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 5/4/24:
This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 705A: 1955 Johannesburg Closed Class, “The Inner Meaning.” 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: How am I to know my purpose and plan in life if I am to cut out all desires and ambition?
A: Now again, that is a misunderstanding. If we desire to be a businessman, when actually we should be a professional man or artistic man, we may thwart our life plan. Whereas if, while we perform our everyday functions that are given us to do; if we in our prayers, in our communion, turn to the Father within, and in the sense of “Reveal the plan for me; reveal my purpose in life,” keeping on doing right now what we are doing while we are doing it, and yet praying this inner prayer for guidance, the way will open to lead us out of what we are doing into what we should be doing.
Now that doesn’t mean giving up ambition. On the contrary, it is indicative of the fact that we are ambitious to be fulfilled. We are ambitious to see ourselves functioning in a rightful order. When I speak of desires and ambitions, I’m speaking of the false sense of these that lead men to become dictators, or lead men to positions in and out of government, in and out of business, that takes them into high places without due regard and consideration for the rights of the world.
In other words, false ambition I speak of as being erroneous, not a rightful ambition. Certainly it is a rightful ambition to be successful. It would be a wrongful ambition merely to be successful to acquire a million dollars. And so, one has to understand what they mean by desires and ambitions.
It’s right to desire the realization of God. It is right to desire that God fulfill Itself in harmony in our daily living. But to go to God in prayer with a specific desire that we want God to fulfill results in failure, because God does not fulfill our desires. God fulfills Itself in us.