A: Indeed, yes. As a matter of fact, that is the entire purpose of following a message of this kind—that you are not to seek things; you are not to seek in the outer world for improvement; you are to seek only the attainment of a spiritual state of consciousness. You are to rise into that state of consciousness that recognizes one power, recognizes all mankind as being really the divine Son of God in their real being, and as you rise to that level of consciousness, it naturally outpictures itself in the form of health, harmony, wholeness, completeness, perfection, in every way necessary to our everyday experience.
There is, however, this to be said: In our actual experience, the outer picture does not always change as rapidly as we believe that our consciousness is changing. In other words, because we intellectually accept the fact that God is the only power does not mean that instantly error will lose all of its seeming power, because we have not yet attained that consciousness. And, therefore, something of this nature takes place: Whereas there may be great changes within us, somehow there seems to be a lack of conforming to what we believe to be the state of our consciousness. Let me illustrate that. …
After my own experience of my first Illumination, my entire life changed. The past was dead, and a whole new life began, but on one particular point, my demonstration yielded slowly. At times it looked as if it weren’t going to yield at all. That was on the subject of supply. Supply gave me my hardest and longest battle, and I had many ups and downs. I had the supply problem met once, when it seemed to me that I was firm in the conviction that because I was in God’s work, that God was meeting my daily need. And for a while, that seemed to be so. Then all of a sudden, the picture changed, and the need was not being met promptly or abundantly.
Then a second unfoldment of supply came, and this one carried me forward for quite a while, and it was more along the line of God’s presence. And then again, it fell away. It just seemed as if supply was one of those things that was not going to manifest in my life. But there came a third revelation, and with that third revelation, the entire situation broke. It changed and remained permanent. This time it was a revelation which really is the foundation of the message of The Infinite Way. It is the reason there is an Infinite Way, because without this revelation, there would have been no major principle on which this work could be based. This revelation had to do with the word “I.”
Now, you see, up to that moment, “I” meant Joel, and Joel meant he had to have food and clothing and housing, and that meant it had to come from somewhere. And since he was in the spiritual healing work, naturally it should come from patients, or from students, or from gratitude. But you see, that was all wrong as a spiritual picture, and in this final revelation, it dawned. Light came that I isn’t Joel. I is God. I is infinite, divine being. I is the offspring of God, or the Christ of God, but I and God are really one, not two, and all that God Is, I am, and all that the Father hath is mine.
And now, it’s a sin to have to earn a living. It’s a sin to expect someone to give me a living. Why? Because I can heal the multitudes. I can feed the multitudes. Therefore, I have an infinity of supply, and my error has been in the sense of separation that set up a “Joel being” who had to be fed, clothed, and housed, whereas I, being one with God, all that the Father hath is mine, and I am not dependent on man whose breath is in his nostril, even if he likes me. I am not dependent on man whose breath is in his nostril, even if he’s grateful. I and my Father are one, and my only dependence is not on God, but on my relationship to God—the fact that I and my Father are one.
And now, in spite of the fact that it was in the depths of the depression in the States, supply increased this week more than last, and next week more than the week before, and so forth and so on, until it was only a very few months that all of my affairs were straightened out, and a sufficiency was coming in very quickly, with twelve basketsful left over.
And so, the foundation of The Infinite Way was given me: I is God. I and the Father are one. Thou seest me, thou seest the Father that sent me. And in my spiritual Identity, there is no place where God leaves off and I begin, for we are one and not two, and all that God is, is embodied within me. God has given me jurisdiction over all that is in the sky, in the air, in the earth, in the waters beneath the earth, as long as I do not look outside of my own being, as long as I realize that whatever the nature of God is, is the nature of my being; whatever the quantity of God Is, is the quantity of my being; whatever the quality of God is, is the quality of my being. God is pouring His infinite Selfhood through me, and it is for this reason that healings can take place. It is for this reason that those who come to me with a problem of supply can have their problem met—not out of my storehouses or barns, but out of the infinite storehouse of God, which I am, and which I recognize you to be. For this is not a personal relationship that sets me apart from you, but in proving it to me, it proves to me that it is a universal truth which must be a truth about you.
Now with this, the outer picture changes because, whereas I may have intellectually known this before, certainly it was not a realized truth. It was not spiritually discerned, and so that particular problem had to wait until the dawn of realization. That is what is meant when practitioners and teachers tell us: “Be grateful for your problem.” Not that anyone likes to have a problem, but do you not see that if it had not been for that particular problem; if I had had enough dollars coming in to meet my needs, I would not have been driven deep within myself for an answer to the problem of supply. And if I had not made that demonstration, then I could not have made the demonstration for the entire worldwide Infinite Way activity, without a membership, without dues, without asking anyone to support this activity, and yet be able for fourteen years to meet all of its bills around the world—all through that one realization that cost me quite a few years of heartache and wonder and agonizing.
So it is that to have a person’s health met quickly, without some real digging on their part, some real sacrifice, if you want to call it that, of time, effort, prayer, and meditation, is of course, a fine thing humanly, but spiritually it is not of great value. Spiritually that “great value” comes from the depth of our own problem and our willingness to get down inside and work it out, even though at times we may have help to lift us in consciousness to where it can be better worked out.
So it is then, that it is absolutely true that as your spiritual consciousness evolves, the outer experience—physically, mentally, morally, financially, human relationship-wise—all of these improve, not necessarily in accordance with your intellectual knowledge of the principles, but with your working with the principles until the spiritual realization dawns.
1This excerpt is from Recording 339A, 1960 First London Closed Class, “Reality and Illusion.” 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.