"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

"A Parenthesis in Eternity" pdf file

Chapter 5 - Sowing and Reaping

Most people 0f the world believethat the evilsthey experience have come upon them because of their sins of omission or commission. Essentially this is true. But because they also believe that God has inflicted these evils upon them as a punishment, they have been cheated of the opportunity of avoiding them in the future. As long as theybelieve that God, for any reason whatsoever, would sink a ship, let an airplane fall, or permit children or adults to be mangled, lost, drowned, or suffer disease, they cheat themselves of the opportunity of learningwhy these ills have come upon them, and what they can do to prevent them from touching their households.

The sun, the moon, and the stars were certainly not given by God to the people of the earth as a reward for anything, nor were the silver and the gold, the platinum and the diamonds, the rubies and the sapphires in the bowels of the earth, nor the pearls and the immeasurable riches in the sea. All these are but the natural order of creation appearing in wondrous ways, but never given as a reward from God, nor withheld as a punishment. The real nature of God is to express Himself, to express His qualities, character, and nature as a harmonious universe.

If we could but see this world without people, we might better be able to understand that it is a perfect creation of God, functioning harmoniously and operating continuously. Whatever problems arise, arise not from the world as such but from man himself. Acknowledg, ing, then, that God is the creator of this universe, the maintainer and sustainer of it, and that God governs this universe perfectly, without any help, advice, or urging from man, we stop holding God responsible for our ills and turn within and ask ourselves, "What about error? What about evil? Whence come these, and how can we rid ourselves of them?"

One of the first steps for anyone on the spiritual path is to learn that on the human level of life there is such a thing as karmic law, the law of as-ye-sow-so-shall-ye-reap, a law that we set in motion, individually and collectively. Every thought we think and every act we perform set in motion a law of action and reaction. If we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption. The law within us knows what we are doing, and it rewards us accordingly. Scripture credits God with that, but it is not really God: it is karmic law.

If all our charity, benevolence, and philanthropy were done anonymously, if any and every bit of good we do were done without letting a single soul on earth know that we were the instruments for it, our reward would be tremendous. There is no God in heaven looking down, patting us on the back, and saying, "Oh, my dear son, that is so wonderful of you. I will reward you." No, nobody need know anything about what we have done: the law itself, the law that we have set in motion, knows and will operate to reward us openly.

On the other hand, we can do as much evil as we feel inclined to do, and even though it be completely secret and no one ever learns about it, that same law will react upon us, and eventually we will be punished.

Whatever law we set in operation today will return to us tomorrow, next year, ten or a thousand years from now. In other words, we are creating our tomorrows today, even unto the next century, and the next and the next. This has nothing to do with God: this has to do with you; it has to do with me; it has to do with our individual selfhood.

But because there is only one Self, that which we do to another we are really doing unto ourselves.' I am you, and what I do to you I do to myself, whether for good or for evil. The good that I do to you has a way of returning to me; the evil that I do to you also has a way of returning to me because there is but one Self. It is as if I took money out of my right-hand pocket and put it into my left-hand pocket. Regardless of where I send my dollar-or my love-it ends up in my own pocket. When we know that, it changes our whole concept of giving and sharing from one of division to one of multiplication.

There is only one Selfhood; there is only one Being; and everything that I do to you, I do to my Self; and everything that I do to my enemies, I do to my Self. That is why it is important for me to take time out every day to forgive all those who have aught against me, to forgive any enemy of my nation, my race, or my religion-not because I am a good man, but because I am wise: I am forgivingmy Self. There is only one Self; there is only one divine Being, and anything that I do to harm your life has its reaction on mine. Anything that I do to another must return to me. I may think that it is hidden, but it is not hidden in the one place where ultimately the score is settled, and that is within me.

If we close our eyes so that we are in darkness and then think, "I seem to be in here all alone, and nobody but me is going to know about anything I think or do," we soon discover that right there with us is our Self. There is not a thing that we can think or do that is not known to our Self, nor that our Self does not return to us. It is as simple as that! We may think that our motives and deeds are hidden, but the "Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly." The divine Law that sees in secret rewards openly.

We could not give away even a nickel without our Self knowing it and reflecting it back into our experience immediately. On the other hand, we could not take five cents from anyone without our Self knowIng it and immediately beginning to make restitution through the operation of karmic law, because there is a law of as-ye-sow-so-shall-yereap that eventually makes us pay for our wrongdoing, and rewards Us for our good deeds. It is not God doing it: it is the law that operates within us. That which the Son does, the Father is aware of, because the Father and the Son are one.

In this whole world there is only one Self, and that which constitutes my Self constitutes your Self and the Self of every person, in spite of the fact that each one expresses his identity in an individual way. There may be a thousand oranges on an orange tree, but there is only one Life. So, too, there are millions of people on earth, but there is only one Life, there is only one Self on earth, and that One is God, Spirit: your Self and my Self.

Because of this oneness, then, what we do to another, we are actually doing to ourselves. If we do good to another, we set in motion the law which returns that good unto us: we are casting good bread on the water, and it is good bread that returns to us--but always because it is an activity of the Self. Whatever of evil we set in motion, even though it may temporarily harm someone, the greatest harm eventually is the harm done to us because it is we who have set in motion the evil.

As long as the world is in ignorance of truth, it may be possible for a person to do evil and bring harm to others temporarily, and probably even postpone the harm that returns to and befalls him. The evil that we do may not return to us today or tomorrow, a year or even five years from now, and often by the time it does return, we have forgotten the event that set it in motion. But the law never forgets: the law is inexorable.

In another century, or less time than that, this may not be true. By that time, man may be enlightened enough to know that any evil set in motion does not touch the one toward whom it is directed but returns instantly to the sender. No one then will be able to do evil because if he does, it will strike right back at him. It will never touch those toward whom it is aimed because they will know that no weapon that is formed against them will prosper. In the conscious realization of their divinity, evil cannot operate in the ir experience.

In any given moment we can begin to prove this if we set aside a daily period in which to realize that God is our Self, that Spirit is the life and essence of our being, and tha t no evil can come nigh our dwelling place because God is our dwelling place. To know th at there is but one Selfhood and that that One is God is to set ourselves free.

We may not demonstrate this in its completeness because the world's mesmerism still touches every individual, and as long as we areon earth we will have some problems to meet. Yet, it is possible to be free of eighty or ninety percent of our problems if we realize that God constitutes individual Selfhood: my Selfhood, your Selfhood, and the Selfhood even of those with whom we do not agree, of those who maybe said to be our enemies, or our nation's or mankind's enemies.

To know this truth of God's identity as individual Selfhood means that we recognize that whatever of good we are setting in motion, we are setting in motion unto ourselves; whatever of evil we are setting in motion, we are also setting in motion unto ourselves. This begins to set us free from any capacity to do evil, even though for awhile it is not easy to become completely free of this temptation. Nevertheless, from the very instant in which we realize that there is but one Self, we begin to lessen the world's belief that you and I are distinct from one another, and that we can do good or evil to one another. Each one of us is a law into himself.

This carries us a step further to where we can realize that it is not God who is giving us our blessings, and it is not God who is visiting upon us our evils: it is we ourselves, and not necessarily because we aredoing evil consciously. Often we bring more trouble upon ourselves through our ignorance of this principle than by any evil that we do. Even humanly speaking, there are very few really evil people in the world-very few. Perhaps ninety-nine percent or more·of all the evil in the world is committed through an ignorance of truth, and even the evil for which we ourselves are or have been responsible has not been so much because of an evil nature as because of an ignorance of spiritual truth. Had we been taught the principle of sowing and reaping early enough, our lives would unquestionably have been different. But it is not too late! Our lives will be different the moment we consciously accept the fact that there is but one Self, and that what we are doing to another we are doing unto ourselves.

An understanding of karmic law enables us to begin to release God. Within our own thought we hold God responsible for good and evil; we fear God because we fear punishment. Many times we worship God in the hope of a reward, a gift, or something or other from Him. In fact, most of the prayers today are not prayers to God but prayers to karmic law to violate itself. Many persons believe they can do evil and then pray to God to give them good. That cannot be: good cannot result from evil; evil returns as evil.

To place our faith and confidence in friends , political influence, or in any form of human dependence is to sow to the flesh, and we wilt reap corruption because someone will betray or fail us at the most inopportune moment. If we place our hope in that which man has created, whether made of silver and gold or of stone, whether a crucifix; a star, or any other symbol of religious belief, sooner or later we wiD be disappointed.

If our dependence is on persons and things, in the end that is what we must reap. All this dependence on human ways and means is of no avail and must inevitably lead to the frustration and disappointment which are too often the lot of mankind.

To live the mystical life is to live in a normal, natural way, fulfilling our funct ion in life, whether in the home, school, office, or factory, yet within ourselves realizing:

God is my good. God is the health of my countenance, my safety and my security, my high tower, my rock, my foundation.

God is my abiding place, my home. I live and move and have my being in the secret place of the most High, hidden from the world. My body may be seen, but not the I of my being because I live in an inner awareness of God. My body is out here walking and working in the world, but I am not. I am living in the temple that is within me, the temple that is my consciousness.

In any and every place or situation in life, I remember that I am invisible, I am hid in the divine Consciousness. Wherever I am, in the air or on the sea, I remember that underneath are the Everlasting Arms.

If called upon to share with others, I can do so without feeling t1ult I am taking something of my own to give away, thereby leaving myself with less, because all that I have is of God. If called upon for extra work, I can do it without feeling that I am using up my strength because all the strength of the Father is my strength.

I do not have to fear the passing of years because "before Abraham "I was, existed in the bosom of the Father, and that IS where I exist now.

Only mybody is visible, but not I: "I and my Father are one, ans we are invisible; we live in each other--the Father m me, and I in the Father, inseparable and indivisible.

When we tabernacle in th is way with God, we set in motion good karma; we set in motion the karmic law of kno wing the truth, and the truth comes back to us. The reverse is true whenever we waste time in hating, fearing, or loving unduly. This does not mean that there will never be a momentary normal reaction to certain evil conditions, or a natural rejoicing over good human conditions, but it means not taking either one too seriously, not letting it eat into us, but remembering:

God in the midst of me is the only power. I shall not fear what mortal man or mortal conditions can do to me.

This is knowing the truth that makes us free. If has nothing to do with God; it has to do with us; it ha s to do with our knowing the truth. The more spiritual our consciousness becomes, the more harmonious our outer life becomes because we have set the karmic law of good into operation.

When we stop believing that God is going to reward or punish us, we will leave God alone to function: we will not try to advise or tell Him what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. This will be honoring God by giving him credit for knowing His own business and being Willing to perform it.

What we accept in our mind as being real and as having power is what determines the kind of sowing we are doing. The more power we give to persons or to things, the more we are sowing to th e flesh, and the more corruption we reap. The more attention we give to abiding in the Word the more we dwell on the truth that there is a Spirit of God in us which teaches, feeds, supports, maintains, and transports US, the more we are letting the Christ, Truth, abide in us, and the more We are abiding in It.

As we continue a practice of this kind, we are throwing the weight on the right side of the scale; whereas before, the majority of our thoughts and deeds were bound up in human and material istic values and power. At first we may be giving only two, three, or four per cent of our thought and time to entertaining spiritual truth, but gradually as we continue the practice of the Presence, more weight goes over on to the spiritual side, and very soon twenty or twenty-five per cent of the time there is some spiritual truth or some spiritual conviction occupying first place in our mind.

So it is that we go forward until the day comes when the weight is so completely on the spiritual side that more than fifty per cent of our waking hours and some of our sleeping hours, too, are occupied with spiritual activities. The activity of the law never stops: karmic law operates for good while we are asleep, or it may work for evil: it can produce healing in us while we are asleep, or we can wake up feeling ill; we can be so uplifted in our sleep that we wake up whistling or singing, or we can wake up in the doldrums.

To go to bed at night with the final few minutes before sleep filled with God is, in itself, enough to give us a restful night and a peaceful morning. Always, we are th inking something: we are either knowing the truth or not knowing the truth; we are either thinking spiritual thoughts or carnal thoughts. Always, we are either placing our faith, hope, and trust in the Infinite Invisible that is within our very own being or in something covered with silver and gold, or of a fleshly nature. In one way or another, we,are setting in motion the law that in the end either rewards or punishes us.

That is why the Master, even when he forgave and held the sinner in no condemnation, could say afterward, "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." Why? He was not the one to say whether or not a person should be punished. It is what the person thinks; it is what he does that determines that-not what the Christ does. When we appeal to the Christ, the Christ can set us free in that instantbut not tomorrow. It is up to us to go and sin no 'more, or sin less, until such time as we are fully and completely in the Spirit.

Where there is receptivity to the Christ, there is spiritual regeneration, and it makes no difference whether a person has been good or bad, rich or poor, saint or sinner. What counts is the degree of receptivity there is within him to the spiritual message because, in the last analysis, it all comes down to the individual. True, the activity of the consciousness of a spiritually endowed person can bring infinite, divine harmonies into our experience, can bring release and freedom to us, and can become a law unto us if we are willing to open our consciousness to it. Some benefit may come to us through another, but unless we carry on from that point, unless we ourselves respond and open our consciousness to let the Christ abide in us, it is only temporary.

Abiding in the Spirit, we set in motion the law of good karma. On the other hand, living with our thoughts constantly dwelling on our human affairs is setting in motion the karmic law of good and of evil with the possibility of a preponderance of error, discord, or inharmony because we are sowing only to the flesh.

To sow to the Spirit does not mean becoming ascetics; it does not mean giving up our work, our profession, our home, or our family. It has nothing to do with what we do externally: it has to do with what is going on in our consciousness while our mind and body are performing their functions on the outer plane. What is going on in consciousness determines whether we are sowing to the flesh or whether we are sowing to the Spirit, and whether we are setting in motion the karmic law of good or the karmic law of evil.

We do not always reap what we sow immediately or quickly. "The mills of the gods grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding fine." It is true tha t sometimes a person may live for many years in a measure of spiritual realization before the overturning comes, and He comes whose right it is. Then there are also those persons who indulge in every manner of evil and seem to be able to do it for a long period of years before their karma begins to operate. Therefore, we should not be too discouraged if we do not see the fruitage of our spiritual activity instantaneously because we have generations of humanhood and humanness to cast out of our system. On the other hand, let us never despair if the evildoer seems to flourish. We have no way of knowing what goes on in his mind, in his soul, or in his body. It may be a worse pIcture than we think it is, and even if it is not, the karmic law adjusts all these things in its own time and in its own way.

To seek to return evil for evil is to set in motion karmic law of a negative nature. In stead, let us, as we are taught, return good for evil-- not for the other person's sake! For our own sake! For ours because we have some knowledge of how the law operates and how we set karmic law in action. When we see this, we then realize, "Well, that means that I have a lot of debts to pay for my previous sins of omission and commission." But right here is where we come to the most encouraging aspect of karmic law: "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." When? Now, in this minute! We do not have to confess outwardly; in fact, it is not wise to do that, but confess within ourselves: "This was not right"; "I know better than that"; "I am done with that." Whenever we make a confession within ourselves, we have annihilated the evil results of karmic law.

In the very second of her repentance, the woman taken in adultery became a follower of the Christ, with no punishment, no period of waiting. It was now: "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." The thief on the cross was not condemned to a period of purgatory, or to any suffering: "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Why? Because he turned to the Master and asked for help. The karmic law does not have to be worked out generation after generation unless we choose it so. In other words, if we decide to cling to our humanhood, we can be assured that the karmic law is continuing to operate, but any moment we choose to do so we can come out from among them and be separate and apart. Then the past is past is done away with.

In my work with all those sick physically, mentally, financially, or morally, I have observed that, regardless of what their past may have been or wha t particular sins of omission or commission they may have committed, when they seriously turned to a spiritual teaching, the penalty was erased. They may not have become angels overnight. Who does! But that is not the point, even though it is possible to accomplish that angelic state in a quick or short period of time by "forgetting those things which are behind," and by setting good karmic law in operation through sowing to the Spirit.

Our conscious oneness with God constitutes our oneness with every spiritual being and ideas. That means that we are one, and as we love our neighbor as ourselves and act toward the other person somewhat in the same way that we would like to be acted toward, in that degree are we setting spiritual law in operation.

The responsibility of a spiritual student is great. No one else has quite the same responsibility as do those of us on the mystical path, because we cannot rely on the hope of most Christians that Jesus' dying on the cross will save us from all the penalties for our sins, or that our minister, the confessional, the mass, or church attendance will take away our burden. We cannot lean on any system or person. Knowing the truth, following spiritual principles, sowing to the Spirit instead of the flesh-only this will bring our regeneration, resurrection, renewal, and finally, our ascension above all materiality. In that exalted state of consciousness even the karmic law of good ceases to operate in our experience, because in the recognition that we are never the actor or the doer, but that only God is acting and doing th rough us, we have stopped sowing. Karmic law is then forever nullified.

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