Teaching You How To Fish

By Rose Burrows
The Pearl of Great Price

Two very good friends that I met when I was associated with the Joel Goldsmith Infinite Way groups years ago put this question to me:

“How do you compare Joel Goldsmith’s “Infinite Way” teachings to those of William Samuel?

As I see it,

Joel Goldsmith feeds you the fish

There was a teacher, healer/practitioner/student relationship and classes in different venues, producing audio tapes ad infinitum. When I left "The Infinite Way" I had boxes and boxes and more boxes of books and audiotapes - cassette tapes. I had ventured to many classes, including annual trips to L.A. and three to five day seminars and classes at various other locations.

Healing of the cares and woes of daily life was the work of “practitioners”. One of the above mentioned friends had become deserving of being called a “healer”.

I was with the group for quite a few years until one of these two friends passed me a book by William Samuel entitled “The Awareness of Self Discovery”. This book made my heart sing. I tried to trace William Samuel who by this time had made his transition. Eventually I was led to Sandy Jones who is the executor of William Samuel's work. We soon became friends and she was my mentor.

William Samuel teaches you how to fish

Quote: " Well, listener, listen to this, see if there is any truth in this statement. The value in any message of truth is in direct proportion to that message's insistence that we turn within and discover for one's self the message, the divine identity that has ever been all one is. The honesty of any truth message, be it Buddah or Goldsmith or Jesus, or Sambo's or the board of director's or the pope's or the president's, lies in the statement that the truth is in one's self and IS one's Self.

...We were talking bout the honest message, the honest truth message. The honest truth message, as we said, lies in one that turns one to discover himself within, one that turns one within where the real discoveries are made, to turn within to the secret place, to the holy of holies, to the Shekinah and there find the true message.

The beauty of such a message, it seems to me, lies in its fulfilling the function of way showing, but doing it void of theory, void of speculation or commentary and it's a message that doesn't bind the seeker, it doesn't induce guilt nor encourage the veneration of the messenger or the messenger's words. The childlikeness of such a message encourages one to find the beauty and power and the wonder of his own words and to express the discovered life within. Such is the work the Child does.

The place is within. The place is within, within Consciousness, the place is within this very Awareness that listens to these words. It is not in any scientific metaphysical system and it isn't in the semantic games we play with the words of others. If, as is the case with nearly all organized theology, the message speaks primarily of healing and demonstrations and of altered states of consciousness, and all of those peripheral events, such a message can be as stultifying and misleading as it is helpful. Therefore, it isn't worthy of identity.

Ultimately, we have done with following the messages of others to become the finder or our own Messiahship, we find our own message. Salvation lies in this action and in no other. The first freedom and the last freedom lie in self-discovery. That discovery is immaculate, untouched by anyone else. It is a virgin discovery and recognition of deity within and without. Any message that has one following a personal leader or teacher for anything longer than is absolutely necessary to find the authority that one himself is, is a distorting, thwarting teacher.

I'm not saying that we don't follow the instructions of others, that we don't read or listen to others, that's what we're doing right now, for goodness sakes, but the ones to listen to are the ones who tell us that the messenger lies within and that we go there to find it. Those who speak of levels of awareness, of states and stages of consciousness, of spiritual hierarchies, as though they were outside one's very own awareness right here and now, are liars from the beginning. Their teachings confuse the world with false hope and robe the innocent with false pretence. We are done with that to find the word that is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart.

Oh boy, there are many messengers abroad on the land. The one to heed is the one who says to look for one's own messenger within, and then this, that's all-important...and then makes it plain on the tables precisely how this is done for one's self. And listen, listen, those qualified to do this use their own words, they don't give you backing-up references from 100 other sources to try to prove their words to you. They use their own words and they tell you their own story, which they have lived, and their own story is the proof of their word."

“I will put My Law in their mind and write it in their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my people.” (The Bible)

William Samuel shares the wisdom of his Child Heart and admonishes all to do likewise.

How to Fish: (William Samuel)

CHILD EQUALS HEART EQUALS SOUL,

THE OVERLOOKED SIMPLICITY

I have never talked heart to heart with a single person who hasn’t admitted that the child was still there within him--struggling perhaps, or a distant dream from the past, but still there. All of us continue to dream dreams and wonder about soft things. The heart of us still goes leaping through the high places of imagination occasionally and soars with the high flying swallows to see the far side of the moon. That is the Child at work. Yes, the Child still lives.

Moreover, this inner one, the old new Child of us, is healthy and well, absolutely all right in every way. None of the enthusiasm has been dulled by the years. Its eyesight is as sharp as an eagle’s. Its hearing keen as a puppy’s, and all the feelings of youth are pounding with excitement exactly as they did when we were children-children, unencumbered by the world.

Much has been said about the “heart” of us. Great theological positions have been established around “the immortal soul.” Reader, listen with that heart of yourself for a minute. The little child of us, the heart of us and the souls of us are the Same One. Whatever we have come to perceive with the heart has been a recognition of that eternal Child within. And now, as I write of that One, I address the heart, the soul with which we are all concerned. Oh, yes, the heart and soul of us--the Child--is still right here quite capable of confirming Itself, evidencing Itself and revitalizing our view of everything.

As the years pass and the world encroaches relentlessly, we lose sight of this Original Nature or Identity except as an old photograph or a memory etched somewhere in an inaccessible past. It comes as a surprise to hear that the Original Child and all Its feelings are still around; then it comes as a wonderment to learn first hand that they are not inaccessible at all, but still right here, closer than breathing, closer than fingers and toes.

THERE IS AN AGELESS MYSTERY IN OUR ABILITY TO FIND IDENTITY

As one read these words about the Child, the heart knows this is the truth, a truth hidden all these years in simplicity and childlikeness that we have left behind. When we are alone, we still play the child’s game. While we are walking or driving or puttering with the pots, there is some little something we do in the mind’s eye exactly as we did as a child. There are ships and ports and storms at sea when we wash the dishes or take a bath. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. Deep inside, you do. You see, I am the child, too--the same Child--and I have become It again. I know, by God, by the grace of God, what I’m writing about here. And I know that the first step in feeling the joys of the Real (as we did as children) is to acknowledge that the Original Nature of us hasn’t left us.

THE HISTORIC CHRIST AND THE CHILD

Bill, are you saying that the early church substituted the historic Jesus for the Child?”

No. Churchdom has limited the Christ to the historic Jesus, and all of that has been done for a divine purpose the church seems to know little or nothing about. Everything that has happened is by God’s grace. The historic Christ-in-linear-time came, as all luminaries, to confirm our own subjective Self-discovery. The historic Chris is the first begotten of the Father in world time, and the original believers had that straight. The discovery of the Child within is confirmed by the Bible and its accounts of the historic Christ and his role on earth. The Child I Am and you are “comes” to us as the second coming, as Messiah re-discovered within, for whom the Bible and Jesus are the first or external confirmation.

“Are you saying that the Child is the Christ also?

Yes! Yes! Exactly that. “Closer than breathing. Exactly as the historic Christ said. He would never leave us nor forsake us. He has been here as the Child of us from the beginning. Our very Child-Selfhood--which seems to go away from us and returns to us, rediscovered.

“William, tell me if this is what I’ve heard you saying these past few days: the Child within is the same historic Christ?”

Yes, History, like all other things is subjective. To rediscover the Child is to find what Jesus found, lived and confirmed before he began his ministry. When the historic Christ said he would be back again, he meant that each one who understood what he was saying would find the Child within and recognize THAT SELF HIMSELF as the Messiah written in the heart, the “second coming” in actual fact.

“Are you also saying that when I was a child on earth, I was that Christ-Child?”

Yes, spiritually. And I’m saying that everyone can prove the truth of this for himself by finding that all the acute feelings of the Original Nature which were present in us as children are capable of returning to us again.

“You know theology isn’t going to agreee with that, William?”

Perhaps neither theology nor the subjective groups, but all who feel the Child within themselves will agree, because they will KNOW it is the Truth, having proven it for themselves. And when the theologians begin to perceive that this is indeed what is meant by the New Covenant “written in the heart,” they will slowly, grudgingly give way, even those powerful conservatives so intent on going back to Biblical literalism. Not without argument. Not without doubt. Not without questioning those who have found the Child of themselves, and not without persecuting them mightily. Not everyone will be taken up in this Light. Jesus foresaw it accurately: “ Two are in the bed and one is taken; two are in the field...five are in the household, two against three and three against two; father against son. Those without consciousness of the Child will not know which of the senses to believe, not who in the world is telling the truth. Those who have found the Child within won’t care what the theologians or philosophers think. We leap through Spirit’s door and leave the flaming house behind.

Read more by William Samuel books available on Amazon

If you would like further guidance in understanding any of William Samuel's work based on Self discover you are welcome to contact me, Sandy Jones - samuelandfriends@gmail.com - Ojai, California -