Is there a charge for the healing work in The Infinite Way?

Is there a set charge for healing, as is the case in some metaphysical movements? There is no charge for healing work in the Infinite Way. No bill is ever sent to an Infinite Way student. And no one is ever refused help because that person does not express gratitude in a tangible form such as money. But, gratitude has to be more than words. Words can be very empty. Now suppose the student sends the practitioner a box of chocolates as payment. Not really payment, as an expression of gratitude for the help given. Perhaps that person isn’t eating chocolates at that particular time. Perhaps that person could use something else. So it is always simpler to simply use the common medium of exchange that we use in the form of dollars or francs or marks or whatnot.

I have observed this about this question: that those students who are touched by the spirit cannot do enough in very tangible ways to express their gratitude. And that is one of the signs that a person has really been touched by the Spirit. Because there is a sense of givingness, of sharing, that is beyond belief, it is so great. But there are others who really are almost like parasites. They want to take and take and take, and there is not the givingness which is so very important and is such a mark of receptivity. And it isn’t the amount, it is the degree of the gratitude and the ability of the person at the moment to express it that is important. With some people, a dollar is a great big amount at that particular moment. With others, several hundred dollars is really nothing by comparison. It is what comes out of the heart of a person that counts.

I don’t like to talk about this, really, because people always think that a person who talks about this is trying to get something. No person who goes into the healing ministry or the teaching ministry, certainly both, has any business (in the healing ministry or the teaching ministry) who expects anything from anybody. That person must have realized his self-completeness, the principle of the infinite nature of his being, so that he looks to no one for anything. But, the practitioner or the teacher is interested not in healing or seeing the person healed, but in opening consciousness, and looks for a sign. But there is no opening of consciousness when a person is a state of taking, and not a state of giving. I have told many of you about the man who came to me years ago and I spent quite a bit of time with him. And he said “how much do I owe you?” and I said “you don’t owe me anything. What you do is your demonstration, I’ve made mine.” My demonstration is giving him the help. There’s no further concern. What he did was his demonstration. And this is what we have to see.

There are some students who have the feeling that they give to a practitioner or a teacher because they feel that practitioner or teacher needs it. Nothing could be farther from the point. That is not it. That is not the basis of expressing gratitude. Expressing gratitude means expressing gratitude period. No one who is in this work ever asks for money. Nobody. Nobody ever says “it’s going to cost me so much to have a class”. And I have gone around the world, once to Australia four times, and to New Zealand, and to Europe four times. And those students who have arranged the work for me know that I have never once asked them to pay my way. The way is always paid ahead of time with an air ticket, a going and return air ticket.

This is not like so many orthodox movements, where people are supposed to go about begging for something. When one attains this consciousness, one never has to ask for anything from anybody because of the principle of omnipresence. It is always omnipresence in consciousness. And the practitioner or teacher’s consciousness unfolds as whatever is necessary, and always with more than enough. With the twelve baskets left over. This is the spiritual principle. This is the principle of supply. And sometimes — as I say it’s something I don’t like to do — I am led to say something to a student about expressing gratitude. But very, very rarely do I do that, because I feel that my own inner work with that student must awaken the student, must open the student’s consciousness. Not to give anything to me, but to the Christ, the infinite nature of his being, so that he is just a state of letting pour out from him the infinity that has been revealed within him.