THE INNER LIFE

Because Christian Science, the Unity people and some of the New Thought people have been able to show forth healing in the last century, the whole world is becoming interested. What is not yet realized is that first their natures must change–there must be a purification or change of consciousness. Joel Goldsmith 1963

 

If you cannot see the integrity that animated Mrs. Eddy, the Fillmores, and Ernest Holmes, then you cannot see the spiritual vision at all. If you cannot see and honor them all, you cannot honor the universal nature of the Christ. Joel Goldsmith 1963

THE INNER LIFE
March 24, 1963 - The Halekulani Hotel   Honolulu, Hawaii

THE MASTER SPEAKS ABOUT PRAYING in secret, of going into the inner sanctuary, not to be seen of men. He speaks also about giving our benevolences in secret, not to attract attention to ourselves as though we needed the praise of men. Both these principles are especially important in The Infinite Way. Outwardly we must not seem to be more righteous, we must not seem to be different from our next door neighbor, and yet in our inner life we must be so different that you would think we are people of two different worlds. Unlike this world, we can no longer indulge in prejudice, bias, bigotry, revenge, or the ambitions. Why? Because these are barriers to spiritual progress, and the main barrier to spiritual progress lies in the personal sense of the word I. Whenever we say “I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am grateful, I am loving, I am forgiving,” we are indulging in personal sense which is the barrier to our reaching our ultimate goal.
Everyone on the spiritual path–and the path may be of any name or nature–has the same goal: to reach the place described by Paul, “I live yet not I, Christ liveth my life,” and ultimately to reach the high point of realization announced by the Master, “Thou seeth me, thou seeth the Father that sent me.” Let us forget the second revelation for now and let us go back to the first one, “I live yet not I, Christ liveth my life.” Do you not see that Christ is not “living my life” if I live by personal sense, by jealousies, bigotries, hatreds, revenge, animosities? No, all those human qualities leave no place for the Christ to live.
Suppose we have a human ambition of any name or nature, what chance would Christ have to live our lives? What chance would Christ have to live our lives if we look out at this world with personal sense, with judgement or criticism as to religion, race or color, or if in any way we try to make others subservient to us? No, this is the meaning of dying daily; more especially it is the meaning of dying to the personal sense of self. It means we can have no personal wishes, no personal desires–even good ones. This is the barrier. You are not dying to the personal sense of self, the personal sense of I if you have any good desires. No, your only desire must be to let consciousness live your life as your individual experience. Then, without these personal desires, we can really begin to act out that which is coming through us.
Last night I was very much interested in listening to Ed Sherman’s television interview with Marlon Brando, because I have had the feeling that Marlon Brando had something the world was not seeing–and indeed I was right. He used forty-five minutes of that interview to show that his success has not been worthwhile and to say that it never can be, that it can only lose him his life and his Soul. Why? Because with that type of success there comes the world’s adulation. When your success is purely in the realm of the material, you have nothing to offer the world and the only thing the world can want from you is to fulfill its own selfish interests. When you subdue that personal self to the degree that you are not indulging in personal feelings, those who are attracted to you for personal reasons would drift away and you would be left with those who are “like minded.”
Marlon Brando said last night that he is completely lonely because people are interested only in the public figure. So it is with us. If we are presenting to the world an image purely of humanhood, we come up against the two opposites–good and evil. In other words, the world has an image of you based on what they think you are. So it is that the outer image we show forth should be no different than our neighbors. Then, what we have inwardly takes over and lives our lives. The world will never behold the Christ, but those spiritually drawn into our orbit will behold it. Then, instead of worldly success, you will find yourself not needing to isolate yourself like Greta Garbo and live away from the whole world. You will be able to be “in the world but not of it,” and have good friends– sharing friends. Then life becomes a most beautiful and meaningful experience.
I had a letter this week from Mrs. Pinks, telling of her great joy in spending time with our students. You could see that wherever she went she found friends, human companionship–but at her level of consciousness–and it made for a very happy and joyous experience. All of our students have found the same thing.
What is the consciousness of the person who needs companionship? You will find that it is a consciousness of personal sense. There has been a desire to get, but not a desire to give and to share. There has been a desire to get attention, to pull rank as it were, and of course in the end that always ends up by a lack of companionship.
Enjoy the outer certainly, and its beauties, but always be able to go beyond and see what produces the outer effect. Then you find yourself with the companionship of those who have found the “inner life,” not always on the same level, but remember that musicians and artists also make wonderful companions in the spiritual life. No one should ever be so ingrown that they are always thinking in terms of religion. In fact if we really want to be free souls, we must love not only the arts and the cultures but we must love industry. In other words, there is just as much fascination in Tolstoy as in Walt Whitman.
The main thing is that, whatever our life is, we do not live it to be seen of man because that is immediately putting on a false face and setting that up to be admired and acclaimed. Whatever our life is, it should be an internal one and, above all, it should be lived in the realization that whatever the outer form, it must be the product of an inner grace–an inner contact with the spirit–an inner communion.
The word persona itself means a mask–the mask of personality. If you look at a personality, you cannot see the person. No, we are looking for individuality. We are looking to consciousness to live our lives, not in a personal way but in an individual way, and show forth its qualities. You would be surprised how different you are from the mask you wanted the world to believe was you.
Now all of this has a bearing on the entire message that has been coming through during these many weeks, because it all relates to the one word relationship. If I know that whatever I am, I am because of my relationship to God, that I am heir of God to all of its character and qualities, then I am not building up my personal ego but I am deflating it.
You see ultimately we all want to be free of disease, lack and limitation, sin or sinful desires, but remember that we are not free yet except in a measure. We have not achieved it, but we can achieve it by realizing that our qualities are derived from our source, and then give them the opportunity to be expressed.
In the same way we all want to be free of material law. This is one of the reasons we are on the spiritual path; once we reach sixty-five humanly, we are on the downward path. We have seen enough to know that there is a way in which we can avoid suffering from every material claim that comes along; however, we cannot do it by ourselves. No, it can only be accomplished by making the transition to where we realize, “Consciousness lives my life.” The only chance we have for immortality or eternality, or even for living out a perfectly normal span in good health and with healthy faculties, is if we can make the transition to where we are living not by bread alone but by every word of God that permeates our consciousness–when we can say, “I live not by bread alone but by the grace of God. Consciousness is my spiritual bread, my spiritual meat, my spiritual wine, my spiritual water, the Word of God. This is the ultimate of the spiritual life. If you can make the transition to where consciousness is living your life, it is then no longer subject to disease or sin or lack or limitation. You are now paying more attention to “storing up treasures in heaven,” rather than to this world.
Business, politics, and government are really Christ-like activities if they can be lived by the Golden Rule. Some day this will be so. Do not make the mistake of believing that you can have the ambition to live this life through and in consciousness, and at the same time keep indulging that word “I” in its human sense. The two are contradictory to each other. The only form of dying daily is watching that word I. There was a woman who for years and years and years had a claim that would not yield, who had tried everything known to metaphysics and who said to me, “Isn’t there some way?” I said, “I think so. Let us go until Monday without thinking of the word I.” Immediately she responded with, “Oh, that is easy,” but by Monday she called and said, “I am looking for you with a gun!” Surely, surely.
There is a whole series of quotations which can serve a good purpose as reminders. Whenever there seems to be a need of any kind, it will always appear as something external to us. If we can remember, “Man does not live by bread alone (effect), but by every word of God (truth),” this breaks desire and we can say, “Oh, I do not need it. I am living by the word of God which is stored up in my consciousness.” In the same way, when anything touches our lives which involves this personal sense of I, if we can be quick enough to remember, “I live yet not I, Christ liveth my life,” this helps to break personal sense.
Do you know how the mistaken idea came about of sacrifice, self-abnegation and torture–the sack cloth and ashes of the Hebrews of old? The basis was a teaching originally revealed in Egypt, that of denying self. They thought that, by denying themselves of food and other necessities, this was sacrificing self. It was really self- righteousness and building up the self, and so you have people today who do not properly enjoy the things of life. They are only glorifying the ego; the more pain they endure, the greater the ego. The answer is to live completely in the realization that “I live yet not I, Christ liveth my life.” Then any erroneous thing will disappear. When consciousness takes over, it eliminates any erroneous trait or desire that we may have, and it does it in its own way and in its own time. If we try to eliminate them ourselves, we are only being self-righteous. Normalcy, normalcy–whatever we are today in consciousness, that is where we are and that is where we live. Otherwise, we are indulging self. It is much more important than you know.
Because Christian Science, the Unity people and some of the New Thought people have been able to show forth healing in the last century, the whole world is becoming interested. What is not yet realized is that first their natures must change–there must be a purification or change of consciousness. Those who are now coming to spiritual healing in the orthodox churches are not going to have their healings until they have a change of consciousness. So many “selves” must first be given up. Consciousness must change, but no one in the external world can do it.
More and more the world is going to look to us, and so we must show forth that which we are proclaiming. If we disappoint the churches, they have no one else to turn to. There has to come into this world a remnant of people who are not quite living the human life, who are a bit above it, yet who are appearing in the world in the dress of the world and the life of the world. We have to be a body of people who worship nobody, who respect and honor and show gratitude to every pioneer on every spiritual path, former or present. If you cannot see the integrity that animated Mrs. Eddy, the Fillmores, and Ernest Holmes, then you cannot see the spiritual vision at all. If you cannot see and honor them all, you cannot honor the universal nature of the Christ. We are not seeing the universal nature of the Christ. If we do see it, we will have at least overcome the mistake of the church which says, “We had the only living example.”
Potentially every one on the face of the globe is the Son of God. If they are not showing it forth, do not be too harsh or too critical. Remember that “The way is straight and narrow, and few there be that enter.” Yes, be glad and rejoice in the experience of those of the past or the present who are in some measure showing forth “Christ liveth my life.” I say to you, if you cannot behold the Christ as a potentiality in every individual, then you are missing the way. You are personalizing when you say, consciously or otherwise, “No, the Christ only functions in us.”Eventually for us as individuals, if we want to get beyond the state of responding to every claim that is in the wind, we must begin to live less with that word “I” and more with the idea that “Christ liveth my life.” The remembrance of it will bring about a change in your life. You will not bring about a change, never forget that, but the remembrance will. It is not what you read or hear or study that is the miracle; it is your developed state of consciousness that is the miracle. By letting the Word of God occupy more and more of your attention, there will be a miracle, a transition. The old man dies and the new man is born. You cannot heal the old man or patch it up. Of course not, but by living with the truth you let the personal sense of I die, and then the new man or consciousness is reborn in you. The old has died and the new is born.

https://theinfiniteway.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/track-4a-in-god_s-presence-is-fullness-of-life.mp3