God s Grace Without Price or Reason 1962 Mission Inn Closed Class Joel S. Goldsmith Tape 454B Good evening. Good evening and aloha. We say both of them tonight, and before anything else, I want to bring this to you, so that you carry it away with you. God IS, and God is closer to you than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. God is the very life of your being. God is the very law unto your entire experience. God's grace is yours as a gift. The price of demonstration is conscious realization. In order to bring ourselves under the law of God, under the government of God, under the wings of God, it is necessary that we fulfill the law and the prophets. The Master did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfill them. And never believe for a moment that we can violate the laws of God and yet be under the law of God or God's grace. What is it that brings us under the government of God, under the protection of God, under the healing influence of God? What is it that maintains us under the healing influence of God? The answer is that the beginning of wisdom that is, the starting step on the spiritual path is knowing the truth. Now, not knowing any statement of truth that you happen to think is the truth. Not knowing statements of truth that you have read are the truth. There's nothing in Scripture about knowing some untruth and calling it the truth. The statement, Ye shall know the truth, means exactly that. Ye shall know the truth, and you cannot, in all fairness to yourself, merely pick up a book on metaphysics or on spiritual truth, and say, Oh, this is the truth that I am supposed to know. There are far too many books containing untruth under the guise of truth. The Master warned us about all of the teachings, all of the teachers, who say, Christ, Christ, and there is no Christ there. There are no organizations, there are no individuals capable of drawing up a list of the books that are truth and the books that are not truth. You cannot go anywhere on the face of the globe and get advice, for there is no one capable of giving that advice. Each one has to turn within and ask, Is this book a book of truth? Is this teaching a teaching of truth? Is this He that I seek? Is this He that should come? To ask anyone's advice is weakness and foolishness. Each one of us has a guiding instinct within ourselves, and it is to this that we must go and find out whether or not we are on the spiritual path, whether we are on the path of truth. And then when conviction comes to us, let us act on it without anyone's advice or consent. Should we make a mistake at any time, do not even fear that, because as long as there is sincerity in your heart, as long as you're truly seeking the spiritual way, the mistake will soon be corrected, and you will find your teacher or your teaching. But when you find the truth, your journey hasn't ended. It has only begun, because now you have to know the truth. You have to abide in the truth. You have to let the word of truth abide in you. You have to pray with that word of truth without ceasing. You have to live and move and have
your being in that truth. You have to put that truth up here on your forehead, and you have to bind it on your arm, and you have to place it on your gatepost at the entrance to your home. Everywhere your eye turns, it has to find that truth for you to look at to remember, to repeat, to realize. Truth has to be kept closer to you than your skin. Then you are abiding in truth. Then you are praying without ceasing. Then you are knowing the truth. Then the truth is doing its work in you. Now, the reading of truth and the hearing of truth is not itself the truth that heals or redeems. It is the truth that you take into your consciousness and dwell with, ponder, think upon, meditate upon, cogitate. It is the truth, not in the book called the Bible, but the truth that you take out of the Bible into your consciousness and dwell with. It does very little good to look at the Bible and read that, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The statement won't do anything for anyone. You take it out of the Bible into your consciousness, and you ponder it. And this is where the mystery and the miracle comes in. It still does nothing for you, until you put it into action. When you read a statement like, Love thy neighbor as thyself, it doesn't mean read this statement, Love thy neighbor as thyself. It means love. Love is an act. Love is never a word. You can't love with words. You can only love with deeds. You can only love with acts of consciousness. Oh, they appear as words when you are forgiving, but then you're not using the word love as a word when you're forgiving. It is the act of forgiveness that does the work. If you say, Love thy neighbor, it does nothing to you until you empty out your closets and of the clothes you have no longer need for and send them out to The Salvation Army or somebody else that can use them. It is the act of loving thy neighbor, not the thinking the word, Love thy neighbor, that does it. You see, when we read that God is love, we are reading one of the most profound truths ever voiced, but you could repeat the statement, God is love, from now until the end of time and derive no benefit from it, because the statement, God is love, well, it's nothing. It's a waste of time, actually. It is taking the statement, God is love, into consciousness and then loving. There has to be an act of love. How can we love God? Well, here I have to deviate for a moment and say that probably a thousand different people can tell you a thousand different ways of loving God and all of them be right. Nine hundred and ninety nine of them I don't know. My experience has only shown me one way to love God, and so that is the only way that I can pass on to our students. The only way I know of loving God is to love my fellow man. I have never, never discovered any other way of loving God. In proportion as I can express joy, gratitude, benevolence, justice, freedom, equality, cooperation to my fellow man, I am, so far as I'm concerned, expressing the only kind of love to God that I understand. I frankly do not say to you that this is the only way, because I honestly do not know. This is the only way that I know. To me, to say that I love God is a mockery, unless in my conduct toward my fellow man, I am trying to express the love to him that I would be expressing to God if God were a person.
To me, this is the essence of the Master's teaching in those two wonderful passages in which he says that, I was in prison, and ye visited me. I was sick, and ye comforted me. I was in hungered, and ye fed me. And they asked him, Master, when were you in prison, and we visited you? When were you sick, and we healed you? When were you in hungered, and we brought you food? Of course, the Master wasn't as a person, but inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Therefore, the only way in which we can love the Christ, the Son of God, or God would be in our service, devotion, benevolence to our fellow man. He goes on to say that, I was in prison, and ye did not visit me. I was sick, and ye did not comfort me. I was in hungered, and ye did not feed me. I was naked, and ye did not clothe me. When, when were you ever naked, and we didn't clothe you? When were you ever hungry, and we didn't bring you food? Aha. Yes, of course, I'll bet they did it to him. I'll bet they were very attentive to the Master, but he says, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me. And so it is that in this experience I firmly believe that when we do not give forgiveness, justice, equity, benevolence, tolerance, freedom, equality to another, we are withholding it from the Christ, which is our true Self. And, therefore, in withholding it from another, in the end, we withhold it from ourselves. How else could we interpret that? Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it not unto me, because the only me there is, the only Christ there is, the only Son of God there is, is that which is made manifest as man on Earth, or if there are men on some other planets, we'll include those too. At this moment, we only know of the man on Earth, and so we will say then that the only God there is, is the God that is manifest as man. The only Christ there is, is the Christ that is made manifest as your individual life and mine. And as we serve each other, we are serving the Christ of each other, and in the service to the Christ of you, I serve myself. In your service to the Christ of another, you are serving yourself. Now, do you not see that if an individual cannot accept this and cannot put it into action that there is no way to bring them under the law of God, because this is the law and the prophets that you must do it unto the least of these my brethren and the greatest. In the same way, the Master has given us a tremendous teaching. Seems almost impossible to believe that his whole ministry only covered about forty days of healing work. He gave us so much instruction in those forty days: Forgive seventy times seven. Pray for your enemy. Resist not evil. Do not use the law of a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye. Do not seek revenge. Do not try to take from others. It's very clear in his Sermon on the Mount what our conduct must be to bring us under the law of God. Now, as we fulfill these terms, we do bring ourselves under the law of God. In the
beginning, when we turn to a ministry of this kind, we receive healings long before we have brought ourselves under the law of God, but we have done this by the Grace of the practitioner. In other words, just as many, including those sinners of whom we have spoken, came to the Master and received their release and freedom, even before they changed their way of life. This happens today. Individuals come to us for healings and receive them long before there has been any change of consciousness in them, long before they have changed their ways of life or of thinking. But the Master warns, Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you. In other words, my conscious Oneness with God has set you free. My God realization has given you this healing. I am ordained, because the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me to heal the sick and to forgive sinners. But he says, Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you. In other words, if you persist in the materialistic way of living, there is no way of believing that you are going to find your freedom from material laws and bring yourself under the law of God. At this point, I would like to introduce to you an idea that may at first seem strange to you, but as you live with it, you will find what a joy it is and what a relief it is to know this. Your salvation meaning your freedom from the discords of earth your release from earthly bondage does not come about by changing your thinking from wrong thinking to right thinking nor does your wrong thinking hold you in bondage to the evils of this world, because taking thought is not a power. There isn't anyone who would have to wait on time for their release if they could accept, if they can feel what I'm about to say to you. Your release from the bondage of sense is by the grace of God. It is not by an act of man. It is not by an act of thinking. It is not by any act that you may perform. It is not prevented by any act that you do not perform. Spiritual harmony, which means a release from earthly ties, earthly bondage, is completely an act of the grace of God, and the grace of God is something you do not earn. You do not deserve. There isn't a human being in the world that deserves the grace of God no matter how humanly good they may have been, because human good does not enter at all into the spiritual realm. Let me remind you, my kingdom, the Christ kingdom is not of this world. It's not of the world of right thinking or wrong thinking. It's not of this world at all. My peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth. My peace, a spiritual peace, an incorporeal peace, a divine peace, something that you can't think about, because you don't know what form it takes, because you are not yet in that kingdom. Therefore, you have no way of knowing what form it will take. Therefore, you can't think about it. Now, close your eyes. And those of you who have lived very good lives and have no major sins on your conscience and no evils, no errors, just remember that your goodness is not going to get you into the kingdom of God. It isn't recognized there at all. And you who have things to forget, sins of omission or commission, major ones or minor ones, please remember this. They have no more power to keep you outside the kingdom of Heaven than the woman taken in adultery, or the thief on the cross, or even Judas Iscariot. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do, and to forgive them means to put them right back in Heaven. And so your vices now are not going to operate in this minute
to prevent you from receiving the grace of God. Your virtues are not going to be of any help to you. So you can forget your vices and forget your virtues, and be still without any remembrance of either of them. Though your sins were scarlet, you're white as snow and without any good to boast about, without any sins to repent of now. God's grace is in the midst of you, as long as you do not make it dependent on how good you've been and as long as you do not feel that your badness has been a barrier to it. You can, in this moment, receive the grace of God, because it is here. There is no other place than here where the grace of God is. There is no other time than now when it is functioning, because the grace of God does not function in the past, and the grace of God cannot be made to function in the future. Therefore, the only time and the only place that the grace of God can be functioning is here and now within you. Do not set up a barrier of your past mistakes. Do not set up a barrier of your present virtues. Neither your vices nor your virtues count. The moment you open yourself to God, God is there. He can't reach you in the past, and he can't reach you in the future. There is only one time and one place where God's grace can reach you, and that is in the now. Here where I am. If I make my bed in Hell, thou art here. No matter how good I am or if I make my bed in Heaven, thou art here. If I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I am here. Now, I'm trying to bring out to you that God's grace is not dependent on anything. It is not dependent on your virtues. It is not dependent on overcoming your vices. God's grace has no strings attached to it. There is no price to pay for the grace of God. Come without money, without price, and receive God's grace by forgetting your virtues and forgetting your sins. Just humbly, gratefully open your consciousness to the Omnipresence of God. Remember the statement of the Master, It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, and this you is you. We do not know what form this Grace will take. A moment from now or tomorrow, we do not know how to pray or what to pray for. We do not know what is good for us. We do not know what form God's grace takes. No one knows this. No one. The Master could never go further than saying, My peace give I unto thee but not as the world giveth, because even he could not have known what form My peace would take in your experience. My peace give I unto you. And to receive God's grace, you open your consciousness to receive it, and you remember these words. And it is as if the Master were just sitting above your head and pouring these words down into you: My peace give I unto thee. I am ordained to heal the sick. My peace give I unto thee. God's grace is thy sufficiency. My peace. I will never leave thee. You see that's not dependent on anything. Do you see he inserted no ifs, no buts, just, I will never leave thee. I will never forsake thee. I will be with thee until the end of the world. Open your consciousness and receive this now. This Grace is not dependent on what you think. It's not dependent on what you thought five minutes ago. Even the errors of five minutes ago cannot act as a barrier, because God's grace is not dependent on what you
think. God's grace is not dependent on what you do. God's grace is dependent on God, and God is infinite all power and nothing can separate me from the love of God, not even death. Not even life or death. Not sin nor purity, not sickness or health can separate me from the love of God, for God's love is mine by grace, by inheritance. Son, thou art ever with me. Just think of the Master sitting right up over your head talking down into your head: Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. Not when you do something and not when you think something. Not after you reform, not after you get a treatment, not after you've been prayed for, but in this instant of recognition. Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. My grace is thy sufficiency in all things. Grace is a gift, a gift not dependent on something. It is a free gift of the Father, and it is yours by inheritance. In this moment that you open your consciousness, you are the Son of God, heir of God, joint heir to all the heavenly riches, and this is dependent on nothing in the outer realm. Though my sins have been scarlet, in this moment of opening my consciousness to the Christ, I am made white as snow. Do not accept the theological belief that you must first get good in order to get God. I tell you the reverse is true. Get God, and you will be good. Do not accept the belief that you must first get money for something before you can get well, even for a treatment or a lesson. Don't put money between you and God. Do not wait until you have time for God. That time will never come, because the future never comes, and anything you put off to the future will never be done. The only things that get accomplished are the things that you do now. So, therefore, do not accept the belief that you have to read so many books or so many pages before you receive God, or that you have to receive so many treatments before you receive God, or that you must go through so many classes before you can receive God. Away with that and understand that the mystics of the world have revealed now is the accepted time. In the moment of now, when you are willing to open your consciousness, forget your virtues, forget your vices, and remember that God's grace is a gift. And it's a gift at any moment that you open it for yourself. The woman taken in adultery opens her consciousness now, looks up at the Master, and without saying a word, he can read her thoughts I'm weary of this. And he says, Thy sins be forgiven thee. The thief on the cross looks at the Master I'm weary of this. He doesn't say it. The look stares out of his eyes, and the Master reads it and says, This night I will take you with me into paradise. You don't have to say words to God. You don't have to think thoughts to God. There is a look in your eye, just as there is a feeling in your heart, and it is this that God reads. God does not hear the words on your lips. God does not know the thoughts in your mind. God searches through to the intents of the heart, the motives of the heart, and the moment that your eyes just roll upward in the attitude of this is it, Father without saying it and before you can say it or think it twice, the Father is there, and His grace is your sufficiency. His peace descends upon you now the peace that passeth understanding.
Try to understand this mystical side of The Infinite Way in which we rise above words and thoughts, in which we just turn our eyes to God. It makes no difference whether we point them up to Heaven or whether we turn to the kingdom of God within us, for God is within, and God is without. God is up, and God is down. The point is: in what spirit are we praying? In what spirit, in what consciousness are we praying? Are we praying in the consciousness: I'm not asking a reward for my goodness. I'm not asking punishment for my vices. I'm just standing here spiritually naked in thy presence. Thy grace is my sufficiency. Thy will be done in me. Thy will be done in me. You don't have to say it. You don't have to think it. It has to be an attitude. It has to be a motive. Without words and without thoughts, you can almost feel your heart opening out to receive the Master, to receive divine grace, without thinking it, without speaking it. In complete silence, just have the attitude or motive of, Here I am, Father. Thy will be done in me. Learn to pray without words and without thoughts. This is why the Master taught, When you pray, do not pray to be seen of men. Do not pray in public. Oh, if you pray in public, of course, you'll gain the admiration of your fellow men. They'll probably say you're a saintly person, but if you do pray in public and you gain the admiration of your neighbors, you will lose God's grace. It's right there in Scripture in Chapter Five, Matthew. Don't pray in public. That doesn't mean don't unite in prayer in groups. It just means be careful that you're really going there to pray, not to be seen of men, not to please your neighbors, not to make a pretense of religion. Go to pray sacredly, secretly, even if you unite in groups. And then when you are in prayer, use the fewest words you possibly can and think the fewest thoughts you possibly can, and eventually try to pray without words and without thoughts, just by motives. See what happens when you sit still, or stand still, or if you feel like it, get on your knees, bow your head, and think no thoughts, and say no words, and see what purity of motive prompts you to be in prayer, what feeling of adoration there is, what feeling of humbleness in submitting yourself to the will of God and the grace of God without thinking it, without speaking it. Just as a motive of the heart. You shall worship God in spirit and in truth, and you do this best without words and without thoughts. Since God is Omniscience, the all wisdom, you need tell God nothing. Since God is Omnipotence, you need not ask God to be a power. God already is the only Power. Since God is closer to you than breathing Omnipresence you need not seek God. You need only be still and without words or thoughts invite God in. Thy grace is my sufficiency. Thy will be done in me. Let there be light. In this way, you will learn that God is a Spirit, that God must be approached in Spirit, that God must be approached without any sense of being a temporal power that you're going to use. God is Spirit. God is Love. God is the peace that descends in your heart, not a power to anything, or for anything, or over anything. It s the power of expression, the creative power of the universe, the maintaining and the sustaining power. But it doesn't do anything to anything, and, therefore, don't pray for God to do anything. Just be still. Remember your prayer is answered in proportion to your motive for prayer. What is your
motive? If you want something done in the human universe, you are praying amiss. If you desire that God's grace be revealed to you, you are praying in Spirit. If you are praying the prayer of adoration. Adoration. Let me explain that. Many of you perhaps say grace at mealtime. If you are saying grace thanks for the food that's on your table you are praying amiss. There isn't any God that hears such a prayer, or such thanks, or that responds to it. The only way to say grace at table in a way that brings down the benediction of Heaven is to thank God for the abundance in the Earth. The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and let us be grateful that it is, because God has not chosen your table to laden with food. God has sent that food here for all children of God. Your consciousness has drawn it to your table. Your prayer then must be, Thank you, Father, that thy grace fills the Earth. Thy grace fills the land, and the trees, and the seas, and the air. Thy grace unto thy children. The moment you are praying in that way, you cannot help a feeling of adoration. Adoration, love for the God that has filled the Earth with these bounties, filled the world with these bounties, not filled my storehouse or yours, filled the Earth that all may partake. The fact that all are not partaking has nothing to do with God. It has to do with the fact that we have made gods many, and we've worshiped money and said that God's grace is dependent on money or gods, or I have to earn my living by my intelligence, by my wit, by my strength. Nonsense, nonsense. Your living is the gift of God. Your work is your joy. Your living is the gift of God. All who realize that the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and Son, all that I have is thine, all these will find their tables laden but not because God choose your table, but because you brought yourself under the law of God by a universal thanksgiving that His grace is available to all who will avail themselves of it. This is why there can be adoration. There can be praise and thanksgiving, not for the benefits I have received, but for the benefits that God has ordained that man shall receive on Earth. Do you see that we set up a barrier the moment we think in terms of I and me and mine? I am thankful for what God has given me. God has not given me. God has given Himself to this world, and God's grace fills this world. And if you want your share, open your consciousness. Forget your virtues, and forget your vices. And invite God that I may be in thee and thou in me, that we be One. That I abide forever in thy dwelling place, and that thou dwellest in my heart, in my consciousness, in my soul, in my memory that I may never for a moment live without some conscious remembrance of God filling the Earth with His bounties. God offering forgiveness unto seventy times seven unto all who are willing to receive it. That I may never forget that God's grace is available seventy times seven. His forgiveness is available seventy times seven. His Spirit is upon me. His Spirit is upon me that I may never forget that I have no life of my own to live. I cannot live separate and apart from God. And in this lesson tonight, let us add this. My virtues cannot keep me from God. My vices cannot keep me from God. Neither life nor death can keep me from God. Neither disease nor poverty can keep me from the love of God, for I and my Father are One. Here where I am in this moment, up in Heaven, down in Hell, or in the valley of the shadow of
death, here where I am this moment thou art, for we are One. Not because I deserve it, not because I've earned it, not because I'm good, and surely in spite of the fact that I am bad, because nothing that I can do or leave undone can separate me from the love of God. And if I were in the midst of sin, I could be forgiven by not saying a word, not thinking a thought, just pausing for a moment to realize, God, thou art closer to me than breathing. Not saying it, not thinking it, feeling it. Feeling it. Opening the heart and feel God there. We ourselves set up the barriers that separate us from God. We believe that God's love and God's grace is dependent upon something we think, or something we say, or something we pray. God's grace is dependent on the motive of the heart, the spirit of the heart. God's grace is dependent on the integrity in which we close our eyes, or open our eyes, and just say, Here I am, Father. If we mean it, God's grace is closer to us than this second. Sometimes, we set up a barrier, because we want God for some purpose. We want God in order to reach health. We want God in order to reach supply or companionship. We want God in order to get forgiveness. This sets up a barrier. We shall want God only to experience God, and let God do with us what He will after that. Not for any purpose do I want God, but because a poet has said it, I shall never rest until I am at home in thee. I shall never rest until I am at home in thee. And you may be assured that you won't rest, if you get all of the things you think you want. If you get all of the health and the outer things you want, you still will not rest until you are home in God, and you can achieve being home in God in this instant before you leave this room. Open your heart, not for a reason, just to receive God, to be at peace with God, to commune with God within yourself without words, without thoughts. That I may be in Thee and Thou in me, that we be One. This passage take with you to live with. Live with it day and night. Neither life nor death can separate me from the love of God. Neither health nor sickness, neither lack nor abundance, neither war nor peace can separate me from the love of God, for I and the Father are One. Now you bring yourself under the law of God, and you bring yourself under the government of God when you make this acknowledgment. Neither life nor death can separate me from the love of God, the life of God, the will of God. Neither sickness nor health, lack nor abundance, purity or sin. Nothing can separate me from the love of God, for I and the Father are One. And the grace of God is mine by divine right. Not by the right of earning it or deserving it. By divine right, because God made me in His image and likeness. God breathed into me His life. Therefore, I am living the God life, and no one can separate me from the God life, because that is the life that is mine. I and my Father are One. This Oneness with God is my assurance of the grace of God. If ever there could be a separation between me and God, then the grace of God would be lost. If any circumstance of life should separate me from God, there d be no grace of God. If any circumstance of death should separate me from God, there d be no grace of God, but neither life nor death, neither health nor sickness, neither lack nor abundance, neither purity nor sin can separate me from the love
of God, for Love is God. Love is the nature of God, and that Love is the life, which is mine. He has given us His Grace. Thank you.