Awakening Mystical Consciousness – Excerpt – Chap.7 Page 105
By Joel Goldsmith
Concepts or Is?
If I were to ask you what you think about the Bible, your opinion would most likely be different from the opinion of everyone else reading this book. There seems to be very little agreement on the subject of the Bible. But no matter what you or anyone else believes about it, it is what it is; and what it is no one really knows. If you had been asked a year ago about it and then again today and again a year from now, probably none of the three answers would agree because your concept of the Bible changes with the unfoldment of your consciousness.
So, too, whatever you may be thinking about a person is wrong. I do not care what you are thinking. Whatever it is, it is wrong because what you are thinking represent your concept of that person at the moment; and that concept changes from moment to moment and from year to year.
You must learn not to hate or fear your concept of life, whether it is a concept of humanity, of sin, or of disease, because it is only a concept. There is no real power in concepts. What you are considering as person is not person: it is a concept of a person. But that concept has no power. All power is in God. For example, whatever your concept of me may be, there is no power in it that can touch me. If you think I am good, it makes no difference to me. If you think I am bad, it makes no difference. Your thinking has no power over me. God maintains and sustains me, and I am not subject to anything but God. There is no life in your concept of me. Life is in me, not in your concept of me.
It is much the same about everything you see, hear, touch, taste, or smell: you never really know what it is. A diamond may be beautiful and it may be valuable. Whatever beauty and value there is, however, is in the diamond, not in your opinion of it. You may think it is a rhinestone, but your thinking has not touched the value of the diamond. You have not changed it or its quality. You may think it is perfect, and it may be imperfect. You may think it is imperfect when it is perfect. Yet it is what it is, and the value is in it, not in your concept of it. Out-of-doors there may be sunshine or rain. All the thought you think about the sun or the rain have no effect on either one.