A: Of course, that has reference to the Christ-consciousness, and it has reference to it in this wise: that the stone, the rock carved out of the side of a mountain without hands, was carved out of the mountain without physical power. Now, how would you carve a stone out of the side of a mountain without using your hands? The answer is, “You couldn’t.” But in the degree that you could sit in the silence, receptive to the presence and power of God, you would soon see that stone being carved out of the side of the mountain. You would be a beholder of it happening.
Well, instead of this stone carved out of the side of a mountain, let’s take a gallstone. You have the same identical thing. It can be removed, physically, you see, with hands, but how would we go about doing it without hands? Well, we couldn’t do it physically; we couldn’t do it mentally. But as we would rise into Christ-consciousness and become a beholder of God at work, the grace of God, that stone would be carved out, or dissolved, or in some way be made to disappear. Do you see that? It would not have been done physically. It would not have been done mentally.
All of our healing work is on that basis—even the healing of a simple headache or indigestion. You don’t do anything physically about it, and in The Infinite Way, you come to realize you can’t even do anything mentally about it. What can you do? You can live in this atmosphere of the Christ; you can realize all power as being vested in the Infinite Invisible, and then, when you sit down to your healing work, you can become very receptive until the Spirit of God begins to work. Then you hear, “Oh, I’m better.” Well, that was a stone carved out of the side of a mountain without hands. That was a physical condition removed without physical or mental help—not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, not by physical might, not by mental power, but by My spirit.
Well, now, probably all of us, or nearly all of us, have witnessed the healings of people—the removal of stones, the removal of cancers, the removal of tumors. That happened that night in that room there, where a woman had come in that very night, in the center where that miracle took place, and when she came in, she had an enormous tumor. It looked like a baby in the ninth month, and when she came out of there, she had a loose dress hanging on her.
There was a “stone,” removed without hands. There was a physical formation removed without physical help or mental help, and it was accomplished by nothing but the Spirit in the room. It wasn’t even a conscious treatment, because none of us were aware of the fact that she was there with this condition. Maybe somebody sitting around her was, but certainly on the platform, we weren’t aware of it, and none of our workers were. So there, the activity of the Christ in consciousness had removed a physical formation. What difference did it make whether it was as hard as stone or only as hard as a tumor? It had just as much physical form and appearance. Do you see?
So, our stone, carved out of the side of a mountain without hands, is any form of demonstration accomplished through the consciousness of truth—spiritual consciousness of truth, not the declaration of truth. The declaration of truth may be a first step toward the realization of truth, and that is why we don’t necessarily omit the declaration of truth, either orally or silently within ourselves, in treatment. But we know that those declarations of truth are not healers. They are merely the steppingstones lifting us to the state of consciousness where we can apprehend a spiritual idea—in other words, the grace of God. Now, the grace of God is the power that will carve a stone out of the side of a mountain without hands.
Now, it goes on to say that that stone, carved out of the side of a mountain without hands, falls on the four temporal kingdoms and destroys them. In other words, then, this state of spiritual consciousness, which is our spiritual rock, falls on the four temporal kingdoms—the physical, the mental, the moral, and the financial—and destroys them. It doesn’t improve them; it destroys them. There is our new creature again. The spiritual rock doesn’t increase people’s supply. It doesn’t increase their health. It destroys the whole of the temporal kingdom. It does not improve it, and that’s the essence of the message of The Infinite Way, as it was with Christ.
You hear me speak, always, of the nature of God and the nature of prayer, and that’s only because a few years ago, I was speaking of the nature of the Christ. I haven’t touched on it lately because it is in the writings, but you must understand that the nature of the Christ is not healing physically or supplying physically. It’s a destruction of those kingdoms and the revelation of the new creature, the kingdom of heaven on earth, in which there is no night, in which there is no awareness of sin, disease, or death. Do you see that?
To the outside world, it appears as healing, and to the outside world, we still use those terms. This is a healing ministry, and Jesus’ mission was to heal the sick and raise the dead. That is the appearance to the outside world, but actually, the mission of the Christ is to destroy the temporal kingdom and to reveal the kingdom of heaven on earth. Read your New Testament again, all four of the gospels, and notice that the activity of the Master was the destruction of the temporal kingdom and the revelation and unfoldment of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Right? That’s his function, not improving temporal kingdoms, not increasing the supply of gold in the world. You see?
So when we say, “Do you own a Cadillac? That’s a proof of spirituality,” we say, “No, the Christ-consciousness does not produce a Cadillac. The Christ-consciousness reveals the mind that was in Christ Jesus, a spiritual kingdom.” That may appear as the meeting of our human needs at different levels. There is no reason why it can’t appear as a Cadillac, but the appearing of the Cadillac, in and of itself, is not necessarily the degree of our spirituality since there are lots of people with Cadillacs who never heard the word or term and have no interest in it. So what we must see is not to measure our spiritual development by our material good, but rather by the degree in which we have seen Christ, the Spirit, or the grace of God, as the source of our good. There is the degree of our spiritual awareness.
While our faith is in more or better matter, we are still increasing the temporal kingdom. When our faith has made a transition to Christ, or divine Grace, as our sufficiency in all things, that is the degree of our spirituality, even though to the outside world, it will appear as a demonstration of better humanhood. It is only we, ourselves, who must not be mesmerized by thinking that the appearance is the demonstration. It is the attainment of the consciousness that is the demonstration, and the appearing of things is the added thing. See that?
1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 98B: 1954 Northwest Series – Seattle, titled “The Middle Path – continued.” It is posted with the kind permission of the Estate of Joel S. 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 Office or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
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