Circle of Christhood

Comments from CC:

When we speak of THE ABSOLUTE we are referring to the mystical teaching of the ages taught by Moses, Jesus, Buddha and all mystics throughout time.  Modern New Age authors love talking about the Absolute. 

The Absolute teaches that God is all and all is God, I am; the world is an illusion; there is no good or bad, etc.  These teachings are certainly found in The Infinite Way. However, only The Infinite Way teaches the next step - spiritual healing, healing that occurs as, and only as, the result of a God contact, a shift in consciousness.

You see, knowing mystical principles is the beginning, the first step.  We learn the philosophy of The Infinite Way. We grasp it intellectually. We must now allow this intellectual understanding to become an experience in consciousness and so, we meditate.  The Infinite Way without meditation, is mental understanding and thus still only metaphysics.  Any understanding or teaching of Infinite Way principles without meditation and God Contact is mental, material, metaphysical.  It is not mysticism nor is any healing (which may occur as a mental healing) spiritual.  Remember, only spiritual healings are permanent.

If you have trouble with Absolute teaching, please take the information into your meditation and ask for more light on it from Within.

Here are some study tools:

Tape #160 side one

Tape #470 side one

Tape # 607 side one

1981 Letters (The Only Freedom) Chapter 6 (See posted here.)

The Infinite Way is NOT an Absolute Teaching, It is Joel's Spiritual Experience – His Spiritual Journey:

"The message of The Infinite Way, which is nothing more nor less than my individual experience, the experience that I have lived in my own lifetime…"  Tape 185 side one 

Joel does not teach that The Infinite Way is an Absolute teaching.

"I assume also that those who use the term 'Absolute Teaching' do not know that there are two Absolute teachings.  There's not just one.  There are two.  And they are exactly opposite to each other.  One of them that is called a 'teaching of the Absolute,' is a teaching of affirmations and denials, mental laws, and continuous mental treatment.  And the other teaching that is called "The Absolute" is a reversal of that.  It has no affirmations and no denials and no such treatments, but stands on the fact that God is all.  And, The Infinite Way isn't like either of those."  Tape 160 side one

There are sites which appear to be Infinite Way, but they introduce other teachings of the Absolute such as Tolle, Aiken, A Course in Miracles, or other metaphysical and eastern mental practices (http://www.theunofficialinfiniteway, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theunofficialinfiniteway, www.freewebs.com/iwstudents, etc.) . 

Listing other authors gives students the impression that all those listed are the same teaching. If these sites just corrected themselves and deleted the other authors, there would be no problem. They would then provide what they claim, and we could take their names off the non-Infinite Way list.

Publishers have added the names of current celebrity metaphysicians like Marianne Williamson, Gerald Jampolsky, or Wayne Dyer to the cover of Joel's books. This indicates how Joel is able to transcend other religious and metaphysical teachings, and how The Infinite Way can find a home in all of these messages. It does not mean to imply that these metaphysicians teach Infinite Way principles.

The Infinite Way is a study of healing, meditation and God contact. It was unique in Joel's day and is so today.

If an individual is called upon to help The Infinite Way and accepts - from that moment, integrity obligates one to be a servant of Joel's message and a worthy custodian. 

Teachers of The Infinite Way are not free to alter Joel's materials.  Students deserve to have clear and correct instruction.   Teachers are custodians of a student's soul, and there is no greater responsibility in the world.  An Infinite Way teacher is spiritually and humanly obligated to only use Joel's books and tapes. This is what he asked them to do. (See Letter to Norman). 

This does not mean that we are not free to read whatever books we want.  It just means that a teacher has to try not to change the teachings. The rule may seem harsh, but it is one of the only rules Joel made.  It was designed to protect the message from well intentioned students who felt it needed adjustments.  We have already seen this happen in the first generation. So we can respect Joel's foresight in trying to anticipate that error was going to veil the truth yet again.

The Infinite Way is Not an Absolute Teaching

Chapter: 6 The Discipline of Knowing the Truth

The Only Freedom (1981 Letters)

by Joel S. Goldsmith

There are persons who think Mr. Goldsmith is absolute.  He is not.  Never believe it.  Nobody is absolute who resorts to treatment, books, words, lectures, or classes.  Any time anyone goes further than saying, "I AM,"  he is no longer absolute, because everything else exists in the relative.  Every time I am faced with appearances in the outer world, I consciously remember:

I in the center of my being is my sanctuary. The center of my being is the place where God abides. The center of God's being is where I abide, and that is right here where I am, since I and the Father are one.

Every time I am faced with an outside appearance, I am not absolute about it at all.  I have a realization within myself"

I and the Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine, right here where I am now. The soul of my being is the substance of what I am eating. Everything that goes into my system must partake of the nature of my own soul, spirit, or consciousness.  It is the very activity of God within me that is the value of the food I eat.

The soul of my being is the value of whatever money I receive; and it is the value of whatever money I give out. The soul at the center of my being is the value unto my supply.  The soul at the center of my being is the law unto this body.

I never am so absolute that I do not remember such truths. I do not think a day goes by that I do not consciously remember sometime or other:

God is at the center of me, the soul of me, is the substance, the life, and the activity of this body, of its organs and its functions, and that is why this body is immortal.  This body is vital and alive for the simple reason that God is the substance of it,  God is the activity of it, and God is the only law unto it. No calendar is a law unto it, and neither are food, vitamins, calories, or germs.

God animates, feeds, supplies, maintains, and sustains my being, that very God of my being which is my soul, my spirit, my consciousness.  That which is the reality of my being is the law unto my mind, unto my soul, unto my purse, unto my body, unto my universe, unto my practice, unto my student body. God is the substance of it and, if God is not the substance of my practice and my student body, I would not want it even though it might be humanly profitable. I want only that part of the practice or that part of the student body which is a part of my household, of my consciousness, that which is of God.

While everything and everyone is of God, there are states and stages of consciousness, and those persons who are not a part of this particular state of consciousness must gravitate to that place and that teacher and that teaching where they can be blessed.  Their purpose in life is to find their teacher.  My purpose in life is to find my own students so that we all can be of one household, of one state of consciousness.  The absolute aspect of the Infinite Way and of prayer in the healing work is that this truth is so deeply ingrained in me that if you present a problem to me I may not have to go over all that ground specifically and declare the truth every time you call or every time there are a dozen calls.  Now it may be necessary only to sit down, get still, and in a minute or two or three or five, that feeling of God's presence comes and the work is done.

There are times, however, when I have to sit up all night to meet a case.  There are times when I may have to work for days to pull a case through that seems to be slipping out for the simple reason that the only time we meet these so-called desperate cases is when we reach an elevation of consciousness that meets the need. Our work in the Infinite Way is not an attempt to be absolute.  It is not an attempt to set ourselves up on some high cloud to be knocked off some sweet day.

"And so it is that when I told very prominent people in the metaphysical world, in the Christian Science world that mind was not God, I was told all up and down the line that I was incorrect because mind is God in the Christian Science textbook. But,  mind isn't God and we know today that mind isn't God.  And,  the reason we know it is that mind, first of all, can be used and God can't be used; and mind can be used for either good or evil.  And, God cannot be used for either good or evil.  So, mind cannot be God.  And, this we are also sure of, that mind is an instrument and not a synonym for God - an instrument, and one that is subject to your use and control.  And, God is not subject to your use or your control."  -Tape 420 side 1