A: You see, we might make a statement that “God is All-in-all, and God is the all-power, and error is not power,” and nothing happens. Nobody is healed of anything, and nobody feels any better, because with that statement there was no realization. It was just an intellectual statement; it was just something that went through the mind.
Now, the mind is not God. The mind is not spiritual power, and thoughts certainly are not power. “God’s thoughts are not your thoughts2”; “Who by taking thought can add to his stature one cubit, or make one white hair black?3” Therefore, something more than statements of truth are necessary to bring about demonstration, and the missing link is the word “realization.”
Now, if I make the statement, “God is all and the only power, and that which appears to us as evil is not power. There is only one law, the law of God. Harmony is the divine law,” and now I sit back and wait, and then feel this presence of God within me—that is God realized. Now something will take place. Now something can be expected to take place, and it will. It may be anything from an instantaneous healing to just a slight relief, but something will happen, and as this work is continued, this work of realization, improvement takes place and eventually the complete healing.
Now, always remember this: most of the failure in all metaphysical work, wherever there is any failure, all takes place because students believe that reading a book or affirming a truth is going to do something, and it really isn’t. All of the reading of books and the affirming of statements—all of this is preliminary. It is merely done to bring us to a state of consciousness where we can settle down, be at peace, and wait for the grace of God or the feeling of God to be upon us. Then these miracles of healing take place. If this were not true, then you or I could be healers. Then the Master would not be true when he said, I can of my own self do nothing.4 Certainly none of us expect to go beyond his demonstration, and he said, “I can of my own self do nothing; the Father within me doeth the works,” and so it is with us.
If our statements of truth would heal anybody, then we would be the healer; then we would be the ones doing the work, and then we could say, “How wonderful am I!” But you see, there is no provision for that. It cannot be so. Only God can dissolve the errors of sense, and that is brought about by our realization of God’s presence. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, where the consciousness of God’s presence is, there is liberty.
1This excerpt is from Recording 236A, from the 1958 Manchester Closed Class, “Immortality.” 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 Isaiah 55:8
3 Matthew 6:27
4 John 5:30