Recording 901A, “Truth Unfolding as Treatment Meditation,” is from the 1953 Honolulu Open Class. This recording was not used as source material for any book.
To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.
Review of Previous Sessions
Part 1 of our study program provided an overview of spiritual healing, and Part 2 focused on the core principles of The Infinite Way and their role in spiritual healing. Part 3 of our study program concentrates on the practice of spiritual healing.
In Session 1 of this part, we addressed spiritual healing consciousness. Joel taught healing comes only when an individual becomes God-conscious, a transparency through which the healing grace of God can be revealed. To review the major points in this session, click/tap here.
In Session 2, we focused on impersonalization and nothingization. Impersonalization is practicing the principle of the nature of individual being, in that it is the recognition that every individual is God in expression, the very life of God, God’s own Selfhood, and therefore, there can be no evil or sin in the individual. Nothingization is practicing the principle of the nature of error. It is the recognition that if God is the only power, there can be no other power. So any appearance of error is not of God, has no power, no substance, and no law to maintain it. It exists only as an illusion, a belief in a selfhood apart from God. To review the major points in this session, click/tap here.
The Current Session
In this session, we take up the topic of treatment in spiritual healing. Before we turn to the recording for this session, it is helpful to review the meaning of the term “treatment.”
What is treatment?
Looking across the entire body of Joel’s work, we find that, in general, “treatment” refers to consciously knowing the truth, entertaining it in consciousness, and contemplating it. Sometimes in classes, after Joel has addressed something in a particularly lucid way, you will hear him say, “Well, that was a good treatment.” He means that for an extended time, he has spoken about some aspect of the letter of truth, and he and the class have engaged in contemplating that truth. Virginia Stephenson once aptly said, “Treatment is treating yourself to the truth.”
In the practice of spiritual healing, “treatment” means essentially the same thing—consciously knowing the truth and contemplating it, but in spiritual healing, the knowing of the truth, the contemplation of the truth, is done in response to a request for help.
Further, in spiritual healing, a “treatment” always has two parts. The first is the contemplation of truth; the second is settling into silence and listening. When treatment is done in the context of spiritual healing, the contemplation often centers on spiritual truth related to the request for help. For example, if a person asks for help with a physical claim, the contemplation might center on the nature of individual being; the truth that all that God is, the individual is, so there can be no discord. Or it might focus on the nature of error; that God is the ONLY power, and that anything else claiming to be a power must be an illusion, a misperception, a belief. The contemplation might incorporate both principles or some other specific spiritual truth that comes to the practitioner. An advanced practitioner of high consciousness might not always need the contemplative part of treatment, but for most people, it will be an important part of the healing work for some time.
Joel emphasizes again and again that treatment is always given to oneself, never “to” another, or directed “at” another. In other words, the practitioner has been presented with a claim, and it is up to the practitioner to deal with that claim in his or her own consciousness. However, in this recording, you may notice that Joel might have had a slip of the tongue when he says, “ … but if he’s worse or if he’s just the same or feeling some better, you may feel led to give him another treatment.” Or, he says, ”if we were treating ourselves or another.” We believe that Joel meant “…You may feel led to do another treatment on his behalf,” or “if we were treating ourselves or treating on behalf of another.”
The truth that we know with our mind does not do the healing work. The truth that we know with our mind—the truth that we declare or affirm—merely lifts us into a spiritual consciousness in which truth can be discerned, or we can feel the Spirit. In other words, the contemplative part of a treatment is not for the purpose of healing anyone; it is to lift ourselves into a level of consciousness in which there is no one to be healed.
Key Points from the Recording
We recommend that you create your own summary of key points before using this one. If you choose to use this one, be sure to add any other points that stood out for you in the recording. Everyone hears a recording differently.
The form of treatment varies with the state of consciousness.
We are all at different states and stages of consciousness, and each of us may be in different states on different days, or even in different states throughout the day. For this reason, there is no single form of treatment that meets every need. A treatment must always satisfy the particular state of consciousness in which we find ourselves.
The ultimate treatment is one in which there are no words, thoughts, statements of truth, affirmations, or denials. But that is possible only to those in a very high state of consciousness. Not everyone can readily attain that state, and few, if any, can maintain it continuously. Even those in the highest state of consciousness must often use a form of treatment that involves words and thoughts.
A treatment is not complete without inner assurance.
Regardless of what form of treatment you use to lift yourself in consciousness, a treatment is not complete until you have some inner assurance that it is complete, There must be a feeling of peace, or release, or assurance within yourself that the responsibility for the healing is on God’s shoulders.
The first part of a spiritual treatment begins with the word “God.”
Every spiritual treatment begins with the word “God.” In other words, you forget the name of the person who has asked for help, and you drop anything the person has told you about the nature of the claim.
For example, suppose that someone—John Doe—has asked for help with a physical condition and mentioned it is the flu, and you have agreed to help him. The first part of your treatment might begin along these lines:
“John Doe is forgotten, and the flu is forgotten. They are out of my thoughts, and they will not return. I will start with the word ‘God’ and what I know about God. God is infinite Being, and if God is infinite Being, there is no other being. So, actually, I’m not faced with a John Doe-being, am I? It couldn’t be. You can’t have God as infinite Being, and some other being besides. Thus, the entire truth I will know is about God, not John Doe.”
Never in treatment do we know a truth about man, or woman, or child, or employment, or unemployment, or supply, or disease. Never! [Joel has said many times that there is no truth about man.][1] Every treatment is about God, and the entire treatment remains at the level of God. As Joel says, “Keep your treatment in heaven.”
“God is infinite Being. God being infinite, and God being good, God is all-inclusive good, and besides good, there is nothing else. God is Law, the only law, and since God is infinite, there can be no laws of matter—no laws of infection or contagion, no laws of material evil. There can be only God’s laws, spiritual laws, perfect, complete, harmonious, all-enforcing, and self-enforcing. Nothing can oppose or contend with the law of God. God is life, the only life, and therefore, the life of individual being. The life of God cannot be diseased, aged, or weakened. It cannot be subject to any external influences or influences other than God.”
Your entire treatment is kept in the realm of God, the realization of God as individual life, mind, law, spirit, substance, and cause. Since God is the only cause, God is the only effect. So we have nothing to meet but God—God as cause, effect, life, law, all true Being. [Notice that the treatment is all about the nature of God, the nature of individual being, and the nature of error; you are applying the principles that were the core of Part 2 of our study program.]
The second part of a treatment is giving God the opportunity to express Its word.
At some point in contemplating truth, no further thought comes. When that happens, the first part of the treatment is complete. You have stated the truth, known the truth, declared the truth, and contemplated the truth. Now you must listen. Your word is not God’s word. It is God’s word that is “quick and sharp and powerful.” When the word of God comes to you, it is power, and it dispels the illusions of sense.
Your contemplation of truth should have lifted you far above fear and above the appearance of John Doe with his claim of flu, so that you are now tabernacling with God. Be still, and take the attitude, “Speak, Father, Thy servant heareth.” You are not listening to hear a voice; it is symbolic of an inner attitude, an inner listening for the word of God. You are no longer thinking or declaring truth. You are listening in a receptive attitude. This is the most important part of the treatment.
Sooner or later, something will happen to assure you that “God is on the field,” and your responsibility is over. It might be a deep breath, a “click,” or a message, or it might be a statement of truth, a scriptural quotation, or just a profound sense of release. You feel your responsibility lifted, and at that point, the treatment has come to an end.
Additional treatments may be necessary.
John Doe may call again later and say that he is completely free; if so, that’s the end of it. But if he is just the same, feeling some better, or feeling worse, you may be led to do another treatment. Again, you begin with the word “God” and keep your contemplation “in heaven,” focused only on the truth about God and individual being, never about the patient or the claim. Any truth you know about God is the truth about John Doe, because God is infinite and omnipresent, and no individual can be outside of God. God is the only Selfhood, so whatever truth you know about God is the truth about any individual self.
Joel uses an analogy to emphasize this point. To know the truth about a table, we start by knowing the truth about the wood of which it is made. If the wood is mahogany, we know the truth about mahogany, and then we know the truth about the table. The table has no truth separate and apart from the truth about mahogany.
If God is the Selfhood of every individual, why are there discords, inharmonies, and diseases?
If God is infinite good, there can be no sin, disease, discord, lack, or limitation. Therefore, what we are dealing with is not sin, disease, discord, lack, or limitation. We are dealing with a claim of a Selfhood apart from God. That is why we never focus on the person or the claim—there is no one and nothing to heal—but we do have the responsibility to know the truth about God, which is the truth about the individual. That recognition and realization can dispel the appearance.
How does this operate? The Biblical stories of Adam and Eve and the Prodigal Son both present an experience of a selfhood that has set up an “existence separate from God. In the story of the Prodigal Son, the son sets up an “I” separate and apart from his father, and he cuts himself off from the source of his good. In time, he realizes what he has done, returns to his father’s house, and is reinstated with the jewel and robe of sonship.
At some point in our experience, we, too, have set up a separate self, a separate “I, me, mine,” and have been trying to get along by that self, living by our own efforts, living by bread alone, trying to be happy and successful all by ourselves. But it didn’t work, and eventually, we began to search for God. As that search continued, at some moment, our original relationship to God is reestablished: I and the Father are one.
When that oneness is realized, we no longer have to struggle, strive, think, and plan. We can turn within, meditate, and find our conscious union with the Father. Then we find that all that the Father has is ours. We recognize that we are heirs of God; that our good is ours, not by might, or power, or struggle, or taking thought, or by the sweat of the brow. Our good is ours by virtue of our relationship to God—we are children of God, manifestations of the divine. When we reestablish that relationship, the good of the Father begins to flow.
But when we are in the sense of separation from God, the appearances of sin, disease, death, old age, lack, limitation, and all human errors arise. But they are never real because, even when we thought we were a separate selfhood, we were not; we always were the children of God, joint heirs to all that God is. Our troubles were brought on only by our sense of separation.
Treatment reestablishes the true relationship with God.
When John Doe presents his claim—whatever it may be–he is saying there is a John Doe separate and apart from God, with a life, law, substance, or being apart from God that is not God-governed. Your treatment, then, is the reestablishment of the relationship that has always existed, still exists, and has only been broken in belief as a sense of separation from God.
When you forget John Doe and his claim and return to the realization of God and the nature of God, you lift yourself above the person and the claim. In that elevated state, you can sit back until you feel the assurance of God’s presence, the conscious oneness with God, the experience of God. In that state, the discords and inharmonies can be dispelled, revealing the Reality.
When someone comes to you for assistance, you do not have to voice truth to them; just assure them that you will give them help. Then, sit quietly, drop them and their claim from your thought, and establish within yourself the truth about the nature of God, the nature of individual being, and the nature of error. Then rest in silence and receptivity until you have that sense of peace or release—some form of assurance that “God is on the field.” Then the treatment is complete.
The time required for treatment depends on your state of consciousness.
There may be days when you might have to spend ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty minutes contemplating truth before you can sit back in silent receptivity and await the word of God and the assurance of God’s presence. On the other hand, if you have been living in the Spirit, reading spiritual literature, attending classes, keeping your mind stayed on truth, and meditating several times a day, you might need only two or three minutes of contemplation before you settle into silence.
There is no formula for treatment. It does not have to take a specific amount of time. You simply know all the truth you can about God, from every aspect you can know it, and then let the peace come to you. Whether it takes one minute or two hours, it is a good treatment as long as you have received the assurance of God’s presence and a release from responsibility. That’s the key.
The sense of separation is the only reason for discords.
The sense of separation from God is the only reason for the discords we experience, and truth students know how to end that sense. The world at large does not know how because it does not know that every individual is already one with God and only needs to become conscious of that relationship. Once again, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” If you are consciously one with God in some measure, there should not be much discord in your experience.
It is of no benefit to be told that you are one with God. You must establish the realization of that oneness, the consciousness of that oneness, within yourself. God must become real to you. It must be an experience. You can bring this about through your meditations, contemplative treatments, reading, and studying. Every ounce of devotion you give to the spiritual path brings you closer to conscious oneness, and that conscious oneness with God is what eliminates discords and diseases.
The treatment can vary, depending on the claim.
When John Doe presented a claim of flu, you brought to mind that, since God is the only law, there are no laws of matter, and thus no laws of infection and contagion. That was a specific denial that infection and contagion had any power or law.
But the next claim brought to you might have to do with unemployment, and you wouldn’t be thinking in terms of infection or contagion. Your contemplation might go along the line that God, being one, the infinite and only Being, must be both the employer and the employee. There cannot be one to employ and one to be employed. You would realize oneness of Being and know that the truth about God is that God is infinitely and eternally employed, about Its own business, so the son of God must always be employed, about the Father’s business.
Another claim might concern an organic or functional disease. In that case, your contemplation might focus on the fact that the organs and functions of the body do not govern life; that Life governs the organs and functions of the body. The heart, liver, or lungs cannot determine your life. God is your life, and that life of God cannot be affected by the organs and functions of the body. By realizing that Life governs and functions all the organs and functions, the organs and functions will come into harmony, painlessness, and right activity. But notice that the contemplative part of your treatment is still at the level of God. You are correcting the belief that the body affects life, and you are recognizing that Life governs the body.
Yet another claim might concern the appearance of age. If God is the only power, then it must be God that affects the body, not the passing of time. Here again, there is a universally accepted belief that time affects the body. But you contemplate the spiritual truth that it is Life that affects the body and only Life, and Life is God.
Meditation enables us to remain established in oneness.
Through the practice of meditation, we can keep ourselves established in oneness with God, keeping our distance from the world of appearances. The object of meditation is to attain conscious oneness with God. Meditation has no other purpose. We are not seeking supply, health, companionship, or any other material good. Our purpose in meditation is to realize our oneness with God, and having done that, let “all these things of life be added unto us.” Establishing our conscious oneness with God enables us to give treatments more easily and less frequently because meditation keeps us in a continuous state of treatment.
The “Truth-Unfolding” method of meditation is another form of treatment.
[At this point in the class, Joel leads students in a meditation that he says we should all perfect and repeat throughout the day as the world tries to intrude. Following is the essence of it, but to do it with Joel, go to time 45:22 on the recording.]
This is both a meditation and a treatment. It is the unfolding of truth in your consciousness. It is God revealing Itself, evidence that you were one with God. If you thought up the quotations, that had nothing to do with God, but if they unfolded naturally, in some sort of pattern, the word of God unfolded in your consciousness, leading to a realization of God and the dispelling of some error or negative appearance. Joel said that if you use this form of meditation each day, you would be so continuously at one with God that the word of God will be proceeding out of your mouth all the time. Just think what your life would be if it were a continuous unfoldment of God pouring forth through your mind and body!
In this experience, a teacher and the consciousness of a group can help lift you in this method of meditation, but it might not come as easily when you do it yourself, so you must practice it. Once you can sit down and take a statement of truth or a quotation, and have one after another unfold, you will suddenly feel something that shifts you from the material sense of existence to the spiritual. You feel yourself in the Spirit, or the Spirit in you. That is your conscious union with God, and your divine harmony comes from that union.
Every sin, disease, death, lack, and limitation in your experience is due to an absence of this conscious union with God. When we have conscious union with God, there is little discord. Of course, discord comes to everyone once in a while, but it is quickly dispelled with this method of meditation.
Treatments cease for those in the highest state of consciousness.
Eventually, through practice, meditation, and acquiring the ability to commune with God, you will no longer have to give treatments. Your only treatment will be a constant, conscious realization of the flow from within. That will sustain you, and it will be the bread, the wine, the meat, and the water to those who come to you for help.
Practice the Scriptural form of treatment.
Treatment can take the form described at the beginning of the class, in which we begin by contemplating the nature of God and the nature of individual being. This Scriptural meditation, or “truth-unfolding” meditation, can also be a form of treatment.
Suppose that someone is looking to you for treatment for their health, supply, or employment. Again, you drop the person and the claim, but with this Scriptural form of treatment, instead of you bringing to mind all you know about spiritual truth, you let a quotation of truth from Scripture or the writings come to you. Ponder it, and as you do, another will come, and another, and another. Stay with this until you feel a sense of release. When you feel it, some measure of healing or harmony should result for the person who sought help, even though you never thought of them or their claim.
If you can do this form of treatment, you circumvent the mental contemplation part of a treatment and go directly to God. You let God give the treatment right from the beginning, revealing one truth after another. If you practice this form of treatment as much as you can, a whole new unfoldment in healing work might come to you.
If the Scriptural form of treatment does not work for you, the form described first in this class can be equally effective. Remember that the crucial factor is experiencing the release from responsibility, the assurance of the presence of God, or something that tells you the treatment is complete, regardless of how you get there.
Optional Practices
Practice Treatment
* Contemplative Treatment
Whether or not someone asks for help, you can practice contemplative treatment. Most of us do not have to look too far to see a discordant situation. When you become aware of one, consciously follow Joel’s guidance: Drop the person and the condition entirely. [Remember, this practice is for you; it does not matter that the person has not asked for help. Treatment is always given to oneself.]
Begin your treatment with God. Bring to mind whatever you know about God. Contemplate the aspects of the nature of God and the nature of individual being. Contemplate any truth that comes to you relating to the claim. You are not contemplating the claim, but the truth that dispels the claim. For example, if the claim is related to aging, you might contemplate the truth that time does not govern the body; that Life governs the body, and all Life is of God.
When your contemplation and thinking stop, adopt the inner attitude: “Speak, Father, Thy servant heareth.” Then, in quietness and receptivity, wait for a release, an assurance, or a sense of God’s presence. This is the second and essential part of treatment.
If you can’t seem to come to resolution, stop and try again later. Refrain from judging yourself. Remember, you are practicing, and practice makes perfect. Repetition is the mother of mastery.
* Treatment with the “Truth-Unfolding” or Scriptural Meditation
Joel presented an alternative method for meditation and treatment and encouraged practicing it as often as possible. To practice, you can return to the more detailed description above under the subheading “’Truth-unfolding’ meditation is another form of treatment,” or if you remember the process, this brief summary might suffice:
As in other forms of treatment, at some point, you will become quiet and receptive, and some assurance of the Presence will come to you. The treatment is only complete when this release has come.
[Note: In our study program on meditation, we heard another recording in which Joel leads students in this same “truth-unfolding” form of meditation. We have posted the excerpt from that recording on the “Meditations with Joel” page of our website, should you wish to review it.]
Excellent Chapters on Treatment
If you wish to read further on the topic of treatment, we can recommend these chapters:
[1] In several classes, Joel asserts that there is no truth about man (e.g., 63B, 68A, 205A, 350B, 481A, 509A, and 626B). Essentially, he says that truth is a synonym for God, and so the only truth there is, is the truth about God—God’s infinity, eternality, immortality, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. God is infinite law, infinite life, and the life of all being. So in treatment, you never take the person into consideration. Rather, you know the truth about God, because the truth about God is the truth about every individual. You can never know a truth about a human or a condition, because there is no truth about an illusion.