Removing the Barriers to God 1961 Lausanne Closed Class Joel S. Goldsmith Tape 423B Good afternoon. Now let us start with this foundational point of our entire work. As human beings, we are branches of a tree, cut off from our Source, withering and dying. That s the history of the entire human race from its beginning until this moment. If human beings were not cut off from their Source, they would never know sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, wars, rumors of wars. They would never have a drought. They would never have too much rain. They would never know such a thing as a tornado. There would be no such things in existence, even here on earth. There would never be too much heat, and there would never be too much cold. The only reason we have these things is that we are cut off, as a human race, from the Source, and we wither and we die, just as it is revealed in the Master s teaching. When we are cut off from our Source, we have a human experience that may last 10 years, 20, 60, 70, 80, or 90. It is composed of good experiences, bad experiences, and medium good, medium bad, and sometimes horrible. None of this could be true, if we were not cut off from God. Now, the whole of the Christian teaching, that is the Master s teaching, was a revelation of this and the further revelation that it is possible to become reunited with God to once again become one with our Source. We have in the fifteenth chapter of John the entire explanation of it that when the branch is separate from the vine, it is no longer spiritually fed. It withers and dies. When the branch is reunited with the vine, it can bear fruit richly. Now just think of this, a branch in and of itself can t bear fruit. A branch of a tree in and of itself has no capacity to flower or bear fruit. It is only as it is connected to the trunk of the tree and the trunk, of course, with its root and the root grounded in the earth that the branch is able to bear fruit. So with us, we have absolutely no capacity for any form of good as individuals. None. Even the Master could say, why callest thou me good? Even he could not attain goodness, and no one can. No one can attain goodness. No one can attain health. No one can attain spiritual riches of himself. Only as he is reunited with the vine, only as he is one with God can he then, by the grace of God, bear fruit richly. All kinds of fruit. Fruit in the body health. Fruit in the mind sanity, intelligence, love. The fruits of the Spirit rightness, purity, harmony, infinite good in every form. Now, the question is brought up, how can a human being who is literally born separate and apart from God, knows nothing but sickness from the time it s born, how can an individual return to the Father s house, that is, become one with God?
In the ancient Schools of Wisdom, it was taught how this could be brought about. It is only when the church was founded, 1700 years ago, that man was cut off from the possibility of being reunited with God, because nothing was introduced into the church teaching that would enable a person to establish themselves again in their oneness with God. It was falsely taught that if you were baptized, or if you had communion, or if you went through some other forms of worship, or ritual, or ceremony that this would establish you in God, and this has been a lie from the beginning. This has never been true. You cannot become reunited with God through any outer form of worship, service, devotion, ceremony, rite, or creed. And the reason is this. The place in which at-one-ment takes place is within your consciousness. There is no other place for this experience to happen. If it doesn t happen within your consciousness, it isn t happening, as far as you are concerned. It could be happening to the person next to you, and you would never know that anything was taking place. In other words, whatever of a spiritual nature is to take place within you or for you must take place in your consciousness. It must be an act of your consciousness. It must be an activity of your consciousness, and it must be consciously attained. Now, there are rare instances of individuals who have this experience in consciousness without any will or desire for it on their part, so far as human experience is concerned. It is an act of Grace that happens to some people sometime. It happens in their consciousness, but it happens without their having had a desire for it or a knowledge of it. It would be difficult to explain why that happens from any human standpoint, and it is for this reason that the most reasonable explanation of this is that in some previous existence a person had been prepared for it. In other words, each one of us in this room is now on the spiritual path. It may be that there are some here who never were on the spiritual path, until they entered this particular life. It is possible that there are others who found their way to the spiritual path in a former lifetime or ten lifetimes ago. It is for this reason some people come into this world more spiritually endowed than others. It is for this reason that some people are materialistic, and throughout their span on this earth, they cannot overcome their materialistic nature, although someday, somewhere, somehow, they also will be led to the spiritual path. And so it may be that we have lived many lifetimes and that on one or another of these, we touched the spiritual path and came to this plane more ready than others. Now, in that case, it is possible that those who have had spiritual vision before they came to this plane may, by Grace, have their awakening, their illumination, or initiation, without even having a conscious desire for it or knowledge of it. It may be latent within them. If there is any other explanation, someone else will have to give it. That is the explanation that seems most reasonable to me. But, if it were necessary to wait for an act of Grace to attain our Oneness, there would be no hope for mankind on Earth, except to wait throughout this lifetime, or the next, or the next, or the next. But it has been discovered, it was discovered in the days of the ancient Wisdoms that there is a way whereby we can become reunited with God. You will remember that this fifteenth chapter of John is one way of explaining humanhood and its
sense of separation from God. That the story of the prodigal son is another way of explaining the same thing. The prodigal son is originally the Son of God, one with the Father, joint heir to all the Father, all that the Father has. But cutting himself off from the Father s house, he wanders around, as we humans do, using up this three score and ten year substance that we originally receive from the Father but which is not renewed, until eventually we come to a place of barrenness. In the case of the prodigal, it is described as his meal with the swine. In our experience, it can be described as an incurable disease, or insanity, or dire poverty. Some extremity of human life that brings about us, in us, the feeling, is there a way back home? Is there a way back to the Father s bosom? Is there a way back to the Father s house? And then we turn. Now, in explaining this, I must also explain to you that it is only by the grace of God that anyone can experience the reunion. And it is for this reason that only those who have already been touched by that Grace will attempt to become reunited. In other words, the fact that you are on a spiritual path, that you are seeking light through meditation, contemplation is proof that Grace has already touched you, because without this, you would be outside with all the millions who would never pick up a book on meditation, or contemplation, or mysticism. You would at first wonder why is it that they will not pick up such a book, or if they do, they would quickly put it down. The answer is they have not yet been touched by a spiritual Grace. They are not yet ready and such a book would be meaningless to them. It is in the same way that we find many people who could never sit through an hour of Truth teaching. They would be so restless they would have to jump out a window, if there were no other way out, and the reason is they have not yet been touched by Grace, even to the point of readiness to start on the path. In other words, it is literally true what you have read: you have not chosen me. I have chosen you. You have not chosen to seek God. You have not chosen to find spiritual Truth or reality, and never believe that you, that this is of your doing. Never believe that, if you are reading books of this nature, that you are doing it of your own free will and accord, because no one has free choice. Free choice is one thing that man does not possess. Either a spiritual Grace touches them, and puts them on the path, and keeps them there, or he will never seek it, find it, or remain with it. There have been enough spiritual healings take place on the face of the globe in the last hundred years so that, if mankind as a whole were ready for a spiritual experience, just what they have seen and heard would put them all on the spiritual path. But even the millions upon millions of those who are on the spiritual path and whose lives show forth the benefit of it, even all of this does not convince mankind. And therefore, you have also heard if you raise them from the dead, they will not believe. And so it is, do not think for a moment that you have the power to put others on the spiritual path, that you can proselyte, that you can draw people into the spiritual path. You have no such power. Either they are touched by an inner Grace and come, or they never will be reached. It doesn t mean that we cannot offer a book or booklet. It doesn t mean we cannot offer a cup of cold water, but that s all we can do. For the rest, they must open up themselves and that they can only do when this Grace has touched them.
Now, if you perceive that as human beings, you are the branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth, if you can further perceive that by becoming reunited with your Source that you would be spiritually fed, spiritually governed, spiritually healed, spiritually supplied, then you will understand the part that meditation and contemplation play in our return to the Father s house. This return, this becoming reunited with God has nothing whatsoever to do with any outer activity of our body. Therefore, we need not go to holy mountains nor holy temples. The kingdom of God is within you, and it is there that you must go within you, so that by an activity of your own consciousness you can become reunited with your Source. Now, this Source is within you. It is neither lo here nor lo there. It is not in holy mountains or holy temples. It is within you. Therefore, there is no need to go anywhere. There s need only to learn how to retire to the withinness of your own being. It is true that if you find a teacher who has received some measure of illumination and you can meditate with them that your meditation will be more quickly achieved and your reunion with your source will be more quickly attained. In other words, it is still true that I, if I be lifted up, can draw all men to me. In other words, a spiritual teacher in meditation with the student can lift the student up to the point of reunion. A question arises and that is this: The question of time. Sometimes an individual meditating for the very first time with their teacher reaches their Source, attains their at- One-ment. It can be a second time, a third time. It can be a hundredth time. And there are some who may require a thousand, because it has been found that with some it is an instantaneous experience and with others it s a matter of many, many years before the attainment of that experience. Therefore, the matter of time is a serious one. It isn t always possible to find the teacher to meditate with. My own experience shows me that there are not many teachers on Earth capable of lifting the student to that period of at-one-ment. And in the Occident, there are almost none. I am sure that you could count the teachers on one hand, on the fingers of one hand in the Occident and have several fingers left over of the teachers who have attained that degree of Light in meditation, or through meditation, or illumination to be the avenue. The Orient has more of these, because the Orient has worked with meditation for centuries. Unfortunately, there are not too many even in the Orient for the simple reason that all who meditate do not attain Oneness. And even those, of those who have attained the right to call themselves teachers, by virtue of their discipleship, even most of these have not attained Oneness. So the amount of teachers on Earth to whom one could go for this meditation and Light is certainly not many. And that throws the responsibility on each one to do as much of the meditating as they can alone or occasionally unite with others who are seriously on the path, because it is still true that where two or more are gathered together in this name and nature there is a higher degree of spiritual realization than one might attain alone. It has often happened that where two, or three, or twelve, or twenty gather together for meditation that the at-one-ment takes place.
Repeating, first see that humanhood is a state of separation from God in which the human is living each day one day nearer the grave, each day one day nearer old age, dissolution. Then see that the same individual reunited with their Source is now fed from within, not by bread alone, but by every Word that preceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then, you will see how it is possible to live, to be directed, governed, supported, maintained, sustained by this inner fountain of life. It is true you will still eat food and drink drink. It is true you will still use money as a means of exchange in commerce and industry. It is true you will still use human modes and means of transportation. But, all of these activities in the outer world will now be fed from this inner spring, and, therefore, there will be greater harmony, greater joy, and greater abundance in the outer experience. It is for this reason, then, that the foundation of our work is meditation and contemplation, because this is the means to bring to us the experience of reunion, of conscious oneness with God, and it is this experience of conscious oneness with God that unites us with our spiritual good all spiritual good, which is to appear outwardly as food, clothing, housing, and all the needs of human experience. In our work in The Infinite Way, we have received by Grace a revelation that helps us in our meditation and contemplation in helping to attain this conscious union with God. And I can say this to you, that without this, I have seen the world struggling to understand meditation, and attain it, and finding great difficulty in it, whereas I have found our students who have the benefit of this unfoldment more quickly achieving their end. Even though they do not all attain it in its fullness quickly, they do attain sufficient measure of it, so that the results quickly become tangible in their lives. Now, I would like to tell you first the great step that will help you in attaining the very act of meditation and reunion with God and that is never to God with a desire for anything. Never go to God to receive anything. Never go to God, as if you wanted anything, because your desire is the barrier that separates you from God s grace. Anything that you take into your thought when you go to God is a barrier, and the greatest barrier is desire. It makes no difference how noble your desire may be; it is an act of separation from your Source. Why is this? Because God is Spirit, and God has only Spirit to bestow, or impart, or awaken in us. Therefore, the moment we think in terms of anything but Spirit, we are separating ourselves from the kingdom of God. Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed, because every such thought is a barrier to your attainment. But to go into meditation with the atmosphere and motive, Thy grace, Father, is my sufficiency. Thy love is my reason for being here. That I may know thee aright. That I may meet thee face to face. Not for any reason. Ah, if you have a reason for this, you re shutting yourself off from it. If you have any reason for going to God, you will lose God. There must be no reason, except to know thee aright whom to know aright is life eternal. Go to God only for communion with God. To know thee aright. To abide in thy Word. To let thy Spirit abide in me. This must be the only motive for going into meditation. Come to the throne of God pure. And there s no way to be pure, no way to be pure, except to come to God with no desires beyond the desire to experience God.
You can be assured of this, when you attain your union with God, all things will be added unto you. It will make no difference if your need is for money, or clothing, or transportation, or opportunity. Regardless of what the human picture may require, it will be supplied you without your taking thought, without your asking, without your desiring. Why? Because in attaining the Spirit, you have attained the Allness. The Earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof. Therefore, attain the Lord, and you will have the Earth and its fullness. In thy presence is fulfillment. Thy grace is my sufficiency in all things. Where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Liberty from what? Freedom from what? From lack, limitation, inharmony, discord, ill health, old age, death. In other words, attain your conscious oneness with God. Be the branch that is reunited with the tree, and you won t have to ask for blossoms or fruit. You won t have to ask that sap be run up into you. Everything will be accomplished merely by your oneness. And you ll never have to take thought for anything on this plane of existence. Everything will be provided you by Grace before you can even have the awareness of its need. Now, this was not given to me lightly or easily. For the simple reason, that like everyone else, I thought that in going to God it was for a reason and that God was going to provide something. So I was going to God for something and that was the barrier. And that was what caused the long, long period of search, until finally the revelation came. Seek Me. Seek only Me. Seek Me within you where I can be found. But seek only Me. Seek not ye what ye shall eat or drink. Seek not ye for tomorrow, or next tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. But seek Me. Seek Me. Seek Me. And eventually I knew that we ourselves set up the barrier, because unconsciously, of course, we re thinking of God as a servant, God as a servant whom we can instruct. Bring me supply. Bring me a home. Bring me companionship. Bring me happiness. Bring me opportunity. And God is not a servant. God is the Master, and we are the servants. Therefore, we are not to command God, or ask God, or request of God. We are to be the servants of God, obedient to the will of God. We are to go to God, not that my will be done, no matter how noble it may be. And some people have very noble wishes in life. But to go to God for them is wrong, because God is not there to obey your will or fulfill your desire. We are here to obey the will of God and fulfill God s desire. We are to be the fulfillment of just as the heavens declare the glory of God. The Earth showeth forth his handiwork. So we, we must be living witnesses to God s glory. Not our glory. Not my will. Not my judgment. Not my brilliance. Not my brain. Not my physical powers. Oh no. No, no, no. It must be God expressing Himself through us, and it must be our willingness to be empty. The Master showed us that you cannot fill a vessel already full. You cannot go to God with your own sense of righteousness or rightness, with your will and your desire. That s not being empty. We go to God with nevertheless not my will but thine be done in me, that I may be the showing forth of thy glory, that thy life may be glorified in me. Thy wisdom be made manifest through me. Thy love be expressed through me. And then I am, as the Master said, a servant, an instrument through which God can live on Earth.
When God lives on Earth as man, there will be peace on Earth, because God does not war with Himself. And if each one of us in this room knew that the only life we have in us is the Life of God, we could not quarrel with each other. It would the one Life quarreling with Itself, and this could never be, anymore than my right hand quarrels with my left hand. Why so? It s all part of one Body. And once you realize there is only one Life, we are all part of one Body and that Body is God. And there could be no quarreling between us, not anymore than the branches of a tree could quarrel with themselves. Why so? All branches of one tree, all fed by the same Source, all the one Life, all receiving existence and fruitage from the same Source. How can they quarrel with each other? And nothing but this realization can bring peace, whether in this room, this nation, or this universe. Only in the realization that the Life of me is the Life of you, the Being of me is the Being of you. We are all One in our spiritual relationship to God. We are all offspring of the One, all having the same Life flow in us, the same Mind that was in Christ Jesus. Only in this realization can come peace, whether between two people, two nations, or two universes. Declaring this with our lips will not establish peace. Going out on a platform and telling this to the multitudes will not establish peace, because the intellect can never accept Truth. The intellect will never agree that Truth is true, because Truth is transcendental. It transcends what the human mind can accept. And once you start to say, I in thou and thou in me and we in God, you have outraged the human intellect. The very moment that we say, whatever I do unto you, I do unto myself, we have outraged the human intellect, because the human intellect is sure of one thing and that is that each one of us is a separate unit. And usually I am the greatest one of the units. That the intellect can always agree on. Now, when you transcend the intellect, when you can discern through spiritual vision, as the Master demanded of his disciples. Whom do men say that I am? Resurrected Hebrew, prophet, yes. Whom do ye say that I am? And he expected a different answer from the disciples than he expected to get from men. And he got a different answer. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Imagine how insulting that is to the intellect to look at a Hebrew Rabbi walking around in a Hebrew robe and say, Thou art the Christ. And that s exactly what Peter did. Through that mask of costume, through that mask of church membership, Peter discerned the spiritual nature of Jesus, the rabbi, and knew that he wasn t a rabbi. He was the Christ. Well, you see it is the same way, if you were in a spiritual healing ministry, and the person were brought to you sick, very sick with many symptoms and appearances of sickness. You could never, under any circumstance, bring spiritual harmony or healing to them, unless you had a consciousness that transcended the human intellect. Because the intellect would say, you have a fever. Your heart isn t beating correctly, or your liver isn t functioning. Therefore, you would have to have a consciousness that transcended the human intellect and be able to say, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Thou art spiritual. Thou art ageless and deathless. Thou art immortal and perfect. And
how could you ever say that if you were judging by appearances? And you couldn t but then, if you were judging by appearances, you couldn t be a spiritual healer. Meditation develops that spiritual consciousness, that spiritual awareness, that transcendental consciousness, and except, as I said in the beginning, the occasional few who attain it by a Grace of God without any effort on their own part. So far as I know, meditation is the only way of lifting ourselves above the intellect into the attainment of that fourth-dimensional Consciousness the Christ Mind. And the reason that it is possible for meditation to do that is this. You have as your first major point when you go into your meditation the fact that you are not going to God for anything. You are going to God only for God. You re going only for realization. Only that I may know thee aright whom to know aright is life eternal. That I might see thee face to face. Now, the second barrier that separates us from this union with God is the belief that God is a great power that can do things to other powers. In other words, that God is a great power that can perhaps remove disease, or sin, or fear, or that God can give us supply, or that God can change the weather. And you see you never will attain conscious union with God while you re under such a delusion. God is not a great power over other powers. That is a false teaching that has been handed down through the generations that has caused men to lose their spiritual lives. Please believe me that God is Infinite and Omnipotent, and beside God there is no other power. And so when you go into a meditation, if you are seeking to have God do something like heal the sick, or reform a sinner, or get you supply, you ve set up the barrier that will separate you as long as you keep it up. God is not a power that man can use. God is a power that can use man. But God is Infinite Power. God is Omnipotent Power. Beside God, there is no other power. Therefore, to go to God with some concept in your mind of what God can do or that you want God to do is to lose it. You will find when you attain the realization of God that all these so-called powers powers of sin, or powers of disease, or powers of lack they disappear. It isn t that God has destroyed powers. The experience is exactly that of Light touching darkness, and darkness isn t there anymore. But God didn t do anything to darkness or rather Light didn t do anything to darkness. Darkness never existed as an entity. Darkness is only an absence of Light. And sin, and disease, and lack are only the absence of God. They are not entities. They are not identities. They have no form of their own. They have no power. They have no substance, and they have no law. All there is to sin, and disease, and lack is an absence of God. And where the Presence of God is, there is no sin, disease, death, lack, limitation, wars, or rumors of wars. Therefore, when you go into meditation, don t go in wanting God to be the great power. Don t go in wanting God to do something to the errors of this world, because you will fail as prayers have failed for thousands of years. How many billions of people have been on Earth praying for peace, without peace ever coming? How many billions of people have prayed for prosperity, without prosperity coming? How many billions of parents have prayed for their children? And how many billions of children have prayed for their parents? And what s the use of it all?
The only time that you will find a benefit, a lasting permanent benefit from prayer, is when you do not seek God to do anything. When you are satisfied to experience God s Presence, for God is Light and in Him is no darkness. God is Omnipotence, and when there is the Presence of God, there is no other power. You will find that meditation is not as difficult as it seems. Once you go to God with no desires, without wanting God to be a power over something, just for the purpose, Here I am, Father, that I may be where thou art, thou art where I am, that we may be one. That s all. That, if that is your pure motive when you go into meditation, meditation will not be difficult. You see God cannot be reached through the human mind. You can accept that as having been proven for a million years. God cannot be reached through any activity of the human mind. It is only when you can be still. It is only in stillness, in quietness, and in confidence that God can be realized. It is only when the senses are still. It is only when you can be still and know that I am God. Be still. This I that dwells in the midst of you is God. When It utters Its Voice, the Earth melteth. When the still, small Voice utters Itself, the discords and inharmonies of sense evaporate. But you see, it is not you thinking that does it. It is when you are not thinking. In the moment that ye think not, the bridegroom cometh. In the moment that ye take no thought for your life, the Spirit answers. When you are still and no desire except that God reveal himself. I in the midst of me is mighty. Be still and know that I in the midst of me is God. Let the Voice of God utter Itself, and the Earth will melt. God is not in the storm. God is not in the whirlwind. God is not out there in the cyclone. God is in the still, small voice, which you hear. You don t declare it. You don t say it. You don t think it. You hear it. And therefore, when you go into your meditation, you go in with a hearing ear. You might hold this ear open this way. Not that you ll hear God with your human ear, but this symbolizes for us Spiritual listening. In other words, it is the inner ear that is kept open. It merely helps us to take that attitude. It is the inner ear that hears. It is the inner eye that sees. And therefore, just be still and listen. Speak Lord, thy servant heareth. Above all, Father, I m not seeking thee for any reason. Just to be in thy Presence, to know thy Grace. And in that listening attitude, a response comes within us of one nature or another. You see God is closer to us than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. And God is not hiding himself from us. We are setting up the barrier ourselves by our desires, by our thoughts, by our false theology that has taught us that God does things to error. God doesn t do anything to error, because error hasn t any power to resist God with. All of the evil that ever was in the world is nothing but a sense of separation from God, the absence of God, for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom, harmony, peace, joy, abundance. Be assured of this. Moses did not pray to God to open the Red Sea. Moses merely stood still in the realization that the Presence of God was within him. The place whereon I stand is holy ground, and then standing there quietly, peacefully God could operate and open the Red Sea. Be assured that Moses never prayed for manna to fall from the sky. He
knew God was not his servant. His prayer could only have been the realization of Omnipotence and Omnipresence. Here where I am, God is, and that is enough for me to know. And then being still, let the human mind be still. Let all the world be still, and then the Presence of God appears as manna. Jesus could never have prayed for anyone s healing nor is there any record in the New Testament that he ever did pray for anyone s healing. Oh no, he just looked up to the Father and declared there was no other Presence. To the crippled man, what did hinder you? To the blind man, open your eyes. Even to Lazarus who was dead, he said, I need not pray. Of course not. Why should God do something after man asks him to. Isn t that ridiculous? God is the All-Knowing and the All-Loving. Does He need man to remind Him of His function? Oh no, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is the same from everlasting to everlasting. Then prayer is just standing still and realizing that. I need not ask you Father to heal anybody. I need only rejoice in thy ever Presence. I need only rejoice that you are too pure to behold inequity. Thou art no respecter of persons. Thy rain falls on the just and the unjust. The woman taken in adultery is forgiven the very moment she wants it. The thief on the cross is forgiven in the very moment that he wants it. No waiting. Why? God is Omnipresence. God is Omnipotence. God does not have to be commanded by man. God does not have to be requested by man or prayed to by man. God needs only to be realized. Here where I am, Father, thou art. All that thou art, I am. All that thou hast is mine. Son, thou hast said, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It needs only this realization. And the inner peace that follows brings the conscious union with God. For now, there is no sense of separation, nothing to cause a separation. When you come to God, remember this. In your purest state, there is no reason for God to withhold Himself from you. Only when you by ignorance set up a sense of separation, God does not break through to you and not by God s will but by our having set up the barrier.