This class was not used as source material for the book Beyond Words and Thoughts. However, both Side 1 and Side 2 of Recording #520 are the basis for Chapter 10, “Educating the Human Mind Out of Itself,” in A Message For the Ages. That chapter, together with five other chapters from A Message for the Ages, comprise a section of the book that focuses on teaching The Infinite Way message. While this recording is no longer available for listening on this website, if you are a subscriber to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you will be able to listen to it there. The additional study material for this recording 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.
As teachers keep themselves away from the world and have their periods of inner communion, they attain the power of grace, and it begins to appear tangibly as fulfillment. Yet they keep to the principle of secrecy, and they lose any desire to save the world. They know you cannot give this message to the human world, so they share it only with those of their own household.
Secrecy is the greatest power in the world. A teacher will give this key principle of secrecy to dedicated students, telling them to maintain it even with family, to do their praying and meditating in secret, and to refrain from talking about the fulfillment that comes in the outer plane until they have that inner response. To impart this message to the human mind is to hit up against a brick wall, but it can be imparted to dedicated, receptive students, who come seeking truth, not loaves and fishes.
Secrecy applies to benevolence as well. Be sure that you do not do your benevolences to be seen of men. That doesn’t mean you have to send anonymous cash when you wish to give. Send a check but ask that your gift not be publicized. Have no desire at all for the world to know about it. Of course, the organization receiving the gift will know that you are the benefactor, but do not make it a matter of public acclaim. The Master said that in praying or doing benevolence publicly, you gain the praise of men but you lose God’s reward; you lose what has taken place within you. What I give in benevolence, I am not giving to somebody “out here.” I am giving to the Christ of my own being. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”[1] Everything that takes place within you secretly becomes known without.
Few know that secrecy is the greatest power on earth, and that secret inner communion with the Father is the key to outer harmony. That is what teachers must reveal to students, and when possible, the teacher must keep after a student until the student’s outer life shows that they have some measure of attainment.
There must never be a lie between student and teacher or they will lose their connection. In a marriage, when two people have no secrets from each other and there is complete openness of conduct and thought, there is a relationship and a confidence between them. Any lie becomes a discord in the relationship because whatever is taking place secretly is known openly. Even if the other does not know the nature of the lie, they know something is wrong. The same is true in the relationship between student and teacher. In a relationship based on oneness, there can be no lies or secrets.
This message cannot be taught with the mind, and that is why there are few Infinite Way teachers. A teacher must have some measure of demonstrated spiritual consciousness, and that is known by the fruitage; by what is happening in their experience. If the message of The Infinite Way is to function through the ages, it will function only through the consciousness of those who have attained this inner communion with the Father and are showing the fruitage of divine grace. Then, it makes no difference how few teachers there may be. Those few will take care of the world, because no more of the world will be led to them than they can take care of.
A teacher works with students on the principles one-by-one, taking whatever time is necessary, and giving the student the opportunity to work inwardly with each principle until they attain some measure of realization. When realization is attained, the student has overcome the world, and temptations “find nothing in him”[2] that responds.
Those who seek the grace of God in coming to a teacher like Joel will be released from “this world,” from the human mind with its fears, temptations, and belief in two powers. Wherever the spiritually illumined walk, sin, disease, death, lack and limitation evaporate—not so much for the masses, but wherever anyone is trying to break through the throng or is sitting at the feet of the Master.
Teachers and practitioners must see that they are teachers and practitioners only by the grace of God. Personal will or desire will never make you a teacher or a practitioner, nor will human longing, which can be just the ego wanting the spotlight. Joel never wanted to be a teacher or practitioner, but he was drawn into it. He realized that he could never have brought through the message of The Infinite Way except by the grace of God. So he doesn’t have to worry about how the message is to be given to the world, because whatever is pushing it through him, is pushing it into consciousness, providing for it, and carrying it around the world. There is no personal responsibility on his shoulders, except to watch his integrity every minute.
When you understand that you are a practitioner or teacher only by the grace of God, you are set free, too, because the grace that made you a teacher or practitioner is also the power of fulfillment. You do not have to seek students or patients or be concerned about affording anything. The grace of God brings students and patients to your doorstep in proportion to your readiness for them, and functions through you to pay for your needs. You are the transfer agent, but the producer is the grace of God.
This understanding can be applied to every circumstance that is brought to you. For example, raising money for a new community hospital can be an activity of the Christ, because its object is to serve “the least of these,” and in doing so, to serve the Christ. Likewise, every activity of a business that is conducted with integrity and honesty is a service. It is serving “the least of these” in some capacity, and therefore it is a Christ activity. So we let the Christ perform Its functions through us, and as we learn to pray in secret, the way will be revealed to us.
In the story of the prodigal son, the son leaves his father’s house, uses up all his substance, and ends up eating with the swine. He realizes that his father’s servants are better off than he is, and he returns to the father’s house. That event never took place in an individual; it was not the experience of a man. The prodigal is the human mind. The human mind is cut off from God and has no “hidden manna” or “meat the world knows not of.” It has only what it knows it has, and each time it uses some of it, it has that much less. The prodigal universal human mind is now nearing the time when it is eating with swine, realizing that it cannot rely on money, treaties, armies, or bombs; that of itself, it is nothing; and that the servant of God has no lack. It will have to turn back to the Father’s house, but this cannot be done one-by one. It can only be done as the whole human mind turns to spiritual resources. When this shift is universal, each new generation will be born into that higher consciousness. Individual consciousness will be divine consciousness.
A message like The Infinite Way can bring about the complete spiritualization of the consciousness of the world because every principle of The Infinite Way that is introduced into your consciousness is also being introduced into human consciousness at large. Just as when something of a fearful nature happens in the world and people who know nothing about it awaken in the morning with a sense of fear without knowing why, it is also possible for the world to awaken one morning and realize its freedom. If you commune secretly, silently, and sacredly within your own consciousness, you are communing in the consciousness of everybody in the world who is reaching out for help. In proportion as truth enters consciousness, the entire world is being influenced.
Teachers can instruct serious students in treatment without words or thoughts, in which they acknowledge that no human thought or truth known in the mind will help the situation, because only the transcendental Presence Itself dissolves appearances. Then, they become receptive to the Christ, listen, and wait for the voice to utter itself. Students should practice this ten to thirty times a day, according to their own inner impulsion. Even if no specific person is coming for help, there are many reasons to practice in this way—there are appearances of threats of war, economic depression, epidemics, and other family, community, national, or international situations. So anyone can sit down a dozen times a day and practice. As has been said again and again, book knowledge is not enough. The next step is the transcendental experience itself, and this experience is the goal of The Infinite Way.
Teachers must lift the more serious students into this higher consciousness, bringing them to the actualization of it. Then the students can go out into the world and do likewise to some degree, just as the disciples did. But the students must be willing to be taken up higher to where they realize that the Christ is an actual Presence that is as tangible as money in the bank. Until then, they do not have the real hidden manna. They have only quotations about it.
The more spiritually illumined students we can have in The Infinite Way, the greater will be the number of seekers. Spirit multiplies; it does not divide.
[1] Matthew 25:40
[2] John 14:30
In this class, Joel addresses two key topics: 1) the importance and value of secrecy, and 2) the importance of practicing “treatment without words or thoughts.”
Secrecy
In the Infinite Way writings, one of the best chapters on secrecy is Chapter XIII, “The Father Which Seeth in Secret,” in The Thunder of Silence. We believe that most of you have this book, and if you wish to go deeper with this topic, we highly recommend that chapter. Here is a preview of what you will find there:
“It is only after we begin the practice of secret prayer that we learn the efficacy of true prayer and begin to observe the changes that take place in our lives when we have periods every day for retiring to some quiet place where we can enter into a peaceful Silence, and there in secrecy commune with God. The Master taught that our prayers must be addressed to the Father that is within us, and there is no way to reach that center where God is except when we are quiet, peaceful, and serene within.” …
“The nature and purpose of secret prayer is little understood in the religious life of men and women today. Secrecy, however, is as potent as silence. Actually, it is the key to spiritual success, and without secrecy, spiritual demonstration is impossible.” …
“The Father within us is our very own Soul, and anything that we do, our Soul knows; and if we do it in silence and in secrecy, He knows how to reward us openly. But when we do anything of a good nature and do it openly, there is first of all the implication that we are doing it, which is not true since God is the author of all good works and we are at best instruments or transparencies through which God’s grace is appearing. Moreover, subconsciously we want others to be aware of our good works and to praise, admire, or thank us for our generosity and philanthropy as if we of ourselves were good. When, however, we do our alms secretly, the personal sense of self is entirely absent, and God alone witnesses our good works. Any act of good performed secretly and sacredly attests to the absence of personal sense and the presence of God.”
Practicing “Treatment without Words or Thoughts”
In practicing “treatment without words or thoughts,” we first acknowledge that no human thought or truth known in the mind will help a situation, because only the transcendental Presence Itself dissolves appearances. So we make that acknowledgment and then we become receptive to the Christ, listening and waiting for the Voice to utter itself. Joel goes on to say that we should practice this ten to thirty times a day, according to our own inner impulsion. Even if no specific person is coming for help, he says, there are many reasons to practice in this way—there are appearances of threats of war, economic depressions, epidemics, and other family, community, national, or international situations.
We have heard Joel say many times that the difference between students who make progress and those who don’t lies in the degree to which they practice. Consciously practicing “treatment without words or thoughts” in the way Joel recommends would be a superb way to further absorb and experience what Joel has given us in this class.