Joel taught that rising in consciousness to realized Christhood is not ultimately for our own benefit, but the means to uplift the consciousness of mankind universally and dispel the ignorance of truth that is at the root of all human trouble. He spoke often about how we as individuals can be an influence in bringing that freedom to the world.
On the first of each month, we post an excerpt from Joel’s writings on this topic. The following excerpt is from Chapter 10 in Our Spiritual Resources, “The Government Is on His Shoulders.”
Applying The Principle of Impersonal Healing to World Affairs
Those who have had healings through metaphysical or spiritual means have witnessed the nullifying of error in one form or another, but how many of us have any knowledge as to how the error was eradicated and nullified?
Here is the principle: Any form of discord that touches our experience is not our fault. It is not even our fault if we sin or do not sin. I know that there are some self-righteous people who really believe that it is possible to be good, but that is because they are living in an ivory tower. They would be shocked, however, at how quickly they would be pulled out of that tower if a temptation to which they were vulnerable raised its head. Then they would learn how impossible it is to be good of oneself. It is only in the degree that we understand that sickness, sin, lack, or any discord is the product of universal error, not individual error, but the universal misunderstanding of truth or lack of understanding of truth, that we free ourselves and others from any condemnation.
The very first thing a practitioner has to do when a patient asks for help is to give up any sense of judgment, criticism, or condemnation of the person. Any such sense would be personalizing error, and it would fasten it to the patient instead of freeing him from it. As soon as the practitioner realizes that this is not the patient’s sin, not his disease, his lack, or his belief, but that this is a universal hypnotism or appearance of which he is an innocent victim, the patient begins to experience his freedom; the weight of guilt is lifted from him, and very soon the entire condition dissolves.
When we come to a place of absolutely impersonal healing, where we do not take the patient into our treatment at all but where we deal entirely with universal belief, we will then begin to perceive how this important healing principle of the Infinite Way can be applied to the solution of world problems.
World problems will be solved by nullifying material sense because the problems of every nation are the result of material sense. No nation on earth is working solely from the standpoint either of the freedom of mankind or of the prosperity of mankind except as it may be attained without any loss to itself.
Therefore, although there are some nations that in a measure are working humanly for the good of mankind and without ulterior motives, this is not the solution to world problems any more than human betterment is the solution to individual health or supply. The principle that will solve individual problems will ultimately solve world problems, and that principle is the realization that we are not dealing with good people or with bad people: we are dealing with the carnal mind, the belief in two powers.
As soon as we recognize that error is not personal to the patient, and transfer it to the carnal mind, the patient is well on the way to experiencing a healing. So it is with world affairs. Let us stop praising or condemning governments and nations and begin to work with the impersonal Christ in the realization that all the error that has ever existed, or does exist, is the carnal mind, and then realize that the carnal mind is not and never has been power. It is only operative in human consciousness because it has been accepted as power.