Session 2: Recording 487B: “Temporal Power”

The Recording

This recording was not used as source material for any book.

• This recording was posted through May 1, 2021, and is no longer available on this website.  If you subscribe to the Joel Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there.
• To purchase this recording from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.
• To purchase the transcript for this recording, click/tap here.    (Please note:  The available transcript for this class session seems to have been done from a recording that was a “remake” of the class, and so occasionally it varies from the recording we heard.  We believe that the original recording may have had a lot of extraneous noise on it, and that Joel re-recorded the class for distribution.  We think that later, when the technology was available to remove the extraneous noise from the original recording, the “re-made” recording was removed from the library of recordings, and the original was reinstated.  The recording we used is the only currently available authentic recording for this class session, and we expect that at some point, a new transcript will be issued for it.  However,  for the most part, the transcript that is available now does follow the recording we heard.) 

Optional Study Suggestions

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1)  Commentary on the Class Session

 The “Pearl” in the Lesson

Joel is so emphatic about the core message of this lesson that it would be hard to miss it. The pearl, the nugget, in the lesson is that temporal power is not power in the realized presence of God.

In other words, in the realization of God as constituting your being, God as incarnate in you, God as already present in you, temporal power is not power, and you must not fight it. The so-called powers that the world is fighting are not powers; they cause difficulty because they are accepted as powers.

Joel points out that an Infinite Way practitioner does not pray to God to overcome anything.  He or she withdraws from the battle to overcome something, and in quiet contemplation, realizes the presence of God.  The practitioner brings to conscious awareness the presence of God, the experience of God.  Then in that Presence, which is Light, there is no darkness. The Light does not make the darkness disappear; the darkness is not an entity, not a thing.  Darkness is the absence of Light.  In the same way, sin, disease, and discord of any nature are not things; they are the absence of God realized.  While it is true that God is omnipresence, that omnipresence is of no avail until it is realized.

How Can We Prove the Unreal Nature of Temporal Power?

How can we prove the unreal nature of temporal power, whether in the form of germs, infection, contagion, epidemics, weather, climate, food, accident, sins, or wars?  Joel tells us how:

• Learn how to become still inside and know that “I in the midst of thee am God;” that “I in the midst of thee will never leave thee nor forsake thee;” that “I will be with thee unto the end of the world.”
• Learn to know that you do not seek your food, your clothing, or your housing from outside, nor do you even pray to God for it. Learn to be still and know that “I in the midst of thee am your bread and your wine and your water. I am your inspiration; I am your wisdom,” and that this I is the I at the center of your being, the presence of the Christ, the God-Presence, the Spirit of God that indwells you.
• Learn to know that Paul’s words are real: “I can do all things through Christ; I live yet not I; Christ liveth my life.” This Christ indwells you: “The kingdom of God is within you.”  Stop seeking for God in heaven, in a church, or even in a book.  You will not find God in a book.  The right book will tell you to seek God within yourself. It will remind you not to put your faith in the book but to let the book guide you to find the kingdom of God within yourself.

When you have realized that the Christ indwells you; that the kingdom of God is within you; then realize that in that presence of God, consciously realized, temporal power is not power.

Do not be satisfied with the metaphysical statement “evil is not real.”  It is a half-truth.  The full truth is “In Thy Presence there is fulfilment; Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”  In other words, where the Spirit of God is consciously realized, evil is not power.”

If you are fighting evil, you are not realizing your spiritual identity. The only way you can stop fighting evil is by realizing that in the presence of God, consciously realized, evil is a non-entity—not in the statement “God is omnipresent,” but in the conscious realization of God-Presence.

Joel says that the function of our work in The Infinite Way is to bring us the ability to retire from the world at any moment, regardless of what we are doing with our minds or bodies, because the only place you retire from the world is within your consciousness. Do anything that you are called upon to do, but in your consciousness, retire from the world by realizing that in the presence of the indwelling Spirit of God, temporal power is not power.  God is not a power that destroys temporal powers—God is the only power, and where the presence of God is realized, there are no other powers.

Retiring within has to be a conscious activity of your consciousness; it has to be a “praying without ceasing.”  We have to learn to be in the world but not of it.  We have to be able to do anything that we are called upon to do with our hands, our body, or our mind, and yet realize, “In Thy Presence is fulfillment; in Thy Presence temporal power is not power; in Thy Presence, there are no other powers.”

Joel’s Recap

Joel clearly recaps the point of this class session in this way:

“This is the point I would like you to carry away and never forget: Do not think of God as going out to heal disease or be a power over other powers.  Think of temporal powers as non-power in the presence of this indwelling Christ. In other words, give up the battle. … We are not engaged in the battle of good and evil. No, we have withdrawn from the battle in the realization that in the presence of God, temporal power is not power.”

2)  Find the Points of Practice

As always, it is a good idea to review the recording and note any points of practice that Joel suggests. Some are given in the commentary above, but you will find others.

3)  Meditation with Joel on the Non-Power of Temporal Power

Joel addresses this same topic—temporal power is not power—in another class session, in which he also leads the students in several beautiful meditations on this theme.  This is recording 432B, from the 1961 Canadian Special Class, titled “Non-Power—Meditation.”  It is the basis for Chapter 9, “Meditation on Non-Power,” in Seek Ye First.   This recording is no longer posted on this website. If you subscribe to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there. To purchase the recording or the transcript, click/tap here.