Absolutely Yours

May I ask a question on something that is puzzling me please? You mention the Infinite Way in a recent post. I read Joel Goldsmith a lot and find much of what he says reflects the Absolute. But I am confused by the insistence on how long revelation takes, all the time required, the degrees to go thru, the initiations. This does not seem to me to accord with the idea of the Finished Kingdom. Can you enlighten me please?

Reading Joel Goldsmith Can Be Frustrating

I was a freshman in college when I embraced silent prayer. That was the same time I reopened The Infinite Way by Joel Goldsmith. Loved it! In all of his writings, Goldsmith focuses on the three keys of spirituality: revelation, realization, and illumination.

Have you read Goldsmith’s books, or listened to his tapes? While listening or reading, did your heart sink? It’s understandable. Joel Goldsmith makes it seem like the path to spiritual enlightenment is a long, slow, and frustrating one. You can read an excerpt from one of his books, and ask yourself, “Am I ever going to get there?”

This Was Revealed At The Dinner Table

As the years went by, I questioned whether this long and slow route to enlightenment was the only route. “Why,” I asked, “can’t there be an expressway to enlightenment?” In the meantime, this happened. On one of my lecture tours in the Midwest, I met Libby – a former student and friend of Joel Goldsmith. Sitting at an outdoor café, under a starlit sky, Libby shared how Joel healed her of a life-threatening disease. I’d heard so many of those stories that I wasn’t impressed. My ears perked up when she told me how Joel struggled with sitting in silence and listening to the “still small voice” within.

From that story and reading his biography, I concluded that spiritual enlightenment was a somewhat long and slow journey for him. His struggle filtered into his many books and lectures.

The Expressway To Spiritual Enlightenment

Let’s go back to my original question: Why can’t there be an expressway to enlightenment? Luckily, there is an expressway to spiritual enlightenment, and you can hop on it once you accept this truth: SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT AN ACHIEVEMENT. IT IS THE NATURAL STATE OF THE ONE AND ONLY MIND.

So much of what’s called “spiritual practice” is based on the goal of achieving spiritual enlightenment, as if it’s something outside of us. There is no outside to the Infinite. All Truth is within you at this very moment. The one and only Consciousness (your one and only Consciousness) is fully illumined right now.

In a nutshell, this means THE ENLIGHTENMENT YOU’VE BEEN SEEKING IS ALREADY YOURS. You don’t have to “get” it, but you do have to accept and acknowledge that ENLIGHTENMENT IS YOUR PRESENT STATE OF BEING.

Have You Heard Of This Law?

I would like to stop here, but I haven’t fully answered the question. What the questioner wants to know is why spiritual enlightenment seems to take so long. He’s only asking because he rightly senses that it should not. So, let’s address the question. There are two reasons. The first reason is addressed in what’s been written above – the belief that you have another mind other than the one enlightened Mind.

The second reason is eye-opening. I’m going to set it up by sharing my story with you. When I was a young pianist, my teacher(s) gave me six or seven weeks to completely learn a Beethoven sonata up to performance level. However, when I was nineteen, things changed. My teacher expected me to bring a sonata up to a near-performance level in one week. Big difference. When I had seven weeks, I took seven weeks. When I had one, it only took one (unless it was one of the knuckle breakers).

Parkinson’s Law – Were these the first words that popped into your mind after reading that scenario? In very simple language, Parkinson’s Law states, “If you give yourself a lot of time to do something, you’ll probably use up all the time, even if you don’t really need it.”

You Don’t Need The Time, So Why Take It?

Believing that spiritual enlightenment takes a lifetime, most people give themselves a lifetime to experience it – even though they don’t need it. Because the one Mind is your Mind, you don’t need time to experience enlightenment. Stop taking the time you don’t need.