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.
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Posted on 5/16/26
This copyrighted excerpt is from 137A: 1956 Melbourne Closed Class, titled “The Principles of ‘As’ and ‘Is’.” It is posted with the kind permission of the Estate of Joel S. 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 Office 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.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have access to the recording from which a question is excerpted, you might enjoy hearing Joel himself answer the question. When possible, we will provide the time stamp at which Joel addresses the question. The time stamp is from the recording on the Streaming Service, where each recording begins with a 10-second announcement. So, if you are listening to your own recording, the excerpt will probably begin 10 seconds earlier than the time stamp.
If you have access to recording 137A and would like to hear Joel’s answer, he begins the class with this question.
Q: To me, no effort is required to be aware of God’s presence, but a real mental effort is required to become conscious of a few words.
A: Now the whole idea is this. It is not necessary to be aware of a few words. Words are only auxiliaries, and if one has the conscious awareness, even without words, they are already in heaven. Words sometimes are an interference; thoughts very often are an interference. And a person who has the consciousness without words or thoughts is already in heaven.
The only time that we need words and thoughts is in teaching. We do not need it in living; we do not need it in healing. As a matter of fact, the fewer words that we use in relationship to our patients, the better off we are. Those who have had experience with me know that my conversation is usually limited to “I will help you.” I very seldom go any further than that. Certainly, I very rarely voice a truth unless there is something that specifically requires it. Wherever it is possible, I avoid voicing truth when I am called on for help, and I merely give the assurance that I will help.
The reason is this. Sometimes voicing a truth may antagonize one rather than help one. I know that it does me if I am ill, or not feeling well, or require help, and I ask for help. And I do occasionally. I have a dozen students that I very happily can turn to. I resent it very much if they start voicing truth to me because I’m not interested in what they think about truth, or what they know about truth, or what they think I ought to know about truth. What I am seeking is a consciousness of truth.
In other words, if you are in pain and I say to you, “Oh, now, you know it doesn’t really pain,” you know you’d get so mad, you’d want to throw something at me. That is the way I feel. And so it is that there is an accident, and some practitioner or metaphysician says, “Oh, there are no accidents in Divine Mind.” I’m not particularly concerned about what is in Divine Mind; I’m more apt to be concerned with what is right here. And to make these statements, which are more or less clichés, well, I don’t like it.
That does not mean that we aren’t called on occasionally to voice truth, in contradistinction to some appearance. But in the healing work, keep it to as little as possible, and give as great an assurance as possible that you are standing by. And really stand by in consciousness, not with lip service. Not with words, with clichés, but with a real consciousness of the Presence. Now, we are going to come to what I mean a little later this evening.
It says, “For me, no effort is required to be aware of God’s presence.” I would be aware of that in this sense: that to be very sure that you really mean it, that you are aware of God’s presence because there are those who fool themselves by believing that they are aware of it, and they aren’t at all. How can you tell the difference? By your life experience, by the fruitage. If you really are experiencing a continuous harmony; if you are finding that there is a Presence going before you to make the crooked places straight; if the problems are quickly and easily being solved; of course then, there is no question but that you do have a consciousness of God’s presence.
But if you think you are having the consciousness of God’s presence and are continuously running into problems that do not solve themselves, or that do not quickly disappear, you may be fooling yourself. You may be having what we call “an emotional jag.” You see, that happens too often in the metaphysical world, more especially with people who are emotional. They are very apt to believe that they have the realization of God’s presence because they have some kind of an emotional experience or a sensation of some kind, and that is not a good foundation.
You can tell whether you have God’s presence realized by the fruitage in your life. And if the problems of your life and of those who appeal to you for help are being met, you are on safe ground. You have the Presence. But if not, then watch your step, and go a step further, and see if you can’t really attain that Presence, which announces Itself by fruitage. If you are consciously one with God, you will know it by the spiritual fruitage in your life.
I must interrupt right here to remind you that when you are thinking, feeling about this Presence, please never forget that unless you are at the same time unseeing human good as well as human evil and going through the center to the Invisible, you may be getting into that state of mind, consciousness, of many of the religious leaders and mystics of the world who had this inner feeling of oneness with God, but never had a happy day, or a healthy day, or a prosperous day, and suffered all of the errors of the human world.
In other words, it isn’t just the awareness of the presence of God that does all this. It is, at the same time, the awareness of the mesmeric sense of the human picture—whether it’s good or bad—and not indulging it, enjoying it. Certainly, it’s a “suffer it to be so now,” and we can, to a certain extent, enjoy the fruitage of it, as long as we are not congratulating ourselves that the human good is our spiritual demonstration. It isn’t!
The spiritual demonstration is: What is the source of that human good? And if your mind is on the source, not on the effect, then you do well. And if you’re not judging your well-being just by good physical appearances, but are consciously remembering that what you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is not the reality, even when it’s beautiful. Always, you must remember the Invisible, which is the reality, and which is the source and cause of our outer good.