Many of us enjoy the classes in which Joel answers questions from students. Sometimes the question is one that we ourselves might have asked. Other times it is one that might not have occurred to us, but which we find interesting, and we are curious about how Joel will answer it.
On this page of our website, on the first and third Saturdays of the month, we will post a new question and answer from one of Joel’s classes or books. We trust that you will find these interesting, helpful, and sometimes an answer to just what is on your mind.
You can also download or print THIS question and answer by clicking/tapping here and then clicking on the download icon at the bottom of that page.
Posted on 11/16/24:
This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 502A: 1962 Hamburg Closed Class, “Henceforth Know We No Man After the Flesh.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available from The Infinite Way website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
Goldsmith Global has permission to provide this material to Goldsmith Global participants for educational and study purposes. Please respect the copyright on this material.
Q: When we come together with people who do not know anything about The Infinite Way or any other mystical teaching, how are we to participate in their conversation, though we do not agree with their standpoint, without hurting them and our own integrity?
A: Now, if you begin to understand that the human picture, even when it’s good, isn’t spiritual—it’s still subject to being bad tomorrow—even if your friends are talking about peace today, there can be war tomorrow; even if your friend says, “I am well today,” they can be sick tomorrow; even if they say, “I am alive” today, they can be dead tomorrow; once you begin to perceive that, you lose all interest in whether they say good things about this human world or bad things, because the good things and the bad things are equally a part of the illusion, equally a part of unreality and changeable.
And so it is, that if our friends want to talk about politics or the bad side of politics, or they want to talk about the possibility of war, it doesn’t bother us, because they’re talking about the unreal nature of the human scene, and it doesn’t disturb us in the least. We can even participate without any violation of our integrity.
In other words, something might come up on a subject of politics. Well, in the United States right now we have the question of Mississippi, and we have the question of Cuba, and from a spiritual standpoint, it really doesn’t make any difference how they settle it, because eventually it is going to have to be changed from a human solution to a spiritual solution. But if we were in the company of someone who wanted to discuss Mississippi or Cuba, we could, and we could even give our opinion as to what the human solution should be without offending our own integrity.
Inwardly, inwardly we all know of what, to us, would seem the best solution to any political problem or monetary problem or industrial problem, and there’s no reason why we cannot discuss our opinion of it without violating our integrity. It would do us no good to get into a discussion that might be argumentative, that might result in discord and inharmony, but if it were an honest discussion, there is no reason why we wouldn’t be entitled to an opinion.
We all must decide when it comes to election time, who we are going to vote for, and therefore, we must have an opinion as to who we think is the right one. The sin would be if we insisted on it so strongly as to believe that everybody else must be wrong and we must be right.
Now, do you see . . . well, here right before me is the new book, and the title is The World Is New. Now, it doesn’t say “The World Is Better” or “The World Is Good” or “The World Is Healthy” or “The World Is at Peace.” No, no, no—nothing accidental about that, either. It says, The World Is New, and that means it isn’t evil and it isn’t good—it’s spiritual. The newness is the spiritual nature of the universe, because as you get into the book, you read that the full quotation is, “The world is new to every soul when Christ has entered in.” This is the full quotation from which this title is taken. The world is new—indeed it is. It isn’t materially evil, but neither is it materially good. It isn’t humanly sick, but neither is it humanly well. When Christ has entered in, you begin to perceive the spiritual nature of this universe. . . .
So it is, when you look out at this world through Infinite Way eyes, through mystical eyes, you are not supposed to see this world as it is in its sick side, nor are you supposed to see it as it is in its well side. You are not to see it as a material universe, but with your spiritual development, you are to see it in its spiritual significance. Now, when you begin to see through this world, you will not see its human evil nor its human good. You will begin to see its spiritual nature.