NOT BUILT WITH HANDS

R.H. Grenville [Beatrice C. Rowley] No fairer structure has been raised on earth
  Since time began; no walls of costly stone
Built for a Solomon had half the worth
  Of this fine edifice of flesh and bone.
Here is a city in itself complete,
  At once a temple and a citadel,
Set like a palace in the common street,
  Wondrous beyond the power of words to tell.
Perfect and beautiful in every part,
  The ark of each man's covenant with life,
Shines the bright altar of the human heart,
  A sanctuary in the midst of strife,
Fairer than any which the prophets trod --
  Behold the temple of the living God!

1. Health is a blessing greatly to be desired. That men appreciate it is shown by their efforts to regain it when once it seems to be lost. The question is: What is the true method of gaining health?

2. Everyone instinctively feels that there must be a way to health, an exact, sure way founded upon principle. There is such a way. It may be found by the earnest student in the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The teaching of Jesus is an absolute science. Webster defines science as a knowledge of principles or facts, "systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws."

3. The foundation principle upon which the universe was created was that it was "good" and "very good" (Gen. 1:31). This principle should be understood and applied; this cause should be set into operation in order to produce a like effect. When the mind of man is trained to believe in the good, the true, the perfect in self and in all others, a like effect will be produced in the body and will show forth as health or wholeness. Jesus knew God; He knew the principle, the law lying back of every man's being. He, the great Teacher, was perfectly competent to instruct men in the law of their being.

"Then the real object of existence is to attain the consciousness of eternal life . . . Jesus was the great way-shower to the attainment of this realization of Spirit" (Atom-Smashing Power of Mind 151-52).

4. The law of man's being is I AM, the Word, the creative power of God. Man uses this law or creative power of God by his thinking and feeling. The use that man makes of the law of his being is his formative power of thought, or his use of I AM power. "The law of manifestation for man is the law of thought" (Mysteries of Genesis 12). Conscious knowledge and understanding of the law of man's being, followed by right thinking, right feeling, and obedience, result in health in soul (mind) and body. There is no other way to health. Living in conscious harmony with man's true identity — I AM — and using the power of I AM in the right way in thinking, feeling, words, and actions, is the true method of manifesting health. This lesson aims to explain the operation of cause and effect and show how the laws of God may be made practical by everyone in the demonstration of health.

5. The fault with the healing systems of man lies in the fact that men have tried to cure disease without removing the cause of it. Causes are not remedied merely by dealing with effects. This is a simple proposition and one that easily appeals to our reason. To find a remedy, we must go to cause first. If a cause is removed, its effect is removed. This is the right and only sure method of wiping out the appearance of disease — and it should be remembered that disease is only an appearance; there is no power or reality in it, for God did not create it. If mental and physical discords were real they could not be healed, because that which is real is enduring, unchangeable. Disease does not have a divine idea or principle behind it as a pattern for its formation. Therefore, any belief or condition of disease can be changed because it is not a God creation.

6. The "real" is that which cannot be changed, which always is. Health is real, abiding, eternal, unchangeable. Health or wholeness is every man's birthright. "The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4). It is very important to remember this because the thought of man has so built up the belief in the power and reality of sickness and disease that they seem impregnable fortresses of evil. This is especially true of the forms of error which have been stamped "incurable." There are no incurable diseases. Every appearance of ill has a cause, and that cause can be removed. When the cause has been removed, then the effect will disappear.

7. The belief in the power and the reality of disease is itself one cause for the appearance of disease in the body. When men see that there is no truth in such a belief they let go of it, and the appearance then yields readily, not having the sustaining force of thought to keep it in evidence. A law was stated by Jesus when He said, "According to your faith be it done to you" (Matt. 9:29). Those who believe in disease as a reality have faith in it; they get results according to the application of their faith faculty, and some form of physical error keeps manifesting in their lives.

8. All causes are mental. Everything starts in mind as an idea or a concept of some idea. If we want to manifest health, we must think of the life idea, build a concept of it, and see it manifesting in us as health. Then the law ("according to your faith") will work for us to bring about health in the body.

9. What is the basis of our faith in health? It is understanding of the real nature of God and of ourself as His offspring. God is perfection, wholeness; His offspring must be like Him, so it is very evident that we have had wrong concepts about ourself if we have considered imperfections as being real, enduring. We have thought ourself so different from God that it seemed sacrilegious to claim our Godlikeness. Every idea, every thought we have is like a seed, and it produces "after its kind." The thought of man's unlikeness to God has worked out in appearances that are the image of the thought that produced them. Appearances cannot be changed except by going back into mind and correcting the thoughts that are making the error appearances. Such changes are accomplished by a transforming of thoughts so that they harmonize with the ideas of Divine Mind, God. Nothing is accomplished by working in the external alone—men have tried that for ages without success. Analysis of our thoughts determines whether the beliefs back of them have their foundation in wholeness and perfection, or whether they are based upon the limited concepts about life that have been built through ignorance of Truth.

10. All sin is the result of a belief in dual powers — good and evil — and this belief must be eliminated from consciousness.

"Sin is a falling short of the divine law, and repentance and forgiveness are the only means that man has of getting out of sin and its effect and coming into harmony with the law" (Jesus Christ Heals 59).

11. The process by which sin and error are erased from the mind is the forgiveness or remission of sins. In the healing work of Jesus, forgiveness was prominent. We can readily understand why forgiveness plays so important a part in the life of the overcomer when we know the relation of sin to disease, of righteousness to health; when we remember that the appearance of the body is the outpicturing of the beliefs held in mind. In other words, the appearance of the body is the result of the individual's thoughts. Thus we see that forgiveness is related to healing as cause is related to effect.

12. The first step to be taken toward healing is "repentance," a change of mind, turning away from the belief in things as they appear and turning within toward God, then making the necessary change in conduct. Penitence and sorrow emphasize the feeling, but repentance is more than this — it signifies new purpose, a determination to change the beliefs that have been the cause of the imperfect results. "I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting; for you felt a godly grief" (II Cor. 7:9, 10).

13. In making this change, we have not only to behold ourself as perfect in mind and body, but we must eliminate from our mind all consciousness of sin and evil, all belief that they have reality. We must learn to see the perfection of God as being brought forth in all creation, to know that there is no sin in the divine plan for man, no evil in reality, though it may exist as an appearance. (See How I Used Truth Lesson 7 Annotation 6.) We must all come to see that each person is expressing God according co his individual concept, his highest knowing in spite of appearances. Today each one knows in part; tomorrow his knowing will be greater, and he will express in a way that is becoming a little nearer to the perfection which God is.

14. By a complete change of thought the mind is renewed, made fresh and clean with pure ideas about God and man, and by this renewal of the mind the outer world, the whole realm of appearances, is transformed. "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment" (John 7:24). In this way appearances of evil, sin, and sickness are changed. Because the appearance of the body is the result of the thoughts that are held in mind, the more one thinks of the divine, the ideal, the perfect, the more these thoughts will outpicture in the body. Prayer then is a very important factor in the attainment of health, for it is conscious communion with God, or good, and this good includes life that produces health in the body. Thus daily meditation and prayer, where unity with Divine Mind (the source of life) and its perfect ideas is realized, is very essential to well-being.

15. The belief in fleshly heredity keeps many persons in bondage to disease. "And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" (Matt. 23:9). This Biblical statement is a complete denial of the belief in fleshly heredity. As we are the off-spring of God, our inheritance must be from Him and not from the flesh man. In Truth there is no such thing as a hereditary disease, and appearances of such are due entirely to man's limited belief. He is ignorant of the fact that God is his Father, and he insists upon claiming man as the source of his life, thus connecting himself erroneously with flesh as his origin instead of Spirit. The fruit of this thought must be "eaten" until the thought is changed. To overcome this error thought, one should enter the silence in this realization:

I am the offspring of God and I inherit His perfect Mind and life.

I am made in His image and after His likeness.

I live, move, and have my being in Him, and I express His wholeness.

16. Love is a healing balm. Our knowing God as our Father and as the Father of all men will take away the great burden of condemnation from our minds. When condemnation is removed from mind, many of the ills of the flesh will disappear, because condemnation, criticism, and faultfinding make sick bodies. Instead of judging by appearances we shall practice seeing ourself and others as we are in Truth. Thus, we shall remove the appearance instead of condemning it.

17. Every form of hate and envy and jealousy is a burning fire, a disintegrating force that disturbs the mind and tears down the body. But love will restore us when we enter the silence, affirm our oneness with love, and express it. There is but one power — the power of God's love.

18. One might conclude that since all disease is caused by error thought he should be continually searching his mind for error. This is not necessary or profitable. "But who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults" (Psalms 19:12). The point is that we are to deal with the cause side, and we do this more effectively by keeping our thoughts busy in establishing the good than by looking for error. We need to remember that thought is formative, and it brings forth into the manifest world in accordance with the character of the thought. If the mind is dwelling on error, then error is what will be produced, because keeping it active in mind shows that we are placing the energy of our faith faculty in it. Those who conscientiously give up (deny) their ignorant and untrue thoughts and lay hold of true thoughts (by affirmation) based on divine ideas are called "overcomers." They find, as they turn the whole matter over to Spirit and trust in its wisdom and power to overcome, that the work proceeds in an orderly way. They do not have to spend their time looking for error; they affirm the Truth and hold themselves in an attitude of willingness to be guided. If there is an inharmonious condition, the cause of it will be revealed to them. The light comes not by anxious thought but by the revelation of Spirit within, which is made operative in consciousness through meditation and prayer.

19. A prayer for healing is sometimes called a "treatment." The old concept of prayer was more a beseeching of God for something which (it was felt) might or might not be His will to give. We are now learning to think of prayer as described in the first lesson of this course — a conscious communion with God, not a beseeching for good. We are learning to pray with understanding and with faith. When a treatment or prayer is spiritual and scientific, it asserts but one real Presence and Power — perfect Spirit — and is a call to the Christ within (Spirit in the individual) to come forth and take dominion in the manifest. The steps in prayer are the same as the steps in a treatment, so if we know how to pray, we know how to treat. (See Lessons in Truth Lesson 10 Annotation 4)

20. In helping others, we must first enter the silence and realize the one Presence and one Power, God omnipotent. We might hold a thought such as this:

It is not I but the Father within me, He does the works.

21. We declare oneness with God and feel the fullness of life and power. We speak the healing word to the patient, giving thanks that in Truth he is every whit whole. We must realize for him the truth of his being, his wholeness, his perfection as the offspring of God, and declare that it is manifest. We need to deny whatever seems to be the specific error appearance, and affirm that the saving grace of Jesus Christ cleanses the mind and the body of all belief in evil and establishes the Truth that makes free.

22. In considering the "saving grace" of Jesus Christ, we find that the word grace means gift or favor; saving means freeing from that which binds or limits either in mind, body, or affairs. The "gift" comprises all the God qualities within us and the power to express them. Metaphysically, "Christ" is the divine pattern, God's idea of Himself with all the principles necessary to reproduce God in man. "Jesus," that which saves us, is our right use of the pattern and the God principles; or the unfolding in our consciousness of all the qualities that are required to bring forth divinity into manifestation through us.

23. The question sometimes arises: "Is it right to treat any one without his consent?" In solving this problem, we should know that free will is every man's God-given right, and no one is justified in interfering in any way with the freedom of another. But also we should take into consideration the fact that if we think of another at all, our thoughts carry responsibility, because we must think of him either as he is in Truth or as he appears to us. If we hold him in negative appearances, the power of our thought goes out against him and has a tendency to fix him more firmly in adverse conditions; if we think of him as he is in Truth, in Being (God), we help to set him free. In a sense this might be called "treating," but it is what we term "holding him in the universal." We do not interfere with another's free-will when we "hold him in the universal," because we hold no thought that he shall do this or that specific thing.

24. Another point arises here. If a man is in bondage to some habit — drugs, liquor, for instance — he thinks he wants the stimulant and sometimes feels that those who keep him from it are interfering with his free will. The fact is that it is not his will but his sense of lack of some good that is demanding satisfaction. Thus his will is in bondage to his unrighteous desire. Friends who love him and would save him have the right to declare for him the Truth that makes free yet are not interfering with his right of choice.

25. In all prayer the "secret place of the Most High" must be recognized as the "point of mystical union between man and Spirit" (Emilie Cady Lessons In Truth 9:10); therefore the body of every man should be blessed with the understanding that it is the "temple of God" wherein the "secret place" may be contacted. Healing is sometimes slow in manifesting because the "temple" has been profaned with the thought that it is merely physical — flesh and blood — and not worthy of a place in the divine plan of salvation. Such a thought can and must be overcome by statements of Truth such as these:

My body is a temple of the living God.

The glory of His presence illumines and quickens and heals every cell and fiber with His wholeness.

This temple is not material but spiritual; every cell is now alive with the life, substance, and intelligence of Spirit.

* * *

We Can Be Healed
We can be healed!
Each day His healing word
Waits to be spoken
as the living Truth,
Waits to subdue the aching flesh
And heal the fearful mind,
Waits for our growth . . . .
We can take up our bed and walk,
We can reach upward,
We can be healed!

    — Christie Lund Coles

1. The one way to health is through the I AM, the Christ, in man, which is the law of his being. I AM life, I AM health, I AM strong, capable, perfect. Conscious knowledge of I AM identity, obedience to the law of our being, to the law of right thinking, result in health in soul and body.

Health in a living organism means soundness in all respects. Soundness implies freedom from anything and everything that could in any way weaken or corrupt man's consciousness of the original purity of the organism. God, Divine Mind, is the cause and source of all living organisms and is Absolute Good — good in its perfection.

Man achieves health by returning to the source of life, learning and obeying the laws that govern this state of purity and soundness. The law of anything is in its governing principle, that which causes right and intelligent action in order to produce perfect results. As God is Spirit, so His laws are spiritual; as God is Absolute Good, so His laws are the causes of the actions that produce universal good in all living expressions of His Being.

To be whole, one must not only learn the laws of universal good but must also be obedient to them in every thought, feeling, word, action, and reaction. Since the perfect idea can produce only perfect results, the man who wants to have such results in his life must watch the thoughts or concepts in his mind that he has built around the divine idea. He must entertain only healthful thoughts, because the law of manifestation for man is the law of thought. He must form clean mental habits and establish a loving attitude toward all creation. This is the doctrine that Jesus taught and proved by His living.

2. There is no reality in disease because any diseased thought, feeling, belief, or condition can be changed. The change in the body is made by making a change in consciousness. God did not create disease, therefore it can be changed, for it has no supporting principle back of it.

Reality or the "real" is Truth, the very life of God, omnipresent, eternal, enduring, everlasting, unchanging. When the word Truth is used metaphysically or philosophically, it refers to logical ideas that are real, existing independently and apart from our conceptions of them and our names for them. Reality is not limited to a certain definite form, to a certain place or a certain time. When we know the nature of reality — Truth — we are freed from the belief in reality of disease.

"Dis-ease" is a separation or a parting from ease, comfort, freedom. Disease always has a specific location in a body or some part of a body. Reality is unconfined and limitless; it endures; it is; it cannot be modified; does not come and go. Disease may come and go within its locality thus proving its changing, vacillating nature. Disease has nothing enduring for its foundation, is not an entity. It is a false condition, an appearance only, brought about by man's unrighteous thinking — thinking out of harmony with the universal law of Absolute Good.

Man, through the power to think, forms disease concepts, fear concepts, anger concepts, censure concepts. These negative thought "formations" are all departures from the law of love, the law of universal good, yet they become the "mental equivalents" that produce disease in the body.

3. A birthright is a native right or privilege that comes to a person by virtue of his relation to his parents. Our human parents are not the source or givers of mind and life. They supply us with the body or instrument in and through which life and mind may function. The life and mind of that instrument — in our case as in the case of our human parents — are derived from the life principle — God.

God is the Absolute, complete in Himself, the essence of all being. Man is His relative, His son, created complete in the image and after the likeness of his Father. As God's relative, manifest man is in a state of developing or unfolding his native rights through claiming his relationship to the Absolute and making use of the native elements that are in his being as ideas. From our Father, or from perfect life, we originate, and because there is nothing in God, Divine Mind, other than perfection, our heritage is life, health, wholeness, here, now, and forever.

4. Even though man is the offspring of God, he has appeared to be unlike Him because he has not built a consciousness of the image of perfection in which he is created.

God is the only Creator, but as the image-likeness of God, man has the power to reproduce in the earth whatever God has created in the heavens. As God is unlimited freedom in the spiritual state of being, so His son has unlimited freedom to act in the earthly or formed realm. Man's "business" as God's son, His representative, is to express and manifest the God nature, thus to make Absolute Good known in the earth even as it is known in the heavens. "Thy kingdom come ... in earth, as it is in heaven" (the Lord's Prayer). Man's "business" is to represent (or to present) God in his soul, body, and affairs.

Because man has not lived consciously at the center of his being where Spirit, as life and intelligence, dwells in him, he has formed many misconceptions. Through the false use or misuse of his power to conceive images, he has looked at effects and called them causes. That which is unlike God, instead of that which is His likeness, has been produced. God does not compel man to use ideas in the right way — that is, according to His law of universal good. However, each person is essentially spiritual, and the potential is within him to claim eventually his full inheritance of divinity. Because his divine nature is made up of God-ideas, the individual can learn to use ideas wisely, thus expressing and manifesting more and more of God.

5. To forgive is to "give" something "for"; to exchange the mental concept of limitation of oneself, of others, of life in general for the Truth. It is to give one's thoughts to building new states of consciousness based on divine ideas. Primarily, forgiveness of sin is the forsaking of all thoughts and concepts that do not measure up to the divine standard of universal good. Forgiveness causes us to behold good in all things and to pour out a feeling of love toward everybody and all living creatures.

In the Absolute (Truth, God) there is no sin, for all is perfect order and harmony in accordance with the ideations or creations of Divine Mind. It is in the relative or mental realm—the human consciousness — that there is the belief in both good and evil. Whatever the character of man's concepts, the results will be of like nature. Manifest man produces error conditions in his body and his affairs because of his lack of understanding of the power of God inherent in himself as the "formative power of thought." Thus, man forms false concepts (or negative "mental equivalents") that lead to sin, for they "fall short" of Truth.

In his consciousness, manifest man has felt himself to be separated from God, Absolute Good, and this in turn has caused him to be mentally separated from his fellow man. Man sins in having too low an aim, too limited a concept of himself, which causes him to "miss the mark" of his high calling in Christ Jesus.

6. Repentance indicates one's sorrow for sin, accompanied by a desire to amend, or resolve to amend, one's life as a result. Repentance is a complete turning from the sin in thought, word, and deed.

The word penitence is regarded as a synonym for repentance. However, penitence is transient and may involve no change of character or of conduct. The sorrow may be for the consequences only, but repentance exacts a change in one's attitudes, intentions, and conduct. Paul said, "I now rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry unto repentance, , . . For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret" (II Cor. 7:9-10).

To repent means to turn away from seeing a relative good and a relative evil and to behold the Absolute Good even as God saw it at creation. As we come into a knowledge of the purpose of life, we discern that we live in a spiritual universe; that our environment is really God, Divine Mind. We also discover God's presence and power within us as the true souroe and cause of our every good. Thus, we attain a new attitude toward life, a new purpose in living, and endeavor to manifest more of the divine Spirit that is within us.

7. Mind as the term is used here has reference to the human consciousness in which there are beliefs in both good and evil. "To renew" is to make new again and this can be done by turning in prayer to Divine Mind with its perfect ideas of life, love, wisdom, power - all that is absolutely good—and thinking on these ideas until the feeling is charged with them.

"I am the door" (John 10:9) and it is through the opening of this I AM "door" that a flood of light pours into the soul or consciousness bringing just the idea or ideas needed at any given moment. Through meditation on the ideas, man is enlightened as to their value and as to the means of coordinating them for use in daily living. In prayer (aspiration) the Holy Spirit brings to man's remembrance (inspiration) his spiritual identity as a son of God.

Worldly things and conditions claim much of man's attention and occupy a large portion of his life. It is essential for him each day to revive his thoughts of the image of his spiritual self and to strengthen his consciousness of union with God, thus renewing his mind.

8. Forgiveness is related to healing as a cause-and-effect relationship. Healing, as has been explained, is making whole, sound, and pure man's mental, moral, emotional, and physical phases of being. Whether man is conscious of it or not, he has the power to produce the likeness of what he images. Our character, body, and environment are the results of beliefs that we have harbored in our human consciousness. Corruption in our morals, disease in our body, and discord in our circumstances go to show some of the misconceptions we have held in consciousness and are working out. On the other hand, high ideals, health in body, and harmony in our affairs indicate the true concepts, based on God ideas, that we have planted in the "soil" of consciousness, bringing forth these good "fruits" in our outer life.

Forgiveness is the giving up, erasing, arid releasing (through denial) of all concepts and beliefs about ourself or about others that are contrary to the divine standard of good. All thought about and belief in sin and evil must be given up — for, as stated in annotation five, forgiveness is "giving" Truth "for" error; thus forgiveness is a combination of both denial and affirmation.

In order to achieve healing, we must think in accordance with divine patterns (ideas) and feel in unison with the divine nature and when we do this all parts of our being will be restored to health and harmony. Thus we see how essential forgiveness is to healing.

9. Prayer has first place in the attainment of a consciousness of health. Prayer is conscious communion, a "common union" of the human consciousness and the divine consciousness. Prayer is our opportunity to "talk" with God and to aspire toward divine ideals. Prayer is also God's opportunity to inspire or "speak" to us as we quieten our outer activities turning our five senses inward toward God in order to keep negative thoughts from entering our consciousness. When we take control of our thoughts and emotions, we become master of our mind, heart (thinking and feeling), words, and acts. We are then able to feel after God, to know; Him as the spiritual presence and power within and around each of us.

The realization of God's presence and power, through prayer, brings life and health and is therefore a necessary part of the healing process. Prayer is indeed the "pipeline" to God's storehouse of good, and when the need for healing arises we can go directly to this storehouse. Our prayer stakes a positive claim to the health that is ours by divine birthright. Trying to get our health through any way other than prayer to God is futile. Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber" (John 10:1).

10. There is no true foundation for the belief in fleshly heredity. The teaching that God is Principle, expressing and manifesting according to established laws, embraces the biological laws of heredity. The transmission of physical and psychical characteristics is known; the foundation for the belief is therefore not questionable. The truth or the falsity, however, about particular beliefs regarding heredity is subject to question and to scientific examination.

As human beings we are evolving; our biological inheritance as an evolving organism is both strength and weakness. Transcending this is a spiritual inheritance that was involved in the original created idea of man and is the very core of us. The inheritance from God is life itself, an inheritance of strength, wholeness, intelligence, power, and the other attributes (God ideas) that are the constituent elements of God, Divine Mind.

In its healing and corrective powers, our spiritual inheritance is paramount to any biological or pathological weakness. Circumstances or heredity, therefore, need not hold us in bondage except as we let ourself be bound. Our bondage to limiting hereditary factors is due to lack of understanding of how to free ourself and lay claim to our divine heritage. Freedom from hereditary weaknesses lies in the activating of our mind by true prayer, for through prayer we are led to spiritual insights, knowledge, understanding, and healing.

11. No, it is not wise to be searching in the outer for evil. Our attention should be given to beholding only that which we wish to have manifested in our life or the life of another. If we watch for error continually, we are giving our attention to that which is not true, and in so doing we are giving the belief of error the substance of our thought and forming "mental equivalents" of error in our consciousness. As we keep the idea of good, rather than error, before us we will produce results like it, for like produces like in all states of being. We are then forming "mental equivalents" of good. "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, And see the reward of the wicked" (Psalms 91:8).

We are free-will beings and, therefore, we have the power to determine the character of the thoughts that we will think and to which we will give substance. Therefore, it is much wiser to keep before us divine ideas such as life, love, wisdom, faith — anything and everything that is good — than to be watching for error. Our mind is always active, and if it is filled with a belief in error there is no place for the good to take root. Two opposing thoughts cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Let us build for health and wholeness. Let us begin to think only thoughts that are positive, joyous, constructive. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7 A.V.).

12. A treatment is a prayer for healing for oneself or another. A treatment is a conscious, loving desire to realize the higher spiritual qualities in one's own soul or the soul of another, and thus lift oneself (or the other person) out of ignorance or inharmony into a consciousness of man's true spiritual nature. In reality it is a prayer for healing based upon faith in God as the source of all life and our right as His heirs to that life.

A treatment can also be said to be a scientific prayer for the purpose of establishing a new consciousness of God, Absolute Good, as perfect life in every part of the body. The mind of one who is praying scientifically is in active contemplation of God and His perfection. Contact has to be made between the human consciousness of the one praying and God Mind. This contact leads to a realization of the one presence and power immanent in every individual and opens the way for the inflow of divine ideas of life and wholeness. The establishing of this new state of mind can be called a "treatment."

A treatment is not limited to the healing of the body only, but deals with man's soul or mind, his world, his natural environment, and all of his affairs. (See the final paragraph of How I Used Truth Lesson 8 Annotation 1 and subsequent annotations.)

13. The old concept of prayer was that God was a superman apart from human beings, superior to man in every way, who might or might not condescend to answer, as it suited His pleasure. Some thought that if a person prayed long enough and hard enough God might be induced to heed his plea and change His laws to suit the beseecher. It was a futile way of trying to reach God without understanding His nature and man's relationship to Him (as His son and heir and thus entitled to the good of life).

The new and scientific prayer is made in understanding faith and love. We think of God as Divine Mind, the creator of perfection and wholeness whose entire rule or law of action is the law of good — the expressing of good in the form of ideas to be set into operation in all parts of the universe, producing the required good for every living thing. In reality, it is the "getting in tune" with God, the infinite, the source from which all creation comes forth "in the beginning" (Gen. 1:1).

When we begin to understand the nature and action of Divine Mind, we have faith that if we place our attention in Absolute Good, declare only good to be operative in mind and heart, then only good can and will be produced in our outer life. We do not pray primarily for things but for the divine ideas, inspirations, that produce the things and conditions we desire. "Seek ye first his kingdom" (Matt. 6:33) and the promise is that the "things shall be added."

14. One who is preparing to "treat" another first treats himself by clearing his mind (by denial) of any opinions, concepts, or beliefs that do not measure up to divine Principle, thus making himself a worthy instrument for the works of God. He acknowledges that there is but one Presence and one Power in the universe, God, the good omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

After one has done this, he is ready to place the one seeking help under the action of God so that He may do His perfect work in the mind, body, or affairs of that one.

When this has been done, the next action is to realize that the work is not being done by the one treating another, but to know that he is an instrument ready to be used by Spirit, for creative Mind does the work — "the Father abiding . . . doeth his works" (John 14:10). He denies the appearance of error as having reality and affirms the saving grace of the Christ, active in and through himself and the one for whom he prays.

In connection with treating another person, the lesson material deals with the names Jesus Christ, Christ, and Jesus from the metaphysical standpoint. The following elaborates on these meanings:

Metaphysically, Jesus Christ is the name of the principle immanent in every living human being. It is the gift that is inherent in each of us as the offspring of God. It is the spiritual inheritance of the God ideas within us, as well as the power to understand, express, and manifest them in the flesh.

Christ, metaphysically, is the pattern of God, the image that is within each soul; the seed or Word of God, Son of God, God's idea of Himself, containing all the elements necessary to reproduce God, the good, in human experience.

Jesus, metaphysically, is that which saves us; the understanding use of the Christ pattern, and the God substance. It is the unfolding in each soul (thinking and feeling) of all the ideas that are required to bring forth the divinity in each individual. Jesus is the "likeness," the Son of man; God incarnate in every man; "the word . . . made flesh" (John 1:14).

15. It is always right to pray for such things as health, happiness, or prosperity. However, we have no right to pray for a definite outcome of events, especially where other persons are involved. To do so would indicate that we want God to express through another individual according to our standard or belief of what is right for him. Man is a free-will being, and no lasting good is gained by coercion. Neither can one judge as to what experiences are necessary for the awakening and growth of another.

It is good to recognize and affirm for another his innate divinity and thus surround him with a mental atmosphere that will dissolve the barriers he has unconsciously built around himself, and help to arouse in him the realization of his spiritual nature. A positive "treatment" of this kind strengthens his consciousness of spiritual life without in any way interfering; with his individual will and helps him to grasp the full significance of his true relationship to God as His' son.

True prayer is prayer for an understanding heart — prayer that one may come consciously into right relation in his every thought, feeling, word, action, and reaction with the divine law of good. Therefore, it is always right to offer a prayer for a person, or persons, to be divinely illumined, awakened, guided, protected, healed, prospered, and blessed in God's own wonderful way. It is good to pray for the uplifting of mankind everywhere, and for the betterment and improvement of the entire world, that the kingdom of heaven may be established in the minds and hearts of men, and upon the physical earth.

16. "The universal" as used in this question means the God consciousness. In God consciousness we can see a person as a spiritual being who is learning to use his physical body as an instrument on which he may play the symphony of life. The wisdom, intelligence, power, and substance of God are given to all men equally, for there is "one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph. 4:6). Thus all men are one in God, the universal Spirit of Absolute Good; as spiritual beings, this is our true place. When we hold a person "in the universal" we are seeing him where he really belongs — in a realm of good. If he seeks health, we see him filled with God life; if harmony is needed to adjust his life, we see God's love and wisdom bringing order in his affairs; should prosperity be his urgent need, we see the substance of God filling him to overflowing. In none of these have we attempted to interfere with the individual's freedom.

As mentioned in the previous annotation, a universal treatment blesses everyone. In it we declare the word of God to be active in and through all persons, uplifting, healing, protecting, blessing all. In a universal "treatment" we express a desire for God as divine intelligence, love, and order to have full and free expression in each individual. In the universal we see every person as perfect in his spiritual nature, even as God the source of all creation is perfect.

17. "Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26). It is possible to heal all diseases for there is only one Presence and Power in the universe, the presence and power of God, the good omnipotent.

A thought or concept that has produced an appearance or condition of disease has used the same power that when used to picture health, can manifest health in the body. It takes no more thought energy, no more mind substance to use this power to produce a desirable experience than it does to produce sickness or disease. If such were not true, then there would be two powers at work instead of a single, infinite one.

Disease is an effect, an appearance, as a result of bondage to some error thought. No one needs to be held in bondage to error beliefs because God created us free-will beings. As one learns to release all error thoughts by denial, and affirms the Truth, then appearances will charge. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2). Diseases are not real, enduring, because God did not create them. They can be changed by building new states of consciousness, thought by thought, producing a consciousness filled with the realization that God is omnipresent life, the one eternal, enduring, unchanging reality, and man as His offspring is heir to that life.

18. An "overcomer" is one who has "come over" to the understanding of Truth — to the Christ consciousness. An overcomer is one who subdues or masters something; one who conquers or obtains a victory. An overcomer, metaphysically, is an awakened soul who has perceived the Christ within — "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27) — the divinity of man — and makes consistent effort to bring this divine nature into outer manifestation in his body and his world. The overcomer rises above one limitation after another; he sees that the difficulties lie within the wrong beliefs in his own mind and that his body, his affairs, his environment are the objectifications of his own consciousness. He has grasped the truth that the solution to his difficulties lies within himself and he seeks to make conscious contact with the God Presence within to find this solution.

Overcoming includes taking dominion over both conscious and subconscious activities of the mind, putting off all sins, errors, weaknesses, even the habit of death, and putting on the righteous, incorruptible body of Christ.

An overcomer knows that spiritual unfoldment is really a grace, or receiving process, not the losing or giving up of anything real or anything good. The overcomer slowly but surely loses the desire to condemn himself or others and desires only to look for and praise the good in everybody and everything. Knowing that overcoming is done primarily in his own consciousness (mind), the overcomer helps others by his manner of life rather than merely by what he says.

19. There is only one power in the universe, the power of God, Absolute Good; thus there can be no real power in what man terms "evil." All belief in evil as an entity arises because of ignorance of or lack of understanding of Truth. A person always fears that which in unknown; fears which he thinks can subdue or master him. The support that the evil appearance has is in the consciousness (mind) of man who conceives it and gives it the substance of his thought, thus keeping undesirable conditions alive.

We cannot say that evil is the "absence of good," for God as good is omnipresent. The second denial statement given in Lessons in Truth reads,

"There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere" (Emilie Cady Lessons In Truth 4:23).

So-called evil is some undesirable appearance that has come as a result of the wrong use of a perfectly good power. Our producing power in mind is thought. Many times through our lack of understanding we have used ideas wrongly by failing to combine them in their right relation (unrighteous use) or according to the laws of God. Thus wrong manifestations have resulted. For instance, we take from God Mind the idea of love, but if we do not relate it to good judgment, power, order, strength, justice, and the like, the power back of the idea may be brought into action as jealousy, inharmony, possesslveness, even hatred. When love is understood to be the idea of universal unity, it becomes for the one expressing it a magnet to attract blessings into his life and into the life of others. When love is fully and consciously expressed by anyone, all appearances of evil will disappear because there will be no thought of evil to sustain them.

20. The difference between real spiritual righteousness and morality is that the former lies deep in the character of man, as a part of his divine nature, while morality has to do with the conduct of man, with what he does rather than with what he is spiritually.

The dictionary says of morality; "particular moral principles or rules of conduct: conformity to ideals of right human conduct." An individual can only carry out "right human conduct" according to his particular stage of soul unfoldment, thus he will be influenced by customs of environment, country, race, religion. Sometimes morality is thought of as refraining from doing certain things because of the adverse opinions of others or because it is not the custom or fashion to do them. The moral influence is more from without and often motivated by fear of consequences rather than by love and understanding. The Western world tends to take the human standard of morality as set by the Ten Commandments given through Moses and called the Mosaic Law. Nearly all these commandments place a limit on man's conduct and prohibit him from causing injury to others.

Spiritual righteousness on the other hand is the grace and Truth that comes through Jesus Christ. Jesus expressed and manifested in the flesh all the divine ideas or Godlike qualities. Spiritual righteousness ("right use") is God's standard wisely expressed in soul, body, and affairs as a result of the guidance that comes through prayer. No man can be truly righteous unless he is growing nearer in his consciousness to God and daily manifesting more of the God qualities in his life.

It is possible to be outwardly moral without being spiritually righteous. However, it is not possible to be spiritually righteous without morality ("right human conduct"). A righteous man has the power to turn others to God. This power of awakening God in himself and others is possible only in one who lives in conscious union with God. Morality from a purely human standpoint may have no such power and often, unwarned by divine love, can have a chilling effect on others. We have seen this occur in the case of those who follow only the "letter" of the Scriptures and omit the "spirit [that] giveth life" (II Cor. 3:6).

The watchword of morality is duty; but the watchword of spiritual righteousness is good will and service.