The basis for this chapter is Recording 429A, titled “Demands of the Spiritual Life,” from the 1961 Seattle Special Class. This recording is no longer posted on this website. If you subscribe to the Joel Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there. To purchase the recording and/or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.
Please note that while the book chapter is essentially a transcript of the class, the content of the transcript may have been re-arranged in some places during the editing process for the chapter. Consequently, if you are following the chapter as you listen to the recording, from time to time you may have to skip ahead or go back in the chapter to find the corresponding text. Even so, overall, the chapter covers virtually everything that is in the recording.
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As you work with a chapter, ideas for your own study and practice will probably come to you. Sometimes it is helpful to see what came to others in their work with the chapter, and it is in the simple spirit of sharing that we offer these ideas for study and practice for you to use or not, as you are led.
1. Key Points in the Chapter
In studying any chapter or recording, it can be helpful to pull out the key points and put them into your own words. This can bring the essential message of the chapter or recording into stark relief and help us see how we can practice the message. Joel called this “picking out the pearls” so that we can live with them and apply them “because,” he said, “that IS our study.” For example, in Chapter 5, these are the key points that stood out for us:
2. Some Possible Ideas for Practice
Again, ideas for your own practice will probably come to you as you read and study the chapter. We share these simply as examples. Whether the ideas come from within you or from these suggestions, it is often more effective to focus on just one or two that most appeal to you.
Prayer in the New Dispensation
The chapter is about prayer and how to prepare ourselves for prayer. So the obvious practice is to work with Joel’s recommendations for preparing for prayer and to practice prayer in the way it is described in the chapter.
In the book Leave Your Nets, there is a beautiful quotation that captures the essence of Joel’s description of prayer in our study chapter. It makes a fine beginning for prayer: “I sit in the silence in sweet communion with the gentle presence that is already within my own being.” That’s it. Nothing to do. Nothing to think. Nothing to say. Just rest in the Presence.
With respect to the listening attitude that we are to have in prayer, it can be helpful to notice that this is an attitude that we understand and practice in other areas of our lives. It is not something new that we have to learn. For example, when you are watching a movie or a TV program, or attending a concert performance, do you talk during the performance or do you just listen? If you are absorbed in the performance, are you busy with thinking your own thoughts about other things, or are you just watching and listening?
Dying to Material Consciousness
Joel says that to come into spiritual consciousness, we have to die to material consciousness. It is interesting to ask ourselves the question, “How do I die to material consciousness? It is also interesting to ask the question in reverse, “What keeps me in material consciousness?” Asking the question in reverse can give us ideas about what we can do to help ourselves release material consciousness.
Living Your Christhood
Joel also talks about letting the Christ of my being live my life. Again we can ask, “How can I do this?” If we are not yet at the point where we can immediately just “be” in that state of Christ consciousness, it can be helpful in any situation to ask ourselves, “What would a Jesus (or another spiritually perfected master) do in this situation? How would he/she hold his? How would she/he handle this?”
Contemplative Meditation
Joel talks about the value of contemplative meditation as a preparation for prayer, and he gives an example of contemplative meditation on page 73. Joel has suggested that if a subject for contemplation does not come to us right away, we can simply use the question “What is God?” or we can use a verse from Scripture, or we can read in a book until something catches our attention, and then contemplate that.
Recognizing the True Identity of Others
In speaking about preparation for prayer, Joel emphasizes the importance of recognizing the true identity of every individual as well as our relationship of oneness. We can ask ourselves, “How can I practice recognition with everyone with whom I come in contact?” meaning not only those we contact in person, but those who come into our awareness through television, radio, news feeds, and other media. Many individuals whom we do not know personally come into our conscious awareness every day, and some may be those with whom we strongly disagree, or whom we might humanly consider to be “enemies.”
For example, today the politics in many countries is very polarized and tribal, and sometimes we can be tempted to get swept up in that behavior and to judge or condemn certain individuals. But this is an opportunity to practice recognizing the true identity of those with whom we disagree. In doing so, we can help ourselves and help others greatly.
One of the “Eight Most Important Chapters” that Joel identified in The Infinite Way writings is “Love Thy Neighbor,” in Practicing the Presence. When we studied that chapter, we provided an excerpt from one of Joel’s classes, in which he gave us a wonderful technique for discovering and acknowledging the Son of God in others and raising up the Christ in them. We highly recommend that you revisit that document by clicking here. While Joel initially describes this practice using family as an example, it is easily generalized.
If the practice of recognition remains challenging for you with specific individuals, we recommend reading Chapter 16, “That You May Be the Children of Your Father” in The Thunder of Silence. That chapter is an excellent clarification and elaboration on the practice of recognition set forth in our current study chapter.