Recording 314A, “No Power,” from the 1960 Denver Class, is one of three recordings used as source material for Chapter 10, “Dominion Through Daily Realization,” in Awakening Mystical Consciousness. This recording was posted through July 1, 2023, and is no longer available on this website. If you subscribe to the Joel Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there. You can also purchase the recording and/or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office here.
To download or print these study suggestions, click/tap here.
What Is Protective Work?
This chapter focuses squarely on the Infinite Way practice of protective work, which Joel says is a most important part of our work. What does Joel mean by “protective work?” He says:
“It is necessary to begin every day with a form of spiritual realization that has been called protective work. This work is probably the most important part of all your work in The Infinite Way. If you sufficiently protect yourself, you will have that much less need of spiritual help to overcome anything, because you will avoid those things most persons ordinarily have to overcome. Protective work is not a protection from anything or from anybody. It is protective work in the sense of protecting oneself from the operation of universal belief.”
Universal belief accepts two powers, and this belief in two powers has been imposed on us. While there are two powers on the material and mental levels of life, there is only one power on the spiritual level. An appearance that presents itself to you has neither presence nor power. Because God is infinite, and because that appearance was not ordained of God, it is nothing. It has no law, substance, cause, activity, or reality. Therefore, you need not struggle with it. Immediately impersonalize it and nothingize it.
The First Step
Joel continues:
“In the first half hour of waking in the morning, establish yourself in the kingdom of God. Bring yourself under the law of God. Acknowledge God in praying for your enemies. Learn not to see the errors in others but look through the appearance to the divinity that is right there. True protective work is the realization that God alone is power, and that what appears to us–whether it is a belief of infection or contagion, a belief in hereditary disease or hereditary traits, a belief in astrology, or a belief of any other nature–exists only as universal belief.”
Joel emphasizes that nothing is more important than the first half hour of your day, because that is when you establish the pattern for the day. If you neglect to do protective work, immersing yourself in truth, you are subject to universal belief. But by faithful adherence to your realization of one power, you separate yourself from universal belief and place yourself under the guidance of Spirit. With the steadfast realization of one infinite power, you are prepared to reject any appearance, and the evils of the world will not come near your dwelling place.
“Realize that all you hear on the radio, see on television, or read in the newspaper is the ‘arm of flesh.’ It is without power, and you need not fear what mortal man can do, because he has only temporal power, which in the face of God is no power. You have the Lord God Almighty, the All-might, the one Power. Therefore, there is no power in all the rumors of infection, contagion, wars, and accidents. If you reject these reports of evil in the world, when someone says, ‘I have the flu’ or ‘I have pneumonia’ or ‘I have cancer,’ you will know better than that. You will be quick to say, ‘Oh, that has no power. That is not of God. Therefore, it cannot endure.’”
When you awaken in the morning, you must choose whether you will allow yourself to serve the universal belief in two powers or whether you will be God-governed. You can be God-governed only by an act of your own consciousness. Without that, you are subject to the so-called powers of this world just like every other human being. You must bring yourself out from under the universal belief in two powers and establish yourself in the grace of God, realizing that there are no powers to operate in, on, or through me or anyone else except the power of God’s grace.
Even if you had no source for news, rumors of an epidemic would reach you without your conscious knowledge. Evil of any and every nature operates invisibly as a belief in two powers, and because this is a universal belief, it acts universally in human consciousness. To the degree you do not consciously reject it, you become a victim of it.
The Second Step
Joel says:
“Your protective work is complete when you take the next step and realize that the power of good, the power of Spirit, operates from within your own being. It does not act upon you. It works out from you and acts upon this world. You are the transparency through which the law and life of God function from within you and out from you.”
“As you begin your day free from the belief in two powers, established in the realization that power does not act upon you but flows out from you, and that it is the power of God, good, Spirit, and life, you are so established in oneness that the rest of the day, as negative appearances touch you–whether in your own experience or that of family, friends, patients, or students–you are prepared for them. When you recognize them to be only appearances without foundation or ordination, without any empowerment from God, without any law of God to support or sustain them, you will reach the depth of contemplation quickly in your healing meditation. It is then not a matter of a long routine because you have prepared your consciousness. You have spiritualized it, so it instantly recognizes a negative appearance as a nothingness, an illusion, temporal power having no law of God.”
“[You will feel the change] only when you accept the Master’s teaching that the kingdom of God is within you and that this presence and power of God is flowing out through and from you and acting upon this world. This presence and power of God within you draws everything you need in your day and operates invisibly through you out to the world.”
“My conscious oneness with God constitutes my oneness with all spiritual being and idea. As you abide in that oneness, you are one with every person in the world who belongs in your life. Every person you can bless or who can bless you is drawn into your experience. Every circumstance or thing will flow into your experience without your thinking about it. The only thought you need is the constant remembrance of your relationship to God, of the establishment of the kingdom of God within you, of the truth that all God is, you are, and all God has is yours.”
Make Morning Protective Work a Habit
If you are not already in the habit of doing protective work every morning, the two weeks when we are studying this chapter would be a good time to build that habit. Building a habit in spiritual work is really no different from building any other habit.
Opinions vary about how long it takes to build a new habit, but experts seem to agree that it takes at least 21 days. The only way to build a habit is to make the commitment to do it and start practicing the behavior. Two weeks will give you a good start.
One key to success in building a habit is setting up a supportive environment. For example, if you want to build the habit of doing protective work every day, you might keep some reminder in a place that you see shortly after you wake up or get out of bed. Any reminder you choose can work. It could be a contemplation card, a picture, a sculpture, a plant. The point is simply to have something that will be a cue to prompt you to do protective work.
In this chapter, Joel gives a few short contemplations that capture the spirit of protective work, which you could use as a starter for doing protective work. We have prepared a card (shown on the right) with these quotations, which you might put as a reminder next to your bed or wherever you will see it first thing in the morning. We offer two designs for the card–one is more lively, the other more subtle. The same quotations are on both cards. After printing the card, you can use whichever you prefer—or you might use both!
To download and print these cards, click here.
You will notice that we have formatted the quotations on the cards with more space between sentences. This is intended to help you pause and reflect as you read. Remember, too, that contemplation is a preparation for meditation, that step in which we stop thinking and listen within. Be sure to include this step.
In building a habit, another key to success is to refrain from self-criticism if you forget and miss a day or two. Be kind to yourself. Simply renew your intention and get back on track. It can be helpful to notice why you missed the practice and see if you can do something to prevent that. Were you in too much of a hurry to stop and do the work? Perhaps you could get up just a few minutes earlier. Did you promise yourself that you would do it later, but never got around to it? Perhaps you could “couple it” with another activity that you always do, so that whenever you do the first activity, you also do protective work. Changing the reminder from time to time can help, too, so that you don’t get so used to seeing it that it becomes invisible to you.
Review the Material on Protective Work
When we studied the eight most important chapters, we worked with the chapter “Protection” from the March 1955 Infinite Way Letter. At that time, we provided a collection of several quotations from Joel’s writings and recordings about protective work, which give a broad view of what Joel had to say on the topic. You might enjoy reviewing this document. To view or download the document, click/tap here.
Added on 4/29/23: Second Recording for This Chapter
In our supplementary sessions on April 29, we heard a second recording that was used as source material for this chapter. This is recording 314B, from the 1960 Denver Closed Class, titled “Foundation of Our Day.” It is the continuation of recording 314A, which we heard in our sessions on April 15 and April 22. This recording was posted through July 1, 2023, and is no longer available on this website. If you subscribe to the Joel Goldsmith Streaming Service, you can listen to it there. You can also purchase the recording and/or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office here.