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I
am the bread of life,
but he said, "I am truth". Therefore truth is the bread of
life, truth is bread. Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us this day an understanding heart. Give us this day the
staff of life, spiritual understanding.. Give us an ear that
we can hear with, an eye that we can see with. Give us
perception. Give us substance, the substance of life.
Don't
you remember the great passage, which appears in two of the
Gospels, Matthew and Luke? Take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye
shall be clothed. Now isn't that clear enough that he told
you not to pray for things. And so when he says, "Give us this
day our daily bread," certainly he's meaning, give us
understanding, give us the meat that perisheth not, give us
the wine of inspiration, give us the water that springs up
into life eternal. There's nothing material about that.
Then
where does he go on from there? Lead us not into
temptation. Why certainly, as human beings is there a
single one of us that has ever avoided temptation? It may not
be…some may not have been tempted to sin in the ways of the
world. But there isn't a person certainly in this room who
hasn't been tempted to sin in the way of unloving, injustice,
envy, hate, malice, jealousy, some form of error, some form of
sin; criticism, judgment, condemnation, throwing the first
stone. Who hasn't sinned or hasn't been tempted to sin?
There
may be some who have never indulged but the Master himself was
tempted. And we have the story in the Bible of the three
temptations in the wilderness. He was anhungered and he
was tempted to turn stones into bread. He was tempted to go
out after fame. You never dreamed did you that the Master
Christ Jesus was really tempted to go out after fame. But he
was, he was. He was in a position where he could become the
most famous man of the Holy Land. And he was tempted with it.
And he told you he was tempted with it. And then he told you
how he met it. Pondered it and pondered it and finally turned
on it and said "Get thee behind me Satan." But it was a
temptation facing him right face to face.
Now
then, everyone's tempted. Everyone has to be; evil temper,
some unkindness, some bigotry, some bias. Everyone's tempted.
And so it becomes necessary that we pray every day Oh, lead
me not into temptation. You may not be praying to a God to
do anything, but you're praying to that inner self of you to
stay on the straight and narrow path.
And
so it is, you will find that you can pray to God for anything
you like, as long as you don't pray for anything material.
Pray for spiritual unfoldment. Pray for spiritual realization.
Pray for the spirit of Christ to be upon you. Pray for
forgiveness from those temptations that we may have succumbed
to. Anything of a spiritual nature, but don't pray for
things.. And so it is all the way through the Master's
teaching.. Father I know that thou hearest me always;
Father I pray not that Thou take them out of the world but
leave them in the world, but let them be separate. So
forth and so on.
Now
let us come back here. "Please explain how one deals with
specific treatments."
Now,
here we have a broad principle. Now, we've spent three nights
on this principle, a very broad principle.. But, now somebody
says "I am sick, very sick and in pain."
So
now we have to bring our principle right down to a specific
case, to a specific application. Because now, just dealing in
generalities isn't a treatment, isn't the answer to the
problem. And so now we come to an individual who has said to
another individual "I am sick.. I am in pain. Do something
about it. Help me."
Now,
you have to take your principle and bring it right down to
concrete realization. And to begin with you can do it in this
wise. We will say now that you're seated comfortably
somewhere, away from the rest of the family. You've had this
call for help. And now you drop that person and their disease
or claim. You drop that out of your thought. And the first
word that must come into your thought is, `God.'
You
never are going to go anywhere in this work if you start your
treatment with any other word than `God.' God. Now, remember
too that this is not a formula that I'm giving you. Please
remember that repeating these words won't heal anybody. Your
treatment has to be somewhat spontaneous, although it must
abide in the mould of the form.
All
right. God. Oh, oh, wait a minute that was a person who asked
for help, but God is infinite being.. Oh, God then must be the
only person. God appears as this person. So? Oh, well
then only the qualities of God are present. Only the quantity
of God is present. Only the laws of God are present.
Only the life of God is present. The allness of God
is present. The purity of God is present. Why,
the infinite nature of God's pure being is individually
expressed as this individual. Oh, there we are with
that is. And there we are with that am. And
there we are with that as.
All
that God is, this individual is. Because there
is no `this individual', there is only God appearing as
this individual. And all that God is, this individual
is. Am, is, is, is, as. Do you see that? You are
applying that specifically. God is the life of
individual being. God is the purity of individual
being. God is the soul of individual being. God
is the only law and the only lawgiver.
Oh,
but wait a minute. There claims to be a law of matter here, a
law of disease, a law of germs, a law of infection, a law of
contagion or a law of heredity. Ah, but since God is infinite
and there can only be one law and it's spiritual, then what is
there to material law or medical law or? Why, it's nothing but
illusion, no substance. It's a belief, it's a belief, it's a
belief. But we aren't believers of it therefore it can't
affect us.
Now,
the world may well die from believing in the power of
infection and contagion, but it will not come nigh your
dwelling place if you do not accept the belief of
infection or contagion as having power. Do you see that? It
isn't only that infection and contagion have no power, but the
universal belief in them has no power. You have to nullify
even the material law and the mental law behind it. Follow
that? Isn't as easy as when we were dealing just with a
principle. Now we are applying that principle to a specific
case.
Or
supposing we have a case where we have instead of a sick
person, we have a bad person. And there we are again. We start
with God. Oh, but God being infinite, God's nature is the only
nature of this person, therefore there are no qualities of
good or evil. There are only the qualities of God, spirit,
life, truth.
Now,
in almost every case that comes to you, you will find some law
at work. It'll be a law of human nature or a law of matter or
a law of heredity or a law of infection or contagion or a law
of decomposition or a law of breakage. Now, this is not just
another branch of materia medica. Spiritual healing isn't just
going around taking people's sick bodies and making them well.
This healing work …
There's
always some kind of law and therefore you have to handle that
and realize "Ah yes, but none of these are laws, there is only
one law." In other words, there isn't even a law of
convalescence. There can only be one law and that is the law,
which is God and that is spirit, omnipresent, eternal, here
and now. As, is, am. Do you see that?
Or
you may have the case of life, it may be somebody dying or
very sick. And so you'll start with God.. But God is life. How
many lives are there? Well, if God is infinite there is only
one life. And the life of God is the life of individual being.
How old is It? Forty billion years old and yet It has no old
age because God is just as young today as when It was
conceived. And so you see we have no age to deal with because
we have not the life of man, we have the life of God to deal
with, which is the life of man.
And
there's no other way to absolutely maintain the life and
vitality and strength and health of your body than to know
that you have no life, strength or health; that only God has.
But all that God has is because there's only one. Do
you see that? There's no other way. Except to give up your own
life and acknowledge that the only life there is is God and
it's not subject to matter nor is it subject to material
beliefs. It's not subject to material conditions or mental
conditions. It's subject only to Itself, which is God Itself,
the law and the life itself.
Well.
it may be an accident. And so you've got to sit down with the
accident. Now, if God is the intelligence of the universe,
could there be an accident? No. Then this that appears to be
an accident is without law, without cause and without effect.
It exists only as an illusory picture in thought. Do you see
that? And thereby you wipe out the accident and the effects of
the accident and the beliefs about the accident..
Oh
yes, never doubt this. We never neglect anyone who asks for
help. Nor do we treat it lightly, nor joke about it, nor
believe just by saying "Folderol" that something's going to
happen. There has to be a specific and conscious realization
of the truth. And sometimes it has to be persisted in for long
periods.
Right
now, I have a group of five students and we are taking up
these cases, which have heretofore been called `incurable' by
materia medica. Whenever a case comes to me…you see on account
of my writings being so spread around the world and people
read them and then say "This must be the greatest healer in
the world.. We'll write to him.." And so I get mail from all
over the world and as you might know, they are all the cases
that nobody else was able to cure. So I get multiple sclerosis
and polio and blue babies and yellow babies. (Laughter)
Everything under the sun that materia medica has called
`incurable' comes to The Infinite Way doorstep.
Now,
there was a time when I took it to Light in setting aside
periods each day for that type of case.. And working on them,
sometimes for years, to bring about some semblance of healing.
And with some we had fair success and with some, none. But now
that I can't do that, traveling the way I do, I can't
undertake to take one of those, almost impossible from the
human standpoint, cases.
And
so we have these five students at home and we work them all
out together and they agree to work on them every single day
of the week. So every time one of these cases comes to me, our
five students take hold. And every single day of the week they
are given one and two treatments, so as to see what can be
done with this belief of incurability. And so far I have not
too much to report because we only began a few months ago. And
I do know this though, we are going to solve whatever is
possible a solution along that line.
Now
then, if you have a case like that in your family, where you
have one of these conditions that according to medicine is
`incurable', and where your own experience shows that
everything that's been done for it hasn't worked, I only have
one solution for you. Accept your responsibility and go to
work on that case every single day of the week, and if
necessary two or three times. And see what you can do with it,
because eventually you will meet it if you're faithful.
If
you will treat along these lines, you will find that you will
break through. To what extent you will break through – well
there are so many different circumstances involved that nobody
can tell you. I have handled multiple sclerosis and I have
seen it react in several ways. In some cases I have had
absolutely no response. That was very few cases. In most of
the cases I had an immediate cessation of the deterioration.
And was able to keep the person in good health and active, and
even able to earn a living, although not bringing out the full
and complete healing. And in that I have never yet had a full
and complete healing.
Now,
so it is. I have had the strangest experience with cataracts.
I've had some of the most marvelous healings, absolutely
instantaneous. And I've had a few very slow healings, and I've
had some with absolutely no response at all. Where it was just
as if I – I might just as well have been treating a blank
wall.
So
you see, there are some of these claims that we do not yet
know all there is to be known about them and we're working at
it. And you have to do the same thing. Where you have
conditions like that, you have to undertake the responsibility
because you can't afford to hire a practitioner to give their
life to your family. And some of these cases really take just
that. Consecration, two, three, four times a day until you
break through some of those cases.
Now,
I'm speaking from the standpoint of the unusual case. The
normal ills or the normal problems that come up are very
quickly dealt with, if you deal with them correctly. If you
are willing to actually sit down and realize this as
and is and am. And then take that nature of
error and look, look it right in the face, whatever the claim
may be, and say, "Yes, but what are you? Do you exist out
there, or are you an illusion? Do you have a law to support
you? Do you have a cause?" Do you see that? And then you'll
find out that you'll meet most of the cases that come to you
very quickly.
I
have an idea that most of these so-called `incurable' cases
are not really physical at all. They appear outwardly as
physical but they have something to do with soul influence or
lack of it; sense of separation from God, probably even in
pre-natal experience. Not that they're responsible for it.
Don't ever criticize or judge anybody, because none of us are
responsible for the particular ills that we have. They are
something that are beyond our ability to have…until we're
spiritual students..
After
we're spiritual students then its spiritual wickedness in
high places to go and sin some more. The Master tells you
"I forgive you but go and sin no more." The person who has
come to a spiritual teaching and then insists on human
conduct, they have themselves to blame for the
consequences.
And
that is one reason that this class work is so sacred to me.
Please be assured that I have absolutely no interest in any of
the money that's involved in my class work. Not any interest
whatsoever. I can live beautifully without it. So that I am
guided only by one motive in my class work, and that is to
bring students to as high a level of spiritual development as
I can.
Now,
for that reason I try to not have students go through closed
class until they are sufficiently studied in the writings and
recordings, so that at least they have a basis, a foundation.
So that when they hear me, they're not listening to Greek or
Sanskrit; that they understand what I'm talking about, they've
met it in the books, they've seen the principles here and
there. And they're familiar with it. Then I don't mind how
many closed classes a person goes through while they're on the
way.
But
I would like for everyone not to give consideration to
practitioner classes until they've had at the very least six
months, a year, a year and a half to put this that they learn
in the closed class into work, into action. So that they are
beginning to get some response to it, beginning to bring out
healings. Then when they begin to bring out healings, then
they're ready for practitioner work, which will really put the
seal on it.
Now,
why is this? The reason is that the mere fact that I tell you
these things or the mere fact that you hear them later on tape
isn't going to do you a bit of good. It's only what registers
in your consciousness and what you develop through constant
practice that's going to do you good. If you can take the
lessons that you have received in these three nights, and if
you could practice these as faithfully as we have a right to
expect of you; if you would practice these for the next six
months or the next year, you will begin to see some fine
healing work come through.
Then,
if you had some fine healing work come through, you would be
ready for some of the work of the practitioner class. Then,
again, keep on attending closed classes, as many as possible,
as many practitioner classes as possible. Because you're not
learning more, you are having your spiritual consciousness
developed. I can't increase your knowledge after the first
closed class. You've got all the knowledge in that. You've got
the whole letter of truth in this class and in my books. I'll
never add any knowledge to you after this. But I will
certainly deepen your consciousness if you let me. But I can't
do it just by taking you through class after class after
class. No, no, no, that's just adding a lot of
knowledge.
You
must take the principle that you're given, practice it,
practice it, practice it; the same as if you were studying
music. Wouldn't it be terrible if you found a music teacher
who would give you a lesson every day of the week without you
having practiced what you got the day before? You'd know right
well that teacher wanted nothing but your fees. And so it is
here. If we were interested in fees, maybe we'd be
conscienceless enough to say, "Well, go to class every day and
let's keep on going." But that's not the object of this work.
That's not.. The only part money plays in this work is the
expense that's taken care of with it; no other purpose.
The
object of this work is developing the spiritual consciousness
of the student, because the spiritual consciousness will do
healing work. It will do more than healing work; it'll change
the whole consciousness of this world. But not by the
knowledge you get in class, but by what you do with the
knowledge that you get in class. To what extent you use it in
the developing of your consciousness.
Now
those who know me in the States, if you could meet them, will
tell you. To me a class is a sacred, sacred, sacred
undertaking and its one that I'm very, very fussy about. I
have lots of fights about it because all the people don't
agree that I'm right. But it just so happens that I agree that
I am right and I'm a majority with me. (Laughter) I don't have
a board of directors or a board of governors. I don't even
have an advisory council. I go to God; God tells me what I
want to know. And if I'm mistaken in what He tells me then I
pay the penalty. And afterwards I have to correct it.
But
this is what I have learned in my life. When I began the
healing work I was getting fine results in healing right from
the beginning. But I didn't understand it. I didn't understand
why or how.. And all you have to do is look at my record and
you will see I spent sixteen years finding out, before I ever
taught one person. Now, that's having patience. But that is
because I didn't want to make a mistake. I didn't want the
responsibility for…you see this work is the soul of a person
it isn't their body. If you only kill their body that would be
all right, they'd get another chance to pick it up and start
over.
But
if you give people wrong spiritual teaching, you're really
perverting their soul. You're really putting them off the
track and it may be generations before they get back on again.
And a person who undertakes to teach should be awfully certain
they're living close to God. Because otherwise you're
tampering with another person's consciousness, another
person's soul, another person's hopes of eternity. And that
should not be done lightly.
And
the proof that I've tried to do that is, that for sixteen
years I never had a class. I just stayed in offices and healed
and healed and healed and healed. Until in my final year I
took care of one hundred and thirty-five cases per day, seven
days per week, fifty-two weeks in that entire year. And then I
said, "Now, I'm at the maximum, I can't take on any more. Now,
I can stop." And I did stop that amount of practice and
permitted the teaching to start. Do you see that? And so it
is..
Now,
if you look at these manuscripts that have come off the tapes
from the beginning, you will find I haven't rubbed out a
sentence. I haven't had a back track. I haven't had to say,
"Well, I was mistaken about this." Not a sentence has been
erased. Nobody has… no teacher, no practitioner, no student
has ever been able to say to me "Look, you've got a wrong
statement in your book." There may be a misprint somewhere but
there are no wrong statements. Why? I waited sixteen years
before those things came through.
Certainly,
you can wait six months or a year and put these into practice.
So that you say, "Aha, I've got the foundation. I've got my
teeth into this little bit. Now I'm ready for another meal, a
deeper meal." Do you see that? Then you'll find that we will
have consecrated classes. Then you'll find we have consecrated
students. Then you'll find that we can go out in the world and
be an example.
But
you know as well as I do there's already too much criticism
about Christian Scientists and Unity students and New Thought
students who aren't living up to what their teaching is, and
the teaching gets blamed. The teaching has no right to get
blamed. It's the fault of a student who goes through class for
a week or a month and gets a degree and then tries to set
themselves up as if they really knew something. And nobody
knows anything that way, nobody does. This is a matter of
spiritual unfoldment, spiritual development. And so it must
be.
Now
then, remember that every specific claim that presents itself
to you has to be met in your consciousness, every specific
claim. Not only when people ask you for help, but if you walk
along the street and see an intoxicated person, that is a
claim coming to you. If you see a crippled person, if you see
a beggar, that is…don't ignore it, don't pass it by. Don't be
like those fellows that pass by the man on the road to Jericho
and let him lie there. Don't you let him lie there. Physically
yes, spiritually no. Lift them right up in your consciousness
to the truth of being.
We
have had this experience now, three times. Once in Honolulu
where we had a class like this. And we have some girls who
have to take a bus to go to their home after the class. And
we'd had a lesson on this very thing of not passing by. And
this night, a girl got onto a bus and there was a man in the
back very boisterous and very obscene in his language, and
drunk as a lord. And this girl began immediately with the
realization that God was manifest as individual being. As a
matter of fact in that Honolulu class, the title of it is "The
Infinite Nature of Individual Being". And so she started on
that, the infinite nature of individual being. Individual
being includes all that God is. Individual being has only the
qualities of God. And so she began within herself and finally
that man came over and touched her and said "Thank you for
praying for me. I'm all right now."
And
then we had a Canadian girl, a girl of nineteen, a little
ballet dancer who was going through a class in Seattle and
we'd had this very same lesson. And she was accustomed to
going down to the coffee shop for a cup of tea before retiring
after the class. And she got down there and at the very
opposite end of the room is a man, and again intoxicated and
boisterous, noisy. And she began here right with her
realization. And this man walked over to her and said "Miss,
will you talk to me about God?" And for thirty minutes he
never let her go, kept her there talking to him about God. He
said, "I will never drink another drop." Do you see
that?
You
can't pass by these people in the road who are sick, sinful,
dead. Lift them up; lift them up in your consciousness. And
realize the infinite nature of God as individual you
and me, as, as, as. And then realize that that law is
operating, is, is, is. Do you see that? And as you do
that, if they're at all receptive, they'll get up and walk.
They'll feel it; they'll know it.
There
is an experience that took place in the shop, a tobacconist
shop in Canada. A man was in there purchasing and he fell down
dead. And somebody came in off the street. Then they called
the doctor and the man was pronounced dead. But in that city
there is a truth center and the minister of it is a very, very
fine leader, a very fine minister, a very spiritual woman. And
that woman was passing by the shop and seeing the crowd she
walked in. And then she was told that this was a dead man,
they were waiting for the ambulance. And she knelt by that
man. And he got up and walked away. Yes, not an Infinite Way
student, a truth student of other teachings. But a woman of
sufficient developed spiritual consciousness that she could
raise the dead. Do you see that?
Now,
that is what we have to do. And you don't do that just going
through class. You don't do that going through ten classes.
You do that with whatever truth you have. And utilize it and
utilize it and practice with it and practice with it until
your consciousness is so developed that you won't see a dead
man or a sick man or a drunkard or a beggar. But you will
actually see through the appearance to the infinite nature of
God appearing as individual being. And so you will have
those healings. Now is that clear?
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