Recording 421B, “Second Steps in Spiritual Healing,” is from the 1961 London Closed Class. This recording is one of two sources for Chapter 27, “Living Above the Pairs of Opposites,” in A Parenthesis in Eternity.
To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.
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 Part 3, we addressed spiritual healing consciousness. Joel taught that 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.
In Session 3, we considered the topic of treatment, which is an activity done in response to a request for help. In spiritual healing, treatment is always given to oneself as the practitioner, never to a patient, and it always has two parts. The first is the contemplation of truth, and the second is settling into silence and listening. 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. The truth that we declare or affirm is for the purpose of lifting us into a spiritual consciousness, in which truth can be discerned, and we can feel the Spirit. To review the major points in this session, click/tap here.
In this session, we reflect on the importance of rising above the pairs of opposites in spiritual healing practice.
The recording we are using for this topic comes from a class session that evidently was momentous for Joel. Lorraine Sinkler describes it in The Spiritual Journey of Joel S. Goldsmith, Chapter 6: “Journeys in Time and Space – and Beyond,” toward the end of the chapter:
“In March 1961, Emma and Joel left Hawaii to go to California for classes and for what they expected would be a two-month trip away from home. Instead of that, the trip was prolonged far beyond that time because something was operating in Joel’s consciousness that would not permit him to go home. In fact, he took advantage of every kind of excuse not to return and found reasons for going here, there, and the other place. The here, there, and other places included the Northwest—Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver—Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and finally New York. [Joel wrote:]
‘Then I ran out of excuses, and there was no reason not to go back home, so I had to say to Emma, “Well, don’t you think it would be nice to visit London for a week or two, as long as we are this close? We are only a puddle-jump away.”
‘So we jumped the puddle. Inwardly, I was being nudged or plagued by something that wouldn’t come out, something that wouldn’t come to the surface, and I couldn’t go home and be quiet because it didn’t seem to me that it would come that way, so it was necessary to keep traveling.
‘Friday night, it came. You have it all. Certainly, when I went on the platform, I little dreamed that anything like that would come forth, and even now, I can’t believe that it came out, but it did, and that is what I had been waiting for, for nine months. It’s what I’d been trying to get born, and the reason I know it so surely is that I have had my peace ever since.’
“The lesson that just wouldn’t come out but finally did became known as The 1961 London Closed Class, Reel II, Side 2 [Note: This is recording 421B, “Second Steps in Spiritual Healing, our current study recording], and was later incorporated into the book A Parenthesis in Eternity, in the chapter called “Living Above the Pairs of Opposites” [Chapter 27].”
There are several options for reviewing the recording. Chapter 27, “Living Above the Pairs of Opposites,” in A Parenthesis in Eternity captures the essence of the recording. As we always recommend, you can create your own summary of the key points in the class. Or you can use our review below. If you choose to use this review, be sure to add other points that stood out for you in the recording.
The middle path: there is neither good nor evil power, only spiritual power.
For centuries, we have all been born into a life of two powers, in which the evil power has always seemed to be greater than the good power. At any one time, there have been more years of war than peace, more years of lack than prosperity, more people sick than well. The only reason we experience these evils is that we have accepted an age-old belief in two powers.
When you perceive that there is neither a good power nor a bad power but only a spiritual power, your attention drops away from both evil and good, and you are less identified with sensations that arise from the good and the evil. This is where impersonalization comes in. You can see evil without emotion and without attributing it to anyone, because you do not accept appearances as reality. You recognize appearances as illusion. In the same way, when you see human good, you recognize that it, too, is an appearance, and since it isn’t of God, it will not be permanent, and there is no point in rejoicing over it.
This state of consciousness may take a lot of pleasure out of the human side of life, but it also takes out a great deal of misery. It replaces human emotions with an inner conviction that behind this visible scene, there is a spiritual reality, and you can expect that reality to come into full view.
In the first phase of spiritual healing, when a call for help comes, our first, natural human reaction is to want to change an evil condition or appearance into a good one. But to succeed in spiritual healing, we must not focus on changing evil into good, but on beholding the spiritual reality. In other words, we take the middle path and say, “Neither evil nor good, but spiritual.” We realize that right here, where there is an appearance of either good or evil, there is actually a spiritual reality, a spiritual perfection.
Optional Practice:
“My kingdom is not of this world.”
The Master said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “My kingdom” is a spiritual kingdom, in which everything is intact and under the direction, protection, maintenance, and sustenance of Its divine principle, God. According to the Psalmist, in My kingdom, “darkness and light are the same.” There is no question of getting rid of darkness to get light, because that would bring in twoness. In other words, in the eyes of God, there is no difference between light and darkness, for there is neither light nor darkness in any physical sense. There is only the light that we call Spirit, meaning the illumined consciousness, not illumined by a light, but by wisdom.
We are following the Master in proportion as we realize that the object of our healing ministry is not changing disease into health, but taking the middle path and recognizing that, right where there appears to be good or evil, there is actually a spiritual Reality, a spiritual perfection.
It is not easy, and it takes time to come to the place where you can say, “In My kingdom, light and darkness are the same. Therefore, I am not trying to change darkness into light or get rid of darkness and get light. In my sight, darkness and light are one.” It may sound fantastic to go on and say that sickness and health are one. But they are really one, in the sense that at any moment, disease can become health, or health can become disease. They are just opposite ends of the same stick.
When you are trying to get rid of something or get something, you have left the spiritual universe for human concepts. But when you can say, “As far as I’m concerned, disease and health are one. I am not seeking to get rid of one and get the other, but only to realize a divine presence, to realize spiritual wisdom and spiritual truth,” you will begin to perceive the spiritual nature of this universe. All that exists in the spiritual life is God, Spirit, infinitely and eternally manifested as individual, incorporeal being.
You can’t see, hear, taste, touch, or smell incorporeal being. You can only experience it in your consciousness, and once you experience it in your consciousness, you will understand the meaning of “light and darkness are one,” “sin and purity are one,” “disease and health are one.” What is that “one?” It is mortal illusion, maya, appearance. Whether you are beholding sickness today or health tomorrow, you are beholding an illusion of sense. You are not beholding Reality until you behold incorporeal, spiritual being in your spiritual awareness.
Optional Practice
The nature of spiritual power
The world has not profited by its wars or its armistice days. History shows that war inevitably gives way to peace, and peace gives way to war. So, spiritually, we do not seek war or peace. We seek the government of God, spiritual government, divine government, and this government must be realized in our consciousness.
No matter how many times we have tried to solve the problems of the world, they continue to break out in new and greater forms. This cycle will end only when we perceive the nature of spiritual power and realize that it has nothing to do with good conditions today and evil conditions tomorrow, but rather with the perception that we are not trying to change conditions of matter, but to realize the omnipresence of Spirit. We are seeking the government of God, the revelation and the realization of God in our consciousness.
Our old way of living was living under the law, and the best we could hope for was to turn an evil condition into a good one, even though we knew there was little chance the change would be permanent. Now, we forsake that path and recognize that we are moving from being under the law to living by grace. Under grace, there are no changing conditions, only the progressive unfoldment of spiritual government.
The revelation of one power helps us develop the consciousness that does not seek to change the negative into the positive. In the past, whenever it was impossible to find a human power to meet our needs, we turned to God and expected to find a spiritual power to do what material power could not. But with the realization of one power, you not only stop seeking a material power to meet your need, but you also stop seeking a spiritual power altogether. Then you are close to understanding the nature of spiritual power: There is only one power, so there is no power to use, because there is no other power to use it on, against, or over.
This consciousness of God as the only power is a state of consciousness in which, when we are in meditation or treatment, we never try to use the power of God and never acknowledge anything for which we need the power of God. We look at any and every form of discord and realize, “What did hinder you?” There is but one power, and there is nothing to use this power on, against, or for.
Release God! God is about His business as the creative, maintaining, and sustaining influence of the spiritual universe. God governs His universe by grace and will govern from everlasting to everlasting without your praying to God, pleading with God, or trying to influence God. Our function in prayer and meditation is to realize this truth: “There is but one power. Any evil appearance has no power. In the kingdom of God, light and darkness are the same.” Then you are developing a state of consciousness that does not go back and forth between evil and good but holds to the spiritual path, the spiritual realization of one power.
God IS.
God is, but to realize that God is, you have to rise above time, because there is no time in “is.” God’s “is-ness” is from everlasting to everlasting, and nothing has ever been outside of the is-ness of God. Nothing has ever gone wrong in the spiritual kingdom.
In the human scene, everything has gone wrong because we have not seen that there is only one power, nor have we seen that, because there is no other power, there is no way to use that one power over another. God is, and that is enough to know. God is. In Him is no darkness. My kingdom is not of this world because in My kingdom, there are not two powers or two beings, and therefore, evil appearances and good appearances are equally illusory. Joel asks us:
Good and evil are illusory appearances.
As this spiritual realization comes to you that good and evil are both illusory appearances, you are no longer as concerned with outer effects as you once were. You can look at both good and bad appearances and realize their illusory nature. Then your life becomes more harmonious, and that harmony is not just a good appearance that was once evil. It is the spiritual reality coming into view, an unchanging harmony.
In some metaphysical traditions, we are taught to deny evil and rejoice at the appearance of good, even though the good may revert to evil. But if we are concerned with the nature of the appearance, we are indulging in and perpetuating the hypnotism. For example, if your patient has a high fever and the fever comes down, be careful not to rejoice, for you would be rejoicing in an appearance that might only be temporary. If the temperature rises again, you will wonder what happened to your demonstration. If your demonstration was concerned with appearances, and you rejoice at one appearance against another, you are indulging in hypnotism. Spiritually, you should realize that in the kingdom of God, temperatures are only numbers, not conditions.
Spiritually, you must realize within yourself, “To Him, light and darkness are the same.” Maintain within yourself a spiritual balance in realizing that in the kingdom of God, there is neither good nor evil; there is only Spirit. In the kingdom of “this world,” appearances of evil and appearances of good are equally illusory. To bring forth a spiritual demonstration of Christhood, do not concern yourself with momentary appearances. Within yourself, hold fast to the spiritual truth of one power. Then it is easier to realize that if there is only one power, there cannot be good and evil, or good or evil.
Optional Practice
We behold spiritual identity through the fourth-dimensional consciousness.
The kingdom of God, with its peace and glory, is within you. You are the temple of the Spirit, and, therefore, you are spiritual. You are the temple of the Real. You are the temple of God’s being, and God’s being is infinite perfection. God lives your life, which is immortal and eternal. God is spirit, and therefore, your life is spiritual, your body is spiritual, and any appearance of evil or of good is illusory, temporary, and changeable. Hold to the truth of being that “I and my Father are one,” and since the Father is spirit, I am spirit. Since the Father is the substance of being, eternal, immortal substance, so is the substance of my being eternal and immortal.
Only through my spiritual consciousness can I behold my spiritual identity. I cannot see your spiritual identity with my eyesight. I can perceive your spiritual identity only through the fourth-dimensional consciousness, the Christ consciousness, spiritual awareness. The spiritually illumined can look through the appearance of good humanhood and bad humanhood and behold Christhood. As an Infinite Way student, this is your important function: to look, not at the good human appearance and rejoice in it, but to look through the good human appearance as well as through the evil human appearance and behold Christhood.
We can all develop the fourth-dimensional consciousness. It requires discipline and training, because we are overcoming the effects of a belief in two powers that has persisted for hundreds of generations. We are setting aside both good and evil to behold the spiritual and attain the realization of our Christhood, our permanent identity in God. Then you can say, “I have meat the world knows not of,” not because you are a good human being, but because your spiritual identity as the child of God enables you to say it.
Optional Practice
The kingdom of God is yours by inheritance, not by good humanhood.
Likewise, we cannot claim to be joint heirs with Christ simply because we are good human beings. The Master showed that good humanhood is as far from heaven as bad humanhood when he said that “the least of you” would enter heaven before John the Baptist, whom he acknowledged to be the best of the Hebrew prophets of the day.
The Scribes and the Pharisees, too, were the very best of the Hebrews. They were the most religious, and they were fanatical about being good. Yet the Master said that your goodness must be greater than that of the Scribes and the Pharisees. That goodness of which he spoke comes with your ability to realize that the kingdom of God within you is yours by virtue of your spiritual identity, your oneness with God, not your human goodness. Even your human badness cannot deprive you of your spiritual identity as one with God. When you can disregard both your human goodness and badness, past or present, give yourself no credit for the good and no condemnation for the evil, and declare your spiritual identity, your Christhood, your spiritual sonship, then you are joint heir to all of the heavenly riches.
As long as you think that your evils are keeping you from your status as joint heir, or that your goodness is getting you close to it, you are missing the way. You attain God’s grace not by your human goodness, but by the realization of your spiritual identity. In the recognition of your spiritual identity, you will be good in every spiritual way there is.
Realize that your human experience of the past and present, of good and evil, is but two phases of a mortal dream, an illusory experience. In your soul, I am God being, the child of God. In the depths of your inner being, I am one with God, and I have meat. I don’t earn it or deserve it. I have it, and I have it by virtue of inheritance.
Joel says that he has witnessed people in serious conditions of disease and insanity, and that he knew from within that not one of them ever did anything to deserve such a fate. Therefore, he knew that nothing could visit upon us the horrors of human existence, except the hypnotic belief in two powers. That continuing belief in good and evil, the sense that we have been good or evil, or the belief that there are good influences and evil influences, perpetuates humanhood with its temporary good and evil, and more evil than good.
Inwardly, sacredly and secretly, realize, “My good is by virtue of inheritance. My good is spiritual. My heritage is spiritual. My nature is spiritual. I am of the kingdom of God, and because of my inheritance, because of my oneness with the Father, all that the Father hath is mine, and I have meat the world knows not of. I do not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. I do not live by might or by power, but by the spirit of God. There is no need for might or power because there are not two powers. I need only the realization that I live by grace. Thy grace is my sufficiency in all things.” There is no power to oppose that grace, because there is only one power, and there is no place where you can be separated from God.
Optional Practice
Human life and death are mortal appearances.
Whether we live on this side of the veil or that side of the veil is of no importance, except to a few people who will temporarily miss our physical presence. But nothing has really changed. No one has lost anything. Nothing has been hurt, for in God, life and death are the same thing, just as light and darkness are the same thing. Human life and death are mortal appearances, human illusions. They both have the same substance—nothingness.
When you no longer see a difference between human life and death, you will understand the meaning of the word “immortality.” Immortality has nothing to do with human life or death. Immortality, eternality, and incorporeality are the spiritually Real. When you speak of life and death in the ordinary sense of the words, you are speaking of two phases of human illusion, just as when you speak of disease and health, poverty and wealth, sin and purity. On the spiritual path, you have to overcome both the evil and the good and rise into the realization and the consciousness of God’s presence as spirit, as the one and only power.
Some helpful points on spiritual healing are addressed by Joel only briefly—sometimes in a single class, and sometimes in short segments of several classes. In our study program, rather than using an entire class to present a point that may be addressed in only a small portion of the class, we are bringing these points forward through selected questions and answers.
Over the years, we have posted many questions and answers on the finer points of spiritual healing. For this study program, we have gathered these into a single list for your reference. Each question links to its original posting, allowing you to read, study, and contemplate the answer. To view or download the list, click/tap here.
If you wish to read further on the topic of rising above the pairs of opposites, we can recommend these chapters: