This class provided source material for Chapter 4, “Truth Unveiled,” and Chapter 5, “Rising to Mystical Consciousness in Prayer and Treatment,” 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 from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here. (Remember that all Goldsmith classes are available for purchase on iTunes as well. If you use iTunes, this may be a more convenient ordering option for you.)
In this class, Joel makes several references to writings and recordings that would be valuable for students to study. Here are the details on those references:
1) “The paper of August 24th” (and August 16, August 31, and others). Joel is referring to what are known as the “Hotel Talks,” which Joel began in 1963 and later continued in 1964. These talks were not recorded, but the transcripts have been collected into the book Consciousness Transformed. (Note: The entire text of the August 24th talk is provided below, under “Additional Offerings for Study.”)
2) “There are the two new series of tapes which represent the fruitage of this year at home, which will undoubtedly be the study material for all of our students for a long time to come.” Joel is referring to the 1963 Instructions for Teaching the Infinite Way, which comprise recordings 508A through 512B, and the 1963 Princess Kaiulani Sunday Series, which comprise recordings 513A – 515B.
3) “The 1961 Mission Inn Closed Class.” This is recording 401A, “The First Degree of Spiritual Truth.”
All recordings and transcripts can be ordered from the Infinite Way office website.
This summary is provided simply to remind you of the content of the class. To download or print this summary, click/tap here.
[At the beginning of this class, Joel talks about the work that was going on in Hawaii at the time of this class. He is particularly enthusiastic about the talk of August 24th (which we have provided as an “additional offering” for the study of this recording), saying that he “cannot stop reading it.” He says that he is going to halt activities over the next few months so that students can assimilate the breadth and depth of what has come forth. He feels that the message is being propelled into something very important that has not yet been fully revealed, and it is necessary to take time to behold and catch the new message.]
In the spiritual life, you are not living your own life. It is God’s life that is being lived, and it is your privilege to be in a state of consciousness where you can watch God live your life, without imposing any desire of your own. The average truth student has duties to family and profession, so until the Spirit Itself gives direction to “leave your nets,” no student should ever forsake his duties. Rather, s/he should make study and meditation the foundation for the more harmonious functioning of these facets of life.
Unlike other messages, the message of The Infinite Way is imparted only through the fourth dimensional consciousness, or the attained measure of Christ-consciousness. This message did not come through the human mind and cannot be imparted to the human mind. A teacher must raise up students to the point where they are able to perceive spiritually, and those who enter the ministry before they have the spiritual call will make little or no progress.
A teacher or practitioner often has to handle requests for help with responses that the human mind does not understand. It is impossible to teach a person who is mired in humanhood that money is not supply, or to love his neighbor as himself, or to be grateful, or to give up the law of self-preservation. Only spiritual teachers who have risen to Christ-consciousness can awaken this spiritual understanding in patients or students and bring about the transition from the man of earth to the man who has his being in Christ. So, every Infinite Way student should focus their attention on developing his or her consciousness, because the need for such illumined souls is now greater than it has ever been.
Mankind is past the stage where human help can save the situation. The answer to human problems is in the attained Christ, and Joel says that a student cannot even start on the path to attainment until Christ consciousness is his first and primary goal and help for his personal problems is secondary. Joel is not saying that we should be concerned about the world’s problems. His goal is lifting consciousness into a higher dimension, and we must be lifted ourselves if we are to lift others. In this higher consciousness, there are no earthly problems, and temporal power is not power. When we make the real contact, the Spirit Itself is one with our spirit. It is as if there were an invisible Spirit out in the world, and anyone who can attune himself to this transcendental I, finds himself under grace.
The whole world is one with God, and when there is conscious contact, sin, disease, death, lack, and limitation are all removed. One of Joel’s goals was this continuous conscious contact with Spirit, so those who reached out for help from him sometimes experienced what looks like his physical presence or the presence of Spirit and found healing or instruction. Why? They tuned in to the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of Joel. Advanced students can attune themselves to the Spirit of God at once. Others can attune themselves to Joel and accomplish the same thing.
The earliest experience of a student is contacting the Christ consciousness of the teacher, and the student continues with this until s/he has made conscious contact with the Spirit Itself, and God consciousness becomes the consciousness of the student. Only then can the student become a teacher. But the spiritual teacher must always be attuned to that conscious oneness with the Father, for while we are on earth, we are never outside the range of temptation.
Once conscious union has been attained by repeated meditations, when someone reaches out to us, they touch that which we have touched, and it is that which meets their need because that has become our consciousness. Attaining that conscious union brings the spirit of God to earth. It like an invisible cloud protecting everyone who consciously reaches out.
All great spiritual teachers have made contact with the Spirit of God, yet every responsible teacher has also said, “If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you.”[1] In other words, “I will help you, but you must keep on until you have made your own attunement with It.” Even the guru system of India teaches that the true guru is your own consciousness, and that the external guru only leads the way to the guru within.
Until this year, Joel has never spoken openly of his own spiritual experiences. Yet Infinite Way students see that no human being could bring through the Infinite Way message and spread it throughout the world purely on human wisdom or power. So, the growth and sweep of the message is evidence that something tremendous is functioning behind the message and the messenger, just as it functioned behind the message and messenger of Christianity.
Joel says that for eight months, a higher unfoldment of the message has been coming through within him. It started to come out on August 16th, and has continued in the classes since then, in preparation for something that is to come. These classes should be studied carefully. For over thirty years, Joel has lived with a vision that spiritual power, the activity of the Christ, will change the human situation on earth, and he says that now is the time that we must give more and more of our attention to world work. Yet we must remember that world work is not for the purpose of stopping wars, disease, or accidents. The intent of world work is that the mind which was in Christ Jesus be the mind of man, because then man will have in his mind no sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation, and will have no need for war.
Joel has seen that the measure of grace he has attained has done remarkable things in the lives of many people—not just in healings, but in spiritual attainment. So, he sees that the whole secret lies in the attainment of that high consciousness by as many individuals as possible, so that they can go and do likewise. One individual cannot save the world, but one individual can be the transparency that draws many disciples to the work.
The whole purpose of the writings and the teaching is to lift students into that higher dimension of consciousness, in which they live and move and have their being in a Spirit of love. When we attain some measure of that consciousness, we can help others, even if we are not yet quite perfect ourselves.
If you can attain periods of inner peace, your life is lived more and more by grace. When a sufficiency of that state of grace has been attained, deeper experiences of grace can follow. These come and go of their own accord, so we must not try to have them. Such deeper experiences bring with them responsibilities, obligations, and duties. But they are never for you alone. They are always for the purpose of giving you another function on earth.
The miracle is that there is literally a kingdom of God, and it is actually within you. You will only have access to it as you come closer and closer to living by grace, rather than by taking thought. Living by grace does not stop the reasoning process in normal affairs; it makes it clearer. If you have a business problem and you have attained even a moment of grace, you will get the answer to your business problem—probably one that no human could have found.
When asked for help with supply, teachers and practitioners must be able to explain that they cannot help with money, employment, or property; that their work is to lift the individual in consciousness to find omnipresence of supply in their consciousness. Or, when asked for help with a physical issue, they must explain that their help does not touch the physical body, but helps the patient attain the consciousness in which there is no disease. In other words, The Infinite Way is not a branch of materia medica, or a bank, or a marriage or employment counseling agency. Our function is lifting up the Son of God. The Infinite Way message cannot be imparted by the mind or to the mind, and it cannot be imparted until you have attained some measure of spiritual endowment. Even then, you cannot impart it to anyone who has not received some measure of spiritual endowment, because the things of God are foolishness unto man.
Joel says that part of the function of his experience this year is to lift The Infinite Way message out of the metaphysical language into the mystical language so that we learn to live only in the mystical language, in the mystical life. We do not separate ourselves from everyday living, but we lift everyday living up into a higher consciousness.
[1] John 16:7
In this class, Joel speaks glowingly of the “paper of August 24,” highly recommending it to all students. All of what are referred to as the “Hotel Talks,” including the talk of August 24, are compiled in the book Consciousness Transformed. Consciousness Transformed is an exceptional book, and we highly recommend it. The book is under copyright, but under the “Fair Use” clause of the U.S. Copyright Act, and with the gracious permission of Acropolis Books, we are able to offer a copy of the full text of the class of August 24. To view, download, or print this document, click/tap here.