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One of the most inspired and prolific writers about spiritual healing was Joel Goldsmith, mentioned above and in Chapter 10. His ancestors were Jewish, though he had little training in religion. After completing the eighth grade, he left school to become a salesman. A sick colleague told Joel that he knew that if Joel prayed for him, he would be healed. Joel tried it rather than argue. The healing that his friend experienced led to a conversion experience for Joel that compelled him to devote his life to mystical studies, and to teach a spiritual path he named "The Infinite Way." Before his death in 1964, he wrote more than thirty books about "practicing the presence," in which he explained that learning to do spiritual healing is not about "being good." It is about sharing an experience: |
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Prayer is a state of receptivity in which Truth is realized without conscious thought. . . . It is the expression of a desire for a greater awareness of God. . . . God is an experience [and prayer is an experience of God].
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The spiritual healing mind state is not something a person would necessarily learn during religious training. It isn't achieved by doing nice things for people, or by not swearing or coveting (I was relieved to learn). It is not about doing anything. The state is already accessible to each of us, and we can choose to be in that state of awareness at any time, although coveting is always a problem. It is not something that I am able to will with intensity rather, I give myself over to it. That is what is meant to me by, in Christian terminology, "The kingdom of God is within," or "Tat tvam Asi" in the Sanskrit of the Vedas, meaning "That art Thou." The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart described it by saying, "God is an is-ness," and the Katha Upanishad, a sacred text of India, tells us in Sanskrit: ''Finer than the fine, greater than the great, the Self hides in the secret heart of the creature." A spiritual healer quiets his or her thoughts, goes within to a silent, peaceful part of us that is connected to every other, and holds that space. |
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"True prayer must be done purely," says Lawrence LeShan.6 By that, he |
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