The basis for this chapter is Recording 260A, is from the 1959 Hawaiian Village Open Class, and is titled, “Treatment and Meditation.” This recording is no longer available on this website. If you subscribe to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you will be able to listen to the recording there. The optional study suggestions for this chapter will continue to be available here on the Goldsmith Global site. To purchase the recording and/or the transcript for 260A, click/tap here.
To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.
Toward the end of the recording that is the basis for this chapter, Joel summarizes two key points about treatments.
You must study these writings; you must study Scripture. You must study these Infinite Way writings, because it is in these books that these particular principles are given, revealed, taught, repeated, and iterated and reiterated over and over and over again, in a thousand different ways. So that if you study these books and practice [what is in] them, you will have at your fingertips—your mental fingertips—every one of these passages of truth, so that you, too, can sit down and give a conscientious, intelligent treatment.
Treatment prepares us for true prayer, or inner communion with God. Treatment is just a steppingstone to the second part—”that period in which we are through with our words and thoughts and our remembrances of spiritual passages, and we say, ‘It’s Your turn, God. Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.’”
These two points lead us directly to a study and practice that would complement this chapter.
1. Practice taking control of the mind
Joel teaches that the first step in practicing treatment is to establish yourself in your true identity as I, that I that has dominion over mind and body. There must always be an I with complete dominion over mind and body, so that when we sit down to give an intelligent treatment—that is, consciously to know the truth—the mind or body will not interfere.
Joel suggests that one way to learn to exercise control over the mind so that you can meditate more successfully is by gently addressing the mind. (Note: This beautiful contemplative meditation is the one that Joel gives on the recording. It begins at 7 minutes, 32 seconds. There is a similar meditation in Chapter 6 of the book.)
I say unto thee, peace be still. Fear not. Fear not. God in the midst of thee is mighty. Fear not—not all the armies of the aliens—for God in the midst of thee is mighty. God’s peace give I unto thee. God’s grace give I unto thee. Peace.
In quietness and in confidence shalt thou meditate. In stillness and in joy shalt thou receive God’s grace. Peace be unto thee. Peace. My peace give I unto thee.
You need not battle. You need take no thought for what you shall eat, or what you shall drink or wherewithal you shall be clothed. God’s grace clothes thee. God’s grace feeds thee. Be still. Be still and receive God’s communion. Be still and hear the still, small voice. You need not battle. You need not take thought. Be at peace. Be still.
Nothing shall enter the mind that defileth or maketh a lie. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. There is peace, harmony, quietness, calmness, assurance. In God’s presence is fullness of joy, fullness of life, abundance of good. Here where I am, Thou art. I need not fear what mortal man can do to me. No weapon that is formed against me shall prosper. They have only the arm of flesh; we have the Lord God almighty.
In such a meditation, you are taking possession of your mind and acknowledging that peace comes, not by virtue of any qualities of your own, but because of the presence and grace of God. You are realizing your identity as separate from the mind and body, as having jurisdiction over both mind and body. Through such practice, you can assume dominion over mind and body, and then practice treatments.
2. Consciously and continuously know the nature of God and the nature of error
In the “Across the Desk” section of this chapter, Joel is very direct about what we must do in order to be prepared to give intelligent treatments.
The student learns to face each day with the conscious realization of the impersonal nature of evil and of its impotence: he consciously knows that I am is God. Therefore, I am one with God, and the place whereon I stand is heaven. He realizes that where God is, I am; and where I am, God is, for we are inseparably and indivisibly one. …
Evil, regardless of its name or nature or its specific form, is impersonal, and therefore has no person in whom, on whom, or through whom to operate, and not being ordained of God, it has no spiritual law to uphold or enforce it. It is the “arm of flesh”—temporal power, nothingness. To abide in this truth is to be clad in the spiritual robe where none of these things shall come nigh thy dwelling place.
The Infinite Way student is taught that whatever he experiences must come through his own consciousness, and that, therefore, to fill consciousness with an understanding of the nature of God and a knowledge of the impersonal and impotent nature of the cause of evil is to ensure a life of spiritual harmony and service to others. The student who omits this daily, conscious abiding in truth subjects himself to the universal belief in two powers, but the belief in two powers cannot operate in a consciousness that has realized God as omnipotence and omnipresence. … Our immunity from material conditions and our freedom from mental laws are attained in proportion to our daily and hourly conscious remembrance of these revelations.
God gave us dominion over every circumstance, but we must exercise that dominion by an active, continuous consciousness of the truth of our oneness with God, and by the conscious and specific knowing of the impersonal and impotent nature of the source of error. To lay the axe at the root of material existence is to understand it as a product of mental suggestion, having no law or authority.