This class is one of two used as source material for Chapter 12, “God Revealing Himself as Christ on Earth,” in Beyond Words and Thoughts. 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 can listen to it there. The additional study material for this recording will continue to be available here on the Goldsmith Global site. To purchase this 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.
Regardless of how high you go on the spiritual path, you will not avoid all problems, but most will be minor and easily resolved. Occasionally, because of universal world hypnotism, you may encounter a serious problem. When the world faces serious problems, it has no answer. But we know that the answer lies in the right degree of spiritual awareness, or spiritual realization.
Attaining this spiritual awareness hinges on right identification—you perceive that I is God, and you do not think out from the standpoint of being limited man, subject to material and mental laws. Moses had the full and complete revelation of this and revealed it to the world as “I Am That I Am.” In ancient Hebrew, one of the words for God was “Iham.” But “Iham” meant God “out there.” So a person could voice that name of God, know God, and think about God, yet he and God were not the same. But when Moses realized: “Oh, no! I AM that,” that sense of separation dissolved, and he became the leader and liberator of the whole Hebrew race. He was endowed with sufficient spiritual power to deliver the Hebrews from Pharaoh and lead them to the Promised Land.
He couldn’t take them into the Promised Land because nobody can take another into the Promised Land. They can lead you to the Promised Land and reveal this truth to you, but nobody enters the Promised Land if they still believe there is man and God. You yourself must attain the realization: “Oh! I AM.” Then you walk right into the Promised Land. In that realization, you have realized your oneness with God, and there is no more sense of separation. Then there are not two; there is one.
God breathed God’s life into man, so the life of man is God. God did not give man a mind; the mind of God becomes the mind of man. This is why you can receive impartations from within yourself, even impartations that enable you to bring forth new inventions, new art, music, and literature. Why? These ideas have always been embodied in the consciousness of man, so they are embodied in your consciousness and can be brought forth. Individual consciousness is infinite because God constitutes individual consciousness.
The Master and other mystics revealed that the kingdom of God is within you. But instead of accepting this revelation, the world looks to holy mountains, holy temples, and holy teachers. Many mystics have given this teaching, but it has always been lost because it was organized. We set up Buddha, Moses, and Jesus to be the holy ones, and then we worshipped them. They never encouraged that. Sit at their feet to learn? Yes, but then accept the revelation, and “go thou and do likewise!”[1]
The secret is knowing this truth—I AM—and then living and abiding in it. All that God is, I am. All that the Father hath is mine. I have meat the world knows not of. I have hidden manna. I will never leave me nor forsake me. I will be with me unto the end of the world. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I go before thee to make the crooked places straight. I have only to go within my own being for whatever I need or want. If I am still and patient, the assurance will come from within: “Be not afraid. It is I. I am thy bread, meat, wine, and water. The secret lies in going within to that I which I am.
The secret of The Infinite Way is in the word I. Even the first book, The Infinite Way, is based on God appearing as man; not God and man. The Infinite Way is revealing I as your identity. Wake up! You are I. I is you, and infinity is the nature and the extent of your consciousness. God is your consciousness, so turn within! The whole secret of harmonious living is embodied in the word I. I is God, and I is the only name you can use for God. Words that we call synonyms for God—such as Love, Mind, or Intelligence—are not really synonyms. They merely describe attributes of God, not the fullness of God. The only time you are really declaring God is when you say “I.” When you read in the Bible about the “Word,” spelled with a capital “W,” that Word is I. When you are told to “live in My Word,” the Word to live in is I, and the way to live in it is to recognize: I and the Father are one, not two.
God the Father is God the Son of every individual, saint or sinner. “I and the Father are one” is an eternal spiritual relationship, and I have always lived in the bosom of the Father. Even when I went forth to walk on earth, I never left the bosom of the Father, because I and the Father are inseparable and indivisible. The Master so deeply realized this that he could say, “Thou seest me, thou seest the Father that sent me.”
Since God is spirit, all that the Father has must be spiritual, so we do not go to God for anything material. It never has been true that you could go to God for loaves and fishes, or for houses and automobiles. When you go to God, go for the gifts of God, the grace of God. What are the gifts of God? The answer is “Let’s not worry about what these are.” Just go for God’s grace. Turn within, because the I of you is God. Turn to this I for grace, for peace. When you have the peace of God, you are no longer dependent on, or at the mercy of man whose breath is in his nostril.
The human I is not God. If it were, none of us would ever be in trouble. In our humanhood, we are the natural man that Paul revealed is not of God, knows not and receives not the things of God, and is not under the law of God. That is why the natural man can sin and be diseased, uncharitable, and unmerciful. There is nothing God-like in the natural man. When an individual is led to spiritual seeking, it is not that individual who is seeking God; it is God in him that is trying to push through and reveal Itself. When you know this, you can stop searching for God and sit down and listen more. Then God will break through.
The search for God never ends until you realize: “I and the Father are one,” or “I am Thou.” The moment that that I voices Itself, you know that I isn’t man. That I is God. Once you touch that I, you don’t have to take thought for your life. You rest, and life begins to be lived out from within yourself. Then you find that you are a benediction to all who come within range of your thought because you are realizing that I at the center of their being. You would be surprised how many receptive people are awakened by that recognition. If they say that they felt something in you, what they felt was your understanding of their true identity.
I is God, but I appears individually. No two of us are supposed to be the same, or do the same work, or express art, literature, music, or salesmanship in the same way. Each of us has an individual gift. Thousands of us may play piano or violin, but if we have made contact with our center, each will play in an individual way that will sound entirely different. But this can only come about when we as individuals begin to understand that I in the midst of me am mighty; I in the midst of me am infinite; because I in the midst of me is God. Then, I turn within, not to somebody else, but to the I, to the consciousness that I am, and from this consciousness comes whatever is necessary to my individual unfoldment.
People revered the ancient Hebrew prophets because they could prophesy. But it is easy to prophesy. As you have spiritual unfoldments, you will realize that anything permanent conforms to a law of God. So, when you see socialism or communism, you can prophesy right now that they are doomed. Why? They take away man’s freedom and individuality, and that can’t last because the I is crying out for escape. Man is not man. God is man, and It will not be limited, restricted, or held in bondage. It will break through. The ultimate fate of man is freedom, and he doesn’t have to attain it by wars or rebellions. Be still and know I am God, and soon those holding you in bondage will begin to set you free, and they won’t know why. The beginning of that freedom comes with the realization of the nature of I. Resist not evil. Just be still and know that I am God. That is enough. That one truth will begin to break everything that seems to bind you. Live in the word I.
You cannot know this secret of I and just live a personal life for yourself. To some extent, your life will have to be dedicated. But don’t let it be dedicated to telling this to anyone until you are convinced that they are not looking for loaves and fishes, or how to rule the world, but how to be of greater dedication to the world. So do not share your spiritual experiences with anyone but your teacher or practitioner—not with husband, wife, friend, or relative. Keep your experiences within yourself and let them deepen and be enriched. Never fear a spiritual experience, even though because they are unfamiliar, they may seem frightening. But there is nothing to fear if we are in God and God is revealing Himself.
Secrecy in spiritual matters may be likened to the womb. If a spiritual experience is not kept within and fed there, it will never come to fruition. Secrecy is the womb of the spiritual life. Sometimes, the human world looks on conception and birth as if it were something evil or sinful, but it is something sacred. Conception and birth is the appearing of another individualization of God. When couples know this through spiritual study and realize that conception is not a carnal act but God’s way of expressing Christhood on earth, waiting for a birth will be as if we are waiting for God, for Christ, to appear. Then we will begin living spiritually on earth. Life will be as sacred as we witness it among ourselves. The rest of the world will experience it that way, too, when they know that I is God.
[1] Luke 10:37
One of Joel’s very early classes is a wonderful complement to our current study class, Recording 523A, “God Revealing Himself as Christ on Earth. This early class is Recording 4A, from the 1950 First Portland Class, titled “The Christ.” Even though these two classes were given at the extremes of Joel’s public ministry—one in 1950 and the other in 1963—the messages in both classes are beautifully consistent. Recording 4A is a very clear and engaging presentation of the meaning of “the Christ,” and Recording 523A echoes the themes that are in that class as Joel presents them later in his ministry. We are most grateful to Sue Ropac at The Infinite Way office for her gracious permission to make this recording available to you on our website for a limited time. We believe that you will truly enjoy going back to the beginning days of Joel’s ministry when he was first presenting The Infinite Way message, and that you will find that this early recording sheds additional light on your study of Recording 523A. We highly recommend that you listen to it.
[Note: This recording was posted through July 20, 2019, and is no longer available on this site. To purchase Recording 4A or the transcript, click/tap here.