neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

He Is Dreaming Now

Neville Goddard

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight’s title is: “He is Dreaming Now.” God’s name―His real presence―is within us, in the very midst of us, for His real presence is concentrate in His name.

“Come, let us go and look at him,” said the brothers, and each took one of Alice’s hands and led her up to where the king was sleeping.

“He is dreaming now.” said Tweedle-Dee, “and what do you think he is dreaming about?”

Alice said, “Why, nobody could guess that.”

Then Tweedle-Dee said, “He is dreaming about you; and if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you would be?” (from “Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll)

Now, to us, that seems a fairy story; and, yet, it is so altogether true. If the Dreamer in you left off dreaming anything that you now entertain, where do you think you would be? Is not the Dreamer and the “I” of waking a pair of identical twins?

We think this is the real world, and then we speak of the “dream world.” To us, that isn’t real, and yet we are told in Scripture: “God speaks to us through the medium of dreams, and makes Himself known through vision.” (Numbers 12:6) And, yet, we say that is not real, and yet: “God speaks to man through the medium of dreams”; and He is the Dreamer in man, identical with the “I” of waking.

When we really wake, we will not be God and man. It will just be you; and you will be God, who was the Dreamer. The whole will simply awaken within you. it will not be a twin. The wall of separation will be broken down. It will only be God; and God-and-you will be the One.

“God becomes as I am, that I may be as He is.” (from “There Is No Natural Religion” by William Blake)

When the promise was made that God and an Angel would lead Israel, this promise was given special force by Jehovah’s assurance that “My name is in him.” That is, Jehovah Himself would lead them. Well, who is Jehovah? In Scripture we are told His name really is “I AM.”

“Go, say to them that I AM hath sent me unto you…This is my name forever, and by this name I will be known throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:14-15) “There is no other name.” (Acts 4:2)

Now, here in this room―take this simple little object here. My simple apprehension of this corporeal object we call sense. It is now a “sense” object. It is “real,” for I can see it, I can touch it; if I strike it, I can hear it. So, this is called “sense” because it’s present. If absent, it’s imagination.

What I want to teach everyone who will listen to me is to tell them―to convince them―that the so-called “absent” states are just as real as the present states. If man, the spectator, could only enter into these so-called “absent” states―these images in his imagination,–“approach them on the fiery chariot of his own contemplative thought” (from “A Vision of the Last Judgment” by William Blake)―if he could enter into these states and give to the state the sensory vividness that he now gives to this, and give it all to his imagination; if he could give it all the tones of reality we now give to this, using our senses, it would clothe itself in what we call “objective” reality.

Here in this audience tonight there is a gentleman. He started a business in Chicago in March of this year. If you knew the market in the month of March as you know it today, it was at the lowest point in years. Stocks tumbled and tumbled day after day, many dropping ten or fifteen points a day; and on paper billions and billions were lost. As far as the mind goes, they were lost. There was no market to raise money for business. He needed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to launch this business. It is a manufacturing business, manufacturing special instruments―technical. No one had any money,–no individual, no group.

He went through the month of March, April; and then in May he called me from Chicago to tell me he was too close to picture. He couldn’t use his imagination because he was too close to it, and all the negative arguments the papers gave you, the brokers gave you, friends would give you,–everything printed that the financial situation gave you looked forward to a greater and greater depression. He couldn’t stop it. So, I heard what he had to say: he wanted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I said, “All right, I will hear it for you. I will now reverse the entire conversation from you wanting two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a conversation that tells me that you have your two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and I will persuade myself of this so-called ‘invisible,’ and therefore unreal state. When I am self-persuaded of the reality of what the world would say to be unreal, it’s done, and it will not fail! I will do it now.”

So, he hung up. I did not leave the ‘phone until I was self-persuaded that he had called me and told me of the good news that he had his two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to launch this new venture in these special things that he is making.

Well, he is here in the room tonight, and last night he gave me a letter setting forth the highlights of this entire state. I have given you the first three: it was incorporated in the month of March. The need was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. March and April went by; and in May he didn’t panic, but everyone simply turned him down. There was no such thing as a money market.

Then he called me, and I’ve told you the exact conversation between the two of us. He is here in this City now; and in this statement he said: “Out of the blue, a broker called me and told me he heard of this new venture, he had investigated it, examined it, and he would like to underwrite it for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” which he agreed to.

As he agreed to have this company underwrite it for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, friends then called and asked if they could buy a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of shares when he had shares to sell; and to that, he agreed.

So, his need was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he has raised between the call in May and this day three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And they say because of the market, because of this, or because of that, it can’t be done.

“All things are possible to God” (Matthew 19:26), but man worships a false god. Man hasn’t the slightest concept who God is! “God is not a God afar off”; God is not even near, for nearness implies separation. And He is in the very midst of me. He is my own true identity! My own I-AM-ness,–that’s God! He actually, literally became as I am with all of my weaknesses―with all of my limitations, that I may be as He is without limitations, without weakness. So, He is not pretending that He is me. He is not pretending that He is you. He literally emptied Himself of His infinite wisdom and power, and assumed the restrictions of man; and then finally He awakes within man, and Man is the one that awakes within Him. God and man are One. That little line of demarcation between the two when man in his dream worships a false god is all removed, and then hen knows who God really is.

So, He’s dreaming now―dreaming your life. One day He will awake from the dream of life, and then you will know Who-You-Are! You will know that you are that central figure in Scripture called the Lord Jesus Christ, for the name will unfold itself within you, and the ultimate revelation of that name is “God the Father”! And because He is God the Father, you will see His son in your presence calling you, “Father.” You will know you are his father, and he will know that he is your son, and there will be no uncertainty as to this relationship between you and the Son of God, whose Son is your son.

Now, until it happens, test it. We are invited to test Him. “Come, test yourself and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?” (Second Corinthians 13:5, Revised Standard Version)

Does man realize it? If he is honest with himself, he will say, “No, I don’t realize it.” But nevertheless, he is invited to test it to see if he really is in him. Why? Because “all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3)

Well, if that is true and someone tells me that my own wonderful human imagination is God, and that what is imagined is as real as what my senses now dictate; that I can give to that unseen state a reality that will project itself upon the screen of space and become as real as anything now on the screen of space, and share that reality with others, can I do it? Well, I did it in this case. I did morning, noon and night; and I am not different from any person born of woman. I have found the True God!

As we are told: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Joshua answered himself: “I have chosen the Lord, I and my household.” (Joshua 24:15) Then Israel said, “We, too, will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:18) He said, “You are witnesses against yourselves. You will serve the Lord?” (Joshua 24:22)

You cannot bow your knee before anything in this world when you have chosen the True God. The True God is within you, and that Being within you is your own wonderful human imagination.

Now, give to your imaginal acts tones of reality, and see how they project themselves in your world and become real. But if they do it and it will become a fact, well reason tells them, No, it would have happened anyway.

A friend of mine, my dentist, bought his home seventeen years ago. It was his first home. he got it for twenty thousand dollars in the hills of Hollywood. It was a lovely home; it was once owned by Kaiser’s son. In fact, I think he built it. it was very, very big, nicely constructed; not a large area, but―oh, what a view! A beautiful view. He did improve it somewhat; he put in a swimming pool and made a few structural changes, but he didn’t spend in excess of ten thousand dollars in the seventeen years that he lived there in making certain changes. That meant he had a home of thirty thousand dollars.

Then came the present moment that he wanted to unload it; but, like all people, they read the papers and make concepts of what a thing is valued at. He paid twenty and spent ten; but he lived there, and naturally he paid taxes and these things, but he didn’t have rent to pay. So, he began to put more and more value on the house, and he finally got it to seventy-five thousand dollars. That’s what he wanted for it.

Then he spoke to me about it. I said: “I haven’t the slightest concept of the value of a home. the only home that I have called ‘my home’ was really my Mother’s home. I left home when I was seventeen and a half; it was the only home I’ve ever really felt was home, for I’ve only rented since then. I have rented apartments, rented homes; but they have never been my ‘home.’ So, I have no concept of the value of these homes. You are asking seventy-five thousand for it.”

Well, for one solid year he gave it up to this party, to that party, to the other party; they all showed it, but no one came up with anything near seventy-five thousand. I said to him one day at the pool, “Do you really want to sell it?”

He said, “Deep down in my heart, no. it has been a lovely home.”

I said, “Do you sleep in it every night? I know you do physically, but do you sleep elsewhere in your imagination, and view this home from that assumed state? Well, if you had sold it, you couldn’t sleep in it,–you would have sold it. And if you sold it, you would be sleeping elsewhere; and because you had had the experience of this house, you would view it from the place that you now occupy, and see it as something you had formerly owned that is now owned by someone else. If tonight you sleep in a state other than this state and view this house from that state, you will sell it. But you must, first of all, want to sell it. You want to let it go.”

Well, the husband wanted to sell it. I said, “Where would you go?”

“Well, at our age we would not get another home. We’d move into an apartment. It would be cramped for us, but nevertheless we would move into an apartment.”

So, they went down to see the Le Brea apartments, and they saw one they liked on the tenth floor, and it was just the answer to their prayer, but they wouldn’t move unless they sold.

I said, “Well, now, sleep there tonight. You’ve seen the place. You can’t take all of this furniture, but you are going to take the best pieces; you’ll make a lovely job of it, and you will sleep in that place. There are two bedrooms and two baths, and it is adequate for the two of you. You have no offspring. You can’t take your animals there. That, I do know. So, you will have to let go of the dogs, let go of the turtle, let go of the parrot,–let go of all these things that you have around you. You will find homes for them. But you must sleep there tonight and view this home from that place.”

A total stranger, within the month,–no agent came,–a total stranger [he didn’t have to pay an agent] came and saw it, like it, and paid him in cash to get out within thirty days. Now he is in the new apartment where I saw him and dined with him just about a month ago. He unloaded the house within one month at seventy-five thousand dollars in cash; and this is supposed to be a depressed market where you can’t find people with cash because all the things have gone down. He found it!

You will find it first in your imagination. That’s where you find it. And then you clothe it with the tones of reality, and you clothe it with all the sensory vividness that you can give that image.

“If the spectator could enter into these images in his imagination, approaching [that image] on the fiery chariot of his [own] contemplative thought, [as if he made] a friend and a companion of one of these images,…then he would rise from his grave,”―Well, this is a grave,–“then he would be happy in it [his new choice, his new state].” (from “A Vision of the Last Judgment” by William Blake)

So, in one month he sold it for the seventy-five thousand and moved out. He had to give up half of the things he had, because he couldn’t use them in the smaller area. Now in seventeen years you know, if you have a home or even an apartment, what you accumulate. We accumulate and accumulate like a pack rat! Well, that’s what he did. Now he has this lovely apartment, and he’s blissfully happy, so he tells me.

So, my friend here tonight, he got his three hundred and fifty thousand, and Jim unloaded his home that he only paid twenty for, for seventy-five thousand. I don’t question people’s right to ask seventy-five thousand or a hundred thousand or a million. I only ask that they do it within the frame of the Golden Rule. Would you have it done unto you? Well, then, you can do it.

When I start a business―I have no desire to start a business; but if I had a desire to start a business and it needed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I wouldn’t’ think that strange. I would go into a bank, if I had confidence in what I could do, and try to raise the money. Well, he couldn’t raise it. But, “out of the blue,” a broker now underwrites the whole thing for two hundred and fifty thousand. And then friends want to buy; and they have investigated the nature of the business, and they want to buy another hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stock, which he agreed to. He has this three hundred and fifty thousand pledged.

So, I say the Dreamer in man is God, and He is the dreamer,–not one with the “I” of waking. The “I” that wakes is confined to the senses, and he thinks this is the real world, and he rationalizes everything in the world; when, really, everything you see in the outer world was first only an image in the imagination. There isn’t a thing that is now true as fact that was not once only imagination―not a thing in the world. Every external so-called concrete fact has a spiritual cause, and not a so-called physical cause. The physical cause only seems; it is a delusion of the fading memory.

Now today, even after a month, Jim now thinks that it didn’t happen because he slept in his apartment before he physically occupied it. He thinks it would have happened anyway. Well, he thinks, now this man―out of the blue―he heard of this thing―he wanted to get away from Bel Aire,–he wanted to leave that environment and come to the hills of Hollywood all by himself because the place is all alone right up on the very top of these mountains. Now he justifies it, and he thinks that this thing would have happened anyway, “in spite of what Neville said.” And it’s only a month!

Well, you give him six more months and he’ll be convinced beyond a doubt that what he did in imagination and what his wife did had no bearing whatsoever upon the sale. But that is the story told throughout the Bible.

“Were there not ten of you, and only one has returned to say thanks?” (See Luke 17:14-18) Well, the other nine thought it would have happened anyway. No, not a thing could cure them of their leprosy; and one spoke and it became a fact. And he kept on going. It wasn’t done because he did it,–it would have happened anyway.

That’s what the nine said, but one Samaritan came back and said, Thank you. That’s the whole vast world in which we live. We are so sound asleep, we could never believe in these irrational things of which I speak. “Why, that doesn’t make sense!”

I could tell you unnumbered stories where I know the cause. I know the beginning―the conversation that took place, and the kind of a prayer that took place, where they didn’t beg anyone in the world for anything. You don’t turn to any god on the outside and appeal to him to help you. You turn to the inside, and you appropriate what you want. It is a subjective appropriation of the objective hope.

What do I want in the object world? I hope for that. Well, I must now subjectively appropriate that state. I don’t beg for it. I simply appropriate it. if God is my own wonderful human imagination, to whom can I turn? I turn to God by, in my own imagination, appropriating this state. That is what I am told to do.

“When you pray, believe that you have received, and you will.” (Mark 11:24) And whoever says a thing, believing that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Well, is He not speaking to me? Is He not telling me that He dwells within me?

“I dwell in you, and you dwell in me, and we are one. And the things that I have done, you will do also.”

Well, what have you done? I have found the Father. Who is he? He said, “I am the Father.” I am going to find that, too, for that is what I am told. “All the things that I have done, ye shall do, and even greater than these because I go and leave the world. I am returning to my Father, from whom I came; and so you will remain here until you reach the end of the journey.” Not at the end of history, but within history, you will know the truth of the things that I say, for you will know the Father; and when you know the Father, you’ll know yourself because you are the Father!

Well, if He tells me that, do I believe it? Or, is He a liar? Well, I know from my own personal experience that it is all true. The whole thing is true. The truest story ever told is the story of the life of Jesus Christ; but it’s not as the world believes it. It hasn’t a thing to do with a man in time. It has all to do with that Supernatural Being in you, Who unfolds Himself within you as you. And, then, you know Who-You-Are. And you are the Lord Jesus Christ.

Every child born of woman has that Being within that child. The true identity of the child is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God the Father. But while we are here in the world of Caesar, exercise the talent that He gave us. He gave us Himself. That talent is to exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of others, on behalf of yourself.―don’t neglect yourself; but certainly on behalf of others. Anytime you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you have literally mediated God to that “other.” Well, God was your own wonderful human imagination. And, so, when you began to imagine lovely things about another, and you became persuaded that the thing imagined is true, you have mediated God to another. And then he will come to you if he has any heart within him and say, “Thanks.” My friend said to me, “Thanks.” All I ask of him,–not one penny; I don’t want a nickel,–I would like to know that it happened.

Now, it could have happen and he could have left this City and not have told me one word. But, no; he was big enough to write it out on his own paper, for he is the president of the corporation; and the paper bears his signature. He didn’t dictate it to a secretary; he wrote it in longhand and signed it himself. So, I have his own record giving the seven stages; the incorporation in March of 1970; with no funds in April, none in May; and the telephone call to me in Los Angeles from Chicago; and then in the month of July to raise “out of the blue”―that is his expression―“out of the blue” came this broker and underwrote the thing for two hundred and fifty thousand; and then friends asked,–he didn’t persuade the friends,–they asked dot let them have a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the stock when he was selling stock in the new company.

So, I tell you, the Dreamer-in-you, as Lewis Carroll put it in this lovely poem, “Through the Looking Glass,”―and what a marvelous name for it! It is truly the “looking glass.” She went right through it into a world just as real as this. You go right through the image and occupy the image. You can sit right here now and assume that you are elsewhere. Your body is here, but you are only occupying this body for a moment.

You are all imagination, and you must be wherever you are in imagination. And the whole thing is done by a motion in mind. The motion on the outside is under compulsion. The causative motion is within the mind. So, I move from where I am physically to where I would like to be physically; and if I really do the motion―if I really succeed, how would I know? Well, then, look at the world. Would I see it from there? I should. Well, then, view the world from that assumption. I should see the whole vast world from that position in space if I have assume that I am there. At his very moment I assume that I am now in New York City, standing at a certain spot in the City; close my eyes to the obvious, and then think of San Francisco. Well, I should see it three thousand miles to the west of me. I should see it away beyond where I am standing if I am standing, in my imagination, in New York City.

Well, what would that do to me? That motion in mind would compel a physical motion to correspond to it; and you will awake to find the whole thing is changed. The whole structure of your world has changed, your plans have changed; and it will compel that physical journey. And you will walk across a bridge of incident―some series of events that you do not consciously plan. You will be compelled to make the journey. I speak from experience.

Back in 1941, when my Mother died, I had no idea Mother was that sick, for I lived in America, and she with the rest of my family lived in Barbados. And, so, they never told me how sick Mother was. She had been sick for two years, and I didn’t know it. Always these lovely letters. First of all, the War was on―not our country, but Britain was at war beginning in September of 1939. That was a British possession, and so there was no contact with little Barbados, save a slow freight taking mail. And here, I didn’t realize it, and I had no plans to go to Barbados. I had planned to go to Maine for a vacation of a month. My wife and I even sent off and made the reservations to go to this place in Maine. Then one day in the month of August I received a letter from my brother, and he said; “Mother is dying. There is no possibility of saving her; and I know it’s difficult to get passage to come here; but if you can, she want to see all of her children around that bed of hers before she dies. If you can possibly make it, try and make it.”

We sailed the very next day on the Argentina. It sailed at midnight; and without getting passports or anything, we simply rushed aboard. We bought the ticket, and we got it. We were in such a hurry, I didn’t even get my return passage. I didn’t get any papers. Finally, I had to get them from the U.S. Consul in Barbados when I came back.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine had sent on my passport and the things I left here. So, I had duplicates. So, when I came back, the man at the dock said to me, “You know, you could be arrested for this. You are not supposed to have two passports and two of everything, and here you have two of everything.” Well, here, I didn’t realize what I was doing, but this is what happened. The night that I brought out my book called, “Your Faith Is Your Fortune,” it was in the month of February, and it was snowing―about twelve to fourteen inches of snow on the ground. Naturally, I brought out, and I was very proud of, the book; and I expected the usual audience of about a thousand people.

We used to have about a thousand people three times a week: Wednesday, Friday and Sunday nights, in a little church off Times Square. Well, this night in question they couldn’t get there; and maybe a hundred people came, which was a good crowd for that sort of weather. But the book sale was simply nil, and I was a little bit disappointed in that.

So, this night in question in the month of February I slept in Barbados, just as though I were there in the flesh. Here, I went to bed in New York City with the snow on the ground and still coming, and I assumed that I am in my Mother’s home; and here I am in Barbados with the warm tropical air in Mother’s home, and the whole thing was so natural to me. I went sound asleep in Barbados in my Mother’s home. When I woke the next morning the snow was higher, just the opposite of the state into which I fell when I went to sleep. Well, I didn’t’ know Mother was ill. And, then, came the month of August; and here I was under compulsion―I had to go. I had “gone and prepared the place.”

He said, “I will go and prepare a place for you; and when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye shall be also.” (John 14:2,3) Well, this is a conversation that takes place within us. The “I” in me, the Dreamer,–it goes and prepares a place, and it leaves the “outer” man wherever he was; and when the place is completely prepared, the Dreamer returns and picks up the garment of flesh where it had left it and takes it across a bridge of incidents which it will prepare―my rational mind could never have devised the means. It prepares it and compels me to make the physical journey and ithad made all in imagination.

So, I can tell you that I went to bed and prepared that place; and then, not knowing of my very sick Mother, my wife and I sent off to Maine and made reservations to spend a month in the State of Maine. That had to be canceled because I had already prepared the place to go out to Barbados.

Anyone can do it. In fact, you’re invited to do it, for we are told: “Come, test me and see” (Second Corinthians 13:5) We are invited to test Him. Well, how would I test you, if you and I are one, and you are the Dreamer in me? Here, I assume to be the weaker one, and this is sound asleep. Well, the true reality of my Being is that Dreamer-in-me―the One Who is dreaming the dream of life. “Everything is possible to God” (Matthew 19:26), and God is in man as man’s own wonderful human imagination.

“Well, let us go and look at him. Well, he is sleeping now and he’s dreaming. And what do you suppose he is dreaming about?…Well, he is dreaming about you.” (“Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll)

Well, that is a shock to Alice. “Dreaming about me? Nobody could know that!”

“If he stopped dreaming about you,” said Tweedle-Dee, “where do you suppose you would be?”

If you stopped dreaming of being poor, where do you suppose poverty would be? If you stopped dreaming about anything that you now think you are,–it could be poverty, it could be limitations of the flesh, limitation socially, limitations of anything; if you stopped dreaming that, where do you think that would be? It exists only in your imagination. If you stop dreaming about it, it has not life in itself, for life is in you, and you animate it and keep it alive.

So, the poor man is poor only because he is dreaming, “I am poor.” And whatever I say I am, that I become, for His name is in me. And that’s the Guardian Angel that leads me from darkness to light, from bondage to freedom; and He is Jehovah Himself! And Jehovah’s name is the concentration of His very Self.

If His name is in me, He is in me. Well, what’s His name? I AM. He has no other name. Well, then, He is the Father. That is the ultimate revelation of God-in-man. When He unveils Himself as God the Father, then His Son stands before you and calls you, “Father.” And you know who you are, because His son calls you, “Father.” And you know this wonderful relationship between yourself (the Father) and the son of God who now is yourson.

So, this is the great mystery as revealed in Scripture. So, here in this world, even though the papers will tell you, the TV will confirm it, and all the magazines will add to it, that a depression is on, and they are letting people out, and you can’t get a job, and you must take a cut in salary in order to hold your job―well, you listen to that, and you will simply confirm everything they suggest, for you are simply applying the same law. If you believe it, you are applying it.

If you do not accept it, and will not dream that dream―don’t let them give you that kind of a dream; you hold onto a new kind of dream, a better dream; this Dreamer-in-you can do everything, and it does everything. “For by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3)

“I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal.” Yes: “I, even I am He.” That’s what we are told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy.

So, the One in you―the Dreamer―kills and makes alive. Don’t think for one moment that there is a God who makes alive and another being who kills. There’s only one Creator. There is only one Being that can create anything, and that Being is in you as your own wonderful human imagination.

Now, the world, being a rational state, will tell you that that’s irrational, it isn’t sound, it doesn’t make sense. I’m not telling you it makes sense, but it proves itself in performance. And if there is evidence for a thing, what you think about it, or what somebody else thinks about it, doesn’t really matter. What does it matter tonight if my friend tells his friends in Chicago what he did or what he asked of me or what I did, and then what happened? They may never believe what happened or what I did. He does. That’s all that matters. They may go blindly on saying, “No, that would have happened anyway, Jerry.” It doesn’t make any difference what you know tell me, and what he said he did; this is a rational world; and so the broker saw a profit for himself. He, first of all, heard of it, he investigated it and approved of what he found, and now he wants to underwrite it. That’s a rational thing. Then friends of his, with money to invest―they, too, investigated; then finding what they had hoped to find, they want to put their money into something that they think is good and solid. Therefore, be rational about it. He knows tonight―he may forget tomorrow; but he knows tonight what we did, and he knows tonight between May and July he raised three hundred and fifty thousand dollars on an entirely new venture.

I know from my own experience with my family what they have done. They started behind the 8-ball. Today, as head of all the big corporations, they are not paying very much. No; profits are down, and therefore dividend checks are down. My brother Victor, who does exactly what I am talking about―it’s all in his imagination―started behind the 8-bal; so this year he did a forty-million-dollar business, and so I got my dividend check. It was a twenty-per-cent dividend. How many companies are paying twenty per cent? He paid me twenty per cent on my stock; and all the other ones, they are going down and down and down, but I got a big check, twenty per cent. That’s unheard of, but we are a private company; therefore, we can pay what we want. It’s not public; every share of stock is owned by the family. So, my dividend check was twenty per cent of the value of my stock, because he didn’t read the papers, and he doesn’t have a TV set, and he’s not influenced by rumors. He can dream as much as anyone can dream.

There is a man who is paid a huge salary to write in the newspapers to scare people to death. He writes headlines. That’s all that he does as a job, to scare you to death every morning, if you will buy the paper. Something good―some wonderful bit of news is buried in the last page or on some other page. But some horrible thing about someone you do not know―a big headline. They go all over the world to find an accident. Not satisfied with those they can find here, they go all over the world to find them; and then huge big headlines, and scare you. so, you pick it up and read it, and you start dreaming. Well, my brother didn’t do that. When they said that things are down and you can’t get this and you can’t get that, he doesn’t agree with that; he just simply has his own dreams. So, he ended the year and he could give me twenty per cent of my money.

So, I say to everyone: it is entirely up to you, because if you know Who-You-Are, you cannot turn to another, if you know who you are.

“Choose this day whom you will serve.” “I have chosen to serve the Lord,” said he. His name is Joshua. Well, “Joshua” is the Hebraic form of the Anglicized name “Jesus.” It’s the same thing,–the same meaning. It means “Jehovah-Saves.” So, “Joshua” and “Jesus” are identical in meaning. So, it is Jesus who is speaking: “I chose the Lord,” and he tells you: “I am the Lord.” “He who sees me sees the Father.” (John 14:9) “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)

And, so, your imaginal acts are coming into your world. May I tell you? they are not receding into the past, as people think; and you will say, “It was just my imagination.” No, they are advancing into the future, and they will confront you. Well, when they confront you as a harvest, you do not even recognize your own harvest! You will say, “I don’t know this; I never did this.” Yes, you did. The whole vast world is simply the harvest of men who cannot stop imagining. You can’t stop it. That is life itself.

So, morning, noon and night you are imagining; and morning, noon and night you are harvesting. So, you can plant good seed or evil seed. It is entirely up to you. you can plant seed that frightens you to death or seed that is so altogether lovely when it comes into the world. so, I would say to my friend Jerry: “You know how it worked; don’t forget it. And may it now grow in your mind’s eye to a huge, huge business.”

We started with a few little pennies borrowed―borrowed money―back in 1922. My father didn’t have one red cent. What he did have that he valued more than a red cent,–he had ten children: nine sons and a daughter; and, to him, they were the most precious possession in his world. but he had to feed them, shelter the, and clothe them; and he had no money. So, on a little borrowed bit he started, but my brother Victor was the Dreamer. He was consciously dreaming.

He knew exactly what he wanted. He picked out the building on the main street. It was owned und the full name of “___ N. Roach & Company.” My family’s name would be J.N. Goddard & Sons, which would imply the family owned it.

Two years later a stranger came in,–it was for sale,–and said, “Are you going to buy the building?

And Vic said, “With what?”

He said, “Well, I have money. It’s in the bank, pays me nothing.”

“But,” he said, “I’ve got no collateral.”

“I’m not asking for any collateral.” He said, “Do you want the building?”

Vic said, “I would love it, but I have no money and I have no collateral.”

He said, “I will tell my lawyer and he will bid for me, because if they know I am bidding for it, they are going to bid it up.”

And, so, the lawyer bid that day. He represented many clients; so they did not know which client he represented. When the sale was over, he―on the surface―was the owner, but we were the owner. All he got from us as collateral was my brother’s signature and my father’s signature.

They paid back the money that he paid for the building in ten years at six per cent, reducing the equity every year by so much; so at the end of ten years it had been paid. It was reduced year after year after year, which we did. We kept our promise. When that man died, he left my brother, in cash, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, three homes, many personal possessions. He said, “You are my best friend. You advised me how to invest and what to do; and so I leave you now a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash, tax exempt,”―no taxes to pay on it. And from that little beginning, with borrowed capital, it grew and grew and grew and expanded from one island to another island to another island; it’s all over the islands now, and not one person outside of the immediate family owns one share in the business. And it is still growing, in spite of the depression. He doesn’t listen to any arguments about depressions and recessions and what-not. He is simply growing.

I tell you, it’s entirely up to us if you know Who-You-Are. You and God are One. God literally became as you are, that you may be as God is. And to do that, He emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a slave, and this (indicating the body) is the form of the slave, and found Himself in the form of man, and became a billion, with all the weaknesses and limitations of man; but He has no limitations when He wakes; so when He wakes in you, you will have no restrictions, no limitations. But until He wakes, believe Him and exercise the talent that He gave you. It is Himself, which is your own imagination, and simply exercise it, and see how He wakes in your world. “Nothing is impossible to God,” and God is your own wonderful human imagination.

So, He is dreaming now. Oh, yes, I know He’s dreaming―dreaming it all, but dreaming horrible dreams. What horrible dreams they are dreaming: getting even with this, and getting even with that. You can stop it now, regardless of what the world tells you, and start a new record―a new dream. Leave it alone, and start dreaming something entirely different.

Well, how do you do it? What would it be like if I were the man I want to be? So, you start with wanting to be. You desire to be other than the man that you seem to be. Well, now, is it true that I could be? Well, if it were true, what would you see? And how would you see the world? And how would your friends see you? What would you say when you meet them, and what would they say if all the things that you now would like to be, you are? And where would you live if it were true? Would you still live in the limited state, or would you live in a more wonderful place, in a better state? Well, then, live there mentally.

You say, “I have never been in such a place. I wouldn’t have the courage to go into that place.” Mentally sleep in it.

I have told this to my friends time and again. In New York City we have a place called Tiffany’s, and we speak of “a Tiffany.” Well, that is the height for certain things. I am not speaking against Macy’s or Gimbel’s; they serve a purpose. But people will pass by Tiffany’s and go into Macy’s or Gimbel’s to buy a wedding present of, say, eight or a dozen glasses. It is sent off to the Bride-to-be in a Macy box, cost more than twelve lovely glasses from Tiffany that would be sent in a Tiffany box. I know that from experience.

There are people who were born on the east side of New York who have never crossed the barrier; they are embarrassed to leave their little place and come as far as Fifth Avenue. Those born on the west side never come to Fifth Avenue. They were born, and they die, there. People live in Brooklyn. They were born in Brooklyn and they die in Brooklyn seventy or eighty years later and never see Manhattan. They are embarrassed to go out of their own little shell. If they will not go out physically, just imagine trying to go out mentally! They are embarrassed. They wouldn’t go into a Tiffany; they wouldn’t go into a smart shop. And I’ve always said you can buy better things in the better stores, and not at these inflated prices that people tell you.

But, it takes some bold step in the mind to have you change your pattern of thinking, and therefore your pattern of living.

Tonight, if you really would like to transcend the world in which you live, transcend it first in your imagination, and don’t ask how it’s going to happen, how will things move in your world to permit it to happen. They will move. But first, in your mind’s eye, be the person that you want to be, and walk as though you were; and in a way that no one knows, you will become that person.

Well, soon or late, we become,–and we start to be and do our fixed beliefs―what we really believe that we are. Soon or late, we believe and we are and we do.

Well, tonight, you want to be noble―I mean, a noble being―not one born to the purple, not one born by physical descent; I mean noble in spirit, noble in mind. As far as I am concerned, I accept no aristocracy of the flesh―only the aristocracy of the Spirit. I refuse to accept any aristocracy of the flesh. We are not race horses! They do that way. First of all, they are not bred that way―those who claim to be of the aristocratic world. They simply breed them within their own sphere. That’s not breeding them physically. And I do not accept the physical descent. I accept the spiritual descent.

So, in your own mind’s eye, find Who-You-Are. Can you go higher than the Lord? You can’t go higher than the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is the true identity of every child born of woman. Let him know that he is that Being. He begins to dream nobly. If he really is the Lord Jesus Christ, he will not entertain any unlovely thought in this world. He will become incapable of entertaining any unlovely thought.

So, if I tell you that you are, you may not believe it, but I know I am telling you the truth. So, when you sleep this night, sleep as if it were true, and daily walk in that assumption; and that assumption, though false at the moment, if you persist in it, it will harden into fact.

 

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

HE WAKES IN ME

Neville 03-24-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight’s subject is “He Wakes in Me”. I should say “he wakes in us”. Who is he? The Lord Jesus Christ who is crucified in us. He was never crucified on anything outside of man, and because he was crucified in us, he must rise in us.

Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And if we have been united with him in a death like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

The resurrection, although not described in any portion of scripture, is really the high watermark, the very center of the Christian faith. As Paul said: “If Christ is not raised then our faith is in vain and we are as men the most to be pitied.”

Sunday morning the churches are going to proclaim that Christ is risen, and they should, because Christ is risen – but how do we know this? By the witnesses! By those who have experienced the resurrection. The experience of the resurrection in the lives of the apostles is the indispensable inner testimony without which Jesus Christ might have been raised, but could not have been preached as risen. Every one who is called, who experiences the resurrection, who experiences Christianity in its fullness, is an apostle, for you cannot experience it and not see the Risen Christ. Coming from within everyone will be raised, one by one, to unite into one single body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of us all. There is only one.

We are told in scripture that our lowly bodies will be changed to be of one form with his glorious body. Not like it, but of one form with it. There is only one form, one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. And in the 8th chapter of Mark it is said: “Those who are ashamed of my words, of him the Son of man will be ashamed when he comes into the glory of his Father with the heavenly angels.” These words precede the resurrection. In fact, when the drama is coming to its close, these events – although separated in time – are but part of a single complex. Now let me share one of these with you.

In 1946, I felt myself lifted up as I heard a heavenly chorus sing my praise and my victory over death. I felt as though I were a being of fire, clothed in a body of air. The body was self-luminous, as told in the 9th chapter of Mark: “His garments radiated light with such an intensity that no fuller on earth could bleach a garment comparable to it.” The garment was not white, but radiant light. There was no need for any external light, no sun, no moon, no stars, for I was light enough. I could see as far as vision desired, and as I glided by a sea of human imperfection, everyone was made perfect. Eyes returned to the empty sockets of the blind, the missing arms returned, the lame walked. Every conceivable imperfection vanished as I glided by, accompanied by this wonderful, heavenly chorus singing my praises and calling me by name. When the last one was made perfect, the chorus sang out: “It is finished” (which is the last cry on the cross) and I felt myself – now a being of fire clothed in a garment of air – actually crystallize into this tiny little body called Neville. I felt so bound, so restricted, as though I couldn’t turn in any direction.

On this level your body is animated and wonderful, but you cannot compare it to that radiant garment which is your transfigured self. You will wear this heavenly garment before you experience the resurrection, yet this is the garment of the Risen Christ. There is no other garment of Christ and there is only one Christ, so everyone who is raised is he. We are told in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (I think it is the 6th chapter): “God raised the Lord and we also shall be raised by his power”, and may I tell you: what a power! Called the power of God, it comes to you just like a wind. At first you feel it as a vibration, but when it hits you, this transfigured self is a wind, an unearthly wind.

Then in 1959 the resurrection came, followed by my birth into an entirely new age. The resurrection begins the entire drama of Christianity, although many experiences precede it, as you wear your transfigured self and know yourself to be a being of fire dwelling in a body of air. The resurrection comes so suddenly. There is no warning, for in this transfigured state you are told to tell no one until the Son of man is raised from the dead.

Man has been taught to believe that a man was crucified on a wooden tree, taken down from it, and put into a grave – and it isn’t so at all! Christ, the great Messiah, is buried in you as your creative power and wisdom, which is God’s creative power and wisdom lowered to this level. Buried in you, it dreams horrible experiences; but in the end this power begins to stir and as it does, it fulfills all that was foretold in scripture regarding itself.

Now listen to the words of Moses (the eternal state of the prophet through which all men pass) as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy: “The Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren – him you shall heed.” Do not read this passage on the surface because translations are strange. Go back to find the Hebrew meaning for every word in the sentence. We will take just the one word, translated in the Revised Standard Version as “among” and in the King James Version as “midst”. The Hebrew word thus translated means: “Within yourself; the heart; the bowel; the very core of a person; the inmost thought of man.” So, “From within you the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me.”

Moses was the one in the ancient world who experienced the transfiguration. And when he returned to the Israelites, his body shone so, that he had to cover it, for they could not behold the glory of the man. Here is the prototype of the one who is to be raised up out of man, from man. Something comes out of man that is the Lord, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not something that comes out and leaves you here. Your garment is the grave in which God is buried as your own wonderful human imagination.

Everything in your world is produced by imagination. There isn’t a thing that was not first imagined, yet when it becomes an objective fact it seems so independent of your perception of it, that you forget its origin and do not realize it was produced by you. Everything that appears without was first an image, nothing more than a dream which was created by the dreamer in you, who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then one day your imagination begins to stir and without warning you are resurrected. This is how it happened to me. I retired as usual, just as I have done throughout the years. Then came this unearthly wind. (Now, in both Hebrew and Greek the word “spirit” and “wind” are the same, so when you speak of the Spirit of the Lord you speak of the wind.) Intensifying itself in my head, I felt as though I was going to explode, that I must be experiencing a massive hemorrhage. But instead I began to awake to discover I was in my skull. I was more awake than I had ever been before. I knew a clarity of thought I had never known before, yet I was entombed in my skull and it was completely sealed.

Standing alone in this empty tomb, I was consumed with the desire to get out. Possessing a peculiar, innate knowledge, as though built in at the beginning of time, I knew that if I pushed the base of my skull something would move. Obeying that instinct I pushed, and something rolled away leaving an opening large enough for me to put my head through. Then I squeezed myself out inch by inch, just like a child coming out of the womb of a woman. For a few seconds I remained on the floor, and then rose to look at this body out of which I had come. It appeared to be dead, but its head was moving from side to side.

As I looked, I realized I had been in that body all this time and had not realized it was a tomb. I had always thought that it was I. If someone struck my hand they struck me! If food was placed in my mouth I ate it. If the body was fed, bathed, or shaved, it was me for as far as I was concerned I am it. It never occurred to me that the body was a garment I was wearing and it was a garment of death.

Then the wind increased, but instead of being in my head it was coming from the corner of the room, causing me to divert my attention from the garment on the bed. When I looked again, the garment was gone and in its place were my three brothers, one sitting at the head, and the other two where the feet were. They, too, heard the wind, for one rose and as he walked towards it his attention was attracted to something on the floor, and before he even picked it up he said: “It’s Neville’s baby.” The other two, in incredulous voices, said: “How can Neville have a baby?” He didn’t argue the point, but simply produced the evidence: an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Now, I didn’t give birth to a child; the child is but a sign. Scripture tells us: “This shall be a sign unto you. You shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.” The babe is a sign that God is born. That his power is born on a higher level of his own being. God buried himself and then raised himself, and the evidence that he rose is called a birth, of which a child is the symbol. A little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes is a sign unto you that Spirit was born, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, neither can the perishable inherit the imperishable. If you are to enter the kingdom, you must leave the garment of flesh and blood which you have been wearing throughout the centuries.

So the resurrection is followed by your birth from above. Then come all the other events, which stretch over a period of 3 ½ years as told us in scripture. “When Jesus began his ministry he was thirty years of age, and his ministry lasted 3 ½ years.” It is exactly 1260 days, or 3 ½ years, to the end of the great drama. Then, as told us in the Book of Acts (now in the form of one called Paul), you will remain in the world because the need is great to persuade others of the kingdom of God and of the truth concerning Jesus Christ, and some will be persuaded by what you say, while others will disbelieve.

Then you will depart this world never to return again, for you will have raised yourself to a higher power and know yourself to be the one God and Father of all.

There are not many Christ’s running around. Not many Messiahs, only one. We are all united into that one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all. The word “Jesus” and the word “Jehovah” mean “Jehovah saves” or “Jehovah is salvation” and the only savior recorded in scripture is the Lord. “I am the Lord your God the Holy One of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no savior.” Where is he? Crucified within you. Having limited himself to man by assuming the state of death, God transcends the limitation of this little garment and overcomes death.

Everything in this world waxes, wanes, and vanishes. There is nothing here that is eternal, nothing immortal. We speak of someone having immortality in his architecture or his music, but that is nonsense. This is a world of death where even the most concrete mountain decays. But there is something buried in man that is immortal, destined to overcome his self-imposed limitation. And when he rises in you, you are the one who is rising. And when the union takes place, it is not another. Without loss of identity you will wear the garment of the Risen Christ. Without loss of identity every child born of woman will wear the one garment of the Risen Christ.

Don’t ask me to explain the mystery of how one can contain all, but it does. You might just as well as ask how your body can contain billions of cells, or your brain billions of atoms – I don’t know. How can I say that my own loins contain as many children as I am capable of siring? They all come from me, yet they seem to be many bodies when they enter this world; but in the end they will all be gathered back into the one body.

Now a fragmented one, when you are regathered into the one body you are far greater than you were prior to the fragmentation, for truth is an ever increasing illumination. There is no such thing as ultimate truth. If that were true it would be stagnation. Truth is forever increasing, and so is power and so is wisdom.

God buried his creative seed in you and as it begins to awaken you are transformed in consciousness. As we are told in Philippians: “He will change my lowly body to be of one form with his glorious body.” This is done when Christ is formed in you. Your lowly body is transformed to be of one form with his glorious body, for as he is formed in you he is your very self. And when you are raised from the dead you must be he, for only the Lord is raised. You are told: “God raised the Lord, and we are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ within us.” If Jesus Christ is within, and I am born anew through his resurrection, and I do not see another but know I resurrected, then I have found him – not as another, but as my own wonderful human imagination. Now put him to the test.

Let me give you something tonight to put your mental teeth into. A friend of mine who is here tonight told me of an experience he had in a dream. He was an actor, playing the part and wearing the costume of a Greek. In the scene he was to be shot, and the actor who was to shoot him was told to use a blank, but this night the bullet was real. As he fell to the floor, he rose from that body, completely restored to life and said: “Why that S.O.B. -he shot me!” Then he awoke.

Last week Milton Berle’s nephew, a fine young lad in his twenties, was simulating the catching of a car thief. (It was a drama, too, for it was not an actual event). The deputy didn’t know his gun was loaded, but as Berle – now playing the part of the thief – began to run as directed, the deputy pulled his gun and shot him.

Now, if it would give the boy’s family any comfort, I would tell them that their son has experienced the resurrection. He has experienced the birth from above. He has experienced the Fatherhood of God by the discovery of the only begotten Son, David, who calls him Father, and is now waiting for the final curtain – in the form of a dove – to descend. I say this, for if the taking of innocent blood results in redemption (as it does in my friend’s case), then the killing of young Berle also results in redemption.

If one could only see that everything in this world is moving for good because God planned it all. “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. I will not turn back until all that I have planned is perfectly fulfilled.” That’s what we are told in scripture. And all things work for good to those who love the Lord, and I am quite sure the young boy attended some form of synagogue or church and there was a measure of love there.

If one goes into battle to kill and be killed, that’s not innocent blood. But when someone innocently walks by – perhaps in a protest march – and someone kills him, his is innocent blood. He had no intention of killing anyone, but walked unarmed when shot. Now, what a blessing this seeming disaster would be if this innocent blood results in redemption, which is a complete lifting up and raising oneself from this wheel of recurrence, this eternal death!

So I tell you: the Lord Jesus Christ wakes in you, and when he wakes, you are he, for in the end there is Jesus only. Climbing the mountain you see Moses – the prototype of the law, and Elijah – the prototype of the promise. But when you return from the mountaintop, now fully awake, the prototype of both the law and the promise have vanished, and you walk knowing yourself to be the embodiment and fulfillment of all law and prophecy; so in the end there is Jesus only, and you are he.

There is nothing but Jesus, who is Jehovah. It is he who is playing all the parts, for there is nothing but God. So in the end everyone will awake, for everyone is that being who is the Elohim, the compound unity of one made up of others. We are the gods who agreed to the unity of dreaming in concert. That’s the oneness. Here is the dreamer, the assemblage of the gods in perfect agreement. In one consciousness we agree to the play and become fragmented, but only the one God is playing all the parts. You say, “I am” before you say anything and I say, “I am” before I say “Neville”. If your name is John, before you say, “John” you say, “I am.” That’s the name of God. He has no other name.

You can’t divide I am, yet you do see it fragmented when you see another. You may look at a fragmentation, but you cannot divide I am. How can you? “Go and tell them that I am is my name forever. This is the name by which I shall be known throughout all generations.” You can’t divide it! You may ask a question and a seeming other may answer, but their reply comes from a source who says, “I am” Grace, “I am” Jan, “I am” Paul, or “I am” Bill. All responses precede the mask they wear by saying “I am”, so in the end there is only one God, only One, nothing but God!

This wonderful story is true. I am speaking, not from hearsay or speculation. I am not theorizing, but telling you what I know from experience. I am like Paul; I must remain and tell it because of the need, and I tell it from morning ‘till night, and some will believe while others disbelieve. But when I go, those who believe will continue the message and the others will eventually believe. No one will be lost, for in the end everyone will be redeemed, because if one is gone, the whole is not put together. There will be a missing part in the puzzle, and no one worthy of the name of God would leave a piece out. He can’t push it in; he has to make it fit as it ought to. Everything has to fit, for in the beginning was a plan and in the end the plan will be fulfilled. All will awaken to the knowledge that they are God. There is nothing but God.

But no one can become conscious on the higher level by any good work that he does. You can’t earn it. There is no such thing as accumulating merit; it’s simply “God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.” Each in his own good time. We are all gathered together, one after the other, but each in his own good time. There is a plan to the entire thing, and the will of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. “In the latter days” (as told us in the Book of Jeremiah) “you will understand it perfectly.” You will see how everything was done according to a definite plan.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

I AM IN YOU

Neville Goddard 09-30-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityAs Paul said to Timothy: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion.” Scripture is not secular history, but a mystery which is most important that we understand!

Speaking to his disciples, Jesus said: “In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me and I in you.” (John 14) The phrase “in that day” is an eschatological term meaning, “at the end of the journey.” In other words, when this age of Caesar comes to its end, you will experience the truth of scripture, and – understanding – you will say: “I am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you.”

It is in you, as a person, that the nature of God reveals himself in a series of supernatural experiences. When these take place in a first person, singular, present tense experience, all arguments, doubts, and questions regarding your true identity are hushed. From that moment on, like Paul, you will say: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood. I did not receive my gospel from a man. I was not taught it. It came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

While in Barbados this summer, my sister asked if my Christ was once a man. My answer to her undoubtedly was the same Paul gave when asked a similar question. I said: “Was? He is the heavenly man!” Then quoting Paul I said: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

Do not think of Christ as some little boy who was born in some strange manner two thousand years ago. We are dealing with a cosmic principle, where God actually became man that man may become God.

The process has started. Resurrection has begun, but it is not over. Those who teach that the resurrection is over are misleading the faithful, for – like Paul – everyone can say: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Henceforth I regard no one from a human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.”

I have stood in the presence of the Risen Lord. I leave seen the Ancient of Days, who is gathering us one by one into his body to become one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

You, as a person, will not be less than the Risen Lord, for there is only one Spirit. There is only one Lord and you will know yourself to be He! No one will be above you. I AM the same body, the same Lord, the same Spirit, the same God and Father of all. Without loss of identity, we will all know ourselves to be this one unity of being. We will know from experience that I AM in you and you are in me!

When I had finished explaining this to Daphne, I don’t think she was any more impressed than that chair over there. It takes time, but it is so important for you to let go of all intermediaries between yourself and God!

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is the first book in the New Testament. In this letter, Paul declares his independence from men and his dependence upon God. He repudiates all authorities, all institutions, all customs, all laws that interfere with the individual’s direct access to his God. Paul had no intermediary. He never knew a human Christ, only the Risen Lord, who appeared to him as he appeared to me.

In my own case, I was taken in Spirit into the presence of the Risen Lord, and – strangely enough – when he asked me what was the greatest thing in the world, I answered in the words of Paul. So I ask you: who is Paul? Is he not the first of the chosen who broke the seal and discovered the mystery which was shown to Abraham?

Paul persecuted everyone who claimed to be a member of the way, when suddenly the revelation broke, causing him to proclaim the truth. It was Paul who said: “If I have been united with Christ in a death like his, I shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Paul did not claim that the resurrection was over. He states that the crucifixion is over, because the garment of flesh is worn by one who is crucified. God chose you in him before the foundation of the world. We will be united with him in a resurrection like his – not because of any acquired merit on our part, but because he chose to be united to us in a death like his.

You were chosen in him before the drama we call the world began. And any suffering you may go through here means nothing. Paul knew this, and said: “I consider the sufferings of the present time not worth comparing to the glory which is to be revealed in us.”

Now, the Old [sic] Testament tells us: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwells in us.” The Greek word logos (translated as “Word”) means “meaning; a plan; a plot; a purpose.” Here we see that God had a plan, a purpose – which was to give himself to you one hundred per cent. This he has done; so whatever he was before he became you, you will know yourself to be.

It is in you, as a person, that the nature of God reveals himself. This you will know when you experience the entire story of the Lord Jesus Christ in the first person, present tense. Then when you tell those who love you, they will not believe you, because they know your weaknesses and limitations.

Knowing you are not schooled in theology, they cannot see the relationship between you and the one spoken of in the seventh chapter of John: “How does this man have such learning seeing as how he has never studied?” Like the Sanhedrin, they will not understand how a man with no learning could claim that the Old Testament had been fulfilled in him.

The prophets foretold of the coming of God, but they did not say how. Having taken upon himself man’s nature, God unfolds his nature in man, and man becomes God. If God was a father prior to choosing you, and he becomes you – are you not a father? Yes, but there is no way to prove this, unless God’s son appears to identify you. Only when God’s son unfolds within you, will you know that you are God.

Only the Risen Christ is aware of his true identity. It is he who says: “I am in you and you are in me, Lo we are one.” The Risen Christ is the eternal heavenly man, who is God. You are a man. Learn to adore your own humanity, who is God. Man is looking for some impersonal force to worship, but God is man!

When I stood in his presence, I answered his question in the words of Paul. Since then I have asked myself: who is Paul? Was he not the beginner of the Christian faith? Our New Testament records thirteen of his letters, all written twenty years prior to the gospels.

In his first letter to the Galatians, Paul went out on a limb by declaring his independence from all organizations. That was in the day when you could not get a job unless you were a member of the synagogue; yet Paul refused to accept any intermediary between himself and the Risen Lord, whom he had persecuted in his blindness.

One day the Risen Christ will bring you into his presence. He will incorporate you into his body by an embrace from which you will be one forever and ever. This I know from experience.

So when I tell you I am in you, I mean it literally, for I am one with the Risen Christ. I am speaking the words of the Risen Christ, not Neville. After we embraced, he sent me, yet he has never separated himself from me. How can I be one with the body who sent me? Because “He who sees me, sees him who sent me.”

Limited to the concept of three-dimensional space, we think of being sent out of the room while the sender remains; but in the Spirit world of which I speak, when one is united with the Lord he becomes one with him in spirit.

Dwell upon this being who became you. Return to the point of being chosen before that the world was. Try to remember when he made known unto you the mystery of his plan which gives meaning to your life – this mystery which was set forth in Christ for the fullness of time.

The Word, giving meaning to the world, was with God and was God. That meaning is Christ, a plan which cannot fail to fulfill its purpose, which is to unfold and reveal you as God. Walking this earth right now, you are God’s Word, moving towards fulfillment.

Now, while we are here waiting for God’s plan to unfold, we should continue to apply God’s law. Here is a simple story. My friend wrote, saying: “When my little boy was quite young, as a family we called the Sears’ Christmas catalog, the “Wish Book”. Our son would spend hours looking through the pages of toys, deciding what he wanted for Christmas. This we have done for the past eight years. I am enclosing a card advertising the current issue of that catalog. As you will see, it is now called “The Sears Wish Book!”

Whoever has that account thinks this is an original idea, yet my friend knows she is its creator. You see, there is no fiction. How can there be fiction in a world where imagining creates reality? For eight years her son has known the catalog to be a wish book, and now that has become its official name. If something you have imagined is delayed producing its reality for you, keep this story in mind.

I know we are all children and want our desires instantly fulfilled, but countries plan for unborn generations. Parents with large estates plan, not only for the present little ones, but for the offsprings of their offsprings.

You and I, however, are anxious and find it difficult to wait. Time and time again, ladies have told me they wanted to be married now, only to confess they are not yet divorced. I have heard them say there was only one man.
Either that man or no man, yet they have married another. What they really wanted was to be happily married. Claiming it had to be that man, I have asked: “If he dropped dead right now would you still have the urge for companionship? If you would, then he is not the only man.”

Know what you want in life and do not condition it. If your desire is to be happily married, claim you are. Wanting a certain home, claim you have it. Don’t think you cannot afford it, simply play the wishing game.

Find your desire in God’s wish book. Speaking to you through the medium of desire, make your desire real by feeling its truth. View the world from its fulfillment. Lose yourself in the feeling of possession and give it all the tones of reality. Fulfill every desire as you walk towards the fulfillment of your real purpose in life, which is to awaken God in you.

You are not going to become a little god to run around with other little gods, for there is only one God. Don’t forget the great Sh’ma: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” You are destined to awaken as that one God and Father of all.

When I awoke in this simple little thing called man, I wondered how this mortal being could bear such responsibility. Housed in this garment of flesh called Neville, aware of all of its weaknesses, God’s purpose has unfolded; yet I have no way to prove it to anyone.

I cannot convince you unless you have faith. I have shared my experiences in the written form, giving passages of scripture to support them. Having reached the end of the journey, I now know from experience that we enter human history to fulfill scripture.

I tell you: the story of Christ is an acted parable, a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears (or reads) it to discover the fictitious character and learn its meaning.

In the parable the actor takes a little child in his arms and says: “This is the kingdom of heaven. Unless you accept the kingdom as a little child, you cannot enter it.” One day you will be that actor, and the little child in your arms will symbolize your entrance into heaven. It is a signal of God’s birth – not from the womb of a woman, but from the skull of man, where God is crucified. His name is I AM. And when you awaken you will say, I AM awake. You will not look around for any other, for you will be alone; and from then on scripture will fulfill itself within you.

In the not distant future you will depart this world to discover that death will force you to modify, or radically change, any ideas which you have championed here. I received a notice today that my good friend, Randy, died. In 1952, while recuperating from a serious operation, Randy came to the hospital to visit me. He was my physician as well as my friend, but was not aware of what I teach. Seeing the Bible I had brought with me, Randy questioned my interest in it.

Taking the story of Esau and Jacob, I told him how Esau represented my outer world. That I could close my eyes to it and clothe Jacob (who represented what I wanted clothed in outer reality) with the skins of Esau. Believing in the reality of what I am doing, I deceive myself into believing that my subjective state is now an objective reality.

Well, to Randy that was not religion. To him religion meant going to church every Sunday morning and spending an hour there. That was something to be done, like walking with a cane because you had one and felt undressed without it. His week was not complete unless he went to church on Sunday. Randy has been gone now a few weeks and, undoubtedly is now modifying his beliefs – but it will take time.

You do not awaken there as some wise person. If you are foolish here, you are foolish there. If you are a thief here, you are a thief there. If a man is not a thief, no matter what is put before him he would not take it; therefore there is no temptation, no desire to change. Place all the liquor in the world before a man who does not drink and he will not be tempted. All of the world’s tobacco will not interest a man who does not smoke, therefore there is no temptation.

When a man is regenerated, he is no longer in the world of generation. Everyone could undress before him, yet he would not be tempted, because his energies have been turned up into regeneration.

Everyone will be regenerated and overcome without effort, for when the visions happen, you change. Change does not occur prior to the visions, because fitness is the consequence – not the condition – of the kingdom of heaven. You are not chosen because of your acquired merit. The minute the vision takes place, the consequence has occurred.

When you read the words of Christ in the New Testament, think of the Risen Christ, for the heavenly man is speaking. We are all rising into the one body of Christ without loss of identity. I will know you better and more intimately there than I could ever know you here, for the mask we wear here causes a barrier between us. But in the New Age we will be intimate eternal brothers, all sharing the one body as the one Spirit, the one Lord, the one God and Father of all.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

I AM THE CAUSE

Neville Goddard 10-19-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityAccording to a rabbical principle, that which is not written in scripture is non-existent. The story of Jesus Christ follows this principle.

The unknown author of the Book of Luke (like all the others) wrote only of his own experiences. Turning to his disciplined mind in self contemplation, he is Jesus turning to his disciples and saying: “`Scripture must be fulfilled in me. All that is written about me must be fulfilled.’ Beginning with Moses and the prophets, and the psalms he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they said to one another, `Did not our hearts burn while he opened to us the scriptures?’ Then he said to them, `Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” Luke is speaking of the Christ in you, for any Christ coming from without is a false Christ, taught by false teachers.

Peter tells us: “Scoffers will come in the last days scoffing and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? Forever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.”‘ Certainly they do. Graft, war, dirty politics, poverty – you name it, everything will continue forever in this age; so do not look for signs of his coming in the outer world, as this age will continue producing poverty, graft, war, and unlovely things. But when Christ comes it is like a thief in the night. When you least expect it, Christ awakens within you to reveal yourself to yourself.

“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,” for when the Son appears he reveals God as his Father. Until God’s son reveals himself in Man, Man searches on the outside to discover how things are made, but he cannot find the Maker. Our world is God’s handiwork, as told us in the 19th Psalm: “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork.” Our scientists have discovered how to go to the moon, from which they returned with earth. Then they analyzed it and discovered it to be dead. No matter where man goes he will discover that everything is dead, for God’s handiwork is here and here alone. But, no matter how much his handiwork is analyzed, it will not reveal its maker.

Today three of our citizens received the Nobel Prize for their great work in trying to analyze this wonderful land of ours. They will find many wonderful things about it, but they will never find its maker. He comes only when the individual finds the Son, for it is God’s Son who reveals his maker. I tell you: the Bible is all about you. It is your own personal, spiritual biography. Every child born of woman is recorded in the Bible – not as John Brown or Mary Smith – but as Jesus Christ; for he is the child’s true being, and the Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint of his life.

When you read the 9th chapter of Isaiah, you may wonder what it is all about, but may I tell you nothing could be truer. Listen carefully: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called `Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” These revelations do not come in the order the prophets recorded them (or some scribe changed); but the names are true and are revealed in perfect order.

The first name given to you when you fell asleep was “El Shaddai” which means “God Almighty, or Mighty God”. But one day you will awaken! Now completely individualized, you will feel a vibration so great you will think you are going to die; but far from dying, the vibration will awaken you from your long, long sleep. You will awaken within yourself to discover that you have been entombed there for unnumbered centuries. You may not know how you got there and why, but I’ll tell you: you went voluntarily. No one took your life, you laid it down yourself.

You have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again. You deliberately entered the human skull and laid yourself down to dream the dream of life. Mystics claim you have been dreaming there for 6000 years. I have had no vision to support such a time interval, but I can say that when it happened to me I felt as though I had been entombed for unnumbered ages. For a moment I wondered how I got there, and then I remembered scripture: “He is not dead, but sleepeth, I go to awaken him.” One day you, too, will hear the voice of the Son of God and awaken from your sleep of death, for when God sends his Son into your heart crying, “Father,” you will hear it and awaken from your long, self-imposed sleep.

It takes an enormous power for Mighty God to stir himself and awaken to find the symbol of his birth as that of a child. You may think the child that is born and the son which is given are one and the same, but they are not. The son appears 139 days later. It is he who reveals you as God, the Maker and creator of it all. Prior to that moment in time you – like a scientist – look outside of yourself for the cause of all life; but when David – God’s only begotten son – comes from within and calls you Father, you have found the cause. And when your son reveals you as the Father, the cause of all life, you will bear the name Everlasting Father.

Now, the third great revelation is that of Wonderful Counselor. And in scripture the Wonderful Counselor is associated with a serpent. Referred to as the wisest of all of God’s creations, it was the serpent who suggested eating of the tree of knowledge. And when told he would die, the serpent said; “No, you will not truly die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The Wonderful Counselor did not lie, for believing himself to be you, he experienced death but did not really die.

Even though we depart this world and seem to die, we don’t. Instead we are restored to life in a world just like this, to continue our journey for unnumbered centuries.

Now, in the same 3rd chapter of Genesis, the Lord said to the gods: “Behold the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil,” just as the serpent said he would. Only by coming down into this world of experience can you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and become as the gods. So we see the 3rd title, Wonderful Counselor, has much to do with the serpent. We are told that: “No one ascends into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the son of man; and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.” When you read these words they do not make sense, but when you experience them – and you will – the third title of Wonderful Counselor is conferred upon you.

Your eyes will be opened then, and you will know good and evil from experience. You will know that you will not die, but will return to the heavenly state from which you – the son of man – descended. And you will ascend like a fiery serpent.

Now, the serpent of scripture is described in the 6th chapter of the Book of Isaiah as the seraphim which surround the throne of God. The seraphim is [sic], by definition, a fiery being with human face, human voice, and human hands. Isaiah gives him six wings: two to cover his face, to cover his feet (which is a euphemism for his creative organs) and he flies with two; but beyond that, this heavenly being, the wisest of all God’s creations, is not described. This is your true identity, for you are the gods who came down.

You are not some little amoeba which came out of the mud; you came down from heaven and emptied yourself of all that you were in order to assume the limitations and weaknesses of the human flesh. You are not pretending that you are man; you became man by assuming poverty, though you were rich. You assumed weakness, though you were strong. You – an infinite being – assumed all these things for their experience. The whole vast world declares your glory, but only here on this little earth is this wonderful work revealed.

Before we came here we were brothers, and one day we will awaken and return to our brotherhood as God the Father, of which it takes all of the brothers to form.

Now the 4th title, Prince of Peace, is sent in the form of a dove. This does not physically happen to you, and when it happens you are the only one who knows it. Read the first chapter, the 10th verse of the Gospel of Mark carefully, and you will see that only the one upon whom the dove descended was aware of it: “When he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens open and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove.” You are destined to have this experience as the fourth title, the Prince of Peace, is conferred upon you. You will bear the four titles, and in so doing you will fulfill scripture. Having foretold it you came down to fulfill it within yourself.

The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. He is God’s word which cannot return to God empty, but must accomplish that which he purposed and prosper in the thing for which it was sent. You are God’s word which was in the beginning. You were not only with God, you were God. Then you fragmented into many sons, and it takes all of the sons to form the Father.

You came into this world to experience its horrors, not to change them. Our politicians promise to eliminate war and poverty, yet admit that they have sold over 13 billion dollars in conventional arms to poverty-ridden nations, as have the communist world. Our politicians have forced nations who can’t afford to feed themselves, to buy what we are manufacturing.

Then, with a pious look, ask people to sign papers to stop war. But you can’t stop it. This world was never intended to be other than what it is: a world of poverty, a world of war, a world of dirty politics, a world of graft. Just read the papers and you will see what is taking place in high places. You aren’t going to change it; it will go on and on because the story of Christ is one of redemption. He redeems himself by lifting himself out of this world in a spiral motion.

This world is based upon a circular principle which repeats itself over and over again, whereas redemption is based upon a spiral principle. Breaking away from the wheel of recurrence, one moves up in a spiral motion – like the seraphim – and is redeemed. We are told that: “As the lightening shines from the east to the west so will the coming of the son of man.”

People are looking for lightening to strike on the outside, but it strikes within. Your head is the Mount of Olives, and your body is that which is split from east to west. One half moves north as one half moves south, leaving a great valley. At the base of your spine you will see a pool of golden, liquid, pulsing light which is the blood of God. Fusing with it, you ascend into your skull like a fiery serpent and your skull reverberates like thunder.

I am telling you what you are going to experience, whether you can accept it or not and I know that you will never disprove it. I have awakened you, momentarily, but you may fall back to sleep again and continue your dream, of which you are its sole author. It’s very easy to be caught up in the reality that you, yourself, are making, even though what you see may frighten you.

You may have many horrors in your dream and believe what you are seeing is a reality outside of yourself and beyond your control, but you alone are writing the script. Haven’t you had a dream where you were scared to death, not knowing you were its cause? The same thing is happening in the waking dream, but man does not know that this, too, is a dream, until he awakes from it in the manner of which I have told you.

One night as you sleep, something will arouse you and you will awaken to find yourself in your skull. You know it is your grave, where only the dead are placed; but you know yourself to be very much alive. Someone must have thought you dead to have placed you there, or you may have entered the place voluntarily and fell asleep to such depth that others thought you were dead. But when the time was fulfilled you heard the cry of the son of God which awakened you, and as you come out of that tomb you are born from above. This is essential, for unless you are born from above you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Everyone is in this world because he is born from below (from the womb of woman), but while here he must be born from above (from the skull). That which comes out has no mother, no father, no beginning of days, or ending of days; for that which is born from the skull is aware of being the Maker of all. You will discover this great truth only when God’s son stands before you and reveals you to yourself.

This tiny planet appears as only a speck when viewed from outer space, yet it is so important; for only here can this biological experiment which expands the power of God and the wisdom of God be cradled. Without this world, God could not grow in wisdom. He would be stagnant if he could not expand beyond what he is. God is an ever increasing illumination, an ever increasing creative power, an ever increasing wisdom and – by reason of this one little speck called earth, where he wears these little garments of mortality – God is holding to the promise he made himself: to awaken within himself and fulfill the play recorded in scripture.

The story of Christ is not what the world is talking about. He isn’t going to change the world. Tomorrow’s generation may think it will be different, but poverty will exist then as it does now. There will be changes in passion and eventually they will return to what they were. It’s like a wheel. It’s a circular principle where nothing changes. The individual changes only when he leaves the wheel in a spiral motion, and that is when he is redeemed. He returns to the world from which he came, enhanced by reason of his experience of death in this world called earth.

The principle of the rabbis is true, so let me repeat it: What is not written in scripture is non-existent. The presidents, kings, and dictators of the world are not recorded in scripture; therefore they are nonexistent. They are merely parts God is playing as he passes through states. The part of a president, a king, or a dictator is a state, and when entered it is animated. It seems so real to its occupant and to those who observe it, but it is only a state.

You can play any part – be it a rich man or a poor man, a beggar or a thief, the known or unknown – once you know they are only parts, only states of consciousness. But if you don’t know this, and are not willing to give up your present state, you will remain there, looking at your desire and not from it. You can become what you would like to be in the twinkle of an eye by the simple act of assumption.

And the day you dare to remain faithful to your assumption, it will begin to externalize itself. And when it does you may return to sleep, just as you do in your night dreams. Becoming possessed by the dream you created in your sleep, you observe your own creation; and if it is a noble dream, you can become so puffed up in your own concept that you forget its creator. Or you can create something ignoble and become so immersed in it you believe in its reality. Anything can be created by a mere assumption. When I dared to assume I was the man I wanted to be, I did not discuss it with others; I simply persisted in my assumption and watched it harden into fact. That persistent act taught me that this world was a dream.

My oldest brother at the age of 18 had no money and no prospects of getting any. But he had a dream. He dreamed of owning a building which housed the family business. Twice a day, on his way to work and return, he would stop opposite a building which occupied an entire block at the widest area of the main street, and there he would imagine seeing the words: Goddard and Sons” on its marquee.

He persisted in this act for two years, when one day a total stranger bought the building for the family, trusting them to pay him back over a period of ten years. That building, which became the foundation of our family’s growth, started in my brother’s imagination. Having nothing on the outside to turn to, my brother had the guts to imagine and believe that his imagination would create his reality. Today I don’t think you could buy the family out for multiple millions, because their gross business last year exceeded $30 million.

Do as my brother did and discover the depth of God in you. Test your imagination, for there is no other God. If you test him and discover that it is he who creates all things by producing tangible proof of his reality in what you did, then no one will be able to persuade you that what happened was a coincidence.

My brother lived by and built his fortune on imagination’s foundation. Of course, having created such a vast enterprise he may go to sleep and believe his one thousand employees are the cause of his incredible wealth. We are all inclined to forget that we are the makers of all that is happening, and – forgetting – we blame our dream. The world is yourself pushed out; but it is so easy to place the blame on an aspect of self rather than on you, the dream’s maker.

Learn to use your imagination consciously, for it will not fail you on this level or on the higher level. But you cannot depart this world by changing your thoughts. It will happen in the fullness of time, when the Father in you who fell asleep begins to stir. Then he awakens you, and when he does, you – Mighty God – will receive the name and carry the special powers of Everlasting Father, Wonderful Counselor, and Prince of Peace. And of your reign there shall be no end, for you will know yourself to be the Jesus Christ men worship outwardly.

The ministers of this world are talking about His coming, trying to interpret signs on the outside. But I tell you, Jesus does not come at the end of human history, for he comes individually. Tonight one of you could experience his coming. No one knows but the Father in you. Ever since that Father fell asleep all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation. So don’t look for any change on the outside.

When the politicians promise change, don’t argue; smile as you have through the centuries, knowing they aren’t going to change anything. The world is made up of infinite states which man falls into unwittingly – or deliberately, as my brother did. He was a poor boy who deliberately moved into the state of wealth. Not knowing how it was going to come about, he simply persisted in his assumption and it hardened into fact.

Do you like what the mirror reflects back to you and your background tells you? If it is not what you would like to live with, don’t accept it. Rather, look into the mirror of your mind and assume that you are what you would like to be. Declaring that you are now it, don’t look away and forget the image reflected there, but persist in your assumption. Live in that awareness morning, noon and night as though it were true, and no power can stop you from experiencing its truth.

This is a world of effects, as told us in the Book of James. If you look into the mirror and, seeing yourself, you turn away and forget what manner of man you look like, you will continue to perpetuate your unlovely state. But if you look into the mirror of your mind and – seeing what you desire to see, continue thinking from that state, you will see it reflect itself in your world. Then one day you will depart the world and return to the world from which you descended, for you are the Elohim, the God spoken of in the scriptures.

Do not be afraid to claim your birthright. An outside God never existed; therefore, don’t make little images of him and stick them on your wall to worship. Is there any cross or image of Jesus Christ in the world that wasn’t made by a man?

There is no description of a person called Jesus Christ, yet there are unnumbered pictures of him throughout the Christian world and people bow before that which is made by human hands. Read the 115th Psalm and see what the psalmist said about any image bowed to as some power that can help or hinder: “They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound out of their throat. Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them.” If anyone should say: “Look, there he is, or here he is,” believe him not; for when the Father of all life appears, you shall know him because you will be one with him!

The Bible is all about you, and you are here in the final picture to fulfill that which you dictated before you came down. The prophets you inspired were only organs of revelation. And God’s son, by his very nature reveals God as his father. So when God’s only begotten son stands before you and reveals you as his father, are you not God the Father? This I know from personal experience. I am not speculating. I am not theorizing. I did not hear it from a man, nor was I taught it.

Like Paul, it came through a revelation of the true meaning of Jesus Christ. It’s all in scripture and everyone will experience it. And when we take off these garments and rise, you and I – as the brothers who have returned – will be in a state of ecstasy, for we will all have the same son. If your son is my son, and our son is his son, are we not one father? There aren’t multiple sons – only one. We are all individualized. We will never lose our individuality, yet we are one in spirit because we have the one son; therefore we are brothers who collectively form God the Father.

Scripture is based upon the principle that the True Man comes here to fulfill. All that is said about the True you in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms, must and will be fulfilled. It is my pleasure and my privilege to open your mind that you may understand scripture. That is all I am here to tell you. But you will never really understand my words until you experience them, and you will.

There is no aristocracy of privilege in this story. We are all one! One is no better than the other. I have awakened from the dream of life. Now I only wait for others to awaken. There is nothing I want more than the awakening of all, because without all, the Father is not complete. So I tell my story over and over until everyone hears it and sets their hope fully upon this wonderful story that one day must erupt within them.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

I AM THE LORD

Neville Goddard 02-21-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality“I am the LORD and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make weal and create woe. I, the LORD, do all these things.” (Isaiah 45) Then John tells us, “As He is, so are we in this world.” Although man is taught the God who creates the weal and the woe is someone other than himself, scripture tells us that as God is, so are we!

The story of Jesus Christ, as well as all of the miracles recorded in the New Testament, are acted parables. In the Book of Luke we find Jesus, now twelve years of age, going up to Jerusalem for the Passover. When the feast ended, his parents – thinking Jesus was in the caravan – did not seek him out until the day was past. After searching for him for three days, when they found him in the temple, his father said: “Son, how could you do this to us? Do you not realize we have been seeking you anxiously?” And Jesus replied: “How is it that you sought me? Do you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Here is Christ declaring God to be his father, while his parents, standing before him, do not understand. If you are seeking the cause of the phenomena of your life among your kinsfolk, your acquaintances, or teachers, you will never find it; for you are God’s temple, and the spirit of God dwells in you. The cause of the phenomena of your life is not on the outside, but in your own wonderful human imagination. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? I tell you, the only place you will ever find him is within!

The life of Jesus is a pattern which will unfold in you, an individual, when you discover yourself to be the cause of your life; for as He is, so are you in this world. Our religious leaders teach Christ as someone on the outside who is different; who overcame, and is now living elsewhere; yet Christ in you is your hope of glory, for as He is, you are!

In his book, Luke tells the parable of Jesus, who – upon entering a boat with his disciples, falls asleep as they set sail. When a storm wind descended upon the lake they woke him, saying: “Master we are perishing.” Then He rebuked the wind, and the raging waves became quiet, and there was a great calm. I tell you: the one who fell asleep caused the storm, and is the same being as the one who – upon awakening – quells it; for there is no other.

In this world Christ is asleep, and the wars, confusions, depressions, and horrors, appear because of his dreams. And the world will know no peace, happiness, wealth, or joy, until Christ awakes. If you are unaware of your imaginal activity, you are asleep relative to it. You could be dreaming noble, lovely dreams or ignoble ones; but whatever you dream, Christ will externalize. Man is the ark of God in which Christ – God’s creative power – is contained. I am the ark of God, not a phantom of the earth and sea. I am the ship in which Christ sleeps as he dreams the storms of my life. And when He awakes, I will know calm and weal. Your own wonderful human imagination is Jesus Christ. Now individualized as John, Mary, Sam, or Sue, you are Christ’s outer projection, surrounded by woes and weals because of his dreams. God, as your imagination, can never be so far off as even to be near, for the nearness implies separation. Wherever you are, I am! To say: “I am” is near, is to claim God is another – but there is no other. You and God are one, for He is your wonderful human imagination!

A friend recently shared this vision with me. As he observed buildings, trees, and houses round about him, he realized they were caused by tiny magnetic seeds which were clustered about his feet. As he scraped them off, they instantly reformed themselves to produce automatic changes in his world. What a wonderful experience! In the 40th Psalm we read: “He lifts me up from the pit, out of the miry bog and places my feet upon the Rock.” Here we see the foot, the symbol of God’s creative power, is lifted up and placed upon the Rock – the human imagination! His vision is showing him that he has now become aware of the only causation, and has placed his creative power upon that Rock. In this 40th Psalm the statement is made: “In the volume of the book it is written about me.” My friend’s vision reveals that he has come to that point. That everything which appears magnified on the outside is caused by magnetic seeds around his feet. This is true; for the world is nothing more than a magnified shadow, caused by the magnetic seed called Man. Although the world appears to be large and overpowering, its causation is the power observing it.

Man is the ark of God and everything is contained within him. Asleep, the storms rage; but when man awakes, the stormy seas will be no more.

There is quite a difference between being awake to your imaginal activities and being asleep to them. Awake, you can trace the event taking place on the outside to an imaginal act; but asleep you will find someone or something on the outside to be its cause. But causation is within the one observing the effect. Causation is symbolized as the foot in the 40th and 69th Psalms, as well as in the 10th [chapter] of Romans. In the end, man will overcome and put all things under his foot.

My friend saw the clusters of magnetic seeds around his feet. Although he tried to scrape them off, they reappeared. As Blake said: “The oak is cut down by the ax and the lamb is slain by the knife, but their forms eternal remain forever, returning by the seed of contemplative thought.”

Our world is the storm spoken of in the 8th chapter of Luke. Having entered our body, we have fallen asleep to our creative power. But when we discipline our mind, we quell the storms. The disciples of scripture are disciplined aspects of the mind. Once your five senses are so disciplined you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, only what you desire, then you quell the storms of doubt and fear within you, for you know who you are. No longer will you seek the phenomena of life among your kinsfolk or acquaintances; for when you awaken, you find life in the temple. The world is always looking for new teachers on the outside, when there is nothing there but shadows. Christ is not another. You are Christ, as he is your very self! You will find him, and when you do, you will know that you are God; for a series of events will unfold within you and you will bear witness to your own fatherhood.

I have often thought that the doctrine of the trinity should have been the doctrine of the being, for the trinity is difficult for man to grasp. It’s easier to speak of the doctrine of revealed Christianity as a unity, than as a trinity. When David stands before you as your son, there will be no more trinity. You and I are one when my son David calls you father! Then you will know that everyone in the world is that same being, as they will all have the same son. This is the great doctrine of the unity.

My old friend Ab always began his classes with the statement: “Praise be to that unity which is our unity.” He knew that although we are a diversity of faces, completely individualized, we are the same father of God’s one and only son, who will reveal himself to all, individually, thereby proving our unity of being.

Every scriptural miracle is an acted parable. It is imagination who enters the boat called man and falls asleep in order for the journey of life to begin. Then the financial, marital, physical storms arise according to man’s dreams. He could dream of something lovely and know healthy, happy storms. But if he does not know that the cause of the weal is his imaginal activity, he will continue to dwell in the storms of life until the disciples rouse him to remembrance.

Awake, you are aware of the thoughts you are creating every moment of time, and carry this awareness into your dream world. You will not falter, for – knowing the world you want to build and its cause – you will be constantly aware of what you are imagining. You will no longer seek your desires among things, but will turn within to find they are all waiting to be fulfilled in God’s temple.

Now, the numbers three and eight in scripture are always associated with resurrection. We are told that on the third day the earth rose up out of the deep, and in the Book of Exodus it is said that it came to pass on the eighth day. Luke tells us that when Jesus was twelve years of age, his parents searched three days before finding him in the temple, asking and answering his own questions. The number twelve is telling us that he had arrived at the point of creativity. That he has now resurrected and moved into the Father’s house, for when they found him he said: “Why do you seek me? Do you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” Having identified God as his Father, he goes on to claim: “I and my Father are one.”

Today, as in that day, men cannot believe that imagination is the cause of the phenomena of life. They will agree that an artist can imagine a lovely picture and bring it forth on canvas, but they cannot relate the same technique to a toothache. Yet there is only one cause! I, the Lord, am the cause and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. I form light and create darkness. I make weal and create woe. I, the Lord, am he who does all these things.You cannot blame anyone for your misfortune. You could claim a friend betrayed your trust, therein causing your misfortune; but your friend was not the cause, your dream prompted you to confide in your friend. Causation is not on the outside, it comes from within. As you begin to awake, you discover there is only one God, who is your own wonderful human imagination.

My friend saw tiny, magnetic seeds swirling around his feet, causing the outer world to appear so large. These seeds of contemplative thought are so tiny they are often ignored and even scraped off; but awareness causes them to reform themselves instantly to magnify their new formation in the outer world. If imagination’s seeds did not reform themselves, the outer world would vanish and leave not a trace behind; but they do, for the seeds are contained in man. You have the power to rearrange your thought-seeds to produce a different pattern in your outer world. This is done by a change of attitude. Think of the world as different, and as you do, you have scraped off the little magnetic seeds, thereby causing their rearrangement. This is the world in which we live.

Now, when imagination lifts us up from the pit and places our feet upon the Rock, we stand on our own feet. No longer will we stand upon the foot of another, giving the other either our praise or blame. We can, however, be gracious and kind and thank another for the role he played in our drama. But when we stand on our own feet, we realized that everything that happens – be it good, bad or indifferent – is because of our attitude towards life.

Every person, place, or thing, is animated and rearranged from within; for as He is, so are we. A good Christian would call that statement blasphemy; yet I am quoting the first epistle, the fourth chapter of the Book of John: “As he is, so are we in this world.” This thought follows on the heels of the definition of God as love. And because God is love, He will not change your imaginal act, but will allow it to be externalized. If God changed the act, there would be two of you: one who imagines, and one who changes the imaginal act. But, being all love, God instantly plays the parts designated in your imaginal acts and suffers with you because He is dreaming. But one day Love will awaken within your skull. He will resurrect and you will begin the real drama, which is to discover your true identity. Coming out of your immortal skull, all of the imagery of scripture will surround you. The child and the witnesses will be there; but they will not see you, for you will be spirit. While witnessing your spiritual birth, they will speak of you and identify the child as yours, but you will be invisible to their mortal eye. As the great drama unfolds, it appears to take place externally; yet it is within, for you contain eternity within yourself.

If to you a storm is raging remember, it is only raging because you are not aware of your imaginal activity. By disciplining your thoughts, you rise from the sleep of unawareness, and become aware of what you want to imagine. Then the world will change to conform to the change in you. The storm will subside and there will be a perfect calm.

Do not look for God outside of the temple, for you are God’s temple, and the spirit of God dwells in you. Ask the average person where he thinks God’s temple is, and he will point to a synagogue, cathedral, or church; but God does not dwell in houses made with hands. God is spirit and dwells in his living temple! Imagine – and God is acting. Believe in the reality of what you are now imagining! Rearrange those little clusters around the foot, and when they are fixed with feeling, relax in the knowledge that your outer world will conform to the new fixation. Although the world appears external, its reality is within, as you are its creative power, dreaming the world into being; for you are an immortal being, wearing a garment of mortality. One day you will awaken from this fantastic dream, to find yourself enhanced by having experienced the mystery of death.

I ask you now to take the challenge and change your thinking, although I know it is not an easy thing to do. I have known those who so enjoy hating another that they do not want to change. They seem to receive a certain pleasure out of hating and do not realize that they are only hating themselves.

I remember a man in New York City during the Second World War, who claimed he despised Roosevelt. Every morning when the man shaved, he would talk to himself in the mirror, imagining he was telling Roosevelt everything he disliked about him. The gentleman attended my meetings, and when I confronted him with his imaginal acts, he said: “I pay $10 to see a Broadway show which does not give me the joy I receive during that ten minutes in the morning.” Well, this man created his own storm, for the venom that he spewed out every morning returned to him. He lost his New York City home, then went to Florida, where he lost everything there. I tried to tell him to awake, that he was sleeping and only dreaming that Roosevelt was the cause of his world. But he could not believe me. He came from a Germanic background and could not get over the fact that we were at war with Germany. He blamed Roosevelt, even though he knew Germany had declared war on us. He could not see the war as a bad dream, and he was confusing it, making the storm rage by the pleasure he received telling Roosevelt off as he shaved.

It’s entirely up to you what you think. If you want to hate someone, you can augment it through intensity and persistence. The same thing is true if you want to love someone; for your human imagination is the only God you will ever know, and he is in his temple – that temple you are!

The parents (meaning tradition) sought Jesus on the outside, but when they found him within, he said: “Do you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” but they could not understand. When I have told rabbis, preachers, and priests, that I have seen David of Biblical fame, they laugh. And when I go further and tell them that David called me father in fulfillment of the 89th Psalm which states: “I have found David, he has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and Rock of my salvation'”,they stand silent, unable to make the Bible their biography.

As long as you think the Bible is speaking of someone other than yourself, you will never understand it. The entire book, from beginning to end, is all about you, individually. You are the one who will find David. It is you he will call “My Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.” David will literally stand before you as a young man just coming into adolescence. It is the same David who cried out in the Old Testament: “You will not leave me in the pit, in the miry bog.” And you do not. You awaken and, after three days you find him in the temple and scripture is fulfilled.

I tell you: you are an immortal being whose autobiography is recorded in scripture. Having inspired the prophets of the Old Testament, you came into the world to fulfill their words in the New. As the universally diffused individuality, Christ is housed in every child born of woman, bringing him into the world by meditating him into being.

Take the story of my friend seriously. Think of your thoughts as magnetic seeds, invisible and miniature, and the world as bearing witness to their arrangement. And remember: all you need do is rearrange your power-filled thoughts, and you will produce a corresponding rearrangement in your outer world.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

I REMEMBER WHEN

Neville Goddard  4-10-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen I receive a great revelation concerning the creative power of God I cannot keep it to myself, but must share it with all that will listen. Here is one I received many years ago. I found myself, in Spirit, in the interior of a stately mansion in New York City. It was the kind of home the great financial giants lived in at the turn of the century.

Fully awake and aware, I was visible to the three generations who were present. The son spoke to his children saying: ‘Your grandfather would stand on an empty lot and say: I remember when this was an empty lot.’ Then he would paint a word picture of his desire for that lot so vividly that those who heard him could see it completed right before their eyes. This is the grandfather who made the fortune we are now enjoying.”

I awoke, recorded the experience, returned to sleep, and re-dreamed the dream – only this time I was the grandfather. Speaking to those present I said: ‘I remember when this was an empty lot.” Then I pictured the building placed there so vividly the very stones molded themselves into the form I envisioned.

This principle can be used in a destructive or constructive way. You can say: “I remember when this was a glorious building and look at it now” as you become aware of rubble where once a glorious building stood. Or you can stand on rubble and say: “I remember when this was all rubble,” as you imagine a glorious building. You can say: “I remember when my friend had nothing and now he has much,” or: “I remember when he had much and now he is so poor.” You can say: “I remember when she was healthy,” which could imply she is now ill, or “I remember when they were unknown,” implying they are now famous. So you see what power was in that revelation. It’s entirely up to you how you use your imagination, but the operation of your creative power is completely up to you. You make the decision, and are therefore responsible for its effect on the world.

In the 12th chapter of the Book of Numbers, we are told: ‘If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision and I will speak with him in a dream.” A scriptural prophet is not one who tells your fortune, but one who hears the Word of God and fulfills it. If you asked me if I were a prophet I would answer in the affirmative. I am not one who prophesies by looking into a crystal ball, teacup leaves, cards, or astrology, but one who has fulfilled scripture. I know I am the central figure of scripture called ‘the Father.” I came into the world to fulfill scripture and share my revelations, my experiences concerning the power to create.

In this simple way God revealed his power to create, his power to remember when! Having nothing, you can become aware of being surrounded by wealth, and feeling wealthy you can say: ‘I remember when I had nothing.” Does that statement not imply that the state of poverty no longer exists for you? I remember when I was unknown. I remember when I couldn’t sell a book. I remember when I couldn’t sell anything I wrote. I remember when. Now you fill in the events, the desires and the fulfillments. I remember when. Do not those words imply memory?

In the first vision I heard of memory, but in the second vision I experienced it. As I stood on a vacant lot I remembered, and as I did a fabulous structure took form. And the dream was doubled, affirming that it was fixed, that the law was established by the Lord as told us in the 41st chapter of the Book of Genesis. I tell it to you now in the hope that you will put yourself in an I-remember-when mood and trust your memory, because memory is your own wonderful human imagination, the one and only creative power of God scripture calls Jesus Christ.

When people say Jesus Christ is coming again do not believe them, for Jesus Christ has never left you. Did he not say: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age?” Then how can you look for him to return? Scripture states that Christ was taken up into the kingdom of heaven (which is within) and that he will come in the same manner as he was taken up. If Christ (God’s creative power) is in you, he cannot come from without. Although he seems to be invisible, Christ has never left you, as you cannot detach yourself from imagination.

Yes, Christ will come, but not in the way you were taught. Listen to these words from the 8th chapter of John carefully: ‘If you remain in my word you are my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Questioning this statement, the people said: ‘We are sons of Abraham and have never been in bondage to anyone.” To this Christ replied: ‘He who commits sin is a slave to sin.” You were taught to believe that sinning is when you do something wrong, but I say you are sinning when you miss your mark in life by failing to move! If, tonight you find yourself in a state you no longer desire to express, you must learn how to move into your desired state. If you do not move (mentally) you continue to live your undesirable state, thereby sinning and missing your mark in life! Regardless of what you may desire, persist in feeling its fulfillment, for if you do, feeling will become believing.

As sons of Abraham, the people claimed to have never known bondage, yet Jesus told them: ‘If the Son sets you free you are free indeed.” This is true, for only when you recognize God’s Son, David, as your son are you really free. When David stands before you doubt flees, and as you feel this wonderful relationship, belief sets you free.

In the beginning of creation the Spirit of God (his creative power called Christ) moved upon the face of the deep. Now, motion cannot be detected save by change in position relative to another object. Unless there is a fixed reference from which an object moves, no movement will appear. Let us use a weak, sick man as our fixed reference and looking into our mind see a strong, healthy man, and say: ‘I remember when he was weak and sick, but look at him now!” Do that and you have moved relative to the man.

Look at yourself in the mirror and dare to see radiant health and happiness reflected back to you. Then say within yourself: ‘I remember when my reflection was so different.” Persist in seeing your new image reflected there and you will resurrect that state. Your image, your concept of yourself or of another, is in your own wonderful human imagination who is Christ and Christ is the only God. God the Father and Christ your creative power are the same being, therefore he has never left you!

Tonight, regardless of whether your dreams are beautiful or horrible, you are aware of them because Christ has never left you. And when you awake in the morning Christ (your imagination) awakes with you, or you could not remember your dreams. The human imagination is the God the world honors (as they should) for imagination is the creative power of the world. Learn to control your wonderful imagination and you will discover that the whole vast world is yourself pushed out.

Last night I visited many of my friends, not only those who are here but those such, as my brother, who have gone through that little gate the world calls death. You see, to me this world is no more real than the world I visited last night. My friends, although gone from this sphere, are having the same experiences they had while they were here: hating, liking, loving, disliking. They are the same people, only young, with the same problems they had here. This I know, for being fully aware that I have already died, I can close my eyes to this world and enter that world instantly. I spent my entire night in a world, which is not real to this one, yet so solid and real to those who inhabit it.

Now, in the 14th chapter of the Book of John the central character of scripture said to those who were beginning to fulfill scripture: ‘You heard me say to you, I go away and I will come to you.’ If you loved me you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” This statement appears to be conflicting, but it is not. In the audience tonight are three to whom I made this statement and they rejoiced, fulfilling scripture. Now I say to all: unless I go away I cannot come to you. If you love me you will rejoice in the depth of your soul, for you will know that, although I will be invisible I will never leave you. Becoming invisible, Christ became you, therefore, he cannot return. I have told you I am the Father. That the Father dwells in me and I dwell in you and you dwell in me, so when you find me you find yourself as the Father. This is the unity of our being and there is no other.

Take what I have told you this night to heart and put it to the extreme test in this world of Caesar. There is no limit to your creative power. Simply stand on your new belief and say to yourself: I remember when. See what you want to see in your mind’s eye in place of what you see on the outside.

May I urge you to always use your power in a loving way, for it can be used unlovingly with the same results. It is possible to take a business that belongs to another and tear it down. This is done many times unwittingly, but the effect is the same. A few years ago while in Barbados I asked my brother about the business and he replied quite innocently: ‘It is doing remarkably well. The man who owns two-thirds of it is a good manager, but his hours are long and I think he is getting tired.” Six months ago the man asked my brother to buy him out, stating that the hours were too long and the responsibility too great. My brother set that whole thing in motion, and because the man wanted out, my brother got the business at his price. Victor has done this many times before, but not from revelation unless my father told him. One day the two of them were standing on fifty acres of undeveloped land, which opened to the beach, when my father said: ‘You know Vic, this would be a good place to build homes and hotels.” The property was then owned by three sisters who were not interested in selling, but one day when they were ready to sell, the man who had really wanted the property was in Brazil so my father bought it.

The thought expressed by my father seemed to be an idle one, but it wasn’t, for thought only takes a moment of intensity to be made alive. A kettle of water placed on a low flame is slow to boil, but when the flame is increased the boil is assured. I was so intense in my vision of being the grandfather, that I built a word picture so clear that those who heard it saw the building as something objective to them. The key is this: While in a state you no longer desire to express, you must move inwardly by claiming: ‘I remember when I was in a state I did not like.” If you can remember it you are no longer in it. Instead you are becoming aware of your new state as a present objective fact. And if you will remain faithful to your new awareness, it will crystallize. You will find yourself moving across a series of events which will lead you to the fulfillment of your desired state. How it will come about I do not know. I only know it will unfold.

Start now to remember when your friend wasn’t well by imagining he is healthy. Remember when your daughter was single by imagining she is married. Go through life remembering when. Haven’t you heard people say: ‘Who does he think he is? I remember when he had nothing and was a nobody!” Now, you may have heard a little jealousy in their tone and that is good because envy adds fire to the statement, which causes the one spoken of to have more! He may never know who caused his success, but it was done by an act of remembrance with intensity.

My vision – although experienced many years ago – was doubled, thereby affirmed and made a principle for all to prove, so I ask you to try it. Compare what you want with what you have. If they differ you must make the effort to move. You must learn the secret of motion. Many years ago my friend Bob discovered this. In his vision he questioned me, saying: ‘How long have I been here?” and when I replied: ‘Two years” he asked: ‘Did I learn anything?” to which I answered: ‘Yes, you learned how to move.”

You must have a frame of reference by which you can detect movement. Memory is such a frame. Perhaps your friends remember you as poor and unknown. You can move by assuming you have changed so much that they no longer recognize you, and from that frame of reference you can observe the expression on their faces. Those who love you will empathize. Those who do not will show envy. If you see envy don’t try to change it, for their envy will become a resisting force which will help you move forward. Everything needs resistance in order to move. I couldn’t leave this platform without it.

You couldn’t drive your car without resistance, so if you discover one who desires to play the part of envy, let him play it. Dare to assume you are the one you really want to be. Use your same circle of friends, but this time see them from a different angle. Observe their faces and listen to their whispers as they look at the new you and remember when!

This is what I was shown when God spoke to me through the medium of vision and made himself known to me in a dream. If we know that God speaks to us in a dream or vision, is there anything more important in this world? Is there any TV program, movie, radio, or newspaper greater than a revelation which comes from the depths of the soul giving an eternal principle of creation? There is nothing in this world equal to it. I urge you this night to seek the kingdom of God and all these things will be yours!

Do not let anyone tell you that Jesus is coming again, for he has never left you. In you as your own wonderful human imagination, Christ is crucified in all and will eventually awaken in all as he gathers us together into himself, into his one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

Now, some of you are having physical and emotional problems. As I told a friend tonight, no one ever promised you that it was going to be easy to bring forth the greatest gift in the world, so don’t expect it. There will be problems, horrible problems; but be of good cheer, for we are told in the 16th chapter of John: ‘When a woman is in travail she suffers, but when the child is born she forgets everything because of the joy that the child is born.” You are destined to know such joy, for the child to be born in you is Christ Jesus, the creative power of God.

I am not promising you complete relief from all physical problems, but I have given you a law which will cushion the blows of life. Things are going to happen and you will find all kinds of challenges, but you now have a law which states: ‘Whatsoever you desire believe you have received it and you will.” That’s a law, which will never fail you and there is no limit to your power of belief. It’s entirely up to you as to how and when these revealed laws of God are used, but I do know that you are going to conceive and bring forth the greatest thing in this world which is the birth of God, the birth of joy, as Blake said in his poem, ‘The Mental Traveler”:

‘I traveled thro’ a Land of Men
A Land of Men and Women too
And heard and saw such dreadful things
As cold Earth wanderers never knew

For there the Babe is born in joy
That was begotten in dire woe
Just as we Reap in joy the fruit
Which we in bitter tears did sow.’

Here Blake is telling us what he saw in his mental journey, ending on this lovely note: ‘All is done as I have told.” And he meant exactly that. Everyone will experience scripture just as it was foretold: the resurrection, your birth from within, finding your Son David, your ascent into heaven, and the descent of the dove. This is your destiny, yours to experience when your memory is restored.

But don’t forget what I have told you this night. It came to me from the depths of my soul, which is God the Father. It is he who speaks to you from within, and when he appears you will know him for you will be just like him. And as he rises in you all impossibilities will dissolve as you will realize that everything is coming into your world from within.

Listen to these words carefully and you will see that the Father never left you: ‘I came out from the Father.” And where is the Father? In heaven. And where is heaven? Within! So I came out from within. The words ‘within” and ‘above” as well as ‘without” and ‘below” are the same in scripture. Coming out from within I see a world and ‘others” who have power over me. Now I want to leave the world and go to the Father. How is that done? By returning within, and since there is only one within where can I go that I can come again to be seen coming from without?

When you return to the source, the cause of all life, you will know that you and I are one. You will know it because there is only one Father and one Son. And when my Son calls you Father, memory will be yours and you will know the truth of what I say now, that I am in my Father and my Father is in me and I am in you and you are in me, for we are One.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

IMAGINATION

Neville Goddard 7-14-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight’s subject is Imagination. You read in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts, a story of Paul coming through to the Athenians, and he calls upon these men, for he saw the inscription over and over. He said: “As I passed by…I saw [an altar with] this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ This therefore that you worship as unknown, [this] I proclaim unto you.”

“He is not far from each of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:23, 27, 28)

The great Blake said it differently. This is what Blake said: “All that you behold; though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.” (“Jerusalem”)

Then he said: “Babel mocks…” We are all familiar with what Babel represents: the confusion of tongues, no two believing in the same god. Not yet speaking different languages but speaking one tongue, they have different concepts of the creative power of the universe. And so he said:

Babel mocks saying, there is no God, nor Son of God That thou O Human Imagination, O Divine Body art all A delusion, but I know thee O Lord…

He equates God and his son with the human Imagination. To him and to the speaker, Divine Imagination is identical with the word “Jesus.” So, when I think of Jesus I do not see a being outside of my own wonderful human Imagination. Are we not told in Scripture: “With God all things are possible”? (Matthew 19:26 and Mark 10:27) We are also told in Scripture: “All things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:23) That is Scripture, now. The power of believing is God himself.

So, God in man is man’s own wonderful human Imagination. It’s difficult for man to make the adjustment, having been trained to turn on the outside to some god that he worships. We go to church and the mind turns outward to some god, and he paints a word picture of someone before whom we must bend our knee and cross ourselves. But that’s not what Scripture really teaches. Scripture teaches that the power that creates the entire universe is not without man, but within man, as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. That is the creative power of the world. All things exist in the human Imagination, so if the word “God” would turn you out, try to make the adjustment within yourself and begin to believe that the God of Christendom, the Lord Jesus of Christendom, is your own Imagination.

If all things are possible to God, and God is your Imagination, then it should be possible for you.

Now, I ask the question. I think I have told it simply enough how you can test it, how you can enter into a state. I think I have told it to the satisfaction of most people that we are the operant power. To hear it, to recite it, commit it to memory, is not enough. We have to apply it, for we are the operant power.

A few days before I closed in Los Angeles, I retired quite early, maybe 9:30 or 10:00 o’clock and I communed with myself. To whom would I turn? “So,” I said to myself, “I have said everything that I have heard from within myself, everything that I have experienced concerning the Law, I have told. I have told what I have experienced concerning the Promise. Could I tell them something more about the Law that would make it a little bit more simple? What can I say that I haven’t said?”

So, I asked the depth of my own being to show me, to show me exactly what I could say that I haven’t said. Well, in the wee hours of the morning, a little after 4:00 o’clock, as I was coming through from the depths of my own being, here is the experience: I am on a spacecraft headed for the moon. Now, it is all in one’s Imagination, for the dreamer is one’s Imagination. That is the cause of all. Now, first of all, let me say that everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. So, the moon has within itself the capacity for some symbolic significance. I am headed for the moon.

Now, you have heard the expression time and time again: “Oh, he is reaching for the moon.” It could be an ambition based upon your social desire. You want to transcend the limitation of your world where you were born. Or it could be some financial ambition, and friends who know your limitations will say of you: “He is reaching for the moon.” Or it could be some tyrant trying to conquer the earth. We have had a Hitler, a Stalin, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon. All these were reaching to conquer the earth, reaching for the moon. Now we are actually on the verge of stepping on the moon, and so we will hit this object in space.

But forget that part of it. I am asking for light so that I can throw some light upon the Law, how to realize my objective in this world in a more simple way than I have so far succeeded in telling it, and this is the vision: I am on this craft and I am headed for the moon. There are others on the craft with me. Instead of landing on the moon, I went into the moon through a very, very large tunnel – a tunnel wider than the depth of this room. The object is dead, dead as dead can be.

I say to someone on the craft: “May I get off?” and he said: “Certainly.” I stepped off onto this dead body in space, the moon. There were little objects for sale, objects made on earth and placed on the moon to sell to tourists. They were cheap, cheap beyond measure, made of clay: little cups, little saucers, little plates, little ornaments but the cheapest of cheap! You can’t conceive anything cheaper in appearance and in quality.

There they were, made on earth to sell on the moon, just like some sideshow at a carnival. I picked them up, examined them, and thought: “Here, a quarter of a million miles away, man made these things, put them on the moon to sell to tourists.” What was the significance of the vision? All of man’s ambitions are like clay. They will all turn to dust.

A man died here the other day in Texas. He started out as a poor boy and left an estate of five hundred million dollars, but he left the estate. He had reached the nice, ripe age of seventy-five, but he left every penny behind him. And those who now have billions, they will leave every penny behind them, just as though it is made of dust.

Nevertheless, I asked the question of myself and the depth of my own being answered: so what is the significance of the dream? Tell man, not that he shouldn’t have what he wants, certainly he should have it; it is going to be dropped anyway, but he can get it. So, what other point was driven home to me?

This is the point: instead of landing on the moon, I went into the moon.

Blake makes the statement, “If the spectator could enter into the images in his Imagination, approach them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if he could make a friend and companion of any one of these images in his Imagination” well, he emphasized “enter into the image,” not to contemplate it as something on the outside. I contemplate now New York City. I am seeing it from San Francisco. If my desire this night is to be in New York City, I say I can’t afford the time, or maybe I can’t afford it because of lack of funds, or maybe my commitments will tie me here ?I don’t know, yet my desire is to be in New York City.

I must, if I would realize it in spite of the limitations that now surround me (money, lack of time, obligations, call it what you will, I still want to be in New York City. I must enter into the image that is now something on the surface of the mind ‘out there,’ 3,000 miles away. Standing here, I must shut out the belief that I am in San Francisco.

Knowing New York City quite well, I would assume I am standing in a most familiar part of New York City and let it surround me. I must be in it, and then think of San Francisco. I must now see it 3,000 miles to the west of me, as I now see New York City 3,000 miles to the east of me. If I go into that state and dwell in it and make it natural, though I remain in it only for a little while, a minute or so, then I open my eyes, ‘I am shocked’ to find that I am still here. I came back here. I have done it. I have entered into the state of my desire and I will move across a bridge of incidents, a series of events that will lead me and compel me to take a journey to New York City.

Now, this I have used only as a spatial example. You can take it in a financial sense, take it in the social world; take it in any way whatsoever. That is what came to me a few days before I closed. For if I could find something more simple to tell them than I think I have told them, this would be it:

To enter into the state and not simply think of the state.

Thinking from it differs from thinking of it. I must learn to think from it.

A man who this night came into a million dollars, from that moment that man is made aware that he has a million, when prior to that he had nothing. He is thinking from the consciousness of having a million dollars. He is not thinking of it; he is walking in the consciousness of having a million dollars. He’s not hoping for it, wishing for it; he is actually in it. That is what the vision revealed to me.

Even though at the end of my journey I will leave my things behind me and they will all be as though they were made of clay – all cheaply made, at that, every man, not knowing this ?in fact, how many know it or care to know it? They still want to realize their earthly dreams, and I am all for it; I teach it. But I cannot change the Promise. The Promise is fixed. That is something that will come to every being in this world, for it has been predetermined. But when we are here in this world of Caesar, I can cushion the blows, the inevitable blows, by learning the technique of Law and how to apply it, how to use it.

Now, the thing I quoted earlier, Blake said in this quote from “Jerusalem”: “Although I behold Thee not…” Well, here it’s perfectly true; I do not observe imagining as I do objects. Imagining is the reality that we name this power called God. So I don’t observe imagining; I observe objects, but I don’t observe the power in them. That’s the greatest secret in the world.

The secret of imagining is the secret of God. Anyone who finds it finds supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight. Every one should aspire after this secret and try to unravel it, for whatever you find about your own wonderful human Imagination, you are finding about God for your Imagination and God are one and the same. There is no other God. You imagined yourself into this world, and you’ll imagine yourself out of it.

You came into the world for a purpose, and when the purpose is fulfilled you will detach yourself from it and return to the being that you were prior to your descent into this world. “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.” (Blake)

Now, I am not saying it is the easiest thing in the world for you to accept this. It will come to those who have never heard it before as blasphemy. It will come as a shock, an awful shock, when man who is trained to believe in an external God to whom he bows, to whom he prays then to discover that He is not on the outside at all.

As we are told in Scripture: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you,” and God is spirit. (I Corinthians 3:16) Well, if God is spirit, and his spirit dwells in you, you can’t divide it into different kinds of spirit. God is spirit and his spirit dwells in me. Now, if his spirit dwells in me, I try to find out what that spirit is in me that I can call by another name that is more intimate. Well, I have found it and the spirit of God, which is God himself in me, is my Imagination. And if all things are possible to God and if I can but believe that they are possible to me, well then it’s entirely up to me to find out how to believe it.

I imagine, as do you. We cannot imagine differently. All difference lies in content.

So, [my] response to the eternal question: “Who am I?” will determine the circumstances of my life. Who am I? Am I the little one that was born on a tiny little unknown island with no social, intellectual, financial background? Must I accept the limitations of birth? Well most people do. But have I read Scripture? Did I read the words that I am the temple of the living God, and the spirit of that God dwells in me and all things are possible to that God? Well, I should not allow anything to interfere with my discovery of that spirit in me that is called the “Spirit of God,” for if all things are possible to him and he dwells in me, I must make every effort to locate him.

Well, I have located him, and he is my Imagination and I do not differ from any person born of woman. The Imagination in every one is God. But if they have been trained to believe [in] their little beings and my own tiny little Imagination, people will say: “Oh, that’s just his imagination.”

We are going to the moon. A man imagined it a hundred years ago, Jules Verne. He even imagined the nation that would do it. He said the Yankee know-how, their engineers will contrive the means to get there first. He wrote that 100 years ago, and no matter how others try, we will get there first. We are on the verge of it, but he had to imagine it first.

What is now true was once only imagined. We are in a room. It seems so real. Well, this was once only imagined. You are wearing dresses, you are wearing all kinds of things, but they had to be imagined first. You go to a tailor or your dressmaker and you pick out the material that you like. It’s just a plain piece of cloth. Then you tell your dressmaker or I tell my tailor what kind of a suit I want. So I allow him with his know-how, to take my vision of the kind of a suit that I want. Having picked out the material, he executes it. Now what is then proven when I put it on was first only imagined?

A man imagines a desire, say for wealth. When he becomes wealthy he may forget the means by which it came about and think all the external forces that were used to bring it to pass are the causes. They had to play the part that they played because he imagined what he imagined.

So, I don’t differ in the act of imagining from you or any being in the world. The only difference will have to lie in the content of my imagining. What am I imaging? If I imagine something little and feel sorry for myself ?all right, life will prove that I had every reason in the world to feel sorry for myself, because the blows will come to me. And I will turn to the one who gave the blows and blame him or blame them, when the blame (if any) is in myself; for had I not imagined what I have imagined, I could not encounter the conditions that I encountered. This is the Law of Scripture.

We are told: Don’t fool yourselves. “Be not deceived. God is not mocked.” God is your imagination; he’s not mocked. “As a man sows, so shall he reap.” (Galatians 6:7) Well, what am I sowing? I am sowing everything that I am imagining. That is what I am sowing, for the only thing I can ‘sow’ is what I imagine. So, will I now change from an external god to the internal God and find him in myself as my own wonderful human Imagination?

Let Babel rant and say there is no God. Let Babel say there is no Son of God. Then comes that wonderful statement of the prophet, who sees that: “You, O Human Imagination, Divine Body called my Human Imagination, the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, buried in me.”

And were he not buried in me I couldn’t even breathe, I couldn’t think. But one day he will rise in me and as he rises in me, I am. I am he now, but do not know it. When he rises in me I know it then because I rise, not “he” rises. He has become me to the point that we aren’t two; we are one.

So, he suffers us.

I say: “I am in pain.” Well, his name is “I Am.” That is my Imagination.

I don’t say: “My body is weeping,” I say: “I am weeping.”

I don’t say: “My body is tired,” I say: “I am tired.”

So, is not Blake right when he says: “Thou sufferest with me”? Though I do not behold…I can’t quite see you as something external. I could not in eternity see myself as something external. I must see it only by reflection and the world undevoutly reflects what I am doing within myself. The day will come I will actually see myself, but not as something external to myself. I will know myself only by reason of the son who stands before me and calls me, “Father.”

Then I am looking right into the face of the Son of God, and he will call me “Father.” Then, and only then, will I know who I Am.

Everyone will have that experience. One day you will actually see the Son of God, and this relationship is something so deep and so profound there is no uncertainty whatsoever in you when you are confronted. He stands before you, and you see him and you know he is your son and he knows you are his father and there is no uncertainty whatsoever. Only then do you know who you are, that you are God the Father.

Everyone, one day, will have that experience, everyone. I am speaking from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating, but until that day comes let us discover God within ourselves as our own wonderful human Imagination and then test it. “For all things are possible to God; and all things are possible to him that believes.” (Mark 9:23)

Well, I can believe but have I made all things come to pass? It can only be my lack of belief if that statement is true. So how then to believe when reason denies it, when my senses deny it?

So reason cannot be the God of whom I speak, for reason will deny it. Doubt cannot be the God of whom I speak for doubt is called in Scripture the devil, ‘the demon’ and he finds rest only in the human Imagination, the Imagination that will entertain him that’s where he went.

If I will have no room in my Imagination for doubt then I am on the road to learning the art of believing. How to believe when reason denies it, when my senses deny it? Well, entering into the image is the most delightful thing in the world. You can try it tonight when we go into the silence. Try it in the simplest little way: putting yourself elsewhere by making ‘elsewhere’ here, making “there” here and “then” now. And you can do it. It’s not difficult if you’ll try it.

Let me repeat: we are the operant power. Knowing it is one thing and doing it is another and the minute you try it, you can do it.

Well then, wait. The minute you do it and open your eyes, in the twinkle of an eye you’re back here and you will say to yourself, “I didn’t do anything; I just did a simple little thing in my Imagination. How on earth could that produce the result when I’ve just assumed that I’ve done it?” Well, wait and see if a little bridge of incidents does not quickly appear, compelling you to walk across that bridge of incidents towards the fulfillment of what you have done. It works that way and after you have proven it, the whole world can rise in opposition and it makes no difference to you, you’ve done it. After you’ve done it, you keep on doing it and become all the more rooted in who God really is and you’ll walk with your head up, walk as you ought to walk as one in whom God dwells.

There’s no place in the world more holy than where you are. For wherever you are God is there. There’s no church built with human hands comparable to the temple of God and “ye are the Temple of the Living God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (I Corinthians 3:16) What temple in this world made with human hands could compare to this temple when no hand could make it? It comes into the world and it’s a temple of the Living God.

But again, if this is the first time you’ve heard a thought of this nature, if it’s the first time you’ve been exposed to it, I am not telling you it is not a shock and it’s not difficult to accept. It isn’t difficult to grasp, but difficult to accept after the training most of us here have had. I know I had it. I was raised in a very wonderful Christian orthodox home, where Sunday school was in order not once a week, but twice a week, grace at the table, Mother reading Scripture to us and interpreting Scripture based upon her concept, which was a secular concept.

To her the Bible was secular history, things that actually happened in her world. She didn’t realize that she, as the whole vast world was mistaking personification for persons and the vehicle that conveys the instruction for the instruction itself and the gross perspective for the ultimate sense intended. But Mother was raised that way and she made her exit from this world in that belief.

So, when I was exposed to this at the age of twenty or twenty-two, I must confess I couldn’t sleep. It was so completely different that it turned me inside out. I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing to visit this friend. I wondered what on earth have I done? I felt I was a sinful being even to entertain the thought. I had to wrestle with myself and finally, when I put it to the test and it proved itself in performance then I knew that I’d found him.

But you can’t find him and not share it with others, as told in Scripture: So Philip found him and he goes and he shares it with Nathaniel. Andrew found him and he goes and shares it with his brother, Peter. Peter didn’t find him; his brother found him and then shared it. (See John 1:40-46) So here, we find and we share it. I have found him. All I can do is share him, in the hope that you will accept him.

I know this much: if you believe to the point of acceptance, life will be marvelous for you, perfectly wonderful for this is the one secret in the world that everyone should aspire to solve, for God is that pure imaging in ourselves. He underlies all of our faculties including our perception, but he streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fantasy. I sit here and have a daydream. Well, that’s God in action, but then someone breaks it and I forget it. I didn’t occupy it; I simply had a daydream but without occupancy. That’s one of the greatest fallacies of the world, ‘perpetual construction’. It’s a daydream, deferred occupancy. I don’t occupy it, I don’t go in and possess it and make it mine. If I, in my Imagination, could go right in and possess it and make it mine…If I, in my Imagination, could go right in and possess it and clothe myself with the feeling of the wish fulfilled, actually clothe myself with it by assuming that it’s done now, until I feel natural in that assumption and that assumption though at the moment denied by my senses, if persisted in will harden into fact. [a statement made by Anthony Eden at the Guild Hall when he was Prime Minister of England]. So, this is our great secret concerning imagining.

If you doubt it tonight, I would only ask you not to deny it to the point of not trying it, but hold it in abeyance and try it now. Just try it, even if you want to disprove it. I tell you, you will not disprove it. You will in the attempt to disprove it, prove it. And then slowly you will come to completely accept it and then you will walk in the company of God.

You won’t have to wait for Sunday morning to meet him in a church or any time of day. No matter where you are, you could be standing in a bar enjoying a drink, having fun at a dance and you are in the company of God. It makes no difference where you are once you know God and God is your own wonderful human Imagination and you’ll become extremely discriminating because you’ll know you can’t entertain these ideas with complete acceptance of them and not reap them in your world.

And who wants to reap the tears forever? So, you become ever more discriminating. Don’t think for one second that you’ll live a loose life. No. You’ll become a far more wonderful person in the world. You hear a piece of gossip, it doesn’t interest you.

Today in the morning paper, many people turned right away to the gossip columnist and wondered who is living with whom and they love it. They don’t know the people and they will go right out and repeat what this person is paid to print, because it is like almost peeking through the keyhole of someone else’s door.

He can’t maintain that job. He’s paid to be a gossip hound and people read it. Others read only the obituaries to see who’s dead. You will not read those pages. You will simply suddenly dwell upon the noble things. Not only for yourself will you do it, your circle will widen. You will. You will think of a friend and if he is distressed, you represent him to yourself as you would like him to be. If he’s unemployed, you represent him to yourself as gainfully employed. If he is earning less than what it really takes to live well in this world with his obligations, you represent him to yourself as living well and earning a decent living and assuming full responsibility of his job and you push him in your mind’s eye.

So you widen your circle. It’s sort of self perpetuating; you take in all because, eventually, “all that you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within, In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.” (Blake, “Jerusalem”)

So, you can’t exclude anyone. If you exclude one, it’s your own failure. But you don’t sit down and work with that one to make it so. You simply assume that it is so. You plant it as lightly as you would if you sowed a field. You don’t go out and trample it, you sow the field and it comes up.

Well, this is what I mean by ‘Imagination.’ I identify my own wonderful human Imagination, when I say ‘ I,’ I am speaking of all for everyone imagines, so I identify our Imagination with God. That to me is the Lord Jesus. He is buried in us and one day he will rise in us, not as something external to ourselves but he will rise in us as us, after we’ve gone through the furnaces of experience in this world of Caesar.

Now there’s no room for a final death with Christ in man, for Christ resurrects. You say good-bye to a friend who has gone through the gate we call ‘death,’ but he cannot die. Nothing dies in this world for God is the God of the living. But nothing dies, because the immortal you cannot die and the immortal you is far more real than the garment of flesh and blood that it wears in the world of Caesar.

This is the limit of contraction for a purpose, but when this is burned in the furnace (cremated) you, the occupant, are not burned in the furnace. You are restored, clothed as you are now only the body is young, not a baby, a young body about twenty.

I encounter them all the time and they are young, though when I said good-bye through the gate of ‘death,’ they were seventy or eighty, my father, eighty-five when he said good-bye, my mother, sixty-one. I met them in their twenties. I am much, much older. I am. I meet them, and they grow. They grow there too; they don’t remain twenty. You grow there and you are just as afraid as you are here; and you marry there too and strive there too and die there too, to find yourself restored once more.

And the journey continues until you resurrect. Resurrection is a departure from this age into that age called “the Kingdom of Heaven,” but only when he in you resurrects as you, will you leave this world of Caesar. But while you are in it, why not learn his law because the blows are inevitable. Learn the law, that you may cushion the blows.

So, when I know what I want to cushion the problems of the moment, then I will apply it and apply this principle towards anything in my world. And the principle is this: First, you start with desire. Who is desiring? Well, I Am. Well, who is “I Am”? That’s God. “That is my name forever and forever,” as we are told in the book of Exodus. “Go tell them I Am has sent you. This is my name for all generations, forever and forever.” (Exodus 3:15) Therefore, who is feeling? I Am. Well, that’s God! Who is desiring? I Am. Well, that’s God and “all things are possible to him.” (Mark 9:23).

All right, start right there.

Could I continue desiring if I had it? No I couldn’t. If I wanted this room to lecture in when I came here and then I got confirmation from the management that I am allowed to speak in the Marines’ Memorial for ten days and the dates are set, could I write him a second letter pleading with him? Could I in any way hope after I had realized it? No, I simply walk in the assumption that I have it. So, when I requested that I have this room for 10 talks, it was granted and from then on I had no more desire for it. The desire was realized.

I had to wait the normal time, the interval of a month, well it was a month ago that I accepted it. Then I came a month later to fulfill it. Well, the same thing is true in all that you do in this world. You simply dare to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled until it seems natural, until it takes on the tones of reality and when it does, it’s done.

And now, trust God. Well, who is God? Your own wonderful human Imagination! Did you imagine it? Well, that’s God! Now trust him. Don’t turn to any outside power.

The church has just demoted something like a hundred saints, after making fortunes selling little pictures of them. I wonder how many still wear St. Nicholas? They treated him as a saint. It’s like treating Santa Claus as a saint. And all these saints – the saint of the road, to protect you against an accident, now they say he never lived. If he never lived why did they ever start it and yet, hundreds of years ago they started this nonsense, so unnumbered millions of these little icons, little medals. Down south our Cardinal admitted that tens of thousands of these little medals, he had put his seal of approval, the Seal of the Cardinal, on the reverse side of that little medal. When they asked him: “Well, now do you regret it?” he said: “No, it was acceptable then and I did it in good faith.” But whoever started that nonsense started it for a commercial reason and they made unnumbered millions, hundreds of millions in selling them to the many. And what number of millions of people wore them and are still wearing them – and he never existed! They mount them on the front of their car, on their little trucks, on their bikes and now to discover at this late date…

I’ve gone out with these friends of mine to greet three fellows who came back from the war. One was a marine; he lost one foot and the arm was completely smashed, one arm. His brother was going into the priesthood and he came back deaf; he was in the army. Another was in the army; he came back with TB. And their mother told me in all innocence and they went along with the mother. “Were it not for St. Christopher they would not have returned.” She really believed it, and they believe it and one was three years going for the priesthood when the war broke and he thought it better to serve his country than to become a priest. Then when he came out he gave up completely and got married and has a nice little family. But he believed it and they believed it and the father and the mother believed it.

They entertained me very well, but they knew that I was not safe because I was a Protestant. “Christian” meant nothing to them because you either are a Roman Catholic or you are not a Christian. So, I said to my wife, “What will they think when they find out that I am not a Roman Catholic?” She said, “It doesn’t really matter. They love me dearly and I am not one. They know you can’t be saved anyway, so what?” So, we all go and have fun. My wife was very, very honest about it for the simple reason her father was that family’s closest friend.

And these came back, one with a foot missing, a crushed shoulder. Well, I was in the army too, not as long as these fellows were, but I didn’t come back fragmented. I used this principle to get out of the army and I got out honorably discharged. I didn’t run away. The very one who said “No” to my request was the very Colonel who called me nine days after I began to apply this principle. I did it quite simply. I made up my mind that I wanted to get out of the army and then I thought, if I were out, where would I be? Well, I wouldn’t be here picking up pots and doing all these things in the army and being trained. I would be a civilian in New York City in my own apartment with my little girl and my wife.

My son was a Marine and he was already in Guadalcanal. He volunteered with my consent for he wasn’t more than seventeen when I gave my permission for him to join the Marines.

But having tasted the army life, I wanted no part of it. I was thirty-eight. So, I simply assumed I was a civilian living in New York City with my wife and my little girl, who was only a few months old and the same Colonel who had disapproved my application called me in and said: “Goddard, you still want to get out of the army?” I said: “Yes, sir.” And he asked a thousand questions and to each I said: “Yes, sir.” Then he said, “All right, bring me in a new application,” and that day I was honorably discharged and on a train headed for the fulfillment of my dream.

I simply knew what I wanted; I didn’t ask any one’s permission. I went to sleep in the barracks with all the boys all around. I didn’t tell them what I was doing. As far as they were concerned I was sleeping on that cot. As far as I was concerned I was sleeping in New York City. I went to bed physically on a cot, but in my Imagination in my own bed in New York City. When I thought of Camp Polk, Louisiana it was way down south and I am up here in New York City. And, then the same man who disapproved was the one who actually granted me honorable discharge

. I am speaking from experience; I am not theorizing. I didn’t hurt any one. No one was hurt by my application of God’s Law. Are we not told: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will?” You will read that in the 11th chapter of the book of Mark: “Whatever you desire….” He didn’t say, if it’s good for you. He leaves us entirely to make our decision. He actually acquaints us with the law, and leaves us to our decision. So, I was left to my decision. I wanted to get out. The Colonel could tell me nothing to persuade me to change my opinion. If he had said, “No,” that was final, I couldn’t appeal to some higher echelon.

I could take it only to my commanding officer. Well, he was my commanding officer, and he disapproved it. Well, I came back, I had the paper in my hand, “Disapproved.” I went to bed, without his permission, and slept in New York City. I went to bed without anyone in the barracks knowing what I was doing. They saw a man called Neville Goddard sleeping in that bunk but they didn’t know I wasn’t there, for where could I be save in Imagination? If I am not sleeping here in Imagination, I am not here.

You see the garment that I am wearing, but you would have to find out where I am in Imagination to actually know where I am. You can see the garment, but is the garment the man? I was sleeping in Imagination which is God and “all things are possible to him.” Well then, “He” changed the Colonel’s decision. He changed his mind. Who is “He”? My Imagination.

God is one. There aren’t a million little gods running around. There is only one God. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” [Deuteronomy 6:4]

Don’t look for a second god; there aren’t any second gods. And that one God became humanity and in man that one God is man’s own wonderful human Imagination: that one God. So it’s the ‘one’ made up of ‘others’ and that is exactly what the word Elohim means. The word translated ‘God’ in Scripture is Elohim and Elohim is a compound unity. It’s a plural word, one made up of others. We are the ‘others’ and all collectively make the one Lord, which is called ‘I Am.’ Well, don’t you know that you are, and don’t you say: “I am”? That’s God. And can’t you imagine? Well, imaging is God in action.

So, what are you imaging? You determine that. For, as I said earlier, I imagine, as do you. We cannot imagine differently. All differences lie in content. What is my response to the eternal question, “Who am I?” That response determines the conditions of my life. Am I a little unknown being, struggling for a dollar to pay rent, to buy food? Well, all right, that’s what will happen to me. And there’s no being on the outside to change it! I’ve got to bring about the change within myself. I can borrow money and beg for money and if I remain in that little concept of myself, I will be unable to pay back and will always have to keep looking for someone else to borrow from while I remain in the consciousness of being a little unwanted non-entity.

Let me remain at that moment just what I am and change it now, begin to change my response to the question, “Who am I?” And if God dwells in me I ought to be important, not against some one else in the world. That doesn’t make any difference to me what they are. Grant them exactly what they want. If they want riches, let them. What does it matter? If they want to be in the social world at the very top, let them be. No envy whatsoever! If they want to be important in the eyes of the world, let them be important. You have different values. You are in union with God and God is within you and what better companion could you have in this world than to walk in the company of God, walk with him not only on Sunday morning, but every day of the week, knowing who he is?

So, we have to make the decision. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” [Joshua 24:15] Will I serve a false god or will I serve the one and only living God? And that one and only living God is your Imagination – my Imagination – and that is the immortal man that cannot die.

Now let us go into the silence.

Good!

When you completely accept this, you will discover you need no intermediary between yourself and God – none! He became you, that you may become God!

Now, are there any questions, please?

Q. [Inaudible]

Neville: I would not say that every dream needs an interpretation. Most of them do, for the universal language, regardless of what tongue you use to express yourself…there is a universal language, and that is the language of symbolism. Unfortunately, we are all past masters at misinterpretation, but there is a language that is a universal language of symbolism. So, I say, everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance.

So, in my vision of the moon I asked for light concerning the law [how] I could tell those that I am trying to teach, a more simple way to realize their objective in this world. And then that night came the vision. It was a very simple presentation, for here the moon is something that man aspires to reach. Long before we entertained the thought seriously of reaching the moon, we used it as an expression, “He is reaching for the moon.” And you would say about someone who has no background to even aspire: Why he is crazy! Here is this man without any educational background, and he hopes one day to leave his imprint in the world concerning that which only an educated man can do. Well, they say, “He is reaching for the moon.” So, the moon is only a symbol of anyone’s desire.

[The same man continued his question.]

Neville: I find myself intuitive enough to interpret the dream of another. I asked down south (I haven’t the time here ?it would take more time than I am allotted here for two weeks) but down south they write me letters asking me to explain a dream, which they find difficult to interpret for themselves. And as they grow (and we outgrow in this world) they turn to me for the interpretation of a dream that seems to have no meaning. But every dream has meaning. As we are told in the 12th chapter of the book of Numbers: “God makes himself known unto man in a vision and speaks to him in a dream.” (v. 6) Well, if God is my Imagination, and all dreams proceed from my Imagination (that is, my dreams and your dreams) therefore, I must learn the language that it is using to convey to my surface mind this message. So, I cannot discount the simplest dream. It may be produced by some undigested piece of beef, but I don’t look upon a dream as the result of any undigested piece of beef. I look upon the dream as my own being – the depth of my being – attempting to reveal something to me in the language of dreams. When it comes to vision, that is something entirely different. This is vision. A vision is just like this, real beyond measure. Question: As regards symbolism, I came across a book that contradicted the whole idea. In other words, this mysticism . . . they say to deny yourself and all images, and leave yourself open and empty to God, and that this is the only way you can have a mystical union.

Neville: First of all, I would not accept that, and I would not say that any person’s individual approach is the only way. So, any man who writes a book (and may I tell you, ninety-nine per cent of the books written are a waste of paper) but because a thing is printed, the other person, because he sees it in print, thinks he must be a wise person. “Look, he has a book,” but it is sheer nonsense from beginning to end. [The man continued with his question]: It was not just one person; it was several who called themselves, “The Friends of God.” I don’t know whether you have Neville: Well, for instance, today we have enormous groups of people calling themselves by other names. We just had a huge, big one in New York City where the Yankee Stadium couldn’t hold the crowd, and Yankee Stadium can take care of 75,000-odd people in the stands alone. But they were allowed to come down on the grass. Well, if the stands can take care of 70-odd thousand and the field certainly [holds] many, many more ?they estimated they had about 300,000. They called themselves by a very wonderful name in Scripture, and ask any one of the 300,000 who were there to get up and testify from experience about their name. They called themselves “Witnesses.” Well, if you are a witness, witness to what? Have you witnessed the birth of God in you? Have you witnessed any of these great mysteries of Scripture?

One of these “Witnesses” came to my door about a year ago (in fact, four of them, but only one came up the stairs). I was busy at the time reading my Bible. I spend hours every day with the Bible. Well, this was about 4:30 or 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon. She came to the door with her Bible all marked up with little pieces of paper, and then, on the street (looking to see what reception she was going to get) there were about three or four down on the sidewalk. She came up and asked me if I would open the door to let her in to explain God’s Word to me. I said: “I am sorry, but you came without an appointment, and I am busy. In fact, I am reading his Word right now.” And then something led to something else, and I said: “I am sorry, I am busy, and I have no time to entertain you or to discuss anything with you.” Then she started quoting; she wouldn’t allow me to brush her off this way, so she started quoting some Scripture. She said, “Do you know what it means?” So, I told her my interpretation of the passage she quoted, and she said to me, “What are you? A Mormon, or something?” So, she was going to have her way, and that’s all you can do. So, I said: “I am awfully sorry, my lady, but I cannot give you any more of my time unless it is by appointment. You can’t come and ring my doorbell and expect admittance. You can’t do it. I have a family, and we live a very quiet and nice life, and we don’t have interruptions this way.” So, she went on down and they gabbed and pointed their finger up: “Mark that one off; he’s going to hell.” So, what can you do with people? I mean, leave them alone. You cannot take a man by his nose and put him into a state of consciousness if he resists it. We are told in Scripture, “I will send a famine upon the world; it will not be a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” [Amos 8:11] Well, until that famine is sent upon you by the God within you, the word is not within you. You are more interested in making an extra dollar.

I can’t give one person all the questions. I’ve got to get to someone else.

Q. [Inaudible]

Neville: Ultimately we turn to the One, but we are brothers, as spoken of in Scripture, these words, “He has set bounds to the people, according to the numbers of the sons of God.” So, we are brothers; it takes all to make the one. I will never in eternity lose my identity, neither will you, and yet we are one. You are the same God. Of the same son you are the father, as I am the father. That shows the unity of our being. If you are the father of my son and that one son I know to be my son, and everyone is going to be the father of that son, there is only one Father.

So, Scripture teaches, “There is only one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:4-6) only one, yet no one is going to lose their identity. I am expanding my identity but there is no loss. When I am embraced by the risen Lord as he wore the “human form divine,” which is Love, I answered the question. He asked me to name the greatest thing in the world. When I said, “Love,” he embraced me and we fused and became one spirit, one body but I didn’t lose my identity. When we separated from that union, I came out as Neville, only within myself I was conscious of a greater self, fully aware of the greater self, without loss of identity. So, everyone here is destined to discover the fatherhood of God as himself through the Son calling him, “Father.” Everyone.

Q. [Inaudible]

Neville: My dear, we have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have enormous pressures in the world to make the world good. We will never bring about an unbalance of good and evil. It is always borne on this tree. This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it bears equal number of fruit. So, they have all the efforts in the world to make it a better world. They are up the wrong tree. We’ll get off this tree of good and evil one day and eat of the tree of life [when] that day comes which comes with the resurrection. And the resurrection is not a collective thing; it is an individual experience. We are called out of this state one by one by one, to unite into a single body, who is the risen Lord. So, everyone is favored.

Ten million dollars for this, a hundred million dollars for that and then just wait a little while, and then at the end of a year a little investigation: a committee is formed to find that those who got the hundred million to dispense it for good, they pocketed it themselves. All of a sudden: “Where is the twenty-seven million dollars in oil gone?” Why, twenty-seven million dollars in oil can’t be accounted for.

Somebody had it. They didn’t spill it in Santa Barbara. [Ed. note: reference to oil blowout in 1969.] That came out of the sea. So, where are the twenty-seven million? Only that week twenty-seven million dollars worth of oil for our boys in Vietnam and they can’t account for it. You see, you find this in every walk of life: good and evil. So don’t try to burn it out; you’ll not stop the tree from bearing good and evil. You go along your own way in all the lovely things in the world and grant the others to do what they want to do. They are going to do it anyway. When I speak, I want to help every one in this world, individually. I am not for the crowd, to make them all this so-called ‘good.’ “No one can come unto me, unless my Father call him.” (John 14:6) and “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) Not one could be here tonight if my Father didn’t call him. Even those who may never come again were called. This is your first little blow, little explosion.

Q. [Inaudible]

Neville: Why, certainly, you can help anyone in this world, and you will get to the point where you will help everyone. But you are not going to change the nature of the tree. This tree bears good and evil. This is the nature of this world. And all of a sudden you will come out of it and you will eat of the tree of life, and you will see this world so differently, you will be shocked beyond measure.

Q. [Inaudible]

Neville: My dear, the world is dead and people don’t know it. Dead, dead as dead can be, even though they are walking it. The day will come that you will have this experience. You will know that what you are feeling within you, you could arrest; and as you look at the people round about you, you arrest their activity within you, and every one stands still. I don’t mean they are standing still like soldiers at attention when they can still blink their eyes and move the body; I mean they are dead! They can’t move an eye. They are not aware that they are standing still. And if you arrested that motion for 1,000 years, when you released it they would continue on their intention and not know for one moment that they were still for 1,000 years. This is all part of the structure of the universe.

All that is taking place in the world belongs to the eternal structure of the universe. You didn’t get created; you are part of the eternal structure. All marriages, all divorces, all love, wayward love, lovely friendships, hates it is all part of the eternal structure of the universe.

So, when we speak of creation, I don’t mean erecting a little man of clay. Man was always a part of the structure of the universe. I am not speaking of the creation of life. We are only animated bodies now. The day is coming that we will become life-giving spirits. Then you will see the whole vast world is a dead body, as dead as the moon and all the relationships are worked out in detail. If one could but see with the awakened eye as the child comes through the womb, the whole pattern of its life is there.

Q. [Inaudible]

Neville: Because it’s a dead body. It is now animated by the spirit of God, which is called breath, for the word “breath,” the word “wind,” [and] the word “spirit,” are one and the same, both in Greek and in Hebrew. So, it breathes the breath of life into man’s body. It is the spirit that possesses the body, that then becomes an animated body – a living being, but not a life-giving spirit. (That [one’s] the act of creation.)

[Question concerning assuming the wish fulfilled]…you cannot allow any conscious fears.

Neville: The question is: having assumed the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you cannot deny that in spite of that assumption there are a few conscious doubts and fears. Well, I do not deny that, but practice will make it less and less so and you will trust God so implicitly, not as an external being who may be quite watching you when you are praying. That is what people say, “I wonder if he saw me?” because your Imagination will always…

As we started off the lecture tonight quoting from the 17th chapter of the book of Acts: “You have an unknown god…I will tell you of that unknown God and he is not far off. In him we live and move and have our being.” Where could I go, departing from my Imagination? I am all Imagination and that is God. So whatever I am imagining, my Imagination is seeing. Eventually you have such complete confidence in Him. Imagination and faith are the stuff out of which man fashions his world. Now, faith is the subjective appropriation of the objective, hope, and faith and Imagination are the stuff out of which we fashion our world.

Good night.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

MOSES – ELIJAH – JESUS

Neville Goddard 2-15-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityIn Biblical language a man’s name reveals his character. His name is an expression of this essential nature of the bearer. As I have said in the past, these characters are not persons; they are eternal states, spiritual states, through which the immortal soul passes to awaken as God.

To understand tonight’s subject let us go back just for a moment. As you know, I have told you the Bible is God’s plan, something to be understood only through revelation. It is revealed, it is true, but seems the most impossible thing in the world, but will prove itself true in time.

The book of Genesis is the seed plot. As you remember it is the beginning: “In the beginning God” and the book ended on the note: “In a coffin in Egypt.” The one in the coffin was called Joseph. Joseph is human imagination – it is of one tissue with divine imagination, but here it is human imagination, placed in a coffin. He extracted a promise from his brothers that they will not leave his body in Egypt; they will take it up to the land that was promised by God to his forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is the end of the book, the seed plot of the Bible. Then we start for the unfoldment of the seed that was planted in the book of Genesis.

The next book is Exodus. That is where Moses comes in for the first time in the Bible. Now, we are told that Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses floating on the river and she named him Moses, because she drew him out of the water. I will not deny that – that is part of the name, Moses,” to draw out, to rescue, to fetch”. But it has another meaning. She was an Egyptian and the boy was raised in the courts of Pharaoh, and the word “Moses” is the root of the Egyptian word (verb) “to be born”. That is what it means – to be born. Something is now to be born and he is buried in man in the book of Genesis. It is completely contained in this ark, in this coffin or man, but now it must be awakened, it must be born. We are told he did not volunteer for the task -he was drafted.

Now let me stop here and tell you: this is not a man as you are, as I am; this is a state of consciousness. All these characters are states of consciousness, and so Moses is playing the part now, leading you – leading me, everyone in the world – out of the state known as Egypt, taking us out of Egypt into the promised land. Moses is true in this sense: in him – in germinal form – is the entire future of Israel. All the visions you read concerning him are contained in us. He was prophet, priest, law giver, shadow of the king (or a foreshadowing of the king), victor, exile, fugitive, man of God – all of these are stated in the state called Moses. Now he is leading us out.

Let us see what he has in common with the other characters named in tonight’s subject, Elijah and Jesus. No one knows the burial place of Moses, as we are told in the very last book of the five, called Deuteronomy. Moses died and he was buried. Who buried him? The Lord buried him, and to this day no one in Israel knows the burial place of Moses. (Deuteronomy 34) We are told that Elijah – the word Elijah means “My God is Jehovah” – while talking to his disciples, they are parted by this fiery chariot and fiery horses, and he was lifted up into heaven by a whirlwind. Therefore no one knows his burial place, because he wasn’t buried – he was transported.

We are told of Jesus that when they came early in the morning and they found the stone rolled away, that his body had been removed, and to this day no one knows where they laid the body: “Where have they laid the body of my Lord?” So, here we find in the end there were three – each had the same exit from this world. Here is a progression leading up toward God. Moses means, “to be born”. In Hebrew it means, “to draw out”. Yes, something is being drawn out, something must be born. Elijah is “my God is Jehovah”. And Jesus, “Jehovah, is savior”, in keeping with the statement in Isaiah 43: 3,7,11: “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

If you read it on the surface it will mean nothing to you, but we go back to find what was the great revelation, as Israel is being moved out in the exodus from Egypt. It took forty years, and forty is the numerical value of the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is a womb – something to be born, something is coming out of the womb in so-called forty years. It doesn’t mean forty years as you and I measure time, but something is coming out of man, and everything that is coming out is God, moving to the second stage called Elijah, and flowering in its fullness in Christ Jesus.

Moses is the first to have the name of God revealed to him. There are many names for God, but never before was it revealed as it was to him – that state – and you are in it now, I am in it. And the name revealed of God the creator is “I AM”. (Exodus 3:13-15) “When I go to the people of Israel and tell them that the God of their fathers sent me. The God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and they ask me, ‘What is his name? What shall I say?’ The voice answered, ‘I AM that I AM.’ Say unto them ‘I Am hath sent you.'” It was never revealed before that that was the name of God.

We are told in Psalm 9:10: “And those who know thy name put their trust in thee.” If you know the name! You and I have heard the name, but if you really know it, you will put your trust in the name, and I tell you the name is “I AM”. It’s not John, it is not Jesus, it’s not God, it’s not Lord – it’s nothing outside of “I AM”. The word translated “Lord”, (which is Jehovah) means, “I AM”. When I say I am the Lord thy God, I really should say – if you really want to understand it – “I AM that I AM”, your creator.” For the word now translated “God” is the word “Elohim”, the word used in the first chapter of Genesis: “And God said” (that is, “Elohim” – a plural word): “Let us make man in our image.”

When you read the words in the sentence: “I am the Lord thy God”, the word “I AM” is the same word translated [as] “Lord”. So, I AM that I AM, the God who created you in his image, and beside me there is no other God, no other creator, no other savior. That is what was revealed in the state known as Moses. If you take the name of Moses, men-shin-he, – and if you turn it backwards it spells “name”, “shem.” (The common word for name in Hebrew is “shem”.) If I take the middle letter out [of “Moses”], which is a “shin” and put it first of the three little letters shin-mem-he, it spells “heaven” [correctly: sham-may-im]. So, here the name means so much.

I call everything out, born and reborn, to bring all things within me that are to be born, and I do it in his name. I am drawing it out of myself – that is Moses – Moshe. I turn the name around: I do it in his name (“shem”). And where do I draw it from? Shin-mem-he, [pron. “sham-mah”] out of heaven [lit. “from there.”] And where is heaven? Heaven is within you. Out of my own being I am drawing everything, but I draw it in his name. There is no other name under the sun by which this is done. And so, how do I draw anything? I draw it only in his name. We are told he draws it all out – but he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven – the promised land, called Canaan.

The one who will take the Israelites in is Joshua. The word “Joshua” is the identical word as Jesus, spelled the same way. He cannot go in; he is only the power that draws it out – Jesus does, whose name is Joshua. Before we reach that state called Joshua (which is Jesus), we pass through the state of Elijah. The word Elijah, “my God is Jehovah.” If I say my God is Jehovah, I think in terms of some external Lord. If I say “My God is I AM” then you might think me arrogant, think me blasphemous, yet that is exactly what the word means.

His story is told us in the Book of Kings. In the Book of Kings there is nothing but sheer unadulterated power. When a man feels it and knows what he can do, untempered by love, he does everything. That is what Elijah did. He called down the fire and destroyed the sacrificial bull, turning it to ash. Destroyed the children who criticized him and then the 450 prophets of Baal who could not bring down any fire; he did in the twinkle of an eye. He ordered the destruction of all the prophets of Baal. Violence in the extreme. Then we move from this state to the Joshua (which is Jesus) where the same power – infinite power – is tempered with love.

Let me give you my own personal experience concerning these states. When you meet these states they are personified as men. Thirty odd years ago I was taken in the spirit into a divine council, a divine society, and the first one to meet me was the embodiment of infinite might. He was seated (and the symbolism is perfect) in a chariot, and hitched to this chariot was this perfectly marvelous pair of beautifully harnessed horses, and seated in the chariot was infinite might – eyes of steel, not an nth part of love came from that face to mine. As he thought, I heard what he thought. He looked at me eye to eye, but no emotion of feeling concerning love or mercy or tenderness came from his eye to mine – just sheer might, sheer power. No power on earth can compare to the embodiment of that power.

And just as we are told: “When he ascended in his fiery chariot leaving no trace behind…” It seems such a stupid statement to make, that not a thing on earth could lead one to believe that it could be literally true. And yet, my mystical experience confirms the truth of that statement, for there is the perfect embodiment of the chariot and the horses, beautifully harnessed, and the charioteer is Elijah himself -infinite power. The horse is always the symbol of the mind; in this case the mind is harnessed, disciplined, and directed by the charioteer, the one who is in control of that disciplined mind, but no feeling, no emotion of love.

Then I was taken into the presence of infinite love, infinite mercy, and here I stood in the presence of Christ Jesus – a state, yes, a living state – and talked and communed with him. He asked me: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” And I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three abide, but the greatest of those is love.” At that moment he embraced me and I became one with infinite love. I have never known such joy in my life, never known such peace and mercy, such anything concerning these attributes. While in this embrace came this voice out of space, and I found myself once more in the presence of infinite might – and he is called Elijah. Another name for him in the Bible is Elias, God Almighty. No mercy there as yet, no love, just sheer power, and it was he who sent me back to where I am today with the command: “Time to act.”

All this was done in the state of Moses, that state that I entered not voluntarily; I was drafted, as I was drafted into God’s army without my permission, my consent, for a purpose: to lead me out of Egypt into the promised land. But I have to pass through these states. Everyone passes through these states. So, Moses is the mediator, the state of all the things that happen to him, and he in turn then shares with those for whom it happened. And so, it happened to me, that state of Moses. Then I in turn prepare to share with you the things that happened to me, for they happened because of you, to tell you it is all true.

You say: “A little handful like this and three billion of us in the world?” It doesn’t matter if only one came and heard of God’s word and the truth of that word; it would be infinitely greater than the three billion who didn’t hear of it. For we enter the kingdom of God one by one. We do not enter in pairs. I can’t take the dearest soul in this world to me with me into that state. We have to go alone, singly. We are known singly and loved singly and no two can go together. So, it doesn’t matter if I speak to a hundred or to one, or speak across the nation on radio to two million – it makes no difference. Do they believe it? The story is: “Tell the story as you experienced it, in the hope, yes, that they will believe it.” But no one has any assurance that it will be believed, but only as it is believed and accepted by the individual do we start the journey out of Egypt. Egypt is not in the Near East; you are Egypt.

Joseph – which is your own wonderful human imagination – is buried in Egypt, (the body). He contains within himself the whole vast world, and now it has to be led out. It is led out by the true revelation of the true name of God. In the fifty chapters of Genesis the word is not revealed, not used, and then comes the revelation of the 3rd and 6th chapters of Exodus: “Go and tell them ‘I AM’ sent you.” All through the entire book, when you read this strange translation, “I AM the Lord” is simply “I AM the I AM.” Why take the second “I AM” and then call it ‘Lord”? The average person reading it can’t quite understand it, but the identical words that begin the sentence: “I AM”, which is Yod He Vau He [pron. Yod Hey Vav Hey] is the word that comes just two words removed: “The Lord” – “I AM the I AM”, your God and besides the “I AM” there is no God. I AM your maker, therefore you are really self-begotten in the true sense of the word.

So, these are three fantastic states through which man moves, and the day will come when you, too, will be taken by a whirlwind into heaven and you will be brought into the presence of a state; but to you it is something completely independent of your perception of it. When you look at him he is a power, I mean a power beyond the wildest dream of man – and it is man. I could paint a picture for you, could I draw. I can see him so clearly and it was thirty-odd years ago. More vividly than anything that happened to me – today it is so indelibly impressed upon my mind – and yet it is a state called Elijah. And one passes through that state where it is nothing but sheer might.

You see it in the world today. It could be economic power, where there is no feeling whatsoever but simply to get a new power. It could be a military power, social power, intellectual power, or any other kind of power, without feeling or compassion, just sheer might. We see it describing the world in the morning paper. Not a bulletin on the radio or TV that doesn’t describe this sheer might. If I can get the better of that nation or nations without feeling it doesn’t matter – that’s Elijah. Read this story in the Book of Kings, where it passes from that to God himself, and that is Christ Jesus.

When you stand in his presence, again he is no other than you. He communes with you, he asks you questions and you answer the question, and he embraces you and it all seems so much the two of you – and yet you are told in Zechariah 14:7: “His name is one.” He seems to be another, he embraces you, but at that moment of the embrace you become one and the Lord – the “I AM” – is one and “His name is one.” Then you find yourself fused with God himself and there aren’t two of you – not you and God – you are the very being that you have been seeking, you are he.

And then comes the sentence to recall all the means to be sent, for you are called and then sent to reveal all that has happened to you, in the hope that those who hear it will accept it. We are told many rejected it and many accepted it. That is how it is all singled out. Eventually all will accept it. It is a form of preparation leading up towards the fulfillment of his purpose, which is to give himself to us. For it is God’s purpose to give himself to you individually, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you.

And because God is one and his name is one, there can’t be God and you. For you stand in his presence as you answer the questions. You will – you’ll answer it automatically: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” You say “love”. Then you are embraced by love himself and you aren’t you and love – you are love. You are the embodiment of love and you never felt such mercy, such compassion, such love, and you are one with it, but there aren’t two of you, you are God. And while in the very embodied state of infinite love, you are sent – sent to do what you will be doing right in this world, because everyone must be led out of Egypt. “Bring my people out of Egypt,” even though I will harden the heart of Pharaoh and keep them back in Egypt, I will still tell you to bring them out of Egypt.

If the heart is hardened because of what we have to say (because in this audience we are Christians and Jews, undoubtedly all of us) there may be one who does not call himself a Christian or a Jew, who thinks I am neither -I’m an agnostic, or I’m an atheist, or maybe I’m some other creed. But I would say that on a whole as I go across the country I speak to hundreds of Christians and Jews.

The word “Moses” to the Jew is a sacred name, the one who was a leader, chosen by God to lead his chosen people out of Egypt into the promised land. And Elijah, the great prophet. To the Christian, what more sacred name than the name of Christ Jesus? I tell you these are infinite states, eternal states, through which the immortal soul passes, and he awakens in the very end and is confronted by God himself, the Ancient of Days. Then you will know.

On the Mount of Transfiguration these were the three who appeared. There was Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. “They all shone until their faces were like the sun.” That is true. We are told that when Moses came down from the mountain, they all were afraid because he shone so, and he covered himself with a veil so he could talk to the people while he was veiled. The veil is the human body. This garment is the veil to talk to man, for if you saw him unveiled you couldn’t stand the light. But when he went into the presence of God he took off the veil, and he is one with him. He comes down and before he could put on the veil there is a light that dazzles the eye of mortal man.

May I tell you: whether you believe it or not, the morning it first happened to me I was alone in my own room on 49th street in New York City. It was four in the morning. There was no moonlight, no reason for light in my room, no light was on -but here was this unearthly light that filled the room and it did not subside until the sun came out. The room was completely radiant with light but no one could see it but myself. So, I tell you this symbolism is true and it is all about you. Everything in the book is about you. As we are told in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book” – some translate it: “In the volume all about me.” It is…the whole book is about you, and these fantastic characters are the eternal spiritual states through which you move. Everything is planted in you and recorded in that first book of Genesis. Then comes the beginning of Exodus where man is making his exit from the world of slavery, the world of Egypt (and it’s not in the Near East) this where I go. This (the body) is the world of Egypt and I am pulling myself out, and there are series of signs which will accompany my exit from Egypt.

One of the signs you are told about only occurred in connection with Israel’s departure from Egypt, and that is the serpent. Moses throws the serpent to show you, and no one understood it, no one. Today how many people understand the symbolism? It is true. It is recorded for us in John 3, that it must take place: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” in the same manner. You will find yourself one day actually experiencing the state of being lifted up in serpentine form, lifted up into heaven. Signs follow, as told us in the book of Deuteronomy: “And Jehovah delivered his people from Egypt by signs and wonders.” Always signs and wonders, everything was a sign, but how to interpret the sign. Wait for it; all these signs will happen.

At the Nativity, the angel gave a sign through the shepherds, and people have completely misunderstood the sign and think it is the event. It is only the sign, which is the deliverance of an individual into heaven from the land of Egypt. Simeon comes into the temple and looks at the Child and tells them: “This is a sign that is spoken against.”

Now in this audience for the last three years, I would not say there were many, but I have heard personally and through the grape-vine, those who spoke against the sign – some never to return in the interval of three years. So this is a sign that will be spoken against. How true the prophecy! Those who come home today socially – we dine together, but they will not be seen here – and when we are together socially, we never discuss the sign. And so, Simeon comes into the temple and sees the Child and makes the prophecy: “This is a sign that will be spoken against.” And those who will come – you haven’t spoken so far against it – but I know dozens who have spoken against it to the point of never having returned to this auditorium. He gives us signs and wonders as he brings us out of Egypt and the story of Christ Jesus, every event, is only a sign.

Not a thing takes place here on this level. Everything recorded about it, from his birth to the very end – the ascension – is a sign; and everything is going to take place in you. The birth, or the miracle, the fantastic things – yes, and the transfiguration too. And when it does take place, you too will swear those who were present to secrecy. And yet the thing is so fantastic you need not even swear them to secrecy, but you do it automatically, because like Peter, James and John, they were not asleep but they were drowsy. And they look at you and they can’t believe the wonder of it all. When they return here to this level they don’t remember, or if they remember they only vaguely remember. Peter was filled with sleep, yet he kept awake, but he was drowsy. So he couldn’t quite see the glory that was given at that moment to the one called Jesus, because in the end when the whole thing vanished, there was only Jesus.

These states remain behind for all to pass through, and one who is left at the very end – he is Christ Jesus. There is nothing at the end but Jesus, and Jesus means “Jehovah saved.” He is a savior and he saves you because you are he. You are self-begotten. In the end you come right out and you are one with the being who begot himself as you. These are the states through which you – the immortal you – must pass to awaken as God, and there is none but God.

Moses is sent. It isn’t voluntary. He is drafted, and he becomes one with the state and he brings himself out of the confusion of the state of Egypt into the harmony, the peace and the joy that is God. He has to pass the state of Elijah – sheer might and power – and he moves through that out to Jesus. So, in the end everyone is Jesus. Everyone will be Christ-like without losing his definite individuality. I will know you and you will know me, and yet you will be transformed and I will be transformed.

I can’t describe what I saw, and I can’t find the words to describe what I revealed to the one and swore her to secrecy, but I am quite sure she was in a state of semi-sleep and would not – or could not – remember. Everyone is destined for it. You may take it lightly and think: “Well, that’s silly,” because that is the whole vast world, and in teaching this story for 2,000 years or beyond that, they don’t see the mystery. It is all a mystery. I have been asked from this auditorium: “Is it right to tell it.” Certainly it’s right to tell it, you can’t restrain yourself, but it is something difficult to describe because it is mysterious in character. Not a thing to be hidden from the world, for you are destined to be Christ Jesus; but you will not become aware of your heavenly inheritance so long as you still wear this garment, which is a veil. But you will continue to do the work and tell your story to all who will listen.

So, Moses begins the great exodus. It really is the beginning of the birth of Israel. He not only attains the birth; in him the state called Israel is born. Then he is pulled out to the flower that is Christ Jesus. But he passes through that mighty state, Elijah. Then you go past him, taken by the wind, into the presence of the Ancient of Days. Then comes the most glorious thing in the world, love. All states, granted, but you will meet them, and meet them in this holy assemblage, and each will be identified, and they are all taught [in] the story of the scripture. So, I tell you: these are not characters. The names signify the eternal states through which you and I pass. Everyone is destined to meet the same end, and the end is – God. We all awaken as God.

So, “Let us make man in our image” is true, and that is Elohim. But the name isn’t really revealed until the journey starts. If you believe the name, read Psalm 9:10: “And those who know thy name put their trust in thee, for thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek thee.” It should not be “O Lord” for again you get off the beat. The word “O Lord” is Yod He Vau He. He is addressing himself, and we found the name “I AM”. And your name is “I AM” for “I AM” would not forsake myself. That’s really what it means. Read it carefully.

Do you believe the name I told you this night? That is the name of God. If you really do, you’ll put your trust in him. If you go out of here tonight hoping that something other than “the name” will draw you out of sickness, or poverty, or being unknown, or anything else in the world, you have not put your trust in him. If you really believe him, put your trust in his name, and trusting in his name you are moving out of Egypt into the land that was promised. For you rise into a land completely subject to your imaginative power.

Every man needs a state to express him. Moses is a state, Elijah is a state, but it can’t express itself, it needs an agent, and the agent is always man. So man, the pilgrim, moves into a state and then the state becomes animated, and if you saw it, it is personified – that’s man, because you occupy it. Man is the operant power. “Where man is not, nature is barren.” There is no state beyond this drama, which is Christ Jesus. “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, whom he has appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world” Hebrews 1:1.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

NEVILLE’S PURPOSE REVEALED

Neville Goddard  25 June 1971

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen purpose is revealed, all falls into place. The revelation of purpose gives meaning to everything, and there is a purpose in this wonderful, vast creation of God. Paul said: “He has made known unto us . . . . the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.” [Ephesians 1:9, 10] There is a plan behind it all. 

Now let us turn to the most disputed verse in Ecclesiastes: “God has put Eternity into man’s mind, yet so that man cannot find out what Cod has done from the beginning to the end.” [Ecclesiastes 3:11]

The Revised Standard Version translates it as “eternity.” The meaning of the word translated “eternity” will determine what meaning you would give to that verse. The word is “olam.” The King James Version translates it as “the world.” “He put the world into man’s mind.”

But the word is “olam.” It really means — in a sense — “history”; but history to the one who wrote it, the Teacher, consists of all the generations of man, including their experiences, and all fused into one grand whole; and this concentrated time into which all things are fused, they call “eternity.” It is from this that all things spring. Now that is in your mind.

All the generations that ever walked the face of this earth, all of their experiences, all that are walking today, all that ever will walk, God placed in your mind. You are not limited to this small, little section of time — threescore and ten years. He took Eternity! Therefore, He gave you Himself! But He hid the gift from the beginning of time to the end.

The gift is God Himself! Believe it, and the whole incredible story of the Gospel will become to you possible. And the day will come, you will experience the gift, and you will know how true it is. God’s purpose is to give Himself to you individually, as though there were no others in the world — just you, for the gift is so complete, it is not you and God; it’s you as God. God became as you are, that you may be as He is. [Paraphrase of Blake’s statement in “Jerusalem”] So in the end, you will not see another as God. It is you as God! This is the story.

Now, in the 4th Chapter of Ecclesiastes, at the very end of the 4th Chapter, he said, “I saw all the living that move about under the sun, as well as that second youth, who was to stand in his place; there was no end to all the people; he was above all of them. Yet those who will come later will take no joy in him. Isn’t that also vanity and the striving after wind?” [Ecclesiastes 4:15,16J

This “second one” spoken of in Scripture is the Lord from Heaven. It begins in the very beginning of Genesis. The “second one” was Abel, the slaughtered, the murdered. As we move through, the “second one” was Isaac, — not Ishmael, the first. We come on through, and it was Jacob, not Esau. A strange reversal of order takes place in all of these adumbrations in Scripture. They are all a foreshadowing of what God has planned for us. There is that “second youth” in us that has to be awakened, and that is God Himself! He is reproducing in us His own image, and that is called the “second man” or the “Lord from Heaven.”

I will share with you, as I’ve done night after night, my own personal experience of Scripture. The story is the only true story in the world. God’s eternal purpose is taking place in time; but it is an eternal state. It’s something that is continuous. It is permanent, in contrast to this fragmented state in time where we seem to begin, and all things that begin here end. But there is something that does not begin. It is continuous. It is in man. It is buried in man, and that that cannot begin or end is God-in-man.

Paul asked the question: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” [II Corinthians 13:5]

Well, the answer to that, if you are honest with yourself, if you have not had the experience, — you would say, “No, I do not. I could believe it, and I will believe it; but I do not know it. For, to experience it would be to know it. Not to experience it and only to believe it would be hearsay, but I want to actually experience it, that I may know it.”

Your purpose in this world is not what the world thinks it is. Therefore they said you do not rejoice. “Those who come later will not rejoice in Him” [Ecclesiastes 4:16, R.S.V.], because they will think their purpose is to make a fortune, to get a bigger house or more houses, to get a name among those who are departing this world, for all these appear, they wax, they vane, they disappear. No matter how long they prolong it, or they think they do, they all vanish; and they want to have some name among the shadows that are vanishing. There is a purpose, and the purpose is to awaken as God — God Himself!

The plan is definite in Scripture. He said, “I have come into the world only to fulfill Scripture.” That’s my purpose. “He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the unveiling in me of His plan, which is Christ Jesus” [Philippians 1:6]. He will unveil Christ Jesus in me. Well, when he does, “I am He.”

I have been taught that He dwells in me, but I have also been taught that He came from without. When one experiences the story, he realizes He is not from without at all. He was always buried in me — that Universal Christ, the Cosmic Christ. The whole of Him, riot a little piece of Him; but the whole is buried in the seeming part; and that individual, speaking of you now individually, will one day have the experience recorded in Scripture of Jesus Christ!

He said, “I am not of this world. I am from above. You are from below.” [John 8:23]

He isn’t speaking to the crowd on the outside. It’s taking place within the individual. I am speaking now to this conscious, reasoning mind “below” — this garment of flesh and blood, — you are from below. I am from above. I must be born from above. You, Neville, — the flesh-and-blood Neville — you were born from below — from the womb of a woman. I am being born from above — from that place where they laid me when I “died.” I died as God, to awake in man as man, and then to take that man in whom I am buried and raise him to the level of my Self as God.

He is buried in your skull. That is Golgotha. There is no other burial place for Jesus Christ. You can go all over the world looking for his so-called “holy sepulchre”; and you will not find it outside of your own skull. That’s where He is buried. And the day will come that you will find yourself awakening. You will awaken in your own skull, and you will be alone — all alone, and the skull will be sealed — completely sealed; but you now, having awakened within your skull, you have an innate wisdom as to what you should do. You have one consuming desire, and that is to get out.

You are completely sealed in your skull, and you are standing up alone; but you know if you push the base of your skull, something will “give.” And you do; you push it from within, and something rolls away, as described in Scripture: “And the stone was rolled away” [Mark 16:4J. You do it. And then you put your head through that little opening, and you squeeze, and you come out like a child being born, inch by inch by inch. And when you are almost out, you pull the remaining portion of your body out of your skull. And after a few seconds on the ground, you rise again and look back at that body out of which you came. It’s ghastly pale, tossing its head from side to side just like one in recovery from some great or major operation. Then you hear the wind that actually preceded the entire drama — a peculiar, unearthly wind.

Now, “wind” and “spirit” are the same word in both Greek and Hebrew. But you hear the wind; it’s a storm wind. You feel it in your head, and yet you seem to feel it’s coming from the corner of the room where you find yourself. You look over to that corner, not more than a few seconds; and as you look back, the body out of which you emerged has been removed, as told in Scripture: “They have taken away his body, and we do not know where they have laid it.” [John 20:2] The body is gone; it has been removed. But in its place now are seated three witnesses to the event. In my own case, they were my three older brothers. As tradition has it, — it is not in Scripture; but tradition has it, the three who came to witness the birth were brothers: the king of Arabia, king of Persia, king of India; and they were brothers. In my case, they are not earthly kings in my family; they were simply my own wonderful, loving brothers. And there they sat, one at the head, one at one foot, and one at the other. The body was gone, but that’s where it would have been had it remained there: the head and the two feet.

They are equally disturbed because of the wind. My brother Lawrence was the most disturbed; and he rose and started towards the same direction that I started. He hadn’t gone more than a step when something attracted his attention, and he looked down on the floor, and he announced to my other two brothers, “Why, it is Neville’s baby!”

They, in the most incredulous voices, asked, “How can Neville have a baby?”

He does not argue the point. He lifts the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and brings it over and places it on the bed. He didn’t see because I am now Spirit. I cannot be seen by mortal eye. They saw it, and they came and saw the sign that was foretold by the angels. “Go, and you shall find this as a sign, an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes” [Luke 2:12], — and that’s the sign that God Himself was born. “For a Saviour is born this day to you.” [Luke 2:11]

The only “saviour” in Scripture is the Lord God Jehovah. “I am the Lord God, your Saviour,” you are told in the 43d and 45th Chapters of Isaiah, “and beside me there is no saviour.” [Isaiah 43:11 and 45:21] So, the Saviour is being born. That’s exactly what is going to happen to you individually.

I took the infant up, arid then I looked into its face, and I said, “How is my sweetheart?” Then it broke into the most glorious, heavenly smile. As told you, “the name was called Isaac” [Genesis 21:3], which simply means: “He smiles.” The smile is a heavenly smile. While he is looking into my face and smiling, the whole thing dissolves.

Now we come to that “second youth”; and he comes (in my case) a hundred and twenty-nine (129) days after the “birth from above.” An explosion in my head -— the whole drama takes place in your skull. That’s where you were buried, and that’s where the whole drama is going to unfold. A hundred and twenty—nine days later my head began — there’s a vibration, and when it reached the limit — what I thought was the limit, it exploded; and then when the whole thing settled, I am seated at an ordinary table. Before me is a table; on it an enormous head severed from the body. Leaning against the side of an open door and looking out on a pastoral scene is my son David of Biblical fame. Yes, David of Biblical fame! That’s why I say the drama is permanent and continuous. It’s not something that took place, once and for all, two thousand years ago or four thousand years ago; it is taking Place now, and it will continue to take place until His purpose is fulfilled. It cannot he fulfilled until everyone experiences that predetermined drama — for the awakening of God in man as God, — that man in whom He awakes is God!
So, here is David leaning against the side of an open door and looking at me. I have never seen such beauty in my life. David has an unearthly beauty. You can’t describe the beauty of that lad of about 12 or 13. And while I drink him in and feast upon his beauty, the whole thing dissolves; and I know I am his father, and he knows that he is my son.

Until that moment in time, I had no idea there was any relationship between a Biblical character and the one talking to you now. It came as a complete surprise to me that the story told in the Bible is eternally true, and it’s all about us. That David is your “son,” but you do not know it. He put that in your mind in the beginning, “but so that you cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” That is the 11th verse of the 3d Chapter of Ecclesiastes. That is what He put in your mind. That is that “second youth” who is over all of them. As you are told, “He is prince forever [Ezekiel 37:21]. If he is “prince,” his father is “king.” “And the Lord will be king in that day, and his name shall be One; and all will be one.” He is king! The king has a son; the son is a prince. And David is the “prince” forever and forever.

So, here is the unfolding drama of God-in-you, and God is king. But He’s a father. Well, if He’s a father, there must be a son, and the son is David.

Now we read in the story of David:

I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said unto me: “Thou art my son.
Today I have begotten thee.” [Psalm 2:1]

And now the Lord speaks:

“I have found David, . . . . .
He has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father,
my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.”

[Psalm 89:20,21]

You will find David, and only when you find him will you really know that you are God. You will not in eternity be persuaded by someone other than yourself. You can only know it — actually know it — by finding David, and David will reveal to you Who-You-Are. That was God’s plan in the beginning. That’s His purpose.

So He set it forth in Christ. Well, the word “Christ” is the Hebrew word “Messiah.” That wonderful poem of Browning, when he tried in his wonderful manner, through the use of words, to reveal the coming of Messiah, — he called the poem “Saul.” If you are not familiar with the story, Saul was insane — King Saul; and David plays the lyre — plays the harp and soothed him when he was demented. Now the story as Browning tells it is this:

David stands before Saul, and he said to Saul: “Oh, Saul, . . . .
A face like my face . . . shall receive thee; a man like to me
Thou shalt love and be loved by forever: A Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!”

Then standing before him, he said: “See the Christ stand!”
He is telling you who he is; he is the “Anointed One.” “Christ” means the “anointed one.’

“Rise and anoints him. This is he” [I Samuel 16:12], said the Lord to His prophet Samuel. “This is he.” Who are they speaking to? To Samuel. Of whom? He spoke of David. So Samuel took the ointment, — that is, the oil — the precious oil, and anointed David in the presence of his brothers; “and from that day forward the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David.” [I Samuel 16:13]

Now you are told, “Those who come later will find no joy in Him.” [Ecclesiastes 4:16]

They are so eager to make money, so eager to get a name among shadows, so eager to build monuments to themselves, that they have no time for the story, — they are all about the shadow world. Now, what does he mean, he was above all of them? Well, if you can take it, may I tell you? all these “garments” [indicating the physical body] are shadows. They are part of the eternal structure of the universe. You are “wearing” these garments, and they are you only for a temporary part of your time. They became a part of you when you penetrated them and annexed the brains of them; and so for a little while they are a temporary portion of the soul — but only for a temporary part of your journey. It is not You. These garments –you burn them up — put them into the oven and reduce them to ash, but that’s not You. Throw it into the furnace, and that Fourth One comes out, the Fourth One being your Eternal Being as you. You are told in the Book of Daniel: “Throw them into the furnace,” — reduce them to ashes; but here is the Immortal You that cannot die. But while you are here and you are a part of that little world in which you live, you think it is you, and you’ll die to protect it and do anything to save it while you go about your business trying to make more and more of this shadow world.

He said, “Those who will come later will not rejoice in Him. Is that not a striving after wind?” It’s just like “striving after wind” to build up more and more of the same shadows.

So here, I am sharing with you what I personally have experienced. All the adumbrations of the Old Testament, which are put into the form of a story told as if it were true, — for that’s what is told; it is told as if it were true, and you were taught to believe that it was physically true, and it’s not physically true. It takes place in man. It is more true than any physical story ever could be, for this is eternally true.

Now the third one, you will find yourself, — and this is a marvelous one; the day will come, you will be split in two from top to bottom, and you will see at the base of your spine golden, liquid, pulsing, living light. Although it’s liquid, pulsing light, you know it is your Self; and you fuse with it; and then like a fiery serpent, you rise into your skull. And when you enter, it is just like thunder. You reverberate; your whole head begins one grand, marvelous reverberation. You think it’s going to split; but no, — it subsides, and you have gone hack into Heaven! That’s how you take Heaven, and you take it violently, as told you in Scripture. [See Matthew 11:12,13; and Luke 16:16, R.S.V.]

And then comes the climax; and the climax is when the Spirit descends upon you in bodily form as a dove and smothers you with affection, kissing you all over your face, your head, your neck. He remains on you when the vision begins to fade. Then the drama has been brought to its climax.

You then tell it to the best of your ability, either in the spoken word as I am, or you can write it if you can write. But you tell it to anyone who will listen. It’s not very encouraging if you read the end of Acts because he told it “from morning to evening . . . . some believed him, and some disbelieved him. [Acts 28:23, 24]

Well, the same thing is true here, because man has been taught to believe it is a physical story — a secular story. When I tell them the true meaning of it, then they turn their ears — that is, they clasp their hands over their ears, for they can’t believe that what they were told is not true secularly.

But I tell you, it is not historically true, if by “history” I mean things that took place here on earth. It is eternally true in the Spirit world. And that is what is going to happen to you; and when it happens to you, you will leave this world. And the next time you close your eyes and men call you “dead,” you will be one of those who look down from Eternity upon this world and see all this taking place, and it’s all under you. That is what he meant: “I saw all those who go about under the sun, and he was over all of them.” All these things are simply under his control. Everything here is taking place by those who contemplate it above.

So when we are told the story: He stood before the judge, and the judge said, “Who are you?” he said, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth.”

He said, “Are you a king?”

He said, “You say that I am, but my kingdom is not of this world.”

It hasn’t a thing to do with this world; he came only to bear witness to the truth, and the truth was the Word of God. So, he cane to express that Word, and the Word had to find expression in him; then he tells it to the world. “Some believed, and some disbelieved.”

There is no personal description of Jesus in the Scriptures. So, forget all the pictures that you have seen, no matter how good the artist. No personal description of Jesus in the Bible because you are the Lord Jesus Christ. And the day will come, they will know you to be Jesus Christ, regardless of your sex. And they will know you, identified as you are, — you are Mary, you are John, you are Jim, you are Stanley, you are Benny; and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. They will know you as their friend, and still know that you are the Lord.

So, everyone will be the Lord Jesus Christ, They all form “one Body, one spirit, . . . one God and Father of all,” — without loss of identity. You are individualized; and you tend forever and forever towards an ever greater individualization. You reach that climax of it all as what you are individually but as the Lord! And they will see you and know that you are the Lord, while you are walking this earth, may I tell you? Not in some after-death state.

When this thing happens to you, there are those in your circle of friends who will see you, and they can’t believe their own eyes, but they can’t deny what they saw. They will know you are the Lord. They will dine with you the next night, have a drink with you, tell you a joke; you tell them one, and still they can’t get it out of their heads that they saw you and you were the Lord. They know that you are the Lord, and yet you are the same friend they have always known. But they saw you as you really are after you have been born from above.

So, man must be born from above or he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Everyone will be born from above, for that One to be born is already in man dreaming. The Dreamer-in-man is Jesus Christ. You are dreaming this world. Now dream it nobly. Dream noble dreams. All can come to pass.

In your dreams dare to assume that you are the man that you want to be. Assume that you are it, and persist in that assumption; and that assumption, in a way you do not consciously know, will harden into fact. All assumptions if persisted in become what the world calls “reality.’ So, do not give up. The most fantastic dream can become true if you assume it and walk in the assumption as though it were true.

Night after night, sleep as though you are the man — the woman — that you would be or that you would like to be. And then, if tomorrow does not bring it to pass, it doesn’t matter. There are intervals of time between the assumption and its fulfillment. It’s like generation. So, if you dare to assume it, give it time. And then some bridge of incidents will be built for you without your conscious knowledge of it, and it will lead you across that bridge to the fulfillment of your assumption in a way that you do not know.

So, dare to assume a noble concept of yourself. Live in it as though it were true; and may I tell you? It will become true.

Now a lady wrote me this week and asked me if I could throw some light on this. She said, “I found myself in a dormitory. I recall the dormitory, for I was in that school from the age of 12 to 18. But here you are as an instructor, and you are teaching all of us how to solve puzzles. You did not actually do it for us; you allowed us to use our own talents, but you are instructing. You were the instructor teaching us how to solve puzzles, leaving us full freedom to make our own efforts.

“Then you sat next to me, and you asked me this, — and this puzzled me because I do not understand what it means. You asked me, ‘Do you know what twenty-seven is?’”

Do you know what twenty-seven is?

Now she said, “I do not, and I cannot throw any light on it whatsoever. If you can throw some light on it, please do.”

Well, there are twenty-two letters to the Hebrew alphabet; but really they are twenty-seven, for there are five finals. Twenty-two originals, but five are repeated and called “finals.” So, there are twenty-seven letters.

I would suggest to this lady to read the 27th Psalm tonight. Take the 8th verse. It’s a glorious Psalm. It is not long — a very short one.

Thou hast said to me, “Seek ye my face.”
My heart says to thee,
“Thy face, Lord, I seek.
Hide not Thy face from me.” [Psalm 27:8,9]

That’s the whole drama, the Father and the Son, for no one can reveal the Father but the Son. And this is the Son — David — speaking. He is speaking to his Father: “Hide not Thy face from me.”

Yet you told me to seek your face.

My heart says to you,
“Thy face, Oh, Lord, I seek.
Hide not Thy face from. Me.”

That’s the drama.

Now in her letter she said, “Recently I have been having these dreams where I know I am dreaming. I am trying so hard to see what I am seeing, but I know I can open my eyes and see differently; but I am struggling to open the eyes and they won’t open.”

They are actually on the verge of it, my Dear. You must open the in-current eye, because you are going to see inwards into the world of thought — into Eternity — that which is ever expanding in the bosom of God, — what is it? The human imagination.

As someone wrote, they had their ears pierced — not the lobes of the ear, but the very center of the ear. Yes, they must be pierced, too, as told you in the 40th Psalm: “Ears Thou hast pierced for me.” [Psalm 40:6] You have made holes in them, that I may hear the heavenly sphere; we only hear the sounds out here — the noises. But there are ears to be pierced, and there are eyes to be opened. Then in-current eyes open up into the world of Eternity, into the world of thought, and forever expand; and that eye is the human imagination, which is one with God. For:

“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.”
[Blake, from “Annotations to Berkeley”
and “The Laocoon”]

So, be careful what you imagine. I don’t care how trivial it is, it will come to pass. The whole vast world is nothing more than the confused imaginations of men and women. So, if it seems confused, it is because man is not in control of his imaginal acts. He thinks he can imagine anything with impunity, but he cannot. It all comes into the world to confront him, and to show him what his harvest is. He planted it somewhere along the way; and now here comes his harvest, and he doesn’t recognize his own harvest.

Now, this being my last night, — I have no plans for the future, — I am going to give you a full opportunity to ask questions. First of all, let us go into the Silence.
(Following the Silence): Now are there any questions? Don’t be embarrassed. This is my last night here; so take full advantage of it.

(A lady asks a question that is unintelligible on the tape.)

NEVILLE: The question is, — you will find it in the end of the Gospel of John when he asks Peter if he loves him. “Peter, lovest thou me?”

And he says, “Yes, Lord, thou knowest that I do,”

He repeats this question three times, and it annoys Peter at the end. That’s the story. [See John 21:15 and following.]

I can say in words that I love you. I want it carried to the depths of your own being; so I repeat it. I repeat myself here night after night after night, because people I think heard me, and then I discover they didn’t really. If they had heard me to the point of belief, they would live by it, because man lives by his beliefs. And when I find them not living by what they have confessed in words that they believed, I know that they really didn’t believe it at all, because man lives by belief.
Then I say, “Well, do you believe it? Do you really believe that what I have told you is true, that I was born from above? Do you really believe that David is my son, and he is the son of God; and therefore he revealed to me who I really am as against what I thought I was?”

You may say in words, “Yes, I believe you.”

Then I may find you after that disbelieving by your behavior. And so, at the very end he asks him three times; and you will find the word that he used to be “love.” There are different words. “Eros” is love on the lowest level, and man mistakes that for love. “Aphrodite”(?), that’s love — something entirely different. So, man thinks of sex. All right, I am not denying sex. Sex is a very important thing in this world — very important; but people will say, ‘I love you,” meaning sex. Others, an entirely different emotion permeates them.

I stood in the presence of Infinite Love, and it’s Man; but there was no feeling of sex about it. He embraced me, and our bodies became one body; we fused, when I answered his question. He said, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and I answered, “Faith, hope and love; these three. The greatest of these is Love.” [I Corinthians 13:15] At that, he embraced inc. Now, our two bodies became one body. As we are told in Scripture, “The two shall be one.” [Matthew 19:5]

But on this level, sex plays a very important part; but the day will come, the body is going to be split in two from top to bottom, and that energy that went into generation will be reversed and move into regeneration. So, he asked the question at the very end of the drama.

Now, let me make this statement: When I said, “He asked the question,” — the Gospels were written by anonymous characters. No one knows who Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are, — no one. They are anonymous names. They were only relating their own experience, but they told it in the form of a story. So, here is an allegory.
An allegory is a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who reads it or who hears it to discover its hidden meaning and learn its truth. So, they related their own experience, whoever Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were. They took the name because a name in Scripture has great significance; it’s not just a title or, I would say, some little tag.

The name “Jesus” is the same as the word “Jehovah.” The same “Yod He Vau” begins both words. The root is the same. “Jehovah” is “Salvation.” Jesus is called the Saviour; that’s salvation. And so, the Saviour was born, — Jehovah was born in a man and they related their own experience and told it beautifully. But–

“Truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.” [Tennyson]

So, they told it in the form of a story, that it would be accepted that way; and then gradually as you accept it, it will unfold in its true form.

So, Peter was the one who denied him three times before the cock crowed. So, he is still reminding him that he did at the very last deny him. “You turned your back upon me three times, and I told you the cock would not crow until you had denied me three times, and then the third time you wept bitterly because you knew how prophetically true my words were.”
So, man will swear, “ I will live by this for the rest of my days.” All right, you don’t have to swear. Try it! Try living by it! It’s not the easiest thing in the world to watch one’s imagination morning, noon and night, and to actually control it as you would a boat at sea when you steer it in the direction you want it to go. But, it has to be done eventually. Therefore, get started now.

“If you say you love me, you will keep my word,” he says.

So Peter says, “You know I love you.”

Well, the only way you can love me is to obey my word. “Those who love me,” he said, “obey the word.”

“What must I do to be doing the work of God? [John 6:28]

“Believe in him whom He has sent.” [John 6:29]

Well, the only one you can believe in — what? A little man? No; believe in the teaching, for he tells you, “They aren’t my words, but the words of Him who sent me.”

So, if you really believe that, you will believe the words and live by them. So, he asked it three times and let Peter deny him three times.

Are there any other questions, please?

(A gentleman asks a question that is not intelligible on the tape.)

NEVILLE: That was a colored man in Barbados. His name was Jordan. I was a boy. Of course, I didn’t know the story until I was in my 20’s. It was never told me. But I am one of nine brothers and one sister. My brother Victor met the prophet Jordan. He was known as “the prophet.” He was light-skinned; he was a mulatto, and everyone looked upon him as one who really had the prophetic vision. And he met my brother Vic, and he said to Vic, “What number are you in the Goddard family?”

Vic said, “I am the second.”

He said, “Now, what do you want to be?”

He said, “I want to be a businessman.”

He said to my brother Victor, “You are going to be a very, very successful businessman.”

Now he said, “What does the third one want to be?” That was my brother Lawrence.

He said, “He wants to be a doctor.”

He said, “He will be a very good, successful doctor. But,” he said, “don’t touch the fourth one. He belongs to God. The Lord has sent him to do a definite work; so don’t touch him. You can’t persuade him to do anything outside of that work that God sent him to do.” So, I happen to be the fourth one. Now that is what my brother Victor told me when I went back after I was gone for twelve years.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

PERCEPTION

Neville Goddard 4-26-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThere is nothing that appears in perception which cannot be duplicated in fancy, and what the world perceives is all imaginative in character. Here is a graphic example: I am sure everyone knows what it is to detect the fragrance of a rose. Now smell is a chemical sense and depends upon contact for perception. But does one really need a rose to detect its fragrance? Cannot its fragrance be reproduced imaginatively?

Having smelled an Easter lily, can you not discriminate between the smell of a rose and a lily, imaginatively? Then they do not exist independent of you, but live on some level (or levels) of your imagination! Can you call upon your memory of an experience of long ago, bring it back, and duplicate it in fancy? If so, then this world is no different from your imaginal one!

In 1820, William Blake wrote “The Presence of the Divine Teacher,” in which he said: “Man is all Imagination and God is Man and exists in us and us in Him. The Divine Body Jesus, we are his members.” In this statement Blake does not separate the members from the one body, the one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of us all. There is only one Imaginal Body. We are all His members, for we are all Imagination!

You can reproduce and duplicate any perception you have ever encountered, in your imagination. A friend or dear one does not need to be physically present for you to think of him. Nor do you have to be in your living room in order to see its contents. You can see the plains of Kansas, the mountains of Colorado, or the great Mississippi River without being there. So when we think from the premise of this as a world of imagination, we start on solid ground, for imagination is He who creates reality. There is no fiction in the true sense of the world, for when a state is imagined, it is created. Prayer is imagination drenched in feeling. A desire, drenched in the feeling of fulfillment, objectifies itself. This I know to be true; so regardless of what the world thinks, when you reproduce anything in your mind it takes on form in your outer world.

Everything here was once only imagined. The clothes you wear, the chair in which you are now seated, the building which houses you – all were first only imagined. Everything begins and ends in the human imagination. The source of all phenomena is Divine Imagining, which is God Himself!

Scholars consider the 82nd Psalm as the most difficult psalm in the entire Bible. Thomas Cheyne, the editor of the Encyclopedia Biblica, said of this psalm: “The ideas may be perennial, but their outward forms have long since ceased to be understood, and give the greatest challenge to the imagination of any interpreter.”

Here is the essence of the psalm: “God has taken his place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.’ I say, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.’ ”

The word which troubled the great scholars is “elohim.” It is a plural word which may be translated as “God” or “gods”. God (elohim) has taken his place in the divine council, proclaiming: You are gods (elohim). God is a compound unity of one made up of others. It takes all of the generations of men and their experiences to form the one God.

The elohim is not something distinct and separate from the many, for unity has a presence. Having fallen into division, we will return to the presence of unity. Divided in a world of generation where all things die, we will return to the divine society where all things live. The presence is being formed by the return of the fallen man who carried all of the gods with him in his fall.

It is not “I, and another called “the Lord”. Everyone is the Lord, as told us in the Sh’ma, the great Hebrew confession of faith: “Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

God has risen and is rising in all. He deliberately took upon himself man’s nature. By that act of assumption, Jesus Christ became the pattern upon which the nature of man is molded. He didn’t take a person called Neville upon himself, but my nature. And in so doing Jesus Christ became the type upon which I have been molded, raising this animal energy – called man, to divinity – called God.

Having fallen, God must now rescue himself. This he will do, for he has prepared a way for his return. You see, no man or group of men killed Jesus. It is he who said: “No man takes my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again.” Experiencing death by taking upon himself the animal nature of man, Imagination takes that energy and transforms it into his own likeness.

God is the great lover and artist who will transform you – his son of division, into himself – the image of love! Loving you so much He died to begin his good work in you, he will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ. On that day you will rise to His level, to discover that you and He are one creative power of love!

There is only one way to return to the awareness of being God the Father, and that is to follow the pattern of the true words which you have heard from me. I tell you from experience: you will awaken, rise and are born from above. Five months later David will stand before you and call you Father. Four months from that date, your spiritual body will be split and He who wove it for you will unwind himself as you! Then two years and nine months later, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, will descend upon you and smother you with love.

Do not believe in any being on the outside! Make a decision within yourself now to radically change your attitude toward another, and persuade yourself that what you believe is true!

If imagining creates reality, and you practice repentance by radically changing your mind, you can take anything that displeases you and change it. Then persuade yourself that the change is real. Expect it to mold itself in harmony with what you are thinking, and the man, woman, or room, will bear witness to your repentance.

When you change your attitude towards another, he must change his attitude towards you. Are we not told: “We love him because he first loved us?” It always starts with self! If you want him to be different, you must initiate the change. And as you do, you are practicing repentance, for the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is now time to repent and believe the gospel!

Nothing is so well concealed as the goodness of God. Look around and you will see murder, rape, and crime at every moment of time, so how can God be good or loving? It is hard to believe, and will not be understood until the end, when that which has been concealed will be revealed.

We are told: “The spirit of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.” (Jeremiah 22) So in your last days, when you come to the end of the play, the goodness, the greatness, and the love of God will be revealed.

Do not concern yourself with those who have no interest in hearing the truth concerning the mysteries of God. Don’t try to change them. If they are complacent, and believe theirs is the only truth, leave them alone and maybe when they die their death will force them to modify the ideas they have championed here. There will be no Jesus Christ standing on the outside to greet them, or angel to meet them. Rather, they will be restored to life in a body the same as before, only young. They will be in a terrestrial world like this, in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in them. Even though the color of their skin may have changed, you will know them when you see them. No matter how many masks your friend may wear, you will always know the identity behind the mask.

He who started the journey is wearing your mask right now, and He will continue to wear masks until He has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. God’s original pledge to himself was that he would make Man in his own image. Then the gods descended; and the gods will ascend, for no one has ever ascended into heaven but He who descended from heaven. The gods, falling as one man, descended into division and broken unity. In time, they will all be gathered together into that one unity called God the Father.

Many believe scripture is a myth, but when it is experienced in the depth of the soul, it is literally true. This you will know from experience. Having reached the limit of contraction to experience the nature of man, you will ascend into a limitless expansion as God.

Returning with all that you have experienced, your tremendous power is added to God’s already existing power. Then God, forever expanding, will decide on another adventure and we will all once again fall into a state like this in order to grow and grow and grow in our own wonderful human imagination!

Now remember: nothing appears in perception that cannot be duplicated in fancy. If you can perceive your desire, it exists. You cannot perceive an object that does not exist on some level (or levels) of imagination. Identify your human imagination with God, and because God calls a thing that is not now seen as though it were seen, you can call a state into being by assuming you are in it. And if you believe you have received your desire, you will, for belief will lead the way to its fulfillment.

If you look to reason rather than imagination, you are seeing the devil instead of God. The devil is the doubter in you. He questions your belief saying: “If you are the son of God then turn this stone into bread. Cast yourself down and his angels will lift you up.” All of these challenges are made by self-doubt.

I urge you to practice the art of imagination. If you do, I promise you will prove it in the testing, even though you may have started out to prove it wrong!

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

REDEMPTION

Neville Goddard 10-21-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told in Paul’s letter to the Romans that this world is a world of sorrow. Then he gives us the reason and the glorious end it produces, saying: “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us. The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was made subject unto futility – not of its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; for the creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

Here we see that the redemption of the universe depends upon the revealing of ourselves, for, buried in this world, we are the sons of God but we do not know it. The world did not subject us; we subjected ourselves. No one took our lives; we laid them down ourselves. We have the power to lay our life down and the power to take it up again. Coming into this world for a purpose, we deliberately became what we are in the hope that one day we would rise and redeem the world by setting it free from its bondage to decay.

Your connection with the plan of redemption called Jesus Christ can be told in this manner. It is like a visible history which is compressed within a few years, and the eternal history of salvation, which continually unfolds throughout the ages. At a certain moment in time these two histories come together to unite into one person, who is the Son of God and the unveiling of your true identity. You and I departed the world of eternity and came here for a divine purpose. And it is here where our real humanity and the true divinity of Jesus Christ unite and become one person.

Think for a moment of Jesus Christ as divine history which will be experienced by you while you are in the world of human history. John tells of this event in the story of the raising of Lazarus. (Remember, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not historical characters, but books bearing their names. The authors of these books took events which are separated in time and wove them into one dramatic experience.) The 11th chapter of the Book of John begins by identifying Lazarus as the one who is loved by the Lord Jesus, but is dead. Jesus, having heard this news, delays his journey and when he arrives, Martha (Lazarus’ sister) said: “If you had not left us, my brother would not have died.” And when they took Jesus to the cave where Lazarus was buried and he gave the command to remove the stone, Martha said: “Lord, by this time he stinketh as he has been dead for four days.”

Prior to this event Jesus knew himself to be the resurrection, and when he asked Martha if she believed, she answered in this manner: “Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of the Lord God who is coming into the world.” Notice the tense given here: he who is coming into the world; therefore, where is he being addressed? If you and I were speaking face to face would you not be here with me? So is the conversation not taking place within, as self speaking to self? Are you not telling yourself that you are the Lord who is coming into the world?

Now, when the command was given to remove the stone, the statement is made that there will be an offensive odor. This is a very important sign, for when the stone was removed, he said, “Lazarus, come out.” Then the one who was dead, bound hands and feet, with a napkin covering his head, came out. They unbound him and let him go.

You may think this is secular history, but I tell you it is not. John took events in divine history which were separated in time and wove them into this one grand experience. This I know to be true. John took the first event (which is resurrection) and the last event (which is the descent of the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove) and wove them into one grand complex picture; yet the events are separated in time by three and one-half years.

The resurrection of Christ in you and your birth from above are inseparable for “We are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ within us.” John takes the first event as someone he is going to raise, yet refers to it as the last event; and unless you have had the experience or know someone who has, you cannot understand it. I have books on the Bible at home, yet no scholar has touched this truth, for truth is not logically proved. It proves itself through revelation.

In my own case, the last event was when the Holy Spirit descended upon me in bodily form as a dove and smothered me with love. A woman at my side observed the descent, and said: “They avoid man because man gives off such an offensive odor. But he loves you and to demonstrate his love for you he has penetrated the ring of offense.”

Here we find the sign as an offensive odor. It was not just an odor, for an odor may be pleasant. The author was revealing the intensity of disgust felt regarding the world into which the sons of God had descended. Everything decays here – but everything! No matter how long a thing seems to live, whether it be animate or inanimate, in time it decays and vanishes. And the generative organs in the state of decay have a peculiar, offensive odor. On many occasions I have awakened knowing a friend or relative has died because I have smelled his odor, only to received confirmation during the day. The odor is associated with the decay of God’s creative power upon which the world is built.

When the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon me, it was a woman – not a man – who told me of his love, saying: “They avoid man because man gives off such an offensive odor.” The creation, waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God, avoids this odor. But at a moment in time, contact is made between the two histories: the human history of 6,000 years and the eternal history of salvation. They touch, and one new person is created, without loss of identity. You are aware of being touched and the being doing the touching. That being is Jesus Christ, the eternal, heavenly man.

Soon after that moment you will take off your garment of flesh and leave this world of death for the last time, for you will have come into your heavenly inheritance, which is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Creating anything at will, your every wish will become objectively real. That is the power you are inheriting, along with a body to fully appreciate it. Now, the creation waits for such contacts, for the creation has been subjected to futility – not by its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in the hope of revealing God’s sons, for such everyone is.

Now let me share a recent experience of a lady who received my eyes in vision about three years ago, at which time she was told that she was an incurrent eyewitness: one who gives passage to a current moving inward where reality is to be seen. In her recent vision she found herself with a group of people watching bolts of light move toward her. Then she began to feel a power so great she felt as though she could still the universe. Suddenly a man dressed in black stood before her and she recognized him as the embodiment of fear. But as she looked into his eyes her memory began to return, and she knew he came into being by usurping her power when she fell asleep. She also knew that now that she was waking and her memory was returning, he was on the verge of demise.

There is a rabbinical legend which states that man’s doubts, his unbelief, and frailties are always dressed in black. So she saw the personification of a being called Satan; and as she watched him try to cause her fear, she heard herself say to herself: “I am Paul and I am Jesus Christ.” And at that moment she felt as though she were a man, yet it did not seem strange to be so. This lady is a young mother of two expecting her third child, and is very much a woman: yet in her vision she was totally man. She knew she was Paul. Not a Paul, but the Paul; and she also knew that she was Jesus Christ, with all the power she formerly possessed, minus the portion memory had not yet revealed.

Now to continue her vision: Reaching out, she struck the man, and as he fell back on his elbows he looked at her with his piercing, fiery eyes and she knew he was trying to find some weakness where he could once again recapture the power he had taken from her when she fell asleep and forgot who she was; yet they both knew it was hopeless now. Then he spoke, saying: “You don’t remember when you met me, do you?” and as she started to reply she remembered an ancient dream of a tree and a man standing beneath it. It was he who told her to eat of the tree, and as she did she entered the dream of life and forgetfulness. Then he, the power of the world, became real. Appearing to be others, he was her very self; and the power she was going to redeem was returning to her, for she knew: “I am Paul and I am Jesus Christ.”

Now, who is Paul? His name was Saul, which means “to ask for.” Saul was ruled by his personified hate until he touched the eternal story, and the union of the two transformed Saul into Paul – the redeemed man who knows he is man, yet also knows he is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone is destined to experience this awareness.

The authors of the gospel took the events in the divine history of the Lord Jesus Christ and – taking liberties as poets do – they took events widely separated in time and fused them into a complex picture, as though they happened at one moment in time. Our evangelists knew that something as great as this could not be spelled out so that a child in kindergarten could understand it. As Blake said: “That which can be told to the idiot’s understanding isn’t worth my care. The ancients discovered that which is not too explicit was best fitted for instruction.” Our gospels recorded events which were revealed and can never be understood logically. There truth will only be known from experience.

I am telling you what I have experienced based upon divine history. You will experience it in the manner I have told you. The evangelists did not give you the chronological order. They wove the events they had experienced into a story, because truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors. Man finds it difficult to accept bare truth. He finds a thought easier to accept if it is put in picture form, where he reads the story of a man being raised from the dead. Then he can say to himself: “Isn’t that a mighty act!” But scripture is not speaking of resuscitation as our life guards revive those who are drowning at sea. The words used here are “four days,” because at that time the body was kept for three days in the belief that the soul hovered over it in the chance that the body could be revived. So when Martha said: “He has been dead four days,” she was telling him that there was no hope of resuscitation, as decay had set in and produced a stench.

I tell you: no man was placed in any little tomb here on earth. This is an adumbration, a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way, of what you will one day experience. It is divine history which unfolds forever. It is not like human history, for it begins and ends, but this history is eternal. The moment you touch salvation history these things begin to unfold from within. Then you will know you are one with the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This union will produce one new man, and you will no longer bat your head against the world as Saul, but be Paul, one who knows he is Jesus Christ, the creator of it all. And you will discover that the things which are frowned upon here because of our moral codes are so natural there. It didn’t seem strange to her that she was man in that world, yet she is so much a woman here.

Now, the Book of John has two endings. The true ending is found in the 20th chapter, while the 21st chapter is an epilogue. In the 20th chapter this statement is made: “Many other signs did Jesus do which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God and that believing, you will have life in his name.” There are a number of experiences you are going to have related to this eternal history that are not recorded, but everyone will experience the events written there. I have shared with you the series of visions I have had which fit into the given period of time; and I still have experiences related to divine history, because I can find their parallel in the Old Testament. My memory has returned, and I now know that the drama was experienced before we descended and lost our memory. But as our memory returns we have these experiences and can tell them; but we cannot share them with another, because they take place in a land unknown to mortal man.

This lady’s experience is true. She is Paul and she is Jesus Christ; yet she is very much a woman here. This is not reincarnation. Paul is only the personification of everyone who has been transformed from Saul to Paul. Called “The Way,” Saul was persecuting divine history, and when he heard the words: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” he questions: “Who are you, Lord?” and the answer came: “Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

Where did this conversation take place? In the mind! If, tonight you hear this story and refuse to accept it, you are persecuting the Lord by denial. But in the fullness of time the story of Jesus Christ will erupt within you and then you will know it was your very self you have been persecuting, for you will know from experience that you are the Lord Jesus Christ.

Who would have thought that simple little statement in the 11th chapter of John, “By this time he stinketh,” could be so profound. Yet we are told that the one upon whom the spirit descends is he who is the chosen one. Here is the elect, unveiling one more Son of God, and in the end all of the revealed sons will form the Father.

There is no book comparable to the Bible, which is revealed truth and not truth which has been discovered by any logical process. Everyone will hear the words of Martha. It was she who stood on my left and said in a very commanding voice: “They avoid man because man gives off the most offensive odor.” This is what the translators of the King James Version meant when they said: “he stinketh,” because every man stinks, causing the world to give off an offensive odor to those who watch in eternity. They are eagerly waiting for the stir telling them that they may come down and redeem the one that is but an externalization of themselves. And the moment the eternal one is touched, virtue goes out and the one who touched is healed. Then that one begins to move from here to eternity.

I can tell you – as I have over the years – the chronological manner in which the visions came to me, but whether it is a chronologically true story or not is unimportant.

The poets who wrote the gospels told their experiences in poetic form. One day [Aldous] Huxley said to me: “There are three kinds of writings – journalism, literature, and scripture. Those who are considered to be literary giants can’t write scripture.” Huxley admitted he couldn’t, for it is revealed truth and therefore something entirely different. The journalist writes beautifully and excitingly, but no journalist would ever be considered a mental giant in the use of words as to real literature. On the other hand, those who write great literature couldn’t write scripture. And if you could understand scripture as it really is written, you would know it is inspired poetry, but our transcribers could not bring it into its poetic form. Everyone who reads scripture is moved by it, because it is speaking to the being in the depth of the soul; so don’t treat it as literature because it is not.

I saw in today’s paper that some ex-nun is teaching the Bible as literature at UCLA. You can do that if you want to, but that’s not religion. Scripture certainly is not history, as there is no place on this earth where a man was buried for four days – having been proved dead – who rose from the grave. But I tell you: you have been buried for thousands of years. You don’t know you are, but the watchers in eternity do, as they receive from you, multiplied by the billions of us here, a stench beyond the wildest dream of man. If you have ever visited the Chicago stockyards you know what a horrible odor is there. Well, multiply that smell by the population of the world and the stench will be beyond comprehension. But his love for you is so great he will, one day, penetrate this ring of offense. Then you will be Paul, a transformed being, joined to he who is Jesus Christ, and the two of you return together as one Lord.

When you read scripture don’t discount the simplest thought expressed there, for you are going to experience it. You will know that Lazarus is not someone on the outside. The word means “God has helped.” No man can redeem himself – only God can do it; therefore God has helped. There are numberless schools teaching self-realization and self-development, promising you self-realization by doing as they say. If you want to believe that you must pay others to teach you, you will lose your money for they cannot deliver the goods. Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. Let no one fool you into believing that by doing certain things you will be saved. Rather, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ in you.

Don’t reject this story. Firmly believe it and set your hope that without doing anything on the outside its revelation will come to you. And when it does and you share it with others not everyone will believe you. They may discount your experiences as wonderful dreams or hallucinations. Don’t expect, just because a man is intelligent, that he will understand when you speak of these depths, because they with their PhD’s can’t understand your words and will proclaim proudly that they are agnostics. I recently read this statement: “The man who prunes himself on agnosticism is only confessing that he is an ignoramus. This is the Latin word for ‘we do not know,’ as is the Greek word ‘agnostic.’ So he who prunes himself on agnosticism is confessing, in Greek, that he is a Latin ignoramus.” Tell that to someone who claims to be agnostic and chances are he will slap your face, but I tell you: the truth of which I speak is not acquired in universities. It doesn’t make sense logically, yet it is the eternally true story. Redemption is the wedding between visible history and salvation history; and when they meet they create a new being in one person, who is Paul, who is Jesus Christ.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

SEEK THE KINGDOM

Neville Goddard 03-29-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThat which is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. We are told: “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all of these things shall be yours as well.” Here is a priority. Your heavenly Father knows you have to eat, drink, and clothe yourself, and they will all be yours if you will but put first things first; and the first thing is to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, for God is in his kingdom and when you find the kingdom you find God.

While reading a book you may be aware of the phone ringing or someone entering the room. Although your attention is on the book, it does not exclude these events, which are marginal. So if, when you hear the story of the kingdom and how to enter it, your attention remains there, your heavenly Father will care for all of your marginal needs as you modify your concepts concerning God’s plan of salvation.

My parents (along with multiple millions of others) believed their children must be baptized in order to be saved, and they took me before the baptismal, where I was baptized in the name of Christ before I was aware of it. They, like hundreds of millions, have lived and died never changing that concept. But scripture read correctly tells us to “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” That Abraham believed and his belief was accounted unto him for righteousness, so now you see what righteousness is. Righteousness in not a belief among beliefs, but the belief. You must find out what the belief is really is. I know from experience that the belief is that I will be born from above and receive God’s gift of himself through his Son calling me “Father”. Having heard this from me, are you convinced to the point where you can, in the immediate present, modify your concept of Jesus? To the degree your belief in God has been modified will you find corresponding changes in your outer world, for you are always living in and thinking from a body of beliefs. You can believe you are healthy, wealthy, successful, or a failure, and to the degree you accept this belief will you express the state. But fundamentally, what is your concept of God, for only as you seek his kingdom will you discover that God and his kingdom are one.

From this platform I teach that I and my Father are one. Being one, my Father can never be so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. What is there in you that can’t even be near? Imagination! You cannot separate yourself from imagination. You can’t claim: “I am” and point to it as something on the outside. It is impossible to separate yourself from the sense of being, so in the sense of I AMness, you are imagining. If this sense of oneness is your Father, do you really believe in him? If so, to what extent does your confession in words conform to your deep, deep conviction?

Matthew makes this statement: “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also deny before my Father who is in heaven. Think not I came to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. To set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, for a man’s foes are those of his own household.”

In this statement, Matthew is not speaking of any physical conflict, but the conflict of the spirit. He is telling you that your foes are spiritual, all within your own household. Not the house other individuals share with you, but your spiritual house called the kingdom of heaven.

Now, as this new concept presents itself like a sunburst, will you accept it? Being new, it is now in conflict with what you formerly believed. This is new wine which is not yet fermented, and if accepted cannot be put into the old skins (the old beliefs), for if you place unfermented wine in an old skin it will burst. There must be a new belief to think from. Will you accept the fact that your own wonderful human imagination is He whom the world calls God? Will you accept this idea and allow it to ferment? Acknowledge your true self and live in that belief? Or will you say: “It’s easier to live with my wife (or husband) if I don’t confess it. I tried, but it upsets the household, so we continue to go to the same church and do the same things we have always done in the outer world.”

You must be willing to acknowledge me (your own wonderful human imagination) before men, for if you are ashamed of me, the Father who sees only the heart will deny you. But when you make any modification in your basic belief, it will take precedence over your beliefs of the past. If you say: “I am rich” and your concept of God remains as before, you are speaking from the surface of your being; but when you change the core and speak from your new concept of God, your world changes.

If you believe what I have confessed openly to you, do not be ashamed to acknowledge it openly before men. Although you may not at the present time have the experiences to support your claim, do not be ashamed of the good news that you have heard from me.

Not everyone sought Christ. Some found him and brought others. In the Book of John we are told that Andrew found his imagination to be Jesus and told his brother Peter. Philip found him and brought his friend Nathaniel. Peter and Nathaniel were not seekers, but were introduced to the truth. And who did they find? The one of whom Moses and the law and the prophets spoke, Jesus of Nazareth. Where is he? Come and you will see that the drama is supernatural. Having heard the truth from one who has experienced it, do you reject my words or do you accept them? If you accept my words and toy with this idea to the degree that you become enamored, you will modify your former belief concerning Christ Jesus. Tonight one billion believe in a little personal being who walked the earth 2,000 years ago, because they do not understand the concept that is the vision of Jesus Christ.

Now listen to these words of Blake: “No individual should appropriate to himself or to his emanation any universal characteristics of David or Eve; of the Woman or the Lord,” and he is right. Any appropriation of universality by an individual is a denial of the unity of all in the divine manner. To think that I (Neville) and I alone will have this experience, that it is mine and will not be shared by others, is denying the universal brotherhood of all. David is not just my Son, he is our Son. For any individual to appropriate this universal characteristic of David to himself is wrong. If he dares to think he differs by that unique experience, he will be broken on the rocks of experience, for David is unique to everyone.

Blake then goes on to say: “A Vegetated Christ and a Virgin Eve are the Hermaphroditic Blasphemy.” To take this divine being and turn it into some corporeal form with a vegetated body is hermaphroditic blasphemy. This body called Neville is Christ’s emanation. It is not a direct descendant of David, for he does not belong to this world, but to God’s eternal plan, which is to give himself to you; and the one and only way you will know this to be true is when David calls you “Father”. And since God’s plan is to give himself to everyone, no individual should ever appropriate these universal characteristics of David to himself alone. He must share it with his universal brother.

When Blake used the word “hermaphroditic” he meant “contradiction.” If Blake read a book, which stated a certain principle, but contradicted itself in the reading, to Blake the book was hermaphroditic. To him all orthodox religion was hermaphroditic, because they contradict the principle they teach. Saying God is merciful, they kill in the name of God – so where is the mercy? So Blake is speaking of a contradiction of principle. In the beginning you were Spirit, but now you are turning and worshiping a man of flesh? That’s hermaphroditic blasphemy. But even though you once believed Christ was a man after the flesh, once you have experienced the kingdom you will see him thus no longer. Paul was taught that Christ was a being outside of him who walked the earth, when suddenly it pleased God to reveal his Son in him. “Then,” said Paul: “I conferred not with flesh and blood.” From that moment on he publicly proclaimed the good news which he had received in the spirit.

Here is a story of a man who learned to turn to no one on the outside for help, for all help came from within him. As a very young boy he was one of a very poor family of five who lived in Russia. At the age of eight he was running errands to earn money to help feed the family. Having never had a square meal, a new shirt, slacks, or shoes, he knew the horror associated with a minority group, as his family were Jews.

This lad had a job taking large amounts of money to a bank to be exchanged into small denominations. One day he noticed that the teller’s copper coins resembled the silver ones, and as he returned the money to his employer he began to play a little game with himself. Assuming the teller had given him silver instead of copper, he dreamed of the wealth that would be his, had the mistake been made. The very next day the teller made the mistake. Giving him silver instead of copper, the young lad pocketed the money, went to another bank and changed it into the right denomination then, returning to work he gave his employers the money they expected. Having been taught what was right and wrong, the boy wrestled all through the night with his conscience, but in the morning he took the money, bought a new pair of shoes, a new shirt and pants. Then he went to a restaurant and ate to his heart’s content. No, he never returned the money, but he learned a great lesson from this experience.

The world, upon hearing this story, would say he was wrong; but when we came out from the Father we ate of the tree of good and evil, and there isn’t one person in this world who has not violated that code. He may not have the courage to violate the moral code openly, but the drama of life is psychological. The child was hungry. Having entered the world of experience, he learned how to use the creative power of his own wonderful human imagination. In the interval he has given back to society ten thousand times more than the small amount taken, not to compensate, but because of the lesson learned. After the First World War Russia collapsed and, penniless, he came to Paris to work as a street cleaner. Then he remembered what he had done so many years ago, and from that point on he rose and today is a multi-millionaire in a legitimate business, applying this simple principle that an assumption, though false, if persistent in will harden into fact.

Now, a letter came this week in which the gentleman wrote: “In my dream I had an enemy and we were slated for a duel in which one of us would be killed. All of the townspeople gathered around to watch, and I was favored to win. Pinning my enemy to the ground, I began to strike him, but could not do it. You see, by nature I am a pacifist and I don’t want to hurt anyone. So I drew my sword and placed it into his body, making sure it entered only three inches. Then a man came forward and realizing what I had done he shook his head, and the grumbling crowd walked away as I awoke.”

Let me tell him tonight: your dream was an adumbration, a foreshadowing of the day when your belief in Christ as your own wonderful human imagination will be one hundred per cent. On that day you will cut yourself in two with one wonderful blow and release the imprisoned splendor there. God’s creative power is within us all with his head down into generation. One day you will find that power, fuse with it, and up you will go into heaven as the imprisoned splendor you will know yourself to be.

If anyone ever asks you what you think of Christ, tell them that he is your own wonderful human imagination; that he became you, with all of your weaknesses and limitations, that you may be God the Father. May I tell you: when you really believe this your outer world will change to conform to the inner changes that radiate from you. Your world is forever mirroring and reflecting all of your beliefs, so any modification of a belief will cause a change in your outer world. So instead of working on little things like wealth, health, and fame, work on the major concepts of Christ by learning to know him through exercising your own wonderful human imagination.

Ask any man on the street if he is a Christian and he will say: “Yes”, but his definition of a Christian may be entirely different than yours. My sister Daphne is a pillar of her church. She considers herself a Christian and I believe I am also, but we have entirely different concepts of Christ as a plan of redemption. If, tonight I asked the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury if they were Christians, I am quite sure they would say yes, but their definition of Christ and mine would be miles apart.

I tell you: Christ is the vision of redemption. Free the vision! Don’t vegetate it! Don’t put it in a corporeal body and make it some little thing that dies. Christ is in you, yet he belongs to an entirely different world. While you walk this world in these garments that decay, Christ unfolds and lifts you into the world of eternity.

Believe me. Dwell upon my words, for as you do the visions will unfold; and as far as your outer world is concerned you will never have to question what you shall eat or drink or wear, for you will have no need to be concerned about the marginal things of life. Start now to center your focus on Christ and don’t be concerned about the fringe. Seek the kingdom of heaven by turning your thoughts inward, and wonderful things will appear to come out of the nowhere. In my own case I never thought of or contributed to any money my parents made, yet when my father made up his will, all ten children shared equally. So while I was about my Father’s business, completely absorbed in the kingdom of heaven and not concerned with dollars and cents, money grew in a foreign field. I had no knowledge or concern for its growth. Trusting my brothers implicitly, I have never once entertained the thought that anyone would ever take advantage of me, and no one has.

So I tell you, go about your Father’s business, dwelling upon his kingdom, and all things will take care of themselves. But don’t be ashamed to acknowledge him before men. Be like Paul who spoke up, saying: “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” When the vision becomes your experience it will not matter to you what the world thinks. You will know with such certainty that you are the Father of God’s only begotten Son, that no one can shake you. A good Christian might question you, saying: “You – the Father of Christ?” and you will say: “No, I’m the Father of Christ’s Son, David. In the Spirit I spoke these words to David: ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee,’ the same words, which were spoken to David by the Lord.”

Now, Christ Jesus is the Lord. He did not come after David, but before him. God the Father gave himself to us; therefore everything comes after the Father. I now know that I also am God the Father, for he gave me himself and there is no way he could prove it other than through his Son David calling me “Father”. Prior to that I thought I was Neville Goddard, born in Barbados as a member of a very large family. Physically that is who I am, but in the spirit I know I am not, for God gave himself to me; and to prove it his Son, as described in the Book of Samuel, called me “Father”. This same Son will call everyone “Father” and then we will all be brothers. In spite of all the conflicts, horrible as they are, in the end we will discover everything was just a play – a play which was essential for God to give his gift to Man, and that gift is God Himself.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

SPIRITUAL SENSATION

Neville Goddard 05-16-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThe Reverend Dr. Trusler saw the Bible as secular history, and criticized Blake, saying he needed someone to elucidate his ideas. Blake responded by saying: “You ought to know that what is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care. The wisest of the ancients considered what was not too Explicit as fittest for Instruction because it rouses the faculties to act.

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.”

Tonight I will use scripture, but my premise will not be along any orthodox concept of Christ, for scripture is a mystery. It is God’s secret, which cannot be read with complete understanding, but must be experienced.

When you read in the Book of Revelation, “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born from the dead,” you may think – as the world does – of a unique being who came into the world two thousand years ago. But the word “Christ” means “the Lord’s anointed.” This is not one man called ‘the Lord” and another man called “the anointed,” but one who knows himself to be the Lord’s anointed. Who is the anointed? Your own wonderful human imagination! That’s the only Jesus and the only God. When a friend asked Blake what he thought of Jesus, Blake replied: “He is the Only God, but so am I and so are you.” This statement is true, but man will not accept the fact that his human imagination is God. He cannot grasp the idea that the God who created and sustains the universe is one with his human imagination, but Blake meant his statement to be taken literally. Your own wonderful human imagination is Jesus, the Only God – and so am I.

Matthew made this statement: “Thank you Father that you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding and revealed them to babes.” God chooses the unlearned (the babes in faith) to confound the wise, for such is His gracious will. Then Matthew adds this thought: “And no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” I ask you to take my yoke (my understanding of scripture gained from personal experience) upon you and learn from me. My yoke is easy and the burden is light, but you must be willing to take that which is in conflict with the teachings of the world, and follow me. We recently saw ninety man-made saints defrocked by the church.

After making hundreds of millions of dollars out of the poor people by selling little medallions and statues of these saints, the church now proclaims they never existed. They were all one grand myth, started by the church for monetary purposes. Millions of these little medallions were sold as intermediaries between man and God, when the human imagination is God, whose name is I AM!

Christ is the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead. The word “Christ” means “the anointed.” Proclaiming to come into the world only to fulfill scripture as recorded in the Old Testament, we must turn to the first book of Samuel to find who the anointed is. In the 16th chapter we read: “Rise and anoint him; this is he.” Then Samuel takes the holy oil and anoints David. And in the 89th Psalm the Lord speaks, saying: “I have found David. With my holy oil I have anointed him. He has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’ I shall make him the first-born and scripture cannot be broken.” David, the anointed of the Old, is the Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, of the New. The Jesus of scripture is the I am of every child born of woman, who is God Himself. It is God who wears these garments of flesh you and I believe ourselves to be, for our awareness is He. Having made a garment for man out of the dust of the earth, and taking upon himself all of its weakness and limitations, God proclaims: “When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all men unto me.” The word “men” has been added. The original script reads, “When I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all unto me.”

Now, God only acts and is in existing beings or men. Acting as your imagination, God will play every part He created in the beginning. And when every part has been played, the sum total of all the parts will appear as eternal youth, personified and called David, the anointed, the Christ-head, the messiah. No one can complete his journey in this world of death until he has played all the parts, because only then can David be resurrected.

In the Book of Psalms, David cries out to the Lord for help, saying: “Thou hast put me in the desolate pit.” Then these words are proclaimed: “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” The human imagination is the God who redeems David. It is that God who wears your garment of flesh and answers to your name. Imagination’s mighty power is buried in you. He is your son, who will erupt within you when you have played all parts, to reveal you as his Father and the Rock of his salvation. The Bible is sacred history, not secular history, and the events recorded there go on forever and ever.

The being that you really are is God. There never was another and never will be another God, for He is one, not two. You say “I am” and I say “I am,” yet you cannot divide I am. We are the Elohim who fell into division and will resurrect into the unity of the grand I AM. The crucifixion is over, for you have been crucified with Christ. Your death and burial is past. You have entered hell (this world) and you will rise from it after you have played all the parts you promised in the beginning.

You and I as brothers form the one who is called the Lord, the I AM, the Father of David. The word “Jesse” is any form of the verb “to be”, or “I AM.” One day you will find David, the son of Jesse, and know him to be a man after your own heart – who will do, has done, and will continue to do, all of your will. I cannot condemn anyone for what he has done, is doing, or what he may do, for I have found David. My memory has returned, and I know there is not a part, personified in this world, that I have not played. David, he who was promised before the foundation of the world, is made manifest at the end of time. Then you will realize that he is not secular, but sacred.

The Bible records sacred history and the David spoken of there is sacred. When he stands before you and calls you Father, there is no uncertainty as to your relationship. You know your son and he knows his father. The story is not how the Son reveals the Father (which he does) but how the Father reveals the Son. In the Book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, the question is asked: “A son honors his father. If I am a father, where is my honor?” It takes unnumbered years before the Son is found in the New Testament, which is only the fulfillment of the Old. There could be no New without the Old, for the New is its fulfillment. And the Old, being a sacred promise, finds its fulfillment in the New. The drama of the Old makes sense as it begins to unfold in the New, in you.

I am a man, born in the year 1905. If I could trace scripture as I can my ancestral background, what relationship would I have with Solomon, when I don’t know what Solomon, what David, or what Abraham? I tell you, these are eternal states of the mind, personified, and not physical flesh and blood beings. They are states through which God passes as you and I, because God became us that we may become God.

Our journey of self-imposed limitation began when we said: “No one takes away my life, I lay it down myself” yet we have condemned a race of people for taking the life of one, who – like St. Christopher – never lived. The Jesus of scripture is the human imagination in which the Christ of scripture unfolds, and the Christ of the New is the David of the Old. He is the anointed.

When your imagination has finished the work he came to do, the sum total of all the parts he has played becomes personified and stands before you – his Father – to look into your face and see the one he knew before that the world was. And when you see David, you see your reflection, the end result of your imagined journey through death.

This is the great mystery of the seed. Unless it falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. God died by restricting himself to the limit of contraction and opacity of man in order to go through this world of generation and decay. He is now buried in Zion (your skull), which is the stronghold David takes by going up the spiral water-shaft. One night I felt an explosion in my skull, and when everything settled, I, God, observed my son David, my beloved in whom I am well pleased. I found my anointed and fulfilled scripture. I tell you: you are not predestined to be rich or poor, known or unknown. You are here only to fulfill sacred history.

Right now you can use your powerful imagination to assume you are what at the moment your senses and reason deny. Walk in this assumption, knowing you are all imagination, and all things are possible to you. Dare to believe in the reality of your assumption and watch the world play its part relative to its fulfillment. Your assumption may appear to be false when first imagined; but if you will persist, it will harden into fact, because God is he who is doing the assuming. All of the objective facts you see here on earth are only shadows, which fade because imagination is their reality.

But the real predestination spoken of in scripture is not secular, but sacred. It was proclaimed before that the world was. Then God died in order to assume these garments of flesh, and play all the parts. I know, for I speak from experience. I ask you to take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Believe my experiences, for “If I be lifted up I draw all men unto me.” I have been lifted up out of this world and out of this earthly body. I ascended in a spiral motion to find myself clothed in a body of fire and air. I needed no sun, moon, or stars, at the time, for I knew myself to be the light of the world. As Spirit, I glided above the earth, where I came upon a scene of human imperfection. The blind, the lame, the halt, and the withered, were waiting for me there; and as I glided by, each was made perfect because I was perfect. Then these words came to my mind: “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” That night, in that experience, who played that part? The Father. And who is the Father? I am! And when each was made perfect, the heavenly chorus sang out the last cry on the only cross God ever wore, saying: “It is finished.”

Man has nailed God to a wooden cross by his concept of scripture, but God was never nailed to any wooden cross. He is nailed to your garment of flesh. As that heavenly chorus sang out: “It is finished,” I felt myself once more congeal to this little garment (my cross) in order to tell my story to all who will listen. Some will believe me and some will not, but I will tell it anyway to encourage those who may be persuaded to modify their inherited, fixed ideas. Being born into a certain environment, they inherited their religion and find it difficult to modify it; but I tell you: the Bible is within you and must unfold within you at the journey’s end. Then you will discover that the Father is yourself. This will be revealed to you by your Son, David, who comes to you in the Spirit; and you, too, will say: “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee.”

Now, the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are titles to books whose authors are unknown, but we do know that the Book of Luke is written by the same man who wrote the Book of Acts. In it we read: “Thou, Lord, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, ‘Why do the nations rage and the people imagine vain things against the Lord and his anointed?’ The word translated “servant” here, is translated “son” or “child” every other place in scripture. If it is found before the word, “Jesus,” it is translated “son;” but if found before the word, “David,” it is translated “servant” – which is error.

In the 2nd Psalm, David declares: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord; he has said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee,’ and the Word of God cannot be broken.” We are told not to add to or take from His Word, but to fulfill it. Your worldly accomplishments will all vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment and all within it likewise; but your salvation will be forever, and your redemption will have no end. Today, men are making fortunes to leave behind some monument to themselves. Our new president is doing this very thing. He hasn’t made a dent so far, upon the world, but wants to leave his little footprint on the sands of time by building a library in his name – not realizing that one day the tide will come in and wipe his footprints away, as though they never existed. Bless him. May he have his desire fulfilled, even though it is such nonsense, when the only purpose for life is to fulfill scripture.

I have come only to fulfill scripture. I have taken the Bible, and beginning with Moses and the law, the prophets, and the psalms, I have explained all the things concerning myself, for it is all about me in the volume of the book. Here I am a simple man, telling all who are born as I was born, that the Bible is written – not about the garment I am wearing, called Neville, but the Being within me. It is that Being who has experienced scripture.

I invite you to take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Don’t take the traditional concepts which have been handed down year after year, for they are false. What Christian, this night, hearing the words “Jesus Christ”, would not think of a unique, single being, who was born in some unusual manner two thousand years ago; yet it isn’t so at all.

Yes, there is an unusual experience within the individual, but it is going to happen in everyone. It is a birth, but not from the womb of a woman called Mary, or any other name, but from the womb of one’s skull. Coming out of your own skull, all of the imagery as described in Matthew and Luke surrounds you. You will then realize that the Bible was written of you. Beginning with your awakening within your skull, you discover you are entombed in it, and you come out of that skull just as a child comes out of the womb of a woman. At that moment God (your human imagination) is born to a higher expansion of yourself, for there is only God, who is forever expanding.

There is a limit to opacity, but no limit to translucency. Taking upon himself the limit of opacity (which is this world), imagination plays every part known to man, breaks its bonds; and God, individualized, has expanded beyond what He was prior to his descent into this hell. No, God is not absolute. If that were true, there would be no joy, no fun – for Imagination could not expand. If you were beyond expansion you could never know anything greater than yourself, and that sameness would be hell beyond measure; but truth is an ever increasing illumination.

You cannot pigeonhole truth, for its expansion goes on forever. Having united all of the experiences of being man within myself, I am greater by reason of the experience. Now I can conceive another play -a far more difficult one, and take upon myself the limitations of it to burst its bonds and resurrect once more; for resurrection is God’s mightiest act.

When I say I am God, I don’t mean this little tiny thing called Neville, but the being who is speaking to you, for he is the one who had the experiences. This thing called Neville is subject to all the pains of mortality. It can drink too much, go to sleep with a big head, and wake tomorrow with an even bigger one. If you are going to judge me by what I do physically, you will never know the being that I am, or the being that you are; for the being who is so identified with you, who answers to your name and feels your pain and joy, is God. God only acts and is in existing beings or men. He is acting in me as my human imagination, as he is acting in you as yours. There never was another God and there never will be another.

Take my yoke (my experiences) upon you and learn from me, for you are here for only one purpose, and that is to fulfill scripture. The part you are now playing is adding to your whole; and when you have played every part you agreed to play in the beginning, your immortal Son, David, will bear witness to your Fatherhood. He is the result of your experiences in this world of death, and will only be found when death has been conquered.

Now, on this practical level, you can put your human imagination to the test; for I tell you: all things are possible to him. Test yourself by determining what you want. I am telling you a principle and leave you to your choice and its risk. You may want to hurt someone. I hope you do not, for there is no other, and you are only hurting yourself.

There is only one God who is playing all the parts, so when you pray for another, you are – in truth – praying for yourself. Job prayed for his friends by forgetting himself. In his love for and sincere desire to have them succeed, Job entered into a state of empathy for his friends. In that state his own captivity was lifted, and he became twice as rich, twice as great, as he was prior to the horrors that he experienced.

Name your goal. Imagine you have reached it, and persuade yourself it is true. Believe in the reality of your imaginal act, for it is God in action. An imaginal act is God’s Word, which cannot return unto him void, but must accomplish that for which he sent it. If your imagination is God, then your imaginal act is God in action. Everything in the world was first imagined. The clothes you wear, the chair upon which you are seated, your car, your home, the pictures on the wall – all were first imagined. When I told my tailor what I wanted in the way of a suit, he took a piece of cloth which had no shape and used his imagination, before he even started cutting the cloth. Then he produced what was once only imagined.

Let no one tell you that one man can, in any way, enslave the world, because no one can stop men from imagining. A tyrant like Hitler or Stalin frightened men into accepting their leadership; but the minute men stopped being afraid of them, they were afraid. The minute you are not afraid, you are not enslaved. So, be not afraid. That’s the story of the world. Our economy is based upon fear. The war scare, the peace scare, the market scare. If you can lose all fear, and imagine what you would like to have in spite of what seems to be, and persist in that awareness, your persistence will bring your desire to pass.

If it takes unnumbered tens of thousands to play their part to aid the birth of your imaginal act, they will, not even knowing they are playing the part you assigned them. You don’t need to know who they are. All you are required to do is persist in your imaginal act, because that is God in action; but if you quit, then you do not know who God is. You are told: “The word that goes forth from my mouth shall not return unto me void, but must prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” That word is an imaginal act. It must return to you and bring you the fruit of that which you intended when you sent it out.

Believe me, the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. The Christ of the New is the messiah of the Old. The word “messiah” means “the anointed,” who is David. When David stood before me and I looked into his eyes, my memory returned. It was as though I had suffered from amnesia, for when David stood before me I knew I was his Father.

Now, like Paul, I can say: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, for I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” What is that crown? My Son, my honor. I cannot enter a more exalted state than that which I left, unless I bring the result of my journey with me. That result is David.

The world may not believe me, but it does not matter, I know that each and every one must experience all the parts, so I forgive all. I cannot condemn a part when I know I am its author. Having written all the parts, I could find no one to play them; so I came down, diversified myself, and played them all. Having resurrected into unity once more, I returned with David – the result of my having played all the parts.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE ARTIST IS GOD

Neville Goddard 05-19-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityGod is the great artist, and there is no artistry so lovely as that which perfects itself in the making of its image. God has but one consuming objective and that is to make you into his image, that you may reflect and radiate his glory. On this level however God exists as the human imagination, for the human imagination is the divine body called the Lord Jesus.

On the highest level God’s great artistry is concentrated on the making of his image; on this level he – as you – can do the same. A friend may say he would like to be a doctor; another friend wants to be a successful businessman, or a dancer. Every desire is an image. As the artist, lowered to this level, you can form images of your friends. And if you persist in your assumption, in time your friends will radiate and reflect your artistry.

God is the great dreamer in man, bound in a deadly dream until he forms the image called Christ, in himself. Only when Christ is formed in man will he awaken from his dream of life. Now, on this level you can be bound in a dream, too. Perhaps you would like to be a great artist. That is your dream, your image. How would you feel right now if you were? Can you believe your assumption is true even though your reason and senses deny it? Can you persist in your imagination, as the highest level of your being persists in his image?

We are told: “When you pray, believe you have received it and you will.” Prayer is not a lot of empty words, but imagination braced in feeling. Every Sunday people go to church, say the Lord’s Prayer, and come out of the building just the same as they were when they went in. Their words were empty, as no prayer was answered. Now they are going to stop praying to their demoted mythological saints, for that is all saints are. The 115th Psalm describes these so-called saints, and tells us that those who believe in them are just as stupid as those who make and sell them.

While here in this world, I asked myself how I would go about being the artist who could make myself into the image of a successful minister of the word of God. I knew I would have to start on the highest level by assuming I had finished what I was starting to do, and I knew I would have to remain faithful to that end, that image. This I have done.

The most creative thing in us is to believe a thing into objective existence. Can you believe that something is already objective to you, even though your mortal eyes cannot see it? Can you walk, drenched in the feeling that it is an objective fact, until it becomes so? That’s how everything is brought into being, for all things exist in the human imagination, who is God himself. Imagination is the divine body called Jesus, the Lord. If you are willing to step out, asking no one if it is right or wrong, and dare to walk in the assumption your image is true, it will come to pass.

Let me share with you a simple story. A very dear friend of mine who lives in New York City was born in Russia of a very poor Jewish family. He knew what it was like to be frightened when he heard the Cossacks were coming, for they burned homes and caused pain for the sheer joy of frightening people. Joseph was the eldest of a family of five, a boy not more than nine or ten when his mother died, leaving his father to maintain his family alone. Little Joseph found a job taking money from a store to the bank and having it changed into smaller denominations. He had never known what it was like to wear shoes, but wrapped his feet in newspapers or whatever he could find to keep them warm. His clothes had always come from charity, but he – like all men – brought his innate knowledge with him when he came into this world.

So, one day, as he watched the cashier changing the money he brought, he noticed that the big copper coins, when rolled in paper, resembled the silver coins, even though their value was widely separated. Then he said to himself: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he made a mistake?” and in his imagination Joseph took the money rolled through the window to him in the assumption that the mistake was already made. He then walked back to the shop, filled with the sense of joy. Reason told him no mistake was made, but he thought of all the things he could buy if he had the money. He would buy a pair of slacks, a pair of shoes, and eat until it came out of his ears – a thing he had never experienced before. He had the satisfaction of walking those many blocks in the mood of having what he wanted.

The next day, when Joseph returned to the same teller, the man made the mistake. As Joseph left the bank he wrestled with himself, but his poverty and embarrassment were greater than his ethical code; so he went to another bank and changed the money into the correct denominations and kept the overage. That night he bought himself a pair of slacks, new shoes, and ate at a restaurant until he could eat no more. He told me that although he wrestled with his conscience all night, he could not justify his act; but he learned a lesson. He learned that Sir Anthony Eden was right when he said: “An assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact.”

Sir Anthony did not need position or money, but he knew a law which undoubtedly he used through his years. Today my friend Joseph is a multi-millionaire. I am quite sure he is far, far richer in Caesar’s dollars and cents than Anthony Eden, for Joseph learned and lived by this knowledge. He never duns his customers. When they are long overdue in payment, Joseph sits alone and mentally writes a letter thanking the man for the receipt of his check – and within four days he receives it. If poverty would teach this lesson to everyone, all should be born equally poor. Joseph now lives in an apartment in New York City where he pays $12,000 a year in rent as well as $45,000 a year rent for his street business. He now has businesses in Paris, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, for he learned how to move. Leaving Russia at the age of sixteen, Joseph found a job driving a garbage truck in France, where – seemingly by accident – he met the great dancer, Anna Pavlova. She suggested he follow in his father’s footsteps and make undergarments for women, which he did and is now famous for.

I am asking you to do as Joseph did, for I am teaching you a principle, and leave you to your choice and its risk. I have told this story in the past and there has always been someone in the audience who has criticized me for telling it, claiming I am leading people astray. I have always had a suspicion, however, that those who are most vocal in their criticism are justifying their own behavior. I am not urging you to forget all these so-called codes, but to tell you that we all ate of the tree of good and evil, and have suffered ever since. I am not suggesting you go out and steal from anyone, or that Joseph should – as some have suggested – pay the money back. If he did, to whom would he send it, to Stalin? Well, Stalin stole the entire country, not just a few coins as Joseph did. No, Joseph has given tens of thousands of dollars to help friends and charities, not to justify his act as a child, but out of the goodness of his heart.

Tonight I give you a principle: God is the great artist, who – as your own wonderful human imagination – is perfecting his work through the ages in the making of his own image in you. Do you have an image? Name it. Now, are you willing to simply assume that you have it, and wait for its objectification? Every image has its own appointed hour to ripen and flower. If it be long, wait, for its appearance is sure and will not be late. Are you willing to wait for the happiness you now seek, or are you going to try to go on the outside and make it so? If you are willing to apply this principle and let it happen, you will become the successful businessman, doctor, minister, or whatever you desire to be. If you will assume your desire and live there as though it were true, no power on earth can stop it from becoming a fact, because you are God and your only opponent is yourself.

There is nothing but God, but man – not knowing this – creates opposition and calls it Satan or the devil, both of which are just as nonexistent as St. Christopher. Millions believe in them and give them power they do not possess. But I urge you to believe in nothing but God, who is your own wonderful human Imagination.

In time you will depart this world, certainly. This is a world of death, so why remain here forever? You will play your part here, while God forms his image in you. And when that image is complete, you will awaken to be born from above. Then the child will appear to signal your birth and fulfill the promise recorded in the Book of Isaiah: “Unto us a child is born.” Five months later, God’s son is given to you as a sign that the image is now perfect. When you look into the face of your son, David, you will see yourself as the eternal youth. You are now God the Father, and he is your Son who glorifies you. If you could see yourself matured, you would see the Ancient of Days, whose son is his image yet eternally young. That image is now being formed in you and in time will become objectified. So have faith, which is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of your objective hope. Set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you when the Christ Spirit stands before you and calls you Father.

In the 4th chapter of Galatians, Paul tells of Christ’s formation, and questions himself, saying: “I see you are worshiping days and months, seasons and years; I’m afraid I have labored over you in vain.” When I see a man I thought had outgrown these little concepts, turn back to images and days, months, seasons, and years, and call them holy – when there is no such thing in God’s kingdom – I feel like Paul, that my labor has been in vain. Every moment of time is holy and wherever you stand is holy. It may be a bar, but it is a holy place, because you are there. Others may say it is wrong, but I ask you: who is standing there? God, and wherever God is, is holy ground. This is true of every person in the world, but they do not know it.

They think they must leave those they love and rush off to church on Sunday morning, and if they don’t make it on time they have violated God’s wish. But God wishes you would stay home and love your family, and if that one day you could ease the burden of your wife with the children, do it. If you can’t do it as well as she does through the week, do it to the best of your ability. She will understand and be blessed for your trying to ease her burden for the moment. That is far better than rushing off to some church and praying to gods which do not exist. I am not telling you not to go to church; some people enjoy the comfort and the friendships found there. They enjoy the coffee hour after the meeting – perhaps more than the service. Many hope to meet a mate there, but that is not what I am talking about. I am telling you of the great artist. His name is I AM, for he is your own wonderful awareness of being.

On this level of Caesar, follow the same pattern the highest level of our awareness of being is doing. As the collective unity, together we had an image. Our image was to make man like us. Then we became enslaved in this deadly dream and now suffer amnesia.

But the Heavenly Man that we truly are will not break his pledge. He remains bound by his deadly dreams of good and evil until he forms his image in himself. Every state you choose to enter will be recorded and added up, while He remains faithful to that divine image; and when the image appears, you will see David – the anointed, Christed one.

I have found my anointed, my chosen one, my first-born, and he has called me Father. He has called me God, the Rock of his salvation. This is true, for I brought him into being. Now I can depart in peace, for I have done exactly what I promised myself to do in the beginning of time.

It has been taught us from the primal state, that he which is, was wish until he were. I wished to make man in my own image. I did not deviate from my wish but kept that vision before me constantly, no matter what I did in the lower levels of my being. I made it all add up, for all things work for good to him who loves the Lord, who is the individual’s highest being. Tonight, every wish of your heart is possible to attain. Let no one tell you what you ought to wish, for all things are yours to appropriate now.

A friend shared a series of her visions with me. She wants to be a composer and I will tell her right now: you can be as great as you wish to be. In one of her visions she found herself in the company of Chopin, who was showing her how to compose. They seemed to be walking above a body of water, and as she looked, the water was not only the subject but the inspiration of the composition. This young girl, now only in her teens, shared this fantastic vision with me. In another dream she was told to read the Book of Numbers. Well, it is in the 12th chapter of Numbers that we are told that God speaks to you in dreams and makes himself known in vision. When vision breaks out into speech, the presence of deity is affirmed. In her vision the spirit of Chopin was telling her (even though she did not see his face) how to compose.

You do not see the face right away. In fact, the real face you will not see until the son appears. Just prior to that you will see the Risen Lord and fuse with him. And when his son appears, you will see yourself, made young. David is the image of the being who fuses with you, only young. He – an eternal youth – is your son, who has always done your will.

In my friend’s vision she is with Chopin. Being by nature a pianist, what better instructor could she have? She is being spiritually instructed, for she is the spirit of Chopin, as in the depth of her soul they are one. Whatever your inspiration may be, you will draw to yourself that which you have assumed you want to be. If in your mind’s eye a certain person is great and you want to be as great as he is, you will draw him out of yourself to instruct you. You are only instructing yourself, however, for every vision takes place within the human imagination. “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”

Choose an image you would like to express. Feel you are that image. So appropriate it that it must come forth in your world of shadows. Do that and you are praying, for prayer is your own wonderful human imagination, drenched with feeling. I could tell you story after story after story of those who have drenched themselves with the feeling of having their desire, and getting it. Feel the wedding ring, if that is your desire. Feel the thrill of applause, or the joy of a child in your arms. Anything is possible if you can feel it; but if you are going to use reason it will never happen, because failure becomes your image. You don’t realize it but there are two of you, and it is your deeper self that tells you it can’t happen. But no real belief can ever be suppressed for long, for your inward conviction must find some external objective habitation, and it will.

What is your deep conviction tonight? What is the true image you believe yourself to be? Is it that you are a failure or a success? If you believe the headlines of the paper you will be frightened, for they thrive on crisis. Do you know there are people who only write headlines? Good news is always put on the tenth page, but if the news is frightening it will find front page print. Our boys are on their way to the moon tonight. Their trip made the first page today, but if something violent happens tomorrow, the violent act will get the headlines and not our exciting trip to the moon. Ignore the headlines and remain faithful to your image. What do you really want? Don’t try to tell me that it is going to be difficult, because your very words block its fulfillment. Can you believe all things are possible to God? No one would have bet one nickel on me when I left the little island of Barbados at the age of seventeen, having voiced a desire to be a minister of the word of God.

Unschooled as I was (and still am, in the formal sense of the word) who would believe the word of God would be revealed to me? But my one consuming desire was to have a true vision, because I knew that a man becomes what he beholds. I didn’t want the vision to be false, even if it was given to me by some giant with many degrees, because I would be accepting the vision he follows. I wanted truth to be revealed to me, for if it is true that a man becomes what he beholds, then I wanted to behold truth, that I would become it – and I have.

When I tell you of David, I speak from revealed truth, and not from something I found in a book. Rabbis, ministers, and priests deny my words, because they are not what they were taught. They bring their own prefabricated misconceptions of scripture to scripture, and cannot understand the words of one who has witnessed the truth of God’s word.

I found the truth, as Paul did. It did not come from a man nor was I taught it by a man, but it came through a revelation, which was the unveiling of God within me. That unveiling occurred when I was confronted by and fused with the Risen Lord.

While you are here do not neglect Caesar’s world. You have to pay rent, buy food and clothing. Don’t let anyone tell you this is sordid; you must do it while you are here. You must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Forget the concept that Jesus got food from out of the air, for it is not true. The man in whom the pattern awoke labored as you and I do; and if you think I am being foolish about it, read the first two verses of the 8th chapter of Luke, where it states that he was supported by three women “from their own substance.”

When Paul began to tell the visions as they unfolded in him, he said: “I earn my own bread.” He didn’t get any bread out of the atmosphere, but labored as a man, while he tried to persuade everyone that they would awaken to discover they were God, and all that is said of Him in the gospel they would personally experience.

I am telling you what I know from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating. I hope you will so believe me, that when I depart this world, you will not forget my message. May I tell you: you may think you have wavered in the forming of that image you set out to do in the beginning, but you have not; for the depth of your being and my being are one, and that brotherhood has never once faltered. He agreed in the beginning to dream this dream of life, in concert. This we have done and will continue to do until the image is formed in each one of us.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE BIBLE – YOUR BIOGRAPHY

Neville Goddard 02-05-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen I tell you the Bible is your biography, I am actually saying that you are God, and I mean it. We are told in the 82nd Psalm: “I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince.” So I mean exactly what the psalmist said: that you are gods. But man has such a strange concept of the word “God.”

This morning’s mail brought me a letter. I do not know the lady – she claims she is eighty-two. She said: “I am returning your latest book, The Law and the Promise.” She can’t be returning it to me because I did not sell [it to] her. She may have returned it to my publisher or to some store who sold her the book.

She said: “I read the 156 pages, the forty stories told about the promise, and no credit was given to God; not one who received the answer to their prayers thanked God, and so it is a Godless book.” So she is returning it to someone.

Do not criticize her. She is eighty-two and undoubtedly like my own mother and father, who had strange and wonderful concepts of God, but God on the outside of themselves. God was on the outside to whom they turned, and she undoubtedly turned to some external creative father and that is her God. If she feels that way about it you can’t blame her when she reads in this, as I have brought the two together and identify God with human imagination. By identifying the two and making them one, I rubbed out the vision that has plagued man.

For we are told: “All things were made by him, and without him was not made anything that was made.” Then we discovered that we could imagine ourselves to be what we want to be and – remaining faithful, remaining loyal to that assumption – it became an external fact in our world. If “all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” and we did this as an experiment and it worked, well then – we discovered God! And he wasn’t some being in space who would return. We found him in ourselves as our wonderful human imagination.

That we failed many times – certainly, we are still torn between the concept of God, the father of David, and what we ourselves discovered, so we are still under that influence of an ancient concept of God.

So she is going to return the book…and let us all feel that tomorrow she will see who God really is, but don’t judge her – not harshly anyway. Leave her exactly as she is, because at least she believes in God, which is far greater than not to believe in some power that is creative in this world.

Now we turn to the Book of Books. You can’t read it by saying: well, I opened the book and read from Genesis to Revelation. There are sixty-six books in what we call the Bible. It’s a library. The Old Testament is something you almost can’t believe – certainly not with sense – without the key given us in the New. The New is completely hidden in the Old and the Old is made manifest in the New.

So we turn to the first book, the book of beginning, the Book of Genesis and – listen carefully -we are dealing with a mystery. When I speak of a mystery I am not speaking of a matter that must be kept secret, but a truth that is mysterious in character. And the Book of Genesis has a strange reversal of order right through it: “The first shall be last and the last first.” This reversal of order begins right in the very beginning.

Let us see what is first stated in the book. “In the beginning God” – that is the beginning. The end of the book: “In a coffin in Egypt.” “In the beginning God – in a coffin in Egypt.” And the one placed in a coffin is man. Then [he] was called Joseph, and Joseph died.

He was 110 years old and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. So here we find the beginning and the end. “I am the beginning and the end. The alpha and omega, the first and the last.”

Let us see how the thing unfolds for us. In the first chapter, God’s purpose is stated: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps over the earth.”

Let us give him dominion – that is God’s purpose, not his creative act as yet. His creative act comes in the second chapter, but that is God’s purpose, stated: he is going to make man in his own image and give him complete dominion over all things.

In the second chapter comes the creative act, and God from the very “dust of the ground made man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Now jump from the second chapter, 7th verse, to the 21st verse: there you will find the creative act.

He states this in the 7th verse and then completes the creative act from the 21st through the 24th verse. “And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man and he slept,” and then comes the creative act of the division of man. Male-female he now makes it.

Man is not a male; man is not a female – man is the image of God, a being above the organization of sex. But he is destined to be that being, he is not yet completed. To arrive at that level where everything is subject to his creative power, he passes through this divided image of himself, called male-female.

Then we are told: in the divided state he is led up into a world of experience. Here was a world of innocence, because here he is dead, so the dead could not in any way be tempted, the grave could not violate anything – it is dead.

Yet he is made alive, he is made alive by the sinking of God in himself, for God – don’t forget the last verse: “In a coffin in Egypt”… But the story is, having made the image of himself, the image has no power in itself.

It only becomes animate and alive and responsive if God sinks himself in his image. So God sinks himself in his image and in that state the image becomes divided, male-female, as we are. And then comes the most horrible story in the world: that God is in it, that image of himself, the very torment of eternity.

It is necessary to take the image that was dead and just made responsive, made alive – but only made alive (which is a responsive state) – and then to turn it into a life-giving being, just by God. So it took the entire story of 6,000 years (called “six days”) to complete the act of God. Here, you and I are the beings.

I am not speaking from theory tonight; I am speaking from experience. I tell you the story is true from beginning to end, and if I cannot stand here before you and demonstrate for your own satisfaction the might that is God, it is only because I am still wearing this garment of flesh.

And so as long as I am wearing it, the glory of the heavenly inheritance cannot be actualized by me, or at least is not fully realized in me while I wear and continue to wear this garment of flesh. But everything said in the Bible I have experienced. I have experienced the depths of my soul and it is all true from beginning to end.

A few years ago William Blake – he died in 1827, and I met him in these heavenly spheres, the majestic patriarch, and he said to me: “Stand still. Now fall backwards and let yourself go – no restraint, just fall.” I obeyed him and I fell like some interstellar star falling through infinite space. When I came to, I looked and I saw this scintillating being, this heavenly creature, human and yet not human – human yes, but it was all light, all fire and the heart was like living ruby.

As I looked at it, I was looking at myself. Here I was looking at my very being. I came closer to discover the whole vast world of man was encased within me. Humanity in its fullness was encased within that one being, and I am it. All the nations, all the races in the world were right in that body. As I looked at the bit of myself containing it all, I then felt myself crystallize, and here I am in this world of shadows once more.

That story is true of every being in the world. And then Blake revealed to me what he meant when he said: “All that you behold, though it appears without it is within, in your imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” I never fully understood those words before, but then with this vision I understood it. Then I understood more clearly than ever before his vision called the “Vision of the Last Judgment,” where all the characters of the Bible are not characters at all, but only states of consciousness.

When we speak of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all these characters – they aren’t persons as we are; they are states of consciousness, and the individuals are only representative or visions of these eternal states as they were revealed to mortal man (as we are) in the series of divine visions as they were recorded for us in our Bible.

I have seen them in my vision and you and I can be in any one of these states any time – a certain pattern that we pass through. But we can be any state and to do it. Who does it? Don’t you say: God can do it? God can do anything? But I would change the word – if you would not be offended – and that means: what I formerly called “God,” (and still do, because I like the name) I call “divine imagining,” and divine imagining and human imagining are one, they aren’t two.

An imaginal act is an immediate objective fact. Functioning on low intensities as we are, an imaginal act is realized in a time process. And so every vision as it stands there I assume that I am; but at the moment reason denies and my senses deny, but I assume that I am. And if I assume it and it seems to me real and natural, when I break the spell I know I have planted it, and then it has its own appointed hour.

Every vision has its own period of gestation, as we are told by the prophet: “It has its own appointed hour, it ripens, it will flower, if it seems slow then wait, it is sure, it will not be late.” If you see it clearly in your mind’s eye, if you were really in the image, it will become just as objective as this room is now – and again I am speaking from experience.

Sitting in my chair at home or reclining on a couch or in my bed, suddenly – without my eyes being physically open – I see a world that I would not see if I know where I am physically, and I can’t deny it. It’s just as real as you are. It’s objective, it is seemingly solidly real, and consciousness follows vision and I step into the world that I am observing.

And stepping into my image it closes around me, and this world which is seemingly the only world I should know is shut out, and I am part of the world I contemplated, I am in it. I explore that world and it is just as solidly real as this world, and I can’t find my way back to this world.

Then I discovered the way back, and the way was feeling. Standing in that world with no street leading to this world, I assumed my head was on a pillow on the bed in the room, in the house, in the city that I knew so well; and feeling it I suddenly found myself as though standing vertically.

I felt myself in a horizontal position and I am back, but I am cataleptic – I can’t move the body. It is just as frozen as this little instrument here on the table, just as solid, just as stiff. Within say, a half minute, I could move my finger and then my elbow, and then after great effort I could move an eyelid and open my eyelid. As I opened the eyelid I looked at the familiar objects on the wall that I knew so well. I am back in this world and now this world has shut out that world. I tell you: there are worlds within worlds.

Here you can take an image – the image of your success if you want success, the image of your awakening if you want it – any image, and then you contemplate it. And maybe you will see it as I am seeing you now, and then consciousness may (and I hope it will) follow your vision, and you will walk right into that image and it will close around you, closing around you just as I did this. And you have planted it.

You entered that age, as it were, and fertilized it; and bear in mind it is the image, and the vision has its own appointed hour. Don’t try to hasten it – it ripens, it will flower. But if for you – because you were impatient – it seems slow, then wait, it will not be late, not for itself nor to a world, unless they are the same species and would ripen in the same interval of time.

A chicken hatches out in twenty-one days, some things come out in five months, some things come out in a year and some come out in two years. And so we plant things in this world and each has its own period of gestation. Don’t think for one moment in the world as we know it and as we are, that you are going to think it now and then force ripening as it were. Leave it – it will come as you wish in its own full time.

God is real. You may not question it – I don’t – but in 1963, the scientific world would question it. I don’t know all the uses of the word, “God,” but I like it. But if it will help you any, I use the word I use most: “imagination,” because to me when I think of God I mean the same as when I say “divine imagination.” When I speak of Christ I mean divine imagining, God in action. We are told: “God is Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Imagining is Christ, which is God in action.

So imagination in Christ with his imagination, imagining, is reconciling the whole vast world to himself. But if it offends you, go back to the word, “God,” but don’t put God on the outside of something separated from you, because he is not.

God’s revealed name to this world is “I AM.” That is his great name. Can you say, “I am?” That is God. What am I doing? I am thinking you are no good – well, that is what you’re doing, that is God in action. And do you know: you will live to see the day you are right. So “I am” doing what? Anything in this world, all things are possible to God.

When you say: “I don’t believe so and so.” Perfectly all right, that’s your privilege, but who is not believing it? “I am,” you say – well, that is God. Don’t believe it. “I am no good, I can’t make a living.” Well that is your privilege; believe it and may I tell you how true God is: he’ll prove it. Finally you are relieved and you will say to me: “I told you it’s no good.” Can’t you realize that you are setting it in motion and you were fertilizing it in your world, for God’s only revealed name is “I AM.” So, what are you imagining?

Today in the New York Times, Brook Atkinson has this article. He just returned from Leningrad. They were not concerned, when he started through, to examine his baggage concerning liquor or tobacco, which is the item they all look for, for it brings in revenue.

They were only concerned about ideas. They said: “Do you have any magazines?” He said “No, none.” “Do you have the Bible?” He said, “No.” That is the only thing they questioned the second time. “Do you really mean that? Do you have a Bible?” It is the only thing they really wanted to prove beyond doubt he did not bring into Russia. And they could read – they know the Hebrew tongue, the Greek tongue; they have the different concordances. They could look back and find the true meaning of God and find it really means “imagination.”

That is exactly what the word means. The word “potter” in Hebrew means imagination. And who makes anything? If God made me out of the clay, out of the dust, was he not a potter? And I – the made, and he – the maker. The maker was the imagination, and then imagination sunk himself in the thing made and then gave me himself.

Take that “book of falsehood” [across] “The Border,” that man may discover who God really is, that he does exist, and they will now – without the consent of Mr. Khrushchev – assume they have a different form of government, and no power in the world can stop it from externalizing itself in the world if they do it. So, not cigarettes, not liquor, not anything – furs, diamonds, bring them all in, they are all part of our way of living, but don’t bring in the Bible.

In this country of ours we aren’t teaching the Bible. We’re teaching ritual and ceremony and it’s all vague, it hasn’t a thing to do with the Bible. The Bible is God’s revelation of himself to man. If you never saw the inside of a church it makes no difference. In fact we are told in the Bible not to build a church, but man insists on building churches. “Build no temple for me, I will build one for you.” This is what he builds, but don’t you build one for me. (Second Samuel 7) Do not build me any tabernacle in this world – I’ll build one for you, and some scribe to justify the building of tabernacles inserted the 13th verse, which all scholars agree is an insertion. It is not found in the ancient manuscript.

I tell you the drama begins in this manner: God made us and we are dead and there is no way to make us alive and creative as he is, unless he buries himself in us, and this is the mystery of life through death. John 12:24: “A grain of wheat unless it falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it falls and dies it brings forth much.” So he plants himself in us and is crucified on us. Listen to the crucifixion.

“The crucifixion is over.” (Romans 6:5) You aren’t going to be crucified again, you are already crucified. “If we have been united with Christ in a death like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The resurrection is to be; it takes place individually.

And may I tell you from experience: it is true. God’s mightiest act is the resurrection, and each individual will be resurrected, and the day that you are, you will be the most startled being in the world, because until that moment you had no idea that you were dead; you had no idea that you were entombed, it seemed so natural to walk this earth and play the part that you are playing and think you are alive.

You move from the cradle to the grave thinking you are alive, and in this moment in time you are suddenly resurrected. At the moment of resurrection you become awake, aware of it in your being startled.

Joseph was 110 years old when he left. In Hebrew every letter, every number has a certain meaning. 100 is the letter with its symbolical value of the back of the skull, qoph [pron. “koof”]. Ten is the hand, the yod and the yod begins the name of God.

If you could sever the hand from man, he would not be creative, just simply nothing. The hand fashions, the hand molds, it is a symbol of creativity – and so in the back of man’s skull a creative act is going on, as we are told in Philippians: “He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He started it in you, he initiated it, he will complete it, and a work is going on in man of which man is totally unaware.

He is being fashioned into the image of God. When that image is complete to the satisfaction of God – divine imagining – he awakens. He awakens him where he started the work: he started it in the back of his skull; he awakens in his skull to find he is entombed. There is one moment of panic and then you make an effort to get out of this fabulous sepulcher, and you come out of your skull like someone being born, and that is your spiritual self.

You don’t know a thing about it; it is being done for you – forget it. You were born physically by the action of a power not your own. You will be born spiritually by the action of powers beyond your own.

Don’t try to be holy. God isn’t making good people, holy people. God is making creators, just like himself. If you think you are holy, that is not the key in to paradise. No matter how good you are, no matter how holy you think you are, holiness is not the key that allows you to enter that special grace, your creativity.

God is doing it for you, working on you, bringing you to complete fruition and fulfillment. Try this principal of imagining, and if there is one thing I think man could do to aid – as something within a shell could aid the bird – the key is given to us in the Book of Job.

He complained and complained of all the things that were happening to him, but his captivity was lifted when he prayed for his friends. If you would use your imagination lovingly on behalf of another and rejoice in his good fortune without any reward to you, you will see how this thing will begin to unfold within you.

So here is this book of ours, the beginning of all, truly. It is divine imagining and divine imagining buries itself in man, in a coffin in Egypt. The word “coffin” is the same as the word “ark.” The letter qoph is this, and you and I have no idea – I know I had none.

I thought I was still alive. I thought everyone was alive or dying. They became either filled with dreams or visions, or unconsciousness, but when I awoke, then I was alive, awake. I didn’t realize it was a dream within a dream. Here we are dreaming the most fantastic nightmares in the world. The day will come you will awake and you will see, as Blake describes it: “I behold the Visions of my deadly Sleep of Six thousand Years Dazzling around thy skirts like a Serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is my Self, O Divine Creator and Redeemer.”

He had no idea that he had slept for 6,000 years in his strange dream. One day he was resurrected and he beheld this redeemer of his as a serpent of precious stones and gold and knew it was himself.

God has so transferred himself to the individual that he became the being who was taken out of the state of innocence into the world of experience, and now awoke in a world completely subject to the imaginative power. When I saw it I had no idea that I was it.

I hadn’t the slightest idea that the spell truly brought me out of a state of innocence for his own purpose, and although he took me through these frightening nightmares of 6,000 years, he took me through as the only way he could awaken and bring me to the state where I was not only responsive, but I became a creator and prepared to live on a higher level, one with the gods.

Everyone in the world will pass through the same state, for the Bible is your biography. The only subject in the Bible is about God, and because it is your biography it is all about you, and you are God. So stop looking for God on the outside. He sunk himself in you. Now test it. “Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (Second Corinthians 13:5)

I tell you that I know Blake hasn’t died, because I meet him. He died seemingly to the world, leaving behind him only the works he gave us in the printed form. I talked with him. It was he who actually told me what to do to see what he wrote in his “Jerusalem,” how to see one man containing the whole vast world. I had no idea when he told me, that when I came to a rest I would see myself as that man.

I simply obeyed him and fell backwards and came hurtling through space like some meteor, and then when I came to a rest, here is this heavenly being, radiant being, that is all aflame, and I saw it was myself. As I approached it, it contained all the nations in the world – I actually see myself containing all the nations in the world – and then he explained to me:

“All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” Take any image in the world and enter it, and the image becomes objectively real within your world. It is all contained within you.

Take out poverty – it’s there; take out wealth – it’s there; take out recognition – it’s there, take out the unknown state – it’s there; everything is there and each state is personified. So you approach a state and the state is personified, and as you encounter the state you enter the state, and then you externalize it into your world. “You are living in a world of shadows,” says he, until that day when you are resurrected.

You will continue your journey for a little while, telling the story as you encountered it to those who will listen, and then when you take off your garment this time, you take it off for the last time. You will never put it on again. There is no garment of flesh in the resurrection.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE BREAD AND THE WINE

Neville Goddard  9-25-1959

neville goddard imagination creates realityWhen we say that the supreme power that created the universe is the same power that is resident in man, people question that statement. Possibly everyone here owns a Bible, and when you go to court as a witness – say you are called to swear that you will tell the truth – and to swear you put your hand on the Bible, or the Word of God. Then you open the Bible and read: “Whatsoever things you desire, believe that you have them…and you shall receive them. And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have aught against your brother, so that your Father in heaven may even so forgive you.” You put your hand on the book of truth and swear to tell the truth, and here is this statement in this very book on which you swear, and you don’t believe it. It is true. It is based on the statement: Imagination creates reality, for the Bible is addressed to the real man, Imagination. “For the Eternal body of man is The Imagination; that is God himself.” (Blake)

Is there anything you cannot imagine? Yet many cannot believe what the Book says is true. You admit you can imagine it, yet man does not believe that the thing imagined can be true. But I tell [you] that if you can imagine it and persist, your persistence will win and you will prove the truth of that statement in Mark 11 given above. However, that is on this level of the world. It is called in the Bible “feasting on the bread and fish,” or the loaves and fishes. We can bring about all the changes we desire in our world if we imagine we have it and persist in that state, for if I will persist I will win. But there is another diet spoken of in the Bible and it is called “bread and wine.” You can go and get all the things of the world with the bread and fish, and you are invited to feast on it if you wish, but the other diet does something to a man that not one in a billion would believe.

We are told that they despaired, for they could not believe it. They were told regarding this second diet: “If you eat it and drink it you do it in remembrance of me.” Who? The one who is called Jesus Christ in the Bible, or the spirit of forgiveness. You must feast on this, and it has nothing to do with a cup of wine or a little wafer. It is “the spirit of forgiveness.” It is “the mutual point of forgiveness between enemies, the birthplace of the Lamb of God.” And throughout eternity I forgive you and you forgive me, and just as he said: “This is the wine and this is the bread.” So if I know how to eat of that bread and drink of that wine I am forgiving every person in the world. But I cannot do it unless I see and understand the difference between an individual and the state the individual is occupying. If I condemn a man, or a society, or a thing, [and] I do not understand that they are only states, I am condemning [them]. Only when I begin to distinguish between the state and the individual can I forgive. Then I can take the most horrible beast in the world and embrace him. He might in this present state be my worst enemy, but if I know he is only in a state, I can take him mentally and embrace him and pull him out of that state into which he has fallen and put him into a nobler state. And that is the “point of mutual forgiveness between enemies, the birthplace [of] the Lamb of God.” So when man will eat this bread and drink this wine he can have anything there is, for there is only One, for the whole is given to us, if we know it. If any man gives you anything he gives you what is mine as well as yours, for everything is given to you and to me. All is ours. We are one.

Get things if you want them. But there is something far beyond the mere getting of things. But if you want [to] imagine things, they are here. Do not deny yourself anything you desire, unless you would be gaining by another’s alleged loss. That is not the way to do it. You do not take from anyone. You create what you desire only in Imagination, and if you persist in the state it will prove itself, and it will come to you in a way that will not hurt another, for it is my Father who is giving it to me. There is only God. Nothing is lost, for “all things by a law divine with one another’s being mingle.” So I do not have to ask you or another to play your part in bringing to pass what I want in this world. If you are relative to my drama you will be drawn into it. All I must do is eat of the bread and fish.

But there is the other diet, the bread and the wine. Then when I meet someone I call enemy I must know that he is in a state, and I must distinguish between the individual and the state into which he has fallen. For it is really God in the state. There is only God to play every part. So I can embrace that being I call my enemy and have him see in me his most interested friend. So I redeem him. That is the wine and the bread, and if I eat of the bread and drink of the wine I will actually give birth to the Lamb of God. What must I do to bring about this experience? It will not come to anyone unless he eats this bread and drinks this wine, for that is the unconditional forgiveness of sin. No matter what the person has ever done, if you can distinguish between the individual and the state into which that individual has fallen, you can embrace him, and then you prepare the way for the birth of the Lamb of God.

If you feel you cannot do it yet, then try the other diet. It is wonderful. If you want better health, or a finer job, or a larger world, then you use Imagination to create it. You hear and see and touch [as] if your dream were a reality, and then you persist, and [with] persistence you will win. If you will only persist in hearing and in seeing what you want to see, you cannot fail to realize it. It is [a] wonderful diet, and everyone is invited to feast upon it. “Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray believe that you have them, and you shall have them.” You need no other on the outside, but if you will have anything against another forgive him and your Father will forgive you. Some pious monk added the last part, which is now deleted from the newer, more accurate version of the Bible: “If you don’t forgive, then your Father will not forgive you.” That was not the original text. There is no punishment, no retribution. It is all up to us. We are walking through this fire which is called Earth, but if man only knows that these are states, he will understand that the spirit is walking [as] God, walking as the Son of God. Then it is the God we embrace, but man cannot believe it and he worships another, unknown God. Everyone who walks the face of this Earth is God, but there are unnumbered states created for a purpose, and we can use our minds to take anyone from an unlovely state.

You recall the recent discussion regarding juvenile delinquents. They could all be put away, we are told. The judge does not know that he could do something about it instead of just corralling them and putting them on the backs of the taxpayers. If the judge only knew [that] this being before him is in a state, and that he could create a new state and bring that being into a new state and enable him to become a noble wonderful being in society! But we cannot see that, so we continue to condemn the individual as the state. No one can feast on the bread and wine until he can see that, and then he can reach the place of mutual forgiveness of enemies, the birthplace of the Lamb of God. “So spoke the merciful Son of Heaven to those whose Western Gates were open, but sleeping humanity heard him not, and slumbered on.” Only those whose Western Gates were open heard it. [And] those go forward to create new states for another and so he saves himself, for man is saved by (and only by) the saving of his fellow man. Finally in each the Western Gate opens and then the Lamb of God is born.

A good Catholic friend said to me: “What do you do to have this experience?” And I said, “Drink the wine and eat the bread.” He did not understand, for he takes Communion every Sunday. I said: “Has anything happened to you? Has there been an expansion in [your] consciousness? You have taken it for these many years.” But that is not the bread or wine I mean. The wine is mutual forgiveness of all enmity throughout eternity, just as the dear Savior said. If I cannot embrace a being and feel myself thrill to his good fortune, I have not taken the wine or the bread. But if I do it within and not by taking something in a tangible form, then I have partaken of the true bread and wine, and we have schoolrooms within schoolrooms. It does not matter who you are or when you were born; that has nothing to do with the awakening of God in man. Who are the “right” people? Everyone is God.

I had a long distance call yesterday from New York. The lady who called me is very, very rich by the standards of diamonds and money. She has not fingers enough for all her diamonds. She has everything she wants – except one thing: she wants to be happily married to someone in the social register who has more money than she has, and [is] at least twenty years younger. She is seventy-five, but she wants more money and bigger diamonds. She said to me: “Look what I have done for my son by using this law. He can now send his four girls to private school. I did this for him when I persisted. But I cannot seem to bring this picture for myself into being.” I said: “Anything you can imagine you [can] create. But you are thinking the market is limited because there are so few in the register or in your social sphere. Everyone walking the Earth is God and there is no greater background than that. These people are only in states, and if you took them out of that state you might not care for them at all – the same being, but another state. You do not distinguish the being from the state. You used this same law to put your son where he now is. You can realize your dream of being married to someone richer and younger than you are, if that is your concept.” It is not mine. We judge no one, for when you awaken you do not see the state. You only see the individual who has fallen into the state, and when you see that, you do not meet anyone you could not embrace and pull out of an unlovely state and put him into another state. Then we can intermingle as one being.

Now, he may go back into the old state, like Lot’s wife. “How many times must I do it, Lord?” “Seventy times seven.” That is how it is. If a child of yours fell downstairs, would you not pick him up seventy times seven? God is playing all the parts. There are unnumbered schools teaching that you suffer because of something you did in a previous life. You must do this or that. You do not awaken by sitting on a mountaintop, or by diets, or by joining some “ism.” You can only awake as you eat the bread and drink the wine, for that is the mutual forgiveness of enemies, and that place is the birthplace of the Lamb of God. You do not say to another: “I forgive you.” That means nothing. But you bring him before your mind’s eye and embrace him. You are in states that seem to oppose, but when you feel that touch, you are opening the Western Gate, for the Western Gate is touch. The Southern Gate is sight. The Eastern Gate is scent. The whole world remains asleep because the Western Gate is [closed] in you. And then you eat of this bread. You touch the one you embrace. Embrace mentally the very one who would cut off your head. Then the Western Gate is open in you, and then you eat this bread and drink of this wine, and then you prepare it. It is not by joining any orthodox church or going on some diet. You can sit on the Himalayas until you freeze and cannot do it. But you walk the marketplace and mingle with God (which is man) and then you have unnumbered opportunities every day to eat this bread and drink this wine.

Distinguish between the individual and the state he is in. [Transcriber’s note: Neville tells here the previously told story {of the} incorrigible child in the New York school who was redeemed by the wise use of her teacher’s imagination in seeing her in a newer and lovelier state, with corresponding results. The child was not blemished; it was a state.] You have never been tarnished. Hitler, you say? Stalin? The states were horrible, but the individual has never been touched. We do not give birth to the Lamb of God by condemnation. We must reach the point of mutual forgiveness of enemies, [the] birthplace of the Lamb of God. Then everything begins to unfold and you will know and understand that everything said in the Book is being said about you. There is only the one Son, and God is begetting that Son unceasingly from you and from me forever. If you want the Son to be born in you, you must practice drinking the wine; or, if you want to, feed on the bread and the fish. Bring before your mind’s eye your world as you want it. Hear, touch, see, and feel what you would if your desire were true, and you will change your world in harmony with that image. You can make it conform to your image, but beyond that are worlds within worlds. This universe, which seems so vast – a million light years in diameter – is only the skin of a greater world, for there are endless worlds within worlds. So when God created me and lit me, therefore I predated the thing created. So before the world was I AM. I begin then to remember who I am and I am He, for God and man are one. We awaken by drinking the wine and eating the bread. You can practice it all day long. You do not leave where you are or go anywhere to do it. You can do it standing in a bar. It has nothing to do with moral virtues. These are only states.

Then you will understand the words of Paul: “Drink no [longer] water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.” “Water” is psychological truth. Stop simply absorbing it and begin to put into practice what you know; that is turning the water into wine. It’s the first great miracle in the Bible. No more just reading and not practicing. I can absorb the water, but now I must take a little wine – or put into practice what I have heard and so transform your world – and that is life.

The 11th [chapter] of Mark is true: “Whatsoever you desire, when you pray believe that you have it, and you shall receive it.” “And as you stand praying if you have aught against your brother, forgive him, that your Father may forgive you.” But you cannot forgive until you distinguish between the state, and the individual in the state. You create for [him] that other state, where he is your friend, bring him out of his former state, and embrace him. That is the opening the Western Gate – and then something happens within you. So, who spoke this? “The merciful Son of Heaven to those whose Western Gate was open, but sleeping humanity heard him not and slumbered on.” [Blake.] I can speak and you may not hear. This diet may not appeal to you. It is only a state which you are in at present, for you are still God, no matter what, and you are still unblemished. But all will awaken, for God plays all the parts. Therefore “disaster beyond redemption is impossible.” Let no one tell you [that you] are better than the other. You may be in a more wonderful state than the other, but that is all. Good and evil belong to the tree of knowledge. We are rising up to [a] more expanding world as we awaken. You will step into another world as real as this one, and yet behind you in this world you [will] discover you have left a little garment – your body. All things exist in Imagination, and it is one with the supreme imagining that creates and sustains the universe.

Now, you take the diet you desire. If you are not yet interested in embracing someone you think is your opponent, and all you want is to transcend your present level, then live in the state that proves you have done it. You may never, after it comes about, give credit to your wonderful Imagination, for it happens so naturally that you will think it would have happened anyway. You may discount that your Imagination did it. But the day will come when you will want to transcend just things, and you will want that which does not have earthly value. You will see those with great possessions and know they are actually only moments from the grave, but up to the last second before they flicker out they are still only conscious [of] possessions. But it is all right, for they too will awaken in time, though they do not even know that there is someone who walks among them who is awake. In the world beyond worlds you are completely awake and not known because of possessions – because then you own the world. For there you know that you and your Father are one, and he creates all out of nothing. Whatever you desire to create you create, and you do not need atoms to do it; forever those you create out of your Imagination.

But tonight bring a friend (or he may be an opponent) before your mind’s eye and represent him to yourself as being in a finer state, or freer, and then be faithful to your mental structure. Then, in a way no one knows, it will take on reality in your world and crystallize and become a fact.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE CUP OF EXPERIENCE

Neville Goddard 10-27-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityAll things exist in the human imagination, and I mean that literally. No one can know of imagination who has not tasted the cup of experience!

In the Psalms we are told that in the hand of the Lord there is a cup that is bubbling over with wine which has been well mixed. And John asks: “Shall I not drink of the cup of salvation which the Father has given me, and call upon his name?” When we read these words we wonder what it is all about. Well, let me share with you a vision of mine of about thirty years ago.

This night I found myself in an infinite field of beautiful sunflowers. Each flower had a human face and each was perfect. If one smiled, all smiled. If one bent over, all bent over. What one did, they all did. As I stood there observing this fantastic display of beauty, I knew that I – singled out as I was – expressed a greater liberty and freedom than all of these human flowers put together. And when I returned to my body on the bed, I knew that in some strange way I was separated from that which I once had formed a part. Then I understood these words from the 8th chapter of Romans: “We were made subject unto futility, not by our own will, but by the will of him who subjected us in hope that we will be set free from this bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”

You and I here in this world are detached from that field of beauty, that chorus where everyone moves in unison. But we are separated, completely incarnated, which is essential to individuality. This incarnation involves separation from the Father, death, and descent into hell. You may not know it, but this world is hell. Here we are separated from the Father, and there is a fear in the heart of man that he may never again see the Father, who from all eternity was built into himself. But may I assure you, having realized the Father, that your fear need not continue. You will find the Father and when you do you will find him as yourself.

You are separated from the Father for a divine purpose. And without instantly assuming this garment of flesh and blood, thereby becoming completely incarnated, you would never find him. Instead you would forever remain a part of the field of sunflowers. I can’t describe the beauty of each flower, each a beautiful human face moving in perfect harmony. But now you are no longer part of the chorus but completely individualized, you will tend forever towards greater and greater individualization. You were subjected to this world and completely incarnated in it for a divine purpose. That purpose is to create within yourself the Spirit of Jesus, which is continual forgiveness of sin.

Believe me when I tell you that God is love, for I stood in his presence and he embraced me. But do you know that love, divided from imagination, is eternal death? I’ll show you why. I have a friend who is unemployed, without funds, and burdened beyond measure. I can’t deny I love him, and when I think of him my memory tells me how poor he is, that he is unemployed, without funds and burdened. I will keep him in that state forever, through love, unless I know how to use my imagination. So, no one can ever know imagination who has not tasted the cup of experience. Entering this world we love our mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children, and friends, but do not know how to change them from what they are into what they ought to be, unless we drink the cup of experience and practice the great secret of imagining. That is why I say: love divided from imagination is eternal death.

Imagination is God’s great gift. He is love, yes. He is infinite power and wisdom, but his creative power is imagination. Giving you his creative power, he gives you his Son Christ, defined in the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as “The power of God and the wisdom of God.” And because of this great gift, when you see one that you love dearly as unemployed, without funds and in great need, embarrassed and unclothed, you can represent him to yourself as gainfully employed, beautifully clothed, happy, and debt-free. Then as you persist in exercising your imagination concerning your friend, the world will remold itself and shape him in the likeness of one who is gainfully employed, debt-free and happy. All this is possible because of God’s great gift to you.

Remember the story of the prodigal son? The first son did not leave his Father, but the second – asking to be given what was his – went into the world and wasted all. When the second one, having experienced the world of death, remembered his Father, he turned around and the Father gave him the robe, the ring and prepared a fatted calf for a merry reception in honor of his son who had returned.

When the first son complained, the Father said: “Son, you are always with me. You never detached yourself, but have always remained here and all that is mine is yours.” Because of this the first son knew nothing of the power of imagination. Everything was his, but he didn’t know how to appropriate it. Tonight you could have a billion dollars in the bank and die of starvation if you didn’t know it was there. All that the Father has is yours, but you will never know it until you use your imagination to appropriate it!

You and I have departed from the Father. It was his will to subject us to this world of futility. He did it in the hope that we would be set free from this world of decay where everything dies, and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God – those who exercise their power of imagination lovingly.

Now, the parable of the prodigal son is followed by the story of the unjust steward. (You will find these stories in the 15th and 16th chapters of the Book of Luke). Now, parables are wonderful stories told in the hope that man will discover their fictitious nature and extract its meaning. In this story the unjust steward is commended for his actions. (The original meaning of the word “steward” is “the keeper of the pig” and the pig is the universal symbol of the savior of the world.) In other words, when the steward (the keeper of the pig) tells you his story, will you eat it? Will you believe what he has experienced? Millions of people today will not accept the story of salvation, so they refuse the pig as food. But, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you have no life in you.”

In the story, the unjust steward is accused of not keeping a proper record and is called to give an accounting. Summoning his master’s debtors one by one, the steward said to the first: “How much do you owe my master?” He said: “A hundred measures of oil.” And he said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly and write fifty.” Then he said to another: “And how much do you owe?” He replied: “A hundred measures of wheat.” He said to him: “Take your bill and quickly write eighty.” Going through the entire list, the steward falsified each record. And when the master heard what his servant was doing, he commended him highly for his action.

Now, you cannot conceive of anyone commending a dishonest employee, so what is the parable telling you? That there is a record being kept in you! Who is keeping it? Your memory! You know what you saw today, what you heard, what the mail brought, and how you felt because of the recording being in you. Perhaps someone called to tell you they were having marital problems. Now, you are called upon to falsify the record. Having heard their message of distress must you live with it? No, not if you are an unjust steward! Called upon to give an accounting of your day at its end, have you falsified the records? Or are you going to let the curtain fall upon this day without changing the record regarding the person in distress? Told to sit down quickly and modify the conversation – if not 100%, then 50%, then 20% – but change your memory of the conversation, for although we are detached, we are one in the human imagination!

I see it all so clearly now. After thirty odd years I still see that scene more vividly than I see the flowers my mother grew. Being passionately fond of flowers, every day mother would take her parasol and walk in her garden. But my vision of the sunflowers transcends any memory of my mother’s lovely garden. Every sunflower a face, and every face so distinct. Like a chorus, when one moved, all moved in the same direction. No one violated the unseen or unheard order. If one smiled, they all smiled. As I watched I realized I was freer than all of them put together. Then I knew that this division had to take place. We had to be made subject unto futility, for separation from the Father involves death. We had to die to what we were and descend into the world of hell in order to create in us the Spirit of Jesus, which is the continual forgiveness of sin.

Forever justifying our world – claiming he slapped me first, or she pushed me – we speak with the voice of hell, the voice of self-justification. But in heaven it is all forgiveness of sin, because all things exist in heaven, the human imagination! Nothing happens on the outside that did not first take place in you, so you must forgive by changing the cause. If you try to justify or condemn, you live in the state of hell, for everything is taking place in you!

Now seemingly separated from the Father, don’t despair; for he was built in you from eternity. And you will find him when David stands before you and calls you “Father.” He will not be a David, but the David, the eternal David who was put into the mind of man before that the world was.

Although it doesn’t seem possible, you and I were detached from that infinite field of beauty by an act of love. We were made subject unto futility, not by our own will but by the will of him who intended to give himself to us. But in order to do it we had to be individualized by complete incarnation, complete insulation where we think we are human. Being a member of a family, having friends, and living in a world of people, you are insulated and completely separated. This incarnation is essential to your individuality, and when you begin to awake you awaken to the realization that you are he who subjected yourself, for you become the very being the world calls God the Father. This is the great story as I understand it from my visions, which have paralleled scripture.

So tonight I ask you to exercise your own wonderful human imagination. Since your friends are only yourself outpictured, put them in a glorious light. Don’t justify their actions by saying: “It serves them right”, because all things exist in you. There is no one out there, but all in you! So if you fail a thousand times, saying: “How often Lord must I forgive my brother who sinned against me?” the answer will come: “Seventy times seven.” May I tell you: you can’t say “sin” in any other way than as recorded in the 51st Psalm, the 4th verse: “Against thee, O Lord, thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in they sight; therefore thy justification is in order.”

Who is this being in whom I have sinned? His name is I AM! How have I sinned against thee and thee only? By seeing someone in my world that is in need and allowing them to remain there, for I cannot sin against another as I am the one seeing it. So I must change and represent him to myself as someone I desire to see. And I must persist in that belief until he conforms to the image I have created. That is what you are called upon to do, for you were made subject unto vanity and live alone in your world, so if you desire it to change, you alone must change it and live in the state of the desired change. I know this from experience, because the night that I was lifted up to the state of perfection I came upon this infinite sea of human imperfection, and as I glided by all were made perfect in harmony with that state to which I was lifted. So you must lift yourself to the state you desire your world to reflect, because everything in it is yourself made visible. The whole vast world is projecting God, and God’s name is I am! Believe my visions, for they have never betrayed me. I may betray my vision by not accepting its message, but when I was lifted up I was shown that everyone I encounter is myself. And when I represent that seeming other to myself as I would like him to be, to the degree I persist in that assumption, he conforms to that state.

Now, in the Lord’s hand there is a cup with foaming wine, all mixed. Shall I not take the cup which the Father has given to me? Tonight I can truly say I have drunk the cup to the very dregs. I have played the white, the black, the yellow, the pink, the gray, the honored, and the dishonored. I have played them all, this I know. Everyone will play all the characters expressed in the world, but let me assure you who are here that no man comes unto me save my Father calls him. You are here because you have reached the end of the road and I have called you to play your part as the Lord God Jehovah.

Start now to mold every being in your world into the form of love. But love, divided from imagination, is eternal death. If you do not know you are dealing with a state, you can love someone dearly yet keep him forever in an unlovely state. But you can take him out by the use of your imagination. We are here in this world of experience for a divine purpose: to know imagination. The world is dead but you can begin now to overcome the last enemy of the world – the enemy of death – by imagining your friend is noble, wanted, and loved, and watch him become it. Save your friend from the state of poverty and you are saving yourself! Don’t be concerned as to how and when it will happen; it will happen, for the world is yours and all within it. The first son did not know this because he wasn’t detached. He was never separated from the Father so he didn’t know that all that his Father possessed was his to appropriate. Yet you who separated yourself from God were dead and are now alive. You were lost and are now found.

Like the seed, you have to be detached from the Father and fall into the ground to be made alive; for unless a seed falls into the ground it remains alone, but if it falls into the ground and dies it brings forth much. The creative power of your human imagination is the seed which falls into your fleshly body (the red earth called Adam). Hearing the word and applying its truth, your seed is made alive and begins to awake, and you realize who you really are.

You are infinite love, but without the power of imagination, love itself is eternal death. Start now to change your world to conform to your acts of love, but you cannot do it without imagination. Begin with self! Change your world and prove God’s power is within you. Then you will know what it is to drink the cup which the Father has given you. It was God’s infinite love that detached and allowed you to fall, for this separation is a fall and yet a beginning of a new creation. Just as the seed falls from man and a new creation begins, you fell and began a new creation, for God came with you as your human imagination!

Tonight ask yourself: “Who am I? Where am I?” If you do not like your answers, assume you are the person you would like to be, living where you would like to live. Persist in this assumption and – although denied by your senses and reason – if you persist your desires will harden into fact. Start now to take God’s gift of his creative power and create!

God detached and dropped you in love, for God is love. And when he did, he buried the gift of his creative power – called Jesus Christ – in you. So now, like him, you can create, and as you do, your creation comes to life. Then you know that you no longer have to argue with the world, but can instantly change it to conform to the ideal that is in your being.

We left that enormous field of perfection to be incarnated, isolated, and feel separated from everything, in order to be individualized. This incarnation involves separation from the Father, death, and descent into hell. From that moment on, you seek the Father – the cause of all that is going on in your world – and despair, fearing you will never find Him who was built into you from all eternity. Then one day you will find David, the only one who can reveal you to yourself. When David appears and calls you Father, you will be looking right into the eyes of the one who was put into the mind of man, yet so that man could not find out what God had done from the beginning until the end.

You are detached and subjected unto futility in order to obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of the resurrection, being sons of God. But you cannot be a Son of God until you are resurrected, born from above, and encounter the great David who stands before you and calls you Father.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE FOUNDATION STONE – IMAGINATION

Neville Goddard 12-1-1959

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe believe that man can create anything he desires. We believe the Universe is infinite response and the one who causes it is the individual perceiver. Nothing is independent of your perception of it. We are so interwoven we are part of the machine, but as we awake we detach ourselves from this machine and make life as we wish it to be. “For man is all Imagination and God is man and exists in us and we in him.” “The eternal body of man is the Imagination: that is God himself.” You can imagine and I can imagine, and if we can be faithful to the state imagined it must appear in our world. This is not new. This was given centuries ago, for we have it in the Bible; but people do not know how to read the Bible, so they got together and organized it into an “ism.” It is not an “ism,” but it is the great plan to free man. The Bible shows this plan in detail. We will turn to a few passages and show you what those who wrote it intended we should see.

Isaiah 28:16: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: He who believes will not be in haste.'” Now, we are told in the Book of Psalms that the world rejected the stone. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” “You cannot lay any other stone.” “On this stone you may build gold, silver, hay or stubble and the day will reveal it.” I tell you that this stone is your Imagination, and it is called in the Bible: Christ Jesus, or God, or the Lord. It is your Imagination, which is one with the Divine Imagination which created, sustains, changes, and even destroys parts of the creation. This is the stone that is tested and it is a sure foundation, and he who believes in it will not be in haste. If I can but imagine and know that imagining creates reality I will not be impatient or lead a superficial life. When a man does not live in his Imagination he will become impatient of the outcome of what he desires, and finally he will become violent in his effort to get things.

Here is one who asks the question: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” Some said this and some that, but again he asked: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:13) “And Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in Heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

The churches tell you that it means a man called Peter. It is not an individual. The whole thing takes place in the mind of you the individual. You imagine a certain state and it is called Peter. If it were a man called Peter, you would not find what you find six verses later. For there he turns to the same character, Peter, and says to him: “Get behind me Satan: You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” That is what every man in the world does. He gets a revelation and he realizes the foundation stone is Imagining. He sees a friend who needs help and he imagines he has what he wants. If he believes it, he is not in haste. He is imagining what he wants and he is not violent, and he is not concerned, and he does not give suggestions to the friend as to what to do physically to bring his desire to pass. If the foundation stone is true, there is only one power to support it. If he knows that, he will not allow himself to be turned; he will remain faithful to his assumption. But we are told in the Bible story that the one who had been commended, Peter, turned and became violent, and then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan.” You turn back to the ways of men to get things to go as you want them to go. You pull all the wires and therefore you have turned from the only foundation in the world, and that is Christ Jesus, which is human Imagination. If you believe this you will not reject the stone.

“Stone” is “even” [in Hebrew] and it means to create, or build, or beget children. Here is a stone in “Zion” (which means a high pinnacle or a barren place). That is man, before the stone is sunk in him. He is the waste, the desert. Sunk in man as his Imagination is the only foundation stone, for [there is] no other foundation of the living God and he has sunk himself in me. Therefore, I am the son of the living God, for there is only one and I Am he. If I believe this, I will not be impatient. “He who believes it will not be in haste.” This is the Lord’s way. I ask you to test it. Bring before your mind’s eye what you want to see in this world. It may be business or a friend’s good fortune. It can be anything, for on this foundation you can put stubble, or wood, or hay. You are building with hay when you say of someone: “I know – he was no good.” They lived in that state concerning another and then it came to pass – and they say: “I always thought he was like that.” Some of us build strange things for another. We were imagining on the only foundation, but we have put stubble on it instead of gold or silver, and the day revealed it, and then we cannot relate what happens to anything we have done.

The Hebrew meaning of the “stone” is to beget children. All the events of my life are my children. Everyone can build on this one foundation. “I am laying in Zion a stone.” What stone? God is burying himself in everyone in the world. It is a true stone, a precious cornerstone, and one who believes will not be in haste. I have seen an imaginal act take two years to come forth, but when it appeared – what a giant! I have seen it come in an hour. But do not be in haste or think there is any other foundation and – like Peter – turn to another foundation, growing violent toward those who would lead Jesus to the cross. But Christ said: “I came to move toward the cross. Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me.”

If I am still in the machine, I think the good things come only by accident or chance. Let the wheel turn, for each must go through all the furnaces until he awakens and sees the whole universe as infinite response. The day will come when every person, at a certain degree of awakening, will freeze an activity within himself, and as it comes to a stop within him, that whole section is “dead.” The laws of nature are only free action, repeated until they become accepted as a law. Yet you will see leaves in mid-air not falling, and people moving in space will cease to move but will not fall, for as you stopped the action within yourself the whole thing stopped. And you will see the whole thing as Zion – the desert – and the only thing that makes it alive is the stone buried in it. But man becomes lost in the things he has made and gives to them the power. For example, through the use of his Imagination he brings money into his world; then he forgets that it was the activity of his mind that did this, and he sees in the money itself the power to get what he desires. But when he awakes he will no longer lose himself in his own creation.

I say to everyone here: there is only one stone. If tonight there is someone very ill who needs your help and you imagine the best for him and then you get news that he is worse tomorrow, do not be impatient, but remain faithful to the one stone laid in Zion. What more can you do after you have imagined? Someone writes to you about a problem. Imagine for them what they desire and then do not turn aside to do anything to make it come true. You remain faithful, and it will create the conditions necessary to bring fulfillment.

You can look at someone with deep concern and want a change. You do not voice it, but lock it in, and then forty-eight hours later there is initiated what you set in motion. And they wonder: “Could my problem be traced to so-and-so?” Just the very thing you had been thinking! You entertained their problem with deep concern, and then you will ask: “Did you influence me or did I influence you? When did you entertain this thought?” And they say: “Just now,” and then you say: “Forty-eight hours ago I entertained this thought, but I did not say it aloud.” That makes no difference. All things by a law divine in one another’s beings mingle. We all influence each other. We are all interpenetrated, and the more one is deeply concerned for another, the more he is penetrated by another.

I say the universe is infinite response, but it also gives back more than you imagine. It is pressed down and running over. Therefore, to be negative can be frightening. The good will come back a thousandfold, but so will the negative. But if I am optimistic and do not waver, I will bring that also pressed down and running over. It is something wonderful; it will come like a gusher. The world responds more than it takes, and it gives to the individual more than he imagines – good or bad.

I say to everyone that the greatest of books is the Bible, but people have organized it, and even say they have found the remains of Peter or some other Biblical character. Peter is not a man, but a state. You rise up to the crown of it all and that is Christ. States are permanent but I am not fixed; I am a living moving being. I can be praised for one state and then I see a morning headline, say, and move from that true foundation, and then the power rebukes me as Satan, for I reacted instead of acted. Would you like to be in the state called Peter, the one addressed in Matthew 16? How? Let me say, and mean it: “My Imagination is God and there is no other.” It is one with the supreme power and let me live in that state, and then I am being addressed: “You are blessed, Simon Bar-Jona.” It means the depth of my being is giving it to me. Can I do it? The day that you do it and remember you did it, at that moment you are relating that story. When Peter confessed: “Thou art the Christ,” that is the stone on which the whole thing rests, but when he got away from that and reacted, then he was called Satan, or the re-actor.

God is begetting sons by means of the stone. He buries himself in every man in the world, but he is rejected. I can tell you these things here, but if I told them across the airways I would be immediately turned off. People cannot believe they are responsible for their imaginal acts. They do not want to believe it. I cannot be free of the results of what I imagine. Go out determined to prove it, and having proved it, keep the stone alive. There is no other stone. “No other can any man lay, which is Christ Jesus,” But on this build anything – but build gold, do not build hay or stubble. I want everyone here to test it. Take someone who is really distressed, and if you believe in the foundation you will leave here tonight without any concern for them, even if you receive wires stating things are worse. It might take a week or a month, but that which you have imagined, if you remain faithful to the stone, will come.

I have seen a man looking at a building – which is an inanimate thing – and you would say it could not respond. How can he look at it and see his name on it when he does not have a nickel? But he did it. I know the man. [Neville’s brother] and in a way he could not have devised, the building became his. Let no one tell you that something cannot respond, but when we are still part of the machine, we cannot quite see that we are the cause of everything in our world, and we hope good fortune will smile on us. Then when you set something bad in motion, as the machine turns you cannot see what caused it, but when you become awake you can control the machine. It responds to the imaginal acts of the awakened man, for the awakened man is in control.

A thrill is in store for you when you can finally stop all activity and the whole thing will freeze. You will know what the so-called wise men say, but you will hear only these words: “I thank you Father that you have hid these things from the wise and pious and revealed them unto babes.” For you will know that it is the perceiver who is making everything alive. For you will find that nothing is independent of the mind of the perceiver. A truly awakened teacher could freeze certain sections for the edification of his students if he chose. By normal standards everything would die if you suspended activity; but it does not die, for there is nothing outside of your perception of it. Take your boss or an employee and represent them to yourself as you want them to be, and believe in the reality of the foundation stone, and then you will not make haste to bring it to pass. For Imagination is creating reality, and in a way no one knows it will be brought to pass if you remain faithful to that foundation stone. It makes no difference who you are or what you have. The man who cannot always sign a check to realize a dream is better off, for he is more awake; for he must use the talent God gave him, which is God himself. If I can always put pressure on someone to get what I want, I will never know I am this machine. But if I have to do it all within myself, then I know.

A story was told me tonight of a man who had lost his wife at the birth of his son, and the child was taken to St. Louis to be brought up by his wife’s sister. This man had tried for seven years to get enough ahead to take a trip to St. Louis to see the child. He constantly tried to see himself getting a job with more money so he could make the trip. He was told that by the right use of this law he should only see himself with his child and let the way be left to God. Following this he was given a job that took him from Los Angeles to New Orleans. But that was not near St. Louis. He took the job and persisted in his dream, and in three months he was transferred to the St. Louis run and given a twenty-four hour layover there every week.

The best thing that ever happened to me was when I was fired from Macy’s during the depression. I might be captain of the elevators if I had stayed there. My father lost everything he owned, and that proved to be the beginning of the great dream he brought to pass. One person believed in him and he started on that, and when he made his exit last October, he had given to his community much that no one had ever given before. The blackest day of his life turned out to be the bright day of his life. No matter what you have done, forget it. You are God and God is untarnished, for he is all imagining.

Now, you start to imagine and make it something of which you can be proud. Make it big. If it is truly the stone being laid in Zion, do not turn to any argument of man. You be faithful, and whatever you put on the stone as an imaginal activity will come into your world. Of course, you may go back to the world of men, like Peter. He denied the stone three times but he did then return to it again. You may do that, but in the end you will learn, for in the depth of your being the words are being said: “Get behind me, Satan.” But I have seen people forget. I have seen them rise from nothing to great heights and then say: “It would have happened anyway.” They do not believe that their imaginal activity was the foundation on which they built that structure. There is only one stone and that is your wonderful Imagination.

This works better if you do not try to aid it on the outside, for it is not flesh and blood that revealed it to you. You got it from the Christ.

Now let us go into the silence.

  • – – – – – – – – –

Notes by the Transcriber:

The “Stone” is Jesus or the Foundation, your Imagination
Laws of nature are only habits of Imagination.
Only one stone laid in Zion.
Look with deep concern but don’t show concern.
The more one is deeply concerned for another the more he is penetrated by another.
We must not be impatient or waver from the stone.

Concept of being Awake:

The awake man is in control. Now you can leave a state and cancel out the furnace process.
The more awake the man, the less he needs to use political, social, or economic pressures.
As you awaken more and more, you go more and more into detail.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE GOSPEL

Neville Goddard 01-22-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen you hear the word “gospel” you usually think in terms of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but tonight I want to introduce you to the gospel as found in the letters of Paul.

Listen to these words carefully: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or any who hear him, should preach a gospel that is contradictory to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.” Then he repeats this saying: “I have said before so now I say again. If anyone teaches a gospel that is contrary to the gospel we preach, let him be accursed.” You will notice that Paul includes himself in that statement, because it is possible under the threat of death or pain or torture for man to confess that he was wrong. (The churches made Galileo confess, under the threat of Cain, that the earth was stationary and not moving around the sun, even though today we know Galileo was right.)

The churches still teach a Christ that never existed, but Paul taught what he had received through revelation, saying: “Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. I will have you know that this gospel, which I preach is not man’s gospel. I did not receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” Then he tells us who Jesus Christ is, saying: “From now on I regard no one from a human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.”

Now, the word “Christ” and “Messiah” are the same in scripture. Confessing “I am a child of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin,” Paul was a master in the law of Israel. Looking for some physical descendant of Jehovah to come as a messiah and destroy the enemies of Israel, the mystery unfolded in him, and he said: “I want you to know how greatly I strive for you that you will have an assured understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

To Paul, the wisdom and power and knowledge of God which suddenly erupted in him was Christ, for when the visions came he understood who the messiah really was. Paul realized that God, called “the Word”, was buried in man and had three stages to its history: its planting, its death, and its resurrection. First the Word is sown (or imparted). Entering the world of death, it is forgotten in the struggle for food and clothing, rent and taxes. Then the Word is heard with understanding, quickened, and as it erupts all the promises of God to Abraham unfold from within the individual. When it erupts in you, you will no longer search for a physical Christ, for you will know Christ as the wisdom and power of God in you! Like Paul, you will then say: “I no longer regard anyone from the human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view I regard him thus no longer.” Knowing that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, you discover who can!

Paul, speaking to the Thessalonians, said: “When you received the Word of God that we preach to you, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it really is, the Word of God that works in you, the believers.” In this statement Paul is speaking to those who hear God’s eternal story and believe it. They are the ones who, when the world calls their dear ones dead, persist in believing they are not dead but alive, and that God will fulfill his promise in them. They believe, not in the words of men, but in the Word of God buried within.

Now, here is a story I received last Friday night. This will illustrate how you will know when the Word is quickened in you. This lady found herself, in dream, in a huge crowd, seated on a grassy hillside. A man was standing on a small, raised platform speaking into a microphone. In his hands he held an open Bible. Then a gentleman stood up and said: “I challenge anyone to disprove my knowledge of the Bible.” (This lady, in keeping with the character that she really is – and she certainly is not lukewarm in anything that she does) rose, and quoting the 22nd chapter of the Book of Matthew, the 42nd, 43rd, and 45th verses (she omitted the 44th verse which is a quote from the 110th Psalm) said: “Question, please! What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he? They answered, ‘The son of David’ Then he said to them, ‘Why then did David in the Spirit call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord how can he be David’s son?'” Completing the quote, she continued to explain to the crowd the relationship between Christ and David, saying: “Christ is the Father and David the Son in fulfillment of scripture.” Then in the dead silence that followed the statement, she awoke. The Word has become so quickened in her that it is only a matter of moments before it will erupt and the story of Jesus Christ will be her story.

No individual called Jesus Christ was ever crucified on a wooden cross. When Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ” he was speaking of the Cosmic Christ who is crucified on humanity that humanity may become a living soul. It’s the wisdom of God and the power of God that is crucified, died, and is buried in you. And it is that same power and wisdom which awakens to reveal you as God’s power and wisdom.

In the state of Paul you, too, will say: “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 the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” You may think a person is speaking but it is God himself, who so loved you he gave you his power and wisdom called Christ, that in time you would awaken to the realization that you are God.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he asks this question: “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?” Now I am going to ask you: Are you going to think of a physical man called Jesus Christ? An external savior who will come through the loins of the descendants of David? Or are you going to think of the Christ-Spirit that is buried in you when I speak of the Christ? Will you accept the idea that the Spirit of Christ is crucified on you and buried in you? Will rise in you as you? Or are you going to continue to see a physical being called Christ as God’s power and wisdom?

Paul confesses: “I did not receive this from men, nor was I taught it by man. It came through a revelation of Jesus Christ, which is God in the act of self-revelation!” Then he continues, “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me I did not confer with flesh and blood.” How could you ask another to explain a revelation, which came from within you? They could tell you all kinds of things about the outside, but they cannot tell you a thing about this great mystery until it has unfolded in them. In the 2nd chapter of Colossians Paul says: “I want you to have the assured understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery of Christ.” He tells you Christ is a mystery, as all the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge of God are hid in him.

Christ was never a single little man who walked the earth. The Christ-Spirit, God’s very own power and wisdom, is crucified and buried in you, and one day that power will rise in you and you will know that you are He. “Let any one who teaches another gospel be accursed.” Well, the whole vast world teaches another gospel. They tell you that a little man was physically born from the womb of a woman who was spiritually impregnated, and that’s not the story at all! Everyone will give birth to Christ! This will be a sign unto you when you hold that babe in your own arms, for at that moment you will be holding the sign of your birth into life itself!

Let me share with you a vision of George Russell (known to us all as AE) from his book, The Candle of Vision, which he begins by quoting from Proverbs and Job, saying: “The Spirit of man is that candle of the Lord and when his candle shines upon my head, by its light I walk through darkness.” His vision begins: “Where I saw this I will not say. There was a hall vaster than any cathedral, with pillars that seemed built out of living and trembling opal. High between the pillars were thrones upon which sat Divine Kings, all fire-crested. One wore the crest of the serpent, another plumed with feathers of flame. At the end of the hall sat one greater than the rest who radiated light as the sun. Below on the floor lay a dark figure, and two of the Divine Kings made motions with their hands above it over head and body. Where their hands waved, sparkles of fire like flashing jewels broke out. Then out of this body rose a being as tall, as glorious and majestic as those seated on the thrones. As he woke to the hall and became aware of his brothers, he lifted up his hands in greeting, and the tall golden figures leaped up from their thrones, raised their hands in greeting, and quickly faded into the light where the great one sat.” AE had eavesdropped upon a god who was awakening from his passage through darkness into light.

Now so entranced in this world, you have forgotten that vast hall where you laid yourself down to dream this world into being; but one day you too will awaken, and your brothers, all vested kings, will be there to greet you. One by one everyone will awaken in that same manner to be incorporated into that single body which was at the end, waiting for the return of all.

You and I agreed to dream in concert and this world is our dream. It is a world of darkness, a world that is a nightmare, but in the end you too will return enriched by the dream. You will awaken to find yourself glorified by it, glorious and majestic because of your experience in this world of darkness, this world of death.

Now, another lady gave me a letter on Friday, saying: “I have been having the strangest thing happening to me. I have been having double vision. While in my living room doing the normal housewife chores I see a roadway there, bathed in living light, with a light of greater intensity at its end. All day long the two worlds converged to remain with me, yet one world did not seem to disturb the other.

“The first night of the double vision, as I lay down to sleep I saw a tall being robed in white. He was so magnificent I felt that I must be at his feet, yet I knew I was on my bed. Standing erect with his arms raised above his head, I see he is holding a lamp which illuminates everything round about him. Then I am looking through his eyes and seeing my husband sleeping on the bed. Suddenly I realized that I am the being having the experience and the one who is conveying it.” Then she asked this question: “Could I be this glorious being I saw?”

May I say to her: You are infinitely greater than you think you are, for you are the being looking through the eye and the one stretched out on the bed called your husband, as you are the invisible cause of all! You are awake, really home, and it’s only a matter of moments before you will be completely awake from this dream of life. Oh, you will have many fantastic experiences, which may frighten your friends and disturb relatives, but you cannot help it, for you have arrived.

Now, Paul wrote his Gospel to the Galatians before 52 AD. All of his letters were written before the four gospels came into existence. Mark, the earliest gospel, was written in the year 70 A.D. and John, the last, was written in 90 A.D. Read the Book of John and you will see that it has drawn heavily on the story of Paul. All of the promises of God awoke in Paul. Telling the story as it unfolded in him, he said: “Anyone who tells another gospel, let him be accursed.” Any other gospel destroys the truth and keeps men as slaves. Even today, after 2,000 years, men are still led astray by being taught the historicity of Christ, for it is a mystery.

When Paul read the Old Testament without its revelation, he believed that Abraham was a being of flesh and blood. In the Book of Galatians he tells the story of Abraham and his two wives: Hagar, who bears children into slavery, and Sarah, who bears children into freedom. Then he said: “This is an allegory.” Now, an allegory is a story that is told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its fictitious character and extract its meaning. If the story of Abraham as stated in the 4th chapter of Galatians is an allegory, and the New Testament begins: “This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” – is the story of Jesus Christ not an allegory, written for us to learn its message? This doesn’t mean the story is a lie, but because man cannot grasp the mystery of God, it is told in the form of a tale. Unfortunately, man has accepted the story instead of its message. The story of Jesus is an allegory, yet it is truer than anything known to man, for the wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God, who wrote the story.

In 1929 at the age of twenty-four, I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord, and when he asked me a simple question I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” When I came back to this world I must confess I wondered why I used the words of Paul rather than one of the evangelists. I am not saying that which is recorded in the four gospels is not true. It is all true, but the experiences recorded there were built from this original gospel, and any teaching contrary to it is a lie. There is no historical Jesus Christ. There never was one and there never will be.

Paul was looking for the Messiah to come from the outside, and when he came from within, Paul was honest enough to record what happened to him, and for that he was condemned by the Sanhedrin, his own earthly brothers. They imprisoned him, chained him, and wanted his death because he dared to bring a translation of the prophecies of God that differed from what they expected.

They wanted an external Messiah, but Christ does not come that way. He awakens from within, for it is He who is playing all the parts. So the Word, having been received by man, awakens to discover himself! It has been him all along, and when he returns from his passage through darkness into the heavenly guild, all of his kingly brothers will be waiting for him. Arriving there, he will contribute to the wisdom and the power and the glory of God, for everyone returns with his gift!

Read Paul’s thirteen letters carefully and you will realize that the system of the Christian faith was fully matured before Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John came into existence. Paul calls his system the Gospel of God, the message of salvation.

Having fulfilled scripture, I know that everything said there is non-historical and yet true. One story is told of the feeding of the five thousand. Calling himself the bread of life that came down from heaven and referred to as the great fish, he tells us all that we must eat his body and drink his blood, so in this story the five thousand are spiritually fed. This is my experience of that story.

In the year 1946 I was sailing through the Caribbean toward Mobile, Alabama, when suddenly I was lifted up on high in one spiral motion. As I rose, a heavenly chorus began to sing over and over again: “Neville is Risen” and I felt as though I had been encased in a conflict with death and I was its victor. Clothed in a body of fire, I was a fiery being dwelling in a body of air. Before my eyes I could see an infinite seat of human imperfection and I knew they were waiting for me. Knowing that if I be lifted up to a state of perfection, I lift all men unto me, I glide by them completely undisturbed and unconcerned. And as I do, each and every person was made perfect, as missing members of their bodies appeared out of the nowhere and remolded themselves into the bodies. All this time the heavenly chorus accompanied me, singing: “Neville is Risen.” When everyone was made perfect the chorus exulted: “It is finished,” and then – for the first time since I left eternity – I knew the cramped stage of being here, for at that moment I felt myself come down and condense once more into the straightjacket of this body on the bunk of a freighter coming into Mobile, Alabama.

In that vivid experience I fed the thousands – not a little bread, but myself. Having conquered death, I was perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect, and I fed them what they wanted. The one who wanted the eye got it, he who wanted that arm got the arm. Whatever they wanted they got in its fullness, and when everyone was made perfect the chorus exulted: “It is finished,” and I was crystallized into this little thing called Neville, where I have remained since 1946. Now I know what is in store for me when I break the bonds of this straightjacket and return to the heavenly guild, as I know my brothers are waiting for my return from this journey through darkness into light.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE GREAT MYSTERY

Neville Goddard 04-12-1968

neville goddard imagination creates realityEaster Sunday is the day the world celebrates the greatest mystery of the Christian faith. I use the word “mystery” advisedly, for in the Book of Mark, Jesus turns to his disciples and says: “To you it has been given to know the mystery of God, but to those outside, everything is in parables.” (Mark 4) Here we see that the mystery of God is revealed from within, while the story of God is told as a parable to those on the outside. A parable is a story told as though it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its fictitious character and learn its lesson. On Good Friday, possibly hundreds of millions of people will attend the three-hour service. An equal number – and maybe even a greater number – will go to Easter service on Sunday, not knowing they are worshiping a parable which must be experienced from within to be known.

Paul said: “Great indeed is the mystery of our religion.” This is not something to be kept as a secret, but is mysterious in character. Its mystery is not easily accepted. We are told in the Book of John that many followers could not accept his words. They left never to walk with him again. (John 6)

The Christian world celebrates Good Friday as the day Jesus died, yet scripture tells us this is not true. In the Book of Galatians, Paul states: “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2) You could hang on the cross forever, and not experience the death of the Son of God. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record his death as taking place when “He cried again with a loud voice and yielded his spirit. And behold the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and all the rocks were split.” (Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23)

There are two sides to the coin of the Easter celebration. The yielding of the spirit, and the severance of the body of God. “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ who is within me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” God gives himself to you the moment the curtain is torn. Spirit fell from unity into diversity, into a world of generation and death. But when your spiritual body is split in two, spirit takes your individuality with him and once more ascends into unity and regeneration. This is the true story of Good Friday. The world, however, will not believe it. Looking on the outside, they hear the parable and believe it is a fact.

Now, as the disciples entered the tomb, a young man sitting at the right said: “You seek Jesus who was crucified? He has risen and is no longer here. See the place where they laid him.” This statement discloses the fact that Jesus has risen, as well as the place of the resurrection. But no effort is made to describe how he rose or when it happened. In these two statements we find a fantastic mystery, which I hope to unfold for you from experience. But first, I want to explain what I mean by calling those into my circle and teaching them from within.

This week I received two letters. In the first letter, the lady dreamed she was summoned to me, to discover others were there. Calling her and two others to me, I said: “I must die.” They were so delighted with the news, and as she turned to tell the others, she awoke. The following night, one of the friends in her dream found herself with two others, being taught a new language by me and making an effort to understand and learn from me. She awoke, wrote it down, and returned to sleep – to discover that now the three were linked together, as they attempted to speak the language. I was standing off to one side, helping whenever they needed it. Again she awoke and recorded the dream. And again she closed her eyes, re-entered the dream, to discover that now the three of them were one. I stood before them, called them forward, and said: “I must die to the flesh in order to live in you. From now on you will find me within.”

On this level these dreams are a parable, a story of the inner man, which – falling into diversity, is separate, linked together in the search for the cause of all life, ultimately discovering the unity of all. It is true. It is necessary that I die, but I have already. On the 8th day of April, 1960, I died to all generation. My creative powers have now turned into regeneration and now, night after night, I beget on the higher level.

It is said, that as he cried the loudest, he yielded his spirit; and the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom, the rocks were split, and the earth shook. This is true. When my spiritual body was split, I felt every little vertebra of my spine separate. Then, like a serpent, I moved up into the Holy of Holies. This is how your creative power, called the Son of man, is lifted up. In his 12th chapter, John tells us: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I draw all men to me.” The evangelist who is telling the story added this remark: “He said this to show by what means he would die.” This is not true. He said this to disclose the kind of death that would be his.

Only by yielding the spirit, can you die and ascend into a new being. You must draw yourself into yourself, otherwise you will hang on the cross forever.
Everyone is hanging on the cross, manifesting the flesh. Having been crucified with Christ, it is not the flesh which lives, but Christ, who lives in a fleshly garment. The life you now live in the flesh you live by faith in the Son of God, who loved you and gave himself for you. I remember the moment I cried out – splitting the curtain, and finding myself part of that pool of golden, liquid light at the base of my spine. Then I moved up into the Holy of Holies.

One man fell into diversity. Now asleep, he sees millions of others and does not realize they are himself pushed out. The lady saw three others, separate and individualized, then linked together, and finally one. Well, multiply three a million times, and you will see multitudes, all separate. Then the linking, the meshing, the weaving, of one thought into another; and finally the unity of all.

These marvelous experiences did not take place on this level; and if you try to interpret them as something that will happen here, you go amiss. When you meet me at night, it is because you have conjured me out of the depths of your own being. I am always with you, but not on this level. I died in 1960, and from that day on I have revealed the secrets of God from within.

We are all on this cross, but we have not died, for only God dies. It is God who is speaking in William Blake’s beautiful statement: “Unless I die thou cans’t not live. But if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. Would thou love one who never died for thee? Or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for Man and gives himself eternally for Man, Man could not exist.” So God dies, and everyone who is raised becomes one with him. You know me as a person, but I am one with God, so in that sense I died. I have to die to the flesh in order to lie in you. From now on you will find me within, not without.

The parable the Christian world will celebrate on Easter Sunday belongs to this level, but its meaning is within. Walking with you on the outside, I eat and drink and do all the normal things of life here. If you ask anything of me, I will do it for you. But when you meet me in the depth of your own being, I will be teaching the spirit.

Good Friday and Easter are two great mysteries. Good Friday comes first in the parable, but scripture tells us that the first is last, and the last is first. This is true, for the resurrection, which we celebrate on Sunday, is the first of the great events.
In fact, two events take place that very moment: the awakening within and the departure of your spiritual body from the tomb. “In a moment, in the twinkle of an eye, at the last trumpet all will be changed into the imperishable one.” This is the great eschatological trumpet of the 27th chapter of Isaiah. When this great trumpet sounds, all those who entered the land of Egypt will be called back to worship in Jerusalem. The word “trumpet” means “reverberation.” There is a peculiar reverberation that takes place. You feel as though every bone in your skull is breaking but instead, you awaken within yourself, come out to leave your tomb empty. That is your spiritual birth!

The Easter story begins with the resurrection. God is buried in you and this is the story of his seed. “Unless a seed falls into the earth and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it brings forth much.” Here is the story of life through death. God dies for your salvation. His death is your redemption. He was with you from the beginning, experiencing all of your pain and joy. But when he gives up this world the curtain is split, and as he is lifted up he takes himself – now individualized – with him. That is your ascension. Now, the resurrection is not the ascension. Your resurrection and birth from above come first. This is followed by the ascension nine months later.
To the Christian world this is only a parable, for they have not stirred themselves to question it. And not everyone who hears the truth will believe it, because they have not been called to hear it – and that goes from the Pope down.

No matter what name man calls himself, or what robes he clothes himself in, he is sound asleep. Anyone who believes in a man who lived two thousand years ago, thinks things happen on the outside, and has no desire to question the meaning behind the parable. But one day, a man will know from experience that everything is taking place within. That the world is but a mirror, reflecting that which is within. So her vision was perfect. It started with separation, then – linking together – it ended with unification.

I have told you the great mystery of the crucifixion. Every child born of woman has been crucified with Christ. But only when his spiritual body is split, does Christ die to the flesh. Today I read the work of a brilliant scholar who stated he thought it was merciful that Jesus only had to suffer three hours. Here is a man who knows his Greek, Latin, and Hebrew backwards, but cannot see the mystery behind the parable. He added the thought that they did not break his bones because scripture had to be fulfilled, yet he hasn’t the slightest concept as to what that means. Bones represent the law of God which cannot be broken by man. It is the law of the identical harvest. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the promise, but those who worship the parable think the bones of his feet were not broken so that scripture may be fulfilled.

God’s law was established in the beginning, as everything must bear fruit after its own kind. If it’s a pear tree, it bears pears; a plum tree bears plums, and an apple tree, apples. Bones represent the law of identical harvest. Assuming you are known or unknown, wanted or unwanted, wealthy or poor, your assumption is your seed and because of God’s law you will bring forth that which you have assumed you are. So when Jesus Christ had risen, the curtain had been torn and he had left this sphere. But having left this law behind, they could not break his bones.

A great scholar sees everything on the outside and therefore speaks of a parable. But you have been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone will receive it, so it is offered to more than can accept it. There will always be a remnant, however, who will understand and believe; and that is how we go up.

In the lady’s vision, she saw how protean I am. First there were three, then linked together they became one. In that same way I am part of your being, always speaking to you from within. And when you see me in vision, I will not be talking about this visible garment I wear, or when I will depart from it, for no one knows the hour or the day. When asked: “Teach us the number of our days,” no reply was given (Psalm 39). If anyone tries to tell you they know when you will depart, do not believe them.

It is my desire that everyone will soon celebrate the splitting of the spiritual temple and move into an entirely different world to exercise a power of which mortal man knows not of. I can’t explain this power, but it is in my head. I can move mountains by simply exercising it as this power is my very being. Hearing it in my head, I control it there. My five senses have synthesized into a power so great I can do anything, and as I exercise this power it grows and grows and grows. It has been eight years since God died, and since that time I have grown in power, grown in wisdom, and expanded in the bosom of God. It is my prayer that you will know it, too.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE GREAT POSSESSION

Neville 10-3-69

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThe book of Genesis is made up of three records, called the J, P, and E manuscripts. Tonight I will refer to the E manuscript, which begins with the 15th chapter of Genesis: “As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘Know for a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves there and they will be oppressed for four hundred years. After that they will come out with great possessions.’

“Abraham believed and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.”

Here we discover that it is not what man is, but what he trusts God to do, that saves him. Believing that God the Father has prepared the way for his banished sons to return, in the state of faith you accepted the verdict that you would be enslaved for four hundred years.

Now when you read this statement you may think in terms of time as we know it, but that is not part of the mystery. In the Hebrew alphabet each letter has a numerical – as well as a symbolic – value. The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “taf. Its numerical value is four hundred, and its symbolic value is that of a cross. That cross is the body you wear. It doesn’t mean that it will take four hundred years for you to reach the end of the journey, but that a way has been prepared to bring you out of this journey into death.

Everything begins, waxes, wanes, and dies here; but God has prepared a way for us – his banished sons – to return to him, and when we do we will have great possessions. These possessions will not be of an earthly nature, for everything dissolves here.

In this world your possessions enslave you. Buy a home, and the minute you have the feeling of possession you must insure your property against all the elements. Buy a large diamond of which you are so proud, and you must insure it and pay for that insurance the rest of your days.

People who own a fortune in diamonds often place them in a vault and never see them, yet pay insurance on them year after year – but they have the feeling of possession. So you see: regardless of how great you determine your earthly possessions to be, you cannot take them with you. So what is the great possession that you will return with? Life in yourself!

The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint of experiences which take place in the New. And even that which is recorded in the New is not conclusive and vivid. So we search the scriptures to see what we must experience in order to acquire our promised great possession.

You and I preexisted, for there is only God. Diversifying himself into the many by falling into a deep sleep, God the Father is now bearing his cross by wearing our garments of flesh and blood and dreaming our life into being. In this world we do not recognize ourselves in the other, for – wearing a mask – we are hidden from view. Now an animated body, we are destined to be gathered one by one and brought back into that original state with great possessions. That great possession is to have life in ourselves!

The word “Zechariah” means “Jehovah remembers,” and Zechariah’s book is all about remembering. In the 8th chapter the Lord speaks, saying: “I will return to Zion and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”

When you begin to awaken, you will remember what you were told before that the world was, and memory will return in the form of an experience. When your dream of life comes to an end, a sound – a certain note – will call you from the tomb, and you will awaken in your skull and begin to remember God’s plan for your salvation. Zechariah’s prophecy will be fulfilled in you as you remember, for Zechariah describes Jerusalem in vivid imagery as it will be when city and temple are restored, and we – the exiled – have returned.

The night my awakening began I fell asleep in my normal, natural way. Then a dream possessed me and I found myself in a glorious city, with no buildings more than 3-4 stories high. The sidewalks – wider than any street I have ever seen – were filled with laughing, healthy boys and girls. There were concert grand pianos on the sidewalk at space intervals so that one would not interfere with the other. An artist would appear and play, just for the joy of those who were present, and each artist had his own following.

I sat at one grand piano and watched an enormous crowd follow their hero as he approached my bench. When he arrived I rose, he thanked me, sat down and began to play. As he played, his music formed geometrical patterns, all in color. Standing next to him, I knew that if I arrested a certain imaginal activity in me, I would have frozen music to contemplate.

I arrested this activity, the music froze, and the sustained note began to increase in volume. As its sound penetrated my very being, I awoke to find myself – not on my bed in my home, but in the holy sepulcher – my skull – where I had been throughout the centuries. Then I innately knew how to get out. I did it and found myself surrounded by all of the imagery of scripture concerning the birth of God.

It took three and one half years for that pattern to unfold in me; but when it was complete I knew beyond all doubt that I was the one scripture called Jesus Christ. Everyone is God incarnate. You may be unknown, unwanted, and shunned by the world; but you really are God, wearing your cross as you swore to yourself that you would.

Now listen to these words: “Marvel not at this; for those who are in the tomb will hear his voice and come forth.” You may think the tomb spoken of here is a cemetery or graveyard; but I tell you: the tomb in which you are buried is your skull. Your own wonderful human imagination is the God of the earth and sea who is buried in your skull. That is the holy sepulcher. So don’t go to Egypt or the Near East, to what is called the Holy Land, to find the place where God is buried, for he is not there. God is buried in your skull and it is from that skull that he will rise.

No one knows when the power that you really are will awaken and rise from sleep; but I do know that when it does you will have the power to stop the world, to examine it, and start it again at will. And no matter how long you arrest it, when released there will be no knowledge of the arrest, for there will be no change. Space is a facility for experience; but time is a facility for changes in experience, and when you arrest time you arrest change. If you stopped this moment in time and kept it so for a thousand years, nothing would age because nothing could change. Time is within you and you can arrest it just as I did the night I sustained the tone.

Now, the word translated “voice” in scripture, means “noise; sound; the trumpet; reverberation.” A reverberation sustained – like a storm wind – will awaken you from the dream of life, and you will see the world as it really is, for the world is not as your senses and reason belie. You will awaken to say within yourself: “I and the Father are one.” And if you are one with the Father, who has a son, you must find him. Five months later your son – who is God’s son, David – will reveal you to yourself. I know this doesn’t make sense, but what I am telling you is true and you will know this truth through experience.

In the world, you are oppressed and a slave to the body you wear. No matter how rich or powerful you may be here, you cannot command a servant to eat your food, assimilate it, and eliminate it for you. You must perform all the normal functions of your cross of flesh and blood yourself; therefore, are you not a slave to it?

No one has ever been so wise or powerful that he could forego these functions. If he ever tried, he would die and they would bury him; but the real grave where God is buried is in your skull. There he will remain until the end of the journey when you are awakened from the dream and come out of your skull as the dreamer.

Although banished, God has prepared a way for you, his son, to return. We are all God’s sons, who collectively form the Father; but we are called back one by one. Each one of us is so unique we cannot be called in pairs or groups. And the night you are called will begin with a dream, as described in the 8th chapter of Zechariah.

I, who have told you what to expect, will physically disappear; but I will send the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth. He will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Having proclaimed to you that I am the truth, who can I send but myself? So God Himself entered death’s door with we who entered. He lay down in the grave with us in visions of eternity, until we awake to see the linen clothes lying there that the females have woven for us.

Your mother wove your garment of flesh and blood called the linen cloth, and one day you will come out of it, never to return. You, an invisible being, will feel and hear a power so great it will sound like a storm wind. What I saw was conjured by and supported by a tone; therefore if the tone stopped, the beauty I contemplated would vanish. But the tone continued, and as it did I awoke.

There is a tone in you that is unique to you, and one day it will appear in the form of a beautiful pattern. You will arrest that tone, and as it is sustained the shell in which you have been sealed for unnumbered centuries will crack. You did not begin in your mother’s womb and you will not end in the grave. You are an immortal being who came down into a world of death to dream the dream of life. One day you will fulfill the 8th chapter of Zechariah and awaken to discover you are life itself.

Now the word, “Jesus” means “Jehovah saves,” and when Jesus is born Jehovah is born. So when you come out of the shell in which you placed yourself, you are saved.

Today with all of our knowledge we still do not know how a sperm can penetrate the surface of an egg and make that which is inside come forth in the likeness of the one who penetrated it, for all things bring forth after their kind. Now if God is bringing forth that which is after his kind, it has to be God who is born.

Having entered the skull (your sealed egg) you have been dreaming your flesh and blood life into being. You have made a journey into death, and when the journey is over God will penetrate your skull, and you – completely individualized – will come forth as God. And so that you will have no doubt as to who you are, God’s only begotten son will call you Father. Only then will your journey be over.

Last night I retired, dwelling on this father/son relationship, and awoke about 2:30 A.M. to find myself in a place much like the Plaza Hotel in New York City. I had just checked out, and turned to see my brother, Fred checking in. As I went over to greet him I saw my nephew, Philip – Fred’s son – approach. Then I did the strangest thing: I introduced Philip to Fred, and as they shook hands I realized they didn’t know one another. Fred knew I was his brother, and Philip knew me as his uncle, but the father/son relationship they did not remember.

Now let us turn to scripture: “Philip said, ‘Show us the Father and we shall be satisfied’ and he answered, ‘Have I been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.’ “I saw my flesh and blood brother and nephew, yet in my dream they were only symbols of the Father and the son who do not know each other.

Tonight I tell you that you are the father of God’s only begotten son, who is named David – but you do not know it. One day, however, you will, for David will stand before you and call you Father. Then this mutual understanding between father and son will be accomplished, and your journey into the world of death will be over.

In my dream I played the part of David as I brought my brother Fred and his son Philip together. The word “David” is defined in Strong’s Biblical Concordance as “beloved; the uncle; the father’s brother.” As David, I made the announcement; and yet I am the father of David, for I and my Father are one.

These are mysteries, not of things to be kept secret, but mysterious in nature. They confuse the rational mind, as it wants to think on the level of this secular world where a man fathers a child and that’s all there is to it. The rational mind cannot solve the mystery of scripture, for the Bible is not a record of secular history, but divine history – which is something entirely different.

All the names recorded there are significant and tell a story that unfolds in the soul. You are the God whose name is I AM, but you are in this world and will bear the form of flesh and blood for an allotted time. Then the tree of life that you are will be split from top to bottom, and you – the Spirit trapped inside – will be set free.

In the meanwhile, dwell upon your great possession. If tonight you owned the earth and it vanished at your death, what would it matter? Stalin thought he controlled the world. He killed twenty million people then vanished. But Stalin did not die; he was restored to life in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in him. Stalin is a name God adopted in order to play that part, just as God adopted the name Hitler and thought he would rule Germany.

They are all restored to life now, and adopted other names in order to continue the work that must be done in them; for in the end they, too, will be redeemed. Everyone will be redeemed because everyone is aware that he is, and therefore saying: “I am” – and that is the name of God. While playing their parts they were used, and although they do not know it they are God, moving towards their ultimate good.

Now, forget the individual and return to scripture, for you are only here to fulfill it. Even though I have completed the story as told in the New Testament, every night I find myself re-enacting the prophecy of the Old Testament. As I dwell upon a promise of the Old, the waves begin to break in my consciousness (as it did last night) and I am shown the perfect representation of the lack of memory of the father/son relationship. In the past my brother used to say: “Of my four children the one I do not understand is Philip.” They looked like each other but had nothing in common on physical level, and here on the spiritual level they did not know their physical relationship. I had to remind my brother of the relationship between Philip and Fred. He knew my brother Fred, but did not identify himself with the name.

Everything contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. There isn’t a dream that is insignificant, but we are past masters of their misinterpretation. We cannot see the story behind the story. But I tell you: you are here for one grand purpose and that is to awaken from the dream, and when you do you will have power in yourself. “As the Father has power in himself, so he has granted the son also to have power in himself. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming when those who are in the tomb will hear his voice and come forth,” and as you come forth your power is exercised.

There is a note, a tone that will awaken you when the boys and girls play in the streets of the Jerusalem within you. Zion is within you and the Lord is within you, for the entire drama unfolds in the imagination. One day you will be so completely carried away with the beauty of something produced by a note that you will arrest it. That sustained note will cause you to awaken to the truth that you are the Christ of scripture, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Then you will know that you have returned with your great possession, for you will have transformed an animated body into a life-giving Spirit.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE GREAT SECRET

Neville Goddard 09-29-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityJudas is called the betrayer, but what was it that he betrayed? Judas betrayed the great secret of the messiah and where Jesus might be found. His is the most important role in the great mystery of God.

“I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. Then in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, the Lord reveals the Savior saying; “I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.” If God brought a savior to humanity, he had to bring himself – as Jesus, which simply means “I am.” This he revealed in the great “I am” statements: I am the vine; I am the door; I am the shepherd; I am the bread. In those statements Jesus is declaring that unless you believe that your “I am” is Lord, you die in your sins; for your “I am” is Jesus – your Savior – the man who will rule as God, as he promised.

When you hear the word “Jesus” you may think of someone outside of yourself; but I tell you: your I AMness is Jesus – sound asleep. He is buried in you and will one day awaken in you. Asleep, you are a son of God; but when he awakes, you are God the Father. Sending his sons into the world to conquer death, the sons return as the Father of all life. “Beloved, we are now the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, and see him as he is.”

As a son of God, it does not appear what you will be; but when God appears, you will know him, because you will be just like him! That is the great messianic secret! And when that secret is unveiled in you, you will see the importance of separating the words “Jesus” and “Christ”- as stated in the Book of Revelation: “Come Lord Jesus and his Christ,” for Christ is the messiah – God’s great son David, who reveals you as his Father, Jesus.

Man has completely forgotten the mystery and speaks of Jesus as a little man who was born of a woman two thousand years ago – when Jesus is God himself. Your awareness of being is Jesus, who is God the Father. The great secret of the Christian faith is the revelation of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The fatherhood of God is Jesus in you. Do you not realize that Jesus and his Christ are in you? Did not David (the Christ) come in the spirit and call Jesus “Lord”? If David were not in you, you would never know that you are God the Father.

One day David came out of me. He stood before me and I knew exactly who he was and our relationship with one another, even before he called me father. Now I know that everyone will one day have the identical experience, for there is only one God, only one Father. We are all members of that one body which share in this wonderful promised end, as everything resolves itself into the one who is God the Father.

So Judas reveals the messianic secret by telling you that you will find the Lord Jesus in heaven, and that heaven is within you. If anyone should say; “Come – look: here he is, or: there he is,” don’t believe him; for the kingdom of heaven is within you. When you find Jesus, your journey is over. Then your heart will go out to everyone, for you will know they are your brothers. You are not going to become sons of God; you are already gods, sons of the Most High, becoming God Himself.

God is able to give himself to you as though there were no other – just God and you. Believe that, and the most incredible story ever told – which is the pattern of salvation – will unfold in you to reveal you as God the Father. That is the story of the Bible.

The Old Testament is an adumbration, a foreshadowing, while the New is its fulfillment, written as a rough draft. Paul wrote his thirteen letters at least twenty years – chronologically speaking – before the first gospel, which is Mark; yet no book spells it out completely. I have tried my best to make it clear just how it unfolded within me, and how I came to the full realization of myself as God the Father.

I tell you, there is no other God, no other being. God actually sent his sons into this world. He chose you in himself before the foundation of the world.

You are here to perform a certain job; and when you do, you will say: “Father, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. Now return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was”. As a son, you radiate the glory of God; but when you return, you are that glory, you are that God. God the Father transforms his sons into himself by giving us his own son, who reveals our true identity. This is the mystery of life through death.

There is a pattern in those 39 books of the Old Testament that fulfills itself in the New. Paul urges everyone to “Follow the pattern of the true word which you heard from me.” Here, he is telling you that his words are true, but he doesn’t spell them out. He makes the statement: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood,” but he doesn’t tell the experience.

Paul was the first to use the word “Christ” which is the word “messiah” and means “God has touched; made contact.” Descending upon a son in bodily form as a dove, God has contacted that son through the sense of touch. That contact is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that act God seals his gift. In the Old Testament, God decreed David to be his son.

And in the New Testament, David comes in the Spirit and reveals you as his father. This is the great secret that Judas betrayed. Having had the experiences, Judas betrayed the messianic secret and tells where Jesus might be found, and who he is.

Jesus is in you as your breath of life. One day he will awaken, and as he rises in you, you rise. At that moment you are saved from this world of death and transformed into the God of all life. That is the story of Christianity.

Don’t look for Christ to come on the outside. Hundreds of millions are waiting for him to come and change the world, but it is not going to change. It’s a world of educated darkness, a school; and you do not change a school into a home, and heaven is your home. One day you will graduate from this school and receive the gift of God himself. As this gift is given, you awaken to discover you are in the grave where you first laid yourself down to sleep. Then the pattern of the true words that you have heard from me will unfold in you.

Paul tried to tie his experiences into the Old Testament, as he quoted the 39 books one after the other; but he didn’t expound on them. But, as Blake said: “That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.” Maybe Paul felt the same way. Why spell it out, when desire to understand will force you to search the scriptures and ask yourself why, what, where, and when. If you will ask yourself these questions, you will find their answers within you.

I tell you: God literally became you that you may become God. And in becoming God the Father, you do not lose your individuality. You are not only a member of this wonderful body – sharing in the purpose end of all things – but you are the body, for you are its animating spirit.

You are a member, yet the whole, for in God there is no division. And no one will be lost. Although the evangelists tell us how we are sinning and will be lost, it is not God’s will that one be lost, because God would be lost. You cannot say “I am” unless God is in you. You may be a moron, yet you still know that you are. You may not know who you are, where you are, or what you are; but you cannot stop knowing that you are. That awareness is God, and there is no other.

Judas reveals the good news that God has wrought it. What courage one should take from this message. The evangelists are giving good advice tonight, telling everyone how to live, what to say and how to act. But the gospels give us the good news of salvation, telling us that God actually became his sons in order to transform them into himself, that they may rise as God the Father!

Not all of the sons came out. In the story of the prodigal son, we are told that the one who remained complained. He thought he didn’t have anything – yet he had it all. You may own the world, but if you do not know it, you can die of starvation for the want of food. A bank can be holding a billion dollars of yours, but if you do not know it you will not write a check. But when you become aware of who you really are, you will know that the whole is yours. Then you will say: “I and my Father are one, and all mine are thine and thine are mine.”

After the great resurrection, you will play the part of Judas, and tell everyone who comes into your world who the messiah is and where Jesus might be found. I can’t tell you my thrill when I receive letters from you containing scriptural experiences you have had. I received a letter from a young lady who is still in school. She is majoring in music as she wants to be a composer. In her letter she said: “I have a dear friend who was having a birthday and I wanted to give him something special. It didn’t have to be material, it could be something I said or did that he would be proud of. I fell asleep dwelling on this, when I awoke at 2:00 a.m. with a vivid memory of this dream. I was sitting on my bed with my mother and father standing near. My father handed me three records saying: ‘Keep two and give him the third. He will love it and never tire of listening to it.’ Then I held a sheet of music containing the notes from which the record was made. I saw that the composition’s title was ‘Christ’, and the composer’s name was “Olam”.

She saw correctly. The word “Olam” means “something hidden; kept out of sight; a lad; a youth; a stripling,” and is translated “eternity” in the statement, “God has put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done until the end.”

When your journey comes to its end you will find that eternal youth who is God’s son, David. He is Olam, the eternal youth, the composer of the music – which is all about himself; for he is the Christ of scripture. Jesus – the Lord, and Christ – his son, are in you. Separate the two. Christ is not a title given Jesus, but his power and wisdom, which came out into the world to do his will. Jesus is the Savior, of which there is only one. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no savior.” Here is a young girl, still in school, who has found Christ, the composer, and the composition.

You can’t exhaust the subject of Christ, but man is forever misunderstanding it. The crowds believe some little man was crucified on a cross by Jews, but John tells us: “You know not whom you worship, but we know who we worship, for salvation is from the Jews.” If you think of a physical Jew you are in error. A Jew is an Israelite who is not a descendant of Abraham after the flesh, but the elect of God of any race or nation. The Old Testament is the Book of the Jews, of which you – as the son of God – came into this world to fulfill. Every mystical experience, if foreshadowed by a word in the Old Testament, is predestined, written by God’s servants – the prophets.

The chronological order of both the Old and the New Testament is not accurate. Matthew is the first book in our New Testament, yet Mark came before Matthew; and the letters of Paul came before the four gospels. Our forefathers of the church arranged the books as they now appear, but they do not give the true order of the unfolding picture any more than the books in the Old Testament do. Paul found the pattern unfolding in him and shared his experiences. In his second letter to Timothy, he urged him not to deviate from “my gospel,” but he did not spell it out. I have told you the chronological order just as it happened to me.

The crucifixion begins the journey into time. Coming out from the Father, you came into the world by being crucified on humanity. As Paul said: “I know only Christ and him crucified.” But the drama of redemption begins with your resurrection from humanity and your spiritual birth. Then you will discover the Fatherhood of God through your son, David (who is Christ) calling you father. This is the gift God gave himself through his sons – the gift of fatherhood.

One day you will know this truth by the betrayal of the great secret of the messiah. Judas not only reveals the great secret, but tells you where to find Jesus. He is in the garden as the tree of life. Blake knew. That is why he said, “The gods of the earth and sea sought through nature to find that tree. But their search was all in vain, there grows one in the human brain.” One day that tree – whose roots are in your brain – will reverse itself, and the story of Jesus and his Christ will unfold in you.

You and I were sons of God before we entered these garments of death. When we return, we will have added to God the Father, yet remained individualized. I can’t tell you the joy, the ecstasy that is in store for you on your return, for you came out from the Father and came into the world. Now you will leave the world and return to the Father, as the Father.

So, God’s gift to you is Christ, who is his son, David. And Christ’s gift is the spirit of truth which unfolds to reveal your true identity. As the son, you have come into the world to do the will of him who sent you. And in the end you will discover you sent yourself, for you will have found David, the son of Jesse (I AM) – one after your own heart who does all your will. Asleep, the messiah does the will of the Father; but when he awakes, the messiah and the Father are one.

We came out from the world of life to enter the world of death in a grand experiment, not knowing if we would succeed. He chose us – in him – for the experiment, then made us victorious over death by giving us himself, that we may know we are God the Father. I am speaking from experience. I am not theorizing or speculating. Jesus is in you as your own wonderful human imagination. When you say, “I am,” that is Jesus. One day your awareness will awaken and rise. Then everything said of the Lord in the Old Testament will be fulfilled in you. And from that moment on your adventure will be over, and you will walk conscious of being God the Father.

What a glorious concept. God actually gave himself to everyone for a grand experiment which cannot fail in any one, not even a Hitler or Stalin. No monster can fail, because the resurrection is now a fact. It has been proven so. Everyone will return – not as the son of God (which is glorious enough) but of God himself. That is my message to you. And it is true.

I want to thank this sweet young lady for sharing her experience with me, that I may share it with you. Desiring to express herself in a loving way towards one she respects, she sees her parents – the symbol of her creative power – enter her room. Her father tells her of three records – were there not three who stood before Abraham when the birth of the child was announced? They were called men, not records, but it is the same symbolism. She was told to keep two and give him the other, as he would love it so and never tire of listening to it. The music was composed by Olam, the eternal youth and its title was Christ. Here is the composer writing about himself, just as man does here.

Every book you read is a man’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, in the written form. He had to acquire the ability to write, and anyone can do that. Go to school, apply yourself, and master the technique of writing. Then, as you start to write, you will discover you can only write the thoughts that permeate your own mind. You may think you are detached from your thoughts; but you and your thoughts are one, so you are writing all about yourself. So, Olam – the eternal youth – composed the composition “Christ,” which is all about himself; and you, O Christ, will never tire of listening to your incredible story.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE HIDDEN CAUSE

Neville Goddard 03-28-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThe dream of life unfolds on this level, as well as on a higher one. On this level we see things happen and are given reasons for wars and revolutions, as well as the geological causes for the convulsions of nature. But we do not know and cannot perceive their hidden cause, for it lies in the imagination of man. All things spring, not from the ostensible causes to which they are attributed, but from that which is hidden – man’s own wonderful human imagination!

In the April issue of the Atlantic Monthly, there is an article by General David M. Shoop, retired commandant of the Marine Corps. In this article, he claims that there is an ambitious elite of high-ranking officers who are turning this country into a militaristic and aggressive nation. They are promoting war in the belief that through it they will receive the promotions and glory they desire and cannot achieve while serving in a peacetime army. They dream of a war they can command in glory. Where? In their own wonderful human imagination, the hidden cause of all life! Imagination can be used infernally – as these men are doing – or towards the kingdom of heaven. This is done by thinking of a friend and hearing him tell you his good news. You can watch his facial expression change as he speaks to you. You can see him stand erect, wearing clothes he is proud of, as you feel the thrill of his change. And if you will believe that what you are now seeing is real, you can relax in the knowledge that one day your friend will conform to what have you done in your imagination!

Do you know that you can take that same individual and hear him tell you sad news? You can see him dirty and ashamed, and he will conform to that image which you have created in your imagination? Your creative power, which is Christ, can be used infernally or in a heavenly way. Its use is entirely up to you. General Shoop claimed that our involvement in Vietnam was a direct result of the ambition of an elite group of high-ranking officers who prefer war to peace, in order to receive glory and prestige in their chosen field! You and I are now burdened with the enormous task of continuing their effort, which began in the imagination of a small group of men.

The prophets and poets, inspired by the same voice, have told us this throughout the centuries. Yeats said: “I will never be certain that it was not some woman treading in the winepress who started that subtle change in men’s mind. Or the passion, from which so many countries have been put to the sword, did not begin in the mind of some poor shepherd boy, lighting up his eyes for a moment before he ran upon his way.” Who knows who is treading in the winepress this night? Who knows what a person in solitary confinement is imagining? Is he using this only power in the universe infernally or blissfully? I hope you use your imagination in the state of bliss, for the outside world is alive because of this hidden power within you. I know that a man, imagining intensely can influence millions. He can act through many men and speak with many voices. This little group of men, imagining their promotions, are influencing millions and moving through unnumbered men toward their goal. Those who cover their costumes with medals, like the Stalins and the Hitlers of the world, are displaying their complete misunderstanding of God’s power of imagination.

I ask you to believe me, for I am speaking from a level of one who has awakened from the dream of life. I have experienced scripture and know it is a true story from beginning to end. The gospel tells us of a pattern which repeats itself in everyone, for every child born of woman has within him an ancestral self, a heavenly being who supports him. This is the one who said: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” A child is alive because a son of God – who is the emanation of that ancestral self – is in it. We are told that bounds have been set to the peoples of the earth according to the number of the sons of God. You were given the gift of awareness because of the immortal son of the ancestral you who will never forsake you, not in eternity. See how precious you are in the eyes of he who is the power of powers?

Now, do not misuse this power, but use it only in love. Every person you meet, regardless of his pigment of skin, the nation behind him, or the so-called sect he is associated with, is alive because your ancestral being who has no beginning and no end is behind his mask, as he is behind yours. That one is taking him through the necessary experiences to make him one with himself, as the ancestral you is taking you through the necessary experiences to make you one with himself. Eventually you and he will return to that one being who sent you out in the first place. That is your destiny.

Now, in the gospels we are told that the Risen Christ turned to his apostles and said: “There are those standing here who will not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God.” Scholars claim this prophecy failed because they do not know what or where the kingdom of God is. It is not a realm, but a body. And it is not out there, but within. If, as Luke tells us, the kingdom of heaven is within you, who would know you entered it but yourself? And if you told your friends and it was not what they expected, would they believe you? No! They would continue to claim the promise was not fulfilled, yet I say the promises of God will not be broken. There are some standing here who will not taste of death before they enter the kingdom of God.

The kingdom, being within, is entered when the curtain is split. Only then can you see the blood of your ancestral being who died to become as you are. Recognition causes you to fuse with it, and rising like a fiery serpent, you enter that holy sepulcher where the drama began. Matthew knew that the violent took the holy sepulcher by force. The word translated ‘violent’ here means life; to press oneself into; to find a place within.

Life is in the blood. Contemplating the blood of God Himself, you fuse with it and become life itself. The Father, having life in himself, has granted you his emanation to be life itself. Becoming one with your ancestral being, you are no longer the emanated, but the Godhead through which the emanation occurred. So the statement is true: there are some standing here who will not taste of death before they enter the kingdom of God. But the only ones who will know it are those who experience it. This goes on forever and ever. If you are looking for the kingdom of God on the outside you will look in vain, for the kingdom is within and cannot be entered from without. In his 16th chapter, Matthew claims they will see the Son of man entering his kingdom, but in the 9th chapter of Mark and Luke, it is called the kingdom of God.

Now, after making the statement that some standing here will not taste death before they enter the kingdom of God, Peter, James, and John are taken into a high mountain where his countenance is completely altered before them. You may think this took place on the outside, but it takes place within. The evangelists took this appearance of resurrection and recorded it as Jesus’ external ministry; just as when I tell you what happened in me I speak externally, yet the three people who witnessed my transformation appeared within.

Recently a lady wrote telling of finding herself in a cage, observing three men etched in gold, and a woman holding an infant. This is a perfect adumbration. The three first appeared to Abraham in the Book of Genesis, and were confirmed in Peter’s second letter, where he remembers when Peter, James, and John were formed to witness the majesty of the one who was born. There are always three. The cage in which this lady found herself is the holy sepulcher, her immortal skull – where the drama began, and where it comes to its fulfillment. She saw the sign of her approaching birth from above, in the form of a woman holding a child and the three witnesses to this event. She – the emanation of her ancestral being – will awaken in that cage to return to her ancestral being, enhanced by becoming one with her celestial self.

While in this world of Caesar, seemingly detached and lost, you are not, for your human imagination is a wonderful power. It is yours to use lovingly, or as unlovingly as those men did with their dreams of wars, in order to get a little medal and be promoted. So what if they do? Eventually they will all be buried, and two generations later no one will know they ever existed. Our cemeteries are filled with monuments to those who thought themselves so important, yet no one recalls who they were. So I say: what does it matter if you own the world and lose your life?

I urge you to seek the kingdom of God, for when you do, you come into a power unknown to mortal man. All of the atom bombs in the world cannot compare to the power you are destined to fall heir to. You will possess a power that can still the world. But you will never know this power without love. With this power, unrestrained, you would still a nation, face its inhabitants toward the ocean, and put the idea of entering it in their mind. Then when you release this power they would all march into the ocean. But you will never know a power greater than you know love. The power known to earthly man is nothing compared to the power of love. With that power you can stop the thought process of another, change it completely, and when you allow that energy to flow once more, he will move in a different direction, not even realizing that a change had taken place within him.

When the embodiment of reason asked the Risen Lord: “Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you and the power to set you free?” Imagination replied: “You have no power over me were it not given you from above.” Just imagine knowing you have that kind of power! You came to play a part called Man, and when you have experienced it, you will play the part called Jesus Christ. His play takes place in heaven, which is within. And when you tell your story, those who hear your words on the outside will either believe or disbelieve you, and you will have no power to persuade them otherwise. Those who do not believe sit in darkness, breathing war as recorded in this month’s Atlantic Monthly. Although the salaries of these men come from the pockets of civilians, they are believing our country into a militaristic and aggressive nation, in order to become more glorious in their own little minds.

But I tell you, your ancestral being called the son of God shed his blood for you that you may have life in yourself. I know, for when my body was torn in two from top to bottom, I saw that blood of God as my own wonderful ancestral self. I am an extension of that self, not another – for that would imply there was a greater creative power than I am. I have seen this body of love. I wore it when we embraced. I will return to it and wear it forever when I leave this body of death for the last time. Then we will not be two, for I – an extension of myself – will return to myself, adding to God’s glory, His luminosity, and translucency, giving him a greater creative power by reason of the part I played, called Neville.

I urge you to use your imagination lovingly on behalf of everyone, and believe in the reality of your imaginal acts. If you have a friend who would like to be gainfully employed, listen carefully until you hear his voice tell you of his new position. Feel his hand clasp yours. See the smile on his lips. Use every sense you can possibly bring to bear into the imaginal scene. Persist until you feel the thrill of reality, then drop it and let that scene fulfill itself on the outside. We are told that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. Your imaginal act created for your friend in the kingdom of heaven is that seed. Don’t pick it up to see if it is growing; just leave it alone, and it will grow and bloom as a solid fact in your world. Then you will have found this hidden cause within you called Christ.

Christ, the power and wisdom of God, is in you as your own wonderful eternal being. He will never leave you or forsake you as told us in the 13th chapter of Hebrews. If, perchance, one day you are swept into an unlovely state and go through hell, remember: there is that in you who will not leave you or forsake you; and if you know this principle you can detach yourself from the state and it will vanish, as you move into a more desirable one.

There is truly nothing new under the sun. That which was recently recorded in the Atlantic Monthly is the same as that which was recorded in Genesis as the first frightful act, when Cain slew his brother Abel. This same act is taking place over and over again, and if a man knows how to detach himself he need not be pulled into that state. While in the army I was told I could not get out, but I dared to assume I was out. I acted, in my imagination, as I would act were I free to come and go as I chose. I persisted in this assumption for nine days. Then the one who first denied my request granted my freedom, and that day I was honorably discharged.

People plan a depression for personal gain. There are those who sell short for a personal gain. All kinds of things are done in order to be known as a billionaire; yet in time they die, to leave their billions behind for those who can’t even remember their names. Leaving this little section of time, he who was known as a billionaire here, moves into another section of time to once more seek his fortune. So the words are true: there are some standing here who will not taste of death.

May I tell you: no one can leave this earth until he awakens, because the earth does not terminate at the point where the senses cease to register it. When you shed your little garment, you will still be on this earth in a body like the one you left behind, only young, vital, and wonderful – but your environment will change. You may leave this world a billionaire to find yourself shining shoes, if that is to be your lot to fulfill. Your ancestral being knows what it will take to weave you into the likeness of himself, for you must be perfect as he is perfect. You will not be brought to the end until you can actually be superimposed upon his image and fit it perfectly. Then you are one!

No one ever leaves this age of death until he awakens. This earth stretches for a length of time long beyond the three score and ten. The world remains terrestrial, with all of its struggles. We continue to marry and die, to know sickness and health, sorrow and joy, just as we do here, as we go from one little section of time into another and then another until – in the eyes of our ancestral self – we are as He is. So you see that statement is true: “There are those standing here who will not taste of death.” The apostles who are called will not taste of death. No power can sweep them away from this section of time, until they go up that spiral roadway into the sepulcher where their drama began.

No mortal eye can see the kingdom of heaven, and it cannot be entered from without, but must be taken violently. This I know from experience. When I went up, it was with such force I felt a tremendous pressure in my head where I was pressed in, just a little bit left of center. I tried my very best to go beyond it, but I could not. It was so crowded I pressed myself right into the kingdom as a living mural, having entered it with a force akin to violence. I have now fulfilled the 11th chapter of the Book of Matthew: “The kingdom of heaven is taken by violence and the violent take it by force.” The old age of the law and the promise up until John the Baptist is behind us now. There is no need to do violence against your body in order to get into the kingdom. No diet or suppression of the normal urges of life will get you in. Only when you are one with your eternal self so that you can be superimposed upon him and fit perfectly will you find yourself split in two to be absorbed by the life of the being who kept you alive here as something on the outside and, like a sponge, you become one with it. Then, having life in yourself, you will return to your skull where the dream began, arriving with such force your head reverberates like thunder. But, knowing that there are people in this world who plot and plan violence, don’t try to compensate; rather plot and plan things of love and affection. Do that and you cannot be drawn into another’s circle.

I tell you: you are an immortal being. You were the Son of God long before the universe came into being. It was you who brought it into appearance for this great experiment. You are a ray of the being you really are, one with He who is radiating you. And He will not forsake you, but will continue to put you through the paces as He fashions you into his likeness. Then He receives unto himself all of the experiences through which you will have passed, and is enhanced and glorified by them. He is afflicted as you are afflicted. He suffers as you suffer, and when you return you and He are one, for the being radiating is one with the ray.

Take me seriously! Know what you want and then claim you have it. Tell a friend about it and feel his excitement for you. Persuade yourself that what you are imagining is true. Believe in its reality and it will come to pass as an objective fact on this level, I promise you. Then when the image is perfect, you will return to your ancestral self, and time will no longer be necessary between the imaginal act and the fact.

There are many levels: a level here, a dream level, and a level of spirit waking, where every thought is a fact and is known. From that level you return through various barriers to this, the lowest level, where everything is completely concentrated and limited in these little garments of flesh. Here we are slaves to our mortal bodies, serving them morning, noon and night as we feed, clothe, and shelter them. When you feed your body you must assimilate what it eats. Then you must eliminate its waste and care for it.

Every child born of woman is a slave to the body he wears. There is no slavery comparable to the slavery of the body. If I were a slave to one who had purchased me and I must feed and clothe him, though he has millions and I have nothing, he is as much a slave to his body as I am to mine, for he and he alone must assimilate and eliminate for himself. No matter how many slaves he may have, he cannot command them to perform the functions of his body for him. He must perform them all for himself. Everyone who comes into this world becomes a slave to the body he wears.

We are told in Philippians: “He emptied himself of all that was his and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross.” When God came here he found himself a slave and was born in the likeness of men, thereby entering slavery. And I can’t conceive of any slavery comparable to the slavery of the body. Just imagine: you must wash it, shave it, bathe it, and do everything for it. And when it begins to wear out, you must get glasses for its eyes, false teeth, hearing aides and heart transplants – to name but a few. You must continue to patch it up while remaining its slave to the very end. Do you know of any greater form of slavery? While in our teens and twenties we never think that our body might get old and wear out, yet one day we turn a little corner of time and it becomes so obvious. Although the body wears out and becomes weaker and weaker, you are still its slave. I cannot conceive of any greater slavery.

But try to live a noble life, for you are immortal and cannot die. He who radiates you will never in eternity forsake you. He could not, for you and He are one; and when you return from your journey, you will be with the one who radiated you, just as you were before the journey began.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE INCARNATE REVELATION

Neville Goddard 02-20-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityRecently I read a book called, Vanished Parts of Yesterday, by Lord Frederick Hamilton. In it he tells the story of Catherine the Great – who, when she found the first violet of spring, ordered a sentry to be placed over it to protect it from being plucked. Forgetting to rescind the order, day and night, summer and winter, a sentry stood where 150 years ago, a violet bloomed. The new generation did not know why the sentry was there and he didn’t either. It was simply a tradition!

Make sure no sentry is now standing on your lawn, keeping you from the word of God; for you void the word of God through the traditions of your fathers which have been handed down from generation to generation.

Now, the spirit of truth comes to all who will accept it. And the incomplete form of the incarnate revelation will continue until the spirit of truth comes! It has come to this lady whose vision I would like to share with you now.

Finding herself on a movie lot with two others, she approaches a man who had the appearance of John Wayne. Calling her by name, he said something to her she could not understand; but upon awakening, these words were clearly heard: It is not Before Abraham was, I am! but Before Abraham, was I am!

Bear in mind the Bible’s original manuscript had no punctuation marks. There were no verses, no paragraphs, no capital letters, chapters, or punctuation until the 16th century. Man has placed the comma after the word was, as though a man was speaking. But in this incarnate revelation, the spirit of truth revealed the source of all life as “I am!” This is the same being who said: “Go to my brothers and say, `I am ascending unto my Father and you Father, unto my God and your God.”‘ In this revelation the incarnate work is not separating himself from you; rather he is telling you that the “I am” has unfolded within him.

Will you believe that revelation? Will you turn to this one presence, this one I am who was before Abraham, knowing it to be the source of everything good, bad, and indifferent?

You may think God could not create wars and conflicts between countries, but I tell you there is no other creator, no other cause. As horrible as the world appears to be, it is like a tapestry whose knots and loose strings appear ugly on one side, while its beauty is revealed on the other.

I know very able imaginists who suggest we look upon the history of man as material for the artistry of God. That’s beautifully said, but I rather think it takes the horrors of experience to transform man into the beautiful being he was in the beginning.

In the Book of Genesis we are told: “He meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” In order to play the part of man, awareness had to fall asleep, and in so doing became the dreamer called Joseph and was sold into slavery. In spite of the horrors of the world, Joseph awoke and was able to save civilization from death. So I believe that regardless of what we do, it is being transformed into the beauty of the promise.

Dwell upon this lady’s revelation, for it came to her through the spirit of truth. Remember: the dreamer in her is also the being in the director’s chair. John Wayne always plays the leading role, never a secondary one, and God is the key actor, always the star. Recognizing John (the word means “Jehovah’s favored one”) he calls her name.

Scripture tells us that God numbered the stars and called each by name. Do you know that you are far more precious than the stars or the sands of the sea? Though we seem to be unnumbered, each and every one of us is known in the mind of the Father and each name is recorded in the Book of Life.

Although my friend could not hear the words spoken in her vision, upon awakening she remembered: It is not before Abraham was, I am, but before Abraham, was I am! You will find this statement in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John. This is a chapter which concerns itself with the identity of the Father. Here he claims: “My Father is he who you call God, but I know my Father and you know not your God.” In this statement he is trying to get you to go beyond a physical state and think of God (your imagination) as the source of all life!

You can test God through the act of assumption. By assuming you are now what you desire to be, and wearing that belief as you would a suit of clothes, you will become it.

I can remember buying a new hat and walking down the streets of New York City thinking everyone knew my hat was new. I was very conscious of my hat and a little embarrassed because of its newness. But when I had worn it long enough to throw it in the closet and unconsciously pick it up again, it was an old hat and I could wear it normally. You may deny this, but if you are honest with yourself you will admit that you are very conscious of a new suit or dress, even though those who meet you may not know or care whether your clothes are old or new. Only you are aware of the clothes you are wearing.

The same thing is true of an assumption. At first your reasoning mind and your outer senses will deny its existence, for your thoughts are new and haven’t been broken in yet. But when you wear your assumption long enough, it becomes comfortable and you feel its naturalness, then it will externalize itself as the world reflects the truth of what you have assumed.

Remember: the source of all life is I AM! We are told that the Lord will speak to man in a dream and make himself known in a vision. The word Lord may cause you to think of another, but the Hebrew word YAD HE VAU HE [pron. “YOD HEY VAV HEY”] means “I AM”! And there is no other when you say, I am!

The spirit of truth made himself known to this lady in a vision and will lead her into all things. Trained in the belief of an external God, she has overcome a great deal to receive him.

Man must overcome the belief in a being outside of self before the spirit of truth can come and make himself known to him. This being is immortal and within. Each time you say I am, you speak his name. When you discover this, you will know that you and God are one!

The world rejects this revelation because they do not know the Father. They call him “Lord” and worship him as someone external to themselves, not knowing He is within.

Although you may believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, when David reveals you as his father you will realize you are Jesus and he is your power-filled son, Christ. Then you will tell those who have been conditioned to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and God is someone other than self, and they will not believe you; for the conditioned mind must be dissolved in order for that individual to realize he is God.

If David calls me father and he calls you father, are we not one father? If there is only one son, only one God and father of all, and everyone individually has the identical son who calls him father – have we not proved the truth of that wonderful 4th chapter of Ephesians: “There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all?”

Now, what was God’s purpose? Why did He become you and I? So that we could become God. If this is true, how will we ever know it unless God’s son calls us father? I could call you Lord, God, Jehovah, or Jesus and you would deny it; but when God’s son – who was supposed to have lived 3000 [sic] years ago – stands before you who live in the 20th century, and calls you father, you cannot deny the experience. When you see David you know you are his father and he knows he is your son. Having fallen asleep, you have forgotten your true identity. But when David appears your memory will return.

God does not have a memory as we interpret the word. To God everything is actual. God’s son is a youth of indescribable beauty which is self-begotten. The verb beget is always attached to the male, while the verb to bear is attached to the female. Scripture speaks of two forms of birth: one which is attached to the female, whose body is formed by and born of woman, while the other is associated with the father, whose body is spirit and whose birth is from within!

In the 3rd chapter of John, Nicodemus is told that he must be born from above. In this chapter the word “anothin” is translated “from above.” At other times it is translated “anew,” or “again” – but a spiritual birth is a must before you can enter the kingdom of heaven, for it is God the Father who is born.

In the last book of the Old Testament the question is asked: “If I am a father, where is my son?” That question is answered when God’s son stands before you. As a teacher it has been difficult for me to get the mind which has been conditioned to believe in tradition, to believe in this revelation.

The mind has a tendency to continue to stand over that little violet which grew 150 years ago. But in this case, it was unnumbered centuries ag, when the idea that Jesus Christ was the son of God was planted in the mind of man while he – a physical man – was nothing more than a little worm. But I tell you: God sacrificed himself to become you. He is crucified on you and will rise from you.

Man is the only cross God ever wore and his birth takes place from man’s skull, for that is where God is buried. When He awakens in you and emerges from you, it is you who awake and emerge. And his fatherhood is revealed when God’s son calls you father.

Then you will tell the truth you have experienced to the world in the hope they will receive it. But whether they do or not, you will know that the spirit of truth has come. You will know you have finished the race and the crown of righteousness is yours. Although I will be gone, remember: God is still with you because He has appeared among you. And you will take what I have told you, plus what God is going to tell you from within, and experience that which has been so misunderstood throughout the centuries.

I have come to reinterpret the story of Jesus Christ. He who sees me sees the Father. How can you say: “Show me the Father.” Have I been so long with you, yet you do not know the Father? He who has seen me has seen the Father.

In the end everyone will be the Father. And because there is only one Father and only one son, this unity – now fragmented – will once more be gathered together. Without loss of identity I will know you more intimately than is possible in this world. Nothing can compare to the intimacy that we will have when we are raised and once more reunited into that one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and father of all.

Dwell on this revelation. It is not before Abraham was, I am, but before Abraham, was I am! Here we see that the fountainhead of everything is I am!

Although the horrors of the world may deny a divine event, remember the story of the tapestry. Scripture calls the unlovely side “below,” while the lovely side is called “above.” The Risen Christ is made to say: “You are from below and I am from above. You are of this world and I am not of this world.” In other words, you who have not experienced scripture are from below, while those who have are from above. You are of this world, while they are no longer a part of this world. But, because we are all one, you will be lifted up as the Risen Christ.

Any desire is yours to fulfill if you will not lose confidence in I am. Attach anything to it and it will grow. If your desire is to be rich, say to yourself: I am rich – and think from that assumption. If you want to be known, claim you already are. You can be anything you want to be by the act of assumption. Wear your desire as though it were true now, and your assumption – though denied by your senses – when persisted in will harden into fact by objectifying itself and becoming a reality.

But that is not the purpose of life. There is only one purpose, which is to fulfill scripture. And when God makes himself known in you – an individual – and you tell your experiences, the world will deny them. But I tell you: you cannot turn to another and say I am; and you cannot divide it, for I am is one!

The revelation given to Moses was I am! He was not speaking to another, whose name was I am. If I said the Lord sent me, you would think of another, but I am saying I sent myself!

One day Blake was asked what he thought of Jesus and he replied: “Jesus is the only God, but so am I and so are you.” Nothing could be truer than what Blake said, because there is only God and you are actually he! Having emptied yourself of the being you really are, you deliberately came here to play the part of man.

And when you awaken and you and I are reunited in the one body, we will know what we have done in this adventure. I cannot deny the world’s unpleasantness. Every newspaper tells of something terrible. You rarely read a pleasant headline. If they cannot find something bad in our city, they jump across the ocean to find it. The world is built that way, yet it is moving toward a glorious divine event.

When the Risen Christ said: “I have things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now,” he was speaking to those who were tightly bound in their concept of a God external to themselves to whom they prayed. That mind could not accept a God within who would make himself known in a vision.

I knew such a lady in New York City. She ran a book store, where I bought many books. Knowing my passion for books, when she would see my interest in a certain book she would quickly erase the price and mark a higher one in its place. This she did time and time again. I have paid her as high as $100 for three books. One day she said: “You certainly have vivid dreams,” and I replied: “They are not dreams, but visions, where I commune with myself, the self that you call God.”

Two years ago, while in New York I learned that Mary had been killed. Walking down a dark street one night she stepped off the sidewalk and a car struck her. Her husband found her body four days later in the morgue where they kept it waiting for identification. So Mary is gone, taking all of her beliefs with her.

There is no transforming power in what the world calls death. If you are prejudiced here, you are prejudiced there. If you change the price of books here, you will do it there. You will continue to play your part until you are willing to have the story of Jesus Christ awaken in you.

It is said that God spoke to Moses, making it appear as though God spoke from without; but God always whispers from within. Knowing God to be himself, when the revelation came, Moses spoke to him face to face and no longer in dream, as told us in the 12th chapter of Numbers.

Test my words, for I know the human imagination is God. Call forth your desire by calling it forth with God’s name. Decide what you want and ask yourself what it would be like and how you would feel if it were true. Then dare to assume you have it. Let the people who know you now see you after your assumption. Don’t make them see you; let them see the change!

Think of the world as a sounding box, echoing and reflecting what you have assumed. Listen to your friends comment on your change. See their faces expressing their pleasure on your good fortune. Wear that feeling as you now wear your present body of belief. Continue to wear that new state and in no time at all your desire will objectify itself and become a fact in your world. Then you will know who the cause of the phenomena of life really is.

There is only one source. The world calls it God. That is a lovely name, but don’t forget that God is your awareness! No one can see I am! They see what I tell them that I am. I walk the earth and they see that I am a man wearing a gray suit. I tell them where I live, and they know the names of my father and mother, sister and brothers; but these are only covers for the being that I am, as no one can see my true identity on this level. They only see my metamorphosis.

The lady whose vision I shared saw a metamorphosis that she herself created, in the form of one who seemed to be John Wayne. You see, God is protean and can assume not only one, but many metamorphoses, and more than one at the same time. She came upon her own creation, who spoke seemingly from without, whispering so softly she could hardly hear what he was saying.

Now, when vision breaks forth into speech the presence of deity is affirmed. In the vision of Moses, speech came from a burning bush; and in the vision of Isaiah, one of the seraphim asked: “Whom shall I send?” and Isaiah answered: “Send me, O Lord.”

In this lady’s case, she saw the form of man who she instantly associated with stardom. He was sitting in the director’s chair, directing and whispering a great secret, which upon awakening she remembered. It is not, before Abraham was, I am, but before Abraham, was I am.

Here we see how important the placement of the comma is. Just as it is on that day on the cross: “Behold I say unto you today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.” Placing the comma after the word today, changes the meaning completely from placing it before the word today. What confusion that has made among those who read: “Behold I say to you, today thou shalt be with me in paradise,” when forty days later he is made to say: “Touch me not as I have not yet ascended.” But the statement makes great sense when the comma is changed.

All punctuation is man-made. Change the comma and you will see that no one can be lost. How could God lose himself when he became man? He could not – therefore God has to redeem himself.

When you discover this truth, you cannot hurt another. Rather, you will help everyone, because you will know he is yourself pushed out. In this world we meet what seems to be another and in a sense they are, because we are all individualized. And we will never lose our individuality; yet in heaven there is a unity, an intermingling of being in its one body. There you dwell as the one Lord, the one God and Father of all, yet without loss of identity.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Neville Goddard 11-8-68

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityLast night I fell asleep dwelling on two thoughts which parallel each other. One is from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and the other from the Gospel of John. Paul said: “I cannot address you as spiritual men, but as members of the flesh, babes in Christ. I feed you milk, not solid food for you cannot take it.” And in the Gospel of John, the central character said: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” When I awoke this morning my mind was crowded with the knowledge of God. This is not easy to speak of or to accept, but if you are a good student of scripture you will know that what I tell you is true.

In the Book of Genesis it is said that Adam knew Eve, his wife. That she conceived and bore Cain saying: “I did it with the aid of Jehovah.” And in the Book of Luke, we are told that when the angel told Mary she would conceive and bear a son, Mary asked; “How can this be seeing that I know not a man?” The words “know, knew, foreknowledge, or foreknew” are used as a euphemism for the creative act. And the one who performs this act is Jehovah.

Now, it takes man to express everything, whether it be evil or good, truth or error. This is also true with the creative power of God. We are told: “This is eternal life, to know thee – the only true God, and Jesus Christ (the creative power of God) whom thou hast sent.” Again we find the word “know.”

When God awakens his creative power which he sent into the world as man, that man performs the marriage act, spiritually. The majority of those known by him do not know they are pregnant until they bring forth God’s creative power and know themselves to be the personification of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One who was with him all the time said: “Show us the Father and we will be satisfied,” and he replied: “I have been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip?” In other words, you follow me and follow me, yet you are not ready to receive me; for I am spirit and you are seeing me as a man of the flesh. These are mysteries he could not tell, for he knew they would be too hard to bear. Now, the knowledge of God requires a complete surrender of self. There are variations of that surrender in the person that is known, so not everyone receives the imprint of God to its fullest extent. The one who completely surrenders receives the gift of apostleship, which is the highest order in the body of God. That one is qualified to be sent and speak from experience. The prophets, teachers, healers, and miracle workers will tell it from hearsay; but all will tell of the imprint, based upon what happened to them. But the one who comes as the apostle does so because he stood in the presence of the Lord and so completely surrendered himself that he speaks from experience, and says: “He who sent me is with me. Lo, we are one.”

The creative act on the highest level is an embrace, a complete fusion of the two, where one melts into and becomes one with the other. I know that. I who answer to the name of Neville, and my Father who men call God, are one. He sent me, yet he is with me, for I am not alone.

Having awakened this morning with my mind overflowing with the knowledge of God, I knew I must tell you, whether you accept it or not. And you are not to judge anyone as to whether he or she is qualified to believe it or not. I feel like Jeremiah, when he said: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire and I am weary with holding it in and I cannot.”

In the eighth chapter of Romans, we are told: “Those whom God foreknew (had this intimacy with before) he predestined to conform to the image of his son.” (Bear in mind now, that the son is he who reflects the glory of God and is the express image of his person). “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Your complete surrender brings you to the point of glorification as you reflect God’s glory. I am not speaking of you as a man born of flesh, but as spirit, for God is spirit!

In the current issue of the Saturday Evening Post, there is an article written by an English anthropologist who makes little of the Bible, claiming it teaches cosmology. But the Bible does not teach cosmology, astrology, astronomy, or biology. It is concerned with only one thing, and that is God’s plan of redemption.

The Bible tells of how Spirit comes out of this biological thing called Man, who is one with God yet endowed with a creative power within himself. It’s not something which is an animated body, but a life-giving spirit. As the Father has life in himself, he has given to that which he brings out, life in itself, so that one can speak in the name of the Father, knowing he is the Father. God begets himself in the sense that he brings out of these so-called animated bodies, images of himself that are endowed with life-giving spirit.

Scripture has nothing to do with this little body of flesh and blood, which is an eternal part of the structure of the universe. While animated by a spirit of God, the body knew horrors beyond horrors; but nothing could come out of it. Then the decision was made to make man in the image of God, and the creative act was committed.

How did I make my children in my image? By planting my germ into that which was prepared to receive it. Then, in the fullness of time that which bore my image came out endowed with a certain independence. That is just a shadow of what God does; for when Adam knew Eve she conceived and said: “I have begotten a man with Jehovah.” That’s the literal translation of the Hebrew. Those who translated the Bible added the words, “with the help of,” but these words are not in the original manuscript.

In order to bring forth a man by Jehovah – whose name is I AM – you must bring forth your own wonderful I AMness. And when you know yourself to be the creative power of God, your work is complete. Then, knowing you are God’s perfect image, you will be sent as an apostle to play the part of the creative power of God. The act is spiritually performed in the same manner as the marriage act is committed here on earth. But there are levels within levels within levels of the body of God.

Now, those whom he foreknew, means those he impregnated and predestined. If a woman is impregnated, she is predestined to bear the image of the one who impregnated her. That’s a simple way to put it. Then those who are predestined are called and justified. Justification means divine acquittal. No matter what an individual has done, he is completely acquitted, for he could not have done it had he not been performing the will of God. And in the end everyone is glorified and will say: “Return unto me the glory that is mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.”

I now reflect the glory of God. Not physically, but I know myself to be the express image of his person. I use the word “person” advisedly, for God is man in spite of our anthropologists or scientists, who think in terms of an impersonal force. The mystics know that God is man. The great poets know it. “Thou art a man, God is no more, thine own humanity learn to adore.”

When I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord, he was not some peculiar abstract. He was infinite love, yet he was man. After asking me a very simple question, I answered quite honestly. Then I knew the moment of divine impregnation as I became one with God.

Infinite might sent me back with the words: “Down with the bluebloods.” This is not some social order, but any ritual, creed, or ceremony, that would interfere with your direct access to God. I know there was no need to form an organization to destroy these, but that if I ignored them they would die for want of attention.

When you fall in love, you are attentive. You bring her flowers and candy. Then you marry, and if you stop the tender words and gifts, your romance will fade away and finally come to an end. The same thing is true for any outside ceremonies that would interfere with your direct access to God. Ignore them and they will die for lack of awareness. But if you believe in the rituals, creeds, and ceremonies on the outside, you will keep them alive, even to the very end.

In our fabulous world, God so loved you, individually, that he gave himself to you in the most intimate manner. He did it by becoming you that you may become God.

How can I explain that even though I am one with God, He sent me. That He is with me, yet remains the Risen Lord. This does not make sense to the rational mind, but when He embraced me we completely fused like a drop of ink in a glass of water.

Being sent, I had no loss of identity; yet I felt like power – the being who sent me. And when I stood in the presence of God’s only son, David, who acknowledged me as his father, I felt the love of the being who embraced me.

No one can see God, for he is invisible to the mortal eye; yet his presence can be felt. It is difficult to explain how God completely fused with me, yet sent me individually, without loss of my identity. I feel him, not as another, but as myself. I know he is the Risen Lord. That he came with me, as me; yet I also know he remains the Risen Lord.

I have tried to explain this so you could catch the mood and not try to understand it rationally, but it seems difficult for you to understand. That is why I have many things to say, but you cannot bear them now, so I feed you milk.

In my own case I cannot wait for the morning to come after a vision to share it with you. Someone once said: “Do you always throw these pearls before swine?” and I replied: “I do not meet any swine.” I share my visions with all, and if they cannot accept them, they will leave them – but nothing will be lost. I will pick up all the scraps and put them back to be shared once again. I cannot become the critic and determine who should hear what. How do I know who is willing to completely surrender to God? Or to what degree they will surrender! If not today, one day everyone will join that one body and know themselves to be the one Lord, one Spirit, one God and Father of all.

This morning, as I researched the words “know” and “knowledge”, the impact of the words took on greater meaning. You would not think that the statement: “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free,” would denote a creative act, but it does. I am the personification of the truth that, when known, will set you free. I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me? If you only knew me, you would know my Father also. One day you will know the truth in an intimate manner, at which time He will leave his imprint upon you. Having been sent as the image of the invisible God, you will receive this imprint by a complete and utter surrender of Self. Then in due time that image will come out, for I AM in you and you are in me, for we are truly one!

Scripture is the most creative book in the world. It is not based upon anything known to man, yet it is the only way to eternal life. If you had great wealth, were honored by all, voted the handsomest man or the most beautiful woman – what would that amount to compared to knowing God, which leads to eternal life? And this is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, who is the personification of God’s creative power.

When God knew Man, God’s creative power became personified; so when you meet a man on the spiritual level you will automatically surrender. This surrender will even involve objects, for nothing will be left out of God’s temple. The whole God is in Man, but on different levels based upon ones willingness to surrender.

I hope I have fired your curiosity so that you will open your Concordance and follow through the word “know”. There are many words translated now which have a different meaning, so take nothing for granted and check them all out.

The statement: “To know God is eternal life” means to have an intimate relationship with God so that He buries his image in you. At that time God gives you his life, for you are his emanation yet his wife, till the sleep of death is past.

In the 54th chapter of Isaiah, you are told: “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name.” If your maker is your husband whose name is the Lord of Hosts, are you not his wife? Will you completely give yourself over to him as the perfect wife, or will you be restrained in the act?

In my case I seemed to have no choice. I was spirited into His presence, and when asked: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I answered without hesitation: “Faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” With that He embraced me and I completely fused with him and now wear the body of God, which is infinite love!

While in that oneness, yet without loss of identity, I was sent with the cry: “Down with the bluebloods.” God, now clothed as Infinite Might, power without compassion, spoke these words to me: “Time to act.” I heard the words. I witnessed the event, so for thirty years I told the law. I did not tell the promise, for I did not know it until I brought forth the child to bear witness to the fact that I and my father (who men call God) are one. It takes the child to bear witness to the truth that I, as an individual, knew and had become one with my Father.

Leaving all, God cleaves to his wife – the one he impregnates – who then brings forth God’s likeness as the infinite Christ child. Being God the Father, when you and He become one consciously, are you not the one Father? You may bear the child, not even knowing you are pregnant. But when you bring it forth, you know the union of the two is complete. As long as you believe there are two – you and God – there is conflict. But when the partition is removed, you know yourself to be one with God who so loved you He became you. And when you bring forth his image in the form of his son, you know he has finished the work he set out to do in you.

May I tell you: if the world rose in opposition to my words it would make no difference to me, for my words will live forever – while all that took place this past week will be forgotten.

Human history and everything man has ever accomplished will prove to be false. Every great accomplishment will be modified in time, many times. Even so-called facts will prove to be error. In the end everything will be rubbed out, leaving no trace of ever having been present; for the only thing that is really forever, is what God is bringing out of humanity – which is himself. So in the end there is nothing but God – only God!

But in this world of Caesar, if one wants more of its fruits, let him have them. Eight years ago when Nixon ran against Kennedy, a friend of mine sent Nixon my phonograph record – at which time he wrote the lady and thanked her for it, saying that it had been added to his library and that he would have many moments of joy listening to it. That year he lost the election. Two years later Nixon lost his bid for governor of this state, but four years later his dream came true. I am quite sure, with his background of listening to his inner voice, that my record – which was on the law and the promise – sparked something in him. On the record, I spoke of the difference between thinking of your desire and thinking from it. When you think from your desire’s fulfillment and sleep feeling as though it were true, it becomes a fact. This is a simple technique to get things in this world.

Nixon didn’t win by an enormous majority, but he won. I firmly believe he did not just listen to my record once, but played it many times. When you know exactly what you want, you are thinking of your desire. Turn your thoughts around and think from its fulfillment. You can think of what you want and desire it forever, keeping it always beyond your reach; but when you think from its possession, your desire is yours. I’ll show you what I do. While in Los Angeles, I think of San Francisco as 600 miles to the north. Closing my thoughts to Los Angeles, I imagine I am in a hotel room in San Francisco and think of Los Angeles as 600 miles to the south of me. When possible, I take a short nap in that awareness. Now, when I open my eyes I find myself back here in Los Angeles, knowing from experience that within a short period of time I will physically be in San Francisco.

The average person, believing only that which can be seen and touched physically is real, will think I am crazy. A very intelligent, wonderful man who attended my meetings in New York City, once told me he enjoyed listening to my words; but when he did, he planted his feet into the carpet and held the sides of the chair to remind himself of the reality and profundity of things. Otherwise he would take off into some dream world. Call it a dream world if you will, but if there is evidence for a thing, does it matter what others think? I had evidence for my belief and I tried to share my experiences with him, but he would not even test his imagination.

Not everyone who hears the truth will believe it, even though he seems to be so wise in the eyes of the world. So I say: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot hear them now. I am not speaking of the law. Mark puts that quite simply: “Whatever you desire, believe you have received it and you will.” I am speaking of the promise and urge you to search the scriptures, for if you do you will find me there. And when you find me, you will know, from experience that you and I are one.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Neville Goddard  10-3-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityIn all the revelations which await you, there is none so fundamental as the revelation of Jesus Christ. He cannot be known outwardly, but must unveil himself from within. This experience will be yours when your immortal eyes are opened inward, into eternity, the world of thought.

He who awakens in you is the Lord Jesus Christ, but he is unseen by the mortal eye. As an individual the world knows you by your records. They know your date of birth, your parents, your brothers and sisters. Your friends know your weaknesses and limitations, but no one can know the being who awakens within you until the revelation is theirs.

Tonight I will try to show you the Lord Jesus Christ, for he is your true identity. His most fantastic claim: “I am the light of the world” was not claimed by one little individual, but by the universal being who is the life of every child born of woman.

The mortal mind, unable to understand this statement, questioned him, asking him to tell them who he really was and he answered: “Even what I have told you from the beginning.” The beginning of what? The year 1 A.D.? No. Before that the world was, you and I were told that we would descend into and experience death. Then we would return, enhanced by reason of our experiences.

Knowing me and my mortal beginning of only a few years, you may question my words, but I am not speaking about a physical being. The Lord Jesus Christ has unveiled himself in me, yet I remain here in this body of flesh until the silver cord is snapped.

Only then can I return to the world that was mine before that the world was and receive all the glory I was promised when I agreed to enter and experience death. Who is this being I know myself to be? The Lord Jesus Christ, of which we are all one.

Now, we are told: “You are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Here we see that our birth is conditioned upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You may think this happened 2,000 years ago, but John tells us in his Revelation that “Jesus Christ is the faithful witness, the first born of the dead.” Do not think of this in terms of time, but rather in order of events, for we are dealing with a mystery.

There is only one faithful witness who declares himself to be the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. That witness is Jesus Christ, he who came out from the Father and came into the world to bury himself in every child born of woman. He is in you right now, identifying himself as you. And when he awakes, in you, his first act is to resurrect from the dead. This is followed by your birth from above.

When the story of Christ awakens within you, you are no better than one who will awaken tomorrow for you do not precede him, as his story does not take place in time. I am speaking of the order of events.

Listen to the words carefully: “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born of the dead.” There are two events which take place here simultaneously. “We are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Christ must first awaken in you, then resurrect himself from the dream in which he died before he (as you) can be born from above. Christ is in you.

He is not some being who lived 2,000 years ago, was crucified on a wooden cross, and rose from the dead for your salvation. The Christ is buried in you individually. This is the age of the awakening and everyone is going to awaken. No matter what a man (or woman) has done here he is forgiven, because God played the part and all things are moving toward the fulfillment of a predetermined end.

We are told in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, the 51st verse: “We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkle of an eye, for the trumpet will sound and we shall rise from the dead.” At the end of your long, long journey you will be changed, individually. This I know to be true from experience.

You are so unique that you alone hear the trumpet which causes you to awaken and brings you back into the infinite being that you really are – to play your distinct part, for no one can take your place. We shall all – not just a few, but all – be changed – in a moment, in the twinkle of an eye, for the trumpet will sound and we will awaken and rise from the dead.

What is the “trumpe”? The word means “a vibration,” and may I tell you it is the most unusual vibration you have ever felt. I have heard numberless vibrations, as you have. A concert is a series of vibrations synchronized into harmony. The piano, the violin, the cello – all are vibrations; but the trumpet Paul refers to is a peculiar vibration which is centered in the head and cannot be stopped.

When the vibration occurred in me it continued until I awoke to find myself in my skull. How long I had been there I do not know. I will go along with Blake, but I do not know from experience. I only know that a peculiar vibration awoke me. This was followed by my birth from above. And it only took a moment for the trumpet to sound and Christ, in me to awaken.

Yes, Christ is the first born, for his birth begins the series of events which continue for 42 months. And when the revelation has completed itself in you, you will still be tied to your physical body by its silver cord, so you will tell your experiences to encourage others.

Nothing in this world is really important and will prove itself to be pure nonsense. Men are given Nobel prizes, money and honors relative to their findings here which are non-existent. No one will ever find life in a test tube, for life exists only within individual man.

The day is coming when you will feel an activity within you, arrest it, and see the world stand still. Then you will know that you are life itself, and the life you now know yourself to be will never be found in any test tube.

Jesus cannot be known or proved to exist externally. Only the incurrent eyewitnesses can know him. Only those whose immortal eyes are opened inward into the world of thought will see the truth of which I speak, for I have awakened from the dream of life and know myself to be the light of the world.

This is a fantastic claim, one I know you are going to experience. The day will come when you will know you are not only the light of the world, but that you are the sender of infinite, pulsing, living light of which there is no circumference. As light you will be pure, as not a thing will be in it; no worlds, no suns, no planets – but nothing! Just you, and you are infinite light. You will see me as light, yet we will know one another as beings of love, for God is love and in that awareness we are one with God.

Everything said of Jesus Christ in scripture you are going to experience, and those whose eye is opened inward into the world of thought will see you clothed in the garments of love, of power, of wisdom, and of light.

Then, eventually everyone will return to the one being, yet all will be individualized. There is no absorption into, just union with the one being of love, power, wisdom, and light, for this one being is the Christ of scripture. And so I repeat: of all the great revelations which await us, there is none so fundamental as the unveiling of Christ in us.

Let the world do all the unlovely things it is capable of doing, remembering that behind the mask of everyone here, a being is buried who will awaken, rise, and come out. And when he does all will be forgiven, because he will know he was the one who did the unlovely acts as he wore his many masks.

In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine I read a story written by one of Hitler’s right-hand men. In it he said: “I can’t describe it, but Hitler had the capacity to make everyone obey his will. He seemed to have no center and was in such complete control of himself that we were like puppets to him.”

Hitler slaughtered millions, yet blamed his own people when he did not succeed, saying: “The stronger power has succeeded. They will rule now. It serves my people right.” Here is the voice of hell which is always self justification. In the end Hitler failed and blamed the people he had controlled for many years. He thought he had control forever, but he lost it, for God has planned everything as it has come out and as it will be consummated.

Hitler was used for a purpose. To us it was a horrible purpose, but – as we are told in Genesis: “You intended it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Joseph (the dreamer in you) was sold into slavery, for God knew he could be used for His purpose. The brothers intended evil against him, but God meant it for good and raised Joseph to the level of the Pharaoh, where he saved civilization from starvation.

Read the story of Job, and once again you read of an innocent man who was used. Everyone is Job, who in the end will bring forth that which is buried within, which is the plan of redemption, to say with Job: “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.”

After you have gone through all of the furnaces, he who is buried within you (who is your reality of Being, your true identity) will erupt like a tree coming into blossom and bear its fruit. The first fruit to appear is your awakening and your birth from above. The second great event is to discover your Fatherhood. The third occurs as you ascend back into the heavenly sphere where you were before you came down, for no one returns to heaven but he who first came down from heaven, the Son of man.

You came down from heaven. That’s why you are going to go back, enhanced by the experience of this world of hell. The fourth act is a glorious one, when the seal of approval is placed upon your return, for then you are redeemed; and when you leave this sphere you will join your brothers to become one of the watchers from above, faithfully and lovingly awaiting their return.

No one will be lost, not one. Listen carefully: “All will be changed.” Paul begins his story by saying: “Behold I tell you a mystery.” The mystery is that all will be changed. It doesn’t take long. In a moment, in the twinkle of an eye, you begin to awaken and are born from above. Those with mortal eyes cannot see spirit, but those who witness your spiritual birth will see the sign of it. That sign is a child fulfilling scripture: “Unto you a child is born,” for your spiritual birth is when God is born. At that moment he brings back his son (which is yourself) – only now you are expanded from what you were prior to your descent into this world.

You will see your witnesses and read their thoughts. In fact, their thoughts will become objectified just as yours do here. As you think, God sees your thoughts and objectifies them. He sees everything you are thinking, every­thing you have planned, and projects them for you even though God you cannot see.

Take my message to heart and try to remember what was told you before that the world was. In the last chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher tells of the snapping of the silver cord and the breaking of the golden bowl and pitcher before the dust returns to the earth. Then he calls upon us to dwell upon his words for “The sayings of the wise are like goads, like pegs firmly fixed are the collected sayings which are given by one Shepherd.” One who has had the experiences tells them and they become pegs driven into the minds of many. Beyond this he warns us not to think of anything, “For of the writing and the making of many books there is no end.”

I ask you to dwell upon my experiences. Tomorrow you may be carried away with the news of the day. Although it may be very exciting, it is not important. What someone did, does not matter, and the reason it was done should not interest you. Rather you should be interested in the collective sayings of the wise, all found in scripture and given to you by one Shepherd. Dwell upon the words recorded there and try to find out what is being said.

“Who are you?” they asked. “Even what I have told you from the beginning.” Yes, I am the same being who spoke to you when we all gathered together in eternity. Before we came down you and I were one. Calling you gods, Sons of the Most High, I told you that we were going to have the experience of dying and falling as one man. And then I called you princes. And one day you will know yourself to be the prince of light, the prince of love, and the prince of power, for everything recorded in scripture will be experienced by you. That is your destiny.

It would be my pleasure to pass my immortal eyes on to you who are here, but I cannot do it from this level. It must be done from a higher level, done with the consent of the watchers in eternity, those who are already redeemed from this world. It seems stupid for a little man, weak and limited, to claim to be infinite, living, pulsing light; yet those to whom I have given my eyes have seen me as the prince of light, the prince of love, and the prince of power and wisdom.

I know myself to be the Lord Jesus Christ, yet I also know that I will continue to remain here in this mortal frame until the silver cord is snapped and the golden bowl and pitcher are broken. Only then can I return to those I have always known, those who are eagerly waiting for my return from the world of death.

So it is from death to life, from darkness to light, from bondage to freedom. We voluntarily came down and assumed this bondage of flesh. As we entered the world of darkness we forgot we were the light of the world. Eternally alive, we entered the world of death. We took it on in confidence that we possessed the power and the wisdom to return.

Everyone here will go back, regardless of what you have done, what you are doing, or what you are planning to do. Everyone, including Hitler and Stalin, including every monster who ever lived – all will be redeemed, for they were used for a purpose. No, you don’t love the individual who played the part, but beyond the mask of the body is God. One day the incurrent eyes will be yours and you will see the Lord Jesus Christ behind that mask.

Jesus cannot be proved as having ever existed or known by any outward means. No matter where you search, or what the priests tell you, you will never find any genealogy of Jesus Christ, for he is not to be found outward­ly. Only those whose immortal eyes are open into the world of thought can find him. They know the truth concerning Jesus Christ from experience, and in the world of men they will share their story for those who hear to believe or disbelieve.

When John told his story he said: “I am a witness to what I have heard and seen with my own eyes; which I have handled with my own hands concerning the word of life.” Now, John is not some professor who is trying to give society a convincing set of arguments. Rather he is simply telling what he heard and saw in a region beyond that which can be explained with the rational mind. He invites everyone who hears his story of redemption to believe him, but he allows the individual to decide whether he will accept or reject it, just as I do.

Now, the Christ that you accept on faith comes to you as one unknown, yet one who in some mysterious manner lets you experience who he is. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul asks this question: “Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having received the spirit by faith, are you now ending with the flesh?”

Now I ask you: are you thinking of Jesus as a being of flesh and blood when you know that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven? Are you thinking of a physical savior? Didn’t you receive the spirit by hearing the story and accepting it with faith, for your acceptance was the spirit. If after hearing this incredible story you believe it, go your way and it will unfold within you. But if you reject it, your rejection will simply delay its experience, for you are destined to know the truth which will set you free from this bondage to decay.

All of the things that man is now discovering concerning the secret of life aren’t so at all. I tell you, you are the light of the world. One day you will come upon a scene, arrest it, and stop all of the intentions of those there. Then you will know that everyone is dead and you alone are alive and life itself. And as you release their activity in you, the scene will take on life once again, and then you will know from experience that you surely are the light of the world.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE MYSTERY OF BAPTISM

Neville Goddard  01-31-1969

neville goddard imagination creates realityBaptism on this level is a symbolic representation of being raised to the realization of being God the Father. In his letter, Paul tells the Ephesians that there is only one baptism. This occurs prior to the realization of being God the Father. And in Paul’s letter to the Romans he states: “We are buried with Christ by a baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we also may walk in newness of life.”

Baptism implies complete immersion. It is said that when Jesus rose out of the water the heavens opened, and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, descended upon him.

Has it ever occurred to you that you are immersed in a body which is 90 per cent water? This is the great water in which God is buried and will remain until – now individualized as you – He will rise out of the water to see the heavens become transparent and the Spirit – in bodily form as a dove – descend with his gift of a new form, a new manner of existence, and a new unification, so that each – while preserving his individuality – becomes God the Father.

In his great eulogy, Paul places baptism as sixth in order. Beginning with the one body, Paul speaks of the one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and finally the one God and Father of all. So this baptism takes place just before you become aware of being – not just God the Father, but the Father of all!

Now it is said that when the heavens opened to complete translucency, Christ – now risen – not only saw the Spirit take on bodily form as a dove, but heard a voice speak directly to him. This event takes place in an individual’s soul, and is not seen or heard by anyone else!

Jesus is the personification of redeemed humanity. He represents all those who have fulfilled scripture. His story takes place in the soul of the individual who has the experience, and it is not shared by another on this level. “I have had a baptism to be baptized with, and now I am constrained until it is accomplished.” All scholars interpret this statement to mean the crucifixion, but it is not.

The crucifixion began with a creative act, when the Spirit of God moved upon and was baptized into these bodies of water. At that moment we were united with Christ in a death like his. After incubation, we will all hatch out and be united with Him in a resurrection like his.

Now inundated in a world of illusion, the Spirit is hovering, incubating, and one day will be raised out of this body of water. Then the heavens will open and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, will descend.

Bear in mind that Jesus represents redeemed humanity. His is the one body into which every being is incorporated. Jesus is the one Spirit, the one and only hope of man, and the only Lord. He is the only faith by which one should live, and the one baptism culminating into becoming the one God and Father of all. This is baptism in the true sense of the word.

In 1926 my mother came to see me in New York City, and was quite upset when she discovered my two-year-old son had not been baptized. She believed that if he died without being baptized he would not go to heaven, so we had him baptized for her sake.

But we are told that unless you are born of water – which you are dwelling in right now, and the Spirit – which is a spiritual experience, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. When this vision possessed me, my head became transparent. Through its translucency I saw a dove floating above me, and I had fulfilled the story in Genesis.

Man is not a fantasy of the earth and water, but the true ark of God, containing everything within him. The dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. When Noah stretched forth his hand he received the dove and brought her in unto himself, and there she remained.

In my own case, I came out of the water from which I was inundated. I extended my right hand and the dove lit upon it. Then I brought the dove to my face and it smothered me with love, as the voice of God – personified as a woman – said, “They avoid man because he gives off such an offensive odor; but his love is so great that he penetrated the ring of offense to demonstrate his love for you.”

Just recently I was reading the dialogues of the pilgrims of Buddha (translated from the Sanskrit by Mr. Rhys Davids), where he said: “In the eyes of the gods, human beings are seen as disgusting, revolting, and are accounted as such.” I know in my own case the voice of God spoke similar words, but not in the same manner. And on this level they may not be wrong, when you think of the tremendous amount of advertising is placed upon deodorants. But I do not believe Buddha was speaking of human beings in that manner.

We are here for a purpose. Ours was a deliberate descent, and not because of anything we did that was wrong. And when our incubation is over, we will once more rise from this world of death to be infinitely greater than we were prior to our descent. This water-body called man is the limit of our contraction and opacity, but there is no limit to our expansion and luminosity.

Do you know that when a body weighing 300 pounds is cremated, the amount of ash which remains could be placed in a Campbell’s soup can – so where did the 300 pounds go? It evaporated, because it was all water! We are all individually wearing a garment of water. We are buried with Christ by baptism unto death. And just as Christ rose by the glory of the Father, we too will rise in newness of life.

When this happens to you, no one here will know it, for they cannot see the events you encounter. No one will see the dove descend upon you, the transparency, or hear God’s voice tell you of his love. These events transpire in your soul, and when you share your experience with others some will believe you, while others will not. The majority will not believe, for having been conditioned to think of Jesus as a little individual who lived and died two thousand years ago, they cannot think of him as the personification of redeemed humanity. They cannot see Christ as a cosmic presence buried in all, but only as a mortal man – and that is not his story.

If you cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless you are born of water and the Spirit, then you must emerge (be born out of) the water in which you, as Spirit, first entered.

Your birth as Spirit qualifies you for the new form, the new manner of existence, the new unification of Christ on an entirely different level. One person at a time is called to enter into and form that one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all.

Whether you have been baptized here or not does not matter, for it is only a symbolic representation of this – the final mystery in the great series. And when you have experienced the true baptism, you are an entirely different being. No one in the outer world can see the being you know yourself to be. But you will become completely absorbed into that one body, one Spirit, one God, yet you will never lose your individuality. That’s the great mystery and that’s the purpose of it all.

We were individualized before we descended, and tend forever and ever towards ever greater individualization. Having descended into these bodies of water, Spirit hovers over the water, incubating something precious that is buried there until it hatches. And when the water breaks the heavens open, and the Spirit in bodily form as a dove, descends. Then the voice of God declares his love, for he has raised up his glory and you become one with God the Father.

When this experience is yours, you will remain here to share your experiences in the written form, that in the tomorrows your words may spark something in those who read them. In this world of Caesar money and security, love and affection, are sought; but the day will come when nothing will satisfy the individual but an experience of God. Then he will know the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Your baptism in the Christian faith is only a symbolic representation of this great mystery of dying, being buried, and rising again with Christ. But you do not have to be baptized here in order to fulfill scripture.

I hope you will soon fulfill the real baptism and know the mysteries of scripture. My mother had me baptized at the age of three or four. At the time I had no knowledge of what was taking place; but in the real baptism I was the sole actor, alone on the stage where the vision took place.

In his book, John implies that others saw the event, as he put words in the mouth of John the Baptist. Luke suggested others were there, but told us he was only telling a story, saying: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished within us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from above were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seems good to me also, having followed all things accurately, from above…”

The phrase “from the beginning” is a translation of the Greek word “anothen”, which means “from above”. This same word is translated as from above, when the Risen Christ spoke to the Sanhedrin [member] Nicodemus, saying: “Unless you are born from above you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Luke is telling you that he has had the heavenly experience and knows what he is talking about, but he does not claim his story is chronologically exact. Luke rearranges the story, ending with the crucifixion, yet knowing that it came first.

Tennyson once said: “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” Luke told his story as though it took place in the outer world, and unfortunately the world has accepted it on that level. Luke cannot be condemned for telling it that way, for it has kept the story alive. But it was written for you, most excellent one who loves God, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.

Having been told these stories, you have been informed of the truth which will one day come to the surface. Believing they happened to one man, you have worshiped an exterior Christ, joined a church, and done all that the church demands of you. But one day the true story will erupt within you. Then there will be no judgment concerning what the evangelist did.

Both Matthew and Mark claimed only the one having the experience saw the clarity of the heavens and the descent of the dove. Luke and John told of witnesses, but I know from experience: you and you alone bear witness to yourself.

That is why, when you tell others that the story written about Jesus Christ has unfolded in you, they cannot believe it. In their eyes you are a human being with limitations and frustrations, while they are looking for something entirely different. They do not know that the reenactment is coming to them, for he said: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished.”

When you are baptized with this baptism, you become one with the one body waiting for all to come. You awaken as the one Spirit waiting for everyone to awaken. And as that one being, you will wait for all to set their hope fully upon this grace which comes at the unveiling of Jesus Christ. You will be constrained until everyone is once more brought into the one body, the one Spirit, the one God and Father of all.

After baptism you will take off the garment of flesh for the last time, to become one with God the Father who is above all, through all, and in all; to once more hover and wait for those you have incubated to rise from the dead garments of water where they are buried.

Now is the time to set your hope fully upon the true baptism, when the heavens open and you come out of the water to find the Spirit of God hovering above you. And because you are fulfilling scripture, you will do exactly what Noah did. You will extend your hand. The dove will light upon it and you will bring it into yourself. In my experience, the dove smothered me with love. Then God, in the form of a woman, told me that His love was so great he penetrated the ring of offense. Prior to that experience I had never thought of myself as being offensive; but to those who contemplate this world the ring of death is very offensive.

Throughout the letters of Paul, much is said of this baptism. In the third chapter of Galatians, Paul tells that baptism removes all human divisions of race, class, or sex. That after the baptism we are in Christ and are neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female. Having resurrected from division, we are baptized into the one Risen Lord who is one with every race and every creed; for the Risen Lord is above all divisions.

After baptism you will no longer see people in your dreams, for everything changes. Your little body will remain limited and weak, however, until you are relieved of it. Having fought the good fight and finished the race, you will have kept the faith and received the crown of righteousness and the wreath of the victor. So set your hope upon this – the final of the seven eulogies.

The great confession of Israel, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” parallels the Christian creed as the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one baptism, found in the 4th chapter of Ephesians.

On the first day of January, 1963, I was baptized by the Holy Spirit. Now I, like Paul, spend my days from morning to night telling the story of the fulfillment of God’s promise to the fathers, while many believe and may disbelieve. But I will keep on telling it until I depart this world.

Everyone must and will be baptized into the body of the Risen Lord as the Risen Lord, without loss of identity. Then he will be given a new form, a new manner of existence, and a new unification; because, having been united with Christ in death, h is unified with Christ in a resurrection into a completely new unification.

There is no loss of identity, yet you know you are God the Father of all. I will know you more intimately there than I could ever know you here. I knew you before you descended, and I will certainly know you after we ascend. We can never lose our individuality, but will simply know a greater and greater individuality in that one body, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

Although I urge you to set your hope fully upon this grace that is coming to you, no one knows when it will happen. Do not think that what you have done has any restraining power, because it has none. Everyone has had thoughts which he is ashamed of. I am a perfect example of one who could never have judged myself as kindly or gently, as compassionately or mercifully, as I was judged to become – so how could I claim another as not qualified!

I did not come to judge you. I do not know what you have done and I really do not care, but I urge you not to put a barrier upon yourself because of the things you have done of which you may be ashamed. When His mercy shines upon you, though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow, so it doesn’t really matter.

I am not encouraging you to go out and violate your codes, but I urge you not to carry the burden of your past with you. Let it go if you can, and set your hope fully upon this baptism, for the Father is hovering over you. You do not see him because you are immersed in water, but he is incubating you, and one day you will break through the surface and be baptized into the body of the one God and Father of all.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE MIRACULOUS CHILD

Neville Goddard 10-28-1966

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight’s subject is “The Miraculous Child.” This child will not appear to the world, for they are so fixed in their misconceptions of Scripture, and there is no dead weight so heavy. But tonight I wish you would pay special attention, as I want to introduce you to this miraculous child. For “Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, if he is not born in thee, thy soul is still forlorn.”

God participates in human history and is known in those through whom his timeless purpose is working in time. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ, and he appears, symbolized as a child. This miraculous child is not Christ, but a sign that Christ is born, in you. Now listen to one in whom God’s timeless purpose has been fulfilled in time.

Always remember that all the characters of Scripture are states of consciousness personified. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, none of these forefathers of Jesus appear in any Near Eastern work whatsoever. They do not appear either as individuals or as tribes. Appearing only in Scripture, they are eternal states through which God passes as he unfolds his purpose in you. And his purpose is to give himself to you as though there were no other, just God and you, and finally only you, for you are He.

The promise of a child begins in the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. This promise was made to Abraham. Although Sarah was beyond the age of child bearing, when the child was born they called him Isaac which means, “he laughs”. Now, you would think he was born of human stock, but this child is a prototype of that which must be born in you. All the ancient prophecies were eschatology, for their visions were only about the last days.

Another prototype child appears in the name of Moses, which is the ancient perfected of the Egyptian verb “to be born”. Something is to be born. We think it is a man called Moses because he came out of the deep. But we find this story unfolding, and unfolding until we come to the point called David. Then we are told, “Go to my servant David and say, ‘When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your son after you. He will come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son.’” Again the child is promised.

Now we move into Isaiah, “For unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’” Here we find this promise unfolding and unfolding, yet in the very last book of the Old Testament the father is still waiting for the son saying, “A son honors his father, if I am a father, where is my honor?”

The first chapter of the New Testament begins with the fulfillment of this promise. In it we read that this child is born, not of blood, or of the will of man, or of the will of the flesh, but of God. It’s an entirely different birth. Then he tells us, “This shall be a sign unto you. Blessed is she who believes that which she has heard, that there shall be a fulfillment of those things which were spoken unto her from the Lord.” The shepherds of the field appear and are told, “Unto you is born this day in the City of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” The shepherds enter Bethlehem and, believing, they find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.

As a Christian you were taught that these events took place on earth. That a little child was born of a woman who didn’t have a husband, or know a man. It hasn’t a thing to do with that. The child is only a sign, a sign that your savior is born and the only savior is God. “I am the Lord your God the Holy One of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no savior.” There is only God. God, your I AM is the root, the creator of humanity and its offspring because I became what I created. Bursting the shell, I will come out, transcending what I was prior to my fall into my own creation.

I am telling you what I know from experience. The day will come when you will experience it too. My days of being consciously in this word are at an end. Like Paul I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness. There is nothing else for me to do, for I have experienced within myself all that I promised I would.

How will you know when it happens? You will not see signs on the outside, yet there are signs that come to all who are moving toward the end. Everyone, who is hungry, not for bread or for milk but for an experience of God, is here to fulfill the prophecy of Scripture. And Scriptural prophecy has not a thing to do with America, Russia, Europe, China or any part of the world as the prophets of the modern age will tell you. The Bible is not secular history, but the history of salvation. It has nothing to do with any land, but it is all about you who walk the lands of the earth.

Every day the morning mail brings me confirmation of those who are nearing the end. Two letters came this week that I would like to share with you. One lady writes, “I am 59 years old. I did not complete college because I had small sons and the demands of my family life were too great. But during the time I attended college I had a recurrent dream that I must prepare for an exam. As the years have progressed the dream persisted. Now I feel the sense of urgency knowing I must prepare for the great exam. Recently, when I closed my eyes I saw human faces, like the great paintings of Michelangelo, yet they had no eyes. And in the midst of these bodies I saw an infant who smiled at me. As he laughed I felt as though he were in heaven and I his observer. Then I had a vivid dream where I saw my son who was the most beautiful child imaginable. Do these experiences have any Biblical significance?”

The significance of her dream is the great exam. If you have ever been on TV, you know there is such a thing as an idiot sheet, a moving sheet in bold writing. All of these profoundly wise men who speak to you while standing in front of a TV camera, are simply reading an idiot sheet. I am using his analogy for a purpose; for I want to tell this lady that in the immediate future she is going to be given the great exam. Everyone in the world will be called for this exam. You will be called and taken in Spirit, into the presence of the Risen Christ and the exam will begin. He will ask you only one question, “What is the greatest thing in this world?”

Well it’s just like looking at the idiot sheet, for you are looking at the embodiment of love and as you look at the exalted Christ only one emotion permeates you and that is love. So put your heart at rest, for you cannot fail. You don’t have to study; the answer will be automatic. Then love will embrace you and change your lowly body to be of one form with his glorious body. Our translators cannot bring themselves to believe in the literal word of Scripture, so they translate this sentence to read, “He will change our lowly bodies to be like the body of Christ” but the literal translation is “to be one form with.” You aren’t like Christ; you become him. Your lowly body is completely refashioned to be of one form with, not like, his glorious body. When you look at that body you see the human form divine and it’s all love. So in the end there is only one body, one God, one Man and you are He.

Now let me tell you of a letter that came from a gentleman. He said, “I came home on Monday night, sat down in my chair and closed my eyes. As I began to relax a blaze of light appeared before me, and as I looked at the light I could see a pool of golden liquid pulsating light in its center. Then the light formed itself into a beautiful rose which expanded and expanded reaching toward the perimeter of this vast area when I was called to dinner.” Then he asked if this held any meaning.

In the second chapter of the Songs of Solomon we are told, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley.” Who is I am? God. Here is Scripture unfolding within him. He saw the rose, not separate or superimposed upon the light, but the light itself formed the rose. Listen to the words, “I am the light of the world and I am the rose of Sharon.” Sharon means “prosperity; a straight path; the right way; abundance.” When the rose appears in the consciousness of man, it means great abundance. Abundance need not be measure in dollars and cents, but in a sense of well-being, a sense of peace; a sense of rest. The rose is God. I am the rose of Sharon.

Now, to repeat: God participates in the history of man and is known in those through whom his birth is taking place. God is working in you and as he works, Scripture unfolds in you. Scripture has been fulfilled in me. Like Paul, beginning with Moses and the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, I have interpreted to you in all the Scriptures the things concerning myself. I am not speaking of anything else, only God.

Yesterday, about 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon, as is my custom, I was reading the Bible. My wife was resting in preparation for our dinner engagement, when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Wearing only my shorts and, thinking it may be a delivery boy, I went to the door and here was a nun who said she had a message for me from God. Then, she began to tell me all about the many devils and terrible things that were going to happen to me if I didn’t get on his side. Finally I stopped her and said, “I am reminded of what Frank Lloyd Wright once said, ‘We are both doing God’s work, you in your way and I in his.’” Then I excused myself and as I closed the door a thought came to me. “He has awakened from the dream of life. Tis we who, lost in stormy vision, keep with fancy an unprofitable strife.” You find a devil and you make more devils because you recognize them and what you recognize you project and make real in your world.

All I can tell you is what I have experienced concerning Scripture. This miraculous child is a fact. The day will come when you will experience everything said of this child. There will be those who will make a hasty journey to see that which has happened in Bethlehem. They will find the child and, knowing whose child it is, they will call you by name. If your name is John they will declare it is John’s baby. Then you will pick up the child, look into its heavenly face and as he laughs the vision comes to its end. And then you will know the reality of the child that was given to you as a sign that the savior was born. There is only one savior who is God. So if the savior is born, God is born. He came down into man and raises man by being reborn, from man, for I am the root and the offspring of David.

Now, the lady and gentleman whose dreams I shared with you tonight do not know one another. Her name is Vera. Born in Russia, she came there to be a dancer in New York City and has now opened a lovely dress shop in the Disneyland Hotel. Jimmie was born in Italy. I have known them both for years, but they have never met. Last night I had a dream. Here is Vera, a lady, quite small and about 50 years old. And Jimmie, also about 50, handsome, wonderful and well put together as he always is, is looking at her. In my dream Vera is his mother and she is hugging me. Jimmie is disturbed and scolds her for displaying her feelings toward me. Then she turned to him and said in a very Russian accent, “And why shouldn’t I? He is your father.” Well, the bewildered look on his face when he heard that bit of news was so priceless I started to laugh. I woke myself up laughing and even woke my wife. Here it is 3:30 in the morning and I am laughing so hard my wife says, “What on earth is wrong with you?” I told her I had a dream and would share it with her in the morning. Then I got out of bed and went into the living room to laugh some more. But his was a true revelation.

If I am the Father of David and I know I am and David is the personification of all the generations of men and their experiences, and Jimmie is a man, am I not his Father? Am I not the Father of humanity if I am the Father of the essence of humanity, which is David? David has called me Father in fulfillment of the 89th Psalm. If I am David’s father, and he is the personification of all the generations of men and their experiences, am I not Jimmie’s father? It’s all the unfolding of Scripture, for there is nothing but God in this world. And when he unfolds himself in you, you will know it too. Those who have not experienced Scripture will think you are as mad as a hatter, but the day will come when you will know that you too are the Father of humanity, because you are going to be the Father of the sum total of all the generations of men personified as the eternal youth whose name is David. And if he is the essence of humanity, are you not, then, the Father of humanity?

In the very last chapter, the twenty-second chapter of Revelations we read “I am the root and the offspring of David.” The creator entered his own creation, then emerged from it; therefore he is now the offspring. But by creating it, is he not its Father? And by entering it, not pretending, but actually becoming it he accepted all the limitations of the human flesh. Now playing all the parts, he cannot come out until the very end of the drama. And when the play is over he, as you, emerge. Then the essence of the whole vast creative world stands before you as a son, and David calls you “Father”.

All this wonderful symbolism unfolds within man. And when the child comes it’s a miraculous child. The government, the full responsibility, all the authority will be on his shoulders. He will close and none shall open. He will open and none shall close. That’s the responsibility that is placed upon his shoulders. His name is Wonderful Counselor, for [he] has infinite wisdom now. Mighty God, possessing divine wisdom and divine might. His third name is Everlasting Father, as he is the eternal Father of humanity and the essence of humanity summarized in the eternal youth called David. Then comes the final title, Prince of Peace. Not just the peace after the conflict of war, but a full and complete enjoyment of everything in this world, for he has found peace. Then you are told, “Of his greatness there shall be no end.” And where does all this take place? In the individual you!

God actually participates in the history of man and is known in those through whom his timeless purpose is working in time. While you are walking, in time, his timeless purpose is working in you. Everyone will experience it, and no one will fail because God became each one of us that we, each of us, may become God.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE MYSTERY OF INSPIRATION

Neville Goddard – 1-27-1969

neville goddard imagination creates realityInspiration is a divine action which qualifies the individual to receive and communicate sacred revelation. The prophets, apostles, and incurrent eyewitnesses are those who receive such inspiration.

The prophets’ visions are foreshortened. They see as present what is really future. Prophesying of the grace that is to be yours, they searched and inquired what person or what time was indicated by the spirit of Christ in them, when they predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you!

The apostles are sent by the Risen Lord to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament and to share their experiences with all.

Individual man, having been conditioned to believe that God is somewhere in space as someone on the outside, cannot believe that everything he beholds is within his own human imagination. But it is.

We are told: “He who receives you, receives me, and he who receives me, receives him who sent me. If Christ is in you, although your body is dead, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will raise you also through his Spirit within you.” (Matthew 10 & Romans 8) The first quote, from Matthew, tells you that God is in you, for the writers of the New Testament identify the Christ who governs your life with Jehovah, who inspired the prophets.

Paul tells us that Christ is in you, although your body is dead. This I know to be true. I have stopped time and witnessed how dead this body is. Time and again I have moved into a society, arrested the activity in me that causes the animation I am observing, and everyone has stood still. They appear to be as dead as the statues of clay or marble in a museum. I have entered a room to become possessed by the motion that inspires things. I have arrested this action, and everything has stood still. I have walked among those present to discover they are all dead. Now I know that Paul’s statement is true: “If Christ is in you, although the body is dead, he who raised Christ from the dead will raise you also, through his Spirit within you.”

But how do I convince you that the Lord God Jehovah is actually in you? That Jehovah is dreaming he is you, and in the end will awaken as you? How do I convince you that you will witness the images the prophets used? They tell us that Christ is the Rock. That you have forgotten the God who gave you birth.

The prophets equate the Rock with the Lord God Jehovah. This I know to be true. One day I sat in the silence, when quartz appeared before my vision. As I watched, the rock fragmented into numberless pieces and instantly molded itself into the human form, seated in the lotus posture in profound meditation. As I realized I was looking at myself, the form began to glow. It increased in intensity until it reached the limit of translucency. Then it exploded and my vision came to its end. Now I know I am the Rock that begot me.

Out of that solid state of death comes life, for you put this limit of contraction and opacity called Man upon yourself. At the present time three and a half billion of us walk the earth, individualized, because the being which gives us life is asleep.

Believing the world is taking place independent of our perception, we do not realize that our dreams are projecting themselves on this screen of space, and that we are in conflict with our dreams. But one day God will awaken within your dead body; and when he does, all of the imagery of scripture will surround you, identifying you as the central figure of the Bible — the Lord God Jesus Christ.

Scripture is all about God, as there is no one else. God and his name are one! That name is I AM! Falling asleep, God breathed upon your body and it became animated, as He dreams your world into being. One day God will awaken and all of your confusion will end. Then you will take off your garment of death to return to the being you were before that the world was. You will be enhanced beyond your wildest dreams, for there is no limit to your expansion and translucency. A limit was set to contraction and opacity, which is the body of death called Man; but your expansion and translucency is limitless.

Who would have thought that the imagery recorded in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy was true: “Of the Rock that begot you, you are unmindful and have forgotten the God who gave you life.” In this verse God is equated with the Rock that fragmented itself and is defused in all.

Although now a universally diffused individuality, the Rock’s name forever and ever is I AM! Every child born of woman says, I am! That is the fragmented rock. In the end, when the fragments gather together to form one being, you – wearing your face – will realize no one exists independent of your perception, for the world is contained within your own wonderful human imagination, and projected by you.

When I tell you what I know from inspiration, it is true, for it happened to me. And when it does, I turn to the Old Testament to find a passage in the word of God that parallels my experience. If I do, then I have two witnesses that agree in testimony, making it conclusive.

I saw myself begotten out of a rock, for the rock fragmented, then gathered itself together to form a person I knew to be myself – not the being I shave in the morning, but myself raised to the nth degree of perfection. That being was meditating me, and I must become as perfect as He is. And when I am He awakes and I am eternal life, the one who came down into a body that was dead, to dream the dream of life. Everyone is this completely diffused being. Knowing that you are, you are mentally saying I am; and that is God’s name forever and ever.

Now, not everything in the Bible is inspired. Paul’s passages about marriage are not. Paul confesses he is not married and wishes that everyone were as he is; but if that were true there would be no offsprings. Paul did say: “It is far better to marry than to burn.” In other words, it is better to have union with what he calls the marriage state, than to long for such satisfaction. This was his opinion, not his inspiration. In his letter to the Romans, Paul states his opinion about the homosexual – only because he forgot that in the Old Testament God made everything and pronounced it good and very good. If God made everything, then God made the homosexual, did he not? So not every word of scripture is inspired; but you will know the passages that are, for when you awake, scripture unfolds in you.

It is said that, beginning with Moses and all the prophets and the psalms. Paul interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things that concerned him. Remember: in Paul’s day there was no New Testament. It was written to record the passages of the Old Testament which were fulfilled. So when you read the New Testament, pay strict attention to any passage that is quoted by the Risen Lord and taken from the Old Testament.

In the tenth chapter of John, the Risen Lord says: “I and my Father are one. Why do you condemn me for saying I am the Son of God? Is it not written in your law…” – (and he quotes the 82nd Psalm) saying: “‘I say, you are gods’? If it is written, ‘Ye are gods and scripture cannot be broken, why do you condemn me, whom God consecrated and sent into the world?’ “Here is the Christ in you, quoting scripture after having risen from the sleep of death. And the moment Christ awakens in you, you are the Risen Christ!

There is only one Risen Christ and everyone is being gathered together into that one being. Although we have different talents, everyone will know God’s embrace, qualifying him for apostleship.

If you are meant to experience scripture consciously, you will be sent, and tell your experiences to those who will be drawn to you, to show them the parallel between what happened to you and what the word of God said through His inspired prophets. When the prophets inquired, they were told that they were not serving themselves, for their time had not come. But scripture has been fulfilled now, and the time is here for all to awaken.

We are in the act of awakening as God, and when the visions come they cannot be stopped. Coming suddenly and unexpectedly, their power possesses you as though something is wearing you. Then you begin to see and hear that which kings and prophets long to see, and cannot because the time has not fully come for them.

As passage after passage of scripture unfolds within you, you will recognize the inspired ones as they take place; but not everything written in scripture was inspired. They wrote certain dietary laws based upon what they called the need of the time, but these are not inspired. There are passages in both the Old and the New Testament that were not inspired, but man-made traditions which have enslaved the minds of men. We are asked: “Why do you deny the word of God for the traditions of your fathers?” If you are going to accept the man-made traditions, you will never know the inspired word of God.

The inspired word of God comes to certain individuals because God is rebuilding his shattered temple with living stones. This temple is not made with human hands, but with the redeemed. When one awakens, he becomes a living stone in that one divine body.

Now, “If the Spirit of Christ is in you, although the body is dead, he who raised Christ from the dead will raise you also through his spirit, which dwells in you.” If His Spirit wasn’t dwelling in you, He could not raise you. I know that when I awoke, there was no one there to lift me up. The wind was there so the invisible God was present, but I saw no other garment. I awoke within myself and when I came out, my body lying on the bed appeared to be dead.

Have you ever been in a recovery room in a hospital? In 1952, I had my gall bladder removed and my body was wheeled into a recovery room after the operation. When I came to, I looked at the four others who were there, and thought they were dead and we were in a morgue. Well, these mortal bodies we wear are dead. They are animated and seemingly alive because of the presence of God in them. That God, you are! You cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die, for God is life. The body God wears returns to dust, out of which it was made; but you cannot die, for you are God Himself!

Spirit entered your body of flesh as your breath of life. At that moment God became human, and humanity became a living being. Inspired scripture happens each time the Risen Lord prepares to disappear from the visible world. His breath is his baptism with the Holy Spirit, which quickens your dead body into a life-giving spirit.

Having experienced scripture, when I disappear from this world I cannot go without, for – containing all within myself – I must go within.

This is the mystery of inspiration. You will be possessed by a vision, to find yourself playing the central role in a drama that is taking place within yourself. And when the vision fades you will search the scriptures to find the inspired word of God you have just fulfilled.

When you tell your experiences to all who will listen, few will believe you, for they have been conditioned to believe in some little external Jesus Christ and prefer to remain that way.

It is the Christ within man who is his hope of glory. That is the Christ who fulfills scripture. Having had scripture fulfill itself in me, I have interpreted to you in all the scriptures the things concerning – not a man called Neville, but God’s power, in me, called Christ.

Do not be embarrassed when I tell you that you are God. Instead, walk believing you are that important. You don’t have to become arrogant, but you must assume you are God. Think about it! Stop believing in God and start believing as God. Do this and the visions will come to confirm your assumption.

Scripture is all about Christ, the Jehovah you are. The spirit and the flesh are one; therefore, when David appears, in vision, you are revealing your true identity to yourself. This I know, for I have found David. He called me Lord. I know I am the Rock that begot him, for I have played all of the fragmented parts and put them together to form David.

When David calls you father, the Rock of his salvation, you will remember you are the Lord. Then you will tell salvation’s story, and if God is still asleep in those who hear, they will think you are mad. That’s all right, as all inspired men – being judged by the garment they wear – will appear mad to those who hear them. When you claim you have a spirit, you will be called mad, just as it is said of the Risen Christ in the tenth chapter of John.

Today, as in the past, people believe scripture will be fulfilled in a secular manner. But while occupying their garment of death, everyone will individually fulfill God’s word.

You are destined to know the power of stopping and starting time. Possessed by the Spirit, you will be taken into a room. Knowing intuitively who you are and the power you are feeling, you will arrest that activity within you and everything will stand still. As you examine that which was so alive and seemingly independent of your perception only a moment ago, you will discover it is all dead. Then, releasing their activity in your imagination, everything will once more become animated and continue its purpose. If a bird was in flight when you arrested it, it will continue to fly when released. If someone is carrying food to a table when arrested – although you can keep them in that position for as long as you like – when you release the power you know yourself to be, they will continue to serve the meal as if nothing had happened.

Can you imagine doing that? I tell you it is true, but as long as you identify yourself with a body of death and believe it is you, you will not realize you are your own hope of glory.

The body you care for and keep well is dead, while I – the awareness who entered it – AM a living being, who will experience scripture while in this dead body. I came into the world and took upon myself the body of a slave when I was born in the likeness of man. Now, wearing the human form, I AM obedient unto death, even death upon the cross of man. While in this state, I will experience the word I inspired the prophets to write, for I AM the God in you!

Having created an incredible adventure, I prophesied that I would die and overcome death. The prophecy has been fulfilled and will continue to be fulfilled in all, for I am God, capable of overcoming my last enemy, which is death. I will awaken in my grave and come out unassisted to find myself greater than I was before the adventure.

Those who think of me in terms of the outer form I wear will see the things that were foretold; but not me, for I AM spirit and cannot be seen with the mortal eye. Having eyes that see not and ears that hear not, I will give them eyes that they may see and bore ears that they may hear what kings and prophets long to see and hear, but cannot. A retreat will not cultivate inspiration. It doesn’t come that way. The fire that rises within you is the same fire that descends like a bolt of lightening and splits you in two. You cannot consciously lift this power through contemplation. Only He who first descended can ascend into the kingdom of heaven. Descending like a bolt of lightening, the curtain of the temple is split, releasing His spirit that was trapped inside. Then your power is raised back into the heavenly state from which you came, for you are the God of scripture who said: “I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.’ ”

From now on, think of yourself as spirit, not flesh and blood. People are so proud of their physical line, yet if they knew its background they might be ashamed of it. Many a person has paid a fortune to trace his lineage and then spent another fortune to forget it.

Recently I read of a questionnaire which was sent out to various church officials in England, asking what they thought was going to happen to them when they died. One minister replied: “I assume I will enter into the joy of the Lord, but why bring up such an unpleasant subject?” This is true the world over, because man does not know he is immortal and cannot die.

You came into a world of death. The body you now wear will return to dust from whence it came; but you, its occupant, cannot die. Rather, you will simply dream yourself into another body of death, animate it in a terrestrial world like this, and continue to do the same things you are doing here. You will be in an environment which the depths of your being finds best suited for what He still wants to do, and you will continue doing it until you awaken in that garment and fulfill scripture.

Then you will take off your garment of death and return to the glory that was yours before that the world was. We knew each other intimately before we descended, and we will know each other just as intimately when we take off all of these masks and ascend.

In this world, we wear separate, individual bodies; but in eternity we form the one body. We are many, yet one. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” In that state there will be only one Lord, one God and Father of all, and all form that one. No matter what type of dreams an individual has, in the end they will be but dreams; for when he awakes and returns, we will love him as dearly as we did before the descent.

Inspiration is a gift of God, which cannot be acquired. Because God is in you, scripture is inspired from within. At the present time, Christ – God’s power and wisdom – is personified as you. Although the body you wear is dead, He who raised Christ from the dead will raise you also. Christ in you is the one who rises. His spirit is your breath. Breathing his inspiration, you hear and feel the wind. Then you who radiate the glory of that God breath will awaken as God Himself.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

Neville Goddard 12-12-1969

neville goddard imagination creates realityThe words of one in whom the great mystery of life unfolded, are enigmatic. And the evangelist who wrote the gospels, kept that great mystery as it was told. In the 17th chapter of the Book of John, he is speaking to God the Father, the depth of himself, saying: “Now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to thee. Holy Father, keep in thy name that which thou hast given to me that they may be one, even as we are one.” (The only name that can bind us together and make us one is Father. When you and I discover that we really are the Father, we will understand the mystery of life.) Now he makes this statement: “I have guarded them and none is lost but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled.”

Bear in mind, this is not secular history, but salvation history; so who is this son of perdition that is lost? Scholars claim it is one called Judas, but that is not true. If you want to get close to the answer, read the 18th Psalm, which is repeated in the 22nd chapter of 2 Samuel. This is a hymn David sings, praising the Lord for saving him from death and destruction. And the word “perdition” means “death and destruction.”

Let me take these enigmatic words and show you what they really mean. The son of perdition is one who hears, but refuses to accept, the Christian revelation. The 2nd chapter of 2 Thessalonians tells us that: “The lawless one, the son of perdition, will be revealed and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming.”

I tell you salvation’s story as I have experienced it. You may deny my words, or agree with them. Those who deny me are the anti-Christ, the son of perdition. They themselves will not be destroyed, for the mystery of Christ will unfold in them.

Rather, the state of consciousness in which they dwell, will be lost, to them “for none have I lost but the son of perdition.” No individual will, or can be, destroyed, for he is a son of God. He can fall into the state known as the son of perdition, and while in it, completely deny this incredible story is true. But when it awakens in him and becomes true, then he has nowhere to go but to admit the experience.

If I tell you the incredible story and you think it is silly, I am not concerned, but confident it is going to happen in you; and when it does, what you thought before does not matter.

And so it is with others that come after you: When they are confronted with the experience, their thoughts and beliefs change. Everyone will be saved, and the only thing that is lost is the state of consciousness in which the individual lived when he heard salvation’s story and could not accept it.

The son of perdition has nothing to do with any Judas, for he is the one who betrays the messianic secret. No one could ever betray you but yourself, for no one knows your secret but yourself! Judas is Judah, the Lion’s whelp. He is the only son named in the genealogy of Jesus. “Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.” Judah is the one who knows and tells the secret.

The son of perdition is not an individual man who can be destroyed, because every child born of woman is a son of God; and it takes all of his Sons to form God, as told us in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy: “He has put bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” And every child born here is an emanation of a son of God.

The word “Elohim,” translated “God,” is a plural word. We are told that “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth, saying: `Let us make man in our image.” Then the gods (Elohim) came down and buried themselves in humanity, and not one son can be lost, only the son of perdition, the state of consciousness which rejects and denies the Christian revelation.

You may question how a man can be consumed in the fire, turn to dust, and yet survive; but I tell you: all things are restored to life by the seed of contemplative thought, even the little discarded flower. That is restoration; but I am speaking of resurrection where the son is resurrected, not the body of flesh and blood he wears here. He who occupies a body that is always restored, is a son of God going through the world of death. And when his journey is over, he awakens from his great dream of death by the signs of life that follow.

Now, calling himself the son of man, Jesus speaks of himself in the future, saying: “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Jesus is always coming, always awakening, in man. The great mystery called Christmas is the beginning of the signs of faith of which many will reject, as told us in the 2nd chapter of Luke. When Simeon took the little child in his arms he called it a sign for the fall and rising of many in Israel saying, “Thoughts out of many hearts will be revealed.” This is true, for I have told the story and some have accepted it while others have disbelieved.

But even those who deny it now will one day pull themselves out of the state of perdition by finding Jesus rise in them as their very being. Then, by the breath of his mouth (the word of God), perdition will be slain by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, for the Word cannot return void. It must accomplish that for which it was sent. The gospel is the Word of God which actually became you that you may become the Word. Sending himself into the world as sons, God raises himself back to the awareness of being the Father.

Now he tells us, “When you see me you have seen the Father.” How can this be? When you see me you know me to be yourself. You will never see the Father outside of yourself. If anyone should come saying, “Lord, there he is, or here he is,” do not believe him for you will never find God outside of yourself. He will rise in you and you will know him only when his only begotten son, David, stands before you and calls you Father. Then and only then can you say, “I have found David, the son of Jesse (I AM), a man after my own heart who will do all my will.”

In the state of consciousness called the son of perdition you cannot believe my incredible story. But the state will be destroyed by the breath of his mouth, as his Word unfolds in you. Although you denied it prior to the eruption of the Word in you, after you experience all that is said of Jesus Christ, you know you are he, and you cannot deny it. So the son of perdition is the only one that is slain, the only one that is lost. It’s part of the play.

Everyone called by any name is saved, because it has already happened and will continue to happen; for I am in them and they are in me. Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou has given me. That name is Father. I have kept them in the name thou gavest me by telling them that they are the Father, and they are moving towards the discovery of it. Although some did not believe me, I have guarded them and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture (which is thy Word) might be fulfilled. I told them thy Word as I experienced it. I interpreted thy Word to them, and Father – they heard it. Some rejected it and some believed it. In spite of those who rejected it, may I say: they cannot die, for they are my brothers as we came down into this fragmented state together.

In this morning’s Los Angeles Times Book Review section, several of Robert Grave’s poems were printed. As I read them this one little verse stood out and my heart jumped within me. These are the words, if I recall them correctly:

“Hold fast with both hands
To that Royal love which alone
As we know certainly,
Restores fragmentation into true unity.”

What a revelation! The great poets are the ones who see so clearly. And those who have the capacity to use words, as Robert Graves has, say it so beautifully.

In the world the One is fragmented into the many. Regardless of the pigment of your skin, your race, your nation or belief, the world is the fragmented Rock that I saw back in 1934. During that time I was a dancer. The country was in the deep depression, and people could not afford to pay to be entertained by a dancer.

I lived in a basement apartment on 75th Street in New York City, not knowing where the next dollar was coming from. I did not despair, however, but sat in the silence and quietly closed my eyes. I was not thinking of anything in particular, just resting with my eyes shut, watching the golden clouds which always come, as all the dark convolutions of the brain grow luminous. As I contemplated this golden, liquid light, a quartz approximately 20″ in diameter suddenly appeared, then fragmented itself into numberless parts. As I watched, they gathered themselves together into a human form seated in the lotus posture. Startled, I realized that I was looking at myself – but a self containing such majesty of face and beauty of features, that I could never have believed possible. There was nothing I could have added to that perfection to improve it.

I was looking at myself in deep meditation, not as a piece of clay, but a living statue. Then it began to glow and increased in luminosity until it reached the intensity of the sun and exploded; and I awoke to find myself still seated in my chair in my little basement apartment in New York City. Turning to scripture, I read the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy: “Of the Rock that begot you, you are unmindful and of the God who gave you birth you are unaware.”

Then in the 10th of 1 Corinthians, I read: “They drank from the spiritual Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Now I know that within all is Christ, the Rock that never fails.

Back in 1929, the market broke, and 17 million men were unemployed. At that time we only had a population of maybe 130 million, whereas today we number 204 million. Our bins were filled, but people could not pay the tax or get the money to distribute the food.

By 1934 I had already gone through five years of the depression, so I wasn’t worrying about my next meal, or my next job for that matter. I was just resting, for by this time depression was a state of mind. So, as I daily did, I sat in my chair and turned my attention inward, into my brain, and contemplated within.

Then, as always, the clouds began to appear, grow luminous, and move in lovely, billowy, golden liquid light. Then came the rock. The perfect imagery of scripture. And the Rock was Christ. He formed himself into me, but me as a perfect being.

Everyone is destined to have these experiences. They are enigmatic but – luckily for us –those who recorded the story in the gospels kept the mystery in the words, and did not try to explain them in detail. Many will deny it, but they are not lost because of their denial, for nothing is lost but the son of perdition – the belief in destruction and death.

Everyone, seeing their friends depart this world have to admit to themselves that things do die. We came down into a world where everything dies; yet I tell you: nothing really dies, but returns by the seed of contemplative thought. But that is not the mystery of Christmas.

I tell you: God himself is housed in that which appears to die. He is dreaming this dream of death which we call life. One day he will awaken through a definite series of events, beginning with his resurrection. Blake claims the sleep of death is 6,000 years. I do not know how long my dream was, but I do know that when I awoke it seemed as though I had been there for an eternity.

My skull was completely sealed, but I had an innate knowledge as to what to do. I pushed the base of my skull and something gave, leaving a hole which I squeezed myself through and came out of that skull, just like a child comes out of its mother’s womb.

Then the imagery of scripture, as told in the 2nd chapter of the Book of Luke, surrounded me. I held the sign – the little child wrapped in swaddling clothes – in my arms and saw the three witnesses to the event, those who were told to “Go quickly into Bethlehem where you will find a sign that a Savior was born this day.”

God is the savior of the world as told us in the 43rd and 45th chapters of the Book of Isaiah. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no savior.” The savior’s name is I am.

It is God who awoke when I awoke in my skull. In the Book of Psalms, God is told to “Rouse thyself, why sleepest thou, O Lord.” It is God who sleeps and dreams the dream of life, animating the world of death until he awakes within the skull of man where he first entered. His departure from that tomb is the birth we now celebrate on the 25th day of December.

This is followed by the great revelation of remembrance, for on that day God’s son David reveals your fatherhood. After this revelation you will understand the words of Robert Grave’s poem which I have quoted, because only then will you know true unity. If I am the father of your son, and one you know other than the speaker is the father of our son, are we not one father? So in the end there is only one body, one Lord, one Spirit, one God and Father of all.

One body fell. Its fragmentation is humanity. We are all sons of God being collected and brought back into the true unity as God the Father. Having played all the parts – the good, the bad and the indifferent – your son reveals your fatherhood. When these signs confront you, your journey is at its end.

Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of his sons. God brings all the sons back by giving them himself; and it takes all the sons to form God, so in the end there is only God the Father.

It takes one who has experienced scripture to explain it. Who would have believed the third chapter of John could be literally true? Calling himself the son of man he said: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.”

I know this truth from experience for I – a son of man – was lifted up in spiral form, just like a fiery serpent, right into the kingdom of heaven – which is within, as told us in the Book of Luke. As the temple of the Living God, my body split from top to bottom, and I – the son of man – rose into that heavenly state like a serpent, as it reverberated like thunder.

And who would have thought that when the Holy Spirit descends, it is in the bodily form of a dove, but it is. The Holy Spirit so loves you because you have finished the work that you, yourself, set out to do, that he penetrates the ring of offense to demonstrate his love.

We, a brotherhood of one, agreed to dream in concert before we descended and became fragmented. In this world we are seemingly separate brings, at war with one another, and yet there is no other because eventually we will be the Father of God’s only son. So,

“Hold fast with both hands
To that Royal Love which alone
As we know certainly,
Restores fragmentation into true unity.”

Here is one who stands before you and speaks of being here, yet tells you that he is to come. Then he asks the question: “Will he find faith upon the earth?’ So he is always coming, always awakening, and one in whom he awakens turns to his immediate circle and wonders if anyone will believe him.

In the story, Jesus is a wine bibber, a glutton, a man of the world who loves harlots and tax collectors and all the sinners. He has awakened in me, and because I, too, like a good dinner, a good bottle of wine, and a few good martinis, my testimony is dismissed; and I am considered an impostor, because this is not a popular concept of what Jesus ought to be.

But I say to you, if anyone tells you: “Come, I have found him,” do not go, because God cannot be found any place but within you. He is buried in you, will awaken in you, and rise in you, as you.

“It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” Have you seen his face? It is just like yours, but raised to the nth degree of perfection. He is the Rock, and the Rock is Christ. We have forgotten the Rock that begot us, and are unmindful of the Rock that gave us birth.

That Rock was fragmented, and you forgot that the world round about you was nothing more than yourself pushed out. So you have fought shadows, believing in the seeming other, when housed within that seeming other is the only God, and you are he. The same series of events will awaken in him as they will in you, and in the end we will all know each other.

Even though I know I am God the Father, and you know that you are God the Father, there is no loss of identity. And for all the identity of person, there is this strange, peculiar discontinuity of earthly form. You will wear your earthly face, raised to the nth degree of perfection. You will have a human voice and hands, but your body is indescribable. It is wisdom and above all things, it is Love.

Everyone in the universe will experience the mystery we are now about to celebrate, called Christmas. This is not some little day that took place once and for all 2,000 years ago. It is always taking place, for it is the coming of God, awakening within man. Were he not in you, you could not breathe. So he slays the son of perdition by the breath of his mouth, and destroys him by his appearing and his coming.

God the Father is within you, emanating the garment you are wearing. He cleaves to it, and you – in turn – cleave to him, until one day you learn to love only one being, and see that one being reflected in all things.

Hold to him. His name is I am. He loves his emanation and will cleave to him and they will become one. Then he awakes, wearing that individualized face which is perfect. I will meet you in eternity and I will know you; but for all the identity of person, there will be a discontinuity of form. A form that is glorious beyond the wildest dream of man. The form is all power, all wisdom, and all love. We purposely descended into this world to accomplish that end.

I hope that when you get together on Christmas day to celebrate with your family and friends, that you will remember what Christmas really means, and know that everyone present will have this experience.

They, too, will awaken to being God the Father. This I know, and because there is only one Father, he is one with the world. All the brothers will return, and in returning they will be God the Father; for it was God’s pleasure and will to give himself to all of his sons, so when all return, they are God Himself.

Now let us go into the silence.

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 Is Reality

THE NEW CHRISTOLOGY

Neville Goddard 9-22-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityYou will find this a very practical night, for I feel that the truth of the working of God’s law should be looked upon as intensely as anything in this world. So tonight I want to show you quite clearly how God’s law operates.

We are told in the 14th chapter of John: ‘Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also.’ You may think some man is speaking to a group of men as I am here; but these words were spoken by the human Imagination, who – having come out from the Father, came into the world. Now leaving the world, human imagination is going to the Father’s house. He is returning to discover the source, the cause, of the phenomena of life.

Jesus Christ, your own wonderful human imagination, is the way to everything in the world – but specifically to the Father. Tonight we will take this thought on a practical level so that everyone will know how to bring into this world everything he wants, no matter what it is.

Today billions of dollars are being spent on anti-poverty programs; yet the one consuming thing we need (which will not cost one nickel) is a new Christology, a new way of thinking of Christ as the human imagination! Christ is the cause of everything, but as long as the churches mislead the world – by teaching he is on the outside as one who lived and died 2000 years ago to whom you should turn and pray – you will never find him. Poverty can never be overcome on the outside, no matter how much money is given to the poor. Only when the poor man is told that he is the source of all life and taught how to turn and pray to himself, will he overcome poverty. So the outstanding need is to teach this new Christology, to tell everyone you meet that Christ is the human imagination, for without this knowledge – I don’t care what you do – you will never bring your desires into fulfillment.

In my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions. Unnumbered states of consciousness. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am you may be also. In this statement Imagination is telling you he is the Father for ‘No one comes to the Father but by me.’ Only when you come to the awareness that your human imagination is the phenomenon, the source of all life, will you find the Father.

In the 60th plate of his poem, ‘Jerusalem,’ Blake speaks of the tower of Babel. I am sure you are all familiar with the story of how the tower contained multiple voices so that no one understood the other. Today, even though we and those in Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia live in what is referred to as democratic countries, we do not mean the same kind of democracy. To us democracy is based upon the principle of compromise, but not the compromise of principle as they do. So the world is Babel and Blake makes this statement: ‘Babel mocks saying, there is no God or Son of God. That thou O Human Imagination, O Divine Body, art all a delusion. But I know thee, O Lord.’ (Here Blake calls his own human imagination, ‘Lord’) saying: ‘when thou ariseth upon.’ In the morning when Imagination ariseth and the eye awakens, you see the familiar objects about as life itself arises. The world is animated by your human imagination. If it did not return in the morning you would be called dead, for life is nothing more than an activity of imagining. So Blake continues, saying: ‘when thou ariseth upon my eyes, even in this dungeon, this iron mill.’ You see, Blake saw the physical garment as a dungeon, a mill of iron.

But your Imagination knows all, is all, and is all powerful! If you should forget something, knowing that your own imagination is Jesus Christ, say: ‘Thank you Father that you always hear me.’ Do that and in the matter of moments the thought will return. Recognize your own wonderful human imagination as the only God, the only Lord Christ Jesus, for besides him there is no other. So the outstanding need this day is for a new Christology, a new knowledge of Christ, a completely new thinking of the human imagination. Until this is done unnumbered billions will be appropriated to fight poverty to no avail. You can never give a poor man enough to satisfy him, and the day you stop giving he will cut your throat.

In our little island of Barbados we had a neighbor who had a cow. (Now, when I was young if you wanted milk you either kept a cow or a goat.) His cow had a calf and produced more milk than the neighbor could use, so the maid was sent to offer the excess milk – at no charge – to Mr. Seeon, a neighbor. He was delighted to receive it and was given his quart of milk every day until the cow was once more with calf and was dried up for the oncoming delivery. When Mr. Seeon was told that there would be no milk for about four weeks, he said: ‘If you knew you couldn’t keep me supplied with milk all of the time, you should have never given it to me in the first place. You have conditioned me to a quart of milk a day and now I have none.’

May I tell you: Mr. Seeon is simply representative of the world to whom you give. Try giving someone something on a monthly or yearly basis, then stop it, and you will find yourself his enemy. Knowing what you did in the past, he will hate you because you are not continuing to provide for him. But you can give him a new Christology by telling him that he doesn’t need you. That the source of all the phenomena of life is in him; that source is his own wonderful human imagination who is Jesus Christ.

Instead of teaching the true Christ, the churches tell of a Christ Jesus who lived and died two thousand years ago. They teach that he is still suffering for them even though they, themselves, are suffering. They do it because the priests do not know who Christ is. But if you who know who he is will put him to the test tonight, you will influence the world and bring about a new Christology, a new thinking about the human imagination; for the human imagination is Christ and there never was or never will be another.

In the 14th chapter of John, Imagination is speaking, saying: ‘Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God believe also in me.’ I say the habit of worry discloses the lack of faith in the sovereignty of God. You believe in God? Believe also in imagination! If you worry you don’t believe in your imagination, for worry is your confession of your lack of faith in the sovereignty of God. Now imagination continues, saying: ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions, were it not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.’

Right after the Second World War, I went to Barbados with my wife and daughter after purchasing only a one-way ticket there. Four months later I decided to arrange for my return passage, as I was scheduled to lecture on the first day of May. At that time there were only two ships servicing the dozens of islands, and, although my brother had tremendous power in the islands, he could not do anything toward getting us passage back to the United States. Hundreds of people were waiting on the list and I was informed that I could not get passage until the end of September. When I heard this I said to myself: ‘All right, I’ll get out.’

That afternoon I went to my hotel room, and sitting in an easy chair I allowed it to become a little boat. (You see, in those days there was no deep water harbor and little boats took us to ships which were anchored in the bay a mile or so away.) Assuming my chair was a boat taking me to the harbor, I felt the rhythm of the water, and when we were latched onto the big ship I allowed my brother Victor to carry my little daughter onto the ship. Then I helped my wife and followed her, feeling every step up the gangplank. When I got to the top my mind wandered, so I brought it back to the base of the steps and repeated the action. Each time my mind wandered I brought it back again until I reached the top, turned, and holding the side of the ship I looked back nostalgically at the island of Barbados, for now we were sailing. In a matter of moments the phone rang and the agent told me that because of a cancellation they had just received from America my passage was available, and I could leave the end of April, the date I had just envisioned. On that day my brother carried my daughter up the gangplank, my sister-in-law followed, then my wife, and finally myself. They acted, but the source of their action was my imaginary act!

Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is the source of all phenomena. That by him all things were made and without him was not anything made that was made. If Jesus Christ makes everything, and I know what I did, is he not my wonderful human imagination? He is described in Corinthians as the power of God and the wisdom of God, and isn’t that imagination? I didn’t pray to anyone. I simply sat in a chair and enacted a scene that, if true, would imply I am sailing. As I allowed the scene to take on the tones of reality by giving it all of the sense of vividness of naturalness, the phone rang, and I had confirmation of my trip to New York. So where is the creative power of the universe if not within man?

Paul tells us: ‘He loved you and gave himself for you.’ Loving you, Imagination gave himself to you by becoming you that you may become Imagination, who is Christ. There never was another Christ and never will be another. Put your imagination to the test and see if it is Christ. If it is, do you need anyone to support you? Do you need any anti-poverty campaign? If those on relief could only believe in Christ, what a change they could make in their life! Instead, they go to church and give it a portion of what is given to them through relief. They support emotionalism because they do not know that source of the phenomena of life. Those on relief think their income is coming from Uncle Sam, not knowing he does not exist. No government has any money! The money it has is first taken from you before it can be given to another. In this world the money we earn is taken from us to give to the Mr. Seeons of the world, and if it is stopped, the so-called government will be criticized for stopping the gift. The churches haven’t failed, except in not telling the true story of Christ. Rather than giving to the poor, they should tell the poor who Christ really is!

If I tell you who Christ is and testing, you find him as your human imagination, does it matter what the world thinks? If there is evidence for a thing, does it matter what anyone thinks? If this can be proved in performance, what does it matter what the world thinks? You do not need to ask any minister, rabbi, or priest what he thinks, if you can test your imagination and prove its creative power!

So, in the Father’s house are many states of consciousness. Pick a state, enter and occupy it. Your Father is the good shepherd and your desires are his sheep. When the good shepherd comes, he gathers all of your desires for yourself and others together and brings them into the field. How is this done? In your imagination! A friend’s desire may not be your desire for him, but if it is not in conflict with your ethical code and you are a good shepherd, you will represent your friend to yourself as telling you that he (or she) has it. That way your sheep, having heard your voice, will follow you into the fold.

In the 10th chapter of John we are told that the good shepherd goes first and his sheep follow. Signs follow, they do not precede. Take your desire into the fold by putting yourself into the desired state. Remain there until you feel its reality. Knowing that imagining creates reality, thank your Father and drop it. Now, do nothing on the outside to make it so, only know your desire is yours the moment you do it! Do not expect immediate birth! There are always intervals of time between pregnancy and its fulfillment. One seed may take 21 days, another five months, nine months, a year, or even more. Do not be concerned with the interval of time between the fertilization of the seed and its hatching; only know the seed of desire has been planted in the mind. And if at times you find your sheep have gone astray, bring them back into your fold when you know who the good shepherd is. But if you don’t, you will find many shepherds who will fleece you!

So I say: the greatest need today is not for a different church, but for a new Christology, a new thinking of the human imagination! There was never another Christ and there never will be another, no matter what the world teaches. ‘I go, to prepare a place for you.’ Taking all of your requests, imagination’s power goes and prepares a place for you to receive them. Going to the state of health, imagination prepares a place of health for one, of wealth for another, fame for another. You might not want to be famous, but if fame is their desire go and prepare a place of fame for them. They may not know that fame is simply a sketch in the sands of time. They may think their face can be engraved in granite and it will remain forever, but it is all an illusion. Their name can be forgotten as quickly as the next generation, but they want fame now and you – being the good shepherd – give it to them. Knowing the source of the phenomena of life you will realize nothing really matters. If you know how a thing is made and it is taken from you, you can remake it again. So you see: knowledge is far more important than that which knowledge has made, but man is lost in that which is made and has forgotten the maker.

Everyone should be completely consumed with the desire to know how a thing is made. I’ll tell you how I make it. Knowing what I want, reason may tell me I can’t get it and my senses may deny that I have it; but believing that my own wonderful human imagination is Christ and trusting myself, I assume I have it and drop it right there. I do not concern myself with what means will be employed for me to get it, I simply believe I already have it!

I believe that my own wonderful human imagination is Jesus Christ and all things are possible to him, even the recording of something that I have struggled all day to remember and cannot. Like Blake I turn to my human imagination, my divine body, for I know thee O Lord, when thou ariseth upon my eyes, even in this dungeon. So when I awake in the morning and imagination returns to make me alive, I trust it implicitly. Perhaps I can’t remember something, but would like to, so I say: ‘Thank you Father, you always hear me.’ Then as I walk the earth memory appears out of the nowhere. Perhaps it is a poem, a saying, or an article I have misplaced; but when I turn to Him and in thankfulness request its memory, my Heavenly Father always gives it to me. This I know from experience.

You turn to yourself, and yet you address him as though he were another, because imagination is another until this garment is taken off for the last time. Clothed in this garment of flesh you are limited, but when you take it off for the last time, you and He are one. Night after night Christ withdraws, as it were, and returning, he ariseth upon your weary eyes and you can see. If your human imagination did not return you would have no knowledge of this world. So learn to trust Him implicitly, for He will not fail you. You can attain any goal if you believe that your own wonderful human imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine something, accept it in gratitude and watch it come to pass.

May I tell you: you have always been doing it, but your memory is so short you do not recognize your own harvest. If your memory awoke you would see that everything happens because you at one time imagined it, (mostly in fear) and then dropped it. You planted the seeds of the tares and the wheat, the events and circumstances of your world, but have forgotten the planting. So I tell you: you are as free as you want to be if you will believe in Christ. He is not on the outside but in you, as your own wonderful human imagination!

Now let me repeat a thought I said earlier. The habit of worry confesses ones lack of faith in the sovereignty of God. If you worry, you don’t believe in Christ! He said: ‘Let not your heart be troubled (worried), you believe in God, believe also in me.’ If you really believe this you will not worry, but will believe that He and He alone has ways no one knows of bringing to pass that which you have imagined.

There is no limit placed upon your human imagination save that which you place upon yourself. Your financial, social and intellectual pictures are as limited as you make them. All within you, you and you alone have the ability to enlarge your concept of causality, plant and reap your every desire. Desires are the sheep of your pasture and the shepherd is your own wonderful human imagination. If your desires have gone astray bring them back into the fold where they really belong.

When you go home tonight read the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John. It’s such a glorious chapter. The whole Bible is, really. Just to read every verse so thrills me it becomes alive to me. In this chapter, when they asked him to show them the Father, he said: ‘I have been with you all these years and yet you do not know the Father? When you see me you have seen the Father, how then can you say, ‘Show me the Father?” Then he tells us: ‘I dwell in you and you dwell in me, we are one and I am the Father.’ Man can’t quite see it and you can’t blame him for that. So I still say: the greatest need is for a new thinking of the human imagination. If man sees his own imagination as Christ, then all the so-called problems of the world will dissolve, leaving only harmony. There will be no barriers when one sees his own imagination as Christ.

If tonight you believe your imagination is Christ and you desire to be elsewhere, sleep there in your imagination just as though it were true. Forget the fact that you can’t afford it or do not have the time. ‘I am’ infinity, and all thine are mine and mine are thine. If you really believe in Christ as your own wonderful human imagination, then sleep as the person you want to be. Don’t ask me how it is going to come about, for my ways and means are past finding out!

A man called me three weeks ago, saying: ‘Many years ago in New York City you told me that if I wanted to go to California all I had to do was assume I was there. Well, my wife and I are here now, but I want you to know that I’m not sold on what you teach. I did what you said, but the reason I came here is because the company I worked for opened a factory and transferred me here.’ He didn’t find himself flying through space, but was transferred by his company, so he doesn’t believe that feeling is the secret! Well, you take your pearls and throw them before the swine of the world and they pick your wisdom up and drop it down, but you throw it just the same. I know you are warned not to do it, but I have never been able to discriminate as to who will take it and who will not, so I tell it to all who will listen.

When our late President Hoover addressed the GOP convention in San Francisco, he said: ‘The rise and fall of nations could be traced to the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mine of man.’ Here is a man who rose from the very bottom. He had no money, put himself through college, yet left millions to his family and various charities. Time will prove that Mr. Hoover was a truly great man. He didn’t cause the depression but tells us that it can be traced to the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of man. He sent me an autographed copy of his address and asked for a copy of my book, Awakened Imagination, which I am quite sure he had in his library at his death. His was a truly great mind, one that saw how things worked.

Men that you and I admire, if they were honest, would admit to implanting in our mind that which would belittle us and ennoble them. Many know what they are doing but they don’t know Christ. If they did, they would know they do not have to belittle us to ennoble themselves. If you want to rise, you don’t have to put another down in order to feel you have risen. Your reality is I AM. Raise your consciousness and you raise yourself, but you haven’t risen when you feel the need to push another down by claiming ‘I AM better than.’

Tonight take this law and apply it. I promise you it will not fail. When you go to bed dwell in your own wonderful human imagination and say: ‘Thank you, Father’ as though you were addressing another. You know you are thanking your human imagination, but while assuming you have what you want, thank your Father. You came out from the Father and came into the world. Now you are leaving the world and going to the Father. Eventually you will reach him, and when you do he is yourself. There is no other Father. There is no other God!

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE ONLY CHRISTIANITY

Neville Goddard 11-10-1959

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityHere we believe firmly that Imagining is God; that the Supreme Power of the Universe is one with human Imaging. So, when you read the Bible – a fabulous, inspired book – and you come to the word “God” you can also use the word “Imagining” and you will get a clearer understanding of it.

Romans 4:20 – “No distrust made him (Abraham) waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” When you read it you might think of some being external to your own Imagination. Could you now dream of being the man or woman you want to be? That dream is a promise. We are told he was not swerved by anything in the world and gave all the glory to God, or Imagining; fully convinced that God could do what he had promised.

If you believe what the churches teach you may think that you are not entitled to the good that you desire (read Romans 1:20) Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the Immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles . . . “and then they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

I tell you that he is speaking of this immortal being in everything that was made. Even the suit you are wearing. Someone has to first imagine it. The thing first imagined is the invisible image and then it becomes externalized as a hat or a suit or a house. Today a friend called me concerning a personal problem. She said, “You said your father has objective vision. He could see the images of his imagining as real as the forms of Nature.” I knew this is true. The whole vast world that he built for his ten children, he built out of his wonderful imagination. He would sit alone and conjure before him men and women and see situations as he wanted to see them. And then he would arrest that state just before sleep and he controlled it completely. And when he later returned to his offices and these things came to pass, he was not surprised. Others set the deals in motion that he had already seen in his mind’s eye.

This lady called to tell me about her sister’s husband. Her father had opposed the marriage and had said that this man would never be any good, and he had set forth in detail just what he would do. He said, “He will father your child but he will not support it. He will live in a bar and he will always be worthless.” This man has fulfilled that prophesy in every detail. Her father was a powerful figure in the theater and disliked his son-in-law and prophesied his future and it has come true in detail. I told this lady a story about a prophesy of my father’s years ago.

In 1919 at the turn of the year, I can see my father at the head of the table and all of us children sitting there and he said to my mother, “There will be a war in 20 years, Wilsey. It will be in the fall. Germany will again be at war with England. Japan will be in it, and Russia and Italy. America will be our great ally.” My mother looked around the table at her sons and said, “My boys will be of the age to go to that war. What are you talking about? He said, “It will be true and already all the ships are discussing it.” He was a ship’s chandler and talked with many people. My father did not know that this power he had of imagining as God.

He could take a man or woman or a community and see them so vividly in imagining in his own living room that they became objective to him, and afterwards find them coming to his office to propose what he had inwardly set in motion. But he did not identify that power that creates his world with this supreme power that he called God. “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, his eternal power, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” My father saw everything as made. He discussed a program with a man and afterward the man comes to him and proposes the deal that my father had already closed in his Imagination. But he did not identify it with God. “They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man . . . and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

Everyone here – your invisible presence is God, but if you imagine money into being and you make a million, suddenly you worship the million, not the power that made it possible. You enter a certain social circle and then you forget that you brought it into being by imagining and now you think this group is what is all-important. So man forgets and exchanges the glory of the immortal God for the image of a mortal man or something that vanishes. For everything visible will vanish; but you will not vanish. Even this great land will one day be washed by the sea but you will not be. That which brought things into being cannot cease to be. So we are warned.

I told this lady about my father and she said. “Your father did that in 1919, but I will go back to 1919, and my father said, “I do not want to buy a paper because I can see the headlines and they say WAR!” He was so determined and convinced that he would not buy one for weeks, and when he did finally buy it, the headline said, WAR! Then the lady asked if her father’s attitude towards the sister’s husband had determined what happened, and whether she should continue helping her sister who was always in need. Yes, it determined what happened. But now it could be changed radically. Give to the sister if she needs help. But then I told her that this power is all imagining and it is one tissue with our own wonderful Imagination. There is only ONE. We do not differ in nature or substance from IT but only in degree of intensity. If we could imagine anything in the world and not swerve and not turn and give all glory to this power called God, nothing could keep it from coming into being.

God speaks to man through the language of dreams, but I do not have to go to sleep to dream. I can imagine something for you and desire it with all my heart. If I imagine something for another, that is God speaking to me. I do not have to see a face. There is such difference between what the churches call God and what the mystic knows is God. Blake speaks of Christianity in the last chapter of his great work “Jerusalem.” He breaks it into four chapters, like the four rivers, etc., and he tells us:

“I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball:
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.”

And then he defines Christianity. Articles of Faith? He completely discounts them. He says, “I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty of both 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.”

No other Christianity than the right to exercise the divine arts of Imagination. So I say to you, “I would like so and so. I am too close to the picture, so would you now exercise the divine art and hear so and so for me?” And you say to me, “Will you hear something for me? Imagine you have told me that what you want is now so, and give all the glory to the power that creates in this world.” I have personally done this unnumbered times. It is the only Christianity in the world. It has nothing to do with any church. The only Christianity is the liberty to exercise the divine arts of Imagination. Can I do it? Who is doing it? God is doing it! I do not have to make any form. The supreme power of the universe is one with human Imagination.

If we go back to the Old Testament and take the word “maker,” it means Imagination. “Your maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name,” The word “Potter” means Imagination. “I went down to the potter’s house and he was working at his wheel, and the vessel in his hand was spoiled, but he worked it into another vessel such as seemed good to him.” If I would only take that and use the word “Imagination,” but the translator could not bring himself to use it.

What is in my mental hand that I am making? If it is not good and I do not revise it, then I am turning my wheel and recreating that same picture, but if I am a wise potter I will change it and hear you tell me that you now have what you desire. I will make a new vessel. Who is doing it? The potter – and that is Imagination. All day long I think the same thing over and over. I am working at the wheel of recurrence. Everyone here can be the man or woman they want to be. I know it from my own family. Have you ever noticed how if you go into a business and take all the facts and estimate just how things will come out, how often they come about as you said. Who did it? You are not a prophet, but you are imagining, and the state then comes true. Not a thing is brought into being by any power outside itself. It is sustained by the activity of the one who brought it into being. So, if I brought in poverty it can only remain as long as I am conscious of being poor. The moment I cease to imagine that I am poor then things begin to change.

There was a play on Broadway called, “The Millionairess,” and a critic wrote sarcastically that Kathryn Hepburn was trying to impress us with the fact that all a pauper needs to become rich is the arrogance of wealth. He was wiser than he knew! The arrogance of wealth is all he needs to stop being a pauper. You walk in a state and it is an activity of mind and to the degree you can sustain it, to that degree you will create it. The whole world is nothing but God and God is Imagining and man is Imagination and “We dwell in him and he in us, and we are one.”

Now you try it. You take something tonight. If you are too close to your own picture, do it for someone else and see that one as he would like to be seen by himself and then remain faithful to it. He may never know you did it for him, but that doesn’t matter. When the thing happens so naturally that he will never think that what you did was responsible. He has exchanged the glory of God for an image resembling mortal man. He will say he met a certain person and they influenced someone else, or recommended him, and that brought it all to pass. These things get the credit and he forgets immortal God.

I have told you the story before of a friend who came to me because he desperately needed a larger income, etc., to care for the educational needs of his family. His present bank position held no hope of advancement. I taught him what to do and while I was absent in Barbados he did it and when I returned, he told me he had secured this fabulous position with the Rockefeller Foundation, where he still is. But as time went on, he is so literal minded, that he began to forget how it came about and now he gives full credit to the man who spoke to him in church and finally asked him to come into the Foundation. This man is now a powerful person in my friend’s mind and is the cause of his good fortune. He has transferred the glory that belongs to God to the image of a man.

No matter what you are doing, can you see clearly what you want to do and carry on a conversation inwardly with a friend which will imply that which you desire is now a fact? Then do it. For on higher levels of Imagining inner activity is revealed by inner conversation. If man would listen to what he is inwardly saying, he would know what he is setting in motion. As man walks the street if he would pause and say “what am I saying now?” he would find that 99% are justifying failure. But we are told, “You are without excuse for you have seen him and his work, yet you deny it.” When you hear the word God or Jesus Christ you think of some being external to your own imagining, but there is none for Imagining is God. That is what lights every being in the world, and as you imagine, so you will become.

So no matter what your present limitations are, you can start now to dream the most noble dream, and you can walk through this door tonight as though it is true knowing that your Imagining is God. There is no fiction. You can write your own novel and realize it. Even someone in a dungeon may be imagining and who knows what he may call forth. If I were in a dungeon I would move the world if necessary to get out. A body may be physically confined, but you cannot confine God. Man only sees the proximate cause; the real cause of something you cannot see; for the invisible power is what is creating. Who knows who may convulse the world. It may even be a woman “treading” in the wine press.

Everyone here, you can be what you want to be, no matter what your dream is, if you are willing to let God do it, God being your own Imagining. You walk completely suspended above appearances and you will become what you desire. This is the only Christianity I know – the freedom to exercise this divine art of Imagining. Now you try it. If you are here for the first time I challenge you to disprove it. Everyone has the same power. Because one has a million does not make him any more a creator than you are. Be careful what you are imagining for what you are Imagining you will create, though it may convulse the world. I hope you have the Revised Version of the Bible for it is from what I have quoted tonight. It is more accurate in meaning if not as orally beautiful as the King James Version.

You will find in Romans that recreation for it all, for after Acts Paul lays the foundation and he states, “I am a child of Abraham and one of the tribe of Benjamin. But he sees it now not as the code but the spirit, and he sees circumcision no longer as only a physical act. He realizes that he is now a true Christian. He did not go to any church. He sees now the spirit of the law and not the letter. You cannot be born a Christian! It is a way of life that you adopt. You could be born in the Vatican with the Pope as your father and you would not be a Christian. You can only be a Christian when you see the reality and adopt it as a way of life. The law was given to man but they break through from the letter of the law and find the spirit of it and live by it, and that is Christianity. There are many religions based on many ‘isms” but that is not Christianity. It is the liberty of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination.

This lady can change the picture for her sister’s husband. She can imagine that he is now generous, because now he has so much that he wants to give to her as she gave to him, and she can break the spell cast on him. I know my mother when she darned our socks dreamed for each of us of a future of which she would be proud. Everyone of us is living a noble life and I know she dreamed it for all of us. She never spared her shoe, wham! If you did something wrong. She left the world with her dream fixed in her mind and it came true. We can dream for ourselves or for our neighbors and that dream is the voice of God, for God speaks to man through the medium of a dream.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE PERFECT IMAGE

Neville Goddard 04-11-1969

neville goddard imagination creates reality“He is our peace, who will make us both one by breaking down the wall of hostility, that he may create in himself one new man in place of the two, so bringing peace.” This being of peace is a person, not a doctrine or philosophy. He is a person who breaks down the wall of hostility between you who are seated here and your true identity, who is a son of God, one with his Father.

Now, a lady wrote, saying: “I saw myself in vision as radiantly perfect, yet I knew that we were two. Remembering the words ‘Be ye perfect,’ I knew that at one time I was not, but now my present reflection is one of perfection. Then I awoke, got out of bed and stumbled into the door, then lost my temper and yelled at my children for pouring soap on my nice clean carpet. So it must have happened in some other dimension of my being, for I certainly am not perfect here.” She is right. While we wear these garments of flesh and blood, we lose our temper; we run into doors and do all the things people do here. Did not the perfect one, who was the pattern man, call Herod “that fox,” and the scribes and Pharisees “Whited sepulchers, outwardly beautiful and inwardly full of hypocrisy and iniquity”? While you are here, encased in your body of flesh and blood, certainly you will lose your temper. Maybe not as you did before you were perfect, but you will to some degree as long as you remain here.

Now, how does he who is our peace, break down the wall of perdition and make the two of us one? By fulfilling his primal wish, which was: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” God fell asleep to his true awareness and began a good work in you, which he will bring to completion on the day of Jesus Christ – who is described as being the perfect image of God, one who reflects and radiates God’s glory. When his good work is finished, in you, then you – the image – will be superimposed upon him, and you will know yourself to be the Father. There is only God in the world. Having taken upon himself the limitation of man (as you are) he is working you into his image from within. And when you – the made, are as perfect as he – the Maker, you rise as one man, enhanced by reason of the experience of making an image which radiates and reflects your glory. So her vision was perfect, all based upon scripture. Here is another beautiful one.

This lady said, “I found myself in a forest, sitting on the ground leaning against a tree, when I heard a voice calling, ‘Father, Father,’ but I did not answer, because I did not want to be discovered. Suddenly you appeared, dressed as a shepherd boy, and said to me: ‘Why did you not answer me? I have been searching for you.’ And I replied: ‘You are always searching and finding me, in spite of the fact that the Good Book says I can rest on the Sabbath day.’ Then you looked at me and smiled the smile of an indulgent father; yet strangely enough, I – very female – felt I was the father.” In the 4th chapter of Galatians it is said: “When the time had fully come, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: ‘Abba! Father!’ But the Father, sound asleep in Man, doesn’t want to be found, although the Son is always calling: “Rouse thyself, why sleepest thou, O Lord! Awake!”

And when one who is called the Son of God awakens to Fatherhood, he is sent into the world to awaken his brothers, but finds they still want to postpone the day of waking, still wanting to hold onto these little garments of flesh and blood. But I will always find you and will not let you rest, for “Truly, truly I say unto you, the dead will hear the voice of the son of God and those who hear it will live.” This lady heard the voice and recognized it, so she is not far from waking. Sent as a shepherd boy, the son of God does the Father’s will by calling the Father (in Man) to awaken and rise from the dead. God entered this world for the sole purpose of making you perfect as he is perfect. When his work is finished, he will superimpose himself upon that image and they will be perfectly one.

This lady knew she was perfect. She recalled the words: “Be ye perfect.” The completed sentence is: “as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Yes, be ye perfect for then you become one with your Maker; awake from this dream of life and resurrect from this world of death into a world of eternal life. Without the resurrection you would know infinite circuitry, repeating the same states over and over again. But, after moving around the circle unnumbered times, the perfect image is formed, removing you from the circle to enter a spiral and move up as the person who created it all. You can join every doctrine, sign every contract between people and nations; yet you will not know perfection until He (in you) finds you perfect and the two of you become one. So, he who is your peace will make you one with him by breaking down the dividing wall of hostility.

Then, without telling others you walk knowing who you really are. If you tell the world, they will only laugh at you because – while in this world, like my friend who had the vision – you will run into a door and lose your temper. Everyone is here for a definite purpose, which is revealed through revelations, thereby giving purpose to the whole of life. Without purpose, what does the world have to offer? If you owned everything that you could buy with money, if you had all the money necessary to live comfortably – and your soul is called, what would it matter? The world may call you dead, cremate your body and scatter your ashes, but you are immortal and cannot die.

Rather than being dead, you are in a world just like this one, mentally walking the same tracks over again and again. Oh, maybe you will not experience the same situations, but your world will be just as solidly real. You will return to a lovely twenty-year-old form, to marry, and age, and lose your temper as you bump into a door – until your image is so perfect it is superimposed upon its Maker. Then up you go to know yourself to be the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all. That is the great living body of the Risen Lord. It seems incredible, but it is true. You are destined to know yourself to be the creator of the world. You are destined to share in the unity of that one body, that one Spirit, that one Lord, that one God and Father of all. I know, for I have experienced it. I was sent back to tell my experiences in the hope that those who are on the verge of moving into the same body, as the same Spirit, may hear my words and be encouraged by them.

Paul makes the statement: “I stand before you on trial for the hope in that promise that God made to our fathers. O King Agrippa, why should it seem incredible to any of you that God raised the dead? Is this not the promise to our fathers?” Search the scriptures and you will find that the promise was made in the 46th chapter of Genesis. “The Lord spoke to Israel in visions of the night saying, ‘Jacob, Jacob.'” (As you know, Jacob’s name was changed to Israel which means, a man who rules as God because he knows he is God.) Jacob answers: “Here I am” and the Lord said: “I am God, the God of your father. Fear not to go down into Egypt, for there I will make of you a great nation. I will go down with you into Egypt and I will also bring you out again.” Egypt is not a little place in North Africa; this world of death is Egypt, where everything appears, waxes, wanes, and vanishes. I have gone down into Egypt with you and I will keep my promise and bring you up.

When this world was coming to its end, Paul stood in chains before the prince whose kingdom was fading; but he could not let go of it, and said: “Why do you think it incredible that God raises the dead?” and the king could not answer. I tell you: God literally assumed the weaknesses and limitations of the flesh, in order to know you and to make you into his image. And when that image is perfect as He is perfect, you are no longer two, but one. Then you awake from the dream of life and ascend into your true being, called the kingdom of heaven. Our commonwealth is in heaven and we are sojourners in this strange land where we are enslaved. But have faith and set your hope fully upon that moment in time when the image is perfect. Then it will be unveiled within you to reveal you as the being who made it.

Though you are the made, you are the Maker; for the Maker breaks down the wall of hostility between you, making you and He one. Then you return to your heavenly state as the one who came down, but greatly enhanced because of your journey into Egypt. Having purposely imposed this limitation upon myself, I felt as though I were speaking to another, making requests of him and thanking him for their fulfillment. Now I have no sense of another. I feel only as the one who formed me into his likeness; for when I awoke He and I were not two any more, but one. This lady saw me clothed as a shepherd boy. She saw correctly; for although the Father and the son are one, it is the Spirit of his son who is sent into the heart, crying: “Father, Father.” She heard the cry and knew herself to be not only Man, but a father; yet in this world she is very much a lady. She heard my call, yet not wanting to be disturbed she did not respond; but may I tell you, the son of God will never let the Father rest. He is forever calling: “Awake you sleeper! Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” But the Father in you cannot awaken until he has completed his work.

He began it in you and will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. That day, the image of God himself is formed in you, and you awake to express that image by radiating and reflecting God’s glory. Night after night I am crying and crying to the Father in all; and those who hear my voice will begin to awaken from the dream of life and start their journey back to the being they were before that the world was, to find themselves to be more glorious, more wonderful, than they were when they descended. Tonight some friends are here who haven’t heard me speak in a number of years. When they were last with me I was speaking only of the law, as the promise had not fulfilled itself in me. So for their sake let me say: the promise is the law on a higher level, and the law is very simple.

There are infinite number of states. The state of health, the state of sickness, the state of wealth, the state of poverty, the state of being known, the state of being unknown – all are only states and everyone is always in a state. We all have one state in which we are very comfortable, so we return to it moment after moment. That state constitutes our dwelling place. If it is not a pleasant state, we can always get out of it. How this is done is the secret I will now share with you. All states are mental. You cannot remove yourself from your present state by pulling strings on the outside. You must mentally adjust your thoughts to proceed from the desired state, all within yourself. You fell into your present state either deliberately or unwittingly; and because you are its life, the state became alive and grew like a tree, bearing its fruit which you do not like. Its fruit may be that of poverty, or distress, heartache, or pain. There are all kinds of unlovely fruit. But you can detach yourself from your unlovely harvest by making an adjustment in your human imagination.

Ask yourself what you would like to harvest. When you know what it is, ask yourself how you would feel if your desire was ready to harvest right now. When you know the feeling, try to catch it. In my own case I find it easier to catch the feeling by imagining I am with people I know well and they are seeing me as they would if my desire were now a fact. And when the feeling of reality possesses me, I fall asleep in that assumption. At that moment I have entered a state. Now, I must make that state as natural as I have made my present state. I must consciously return to my new state constantly. I must feel its naturalness, like my own bed at night. At first the new state seems unnatural, like wearing a new suit or hat. Although no one knows your suit is new, you are so conscious of it you think everyone is looking at you. You are aware of its fit and its feeling until it becomes comfortable.

So it is with your new state. At first you are conscious of its strangeness; but with regular wearing, the new state becomes comfortable, and its naturalness causes you to constantly return to it, thereby making it real. Now most of us, knowing what we want, construct it in our minds eye, but never occupy it. We never move into the state and remain there. I call this perpetual construction, deferred occupancy. I could dream of owning a lovely home and hope to go there one day; but if I do not occupy it now, in my imagination, I postpone it to another day. I may wish my friend had a better job. I may have imagined him having it; but if I don’t occupy that state by believing he is already there, I have merely constructed the state for him but not occupied it.

All day long I can wish he or she were different; but if I don’t go into the state and view him from it, I don’t occupy the state, so he remains in the unlovely state relative to me. This is the world in which we live. You can’t conceive of a thing that is not part of a state, but the life of any state is in the individual who occupies it.

Life cannot be given to a state from without, because God’s name is “I am.” It is not “You are” or “They are.” God’s eternal name is I Am! That is the life of the world. If you would make a state alive, you must be in it. If you are in a lovely, gentle, kind state, you are seeing another as lovely, living graciously, and enjoying life to the utmost. Now, to make that state natural, you must see everyone in your world as lovely, kind, and gentle. Others may not see them in that light, but it doesn’t really matter what they think. I am quite sure if I took a survey of what people think of me, no two would agree. Some would say I am a deceiver, while others I am the nearest thing to God. I would find a range stretching from the devil to God, all based upon the state in which the person is in when called upon to define me. You can be what you want to be if you know and apply this principle, but you are the operant power. It does not operate itself.

You may know the law from A to Z, but knowing is not enough. Knowledge must be acted upon. “I am” is the operant power in you. Put your awareness in the center of your desire. Persist, and your desire will be objectified. Learn to use the law, because there is a long interval between the law and the promise. Those who heard me prior to 1959 are unfamiliar with my experiences since that time, and my words may seem strange to you. I cannot deny the law, for I came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.

This I have done. I have told you that in the resurrection, Man is above the organization of sex, and that Man can change his sex at will. This week I received a letter telling of a vision which testifies to the truth of this statement. This gentleman is married to a lovely girl and is every bit a man, yet this is his experience. He said, “I found myself lying on a bed feeling as though I am a woman. Desiring a man of oriental descent and olive skin, I assumed I had found him. Instantly he appeared and, although no act was performed, I felt the thrill of imagining and instant fulfillment of my imaginal act. Then I awoke.” This man’s vision verifies what I have been telling you: that in the resurrection Man changes his sexual garments at will, and being above the organization of sex, he does not need the divine image of male/female to create. I think his vision is marvelous.

When he returned to this world, he was surprised at the experience; but I say to all: you are destined to know you are every being in the world, bar none! Like the lady who is so feminine, responding when a shepherd boy called her “father”. Although she would not answer my call, she knew I would always find her. I always will, for I – the Word of God – was sent as the son of God, and I shall not return to my father void. I must bring back that purpose for which he sent me.

I stirred the feeling of the fatherhood of God in her, and I will take back with me those that my father gave me. But while you are in this world of Caesar, it is important that you master the law. Think of everyone as representing a state. There is no such thing as a good man or a bad man, only good or bad states as you conceive them to be; but the occupant of every state is God. Blake said in his “Vision Of The Last Judgment”: “On this it will be seen that I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to everyone of them states of the sleep which the soul may fail into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it leaves Paradise following the serpent.” Identify yourself with a state and you are pronounced by others to be either good or evil; but you are only in a state.

Tonight if you are unemployed, or find it difficult to get a promotion in your present employment, remember: the solution to your present state is still a state! I hope I have made it clear how to move into states. It is done through the act of assumption with feeling and persistence. Assume health. Stand in its center and clothe yourself with its feeling. Persist in claiming a healthy body and a healthy mind, and your assumption will harden into fact as you move into and objectify the state of health. 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 Is Reality

THE SECRET OF CAUSATION

Neville Goddard 12-05-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality“The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which every man should aspire; for supreme power, supreme wisdom, and supreme delight, lie in the solution of this great mystery.” Imagination is the Jesus Christ of scripture, and when you solve the great mystery of imagining, you will have found the cause of the phenomena of life. Imagination is called “Jehovah” in the Old Testament and “Jesus” in the New, but they are one and the same being. Divine Imagination, containing all, reproduces itself in the human imagination; therefore, all things exist in the human imagination. When you solve the problem of imagining, you will have found Jesus Christ, the secret of causation.

Let me share with you two experiences which came to me this past week. The first lady said: “Returning from a wonderful cruise recently, I checked my baggage at La Guardia Airport, bound for Chicago, where I expected to spend a few days with friends. Arriving in Chicago, I discovered that the bag which contained most of my clothes and all of the presents I had bought for my friends and relatives – as well as a locket I had had made from the engagement and wedding band my late husband had given me – was missing. I immediately reported the loss to the airline, but when I arrived in California there was still no trace of it.

“A week later I received a letter saying that the bag could not be located, and my first reaction was to curse the airline for their negligence; but then I remembered that imagining creates reality. I tried to reconstruct the letter, but when I couldn’t feel its words were true, I began to assume that the bag had arrived at the house. I lifted it up on the bed, opened it, put my clothes away, as well as the gifts which were there. I did this every night and during the day, when I would notice my thoughts going astray.

“When the grandchildren would ask about their presents, I told them that they were on their way, as I never admitted to anyone that the bag was lost. How could I, if I believe what I had imagined? Six weeks later I received a letter from the airline saying: `If you do not pick up your bag within five days, you will be charged storage.’ I picked up the bag to find everything there, and put them all away, just as I had imagined doing.” Then the lady added this thought: “Love’s labor is never lost. Everything in that bag was loved, and I knew that if this principle was true, it would prove itself in the testing – and it did.”

I can’t thank her enough for sharing this experience with me, that I, in turn, may share it with you. Everything is created by the human imagination. There is no other God. You can use your imagination wisely and create a heaven here on earth, or use it foolishly and create the world’s havoc; but there is only one power, called the Lord God Jehovah in the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ in the New.

This lady’s first impulse was to curse the person who stupidly lost the bag. Then, remembering what she had heard, she tried to revise the letter. When that didn’t seem natural, she asked herself what she would do if the bag was now in her possession. Assuming it was there, she did everything she would do if it was a physical fact – and six weeks later it was.

That is what I mean by imagining creating reality, for an assumption is faith; and without faith it is impossible to please your own wonderful human imagination. Divine Imagination, containing all, reproduces itself in human imagination; therefore, the human imagination contains all. The world is the human imagination pushed out. Not knowing this, man cheats himself, murders himself, declares war against himself, and does all sorts of evil against himself; but do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Leave it alone, for it is only the misuse of the power exercised by sleeping mankind.

Now, another lady shared this experience with me: She found herself in a neighbor’s kitchen, filled with men and women dressed as Mennonites. (You all know what the Mennonite look like. Originating in Zurich, Switzerland in the year 1525, they moved into Germany, France, Belgium, and Holland, to finally arrive in this country in the 17th century. Now numbering around 150,000 to 200,000, they continue to dress and live in the same fashion they did when they arrived here 300 years ago. Here is a fixed belief which has perpetuated itself year after year.)

The neighbor’s second husband had mistreated her, so the Mennonites killed him. Although she tried to tell them that it was wrong to take the life of another, as far as they were concerned it was the right thing to do. He had joined their society and knew their laws, which stated that if a man mistreated a woman, he was to be killed. No matter what argument she used, she could not persuade them that what they had done was wrong.

In the 16th chapter of the Book of Proverbs you will read: “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but God weighs the heart. God has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” Believing in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, they felt no remorse or guilt for their actions, for in their eyes it was perfect.

Suddenly a limousine appeared and men dressed in black and carrying machine guns entered the house. As she watched, the leader, pointing his gun at the lady, ordered the others to search the house. Then the lady awoke, not to find herself on her bed, but standing in the room of her dream. Suddenly realizing that she was awake in her dream and the action was taking place within her, she stopped the activity, which allowed her to see anyone as alive and independent of her perception, and they all froze.

(As Blake said, “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your human imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”)

Turning to the leader she said: “You don’t want to kill her, you love her and she loves you.” Then turning to the woman she said, “You love him and he loves you.” Allowing them to obey her will, she stood back and watched, as the man put his gun down and – with outstretched arms – moved to embrace the woman. Turning to go into the kitchen and release the animation there, her alarm caused her to awaken to this level of her dream.

This world is just as much a dream as that one, but man is sound asleep and does not know that he is dreaming. No one will sentence a man for dreaming he killed another; rather they will try to analyze it for him, and most of our so-called experts on dreams are past masters of misinterpretation. They do not realize the great mystery surrounding us. I tell you: the whole vast world is the individual dreamer pushed out, and the conflict is within himself, and not on the outside.

This lady’s drama began as something taking place on the outside, and seemingly independent of her perception of it. Then she awoke to an activity within her, which was animating and making alive all that she perceived. Arresting it, everyone became frozen, like statues. She changed their intentions, then watched as they were reanimated once more – but now bewildered, because of the radical change in them which took place in her.

Scripture calls this repentance, or metanoia, which means “a radical change of mind.” When ideas change, so do your intentions and attitude towards life. The story is told, that at his trial, the Risen Christ said to the symbol of the authority of this world: “You have no power over me, were it not given you from above.” This world is a drama which has been set in motion based upon your attitude from above. Functioning from above, this lady is tasting of the power of the age to come.

In the 10th chapter of Luke, the story is told of seventy disciples, who – having been sent out into the world – returned thrilled beyond measure, and said: “Lord, even the demons were subject to us in your name.” Then he said: “I saw Satan fall from heaven. Nevertheless, rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you, but that your names are written in heaven.” I say to her, rejoice not that you have tasted of this power, but rejoice because your name is written in heaven. This is infinitely greater than demonstrating your power in this world.

Now, Luke does not speak of seventy individuals which were sent out, but the numerical value of the Hebrew letter ayin, whose symbolic value is the eye. This is not the outside eye, but the incurrent eye, which sees inward into the world of thought. You have the incurrent eye, nevertheless rejoice – not because the spirit was subject unto you, but because your name is written in heaven. One day when you are called into that assemblage, you will see that there is such a record, and your name is written in heaven.

This may seem stupid to the intelligent mind. That is because they are sound asleep. This Manson boy, now on trial for the murders recently committed by his group, fell into a power of which he is totally unaware. Many who became his slaves were simple people, some cultured. One had attended college for three years.

His power, exercised without love, resulted in a horrible experience; but she exercised her power in love, saying: “You don’t want to kill her. You love her and she loves you.” She released the man from his violent state by the power of love. This world is every bit as much a dream as that world, and you, its dreamer, are God learning to exercise your powerful imagination, in love.

You can take this message on either level. Use it as my friend did, when she would not accept the fact that her luggage was missing, or test your power from above. Scripture claims that: Whatever you desire, if you will believe you already have it, you will.

Refusing to believe her luggage was missing, my friend fulfilled her desire by placing it on the bed, removing its contents, and putting them away. This she did every night for five weeks, and then one day she received a notice saying that if she did not pick up her luggage within five days she would be charged storage!

I can’t thank her enough for sharing this experience with me, that I may share it with you to encourage you to control your human imagination; for if you would steer a true course toward a certain goal in life, you must ever be aware of the end that you are shaping by your imaginal activity, and not allow doubt to enter for one moment. When you know what you want, you must think from your belief in its possession, morning, noon, and night. If you do, no power can stop its appearance, because you are the dreamer of your dream, pushing yourself out, shaping your world by your imaginal activities.

Your own wonderful human imagination is the Jehovah and Jesus of scripture. The words mean: “Jehovah is salvation, or Jehovah saves.” In the 3rd chapter of Exodus, Jehovah revealed his name as I am. You are not John or Mary, but simply I am. In the 4th chapter of the Book of Genesis we are told that when Abel (the 2nd son) was killed, Eve bore Seth, a son to take Abel’s place. Seth then had a son called Enosh, “And from that day on, men began to call upon the name of God.” (Remember, in the lady’s dream the second husband was killed.)

Now, the words “call upon” literally mean “call with.” It is nonsense to say: “In the name of Jesus; in the name of God; or in the name of Jehovah.” If you say: “In the name of Jesus Christ,” you do not feel anything. But when you call with the name, you say: I am unpacking the suitcase. I am hanging the clothes in the closet. I am putting the presents away. I am arresting the activity within and silencing those who stand before me. I am saying: “You love her and she loves you.'” That’s calling with the name of God. And from that moment on, men began to call with the name of God.

If you really believe me, you will prove my words in the testing. The two ladies have proved it and shared their experiences with me. I can’t tell you my thrill when I know that you have heard me to the point of applying my words. One who is the incurrent eyewitness took it into the depth and saw into eternity. The other knows the truth, and believes it on this level of her being. From this level she brought her luggage back with all of its contents in place, while the other went into a deeper level of her being to discover that there was nothing on the outside but herself.

Mennonites are only expressions of fixations. They haven’t changed their outer dress in 300 years. Satisfying their conscience, they will loan you a dollar and not accept any interest on the loan; but they can feel justified in buying land and holding it until the price goes up. You see, man has a peculiar, innate something that justifies everything he does, thereby making him pure in his own eyes.

But I say to you: your imagination manifests itself in the imaginations of men. The world is playing its part, because you are imagining every moment in time. Who knows who is treading in the winepress tonight, causing the subtle change in the minds of men. Perhaps he feels wrongfully accused, and is now sitting in jail thinking of getting even with society. That’s treading in the winepress. When he can lift his thoughts to the point of vision, the act is committed, and it will manifest itself in the world of man,

Vision is simply awakening in the dream. Asleep, you seem to be the victim of your dreams; but awake, as you are here, you can become discriminating. She awoke in her dream, making it vision. Realizing that it started as a dream – therefore, it must still be a dream – she knew the people were only herself made visible, so she could change them. Placing the thought of love in the mind of the man, he became aware of his radical change of thinking, yet was totally unaware of who produced it.

Who knows who is producing the changes in the minds of men today, producing war or peace. It could be some woman treading in the winepress; or – as Yeats said – it could be in the mind of some shepherd boy, lighting up his eyes for a moment before he ran upon his way. Dreaming of heroism, of noble battles where he was the hero, that little boy can cause the blood to flow. If you know who you are and how imagination operates, you will learn to control your imaginal activities. If you do not, they will be controlled for you by another, and you will become their victim.

Any time you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another you have done the right thing. But if it is not done in love there is a question mark, for God is love. This knowledge is not the result of some philosophic reasoning, but of self-revelation. God unveiled himself within me and now I know that God is Infinite love. Yes, he is Infinite Power and Wisdom as well, but power without love can raise horror.

I say to everyone, believe me. The Jesus of scripture and the Jehovah of scripture are your own wonderful human imagination. There is no other God, and God is love. One day you will know this truth, but in the meanwhile believe me as the lady did. When her natural human impulse was to curse, she blessed by imagining her luggage on her bed. Then she performed in her imagination what she would do in the flesh if her desire was now outpictured on her screen of space. This world is a play, peopled by those in costumes. You are its author, writing your play. You can change it (as my friend did) and prove to yourself that you can take a fixed idea (symbolized as a Mennonite) and change it.

Believe me, imagining does create reality. Take me seriously. You will never know Jesus until you know the secret of imagining, for your imagination is he. If you really believe in God, believe in your own imagination, for it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. The power and wisdom of the lady’s imaginal act influenced the entire outer world and produced that so-called “lost” bag and returned it.

I tell you, there is only one power in the universe. We call it by the name of God or Jesus. But if you think of Jesus as someone on the outside, who lived 2,000 years ago, you will never know him. Nor will you ever know God, if you think of him as some impersonal force. God is a person because you are a person. He became you, as he became us all, that we may become as He is.

Take my message to heart and apply it from now on. You can be the man you would like to be. Don’t start dreaming about it. Awake and think from it. Do not concern yourself about trying to meet the so-called “right” people. They are simply reflections of the activity you have placed within you. Change your thoughts and you will change the behavior of those who surround you for they are nothing more than yourself made visible.

The day will come when you will awake from this dream, and you will see what my friend saw in another aspect of the dream – that the world is dead, and only the reflection of an activity of the human imagination. Then you will depart, leaving the world as it is for others to play upon, while you return to the being you really are – the Lord God Himself, the creator of the dream.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE SHAPING OF THE UNBEGOTTEN

Neville Goddard   05-03-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told in Paul’s letters to the Ephesians (5:1): “Be imitators of God as dear children.” So, we must find out what God did. We are told: “He called a thing not seen as though it were and the unseen became seen.” (Romans 4:17) The one who had the vision (and I turn to one, that is Blake) and Blake said: “Many suppose that before the Creation, all was solitude and chaos.

This is the most pernicious idea that can enter the mind, as it takes away all sublimity from the Bible and limits all existence to creation and to chaos.” But listen to the next statement: “Eternity Exists and All things in Eternity, Independent of Creation, which was an act of Mercy.” No scientist today believes that. They think we came out of chaos; they think the whole thing began to evolve out of something that wasn’t. And here one with vision tells us: “Eternity Exists, and all things in eternity, Independent of creation,” which creative act was a merciful act.

Now what does he mean by it? Well, I have had a vision and I know that Blake is telling the truth, so I am telling the truth based upon my vision. Everything in this world is forever. What you now see, what former people saw, what they are going to see – everything is forever. These are parts of the eternal structure of eternity; this body, this little lectern, everything in the world is but a little part of the eternal structure of eternity. It didn’t come into being at all, it always was – all the stars, everything on earth, all part of the eternal structure of eternity.

Now he speaks of creation as “an act of Mercy.” And here you are as a body, I am as a body, and all these bodies, everything – and then God, said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) For here man is part of the structure of the universe.

But here God is saying: “Let us make man in our image after our likeness,” and that is “an act of Mercy.” And so he takes man as I would take a tree and say to you: “Let us make a tree, and mold it into our being, after our likeness. Let us give to it the qualities that we possess – our creativity.” It can’t create in itself; it is simply the universe, and it’s all part of the structure.

The whole vast world is simply the universe, and it’s all part of the structure. And God is shaping himself now – God, the un-begotten, is begetting himself. And so he begets himself in me, he begets himself in you. When he completes the act of begetting himself in us, we are God!

We are that which could now use the same structure to beget anything that we can conceive of. So God takes man, part of the eternal structure of the universe, and begets himself in man, and when he begets himself in man, the state begotten is the one who begot it. God and man – or the thing that came out of man by God’s act – are God.

Now, I am told: let the individual imitate God as a dear child. I am told: everything is. “Eternity Exists, and all things in Eternity, Independent of Creation.” Now I am going to create. God was the creator. It all exists independent of creation. So how would I do it? I can’t think of anything then that doesn’t exist. I think of you in unnumbered states of mind – when you like me, dislike me, you’re sympathetic, unsympathetic – I can think of you in unnumbered ways.

But I want to create something now, I want to create something that is lovely for myself, so I bring you into my mind’s eye, and I bring another in my mind’s eye, and then I have in my imagination a little party – say a cocktail party, a tea, a dinner – and I control the imagery that I have brought into my mind, for all exists in eternity. But I bring you without your knowledge, without your consent.

Then I control the entire moment of time – make it a minute, or five minutes, anytime, not too long – I control it. But I so arrange the imagery that it implies something other than what it was prior to the arrangement. I bring you all into my mind’s eye and I allow you to hear something that is taking place.

I allow you to see me as you would see me were things as I desire them to be, and so I am begetting something. I am actually shaping myself – the unformed – upon the formed. For all things in this world are already part of the structure of eternity, every being.

So I bring a being – it is part of the structure; I bring another being – it’s a man; another being – it’s a woman, and I so arrange them in my mind’s eye that when I put them into that form, they see me as they would see me were my dream realized. It’s my dream I am begetting, but I am begetting on the structure of the universe that which did not exist before.

So you and I as living souls did not exist, but the structure – this garment – always existed. These garments existed, everything in the world existed, but we – living souls – did not, and God begot us, begot us just like himself to become a creative being just as he is. You take the same structure and then create and create and create. So: “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” How did he create? Well, this is how he creates: “He called a thing that was not seen as though it were seen, and the unseen became seen.” (Romans 4:17) That’s how he does it.

Let me go back and requote the brilliant Blake. And may I tell you: I can’t read anyone in this world that I would put even near him. I go back into the Bible – yes, he’s equal to all the great prophets of the Bible. He brought it into our tongue today so we can grasp and understand it. He said: “Many suppose that before Creation all was Solitude and Chaos. This is the most pernicious Idea that can enter the Mind, as it takes away all sublimity from the Bible and Limits all existence to Creation and Chaos.”

“Eternity Exists and All things in Eternity, Independent of Creation, which was an act of Mercy.” Just imagine: if God did not take this that was himself, and through his wonderful intense desire on his part, create his image out of that which was, we would not be here as living, creating beings – creating and miscreating, but creating. If we miscreate unnumbered times, we can still create. A miscreation is still a creation.

I bring war, revolution, all these horrible things in the world – it still is creating. And eventually he who started this process will bring us into his own likeness, and we will be one with God. But just as he did it out of things that are eternal parts of eternity -that this body and this little thing here that will seemingly decay – and this will decay, the garment will decay, all will decay. It does not, really – that’s the great illusion, it is forever.

Everything in this world is a part of the eternal structure of the universe. And out of all these parts God then said: “Let us make man,” for we already existed, like a tree. We don’t make man out of chaos; man exists – it’s part of the structure, part of the universe. But now, let us make man as part of the structure of the universe, and let us now make him after our image, after our likeness. And so he takes man and makes man into his image.

Now we go back into the Book of Genesis and see what he does with man. A word used in the book is “the tree,” “the Tree of Life” – where man in some strange way is expelled, because he may eat of the Tree of Life before he’s prepared. Well, if you have a concordance (I have James Strong’s Concordance) the word “tree” is defined as: “the spine, backbone, the carpenter, the gallows.” Who is hanging on the gallows? (It is called, “the gallows.”) This word, “the tree,” is the gallows; it’s the spine, the backbone, the carpenter – in other words, the builder, the potter, the creator.

There he hangs upon the tree. Well, the tree is the spine, it is the backbone. And after unnumbered playings on this calling it “man,” he brings out of this something that is entirely different – it is himself. It is shaped because he is the unbegotten, and he is shaping himself upon a form.

Just as I would take the potter and I would mold the clay upon some form, and mold it to my heart’s desire, God is molding himself upon man. And when he has completed the act as he desires it, there are three definite stages where he reveals the completed work.

He molds us, and molds, and molds us, making us ever more sensitive, ever more creative, ever more like himself; and when he is satisfied that we are just like he is, he unveils his work; and the unveiling of the work begins with the awakening of himself, and that is called the resurrection. He awakes in the individual in whom he has completed the work, and that awakening in the Bible is the resurrection.

Then, after the resurrection, he goes through an act like a birth, and he is born from above. And he is self-begotten, because the individual who is born cannot conceive of being sired by anyone other than himself.

He can’t for one moment – when he awakes in the tomb of his skull – believe that he is other than himself, and when he comes out of his own skull, he cannot have any feeling, any sensation of having any father or mother. So if he is born, then he must be self-begotten. God is so begetting himself that when he begets himself the thing begotten is God, and he comes out – just self-begotten.

Then comes a second stage, where he has the experience of being a father. Until that moment he didn’t realize that he was. And now, strangely enough, when he sees the symbol which reveals to him fatherhood, there is no mother. He is the father of God’s only begotten Son, and he knows now who he is. It took the Son to reveal to him who he really is. (David is the Son.)

And then comes the third symbol, and the third symbol is where the entire veil that separated the two is torn from top to bottom. From the top of his skull to the bottom of his spine, he is severed in two. Hebrews 10:19 tells you the purpose of that severance. What happened from that moment on, the two become one; they are not two any more.

They were separated by a veil and the veil was the body of God, and it is torn – the entire thing – from top to bottom, and then, strangely enough, you see yourself. May I quote Blake again: “I behold the visions of my deadly dream of six thousand years dazzling around thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold.

I know it is myself, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” (Jerusalem, 1:96) At that moment you see the being that created you and you are the very being who created you.

It’s a self-creation. God begot himself on the mold called “man.” And at that moment when you see it, after the splitting from the top to the bottom, you see this moving, lovely, golden, liquid light and it’s you and you know it. And you say: “I know it is myself, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” And then you, as the very being who created you, move up in serpentine form right into Zion. For all go into Zion, all go into the New Jerusalem. So creation is an act of mercy.

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 OF TRUTH

Neville Goddard 10-07-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen I speak of Jesus or any other character of scripture, I am speaking of a personification of a principle, not of a person as you are or I am. The Bible records vision, and makes no reference to persons or events which occurred on earth. Unfortunately, man has mistakenly taken personifications spoken of there for persons – the vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction, and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended. It is difficult to discuss a principle without personifying it and giving it words to speak. This the evangelists have done; but to see Jesus as an historical character, is to see truth tempered to the weakness of the human soul, unable to bear the strong light of revelation.

In the very first scene of “Hamlet”, Shakespeare personifies the morning as “Morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.” Here Shakespeare has given the morning feet, and clothed in russet it walks over the dew on eastern hill. I love it! Shakespeare was a master of the English tongue. Like Blake, he had an inflamed imagination and personified everything. Blake tells us: “Cities, mountains, valleys, rivers, all are human. When you enter into their bosoms you enter into heaven and earth, just as you enter your own heaven and earth. And all that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”

The evangelists did not write history, but theology, as they told their own experiences of God in dramatic form. They told of Jesus standing before Pilate, who questioned him, saying: “So you are a king?” to which Jesus replied, “You say that I am. For this I was born. For this I came into the world to bear witness to the truth. All who are of the truth hear my words.” Then he goes on to explain that those who accept this truth will find it to be in conflict with the traditions of men, whose concepts of God are not based upon experience, but what they believe God to be.

Men without vision teach the theology of the Word. Because of their authority in the church, people accept the statements prominent theologians make regarding the great mystery of Christ, as fact. But, having been cast in the central role of the Christian mystery, and having played the entire drama from beginning to end, I tell you their teaching is far removed from the facts, and has nothing to do with the Christian mystery.

I recall, maybe fifteen years ago, in New York City, a friend invited me to the Bohemian Club at Harvard University to meet one of the world’s great metaphysicians. Questioning my education, and learning from me that I teach scripture from revelation which comes from within, he turned his back on me in the most insolent manner. Unless I had some tag given me by a recognized body of men to support my claim, he would have nothing to do with me.
Well, the gentleman is gone from this world, and so is my friend who introduced me to him. Death will, however, cause them to modify or radically change the ideas they championed while here. Metaphysicians have tried to compose a workable philosophy of life which has nothing to do with scripture – which is one hundred per cent vision. And when I speak of vision, I am personifying the ultimate in truth; for this I was born. In his gospel, John tells us: “You are from below and I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.” John is not saying he is a supernatural being who came from an entirely different world, but that his experiences did not take place here.

While walking the earth as a man, the truth unfolds from within. Personified as the Lord Jesus Christ, truth has unfolded within me – not as another, but as myself. And when I tell of my experiences, some will believe while others disbelieve. The majority will reject my story because they know the body of flesh I wear, my background, weaknesses, and limitations; and I, a man, am not what they are looking for. Men looking for the spirit of truth think in terms of a Messiah who will come and save them – not a personification of a principle. But the spirit of truth is a pattern, buried in all, which erupts in the fullness of time as the one in whom it erupts. This pattern is dramatized as events in the life of a man called Jesus, but the events are supernatural. A scriptural episode is not a record of a historical event, but a parabolic revelation of truth which will be experienced in another region of the mind.

We are told: “Thy word is truth” and “I am the truth”- therefore, I am the word! You will literally fulfill the statement in the 148th Psalm: “By a storm wind he fulfills his word.” When the wind possesses you, you are under its control, as it clothes itself with you and intensifies. When it happened to me, my entire being vibrated; and when I stood and looked at my skull from which I had emerged, I felt it must be a hurricane because of its intensity. Those present had the same feeling of a storm wind. You are destined to fulfill God’s word. Recorded 1000 years B.C., His word will be fulfilled by a storm wind, so wait until you are clothed with power which comes as a storm wind.

Now, Luke and Acts are one book, which was divided by the early fathers of the church ( why, I do not know). In the Book of Acts, the story is told that while the disciples were together, a mighty wind filled the room and their foreheads became luminous. Then they began to speak in multiple tongues, so that each one heard in his own tongue wherein he was born. Many have attempted to change these words, yet they are literally true. I know, for I speak from experience.

The Spirit of truth is personified, as you are a person just as I am. I ask you to set your hope fully upon the grace which is coming to you at the revelation of this principle within you, called Jesus Christ. Make no mental image of Jesus, for he is a pattern housed in every man, which erupts in the fullness of time. And when it does, you will know that you are God – a knowledge you will never forget. And from that day on, what you accomplish in this world will mean nothing. Since the pattern fulfilled itself in me, I have no more interest in the world of men. Every night I fall asleep dwelling upon the four mighty acts of God, never what the day brought forth here in the world of Caesar. When I hear good news from friends, I rejoice, display empathy and happiness for them; but as far as I am concerned my back is turned to all of the accomplishments of this world, and I remain facing the vision.

Remember: the Spirit of truth is not something which comes from without, but from within. You are told: “I will send the Spirit of truth from my Father who will bring all things to your remembrance.” And when you remember, and share your visions, you may incur the envy of men who – if they are high in office – might put you out of the synagogue or the churches. There are times when death is allowed. The inquisition proved that. Tens of thousands were burned alive because what they had experienced was in conflict with the church fathers. We are warned: “They will kill you. They will do this because they do not know the Father or me. Had they known the Father they would have known me also, for we are one.” God, the Father, became me when he sent me. He has never left me alone. If you really see me, you will not see this mortal body called Neville, but the Ancient of Days, infinite Love personified as man. That is my Father, yet He and I are one.

Regardless of how this little body reacts, I must remain, telling the story until that moment when God calls me back. Then those who are serious followers will find a freedom they cannot enjoy while I am here, for the pattern will erupt within them and they will experience God. Then they, too, will tell the story with the authority which comes from personal experience, and understand my words when I say: all of the accomplishments of this world mean nothing.

Now, on this level, a true judgment must conform to the external fact to which it refers. If I claim this is a lectern and you know what one is, upon examination you would agree with me. But if I speak of lovely roses and there are none to be seen, you may think I am crazy. But I say: a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it refers.

A lady sitting in my audience in New York City, put this principle to the extreme test. In the silence she embraced dozens of beautiful roses, touching their velvety pedals and allowing their scent to fill the air. She touched, smelled, and saw roses, when none were physically present. Being a widow, this lady lived in a single room at the Waldorf Astoria. She went home that night and there were no roses to greet her; but the next night as she was returning to her room, she smelled the pungent odor of roses. She had ordered none and was not expecting any, but when she opened her door there were three dozen beauties on her bureau. The night she imagined embracing roses, the queen of England was attending a banquet in her honor. That year a special rose had been grown called the Elizabeth Rose. The banquet room had been filled with roses, and the next day one of the attendants was told to give Mrs. Neemier three-dozen roses. So I say: when you know this principle, a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it refers, otherwise Mrs. Neemier would never have had her roses.

If you confine yourself to the human belief of truth, you will be stuck in that groove; for every moment of time you are confronted with the facts of life. Knowing your social, intellectual, and financial background, you could not get out of the environment in which you were placed. My family did not accept these so-called facts of life. They climbed out of poverty by using their imagination. Knowing what they wanted, they imagined their desire was an external fact. They remained faithful to this imagined state, and in time they became what they imagined themselves to be. That is the law.

I urge you to set your hope fully on the grace that is coming to you at the unfolding of Jesus Christ in you. Use the law towards beautifying your world and getting all of the lovely things you feel you need. Don’t ask anyone’s permission; simply appropriate it in your own wonderful human imagination. Imagine and live by imagining, – morning, noon, and night. It will not fail you, but remember: you are the operant power.

Knowing what to do is one thing. Doing it is another; and we are called upon to be doers of the word and not just hearers only, deceiving ourselves. You can read one of my books over and over again. You can tell others what the book says, but if you never apply its message, the mere reading of its words will not benefit you. But if you will test your imagination, it will prove itself in performance.

Jesus, the Spirit of truth, is not a person that was physically born from the womb of a woman. Jesus is the Immortal Man, who is buried in mortality. It is He who – erupting in individual man – moves him from darkness to light, from death to life eternal. Those who are not awake to this principle do not die. Rather, they are restored to life to continue their journey, for nothing dies in God’s world, not even a little rose. Because of God’s death, man is destined to move out of a world where things appear to die, to enter a heavenly world where its occupants are supernatural. No more will there be men of flesh and blood, but immortal brothers who have life in themselves. No longer will man animate a body of death, but will know himself to be a life-giving spirit.

That is your destiny. Dwell upon it. If you still have ambitions to shine in the world, apply this principle. But I prophecy for you: the day will come when you will turn your back upon it, realizing that all that matters is what God has wrought in you.

Now, throughout the centuries the 22nd Psalm has been identified as the song of the Messiah. It begins: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But it ends on a note of triumph: “Men will tell of the Lord to unborn generations that God has wrought it.” They will tell that the Lord did accomplish that which he swore he would do. On that day, you will say: “I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. Glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before that the world was,” for you will know from experience, that there is nothing but God. We knew the glory before the world was; and for a divine purpose we – the One – became the many. Now, calling us one by one, we are united into a single being, who is God; and these furnaces of affliction will turn into rivers of joy.

The spirit of truth is God’s plan of salvation buried in you. In the fullness of time that plan will erupt and the story of Jesus Christ will become your story. It is my hope that your story will begin this night.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

THE TRUTH OF CHRIST IS HERE

Neville Goddard 6-22-1970

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThere is something in this changing, changing world that never changes, and Scripture refers to that which never changes as Truth, So, Paul said, “The Truth of Christ is here.”
Now he defines Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” He confesses that once he thought Christ to be a man. He said, “Hereafter, 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.”

He saw Christ as a plan – God’s plan of redemption of man. But really, it was the redemption of himself, because God became man, that man might become God. So, he saw Christ differently and there was no one to this day who was greater than Paul concerning the spread of the knowledge of the truth of Christ.

He neverchanged his religion. He said, “I am of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee of the Pharisees.” He knew his Law backwards. But he reinterpreted Scripture in the light of his own experiences, and Paul was the first one to use the word Christ, for his letters preceded the Gospels by at least 25 to 30 years. The Gospels were written after the letters of Paul – whoever Paul was.

His first name, as we know from Scripture, was Saul, and Saul was an insane king, chosen by man. And then Saul’s name was changed to Paul after he had the vision.

And so, in the light of his own experience, he reinterpreted the Scriptures, and then he wrote these thirteen Letters, and he called Christ “the power of God” – the creative power of God – “and the wisdom of God.” Then he said, “The truth of Christ is infinite.” So, listen to what he is talking about when he is talking about, and he only talked about, Christ after he realized the mystery.

Now, here tonight we can bring it down to the most wonderful level and show you how to apply this Principle, not forgetting the greatest thing which is the purpose of it all, which is to transform man into God. But really not so much transforming man into God, but to redeem God, Who came down and assumed the limitations and the weaknesses of man, and then He goes back to Himself as He was before, but enhanced by reason of the experience.

You did not begin in your mother’s womb. You were “in the beginning” with God. You are God! And it was God who made the decision who came down into this world called death, and assumed the weaknesses and the limitations of man. You will return to the Being that you were prior to coming down.

As the Psalmist said, “Rouse thyself. Why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever.” It is God-in-man that is sleeping and dreaming this Dream of Life. Paul realized it, and he knew that while we are dreaming the Dream of Life, we could dream it as we would like to dream. If you ever discover yourself dreaming, you can either awake from the dream or control the dream. If you know you are dreaming, you can control it.

I tell you, you are God dreaming this Dream of Life. You may not know you are; I am telling you that you are. You can put it to the test, and no power in the world can stop it because there is no other power. “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” That Power is buried in you! When you say, “I am,” that’s God!

Now, what are you assuming that you are? You can assume anything in this world, for the Being assuming is God. Can you believe in the reality of your assumption? Can you believe that which at the moment your reason denies and your senses deny? Can you believe it? If you can believe it, no power in the world can stop it from objectifying in this world of ours, but no one.

Let me share with you some of my own discoveries. We go back, now, to the Psalmist, and the Psalmist asks the question concerning this life: he said, “Send Thy light and Thy truth to me. Let them bring me to Thy holy hill and to Thy dwelling.” (Psalm 43:3)

Now, when the story is told, it takes a man to tell it, for it takes a man to express the power of God and the wisdom of God, and this one makes the claim, “I am the Light of the world. I am the Truth.” So, when the Psalmist pleads to the Light and the Truth to lead him, and to lead him to the hill and the dwelling of God, one comes into the world

in whom the Light unfolds and the Truth unfolds, and he declares, “I am the Light of the world. I am the Truth.” Yes, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Light” – the one and only true and living way. To what?

To the Source of all creation, called in Scripture “the Father.”

“No one comes to the Father but by Me, for I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”

But Paul discovered this was not a man. This was a pattern. So, in him, Christ became the Pattern Man. “Follow the pattern of the true words which you have heard from me. Guard the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” Do not turn to the left or the right. You guard this Truth; and the Truth is the pattern of “the true words, which you have heard from me.”

He knew his Old Testament. There was no other testament. He never quoted any other book. He didn’t quote the great classics proceeding the age, only the Old Testament. And here he saw it in an entirely different light. He saw the Old Testament as an adumbration, an intimation, and then, when it happened in him, he reinterpreted the Old in the light of his own experience, and then he told it.

Then came our Evangelists, who told it for our sake, and told it in the form of a man.

“For truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors.” [Tennyson]

So they took it, and they told it in the form of a man, and the world has accepted it as a man. And he is speaking of a Cosmic Christ, a cosmic principle, which is the power and the wisdom of God, the Creator of all. This is buried in us.

Now let me share with you a simple, simple technique. You might have done this. I hope you have. I know from my own experience before these major things happened in me of a mystical nature, you are going to have this experience, I know it. Have you ever closed your eyes, not forcefully, just simply closed them, and turned your attention inward into your skull, and just wait? And after you have seen all the dark convolutions of the brain, they turn into light. And haven’t they come around your head, and then moved off like smoke rings, only they are light rings? And you see this luminous, golden light go off like rings and rings of light going off.

So, we turn back to the 43rd Psalm: “Send me Thy light and Thy truth to lead me and to bring me to the Holy Hill and to Thy dwelling place.”

Well, I have found it. I’m sitting in the silence, and then this whole thing envelops me, all golden, liquid light. Thinking of a friend and what the friend would like in this world, I bring that friend before me. But his request, or her request, must conform to the Golden Rule. In other words, I will ask nothing for anyone that I would not ask for myself. If they ask me to hear that you are dead that they may inherit your wealth, I could not be the one to whom they should turn. Turn elsewhere, but don’t come to me to ask me to hurt anyone for your personal gain. But ask me anything and it’s a simple matter.

In the silence, to just see is the most obvious thing in the world, these wonderful, golden, liquid circles that surround your head, and then they go off like someone blowing smoke rings, only instead of smoke, they are made of golden, liquid light. So, “Send me your light and your truth,” for we are told: You shall know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free” , in this light, for “I am the Light of the world.”

I will send, now, that thought on the light, and it cannot return unto me void, but “it must accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

And so, while you are seated in the silence, just simply think of your friend as having what he asked, or she asked of you and then just simply break it. And your word has gone forth from you. But you say, “That’s from you, a man.” Don’t you know that God became you? It went forth from you, but God became man, that man might become God. So, in the silence, who are you? Who is doing it? I am. Well, what is His name? I AM. That’s His name forever and forever.

But who is doing it? Who said he was the light of the world? He said, “I Am the Light of the world.” What is this Light? Isn’t this, now the Truth? “Well,” you say, “maybe, and maybe not.” Well, wait and see if it isn’t true. If it proves itself in performance, then is it not true? And if others deny it because it doesn’t make sense, does it matter what they think? If there is evidence for a thing, what does it matter what the world thinks?

It’s a simple, simple technique. I hope you’ve had the thrill of seeing this wonderful golden light emanating from your head. It happens before you are born from above. So, do not condition it by thinking you must first be born from above. You do not. It is there because God is already in you. Yes, He is awaiting birth within you. Frankly, He is awaiting the discovery of Himself through the Son standing before Him and calling Him Father. For the purpose of life is to find the Father.

“How long, how vast, how severe the anguish ‘ere we find the Father were long to tell.” (Daniel 12:6)

But the Father has been built in since Eternity in these dark convolutions of the human brain. That’s where the Father is. You will never come into the presence of someone that you will call Father. You will come into the presence of someone who will call you Father. You will never find the Father outside of your Self. When you find the Father, it’s because His Son calls you Father. There is no other Father.

So, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.” To what? To the Father. “No one comes unto the Father but by me.”

“Well now, show us the Father.”

“Have I been so long with you, Philip, and yet you do not know the Father? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say, show us the Father?” The day will come, you will find the Father, but you will not find a man or a being standing before you that you feel like calling “Father.” You will find a being standing before you, and instantly you will know, memory returns at that moment that he is your son David. And David calls you Father, and you awake from your long self-imposed sleep, for you deliberately became man for a purpose.

“No man takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to raise it up again.”

So, no one takes away my life. God deliberately became humanity, and He plays all the parts, and when He played them all, He came out. And the sum total of all the parts, gathered together into one single being projected, became David. For humanity has done, and is doing, and will continue to do the will of God. So no matter what a man has done, is doing, or will do, he is only doing the will of God!

But God is not someone other than your Self. God-in-action is your own wonderful human imagination imagining, and humanity is expressing the imaginal acts of man. That’s God.

Everything that man has imagined, is now imagining, or will imagine, will be expressed, and humanity will express it. The individual comes out, but He is playing all the parts, and He can say, “Forgive them. They know not what they do.” But each will come out, having played all the parts, and then he will be confronted with one being, a youth named David, and David will call him “Father”; and then the drama is over and he knows who he is. He is God the Father.

For the whole search of man is for the key, the Source of the phenomena of life. And there’s only one God, and that God is your own wonderful human imagination. So, you are in search of that God, You will find Him, may I tell you, because Truth in Scripture is that which is firm and unchangeable. Let no one tell you that you will find it by dieting, by going to holy places, by attending services on Sunday morning, by going to Mass, by any outside ritual. Forget it.

You are told: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) Well, how do I think I’m “pure in heart”? By diets? By going to church? By doing all the things that people tell me to do? No.

Man is purified by the death of his delusions.

As he dies to all of his delusions, he begins to awake, and it comes suddenly upon him, one delusion: that the white man is better than other colors, or the black man is better than other colors, or the yellow man is better, or the Christian is better, or the Jew is better, or the social worker because of his progress is better. All these are delusions.

But God in you is the Father. He will lead you through unnumbered experiences and take you into an experience that you could never consciously devise and shatter your delusions.

When the black man is looked down upon, one day he will save your earthly life. A black man would forfeit himself to save you from an ultimate, inevitable destruction. Or it could be the reverse: if he looks down upon the white, the white will give his life to save the black. And in that moment, that individual is saved by the death of that delusion.

So, everything here is all right. It’s perfect! You will come out of everything in this world; and when you come out, you are God! We are told, “No one ascends into Heaven but he who descended from Heaven – the Son of Man.” You do not know you’ve descended from Heaven, but I know that you have. You came out “before that the world was.” You descended from Heaven, or you could never in Eternity ascend into Heaven. And then you are told in Scripture how you will ascend.

He identifies Himself as the “Son of Man.” He said, “No one ascends into heaven but the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Now he asks the question: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” And they answered, “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets.” Then he asks this question: “But who do you say that I am?” He identifies himself with the Son of Man. And the answer comes back: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” He equates the Son of God with himself when he says, “I am”, and then he accepts the answer, “Thou art the Christ.”

He is the Power that was sent into the world, for “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” But he confessed that the one sent is ‘one’ with the Sender: “He who sees me sees Him who sent me.” So, the being sent is not inferior as to its Essential Being, only as to the office – in this case as the sent, but not as to its Essential Being. “The Father and the Son are one” but when he is playing the part of the sent, he is the Son, and seemingly inferior as the sent – the ambassador. He is one with Himself, the Sender. So, “He who sees me sees Him who sent me.” So, I am not divorced from Him; He has never left me alone.

So here, if I am ever to ascend, well then, I must be the One who descended, and that I know from my own personal experience. And just as you are told in the Old Testament in the 21st chapter of Numbers, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness”, what was the serpent? It was a fiery serpent – a brazen, fiery serpent. That’s exactly how you are lifted up. You are split in two from top to bottom, and then you behold this fiery, golden, liquid light at the base of your spine; and, like a serpent – a fiery serpent, coiled like spiral lightning, you ascend into heaven.

Well, where is heaven? “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” we are told in the 17th [chapter] of Luke. So, if I would go into heaven, where would I go? I’d return within myself, into this immortal skull, and it reverberates when I re-enter that state. So, I return “like the fiery serpent.”

Well, who returns? Only one Being can return, the one who descended. And if only the Son of Man descended, then, though I did not know it, I must have been all along that Son of Man! But I was dreaming, and I was the one who sought the blessing, for he said, “Rouse Thyself! Why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Awake! Why cast us off forever?” as told us in the 44th Psalm. “Rouse Thyself.” He is speaking to the Lord. Well, who is sleeping in man at the moment? The Lord descended to this limitation called Man, and while buried in man, he dreams the Dream of Life. But while He’s dreaming, may I tell you, you can be anything that you want to be, but anything, absolutely! Catch the mood. What would the feeling be like if it were true?

I told you a few, I think, maybe, months ago of a friend of mine who called me. She never had money. I gave her away because she asked me to give her away. She said, “I have no father to give me.” Whether the father was here, I do not know. And so I said, “Willingly, I’ll give you away.” So, I arranged it – almost like a funeral. When they said, “Who giveth this woman to this man?” I stepped forward and said, “I do.” So, I gave her away. At the reception, this lady came by along with these people, and this one said, “Who are you?” I said, “I am the bride’s ‘father’; I just gave her away.” She said, “I know you gave her away all right, but who are you?” I said, “I am her ‘father.’” She said, “Yes, but I happen to be her sister!”

All right, so that was it. She had no money; he had no money. About eight months ago she called me and said to me, “Would you hear good news for me?” I said, “Within the Golden Rule, yes.” “Well,” she said, “it’s within the Golden Rule. I want ten million dollars.” I said, “I don’t care if you want a billion. So you want ten million dollars? All that I will do is what I would do for someone who said, ‘I can’t pay my rent; it’s due, and it is a hundred dollars.’” It’s the same thing to me. Words do not return void, if you send them out on the Light.

“Send Thy light and Thy truth to lead me.”

So, I heard it. Six months went by, and she called me up: she called me up and said her brother had received an estate of one hundred million dollars. They were all poor people, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath for my million, she promised me a million dollars. But it is all, now, the consciousness of wealth. That’s what I am getting at. They are all ready for this hundred million dollars that eventually will be settled – maybe after they are all gone from this world. When an estate of that nature comes into this world, there are unnumbered people who will claim that they are illegitimate children of the one who died. So, I didn’t tell her that. I only knew it takes time for these enormous estates – they are put there by a consciousness of wealth.

So, she calls me last week. She said, “You know, Neville, these two elderly ladies” – He has a little church not far from here, and they give her their thanks – well on in years; and they said to him and to her, “You know, we are millionaires?” Well, they couldn’t believe it, for they couldn’t afford to give even a dollar, but they said they were millionaires, and to prove that they had money, they paid off the mortgage a hundred per cent on the little church and the home, and bought a new car for her, and they were driving a Continental, having set up a trust fund for her of one thousand dollars a month for the rest of her earthly days.

She grew into the consciousness of being wealthy. And they do it as you would fish if it’s properly baited. It’s all in your consciousness! You cannot be in the consciousness of being poor and attract anything but poverty. All these are states. The man tonight who is sitting in the highest position in our country, or in Russia, or in England or in any part of the world, is the same Being who is now shining shoes for a living. They are only states of consciousness. One is in the consciousness of being wanted and important, and he thinks himself so important – he is doing you a favor if he lets you cut his hair! And the barber is so proud that he can cut the man’s hair, and both are the same Being, for God is one. There are not two gods.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

There are infinite states of consciousness, and we are pilgrims passing through. When you pass through and you are in the state of poverty, and I say, “Who is poor?” you would answer, “I am.” Well, you have called the name of God! And then I meet some one who thinks he has a billion or two billion dollars, and I say, “Who is a fabulously wealthy person?” and he will say, “I am,” with great pride; but he doesn’t differ in name, the name of God, from the poor one who can’t pay the rent. It’s only a difference in state.

“So I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be everyone of them states of the sleep into which the Soul may fall in its deadly dream of good and evil.” [Blake, from “A Vision of the Last Judgment”]

You fall into a state, any state. The state of the thief, and so he said that because he knows he must pay the consequences if caught. And so, he doesn’t feel that he did wrong. The only thing he did wrong, in his own mind’s eye, he was caught! All that he is concerned about is, “What did I do that was wrong?” Not that he took the money; that wasn’t wrong. “What did I do that was wrong that I was caught?” And you think that is not true? That’s exactly how they think, and it’s not just the one who picks up little things in a store that is called shoplifting, that’s small compared with what takes place in businesses among trusted employees. And they wonder, after years and years of being trusted, “How did I get caught? What did I do wrong?” Not stealing and breaking the employer! These are all states of consciousness.

So, you go into a state. You decide your state. But bring it within the framework of the Golden Rule:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Whatever you would have them do unto you, well, there’s nothing wrong in giving you a hundred million dollars, is there? Well, she said, “I want ten million.” If anyone gave me ten million dollars, I wouldn’t refuse it. So, she asked within the framework of the Golden Rule.

You will say, “Well, that’s greed.”

I don’t think so. That’s stupid. It is all within the concepts of man. The one who will tell you that that’s greedy wishes that he had it. And so, they are checking their portfolios that are bursting with billions of dollars and telling the poor, poor people that they shouldn’t really want it – it wasn’t God’s will for them, but God’s will for us – the custodians of this wealth.

So, forget it, and come down to this simple principle that “the Truth of Christ is in me.” That’s what he said in the 2nd letter to the Corinthians, the 11th chapter, the 10th verse, of Corinthians. “The Truth of Christ is in me.”

Then he begins to analyze what he means by Christ. Christ is the power, the creative power of God and the wisdom of God, and although I once believed in a man called Christ, henceforth I believe so no more. I now see that I am crucified with Christ. In the very beginning, this power was crucified on humanity, and it is raising itself individually, not collectively and when it raises itself individually it returns to what it was prior to its descent. It was the Son of Man. And when it returns, it is enhanced unnumbered fold by means of its experience in this state called death. It overcame death. For here it dies. Everything dies in this world. And here, it’s the victorious power that could become one that has to die and still transcend the grave.

So, everyone here – in the interval, do not turn from left to right; do not go after any false gods. “… Why stand we here trembling around, Calling on God for Help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?” [Blake, from “Jerusalem”]

Why should I turn to someone else when He dwells in me? Well, find out Who He Is in me. He is my own wonderful human imagination. That’s God. Now, how can I prove that? Well, set a goal for yourself. I want this, that or the other. “All things are possible to God.”

“And you tell me my imagination is God? All right, well then, how do I prove that?

I bring before my mind’s eye a scene, which implies that I am the man that I would like to be, and I re-enact that scene in my imagination. That is subjectively appropriating the objective hope. I re-enact the whole thing in my imagination, and then I reap the reality of that subjective appropriation, and do nothing about it. Capture that mood until life begins to really pulse, and then, while they are pulsing, you have sent it into the world. It impinges on everyone in the world, and they, whether they want to or not, are under compulsion to aid the purpose of that subjective hope and you will become the one that you’ve assumed that you are.

Do it with love. Always do it in love and you’re doing it the right way. I’m told by Paul, the first great convert by his own experience, because he said, “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” He reveals His Son in you. Where else can He reveal him when the whole drama takes place within man? All things take place within the human imagination. “And it pleased God to reveal His Son in me.” Well then, His Son is standing before me. I’ll see him, and he is not His son; he’s my son. Then I know who He is that I formerly worshipped. It’s not any he – I AM.

That’s the story. “For no one knows who the son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the son.” So, no one ever sees God! But “the son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath made him known.” So the son appears and calls you “Father.” Then, and only then, do you know you are the Father.

You do not know the Scripture. “Call no man on earth ‘father,’ for you have but one father, who is in heaven.” And where is heaven? Heaven is within. So, when you find that Father, you don’t find Him as another standing before you as someone that you call “Father.” When you find the Father, it’s the Son who reveals the Father, and the Son stands before you, calling you “Father.” And you are God the Father! And long before you have this experience, send your word on its way to bring lovely things into the world for everyone you can think of, because every one – even though they are unlovely, judged by human appearances, they are the Brothers. We are the Brothers that came down. We are the gods. We are the Elohim.

Elohim is plural, gods: one made up of others. So, we are the gods that came down and assumed these limitations. And as the gods, we are brothers, everlasting brothers, expanding forever and forever by reason of this experience. So, do not be led astray. If someone wants you to go and see some holy man, run for your life! Go to some holy place? Go and take all these courses and diets? Food cannot commend you to God. You are no worse off if you do not eat, and no better off if you do.

So, when this one comes into the world, having had the experience, they call him a drunkard, they call him a glutton, a leper, and a friend of publicans and sinners, because He’s in all of them. He sees nothing to condemn in the world. He sees them only in states. The whole vast drama is the falling into states. And he came to redeem them out of their states of suffering, until that moment in time when they find the Father. And when they find the Father, who had been the Father but themselves! And they go out thinking, “I will never again see my father’s face”; and that Father built is built in Eternity within themselves. And we go here, there and elsewhere, looking for Him, and He is exactly where He was standing before you started the search. But we go in search of Him. And one day He appears, not as another, He comes in the form of a son, and the son reveals you as God the Father! And that son is David.

Let the whole vast world rise in opposition. They can never, in Eternity, disprove it. David, as told us in the 2nd Psalm, is the Son of God. “And I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.” And to confirm it in the 4th chapter of the book of Acts, read the story – how by the voice of the Father “and thy servant,” and the word translated servant is better translated, son. The footnote in the Revised Standard Version gives the alternate translation and it’s preferred as the word, son. So, “Thy son David has said” and then he quotes the 2nd Psalm, telling who is the author, the writer of that Psalm.

But revealed Truth cannot be logically proven. It’s not truth based upon what the world would call truth. That is this level, but the Truth spoken of in Scripture is revealed Truth and that cannot be logically proven. You accept it on faith, or you reject it. But may I tell you, even though you reject it – it may take Eternity, but you will not be lost. One day you will accept it on faith alone, and then it will happen in you and your memory returns and you return to the Being that you really are. And the Being that you are is the Elohim, the brotherhood of the gods, for we fell as one man, and we became fragmented in this world of unnumbered beings, but none will be lost “in all my holy mountain” – not one.

I cannot conceive of one of my brothers that I have known in Eternity being lost. If you play the part of a Hitler, play the part of a Stalin, or any monster in the world, you have fallen into a state, and I must redeem you from that state. So, redeem a man from the state of loneliness, if he is lonely, he wants a companion. What’s more marvelous than that in the world? He wants a companion, or she wants a companion. We should all have. If he wants to pay rent, what’s wrong with that?

He gave himself, in the beginning, a pattern. So, He gave me a pattern, a pattern against the wall, because I see something and then I move to the right, and I see the price and the restraint involved in that state. So, I want to exercise all the talent the Father gave me. And “I and my Father are one,” as we are told in the 10th chapter of the book of John. Read it in the 10th chapter, the 30th verse, “I and my Father are one.”

In the 14th chapter of John, he does say, “but my Father is greater than I.” As I said earlier, that does not mean that the Lord is inferior as to His essential Being, only as to His present office as the sent. So, when I send my Self into the world, it seems to be inferior to my Self, the Sender, but we are one, for there’s nothing but God in the world.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord, is one.”

neville goddard imagination creates reality

THE VALUE OF DREAMS

Neville Goddard 11-6-1959

neville goddard imagination creates realityHere we use the words “God” or “Christ” or “imagination” interchangeably. They mean the same thing. If I use the word “God” because I am moved to use it, or the word “Christ,” it is the same thing. It is the fundamental power that created and sustains the universe, and which, also sustains our environment. We are told there is a secret to the whole creation “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and by Him were all things made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” We could use the word “imagination,” but the secret here is “Word.” What is the Word? Something was made that was made.

You have been taught to believe many things about the Word. Read the Bible and you will find what it means, for no one familiar with the Scripture could fail to see that the Word is the dream of man. You have been taught it is some being, born in a miraculous way, without the offices of a man. Well, it is, in a way. I have a dream and it comes out of nowhere; it depends on no outside help. “If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known to him in a dream.” So the voice of God is the dream of man. “Blessed is she, for she believed that this spoken to her would be fulfilled.” It was told to her in a dream. From the beginning to the end of the Bible God is always speaking through a dream. In Job he speaks of two types. The first is a dream and then a vision of the night. “And there He will open the ears of men and frighten them with warnings.” I do not have to fall asleep here to dream. The nightmare is the rearrangement of the day dreams. They are rearranged drama­tically and presented to me, and if my purpose is faulty it terrifies me with a warning.

There is one given in Genesis by Israel. He was first called Jacob and then he wrested for himself the new name of Israel – or Is-real. From then on his dreams were objective facts, so the dreams were real. He made a bargain with his uncle Laban that all the spotted and striped animals in the flocks were to be his, and Laban agreed, thinking Jacob would be little more than a slave while he worked to win the first daughter and then the second. And then the Lord appeared in a dream and told Jacob that all those goats and rams which leaped upon the flocks when they came to drink were spotted or striped. And as the flocks bred where they came to drink, then the offspring became as in the dream, spotted or striped, and Jacob became richer and richer and his father-in-law got nothing from his hard bargain. What he saw in the day dream he saw in chronological order in the night dream. We see a thousand things during the day, and often vio­lent things, to be rearranged and dramatized in the dream of the night, so it may terrify us with warning, for we are told, “My word will not return unto me void but must accomplish that where − unto it is sent.” And the Word of God is man’s dream.

Could you dream today? That is the Word of God. Throughout the whole Scripture we are told of the Word of God, and we think someone is actually going to speak to us. It could come that way when man fully awakens, but it usually comes in a dream. Solomon was promised great riches and long life, and then he awoke and “it was a dream.” God always appears speaking to man in a dream, so the voice of God is the dream of man. It need not be a night dream. Live so in your day dream that the night dream follows in a chronological order, just as Jacob saw it regarding the striped and spotted cattle. Though all the flock is brown I will see them spotted in my mind’s eye. And that which was brought forth was brought forth in the image held. He saw what he wanted to see in the day dream and then in the night dream it came forth in chronological order. But man is terrified by his dream, but they are shown him only to get him to think more constructively during that day. For God is man’s Imagination.

I could pick out a dozen people in this audience tonight who have written me about controlling their day dreams. Here is a man whose property was going to pot, his tenants were behind in their payments, the stepfather was drinking and the children were shabby and neglected. Instead of taking legal action the owner took an imaginary ride past his property and saw it in the well-kept state in which he desired to see it. Things began to happen. The woman broke her leg and went to the hospital; at once the stepfather disappeared. When the woman recovered she went away for a time with the children and returned with a new husband. The place is now in better condition than it has ever been, the children are well-cared for and the family is happy and contented. So, “blessed is she that believed that this spoken to her would be fulfilled.” For everyone is Mary; the owner of the property was Mary. You have a dream of what you want to be and you see it clearly in its fullness. Now blessed are they who could believe this spoken by God, for God’s voice is man’s dream. So, can I believe that I am now what I want to be and be faithful to the voice of God? Then my Word shall not return to me void. If I can believe, it will come to pass. It has nothing to do with your background, for God speaks to man and He does not care who you are, for it is through the medium of one’s own dream that He speaks to you.

“Have nothing to do with this man for I have been troubled in a dream concerning Him.” So spoke Pilate’s wife. Pilate receives this note from his wife when the one who was the embodiment of Truth stood before him. Pilate is the embodiment of Reason and Truth does not reply to Reason’s voice. But Reason could not believe that God speaks to man through a dream, so he did nothing. God can speak through the night dream but it usually frightens and because he does not understand it. “He speaks to man in a dream, in a vision of the night.” He does it that we may change our purpose and change our deeds, for if night after night my daily thoughts are rearranged in my night dreams so that they terrify me, then what am I doing that it should be so? For night after night He dramatizes my day, but not in chronological order. He takes the whole day and dramatizes it, and if it is not pleasant it will terrify me to get me to turn from my deeds and my thinking and rearrange the furnishing of my mind and come to the point where I can wrestle with this being (my inner self) as Jacob did and get a new name, so that my day dream can then be projected at night just as I dreamed it during the day. Jacob wanted the mottled and striped ones, and it comes just as he saw it. The entire Bible from beginning to end is the vision of God speaking to man, and he speaks to man through the medium of dreams. Visions are different from dreams and they come by Grace and only to bear witness to the progress that you make, to mark the mile-posts on the way. Sometimes you do hear a direct voice, but that is rare, but God is always speaking to man through his day dreams. The voice of God is heard by man in dreams.

In the beginning he placed man (Adam) into a profound sleep and there is no record he has ever awakened, so he is still asleep. Then “God spoke to them in the cool of the evening.” It is all imagery. It is man in a profound sleep and God is speaking through the medium of dreams. Numbers 12: “If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.” You do not have to fall asleep to dream. Everything in the world is talking to me and I am talking to myself and my own wonderful Imagination is God speaking to me. In the beginning was the dream and the dream was with my Imagination and the dream was my Imagination, and by it were all things made that are made. So I begin in a dream, but I can change my dream, and changing my dream I change the activity of my Imagination and change the phenomena of my life. If I do not change it, it remains the same.

If you know someone who would like this or that, you do not raise a finger physically, but dream it for them. What would it be like if it were true? Represent them to yourself as if their dream were true, and then you do nothing to make it come to pass, for a true dream has its own way of fulfilling itself. That is your Word and it cannot return unto you void. But I am free to change the Word of God and change the sentence and make it spell something different. You can take any 12 words and express devotion or, by their rearrangement, express something frightful. The Word of God is the dream of man. So what are we dreaming? If you would only believe it and become the one of whom it was said, “Blessed is she who believed that this spoken to her would be fulfilled.” For you are this being spoken of. Think of the most ideal state you would like to realize. And do not modify it. Think of the ideal state for you. No two want the same thing. Few would want to do what I am doing and very likely I would not care to do what you are doing. But dream nobly. You have the Word. Its use may cause a seeming convulsion as this man’s did. He did nothing but take his ima­ginary ride past his property and see things as he wanted them to be. But then what might be called a convulsion − the accident to the woman. He has asked did he cause the accident. Certainly! His Word caused it. It took that to free the woman from the monster who was living off her. Was it not a little price to pay to get free and to enjoy what followed? But be careful what word you are speaking, for the Word of God is the dream of man. And since man’s dream is caused by his own imagining, then who is God?

In this past week I have had one heavenly experience after another with my father, for I have thought so much about him, he is part of the drama of the night and I can take any of these parts and find their meaning for my instruction. Here, the other night I was with my father. I knew he was gone and he knew it, but he knew the boys could not see it. But my brother Collin went out in the rain and got some flying fish. Now he employs two to three thousand people, anyone of whom could have done this for him, but he went out − in the dream − and got these flying fish himself and brought them in. Now in the Islands there is nothing cheaper than flying fish. If you want dolphin you ask for dolphin, etc., but if you just ask for “fish” you always get flying fish. And in the dream my father said to me, “It is wonderful. He has no false pride and he can use his own hands to do what some think only servants should do.” My brother was one of the eight sons who bore my father to the grave. My dream was not frightening to me for I knew my father was where Collin could not see him, but he was looking on and was proud that his son showed himself to be without false pride and could do what any employee would have been glad to do.

By taking today and living so fully in Imagination as the man I want to be, then I am obeying the Word of God. I can take the same word and distort it, for I am He, for the Word of God being the dream of man, and that, springing out of Imagining, that is God. So God, Christ or Imagination are interchangeable, and the whole thing is speaking of your own wonderful human Imagination. But if, during the day, I modify the Word because of the evidence of my senses, then the Word I have sent out I have voided, but if I have remained faithful to my image then it must accomplish that whereunto it is sent.

Everyone can hear God for everyone is God. You are not some little thing divorced from God. People go to church and kneel and try to get the ear of God and they hope that God will forgive them for something they are condemning themselves for. This too, is a Word of God, but what confusion! There is no one to intercede for you for we are all One. So stand on your own two feet and speak the Word for everyone and for yourself. Then it has to fulfill itself, for Imagination creates Reality, and there is nothing to stop it.

My father stood on a beach in Barbados 30 years ago and saw it as a perfect place for a hotel. He never faltered in that dream. The years went by and the owners finally died and when it came up for sale the one person who could have paid for it twice what my father could, had gone to Brazil, and his cabled offer arrived 24 hours too late. My father’s dream came true, though he made it 30 years before. He was Jacob and he wrestled with an idea until it became real. He first made it real in his mind’s eye, and when the time came the one person who could have outbid him was called away. My father did not devise that, but when the man in Brazil remembered the sale and sent his bid it arrived 24 hours too late.

Everyone here − you are God. You are not some little thing beating your head out. God became you that you may awaken and know that you are He. Nothing you have ever done caused the so-called “Fall.” There is no “original sin.” It was God actually, willingly and lovingly becoming his own creation who is called man, that he might awaken it to become Himself. It was purposeful and deliberately done to awaken his creation, and when it awakens it ceased to be created for it is God, so “He who comes after me is preferred before me.” Why? Because it came first. This which was first an image and was lit by God and is God, then has no beginning. That is the secret. Something that had a beginning is lit by something that is beginning-less and becomes it, so then it is also beginning-less. The form is lit and becomes a center of Imagining. Then you will understand the words, “Return unto me the glory that was mine before the world was.” So man in the true sense cannot begin after he is lit by God.

So take your most wonderful dream and no matter what the day seems to bring, a dream is God’s Word and it cannot fail. Can you believe you are the woman you want to be? Stick to that and control it and do not let it become a jumble in the course of the day, for if you do then God will take the “jumble of the day” and rearrange it in the dream of the night and it might terrify you, but it will only be to instruct you. These dreams are created by you in the course of the day, but if you would now only set the pattern of life you want and remain faithful to it, it cannot return to you void but must accomplish its purpose.

So you will find all through the 66 books of the Bible that He is always appearing to man in a dream. Never mind the “holy men” or “holy places.” Wherever you stand, that is holy ground. “Take off your shoes, Moses”… for where man stands there is God, for God is man. Do not look for someone to come in robes, etc. The real man is the natural man and acts in a natural way, but buried in him is the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven, and that is God. Let the natural man beget himself on his divided image. But that man died − (the natural man). Yet you are told “You are gods.” We are told they condemned Jesus, not for what he had done but because he blasphemed. He said he was the Son of God. But he told them, “I say the Law tells you this.” Psalm 82: “I say you are gods, sons of the most High. But you shall die like men and fall as any other prince.” The Scripture cannot be broken. So I blaspheme when I say I am the Son of God? I tell you I am consecrated and sent by my Father, and you call me a blasphemer? You are actually the Son of God, the Son of the most High. The Second Man must awaken in the natural man. So you will die like any other natural man, but nevertheless the real you is the Son of the most High. When He said He was going to die and yet that He was the Son of God, they did not know He spoke of the Second Man. The first garment into which I am woven must be discarded as I awaken from within it to discover who I am. First I must put on visibility and become mortal.

Blake writes:

Whate’er is Born of Mortal Birth
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free;
Then what have I to do with thee?

Thou, Mother of my Mortal part,
With cruelty didst mould my Heart,
And with false self-deceiving tears
Didst bind my Nostrils, Eyes and Ears;

Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay,
And me to Mortal Life betray,
The Death of Jesus set me free;
Then what have I to do with thee?
(To Tirzah)

This garment (the body) is to be used as I awaken. But as I become more and more awake I can prove by a dream that I am He. The story is, “Go and bring me Jacob.” “He who formed me from the womb to bring Jacob again unto Him.” Bring me that state of mind that can pre-determine. He wants a Son like Himself. But who can bring Jacob? And how can I find him when he is so small? Yes, he is small but who will bring him? For He formed you in the womb (Mother Nature) to bring Jacob. He wants to awaken in every being one who can create as He creates, for He creates by the Word, and God’s Word is man’s dream.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Neville Goddard  03-31-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityChristianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, the fulfillment of all that was prophesied in the Old Testament. This week the Christian world celebrates Passover, the triumphal march into Jerusalem – the trial, the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Let me share these events with you as they are seen through the eyes of one who has experienced them.

In the 18th chapter of the Book of John, Pilate said: “So you are a king?” and Jesus replied: “You say that I am, but my kingdom is not of this world. For this I was born. For this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” Then Pilate asked: “What is truth?” and when there was no response, Pilate left, saying: “I find nothing in this man worth condemnation.” Having already claimed: I am the truth, and my word is truth, here we find Jesus making the claim: I came to bear witness to the truth.

Peter tells us that “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired concerning this salvation. They inquired what person or time was indicated by the spirit of Christ in them, when predicting the suffering of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you.”

The prophets were doing a work, the full import of which was in the promise. They were conditioned to hear – and quite often to see – the word of God. Although they recorded what they heard, they did not understand the writing. Daniel declared: “I heard but did not understand.” Then he was told to “Shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end.” The time when the word, embodied in flesh, unfolds in a man who – having broken the seal – interprets the written word from experience. He came into the world and the world knew him not. Even today the word is still misunderstood.

Hundreds of millions of Christians will go to church this coming Friday and the following Sunday, to proclaim Christ has risen; yet they do not know the Word. But when he who is sent by love enters the world, he finds a small group who will accept his words. From that group, an even smaller group will understand him to the point of complete acceptance.
Scripture is completely misunderstood and can be interpreted only by one who is called, incorporated into the body of love, and sent back into this world of death to await that moment in time when the word unfolds from within. And when he tells his experiences, the multitude cannot believe him, for it is not what they were taught; yet, having become an eyewitness, he can no longer say “I think”, or “I believe,” as our theologians do. His is an assured “I know!” To believe in something is marvelous, but it cannot be known until it is experienced.

Many years ago I was a dancer in New York City. One day I took a taxi from rehearsal to my hotel. When we arrived, the driver claimed I had broken the glass when I slammed the door, and asked me to pay for it. I knew I had not broken any glass and suspected he had been collecting $8 from every fare all through the day, so I did not pay him other than what the meter read, plus a generous tip. A short time after I had retired to my room, the phone rang, and the operator said that there was a policeman in the lobby who wanted to see me. When we met, he asked me about the broken glass, and I told him I had not done it. It was the dinner hour, so I was asked to go with him to the night court. This I did, and when the driver was asked if he knew I had broken the glass and he said: I think he did – the case was dismissed. He thought I did it and maybe he believed it, but he did not know! One must have an assured I know, which can only be obtained from experience.

I stand before you knowing the truth, and it is not as it will be re-enacted this coming week in all of the Christian churches of the world. Christ in you is your hope of glory. One day – like a tree – that living word will bloom in you and bear its visionary fruit, all related to the Old Testament.

The only Bible that the early Christians had was the Old Testament. Those who wrote the New Testament were called “the people of the way”. Do you know who they were? Jews! Although the unknown authors of the books Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were Jews, they did not confess that they were, like Paul did. Paul’s 13 letters, which form the bulk of the New Testament, came first. It was he who said; “I am a Jew, a child of Abraham of the tribe of Jacob.” Paul never denied his Jewish ancestry, yet he laid the foundation of the Christian faith. Man forgets this, and thinks the Old and New Testaments represent two religions; but there is only one religion, whose foundation is Judaism and fulfillment (like the fruit appearing on a tree) is Christianity.

This is the greatest story that has ever been told. The crucifixion is over. I know, for I remember when I – a whirling vortex – crucified myself upon this body called Neville at six points: the hands, the feet, the head, and the right side. The Word of God, who is God, is nailed to your body by whirling vortices. This is the same Word who was in the beginning with God and was God. There was meaning in that Word, a plan, and a purpose, which was revealed to you before the world began. This is not some emergency thinking on the part of God; he chose us in him before that the world was!

Christ is in us, crucified on our body. He became a slave that your body may be alive, and he will wear that body until he awakens. The body you now wear can be cremated and therefore gone from the mortal eye; yet you, its wearer, are still very much alive, continuing your act of slavery in a body just like the one you now wear. In my own case, however, I will not wear a body of death any longer; for the Word has erupted within me. I know scripture is true from beginning to end, for I have experienced it. I also know that those in whom it has not erupted will find themselves restored to life.

If our late president Eisenhower has not had the Word unfold within him, even though he was the president of our great country, he has been restored to life as a young man, about 20 years of age. He will be in a terrestrial world like this one, in an environment best suited to his needs, to continue the work that was started in him by the son of God, who is his ancestral self.

When I speak of the son of God, I am referring to man’s true being. No child enters this world unless a son of God – who is his ancestral self – supports him by dreaming him into being. And everyone who leaves this section of time moves into another section of time automatically, until his ancestral self awakens.

The only purpose of life is to bear witness to the truth of the Old Testament, which is the word of God. God’s word has erupted in me. Having fulfilled the prophecy of the Old Testament, I bear witness to its truth. The Old Testament is the prophecy, but dead until it erupts. Then the individual within whom it erupts becomes Jesus, the Spirit of prophecy. Men have speculated on the meaning of the Old Testament, and will believe their speculations from now until the ends of time; but they will not know the truth until it erupts within them. You may trust one in whom it has happened. You may believe he is telling the truth and adjust your thinking to conform to his words; but you cannot know their truth until you individually experience it. To believe the words of another are true is not good enough. The judge will throw out the case unless the witness can say, I know! For it happened in me!

This week the trial, the crucifixion, burial, and death of God’s creative power will be celebrated – but not the other side of the coin of resurrection, which is the birth. Christianity is an Easter religion. Without resurrection, Christianity would just be another little ism. The world is full of little isms and they are all helpful. Being psychological, they encourage positive thinking, telling you how to assume a certain attitude of mind and live a freer, healthier, more wonderful life. But when it comes to truth, Christianity is the religion of Easter, the religion of rising from the world of death and entering the world of life, called the kingdom of heaven. It is the story of the salvation of the gods who came down.

In the Book of Deuteronomy we are told that bounds have been set to the peoples of the earth according to the number of the sons of God. A child could not know life here, were it not for his ancestral self, who is one of the Sons of God who fell as one Man. Containing all men within the one, all will return to that one Man – but each in his own good time. No one can tell when that hour will come. You may long for it, but you cannot force its coming.

While on the cross, Jesus said: “I thirst.” You may think he is thirsting for water, but his thirst was caused by the famine which is sent upon the land. It is not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God. Thirsting, they gave him vinegar, in the fulfillment of the 69th Psalm, “…for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Having come into the world only to bear witness to the truth, I know God’s word is truth! When his word becomes alive in you, the Old Testament will erupt like a seed, and you will know the truth of scripture from experience. Then you will tell the world, who will receive you not, because they will know your physical background and not the Word of God who unfolded within you. Only one who has fulfilled the Word can interpret scripture. The prophets wrote it, but they could not understand their writing. The scribes – not understanding – lived by the external word; but experience brings the internal Word to match the external one.

It is said that two different persons must agree in testimony for the testimony to be conclusive. The two can be the external word of scripture, and the internal Word unfolding within the individual. If they agree, their testimony is conclusive.

When he said: “For this I was born,” he was not speaking of a physical birth, but of a spiritual one; for unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Man, born into the world of Caesar, lives with reason and logic. To him one must be born as an offspring from the womb of a woman; yet Jesus is speaking of an entirely different birth – the birth of Spirit, which comes from above, and not the birth of flesh, which comes from below.

His statement continues, “For this I came into the world.” This is true, for the Word became flesh, as you and I, and now dwells within us. “He is clothed in a robe drenched in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.” Is not the body you now wear drenched in blood? Our Cardinals wear red robes and call themselves princes of the church, but that is not the robe spoken of here. Every child born of woman wears the red robe as his body of flesh and blood. Incarnating himself, the Word is made flesh and dwells in us all.

You are the incarnated Word of God, who at one moment in time will be called. Your name, already written in the Book of Life, will be checked off; and you will be incorporated into the living body of love, which is God’s most radiant form. In that instant you become one with that same body, that same Spirit, that same Lord, that one God and Father of all.
As Love, yet wearing a body of power, you will be sent back into the world to wait your time of thirty years. While here, you will do all of the normal things you did before. You will make mistakes, you will laugh and cry, and then suddenly scripture will erupt from within, and you will find yourself compelled to tell your experiences to all who will listen. But because it is not what tradition teaches, many will turn their back and walk away, unable to believe what they cannot comprehend.

This Friday, many will spend three hours celebrating an event which took place in me in the matter of moments; for I remember the night memory returned, and I reenacted the 42nd Psalm. I remember when I walked in procession to the house of God, when a voice rang out saying: “And God walks with them.” A woman questioned the voice, saying: “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice replied: “At yours side.” Turning to her right, she looked into my eyes and laughed, because she saw a man she knew was weak and frail, a man who could succumb to temptation. Her question: “What? Neville is God?” was answered: “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the voice spoke to me from the depth of my soul, and said: “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream… Suddenly I knew exactly what he was dreaming, for in a split second I felt myself become vortices, as I penetrated my hands, my feet, my head, and the right side of my body. I felt the six points of the Mogen David, the Star of David, experiencing an ecstasy greater than my wildest dreams. Now I know the crucifixion happened on the night of the triumphal journey into Jerusalem. Tradition is correct in keeping it in the same time slot, but they do not tell the story correctly.

In the Book of Acts, we find this quote from Deuteronomy: “Cursed be anyone who hangs upon a tree.” The crucifixion took place upon the tree of life, in Man, and not on any wooden tree. Blake tells us so beautifully:

“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.”

Look at a picture of the human body with the skin removed, and you will see all of the veins and arteries rooted in the brain and turned down into generation. That is the tree spoken of in the Book of Daniel. It was felled, stripped of its leaves, and its fruit was scattered. The root, however, was not to be interfered with. After seven times pass over, and the one who was felled knows that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will, the tree is reversed; and its energy will move from generation to regeneration, as it bursts into bloom and bears its glorious fruit.

In that crucified state we fell and crucified ourselves on the living tree, which was felled. Its root is the human imagination, which will awaken in the holy sepulcher, where the drama began. You see, it is there that God entered death’s door and lay down in the grave of man to dream the dream of life. It is there that He will awaken. It is there that He will come out and look back upon that which contained him that body of a slave.
Then all of the imagery of his birth from above will appear, so that He can make the statement: “For this I was born; for this I came into the world: to bear witness to the truth. Thy Word is truth.” The written word is a sealed book of which I, the living Word, interpret through experience.

True scriptural interpretation can never be gained through learning. Knowledge must be obtained from experience. Learning may cause you to think it is true; but you can only know scriptural truth through experience. When the story of Christianity has fulfilled itself in you, you do not have to believe in the Christian faith – you know it is true! And Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. It is man’s departure from this world of death and his entrance into the world of life! After the Word has erupted in you, you will wear a garment of death no more.

No one ever really dies, because the immortal Word is in him. A friend may appear to die, but he does not. He is instantly restored as a living being without change of identity, where he will continue his journey until God’s word becomes activated and lives in him. And when it does, he becomes a witness to the written word of scripture.

The Word doesn’t come to change Caesar’s world. It is the Risen Word who says: Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. If Caesar wants taxes, give them to him. If you desire things in Caesar’s world, assume you have them and Caesar will be satisfied, for you will have them. You can always meet Caesar’s demands. If he wants something else; don’t quarrel with him, simply assume he has it. You don’t change Caesar, for he is just as much a slave as you are. Whether he be a king or a Pope, man is still a slave to the body he wears, and cannot compel anyone to digest, assimilate, or eliminate, for him. He has to do it all by himself. And when he dies to this world, he is restored to find himself in a body that is just as much a slave as this one.

Those who have gone beyond are now performing the normal, natural functions of the body. There is sex there, hate, and love – just as here. It’s the same world, for your life does not terminate at the point where your senses cease to register it. Like a play on Broadway, you may leave the stage, but you remain the actor. Having left the stage, you are no longer seen by the actors who remain there; but your identity does not change. It goes on forever.

The drama is concentrated this week; but the truth is not being told, as man finds it easier to see thought in picture form. But in the story of salvation – Jesus Christ – is publicly portrayed as crucified. The portrayal began in the spirit! It never existed in the flesh. Haven’t you gone to the theater and become so carried away with the acting that you forgot the message the actor was trying to portray? Many a play is not just for amusement, but to educate. Such is the story of salvation. It is the greatest play that was ever conceived, but man has fallen in love with the husk, because he does not know the kernel. That is why Paul made the statement:” 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 that you have turned from the spirit to the flesh? From now on regard no one after the flesh, even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.

This week Christians will celebrate a physical death, and Christ is not and never was a physical being. They will celebrate the ascension of an individual, yet Christ is universal. The Cosmic Christ is buried in every child born of woman. And that Cosmic Christ is represented by the sons of God, who altogether form the Lord God Jehovah. Every child possesses an ancestral self, who is an individualized son of God, who will awaken to reveal the true identity of that child. Right now your ancestral self is individualized as you. And one day you, too, will know who you are. No one on earth knows your true identify; but you will know it, for you will return to your ancestral self that was – and still is – one of the sons of God. The word elohim is a compound unity of one made up of others. We are the elohiym [pron. e-lo-HEEM] which form YAD HE VAU HE [pron. “YOD HEY VAV HEY”], the lord. Not one of us can be absent, for it takes all of us to make the whole.

Remember: Jesus Christ is not a little man, but the Cosmic Christ who dwells in you and will erupt in you, causing you to return to the one body, the one Spirit, the one Lord, the one God and Father of all. I am telling you what I know is truth. Our theologians recite creeds. They share their knowledge as to what they have learned and thereby believe; but they cannot tell you what they know until they have the experience. I tell you that you are God the Father; but you will never know it until you meet your one and only begotten son, whose name is David. You cannot come into the knowledge that you are God the Father except by him. “No one knows who the Father is except the son, and no one knows who the son is except the Father.” When the living word begins to unfold, the Son you have been searching for throughout eternity will appear. Then you will know the truth and these words will become yours, “For this I was born. For this I came into the world: to bear witness to the truth!”

When the personification of reason asked: What is truth? the personification of truth did not answer. How can truth make reason understand the true knowledge of God? In his 17th chapter John said: “This is eternal life, to know thee the only true God.” The world has as many gods as there are stars in the sky. They have brought truth down into many isms; but to have eternal life, you must know the only true God. The evangelist, John, then added the words: “and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”

There is only one pattern, only one path, which will lead you to sacred history -which is the same forever and ever. There is nothing accurate, however, about secular history. Two accounts of a little section of the last world war differ from each other. Eisenhower’s son wrote a book about his father’s experience, and Mr. Montgomery – General Eisenhower’s right-hand man – wrote about the same experience, yet they are entirely different.

There is never any need to add to or take away from the Word of God. If, at the present time you do not understand it, just leave it as it is, for the day will come when you will. On that day the Living Word will unfold in you and interpret the written word, and you won’t have to add to it or change it in any way. Scholars without vision have tried to change the word to make it conform to what they think, but do not know! As Paul said to the Galatians: “I notice you observe weeks, months, seasons, and years. I’m afraid I have labored over you in vain.” There are not special weeks, months, seasons, or years; for you awakening can happen at any moment in time. The crucifixion began before that the world was, while Easter comes when the age of Caesar has reached its end. Resurrection is one side of the coin of Easter, with your birth from above as the other.

God sent his Word into your mind. That Word cannot return to him void, but must accomplish that which God purposed, and prosper in the thing for which it was sent. You will return claiming: “I have finished the work thou gavest me to do.” God gave you only one thing to do, and that is to testify to the truth of his Word. You did not come here to make a lot of money, leave your name in granite, or your face carved on a mountainside. You did not come to change, judge, or condemn anything. Leave the world just as it is, for God planned everything as it has come out and as it will be consummated. Simply set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you, for you have come to bear witness to the truth. Nothing else! God’s Word is truth, so you have come to fulfill scripture.

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 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 imagining creates reality

YOUR MAKER

Neville Goddard 01-07-1969

neville goddard imagining creates realityYour maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name. By him all things are made, and although he is an unseen activity within you, without him is not anything made that is made. I ask you, as Paul asked the Corinthians, to examine yourselves to see if you are holding to your faith. To test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Chris is in you? – unless, of course, you fail to meet the test. I tell you: Jesus Christ is a power within you, which you must find and test. Paul didn’t say that Jesus Christ made only the good, but everything – be it good, bad, or indifferent. And Blake said: “I know of no other Christianity and of no other gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination. Imagination, the real and external world into which we will live [sic] when these vegetable, mortal bodies are no more. The apostles knew of no other gospel.”

Now, John Mills defines causation as the assemblage of phenomena, which occurring, some other phenomena commence to appear in the world. In other words, causation is the assemblage of an imaginal state implying the fulfillment of desire, which feeling will activate and produce in the world. And H. G. Wells put it this way: “Throughout the ages, life is nothing more than a continuing solution to a continuous synthetic problem,” How many times have you said to yourself: if I only had x-number of dollars I could live comfortably, then inflation appears and you are forced to use your creative power to construct an imaginal solution to your new problem.

Webster defines a synthetic body as the compiling of separate elements which produce a new form. In this world you will never find permanency, for something will penetrate the state you are now occupying and force you to conceive a new solution. This is how it is done. Do not judge the problem – rather ask yourself what its solution would be. Suppose you were in jail. The solution would be to be out of jail, pardoned, and sleeping in your own home. So, while still confronted with the problem, and lying on your cot in jail, you would close your eyes to the cell and feel you are now home, as a free man. Then fall asleep allowing the maker of all things to create that which will be seen out of that which does not appear.

A few years ago, a lady in my San Francisco audience rose and said: “My brother is in the army. I do not know what he did to cause his punishment, but he has been sentenced to six months of hard labor, and I want him set free.” After establishing the fact that he would go to her apartment if he were free, I urged her to imagine he was there now. That night, this lady imagined hearing the doorbell ring. Rushing down the stairs, she opened the door to find her brother standing there, a free man. She rehearsed that scene over and over again until it seemed natural to her. One week later, while sitting in her apartment, the doorbell rang. She ran downstairs, opened the door, and embraced her brother – who told her he was honorably discharged. Who brought the action against him, or who discharged him I do not know. I only know the brother did not run away from the punishment, for the lady came to my meeting the next Sunday and shared her story with all who were there. Now, if she hadn’t known this principle and put it into practice, she would have remained at home, angry and frustrated for six months until her brother was released.

All things are made by your imagination, for without imagining, nothing is made. Imagination is not limited to this level of consciousness. There are levels and levels of imagination, as your dreams and visions prove. This world is sustained by Divine Imagining, which is human imagining on a higher level. Our imagination is keyed low, but we are called upon to exercise this power, to examine ourselves to see if we are keeping our faith. On this level, faith is not complete until, through experiment, it becomes experience. Experiment with this statement: “Whatever you desire, believe you have received it and you will.” (Mark 11) If faith is not complete until, through experiment it becomes experience, you must take an unseen objective and place it in an assemblage of mental states which would imply its fulfillment. Then this desire must be activated by entering into its center, feeling its reality, and walking in the faith that it will happen. I tell you: in a way you could not devise, what you have assumed will come into your world.

You do not have to construct a bridge of incident to walk across; you simply move toward the fulfillment of what you have already prepared for yourself. Then fulfill another desire the same way, and when it appears you will know exactly what to do when confronted with any problem. You will simply turn your back upon it by constructing an imaginal scene which would imply the fulfillment of its solution. Activate it and let it come into being.

Unfortunately it is so easy to make the acceptance of Christianity a substitute for living by it. In New York City alone there are more than one million people on relief, and I dare say 90 per cent of them claim to be Christians, yet do not know the meaning of Christianity. Christ is not on the outside, but within you. And when He appears you will be like him. That is what we are promised in the Book of John. Will you see someone on the outside who looks like you? No! Christ is in you, and he makes all things. Test him and you will discover he is your imagination!

When I was a boy I lived in Barbados. Unschooled, with no background whatsoever, I dreamed of coming to America. I became so enamored with the idea, that at the age of 17 my parents put me on a boat to America with $600 in my pocket. They thought I would come back once the money was gone, but I wanted to live in America so badly I had to come and make it my home.

Are you willing to become enamored over a desire that much? Are you willing to fall in love with its fulfillment that you imagine it is yours now? If so, I promise you it will outpicture itself in your world. And when it does, you will have found Christ, for the words of scripture: “By him all things are made and without him is not anything made that is made,” are false.

When you test your imagination you will find He who produced your desire and the Maker of all things! I have tested him numberless times. I have taught this principle to others who have tested him and shared their experiences with me. Now I know who Jesus Christ really is. The words, “Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins,” are not spoken on the outside, but on the inside. Now wearing a garment of flesh, my words appear to be coming from without, and one day I will seem to die and become a historical fact. But I am not speaking as an outer man. I am speaking as the true Jesus Christ, who comes in every individual by unfolding his story as recorded in scripture. There is only one story, and only one being to play the part. That being is God. It is he alone who acts and is in all things.

When the Old Testament fulfills itself in you – an individual – you will not be a spectator observing the drama, but the central actor. And, knowing it is God alone who acts, you know you are He. And when you tell your story, those who hear you will see the garment of flesh you wear, and think you have a devil and are blaspheming the name of God. But, knowing your father is he who men call God – you know your father, while men know not their God.
While wearing a garment of flesh, I know my origin and destiny, for scripture has unfolded itself in me. Many who hear my confession are not expecting this kind of revelation, so they shut me out as one who blasphemes God’s name. But the words of scripture are spoken from within. This statement is one you are saying to yourself: “Unless I believe that I am he, I will die in my sins.” To sin is to miss your desire. If you do not believe you are its creator, you are missing your mark. You must believe, to achieve! You must assume you already are the person you want to be, in order to become it. Although your assumption is denied by reason and your senses, if you will persist in your assumption, it will harden into fact. This is how something is made out of that which does not appear.

Knowing what you want, assume your desire is already fulfilled by imagining a circle of friends are congratulating you. Fall asleep knowing that those who would empathize with you have already witnessed your good fortune. Knowing you have put the fulfillment of your desire in motion, walk confident that what you are assuming is true. And when it happens, share your experience with others, in the hope that they will try it and it will work for them. It does not matter to me what others think, for I have found my Father – the one the world worships and calls God – to be my own wonderful human imagination!

People buy pictures of Jesus and hang them on the wall to bow before, yet the pictures are so unlike the artist who painted them. When Christ appears, you will be like him. This I know from experience. When Christ appeared in me, I was the one playing his part. Since only God acts and is in all men, God puts himself into the central role and unfolds the eternal drama in each individual, who then knows that he is God.

Last year I gave ten lectures in San Francisco. Just before the first meeting a lady told me she thought I was the greatest teacher of truth in the world. I thanked her and began my lecture by stating that man is all imagination and God is man. That the eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself. Then I told the story of a lady who found herself sitting in a chair in a very large room, when a self-propelled carriage appeared. The door opened and I stepped out, wearing a cape and carrying a briefcase. Personifying sheer power, I entered the room and began to proclaim the power of God. As she looked at me, she said to herself: “That is Neville, and yet it is God.” Without giving her any sign of recognition, I finished my proclamation, turned, and – as though by appointment – the carriage appeared, I entered it, and vanished.

I continued by telling everyone that life itself is a glorious play, which was conceived by God, directed by God, and every part is being played by God. That this world is like a glorious poem, which exists not for itself, but for the one who conceived it. Falling in love with the world God had conceived, He wanted all of the characters to exist for themselves. But, finding no one to play the parts, God died to his true identity in order to take upon himself the limitation of the characters in his play. Now playing the part of every individual, God experiences all of the tribulations of being man, until He awakens in the character He is playing. I know I am Neville, a character in the play, but I also know I am God. This lady, who only a few minutes before had told me I was the greatest truth teacher in the world, was so shocked she never came back to the other lectures. She had expected me to conform to her little concept of God and I did not. Instead, I boldly proclaimed that we were all God, even though we are not all aware of it. Unless the story told in the gospels concerning Jesus Christ awakens and unfolds in the individual, that individual does not know that he is the Christ.

Paul found Christ to be his human imagination and urged everyone to test himself. Like Paul, I urge you to test your human imagination. You do not need the money or the time to go anywhere in your imagination, yet you can put yourself there, just as though you had made the trip. If you do, and your circumstances change so that the money and the time appears, allowing you to go, have you not found Jesus Christ to be your imagination? This is what scripture teaches, but man has personified the story and made Jesus Christ into a little idol to bow before, when the true God is the human imagination. All things are made by the human imagination. Imagine something that is not now a fact. Persist in your imaginal act, and when it becomes a fact, you have found God. And once you have found him, never let him go!

At the end of the drama it is said that one who knew Jesus betrayed him. Now, in order to betray someone, you must know his secret! So the one who knows the secret betrays him. That one is self! God is self-revealed. Unless God reveals himself to you, how will you ever know him? Turning to those who did not know him, Jesus said: “Now that you have found me, do not let me go, but let all these go.” Let every belief of a power on the outside go, but do not let the belief in your powerful imagination go – for truth is within you. When you find the Maker in yourself, then no matter what arguments the priesthoods may give, do not believe them, for the Christ you seek is the human imagination.

Tomorrow you may forget and be penetrated by rumors which disturb your body and cause you to suffer. When this happens you must reestablish your harmony by imagining things are as you desire them to be. Living in this wonderful world, we cannot stop the penetration. To perceive another, that other must first penetrate your brain; therefore, he is within you as well as on the outside and independent of your perception. Cities, mountains, rivers and streams, must first penetrate your brain for you to be aware of them. At that moment of awareness they are within you, even though they still maintain a certain independence of your perception and are without. Treat this inner penetration seriously and you will discover all you need to do is adjust your thinking. That you are all imagination and must be wherever you think you are. If you want to contact a friend, simply adjust yourself to his community by making there – here, and then – now. Visit him in his home by penetrating it within yourself. Give him your message and see his eyes light up with the pleasure of your words.

If God is in you, is there any place where God is not? And if there is no place where imagination is not, where would you go to be where you want to be? If everything penetrates you, then you must choose what you want and adjust yourself into the feeling that you are already there. You will know you have arrived when you view the world from there.

Motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. While physically sitting in a chair you appear not to move, but because everything penetrates you, by a mental adjustment you can think from the awareness of being the person you want to be. How will you know you have changed? By the expression on the faces of your friends. If they now see the new you, then you have moved. So let them look at you until their faces tell you they are seeing that which you are assuming is true.

There must always be a frame of reference from which you move. Your frame is your friends, who would know of any change in your life. If I died, motion would be detected, as one friend would call another, who would call another, and finally dozens of people would know that Neville had died. If, on the other hand, I became a millionaire, that same chain reaction would occur.

After assuming you are now what you want to be, make your friends your frame of reference by hearing them congratulate you. Feel the reality of their actions. Relax in the peace of knowing it is done. And when it comes to pass, you have found Christ, for it is He who makes all things and without him is not a thing made that is made. You made your life change by finding Christ to be your imagination!

I tell you: God became you, with all of your weakness and limitations, that you may become Imagination. Becoming our imagination, God exists in us and we in him. Our eternal body is the imagination, and that is God Himself. And God alone acts! He can act the part of the fool, or the king, the poor, or the rich man. Every desire is a state. Move into your desire, and God will play that part – as you! If you desire riches, yet do not know this power, you will remain poor because you are looking for a God on the outside, trying to coerce him into giving you wealth for acquiring merit. You can spend your life acquiring merit and be so good the world will think you are wonderful, yet remain poor. Man must seek and find his true identity within himself, for he and he alone is the revealer and maker of everything in this world.

I have never seen Neville do anything. I was never a spectator, but the actor playing the part. Now wearing this garment of decay, called Neville, when I tell my story people are shocked. They think I am blasphemous by making these bold claims, yet I can no more deny my mystical experiences than I can deny the simplest evidence of my senses. I know what I ate tonight, yet its memory is not as vivid to me as my experiences of scripture. So I say to all: the one who makes everything is the human imagination. This may seem cruel to one who is now experiencing pain, but it is true. I have suffered. I have known physical pain. Even though I may say I caught the flu, I know I caught it within me. I read the paper where I learned that 50 per cent of the people had the flu, and – becoming a statistic – I made it fifty-one. I have experienced its aches and pains, and learned a lesson. Now I know that even though I have experienced the drama of Jesus Christ, I am still subject to everything man is subject to. I know that I cannot point to any other cause other than my own imagination, as cause cannot come from the outside. If I am in pain, the cause is mine. We are told in Galatians that God – your imagination – is not mocked. That as you sow, so shall you reap. “See yonder fields? The sesame was sesame, the corn was corn, the silence and the darkness knew, and so is a man’s fate born.”

So I repeat: Causation is the assemblage of mental states, which occurring produces that which the assemblage implies. Assemble a mental state which implies you are now what you want to be. Enter into that state. Remain there until you become one with it by performing inner acts as though they were outer ones. Continue to do so and watch, for your outer world will change as these inner acts become facts in your world. And don’t think you will ever find a stopping place. No state you have ever created will endure unmoved, undisturbed, forever – because every moment of time you are being penetrated. Your idea of perfection and harmony today will be disturbed tomorrow, forcing you to use your talent to construct an imaginal change.

Your departure from this world will be so only to those who cannot follow you into another section of the same world. There you will continue to imagine, until the gospel story repeats itself in you. It will, for it is the story of God awakening and being born in man. Where God is not in man as his human imagination, the story could not be repeated. But when it erupts and Christ unfolds within the individual, he leaves a section of time to enter an entirely new age called the kingdom of God.

You can prove you are all imagination if you believe it, for you live by your beliefs. Lip service is not enough. Belief must become alive. Do you really believe your imagination makes all things? Then test yourself and see. When confronted with any problem, immediately construct an imaginal solution. Enter into that image and abide in its truth. Always remember who the maker is, for he makes things out of that which does not appear. He is like quicksilver, but you can test him best in a daydream.

Fawcett said: “Divine imagining is like pure imagining in ourselves. It lives in the very depth of our soul underlining all of our faculties, including perception, but streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fantasy.” All dreams proceed from God whether they be in the day, or night. Everything is preceded by a dream, called an imaginal act!

Take me seriously and test the maker in you. “Examine yourselves to see if you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test.” (II Corinthians 13) I hope you will find out that you have not failed!

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.