A: Well, it isn’t wrong. It just isn’t effective. It isn’t a bit wrong, and if you enjoy it, keep on doing it. Every minister in every church in the entire world does it. None of their patients get well by it, but that doesn’t stop them. There’s no evil in it, so they keep on doing it.
You ought to know that by now—that ministers will pray for anybody you ask them to. You just ask them. You want them to pray for your mother? Give them your mother’s name, and they’ll pray for her. Will she get well? Well, except for the few cases where lightning strikes, it hasn’t been known to happen yet. You can ask any minister to come to your home, or the home of a sick person, and pray for them. How many times have you ever heard of anyone getting well through it? There’s nothing wrong about it. It’s only that it’s not effective.
Now, I’ll go a step further and tell you that Jesus wasn’t referring to that, and nowhere in his teaching does he indicate that he’s referring to that. If you will take the teaching of Jesus Christ as it is given in the New Testament from Matthew through John, you will find very definitely that he says, “Seek ye not what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed, for your Father knoweth that you have need of these things.” Also you will make a very, very wonderful discovery. God is Spirit. Perhaps you never noticed that in the New Testament— God is Spirit. Now, what would you go to a God of Spirit for? To have your corns taken away? A new bicycle? Or as some teach, a Cadillac? Because God doesn’t know the difference between a Cadillac and a Ford. Is that what you would go to God as Spirit for? You can if you like. You won’t get it, but you can go.
If you wish to pray aright, James tells you that if you pray and do not receive what you pray for, it is because you are praying amiss. Now, ministers, priests, rabbis all over the world are praying for their flocks, and sometimes by individual name, such as when they’re ill. A recent case comes to my mind. The Pope of Rome, the Pope in the Vatican, was ill unto dying, unto death, and I’m sure that priests all over this world were praying for his recovery. I wouldn’t go out of line if I were to say there must have been a hundred thousand priests, ordained priests, Roman Catholic priests, all over the world praying for his recovery, and every day he sank lower, until he was virtually on his death bed, where they had given him up. And then what happened?
They sent for one tiny little priest from way down in the southern part of Italy and had him come up to Rome, and he healed the Pope. So much so, that after the Pope was well, two doctors, who were his main doctors, got into a newspaper argument as to which one of them healed him with their medicines, because they each tried different remedies. And so the Pope called the press in and said, “It wasn’t the doctors. It was this priest down in southern Italy.” Do you see that?
One little priest did what one hundred thousand priests couldn’t do. Why? I suppose the hundred thousand priests were praying to God to make the Pope well. It’s done every day. It’s stupid, but it’s done. But this one little priest probably came and sat there and had no thoughts, and the Spirit of God came upon him, and the healing took place.
And we saw the Pope. We attended an audience on last year’s trip, and we were fortunate enough to catch one there, and really and truly, for a man of eighty-two, you never saw a man as young and as active, virile, as that man is. He was a completely changed man from two years before. He evidently had had a rebirth.
Doctors can’t do that in a week with any kind of medicine that’s ever been discovered, and evidently a hundred thousand priests praying for him and calling him by name couldn’t. One tiny, little, unknown priest, who for years has had a spiritual healing gift and has been healing down in the southern part of Italy, he did the work.
And so it is, what Jesus said is actually true. When you are in spiritual consciousness you can ask God for anything and get it, only be sure that you’re asking for something spiritual, for that is all that God has to give. And what is it that is spiritual? Nothing but God. Therefore, ask for anything you want, as long as you ask for God—anything. It doesn’t make any difference what you ask for. Ask for it, only be sure that you’re asking for God, and you’ll get it.
No one in the history of the world has ever prayed for God to give them the gift of Himself—the gift of God—who has not received it, whereas, people are sitting around praying for companionship, praying for money, praying for employment, praying to get rid of fevers and get rid of lumps, and they keep on praying for all their days and then wonder why God did not see fit to answer their prayer.
Now, God does not answer prayer, except one prayer. Pray to God for the gift of God. Pray God to reveal Himself to you. Pray God for God’s grace. Pray for the recognition of God. Pray that God, the Soul of you, become apparent to you. Pray that your eyes be opened; pray that your ears be unstopped, so that you may perceive God in the midst of you. With all your praying, pray for God, and you will literally find that Jesus Christ knew more about prayer than anybody that has ever lived. He said, “Ask for anything you want, as long as you’re seeking the kingdom of God, and the rest will be added unto you.”
But really, it isn’t true that the rest will be added unto you. It is when God comes to you that God is the rest. Do you not remember from Scripture? God is the high tower. God is the fortress. God is the bread. God is the wine, and the water, and the resurrection. God doesn’t give these; God doesn’t send these. God is these, and when you attain God, you have attained this whole world.
Someone somewhere has written that if you had—I think it was Maimonides, too—if you had God—no, it’s later than that. If you had God and everything in the world, you would have no more than if you had God alone. Now, you can count on that. That’s a spiritual truth. If you had God and everything that’s in the world, you would have no more than if you had God alone, for God is all there is in the world. Beside God there is nothing. Therefore, beside God there is nothing to pray for.
I want you to know this, too, because in your experience, you’re going to need to know this. When I am engaged in this work of lecture or class work, I never, never go to God for a message. I never go to God for any subject or any message to give. When I sit in meditation it is only to feel God’s presence. I never have any other object. When I feel the Presence, I can get up here then, and the words come, and sometimes they’re words I didn’t even know before. Sometimes they’re so fresh, they’re so new, that I really have never known them or heard them. They just flow. It’s God flowing. If I were to ask for a message, I wouldn’t get it, because God can’t give a message. God can only give Himself and God is the message.
If you think of God as Truth, you’ll see how true it is. Truth is the message. Truth can’t give a truth. Truth is a truth. Therefore, before I come to this work, always I sit in that meditation and silence only to feel God’s presence, to know that I’m in the robe, to know that God’s grace is flowing, God’s presence is here, and then when I open my mouth, God comes out, meaning truth comes out.
So it is when you’re healing. Don’t try to annoy God by telling Him your patient has a fever, or they have a sore foot. Don’t try to tell God what your patient has or what you think you’d like God to do for your patient. Don’t instruct God. Don’t try to teach God. Don’t try to tell God. Don’t try to tell God God’s business.
If you haven’t got a God that is Omniscience—all wisdom, all knowledge—then you haven’t got a God at all. If you haven’t got a God that is infinite, divine Love, you don’t have a God at all. So therefore, when you go into your treatment, even though you use the letter of truth, the words of truth, that isn’t for God’s sake. You’re not enlightening God. You’re just lifting yourself up, and when you get there, then rest, and let the Spirit of God descend upon you, and It will reach out, whether your patient is here, or in Africa, Australia, or England. Regardless of where it is, North Pole or South Pole, you don’t reach out your thought. You sit here quietly. The place whereon thou standest is holy ground, and let the Presence be with you, and then your patient, regardless of where they may be, or what their need may be, it will be fulfilled in that instant.
1This excerpt is from Recording 213B: 1958 Second Chicago Closed Class, “Questions and Answers on the Mystical Life and Healing, Part 2.” 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 from The Infinite Way website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.