"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

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Chapter 4 - The Journey Within

The person who is one with God is merely the transparency through which God is living Its life : he does not have a life of his own, a mind of his own, or even a body of his own. His body is the temple of God, and his mind is the instrument of God, the mind which was also in Christ Jesus. That mind can be attained only in silence, not with words or with thoughts, although words and thoughts may be used as a preliminary step in what we know as meditation, which plays a vitally important part in the development of our spiritual life.

Without the practice of meditation, a spiritual teaching, whether pursued under the guidance of a personal teacher or through the study of books, descends to a purely mental exercise. Spiritual unfoldment cannot corne that way. It is meditation that makes a teaching come alive, because meditation is the connecting link between our outer life and our inner Self, which is God.

It is true that in the first stage of our spiritual life the only way we can fill our consciousness with truth is through the mind. That is why in The Infinite Way we do not seek to stop the operation of the mind; we never tell anyone to stop thinking, to make any effort to stop thought, or to try to destroy the th inking mind becau se the mind is the gateway through which truth finds entrance to our consciousness. The mind is the instrument through which we can become aware of the spiritual wisdom of the ages-Scripture and spiritual literature and teachings. It is through the mind that we discipline the body and that we seek to discipline our thoughts; it is the mind that keeps itself stayed on God; it is with the mind that we think spiritual thoughts; it is with the mind that we ponder the deep things of the Spirit.

This pondering, these thoughts and words, we call contemplative meditation. The words may be spoken or they may be thought, but they are only a step leading to meditation itself. Since it is almost impossible for most of us to keep thoughts from swirling about in the mind and since it is difficult to bring about a complete cessation of thought, the practice of contemplative meditation helps us reach a state of consciousness in which we find ourselves ultimately in a complete silence. A weight goes off the shoulders, and perhaps ' for ten, twenty, or thirty seconds we are so still that not a single thought intrudes. That stillness at best, however, is a very brief period, but regardless of how brief it is, in those few seconds we have attained our contact with God, and that is all that is necessary for that moment. Then we resume our conscious thinking and are ready to go about our business.

When we sit down to meditate, we must seek to hear only the word of God, desire only the feeling of God's presence, only the re-establishment of ourselves with our inner Source, and nothing beyond that. Then, when we feel the assurance of the Presence, our meditation is complete: the Word becomes flesh, and the Spirit felt within us becomes tangible as individual experience.

It is when we think we know what things we have need of that we are making our greatest mistake because we are measuring our needs in terms of our previous or present experience, and are looking upon life as a continuation of our past, the same, monotonous, dull way of existence, except with possibly the addition of a little more health or money; whereas, when the Spirit of God takes over in our consciousness, It fulfills Itself at Its own level. That fulfillment may carry US off into a new country or into a new activity--business, artistic, professional, or social-because we have no way humanly of knowing the will of God any more than we know the ways of God. But God's will can work through us if we surrender ourselves and realize:

Thy grace is my sufficiency in all th ings. I take no thought for the form in which that Grace should appear; I take no thought as to how Thy will should work in me, or Thy ways. I seek only Thy grace.

I am content to relax in the assurance that Thou art omniscience, all-knowing intelligence, divine, infinite, all-love, and I can trust myself more to the infinite Intelligence that governs th is universe than I can to my own judgment as to what I need, or what I would like to do, or how I would like to live. Certainly, I can trust myself more to the care of divine Love than I can to my own finite sense of love which is not even as a grain of sand in comparison with th e nature of that Love which is God.

With each meditation there must be th is surrender of ourselves to the Spirit within, together with a realization that God's grace is our sufficiency and that we are in meditation for the express purpose of receiving the comfort of His presence. Nothing greater can come to us than the still small voice of assurance because then we know that all of Infinity is pouring Itself out for us, all of Omnipotence, and in that there can be no power apart from God.

Once we know the nature of God, even in a measure, doubt and fear seldom enter our consciousness because to know the nature of God means to realize Omnipresence: God, here where we are nowhereness, nowness. Knowing that, we relax in it, and we have nothing more to do than to let there be light: let there be light in our life, let there be love, let there be health, strength, and abundance, just let. We do not try to make it so because, understanding the nature of God, we know that it is God's will to provide all good.

My customary method of entering contemplative meditation is to open my ears for a second for a subject to be given me, and if it does not come quickly, then I take th e word God. In my firs t meditation early in th e morning before I am out of bed, I attempt to align myself with the presence and power of God so that my day will be God-governed, and not man-governed: a day of spiritual fulfillment, not one filled with accidents, limitations, mistakes, and human judgment. And so th e contemplative part of the meditation might follow some such pattern as this:

"This is the day which the Lord hath made." God made the sun to shine today, giving us its light and warmth; God has provided the rain and th e snow in their due seasons; God has regulated the incoming and outgoing of the tides. God has provided periods for sowing and for reaping, for activity and for rest. God governs this world with infinite wisdom, intelligence, and patience.

This day I am God-governed. God is the intelligence directing the activity of my day, the still small voice protecting and sustaining me.

This is my prayer--that I be God-governed, that I never forget to seek God every moment of the day. I pray that I may never forget to thank God for my daily bread, never forget to realize God as the Source of all, and that I am never unmindful of th e limitless abundance of suppl y which God expresses through me to all those who come withi n range of my consciousness.

God's grace is with me throughout this day, and His presence goes before me and walks beside me. In this Presence there is harmony and ful fillment because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom from any and every limitation.

Then, having established myself in this meditation of words and thoughts, I can now enter the true meditation or communion in which I invite God, "'Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. . . . Thy will be done'--not mine." After a short period of listening, of inner communion, stillness, quietness, and peace, the awareness of the Presence is with me. And now I am free to go about my day's work.

The stress of the day, however, and the mesmerism of the world's animosity, jealou sy, and intrigue ha ve a tendency to enter my consciousness as well as yours, and with these come disturbing moments, so there must be another period of contemplative med itation, and this time it may take a different form.

"My peace I give unto you" is the promise of the Master, "not as the world giveth"--not the peace t hat comes from a pocketful of money or from a bankful of bonds, not the peace that comes from just a healthy body--but "My peace," spiritual peace, the peace that passes un derstanding. That peace is all I seek; that is all I desire. I do not ask for silver or gold, nor for the good or th e peace of this world . I ask only that this "My peace" be upon me.

Then I wait for those few minutes of inner communion, and again I have prayed the prayer of a righteous man because I have sought nothing but that which is the divine right of everyone: God's grace and God's peace, not only for me, but for all those who may be led into the realm of my consciousness.

Contemplative meditation, practiced faithfully, leads to a moment of silence in which all words and thoughts are stilled, a silence so deep that we become a transparency for the still small voice to speak to us. The contemplation of God's grace, of God as the One and Only, and the contemplation of scriptural passages which give the assurance of the divine Presence lead to an inner stillness, and then the second phase of meditation enters our experience. That is when something comes to us, not something that we have consciously thought, but something that was thought through us. These thoughts come out of the void, from the depth of the Infinite Invisible, out of that spiritual consciousness which we are.

At other times a message may come to us, and if not an actual message, a sensing that all is well, just a feeling of peace. Sometimes it is a feeling of warmth, gratitude, or of love--not to anybody, or for anybody, or for any thing. It is a feeling complete in it self with no object. If we are faithful in our work, thi s continues to occur more and more frequently until the day comes when we abide so much in the Word that we are more or less in It all the time, and need only a moment of stillness to bring forth some particular message to meet the need of the moment. In this stage we have risen abo ve the thinking mind, and It IS no longer our master: it is now our instrument. As long as we are on earth, however, we are going to need our thinking mind, and we should thank God for having given us one, but as we go higher and Igher in consciousness, this thinking mind will playa lesser and lesser part in our spiritual life.

In this stage of our spiritual instruction, the impartation of truth comes from within like an invisible Something pouring Itself out. We merely tune in, and It imparts Itself to us. This is where two enter the scene: I, myself, in meditation or contemplation come face to face with the Presence within me, with that Something other than myself. This may take the form of an inner glow, or at oth er times of a voice with in which seems actually to speak.

Sometimes we are not sure whether it really was a voice that we heard or only an impression that we received. But whatever the form, it is in this stage that we are in communion with God. An activity takes place that goes back and forth, almost as if it were from me to God and from God to me-a gentle flow backward and forward, in and out. Then I know that the Spirit is with me. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. . . . Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." It is an actual experience of release.

The third stage, that of conscious union with God, is the ultimate, and in this stage the personal or separate selfhood disappears. It is as if one were not aware of himself as a person, but as if only God Itself were there. It must have been in moments like this that the Master spoke from the standpoint of the word I: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." That was not a man speaking: that was God speaking, and at such times the man Jesus was temporarily absent from the body. Later that same man said, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." That was God speaking when Jesus was absent from him self and only the Spirit of the Lord was present.

There is a Presence that is as real as we are real to one another, and once It is felt and experienced, there is a relaxing from personal effort. When this Presence is realized, we shall find that It takes form as new organs and functions of the body, as our home, family, supply, and as our human relationships, even as a parking space.

"I can of mine own self do nothing" is theman Jesus speaking, but then as th e Presence is realized, "I have meat to eat ye know not of." Later comes the third stage, when God speaks as individual being. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." This is the Word made flesh, God incarnate walking this earth, and that ultimately is the destiny of every individual.

There is an overturning and an overturning and an overturning in individual consciousness "until he come whose right it is." That He is God. There will be an overturning in our consciousness, and it will appear to us as a warfare between the flesh and the Spirit, a warfare between disease and health, between lack and abundance, and finally between the two I's: the I that we are as a person and the I that is God. And oh, the human being "dies" so hard! He wants to perpetuate himself: he wants to be something, to do something, to know something. Thus, the warfare goes on until finally that human being is shaken so thoroughly that he awakens to the fact that of himself he is nothing, but that the I which is God is all.

Then meditation takes on its final phase. When, in this nothingness of the individual, the Father speaks--takes over, heals, redeems, and instructs--then the Father lives that life.

Eventually, every one of us will come to Paul's state of consciousness in the realization, "'I live; yet not I, but Christ, the son of God, the very Spirit and presence of God, lives my life." Then, and only then, are we a state of humility that has in it not a single trace of virtue, but only the realization of the truth that we are nothing, that we can do nothing and be nothing of ourselves.

It is true that this may bring with it a sense of emptiness, but strangely enough with that sense of emptiness, there comes a sense of completeness and perfection. Yet this is not in any personal sense; It IS not that egotistic sense that claims "I am spiritual," "I am perfect," or "I am whole." It is more a sense of having no qualities of our own and yet feeling this transcendental Presence and watching It live our life.

Once we are united with our Source, we discover that our life is really the life of the Life-stream, the life of the Source of life which is now flowing as our life. We are being fed by the Stream, by the Waters falling from the clouds above, by a Source greater than ourselves which is now flowing as our life.

Knowing this truth is a freeing activity. No longer do we feel cut off and alone, nor dependent only on ourselves: we are united with the Life-stream, no longer limited to our own wisdom strength or longevity, to our education, our social or economic status. Now we access to Infinity: infinite Wisdom, infinite Love, infinite Life, the infinite Source of all good. No longer are we limited to our immediate surroundings, to an island or a continent, and not even limited to a whole planet. There is no limitation except that which man places upon himself by believing that what he sees of this world is all there is to it, or that what he sees in the mirror is all there is to him. What he is aware of with his senses is a part of him, but certainly' not the whole of his being, just as his little finger is a part of his hand, but not the whole of it.

When we attain this contact with our Source, we have also made contact with the Source of every person's life and are now one with all spiritu al life. The same life that flows in one of us is flowing in all of us because there is only one Life-stream, only one Source of life, one creative Force in life. Whether that spiritual life appears as a human being, as animal, vegetable, or mineral form, we are now one with it through the act of meditation which has united us with the Stream within us, and we are one with the Stream which was in Christ Jesus.

The mind which was in Christ Jesus is your mind and my mind, and when we have broken through this human exterior of mind and; through meditation, have contacted the Source, we are then one with the spiritual mind of the universe, which is the mind of the Buddha, of Jesus, of Lao-tse, and the mind of every spiritual saint and seer. We have become one with it when we have become one with the Source of our own life.

The Spirit that is flowing through us is now consciously flowing through all those who are attuning themselves to that One--those who may be praying in orthodox churches or those who may be praying paganistic prayer. We are a blessing unto all of them because, regardless of their form of worship and while they may not know it, they are turning to Something beyond the human, and in turning to that Something, they are turning to the Christ, and all who reach out to the Spirit in any way are blessed.

Often people in the last stages of illness who may not be religious or may not even have thought of them selves in spiritual terms reach out to God in their extremity and receive healing. Doctors report that many times patients have had sudden healings without any known reason, but this was perhaps because within themselves the was a reaching out toward God, and they probably tuned in and made contact with someone in the act of meditation, and thus their prayer was answered. As long as we succeed in making contact with our Source, anybody, anywhere in the world, who is turning to Something greater than himself, tuning in to God on any level--a false or a right concept of God--may benefit from our meditation.

When we are filled with the Spirit, then everyone who is attuned receives that Grace, each in accord with his need at that moment. One receives God's grace in a physical or mental healing, another in a moral or financial healing, and still another in greater joy in his household. The degree of dedication of our individual lives and the purity of our consciousness and motives have an effect on the lives of all who come in contact with us. Our individual conscious oneness with God becomes a blessing unto all those who are receptive. Every time God is released into this world through us, It has the opportunity of going out into the world and neutralizing some of the carnal influences in government, the courts, business, and industry, even in the arts and professions.

Every time that we meditate--and we meditate only for the attainment of this conscious awareness, this "peace, be still"--we are at that same moment lessening the evil and selfish influences in the world. The degree to which evil seems to be lessened may be of minute proportions-- it probably is--but once the Spirit is loosed, there are no limits to Its far-reaching effects because there is no such thing as a little of Spirit or a little power in this Spirit.

The Spirit Itself in infinite, and It is just as infinite through one as It is through a million. This is proved in the lives of the great mystics: the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ became the release unto a whole Christian world; the Spirit in Gautama the Buddha became the light and the illumination to all of India, China, and Japan for a long period of time. We cannot measure the effect of the Spirit, even when the Spirit finds entrance to this world through, or as, the consciousness of one individual.

The ultimate of spiritual living is to live so completely in attunement with the Source, God in the midst of us, that the influence of God which is flowing through us will flow out and be a law, of good unto all who come within range of our consciousness, thereby lifting them up and increasing their desire for the spiritual.

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