Joseph S. Benner Quotes

We have collected and put the best Joseph S. Benner quotes. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

Joseph Sieber Benner (January 3, 1872 – September 24, 1938) was an American author, New Thought writer and Representative of the Brotherhood of Christ who used the pen name “Anonymous”. He was the first to introduce the Knowledge and Teachings of Impersonal Life (also known as the “I AM” Teaching) to the world in his first book, The Impersonal Life published in 1914. His other works were The Way Out, The Way Beyond, Wealth, Teacher, Brotherhood, The Way to the Kingdom, Papers (65 Lessons), etc.

Your doubts and your anxiety are but of the personality. – Joseph S. Benner

That which you think you are, you are not. That is only an illusion, a shadow of the REAL you, your Divine self. – Joseph S. Benner

I AM always there to pick you up. – Joseph S. Benner

As you Think in your Heart, so is it with you. You live in a world of your own conscious creation. – Joseph S. Benner

I AM all there is. – Joseph S. Benner

In Reality You are an Angel of Light. – Joseph S. Benner

You inner Perfection, which is MY Perfection is gradually unfolding from within you. – Joseph S. Benner

The only true art is that of seeing clearly My Perfection in all My human expressions, and allowing My Love to pour through you into their Hearts. – Joseph S. Benner

The one who is your True Soul mate is in reality an Angel from Heaven, even as are you. – Joseph S. Benner

First changing your attitude toward all these things you now think are not what they ought to be. – Joseph S. Benner

Forget all that has gone before. – Joseph S. Benner

You are perfect Now, and always were perfect, knowing neither youth nor old age nor death. – Joseph S. Benner

Know that I AM already pleased with you. – Joseph S. Benner

From The Impersonal Life: The Classic of Self-Realization

You are what you believe you are. Not one thing in your life is Real or has any value to you only as your thinking and believing has made it such. – Joseph S. Benner

You, who are still holding to the idea, taught in various teachings, that I will provide a “Master” or Divine Teacher for each aspirant towards union with Me, hear My Words. – Joseph S. Benner

It is true I have permitted you in the past to delve into all kinds of mystical and occult books and teachings, encouraging your secret desire to acquire the powers necessary to attain this union extolled in such teachings, even to the extent of quickening in you some slight consciousness of the possession of such powers. – Joseph S. Benner

I have even permitted the belief that by practicing certain exercises, breathing in a certain way, and saying certain mantras, you might attract to you a “Master” from the unseen, who would become your teacher and help you to prepare for certain initiations that would admit you into an advanced degree in some secret order in the inner planes of existence, where much of My Divine Wisdom would be opened up to you. – Joseph S. Benner

I have not only permitted these things, but, if you can see it, it was I who led you to these books, inspired in you such desire, and caused such belief to find lodgment in your mind;-but not for the purpose you imagine. – Joseph S. Benner

Yes, I have brought you through all these teachings, desires and beliefs, trying to point out to your human mind the Forces I use to bring into expression My Divine Idea. I have portrayed these Forces as heavenly Hierarchies, and that your human intellect might the better comprehend, I pictured them as Angels or Divine Beings, Impersonal agents or executors of My Will, engaged in the process of bringing into expression My Idea that was in the beginning.
But you did not understand. – Joseph S. Benner

Your human intellect, enamored of the possibility of meeting and communing with one of these beings, as claimed in some of the teachings, proceeded at once to personalize Them, and began to long for Their appearance in your life, imagining that They are interested in your human affairs, and that by living in accordance with certain rules set down in certain teachings, you could propitiate Them so They would help you to gain Nirvana or Immortality. – Joseph S. Benner

Now I have purposely permitted you to indulge yourself with such delusions, letting you long and pray, and strive earnestly to obey all the instructions given; even leading you on, sometimes, by giving you glimpses, in self-induced visions and dreams of ideal beings, which I permitted you to believe were such “Masters”. I may even have caused to open in you certain faculties, which make it possible for you to sense the presence of personalities that have passed into the spirit side of life, and who have been attracted by your desires and seek to fulfill the part of Master and Guide to you. Now the time has come for you to know that such beings are not Masters, also that Divine Beings do not call themselves Masters; that I, and I alone, your own Real Self, AM the only Master for you now, and until you are able to know Me also in your brother. – Joseph S. Benner

That any being, either in human or spirit form, that presents himself to your consciousness and claims to be a Master, or who permits you to call him Master, is nothing more nor less a personality, the same as yours, and therefore is not Divine, as your human mind understands that term, despite the many wonderful “truths” he may utter, and the “Marvelous” things he may do. – Joseph S. Benner

Just so long as your human mind seeks or worships the idea of a Master in any other being, no matter how lofty or sacred he may seem to you, just so long will you be fed with such ideas; until, verily, I may perhaps, permit you to meet and commune with such a “Master”. – Joseph S. Benner

If that privilege is vouchsafed you, it will be only in order to hasten your awakening and your consequent disillusionment, when you will learn that “Master” is indeed but a personality, even though far more advanced in awakening than you, but still a personality – and not the Divine One your innermost Soul is yearning for you to know. – Joseph S. Benner

For I feed you with every idea that will operate to teach you the reality back of the seeming, and if I lead you on to apparent deception and loss of faith in all human and even Divine perfection, it is only to enable you the more clearly to distinguish between the substance and the shadow, and to prepare you for that far higher Ideal I am waiting to picture to you. – Joseph S. Benner

You can rise in your human personality only to the ideal your human mind is capable of conceiving. Through Desire I cause My will to manifest in you, and through Desire I perform many wondrous works. If you doubt this you need only to apply the Key:
To think of a Master is to create one.
This idea of a Master, by your thinking, becomes what you desire and imagine a master to be. – Joseph S. Benner

In other words, by your thinking you build around this idea, all the qualities you imagine a master possesses. Your human mind, through Desire, through aspiration, through worship, must needs create these qualities in some imaginary being, who is still a personality, for you cannot as yet conceive of an Impersonal being. – Joseph S. Benner

Therefore, according to the intensity of your desire and thinking, must this idea sooner or later come into actual manifestation., either by attracting to you such a personality in the flesh, or one entitized in the realm of visions and dreams. – Joseph S. Benner

As your human mind is constituted, it at certain times thinks it needs a Master, one to whom it can turn with its human trials and problems for explanation and advice, thinking life’s problems can be settled that way. If I draw to you one who fails you or deceives you and throws you back finally upon Me, your own Self, discouraged, disillusioned and humiliated, it is only that perhaps then you will be ready to turn to Me within, and will listen to My Voice, which all these years has been speaking to you, but to which your proud and egoistic mind has not deigned to listen. – Joseph S. Benner

You who have not yet had this experience, who have not yet met the Master of your aspirations, either in human or spirit form; you, within whom My Words have failed to awaken a quickening response to their truth, – for you I have in store certain experiences which will surely lead you to Me later on, and then you will be brought to know that I AM the Master, the inspiring Idea back of and within every thought of and every aspiration towards a Master that enters your mind, whether coming from within or without. – Joseph S. Benner

It is taught, “When the pupil is ready the Master appears.” And this is true in a sense; but not as you have interpreted it. – Joseph S. Benner

Your secret desire for a Master will bring him to you, but only when I have prepared you for such an appearance. But such will be only an appearance of a Master. The true Master or Teacher, when He appears, you may never recognize; for He may be hidden in an interesting friend, a business associate, your next door neighbor, or in your own wife or husband or child. – Joseph S. Benner

You, who have risen above Desire, you who no longer seek a Master or Teacher, or even Me, but are abiding alone in the faith of My Eternal Presence and Promise, – for you I have in store a meeting and a communion, which will bring to your Soul such joy and blessings as your human mind is incapable of conceiving. – Joseph S. Benner

Fear not; this mystery will be revealed unto you – if you truly wish to know My Meaning.
Until then, why, in your seeking, be satisfied with anything short of the Highest? – Joseph S. Benner

Why seek in human or spirit teacher, guide, master, or angel, for the necessarily limited manifestation of My Perfection, when you can come directly to Me, God within you, the Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, the Inspiring Idea back of and within All manifestations? – Joseph S. Benner

As I AM in You, even as I AM in any you seek, and as all the Wisdom, all the Power and all the Love they possess come only from Me, why not now come to Me, and let Me prepare you also so I can express My All through You? – Joseph S. Benner

You are a human personality, yet You are Divine and therefore Perfect.
The first of these truths you believe, the latter you do not believe.
Yet both are true. – That is the mystery.
You are just what you think You are.
One or the other, which are you? – Or both? – Joseph S. Benner

You are One with Me. I AM in You, in Your human personality, in Your body, mind and intellect. I AM in every cell of Your body, in every attribute of Your mind, in every faculty of Your intellect. I AM the Soul, the active Principle of each. You are in Me. You are a Cell of my Body; You are an Attribute of My Mind; You are a Faculty of My Intellect. You are a part of Me, yet You are I, My Self. We are One, and always have been. – Joseph S. Benner

This idea of a Master I brought to your mind’s attention was only to lead you to and prepare you for this Idea of Me, your Impersonal Self, an Angel of Light, a Radiation of My Being, your own Divine Lord and Master, within. – Joseph S. Benner

Yes, I, your Divine Self, AM the Master your Soul has caused you to seek, and when you do find Me, and know I AM your Self, then will you in your human consciousness gladly become My Disciple, will lovingly wait upon Me, and will be concerned only that you faithfully serve Me, both within yourself and within your fellow men. And then you understand why only “One is your Master.” – Joseph S. Benner

For I dwell in all men and AM their One and Only Self. Through all men I AM ever calling to you and trying to reach and impress your human consciousness. As I AM continually teaching you, not only through every avenue needed at the time, I have many ways of reaching your consciousness and utilize all to bring you to a realization of My Meaning. – Joseph S. Benner

I speak with many voices – with the voice of all human emotions, passions and desires. I speak with Nature’s voice, with the voice of Experience, even with the voice of human knowledge. – Joseph S. Benner

Yes, these are all My Voice, which I use Impersonally to express to you the one fact, that I AM in All and that I AM All. What this voice says, in Its thousand ways, is that you, too, are part of this All, and that I AM in you, waiting for your recognition of Me and your conscious cooperation in the expression of My Idea of Impersonal Perfection on earth, even as It is expressing in Heaven. – Joseph S. Benner

When this recognition comes, and then only, are you ready to meet and know a real Master. Then and then only will you realize why I, your own Impersonal Self can be and AM the only possible Master of your human personality. – Joseph S. Benner

Then also will you understand why in your personal, separate consciousness you could never recognize or know a real Master should you meet Him in a physical body – that not until you are able to enter into My Consciousness within you and within Him, He would not exist to you other that perhaps as a kind and helpful friend or teacher. – Joseph S. Benner

When you have attained to that Consciousness, then will you be worthy and qualified to know and commune with your fellows in the Great Brotherhood of the Spirit, Those who have mastered self and Who live only to help their younger brothers also to find the Divine One within. If a being should come into your life who seemed to you Divine and who let you think or call him a Master, he is not yet wholly Impersonal. Such a one might be a master-man, but he could not be the Divine One your Soul yearns to serve. – Joseph S. Benner

Perhaps you should be satisfied to have such a one for a Master, even if he were not wholly Impersonal. If so, then I would hereafter bring you to a realization of his personal imperfections by a constant comparison with My Impersonal Perfection; until you would finally turn and come to Me in complete abandon, acknowledging Me and My Impersonality as the only Model and Ideal, and as the true Cause which inspired your long search without for My Perfection, that could be found only within, hidden deep within your own soul.

First changing your attitude toward all these things you now think are not what they ought to be.  – Joseph S. Benner

Be still!—and KNOW,—I AM,—GOD. – Joseph S. Benner

If you’ve learned to “Be Still,” if you’ve studied and meditated upon this “I” as God within you, if you’re able to distinguish it from the personal I, and are conscious at times of being able to step outside, as it were, of your personality and view your human self as it is, see all its petty faults and weaknesses, its base selfishness, its animal appetites and passions, its childish desires and foolish pride and vanities;

If you can do all this and have seen these things with clear vision, know that at those moments you’ve been One with Me in consciousness, that it was your Real Self, I within you, permitting you thus to see with My eyes the Reality of things. – Joseph S. Benner

At those moments you were freed from your personality and were dwelling in My Consciousness, call it Cosmic, Universal, Spiritual or Impersonal Consciousness, as you will; for you couldn’t have seen these things in your self excepting through Impersonal eyes, My eyes. – Joseph S. Benner

Again, if you’ll look back you’ll recall many times when you felt strongly impelled to do certain things, some of which you did, with perfect results; others of which you argued against, your intellect reasoning you into different action, and always with failure, disappointment or suffering as a result. – Joseph S. Benner

This impelling consciousness was only your Real Self, I within you, at such moments guiding you, distinctly telling you what to do. At those moments you were hearing with your Spiritual ears, My ears, and when you Impersonally obeyed, success and satisfaction followed, but when you personally thought you knew better, discomfiture, regret and unhappiness resulted. – Joseph S. Benner

Again, there have been moments when you’ve felt approaching events, or the nearness of unseen persons, or inharmonious vibrations when contacting others. – Joseph S. Benner

This is only the real you feeling with your Spiritual or Impersonal Body, whose consciousness, did you but know it, is ever on the alert to protect and warn and advise you regarding all outer things, conditions and events. – Joseph S. Benner

But the best and surest way you may know Me is when Selfless Love fills your heart, and there’s a strong, compelling urge to help someone, to heal their ills, to relieve their suffering, to bring them happiness, to point out the True Way—that’s the actual feel of Me within you, pushing the personality aside, using your mind and body for the purpose I created them, as avenues for the expression of My Real Nature, which is Perfect Love, the Christ of God, the one, vitalizing, quickening, life-giving, strengthening, healing, all-supplying, all-informing Power in the Universe. – Joseph S. Benner

All this is pointed out to you in order to impress upon you that it is I, in your Spiritual body, the Perfect body within, where I dwell, Who am always thus talking to you, advising you, teaching you, warning and helping you, in all the affairs of life; yes, in every little detail. – Joseph S. Benner

And if you’ll but turn to Me, and will carefully watch for and study these impressions which you’re receiving every moment, and will learn to trust them, and thus to wait upon and rest in Me, putting all your faith in Me, verily I’ll guide you in all your ways, I’ll solve for you all your problems, make easy all your work, and you’ll be led among green pastures, beside the still waters of life. – Joseph S. Benner

Ah, My child, if you’ll spend but one-tenth of the time and energy you’ve wasted in seeking without among the husks of human knowledge and human teachings, in earnest, determined efforts directed within to find Me;

If you’ll devote but one hour each day thus to Me alone, imagining and practicing the Presence of Me within you;

I here promise you that you’ll not only soon, very soon find Me, but I’ll be to you an exhaustless fount of such Wisdom and Strength and Help, as your human mind now can’t possibly conceive. – Joseph S. Benner

Yes, if you’ll but seek Me thus, making Me first in your life, never resting until you do find Me, it won’t be long before you’ll become conscious of My Presence, of My Loving Voice, speaking constantly from out the depths of your heart. – Joseph S. Benner

And you’ll learn to come to Me in Sweet Communion, and gradually you’ll find yourself abiding in My consciousness, and that My Word is abiding in you, and that whatever you desire will in seemingly miraculous ways be done unto you. – Joseph S. Benner