Nothing Takes Place Outside Consciousness 1960 Los Angeles Closed Class Joel S. Goldsmith Tape 302A Good evening. You will remember that our very first Infinite Way principle is that God constitutes individual being. This means God constitutes your being. God manifests as your life, your mind, your spirit, your soul, and even your body is the temple of God. This is the spiritual truth about you. Now, as you accept this, this makes you a law unto your life s demonstration. In other words, God has given man dominion over everything. God in giving you His mind, God in giving you His Life, Soul, Spirit, God in giving you His intelligence has given you dominion over ignorance, superstition, darkness, falseness. And this dominion is your spiritual birthright. Now, the reason we are human beings is that we have forfeited this birthright of dominion and turned it over to the world what the Master called this world to use against us. I have you told that the basis of our healing work was the discovery of how error operates in our experience, and now I can explain that to you. All error, regardless of its name or nature, whether it comes in the form of a sinful desire, a false appetite, a disease, unemployment, any of the world s discords and inharmonies comes to us as a form of, well the correct term is a mental malpractice, actually an imposed mental force from outside. It is not your doings or mine, except for the basic fault that we have surrendered our dominion, but having done that, and that, of course, is the original sin, having done that the rest of the reason for our discords is not that we are evil, but that we continually accept evil from the world. Now, let us put it this way. The very moment that the newspaper or radio announces the coming of an epidemic, at that very instant the human world opens itself to the epidemic. And it just lets it come by means of that mentally imposed suggestion from outside. Now, nobody started the rumor just to make you sick, but there it is. It is in consciousness, and it is thrust at you, and without knowing the basic truth of being, you feel, Well, what can I do about it? I m a statistic anyhow. So forty out of a hundred get it. I may be one of the forty. And then you wait around to see. If you re not, you re just lucky. Actually, you are responsible for it only because you did not know how to avoid it. You did not know the truth of being. You did not know what caused it or how to prevent it. Now, let me show you how this operates in another way. And this illustrates it very carefully. In up to nineteen, the end of 1913, we had a President in the White House who had done little or nothing of note and had very little chance of re-election. But they did find one virtue in him. He kept us out of war. And that was a very important thing. Oh
this wasn t 14; this was up to 16, 15. He kept us our of war, and so that was the election slogan He kept us out of war. And believe it or not, he was re-elected, just because he kept us out of war, which I m sure you will recognize means this: That the public wanted to stay out of war. But, six months later it was in war. Now why? Why did a majority of the voters of the United States change their minds in six months and beg and plead to go to war? Did they want it? No, they didn t want it anymore than they had before, but a committee had been formed, called a Propaganda Committee, and it was given authority to whip the people up into a fury and send them into war. And motion pictures were made in New Jersey showing the shooting down of schoolchildren in red schoolhouses in Belgium and France. All took place in New Jersey. Stories were printed about the hun and the atrocities of the hun. Of course, there were probably some atrocities. There always are in war. But the point is that within a few months the same public that voted to keep us out of war were shouting like mad to let us get at that hun. That is mental imposition against which we could have defended ourselves. We witnessed that same thing in the next war. When on the night before election we were promised: Re-elect me. I guarantee you mothers, your children will not set foot on foreign soil in war at least not for thirty days. And the same thing happened, remember. The public begged for war. They just wanted it so badly within a few months. Why? Because the mental pressure was thrown at them, superimposed upon them, until they yelled for it. I m thinking right now of a passage in Mrs. Eddy s writings in which she, that she calls it mental treatment illustrated and tells the practitioner how to give the treatment, and then says, and the practitioner keeps up this mental argument until the patient s mind yields, and the patient says, I am well. That s what I mean by mental imposition. In that case, of course, the purpose is good, but it is nevertheless a mental imposition, and so it is with disease, and so it is with sin. There are impersonal, mental forces operating, and they come at us as person or condition. They come at us as sinful appetites or false appetites. They come at us as threats of lack or limitation, threats of danger, and we respond. Now, all disease reaches you or this public of the world through a mental imposition and in no other way. Now, it is not personal. There is no person doing it to you, so let us not blame the members of the church next door. Let us not blame the members of some race or religion, because none of that would be true. All evil is impersonal, even though it may come to you through the means of a person. But that person isn t anymore responsible than you are. They, too, are victims. Now, the moment that you understand that God constitutes your being, that God is the very life, and mind, and soul of you, then you can understand why you are told in Genesis that God gave man dominion over everything, even over the astrological charts, even over the stars, over the planets, over the weather, over all that s in the air, over all that s
in the sea and beneath the sea. Man was given dominion by virtue of the fact that he was given the mind and life of God. Now, the very moment that you realize I am the Son of God, the manifestation of God s own Being, God is revealing Itself on earth as my being, manifesting as my mind, and my life, and my soul, and my spirit, even as the law unto my being. Then you must say, And no law can then operate on me. All law must operate out from me, through me. In other words, only the law of God can operate in my consciousness, on my consciousness, through my consciousness, and nothing from without can enter that defileth or maketh a lie. Once you set yourself up as the child of God, the offspring of God, under the law of God, nothing and no one out here can influence you individually or collectively. You will not respond to urges from without. But, you yourself will be a law unto yourself, and you ll be a law of God, not a law of selfishness, not a law of using your mind at somebody else s expense. You will be a law of love, and a law of intelligence, a law of life. But you cannot do it, unless first of all, you can perceive that God made you in His image and likeness. That God has made you of the very substance and fiber of His own being, and that you thereby or therefore are under the law of God, and the law of God moves in my inward parts. The law of God manifests in my mind and body. The law of God manifests in my soul and spirit, so that even my body is the temple of God, and the law of God establishes me, maintains me, and sustains me, and I m not subject to external influence. When you establish yourself that way, you are the law unto your life and all things begin to work together for good for those that love God, for those that love this idea of being God-governed and not subject to outside influences. Now, first then, study well, read well, ponder, meditate within your self until you do come to an absolute conviction that God made all that was made, and all that God made is good. Therefore, if you are believing that there is any evil, you are accepting a suggestion external to your own being. You are accepting a suggestion from outside, from carnal mind, from this universal belief in two powers. And you can always know, you can always know the very moment you are accepting the suggestion of a selfhood apart from God, or a law apart from God, or a life apart from God, you are accepting a mental imposition from without. Now, if you understand it in this light, you can understand why mental malpractice is a fact. It is only if you identify mental malpractice as the act of a person or group of persons that you ll get in trouble, because you will be personalizing evil, and you ll suffer from your own belief. Never believe that you suffer from the thoughts of others, because you don t, if you have accepted your self as one with God. You can only suffer from the thoughts of others, if you surrender your dominion. Actually, the thoughts of others only have power where there is a belief in that. Let me illustrate that for you. In every one of the religions of the primitive races, that is the original races, religion never rose higher than a mental level; and for that reason, it consisted of both good and evil. And so you will find that in all primitive religions there
are those who are called the priests, who perform the service of good. That is, they pray for health. They bring health. They pray for harmony. They bring harmony. They are the blessing and the benediction to their people. But in every one of these tribes, there was also the bad priest. And this one has the power of cursing. This one has the power of killing you. Now, as you study these ancient religious teachings, you ll find that they really can. That is, the good priest can really heal, and the bad priest can really kill. You probably have read in this very age of this practice being continued in Pennsylvania among the people there known as hexers. It s also, until a hundred years ago, was continued in the Hawaiian Islands where we have the good kahuna and the bad kahuna. The good kahuna heals, and I have worked with one of these and can testify to the fact that they can heal and heal well. But the bad kahuna, if you have someone you want killed, you just let him know, and it won t be long until they ll be dead. Now, the secret of this is this: That from childhood up, they are taught that the good kahuna heals, and the bad kahuna kills, and therefore, they are in fear all their lives of the bad kahuna. So then, the very moment you say, I ll fix you. I m going to the bad kahuna. You start trembling, and a few days later, you ll find you pass right out of the picture. And this is true also in Australia among the aborigines. It was true in Central and South America in the days of the original, the primitive peoples there. It was also true in Egypt. Now, of course, you know it s true among the voodoo, the people of Haiti. Now, and recently a book has been published in this country showing you how you can pray for your plants and flowers and make them grow beautifully. But, of course, if you don t like them, you can pray for them and kill them. Yes, by one of our Protestant ministers, he came up with that beautiful idea. Of course, he was both wrong and right. He was entirely wrong when he said you could pray a plant to death. But, you can t pray; prayer is an activity of the Spirit, of the Soul of God. But, he was right in this: That you can do mental work. You can use the power of the human mind even to make your flowers grow or to destroy them. And so it is that, of course, the plants are defenseless. If you can find people who are susceptible to the belief that somebody s thought can hurt them, believe me, they can be hurt. But those who haven t been taught that superstition, you can t touch them. It won t affect them one bit. And that s why metaphysicians are the easiest ones to malpractice. They believe in it, some at least. Now, let me assure you of this: There are not two minds. There is not a divine Mind and a mortal mind. There is only one Mind, and its power is good. Therefore, there is no power in what is called malpractice, but there is power in your belief that it has power. That is where the power comes in. So then, if you will bear with me long enough to understand that nobody s thought can hurt you individually or collectively, because their thought isn t mind. Their thought is merely a belief in two powers. It isn t mind. It s belief. It s based on the belief in two powers good and evil. So, it can t be mind. You ll be saved from any form then of what is called personal malpractice.
Now, go a step further with me and realize that this universal malpractice, such as this belief in infection, or contagion, or heredity, this universal belief in the power of disease, realize that this universal malpractice cannot operate in, on, or through your consciousness, because God is your consciousness, and nothing can operate on God. You know that. Nothing can enter God that defileth or maketh a lie. Therefore, if God constitutes your consciousness, you are immune to belief. And it operates like this: That to the pure, all things are pure. In other words, if there s nothing in your consciousness to respond to evil, no evil can take root there. How do you make yourself free of evil? Only one way. Live and move and have your being in the realization of God as constituting your consciousness, your mind, your soul, your being. Live and move and have your being in the realization of God as the very life of you, the very soul of you, and then you will know that nothing can enter that defileth or maketh a lie. And recognize that, that regardless of these superstitions, or rumors, or reports about weather, or climate, or about health, or infections, or contagions, or epidemics, hold to it that those are nothing but imposed mental suggestions; and you are not subject to them, because they are not power. Now, this you see leads to our principle healing Principle. Yes, our principle healing Principle. And that is that God doesn t heal for us or through us. God is not a power over sin, disease, or death. The principle of The Infinite Way states that sin, disease, and death aren t power. They are only imposed suggestions concerning the belief in two powers the Adamic belief in good and evil. Once you realize this that such things do not come forth from mind for mind is the source of intelligence but only from belief, universal belief. Let s call it carnal mind, if you like. Let s call it mortal mind, if you like. As long as you don t believe that they are mind, as long as you understand that carnal mind or mortal mind means only a belief in two powers, a universal belief, not a personal one, not your belief, not my belief, not his belief, not her belief, an impersonal, universal belief. Then, you can laugh at it, the same as you would if someone told you, Oh, there s a man down here who s going to think you to death. You know they couldn t, because you know God is your life, and nobody can think God away. So therefore, you stand firm in that realization. And so it is, when you know God is the health of your countenance, tell me what can enter that defileth or maketh a lie to your health? But, you must know this truth. You must know the truth of your true identity, first of all. Then, secondly, you must know the source of all error. Now, the source of all error is not your wrong thinking nor any of the beliefs you ve picked up. The source of all error is a universal malpractice, or a universal suggestion, or imposition coming to you for acceptance, just like the devil came to Jesus to tempt him. He only had to say, Get thee behind me, Satan. And all you have to say is, I recognize this suggestion of lack or limitation. I recognize this suggestion of infection or contagion.
We have experimented, a small group of students, with the phenomena of weather in the form of tidal waves and typhoons, and stopped them dead before they could do anything, and watched them dissolve and disappear in space. You know why? Every unnatural condition of weather is nothing but a mental malpractice. It isn t a condition of weather. It doesn t start at the North Pole or the South Pole. It starts in a universal belief in two powers, and it is stopped in its tracks when it hits up against the realization of one Power, and that one Power is the spirit of God in me, the spirit of God in you, the presence of God in you, the life of God in you. It stops it dead. You see, nothing can enter your experience except through your consciousness, and if there s a rumor of a storm, it has to get into your consciousness before it can manifest. And if you stop it dead, one with God is a majority. One with God is a majority. Two or more gathered together in that, in this truth, ten righteous men can save a city. All points to just one thing. It takes but very little realization to wipe out the evils of this world as they touch our individual consciousness. Remember this, you cannot experience anything that does not enter your consciousness. But, anything can enter your consciousness, unless you are standing there. Now, you remember I brought out at one of these classes, open or closed, that here is my body. That s all you see. You don t see me; you see my body. And there s another part of me you don t see, and that s my mind, because my mind is invisible. Now, behind my mind stands Me. There is Me, and my mind, and my body. Now, you follow this as I say it to you. I have a mind. Is that true? Is it true of you? You better be sure. I have a mind. I have a body. And remember I am standing back here and addressing my mind, and it, in turn, governs my body. But, remember my body can t catch cold. It has to enter through the mind, and that means I let it in. See how important I am in my life. I stand behind me. I stand behind my mind and my body. If I say to my hand up, it goes up. If I say down, it goes down. If I say give, it gives. If I say withhold, it withholds, because the hand has no intelligence. It can do nothing of itself but it must respond to Me for I am its voice. And I, through the mind, impart my will to this hand. Then, if I realize that I and my Father are one, all that my Father hath is mine. Here where I stand I am on holy ground, for right here I and the Father are one. Thou seest me, thou seest the Father that sent me, for I and the Father are one. All that the Father hath is mine, the intelligence of the Father, the love of the Father, the life of the Father, the being of the Father, the spirit of the Father, all of this is mine. I and the Father are one. The qualities of the Father and the quantities of the Father, all of these are mine. Therefore, I am the fulfillment, the presentation of all that God is. And nothing from without can enter my consciousness that defileth or maketh a lie, because I stand here in the realization of God as constituting my being. Now, let the world s belief be what it may. Let universal belief be what it may. Let everyone think what they will. I and my Father are one, and nothing can enter my consciousness that defileth or maketh a lie. And the 91 st Psalm says that if I live, if I dwell in this secret place of the most High, none of these evils shall come nigh my dwelling place not some of them, none of them. None. And the Master said, If I abide in this Word and let this Word abide in me, I will bear fruit richly, and it doesn t make any difference what s happening to the thousand at
my left or the ten thousand at my right, because he also says that, If I do not abide in this Word and I do not let this Word abide in me, I will be as a branch of a tree that is cut off and withereth. Do you see who determines your life? Do you see who determines the experiences of your life? You do. You do. By consciously identifying yourself with God, you open yourself to all that God is by recognizing the source of error, the nature of error as an imposed suggestion from without and standing there and refuting it. You nothingize it. Absolutely nothingize these suggestions as they reach you. Now, we have here a question: In the past, we have been using affirmations and denials. Now in The Infinite Way it is the realization of the Presence. Since we have been warned not to mix these two systems, and it takes time to develop spiritual consciousness, what system should be used in the interim? Now, that s a good question. It is. It is. It s a good question. I like it. Because it is not that affirmations and denials are forbidden, in the sense of acknowledging the truth and denying the error, because I have just been affirming my conscious union with God, my conscious oneness with God, and I ve been denying a power to mental malpractice, to the universal imposed suggestions from without. So, I have been affirming, and I have been denying. But, when it says in our literature that we must not use affirmations and denials, it means repeating statements of truth over and over and over again for the purpose of making something happen. In other words, we don t take a prayer and recite it a hundred times, and then say by the time we get to the hundredth time the ill will be gone. We don t repeat it and repeat it and repeat it for the purpose of making something happen, but we do consciously remember it, that is what Paul calls praying without ceasing. Morning, noon, and night, we are affirming something to ourselves and denying something. Morning, noon, and night, we are affirming I and the Father are one. All that the Father hath is mine. We may not use that terminology, because the same statement is written in our writings a thousand different ways. So, it isn t necessary to use the same statement, but the same theme is there in the same way. The major principle, healing Principle in The Infinite Way is this realization of the nature of error, because now you don t need any God to get rid of it for you. You don t have to make a God contact to heal disease. Now, it s only necessary to know the truth, the nothingness of that which is claiming to impose upon, impose itself upon you from without and its universal nature. You re going to discover a great secret very soon. And that is that the very minute you re asked for help and don t pin something onto your patient, they re going to get well, so suddenly well sometimes that it s going to shock you, because the only thing that has held them in their disease is the personalization of the evil. Somebody has been blaming it on them, including themselves. Somebody has said that it s their fault. It s their wrong thinking. It s their lust, or their malice, or their enmity, or they may not like their mother-in-law. Well, you can t love all mother-in-
laws, you know, I mean let s be reasonable. There s a limit. But that shouldn t make anybody ill. And certainly this fantastic notion about hate and jealousy. All my metaphysical life I ve been hearing how it causes cancer. And if you d know the type of women that I ve met that have had cancer, I can t find any of that hate and jealousy in them to that extent. A little bit of it, of course, we all have that, but not enough to cause cancer. I know it isn t true. And I ll surprise you with something else. I ve had cases of newborn babies with cancer before they had a chance to hate. Now, who we going to blame it on? How are we going to blame these diseases on the wrong thinking of the unborn baby? Do you see that you ve got to wake up now and bear with us in this work, because The Infinite Way hasn t covered this globe in thirteen years by being promoted, or financed, or advertised. It has gone on its own power of healing. And what has brought about this healing? The impersonalization of evil. The recognition that evil doesn t start in you. It starts in an Adamic belief in two powers, and then it keeps imposing itself in one form or another, until it comes to us as a suggestion a suggestion of weather, a suggestion of climate, a suggestion of one thing or another. And we admit it into our consciousness, and then say, Now, how shall I get rid of it? It s much better to keep the locks on the door and keep the thief out, rather than worrying how to get rid of him after he s in. So it is with this. Two points I bring to your attention in The Infinite Way, which can change your entire lives. Begin to know your own identity and do not fear to claim your Sonship with God, for you are a divine being. The essence of you is God, the very life and fiber of your being is God. All that constitutes your being is God, and you can demonstrate that in proportion as you realize that all the negative things of life sin, disease, lack, and limitation are imposed beliefs. They are superimposed upon you and ignorantly you accept them. Whereas, if you would know that God is too pure to behold iniquity, and therefore, nothing is truth that comes to your consciousness, unless it testifies to immortality, eternality, infinity, abundance, twelve baskets were left over, and so forth. So it is that in answering this question then, you must affirm the truth, as how could you know the truth, and in knowing the truth you are always denying the error, or the nature of it, or the fact of it; but do not use affirmations and denials in the form of I am rich, and I know it. I am rich, and I know it. And then have to open up your purse and say, I can t find a dollar. And the same way, there s no use saying, I am well. I am well. I am well, if you re sick. None at all. I remember in the days when I was exclusively practicing and on several occasions in winter, New York, New England, I came to my office with evidences of a cold. And many times patients would say, Oh, you have a cold. Yes. Oh, surprised that I would go to the office and reveal it; I should stay at home and conceal it. I said, Look, I m not ashamed of a cold. I m very grateful that I know something to meet it with. And I can do my work in the office as well as home and not claim to have made a demonstration that I haven t made. So, let s go on with this.
Now all of this thing about I am well, I am well, I am well is a form of hypnotism. It was used by Coué in the days of Coué-ism : Everyday in everyway I m getting better and better. Whereas the metaphysicians went him one better and said, I am already perfect. That is not the type of affirmation to use, but this is a good type: I. Just think of the meaning of that word I. I. It means. You know what it means? Just listen to what Jesus said about it: I am the bread and the wine and the water. I am life eternal. I am the resurrection. I am life eternal. Isn t that wonderful what I AM? And that is what you must realize that that is what I AM. That is what I means. I in the midst of thee is mighty. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And as you stand on that and then look out, and say, Ah, and all this else that appears as limitation, finiteness, negativeness, this is carnal mind, nothingness, the arm of flesh. This is a universal belief in two powers. But I am the only power. I am the way and the truth. And that I in the midst of thee embodies all of the God power there is. That s why I can t use It. It can use me. If I am still, I in the midst of me will live my life, just as Paul told us, I live yet not I. Christ liveth my life. I live yet not I. There is a Spirit in me that liveth my life. I live yet not I. The Father within me liveth my life. Those are affirmations, if you want to call them such. They re more than that. They are declarations of Truth. But, you must remember that while there have been many mystics in life, in the life of the world, very few of them were healers. And the reason is, as a matter of fact, some of the mystics have been the greatest sufferers physically and mentally. And the reason is they never discovered this second step. They never discovered where evil comes from or what its nature is. And, of course, the human world doesn t know, and that is why the human world can t meet it. It is only we who have this secret of the source of evil, who by demonstrating it in our individual lives will attract to us a group here and a group there and so spread around the world, until one day somebody will ask the question, What makes you people so immune to most of the world s disasters or the world s tragedies? And then it will be able, it will be possible to reveal, I know the source of evil. I know whence it comes and how it operates. It operates as a mesmeric suggestion coming to us for acceptance, and in our ignorance, we accept it. It operates as a universal malpractice. It operates as imposed belief in two powers. It does not operate when I know that God constitutes my being. All that God is I am, and nothing can enter my consciousness that defileth or maketh a lie. And there you have the whole process. Question: What do you mean when you say all evil is impersonal? Isn t all good impersonal also? Answer: Yes, indeed, it is. And actually, that is the other half of the picture. In proportion as you can realize the impersonal nature of evil, you will also recognize the impersonal nature of good. In other words, you will never say, I am good, or I am spiritual, or I am charitable, or I am forgiving, or I am loving. Things like that will never again enter your mind, for you will know that could not be true. Whatever qualities
of good are manifest through you are qualities of God finding expression and outlet through you or anyone else. You will find all of this in that booklet, Love and Gratitude, which is really one of the most important writings in the message of The Infinite Way. For this very reason, as long as we are claiming virtues for ourselves, we are perpetuating the Adam dream. The Master said, Why callest thou me good? There s but one good, the Father in heaven. Or, I can of mine own self do nothing. The Father within me, he doeth the works. As you come to a state of consciousness in which you know that you are but the showing forth of God, you are the instrument through which or as which God appears on earth, and every good quality you have is not yours but God s manifesting through you, then you will begin, not only to have more of these, you will begin to see how these grow in quantity and quality. In personalizing them, you lose them. Many people have asked why they have been charitable or philanthropic all of their lives and ended up poor. There s only one reason. They really believed they were philanthropic. They really believed they were giving something. You see, The earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof, so you have nothing of your own to give. And as a matter of fact, if it weren t for God in you, you d never have an instinct in you to give away that which is yours, because everything mortal about us wants to hold fast. It s our guarantee of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Therefore, there must be something tremendously Divine in the individual who can let lose. And more especially, if in letting lose, he realizes, This isn t even mine. I am only the instrument through which God is giving this to the needy, to those who require it, to those who want it. But, it is this infernal belief that I am a good person and I am sacrificing my life for you that ends us all up poverty stricken and broken in health. Nobody would have to be ill in their advanced years, in their mature years, if they realized they had never sacrificed for their children. Most of our illnesses come because of the beliefs that we gave our health for our children, or our parents, or somebody else who was dependent on us when we didn t. It was God s health that was being expressed through us and even the desire to be good to them was God s, not ours. Without God, we re too selfish for those things. So it is. To impersonalize good means to understand that I have no health. God is the health of my countenance. It means to know that I have no wealth. The earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof. Of course, I m happy that he also said, Son, all that I have is thine. That s very consoling. At least, I have the use of it. But, you all know that wealth isn t yours. You all had an opportunity to see that at the end of the line there s a probate court where you check your belongings. No, it s not ours. It s ours for a day, but it s ours abundantly, if we ll realize that it s the grace of God, not the grace of me or the grace of you. It s the grace of God. That is impersonalizing good. When you can do that, you can also impersonalize evil. And, if you do see an intoxicated person, if you do see a thief, if you do see a slanderer, a scandalmonger, you won t pin it on them. You ll realize that this, too, is nothing but an impersonalization of error, the belief that I of
myself can be good or evil, whereas all the good is an emanation of God. All of the evil is an imposition from this universal. Question: This is a question about trials are proofs of God s care. Well now, it doesn t mean that God has given us trials. That would be an impossibility. God has no pleasure in your dying. Turn ye and live. The reason the Master conducted his ministry, he said, was to heal the sick, raise the dead, open the eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf. If it had been God s will for any of those things to take place, he would have been thwarting God s will, not performing God s will. Therefore, you must understand that poverty, lack, limitation, sickness, death are no part of God s will for man. And, therefore, even though they are the trials by which we grow, they are not God given. They are brought to us, because we have brought them forth as the only means by which we can grow. I cite you the story of Joseph. Joseph was the son of a rich and important man in his day and not only that but he was the favorite son. So, in the ordinary walk of life, Joseph would have continued onto the end of his days worthless, just being a nice pampered son, with lots of everything and not having learned anything. But, you see Joseph evidently had a gift and one that would have gone to waste in that kind of idle life. And so, he had to be lifted out of himself, and he was. He was thrown into a pit to be killed. He was thrown into a pit and sold into slavery. Even after he got to Egypt as a slave and started to do well for himself, he was accused of a crime and sent to prison for two years. Joseph and Job could have gotten along beautifully together for a while. But when it is all over and Joseph is second to the king of Egypt, and in charge of all of the supply, and the very brothers who threw him into the pit and sold him into slavery are there to get food; and naturally, you can imagine how they feel to find their own brother, the one they have to go to for their food. They felt ashamed. But, Joseph told them, No, no, no. No, don t feel that way. It wasn t you that did this. God sent me before you into Egypt. In other words, it was Joseph s destiny to fulfill himself in Egypt, but as the pampered son of a rich and important man, he would have never gotten there. And so, he had to draw unto himself the very experiences, hard as they were, that eventually brought him to Egypt. This is true of you, and this is true of me. If we ever achieve anything in this spiritual work, you will find that many trials, and many tribulations, and many hard paths you will have to walk before you get there; and not that God put the stumbling block in your way, but there was no way for you to transcend these universal beliefs, without surmounting them one by one in each form as they have come. I have witnessed in my travels that every man and woman who has gone any place at all spiritually tells the same story of problems that their students and disciples never would go through, never would survive most of them, never would permit themselves to have, because they wouldn t feel it worthwhile. And, so it is that trials are the very things we need to lift us up. God doesn t give them to us. We attract to ourselves the conditions that we need, just as on the other side we attract the teachers to us that can advance our
progress. We attract the supply necessary to accomplish what we want. We attract everything to us that may appear to us as good or evil