"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

"A Parenthesis in Eternity" pdf file

Chapter 6 - God, the Consciousness of the Individual

Many persons think that they understand the mystery of life because they can trace the growth and development of th emselves and their children from a tiny seed at the time of conception to birth, and th en from birth to full maturity. But that is not the mystery of life: that is the effect of the mystery of life. The mystery lies in what produced the seed and in what brought this seed into expression. No matter how scientists may theorize as to the origin of life, eventually they arrive at a point that defies explanation because beyond the appearance of everyth ing visible is an Infinitude, a Something that we call Consciousness or Life, and this Infinity is expressing Itself as all form, as the world and everything in it.

Everything that is visible first had to have an invisible Something to send it into form, and that invisible Something is Consciousness which sends Itself into expression as a seed and all that comes forth from the seed. Were it not for Consciousness, there would be nothing expressed as form. Regardless of how beautiful a thing may seem to be, how wonderful or how abundant, we must look behind it and realize that it could not exist but for the Consciousness that formed it.

A few years ago, a very severe winter was forecast for the Eastern and Middle Western parts of the United States, a prediction based on the fact that the animals were. growing much thicker fur than usual, and that they were also stonng up more tha.n the customary ount of food for their use during the coming Winter. But can an animal decide how much fur it is going to grow? Does an animaI know athnait it is growing fur any more than we know that we are growing hair? Then, what is the underlying cause of the growth of fur on an animal, and why does the fur grow thicker in some years and thinner In others? What causes an animal to store up more food one year than another?

Very recently, another prediction was made to the effect that the forthcoming winter would be extremely mild because practically no fat was being found on the meat of the bears and the deer. Do these animals know whether or not they are producing fat?

To those on the spiritual path, the answer is obvious: every animal has a consciousness, and that animal's consciousness determines the thickness of its fur, the accumulation of fat, and the amount of food that it will store. It even provides coloring that blends in with its native habitat as a protection.

Every bird has a consciousness. Does a bird know east, west, north, or south? Yet the birds fly north in season and south in season, and they are not supplied with maps. Only we need those when we travel, not the birds. They know whither they are going, and why, and when. What is there about a bird that knows this? Is it its brain, heart, feet, or wings, or is it the bird-consciousness that carries the bird north and south? Is there not a consciousness that acts without conscious volition?

Does this not explain and give meaning to the scriptural passage, "I can of mine own self do nothing .... The Father that dwelleth In me, he doeth the works." There is something about us greater than what We appear to be. Eventually, we will discover that that something is Our consciousness. It is with us up in an airplane; it is with us in a submarine; it is with us on the ocean; it is with us on the earth. Whither can we flee from our consciousness? If we make our bed in hell, Our consciousness is there to lift us out of it.

If once we perceive that God is our individual consciousness and understand how this consciousness leads us in the way that we must go, then for the first time we can honestly say, "Oh, how love I this Lord, my God! Oh, how love I this God of creation."

Only when we have discerned that God, the Infinite Invisible, funtions as our individual consciousness can we understand the meaning of the scriptural passages: "I will neverleave thee, nor forsa thee .... Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." What can be with us throughout all time except our consciousness? The Master called this consciousness "the Father within," and he said, "I and my Father are one." Certainly, we and our consciousness are one! How can we be separate or apart from our consciousness?

Do you realize that a human body cannot stand by itself? Remove consciousness from the body, and it collapses and falls down. Only the omnipresence of your consciousness can make your body stand upright. And what about your digestive organs? Can they digest or assimilate food? Can you not see that if consciousness were not functioning in your body, the stomach and digestive organs would be just. so much dead matter, without the power to move? What then causes the operation of the organs and functions of the body? Is it a God up in the sky, or is it the same consciousness that grows fur for the animals and governs the birds in their flight-consciousness, their consciousness, your consciousness?

This consciousness is all-knowing, and it molds your body in conformity with its needs. For those people who have lived for generations in tropical and subtropical climates, it has developed in them a deeper. darker skin pigmentation, probably as a protection against the intense heat of the sun; whereas for those living in the temperate zones, such protec tion is not necessary and, ther efore, the color of the skin of the people living there is usually lighter. Here again consciousness has formed itself in consonance with where it is expressing itself. It is not an unknown God doing this: it is the consciousness of the individual meeting his every need.

"Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things .... It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Who is this Father? It is not any Father within your body: it is your very own consciousness. Your consciousness knows what things you have need of; it provided you with your body, and exactly the form of body you need for your present experience.

From the moment of birth, however, you were taught to look to others for what you needed; you were warned about the devil over here, and the God up in heaven over there, and you began to be separated from your consciousness. Soon you were so completely divorced from our consciousness that you went through life without ever drawing on it. Then you began blaming tho se who did not give you what you wanted or needed, when all the time your very own consciousness was the source, the substance, and the activity of your every experience.

If you mount up to heaven, you take your consciousness with you; if you make your bed in hell, it is with you; and no matter what problems or troubles arise, turning to your consciousness can bring release. The deepest kind of a prayer might be a smile to yourself as you think back on the animal s that grow heavy fur in anticipation of a hard winter and of the birds flying north and south in due season: "If their consciousness can provide in advance for a cold winter, my consciousness can provide for an eternity. If the birds have a consciousness th at leads them north and south, I also have a consciousness that leads me north, south, east, or west, and that fills my storehouses and barns, with twelve baskets full left over."

Consciousness has a way of providing the animals with heavy fur in winter and light fur in summer, and this God which is our consciousness has a way of providing for us in whatever climate we may be, Whatever weather or in whatever stratum of the air we may be living. This consciousness forms and molds itself in accord with our need.

Once you understand that God is infinite, divine, spiritual, perfect consciousness, yet individual, you have come close to knowing God. How can you not love that God--perhaps not now, this minute, but after a year in which you have found that that God has gone before you to prepare the way for you, that that God has walked beside you as a protection, behind you as a rear guard? After a year of relaxing in this infinite, divine Con sciousness and finding the miracle of the mystery of life, closer than breathing, how would it be possible not to love the Lord thy God?

You only have to remember those birds up in the sky and those anImals out in the woods, and you cannot help but smile when you realize that their very own consciousness provided so wisely and amply for them without the birds and the animals having to say, "Father, how about a heavier overcoat," or "How about taking me out for a vacation this winter?" Do you not see that consciousness functions without taking conscious thought-without taking thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or wherewithal you shall be clothed, or whether you are going to pass from sight at thirty, sixty, or ninety?

When you can bring God closer to yourself than your skin, when you can realize that the consciousness of the animals and the birds meets their needs in advance, you begin to understand that you, too, have a consciousness. Then you can relax, satisfied that yours now is not a blind faith in an unknown God.

Watch the difference in your approach to life when you know God aright, and then read the Gospels and understand life as presented by the Master. I may be wrong, but I can almost detect a twinkle in Jesus' eyes and see the look on his face when he is talking to the multitudes: "Why are you fearing? Why do you come to me for loaves and fishes? Did I not show you the mystery yesterday? Is there some power out there that is going to eat you up, or stop you? Come on, get up on your feet!"

Is God the consciousness of the animals, birds, and bees, and not of us? Does God clothe the flowers in their beauty and give them their form, outline, and perfume, and not us? Do they all have a God that does such wonders for them, and not for us? No, it is only that we have "prayed amiss."

In my mind's eye I can see Gautama before he became the Buddha. I can see him walking through all those forests in India, going from teacher to teacher, and being told that if he would sit in the lotus position, stand on his head, lie down on a bed of nails, abstain from eating meat, or cease praying to God for anything, he would surely find God. The poor man is bewildered: he is honest; he is sincere. He does it all, but he does not find God. Then when he decides to eat and be comfortable, he sits down under the Bodhi tree and there, alone with God, he meets Him face to face and receiveshis illumination.

He had been seeking God in practices, exercises, diets, and fasting, and God is not to be found in any of these. God is to be found only within. It is not easy to shut out the world and enter the inner sanctuary of your being, but if you have to do this and stay away from the world for a year, or seven years, it is worth it because when you find God you will find life eternal. Then you will never die. You may pass from view, but you will never die, nor will you ev~r again be anxious; and no matter what the human appearance or circumstance may be--wars, persecutions, disasters--you will still keep going on, knowing that this is the mesmerism of the outer senses. God does not desert you, and if you will just stand still, the storm will pass, and you will be out in the clear again.

The captain of a ship has to go through storms, but as he abides by the principles of seamanship, he will sail out through the storm. No storm can last forever. So with us. There are storms in this human life-some of our own-but often we take on the storms of our families or of our students who are unable to find their peace. Every teacher must accept the burdens of his students and patients. He cannot avoid it. He has to sit up nights sometimes; he may have to go weeks and weeks with problems of this one, that one, or the other. He is always taking on the burdens of those whom he is trying to lift across the wilderness, but that also makes life interesting, because there, too. no matter how severe the storms, no matter how difficult or deep, he proves for himself and for others that the way out is to know God aright.

To know Him aright is life eternal, but we do not know God aright until we know Him as the infinite, divine Consciousness that formed the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets, that informs, governs, supports, sustains, leads, and directs us to our ultimate destiny, which is the realization of our true identity as that Consciousness. I do not think we could be brought any closer to God without bumping into Him.

Down through the years there have alwaysbeen a few men who have realized that the goal of life could be achieved if only they could find God, but for the most part they have thought of God as something separate and apart from themselves and they, therefore, have gone out searching for Him where He cannot be found.

Success in this search is possible only when it is understood that Consciousness is the substance of all form and the activity, not only of all life, but even of the body, this very body with which we walk and eat and sleep.

If there were not an invisible Consciousness forcing Itself into expression as form, there could not be a tree or even a leaf on a tree. But the one Life is expressing Itself in infinite form as hundreds of different species of trees, plants, flowers, grasses, and leaves. Life must be pushing Itse lf into expression as these forms, but must not Life have been present before Its forms were able to come into being or manifestation?

The issues of life are invisible in Consciousness, and as a greater understanding of this truth is gained Consciousness will then come forth in greater measure in our experience. Weare that infinite Consciousness, but we are not showing forth th at Infin ity at this stage of our experience.We are showing forth only the degree of Consciousness which we can realize at this moment, but because we are evolving states of consciousness, that should be a far greater degree than it was, twenty or thirty years ago. In fact, one of the purposes of living on this plane is to provide our individual consciousness with the opportunity of evolving, evolving through and as us, as we open ourselves to Infinity.

The kingdom of God is within our consciousness, and when we tum within in meditation to this infinite Consciousness to let It flow, we will show forth more of the Infinity which we are and always have been, and next year a greater degree, and the year after, a still greater degree. In other words, we are expressing as much of infinite Consciousness as we can at the moment comprehend.

Let us begin with the realization that we are not form: we are consciousness, and by our devotion to meditation, we bring forth a greater degree and deeper awareness of God-consciousness. Consciousness forever expresses Itself as individual forms of intelligence. Whether it takes the form of a musician composing an oratorio, a poet writing an epic poem, an artis t giving a Mona Lisa to the world, a sculptor carving out a David, or an engineer designing a bridge, it is the one Intelligence that thrusts Itself out into life as form, as multitudinous expressions of Its own infinite gifts.

When we realize that we are God-consciousness expressing Itself as individual form and variety, we do not feel so great a responsibility to perpetuate our little selves, or even to be overconcerned about our creature comforts. The Consciousness that existed before this particular individual experience had individual form is responsible for maintaining and sustaining Itself as us, as our business, profession, ability, and as our integrity. The government is upon Its shoulders: the responsibility for living is not ours. Our only responsibility is to live up to our present highest sense of right.

We cannot be other than we are at any given moment, any more than a sunflower can be an orchid, or a blade of grass a rose. And if a sunflower or a blade of grass should struggle to be something oth er than it is-if it could-it would destroy itself. Many students on the mystical path continually berate themselves because they are not more spiritual and they want to know how to become more spirtual. They cannot be! If only each one of us could relax and realize, I am what I am, and I cannot be other than I am. That which created Itself as this form perpetuates it unto eternity."

That does not mean that we can grasp form and hold on to it. Just as we cannot keep a child a six-year-old forever, so we cannot perpetuate our own form on this earth. We all outgrow our bodies: our infant bodies, childhood bodies, adolescent bodies. Life is a continuous process of outgrowing and outgrowing.

Life cannot be seen with the physical eyes. Life Itself is invisible: we see only the forms which Life assumes. Life pushes Itself into expression as beautiful flowers and leaves, but we know that in time they all drop away. The Life does not--just the leaf or the flower does. The Life goes on forever and ever, always appearing as new forms. We are Life--Consciousness. We are not that which is visible: we are invisible Being appearing as form, but neither that form nor that personality is our real being. Our being is Consciousness individualized, the great infinite Consciousness which is manifesting Itself as so many forms and varieties of beauty and harmony.

Living thus with the Invisible produces a miracle-change in our life. We train ourselves not to eat or drink at any time without consciously pausing for a second to realize that whatever it is that we are going to eat or drink comes out of the Invisible. God appearing as our individual consciousness is its source. Always, we turn our thought God as the invisible Source, and then watch how in a few days or weeks things begin to take place in our life th at never happened before.

With everything that comes into our experience, we dwell for a second on the invisible nature of its source, realizing that it has its foundation in the consciousness which we are. That infinite divine Consciousness which sent us into expression brings all good into our life, or it would not be here, because nothing that is not a part of our consciousness can appear to us. Everything that appears or is expressed by us first has to be in our consciousness, or we could not be aware of it.

This can be proved by any person who, after walking down a busy thoroughfare, stops to take stock of what he has seen on the street and then upon retracing his steps observes how many things did not register with him at all. Why? Because they were not a part of his consciousness. The point is that one person walks down a street and sees every jewelry store he passes, and almost nothing else, while another one sees every dress shop, and almost nothing else.

Everything that appears in our life must first be a part of our consciousness. Therefore, when we recognize that each and every form the very table that is set before us, the dividends that come in, the salary, allowance, interest, or whatever it is--is a product of consciousness, then the whole nature of our life begins to change. Instead of living a material life in and of things, we live a spiritual life in and of Cause, and then the things appear in our experience as added things, and by that tim e we no longer hate, fear, or love them: we merely enjoy them as they come and go, but no longer have an attachment to them. There is no way to break undue attachment, except through dwelling constantly in the fact that there is an invisible Cause or Source of all that appears.

And what is that Invisible but consciousness? And whose consciousness but ours since it is our consciousness that is drawing to us our experiences? When we realize God as the Substance and Fabric of our consciousness, we then begin to draw forth from it only good, but if we draw from human consciousness, there is always the possibility of drawing good or evil.

Consciousness is the essence and the substance of all that is. This, however, would be as meaningless as saying that God is the substance of all form or that God is the essence of our being, unless we understand that we are talking about individual consciousness--not a consciousness, nor the Consciousness, but our consciousness.

With that as a basis, our only concern is our own state of consciousness because that is what determines our individual experience. Every person benefits or suffers from his own acts, and this squarely puts it up to the individual to determine the nature of his own experience. Scripture of all times has brought out the truth that the individual is responsible for his experience.

When we understand this, we shall understand the biblical passage, "Cast thy bread upon the waters." Why should we cast our bread upon the waters? Because this is the bread that must come back to us. We cannot expect to enjoy the bread that someone else has cast upon the waters, and whether or not we expect to, we shall not be able to do it. The Master accepted this truth when he taught that as ye sow so shall ye reap, which correctly interpreted means that whatever our experience is, is an emanation of our consciousness. God--Infinity, Eternality, Immortality--is our consciousness in its purest state. We are not a self separate and apart from God: we are God expressed as individual being. That is what we are when we are the Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Only when the belief of two powers enters our consciousness do we find ourselves cast out of the Garden of Eden, and then we live as human beings who have to earn their living by the sweat of their brow. We are human beings who live lives, sometimes good, sometimes evil, sometimes healthy, sometimes sick, sometimes rich, sometimes poor, and for most people the negative aspect usually predominates in their lives. All these things happen to us because we now have developed, through this belief of good and evil, handed down to us through the ages, a consciousness, a mind, and a life of our own, and we refer to it as my life or your life, as my mind or your mind. And because of this identification we find that we have a life to lose or a mind to lose.

The search for truth has always and ever been a search for a way return to God-consciousness. All human experience is the Prodigal's experience. The Prodigal had a certain amount of his father's substance with which he started out, but each day that he lived he us up some of it, and in the end he had none left. So it is in human experience. We start out in life with some measure of God-life, but because we believe our life is separate and apart from that God-life; we call it our life and begin to use it up. By the time we reach threescore years and ten, or twenty, we have used it all up and with it our strength and mental capacities.

Living the spiritual life means finding a way to return to the Father's house and there be robed with the royal robes of sonship and have placed upon our hand the jeweled ring of spiritual authority. On the spiritual path, we are seeking to "die" to our human life, a life made up of both good and evil, and be reborn in our original Essence, divine Consciousness, or God-life.

Fulfillment begins to appear with the recognition that God constitutes our consciousness and that that consciousness is infinite: it embodies our life and our being unto infinity and eternity; and therefore, our good will unfold from within us, and the human ways through which this is to appear will open.

We are Consciousness: Consciousness is our identity; Conscioness is the infinity of our being; Consciousness is the source of our being; Consciousness is the creative principle; and it is our state of consciousness that has manifested itself as our particular form and experience.

The most important factor in our lives and in our progress on the spiritual path is Consciousness--our individual consciousness.

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