"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

"A Parenthesis in Eternity" pdf file

Chapter 30 - God Made This World for Men and Women

Man is a prisoner of his mind. He is locked up inside his mind just as a little chick is locked up inside the egg. If it could look around inside the shell, it would see only darkness; it might even feel a sense of hunger and find no food there, and certainly, above all tilings, no companionship. In this lone, tightly locked up shell, that little chick must wonder what it has to live for. There is nothing for it to be happy about, but on the other hand, there is also nothing to be unhappy about: it has never known the world so it does not know what it is missing. All it knows is what it is experiencing while locked up inside the shell, and yet it does not even know that it is locked up inside its shell.

As far as the chick is concerned, it might stay on there forever, living in that darkness. It might even find enough food in the shell to keep it alive. It would not really be living: it would be existing, and of itself it could no nothing about it. There it is, and it looks as if there it is doomed to be. But fortunately for these little chicks, there is something beyond themselves, there is something that causes a chick to peck at the shell, and to keep pecking and pecking at it until it breaks a hole in it and sees some light.

Imagine what goes on in a little chick's mind when it begins to catch a ray of light from outside, and realizes that there is something out there that it has not seen, something it has not felt, some place it has not been. It keeps pecking away, and pecking away. It knows nothing about an outside world; it has no desire to get out; and probably left to itself, it would be satisfied with the comfort of the shell in which it is enfolded; but there is a something that eventually compels the chick to break open that shell and come outside, and find a great big world in which to go looking for food, and other chicks with which to play.

In the first six hours that that chick is out of the shell, it will find more new and interesting things than would a child at the foot of a Christmas tree on Christmas Day. It is now no longer restricted, no longer bound, but is able to look out into the world and see, hear, feel, and experience countless things in a great new world.

Is not the force of nature that pushes the chick out of its shell the same force that urges and pushes the unborn child forward and out of its mother's womb? It, too, knows nothing of the great outside world, and all it leams from the moment of birth is gained from its parents, teachers, environment, and experience. Knowledge from these sources comes through conditioned minds, and enters a mind conditioned by these factors. All that most people know about what is going on in this world is known through the limitations of a conditioned mind. They are living a restricted and limited life: they do not know the limitless possibilities of their own being. They are living in a shell that we call the skull, thinking only their own thoughts, believing only their own concepts, and accepting their own limitations.

It is a stultifying world in which to live, this world of one's mind, because that mind knows nothing beyond its own limitations. It knows nothing except what it has experienced, or what somebody else who may have a very limited concept of the world has told it, and so it accepts every kind of belief that is given to it, every law of limitation, finally settling down on a little plot of ground about thirty by sixty and calling it home, considering itself lucky even to have that much.

Most persons are on a treadmill: they eat, drink, and sleep; they have families; they are living a life of limitation, locked up in their minds. In a few, something stirs inside the mind and makes them wonder: Is there something beyond this that I know? Is there something bevond this that I am seeing with my eyes, or hearing with my ears, or thinking with my mind?

Let us take the blinkers off our eyes and really begin to see the trees, plants, and other forms of life on this planet, picture the vastness of the ocean stretching out to the horizon, look up at some of the towering mountains of this world, and see the world beyond the mountains, beyond the seas, and watch the moon shining on the ocean with its cool beauty, lighting up the mountains, showing us something of the vastness of the Infinite; observe the millions of stars up in the sky, each one a world, each one telling its own story of light, of fire, of its reason for being where it is, and of that which caused it to be. Why are they there? What are they doing there? What purpose do they serve?

Suppose that there were no men or women on earth? To what purpose would all of this be? To what purpose would there be a sun, a moon, and stars; those gigantic trees of all kinds; plants, flowers, vegetables, fruits; diamonds in the ground and peai.s in the sea; if there were not men and women, if there were not what we know as human life on earth, which is not human life at all but divine?

Once we begin to peck our way through the shell of the human mind and look outside, we find that all of this glory is there for you and for me. God has created an illimitable universe, not only for birds to fly in the atmosphere and fish to swim in the water, but that man should travel, own, and enjoy it—not own it in a sense of having title to a little piece of land, but own it in the sense of being a part of its beauty and magnificence. If we think in terms of owning even a square mile of land, we must see how small that is in comparison to the vastness of the world. But when we can look down on the panorama that stretches out before us and realize that God made this for our enjoyment, the wonder of this universe surges through us.

Nobody can buy an ocean, and nobody can buy a large enough piece of land to feel that he possesses very much of this earth. If only we lift the restrictions imposed upon us by the mind, and, instead of seeing our own man-made limitations, mind-made limitations, come out of this ironclad skull and live, not exist by circumscribing our lives to eating three meals a day, having a place to sleep, or a family to enjoy, we will begin to see that a universe such as we have here must have been created by nothing less than what we call God.

To create a universe such as this must have taken the wisdom of an infinite Intelligence, of a divine Love—a great love—but a love for what or whom? It must have been a love for us that all this has been given us to enjoy, not to own or possess, but to enjoy, to be grateful that there is a God, a Something, a Spirit that has created this great universe and then set us down in it.

If we compress ourselves inside our skull, we have no more vision than the chick that is inside its shell. That is the limit of its world, and this skull will be the limit of our world if we permit the petty little thoughts that crowd in upon us, the little room, the little town, or the big city where we live to shut out the grandeur round about us. If we let these "little foxes . . . spoil the vines," we are unable to open our minds to an awareness of the divine qualities that exist throughout this world, the qualities that exist as the love of men and women, not only family love, but the love that is the cement of relationships on a world-wide scale, and on a personal as well as an impersonal scale. It is a love that is not limited to the few people who are around us: it is a sharing of the love of people throughout the world.

How can we be aware of the people in this world? There is only one way. We have to peck that shell open; we have to break through the limitations of this mind that tries to tell us that there are only the people and the territory around us, and we have to open our vision until we are aware of the sun, moon, and stars, the oceans and mountains, and then before we know it, as our vision grows wider and wider and wider, we discover that there are lands and countries across the sea filled with people. We may not have seen them with our eyes, but when we stop this limited thinking, based only on what we know, we open ourselves to what God knows, the God that placed us here and that placed all of this here for us; and the God within us reveals that there is something beyond our immediate environment: there are people beyond, there are joys, glories, and experiences beyond this present one.

It is not necessary to travel the world to experience this expansion of consciousness. Once we have opened our consciousness to the tremendous universe about us, it begins to come to us. It comes in books, in visitors, in new experiences; and it comes in interior revelations. We would never have to leave our own environment, and yet this whole universe could be brought right to our doorsteps. In one way or another, we can enjoy art, literature, sciences, inventions, and discoveries, as well as people because there are always people traveling from country to country so that the joy of meeting them would be ours—but only if we have broken through the limitations of the mind so that we are not anchored to this finite sense that tells us we are restricted to the room in which we are sitting.

If it could consciously think, the chick would call the shell in which it lives its world, but then, when it is out, roaming around its barnyard, it unconsciously goes a step further and thinks that this new environment is its world. That may forever be the limit of the world of the chick, but to us it is not. We are never confined to time or space because we are not locked up in our skull: we are not even locked up in our body. There is something that acts as a force to drive us to look out, to look up, to look around. We would not do it but something within us is nudging, pushing, and compelling us to look around until we become aware of this immensity all around us, of the beauty, harmony, joy, and companionship, of the past, the present, and the future.

Simultaneously with this increased awareness comes introspection leading to Soul-searching questions: Why am I on earth? Am I really living, or am I only existing from one day to another? Is my life just a round of going from home to office, or from home to the market place? Docs my life consist of going from one meal to the next, from one night's sleep to the next? Am 1 really living? Am I a part of this world? Was this world meant for me? Was I born to I've in a tinv corner of the world, or was this whole world created and given to me? Is not the earth mine? Are not the heavens mine? Are we less than Abraham? And did not God say to him, "For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever"?

The higher we climb in an airplane, the further we see; the higher we rise in consciousness, the wider and broader will be our vision. Soon we will realize that we are not here. We are not here even on this limited piece of ground. We have broken through the limitations of the skull; we are no longer tied up inside of a skull bone; we are not even limited to this body: we are I.

Now, as we look up and see ten thousand square miles of sky, ten thousand square miles of ocean, and the people of all nations, of every quality and quantity, all of a sudden we find that we are I. We are out of the shell, out of the skull on a mountaintop of vision, and we hear: "All that you can see is yours." See? Not with our eyes! All that we can apprehend, all that we can comprehend, all that we can discern. Anything that we can envision is ours!

This world was created for us. The whole earth, the times and the tides, are ours. We are heirs to this universe, joint-heirs. We do not want title to it, any more than we want title to a two-million-dollar painting. It is enough to be given the privilege of going into an art museum, filling our Souls, our eyes, and our minds with its beauty, and then in the quietness of our homes, reliving the wonder of that painting. Our enjoyment of it may be far greater than that of the man who paid his two million dollars for it, for he may be too much aware of its dollar value and his sense of possession. In that sense of possession he is locked up in his pocketbook. To be confined to a pocketbook — even a big one — is a dark place to be locked up in, a strong prison.

But what freedom comes when this that is within us forces us to go higher and higher in vision, breaking bit by bit out of the skull, and more and more realizing the nature of our true identity as I, the offspring of God, the heir of God, joint-heir! There are no limitations then to our inheritance, no limitations to our vision, no limitations to what we can possess. The whole earth is ours, and the sun, the moon, and the stars. How much more could we have if we had legal title to them? We would still have to leave them where they are for everybody who did not have title to them to enjoy.

This that pushes the chick out of the shell, this is pushing us out of the shell, out of this limited skull, forcing us to push those skull bones away so that we can be free, and be the I that we are. When we do this, we realize that wherever we look we are meeting our brothers and sisters, wherever we look we are seeing our mother and father or our children — everywhere, everywhere. Even the birds, the dogs, and the cats come running up to show that they sense that they have been recognized by their brother, and they, too, see their brother and know as they are known. The vision through which we see is the vision that is given back to us.

There is no limitation, and now we know that there is not even the limitation of time. We are not even limited to the century in which we live. There, too, is another example of how being locked up in those skull bones makes us believe that our life is being lived only in this twentieth century. That is such a small part of our life. Our life really encompasses all the past and the present, and all of the future that we can climb high enough to envision. If only we climb high enough in our spiritual vision, we can know this whole world for generations to come. It is all here to be seen; it is all here to be experienced.

Nothing new is going to be created tomorrow, not a thing; all that was is now, all that ever will be is now; but we have to ascend to the mountaintop of vision to behold it, and we arrive at that mountaintop when we have broken through all limitations and know, "I am I, the son of God, heir of God, joint-heir to all the heavenly riches." Then we walk out on the street, by the sea, up the mountain, or go flying through the air with no sense of personal possession, just a sense of enjoyment of all there is because it is free.

In the early years of my work, a very prosperous and successful businessman came to me for help. He was an extremely busy man and claimed that he had no time or money for any kind of relaxation or recreation. Morning, noon, and night were spent taking care of his possessions. As he studied with me, I would say to him, "Let's take this weekend off."

"Oh no, I can't do that. No, I have to take care of my business."

"Oh, come, let's enjoy ourselves for a few hours!"

"No, no; I have appointments."

"What are you going to do with all this money? After all, at the rate you are going, you will probably drop dead before you get a vacation to spend it on." So it was that out of the Spirit it came, "Let's look around here, and see if we can't find some things to enjoy that don't cost any money. Let's go over to Central Park, stand around the lakes, and watch the children with their little boats, and the birds in the bird sanctuary."

So we went to Central Park; another time we sunned ourselves on a roof garden; and yet another time we attended a concert. It was not long before he began to say, "You know, the best things in life really are free." And they are, if we can free ourselves. The world is free, but we are not free.

It is because we are not free that we bind everything with a price tag. Originally, the most worthwhile things in life never had price tags on them: it is we who placed these on them. God has never put a price tag on time, space, or place. God has never put a price on mountains, lakes, or oceans, and it is only when we are locked up in this skull that we are bound by the limitations that the human mind has placed on such things.

Come out, break through the limitations of your mind, and do not believe the signs that you see. Work more with yourself; realize who you are. There is no more rewarding experience than to take a day off for walking where you can see mountains, lakes, or the sea, and if you do not live where these are, you can always look up at the sun, moon, and stars, at the flowers and trees. All of this was made for the upliftment of our Soul, for the fulfillment of our lives. They were given to us so that we might have beauty in our lives, not the kind we must pay for, but the beauty that is already present by virtue of the fact that God made it before He made man, and then He made man to enjoy it. God placed food in the ground and trees in the earth; He formed the mountains, the lakes, the seas, the rivers and streams, and He did it for us; but it is we who put the beauty and the value into these. Everything in this universe is translated into its true worth by our inner awareness.

Men and women are prisoners of their minds, and they see only the limitations of their own thinking until they begin to break through its barrier and look out at this world, and in observing the grandeur of the universe, then realize, "It is all here for me. See what God has done for me, to give me this universe to live in and all this beauh' to enjoy."

Parents work a lifetime accumulating an estate so that they can have the joy of leaving a munificent legacy to their children. How much greater God's love must be that He has stored up the secrets of mathematics, science, art, literature, music, and all the great wisdoms of the world for us, His sons and daughters! Why then do we go around bemoaning our fate, fearing some insignificant little event or condition, with the great fear of death lurking always in the background, as if death could make any difference in our relationship with God? Neither life nor death can separate us from the love of God; neither life nor death can take from us that which God has stored up for us—and God has stored up this whole universe.

Is it not sinful to believe that God stored it up for some particular person, family, country, or race? Would we not have to be locked up within the confines of a skull to believe that what God has done is for some one person or group of persons? It is not for some special person or group: it is for everybody capable of accepting it, when lie can break through this limitation and realize: "I am I; I am the offspring of God; I call no man on earth my father. There is but One, He that created me in His own image and likeness and made me heir to His whole creation."

If we keep living within the confines of our mind, we are like the chick in the shell, and will never be able to encompass the limitless heritage that Abraham was given: "Look, look out! As far as your eyes can see, I am giving to you." How far can our eyes see, not our physical eyes, but the eyes that look out from the mountaintop of spiritual vision? How high can we rise in consciousness to realize we are not another kind of chick in a shell, not a man locked up in a skull? Let us break open that shell, stop thinking in terms of finite personalities, come out, and realize, "I am I."

When we are on this mount of vision, we can look down and see into the mind, see the nasty little scrawny things that make us do the things we do—the limiting things, the evil, selfish, and jealous things. We see these dark places in our mind, and longingly wish, "Oh, if I could only break open that shell and come out and realize that I am I, and that there is no reason for me to act this way, no reason to do this because I am an heir of God." Then when we have grown sufficiently beyond and above our little "I"-self, we can look out and not be jealous of another's success, but rejoice that another soul has opened itself to the vision of its true identity, and come into its heritage.

Only from the spiritual heights can we see that the earth is not matter, and that it cannot be divided up into building lots. It makes no difference if we are on a small island or a great big continent, we are subject to limitation as long as we are living in that skull bone called "me." There are persons who are gloriously free, persons who have never traveled beyond their small community, but through their vision they have brought the wealth of the world and the people of the world to them.

We do not live in time or space: we live in consciousness. We can live as big as our consciousness can be, or as small as what can be compressed between the bones of the skull, as if all that is taking place in there is the world. The less time we spend in our limited sense of mind, the better off we will be.

When we go into meditation, we are not living in the mind with our thoughts: we are living in a receptivity to Infinity. That is why we do not think our own thoughts in meditation; that is why we do not restrict ourselves to what we know; we do not just declare what we think, or believe, or what our concept is. When we tum within in meditation, it is to realize that the kingdom of God, the Kingdom of this whole universe, is within. So our chest expands to include the whole of God's universe, and now we can look into that silence and darkness and experience His whole wisdom coming to us, His whole love, His whole life, His whole companionship flowing forth, because now our consciousness is as big as the universe: it is holding the whole universe inside of it.

If we think in terms of our education or lack of it, we are bound up in finiteness because no one person could store up enough knowledge out of books so that it would be equal to one grain of God's wisdom. We have to go beyond all that we know or think we know, all that we have learned or think we have learned. We have to go beyond that to the infinite Unknown, and until we reach into the infinite Unknown, we do not have the limitlessness of God's kingdom. The wisdom of God can reveal itself to any individual in the world today just as it did to those ancients to whom the laws of mathematics and engineering were first revealed, the laws that made possible the pyramids, the great temples, and Caesar's roads that are still being used in Italy and in England, roads that have stood for thousands of years.

The architectural wonders of a bygone world that are unequaled and still stand as marvels today were possible to men because they had access to the Wisdom behind the wisdom of man. The only way in which they could have accomplished these miraculous things was to go back in consciousness into the infinite Unknown, and let It declare Itself. Just as the great music, art, literature, and science must come through contact with the Source, so must the secrets of the universe that are being unlocked to us today be tapped through contact with that same Source.

Why are these great things being revealed to us today? Are they not being revealed because man is an heir of God and entitled to all that the Father has — all the joy, all the abundance, all the infinity, all the life, all the love, and all the wisdom? Man is entitled to every bit of it, and it is being revealed unto him for his use, his joy, his beauty, that his life may be one of Grace and peace. When this is understood, we can then take the next step and realize, "I am that man; I am that being for whom all of this has been created."

To each of us will come whatever fulfills his nature. To me, the principles of mathematics and science will not come because that would not fulfill my particular nature. To me come the secrets of the spiritual universe and of the Soul of men who have lived throughout all the ages because that fulfills me. In that, I find my joy and niy companionship; in that, I can tabernacle. But then there are others to whom will come the mathematics, the chemistry, the arts and sciences because these wrill fulfill their nature.

God is infinite, and we are infinite in being. There is an infinity of nature on earth, and each one of us has some part in that nature as which we are to be fulfilled. It is all here for us, and we are so great in God's eyes that He has stored it up for us, that we may know infinite and boundless good.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. . . .
Psalm 8:3-6

The greatest thing on earth is men and women. In them we find fulfillment; in them we find God's Soul, full of life, full of love, full of joy, full of peace. We can enjoy the magnificence of this universe— its mountains, lakes, oceans, stars, sun, and moon; we can enjoy good food, comfortable homes, and wholesome recreation, but none of these constitutes our real joy. We know real joy only in men and women because in them we find the whole of God revealed. The whole of God is stored up in us, and all this world is really an instrument, a playground of joy, a place of inspiration made for our fulfillment.

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