Now, in the same way with alms, with benevolence, with charity. First of all, it must be clear to students here that none of us have the power to give or to withhold. As a matter of fact, we have nothing to give or to withhold. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. That you must understand. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Never are you giving anything of yourself, whether it’s service or whether it’s dollars. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. All you’re doing is passing around parts of God’s kingdom, and you’re doing it under God’s direction, so therefore, the best thing to do is to keep it secret what you’re doing with God’s supply. Keep it sacred. Keep it secret. Be an instrument of the Father, and then if the Father bids you give service to someone, or give dollars to someone, or give food to someone, do it, but keep the relationship secret, and keep it sacred, because it isn’t your business that you’re devoting, it’s God’s business, and these things should not be known.

Then, when you do it in that sense, you have the benefit of knowing that it isn’t your activity, it’s God’s activity. God’s activity never depletes anyone. God will never let you take one dollar from your funds for any purpose. You may pass on a dollar for God’s purpose, but it will quickly be replaced where it came from. There is no such thing ever as giving away something of our own, whether it’s in the realm of thoughts, or things, or services, or truth. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and we are instruments used by the Divine for Its purpose. And Paul once said, “If I give you my spiritual things, it means that I reap from you the material things.” In other words, whether we are imparting spiritual things or material things, the activity is God’s, and so we can be as free with material things as we are with spiritual things. As a matter of fact, we are more apt to be freer with material things, because we are apt to think we haven’t enough understanding to give of spiritual things, and that’s where we make a mistake. We have God’s understanding and that is Infinite, and all we have to do is to be silent, and let it go through.

Now, he next says, and this is a terrible blow to metaphysics, but “when ye pray, use not vain repetition as the heathens do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” Yes, they really think God’s going to hear them when they make affirmations, and denials, and statements of Truth. They really think God is going to hear them, and if they don’t, they think the patient’s going to hear them—patients least possible to hear them. Certainly not God.

Now then, “when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathens do,” and here, if you can accept this, I will give you the deepest thing I have ever learned in all of this work and that is learn as rapidly as you can to get into the Silence without a thought of any kind, because when you are in that Silence, the whole Power of God is working in you, and through you, and for you. The whole Power of God is never working while there’s still a thought dividing some of that space in your consciousness. The finest treatment in the world is an absolute and complete Silence, in which no thought enters the mind—not even the name of the patient, or the name of the disease, or the condition but which is an absolute state of peace. Here it is.

[Long pause in the Silence]

Now, here is where the Power is. In that stillness, I have no desire to help anyone. I have no desire to heal anyone. I have no desire to battle the errors of the world. I have only one desire—to be so completely at peace that the Presence of God can be felt. Now, when the Presence of God is felt, can there also be the presence of sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation? Can you actually experience the Presence of God and the presence of a discord at the same time? No, then the whole secret is, whether meditating for your self or meditating for another, have no desire to help, improve, or heal. Don’t be a human do-gooder. And there’s nothing wrong about being a do-gooder for those on the do-good level, but remember this that this is not that level. This level is that of God realization, because in God realization, there can be no form of discord or inharmony, no power opposed to God, no power at all opposed to God. There can be nothing but the Infinity of God’s Peace, God’s Power, God’s Presence, God’s Love, God’s Life, God’s Joy, God’s Supply, God’s Allness.

Now, we can’t induce that. We can’t induce God’s Presence. God’s Presence is already here, but we can’t become aware of it through the activity of the mind, because the things of God are foolishness with man. They just won’t come through. There has to be a stilling of the mind in order to be in that Spiritual atmosphere in which the Presence of God is felt. Now, after a while, it becomes so automatic that you’re in that consciousness probably sixty, seventy, eighty percent of the time. The rest of the time, you have to go back into meditation—the meditation of Silence—to reestablish yourself in it. It is always here, but we aren’t. We’re out in the human mind somewhere in the word I. And so you will find that there’s no use, no power in vain repetition. There is no power in affirmations or denials, except the power of self-hypnosis.

You can take affirmations and denials and use them and have temporary healings, as on a mental level. That doesn’t say you won’t be subject to them again the next day. I have to say, go and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you. In other words, the moment you go back to the old state of consciousness, even though you’ve gotten rid of an error, the moment you go back to the state of consciousness that brought it, you have it back again and sometimes in worse form.

But when you have opened yourself, so that this Word descends upon you, envelops you, there’s an experience here that describes it. This describes it very, very well. Better than any words of mine can. From Luke: “And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore, also, that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.” That is what happens every time there is a meditation, every time there is an inner communion in Silence, the Holy Ghost descends upon you, and the Power of the highest overshadows you, and then in that sense, in that split second the Christ is conceived.

Now, in Luke, this is supposed to have been told to Mary, but there isn’t any reason why it just as well cannot be told to Mildred, and Joseph, and Joel, or anybody else who goes into the Silence, because the birth of the Christ, this holy thing is a Spiritual conception, and it takes place in the consciousness of those individuals who open themselves to the activity of the Christ. It can’t be brought on by physical means, and it cannot be induced by mental means. It can be experienced through a complete opening of consciousness, and it has happened to many, many people whom I know. The Holy Ghost comes upon them, and the Power of the highest overshadows them, and “therefore, also, that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God,” and it is. It is the Son of God or Christ, the Spiritual identity of your being that comes into conception at birth in that overshadowing Silence.

Peter tells us at his experience with Cornelius that when he went to Cornelius and taught him and his group that the Holy Ghost descended upon all those who were prepared for it. On all the Gentiles, remember. On all the Gentiles, the unclean. The Holy Ghost descended upon all them that God had prepared for it. And so it is, God prepares us by calling us into meditation and Silence. May I say this? That nobody can meditate of themselves. Unless they have the Grace of God, it will not come, and so when you meditate, please remember that you are seeking the Grace of God to complete that meditation in you. It is not something that humanly can be accomplished.