'Consciousness Is What I Am' Unofficial Study Guide - Chapters 1-6


Thoughts on "Consciousness Is What I Am"


Introduction

This post is intended as a study guide, an aid offering points for contemplation as you read through Joel Goldsmith's work.


As we read through each chapter of this book it maybe helpful to consider:


1. What is the main message of this chapter? 
2. What are the spiritual principles Joel is pointing to?
3. How does this chapter speak to me?



Suggested keys to "Consciousness Is What I Am":



1. The need to live consciously and continuously in the realization of Presence.


2. Living without an awareness of Presence, we are living in the delusory mind of this world.


3. By keeping an awareness of Spirit alive in Consciousness, you are practising the principles of spiritual living. This is how to restore the "lost years of the locusts".


Each section of this guide is not intended to replace a full reading of the original work of Joel Goldsmith. It is simply intended as pointers for contemplation.



Chapter One

1. Every day there should be a period in which we close our eyes, and turn within. Let us think of our mind as a door. Since Consciousness is omnipresent, the moment we open the door, this Infinity floods us, and we are under Grace.

2. How do we human beings free ourselves of those circumstances and conditions of earth which govern and limit man over which he seems to have no control?

3. Nothing can happen to us except through our consciousness. If I am not consciously aware of something, it cannot happen to me.

4. As we close our eyes and turn within, we find ourselves in a blackness, a darkness, but that very place where that darkness is is our means of access to Infinity.

5. Impartation comes from the centre to the circumference of us, from the depths of our being to the surface of that being.

6. 'I', the Soul of us, stands at the door of our consciousness and knocks.

7. We have to open the door; we have to admit Spirit consciously.


Chapter Two

1. • Whatever is spiritual, eternal and immortal in us is our true Being.
• That which is mortal, human, and finite is not an expression of Consciousness but an illusion and cannot be raised up to the celestial atmosphere.

2. The reason for discords or inharmonies of any nature is a false sense of 'I'.

3. The only problem that anyone ever has is 'I', and if there were no 'I', I would have no problem.

4. There is only one error in all the world, and that is entertaining a false sense of I.

5. The solution to problems, individually and collectively, is to gain the correct sense of I.

6. The 'I' that we are entertaining - the 'I' which concerns itself with how this universe should be run - is not I at all: it is a false sense of 'I'.

7. I at the centre of me is the governing factor in all my experiences and the power us upon Its shoulders.

8. In meditating, we never take a problem into the meditation.

9. In meditation, we commune with the real I of a person's being. As we do that, harmony begins to appear.

10. If I keep the person as a human being with a problem out of my thought and hold fast to his spiritual reality, gradually I bring his true identity into manifestation as his life.

11. Man has no intelligence of his own. Only Consciousness is infinite intelligence, and there is no person except Consciousness appearing. 

12. There is only Consciousness manifest 'as' individual being.


Chapter Three

1. We must hold the principle of One Power and dismiss the belief in two powers.

2. Another principle basic to The Infinite Way is that there is only one Self.

3. • The universal belief is that supply is outside in the world and that we must struggle to get it.
• But the truth is: 'I' am supply.

4. I AM is not a Power that acts upon us: it is a Power that acts through us and as us.

5. When we realize that the Self that we really are is Pure Consciousness, it is clear that that Self does not need glamourising.

6. The mind is not you or I. It is not 'my mind', 'his mind', 'her mind'.

7. The mind itself is like a pane of glass. It is not a Power that creates light; it is a transparency through which light shines.

8. The Unconditioned Mind is a pure transparency.

9. It is not your thought that adds a cubit to you, but when you are receptive to that which comes from the depths within you, the earth melts.

10. Mind is not something separate and apart from body: mind is the essence and substance of it.

11. It is only because Consciousness never made sin, disease, and lack that you can feel completely free within yourself that these are going to disappear out of your life.


Chapter Four

1. I am not a body and even without a body, I would be intact. But without Consciousness I am nothing. Consciousness is that I am.

2. Behind the body and mind is Consciousness.

3. Why should you take thought when the Consciousness that formed you is responsible for maintaining and sustaining you?

4. The personal sense of self must learn to stop taking thought and let Consciousness reveal Its life.

5. Recognize yourself as Consciousness and adopt the listening ear.


Chapter Five

1. There is an invisible substance or essence called Consciousness, which can be experienced, but never defined or analyzed.

2. Consciousness is not only eternal and omnipresent but It is our individual consciousness or awareness, the substance, cause, and law of individual being.

3. The only way to be released is to realize that the I which you are is Consciousness, not form; Consciousness, not mind.

4. The first temptation is to use human force - mental or physical force - and begin to combat the enemy, whereas the most difficult thing in the world is to close ourselves in tight and realise we need not resist discord.


Chapter Six

1. Consciousness draws us back to Itself.

2. We began as infinite pure Consciousness and there is a Force working in us dispelling and dissolving the belief in two powers.

3. Spiritual Consciousness is projecting itself in and through human consciousness, leading us forward step by step.

4. Q: What is the height of spiritual progress?
A: 'Dying' to the self and losing one's human sense of life.

5. Behind the physical or visible world, Consciousness bis pushing Itself into expression as individual awareness.

6. This Light of Being is breaking through human consciousness collectively so that generation after generation man's state of Consciousness becomes more and more a transparency through which this Light can come.