Hawaii Hotel Talk February 24, 1963

Original Unedited Hawaii Hotel Talk, Corrected From Edited Consciousness Transformed

February 24, 1963 Halekulani Hotel

Sometimes we wonder how it is that the message of the Master was lost. But when we stop to think of the fact that he spoke to people who could not read or write for the most part, then we do not wonder any more. The miracle is that anyone remembered what is in our four Gospels, because they were written thirty years after the crucifixion. In other words, someone had to remember for thirty years in order to give us even the little that we have. I believe this is the reason we have so little of the Master’s teachings. We today are in a different position. When anyone speaks today, their words can be preserved in writings, in recordings, and in so many different forms, that a message that proves good today should never become lost.

For the past two weeks we have been on a subject, a principle of life really, that should change the nature of our lives – not because we have heard the message but because, in addition to hearing it, we have it on paper and this paper will serve as a reminder.

The principle with which we were concerned last week is probably the most important principle in all mystical literature or mystical living. To hear it once is good but, unless it actually registers within us, it does not do too much for us. Therefore, the responsibility rests upon us to practice it, to work with it, and to meditate upon the principle until we are able to demonstrate it.

Now let us go back to last week for just a moment. Remember that the principle revealed was the fact that spiritually we live in God, we are supported by God, we are sustained by God. I have an illustration. Some of you remember the hymn, “When All Material Streams Are Dry, Thy Fullness Is the Same.” Many of us have experienced this. Through a deadly disease, or a period of lack or some circumstance of human relationships, we come to a place in our lives where there is no material help. Our back is against the wall. There is no human means of help available, there are no human resources to draw upon, there is no human way out of our dilemma and we rest back and say, “God, you will have to take over.”

Just think what you are doing when, just in blind faith, you say, “God if you do not rescue me, I am lost.” Actually, with this there is a sense of surrender, a complete realization that “I of my own self can do nothing.” There is nobody else to turn to in the particular situation, and you give up. It has often been discovered that, when this happens, Something or Someone takes over. Sometimes a spiritual healing takes place, and in this way we have discovered that God really Is, available. Self-surrender is then we give up in order that God may take over. There is really no need for us to come to a desperate situation for God to take over, but the conditions are the same – self-surrender. There has to be a particular moment when we consciously agree that humanly we are not doing too well with our lives, humanly we are not attaining our ultimate goal, humanly we are not finding that “peace that passeth understanding.” We do not have to wait for a point of desperation to arrive in our lives. At any moment we can agree that I of myself am not making too much of a success of my life. We can come to a point of self-surrender in the realization that God Is, but above all that God is Omnipresence, that there is a Spirit in man, the Spirit, really. “He that is within me is greater than he that is in the world.” Through contemplation, or meditation, or contemplative meditation, we can bring ourselves to that place where we realize, “Whatever the nature of God is, the God that maintains the universe in its orbit, whatever the nature of this law or being or power is, it is Spirit.”

That brings us to last week’s lesson where we realize that health is in God, supply is in God, happiness is in God, peace is in God. Remember, “My peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth.” What is MY Peace? It is Spiritual – it is the kind of Peace that only God can give, and God can give it whether or not we have health or whether or not we have supply. And when we receive MY Peace, we have health and we have supply and we have happiness, because God is infinite Being.

You have had a whole week with this lesson, and now you will have the paper with last week’s lesson. Begin to work with it, so that every time you think of health, whether for yourself or for someone else, you realize, “health is in Spirit, not in the body.” Then drop it. Do the same with supply. When faced with any discord, whether your own or someone else’s, realize that the answer to it is in Spirit. Spirit is something real and tangible. Spirit is not an unknown God. Spirit is absolutely tangible, “closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.” In fact you live in It and It lives in you, and It governs all that is necessary to your experience, not only through this lifetime but through many lifetimes to come.

The source of our good is this invisible Spirit, which in reality I am. Therefore, It is always “closer than breathing.” Even on the battlefield your life is in Spirit, governed and controlled by Spirit. There is the universal belief that life is dependent on the body, but your transition reveals to you that your life is in divine sonship, not in a piece of matter. Yes, your life is in the fact that you are the divine son; but, if you do not consciously know this Truth, this Truth cannot make you free because of universal beliefs. Consciously we have to make the transition. You must know the Truth, and the knowing must be a concrete act. The Truth is, “My life is in and of God, hid in spiritual worship. My life is eternal because I am the offspring of God, made of the same substance as God, Spirit. My life is not at the mercy of matter in any form. My life is Spirit and it lives in Spirit. My life is under spiritual law.” It may not be a problem of health or life. If it is a problem of supply, you have the same principle. “My supply is not in money, but in the Spirit which I am. All the supply I will ever need unto eternity is in Spirit, in my sonship with God.”

As a human being I am cast off and cast out, I am a “branch that is cut off, that withers and dies.” Recognize your sonship with the Father, recognize that your supply rests in your relationship to God. We can take any situation in our experience and find the same thing. We find our justice in Spirit, in Consciousness, in the life which I am. Justice is embodied and incorporated in my being. No one can either give or take away justice. I find my justice in my spiritual sonship with God. The very fact that all men are spiritually sons of God assures me of justice. I must myself consciously acknowledge that all men are children of God. When we live from this basis, that “I find my allness, completeness, perfection in Spirit,” we come eventually to a place where all responsibility falls off our shoulders and we say, “God is living my life.” We come to a place of resting and relaxing and letting thoughts come to us, instead of trying to create thoughts. Think how wonderful it is when we relax and receive the thoughts that emanate from infinite intelligence. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” Then surrender your thoughts and your ways, and listen for the still small Voice. “I live in Spirit and Spirit lives in me, and Spiritual law alone governs and controls me.” Therefore, take no thought about material or mental laws, and realize the infinite nature of Spiritual law.

God has never cast us off; through ignorance we have taken ourselves out of God’s government. But it has been discerned that we can return to the Father’s house – that we can “turn ye and live,” that it is an act of our own consciousness. When the prodigal son is in dire straits and he consciously turns his steps back to his father’s house, quickly he finds that the father is rushing out to greet him with the royal robe and the royal ring of sonship.

Always in our moments of self-surrender we will find the Master because the Master was never crucified, was never buried and never raised. The Master is Consciousness, the Son of God, which is our real identity, which every one of us incorporates within ourselves.

So the moment we surrender in the realization of our nothingness, in that moment the Master is Omnipresent to take over our experience. None of us has any idea how the Christ will function in our experience. Self-surrender means a total surrender so God can work his miracles in our experience. There can be no outlining in our thoughts. We cannot function in the human way of thinking. We are consistent with our surrender. “Thy will be done, not mine.” No, I must have no outline. I must be the beholder and watch how the Spirit “goes before me to make the crooked places straight.”

We attune ourselves to this: “Life is not a matter of body but of Spirit. Life is not lived in or through body, but in and through the Spirit. I live and move and have my being in Spirit, not in body or a bank account. Then I find all things added unto me. Spiritual law governs my life, mind, body, being. Every facet of my life is governed by Spirit. I have to take no thought for my life. I can only be a beholder watching God at work.”

You can see that this is a transition, but you must consciously make the transition by the realization of this. “My life is in and of Spirit. My supply is in and of Spirit. My companionships are in and of Spirit. My relationships are in and of Spirit – not in medical laws or legal laws or economic laws.” We are taking our life out of material sense and placing it where it belongs, in spiritual awareness. The issues of life are in Spirit, not in matter. This is a way of life. Some people are living their lives as if they had to consult food or weather or climate or germs. Most people live their lives as if their supply had to do with whether we have boom times or depression times. But the spiritual child of God is not human but spiritual, and depends only upon spiritual law, spiritual government, spiritual substance.

As you work with this principle, you will discover eventually that you have made a complete transition to where you are living in and of Spirit, and Spirit is living in and of you because of oneness. “I and my Father are one. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” So, by placing all the issues of life in Spirit, you find an adjustment taking place in your life in which will lead to fruition.

But, I must caution you here. At first glance it would appear that, when we reach that goal, we would just lean back and sort of float around with the human equivalent of wings or a harp, but this is not true. Since the goal is immortality and eternality and infinity, the real joy is in attaining. As long as we tabernacle on earth, there will be higher attainments ahead. There will always be a new horizon, a new step, and this is the joy of life – always higher attainments. As a matter of fact, the ego can take very little pleasure in this form of life, because it is never your understanding that brings about the demonstration of peace and harmony. It is God’s understanding. The further we go, the less and less our humanhood becomes. The height of our attainment is nothingness, in order that Spirit may come alive in us.

Let us see how much further we can carry ourselves into this transition. It is by conscious and specific work. You already have the notes of last week, and soon you will have the notes of this week. Work with them, understanding that you yourself must make the transition. The teacher can lift you in consciousness only. You have the same infinite intelligence, the same amount of divine love, only you must use it. The function of the teacher is, “I, if I  be lifted up, will draw all men unto me,” but the teacher cannot carry the student unto heaven. That is what the Master meant when he said, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you.” So it will be with us if we do not let the teacher lift us up to the point where we can say, “Let the Father do the works through me and as me.”

All that it leads up to is the Master’s attainment, “Take no thought for your life.” And as we take not thought, “out here,” we receive divine protection, divine Grace. This means the ability to surrender the self so that it may receive the wisdom and the activity within. Then you find it makes us very active in the outer world. It gives us plenty to do.

Joel S. Goldsmith