neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE NATURE OF GOD

Neville Goddard 09-22-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTo think of the Bible’s events as historical, and the characters recorded there as persons such as you and I, is to see truth tempered to the weakness of the human form, unable to stand the strong light of revelation. But I tell you: it is in us, as persons, that the nature of God is revealed.

Paul tells us his conversion came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. It did not come through a man, thereby causing him to change religions. No. Paul never forsook Judaism, but interpreted the meaning of the Old Testament through revelation. But was Paul a person, an individual being such as you are, as I am; or is he, too, one of these eternal characters? That is the question I am asking tonight.

I tell you: all of the characters of scripture, including Paul, are eternal states. One day, whether you be male or female, you will reach the state of Paul, and your journey in the world of death will come to its end.

A friend of mine – a lady with two children and expecting her third – wrote, saying: “In vision I saw the Bible opened to the New Testament and heard the words: `You are Paul.’ I was so startled I broke the vision and awoke questioning the words, `I am Paul? I am Paul? I am Paul?’ The idea seemed too much for me to grasp, so I returned to sleep and the dream continued. I saw the entire New Testament opened at the Book of Matthew, then an invisible hand moved the pages through the Book of Revelation as I heard the words: `It’s all about Paul,’ So I ask you: Who is Paul?”

Paul is a state you enter when, having been introduced to Christianity or Judaism, the secret behind the words is revealed. In the state of Paul, you discover you are the Lord Jesus Christ who is God the Father. It is Paul who says: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” When the vision is yours, to whom could you turn to ask what they thought of it? They would tell you that you were insane, so you would turn to no man; rather you would abide in the vision and dwell upon it.

Paul’s conversion did not change his religion, for he never forsook Judaism. His one disappointment was that he could not convince his fellow religionists of the truth of what had taken place in him. Paul represents every individual – be he male or female – who arrives at that point in time when he awakens to discover that the characters of scripture did not exist in time and space, but are eternal spiritual states, which the individual moves through toward the climax, which is Jesus Christ.

The fundamental story of scripture is a metamorphosis – a complete change of form. Like the grub worm is transformed into the butterfly, so man – as we understand him – is turned into Jesus Christ. And when it happens in you, there is no one to whom you can turn. It is a fact you cannot deny. I could no more deny my experiences of Christ unfolding within me, than I can deny the fact that I am standing before you now. And I am not unique. Christ will unfold in every child born of woman. He must, for God cannot and will not fail to fulfill his promise in all.

The word “Saul” means “to inquire; to ask.” Entering the state of Saul, you are questioning life – its purpose and plan. Is there a God? Why am I here? Saul’s is a questing mind, one which is seeking an answer to the phenomena of life.

Today is the wonderful Day of Atonement which came to its end at sundown with the singing of a great psalm in every synagogue which begins, “Awake O Sleeper who forgot eternity in the pursuit of the moment.” Having forgotten that we are all one in eternity, we are called upon to awaken, but awaken from what? From the pursuit of the moment. Then, in the eternal state called Paul, the story of Jesus will unfold in you, and you, too, will say: “From now on I regard no one from the human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.”

Like every Jew, Paul was looking for an external messiah, one who would come to be the anointed king and save Israel from the enemy. Then he discovered the messiah was within him and would never appear on the outside. Paul’s thirteen letters were written twenty years before the Book of Mark, which was the first gospel; so Paul could not have quoted the New Testament, only the Old.

He never converted in the sense of converting from Judaism to Christianity, or Catholicism to Protestantism. After the revelation, Paul understood that which was revealed to the prophets; for he discovered that the messiah which was to come, was himself, saying: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.”

There is a poem by Browning called “Saul,” in which David tells of the coming of the messiah, saying:

“O Saul, it shall be a face like my face
That shall receive thee. A man like unto me thou shalt love,
And be loved by, forever. A hand like this hand shall open the door
To a new life for thee. See the Christ stand.”

Standing before the demented king, David is telling Saul that when he sees Christ, he will wear the face of David. That he will love and be loved by him forever. Extending his hand, David tells Saul that this knowledge will open the gate to a new life; for David is the only Christ Saul will ever see.

When Christ stands before you, he will wear the face of David and reveal you as the Lord God Jehovah. Then you will say: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” This will be the experience of every child born of woman; for awareness – although limited by a garment of flesh and blood, restricted and weak – is God, the father of all life, and there is no other God.

Now, when Paul spoke of sin he wasn’t speaking of a little misdemeanor, or even a big one. To Paul, if you are not radiating the glory of God and are not now the express image of his person, you are sinning and falling short of that glory. Only when you enter into the state called Paul, will you radiate God’s glory and express his image; for it is in that state that David reveals you to yourself.

Paul confessed to the Galatians that God sent his son into his heart crying “Father!” And now I tell you that when David stood before me and called me father, I saw him more vividly then I have ever seen anyone here. I can still see his heavenly beauty. I saw David in the year 1959, yet history claims he lived in 1000 B.C. But David is not my flesh and blood son; he is part of the unfolding picture of an eternal story in which man is involved. The story, as recorded in the Old Testament, was not understood until it unfolded within one who said: “I am a child of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee of the Pharisees.” Paul never forsook Judaism, but tried to interpret it to those who would listen, but they could not understand. They were – as they still are today – looking for a physical, external messiah to destroy their enemies and establish his kingdom in this world; but that is not the story.

This eternal truth is housed in every being who walks the earth. One day you will find Christ as your very being. You who say “I am” before you state your name, will experience all of the eternal, spiritual states spoken of and named in scripture, to arrive at the final state called Paul.

My friend knows she is Paul, for she heard the depth of her soul tell her so. To her the idea seemed incredulous; yet I tell her she heard correctly, for she has been called. She has been chosen and elected to be an incurrent eyewitness to the great truth which will unfold within her.

The Paul of the Bible is a state everyone will attain. And while in that state, David will reveal your true identity. Enter any state and you become that state. While in the state of wealth, everything you touch turns to gold. In the state of success, you could turn a failing business into a successful one, for in the state of success you cannot fail.

You are not a success or a failure, but the occupant of a state. Although you remain untouched by any state, when you enter one, you express it. Put yourself into the state of health, and you must express health. Enter the state of fame, and no power can stop you from expressing it.

And when you enter the state of Paul, David will stand before you and say: “A face like my face shall receive you. A man like unto me thou shalt love and be loved by forever. A hand like this hand shall open the gate of a new life for you. See the Christ stand.”

You will be looking into the face of David, the Lord’s anointed; and when he calls you father, you know who you are, for “No one knows who the Father is except the son, and no one knows who the son is except the Father.” David, your son, sets you free; for he is the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, whose revealed name is I AM. Everyone who says, “I am,” is the Father of that eternal youth called David. Awake, O sleeper, and remember eternity, the son of Jesse, for only he can reveal you as God the Father.

This is the greatest story ever told. It is an incredible story of a transformation, a metamorphosis. “Meta” means “change” and “morphos” means “form,” so metamorphosis means a radical change of form. This is true, for the being you are destined to be, could not function in a body of flesh and blood.

You will move into an entirely new age. It is a new world, and in it you need a new form. The form is spirit, yet you have a human face, a human voice, and human hands. That is the form I saw when I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord and answered his question: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” in the words of Paul, as “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

At that moment he embraced me and I assumed his incredible form. Since that time we have not been separated or divorced, although while I wear the body of flesh and blood I must be subject to all of its weaknesses and limitations. But when I take it off this time, I will be one with that one body, who is gathering all.

Everyone will be saved, because everyone is God and God is saving himself. At the present time you do not know you are God; but you will know it when you enter the state called Paul, for in that state the revelations unfold and you, too, will say: “I did not get it from a man. It came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. He unveiled himself in me as my very being. Now I know there is no other.”

So I say to my friend: your revelation is true. You have been called and elected. You have been chosen – not by men, but by God, which is the definition of a saint in scripture. How could any man make another man a saint? The idea is stupid. When you are called, you are sainted. When you are elected, you are sainted. When you are chosen, you are sainted, and no man, looking at you, could ever see you as a saint. You are still capable of losing your temper and being violent. That means nothing. Be everything that you are, for you are already redeemed by reason of your experiences.

So, the characters of scripture are not historical. To see anyone – including Jesus Christ – as a person who walked this earth, is to see truth tempered to the weakness of your soul, and unable to bear the strong light of revelation. Jesus Christ is the perfect state into which you are all moving. And in that state, scripture unfolds to reveal you as God. And who is he? He is your own wonderful human imagination!

If all things are possible to your imagination, then all things are possible to imagine! How would you act if God imagined you as you want to be? How would you feel? What would you do? Then do it. Feeling its reality, have faith in your imaginal act. Desire is your hope. Your imaginal act is your subjective appropriation of the hope you want to objectify. Now, faith is the link between God’s power and your desire. He doesn’t question your desire. He who is all creative power and know-how, simply gives it to you. That is Christ, he who is defined as the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Now, if you test God and prove to yourself that imagination does create reality, tell others. If they try it and it works for them, does it really matter what the world thinks? If they think the idea is insane, it won’t be the first time. They thought Einstein was insane. There are those who think I am. That’s perfectly all right, for the day will come when God will reveal himself in each individual, and then that one will move from the state of Saul to Paul.

There is no other God, for God became Man by assuming all of his human weaknesses and limitations. God is not pretending he is you. When he became your breath, he had to take your unique qualities upon himself. That was his crucifixion. No man was nailed upon a cross bar; your body is the cross Christ wears. He is buried in you and will rise in you. His tomb is the human skull where he lays dreaming. So awake, you sleeper, who forgot eternity in the pursuit of the moment. Although this moment seems so real, you are its reality and the central being of scripture.

The fundamental purpose of scripture is metamorphosis – the radical transformation of Man into God. And God has a son, formed by his experiences as the human imagination and personified as David of Biblical fame. David is he who is “A man after my own heart who will do all my will.” He is not a historical character, but an eternal state which appears at the end of your journey into the world of death.

The world may think they have found David’s tomb; but they will never find any historical evidence concerning these characters of scripture, because they are all spiritual states personified. You will pass through these states to discover – through revelation – that you are the author of the Bible. Just imagine, Paul’s letters came first. He called them “My gospel.” They are Paul’s good news of salvation which came through revelation. Paul’s thirteen letters were written first, and all the other books were based upon them; but who is Paul? Everyone who enters the state of fulfillment.

One day you will enter the state known as Paul; but right now you are Saul, seeking the cause of life, not knowing it is your very self. In the Books of Samuel and Kings, we are told that Saul tried to kill the very one who could reveal him to himself; but the revelation could not come until his name was changed to Paul. Even though, today you are very much a lady, you will eventually become the Paul of scripture. But in that realm, you are above the organization of sex, as Paul tells us: “In Christ there is no bond, no free, no male, no female, no Jew, no Greek, for all are one in Christ.” Your true identity is not male or female, but Man, and Man is God and God is Man, as Blake so beautifully put it: “Thou art a Man, God is no more, thine own Humanity learn to adore.”

Tonight, set your hope fully upon this grace that is coming to you; for Christ in you is your hope of glory! Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourself and see, for all things are possible to him. Think of something you would like that reason says you cannot have. Now, assume it’s yours.

Your assumption, though false in the sense that it is denied by your reasonable mind, if persisted in will harden into fact. You do not need to know the means that will be employed to bring your assumption to pass; all you are required to do is persist in your assumption and allow your own wonderful human imagination to give it to you.

All things are possible to your imagination. It’s up to you to provide the necessary link between your assumption and its fulfillment. That link is faith. Having assumed your desire is fulfilled, your faith in that assumption will cause it to harden into fact. That is the law.

Test this law, and if you prove it in performance, it will not matter to you if it seems irrational to others. Tonight, leave this auditorium in the assumption that you are what you would like to be; and if tomorrow your assumption can be seen as fact by the world round about you, then you have found Christ, he who is within you as your hope of glory.

Man is forever coming up with fantastic ideas like going to the moon. At the time, the idea seemed impossible, yet in time man does go to the moon. So you see, nothing is impossible to God – but nothing!

Simply name that which seems so impossible to you, then assume that you have it. Walk in the assumption it is now an objective fact and see how God works. I tell you, in a way that you do not know, and you could not possibly devise, you will be led across a bridge of incident to the fulfillment of that state. All you have to do is ignore the evidence of your outer senses and go about your own wonderful business assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Your assumption, instead of receding into the past, will advance into the future and you will walk right into its fulfillment.

Accept what I am telling you tonight, and you will be on your way towards the state called Paul. He tried his best to persuade his own friends to believe what happened to him in the synagogue. Christianity is not a new religion, but the fulfillment of Judaism. It’s as old as the faith of Abraham, older even than the synagogue. The promise was fulfilled in the state of Judaism, interpreted to Jews, who then organized it into a separate religion; but there could be no Christianity without Judaism. Many a Christian would like to divorce the two books and put the Old Testament aside; but there could be no New Testament without the Old, for the New is only the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham.

You are destined to be told – as the lady was – that you are Paul; and the chances are you will be just as shocked as she is, when she looks into the mirror and sees a mother and a mother-to-be, and a wife who may argue with her husband and be short of money once in a while. These weaknesses are part of your garment of flesh and blood; but at the end of time, your new body of love – woven without seams – will be ready for occupancy. Then you will take off this body of limitation and opacity and assume your new body of life.

If, however, you have not reached the state of Paul, when you leave this body, you will find yourself in another one just like this one, in a section of time best suited for the work yet to be done in you. Don’t think you are going to move chronologically from one year to the next, for it can be any year, be it the year 1000, or 3000.

Whatever year you find yourself in, you will feel perfectly normal there, and things will seem quite natural. These bodies of death belong to this age; and regardless of what year you find yourself in, you will wear the same body of slavery, where you must perform all of its functions. No matter how powerful you may be, you cannot command anyone to perform your body’s functions for you; therefore you are its slave while you remain in the state of Saul. Only when you move into the state of Paul, can the drama unfold and set you free.

Don’t think that you have to be the perfect specimen of a man, judged by human standards, to arrive in state of Paul. Although weak and limited as you are now, strive to know the truth of scripture; and one day, when you least expect it, you will find yourself cast in the central role, as everything said of Jesus Christ will unfold within you, and you will know who you are.

If there is any Christ other than he who is in us, who rose and continues to rise in the individual, he is false; for the true Christ is within you. The universal, cosmic Christ became humanity. He rose and continues to rise in individuals. One day he will rise within you to reveal you as God the Father. The relationship of Father/Son was established before that the world was – only we forgot. This is simply the return of the memory of God, all within the individual.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE POWER OF AWARENESS

Neville Goddard 1953

neville goddard imagination creates realityI think you know how thrilled I am to be back here, for this is the one platform that grants me complete freedom. You know that. Dr. Bailes has never once restricted me or even suggested any condition. He gives me complete freedom of this platform, and for that I am really very happy, for I couldn’t be here unless he did.

Now I have brought you this year an entirely new series. I have named this first one “The Power of Awareness” because it is the foundation stone on which the entire structure rests. Not a thing has happened in the past year to shake that foundation. Many things have happened, many revelations, many experiments, and yet the foundation remains intact.

For those not familiar with this foundation, we make the claim that conscious ness is the one and only reality. So, if you call God the ultimate reality, that is the name we give to this ultimate reality. So we say Consciousness is God. We say consciousness in action is imagination. And if consciousness in action, or God in action, is the Son bearing witness of his Father, then we come to the conclusion that imagination is that son.

We have had nothing this year, as I tell you, to disturb that deep conviction. We look upon the world as, I would say, a manifestation of consciousness; and the whole vast conditions of men but revelations of individual states of consciousness. We distinguish between the individual identity and the state of consciousness that it occupies. You are an eternal being. The real you is the imaginative you, personified for us in our Gospel as Christ Jesus, but man doesn’t know it. But this is your real being. This being is your wonderful imagination.

When we speak of the revelation of state, we simply mean that the state in which the real you for a moment abides, objectifies itself as the condition and the circumstances 0£ your life. If you are dissatisfied with the conditions of life, there is no possible way of changing them unless you first change the state from which you view the world; for the state from which a man observes the world determines the world that man describes. For the world that is described from observation must be, as thus described, relative to the describing observer.

In a very simple way, were I to ask you now “Where is San Diego?” and you answered “About, I would say, approximately 130 miles from here.” And then I ask another question, “Where is Santa Barbara?” and you replied “Approximately 100 miles from here.” Well, I do not have to be an Einstein to tell you where you are, for if you tell me where these two are, and one is a hundred miles from here relative to you, and the other is a hundred and thirty miles from here relative to you, I know you must be somewhere within the vicinity of this City 0f Los Angeles.

Now the same law holds good in any description you make of the world. If I ask you to describe your world socially, and I listen attentively to your description of the world, you are revealing your position in the social world to me. If I ask you to describe it intellectually, financially, spiritually, you may not know it, but the description that you offer of the world is revealing to me who listens – or to yourself if you are attentive – that particular state of consciousness from which you view the world. And you will continue to see the world as you now see it, unless you change your state of consciousness.

Now, there are certain words that in the course of long use gather very many strange connotations. And so, in the course of time, they cease to mean anything at all. Such a word is the “sub-conscious”. Such a word is, too, – and do not be shocked – such a word is “Christ Jesus”. No two have the same opinion of the word, the same definition or mood of the word. Let us now take a look at the word “sub-conscious” and see how it is defined for us. This is the definition as given to us in any good dictionary. It is that portion of mental state not directly within the focus of consciousness, but capable of being called into such focus by the proper stimulus.

Now that is the definition of this fabulous realm. Now let us look at the claim made for this realm. Our mental scientists, psychiatrists and psychologists of today refer to this region as the creative power in man; that everything in man’s world is determined by the activities of the subconscious mind; that man himself has absolutely no control over the activities of this region unless he first gets into a relationship with it. For here is a region that they call the sub-conscious; others call it the “unconscious” , and still others speak of it as the “collective unconscious”, but they claim for it a creative power that molds the outer world in harmony with the inner arrangement of its self. So they give it structure, they give it reality, they give it form, and they claim its structure determines the outer structure we observe and call the only reality: that any modification in the internal structure of this deep region results in corresponding changes in the outer objective world. But then they leave us at the mercy of IT, unless we can find the trick of entering into a relationship with it.

Now, let us turn to the Gospel. What is said of the central character of the Gospel – the one I refer to as Christ Jesus. It is said of this central figure that “All things were made by Him, and without Him there is nothing made that is made”. All things, not a few things, all things – it includes all. I read my Gospel carefully and I find that from within out is the order of the Universe. In the 7th Chapter of Mark “Not what goes in defileth the man, but what proceeds out of the heart”, either for good or for evil. Not just the good comes out, but the evil can come out too. All things come from within out; what goes within cannot defile the man; only the thing that proceeds out of the heart of man can bless him or defile him; that there is some creative power in man that constantly molds the outer world in harmony with itself, and this Creative Power is described for us as Christ Jesus .

Now, let us take another look at what they teach us: that there is a method they use to pry into the deep of this region; that when a man is asleep, they use the method of dreams to pry into the deep. For the Bible tells us that from cover to cover. “In a dream, when deep sleep falleth upon men, then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.” You are told that God speaks with his prophet’s chiefly in dreams. It was a dream that prompted them all to bring about their great revelation. Your are told that this wise man, the wisest of all, was promised riches and long life and great power, and behold, Solomon awoke, and it was a vision in the night! You are told the birth of the central figure was prophesied in a dream, and everything was but the dream.

Now we discover there is another way of looking into the deep, and the waking way of looking into the deep is through man’s imagination; that imagination is now the waking method used to pry into this great mysterious deep. For the ancients discovered that if they would ever discover really the ultimate reality, it could never be by any instrument made by man. In order to discover the ultimate reality, they would have to set Mind to observe itself, and then to accurately record those observations. For they concluded that no description of Mind made by any science known to man could be an adequate description of the Mind which made that science. So when today we are speaking of taking the imagination to look into the deep, it is looking at itself. You set imagination to observe self and then to accurately record those observations. And you must come to the conclusion, imagination is the central figure 0f the Gospel.

When you will read your Gospel with this in Mind, the whole thing becomes a luminous book. One simple little passage, take it from any passage – if this was an open meeting I would challenge you now to ask me anything concerning the central figure, and taking the simple little technique of identifying that figure with my own imagination, the answer will be automatic .

So here is one. “Peter, lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Then feed my sheep.” And three times the same question is asked and three times a similar answer is given. And the last answer brought about a certain rebellion for it was asked three times. But now you take it as imagination asking itself, “I have discovered my savior, I discovered my shepherd, and what would be the sheep, for our minds are like rambling sheep, or our thoughts like rambling sheep that have no shepherd. Now that you have found me to be your shepherd, to be your savior, your own wonderful imagination to be the central figure; ‘Now, do you love Him?’ You answer “Yes!”. Well, then feed my sheep. “Well, then did I not feed the sheep? At any moment when did I not feed the sheep? “When you did not do it unto the least among one of these”. Any time you imagine any unlovely thought against another, you walked me in the mud. And then you said you loved me, but any time that your imagination was ever exercised on behalf of another, and it was not lovingly exercised, you did not feed me. You walked me in the mud.

And yet man goes blindly on believing he serves the Master; believing he truly understands Christ Jesus; that he understands and loves his Savior. And morning, noon and night he imagines the unlovely things against his neighbor, not knowing at that very moment he was walking his Master in the gutter. And so we are told “I sought water, and you gave me not to drink. I sought food, and you gave me not. I sought shelter and you took me not in. I needed raiment and you clothed me not.” But when did these things happen? I don’t recall ever turning you away. When you did not do it unto the least among one of these, you did not do it unto me. And then when did I do these things ? Whenever you did it to the very least among one of these, you did it unto me. And the day will come when man will discover the “least” spoken of is himself. When man discovers that the greatest of all the tyrants, the one who is the most impudent of all the offenders, the one who is the greatest of all the beggars is himself. Then he will discover that he stands in need of the alms of his own forgiveness and instead of railing against himself, he will start with self to ennoble his own thoughts, to lift himself up by imagining the best first of himself and then he will share that with the world round about him. For he will look out on a world and describe it relative to himself and he will not now see the unlovely things that formerly he saw. For this is what we mean by this foundation stone that so far has not been shaken.

A very wise man, Emerson, said that whenever a true theory appears it will be its own evidence. Its test is that it will explain the phenomena of life. I am convinced we have that true theory for this theory we give you here that your consciousness is the only reality and that the particular state of consciousness in which you abide is the sole cause of the phenomena of your life cannot be shaken. I ask you to test it, even if the test is motivated by the determination to disprove it. I will ask you to try it, for I know you will not disprove it. That this wonderful consciousness of yours is the ultimate reality, and you are free to choose the state into which you will go. But most of us have chosen, but unwisely. Not a thing is wrong with the state; the state is all right but it’s giving effect to it that makes it either right or wrong as far as we are concerned.

Now our theory, I assure you, has not been suddenly conjured out of the nowhere and the stories I have told you here for the last seven years, the case histories I have recorded in my last book, ‘The Power of Awareness”, were not fabricated to fit this theory. But this theory was slowly built up by careful observation of the facts. For when someone would come into my world and describe their world to me, they revealed the being that they really are. When I ask the simple question, “What do you want?” and they named it and they told me they really want it with all their heart, and then I asked them how would they see the same world had they realized their objective? Looking at the same world they began to describe it differently. I said, “Now, that is the description you must make of the world. You must weave that into your mind, for in so doing you move into the state where that world becomes real relative to that state.”

So if you now know the world you would see had you achieved your aim, then that is the world you must begin to see in the mind’s eye. And if in time that state becomes an objective fact, then the theory as you see was not made to fit it; it formed itself by a careful observation of these facts. So if I could repeat that time and time again, and each time by moving this permanent “I” into the desired state and let it occupy that state long enough to make it natural, at the moment of naturalness the state becomes visibly objective to them, then we have a true theory. For it does explain the phenomena of life.

So here, in this series we have brought you many revelations. One that I want to stress throughout the entire series is the wide difference between thinking from an end and thinking of an end. Right now I am thinking from Los Angeles; every part of this world, if I should think of it, I’m thinking of it. But I am thinking from Los Angeles, and the difference between the two, as you can see, one is reality and one is a dream not yet made real, because imagination is the central figure of the Bible, and no power in the world can stop his travel. He can go into any mansion and there abide. There is no power on the face of the earth that can stop me now from imagining myself into the state desired. So I begin to think from it. As I begin to think from it, all former states vanish and that is the great Son of God that can move into any mansion of his Father’s house and there occupy. If he ever goes in and occupies it, then I shall be there in the flesh also. So in this Father’s house of mine are the unnumbered states that are already existent and I, discovering who the son really is, and only the son can go into these mansions, so discovering the son to be my own imagination, I will dwell in imagination as though I dwell in the flesh, and then living in that state I will take my body also, that I may confirm that state. For dwelling in the state long enough clothes the state in flesh.

So here: every one of us, if you will accept it; can from this day on be as free as the wind. It’s entirely up to you to choose what mansion you will enter, for you are the only architect of your sufferings or your good fortune. There is no power outside that has caused anything to happen to you; it’s simply your choice, as I said earlier, your unwise choice. Knowing who you are now, and not being ashamed to lay claim to this bold, bold assumption that Christ in man is man’s imagination, then you will stop calling on some external force for help. As the Prophets say, why stand we here calling on God for help and not on ourselves in whom He dwells, as our imagination. So why call elsewhere, when He dwells here where I stand as my imagination. For is there any power to stop me from imagining that I am the man I want to be? So that I actually clothe it with a feeling of reality? If I can so clothe this imagined state with all the vivid sensitiveness of reality, then I will ultimately actually clothe it in flesh, for that’s the Law, from within out.

If you are bold enough to take it, you will free yourself today. If you are still timid, may I suggest you go back and read the seventh chapter of the Book of Mark, where you must then still keep alive the traditions of men and ignore the Law of God. So men wash the cups, and wash the pots, and pay all outside obeisance to things known as the traditions of men, that they may be seen of men and be considered holy. But I bring, said He, the Law of God and no man seems to hear it. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?” Have you ever heard these words, “Christ in you is the hope of glory”; not some Christ without but Christ in you is. But if we aren’t bold enough to lay claim to it, for we are told “Ye have the mind of Christ” not a mind that you are going to earn in time to come, you have it now, so lay claim to it, and begin to exercise this giant of the mind that is called the Son of God in the Bible, and you will see who your savior really is.

Now, may I give you a few of his titles, for these are all taken from the Bible. He is called the Redeemer; He is called the Savior; He is called the Passover; He is called the Second Man; He is called The Desire of all Nations. Now take it and see how it fits your wonderful imagination. The man you don’t know to exist – that Second Man – is the imaginative you; the one you hold captive by accepting the evidence of sense and only that which reason dictates. If you will now free the Second Man, you will see how he is the Passover. He can pass now from this present state into any desired state in the world, for no power can stop you from dwelling in imagination where you desire to dwell. So, placing yourself there, you begin to think from it, and not constantly starve yourself by thinking of it. So I will go and prepare it, and preparing it I will dwell in it, and begin to think from it.

Now, I assure you, unnumbered similar stories have been told me in the past year by those who took me at my word and began to awaken Christ within, for He had been asleep while the senses dictated their every step, and then completely denying the evidence of sense and boldly imagining themselves to be what they desired to be, they have found their savior, and what man the world could turn them back to the traditions of man. They are free from all traditions of men, and so no man can appear before them and call himself the intermediary between man and God. So they are turned from all intermediaries, having found the only Redeemer and the Redeemer is the only intermediary between man and God. So then you know that any time that you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you are literally mediating God to man. So you don’t need any of the traditions of men and keep them alive, hoping that you will be considered by some invisible power, some holy being.

So, let us turn back and freshen up again this word which has been so abused, which now is your imagination, which people, without defining, call the “subconscious” as though it was some appendage. People go around speaking of “my subconscious mind”, or “My unconscious mind”, not knowing what they are referring to.

Well, this fabulous series of mental states is your imagination. And may I tell you it has form, it has structure, just as real as the visible objective world; that the inner world is a world of reality. Call it by any name. I call it my wonderful imagination, and it assumes the form of all that I accept and consent to as true. It actually assumes the form of the sum total of all of my beliefs, and my beliefs need not be true. They need not come near the truth. My beliefs could be prejudices; they could be superstitions. It doesn’t care. It will take all the stripes of men and wear them. So it will assume the form of the sum total of all that man consents to in this world, and then mold the outer world in harmony with the inner arrangement of itself. Therefore, to change the outer world, I must modify or change, in some way alter, the structure of the inner or second man – the second man being my imagination.

So I set myself to observe myself and to watch how my imagination works. And here is something that will interest you. I observe it always moves according to habit; that it is a being of habit, and so if I get into the habit of thinking the unlovely thoughts, it becomes very natural, so I listen only to that which is critical of another. I listen only to that which is not full of praise, that which judges harshly, and so according to habit it moves along these pathways.

Now, if I don’t like the outer world, and I really believe it is caused by the structure of the inner or second man, I then must change his likeness, change his form, by observing how I react to all the unlovely, and how I am not interested in the praise of another, and then begin to feed my sheep, begin to change my thoughts, my feelings, my moods concerning others, and as I begin to change my reactions to people, I find I am changing the structure of the Son of God. And then I automatically produce corresponding changes in my outer world.

If you really like it, and you are bold enough to take it, I promise you a world that is undreamed of by our wise men for even sleep will no longer be the unconscious that it is to the majority of people in the world; that sleep becomes only a doorway into the world where this real you – the second man – really lives and moves and has its being. It is a dimensionally larger world, and you enter it quickly in meditation, or night after night in sleep, and you will find opportunities that would dwarf the wildest dream of men here.

So I ask you to really believe it, and try in the short interval of four weeks while we are here to so prove it that you can tell me of the things that have happened to you by putting into practice this Power of Awareness. Learn to become aware at any moment of time of your fulfilled desire. Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and learn to become intensely aware of the state fulfilled, that you may look upon your world and describe it relative to your fulfilled desire. And learn then to sustain that mood. You will find in time through the habitual motion of your inner you, after a little while, because it always travels according to habit, it will move through habit into the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and the moment it is a natural wearing to itself, it starts to change the outer world to reflect the inner change of your mind.

Now, I hope you will take it, but there is no power in the world that can compel you to take it. You are as free as the wind to take it or not to take it. If you would rather persist in the belief that your Savior lived years ago and died for you and through his death, external to yourself, you are saved; you are entitled to believe it.

As I told you earlier, because the inner you is molded in harmony with the sum total of all your beliefs, you will continue to have visible proof of the truth of that belief. For you will find millions believing with you, and you will believe that the numbers make it right, and so you will contribute to the whole vast traditions of men. If you want to come out and be apart and find your savior where you will only find Him, within yourself, by setting your imagination to observe itself, you must come to the same conclusion – that this ultimate reality that men call God, that the Ancients defined as I AM, is your own wonderful consciousness and that IT in action, or the Son, or Christ Jesus, is your imagination. And then, having discovered, you start really to feed the sheep and you will stop, as of now, this walking of your Savior in the mud.

Now I see my time is up, and so at this moment I’ll take the chair and let us all join in exercising our imagination lovingly on behalf of another. Simply imagine that they are talking to you, and they are telling you what they wish they could tell you, and you listen as though you heard, and then you will put into practice that first verse of the fifth chapter of the Book of Ephesians: “Be ye imitators of God as dear children” – for how would I imitate my Father? “He calls things that are not now seen as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen”. That is the way my Father called things into being, and I am called upon to be an imitator of my Father as a dear child. For now I will call the imaginary voice. I will listen as though I heard what I want to hear. I will look as though I am seeing what I want to see, and if I persist in my listening and my looking, I will then be imitating my Father as a dear child, and he will not fool me. He will call into flesh, into objective reality, that which I have assumed that I have heard and I have seen.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE PROMISE EXPLAINED

Neville Goddard  26 June 1970

neville goddard imagination creates realityThe Bible tells the story of a promise – of a dream that existed two thousand years only in the imagination of Israel; and when their dream came true, Israel did not recognize their own harvest, and rejected their own harvest – denied it, for they were looking for it in an entirely different way. That is really the essence of the Bible, a promise made to man, and then man believed it. It was to Abraham, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness. So, he had the faith to sustain it and pass it on to generations, and they all believed it; and they maintained, only in their imagination, for two thousand years the dream. Then the dream erupted within an individual – within Israel; and he told the story, but they did not believe……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… … Now we turn to the story. It’s an old man, a hundred years old, and a wife ninety years old; and it is said that “it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women.” In other words, it would be impossible for her to have a child. And the promise was made that she would have a child, and that child would be “your heir, and you will call him Isaac, which means, “he laughs.” Abraham had, from a slave, a son called Ishmael. It was said of him that his hand was against every man, and every man’s hand was against him……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

This same story repeats itself all the way through. It begins with Abraham, and then the two – Ishmael who came first and then Isaac. Isaac was the promise. Then the grandchildren: Esau and Jacob, and God said “Jacob I love; Esau I have hated,” – the same pattern following all through Scripture coming into the New Testament. And in man it erupted – the story………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ….

Now we find a wonderful story in the Book of John, the 3rd chapter of John. It is not repeated in the Bible; it is only in John. It is not mentioned in Matthew, Mark, or Luke,–where a member of the Sanhedrin -a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus, –a member of the Sanhedrin is the highest body of a religious order. And Israel was a theocracy; it was ruled by the Rabbis, and here was the highest of the Rabbis. He identified something from what he knew of his own scripture, but couldn’t quite put the pieces together. So, he sought Jesus “in the night,” we are told. He came during the night, seemingly in a furtive manner – not to be identified or recognized by other members of the Sanhedrin. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ..

He addressed him as “Rabbi,” whence the fact that the man knows what others seemingly are not aware of. The conversation takes place in this manner; ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. He said, “I know that you are the one that is sent, for no one who is not sent by God could do the things that you do;” and then a sudden break takes place in the conversation, and Jesus said to him; ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …. ..

“Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

Nicodemus answered, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”…………………………………………. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

And Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless one is born from above, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I have said unto you that you must be born from above, for I tell you that the wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell whence it comes not whither it goes. So is every one who is born of the spirit. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. ……………. …Nicodemus answered, “How can this be?” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

And Jesus answered him and said, “Are you a teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? I tell you – I tell you what I know, and I bear witness to what I have seen, but you do not receive my testimony.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

That is the story in essence. Man was looking for it to take place, as Nicodemus did, as all births take place, never having heard of an entirely different kind of a birth. Here, that which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the spirit is spirit; but he never heard before that Isaac represented what which is born of the spirit……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

Now, when you read the Bible, the characters of the Bible are not persons as we are; they are eternal states of consciousness through which you and I – the Immortal Being -we pass through these states. The end of it – the climax of it is simply Jesus Christ. Each is destined to awaken one day as Jesus Christ, who is nothing less than God Himself! Every one is destined to awaken as God!………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …

The birth cannot be of the flesh, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. It cannot enter the Kingdom of God – only Spirit, for God is Spirit. So this represents – Isaac represents – the birth of the Spirit……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

Nicodemus saw only physical birth. He could not understand any kind of a birth outside of a physical birth. Paul, now, explains in his 9th Chapter of his Letter to the Romans, the difference between the two births, and he speaks of the descendants of Abraham after the flesh and that which comes out of Isaac – and “we are named out of Isaac,” he said………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …

Well, I will tell you now from my own experience which duplicates that recorded in Scripture. You could not find a more beautiful recording than that which I have just repeated for you from the 3rd Chapter of John. It is accurate. It is perfect. When he uses the word “wind,” some translators said he should have used the word “spirit;” but the words “spirit” and “wind” are identical, both in Hebrew and in Greek – the same word. But he used the right word, for when it happens to you, you think only in terms of wind. When you are “born from above,” and the child is placed in your hand – this wonderful child actually laughs. You pick it up and you look into its face and say in the most endearing manner, “How is my sweetheart?” This heavenly smile breaks upon his face; but you hear a wind. It’s an unearthly wind that I can’t describe by anything known to my physical senses, and yet I heard it through, seemingly, senses, for I heard the wind. I heard it coming from within me and seemingly coming from without……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

So when one is “born from above,” it is the moment when he is resurrected from the grave. This whole thing is dead – just as dead as it can be, but we animate it because we are in it. We are the Dreamer in it dreaming and keeping alive the dream – the promise that is made. May I ask you not to reject it. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

A man – a little man – stands before you, with all the weaknesses, all the limitations of the flesh; but everything that you are heir to I am. I am still heir to it, in spite of what has happened to me; and yet I tell you it has happened to me, and plead with you not to reject it, but accept it, for the day is not long from now when this little thing [indicating his physical body] must be shed. That which has already happened within me, which is forever, just simply escapes. That is the Imprisoned Splendor waiting – bursting to get out permanently. It gets out night after night on a certain work to be done; but it is waiting for that moment when, for the first time, it takes off this little garment, and the silver cord is snapped and the Imprisoned Splendor set free, that which is within a man. It comes when he is “born from above.” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

So, the conversation between them is all about the Kingdom of Heaven and the only way that it can be entered. There is no other way you can enter it. So, until the “birth” takes place, you are still flesh and blood. You will “die” here – yes, but you cannot die, may I tell you? It seems silly. It seems stupid to tell you when a man dies and you cremate the body and you scatter the ashes that he is not dead. Yet, I know from my own experience of many who have gone – I have seen them. I have talked with them. I am talking to you. They don’t even know they are “dead.” They say to me, “Who is dead?”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ..

I say, “You’re not dead, but you ‘died.’ I was at your funeral. You are buried,” – and I tell them the cemetery where they are buried. They can’t believe it, because they are not dead. They are so alive to themselves, they can’t believe it for one moment. And you can bring back certain things: “You recall so-and-so?” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. … …”Yes. Did he die?” they begin to think. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …… …”Well, yes, he did die.” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ….. …”Well then, look at him. Is he ‘dead’? There he is – he died. You went to his funeral, didn’t you?” -and then they begin to think…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ….. …”Yes, I did.” “Well then, look at him. He isn’t dead, but he died.”

…”Well, you died, too, Jack; but you are not ‘dead’ because nothing dies in God’s world, for God is the God of the living.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …….. … Every one that “dies” here is instantly restored in a body just like this, but young -unaccountably new – unaccountably young with nothing missing. If you had parts missing, they aren’t missing then. If you were deaf, blind, dumb, you aren’t deaf,–none of these things happened. You are simply completely restored, and you are perfect. But you are still in a world just like this, and you will still go through all the things you do here. You will work. You will marry; you will do all the things you do here, just as you do it here, until that moment when you are “born from above.” ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ……… … When you are “born from above,” you can die no more. That is behind you, as told you in the 20th Chapter of the Book of Luke, when they asked the question: “Tell me, in the Resurrection whose wife will that one be?” because she had married seven brothers. And he said to those who questioned him, because they were all great scientists – in those days they spoke of the Pharisee and the Sadducee; and the Sadducee was what we would call today the scientist – the agnostic or even the atheist. He won’t believe in survival because nothing could convince him that the body was not the reality – that something could escape from this body. So they asked him the question, “In the Resurrection, whose wife will she be?” for she married seven………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

And he said to the Sadducees, “The children of this age marry, and they are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that Age and to the Resurrection from the dead, they neither marry, nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, being sons of the Resurrection. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ..

So, the whole drama begins with the Resurrection, which is the “birth from above.” They are two sides of the same coin; it happens only moments apart. You feel the most terrific vibration within your head. You feel – as I did – that “this is it!” meaning this is now a hemorrhage – a brain hemorrhage that must be massive, and therefore they will find the body tomorrow morning on the bed, and Neville is gone from this world.

Instead of that, I felt myself waking – waking from a dream. I had no idea it wasn’t a normal dream; but when I awoke, I was not in this world. I was in my skull, and I knew instantly that my skull was a sepulcher and I had been placed there. How I got there, I did not know; but I only knew that somebody who put me there knew of thought I was “dead.” So, I was buried as one that was dead, and you are now buried as one that is dead; and you are dreaming this dream of life in your skull. And that’s where you are. Your Immortal Being is there. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

When I awoke to find myself completely sealed, I had an intuitive knowledge – as you are told, “The one who wakes is the wisdom of God, and he is the power of God,” for that’s how Christ is defined in Scripture: “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” And I knew exactly what to do. I would push the base of the skull. May I tell you? All things being relative, I stood within my skull. This [indicating his head] is a little tiny thing. How could Neville, 5’ll”, stand in a skull? I stood in my skull! It is the Immortal Skull – and the Immortal Head. I stood in it just like I stand here on the stage, and I went to the base of it, and I pushed from within. As I did so, something rolled away. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

That stone rolled away, and then I came out, inch by inch, head first, just like a child being born; but I’m a man, and a whole man came out; and then when I was almost out, I pulled the remaining portion of me out of that body. And then the wind became even more intense – “the wind blowing where it wills.” I heard the sound thereof, but I could not tell whence it came or whither it would go. So, I looked over to the corner, having just seen the body; I looked over and couldn’t see anything that could be the cause of it, but still it intensified like some enormous hurricane. I looked back to the body and it was gone…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Then three witnesses, as told us in the Book of Genesis,–they then stand before – you didn’t see them approaching – they stand before Abraham, to whom the promise was made. Now I am playing the part of Abraham, for here the promise is made; and these three witnesses sent from God, and one is not only the spokesman of God, it is God Himself! As he looks up, he doesn’t see them approaching. There they are! I looked and I didn’t see these three men approaching. There they sat where the body was, and they are discussing.

And in Scripture, whenever vision breaks into sound – into speech, the presence of David is assured. They began to talk, discussing the wind; and then one is completely disturbed and walks towards the same direction where I thought the wind originated. He goes two steps and he sees the infant, the sign. As told us in Scripture, the child is only a sign of the “birth” of God. He announces the father of the child. They question his right. They say, “How can,” – calling me by name – “have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point; he lifts the child and presents it, and then I take the child. And then is when it smiles in my face………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Are we not asked in the 30th Chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, “And the Lord said unto Jeremiah,” -and the word “Jeremiah” means “Jehovah will rise.” It is Jehovah who is buried in you. Jehovah will rise. And then Jehovah speaks to His prophet whose name, as I’ve just defined for you, is “Jehovah will rise,” – “Can a man bear a child?” Obviously the answer is, No. And then the Lord speaks:………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ..

“Why, then, do I see every man with his hands drawing himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… .

That is just as it happens. The face is ghastly pale like one in death practically, only it is moving, because the head moves, like one in recovery from a great ordeal. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

But here, you draw your Self out of yourself, just as you are told. But the Old Testament is an adumbration: it is a forecasting in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. The whole thing is adumbrated. One reading it could not read the sketch. It’s like a sketch. But when it actually happens in one as the cubic reality, and he reinterprets Scripture, taking you from the sketch to the reality of it, they would not accept it. They could not believe it…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

Now, the Bible begins with the Self-revelation of god. He said to Moses, –and this is the Lord speaking: “I speak unto my servant Moses. I appeared unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name The Lord I did not make myself known unto them.”

The word translated “the Lord” is “Yod-He-Vau-He,” which means “I Am.” It is to Moses that He reveals His intimate identity, which is I Am. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

But Moses said, “When they ask me, What is his name, what must I say?”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …… …”Say I Am has sent me unto you.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …

He didn’t reveal this intimacy to the three states called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They saw Him purely as Power – sheer power that was a destructive power, like the lightning, like the thunder, like the earthquake. Thy saw It only as power…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

Now He comes into the more intimate revelation of Himself in one called Moses, and there He reveals Himself as I AM. It is an intimate relationship. You say, “I am.” That’s He! But the word “Moses” means “One to be born.” So we are told in the story, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, because it was not yet born. The revelation of God came to that point of an intimate relationship of the presence being felt, which was I AM; but something more had to be born. So we are told he was not allowed to go into the Promised Land, but one called Joshua went into the Promised Land…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …

Well, the word “Joshua” is the same as the word “Jesus.” It is the Hebrew form of the Anglicized form “Jesus,” which means “Jehovah Saves,” which is the same thing as “Jehovah.” “Joshua” and “Jehovah” and “Jesus” are identical in meaning. So, Moses couldn’t go because he was not yet born into the further unveiling of God………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …

What was the other unveiling of God? The final revelation of God-in-man is that of Father. When He unveils Himself as Father, that’s the final revelation of God to man, for then he has completed His task in giving Himself to man. For it’s God’s purpose to actually give Himself to man. So, there’s no two – just you; and you and He are one. So, you can’t say, “God and I,” -for you are God! You actually become God. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …

That is the story of the Bible. So, God as Father – only when you find Him now as Father. How would I find Him as a father? To see a man standing before me that I know to be my father? No. I see his son standing before me who knows me as his father……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ..

So, when I find God’s only begotten son standing before me,–and he doesn’t even have to call me “Father;” I know he is my son, and he knows I am his father; but he does call me “Father.” He calls me his lord, and I know I am his father. He stands before me, and who is he? He is the one mentioned in the Old Testament, for “I’ve come only to fulfill Scripture.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. …

The only “scripture” spoken of in the New Testament is the Old Testament. So when he said, “I come only to fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me; and beginning, ” – not with the Gospels, not with the Letters, he begins with the Old Testament; he begins with the law of Moses, then he comes to the Prophets, he comes into the Psalms; and “he interprets to them in all the scriptures of the Old Testament the things concerning himself.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ..

So, when one fulfills Scripture – that is the Old scripture,–then the story has come to its end, and in the fulfillment God unveils Himself, and that’s the last unveiling, and that is “Father.” So, he has come to make known the real name of God, and the name is “Father.” So, he smiled, “I have made known Thy name, and I will make it known that the love with which Thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.” He begins the whole thing by calling upon the Father. Then he said, “I and my Father are one.”………………………………………………………………………………

 

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE PRUNING SHEARS OF REVISION

Neville Goddard 1954

neville goddard imagination creates realityThis morning’s subject is “The Pruning Shears of Revision”. I firmly believe that if you will wisely and daily use the pruning shears of revision that you will find there is no objective beyond your ability to realize. And I mean that seriously, no objective beyond your ability to realize.

When I was a boy of seven, a lady said to me, “I have had a vision concerning you. I’ll make it now very, very clear to you–I do not know what it is you are going to do, but I’ve been shown you will do something that through the centuries after you are gone man will not undo it. I can see it and through the centuries you will grow in stature long after you have gone. And then three men will be mentioned in hundreds of years to come and you will be one of the three when something is discussed that was done for man.”

I feel that this morning’s subject that this could be it, that if I never said another word, and you heard it and believed it, and really used it, this would be the planting that would spread from us here that tomorrow could not undo. For it is magic, this pruning shears of revision. It really is not only the achievement of objectives, but if you do it daily, it will awaken in you the spirit of Jesus, which is continual forgiveness of sin.

In this teaching the sinner should always go free; you will never condemn him, for when the spirit is awake in you you will realize in him there is no condemnation, only forgiveness, and forgiveness is not as man of the world thinks when he omits the actual execution of his revenge. What we mean by forgiveness the identification of the other that we would forgive with the ideal that other wants to embody in the world. And so we do to him what we expect or would like the world to do to us. So whatever I myself would like to embody that is the vision that I must hold of every man that I meet in my world; that no man is to be discarded, every man is to be redeemed, and my life is the process whereby that redemption is brought about. And I do it by simply identifying the other with the ideal I want to externalize in my world.

Now we will go back to the 2nd of Genesis. It is said “And God placed man in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Now when you read the story you think it happened thousands of years ago. I have come to tell you it is now. You are now in the garden of Eden and you think you are shut out or banished. You are in it, and the garden is your mind, but you need–like every gardener–you need pruning shears. For you have slept, as you are told in that second chapter; having slept, weeds have appeared in the garden and the weeds are revealing themselves by the conditions and the circumstances of life. For your garden is always projecting itself on the screen of space, and you can see by looking carefully at your world what you allow to grow in the garden of God. But you have a mission, you have a purpose, it is not to amass a fortune–you can do it if you want to–it’s not to be famous, it is not to be some mighty power, but simply to tend the garden of God. That’s your purpose. You are placed in the garden to dress it and to keep it, that only the lovely things grow in the garden of God.

Now every man in the world is rooted in you who look out and see that world. Every man is rooted in me; he ends in me as I am rooted in and end in God. Because he is rooted in me he cannot bear other than the nature the root allows. So he is in me and any changes desired in the outer world can be brought about only if I change the source of the thing I see growing in my world.

“You see yonder fields?
Don’t be surprised when you see sesamum:
The sesamum was sesamum,
The corn was corn,
The silence and the darkness knew
So is a man’s fate born”

So don’t judge it, because you are the source of the thing that you are beholding. Now turn within and prune it by using these pruning shears of revision.

Now this is how we do it. At the end of my day, I review the day; I don’t judge it, I simply review it. I look over the entire day, all the episodes, all the events, all the conversations, all the meetings, and then as I see it clearly in my mind’s eye, I rewrite it. I rewrite it and make it conform to the ideal day I wish I had experienced. I take scene after scene and rewrite it, revise it, and having revised my day, then in my imagination I relive that day, the revised day, and I do it over and over in my imagination until this seeming imagined state begins to take on to me the tones of reality. It seems that it’s real, that I actually did experience it and I have found from experience that these revised days, if really lived, will change my tomorrows. When I meet people tomorrow that today disappointed me, they will not tomorrow, for in me I have changed the very nature of that being, and having changed him, he bears witness tomorrow of the change that took place within me. It is my duty to take this garden and really make it a garden by daily using the pruning shears of revision.

I know from experience it will not only bring about these objectives, and bring about these changes, but the glorious thing is, it awakens in you, who use it, the spirit of Jesus, and you find yourself then not justifying but forgiving, and you will realize that freedom and forgiveness are indissolubly linked. You cannot be free and not forgive, for the one that you would bind and judge and condemn anchors you by your own judgment of him–for he is in you. And so by identifying him with the ideal you want to really realize you free yourself.

You are told “Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Forgive not and then you shall not be forgiven”. It’s automatic; it can’t be otherwise for the whole springs from you who behold it. And as you begin to practice it the very spirit arouses itself within you and you know that you are he that others spoke about and thought lived 2000 years ago.

So, when you realize it, you realize it through actual knowledge, you know it; no argument, you don’t tell others, you know that you are he. And then you will read the words in the ninth of Hebrews, “He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself”. And you will know you are the one that put away sin by the sacrifice of self and by the sacrifice of self it’s not being a brave one who throws himself in the line of fire to protect a brother, it doesn’t mean one who gives his body to be burned, one who is nailed on a cross, but the self of man is the sum total of all that that man believes and consents to as true. So that’s the self that is sacrificed.

I heard of this lady and she would make some man a wonderful wife, and yet she is unwed. She desires to be the companion of a great noble person, but she is unwed, I heard that. That becomes a part of myself, that’s my knowledge; I must sacrifice that self, that that aspect of my being be as happy as I am and those in my world are. For that’s the self I must sacrifice and put away sin, for sin to the mystic means missing the mark; it doesn’t mean the violation of certain codes, unless of course you have a mark and the violation fell short, but sin to the mystic is simply haying an aim in life and failing to realize it. So when you miss the mark you have sinned; so he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and knowing that himself is only all that he consents to, all that he accepts, all that he believes to be true, then what am I believing concerning that one–he is unemployed and he can’t find a job? I’m believing it. Now put away that sin where he is missing his mark and then by the putting away of the sin I do it only by the sacrifice of myself and myself is that belief, so now I revise. I can’t say well, I will no longer believe he is unemployed: I believe he’s employed.

I do it by the pruning shears of revision. I bring him before my mind’s eye and I congratulate him on his good fortune because he is now gainfully employed. I allow him to accept my congratulations, because I do not see a man unemployed, I see him employed and he knows he is in my mind’s eye for in that state I have pruned him from the unemployed state and once more reshaped the branch that grows in the garden of God. Tomorrow people will see him as they could not have seen him before the pruning that took place within me and he will be gainfully employed.

That one is unwell, you prune that branch. You don’t accept one thing in the world as final unless it conforms to the ideal you want to realize in the world. But you do it daily; if you do not prune it daily you will get out of the habit, then weeds will grow. Every man who really is a gardener who calls himself a gardener, a gardener in the garden of God, for every day is the opportunity to really prune the tree, this wonderful tree. And so everyone that you meet is a branch rooted in the vine that you are and you are that special tree in the garden of God, a tree bearing life, a tree bearing fruit for the food of the nations. You are that one.

If you take me seriously today, tonight do not let the sun descend upon any vexation of the day. Just look at it, don’t deny it, don’t duck it, look at it that you may prune it and then reshape it. Take the conversations with your friends today, were they pleasant, were they arguments, no matter what it is, were they negative?

Then rewrite the script and just imagine the conversation to have taken place that now you are rewriting for the first time. And it will take place, for everything in your world that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination. And this wonderful imagination of yours is Christ Jesus. Imagination is the actual habitation of every created thing. No matter what you see in the world, it springs from your imagination. So that’s where you go, that’s the workshop, the garden of God.

And now you have a mission, you have a purpose in life; it’s a noble purpose, because you have been selected to really become the chief gardener in the garden of God, and in the garden you must have pruning shears, and pruning shears is revision. You simply revise, and as you revise the day you repeal the day, for the day is not slipping into the past, it does not recede as people think, it is always advancing into the future to confront you, either pruned or in some strange weed-like state.

So it’s entirely up to us–I hope that every man and woman here today will take me seriously and start this day pruning your garden. pruning your mind. I know before I leave this city in a matter of two weeks that you will be able to tell me of the new things that spring in your world or that spring from the pruned tree that is your own lovely imagination. You try it: then you will know what Blake meant when he said. “In heaven, the only art of living is forgetting and forgiving.” The only art of living is complete forgetfulness by putting something in its place, no vacuum, but putting something in its place.

So when you read these strange stories that you read in the daily press, you simply ignore them. They mean nothing. Men who are calling themselves leaders, shepherds of the flock, they excommunicate–not just one religion, all religions the leaders take it upon themselves to excommunicate, not knowing nothing is to be discarded, not a thing in the world can you discard for it is forever, but it can be pruned and made to conform to the ideal image. The man who will not revise his day either does not know it or he has lost the vision of that life into the likeness of which it is the true labor of the spirit of Jesus that transformed this life. So you don’t discard them.

In the current issue of “Time” magazine there is that noble soul who is known to us as Spinoza, Baruch de Spinoza, who has given so much to the world of philosophy, so much everyone has been enriched because he walked the earth. And here 300 years later, the ex-premier of Israel, Ben-Gurion, has asked the leading rabbis today to rescind that excommunication of 300 years ago, and they tell this noble soul today that they cannot rescind the works of their forefathers, that the curse remains forever, and you should read that silly, silly curse as it’s printed in the current issue of “Time” magazine. They call upon all the angels to curse him, as though angels would curse; they call upon everything to blast him, you could not walk within four cubits of the man’s shadow; no one should talk to him, no one should show him kindness, no one should write him and never read anything he ever has to say; and that’s 300 years ago.

The rabbis who so cursed him have long been forgotten and if they do live, they live only by reason of their curse. And no one knows really who they really are, but you can’t forget if you read in this world the works of Spinoza. Everyone in this audience possibly has used one of his phrases; did you know it was he who said “nature abhors a vacuum”? Now you use it; I use it, but what is the source of it–it was Spinoza. For here was this giant of a mind that after 300 years little minds who think they’re leading the flock; they call themselves shepherds. They should go back and read well the Book of Jeremiah, “You shepherds who spoil my vines and you who have come into my garden and you have taken my vines, now it bears no grape and it bears no leaf, and the garden of Jerusalem now has become a weed.” Read it in Jeremiah, how he cries out because shepherds, who call themselves shepherds, are blind leaders of the blind.

You take me this morning at my word; you owe me nothing, it costs you not a thing to come here this morning, you come you give me your time and I give you my time, but you go out and try it and start this day pruning that wonderful imagination of yours. Do you know someone that is evil? Stop knowing it by bringing him before your mind’s eye and carry on with him the most wonderful conversation in the world, with a tender spirit, a loving spirit, and believe in the reality of this communion, because if you really do it, you are entering the kingdom of heaven, for you enter heaven by a loving, knowing communion with a friend. So make him a friend, if he is a lovely one, no matter what he is, you can prune him and then as you prune him you are doing the work which you were sent to do for man–and you are that man–you are placed this day in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Don’t let it continue growing weeds in your world.

You are absolutely responsible for every being you meet in this world; that’s your responsibility. Just like the teacher we told you of who took this little child that was just about to be expelled; no, the child is not expelled because she heard what you are hearing this morning. So she brought before her mind’s eye the child that the principal, the psychiatrist and all the faculty had agreed unanimously to expel her on her l6th birthday, for she was rude, she was crude, she was unethical; and she went home on a Sunday night and brought that child before her mind’s eye and communed with her and saw in her a tender child, a considerate child, a loving child. The next day, Monday, in class she expressed all the kindness of that revision of the night before, and ten days later when it was seen and witnessed by all the faculty, and the psychiatrist, another meeting was called and they repealed their verdict of ten days before and the child is not expelled. She still sits in the George Washington High School in New York City, which is considered an excellent school; and so there she is. with no black marks against her because one teacher sat in the audience, as you are here, and she believed, what I hope everyone here will believe, and she redeemed a branch of her own tree. She didn’t realize the child was herself. She saw up to that very moment all the children that she taught in pure objectivity. Blind man sees the world objective to himself, something detached from himself. When man begins to awake he sees everything subjectively related; everything he meets is part of himself, and what he does not now understand, still he knows that it is related by affinity to some as yet unrealized force in his own being. So he doesn’t discard it, he knows his life is the process by which he will redeem it and he redeems it by using the pruning shears of revision.

So I feel that if after these fifty years of walking this earth that this is what that lady saw when I was but seven, I could really close the eye on three dimensions at any moment knowing you will not disprove it: you may never use them but you will never disprove this art of revision. And any man who will try it will prove it to his own satisfaction that he can rise beyond the wildest dream of men, and rising he awakens the spirit of forgiveness. He will rise in the early stages in the successful venture; he will increase his income, he will do all these things, but he will realize after a little while that wasn’t the purpose. They were only toys to tickle him, toys to amuse him until he awoke within himself the spirit of Jesus; then he sees an entirely different mission, not the amassing of wealth but the redeeming of society, the redeeming of every man in the world. He comes to do his Father’s will and we are told in the 6th chapter of John, “This is my Father’s will, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing but I should raise it up again.”

Lose nothing–no, you don’t excommunicate, you don’t rub out, you simply raise it up again and as you raise it up you raise yourself up and the journey is forever. You are moving up an infinite vertical line in your own wonderful imagination, and you only move up by lifting others up. Blind men think they can save themselves, and because they think they can save themselves and discard the rest. The blind man also said this hundreds of years ago. He saved as he saved others; himself he cannot save. I say to you that it’s a false statement; it was put into the mouth of the Pharisee, put into the mouth of the Sanhedrin, the leaders who thought they were leaders, but I will tell you a man saves himself by, and only by the saving of his fellowman. There is no other way of saving self other than by saving the real self and every man is rooted in you who observes men. And so don’t discard, raise them up, prune the tree, and become the real gardener in the garden of God.

Take anything; you have a child today: we took all the requests this morning, there were dozens and dozens of requests this morning. Everyone must be answered, none must be discarded; don’t say one is impossible, there is nothing impossible to your imagination and your imagination is Christ Jesus. With Him all things are possible. Use him, stir him, wake him from his sleep; he has been sleeping through the centuries: because he has slept he has dreamed into being all these strange misshaped states. For the world only bears witness of the use or misuse of imagination. As we are told, he is the only thing in the world. What he is the only thing in the world? –Your imagination, for it is the habitation of every created thing and by it all things are made and without it is nothing made that is made. So use it wisely, use it lovingly and any time you use your imagination lovingly on behalf of another you are at that moment literally mediating God to man. Imagination is the redemptive power of the world and you are actually mediating God to man by using it in a loving, wonderful way.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE ROLL OF THE BOOK

Neville Goddard 11-01-1968

neville goddard imagination creates realityDavid, speaking to us in the 40th Psalm, says: “Lo, I come to do thy will, O Lord, for in the roll of the book it is written of me.” And in 5th chapter of the Book of John these words are found on the lips of one called Jesus Christ: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness to me.” Claiming the entire book is all about him, he begins with Moses, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, and interprets the scriptures as things concerning himself. You will find this method of interpretation the key which will unlock the innermost of revelations. Take any story and, regardless of whether the central figure is male or female, claim you are that being, that you are reading you own autobiography.

In the 25th chapter of the Book of Genesis, the Lord said to Rebecca: “Two nations are in your womb and two peoples born of you shall be divided. One shall be stronger than the other; the elder shall serve the younger. And when her days were fulfilled the first came out red and covered with hair, so they called him Esau. Then his brother Jacob came forth with his hand holding Esau’s heel.” Now we turn to the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi and read these words of the Lord: “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.”

Put yourself in the role of Rebecca and try to find out who these two are that you have brought forth. Remember: if they came from your womb, they are housed within you. One to heaven doth aspire – that one you love, and one to earth doth cling – that one you hate.

These are not two little boys who lived thousands of years ago. The Bible is divine history, not secular. The characters described there are housed within you, within me, within every child born of woman. Speaking to man through the medium of dream, with every dream being both egocentric and protean, God plays all the parts, whether they be male, female or from the animal world.

Now let me share with you an experience which happened to me many years ago. Back in the early 1930’s I suddenly found myself confronted with two characters. Above me and to my right stood a beautiful angelic being, while below stood a monstrous hairy animal which looked like an orangutan. Speaking in a guttural voice he looked up at this heavenly being and said: “She’s my mommy.” Repelled by the thought, I struck him and with each blow, he grew in strength. Then, from the depth of my own being I realized that these two were my creations. Speaking with a human voice and looking like an animal covered with hair, this monstrous being was the embodiment and personification of all of my misspent energies. Every unlovely thought, every cruel, thoughtless act aided its growth. Whispering in my ear, influencing my decisions in order to feed its hunger, it fed on violence, while the angelic being was the embodiment of every kind and lovely thought I ever possessed.

Then I realized he had the right to live. By claiming to be the offspring of this heavenly being, he claimed to exist, but I knew he did not. He had no power of his own, only my power of awareness. Although he appeared to be detached and completely free of my perception, I knew I was the cause of his life. And as I pledged myself that I would redeem him, he melted and all of the energy I had given to create and sustain that monster, returned to me. He not only dissolved, but left no trace of ever having been present. Today I can bring him back in memory, but he had no existence outside of myself. He was simply embodied energy; therefore, was he not Christ, the creative power of God? Is not Christ the bearer of all the sins in the world, allowing man to use or misuse him? It was my own creative power that I misused and Christ is the creative power of God. And only God can create and only God can redeem.

Now listen to these, the last words on the cross as recorded in the 23rd chapter of the Book of Luke: “Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit.” That is a portion of the 5th verse of the 31st Psalm, which reads: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” Here we find God, the giver of the power, redeeming it, for his creative power cannot be lost, not in eternity. When confronted by my misused power I simply redeemed it. Declaring itself to exist outside and independent of me, I knew it could not be, for there is no other, and as I redeemed all of my misspent energy it returned to me and the glorious one shone like the sun.

We are told in the 13th chapter of the Book of Revelation: “The beast was given a voice to utter blasphemies against God, against his name and his dwelling place, that is, those who dwell in heaven.” My monster uttered blasphemy, claiming divine right by declaring the heavenly being was his mother. Are we not told in the 10th [chapter] of John that he was accused of blasphemy because he dared to claim he was the Son of God? Read the 13th chapter of John carefully and you will see that the dwelling place of God is made up of those who dwell in heaven, so that the entire redeemed society form the body of God. The angelic being I saw, personified that society, that dwelling place of God which is God, so my monster was taking God’s name in vain.

Now to some dreams. A gentleman’s letter came yesterday, in which he said: “In my dream I was standing on the sidewalk when I heard the words: ‘We will get him this time. He has been gone too long.’ Then a man resembling you, Neville, came by laughing, singing, and dancing. As I watched, he walked up three or four flights of stairs and stood in the center of a brilliantly lit stage. Then the props began to move and I heard the sound of an iron gate closing, as a voice range out: ‘Your deception is at an end’ and I awoke.”

Looking at this dream on the surface you will think that I, a deceiver, am now behind bars and my deception is over; but let me quote scripture: “The creature was made subject unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of him who subjected him in hope that the creature would be set free from this bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” Every child born of woman is deceived, for this is a world of deception where everything deceives.

So let us look at this dream remembering that all dreams are egocentric, with the individual who is dreaming playing all the parts. Seeing the gay, happy man resembling he who is telling salvation’s story, indicates that you, the dreamer are on your way, that as you accept my words you leave the world of deception behind you. We are told: “The good news preached to us was preached to them.” It is the same news, but it did not benefit them because it was not received with faith when they heard it.

Many have heard salvation’s story, while only a few will accept it. If perchance, by your much coming you have accepted this as your way of life, and are willing to live by it regardless of what you hear to the contrary, then you find yourself free from the world of deception. Believing in the power of money, or being socially prominent, becoming famous, or the best dressed man or woman, the world plays the game of deception, forever deceiving themselves.

My friend saw a gay, happy spirit who tells a story of salvation that does not depend upon trying to be good or acquiring merit. That is all I asked you to do, to believe my words and live by them. You do not have to acquire merit in order to get into heaven; your acceptance of my story will take you right in. And when the time is fully come, heaven will unfold within you and you will leave this world of deception.

Another letter came, saying: “I found myself in what seemed to be an ancient world filled with throngs of people. Talking to three men, I looked down to find a little lamb at my feet. Picking it up, I said: ‘This is my baby’ and as I looked into the faces of the men, they smiled and I awoke.”

This is an adumbration, a foreshadowing. The lamb is the symbol of God’s great sacrifice, as told us in the very beginning of Genesis: “Father, I see the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Then Abraham answered: “God will provide himself (as) the lamb.” We are told in the 13th chapter of Revelation that everyone whose name was not written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb which was slain will worship the beast. Everyone was written there before the foundation of the world, before becoming a dual being. There is an outer you who, being flesh and blood, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, so your outer name is not written there. But the inner you was there. Before the foundation of the world his name was recorded in the book of life of the Lamb. This is not some emergency thinking on the part of God. The plan of salvation came before we entered. The whole thing was a plot, a plan of expansion. Her little lamb was an adumbration of the little child, the symbol of her birth from above.

Another letter came, saying: “I did my homework, as it were, by sitting in my living room and imagining something I want to experience here. After satisfying myself with the feeling that it was accomplished, I bathed in the feeling for a while, and as I did I felt myself become a ball of light. Below me, stretching into infinity was an abyss which I also knew to be myself. As the ball of light, I moved in all directions, covering the abyss. Then I, the ball of light and I, the abyss began to contract. We became smaller and smaller until I felt myself enter my skull. Then I felt as though I was going to burst, so to stop it I opened my eyes and, returning to this world I broke the vision.”

Now this gentleman knows that no matter what appears in the outer world, it is taking place in heaven, which is in the skull. That’s where the drama unfolds, for that’s where God is buried. Having had this most marvelous experience, my friend now knows the truth of Blake’s vision, that all that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.

Then he said: “I wonder if those who attend your meetings teach their children the art of revision. I taught it to my son when he was five. At the time he had quite a serious accident and was bleeding profusely. As I washed the wound, I told my son to go over the entire event, but to omit the scene where he was hurt. I explained that if he omitted that particular scene he would have nothing to cry about. He did as I asked and immediately stopped crying. I continued to wash the wound and as the bleeding stopped I applied a loose bandage and my son returned to his play. Since that day, whenever my son – who is now seven – gets hurt, he revises the scene and omits the part where he gets hurt.

“While my wife was playing tennis she received a severe break to her ankle. We both revised the incident, and although she had to stop playing tennis for a while, the ankle healed rapidly with only the aid of an ace bandage, much to the amazement of the doctor.” If you have children, teach them the art of revision early so that the idea will become a habit, just like it has in this gentleman’s home.

Let us return now to the interpretation of scripture. Being all imagination, take any passage and put yourself in the central role, for in the volume of the book it is written of you. Don’t think of some man who lived 2,000 years ago. Christ in you is the hope of glory. That is the Christ of whom the scriptures speak. Enter the state of Abraham as you read the story of Abraham and Sarah. Then become Sarah when she is the center, and Rebecca when she appears, for the Book is written of you! Do this and you will have the key which will unlock the most difficult passages of scripture.

Don’t give up. Dwell upon each story as though it were happening to you now, and your eyes will open. Visions will come and throw great light upon your understanding, like the vision I shared this night, the vision of the two nations within my womb – one an angelic female and one a monstrous male that had no right to live. May I tell you: when I pledged myself to redeem him I never felt such compassion before or since. I knew I was the cause of that which had no right to be brought into being, and when I pledged myself that if it took eternity I would redeem it, the whole thing dissolved leaving not a trace behind to even suggest it once existed. And all of its energies returned to me, to be used wisely, not to be misspent anymore.

Everyone will one day confront their two nations, one stronger then the other, and the elder will serve the younger. Well, the first act of man recorded in scripture was a violent one. Cain killed Abel. Cain, the violent outer man comes first. Esau, a man covered with hair, came first while Jacob (the supplanter) came second. Esau, once redeemed, disappears and is replaced by Jacob, whose name is changed to “Israel” which means “one who rules as God.”

Always keep alive that which you love; your emanation is your dwelling place. The monster not only opened his mouth to utter blasphemies against the name of God, but against his dwelling place – that is, those who dwell in heaven. Heaven, made up of the redeemed, is that one dwelling place of God. Everyone, when lifted up and redeemed, will be incorporated into that one body of beauty and glory. The monster, by claiming self-existence, takes the name in vain. He does not have any life outside of the one who, by the misuse of God’s creative power, caused him to come into being. When you see him you will know in the depth of your soul that you are the cause of his misfortune. He has no right to live, no right to exist, but you cannot kill him, he must be redeemed.

In the 13th chapter of Revelation, you are asked: “Who can prevail against the beast?” and in the 3rd chapter of Matthew it is said: “Do not resist the one who is evil.” In the world of Caesar that statement makes no sense, but the evil one you created in yourself is the cause of the one who is evil in the world of Caesar. The evil one in you whispers violence in your ear in order to be fed. So you are told not to resist him, for he thrives on your resistance.

When I pummeled my monster he so loved it, he grew in stature before my eyes, for as I beat him I fed him violence. Therefore, do not resist the evil one, but redeem him. When I pledged myself to redeem him I wasn’t saying it for the benefit of another, I was pledging myself, and as I did he melted away, as all of the power of my misused moments in time returned to me and I felt like a giant form of sheer redeemed power.

Take any story in scripture and claim you are playing the central role, for you are its center. There is no other being. There is only God and you are He. No matter what name is given to the central character, assume its role and the entire Book will unfold within you and you will know yourself to be the Lord Jesus Christ.

So do not turn back and believe in a God outside of yourself. Know like my friend that your deceiving days are over. You were made subject unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of Him who subjected you in the hope that you would obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God, for in freeing you He would free himself from this world of bondage to decay.

Man, made subject unto futility, piles up a billion dollars, struts and uses his power for three score and ten years only, to find that tomorrow his little soul is called. He doesn’t die, but passes through the gate called death to find himself restored to life in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in him. To those who cannot follow him, he dies, but to himself he is about twenty, in the year 3,000 or 1,000, for it’s a closed book. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Life in a world just like this one will go on until God’s real purpose is fulfilled and that is when God’s image awakens within all of his sons. God has awakened within me, and will awaken in everyone, for all are destined to awaken in the image of the One.

Tonight, ask yourself what they were saying about you when you were called Abraham. Read your story carefully and let it unfold in you. Then one day the real drama will unfold and from that moment on, when you put your head on the pillow you will no longer enter the border land of dream, but go beyond this age to enter an entirely different world. Still tied here, however, you will return day after day until your work is finished.

Now, many of you have recently been having visions of my departure. They are all symbolical. One lady was listening to me speak on the law when suddenly I left the garment on the stage. Standing lifeless behind the podium a silence filled the room so thick that it could be cut with a knife. Then I returned and with great difficulty re-entered the garment and finished my statements on the law. May I tell you: although there are many things here I love, I wish her vision were true on this level. But she conjured me in her vision because I am the one in the outer world who introduced her to this law of God. As far as she is concerned there is little, if anything I could tell her concerning the law, so I have departed from that aspect of teaching her. All I can share with her now are aspects of the Promise, which I have done in my book, Resurrection.

Today I noticed that my book was copyrighted in 1966. It was on the 10th day of October in 1966 that a wooden peg was nailed upon my shoulder, whereupon the responsibility of telling the story hangs. I have now told it as it has never been told before. When I depart there will now be a record of how God unfolds in man. I have told it as clearly and as simply as I am capable of doing in that chapter called “resurrection.” My work is finished, so He came and severed the sleeve of my tunic exposing the arm of God and fulfilling the 32nd and 53rd chapters of Isaiah. “Who has believed my report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

The right arm is the symbol of the power of God. Having unfolded the entire drama of Christ within me, He gave me the power to record it so that the unborn tomorrows will read my words and wean themselves from the traditions of men. Believing that unless a tremendous effort is made to acquire merit, the Kingdom of Heaven is unattainable, men have been led astray. The Kingdom is entered simply by hearing the story of salvation and believing it. You need never see the inside of a church, but if you hear salvation’s story and live by it, scripture will erupt within you and the role of the central character in scripture, called Jesus Christ, is yours.

In the meantime, take a passage of scripture and, putting yourself in the center, let the story unfold. Do that and you will understand its meaning. And always remember that a dream is egocentric and protean. Proteus was the legendary god of the sea who, in the service of Neptune, could assume any shape or form. You, the dreamer, are God assuming many shapes and forms in order to fulfill your dreams. God is the author of the drama and the actor. In your day dream I play the part of your teacher of the Word of God, so I could appear in that role in your night dream. But bear in mind: dreams (day and night) are yourself made visible. You are the dreamer dreaming the dream of life.

One day you will meet your monster on the threshold of consciousness, for he is attached to you although you cannot see him. And when you dissolve him by your compassion and love, he will not evaporate into space, but will return to you. I can’t tell you the thrill when you experience that union!

At the very end of the journey you will find these symbols coming into your world and you will say: “Into thy hands I commit my Spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” Having misused His power in His slumber, when He awakes God redeems Himself. And His last cry on the cross is: “Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit!”

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE SECRET OF PRAYER

Neville Goddard 10-06-1967

neville goddard imagination creates realityThe secret of scriptural prayer, as told in the form of a parable, is to pray and never lose heart. One such parable tells of a widow who kept coming to a judge, asking for vindication. At first he did not respond, then he said to himself: “Although I neither fear God, nor regard man, yet I will exonerate her, because by her much coming, she wearies me.” Parables, like dreams, contain a single jet of truth. This parable urges persistence in mastering the art of prayer. Once you have mastered it you will live in the state of thanksgiving, and all through the day you will say over and over again to yourself: “Thank you, Father.”

A most effective prayer is found in the 11th chapter of the Book of John, as: “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, for thou always hears me.” In this chapter, the story is told of someone who has died and has seemingly gone from this world. But the truth is that no one is dead to you, when you know how to pray. You may no longer touch, see, or hear those you love with your mortal senses; but if you know how to give thanks, you can move from your body of darkness into the world of light and encounter your loved ones there. Therefore, he who would learn how to pray will discover the great secret of a full and happy life.

In the 33rd chapter of the Book of Genesis, Jerusalem is called “Shechem.” It is said that, “Jacob came safely into the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan. There he erected an altar and called it El Elohey Israel, which means “the God of Israel”. Orienting himself toward Shechem (the true direction) Jacob remained in El Elohey Israel, which means “safe in mind, body, or estate”.

We are told that Daniel oriented himself at an open window, where he looked toward Jerusalem. And those in the Mohammedan world pray looking towards what they call Mecca. But because Christianity takes place within, scripture is speaking of the Jerusalem within, and not on the outside at all. When you pray you do not prostrate yourself on the ground and look towards some eastern point in space, but adjust yourself mentally into your fulfilled desire. Although this technique is simple, it takes practice to become its master. Your true direction is to the knowledge of what you want. Knowing your desire, point yourself directly in front of it by thinking from its fulfillment. Silence all thought and allow the doors of your mind to open. Then enter your desire. Stay with your imagination as your companion. Start by thinking of your imagination as something other than yourself, and eventually you will know you are what you formerly called your imagination. It is possible to amputate a hand, leg, or various parts of the body – but imagination cannot be amputated, for it is your eternal Self!

Let me show you what I mean. While standing here in Los Angeles, I may desire to be elsewhere. Time and finances may not allow it, but in my imagination I can assume I am already there. Now, by a mere act of assumption on my part, God departs this body. If I assume I am in New York City, anyone I think of in Los Angeles must be three thousand miles away. No longer can I think of them as just down the street or in the hills west of me. That is my test.

The word “prayer” means “motion towards, accession to, act or in the vicinity of”. Orienting myself towards New York City, I have made a motion, an accession to. As I act in the vicinity of, I see my friends relative to New York City. Having done this, let me have full confidence in my imagination, knowing he is the being who made the motion. Blake’s words are true: “Man is all Imagination, and God is Man and exists in us and we in Him. Man’s Immortal Body is the Imagination, and that is God Himself.”

You can not only move in space but also in time and fulfill your every desire. Prayer does not have to be confined to what a person calls self. You can pray for another by feeling they now have what they formerly wanted, for feeling is a movement. The first creative act recorded in scripture is motion: “God moved upon the face of the water.”

A friend recently had a fantastic vision, during which he asked: “Did I learn anything?” and I answered: “Yes. You learned how to move.” Then everything was transformed, as conflict deceased, a hovel became a castle, the battlefield a sea of ripened wheat, and he was escorted into his eternal home. Prayer is motion. It is learning how to move toward a change in your bank balance, your marital status, or social world. Learn to master the art of motion; for after you move, change begins to rise up out of the deep. The technique of prayer is mastering your inner motion. If you are seeing things you would like to change, move in your imagination to the position you would occupy after the change took place.

Everything and everyone in your world is yourself pushed out. Any request from another – heard by you – should not be ignored; for it is coming from yourself! You came down from a world of light to confine yourself to this body of darkness. Now a spark from an infinite world of light, one day you will remember that world and awaken, but in the meantime you must learn to exercise the power of your mind. Having remembered the infinite world of light, I now know that everything is myself, as all things are contained within me.

Prayer is psychological movement. It is the art of moving from a problem to its solution. When a friend calls, telling of a problem, we hang up, and I move from the problem state to its solution by hearing the same lady tell me the problem is now solved.

A friend recently shared this dream with me: We were in a garden and he told me all of his desires, when I said: “Don’t desire them, live them!” This is true. Desire is thinking of! Living is thinking from! Don’t go through life desiring. Live your desire. Think it is already fulfilled. Believe it is true; for an assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact.

When you are learning the art of prayer, persistence is necessary, as told us in the story of the man who – coming at night – said: “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread.” Although his friend replied: “It is late, the door is closed, my children are in bed, and I cannot come down and serve you,” because of the man’s importunity, his friend gave him what he wanted. The word importunity means brazen impudence. The man repeated and repeated his request, unwilling to take no for an answer. The same is true in the story of the widow. These are all parables told to illustrate prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer teaches the oneness of us all. It begins: “Our Father.” If God is our Father, are we not one? Regardless of our race or color of skin, if we have a common Father, we must have a common brotherhood.

Eventually we are all going to know we are the Father; but in the meanwhile, persistence is the key to a change in life – more income, greater recognition, or whatever the desire may be. If your desire is not fulfilled today, tomorrow, next week or next month – persist, for persistency will pay off. All of your prayers will be answered if you will not give up.

My old friend, Abdullah, gave me this exercise. Every day I would sit in my living room where I could not see the telephone in the hall. With my eyes closed, I would assume I was in the chair by the phone. Then I would feel myself back in the living room. This I did over and over again, as I discovered the feeling of changing motion. This exercise was very helpful to me. If you try it, you will discover you become very loose with this exercise.
Practice the art of motion, and one day you will discover that by the very act of imagining, you are detached from your physical body and placed exactly where you are imagining yourself to be – so much so that you are seen by those who are there.

Being all imagination, you must be wherever you are in imagination. Moving in your imagination, you are preparing a place for your desires to be fulfilled. Then you return, to walk through a series of events which will lead you up to where you have placed yourself. In imagination, I can put myself where I desire to be. I move and view the world from there. Then I return here, confident that – in a way unknown to me – this being who can do all things and knows all things, will lead me physically across a bridge of incident up to where I have placed myself. You can move in imagination to any place and any time. Dwell there as though it were true, and you will have learned the secret of prayer.

My wife had a wonderful vision where she found herself in a grove of trees. Walking down a clear passage, she saw people gathered around an altar. A lady approached, carrying a book entitled, The Credence of Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins according to Judaism. Reaching the altar, she began to read it aloud. Shortly, another lady appeared, carrying a book entitled, The Credence of Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins according to Christianity. Approaching the altar, she too opened her book and began to read. As my wife listened, she realized it was infinitely more difficult to be a Christian than to be a Jew. She saw the whole thing was psychological. That nothing is done on the outside, because everything comes from within.

Browning began his wonderful poem, “Easter Day” with the words: “How hard it is to be a Christian.” And Chapman said: “Christianity has not been tried and proved wanting. It has been tried and found difficult and therefore given up.” Why? Because a Christian cannot pass the buck and blame another. Christianity is built upon the foundation that all are one. That man is forever drawing conformation of what he is doing within himself. That your world bears witness to what you are doing to yourself. This is difficult to accept, yet it is Christianity. No man comes unto me, save my Father who sent me calls him. I and my Father are one, therefore I call all those who enter my life to reveal to me what I am doing in my imagination.

Learn how to pray. Master it and make your world conform to the ideal you want to experience. Stop thinking of, and start thinking from. To think from the wish fulfilled is to realize that which you will never experience while you are thinking of it. When you put yourself into the state of the wish fulfilled and think from it, you are praying, and in a way your reasoning mind does not know, your wish will become a fact in your world. You can be the man or woman you want to be, when you know how to pray. All things are possible to him who believes, therefore learn the art of believing and persuade yourself it is true. Then one day, occupying space and time in your imagination, you will be seen by another, who will call or send you a letter verifying your visit. This I know from experience.

The Bible is not just beautiful poetry; it is the inspired word of God. Written by poets, they have given enlarged meaning to normal words. When you put your body on the bed and assume you are elsewhere, are you not all imagination? In the act of imagining, you depart the dark caverns of this body and appear where you imagine yourself to be, because you are God – all imagination – and cannot die. You cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die, and your immortal being is imagination! You are the central being of scripture – the one called Jesus Christ, who is the Lord God Jehovah – who descended here for a purpose.

While here, you must pay the price of living in the world of Caesar. You may criticize our politicians and protest any raise in taxes, but you will continue to be taxed. All you have to do is learn the art of prayer and make more money.

I am reminded of a story told of the late President Kennedy. It seems his father – who had, in one generation, made something like four-hundred million dollars – complained that his children were spending too much money. At a banquet, President Kennedy said: “The only solution to this problem is for father to make more money.”

One day a friend told me that when she was a child, her father would say: “If you have but a dollar and it was necessary for you to spend it, do so as if it were a dry leaf, and you the owner of a boundless forest.” If one really knows how to pray, he could spend his dollar and then reproduce it again. You see, this world is brought into being by man’s imagination, so it is very important to learn the secret of prayer.

If you are still desiring, stop it right now! Ask yourself what it would be like, were your desire a reality. How would you feel if you were already the one you would like to be? The moment you catch that mood, you are thinking from it. And the great secret of prayer is thinking from, rather than thinking of. Anchored here, you know where you live, your bank balance, job, creditors, friends, and loved ones – as you are thinking from this state. But you can move to another state and give it the same sense of reality, when you find and practice the great secret of prayer.

Take my message to heart and live by it. Practice the art of prayer daily, and then one day you will find the most effective prayer is: “Thank you Father.” You will feel this being within you as your very self. You can speak of it as “thou” yet know it is “I.” You will then have a thou/I relationship, and say to yourself: “Thank you, Father”. If I want something, I know the desire comes from the Father, because all thought springs from Him. Having given me the urge, I thank Him for fulfilling it. Then I walk by faith, in confidence that he who gave it to me through the medium of desire will clothe it in bodily form for me to encounter in the flesh.

Don’t get in the habit of judging and criticizing, seeing only unlovely things. You have a life – live it nobly. It is so much easier to be noble, generous, loving, and kind, than to be judgmental. If others want to do so, let them.
They are an aspect of yourself that you haven’t overcome yet, but don’t fall into that habit. Simply thank your heavenly Father over and over and over again, because in the end, when the curtain comes down on this wonderful drama, the supreme actor will rise from it all and you will know that you are He.

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE SEVEN EYES OF GOD

neville goddard imagination creates realitywe must go on to higher and higher levels, for that is the purpose of the teacher. I would like to look tonight into what it is to my mind, the greatest book in the world, the Bible, and show you a section with which you may not be familiar.

It concerns the Seven Eyes of God, from the visions of Zechariah. He saw a stone with seven facets, and the Voice said, this is actually the seven eyes of God that reach over the entire world.

For these seven eyes are really in man, for man is the earth of God. So forget this little planet and know that man is the true earth in which God is planted. These are the seven visions of God, seven increasingly clarifying visions of the Creator. The Bible names them but you must look for them.

The first appears only once in the Bible in Isaiah 14 ~ Lucifer, the morning star. And it tells how he is fallen and cut down to the ground – this shining being. All races have taught that man has fallen. It is not something that belongs to the Christian or the Jewish faiths, but all races have held this concept. So the first Eye of God is Lucifer – cut down to the ground. 

The second is Molech, the strange god that demands sacrifices (Jeremiah 32). Man offers up his sons and daughters to appease this being he conceives to be God. But the Voice said, “I command them not, neither came it unto my mind, that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin.”

This Eye is in every man who thinks he has angered God and must make sacrifices to appease Him. All the wars of the world are an appeasement. The Inquisition with its tortures was an appeasement to God. The wicker baskets in which men were burned alive were an appeasement. They did it all to appease God that he might not be angry.

The third eye is Elohim, or gods, gods above and outside of man. The elements he worshipped, the stars and planets he thinks can regulate his life and influence his behavior. He turns to something outside of himself and it fails him and he cries that he is forsaken.

The fourth is Shaddai – almighty. In this eye, man seeks security and comfort. These are the governments, the mighty political machines, the rulers that man trusts, and all this fails him, too.

And then he turns to the fifth eye of Pahath, which means, “to dig a ditch or to snare animals, dig a pit.” It does not mean the animals of the forest; no, it is man I bring into my little trap. Much of the world functions like that today, everywhere in every business, especially in the great advertising campaigns. These people rule like tyrants over us. Every paper, every magazine, every TV commercial has another method of trapping us into buying all these things, so many things that we never get them paid for before we have still others.

And then the sixth eye is Jehovah – Yod He Vau He – or I AM. Man finally grows out of the snaring process. He does not now have to trap anyone in the world, but only boldly assert himself. Bold inner persuasion will create the condition that I AM persuaded of. That is Jehovah, the sixth eye.

The seventh is Jesus, or “Jehovah saves,” or “rescue.” Where man boldly asserts himself but his heart is torn for those still asleep, and he sacrifices for the others and gives himself for the whole vast world. Not as the churches teach it, but as the mystic tells you. You will take anyone, no matter who he is or what he has done, for he is only in a state. You do not condemn anyone but you lift him out of the state, and you do it by identifying the one you would save with the idea he wants to embody, and to the degree that you are faithful to your vision of that person, he will embody his ideal and become it. That is the eye called Jesus, or the seventh eye.

 There is an eighth eye, only implied in the Bible and it is veiled. On the eighth day they circumcise the child and unveil the organ of creation. There is an eye in man and Blake names it. He says, “He did not come. He hid in Albion’s forest.” Albion is Blake’s name for universal man, male or female. This eye is hidden in “Albion’s forest” – in the dark convolutions of the brain. There this eye is hiding. When you finally begin to exercise your imagination for another and actually revel in the joy of others as they become the embodiment of what they desire, and you revel in that far beyond what you would for yourself, that is the eye of Jesus. What begins to be the perfect seeing of the seventh eye of God, then something stirs, and it stirs exactly like something trying to get out of an egg. It is something trying to break through Golgotha – and Golgotha is “the skull,” that is the meaning of the word. But it is held by five nails, the five senses. The five senses confine man to this world, and then he breaks loose from this skull as the seventh eye is clarified; and the eighth eye sees concrete reality for the first time in his life, and then, once seeing clearly, he never blames anyone. For with this eighth eye, he sees the perfect world.
This is called circumcision or the unveiling of the perfect organ, which is man’s Imagination. On the eighth day, he is circumcised. It means that the eighth eye is open. It does not open by the process of time, but only after the clarifying of the seventh eye of Jesus. Then you see that God became man, that man, awakening, may become God.God contracts Himself to this very limit of opacity, so that living in this state may be called the very grave of man, and “God enters death’s door with them that enter, and lies down in the grave with them, in visions of Eternity until they awake.” (Blake) And then there are these seven visions.

First – Lucifer, the fallen one.
Second – Molech, the being that demands sacrifices. They are doing that right now, only they call it Nationalism, and they offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though the Voice said, “I do not command them to do this and cause Judah to fall into sin.”

Man sickens of it and turns to the third eye or 
Elohim, but the stars, the planets, do not respond.

Then he turns to the fourth eye or Shaddai – Almighty, to the financial and political “gods”.

And then he separates from that and digs his little pit, Pahath, and snares all the people of the world because he can outsmart them, and because of his smartness he lives very well during this little span from the cradle to the grave, and that is the fifth eye through which much of the world is seeing today.

He sickens of it, and then he finds that I AM – or Jehovah, is the only reality, or the sixth eye of God. And I build my world, as I want it and when I sicken of it, offer myself as a sacrifice for all others and give completely of myself for the good of others, and my good fortune then becomes the joy of hearing their good fortune.As it says in Job 42:5 “I heard by the hearing of my ear, but now my eye seeth Thee.” Suddenly something happens within me, and the eighth eye opens and I am circumcised, in mind, not in the flesh, and as that something opens within you, you see the reason for it all, and you see that Eternity is, and you can take anyone in this world and pull him out of any state in the world. That is the eighth eye of God.

I want to share with you an experience. The true method of knowledge is through experiment. So we invite you to experiment. The true faculty of knowing is the faculty of experiencing. For, when you have had the experiences, you no longer care whether anyone else knows it or not. It does not matter.
You know it, and you know that you know it. So I would like to share this with you, this experience, for when you begin to awaken, then you begin to remember. For if Christ is the center, then I can say, “Return to me the glory that was mine before the world was. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” If the center of man is Christ, and He was before the world was, then when I begin to awaken I only begin to remember.And when that happens, then the world cannot any longer teach you anything. So when man begins to awaken he does not question the things of this world; he knows they are not true. Psychologists tell us a complete understanding of a dream depends on the knowledge that you are dreaming, and then that wakes you up, for this is the only world they know.They speak of a dream state as being subjective and a deep dream state as the unconscious and doubt the worth of it all. But when you open the eighth eye you will know there are worlds within worlds and you are heirs to all of them. You can test your experiences and bring anything you want into your world and prove it.

Years ago I felt myself dreaming and I was swimming. I knew it was a dream. I looked up and saw the shore of a primitive island, not the little island where I was born, for that is well cultivated and in no way primitive, but this was primitive. I saw it was an island and I knew I was dreaming, and I saw these strange things like cement posts driven down through the water but they were in a state of decay. They could have been at one time part of a jetty. I could see this peculiar primitive beach and I prolonged the dream, for if you know you are dreaming you need not wake.

Something in me began to tell me, as memory began to return, that if I would take hold of one of these pilings and not let it go, and awaken, I would awaken there. I felt it and it was solidly real, just as it would feel here, and my hand did not go through it, and I held on to it and made myself awake; and I awoke in that water on that beach and then I waded ashore. I was no more asleep in that sphere than I am here in this one.

It taught me a lesson that if I could touch anything in another world and compel myself to awaken while holding it, I would find it was real. So you do it for your world. A job you want, the home you would occupy, the marriage you want.Sit at the desk at which you would sit, live in the house you want to live in, be married to the sort of person you want to be married to, and if you hold to it in your imagination, then you will make it real in your outer world. The Ancients called this capacity the Western Gate, and tied it in with the sense of touch.If you can hang on to the thing you touch and then awaken, you will find that the thing has become real. We have it in Genesis in the story of Jacob and Esau. Isaac, the father, who was blind said, “Come close that I may touch you. Come closer.” And the state symbolized by Jacob, the supplanter, was made real in place of the state that had seemed so real before, symbolized by Esau.

We are told again in Judges 17:19 how the seven locks were shaved from the head of Samson and then the Philistines came and gouged out his eyes and he was eyeless in Gaza. And they made him dance before the crowd. He asked to be taken to the temple and placed where he might touch the two middle pillars, and then he pressed and pushed and pulled down the whole thing and slew more Philistines than he had ever slain during his life.
All this is symbolical of the capacity to touch. I know, for I have done it. Many a time, finding myself dreaming, I have held on to an object in the dream and found myself awakening in another world. I have also found myself in other aspects of this world. I did it in Barbados when I wished to be seen by my sister who was 2000 miles away. But whether it be in this little aspect or in another world, it does not matter, for there are infinite worlds and you are heir to all of them.

You can get all you want in this world. You can use the fifth eye or the fourth eye. All those who lead us into battle are using the second and third. Few are using the sixth and only an nth part use the seventh eye or the eye of Jesus, and not until it is used and you would rather have the good of another than your own good, and rejoice for another more than for yourself, have you really opened the seventh eye and then you are ready for the opening of the eighth eye.

The seventh eye, the eye of Jesus, has nothing to do with a man born 2000 years ago; it has everything to do with the expanding mind of man. When you exercise the seventh, then something opens. It is the eighth. But until the seventh is fully open, “he hides in the forest of Albion.” He hides in the dark convolutions of the brain. It may scare you a little at first, the feeling of an electric battery moving in your head.

You feel memory come back and you feel it on this side and then on that, and then you center it, and then you SEE. Something opens and you actually see a world no one else can see. The seventh eye is based purely on faith. Man does not know God will actually redeem him and he cries, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And then the new world will be seen.

Man seeks security and comfort through the fourth eye. These are the dictators, the political machines, etc. They are always going to save the country, save the world, and then they are driven out – but they take a half billion dollars with them. We have seen it in this hemisphere – the very ones impoverishing the treasury that men had just called the saviors of their country.

They have not reached the sixth eye, or I AM. He who has reached that turns to no one. He knows, “I AM that I will be, I AM what I am.” You can be that or anything you want. But then you go beyond it and you want nothing for yourself but only for others. Then he starts giving himself for man and then when that is completely clarified the eighth eye opens.

Look in your Bible and read the story of the unveiling of the mind of man. But it comes only after the seventh eye is exercised. So I must learn to experience feeling and touching. That is called the Western Gate, and it is closed in man, but he must learn about it, and before I close this eye he must learn much about the Western Gate, for I was told not to hold back one secret, and having had the experience of holding on to an object and awakening not on my bed at all, I must share it with you.

I awake in the world where I am holding the object. I have been shut out many times from this world by holding on to an object in that world and awakening in it, and it was just as real as this, but I came back to this. I had a body here and one there. When I returned here where was that other body? Have I not many bodies, for I am scattered over all the world, and man, as he begins to awake, collects the scattered portions of himself, and then he finally finds the being that is God.

You can love everyone in this world and you will find joy beyond your wildest dreams in doing good for another; when he asks of you and you, in your Imagination create, and then you have confirmation of it, and then you rejoice as God rejoices. “These things have I spoken that my joy may remain in you.” For whenever anyone awakes, that is the eye of God.

So there are seven stated quite clearly and the eighth implied. I tell you that you will feel it like a chick in the egg of the skull. Christ is crucified on this cross (man) with five nails – the five senses. The same meaning is in the story of the five foolish virgins. And then he tears himself free from this cross.

Now, you catch it on the wing, but I tell you that you will discover all kinds of wonderful things in the awakening of God in man. For God became man that man may become God. So this wonderful poem that existed only for God is beginning to exist for itself. Sentients begin to appear in the poem, lifting it to higher states and we become at last creators, one of an infinite society of gods.

This eighth eye is misunderstood by the priesthoods of the world and they circumcise the child. It is the Imagination that must be unveiled, not the physical organ, and it comes only after the perfect clarity of vision through the eye of Jesus. Jesus means, “Jehovah saves.” Not one is lost.He has fallen into a state, but you, through the eye of Jesus, save him. You ask him,“What do you want?” and see that condition real for him, and then seeing it embody itself, you rejoice that one has been lifted out of the mire. You do it over and over, and then your head becomes alive and you feel electric currents through it, and yet you will know what you should do, just as a chick knows what to do. It pecks its way out.And then the place where the skull grew together after birth becomes awake again, and you see another world, and you see the world was perfectly made and every state is perfect, and then you will know that you are awake to play beautifully on this eternal world, to bring out these beautiful combinations made by your Father.

If tonight’s talk seems different from what you expected, then nothing is more practical than the sixth eye. You can make your world what you want it to be by the sixth eye; in fact the fifth has done it. You can snare all kinds of people in your little traps. Read the morning papers.

Every ad is to snare us into emptying our pockets, and they will be thrilled that they can do it. Every year we find new traps to get what we have. We have new forms of credit. No one dies leaving anything behind any more. The whole vast thing is a trap. It has become the way of life, the fifth eye.

But then come the sixth and the seventh and then the eighth; and when the eighth opens you forgive everyone in the world, no matter what he has done. You, as man, have gone through every eye. You have worshipped Elohim and sacrificed to Molech.

But when the eighth opens, you will know that nothing displeases your Father but unbelief. Sin does not displease him. The priesthoods of the world tell you sin displeases him, but only disbelief displeases him, for they that come to him must believe in him. Anything you can believe is an image of truth.

Could you believe that someone in dire need is now well taken care of? Then he can become as you see him. But sin does not displease your Father. It means, “to miss the mark,” and He comes to the world to show everyone how not to miss the mark. If I do miss the mark, He makes a greater effort to show me how not to miss marks.

Hebrews 11 – “Those who come to Him must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that seek…” So seek Him first and then all these things will be added.

 So there are these eight eyes in man. The eighth hides in the forest of Albion, or the dark convolutions of the brain. Breathing won’t bring it out, or diets, or Yoga exercises will not do it.He will come out only when, as you look through the seventh eye, which is the vision of Jesus, you see only the good of another and glory in that beyond what is only for yourself. Then you will begin to see through the eighth eye of God.
Use the seventh eye consciously and take every person regardless of color, race or creed and ask of him only, “What do you want?” For in Him there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor bond nor free.So you take everyone, for he has only fallen into a state and you single out that individual’s request and persuade yourself that he is now the embodiment of the ideal that he wants to embody and to the degree that you use the seventh eye will the eighth come out of the “forest of Albion”.The opening of the eighth eye is actually the second coming of Jesus. For when the seventh becomes perfectly clear, then the eighth will open, as if it were released from the tomb, and then you see as God.
 One cannot be born a Christian. If you are not using the seventh eye, you are not a Christian. If you are the Pope, you are using the fourth eye and all the priesthoods of the world use the fourth eye. So-called almighty powers all use the fourth eye.But you must use the eye of Jesus. Jesus is the eye of God that sacrifices itself for the whole vast world. He gives himself for every being in the world, seeing for them their ideal, their perfect state.
 Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT

Neville Goddard 02-19-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight we have as our subject, ‘The Sin Against the Holy Spirit.’ Undoubtedly you have heard unnumbered concepts of this statement from scripture. The most common interpretation is the violation of the sex act. But that is not my picture – not as it has been revealed to me. As I told you: the Bible is not something you can open up and read as you would a novel. It is a building on three levels. As you are told: ‘A three-fold cord is not quickly broken.’ I, personally, cannot conceive that you will violate and blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. I will give you my reason for it afterwards. So, if I can comfort you, may I tell you: don’t be anxious, that you will simply sin. Yes, we all sin every moment of time. But all sins are forgiven, all blasphemies are forgiven.

The only blasphemy that cannot be forgiven is that against the Holy Spirit, as told in Matthew 12, Mark 3, and Luke 2. I find in the Book of Luke a more advanced development of the theme than I do in Matthew and Mark. Mark is the earliest revelation of this theme, but each statement is followed by the strangest, most irrelevant theme in the three books. That which follows in the Book of Luke gave me my cue. He made the statement that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven (Luke 12:8). You will think you are reading an entirely different chapter on a different theme. Then it goes right into this statement: ‘And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’ (Luke 11-12). That little word ‘ought’ reveals so much. It implies you need not say what you should say. ‘The Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say’ – and that is the crux of the whole thing. Man is free and, because he is free, he need not say what he should say. So, He will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.

First of all, you must understand what a synagogue is. It is a gathering, a community called by Jehovah. We think a synagogue is built with human hands, but the synagogue in the true sense of the word is a place of worship, a place of instruction, and the only worship in the synagogue is the reading of scripture, the word of God. No getting down and saying prayers. ‘And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.’ (Nehemiah 8:8) Here, for almost 2,000 years, in the most populous of our Christian denominations, they read it in Latin, in a tongue not understood by anyone in the congregation. We are warned to ‘read from the book, the law of God, clearly; and they gave sense, so that the people understood the readings.’ Were I in France and spoke only English, I could not go to any church and ‘hear’ anyone who read to me in French. You would have to read to me in the English tongue, and with understanding, that I may understand. Here is the word of God. But if I understood some other tongue, read it to me in that tongue, read it with the sense so that I may understand it. This is the story all over the world. We will take one little passage, and we do not understand it and we criticize others. It has nothing to do with things taking place in the outer world. It is all about you.

Before we go into this statement, let me show you the difference between Jesus, and the Christ – for the whole thing is about the Christ. The connection between Jesus and the Christ is not that of an historical figure and some metaphysical entity, but that of a visible history condensed into a few years, and the history that is continuously unfolded throughout the ages – a history that is known as the history of salvation. Christ is divine history inwoven in every child born of woman. The whole vast history of God is inwoven in you and in me and in every being, and when it reaches maturity in you in one short interval of time – that condensed amount of time, just a few years – the whole thing unfolds. But may I tell you: only a few will believe it. The entire divine history of God inwoven in man like a seed matures through the ages – all the pains and violence – everything in the world. And suddenly what you heard about another begins to awaken in you. It will come out petal by petal. The whole thing flowers in you and you are he. That is the story.

Now why do I not believe that you could ever sin against the Holy Spirit? I will tell you: ‘And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’ Someone asked me a question. Who asked me a question? Some question must be asked for me to answer. What am I to say? The Holy Spirit will teach me in that very hour what I ought to say. So when I am brought into this wonderful gathering and presented to the Holy of Holies – God himself – I am told supernaturally, yes, I am prompted as though on a stage and the prompter is telling me what I ought to say. And I cannot, from my own experience, believe that anyone in this world could falter. It is automatic. When you stand in his presence and he is infinite love, he will ask you: ‘What is the greatest thing in the world?’ and you -without taking thought or batting an eye or trying to rationalize – you will automatically, like an echo, say: ‘Faith, Hope and Love, these three abide, but the greatest of these is Love.’ And he who asked the question and prompted you supernaturally what to say, will then embrace you, and you are one with God forever and forever. Then you will be sent to tell that story to the whole vast world who will listen. Some will listen and accept it, others will reject it, and the majority will not even listen. It does not matter. The tree is growing in us, and when it matures in a very short interval of time -only a few years – the whole thing unfolds. It doesn’t take fifty years – I am fifty-eight – but in just a matter of years it begins to happen, and one after the other everything said of him unfolds in you, and you are he.

So, Christ is divine history, and Jesus – the first to be raised from the dead -is the one in whom that divine history unfolds. Just a little short interval of time, and you are he. Everyone becomes Jesus, because in everyone – in one moment of time – it is going to happen. When this garment of flesh comes off you will know exactly who you are. Personally I cannot believe (although the word is used, and I am told in Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Revelation: ‘Do not change one word of scripture,’ do not add to or take from it, leave it as it is) – therefore I cannot alter the word ‘ought,’ and it is used both in the King James and Standard Revised Versions. He will tell you what you ought to say, giving man freedom to deny it and not say the greatest thing in the world is Love. That is man’s choice. But I do not believe man will ever not say it. In my own case it was like a response, an echo. How could you change an echo? Not if you screamed it from canyons. The voice will come back as I said it. You are supernaturally prompted what to say. So I cannot see how you are prompted in the depths of your soul what to say, and not say it. Don’t despair – you will not sin against the Holy Spirit. But all other sins are forgiven – but all of them. What are they? It is stated so clearly for us if we understand the Bible: every sin in the world is forgiven. All blasphemies are forgiven and we hold the key.

In the end of John 20, he appears, and the inner room was completely filled and he was shut out as it were. They wondered if he really rose. He appears in the midst of them and shows them the marks upon his body to testify to the reality of this appearance. Then he said to them: ‘Peace be with you.’ Listen to it carefully. He said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ If you forgive the sins of anyone they are forgiven, and if you retain the sins of anyone they are retained.’ He breathes upon them and gives them the Holy Spirit. (The words, ‘breath,’ ‘wind,’ and ‘spirit,’ are one, the same word, both in Greek and Hebrew.) So he breathes upon them. I will tell you what it is. It is the most intense vibration you have ever felt. There is nothing comparable to it – that breath which transfers to you the gift God promised, the gift of the Holy Spirit. It awakens you. It took place in the ‘upper room.’ If you read it correctly, they were gathered together in the upper room. Suddenly he appears and breathes upon them and gives them the power to hold, or release.

I tell you: you can exercise this faculty right now. You can take someone in your world and represent them to yourself as you would like to see them. To the degree you are self-persuaded he is such a being, he becomes it. You are actually freeing him, and not holding him enslaved forever by seeing in your mind’s eye the being that is limited. That is your privilege. These are only states of consciousness, and every state a man leaves, he grows – as Matthew brings out: ‘If a tree be good it bears good fruit, if it is bad it bears bad fruit,’ and he invites us to take the good tree. Luke went beyond Matthew in this statement of sinning against the Holy Ghost. If you sin against the Holy Spirit there is no forgiveness, but against anything else there is forgiveness.

Everyone in this world is bearing fruit – poverty, wealth, health, being known, being unknown, everything – and you who know this law can take anyone from the state where you find them and put them in the state you desire to see them. You don’t need his consent or knowledge. Don’t tell him what you are doing. Trust this power in your own being. Persuade yourself that this imaginal act is true and real, and to the degree that you are self-persuaded it is real it becomes real.

And so I tell you: if you forgive anyone he is forgiven; if you retain his sin it is retained. Don’t blame him if he does not find the good job you think he should find. Don’t give him an argument. Does he need a good job, and you tell him to go and to make a greater effort? You are not applying this principle. Only after you become self-persuaded that he is employed are you forgiving his sin. Sin means missing the mark. If he misses it and you know it, you can help him. Listen to the words: ‘If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not know sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.’ He comes and shows man that causation is mental, that it is not physical – and now man has no excuse for his sin, missing the mark. If man has a mind – an imagination – he can exercise it. ‘You have heard of old that you should not commit adultery, but I say unto you to look on a woman lustfully you have already committed the act in your heart.’ He raises it out from the physical state. He makes every man responsible for missing the goal. If I do not get the job, he does not condemn me. He only asks me to apply the law as it is revealed. ‘They read from the book the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.’ He reads from the Book (God’s revealed Word) that causation is mental, that imaginal acts create facts.

So what are you imagining? I can say morning, noon, and night that I am holding the thought for you, and hope you get it. But I must so persuade myself, that I can’t see anything else in the world. That is what he taught us to do. And I tell you the day will come (it begins in one moment when you least expect it) when suddenly the whole thing begins to awaken and the flower begins to unfold in you. In the beginning of time you were shown it on Mount Sinai. They can’t find Mount Sinai – they never will – God’s secret mountain where all of us were gathered together around Mount Sinai where Jehovah pledged it. He called us his bride. We were Israel then. Then he took us and pledged Israel to himself in this wonderfully holy covenant and showed us what we would go through. You forget it in passing through, and can’t remember it until the very end. In the very end, memory returns, and these wonderful words from Edward Thomas’ great poem: ‘All was foreshown me, what could I foresee, when I learned how the wind would sound after these things should be.’ You do. Suddenly the thing begins to unfold and you hear the wind – this terrific hurricane of power. Then all things begin to unfold, and everything said of Jesus Christ in the scripture you will experience, from the birth to the very end – everything. Do not see him as something on the outside. See Jesus, as I told you earlier, a history – condensed in a few years, just a few years. And see Christ as history, continuously unfolded throughout the ages and you- the individual-matching this already unfolded divine history. You went through all the fires of the world and suddenly you reached the point of blooming, and in a quick moment you bloomed, and all that was foreseen and foretold – you suddenly awaken, and you are it.

Everything in the world is forgiven – I don’t care what you have done or plan to do. They are only states. The only thing not forgiven is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and that is – as I see it – when the individual refuses to confess his faith when supernaturally prompted to do so. You are brought into the presence of the God of Gods – the only God – and here in his presence you are prompted to confess your faith, and the words are told you. But you have heard it before. We have all heard them before, but even at that very moment they are still repeated in the depths of your soul that you may not make any mistake: ‘What is the greatest thing in the world?’ and without batting an eye, you answer: ‘Faith, Hope, and Love, these three abide. But the greatest of these is Love.’ And here is infinite love embodied before you, the Holy Spirit – Jehovah himself, and he embraces you and you are merged with him, you are one with him – infinite love – never in eternity to be dissolved from him, because you answered correctly. Yet you did not write the words. So I cannot see how anyone can sin against the Holy Spirit. I cannot change the scripture, and as far back as we can go – to the earliest manuscripts – the word ‘ought’ is there. But there is a possibility that one having been supernaturally prompted what to say could change the scripture – and that is the sin against the Holy Ghost. But I do not think you will. I cannot conceive of anyone doing it. I cannot conceive of God failing.

In the interval – all these things we sin against – we fall into states. A man falls into the state of feeling sorry for himself. Knowing the law, instead of arguing with the man, just take him out of it. He may fall in again twenty-four hours later. A friend called me today and my wife answered the phone, and he said: ‘What news have you of Vicki?’ She said: ‘We are very pleased with her report.’ He answered: ‘Pleased? I wish I could say pleased about things concerning myself.’ He has been coming to my lectures for years. He was here last week. After years of saturation, he cannot conceive of feeling happy. And you tell him morning, noon, and night that these are states – that if you put yourself in a state of being wanted, you will be wanted. The state of being unwanted, then you will not be wanted. It will go on forever. He cannot believe in this reality. I have brought him out unnumbered times, and yet I must never falter. ‘How often must I forgive? Seventy times seven.’ If he calls me a thousand times I still must pull him out, and you go over it all again. You and I who know this principle must forgive seventy times seven and not ignore him, because he will not do it himself. If he wants to lean, let him lean. One day when he least expects it, suddenly the whole story of Jesus Christ will unfold within him, and he is Jesus Christ.

Christ is divine history, the history of salvation. And Jesus is history condensed into a few years that match it. Suddenly the whole vast thing has been stretched out and continuously unfolded throughout all the ages and is now telescoped in a short interval of time – the life of one man. May it happen to you now. When it will happen, only God knows. I do not know, but he knows, and when it starts to happen you cannot stop it. The whole thing will form the flower that is Christ. When you make your exit from this world you have made it for the last time and then you are in eternity – but not better than those who have not. ‘Christ is the first fruit of those that slept,’ the first that has been raised from the dead, but he is the beginning of the prophecy. We are not better than any being in this world because of our awakening. All will be one, and that one is God.

So the sin against the Holy Spirit – may I ask you not to be too concerned. I can’t conceive that you in any way will respond [incorrectly] when you are prompted supernaturally what you should say. God has taken His place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. You are brought into his presence and presented to the Ancient of Days – the Holy Spirit – and he is Man, the embodiment of love. And he will ask you a very simple question. He is the Rule, the Author, but don’t be anxious of how or what you are to answer or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. And I tell you: what you ought to say, you are going to say. You are going to say it automatically and then he embraces you – and he is infinite love, joy beyond the wildest dream. No one could conceive of the joy when Jehovah embraces you. And then you are sent to do what you will be doing: telling the word of God, just speaking – you can’t add to it or take from it. (Nehemiah 8:8) The four chapters from the 8th through the 11th of Nehemiah simply tell you about the word of God, nothing else.

Let no one tell you that the sin against the Holy Ghost means any physical departure or misuse or abuse, or any other thing. Hundreds of books have been written on that theme, and it is not so at all. They are rationalizing God’s word. You can’t rationalize it. It has to be revealed. That is a mystery known only by revelation. I have read these books. I had them at home. Today, having had the experience, I know that everything is forgiven – but in the true sense of the word – no matter what man has done. Man has fallen into states. If he falls in time after time after time, you pull him out. And you do it for yourself, though your reason and senses deny it – it does not matter. You remain faithful and you – the only living reality in the world – will take the state, and the state will bear fruit. In Matthew 12:33, we are told: ‘Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.’ Those who do things you do not like are bearing bad fruit. But he is not the tree; he is the immortal soul falling into these states, one after the other. As Blake said: ‘I do not consider either the Just or the Wicked to be in a Supreme State, but to be every one of them States of the Sleep which the Soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil when it leaves Paradise following the Serpent.’

Man falls into these states unwittingly. You take someone, and without their knowledge or consent draw them into a level state and persuade yourself it is true. Though you have no evidence to confirm it, you persuade yourself it is so, and suddenly you will hear and he will confirm the fruit that he is hearing. But if you don’t do it and you believe all the things you hear and see in the course of a day, you are moving unnumbered (persons) into all kinds of confusing states. I say: don’t be concerned, but do practice freeing individuals from the sin that is forgivable. You could forgive every being in this world before He breathes upon you and gives you the gift of the Holy Spirit. You still can forgive. Everyone can do it.

My friends in San Francisco, and here – dozens of them whose stories I have told, who forgave, who took certain things that they wanted in this world and denied they did not have them and assumed they had them. These are all states, but you got them and you took others and changed them and made them conform to your dream of them and they conformed to it. Let us remember what we did and continue doing it, knowing that any moment in time, when we least expect it, like a thief in the night he comes upon us and he breathes upon us and our head becomes a vibrant center and we awaken from this sleep. It is Christ breathing upon himself in us, for Christ – being divine history – he simply awakens and unveils it in us, and we suddenly become aware and we awaken and we are he. Then we look into our scripture and read the story in Matthew and in Luke, and everything said of his birth we experience, even to the three who were present, even to the swaddling clothes – and then you stand confounded and bewildered. Then a few months later something equally as fantastic happens. And we are told: if the Son makes you free you are free indeed. The promise is made that the Son will make the father free. (I Sam. 17:25) If he sets the father free, there must be a child, and he tells us he is trying to find the child. It takes the son to set the father free. In John 8:35, he said: ‘The Son abides forever. If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.’ Then you see the Son after another breathing (or wind) upon you, your head becomes a vibrant state, and all of a sudden, here he comes. He calls you, ‘Father.’ You know who he is. He calls you, ‘Father’ and you know exactly who you are. So everything is telescoped.

Let me again repeat the connection between Jesus and the Christ. It is not that of an historical figure and a metaphysical entity, but that of a visible history condensed within a few years, and the history that is continuously unfolded forever – continuously unfolded throughout all the ages. And suddenly this matches that, and it is telescoped, and all that is unfolded forever is telescoped in you in a few short years – and you are he.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE SOURCE

Neville Goddard 10-14-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityMan is seeking the source, the cause, of the phenomena of life. In his search, he grows and outgrows his many concepts of God until he finds the one God he can never outgrow, and therefore can never lose. That is the God which he finds in a first person, present tense experience.

Here is a true story that verges on this truth. While a friend was shaving, his little girl watched, and questioning him, asked: “Where does God really live?” and he absent mindedly answered: “In the well.” Laughing at his silly answer, the little girl ran to tell her mother. At breakfast that morning when his wife asked why he had made such a statement, he could not answer, but later that day he remembered.

When he was a small boy in Poland, a band of gypsies passed by and stopped at the well in his parent’s courtyard. One in particular held his attention. He was a giant of a man, with a short-cropped red beard. As the little boy watched, the man drew the wooden bucket of water from the well. His posture and great hands made the bucket appear as though it weighed no more than a teacup, and as he drank, the water trickled down his beard and onto his chest. When the man was finished, he untied a multicolored silk scarf and mopping his face, he wiped his beard; and leaning over, he looked deep into the well for what seemed to the child a very long time.

Curious, the little boy tried to climb the well’s side to see what was inside. Seeing him, the man smiled, picked the small boy up, and said: “Do you know where God lives?” Shaking his head no, the man held him over the well, and said: “Look.” In the stillness of that water the boy saw his own reflection and said: “That’s me!” and the man replied: “Ah, now you know where God lives.”

This concept is nearer to the truth of God than ninety-nine percent of the people hold. Here was a so-called ignorant gypsy, traveling from town to town, who knew where God lived and turned to no other. Seeing the well, he knew there would be water. Owned, yes, by the one who lived in the manor, but they would not stop him from using “his” water. Having no desire to accumulate things, this giant of a man taught this little boy a marvelous lesson for all of us to remember. When you see your reflection, whether in a mirror or in the surface of a pool, you are looking into the face of God.

Now, the first verse of Genesis and the first verse of John are equated. Genesis begins: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and John tells us: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

In Hebrew and other Semitic languages, the words for “head” and “beginning” have the same root. Achaia, one of the great scholars of the first century and a friend and close companion of Paul, translated the ancient manuscript of Hebrew into Greek. In his translation he used the word “head” in place of “beginning”. His manuscript reads: “In the head God created the heavens and the earth.” This Hebrew word “rosh” is defined in Strong’s Concordance as “the top; the highest part; the beginning; the head; the chief cornerstone.” So, it is in the head that God created the heavens and the earth.

Blake, claiming that his great poem “Jerusalem” was dictated from on high, stated: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”

Blake meant us to take that statement literally. All that you are conscious of is within you. Where else could it be? Looking out, and seeing this world as mechanical and not spiritual, causes you to remain lost in your search, for the world is your minor. You are its source. Everything you perceive is within, for it is in the head that God created the heavens and the earth.

I am not speaking of your mortal head. It is only a symbol, a reflection of your immortal one. The day will come when your mortal head will return to dust, but there is a head that survives this one. A head capable of instantly restoring and clothing you in a mortal frame just like your present one – only young – to find yourself in a terrestrial world just like this. That is the head in which God sleeps. It is there that the pattern is buried. And it is in that head that the pattern man unfolds to reveal you as the source.

Man finds it difficult to believe he is the cause of all life, yet I say there is no other. Look into the eye of your friend – or enemy – and you will see only yourself. You will see Jacob, the apple (little man) of God’s eye.

Imagination (God) is forever seeing himself reflected in the world, just as you, looking into the eye of another, see your reflected self. So the little boy looked into the well, and upon seeing his reflection said: “It’s me,” and the wise man replied: “Ah, now you know who God is.”

Man can be told over and over again that he is not going to find God as another, but he cannot believe it until that pattern buried in the head unfolds. Then and only then will he know beyond all doubt who God is.

I know who the Lord is, for I stood in his presence. I saw his form and conversed with him as man to man. His appearance was the likeness and similitude of love, and when we embraced I was incorporated into that one body of love.

If God is the beginning of the universal humanity, and I am one with the body of God, and one with the spirit of God, then I am God; therefore, I saw in advance what I really look like. Divine appearance, wearing the likeness of love, questioned me and I had no other answer than love. What could be greater than what I was looking at? So when he incorporated me into his body of love, he incorporated me into universal humanity.

Having seen the face of radiant love, and being incorporated into the body of love, I cannot lose my God. I have found him to be my own wonderful human imagination, and cannot outgrow him. I cannot go elsewhere and I cannot lose this God. He is my God forever and forever, and he is my very self!

Having revealed himself to me, he and I became one in a first person, singular, present tense experience. Then everything said of the pattern man we call Jesus, unfolded in me; and I now say, without embarrassment or any bowing of the head, I am He. As long as I continue to wear my frail little body of flesh and blood I cannot claim my heavenly inheritance, but I know it will be instantly mine when I leave this body for the last time.

There is conferred upon the Risen Christ, in the experience of men, the divine name of Lord. When Philip said: “O Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied,” the Risen Christ replied: “I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me? He who has seen me, has seen the Father.” This experience takes place after the resurrection, for the divine name of Lord is placed upon the Risen Christ.

This story is told as though a man of flesh and blood is speaking, but it is not. Scripture is completely supernatural. The discovery of God is supernatural, for he reveals himself only to the one who has the experience. And when you tell it, those who hear either believe your story or they disbelieve it. If someone has a concept of God as a little physical man, that concept must be outgrown; and man must grow and grow before he can comprehend what you are saying. So maybe those who hear your words can’t take it, but do not despair; continue to tell it and maybe one percent of those present will grasp it. It doesn’t matter how many can hear with understanding, you offer it anyway.

Dwell upon this change in meaning. It is not in the beginning of time and space, but in the head that the word was and is with God, for the word is God. It was in the head that God created the heavens and the earth, so where else would you go to find anything?

In the September 7, 1957 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, Harold H. Martin wrote an article entitled, “The Amazing Kennedys.” In it he said: “Kennedy admirers look forward confidently to the day that they will see Jack in the White House, Bobby in the Cabinet as Attorney General, and Teddy as a senator from Massachusetts.”

Here is a family who dared to break one of the most frightful barriers which ever existed in our country concerning the White House – to be a Catholic! My friend David always used the word, “WASP”, (meaning White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), claiming that if you were not a WASP you could not seek the highest office in our land. Well, Kennedy was white, Anglo-Saxon, and Catholic. His entire family were ardent Catholics, yet they broke that barrier. Why? Because imagining creates reality.

Back in 1957, the imaginal acts of Kennedy admirers were printed for all to see. They did not say that Bobby would have a cabinet post, but specified what post! Or that Teddy would be a senator, but from which state he would represent – and it all came to pass. If it did not last, that is not the point; it came to pass! And because of the assassinations, their imaginal acts will remain indelibly impressed upon the history of our country. Lincoln, as well as those who are not important as presidents, live longer in the minds of men when they are assassinated. So here we find that ardent admirers, determining what they admired, persisted, and it came to pass. Why? Because the whole thing is within!

Can you conceive of a desire and be fervent about it? Can you want the grace of God with the same intensity as the psalmist who said: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” Here is a little deer (for that is what the hart is) knowing that wild beasts prey upon every animal drinking there, desires water with such intensity he is willing to brave anything to get to that little pool. If you could become that thirsty for God, you would find him in yourself, in a first person, present tense experience, for you will never find him in any other way.

When I found him I was thrilled beyond measure. Having been taught God was another, I had formed a mental concept of him that comforted me and allowed me to pray to someone other than myself. But when I found him, I found him in myself, as myself! Then I knew I could not pray to another; I must turn within and appropriate, for everything is contained within my own wonderful human imagination!

Achaia’s translation was really a fantastic gift to man. But – unable to believe it – men chose another definition, and now all translations read: “In the beginning”; yet it could have been; “In the head God created the heavens and the earth, for in the head is the Word, and the Word is with God and the Word is God.”

Now, if by God all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made, and you are confronted with a frightening problem – did God not make it alive for you? And can he not unmake anything he made? So if, by your admiration for a certain family, you see them exactly as you want to see them, and believe to the degree that you print your projection in an international magazine, and it comes to pass in three years – have you not found the source, the cause of life?

This brings me to a point. A lady recently asked what was wrong with her, because – knowing in the depth of her soul that she was right -when confronted with another opinion, she remains quiet, unable to voice her opposition.

In the Book of John, he tells an incredible story, saying: “I am God the Father. When you see me, you see the Father. Do you not know that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” Making one fantastic statement after the other, he adds: “I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you will believe that I am he.” For we are told: “Unless you believe that I am he, you die in your sins.” (John 13-14)

John emphasizes over and over again that you must believe you are the one you would like to be, or you will never become it. Rather, you will remain what you believe yourself to be right now. Your belief is always externalizing itself on the screen of space. It has to, for it is in you and not out there.

When your belief becomes a fact and appears solidly real on the outside, it is because it is supported by you on the inside. The day you cease to believe in it, it will fade, for everything must be built on the foundation of belief. I believe I am a success. I will remain a success only to the extent that I continue to believe I am. The day I stop believing, failure enters and success fades.

You must believe you are in a certain state. You cannot forget it if you want to externalize that state. You may drop it after reaching a certain point, but if you want to keep it alive, you must do it within yourself; for nothing comes into being unsupported by an imaginal act, and nothing remains unless supported by that act. The day imaginal support is withdrawn the thing begins to vanish, and ceases to be in your world. This is true for a marriage, a friendship, or a business.

If you know what you want, give it to yourself, for there is only one source of causation. That source is God. He is the dreamer in you who will awaken from this wonderful dream of life; and when he does, you will realize you have been dreaming all along. Many great poets have tried to tell this, but man cannot comprehend that the poet – in touch with a deeper layer of his own being – was awakened and recorded his experiences, until it happens in the individual.

The dreamer in you is God. It is he who is the source, the cause of your life. Dream fervently! Dream with intensity! Use the recorded techniques such as, “Come close, my son that I may feel you.” You can, by a spiritual sensation, persuade yourself that you are experiencing something physically.

I know a lady in New York City who – as a combination seamstress and designer – was not earning much, and wanted not only to have a better income, but to do more designing than sewing. When she discussed this with me and told me the amount of money she wanted to make, I urged her not to limit herself asking: “Would you like to supervise those who do the sewing, as well as doing the designing?” And when she told me she would love that, I urged her to write down the amount of money she would like to make, deduct her taxes, and determine the balance.

Figuring it out to the penny and believing she would be paid in cash, this lady felt the envelope containing the bills and coins she would receive. Shaking the envelope, she heard the change rattle. Then she tore off the end of the envelope and let the money fall on the table, pulled out the bills and smelled them. (Do you know you can smell money? It has an odor of its very own, like nothing else). Then this lady counted the money, down to the very penny.

The next day, while in her room at a hotel on 34th street, her telephone rang and she was advised that a gentleman was downstairs and wanted to see her. She had never met this man before, but knew his reputation, and certainly never dreamed of him calling her. But she met him in the lobby, where they discussed business on the terms that she would be more and more the designer and less and less the seamstress. She then named the salary that we had discussed, and when he agreed, she promised to start working for him the following Monday. One week later, when she opened her envelope, she counted her money out to the very penny she had imagined only a week before. Now, how can you call that coincidence? She was eager to make a change and – believing – she played the part of Isaac.

Isaac was blind. He could not see, but he could feel. Knowing one son was covered with hair while the other had none, Isaac desired the one he could touch with feeling. When Jacob approached, clothed in hair, Isaac said: “Although your voice sounds like Jacob, you feel like Esau.” Then, basing his conviction upon feeling rather than sound, Isaac gave his son Jacob the right of birth. And when Esau returned to discover that his brother had deceived his father, Isaac said: “I have given him your blessing and I cannot take it back.”

This lady gave her blessing to a better job and more money. Clothing it in tones of reality, she felt its existence and gave it the right to be born. This she did on Friday, and the very next day the new state came into being.

I urge you not to despair. If you have tried and tried to imagine, yet failed, don’t give up, try to be more intense. Try to be more believing concerning the reality of your imaginal act. Man, believing in the mechanism of the universe, finds it difficult to see it as imaginal, but it is. Tell the story of the Kennedys to the average man and he will say: so what? He cannot see that story as confirmation of the fact that imagining creates reality. You could tell him a hundred such stories, but – steeped in believing that this world is mechanical and must be moved on the outside – man finds it difficult to understand that the world will reshuffle itself to reflect any change that takes place in the individual. But the change takes place in the imagination, not in the world!

Dwell upon the fact that it is in the head that God created the heavens and the earth. Knowing where the head is, you will know where the source is. Then you will know where God is, for he is in the head.

Look in the mirror and see God! Look at anything that reflects your face, and you are seeing God. Then one day when you stand in His presence you will know him. Called the Universal Humanity, because He takes one after the other into his one body, when you see that body, you see love! You commune as man to man, embrace, and become one with the risen Christ, even though it will take 30 years for confirmation to appear. But the joy that is in store for you when the time is fulfilled and scripture erupts, is well worth the wait, for you will experience all that is said of Jesus Christ – even to God’s Son calling you father.

Scripture really means what it says, for it is David who claims the Lord called him his son (Psalms 2) and it is you who will declare: “I have found David. He cried to me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’ ” (Psalms 89) David is buried in the head, where God created everything in the heavens and the earth. It is in the head that God is buried and it is from the head that his fatherhood is revealed.

How else would you ever know you were God the Father, unless his son revealed it to you? This experience is in store for everyone. I know, for I am not theorizing or speculating, but telling you exactly what I have experienced. It was David who made me conscious of being God the Father. I know you are, too; but only when David reveals himself to you, will you find the God you cannot lose or outgrow.

Where did I awaken? Was it not in my head? From what area of my body did I emerge? Was it not from my head? And how could Christ emerge from one in whom he is not present? If he did not now exist in me, he could not emerge from me. And if he ascended in me, he had to first have descended in me. He descended like a bolt of lightening and ascended in the same manner; for in the beginning God placed himself in the head, and it is in that head that I am dreaming the dream of life.

Everything is contained within the head of man. The explosion took place and my son stood before me in my head. It was my head which became luminous as the heavens became transparent. The dove descended on my finger, but kissed my head. Here was the Holy Spirit smothering my head with affection in confirmation of the work God had done, and of which he was well pleased.

Now I must tell it and tell it and continue to tell it, knowing that some will accept my words while others will not. But they will one day, when they have outgrown the gods of their own making; for we all grow and outgrow, grow and outgrow.

So when you read scripture always bear in mind the completely supernatural characters recorded there. See it as a drama that takes place – not out there, but in the depth of your own soul.

Try to become as fervent of something for yourself as the Kennedy admirers were for him. Become as intense for self or a friend as they were for the family. Nothing was more impossible in our political setup than to be a Catholic and still aspire to the White House; but they did it and he got it and you can, too.

No matter what it is you desire, remember: nothing is impossible. What is now proved was once only imagined, so begin by imagining a state and persuading yourself that you are in it. Blake said: “The ancients believed that if you are self-persuaded, it was so. There was a time in Imagination when a firm persuasion removed mountains.”

You can remove the seemingly mountainous obstacles which confront you by simply ignoring them and assuming the end. And if you have to go over the mountain, you will, or the mountain will be removed. Whatever is necessary to be removed for you to fulfill what you have assumed, will be done for you as long as you remain faithful to yourself, the source of all life.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE SPHERE WITHIN

Neville Goddard 06-02-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityEntering this world of death, you brought all you have (or can have) with you. You are like a garden, already planted and sowed, for this world is too poor to produce one seed. Although William Blake was called a madman, he knew this great truth, and said: “The Human Imagination is the Eternal Body of the Lord Jesus.” I tell you: the Lord Jesus is your own wonderful human imagination, who became as you are that you may become as he is.

Everything is housed in you, because Jesus is buried there, and it is from there that he will rise. You might think Paul was speaking of one external to himself, when he said: “I have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus,” but Paul was not. The preposition “in” designates Christ as the sphere within which faith lives, rather than an object of faith. So, if everything is within you, you may question why you are in this world of sadness, death, and sorrow; but I will tell you: you are here for a purpose.

In this world a king can bestow a high honor to anyone, but he cannot fit that one for the high office. Now, God not only bestows his honor, but he prepares the individual to receive it. You are here because you are being prepared. We are all part of the corporate destiny of a fabulous play, whose outcome is an entirely different world. In fact, this high honor cannot be conceived of until experienced.

When you have been prepared, you will be automatically drawn like a magnet into that sphere where your faith lives. Then all that is now contained within you will awaken; and the highest honor will be yours, with the revelation that God gave himself to you, as you. I tell you now: God became as you are, with all of your weaknesses and limitations; and God is going through the horrors of this world with you until you are prepared to receive the high honor, as the story of Jesus Christ (which has already been sown within you) erupts like a garden already planted, and you discover you are God.

Everyone will enter this sphere and know this revelation, but we all have different parts to play in that body. The part you will play has already been written and you were chosen to play it before that the world was. That part to which you have been cast must be prepared to receive your eternal form.

Some schools of thought will tell you that you were born blind because of karma; but I say to you: you were born blind, deaf, limited, weak, or poor – not because your parents sinned, or you sinned, but that the works of God may be made manifest. You cast yourself into the role you are now playing in order to prepare yourself to receive the high honor in the eternal body of the human imagination, which is God himself.

Scripture tells us God is love and God is life. If God is your life and he is love, then your life is love. In fact everything that loves is eternal. The moment a woman brings a child into the world, she is in love with her production and – if need be – will sacrifice herself for it. That woman, by her expression of love, is eternal. The man who expresses love for his child is eternal, also because God is love and love is man’s life.

Our scientists tell us that man alone is capable of love, but not the animal or plant world; yet I say anything that loves is eternal. One day, while walking on the beach in little Barbados with my wife and daughter, we watched as two little boys, walking with their governess, turned over a large rock to discover two beach crabs underneath. The larger one immediately ran three or four feet away, turned, and looked at us with piercing eyes. Then I said to the boys: “Be quiet and watch,” and as we did, the crab returned, quickly grabbed the little one who had remained, pressed it to its breast, and ran away to hide once more. Now, wasn’t that a demonstration of love? God made everything in love. Never would he have made it had he not loved it. The little crab was made by love. I saw it express love, therefore the crab is eternal.

Man has been trained to believe in Jesus Christ as an external being, an object of his faith; but Jesus Christ is not the object of faith, but the sphere within which faith lives! One day in 1959, having been prepared because of the parts I have played throughout my long journey, I was magnetically drawn into that sphere. Then that which was already planted within me, erupted, and the drama of Jesus Christ unfolded, casting me in the central role as the being who gave himself for me.

He had to prepare himself – as the being you call Neville – by suffering with me until the work he set out to do in me was finished. Then the honor was conferred, at which time everything said of Jesus Christ unfolded itself within me.

I know this is true of every child born of woman; but it is difficult to convince those who do not wish to stand upon their own feet. Perhaps they cannot at the moment. They still may have to go through the mill by suffering, while the one who bestows the honor upon them suffers with them. The king of this world does not suffer with those to whom he bestows honor; but God, in bestowing the honor, requires you to receive it in order to execute your part in the corporate body of God.

The part you are now playing is played for a purpose. If your child is mentally deficient, don’t think you are its cause, for you are not. You did nothing wrong. Your child is being prepared to receive this great honor. This is simply a part he must play; and when every part has been played, he will be as perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect. Then the honor which was originally bestowed upon him erupts, and he discovers he is God himself – for in the end there is nothing but God.

When Blake made that statement, he was called mad; but I tell you there are states in which the visionary is considered mad for experiencing that which others have not. I have experienced that which you have not, yet I know you will. What part you will play in the body of God, I do not know; I only know that the part was created before that the world was, and it is perfect.

Now, in the Book of Joshua we are told that the land given to Israel was distributed by lot. This does not mean a piece of land, but the part you were allotted. The twelve tribes of Israel were cast into the lots. In the story we discover that Caleb was given a portion of the tribe of Judah, the same Judah as is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus as the one through whom the drama unfolds. The word “Caleb” is defined as “a dog,” but its spiritual definition is “a homosexual.” Now we see that Caleb – the fourth son of Jacob – is a part of the eternal play of God. This we are told in the 15th chapter, the 13th verse of the Book of Joshua, as God justifies everything he has made.

When people sit in judgment, it is because they haven’t the slightest concept of scripture, and do not realize what is taking place in the soul of man. Nothing is to be condemned, for God would not have made it had he not loved it, for God is love – this I know from experience. I stood in the presence of Infinite, Eternal Love, who embraced me and incorporated me into his body. At that moment I became one with the body of love, so I know God is love.

I also know that any one or any thing that loves is eternal, because love is God and God – who is eternal and infinite – made everything because he loved it; therefore it too is eternal. This world is too poor to produce one seed, so we enter it like a garden already planted and sown. We bring everything that we have or ever will have with us. The part of the mathematician is there for you to play, even though you may not be cast in that role at the present time. The part of the mystic is there for you also. You may condemn a part, but it is within you. It may lie dormant because you are cut out for another part; but you will play your allotted part perfectly, and in the end become one with the one corporate body of the Risen Lord.

What part you will play in this body I do not know. I can only tell you we fell from the kingdom of heaven and we are rising back into that unity. I know, for I rose like the son of man and re-entered that kingdom. It is there I will reside when I drop this body. And you will be there also, when you drop your physical body for the last time. Then we will be brothers in love. So, “Go to my brothers and tell them I am ascending unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God,” for we are all brothers in the kingdom of heaven, all united to form the one and only God.

Tonight you may be playing a small part; but let me assure you, you are in the part you play because Jesus is in you. He is your breath of life, your awareness of being. An idiot may not know where he is, what he is, or who he is; but he is aware because Jesus Christ is in him.

Now, in the 11th chapter of the Book of Revelation, John speaks of the Lord and his Christ. The word “Christ” means “the anointed,” who is David (as told us in the Book of Samuel and the 89th Psalm). David, called the firstborn from the dead, is anointed with the holy oil. That David is he who appears as a result of your being prepared to receive the highest honor – which is God himself. Man made Saul their king; but God rejected Saul and made David higher than the kings of the earth, proclaiming he was his son.

So, when you see David, you will see your son and know exactly who you are. And you will also know that everyone – even those you formerly disliked – is destined to see your son; and- because there is only one son, begotten by one Father – you, and he who you formerly disliked, are one. No one can be a stranger, for no one is another. Everyone is coming towards the point where he knows he is God the Father.

You came into this world, not as a poor little child, but as God desiring to play that part. I was born into a family of ten who had no money, no social or intellectual background. During that time there were two people in Barbados who foretold the future.

When I was about four years old one gentleman known as the prophet Gordon told my two eldest brothers that one would become a successful businessman and the other a doctor, which they did. Then he added: “Don’t touch the fourth one, for he belongs to God. He has come to fulfill God’s word,” and that is what I have done. Then, when I was about nine, a lady said she saw my destiny in a vision.

Everyone has a pattern to fulfill. You may not know what your pattern will be, and that is right; for if you knew what you were destined to do, at a certain point in time you might hesitate to follow that path; so it is hidden from you that you may be conditioned to receive the high honor, which is God himself.

Man finds it difficult to believe he is so destined, and thinks the idea is blasphemy. I have heard men who have achieved high titles in their churches, say from the pulpit that those who believe God is in them are insane; and I wondered how they could make such a statement, for they knew nothing.

When it happened in me, I was drawn into the sphere where a spiritual experience is revealed; and as the plan unfolded and God revealed himself to me as me, I saw those men still in the same state of mind and realized scripture was right in describing them as the blind leading the blind. Wearing their robes made by the human hand, they think that is the way God dresses – when God is clothed in love.

The colors of their robes are lovely and they are made quite beautifully; but their robes do not endear them to God, for God does not see the outer robes – he only sees the man’s heart. And when that heart has been prepared, then the individual is drawn into the sphere of spiritual experience where faith lives. It is from there that he returns, knowing the faith of which scripture speaks.

When I returned from the vision of being incorporated into the body of love, if the worldly wise men had forced me – like they did Galileo – I, too, would deny it, yet knowing I am right and they are stupid. Today we know that the earth goes around the sun, but when Galileo lived the pope and cardinals compelled him to confess publicly that he was wrong and they were right. Now we know they were wrong and he was right; but they still go blindly on making others confess concerning their wisdom; and they haven’t any, for they are men without vision, as they haven’t experienced the word of God.

If this night I were put under physical pressure I, too, would confess that my experiences were hallucinations; but in my heart I would know that my visions were real. I could no more deny them than I can the simplest evidence of my senses. What I am seeing now as an objective fact that I cannot deny, will become a memory image an hour from now. I have experienced everything said of Jesus Christ just as objectively as I see you and this room, and I know that everyone is going to have the same experiences when he is prepared to receive them.

In our land, I recall hearing an interview with a man who had just been appointed an ambassador. When asked about the place where he was going, he admitted he didn’t even know where it was on the map, or anything about the government there. He received the appointment because of his generous contributions to the presidential campaign, not because of his fitness for the position. But before God gives you the honor, he qualifies you to receive it by putting you through the paces.

In the first chapter of the Book of Colossians, we read: “The Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” The phrase “to share in” literally means, “for the part.” Here we see that the part has already been prepared, and now we must be qualified for the part each one of us will play in our inheritance.

The words “to share in,” causes one to think in terms of material goods; but if you actually share in God’s inheritance, you share in the part of being God, for he is your inheritance, and God is all. You can recreate anything, when you know you are the creative power and the creative wisdom of God. That is the gift God is preparing us all to receive!

I can’t tell you how altogether glorious you really are. If you would dwell upon this thought alone, you would stop feeling inferior in any way. No matter where you were born or what you are doing today, if you will walk aware that God selected you for an eternal part in the new body he is building out of living stones, you will never feel small again. Dwell upon that wonderful hope.

Know that God is preparing you for the part you will play in his living body, and that he will not stop no matter what you may go through. If you know this you will say with Paul: “I do not consider the sufferings of this present time worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed in me, for that glory is God himself.”

If suffering be your lot, then suffer knowing the glory that is to be yours when the fires of experience are over. You may not suffer physically, but to lose a loved one is a suffering that can eat your heart out; but that suffering is preparing you to receive the glory that God has predetermined for you.

Tonight my message may not seem to be practical, but may I tell you it is the most practical talk I can give. I could tell you how to go about getting a better job, more money, larger houses, and better cars; but do you know: that which is most profoundly spiritual is, in truth, most directly practical; for while your mind is removed from your desires of this world by dwelling on something far greater, things are moving within you.

Then, one day, you will give your entire heart to a far more noble state, and you will be drawn into the sphere where scripture unfolds from within. It comes so suddenly, as you are not aware that you have moved into that sphere where the eruption takes place. It takes time to prepare you for that sphere, but when you are there you know nothing but the power of God. You feel him as an unearthly wind. You hear him in its unearthly sound as scripture erupts and you experience everything – from your birth from above, to the descent of the dove.

I promise you, if this experience is not yours in the not distant future, you will know it in the state the world calls the grave, for there is no death. You were created by the living God, and because you have loved – even if only for a fleeting moment – you are an eternal being, for God is love.

You will be restored to life in a world just like this one, to go through the paces. Then, one day, you will remember having heard a madman tell you of a sphere into which you would be drawn. You will move into that sphere, and scripture will erupt within you. Then you will know that no one in the new generation differs from those in the old, but that all ages are equal. Today we haven’t turned out any Shakespeares, Raphaels, Beethovens or Bachs; but many books are written, canvases are filled, and songs are sung on the guitars and the banjos. So you see – all ages are equal and not one age differs from the other.

We are in a world of educated darkness, where each individual is being prepared to receive God’s gift. That gift is not a castle on the Rhine, or a kingdom in this world, but God Himself. When God gives himself to you – and God is all – you receive all.

You brought all that you have (and can have) with you when you entered this world. You came in just like a garden already planted and sown, for the world in which we live is too poor to produce one seed, because your reality is Jesus, who is your own wonderful human imagination. His body contains everything in eternity, while this world only objectifies what is within your human imagination.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE SPIRIT WITHIN

Neville Goddard  04-25-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen reading the Bible always bear in mind that the persons Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Peter, Paul, (or any name appearing there) are states of consciousness. The names only identify the states represented. If you see the characters as persons, you misunderstand scripture, for the names are simply personifications of eternal states which will be revealed to you, mortal man, in a series of divine revelations.

Satan, for instance, personifies the state of complete unbelief. In the state of Satan you cannot accept a thing as real unless you can touch it or see it. Blake tells us: “Satan believes that sin is displeasing to God. He ought to know that nothing displeases God but unbelief and eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Combat of Good and Evil is eating of the Tree of Knowledge. The Combat of Truth and Error is Eating of the Tree of Life. These are not only Universal, but Particular. Each are Personified.” Here he speaks of Satan as an eternal state into which anyone may fall when a state is denied because it is not in harmony with the outer senses.

But every mystic worthy of the name knows that a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it relates. If I say: “Aren’t they beautiful?” and you see nothing, you may not agree. That is because you are not seeing what I am. I may be seeing a dozen red roses in a crystal vase which has been placed on a corner table in my living room. Now, to the degree that I am self-persuaded they are there, their appearance will become a fact. This I know from experience, so I know that a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it relates. Satan insists that it must, but truth (called Jesus Christ) tells us that it need not be so.

Tonight we will take the Spirit of truth on a higher level. Personified as a man, Jesus proclaimed himself to be the Spirit of Truth saying: “I came out from the Father and came into the world. Again I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” Knowing the physical background of the man who said these words, this statement did not make sense to those who knew the speaker, and he had nothing to display on the outside to support his claim. The Jerusalem Talmud tells us that if the Messiah is in the world he does not know it until Elijah comes and anoints him. Then he will suddenly appear, for the Jewish expectancy is the sudden appearance of the Messiah.

In the Book of Zechariah this Messiah is called “the corner, or top stone.” “He shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace! Grace to him!” And in the book of John, we read: “The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Here we see he is the top stone as well as the foundation stone of which there is no other. Now, a foundation stone is hollow, for it contains the plan of the edifice. There must be a plan, a purpose for a building, so in the hollow foundation stone the documents are laid. This structure is the temple of the Living God, of which you are. His plan of salvation is buried in your skull and you are destined to bring forth this plan, as grace and truth reveal you to be the one and only Jesus Christ.

A lady wrote this week, saying: “A week ago last Monday as I closed my eyes in the silence, I thanked you for once more explaining the law although I already know all about it, when I heard you say, ‘But do you really know it?’ Then I realized that I knew it with my surface mind, but did not really believe it in the depths of my being.

Suddenly a pyramid appeared with the top stone missing. A sphere was above the pyramid, peaked by a crown outlined in a scintillating white light. The sphere began to spin, causing everything to become so brilliant I closed my spiritual eyes to return to this level of my being. Since then I have felt that if my inner eye had been stronger I would have seen a being emerge from that light.” She is right, she would have, but it is not yet time for her to see her true self.

Your wonderful skull is the hollowed out foundation stone where Christ is buried. God and his creative power became you (humanity) that you may become as He is, for He is the consciousness of every child born of woman, and in the fullness of time a being will emerge from that stone to know itself to be the light of the world. In the 3rd chapter of the 1st Epistle of John, we read: “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall know him for we shall be like him.” Yes! When God’s plan of salvation unfolds itself in you, you wil1 not only be like him, you will be one with him!

In order to externalize truth (or error) a man is needed to be its agent; therefore, truth is man. Scripture personifies truth, but man, not realizing this, sees one unique little man and not God’s plan. Having unfolded His plan of salvation in a man, God uses that man as his agent to say: “I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes unto the Father but by me. If you knew me you would know my Father also, for I and my Father are one.”

I, the Living Word, came into the world to experience scripture and I cannot return unto him void, but must accomplish that which I purposed and prosper in the thing for which I was sent. The O1d Testament is an adumbration of God’s plan of salvation. Written as the history of Israel, it is experienced spiritually by an individual whose physical origin is known, and the world sees the person, but not the state he is conscious of being. They expect the Messiah to be a being external to themselves, to come out of the nowhere and surprise them. But the Messiah is buried in that hollowed foundation stone which is the skull of Man. He does come suddenly, for when it is his time to awaken, everything said of Jesus Christ in scripture unfolds in you, in a first person singular, present tense experience. Then you tell your friends about your experiences and they smile as they shake their heads, for they know your parents, your weaknesses and your failures, and cannot believe you have fulfilled the Old Testament.

Although I read the statement in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book it is all about me,” I did not know it to be true until the Spirit of truth awakened in me. Now I tell my brothers that I am departing this world and going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God because I know that we are all one. The one God in a diversified state appears as many, but it takes the many to form the one God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.”

When you read scripture, always remember that every word has a meaning. The word “Zechariah” means “Jehovah remembers.” In the state of Zechariah you remember your promise to Israel, for the word “Israel” means, “to rule as God.” Remembering, you don’t rule as a little god-like tyrant of the world, but as God Himself! You must forget the concept of Jesus Christ as a little man external to yourself, for it is Christ in you who is your hope of glory. All things are made by him, whether they be good or ill, lovely or unlovely. An artist doesn’t have to create only the beautiful, but can create anything, and so it is with God. You can find him by testing your wonderful human imagination.

I have searched for and found Jesus Christ to be my own wonderful human imagination. I now know that everything in my world was first imagined by me. I may not always remember the imaginal act relative to the unlovely things I have experienced, but I have imagined and watched its fulfillment in my world. I know that although I may not remember the imaginal act, I must have committed it, for I cannot reap that which I have not sown.

In the 2nd chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, the Lord said: “I planted you a pure seed, O Israel. How did you become degenerate?” I will tell you how! By going after foreign gods; by worshipping the gods of astrology, numerology, wealth, or so-called important people. By believing in things on the outside and seeing other causes for the phenomena of your life and not the only cause, who is God, your own wonderful human imagination, whose name is I am! One day you will awaken to discover that you are the one and only God. But you aren’t going to rob anyone, for it takes all your brothers, together, to form the one pyramid, and when this is accomplished the top stone will be put in place.

Now a lady wrote, saying: “This dream disturbs me greatly. In the dream I entered an exquisite jewelry store, [and] picked up many items, among which was a beautiful green gem. Then I left without paying for the articles I took. On this level I would never do such a thing and cannot understand why I would do it there.” My dear, you should be thrilled because you did it. On this level you are eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but you are way beyond this tree, for you are now eating of the Tree of Life by fulfilling the 50th Psalm: “If I were hungry I would not tell you for the world is mine and all within it.” If everything is yours, whose permission do you need to take it? As an incurrent eyewitness, you do not function here save when you open your mortal eyes. In this world of good and evil you would never go to Tiffany’s and walk out without paying for your purchases, but as the Spirit of truth, you are feasting upon the tree of truth and error in the world that is yours. In that world there is no need to ask permission of anyone to take anything you desire.

Man’s real hunger is not for bread alone, but for the Word of God to fulfill itself in him, as Amos was told: “I will send a hunger upon you. It will not be for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” Her hunger was represented by the green stone, green being that which is growing, like the tree of life. My dear, you are blessed for having such a dream.

No one would ever agree with another as to what is right and what is wrong, for we all have different values. What is right to one is wrong to another. We came down into the world of death because we ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and we are told that the only thing that displeases God is the eating of that tree, and unbelief. If you think another is the cause of your misfortune, you are sinning and missing your mark in life. There is only one cause for all of the phenomena of your life, and that is God, whose eternal name is I AM. When you really believe this, you will not deny the harvest you are reaping. It may be unpleasant, but you will know that it couldn’t happen unless you sowed it, so accept your harvest and then plant something lovely in its place. Never deny that one and only cause, which is your own wonderful human imagination!

Scripture teaches no other God, but organized churches have created little icons for people to come and genuflect before in violation of the 2nd commandment: “Make no graven image unto me.” Half of my family are Catholic and have these monstrous looking statues all over their homes. We were raised Protestant, but several of my brothers married Catholics and raised their children in that belief. I don’t argue with them because as far as they are concerned, I am a product of Satan. If I would only go with them on Sunday mornings and do all the little nonsense they do, it would be wonderful as far as they are concerned; but they think I am blaspheming when I tell them that the only Christ erupted in me as my very self, for they know my origin, my father and my mother. They do not know the “I” who was in concealment until Elijah came.

The body you wash and care for on the outside is the Elijah of the Old Testament and the John the Baptist of the New. Coming into the world by assuming a garment of hair, man has made every effort to attain salvation by physical means, like doing violence against its appetite. For seven years I went on a starvation diet of vegetables only and I grew thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. I was young and virile. I desired everything that a normal man would, yet I went on a diet of celibacy and had nightmares with my suppressions, wondering why they were happening to me when I was trying to be such a holy man. Ab once told me that I was so good, I was good for nothing. That’s John the Baptist, the outer man, who must be restrained and beheaded before Christ can come into the world. This I know from experience, for I certainly didn’t expect him. I went to sleep in my normal manner, not knowing that in the wee hours of the morning He would erupt in me, but he did, for I awoke to find myself in a tomb which was my skull. Then, in 1,260 days, everything said of Jesus Christ unfolded in me in a first person singular, present tense experience, just as told us in the Book of Daniel and confirmed in the Book of Revelation.

Now I, personified truth, stand alone and point the only way to the Father, while Satan (personified error) has the authority of the world behind him. The world has accepted error by worshiping their misinterpretations of scripture which have become the traditions of the church, yet I have awakened and know exactly what has happened to me. I have been on television and radio around the clock with ministers, priests and rabbis who look at me strangely when I quote their own Book for them. When I quoted the words spoken by David in the 2nd Psalm as: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’, they said: “But that quote belongs to Jesus Christ.” This is true. The statement can be found in the 3rd chapter of Matthew, but did not David, in the Spirit, call Jesus, “My Lord”?

One night in New York City I said to a rabbi: “David called me Father”.
Is that not the fulfillment of the 89th Psalm? I have found David. He has cried unto me: ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ Therefore am I not the one spoken of in the 20th chapter of Luke as Christ? With that the rabbi put his hands to his ears to shut out such blasphemy, yet this same truth is found throughout the entire scripture. They called him blasphemous because he said: “I and my Father are one. My Father is he who you call God, but I know my Father and you know not your God.” He never denied his brothers, but knew they were sound asleep and would one day awaken to discover that God is the dreamer in all. At the present time he is dreaming he is you, and when he awakes, you will be God. He actually became as you are, that you may become as He is.

Now, in order to prove that the law works, you must try it. Have a goal. Your goal may be peace of mind, health or marriage. You name it. Knowing your own wonderful human imagination is the one and only cause of your life, conceive a scene which, if true, would imply the fulfillment of your goal. Do not allow yourself to observe the action, but put yourself in the center of the scene and allow your friends to congratulate you on your good fortune. Accept their congratulations without embarrassment. Enter into the spirit of the scene and remain there until it feels real, then drop it in confidence that the imaginal act was performed by God. How do I know this? Because God’s name forever and ever is I am. If at the time of your imagining I had asked you what you were doing, you would have said: “I am imagining.” At that moment you called forth your desire with His name.

Every time you imagine, God is acting and all things are possible to him.
All you need to do now is wait patiently, confident that your desire will externalize itself, and when it does you have found the cause of creation. Then tell your sleeping brothers, who wait patiently for their world to change while they activate its continuance. Nothing happens on the outside! Everything has to be initiated on the inside first. Read the morning paper, turn on the television or radio, and react to what you hear and see, and that reaction is an imaginal act which will cause unlovely experiences to people your world. As you reap your harvest, you may not relate your present experience to what you did, but you had to have done it or you couldn’t be aware of it now, for everything is yourself pushed out, for you and God are one.

When you read scripture in the future, bear in mind that the persons stated there are personifications of states. The word, “Moses”, for instance, is the ancient Egyptian verb meaning “to be born”. And what is to be born? The Living word which will fulfill the written word. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. It’s not the other way around. There could be no New without the Old. The Old Testament tells the story by intimating God’s plan, while the New Testament interprets it by fulfilling it. Man has misunderstood the interpretation and worships states called Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and all the others, when you – as an individual – interpret the states within yourself to discover that you are scripture.

He sent me, His word, into the world with the words: “Time to act.” Having looked into the face of infinite love, we embraced, fused and became one protean being. Now God, as infinite might I was hurled out of that assembly and returned to this little garment lying on the bed. I did not know what it was all about, but I have never forgotten the experience.

I could no more deny it than I could the simplest act of my senses, yet that happened to me back in 1929. Thirty years later His word, now myself, erupted and I began to fulfill scripture within myself. Now I tell it to those who will listen, knowing that no one comes unto me save my Father calls him. He draws you, one by one, to hear His unfolded Word. Of those who come, some believe and some disbelieve, as indicated through your visions.

Now I am departing this world, not to a restored society like this, but to return to the body of the Risen Lord, knowing myself to be one with the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE STATE OF VISION

Neville Goddard 2-26-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality“We have only to raise Imagination to the state of Vision and the thing is done.” (William Blake) Just imagine it! That is all you and I are required to do. No matter what it is we desire, we have only to raise imagination to the state of vision, and the thing is done! Now, when the prophets of old used the word vision in scripture, they meant all of the senses, either individually or in combination. The Book of Isaiah begins: “The visions of Isaiah, the son of Amoz. Hear, O heavens and give ear O earth; for the Lord has spoken.” And the Book of Obadiah states: “The visions of Obadiah. Thus sayeth the Lord God.” Here we find the visions are audio; but scripture records visions of sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch. The last chapter of the Book of Job reads: “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.”

Imagination must be raised to the sense of sight in order to see. The sense of sound seems to be the most popular in scripture, yet in the story of Jacob it is the sense of touch. Isaac, Jacob’s father, was blind and could not see. His twin brother, Esau, was the first out of the womb. He was covered with hair and – because of his birth – had the right of inheritance by law. Jacob, who followed his brother, was a smooth-skinned lad, who deceived his father through the sense of touch. Killing one of his father’s flock, he wrapped the skin around his arm, and when his father touched him, he felt its reality and gave Jacob the right of birth.

This is not a story of a man who was blind, or of two sons that came out of the womb of a woman. This drama unfolds from within. Esau is the world you know by your reason and senses. The room you are now in is your Esau, while your subjective desire is your Jacob. Wearing garments of hair, Esau is the outer, objective world, which Jacob, your desire, is seeking to replace. As Isaac – the father – you have the power to give reality to your desired, subjective state. Invite it to come near, that you may feel it, to know whether it is as real as your outer world is.

Isaac chose the sense of touch rather than that of sound, adding the sense of smell, saying: “You smell like Esau.” Using these two senses, Isaac granted Jacob the right to become an objective fact. So when Blake tells us that if we will raise imagination to the state of vision the thing is done, he is speaking of vision in any one, or a combination of the five senses.

Perhaps the sense of hearing is most developed in you. If so, you can single out a voice and hear it with such clarity that you can become self-persuaded its words are true. Your sense of hearing can be developed to the degree that you can shut out all other senses and believe in what you are hearing. When the words take on the tones of reality and you are self-persuaded that it is so, the event has been impregnated upon you; and what do you do after impregnation? Nothing! You simply carry the knowledge that in its normal, natural time, that which you heard so clearly will be born. No two eggs have the same interval of time between their fertilization and hatching out. I do not know how long it will take for your desire to become an objective fact. I only know that when imagination is raised to the state of vision – be it sight, sound, scent, taste or touch – the thing is done!

I know a very fine artist (whose works are in national galleries) who was starving, and didn’t have a dime with which to buy food. One night she was so tired she couldn’t even walk to the YWCA to offer her services for a meal. Instead, she stretched out on her couch and said: “Lord, you said if I but believed, all things would be possible. Well, I believe that I am well fed.”

In relating this story to me, this lady added this comment: “I didn’t actually hear the words audibly, but received an impression which was: ‘If you really believed as you claim, wouldn’t you prepare the table for the meal?’ With that, she began to set the table in her imagination. She put on her best tablecloth, her nicest plates, and even lit a candle, in preparation of the food to come. Then she fell asleep and began to dream. As she lifted the cover from a beautiful platter, she heard a ring which persisted until she awoke to realize it was her telephone. The caller was a friend of her mother’s whom she hadn’t seen for years. The lady said: “Suddenly I have the greatest longing for a meal you prepared for your mother and me several years ago. Would you please do it again tonight if I bring over the ingredients?”

Now, although this lady had a kitchen in her apartment, she had no food in it, so when the friend went to the store she couldn’t buy a cup of flour or sugar, but stocked up on all the basics needed to prepare a meal. Within an hour she was in the artist’s home with the food, and a short time later they sat down to a delicious dinner, of which – when the meal was finished – there was enough left over for at least two more meals.

Although this lady is a great artist, she has developed the sense of touch. She fell asleep touching the plates and the silver, and awoke touching the cover to a platter filled with food. Her experience is dramatized in scripture as the story of Isaac. In order to understand scripture, it is necessary to see it with the eyes of the mystic. Blake asked: “Why is the Bible more entertaining and more instructive than any other book? Because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding, or reason.” When you touch something spiritually, you are receiving a sensation that your outer senses deny. And when you use your imagination, you are touching with the hands of Jacob, seeing with the eyes of Jacob, and hearing with Jacob’s ears.

In the 115th Psalm, the psalmist tells us our Lord does everything we do. Then he compares the Lord to the gods of the world, saying: “Their gods are made of silver and gold. They have mouths but speak not, eyes but see not, ears but hear not, feet but walk not, hands but feel not. Those who make them are like them, and so is everyone who trusts in them.” Anyone who trusts some little thing a man made with his hands, that can’t talk, hear, walk or feel, has a false God and a false Jesus Christ. Made with human hands, it cannot utter a sound or hear your request. It cannot answer you, see, hear, or walk. It is merely something made with human hands; and those who trust in it are just like the thing made, because they are unwilling to exercise the inner man – called Jacob in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ in the New.

Begin now to exercise Jacob by sending Esau out into the fields. Then clothe Jacob with the tones of reality by exercising one or all five of your inner senses. If you will become self-persuaded that your desire is already granted, even though it is denied by the outer senses it will become a fact. I do not know how it will objectify itself, or when; I only know that when imagination is raised to the state of vision, the thing is done.

Because Blake made these bold assertions, people question why he wasn’t rich; but Blake had no desire for fame or enormous sums of money. At that time, the king of England was George the Third. He was a madman and remembered only because of the fact that he was king during the time of our revolution against England. People of great wealth and fame lived during Blake’s lifetime, but are forgotten now, while Blake grows in stature and simply dwarfs everyone in his age.

Blake had no money. He was non-schooled by human standards. Teaching himself Latin, French, and Italian, Blake was a master in the use of the English tongue. This giant of a man had no human luxuries, but he didn’t need them as he was busy doing the work of God. Blake claimed that the world was vision, confessing that his greatest work, “Jerusalem”, was given to him by dictation. He didn’t see Jerusalem, he heard it. The words were dictated by the Spirit of God, yet Blake called it his greatest vision.

Perhaps the sense of feeling is easy for you. If so, be like Isaac and touch your desire to see if it is Esau (real) or not. When reality was touched, Isaac said: “You have the smell of Esau; therefore the blessing is yours.” Why? Because it seemed real to him.

Money has an odor all of its own. Blindfold yourself and smell a dozen different pieces of paper. Make one of them a dollar, five-, or ten-dollar bill, and the moment it reaches your nose you will know it is money, for there is something different about it.

Everything has an odor. My brother Victor is a successful businessman. When I questioned him about his success, he said: “I love the odor of business. When I open the store in the morning, I love the smell emitting there.” I walked around the store with him and didn’t care a thing about the odor; but I can open a book of Blake’s and be lost to the world for the rest of the afternoon. When I was in Barbados recently, I shared one of Blake’s letters with Victor. I so thoroughly enjoyed the reading I tasted every delicious word, but the message meant nothing to my brother. He uses his talents in a different way.

Choose the medium best for you and use it. Sound seems to be the easiest for many, yet if you love someone you will know the touch of their flesh and odor. If man didn’t have a distinctive odor, how could a bloodhound find him? We think only in terms of the skunk ring, and know it can be used against a man because it is unique; but there is no dubious odor. There is no dubious voice. A voice can be imitated; but if recorded, its graph would not be like the original. You are unique, and when you love someone dearly you know their voice and what they feel like, and if you are close to them, you know their odor. Share the news of your good fortune with them. Hear them empathize with you. Listen to their voice carefully and revel in what you are hearing. Believe in what you have heard, and you have impregnated yourself with the message.

A friend recently cured his skin cancers through the use of sound. Every morning as he shaved the evidence remained. But using his sense of hearing, he listened to the voices of his friends as they congratulated him on his complete cure. He did not put his hand to his face and feel its smoothness. He could feel and see what was there, but he persisted in hearing his friends’ empathy – and one day the cancers were gone.

I urge everyone to try it. It costs you nothing. Blake had a friend named Samuel Farmer, to whom he made this fantastic statement: “Raise Imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done.” You can do it by using any sense, either individually or collectively. You can imagine seeing and hearing at the same time. You can look as though you see, and listen as though you hear; but you determine what you want to see and hear. Bring them together. See and hear only your fulfilled desire, and watch the evidence unfold in your world.

When scripture tells us that God sees the heart, it is not speaking of the physical heart, but the individual’s identity. The Fourth Psalm tells you to “Commune with your own heart on your bed and be silent.” In other words, talk to yourself! This self is a totality, for your feelings, thoughts, desires, and motives are always exposed to yourself, who is God the Father! You may conceal thoughts from those who are enclosed in garments of flesh and blood, but not from the depth of your own being! Scripture tells us that the Lord rejected all of the brothers and chose David, saying: “He is a man after my own heart who will do all my will.” David is the one who fulfills all of your thoughts, feelings, desires, and motives – always doing your will.

Scripture will only be understood when it is seen through the eye of the mystic. Let us take the statement: “Be angry but sin not. Commune with your own heart and be silent.” If you have something against someone, explode and get it off your chest. Then commune with yourself by calming down and constructing a scene which would imply everything was perfect in your life. Fall into the depth of self, using as many of your senses as possible to achieve the vision you desire to appear.

You can raise any sense – be it hearing, sight, sound, touch or smell – to the state of vision. I was drafted into the army during World War II, but I wanted no part of it. When my request for a discharge was disapproved, I did not get angry and try to go over the colonel’s head. Instead, I lay down on my army cot, closed my eyes to the other fifty men in the room, and imagined I was two thousand miles away in my apartment above Washington Square in New York City. Placing myself on my bed, I saw my wife sleeping in hers. Then I rose, and looking out the window, I saw the Holly Apartments across the street and Washington Square down below. Turning, I walked into the living room, dining room, and the kitchen. I felt familiar objects and brought as many of my five senses alive in the drama as possible. At 4:00 o’clock in the morning I awoke hearing a voice say, “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing.” Who spoke those words? I did, but I heard them as coming from without.

Knowing what I had done and what I had said, I walked in faith for nine days, doing nothing on the outside. On the tenth day the colonel who had rejected my application called me into his office and gave me an honorable discharge.

I brought feeling up to the state of vision. By feeling the bed and the various objects in the apartment, I fell asleep feeling the joy of being there. The colonel thought he initiated the desire to discharge me, but he had no choice in the matter. I imagined, knowing the world was my imagination pushed out, and everyone in it had to do what they are doing to aid the birth of what I had done.

Knowing what you ought to do is not good enough; you must raise your imagination to the state of vision in order for the act to be committed. Then what must you do? Nothing! You simply watch the series of events unfold within your world. Remember, you operate your creative power, it does not operate itself. There must be action, a commitment on your part. Nothing, however, can be done to earn God’s gift of grace. When God’s promise fulfills itself, it happens suddenly and so dramatically that you have no time to think about it. In fact, you will not even recognize it, unless you hear it from someone who has experienced it. I know, as far as I am concerned, I never heard it from a man, or saw the Bible’s story as relating to me. But I know from experience that the truth comes through an act of God in self revelation, for God is hidden in the mind of man and unveils himself as man!

Start now to exercise your God-given talents of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell – together, or individually. The sense of touch is the strongest in me. If someone expresses their desire to me in a letter, I touch the paper they wrote, believing they are telling me of their desire’s fulfillment. I know only one out of ten ever respond after I have granted their request, but that is all right. Having felt their letter and seen its contents, I know I have impregnated myself with the good fortunes they are desiring, and in so doing, my own captivity is being lifted.

Right now, give something to a friend without their knowledge or consent. You have your five senses! Exercise them by bringing the objective body of Jacob to the surface. Clothe him in external reality as the Esau you would like to replace, vanishes. What you have is your Esau. Your desire is Jacob. You are their father. Raise imagination to the state of vision and allow Jacob to supplant Esau. Then rest in that assumption and watch the change which takes place in your wonderful world!

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE TALENT

Neville Goddard 02/02/1970

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityA talent is a gift entrusted to one for his use. And when one is given the greatest talent of them all, its use gives meaning to existence.

In the 25th chapter of the Book of Matthew, a parable is told comparing this gift to the kingdom of heaven as: “A man going on a long journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another, one. Then he went away. When he returned, the servants explained their use of the talents. The one who had received five had increased it to ten, for which he was highly commended and invited to enter into the joy of his master. The one who received two had doubled his and he, too, was highly commended and invited to enter into the joy of his master. But he who had received one, being afraid to test it, had buried his talent. He was condemned, the talent taken from him, and given to the one who had ten.

You may wonder when you read this story how the Lord of the universe could be so cruel to one who did not use his talent. But I tell you: every individual in this world has been given the greatest talent imaginable, which is the gift of God Himself as their human imagination. How is this gift being used? Some bury it by worshipping little icons on the wall and things round about them, but the worship of God is the use of His gift – the use of the human imagination.

Now, the parable tells us that those to whom the gifts were given were asked for an accounting, and those who had multiplied them were highly commended and invited into the joy of expansion. Blake, in his preface to the 4th fourth chapter of his wonderful poem, “Jerusalem,” addresses the Christians saying: “I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel other than the liberty, both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination. Imagination, the real and eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow, and into which we shall go in our Eternal, or Imaginative Bodies when these Vegetable, Mortal Bodies are no more.” Then he adds this thought: “The Apostles knew of no other Gospel.”

Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination. Crucified on humanity, Jesus is buried in you and will rise in you to the degree that you exercise your talent – your Human Imagination’

Christianity is a mystery. When speaking of Christ, Paul uses the word “mystery” no less than twenty times. The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which everyone should aspire, for supreme power, supreme wisdom, and supreme delight lie in the solution of this great mystery. When you unravel the mystery of imagining, you have conquered death.

Now let me tell you the story of a lady I knew in New York City about twenty years ago. I started lecturing on February 2, 1938, sharing my experiences based upon my use of the talent. Shortly after my opening, a lady – very prominent in our country, both politically and socially – began to attend my meetings. She was the daughter-in-law of one who was governor of New York, [later] Vice President, and then President of our country.

One day this lady came to our apartment and told me that she and her husband owned a home in Long Island where they spent their summers, and lease an apartment in New York City where they live during the winter, and always sublet during the summer. Needing the money obtained from renting the apartment to open their home in Long Island, this lady asked for my help.

Although this lady was a pillar of the Episcopal church in New York City and Long Island, she did not go to her ministers, but to me for help. I asked her: “If you sublet your apartment today, where would you sleep tonight?” And she replied, “In Long Island.” Then I told her to go home and sleep in Long Island tonight in her imagination. As she is falling asleep, I asked her to think of her New York apartment across the East River and tell herself that she is here in Long Island now because her apartment has been rented. Admitting that, although the idea did not make sense, she [said she] would try it, and promised to call me if it worked. I told her the only “if” to it is “if” she does it.

Two days later this lady called me at 9:00 A.M. from her home in Long Island saying: “Yesterday a gentleman came to see my apartment. He had all the qualifications and money necessary to rent it, but wanted immediate occupancy. I called my husband at the office and that night we physically slept in our home in Long Island.” I told her how thrilled I was for her. I had expected her call, but wanted to ask one question: “Did you imagine sleeping in Long Island the night you promised you would?” And she answered: “Yes. I told my husband I was going to retire early as I had an appointment with myself. Then I went to bed assuming I was in Long Island. I thought of my apartment in New York City and felt the relief of knowing it was rented. I took my time looking at the familiar paintings on the walls, the furniture, drapes, and accessories there. Then I fell asleep. The next morning I awoke on my bed in New York City, but because of the series of events which took place that day, we have physically moved to our home in Long Island.”

Now, in this lady’s mind she is a Christian. She is a gracious, sweet lady, cultured, kind, considerate and generous, but she hasn’t the slightest concept as to who Jesus Christ really is. She thinks of him as a man who was born 2,000 years ago, died on a wooden cross, [and] was buried in a grave in the Near East, out of which he rose in some miraculous way. That hasn’t a thing to do with Jesus Christ.

Crucified on the cross of your body of flesh and blood, Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination. Buried in your skull, He is dreaming your life into being. Although everything seems so alive here, this world is really His dream of death. But one day He will awaken and you will discover that you are the one spoken of by the prophets and the law of Moses and the Psalms. That there never was another and never will be another.

Start now to exercise God’s gift of himself to you, for He so loved you He became you. Can you conceive of any greater gift? But the gift, like the muscles, if not exercised will atrophy and die. You have the greatest of all talents, which is God’s gift of himself to you, which is your own wonderful human Imagination.

Now, an idea which is only a thought produces nothing. In order to be awakened, motor elements must be employed, for imagination is spiritual sensation. As an example, imagine a rose. See it in your mind’s eye, feel its velvet petals with your hand, smell the rose – and you have used three talents. Now, if you can detect the fragrance of a rose, see it, and touch it, isn’t the rose there? If it is not, then why is its fragrance in the air?

You may question my example, but I know, if you have used your talents as I encouraged you to do, the rose will come. I am not saying it will magically appear in your vase by falling out of the atmosphere. But I am saying that in its own wonderful way the rose will be yours. Do not concern yourself as to how the rose (or roses) will appear; simply go to the end and dwell there.

When you know what you want, use your sense of feeling. Let the feeling of satisfaction so fill your being that the idea ceases to be a desire, but has evoked motor elements. These awaken sensory sensations within you causing the desire’s fulfillment. Imagination is nothing more than sensory states. Learn to go beyond an idea by feeling its reality. Then turn to another and still another, as the being who is feeling it begins to awaken within you. Fulfill all of your desires while you are here, and then when you least expect it, the Divine Breath will breathe upon that immortal tomb where you are buried. And you will awaken to find yourself completely sealed in your Holy Sepulcher where you have been dreaming your life into being.

This world is made up of horrible dreams which the one within every individual is dreaming. That one must and will awaken, as you hear the story and put it into practice through repentance. The word “repentance” comes from the Greek word “metanoia,” which means “a radical change of attitude.” This change must be so radical that it gets right down to the root, the I AM. Think of your world as your mirror. Do you like what you see there? You know you can live with it or ignore it, but perhaps you would like to see it differently. If you would, repent by persuading yourself that you are seeing a world to your liking. Persist in your repentance, for to the degree that you are self-persuaded it is so, it will be so.

If you attempt to change the world before you change your attitude towards it, your struggle will be in vain. That which you dislike will change only to the degree that you change your attitude towards it. Until you do it cannot change, for the dislike is coming from within you. “Man is all Imagination, and God is Man and Exists in us and we in Him. The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination and that is God himself.”

The secret of imagining is the greatest of all secrets, and everyone should try to unravel this mystery. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you as your human imagination? Test yourself and see. You do not test another. Test yourself’ See if what I tell you is true. I say your own wonderful human imagination is Jesus Christ, the life-giving spirit of all things. If this is true, you can test him who is your very self, and when you prove it you will know where, what, and who you really are.

If I told a pillar of the Episcopal church (as the lady whose story I shared, was) that her imagination was Jesus Christ she would think me blasphemous. When the lady came to me for help I did not call him Christ in her presence, but spoke of her imagination. She could use that and still have her little icons. She could assume her apartment in New York City was rented, but she could not believe that the being who made the mental transfer was Christ. Yet we are told that all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that is made. She mentally moved, and in less than twenty-four hours the move was physically accomplished.

Now if all things are made by Christ and she knows exactly what she did, didn’t she discover him? No, she didn’t. She calls Christ her imagination, but separates her imagination from the Maker of worldly things. Although she knows she brought about the rental of her apartment by her imaginal act, she still cannot bring herself to believe that her imaginal act was God in action. Raised to believe Jesus Christ was someone on the outside, she still worships a man based upon an artist’s concept of him. But when you discover who Jesus Christ really is, you will know him as your very self. It does not yet appear what we should be, but we know that when he appears, we shall know him, for we shall be like him. “When scripture unfolds from within you, you will know that you and Christ are one.”

God became not a man, but humanity, that humanity may become God. In giving us himself, God gave us the talent to use wisely or unwisely. I ask no more than the right and the liberty to exercise this talent. In this world a man can exercise his talent, be it that of an artist, a musician, a writer, or a poet, but he must conform to the ideology of the country and the time in which he lives. In Russia, the praises of Stalin were sung for almost thirty years. Statues were made of him; pictures were painted of him. Writers praised his name, yet he was a monster who deliberately slaughtered thirty-odd million Russians. Hitler was another monster who used the talents of others to balloon his own ego.

But I tell you, every child born of woman has the greatest talent of them all – the human imagination. A man sentenced for life could be in a dungeon imagining himself elsewhere, and if it takes an earthquake to set him free, an earthquake will appear. But if he sits in the dungeon believing the world is against him, he will remain there. But, while there in his body, he can walk the streets as a free man by using his talent. He can view the world from a free state and in a way that no one knows, he will be set free.

Whatever your desire may be, is possible and can be yours if you will imagine its possession and dwell in its fulfillment. But I warn you: Do not imagine with hate in your heart, because you are only hurting yourself. Although you may not realize it, the world is yourself pushed out. It is forever bearing witness to you who are all Imagination. Make no attempt to change the world until you first change your attitude towards it. Change your thinking and the world will reshuffle itself to reflect your new thoughts. This is the talent of which the gospels speak.

To one five talents were given. To another, two and another, one. Then came the day of accounting and all those who had expanded their talents were invited to enter into the joy of their master. And those who were afraid to test their Imagination, who wouldn’t even try it, were condemned, and the knowledge of the power that they are was taken from them.

The talent is God’s gift to you. It is entrusted to you for your use. Use your talent tonight by sleeping in the assumption that you are now – not tomorrow – but now, the person you would like to be. In the morning, persist in your assumption by allowing the world to see you as they would have to see you, were you now the one you would like to be. Although your reason and senses deny your assumption, if you persist your desire will harden into fact.

Let the world turn their back upon this law. That is perfectly all right, but you go your way using your talent. And when you least expect it, all that is said in scripture concerning Jesus Christ will be yours to experience in the first person, singular, present tense. Then you will know beyond all doubt who Jesus Christ really is. When you know who you are, it will not matter what the world says. Let the billion Christians and the two billion non-Christians go their way. If they want to question or ridicule you, turn your back and walk away. Having found the real Christ, you have found the great secret to the mystery of all life.

Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. All that was promised in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms came to its fulfillment in the mystery called the gospels. Man thinks they are speaking of secular history, but I tell you, they have recorded Divine history. The story of Jesus Christ as recorded in scripture is a supernatural experience which takes place within the individual. No drug can unlock this experience and no person has the key. It is grace, grace, and more grace, for the talent – which is God’s gift of himself to the individual – will awaken and the individual will know that “I am he.”

Another time, this same lady came to me regarding her son, who was in the State Department in the Near East. Long before hippies came into being, her son wore a beard. She wanted him to shave it off, so I suggested that she kiss him and feel the smooth skin on his cheek and chin. This she promised to do.

One morning I opened the New York Times to the Social page where I saw a picture of her son without a beard. The next time this lady came to see me I mentioned seeing her son clean shaven and she said: “I imagined kissing him and feeling his face, but because he fell in love with a girl in the State Department who didn’t like his beard, he shaved it off.” She attributed the shaving of the beard to the means rather than the cause, which was what she had done in her imagination. The girl was only the instrument which brought it about. Having forgotten when she planted the seed, this lady didn’t recognize her own harvest.

What are you doing in your imagination? To let something drift on and on when you dislike what is happening is stupid. As far as I am concerned, I don’t care if every man grows a beard and wears his hair long. I would hope they washed it occasionally, as I do like cleanliness. But it is entirely up to you what you do with your talent. I hope you will learn to use it consciously, for this talent is God’s gift to you, and it contains the power to set you free.

The only Christ the apostles ever referred to is the human imagination. Blake knew that, for it was he who said: “I know of no other Christianity and no other Gospel than the liberty, both of body and mind, to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination. Imagination, the real and eternal world of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow and in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more”.

These garments will all wear out because they cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. But you are not these garments of flesh’ You are all imagination’ You are Spirit’ You are a reality that cannot die, as you are forever. But while you are here, clothed in these garments of flesh, you have been given a gift. Don’t bury it. Exercise it. You not only can become the person you want to be, but you will become it to the degree that you exercise your talent. That talent is God’s gift of Himself to you, and God is in you as your own wonderful human imagination.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE TREE OF LIFE

Neville Goddard 03-21-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityOur evangelists, the unknown authors of the gospels, knew that people understood best what they could see in picture form, so they told God’s plan of redemption in the form of a tale that it could be seen and not forgotten. They knew the risk they ran. They knew that those who could see the picture mentally could easily mistake the personification which conveyed the truth for a person and the vehicle which conveyed the instruction for the instruction, yet they took the greatest of all truths and embodied it in a tale, that it may enter lowly doors.

It was Paul who said: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” I tell you: the entire Christian and Jewish world has ended with the flesh. They are unable to think of Jesus Christ as a pattern of redemption, but only as a man of flesh who is unique and different from themselves. Paul is urging all to see the Spirit, the pattern which is contained in every child born of woman and to remember that spiritual pattern called Jesus Christ. I tell you: belief can cause that pattern to be fertilized, then the time element will enter for its development and no one can stop its fulfillment. Just as the egg in a woman does not unfold until it is fertilized, so is this spiritual seed in man. After fertilization a built-in time begins, and the savior in man (which is a pattern) begins to bloom.

Man has been taught to believe that Jesus Christ is a man external to himself, but Jesus Christ is contained within man as a pattern. He is God’s vision of man and that vision is forever. It was God who said: “Write the vision, make it plain upon canvas so he may run who reads it. For the vision has its own appointed hour; it ripens, it will flower. If it be slow wait, for it is sure and it will not be late.” The pattern is perfect, and from the moment of fertilization a built-in time schedule begins, and thirty years later the tree of life comes into bloom. I have experienced this pattern. It is not unique to the thing called Neville, but is a pattern which is contained in every child born of woman. It has bloomed in me in its fullness and now I know that Jesus Christ is God’s eternal plan for man’s redemption. When I share my experiences I do not make any claim to be better than or above others, I simply reveal how the tree of life has bloomed in me. That is all.

Now, the story is told that he took twelve up to Jerusalem, and said: “All that is written of me by the prophets must be fulfilled.” Although they heard his words they did not understand them, for they could not grasp what the prophets had said. Only the Risen Christ can interpret scripture. Only his finger can trace these ambiguous statements and give them their heavenly meaning. Reason can give you many meanings, but the real meaning can only be betrayed by the Risen Christ because he has experienced it.
Only one who has been born from above can reveal the truth of the statement: “You must be born from above.” I have heard unnumbered arguments about that statement. Some claim it means a radical change in one�s behavior, as those who were once violent become quiet, tender, and considerate. But I tell you: it hasn’t a thing to do with that. The event is literally true. You are actually born from above. This I know from experience.

In the 50th Psalm the Lord speaks, saying: “The world and all within it is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, I would simply slay and eat.” And in the 17th chapter of John he says: “All mine are thine and thine are mine.” If all that God the Father possesses is yours, must you confine this thought only to things of this world? Could you not go beyond this world and enter his nature? What is the nature of He who owns the world and all within it? Is it not Fatherhood? If all that He is, is yours to know, and He is God the Father – then you must know that you are God the Father. And to know that you are a Father you must have a child to bear witness to that fact, and God’s child is yours. God gave himself to you one hundred per cent, saying: “All mine are thine and thine are mine.” Only one who has experienced this can compel such an ambiguous statement to yield its heavenly meaning. Only when the tree of life begins to bud and bear its fruit in you, will you know who you really are.

Why are you weak? Why are you limited in this little garment of flesh? Because of God’s incarnation. He is not pretending he is in a human body. God had to empty himself of all that is he. Though he was rich he became poor, that by his poverty you may become rich. His incarnation is a complete embodiment wherein He took on all of the limitations of human knowledge. Incarnating myself in a little time slot called 1905, I took upon myself all of the beliefs that are related to that time. Born a Caucasian under the British flag I adopted the American flag. These are my restrictions. The beliefs I inherited as a Britisher and adopted as an American were woven together within this time slot, and they are all limited. In order to make them real I had to make it a complete incarnation. If I did not it would not be a real incarnation and only a masquerade, and God is not masquerading in this world. You completely emptied yourself of your true identity to take upon yourself the limitations and restrictions of this world. And while you are here, God’s pattern unfolds from within and you discover that you are He.

Jesus Christ is personified in scripture as a man, but you are that man. You are the one who will experience the story of the gospel. Man cannot understand truth in its unvarnished, unveiled state, as I tell it to you. They can accept it only when it is embodied in a tale. And the one billion Christians and Jews of the world, not understanding the great principle, worship its personification. They would not believe me if tomorrow I told them that Jesus Christ is a pattern. That he lived and lives as the only reality. But I tell you: Jesus Christ is the only thing worth living for, because unless he unfolds himself in you, you are as nothing. Only as he unfolds himself in you can the tree of life bear its fruit. It is my hope that the day is not far off when you will be called by the Father in you and his vision of you will be fertilized.

Christ is God’s vision of man, which is fertilized by union with God, at which time a built-in time table begins. There will be thirty years between that fertilization and the first bud to appear on the tree of life which you are. And from that moment on you can count the days, which will add up to one thousand two hundred and sixty. This is the story the Christian world observes and calls Easter. We think it is a unique day and keep it for a person, although Paul condemned the keeping of any day, saying: “I notice you observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I have labored over you in vain,” because Christ is not a person.

If you would only bear in mind that Easter is the moment when the eruption occurs, you would realize it could be any day. It could be now, right in this audience, and at any moment in time. If you can recall the moment you had union with the Risen Lord, you will start your mission based upon experience exactly thirty years later. You can count it to the very day. The first bud to appear is your resurrection, which is nothing more than the transformation of the cross, which is the transfiguration. It’s a complete change of being. Thinking now as a being of flesh, you resurrect into and think as a being of Spirit once more. I know, for I have experienced this change, yet I remain in the flesh to tell it to you to the best of my ability. Not everyone can take it, but I try to make man see Christ as a principle rather than a little historical event – which he is not.

Jesus Christ is history, in the sense that the pattern erupts in a person at a certain moment in time. Two thousand years ago the tree of life began to bear its fruit, but that tree is every child born of woman. Blake saw it so clearly, and said: “The gods of the earth and sea sought through nature to find this tree, but their search was all in vain; there grows one in the human brain,” That is where the tree of life begins to bloom again. In the winter the tree is leafless and appears to be dead, and then one morning a little leaf appears and you know the tree which seemed dead during the winter is alive once more. Like the tree you awaken and come out of a body that appears dead when you look at it. And then the leaves begin to unfold, one after the other, as the tree bursts into bloom and you fulfill scripture. Then you, who know you are the Resurrected Christ, share your knowledge with a world who believes in a little flesh and blood one, and cannot believe you because all they can see is that which covers your true identity.

Scripture has taken place in me. I, the Resurrected Christ, am speaking to you through a garment called Neville, and because of my experiences I can trace these ambiguous statements of scripture and extract their heavenly meaning. In the 24th chapter of the Book of Luke it is said that only after the resurrection could anyone understand what he was talking about. Prior to that no one understood, not even his twelve. They questioned his meaning when he said he would rise again on the third day, and they could not understand when he said he had to suffer first, rise, and then bring them with him into the same kingdom that his God had prepared.

This month everyone will celebrate external mysteries and keep alive the memory of a man. But Jesus Christ is not a man; he is God’s pattern of redemption for you. The same pattern is buried in all. It is the divine vision God keeps in time of your troubles. Regardless of the state you make manifest on the outside, God sees you as his pattern in full bloom and his vision has its own appointed hour. It will ripen and flower. If to you it seems long in the coming, wait – for it is sure and will not be late. Then you can count the days between the appearance of the first little sprig (which is resurrection) and the descent of the dove which brings the tree into full bloom, and it will be exactly one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Now, what on earth would you hear that would compare to this story? If you owned the outer world but did not become God, it would be as nothing, for everything here will fade. How many civilizations will rise and fall before the culmination of the whole, no one knows. Today we think America is forever and Russia feels the same way. England thought their power would always be great, as did ancient Rome, Greece, and Spain; yet they all came into being like a wave, then breaking, dissolved into nothingness as their power diminished.

We are a great power today but one day it will come to its climax, wane, and vanish. This is true of Russia and China, too. Nations rise and fall, but the important thing is to individually fulfill scripture. Each and every individual will one day hatch out God’s plan called Christ, and know himself to radiate and reflect the glory of God and bear the express image of his person. That pattern is God’s vision of you, and he waits for that moment in time when the suffering is over. He knows what you have gone through and in his infinite mercy has hidden them from you. But when the time is fulfilled he will call you, embrace and send you, as himself. Then, thirty years later, the first little sprig will appear on your tree of life in the form of your resurrection. This is immediately followed by your birth from above. Then comes God’s son, David, to reveal your Fatherhood. Your spiritual body is split and you ascend into the kingdom, as it reverberates like thunder. Then the tree comes into full bloom with the descent of the dove.

The current issue of the New York Times book review is devoted to religion, of which they make so little. They speak of the Bible as filled with myths and not based on reality, quoting Dr. So-and-so and Dr. So-and-so, who are all men without vision and unable to believe its truth. The evangelists knew this when they told their story, just as the poet Tennyson knew when he said: “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.”

Scriptural truth is told in the form of a tale so that men will accept it. Thoughts put into picture form can tell a story man can remember, but the uncovered truth they cannot retain. If I tell the average person that he contains within himself a plan which is called Jesus Christ, he could not grasp the thought. But I tell you that Jesus Christ is in you as your hope of glory, and urge you to set your hope fully upon this grace that is coming to you as God’s gift of himself. The average person would rather believe that some man is responsible for them, that he died for them on the outside and in some strange way he will suffer for them, even though they suffer. Always there is a “he” on the outside rather than a pattern on the inside. But I tell you: after the tribulations God’s plan of salvation will erupt within you, and it will not be one second late in the coming.

Today people are talking about earthquakes and their convulsions. The Secretary of State was questioned for hours on TV today, and he said we had enough armaments to destroy every person in the world a thousand times over, but we need more. When I heard that statement I said to myself: if this isn’t an insane asylum, what is? Our congressmen just gave themselves a 43 per cent raise, then increased our tax ten per cent. They call it a surtax. I read in this morning’s paper that our city has granted the gas company the right to raise us four per cent to pay their surtax. I am paying my own surtax and now I must help pay the city’s surtax of $21 million. They promise to take it off when the debt is paid. Do you want to bet? We are all like sheep being led to the slaughter.

I do not know how many civilizations will rise and fall before the ultimate has been attained. But I do know that God is in control, and he has planned everything as it has come out and as it will be consummated. No matter what happens, you will not be lost. I know, for the truth of life has bloomed in me in its fullness. There is not a thing left other than to tell it. Like Paul I am remaining in a body that is weak, to tell the world that Jesus Christ is nothing more than a wonderful pattern of redemption, which is contained in every child born of woman. He is God’s vision of that child. God does not see the horror the child must go through; he sees only his vision which must erupt, and no one can delay it or hasten its coming. And when it erupts, that individual is conditioned for the new age, called the kingdom of God.

This month, due to tradition, we will observe days such as Good Friday and Easter. Enjoy them if you feel like it. They are lovely, even though Paul felt that because they were kept alive he had labored in vain. But if you do observe the days, see them as a pattern contained in you which will erupt in time. And then, because of your experiences you too will cause these ambiguous statements to yield their heavenly meaning. A few of you have shared your experiences with me and I know your seed has been fertilized, and in thirty years the tree of life in you will begin to bloom, and reach fulfillment in 1260 days. That final bloom is the descent of the dove.

In the book section of the New York Times they made light of the descent of the dove, claiming it was a stupid idea for people to believe, yet it is so true when experienced. And on TV today I watched these so-called wise men sitting before the camera, all well groomed, each playing his part to perfection. They knew they were on camera and everyone was trying to mug that camera, knowing he was being exposed to a nation. Their faces are now registered on the minds of those who think that they are important, and they go blindly on that way; yet the only important thing in the world is to awaken from this dream of life. And the only thing that can awaken you is God’s gift of himself, which is the pattern in you called Jesus Christ. His sleep is your awakening in this world, and his awakening in you is your redemption. Only when he awakes in you can the tree of life bloom once more, as you leave this world of limitation and enter the world of eternity.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Neville Goddard 11-14-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThe attitude of the world towards the great mystery of Christ is due to their ignorance of who he really is. And only to the degree that the individual experiences the mystery, will he know that he is the heavenly being who came down and assumed the body of death to rise as Jesus Christ.

Follow me closely into the drama, as recorded in the 18th chapter of the Book of John, where Jesus is being questioned by Pilate. Now, the word “Pilate” means “closely pressed like a contracted form; the limit of contradiction; of opacity.” To see the characters of scripture as historical is to see truth tempered to the weakness of the human soul. They are not people such as you and I, but eternal states, attributes, and qualities of the individual. Pilate is the state of contraction the Father entered, and the story is taking place in you.

Questioning self, Pilate asked: “Are you the King of the Jews?” and Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others tell you about me?” (Do you know this from experience, or it is hearsay?) He doesn’t deny that he is, but wonders if this contracted state has reached the point where the shell of it breaks, and knows from experience who he is. Then Pilate asked: “You are a king?” and Jesus answered: “You say that I am. For this I was born and for this I came into the world to bear witness to the truth.” Then the contracted form asked: “What is truth?”

Based upon this level, it is true that I am standing at a podium and you are seated on chairs facing me; but I am not speaking of this truth, I am speaking of the true knowledge of God. I am not concerned with the world of science. Today we are on our way to the moon for the second time, but that is not the story of the Bible. I am speaking of the being who created Man, the heavens, and the earth, and sustains them. I am trying to tell everyone that the being who did this is now individualized, housed in his creation, and has forgotten who he really is.

Having come down into this limit of contraction and opacity, you now ask yourself the question: “Do I know this truth by my own accord, or was I told it by another? If it is hearsay, then I do not really know it; for the only way I can know God is through experience.” So to the degree that you experience scripture, will you understand it. The terms Pope, minister, or layman, mean nothing. You could be washing floors tonight and know, from experience, that you are the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let us turn to the poet Robert Browning, who said:

“Truth is within ourselves. It takes no rise from outward things what’ere you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all where truth abides in fullness, And to know, rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, than an effective entry for a light supposed to be without.”

Here Browning took three of the mighty I AM statements from the Book of John: “I AM the truth; I AM the way, and I AM the light,” and incorporated them into this very short statement.

There is an inmost center in us all where truth abides, not just a little bit, but in fullness. He likens it to an imprisoned splendor, radiating from within. To think of some human Christ as coming from without is to completely misunderstand the great mystery of scripture.

Sitting here now in this little room, you may seem so small and the universe so enormous. But it is here, in this contracted state called Pilate that you begin to stir and ask yourself these questions. The questioning within the individual causes the effluence within to roust itself and come out as the creator of the universe. This I know from experience. No matter what the world tells you, you are not some little tiny being. You have gone through hell and maybe will go through more in your search to find your true self, who is God the Father.

The true knowledge of God is recorded in scripture, but told in a strange and wonderful manner. Jesus said: “Go and say unto them, I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.” Here you discover that “I am” is the root, the origin, the Father; yet “I am” the offspring of David. In other words, “I am” is the Father of David and David’s offspring. Then we read: “I will bring up out of you, O David, a son that will come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son. And then you will say: ‘I and my Father are one.” God the Father created the universe (his son), then buried himself there, that he may – in the fullness of time – draw himself out of humanity (which is David) to know himself to be the root and the offspring – the grandfather and the grandson.

If you see David as the world does, you will never understand the mystery. David is humanity reduced to a single being. When you see him, you are seeing the sign that you have played all the parts you agreed to play in the beginning. Having extracted yourself from your creation, you redeem it as it condenses itself into a single youth, who stands before you as your son David of Biblical fame.

Speaking within himself, Jesus is made to say: “I am from above; you are from below.” Above and within are one and the same, just as below and without are the same. He who comes from above (within) is spirit, above all and within all; while he who is from below (without) expresses that which is of the earth and earthly. Maybe you cannot pay your rent this night, and your cupboard is bare; but I tell you: you created the universe and you are sustaining it. There is no other God. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” There is no room for two.

When asked to name the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus didn’t mention any of the ten, but went directly to Israel’s confession of faith: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Then he gave the second commandment, as recorded in Deuteronomy as “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Why? Because your neighbor is yourself. The day will come when you will discover that only as you change your attitude towards the seeming other, can he change; for he cannot change of himself. Only as I change my attitude towards you, can you change towards me. I love him. Why? Because he first loved me. If you want someone to love you, or see you differently, change your attitude towards him. The world is yourself, projected. You want something different projected, you must change the film in the camera. You must change that which you are aware of. If you will, the world will conform to your change in thinking.

I have come to speak of the true knowledge of God. What I tell you is true. There is an inmost center in us all where truth abides in fullness. One called Jesus Christ is that center, saying: “I am the truth.” He has resurrected in me, broken the shell, and, as he came out I was set free. Night after night I become more and more aware that I am the creator of it all.

When someone dies, he does not go to the cemetery to impoverish the relative who put him there. No, he goes within, back to the I AM who is the sender. This morning as I was waking, I met my friend Al, who died at the age of 64. He was the same Al I knew here. He loved my company socially, but after attending three or four of my meetings, he confessed that what I said did not interest him. He loved to sit at his piano on Sunday mornings and cry as he played the old hymns. That satisfied him. But my words made no sense to him at all. Coming back from the depths of my soul, having told the story to those on higher levels of my being who could hear me with understanding, I met Al at a railroad station. He was sitting at a counter having a snack. That was all he wanted of me here, was to join him in a little physical meal. He was the same Al, still denying the Fatherhood of God as I have experienced it. He had his own fatherhood of God and could cry his eyes out while playing the lovely old hymns. He could sing “Nearer my God to thee,” yet continue to think of his God as way out in space. When I told him of the only God who is housed within, he turned a deaf ear. He had his own little Jesus Christ and wanted no one to rob him of that.

Scripture tells that when those who heard him tell of the Father could not accept his words, he said: “I go unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Now I ask you, if I and my Father are one, and I and your Father are one, are you and I not one? Those who call themselves Christians today still reject Him. They have their little icons out in space and worship some stupid little concept of the mind, unable to believe in the resurrection coming from within. But I tell you: you are God the Father of humanity, the most wonderful, theatrical play ever conceived. And you are God, playing all the parts until you awaken, break the shell, and are self-born. Coming out of humanity, you return to the Being you really are, for there is nothing but God.

Everyone is playing the eternal play, told so beautifully in scripture. When the resurrection occurred, the only scripture known at the time was the Old Testament. There was no New. He interpreted the Old by telling his experiences.

In the three oldest manuscripts of the Book of John, the 18th verse of the first chapter reads: “No one has ever seen God. He who is in the bosom of the Father, God’s only begotten, he has made him known.” In the 4th century the word “son” was substituted for the word “God” and the sentence rearranged from “God’s only begotten” to “the only begotten Son.” My mission is to let you know who that Son is. He is David, God’s only begotten, and there is no other Son. The churches cannot see it, because they have rearranged scripture to fit their purpose. But you have never heard any bold affirmation concerning I am the tradition or I am the convention. You will hear I am the truth, I am the way, I am the life, I am the resurrection – but never I am the convention, or I am the tradition. We are hiding from ourselves when we keep traditions and conventions alive. Convention says Jesus Christ is God’s Son, but our Bible has been changed over and over again by men who – having no vision – cannot understand its truth.

Here is a vision of a friend: In the vision she finds herself in a gambling casino. The owner approaches carrying a stick to count off her winnings which – instead of being chips – is a long loaf of French bread, sliced, but joined at the crust. She calls out $50 and he repeats the sum and cuts off a slice of bread. Then she said: “$100.” He repeated the amount and cut another slice. Every time she gave a figure he repeated it, becoming more and more frustrated with each slice, much to her enjoyment. Coming to the end of the loaf she said to herself: “What number shall I call next?” and she heard “$1,150.” As she called it and received the entire loaf, the loaf began to bleed like a rare piece of roast beef, and she awoke.

The figure 1,150 is important here as it totals the number tone [sic] seven, which is Spiritual perfection. In his 6th chapter, John speaks of bread as “my body,” saying: “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no life in yourself.” Why? Because life is in the blood. Here is a perfect vision of the symbolism of scripture. She has completely accepted the truth that the body of God is her own wonderful human imagination. Life (blood) is flowing forth from her now, as she has accepted her imaginal body in its fullness and blames no one else now, for she knows he is only herself. When you reach the point where you cannot blame another because you have accepted your imagination as the sole cause of the phenomena of life, you have eaten the loaf and drank the blood.

Your recent letters have thrilled me beyond measure. One gentleman found himself attending a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, listening to a long-haired gentleman who – he intuitively knew – would repeat the same performance. Instantly knowing it was being presented again, he became aware of a lady seated next to him, who said: “What is that in the sky?” Taking his binoculars, he looked up to see a multicolored bird resembling a parrot, who spoke, saying: “Get out of here. We don’t want any part of you.” Then it came down and touched his face with its wings.

This was no idle dream, but a wonderful adumbration of what will take place when the multi-colored parrot becomes a pure white dove. It was a woman in his vision, not a man. It will be a woman who will turn and say to him: “They avoid Man, but He so loves you He penetrated the ring of offense to demonstrate his love.” His vision was a foreshadowing of what is in store for him.

A lady, whose eyes are now open as an incurrent witness, saw me dying. In her vision she told her friend not to touch me, for if she did I would not be set free. Then, as she watched, I died. These are wonderful visions for her to have, for “Unless I die thou canst not live. But if I die I rise again and thou with me. Wouldst thou love one who never died for thee? Or ever die for one who has not died for thee? And if God dieth not for Man and giveth not Himself eternally for Man, Man could not exist. So God died.” I have awakened from the dream of life. I have been born from above, and the only one who is born from above is God, He who perpetually dies. Her vision was perfect, and I cannot congratulate her enough.

I am not here to flatter you, but to tell you the truth as I have experienced it. There truly is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness; and to know the true knowledge of God we must stop trying to break through from without. Rather, we must release this imprisoned splendor from within.

Listen to my story. Believe it implicitly, and the crust will break; and he who is radiant light will come out, transforming everything it touches into beauty and perfection, to reflect the perfection you know yourself to be. We are told in the 25th [chapter] of Matthew: “Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” This kingdom is a body of perfection. Awakening in that body of awareness, you know yourself to be that which the world is reflecting. And in that body you cannot come upon imperfection because you are perfect. That is what is in store for you. “Come, blessed of my Father, enter into and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

In his 5th chapter, John tells those around him that they have never heard His voice or seen His form, but “I know thee, O Lord.” And in the 17th chapter, he turns to his disciples and says of them: “They know that thou hast sent me.” He knew he had found a few who really believed his story and would spread it. Then others would continue the telling, as it will grow and grow. The truth of which I speak has been heard through the hearing of your ear; but eventually you will know the true knowledge of God from experience.

Turn your ears away from anyone who speaks of a God outside of you, for there is no external God. He who created and supports the world is housed in you. These words are blasphemy to the world, but I tell you they are true. One day you will crack the shell, and He who is imprisoned splendor will come out. Memory will return, and you will know all that you knew before that the world was.

By coming down and taking on the limitations of the flesh, you have expanded yourself beyond what you were prior to your descent. I tell you: no one takes your life, you laid it down yourself. You have the power to lay it down and the power to pick it up again. We came down of our own accord because there was no one else to come, as we are the Elohim. The word first appears as the word “God” in the statement: “In the beginning God.” It is the Elohim who said: “Let us make man in our image,” and the word was translated “Lord” in the statements “The Lord took his place in the divine council.” In the midst of the gods (Elohim) he held judgment saying: “I say, You are gods (Elohim) Sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall as one man, O Princes.” It takes all of humanity to form the one God who created and sustains the universe.

I am not speaking of anyone on the outside. That is not the truth of which the scriptures speak. It makes no effort to change society, but rather urges all to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” He doesn’t try to make the slave a free person, but leaves him just as he is. Today all of our energies are going into keeping records and changing things. I recently received a notice from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I thought they were interested in my health, and since I have been paying their insurance since 1936, I went to see them today. The lady asked me many questions, none of which were related to my health. She said she knew everything else about me, which confirmed my suspicions that we are all computerized numbers. She needed proof that I would be 65 this coming February. I showed her my passport, for I have no driver’s license as I do not drive, but she wanted a birth certificate. I told her that on the island and in the year I was born, a birth certificate was too expensive; but I was baptized and somewhere I have that certificate. She urged me to write for it, and I will; but our visit made me realize that everything about the garment you wear is already known by the government, all carefully computerized and filed.

But you are not the garment, which – in my case – will be 65 in February. You created the world; so don’t let anyone scare you, as you and the one who is trying to frighten you, are one and the same being. There is no other God. You can prove my words by simply imagining you are already living in the state you desire. Do not raise one finger to make it so; simply believe it to be so. Go about your business as though it were true and it will happen, because that is the way you brought everything into being.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you were the man (the woman) you would like to be? Sustain that imaginal act as though it were true, and no power in the world can stop it from becoming true, because there is no other power. Try it beginning tonight. Take a glorious concept of life. Nothing less than the very best, and simply imagine it to be true about you and those you love. Start with your immediate circle and – although at the moment your circle may deny it by reason of what they are doing – persist in your assumption as though it were true, and it will harden into fact.

Grant all of your sleeping brothers their right to pursue God in some other direction. They will never find him in any other way, save by experiencing the story of Jesus Christ. Then and only then will they know the true knowledge of God.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE TRUE VINE

Neville Goddard 04-04-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityToday, as you know, is Good Friday, and undoubtedly millions have attended services and heard some portion of the last seven words of Christ; but I wonder how many of them know who he is and what the words really mean. I tell you: Jesus Christ is your awareness, your I Amness, who became as you are that you may be as he is. I want you to accept this literally, for it is true.

Now, each one of the seven words spoken of today is really a sentence, the first of which is: -“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,-” and the last is: -“Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit.-” This is only a portion of the quote from the 5th verse of the 31st chapter of the Book of Psalms. The complete thought is this: -“Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.-” Here we find the redeemer to be one with the redeemed, for speaking to the Father, he says: -“Thou hast redeemed me,-” yet he has already confessed -“I and the Father are one.-” So you see the redeemer and the redeemed are really one.

Let us look at these words through the eyes of the mystic, and not with the traditional eyes of the church: -“I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.-” This true vine is the imagination. It is man’s eternal body, who is God himself. Jesus is the divine body, of which we are his members in the sense that he is in us. Christ is not a little man, but humanity. He is our own wonderful human imagination. He is our redeemer, yet he is the one redeemed.

When I first realized this I was shocked, for I was born and raised in the Christian tradition and knew no other religion. Then I discovered that Christ was not someone on the outside that I should worship, but my own wonderful human imagination, and for a while my world turned upside down. There is a little poem that fits this perfectly: -“Behold this vine. I found it a wild tree whose wanton strength had swollen into irregular twigs. But I pruned the plant and it grew tempered in its vain expanse of useless leaves and knotted as you see into these full, clean clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it.-”

Your imagination is the true vine from which everything in your world is drawn. Any misuse of your imagination causes the deformities in your life. It is a shock, I know, to realize that you are the sole cause of your life; and what a responsibility you have, to prune this true vine of awareness!

Since the Father and the Son are one, I – as Father AM the true vine and must prune myself. Not realizing a seeming other was a branch growing from me, the true vine, I allowed myself to entertain unlovely thoughts of him. But I didn’t cut the branch, for the pruning is not in that way. Called repentance in scripture, pruning is revision – which is a radical change of attitude towards an individual or a situation. I revised my thoughts relative to that seeming other and accepted this unseen imaginal act as reality. Then I watched, and in time I became aware of a change in my world relative to this person or that condition. Having found the true vine and the Father who pruned it, I know I must prune it every day; for if I do it will knot and form itself into these full, clean clusters to repay the hand of the vinedresser (the Father) who pruned it.

Listen carefully now to these words from Paul’s letter to the Philippians: -“Christ Jesus who – though he was in the form of God – thought it not robbery to be equal with God, emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and was born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he became obedient unto death, even death on the cross.-” Your body is the cross upon which Jesus Christ is crucified. And it is there he will remain until he transforms your lowly body into the one form with his glorious body. Then he will have fulfilled his purpose. I tell you: Jesus Christ has actually taken upon himself your body of humility and become its slave by feeding it, bathing it, clothing it, and caring for it in every way; yet Jesus Christ is not of this world. But in time he will completely transform you into his glorious body, for he is the redeemer, who – having assumed your body – will redeem it, thereby becoming the redeemed.

The true vine is your own wonderful human imagination. When you believe this you will no longer imagine as you formerly did, but will prune your thoughts every minute of every day. You will break the habit of feeling remorseful, depressed, or regretful. You will no longer think unkindly about another, because you will know that he is actually yourself pushed out, and appeared in your world because the Father in you called him. No one can come unto me unless I, who am one with the Father, call him. Even though he brings poison he does it because I gave it to him to bring. This is the story that is reenacted today, but not understood.

Now we are told he took a sop (called -‘a morsel’ in some translations) and gave it to Judas, who quickly departed. The sop is a gift of great friendship. In the ancient world, the sop was dipped into a liquid and handed to the honored guest, he who is the closest and dearest friend. That’s Judas. Only one who knows the messianic secret can betray it. No one can betray me who does not know my secret. How could you betray me if I had not taken you into my confidence as a friend, and shared my secret?

So Judas leaves to tell the world of the real Christ and gives them a sign saying: -“The one I shall kiss is the man; seize him. Hold him fast.-” Don’t let him go, but eat his doctrine, feed upon it, drink it. Let everything else go, but don’t let him go. When you have found the cause of the phenomena of your life, let every other belief go. Should people urge you to eat certain food or observe certain days do not believe them, for there is nothing you can do on the outside that will ever commend you to God. You are defiled or purified by what comes out of your heart, not by what you eat or observe on the outside. Are you imagining good or evil for yourself, for the true vine is your own wonderful human imagination, and the world without is nothing more than your branches.

Now, who is this one that Judas kisses? The Risen Christ! This I know from experience. One night I was explaining the word of God to twelve men, when one jumped up quickly and departed. I instantly knew he was going to tell exactly what I had told him concerning the cause of the phenomena of life. Then he returns. It’s the same being, but now he is richly dressed and so important we all stand at attention at his entrance. Coming toward me he severs my sleeve, revealing my right arm and kisses the one it is said of him: -“Don’t let him go, but hold him fast.-”

The word -“hold-” as defined in the concordance, means -“almighty power-” and the word -“fast-” means, -“to abstain from all food.-” Here we are being told to abstain from any food for thought other than our own wonderful human imagination. We are urged to feast upon our own power and wisdom. Abstain when others urge you to try a little numerology, a little astrology, or any belief of a power outside of your Self. One of the great weaknesses of man is the necessity of always being right. Those who prophesied that California would experience an earthquake which would kill millions, will pray until they break their skull to prove the rightness of their prophecy; but it hasn’t a thing to do with scripture. The earthquake spoken of in scripture takes place within, and not on the outside, at all.

Jesus Christ is God himself, who became you, individually. Your awareness is He. When you imagine, God is acting. He is the true vine and the vinedresser, for he is your imagination, imagining you. If you really understand this, you will start pruning your thoughts. If you don’t and continue to believe Jesus Christ is other than your Self, you will persist in allowing your wanton energy to run wild, to swell into irregular twigs, and bear unlovely things in your world.

When you become aware of those in need, even though you do not know them personally, do you use your imagination to lift them from that state? That is what you are called upon to do. If you represent them to yourself as you would like them to be, and persuade yourself it is true, that branch will change in your world. You do not eliminate the state of need. It remains for anyone to be aware of, but you – having lifted yourself out of the state – see it no more.

Prune your vine morning, noon, and night; and then — when you least expect it – a series of wonderful, supernatural experiences will be yours, as God reveals himself in you – not as another, but as your very Self. Then you will say, from personal experience, -“I am he.-”

In the 17th chapter of Luke, we are warned not to heed anyone who may say: -“Lo, here it is!-” or -“There!-” for the kingdom of God is within. And we are told in the 3rd chapter of Philippians: -“Our common wealth is in heaven, from where we expect a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion our lowly body to be one with his glorious body.-” This body of humiliation will be completely transformed by the exalted Christ in you. So do not go any place when someone tells you to look elsewhere, for you can only find the true God within. If our commonwealth is in heaven (from which we expect a Savior who is the lord Jesus Christ) and heaven is within, our Savior cannot come from without. And when he comes, it is in a series of majestic, supernatural acts, wherein he unveils himself and rises from within.

Blake expressed this thought so beautifully in Plate 96 of -‘Jerusalem’ as:
-“I behold the Visions of my deadly sleep of six-thousand years Dazzling around my skirts like a Serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is my Self: O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.-”

I have beheld those visions. I have known the thrill of seeing that pool of golden liquid light and knowing it to be my Self. And I have experienced the 3rd chapter of John by ascending into the kingdom of God within myself. I was taught to believe in someone on the outside; yet, when my Spiritual body was split and truth was revealed to me, I fused with golden, pulsing, living, liquid light and – like a serpent – I returned to the kingdom of heaven within me to become a living stone in the living temple of the Eternal God. This knowledge, I know, everyone is going to experience.

Once again let us return to the drama depicted today. The first word of the seven wonderful words is this: -“Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.-” If you know that you are the cause of your sorrow, can you not forgive the one who submitted it? Must you condemn a shadow, when you are its cause? Everyone who comes into your world is drawn there by your Father, with whom you are one. If he who enters insults or offends you and you know you are the cause of his seeming offense, can you not forgive him? Can you not say: -“Father, forgive him for he knows not what he is doing?-” Your world is filled with those who are under compulsion to play their part because of what you have imagined. You may have forgotten your imaginal acts, and may even deny you ever entertained such thoughts; but they could not come if you had not called them out of yourself; therefore, you must forgive them, for they only did what you asked them to do.

Now at the very end, this statement is made: -“It is finished.-” What does he ask for when the work he was given to do is finished? -“To return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.-” Having emptied himself of his glory and taken upon himself the form of a slave to become obedient to death upon the cross of Man, he has redeemed the state of slavery by becoming one with it and raising it to the level of Father. Now he requests to return to his former glory, the glory that he knew before that the world was.

Only one being returns. That being is God the Father, the sender, now one with his Son, the sent. Entering this world of many, we are the gods, sons of the Most High, yet one with our Father. When, as the son, we overcome death, we return with greater brilliance and translucency because of our victory over death. Then what a joy is ours!

If you will accept this truth and will not let it go, your days will change as you feast upon the body of imagination and drink of its life-giving blood. Give up everything you have ever believed concerning causation and believe in the one cause of all life – be it good, bad or indifferent – which is your own wonderful human imagination.

When an experience comes to you that causes you distress, instead of denying it or trying to rub it out, accept the event and change it. Beautify your world! The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the story of redemption. Jesus Christ is not some man who died two thousand years ago. You and I died with Christ in the beginning. You have been crucified with Christ and he lives in you. Live your life in the flesh by faith in the Son of God. who so loved you he actually became you. His incarnation took place when you were born. He is a slave to your body, for your birth from below is when imagination took upon himself the form of a slave. He is not a person who, enslaving another, calls that other his slave; for the one who is the slave-master is still a slave to the body he wears, taking care of its normal, natural functions for himself.

God actually became the slave that you are, in order to redeem you. A complete transformation will take place, and you – the grub worm – will return to the awareness of being the exalted butterfly – the same being you were before you descended in power and took upon yourself the form of a slave.

I can’t tell you the thrill that is yours when you wear that all-powerful garment of fire and air. While you wear it there is nothing you cannot do effortlessly. You can form eyes that see perfectly and mold them into empty sockets, form arms, which move perfectly in their sockets. With your magical power you can change age-shrunken bodies into perfect twenty-year-old ones. That power is yours when you wear your body called heaven.

One night in 1946, I wore that body. It’s the same body I gave up when I took upon myself this body of a slave in order to redeem it. That night, while still aware of being Neville, I – the invisible – became a visible being by nailing myself upon this cross called Neville. And I wore it faithfully until the night of the transfiguration. So I know the thrill that is in store for you when your body of slavery is transformed into a body of immortality. You see, the being you really are is Jesus Christ and cannot die. You who were before that the world was, came down into this world of death to overcome it, to rise as one being; for you – the redeemer – will know yourself to be one with the redeemed.

Now, one of the last words on the cross is: -“I thirst.-” You may think this is a thirst for water, but the Book of Amos tells you what he is thirsting for. -“I will send a famine upon the land. It will not be a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.-” Every word has to be fulfilled in him. That is his thirst. When the thirst comes upon you, every word of God will unfold in you, casting you in the starring role. Then your hunger and thirst will be satisfied, for you will have experienced the entire Bible in a first person, singular, present tense experience.

I wonder what per cent of our world understands this wonderful day of the crucifixion. At one church here on Wilshire Blvd., there will be seven preachers; each will speak on one sentence and attempt to explain it. With the traditional concept of Jesus Christ, how could the statement: –“Father, forgive them,-” be explained? How could you, personally, truly forgive someone if you did not believe he was yourself pushed out? How could you forgive one who had just murdered a friend or a loved one, without acknowledging that you had to have done it; because it couldn’t have happened and you be aware of it, unless your Father called it to your attention by drawing the event into your world, and you and your father are one? Only when you know who the real cause of the phenomena of life is, can you forgive. If awareness is the cause of murder and you are forever aware of something, the state of murder cannot be cut off; but your awareness can be rearranged. The event can be completely transformed by repentance, which I call revision. When you revise a disturbing memory, you have repented in the true sense of the word.

When I first found this vine I could hardly sleep for days and days, I was so disillusioned thinking of the responsibility that was now on my shoulder – responsibility that I had always placed upon the shoulder of another. But once I accepted the fact that Jesus Christ is my human imagination and the cause of everything I am aware of, I knew I couldn’t pass the buck any more, but had to do something about it. So I, the Father, began to prune the vine.

The entire 15th chapter of the Book of John is devoted to this pruning of the vine. He starts off: -“I am the true vine. My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.-” The tree in your garden may be lovely to look at and it may pain you to cut a certain branch, but you know you must do it if you want good fruit next year. That is life. Consciousness (the I AM) is the eternal vine. Your eternal body is the Imagination, which is God himself. We are all members of the divine body – Jesus; therefore humanity is truly the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every child is part of that universal body; and when he knows that Jesus Christ is his own wonderful human imagination, he is confused for the moment, until the realization rearranges itself within him. Then he takes himself in hand, determined to do something about it. I tell you from experience, if you will take yourself in hand and really believe in Christ in you to the point that you will turn to no other causation, but will prune your thoughts morning, noon, and night, your world will change. It will mold itself in harmony with the change which has taken place in you, for your outer world is forever reflecting your inner, imaginal acts.

This is the great story that is told today. Jesus Christ is not a man who was nailed upon a wooden cross, or hanged upon a tree on the outside.

The tree spoken of in the Book of Acts is Man himself. The brain is the root, with the veins and arteries as the tree and its branches. This is the tree of life spoken of in the 4th chapter of Daniel. It was felled but its root was not disturbed so that the tree could reverse itself, and its power – which had gone down into generation – could be turned up into regeneration.

When that hunger comes upon you, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But be not deceived; the kingdom of God will not come with signs to be observed. Let no one tell you: -“Here it is,-” or: -“There-” for the being you are seeking is the cause of your life. That being is God the Father, who is in his kingdom, and that kingdom is within you. Suddenly the drama called Jesus Christ will unfold within you and you will know the joy that comes with fulfillment. When this plan unfolds, you sleep differently, you wake differently. There isn’t a moment in time when you could not close your eyes and willingly depart, for you know the Word has unfolded in you. Yet night after night the visions continue to possess you, all based upon the promises of God as recorded in the Old Testament.

Every night when I close my eyes to this world, I enter that world – the world of Spirit waking – and fulfill the word of God.

Now, I received two letters this week regarding dreams of horses. Always bear in mind that a dream is a parable with a single point of truth. In one lady’s dream she was driving down the highway with her husband, when she looked back to see two wild horses running toward a deep cliff. The younger one leaped across the cliff into rich pasture, but the older one fell on the highway. Although she knew he was not injured she felt sorry for him, and as she reached out to him, he got to his feet and came to her for comfort. The horse is a symbol of one’s understanding. She has not completely discarded the old, yet it is not equal to the new understanding of the eternal truth, for the younger horse made it beautifully across the cliff. She didn’t go to bed that night to conjure horses. They came to her, for now she is riding a new understanding and the true word of God is becoming alive within her. In the 12th chapter of Numbers we are told that God speaks to man through the language of dream. If God is speaking, you want to pay attention and extract the single jet of truth in what he is saying.

Another lady dreamed of three horses – a white, black, and pale one, all living on her thousand-acre estate. Men offered her a fantastic price for the estate; yet she knew what they really wanted was her white horse and she didn’t want to part with it. Time and time again they tried to kill her or injure her in some way, yet the white horse always appeared to redeem her in a human manner.

In the Book of Revelation we are told that Jesus Christ rides the white horse. Here we see this lady isn’t completely in control of her understanding, but she has found it and is redeemed by it even though she is still seeking herself, because her enemies are her beliefs based upon her early training, which came back to haunt her.

In her letter to me she wondered if she had already ridden the red horse of conflict, since she did not see one. I tell you all: don’t try to put something into your dreams that is not there. She didn’t dream of a red horse, so why mention him? A dream has only one central jet of truth. In her case it is the white horse, the symbol of the redeemer, who is your own wonderful human imagination.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

WALK BY FAITH

Neville Goddard 11-06-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityBlake asked the question: “Why is it that the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding, or reason?”

The one book, called the Bible, is composed of sixty-six books. Take this challenge. Read each book as though the depth of your soul is speaking to your surface mind. As though the ineffable Imagination is speaking to the human Imagination, and not to your immediate understanding or reasoning mind.

Let us examine this thought. In his 2nd letter to the Corinthians Paul says: “We walk by faith and not by sight.” When we walk by sight, we know our way by objects that the eye sees. But Paul tells us to order our life by objects seen only in the imagination. In other words, when you know where you want to go and what you want to be, you are told not to rearrange your physical structure, but to walk by faith, viewing only the rearranged structure of your mind. And if you will remain faithful to that state of consciousness, what is seen only in your imagination will objectify itself in your world.

Paul now adds another observation, saying: “This one thing I do. Forgetting what lies behind, I strain forward to what lies ahead.” Paul’s goal was the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, but you need not have such a goal. Your desire could be a successful business. Now, everything begins in the imagination, for man is all imagination and God is man. God and man differ only in the degree of imagination’s intensity. Now keyed low, man walks by sight or by faith in his human imagination. Walking by sight is easier, because buildings rarely move. But when you walk by faith, the objects in your mind’s eye must remain as stable as those of the physical eye.

My brother Victor wanted to be a successful business man, and he knew how to remain faithful to what he imagined. In 1924, when our family didn’t have a cent, Victor rearranged the name on a building (in his mind’s eye) to imply we owned it. This he did for two years, when – without any more money than when he started imagining – a casual acquaintance purchased the building for us without collateral for $50,000. Eight years ago we sold the building to a bank for $850,000, and there is no capital gains tax in Barbados!

Walking by faith, every day as Victor passed that building, he saw “J. C. Goddard and Sons” on the marquee in place of the existing name of “I. N. Roach & Company”. Sight told him the building belonged to another, but faith said the building was his. By simply rearranging the structure of his mind every day for two years, our family’s fortune changed.

Now, we are told: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen, so that what is seen was made out of things that do not appear.” (Hebrews 11) Only my brother Victor saw his mental act. Others saw the sign, “J. N. Roach & Company” – by sight, but Victor saw the words, “J.C. Goddard & Sons” – by faith.

Someone once asked Blake what he saw when he looked at the sun, and he replied, “I see a host of angels singing, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.”‘ We can all see the same tree but see it differently, just as we can the same man. One may see him in need, while another sees him gainfully employed, both using the same power. You have the power to either live by faith or by sight. If you live by sight, accepting everything that happens, you remain an automaton, unable to change the conditions and events in your world. Only as you begin to live by faith will your life change.

Paul tells us that no matter what he has done or did not do, he puts it behind him and stretches forward towards what lies ahead. Paul’s ideal was to be called to the highest point of God. I hope this is your ideal, too, but perhaps it is not. Maybe other things are pressing upon you, such as the need for money. If so, make that your objective, but use the same technique.

Put the past behind you. Do not look back and become like Lot’s wife who turned into a pillar of salt – which is a preservative. You always put what you want to preserve in brine. If you turn back and dwell upon the state you want to leave behind, you have placed it in brine and will become it once more. But if you will turn your back upon the past regardless of what you have or have not done, and stretch forward to what you want to be or do and remain faithful to your desire – nothing can stop you from achieving it. You will become the man you assume you are, if you persist in the assumption that you are already there!

Like Blake, I have found the Bible most entertaining, challenging, and instructive. It is not an easy book to read, however. If it were, it would not be worth my care, for as the ancients discovered, that which is not too explicit is fittest for instruction, as it rouses the faculties to act.

Take this simple statement in Hebrews: “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son who reflects the glory of God and bears the stamp of his nature.”

The prophets, instruments through which God spoke, recorded their visions of what God intended, saying: “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork.” (Psalms 18 & 19) But in the last days God speaks to us by his son, David. This is a fantastic revelation, for in the end God is going to reveal himself.

I could tell you until the ends of time that you are He, but only David can make you believe it. I’ll tell you why. Many people, like Bishop Pike, question the authority of scripture; but it will never be questioned after it is experienced.

In the Book of Revelation, Jesus Christ is called “the word of God”. And in the Book of John he declares his word is truth. May I tell you: only when a truth is experienced can it be known. I know what I have experienced is true. You have heard my words and believe me, but you will not know their truth to the degree that I do until they are experienced.

I have told you how my brother walked by faith rather than by sight, and created a fabulous business in the islands. Sight told him he didn’t have a penny to his name. But in faith he began to alter his life by that which only his imagination could see. Your sight registers what is before you right now. If you do not like it, you have an “I” within that is Christ in you. He is the power of imagination which, through faith, can change your life.

As the operant power of your imagination, you can tell where you are going and what you are doing by watching your thoughts. If certain events in your past are unlovely and you remember them, you are ordering their experience. But if you turn your back on the past by forgetting what lies behind and stretch forward to what lies ahead, you will order your conversations aright and become what you behold. This truth will never be disproved, but you are its operant power and must live by it. You need nothing on the outside, but can start just where you are; but you must walk in the direction you set up in your imagination.

Ask yourself this simple question: What would it be like if it were true that I am now the person I want to be? Then reach for its feeling, its spiritual sensation. What is that? I’ll show you in a very simple way. Feel a piece of glass, now feel a baseball. Does the baseball feel like glass? Can you feel a tennis ball? Does it feel like a baseball or a piece of glass? Can you feel a piece of cloth, a violet, a piano? Do they all feel alike? Of course not. That’s spiritual sensation – a vivid way of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling reality.

A few years ago I gave a similar lecture in New York City and a lady in my audience decided to test me. While sitting in her chair she embraced a large bunch of roses. She smelled them, felt their velvety petals, and saw their beauty in her mind’s eye. Then, breaking the silence she left my meeting and returned to her hotel room at the Waldorf Astoria.

The next day the queen mother, Queen Elizabeth, was given a party at the Waldorf Astoria, with two thousand people in attendance. After the reception the maitre d’, not wanting to discard the flowers there, instructed his men to take three dozen roses up to this lady’s room. And when she came home that evening, all she could smell were those lovely roses. She had embraced and lost herself in the feeling of the possession of beautiful roses. She walked by faith and not by sight, and the next day her room was filled with the heavenly aroma of roses.

Now, perhaps because of its memory, you find yourself continuing to look back at what you were (and are) and not ahead into what you want to be. If you will order your conversations aright, right now, their truth will happen in the simplest way.

A seamstress and dress designer I know wanted more money. Using her imagination, she held an envelope in her hand and listened to the paper tear as she opened it. Shaking the contents out, she counted the money to the very penny. This she did for seven nights. On the eighth day, a lady called, offering her a job which paid her, to the penny, what she had imagined. Do you know – that lady could have counted out much more and she would have received it, but she was quite satisfied with the amount she had imagined.

Now, if there is evidence for a thing, does it matter what the world thinks? Could you ever take this lady’s experience from her? No! The truth, experienced by her parallels scripture, for all things are possible to one who believes. How did this lady believe what she was imagining? She did it by bringing forth all of her senses to bear upon this event. Using her sense of hearing, she heard the paper tear. Shaking the contents of the envelope, she heard the money fall on the table. She felt the envelope and saw the bills inside. Do you know, money has an odor unlike anything else? So you can smell money. She determined what she would do if she had the money and she did it.

Another lady went to Sterns Department Store in New York City, saying to herself: “Neville says I can have anything I want if I will imagine and believe in my imaginal act.” Having no money, this lady walked over to the hat department, took off her hat and tried on a new one. Walking around the area, she admired herself in front of all the mirrors, but when she returned, her hat was gone. When she described it to the sales lady, she learned that her hat had been sold! The section manager was called in, and he told her to take any hat she wanted, compliments of Sterns. She liked the one she had been wearing, so she left the store with her new hat on her head, and she hadn’t paid a dime for it.

Here is another story of a similar nature. This lady’s profession was that of being a lady of the evening. She attended all of my meetings, and one day she said to me; “You know, Neville, the strangest thing happened. You told me that I could have anything I wanted if I simply imagined it.

One day I saw a beautiful hat in the window of a department store on Broadway. It was $18, but I loved it so I imagined wearing the hat. As I walked up the street I kept looking at my reflection in the shop windows, seeing that hat on my head. Arriving home, I imagined placing the new hat in the closet instead of my old one. Every day, for the next week or ten days, as I put on my old hat, I imagined it was the new one. Then one day a friend called and asked me to come see her. While there, she brought out a hat box and said; ‘I must have been insane when I bought this hat. I wouldn’t wear it to a dog fight; yet strangely enough I feel it would look lovely on you.’ She opened the box and brought out, not a hat, but the hat, the very hat I had seen in the window and worn in my imagination.” Then she asked: “Neville, why didn’t God give me the money to buy the hat myself, instead of giving it to me in this manner?”

Knowing her profession, I said, “Ann, do you owe any rent?” and she replied, “Yes, two weeks.” “What do you pay, about $17.50 per week?” “Yes.” “So you owe $35. What price hats do you usually buy? Three or four dollar ones? Have you ever bought a $17 hat?” “Never.” “Then tell me honestly. If, when you were looking at the hat, you had seen a $100 bill on the ground, would you have brought the hat?” She said “No.” Then I said, “No matter how much money God might have given you, you still would not have bought the hat, so someone else had to buy it for you, and they did.”

I have bought clothes, brought them home, and wondered what possessed me to buy them. I did it because someone was treading in the winepress elsewhere. Someone imagined a suit of clothes, so I went to my tailor, chose the cloth, and paid for the suit. But when I brought it home, my wife wouldn’t let me bring it into the house. Then a friend who wanted something just like it contacted me and got the suit. He was treading the winepress while I paid for the suit.

Believe me, imagination is spiritual sensation. It is a vivid sight, a vivid sound. When Beethoven went deaf, all sound to the outer ear came to its end. Then Beethoven began to hear with the inner ear and wrote all of the beautiful music we so enjoy.

You can now think of someone you love and hear him speak. If you can’t hear him, use one of your other spiritual senses. A touch, a sound, a sight, or an odor will do. I know in New York City, years ago, as I walked through Harlem, I smelled the odor of cooking that instantly took me to Barbados. Although I was physically in Harlem, my sense of smell told me I was 2000 miles away in Barbados.

You can remember a sound, a touch, a sight, and put yourself any place. Like Paul, learn to walk by faith and not by sight. Forget what lies behind and stretch forward to what lies ahead. In the third chapter of Philippians, Paul names his desire as the calling of God in Christ Jesus, but it need not be yours.

I urge you to try this, for your life is forever. Nothing dies. The little rose that blooms once blooms forever, for nothing passes away. If a loved one ceases to be in this little sphere he doesn’t die, but is instantly restored to life to carry on his wonderful journey in this age until that moment in time when God speaks to him through his Son, who calls him Father. Only then will he know he is the author of his world. Then his journey will be over, and when he takes off his little garment it will be for the last time.

Paul tells us in Philippians; “I desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is better by far, but it is more necessary that I remain in the flesh on your account.” Paul longed to depart and be one with God the Father, but he knew it was necessary for him to remain in the flesh and continue his instruction, just as I do.

Take my words to heart and achieve your every desire. Learn to walk by faith and not by sight and, like Paul, turn your back upon everything you have ever accomplished and go forward – by faith – towards the goal you have set for yourself. Knowing what you would see if your goal were reached, how you would feel if you were there, what you would do now if it were true? Walk in that state and you will achieve it.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

YOU ARE A COSMIC BEING

Neville Goddard  05-02-1969

neville goddard imagination creates realityTonight I want you to think of Christ as a cosmic being who contains everyone within him. Having died for all, this one being is in all, and will rise in all. Only one being can rise, for only one being fell. Having deliberately destroyed his temple in the fall, God, (this one being) is rebuilding his temple out of the redeemed, in order for it to become something far greater than it was prior to its destruction. One being, containing all within him, fell into this world of death to become individualized as you, as me. That same being will rise in us all, individually: and when he does the divine name “Lord” will be conferred upon the individual in whom he rose.

In Paul’s wonderful letter to the Corinthians, he tells us: “From now on I regard no one from the human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” Why? Because Paul was led from tradition to self-discovery. While determined to destroy those who believed in a savior other than the one he was taught to believe in, Paul discovered that the Christ of whom they spoke was a pattern of salvation contained within every child born of woman. It was Paul who said: “When it pleased God to reveal himself in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” The pattern unfolds in only one way, and Paul tried to describe how it unfolded in him. I cannot find the true detail by his description of it, but Paul does tell us to imitate God as dear children.

Now, in order to imitate anyone or anything, it must be seen or heard first. How can you imitate something you cannot see or hear? It is my purpose to tell you how to imitate God as a dear child, for imitation can only be accomplished by hearing what took place and believing it. Now, the question is asked: “How can men imitate him whom they have never heard, and how can men hear unless there is a preacher? And how can there be a preacher unless he is sent.” Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by preaching Christ. If, when I tell you I came out from the Father, you will accept my words and believe I am telling you the truth, then you will set your hope fully upon this promise and its unfoldment in you.

I tell you: one being fell to become all, and one being is going to rise in all, as each is called according to His purpose. I was called in 1959. He may call you tonight, but each one of us will be called individually by the same being who is rising in all.

I cannot conceive of anything comparable to this, for unless we are born from above we remain in the world of death, turning the wheel of recurrence over and over again. I can assure you from what I know from my inner vision, that everyone will escape. God will not leave one section of himself in the world of death. He is one being who – containing all -fell into the world of death. That same being, rising in each, individually according to his purpose, rebuilds his temple out of the redeemed.

If you would imitate God as a dear child you must first have a pattern from which you may follow. This is true in all walks of life. There must be a mold into which molten metal is poured in order to form a casting. Jesus Christ is the mold which “Must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Perfection is a molten state into which you must be reduced. Your physical body, when it is burned, it is reduced to dust; so it cannot be this body that is reduced to a molten state. No. It is not your physical body, but your Spiritual body.

Christianity is based upon the claim that a certain series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. It hasn’t a thing to do with any individual man on the outside. Paul’s story, which preceded the gospels by twenty or twenty-five years, is not concerned with what happens to the individual between the cradle and the grave.

If the one called Jesus was a carpenter, a mason, a bricklayer, or a pimp, it would not concern Paul. He was only interested in what happened in an individual. Paul knew he had awakened from the dream of life, but could not share his experiences with others except in words. We are told that he spent his last days from morning to night discussing the kingdom of God and trying to persuade others concerning Jesus, and some believed while others disbelieved.

This is true in this world in which we live. When I tell of what happened to me, individually, my experiences are so unusual the average person will not accept them. They – still in the world of Caesar – are more concerned with how to make that extra dollar then they are in the eternal world of life.

Although this world of death is temporal, it will continue as though it is forever, until the individual hears the Word of God and responds with faith by setting his hope fully upon the grace that is coming to him at the revelation of Jesus Christ within him. That is where the one being, containing all of us, fell. It was a deliberate act, and necessary in order to expand beyond what He was prior to the fall. We did nothing wrong to warrant our fall; rather we desired to enter this world of death. We agreed to take upon ourselves these dead garments; to be enslaved by them and to overcome them. We did it in perfect confidence that He who contained us all, would redeem us all.

In the 32nd chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy we are told that: “He has set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God;” therefore, every child is a garment worn by a son of God, and God will not leave one of his sons in this world of death. Rather, every son will rise, individually, to the realization that he is God the Father, as it takes all of us to form that one being who is God and Father of all.

When I speak of Jesus Christ I do not mean a man, but a pattern. Like Paul, I no longer regard Christ from the human point of view. I once regarded him as such, but not any more. Now I see him as a pattern of salvation which began to unfold in me back in 1959 when I awoke in my skull. Until that moment in time I – like you – had no idea I was buried there; but, because it happened to me, I will now prophecy for you. A storm wind will possess you, and you will awaken within yourself to discover you are entombed in your skull, from which you will emerge. That will be your birth from above, of which John speaks, saying: “Unless you are born from above you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” This kingdom is the new age spoken of as that age – as opposed to this age.

This is the age of death where everything begins and ends, while that age is eternal life. Having overcome the world of death, Jesus Christ (the pattern) unfolds as you rise, victorious, into the world of eternal life; for you are the gods who came down, individualized yourselves in order to rise as the Lord, as there is no other being.

The world may condemn you if you are a thief by profession, but Paul doesn’t. It matters little what happens to you individually between the cradle and the grave. But it matters much if, when you hear my story of salvation you believe it; for then you will break the shell and rise above all this worldly nonsense. Salvation’s story was told to us as it was to them; but it did not benefit them because – believing this world of death was real – they were more interested in achieving greater intellect and more wealth here; therefore, the story was not received with faith.

I read a story concerning Lord Russell who, although loving to be called “Lord,” said: “I regard religion as a disease, born of fear. A source of untold misery to the human race.” Well, I tell you it is not a disease, although I know there are numberless forms of interpretation of the great mystery.

Like Paul, I was taught that Christ was a man who came into the world and claimed he was the Messiah to save the world. But I tell you, Christianity is based upon the claim that a certain series of supernatural events happened, in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. When I realized that these events spelled out the pattern man who was Christ, I knew there was no other.

It takes the many blows of the world to reduce us to that liquid, cosmic being who awakens in the grave. That grave is not in some cemetery, but in the skull from which a storm wind will awaken you. In the Jerusalem Talmud, there is a tradition that the Messiah was born in Bethlehem the night of the destruction of Jerusalem, and he was carried off by a storm wind. I tell you this is true.

When the storm wind possessed me I reverberated from head to foot. I felt as though my body was being shattered as I awoke. Expecting to see the same room I had retired in, I awoke to find myself in a tomb which I intuitively knew to be my skull. It was sealed, and when I rolled a stone away, I discovered that I could force my head into the opening found there. This I did and I came out of that skull as a child comes out of the womb of a woman; but this was the womb from above rather than the womb from below, for you must be born from above in order to inherit the kingdom of God. Then the entire imagery as told us in scripture surrounded me, witnessing the event.

It is written that the angel of the Lord said to those who were going to be witnesses: “Go and you will find him, for God is born this day in Bethlehem. Look for this sign, which is a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying on the floor.” The witnesses then went hastily and found the sign; but they could not see he who was having the experience because he was Spirit, and since God is Spirit, it was God who was born.

Although I could not be seen by mortal eye, my witnesses could not see me; but I could see them and their every thought was objective to me. Then the sign of my birth was carried away by a storm wind.

Now, knowing myself to be God, who is a father, I must have a son to bear witness to my fatherhood. Five months later God’s son David stood before me and called me father and I fulfilled his promise. Then I returned to the limitation of my cross in order to share my experiences with you, my brothers, to encourage you to believe. I saw my only son who is God’s only son.

That son is the personification of all the generations of men and their experiences, proving that the race is finished and the crown of righteousness is mine. I have played every lovely and unlovely part in this world. I had to in order to see my son, whose beauty is beyond measure, and whose name is David.

Now, the third mighty act reveals your true identity as that of molten gold. In the Book of Zechariah, we read: “He stood upon the Mount of Olives when it was split from east to west as one half moved northward and the other half moved southward.” You will discover, as I did, that the Mount of Olives spoken of here is your body; for the Old Testament is an adumbration, a forecasting in a not altogether conclusive and immediately evident way.

It is a shadow, but not the substance. Zechariah refers to a mountain, but when it happens to you, you will realize that the mountain is yourself. It is your body which is split from top to bottom, from east to west, as one side moves northward as the other side moves southward, revealing liquid, molten gold at its base. As I looked at this living, liquid gold I knew it to be myself; and I fused with it and up I went into my skull – into the kingdom of heaven, for the kingdom is within, At that moment I departed the world of generation and returned to the world of regeneration, as the heavens reverberated like thunder. Having returned to the molten state, I cast myself into the mold which was prepared for me before that the world was, to become the living image that radiates and reflects God’s glory. I am now the express image of God Himself. God’s primal wish was, “Let us make man in our image.”

I tell you, He has wrought it! As one of the gods, I have completed the journey; but because we are all brothers, I am compelled to remain in the world to tell you in the hope that you who are still asleep will believe me. I say the Christ of scripture is a pattern of salvation and not a man separate from yourself.

The four mighty acts which form that redemption begin with your awakening within yourself and end with the descent of the dove. Two years and nine months after my ascent into the kingdom of heaven, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in bodily form as a dove and smothered me with love. Then I knew I had filled the entire role and was now a glorious, living stone in the living body of the Risen Christ.

Christ is the one being who fell containing all within himself. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Because he could not fall without all of us, we agreed to fall with him. That was an agreement for expansion, for truth is an ever expanding illumination. God, having reached the limit of contraction and opacity, died in order to rise into limitless expansion and translucency.

Opacity (which is doubt) is personified as a thing and called the devil; and this being called “man,” is the limit of contraction. It may be hard to believe, but – as Paul said after his revelation: “The wisdom of this world is foolish in the eyes of God, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger then men.” Man believes he is getting wiser and wiser, yet it is only wiser and wiser nonsense. But God allows the nonsense to go on as men give each other medals, knowing that after the revelation man will know that the Bible is not speaking of a messiah to come from without, but from within.

One man fell, saying: “I say, You are gods, Sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless you will fall like men and die as one man, O princes.” Can you imagine that? Falling as one man we are princes; and if that is true, then our father is a king. I tell you, our Father is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, for he is the Lord God Jehovah who is raising us to himself that each one of us may become fully aware of being the Father. Regardless of your present sex, you are a son of Sod destined to awaken as the Father.

This wonderful story of scripture is completely misunderstood. Today’s preachers are not sent, for they have not yet been awakened; therefore they will give you all kinds of stories concerning the interpretation of scripture. Prior to 1959 I was not sent, but in 1959 1 was called, incorporated into the body of God and sent. This incorporation is like an impression made by a seal on wax or clay, for I came out bearing the image of God. The mortal eye cannot see that image, and when I die here, my physical body will disintegrate like all bodies do. My friends will say I am dead, for to them I am a mortal being with weaknesses and limitations of the flesh.

Those who see me as Neville are misled, as they cannot hear what I am saying; for they are seeing a body disintegrating before their eyes. They are judging by appearances and cannot understand that God does not see as man sees. Man sees the outward man, while God sees the inner man; and I, the inner man, have been impressed upon God like a great seal upon wax. I wear this little body that continues to decay; yet I, unseen by mortal eye, am radiating and reflecting the glory of God. I am the express image of the person that is God, but only those whose eyes are open will see me.

I promise you who hear me tonight, that it won’t be long before you will depart this world. Don’t be afraid. You will be restored to life, in a world just like this, to continue your journey. If you believe what you have heard from me, although I will not be there, wherever you go they will talk of the work I did here. Individually, I have left the world of death. I am only waiting for the moment when this little garment is taken off for the last time. I will not be restored to a world of mortality like this any more, for I have finished the race; I have fought the good fight; I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness where I go to wait for all my brothers to come into that union and be the one being that came down bearing all.

Mark my words, I am not fooling you. It isn’t long to wait before you will take off this garment and find yourself restored to life. You will meet many of your friends there who went before you. It will be a world just like this, where you will do all of the things we do here. And you will remember who taught you. You will not see me there, but eventually you will see me. Now I am going to where you cannot come; but you will, for everyone will awaken as God the Father.

I am not trying to persuade you to change your attitude towards the speaker. I am only telling you what I know from experience. Like Paul, I did not receive this knowledge from a man; it came through revelation of the true nature of salvation. It’s something entirely different. Salvation is not a man, but a pattern man buried in all, who will awaken in all in a first-person, singular, present-tense experience. When the experience is yours, you, too, will know who you are. I was taught to believe God was another; but when the pattern awakened in me, I knew I was He. Now I remain in the world only to share this wisdom with my brothers.

The unknown author of the Book of Hebrews said: “Holy brethren, look to Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession.” We are all sharers in this great gift, so let us now look to Jesus, the apostle who is called and sent. It is Jesus who is called. That’s who you really are. As the apostle, you are called and sent to tell the story of salvation from experience. You will tell your good news, knowing that not everyone who hears it will respond. In fact many, being more interested in the honors of men, will discount it.

Those who have $50 million are only interested in increasing their wealth to $100 million; and, although they may be eighty when they hear your story, it will not interest them, as they will still want more of what they must leave behind when they depart this world – as they won’t be able to take it with them, as you know. They will make a world like this, only devoid of what they had built up here, and cast themselves in a role best suited for the work yet to be done in them by the son of God who is wearing that garment. He may zap him from the role of a millionaire and place him in the role of a shoe-shine boy or one who cleans latrines, if that is necessary for the work yet to be done in him.

The world into which they go is just as real as this. I know this is true from experience. I have sat in a chair and felt something happen within me and I see a world that is solidly real. As my consciousness follows vision, I step into that world and it closes upon me as this world is shut out. While in that world my body is real. It is seen and heard by others. If, in that world I have a body like this, yet those who are here see my body asleep in a chair, how did I get that body? It was just as real to me and to those who saw and heard me there as this body you now see here. You could destroy this body, but you would not have destroyed that body in that world.

William Blake once said: “The oak is cut down with the ax and the lamb is slain by the knife, but their forms eternal remain forever and are reproduced by the seed of contemplative thought.” When I stepped into that world I knew myself to be a man called Neville. I was so aware of being Neville I clothed myself in the body that was Neville; yet I knew there was a body that was Neville, sound asleep on a chair.

How did it happen? By the seed of contemplative thought. When you die here, you remold yourself in the likeness that you know – only you reduce it in age to a time that pleases you. An eighty-year-old man, knowing what he knows now, will wear a twenty year old body, produced by the seed of contemplative thought. Who does it? The God in him. He will not go through the womb of a woman, but will create a new body by the seed of contemplative thought. He goes on in that world, just as he does here, to die there and begin all over again until he hears the story of salvation and believes.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

YOU CAN FORGIVE SIN

Neville Goddard  03-29-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality“You Can Forgive Sin.” That, to most people, will be blasphemy as you will hear later on, quoting from scripture. It is so common among all of us to ascribe our ills and troubles to outward things – like the present conditions of the world, to our environment, or simply to things. And these things may be things that are absent from our world, or things we have in our world, but still things, while all along the real cause of our ills is sin. So we are told he was called Jesus because he came to save men from their sins; his only concern was the saving of men from sin.

Now what is sin? Sin means “missing the mark,” missing the road, “missing the goal” in life. If you haven’t a mark you can’t sin. If you have a goal in this world and do not realize it and miss it, then you have sinned. So his purpose is to show man how not to sin in this world. No condemnation. Tell me you sin – tell me your goal, and I will tell you God’s word. That is what he said. He has come only to show man how not to miss his objective in this world.

Now we turn to Mark 2:3 – or the same thing with a different twist in Matthew 9:2. It is the story of the paralytic. We are told he was preaching the word, that is, the story of salvation, and they brought in a paralytic carried by four men; and seeing their faith, he said to the paralytic: “My son, your sins are forgiven.” (2:5) And scribes sitting around thought in their heart, “Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And discerning in their hearts what they contemplated, he said, “Why do you question thus in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk?’ So he said to him, “Take up your bed and walk and go home” and he rose and went on his way. Then we are told, “. . . they were all amazed and glorified God . . .” who had given such authority to men, for it was a man who did it. We are that man. It is to us that this authority to forgive sin has been given. And the world thought they were simply the exclusive power of some being outside of man. Read it in Mark 2 and Matthew 9.

Now what is this ability to forgive sin? We know that “sin” means missing the mark. The one that forgave it called himself, “The Truth.” He said: “I am the Truth. If you know my word and abide in my word, then you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” (John 8:31, 32) For the whole story begins he was teaching the truth – the word. Now, he calls himself “the truth.” If I said to you tonight, what would you like to be in this world? And you name it – I would like to be_____(no matter what it is) and I turned to you and said: You are that, you are it; right now you are it – you would say: I am it? I can’t believe it! Then you are denying the truth. He said: “I am the Truth” – I AM everything in this world; everything man can ever imagine, I AM. So, you imagine what you would like to be. If you cannot remain faithful and loyal to that vision of yourself, then you are sinning. Not to sin is to have a goal. What would it be like? If I remain faithful to that vision as though it were true, no power in this world could stop me from realizing it – but no power. I could realize it. How? Don’t ask me. But if it took the entire world of three billion to play parts to aid me in the fulfillment of my vision, they would play it without knowing they had played it. It would make no difference if they knew or did not know. They would have to contribute to the fulfillment of my vision, if I remain loyal to that vision.

So, what would it be like if I were the man I would like to be? If I said to you tonight: is there a man in this room who is rich? And no one said, I am rich – that is not your goal, and if it is, you are missing the mark. If there is a man in this room – general man – who is known, who is contributing to the world’s good, and no one replies, I am he, then either it is not your goal – or if it is your goal, you are missing it. So the name is “I AM he”, as told in John 8:24: “I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” This is not a man talking to me. This is taking place in the depths of the soul of man. If you don’t believe now that I AM the one that I would be, then you are missing your goal and you are sinning. So it does not come from without; it is not caused by anything on the outside at all. My health problems are not caused by conditions and by environment, or anything else; it is caused only by sin – and sin is missing the mark. There is only one being – one person in the world – who can hit that mark, and it is God. God forgives sin, as told us in Isaiah: “I am the Lord, I am thy Savior, and there is no other savior.” “I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. No one has formed before me or no one will be formed after me. I am the Savior.” (Isaiah 43:3; 43:11)

You will be saved from what you are. There is only one being in the world that can save you, and that Being is “I AM.” So, you save yourself. What would it be like were it true – if I were now the man or woman I would like to be? Assume it and dare to believe it and walk as though it were true, and no power in this world can stop it – but no power! There is no one greater than God. Say, “I am” – that is God. You stand in the presence of a being and because he has a little tag – or because he is the Premier of a certain country, or Queen, or President of a certain land, you think he is greater than you are? You are missing the mark. You can’t stand in the presence of anyone who is greater than you, if you know who you are. You are not going to lord it over them, knowing, but no one will be smaller, either – all are God. Then you are told to go and tell them. (Ezekiel 3:18, 33:8) – “go and tell them. If you do not tell them, and they sin and you do not tell them – they will die in their sin, but their blood will be upon your head. If you tell them and they do not repent, they will die in their sin, but the blood will not be upon your head. So tell them.” So Jesus is made to confess that he told them, that the blood might not be upon his head.

I Acts 20:26, 27 Paul makes the confession: “. . . for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” He told them that, that he may not carry that secret to the grave and not share it with the world. So I have told them all, that this is a principle that cannot fail.

Now let us come back to the paralytic. You came here tonight on your own steam, as it were. If I tell you we are the paralytic of scripture, you will be surprised. They were brought into the place by four men. Do you know who the four men are? The ancients always called us by the four senses – the four rivers that ran out of Eden. They did not speak of five, they spoke always of four. They joined taste and touch together because they depended upon contact. To taste something or touch something, it must be contacted. But they separated sight, sound, and scent. These three were separate in the great symbolism of scripture. But taste and touch were joined. They called them the four senses, and we came here tonight borne by these four men. I know my bank balance, and in two weeks Uncle Sam wants part of what I earned. I do not even know Uncle Sam. They tell me he exists somewhere, but I do not know where; so I am supposed to pay on the 15th of next month “x” number of dollars. Regardless of how I live, I must save something to pay him. It is the land of Caesar, I am fully aware of that. I can see my bank balance. I know what it is in my world. I can take my senses and bring it to play on what is taking place.

I was brought here tonight on the shoulders of these men. He tells me: your sins are forgiven, and, walk. How can I do it, knowing what I must pay on the 15th, knowing what I must do between now and the 15th? How will I do it? Your sins are forgiven, but who can forgive but God? Only God can forgive, and God is I AM. All right, I will now see the world as I would see it were it now May 1st and all things behind me, completely paid, paid in full.

Suppose I was unemployed. I was brought here tonight on the backs of these men. I know I have rent to pay and food to buy – all of these things – and he tells me my sins were forgiven, to rise and take up my bed and walk! How? I was brought in here on the backs of four men and called upon to rise – ignore these four and walk on my own steam now. Don’t walk based on what the four allow me to see, to hear, and smell, and to be. Walk out of here unaided by these four. Walk on my own. How? I ignore the evidence of the senses. They brought me in here. I completely ignore what they tell me I really have in this world, and I see what I would like to see and assume things are what I would like them to be, and influence every being in the world to play their part to fulfill what I am assuming that I am in this world. I came in a paralytic, and walk out on my own steam. That is the story.

Every being in the world is called upon to rise and walk out, for he forgives your sin. He comes into the world only to free man of sin, no matter what you have ever done in this world. Don’t look back on things as they are; look on things as they ought to be, the man or woman you would like to be, and assume that you are and see that only. And then you will know what it is to forgive sin. Who forgives? God forgives. He forgave you. I assumed. Who assumed? I assumed, that is – God. “I AM” is His name. I AM assuming I AM the man I would like to be. That is God. I begin to name it and walk in that state, and that is God. There is nothing but God. Forget what you have done. or what you are seemingly doing, and dream of the man or woman you would like to be and dare to assume you are it.

Now we are told by the great Blake: “The spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of sin” – forgiveness of sin every moment of time. Tonight when we go into the silence we can sit here for a minute and forgive each other. Suppose I could hear everyone here rise and tell the most fantastic story in the world about themselves or a friend, or a relative – or someone. Suppose I, really wanting it to be told from this platform, sit in the silence and listen to that and that only – the most fantastic story in the world that you could tell me individually. If I walk out of here tonight convinced that I heard it and remain loyal to what I have imagined I heard, I must hear it – no power can stop it, if I remain loyal. If anyone says it has not worked, I am not asking any questions, but as far as I am concerned, it has worked. I am sure when I know the vision I am holding for you “has its own appointed hour, it will ripen and it will flower. If it seems long in coming, wait. It is sure, it will not be late.” If I actually assume things are as I would like them to be of every being here, and I remain loyal, I either know the story is true or it is false. I know it is true. It can’t fail. There is no power in the world to make it fail.

Another word for sin in the Bible is “trespass.” In our wonderful Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It is a minor infraction of this principle. “Trespassing” means an individual lapse, a temporary relapse. You and I begin to discuss a personality. What am I doing? He is only in a state. So, I must think he is unemployed when you and I get into the discussion. I discuss a man who is unemployed and we see him as unemployed and begin to say: Well, conditions are bad, or maybe he was not good enough for the job, and you and I are discussing a man that is unemployed and we see only the state. I am trespassing. He is in the state. But I may fall into this little trap. We all do it, every day, all day long.

We read the paper, and a man is called a great man because he happens to be President, or maybe some other person in this world. We read some columnist about him and you are carried away with what the columnist tells us, and suddenly we begin to think as he would have you think, and you are trespassing. “Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It is a slight departure from our goal. We are moved aside by what we read, or heard, or saw in this world. So, that is trespassing. So, I discuss someone who cannot find the job – well, will he qualify? I am asking all these things, and they are irrelevant to this principle. Not with this principle do they have any value whatsoever. What does he want? He wants a job. And how much does he want? He names a figure. Suppose that he had what he wanted – then let me assume it is true and I begin to see the world as I would see it for him were it true and feel the joy that would be mine were he now gainfully employed, earning that sort of money. This is either true, or it is false. I tell you: it is true.

If today you and I can say The Lord’s Prayer – but really say it – and ask forgiveness for our trespasses and let him show mercy for having gotten off the mark as it were. Read the story. He is brought in on the backs of four men. He himself had no faith. But in spite of what they knew, there was still a certain faith, and they brought him into the presence of God, knowing God could forgive sin. And he said: “Because of your faith” – he speaks now to those who brought him; he did not speak to the man at first, then he addresses the paralytic: “My son, your sins are forgiven you.” Here, a vicarious faith. So, I can have the faith for you if you do not have it for yourself. You can have it for me if I don’t have it for myself. Quite often vicarious faith is easier than the direct faith. If I can turn to you, if you really believe an imaginal act is a fact, and you could actually believe I am now what I would like to be, and although at the moment I doubt and am not faithful, you can say – in spite of myself you can pull me out – for a minute I would know faith. Those who brought him on their backs showed faith in bringing him into the presence of God. God commended them for their faith. And he turned to the paralytic and said: “My son, your sins are forgiven.” Those who heard thought it blasphemy. Who could forgive sin but God alone?

He did forgive sin, for he was the “I AM.” “Unless you believe I AM he, you die in your sins.” So, I ask you tonight, turn to your neighbor, and maybe you can hear what the other wants and rejoice in their good fortune, and they can rejoice in your good fortune Actually feel it is true, and see the world as it would be were they what they wanted to be – and they will become it.

So, this is the story of our ability to forgive sin. They were afraid when they saw what happened and then they crucified God because he had given such authority to men. We are told: “If you retain it, it is retained. If you release it, it is released.” I see a man and judge him by my senses. I retain it. But I could release him by seeing him standing on his own feet and moving in this world in a glorious manner. So the material I formerly would discard as no good, I don’t discard anymore. I take it and use it. I take the same man that formerly I would discard and see him as gainfully employed, loved, and loving, and believe that the thing I am seeing for him is true; and to the degree I am faithful to the concept for him, it becomes true in this world.

That is our power. We have power to forgive sin. If you don’t have a mark in this world, you can’t sin. If hasn’t a thing to do with moral issues. No. Do you have a goal? Do you have some objective in this world? Then this is how you realize it. Suppose it were true. In Romans 8:4: “. . .walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Flesh would be my senses. My senses deny that I am what I would like to be. Let us not walk by flesh – let us walk by the Spirit. Spirit is to see it in my imagination as though it were true. Tonight I may go home to find an empty cupboard or a notice at my door: “Tomorrow, or else.” It is all right. If I believe what I am imagining, it would make no difference what threat was given me – if I really believed. “Now believe it,” we are told. If you believe it, it will crystallize into fact. It does not really matter what threat at the moment my senses tell me -I have to ignore it. I have to ignore the four who brought me in this place. I will not now be borne anymore by these four. I will simply walk by spirit and not by flesh.

So, I ask you to try it. If you try it you can’t fail and – realizing your objective, may I also ask you to share it with me so that I may tell it to you. [the audience].

About three months ago a man sat in this audience, and he wrote me a sweet, wonderful letter which I received this morning. He expected a big bonus. He had worked hard with all the promise, and one who was never on the job, but by his estimate “one of the girl friends of the boss” – she got the big bonus. He, who had done all the work, got practically nothing. So, he and I agreed mentally that he would have the most wonderful job, with more money and everything. This is now going on April. It seemed a long while, but today he is on the job, with more money than he had – more than he expected – more responsibility and opportunity, and everything. I remained faithful to that letter I knew would come when he would write it. And all I did, I heard him tell me (mentally) what he would tell me were it true, and I never wavered.

So, I only ask you to be as faithful to any imaginal state in this world, no matter what it is. In everyone God resides. Everyone has to say, “I am.” That is God. I am Einstein, I am Neville. I AM is God. Neville is a tiny thing resting on the foundation that is God. I am rich – that is a tiny thing on the foundation of God, and God is Infinity, God is Everything. Therefore, whatever you say, before you say it, you say, “I am” – and you listen and you notice the four men who brought him in, brought him in paralyzed. He isn’t that at all. But they deny it – the four senses are bringing him in and the four senses deny it, the four senses ignore it.

When you call on the name of God, you don’t say in the name of God, so-and-so; you ask with the name of God, and to ask with the name of God you say: “I AM wealthy, healthy, secure” – then you believe it. If you ask with the name of God and believe it mentally, you will see the world as you have never seen it before you made the claim, and remain faithful to that claim and it must crystallize in your world.

This is this principle and it goes with every being in the world, regardless of nationality or pigment of skin. It is all God. Everyone has to say, “I am” before he says, “I am – this . . .” “I am a man” – you say, “I am” before you said, “man.” “I am American,” “I am Indian,” “I am Japanese,” “I am Chinese.” What kind of a being would you like to be? You name it. “I AM” is doing it. Take this fabulous world of ours and take all your dreams and put them on the only foundation – no other foundation than God – and God is I AM.

So, the paralytic came here tonight in all of us, and we were borne on the backs of four men, and the four are our four senses: sight, scent, [sound], taste, and touch. Taste and touch are joined into one because they depend on contact. These are the four streams – the four rivers of life that come from the Garden of Eden. Any moment of time we are in the presence of I AM! Let him forgive me my sin. I forgive myself by daring to assume I am what I would like to be and assuming that I walk in that assumption and it crystallizes into fact. No power in the world can stop it – but none!

When we speak of sin, don’t let anyone scare you about sin. He comes to forgive the sinner. His only interest is in the sinner. The so-called moral violations – forget it! I do not ask you to violate them, but forget them. Everything will be ironed out. It is my duty. Through the consciousness of Paul, Ezekiel, Jesus – “If I don’t tell you what I know of God’s law, then your sin is upon my head; but if I tell you and you still will not believe me, you will die in your sin, but your blood will not be upon my head.” So Paul said: “I will tell them. I have declared the entire counsel of God to them, so I am innocent of their blood.” Infinite states. A man falls into a state and so he is in the state, but he is not the state. Take him out of the state by saying while he is in the state: “What would you like?” and he names the state that he would like to enter. And you put him into that state by asking what it would be like if he were now the thing he would like to be; and you remain faithful – leaving him where he is – but you remain faithful to this concept and he comes out of it. On reflection, he might say: “It would have happened anyway.” It is all right – you know. Tell everyone the story, and tell them it is entirely up to them. If they believe it – as we are told: “If you do not believe I AM He you die in your sins.” (John 8) When you read it, you might think a man is telling you: I am God, and you are not. The whole story is taking place in the soul of man. That is the story.

Now he tells us the truth: “You shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.” And they complained: “we are free.” Here they are enslaved, and we thought we were free. We are Americans, we are free. To what extent are we free? You can’t pay the rent or buy the food, and we think we are free. I can only be free if I know the art of forgiving sin, and the only one that can forgive sin is God – and God’s name is “I AM.”

In this world today, in our wonderful land, there are hundred of thousands in prisons physically – but they are Americans. There are hundreds of thousands who are unemployed, who can’t pay the rent. Free? They are Americans. I say go and tell every being in the world the story of God – as told us in both the Old and New Testament – and set them free. They can be free if they know who they are. I must tell them the story. There is not one being in jail tonight, if you ask him who he is and how old he is, he will say: “I am John Smith, and I am . . .” and he will tell you his age. But before all these things, he tells you “I am.” I have seen this, you see. It frightens people, as you are told in Matthew 9:8: “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”

In San Francisco, when I told this story, a lady who sat in my audience had just received notice from the army that her brother had been tried, court marshaled, and sentenced to six months of hard labor. She went home and said: “If this man is telling the truth, I can set him free.” She sat in her hotel apartment where she would see if anyone came in. She lost herself in the imaginal state that the bell was ringing and she ran down the stairs, threw the door open, and embraced a brother who was waiting there. She did it for one solid week. The next Sunday morning, before she came to my meeting, it happened. When she came to my meeting, she could not restrain the impulse to rise and she jumped up in the audience of 1,000 and said she must tell the story, and she told it. He was honorably discharged, though he had been court marshaled and sentenced to six months at hard labor.

Everyone can be forgiven. He is not the same being he was – whatever he did to warrant the court martial – why should he pay the last ounce, if she could redeem him by pulling him out of the state that caused him to do whatever he did. If I am pulled out of the state into another state – if I had someone tonight who was the most horrible beast in the world and I am determined to make him a loving, nice person, then he comes into my world and demonstrates his kindness by his act, by everything – he is not the same being he was when I disliked him – the same immortal soul, but he is in a different state. Always I was judging the state, but should I keep him in that state and make him pay a price that belongs only to that state? You see, there is such a thing in this world as God’s mercy. No sins can be expiated unless God intervenes and is merciful – for you are God and you can intervene. He gave it to you. Only God can forgive sin, and you can forgive sin: therefore, are you not he? God is merciful. Can’t you be merciful and completely transform any being in the world? And oh! What a thrill it is to transform a being and see them different in a little while!

So I ask you to try it, it cannot fail. But believe the statement in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses.” We have actually trespassed. We have heard a rumor and we got off the beam. We see the signs all over the place: “No Trespassing,” but we step upon it. Don’t. No matter what you hear of anyone, have no ears to hear it unless it is something lovely, for they are only discussing a state, and they are keeping that being in a state. Don’t listen. Pull everyone out, but don’t forget to pull yourself out. Put yourself into the most glorious state of being successful, being wanted, being happy. You try it. I promise you it will not fail you.

Now let us go in to the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

YOU CAN NEVER OUTGROW I AM

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityA man can never outgrow or lose the God he knows in a first person, present tense experience. And when he finds this God he tells his brothers, saying: “If I had not come and spoken to you, you would have no sin, but now you have no excuse for your sins.” God reveals himself to man as his eternal contemporary, saying: “Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins,” but man finds it almost impossible to keep the tense. He thinks of God in the third person, addresses him in the second person, but can only know God in a first person, present tense experience. Just imagine – no one can sin until God reveals himself to the individual in a first person, present tense experience. Only then can man have no excuse for his sin. And when one who finds God tells his brothers, he receives no greater reception than the first one did, because they see him as a man of flesh and blood, and cannot see this invisible being who says: “I came down from heaven.” Man is looking for Christ to come from without, but his revelation is whispered from within.

“I tell you: I have been crucified with Christ. It is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” In that act he, whose name is I AM, became me. And if I do not believe that my I amness is he, I will die in my sin.

When asked to identify his Father, he said: “If you knew me, you would not ask, for no man can know me without knowing God, for he and I are one.” This is not a physical man speaking to another, but self speaking to self. What child is not aware that he (or she) is? And to be aware is to say, “I am,” the name God revealed to Moses on the mountaintop. All things are possible to God, but man has difficulty keeping the tense. He speaks of God in third person, prays to God in the second person, but can only know God in first person, present tense, for “I am the Lord, thy God and besides me there is no other God.” In the 50th Psalm these words are put into the mouth of David: “Against thee and against thee only have I sinned.” Only I, who must know myself in a first person present tense experience, have sinned and I have only sinned against myself!

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is in you as your very self? Are you willing to test yourself? Let me tell you of one lady who did. Many years ago while living in a rooming house in Brooklyn, with very little money, this lady started each day with these words: “I am a very wealthy woman. I have $50,000 in cash.” Every Sunday morning she would go to the corner and buy a Sunday Times for her neighbor, Miss Mead, who was a little old lady living frugally and rarely left the house. Within a year after this lady began starting her day claiming her wealth, Miss Mead died, leaving her $50,000 in cash, plus jewelry valued in excess of $30,000. She received an estate of over $100,000 by keeping God in the present tense.

My friend has now found him and I want all who hear me to find him, for when you find this God you will never outgrow – and therefore never lose – him, for you can never grow outside of self. You may believe in astrology, and outgrowing that belief you may then believe in tea leaves. Outgrowing that, you will find something else to believe in as you grow and outgrow, grow and outgrow; but you cannot outgrow the God you find in the first person, present tense, for when you find him to be your I amness, you have found the only God. One day everyone will find him and join their brothers who, already awakened, are in eternity contemplating this world of death, watching for the little stir of life.

I have been sent to tell you these things, for if I had not come and spoken to you, you would have no sin. You could not miss the mark because you did not have any, but now you have no excuse for missing it. I have revealed God to you in first person saying: “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” I was sent by my Father, he whom you call God, only I know my Father and you know not your God, for I know that I and my Father are one.

In the 1st chapter of Colossians, Paul tells us: “The gospel which you have heard has been preached to every creature under heaven,” and in the 3rd chapter of Galatians he states: “The scripture, foreseeing that all would be saved through faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” In the state of faith called Abraham we heard the story and then went astray. Falling asleep, we forgot our true identity and worshiped idols. Speaking of God in the third person, and to him in the second person, we have forgotten the God who gave us birth. Yet I tell you: God is eternally contemporary for he is our awareness of being.

Now, without faith it is impossible to please God, and faith does work on this level. Everything you possess was brought into being through faith, and the glory of faith lies in its power to link us to the heavenly realm. Having heard salvation�s story, can you have faith in this divine vision (which is the gospel) in the time of trouble? No matter what happens to you, can you center yourself upon the vision? Can you believe that, housed within you as your I amness, is the only creative power in the world? I hope so, because your faith in God is measured by your confidence in yourself.

When you imagine a state, do you believe that the scene has the power to externalize itself? Or do you feel you must pray to a being on the outside for help? I tell you: there is no being on the outside. The creative power of the world is housed within you now. Sit down and imagine a state of confidence that it must externalize itself. Believe that because all things are possible to imagine, the state you have imagined must become an external fact.

I have tried this time and time again, and it has always proved itself in performance. Now I share this knowledge with everyone who will listen. How many believe my words and put them into practice I do not know. I only know that man finds it hard to keep the tense. Religious leaders speak of God in the third person as if he were on the outside, yet I tell you he comes from within. When Moses heard the words: “I AM has sent me unto you,” it seemed to come from without, yet it was whispered from within.

There is no evidence of an historical Jesus Christ. We have the essence of Christ, but not an historical one. The being within me that is speaking, is the Christ, but that which is talking to you is only a garment. Everyone knows its background. Its parents are known, its physical brothers and its limitations; yet the being wearing this garment of flesh came out from God who is my Father, for I am from above. The body I wear is from below. I am in the world but not of it, for the being who awoke within me is the one speaking to you now. It is not the same being who entertains guests in our home or enjoys dining in a good restaurant, for this being is not in any way a part of this world. This is the being in you that I am trying to reach tonight, trying to stir and awaken to return to the one grand I AM.

Believe me when I tell you the only purpose in life is to discover who you are. Against thee, O Lord, and thee only have I sinned. Addressing him in the second person as “against thee,” he realizes the Lord is within him; that he is the “I” of man who inspired the prophets to write what they did. Having conceived the play and coming out from the Father to play it, “I” must fulfill what I foretold I would do, and I will.

Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a certain series of supernatural events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. I have experienced every one of these events. As each event took place I recorded the date in my bible, even to a simple little one like: “What you must do, do quickly.” Against that statement I marked the date of October 10, 1966, for I had been preaching to a group of twelve men, all seated on the floor, when one man jumped up and departed quickly. Then a man dressed in costly robes entered, approached me and unveiled my arm revealing the arm of the Lord. But the one who revealed it moved quickly, as that simple statement dictated.

The words of the Lord recorded in the red letter edition of the Bible will be fulfilled by you. Whether he quotes the Old Testament or relates to it, you are predestined to fulfill the red letters recorded there.

The entire drama has unfolded in me, so I know the perfect pattern that God sent into the world. We are told the first shall be last, and the last first. In the story the last act is recorded as the crucifixion yet it is the first. I have been crucified with Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave himself for me by actually becoming me. His name is I AM. That’s the Lord God Jehovah, who is Christ. He is God the Father who became you. His death – in the sense of complete forgetfulness as to his true identity and belief that he is actually you – is your life. It is this being who tells you: “Unless I die thou can’st not live, but if I die I shall rise again and thou with me.” He rose in me. He proved that he could die and rise, for when he rose I rose knowing I AM He. He became me in the most intimate way by becoming my awareness. Then he talked to me and revealed himself to me from within my very self. In the beginning the words seemed to come from another, as though someone on the outside had spoken them; yet they were whispered from within as everything said of Jesus Christ unfolded in me.

Can you accept my words and keep the tense? It is so very important to do so, for if you turn to the second person, or the third, you have created a false God and a false Jesus Christ. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? For unless you believe that your I amness is He you will die in your sins. Put the little word ‘is’ in the sentence: “Unless you believe that I am is He, you die in your sins,” to give it meaning, for without it you may think a being on the outside is speaking and keeping you from missing the mark. If you want to be rich and do not believe that you are the cause of wealth, then you will go on missing the mark by remaining poor. The true goal is to know God is your own wonderful human imagination. This God you will never lose, for when he reveals himself within you it is in a first person, present tense experience.

As God unfolds himself within you he doesn’t call himself “God,” but “I AM.” It was “I” who awoke and rose in that tomb; no one else was there. I had no help getting out; “I” pushed the stone away myself. And when I looked back to see that out of which I came, I saw the three witnesses as recorded in Genesis. It is said that Abraham (the state of faith in which I started) was seated by the door of his tent in the heat of the day when the three men appeared. As one spoke concerning the child, Abraham knew he was the Lord. That child is Isaac, which means, “he laughs.” I found that promised child. Like Simeon, I took that promised child in my arms and he laughed.

So who is Christ? And who is the Lord? Did scripture not fulfill itself in me? I have come only to fulfill scripture, and this I have done. I know I am the temple of the Living God, for my body was torn from top to bottom. I found my son, He who was set up in the beginning to reveal me as the Father. This is not what the priesthoods teach; but I am telling you what I have experienced, for I have found David. He cried unto me: “Thou art my Father.”

I do not care what the priesthoods of the world may say; I am telling you what I know from experience. If they do not believe in me, they will continue to live in sin by worshipping a false God. All the priesthoods and rabbis worship an idol, for the true God cannot be worshipped in any tense other than the present. His name is I Am. No picture on a wall or statue in a garden is the Lord. “Make no graven image unto me.” If you do not see him as yourself you will not find him, and when he comes he reveals himself through his son calling you Father. This you set up in the beginning and then you agreed to play all the parts. Not one part can you condemn, for all contribute to the end when you find God. The goal of life is to find him, not on the outside, but within yourself in the first person, present tense. The world thinks I am insane when I tell them who I am, for they see the garment of flesh I wear and know I am subject to all its weaknesses. But because the drama of the scripture has unfolded within me, I know how true scripture is.

I cannot describe the joy that is yours when you awaken. I can only say that the world into which I go night after night is entirely different, and earth does not contain anything which I can use as an image to describe that world. I return through darkness into this world every day to share my experiences with everyone who will listen, while some believe me and some do not. My most intimate friends may not believe me, for they know and judge me by my human weaknesses. My brothers, knowing we were sired by the same father and came out of the same mother’s womb, cannot believe my experiences are related to scripture. But I am not asking you to believe in Neville, but to believe in God who is your own wonderful human awareness.

I have been sent to tell you who God is. He who sent me is one with me, for although he seemed to be another when I stood in his presence, when we embraced we fused and became one. The recording angel, the ledger, the being of love who embraced me, is within. In the beginning I foreknew myself. Through foreknowledge I was predestined to be called from the world of death, called from within myself by an infinite being of love, wearing the human form divine, to be embraced and sent. And the moment we embraced we fused, and I knew myself to be infinite love. There had been a seeming separation when I entered a world that was not mine, to experience all of its horrors until its end when I am called, acquitted, justified, and glorified. Now there is nothing left for me to do but tell it to everyone who will listen and urge them to set their entire hope upon this grace which is coming to all at the unveiling of Christ in each individual, in the first person, present tense.

While you are here you can become independently secure, certainly. All of these things are possible to you, but the real objective in your life is to find God, the cause of all life. To believe in God does not aid you. The question is: do you believe in yourself? Can you believe you are rich when you have no money? Can you continue to believe it throughout the day and fall asleep night after night as though you were? If you will, you will become rich. Then fulfill another desire and then another, and one day you will discover the one who made it possible. That one is God.

Millions of people claim to believe in God in the third person, but they do not know God. Only when God reveals himself in the first person, present tense can he be known. That God cannot be outgrown or lost, for you cannot outgrow I am. I am is the theme of the Book of John, which goes back to the 3rd chapter of the Book of Exodus, the 14th verse, as: “Go say, ‘I am has sent me to you.” As a man, I am revealing God’s true name, but those who hear my words know the outer garment I wear and judge it. They know my weaknesses, but they do not know the Lord. I tell you: when you know the Lord (or rather are known by him) you will experience a thrill that is beyond description. Your shock will turn to joy, however, as the drama of one called Jesus Christ unfolds within you.

In the meantime you can test him in the world of Caesar. There is no limit to his power, so take that power which became you and attach it to your desire. Sleep every night so attached to your desire that you feel its reality, and in no time you will prove my words. Within a year the lady in New York City received her $50,000, pressed down and running over. She knew exactly what she did and would never have guessed that the little old lady she bought the paper for every Sunday morning would be used as the means to give her the wealth she claimed. This lady has found God, yet she is still inclined to speak of him in the third person.

Man is in the habit of thinking of God and not as God. It is so easy to forget to keep the tense. Every good, well-trained Jew is familiar with the first five books of the Old Testament. They have read the Book of Exodus many times and believe God is the great I AM; yet they still think of him in the third person. They would think that anyone who boldly stood up and proclaimed, “I Am He” was arrogant; yet I tell you that is the only way you will ever find God.

But when he comes, there is no need to brag about it. You know who you are, and when they call you by your earthly name you respond. Perhaps you will have dinner together, but they will continue to be totally unaware of the being within you, and you don’t always throw pearls before swine, because they are not prepared to receive them. You will join their party and enjoy the evening as you let the outer man play his part, but you know the inner man, the one they know not of. That man is Jesus Christ.

There is only one Christ. Everyone has been crucified with that one Christ can make the statement: “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in this body of flesh and blood, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” God actually became as you are, that you may rise to the one being called God the Father. As one power, we came down from God to become the gods. In order to descend in power and play these parts we had to enter complete forgetfulness. The actor cannot pretend. He must enter and become the part he has agreed to play. He cannot step upon the stage knowing he is a great actor who everyone recognizes. He must lose himself in the character by leaving his personality in the dressing room and entering the stage as the character he is to portray. So when God stepped upon the stage wearing this, he is Neville, one hundred per cent. He had to completely forget that he was God, yet knowing that he brought with him a pattern which would erupt and his memory would return. I agreed to play the part as Neville. He and I are one, but I am greater than he.

Look upon Jesus Christ as a pattern. I have told you how the pattern erupted in me in the hope that you will believe me. Although a few believe my words, the majority disbelieve fulfilling scripture. “He came unto his own and his own believed him not.” What I tell you and what you are capable of conceiving may be entirely different. Can you receive what I tell you as my own personal experience? I can tell you that scripture is true from beginning to end, but can you believe me enough to set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the unveiling of God within you? I hope so, for God is in you as your I am. And when he awakes you go through a series of supernatural events called Jesus Christ. Then you will tell your experiences to those who will listen in the hope that they will accept them; but it does not matter if they do or do not, for in the end, you take off your garment of flesh and return to an intimacy that is indescribable.

Eyes have not seen or ears heard the things that are already prepared for you. In that world you are in control of everything and everything is alive. Every night I pass beyond the world of dream to enter the world of reality, and I return each morning through the world of dream to reenter this world of death. This I do night after night, and will continue to do until that moment in time when it pleases the depth of my own being (who is the Father) to take off this garment of flesh and call it a day.

Remember, you can only sin against that self of you who is God. And any time you think of God in any tense other than the first person, present, you are entertaining an idol, no matter what you call it. If you leave this auditorium tonight conscious of being God, you are walking in the knowledge of the true God and all things are possible to you. Walk in complete trust that things are as you want them to be. This is loyalty to unseen reality. This is faith. There are only two things that displease God: One is lack of faith in I AM He, and the other is eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Before descending into the land of forgetfulness you made yourself a promise that one day your memory would return and you would realize you were the creator of it all, for God gave you himself. He actually became you, as told in the story of Melchizedek. He had no father, no mother, no beginning, and no end. In the end you become a priest after the order of Melchizedek, knowing the whole vast infinite universe was created by and sustained by you. Now, this is really incredible. I recently read that the great Einstein said: “I rejoice in the discovery of the uniformity of the laws of nature and whoever is behind it that we call the Lord. But that man should survive the disintegration of the brain, to me is unthinkable.” If a man as wonderful as Einstein feels that the story of the gospel is unthinkable, then condemn no one. You can’t deny Einstein’s greatness. He was tender, kind and sincere; but in spite of that gentility he was quite satisfied to dwell in the uniformity of the laws of nature and whoever is behind it.

I tell you there is one behind it all. He so loved you he became you and the day is coming when you will know that you are he. You will know you are not the creation of the city, but its creator. You are not the made, but the maker. Whether you are male or female, you are the emanation of the Lord yet his wife till the sleep of death is past. Then you will awake to know you never left your heavenly home, you were never born and never die, save in your dreams.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

YOUR HUSBAND

Neville Goddard 02-02-1968

neville goddard imagination creates reality Probably one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible is recorded in the 3rd chapter of Genesis, the 16th verse: “The Lord said to the woman, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.”

In this fabulous world of ours, many accept this statement literally and believe that the children spoken of here come from the womb of woman and the male is the husband and ruler; however in the 54th chapter of Isaiah, you are told: “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name.”

Humanity (male and female) is God’s emanation, yet his wife, ’til the sleep of death is past’. Regardless of your sex you are the woman the Lord spoke to in this 3rd chapter of Genesis. Your children are not those brought forth from the womb of woman, but from your imagination! Your husband (the Lord of hosts) will sire every idea you fall in love with, no matter how horrible it may be. And being protean, God has the power to play every part and assume every shape in the world.

Let us take a vivid example. When Hitler and his Third Reich came into power, unnumbered happily married women who loved their husbands and children fell in love with the concept of a superior race – a Germanic race who would enslave humanity. And as the idea caught fire in their minds, these women had an affair with Hitler in their dreams. It was not the person, Hitler, that they had union with, but the state he personified – just as you, if you are completely honest with yourself, have fallen in love with an idea (a state) and met its personification in soft Beulah’s night and had an affair. Then in the morning you have looked at your husband and experienced pain, for not understanding the mystery of Christ, you thought you had an affair with a person. But the man involved could have been playing cards, getting drunk, or sound asleep in his own bed and be completely oblivious to you as a person. He was merely the personification of a state which you accepted and yielded to in soft Beulah’s night, but by that act you multiplied and replenished the earth with the same idea, the same state!

It is impossible to kill an idea, for the moment an idea is accepted, it is conceived and the earth replenished. You cannot kill a state by cutting off the occupant’s head, shooting [him], or putting the man in prison. The occupant may depart, but the state remains for anyone to fall in love with. These are false gods, which will multiply your pain and cause you to go through literal hell as you bring forth these ideas as your children.

Look into your own mind, and if you are perfectly honest with yourself you will remember having had union with someone other than your mate in this world, not knowing he (or she) was only a state of consciousness personified. You do not have union with the person, but the state the person represents, for your Maker is your husband who is playing the part of the person.

If this night you really believe what I teach and fall in love with it, you may find yourself in soft Beulah’s night having union with the being who personifies it. You may think it is with the personification called Neville, but it is union with the state. As Neville I may be entertaining someone at my home, enjoying a lovely drink, or reading the Bible as I do all through the day, and be totally oblivious of you and what you are doing. If you really believe what I say, accept it, and live by it, it is quite possible and highly probable that you will have union with this idea. And although he may wear my face, you are having union with God your Father, who is your own wonderful I Amness.

The Bible recognizes only one source, only one cause of all things. That one source is God, who – as a protean being – plays all the parts in history. He animates you, as you are his wife. And when you fall in love with something other than the true God and seek false gods, your sorrow is multiplied, and in pain you bring forth your children.

I recall a friend of mine who has now departed this world. Born in Boston to a very poor family, she hungered for the glamour of the theatrical life. Although she danced as one with two left feet, her mother brought her to New York City, where George M. Cohan was casting a show. Hiring a young dancer from Denmark, he was given the right to pick the girls for his chorus. Although this girl could not dance he chose her, and within a year they were married. This marriage produced three beautiful children.

The lovely girl had a desire for glamour, for pomp and circumstance, so during soft Beulah’s night she had affair after affair after affair with everyone from the Pope to the Prince of Wales, thereby perpetuating the belief in pomp and circumstance. Now, don’t blame the Pope, for he didn’t know her – or the Prince of Wales, as they only personified the state she desired to express. She loved seeing the Pope being carried on the back of strong, strapping men, extending his hand to be kissed. Wanting to be part of that world, she was always having union with those who personified it.

Now, if you are Catholic you may be shocked, but don’t think the Pope or the Prince of Wales is exempt from this action, as it is part of the great drama in which we all are cast. She has played her part and spent the last fifteen years of her life as a wino, giving her body to anyone for a bottle of wine. She wedded herself to a false god and greatly multiplied her sorrows. In pain she brought forth the children of her strange gods, yet her desire remained for her husband. God is your husband – your center and the very core of your being. No matter what you do, you are still seeking God. So while she was seeking wine for the last fifteen years of her life here, she was still seeking – not her husband, who came from Denmark, but her true husband, her Maker, who is the Lord of Hosts, the Father of the child!

In the 2nd chapter of Paul’s 1st Letter to Timothy, the statement is made: “Woman is saved by the birth of children.” This is false. The footnote in the Revised Standard Version gives you the Greek, and the true translation as: “by the birth of the child.” It’s not by bearing children (all these ideas) that one is saved, but by bearing the child! When you give yourself completely over to the gospel story you are ready, and God will assume the mask of the one who is expressing it at the moment. Then you will have union with that being and bear the child!

So when you have these dreams, don’t feel strange and condemn yourself. Everyone has had similar experiences. If you resist the union in dream it is because the idea represented there is foreign to you; but when your desire is something you really want to make alive and it is expressed – be it good, bad, or indifferent – you will have union with it and feel no shame, in spite of the whole vast world looking on, for this is the world in which we live.

In the 9th chapter of Luke, Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered: “John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the risen prophets.” Then he turned to them and asked: “But who do you say that I am?” Peter then became the spokesman for the group and said: “You are the Christ of God.” Commanding them to tell no one, he said: “The Son of man must suffer and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes. He must be killed, but on the third day he will rise again.”

Jesus did not deny Peter’s confession, but declined to make it public until he had reinterpreted the popular messianic concept in terms of his own experience. From time to time, one who has experienced the true story of salvation comes into the world and tells it. Then all the elders, scribes, and priests, who carry on the traditions of men, will deny it. This is eternally so; that is why he declined to make it public. The scribes, teaching the traditions of men, claim Christ is coming from without – but I tell you he comes from within! I tell you that God became your very “self” that you may become God.

Playing all the parts, God lets you go anywhere and meet anyone. And when you fall in love with a state, he will play the part of the state expressed, and in soft Beulah’s night you will have an affair. He will play the part of a Stalin or a Hitler, a Pope or a prince, if you are in love with the state of consciousness. And you will give yourself willingly to him, thereby multiplying and perpetuating that state in the world. In the morning you may be ashamed of your act when you face the one who bears your name (or whose name you now bear), but at the time you had no choice in the matter, for God in you – who is your husband and Maker – played the part. Being protean, if you meet a dog or cat, see a bird or fish in your dreams, it is because God is playing their parts. No matter what the animal, remember: God is playing its part in order for you to become one, for in the end he will leave all others and cleave to you, his wife, until you become one being, one body, one Spirit, one hope, one God and Father of all.

Now let me share a letter I have been waiting to receive since the 15th of December. This lady’s home is in a small, rustic canyon. One day she spent the afternoon in Los Angeles with a casual acquaintance, and had just returned home, when she heard the phone ringing. She was being called by the casual friend, who appeared to be quite distressed. Inviting the lady to join her for dinner, she returned to Los Angeles, where the lady asked her to spend the night. It seemed strange to her to agree, but after spending several hours reading aloud to the lady, they retired and she fell asleep. Then she said: “At 3:30 in the morning a peculiar, cold wind caused me to awake. The room contained an eerie light, when out of nowhere my two brothers – whom I haven’t seen in over forty years – appeared, along with my landlord, who is like a brother to me. The three take their positions, two at my feet and one at my head. Picking up an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, my older brother said: “She is too old to have a baby.” Then he placed it in my arms, and as I looked at the child I began to smile. The child then responded and extended its arms toward me, when I awoke on the bed.”

Then she continues: “About five months later, I saw a young boy in his teens coming toward me out of the canyons. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and as I looked at him I knew he was David. Passing me, he headed for the sea, and I watched until he was out of sight. I didn’t have to ask him: ‘Whose son are you?’ because I knew he was mine.

“Four months later, again at 3:30 in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of an earthquake, followed by a loud bomb. Suddenly my entire being was broken from top to bottom. I felt myself outside of my body, looking at it as though I were another. The left shoulder had fallen a bit and when I returned to the body moments later, I felt pain on the left side. Now I await the fourth vision, which is the descent of the dove.”

I can’t tell you my thrill when I look over this audience and see how many are awakening. In the 9th chapter of Luke, it is said: “Truly, truly I say unto you, there are some here who will not taste of death until they have seen the kingdom of God.” The babe is the key to that kingdom! When Simeon held the child in his arms, he said: “Now Lord let thy servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen the salvation of Israel.” So to have held the child is to have witnessed the kingdom of God. This kingdom is a character, an entirely different concept of creative power- not a place in time or space! And you are that character when you are one with your creative power, there to create what you want!

The child is a symbol of your entrance, and there are some standing here who will not experience the phenomenon that men call death before experiencing the kingdom of God! Although this audience can be counted on your fingers, there are so many here who have experienced the truth and so many on the verge of it, that my joy is boundless; for if you owned the entire world and were not awake, what would it matter! No matter how wealthy you are here, the day will come when you will depart to discover that you have left your billions behind. You will be in a body like this one, only incredibly young, in a terrestrial world just like this to continue to have blind unions with strange gods, not knowing that your Maker is your husband – the Lord of hosts is his name.

The search for your real husband is on! You have gone into strange lands and had union with strange states personified by man. Falling in love with a state, its personification always confronts you in a dream, the mask being worn by your husband, who did it without the person’s consent or knowledge. As an innocent bystander, the person will never know he was used. He was simply the personification of certain beliefs which inflamed your mind, and confronted by your real husband – who is the Lord of hosts – you submitted to them.

All of the characters in scripture are played by God. It is He who plays the part of the angel in the story of Abraham and Sarah. Read it carefully and you will notice that the voice changes from that of an angel to the voice of God. When Abraham is told: “Your wife will have a son,” Sarah laughed because they were both so old and it had long ceased to be with her after the manner of women. Now, the child promised to the Sarah in everyone is the child of which I speak. You are God’s emanation and he has promised that, in spite of your age, you will have a son. Blake put is so beautifully when he said:

“Whom God has afflicted for secret ends,
he comforts and heals and calls them friend.”

Although you go astray, following false gods, false beliefs, God will always bring you back; but you will suffer, for you must experience the messianic pains of childbearing. Then one day you will find the one husband and fall in love with his promise. And you will meet someone who personifies salvation’s story and have union with him. But he will be totally unaware of the fact that you so fell in love with the idea that he sponsors, and will never know of your experience unless you tell him.

Having been sent from on high to tell you who “I AM”, you may believe me or resent my message; but I, a person called Neville, am totally unaware, totally innocent of anything that happens to you in your dreams. Leading you now toward what you believe in, your husband will assume my mask and play the role I personify in your dream. Change your beliefs and he will assume another mask and play that part, as you multiply and replenish the earth with ideas of which you are in love!

Don’t think that communism or democracy can be destroyed. If I believe in democracy as a form of government, it is an idea. You can kill me, but you can never kill the ideas I entertain. This morning’s paper tells of those who have been stealing from the government. Why should we be taken aback when we see dishonesty among officials? From the very beginning they are encouraged by example to make what gain they can from their positions. Seeing what their superiors did and got away with, they have union with the idea and awaken to that state of consciousness. Then they suffer, for this is bearing the children of a false god.

Examine your thoughts. Are they ones you want to bear in this world? Are they calling forth false gods? False ideas? If so, “I will multiply your pain in childbearing, yet your desire shall be for your husband.” The Lord is always ruling, always willing to assume any role and play it for you as he leads you towards himself. And when you meet the true God you will discover that you were the actor all along, for you and He will be One. Blake said it so beautifully:

“Joy and woe have woven fine
a garment for my Soul divine.”

In Blake’s “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” he gave us this true revelation: “God only acts and Is in existing Beings or men.” Let this thought burn itself into your mind. God is a thought in action! Imagine something and God is acting! God only acts and is. Every moment in time, whether in this the waking world or the world of sleep, God is and only God acts! At night in dream, God plays the part of the state you are attached to at the moment or falling in love with. If you like the state, God will assume its personification and you will yield to become one with him. Then in the morning you will awaken with the memory of what happened and multiply your world with the idea. You will give your life, if necessary, to get your idea over to the world, even though it is the most nonsensical thing possible. This you will continue to do until the child is born and your journey is over.

In the 16th chapter of John, we are told: “When a woman is in labor with all the pain that possesses her it is only because the hour has come. But after the child is delivered she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child has been born into the world.” Life consists of the children you have borne and are bearing, and life is very painful. You must pay rent or bear the consequences. You must buy food or go hungry. You must buy clothes or be embarrassed. You must pay taxes, drink water, and breathe air. Man has discovered how to tax the water you drink, but as yet has not found a way to tax the air you breathe. Give him time and I’m sure he will! We are already taxed to the bursting point. You go to work, and at the end of the year you pay taxes to someone who doesn’t exist! We call him “Uncle Sam,” but he is invisible! There is no Uncle Sam, yet he puts his hands in our pockets and takes from us what we could spend in a far better way than he does. So you see: that 3rd chapter, the 16th verse of Genesis is true: “I will greatly multiply your pain in child bearing.” If you entertain the idea of war or famine, fame or fortune, you shall bring forth their children and your pain will be multiplied in child bearing, yet your desire will be for your husband who is the Lord, your Maker.

Even though you are not aware of it now, your husband is suffering with you and will continue to, until you hear the gospel with understanding and believe the incredible story that God actually became you that you could become God the Father. Then to prove that God actually gave himself to you, you will see his only son, David, and – like the lady – you will not have to ask: “Whose son are you?” You will know he is your son, and he will know that regardless of your sex here, you are his Father. When that experience is yours, you will stop giving yourself to false gods and obey your husband by fulfilling the divine formula of salvation.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

YOUR SUPREME DOMINION

Neville Goddard 1953

neville goddard imagination creates realityAs you have been told, this morning’s subject is “Your Supreme Dominion”. As a man does not possess it or he does not know that he possesses it for he certainly is not exercising it. As we read in the very first chapter of the Book of Genesis, “And God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him. He made them male and female, and God blessed them.” And God said unto them, “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over all the fish of the sea and all the fowls of the air, and every moving thing that moves upon the earth. And God saw all that He had done, all that He had done, all that He had made, and they were very good.”

Now, you and I reading the Bible, not knowing it to be a psychological truth and seeing it as historical fact, we cannot understand the word. But when man knows the Bible is the greatest collection of psychological truths and was never intended to be seen as history or cosmology, then he gets a glimpse into this great wonderful book. For man himself is the great psychological earth that must be subdued. In man move all the passions, all the great emotions symbolized as creeping things and animals. In the deep of man actually live the invisible states symbolized as fish. In the deep of man actually live all the unnumbered infinite ideas symbolized as the fowls of the air. It is this man that must be self subdued, for subdue it, then comes the promise and have dominion over this vast wonderful country that is man. If man does not know that he himself is the earth spoken of, he thinks he must go out into the world and conquer it. The world reflects the work done on man. And so when he looks upon this wonderful world round about him, he thinks himself so little.

The Bible also tells us he calls himself a grasshopper, and referring to himself as a grasshopper, he sees giants in the land, the giants of industry, the giants of economics, the giants all round about him, and he feels smaller and smaller because he does not know how to go about actually subduing the earth, which is himself. When man knows it, he will realize that man as an individual is supreme within the circle of his own consciousness, for within the circle of his consciousness the entire drama of life is re-enacted over and over again. He has to start with self and then he will see this outer wonderful world, this visible world, is not what he thinks it to be, a place of exile from God; it is the living garment of the Father, and although to many of us its discordant harmony needs some interpretation, to the wise it has a voice and the voice speaks of hidden things behind the veil hidden things behind the veil of man’s mind, for this whole vast wonderful world is a response to the arrangement of man’s mind. For when he knows it he will look within for the hidden causes, look into the deep to see the fish and how they swim and how they are related, for this arrangement of the deep is going to project itself as circumstances and conditions of life.

And so today, if you haven’t started, today is the time to start to really put into practice this teaching, and make of this violence a garden of God. It is called Eden and man was placed within it to keep it and to care it, for the garden of God is man. It is the mind of man. You never find a garden unless a man is present, for without a man there would be a forest of wilderness. But when a man is placed in it he begins to cut the trees or the seeds of wrong thinking; he clears the ground and he cultivates the ground, and then plants wisely. Then you will have dominion, for you will select the seed you will plant, the ideas you will entertain, and you will cultivate them. Knowing the outer world constantly bears witness of the inner arrangement of mind, you will only select the things you want to project into the living garment of your Father. For the whole vast world round about you is a living garment worn by your Father.

So how did he reap? He said He made man in His own image; well, the methods of mental and spiritual knowledge are entirely different. You and I can know a thing mentally by looking at it from the outside, by comparing it with other things, by analyzing it, by defining it, by even giving a description of it, but we can know a thing spiritually only by becoming it. We must be the thing itself if we would know that thing spiritually. We must be in love if we would know love. We must be God like if we would know what God is. For God made me, not out of something other than Himself; He made me perfect, so He made me by becoming me. There was no other way in the world that God could have made me unless He became me. So God became man that He may know man in the only way that He could know anything, for He knows all things spiritually and He calls them very good.

So He made me by becoming me, and now I am called upon to go and take care of the earth, and to subdue it, and take dominion. And I am the earth – I must learn to plant as He planted, and He planted the world by becoming the world. I must now plant as man, by becoming the man I want to be. So I will itemize all the things, name them, give a name to everything I want to express as a man, and then know it spiritually by becoming and I become it as He became me. I identify myself with it and live in that identity and I clothe it in flesh, I clothe it in fact. Not one thing in the world that is mine can be taken from me save by detachment from the state where that thing I love has its natural life. If I live in a world of beauty, if I live in a world of friendship, of comfort and all the lovely things that men enjoy, no power in the world can take one of them from me save I, who live among them, detach myself from the state where these lovely things have their natural life. When you and I know it, we begin to cultivate the earth, we actually weed the mind of all negative states, all unlovely emotions, and we bring into subjection not the outer but the inner, and then the outer reflects that cultivation on self.

Now, how is it done? You are told in the first book of the Bible how it’s done. For the promise is to the man who does it and the promise is a complete expansion beyond his wildest dreams of the state he plants. The one who first did it was called Jacob; well, I am Jacob. You are Jacob if you start to plant; every man is the potential Jacob, and Jacob did it by righteousness. As you are told, he did it through righteousness and he multiplied exceedingly, so that he increased a thousand fold his flocks, his cattle; he increased and grew beyond the measure of man in having all the maid servants and men servants and the camels. And this is what he said, “My righteousness shall speak for me in time to come.”

Righteousness is right consciousness. The only right consciousness is the consciousness of already being the man you want to be, for that attaches you with an invisible state. You can’t see it yet but you become attached to the state that you dare to assume you are, and you go fishing in the deep, you are beginning now to subdue the deep. You enter a state through the medium of feeling , through feeling that you are already what you want to be. And that is how you grow exceedingly great in your world, for you will be the Jacob expanding in your world.

The next one we come upon is Job. Here in the midst of all the trials and tribulations of a man, Job says, “I will hold fast to my righteousness and then my heart shall never judge me harshly as long as I live.” He will hold fast to righteousness in the midst of storm, in the midst of all the problems of the world he will assume that he is free and hold fast to that right consciousness knowing that not in eternity could his heart ever judge him harshly.

Then we are told, “The meek of the earth seek righteousness and it is to the meek of the earth that the earth is given. As you are told the meek shall inherit the earth. You might have been taught to believe it meant the beaten man, the man who falls and grovels like the grasshopper; it doesn’t. The word “meek” if translated actually means to be tamed as a wild animal is tamed. To the man who tames the mind, the man who tames his being that he can set it any task and have it execute that task, that man is meek and the meek inherit the earth. And the meek always seek righteousness, so if I today began to subdue this earth, I must make righteousness my watchword, and so if I were righteous I would now single out the nature of the trees I would plant, the nature of the flowers I would plant, the nature of the animals I would cultivate, the nature of the fish that I would catch, and I would name them as desirable states, called in the Bible beauty instead of ashes, called in the Bible the spirit of joy instead of mourning, called by all these lovely things. As you are told, all the things that are good, dwell on these things. To every good thing, for He called it very good. Every thing that I would call the good, which is a righteous judgment, will be the right judgment. I, in spite of the evidence of my senses that would deny it, in spite of reason that would tell me that it was impossible of realization, having discovered that I am the one planting my garden, that this is the only garden to cultivate, that this is the only earth to subdue, I would start now and boldly assume the good, first for myself – always start with Jerusalem – then go into the world and preach the goodness by knowing the goodness.

When you meet someone, regardless of what the appearance would reveal, know the truth for that one and set him free. Know that knowing as he ought to be known first by himself, but if he hasn’t known it as true of himself, you at least know it for him. And though you never meet him in the flesh again keep on knowing the truth that sets man free by knowing he is already free, and you are cultivating your garden. You are bringing it into subjection, you are subduing it and then you shall have dominion. So you are supreme in your world if you only know the world that you really are; so man is the psychological earth on which this wonderful whirl of events takes place. Man is the psychological earth on which all the animals move; every emotion is symbolized as the animal. Every fowl of the air is truly the idea you entertain. Every fish of the deep is the invisible state that you could catch if you only knew how to cast your net on the right side. For you fish all night and catch nothing, but then comes one who knows, who is righteous, and he casts it on the right side, always that right side, and the right side is righteousness or right consciousness. And I will catch it; I may not see them, I don’t have to see them. I don’t have to wait for the evidence of my senses to confirm, for I am told, “And faith was accounted unto him for righteousness.” So I will have faith in the reality of the deep; I will have faith in the reality of invisible states. So it’s now invisible, I know it, it’s a fish, but I have faith in the existence and the reality of the invisible state I want to externalize, knowing I can externalize it, for every time I externalize it I add to this wonderful garment of my Father, and that is my job, my duty.

So here, everyone of us, begin to believe that you are the only earth spoken of in the Bible. You are the one chosen to live in the center of the garden, but make it a garden, for the words are, “Keep it, keep it and plant it well”. You have dominion over every idea in your mind. You say you haven’t. Well, some may be to you disturbing, but you do have the choice of rejecting it or accepting it.

If you accept it, you identify with it and the state with which you are identified must, by the very law of your being, objectify itself within your world, that you may see by it how you plant that garden. Now, don’t wait one second beyond the time that you observe weeds instead of flowers. Start right at the moment of observation, and start to replant the garden. Start really to subdue it. Become the meek and the meek is the bold. The meek is the bold of heart who does not ask assistance. He walks knowing he can do it. He can fish. He can actually bring into subjection every bird of the air, every idea of the mind. He will begin to know these things spiritually. He will know them in the only way that you and I should know anything, by becoming it, not to have a world of information concerning objective things, and knowing these things only mentally. I must learn to know things spiritually; I must learn to know what love is spiritually by being in love. I must learn to know what security is spiritually be becoming conscious of already being secure. I must learn to know what health is by becoming conscious of already being healthy, and sustain these states in the name of righteousness, knowing that my righteousness shall answer for me in time to come.

Make me no promise for when the father-in-law said to Jacob, “What promise should I make you? ” “Just tell me that the offspring born in a certain manner shall be mine and no other promise, and no wages and no salary, all the spotted ones are mine. There isn’t a spotted one among the parents but every offspring that is spotted.. though the parents are not, that is mine. That’s my wage and my righteousness shall know it for me in time to come.” And he begins to assume that his world is peopled with the spotted calves, and everyone born that was healthy was born spotted. And he increased beyond the wildest dream of a man.

Well, become that man, and start from the simple beginning as he started. There wasn’t one thing in the world to encourage him that one calf could ever be born from parents that were not spotted and be a spotted calf. Yet he knew and he assumed that they had given birth to such things in numbers, they would come and they came a thousand fold. So in your case, maybe it’s business, maybe the doctors have given you a final, final verdict and it’s fatal. Well, I say in spite of this, and the doctor in his own way is doing his best, he would not have said it to hurt you or to frighten you. He firmly believed it, but you have another law and your law is that you can assume, in spite of that verdict, that you are well. And then, though tomorrow and the next day the tree doesn’t appear, know that in time your righteousness shall speak for you, and like Job in the midst of all the storms, when he should have gone to the grave, he held fast to the consciousness of already being what he wanted to be, that his heart may not in time speak harshly against him. Well, it didn’t – you know the story.

And so, all through we are told, “Break off the sins, break off missing marks by righteousness. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Now you are told, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things shall be added unto you.” Well, the kingdom of God is within you. You have been told that a number of times. The Bible affirms it over and over – “The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are within you.” They aren’t without. You see them seemingly without; that is the response to the within-ness where they are. Now, seek it and His righteousness. So assume within the mood that would be yours were you already the man that you want to be. Sustain that mood, occupy it as often as you can, and see how that righteousness shall draw things unto itself, and the things it draws are always in harmony with its nature. It never draws anything foreign to itself. If I assume that I am the man I want to be, I cannot then encounter events that are in conflict with my assumption. For my world mirrors the being I am.

So, here, today when you return read the whole chapter. It’s beautiful. But I started with the 27th verse, “And God made man in his own image, in the image of God made He him. Male and female made He them.” Then comes what is to be done. Then comes the promise if you do it. Then comes the judgment, “It is good and very good.” So you start knowing that you are the earth on which you now start to labor. If you do it, you shall be fruitful, and you will multiply, and you actually replenish this world, though it seemingly is barren you replenish it, if you subdue it. And the earth is self to be subdued, not by beating self as some people have misunderstood, not by isolating the self in some little secluded spot, not by running away from life, but in the midst of life is the opportunity to become meek: to take the violence that is man, it is individual man, and then bring it into the state of the meek, to transcend the violence by not fighting against conditions; know that conditions can only reflect what is within the one who observes that condition. So don’t rage against it; leave it just as it is. If conditions remain the same, that is a sure, sure sign that you have not been faithful to righteousness.

Had you been faithful to the consciousness of already being the man you want to be, conditions would have to change in harmony with that righteousness. So don’t rage against it; leave it as it is, and start today to take this wonderful earth, which is the foot stool of the Lord, which really is the mind of man, and start really to work upon it. Then you will not turn from left to right; you will keep the narrow path. You will go out knowing you can do it.

I know from experience it will not take long to see shoots appear; it will not take long to see the flowers appear. They will all appear, if you will take yourself in hand and by an uncritical observation of self watch the being you are; see the condition of the earth as it is now by the uncritical observation of your reactions to life. When you see who you are that is showing you the state of the earth as it is now. Don’t condemn it, just start to subdue it, and know that you do have dominion over all the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, and all the animals that move upon the earth. Knowing them to be the moods of thought, the desires, the passions that move in you, start to entertain only the good and the very good.

Dwell upon them and you will re-people your earth for you are supreme within the circle of your own consciousness. Now you may say it’s a very little one; may I tell you that though you have a body and a life of your own, you are rooted in me, and you end in me, as I am rooted in God and end in God.

So every man can say the same thing no matter if you look into a world of 2,500,000,000 of them and every year they slip through the gates into the invisible state relative to this world, but as they come and go every man in the world is actually rooted in you and ends in you, and you are rooted in the ultimate that we call God, the Father. So the whole vast (world) is simply centered in you; start now to rearrange it that it may reflect the beauty that you want to live about and live in in this world. You do it by assuming the best. Always imagine the best of self; always imagine first with Jerusalem and then go out and radiate what you have given to self. If you live in that wonderful state yourself, you will only have the good to shower upon others, for you have one gift that is truly yours to give and that is yourself. You have no other gift. If you are good, you can give only the good. If you are not – well, whatever you are – that you give.

So the story is you may find today when you observe yourself, by observing your reactions, that it’s not a very pleasant land but it is still a fertile land; it can be cleared of all these trees of traditional wrong thinking and can be replanted in harmony with the beauty that you desire. And in the immediate present it will bear fruit in harmony with the seeds you plant.

So let us go out determined to bring about a better arrangement of our mind that we may produce more noble garments for our Father to wear. For this wonderful, visible, objective universe is only the living garment of my Father, it’s not a place of exile, as so many believe, talking about home and their going home, as though they are not now in the very midst of their Father. When you see me, you see my Father. Whenever you see me, you see the state of my mind, for you will see the world in which I live and the state of my mind, that inner arrangement, that’s my Father. When you see me projected, you then call it the Son, and my world round about me tells me where I am. All these inner states are places in this fabulous psychological consciousness. Inner state is equal to place and where I stand within myself determines what I see when I look outside the self. So, when I look out upon the world, that area of my Father’s garment, whether it be torn by reason of the inner place where I stand or whether it be lovely, I see only the inner arrangement of myself. I am forever surrounding myself with the true image of myself, and what I am in consciousness that only can I see. Knowing that, let me be determined today to seek righteousness, or right consciousness, that I may reap in the immediate present all the lovely things that I desire.

Now in summary, single out some noble aim in life. Having defined it clearly to yourself as a desirable state. the state you would like to externalize, ask yourself this very simple question, “What would the feeling be like were it true if I already embodied that noble state?” In response to your question will come a feeling; assume that feeling; it has reality outside of the present moment. Its being is in complete independence of present objective fact. It has real structure; it has reality in the deep of it. It came in response to your call when you said, “What would the feeling be like were it true?” And you named what you were thinking of – if it was security, if it was health, if it was any state, that fish came from the deep; it’s located and you took the “I” and placed it in that feeling. You were actually standing upon it though it is invisible. Now remain on it.

If you remain in that state, you are told in the Bible three days, you will be “spewed out on dry land.” “Three” doesn’t mean three days; “three” means fullness, “three” means complete. So if I will live within that fish for three days until the whole thing seems natural and seems real, and it has the sensory vividness of reality. I will then be spewed out as something objective, and something that is commonly called in the Bible “land” or “dry land.” But it does have reality, as you feel it, only people get away from it because it doesn’t have immediate objective fact to confirm it. But you ride it for your three days and you will know what it was to enter that fish and remain in it until fullness was attained, until reality was attained within. In that state you were righteous and your righteousness will speak for you in time to come. It will not fail you; it cannot fail you.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

YOURS FOR THE TAKING

Neville Goddard  09-18-1967
neville goddard imagination creates realityThere is only one cause for the phenomena of life. That cause is God. Housed in you, God is a person in the most literal sense of the word. Believe me, for I know this from experience. God, the only creator, is pure imagination working in the depth of your soul. God began a good work in you and He will bring it to completion on the day God’s creative power is unveiled in you! God’s creative power and wisdom is defined in scripture as Christ. When Christ unveils himself in you, you will know you are God’s power and God’s wisdom.

God, your own wonderful human imagination, underlies all of your faculties, including perception, and streams into your surface mind least disguised in the form of creative, productive fantasy. When you ask yourself what you can do to transcend your present limitation of life, you are dwelling upon the means. God does not ask you to consider the means, but to define the end. Speaking to you through the medium of desire, God asks the question: “What wantest thou of me?” Then he tells you not to be concerned with the ways and means, for his ways are unsearchable. They are inscrutable and past finding out. This statement you will find in the 11th chapter of the Book of Romans. So don’t be concerned as to how God will fulfill the end, only know that He will. Can you believe your desire is fulfilled? Can you believe it is true? If you can, it is yours for the taking, for nothing is impossible to one who believes.

Now, let me share with you three stories which came to me during the summer. The first letter was from my friend Bennie. In it he told of lying prone on his bed, face down, when he felt as though someone grabbed his shoulders; and as he was lifted up he heard the words: “Take a stand!” Intuitively he knew he had to make the decision now as to whether he was going to believe that imagining creates reality or disbelieve it.

Scripture tells us, “He who is not with me is against me.” There is no neutral ground, for “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. To set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother.” Why? Because a man’s enemies are within him. Everyone must eventually take the stand that imagining creates reality and swim or sink with this concept.

Now, a few days later while in meditation, Bennie felt himself being held from behind by three men. As they raised him, he watched the sun rise and heard the words: “Look! Behold!” and “Recognition!” And he remembered a passage from my book, Your Faith Is Your Fortune: “Recognition of this truth will transform you from one who tries to make it so, into one who recognizes it to be so.”

Soon after this, a friend asked Ben to pray for him. He wanted to be the property manager of the company he worked for. Although he had been passed by year after year, Bennie told him what to do, and imagined hearing the friend tell him the job was now his. A few months later the job was vacated and his friend was given the position with an increase in salary and greater responsibility, just as he had imagined. What did Bennie do? He imagined! To whom did he pray? To his own wonderful human imagination! God, the creator of all life, is like pure imagining in you, underlying all of your faculties – including perception. He streams into your surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fantasy. Bennie took a stand. He prayed for his friend and believed his prayer was answered. He tested himself, and the windows of heaven opened and poured forth blessings for all to see. Now Bennie knows that with God all things are possible.

God is your mightier self. Emptying himself, God took on the form of a slave and is now found in the likeness of man. Abdicating his power, Pure Imagination took upon himself the limitations of flesh, thereby becoming human. It is God who weaves your every desire into cubic reality, waiting upon you effectively and swiftly, regardless of whether your desire is for evil or for good. The one who conjures thoughts in the mind of a Hitler or Stalin is the same power as the one conjuring thoughts in the mind of a pope or the Arch Bishop of Canterbury. There aren’t two Gods. There is only one!

The 14th and 53rd chapters of the Book of Psalms are identical, each telling us: “The fool says in his heart there is no God, but the Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of the many to see if there are any that act wise and seek the Lord.” Here we find that in the eyes of God, wisdom is equated with seeking the Lord. And if God is all-wise and all powerful, then any search other than for the Lord is stupid. You may be the greatest mathematician or scientist, the most intelligent and honored man among men, but if your search is not for God, you are stupid in His eyes.

Called upon to look for the cause of creation, what are you doing losing yourself in the phenomena of life? When something happens, search your thoughts and you will discover your own wonderful human imagination to be the cause of your experience, because God is a person. At the present time He is wearing a mask called Neville, but the one speaking to you now knows himself to be the Ancient of Days. Every being in the world is a mask worn by God; for housed in man, is man’s imagination.

A thought acted upon is an imaginal act. Think (imagine) a horrible earthquake and God will give it to you. Imagine (think of) a war and God will provide that, too. Imagine peace and you will have it. God will give you health if you will but imagine being healthy. Imagine success and you will have it. The moment you think, you are feeding your imagination, which is a person. I use the word person deliberately, for you are a person. You are the mask God is now wearing, for God became you that you may become God.

Now let me share another letter with you. Last year this lady, living about sixty miles north of San Francisco, was possessed with the desire to come to Los Angeles and attend my lecture. Leaving word at her office, she drove her car to the San Francisco airport, where she took a plane to Los Angeles. There she was met by a friend and immediately came to the lecture. After the lecture she joined a group of four women and one man for coffee, where she expressed her hunger, having missed lunch and dinner that day. The gentleman sitting beside her then said, “I’d like to buy you a steak.” And as she looked into his face she heard a voice within her say, “This is your husband.”

Now, this lady has been married and divorced four times, so she had specific desires for a husband which she felt must be fulfilled. She wanted to be happily married to a man who lived by this truth. She wanted him to love and respect her as well as her seventeen-year-old son. Having imagined such a man in September, she attended my meeting in October, and married the gentleman she met here the following January.

The gentleman added his story to her letter, saying: “Having played with the idea of being married, I went to a pawn shop last September and purchased a plain gold band which I placed on the third finger of my left hand. Every day I wore the ring and every night I slept in the feeling of being happily married. (My friend thought he could not get the feeling of being married without a physical aid, but you don’t need anything outside of your imagination to catch the mood.)

Having been an alcoholic, this gentleman imagined his wife never mentioned his past; for although he had not tasted alcohol for nine years, he had paid the price in his search for God. You see, the alcoholic is searching for truth. Thirsty, he finds a false spirit in the form of alcohol, while those who will not touch it – and criticize those who do – haven’t even started their search. But I have news for them. One day they, too, will know a hunger which will not be satisfied by bread. They will know a thirst so great they will make the mistake of clothing it in the form of a bottle. But because it will be a false thirst, the thirst will remain. Then they will discover the true hunger and the true thirst, which is for the hearing of the word of God.

Now, in the third letter a gentleman writes: “Having borrowed from the bank, every month when I sent in my payment I reduced the total amount in my record book. One day, as I was writing my check and recording its payment, I closed my eyes and saw two zeros under the balance due column. Then I gave a sigh of relief because the note was paid. For the next thee months I persisted in seeing those double zeros and rejoicing in being debt-free. Then came an unexpected surprise! Our company paid us all a mid-year bonus which was so large I was able to pay all of my bills, including the bank loan, and deposit the rest in the bank.”

Now I think this gentleman and I must be two peas in the same pod, because money seems to burn in his pocket, too. Instead of keeping the money in the bank as the rational mind would do, my friend began to think about how to spend it, so of course he found a way. He bought a tape recorder to bring and record my message!

To whom did my friend turn when he wanted the bank loan paid? He turned to God! He did not get down on his knees and ask some outside God to do it for him. He didn’t go to church and consult a priest, rabbi or minister. He didn’t contact a so-called truth teacher, but simply closed his eyes to the obvious and saw two zeros in the balance due column. Then for the first time in the history of his company a mid-year bonus was paid. This happened to him because of his use of the law, and his knowledge of who God is.

Not everyone who seeks God finds him, but there are those – like Philip -that when they find him, they bring their brother Nathanael. Andrew found Jesus and brought Peter. You, too, will find Jesus when you exercise your imagination, and bring those you love to his awareness. If great wealth befell you, would not your wife (or husband), your children, as well as those in your immediate circle benefit from your good fortune? And if it befell them, would it not befall you? So we benefit each other as we search out God and test him.

Revelation tells us to be either hot or cold, but never to be lukewarm. If you do not believe me to the point of testing the law, you are lukewarm. But one day, like Ben, you will take a stand. You will either be for me or against me. You will try to believe that imagining creates reality, or reject it. You will be hot or cold about it, and that is better than being lukewarm. I have discovered that those who hated me at first when I took from them their idols, the icon in their mind called Jesus, have become my finest students. So many people claim they believe in Jesus, but cannot define him. Unable to place him in time and space, they are defiant when I say: Christ in you is your hope of glory. Full of insults, they are cold. Some have even been violent. But one day they will find him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, turn around, and be embraced by the Lord.

I started telling this story in the 1930’s and here we are in the 1960’s. During these thirty-odd years I have found those who really opposed me – those who were so moved and disturbed they were determined to disprove my words. But since they couldn’t do it, they too have found God to be their own wonderful human imagination. The Bible is addressed only to the human imagination. In Blake’s famous letter to the Rev. Dr. Trusler he makes this comment: “Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding, or reason?”

The Bible is imaginative instruction. When it unfolds in you it is more real than anything here, yet it is all imagined, for God is all imagination and so is man. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself. There is nothing but this one body called Jesus, who is the Lord God Jehovah.

I tell you, God became as we are that we may become as He is. No one took God’s life. He laid it down himself saying: “I have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again. The fall into fragmented space was deliberate. And He who fell has the power to gather us all together, one by one, into that single body who is all love. His body is above the organization of sex. In it there is no Greek, no Jew, no bond, no free, no male, no female. When you wear it you understand Paul’s statement: “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing to the glory that has been revealed in me.” In that body you know yourself to be the real Man, and this fleshly body as nothing. You will realize that you were never male or female, but have always been God.

Remember, everything is yours for the taking. If you want it, take it. If you cannot claim it for yourself, ask a friend for help. If you want to be happily married, do what my friends did. You want to pay off all of your debts? Whatever you desire is yours. All you have to do is imagine you have it, for everything in life is yours for the taking!

Now let us go into the silence.