MEDITATION, silence, treatment, and prayer work are all terms that are used by various Truth teachers and students to describe methods of contact with infinite Mind.
There is, however, a difference in the various methods of approach to and contact with God. Meditation is the act of using the conscious mind to become aware of the meaning of a Truth statement. When a student meditates, he considers what a statement means. For example, if the statement is, I am a child of God and God life is flowing through me constantly, the student could review in his mind what the terms "I am a child of God" and "God life" mean to him, and he would thereby be meditating on or gaining the meaning of the statement. The meaning would then be a mental picture, which would become a part of his subconscious mind. By impressing his subconscious mind, the student sets certain laws of expression into action, and a manifestation or outworking takes place through and around him.
Slowly or rapidly repeating a statement can be called treatment or prayer work. Impressing the subconscious mind with a repeated statement or prayer (after meditation) results in subconscious action taking place. It may be likened to the washing of an exposed photographic film in a dark container of chemical solution. When the film is outlined and printed, a clear picture appears. This is what transpires in one's subconscious mind when he tries to produce through his own body or affairs a picture or experience that he desires.
Thought controls emotion or feeling. Thought can be used to reduce, change, dissolve, or intensify a feeling.
If it were not for this gift of God to us, we would never be able to describe an inner feeling by voice or written word. To think with feeling and truly impress the subconsciousness, quickly and deeply, results in quick manifestation or results.
Of course, one who desires to demonstrate should always study Truth (particularly the teachings of Jesus) in order to know consciously how to word his righteous desires, so that the results will be beneficial to himself and others.
The silence is a condition in which conscious thinking and body action or motion are stilled as much as possible to let God take over. This can be practiced at any time, anywhere, either before or after a definite prayer or treatment period.
God-Mind operates in quietness and stillness and reveals its ideas to its offspring (man) on request. We pray to God; God responds to us in the silence; and then up through the subconscious and conscious phases of mind comes the response. At times, through the operation of divine law, conditions develop or appear around us to prove that God has heard and all is well.
Responsibility for the use of thought and feeling is personal to everyone on earth. Hence the necessity of understanding what is meant when one says, "I only want for myself what I am willing that all people may have at the same time, and I pray that God will guide me in all my thinking."
