Circle of Christhood

Joel wrote very little about parenting. During his life, he helped raise step-children, but he never had children of his own. We have tried to incorporate as much information as possible. There is an article from the 1956 Monthly Letters, various passages we have found, and the recommendation to get Tape #3, the Sunday School tape.

Eileen Bowden was a devoted student and mother of three who was directed by Joel to begin teaching lessons to parents. Here is the introduction to her book, approved by Joel, Awakening Your Child to Truth.

"This material was originally published under the title Teaching Children The Infinite Way.  It was written in the form of monthly letters (1962 - 1973) sent to parents who were wishing to teach their children a spiritual way of life.

Mrs. Bowden has been studying The Infinite Way message, revealed by Joel S. Goldsmith, since 1950.  Mr. Goldsmith was most eager that children be taught the principles of spiritual living.  This was not evident in the earlier years of his ministry, but in his later years he recognized it was most imperative that children live with these principles, grow with them, and make them a natural way of life. It was his understanding of this need to convey this message to children that brought the "Letters" into being.  In order to accomplish this, he asked Mrs. Bowden to write what she had learned from her personal experiences in raising three children by Infinite Way principles.  In response to his request, she answered, "It is my belief that parents should be taught, since they are the child's first teachers." So these are really guidelines for parents."

From Chapter One

"This, then, is our function: to show them by the fruits of our lives - the fullness, the love, the sharing - that truly  'I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'  People in general, especially children, can emulate only that which they see expressed in form or in action.

"To bring this out in our children or grandchildren, we must first be standing on a firm foundation ourselves. The groundwork, then, would begin with ourselves, to first develop within, the understanding that God is our creator, sustainer, and provider, which necessarily is His relationship to all mankind.  As difficult as it appears, and certainly it is not easy to transform conditions, we have to start with our reaction to them....

"...Understand first that our goal is to have the experience of god in our own lives, and through understanding, help to bring this experience to our children.  This entails quiet times with them to encourage the development of quiet listening, waiting for a sense of 'I am with you, I am your gude, your protector, your abiding place.' Not the 'I' that is the parent or the grandparent that is talking to the family,or the 'I' that is the child, but the one universal I that is in every living creature, the I that 'lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' With this we are arming our child with the vestments of immortality, and whether he is from a poor or wealthy home, his heritage will be priceless."

 From Chapter 8

"This way of life we would pass on to our children by acquainting them with the source of their life, consciousness, which first forms them, and then through them, forms that with is necessary to their development. We pass it on by degrees, as their understanding and anwareness of life around them grow. They cannot fit into the environment in which they find themselves until they begin to comprehend that environment, and then they begin to relate themselves to it.  Small children accept the valuations we place upon the things we introduce to them, but the wise parent ceases from naming objects, creatures, people, the elements, and things that grow upon the earth, as good or evil. The difference in their functions and uses can be explained without the conditioning element of "good and evil" being brought in to affect the child's mind in years to come. Instead, as the emphasis is placed upon the fact that "God saw every thing that He had made, and behold it was very good," .......

Your child will learn, as you continue with this teaching, that people learn how they must live only when they know that they are taught from within, and that no one outside of them can deter them from being that which they are equipped to be. Our wise old Lao Tzu says, "the way to use life is to do everything through being." We do not have to tell our child that God is love or life or truth or wisdom; we have only to tell him that we have access to all of these qualities of God because we are His children, and He has endowed us with all that He has.  Exactly like the human state of father and child, we remain in this close relationship only as long as love flows between us and we actively identify ourselves with our Father's household.  If we depart form our close association and lose touch with our Father, we deprive ourselves of all the benefits that we would naturally have as members of His household.

As we live out our life span in the role of human parents, we must realize that we have been granted that function only by the grace of God.  Our true function in life is "to glorify our Father which is in heaven" by the completeness of our outpicturing of His qualities, and to teach our children this so they in turn can glorify Him and pass it on.  This is the "tree of life."  It includes a family tree, yes, but in its fullness it is the tree of life of which it is said, "and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  As each member of a family unit lives out in the family circle his allegiance to his Father within, then as a family they shall contribute to the soundness of their community and city.  "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates to the city."

The need to love man and God, and the need to worship, are instinctive parts of man's being, and if at least a semblance of this need is not met in man, he perishes.  We see the sad results when, in ignorance, the urge to love turns inward and becomes self love, or when it becomes possessive and smothers.  As necessary as human love is to man, he must dive into greater depths of it, for only then can he feel the oneness of all being and comprehend that each one's need is as real as his own.

We can define this oneness in the family relationship as continuity of being - God, constantly appearing as father, mother, child, in endless forms and combinations.  We are secretly aware, deep within us, that his life is a gift, but we choose to forget it most of the time and act as if we are totally in charge of our lives.  This violates the way of life that Jesus came to teach us, because believing thus, we are separated from one another and from God.  Jesus knew this; he knew his and our root source, and knew that unless man understands this elemental need in himself, he can never truly understand himself or his neighbor.  "I am the vine, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

We are indeed one in physical fact as well as in our spiritual depths, and until this is comprehended by man, he is rootless.  As Jesus put it: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."

Let us teach our children the "I" of their being.  This "I" that is within us, "that we might have life and have it more abundantly," is the knowledge of God's life implanted in us.  It eternally draws us into consicous oneness with God and men, continuing year after year through all beings and all forms, never leaving us or forsaking us.

Our traditional sense of family continuity and of honoring our forebearers is simply this same sense of continuity traslated into a way of life.  No one group or age should be honored more than another. the Chinese erred in allowing respect for their ancestors to become ancestor worship in times past, and we in this present age are allowing the worship of youth and their activities to become a cult.  This creates imbalance.  No one generation is complete in itself; each on needs the other for what it contributes to the whole.  We parents can share with our children the "big picture," in which the past, the present, and the future must be accepted in order to have the wholeness of now.

Once again, the generations can be welded together as one nation under God, as one whole civilization - not as segments loosely held together or necessity, with generation gaps accepted as natural consequences of life.  These gaps are not natural, and tend to create another schizophrenic world that man has miscreated for himself.  Do not accept as natural that which splits and separates man, either inwardly within himself, or outwardly from his fellows.  The whole message of the Christ was oneness - first our oneness with God, and then our oneness with each other.

Let us begin again to build our homes the foundations of a secure nation welded together in oneness.  Our homes, our families, and our people are our national strength.  We cannot let them be weakened by the false doctrines of the anti-Christ.  We must listen to our ears, which report to us that we are one with the Father through the indwelling seed of His spirit within us.  "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us."

p.234 Awakening

From Realization of Oneness 

 pp. 142-145

"How are we going to demonstrate the truth that Christ lives our life?  How are we going to demonstrate that we can do all things through the Christ? The first step is to give up the personal pronoun "I": "I" fear; "I" doubt; "I" am not able; "I" do not have the ability; "I" do not have the time.  That personal sense of "I" must be given up, and we must remember that our hidden manna is our awareness of this indwelling Christ.

"As long as we abide in the awareness of our indwelling Christ, the things of "this world" must lessen and lessen and lessen until they disappear. The longer we carry around in our thought the fears of 'this world' the less chance we have of losing them.  They must be dropped first!  They cannot be dropped psychologically - that has been tried. We cannot psychologize ourselves out of fears.  There is only one way in which we can drop the concerns of the human world, and that is to let the Christ fill our consciousness, to have the constant awareness of this hidden manna:  'I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me.'  (Galatians 2:20)  We cannot live up there with that, and hate or fear something down here.  The Christ is come to our consciousness that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly.  But it is our conscious awareness of this that brings it to our experience.

"We must know that we have this hidden manna, and what it is.  We cannot have a blind faith that it is a something-or-other.  IT is not a charm:  it is the understanding that God is our consciousness, that the Christ is our mind, that the Christ is the law that operates through us.  This is our hidden manna. This is the secret we cannot tell the world because we would be crucified for it, as others have been before us. It will not be crucifixion on a cross, but we will be crucified in our Soul by being laughed at and ridiculed.  So, we must keep this locked up in our consciousness, and, when the world sees the practicality of this way of life, sees the harmonious lives that unfold, there will be no argument or criticism left.  Be still; be still abot this hidden manna.  Then, even if the world does not believe, there will be no argument left.

"Everything about our human world - its customs, language, and mode of operation - makes life difficult for us as we try to hold steadfast and maintain this Word in our consciousness.  The difficulty is that we pay lip service to the conversation of the world, and at the same time always have to maintain our own spiritual integrity within, and yet not voice it without.

"That is why it is imperative to have many periods of ten, twenty, or thirty seconds or minutes for pausing in the midst of the day or night to relax, to remember, and to float back on the Sea of Spirit.  That is why it is so essential to close our eyes at times to sense testimony and remember, 'Thank You, Father.  I in the midst of me is my hidden manna.'

"All this time we are lifting up the I in us, lifting It from the personal sense of 'I' to the I that we really are.  We are crucifying that personal sense of 'I,' and if we keep it up long enough it will be 'dead,' and there will be nothing left but the I that we are, and with it My peace and My grace, My wholeness, My completeness, My harmony, My justice.

"We have to remember often that the Christ-Self is our true identity, whereas the 'natural man' is that part of us which was imposed upon us at birth and to which we are now 'dying.'  To the degree in which we lift up the I in us, we are 'dying daily' to the personal sense of "I."  In the degree that we take no thought, but rest in the Sea of Spirit, we are letting the Christ live our life, andthen each moment of the day we do those things given us to do.

"An understanding student will not believe that this way is a way of doing nothing.  In one sense, it is; but this 'doing nothing' makes us lead a very busy life because the 'doing nothing' is not really a doing nothing; it is doing nothing of a personal nature.  It is doing nothing through personal fear or personal doubt; it is doing nothing that is purely of our will or our desire. In this sense, it is doing nothing, but it really is a very active existence because God is fulfilling Himself as our individual experience."

From Tape 489 Side 1

"Seek ye the kingdom of God. 

Stay up there with spiritual truth about God and spiritual man, the spiritual offspring.  Never permit your thought to come down to the level of the patient.  Never permit your thought to come down to the patient's claim.  You stay up there, and you will find that, if you are lifted up there, you will draw your patient right up there into the kingdom of God where you are.  Very soon you will hear from them that they are free or on their way to freedom. 

Now this sounds as if it might be relatively easy, and for a lot of people it is.  But then there is a special class of people who find it difficult.  They are parents and grandparents. 

They have a difficult time, because the Master has been very specific to them.  You are to leave mother and father, sister, brother, and children.  And you will find it is much easier to leave Joel out of your calculation than it is to leave your children and your grandchildren, because that is the rub. 

That is the Achilles' heel, anything but them. 

Yet, if you would benefit your children and your grandchildren, if you would benefit all who turn to you for help, when you sit down to do your meditation and healing work, you will have to leave your children somewhere.  Toss them outside somewhere.  Do not let them into your consciousness.  Keep them out, if you would really bless them.  Keep them out. 

Make believe you can trust them to God, just make believe for a little while.  Sometimes it has been found to work, that really God does take care of those children after you have released them to God. 

But be assured of this, if you are going to take them or their problems into your consciousness, you are not going to do a good job of spiritual healing.  And the very ones you want to help the most, you will end up helping the least, because God is not any more concerned with your mortal children than He is with you. 

That's difficult medicine.  No wonder they said the Master, his Word was severe, huh?  This is severe medicine that you're handing out. 

God doesn't care for our little children, and here we do. 

Therefore you will have to raise your children up to their spiritual identity, and the only way you can do this is to drop them out of your thought.  Get up there into the kingdom of God and realize that God has no step-children, and God has no illegitimate children, and God has no sick children, and God has no bad children. 

God has only His Son, his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, and this Son is the immortal and eternal and universal.  Ye shall know this truth.  This Son is really the Life of all individual being. 

Do not bring that human child up there.  Leave that human identity out here while you are tabernacling with God and with the Child of God, the spiritual Offspring of God. 

Then when you come out of it, you will find that you have lifted your child up to that kingdom of God.  Not the mortal child, but now you will have revealed to you the spiritual Child, or the spiritual identity of your child. 

I, if I be lifted up, will raise all men.  All those who are in my consciousness will be lifted up. . . . 

. . . They do not have to grow from young children to older children.  They do not have to be protected. 

You are speaking now of the Children God gave you, His own Children, fully matured.  In the spiritual kingdom there are no immature beings.  There are no immature beings growing from childhood to adulthood. 

This too for the school teacher is the one sure way to have successful classes, never to acknowledge that they are dealing with immaturity, or that they are trying to pump intelligence into stupidity.  But rather, even while going about the normal tasks of imparting wisdom, holding fast in that inner secret place of the most high, that this that is appearing before me as a class of immature children is not such. 

They are the matured mind of God receiving wisdom at this level. 

And so it is, we will not be able to deal properly with our children in the home or in the classroom until we realize that we are not dealing with immature beings and actually treat them as if they were the risen Christ. 

And then, as they explore this world, as was said last Sunday, they'll bump their knees and bump their head, they'll fall down and hurt themselves, but that's all part of the experience of growing up. 

Just as we on the spiritual path fall down too.  Not one of us ever attains the spiritual kingdom in a straight line upward.  We all stumble.  We all fall.  We all drop back.  Everyone does.  Some into sickness, some into sin, some into lack, no one goes straight up. 

And so it's not going to be with our children either.  But the point is that we should not deny them the privilege of growing. "  - Joel