Session 7: Recording 191A – “A Meditation – Ye Are the Light”

The Recording

Recording 191A, “A Meditation – Ye Are the Light,” is from the 1957 First Halekou Closed Class.  It was used as source material for Chapter 18, “Ye Are the Light,” in The Thunder of Silence. This recording is no longer available on this site.  If you subscribe to the Joel Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there. To purchase this recording and/or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.

NOTE:  The class on love and gratitude that Joel mentions at the end of the class is Recording 615B, from the 1951 First Seattle Series, titled “Gratitude and Love.”

Optional Study Suggestions (New) 

To print or download, click here.

This class is one that seems to invite serious practice, rather than additional “study.” As Joel says at the beginning of the class, if you have been in The Infinite Way message for some time, you stand in a different relationship to the world, because you have probably risen above merely solving your own problems, and thus you have greater freedom to uplift your fellow men. You are one of “the twelve, or the seventy, or the two hundred,” depending on your degree of enlightenment.

What is your opportunity and responsibility as one of the twelve, the seventy, or the two hundred? Joel gives us several key points:

• You walk as an example and live as the light of the world. Wherever you are, you are a healing influence. Regardless of what might happen in your family, your community, or your nation, you must be able to retire within yourself and bring a conscious realization of the presence of God to the scene. You do not panic. Rather, you dwell wholly in spiritual consciousness. You will be the “I that is lifted up,” the one who lifts all others unto you. You will be the Rock of Gibraltar, the spiritual rock, and the harmony of your neighborhood, your community, and even your nation, will rest on your understanding that there is only one Power always functioning, and that no power is needed to dissolve error.
• You are one of the twelve, or seventy, or two hundred, in proportion as you can bring yourself to a state of consciousness in which you do not battle the errors of the world, but in which you get completely still and let the Spirit of God nullify, or dissolve, the pictures of sense. That is not using one power over another; it is realizing that the one and only Power dispels the non-substantial pictures, the mental images that present themselves to us.
• In proportion as you become a living witness to the presence of God, you can bring an end to the discords and inharmonies that appear in your world. You can still “storms,” whether at sea or on land, whether a burning fire, an incoming tidal wave, or wide-spreading infection and contagion. To stop any apparent disaster in its tracks, you must stand still and retire within yourself without refuting, denying, or fighting; without even wielding the sword of God. You must know that the sovereign, divine remedy for all the ills of the world is to resist not evil.
• You realize that the grace of God is in operation, and that you need no sword because there is no opposing power; there is no power other than God. You become completely silent and bear witness to a Spirit flowing through you, which stills the waves. In the realization of this truth, you are a witness to God unfolding, expressing.  You are the light of your world.
• The world knows only one way of overcoming sin, disease, death, lack, and limitation—to fight it, to battle it. But you know that this world has no way to bring peace on earth as long as the battle between good and evil goes on. To be a light in your community, you must rise above the battle between good and evil.
• You love your neighbor by meeting him at his level of consciousness, but you must do more. You must help him rise above wars, disease, and other appearances, not by preaching, but first, by being the light in your own family.  Hold your peace within yourself, not preaching to anyone, but retiring from the battle between good and evil and retiring from argument.  Go within and realize that only in the degree that you resist not evil can the “peace that passeth understanding” descend on you.  When the Spirit of the Lord God has descended upon you and been consciously realized, then you are ordained to heal the sick, comfort the mourner, and feed the hungry.  That spiritual light is the light to your family.
• By frequent periods of meditation during the day and night, your consciousness of God’s presence becomes some measure of harmony in your community. Step by step, you are strengthened until you realize that you can rest at will in God and let that Spirit that flows through you be the benediction, the healing, to your community and your world.
• Prayer is action. It is not mumbling words and waiting for something to happen, but consciously feeding the hungry, healing the sick, raising the dead, knowing the truth, being compassionate, being forgiving.  Even as you contemplate and meditate, you must also take some action to make that prayer beneficial. The Master looked up to heaven, but he said to the disciples, “Break!” He didn’t sit around waiting for loaves and fishes to come down out of the sky.  Always there is action; always there is the realization of Omnipresence, and then acting on it as if it were so.

Joel concludes the lesson by reminding us again that the world uses one power over another, but that in spiritual consciousness, we do not use powers.  We dwell in the secret place of the Most High. We abide in the Word and let the Word abide in us. We rest in the realization of God’s presence, without a battle, without a struggle, without an enemy.  We rest and relax and bear witness to God functioning on earth as in heaven.  Joel says, “Above all, you will remember—you will never forget—you are the twelve, the seventy, the two hundred. You are the light in your community. You are that one, even if there isn’t another, who will not succumb to the mesmerism of fear, doubt, hate, envy, jealousy, malice. You are that one who will be a rock in your community; a rock of silence, dwelling within yourself in peace, and letting that peace descend upon your community.”

Optional Study Suggestions (Ongoing)

To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here. 

These optional study suggestions will remain the same throughout the program, although from time to time, we will post additional recordings for further optional study.

Read Different Translations of The Sermon on the Mount

Joel has said that it can be helpful to read several different translations of any Bible text because they can elicit new insights for you. On the Introduction page for this study program, we quote Joel on this topic and provide information about ways to access multiple Bible translations.

Write Your Own Version  

As you study the Sermon on the Mount, you might enjoy paraphrasing the Bible text in your own words, keeping your interpretations and notes in a special journal.  One way to approach this activity is to take one section of the Sermon, read and contemplate it, and then listen in receptivity, asking for light and wisdom. Then write what comes to you.  As you write, often you will find that more and more insight comes to you.

As we suggested for an earlier study program, if writing is not something you enjoy, you can work in a different medium, capturing your interpretations in paintings or drawings, sculpture, poetry, music, or any art form.

Practice the Teachings

Each week, you might choose one thing from the Sermon and focus on practicing that for the entire week.  It might be one of the beatitudes, or some other instruction given by Jesus, such as “judge not” or “pray for your enemies” or “take no thought.”  Contemplate your selection to understand what it means.  What would it look like to practice it in your own life?  Then watch yourself throughout the day and see how you do. If you go off the beam, what pulled you off?  How did you (or could you) get back on track?  Reminder cards placed around your home or workspace, or reminders kept on your smartphone can be very helpful with this type of practice.

Use the Electronic Search Tool

As you hear the recordings and read Part 3 of The Thunder of Silence, if you feel that you don’t quite understand something that Joel teaches, the electronic search tool can help clarify his meaning. You can search for the topic or term you want to understand better and find many different places where Joel addresses that topic or term.  As you read the excerpts provided by the search tool, you will gain a clearer understanding.  To access the search tool and the instructions for using it, click/tap here.

Additional Reading  

Seek Ye First

The title of Joel’s book Seek Ye First comes from the passage in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:31-33)

In the book, Joel elaborates on the meaning of that passage and relates it directly to The Infinite Way principles. You might enjoy reading the book, or some excerpts from it, in connection with this study program.

The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox

Joel had high praise for Emmet Fox as a great mystic.  So we are comfortable recommending the book The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox.  The book may be particularly helpful to those who do not have a deep knowledge of the Sermon, because Fox takes the reader passage by passage through the entire text, offering his  enlightened interpretations and insights along the way.