Infinite Way Letter
May 1955
By Joel Goldsmith
Part 2 of 6
One Power

“Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.” (Isa. 44:6)

Each time Truth has been presented to human consciousness it has gone through periods of progressive unfoldment, into organization, and through such organization has been lost again. There is one particular teaching that prevents men awakening to the truth of being. In the usual religious teaching there are two powers: the power of God and the power of the devil. The Power of God is good, and blesses; the power of the devil is evil, and damns. Always there are two powers; always god is battling the devil for your Soul; and always the question is, Who is going to win?
The only explanation for accidents, disasters, sickness, etc., is on the basis of two powers, or else making God responsible for the evils that happen to mankind. This latter, of course, cannot be true, for the simple reason that the specific message and mission of the Master was healing the sick and raising the dead, feeding the hungry and overcoming all the so-called natural disasters. In other words, the activity of the Christ is the answer and overcoming to all powers, so none of these things can possibly be the Will of God. In the Presence of God there is no evil.
Such teaching is much like the story of Job, wherein we find God permitting the devil to tempt one of His Children, and do all manner of evil to him. We know better than that: we know that in the Presence of God there is no devil and there is no evil. According to Genesis, “God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Therefore, if God made the devil, the devil must be good. It is this setting up of the devil as evil and God as good which separates us from our opportunity to find physical, mental, moral and financial harmony.
Here is a very simple exercise to follow. Accept in your mind a state of consciousness in which you agree that God is all Power and the only Power; that God is infinite; that God is all-mighty; that beside God there is no other power. In the 43rd chapter of Isaiah we read: “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” If from the time you were a small child you have been taught this one truth, “Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine, would you ever have known fear? “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, they Savior…Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee.” Can you not readily imagine the state of consciousness in which you would live had you been taught exclusively and continually throughout your childhood that God loved you; that God is your God, and He would not permit any evil to befall you? You would be so alive in the consciousness of God as the only Power that you would never fear, nor would you ever lack for any good.
“Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee;…For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.” Throughout our youth we were taught to look only to our parents, but here we learn that God “formed thee from the womb.” We were children of God right from the womb, under God’s protection, and only God supplied our needs and supported our activities. From everlasting we learn that God alone is the only Power in our lives. In this understanding you can see what would have happened to the devil: never would there have been the fear of evil or the fear of punishment. We would have found a love for God instead of a fear of God, and we would never have believed that God would ever turn His back upon us.
Not only is this Truth being taught in The Infinite Way, but it has been in existence throughout all time and has been known to all peoples. There is only one Power, and God is that Power. There is no power in effect, and there is no power apart from God. God is the Life and the Being. In the sacred Hindu poem, “Bhagavad-Gita,” or “The Song Celestial,” translated by Sir Edwin Arnold, we read: “I say to thee weapons reach not the life; flame burns it not, waters cannot o’erwhelm, nor dry winds wither it. Impenetrable, unentered, unassailed, unharmed, untouched, immortal, all-arriving, stable, sure, invisible, ineffable, by word and thought uncompassed, ever all itself, thus is the soul declared?” Here again we see that there is one Life and God is that Life; there is one Power and God is that Power. So it is that with a consciousness filled with the realization of God as the only Power, we cannot fear anything in the realm of effect or in the form of the creature.
Most religious teachings have not given us the truth that God is omnipotent in earth as in heaven, but the day is here when every knee must bend to the truth that there is but one Power. All metaphysical teachings have their origin in the revelation of God as One. But what has happened to that teaching? Mortal mind, which is the modern name for the devil, came along, and so we find the older church people fearing the devil, and the newer ones fearing mortal mind. The wrong and ignorant interpretations of Truth binds us to the belief in two powers, but the answer is always the same: in truth God is the only Power. Everyone of us, to some degree in our human experience, have accepted two powers—a power and presence apart from God; a power that sometimes punishes and sometimes rewards; a power that sometimes cannot reach us—and we are now paying the penalty for such acceptance.
End Part 2