A: When you are first taught truth, you begin to apply it, you begin to use it. For instance, if there is a problem of supply, you begin immediately to realize that supply is spiritual, and supply is within you; supply really is the very presence of God, for God is fulfillment. And you mentally work along this line. You mentally remind yourself of truth; you mentally apply every statement of truth you know to every erroneous appearance that presents itself. You have a task to perform, and it’s too difficult for you, and you know it, but you turn within and remember, “He performeth that which is given me to do; He perfecteth that which concerneth me.” And you relax in that, and the first thing you know, you find your task is performed.
And so it is, that the thought presents itself to you that “I’m doing all this. Why, this is me and my mind. We’re pretty good. We’re getting rid of all the discords, and we’re bringing about a lot of harmony. Why this power of mind is powerful!” And you know, they began to believe that mind was God. And so it was that back in some of the very ancient days, the idea presented itself to these people, “Now that we know how to work with thought, why, thought is power, and mind is power. Therefore mind must be God, and thought must be the instrument of God, so thought is power.” That immediately separated them from their spiritual path, and if they persisted in it too long, they dropped out of their wisdom schools. And it was because of this that the Black Brotherhoods began.
The Black Brotherhoods were those people who had originally been part of a spiritual teaching, but who had discovered the power of the mind and walked out and formed brotherhoods where the mind was used. And of course when the mind is used, as I have just illustrated, you can see that it is used primarily for “me.” I’m using the mind for my purpose, for my life, to accomplish what I will. And so it is that it was discovered that you can also misuse the mind. You can do selfish things with the mind, personal things with the mind, and you can use the mind for ulterior purposes, and that was the beginning of these Black Brotherhoods.
Now, the mind has a rightful purpose in our experience, and right now the scientific world is beginning to agree with this. We have it on good scientific authority now that this is true. Heretofore, we didn’t; we had only our own experience. Mind is the substance of your physical body. Mind is the substance of this physical universe. This is not a material universe, and this is not a material body that you have. The substance of this body is mind—not the divine mind. Actually, there is no such thing as a divine mind. That’s merely a term that we’ve used as a synonym for God, to separate it from mind with a small “m.” But there are not two minds. There is only one, and that one is the second Genesis substance of creation. It is the substance of our physical form; it is the substance of our physical universe; and it is this universe, which is separate and apart from God. It is this universe, the mental universe, which is not under the law of God, neither indeed can be. And it is only when we rise above the level of mind that we get into the realm of God.
Now, long before we get into that subject, let us explore further this one of mind as the substance of physical form. And you’ll understand that this body, in and of itself, is dead. This body has no life; this body has no sensation; this body has no intelligence. It cannot move itself about. It is only the activity of mind that raises my hand up or lowers it or turns it to the left or to the right. That is an activity of mind; it is not an activity of God. It is not obeying God’s will in going up or down or left or right; it is obeying my will. And as a further proof of that, this hand can be used for giving, and this hand can be used for taking. It even can be used for stealing. This hand can be used for an act of friendship or an act of murder. Why? It has no will; it has no morals; it has no right or wrong. It has to be impelled, and what is impelling it but mind, my mind? And if my mind is good, my hand is performing services of good; and if my mind is bad, this hand can perform evil.
It is my mind that governs my body, and therefore my body can behave or misbehave, according to my mind. Now, when you perceive this, you will understand that as long as you are functioning from the level of mind, you are functioning from the level of either good or evil and this cannot be God. God is neither good nor evil; God is Spirit.
In our second degree then, we learn that our mind must be imbued with truth in order that good may unfold in our bodies, in our business. In other words, if I keep my mind filled with truth, my mind will govern my body harmoniously, morally, abundantly. As long as my mind is filled with truth, my mind is functioning for good, and therefore the body is responding.
Now, the truth that you embody in your mind becomes tangible as the health of the body; the truth that you entertain in mind becomes the substance of the supply in your pocketbook. In other words, truth is the substance and the law of harmony, but truth doesn’t dangle around in the air; there is no truth hanging around up here. Truth must be embodied, incorporated in your mind: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”
Now, there are two levels even of this. You can yourself have a high sense of good and be perfectly honest and perfectly moral without entertaining any thoughts of truth. It can be a natural instinct. It can be one trained by the home, the school. But, when it comes to health, when it comes to human relationships, this won’t do. There has to be truth entertained in consciousness. There has to be specific truth known and understood, held in mind, and applied.
Now then, whereas before I was blind spiritually; whereas before I was in ignorance; whereas before I was governed by circumstances, conditions, environment, prenatal experience; now I am being governed by the truth that I entertain in my consciousness. Now my life isn’t dependent on what I learned at home or in school or picked up since. Now I have an absolute direction heading toward perfection. Now if I entertain truth in my consciousness, in my mind, I will have harmony appearing in my body, my business, and all of my affairs.
Now then, if I use my mind for gaining personal good, selfish good, without consideration of the effect upon anyone else or the world, I am heading toward trouble, because as I sow, so shall I reap. And if in using my mind for my own gain or satisfaction, I am injuring anyone else, that injury has to return upon me. That is the danger of the second degree—that we may get the impression that we can use this mind any way we want. And we can—only with terrible results if we use it erroneously, selfishly, personally, without due regard for the rights of others.
Now, as long as I permit my mind to be governed by truth, there will be no selfishness in it, because I will not be directing my mind toward specific ends, I will be directing my mind toward attaining a great awareness of truth, and letting this truth change my consciousness. Ah, here you come to the real purpose of entertaining truth in consciousness. The purpose is not to get a Cadillac. The purpose is not to get a yacht or a magnificent home. The purpose is not merely to reduce a fever or get rid of a disease. The purpose of entertaining truth is to spiritualize mind and body; to bring to my mind the light of truth so that my whole being may be transformed from the materialistic sense to the spiritual sense. Ah now, if I will use my mind this way—that I may fill myself with truth—that truth may transform my consciousness. Remember, we are renewed by the transforming of the mind; we are transformed by the renewing of the mind. We are made over from the man of earth into the man who has his being in Christ by truth entertained in our consciousness. What truth? And you can write this down as a principle, remember it: it must be the truth about God. There is no truth about man; there’s no truth about supply; there is no truth about health; there is no truth about safety; the only truth there is, is the truth about God.
Once you begin to know truth, start with the word God. God is the substance of my body. God is the substance of my business. God is the substance of my life. God is the cement in my human relationships. God is my fortress and my high tower; in Him I live and move and have my being—not in material structures, not in physical structures—in Him I live and move and have my being. “I and my Father are one; all that the Father hath is mine.” Therefore, the substance, the Spirit of God, is the substance of my being, of my life, of my all. God is my safety and my security. God is the infinite nature of my supply; in fact, God is my supply. Therefore, my supply is spiritual; it is of God; it is spiritual in nature, and therefore it is omnipresent. It is not something that has to come to me, it is omnipresent.
You see, I can work this way about supply, without ever taking any away from my neighbor. As a matter of fact, I can demonstrate supply this way and have enough left over to supply twelve of my neighbors, not take from them. We receive “through,” but we don’t take “from.”
God is the first word that must be in every activity of your experience in the second degree. God—I’m knowing the truth about God. God is omnipresence, I can never be separated from God; neither life nor death can separate me from the love of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Every word of truth that I embody in my consciousness becomes the very breath of life to me, the very activity of digestion and elimination. I don’t have to think of digestion and elimination, I have to think of God as the activity and the law unto my being, and everything else takes care of itself.
You’ll find throughout the writings that this is the theme of our attainment of the mind that was in Christ Jesus—how to contemplate, how to meditate, always on God, the activity of God, the law of God, the presence of God, the power of God. And, by dwelling in this consciousness of God as my being, as my nature, gradually all hate, fear, and love of the outer world disappears, and its place is taken with a realization of the Spirit within.
You see how important the mind is? The mind originally was, and it must again become, an instrument of awareness. Through the mind we are supposed to know. In other words, the mind was never created as a power. It was created as an instrument through which we become aware. Through my mind, I know you are here, but I have no right to use my mind to create you here or to bring you here. If ever we were to use the mind to create or to bring, we would be taking it out of its natural orbit, and we might create something that could become a Frankenstein unto us.
We are not to create with the mind. Mind is an instrument of awareness. With the mind, I can know that twelve times twelve are a hundred and forty-four, but I cannot make it so with my mind. With my mind I can know that God governs even the weather, but with my mind I can’t make the weather good or bad. But by knowing God as the very nature, substance, activity of weather, I can produce harmonious weather, but I can’t manufacture it. I can only bring it into visibility by knowing the truth about God’s government of weather.
Now, when I use my mind for the purpose of knowing the truth, that truth makes me free. That truth sets me free from any sense of limitation—physical, mental, moral, financial. When I use my mind to become aware of truth, to know the truth, to realize the truth, that truth then becomes the law of harmony unto my experience. That truth that I entertain now in my consciousness takes over my life. It eliminates the discords and inharmonies; it brings about the peace, the harmony, the security. . . .
Eventually, if you follow this path, you will learn that it is impossible to have a moment of the day when you are not in the truth. In other words, you won’t have to consciously state words of truth, but you’ll be living it; just like you don’t have to go around all day long declaring you’re honest. You live honestly, and that means you don’t entertain in your thought ideas of dishonesty. But that doesn’t mean you have to go around declaring and stating and affirming that you’re honest. You don’t, you merely live that way.
Now, it is the same way in this. At first, because our nature is not spiritual, we were born into this material sense of life. We were born as the prodigal son, and we’re on our way back to the Father’s house. Therefore, we do have to state definitely, and affirm and reaffirm, and declare over and over and over: “God is the substance of my life. God is the theme of my being. God constitutes being and body. God governs. Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence.” And we have to live with this truth, and that is why we have our writings, we have our recordings, we have our classes, we have our lectures. Why? So that we can live in the truth, until through our meditations, eventually there comes a time when this contact with our Source is so great that we never have to use the mind again for knowing the truth. Truth springs up from within our being and utters itself to us. We don’t declare it anymore; it declares itself. In other words, if we’re faced with a discord outside, we don’t have to state any truth. We now are ready to turn within, and let the truth announce Itself to us. And the difference is this: We may have to know and affirm truth for hours and hours and hours to break the discordant appearance, but if the voice utters itself through us, it’s instantaneous and complete: “He utters His voice, the earth melteth.”
And so it is, that when time passes, and we have lived with truth, worked with truth, studied with truth, filled our consciousness with truth day and night, then in our meditations one of these days, we find—at first occasionally, later on more so, still later entirely so—that whenever it is necessary for a truth to appear, that we have only to close our eyes, turn within, in an attitude of “Speak Lord, Thy servant heareth.” And then, whatever truth is necessary comes up from within and announces itself to us, and when that happens, there are signs following. “He utters His voice, the earth melteth.”
So you have two parts. You have the first part in which you are filling your consciousness with truth until your mind is transformed from its material base to a spiritual base; until you stop using your mind as a mental power to make something happen and let it become an avenue, an instrument of awareness, in which you merely receive God’s grace. Eventually, you receive God’s grace. You live by grace that flows from the Spirit within and becomes apparent to you through the mind.
1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 402A: 1961 Mission Inn Closed Class, “The Second Degree.” 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.