Love Gratitude

Love Gratitude (1952) is a collection of two essays by Joel S. Goldsmith, a mystical teacher, spiritual healer, and writer. Goldsmith was the creator of a set of principles called "The Infinite Way," which taught that man's nature was to be one with God and to express His infinite power and love.

Joel S. Goldsmith (b. 1982, d. 1964) was born in New York City to non-practicing Jewish parents. He began his career as an apprentice in his father's import business, which gave him the opportunity to travel extensively. The great poverty and suffering that he encountered throughout the world, along with the horrors of war that he experienced as a Marine during World War I, set him on a search for universal truth. He began to study spiritual texts, including those of ancient Greece, Southeast Asia, and Aramaic-speaking cultures.

While returning home from an international trip in the 1920s, Goldsmith contracted pneumonia on the ocean crossing. A Christian Science practitioner among the other passengers is said to have healed him. Soon after, Goldsmith found strangers approaching him on the street, asking for healing and prayer, which he was able to provide.

Goldsmith turned to the Christian Science Church for explanations about this new healing ability. He remained with the church for 16 years but eventually grew disillusioned with organized religion. After leaving Christian Science, Goldsmith began writing his own thoughts and developing his spiritual philosophy. But even as his books grew in popularity, he resisted any attempts to organize his views into a formal religion, which he felt would obscure the original meaning of his spiritual message.

This work is a compilation of two of Goldsmith's essays, titled Love and Gratitude. Through seven short sections, Love explores how love flows around us and through us. We can "Open the avenues of Love through each other by not looking to each other for it but by looking to God for it."

When we expect something in return for an expression of love, we demonstrate only human love, a poor facsimile of the real thing. But when we expect no return for the outpouring of our love, when we accept that "whatever of Love you express is God expressing Itself and so you need not expect a return from it, from that time you enter an entirely new consciousness of life..."

The second essay, Gratitude, teaches that gratitude, like love, is "God expressing Itself through man as man." Goldsmith argues that it is impossible to express gratitude "without expressing some degree of God while you are BEING grateful, for Gratitude is of God...not of man."

We often think of gratitude as feeling appreciation for benefits or blessings. But as gratitude is not of man, "Gratitude is really a form of God activity or God expression. It is, therefore, true that ONLY God can express Love...ONLY God can express Gratitude. We can only be the vehicles through which God pours Itself as Love or as Gratitude."

Gratitude is said to have been a divine message that was delivered directly to Goldsmith.

The principles taught in Love, Gratitude are part of Goldsmith's "Infinite Way," his spiritual and religious philosophy. While he wrote several books on the subject, there is still no organization or formal structure surrounding his teachings, in keeping with his wishes.