"And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put [his] hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly." - Mark 8:24-25 "Happy April Fools Day! ... Every day!! - Luella Overeem |
| THE CHICAGO GOLDSMITH GROUP www.infinite-invisible.net
(Mezzanine Level)
3434 Central Ave., Evanston, IL (Fourth Tuesday*) 259 Skyline Dr., Carpentersville, IL Conducted by Bob Harper (* Of the Month) Meditation Starts 15 min. Before Meeting Time Conducted by Bob Harper MAIL AND TEL: Bob Harper, P.O. Box 337, Carpentersville, IL 60110 (847)428-4759, (847)710-4759 (cel.), (847)428-4835 (fax) bob_harper@sbcglobal.net |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| April '08 Study Guide Photo Tree Optical Illusion From COOLOPTICALILLUSIONS .COM |
| STUDY GUIDE AND SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES APRIL 2008 SUNDAY, APRIL 6 - at THE INN OF CHICAGO - 11:00 A.M. JOEL S. GOLDSMITH: THE 1955 KAILUA STUDY GROUP "Bear Witness To God in Action" Tape 19 Side 1 12:30 P.M. VIRGINIA STEPHENSON: THE 1987 ASILOMAR RETREAT "God Consciousness – Christ Consciousness," Tape 3, Side 1 (No. 8724) ************************************************ TUESDAY, APRIL 8 - at UNITY ON THE NORTH SHORE - 7:30 P.M. VIRGINIA STEPHENSON: THE MONTHLY LESSONS OF 1995 April, 1995 Lesson: "Lesson On Lifting Up the I" ************************************************ SUNDAY, APRIL 20- at THE INN OF CHICAGO - 11:00 A.M. JOEL S. GOLDSMITH: THE 1955 JOHANNESBURG CLOSED CLASS "Nature of Messiah – and Contemplative Meditation and Healing Work," Tape 1, Side 2 (Side 1, Concl.) 12:30 P.M. JOHN STEPHENSON: THE 2007 DALLAS CLASS "The 91st Psalm," Tape 2, Side 2 (No. 0715) ************************************************ TUESDAY, APRIL 22 - at 259 SKYLINE DR., CARPENTERSVILLE - 7:30 P.M. Class, and Tape: LUELLA OVEREEM: THE 1980 DEARBORN, MI CLOSED CLASS "No Pairs of Opposites in Christ," Tape 1, Side 1 Click on this link: http://www.infinite-invisible.net/AudioFilesPage.html ******************************************************************************************************************* STUDY CHAPTERS FOR APRIL
VIRGINIA STEPHENSON: THE MONTHLY LESSONS OF 1995, April: "Lesson On Lifting Up the I;" GOD FORMED US FOR HIS GLORY (‘78 Letters), Chapter 4, "God Formed Man For His Glory;" DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS Vol. II, by Luella Overeem: April, 1978 Lesson. ****************************************************************************************************************** ANNOUNCEMENTS JOHN STEPHENSON CLASS, APRIL 4-6, FOSTER CITY, CA
CONTACT: Elizabeth or Marty Parker: 916-652-6562. Email: eaparker@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~ APRIL 11-13, ADDISON, TX (Dallas Area). Crowne Plaza Hotel: 972-788-2758. Mention "John Stephenson Class" for the group rate. CONTACT: Judy Merino 972-233-6002. Email: jdymerino@aol.com LUELLA OVEREEM TAPE AVAILABLE ON-LINE: You are invited to join us on 4-22 at 7:30 PM (or at your convenience) by listening to Luella’s tape, which is now available as an audio file on infinite- invisible.net. Click on this link: http://www.infinite-invisible.net/AudioFilesPage.html WISHING ALL A HAPPY PASSOVER! ******************************************************************************************************************* EXCERPTS FROM TAPES FOR STUDY, PRACTICE, AND MEDITATION
"Bear Witness To God In Action" Tape 19 Side 1 I will say here, those who are familiar with the Writings, either through reading them or hearing them on the recordings, those who are familiar with the Message, will find no difficulty in taking this next step. Those who are not sufficiently prepared … will find this an impossible step, and they will find that they have to go back to the books and the recordings and come up through those steps; because I want to bring to your attention today a step called "bearing witness." Scripture is full of that term: "I bear witness." In a courtroom, a witness goes in the chair to tell what they beheld, not what they did, not what they were a part of, what they beheld. A witness bears witness to something that took place. So, at no point should a witness say, "I brought this about," or "I did that," or "I helped this": "This is what I beheld, and I am repeating it." That is what the Master meant in "bearing witness to God." The Master had no part in using spiritual power. The Master bore witness to God’s power. He claimed no power for himself: "I can, of my own self, do nothing. … The Father within me do it. …. I bear witness to that which I see the Father do." Now, at this point of our unfoldment, a student facing a problem, whether of their own or another, does not seek to use a spiritual power or a law of God or a truth. This student will sit in quietness and stillness and watch God do it while they do nothing. Then they can say, "I bore witness to a healing. I bore witness to the activity of God in human affairs. I didn’t do it, I had no part in it: I bore witness to God performing this." You see, too much of the metaphysical world does not believe there is a God. They really believe that what they are doing with their mind, the truth they wrangle around in their thought, that that is God. They really believe, sometimes, that the thoughts they think are God! No, there is a God, take my word for it, and God works independently of any human help. God needs no human help. God cannot be influenced by a human being, not even a human being’s desire to save life. God isn’t even influenced by that. Now, let us suppose that a call comes … for help. Can I give it or can you give it? And those of you who have experience know the answer: nobody can give it. If it doesn’t come from God, they’re hopeless. If God can’t answer that call, they’re hopeless. Ah yes, but God isn’t answering it. The hospitals are filled, the mental institutes are filled, the battlefields are filled. God isn’t answering on earth, that is true, and God cannot answer on earth, because God must find entrance through consciousness; and it must be a consciousness completely deflated of ego. It must be a consciousness so definitely imbued with the understanding that God IS, that they are willing to sit back, Father, this is your universe. It was here before I was. Take over; And sit in that stillness, sit in that quietness, sit in that peace until God does come in. For Meditation: "Be at peace. God IS." - Wisdom #14 For Study: THE WORLD IS NEW, Chapter 6; and the 1957 LETTERS, Chapter 10. SUNDAY, APRIL 6 - 12:30 P.M. VIRGINIA STEPHENSON: THE 1987 ASILOMAR RETREAT "God Consciousness – Christ Consciousness," Tape 3 Side 1 (No. 8724) Question: "… Are the God-experience and the Christ-experience essentially one and the same, or is there an actual difference?" Answer: "There is a difference. The God-experience can only be attained through the Christ-consciousness. The Christ-consciousness, however, comes to human consciousness to dissolve material sense, that which separates man from God, and creates in us a hunger and thirst after righteousness, a hunger for the spiritual facts of being, a hunger for the truth. As this hunger takes over in us, we are fed, then, by the Spirit, and we could say we spiritually evolve until there is such a state of purity that we can experience God or see God "face-to-face." The Christ lifts us up, … the Christ is the light of the world, and It is that which dissolves in us the sense of separation, the sense of sin, the sense of lack, the sense of sickness, the sense of limitation. As long as there is a material sense of us, of lack or of limitation, a material sense of separation, the sense of sin. … When you have no sense of sin, you have no sense of corporeality, no physical sense. When you have no sense of sickness, what disappears is physical sense. And we can’t do this through our own prayers. Metaphysically, we can prepare ourselves for the experience, or through orthodoxy, the orthodox way, you can prepare yourself for the Christ-experience. But it is the function of the Christ to dissolve these barriers in us, and that is why, when Jesus was speaking, he said, "No man can come to the Father except through me. …. Only the Son knoweth the Father, and only the Father knoweth the Son." So, if we are going to know the Father, we have to know the Son. The Son is not a person, it is the spirit of God … . For Study: Virginia's Monthly Lesson For April, 2008; Subscriptions for Virginia’s Monthly Lessons: Leslie Lewis, 240 Makee Rd, #10A, Honolulu, HI 96815 (808)779-9817 llewis002@hawaii.rr.com *********************************************************************************************************************************** TUESDAY, APRIL 8 - at UNITY ON THE NORTH SHORE - 7:30 P.M.
"Lesson on Lifting Up the I," April, 1995 Monthly Lesson The body reflects our present state of consciousness. As long as we hold to the concept that there is God and man, or I and God, then that sense of separation allows for the subliminal activity of two powers to operate on our body and human affairs. Body then manifests the beliefs in discords that we allow to act upon us. When we recognize the truth that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is one, that I AM THAT I AM is not personal but is the universal truth expressing Itself as individual being – one Soul, one Body – then the body concept is under divine grace, and nothing from without can enter that "defileth … or maketh a lie." [Revelation 21: 27] What we call man is the body manifestation. The body manifests our state of enlightened consciousness or our state of spiritual ignorance. Every day you must lift up the I and realize your oneness with God: "I AM THAT I AM," [Exodus 3:14] God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, One. This triune principle of Life is expressing Itself as my individual experience. I have no other mind but God. I have no other soul but God. I have no other embodiment but God, no life but God. This is living the mystical life; this is living by the principle of Oneness. At first, you may not understand this way of living. It may be just an act of faith, but this act of faith will bear great fruitage. The Master never claimed to heal anyone. He always said, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." [Mark 5:34, 10:52] It was an act of faith when someone asked to be healed and came to his consciousness, but it was his realization of their wholeness, their oneness with the Source, and of the universality of this truth that set them free. Jesus had no personal power. He said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." [John 5:30] This is the truth: we have no power of our own. When we identify with God, we submerge ourselves in Him. We are hid with Christ in God. We have no life of our own – we claim none, no intelligence of our own – we claim none, no power of our own; we claim nothing of our ourselves. We are always bearing witness to the truth that "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world," [1 John 4:4] and, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." [Psalm 138:8] The mystical way of life is a way of constant, conscious awareness that God is living as each individual expression of life. You won’t feel like God, but as you contemplate how you breathe at night when the human mind is asleep, how your food is digested and assimilated, you ask, "Who is doing all this? Who is assimilating? Who is digesting? Who is breathing? When you stop to think about it, you realize that the body can do nothing of itself. It is not self- acting; it is not intelligent. Without consciousness it collapses. It is Consciousness that is expressing Itself to Itself and as Itself. If you are identifying with your concept of body, you are living a lie, and what is the fruitage of living a lie? Think of the adventure in living when you know that you are embraced or embodied in a Consciousness that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. You get up every morning with joy, contemplating: This is God’s day. God, what are You going to do with me today? This is Your life. What is Your plan? Who are You going to bring into my orbit that I may recognize the truth of being? What opportunities are You going to bring to me so that I can go beyond the limitations of humanhood and see You in operation? Then, whoever comes into your orbit has been drawn of the Spirit. No matter what you are called upon to do, you turn within to meditate, but not to change anything or heal anyone, for you have already come into agreement that this is a spiritual universe. The secret of healing is never to set your mind on a person or condition and work on it as though it were something of itself, but to realize that the discords in your life are carnal mind impositions; they are not personal. You recognize that all discords are coming from the universal belief in a selfhood apart from God, the universal belief that man has a mind of his own and a will of his own, the universal belief that there is power in the world of effect, power for good or power for evil. You then must realize that God is the only power, God is the only reality, God is the truth of your being, and the truth is Oneness. "I and my Father are one." [John 10:30] For Meditation: "There is no resistance in my being to God’s government. I am here to bear witness to the truth. I am here as a manifestation of the one Mind, the one Soul. I am here to reflect infinite love, infinite peace, infinite joy, and infinite intelligence. I have a whole reservoir of Spirit to draw upon. I can draw on this unseen Reality and bring it into manifestation, making the place whereon I stand holy ground by practicing the presence of God. " - Virginia For Study: THE APRIL, 1995 MONTHLY LESSON, by Virginia Stephenson *********************************************************************************************************************************** SUNDAY, APRIL 20- at THE INN OF CHICAGO- 11:00 A.M.
"The Nature of the Messiah – Conclusion, Contemplative Meditation and Healing Work - Start," Tape 1, Side 2 When is Christ? NOW. Where is Christ? [HERE] within me. So therefore, if you are to be healed, if you are to be fed, clothed, housed, if you are to be raised from these dead beliefs, these mortal beliefs, if you are to be given your spiritual freedom, it must come from within your own being. You must look to the Christ of your being, then, to be the multiplier of loaves and fishes, to be that which is the activity revealing harmony in your experience. This can only come when you make the admission, "The place whereon I stand is holy ground." That, "Son, I will never leave you, … Son, thou art ever with me, … Son, all that I have is thine," in this very instant. Then in the recognition of that, give up all desire for it to come from without, and then let it come or appear in whatever natural way of unfoldment may take place. You’d be surprised, sometimes, of the way our good comes to us when we have given up all thought of the channels or instruments through which it should come or the time when it should come, or even what it is that should come, because it is literally true that we know not how to pray or what to pray for: we must "let the Spirit bear intercession" with our spirit and reveal to us what we must have. When we say, "I know not how to go out or how to come in," when we say, "I know not how to pray or what to pray for," we are beginning to touch the "hem" of the understanding of prayer. The further you go in this Work, the more startling you are going to find it. Those of you who have read the Writings do not know the nature of some of the things you read. They’ll be more clear to you after this class. But you will find that there are startling things in spiritual wisdom, things which the world cannot yet bear, some things which we, ourselves, at times do not wish to face. One of them is, of course, that God never rewards us for being good, and God never punishes us for being evil. We don’t like that, sometimes. But it is true, and there’s no use any longer, looking to God for your blessings or fearing God in the sense of punishment. None of those things come from God. Whatever good comes to us comes from our own sowing: that determines our reaping. Whatever of evil comes to us comes from our own inner acceptance of two powers in the world, the power of good and the power of evil. For Meditation: "Now, if there is a power of evil, there is no use in studying any more, because if God couldn’t overcome it, you can’t!" – Joel, from the tape. For Study: GOD FORMED US FOR HIS GLORY (1978 LETTERS), Chapter 4. SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 12:30 P.M. JOHN STEPHENSON: THE 2007 DALLAS CLASS "The 91st Psalm," Tape 2, Side 2 (No. 0715) We have a friend who’s an attorney, but he’s studying philosophy, and we’d get into these philosophical discussions every now and then; and he asked if we believed in an omnipotent God. I said that I do, but with a qualification, because I don’t believe that there is any God in "this world," in the human scene. He said, "Well, then how can you say that God is omnipotent?" He’s come to the conclusion that he’s an atheist, because he looks at this world and can’t see any effectiveness of Spirit in this world, therefore, God must not exist in the human scene. We’ve come upon, more or less, the same idea from different perspectives, the difference being that I know that there is a spiritual dimension that exists here and now, and in that spiritual dimension is all creation. Therefore, everything that we experience in this world is part of this spiritual creation, and if we see it correctly, and we experience it through our spiritual faculties, we will enjoy all of the satisfaction, fulfillment, joy and love that this world has. But when we bring in those human concepts and the activity of the mind, and these "bricks" of judgment, we suddenly alter our whole experience, and suddenly we find, "Oh, this world is sometimes good and sometimes evil:" but as Mrs. Eddy said, "Always erroneous;" for there is a spiritual dimension that exists right here and now. … When we are in this spiritual state of oneness, when we are experiencing that divine Consciousness, we do not see duality. We do not see the same scenarios as when we are looking at life from this materialistic standpoint. So, our … living between two worlds requires us to be vigilant in our acknowledgment and maintaining this spiritual aspect of our life so that we can see through the appearances of this world. As we do that, and as we examine what it is that "pushes our buttons," what it is that attracts us or frightens us, then we start beginning to deconstruct this material concept that says, "I’m a human being of a certain sex and a certain age and grew up in a certain economic and social strata, and that has defined my life." No, that does not define my life, God defines my life; and all of those appearances of "this world" dissolve to the degree that I identify with that spiritual ONE. For Study: PSALM 91; and LIVING THE ILLUMINED LIFE, Chapters 5 & 6.
********************************************************************************************************************************** TUESDAY, APRIL 22, at 259 SKYLINE DR., CARPENTERSVILLE - 7:30 P.M.
"No Pairs of Opposites In Christ," Tape 1, Side 1 To listen, click on this link: http://infinite-invisible.net/AudioFilesPage.html It’s not believed anymore that it was just one person who could be the Christ, that it was Jesus and nobody else. More and more it’s accepted that in our spiritual identity we are the Christ; and we know now that God visits anyone who can open his consciousness in receptivity to the Presence within. That means you and me! The Master’ s mission was to reveal the Christ as the consciousness of every individual, that every individual might find fulfillment in the realized Christ. He couldn’t have revealed it if he hadn’t been it. It has to come as an individual; it isn’t just in the abstract. There has to be individual realization of the Christ. What is it? It’s the consciousness of the truth, it’s illumination, it’s the realization of the allness of God and the nothingness of error or the appearance of good and evil. We are the Christ, but we aren’t aware of it. The one thing that’s stopping it, stopping everyone on earth from showing forth the Christ, is this belief in good and evil. There’s nothing else; that’s the veil. We’re all very willing to give up the evil parts, but the good is the catch. It’s the story of the Prodigal Son. He wanted to leave the Father’s house, the Father-consciousness, and be something on his own. That is, he wanted to be good, he wanted to be fulfilled; he wanted to have all the qualities that people want to have for themselves: understanding, intelligence, love, friends, approval. This is what humanhood wants. It never gets it, and it never will, because this human sense of good is a sense of separation from God. It’s the belief that there are two powers; and as long as there is this belief, you’re cut off from the vine, from the branch. The Father-consciousness is what we are, we are not a "son" that is dependent for its good upon the Father. When we "return to the Father’s house," we’re actually the Father- consciousness. God constitutes individual being. It doesn’t give individual being the things it needs, it IS individual being. That’s all there is to individual being. But it’s this belief that we have something of ourselves that cuts us off. [Shows a drawing of a pair of scissors.] The dictionary says that a pair of opposites, one of the definitions of "pair," is "a single thing composed of two corresponding pieces, as a pair of scissors." So [the two parts of a pair of scissors] this is "good" and "evil." It takes both, it takes the belief in two powers, and it’s this belief in good and evil that "cuts the branch off the tree." [See John 15:6] It’s the belief in separation. You see, God doesn’t have any opposite, and this human sense of "good" is not God. The human sense of good is exactly the same thing as the human sense of evil. It’s a branch, cut off from the tree; and as Joel has said, that is "the Lord God" in the 2nd Chapter of Genesis. It’s not an opposite of God, it’s this belief in two powers, a self-hood cut-off and apart from God. In that cut-off branch, which is our humanhood, which is the Prodigal Son, is all of our problems. There is no problem that is in the Tree: all the problems come in this branch that has been cut off by accepting the belief in good and evil. For Study: DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS, Vol. II: April, 1978 Lesson.
SIGNPOSTS "This is the way that you get back into the Father-consciousness: you drop the sense of separation. In order to do that, you have to understand the nature of God. If God is all there is, infinite, omnipresent, the only wisdom, the only power, then what else is there outside of infinity? If you are accepting that as the truth and living it, then that’ s illumination, and that is the Christ." - Luella
"Prayer consists of attention … all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God." – Simone Weil ~~~~~~~~~~~~ "In prayer the stilled voice learns to hold its peace, to listen with the heart to silence that is joy, is adoration. The self is shattered, all words torn apart in this strange patterned time of contemplation that, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me, and then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended." – Madeleine L’Engle ~~~~~~~~~~~~
perfection of the NOW. *********************************************************************************************************************************** |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| by Luella Overeem: DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS, Vol. II: April, 1978 Lesson |
