"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

"A Parenthesis in Eternity" pdf file

Chapter 19 - Attaining Divine Sonship

When we have encompassed the First and Second Degrees, a new dimension of life, an entirely different area of consciousness, opens up to us. In that moment there is something within us that is no longer a quotation, an affirmation, or a recalling of truth: it is an experience. We have entered the Third Degree, where we no longer live by the standards of this world, where the values are different, and life is governed not so much by what the outer law is as by what our inner integrity is. It is at this point that we pass from law to Grace.

As human beings we live under man-made laws which continue to operate as long as we remain in ignorance, and until we are awakened, we are held in slavery to all kinds of mental and physical laws.

As we come to an awareness of a spiritual Presence within us, we gradually become immune to these laws because as we pass into the third stage, the Presence lives our life, and It cannot be influenced, nor can It be acted upon by physical or mental laws: It is immune to them for they are only theories, superstitions, and the universal belief in two powers. In proportion as the son of God is raised up in us, these laws do not operate, and not only are we not receptive or responsive to them, but we aid in nullifying them for others who may come to us.

When an immunity is developed to material and mental laws, we live in an entirely different world because then we do not have to take the law into consideration, nor do we have to be concerned about things. Having found the kingdom of God and dwelling in it, something else is taking over the responsibility for our entire experience. The government is on His shoulder, on this divine Son which in the Third Degree is now raised up in us. In our humanhood It was dormant; It stood by and could do nothing. Regardless of what wrong was done to us, we had to resign ourselves to it unless our human wisdom or strength could provide an escape for us, and in most cases it could not.

In the awareness of this transcendental Presence, however, we have entered a state of consciousness where we do not have to fight and oppose error, or continuously try to destroy it. We are now in a state of consciousness where error does not touch us—we are not even aware of it. We are not just experiencing more and better human things and conditions, but a new factor has come into our life, a new joy.

Probably the only way that this can be explained is that in our humanhood we experience pleasure or satisfaction because of something that takes place out here. For example, learning that some activity has been successful or awakening on Christmas Day to find ourselves blessed with beautiful gifts arouses joy in us; but, on the other hand, failure or the absence of gifts might bring sorrow.

Our joy as well as our sorrow is usually prompted by outer occurrences, whereas from the moment that this transitional experience begins, joy, which is an integral part of our being, bubbles up from within without any external cause, and when sorrow comes, it is recognized as "this world" and is quickly dissolved.

In the Third Degree we do not try to demonstrate anything in the outer world: we are seeking only that inner release or peace which, in itself, is the demonstration and the attainment of our goal. It is not to be attained for any purpose, but only for itself, and it produces an effect in the outer experience that follows just as daylight accompanies the sun. The sun does not rise and then produce light: the sun itself constitutes the light. Just so, we discover that there is no God to give us health, supply, or companionship; there is no God to give us anything, but there is God, and when this Spirit is consciously realized, It is the very substance of our outer experience.

As the sunshine does not give us light, but is the light, so the grace of God within does not produce something in the outer plane: the grace of God within is the very substance of the good that is to appear outwardly. There is no such thing, therefore, as the presence of God and a discord; there is no such thing as the presence of God and lack or limitation. God is the peace, God is the comfort, God is the supply.

Spirit and Its outer activity are one; Spirit and Its formations are one; Spirit and Its creation are one. Spirit does not create in the sense of there being a Spirit and a creation: Spirit is the substance that appears outwardly as form, not as the form of what we see, hear, taste, touch, or smell but as spiritual form. The impressions received through the senses represent our concept of that spiritual Presence that is here.

In this third stage, we outgrow and undo all the work of the first and second stages. We stop depending on a God, and while this may sound incredible to those not yet advanced to this stage, it is not too difficult to do because, with the experience of the Christ, everything is provided for us before we know we need it. The Christ imparts wisdom, provides protection, and bestows love, and there is no need to depend on anything without: there is always That which is going before us to make "the crooked places straight"; there is always That which is walking beside us as our safety and security.

Such heights of consciousness are not experienced in the first two stages. There we have only our own thoughts, hopes, and the assurance of the mystics who have written the Scriptures and the metaphysics of the world. These are a staff upon which we lean, and they stand with us until we receive the Experience.

With the advent of the Experience, however, all of this changes. Very slowly it begins to dawn in consciousness that we are no longer the person we were because now we are not depending on some remote God, thinking or talking about a far-off God, and certainly not trying to influence Him. Not only are we not trying to be good, and of course, anyone who advances into the Third Degree could not be bad, but now there is no awareness of goodness because there is nothing with which to compare it: there is no temptation to be bad. In fact, nothing from without now acts as any kind of a temptation to us.

It is like the mathematician so well-grounded in his science that he never for a moment is tempted to believe that twelve times twelve is one hundred forty-three. There is simply a complete awareness of one hundred forty-four. The mathematician would not be able to understand those of us who are always faced with the temptation that two times two is not four, and three times three is not nine.

It is difficult for anyone living in this consciousness of the Third Degree to understand a person who steals or lies, or who attempts to gain his ends by false advertising. What must be going on in a mentality that engages in such practices when there is no need for them? "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and therefore, is not all that the Father has ours? Yet in this higher consciousness, we never consciously think of these truths; they never enter our mind except when someone presents the opposite picture to us, and there is the need to assure him of God's loving, omnipresent care.

When we come to the third stage, which is reached by passing through a series of initiations, each marking a transition from a lower state of consciousness to a higher one, there is no sowing and there is no reaping: there is only a state of divine being, the fourthdimensional consciousness which, when attained, enables us to live by Grace. When the son of God is raised up in us and is alive, we need take no thought, for It is of the essence of Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience; It is the All-knowing, the All-powerful, the All-presence, and It does these things for us.

In our humanhood we are a sleeping entity, but when we awaken, what do we find? We find ourselves in His image and likeness; we find that there is a God, that God cares for His son, and that you and I are that Son. We are consciously one with God; and then we can give ourselves up to be crucified, sent to war, or to anything else that the human mind wants to do to us, and we will walk right out of the tomb, free and clear—we will walk right out of the situation. Why? Because the son of God is spiritual and, therefore, is not subject to the laws of cause and effect, nor is he subject to kannic law.

In this Third Degree we are no longer good or bad, we are no longer well or sick, and we are no longer rich or poor: we are just a state of divine being, and it is not that we are that of ourselves; it is that This that has taken possession of us is it. There is then no personal responsibility for supply or for health: our only responsibility is to live in God.

When this experience of living in God first comes to us, it is disturbing because, just as in our first stage we were "dying" to the negative sense of life and being reborn into a more positive sense, now we are "dying" all over again. This is not only an annihilation of our undesirable humanhood, but it is also an annihilation even of our good humanhood, and at first it is frightening and disconcerting as veil after veil drops away, and we come face to face with naked truth.

The first flush of enthusiasm on the spiritual path brought to us a sense that being healthy is a proof of our spiritual understanding, and being wealthy is, of course, another great proof of the degree of that understanding. But in the Third Degree we rise into the consciousness where there is no health and there is no wealth. There is neither good health nor bad health; there is neither virtue nor vice; there is neither honor nor dishonor; there are neither high people nor low people; there are no greats, near-greats, or not-so-greats: there is only a spiritual state of being which is described as "My kingdom," My consciousness, the Christ-consciousness—and that is not a state of improved humanhood.

In our first stage of spiritual development we were improving our humanhood merely by virtue of our greater awareness of a spiritual Presence. In the second stage we were consciously improving our humanhood so as to measure up to our highest concept of goodness, virtue, integrity, loyalty, and fidelity, using the mind as an instrument for the activity of the Spirit. But in the third stage all this is taken from us. In this degree we cannot rejoice in our benevolences, in our health, or in our wealth because now we see that we do not have any of these of ourselves. The Christ, the spiritual Son, is our life, our health, our wealth, and the source of our good. This spiritual Selfhood, this Messiah which is within us—this is our good, the source of it, the experience of it, the expression of it. In this there is no little human "I" left.

The final experience is the annihilation of our human self, of its good qualities as well as its evil; it is "dying daily" until even the best of humanhood is gone, and spiritual identity is revealed. Death to the materialistic concept of life and a rebirth of the Spirit—this is what takes place through our spiritual unfoldment and progress on the Path.

When the transition takes place, sometimes slowly or sometimes in a flash, it always leaves us with a trace of our old self. This is a difficult period because we have glimpses of what spiritual living can be, and yet at the same time we have the frustrating experience of not being able to live in the Spirit continuously. While our old unillumined self does not dominate the scene, its shadow still lingers, and we are often tempted to indulge in the old habits and modes of life. So there is a need for great patience until the son of God has been more fully raised up in us.

The Master, himself, even after having made the transition from being a Hebrew rabbi to being the Christ, was tempted three times, which indicated that there was enough of personal sense left to tempt him by saying: "With this power, you can make yourself great. Show this power; show the world that you and God are on such intimate terms that He will not let anything happen to you. Show the world that you have all the supply in the world because you are so close to God; show the world that you are a saint."

But these temptations were overcome because of Jesus' realization of the nature of each temptation. He did not try to reform himself; he did not say, "Oh, I am weak; God has left me." He did not try to blame it on anything: he recognized instantly when he commanded, "Get thee behind me, Satan," that this was the impersonal satanic suggestion of a selfhood apart from God. This was truly a temptation to believe that he and his Father were not one, that there was an "I" and a God, and that he was some favorite of God. He recognized this as an impersonal mesmeric suggestion, an impersonal evil, or impersonal tempter. He refused to accept an "I" who could be good or bad. He did not accept an "I" who needed food, clothing, or housing; he did not accept an "I" who required healing. He knew the truth, "I and my Father are one," and that that I would never leave him or forsake him; It would be with him to the end of the world.

In that revelation and realization the total "death" of the man of earth took place, bringing about his complete rebirth in Spirit as Christ-consciousness so that thereafter he knew himself as the Christ, the son of God. Then Jesus, the son of man, was "dead," and the Christ was risen from the tomb of mortality, of mortal identity, and stood revealed as individual, infinite, eternal individuality.

Jesus Christ was not absorbed in God: he remained as individual identity, as he does to this moment, just as all the mystics who have attained conscious union with God live now, live here, and are available to every individual who attains even a touch of Christhood.

When we rise high enough, we, too, tabernacle with those who have left human sight and are on the level of Christ-consciousness, for we are of one household, in one place, and of one Father consciously realized.

In Christ-consciousness there is divine harmony, and this divine harmony, in some measure, makes itself evident in various ways in our experience. Because of the activity of the Christ in consciousness, we witness healings in our bodies and minds, healings in our human relationships and in our economic condition. We have seen how the activity of the Christ lifts our individual experience out of the world of sickness and health, swinging back and forth between good and evil, and even though we may not attain the fullness of the Christ, at least if there is "a thorn in the flesh," we forget "those things which are behind," and live as much as we can in this higher consciousness.

When we first set out on this Path, let us not forget that we already are the Christ, but that the Christ is so heavily veiled that we cannot behold the real Self. Every moment of our journey the veils are dropping away from us — the claims of humanhood — until eventually we stand forth and see ourselves as we really are, sons of God, united in a brotherhood with all mankind, wherein there is neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, where all are one in Christhood.

Nevermore can we be evil any more than we can be good; nevermore can we be sick any more than we can be well; nevermore can we be dead any more than we can be alive. Henceforth we are the sons of God, the offspring of God, God Himself incarnated as individual being, God Himself made manifest.

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