Chapter 8: “The Fruitage of Knowing God Aright”

The Recording for This Chapter 

The basis for this chapter is Recording 326B, titled “The Fruitage of Knowing God Aright, continued,” from the 1960 Chicago Closed Class. This recording is no longer available on this site. If you subscribe to the Joel Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there.  To purchase the recording 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.  

Optional Study Suggestions

To download or print these, click/tap here.

1.  In this chapter, Joel gives further instruction on what it means to live spiritually, and he illustrates how living spiritually affects all aspects of life.  The chapter gives us an opportunity to reflect on the degree to which we are living spiritually and whether there are any aspects that need our attention.

Joel reminds us that to live spiritually, we must:

• Know the nature of God as the Father within, the mystical I of my being that maintains and sustains me, knows and meets my every need, and gives me the kingdom.
• Share, give, serve, forgive, and cooperate, forgetting myself in my service to God and man. The divine love that I share meets my own need.  I perform every task given me to do with no thought of reward.
• Be consciously aware that all that the Father has is mine.  I must know this truth to the point of realization.
• Know that God is my selfhood and the selfhood of every other individual.
• Realize that I cannot use or influence God in any way.
• Always pray spiritually, which means never to pray for my own gain or benefit.
• Apply spiritual principles to every aspect of my life. Joel gives examples in this chapter of how spiritual principles can be applied in business, in sales, and in teaching, and he points out that they can be applied in any aspect of life.

2.  In speaking about bringing spiritual principles into business, or into any activity that involves relationships, Joel reminds us of the importance of two chapters in the writings:

• “Love Thy Neighbor” in Practicing the Presence
• “The Relationship of Oneness” in The Art of Spiritual Healing

These are two of the eight chapters that Joel said were the most important chapters in the writings, and we worked with them during our study program on the eight most important chapters.  If you would like to review these parts of that study program, you can access them from the Study Center under “The Eight Most Important Chapters in The Infinite Way Writings” or by clicking here.