A: “I and my Father are one,”2 and that is my business. How you live your life at this particular moment is your business. I cannot live above nor beneath my state of consciousness. I do not claim to have fully attained. I don’t really have to tell you that, because you notice that I need eyeglasses for reading, and therefore, you know I am relying on a material remedy.
I am not prescribing that for you. My state of consciousness has risen to the point where I have attained a wonderful freedom in many directions, but in that particular one, there is still some awakening to take place in me. Then who am I to judge you if you want an aspirin or a bandage or an earphone or an operation? Does that change the nature of your search for God? No. It is not the food. “It isn’t what goes into your mouth that defiles you, it’s what comes out.”3 If you have motivation; if your heart is longing toward God; you are on the path. That you may fail ninety-nine times, who cares? No one has a right to care or judge. If temporarily, you need some material relief, who is to judge you for that? It is you who knows whether or not you are ready to walk on the water. It is you who knows whether or not medicines have completely gone by.
Be assured of this: If you are going to see material remedies as evil, you have two powers—good powers and evil powers. When you begin to see medicines as neither good nor evil, you will find the need for them decreasing. It may vanish in a moment. I witnessed for too many years people trying to make the demonstration of no medicines, and then having to secretly make use of this one or that one or the other one, which is making liars of themselves. And it isn’t good.
Now if I take the stand before you that I have not fully attained, there should be no reason for any criticism on your part, or judgment, if you find on this point or that, that I have clay feet. I have not claimed to have fully attained. The Master never claimed it either. He was not ashamed to ask his twelve disciples to pray for him, and to stay awake with him. He was relying on them. I have no right to take anyone’s crutch away from them. It is for this reason that our message is presenting this truth, but it is not taking anyone away from their church or their affiliation, or even asking them to join a church.
Let each one work out his own salvation within himself, and if the intent of the heart is pure, and we are really seeking God, we will reach it. We will reach it. As we enter the search for God, we are human beings, and we will enjoy card-playing, or a drink, or a theater, or a dance, or whatever it may be. As we progress on the path, we enjoy them less and less and less. But think how terrible it would be if there were a judge among us to tell us that the moment we entered the path, we must already be prepared to walk on the water and fly with wings!
Ah, this is one of the reasons that we have been told there must be no Infinite Way organization or memberships, because the moment there is membership, there is a book of rules. We do not want a book of rules. I was very much criticized one time some years ago, because somebody saw in our class too many sinners, and I thought I’d rather gather them all there than to see them out in the nightclubs. Let me not be a judge over you, and don’t you be a judge over the other fellow, and if someone of us breaks a bone and finds it necessary to have it strapped up, let us do it without feeling that we are losing God.
Let us not walk around half-blind, if glasses will help us temporarily, or half-deaf if machines will help us temporarily. But let us never lapse into that state of dependency that actually believes that we are dependent in that direction. Let us acknowledge that we have not fully attained the measure of freedom in that direction. Let us never become slaves to medicine or material remedies or helps in any way.
1This excerpt is from Recording 555B, from the 1964 Chicago Special, “Between Two Worlds—The Mystical World, Part Two.” 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 www.joelgoldsmith.com or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
2> John 10:30
3 Matthew 15:11