscious theft! He’s lifting out his hand to steal.” Oh, no, no, no! No, no, no. He is hating and fearing it more than the fellow who’s going to be robbed. He is doing it in his ignorance of where else to get supply. He is doing it because of an imposed will that has said there is no other way, or this is the best way, or the quickest way, or so forth and so on. In other words, everyone is unconsciously a victim of evil—not consciously.
Now then, evil is impersonal, and that must be very evident in the case of infectious diseases or contagious diseases. Nobody is actually willing it, or wanting it, or desiring it. They merely become victims of it.
Now, the handling of evil in The Infinite Way is this wise: Since God is the only power, evil can only exist as a claim of a power, an appearance of a power apart from God, but it cannot exist as a power. Once you understand that whether it is willful malpractice, or whether it is infection, or contagion, or propaganda, or the action of the human mind, or tyranny, or any other form of mental or physical error, that it has inherently no power, you have handled evil. If you have tried to protect yourself from it, you’ve made yourself a victim of it because you have acknowledged two powers, and now the question is, ‘Which one is the greatest power?” Do you see that?
Now, the Infinite Way student is very careful to handle evil every day, not by ignoring it, because that’s the best way to become a victim of it, but by consciously acknowledging, “I and the Father are one,” and that truth is the only power on earth as it is in heaven,” or “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.” Why? Because it isn’t evil, whether it’s person, place, or thing. Do you see that?
The Infinite Way teaches us that whatever happens to us must happen through our consciousness. For instance, if any good comes to you through being in this class, there is only one thing responsible for it. You consciously brought yourself here. Nobody else did it. Nobody sent for you. You came. You had to make the decision to come. You had to see the worthwhileness of coming. You had to give up the time and the effort; you had to arrange your affairs; you had to battle through some nasty weather. Do you see how then, whatever good comes to you was a direct action of your consciousness? And if you had just sat by this way at home, nothing good would happen to you here. See that?
All right. So, The Infinite Way also says to avoid evil must also be an activity of your consciousness. You consciously must accept God as the only power in your experience. You must consciously pray without ceasing. “You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The Master never said, “The truth will make you free.” He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Ye shall know the truth. Do you see that? See how consciously you must do something? As consciously as bringing yourself here, so must you consciously awaken in the morning and say, “God, this is Your day. This is Your day. I am Your body; use me. I am Your servant; use me. Thou art the only Presence and the Power in me and through me. Thou art the only Power and Presence that functions me, and besides Thee, God, there are no powers. I shall not fear what mortal man can do to me. I shall not fear what circumstance or condition can do to me, for there is but one power, and I am it.” Do you see that?
Now, our secret is this: not that we know some truth that’s going to be a power over evil like the disciples thought, not that we have some great Master somewhere who has power over evil. No. There is no evil. “God’s in his heaven; all’s well with the world,” but that must be a conscious knowing on your part. That’s why I say meditate twenty times a day. It only takes a minute or two or three at a time. That’s why I say, “You’ve got to know the Truth. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. Acknowledge Him in all thy ways.” Do you see that? Whether you go out of this door, you have no right to go out unless you consciously know the Presence has gone before you. Do you see that? Otherwise you are leaving it to Lady Luck as to what greets you on the other side of the door.
Don’t forget that. If you were to ask an insurance representative, they would tell you that we aren’t human beings; we are statistics. Four out of ten of us will fall in the bathtub, and two out of ten of us will slip on the ice, and six out of eight of us will catch a cold. Do you see that? And if we get in that automobile a hundred times, we’ll have eighteen accidents. That’s what they’ll tell you in the insurance companies. They know exactly what’s going to happen to you every one of the twenty-four hours of the day, and the fact that they make money proves they are right.
Student: “They’re not right with Infinite Way students.”
Joel: They can’t be right with any student of truth. They can’t be right with any student of truth, but they will be proportionally right as you neglect knowing the truth. Do you see that? Because whatever happens to you—life or death—comes to you from your own consciousness—you open the way for it. Do you accept two powers or one power? On that point determines your whole experience. . . .
And so it is that the handling of evil must be done, but it must be done not as if it were an evil to be overcome, but in the relationship of “Thank you, Father, it’s a nothingness—it’s a no power.”
1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 653B: 1956 Cape Town First Practitioner Class, “Questions and Answers – You Must Know the Truth.” 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 website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
Goldsmith Global has permission to provide this material to Goldsmith Global participants for educational and study purposes. Please respect the copyright on this material.