Session 8: Recording 490B: “Dominion”

The Recording

This recording is the basis for Chapter 10, “Dominion,” in Seek Ye First.  This recording was posted through July 24, 2021, and is no longer available on this site.  If you subscribe to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there. To purchase this recording or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.

Optional Study Suggestions

To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.

This superb class on dominion speaks for itself.  It is clear and direct, complete with instruction on how we can regain the dominion we may have surrendered.

Probably the best “study” for this session is to practice.  We can watch ourselves carefully and notice where we are surrendering our dominion; where we are giving power to something other than our own consciousness.  Then we can follow Joel’s direction and take the actions he advises to reassert and EXERCISE our dominion.  Sometimes the ways we surrender our dominion are very subtle or habitual, so increased alertness is important.

As always, you will know the best way for you to practice this lesson.  However you choose to practice, it is helpful to keep in mind the key points from the lesson.  You can listen to the recording again and note the points that resonate with you.  The example below consolidates key points from different parts of the class.

• Dominion is always a dominion over myself, not over anybody or any thing. As a human, I do not have dominion over weather, storms, or germs.  Dominion is dominion over my consciousness and over everything within my consciousness.  Since the entire universe exists within my consciousness, by having dominion over myself, I automatically have dominion over everything that pertains to my life.
• Dominion over my consciousness is dominion over what I accept in my consciousness as true or false. Do I accept two powers or one power?  Do I accept a power external to me or all power as being within me? Do I accept universal beliefs?  I determine this.  Dominion is God-given, and I can only keep it by exercising it. Yet I don’t have to fight anything.  I acknowledge that all power, authority, and dominion is embodied in the kingdom of God within me, and when I do this, I withdraw power from everything else.
• This is not to say that as a human being, I have powers or dominion of my own. It is to say that I have God-given dominion, and if I have God-given dominion, nothing—storms, germs, the calendar, any person, circumstance, or condition—has dominion over me.  The kingdom of dominion within me flows out from me and governs my universe.
• I am not seeking dominion over anyone else. I am seeking dominion over my own consciousness.  Dominion is not domination.  I am not intruding into your life. I am asserting my God-given dominion over my universe, and that sets you free to have your God-given dominion over your universe.
• When I know that I and my Father are one, that all that the Father hath is mine, and that I am joint heir to all the heavenly riches, I am asserting my spiritual right to the infinite supply of God, and I have dominion over my supply. Then I can watch it unfold on the human plane.  I don’t have to fight for it or take it from anyone else.  If I maintain my spiritual dominion, eventually my supply must increase, because it is God’s will that we have abundance and that we have twelve baskets left over to share.
• New ideas can be an avenue of supply. God is infinite, and if I go back into consciousness, I will bring forth as many new ideas as I need without taking them from somebody else.  Because of the infinite nature of my consciousness, there are more new ideas in my consciousness than have ever been brought forth.  I can bring them forth only by a conscious effort; only by assuming dominion each day and realizing, “God constitutes my consciousness.  Infinity is within my consciousness, and I must ‘open out a way for the imprisoned splendor to escape.’”
• Because dominion is God-given to every individual, we always have dominion. We have lost our dominion because bit by bit, we have voluntarily surrendered the exercise of our dominion for a temporary moment of peace.  But we still have it and can regain it with a vigorous, continued effort.  It does no good to say, “God is infinite.” I must realize that the infinity of God is embodied in me.  Within me are new ideas, new sources of supply, and each day the manna must fall fresh.  But if I do not consciously turn within, that which is within me is of no avail.  If I do not assert my dominion, I will not have it.
• We have to meet every temptation to surrender power to something else—infection, contagion, weather, climate, persons. For example, we have God-given dominion over the calendar, but we haven’t exercised it.  To maintain your body in some degree of health and harmony, you must have dominion, realizing that your body is the temple of the living God, and God does not change.  God governs your body, but not if you surrender your dominion to time or the calendar.
• We must not fight a seeming power or an evil appearance. Rather, we “resist not evil,” by turning within and realizing that whatever the appearance, it is not a power.  All power is given unto me.  Yet this power that is given unto me is not a power over anything.  It is the power to know the truth, to receive and express God’s grace and love.
• To exercise dominion, we constantly and consciously realize the indwelling Christ, whose name is I.  We recognize It; we realize Its nature, Its function, and why It was incarnated in us.  Then we exercise that truth every day.
• Meditation is the major activity of an Infinite Way student, and it supports the exercise of dominion. In meditation, you discover that God constitutes your individual being, that God is your life, that God is your mind, that you have dominion.  Then you can let this imprisoned splendor escape instead of looking out here and expecting it to come to you from without.
• The hypnotism of the world is so strong that if you do not constantly assert your oneness with God, your God-government, and the infinity of your supply, you will succumb to the hypnotism. Each day, persist in having a specific period of meditation in which you realize:

  “The kingdom of God is within me. All that the Father hath is mine. God has given me dominion over the sea, the air, the sky, all that is in the earth. Nothing shall have any power over me, but God-given dominion flows out from me. There is no power external to me to operate in me or on me or through me, for I and my Father are one, and that oneness gives me God-power over all of these universal beliefs.  Thank you, Father. I am God- governed, God-maintained, God-sustained, and this is the spiritual truth about everyone in our land and on our globe.”

  This is exercising the God-given dominion that has always been yours.  Eventually, you will remember it automatically.  Then you have dominion to the extent that nothing bothers you—not the weather, the climate, germs, the calendar, or anything else.  This doesn’t mean that you look at a bad day and call it good, or that thousands around you will not fall to germs or infection or contagion.  It just means that you have such God-given dominion within you that none of these things have dominion over you.

• My peace, the Christ-peace, and the Christ kingdom are already within you, and you can bring them forth through meditation. Meditate for short periods twenty, thirty, or forty times throughout the day, so that at night you can say, “I have prayed without ceasing. I have kept my mind stayed on Truth.”  Then see how you become God-governed.  It is all a matter of you and your activity in consciousness.