A: Isn’t that latter statement one of orthodox origin? Tonight before coming here, I read the introduction to a book by an internationally known minister, commenting on these scrolls [Dead Sea Scrolls] that have been discovered and translated, and saying that many ministers, even now, are not telling their congregations the truth about what has been uncovered, because when they do, it will make our Bible obsolete in many of its passages and in many of its books.
Well, of course before those scrolls were ever discovered, I told our classes, and it is on our tapes, the truth about many of these things that have now been revealed in these scrolls. But it is going to be a difficult thing for the orthodox world to accept the fact that much that has been put into the Bible as truth was really put in there, well, for other purposes.
Now it is being revealed—well, there are some people, some ministers, actually revealing what these scrolls reveal. But I think most of them have adopted the thought that it would be best not to cause a revolution, but rather to introduce them so gradually that within two generations everybody will know them, and will of course, never even know that we of two generations back didn’t know them.
Very much like the subject of prayer. I have told you that there are ministers now saying to their congregations, “You must not pray to God for anything. You must not ask God for food, clothing, housing. You must not ask God for safety or security.” [They tell them] that this is old-fashioned; that now you must turn to God for Himself, or you must turn to God for spiritual wisdom, or spiritual substance, spiritual bread, wine, water, meat.
Well, you see by introducing it that way to the very small groups that are studying spiritual healing, it isn’t at all shocking to them, and through them it will spread to their children. And two generations from now, if any grandparent is around, or great-grandparent, and says to the little child, “Have you prayed to God for grandmother?” the child will say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How can I pray for grandmother? Everybody’s the same in God’s eyes.”
Now, do you know that God sent Jesus Christ into the world to redeem it? On the contrary, you know He didn’t! You know that He—such a thing would be almost heresy. What was wrong with God’s world before, and why didn’t God redeem it a thousand years before Jesus Christ? Or why didn’t He send Jesus Christ seven thousand years before? You mean God didn’t want it redeemed? Do you think there is a people on earth that God was willing to leave in hell and damnation for thousands of years until He got ready to send Jesus Christ into the world? Oh come, let’s reason together! Let us not ascribe any such horrible nature to God that He allowed people to live on earth for thousands of years unredeemed, let babies come to earth and die in damnation, until a certain day when all of a sudden, He thought, “Jesus Christ ought to come into the world to redeem those who were on earth.” What about all the generations before them?
No, no, no! No, God has implanted the Christ in the consciousness of every individual. In fact, Christ is the consciousness of every individual. Our awareness of that redeems us. Our awareness of the fact that the kingdom of God is within us redeems us. But God had sent loads of people to earth who knew that long before Jesus Christ and taught it. The idea of Christ, the “anointed one,” the “enlightened one,” is the same word as Buddha. “The enlightened one,” the “light of the world,” Buddha, Messiah, Christ—these all mean the same thing.
And so it is that those who attain illumination are called Buddhas. The oriental world is a step ahead of the Christian world in that it acknowledges that everyone who attains enlightenment is a Buddha. Not all in the same degree, of course, but nevertheless, enlightenment is Buddhahood. In Christian mysticism, everyone who receives illumination is enlightened, or is the Christ, or has attained Christ awareness. And that is why Scripture reveals, ”Have that mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,”showing you the possibility of your individual enlightenment.
It wasn’t that God sent Jesus to tell us this for the first time. There have been enlightened souls throughout eternity, for all-time, all the way back into what has been called Krishna. Krishna is another root word for Christ, and the word Krishna has no more beginning than the word Christ or Messiah. And Krishna is no more a person than Christ is a person. Krishna is illumined consciousness; Christ is illumined consciousness; and everyone who receives enlightenment has to that degree attained the mind of Krishna, the mind of Christ.
Now we must learn that there never was a time when spiritual light and spiritual truth was not omnipresent, in fact was not Omnipresence Itself. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, not because it says so in the Bible. Please let us forget that. It is in the Bible, but for the moment, let us take the statement itself, regardless of where it comes from. Do you individually believe that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever? Do you? Even if it weren’t in Scripture? Do you believe that God is no respecter of persons? Do you individually believe that God is from everlasting to everlasting?
Now, not because you were taught it in Sunday School; not because you were taught it in Church. I’m not asking for any such reason. I’m asking you as an individual, and an enlightened individual, do you believe this about God? Or do you think that God on some certain day decided to become good? That God on some certain day or date decided to let His children be redeemed, but before that He had them in outer darkness, and had no provision made for their light? You can’t believe that; else you have not studied truth. Because there cannot be a truth teaching on the face of the globe that is truth that does not reveal that God is from everlasting to everlasting—the same yesterday, today, and forever, omnipresent where you are—whether in the Hebrew Scripture, “The place whereon thou standest is Holy ground,” whether in the Christian Scripture, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Why, the Master out of his own mouth said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Doesn’t that show you how wrong it is to believe that salvation came at a certain date only two thousand years ago, when out of the Master’s own lips came, “Before Abraham was, I am”?
So you see, you must read some of these Bible statements with a question mark, and then when you have a question, you must go within and ask God for light on that question, and you will receive it. There is never a time when you cannot go to God and receive light on any passage of Scripture, or on any other statement of truth ever made by anyone at any time in any age. The answer is within you if you will turn there, and it is a better authority than any written word.
Another thing. Do you not realize that Scripture was not written in any modern language? Part of it was written in ancient Hebrew, other parts of it in Aramaic and then translated into Greek, into Latin, into English. And do you not know that there have been translators inside the church as well as out, who have written other translations than the one that you accept—translations with other meanings, and that these translations also have been accepted by many of the churches? How do you know which of these statements have been mistranslated?
I remember Dr. Lamsa one time, explaining that statement—and he translated right from the Aramaic—about a camel going through the eye of a needle. He explained that that was an incorrect translation of the word, because somebody had left a dot out, or off. He said that the statement really is, “As impossible as for a rope to go through the eye of a needle.” Sounds more logical, doesn’t it—a rope? We’re accustomed to a thread going through, but we know a rope won’t go through. But in mistranslation, it has become a camel. Well, who ever expected a camel to go through the eye of a needle anyhow? . . .
I’m not asking you to accept anything I say to you as truth, because you can’t accept it unless it rings a bell in you, unless something in you responds to it. So if it doesn’t, at least take it into your prayers and meditations, and ask God for light on it. I have explained to students that I never give an interpretation of any part of Scripture until God has given me light on that passage. That is why there are many passages in Scripture that I have never written about or talked about, and when questions are asked, I always answer, “Sorry, God has not yet given me instruction on this. Therefore I will say nothing.” Anything on which I have received direct illumination I will impart, but nothing else, because I am not here to give you my opinion. I am not here to tell you what I believe. Only that which is given to me as specific truth in revelation, that may I pass on to you.
Now the question goes on: “Why should God send His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem a world in need of redemption, if He had no knowledge of the need?” And that of course is absolutely right! Why should He? The spiritual world of God’s creation needs no redemption. We as humans need redemption, but God has placed His own Son, divine consciousness, Christhood, within us—the whole kingdom of God. And we can turn to It for our enlightenment and redemption.
The Christ is within us, but It didn’t get there two thousand years ago. Before Abraham was, It got there. Before Krishna was, It got there. It got there as our fourth-dimensional consciousness, and at any time, we can turn to it and find redemption, not because God is doing it, but because we have discovered our need of redemption, and we turn to the Source, which God has placed within us, without knowing that we would ever need it for that purpose. Now, the reason that it is important to understand this is first of all, that we do not look to God to do something for us today that hadn’t been done before, and that we do not look to God to do something for us tomorrow, which God is not doing today.
1 This excerpt is from Recording 275A: 1959 London Closed Class, “The Nature of the Spiritual Universe.” 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.