A: No, to me it is the right attitude. When I am studying; when I am reading; when I am praying, communing—and that’s what we are doing here—I am filled with ideas. I’m filled with the feeling of God, and I want to remain at peace within my own being and do not like to be disturbed outside, even with those that are on the same path. I want to be alone. Or if I am in their company, I want them to be completely silent, not talking to me.
Now that doesn’t mean that there aren’t periods for sociability, but it does mean that when we are at the height of our work and our communion, it is best either to be alone or to be in the company of those who are willing to be completely silent. That of course, as you know, is one of the difficulties of family life. But the serious student has to find time to go into another room for their meditations or, if necessary, to get up in the middle of the night and be alone with it. Everyone can work out some way of being alone certain hours of the day, and if not of the day, of the night—and one has to do it in this work—and then be alone with it, be in silence with it, just as people ordinarily do anyhow when they get to know each other well enough. They don’t find it necessary to chatter all the time they’re together. In this work, it is definitely so that more hours are spent in quiet communion, even with others, than in speech.
There isn’t too much important to speak about anyhow, and a strange thing happens. After some months of this study, you can’t even talk truth anymore. There’s no more desire to talk it. Words become superfluous; thoughts become superfluous. One wants to just live with their inner unfoldment all the time, and so I find that the deeper students quickly get to a place where they never want to discuss it. They take in their favorite reading, whatever it may be, their favorite meditation, and they may have a person here or there that they’ll discuss some point with, but very, very little of conversation about it. It’s happened that way with me. I’m not easy to talk truth to outside of the classroom or the practitioner work, because—well, that’s just the way it is. A little point here, a little point there, but not much talk about it.
1This excerpt is from Recording 624A, 1953 Second New York Closed Class, “Questions and Answers.” 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 at www.joelgoldsmith.com or by calling 1-800-922-3195.