The Easter of Our Lives - by Joel Goldsmith

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(NEW YORK, NEW YORK - circa 1957)It is the day of the Crucifixion, and the Master is seated by himself somewhat apart from the people in the courtyard. Outside the gates the crowd has gathered. These are the multitudes whom Jesus fed when they were an-hungered; these are the people whom he healed of their diseases, of their sins, and of their infirmities. Some of them he even raised fro the dead. Now they have gathered to make sure that he is crucified. They have been lulled to forgetfulness of the good that they witnessed in his ministry, and evidently their ecclesiastical authorities have convinced them that Jesus meant to destroy their temple, their religion, even their God. The fact that they saw the healings and experienced them is forgotten in the cry, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

 

The Roman authorities are much concerned, because they have nothing against the man Jesus; they have nothing against his teaching; and they have no liking for the work of the day. This the Master understands. He knows that on one side are the representatives of the Roman law, who have no desire to perform their unpleasant task, while on the other side are the ungrateful people whom he has blessed.

 

So he has a right to do a little thinking, and we have the right to look into his mind and to speculate as to what he is thinking. Could it be as he sits there waiting for the inevitable that he is saying to himself, "What a great spiritual victory has been given me! What a great revelation from on high, a revelation so great that I know that the words which I have spoken will never pass away. Some day men will remember them and repeat them, and these words will lift those who hear out of the grave of sin, disease, and death.

 

"What a wonderful light God has given me! What grace I have received from on high that I should know the meaning of all things, past, present, and future. With this great light I have brought healing, consolation, and comfort, not only to those of my present age, but even before Abraham was, those who existed will receive this light. Unto eternity will it brighten the lives of men. It will overcome the world: the world of war; the world of disease; the world of fear; and the world of sin. Yes, God has been very good to me; God has blessed me."

 

Alone in the courtyard, he remembers the love he has poured out on the world. 

In that remembrance, he must marvel at his own aloneness and ask, "With all my success, wherein has been my failure, if there is a failure? Wherein have I failed? Where are those I taught? Where are my disciples? Where are the apostles? Where are the twelve? Where are the seventy? Where are the two hundred? Where is my mother? Where are my brethren? Where are those who have been raised from the dead? Where are those who are to carry the message out into the world? Have I so failed that God has given me this great light and I have not been able to give it even to one of these?

 

"I placed my trust in Peter, in John, in Matthew, in Judas. What has become of them? What has become of me that I should not be able to inspire them with this great light which I have received? Wherein is my failure? Where is the man Lazarus? His sister Mary is here, outside the gate. She stands by with love and adoration, as does the other Mary, she who was taken in adultery. These two bear my burden with me. But those others of whom I have the right to expect devotion and sacrifice, those I have lost. They were my sheep, but I have lost them. Even my mother doesn’t seem to know me, to recognize my work, or to understand my mission. My brothers, little children with whom I grew up, with whom I played, and who saw me when my eyes were first opened to the revelation of God, even they seem not to know me.

 

"How is it that in all this wide world, none to whom I have poured out myself, my message, my mission, comprehends it? Have I failed? The message hasn’t failed; the mission hasn’t failed, because it came from on high. I am not deceived. No one can tell me that this isn’t the Christ-message, because by its fruits I know it: the sick are healed; the dead are raised; to the poor the gospel is preached. But why is that I have raised up no one to carry on, no one to understand it, not even one to stand by and say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ No, there is no one!"

 

So the Master ponders the lack of receptivity and responsiveness in the people whom he has blessed. The louder the noise grows outside, the louder the clamor for his life, the greater must be his astonishment that in this hour of inevitability, no human being stands beside him. Somewhere between this moment of introspection and the moment when he is led out to the Crucifixion, the light, which enabled him to endure the Crucifixion, to rise from the tomb, and to complete his mission in the ascension, dawns in his consciousness. This influx of light brings the realization that man whose breath is in his nostrils never has, cannot now, and never will comprehend the spiritual message, the mission of the Christ. Always those to whom we pour out ourselves and give of ourselves must be the very ones to turn and rend us. That must inevitably be, because there is that in the human mind which does not want to be extinguished. That is the secret. That is the mystery.

 

Watch this fact, that there is that in the human mind which does not wish to be extinguished. It is that something called "I," the human I, which boasts of its power, its wisdom, its understanding, and its goodness. This I is unwilling to be extinguished; it does not want to say, "Why callest thou me good? There is but one good, the Father in heaven." It does not want to admit, "I of mine own self can do nothing; the Father doeth the works." No! It likes to boast, "Just see how great is my understanding; see how great is my spirituality; see how great is my goodness." When a message teaches that human beings of themselves are not good, that they are not spiritual, that mortals are not the sons of God, but that they must die daily and be re-born of the Spirit–when a teaching such as that is presented to the world, it is then that antagonism is aroused; it is then that the fawning mob becomes belligerent, and that gratitude gives way to the cross, the nails, and sword. Feed the multitudes, and they become the admiring throng; heal them, and they honor us by putting the robe and crown on us. but when they are told that they must deny themselves and recognize God as the reality of being, then there comes the experience of the crucifixion.

 

As the Master ponders this, there is again that repeated question, "Then have I failed? Did I fail?"; and from somewhere deep within his own being comes the answer, "You could not succeed and you could not fail, because this is not your work. This is My work, you are My instrument. Did you not tell the people that if you spoke of yourself you bore witness to a lie, that this message was not yours but His that sent you? Now remember that, at this moment. You cannot fail, because you never had a message, and you never had a mission. You are the instrument through which this word of truth is given to the world. Your part has been fulfilled. Now comes the greatest revelation that you have ever had, and it is this: all that appears as human experience is but an illusion. You are destined to prove the greatest revelation, that even death is an illusion. This is the highest revelation ever given to the world, the revelation that ultimately will be its salvation. Death in its most cruel form is an illusion. Out of this will come your resurrection and your ascension, and out of its accompanying disgrace will come the crowning glory of your divine sonship.

 

"How then can you fail, since in this victory you bear witness to the impotence of hate and jealousy, and to the great truth of the illusory nature of all evil? In one experience you annihilate the entire belief that the human mind, with its iniquity, its wickedness, its ingratitude, and forgetfulness, is a power. Regardless of their depth, you show the nothingness of ingratitude, jealousy, envy, and malice. You prove to the world of the sons of God that none of these things can ever destroy the life, harmony, wholeness, message, or mission of divinity."

 

This was the conversation and the debate which the Master had with himself. There was the question, "Why did these men forsake me? Why did they not receive my message?" and there was the answer, the answer which came to Jesus during this debate with himself: "I have finished the work Thou hast given me to do. I have proved, once and for all time to come, that in the deepest degree–and there is no deeper degree of human iniquity than for a friend to betray his friend, for a student to betray his teacher, for the disciple to betray his master–I have proved in this experience that even that deepest degree of iniquity, even that, is not power."

 

The celebration of Easter is not to commemorate an event which took place two thousand years ago, but to reveal a principle; so that when we face a world filled with wickedness in high places, whether they be high spiritual places, high political places, or high commercial places, we can know the impotence of human scheming, human planning, human ambition, evil, degradation, and iniquity. We can stand fast in the faith that God, Itself, is our power, God, Itself, is our presence. It makes no difference what religious holidays we celebrate if we do not take from them the principle that they show forth. For us, the principle is all.

 

The Master never asked for recognition or for gratitude from the world for the work that he did, but there must have been a hope, an anticipation, that those who heard his message would stand firm in the faith and carry it forward. And from this experience of his, we can learn that God is the bearer of Its own message and needs no human agency. God needs no human Messiah. God needs no human disciples. Whether or not there is a spiritual teacher on the face of the earth, God will deliver to the consciousness of men the healing grace, the healing power. God, Itself, will speak the Word int he consciousness of men, and raise up seed, raise up the revelation and the understanding until the leaven works.

 

All of us have thought, at some time or other, that the carrying of the spiritual message was dependent upon a human avenue, and in that thought we have lost our healings, because we have accepted the belief that God must work through a person, thing, or thought. The Easter lesson is the high revelation that God works in us, and through us, without mediation. Never believe that without a book, a teaching, or right thinking, you can lose your demonstration; never believe that salvation is dependent on a man, on a thing, or on a thought. Watch the Master make the final demonstration after the loneliness of the Garden of Gethsemane, without the loyalty of disciples, without the benefit of human aid, even without the help of human thought. He stood alone in Christ, alone with God. There was not a single disciple to watch with him for one hour. Nevertheless, then as always, we see that with every human aid removed, "I and my Father are one." It is only in this realization of oneness, only in this realization of I-ness that the experience of resurrection and ascension can take place: "’I and my Father are one.’ I and the Father ascend and descend from the cross; I and the Father are buried in the tomb; I and the Father walk out of the tomb. Finally, I and the Father ascend above human sight in the realization of oneness, unity, completeness, perfection."

 

There will come a time in our experience when we are in that courtyard, and when we know that before us lies inevitability in one form or another. Before us stands the desertion of everything and everyone upon whom we have placed reliance, and we find ourselves alone with God. It is in that aloneness with God that we find the spiritual reality of wholeness and completeness.

 

But this cannot be seen unless it can be seen, too, that the mission of the Master was not merely to multiply loaves and fishes, nor was it to transform physical bodies from sickness to health, nor to raise them from the dead. The mission of the Master was to take us into a new dimension of life in which we find spiritual reality. Bereft of temporal aids, of temporal good in any and every form, we find then and there the spiritual dimension, the spiritual reality of being–eternal, infinite, omnipresent- -in which no true thing is ever lost. This is the highest phase of the Christ message and mission. Through it, we rise above human-ness, above human experience, above improving humanhood, into the revelation and realization of the kingdom of God. In the kingdom of God there is no loss, no lack, no limitation. In this kingdom within, the Master finds, not human beings to desert him, but angels to bear him up.

 

I bear witness to you that in proportion as our human dependencies depart from us, in proportion as we lose our faith in purely material means of help, their place is taken by angels, guardians from on high, from the infinite consciousness deep within–and we find a new world and a new life.

 

The only reason that we have the symbolic teaching of a Master deserted by his disciples is to show us that wherever our human trust has been, we might be prepared for that desertion; so that we can take the higher step of witnessing the spiritual aid, the spiritual wisdom, the spiritual angels, which are sent to us and which never leave us nor forsake us. Remember, "I will never leave you; I will never forsake you." This is not a man talking; this is an angel, a guardian angle, God’s own witness within our consciousness, saying that if mother or father desert us, It will never leave us. We know through this symbolic lesson that there is That which did not desert the Master, and which enabled him to reveal to the world that the desertion of human help leads to that elevation of consciousness necessary to the realization of divine help.

 

It is not necessary that we be crucified; it is not necessary that our friends or relatives forsake us or that we be betrayed. That lesson was an extreme one to illustrate the fact that we must not place our faith in human avenues. If we do so, one of these days the medicines will not heal, the banks will not loan, and the friends will not stand by. But if through the Master’s revelation we begin here and now to give up our dependency on disciples, on relatives, on friends, on capital, or on investments, then we shall find that we are picked up by angels, by spiritual power. Spiritual power! Do we really know, do we really believe that there is such a thing as spiritual power? Are we aware of the spiritual power which is called angels, guardians, or messengers from on high, which are no more or less than realizations of the divine Presence and Power within us? Do we know that this Power is more real than the disciples, the friends, and the relatives on the outer plane? The entire mission of the Master was to reveal that there are guardian angels–that around us are the everlasting arms. Are we willing to recognize that there is an unseen Presence and Power, upon which we can rely with greater faith than on anything in the visible?

 

What I want to see from this Easter unfoldment is that this invisible Presence, Power, or Force is able to pick us up, but that It can do that only as we avail ourselves of It, as we release our hold on earthly powers. the Infinite Invisible does not reach us and does not take over while we are relying on that which is visible, finite, and temporal. Only as we release our mental hold on these, only as we give up our faith and trust in the visible, does this invisible Power take over and reveal to us the inner world of reality.

 

Remember, the Master said very clearly, "My kingdom is not of this world." In that statement, you have the Easter lesson: "My kingdom is not of this world. My disciples did not come to my aid; the people I healed and fed did not stand by or even testify for me. But watch and you will see the invisible angels, the invisible Power, which will enable me to walk out of the tomb and ascend above all mortal discord. Human beings will betray; human power will fail; but I can call on angels. Yes, I can call on angels. Watch these angels pick me up. Watch them lift me from the cross and take me from the tomb. That is the glory of the Father’s message. That is what the Father has been trying to say through me, and you have not seen it. Have ye eyes and do not see? Have ye ears and do not hear? I am bringing you a message, not of greater good in this kingdom, but of a Power and of a Presence from the invisible kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world. I have overcome this world. Within me is this divine Presence, this tremendous Force, and I tell you of it. My message is to tell you that within you is the kingdom of God–not out there in personal dependencies, not out there in faith upon crutches that break, but within you. You have seen my disciples desert me. You have seen those I healed and fed leave me alone. Now I will show you the Invisible. Stand still and watch Its power."

 

Remember that the emphasis of this message is on the Infinite Invisible and on developing a consciousness of dependence on that which is not seen, on that which is not visible out here. In my own experience I have witnessed that the inner Light shines only in proportion to my withdrawal from the outer world–not by my leaving the world, or its pleasures and joys; but by my leaving my dependence upon it, by my discarding my faith in person, place, or thing. We may think this makes us stand alone. We may think that in his hour of desertion and betrayal the Master stood alone. This is not true. The Master never was betrayed and never was deserted, except by the unreal personal sense. The Master was always in the company of the children of God, on earth and on the cross. At no time in his ministry did the Master walk alone. On the mountain top, although he appeared to be alone, in his realization of the unreal nature of the outer world, he communed with the children of God. He showed his disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration that the prophets were there with him; they were with him on the cross; they were with him in the tomb. When we seem most alone, we are most heavily engaged in divine company.

 

We can prove this for ourselves. Let us say that you have gone home, and have slept for two or three or four hours, and then have awakened. You get out of bed and stay awake by yourself for a while. Watch how you find yourself in divine company, how you lose all sense of friendlessness, of lack and limitation. The weariness of the world is gone. In the stillness of the night, we find ourselves alone, as was the Master in the garden. And so, as we commune with our own inner being, very soon we will find out why the Master could find the great Hebrew masters keeping company with him, and why he could stay forty days or forty nights alone. He was not alone. He was in divine companionship.

 

And then when you return to the world, and walk the streets, and take care of your business, you will begin to learn the meaning of a Presence which walks with you, a Presence which walks beside you, a Presence which walks behind you. This Presence will be a joy to you, as It has been to me; It will even say, "Up to now I have walked behind or beside you. Now I am in you"; and then you will know that there is no such thing as betrayal and desertion. There is only the unreal picture of an illusory world to fool you and tempt you to believe in the reality of evil power. The one reality is God, expressing Itself in individual life as divine companionship, divine protection, divine supply–all emanations from the Infinite Invisible. It is this Infinite Invisible which never leaves us nor forsakes us; It has been with us since before Abraham was, and It will be with us until the end of the world.

 

As our attention and thought are drawn away from those we think we have humanly helped, or from those who humanly owe us an obligation, we find ourselves saying, "Whatever good I can be to you, let me be; but you owe me nothing for it." Then and only then do we realize that divine compensation, recognition, and reward are within. The guardian angel is always with us when we have withdrawn our gaze from without us.

 

Remember the Easter lesson: "My kingdom is not of this world." Remember that the greatest blessing that has come to the human world has been the denial of the Master by those he fed and healed, and by his very own disciples. The great lesson we must learn from the experience of Jesus is not to trust man whose breath is in his nostrils, not to place our faith in the outer world, but always to turn within and to become acquainted with our guardian angel, with the angel of the Lord, with our divine protector, with the very Christ of God, which has been planted in the midst of us since the beginning of all time.

 

Men have fashioned their human, temporal kingdoms out of gold, silver, brass, and clay. In the seventh chapter of Daniel we learn of the finite, temporary nature of these worldly kingdoms. Daniel tells us that a new kingdom will be set up which will never be destroyed. This kingdom is carved out of a stone cut out of a mountain without hands! This stone destroys all temporal kingdoms, and the work of men. Think of this: a stone carved out of a mountain without hands! Is not this the work of God? And the kingdom that shall stand forever, is not that the reign and realm of the Christ, the Power that rules "not by might nor by power buy by my spirit"? Human life, built upon gold, silver, brass, and iron mixed with clay, is a kingdom divided against itself. Spiritual wisdom alone, the still small voice, can destroy it and reveal the kingdom of immortality under the government of Love.

 

As faith and confidence in men, in metals, and in materials is displaced by the understanding of God as substance, the power and glory of the new consciousness appears. "My kingdom is not of this world." The ministering angels within our own consciousness, the impartations of the spiritual Word within by the voice of the Lord, make the safety, security, harmony, joy, and peace of our world. The still small voice, which is the power of God, the only Power, thunders in the silence:

 

Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength.

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

He maketh them also to skip like a calf; . . .

The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; . . .

The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, discoverth the forests; and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.

The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King forever.

The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.

 

Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.

 

 

-Joel Goldsmith

"Collected Essays"