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 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 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.
We have been working with a message that not only has revealed the necessity for realizing the nature of God, but more especially for realizing the nature of God as our own being, so that the universal belief that there is God and me is broken down and replaced with the realization that God is manifest as me. This revelation has been given in the writings, but now we are ready for the realization of it; we are ready to be it; ready to attain the consciousness of it.
For two thousand years, we have been taught that “I and my Father are one.”[1] Yet few have attained any measure of awareness of that relationship. It means I am that one—“Thou seest me, thou seest the Father that sent me.”[2] We fall far short of realizing that and living out from the basis of being Spirit, rather than man seeking Spirit. The Infinite Way message has gradually lifted consciousness above the belief of separation from God, through the intellectual agreement that I and the Father are one, up to the attainment of a consciousness that says, “Whereas, before I was blind, now I see: I am He.” Now we can take a further step in abiding constantly and consciously in the realization of I. With every temptation to accept ourselves—or others—as having a selfhood apart from God, we must immediately retire into that word I and abide in it. I am He; I am thee; I am he, she, it. I am that “I Am,“ that spiritual identity.
You may be tempted to believe that you are separate and apart from your good and that your good must come or even can come to you from anywhere, any power, or any being. But after these classes, you should realize that by voicing the word I, you are declaring the divinity of your being and therefore the all-inclusiveness of your being. So I cannot receive bread, meat, wine, water, resurrection, or life eternal. By voicing I, I am all of those. I am the very good that should come. I embody and embrace the infinity of being in the consciousness which I am.
When the Master was tempted, his response was “Get thee behind me, tempter. I do not have to turn stones into bread or demonstrate safety or depend on a God for protection. I have realized that I and the Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine. Therefore, I have bread; I have safety and security.” The Master had realized that there was no God outside of himself to give him bread or safety. They were included in the consciousness which I am. He denied any God or any power separate and apart from his own consciousness.
We are called upon to bear witness to this revelation whenever the claim of lack or limitation presents itself, either for ourselves or for others. There is only one answer to it: “I am that ‘I Am,’ the infinite fullness of the Godhead, which is the fulfillment of my being and the fulfillment of thy being, since there is but one I.” In all healing work, we are seeing the tempter appearing, claiming that we are man, meaning something separate and apart from God. The temptation is not that I lack, or am sick, or lack in integrity or morals. The temptation is to accept myself or anyone else as man, which means to accept all of the limitations that go with that identity.
So there is only one tempter, or Satan, or devil—an impersonal, universal belief. But there is only one temptation—the belief that accepts myself or anyone as other than the I that I Am. We have but one Father, so we are the one Son. The truth about me is the truth about you, so I bear witness to my sonship and your sonship—that we are joint heirs of God, and not heirs to just a little bit of heaven, but to all of the heavenly riches.
In our metaphysical development, we were learning to impersonalize God, whom at times we have called “It,” indicating that God is not a “He.” But this was only a step. God is I. But God cannot be “I” and be “It,” for if I speak of “It,” I am subtly accepting that “It” is something other than myself. I am accepting a selfhood apart from God. But for many people, using the word “I” to reference God is too much of a jump. So instead of calling God “He,” we have used “It,” because that helps us realize that God is not a personal being of whom we can ask favors, and because it compels us to rise higher in consciousness in understanding the nature of God.
In The Infinite Way, eventually we have to give up every concept of God. Synonyms for God like “spirit,” “law,” and “love,” are not God, but simply words in our mind. Lao Tzu declared the truth: “If you can name it, it is not that.” John realized God as love, but love is a facet of God; it is not God. The Hebrews realized that God functions as law, but law is also a facet of God; it is not God. Jesus referred to God as “the Father within.” That was his realization but for us, it is still a word, and a word that confuses us because it implies a male parent. So if you want to abide with the Master’s teaching that God is “the Father within you,” you must contact the consciousness of Christ Jesus and ask what he understands by the term “the Father within.”
During a period of personal lack in Joel’s life, it was revealed to him that he did not know God because he knew God only as words that were synonyms for God that just represented facets of the nature of God. Joel realized that you cannot truly know God and experience lack, and that in the degree that we lack, we lack knowing God aright. So Joel was led to give up all names for God and all concepts of God until his thought was completely clear. After he did that, he said that “There was nothing left but I. I, myself, was all that was left, and I is not a word up in my mind; I is myself. I is my being. When I am left with I, I am not left with a word. I am left with an identity, a being, a self, a soul, a spirit, a life. That is what I am—not a word.” It was also revealed to Joel that in spite of the lack and limitation he was experiencing, the I of him embodied his bread, meat, wine, water, resurrection, life eternal, and self unto eternity.
You know that you are alive. You know that you exist. Now is there an I that has a life, or is it I who lives? Is there an I that has a being, or am I being? Do I have a soul, or am I soul? Do I have a spirit, or am I spirit, that spirit which is the substance of my soul, mind, body, and being?
The mystics of all ages agree that our identity is I Am. You can see this In The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, which contains the poetry of western mystics from the tenth to the twentieth century. One of them declared, “Before God was, I Am.” That mystic realized that before there was a concept of God or a name for God, I Am. Any name for God must be embodied in the I that I Am and must be thought by the I that I Am. So the name cannot be greater than I, for I must be greater than any thought that I can think; greater than any concept that I can hold; greater than any creation that has ever been created. [Here Joel seems to be talking about creations as inventions, or things that comes to the world through human consciousness.]
Where does creation come from? It comes from the infinite I Am, whether I am Moses who gave the law to the Hebrews, or whether I am Jesus, who gave the highest mysticism to the world, or whether I am Mrs. Eddy, who gave the world its first inkling of spiritual healing, or whether I am Joel, bringing forth a message devoid of concepts, or whether I am he who brought forth the automobile, the radio, or television, or whether I am the consciousness that eventually will bring forth the greater things that are still to come. We are only at the beginning of the great creations of God to be brought through the consciousness of individual being.
Now we can begin to live in the Word. The Master said, “If you abide in the Word …”[3] and he also said, “If you abide in Me …”[4] Therefore, the Word in which we must abide is “I.” Abide in I and realize that “I in the midst of me is mighty.”[5] This means that Joel [or you] has realized his nothingness and is permitting the infinite I to perform Its function without any direction from Joel. So if you pass Joel in the throng and are healed, it is not because Joel did anything. It is because the infinite I which I am touched you because of your receptivity.
When the woman pressed through the throng to be healed, Jesus was not directing a healing at her. He was in a continuous realization that I am I. He was relaxing from humanhood, from power, and letting I be about Its business unto all who were receptive. Anyone who knows I heals without giving a treatment or using truth. He just knows the truth that I am the truth. “In the moment that ye think not, the bridegroom cometh.”[6] In other words, when you are not thinking and have no concepts, your consciousness is God. When your mind is filled with concepts and thoughts, or even the desire to do good, you are outside the realm of God. God has no desire to do good because in the kingdom of God, there is no good to be done.
So when Joel says “I,” knowing the divinity, immortality, and infinity of individual being, he is giving a treatment to friends and enemies, because he cannot believe anything other than that I am I, whether I am Joel or Bill or Mary. I am I. Abiding in that realization, he is a living treatment, a continuous treatment unto everyone who opens their consciousness to God, because they have opened their consciousness to the I that I am.
[1] John 10:30
[2] John 12:45
[3] John 8:31
[4] John 15:7
[5] Zephaniah 3:17
[6] Matthew 24:44
In this class, Joel says that we are working with the essential aspect of The Infinite Way message that teaches God as our own being; that there is not God and me, but that God is manifest as me. He emphasizes that when we realize that truth, we live by grace.
This theme of God manifest as individual consciousness runs throughout Joel’s classes and writings, and he repeats this theme many, many times in many different ways. He explains the repetition by pointing out that when a principle is repeated frequently, it is driven home again and again until something in you yields, and you come to a state in which you have the conscious realization of the principle; that is, it becomes your reality and automatically, you live by it; you have attained the full consciousness of it. One teacher likened this process of repetition in teaching to cracking a coconut—you whack it many, many times and finally one of the blows opens it up!
If you would like to study more on the topic of this class, there are many wonderful chapters in the writings. Here are a few that we recommend (in no particular order):
1) Consciousness Is What I Am, Chapter 2: “The False and Right Sense of I”
2) A Parenthesis in Eternity, Chapter 7: “The Sacred Word”
3) The Heart of Mysticism, September 1955 Letter: “The Deep Pool of Your Being”
4) The Heart of Mysticism, October 1955 Letter: “The Invisible Nature of Your Life”
5) Practicing the Presence, Chapter 4: “The Infinite Nature of Individual Being”
6) Living Now, Chapter 9: “The Nature of Consciousness”