Question: And this is on the subject of prayer: “If, for example, we pray, ‘bless my enemies; give them light.’ Isn’t that an intercessory prayer?”

Answer: There’s that old thing about language again. Isn’t it? Words. Certainly, if you are going to be technical and stand for an absolute statement of Truth, not only you can’t bless anyone, but you can’t even forgive anyone, because in forgiving them you would be making an acknowledgment of the offense. You’ve got to learn to spiritually interpret Scripture and make use of not only its absolute statements but its application to relative conditions.

Now, had Jesus lived in the absolute, you don’t think for a moment that he would have said, “Go show John what things you have seen. The sick are healed. The dead are raised. The eyes have, the blind have their eyes opened; the ears, the deaf have their ears unstopped.” Don’t you know how relative that statement is? That’s not absolute; it’s not even truthful, from the standpoint of spiritual Truth. Because how did Jesus heal the sick and raise the dead? By knowing there weren’t any such things. But he had to use language, our language to make us understand. He wasn’t so absolute that he didn’t recognize a hungry multitude that had to be fed. He didn’t make any statement of “why do we need loaves and fishes? There’s nobody hungry. Error isn’t real.” He never said anything like that.

He started with the relative appearance. There is a multitude to be fed. Now, what are we going to do about it? What have we in the house? What have we? We have a few loaves and fishes. There’s nothing absolute about that either. The absolute statement is “All that God has, we have.” But he didn’t get an answer like that, and he didn’t expect an answer like that. He was dealing with a relative situation, and he was going to apply to it an absolute spiritual Principle. And so it is with us.

In the absolute, how can you forgive anyone when everyone is the spiritual offspring of God? And I have had students who have been reading the absolute come to me and say, “Your teachings must be wrong, because there is no error. We are all the children of God.” And, “why come and tell me that then?” “Why I need some help.” “Oh no, you can’t in the absolute. Go back to your absolute and find out you don’t need any.” All these things are nonsense. We know what the absolute is, certainly.

But, if you and I were living in the absolute, would we be here in this room? Would we ever sit at the feet of the Master? Would we ever need a spiritual teacher or a spiritual teaching? Heavens no! It is because, to our sense, we are living a relative life. We have been thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Now, we’re earning our living by the sweat of our brow; we’re toiling and trying to find our way back to the Kingdom of Heaven. And now someone comes along and says, “Oh, but you’re already there.”

That actually in our work, we know what the absolute is, and the books are full of it. And yet, we’re dealing with the relative situations that we have on earth today. And you know as well as I do that if you’re in a great deal of pain and asked me for help, and I say to you, “Why you know there is no pain. There is no error.” You like to throw me out of a window, even if you’re too respectful to say so. And I wouldn’t blame you, because that isn’t the answer. It isn’t the answer Jesus Christ would have given you.

He says that “He, the Spirit of God is upon him, and he is ordained to heal the sick.” And yet he knew when he was saying it that the child of God is never sick. And so he’s using the language of our state of consciousness, while lifting us up to his. Probably when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, with students who understood him, probably he said, “You’ll have to talk to these poor fish the same way that I did at Lazarus’ tomb. Not because God needs my prayer, but because these people expect a prayer, and they won’t be healed without a prayer.”

And so it is with us. When anyone asks for help, when they ask me, you know the answer they get, because you’ve gotten it: “I will be with you,” or “I am with you this instant. I will help you. I will continue to be with you, until you realize your freedom.” Now that’s what I’m saying with my lips. Now what am I saying inside of me? “I and the Father are one.” That’s it. “I and the Father are one.” And I stand on that realization of what I have learned about our true Identity. And so it is with this.

Don’t, don’t try to get beyond Jesus Christ, yet. And don’t try to be so absolute that you overlook the fact that there are those of us who are in prison of one sort or another. And, if you find us in prison, come and comfort us. Visit us. And, if we’re hungry, come and feed us. And, if we’re sick, come and heal us. And then, when you’ve lifted us out of our misery, start to teach us about this absolute Truth, and thereby we will be enabled to go and help others.

Question: “We define Consciousness as God. And yet, cannot consciousness be both good and evil?”

Answer: As we have said of mind, no, no, Consciousness cannot be both good and evil, for Consciousness is God. And there is no good or evil consciousness. You may speak or write of the consciousness of error, but you’re using very bad terminology. I’ll tell you that. It’s a bad language, because Consciousness means God, and Consciousness is a synonym for God. It’s more than a synonym for God, really. It’s a higher word for God than G-o-d. And Consciousness can be no more good or evil than God can be good or evil. But probably common usage permits someone to speak of a bad consciousness, and in that case, they would spell it with a small “c” instead of a capital “C.” And there again, you’re back in the old trouble of language again. But Consciousness actually is God and should not be used to speak of good and evil.

Question: “Can you give us something with which to answer the current fears and anxieties about the radioactivity of the earth’s atmosphere due to the atomic explosions?”

Answer: Well now, why stop with just those anxieties? Why not about the anxieties of the atomic bomb, the anxieties of Russia, the anxieties of the next flu epidemic, the anxieties of the next polio epidemic, because I’d rather speak about of all of those fears, rather than one. And, indeed, I can give you something with which to answer those fears. Indeed, I can.

I have been giving classes on this subject for a long, long time. The answer is this. Is temporal power temporal? Is temporal power power? Is material force power? Is mental force power? Is atomic force power? Is there any power in effect? The answer is in human sense, “yes.” That’s why the world is in fear. The remedy, the antidote that which we bring to bear when we’re called on to do healing work is: material force is not power; mental force is not power; atomic force is not power. There is only one Power, and I Am that Power or that Power is embodied in the “I Am, which I Am.” The Kingdom of God is within me; therefore, all Power is within me. That doesn’t leave room for there to be any power in infection, in contagion, in epidemic, in hurricanes, or volcanoes. That doesn’t leave any power in atomic force. That doesn’t leave any power in radioactivity. In fact, it doesn’t leave any power in effect. It leaves Power in cause.