A: Communion is an experience, but it is not an external experience. A communion is something that takes place within yourself. In order to commune, you must commune with something or somebody. And for you to commune, it must be you that’s doing the communing—not you being communed, you doing the communing. And so a communion is any period of your experience when you are having an inner experience with, whether you call it God, Christ, your inner Self, the Oversoul, or the divinity of yourself.
Whenever you, as a human being, are or are attempting to commune with your inner being and finally attain that state of consciousness wherein you know there is a flow between you and it, that is communion. And in that communion, the Spirit of God, which is the grace of God, the power of God, the presence of God, flows in and through your whole being, your mind, your soul, and your body. And in that communion, you actually attain God’s grace, God’s peace, God’s supply, God’s allness.
Now, a communion that doesn’t attain that flow inside is not yet a communion, even if it is an attempt to commune. It is only an effort in the right direction. The communion is complete when you have the feeling of an answer within you, when you have the feeling of having made contact, when you feel a warmth or a glow or a sense of relief, or when a smile comes to your face and you can’t account for any external reason for it. There’s no reason for it; it’s just there because you are at one. Then you are in communion, and the result of that communion is the descent of the Holy Ghost, being enfolded in the Spirit of God. That, of course, is the object of all of our study and meditation. That is why, sometimes, we use the word communion in place of prayer or treatment.
In the early days of our work, we might be permitted to use the word treatment, but as you go on, you will never refer to it again. You will think of yourself as being in prayer. But the day will come when prayer will take on such a different meaning that you’ll drop it, too. And you won’t treat anymore, and you won’t pray anymore. You’ll then understand that the secret of life is communion. And when you’re in communion with God, the flow of God is going through you, and that will result in peace, joy, and power taking place out here to yourself and to all those who are in touch with you.
That is the meaning of the statement, “I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto Me.” If I am in communion, if I am in contact so that the flow of God permeates me, then you who are receptive must inevitably receive some measure of lifting up through that. The degree, of course, varies with the individual. There again comes, “What preparation have you put into the experience?” If you come just as a human being out of the human world with no preparation, you are apt not to feel the experience at all. If you have come with some little preparation, you’re apt to feel a little of that gentle Presence. If you’ve come with deep preparation, it may be a deep, deep experience.
In one of our classes in Seattle—and ever since then, we have referred to the experience as “that Thursday.” Everybody knows what “that Thursday” means. There were about three hundred of us in this truth temple, and I was standing on the platform talking. And all of a sudden, I stopped for no apparent reason. And it was as if darkness came down in the room. The lights were still there, but they seemed to be dimmed, and there was a hush. But so far as I was concerned, it was very apparent that the presence of the Christ was right there before us. And all of a sudden, a woman screamed. And then gradually the lights were full again, and we learned later they hadn’t ever been other than full. And I went on with the lesson. But the woman who screamed told the leader at the door that when she came in, she had a tumor as big as a nine-month baby, and that in that second, it evaporated, and she showed her loose clothing. There wasn’t a sign or trace of it.
And before that evening, we had, oh, I can’t tell you the amount of people who reported healings in that very instant. But the strange thing is this: there were at least half of the people in that audience that never knew anything happened. They weren’t aware and still aren’t aware; they don’t know what the rest of them are talking about. You see what I mean, that it is your consciousness that determines the degree of the experience.
You might have Jesus Christ talking to you and find that one half of the multitudes that he’s talking to go out the next day to help crucify him, while the other half were lifted right into heaven, healed, and fed, and glorified, all depending on their individual state of consciousness.
Well, this communion that we learn is the thing that enriches our spiritual development and changes us from the educated, reasoning mind to “that mind which was also in Christ Jesus,” which never has to think, never has to analyze, never has to reason, always gets the answer presented to it.
There is a similar state of being in what is called cosmic consciousness. Now, cosmic consciousness is not Christ consciousness. Cosmic consciousness is the same form of activity as Christ consciousness, but on the human level. In other words, when Thomas A. Edison, who was very close to God but was considered an atheist because he didn’t believe in going to church, when Thomas A. Edison was at work in his laboratory, his method of work was something like this: He’d get very still, hold his ear out, and then he’d say to his engineers, “Do this.” The answer came through in that way.
There was a man in Massachusetts who was responsible for putting in all of the electric utilities in New England. And he used to play with his directors at the banks. He would have these mechanical, electrical adding machines and figuring machines. And they’d put intricate problems on them, and before the man could hit the key to draw them off, he would give the answer. He didn’t have to figure. As soon as you said, “Two times two,” he saw four. But with him, it wasn’t just four; it was any amount of figures and any kind of complicated problem. That was the cosmic consciousness. He had no need of thinking or reasoning or figuring. It was a knowing.
Well, the Christ consciousness, the spiritual consciousness, operates the same way on a higher level. Because with it, as it comes through, it transforms the physical appearance into the spiritual reality. We, of course, with our three-dimensional eyes, merely see an improved body, or an improved pocketbook, but that isn’t what is actually there. And only this communion reveals that which is there.
1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 703B: 1955 Johannesburg Closed Class, “Spiritual Breakfast.” 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 website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
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