Recording 250B, “Individual Spiritual Consciousness,” is from the 1959 Maui Advanced Work. This recording was not used as source material for any book.
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With this session, we begin Part 3 of our study program on spiritual healing. Part 1 was an overview of spiritual healing, and Part 2 focused on the core principles of The Infinite Way and their role in spiritual healing.
In Part 3, we will address the practice of spiritual healing. We will examine what is—and what is not—involved in spiritual healing. We will look closely at what constitutes a healing consciousness and how it can be developed. We will also consider the subjects of treatment, impersonalization, and nothingization, as well as how a patient benefits from the practitioner’s work. We will also reflect on the importance of language in healing, and the respective responsibilities of both practitioner and patient.
This first session in Part 3 focuses on the consciousness that makes spiritual healing possible —the consciousness of both the practitioner and the patient.
Major Points in the Recording
Spiritual healing has nothing whatsoever to do with God. It has to do with the consciousness of an individual who is a healer. God existed before Buddha and Jesus did their healing work, but God did no healing work. It is not God that is responsible for healing; it is the consciousness of an individual who brings himself into oneness with God consciousness, into Christ consciousness.
God existed before the man known as Moses, but for centuries, the Hebrews were in slavery, ignorance, and illiteracy, with only a hope that God would save them. But when Moses attained God realization, or Christ consciousness, he was able to lead the entire Hebrew nation out of slavery. Likewise, in Jesus’ time, there was an enormous temple in Jerusalem with hundreds of rabbis, great devotion to the Sabbath, many tithes and sacrifices, but no healing, no evidence of God’s grace. Yet when Jesus came into the fullness of the Christ, healing works followed. Moses and Jesus are examples of the direct manifestation of Christ consciousness appearing through, or as, an individual.
A master can lift a student to a measure of his own consciousness. Gautama the Buddha did this, and many of his disciples could heal. Jesus raised many of his disciples to a higher level of consciousness, and some were able to heal and teach. But neither the Buddha nor Jesus could raise their disciples to the fullness of the Christ, for that is an individual endeavor that each must undertake for himself. So again, we see that it is the individual’s state of consciousness that does the healing.
On a sunny day, if you were in a room with all the windows closed and the shades drawn, you would not experience the sunlight. It is present, but of no use to you until you open the shades and let the windows be a transparency through which the sun can reach you. So it is with God. God is, and always has been, God. God is Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience, the all-power of good. But this truth is of no avail to us until we open our consciousness and become a transparency through which the presence and power of God can operate in human consciousness.
Every individual who attains union with God, or the Christ consciousness, even in a small measure, becomes a blessing to their families, to their communities, to those who seek them, and eventually—like Jesus, Gautama, and Paul—to the world. And if that individual inspires others to consecrate themselves to God, there would be a second individual in Christ consciousness, then a dozen, a hundred, and a thousand, and truth would encircle the world. In just a few generations, the world could be free.
If this is so, why wasn’t the world saved through Gautama the Buddha or Jesus Christ? First, while they could give this truth to their immediate disciples, none of the disciples could transmit it to others, and they did not raise up others to carry on the message. Second, at the time of the Buddha and the time of Jesus, there were limited means of communication and travel. Today, it is vastly different. We have methods of communication not dreamed of in their day—widely available books and recordings, radio, television, [and the Internet and social media, which even Joel may not have foreseen]. We have jet planes to carry us to any part of the globe in hours. Thus, the opportunities to inspire students with zeal and devotion to God have been multiplied many times over and continue to increase.
Today, a Christ, an individual with the full and complete God consciousness, may not be necessary. If thousands of individuals each have a grain of that consciousness, they can do as much, or even more, than one fully realized individual, provided that there is one fully realized individual to set the flame in motion.
We know that God already IS, and that it is futile to ask God to DO anything. We know that mental prayer is useless because God does not enter the world through the human mind. God consciousness appears through an individual; God enters the human scene through the developed spiritual consciousness of an individual or many individuals. For this reason, if you are seeking spiritual healing, you do not go to just any minister, priest, or rabbi, because God operates only as the consciousness of the individual who has attained spiritual consciousness in some measure. Healing takes place, first of all, in proportion to the degree of the practitioner’s realized consciousness.
However, there is a second factor: the consciousness of the patient. One patient might go to a practitioner and experience an instantaneous healing, while another individual might experience a healing in a week, and still another in a year. The greater an individual’s preparation for spiritual healing, the better and faster the healing.
This does not mean that one person, humanly, is better prepared than another. An individual is not responsible for their preparedness for healing; that is something beyond their control. Each of us is at a certain level of consciousness when we come to this work, and for reasons beyond our control, some are more receptive and responsive to healing than others.
It has been said that it is easier to heal an atheist than a good Christian, Hebrew, or Buddhist, because the atheist is free of superstition. Likewise, it is easier to heal a sinner than a saint because the sinner begins with humility and knows their shortcomings, whereas the saint is often puffed up with how good they are and the sacrifices they have made to become good, making it hard to break through.
A healing can be entirely due to the state of consciousness of the practitioner at the time of the healing, or to the readiness of the patient, for which they can take no credit. Those who are slower to receive a healing must never indulge in self-condemnation. They should remember that slow healings have the benefit that, in proportion as the patient develops their consciousness, they will have permanent healings, and they will develop the ability to help others.
When we speak of practitioners, we mean those individuals who have the capacity to help others and are willing to hold themselves in readiness to respond to a call for help. Practitioners need not give up their way of life or their career.
The major part of our work is the development of spiritual consciousness, and the purpose of our writings and recordings is to show how this consciousness is developed.
Those who have healings through practitioners have not gained anything if they have only had a healing. There must be a change of consciousness as well. That is why we can never think of healing work as replacing or competing with materia medica. In spiritual healing, we do not claim that you can simply make a sick person well. Spiritual healing involves a transformation of consciousness, after which the outer harmonies occur as the outpicturing of that new consciousness. It is not our function to merely make sick people well. In spiritual healing, our interest is the resurrection of an individual from material sense to spiritual consciousness; the healing is the effect of this shift in consciousness. This is why a practitioner might give a book to a patient—so they can begin to experience a transformation of consciousness and to release any fears that arise from materialism. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
Fear has nothing to do with the present moment; all fear has to do with the future. Nothing can remove fear from an individual as long as they live in the future tense, and the way to stop living in the future is to attain spiritual consciousness. When some measure of spiritual light comes to an individual, they become aware of teachings such as: ”I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” “I will be with you until the end of the world.” “Fear not, it is I.” “I am ever with thee.” “If you mount up to heaven, I am there. If you make your bed in hell, I am there. If you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you need not fear, for I am there.” “I am the resurrection and the life.”
These passages develop the awareness that you are not alone, not living your own life, depending on your own wisdom, living on your own strength, or living by bread alone. When you are aware of the I within you, you cannot fear what mortal man, or mortal conditions, or germs, or unemployment, or bombs, can do to you. The I within you is the same I that opened the Red Sea and made the manna fall for Moses; that fed Elijah in the wilderness; and that fed and healed the multitudes through the Master Jesus. That I is in the midst of you and will never leave you or forsake you. In this realization, material consciousness, which fears things in the external, dissipates.
Spiritual consciousness brings the assurance of an inner Presence that is with you always and enables you to walk through life without fear. It lifts the individual out of material fears and into spiritual assurances. It would make no difference what challenges you might face—even death—for you can never leave God, and God can never leave you: “Fear not, it is I. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will be with thee unto the end of the world.”
This spiritual consciousness, which has attained a grain of spiritual light, can become a healing consciousness. God has always been present, but healing can come only when an individual becomes God-conscious, which makes them a transparency through which and as which the healing grace of God can touch the human race. When the grace of God touches the consciousness of an individual, there is a healing of one’s whole being.
A spiritual ministry acknowledges God as the life of all being, the supply, the support, the maintenance, and the health. But this is of no avail, except as the presence and power of God finds outlet through the consciousness of those individuals who, in some degree, have brought themselves into at-one-ment with their Source. This should not be too difficult, because the kingdom of God is within you, closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. The place whereon you stand is holy ground. However, the difficulty is that once you know the truth, you must have periods of inspiration, contemplation, and meditation to bring the presence of God into conscious expression, so it can flow out to the world.
Joel saw Father Divine[1] as one through whom the activity of the Christ flowed freely and touched the consciousness of thousands who attuned themselves to him. People with all sorts of problems who came into contact with him saw their problems disappear and experienced transformations almost impossible to believe.
Some Indian masters had similar ministries. However, the followers did not learn the principles, and when the master was gone, they could not maintain their freedom. This is why Jesus taught the principles and said, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you.” In The Infinite Way, we do not have a ministry whereby any one or more practitioners permanently carry the demonstrations of the students. Those who engage in healing work are willing to help, but with the understanding that the patient or student is making every effort to learn the principles, attain their own experience of conscious union with God, and be a transparency.
It is the function of The Infinite Way to reveal that the developed spiritual consciousness of an individual is a savior, to show how to attain that consciousness, to help them with problems and with attaining that consciousness, and to help free the world of the states of limitation that bind it. Every Infinite Way student has this responsibility. Receiving God’s grace is only a first step; we must become “doers.” We must work to attain some measure of light and freedom from fear. Freedom from fear, which is the beginning of spiritual wisdom, comes only with the realization that there is only one power, God power, and It is within me. I carry It wherever I go. Wherever I go, the presence and power of God go with me, for God is closer to me than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. The kingdom is within you, and when you have that realization, fear evaporates, for there is nothing left to fear.
PRACTICES
In this class, Joel says that every Infinite Way student has the responsibility to attain spiritual consciousness so that they can help others attain that consciousness and help free the world from its limitations. How can we attain spiritual consciousness? As Joel says, the books and recordings provide the answer to that question. So at any time, you can dip into a book or recording for inspiration.
The following are some specific suggestions for activities that can help us move toward spiritual consciousness. Choose any that appeal to you or just let them inspire other ideas for practice.
As Joel emphasized in this session, God does not act in human experience except as individual consciousness becomes a transparency through which the presence and power of God can operate in human consciousness. “It isn’t ‘God’ that is responsible for the healings; it is the consciousness of an individual who brings himself into oneness with God.” In other words, WE do not DO something to get a result; we abide in the principles.
Practice:
Take some time to sit quietly and let your consciousness rest in this quotation from the class: “God is the all-power of good, but all of this is only of avail to us as we open our consciousness and become transparencies through which God can shine.”
Inwardly ask:
Joel spoke about Moses, Gautama, and Jesus, saying that their transition from human consciousness to spiritual consciousness, their attainment of God realization, was what enabled them to do the great works. So with us.
Practice:
At the start of the day, allow your personal identity to soften and silently acknowledge: “Today, I do not live as [your name, the personal sense of ‘you’]. I am not defined by my background or my current human situation. I live as the measure of Christ-consciousness now available to me.
During the day, notice any moments when you revert to self-protection, self-justification, self-importance, or self-condemnation. If you notice any of these, pause and go within to acknowledge, “That is the human me, not the Christ of my being.” Remind yourself that Christhood is not something to be achieved, but something to allow.
As often as you can remember, and especially before making decisions, pause and inwardly acknowledge: “I am not living my own life. I am not depending on my own wisdom or strength. I am maintained and sustained by the I of my being. I am not dependent on my personal wisdom or strength.” Then wait briefly before moving forward.
Several times in the class, Joel emphasized that God enters the human scene through consciousness, the spiritually developed consciousness of an individual. It is the developed consciousness that does the healing work, not addressing appearances or trying to change the picture. Christ-consciousness does not address conditions; It simply shines forth.
Practice:
Sometime during the day, just sit quietly for a few minutes without bringing any problem or person to mind. Let your awareness rest in words such as: “I am with you. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Feel your grounding in spiritual consciousness. If thoughts of discords or personal needs arise, simply let them pass without engaging with them. It may take some discipline to refrain from engagement, but we do have dominion, and we can exercise it.
Joel says that fear is always about the future and that it arises when we try to live outside the present moment. In developing spiritual consciousness, we must gain freedom from fear, which cannot be attained while there is still something to fear. Freedom from fear can only come through the realization that there is only one power, which is God-power, and that that God-power is within me. Wherever I go, the presence and power of God goes with me; It is closer to me than breathing, nearer than hands and feet. Fear can never dissolve until you have come to that realization that the kingdom of God is within you.
Practice:
If fear comes into your experience, ask:” Is this fear about now or about the future?” Bring to mind statements of Jesus, such as:
Rest in the assurance of the indwelling Presence. Then, consciously return to the present moment, remembering, “Fear not, it is I. Fear belongs only to the future. I live now.”
If you frequently find yourself in fear, it might be helpful to listen to Recording 74B: 1954 Honolulu Lecture Series, “Meditation – Fear Not,” which is posted on the website in the “Meditations with Joel.”
Joel tells us that delayed healing can develop consciousness and that it often carries the greater gift of the capacity to bless others.
Practice:
If you are waiting for a healing or resolution, inwardly recognize: “This waiting time is not a delay. It is a preparation that is not forming a result, but a higher consciousness.”
Release any expectations. Even when nothing appears to change, stay true to consciousness, and insofar as possible, let go of any desire for results. There is no time in Spirit, only the unfolding of consciousness.
Before retiring for the evening, it can be helpful to reflect on the day.
Practice:
At the end of the day, take a few minutes to ask yourself:
Be as objective as possible and simply notice what happened during the day. Refrain from judging yourself or drawing conclusions about your level of consciousness.
[1] Father Divine (c. 1876 – September 10, 1965), also known as Reverend M. J. Divine, was an American spiritual leader from about 1907 until he died in 1965. He founded the International Peace Mission movement, formed its doctrine, and oversaw its growth from a small and predominantly Black congregation into a multiracial, international church.