1956 Chicago Open Class
Joel S. Goldsmith
156A – Start Healing Today

Good evening…Chicago, October third, and unexpectedly, talking to you at our Reading Room. You know of course, that I did not expect this. I was invited; my arm was twisted. And some of you already know that actually this is the kind of work that I prefer above all of the work that we do, except healing work. Healing work always has been and always will be my first love.
But next to that, talking to individuals or to very small groups is my favorite way of working, my favorite way of teaching. Circumstances make it so that I have to give talks or lectures to large groups, but I try to keep even those as small as possible by not advertising for more people to come. And of course, our classes have grown in these years. It’s necessary that we have these larger classes because it isn’t possible to give as many small classes as would be necessary.
But it doesn’t change the fact that I like my work with individuals and with small groups much better than the work with larger groups. The reason is this: truth is a very sacred thing, and if truth is to be understood and demonstrated, it must also be a secret thing. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, the Master makes it very clear that we are not to pray where we can be seen of men, but that we are to enter our closet, our sanctuary. Close the door and pray in secret. Then the Father that seeth in secret, He rewardeth openly.
There’s a deep mystery behind that little passage in Matthew and in some of the latest of our classwork, I’ve gone into that quite at length and I know that soon you’re going to have it here in the Australian tapes. So I won’t speak too much about that as you’ll have plenty of opportunity to hear it, study it, and gain a deep inner meaning as to secrecy and sacredness.
Now, the sacred part of course, you well know. The secret part isn’t so well known, because again it has become customary to build large churches and for people to gather in enormous arenas and auditoriums, and of course, they don’t know what they’re losing by it. They don’t know what we can know in this room tonight; what we’ve already known in the past in this very room and in some other very small gatherings that we’ve had here. And that is this: those of you who came here tonight, came here not to be seen of men, but to hear a message.
Yes, that reminds me too: I’m substituting for a tape recording—so you’re even willing to hear a substitute! Because truth itself is what you came to hear, whether you heard it from a voice or whether you heard it on a recording, as long as it fulfilled the thing you were seeking, that is: truth itself, revealing itself, you were here for it. So your very coming here was a very sacred thing. And the mere fact that you came in small numbers, to a small place and without fashionable surroundings shows that you’re willing even for it to be secret, quiet, peaceful.
Now don’t you see how an atmosphere can develop in this room that couldn’t develop at all if we were meeting in the baseball park? And don’t you realize that there is a certain—let’s call it love, a love, a feeling of love that can fill this room, can fill your being and my being because of our mutual interest and our love for God that couldn’t be if we were just ten thousand strangers in an auditorium?
And so it is with the whole message of truth: the closer you can come to one person or a dozen people or a hundred who know each other, who know the message, who know the integrity of the work itself and who come with all barriers down—Just open wide to God. You see an atmosphere can flow here that couldn’t otherwise take place. That is why I’m happiest when I’m with a small group. That is why, whenever possible we have classwork, that there’s always a period set aside for our students who conduct these meetings: that is who conduct Reading Rooms or tape recording sessions or do healing work in The Infinite Way. More would have a small group of those and the atmosphere is high; the expectancy is high; the healing consciousness is high; the love that flows back and forth is pure because it’s really God Itself that is enfolding all of us.
Now, it is for that reason that I suggested, if through your studies or meditations, if some question has come to your mind that heretofore hasn’t been answered, and there’s any way for me to answer it, write it out on a slip of paper before we leave here tonight and see if I can’t be of help in that way, because that really and truly is spiritual teaching at its highest level, when there’s just a teacher and a student asking and answering questions and a small group opening themselves to some problem that is common to them and not to the world at large.
There are some things that I can speak about to you and I may not be able to speak about at the open lectures, and there may not even be an occasion during the classwork, because there are occasions and I think this is going to be one of them, when we can be a little bit more personal than we would be at a lecture or even a large class, when it’s possible for a teacher to speak to the students who are, or have demonstrated that they are serious in the message—they’re not merely people who drop in to hear a lecture; they’re not merely those who are seeking some particular loaves and fishes for the moment. But a group, such as you are, who are regular in attendance at work like this; faithful in the study of the books. To you I can say some things that couldn’t be said to others.
And so, let me start with this: there are certain premises in the message of The Infinite Way; certain basic themes that, if you do not keep continuously in thought, you will not readily demonstrate because they are so radical, they differ so greatly from what the world acceptance of religion is, that it is a very simple thing to forget them. And this one in particular has great significance when it comes to healing work, whether the healing work is for oneself or for others.
Now of course, our primary interest is not in healing for ourselves. If our major interest were in healing for ourselves, I can tell you in advance that we might fail. We attain greater harmony in the degree that we give our attention to the healing of others than when we seek a healing for ourselves. The principle behind that was voiced by the Master when he said, “The only way to gain life eternal is to lose your life.” You must first lose your life before you can gain life eternal. You must seek your own in another’s good.
Just the same as the subject of supply. The metaphysical world has attempted for nearly three-quarters of a century to demonstrate supply, and three-quarters of that metaphysical world has disappeared off the earth because they were trying to attempt something that can’t be accomplished. Nobody can demonstrate supply; nobody can demonstrate a home; nobody can demonstrate an automobile; nobody can demonstrate companionship; nobody can demonstrate money; nobody can demonstrate employment. It’s been tried in the metaphysical world, and the movements that attempt to perpetuate those things have just dried up until there is very little of them left on earth. You can’t demonstrate something by violating the principle of it. You have to conform to a principle. Now supply cannot be demonstrated; that’s an impossibility; regardless of what form of supply you’re thinking of—whether it’s health or wealth, home, transportation, companionship. None of those can be demonstrated.
You can demonstrate the realization of God’s presence. You can demonstrate the omnipresence of God because that’s a reality. God is omnipresent and you can prove that. God is love and you can prove that. God is life eternal and you can prove that. And when you have proven that, you will find that all those things that you were thinking about have miraculously been added unto you or you have found them included in you.
Now when then, you can so far forget your own life as to stop seeking what you shall eat or what you shall drink or wherewithal you shall be clothed or wherewithal you shall be companioned, or wherewithal you shall be housed—when you can forget yourself and your problems and can ask yourself openly, honestly “How do I know there’s a God? What evidence have I got for this God? Is there one? Well, I’ve been reading books about it and they all say, ‘Yes.’”
If I had to get on a witness stand and take an oath on a Bible, do I know there’s a God, could you answer that you do? Have you seen God face to face? Have you felt God with you? Have you had the actual realization of God’s presence? If so, then you will understand that what I’m saying is true, that when you have that realization of the presence of God you have your health and your supply and your home and your companionship and all the things that are necessary.
But if you haven’t demonstrated an actual realization of God’s presence, then the thing to do is to forget what you shall eat or what you shall drink or wherewithal you shall be clothed, and give the rest of your time just to demonstrating God’s presence. When that’s achieved you’ll find, as everyone has, that manna falls day by day. Companionships fall into line; we meet those of our own state of consciousness; opportunities come; greater capacities come; ideas flow, whether it’s for writing books or plays or metaphysics; inventing new things. They will all flow from this contact that we have made. But let somebody try to do those things separate and apart from achieving the God realization and they’ll fail.
And so it is with all of our healing work, we know from our reading if not from actual experience, that the basic premise of all spiritual wisdom is that I and the Father are one and all that the Father hath is mine. We may not be demonstrating it at this moment but we know that that’s the premise. I and the Father are one. All that the Father hath is mine. The place whereon I stand is holy ground.
So that when we are confronted with those who have not yet known this or demonstrated it in some measure, they have the right to look to us for help. And we have the right to say, “Yes, I can give it.” Not because I’m spiritual, not because I have any powers that anyone else hasn’t got, but because I know the truth and it’s the knowing of the truth that makes us free. So we have the right then, to sit down for our neighbor, for members of our family, for friends, for those who’ve turned to us and give them the help they require.
And then a mystery takes place, a miracle takes place: While our mind was away from our body, we became present with the Lord. And then when we looked at our body again, the disease was gone. The pain was gone; the inharmony was gone. All the time we were treating ourselves and our body, we were holding that false image in thought and perpetuating the condition. The moment we stopped treating, we gave it a chance to disappear into its nothingness.
Now, you know from your studies, and some of you from actual experience, that error has no more reality than we give to it. Now, you and I don’t give it its reality to begin with, the universal belief does that. But we accept it. So that if the world says, “If you sit in a draft, you’ll catch a cold.” we usually catch cold sitting in a draft. Now, we didn’t empower that draft to give us a cold, the universal belief did, but we accepted it. Now of course, the minute we start to give a treatment to ourselves we just perpetuate the cold.
But if we could turn to the world’s problems and begin to know some truth about the world’s problems, or begin to know the truth about some friend or relative’s problems, you would soon find that when you look back at yourself, that which you thought was a problem, no longer exists.
So, it becomes our work if we are serious students, and those of us here are, to begin to let our problems alone, to stop working on them, and to begin to work for others. To let our own beliefs be dissolved in the truth that we’re knowing for the world or for those who call upon us. You see, to the human being it is very important that they be healthy and to have a goodly measure of supply or an ample measure; and that they have friends, relatives, I understand that. But that’s of no importance to you or to me, and it shouldn’t be. It has no right to be of any importance to a truth student, whether they are healthy at the moment or not; whether they are wealthy at the moment or not—or even if they are in lack.
What difference does it make? There’s only one thing that’s really important: have I yet known God? Have I reached a point in my life where I know God? Tell me, really and truly what difference does it make how healthy I am, if I haven’t yet known God face to face? Tell me what difference does it make if I were as wealthy as the Gold Coast, but I haven’t found God? What would I do with that health and what would I do with that wealth? Just be more miserable, because I wouldn’t have poverty or sickness to worry about, so I’d have to look for something else.
No, you see, we must one day face ourselves with this truth: the Master fed the Hebrews one day, and he went across the lake and they followed him! And he said “Well, what are you here for?” “Well, we’re hungry.” “Well, but I fed you yesterday.” “Yes, we’re hungry today.” “Ah, so that’s what you want, to be fed, loaves and fishes. No, no, no, I’m showing you a principle of supply. I didn’t feed you just to give you loaves and fishes; I fed you to show you the principle of supply.”
Now, it’s the same way, in our early stages of study we have come to one of the truth movements, organized or unorganized, for healing: physical, mental, moral or financial. That’s alright, that was legitimate. At that time, we didn’t know that God was a present possibility; we didn’t know that God could be met face to face. We’d probably been part of religious teachings which taught us that we’d be lucky if we met God after we died, and only then if we attained a sufficient measure of purity on earth. And of course, nobody yet has ever attained quite that degree of purity necessary for the experience, unless it was a man two thousand years ago.
Now, as we continue in our study we have healings, probably everyone in this room has had some healing or other through truth and if it was only a little healing of a headache, that was enough to prove that the presence of God was active, even in our human experience, here and now.
Actually, we should never have needed another healing after that. After that we should have said, “Well, now I know. There is a possibility of bringing God into our experience. Now that it has been proved to me, I’m going out and bring God into my experience.”
And, had we so devoted ourselves for some months or years, the day would have come when seldom if ever, we would have had to turn to someone for help. Oh, once in a while, everyone will have to do it under some stress. The Master did it when he asked the eleven disciples to stay awake with him. The Master must have expected it of his disciples when he was on the cross. It’s undoubtedly right that every one of us in some distress should feel free to turn to one another. That’s why we’re on the same path together. That’s why we’re spiritually brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers to each other. Spiritually we’re one, spiritually we’re of one household, and it’s absolutely right that in some stress we look to each other for help.
But, the point that I make is this: that that is only an occasional experience. Once we meet God face to face and know what the presence and power of God does in our life, from then on we live only for one purpose: that is, to live in that Presence; to live and move and have our being in Him.
You know, Scripture says to us, “Whom, to know aright, is life eternal.” God, whom to know aright is life eternal. So we don’t have problems to work out; we have God to know aright! We could all of us, afford to give up all attempts to solve our problems, and say, “What difference does it make whether it’s solved or unsolved if I haven’t found…to know God aright, if I haven’t come to know God aright?”
So my problem now is just one: to know Him aright, whom to know aright is life eternal. Once I know God aright, well I can’t have problems. It would be like saying “We’ll turn on the electricity and then try to get rid of darkness.” No, there isn’t any darkness when the electricity’s been turned on. When the sun comes up, the darkness disappears. When we come to know God aright there are no problems because problems only exist as shadows; problems only exist as appearances. They have no real existence; they have no substance, have no law and no cause. They only exist as mental images. But they’re mental images created in darkness. When the light of truth shines those mental images disappear, then the physical, mental, moral, financial trouble flies right out the window.
One of the quickest ways to realize God is to begin to do healing work. It doesn’t make any difference how little truth you know. It doesn’t make any difference that you may never have had any experience. Nobody had when they gave their first treatment. Nobody had ever healed anyone when they healed their first case. There had to be a first treatment, there had to be a first case for everybody in the world including Jesus Christ. There had to be a first.
Now, in Spirit there are no diplomas given out to tell you when you’re ready to do healing work. There are no degrees; there are no examinations to pass, because there isn’t anyone knows your fitness but you. Passing a written examination doesn’t determine that because it isn’t the intellectual knowing of the truth that has any healing power, none whatsoever. If there were, we could pass out these books to all these great brains, they could memorize them, and then we could set them up doing healing work. It’s rarely that you find one of those great brains capable of any healing. And yet they could learn all of the truth that are in these books faster than we could.
No, there is one thing needful for healing, and that that’s needful doesn’t take time and it doesn’t take experience. It might take a little courage at first, but that’s all. Not too much courage because you don’t really have to start with cancer cases or polio cases or people who are in danger of dying the next hour. You can always start somewhere else.
But here’s what it takes: it takes an individual who knows one truth, just one and it doesn’t make any difference which one that is. It doesn’t make any difference whether they learned it in the Bible, in Christian Science, in Unity, in New Thought, The Infinite Way. It makes no difference where you learned it so long as you know one statement of truth. Then you sit down quietly somewhere and have time, opportunity, and peace and you begin to ponder that one truth. Just that one truth, that’s the only one you know; the only one you can remember; the only one you can think of, so we will take that one.
And out of that you’re going to learn what the Immaculate Conception is, because out of that one truth you’re going to find you’ll have a baby very soon. You don’t need two truths to get a baby truth, just one truth will present its own image and likeness. Just one truth will have an Immaculate Conception and the next thing you know it will give you another truth and then another, and another, and another. The longer you sit there the more you’re going to astound yourself with how much truth you know.
And then you’re going to ask yourself, “Where did I learn it all?” Because some of it you just picked up out of the air and some of it is just treasured memories that you’ve forgotten and some of it you’ll find—and I can bear witness to this—some of it, you never in your life knew or heard of and God imparted it directly within you. And you know, if you’re not careful, you’ll think it’s original with you and you’ll go and get it copyrighted and find out that it’s three thousand or four thousand years old.
I was once invited to talk to a church in California, Protestant church, and on this particular day it was really jam packed to the door, and it was some kind of a holiday and everybody was, I guess feeling, they were very, very Christian. And probably thought because they were Christian they had a monopoly on truth or something of the kind, or a monopoly on God. And I’ve always asked those who introduce me to audiences, “Please use no adjectives, I don’t want to be sold and then find that I’m fallen short of the advertising.” So I beg and plead, “Don’t, don’t, don’t use adjectives when you introduce me!” Let each one make up their own adjectives as they go along.
But this man thought that he would surprise me and do me a great favor, so he introduced me as the greatest teacher on earth today, and maybe the greatest of all time. Now of course, that’s quite a reputation to live up to, I wouldn’t try that in a crowded church like that so I said, “I suppose you all know this man and know what a sense of humor he has. That’s his idea of modern vaudeville, because the truth is I’m not a teacher at all. I don’t know anything about teaching. I’ve learned a few simple things that I try to share with our friends. I could hardly call that teaching. And to illustrate this, I’m going to really start by asking a question,” and I recited the two Great Commandments of the Master: “Thou shall have no other gods but one. Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” And I said, “I wonder if you know the source of those two statements?”
Well, you know, practically everybody did, they told me they were the Master’s two commandments. “Heavens no, no, no! No, you’re far wrong. That first one is from the Book of Exodus, way back in the Hebrew Testament. It’s the first of the Ten Commandments given by Moses. The second one’s older than that, it goes back to Deuteronomy, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.
“Now then, do you see what I mean—I’m not a teacher, I just learned a few things I want to share with you and I want to share this with you so that you’ll understand that we’re not celebrating a Christian holiday today, we’re celebrating truth—universal truth that goes before Abraham and extends up to the end of the world.”
Now, I’m repeating that to you for this reason, that a short time before that day I didn’t know this myself, didn’t consciously stop to think that these were things out of the Hebrew Testament. I too walked around thinking I was being a good Christian by calling them the Lord’s commandments. And I didn’t learn from then, but one day in opening the Bible I opened smack into that statement Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself, and I never knew, never dreamed that that had been voiced before the Master voiced it. Well of course later I found out it was voiced even before the Hebrew Testament.
Now, since that time I have found this: that every time I’ve given a class I’ve learned truth that I never knew before it came out of my mouth. Every class I’ve ever taught has revealed truth to me that I never knew until it came out of my mouth. When I gave the class, Metaphysical Notes, I had never in my life had a conscious thought to the effect that my conscious oneness with God constitutes my oneness with all spiritual being and idea. Never had thought of it, didn’t know such a principle, and I think it was one of the first sentences out of my mouth when that class began on the first night. And then, that was the theme that developed all through the week in that class and as I came to think it over, that’s absolutely true. If I’m consciously one with God, all things are added unto me. That must mean that I’m consciously one with all those things. And so, in teaching a class, I learned a truth I didn’t know.
Now that’s happened in every class since then: Consciousness Unfolding. Nobody in that room was as shocked as I was when I heard the words come out that God unfolds and discloses Itself as individual consciousness, your consciousness and mine. Now we all talk about one consciousness and one mind and one life but you see, that set it way off here until I heard myself say, “God unfolds Himself as my individual consciousness.” And that brought it right down to I and the Father are one.
Same thing happened in New York in March. I never think about lectures as being the high spot for high unfoldments but when I got on the platform on Saturday night our first—Friday night, our first lecture—Oh maybe it was Saturday night—our first lecture in New York, a message came out higher than anything that’s ever come out of my lips before or since. And I was so shocked with it that I prayed that night that nobody would understand it because I just knew that it would create trouble and I’m very happy to say that in all the months that have gone by, not one single soul has written me that they caught the message that night. I’m grateful for it, because I’m sure, if they had caught it, it would tear them to pieces to realize what was revealed that night. It tore me to pieces just to have it come out of my own lips.
Now, anyone who knows one statement of truth, could be I and the Father are one; could be God is all or God is life; He performeth that which is given me to do—any statement of truth—can sit down and begin to give a treatment to any problem that exists on the face of the earth. And if they’ve got enough courage, it doesn’t make any difference if it’s cancer or consumption or polio and they can go right ahead with it. Because that’s all it takes: just one statement of truth.
Now, if no other statement came out and just one truth were pondered, eventually the inner meaning of that statement; that which we call the realization of that statement or the discernment of that statement would come to life, and that would heal anything, anything. Just one statement. But, as a rule, what happens is that pondering that one statement gives birth to another statement, another truth, and pondering that brings forth a third. And if you watch, they have a sequence. If you watch you’ll see that they will lead up to some final statement, and Ah! that clears the whole situation. And then you feel free and you go about your business and pretty soon you hear or learn that a healing has taken place, or an improvement.
Now, anyone who will sit down to work out a neighbor’s problem—by neighbor I mean that in a spiritual sense—anyone’s problem, I don’t mean butt into someone’s business who doesn’t want you butting in with metaphysics, but someone who would like spiritual help; someone who has indicated to you at some time or other that they would like to be healed or helped.
Or, if there is no such person, take a world problem. I’m sure there isn’t anybody here who doesn’t know the world’s got a lot of problems today, more than it’s ever had before. There’s a greater need for what we have today than has ever existed before and certainly, in solving the world’s problem we solve our own individual problem because, if the world has no problem, neither would we have.
So, if we sat down with our one statement of truth and applied it to some national or international problem—well, this one just comes to me now: the coming election. Let’s forget for a minute that we are American citizens and that we have some kind of personal stake in how the election comes out. Just let’s say now that we’re a citizen of some country or other, any country on the face of the globe. But our interest really and truly isn’t the Democratic party or Republican party or Mr. Eisenhower or Mr. Stevenson. Our interest is merely that what is probably the greatest country left in the world today should have a head of the highest intelligence and the highest integrity. Now that’s being personal isn’t it, I mean we have no favorites at this minute, we’re not for, we’re not against, we merely agree that as either Americans or Englishmen or Frenchmen or South Africans or South Americans, we all have one interest in common: heaven help the world if the United States should fail. It is of the human world, the last hope because every other nation is bankrupt financially and pretty corrupt morally. So that we stand pretty big power alone in the world of the major nations. And so as Americans or Englishmen or Frenchmen or South Americans we all should feel an interest that the United States of America have, at this particular time at its head, not only a president but a Congress of the highest intelligence and the highest integrity. All right, if we can agree on that, we can until election day, forget our partisanship and our personal beliefs, and we can sit down and say, “All right, if prayer is a power, now I want to pray that the United States of America be given the most intelligent and the most honest government possible. How am I to pray?”
And you know, each one might have a different answer come to them but in one such situation this is the answer that came to me: my mind went back to when Judas Iscariot betrayed the Master, committed suicide, and there were eleven disciples left. But there had to be twelve for them to function properly and so they met to elect the twelfth. Out of all the other followers of the Master they were to select one. And do you remember what their prayer was? Father show us whom Thou hast chosen. And then they all agreed on the one who was to supplant Judas Iscariot.
Well now you know, that if we prayed like that: Father, show us whom Thou has chosen to be president, senator, governor, it would be very much different election than if you and I were to say “No, my grandmother was a Republican and my grandfather was a Republican and I’m a Republican too,” and somebody else, “Well, I’m from the South and they’re Democrats and I wouldn’t betray my ancestry.” No, if we could rise above our humanhood to the degree of saying, “Father, show us whom Thou has chosen,” you know that one or both of these candidates might resign before Election Day and we might have to nominate somebody else.
Anything could happen if they wanted the right one. Anything could happen. God could make anything happen at all on earth if we really felt Thy will be done, not mine. See that? There again, we might sit down in that prayer and have that come to us. Not my will be done, not my choice, Thy will. You’d be surprised how miracles could happen, could take place, and we find ourselves God governed, instead of man governed, because God would choose somebody susceptible to His influence.
Well, just think, that sitting down probably without even one statement of truth and waiting for the very first statement of truth to be given to us, we could do it that way. We could sit down if we’re going to do healing work and say, “Father, I don’t know any truth, and if I did it wouldn’t make any difference because scripture says, “His understanding is infinite.” Doesn’t say anything about mine and it doesn’t say anything about my understanding counting. It says, “His understanding is infinite.” It says, “He uttered His voice, and the earth melted.” So, Father, I guess I won’t give any treatment. I’ll sit here and let You utter Your voice or You tell me. I’ll be the state of receptivity. And you see, a truth would reveal itself through us that could perform miracles on earth. We couldn’t perform the miracles, you or I couldn’t. But a truth could come through our consciousness if we were that humble that we put our own understanding aside for God’s understanding. A truth could come through that would raise the dead.
That’s why I say to you that if you knew one statement of truth, and I’ll go still further—if you didn’t know any statement of truth, you still can heal. If you’re willing to be quiet enough, silent enough, receptive enough until He uttereth His voice through you; until some word of Truth comes through, then you’ll find that the word of God is quick and sharp and powerful—the word of God, not the word that you remember or quote or affirm, nor I, but the word of God.
Now, you see why I can’t say this to a great big lecture audience? They wouldn’t know what I’m talking about and a lot of people, even in a class won’t. But those of you who have read the books conscientiously, heard the tapes, you know what I’m talking about. You know right well, there isn’t anyone in this room who shouldn’t be ready to accept the responsibility to start healing work and start it right away. And, because it isn’t your spirituality or mine that’s going to heal anybody and it isn’t your understanding or mine that’s going to heal anybody, it’s God’s understanding to which we make ourselves receptive by getting still and saying, “Speak Lord, thy servant heareth,” or “I will listen for Thy voice”—any of those things that make us receptive to the voice.
Then, as these truths begin to work in our consciousness, we’ll find that they’re working in the consciousness of our patients and our students and of the world at large. That’s the great benefit—that they operate for the benefit of the world at large. You cannot imagine how many times I’ve seen in capital-labor relations, in government relations even in international relations, what prayer can do.
I violated a very, very strict law in England on my last trip. A friend in Germany was in some difficulty and I took a bill out of my pocket, an American bill, and put it in an envelope and mailed it to Germany with a letter saying, “Here’s some temporary help.” And the Post Office caught the letter, and confiscated the money because it is not permissible to send currency out of England. As a matter of fact, it isn’t permissible to send it out of any of the countries that have restricted currency. And I don’t have to tell you that I wasn’t thinking of violating the law, I was thinking of blessing somebody in a temporary moment.
So I received a letter from the British government telling me I had violated the law, my money was confiscated, but if I did want to answer and say anything that I could write a letter to the Postmaster, department so and so. So I did. And I said, “If you opened the letter and found the money then you’ve also the opportunity of reading the letter. And you will see that I was answering the call of somebody in distress. What you might call, if you like, an act of mercy.”
Now, the British government is built on the Bible. It has a state church, The Church of England. It cannot open sessions of its Parliament without an official bishop being there to officiate. So I said that your government is founded on the Bible, on the teachings of Jesus Christ and more especially on love, mercy, helpfulness, doing unto others where others do unto us; doing unto the least of these my brethren as done unto me. And I can’t imagine that the Parliament of England would really pass a law nullifying a law of Jesus Christ. And they sent my money back.
And so it found its way into Germany in a different way. I could legally go and get a check in the bank, which I did. So you see the point is, you can even violate a law sometime, can’t you, if it’s accompanied with love, with prayer, with understanding.
Now, all those things can happen through prayer. Governments can change their rulings; different people can be elected to office than would have been elected by purely human means, natures, dispositions can change; international affairs can be influenced. Nobody can ever know to what degree international affairs between England and Russia can be influenced by scientists going back and forth and giving their secrets, their papers, their discoveries to each other and finding in each other the good will. You never know how far reaching those things are because I’m sure that in Russia, it went right up to the heads of the government that they were invited to England and their expenses were being paid. Do you see that?
All right now, surely there isn’t a single one of us that couldn’t do any of those things, if we understood just enough to know that we understand nothing. But that if we’re silent enough that God will give us the particular truth, the particular wisdom for the occasion and with it will come the power—because the word of God is quick and sharp and powerful—see that?
Now, we in The Infinite Way have been too slow in approaching this healing work. We are ten years in existence as a teaching—that is it will be ten years next June. And just on the strength of the truth that’s in the books this work has spread to the entire Protestant world. There are American editions, there are British editions, Dutch, German, Danish, Afrikaans, Swedish, and there are people trying to translate into French and Spanish and Portuguese. All that on its own volition, on the word within itself.
And yet, we really haven’t enough healers, practitioners, so that if I accepted the invitations that come to go on the air, we wouldn’t be able to do the healing work. We haven’t enough people to do it. In other words, we have to intentionally keep our work from being too well known because we’d have too many requests for help and we haven’t the workers to take care of them. And that isn’t right. That isn’t right. This work of The Infinite Way is ready to, like spring, it’s ready to bust out all over. But it can’t be allowed to because what would happen if the world did say, “Oh, let’s have some of it.” Then I would have to say “I’m snowed under, and I haven’t got enough people to help.” And yet, I know that there isn’t anybody who has attended our tape groups regularly, whether here or Los Angeles or Washington or New York, there isn’t anybody that’s attended for any length of time who can’t do just as good a healing work as any practitioner on the globe. Because it isn’t up to them, it isn’t whether they’re young or old. It isn’t up to them whether they speak English or not. It’s merely up to whether they’re willing to sit down quietly and forget their own body or their own purse or their own family trouble and get busy with the world and let their own affairs take care of themselves.
The Bible does say that I’ve never seen the righteous begging bread and I think it’s true that as we would get into this work, whether or not we had great prosperity at once or not, doesn’t make a difference, we’ll get our two or three meals a day and a place to sleep and that’s all that’s necessary because the rest will come of its own accord and in its own time in proportion as we learn to die to ourselves. Give up your own life that another may live. Give up your own comfort that another may have comfort. Give up your own time that another may get a healing. And then you’ll find that in losing your own life you’ll find that you’ve gained God’s life which is life eternal. Now just remember that: “Whom to know aright is life eternal,”—to know God aright.
Every time you sit down to meditate on a passage of Scripture, you are contemplating God and you are getting that much closer to knowing God aright. That is how I made the discovery that the greatest need in anyone’s life is to know the nature of God. The world doesn’t know the nature of God. All that stuff they are taught about God being a God of vengeance or a God of revenge or punishment or God this, this against you—that’s a lot of nonsense and is just hogwash! That is not God’s nature at all.
Jesus revealed God’s nature: to forgive seventy times seven no matter what your offence may be, and if your sins were scarlet, you would be white as snow. That is God’s nature. It is God’s nature to heal the sick, raise the dead, forgive the sinner. But we don’t know that—we still think of that Hebrew God, or we think of that.… Oh, some other kind of God that you have to sit around and get in His favor one way or another. There is no such God. There is no such God. We don’t need God’s favor any more than we need man’s favor. All of God’s favor that we will ever need we have got. What we need is to know Him aright, and that we do through contemplating truth. All of a sudden it dawns on you, “Well, God is love; then what have I got to be afraid of? There is a God and God is love.” Well, that ends my whole problem. If God weren’t love, then I’ve really got a problem. Oh, what a problem I’ve got if there isn’t a God of love! But the minute I know God is love, I have no more problems. That ends it.
The minute I know God is infinite intelligence and it is His good pleasure to give me the kingdom, what kind of a problem have I got? Then I can forget and start to help the men and women and children who do not know that God is love, who heard the words but do not believe it, and in helping them, I bring the conscious realization home to myself. And I’m sure of this, that in my time, I’ve been able to maintain my health more by the fact that I was busy helping others than in that I ever had any time to do any specific work for myself.
Well, now you see this is the kind of a thing that can happen when a few of us get together in one place with one mind and know what we each are talking about, and that is the benefit of groups like this, that you can bring up things like this, that you can discuss them, hear them, read them, talk about them, and in such an informal way that you really come to know that God can be approached informally also.
Thank you!