A: If we really turn back into consciousness and feel that “click,” then health and harmony will appear. But the demonstration of spiritual life may not come all at once and it may not manifest itself immediately. I am reminded of the experience of Saul of Tarsus. After years of study, the Christ came to Saul in a blinding flash. We might think that, at that moment, he would have been entirely renewed. Yet, it was another nine years before he began to go about preaching. He spent nine years living in Arabia, letting the light which had come in that blinding flash reveal and unfold itself.
We, too, might have a flash of light, perhaps on the subject of supply, and from that moment on, there might be an increase, day after day, and week after week—just enough of an increase to keep us ahead. If you consider this in terms of time, it might seem as though quite a long period elapses before the whole picture of supply reveals itself, or develops itself. It was in 1932 that I caught the vision that God is the only creative principle, and that all these other ideas about wrong thinking and sin had nothing to do with healing or supply. But it was not until 1946 that I published a book or went out to teach this truth. There were years and years of patience required while this new consciousness was forming and renewing itself.
We are likely to become impatient for results, and to feel that if we get a treatment today, we should be in heaven tomorrow. Probably, when we have attained the consciousness of the Christ, all demonstrations will be instantaneous. Jesus said: “Say not ye, ‘There yet are four months, and then cometh harvest?’ Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”2 But do not forget either, that three years passed before Jesus could finally say: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”3 We know that when he was twelve years old, he had already caught the inner light, yet he did not begin his ministry until he was thirty years of age. So even Jesus had his periods of waiting, and days, months, and years when patience was required.
I say to everyone who undertakes this work: Your consciousness must be renewed. You have been brought up in the belief that that which is out here in the world is reality, and now you are being told that your consciousness is reality. Do you think you can catch the full implication of that truth overnight? You might do so intellectually, but sooner or later, someone is going to knock at the door and ask you to pay a bill that you cannot pay or remind you that you have a headache. And then you will have to begin living this truth.
What we are doing is not creating miracles; we are renewing consciousness. We are dying daily. We are being reborn of the Spirit, and this rebirth comes only with patience. All these things which I have said to you are truth, but you will demonstrate them if, and as, they become
an integral part of your consciousness. The healing consciousness of the practitioner is a state of consciousness that has lost its fear or hate or love of error. That is all there is to the Christ consciousness, which is your individual consciousness when you no longer fear, hate, or love error of any name or nature.
Can you drop that fear, hate, or love overnight? No, you must go through the process of being reborn, and that requires patience, stick-to-it-iveness. You may have to stand fast in the face of the very opposite appearance. It may be in the face of a very, very persistent appearance. And so you will have to stand again and again and again and say, “I am being reborn of the Spirit. I am being renewed. I am no longer going to fear, hate, or love that which is outside of me. I am going to stand on the truth that knows that consciousness is the law unto that which is outside.” It takes patience.
1 This excerpt is from Chapter 12, “Questions and Answers,” in the book Consciousness Unfolding. It is posted with kind permission from Acropolis Books and the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds copyright on the books.
2 John 4:35.
3 John 14:9.