"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

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Chapter 25 - Losing "I"-ness in I

There are very few persons in all the world who are really interested in living spiritually or in attaining the spiritual goal, and certainly there are even fewer who have any conception of what it means to "die daily" and be reborn of the Spirit. Many must inevitably fall by the wayside, but those few who understand that true greatness, true wisdom, and true success lie in the very opposite direction from that of glorifying the self or pushing forward the personality, and who remain and persist, will reach the highest degree of spiritual consciousness, spiritual awareness, and spiritual unfoldment.

To submerge the personality and make it subservient to that which is greater than itself is well-nigh impossible for most persons and gives rise to inner conflicts which may deflect them from the path leading to the goal. Through meditation and the practice of the Presence, however, the mind is stilled, and an awareness of this Something greater than themselves is developed. Eventually, a state of complete quiescence in which there is no thinking or planning is reached, and the human will yields to the divine will.

This surrender of the human will to the Divine can be more readily understood if we use the analogy of a cube of ice floating in a glass of water. The ice rests in the water, cradled in it: it has no power to move itself. Only the water can propel it from one place to another. The ice itself is inert, immobile, passive, its every motion dependent upon the movement of the water. Let us think of ourselves as the ice, and of Consciousness as the water, while we wait in silence and stillness for the movement of Consciousness. In other words, we must wait patiently for the will of God to make itself known; we must be as completely quiescent as the piece of ice.

Such a state can be achieved only when all desire has been surrendered because desire nourishes the personal sense of "I"-ness. As long as there is a desire, there is a projection into the future; as long as there is a regret, there is a return to the past, both of which are dead, without substance and without life. Yesterday and tomorrow, therefore, must be discarded in nowness. Now is the only life; now is the only reality; now is the only time.

There can be no desire, not even the desire to give, for that, too, feeds the sense of "I"-ness and bloats the ego. There must be a complete resting, as the ice rests in the water, or as the sap flows up from the roots of the trees into the branches to form the buds, flowers, and leaves of the tree. The ice has no concern or worry: it lets the water move it where it will. The tree has no concern or worry about whether there will be enough rain or sun in due season: it waits patiently; it does not try to interfere with the normal and natural flow of life.

So, too, we must not interfere with the free flowing of life by injecting "I"-ness into the already completed picture, an "I"-ness which manifests as fear of the past or dread of the future: concern, anxiety, desire.

The difference between living the life of "I"-ness and the spiritual life is the difference between permanent success and some temporary sense of success. The "I-me-mv" life is limited and hampered by that very "I"-ness which is dependent upon personal experience, education, the personal sense of what is right or wrong, or on what is timely. In the degree, however, that we can relax in an inner silence, quiet, and peace, we can be led of the Spirit, influenced by an infinite Wisdom, an infinite Intelligence, and an infinite Power. Then our actions really become the carrying out of the divine will, not our will. This ability to be still and to let divine Grace move us leads to a Godgoverned, God-directed, and God-impelled life.

At first it may not be easy to make the transition from the ordinary "I"-life to the life of spiritual guidance and protection, but actually it takes only a few months of meditation and really serious practice of the Presence to come to a place where we can accept divine guidance, the divine will, and divine movement.

To begin with, the retiring into a quiet state should not be of more than two or three minutes' duration at the most—probably only one or one and a half minutes would be better—but this should be repeated as many times in the day as possible, and it should be repeated at night any and every time that one may awaken from sleep, and then again early in the morning. If we make a habit of turning within, even for that one minute, we are preparing our consciousness foi the experience of receiving divine Grace.

Living as human beings has cut us off from the kingdom of God which is within us, and what we are doing in our periods of silence and quiet is maintaining a contact with this Withinness in which our entire good is already established. The kingdom of God is within us. It is within us in all Its fullness, completeness, and perfection. This means that the fullness of life, its completeness and perfection, is already established within us from everlasting to everlasting. If we were to live a thousand years on earth, our completeness for that length of time is within us: fulfillment, infinite supply, infinite wisdom, infinite Grace—Infinity Itself. It remains for us to open out a way for this Infinity to escape and find expression.

But how do we open the way for infinite wisdom, eternal life, and divine love to flow out from us? First of all, we must begin to acknowledge that Infinity is, and if we acknowledge that It already is, and is within us, we should give up all attempts to get or achieve anything from outside ourselves. Instead, we should center our attention on letting It escape from within our own being. Then, every time that we close our eyes, even if it is only for fifteen seconds, it is to acknowledge:

The kingdom of God is within me. Lord, let It flow forth into expression.

After that moment of acknowledgment, we return to our work, whatever its nature, and are active in what we have been given to do today. We take no thought about tomorrow, All we are called upon to do is to live in this moment, and. to live in the assurance that the full Christhood, the fullness of spiritual being, is established within us.

This is making a transition from the human sense of life in which we look to others for our good to the spiritual life in which we look within ourselves, and let God's grace flow out from us.

No one can expect or be expected to prove this beyond the capacity he has attained: no one should try to walk on the waters until he has been given an inner assurance that he may attempt it. If the still small voice tells him to take a step which at the moment he cannot humanly see as right, it should be taken only after the contact within is so certain that there can be no question but that the Voice, and not the human will or desire, has spoken. When the Voice speaks, It never leaves a person with the responsibility of doing something alone through his human strength and wisdom, but It is always beside him, performing that which It gives him to do.

In the early stages it may appear that this frequent turning within is not producing any fruitage, and that is why so many persons lose heart and give up. It is like the hundreds of people who have taken piano lessons and who today would be able to play quite acceptably had they only had enough perseverance to continue practicing the scales and exercises which would have developed proficiency in the art; but instead they became discouraged and lost interest when, in a comparatively short time, they found that they could not perform with the facility of a concert pianist. So also, in the spiritual life when results do not come quickly, some of us stop making an effort.

The spiritual life differs so completely from human experience that when we embark on this course, we are really setting out on uncharted seas, not that others have not been there before us, but the log of someone else's journey does not always point the way for us. We have to have the patience to move forward slowly, yet with steadfast purpose. Above all things, from this moment on, we must never accept any sense of limitation, we must never feel that any good is beyond our capacity or reach, or that any heights are too high to attain, for there are no limits to the I which we are, after we have made contact with It.

In proportion as we understand that we are one with the Father, in that proportion do we understand that all that the Father has is ours: the mind of God is ours, the life of God is our life, the Soul of God is our Soul. There is only one Spirit, one Life, one Soul—and that is yours and mine.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26

That dominion was not given us as something of ourselves, but by virtue of the I that we are, the I that is within us, the I that constitutes our individual being. That is why we can rest as if we were a piece of ice floating in the water, and let the water move us, let the water be the substance of our being, its activity, quality, and quantity.

The substance of the water and the substance of the ice are the same, H20, and all that is true of the water is true of the ice. Whatever qualities water has, ice has. These are not two separate substances, these are not two separate qualities: ice and water are one — two different forms, yes, but they are one in essence, one in substance, and one in quality. The ice does not turn to the water for anything that the ice does not already have, but its movement is dependent upon the activity of the water.

That same relationship exists between man and God. It is true that God is invisible to human sight, but nevertheless God is the substance of which man is formed and the substance as which he lives and moves and has his being. The qualities of God are the qualities of man, and yet God is always the greater, for God is the creator, the law, and the activity of man.

To understand this makes it clear that in our spiritual identity all that God is, we are. There is no need, therefore, to turn to God for something: there is the need only to recognize this relationship of oneness, and then create within ourselves a vacuum, so that we can realize:

My being is constituted of the quality, the substance, and the essence of God; and it is the law of God that governs, guides, directs. and instructs me.

The nature of our being is the same as the nature of God-being, for we are one. Relaxing in that oneness, we permit the Invisible to govern, uphold, sustain, move, feed, clothe, house, direct, and instruct us. This is different from thinking of ourselves as something separate and apart from God, having to ask God or attempting to influence Him: this is the difference between successful spiritual living and unsuccessful living of any type.

God's grace governs us. God's grace is our sufficiency, but that Grace is not brought into our experience by praying to God in the sense of asking, pleading, or seeking for it. Rather does it come by relaxing into an atmosphere of receptivity.

At this very moment let us turn from the human picture which is presenting itself to us and realize that we live and move and have our being in God. Wherever we are, let us relax in the Invisible. We cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell It, but through faith, through an inner conviction, we can understand that the place whereon we stand is holy ground, that where the I of us is, God is, that the kingdom of God is within us, right where we are, and then, feeling that, relax.

The God that made and formed this universe is certainly capable of maintaining and sustaining your identity and mine unto eternity. Then why not let God's intelligence move us as It will—feed, clothe, house, direct, resurrect, restore the lost years of the locust, and return us to the Father's house—let His will be done in us without any idea at all of its being necessary to tell Him what we need, or what we would like, without any idea at all of advising God as to what we should have, or what we think we should have, or even what we would like to have?

Let us acknowledge God as infinite Intelligence and divine Love and be satisfied with that:

I am satisfied to be what You want me to be, to do what You want me to do, to be where You want me to be.

I live and move and have my being in Your consciousness. You are closer to me than breathing; You know my needs before I do. It is Your good pleasure to give me the kingdom, and I can rest and relax in You.

We must relax in His consciousness; we must Telax in His Spirit, His wisdom, His judgment, and His will. A person who does that is developing a healing and redeeming consciousness because he is not seeking a God-power; he is not acknowledging a power that has to be overcome: he is living in God-power. That is going back to the fullness of mysticism in which we leam that evil has no existence at all except in the mind that believes in good and evil.

The healing consciousness comes only to those who arrive at a state of consciousness in which they can live consciously at-one with God, in full and complete confidence that God is infinite, needing no help from anyone. In this God-consciousness there is nothing for God to battle, nothing for God to overcome.

The mystical life rests on the premise that in the presence of spiritual consciousness neither material nor mental power is power. That is the healing consciousness, and in its presence human power of every kind dissolves. All spiritually illumined individuals are in agreement that they know nothing of the nature of any power with which to overcome sin, disease, lack, or inharmonious human relationships, but they also testify that in proportion to their attainment of an inner stillness, without any sense of needing a power, the discords evaporate.

The realization that God is the one infinite all-poweT and that neither material nor mental power is power is what constitutes spiritual consciousness. Spiritual consciousness is not something mysterious: it is not a consciousness of might, power, or human effort, but the consciousness of My Spirit. Spiritual consciousness acknowledges that God alone is power; it is a consciousncss that is not divided, a consciousness that sees with a single eye, and sees but one Power, one Presence, one Being, one Cause.

Spiritual consciousness is our individual consciousness when we no longer give power to physical force or mental force, but understand God as the only Force, and then live the command of Jesus Christ, "Resist not evil." We do not consciously direct spiritual consciousness: it performs its function in us and through us, and we merely become aware of what it is imparting to us.

For example, our hand, of itself, cannot go up and it cannot go down; it cannot give and it cannot withhold. We must move the hand. We must direct it. If we are living on the physical or mental level, then we can do this for good or for evil; but if we have attained even a measure of the consciousness that God alone is power, then the hand is moved, not by us personally, but by the divine I that we are, and never for evil, never for destruction, never for harm. We are not consciously moving it: we are letting it be moved by the Consciousness which is God, the Consciousness that we are.

This is true also of our body: we can move it where, when, and how we want to, and we can move it for good or evil. The choice lies within us. But in proportion as we come to the realization that God is the only consciousness, we will find that our body is being moved. We are not consciously moving it: it is being moved, but never toward sin, never toward disease or old age, and never toward death. It is being moved in accord with the grace of God, and when the time comes to pass from this human scene for greater experiences, it will be a passing, not a pushing out.

God is the one and only infinite consciousness, the all good. My consciousness, and everything within the realm of my consciousness is God-governed, God-maintained, God-sustained, God-fed. God, divine Consciousness, is the substance of all form: there is no evil form, there is no destructive form, no harmful form, no injurious form, for God is the substance of all form.

All form is of the name and nature of God. All form is of the quality and activity of God, and exists under the law of God. As we understand God to be the substance of all form, in the clarity of our inner vision, we will know that there can be no destructive form, no injurious or harmful form. We do not deny that there are germs, but we know that a germ cannot be injurious or destructive in the realization of one Power, one Intelligence, one Love, and one Life.

Regardless of the name or nature of the problem which is brought to our awareness, we have to begin with the truth that God is one— one Presence, one Being, one Power—and all that God is, we are. God-consciousness is our consciousness, and nothing can enter that consciousness which "defileth . . . or maketh a lie." In this truth of oneness, of one Being, one Presence, one Power, there are no opposing powers.

When we rest in that truth, it picks us up and transforms the mind, the body, and all that is called our life or outer experience, which is not really an outer experience at all but an experience that is taking place within us, in that inner world that is the only world there is.

This consciousness of truth, which is attained through meditation, becomes the illumined consciousness. We may have a realization about one facet of truth, and we may bring forth mighty works with that, but let us never believe, when we have had a realization of truth, even to the extent of illumination, that we have gone the full distance. We have only started on the Path. Afterward, there come realizations of other truths, more and deeper realizations, and actually this goes on forever, and as far as I know, it never ends. This must be so because of the infinite nature of God.

God is forever imparting Itself to us, infinitely. The beginning of wisdom is the understanding that all that we are seeking is already established within us, and that we are seeking only to bring it forth from within our own being. This will prevent us from worshiping something or someone outside our own being. As we realize the nature of the I within us, fear will lessen and eventually fade away because then we will neither fear nor worship anything or anybody external to us.

In the brief periods of meditation which we should experience as many times a day as possible, our first thought must be:

God made this day, perfected it and decreed its activity. His wUl is done in me today.

Even if we have time for nothing else, we will have made a contact with the Presence and prepared the way for the infinite glory of God to express as us. In that short meditation, we have acknowledged the presence, the power, the life, the wisdom, the perfection, and the protection of God. We have fulfilled Scripture by denying ourselves as if we of ourselves were anything, and we have made ourselves receptive and responsive to the spiritual influence in the realization that we alone do not live our life, but that Christ lives our life.

There are not too many persons who are at this moment fulfilling their spiritual purpose and activity, or even any activity which approximates it. They therefore must do whatever is given them to do today and let the future take care of itself by acknowledging God todav, even while scrubbing the floor or preparing a meal. Acknowledging God in these activities that seem so far removed from a spiritual activity brings God into actual expression, and leads them from one activity to another, and another, and another, until they are being fulfilled spiritually.

Wherever we may be today, in a prison, in a hospital, or in a mental institution, in the most luxurious home or the most povertystricken one, we disregard the appearance.

What the appearance is has nothing to do with our oneness with the Father; what the condition of the person may be has nothing to do with it; whether we are sick or well, living or dead has nothing to do with that realization of oneness, and cannot alter it. Those conditions are the appearance, but the I of us is picking us up where we are at this moment, and from now on, I in the midst of us will lead, direct, govern, feed, clothe, and house us.

To attempt to leave the place where we are now through human means and while in the same state of consciousness would serve no purpose because without a higher consciousness of truth we would eventually return to the same place where we are at this moment. As we abide in the truth that I in the midst of us is one with God, our consciousness becomes enriched, deepened, broadened, and filled with spiritual truth. Gradually — sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly — truth comes alive in us, and as this truth which we are fills our consciousness, it literally appears outwardly as greater harmony in our experience.

We must live and move and have our being in the consciousness that we are one with the Father, and that all that He has is ours here and now, where we are. As we continue to disregard the appearances, not trying to change or improve them, but standing fast where we are, we let the Spirit move us as we are prepared for It.

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