A: Now, this again is a question on treatment. Always, when the subject of treatment comes to your mind, remember that there are two parts to it. Now, unless you remember this, you will miss your way in The Infinite Way, because The Infinite Way recognizes two parts to a treatment, and it really doesn’t believe that you will succeed very often unless you realize that and come into the awareness of both parts.
Now, supposing we were going to take up the belief of heredity. The first thought that would enter our mind is this: that there is human parentage involved, so that of course, would be a claim, wouldn’t it, that there are human parents. Now, what is the answer to that? There is no such thing as human parents. God is life and God is life eternal. God is the only life. Now, where would any two-ness come in? Where would there be a parent life and a not-parent life? There is only one life, and that is the parent life, the eternal parent life, the divine parent life—God-life.
Even if you were to let your thought come down into the human realm, you would have to agree that there is a female seed and a male seed, or fertilizer, but how would you account for them? Does man create them? Does man put the seed there? Does woman put the seed there? Or do these seeds find their way into their systems? And if so, how? And the answer is this: you know nothing about those seeds. You merely know that they are there.
Now then, what brought them there but Life Itself? Life had to create those seeds. Then Life had to function through those seeds so that they wouldn’t remain seeds forever. Life had to go to work on those seeds and function in them, and in time those seeds became forms; and in time the forms became living witnesses.
Now, were the father and mother the creator of the child or merely the avenue or instrument through which the child came into expression? Even from that human standpoint, you can see that there is a spiritual or an invisible force behind creation that creates the seed. That then, is the parent, not the ones who carry the seed.
To go back to your treatment and realize the fatherhood and motherhood of God gives us a wonderful sense of inheritance, doesn’t it, because all that we can inherit is of the Father. All that we can inherit is of the Father-Mother God. All that can happen is the emanation of the one Life; one Life expressing Itself; one Life revealing Itself; one Life demonstrating Itself; one Life manifesting Itself, individually, universally, impersonally, impartially.
Can that individualization have any qualities that it did not receive from its source? Why, certainly not; certainly not. The source of life, God, is the same life in expression. In The Infinite Way, you have the illustration of Lake Erie and Niagara Falls. Can the waters of Niagara Falls have any quality that the waters of Lake Erie haven’t got? No. It’s the same water appearing in one place and called “the falls.” It’s the same water. And so it is, the qualities, the nature, the character of God is made manifest in Its expression, individual life.
Now then, it is true that we have this appearance of humanhood. It is true that we have this claim of a selfhood apart from God. Ah, but now the treatment is getting somewhere—it isn’t a condition. It’s a claim, so you don’t change the inheritance outside somewhere. It becomes an activity of truth in your consciousness, and so in your consciousness, you realize the divine heritage of man as spirit, life, truth, love, harmony, joy, peace, power, and dominion.
Now, that would ordinarily bring your treatment to a close, but not in The Infinite Way. In The Infinite Way, having arrived at that point now of conviction, that point where you’ve known all the truth about the life of God you can, and all the truth about the life of God in Its infinite manifestation and infinite form, now you go to the second part of the treatment, which is to say, “Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.” Now you await the seal of God, the confirmation or grace of God. Now you wait for the real treatment to begin. Yours was only a preparatory step, preparing your consciousness for the reception of truth from the Father within.
All of this verbal treatment, whether orally spoken or silently thought, was not a treatment to your patient or his claim. It was a preparation of your own thought for the inflow of the divine treatment, the word of God, which is quick and powerful and sure and goes right to the dividing asunder. Do you see that?
Now, I may be what we call “cold”—in other words, not close to God, not in a sense of God, when this claim presents itself. I’ve got to lift myself above the sense testimony, and so I may retire to a chair and very quietly ponder the idea of God and this one Life and the divine heritage. I would remember perhaps some of those statements of Scripture: “We are joint-heirs with Christ in God to all the heavenly riches.”2 What, then, is the nature of our inheritance? Spiritual. Spiritual. Spiritual—life, truth, and love. And then, as I say, when I felt that I couldn’t think any more truth and couldn’t know any more truth, then I would get still: “I will listen for Thy voice. Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.” And then, in that silence would come some unfoldment, or some “click,” or some realization, or some falling away of responsibility, and then I would say, “Thank you, Father. God is on the field.”
Now, whether or not that individual has a healing in one treatment or not is not the point. The point is that now, having received the seal of God, you have given your treatment and given it perfectly and completely. You may receive a call again the next day for a treatment, and you may again have to get quiet and begin to know some truth until you again arrive at that point where you’ve known all the truth you can and then await that Word again.
1This excerpt is from Recording 623B, from the 1953 Second New York Closed Class, “Lesson in Treatment.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available at www.joelgoldsmith.com or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
2 See Romans 8:17