"A Parenthesis in Eternity" by Joel S. Goldsmith

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Chapter 11 - The Nature of Spiritual Power

The development of spiritual consciousness is possible when we leam that there is only one power. If we can rise in spiritual vision to the apprehension of the one truth that God is, that God is infinite and omnipotent, and therefore nothing else or nobody else is power, that is enough. This is spiritual discernment.

To the worid, there are great powers and little powers, but he who is anchored in spiritual consciousness knows that no weapon that is formed against him shall prosper. If we accepted that literally, we would believe that there is a deadly weapon that could prosper except that God in some way is going to save us from it. To the uninitiated, that passage would indicate, "I have an enemy who has a deadly atomic bomb, and I know what it can do to me, but fortunately God says that no weapon that is formed against me shall prosper, and therefore I am now immune, and this deadly weapon can no longer harm me."

But the weapon does do harm when it is let loose in the world. And this is because people do not understand the Teal meaning of no weapon having power over them. The truth is that no deadly weapon has power because Life is God; and God has never made anything to destroy His own immortality and etemality. God is our life: we aTe eternal and immortal.

If we look out at this life through our mind, we are subject to every manner of deadly weapon: germs, bullets, bombs, and so many other things we need not rehearse them. Even an automobile on the road can be a very deadly weapon, and, above all, the calendar is so deadly that all we have to do is to keep looking at it for threescore years and ten, and then any day we are due for extinction. But the deadliest weapon of all is the mind of man that believes in two powers, and therefore accepts a mind of its own in which evil is a power. Neither bullet-proof vests nor bomb-proof shelters can save us from that weapon. Only in the understanding that we are life eternal, that God is our life, that we are immortal and spiritual, and that in the entire kingdom of God there are no deadly weapons—physical, mental, or otherwise—can we find safety and security.

With practice and meditation, we shall come to see that it is literally true that there is no weapon that has power because there is only one power, and that is the immortal life and the divine truth which we already are. There is no life for us to attain; there is no truth for us to attain: there is only the recognition of the truth that we are the truth, that we are life eternal, and the realization that the infinite nature of God makes it impossible for any deadly weapon to exist.

When this becomes realized consciousness, we can face the bomb, the bullet, the lion, or the weather: "I have lived in fear of you, but the truth is that you exist merely as a belief in two powers. The only existence you have is in the mind of man, and you cannot get outside of that mind to do anything to anybody. All you can do is to destroy those who entertain that same belief in two powers." These powers that appear to be destructive are so only to the individual who insists that there is a "this," a "that," or an "it"; but it is he himself who has formed the weapon, and all that weapon is, is a belief entertained in his own mind.

Once we accept the principle that because God never made a deadly weapon, no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper, then the bomb will explode in the midst of the very person holding it in his hand. He is the person with the belief in two powers, and he must reap the results of his belief.

That is why wrong mental practice, mental malpractice, whether it is done individually, collectively, or by universal belief, has no power whatsoever except on the malpractitioner himself. The malpractitioner accepts two powers, and he is, therefore, a victim of his own belief. Harm can come to us if we agree with him that there are two powers, and seek refuge behind a wall or in a statement of truth; but if we know that we are life eternal and that nothing can destroy the immortality of life or create a power destructive to the life of God, we are no longer the victims of the belief in two powers. The malpractitioner believes in two powers, but as he sends out his belief in two powers, it touches our understanding of one power, and all it can do is to boomerang because those who accept the belief in two powers go down under their belief.

If there is a person left in this enlightened age who is still engaging in malpractice—trying to destroy the life which is God, or trying to prove that there is a power other than God-power — it is an object lesson to watch what happens to him when his malpractice hits up against a person who has perceived the truth that God is individual life. If we believe that there is an evil power from which our understanding of God will protect us or if we believe that we have an "in" with God that will save us from some evil, we are lost: we have accepted two powers, and according to our belief so is it unto us.

The spiritual path demands complete purity, and by purity is meant an absolute conviction that God is the only power there is: there are no other powers. Omnipotence, which means All-power, is spiritual; and if Omnipotence is spiritual, then neither material nor mental powers can be power. To perceive that is to prevent not only the individual, the group, or the universal belief from functioning in our experience, but also to begin to destroy it for the whole world.

Realizing that no weapon formed against us has power develops in us the mind that was in Christ Jesus which knows that there are no powers, physical or mental. The only power that exists is the power of God, which is spiritual. Only a person who has that conviction has some measure of the Christ-mind, and even a tiny measure, a grain of that consciousness, can do wonders.

Even after Jesus had revealed the nature of spiritual power to his disciples, they were unable to catch the full import of it sufficiently to carry on his teaching to any great extent. And how many have there been since the time of the Master who have discovered this teaching in the Bible? The reason few, if any, have found it is because spiritual teaching is something that cannot be grasped by those living primarily in the material and mental realm. As a matter of fact, no one will ever learn the secret of spiritual power with his mind.

Spiritual power is not a facet of the mind. There is no amount of knowledge that anyone can attain that is spiritual power because knowledge alone cannot move mountains, heal disease, raise the dead, or forgive the sinner.

Spiritual power can be brought into expression only through the attainment of the fourth-dimensional consciousness, a higher awareness than that which is possessed by the human mind. It makes no difference what truth we study, or what truth we believe we know, there is no spiritual power in it. There is no known truth that will ever function spiritually.

If we were asked to give spiritual help to someone who needed physical healing, mental stability, or moral regeneration, our only possibility of success would be in proportion to our ability to be still, to refrain from using spiritual power, and let spiritual power flow through us. If we attempted to heal anyone spiritually or to try to exercise a spiritual influence, we would set up a barrier that would prevent our success.

Did Jesus make any conscious attempt to heal the woman who broke through the throng and touched the hem of his robe? She was healed, but he could not have consciously brought forth that healing because he did not know she was there, and if he had seen her, he would not have known whether she was sick or well. He was merely standing there being himself, abiding in the consciousness that the Father within was doing the work, and letting the Father have His way and His will, not trying to channel it, or to make any attempt to use spiritual power.

Spiritual power cannot be used, and yet it can manifest itself as our life and being. We can come into an awareness and an understanding of its nature, and thereby that power operates as Grace in our life, but we cannot pray it into doing that for us. We cannot bribe God into doing anything for us: we cannot promise to be good; we cannot even be good, and expect God to do something for us. What God is doing, God is doing, and no man can influence God.

God-power is not to be invoked by man. God-power is not attained by attempting to influence God in our behalf. God-power is not a power over sin, disease, or death, any more than light is a power over darkness. God is the creative, maintaining, and sustaining power, and God never made sin, disease, or death. Had He done so, they could never be changed or removed. What God creates is forever, and that which God did not create was not made. Therefore, we do not need any God-power to do something that never was made in the beginning, that never had existence, and that represents only our ignorance of the truth. If God ever created a disease or a law of disease, we might as well give up all hope of overcoming it, for no one is ever going to overcome God or God's works.

God is the all-power, and that power operates in our consciousness in proportion as we know this truth. When we begin to realize God's omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, we shall need no power, and we shall live "not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit." When we have learned not to resist evil, not to fight it, and not to try to get God to fight it for us, we will not have to labor for our good: we will receive it by Grace.

Our very acknowledgment of the unreal and illusory nature of the discords of this world is the spiritual power. If God is omnipotence, then what power is there in any physical, mental, moral, or financial condition? If God is all-power, can there be a power in any negative condition? Every time we become aware of some negative, material, or mental power, we must realize the truth of Omnipotence:

Spirit is the only power; spiritual law is the only power; spiritual grace is the only power.

If God is omnipresence, we must be the very presence of God. That must mean that there is no other presence, and even we, then, have no presence. Why? Because God fills all space, and that does not leave any room for us, except in the degree that we are a part of that Omnipresence. This wipes out that false selfhood, that egoselfhood, and leaves only the divine Selfhood which we are.

If we are the presence of God, we must act like it. We never will live by Grace until we make that acknowledgment and until we know the truth that we are the presence of God, that each one of us is that place where God shines through, that place where God is fulfilling Himself individually. Every time we become aware of a presence, whether it is a person, or a condition, or anything contrary to what we know God to be, we have to know the truth: Omnipresence. We will not judge by appearances and believe what our eyes see: we will judge righteous judgment:

God is omnipresence; therefore, Spirit is the only presence — spiritual law, spiritual life, and spiritual formation — even though my eyes cannot see it.

All this remains in the realm of theory or belief until we take the next step which solves the mystery of spiritual power: we do not have God and us. God is manifested as us; God is incarnated as us; God's life is our individual life, and we have no life of our own. Only the life of God is made visible as our life. God is our mind. We have no Bill-mind, Mary-mind, or Joel-mind, no young mind or old mind, no stupid mind or intelligent mind: there is only one mind, the mind which is the instrument of God, and that mind is our mind. Without this understanding of one mind, there is twoness; and twoness, the sense of separation from God, is the source of the world's discords. There is no separation from God.

The truth is that God, divine Life, is our life. God, immortal Soul, is our Soul. God, divine Being, is our being, and even our body is the temple of God. This is the truth that makes us free. It is not praying to God to do something; it is not seeking a God-power: it is knowing the truth, and this knowing of the truth is spiritual power. It sets us free from the continuous struggle and striving to do something, be something, or accomplish something. It sets our minds free to rest, to be still, and to know that we are one with the eternal, infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God.

Omniscience — All-science, All-wisdom, All-knowledge! What is there to think of a person who is trying to tell God, Omniscience, what he needs? God is all-wisdom, and yet we in our ignorance beg God, "Send me my rent next Monday." If God has a sense of humor — and I am sure He has—He would wink and tip His halo, and reply, "Are you telling Me?"

When we stop taking thought for our little selves and live in a conscious realization of Omnipotence, we shall know that there is no power to prevent God's grace from reaching us because there is no power other than God-power. If we live in the realization of Omnipotence, there is no power creating sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation for us, no power delaying our good, no power interfering with our life by Grace.

We have been praying to a hole in the sky and expecting it to shower down blessings, but how can we need blessings if Omnipresence is true? If God is omnipresent, can there be God and any other person or thing to be sought after or desired? If we already are the presence of God, what more do we need? In God's presence is fulfillment, and we are that Presence; therefore, in us in fulfillment There is no next Monday about it. Omnipresence means that we are one with the Father now.

We can know Omnipotence, but we must know Omnipresence to put the seal on it. We can know that God is infinite, all-power, allgood, all-life, all-wisdom, but then we have to conclude with "And I am the presence of that. That constitutes my being. That which I have just declared about God is the truth about me. Since I already am the presence of God, I do not have to look for any more Godpower than I already embody."

Intellectually, most persons agree that there is only one power, but seldom do we find an individual who believes in one power enough to rely on it. The attainment of the spiritual or transcendental consciousness brings the conviction of this truth.

To attain that mind that was in Christ Jesus and to develop that consciousness which is the source of spiritual power, it is necessary first to adopt the principle of one power, and then after having adopted it, begin to apply it in every circumstance of life that presents itself to us, to face every situation with an understanding that there is no power except what is derived from God because there cannot be an infinite God of Spirit and material power, too.

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve": the belief that there is material force and power, or the truth that the Spirit within is the only power. If we are reading the newspaper or listening to the radio and hear threats of war or disaster, we must be alert within ourselves to realize that there is but one power, the power of the Invisible. We have to be able to meet every circumstance of life with the same answer Jesus gave to Pilate: "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above."

Why should we need to use power if there is only one power — God? What would we want to use it for, on whom, or on what? And why do we need any power to correct a belief in two powers? When, through practice, we have trained ourselves so that we no longer use the power of mind or try to use the power of Spirit, we are in spiritual consciousness and we have the secret of spiritual power.

Spiritual power is the power that animates each and every one of us, but it operates only when we stop trying to use God. The nature of spiritual power is being, and it is being spiritual power here and now, it is functioning here and now, and there is no other power functioning.

We cannot expect the Spirit of God to go out and do things of a temporal nature for us: find a house, provide an automobile, or put our competitor out of business. Spiritual power is not temporal power; it is not a power that is subject to our bidding or our will; it does not punish those who wrong us; it is not something that we can use; it will not give us a monopoly of all the dollars, nor will it make us dictators or help us pull down existing dictators.

The Christ is a spiritual power which reveals harmony, peace, abundance, and wholeness to us and transforms our affairs. This it does not do by destroying anybody or anything. God has nothing to do with temporal power. God is Spirit, and He does not remove fevers, enemies, lumps, obstacles, limitations, or restrictions. But when we worship Him in Spirit and in truth, we find that there are no such things. This can come only as we turn from praying to God to remove a fever or rheumatism to praying that God reveal Himself to us as Spirit, that God reveal the divine harmony of His spiritual nature.

Let us surrender all belief in a God of temporal power — bury that idea — and let us resurrect from the tomb within ourselves where it is hidden the truth about God as Spirit, Life, Love, and Light. Light dispels darkness, but in the dispelling of that darkness, the darkness does not go anywhere; it is not overcome or destroyed. So, too, when we realize God as Spirit, our sins and diseases will disappear, but they will not go any place: they will only be dispelled as illusions, just as the light of knowledge dispelled the illusion of the horizon for those who believed it was the edge of the world.

Human beings in their extremity seek to find a God of power. Such a God is not to be found, for God is being, and when we overcome any sense of wanting or expecting God to be a power over any person, thing, or condition, knowing that there is no other power, we will be able to abide in the Master's teaching of "resist not evil." Why should we resist that which has no power?

There is no God that has to do something: God is already being life, the life of all being; God is already being love, loving the saint and the sinner. The emphasis is on is: God is life; life already is; eternal life already is: there is but one life. Love already is. Let us relax and rest in the is-ness of God, right where we are, giving up the concept of God as a great power, and rejoicing that we can put up our sword and that we need not fight—not physically, not mentally- With this spiritual vision, we stand still and see the salvation of God, resting in Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and Omniscience.

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