This recording is the basis for Chapter 1, “Toward the Experience” in Beyond Words and Thoughts. While this recording is no longer available for listening on this website, if you subscribe to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you will be able to listen to it there. The additional study material for each chapter will continue to be available here on the Goldsmith Global site. To purchase the recording or the transcript, click/tap here.
This summary is provided simply to remind you of the content of the class. To download or print this summary, click/tap here.
In this class, Joel begins by explaining that The Infinite Way is an experience of God, and he talks about how he himself came to that experience. He says that one cannot heal without such an experience, but also that the experience will not come without the proper motive, or without study, practice, and listening, which are the steps that break down mortal sense. Joel goes on to say that revelations were given to him that make it easier for others to have the experience of God. These are the foundational principles of The Infinite Way: the nature of God, the nature of error, and the nature of prayer.
He talks about the nature of God, and then about how an individual who has the God experience can be a healing agency. Joel explains that this experience does not come through the mind, but through the spiritual faculty when the mind is still. He emphasizes that the Spirit of God in you is “always in full bloom,” and you must awaken to it—but not through the mind. He explains the mystical life, and notes that in the mystical life, you surrender your personal will to the will of God and then relax and rest as a beholder.
Joel points out that the activity of God is like light touching darkness. Light doesn’t heal, correct, or remove darkness; it simply reveals that there is no darkness. In the same way, the activity of God does not heal a disease. It reveals that there is none. He goes on to teach that the human being has no real existence; a human only has an existence in the universal mind. When the spirit of God is realized, the human is no longer there; he is just as absent as the darkness is when it is touched by the light. The old man is dead, and the new man is present. But this truth can be realized only when you are lifted in consciousness.
Joel also talks about the nature of error as the “arm of flesh” or nothingness, and points out that the nature of error is the mystery of the healing ministry—you do not battle appearances or try to correct conditions, but instead rest in inner quiet and peace, in the assurance that there is only spiritual law. Many good students of truth cannot heal, he says, because they have only the letter of truth in their minds. But to heal, you must transcend the mind. He finishes the class by talking about the nature of prayer as a state of silence and receptivity to God, in an attitude of humility, recognizing that you are the instrument of God’s grace.
At the same time that Joel was giving the 1963 Kailua Private Class, he was conducting other classes in Hawaii, in which he was also following his “instructions” to take the students from metaphysics to mysticism. During 1963, from January 20 through September 30, Joel was giving weekly sessions, which have come to be known as the “Hotel Talks.” He continued these sessions into the first few months of 1964. While these important lessons were not recorded, they were taken down, transcribed, copied, and passed on to the student body. Today the Hotel Talks are compiled in the book Consciousness Transformed.
In the Foreword to Consciousness Transformed, Virginia Stephenson writes of the particular value of certain of these lessons: “Joel wrote to many of us that until we assimilated what was given in the lessons of July 14 – September 30 [1963], he could not take us further into mystical awareness.” The first of the lessons to which Virginia referred, the talk of July 14, 1963, is a wonderful complement to our study of Chapter 1 in Beyond Words and Thoughts. The talk is titled “Removing the Veil.”
In Chapter 1 of Beyond Words and Thoughts, Joel speaks of “the Experience” as the essence of The Infinite Way, and he says, “Scripture says, ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God.’ On that statement you can rest because that is the truth. If you can come to know God, you will attain the Experience: the God-experience, the Christ-experience, the spiritual Experience.” This talk, “Removing the Veil,” is a wonderful lesson that points us in the right direction to find this God that we are to come to know.
To view, print, or download “Removing the Veil” from Consciousness Transformed, click/tap here.