But, the point that I make is this: that that is only an occasional experience. Once we meet God face to face and know what the presence and power of God does in our life, from then on we live only for one purpose: that is, to live in that Presence; to live and move and have our being in Him.

You know, Scripture says to us, “Whom, to know aright, is life eternal.” God, whom to know aright is life eternal. So we don’t have problems to work out; we have God to know aright! We could all of us, afford to give up all attempts to solve our problems, and say, “What difference does it make whether it’s solved or unsolved if I haven’t found…to know God aright, if I haven’t come to know God aright?”

So my problem now is just one: to know Him aright, whom to know aright is life eternal. Once I know God aright, well I can’t have problems. It would be like saying “We’ll turn on the electricity and then try to get rid of darkness.” No, there isn’t any darkness when the electricity’s been turned on. When the sun comes up, the darkness disappears. When we come to know God aright there are no problems because problems only exist as shadows; problems only exist as appearances. They have no real existence; they have no substance, have no law and no cause. They only exist as mental images. But they’re mental images created in darkness. When the light of truth shines those mental images disappear, then the physical, mental, moral, financial trouble flies right out the window.

One of the quickest ways to realize God is to begin to do healing work. It doesn’t make any difference how little truth you know. It doesn’t make any difference that you may never have had any experience. Nobody had when they gave their first treatment. Nobody had ever healed anyone when they healed their first case. There had to be a first treatment, there had to be a first case for everybody in the world including Jesus Christ. There had to be a first.

Now, in Spirit there are no diplomas given out to tell you when you’re ready to do healing work. There are no degrees; there are no examinations to pass, because there isn’t anyone knows your fitness but you. Passing a written examination doesn’t determine that because it isn’t the intellectual knowing of the truth that has any healing power, none whatsoever. If there were, we could pass out these books to all these great brains, they could memorize them, and then we could set them up doing healing work. It’s rarely that you find one of those great brains capable of any healing. And yet they could learn all of the truth that are in these books faster than we could.

No, there is one thing needful for healing, and that that’s needful doesn’t take time and it doesn’t take experience. It might take a little courage at first, but that’s all. Not too much courage because you don’t really have to start with cancer cases or polio cases or people who are in danger of dying the next hour. You can always start somewhere else.

But here’s what it takes: it takes an individual who knows one truth, just one and it doesn’t make any difference which one that is. It doesn’t make any difference whether they learned it in the Bible, in Christian Science, in Unity, in New Thought, The Infinite Way. It makes no difference where you learned it so long as you know one statement of truth. Then you sit down quietly somewhere and have time, opportunity, and peace and you begin to ponder that one truth. Just that one truth, that’s the only one you know; the only one you can remember; the only one you can think of, so we will take that one.

And out of that you’re going to learn what the Immaculate Conception is, because out of that one truth you’re going to find you’ll have a baby very soon. You don’t need two truths to get a baby truth, just one truth will present its own image and likeness. Just one truth will have an Immaculate Conception and the next thing you know it will give you another truth and then another, and another, and another. The longer you sit there the more you’re going to astound yourself with how much truth you know.

And then you’re going to ask yourself, “Where did I learn it all?” Because some of it you just picked up out of the air and some of it is just treasured memories that you’ve forgotten and some of it you’ll find—and I can bear witness to this—some of it, you never in your life knew or heard of and God imparted it directly within you. And you know, if you’re not careful, you’ll think it’s original with you and you’ll go and get it copyrighted and find out that it’s three thousand or four thousand years old.

I was once invited to talk to a church in California, Protestant church, and on this particular day it was really jam packed to the door, and it was some kind of a holiday and everybody was, I guess feeling, they were very, very Christian. And probably thought because they were Christian they had a monopoly on truth or something of the kind, or a monopoly on God. And I’ve always asked those who introduce me to audiences, “Please use no adjectives, I don’t want to be sold and then find that I’m fallen short of the advertising.” So I beg and plead, “Don’t, don’t, don’t use adjectives when you introduce me!” Let each one make up their own adjectives as they go along.

But this man thought that he would surprise me and do me a great favor, so he introduced me as the greatest teacher on earth today, and maybe the greatest of all time. Now of course, that’s quite a reputation to live up to, I wouldn’t try that in a crowded church like that so I said, “I suppose you all know this man and know what a sense of humor he has. That’s his idea of modern vaudeville, because the truth is I’m not a teacher at all. I don’t know anything about teaching. I’ve learned a few simple things that I try to share with our friends. I could hardly call that teaching. And to illustrate this, I’m going to really start by asking a question,” and I recited the two Great Commandments of the Master: “Thou shall have no other gods but one. Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” And I said, “I wonder if you know the source of those two statements?”

Well, you know, practically everybody did, they told me they were the Master’s two commandments. “Heavens no, no, no! No, you’re far wrong. That first one is from the Book of Exodus, way back in the Hebrew Testament. It’s the first of the Ten Commandments given by Moses. The second one’s older than that, it goes back to Deuteronomy, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.

“Now then, do you see what I mean—I’m not a teacher, I just learned a few things I want to share with you and I want to share this with you so that you’ll understand that we’re not celebrating a Christian holiday today, we’re celebrating truth—universal truth that goes before Abraham and extends up to the end of the world.”

Now, I’m repeating that to you for this reason, that a short time before that day I didn’t know this myself, didn’t consciously stop to think that these were things out of the Hebrew Testament. I too walked around thinking I was being a good Christian by calling them the Lord’s commandments. And I didn’t learn from then, but one day in opening the Bible I opened smack into that statement Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself, and I never knew, never dreamed that that had been voiced before the Master voiced it. Well of course later I found out it was voiced even before the Hebrew Testament.