Now, one of the deepest sins is bearing false witness against our neighbor. That’s one of the deepest sins. How do we refrain from it? By acknowledging God to be the true identity of our neighbor, by acknowledging God. That doesn’t mean when we’re dealing with a criminal that we may not have to send him to jail. It only means that we should not be holding him in condemnation, and we shouldn’t be sending him there for punishment. Until he awakens himself to his true identity, it may be better for him and for society that he be kept out of circulation. But there should be no animosity in it; there should be no idea of a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye; there should be no idea of revenge, or you have it coming to you, or you deserve it. No, there should be compassion, “I know why you sin, you didn’t know the truth; you never knew your own identity; you never have been brought face-to-face with yourself; otherwise you would have known there’s no reason to sin. You are the individualization of all that God is; you have…Son thou art ever with Me, and all that I have is thine. You never had to steal it or lie for it or cheat for it or defraud. Son, all that I have is thine. You don’t have to take it, let it unfold.”

And so it is, that how can we criticize the people who have been brought up in ignorance of truth, in ignorance of their true identity. You know you must remember this: we have a right somehow or other, I don’t know how we got it, to call ourselves Christians while we’re violating Christ teaching. It’s a strange thing, but it happens all the time. We’re allowed to condemn people to death, and still be good Christians. Oh, we’re allowed to do a lot of things; but not spiritually.

Spiritually you have to be under the grace of God, and you can only bring yourself there when, through the realization of God’s nature, and the realization of the universal nature of evil, the impersonal nature of evil—never pinning it onto an individual—that you are able to come to that place in consciousness where you say, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” And supposing they do it over again, and over again, and over again? As far as you’re concerned they know not what they do. They don’t any more know the seventy-first time than they did the seventy time or the first time, they still know not what they do until there is an awakening.

Now, are they at fault for not awakening? And the answer is no. No. I’m going to show you something very quickly. You know how difficult it is in your own family to try to bring every member of the family into obedience through harmony, you know as well as I do that there are those who just can’t be brought into that. And you also know that you can’t preach at them and bring them around; you also know that you can’t nag at them and then bring them around. And the question often comes up, “Well then, how do you do it?” And that’s a good question, and it has a good answer. The only way really, that you can do it is to stop talking, and go within and make contact with the center of your being, the source, until the Son of God is raised up. And then you’ll find that that Son of God which has been raised up in you will be a power of forgiveness, of regeneration of adjustments, in them.

And I want to illustrate that for you, so it’ll be clear. I have had a good deal of experience in prison work, and I’ve worked with quite a few prisoners in several prisons. And I have found this: all the preaching in the world that these men get from many sources, doesn’t change their nature or their character or their way of life. But when they come under the influence of a metaphysician who really knows, their nature is transformed, their character is transformed, their conduct in prison is transformed. And, not only that they are changed, but strangely enough, the parole board knows it and paroles them very quickly. It’s really a miracle sometimes to see how that parole worked without any human intervention, the moment the change has taken place in that individual.

Now what does it? When you go into a prison without condemnation, without judgment, without criticism, knowing in your heart and soul that these men have only done whatever they’ve done in ignorance—in ignorance of their true identity, in ignorance of the truth. You know right well they’re not really criminals; nobody’s wants to be a criminal. Whatever it is they’ve done, they’ve done for reasons beyond their immediate control at that moment, so there’s no use preaching; there is no use condemning, and there’s no use threatening them with more punishment, and hell. There is use in this: going in there, first of all, without criticism, judgment, or condemnation, but in the Spirit of I know thee whom thou art, thou art the Christ the Son of the living God. Even though it is dormant, Christ is the reality of your being; the Son of God is your true nature. You may not know it, but I do. This is all silent; this is all in meditation, before going into the prison, before seeing a man.

Then, in making contact, you make contact without any harm in your mind, without any judgment or criticism, and that man feels it. That man instantly feels the hand of friendship, and something opens and responds in them. From there on it’s easy, because now as you meditate and you make contact with the center of your being, and the Christ is released; that Christ changes the consciousness of that man or woman.

All that I’m expecting you to understand: that you don’t go into a prison and reform everybody that’s there, that there is only those who are led to you, attracted to you, that will work with you or come to you; they have opened themselves for this spiritual entrance, this spiritual activity. And, as long as you go in there pure at heart, and then have your meditation until you have had this release of the inner Spirit, you will find that you will raise up the Son of God in them. And it’s a wonderful thing to see how quick the warden notices it, and how quick the parole board notices it, and how very quick they’re released and they’re out, without your taking a human footstep.

Now, this is the principle in our healing work: You do not sit in judgment on your patients. You do not call them bad; you do not try to make them more loving or more forgiving or more generous. You don’t try to get them to read twenty more pages of your book every day. You don’t try to make them go to church. You leave them strictly alone. You turn within yourself, and you raise up the Son of God in yourself by virtue of having no criticism, judgment, or condemnation in you when you go into your meditation, you’re enabled to forgive them they know not what they do, and then be at peace until that inner release comes, that inner assurance of the Presence. And then you will know that the Spirit is now at work in the consciousness of your patient.

And remember, your patient can be a person, an animal, a bird, an insect, a plant, because life is life, and all life is consciousness, and consciousness responds to consciousness. In other words, in the human stage of our life, if an individual is good-natured, friendly, those who come in contact with them automatically like them. They respond to it. If an individual is mean, nasty, suspicious, dishonest, there’s a drawing back from them. In other words, what we are, announces itself, and therefore we have a law of cause and effect. In other words, if I’m humanly good, I attract to me; if I’m humanly bad, the opposite takes place. But the very moment when we start and the Son of God is raised in us, there is no longer attraction nor repulsion; there is spiritual oneness. We are now one in Christ Jesus, that is, we are now one in spiritual sonship, and there’s neither good nor evil, there’s just one and that one is the Son of God.

In other words, in every thing we do, we are to raise up the Son of God in us, and then in our meditation, raise up the Son of God in all whom we meet. And do it by impersonalizing evil. The very moment that you impersonalize it, by knowing that evil is not of person, or in person, evil has no person, you really have them fifty percent free of their discords, just with that one realization. Impersonalization, and then of course, “nothingizing” that which does not come from God, are the two most important parts of our healing work.