The Thunder of Silence Unofficial Study Guide - Intro & Chapters 1-3


Thoughts on "The Thunder Of Silence"

Introduction

This post is intended as a study guide, an aid offering points for contemplation as you read through Joel'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 "The Thunder Of Silence":

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.


INTRODUCTION


1. The purpose of this book is to set you free from "man, whose breath is in his nostrils".

2. The only real strength there is, is in conscious union with Awareness and in the realization of the true nature of spiritual power.

3. It is not possible to get free 'from' anything.

4. The only complete freedom is a freedom 'in' Consciousness.

5. Whatever depths you and I have known, that was the experience necessary for us to reach the heights.

6. Consciousness does not operate through physical might or mental powers.

7. Live with these truths until your materialistic state of consciousness begins to yield and surrenders itself as the transcendental Consciousness takes over mind and body and the everyday experience of your life.

8. The purpose of this book is to reveal transcendental Consciousness and thereby develop individual consciousness by dwelling and continuously abiding in the Word.


PART ONE

Chapter One

1. • Living in the mortal realm, we are under the laws of matter, the laws of economics, the laws of race, religion, nationality.

• Living in spiritual truth comes through a conscious activity within our own consciousness that is made only by Grace.

2. To be rid of the ills of humanhood, we must also be willing to relinquish the pleasures and profits of humanhood in order to become acquainted with our spiritual identity.

3. Now is always presenting itself to us with fresh opportunities.

4. I and my Consciousness are one. I look in no other direction than to the Infinite Invisible. Then what appears from within I share.

5. This transition brings about a change from faith in the visible to faith in the Infinite Invisible, that which can never be seen, heard, tasted, touched, smelled, or even thought or reasoned.

6. There must come a time when thought stops, a blank comes, almost a vacuum, and into that vacuum rushes the very Presence and power of Consciousness.

7. "That is the moment when we perceive that, even when we cannot know It or feel It or think It, there is an invisible Presence, an intangible Something, which nevertheless is operating, and then from that very Invisibility will come into expression everything necessary to our unfoldment". 

8. • If we think ourselves to be something, we gravely err.

• It is only when we come to that place of self-renunciation that our Selfhood reveals Itself.

• Silence is the way.


Chapter Two

1. All the suffering the world is experiencing is because of a sense of separation from Consciousness.

2. Karmic law is not Consciousness.

3. Ultimately, there comes a day when we actually attain a realization of the Consciousness that dwells in us. When we come face to face with It then we are no longer under the law of karma - we are living by Grace.

4. Consciousness never rewards virtue. It never punishes error. Error punishes error. No-one can violate law and not be punished for such violation. The fault lies not in Consciousness but in individual misperception of the nature of the law.

5. It is right and proper to be an honest and healthy human being, but that has no relationship to the spiritual path, nor to our ultimate destiny, which is to return to conscious Awareness.

6. Exercise: What is Consciousness?

7. • Our meditations do not influence Consciousness.

• All we can do is recognize that which already IS.

8. No act or deed or thought of ours is powerful enough to prevent Consciousness from operating and continuing to operate.

9. The law of karma stops operating as soon as we drop the personal sense of self.

10. We come to acknowledge that we did not live an hour ago and that we cannot live an hour hence. The only time we can live is Now.

11. Everything we do today determines something that is going to happen in our life tomorrow, or tomorrow's tomorrow.

12. • In our relationship with one another we live completely in the sense that we are One.

• "In such a bond, no-one is thinking of taking advantage of anyone else; no-one is thinking in terms of self-gain, of self-aggrandisement, or any form of self except the idea of a sharing of the self".

13. The way to break the karmic law is by living constantly in an atmosphere of love and forgiveness.

14. In the spiritual realm there are not two powers operating. There is only a state of Grace which is itself the law of elimination to every phase of materiality.

15. I am interested only that the Soul of every person here on Earth be revealed, the Soul that will remain here eternally.

16. "There is something more to life, and that is 'Life' ".


Chapter Three

1. Consciousness is not a power that can be manipulated by man.

2. • Consciousness is understood to be 'no-power' because there are not two forces combatting one another.

• Consciousness has no opposite and no opposition.

3. When we have the actual conscious realization of 'I', pain, lack and limitation fade away 

4. Nothing is accomplished by struggling and resisting physically or mentally, because struggling only increases what seems to be a discordant power in our experience.

5. It is you and I who falsely entertain a sense of power of lack and limitation, which the thing itself does not have.

6. "We have to lose all desire for the visible in the realization that we live not by that which is visible but by that which is invisible, and then we shall find that the Infinite Invisible will produce in our experience the persons, things, circumstances and conditions necessary to our daily life".