Recording 428B, “Bear Witness to God,” is from the 1961 October Los Angeles Special Class. This recording was not used as source material for any book.
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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 concentrated on the practice of spiritual healing, and Part 4 addressed issues that can arise in spiritual healing.
In the first session for Part 5 of our study program, Joel clarified that the healing ministry begins when you “know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and when you are willing to take responsibility for doing it.” While we do not believe that Joel was speaking about entering the healing ministry professionally (as noted in the Q&A for the first half of April), we do believe he was telling us that when a request for help comes, we should be willing to accept it. In other words, if someone asks you for help, you do not simply give that person the name of a practitioner and pass the responsibility along. You accept the request yourself and do the healing work to the best of your present ability.
Joel often said that the healing work proves the message, and for that reason, he frequently encouraged students to develop the healing consciousness.
As we noted in the study material for the previous session, from a human standpoint, you may not yet feel ready to accept a request for help. You may not yet fully understand that the request is not being made of the personal “you,” and so it may seem like too great a responsibility, or you may fear that you could fail. Even if you feel grounded in the principles and practices of spiritual healing, you still may not yet be willing to take that step.
So what can you do? At the very beginning of this study program, we quoted Joel’s statement that if you learn the principles and catch the entire vision, you have a background for healing, and then “healing becomes just a part of the picture, and that’s the way it should be.” What this means is that you can continue working with the principles and practices that naturally develop the healing consciousness until the time comes when you are willing to accept a request for help.
There are two important stepping stones in that direction: first, a commitment to continually bear witness to God; and second, a commitment to continually bear witness to the illusory nature of error. In essence, this is the practice of the principles concerning the nature of God and the nature of error. In this session, we will focus on the first of these: bearing witness to God.
Joel’s intent in the class is to see how we can bring ourselves into an attitude and altitude of prayer whereby we will be able to bring the Spirit of God upon us, so that Spirit may work in us and through us, for Its purposes and Its glory. This is the state we want to attain in healing work.
There is something we must do to experience God’s grace.
From the ministry of the Master, we know that God’s will is only good will. He healed all manner of disease to prove that the will of God is that we be whole and complete. He demonstrated supply to prove that it is God’s will that we have sufficient abundance, with “twelve baskets full left over.”
God’s grace is an ongoing gift, but to experience it, there is something we must do. If we do not do it, we are not receiving God’s grace. The Master emphasized the word “you” or “ye,” as in “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” “Ye shall pray for your enemies.” “Ye shall forgive those who persecute you.” “Ye shall forgive seventy times seven.” There is something that we must do, or something that we are doing that we must not do.
Whatever of God’s grace, whatever spiritual good, is to come into our experience must be brought by an activity of our own consciousness. That is a definite principle. In other words, “Ye shall know the truth,” “Ye must pray without ceasing.” We must do these things if we are to bring this harmony, this grace, into our experience. Grace is the gift of God, always available, but we must prepare our consciousness to receive it.
We do not influence God.
Think about the sunset. We don’t pray that it will happen. We don’t have to know some truth. We don’t give the sun a treatment so it will set, nor do we appeal to God. Until now, we probably didn’t even think about the sun setting on time, yet it does.
Think about the sun rising in the morning and notice how futile it would be for us to try, through any means we know—prayer, treatment, mental or physical power—to make the sun rise one second before its ordained time. In your mind’s eye, see the sun rising, and notice that all you can do is be a beholder of God in action, the law in action, nature in action. You cannot influence the sunrise, or delay it, or hasten it. You cannot bring the power of God to set or rise the sun or hasten or delay it. You can only bear witness to God in action.
Think about the tides going out or coming in, and again, notice that there is nothing you can do to change them. You have no influence over the tides or over God to make God change the incoming and outgoing tides. You can only behold the law at work that brings the tides in and out at their appointed time.
Now think about a garden in springtime and notice the trees and flowers in bloom, and the buds not yet opened. Notice that you cannot change anything in the garden. You cannot open or close the buds or hasten or delay their opening. You cannot make apples grow on rose bushes. All you can do is be still and know that I, the presence of God within you, is the only power, and that I, the spirit of God alone governs the universe.
We are witnesses.
We are witnesses to God’s government of the sun, moon, stars, and tides. We are witnesses to the law of “like begetting like.” Roses must come from rose bushes, and apples from apple trees. We are witnesses to the operation and activity of that law and to the fruitage; we have no power to change it or to influence God to change it.
We had nothing to do with the deposits of coal, iron, copper, gold, silver, and diamonds in the earth. We are not responsible for the beds of pearls in the ocean. We did not influence God to produce or withhold them. We are witnesses to the fact that they are there. Neither we nor our forebears had anything to do with what is in the ground and the sea. But we are all witnesses to the fact that God’s grace is responsible for what fills the earth, the seas, the air, the heavens, and the planets. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” We are witnesses to law in action, to God in action, to a creative, intelligent force, power, and authority. We are witnesses to a divine nature operating universally, impersonally, and impartially.
Acknowledge that you are a witness to God’s glory; that God made the heavens, the earth, and the waters; that there is a divine principle, law, soul, intelligence, operating in this universe, and that man is not responsible for any of it, nor has man any influence upon the God that is responsible. Then you can say with the Master, “I can of my own self do nothing. I can only bear witness to what the Father is doing, and has done, and is forever doing, for God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
That which God is doing, God has always been doing and will always be doing. Bear witness to a Presence and Power that is responsible for creating, maintaining, and sustaining the universe, and be a witness to Its activity. We have no influence on that creative Principle; we cannot make it do anything or stop it from doing anything. We do not influence God. This recognition will change your whole concept of prayer and enable you to pray righteous prayer, efficacious prayer.
Prayer is being a beholder, a witness.
Prayer is our means of contact with God. But since we cannot influence God, it is folly to ask God to do something for you, your patient, your student, or your family. Rather, you can rest and take no thought whatsoever for your life, because “your heavenly Father knows that you need these things.” This recognition changes your prayer. It becomes simply an attitude and an altitude in which you are a beholder, a witness to God at work.
To bring healing to yourself or another, close your eyes in this attitude of witnessing God at work. Just as you watch buds open into flowers, or flowers become fruit, knowing that you have no power to make it so or to hasten it, so you remember that you are not appealing to God to be healed or to heal anyone. You are simply being still and bearing witness to God at work, recognizing the invisible presence of the Father within that will appear outwardly as harmony.
When that harmony appears, we call it “healing,” but it isn’t. It is the coming into visible sight of the invisible harmony that is always there, and it comes into visibility because you are knowing the truth, not because you are influencing God. God is no respecter of persons. You are a beholder, and you acknowledge that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it;” except God maintain the harmony, peace, health, wholeness, and completeness, it would be folly to try to bring it about.
Once you can sit quietly and say, “I no longer reach out to God for help. I no longer try to influence God on anyone’s behalf. Because of Omnipresence, the activity of God is taking place now. I do not have to seek it, plead for it, or affirm it into existence. Omnipresence is now, present where I am, present where he, she, or it is.” Then you become a beholder of the Invisible, the Divine, manifesting outwardly as a perfect creation.
There are not two powers.
Once again, Joel emphasizes that there are not two powers; there is no power of sin or disease, no power of nature that can withhold God and the fruits of God, no evil power in this entire universe. Mankind has been in sin, disease, and death because we have accepted the universal belief in two powers. God is Omnipotence, the all or only power, and besides God, besides the power of this invisible Spirit, there is no other power. There is no power in the whirlwind, the sin, or the disease. There is no power other than God.
The carnal mind is the belief that there are two powers, and the only place you can overcome the carnal mind is in your own consciousness. You don’t overcome it as if it were an enemy to fight. You just no longer believe in it. This can happen when you no longer have the concept of God as something to which you pray to overcome something.
We never appeal to God, try to influence God, or ask God to “do” something. God is the spiritual, incorporeal, omnipotent Presence, here and now, and there is nothing else. When you realize that, you can take no thought for your life and rest in the truth that your heavenly Father, the divine Intelligence that is closer to you than breathing, knows your need. Because Its nature is divine love, it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Just be still, knowing that I, the presence of God in the midst of you, is the only power, and bearing witness to this truth.
Relax from any desire to seek a God-power, to inform or influence God, or “send” God to someone. Be satisfied to sit in the silence and witness God at work, to acknowledge God in all your ways. Acknowledge that God fills the earth and the heavens; that roses come from rose bushes and apples from apple trees because it is the grace of God, the will of God, or the law of God. This earth and everyone on it and on all the other planets are governed by the grace of God, which means the will of God, the power of God expressed through His grace, not by trying to use mental might or some spiritual power.
God’s Grace formed all that exists. There is an invisible law at work that we do not influence or control, but to which we can bear witness. We can sit here in the silence and think of the law that operates to result in the seed in the male and female, in the animals and the plants. Something is operating invisibly to place these seeds where they are. In fact, everything visible is made of the substance and activity of something invisible.
The belief in two powers dies when we acknowledge Omnipotence.
Every negative experience is the result of a universal belief in two powers that operate hypnotically. The practitioner prevents the operation of this carnal mind by knowing the truth that there is no power in the carnal mind; that the carnal mind is but a belief in two powers—God and something other than God. That leaves the belief without a believer. This universal belief in a power apart from God dies in consciousness as we acknowledge the Invisible as Omnipotence, the infinite all-power, and as we realize there is no other power. There is no power of evil, sin, or disease, because there is no power in the carnal mind, or the belief in two powers.
In that recognition, you are simply bearing witness to truth. You are not causing anything or using any powers. You are bearing witness to the truth that I, in the midst of you, the still small voice, the presence of God or Christ in the midst of you, is the only power functioning in heaven and earth. You are knowing that the devil, Satan, carnal mind, or mortal mind is but a universal belief in two powers, with no foundation or law. You are bearing witness to the truth that makes us free, giving the treatment that results in freedom, and praying without ceasing.
The only prayer is bearing witness to truth.
There is no prayer in going to God for anything, trying to influence God on someone’s behalf, or trying to use spiritual power. The only prayer is bearing witness to truth, communing within, in the realization that “the Father within me, He doeth the works;” that it is His good pleasure to give us harmony and peace on earth, and that God is no respecter of persons. Whatever is true is universally true.
I am only bearing witness when I know that God constitutes the life, mind, soul, spirit, and being of every individual on earth; that besides God, there is no other, and that there are not two powers. As we renounce two powers and acknowledge only one power, as we acknowledge that I, in the midst of me, am that power, I am bearing witness to truth and praying in the highest attitude and altitude of prayer.
It is as if I were relaxing and saying, “Thank God there is a God. I need only rest in His word,” and then watch as harmony begins to appear, not because of anything you have done, or because God is doing you a favor, but because you are living, moving, and having your being as a witness to God in action, as a witness to truth—a witness to truth, not a manipulator of truth. You cannot use truth, but you can watch how truth can use you; how it can manifest itself in your experience as you become a witness.
Scripture tells us that we are to bear witness; that we are to be witnesses of God in action. We do not try to influence God, or believe that we have greater wisdom than God, or are more loving than God. Acknowledge that any belief you have ever entertained that you can make God do something for you or anyone else has been a misconception of God. Acknowledge that God is; that God is infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, and no respecter of persons. Know that we fall out of attunement with God only because we have accepted two powers.
Fear not!
You have seen the fear that is being generated in this world. But if you believe in an infinite God, how can you generate fear in yourself or allow someone to generate fear in you? There is a way to remove every evil from the face of the globe: If you can grasp this truth of the Omnipresence of God within you, wherever you are, whoever you are; if you can accept the truth that that God is Omnipotent, and besides God, there is no other; if you can acknowledge that the only evil that ever was comes from accepting a power apart from God and then fearing it. Yet Scripture says, “Fear not what mortal man can do to you. Fear not what temporal powers can do to you.”
Why should we not fear? God is the all-power, the only power. You can prove this by starting with minor healings that may be necessary in your family. Hold fast to the truth that the only power is the kingdom of God within you, and that what is claiming power is only an effect, a product of a universal belief in two powers. As you bring forth minor healings, you will see that you only need to keep at it before you bring out major healings.
The work of The Infinite Way is to remove the source of evil.
By then, you will see that in The Infinite Way, our work is to remove the source of evil, which is not a man or woman, or groups of men or women; it is a universal belief in two powers that acts hypnotically upon us. We remove it by realizing Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience; by knowing the truth that “your heavenly Father knows you have need of these things”; by never trying to force God or influence God. Rather, we sit quietly and bear witness.
There is a Presence and Power in the world that governs the consciousness of mankind; there is a divine Power, Influence, Activity that operates in man’s consciousness the moment one or more know the truth that there is but one power, and only the acceptance of a belief in two powers has caused our troubles.
There is only one Self.
If there is a conflict in relationships, you never try to change people. Instead, you know the truth within yourself that there is only one Self. In this recognition, you find that others change their attitude toward you. You simply know that since God constitutes your Selfhood, God constitutes the Selfhood of every other individual. When you acknowledge that, you are loving your neighbor as yourself, and others change their attitude because no one is malpracticing them or judging or condemning them. They are released by your recognition that God constitutes their being, and they begin to act more in accord with their true nature.
When there is no malpractice, there is no response to malpractice. If you think another person is either good or evil, you are malpracticing them, and that malpractice comes back upon you because there is only one Self. But when you realize the spiritual nature of individual identity, you have stopped self-malpractice and begin to love your neighbor as yourself. There is only one way to love your neighbor as yourself spiritually, and that is to know that your neighbor is yourself, and that yourself is your neighbor. “God is my Self, and therefore God is your Self. We are the one Self made manifest in different forms.” Notice that all of this takes place without going to God to have Him change anyone.
Health is restored in the same way. Release God from any responsibility for your health or for doing anything for you. Just acknowledge that God has been doing God’s work since the beginning of time and can be trusted to keep on doing God’s work until the end of time. Let God do it. You become a beholder, a witness to God in action.
If you are attending to someone who appears to be sick, don’t be a doer or an actor. Be a beholder, a witness, and bear witness as harmony is restored by the grace of the God that you are acknowledging, not the grace of God that you are bringing to the experience. Afterward, you will take no credit. You will only be able to say, “How wonderful that I’ve learned to be a witness to God in action, to bear witness to Truth.”
“I can of my own self do nothing.”
When you have learned to be a witness to God in action, you will understand that the Master was not indulging in mock humility when he said, “I can of my own self can do nothing.” He was telling us the truth: “I can of my own self do nothing; it is the Father within me that doeth the works”— the Father that knows what you need; the Father whose good pleasure it is to give you the kingdom, the Father who has nothing to oppose His will and His way. You are simply bearing witness to the truth that there is no power but God and no law but spiritual law. You are not making it happen; you are bearing witness to it, and when healings take place, you see the true meaning of humility. You had nothing to do with it; you were the silent witness to truth. You see that you need not fear any so-called power of sin, disease, death, or tyrants.
Always remember that you do not contact this power “somewhere.” It is incorporated in your own being. When you have gone far enough with prayer, you will be able to say with the Master, “I am that power; I am the truth; I am life eternal; I am the divine.” But until then, you can at least acknowledge that this Power, Presence, and Divinity is within you, “closer to you than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.” You can acknowledge that it has no opposition; that besides this I within me, there is no power or presence. I and my Father are one, and in that oneness is the all-power, in heaven, on earth, and everywhere else. In that oneness, I am the spiritual law, the spiritual life.
You do not exercise or use spiritual power or send it out to anyone. You acknowledge that God in the midst of them is already the power, and you merely bear witness to Its presence. Then there are harmonious effects. But remember, the harmonious effects could not come if the harmonious cause were not there within you.
Your function is to bear witness to truth.
As a practitioner, you do not seek or exercise power over anyone, nor do you try to influence God to exercise His power. Your function is to bear witness to this truth: “The kingdom of God is within you, and it knows your need. Because It is divine love, it is Its pleasure to supply you.” Above all, recognize that there are not two powers in the world. There are no powers opposed to God or to spiritual law. It is only the universally held belief in two powers that has caused our trouble. In your realization of God as the one and only power, you are one with God, and “One with God is a majority.” As you bear witness to God, those who turn to you find help. You become the law when you perceive that the kingdom of God is closer than breathing; that the whole kingdom of God, of power, is within every individual. You do not use it; you just bear witness to Its being there and realize that there are no other powers. Then there is nothing to fear.
When you become so pure that you no longer believe in or behold any power of evil, you are restored to the Garden of Eden before the fall. You are restored to the Father’s house and robed and jeweled as an heir, a joint heir of God. You have acknowledged that your function is not to use God or bring down the power of God. It is to bear witness. You know that the still small voice is within you; that the presence and power of God are within you; that you do not have to beg, plead, or affirm.
You know that the kingdom of God, the power of life, love, rehabilitation, transformation, and renewal, is within you and within every individual. It is universal, impersonal, impartial, and spiritual. Because Its nature is Omniscience, It knows our need. Because Its nature is Love, it is Its good pleasure to fulfill itself—not for our glory, but for Its Glory. “The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth His handiwork.” You show forth God’s glory by letting His glory flow through you.
“I can do all things through Christ. I live, yet not I. Christ lives my life.” Bear witness that there is a Divinity within you that is living your life, going before you to make the crooked places straight, to establish you in my work. You bear witness to this; you do not make it happen. Bear witness to the fact that there are no carnal powers to interfere, for there are no powers but God. Then live from that conviction. When the threat of a temporal power touches your awareness, it is up to you to “be still and know,” to bear witness.
Daniel in the lion’s den did nothing because he did not fear any danger. The lions never opened their mouths because he was bearing witness to the fact that the same God that was his life was the life of the lions, the same Presence within him was the Presence within the lions, for we all share the same life.
Bear witness to God in action, give up the attempt to use, influence, or change God or yourself. Simply live the life of a witness.