A: You understand, of course, that there cannot be one answer to that question. It depends on the state or stage of consciousness one is in, how long one has been a student of The Infinite Way, to what degree they understand the principles, how far along they are in absolutely depending on spiritual principles alone, and what their own attitude is on this subject.
If one has read enough of The Infinite Way message to have any grasp of its principles at all, they would know that economic lack or economic abundance are merely two opposite ends of the same stick, and that both have to be overcome. They would know that economic abundance is no more stable or guaranteed or permanent than is economic lack, and therefore as a student of The Infinite Way, whether they are momentarily on the lack side or the abundance side, they have the same demonstration to make. They must make the transition from a material sense of supply to a spiritual sense of supply.
The Infinite Way is not a message that turns economic lack into economic abundance. Actually, its purpose isn’t even to turn physical disease into physical health. The results seem to work out in that way, but actually our work is to surrender the physical, the material sense of existence, for the realization and demonstration of the spiritual life. Therefore, any problem that comes to an Infinite Way student is not a problem to be overcome. It is an opportunity for working through that particular facet of the material sense of life. In other words—and I have been through this experience—when lack and limitation is facing us, when we’re experiencing it, my attitude was, “and it’s going to stay this way until I work out of it spiritually; until I attain the secret of spiritual supply.”
In my very earliest days, I had abundance, plenty of it. From the time I was sixteen-and-a-half years of age on, I was traveling the United States and Europe and enjoying the best. But that was no guarantee of supply, and of course, I lived to experience the very opposite of that—lack and limitation. Now at that time, it would not have been too difficult to place myself in a business activity that would have restored at least a measure of that abundance, but I would have been dissatisfied, because at no time in my life has money, abundance, or wealth been the object of life—not that I don’t enjoy it, but it is not the object of my life. The object of my life is to find the secret of life, the secret of the laws behind this life, the secret of what makes this world go ‘round harmoniously, because there must be just as much of a law of abundance for us as there is for trees, or grass plots, or seas full of fish, or air full of birds. It cannot be that God has made cattle on a thousand hills, and billions of stars, and billions of fruit trees with hundreds of billions of fruits, and gold in the ground, and all the rest of these gems, and yet meant for us to lack.
Oh no! Our lack must come from an ignorance of the law. Our lack must come from a lack of understanding of God’s law of abundance, or how to become one with God so that we can enjoy the promise: “Son thou art ever with Me, all that I have is thine.”2 Why should such a statement be in Scripture if it isn’t true? Why should the Master have tried to teach us supply by multiplying loaves and fishes, always with baskets full left over? Why, if it is not meant for us eventually to come into that awareness of life lived by the grace of God? And if eventually, why not now?
Therefore, my attitude at the time of lack was “Let this go on as long as it wants, until I meet it through understanding the spiritual law of supply, and not only understanding it, but demonstrating it.” And I did! I did. I stuck with it, even to the point of having no carfare at times and walking seven miles twice a day to get to my office. I wasn’t ashamed of it, and I didn’t hide it, and I didn’t feel that it was a lack of demonstration or any disgrace, and I don’t now. I feel as I felt then: “This couldn’t happen if I knew the law of God, and if I don’t know the law of God, there isn’t any amount of money that’s going to make me happy or satisfied, because it may be just as fleeting as what I’ve had before.” And actually, I received my answer on the last one of those days in which I found myself without carfare walking that seven miles. It was on that walk that the revelation finally came.
Probably these revelations come to different students in different ways. I can’t limit God by saying that there is only one solution to the subject of abundance, or that there is only one truth that has to be known. I only know the experience that took place with me. I was pondering this very question: “How can this be? How can this be? There is an answer; there is an answer.” And something within me told me that I didn’t know God, for that was the answer: “To know him aright is life eternal.”3
But I thought I knew all about God. I thought I knew that God was mind, and God was life, and God was love, and God was substance. God was spirit; God was principle. God is all those wonderful things that the Bible and the metaphysical writings say God is, so therefore how can you say I don’t know what God is? And you must remember; I was talking to myself. Today we call that “contemplative meditation.”
And then I thought, “Yes! Yes, that’s right. How do I know that God is mind? I only read it in a book! How do I know that God is law, or life, or love? I’ve only read it in a book! Actually, I have no knowledge that that is truth—none whatsoever. How then can I find out what God is, if I am not to accept what someone says in a book? Well, like we find all information—each one has to find their information in life for themselves. And so, I must find out what God is. What is God?”
And again I thought, “Mind. No, ‘mind’ is a word up here. That can’t be God. ‘Life’ is another word up here. That can’t be God; it’s a word. ‘Love,’ ‘truth,’ all these synonyms can’t be God. Those are just words in my mind, or words in a book. You can’t find God in anyone’s mind or in anyone’s book. Now, what is God?” The answer didn’t come. Then the thought came, “Know thyself, O man.” That may be the beginning of it—“Know thyself.”
Let’s come back now, and what is man? What is man? Well there again, if you just want quotations from a book, I can give you a lot of them, but I wasn’t interested then in what any book said. I wanted to know. What is man? Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult, because I am man, so I should know what I am.
At that moment, I became conscious of my feet, one foot stepping out after the other, and I stopped and looked down and realized, “Well, that isn’t man, because that’s not me. That’s not me. Those feet are mine; they are not me. There must be a me separate and apart from those feet, because those feet belong to me. And I went up to my knees, and to my waist, and to my chest, and I went all the way up to my hair, and I couldn’t find myself. I wasn’t there. All I could find was my body—feet and knees and stomach and chest and neck and face, forehead, and eyes and ears, and finally a big head of hair. But nowhere could I find myself. That puzzled me, and I said, “Now we’re up against it. I can’t find myself. Where am I? What am I? Who am I?” And then the word ‘I’ registered. “That’s the secret! I am I !”
I am I, and I am not in these feet. I am not in this body. I am I. I can’t be encompassed in a piece of flesh. I can’t be encompassed in space, because the real meaning of I is God. That’s why it’s spelled with a capital letter. I is the Spirit of me, the Truth of me, my Being, and that isn’t in the body. That’s infinite; that’s eternal; that is outside the body; that must fill all space. That I which is my true identity, the Master says, is one with God: “I and my Father are one!”4
Oh, then that makes a different relationship. If I am I, not confined to a body, but actually the son of God, one with God, the manifestation of God’s own being, then this I that I am can never demonstrate supply, because the I that I am must be the very embodiment of all the qualities and quantities of God. Therefore, I embody supply. I am spiritual, and so supply must be spiritual. How can you think of it in terms of money, properties, or investments, when it must be spiritual? If I am Spirit, supply is spiritual, and it must be where I am.
Ah! This is a new light, because I had quite a few human feelings about certain places where money could have come to me and didn’t, and toward those through whom it could have come, and it didn’t. Now all of a sudden, I realized—I; I who am one with God am looking to somebody for money, for supply, for income, when I should be the one who is able to feed five thousand and have twelve baskets full left over. I am the one through whom this infinity should be flowing, and I’m treating myself as if I were a beggar, waiting for someone to bring me supply, and if not someone, at least God.
And so the position was reversed, and I realized that never again can I be interested in the subject of supply, except to be sure that I am letting it flow out from me, and through me. Never again dare I permit myself to think of supply as incoming. …
Now, I wouldn’t exchange that year of lack and limitation for all the money that our richest families possess, because not only have I had the joy of seeing this spiritual unfoldment, but I know now that wherever I may be and under whatever circumstances, I need not be surprised if the ravens bring me food. I need not be surprised if manna falls from the sky. I need not be surprised at whatever form of supply comes to me or through what means, because now I know that it isn’t a question of being dependent on man, whose breath is in his nostrils, not even dependent on his gratitude or dependent on his good will. It is absolutely an independence. It is a realization of our true identity. …
But again, none of this is true to you except in proportion to your conscious awareness of it, your conscious realization of it, your consciously abiding in this truth. That’s what brings it into your experience.
1 Excerpt from Recording #266A: 1959 Hawaiian Village Closed Class, Side 1: “Spiritual Supply.” This excerpt is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on all of Joel’s recorded classes and the copyright on the class transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available at The Infinite Way Office website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
2 Luke 15:31.
3 See John 17:3.
4 John 10:30.