neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

ENTER THE DREAM

Neville Goddard 11-21-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityGod only acts and is in existing beings or men. Embracing the fires of experience, God was consumed by the flames, rose from their ashes, and continues to rise as Jesus Christ, or Divine Imagination. Good and evil are not conditions imposed by some benevolent deity, but states the soul must experience in order to surpass them and awaken as God Himself. 

Tonight I will share with you an experience of a friend, a lady who wrote, saying: “In my dream I possessed the power to be anything I wanted to be. The moment I observed the being or thing I became it, felt its emotion, and shared its thoughts and environment. This I did throughout the night and awoke reluctantly because I was so enjoying the experience.”

Now let me tell you what Aldous Huxley wrote about his friend, D. H. Lawrence: “To be with Lawrence was an adventure, because he was not of the order of this world, but belonged to another universe. When I was with him and he shared his experiences, I felt that he knew what it was to be a tree, a daisy, a breaking wave, or the mysterious moon itself. He saw things the mortal eye could not see. He was a sensitive, intelligent man who could cook, sew, embroider, and do woodwork to perfection; yet he could sit alone doing nothing and be completely happy. He could put himself into the skin of an animal and describe in the most convincing detail its dim, inhuman thoughts.”

I am quite sure my friend never read that letter, but I gave her my immortal eyes. The eye of Imagination is now open in her and she has shared her experience of going from state to state, from things to persons, knowing their feelings and emotions. How is that possible? Because God is the only actor.

Blake makes this statement: “Eternity Exists and All things in Eternity Independent of Creation which was an act of Mercy. By this it will be seen that I do not consider either the Just or the Wicked to be in a Supreme State, but to be every one of them States of the Sleep into which the Soul may fall in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil when it leaves Paradise following the Serpent.”

Everything in the world is yourself pushed out. Every animal there can be entered by you, and you can experience its emotion, for that animal is your very self.

You are the animating power of the universe. All things were made by you and without you was not anything made that was made, for you are life itself. This I know from experience. The universe is alive in you. It has no life on the outside. It is yours to animate, to stop, to let go, and stop again. Blake was right when he said: “God only acts and is in existing beings or men,” for God is the only actor, acting imaginatively in the human imagination.

While seated here you can see your home in your mind’s eye, but it does not have the cubic reality as does this room. But one day you will think of something and see it more vividly than you now see the speaker. You will enter it, not as a shadow, but as a 3-dimensional space. I have sat in a chair or rested on a bed with my eyes closed as in sleep and seen what I could not see if the lids were open. Knowing exactly where I was and what I was doing, I allowed consciousness to follow vision and stepped into that image which closed itself around me as I set out to explore that world.

I now know the truth of Blake’s words: “If the Spectre would enter into these images in his Imagination, approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contemplative Thought. If he would make a friend and companion of any one of these images which always intrigues him to leave mortal things as he must know, then will he rise from the dead; then will he meet the Lord in the air and then he will be Happy.”

Many times while sitting in my chair or lying on my bed, my inner eye has opened and I have seen what no mortal eye could see. Then I would enter into the image by allowing my consciousness to move on its fiery chariot of contemplative thought. Clothed as I am, the world calls me Neville; but I – a conscious being – have moved out of this body and into a world which instantly clothed itself around me; and I explored that world, clothed in a body just as solidly real as the one I left on the bed or chair. If anyone had entered the room they would have thought Neville was sleeping; yet I was fully awake, consciously aware of being separated from my external self.

Look at yourself in the mirror and you are seeing the mask God is wearing in this world of death, but you cannot see the immortal you who cannot die. Your friend or relative may appear to die, but he is not that which is put into the furnace and consumed or buried in a grave. He is that which his I AM is conscious of being, exploring other worlds just as real as this until he experiences the mystery of scripture.

You see, God only acts. Sitting in my chair and seeing what I should not see, I acted by consciously entering into the image I was viewing, to discover it was not a flat surface, but a 3-dimensional reality, complete and ready for occupancy.

My friend knows what it is like to become anything that intrigues her, and I am quite sure she never read the letter Huxley wrote of his friend D. H. Lawrence. This is the same Huxley who showed no interest when I tried to tell him of my birth from above, of David and the visions I have shared with you. He liked me as a friend but he had his own limitations, as everyone does. In a certain social world, if you pronounce a certain word differently you are cataloged as one who is not “in,” as it were, and Huxley would not listen to my visions because I did not speak as he thought everyone should. I could have told him things beyond the wildest dreams of his friend D. H. Lawrence, but because of his little stumbling block Aldous could not hear my words.

But I tell you who are seated here tonight: you are the only God. You will know this from experience, for the day is coming when – instead of seeing your thoughts in your minds eye, you will see them 3-dimensionally, just as you are now seeing the speaker. When the eye of imagination opens you will instantly move into the thought, whether it is regarding something that took place ten thousand years ago or exists in what you might think to be the future. I tell you: there is nothing that is not here and now, ready for you to enter and become one with.

One day you will realize, like Blake, that neither the just nor the wicked are supreme states, and you will be able to forgive everyone for what he is doing or has done. You will know that although his action seems horrible, based upon this level, he is expressing a state and must do as the state dictates. Good and evil are simply states of experience through which the soul of Man must pass in order to awaken to the being that he really is. He must embrace the fires of experience and be consumed before he can rise from the ashes to be one with the being who sent him.

I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you when the eye of imagination opens, for only then will you be actually seeing for the first time. And when the ears are open you will hear what no mortal ear can hear, as you see what no mortal eye can see. A week or so ago I went to an office regarding my Medicare, and I was asked to prove that I would be sixty-five on my next birthday. I knew that at one time I had obtained my baptismal certificate, but I hadn’t seen it in years and had no idea where it was. Two nights ago, about 1:30 A.M., my divine brothers said to me: “Your baptismal certificate is in your wallet.” I awoke, opened the dresser drawer and there, inside a wallet my wife had given me back in 1938, was the baptismal certificate I had obtained in 1924 when I needed it to go to London during my dancing career. So I know that when the eye and ear of imagination is open, every desire of the heart will be seen and heard. That is your destiny.

I say: you are God, the only actor in this world. No matter what you imagine, God is acting. He is the only actor, acting by imagining. You can imagine anything, cover the act with faith by believing in its reality, and it will come to pass. When Blake spoke of eternity in his statement: “Eternity exists and all things in Eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy,” he was referring to the little garment of flesh and blood you wear. Your garment is. It is eternal. It is a garment that anyone can – and many will – wear. In my case, this is a garment in which one awakes. I am not the garment called Neville, any more than I am any part I ever played on Broadway. I was in six plays but I never was the characters I played there, but simply the actor. And so it is with God. He is the only actor in eternity and God is the human imagination. It is the human imagination who plotted the entire play before he came down and assumed these eternal bodies of limitation and death. And it is the human imagination who will rise from these eternal bodies into Divine Imagination from whence he came.

In the Book of Genesis we are told: “The serpent spoke and said to the woman, ‘You will not die for God knows that when you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, your eye will open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” This is something you must know in order to surpass and rise beyond it as Divine Imagination. The serpent knew that as you ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, although you would not die, you would embrace the fire of experience, be consumed as its victim, and rise from its ashes as God Himself. That is the story of scripture.

Blake added this wonderful thought, saying that we left paradise following the serpent. This implies that we did not begin here on earth, but left paradise following the serpent of generation who told us that when we embraced the great experience of good and evil we would be consumed in its fire and yet not die, but would rise from it. In his book, John tells it in a lovely way as: “I came out from the Father and came into the world. Again I am leaving the world and returning to the Father.” So we did not begin here, but – coming out from the Father – we found these garments that seemed to begin in time, but really are an eternal part of the structure of the universe. In my own case this little garment seemed to begin in 1905, but it was always so. It was always growing into manhood and departing in its sixties. Always appearing, occupied by God, moving towards a certain point and then disappearing.

All of these are but garments to be picked up and worn. People think they are the garments they wear. That is because they do not know who God is, for he is in the one who is wearing the garment. It is God, your own wonderful human imagination, who acts and is in existing beings or men. There is no other God, no other actor in the universe.

If you want to test God, you may. Your immortal eyes and ears need not be open to test your creative power. Simply assume you are the one you want to be. Remain faithful to your assumption and, although everything denies it, you will become it. It does not matter who you are or what the world thinks of you; anything is possible to the “I” of imagination. As I mentioned earlier, had Aldous only listened to my message, rather than my English, I could have told him things beyond the wildest dreams of D. H. Lawrence. But I am a Colonial in his eyes and, like all Englishmen; the Colonials are looked down upon. If you don’t speak with the Oxford or Cambridge accent, you are a Colonial in their eyes and not one of the boys.

If Aldous had only listened, I could have told him what it was like to not only be the wave, but to be the ocean. When I was but a boy, years before puberty (in fact it stopped at puberty), I would know the night it was going to happen and was afraid to go to sleep. It was marvelous to be the ocean, but to be the breaking wave (a small portion of my being) was frightening. I – the ocean would toss myself – the wave into the skies and then catch myself upon my own bosom as I fell. This experience would happen to me once a month over a period of years. I could have told him what it was like to be infinite light with no circumference, but my accent put barriers in his mind and he could not hear me. This is true the world over.

People judge from appearances, as the individual’s true being is unseen by mortal eyes. God comes to us unknown and unseen; but in his own wonderful mysterious manner he lets us discover who he is, and when we do it is in a first person, singular, present tense experience.

I am not trying to flatter you when I tell you that you are God. Everyone is. The one who murders is one with the one who is murdered. The rapist is one with his victim. These are all God’s experiences of good and evil in order to surpass good and evil and rise as Divine Imagination who is God Himself. You and I came down and, embracing the fire of experience, we have been consumed by it. Many a time the little garment that we wore turned to ash; and from that ash we found a new body, just like the old one, only new, healthy and wonderful with not a thing missing, to be consumed once more. And we will keep on being consumed, one after the other, until that moment in time when we rise as the Lord Jesus Christ who is God Himself, to be consumed and restored no more. So when Blake said: “God only acts,” he really meant it. God not only acts, he is the only actor. When you begin to imagine, God is acting and what you imagine will happen.

I was late getting here tonight. A friend came for lunch yesterday who, knowing the friend who brings me here every week, said: “Isn’t he unreliable?” and I immediately answered, “No! Never.” She didn’t want to hear that and is a very intense lady who knows how to reach him. Today for the first time my friend called to say he couldn’t make it. An intense imaginal act produced what the lady wanted to hear, but she will never get the satisfaction of hearing me say he was ever late or did not come.

There are people in this world whose surface veneer appears to be altogether wonderful, but below that surface there is an intensity and they do not know that they are only hurting themselves. She can’t touch me, although undoubtedly she has tried; but if she did it would boomerang in a way she would not know. I love her dearly, but she is intense and also of the same school that if you are not of a certain physical background you are not “in.”

I have told you unnumbered times that I have no feeling towards any aristocracy in the world. Though I speak of being a descendant of Abraham, it is not after the flesh, but after the spirit; for in the state of Abraham I believed the story that was told me before that the world was. There is no physical aristocracy. Only the aristocracy of the spirit consisting of those who are called and embodied into the body of the Risen Lord. I could tell her this forever and she would not understand. She believes in physical aristocracy, and there is none.

Do not allow anyone to try to impress you with his greatness relative to yours. I have never been able to feel anyone to be my superior. Physically, yes, they can knock me down with one blow. Intellectually, yes – no question about it. Financially, certainly, but I cannot meet anyone that I believe to be my superior. He may be an intellectual giant, a mathematical giant, a musical giant, a giant in a thousand ways, but that does not mean I feel inferior to him.

I was amused today when I looked at my baptismal certificate. My father’s occupation was listed as a meat vendor. He had a butcher shop. If this lady had seen that I would no longer be socially acceptable to her. But I urge you to never allow anyone to make you feel less than, because you are infinitely greater than all of the characters of the world put together, as you are God who is playing all the parts. And you will play them all. The phony, and the decent ones, the rich man, the poor man, the known, the unknown – you have played them all or you would not be here. The reason why you are here is because you are on the verge of awakening. And you will awaken from the dream to discover that you created the play, and finding no one to play the parts, you have played them yourself. And when you have played them all, you will awaken by a certain, definite series of events that take place within you. Then the inner eye and ear will open as mine did this morning, when the brothers told me where to find my baptismal certificate. I do not think I have looked in that wallet for thirty years. I do not carry a wallet. I do not drive and my wife carries the money and gives me whatever money I want, so what would I do with a wallet? Yet the crumpled little yellow page was there, just as my brothers said it would be.

I tell you: there isn’t a thing that does not exist now and here. We speak of the moon as billions of years old; but you cannot measure your age because there never was a time when you were not, nor will there ever be a time when you will cease to be. You didn’t begin in time. You came down into time – which you, yourself created – to experience good and evil, to expand the being that you always were. Even though your birth certificate shows you began in time, you didn’t, for you are the wearer of the garment. You are its actor who is God Himself. You cannot even say God is near, because nearness implies separation. He is not near, for when you say, “I am” you are proclaiming he is your very self.

Begin now to believe in your true Being who is God, and whatever you imagine to be so, firmly believe it is so, and it will be so.

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

ESAU AND JACOB

Neville Goddard  11-13-1959

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityAs I promised last Tuesday, I now want to give you my personal technique [I use] when I pray for myself or for others, but for the benefit of those who are here for the first time, I want to say that we believe here that Imagination creates Reality. And because only God creates Reality, your Imagining and my Imagining are one with the Supreme Power men call God.

In order to tell you of my technique I must go back and give you the reasons. I will go back to my personal experiences and tie them together with the Bible. It speaks of the birth of a child in Genesis 25, the child of Isaac and Rebecca. Rebecca, desiring to conceive after twenty years of barrenness, prayed unto the Lord and the Lord responded to her prayer, and she felt this strange struggle going on within her and she wondered why, and the Lord said: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other; the elder shall serve the younger.” And then at the moment of delivery out came first a red, hairy being, and then came another whose hand was holding the heel of the first and he was smooth-skinned and hairless. The first was called Esau and the second was called Jacob. Now the story is, “Bring me Jacob!” If you remember it, Jacob took Esau’s birthright and then he took his blessing, and Esau said to his father, Isaac, “Have you no blessing for me?” And Isaac his father said, “You shall live by the sword; you shall serve your brother, but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck.” That was the only blessing he could give to his first-born son, for he had given it all to Jacob, which means “the supplanter”. It makes no sense if you take it literally. It has nothing to do with persons called Rebecca or Esau or Jacob. It is all within you that this drama is unfolding.

I was seven years old when it happened to me, and I found myself an infinite stormy ocean. I was the ocean, and yet I was Neville. It seemed unconcerned as to what it did to Neville and it tossed Neville like a wave and Neville was scared almost to death. The ocean did not care, yet I, Neville, was also the ocean. This happened once a month from my seventh to twelfth year, and I could tell from the strange sense of expectancy I felt during the day when it was going to happen. I dreaded to go sleep for when I began to go to sleep then I became one with this immensity, and it was all this great ocean, and then a separation took place between the ocean and its wave, but I was still the ocean. Month after month this division took place until my twelfth year. Then it vanished.

When I was twenty-one, it returned on a different key. One night I was contemplating Samadhi and as I was reading this book on the life of Buddha (The Light of Asia). I fell into an involuntary trance. When I awoke the sun was up and I had not moved for ten hours, but during that interval I became infinite liquid light. I was not then divided; there was nothing but light. I was the One Reality and I was Infinite Light. That was the second experience.

Then came others of a secondary state of this division. I was projected with a certain intensity out of my body. I became aware for the first time of this division and that I was more than just this being of flesh and blood. I was out, and this Reality was in the room looking at this body on the bed. Then I desired to get back into the body, integrating as a unit, and do it con­sciously. I did it, and then with a deliberate conscious inten­tion I intensified this power and I felt myself moving out again. I desired to come down into the room, and I made a sort of loop. A cloud formation was over the head but everything was in detail. I could see through the breaks in the cloud the face that I see every day in the mirror – my face. I tried to go through the wall and I could not, and then I made a great leap at the wall and knocked myself back into the body again.

Man thinks that when he looks into a mirror that that is all he is. Burn him up and he is gone! It is not so at all. Man that appears from the womb is this picture of the twin that comes into the world. Every child that comes from woman is Esau. You may be quite hairless by normal standards, but you are still Esau. He changes his name from Esau to Edom, which means “redness” or “red blood.” This being always comes first into the world, and after him comes one to supplant him and that is Jacob. You do not see Jacob. He is hidden. So it said that he had no hair. He lived in a tent. That tent was Esau.

Then comes the separation, for God and only God brings about that separation and God is that infinite ocean that will take this being and toss him over and over to bring about this separation. There is something in man that brings about this separation and separates Jacob from Esau. “Have you no blessing for me, Father? You asked me to bring you venison and now I discover my brother has deceived you.” Surely he is well named “the supplanter”. “He took my birthright and then my blessing, but surely, Father, you have a blessing left for me.” This is it: “You shall live by the sword; you shall serve your brother, but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck.”

There is something in this body that can break loose from this commanding power, and then it dies. That is all Esau can do. So this garment – the body – is under command to obey Jacob. Jacob is all Imagination. There is a being in man that divides this garment that moves by compulsion, and when he breaks loose, there is no Esau.

Isaiah 49: “He who forged me from the womb formed me to bring Jacob again unto him.” All He wants is Jacob. He wants to awaken in every being a Center of Imagining and that Center is called Jacob, the little one. “How will he stand, for he is so little?” I scare him to death, but I do it to make him alive, and a Center that can create. In the later gospels it is called Jesus, the Supreme Being that rules the world.

Now, from these experiences I saw the Bible differently. I would read the Book and see it differently. I have had only one real beating in my life and that was by a man who blew out his brains six months later. He asked me about a Bible passage. “What does it say?” I said, “Take up your bed and walk.” He said, “Bring me the book! I said, “My brother has it.” There were nine of us, and we did not have nine Bibles; my brother Cecil had it and I could not get it. This teacher brought out a cane, a long supple thing, and then I had to get over a bench and then he simply took out on my body what it took to explode a sexual expression in him. Then he stopped, and I was bleeding. Six months later he shot himself. It was all because of that passage in the Bible that he beat me. But maybe that was part of the pattern when I misquoted, according to his standard, for his version said, “take up your couch,” and mine said “bed.” But it only means that on which one was resting. It was only a part of the pattern, so I was being tossed by that ocean. But it seemed not to care about this which it tossed. But still, though it was scared, it knew it could not cease to be, and so it was part of a plan to separate it so that it could become a Center for creation. So I saw the Bible differently.

What is the technique? In my 21st year when I meditated I became identified with the bliss I contemplated as a sea of golden liquid light. Then I understood. Absorption! That was the secret. If I became completely identified with a state – and named it – to the degree that I became absorbed – it worked. What became absorbed? Not the garment – Esau. It was Jacob, which is all Imagining. Jacob had to be separated from Esau. “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other; the elder shall serve the younger.”

I discovered that the thing divided from this which I washed and fed, was my Imagination. And then I found I could put my Imagination any place in space. I put it into my own nephew, and when my sister looked at her son, who was about to make his exit, she saw not his face, but mine. For I laid down Esau and became Jacob, and became Billie, and determined to be seen by my sister, and my sister saw, not her son lying on the bed, but her brother Neville. That night she wrote to me that she had seen my face and not Billie’s.

When I wanted to go to Barbados and did not have a penny, I slept in my Imagination in Barbados and saw the world from Barbados, and I went there through the efforts of my family, who thought they had initiated the trip. When I identified myself with a state, others responded. They moved like automatons. And then I wondered if I should do it, and then I went back to that passage in Genesis: “You shall serve your brother.” And every man in the world you shall serve. And then you feel right about it. This one was imagining and every being in the world is serving him. You do not have to ask anyone in the world to help you, no matter what “they” say. Esau can only live while you have your yoke upon his neck; and when he breaks that yoke off his neck, Esau dies. Yet he perpetuates himself constantly before he dies, that Jacob may put his yoke on another neck. And Jacob is called in the New Testament, Jesus Christ.

Here is an exercise that I have found very helpful. At home, where I know what every part of a given room looks like, I sit in a chair facing one wall, and with my eyes closed, I “look” ahead and see not the wall that is in front of me, but the one that is behind me. I see that wall in my mind’s eye and it is now in front of me. Then the room has reversed itself, or I have reversed myself. Throughout the whole Bible there is this tone of reversibility. I discovered as I read it that it means this. So I see what is behind me as if it were in front of me.

Here is another exercise. I would sit physically in my living room in New York City and assume that I was actually standing on the street in front of my apartment house, and standing there on the street I would see details on the marquee of the building. Physically I was in my living room on the sixteenth floor but in my Imagination I was on the street and I was seeing it. Then, still in Imagination, I would walk back into the building, come upstairs and sit down where Esau was. And the next time I actually did go out and took Esau, when I reached the street and looked at the marquee I saw on it what I had not noticed the last time I looked at it physically.

Luckily for me when this began to appear when I was seven, there were no psychoanalysts in the little island of Barbados, and if there had been, my father could not have afforded them. They would not have known what was happening to me. Luckily for the work I was to do, I was born there on this little island that had no importance in the world – and no psychoanalysts! So no one could disturb what my Father was doing to bring about this separation. It went on for five years, from seven to twelve, and then I was torn apart, but I did not lift that being out until I was twenty-one and saw it differently. There were not two of us, but I was “It”, and I could say “I and my Father…” but in the beginning I could only call it a stormy ocean. I was “It” and I was also Neville. When I was twenty-one I saw it and became absorbed in it – or else there was no Neville.

There came this separation on different levels to show how you can pray. You can be anything in this world. I would take a piece of wood, or a flower, or an animal and try to feel myself as it, and I finally could feel what it would be like to be a glass of water. For everything emanates from Divine Imagining, and I am “It”, so then I am everything. There is nothing but Divine Imagining, and “It” and human Imagination are one.

Let us come back now to the practical side in dollars and cents. A good friend of mine here got a letter from another friend who is a professor and whom I admire very much, but professors are so pedantic. They are so filled with knowing and with data already outdated in view of present findings, that they are actually, you might say, full of ignorance! Man is unfolding so rapidly that you are learning from books known to be inaccurate and mistaken. You take unrevised books and commit things to memory and you get your degree in a university. This professor (Raynor Johnson???) wrote my friend regarding the title of my book, Your Faith Is Your Fortune. He wrote, “You would like me to comment? I presume he took the statement ‘Your face is your fortune’ and just changed the one word.” He did not read the book, yet it says in the Book of Proverbs, “He who answers before he hears, it is shame and folly to him.” Did you dare to answer before you heard the question? And yet you are not only a professor but also the master of a college in the University.

This professor is coming to our land and I will recommend that you go to hear him. He completely disapproves of the words “Faith” and “Fortune,” yet his motive in coming here is still to take back to his own country – m-o-n-e-y! There is no other reason for his coming, for he is from a department using books already outdated, so what can he give us? So I said to my friend: “He has, like so many wise people, mechanical talents, and anyone can take from the inspired work of mystics and write many books and collect money on them.” He is coming here only to make some money.

But I talk not about a book, but about the book – the Bible. I went through all these experiences and I know that the secret is identification with the ideal, no matter what it is. If you want money – what is wrong with that? This one who is coming here will not refuse the check when it is offered to him! Who is fooling whom in this world? But you are told “Thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and pious and revealed them unto babes.” So, keep company with the babes and shun the so-called wise and holy people.

When this division takes place in you, that is God, and you do not need the help of anyone. For everything came upon Jacob, and only the sword was given to Esau. So this Esau (the body) takes food into his stomach and it must be transformed into bone and blood. It is a stormy process. And the very moment that he breaks loose from the yoke Jacob has placed on his neck, Esau is dead. It does not matter, for the immortal you is Jacob and you cannot cease to be. Let no one tell you that money or anything else is wrong if Jacob wants to exercise his talent for that. Every Esau has to serve Jacob. If you find Jacob and you dwell in the state and become completely absorbed in it, all the Esaus have to serve you to fulfill that state, and no power in the world can stop it. Read it carefully. “You shall live by the sword, and you shall serve your brother.”

Esau had to marry the Canaanite, and the word means, “that which would humiliate,” but whom did Jacob marry – that which came out of Laban – the ideal of the world. The “garments” marry the Canaanite. If my old teacher, Ab, were here, he would frighten you to death. He used to say, “If anyone stands before you, and you think him so important, strip him and let him perform the normal functions of life – and you will turn your back on him.” Jacob commands the world and Jacob is Imagination. No one has ever seen Jacob because he is like his Father, completely invisible, and then you arrive at the point where you discover your own invisibility.

J.W. Dunne, whose books are known to you, asks, “How can you see something that has no edges?” He asked the angel who appeared to him, “Why can they not see the shadow God is casting over the world?” And the angel replied, “Because it has no edges.” He thought that was right, for it is impossible to see a “this” without a “not this” to make comparison. But that is not true, for when man discovers Jacob, he has no edges, but he is more real than all the Esaus of the world. He is everything, and all things at all times.

Here is a statement made by Aldous Huxley regarding D. H. Lawrence. “He was a strange man but he seemed to know what he was talking about. He knew what it was to be a cow or a daisy. He knew the emotions of his favorite cow, and he knew what it was like to be a daisy. He knew what it was to be the moon!” Huxley did not understand; he had mechanical talents and he could describe these things as they were described to him by D. H. Lawrence.

Something is taking place in you and God is doing it, for the depth of your being is God, and when this is done then Jacob is divided from Esau. Everything is given to Jacob, and “never shall the scepter fall from his hand.”

So I have given you my technique in praying. I do not assume the responsibility for making anything so after I have identified myself with the state that I desire, I let it be so. It may take a day or a week or a month, and sometimes I never hear about it, but I know it must come true, for my word cannot return unto me void. I see what I want to see, and then I let it be true. I do not lift a finger to make it true, for how can I discuss it when it is already so. Whenever you have imagined yourself as you want to be and you have felt the thrill of it, that is Jacob’s command and the outer being has to move through all these states to fulfill it.

The greatest visions in the world are in the Bible. Let this one or that one justify their little comments on the words “Faith” or “Fortune.” The act of faith is the power of God working in man to justify the way of man in need.

So, I sit down in my chair and I see before me what is not physically before me, and then I am turned around. This outer garment – Neville – was put through all the paces from seven to twenty-one, and then came this fulfillment of July 21st of this year (the birth of the Babe out of my own being) and I saw the complete separation of that little one called Jesus Christ from that which is Esau. Out of Esau came Jacob, and out of Mary comes Jesus Christ, and both come from a separation or a tearing away. It has nothing to do with dogma. Do you want it to be? Well, you name it, identify yourself with it; completely absorb yourself with it. The outer man cannot do it, so the inner man has done it, for he has commanded that “you shall serve your brother.” This hairy garment comes first and then comes the one you cannot see, and that is Jacob. So no matter who you are, this is the plan of God to awaken sons. This outer world seems to come first, but it comes to awaken God who created it. When he individualizes himself, what he wants most is Jacob. The whole of the physical world is completed, and we are told it is now melting in radiation, and then when the yoke is taken from Esau’s neck, he is dead.

Let no one tell you that you are some little worm. You are here because there is that child of God to be separated from the outer form by which you are recognized when you walk the street. Exercise this power for everyone in the world and not only wish them well but identify yourself with your wish for them. Then it is done, and you do not need to raise a finger to make it so, you let it be so. They will conform to what you have done. It does not matter who they are, whether they are simple people or if they have degrees: these degrees are given by Esau to Esau, and you are only concerned with Jacob. Isaiah 49: “He who formed me from the womb to be his servant and to bring Jacob to him again.” There in your Bible you will read it. “How can you find him? He is so small. How can Jacob stand?” He will stand all right! How small he is I know, for the infinite ocean tossed me on its back and I know it did not care. It was doing it for a purpose; I was tossed all over its infinity. I was afraid to go to sleep when I sensed the approach of these nights, and then when I closed my eyes this separation took place. He was pulling me out of Himself. That was the great ocean of life. When you understand this you will know what the Flood means, and the true meaning of the story of the Ark.

So tonight if I could give you my technique in essence, it is this: I sit quietly in a chair; I do not lie down for that position is associated with sleep. I sit in a chair and I imagine and become absorbed and identified with whatever another asks of me as if it were already realized. To me it is then real and they are standing before me and telling me the exciting news of having realized their dream. If physically they were in tears it would make no difference, for that is only Esau and I know that he must go through something to bring Jacob; I am not interested. Esau must serve Jacob. If they call me next day and tell me the most awful story it does not matter, for they started when Jacob gave the command, and all the blessings of the universe were given to Jacob and everyone has to serve him. If they call me to say they have been fired, I say, “Good!” When they had been fired, they became the fulfillment of what I had heard for them, and they will find that it was the turning point to take them to what they desired. Afterward they may forget how it happened, but you, do not forget that it was Jacob who gave the command. Now call him by a new name and call him Christ Jesus. Read the genealogy and you will see: Esau came first, then Jacob; John came first and then Jesus. They both came in a miraculous way. Isaac’s wife was barren for twenty years, and then he prayed. Jesus was born of a virgin; it has nothing to do with a man or a woman. I am every character in the Bible and these are only imaginal activity, and this was an imaginal activity that could pull out of itself what it desired.

Everyone that comes from below (by physical birth) has to come first, and that is Esau, and he will be torn apart so that he will be separated and then the Child is born, and then there is no limit to the translucency or expansion of the son of God.

Let us go into the silence.

QUESTION: Will you explain further about seeing another part of the room?

ANSWER: Practice bi-location. This is the tearing apart of Jacob from Esau. Sit in one room of your home and view another room, and see what you would see if you were physically there, and you tear yourself apart. Do not walk completely integrated, as a being that is only a garment of flesh: that is Esau. For man is all Imagining and he is always where he is in his Imagination.

If you desire security let no one tell you it is not spiritual. Those who say it is not spiritual are the first who will ask you for a handout! Let no one tell you that you should not have what you want in this world. It is yours if you know who Jacob is and who Esau is. Be ready to go through anything. Esau has to go through it; Esau is the slave of his brother. Jacob is the master. When you break loose from his yoke upon your neck, you are dead. Do not be embarrassed at what you lose. The best thing you can lose is false pride. You may have to go through the furnaces to lose false pride, for it is Jacob’s command.

QUESTION: How do you see this golden light?

ANSWER: I sit quietly and turn my eyes inward as if I am looking into my skull. In a moment a golden light begins to glow. Light begins to appear and it looks like golden liquid light and it comes before my eyes and then it goes out in circle after circle, like smoke rings, and these increase in rate and then they become like a funnel with the big end at my face.

Another exercise I practice: I take a table or a rug. I do not look at it, but focus my attention beyond it, and with my eyes partially open; I try to look below its surface. Suddenly the whole thing will become alive. There is nothing dead in this world. This rug at which you are looking seems inanimate, but suddenly in its depths people will appear. Do not be afraid and you will walk into it. You, the real you, are not contained within the spatial boundaries of this body, that is only Esau. But you are an immortal being and you can step through the seeming solid.

If you would like confirmation of this technique, read the life of DaVinci. He said that is how he got all of his paintings. He was the first one to give us the model of the airplane. Before the Wright brothers were thought of, he drew it. He said that when he wanted to paint he would look into a mottled wall and then all these people came out dressed in costumes, and they were not paid models!

Take a wall in your home, or look at the fireplace stones: they will become so familiar, and then the wall will change its face. It changes with your mood. Often it is a little girl; then it changes and is something entirely different. Your senses begin to expand, for there is something in every child born of woman that is immortal. I personally have no experience to confirm reincarnation as commonly taught, but I do have many experiences concerning worlds within worlds. I cannot tell you if the popular conception of reincarnation is true or false. I know I have always been, and I know I was sent, and that world from which I was sent is real to me, yet I had to go through what this world calls birth, but I do not call that reincarnation. That is the awakening of the sons of God and there is only one and that is Jacob or Jesus Christ.

The immortal being in you has never been tarnished; you cannot tarnish Jacob. Esau has to go through all these things, and fight all the way. We think there must be some redemption for Esau, but it is Jacob who has been given full control of the whole. We clothe and feed – and even insure – Esau. The being that cannot die is not insured, but we insure Esau.

Read it carefully in the new translation, the Nelson edition. They put it like a poem, and it stands out like a gem:

“Two nations are in your womb,
And two peoples, born of you,
Shall be divided;
The one shall be stronger than the other;
The elder shall serve the younger.”

I was seven before I knew about Jacob, Jacob did not like being tossed about by his Father. And then when I was twenty-one I learned I was nothing but golden liquid light.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

ESCHATOLOGY – THE DOCTRINE OF THE END

Neville Goddard 01-20-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityEschatology is the doctrine of the last days. It is the dramatic end of human history and the beginning of eternal salvation. When you, an individual arrive at that point in time, human history and the appearance of the Son or man (who is God) come together. This will happen in you after the tribulation of human experience, and of that day and hour only the Father in you knows.

Although God the Father appears to be another, He is your very Self, as His spirit is in you. Were this not so, you could not commune with Him or He with you. He tells us to: “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Bring them all who are called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” You were created for God’s glory, His glory will not be given to another, therefore you must be the one who created you. This you will know when you experience eschatology. It comes at the end of human tribulation, when all of the parts have been played, therefore envy no one, the part they are paying, for you have either played it already or you will play it, for you cannot come to this dramatic end until you have played all of the parts, and of that day only the Father within you knows.

Eschatology was predicted and was fulfilled in vision. Always bear in mind that all of the stories recorded in scripture are visions. The Book of Isaiah begins: “This is the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos.” He tells you it is a vision and the sixty-six chapters do not deny it, modify it, or in any way contradict his words. We speak of the visions of Obadiah, the visions of Ezekiel, and are told that: “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.” These are all visions, not secular history at all.

In the 42nd chapter of Isaiah, we read: “Behold, the former things have come to pass and new I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” A literal rendering of the first part of that verse could be: “The former things, behold they have come, but man will not believe the individual who experienced them.”

Jesus Christ is not a man. He has revealed himself in me and will reveal himself in all even though the world is looking for something entirely different. The visions of the prophets will unfold in individual man when he enters the state called Paul. And when you enter that state, your mystical experiences will reveal the end of your tribulation of human experience and your entry into the kingdom of God.

The entire eschatology of the Old Testament is the coming of Jehovah. He came, but – expecting a physical person to come from without, they would not believe him.

But Jehovah comes only to fulfill what He had predicted through his prophets, saying: “Behold the former things have come and are here now.” The former predictions of the prophets become your experiences of the one who fulfills scripture, for man fulfills the prophecy of himself in the last days.

God, prophesying what he would do through his prophets, entered into the limitation of and took upon himself the restriction of man. The power and wisdom to create emptied himself of all that was his and, taking upon himself the form of a slave, was born in the likeness of man. Spirit became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross of man. And when an individual man told the story of how the prophecies unfolded in him, no one would believe his story.

So today we still have that fundamental rock called Israel. Their calendar year is now approaching 6,000, because to them He has not come. It is only when eschatology comes to the individual does his BC turn into A.D. The Jew will date their letters as the year 1969 because it is part of the world of Caesar, but believing Jehovah has not yet come, in his faith, the Jew keeps alive the long passage of time. But Jehovah comes in an entirely different way. He inspired the prophets to record the visions the individual will experience, personally.

Now if God – being Spirit – is known in a vision, what must you do to experience Him? You must reenact the drama within yourself! The resurrection takes place within. The birth foretold to Abraham takes place within. The three who bear witness to the birth are not seen approaching, but suddenly appear within. And the story of the serpent in the wilderness is fulfilled within when you become the serpent and ascend into heaven as the Lord God Jehovah.

Who would have thought – I know I didn’t – that the story recorded in the 22nd and 53rd [chapters] of Isaiah would be experienced in one night? Remember: when the prophets recorded their visions they were written out, but not paragraphed or made into chapter form. In fact, they were not even punctuated and often one word flowed into the other. It is man who has taken the manuscript and given it punctuation, verses, paragraphs, and chapters.

In the 53rd [chapter] of Isaiah, the question is asked: “Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” One night in vision I found myself in a room much like this one. I was seated on the floor facing twelve men, explaining the word of God when one quickly rose quickly and departed. As he left, I intuitively knew he was going to tell the authorities what he had heard. Then a tall, handsome man about 6’4″ tall, dressed in costly robes, entered. Because of his importance we all rose and stood at attention as he walked straight as an arrow to the end of the room, turned right, walked to the end, turned right again and came down the center to confront me. Taking a mallet and a wooden peg, he hammered the peg into my right shoulder. I felt every blow, yet it was not painful. Then he took a sharp instrument and with one quick, circular motion he severed my sleeve, tore it off and discarding it, he stretched out his arms forming the cross, embraced me, and kissed me on the right side of my neck as I – in turn – kissed him on the right side of his neck. And as the vision faded I saw the severed sleeve. It was a lovely shade of baby blue. His robe was costly, but mine was the priceless robe of light, light blue.

So now I know whom I have believed, for that night the arm of the Lord was revealed in me, and the 53rd chapter of Isaiah was fulfilled as well as the 22nd chapter of Isaiah. In this chapter we are told that he puts a peg into the shoulder of the one he has chosen, and on that peg all of the burdens of Israel are hung until the peg is broken. Then the utensils of the temple fall, for he has played his part.

Eschatology will never be understood as long as you look for someone on the outside to fulfill it. It an only be understood when you, personally experience it. Then you will tell your experiences to those who will listen, and some will believe you while others will disbelieve.

Eschatology is not the end of the world, as people believe. This past year a crowd left California and moved to Georgia and parts east, believing an earthquake would suddenly appear which would completely inundate us, and for the first time in recorded history, the east experienced an earthquake which shook twelve states.
What does it matter if an earthquake comes when there is no death? The individual who seems to die, in truth is restored to life in a 20-year old body to continue life in the environment best suited for the work still to be done in him. Cast in a role he has not yet played, he will continue life as we know it here, until he has played all of the tribulations of human experience. Then and only then will he arrive at eschatology – the day of the Lord – and only the Father knows when that day will appear.

I don’t care who you are – you are destined to experience eschatology, for it was God’s purpose to give himself to you and God is able to fulfill his purpose. He created you to radiate his glory and be the express image of his person.

You cannot stop God from fulfilling his purpose, but you will not arrive at that moment called eschatology until you have played all the parts – be they good, bad, or indifferent. So I say, envy no one. It doesn’t matter what they have done, are doing, or will do; do not envy or pity anyone, for you have either already played that part, or you will.

The Bible records every conceivable evil in the world that man could do to man and describes it openly. And you have played, or will play, every part before the last days come upon you, and in that day, events of scripture will unfold in you in a dramatic form imaginable. You will be possessed and find yourself the center of the entire Bible. As scripture reveals itself in you, you will discover from experience that you are the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you share your experience with others, they will question how a little nonentity who suffers and has nothing the world he would brag about could dare to make this bold assumption. They will think of you as blaspheming God, just as they accused him, claiming he blasphemed by stating, I and my Father are one, that when you see me you have seen the Father; that if you really knew me, you would know my Father also, but you know neither me nor my Father, for my Father is playing the part that I am.

And then one night in vision, I fulfilled the 42nd Psalm. That night, in vision I found myself leading an enormous crowd in gay procession to the house of God as a voice rang out: “And God walks with them.” A woman at my side asked the voice: “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice replied: “At your side.” Turning to her left she looked into my face and, laughing hysterically said, “What, Neville is God?” and the voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the voice spoke in the depths of my soul, saying: “I laid myself down within you to sleep and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and, knowing exactly what he was going to say, I became so excited I actually nailed myself upon this body in the same manner tradition tells us he was nailed upon the cross, but it was not a painful experience. Six vortices, each an ecstatic, joyful feeling, hold me here.

Now I know that no man took (or takes) my life, for I lay it down myself. I know I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again; for I, God the Father, deliberately took upon myself this limitation upon myself. When I heard the voice that night say: “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream,” I knew he was telling me that he was I and when the dream is over and he awakes I would be He, radiating His glory and bearing the express image of His person.

This is not for me alone, but for all. Listen to the words: “The glory that thou gavest me I would give to them that they may be one even as we are one.” I have told you of the glory that is now mine, thereby giving you the glory that we may be one. I in you and thou in me, that we may be made perfectly one. I have made God’s name known to you and I will make it known that the love by which I am loved may be in you. Not less love, but the same love, so that the whole may become one love!

In the end everyone will experience the whole Bible and tell it as I am telling it now. A few will believe but the majority will not. That’s all right, for all of the tribulations of human experience must be fulfilled, with no omissions. Today you may be one of the so-called beautiful people, possessing inherited wealth. You may be one of the ten best dressed women and spend a quarter of a million dollars on clothes to create the part you are playing. But tomorrow, even if you haven’t played it, you may play the part of a scrub woman, for every part must be played before you can arrive at eschatology.

Having played every part as recorded in scripture, when I aw a man betray me I knew I had played the part of the betrayer, for I have fulfilled scripture.

Everyone must play it all, if not on this stage, then on another, for when you leave this set on the stage of life, although you are no longer seen by the audience here, you are not dead, but have entered another stage in the great theater called life, to continue the work that is still to be done in you, until all of the parts in the play have been played.

Eschatology is not the end of the earth, but the end of human history and the beginning of eternal salvation. It is the abrupt cleavage between this world and the transcendental world of God. It is your entrance into an entirely different world where you radiate God’s glory which you create by your very being, for you are now the Father. God the Father created you to radiate his glory and bear the express image of His person in that world. I cannot describe it because there are no images on earth to aid me. Life there is entirely different from this one, for there you are not some little pygmy, but God Himself, completely equipped to do it all!

So if you condemn someone, the chances are you have not played the part he is playing, but will play it tomorrow, for condemnation simply moves you closer to the fulfillment of what you have condemned. Let no one judge you and don’t judge another, for you know too much now. It is my hope you have played all the parts and that tonight your eschatology will come. Sacred history has been brought to its climax, and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ in you is the one who does it.

Addressing God as, “O righteous Father”, he [John] said: “I in them and thou in me.” Now, if God the Father is in me, and I am in you, is He not in you also? Yes, God the Father is in you and Christ, his God’s creative power, is in you as the pattern man who must fulfill scripture. The plan was made for, and erupts in Christ – the Christ in you. He is your hope of glory, for you are the one spoken of as Abraham.

In the state called Abraham the promise was made that you would have a child. So what part are you playing then the child appears? Abraham looked up to see three men standing before him. He thought they were messengers of the Lord for he did not realize he was the Lord himself. It is said he did not see them approaching they came so suddenly. And when the prophecy is fulfilled your attention is diverted for a few seconds by an unearthly wind, and when you look back those that you did not see approaching are sitting where your body was, for your body is now gone. The body has been removed because you only wore it for a little while, but while you wore it something happened in you.

Now a lady wrote this past week, saying: “In my dream I was shoveling dirt. Although it seemed as though I was digging in the earth, I knew I was digging in my own brain.” That’s a lovely vision and a true one. Everything takes place in the brain – the earth, for man is made up of the dust of the earth, so her vision was perfect. She was digging in her own brain. For she is on the verge, although I cannot tell her the day or the hour, for only the Father in her knows.

If you will read the Book of John – which differs somewhat from the synoptics, you will discover that John pinpoints the day the vision will occur, stating that the birth, followed by the resurrection, will take place between 6:00 P.M. on Sunday and 6:00 P.M. on Monday. That is when it happened in me. I went to bed on Sunday evening about 11:00 P.M. and awoke, was born from above, and resurrected at 4:00 A.M. on Monday morning. You will follow the same pattern. Having entered the world before the coming of Jehovah, you entered the world from B.C. and when it happens your world turns into the year of the Lord, A.D.

The Old Testament is crowded with eschatology – the coming of Jehovah. He came but was not recognized because it was not what people expected. But He is coming in your world and you are going to fulfill scripture. When you realize you are the central character of the Bible, you are going to feel so wonderful. I cannot tell you the thrill that is in store for you when you experience everything written there. Even though it has happened to others, scripture is all about you, because in the end there is no other. In that day, you will know that I dwell in them and thou in me, and we, all gathered together are perfect in that one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

You will not have a different son from the speaker. We have the same son. When I tell this to priests, rabbis and ministers, they throw up their hands in holy horror and claim I have taken all of their religion from them. What they have been taught is true on a certain level of awareness, but I am speaking from experience. I have experienced scripture. I know it is true, but it is not what the world teaches.

Jesus Christ is God the Father and Jesus Christ is in you. One day you will find out that you are God the father and because you are you will produce a son to bear witness to that fact. Now no one knows who God the Father is, except his son who comes into your world to reveal you to yourself. And when he appears you don’t have to ask him who he is; the minute you see him you know exactly who he is and he knows who you are. There is no uncertainty as to this relationship. To know that you are God the Father, yet while you remain here in the world of Caesar you will continue to wear the little garment that suffers, as all garments do. But after you have experienced eschatology and leave this little garment behind, you will no longer be restored to life, for you will have come to the end of human history.

In the Book of Acts it is said that Paul remained at home, talking from morning to night about the word of God and the kingdom of heaven. It does not say how Paul departed, in spite of tradition where they claim he was a martyr. Paul was not murdered. The word “martyr” means “witness”. He was a witness, yes, a witness to the truth of God’s word, for the word is true, and someone had to witness it.

So when it happens to you, you will tell it. You may not speak from the platform, as I do, but you will tell it. You can’t restrain the impulse as we are told in Jeremiah: “If I say I will not mention him or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire and I am tired of holding it in and I cannot.” It’s simply something within you and you cannot stop telling your story. You will be compelled to make known unto them God’s name and the love by which you are loved, that that same love may be in them.

Now, Jesus Christ does not stand before himself and call himself Father. God’s only begotten son, David, stands before Jesus Christ in you, and calls you father as he called me Father. Then you will know we are the same Jesus Christ.

I can say to every one of you: you are going to have this experience and know from experience who you really are. There are not a lot of Jesus Christ’s running around, there is only God the Father. If I am the father of God’s only begotten Son as told me in the 2nd Psalm and you have the same experience, then you and I are the same Father. And if the whole world has the same experience – and they will – then we are the one God and Father of all, are we not? So John’s prayer is that all will become one as he has become one Father. And he speaks of the glory recorded in Isaiah, saying: “The glory thou gavest me, I have given them.” God didn’t keep a little glory for himself and share the rest. It’s the same glory, because there cannot be another. So in the end there is only one God, only one Lord, only one Father, and only one Son and you will be the Father of that son, as I know I am the Father of that one and only son.

This is eschatology – the arrival of the end of the tribulation of human experience and the beginning of eternal salvation. And, although you may not remember, you had to have played every part in this world to arrive at the fulfillment of scripture. The blind man, the deaf man, the poor man, the rich man, the beggar, the thief, the murderer, the betrayer, the betrayed – you name it and scripture has mentioned it. , You can’t name one vile or evil state that is not described openly in scripture. And you have played them all, or you will.

I think you who come here have played them all or you would not be this constant. You would find something far more interesting tonight, raining as it is, than to be here. So in the not distant future you will be fulfilling scripture and experiencing the thrill of the events s they happen. Today we watched the inauguration of a new president. It was a marvelous production, but it pales into insignificance compared to the dramatic quality that possesses you when scripture unfolds within you.

Can you imagine waking and coming out of your skull as one coming out of a womb? Then five months later finding your son who calls you Father? These two different events are recorded in the 9th chapter of Isaiah as: “To us a child is born; to us a son is given.” The child appears to bear witness to your birth, and the son is given to witness your Fatherhood. You may think the child and the son are the same, but they are not. They signify two dramatic events within you. I am sure our new president felt thrilled to be sworn in by our chief justice, but the thrill you will experience when scripture unfolds within you is far greater, for these experiences belong to the transcendental world of God, and not to this mortal world of history.

Can you imagine the thrill that possesses you when, like a fiery serpent, you ascend into heaven and it reverberates like thunder? Having played that part of one in generation, you are regenerated and all that you have ever done is forgiven.

I have shared my visions of the last days with you. They will come, but only after you have experienced all the trials and tribulations of human experience. Don’t try to remember them for God, in his infinite mercy has hidden the memory from you for a purpose and in the end it is all washed away anyway. “Though your sins are as scarlet they shall be as white as snow,” so it really doesn’t matter. But I urge you to condemn no one, for you have played the part he (or she) is now playing or you will play it.

It’s a horrible play, but in the end when eschatology unfolds within you, you will understand the meaning behind it all.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

ESCHATOLOGY – THE DRAMA OF THE END

Neville Goddard 04-05-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThe word “disciple” means “learner”, and anyone who hears God’s pattern of salvation from one who has experienced it and believes, hungering to learn more, is a disciple. Tradition tells us Peter, James, and John were disciples. No, you are a disciple if you believe my words!

Now, when I speak of Jesus, I am speaking of the pattern man, for “He has made known unto me the purpose of his will which he set forth in Christ as a plan (a pattern) for the fullness of time.” That pattern has unfolded in me and I can tell you from experience: Jesus Christ is the unfoldment of the Father and the Son. If you believe me, you are my disciples.

Now, I have a few perfectly marvelous eschatological dreams to share with you. Here is an experience of one who heard and believes. This is his dream: He said: “You were on the platform, teaching. Although you smiled at me there was great intensity in your eyes. Taking a golden arrow from your side, you placed it in your bow and shot it directly at me. As it came toward me I could read the word, “resurrection” imprinted upon it as it penetrated my forehead. Then you shot a second arrow, which read “David” and it penetrated my chest. The third arrow carried the word “ascension” and it penetrated my belly, touching my spine. The fourth arrow carried no word, only a white dove, and as it hit me I felt as though every pore of my body had been struck. I have never known such ecstasy of love before. I felt like a spiritual fountain of pure, pure love.”

“The following night in a dream, a man I have never seen approached me. Radiating love he said: ‘I am preparing a great feast and I will come on the seventeenth to take you with me.'”

Now this could literally mean the seventeenth, but in symbolism seventeen is a marvelous number. In Hebrew you do not write the number seventeen as “one-seven,” but “seven-ten,” denoting greater importance. This number first appears in the 37th chapter of Genesis as “Joseph was seventeen years old.” Then in the 47th chapter of Genesis, Joseph and his father are taught by Jacob [sic] for seventeen years. So seventeen, denoting a combination of seven and ten, is broken down to read: seven – as spiritual perfection, and ten – as order perfection. In this gentleman’s preceding vision the order was perfect, beginning with resurrection, then David, the ascension, and finally the dove who smothered him with love. Here is order perfection and spiritual perfection! I can say to him tonight: the arrows have penetrated you and nothing can stop them from reaching their destiny in the world beyond the world of dreams. You are a complete being now, as the pattern is buried in you; and in the not-distant future Jesus Christ, the pattern man, will unfold from within.

Now, the earliest gospel begins with these words: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The world “gospel” means “good news”, not “good advice.” So the gospel is “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,” the good news of how God actually becomes Man that Man may become God. That’s the good news I share with all.

Here is another dream: This lady found herself walking with members of the group who attend these lectures. Coming towards them were groups of people moving as though being conveyed by a power not their own. The first group was dressed in black with shawls covering their heads. They seemed to be a mournful group with many of them crying. They appeared to be Catholic to her. The next group wore stern, uncompromising faces. Representing religious fundamentalists, they were self-righteous and without compassion. They were followed by a friendly group of men and women, animated, smiling, and asking questions, as seekers often do. When questioned by this group, the lady said: “You will find who you really are and who God really is, and when you do you will know it is all here.” And with that remark she extended her right index finger and pointed to her forehead. Then she ran to join the group as she awoke.

In the earliest gospel you will discover that the turning point is repentance. The very first words spoken by the pattern man are: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” Believe the good news that you have heard from me. To repent is to radically change your mind. Regardless of what you believe, when God’s pattern of salvation is presented, can you accept it? Can you completely turn from the belief in a physical Christ on the outside, to the belief in a man of spirit on the inside? Or are you like the foolish Galatians, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Do you know what the word “portray” means? “To make a picture of; to describe in words; to play a part like a drama on the stage.” Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified; so “Let me ask you only this, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having received the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?”

Repentance is turning around from the belief of a fleshly being called Jesus Christ, to the spirit that is Christ, the pattern man who is trying to awaken in you. Turn around by exercising your right to change your mind. Dare to believe the opposite, in spite of the facts that seem to be screaming at you. This is what I call “revision” and the Bible calls “repentance”. To revise is to repeal and if you have repealed a thing you have changed it. You can modify your concept of Christ and not completely change it by holding onto a little bit of the physical nature; but eventually you will drop it and turn around to start moving upward with the spiritual Christ, as the pattern which must unfold in all, unfolds in you.

Now here is another dream. This lady writes: “In my dream I am at a neighbor’s house which is filled with numerous people. Suddenly realizing it is my responsibility to feed them all, as I extend my hands everyone is fed. Feeling detached and no longer a part of the group, I depart to discover a shovel, a pitchfork, and a rake have been placed in front of my house. Entering the house I find a friend there whose husband has been dead for many years. Smiling at me, she says: ‘My husband wants to see you.’ Going to the window and looking out I watch my friend’s husband, wearing a uniform of either a general or a colonel, bring the most beautiful white horse I have ever seen into my house.” (The only one who rides a white horse in scripture is the Word of God called Jesus Christ. The white horse is hers, for she has the implements used to care for one: a shovel, a pitchfork and a rake.)

As her dream continued, someone gave her a very friendly white dog, which weighed exactly sixty pounds. Taking an oval basket about 14″ long, she made a little bed and placed the dog in it on its back. Then she covered it with a blanket, and as she tucked the blanket around him, he felt just like a baby. (A dog is the symbol of faith. Called “Caleb” in scripture, he is the only one who crosses over Jordan into the Promised Land with Joshua, the Hebraic name of Jesus.) Faithful to the pattern man, she felt the child that is promised and it didn’t seem strange at all. Awakening to discover it was 6:00 o’clock in the morning, she said to herself: “I must remember the dream in detail,” then she fell asleep again.

Suddenly a man is standing before her. Bending forward he removed the top of his head and said: “Look into my skull.” As she looked, instead of seeing brains she saw a tiny head the size of a pin. It was perfectly formed and wearing a crown, and as she looked it seemed to grow. Then the man stood up and said: “Feel my head” and when she did, it was soft like a pillow. She then began to tell him how imagining creates reality, when he spoke, saying: “If a surgeon does not come immediately, my head will split open and I will imagine myself out of this world.” Here is a perfect vision which is all scripture: The white horse (that’s revelation – the whole unfolding from within) and the child in the skull.

Another lady writes, saying: “I was looking at a deep cavern in the earth watching water running into it as though from a long trough. A child, about eight months old, was sitting on its bank looking at his extended hands. You, Neville were standing high above us, looking down at the child and me. Then I heard the words: ‘Can a man bear a child?’ and I awoke repeating that question over and over again.” Those are the very words you will find in the 30th chapter of Jeremiah, and when you begin to express scripture you are at the very end of your journey.

All of the dreams I have shared with you tonight are eschatological. Here is another one. This lady finds herself in a huge corral with an awareness of being the center of unlimited expanse. The corral gate is open, and hanging on the top of the gatepost is half of the carcass of a human being. It seemed natural for it to be there and as she looked the feeling of infinite freedom possessed her.

In the 26th chapter of the Book of Exodus, the 12th verse refers to the half curtain. The significance of the curtain is given in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, the 20th verse: “He opened a new and living way through the curtain that is his flesh.” The flesh she saw represented the curtain of the temple, which is torn from top to bottom in order to free yourself from the world of sin and death and enter the new and living way of life. And with this experience, freedom is yours.

Now another lady wrote saying she dozed off for just a few moments to find herself in a small boat in a turbulent sea. There was no steering gear and no sails, just the mast and a crossbar like a cross on a crown. She was in the nude, and climbing the mast she extended her arms on the crossbar to use her body as the sail, that which would give power and direction towards a haven.

This experience has tremendous significance. Let me quote the 7th chapter, the 2nd verse of Daniel: “I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the deep sea.” The Hebrew word translated “stirring up” is translated “labor” in the 4th chapter, the 10th verse of Micah as “like a woman in labor.” So I say to her: my dear you are in labor. You sat in your chair and nodded for seemingly only a moment, but in that short interval of time you saw the depth of your own being (who is you) now in labor bringing forth God’s power and wisdom, called Christ.

I can’t tell you my thrill when I receive all of these letters. Every one of them is eschatology, denoting the end of the drama. That’s all that matters, for the purpose of life is to fulfill scripture.

Tonight our whole country is disturbed because of the death of a man by a man; yet I tell you: the man who was killed and the man who killed him are one, and both will be gathered together in the bosom of the Risen Lord as intimate brothers. Having played their parts in this world, they will know themselves to be brothers, with a love transcending anything known to man on earth. They did not know it, nor does the world know it, but one being played both parts and that being is God. And maybe this death (unless violence erupts and takes away its significance) will foster and further what he stood for far quicker than anything else. If on the other hand there is a denial of the sacrifice, it will again be delayed. But he of one race who was killed and he of another race who killed him are both one, for in Christ there is no bond, no free, no Greek, no Jew, no male, no female, no black, no white, no yellow, no pink, no red, just one…all are one!

So what I am trying to say is that the culmination of the teaching of Jesus Christ is found in the thought of a mystical union of the one who hears and believes, with the Father and the Son. This is brought about through the Spirit. When you receive the Spirit by hearing with faith, you will no longer see a physical savior on the outside, for you (the son) will have found your Father (your savior) to be your very self.

I pray this night as John did in his glorious 17th chapter, saying: “O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these believe that thou hast sent me. I have made known unto them thy name, I will make it known that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.” Where can I go if I am going to the Father and the Father is in you? So when I go I will never be so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. If I go to the Father and I and my Father are one, where can I go? And when I come to you it will be to unfold myself (which is the pattern) in you. Don’t look for me to come as flesh and blood on the outside, but as the pattern unfolding from within! In the end all will awaken to be the one body, the one Lord, one hope, one faith, the one God and Father of all. Returning one by one, we are that one body, one Spirit, one Love!

Dwell upon my words for, in spite of all the turmoil in the world, we are all one. Thinking on the lowest level, men are trying to solve the problems of the world there, and it cannot be done. It’s all done by repentance, by radical changes in attitudes of mind. A fact is confronted. All right, isn’t it a fact that everything is possible to God? And if all things are possible to God and his name is “I am” can a fact not be changed? Can it not be resolved? At this very moment I can ignore the fact and assume things are as I want them to be, can I not? And when I assume, God is assuming, for his name and I are one. If all things are possible to God, are not all things possible to me? So if I have faith in God I must have faith in my imaginal acts. Faith in your imaginal acts turns you around and you will keep on turning around by practicing repentance, and as you do, you awake. Then you will find a group and tell them that if they will but turn around they will find God. That He’s not coming from without but, pointing to your forehead, you will tell them He’s all there. Then you will speak from experience, for as He unfolds himself within you, you will experience the perfect pattern my friend received with the four golden arrows. As I mentioned a few months ago, who knows what the awakened Man is doing when he shoots his arrows beyond the world of dream? You can’t deviate from God’s plan. If you awaken within yourself and it’s the plan that awakens, you are the plan that awoke, so you shoot the plan to those you love.

Take the passages I have quoted tonight and see how they relate to the visions. Each passage dwells with eschatology, the doctrine of the last days, when Man turns from this age of sin and death to that age of Eternal life.

Now this may seem a deep spiritual night to many of you, but may I tell you it is directly practical, for while you were with me this night you left all of your worries and cares of the day on the conveyer belt which is moving automatically. Your heavenly Father knows your needs and is caring for them while you travel in the spirit world with me. You have left those who are self complacent, content with their own little circle. Those who know they are right are in hell where there is no forgiveness of sin. In hell it’s all self-righteousness, all justifying oneself. One of the greatest of all human weaknesses is the necessity of always being right, and that is hell until one becomes loose enough to ask questions. Whether the truth is accepted or not is irrelevant, but when they ask, answer directly: “When you find God you are going to find yourself. And when you find the truth you will discover that you and God the Father are one.”

If you haven’t read the beautiful 17th chapter of John, I urge you to do so. I think it is the most glorious prayer ever written. “O Father, I have manifested thy name to those thou gavest to me. They were yours and you gave them to me that they may be one even as we are one.” Here he tells you that God and his pattern are one. In the beginning was the Word (the plan, the meaning of it all) and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So the pattern and he who sent it are one. The pattern is what was sent.

Always claiming that he was sent, he tells you that the sender (the Father) and the sent (the pattern) are one; therefore the Father sends himself as the pattern which unfolds. Then the man in whom it unfolds tells it, and he always has a remnant who hears and believes. He won’t get the world to believe him, for they are busy moving down on the conveyer belt. Although they hear the call to repent, they will not stop to change their beliefs for one little moment.

I have an aunt, now in her nineties. She was born and raised in a group called “The Brothers”, the most bigoted Christian organization there ever was. One day while visiting her, I said: “Don’t you know that the Bible teaches that Jesus had brothers?” Well, she almost slapped me in the face as she denied it. She attends church seven days a week, yet when I opened the Bible to the 6th chapter of Mark and read it to her she would not change her thinking relative to Christ. Unwilling to accept a foreign thought, she chooses to remain on the conveyer belt. Her mind is made up and she is not willing to read the Bible with a different understanding.

She will eventually die, to find herself restored to life in a world just like this, with a body the same as before only young with nothing missing – and she will not even realize what took place. She will still have the same fixed beliefs and she’ll go through another pattern of events to become proximate matter – matter that is made to receive a form, like taking a piece of wax and making it soft enough to receive a seal.

In the 1st chapter of Hebrews, we are told that Jesus is the express image of his Father. He is not someone that looks like his Father, but is identical, like the imprinting of a seal on wax. My friend saw proximate matter in the skull. She saw that which is being molded and shaped and made more pliable to receive the impression.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

ETERNAL STATES

Neville Goddard 09-09-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealitySit quietly and ask yourself who you are, where you are and what you are. Your answers will reveal your state of consciousness: your body of belief. Paul said, “We do not look to the outer things, but to the things unseen, for the outer things are transient, but the unseen things are eternal.” Your beliefs, seen by the mystic, are personified. They form a state, which completely controls your behavior. Any modification within your body of belief will result in a change in your outer world. 

Blake tells us, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation which was an act of mercy. By this you will see that 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 which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it leaves paradise following the serpent.”

Now, Blake uses the word “mercy” only as one who sees that states are eternal; that in God’s mercy he created all things, not just a few, so that any situation which can be conceived, already exists in eternity. When Blake said, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation which was an act of mercy,” he meant that everything you see is dead, a part of the eternal structure of the universe. You are its operant power. When you enter a scene it becomes animated. Then you become lost in your own animation and think it is independent of your perception. Looking at it, you cannot believe you are causing the animation, but you are.

You and I are living souls, buried in a world of death. We are destined to be life-giving spirits through an act of mercy, but until that time we animate what we perceive. Questioning self, Blake asks: “O miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” May I tell you, no earthly power can do it, only God.

Peter tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This is true, for only by God’s act of great mercy can we be born anew. Now buried in a world of eternal death, you are animating dead forms, believing they are independent of your perception of them. This you will continue to do until God’s great mercy awakens Jesus Christ within you. If Christ was not buried in you, he could not awaken in you, and if he is not in you he could not emerge from you. Therefore, like Paul, you carry in your body the death of Jesus. It is the tomb in which he is buried. His awakening delivers you from a body of death, but until that time you must live in, and adjust to, the dead body you wear.

Now, until you are born from above, you operate the power which gives life to this world. For the world is a dream filled with dead scenery, while you are Proteus. As you enter the scene you cause the parts to be made alive. Not knowing this, you think there are others, and fight the shadows of your own being.

All things exist in the human imagination, and all phenomena are solely produced by imagining. Where there is no imagining, everything vanishes. If lack is now in your world, and you cease to be aware of it by imagining plenty, lack disappears; therefore, any modification in your body of belief will cause a change in your life.

Now embedded in death, we resurrect into life by the act of mercy. Scripture calls this transformation Jesus Christ, for it is he who is buried in us; and when he awakens and rises, we are born from above, thereby setting us free from this body of death. Until that moment in time you can enter a state, partake of it and move on to another. This is how it is done. Although I am living here in Los Angeles, I desire to be in New York City. While lying on my bed tonight, I close my physical eyes to the room surrounding me and assume I am in New York City. Then I ask myself these questions: lf I were now in New York City, what would I see? Would I think of Los Angeles as three thousand miles to the west of me? Where are my friends and loved ones? How are my finances now that I am here? Then I would answer these questions carefully and fall asleep in New York City.

Now, an assumption is an act of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that things seen were made out of things that do not appear.” Someone looking at my physical body would see me sleeping in Los Angeles, yet I would be sleeping in New York City, for I am all imagination and must be where I am imagining myself to be. By this action I am adjusting myself imaginatively to a state I desire to objectively realize. And if I have imagined with conviction, by giving New York City all of the sensory vividness of reality, things will immediately begin to happen to compel me to make the journey. I do not imagine lightly anymore, because I now know every imaginal act will come to pass.

When I first stumbled upon this principle, I thought it was stupid. The idea that imagining creates reality was nonsense. How could anyone believe a thing into being without any external evidence to support it? How could any imaginal act be the causative fact, which fuses and projects itself? Although I did not believe it could, I imagined, and got that which I did not want! So I acquaint you now with what I know about this principle of imagining and lead you to your choice and its risk. There is always a risk, for you may not want what you have imagined after you get it, so I warn you to select wisely.

Do you know what you want from life? You can be anything you want to be if you know who you are. Start from the premise, “I am all imagination and pass through states,” for eternity (all things) exist now! Having experienced a state and moved into another one you may think the former state has ceased to be, but all states are eternal, they remain forever. Like the mental traveler that you are, you pass through states either wittingly or unwittingly, but your individual identity is forever. Whether you are rich or poor, you retain the same individual identity when you move from one state into another. If you are not on guard, you can be persuaded by the press, television, or radio, to change your concept of self and unwittingly move into an undesirable state. You can move into many states and play many parts, but as the actor, you do not change your identity. When you are rich, you are the same actor as when you are poor. These are only different parts you are playing.

You annexed your physical body for the experiences you are now having, but you are not the body you wear. The day will come when you will awaken to this fact. Then, like Proteus, you will assume any shape for the part you want to play. If it takes a fish, you will be a fish. If it takes a man, you will be a man, for that is who God is. Learn to adjust your senses to what you desire to be. Just as I moved to New York City, you can move into the state of wealth, fame, or any state you desire. Determine what it would feel like, and adjust your thinking by assuming you are feeling it now.

Look at your world mentally. Your present level of objective fact may be the same as it was before, but in your imagination hear your friends congratulate you on your good fortune. Then believe in the reality of this unseen experience. Like Paul, look not to things seen, but to things unseen; for the things seen are temporal, while the things unseen are eternal. Two hundred years ago Blake made the statement, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy.” Three thousand years ago the unknown writer of Ecclesiastes said it even more beautifully: “There is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing for which it is said, ‘This is new?’ It has been already in ages past, but there is no remembrance of things to come after, among those who will come later.”

This past year one of our great physicists, Professor Richard Feynman of Cal Tech, said the same thing, yet not as beautifully as Blake or the unknown author of Ecclesiastes. This is what Professor Feynman said: “The entire space/time history of the world is laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively.” For this Professor Feynman received the Nobel Prize and maybe $50,000, while Blake, who saw it mystically and recorded it poetically, went to an unmarked pauper’s grave. Professor Feynman based his conclusion on his study of the disintegration of the atom. Noticing the peculiar behavior of a little positron when placed in fluid, he realized that the entire space/ time history of the world is already laid out, and man only becomes aware of portions of it successively.

I have seen the same thing in vision and know that the world is dead. I have entered a room such as this, to discover that I am the spirit animating it. By arresting the activity in me that caused the scene to become alive, everything froze. The waitress walked not. The birds flew not. The diners dined not. Then I knew that when I released its activity in me, everything and everyone would continue to complete their intention. Releasing my power, the waitress completed the serving, the bird flew to the limb of the tree, and the grass began to wave, as the leaf which was arrested in space fell to the ground. Now I know I am the center of creative power. The day will come when you, too will awaken and exercise your creative power, knowingly. That is our destiny, for we all will awaken as God and use this power to create in the true sense of the word.

Try to remember that there is no limit to God’s creative power, or your power of belief. Persuade yourself that things are as you desire them to be. Fall asleep in that assumption, as that is your act of faith. Tomorrow the world will begin to change, to make room for the garment of your assumption. If it takes one person or ten thousand to aid the birth of your assumption, they will come. You will not need their consent or permission, because the world is dead and what would be the purpose in asking dead people to help you? Simply know what you want, animate the scene and those playing their parts will begin to move towards the fulfillment of your desire.

Try it before you pass judgment upon it. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it will prove itself in performance and then it will not matter what the world thinks. If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what someone else thinks about it? I encourage you to try it, for if you do you will not fail.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

ETERNITY WITHIN

Neville Goddard 10-4-1966

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight’s subject is a mystery to be known only by revelation. It is a secret that has been kept hidden from the beginning of time. Where there is no mystery, where there is no end from the beginning there is no challenge, no place for imagination or any room for faith or hope.

But when it pleased God, in the fullness of time, to make it known to his apostles, those whom he called and incorporated into his own Risen body, they are sent to tell the story of the gospel of God.
The subject I have chosen for tonight is taken from the book of Ecclesiastes. I have so many commentaries on this book at home, so many written interpretations by our Biblical scholars and they are so widely separated in their opinions, yet without this, the most disputed verse in the entire book, that I have chosen tonight, everyone in this world should despair.

The book starts with the statement, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. There is nothing new under the sun.” Which, by the way, modern science has confirmed. They are now telling us that the entire space-time history of the world is laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively. “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’ it has been already in ages past, but there is no remembrance of former things, nor shall there be any remembrance of things to come later among those who will come after.” Then he takes all of the opposites in the world saying “There is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to laugh and a time to cry; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” He goes through all the opposites that you and I pass through, one after the other. A few of them are obvious. Certainly we are born and we die, and what man hasn’t laughed and what man hasn’t cried, so we can see all these parts.

But there is one little verse in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes that is the most disputed of the entire book. Here is the verse. “He has made everything perfect in its time. He has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” The interpretation of this verse is determined by the meaning that the scholar gives to the word “eternity”. I haven’t read one interpretation where they went deep enough. The word is translated “eternity” in the Revised Standard Version, which I have quoted. It is translated as “the world” in the King James Version, but if you go back to the root of the word “olam” you will discover it means “a lad; a young man, a stripling, a youth.” This makes no sense to the average person and the scholar would ignore it completely.

You could come to the conclusion that all things are in the human imagination and that the imagination is capable of containing the imagining of space. Your dreams reveal that to you, for when you awake where did they happen? I have seen the stars, the moon and the sun in my dreams. The modern wise men would tell me it was just a dream and all in my imagination, but I have seen people just as clear as I am seeing you now and we converse all in my imagination, so I will go along with the modern wise men in that respect. But when I awake and things seem to be objective and independent of my imagination, was the other unreal? Not according to the book of Ecclesiastes. It is telling you that everything is in your imagination, that your imagination is forever manifesting itself in the imaginations of men.

This I do know. By simply assuming I am the man I would like to be and mentally acting in harmony with my assumption, I have aided the birth of my desires and brought them to pass. I have played the game of assumption time and time again and it has never failed me. When someone asks something of me I simply assume they have what they want, then whatever needs to take place in this world will take place and bring it to pass, but where did the desires’ fulfillment originate but in my imagination? But if there is no escape from a world of recurrence, what would it matter if you could perform miracles, be worshiped by all and possess the world if, in the end you would say, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.

But Koheleth, the preacher, meant something far deeper than that. It is marvelous to know that the whole drama of life is taking place in your imagination. That you have the choice of life and death, good and evil, blessings and cursings; that you can by assumption have a rich and wonderful life where everything is a blessing. But, if in the end when you close your eyes for the last time you realize it was all vanity, would you not question what did it matter? That is what Koheleth is summing up. He is telling us that there is something greater and to wait for the fullness of time. When? No one knows, not even the Son, only the Father. But in the fullness of time that which was placed in the mind of man will be revealed.
Now let me repeat it. “He put eternity into man’s mind yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” That which God put into the mind of man is a lad, an eternal youth who is his only begotten Son. Now let me unfold it for you, for I speak from experience. I am not theorizing or speculating. I am telling you what I know from experience. And the truth that one knows from experience, he knows more thoroughly than he knows anything else in this world, or that he can know that same truth in any other way. I share with you, this night, the truth that I know from experience. One day you will experience it, but tonight you will hear it through the secondary revelation of the ear, for I will tell you what I have experienced concerning this wonderful eleventh verse of the third chapter of Ecclesiastes.

Here is the story. God has put his only begotten son into your mind, for it is God’s purpose to give you himself. You will never know in eternity that God accomplished his purpose unless God’s Son sees him and calls him Father. And when God’s only begotten Son calls you Father there will be no uncertainty. The revelation is so altogether knowing, that when he appears there will be no doubt in your mind as to the relationship.

Now let me go back and unravel this great mystery. I say God’s Son is David. The word “olam” first appears in the book of Samuel. A promise is made by the king that the father of anyone who destroys the enemy of Israel will be set free. Not the man, but his father. When David returned from the slaughter of the Philistines with the head of the giant in his hand, the king, remembering his promise, tried to find out who the father was. The king turned to his commander and said, “Whose son is this youth?” When he didn’t know the king said, “Inquire whose son the stripling is.” No one knows, so the king turned to David and said, “Whose son are you, young man?” Then David answered, “I am the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite.”

The word “Jesse” is connected to the verb “to be”. In other words David is saying, “I am the son of him whose name is I AM.” I am the son of the Lord, as told in the 2nd Psalm. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.’” The divine sonship of David is the only one of its kind and totally supernatural. He is looking into the eyes of his father, and his father is God. We are told that Jesus is the Son, but I tell you that Jesus is God the Father. When the question was asked, “What think ye of the Christ, whose Son is he?” they answered, “The Son of David.” Then, said he, “Why then did David, in the Spirit, call me ‘Lord’? which means, my father. If David calls him ‘Lord’ how can he be David’s Son?” Because the Son of God was placed in the mind of Man.

Now let us go to scripture to find the spot where David was buried, and where the Lord was buried. In the 2nd chapter of I Kings we are told, “David slept with his fathers and was buried in the City of David.” The 3rd chapter of Nehemiah tells us the place saying, “He was buried after the stairs that went down from the City of David to the Fountain Gate, the reservoir below the place of the living Budah.” So David was buried after the stairs, at the top, in the City of David.

Now we are told that when Jesus was crucified (it being the Jews preparation for the Passover) they took him down and placed him in an empty tomb not yet occupied by man. Where? In the City of David. Scripture tells us there are many sepulchers in David’s city, but that he is buried at the top of the watershaft, which goes down to the great reservoir of Living Waters. Even today men are excavating all of North Africa trying to find that area, but they will never in eternity find it there, for David’s burial place is in the shell you wear. Sleeping with his fathers, David is buried in the City of David at the top of the stairs that leads down to the Living Waters in you.

You may not know it, but in spite of your sex you are the Father of David. I know, from experience, that I am David’s Father. David sleeps with his fathers – not forefathers – and is buried in the same city where his Father, the Lord is buried. I tell you, you are the Father. You are that Lord called Jesus who is buried in the City of David and when the fullness of time comes you will rise and as you do you will bring forth a new creation to be born from above. “We are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Well, Jesus Christ is buried in you as you are told in the 2nd letter of Paul’s to the Corinthians. “We all carry in the body the death of Jesus that we may manifest in our body the life of Jesus.” You carry his death in your body in the hope that you will manifest his life in your body, and when he rises in you, you are He. How do you know that Jesus died for you? How do you know that when He rises you are He? Through the revelation of His Son who rises in you and calls you Father, for when he calls you Father you will know who you are.

David is buried with his fathers, for no one has ever seen the face of God but the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. You can’t see the face of God, but His Son can, so it is the Son who reveals you as the Father. We are told in the 13th chapter of Mark, “If any man ever tells you, ‘Look, there is the Christ’, or ‘Look, here he is’ do not believe him.” Don’t believe him. “For it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” Identical! Well, how will you know that you are he? When his Son calls you Father. David sleeps with his fathers, for all of us are the Elohim. Although the word Elohim is plural it is translated both in the singular and the plural. David has called me Father and one day he will call you Father. He will call everyone Father and then all will be united into the one God.

“I have manifested thy name to those whom thou has given me. I in them and thou in me that they may become perfectly one.” I have told you what has been given me by revelation. It may not make sense but you cannot expect this greatest of all mysteries to make sense, for it takes place in a region so remote from the place the intellect inhabits that you cannot explain it to the intellect. No scholar understands it. The lowest one of the orders found in scripture is the eighth order, the order of the brilliant minds of the world. It is said that the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God. That it takes the foolishness of God and the weakness of God to confound the wise. The wise can analyze it, but scripture cannot be understood until it is revealed.

I wouldn’t have the slightest concept of what that verse meant were it not revealed to me and I actually experienced it. If you read the twelve chapters of Ecclesiastes, and confine the reading to vanity, you would go out and do anything under the sun to enjoy the little happiness that you could, for in the end it would all be gone if it were not for that one little verse. For the entire book tells you, “The wise and the stupid they die and become dust. Everything is dust, vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” But what I am trying to tell you tonight is so altogether profound. So go home knowing that, although you seem to make an exit from this world, you don’t really die, that you are an immortal being and buried in you is David, God’s immortal, eternal Son.

Do you know who David really is? He is not a boy, born a thousand years B.C. No. In Hebrew thought everything consists of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into one grand whole, and concentrated time into which all generations are fused and from which they spring, is called eternity. Eternity is personified as a youth – the eternal youth. When man has passed through all the generations of men (not avoiding one experience) and can say, “Forgive them for they know not what they do as they are passing through states” then the sum total, the quiescence of all the experience of being man rises from sleep and calls you Father.

Yes, I have been blind; I have been deaf; I have been dumb. I have been everything man can ever conceive of. I have been imprisoned, embarrassed, everything in the world. Not in this little section of time, but in my journey. I have played every part under the sun. I have seen it. One night I gave a banquet to all the parts I have played. That’s Messiah’s banquet. Having sent all into the world, Messiah invited the high and the mighty, but they gave excuses and did not come. Then he told his servant to go into the highways and byways and bring all. And they brought the lame and the blind, the halt and the withered. This night I was lifted up on high and found myself in the human form divine. I was a radiant, glowing light. I didn’t burn; it was just a glow that illuminated everything that I had been. I did not need the stars; I did not need the moon; I was the light. And as far as my eye could see was an infinite sea of human imperfection – all the parts that I have played. I knew they were waiting for me, yet as I glided by I didn’t lift a finger to make one of them better than they seemed, but as I passed by eyes that were missing were replaced in the empty sockets, missing arms and limbs became perfect. Not one had a blemish in the end. And as I reached the end the grand choral group sang out, “Neville is risen, Neville is risen” and when I reached the end they all exalted, “It is finished” and I came back into this little garment I wear.

That night I was called by my personal name, as you are told in scripture, “I will call the entire host by name and not one is missing.” You have a name, and you will be called by name in the final day and not one will be missing. They called me by the only name that I am known by. I have a sir–name, but when I was only three weeks old my mother heard the voice say, “Call him Neville”. Then it was confirmed 15 minutes later when my uncle spoke to her and said, “Call him Neville,” although the name was never used before in our family. And we read in the 41st chapter of Genesis, “If it is repeated, then it shall shortly come to pass.”

I gave them what they wanted more than anything in this world, that night. They wanted restoration from my fall. I, as God fell, for there is nothing but God. And I took that innocent perfection into the world of experience and played all the parts. Then I was lifted up and found them waiting for their redemption. And as I walked by, everyone was made perfect, for “You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Everyone was made perfect, for I fell and took them with me, then I was lifted up and redeemed them all. That was Messiah’s banquet.

Everyone has fallen in the same way. You may not know it, but when you see someone that is blind remember what you are told in the ninth chapter of John. The question was asked, “Tell me master, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” and the answer came, “Neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of the Lord be made manifest.” It was the Lord who fell and it is the Lord who will rise. That Lord is in you and his name, in scripture, is Jesus Christ. That is Jehovah. But man does not understand it, for he is completely confused with all the nonsense that goes on in the world. A couple of days ago I read that the present pope made the statement that he cannot allow things to get out of hand. He said, “The Roman pontifex” meaning all the pontifices from the beginning of their so–called reign “are the custodians and interpreters of divine revelation.”

Several years before, this same pope made the statement on Passion Sunday, that the Jews crucified Jesus because they did not know who he was. And he is the custodian of the revelation of God? Why, he hasn’t the slightest beginning of knowledge concerning Christ. I mean that as one who has experienced Christ. I speak in the same way Paul spoke to the Sanhedrin. They thought they were the interpreters, the great protectors of divine revelation and they didn’t know what they were talking about. No Jew or group of Jews killed God. Listen to the words from the 10th chapter of the gospel of John, “No one takes my life; I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again.” How are you going to get around that bold statement when every word of scripture is true?

No one takes your life, you lay it down yourself. By an act of self–limitation you achieve your purpose of expansion. You couldn’t expand beyond what you were, had you not by your own decision, limited yourself and falling, you took with you the one man broken into multiple parts and you will play all the parts under the sun. The thief, the victim, the murdered, and the murderer, but everything under the sun, so in the end you can say, “No matter who you are, you are forgiven, for at the present moment you know not who you are or what you do.” Then you will be raised up on high by a power within yourself and prepare Messiah’s banquet, for all the parts that fell with you and when you glide by everyone will be made perfect. Why? Because you are perfect. As you glide by, everyone is molded into the beautiful form they knew in the state of innocence, before you fell taking them with you into the state of experience. You fell into the state of experience and return to the state of imagination. That’s the crown.

“God put eternity into the mind of man so that man could not find out what god has done from the beginning to the end.” I have revealed it to you, tonight, through the lesser revelation of hearing. Like Job, you have heard with the hearing of the ear. Job couldn’t understand how God could be a god of love when all the terrible things happened to him, but in the end Job realized he was the one who had caused it all. And, when you have played all the parts, like Job you will awaken and say, “Now my eyes see thee.”

The churches, today, speak of Jesus as suffering for your sins. Don’t for one moment believe it. Everyone carries within himself his own proof. If you miss the mark you don’t get the prize. You hit the mark and you get the prize. No suffering for sins. Suffering is simply a disciplinary action, which is nothing more than God’s love in you. There is not a God on the outside. We are told in Proverbs, “Just as a father would correct his son, so the Lord chastens him whom he loves.” Loving the part you play, he chastens and corrects it as he moves from state to state to state.

So Ecclesiastes is right. I am born and I die, I have known poverty and I have known wealth, I have known disgrace and I have known grace. There has been a time in my life when I would have gone along with Koheleth and said, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” but the last round came for me and I am about to depart this world of sin and death (and it is not long delayed I assure you), for the whole has been revealed.

Only in the end, when you are about to make your exit from Egypt (the world of states) is it actually revealed. If you are called to tell it, you will, and there will be those who hear it and believe and those who hear it and reject it. It is entirely up to the individual who hears the testimony. I tell you what I know from experience and you may believe it or you may reject it. It’s entirely up to you, but you will experience all that I have told you this night.

David, one day, having slept with his fathers (plural) will awaken in you. And you, being the Father, will awaken and rise from Golgotha, your skull, for the place where they laid him and the place where he rose was in the City of David. David’s burial place, as told us in the third chapter of Nehemiah, is after the stairs that go down from the City of David to the Fountain Head. Exploding within, you rise from the sepulcher where Jesus Christ is buried. Five months later David explodes within you and you cry, “I have found David, he has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’” The relationship is so well known that it is prophetic.

Then four months later you see the shaft and the Fountain Gate of Living Water where you laid down in the City of David. Merging with it up you go into eternity and your journey is over. Then you linger for a little while to tell it. Two months ago no insurance company would have given me one week to live, but I have to linger to tell it. The drama is over for me, but it has to be told. There are ears yet to hear it, so I came back and am as strong today as I was 25 years ago. I am the same young man I was 25 years ago in spite of my 61 years. I can do the things, physically, I haven’t done in the longest while, but I may go this night. It makes no difference now. I came back to tell those who had to hear it, whether they accept it or reject it, as told us in the last chapter of Acts, “He expounded to them from morning till evening, trying to convince them of the kingdom of God and telling them about Jesus Christ, using for his argument the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms. And some were convinced by what he said while others disbelieved.”

This is the story of everyone to whom the risen God appears. All the fathers are coming back now and you are the Father. We are the fathers with whom David sleeps. You are his Father and know it only from what I have told you, but the day is coming when you will know if from experience. And if you are David’s Father and I know I am his Father, are we not one? Can we not say the words in the 17th [chapter] of John, “I in them and thou in me that they may become perfectly one”?

The Old Testament ends on this note, “A son honors his father. If I am a father, where is my honor?” In other words, where is my son? So the Old Testament ends on a hope, for the son has not yet appeared to honor his father, but as the New Testament begins the son appears.

Tonight I have told you who you really are, and although it is all vanity, you can be anything you want to be, generically. You can be a sinner or a saint, for you are passing through a fabulous world of opposites and as Blake said, “I do not consider the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be everyone of them in states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in his deadly dream of good and evil when he left paradise following the serpent.”

So until the end we are asleep, dreaming strange dreams. We dream we are in prison and we dream that we are free. We dream we have money and we dream we are poor, and whatever we identify ourselves with, we externalize. So I can’t deny the preacher’s statement, but that one verse gives the hope, for without that verse what would it matter tonight if there was no hope, no nothing. The intellectual mind cannot understand what God put in the mind of man, but I have told you what it is. You will never know that you are Jesus until his Son explodes within you and calls you Father. Then by implication you know who you are. It’s still the same name. The self that is raised and the self that is called Father does not differ from the self that you were before, only now you include a far greater self who is none other than God the Father.

Now let us go into the silence.

Question: When we die here where do we go?

Answer: This seems the height of vanity based upon what we know about our biologically human body, and what our scientists tell us about it, but you dreamed yourself into being, and the dreamer cannot be destroyed by his dream. You may dream the most horrible dream in the world, you may dream of dying, but you can’t be destroyed by your dream. As you dreamed yourself into being here, you will dream yourself into being there. My mother was only 61 when she left here, but she looked 90 because she had suffered so for two years and her lovely form had withered before our eyes. I have seen her at the age of twenty, radiantly beautiful. I remained my age but she looked much, much younger, but the relationship of mother/son was still there. My father died at the age of 85. I have seen him several times since and he has never been over 50. You see, we are dreaming. You will find yourself not only in a world just as real as this, but the world may not be in the year 1966, as this present time is, it may be the year 3002 and it will be just as natural and normal to you as this year of 1966 is. No loss of identity, you will find yourself in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in you.

Good night.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

Experience Scripture

Neville Goddard 5-28-1971

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTo unravel the mystery of Christ from all the interpretations put upon it is quite a different task. We are up against all kinds of misunderstandings of the mystery. Most people believe that it is secular history, and the story has something to do with some historical occasion; and it isn’t. It is salvation history.

The whole thing is taking place in you, the individual. It’s not taking place on the outside at all. But how to convince men that this is true? Well, tonight we will try. I will try to explain what I know from my own experience. The story is told of Christ; and the term called “Son of Man” is a term used most to describe the Christ, the Messiah.

We are told in the Book of Daniel: “And on like a son of man came to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before him, and he was given dominion and glory and kingdom.” [Daniel 7:13]

Well, “dominion” means “complete control of all human and non-human forces”―complete control. That’s dominion.

“Glory” is God Himself, as told us in the Book of Exodus: “I make my glory pass before you,…and when I pass by.” [Exodus 33:18 and following] So he equates “glory” with “I.” So here, it is God Himself.

And now “Kingdom” is simply the realm where a monarchical ruler dominates all things―the king.

In the New Testament it is said of Him, which is the central figure, that he is the Son of Man. So he asks this question: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” [Matthew 16:13-16]

And they answered, “Some say John the Baptist come again, others Elijah, other Jeremiah, and still others one of the prophets.”

Then he turned to them and said, “But who do you say that I am?” He equates himself with the Son of Man.

Then Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”

He accepts that definition. So here we find the Son of Man, the “I” and then “Christ” all equal. They are one and the same. So here tonight, we speak of This-in-You.

And when the Son of Man, as we are told in the Third of John: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” [John 3:14]. Now we have just seen that the Son of Man is the “I” of man―the pronoun “I.” It means “I” or it means “one.” So here we can say, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must ‘I’ be lifted up,” or “…so must one be lifted up.”

I am not speaking of anything outside of you. That “I” is the One spoken of in Scripture. You must be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me” [John 12:21]. This is the drama of Scripture.

Today the world―I hear it on TV, I read it in the papers; and these very prominent and very popular teachers from the pulpits and from the TV screen are speaking of the signs, and they tell you that we can see the signs of the end of the world. There aren’t any signs!

You are told in Scripture that “of that day and hour no one knows but the Father.” [Mark 13:32]

 “It is not for you to be given the time or the signs.” [Acts 1:7]

When the sign comes, you’ll understand it. Everything will happen in you just as described in the story of Christ; but earthquakes and convulsions of nature, cosmic catastrophes haven’t a thing to do with the end. This is a unique story all about you. It hasn’t a thing to do with the end of the world. It’s the end of your journey though the tribulation of human experience, that’s “the end.” Then comes, with shocking suddenness, the “I” awakening in you. It is not another; it is you. You are the Lord Jesus Christ. You are the Lord God Jehovah. You are the central figure of Scripture. It has not a thing to do with another.”

So, catastrophes? Well, a year ago in San Francisco I read in the New York Times that every 24 hours we have approximately eighteen hundred what are called “natural” catastrophes in the world like volcanoes, earthquakes, storms, typhoons―all kinds of horrible things; but every 24 hours there are at least eighteen hundred of these normal, natural convulsions of nature. And yet, here are our religious leaders interpreting an earthquake, interpreting some convulsion of war.

You are told, “There will be wars and rumors of wars” [Matthew 24:6 and Mark 13:7]; but that is not it. If anyone should ever come to you saying, Look here is the Christ, or there is the Christ, believe him not.” [Mark 13:21]

There is no outside “Christ.” Christ is buried in you; and when he comes, he can only come by awakening in you. Even though one has actually had him completely awake within himself, don’t believe he is the Christ. He has awakened in me, the speaker, but I am not the Christ that you are looking for. The Christ that you are looking for is now buried in you. and must awaken in you as you. it is the “I” of you.

The personal pronoun “I”―that is Christ; but man doesn’t know it, and he is looking on the outside for Christ. And there is no other Christ. So when any one tells you because of an enormous following that he can interpret the signs,–there aren’t any signs on the outside.

Let me show you one simple little story. In the 13th Chapter of Mark [Mark 13:1,2] and the 24th Chapter of Matthew [Matthew 24:1,2] it is said that he turned, after having heard from his Disciples,–they said, “Look at these building,”―speaking of the temple. “Aren’t they wonderful?” meaning that they are forever.

And he said, “You see these buildings? I tell you, not one stone will be left standing upon another but what it will be thrown down.” Not one stone―all will be thrown down.

Then they said, “When will it be?”

Now this is called the “Little Apocalypse” in Scripture. Whether these are words of the Evangelists or words of the central figure,–they are all words of the Evangelists anyway; they are all relating their own experience. These “buildings” are not on the outside. So, when Blake said, “Cities, mountains, valleys, all are human,” he meant it,–that in your own wonderful imagination these structures are erected. These are the beliefs by which you live, and they are powerful in your mind. The day will come, you will see it. They will seem to be, to you, external to yourself, and they are structures; they are buildings.

In my own case, on the 21st day of December 1960 I saw a city. They were not enormous buildings like the Empire State―12, 15 or 16―story buildings; but they seemed to be everlasting. At the very moment, I knew everyone was going to fall. And here came the first one. It all crumbled before my eyes. I knew the next one―it crumbled. Everything crumbled, because prior to that day, which is the 21st day of December 1960, I had had the experience of the “birth from above” and the discovery of the Fatherhood of God and the Son of God who actually called me “Father,” revealing who the Father really is. I had the experience of that Ascent of the Son of Man. Then all of my previous beliefs by which I lived―they all collapsed. I, too, believed―as the whole vast world of Christendom believes―in the historicity of Christ, in the secular history of Christ; and suddenly the whole thing was not there at all. it’s all about me! It is all about you. And when I arose from within myself, then all that I formerly believed in had to collapse. These are the structures spoken of. He is not speaking of these buildings falling.

If the whole vast city tonight moved into the Pacific, it is not the end. The end come to the individual. It doesn’t come to us collectively; it comes to us individually. And all the things that you, throughout the centuries, have erected within you by which you live and believe―when it actually happens in you and you realize you are the central Being of Scripture―you are the “God” spoken of, you are the Christ Jesus spoken of, then all the things on the outside that you turned to for comfort, they collapse. But they are now projected within you as “buildings.”

So, he said, “See these buildings? Not one stone will be left standing upon another,”―no one. They shall all come down, and it happens within you.

Now we are told, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Well, you have just heard that the Son of Man is the “I” of man―the personal pronoun “I”; so it’s not something on the outside. You are lifted up just in the same manner that Moses in the wilderness lifted up the serpent. And that is true.

You actually find yourself―now we will take the story. He was standing on the Mount of Olives, as you read it in the 13th of Mark [Mark 13:3,4] and the 24th of Matthew [Matthew 24:3]. Now we go back to the 14th Chapter of Zechariah. “Zechariah” means “Jehovah remembers.” This is the last chapter of Zechariah [Zechariah 14:40]. “And he was standing on the Mount of Olives,”―and this expression “Mount of Olives” is only used twice in the Old Testament. Here is the Mount of Olives. It is used first in Second Samuel concerning David [II Samuel 15:30]; but here is the second use of it at almost the end of the Old Testament, the 14th Chapter of Zechariah. Remember, the word means “Jehovah remembers.” This is his pledge, his covenant:

“Now, the Lord is standing upon the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives was split from east to west, forming a very wide valley; and one half of the mount moved northward, and one half moved south.”

And then came out of Jerusalem,–for the Mount of Olives faced Jerusalem,–came “Living water,”―came living water. [Zechariah 14:8]

Now I tell you, the “Mount” is your Self. Everything about the story is all within you. On the morning of the 8th of April 1960 suddenly I am split from east to west, — meaning my body, — from the top of my skull to the base of my spine; and it parted about six inches―a vast valley between the two sections of my body. At the base, which would be the spine, is a pool of living, golden light―“living water.” Then I looked at it, and I could say with Blake, “I knew it was my Self.” I am looking at it, and I not only knew it was my Self, I knew it was my own Creator and Redeemer; and I am my own Creator and Redeemer! I fused with it, and then like a fiery serpent I went up into my skull. That’s Heaven! “For the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” That’s where the Kingdome is. It’s all within you. And when I entered, I made every attempt―I can’t tell you the force I used to get through my skull, but I couldn’t get through my skull, for that is Reality. It’s within. You don’t get out of it. The whole thing takes place within.

The best I can use on earth to illustrate it would be a rivet. Have you ever seen someone taek a hot, hot rivet and throw it to the one who catches it, and then takes it and actually puts it into the steel to make it secure? It’s a fascinating sight to see them rivet these steel structures. Well, I actually felt myself being moved right into it. If I could describe it, it’s right here―a little left of the straight line down my forehead; just a tiny fraction left of this area [indicating]. That’s where I felt myself riveted. I made every effort to penetrate and go through, but I couldn’t; I was stuck right there.

So, you are told in Scripture, in the 11th Chapter of Matthew [Matthew 11:12]: “And the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force.” That’s how you take the Kingdom. The whole Kingdom is in your skull. The whole thing is being constructed in your own wonderful human skull!

So here, I am talking only about you; I am not talking about any convulsion of nature. Let them have all their so-called enormous crowds, telling people how they can read the signs that we are at the end of the world. End of what world? This is a unique reconstruction of the Temple of God, and it’s reconstructed out of living stone, not dead stones. For when the temple fell, it was made of simply living, but not life-giving, stones. Now we are being turned into life-giving stones, and every stone must be fitted into that temple. And everyone will be called in order. Not one will be missing, may I tell you? Not one in eternity can fail to be called, and he goes through the same identical process. You are called, and then you are raised from within the “I” of man. You are raised. You are awakened; and when you are awakened, you see no one but yourself. You are all alone. That’s the Christ, entombed in your own skull; and you, and you alone, come out by an innate wisdom as to how to do it. It’s built in within you, for Christ is not only the power of God, he is the wisdom of God. So, there is an innate wisdom how to do it.

I knew exactly how to do it. And you push the base of your skull, and something moves, and you come out. When you come out, and I ask, “Who did it?” and you say I,” that’s Christ. That is the Son of Man. That is the Son of God who can claim, “I and my Father are one.” [John 10:30]

In the world, yes, I seem to be less than my Father, for I am now doing a job. I am in the world as one that is “sent”; but the Sender and the “sent” are one. I am only inferior to my Self―the Sender―when I am playing the part of the “sent,” but I’ll return to my Self―the Sender, and I’ll be one with my Self―the Sender.

“I will leave the world and return to my Father.”

And “I and my Father are one.”

But how to explain that to those who believe in the “Christ” on the outside? When throughout the centuries they have been taught to believe in some external savior, and there is no external savior. You, and you alone, decided to do what you did. We collectively decided to do it: to come into the world of “death” and die―literally die, and then be victorious and overcome death. That’s Who-We-Are. And everyone, in spite of what he has done, what he is doing, or what he may do,–he is that Christ spoken of in Scripture.

And so, how to tell a man that although the imagery seems strange, it is actually true? You rise just like a fiery serpent. Who would believe that? Who would believe that Mount of Olives is his own body? I stand on the Mount of Olives and I face Jerusalem; and then it’s split from top to bottom, as told in the great 13th of Mark and the 24th of Matthew [Matthew 24:27 and Luke 17:24]: “As the lightning comes from the east and shines towards the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man.

It’s a bolt of lightning, and you did it. You split yourself right down the middle, and the mountain parts in two. So, the Mount of Olives is now cut in two from east to west, and one half moves northward, and one half moves southward. And then out of Jerusalem―because you can view Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives―come living water. And I tell you, it is living water! It’s golden, liquid, pulsing, living light. And as you look at it, you know it’s your Self.

How can I―a man―know that I am liquid, liquid light? But I am! And I fuse with it; and as I fuse with it, like a fiery serpent, I go right up into my skull. So, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,”―in the same manner, after the Mount is split in two from top to bottom.

When they are looking now, as they are,–they go off to Jerusalem physically. They have these enormous productions where some nations give them millions to excavate all kinds of things to try to find where he was buried. Where he was buried! The only place where Christ was ever buried is in the human skull; and it’s called in Scripture “Golgotha.” IN the Book of Luke they actually call it by the name “skull.”

“When they had brought him to the place called The Skull, there they buried him.” [Luke 23:33]

Now “Golgotha” means “skull,” but it’s the Hebrew form of “skull.” We speak of “Calvary.” Well, “Calvary” is the Latin form of “skull.” And so, the whole thing is simply your own wonderful human skull. That’s where the whole drama takes place. It all takes place in the imagination of man. There is nothing but God, and God is the human imagination. And the drama of God is unfolding within us.

So, let no one tell you they can see signs of the end of the world. “The end of the age,” but the “end of the age” is the end of the tribulation of human experience. That’s the end. There is no other end. You and I have gone through “hell,” and when we come to the end of the tribulation of human experience, then suddenly―with shocking suddenness―the whole thing erupts within us. So, you are told: “Do not ask. It comes like a thief in the night.” When you least expect it, He will come. Therefore, be alert, but there shall be no signs. This generation seeks a sign, and there shall be no sign. I tell you, it will come just―maybe tonight. I hope so.

I know in my own case, I went to bed as innocent as I had in any previous day. It was a lovely day. I lectured to an audience of eleven hundred or twelve hundred. I went off to brunch, because I didn’t have breakfast, with two friends―husband and wife. We went to a simple little place and had what I would call “breakfast.” There was no liquor served, and I didn’t feel like a drink at the time. I had a normal, simple breakfast: orange juice, bacon and eggs, and coffee. Then we went riding all through San Francisco. And that night a friend of mine who worked as a checker in the Fairmont Hotel, who had to be up early came through―he had to be on the job, I think, between 4:30 and 5:00, checking all the food coming in. So, we had a very early dinner―as early as the restaurant would allow; and we dined at the Sir Francis Drake where I was living. We had a roast-beef dinner―a simple dinner; roast beef and a baked potato. I did have a couple of Martinis, but may I tell you? That is only a beginning with me. I can go to many, and it doesn’t phase me at all. I can take five or six; it doesn’t bother me. I had two Martinis―simply whetting my little tongue. Then I went upstairs because he had to go early. And then at about 9:00 o’clock I called my wife, who was living in Beverly Hills, and then put him on the wire because we are all friends; and then he said goodbye a little after 9:00.

After he left, then I undressed and got ready for bed. I was too early; so I read a little Blake, and then I turned to my Bible; and I must have turned in about 11:00.

At 4:00 in the morning, this strange, peculiar vibration began in my head―something I had never felt before. And my interpretation of what I felt was, “This must be a massive hemorrhage.” I never had anything wrong with me physically of that nature, but I thought this must be what they call a “massive hemorrhage,”―this must be it, because I couldn’t see how I could survive what I was feeling. My head began to vibrate, and the whole thing was simply like an enormous vibration. Instead of blowing my brains, I began to awake. But instead of waking on the bed as I thought I would, I awoke within my skull! And here I am, completely entombed within my skull, and I knew my skull to be a tomb. I was a sepulcher. I was completely entombed within it, all alone. And then from the horizontal position, I arose within my skull, and my one consuming urge was to get out. And I knew exactly what I ought to do: push the base of my skull from within.

Well may I tell you?―all things being relative, when I awoke within my skull, it was a place big enough, say, about a quarter of this room here, and it was my skull! And I stood up within my skull―a place about the area of a quarter of this room. I knew exactly where the base was. I pushed it from the inside, and something rolled away from the outside. As we are told, “And the stone rolled away.”

Then I knew what to do. I put my head through the little opening, and I pushed it; and then I squeezed myself out like a little child coming through the womb of a woman,–only instead of through the womb of a woman, this was out of my own skull! When I was almost out, I pulled the remaining portion of me out of my skull.

Then I stood up and looked back at this [indicating the physical body] out of which I came, and it was ghastly pale, as told us in Jeremiah:

“Can a man bear a child?”

The obvious answer is, No. “Why, then, do I see every men drawing himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? And why does every face turn ghastly pale?”

[Jeremiah 30:6]

Well, the face was just as white as snow as I came out of it. And then the entire drama unfolded around me. There were witnesses to the event, but they could not see me because God was born at that moment. The sign of my “birth” was there; the child they could see. And I saw the child and could take it in my arms. But they could not see me because “God is Spirit,” and no mortal eye can see Him. So, they could not see the one that was born at that moment. It’s God-in-man that is buried. It is God-in-man, which is the “I” of man―the personal pronoun “I.” That’s God-in-man, and that is “born.” It awakens in him and comes out. The pattern by which He does it all is told us in Scripture, and it is recorded as the story of Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus Christ refers to himself constantly as the Son of Man.

“Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” And when they answered, concerning men, he did not answer. He asked another question: “Who do you say that I am?” So, he equates himself with the Son of Man.

Then one answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you, but my Father who is in heaven.” And “I and my Father are one.” So, I revealed it to you. I allowed you to know Who-I-Am. That’s what he is saying.

That same drama takes place in you. So, I am telling you, every one in this world is going to awaken, not only as the Lord Jesus Christ, but as God Himself, for the Lord Jesus Christ is God. That is the story of Scripture, but man has not understood it. And today when you see Monday morning’s paper, you’ll read all this palaver, all this non-sense, concerning Scripture―concerning the signs that are coming because some rumor of war―this goes on forever. This is the conflict. It is after the tribulation of human experience that it happens. And through “hell.” You will have glimpses of it at the very end because then you can stand it. But, oh, the things you have suffered in this world! The things you have come through―it is good and merciful that you cannot remember them.

In the end, you can take it, but you had to pass through all. As you are told in Scripture [Isaiah 48:10]: “I have tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I did it,for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.”

His “glory” is Himself. He cannot give Himself to another. He has to make you Himself―to give Himself to you―because there’s only God. In the end, there is only God.

So, here, you are trained not to argue when some one brings up all the stories concerning Scripture. You ater trained to answer; and you can confront them, even though you have not had the complete experience. Many of you have had many of these experiences. Not the complete? All right. You will have the complete experience. I am not alone. I am only at the moment one who has been “sent” to tell it. I have been sent to tell it.

So, that Seventh Chapter of Daniel [Daniel 7:13] when this one like the Son of Man came before the Ancient of Days, and was presented to Him,–that happened to me in 1929. I was taken, in spirit, into the Divine Assembly; and having gone before the Recording Angel, where my name was checked off this huge ledger, as told you in the 12th Chapter of Daniel [Daniel 12:1]. “If your name be written in the book,”―well, every one’s name is written in that book! And she simply looked at me―this angelic being. Not one word was spoken between us; she just looked and made a check against the name.

Then I was taken into the presence of the Ancient of Days. He is the Ancient of Days―Infinite Love―nothing but Love. As I stood before him, I could not think of anything but Love, and he asked me, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and I answered, “Love.” It has no other answer. How could you answer anything when you are actually looking at the Infinity of Love? And it’s man―just man.

Then he embraced me. And in that embrace, we fused; we became one being. And “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” “One body, one spirit, one lord, one God and Father of all.” Then he “sent” me―sent me into this world. But he didn’t send me as Love. The One who sent me was Himself, because God is a protean being. He assumes every shape; and the One who sent me was Infinite Power. I could not feel in him compassion at all. I could not feel in that one Love, but he sent me. And the words rang out in my ears: “Down with the bluebloods!”

It doesn’t mean those who call themselves prominent socially,–no. All that is trivia anyway. “Down with all church protocol,–all the trappings of the outside world mean nothing. They mean nothing! All the ceremonies, all the rituals, all the things on the outside,–down with it all. Don’t tear it down, but do not become a part of it. Just completely ignore it.

Well, I can’t tell you how many opportunities I have had from those who are entrenched in the protocol of churches to join them. I didn’t have to go to any school. They said, “I will now ordain you, and then you can do all the things that we do by law. You can marry, you can bury; you can do all these things.”

I said, “No; I want no part of it.” These words ringing out in my ears, and I would simply disobey the order: “Down with the bluebloods”―which means protocol, and accept the offer?

One chap, he had an audience of over six thousand people. That is, they were all registered; they all contributed every month. And he offered that entire whole thing to me if I would take it.

I said, “I am sorry. I cannot take it. Give it to someone else, but I cannot take it. I have orders. I have orders that I must obey, and it came from the Ancient of Days,” Well, he couldn’t understand that

“Ancient of Days”―these are just words to the average preacher. They mean nothing; they are simply idle words. And yet, every word is true in Scripture. Here stands the Ancient of Days―no father, no mother; no beginning,–the Ancient of Days. He has no origin. You stand before Him, and He actually embraces you, and you become one now―without father, because you are the Father. And as Father, you have no father. You are the Father. Now go and, “Down with the bluebloods,”―down with all churchianity, all external things in this world. So, no inducement whatsoever could get me to join any -ism.

Now the end of my days―it doesn’t really matter. At least, I kept the faith; so I could say with Paul [II Timothy 4:8]: “I have finished the race. I have fought the good fight, and I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the Crown of Righteousness,”―which means the crown of faith. I have kept the faith.

So, when the little garment is taken off now, it is for the last time. So, here I am just as an example for you, because it’s going to happen to you. Whether you now are believing or not, it’s still going to happen to you, because not one can be missing in the reconstruction of the Temple. You are the Son of Man spoken of in Scripture, which is the title most often used as Christ. It simply means “I”―the personal pronoun “I” or “One.”

So, when I am lifted up, that’s the Son of Man; and as the Son of Man must be lifted up like the serpent, you can say, “When I am lifted up,” like that fiery serpent; and you will be. Just like it. It’s a fiery serpent. You enter violently into that skull of yours, and you are riveted into that area prepared for you. Everyone has a special unique spot in the Infinite Brain of God. And you are not only going to be in that unique spot, you share the whole.

Cut me here [indicating]. All right, that’s cut, and it hurts. The whole body hurts. Don’t’ tell me because the little finger is not my eye that the eye isn’t something, too. The whole body suffers when one little piece suffers. So, everyone is fitted into the Restored Temple, and yet each is the whole Temple, for God is one, and His name is one.

So, everyone in this Universe is going to experience Scripture. And I can’t tell you the thrill in store for you when you experience Scripture. Something changes. You see, we begin within history. That is the incarnation when God becomes man. God became as I am―a man, weak and limited and restricted, that I may become as God is! So here, we begin within history. Then comes that moment in time when we go beyond history. And that is called “Bethlehem.” We begin. The incarnation is the birth of a child, and the “birth of God” is called “Bethlehem,” when from above God awakes, and you are God.

The “I”―may I tell you? there is no one else when you awake in that skull. You are not in eternity going to see Christ coming from without. He is within―buried within, and he rises from within. He is the “I” of you. And how would you know? Watch the imagery as it unfolds before you. All this pertains to Christ.

Here is the child wrapped in swaddling clothes. What are they told? “Go, and you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes. This shall be a sign unto you,”―what sign?―“that God is born.” This is a sign that the Saviour was born. Well, the only Saviour in the world is God. “I am the Lord your God, your Saviour; and beside Me there is no saviour,”―the 43rd―45th of Isaiah [Isaiah 43:11 and 45:21].

If the Saviour is born, the God is born. “And this shall be a sign unto you that a Saviour was born this day.” Where? “In Bethlehem.” And “Bethlehem” and “Jerusalem” and “Zion” and the “City of David” are one and the same, and it’s the skull of man. That’s where He was born, and that’s where He was crucified, and that’s where He was buried. It’s right there!

So, I tell you, play your part fully. Whatever you are doing today, play it fully. Let no one scare you. self-purification? Forget it! You can be as pure as all outdoors in your own mind’s eye, it means nothing. This salvation comes suddenly, out of the Nowhere, just like a thief in the night. And when it comes, you are completely possessed. And then it unfolds within you; and all you can do is share it with others. Tell them about it. Oh, they may deny it, as they will, because they know your physical background; they do not know your eternal being. So, they know your father and mother and your brothers and sisters; and they will ask the same question: “Is he not Joseph’s son?”―the carpenter’s son,–“and how can he tell us now he came down from Heaven?” How can he tell us these things? That man is mad. He has a spirit.

I tell you, the same thing will happen to you. It doesn’t mean that suddenly in the world of Caesar you are going to become a billionaire. You own the Universe. What do you want with the billion when you own―“All thine are mine, and mine are thine.” You have no desire for the billions or for glamour or for recognition,–none whatsoever. You are quite satisfied to go through life telling your story to those who will listen until that moment in time when you take off the “cross,” for this [indicating the physical body] is the only “cross” that Christ wears―the human form. You take it off for the last time and rejoin those who preceded you into Heaven, and rejoice with them. And then you will know what “dominion” really is, where it’s the whole vast world, in time.

You have the power to stop time, change motivation, and then start time. that’s what I mean by “dominion.” “To him who was given dominion,”―you can actually stop it. In stopping time, everything stands still. Then you change the motivation of that which is now “frozen” in time. Then you release it within you―not on the outside; and they move forward; believing they initiated the change of heart to execute your command, because you have become God.

Now that is what I mean by how difficult it is to take the mystery of Christ and unravel it to those whose fixed ideas will deny it. They will simply get up and walk away. “Why, he is anti-Christ,” they will say. “He is against my Christ,” because they take their “Christ” and stick him on the wall and cross themselves for luck. That’s what they do. They go to church, and they can’t cross the aisle before they face the alter and genuflect. I tell you, leave them alone. And what I have told you tonight―every word is true. I am telling you what I know from my own personal experience.

FAITH

Neville Goddard 7-22-1968

The Bible defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, Revised Standard Version)

What is seen is made out of things that do not appear. Faith does not give reality to things that are not seen. It is loyalty to reality that makes things appear. Can I see the facts the world sees and still believe in the unseen state? If I can remain loyal to the unseen state, in some way I will get confirmation of it.

John 14:1-3: “ . . . ye believe in God, believe also in me. “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” This is not Jesus Christ talking to a disciple on the outside; it is I talking to myself. If all things are made by God, and without Him is not anything made that is made (John 1:3), then where is God? In my Imagination!

You aren’t called upon to make the things. All things already are. The whole, vast creation is already finished; I am only becoming aware of it. Any state that I can imagine can be occupied. The whole thing is finished, and all I do is adjust to it and “feel” myself there until it becomes natural.

You don’t give reality to the unseen; it is loyalty to the unseen reality that gives it objectivity. You can revise the past.

We, you and I, are here, born by the Grace of God, and yet we dare to put a limit on the power of God. Our “sin” is our doubt of God.

“Some men see things as they are and say: Why? I dream things that never were and say: Why not? (George Bernard Shaw). Sen. Ted Kennedy used this quotation in his eulogy of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy without giving credit to the author, however Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was known to quote it many times, giving credit to George Bernard Shaw I know that I must be whatever I am in Imagination. So don’t treat this principle lightly. You truly move yourself into states mentally, wittingly or unwittingly.

A bridge of incidents will develop, over which you will pass until the [state is fulfilled] like pure imagining in us, and that He works in the very depths of our soul, underlying all of our faculties, including perception; but He streams into the surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy, like a daydream – just a simple daydream.

I think of someone who is maybe a thousand miles away. Well, that act – that perceptive act, unseen by any one, that was God-in-action. Well, can I believe in the reality of that act? Can I represent him to myself as I would like to see him in the flesh? Can I see him successful? Can I see him, well, as I want to see him, and believe in the reality of that unseen state? If I can remain loyal to that unseen reality, I will have confirmation that he is the being that I am assuming that he is. Some one will write me or maybe I’ll meet him in the flesh, but in some way I will get confirmation that what I think I see in him or desire to see in him, and persuade myself that I do see in him, [that] it will come to pass.

Now, one day, in reading the 14th chapter of the book of John, having been told that Christ is in me, and here is Christ now speaking to the disciples, (well, if he is in me, what is he trying to tell me? He is speaking to the disciples)…he said: “You believe in God, believe in me also. In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you? Would I have told you that I go prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye shall be also.” (John 14:1-3) Well, it came to me as I read it, from some peculiar intuitive depth, that I am not talking to a disciple (something on the outside). I’m talking to myself! This whole conversation is something within myself. I take the body called Neville –this visible thing that is weak and limited and fragile, and I’m talking to it. You can’t go; you’re limited. It will take time to get there; it’ll take money to get there. Maybe you can’t afford either the time or the money.

But it will take me – if I’m Imagination – to go any place in this world without money, and I don’t need time. I can sit in a chair and put my body, cumbersome as it is, on a chair or on a bed, and if I am all Imagination, and God is in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination, then I can be any place in this world that I desire to be. So, I can go and prepare a place. So, I tried it. I tried assuming that I am where reason would deny it, my senses deny it, but I remained in that state until it seemed natural to me, just seemed natural. Well, then, I went there. And, then, I opened my eyes upon the world that I had shut out, and it was a shock to find myself back in the chair. Well, I if I analyze it, it seems stupid. What I did – it seemed real while I did it, and then one second later, here I am on my chair, and everything I see in my room denies that I did anything that the world would call real. But I did it! And, then, in the not-distant future, I was forced across a series of events, which led up to the fulfillment of that state.

Now, I did it on a very cold winter night in New York City. I had brought out my first book, called Your Faith is Your Fortune, in the month of February in 1941. It was so cold – twelve or fourteen inches of snow on the ground – and I expected in those days simply a voluntary offering on the part of those who came. And many came just for contacts. They didn’t care what I had to say. They came to meet people, and they would go out for their coffee klatches and all these things after the meeting. I didn’t care. It was a crowded house – over a thousand people – in a little old church off Times Square. I expected that night, when I brought out my book, Your Faith is Your Fortune, that there would be the usual thousand, and this night because of the weather they couldn’t get through the snow, I think we had a hundred and fifty people, and there was a certain personal disappointment, because here was my first effort in bringing out a book. And, so I had my books there and a hundred and fifty came, not prepared to buy the book, and so, we packed up at the end of the talk.

When I went home that night the snow was, as I say, twelve or fourteen inches on the ground, and it was cold. When I got into my bed, I did this thing almost absent-mindedly, but I did it, and I knew exactly what I did. Barbados, where I was born, is a little tropical island in the West Indies, and I assumed that I was actually on my bed in my mother’s home that I knew and loved so well. And to prove that I was actually there, I just imagined the world relative to that position. I saw the world – not from my place in New York City, I saw it from Barbados. So, mentally I saw the world as I would see it if I were in Barbados. I thought of my place in New York City, and I saw it two thousand miles to the north of me. I thought of other places, and they were all related to where I am assuming that I am, and I fell asleep in that assumption. When I awoke the next morning, the snow was even higher, and I am not in Barbados, I am in New York City!

Well, time progressed. The war in Europe was on. England was at war. No ships were plying the Atlantic. They were going down faster than they could build them, and we were almost at war, and then came the month of August, and I received a cable from my family saying: “We didn’t tell you, because we knew you couldn’t come to Barbados. There aren’t any ships,” (and certainly in those days there were no planes) and they said: “Mother is dying. She’s been dying for two years, but now, this is it, and if you want to see her in this world once more, you’ve got to come now” ,  I mean, now. I received that cable in the morning, and my wife and I sailed the very next night.

One ship was leaving at midnight, the “Argentine,” and we sailed in late August for Barbados. And there I went to Barbados, the last place in the world that I intended to go. In fact, we had planned to go to Maine for a vacation. We were going to close that month and go to Maine for five or six weeks, and then return to reopen some time in October. But all plans were changed to fulfill what I had done in an idle moment because of disappointment.

But it taught me a lesson: not to use this law idly, not to use it to escape, but to use it deliberately because you cannot escape from it. A series of events will mold themselves, across which you will walk, leading up to the fulfillment of that state. And so here I put myself, just to escape from the cold and the disappointment of the evening, in Barbados of all places. Then something happens, and I am compelled to make the journey, the last place in the world we intended to go. And we sailed at midnight, and got there four and a half days later on this “Argentine” ship. (It was an American ship, but it was called the “Argentine.”) Mother dies, as they all said she would, and I returned to the States with the knowledge of what I had done and began to teach it. And in that audience of, I would say, a thousand, they all began to apply it, with tremendous success. Then, where is God?

If “all things [were] made by him, and without him [was] not anything made that is made” (John 1:3) then where is he? I knew exactly what I did, and I know what happened. Well, if I can trace what happened to an invisible cause (what I did) and repeat it, and tell that story to others, who can take it and try it and repeat it, well then, I have found causation. And if all causes spring from God, then I have found him. I have found Him as my own wonderful human imagination. That’s God. There isn’t a thing in this world that wasn’t first imagined. Now, here you aren’t called to make the thing. Things are. All things in the world are. “Eternity exists, and all things in Eternity independent of creation, which was an act of mercy.” (William Blake)  You can’t conceive of something that isn’t!

As a result of this in 1941, it was 1949 that I gave a series of lectures in Milwaukee, and the head chemist at Allis-Chalmers came to my meetings. I made some statement using a term that is a scientific term, and the word was “entropy.” Well, I might have used it, not as the scientist would have used it, but I had my own concept of what the word meant and my definition of it, and I said I can change the past. If I can make something, I can unmake it. Whatever I can create, I can uncreate. Whatever I can make, I can unmake. He said: “You can’t do it. For we use entropy in our laboratory every day, and entropy means the past is unalterable; you can’t change it. If the past could be changed, I wouldn’t know what I am doing in the lab…” He said: “All day long I receive little samples of water from all over the world, because we make these huge turbines. And from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa – all over the world – they send samples, because the water passes through certain mineral deposits and carries with itwhatever is in that mineral, and, so it cakes. We have to analyze that water and then bring up a solution, because we made the product.” And I said: “I don’t care what you say. I know what I’ve done. And you can undo the past. You can change it.”

“It can’t be done.”

I said: “As far as I am concerned, the whole vast world is finished. Creation is finished, and I am only becoming aware of it. Well, I need not confine myself to what my senses see and what reason allows and what wise men tell me I should accept. I can imagine a state. I can’t see it with my physical eye, but I can imagine a state, and that state imagined is. I can imagine a state that is in conflict with the facts of life. And the facts, you say, are, and they can’t be altered. I can imagine a state that would undo the fact. Well, that state exists. If I occupy that state it will undo the so-called fact you say is fixed forever.” Well, he questioned my sanity, but he was an awfully nice chap. His name was Professor Imhoff. He was the head of the department of this chemical setup. So, while he was a very wise and gentle and kind person.

I returned to New York City, and he sent me the “Scientific News Letter,” dated October the 15th, 1949, in which he said: “Now, Neville, I apologize for having said what I did. This man is far greater as a physicist than I am as a scientist. He is Professor Feynman, of Cornell University, one of the outstanding physicists of our day in speculative, theoretical physics; and this is his letter. And he wrote in this little letter, which was printed in the magazine, a story concerning the positron, a little particle that is produced in atomic disintegration. It’s like the electron, but differs in this respect. It is positive in its charge instead of being negative.

Now, these are the words of Feynman, they are not mine. He says: “The positron is a wrong-way electron. It starts from where it hasn’t been, and it speeds to where it was an instant ago. It is bounced so hard its time sense is reversed, and then it returns to where it hasn’t been.” (Now, this is Feynman, this isn’t Neville.) Then he goes on to say: “When a little electron is moving speedily in space if it is bounced, it’s deflected, but continues on its course. But if it is bounced so hard, then its time sense is reversed, and it returns to where it hasn’t been.” “Now,” he said, “on the basis of this, we must now conclude that the entire concept that man held of the universe is false. We always believed that the future developed slowly out of the past. Now, with this concept which we have seen and photographed, we must now conclude that the entire space-time history of the world is laid out, and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively.”

This is 1949. That Professor, Richard Feynman, who is now at Caltech in Pasadena received the Nobel Prize last year for that paper. They held it up almost twenty years, for this is 1968 and he got it in 1967, and the paper came out in 1949. I didn’t know it as a scientist. I knew it as a mystic. I see it. I can’t explain why; I only know everything is. The whole thing is finished, and all I have to do is to adjust to it. If I know what I want for myself or for another, I adjust to it, because the thing is. Well, if I adjust to it and it feels natural, when it feels natural, then I open my eyes upon this world that I have shut out for that purpose. As I open my eyes, I am turned around. I have actually been where reason would deny that I have been there; and then, as I open my eyes, I have been speeding with the speed of light from wherever I have assumed that I am to where physically I am. Now I am so shocked to find that I am not actually there, but I am here physically. My time sense is turned around. And now, I move across a bridge of incidents – a series of events – that compels me to move towards the fulfillment of that invisible state.

And when I get there it is not invisible, it becomes visible. It throws itself on the screen of space, and the world calls that a fact. And they stand amazed at that, because that to them is real. Prior to its becoming objective, it was unreal.

So, I tell you: faith in unseen reality. You don’t give reality to the unseen; it is loyalty to unseen reality that is the secret of faith. So, when he tells us: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1) by faith, we understand that the world was created by the Word of God, so that “things seen were made from things that do not appear…”

Now, let me share with you this story. A friend of mine living in L.A. came many years ago from Pittsburgh. So in ’66 she returned to Pittsburgh and met the few friends who are still in this world. Many have departed. There was one lady she speaks of as Betty. Well, Betty married this man, and his name is supposed to be Matthew. Well, Matthew was suffering from a certain disease, which led progressively to total deafness. In the interval, it is accompanied by dizziness, and wrenching. What the name is, I don’t know. She told me, but I am not familiar with these medical terms. But it is something that is incurable as of today. No doctor knows how to arrest it, and it progressively moves towards total deafness. In the meanwhile, it is a most painful condition that accompanies it, and these horrible dizzy spells, and then the wrenching.

She told the story as I told it to her, how you can revise the past; that in spite of the fact that he is moving towards the inevitable total deafness, it need not be. They can go back and change the past to the point in time – which was fourteen years before – when this thing began to show in his body. He didn’t believe it. She said to me: “He would ask me a hundred and one questions concerning it, not because he wanted to be cruel, but he is a rational being, a very intelligent person, and it didn’t make sense. Because it didn’t make sense, he discounted it; but Betty thought: ‘”I will try it.’”

“Now, she said, “it was a very difficult thing for Betty and myself, because my parents were both deaf, and Betty’s parents were both deaf, and we were raised in the environment of deaf people. We had to learn sign language to communicate with our parents. So, Betty had the experience of deaf parents, both of them, and I had the experience of deaf parents, and to be confronted with this picture – it was a horrible, horrible picture. Betty said to me: “I will do it every night,” and she took a simple little sentence: “Matthew” (she called him Matt) – “Matt is hearing perfectly.” That’s all that she did. Meanwhile he’s getting worse and worse and worse.

A year went by, and he’s still progressing towards the inevitable end of total deafness, when in his business he had this excruciating pain from ear to ear, and he cried out. Well, they rushed him to the doctor [and] the doctor gave him an injection to alleviate the pain. Then the doctor said: “You can’t go back on the job right away. You must go to your room and rest for a while.” Well, in the room, he dozed, and went into a little sleep and when he awoke, he was hearing perfectly – hearing perfectly!

He was sent home early that evening. He usually arrives at 6:00 o’clock. When he came home on the early side, the wife greeted him with the usual: “Oh, what’s wrong? What happened at the office today?” and he replied: “Betty, I am hearing perfectly.” He used the identical word that she had, night after night, heard. All in her imagination, she heard him say: “Betty, I am hearing perfectly.” So, she heard her own name called by her husband, Matt, and he confirmed it by saying: “I am hearing perfectly.” Then he said: “I believe, I believe, I believe!”

Now, that is a year and a half ago. She said: “In the interval we never breathed it, did not mention it in our letters. I communicate constantly, but I did not for one moment state anything further than I did when I was there in the flesh and told her of a principle,” a principle which you could call by any name. We call it God.

Well, God is one’s own marvelous human Imagination. That’s God! 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. And all things are possible to God. You and I – here we are, fashioned by the grace of God, born by the grace of God, and we dare to put a limit on the power of God! Here we, the creature born by the grace of God, and then we tell God (or tell ourselves) what he can’t do. And therefore, give to God, who made us and brought us into the world…and now we give to him the sin against the Holy Ghost, which as far as I see it is man’s doubt.

The only thing that cannot be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is man’s doubt in the power of God.

You might have heard the late Senator Kennedy in one or two of his political speeches. He was very fond of quoting this passage from George Bernard Shaw, in fact, his brother Teddy, in the eulogy in New York City quoted it. He didn’t give credit to George Bernard Shaw, but his brother had done it time and again, and therefore people knew, those who heard him, that it was not Teddy’s or Bobbie’s – it was George Bernard Shaw.

And this is the quote: “Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’” Why not? The world tells me it can’t be. Why not? Are not all things possible to God? And did not God become me, that I may become God? Well, if he became me, I can’t dissect the body and find him in an atom. I can’t find him in the brain. I can’t find him in any organ of the body. Therefore, where is he? Just where is he? I am told in Scripture he has a name, and this name is his name forever and forever, and the name defined is: “I Am.” Well, that’s the core of my being. I can’t put it aside. I sit down to imagine. Who’s imagining? I am. I have never been able to put “I am” out there and look at it. It is the being perceiving, not the thing perceived. It is the being making, not the thing made. It’s the being creating; not the thing created.

And man stands amazed at his own creations – and forgets the creator. He falls in love with all the things he makes, and he forgets completely the maker; and the maker is “I Am.” There is no other maker. There is no other God. So, when I found that out, I knew that when I went to Barbados, I was actually sleeping in my mother’s home in a bed that I knew well, and it was warm. I could feel the warmth of the tropics. I could detect the odors of the tropics; they differ from the northern world. All the things that are related to the tropics, I detected.

Well, who is doing it? I am. I can’t get away from it. Is that God? Yes. Well, he didn’t take a train there. No, there aren’t any trains. He didn’t take a plane? No, there were no planes then. He didn’t take a ship? No. He simply was there. Wherever I assume that I am, I am there. And, so, if I can assume that I am elsewhere, to the point that some one like my sister actually sees me there, well, I must be wherever I am in Imagination.

One day I had occasion, while in New York City, to assume that I am being seen by my sister, whose son was desperately ill, age 17, and riddled with cancer. No one knew what was wrong with him until they opened him, and then he was too far-gone. The whole body was completely riddled at the age of seventeen! And they say that if you are young when you develop this, then like all young things, it grows. If you are developed to the age of sixty or seventy, the chances are you won’t die of it because things aren’t building then. You are only marking time. But youth is growing.

Whether it be a good cell or a bad cell, it simply grows rapidly. So at the age of seventeen he wasn’t feeling well. They wonder: what’s wrong with the boy? And some one suggested going in and taking a little look on the inside. They thought it might be some appendix or some peculiar thing there. So they opened him up and sewed him back – not a thing they could do. The whole body was simply gone. Well, to comfort my sister, I thought I would put my body physically in New York City and assume I’m in Barbados. I’m in my nephew’s room, and when my sister enters the room she is going to see me, and not her son. I actually assumed that I am there. I am occupying the same space that my nephew Billy occupied, and then when I felt it natural, I assumed that my sister came in. She came in, and she came over and she looked, and she couldn’t see any one but her brother, Neville.

I came out of that silence. I came into the living room where a friend, by invitation, had arrived for a cocktail, because I had said: “Drop by at the cocktail hour – it’s around 5:00 o’clock, and we’ll have a drink.” I went into the silence around 4:30, and I didn’t come out until maybe after 5:00 – 5:15 or 5:20. So when I came into the living room, she said: “Neville, what’s wrong with you? You are always so gay and light. Why do you seem so heavy now?” and I told her what I had just done.

Eight days later (we had no air mail coming, but had to depend upon mail by the sea), eight days later I received a letter from my sister. She said: “Neville, I don’t understand it, but this very moment I went into Billy’s room and I could not for the life of me see Billy. I am seeing you. I walked right over to the bed, and I looked at my son, and he is not there, and it’s you! And you’re looking at me and smiling. And I could not , I tried and tried and tried, and Billy was not there; it is you. I don’t understand it, Neville. If you have any knowledge or anything about it to throw light upon this, tell me.”

That same lady was there eight days later, and I brought her letter out that I had received that day and showed it to her. So I had two witnesses: my wife and this lady. So, I know that I must be wherever I am in Imagination. So I tell you: don’t treat it lightly. You can put yourself in prison, and find yourself committing an act of which you are totally unaware, or accused of something of which you are not aware, and going to prison. People put themselves there. People put themselves out of it. People don’t realize, not a thing is happening by accident. It’s all by unseen causation. So you actually move yourself into states emotionally, and dwell in [them] just for a split second. And you jump back – or you think you jump back. You did. But the bridge is now about to appear, and across the bridge of incidents you walk, leading up to the fulfillment of what you did unwittingly.

So, this is what I mean by faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” You hope for it? Well, now, the assurance is faith. Faith is not going to make it so. Faith is loyalty to the unseen reality. You know what you did? Well, now, that’s unseen by mortal eye. Now, you remain loyal to that unseen reality, and see how this bridge of incidents is woven, and you do not consciously devise it. No man can consciously devise the incidents necessary to lead you to the fulfillment of what you’ve done. Well, this is what I mean by faith. The very substance of what the world calls real is unseen. It’s unseen reality.

The whole vast creation is finished, just as Feynman said, and he got his prize for it. So he got the fifty thousand dollars for that which I said as a mystic, but you can’t give a mystic money, because he has no standing in the community. Feynman has standing. He teaches physics at Caltech, so he could say the identical thing in his own words, and they say: “Isn’t this marvelous?” And so, he has a paper on it, now a book on it, and a title to it, so he has all the titles. And because I am the unknown, and in the eyes of Feynman not educated by his standards, no formal education – but what I see, I see, and I can’t deny it. What I experience mystically, I can’t deny. So, I am speaking from experience; I am not theorizing. He goes in and he theorizes. He experiments, yes, and succeeds occasionally in taking a photograph of the so-called unseen little particle [and] he has enough photographs to prove the existence of the positron. And then comes his wonderful honor, fifty thousand dollars, and all that goes with it.

But I tell you, in spite of all the books that are written, with all the great titles signed behind his name of the author, the book of books is the Bible, and no one knows the authors. They are all anonymous. No one knows who’s Peter, who’s James, who’s Matthew, Luke, Mark, John – no one knows. They are anonymous and they remain so. The characters, no one knows if they ever walked the face of the earth. I tell you that they didn’t. Those who wrote it – they did, but the characters are anonymous. And the characters of Scripture are all eternal states through which man passes.

They are states – eternal states, not historical states. It’s not secular history. It is salvation history. What I have told you so far as of now, in the past week (I gave you five, and tonight is the sixth) it’s all based upon what I’ve experienced. And I tell you: everyone will experience it. Not one can fail, because if one failed, God failed. And He isn’t going to fail. So, let the fool say in his heart: there is no God, like this book, God is Dead and all that nonsense. Let them have fun. He wrote that just to make money. And of course, because the title caught on, especially today, he made oodles of money out of a title, a title with a book full of nonsense. But he’s not alone; he has a lot of company. I tell you: you have faith in God, but don’t look outside to find him. You aren’t going to find him out there. You are going to find him one day by a series of mystical experiences. And when they happen to you, they will happen in the first person, present-tense experience, and you’ll know who God is!

You’ll know that you are, for God’s purpose is to give himself to you as though there were no other in the world, just you. Well, if he gives himself to you completely, there can’t be you and God, just you, and you are he. And the whole plan is set up, and when it begins to unfold within you in a first person, present-tense experience, I can’t tell you the thrill. Now, when you depart this world, you are not restored to life, as all people are who have not had the experience, you instantly put on your body of glory, and you’re in an entirely different age, a different world altogether. And all the others wait for that moment in time when they, too, have the experience. And then when death comes following the experience, they instantly move from the body of decay (for this [is] decay) into a body that is immortal, a body of glory.

So, that is for every one in the world. And may I tell you: don’t try to argue with anybody who tries to give you all the reasons of Caesar why it can’t be. They put you in a little furnace and bring out a few little ashes and say: that was the man. Therefore, he can’t survive, because that’s it. Well then, let him have his little fun. It’s perfectly all right. Let him be amused. Don’t move; let him be amused. He’s such a wise person! So wise in his own council and so wise in the eyes of fools. He can only be wise in the eyes of fools; so don’t argue with him. Leave him alone just as he is.

So, he will find himself – when men call him dead – restored to life, and he will be totally unaware how on earth it could happen. But he’s so blind anyway; he won’t even recognize it. He will take it for granted, as we take breathing for granted. We take all the normal functions of the body for granted, and yet each function is a miracle. You put a little of bread in your mouth, and suddenly by a chemistry you do not understand it is no longer bread; it’s blood and bone and tissue. And what you can’t incorporate into your system and use wisely, you expel. Even the act of expulsion from the system is a mystery. And yet we take all these mysteries for granted, and the whole thing is – oh, well, we call it nature. That covers a multitude of nonsense.

Nature! Define it for me. So, I tell you tonight, you take your dream – your noble dream, not only for yourself, but for others. What do you want? Ask them. Now, don’t argue the point, what do you want? Well then, in your mind’s eye dare to assume that they have what at the moment their reason and their senses deny and everything about them denies; but you remain faithful to the assumption, and your assumption relative to them. Though false at the moment, if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. Now, you try it. I could give you unnumbered cases, but why repeat them over and over?

Every case history in the Bible has been repeated now for two thousand years, and they still hold up, but they are all to encourage man to test God – to try him. “Come, test yourself and see.” You are not asked to test another. In the 13th chapter of II Corinthians: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourself and see, unless of course you fail to meet the test.” Well, if you fail to meet the test because of doubt and lack of faith, well and good. You might go and say: “It doesn’t work.” It’s perfectly all right. So, it doesn’t work for you because you did not believe it. He puts no limit to the power of belief. “All things are possible to him who believes.” So can I really believe at the moment that I am trying to believe, everything tells me it can’t be done? Can I ignore the facts of life, and then persuade myself that it is done and live in the end as though it were true? I tell you: if you try it, you will be able to write me and give me fantastic stories.

But in the end, it is God’s Promise that concerns me. Oh, to teach you the law is marvelous, teach every one the law because you are living in the world of Caesar. You must pay rent, you must eat, you must shelter yourself, you must have clothing – all these things in the world of Caesar are essential, so teach man the law, that he may fulfill all these things. But don’t neglect the Promise. And God’s Promise is to give himself to you. That’s his Promise that he will actually give himself to you! Before he made the Promise, God was the Father, so when he succeeds in giving himself to you, though you are now in the female body, when he gives himself to you (and you will not find it strange) you will one day awake and you are the father, even though you may now be the mother of a dozen children. And in the day it will not seem strange to you that you are father, God the Father. And if he has a son (because he has to have a son if he’s a father) and then that son is going to call you “father” (he is not going to call you “mother”) he will call you “father” in the fulfillment of the 89th Psalm, because Scripture must be fulfilled in man. So, man’s purpose in life is only to fulfill Scripture.

But in the meanwhile, Caesar demands. He demands taxes. He demands this; he demands the other. Well, give Caesar what is Caesar’s, but don’t fail to keep alive the Promise of God, and dwell upon it.

Now let us go into the Silence.

Good.

Now, are there any questions?

(Q. Inaudible)
Neville: My dear, yes! To those who were not present: This friend of ours down south,  her name is Marta, she was coming to Laguna to the Art Festival, she and three others, the four of them. It’s a perfectly marvelous festival every year down in Laguna. All the artists come, and the live artistry is perfectly marvelous the way they do it. They are simple little pictures of the great works of art, and then the curtain parts, the lights come on, and you think you are looking at a living, three- dimensional picture – unless there is some little child in it that can’t quite hold the stillness. This lively little girl one night, she had a little itch, and here in the perfect stillness she couldn’t resist the impulse, and there she was scratching herself. But it was a delightful thing just to watch it, because she was so natural in it.

But they are perfectly rehearsed in it. Well, it is a sight that you can’t quite describe unless you go to see the Art Festival. Well, she was coming back, and the four of them stopped in at a Mexican restaurant to have a little snack. She doesn’t really smoke, but she said she wanted a cigarette. And her friend lit the cigarette for her and she took the cigarette and said: “Oh, I have such a strange feeling.” And with that she went right over and fell on the table and she was gone from this world!

Well, Marta has had this experience. I tell you that God actually, literally became man, that man may become God. Every man that is “born from above” knows that he is God. But I could tell you from now to the ends of time, and you will only see me as an arrogant fool. You will never actually believe me until you have the experience to confirm the truth of what I say, because words could not persuade you. You have to actually have the experience.

So Marta, this night, finds herself in this huge, big interior. The front is one sheet of glass, and on the inside are huge, big columns like marble columns. It is very sparsely furnished. She sees one chair, and she takes the chair. She is seated, then, out of nowhere comes a carriage that is self-propelled. There aren’t horses, but it looks as though it should be drawn by horses. The door opens automatically and I step out, wearing an Inverness cape. (You know what the Inverness cape is.) I come forward into the interior of this place and, without showing any recognition of Marta

I began to proclaim the power of God. And she said, as she looked at me I was clothed in sheer power. It wasn’t a merciful power, it wasn’t compassionate, it was simply power. It was creative power. And I am simply talking of power. And she said to herself: “Why, it’s Neville, and he is God!” and she kept on repeating to herself: “He is Neville and he is God; he is Neville and he is God.” And, then, without any further recognition of her, I completed the proclamation of power, turned, and then, as though by appointment, the carriage came into view. The door opened automatically, and I stepped in and vanished. The whole thing vanished.

So, here she saw God clothed in power, wearing the face of a friend. Her friend is Neville. Scripture tells you – and it’s the foundation by which man is set free, when Paul was accused of not being an Apostle, he said: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen the Lord Jesus?” So, he laid it down as an indispensable prerequisite: to have seen the Lord Jesus in order to be set free from this bondage to corruption and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. Then, in the book of John, he said: “I no longer call you slaves, for a slave does not know what the master is doing; I call you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known unto you.” (John 15:15) So, here she saw a friend, but the friend was wearing power.

It was God’s power, and she knew it was God. So she is set free. She is not restored as the world is restored when they die. She is set free from this age, and Marta is now in her glorious body. She has met the qualifications for freedom. But I can tell you from now to the ends of time…I could have told Marta, as I did, but not until Marta had the experience, could Marta ever believe. So, they laughed at Paul, because how can you share these experiences with man? You can’t do it. Man has to have the experience. And the lady who was with her, whose name is Marge, had the experience of seeing me on the beach, standing with my back to an enormous body of water.

There was no land beyond; it was simply an endless body of water, and I was speaking to an enormous crowd of people, all of different faiths, different persuasions – yet each heard me in the tongue wherein they were born. And as she came upon this scene (she knew that it’s Neville) she sees Neville, but she also knew he was Jesus, so she has had a similar experience. Only Marta called it God, and she called it Jesus, because she knew she was looking at her friend Neville, but she’s also looking at Jesus.

So, I tell you: in the end there is only one body, and that one body is Jesus. “One body, one spirit, one lord, . . . one God and Father of all” So, in the end, all are Jesus! All are God! All are the Father! I can tell you in words, but I can’t persuade you. I have to desire to persuade you against your will. I know the day will come when you will actually have a similar experience and others will see you in that role, and have an experience and be convinced that you are God.

Now, it frightens people to say that. They want some little God on the outside, and I say everyone is God. We are told that in Scripture: “I say, ye are gods, all of you, sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you will die like men and fall as one man, oh, princes.” (Psalm 82:6,7) That’s in Scripture, and yet you read it and say: “Oh, it doesn’t really make any difference. That isn’t right. That was wrong. When God dictated that, or inspired the prophet to write it, he must have been drinking. Well, how can that be?” And, so, the prophets – that is, the great scholars – cannot quite understand that passage, the 82nd Psalm. They can’t get it. So, because they can’t get it, it isn’t true. Well, we go through life that way. You will find people all over the world – if they can’t understand something, it just isn’t true, it’s not good, and they will set themselves up as the criterion of what ought to be. Their moral and ethical code is the only code that should be adopted. If they don’t smoke, no one should smoke. If they don’t drink, no one should drink. If they are celibates because nature allowed it, no one should know anything about sex. You find these people writing these things for us after nature has outlawed sex in their life. So, when they hit the age of eighty, because they are impotent, every one should be.

And they write laws and say they were divinely inspired. If today, eating meat on Friday is right (it was always right) and, yet for centuries it was wrong and a mortal sin, but now it’s all right, well, if it is right today, it was always right. Now, if a man can marry today…and eventually they will say the priests can marry, it wasn’t always so that they could not. If you read Scripture, it speaks of Peter’s wife, and yet the present Pope claims that he is directly descended from Peter, the first Pope. Well, if the first Pope was married, then what’s wrong with marriage, when the very first command to man is: “Replenish the earth; multiply and replenish the earth.” That’s the command. So, what’s wrong with multiplying and replenishing the earth? Yet some Pope, who undoubtedly was impotent, just said that no one should marry. If he can’t perform the act, no one should perform it.

All right, we have Pope Alexander VI. Have you ever heard of the Borgias, Lucretia and Cesare Borgia, brother and sister? Well, they were his children, and he was Pope Alexander VI, and their name is associated with poison. If they didn’t like you, you were in their way politically – poison them. They were the Pope’s children. Go back and read history. You can find this in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Pope Alexander VI was the father of Cesare Borgia and Lucretia Borgia, the youngest ever given the cardinal’s hat, at the age of nineteen. Talk of nepotism! Well, now, all this is history. You don’t have to be afraid of it. These are facts. Well, if it was right then, it’s right now! Because God’s Word cannot be altered.

These things are not in God’s Book at all. These are the traditions of men. And we read in Scripture that to keep alive the traditions of men, you go against the Word of God. That’s what he tells you. So, find out, is it Scripture? Or, is it something that a man wants to impose upon society?

Now, you take what we have tried to tell you tonight, the story of faith, and try to live by it. You’ll prove it. You won’t disprove it, not if you realize that you are the operant power. It doesn’t operate itself. You are the operant power. And, then, you will find an easier way of living in this world, and then put your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the unveiling of Christ in you.

Now, the time is up.     Thank you

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FAITH, HOPE AND LOVE

Neville Goddard

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityScripture makes the most profound statements in the world. You can believe them or reject them, but you will never know their truth until scripture is experienced. When it is once experienced, you can no more deny it than you can the humblest evidence of your senses.

I make the claim God is love. Scripture tells us God is faith, saying: “Through faith the world was made by the Word of God.” And we are told to “Put your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the resurrection of Jesus Christ in you.” Now, I can tell you that his name is I AM and that God’s first revelation to man is that of the Father. I can tell you that all this is true of yourself; that you are God the Father; that you are infinite love, infinite faith, and infinite hope, but you will not know this truth until it becomes your own experience.

After you have experienced scripture, there is no power in the world that can persuade you that you were hallucinating, for when you experience this truth you are on a far greater level of awareness than anything known to man on this level. Whether he be an Einstein, a great financial giant, or a famous doctor, he is aware only of this level and what I speak of here is on an entirely different sphere. What you experience is separate from this world, and that experience is what I call “religion”. Religion is a devotion to the reality of an exalted experience, [the reality] of which reason and the senses may deny, but you will know you had the experience.

Now let me share with you three letters I received this week. One lady – who is very much a lady – writes, “On the night of January 24th I was sitting quietly, meditating, when suddenly something turned or opened in my head and I heard a voice say: ‘I am faith, hope and love.’ A moment later a deep, gloriously masculine voice added: ‘I am the Father.’ Those words touched me with such emotion that I burst into tears and cried and cried.”

The shortest sentence in scripture is “Jesus wept”. At the very end of the drama, one who was supposed to be the rock on which the whole would be established denied the story three times before the cock crowed. Then, remembering all that was foretold, he wept bitterly. Now, to embrace an experience one must have an experiencing nature, for it is only from an experiencing nature that the furnaces of affliction can refine the essence of faith, hope and love.

Here is a statement from the 48th chapter of Isaiah: “Now you will know; now you will hear things that you have never known before. From of old your ears have not been opened, but I tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how can my name be profaned. My glory I will not give to another.”

You may think that because you have perfect pitch and can hear the slightest sound that your ears are opened, but they are sealed to the heavenly voices, completely sealed to the heavenly world. But now I tell you: God is love, he is faith, and he is hope. His initial hope was “Let us make man in our image.” Having the faith that it could be done, it took love to do it. It is love who is put through the furnace of affliction and – although it seems to be hell while experienced – love turns Man into a living soul so Man can respond, for without response there is no action.

In the silence this lady heard the words: “I am faith, hope and love” followed by a deep, masculine voice saying: “I am the Father”. Now she knows that she incarnates God and that he radiates from her own wonderful human imagination. Having had this experience, there is no priest, no minister or archbishop who could persuade her out of it. This lady is unknown to the world, yet she has experienced that which is unknown to its intellectual and financial giants.

I tell you scripture is true, and the day will come when the voice will reveal her as the Father. That is when God’s only begotten Son stands before her and calls her “Father.” Then she will know and say: “I have found David; he has called me My Father, My God, and the Rock of my salvation.”

You might think that a lady could not have the experience of being the Father, but in this dimension of which I speak we are the Elohim. We are not male or female, but God, yet God made up of many. The word “Elohim” is a compound unity, one made up of many. We are all the one Father of the one and only begotten Son, the quintessence of man’s experiences, personified as David. The voice who spoke to her declared eternal truth, and when you stand in the presence of the Risen Christ and hear the words, “God is love,” you will know its eternal truth. And when he incorporates you into his body, you will not be two any more, but one. Then, as he incorporates himself into another and still another, we will all be gathered back into the one body, the one Spirit, and we will all know we are the Father. There aren’t numberless Fathers. We all fell from the one Father, and we are all gathered together back into the one Father, who said to the lady: “I am the Father.” I can’t tell you my thrill when I received that letter.

Now, to have a great experience you must have an experiencing nature, for only by an experiencing nature can you devise the essence of faith, hope and love. And when it happens the tears fall. Peter was not emotionally moved when the truth was intellectually heard, but when it was experienced and the whole thing came to pass in him, he wept bitterly. One day you will experience scripture and know how true it is. I am speaking from experience when I tell you that I stood in the presence of the Risen Christ and spoke the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” Then I was embraced by Man who is infinite love, who is God. And what I have experienced you will experience also.

There are those who speak of God as an over-soul, or impersonal force. They have become so abstract in their concept of this creative and redeeming power. But God is not an over-soul or intangible force, but Man, and he speaks with a voice as I speak to you now. You hear me in the tongue in which you were born. When God speaks to you, you will hear him in your natural tongue. And when you stand in the presence of Infinite love it is Man, and yet you will know he is all love.

Now let me share another experience. We are told in the Book of Genesis that when a dream is doubled, God has fixed it and it will shortly come to pass. This lady had three dreams of elephants. In her first dream she said: “It was the mating season, and I saw many elephants, all in the creative act.” This dream was followed by a dream in which she found herself standing by a river, surrounded by mountains. On the river’s bank stood three stone elephants, and as she looked at them they became animated, entered the river, and swam downstream. Watching them she said to herself: “This is the second time I have seen stone elephants. The last time was when they came out of the mountains.” Then she added: “When I awoke I realized what I had said was true.”

There is a language of symbolism that is universal. Regardless of whether you are in Africa, in China or here, in the depth of the soul the elephant is the symbol of God’s creative power and wisdom, which is defined in scripture as Jesus Christ. In her dream she remembered another dream, so this dream is bordering on self-revelation, which is God revealing himself in her.

God’s creative power has made itself known to her and she will, in the immediate present, have tangible proof of the fact that her own wonderful human imagination is Christ Jesus. All things are possible to God, and by the exercise of this power she can prove that she is the creative power of the universe. Symbolized as in the creative act, this power appeared as stone which has not been made alive. Something was seemingly dead in her world, but it doesn’t matter, the power is not there. It’s not in space, in the stars, or teacup leaves. Power is not in anything outside of the human imagination. All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow. To prove this to herself, she saw the elephants as dead, all made of stone. Is there anything more inanimate, more dead, than stone? Yet the moment she beheld them they became animated and entered the stream of life.

She was in a wonderful mountainous area, and all through scripture revelations took place from the mountaintops. Jesus was on the mountaintop when he transfigured himself, and now, here in this mountainous area, her own creative power was revealed. So I repeat: God the creator and your own wonderful human imagination are one and inseparable; therefore, he will never be so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. Now she knows – as does the other lady – that she incarnates God, and God radiates from her as her own wonderful human imagination.

What are you imagining right now? Is it something disastrous? Or is it a wonderful thought that has caught fire within you? No matter what your thoughts may be, they will come to pass, for there is nothing in this world but that which was first imagined. In the January issue of a magazine called The National Observer, there is a picture of a demolished railroad threshold. You see a large section of the train broken, with many cars demolished and one suspended over the edge of an embankment. It is a photograph of an accident which happened recently in Rubin, Idaho. This same picture had appeared in their December issue, and when a reader in Springfield, Virginia saw it, he thought it strangely familiar. Then he remembered that nineteen years ago he had been sketching, and a scene just came out of his imagination, a scene that was a duplicate of the accident that happened this past year. Sending a picture of his sketch to The National Observer, he asked: “Is it fate that my picture so closely resembles the actual accident?” He thought the train wreck was the actual event, but it was the effect. He was the cause. This is a world of shadows. He drew the accident, even to the trees surrounding it, and what he called the actual event was only the effect in the shadow world.

So I say to this lady: you have touched the depth of your soul, the creative power of God, and no one is going to take it from you, for your power has grown to the point of revelation. You can’t turn back now and believe in any outside God. Those who have not had the vision can still turn back. They are those on whom the seed fell, and although they eagerly took it, the cares of the world took them away. Or those that, because the seed fell among thorns, it was cast off. Or those that, traveling the highway of life, they tried and proved their creative power but decided that it would have happened anyway, or that it was just coincidence. But in your case, my dear, you can’t turn back. There is no power on earth that can turn you back to any orthodox belief, for you have seen the symbol of the creative power of God. Starting as the creative act, you turned stone into something alive and it has entered the stream of life. You know now that you have the power to take something that is dead and barren as stone and in your mind’s eye resurrect it, breathe upon it, and make it alive.

Now, the other letter was from a gentleman. His is on another level. In his dream he sees a house from which a glow radiates from its windows and doors. Someone near asked: “When you enter the house, how will we know you are doing it?” And he answered: “I only do what is necessary, but no matter what I do you will still say it is a trick.” Then a voice spoke from within him saying: “I have power I know not of.” This gentleman has the power to create, but he has not entered the state of consciousness to exercise it. He knows that when he enters this house and things happen, it is he who says it would have happened anyway. There are no others, there is only God in this world. Although he answered the question, there was doubt, and he always takes it with him as he enters a new state of consciousness, therefore never quite sure that his imaginal act was the cause of the phenomena of his life.

Here we see various levels of the revelation of God within Man. The first one was the fantastic “I am the Father” and in the not distant future she will know this truth in the most intimate manner. No longer will it be as a voice coming from the depth of her soul, but she will know she is the Father when God’s only begotten Son stands before her and calls her “Father.” In the meantime God is radiating from her own wonderful human imagination. She knows that I am Faith, I am Hope and I am Love. She has read it in the 13th chapter of Corinthians. She has heard it from the platform, but she knows it now from revelation. She heard the words coming from within herself and when David, in the Spirit, calls her Lord, she will prove to herself that everything I say from the platform is true.

So I repeat: We will not know scriptural truth until it is experienced, and then we cannot deny it any more than we can the humblest evidence of our senses. God’s first revelation to Man is Power, Almighty God, El Shaddai. His second revelation is I AM. “My name is in you, listen, take heed, harken to my voice, for my name is in you.” And his final revelation is that of Father.

In the 40th Psalm it is said: “Thou hast given me an open ear.” This is repeated in the 10th [chapter] of Hebrews in this manner: “Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body thou hast prepared for me.” The open ear of Psalms has now become a body, an immortal body that cannot die. Something turned and opened, and although from of old the lady had not heard, now she hears. Your garment of flesh and blood has ears, but I speak of an entirely different body. I speak of the body which has been put through the furnaces, which has been prepared for the heavenly kingdom. So judge not from appearances, for although they may be famous and extremely rich they are still asleep, and when they depart this world they will enter another world of the dead. But she – although unknown here – will enter the world of life, for her body has been prepared for the age that is to come.

Your faith is justified not by any argument, but by an experience. Tell me what you believe and I will hear your confession of faith. Tonight, believe the words the lady heard. Say within yourself: “I am the Father” and you will hear your own confession of faith. That is where the true spirit of scripture is – all within self. And God’s creative power is in you. So if tonight you want something, know it is contained within you and you have the power to animate it and make it alive. Then have faith, have confidence that in its own good time what you have imagined will come to pass. You need not tell anyone or devise the means of its fulfillment. All you need is faith. Through faith we understand that the world was created by the Word of God. So set your hope fully upon this grace of God which is the hope of Man. God gave himself to you as though there were no other, and when his Son stands before you and calls you “Father” you will know that faith has transformed itself into vision, that hope has been completely realized, and that love endureth forever.

Now let us go in to the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FAITH IN GOD

Neville Goddard 02-05-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityIn the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrews, faith is described as: “The assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so things seen are made out of that which does not appear. 

In the Hebraic world, the rabbi is the father of his congregation. Paul called his followers his little children, saying: “Although you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. I became your father in Jesus Christ through the gospel. I urge you then to be imitators of me”

Defining Christ as the power and wisdom of God, Paul tells us we have many guides. In fact, there are as many guides to your success as there are people in the world. Ask someone how to get a job and he will say you must know the right people. Another will tell you that you must have an education, and still another that you must join the right club, or live on the right side of the street. You will be given as many directives towards your objective as there are people you ask.

Although our guides in the operation of this law are countless, as we apply it our creative power will become personalized and take on form, as it did in Paul. And when that happens there is no one to turn to but self. That is why Paul urges everyone to test himself, otherwise he will not realize that Jesus Christ is in him and fail to meet the test.

Paul tells us that the world was created by the word of God, and John says Jesus Christ is that word. (Revelation 19). Jesus Christ is he who created the world and all things within it, be they good, bad, or indifferent. And who is He? Your own wonderful Human Imagination! God’s creative power – as pure imagining – works in the depth of your soul, underlying all of your faculties, including perception. He streams into your surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy.

This is what I mean when I ask you to test Him. I am not in the habit of wearing a flower in my lapel when standing at the platform, but today I was thinking about asking you to hold a rose in your hand. As I did I held a red rose in my imaginary hand and felt its soft, velvety touch. At that moment I called forth a rose which was not seen with my mortal eye but seen and felt in my Human Imagination. This evening that unseen reality became seen, as a lady came with a red rose and asked if I would wear it.

God is a protean being. It is He who is playing the part of the lady who gave me the rose I imagined. There never was another Jesus Christ and there never will be another! He is the creator of the world and all things in it, even a simple little thing like a rose. When the lady decided to pick some roses from her garden, she had no idea she was executing a simple experiment on my part. This afternoon I held a rose in my hand, thereby calling a thing that was not seen as though it were seen; and tonight the unseen becomes seen. That’s how the world was created by the Word of God, who is the Human Imagination!

Have faith in Jesus Christ, not as some being on the outside, but as your own wonderful Human Imagination. If anyone says: “Look! There is Christ,” or: “Here he is,” don’t believe him; for Jesus Christ is the creative power of the universe and He is in you as your very thought!

Although it does not yet appear what we shall be, we know that when He appears we will know him, for “we shall be like him.” As your father in Christ, through the gospel I teach I urge you to be imitators of me until Christ is formed in you. Then the true meaning of the fatherhood of God will be revealed, and you will know yourself to be the Father. Everyone and every living thing in the world is a part of being played by the one and only Father, who is God. The whole is contained in the feeling Father, and the world is pushed out from every Father.

Omnipresent, God is alive in you now, so I ask you to test Him. Would you like a better job? Greater income? Greater recognition? What would you do right now if it were true? Now test God by thinking of a friend. Hear him congratulate you on your good fortune. See his face light up with joy and feel his presence. Do that, and you have performed a magical act, for God has acted and all things are possible to God.

You do not have to devise the means necessary to make your imaginal act come to pass. He who thought of the friend and saw the whole thing will build a bridge of incident across which you will move to the fulfillment of that which has been done. That is Christ!

Certainly this lady is not in the habit of bringing me flowers and I never wear one on this platform, but I couldn’t help but when I saw all those lovely roses and heard her say: “I cut these from my garden today. Will you please wear one tonight?” Then she picked out a red one. I had painted that picture vividly in my mind’s eye and she played her part perfectly. So I ask you to try using your Imagination in this most simple way.

Now let me share an experience of a daughter and her mother. The daughter wrote, saying: “While in the silence I heard the crying of a child. It was not the cry of a baby, but of the ages. It was a sound I knew would arouse man from his deep sleep and set him free to eternal joy. I have seen and heard many things in heavenly spheres, but nothing compares to the cry of this heavenly child.” Her experience reminds me of Blake’s words when he spoke of the daughters of Beulah, saying: “They heard the voice of the child and began to awake from sleep. All things heard the voice of the child and began to awake to life.”

In the mother’s letter, she said: “In my dream my daughter called to say she was alone and the baby was due. As I entered her apartment I realized it was not my daughter on the bed, but a friend. Then I realized I was holding a newborn child wrapped in a blanket and knew it was mine. The scene changed and I found myself in a hospital. My daughter appeared, saying: ‘I have gotten in touch with my father, Neville. He is coming to see me.’ Then you and I are standing looking at the child, as he smiled, displaying perfectly formed lower teeth. Looking at me you said: ‘Have you forgotten that all the children in my family are born with perfectly formed teeth?’ Then you turned and walked away.”

In the Old Testament, David cried out: “Arise, O Lord and break the teeth of the wicked.” And in the New Testament, those who refused to accept the doctrine of Christ wept and gnashed their teeth as the door opened and the righteous entered the kingdom of heaven.

Loving the glamour, the praise, and honors of men, man pays no attention to the invitation to enter the kingdom by applying this principle. Instead, he follows countless guides in Christ by feeling he must meet the right people and live on the right side of the tracks in order to succeed. So when the moment comes and those who abide by the gospel of Christ enter the kingdom, those who chose the countless guides will show their remorse and anguish by gnashing their teeth.

When Christ is formed in you I will no longer be your father. I have introduced you to Him and fathered you while your faith is child-like, but when Christ is formed in you, you will know yourself to be the Father.

In the world you may think yourself wise in the language of God, but if David does not call you Father in the spirit, you do not know what you are talking about! You will never know that your Human Imagination is being formed into the likeness of God the Father until it is revealed in you. When your Imagination is completely formed, you are born from above to discover the Fatherhood of God. You will see the sacrificial cross that God crucified Himself on split from top to bottom as you ascend into the kingdom of heaven. And the Holy Spirit will descend upon you in bodily form as a dove. On that day God the Father will abide with you and all you will feel is love!

In the meantime, test Jesus Christ, God’s creative power in you as your Human Imagination! Do you want a better job? More money? Whatever you want claim it just as simply as I did the rose. Put on the feeling of possession and wear it as though it were true right now. If it is a better job you want, where would you sit if you had it? How would your mate see you? Sit behind that special desk and let your wife (or husband) see you there. Live as though it were true and have faith in Jesus Christ, the creative power and wisdom of God.

People have personified this power and hung little icons on the wall. They cross themselves before these little things made by human hands. But God is like pure imagining in us. He works in the very depths of our soul underlying all of our faculties, including perception, and streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy.

You can catch God in the act of creating by holding a dozen roses in your arms, smelling them, and feeling their soft, velvety petals. As you fill a lovely crystal vase with water and place the roses in it, observe the stems though the crystal. Look closely and you will even see the water level in the vase. As you do this, God is streaming into your surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy.

Imagination is defined as spiritual sensation. Come, let us now sense spiritual things that are not physically present. Right now I want you to feel a tennis ball, then a baseball, a volleyball, and a golf ball. They all feel different, do they not? If you can discriminate between these different balls, are they not real? If you can touch a tennis ball and spiritually distinguish it from a baseball, it must exist, even though it is unseen by mortal eye. So you see: you can behold a thing that is not seen by the mortal eye as though it were, and if you do your faith in Jesus Christ will cause the unseen to become seen.

Jesus Christ is contemporary, not some being who lived two thousand years ago. God Himself came and comes into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. As your Human Imagination, He is your very being. If all things are made by Him and you can trace the origin of an event to its imaginal act, you have found Him.

All things were made by the Human Imagination and without Him was not anything made that was made. If during the day you imagine unlovely things, they are going to happen! The world believes that Jesus Christ is another, but the great Hebrew confession of faith tells us: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” There is only one creator. It is the Human Imagination who kills and makes things alive, wounds and heals. Whether you use or misuse your creative power, the same being will bring it to pass. So if you desire lovely things, you must imagine lovely thoughts. Your friends are your own lack or limitation made visible. Like Job, pray for your friends and your own fears will be lifted.

In Hebrew, the words for faith are “amen” and “emet”. In the 3rd chapter of Revelation, God’s creative power is called “the Amen”: “These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness.” And in the 1st chapter of 2 Corinthians we are told that all the promises of God find their fulfillment in the Amen. “That is why we declare the Amen through him.”

The God in you and in me is He who made these promises. As a physical man called Neville I can do nothing, but I can do anything that I imagine! Imagining a thing and thinking it is done is saying amen in the belief that, because I imagined it, it must come to pass. How it will happen, I do not know. I only know it will, just as the rose appeared this evening.

I ask you to test your creative power every moment of time. Live with absolute faith in Jesus Christ. He is a person because you are a person. As you imagine a state, the creative power of the world will bring it into reality. Claim a glorious future for yourself by making the future the present. Have your friends congratulate you on your good fortune now, and have faith in Jesus Christ, knowing he is your Own Wonderful Human Imagination!

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FEED MY SHEEP

Neville Goddard  7-01-1956

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThis morning’s subject is “Feed My Sheep.” This is simply saying: practice the truths you have heard, for it means to shepherd the thoughts of the mind. For most of us, our thoughts are like rambling sheep that have no shepherd. We are called upon now to rule the thoughts, to rule the mind.

As you know, the kingdom of heaven is as a man starting into a far country, and he calls unto himself his servants and gives them his property, his goods. To one he gives five talents, to another he gives two, and to another he gives one – “every man according to his several ability.” And when he returned he asked for a reckoning. The one who had five traded and produced another five. He was highly commended and told as he was faithful over a few things he would now be ruler over many. The one who had two, he too traded and produced four, and he too was highly commended and told to enter into the joy of the Lord. But the one who had one was afraid because his master – so he thought – was a hard man, and so he buried his talent in the earth and did not expand it. But I think you know the story. He was condemned for his misuse of the talent. It was taken from him and given to the one who had the most, the one who had ten.

Well, now you have received talents in the last few days or few weeks, each one according to his ability. Some of us came with more prejudice to overcome, with more superstition, some with other beliefs that did not quite coincide with what we heard from the platform, and many of us had to overcome certain things before we could accept others. So, some got one talent, some two, some five, some maybe more. Now, a talent that is not exercised, like a muscle that is not exercised, finally sleeps, and as far as we are concerned, it atrophies. It doesn’t really die, but it goes so sound asleep, it might just as well not be part of ours. We must practice what we have heard, for without practice the most profound understanding in the world will not produce the desired results. So a little talent (call it a talent now) if you really expand it, if you exercise it, will be far more profitable than many talents that you do not exercise.

This morning we will just take one or two of the talents that we offer you. I can’t force them upon you – “we offer you.” Here is a statement from the Book of Amos: “I will sift the House of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.” I will sift him and scatter him all over the nations of the world, but not the least grain shall fall upon the earth. Do you know who Israel is? Who this Jacob is? The Israel means “Is Real.” You can’t find it on the earth – don’t look for it on the earth, and yet you must find him, for ” formed him in the womb to be my servant and to bring Jacob – which is Israel – again unto me.” [Isaiah 49:5] So you and I were formed from the womb to be the servant and to bring Jacob unto the Lord.

He is scattered all over the world but you will not find him – no, not the smallest grain – upon the earth. But you will find him within yourself, for the cue is given in Jacob. Jacob is the smooth-skinned lad. He is not like his brother Esau, who has hair, which means something external. So the Israel you are looking for this day is the thing you want to realize in the world. Do not look out and hope to find it or even to be encouraged that you will find it, by judging after the appearances of things. Do you seek health for a friend? That’s Israel scattered, but not on earth. In all the nations of the world I have scattered the house of Israel, but do not look into the eyes of a doctor for hope. Do not look into the eyes of the patient for hope of his recovery because you will not find him on earth. Not the least grain has fallen upon the earth.

So do you know what you want in this world? If you know exactly what you want, where do you see it? You see it in the mind of yourself. So when you know what you want, here is a part of Israel scattered, and you didn’t see him on earth. You saw him in the kingdom within you, for the Kingdom of God is within. So you saw a piece of Israel, now go bring him. I formed you from the womb to be my servant and to bring Jacob again unto me. You take that thing you have seen in the mind’s eye, which to make it practical, we will think of as a friend in need. It may be physical need, maybe he is unwell, or it could be he needs a job. Well, now you be the one who will decide what part of Israel you will bring to the Lord and prove to the Lord you are a perfect servant.

For the promise is that when you prove you are the perfect servant, then you will no longer be called servant; he will call you his friend. “I no longer call you servant for now I call you friend for you do whatsoever I command you and, therefore, if you do what I command you, you are no longer my servant, you are my friend.” And now we will commune as a man to a friend, face to face. Another “you” has had this association for a while, for that is the purpose of it: to move from the servant to the friend; and after we become the friend of God for a while, then we turn to that of the Son. We no longer are the friend. We become his Son, but we cannot recognize the Sonship of God until we first prove ourselves as a servant. So the servant is to bring Israel, i.e., imagine lovingly and believe in your imaginal activity.

Now, we come back to the friend in need. Represent him to yourself as though he now embodied the state you want him to realize in this world. If it is a job, see him gainfully employed, take your imaginary hand, which is Jacob’s hand, and put it into his imaginary hand. Leave it in that imagined state until it takes on the tones of reality. When it seems to you real, that you are actually touching him, clothe it with all the reality of the external world. So Jacob clothed himself in the skins of Esau to deceive his father into believing that he, Jacob, was Esau. So you take the Jacob within you, which is the smooth-skinned lad, which is simply now the wish.

You want to congratulate him. You want to hear his voice. You want to hear him tell you he has never been so happy in a job in his life, he has never been so gainfully employed, that he loves going to work, he just loves everything about his job. You actually hear him as though you heard him. Now you clothe it with all the tones of reality. If you have two talents, give it two; if you have five, give it five. Begin to make it more and more real. The day will come, maybe this day, you will so clothe your Israel with the skins of Esau that you can actually bring it as an objective fact to your Father and prove you are a servant.

For he formed you from the womb to actually be his servant. And what is the servant to do? To bring Jacob unto me again. So here Jacob is, scattered – lost in all the minds of men. You won’t find him on the earth. You will only find him if you know where to look. Now to prove you know where to look, to prove you are a good servant, go bring me Jacob. So when you bring Jacob, you bring Jacob clothed in your own mind’s eye as though you heard what you want to hear, as though you touched and you witnessed what you would like to touch and see in this world. And when you remain faithful to your vision, the vision will make for itself that perfect body in which to abide.

Then you will see an objective corresponding fact, but it is not there. It is all within your own mind. It is there where he scattered it; it is there where he sustains it. He will simply project it for you onto the screen of space that you may have tangible evidence that you do know how to find and bring Jacob. If I know how to go searching for my Israel, if I know how to go looking for him and how to clothe him and give him the appearance of reality and I don’t do it, then I am not the good servant who took the five talents and expanded them; I am the one who buried it.

Now, some of us are almost afraid to test it because we are comforted if we can believe this without quite putting it to the test; for if we put it to the test and we fail, then we have no faith. We cannot go back to the former comfort that we enjoyed, say, in a more orthodox meeting. We thought we would find it here, and if I don’t test it and prove it to my own satisfaction, then I have neither the old comfort of the orthodox concept nor the comfort that I enjoyed here, for I disproved it. So I invite you to attempt, if you will, to disprove it.

You can’t disprove it, but if you go out knowing where to look for your Israel, knowing why you are fashioned from the womb to be a servant, that is the first stage. Until you test yourself, until you prove you can do it, you are not a servant, not a servant of the Lord. But as you become a servant of the Lord, he will make you his friend. Then the relationship will be on a higher level. You will commune with your Father as a man does with a friend, face to face. You will not see him as an object in space, but you will actually know how to bring about a wished-for state of mind – bring it about at will.

As you can bring about a wished-for state of mind, you have made of the deep – which is your Father – a friend, and you will actually know that companionship between the deep of self and you, the being that is really a wonderful imagination. Then the day will come, having been a wonderful friend of God, the seal will be broken and you will be revealed as the being you really are, which is the Son of God and the Father. Every person in the world is the child of God believing itself to be a man born of man.

I have tried in the past two weeks to convince you that your origin is God. It is not what the world would tell you – a little bug. For if you were a little bug, a little spermatozoa, though you seem to embody yourself and expand in the form of a man, your end will be a little spermatozoa, for all ends run true to origins. So whatever the origin, you can determine the end. I tell you your origin is God, therefore, your end is God. But to arrive at that end, you pass through the stages of the servant, then the friend, then God, which is the Son of God. For I and my Father are one, yet my Father is greater than I.

Yes, I do not claim that this union, this oneness, entitles me to the same identical feeling of being Father. I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I. For the thing symbolized that bears witness of this unseen state is not really as great as that which it symbolizes. So we are one and I will know it, and I will see my Father and see that he and I look alike, yet we are Father and Son relationship. But before I can get near it, I must prove I am a good servant.

Now, you take it this morning. We invite you to try it for a friend. We ask you to try it for yourself. We have given you many angles how to test it, how to think of what you want first and see in your mind’s eye – Israel. For when I know clearly in my mind’s eye what I want, I am actually looking at Israel, something that is real. It is real, but I must clothe it now in what the world calls reality by giving it external tones. But the thing was real long before it became a visible fact in the world. I see it in my mind’s eye by making as vivid and as lifelike a representation as possible of what I would see and what I would do and what I would actually hear, were I physically present in such a situation now.

When I see it clearly I am looking into the eyes of Israel, and I found him scattered in the world – but not on the earth, for it is not on earth that I see him. I see him in my mind. Now I am looking at it, and thinking of it, but the secret is to think from it, to occupy that state and get into it. When I get into it I will clothe it with reality. I can think of a place and then close my eyes and assume that I am in that place. When I assume I am in the place, I am clothing it with what the world calls reality. It was real before I clothed it – when I saw it clearly this was Israel – but he wants me to bring him, and the only way I can test that I can bring him and prove that I am the servant, is to occupy the state.

So, I occupy the feeling of my wish fulfilled. When I get into the feeling of the wish fulfilled and remain faithful to that state, then I am walking in my vision and – as we are told – if one would only advance confidently in the direction of his dream and endeavor to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected. Let me remain faithful to my vision by occupying my vision – don’t just see it. He demands that I bring him, bring Jacob again unto the Lord.

So Jacob is not a man who walked the face of the earth thousands of years ago, and Israel is not a nation now gathered together on the shores of Africa. He scatters the house of Israel in all the nations of the world. You might have been taught to believe that the person who calls himself a Jew in the presence of a nation is scattered Israel. Don’t believe it. Everyone in the world is that which actually contains and holds Israel. As you think of something and desire it to be a reality in your world, you are seeing Israel. Now he wants you to bring him and he wants you to prove that you can bring him and become the perfect servant of the Lord. Don’t be afraid to be the servant; become the perfect servant of God and then become his friend, and then realize you are his Son.

Let us go out determined that we will take the requests brought in here this morning There were a hundred odd that came in, but there are many more. Maybe you do not know them; you can take them collectively. But you can take an individual friend, a member of your family, and decide this day you are going to bring about some blessing in the individual’s life, you have it – you have the power to bless; for the power to confer reality on your wish for the friend is the power to bless that friend. If your friend is not well and you want the friend to be well, you simply assume that you and he (or she) are carrying on a conversation from a premise which you establish now, and the premise is that he or she never felt better in their lives, and you hear it and you witness it. Take your hand, your imaginary hand, and embrace them.

Tell them what you feel about them, actually feel it. And then you do nothing outwardly to make it so, for things that you are going to see are not made of things that do appear. So you do not prescribe anything for them. You do not change their physical diet. You don’t offer any recommendation as to what they should do. You simply assume that they are already the embodiment of the state you desire for them, so you don’t start prescribing. Leave that out completely. You simply walk faithful to your image of the friend and you transform that image in your own mind’s eye.

You do it and see if you can bring him, because if you can’t do that and prove it to yourself, you have not yet proven you are a servant; therefore, the friendship is far removed from you. Everyone must prove that he is first a servant, as we read in Isaiah 49: “I formed you from the womb to be my servant and to bring Jacob again unto me.” Then I am told: even though Israel is not altogether gathered I am blessed. The individual who does it, he doesn’t have to bring the whole body of Israel. If he brings Jacob – one individual transformed – and proves he can transform him, he is blessed and receives a certain glory long before the body of Israel is collected and brought back.

So here you wonder why he is called “the king of Israel.” Why is he called the king? People thought it meant a man who looked out upon a small little nation and thought he was king, or they thought he was king (or even in irony when they said it). He isn’t that. The individual who becomes Son is truly king of the whole vast world of Israel, or [of] the ideas floating in the mind of man. For he is their shepherd, he is their king. He can command any idea to clothe itself in form. That is the king of Israel. That is the one that can make real a state that is only a wish. “Is Real” is the true Israel. Here, long before we become that – lifted up – we must start to discipline the mind to become the perfect servant.

There is no better time to start than now. If you are afraid to try it, then I wouldn’t know what to tell you, because in this place you must test it. They do not have a religion where you just come here and sit on Sundays and gather together and form a nice little friendship this way. This is not that kind of a religion at all. This is all to awaken the mind of man and make him a shepherd, make him something that rules. In fact, the very word translated “feed” in John 21 is translated many times in the Bible as “shepherd,” as “rule.” In Matthew 2, one shall come from Bethlehem; he shall have dominion over Israel.

Well, in that one (he shall rule Israel) the word translated “rule” is the same word translated in John 21 as “feed.” So don’t take it literally. It simply means to take this mind of yours and discipline the whole mind by gathering things together and walking faithful to an invisible state, for Jacob is invisible. You thought he was a man who was a smooth-skinned lad.

That is the way the mystic has of telling you this is a subjective state, and that you must learn to clothe [it] with objectivity. You walk faithful to the subjective state, and then in time it takes on the tones and the appearance of something external. The moment you detach your mind from that state – though at the moment of detachment it had some corresponding external witness – it will begin to fade.

If you detach your mind from success in the midst of success, success as a reality outside of you fades and vanishes from your world. And then whatever you put your mind on, it takes the place of, proving success was not on the outside at all; it was within you. You clothed it for a moment and gave it the appearance of reality. But the day you are not faithful to the consciousness of being successful, the seeming solid reality of success vanishes from your world, proving itself to be the shadow it always was, and the reality – the light of success – was the idea in you with which you were identified. So if I assume that I am _____ (and I name it) and I remain faithful to it, it comes out and makes itself seemingly real. If I cease to assume it and sustain it, it slowly vanishes from my world, and if it vanishes I might think the reality was there. I have forgotten how to bring Jacob. I have forgotten how to bring him to the Lord.

So here let us remember where Israel is. It’s not in the Near East. Israel is scattered in all the nations of the world, in your mind – that is where he is. And now you have a purpose in this world and if you really love the teaching (as the words are: “Lovest thou me?”) you say you are faithful. “Peter do you love me?” He doesn’t call him Peter by the way, he calls him Simon. He never calls him Peter in any parts of the Bible; He is referred to as Peter, but whenever he is addressed by the central figure of the gospels, he always calls him Simon, and Simon means to hear, it means to listen.

Well, have you heard, have you really heard, Simon? Yes. Then do you love what you have heard? Lovest thou me, or what I have told you that I am? I am the thing that I teach, so do you love me? Then feed my sheep. Become ruler of this mind of yours and prove you really love the thing you tell me you have heard. If you have heard it, then you are Simon; and if you have really heard it to the point of acceptance, prove you have accepted it by taking the talent received and expand it. Don’t let the shepherd come and when he asks you for the talent, you say you were afraid and you buried it. Let us not be afraid to actually test the truth of the principles we try to explain here.

So, all these are our truths that we have accepted. Now, some got one, some two, some got five. We have done our best in the past two weeks to give you all that we could within two weeks, unfolded from the Bible. We showed you the Bible as a mystery, that all your members are buried, not in one little book, but in all the books. They are all telling you the story about yourself. How God became you that you may become God. How God died to become man in the sense of forgetting that he was God, as he awoke as man.

Man walking the earth has no knowledge he is God, and the individual who dares to claim that he is, and tells you that you are, is usually condemned by those who appoint themselves as teachers. That is the blind leading the blind, and they will call you arrogant if you dare to even demonstrate the power of the mind. And they will tell you that’s not right – you are taking back from God the thing that belonged to God. You see, they are sound asleep. They don’t realize that God became man for one purpose, that he may have the companionship of sons as Gods. So man must awaken and realize who he really is, and he realizes that by starting first as a servant.

I have given you, I think, a perfect technique to prove that you are a servant. Try it today! If you succeed in the simplest little way of taking an invisible state and making it become a reality, like the job for a friend or even the getting of a hat, or even the finding of the proper apartment, or even the getting of some little thing – you try it. If you lost something, “Nothing is lost in all my holy mountain,” sayeth the Lord, for if it isn’t lost it is scattered now in Israel.

Prove that it isn’t lost. What is it that you have lost? Well, take it in your own mind’s eye and then mentally touch it and mentally appropriate it and feel that you have it, that it is yours now, and remain faithful to that assumption and see if the thing returns. If the thing is recovered, you have proved that you have found Israel (a portion of him anyway) and you know how to take him and clothe him in such tones of reality that you can bring him to the Lord, for the Lord is your own wonderful consciousness. When you say: “I AM,” that is the Lord.

Go tell them I AM hath sent you. So when you walk in the feeling “I am so and so,” it is not seen as yet, but that is something you are bringing to the Lord, and the more you feel it to be real, the more natural it becomes. Then it clothes itself in external facts, but the external fact is not the truth of it. Truth and fact oppose each other. Truth does not depend upon fact.

Truth depends upon the intensity of your imagination. Therefore, if I actually am intense about it, that is true. I might tomorrow find a corresponding fact to bear witness – but, as I said earlier, let me not continue in that assumption and the fact will fade, proving it was not reality at all. Reality was in my assumption, and so truth depends not upon fact, but upon the intensity of imagination.

Then you will understand the drama when truth faces what is called fact or reason, and when asked: what is the truth – truth remains silent. He would not answer because fact or reason thinks that a true judgment must conform to the external reality to which it relates. If I say: “Aren’t these lovely” and I mention something that no one present can see, you say my judgment isn’t true, for if it isn’t on something on the outside.

Then what I say has no reality. I must be suffering from some illusion. If I persist in it, and you cannot see it, then it is hallucination. But I know from experience that I can take an illusion, and through the medium of an illusion I can relate myself to reality or “Is Real” by walking faithful to what you call my illusion. I simply assume a state knowing I have found it; it is scattered in the nations of the world and finding it in myself as a desirable state, I appropriate it. Walking faithful to my appropriated state I gradually become it. Disentangling myself from that state eventually, I cease to be it, for that which requires a state of consciousness to embody itself cannot be embodied without such a state of consciousness.

When I know that the whole thing depends upon my appropriation of the parts of Israel to bring Jacob to my Father, then I will start to do it, and then my talents will run from five to ten and to twenty, and finally when I have all these talents I will be worthy of being a friend. When I have been faithful in a few things, he will make me Lord over much. Then he will tell me: I no longer call you servant. I call you friend, for you did what I commanded you.

Now, having done what I commanded you, you are my friend indeed. We will walk in that association for a while, communing with the deep, knowing the deep of self is my real being that men call God. I won’t see him as another. I will commune with him as though he were another, and he and I will talk across that invisible state just as though man spoke face to face with a friend.

For after this invisible state when I commune with the deep is reached to a point of complete satisfaction, the last seal will be broken. He will break the seal and reveal me as his son, and when I see him and look into his face he will be just like me and I will be like him. Then you will know the mystery of the Epistle of John: “Beloved what manner of love.”

Just imagine what love God has bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God. And then, although at this moment, that I feel it from the deep, I don’t quite know what I am like or what he is like, yet I do know this much: that when I see him I will know him. And why will I know him? Because I’ll be like him. I will look right into the mirror of my own being, and realize it was for that purpose that I, the Father, embodied myself as man, hoping that eventually he would awaken and become a conscious being, moving completely from a passive reflector to a conscious cooperator in my kingdom. So, man gradually moves from the passive state to the active state, and the process is the servant, the friend, the Son.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FEEL DEEPLY

Neville Goddard 05-30-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhat you feel deeply is far more important than what you are thinking. You may think about doing something for a long time and never do it, but when you feel something deeply you are spurred to act – and God acts! He who is the cause of all life acts through the sense of feeling. You can think of a thousand things, yet not be moved to act upon one of them. A deep conviction – felt, is far more important than anything you could ever think.

Let us turn to the first chapter of the epistle of James. “Ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like the wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. Let not that person believe that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, shall receive anything from the Lord. But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. For if you are a hearer only and not a doer, you are like a man who observes his natural face in the mirror and then goes his way, forgetting what he is like. But if you are a doer of the word and not just a forgetful hearer, you will look into the perfect law of liberty, and persevere. That man shall be blessed in all his doings.”

How do you go about being a doer in place of a hearer only? By acting in faith. Scripture’s central character, called Jesus, set no limit upon the love of God and the power of faith. In fact all of his great deeds were prefaced with the words: “According to your faith.” Now, faith encompasses feeling. If you have faith you will act, and if you act God in you is acting, for God is your own wonderful human imagination whose eternal name is I AM. He acts only when you feel it. This is true even in the most practical way.

If I tell you what I would like to be and you tell me to go my way, as I am already it – and for one fleeting moment I see the world as I would see it if it were true, then turn and walk away, forgetting what the world looked like only a moment before – I am a forgetful hearer. But if I am a doer of the word and not a hearer only, I persevere; or – as the word is translated in the King James Version – I “continue in” the state, for all things are possible to the power of the word.

Look in a mirror and you will see your face reflected there, but you have another mirror which you can look into. That is the mirror of your friends; if they heard your good news, their faces would reflect it would they not? Assume your desire is now a fact. Feel its substance and reality. Then let your friends see you in that state. They are your living mirror.

Now persevere in that state and do not turn away and quickly forget what you are like. Walk through this door tonight in the assumption that you are the man (or woman) you want to be. It doesn’t make any difference if the outside denies it; you have seen the expression on the faces of your friends and heard their congratulations on the inside, with faith. Now, carry this feeling into the deep and persevere. Conjure a living mirror of friends and acquaintances who have heard your good news and accepted it as permanent. See your face reflected in theirs. If they love you, you will see empathy. They will be rejoicing because of your good fortune. Now, persevere in that awareness and do not forget what you have seen in your living mirror. If you do, you will be blessed in the doing, as you are told in the first chapter of the Book of Psalms: “Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord; the perfect law of liberty, for in all that he does, he prospers.”

Were you not liberated from your past when you saw your friend’s faces reflecting what you wanted them to see? If you had left the state of poverty, sickness, or weakness behind and moved into the state of wealth, health, or strength – and your friends knew it – you would be set free from your former limitation. So, looking into the perfect law of liberty and persevering, you are blessed in all that you do.

I tell you from personal experience that this works, but we are the operant power. It does not operate itself. You may have heard this law by the hearing of the ear and read of it in a book, but do you know that the law works from experience? Have you put it to the test? Have you proved it? If you have, then you can speak with an authority, which was not yours prior to the proving. May I tell you: through the use of this law you are completely set free.

I have been in many places where I was forced to test this principle. While on the little island of Barbados, which had only two small ships servicing it as well as the hundreds of islands nearby, I made a commitment to give a series of lectures in Milwaukee on the first of May. When I called, the shipping agent informed me that due to the fact that the ship sailing out of New York City carried only sixty passengers and the one from Boston carried only one hundred, that there was no passage available before the first of September. He promised to put my name on the waiting list, but gave me no encouragement as the list was very long.

I hung up the phone and sat in my chair in the hotel room, closed my eyes and assumed I was aboard a ship heading toward New York City. I assumed eight or ten of my family were coming aboard with me, and that my brother Victor was carrying my little girl. I could feel the motion of the plank. Having no stateroom committed, I remained on deck and placed my mental hands on the rail and felt the salt of the sea there. Then I looked back nostalgically at the little island. I repeated that action over and over again, feeling every step I made on that gangplank. I felt the rail and smelled the salt of the sea. I did everything that feeling could be brought to bear upon, and when my actions seemed natural, I broke it.

The very next day I received confirmation that I would be sailing on a ship which would land in New York City one week before my commitment in Milwaukee, which I did. When I asked the agent how I obtained the tickets, he said they had a cancellation in New York and the one person he had called on the waiting list felt that the timing was inconvenient; so – knowing he could accommodate my wife, our little daughter and myself in one cabin – he let us in. I never heard why someone canceled in New York or why the one he called in Barbados could not take the ship at that time, or why the agent did not call all the others on the waiting list. I only know that I got the reservation I had imagined.

I have told this story before, and someone in the audience once said; “Was that a Christian thing to do? You might have caused someone to cancel their trip.” But I tell you, as I told her: it was the only Christian thing to do, for I used the Christian principle of fulfilling God’s law. How it is going to be fulfilled is not my concern. I am told that whatever I desire, if I will but believe I have received it, I will. God never creates a desire in the human heart that he has not already provided its satisfaction. This is true of every desire in this world, as well as the greatest of all desires, which is the thirst for God.

Do you really want an experience of God? Apply this principle towards it. Do what I did when I wanted to leave Barbados and come to America. I looked into the perfect law of liberty and persevered. God doesn’t give you one law for your desires of this world and another law for your search for him. It’s the same law. If you have had the experience of which I speak, would you tell someone about it? Is it a consuming desire, or do you want something other than that first? Perhaps you want a lovely home, security in the sense of money in the bank that you can touch, or stocks and bonds that pay dividends. If you want to feel wealthy, travel, and have lots of things before you thirst for an experience of Christ, it is secondary, so don’t try it. But if an experience of Christ is your consuming desire then don’t hesitate to put it to the test. Put first things first. If your first desire is to be recognized in the work that I am doing, then apply this principle towards it and let that thirst for God take its own good time to envelop you, and when it does apply this principle towards it.

Feel in depth, for what you feel deeply is more vital than what you think. Every day you can think about how wonderful it would be if – and never act. But if every day you would feel how wonderful it is now, it will become true. Shakespeare said: “Assume a virtue if you have it not.” A virtue must be felt to be assumed. Refrain from the assumption tonight and it will be easy to refrain next week and still easier the next. But if you will assume your desire is fulfilled now, and persevere in that assumption through the sense of feeling, it will be externalized as a literal fact in your world.

I am calling upon everyone to put this into practice. Every desire contains its own satisfaction to be fed upon. It’s entirely up to you. You may feed your hunger by thinking of your desire, or feed its satisfaction by thinking from its fulfillment. It is God who gives you every desire, be it for things of this age or the age to come – as told us in the Book of Amos: “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.”

When you want to speak the word of God, your hunger is not for the hearing of the word, but for the glamour connected with the teaching. It is the spotlight you desire and that too has been provided for. Every desire can and will be satisfied if you will look into the law of liberty and persevere. Then you will be blessed in all you do.

A chap came to see me from New York City yesterday. When I heard his request I would not tell him my reaction to it, but that I would hear that he had it. This chap, now retired from the antique department of Macy’s, has been teaching in one of these isms back East. Then he started corresponding with a group out here, who – unable to believe in themselves – wants a leader; so they have asked him to come lead them. When he told me the nature of his desire I was sorry that all he could see in life was the spotlight, but I granted it to him. He is tired of playing third, fourth or fifth fiddle to a leader who has milked a million dollars out of those who are buying bricks into heaven. Having nothing, this man’s followers are building heaven for him and giving it to him as their gift. They have bought valuable land in New York City and built a building on it. Then he threw a banquet at a large hotel and they paid $50 for the privilege of seeing the mortgage they paid for burned, but the land and building are in his name.

Back in 1943, this same man told me he was coming to New York for only one purpose and that was to make money in the so-called New Thought movement. When I heard him say this, I thought he was in the wrong profession. If he wanted to make a lot of money he should go into steel, oil, or coal. If you want to do this work you can live well, but will not have the ambition for millions. Well, he wanted lots of money and now he has it, as well as homes in the country, an apartment in the city, and a lovely, large building in New York City – which those who love to be milked paid for. The chap who came to see me assisted this man. He has seen how phony it has been, but he hasn’t completely overcome it. He still wants the spotlight and now he has the opportunity to get it. I will pray for his success – not as a teacher for he is not one – but for the glamour he will receive by those who want the nonsense, as they are going to start off by not eating meat, smoking, or drinking – in fact a complete loss of the palate.

His request does not offend my moral code, so I can easily say that he is successful; but I urge you who are sincere to try to create within yourself a longing for the deepest of all desires, and that is to know God from experience. If you can really thirst for God above everything else, then use the same law of liberty. Look into the faces of your friends and say with deep conviction and feeling: “I have had the experiences of which Neville speaks. The entire series, from the resurrection through the descent of the dove, has unfolded within me.” Then persevere, for God has provided a satisfaction for that hunger and you will know it. But if this hunger is not yet upon you and you sincerely want a better way of living that is not wrong, simply use the same principle of the perfect law of liberty and persevere. Having acted, don’t turn and forget what you have done but sleep in that conviction, and in a way you do not know, it will be yours.

Tonight many of our friends are not here because it is Memorial Day. But I tell you: not one moment in time is holier than another and there is no earthly place more sacred than the other. Wherever you stand is sacred ground because you are there. Today millions are celebrating Memorial Day, remembering the dead and placing flowers on a grave their loved ones do not occupy. This morning just prior to waking, I saw my brother Lawrence. He died at the age of sixty-two, but looked much older because he had suffered so much before his departure. This morning he was only about twenty-three years of age. We were both fully awake and he asked me to tell his wife that the money he left her was for her, and not to save it for the children. I said: “Lawrence, you don’t have to go through me to tell Doris, she wouldn’t give one penny to anyone anyway. She never has. Do you think she would change now? Her only concern is that you did not give it all to her, but shared equally with your four children.” But I was with Lawrence. He was strong, strapping and handsome, blond with brown eyes. He is the same Lawrence, with the same intelligence he had when he left here. He is younger now, but he still has the memory of the family he left behind. The veil is no clearer to him there than it is to those on this side. Only one who is awake can penetrate the veil consciously. It is easy now for me to go beyond the world of dream and enter the world of spirit waking and meet my friends there.

But on Memorial Day men think of the dead, while I am speaking of life everlasting. “Let the dead bury the dead,” and follow me, for I have risen from the dead and I speak of a Living God who is real. I cannot go to a cemetery and put flowers or a flag on that which is not there. The body may have been placed there, but not the spirit.

You are buried in the skull and in that skull you will remain, dreaming your dream of life until you awaken and are born the second time. It is from there you are going to find David, who reveals you as God the Father. It is from there you are going to be split in two and ascend into the Holy of Holies. You were begotten in that skull and you will end the drama there, to know you are one with the one and only Living God.

In the 25th and 27th chapters of the Book of Genesis, the story is told of Isaac, who had two sons. The first son, Esau, had hair all over while the second son, Jacob, was hairless. Being blind, Isaac calls Esau and asks him to go get some venison for dinner. Jacob, having overheard the request, clothed himself in the skins of his brother Esau and took the venison to his father. Isaac, hearing Jacob’s voice began to doubt, until he felt his reality and caught his odor. Satisfying himself that the son was real, Jacob was given the father’s blessing. When Esau returned from the hunt Jacob disappeared, but Isaac said: “Although your brother came through deception, I have given him your blessing and I cannot take it back.”

After smothering yourself in feeling, you have sent it on its way and cannot take it back, for prayer is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of an objective hope. Imagine by giving objective reality to your hope. Hair is the most objective thing on a man. Bring your hope so close that you can feel what it would be like if it were objective to you.

Clothe yourself in that feeling – and you have clothed yourself in the reality of an Esau. The world will not immediately reflect your feeling, but you have set your desire in motion and cannot take it back. You have given a subjective state your blessing by giving it objective reality. Now it must fulfill its destiny so that you will be blessed in all that you are doing.

If you don’t give your subjective hope objective reality, you can’t be blessed in its fulfillment. You must clothe yourself in the feeling that your wish is fulfilled. Jacob is your desire, waiting to be clothed in the feeling of external reality. Catch the feeling, and you have clothed Jacob with the external reality of Esau. Now deceive yourself into believing that your desire is externally real, and give it your blessing by subjectively appropriating your objective hope. Who is the blind Isaac? You are, for you cannot see what you are asking for in your outer world. It’s a hope and you are blind to it. But when you clothe yourself in the feeling of its fulfillment, you are eating the feeling of satisfaction. Feast upon this feeling morning, noon, and night, and in a way you do not know your desire will become an objective reality in your world.

In this story we see the importance of feeling. Isaac asked Jacob to come close and kiss him. The word translated “kiss” means, “to set on fire; to burn; to touch.” That’s an emotion, an intense feeling. Reality is felt through the sense of touch. Feeling is touch. Tasting is touch. Scripture tells us he tasted death for all of us. How do you taste death? By experiencing it. Jesus tasted death by dying in all, that all may know who he is.

Now I urge you to put his teaching into practice. He taught you to simply appropriate a subjective state which is your objective hope, and know it must externalize itself in your world. Do that and it will. Ask in faith, without a doubt, for those who doubt are like the wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. They are double-minded, for they know what they are while desiring to be something else. You must be single-minded by dropping what you believe you are and assuming that you are already what you desire to be, for you cannot desire something you already possess. Look into the wonderful law of liberty which sets you free, and you will see your freedom in the faces of your friends. Persist in your assumption and it must come to pass.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FOLLOW ME

Neville Goddard 11-11-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told that when Jesus found Philip, he said: “Follow me.” Then Philip told Nathanael: “We have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote.” Philip is one who is interested in the workings of the mind. Looking for one who is searching for the source of the phenomena of life, Jesus finds one in whom he can reveal himself. 

The Book of John begins: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Now turning into a person, it is said: “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the consciousness of men.”

Read this statement carefully and not superficially, and you will discover that from the beginningless beginning there has been God, and another through whom God acts and by whom God expresses himself. One who is to God what man’s imagination is to a man. They are inseparable, for the Word is not only with God, but is God!

Man finds it difficult to identify himself with his imagination, but the word “logos” – translated “Word” means a purpose; a plan; a pattern. The Word which was with God in the beginning is Divine Imagination, through which all things are made. There is not one thing in the world today which was not first imagined. Perhaps you cannot grasp the idea that nature was first imagined, but you cannot deny that man’s clothing, home, business, and transportation, were imagined.

Man expresses himself through his human imagination, just as God expresses himself through his Divine Imagination. There is no clear-cut separation between God and Imagination, or man and his imagination. I tell you, Imagination is God Himself. He is the divine body Jesus, of which we are his members. Identifying Divine Imagination with Jesus, Blake claims Imagination became Man, that Man may become God’s power and wisdom, called Christ. Any Christ other than he who is crucified, buried, and rises in an individual is false, for there is no Christ other than man’s own wonderful human imagination.

God’s creative power is buried in you. Just as a seed buried in the womb of woman must bring forth after its own kind, God’s power is brought forth as your spiritual birth. Your imagination is spirit buried in you. God – being spirit – has planted his seed, which will erupt one day, and you will experience a spiritual birth.

In the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John, he speaks to one who is a member of the Sanhedrin, saying: “Unless a man is born from above he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Why? Because it is impossible to physically enter that which is spirit. The kingdom of heaven, being spirit, can only be entered through a spiritual experience. Nicodemus, accepting this statement on a physical level, asked: “How can a man who is old re-enter his mother’s womb and be born again?” His question was answered in this strange way: “The wind blows where it will and you hear the sound thereof, but you cannot tell from whence it comes or whither it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. (wind).”

When I was born from above I was aware of a peculiar, unearthly wind. This wind is a must in order for man to leave this sphere of death and enter the eternal sphere of life called the kingdom of heaven.

One cannot speculate upon God’s kingdom by using images of earth for, “Eyes have not seen or ears heard what God has prepared for those who love him.” If your eyes have not seen or your ears heard of that age, don’t try to speculate using images of earth, for there is nothing here that remotely resembles the kingdom.

Now let me share my experiences with you. I retired one night, never suspecting that the time of delivery was upon me. I had been carrying God’s plan of salvation within me since the beginning of time. It had been growing, yet I did not suspect its birth.

That night as I slept, I felt an unearthly vibration possess me. It increased in intensity until I felt I must explode, when suddenly I began to awake. Expecting to see the room I had fallen asleep in and the normal awareness I have known after a dream of the night, I awoke to a greater awareness – to discover I was in my skull, which was a tomb in which I was buried.

Alone, I arose to discover my skull was sealed and there was no escape. I knew I had awakened in my head, yet all of the outlets through the eyes, ears, and mouth were sealed. Intuitively I knew that if I pushed the base of my skull I would be set free. I did and as something moved I squeezed myself through that little opening, just as a child comes out of the womb of a woman. When I was completely free, I looked back at the head from which I had come. It was ghastly pale, turning from side to side as though recovering from a great ordeal.

I had no idea I had been sleeping in that head, but thought it was my very being. It had never occurred to me that the spirit which gave me life was the cause of my breathing and consciousness. I thought my physical body was me, not realizing it was simply where the real me was buried.

Once out of my skull, an unearthly wind caused my head – as well as the house – to rattle. Looking for the cause, my attention was diverted for a few seconds. And when I looked back, my body was gone and in its place were my three brothers. One was sitting where the head had been, while the other two were sitting at the feet. Disturbed by the sound, one rose and moved in the direction of the wind. Looking down, he said: “Why, it’s Neville’s baby.” The other two questioned his words, saying: “How can Neville have a baby?” Without arguing the point, my brother reached down, picked up a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, and placed it on the bed. Then I, as though having rehearsed the drama in eternity, took the babe in my arms and said: “How is my sweetheart?” as the child broke into a heavenly smile. Then the scene dissolved and I awoke.

We are told that each individual is born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I, an individual, have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote, for when I awoke in that tomb no one else was there. I recognized that tomb to be my skull and when I came out from its base I found the sign of my spiritual birth as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying on the floor. The word translated “manger” means “floor; the lowest point in the area”. So you see: a child is not born. The child is only a sign of your individual spiritual birth.

It was I who rose in the sepulcher and pushed myself out. It was I who was born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. After this experience all of my concepts of Jesus Christ crumbled and dissolved, for I knew that the being who was in the beginning with God actually became me that I may become God in the most literal sense. I knew that God was not only crucified upon me, but was buried within me. That I carried in my body the death of Jesus, that his life might be made alive in me.

I was awed at this experience. Knowing all of the things I had done and was still capable of doing, I wondered how I could be the Christ of scripture. Yet I have searched scripture and cannot find any other explanation. I now share with you what I have experienced, for everything recorded there as an event in the life of one called Jesus Christ has unfolded in me.

We are told: “You search the scriptures thinking in them you will find eternal life, yet it is they which bear witness to me.” One hundred and thirty-nine days after my resurrection and birth from above my head began to vibrate intensely. Suddenly it burst and I found myself seated in a modestly furnished room. A youth, handsome beyond measure, was leaning against the frame of an open door. As looked at him I knew he was my son, yet I also knew he was David of Biblical fame. At that moment I had found my son and he had found his father.

The next morning as I searched scripture to find out who saw David and whom David called father, this is what I found. In the 89th Psalm, the Lord declared: “I have found David. He has cried unto me, `Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’”

If David called the Lord his father, and David called me father, am I not the Lord? This is the plan that God established in the beginning when he gave himself to you and to me. Being a father before the pledge, when God succeeds in the giving you and I must be God.

Dwell upon these words: “I am the true and living way to the Father. No one comes unto the Father save by me.” This true and living way is a pattern buried in all which leads the individual to the discovery of being God the Father. This truth is revealed by David, for it is he who says: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.’”

Now, Christ, being God’s creative power and wisdom, cannot be separated from God. Christ was not some little boy who was born two thousand years ago, but God’s semen, his creative power that is buried in humanity. The image of God is contained within that semen; and if God is a father, when the semen awakens in the individual he will know himself to be God, the father of all life.

One hundred and twenty-three days after the revelation of being God the Father, I fulfilled the 3rd chapter of John, wherein Nicodemus was told: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” (That which is recorded in the Book of Numbers is an adumbration of the event, for when the Son of man is lifted up it is an extremely personal experience.)

That night a bolt of lightening split my body from the top of my head to the base of my spine, becoming a pool of golden liquid light. Knowing it was myself, I knew I was self-redeemed. I fused with the light and becoming one with it I ascended my spine to enter my skull, where the drama began. As I did my skull reverberated from the intensity of the vibration, and once again scripture was fulfilled.

There is no other purpose in life other than to fulfill scripture. You may own all of Caesar’s belongings, but when you depart this world you must leave it all behind. But when God’s pattern erupts in you, you enter an eternal world, knowing yourself to be its creative power. Then you are used to express God in any aspect your very being so desires.

The fourth and final revelation occurs 998 days later. This event brings the total number of days from the birth from above to the discovery of the dove to 1210 – as foretold in the books of Daniel and Revelation. On this final day my skull became transparent, as a lovely beige dove floated about twenty feet above me. As I raised my right hand the dove descended and lit upon my index finger. Then I brought it to my face and it smothered me with affection.

Here again scripture was fulfilled as the Holy Spirit descended upon me in bodily form as a dove, revealing the story of Jesus Christ as a personal experience. When I was physically born, it was through the action of powers not my own and I had no consciousness of it. But my spiritual birth was consciously experienced from beginning to end.

This is my story. It is my hope that you will follow me. That you will believe my experiences. If I tell you earthly things and you do not believe me, how can I expect you to believe the heavenly things I share with you?

Everyone imagines! Can you believe that Christ, Imagination’s power, is in you? If so, then God is in you! And if God is in you, you cannot be lost for then God would be lost. Everyone has to be redeemed. Everyone will be saved because God – the savior of each individual – is redeeming himself, bringing the individual awareness in whom He is buried back into the kingdom with him.

The moment God buried himself in you he imprinted himself upon you, predestining you to not only radiate and reflect God’s glory, but to be the express image of his person. God is not some impersonal force, but a person. The unknown author of the letters to the Hebrews claimed he was the express image of God’s person. This is a true statement. Not one will be lost because all of us will be gathered together into that one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all. In the end there will be one grand fulfillment of the greatest of all commandments: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

When I speak of my imagination there appears to be two of us: Neville, and my imagination. I know imagination cannot be seen, yet I also know I cannot separate myself from it. If I lose myself in a daydream and move from my living room in Beverly Hills to Central Park in New York City, I have not separated myself from my creative power. I cannot, for my imagination is my very being. I can speak of my imagination, but I cannot separate myself from it any more than God can be separated from Divine Imagination, for through Divine Imagination’s creativity God creates and sustains the world. Should God change his imagining the world would cease to exist, because it must be, and is supported by an imaginal act. The same thing is true in your world. It will change only when you cease to continue to dwell in your current imaginal state!

But there is a pattern buried in you that will not change. Told in the form of a story, man thinks an individual was born two thousand years ago. But the creative power of God did not assume only one man; he took human nature into his sacred Self. The one creative power of the universe is buried in humanity. It is the same creative power in one who murders, as in the one who is murdered. God allows you to misuse Christ, his creative power. But in the end He will awaken and all violence within you will cease to be, for you will discover yourself to be infinite love, infinite wisdom, and infinite power. Then the world will become a shadow, and you will know there is no need to fight shadows.

Now let me share two experiences of one who knows herself to be an incurrent eyewitness. She has the capacity to turn her thoughts inward and see a world as solid and real as our outer one appears to be.

This particular day she decided to leave the scene that was before her eyes by turning inward and claiming it had vanished. But instead of vanishing, the scene froze and everything became a cold, dead statue. Realizing that she had the power to arrest it, she decided to test herself to see if she could re-animate the scene once more. So she imagined the scene was alive and instantly life flowed through the room, as though no action on her part had ever stopped its flow. Then she said to herself: “If I can stop and start what the world calls vision, I should be able to stop and start what the world calls reality.” She can, for in that brief vision she learned where life really is. Christ in her gave her a taste of the power she will exercise consciously in the not distant future.

Although this world appears so very real, it is a vision. “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” If life is in God and God is your imagination, then what the world calls life is only an activity of your imagination. If you stop imagining and arrest that which seems to be animated and independent of your perception, you will prove to yourself that it can be done. Then you will know who Christ is, for you will have discovered that “In him is life and his life is the light of men.” God animates Man within himself. Although humanity appears to be independent, with life in themselves, their life is but an activity of imagination, for that is what I AM!

My friend also shared this experience. One night in dream she was in a classroom listening to a woman teach the law. Claiming to believe and practice the law, the woman began to rant and rave against Neville, claiming he was insane, as she did not believe in the promise. The lady then asked the teacher: “Do you believe that imagining creates reality?” and when the woman replied, Yes, the lady asked: “How would you feel right now if you began to imagine you were God?” With that the teacher screamed: “”You should be in the same institution with Neville!”

It is easy to mouth the words: imagining creates reality, but are you willing to imagine you are God? And if you did would you become God? At that thought a line was drawn, so she does not really believe that imagining creates reality. She is willing to believe that she can imagine things are better than they seem to be, but to believe she is God is an insane thought.

Her dream fulfilled the 10th chapter of John, where the question is asked: “Why listen to him? The man is mad and has a demon.” When one comes to tell the story of God becoming Man that Man may become God, he is called mad, because his words are in conflict with what the world believes.

This is always true. If anyone told our forefathers that electricity was a fact – that by merely turning a switch a room would be ablaze with light, he would have been called crazy and condemned. In certain sections of time, if a thought was in conflict with what the churches taught, one could be burned at the stake.

Every man who awakens to his infinite power is considered mad. His words are considered those of the devil, for his experiences do not conform to what men think Christ is. Men are looking for some super being to come out of the clouds and save the people who are now dead, and treat the others horribly. But if someone comes and claims that there is only one savior and that one is in everyone as his awareness, that one is considered mad and possessed by the devil.

But I tell you: God acts the moment you imagine. You are the temple of the living God and the spirit of God dwells in you. In the 10th chapter of Hebrews this temple is identified with the curtain which, when torn from top to bottom, opens up the new and living way. Then, ascending in consciousness, you take your own blood into the presence of the Living God.

Paul asks the question: “Do you not know you are the temple of the living God and the spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16) If the curtain of that temple is torn from top to bottom, it has to be you! The spirit who ascends is he who is buried in you, and will rise in the same manner as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. So when I ask you to follow me, I mean it literally, for I am telling you what I know from experience. I am not theorizing or speculating. Redemption is a very personal experience that takes place in the individual you.

No one really dies, for the world does not cease to exist when your senses cease to register it. Your friends and loved ones who have departed this world are just as real to themselves as when they were here. Now clothed in bodies like yours and mine, they are in a terrestrial world fulfilling their unfulfilled desires. While there they will know the same struggles, joy and sorrow, peace and war, as Christ continues to awaken God’s image in them.

When God said: “Let us make man in our image,” He placed that image in you. And when Christ is born in you, you – the express image of the invisible God – enter the kingdom, radiating and reflecting God’s glory.

There are those who believe they are reborn by changing their attitude and giving more money to the church. That is because they do not know the mystery of Christ. My visions would frighten them and they would call me mad; yet I am telling the truth which I know from experience. I am not trying to share some workable philosophy of life.

Another lady wrote telling of a dream in which she found herself standing in a long line, moving towards a man sitting behind a desk. When she arrived, he stamped the back of her left hand with indelible ink and she intuitively knew this was her entrance into heaven. A few nights later she found herself on a highway protected by chains. Seeing two secondary roads leading off the highway, she knew she had formerly walked there, but was now on the road towards the kingdom of heaven.

These dreams are foreshadowings – healthy experiences to encourage her to persist. She has now found the one and only way to the Father. That way is I am! Believing in the Father, she will find him, and when she does she will find her very self!

We are told that God speaks to man through the medium of dream and makes himself known in vision. If this is true, no voice should interest you more than that which is heard in your dreams and visions. Words spoken by men of the world are spoken from theory. They voice their opinions, but I am telling you my revelations.

This night I have told you how Christ is formed. As Paul said: “My little children [with] whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you.” Just like a child is being formed in the womb of a woman, when Christ is formed in you it comes forth. Then you awaken to discover you have been sound asleep throughout the centuries, although you did not know it.

The world, seeing a mortal body cremated and turned to dust, cannot understand how there can be a head that survives such an experience; but it does, for the real Man is all Imagination. He imagines a body there just as easily as he imagines one here. When you see a friend or dear one who has departed you will recognize him, but he will be young, as he is continuing the work that he set out to do, which is to form Christ in him.

One of the signs of your spiritual birth will be the three witnesses. As I stood watching them their thoughts were objective to me. I was unseen by them because spirit was born. As spirit, I was invisible to my mortal brothers who came to witness the event.

Unless one is born into the spirit world, when he leaves this world of flesh and blood he is not spirit but solidly real, as we are here. He is not seen by mortal eye because a veil has been drawn. But after your spirit is born the veil is removed from your spiritual eyes, and you will realize humanity is doing what must be done in order for God’s image to be formed in them.

Every man’s words are his judge. Believe me and follow me into an entirely different sphere known as the kingdom of God.

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FOLLOW THE PATTERN

Neville Goddard 03-25-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality“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.” (William Blake) We are told that the Bible is the word of God; therefore, if God and man are one, it must be man’s word. Now, a scriptural episode is not a record of an historical event, but a paradoxical revelation of truth. Accept this, even though you may not understand it, for when scripture is experienced, you will know it is literally true!

Paul tells us to follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me. Guard the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit which dwells within us. (II Timothy) Here we are called upon to guard this truth, for only as we follow the pattern – which is the truth – are we saved. If all things are possible to your imagination, and you are all imagination, you should be able to accomplish anything and fulfill every desire. But first you must be willing to believe you are all imagination! It’s entirely up to you. Do you believe you are mortal man – or all imagination? 

Living in infinite states, the basic state from which we operate is our body of belief. If you believe you are limited, your thoughts flow from that belief. But if this principle is true, and you place a modification on that body of belief, you should produce a corresponding change, as your outer world is forever reflecting your inner thoughts.

Genesis tells us that the serpent, the symbol of our fall, is the most subtle (often translated as “wisest”) of all of God’s creatures. In Proverbs, the personification of wisdom says: God created me at the beginning of his ways, the first of his acts of old. Then in 1 Corinthians, Christ is defined as the power and wisdom of God. If this is true, then who is the serpent? The churches teach that some strange dragon led man into this world of sin and death. But when you understand scripture you will realize that Jesus Christ (God’s power and wisdom) is the serpent! It is he who brought us into the world of generation, and it is he who redeems us by raising us into the world of regeneration. This I know to be literally true. John tells us: “No one ascends into heaven but he who first descended, even the Son of man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” (John 3) Here we see that infinite power and wisdom took the form of man – the limit of contraction, by entering the state called Satan – the limit of opacity. To Satan there is nothing beyond the physical sense of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touch, as he is confined to the limit of opacity and contraction.

We are called upon to exercise this power that sacrificed itself and became us. As Blake said: “I know of no other Christianity, no other gospel than the right both of body and mind, to exercise the divine art of Imagination.” By exercising the divine art of imagination, you can prove to yourself that you can go beyond what your eyes, reason, and senses dictate. Exercise this art by daring to assume you are what your reason and senses deny you. Persist, and to the degree you are self-persuaded of its truth, the outer world will change, for it is forever conforming to the belief housed within you.

Infinite power and wisdom took on the form of a person by descending into you. His descent is your capacity to generate here. One day he will turn around and, as the son of man, you will ascend into heaven. But no one can ascend into heaven who has not first descended. He who descended came in the form of a serpent. This I know from experience. You, too, will know this to be true when your body is split from top to bottom, and the furnaces of affliction become fountains of living water. We came here to experience our own, individual furnaces of affliction. But when your spiritual body is split, you become living water springing from humanity, and like a fiery serpent you ascend your spinal cord. The 21st chapter of Numbers tells us: “The Lord God said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set him on a pole and it shall come to pass that everyone who is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live.’” Why? Because he enters into life in himself! This statement, as every little episode in scripture, is a rough sketch, an adumbration, a foreshadowing for time to fulfill in experience.

Now let me share an experience of a friend. In his dream he is constructing a large building, knowing that his father is creating one greater than his. Although he never sees his father, he knows that one day he will be as great as he. Suddenly he sees a black and white tree snake, picks it up and watches it coil around his right arm. Then the snake began to speak, telling him of the husband she loves, but has lost. The scene changes and my friend is now standing on a new building site with a pole standing upright in the center. Ascending the pole is the same snake, who turns around and starts its descent as he awoke. Here is a perfect adumbration, for only that which descends can ever ascend. I know it doesn’t make sense on this level; but just as Moses lifted up creative power in the wilderness, so have I, as the Son of man, been lifted up. How? In the form of a serpent! The creative power of Imagination descended by turning his head down into generation. His power, now reflecting in this world, must be reversed. This cannot be done by any conscious effort. The reversal takes place when the spiritual body is split in two from top to bottom. Seeing the fountain of living water, your creative power fuses with it, and up you go into heaven, just like a serpent. Blake described this as: “The furnaces of affliction suddenly become fountains of living water, all springing from humanity.” Everyone is destined to enter that fountain of living water, rise from this level into which he descended, and understand the words of Blake: “I do not consider the strong man, the weak man, the rich man or the poor man, to be in an ideal, supreme state, but to be everyone of them states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it left paradise following the serpent.”

In the third chapter of Genesis, wisdom (the serpent) speaks, saying: “Did God say you would die? You will not surely die.” And in that same chapter God declares: “Behold, man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Now, knowing good and evil, the serpent promised that if you would descend and partake of this knowledge, you would awaken like the gods. Simply automatons, knowing nothing, you lived in a dreamlike state until infinite wisdom said: Follow me. So you left the world of innocence, and entered the world of experience to return to the world of Imagination, from whence you started. And when you return, you are all Imagination, and nothing is impossible to you. But before you do, you can test your creative power knowingly. Do you know someone who is in need? Bring him before your mind’s eye and see his need fulfilled. Lose yourself in the thrill, the feeling of joy for your friend. Do nothing on the outside to make it so, simply persist in seeing him in his new state, and no power on earth can stop it from being so. If you think he can oppose you, you are looking at the world of Satan, for there is no physical other. God is one. There is no opposition save that which you create for yourself!

Try to follow the pattern of these words which you have received from me. It is the same pattern as recorded by Paul, as the same God who revealed his Son in Paul revealed his Son in me, revealing me as the Father. Paul knew he was God the Father when he said: “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” This truth comes from revelation; so, like Paul, I am asking everyone to follow the pattern of the true words which you have heard from me, for I have experienced scripture and know it is not secular history. The stories of scripture are paradoxical revelations of truth, which happen naturally. The golden liquid light you see is the living water which you become as you merge with it. Then, as a living fountain, you ascend from humanity in a serpentine motion.

Now, another friend wrote saying she found herself in the depths of the earth, in a cave whose walls were hewn out of rock. The only object present was a jar with a human face carved upon it. As she became aware of moving in and out of the jar, she realized that the jar itself was a head with its top removed. Returning to investigate, she found it empty, and awoke. Again I go back to Blake: “He has a sepulcher hewn out of a Rock ready for thee. And a death of eight thousand years which he has forged for thyself.” Blake saw the sepulcher forged out of rock, ready to receive the death of eight thousand years. In Blake’s symbology 8000 does not necessarily mean years. Eight is resurrection, a new beginning. The Sabbath is the seventh day, the day prepared to lead one up to the eighth day, called resurrection.

This lady entered the sepulcher in which Man is placed, to meet the one who sent her, who is the Lord of the air! Blake, whose works are all vision, said: “God Himself enters death’s door with all who enter, and lays down in the grave with him in visions of eternity until they awake.” So her vision was perfect, as it parallels those of Blake. The Book of Mark begins: “Repent.” That’s revision! That’s changing your thinking, thereby changing your belief, which causes a corresponding change in your world. In this lady’s vision, she reminded herself to revise now and not put it off until a later date. This is so true! Imagining creates reality, for waiting will cause you to find the problem more difficult to overcome, so change it the moment you sense it. Always revise now! Let me repeat. You are destined to awaken as God! Although the serpent – the symbol of your redemption – seems to have betrayed you, he has led you from innocence to experience, to one grand Awakened Human Imagination.

Learn to adore your humanity, your spirit of life! Worship God by worshipping your own wonderful Human Imagination! You want to love God? Love your own spirit, for he is Christ. Remove humanity from you and you will not exist, so learn to adore your humanity, for that is your spirit of life. You may not be able to draw a straight line, yet you can create a smile on the face of a friend, or erase the lines of worry or age. You can do all these things, not by turning to another, but by using your creative power, the only God! Blake makes this statement: “Thou art a Man, God is no more, thine own Humanity learn to adore.” Humanity is your spirit of life! Turn to the only God, who is your own wonderful Human Imagination! Learn to adore him. All things are possible to God, therefore, all things are possible to imagine! Knowing what you want, ask yourself if you believe that your imaginal acts are committed by God. I tell you, they are!

In his 14th chapter, John tells you that imagination is his spirit of life, saying: “You believe in God? Believe also in me.” Can you believe your imaginal acts will come to pass? That your desire is real, and live as though it were? If you imagine – and imagining does create reality – you will see your desire appear in your world. If it does not, then you have proved that the principle is false. I tell you the principle is true – according to your belief! There is no limit placed on your ability to believe or on what belief can accomplish. No matter what you desire, when you believe you have received it, you will. Can you believe that the only true God is in you? That you can follow the pattern of the sound words you have heard from me? I urge you to guard this truth which has been revealed to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Don’t look for any Holy Spirit on the outside! There is no one to run to but self, for everything is within you!

Now let me share another experience of the man who had the dream of the pole and the serpent. He said: “I wanted to make more money, but I did not feel qualified for a better position. Regardless of this fact, I decided that I wanted to earn twice as much as I was presently making, and I imagined having it now! Within two weeks I was contacted for an interview. In the past, I have had to sell myself, but this time the company was urging me to take the position offered, which included a salary greater than double the present one. Strangely enough, the man who had recommended me was a man who formerly worked for me, and when he left, there was intense dislike on both our parts. After the interview we met on the outside, and when I told him of my fears he said, ‘I know you are the best man for the job.’”

I tell you: there is only one cause, and that is the Human Imagination. When you change your body of beliefs, everyone must and will play their part to produce evidence of that change in you. One who was formerly an enemy will play the part of a friend. I thank my friend for sharing this story with me and urge you to follow his example. Dream nobly! Think of lovely things you want to recall, and you will experience them in your tomorrows.

Blake was so awake! It was he, who said: “Everything is Man. The lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant, mule, dove, fly and worm, all are glorious persons. Clothed in gems, they fly away to humanize in the forgiveness of sins according to thy covenant, O Jehovah.” Awakened Imagination knows there is nothing but God, and God, being Man, becomes the worm to feed the weak. Knowing there is nothing but Imagination, Blake said:

“Double the vision my eyes do see.
Double vision is always with me.
With my inner eye it is an old man gray,
with my outer a thistle across the way.”

Every day, with my old friend Abdullah I would practice this art. At dinner he would ask me to look at the lampshade. He didn’t mean for me to see the lampshade – anyone can do that – but to focus my attention through it. Looking beyond, I would see living, breathing human faces. Other times he would ask me to look at a car, a house, a wall – not with my outer eyes but with my inner eye; and when I did, I would always see Man. When I first began to do this I had to break it, because I could feel myself moving through and beyond this world, to see an entirely different world. That’s Imagination!

Although this world seems to be the only reality, it is but a gossamer dream. And when you leave here, you will once more feel that where you are is the only reality. This you will do over and over again until God’s pattern of salvation unfolds in you. Then you will follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me and guard the truth which will be imparted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells in all. He has revealed salvation’s pattern to me. Having entrusted me with that truth, I have told it and will continue to do so until I can tell it no more. Then someone else will pick it up and continue the pattern.

The Bible, from beginning to end, is simply a book of patterns. Claiming there is only one source of all dreams, who is God, the story is told of a man called Joseph, the dreamer who was placed in a coffin in Egypt. So who was placed in that coffin, but God! It is God who descends and takes upon himself this concrete, opaque state called Joseph. It is recorded that Joseph was the third son of Jacob, born to him in his old age. And Jacob was the son of his mother’s old age. And Jacob’s father was the son of his mother’s old age. Do you see the pattern repeating itself over and over again here?

This book of patterns will unfold in each one of us. How long it will be before the pattern unfolds in you, individually, only your heavenly Father knows. I can tell you this, however: it will happen in your old age! When you have had all of the experiences life here can give you and you seem to be barren, the child will come. That is my promise!

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FOURFOLD VISION

Neville Goddard 01-26-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWilliam Blake once wrote these words to his friend, Thomas Butts: 

“Now I a fourfold vision see,
And a fourfold vision is given to me:
‘Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah’s night
And twofold always, may God us keep
From single vision and Newton’s sleep!”

Fourfold vision is to single vision as ordinary sight is to blindness. We all experience single and threefold vision. It’s twofold and fourfold vision that one must consciously work to achieve.

A hardheaded, common-sensed, rational man sees with his single vision. To him, a man is a man, a tree is a tree, a rose is a rose, and a dog is a dog. The idea that imagination could create reality would be sheer nonsense to him, and he would think you mad if you tried to tell him so. Being rational, the single-vision man lives in a world where things are what they seem to be. In that world everything can be weighed and measured, a minute is sixty seconds, and a pound is sixteen ounces – no more or no less. Blake refers to that kind of man as Newton’s sleep, saying: “May God us keep from single vision and Newton’s sleep.”

Twofold vision occurs when everything is seen as an image. I have stood before a fireplace and enjoyed its warmth and light. I have watched the flames leap up and subside, fall into embers, then turn into ash and – to all appearances – vanish. And I have said to myself: “My life is like a fire.” At that moment I achieved a simile. I didn’t stop there, however, but said: “Life is fire. My life is fire.” Having achieved a metaphor, I dropped the “is” and said to myself, “Life and fire are similar. I will never again see one and not see the other, or feel one and not imagine the other.” At that moment I had achieved a symbol, a poetic image. Fire is now an image which reminds me of life.

Verdi once said: “All things transient are but images.” Is there anything here that is not transient? I have a friend who recently discovered two love birds had nested near his window, with three eggs in their nest. My friend now has fourteen days of waiting for them to hatch out. They will come forth, much to his pleasure, wax, wane, and then vanish. They, like all things transient, are but symbols; and if you will but turn the object seen into its symbol, twofold vision will be yours.

Mr. [William] Hayley, a man who thought himself a poet (although only a few of his pieces that Blake illustrated have survived) was a man of considerable wealth. He gave Blake a home with a beautiful garden, for him, his wife, and sister to live in. One day Blake found a drunken soldier stretched out in his garden. When the man refused to leave Blake took him by the elbows and marched him out of the garden.

Now a garden does not just happen. Man must be present to transform a plot into a garden, which must be planted and cared for or it will go to seed. Blake saw the drunken soldier (one of the forces) as the symbol of his spiritual enemy, yet physical friend. You see, although Mr. Hayley had fed and sheltered Blake he wanted no part of his poetry or artistic work, so he was Blake’s spiritual enemy. Of him Blake wrote: “I can tolerate my physical enemy, but not my spiritual one, for he destroys my creative power.”

Blake saw everything in his life as a symbol. To him the sun was not a round disk in the sky, but a host of angels singing: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.” Always thinking in symbols, twofold vision was always his.

Threefold vision is yours when the images begin to dream, to have love affairs, marry, and beget. Your dreams of the day and night are threefold vision, which Blake calls “soft Beulah’s night”. Your moods are your dreams in daylight, forming a threefold vision. Capture a mood which would imply the fulfillment of your desire, then become so intense in that threefold vision that you enter your fulfilled desire, and you will move into fourfold vision.

Having entered this dream of life, man has forgotten where he laid himself down to sleep. Thoreau once said: “The truest life is to be in a dream, awake.” Once this world was only a dream, but man became so intense, he awoke in his dream and turned to single vision in place of reality.

Now, this world has become the stream of reality. Knowing this, start to assemble images in your mind that, if true, would imply the fulfillment of your desire. Let the images play together, interweave, fall in love, and reach fulfillment.

Let me illustrate by telling a story which a friend recently shared with me. For some time he had an objective problem which he did nothing about, imaginatively. Then one day while in his office, he constructed a scene which if true would imply that the problem had been solved and his desire fulfilled. He ran through the scene several times in his mind, then entered it to rehearse the voices and scenery there. Breaking his concentration, he finished work and returned to his home. That night he again entered the scene, and as it became alive he fell asleep and had this dream.

He was a disembodied observer of a party given to congratulate a young man who had just come into a great fortune. Congratulating the young man he asked: “How did you accomplish this?” And the man replied in a most embarrassing way: “It was so easy. I simply did what I should have done a long time ago.” Upon hearing this statement, my friend entered into the spirit of that young man and felt his embarrassment and unworthiness. Then once again becoming the observer, he heard the young man say: “It was not a vicarious thrill. Entering the state, I actually experienced the sensation.”

My friend seemed to be observing someone else – but there is no one else! Humanity is a single being, in spite of its millions of forms and figures. There is seeming separation, as divined in our own being when we were dramatically sundered, thereby causing a seeming other to play the part we wrote for ourselves. My friend wrote the script and played the parts by entering into a fourfold vision. In so doing, he carried it into his own intensity.

We are all asunder, as every being is self, made visible. You have given yourself every individual in your world as an image, and you alone know what he represents.

A friend saw his mother as an image of the material world. A wonderful mystical experience followed this realization, when my friend found himself, as a young man, standing in a suite of rooms looking out to sea. Having written a letter to his mother, he opened the front door to find a lady standing there. Then he said: “I was going to mail this letter to my mother, but now I remember that she is dead.” The lady agreed saying: “Yes, she died a long, long time ago.” This statement surprised him, for in our measure of time it had only been a few months. Then he asked: “Hasn’t my mother been paying for these rooms?” And the lady replied: “No. The undertaker has. He felt it better that you think she was providing for you until you awoke and came to your senses.”

This gentleman is on the verge of complete wakening into an entirely different age. No one knows the day it will happen. He will not depart, however, one hour before his time, neither can he delay it one hour. Scripture tells us: “Who, by taking thought can add one hour to his span of time?”

You need not be anxious, because you cannot postpone or hasten your departure, in spite of heart transplants and life-extending diets. You will notice, however, that all the dietitians, doctors, and health addicts do not live one hour longer than those who are not!

I have a friend in Barbados who, during prohibition was so drunk I had to pour him on a boat for the mainland. This man would drink anything that contained alcohol. Now a man in his eighties, he is still drinking as far as I know, while all of the doctors who warned him that if he continued it would kill him are now dead. He only vegetates today, having lost his sight, but he is learning his lesson in his own way. God, the Father in him, is dreaming his dream of life. One day he will come to his senses and realize that the world is but himself pushed out.

In each one of us God the Father awakes, for He is one, not two. It is Christ who is dreaming and it is Christ who awakens in this gentleman and this lady, in that gentleman and that lady, as the one Father. He awakens as the one who begot the dream. Therefore there is only one body, one Spirit, One Lord, one God and Father of all. So you see: this fourfold vision is within the experience of all.

Everyone has experienced single vision, but everything in this world started as a dream. The room you are in began as a dream in the mind of someone. Its plans were executed in the mind of another. Now it has entered the stream of reality we call fact, yet it is still a dream; for its origin was a dream and its end is a dream, as all things bring forth after their kind.

If you have a desire to supplant what you have now, you must start by assuming it is a dream. And when it objectifies itself and enters the stream of reality, may I tell you: it will still be dream. Imagination is the creative power which can cause that which was not, to be! It can also cause that which is, not to be; therefore, it not only creates, but un-creates. This power is God.

My friend knows this law and has applied it beautifully time and time again; yet we are all careless and often think a problem will take care of itself, but it will not. The power to change anything will lie dormant unless we operate it, as Imagination does not operate itself.

Begin now to practice the art of imagining every day. A concert pianist must constantly practice. for if he does not and he is called upon to give a concert he would not be ready. You must practice the art of imagining day after day so that when you are faced with a problem you will not put it aside, but will do something about it and move from soft Beulah’s night into fourfold vision. Blake confessed that his greatest ecstasy was in fourfold vision because it is the fulfillment of scripture, of which he was a great student.

In the 13th chapter of the Book of Proverbs, we are told: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” If you want something, it is not going to come into being by saying: “I will have it some day.” That is deferring your hope and making your heart sick. But if you believe that imagining creates reality, you will build a stage, paint the scenery, and place lovely images there. Then you will let them interweave so that when you bring that scenery back into your mind, the actors will come alive and say the words you had dictated for them to say.

The scene’s power is in its implication. In my friend’s case the young man was being congratulated because something very important had happened in his life and it had been so easily accomplished.

A few years ago a friend had a few skin cancers on his face. The doctor would give him no more radiation, so every day as my friend shaved he saw his face clear of all blemishes. Today he cannot remember when they disappeared, but they are now gone, with no trace of ever having been present. So Imagination can not only bring things into being, it can take things away! It can un-create whatever it creates.

In this wonderful world we have created nightmares which we cannot endure forever, so they will have to be uncreated. That is why I urge everyone to live nobly. Sow your mind with ideas worthy of recall, because the day is coming when that which is built on any foundation other than Christ will be consumed or uncreated. You will survive, but only as through fire.

We bring all kinds of unpleasant things into our world and live with them until we discover we can un-create them. Just as my friend uncreated the blemishes he had placed there and he cannot tell you the moment they disappeared. You have the power to create and un-create. Having brought something unlovely into your world, you can un-create it if you are willing to create something in its place, and persist until your desire becomes fourfold.

This world, although three dimensional, is fourfold, for your dream has caused the world to enter the stream of reality. At this moment I am looking at you singly and in a threefold manner. If I see you as an image, representing other than what you appear to be, I am seeing you twofold. And when I meet you in soft Beulah’s night I will understand what you are trying to tell me in my fourfold dream.

A friend told me that I represent Christ to him. That when he conjures me in his dreams, he knows that the image of God’s power and wisdom is speaking to him through the voice of his friend called Neville. Neville is only a symbol, as he should be. I am a symbol and everyone sees me differently, for I am in every being just as you are, for God is one. Now fragmented, the world is God made visible and God’s name forever and ever is I AM!

The next time you see a fire in the fireplace think of it as the symbol of life. Achieve a poetic image by never seeing one and not thinking of the other. As you look at the fire and feel its warmth something will begin to stir within you, and from then on twofold vision will be yours.

Start with one image and it will become two, then four, then eight as everything will form an image in your mind. Blake saw everything as an image. To the world Scofield was a lonely soldier asleep in a garden. But, because Blake’s garden was the image of his creativity, finding a sleeping, drunken soldier there was like finding him in his wife’s bed, so Blake removed him. Although a very small man in stature, Blake had the courage of a giant, and removed that which was the symbol of his spiritual enemy.

Start now to experiment with these four types of vision. Unless you are physically blind you have single vision. When you see another meaning to that which appears to be, you are beginning to have twofold vision. This world is threefold, and when you imagine something other than that which you are now tied to and occupy it, the thrill of fourfold vision will be yours. Then when you sit down to prepare your dream, its occupants and scenery will become alive, their voices will be heard, their friendly touch felt, and fourfold vision will be your supreme delight!

Do not expect your desire to be fulfilled overnight, for all things have an interval of time between their planting and their entrance into the stream of life called reality. But I urge you to practice, practice, and continue to practice, for you are moving into a world where all is Imagination and you will create at will. You won’t have to travel by any worldly means to visit Europe, Asia, or any foreign country, for everything and every means necessary to objectify your thought is within you.

Truly, you have never left your eternal home. You are sleeping there, dreaming this world into being. Before falling asleep you were called a prince and told that you were gods, sons of the Most High. You would however die like men and fall as one man.

Now, in order to be a prince, you father must be a king. Well, your Father is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and together we form the one Lord, for God is one. We descended in consciousness, and made our dreams so real by entering into the stream that they took on the tones of reality.

As our eye opened upon the scene, single vision caused us to become locked in the prison of our senses and reason. Now we have become practical, down-to-earth, hardheaded men who know that life is a battle and we must take advantage of everyone before he takes advantage of us.

We pile up our millions, and then the Father says it’s time to go; so we slip off this little garment to put on another – just like this one, only young, with nothing missing. There, we continue our single vision until we come to our senses and awaken.

The man with single vision thinks the great mother earth is paying the rent and providing for him. The undertaker will allow him to think so until he awakens and comes to his senses.

Do not postpone your dreams and do not think that because you heard what to do, your desires will come to pass. It’s so easy to hear the truth and postpone the doing. But I urge you to be like my friend: stop postponing and do what you want to have done, for if you do, it will come to pass.

Now let us go into the silence.

 

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FOUR MIGHTY ONES

Neville Goddard  June 17 1956

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThis morning’s subject is “The Four Mighty Ones”.

The history of humanity is little else than a long struggle with this infinite riddle – the riddle of the Four Mighty Ones.

When Origen, one of the early church fathers, was asked why are there four Gospels, why not one, he answered and said because there are four quarters of the Heavens, north, south, east and west and, therefore, four quarters of the human soul. The Bible speaks of this riddle which we will quote from the Book of Proverbs, and I will tell you the promises made to the individual and to the nation who can answer or un-riddle the riddle.

It is veiled throughout from Genesis to the Book of Revelations; the four rivers, the four horsemen, the four creatures around the throne of God, the four men loose and walking in the fire; and the form of the fourth was like the Son of God; and they parted his raiment into four parts, and throughout, they speak of the four, but man cannot seem to un-riddle the riddle. This morning I hope to do it, and if I do it to your satisfaction so you walk in it, then certain things should happen to you. Now, let us see what should happen to us.

First, let me quote the riddle. It is from the 30th chapter of the Book of Proverbs: “Who hath gathered the wind in his fist? Who hath bound the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name and what is His son’s name? Cans’t thou tell?” For that is the riddle. Can we tell it? Do we know the name of the one who did it? Do we know the son’s name, and you follow it, closely. The first is Spirit, the second is Water, and the third is Earth. That is the question asked.

The first one is about the wind; well, the wind in all languages, in all ages, has been used as a synonym for spirit – the breath.

He speaks of water second. The mystic knows water in the Bible, and all scriptures, symbolized psychological truth. The ideas that men entertain as Truth; either true or false, if he accepts it and consents to it, he weaves this into a garment so he wonders who has actually gathered or bound the waters in a garment.

And the third, – who has established all the ends of the earth ? Who made it fixed? Who could take this liquid state, that is only a moving state, that is unseen, and objectify it, actually establish a something that is solidly real and make it to others a fact ? Do you know the name ? What is his name and what is his son’s name? Canst thou tell?

Now, let us now turn to the promises. “I will set him on high because he hath known my name”, which you read in the 9lst Psalm, which all of us love to recite. “I will set him on high.” When I am set on high does it mean I am made a king, a president, a dictator, a great giant of industry? It hasn’t a thing to do with such exalted positions on earth, for the real journey of a man is up the ladder of awareness, ever increasing awareness, an awareness of objects of increasing significance; but I am set on high because I know the name. A bird will not be merely a feathered creature. A bird will be to me what it was to Blake, simply a wonderful delight, a heavenly delight, bringing me a message.

Birds will talk to me, not as you understand language, but their very flight will reveal to me God’s intent. They will speak to me; not only trees, birds; everything in the world is the language of God. When man is lifted up, they cease to be objects – they are expressions of meaning – as a book is lifted up in consciousness from merely an object in space to a series of marks on paper, to finally an expression of meaning. As I ascend in consciousness, I lift an object, but if I am lifted up because I know the name, then every object in space ceases to be objects. They have meaning and they are expressing meaning. So I can read the open book of God. A tree now becomes a message; birds in flight, why two and not three, or why three and not ten? Why in the form in which they did fly; there is no accident – everything is the unfolding pages of God’s book to the man who is set on high because he knows the name. The name then becomes, we are told, “a strong tower and the righteous runeth into it and is saved.”

Now, let us take one more promise and you answer whether nations know the name. If our priests and our rabbis and our leaders, who should know the Name, really know the Name: – for this is the promise that the Prophet gives us in the Book of Micah. “All the people will walk, everyone, in the name of his god, and we will all walk in the name of the Lord our God”, and in that day all the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and no nation shall lift a sword against a nation and they shall learn war no more; and the history of humanity has been the history of war and crime, and these words were penned hundreds and hundreds of years before our era – hundreds of years B.C. Only the individual has found the name and become one who took his own sword and turned it into a plowshare. He escaped from the turmoil, the individual mystic, the individually awakened man or woman who found the Name in the midst of the struggle he goes in and finds a savior in the Name. It is a strong tower to him and now he goes in and he rests. He is lifted up on high and he sees the unfolding of the times.

Now, if nations really knew it, if the word uttered by the priests really was the Name, if the rabbi pronouncing the so-called holy word was the Name, we would not have war, so the Name as sounded by the priesthoods of the world cannot be the Name, so what is the Name ?

Let us go back now to the riddle. “Who hath gathered the wind in his fist?” What imagery! – What is the fist? The fist is the symbol of the first letter in the great mystery name of God. The fist is Jod. Now, what is a fist? The hand is the one organ of the human body that sets him completely apart from the whole of creation; so it begins the name of God, for without a hand, if I were simply an Einstein multiplied by the nth number, I would only be a smart monkey. I could not build, I could not fashion, I could not mold, I could not create; I could have all the ideas in the world but without a hand I would not be a creator.

So here that very first question asked is about the creative being, for the wind is spirit – I am speaking now of the creative spirit – and so it puts it into the form of a fist. Who has taken it and gathered all the wind in its fist? So we find the first letter that is, in the language of the mystic, to be aware. Can you conceive of being any place in this world and not being aware ? You may not know who you are, you may not know where you are, you may suffer from total amnesia, but you can never in eternity not know that you are. It is the one thing of which man is sure – I AM. He knows that he is, and he doesn’t know who he is and where he is and what he is, but he cannot stop knowing that he is, so that is the very first question asked; that creative spirit which is the JOD, which is simply being aware.

The second one, now. Who bound the waters in a garment? When I speak of garments in the scriptures, they symbolize what the mind wears. When a man is clothed in soft raiment, we are told he is in the King’s house and the Kingdom is within. He does not have teachings concerning external life. When a man comes clothed in camel’s hair or a leather girdle, these are made from external objects, made from skin, made from hair, the most external thing on a man, so that man’s teaching is represented by external things, therefore, he speaks externally. He does not speak of the kingdom within, he speaks of the things without that man should do. You have two coats ? Give one to one who has not any. You have more than you can eat? Give some to one who is hungry, but when one comes wearing soft raiment, he doesn’t tell you anything to do on the outside, for he is now clothed with the clothing of the King, and the King is in the Kingdom and the Kingdom is within. So we speak now of a garment; a garment simply represents the intelligence of the individual or what the individual has accepted as true.

Now where we speak of water – he gathers water into a garment and water is psychological truth. Now, who can take a mere assumption and gather it into something that is altogether real to him, that no one sees, as you would take say the cloud and gather it and form it.

And then the third one, who can solidify it? Who has established all the ends of the earth. What is His name ? Go back to the name. We found that the hand was JOD and the second letter in the great creative Power, (known as JOD HE VAU HE) is HE. HE is symbolized as a window. The window of the man is his mind. With my mind I see. With my imagination I see in fashion so I will now gather in my imagination, what I want to be in this world, so I will gather it without the aid of any external force. When I see clearly in my mind’s eye what I would like to be, I have gathered this state into a garment.

Now, how to solidify it! What is the third letter in the name, this mystery name ? The third letter is VAU and VAU is symbolized as a nail. A nail binds together, it joins things together, so I can stand here and first I am aware, just simply aware. Then I become aware of something and I become very discriminating, very selective. There are numberless things of which I am aware but I need not single out one to become identified with it but I will simply let them all pass through the mind, as it were. Then I will hold upon one – I will arrest one – the kind of man that I would like to be. Well, I will fashion that into a garment.

The next step is now bringing it into solidity, which is the VAU. But how do I apply the name to the point where I can use the VAU in my name? I will assume that I am that man. When I walk in the assumption, I am walking in his Name. We are told in this state all will walk in the name of his God. I have found the Name – found it within myself as, first, my awareness, my ability to become aware of something, my ability to become not only aware of it but to become aware of being it, so I walk as though I am the man that I want to be, so I solidify it, and the last letter only bears witness of the internal imagery, for the last letter is another HE, so there are two HE’s in the name, a JOD and a VAU. You cannot sound it – Jehovah is not the name – roughly translated it is I AM, but you have got to tear it apart and know what you mean by “I AM” for to say “GO and tell them “I AM” has sent you unto them.” When I go to Israel and they ask me who sent you, what is your thought? Just say “I AM” has sent me unto you and then complete it and tell them I AM that I AM. What does it mean – I AM That? Yes, that is as it is because I AM as I AM. Were I different that would have to be different, so I am that that mirrors the being that I am, for what I see the world to be is a measure of my own level of consciousness, for whatever it is seen to be is a direct index to the level of consciousness of the observer of the world. It’s not the world – I am that – I really am,- and that could not be other than what it is, while I remain as I am.

The slightest change in my level of consciousness, the slightest change in the feeling of I am this, results in a corresponding change in that, which is the world round about me. Let me now desire peace and actually walk in the name of peace, that there is peace in my world, and I will look upon a world and I will see peace where others see conflict, for I am only seeing that at all times: so what is my authority? My authority is “I AM has sent me unto you” and I AM that I AM. Do I know it? If I know it I will never complain. If I broke my neck I would know you could not have done it unto me: I did it unto myself. If I find myself in any state in the world I could not complain for I have found the Law, I have found the Name by which all these things are gathered together.

All the creative spirit in the world is gathered in the Name and the Name is I AM. But the Name must be torn apart and be shown as Four Mighty Ones, and not just the single. It is all one, but there are four distinct functions of the one. There are not four fingers or four separate beings living in man. God is one and his Name is one, but there are four distinct functions, and you can call them the four Gospels, call them the four garments that he wore, call them the four rivers flowing out of Eden, call them the four creatures surrounding the great throne of God; call them four but understand what you mean by the four.

So when you walk the earth can you walk in his Name? If I can walk in his Name, then I know what built the world, what keeps it sustained and establishes every end of this fabulous wonderful universe. It is the Name, and the Name is simply I AM. It is not Jehovah, it is not Christ Jesus, it isn’t the Lord, it’s not a thing you utter, it’s a thing you keep in the silence of the heart, because you know you are and you don’t have to affirm I AM in order to be. You simply know that you are, and the one sure thing in this world that everyone knows, he knows that he is, but he doesn’t know sometimes who he is. He doesn’t know sometime where he is and sometimes he doesn’t know what he is, but at all times he knows that he is – that is the one deep conviction in the heart of every man, so he walks in that but he has to tear it apart and get understanding of the Four Mighty Ones within him given to us in a symbolical way in the JOD HE VAU HE.

Those not understanding it within themselves treat it so sacredly they will even cover the name as they unfold the scroll to read it. Have you ever gone to these wonderful churches and seen them reading a scroll that man himself wrote, for some rabbi wrote that down, yet when he comes to read it he will cover it, because he must not look upon the name of God. It’s a holy name. It’s not on paper. It’s not on the scroll. He can’t even utter it. It’s within him as his awareness, his ability to become aware of things, his ability to become aware of being the state of which formerly he was only aware of, and he walks as it and then he objectifies it and it becomes that, so I AM that I AM. So when a world is described from observation, it is always, as described, revealing the level of consciousness of the describing being. It is not the world – that changes automatically – if I, in one little way, change within myself.

Now, today test it – test the Name. He said I have kept everything you gave me in your Name, and your Name and my Name are one. We have the same Name, so when you spell the son’s Name strangely enough you start off JOD HE VAU. When you spell Jesus in Hebrew it begins JOD HE VAU. You don’t have to go further – that is the Creative Power – to be aware, to be aware of, and to be aware of being the state decided on and then, but it’s not Jesus, you don’t sound Jesus, it’s simply in the being’s own heart – that’s the Name.

Now, the day we really believe it and are bold enough to walk in that Name, there will be peace in the world. If we turn on the outside to an external God, there will be war in the world. For you have denied me and when you deny the real God there is confusion and conflict in the world. So any man who turns to a power outside of himself and bows before it as some sacred relic or some sacred object, or in any other way turns to it, he worships idols, for the living God is within you. Ye are the temple of the living God. He’s not outside and to look on the outside is to be led astray, and when you are led astray, you are led into confusion and nothing but confusion would result and, therefore, conflict and war.

When a man finds the Name and answers the riddle he is “set on high.” I can promise you a thrill beyond your wildest dreams when you begin to toy with it and test it, and if you are lifted up even one little level beyond where you now stand, so meaning begins to reveal itself, a world of meaning, there isn’t a thing in the world without meaning. There is no accident – not one little thing in the world is without significance and when you lift in consciousness to the level of meaning, where things take on greater and greater significance, what a world into which man then rises.

So the whole thing begins in that 4th verse of the 30th chapter of the Book of Proverbs. He asked first who hath ascended into Heaven and who hath descended; then he puts the riddle, and the same being that descended is the one that first ascended, and the one that ascended was the one that descended – so this is the great ladder of life, the ladder of consciousness on which the individual descends here to discover his own being – the Four Mighty Ones within him, and when he finds himself completely shut out from that knowledge and he starts the conflict within himself and discovers within himself the cause of all the phenomena of the world, then he starts to ascend, and the same being that is going to ascend is the one that descended in consciousness to the level of complete and utter confusion.

Now, today, to make it practical, as we did in the 2nd chapter of my latest book – I treated it as a drama and the Four Mighty Ones in you – play with it. Call yourself a producer. You are going to produce a play – and the producer in man only suggests the theme. He goes no further. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, (and you name it), were I, (and you name it, ) successful, happy, and you name a certain state, but you go no further as the JOD: he only suggests the spirit for he just takes the wind and that he binds in his fist. He only recommends the motive, the little theme.

The second one, now, in man that works out that theme is the author, and the author in man is man’s wonderful inner creative power that can take the theme of success and work out the last scene, which implies the theme is realized. What would I do were I successful? What would I see ? What would I say? How would I act? Well, then construct one little theme or little scene which implies the fulfillment of my desire. That is now the second mighty one’s work.

The third Mighty One’s work in man is the director. The director in man is man’s controlled attention so that my attention must be completely absorbed in the single idea, the idea which implies the fulfillment of my wish.

Now, the fourth one is the one whose form is like unto the son of God. Now, who is the fourth one in man that will now do it? Man’s Imagination. Man’s real being is a splendid Imagination. An Imagination has form but man does not understand it and man doesn’t believe it, but the real being is Imagination. It can be anything in this world, and so he puts himself through the paces by simply inwardly enacting the drama that he himself has constructed, and whatever it would be that he has constructed, which drama implies the fulfillment of his theme, he inwardly acts it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality. When inwardly he feels natural in the part that in which he is now se1f-rehearsed, the curtain will rise and he will see it there. He will cast the inner drama on the screen of space and he will see moving on the screen of space all the characters necessary to complete the play.

He doesn’t have to consciously direct one of them. They become relevant to his theme, and because they are relevant they are drawn into the drama without their knowledge, without their consent. Any change in the drama must take place within him and not them, so he never appeals to one on the outside to change. He leaves them just as they are and he re-writes the play within himself and changes the end. As he changes the end, the whole cast are cast in different roles and have moved back into his world to complete his play.

So the Four Mighty Ones in man may be likened to the producer, the author, the director and the actor – the four most important members in the production of a play, and this is a play. The whole vast world is a play – this is a stage – but this actual movement and the actual drama is not taking place out there. It has been conceived, dramatized, rehearsed and completely enacted elsewhere. When you see it here it is as much a screen as when you see a picture on this screen later on today. You cannot appeal to the actress to change, they cannot even hear you. Any change in the script must take place where it first originated, not here. This is only a screen, so as 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.”

So when you find the Four Mighty Ones, you have found the Name and when you find the Name you will be set on high. You will run into it like a strong tower and be saved and there will be peace in your world. If a nation finds it, there will be complete peace in the world. If the individual finds it, it is peace in his world though the whole vast world rages, in his world there shall be peace. Not a thing will touch him for he has found the Name, and the purpose of this whole vast journey is to find the Name and the son’s Name. If I find the Father’s Name, His Name is just like mine, so I have found my Name and the Name ceases then to be Neville. It ceases to be John, to be Mary, but you never utter it. It is your sacred trust. You tell it to no one, you keep everything in the Name but you don’t tell it. In other words, you will call yourself by some other tag but the real name is covered from sight because you, yourself, cover it. You walk in the Name.

Now you can try it and see if I have told you the truth this morning. See if you cannot conceive of things today and identify yourself with it. Remain faithful to that association and see if that association will not result in a corresponding state in the outer world. Boldly assume that you are the one that you want to be. Remain faithful to the assumption and see if it will not establish itself and become hardened into fact, and you will know then the one who really establishes all the ends of the earth, for your earth will be anchored down and bearing witness of the man, the woman, that you have conceived yourself to be. Then you will be free of the greatest tyranny in the world, and the greatest tyranny in the world is the belief in the secondary cause. There is no second cause. There is only first cause, and the cause of everything is the Name, but when you don’t know it, well then, you blame another and I cannot conceive of a greater tyranny than the belief in a second cause. There is only one God, expressing himself as Four Mighty Ones within the individual.

So think now of your personality as something that is informed by this mighty selfhood but informed by it, in respect to its level of consciousness in varying degrees. On one level I am informed as to the language of birds. On another level the language of trees, and on another level the language of the motion of clouds; every little formed cloud is telling me something. Every little ripple is telling me something. On a certain level the language is revealed. On a lower level it is simply an object moving in space. Lift up the object only, any object, and it takes on increasing significance – and what a thrill when man so lifts himself that everything is talking and telling him of the kingdom within himself that not one little thing is by accident – that the bird that seemingly is wild and simply lit in your yard just for a moment, on its way south or north, did not by accident light, it brought a message – and every little thing in the world is telling you something when you rise in consciousness, and you rise in consciousness the day you find the Name and walk in it for “I will set him on high because he hath found my Name.” He knows my name. The only reason for the lifting up was the knowledge of the Name.

So you take this morning’s drama, enact it within yourself and see if you, yourself, cannot prove to your own satisfaction, you have found the Name by changes in consciousness not only here but your dreams will change, your visions will change, everything will change: for you have changed, and the success or rather the change or the cause of all change is you. No other cause. If you change. everything will change.

And now my time is up.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FREEDOM

Neville Goddard 10-28-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhen asked: “What is the greatest of all the commandments?” God answered: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Accept this commandment! Live by it and you will be free from all secondary causes. There is only one God. He is the father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. He is a universally diffused individuality whose name forever and ever is I AM.
You may not be aware of who you are, what you are, or where you are; but by being aware, you are mentally saying I am. Every conscious being says I am; and if there is only one I am, then I am one individual – diffused! I am the sole cause of all that is. All things were made through imagining, and without awareness was not anything made that was made. 


In the 8th chapter of Matthew, one of the miracles of scripture is recorded as an acted parable. It is said that when he entered the boat, he fell asleep and a great storm arose; so they woke him saying: “Lord we perish, save us.” And he said: “Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. If there is only one cause, then he who quelled the wind and the sea is the one who caused the storm. There cannot be another. If there is confusion in your life, and you resolve it in your imagination, and the world bears witness to what you have done – you caused the change. And since there is no other cause, then did you not cause the confusion also? There is only one God and Father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. If He is in every being who says I am, and there is only one God, no one can accuse another; for God’s name is not he is, but I am. No matter what appears on the outside, I am its cause. Assume full responsibility for the things you observe, and if you do not like what you see, know you have the power to change them. Then exercise that power and you will observe the change you caused. If you are truly willing to assume that responsibility, you are set free.

If this universal diffused individuality is in all, then the incarnation must be regarded in a different light. We were taught that the incarnation took place 2000 years ago by a unique individual, who was the incarnate God. But I tell you: humanity is the incarnation. The central figure – personified as Jesus Christ – is the perfect archetypal figure everyone must express. He is called the true witness, the first-born of the dead. Now incarnate in your body of flesh and blood, you are dead in the sense that you have forgotten that you are the creator of all things, and do not see yourself creating anything you observe. The morning paper tells of what she, he, and they, are doing, and you cannot relate their actions to anything you have done; yet there is only one cause, only one God, who is resident in you as your awareness, your own wonderful human imagination.

The parable tells us that God entered a boat and fell asleep. Humanity is that boat, the ark where God the Father creates as he slumbers. Even though you do not know the people you read about, if the reading disturbs you, you are the cause of that conflict. All imagination, I am dreaming, causing the misfortune and unhappiness of those whose lives I have touched with feeling. When you awaken and recall your dream, do you always know the people there? Do you know the children that were yours in the dream? The people who frightened you? You never saw them before, so how could they be other than that which you caused? You do not recognize them, yet you – the dreamer – caused them to do what they did. The same thing is true here. If the actions of a seeming other cause a motor response in you, even though you do not know him, your awareness is the cause of the storm. But when you awake, memory will return and there will be a wonderful calm.

God, the universally diffused individuality, is asleep in everyone. His transcendent revelation is personified as one called Jesus Christ. Thus personification awakens the memory in you as to who God the Father really is. God did not break up the I am and give each one of us a portion of himself. He gave each one, individually, his whole being. I am cannot be divided, and I am God the Father. If you haven’t yet discovered this, I am still asleep. In order to discover your fatherhood, you must find God’s son, foretold to be yours. While asleep in the state of Saul, you do not recognize him; and when you ask: “Whose son are you, young man?” he answers: “I am the son of Jesse, the I am.” When you awake and recognize God’s son, David, are you not Jesse? Are you not God, whose name forever and ever is I am?

It takes David to reveal you to yourself; yet you were his father before you fell asleep. Now dreaming your life into being, you fight against seeming others, calling them devils and Satan. You endow your shadow world with causation, thereby becoming a divided being, when God is not divided. There is no devil. There is no Satan. There is no being outside of your own wonderful human imagination.

“I, even I am he. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and none can deliver out of my hand.” (Deut. 52) “I am the Lord and there is no other God. I form the light and I create darkness. I make the weal and I create woe. I am the Lord and there is no other; besides me there is no God.” (Isaiah 45) He who creates the evil, creates the good, the weal and the woe, the light and the darkness. He who kills is he who makes alive, and he who wounds is he who heals and there is no other God. If you really believe you are the one spoken of here – that it is you who create the evil, the good, the weal and the woe; that none can deliver out of your hand – then you are set free. You will never again believe in another, but know that your life is self-created. That you create the storms, as well as the peace and the calm. No longer will you believe he, she, or they, did it, for you will recognize them as reflections mirroring either the storm or the peace and calm within you.

Having entered the boat (called the ark) God fell asleep and there he remains until the dove brings him word that the flood of illusion is over. Dramatized as an acted parable, it is said that Noah put forth his hand and brought the dove into the ark with him. This is beautiful imagery and true. In my vision the dove descended through what appeared to be crystal clear water. He seemed to float, using his wings like a swan. Lighting upon my extended finger he smothered me with kisses as the vision came to its end.

Because everyone is the whole God, everyone will personify the perfect archetypal specimen called Jesus Christ. Lost in confusion, not knowing that humanity is the incarnation, men think of this archetypal specimen as the incarnate God. Yet the one grand commandment is: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The word Israel means: the man who rules – not like a god, but as God, because he knows he is God. And the word translated “Lord” is I AM. Now let me translate it for you: Hear, O man who rules as God, the I AM, our I am is one I AM. We are not a bunch of little I am’s. Our I am is the one I AM who is God the Father. If this is true, then God cannot be divided; and the whole of him is wherever you are, wherever I am. There is no he, she, or they, in I am!

If you will completely accept this, you will set yourself free. You may not immediately see the effect of what you have done in your imagination; but it must come, because there is no other creator to stop it. All things are made through awareness, and without it is not anything made that is made. It is imagination who claims: “I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal. I form the light and create darkness. I form the evil and I make the good, the weal and the woe, and there is no other.”

When the Jesuits speak of Satan, devils, and demons, it is because they do not know the greatest commandment. All of the Ten Commandments are based upon the negative thou shall not, except one, which is: “Love thy father and mother.” The commandment found in the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, with ten words, contains all Ten Commandments in an entirely different presentation as: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Maybe you cannot accept my words now. Perhaps you feel the need to blame another – to have a scapegoat and believe the cause to be something you ate or drank – but why did you do it? What caused you to do exactly what you did? A disturbance in you! The storm in you caused the gland to be out of kilter. The gland cannot be the cause of your distress, but your dream can. The world, not knowing the single cause, will try to find something on the outside; but there is no secondary cause!

I received a letter this week from a lady who shared this self-revealing dream, saying: “I am in a place totally devoid of comfort. There are no curtains at the windows or rugs on the floor. My sons – in clean overalls – are sitting in straight back chairs against one wall, while my daughters – in starched, long cotton dresses – it opposite them. Looking much like the Quaker children here, my children appear to be without emotion, without feeling, or creative abilities. We are waiting for father! A young boy enters with a message stating that the work which had to be done in the children is finished, and therefore the father is not returning. “Then the scene changes and we are in a farm house. I look out the window to see fields of golden grain ripe for harvest. My eldest son, now radiantly happy, comes running into the house exclaiming that, for the first time, he has created for himself. His entrance was like magic, transforming the room, as all of my children began to use their talents – creating, laughing, animated, and alive. Before, like automatons, they had only obeyed the father by executing his will; but now that his work is finished, he has withdrawn himself, and they have become creators in themselves.

What a beautiful experience. She saw the world in miniature form. The father’s withdrawal is recorded as his death. He tells us: “Unless I die thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. A little while and you will see me no more; again a little while and you will see me as yourself.” Having withdrawn to dwell within, it is from there that you move, and not from without. All that I – the father – am, you will know yourself to be. If God is the father of all life, then you are the father. If he is a creator, you are a creator. Whatever God is, you will know yourself to be.

Now, God comes out of the desert with signs and wonders. The most outstanding sign is that of the fiery serpent, for everyone who sees it, lives. As your journey out of Egypt begins, the fiery serpent is released when the curtain is torn from top to bottom and all of the rocks are split. You are destined to fulfill scripture and, like me, know from personal experience that you are God the Father. I have shared my visions with you, telling you how true and wonderful the story of scripture really is and that there is only one way of salvation. Although unnumbered volumes have been written giving you many ways of redemption, there is only one. I am the way, and there is no other way.

Matthew tells the story of his awakening in dramatic form. Claiming “they” awoke, saying: “Lord, we perish, save us.” It is the unearthly wind which awakens you, and you are its cause. Awakening within your boat (your ark) you leave it behind as you enter an entirely different world as God the Father. Having purposely imposed the restriction of death upon yourself, knowing that you had the power and the wisdom to overcome it, you laid yourself down and fell asleep in the ark. And when the time is fulfilled, you awaken within that ark, come out, and witness the symbolism of your birth from above. A few months later you fulfill the 89th Psalm as you find David and your memory returns.

In the Book of Samuel, Saul (the demented king) made a promise to anyone who would bring down the giant opposition to Israel that he would set his father free. (This is done by discovering the father of the son.) So Saul asks David to identify his father, and David says: “I am the son of Jesse, the I AM.” So the father is set free when David brings down the giant, who – in your sleep of death – opposes you, and your memory returns as to who you really are.

Although I answer to an earthly name and sign my checks with it, I know who I am! I can tell you who I am in the hope that you will believe me; but in truth, I am only addressing myself, for I am in you and you are in me, and we are one. Everyone will have the same experience and in the end we will all return to the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father. We will all return from the victorious march through death as the same God, but expanded beyond our wildest dreams because of this excursion of the mind into a world of death which seemed so final. I cannot promise that, if you accept this one hundred per cent you will not have a headache tomorrow, or that the boss will not fire you. But if you accept this, you will know that your boss had no choice in the matter. You will know that you caused the firing. Maybe your dreams transcended your present limited position in that business, and only by being fired could they be realized.

One day I was fired from J. C. Penney Co. Working for a year and a half, running their elevator and being their errand boy, making $22. a week and paying $5. room rent, I could not understand it when they let me go. But my dreams, my desires, transcended my position there, so they had to do what they did in order for my desires to be realized. Believe me, you are the cause of the phenomena of your life – be it good, bad or indifferent. If, to you the news is distasteful, you are the dreamer of that distasteful storm. But the day will come when you will awake to discover that the storm is over. That there is only one cause, and that is awareness! I know it is easier to give advice and show the other person where he is wrong, than it is to acknowledge that he is only reflecting the wrong in you. It is difficult to accept the concept that the world is bearing witness to your thoughts, but it is true. If you do not like something or someone, do not look at it or them; look within to the one who is causing the image.

There is only one God, one cause of all life. He is not only above all and through all; he is in all. The universally diffused individuality is in each one of us in his fullness. Dwelling in each individual bodily, the father sleeps until the storm is over. Then he awakens and rebukes the storm that he created during his sleep, and there is a great calm. If you will accept this as your philosophy of life, and not turn to the left or the right, but claim you are solely responsible for the phenomena of your life, you will find it much easier to live. But if, at times, life seems too hard to bear, and you find a secondary cause, you have created a devil. Devils and satans are formed from man’s unwillingness to assume the responsibility of his life. To see another other than self, is to build a golden image. Asking a priest for forgiveness. Calling him father in spite of being told to call no man on earth father. Seeing him as an authority, man goes whoring after a man-made false image.

So what is freedom worth to you? If you stop short of the ultimate, you do not really want freedom. If you were enslaved, what do you have that you would not willingly give – in its entirety – to be set free? Do you really believe there is only one God, who is in you in his entirety, and his name is I am? You do, although you have forgotten who you are, where you are, or that you have a son; one day the wind will awaken you during a storm, and as you come out of the ark the storm will abate. Then memory will return, as he who has always been your son stands before you and calls you father, as scripture unfolds within; and then you will know that the eternal story was always there. It was a sealed book until it unfolded from within.

Let the world remain in the storm if they want to, but if you accept my words you will be set free from any secondary cause, and you who have been causing your storm will find peace and be truly set free.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S PLAN

Neville Goddard

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S PLAN

 Class Lecture by Neville

Edited by Jan McKee

I think you’re all aware that this is the most dramatic week in Christendom and yet I dare say that not an nth part of one percent of those who call themselves Christians really understand what it is all about. It’s the story of the fulfillment of God’s purpose. That’s the week, the triumphant march into Jerusalem, the crucifixion and then the resurrection. And it’s told as though it took place on earth. That’s how the story is told.

For as Tennyson said, “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” So, man cannot think abstractly so it’s told in the form of a story. And man has mistaken the story for the reality. Let us now look to see who the one is spoken of in scripture. They say his name is Jesus. You may not believe me but I’ll tell you who Jesus is. Say, “I Am,” that’s Jesus. Don’t say, I am man or John or Peter or anything, just I Am.

That’s Jesus. That’s God. That’s the Lord God Jehovah. The crucifixion is already over. It was in the beginning of time, a deliberate act on the part of God – all over. The resurrection took place and is taking place and will continue until everyone is awake. So, you say, “I Am,” that’s Jesus.

 Now, it begins with the march. Mark tells us that He took the twelve and then He walked ahead of them. The way Mark states it, it is as if he were one whom a dream had possessed and who went forward to fulfill all that the prophets had foretold. For he said, “I have come to fulfill scripture.” The only purpose. Now, not a man on the outside fulfilling scripture.

This one, which is God, is buried in you when you say, “I am.” You may not be aware of it aside from dreaming the dream of life which is this. He also is dreaming the fulfillment of His purpose. And the day will come, you are going to reproduce within yourself all that is said in scripture concerning Jesus. Then you will know who Jesus is.

It is said that he told them, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, and all that was written of the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished.” And the evangelist adds, “They understood none of these things.” This saying was hid from them and they did not grasp what was said. Only the Risen Lord can interpret scripture.

Only His finger could trace the ambiguous phrases of scripture and extract their heavenly meaning. It’s a pattern in scripture. That only when He rises in you as you, can you take the Old Testament and simply follow the pattern. You know what the pattern is because you’ve experienced it. And the whole thing unfolds and the whole thing is told you in the Old Testament.

But it’s a pattern. It’s told you as though it’s history, ancient history. It’s divine history and that history, not page after page, but a pattern goes through the entire thing and then that pattern unfolds within you. And when it unfolds within you, you actually gain that certainty that, “I Am He.” There is no other way you’ll ever know it until it unfolds within you.

Now, God came and comes into human history. And now we’re going to give Him a name – in the person of Jesus, but the Jesus in you, in me, in every child born of woman. That’s the only Jesus in eternity. I Am that Jesus. Well, now He’s a father. When God is born within you, for that’s the beginning of it all, you first awaken within you and you do not know you are God.
You only know that you have awakened from the most profound sleep ever and it seemed like eternity. You did not awake on the bed where you fell asleep the night before. You awoke in a tomb and the tomb is your skull. And you awake within your skull and you’re all alone with no one present. But you have a built-in innate knowledge what to do. And you do it and you come out of your skull as a child comes out of the womb of woman.
But you’re coming out of your own skull and you pull yourself out of your own skull. And the imagery of scripture concerning the birth of God surrounds you, including the little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and three witnesses to the event. So, you’re told, “When they came, they saw the heavenly being but Him they did not see.” It’s the birth of God.
God actually took upon Himself the limit of contraction, which is man. Now He is born, the birth being an expansion. There is no limit to expansion. God is forever expanding and then, at a moment of expansion, He then has a new venture of contraction. Then He expands beyond what He was. Then He contracts. Then He expands beyond what He was and that is God’s play. There is no limit to expansion. He puts a limit to contraction. The limit is man.

 So, when you break the tomb, you come out and you are God. Therefore, no one can see you. The heavenly hosts who were present to witness the event can’t see you, for you are spirit; you are God. But you see them and you see the babe and you see everything round about you just as described in Luke and Matthew. But you do not know that you are God.

That comes later, and you’ll not in eternity know you are God until God’s son calls you Father. And God’s son, the Christ of Scripture, is not Jesus. It’s David. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah in you when you say, “I Am.” That’s Jesus.

That’s not David. Who then is Christ? The Son of God. David then comes and when David comes, there is no uncertainty as to who you are. For he calls you Father. And before he utters the word Father, you know you are his Father. And he knows he is your son. And this relationship is now what every heart is aching for. When this is established by an actual experience, the drama is over. Everything is over that you came to perform — to find the son who, in turn, will reveal you as God the Father. For He is sound asleep in humanity and man doesn’t know that he is God. And when he is born from above, he still doesn’t know he is God. And not in eternity can he find out who he is until the son appears.

 So, we are told in Scripture, “No one knows who the son is except the Father and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom He chooses to reveal Him.” So, hey do it because “They know neither my Father nor Me. Had they known my Father, they would have known me also. But they know neither My Father nor Me.” So, you find, you’ve got to actually feel between the words. For He’s speaking one moment as Father and then speaking, in another moment as Son. It’s a mystery and how are you going to tell it unless you tell it in the form of a story that it may enter in at lowly doors.

 But man, hearing the story, learns to feel behind the story and feel what it’s trying to convey. But when you actually experience the story, then you know the mystery. It’s the mystery that everyone one day will unfold within himself and he’ll know that he is God. So this is what confronts man this week as it’s dramatized but not told. For they do not know it. They do not know the story. Let me turn now to the 55th Chapter of Isaiah. “I will make a covenant with you.” Now he’s speaking to all of us, “I will make a covenant with you,” and this is his covenant, “my steadfast, sure love for David – I have made him a witness to the peoples.” That is my witness to the peoples. Now what is he going to witness? The truth of God’s word. So God’s word is Scripture and the Scripture spoken of was the Old Testament, “and the word is truth,”

I make him now a witness to the people and He has my steadfast and sure love forever. Now, “That is my covenant with you,” said the Lord to us. We turn now to the trial, and here we find one called Jesus standing before Pilot, and he turns to Pilot and he said, “For this I was born. And for this I came into the world to bear witness to the truth,” Now He tells you He is not of this world, “unless you are born form above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” He’s not speaking of the birth from the womb of a woman in spite of all the priesthoods of the world. He is speaking of an entirely different birth, “born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” He said, “I am from above, you are from below.” Now, He’s not speaking to you, the being who is God. He is speaking to this body here. This is from below.

This came out of the womb of my mother. But there is that in me which is “I Am” that no woman can bear. That must be born from above. It is now entombed in my skull, entombed in your skull. But the skull of which I speak is a divine skull containing all of us. That is the skull. And it is said in the 87th Psalm, “And this one was born here and that one was born there.” All within the one grand skull and it’s called Zion – another name for Jerusalem. So, when Paul said, “The Jerusalem from above is our mother and she bears children into liberty.” The Jerusalem from below bears them into slavery.

 Well, my physical mother bearing her ten children that she raised, she wove garments of flesh. And these garments of flesh came from below, from her womb into slavery. For we’re all slaves of the bodies that we wear. But housed within that, from above, there is another Jerusalem and she is our mother who bears us into liberty, into freedom.

You come out of your own skull, that divine skull. And you’re set free. Well, then you come into this world to bear witness to what? To the truth. So, “I made him a witness to all the peoples.” Well, what is he going to witness now? The truth of Scripture, that God is a Father and that He did say to me, “I will tell of the decree of the lord,” said David in the 2nd Psalm. “He said unto me, thou art my Son. Today I have begotten thee.” If Scripture cannot be broken, what other Son are you holding up now before me that I may see? You may see all the hallucinations in the world as artists have painted dozens and dozens of different portraits of one they call Jesus. And they said they saw him.

Ask the artist, “When you saw him in your imagination and you painted on the canvass or you sculpted, did you know then you’re looking at the Son of God.” If they say, “yes,” well then you must know that you are God. Because no one can see the Son but the Father and no one knows the Son but the Father. Therefore, if you are looking at the Son of God and only God can see the Son, well then you must be God. What are they going to say to that? And Scripture cannot be broken. Read it in the 11thChapter of the Book of Matthew. “No one knows who the Son is except the Father and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom He chooses to reveal Him.

 So, I know in my own case, raised in the Christian faith as I was, and I call myself a Christian from my own personal experience of this great mystery, but I did not know from my mother’s knee or in my school (because we had Bible reading and Bible study when I was a child, it was part of our schooling). We had to go to Sunday School. I was taught the Bible, raised with the Bible. And there it is but I didn’t see it and my teachers didn’t see it.

My mother didn’t see it; my father didn’t see it, and no one that I ever met ever saw it, so I didn’t know it until it happened. It happened in me and then I could not then make it fit in with what they taught me. I had to go back and re-read Scripture and there the whole pattern was there all along but only the Risen Christ can interpret Scripture.

Only when David rises within me and calls me Father. Now, listen to the words, “When the time had fully come, God sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Father.” What time has fully come? When you have borne the great fardel, the great load, the burden the allotted span. Not before you’ve borne it the allotted span can He come. And when you get to the end of the road and you’ve borne that burden, then the spirit of His Son comes into you and here he rises in you. You resurrect your own son and that son is God’s Son; therefore, you are God.

 That’s when you gain the certainty that you are God. Yet, while you wear the little garment, you are still in a straight jacket. And all you can do while you wear it is to tell it. Try to clarify the atmosphere and scrape off the barnacles from the ship that gathers them over the centuries. Far from belittling Jesus, I have placed Him where He actually is. He is God.

He is not the Son of God. He is God. He is the Lord, a symbol of God, that you may say, but He wasn’t born of any woman. The only woman of whom He was born, “I Am.” That’s the Jerusalem from above. “I am Mary and birth to Christ must give if I in blessedness for now and ever more would live.” So each must bring forth the Son and it’s the same Son. Only one Son. And when you look at Him, no uncertainty; no one need tell you anything. There you are, looking at your Son as though memory has now returned and you have suffered from total amnesia up to this moment in time and suddenly, your memory returns and you know who you are. You’re God, the Father.

 It’s going to happen to every child born of woman. Not one will be lost. Not one. I don’t care if you’re a moron today, if you’re brainless. That’s only a temporary experience in this world. That brain that you have really, the true brain, is not really addled at all. That’s only some distorted aspect of life for a little while. Maybe you’ll go through life, spending fifty, sixty years in some distorted brain, but it’s still not the brain of which I speak. Not that divine brain. If your child is not a balanced child, a demented child, I know it’s a hard thing to bring up and a hard thing to face in life, but that’s not your responsibility.

That little thing there that you call your child that is demented, behind it all, behind that mask it is part of the burden that it bears, is the perfect being that is Jesus and that Jesus in there is, “I Am.” It was never tarnished. It was never soiled, no matter what it has done in the world, it was never soiled. And one day, it will awake. And when it awakes, it comes out of the tomb. So Paul could say, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, not I. Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” And that Son is David.

 Listen to the words, “I have found in David, the Son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will.” Well, the word “Jesse” means “Jehovah exists.” That’s what the word means. So Jesse is the Father. Whose Father? David’s Father. And who is Jesse? Jehovah. And who is Jesus? Jehovah.

He is the Lord. But no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And who is the Holy Spirit? The remembrancer. When the Son stands before you and memory returns and you are his Father and He is your Son, then only by this return of memory will you ever know. And so, no one can say that Jesus is Lord and Jesus is the Father. For in spirit, David called him, “my Lord.” Why did he call him, my Lord? Well, that’s a title of Father.

So he called Jesus, My Lord. He is the I Am in you, the I Am in every being in this world. So, we’ll go up to Jerusalem and all that was actually written about the son of man, which is the title that he used of self, will now be accomplished. So, I’m going up to Jerusalem, because everything is going to happen in the skull. That’s where Jerusalem is, the Jerusalem above. I’m going up to Jerusalem, not down. And all things said of the Son of man will now be accomplished. So, he goes up and the whole thing unfolds within the skull.

 That’s where you awake. That’s where you explode. When David comes out, it’s an explosion in your head as though you had put some dynamite to your head and the whole thing explodes. And when it all settles, here stands David before you.

He was buried in you. And when he said to me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep,” who said that? The depths of my own soul, the Lord said that. “I laid myself down within you to sleep and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and I knew exactly what he was dreaming. He’s dreaming that He’s I. And when the dream is over, we aren’t two. We are one. No longer will he simply treat me as something on the outside, an emanation of His. No more the emanation,

He cleaves to me and we become one being. So when a man leaves this world, his father, his mother, and cleaves to his wife, and this is the wife, the emanation of God. Yet, though His emanation, it’s his wife until the dream is over. When the sleep is over, we aren’t two. We’re one. And I know that when I awoke within me, I wondered, “How did I get here? Who put me here?” For this is a tomb. This s a sepulcher and only one who thought me dead could have put me here. For this is a tomb and only the dead are placed in tombs. So someone, I didn’t realize then, that it was a deliberate act on my own part.

 So, you’re told in the 10th Chapter of John, “No one takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again.” And yet, over the centuries, we have condemned a race of people for taking away the life of one who never, as an individual, walked the face of this earth. He is in man or you couldn’t even breathe.

He’s not on the outside of man that someone can take his life. He is in man. He’s the breath of man, the spirit of man, the I Amness of man, man’s own wonderful human imagination. That is Jesus. That’s God. And so to blame a race of people for doing what no one ever did, listen to the Bible, the 10thChapter, “No one takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again.

For I am the resurrection and the life.” So he entered death’s door, the human skull, and laid down in the grave of man and there he dreams the dream of life, and this is the dream of life. And one day, it comes to the end and he awakes. Where? In the tomb where he entered to find himself there. It was a long dream, thousands and thousands of years he has been dreaming this dream. You didn’t begin in your mother’s womb seventy years ago or whatever year you may be. That’s only a garment woven for you. You are eternal. You have no beginning and you have no end.

 Never was there a time when you were not. Nor shall there ever come a time when you shall cease to be. Beginnings and ends are all dreams. It seems so real, but they’re all dreams. But you have no beginning, no end. You are and that being is called in Scripture, God the Father.

 But, may I tell you something, you will not actually feel, I am Jesus, I am Father. That’s not what you feel. You don’t feel Jesus. You don’t feel God. You don’t feel Jehovah. These are names given by man. But what you do feel is Father. So the great revelation of the New Testament is God is Father. That is the foundation of the entire thing.

If you were not a father, then there is no child. So the relationship of father/son is fundamental to the Christian faith. Without the Son, there would not be a Father. And if there is a Father, there must be a Son. And it’s a search for the Son. And when the Son is found, the Father knows who He is. But not until the Son is resurrected. So, in the Old Testament, in the 2nd Psalm, the 16th Psalm, and the 110th Psalm, they are identified with resurrection. In the 16th Psalm, David is speaking and is made to say, “Thou wouldst not leave my soul in Hell.” In confidence, he knows he would not be left in Hell, that he would be raised up. Because, “I will not take my steadfast, sure love from David.” That’s my covenant with the peoples. I have made him a witness to all the peoples.

I will not take my love from him. So, he dies and is buried but I will raise him up. And when the Father raises up the Son then the smile is on his face because his Son has returned from the grave. And David is the eternal Son of God, the resultant state of all the experiences that you, as a man, which is God as man, experience in this world. So God became as I am that I may be as He is.

 This is the story of scripture and it’s all in the Old Testament but not understood. There it is, a blueprint. It’s an adumbration. The New interprets the Old, not the other way around. And when it happens in you, well, what a joy. I can’t tell anyone the emotion that possesses you and then you really are like one possessed. You walk in the dream of what happened and you can’t think of anything but, really. You may be diverted for a little while, a small party.

A big one would bore you. A few friends, yes. A large crowd, no. It doesn’t interest you. A dinner party of a few chosen friends, yes. But to have an enormous crowd, no that’s nothing more than noise. Everyone is trying to, well, monopolize the entire picture. But a few chosen friends for a party, a delightful evening with words where you are discussing reality, wonderful. But after it happens to you, may I tell you, you can’t think of anything but. And your dreams are not dreams any more. Your nights are not what they were prior to that waking.

You wake and it’s entirely different. And I can’t explain to anyone who wakes every day of their life after a night of good sleep, that that waking in the morning doesn’t compare to this. It’s something entirely different, as though you had never awakened before in your life. That’s what actually you feel like. Something entirely different. And you look at all these things round about you and here, a thousand years , two thousand years, three thousand years ago, it was written there and it was all about you and you didn’t know it.

 So we’re going to go up now to Jerusalem, said he, “and all that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be fulfilled.” All will be accomplished. Then he began to explain to them Scripture and said, “Beginning with Moses and the Law and all the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself.” Now this coming Friday, if you do go to part of the service, you will hear the words on the cross.

Every one is taken from the Old Testament. And you will know who you are in that sense. They are the words of David. For David is going to commit himself now to his Father. “Into thy hands, I commit my spirit.” This is now the 31s Psalm. “Thou hast redeemed me, Oh Lord, Faithful God,” yet that is the final cry on the cross when you read it in this little Book of Luke. “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.” And he commits it into the hands of the Father. He calls him now Father, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” And these are the identical words of David in the 31st Psalm. Now here, the entire thing unfolds within man.

 But, something was said to me just before I took the platform by a very dear friend of mine who is here tonight although he will admit to me and to everyone in the world, he is one hundred and one percent

American but he cannot deny the fact that he has one hundred and one percent of the Irish background in him too. So, he gave me the definition of an Irishman. An Irishman is one who does not know what he wants and there will be no peace on earth until he finds it. Not exactly his words; he told it much better than that, but that’s the essence of it. He does not know what he wants and there will be no peace on earth until he finds it. Well, that’s the whole vast world. Ask, what do you want.

He doesn’t really know what he wants because what everyone wants is to find the Father and you can’t find the Father without the Son. Basically, we’re trying to find the cause of the phenomenon of life. What makes things happen in my world? He told me, “You know, years ago,” before he met me, “he had these sorts of daydreams of, well, talking to a crowd – maybe going on radio, maybe on T.V.” Here out of the blue, someone came into his restaurant in Ojai and offered him a series of lectures here, in New Mexico, possibly sending him into Arizona. She can arrange other things for him, and the whole thing is done. But he remembered these daydreams.

 Most of us don’t remember and when we are confronted with our own harvest, we deny it’s our harvest. So, I tell you there is no such thing as an accident in this world. No. There is no such thing as a natural cause. Every natural effect has a spiritual cause, that is, an imaginal cause and not a natural. A natural only seems. It is a delusion of our fading memory.

We can’t remember when we set it in motion. He remembers that long before he met me in San Francisco, that this happened back East, this daydream of his. And now, suddenly out of the nowhere a seeming stranger comes into his world, listening to him in his restaurant , carried away with what he had to say and the way he said it and is moved to arrange this thing for him. He doesn’t have to lift a finger to do it. It all will be done for him.

 So, I say, dream noble dreams, wonderful dreams. If they don’t come to pass tonight, tomorrow, or next week, you keep on dreaming them. But try to put yourself into the dream as though it’s taking place and try to live in it. Be possessed by the dream and see the whole thing unfold within you in this world of Caesar, always bearing in mind, the real dream. It must come to an end only when it’s fulfilled. And the story is the fulfillment when you awake. For resurrection is waking. It’s not gathering dead bones together and putting flesh on it. It’s simply awakening.

You are sound asleep and you awaken like a man out of a deep, deep sleep to find yourself in a tomb. But you have the strength to break the bonds of that tomb and to come out of that tomb. And when they come to search for the body, they have taken away the body. They only knew you by reason of the body that you wore and that’s taken away and they can’t see you. “Him they could not see.” But he was fully aware of everyone round about him. And, here, all the symbolism of Scripture is unfolding before him. And he is the central character in the entire drama.

They’re talking about him. They aren’t talking about Jesus. They’re talking about you. You are individualized and you tend forever and forever toward ever greater individualization. They didn’t call me by any other name. They didn’t call me God. Didn’t call me Lord, didn’t call me Jesus. They spoke of me as Neville. It’s Neville’s baby. I was aware of being “I.” No loss of identify whatsoever. But then when David comes, here is Neville. In this century I was born, the year 1905. Here we have a recorded, so-called history, of one born 1000 years B.C. and he stands before me and I know I’m his father. And here we have words put into his mouth that the Lord said to him, ‘You are my son.” And I know that I am his Father and only then did I gain the certainty as to whom I am.

 So, you will not lose your identity, yet you are God the Father. It is Father that is being revealed, the sweetest name there is in Scripture. He is a loving Father, may I tell you, in spite of all the pain you’ve gone through and all the horrors of the world. For this is a nightmare. Can’t confine it only to the night; it’s a daymare too with most people.

So, I tell you, at the end – it’s not a reward – it’s simply victory. You have plotted and planned the whole thing before you entered the tomb. You prepared a way for your own return to whom? To yourself. I came out from the Father and I came into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and I’m returning to the father. And that’s the story of this week. So as far as Friday goes, Good Friday, save your tears. The crucifixion is over. And it was a voluntary act on your part, which is God’s part.

You laid yourself down in a tomb for the purpose of dreaming the dream of life. And in that dream, you suffered. You knew you would. As you’re told in the 24th Chapter of the Book of Luke, again you’re told it in the 18th, for that matter. But the 24th,”Oh foolish men and slow of heart to understand all that the prophets have written and said about the Christ. Was it not necessary that Christ suffer these things and then enter into his glory.” It’s part of the training.

These are the furnaces. “I tried you in the furnaces of affliction.” Why? For my own sake. “For my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned. My glory I will not give to another.” And my name is Father. That’s my name. That’s my name. That’s the name truly that is God’s name in the world. And so the word “God” which makes the mind jump on the outside is not truly the name. You take the word “Eloheim” and we translate it “God.” Take the word, “Jod He Vau He” and translate that “Lord.” But the name that is revealed is Father. That’s who this being is. This creative being is Father. And everyone is in search of the Father.

And one day, He’s going to find the only one who can reveal Him as Father. And when He finds Him, He finds His own Son David. Now that will come as an awful shock to the majority of people in the world. And I would not take back one little iota. It’s true. I’m not speculating. I’m telling you exactly what I have experienced. It’s not theory with me. This is all that I know from my own personal experience. It was always there in that Book called the Bible but I had not experienced it so I couldn’t see it. “You have eyes and you see not. And you have ears and you hear not.” Because they’re not yet bored. And it takes the furnaces to bore these eyes for you and to bore the mouth for you, to bore the ears for you that you may experience Scripture and then the whole thing unfolds within you.

 It’s all about you because it’s all about God and you are God asleep. And the day is coming and may it not be too long when He will awake in you as you. And then you will find your Son that Scripture claims to be God’s Son. And because Scripture claims it is God’s Son and you know it’s your Son, then you must be God. That’s the story of the Bible.

 Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD IS LIGHT

Neville 10-09-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told in the 1st Epistle of John, the 1st chapter: “This is the message we have received from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” Is this a figure of speech or a literal fact? I am telling you from experience: it is a literal fact, for God is light!

There are three very firm statements made in scripture defining God. God is light. God is love, and God is spirit. John tells us here that God is light, a light in which there is no darkness.

Now try to follow me closely. The final gift to man is God himself and God is a revealer. Man’s knowledge of himself is based on his knowledge of the revealer. Scripture records what is said of the revealer. As he awakens in you, read scripture carefully and you will discover to what extent God has revealed himself to you.

Jesus makes this statement: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” He is the light that lightens every man as he enters the world. Is this really true? Back in 1926 when I was twenty-one, I was visiting a friend in Larchmont, N.Y. He was the manager of a private club where several hundred boys and girls were gathered to dance. I did not join the group but retired early, turned on the nightlight, and began to read a book. The next thing I knew the sun was up, the light was still burning, and the opened book was lying on my chest. I knew from the page number that I had not read more than a page or two before I fell into a deep, deep trance, because the book had not been disturbed during that long period of maybe ten or twelve hours. I awoke to find myself cataleptic. My body seemed frozen, yet I was conscious of having returned from knowing myself to be an infinite sea of vibrant, liquid, living light. There was nothing but myself. I was the light of the universe and nothing, not one being, existed outside of me. No planet, no sun, no moon – only an infinite sea of light and I the light of the world. So I can say from experience: I am the light of the world!

When God awakens within you (and he will) you too will know you are He who is the light of the world, and if God is light then you must be God! After this revelation happens in you, every claim made in scripture concerning God will begin to unfold from within, just like a tree in blossom. You will know that God is love, for you will stand in the presence of infinite love, embrace and become one with that body.

I am human. I am man, and yet I know I am infinite love. Since my embrace I have no other feeling but the body of love that embraced me. While I am here talking with you now I am wearing but a small portion of myself, just a spark of an immensity of my own fiery being. I know from experience that I help and teach more when I am asleep then when I am awake, for now when I sleep I pass beyond the world of dream into a world of spirit waking. I know from the thought, the imaginings, the visions I have received from many of you, that they are fiery darts shot from my own fiery self. That same being of love is waking within us all and when he wakes, for an interval you become the new lamp of the world. But your light is not here. It is beyond the world of dream for here, he who knows he is the light of the world is always rejected. “He came to his own and his own received him not.” Even his own brothers did not believe in him. On this level it is always the same story, but when God awakens in you, you know who you are; and when the world calls you asleep, you are beyond the world of dream, having entered the world of Spirit waking; and from your fiery being you shoot your darts into the mind of those that you want to stir, to accept your message of salvation.

Now let me share with you this wonderful experience which was shared with me. In this lady’s dream I was standing in the center of a raised platform, surrounded by many rows of people, all deformed in various ways. As I instructed them, one by one they were healed, then they rose and departed. Noticing a madonna made of marble or stone nearby, she saw it become animated and dance for joy as the words I spoke so thrilled her. Then a few weeks ago she had this dream. In it I was a doctor in a hospital which had no surgery or drugs. Everyone simply came to me and was cured. Then she made this statement: “It is my hope that such a hospital can be here.”

May I tell her: “No, it is not here on this level at all.” This is a world of educated darkness where you and I – infinite beings as we are – entered for a purpose, and only a very small part of immortal self entered. That’s what we see here. You are an infinite being, for you are God. Everyone is God, but here we are just a spark of the immensity of our own fiery being. And because ultimately we are one, when one awakens and passes beyond the world of dream, he fires his arrows into the minds of all to stir them, to set that spark ablaze so that everything said of Jesus Christ (God personified in scripture) will be experienced. When it happens in you, you don’t need a new Bible or any credit on this level at all. You ask for no recognition. It was not granted then and it is not to be granted now. Even scripture tells us that even his own brothers did not believe in him. He came to his own people and they received him not. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world knew him not. That is the story.

So much is said of light in scripture. He lights every man that comes into the world, because without his spark one could not breathe or live. God actually became us that we could become God, who is awakening and unfolding in all. One day you will know that you are all light, then all love, and finally all spirit. No mortal eye will ever see you, for although your birth from above does not appear in this world, the witnesses to the event are mortal. They see the sign of your birth, but they cannot see you because you are spirit. Talking about you as though you were not present, they speak of you in the most incredible terms saying: “How can he have a baby?” yet you take the sign in your arms and embrace it in the most endearing manner. That is the sign of your spiritual birth, revealing yet another definition that God is spirit.

Knowing that God is love and light, when your spiritual birth appears you will have experienced the three definitions of God. Then, still finding yourself confined to this little tiny portion of yourself, you will teach and help others in this world. Ask for no acclaim, no recognition, nothing – just simply teach it, and night after night as you fall asleep you will pass beyond the world of dream, and from the world of spirit waking you will shoot your fiery arrows into the minds of those who follow you. You will stir them and they will awaken as you have been awakened. At some time in your life you heard the story and, as you slept in the world of dream someone who knew God from experience shot an arrow into your mind and your spirit became a flame and God awoke in you. It’s the same being, for there is no race in God, no sect, no color; it’s just God and He is light.

We speak of darkness and light, yet is darkness a thing – or is it the absence of a thing? Is the hole in a sock a thing or is it the absence of a portion of the sock? I am speaking of actual light – vibrant, living, pulsing light, which hasn’t a thing to do with the pigment of skin. I wear all garments – black, yellow, pink and red. I am not greater in one garment than I am in another. In Christ there is no Greek, no Jew, no bond, no free, no male, no female. God is one in all and He awakens in all, and when he does everything claimed of Jesus Christ is experienced. One day, having played the central part, you too will close your eyes and leave this world. Having shot your arrows well, those who heard and believed you will awaken. They may forget you in time that doesn’t really matter, for the eternal story is recorded in the gospel. Your name may not be recorded there but it is recorded in eternity, for your true identity is God Himself!

On this level you can start from here, right now, and fulfill any dream. May I tell you: you are going to live the life that you are imagining, so imagine well! Imagine the most glorious thing in the world and – no matter how wonderful it is – may I tell you it is nothing compared to the being that you really are. Nothing in this world can come close to the being you really are. This world of Caesar is only a tiny section of your infinite being, but while you are here, dream nobly. Dream lovely dreams, for you can realize everything if you are willing to imagine that you have them now. Begin now to imagine you are the man (the woman) you would like to be, and regardless of what happens tomorrow, next week, or next month, if you persist in the assumption that you already are that which you want to be, you will become it in this world of flesh and blood. Everything here will vanish, yes – but why not test your creative power? Then you will begin to taste the power latent within you, and you will discover that you can conjure out of your own depth things that are seemingly impossible, conjured by the mere act of assumption. If you dare to act and persist in acting as though it were true and it becomes a fact, then you will know the truth of your creative power.

The promise you will have to take on faith. I tell you from experience: it is true. I have experienced the fact that God is love, the fact that God is the Father. Who would have thought that one born in 1905 (and my friend who is here tonight – in 1911) with no social, intellectual or financial background, would experience the fact that we are God the Father. That God’s Son David – he who decreed: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me: ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’” – is our Son. Who would have thought that we, born in the 20th century, are the Father of one who was supposed to have lived 1000 BC, when we have no memory beyond that little moment in time. I can return to the age of three in my memory, yet we both returned to the same memory and remembered one who supposedly lived 3000 years ago.

We know from experience that we are the ones who declared: “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” We know we are the immortal being who took upon ourselves mortality to test our own infinite power by becoming just a small part of it. Having played the various parts we agreed to play, Fatherhood once more has become a part of our consciousness, and David has stood before us and called us Father. This is the thrill that is in store for everyone.

So when my friend saw this healing she saw correctly, for in 1946 I was lifted up, and as a heavenly chorus sang: “Neville is risen. Neville is risen,” everyone before me was made perfect in harmony with the perfection springing from within me. That is in store for everyone in this world, and in the end we are all gathered into one being, yet without a loss of identity. There is a friendship and, as with friends, you accept the existence of others, so God’s name is plural. It is a unity made up of others.

When you and I deliberately entered the state called Abraham we were told: “For a surety, your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and they will be enslaved there for four hundred years. Then they will come out with great possessions.” Four hundred is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is a cross. Now crucified on a garment of flesh, you are enslaved by it and must perform all of its normal, natural functions. Regardless of whether you are a king or a serf, you must perform all of the functions of man. Isn’t that a slave? But one day “I” who am God will bring my identity with me, out of limitation and darkness into the world of light, for I am bringing out myself. It was God who made the decision and God who fulfills it in this wonderful world.

We are told in the 82nd Psalm: “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.’” If you are a prince, is your father not a king? Coming out from the Father into the land of forgetfulness, memory died as we fell as one man. But when we return we are the king, for we return as the Father. Now Sons of the Most High, God’s final gift to us is himself, and God is Love. God is Spirit and God is Light! And you are destined to experience everything that is claimed of Jesus Christ in the gospel.

Don’t try to change the Bible – leave it just as it is. I stand amazed, yet I cannot be disturbed when I read how the great scholars interpret it. Today I took the word “light” and was amazed how the scholars interpreted it as a figure of speech. They could not believe the word could be taken in a literal sense, so they gave it every kind of interpretation. These are the great minds of the day, men who are masters of the ancient tongue, but they know nothing because they haven’t had the experience. I tell you scripture is literally true. All the precepts of Jesus Christ must be accepted literally, for they will be experienced literally, in a region so remote from that which man knows or can even conceive. You can’t even think of it here but God does it there, and you will know that you are the central character of scripture, as the whole thing unfolds within you.

On this level, you dwell on what I have told you this night. You will find that it will pay off in tremendous dividends. You will reach the point when you will know that your wish is already fulfilled. Then you will sigh and say: “Thank you Father.” Even though you know you are the Father you can still address him as another, but an intimate self. “He who sent me is with me, he has never left me. If you see me you see him who sent me, for we are one. I and my Father are one.” You can actually have a wish, thank him, and wait for it to appear in this world – and it will.

Now, the same lady who wrote the letter concerning the healing said: “I wanted to see Bergman, so I called the agencies. I called friends whom I thought had influence; I made every physical effort to obtain a ticket to no avail. Then, aggravated with myself, I simply assumed I was in the audience, watching the show and enjoying it thoroughly. A few days later a friend who lives in New York City called to ask if I could see him on a certain night, as he was going to be in town. I agreed and after dinner he took me to see Bergman.”

This lady made every physical effort to get a seat, but not one was available. Yet when she assumed she was there, three thousand miles away a friend decided to come west and take her. Now, people will tell you that tickets are available out of town, or that certain seats are kept aside for special people, for people are forever justifying everything. But my friend didn’t ask for justification, she simply assumed she was seated in the theater and a friend three thousand miles away fulfilled her imaginal act.

You can be anything you want to be, for you are going to be what you are imagining anyway. As man imagines, he lives! Morning, noon, and night you can’t stop imagining, because the candle has been lit. Job tells us that the spirit of the Lord is the candle on his head. Your candle is now lit and you are moving through a world of darkness towards the fulfillment of all that you have imagined; so imagine the best, for everything is yours for the taking. Fulfill every desire while you are here, and when you come to the end you will discover that you are God. You began as God and you end as God, for “I am the beginning, and the end, the first and the last, the alpha and the omega.” God can’t bring out another, so out of himself comes all that goes to make God, for he is the elohim, a compound unity. In the beginning God (elohim) is one made up of others. You and I came out of the elohim and in the end we go back as the elohim, but this time we are aware of being the Father. As common sons (princes) we return as the king. That is the journey for everyone in this world.

I am telling you from experience, the story is true. God is light. In the Book of 1 John, he speaks as though he had only heard and not yet experienced, saying: “We will tell what we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” But in the Gospel of John, he speaks from experience and puts these words in the mouth of the central character, saying: “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not be in darkness, for I am the light of life.” Here we see light identified with life. There is something within you which is all light, the light of life by which you animate and start things moving, just as the lady saw the statue. It was dead, made of marble; but as everyone was perfectly formed, the madonna became animated and began to dance. You animate everything, for you are God, buried in your mortal body, which is an eternal part of the universe. The bodies you see here are sepulchers. They appear to be alive while you wear them, but they are dead. You animate them, for you are the princes who – dwelling as one man – became fragmented into all these little parts. The one who fell was the king. Now a prince, you are gathering yourself together into the one being called the Lord God Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ.

I know it doesn’t make sense on this level. It is not expected to, but I tell you it is true. Night after night I go to bed and move beyond the world of dreams into the world of spirit making, and from there I shoot my fiery arrows, knowing they never miss. Then someone will bring me a message, telling me she saw circles after circles after circles in the air and an arrow penetrate the smallest circle and swivel. She brought back an image, for that is exactly what happens. The arrow never misses its target. The message always penetrates and sets aflame that which is already there. So I tell you: your imaginings, your dreams, your visions, are fiery arrows shot by a being who is all light!

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD ONLY ACTS

Neville Goddard 9-20-1966

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityYou may ask how can a mortal man, born as we were born and who will die as we all will die, know that God only acts, but I tell you I know it from experience. I have experienced the Word of God and tonight I will tell you how I know that God and God only, acts.

The name of God is the key to understanding the biblical doctrine of God. In biblical terms the question is asked, “Does God exist? Who is our God? What is his name and what is his son’s name?” For Israel, the personal name of God is I AM. Although I read that statement in scripture, I did not know it until it was revealed to me through experience.

Let me begin by quoting a passage from the 82nd 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 shall die like men and fall as one man, O Princes.’”

Now, the interpretation of this great psalm depends upon the meaning the interpreter gives to the word “Elohim”. The word “Elohim” is a plural word meaning “God”. It first appears in Genesis in its singular form “In the beginning God” then, in the 26th verse the word becomes plural when God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” In the 82nd Psalm the word “Elohim” appears twice in the first verse and once again in the sixth. God (Elohim) has taken his place in the midst of the gods (Elohim). In the midst of the changing series of events of men in secular history stands the unchanging Word of God.

Creation is over. It is finished. The time is fulfilled, now, in us, for sacred history is over. Secular history is a changing thing that will, in time, wither like a plant and fade like a flower. No matter how great a nation is today, tomorrow it will vanish. No matter how important you appear to be now, your life here will vanish like the footsteps on the sand as the waves wash it away at high tide, but salvation history is forever. So in the midst of these changing series of events of secular history stands the unchanging salvation of Jesus Christ.

The passage I have just quoted from the 82nd Psalm is literally true, for I experienced it in the summer of 1929. From this experience I know that God only acts. When Blake wrote that beautiful poem, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” he wasn’t exercising his right as a poet when he said “God only acts and is in Existing beings or Men” for when Blake advanced into Jerusalem in his greatest of all poems he said, “Let us of whom all is and who was among us give decision.” The only actor is God and besides him there is no other actor; therefore, “I say, ‘You are the Elohim, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless you will die like men and fall as one man, O Princes.’”

Now God, having taken his place in the divine council, holds judgment in the midst of the gods. This is literally true. It was revealed to me back in 1929. Here is my experience. I was a professional dancer in New York City. It was just before the great depression when one night I was called and taken in Spirit to stand before a heavenly woman seated before a large ledger. As I stood at her left, she turned and, although she did not speak, she looked into my eyes as though for confirmation. Then she looked back at the ledger and with a long quill pen she made a motion in it.

Then I was taken into the divine council (the assembly of the mighty ones) to stand before God, the Risen Christ, the personification of infinite love. Standing before him I could feel nothing but love. Then he asked me a simple question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” And I answered in the words of Paul, “Faith, hope and love. These three, but the greatest of these is love.” With that he embraced me, we fused and became one body of infinite love. I now wear the human form divine, which is love. Having fused with God, no one in the world can separate me from the love of which I am.

As I was embraced a voice said, “Down with the bluebloods.” Then I found myself standing before God in the appearance of Almighty (the mighty ones now gathered as one) who commanded me saying, “Time to act.” At that moment I was whisked out of that divine assembly to find myself back in this secular world of man… this world in which I was born and where I will die. When this experience was mine I had fulfilled the 82nd Psalm, “I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you, nevertheless you shall die like men and fall as one man, O Princes.’”
As I said earlier, the name of God is the key to the interpretation of the doctrine of God, and to Israel that name is I AM. The Word reduced himself to the state called Moses and said, “Say to the people of Israel ‘I AM has sent me.’” How do I know I AM has sent me? I experienced it. And who is this mighty one who sent me? Myself!

We are told that I AM contains all the gods from which you and I fell. Listen to the words, “You will fall as one man, O Princes.” Now, the word “Yod He Vav He” translated “I AM” has as its primary meaning “to fall; to cause to fall; to blow; to cause the wind to blow.” One being containing all is the one who fell and caused the fall. This was all predetermined, for it was God’s plan. One God containing the gods (all sons of the Most High) fell and caused to fall so that the one God may rise one by one from this world of sin and death.

God was one in the beginning and he is one in the end. We are told in Isaiah, “I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel.” We are all gathered back into the same being we were before, but infinitely enhanced by the experience of our fall into the world of sin and death. I say to everyone, you are gods, sons of the Most High; nevertheless you will die like men (everyone dies here) and fall as one god fragmented into infinite beings. Then all will be put together again to form the one man, this time infinitely greater than he was before the fall.

The words rang in my ears, “Time to act”, for God is the only actor in the world. It is God who is playing all the parts. Some parts of the drama are horrible, while others quite pleasant, but at every moment in time God is acting. The most horrible act is being played by God, for God is man, yet he is a God of infinite love. I know, for when I fused with God, I fused and became one with his body of love.

You cannot see the body that I wear with mortal eyes, for mortal eyes die. You need God’s eyes to see the garment that I wear, for let no man put asunder what God has joined together. We are brought back one by one to be united with him and “He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with him,” therefore no man or organization can put that union asunder.

Blake spoke the truth when he said, “God only acts and is in existing beings or men.” I wish I had his talent in the world of men so I could tell this vision more beautifully.

Now, if you are here for the first time you might wonder about the words, “Down with the bluebloods.” The bluebloods, throughout scripture, mean church protocol, all the external trappings of the world of religion, the outside sacrifices, the rituals, all this is collectively called the bluebloods. Down with it all.

I did not receive my knowledge of scripture from any man and my authority to teach it is not from any organization. It came to me as it did to Paul… by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He unveiled himself to me and when I answered his question correctly he embraced me in fulfillment of the gospels. “When they bring you into the synagogue before the rulers, do not be concerned as to what you are to answer or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” I heard no words, they came automatically, like an actor standing on a stage, I didn’t take thought as to what I was going to say, and neither will you, for the Holy Spirit will, in that hour, teach you what you ought to say and you will say it. Being divinely guided, you cannot and will not make a mistake when you are brought into the assemblage of the gods.

Although others are present, you see only two, the Risen Christ who as infinite love embraces you, and El Shaddai, one and the same presence, but seen only as God Almighty. El Shaddai, infinite power without compassion, and the risen Christ, infinite power of love, yet it is the same being. “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but by the name the Lord (which is I AM) I did not make myself known unto them.” Then comes a greater revelation when God, who is our Father, reveals himself to us his sons. Being sons of the Most High, no one can fail. No one will be lost, not one in all my holy mountain.

So I urge you to remain in Jerusalem until you are called into the divine assembly. No one knows when that time will be, for he who fell is he who caused the fall, and the wind is the one who caused the wind to blow, for the wind and the cause of the wind are one. That is God’s elective love. No one knows when the wind will blow. He may come this night and breathe upon you to awaken you and take you in spirit into that divine assembly. “As the wind (Spirit) blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know when it comes or where it goes, so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The word “wind” and “spirit” are the same in both Hebrew and Greek.

No one knows when it is going to happen, only that you are called according to his purpose. “Those who He foreknew (and he foreknew all of us) He predestined to be conformed to the image of His son. And those whom He predestined He called, and those whom He called He justified and those whom He justified He glorified.” Here we find we are predestined to be called into the divine council, justified through divine acquittal and glorified by being given the gift of God Himself.

No matter what you have done in this world, when you are justified you are divinely acquitted. No one is without sin. Every child born of woman has violated the commandments of God, for the commandments are done psychologically. “You have heard it said, “’Thou must not commit adultery’, but I say the one who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act of adultery with her in his heart.” What individual in this world is not guilty of violating that commandment? Yet all are justified and justification is divine acquittal. The moment you are divinely acquitted you are glorified with his presence by becoming one with Christ and from then on you aren’t two anymore, you are one.

On this level you can take that command, “Time to Act” and “No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake.” Water symbolizes the psychological life. In the second chapter of John, the story is told of Jesus filling the stone jars with water. Now, stone is the symbol of literal facts and water the symbol of their psychological interpretation. When you repent by changing the literal facts to conform to your fulfilled desire, your water has turned into wine, for wine is the application of the truth that you have heard.

If I heard you were ill, saw this literal fact but wanted to turn this water into wine, I would see you healthy. Then I would repent by actually persuading myself that I am seeing you in the perfect embodiment of health, and so persuade myself of this fact that when I think of you I can see only health. When I see only this new, healthy you in my mind’s eye I have drunk the wine of fulfillment and won’t bring you up any more, as I know what you want to be pictured in my world.

Tonight take the literal facts of your life and turn them into the psychological truth they represent. Now, instead of drinking that water, turn it into wine by applying the knowledge you have and repent. Do not be remorseful or feel regretful, but when you see someone in need, fill it, for he is only yourself pushed out.

We all fell as one man, but became fragmented and we are all being gathered together again into that one man who is God. There is only God. While we are fragmented we see others and are at war with self. Seeing an aspect of yourself, you think he is another, but he is not. If your little finger is hurting and you think it doesn’t matter and cut it off, you would be cutting off a part of yourself. So, do not discard another, but change that which you formerly despised. Change each person in your mind’s eye, then wait and you will see them conform to the state you have formed from within.

The world is forever echoing the changes taking place in you when you stop drinking the water by absorbing the psychological meaning of scripture and applying its message by drinking the wine. Drink wine from now on and change your world. Make it conform to the ideal that you would like to have. That is acting, and God only acts and is in existing beings or men. If you don’t act upon the knowledge you have, then God is asleep in you. It is time to “Awake O sleeper! Why sleepest thou O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever. Awake and rise from the dead.”

If you don’t act you are asleep and likened unto the dead. When you hear what you ought to do and do it, you are beginning to stir and become alive from within yourself. This I know from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating. I have experienced the Word of God, yet I can’t tell anyone what it feels like to have had the experience. But I can tell you that this fabulous world that we all love so much will one day fade, but the Word of God will remain forever. This is the unchanging truth that remains forever in a changing world.

“I say, ‘You are gods of the Most High all of you. Nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O Princes.’” If you are a prince, your Father is a king. He is the King of Kings and collectively we are the King, for the Father and the Son are one. Returning from our fragmented state in this world, we are gathered together once more to form the one God. There is only God.

When Blake was asked if there was a Jesus he replied, “Jesus is the Only God”, then he quickly added, “but so am I and so are you.” The Elohim is plural. It is a compound unity, one made up of others, yet still one. When asked, “What is the greatest commandment” the Risen Christ answered, “Hear O Israel, the Lord, Our God, the Lord is One.” One sentence consisting of ten words contains the entire Ten Commandments. And the other commandment? “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Why? Because there is no other.

So tonight remember, God only acts and is! The most horrible act, this night is being played by God asleep, and the most loving act performed this night is the same God in the act of waking. The day will come when you and I will leave this world of sin and death and return to where we were before, with our translucency again intact, for we will have expanded beyond what we were prior to our deliberate fall into this world. God achieves his purpose by limiting himself to the limit called man, the limit of contraction and when He breaks the shell, you not only return to what you were before that the world was, but go beyond it. Everyone will be saved and there is only one Savior who is housed within you.

“Our God is a god of salvation, and to God the Lord belongs escape from death,” and this world is a world of sin and death. Nevertheless, you shall die like the men of this world and fall as one man, O Princes. But because God is a god of salvation, and from God the Lord belongs, escape from death. He who fell is within you, so you can be assured of redemption as no one can fail.

While you are here in the world of Caesar, use what has been revealed to you tonight for yourself, then for others. Make your world more beautiful. Have a little wine for your spirits sake by not just drinking the psychological meaning of scripture, but by putting it into practice and applying its truth.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD SPEAKS TO MAN

Neville Goddard 01-18-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality“In a vision of the night when deep sleep falls upon men, while they slumber on their beds, he opens their ears and seals their instructions.” (Job 33)

Tonight you may find yourself in a terrestrial world like this one, and you feel just as real to yourself as you do here.

And when you return with its memory you may think it was a dream, but it was a vision. You are dreaming right now, for this world is the dream you and I agreed to complete. Its end will appear when we turn around through a series of visions.

The Old Testament outlines the dream, interspersed with vision, while the New Testament tells of the awakening. The trinity which the churches refer to as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, can be taken in a simple way as Mighty Father, the proceeding Son, and the returning Holy Spirit – for they are all one.

The dreamer in you is God. Tonight as you dream ask yourself where you are. Many times while lying on my bed I have left this body I know so well, to enter a world just as real as this. Remembering where my body was when I started my journey, when I desired to return I had to feel myself in the body – now cataleptic – on the bed. I could not move it or open its eyes. The body felt dead, yet I was very much alive. Gradually I was able to move a finger, then the toes. But only as I opened my eyes and saw the familiar objects on the wall and dresser did I know I was back. But was I really? Am I not dreaming this world just as much as I was dreaming that one? If so then where am I right now?

Man cannot remember where he laid himself down to dream this dream of life. If he could, he would return through the secret of feeling. Finding myself in a world like this, I remembered where I left my body and felt myself back into it. I returned with the memory of people who were there. They were clothed and real and the world was terrestrial, just as it is here. I talked to them and they answered. Now if that world was a vision then this one is also, for one world does not differ from the other. So God has two ways of speaking to man, but man does not perceive it.

A dream contains one central thought. Like a thank you note. You don’t try to interpret every word in it, just the message it is trying to convey.

I have a friend who dreamed it was his birthday and many people had arrived to attend his party. There were two large cakes, with one lady very adamant about the design she had placed on hers. (This is not significant to the dream, but only part of getting the story started.) Leaving to find candles for the table, my friend returned to discover one cake was missing, as well as all of the guests. Disappointed because he had not seen or heard me speak, the dream ended. Suddenly he finds himself on a beach with a friend. Asking where everyone was, his friend points to a rock in the middle of the water, and said: “There they are, away out to sea.” Seeing another rock near it supporting a child, afraid and alone, he said: “How did they get there?” and his friend answered: “Mentally.” Then he mentally went to the child, took her by the hand, and placed her on the big rock. Now the dream changes and my friend finds himself in a lecture hall with a stairway in the center of the stage. Coming down the stairs, I place his hands in mine and say: “I’m glad you have made it, chosen one.” Then he awoke.

This is a very significant dream, whose single jet of truth is the rock. It’s not the birthday, the party, or the cake, but the language of scripture that will reveal the truth of any dream. The journey of life is a mental one, which is taking place in the sea of illusion. And only when you find yourself on the Rock will your journey be at its end.

We are told: “You are unmindful of the Rock that begot you and have forgotten the God who gave you birth.” (Deuteronomy 32) This passage of scripture tells us that the Rock is equated with God. And in the New Testament it is said: “They drank from the supernatural Rock that followed them and the Rock was Christ.”

This gentleman is now standing on that Rock. Since all dreams are egocentric, he conjured me from within himself Containing the whole vast world within him, he called forth those he chose to play a part he wrote for himself. This he did without our knowledge or consent. My friend has now reached that foundation stone upon which he will build his house. No longer will he build on shifting sands, where the winds and storms destroy the structures, but upon the Rock who is Christ; and Christ is God who is the Human Imagination.

The central figure of Christianity is the Human Imagination. When you accept this as the first principle of religion, then all governments, rituals, and external worship will have heard the trumpets of Joshua. All of the buildings that are of any structure than that Rock – which is your own wonderful Human Imagination – will fall. This gentleman had a wonderful experience. He is on the Rock, but he may move from it. He may turn his back and forget that the cause of all of the phenomena of his life is the Human Imagination. It is my hope that he will not.

There is only one source of all creation. “By him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made.” If anything or anyone comes into your world, remember the cause is your Human Imagination, who is the God of scripture and the dreamer in you.

Stand upon that Rock, knowing you are God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as these three are the chosen One. In the 1st Epistle of John, the 5th chapter, these three are called the Spirit, the water, and the blood.

Knowing that God is spirit and there is life in the blood, the Risen Christ calls himself the Living Water, saying: “If you had asked, I would have given you living water that you would never thirst again.” Living water is the truth. Once truth has been experienced, you will hunger and thirst no more. “I will send a famine upon the land. It will not be a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” This gentleman has found the word of God, for he has found the Rock.

Another friend shared this vision with me. (I call this a vision rather than a dream, for it was her own back door.) Although it was early in the day, my friend became so sleepy, she lay down on the couch and closed her eyes. Suddenly she heard a knock at the back door. Upon opening it she found a pleasant looking young man there, obviously hungry. She invited him in and as she was preparing his food, she realized it was 5:30 P.M. and her husband would be home shortly. Wondering how she was going to explain the stranger’s presence, her little daughter woke her, to discover that it was only 11:00 a.m. in the morning. Lying there she remembered she had not fed the man, so she did so in her Imagination.

That’s what I mean when I tell you to carry Imagination to the extreme point and feed the world. Although my friend did not feed the man in her vision, she did so in her Imagination, knowing she was feeding Christ. She knows that when she does this to the least of one of these, she is doing it to Christ. And when she does not do it, she is not doing it to Christ – who is her very self. My friend has learned her lesson, and is at the end of her journey. Having a vivid memory of what had transpired, she carried through her intention and fed the man in her Imagination.

All of this may seem insane to the world, because they do not understand this great mystery. In 1946 I wrote a little booklet called The Search. I ended it on this note: “The universe which we study with such care is a dream and we the dreamers, dreaming non-eternal dreams. One day, like Nebuchadnezzar, we shall awaken from our nightmare in which we fought with demons, to discover that we have never really left our eternal home; that we were never born and have never died – save in our dream.”

Since that time nothing has happened to cause me to change one word in that little book for, like Nebuchadnezzar, I have awakened from this dream of life. Now when I close my eyes in meditation, I sometimes have a little dream; or other times I enter a world just like this, where I am totally awake and aware of what is happening.

You see, one day the being that is really dreaming your life will awaken, and you will be enhanced beyond your wildest dreams because of your experiences.

You never descended in body, but in consciousness. Descending in your dream, you entered this world called eternal death to see things appear, wax, wane, and vanish. They appear to die, yet you are dreaming their death. One day you will discover that you have never gone anywhere, save in your dream.

This past weekend I was visiting with a doctor, who told me that he was fascinated with anthropology, and if he ever came back again, he was going to be an anthropologist. He said: “Neville, in spite of what you say, we go back millions and millions of years.” And I asked: “Are you proud of the fact that your ancestor was an ape? If all ends run true to origin, and your ancestor was an ape, no matter how wise you are, you are still only a wise ape. Well, my origin is God. I assumed this limitation for a purpose, and when that purpose is revealed, my end is God.”

I cannot see any relationship between the physical body and the ape, as there are still apes with us. Did it ever occur to you that change does not need to be gradual, but can be a combination in a sudden mutation? Think about it. God is a dreamer. He could take a root or a branch, and by forcing mutation among members of a certain colony of apes, when they multiply the new feature is transferred, and man suddenly appears.

Man thinks in terms of millions and millions of years; yet one generation could be more instantaneous than the nth part of a second, if you are going to measure life in terms of time.

I’m not saying this is true. I am only giving you something to think about. If you do, you will change your mind about having an ape for an ancestor.

As God, you started your dream by coming down in consciousness to the level called man. You died in order for humanity to be made a living soul. Now, bound by what you took upon yourself, you are dreaming a predetermined, horrible dream; yet the results of these experiences will transcend your wildest dreams. The story of Jesus Christ is your story, which you will fulfill – in vision – in a three-dimensional world.

Now, I used the word mutation for a purpose. We are told that at the end: “In the twinkle of an eye, our lowly bodies will be changed to be one form with His glorious body.” This does not take time. The moment you are embraced by the Risen Lord, your lowly body is transformed to be one form with His glorious body of light, of love, and wisdom. These bodies of flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You need an entirely different body to function in that age. That body is a mutation, as it comes suddenly.

When I stood in the presence of the Risen Christ I was asked to define the greatest thing in the world. I answered with the words of Paul, “Faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” Then Infinite Love embraced me. We fused and I became one with the Risen Lord.

There is no creative power comparable to love! I know, for I am one with that body; and when this aspect of myself is called dead, I will wear that body, for my dream is over. Then you can say of me what Shelley said of one who had departed: “He has awakened from the dream of life. `Tis we who, lost in stormy vision, fight with phantoms, an unprofitable strife.”

Everyone will awaken from this dream to know he is love; for there is nothing but God and God is love. The most horrible being is God, as the most glorious. In the end, when the curtain comes down, we will collectively form the one Man, the one Spirit, the one Body. Then we will understand why we conceived the dream and played it, as we will have expanded into a further existence as a result of this experience of coming down into the world of eternal death.

I know that when I have entered other sections of time, in vision, the experience was real, just as this is now. The world may say my experience was just a dream. But if this is reality and that just as real as this, then this is a dream. The difference is that when I was there, I remembered where my body was and was able to return to it.

Could you remember the being you were before you started this dream of life, and use the same technique, you would feel yourself there and vanish from sight to awaken in that body.

For myself, I have worn that wakened body since 1929, when I was embraced by the Risen Lord. At that time we became the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all. I have heard Him say: “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed . . .” and I knew exactly what He was saying: “I am dreaming I am Neville.”

One day you will know that the visions of the day are no more real than those of the night, for you will know you are their reality. You will realize that you cannot encounter strangers, regardless of whether they be harmful or helpful, as they came out of you to play the part you had already played from within.

The world and all of its conflicts appear to show us that Imagination can and does run amok. Imagination is the only foundation. It is the Rock upon which one builds his house. No matter what happens, blame no one, but remain on that Rock; for Christ (your own wonderful Human Imagination) is He, and the only cause of the phenomena of life. Accept this truth and you will have a firm foundation upon which to build.

As you dwell upon this power vested in you, you will discover it will help you far beyond your wildest dreams. You will realize that you do not need the help of anyone. All you need do is assume you have what you want. Then dare to walk in that assumption; and if it takes a thousand people to aid its birth, they will appear and play their parts, not knowing why or what they do. They will do it without their permission or consent, just as I did in my friend’s dream.

Man prays to an outside Jesus and believes in an outside God, because he has forgotten the God who gave him birth. Scripture tells us that when Moses revealed the true God as I AM, he hadn’t been gone more than moments when the people once more turned and worshipped the golden cow as the cause of their fortunes, good or bad. They started worshipping things made with the human hand in violation of the eighth commandment: “Make no graven image unto me,” either with your hands or in your mind!

If you see a Jesus Christ as other than your own wonderful Human Imagination, you have made a graven image. But when you find the true Christ – called the Rock – and start building on it, no rumors or arguments can knock your house down. Build on the sand and your house will slip away, but if you create your world believing in your own wonderful Human Imagination – called Jesus Christ – nothing will destroy it.

Your Imagination is Christ, dreaming in you and creating your world. Feed him noble thoughts. Become selective and dare to assume something wonderful for yourself. Our newspapers are telling us how to transcend death and live to be one hundred, adding years to life – yet no one thinks of adding life to years!

Schubert lived only thirty-one years, yet he gave us a thousand pieces of music. Keats died at twenty-six. So many of the great poets died young but look what they gave us! They didn’t add years to their life, but crowded a lifetime into a few years. Now there are those who are trying to have transplants in order to live to be one hundred, and vegetate.

Well, that’s not what we are here for. We’re here to fulfill scripture, and no matter what appears on the outside I promise you: you will not die. You cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die. You are the God of the living, not the dead – dreaming of death, of birth, health and illness, poverty and wealth. You have never left your eternal home. Your descent was in consciousness and it is in consciousness that you will ascend.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD’S ALMIGHTY POWER

Neville Goddard 12-02-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityGod’s almighty power and wisdom expresses itself most characteristically in the acceptance of what the world calls weakness or foolishness.

Matthew tells the story of one who – Knowing himself to be the personification of God’s creative power and wisdom – questions himself, saying:

“If you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread.” (Matthew 4) Then he quoted the 8th chapter of Deuteronomy, saying: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ “Here we discover that his hunger is no longer for bread made with flour, but for the hearing of the word of God, with understanding.

The conflict recorded in this chapter is taking place in the mind of the individual, although it appears to be happening on the outside. Standing on the pinnacle, his adversary quoted the 91st Psalm, saying: “If you are the Son of God cast yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will give his angels power to lift you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.'” Then, quoting the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, he replied: “It is written, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”

In the third and final temptation he is shown all of the kingdoms of the earth and their glory, when the adversary said: “All of these are yours if you will bend down and worship me.” Again, quoting the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, he replies: “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ “Then the adversary departs, and the great ministry begins.

Who is the Lord your God, that you should worship and serve? Your own wonderful human imagination, he who is one with the God who created the world. The richest definition of God given to us in scripture is: the Father of the Lord our God. I discovered I was God’s son by experiencing scripture, but the son and God the Father are one!

Both the Father and the Son are defined as power, with wisdom added to the Son. In the Book of Mark, the high priest asked: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” and he replied, “I am, and you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power.” Power is capitalized in this passage, as it is the name given to God. In the Book of Luke, he is first called the Blessed, then Power, I am called the wisdom of God.

Matthew tells of one who knows God has unfolded within him, and all of the characteristics of God as belonging to him – but he is puzzled and puts himself to the test. Scripture tells the story as though another being appears; but when God unveils himself, you question yourself, saying: if this is true, I should be able to do anything, for all things are possible to God. But I must not tempt the Lord. The only way is to trust him. So again let me repeat: God’s almighty power and wisdom expresses itself most characteristically in the acceptance of what the world calls weakness or foolishness.

When I was drafted, and we as a country were at war, in the eyes of the world I was foolish to believe that I could be honorably discharged without going to war. As far as the world was concerned, I was in for the duration, but I didn’t want any part of it. I firmly believed that Jesus Christ was my own wonderful human imagination, that he was one with God, and that all things were possible to him. I knew I could not compel God to do anything. That He would act only as I imagined!

Trusting God, I slept as though I were honorably discharged and out of the army. I did everything in my mind’s eye that I would do were it a physical fact, and fell asleep in that knowledge. Then, in vision, I saw my discharge paper with the word “Disapproved” crossed out and the hand of God write “Approved” above it in bold script. And when I heard the words: “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing!” I did nothing. Nine days later I was honorably discharged and back in my home in New York City.

Remembering what I had done to get out of the army, when I was confronted with a similar problem a few years later, I applied the same principle to get out of the island of Barbados. Like Paul, I knew whom I have believed; so when I was told I could not leave the island for months, I assumed once more that I am where I would like to be. I slept in the assumption it was true, and within hours the confirmation was mine.

So you see, I know, from experimental faith, the one in whom I believe. You must believe in your human imagination and make him the rock upon which you stand. He is the Lord your God, and the only one whom you serve. If you are going to serve another, then you do not know God. If your boss tells you to do what he says and eventually you will get a raise, and your trust is in your boss, then you don’t trust the Lord your God. Put your faith in anyone outside of your own wonderful human imagination and you don’t trust God, for there is no other creative power!

If you put your trust in knowing the right people, having stocks and bonds, or money in the bank, you are trusting false gods. In 1925 I was in London, dancing for one hundred pounds a week. That was $480 U.S. dollars. We had an offer to go to Paris and on to Germany if we would accept payment in marks or francs, but we declined, for they were of no value.

Their money was printed so fast, the paper was more valuable than that which was printed on it. I had traveled to London with a German family who were American by adoption. They had enormous securities in marks, and thought themselves very rich; but when we returned, they were poorer than church mice, as every cent they had was gone. Putting their trust in German marks was trusting a false god. Your boss is a false god. I don’t care what it is – everything outside of self is false.

Now, after the third temptation we discover the mind is at peace, and there is no more conflict within. There is no devil, no Satan – only doubts. Doubt, in the mind of one who was born by the grace of God, gives God the feeling of impossibility. In Blake’s “Vision of the Last Judgment” he so wisely personified doubt, saying: “Satan thinks that sin displeases God. He ought to know that nothing displeases God but unbelief and eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Unless you believe you are the one you formerly believed to be up in heaven, and therefore outside of you, you will continue to miss your mark in life. Believing in himself when confronted by the last temptation, he said: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” Are you serving him? If so, things will come to pass, for there is no other channel that one can accept, other than confidence and trust in self!

Believe in the Lord thy God one hundred per cent! If you need a certain amount of money and you have no collateral or anyone to turn to on the outside, will you trust the Lord your God to provide it for you? Knowing that all things are possible to God, will you turn to him in absolute confidence and trust, and mentally assume you had the money? Not being concerned as to how the money will come to you, will you test God’s power and wisdom by falling asleep aware of having the money?

If you will, you are serving God and in a way your surface mind could not devise, the money will be yours. Then, having tested the depths of your own being, you will know whom (not what) you have trusted. You will know whom you have believed. And that sure knowledge will vindicate your past trust. This is how God’s wonderful principle works.

One night in New York City I was on the radio from midnight until 6:00 o’clock in the morning, with a panel of five men and one moderator. When I spoke of imagination creating reality, a professor said: “If that is true, turn this white pencil into a yellow one.” I said: “All right. Bring me some yellow paint and I will do it.” Wanting me to use my imagination and change the pencil instantly, I said: “You know, you are the scoffer of the Bible. I tell you, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Then he questioned: “Are you my God?” and I replied: “I didn’t say that. You must find the Lord your God, because you are tempting him.

You do not know it, because you haven’t found him yet, but you will.” Every child born of woman will reveal himself as the Son of God, and know he is God’s power and wisdom. And since all things are possible to God, all things are possible to him. Then, confronting himself, when his adversary says: “Turn this pencil into a yellow one,” he will imagine it yellow. If the pencil remains white when he thinks of it, he has not trusted the Lord. But if he persists in having a yellow pencil, by trusting the Lord completely, someone he may admire or does not want to offend, will give him a yellow one.

Whatever your desire may be, imagine it is fulfilled, and trust the Lord your God implicitly. If it takes a million people to play the part they must play in order to produce what you have assumed you are, they will do it. This is the world in which we live.

Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination! Believe me. The Father’s name is I AM. Everyone who can say I AM is God’s image, yet there is only one God the Father! Learn to trust your I Amness and firmly believe in him, and you will know the day when the Lord shall be king over all the earth, and his name shall be one, and the Lord one! I have found the Lord of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote. I heard of him and learned to trust him, long before He unveiled himself in me in a series of events which belong only to the Son of God. Then I knew I was the identical being that the world worships on the outside, and calls Jesus Christ.

Men go to church and pray to a god who does not exist, when the only God makes man alive, for man could not breathe, were God not housed within him. So when you find God, trust him implicitly; but let me warn you: He will not accept your orders! Only as you imagine the wish fulfilled, will He act upon it. Tonight, as you put your head on that pillow, snuggle into the mood of the wish fulfilled in absolute confidence, and trust that God has ways and means your surface mind knows not of. I urge you to believe me, that you also may say with Paul: “I know whom I have believed.” You will not fail, when you find the Lord your God, who is your own wonderful human imagination.

You will learn to trust him completely. Knowing there is no need to help God by devising the means to fulfill your desire, you will move under compulsion, when the time for its fulfillment appears.

A lady I know took off to Paris with her two children, leaving her maid in charge of her apartment in New York City. When the lady returned, the apartment was empty, and the maid was no where to be found. The lady contacted the police, hired private detectives, and did everything humanly possible to find her furniture – to no avail. Then she came to me. We sat quietly in the silence and she returned to her apartment in her imagination. She walked through the rooms, feeling conscious of being there, now! She saw the furniture just as it had been before, touched the keys of her piano, and knew everything was back in place again.

A few days later, this lady went to her bank on Madison Avenue. Leaving the bank, she turned in the wrong direction and walked one block before she realized what she was doing. Looking down, she saw a familiar pair of ankles, and suddenly realized she had found her maid. As the light changed, she grabbed the girl and made her take her to where the furniture was stored.

This lady now has her furniture back, every piece intact. All we did was trust the Lord our God. What would I have done to find the furniture for her, when the New York police or private detectives could not? But we trusted the Lord, our God. We didn’t get down on our knees and plead for help, but simply sat in the silence and imagined.

I assumed she was telling me she had found the furniture, and everything was in perfect order. When we broke the silence, I – trusting the Lord to bring it to pass – simply forgot it.

So I ask: who is the Lord who creates all things? I am! Scripture tells us that all things were made by the Lord, and without him was not anything made that was made. I know exactly what we did and I know what happened, therefore, I know exactly how it was made! Man finds it difficult to believe that such a power is housed within him. He reads the scripture: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ, the power and wisdom of God who is one with God is in you?” and still bows before man-made little altars, and believes that someone on the outside is especially equipped to interpret God for him.

There are those who dare to claim that they are the sole deposit of the wisdom of God. What nonsense! God is housed in every child born of woman. But, being misled, man worships a false God, one who never existed and never will exist. There is no intermediary between you and God.

Don’t think of God with Jesus Christ as the intermediary between you and Him. There is only God! He became just as you are, that you may become as He is! This is the story.

The King James Version of the 20th chapter of the Book of Acts gives the true, literal translation of the Greek as: “By the blood of God we are redeemed.” The RSV translated the word as “Lord”, which always means “Jesus”. But redemption comes from God. Becoming just as you are, with all of your weaknesses and limitations that you may become as He is, God redeems you, for you are his love! Trust God completely.

He uses the weakness and foolishness of man, because the wisdom of this world is foolishness in his eyes. Men think themselves so wise. Rationalizing everything, man thinks he will find God one day on some planet or in a corner, but he never will. Man will go to the moon, the stars, and every place he desires, because whatever man can imagine, man can do!

Someone, today, who knows nothing of science, is dreaming fiction; and tomorrow the so-called scientific mind will devise the means to fulfill it, because God is the one who is writing the fiction and fulfilling it, and all things are possible to God. I urge you to dream your fiction and trust the Lord, your God implicitly that you, too, may say: “I know whom I have believed.” Then let it happen, and it will.

Many years ago my father and brother, Victor, went to see a spot overlooking the water on 35 acres, which is quite large on the island of Barbados. Three sisters lived in a home there, and sold their cattle to my father. At the time he mentioned he would be interested in purchasing their property if they should ever desire to sell. Then, turning to Victor, he said: “This would be the ideal spot for a hotel.” A few years later the ladies decided to sell.

One man with a great deal of money wanted those 35 acres very much, but was in Brazil the day my father – who had imagined owning it – bought it. Now a beautiful hotel is on that spot. It is very popular and always crowded winter and summer, all because my father had a dream and dared to trust the Lord his God, who he knew to be within himself.

My father would never go to church. He didn’t like the minister at all. What wonderful stories we have of my father and the minister. One day the minister said to my father: “I am one of the chosen.” My father looked at him and said: “I wouldn’t have chosen you.” He was just as brash as that with everything he did. He had no respect for the man. He never saw the inside of a church, except when we children were baptized. When my sixth brother was to be baptized – by this same minister – my father took two sea captains as godfathers.

At the last moment the minister asked if the two gentlemen were Episcopalians, and when one claimed to be a Presbyterian and the other a Methodist, the minister informed my father that the child could not be baptized with these men as godfathers. With that my father said: “Give me my son. I will baptize him myself.” He took the child out of the minister’s arms, dipped his free hand in the water, sprinkled it on the child’s face and said: “In the name of Jesus, your name is Fred” and walked out. And that’s his name -Fred Goddard.

That’s the kind of man my father was and still is. Not a bone in his body lacked courage. He found the Lord as his own wonderful human imagination, so when he wanted something he simply imagined he had it, and walked in that knowledge.

I promise you, when you find the Lord and really trust him, you will know a peace you have never known before. You will never again bow before anything or anyone. Knowing that only your own wonderful human imagination is holy, He will be the only one you will ever serve!

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD’S CREATIVE POWER

Neville Goddard 02-09-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told in the Book of Exodus: “God said to Moses, ‘I AM the I AM. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name I AM I did not make myself known to them.’” And if you read the 1st chapter, the 24th verse of 1 Corinthians, you will discover that the I AM (the creative power of God) is personified as Jesus Christ! Now you and I are called upon to find this creative power.

The Christian world claims to believe in Christ, but they do not know him for he must be found. This challenge is given in scripture. “Examine yourselves to make sure you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves!” If you want to find Jesus Christ you must test yourself!

Are you really convinced that Jesus Christ is in you? Have you tested him? If you have and are still not sure, then you have failed the test. Ask the highest leader of the Christian faith down to the lowest if he believes that Jesus Christ is in him, and if he is not convinced that the creative power of the universe is within and personalized as himself, then he has failed to meet the test regardless of what his man-made rank may be.

You can attend all the churches in the world, give to the sick and poor on the outside, but if you do not know from experience that Jesus Christ is in you, you have failed the test. I tell you that Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination, who is the eternal creative power of God. If you do not know that, you do not know Jesus Christ! You may say: “He is a person.” Well, you are a person, aren’t you?

Jesus Christ is God the Father and God the Father is Spirit, And those who worship him do so in Sprit through the art of feeling! I have imagined a state and seen it externalize itself and become a physical fact that I may share with another. This I have done unnumbered times and taught others to do it.

So I have found him and know him to be the only creative power of the universe. Everything in your world which is now a fact to be shared with others was once only imagined. And if you know that Jesus Christ is the creative power that brings things into this world, that all things must be first imagined, then you have found him. Having found him, you must learn to trust him and live by this principle. Do this and you will find yourself moving into the stream of eternal life by fulfilling scripture and knowing that “All power in heaven and earth is given unto me.”

The true meaning of power is “effectiveness in achieving a purpose.” Today as a nation we have the power of the atom bomb, but are not willing to use it because it is not our objective to wipe out cities; so where is the power that could bring about our purpose? Man does not know Jesus Christ, therefore he thinks there is power in nuclear energy, in money, in his intellectual or social position; but the only power is Jesus Christ who is the human Imagination!

I was born and raised in a Christian environment, yet I did not learn this truth in Sunday school, in church, or at home. I was taught to believe in a being outside of myself. Some person who was born two thousand years ago who was crucified on a wooden cross by people who did not believe he was the Son of God. This is the story my mother taught me as her mother had taught her. The story comes down this way, yet it is not the true story of scripture.

I tell you a mystery: Christ in you is the hope of glory, for God, your human imagination became man that man may become God. This is a mystery that we are called upon to test, for the power that created the world became as you are, that you may know yourself to be all creative power, as He is! I did not receive this knowledge from a man. I did not read it in a book, nor did I ever hear of it from another. It was revealed to me that God, in man, is his own wonderful human imagination!

Having no place to turn, or no one to turn to, I began to experiment; and as it proved itself in the testing, I found myself fulfilling scripture. Instead of another, I was playing the central role fulfilling the only belief! Then I began to tell it and those who heard and believed began to test themselves, and as they did, they moved into the mainstream and scripture fulfilled itself in them.

We are told: “Remain in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Scripture personifies this fantastic power as Jesus Christ, but man is taught that Jesus Christ is some distinct individual outside of himself and turns to him to grant his wishes and respond to his prayers. Then one day man hears who Jesus Christ really is, and turning to no one on the outside, God reveals himself to that man as I AM. God said to Moses: “I made myself known unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name I AM I did not make myself known to them.”

If God’s name forever and forever is I AM, how can you look outside of self? You cannot point to another and say: “I AM.” You can observe this or do that, but you cannot point to another when you say:” I am.”

Having revealed himself as Almighty Power, then I AM, God’s third revelation, is that of Father. And if God is a Father, he must have a Son. The world has been taught to believe that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, but I know from revelation that Jesus Christ is God Himself. There is a son, however, as told us so clearly in the 2nd Psalm. That son is David, who says: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ’Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.’” I tell you scripture does not record secular history, but supernatural history. Its message is sacred and hasn’t a thing to do with anything that took place in a secular manner.

Yesterday I read where someone in Ohio, who claimed he had traced his background back to David, died at the age of 84 or 85. Of all the nonsense of the world, if he meant it secularly. David is not a character of human history, but the eternal state one enters when he believes in God’s power as his own imagination, exercises it, and enters the mainstream and awakens. Personifying God’s creative power, David will stand before you and call you Father, revealing you to be one with your creative power.

Listen to these words carefully: “The high priest said to Jesus, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of Blessed?’ And Jesus answered, ‘I am, and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of Power.’” This he said in fulfillment of the 100th Psalm: “The Lord said unto my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand til I make your enemies your footstool.’” Here we see Power equated with a man! So God’s first revelation is that of sheer power. Then comes his name, I AM, which is followed by his true character, which is that of a Father who loves.

It is God’s purpose to give himself to everyone, and – being a Father – when he gives himself to you he gives you Fatherhood. First he gives you Power, then the awareness of being that power as you test yourself.

Now I ask you to examine yourself. When confronted with a problem, do you turn to someone on the outside for its solution, or do you believe that all power resides in your human imagination? Do you believe in the hydrogen bomb, meeting the right people, or living on the “right” side of the street? Or do you believe in your own wonderful human imagination? I have found he of whom Moses and the law wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, to be my human imagination and I turn only to him for the solution of my problems. I do it by asking myself what I would see if my problem dissolved and its solution rose in its place. What would I hear? How would I act? Having discovered Jesus to be my imagination, I act as though the problem was solved, and have found from experience that I have brought things not seen by mortal eye into the world to be seen by all. I have proved it and encourage everyone to try it.

Examine yourself to make sure, really sure, that you have completely accepted Jesus Christ as your human imagination, so that when confronted by any challenge you turn to the only Jesus Christ and not to a false one. If you turn to anyone outside of yourself you have turned to a false Jesus Christ and failed the test. Turn only to God and not to anyone or anything on the outside. No one can tell your future, for your future is to fulfill Scripture, and you have no other!

I received a letter last week from a lady, who said: “In the dream I knew I was twenty years old, just married, and living in the Basque country among the shepherds. My husband was driving an old truck. I sat next to him with my sister-in-law next to me. In the rear sat my brother-in-law with my father-in-law directly behind me. Having spent the night on a mountain top, we travel over dusty, rugged mountainous roads as I become very tired and weak. My father-in-law had authority over everything, and knowing the way, he said: ‘Just one more curve and we will be home.’ As the final curve is completed I see a heavenly valley covered with green grass and a sparkling, crystal-clear river flowing through it. In the distance I see a beautiful home with barns and flocks of white sheep.

Two shepherds are there with their crooks, their dogs, and a flock of geese. Then I turn around, and as I face my father-in-law I see he has suddenly grown tall and young. As I look at him I remember having seen that face somewhere in the dim, dim eternity. Then the face became brilliant and as I dissolved into the brilliance, I awoke.”

In this letter my friend played the part of Tamar, as told us in the 38th chapter of the Book of Genesis. Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, is listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ: “Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah and his brothers.” In the story, Judah left his brothers, married outside, and had three sons. Choosing Tamar for his first son, Er, who displeased Jehovah and was killed, Judah told his second son to marry her and raise offspring for his brother.

Knowing that every offspring would not be his, but his brother’s, Onan spilled his seed so that Tamar would not have a child. Displeasing Jehovah because of this act, Jehovah killed him, for the command was to be fruitful and multiply and increase the world. The third son was not given as he was too young.

Then came the day when Judah went down to observe the shearing of the sheep, as he was rich and had enormous flocks. Tamar, upon hearing of his visit, took off her widow’s clothes and sat in a public place, veiled as a harlot of the temple. When Judah proposed, she asked: “What will you give me?” and he replied: “A kid from my flock.”

Asking for a pledge that the kid would be sent, he gave her his ring, his bracelet, and his staff, and knew her intimately. Three months later it was brought to Judah’s attention that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, was pregnant. When Judah heard the news, he said: “Let the law be fulfilled. She shall be burned to death.” When they came to execute the law she took the ring, the bracelet, and the staff and sent them to Judah with the message: “The man who gave me these is the father of the child.” Upon seeing them, Judah said: “The sin is mine, not hers,”

Now don’t think of Tamar as having union in a physical sense, but union with a state, for every time we enter a state there is union. In my friend’s vision, everyone present was an in-law, telling her that she has entered the mainstream.

She has had union with memory, and no power on earth can stop her from bringing scripture to its fulfillment, for her father-in-law is the one spoken of in the 49th chapter of Genesis as “the lion’s whelp, and from his hand the scepter will never pass.” She has entered the state which leads her up to the climax as Jesus Christ, who is God the Father!

The day will come when you will reach the Fatherhood degree and David will stand before you and call you Father. Then you will know a power that is greater than the human mind can fathom. You will know real power. It hasn’t a thing to do with the ability to destroy a nation.

Tonight we could release X number of bombs and destroy every city in Russia and they could do the same thing to us – so what? May I tell you: the millions who would die on both sides would not be dead, but still trying to find the Father! Everyone is really searching for the Father of all life, and that Father is Jesus Christ.

Although men have created pictures of him, Jesus is not on the outside. We are told: “It does not yet appear what he shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” God’s son cannot appear and not be just like the person to whom he appears. You will never see him as someone coming from without, but coming from within you. He will call you father in the Spirit and then you will know who you really are!

In the meanwhile you can exercise your power on this level if you will accept this challenge. Examine yourselves and make sure you are faithful to your imaginal act! Let no one else examine you, but test yourself! Have you completely accepted the fact that Jesus Christ is in you? If you can answer, “not quite” then you have failed the test.

If, like one billion Christians, you believe in some other Jesus Christ, you have a false Christ. And you will never find him by going to church or giving to the poor, for he is not on the outside, but in your own wonderful human imagination!

Let no one prophesy for you! The only prophecy you are destined to fulfill is scripture. When someone tries to tell me what some astrologer or medium said I get so annoyed I want to shout: “Have you ever heard me?” Believe in all that nonsense, and you worship false Christs! If you want to be famous in this world of men, use this principle and you will shine for your little moment, but I ask you: are you in the mainstream of fulfilling scripture? Do you really believe in the only Jesus Christ, who is your human imagination? I say: there never was another Christ and there never will be another Christ.

Now, some will say that is blasphemy, just as they did long ago. In the 14th chapter of the Book of Mark, the question is asked: “Are you the Christ?” And Jesus said: “I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power.” Then the high priest said: “Do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy.” And in the Book of John, when accused of blasphemy “because you, being man, make yourself God” Jesus said: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I say, you are gods’? If scripture says you are gods, and scripture cannot be broken, is it blasphemy for me to say I am the Son of God, and the Son and the Father are one?” If you are creative power, you must be one with the creator, who is a person as you are, as I am.

So I say to everyone: accept Christ as your own wonderful human imagination and don’t falter, for scripture must be fulfilled in you. It is not done physically! I have experienced a physical birth, for I was born in Barbados and just as you, I know the limitations of the flesh. I came into this world with nothing and do not have much today.

But because I didn’t have much, I had to stand upon my own two feet and believe in myself. Asking no one to help me and not stealing from another, if I had nothing I went without it. I have seen those who had more than they needed, but I didn’t take it from them,

I simply pulled in my belt. I have walked fifty blocks to find a friend who had a dime to buy some soup beans. When he could not be found I would return and perhaps the next day earn a quarter to buy the beans, but it never occurred to me that because others had food and I didn’t that they should give it to me.

I was determined to believe in myself and because of that I got into the mainstream of life and scripture began to unfold in me. No one owes me a living; all I have to do is trust Jesus Christ, trust my human imagination!

I have no desire to pile up a lot of money. Why pile up a million shadows? My desire is to tell you who Jesus Christ really is. He is your own wonderful human imagination. There never was another Christ and there never will be another.

If you will trust him – and I use “him” advisedly because God’s creative power and God is a person (and you are that person) – you will never fail, for he will never fail you! Tonight if you know what you want, just believe that you have it. Sleep as though it were true, and because Christ is in everyone, he will use as many as necessary to aid the birth of your assumption.

In the end of the Bible, the 22nd chapter of Revelation, Jesus Christ is speaking, saying: “”I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.” And in the 2nd chapter of the same book it is said: “To he who conquers” (who witnesses the truth of scripture) I will give the morning star.” In other words, he gives you himself as God the Father.

He is the root of David. The root of a tree is its father. God the Father is the root of David, for David is all Spirit, not a being of flesh and blood. He is the eternal state of the Son, who calls everyone to come to the mainstream and climax as the Father. So the story ends when you have finished the race and kept the faith, for you are given the morning star and know yourself to be the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star!

Tonight test yourself|! I will not test you. I am not here to test anyone. I only urge you to examine yourself to see if you are really keeping the faith, or are you going to call a friend and tell him how horrible things are and appeal to him on the outside? I ask you: are you really keeping the faith? Do you always turn to your imagination and, no matter what happens, do you remain faithful to the state imagined? If you do, you have passed the test.

But if every little rumor, doubt, or fear can move you around like a pawn on a chessboard, then you are not keeping the faith! It’s entirely up to you. Are you testing yourself or not? Can you say within yourself: “I always turn to my imagination when confronted with a problem and solve it there. Then I remain faithful to that imaginal act.” If you can, you have passed the test. It’s just as simple as that.

May I tell you: we remain in this world of death until we enter the mainstream and come to the climax. You can’t believe how much this world is really a world of death, whose life is in you as your human imagination. Life itself is an activity of imagining where everything is a symbol. Your closest, dearest friend, your wife, your mother, father, brothers and sisters are all symbols, all dead symbols revealing to you who you really are.

Now let us go into the silence.

 

neville goddard imagination creates reality

GOD’S DWELLING PLACE

Neville Goddard 05-08-1969

neville goddard imagination creates reality“Why stand we here trembling all around calling on God for help and not ourselves in whom God dwells?” God does not dwell in us as something other than ourselves, for God actually became as we are, that one day we may be as He is. I tell you: you are the Being who became man, the Being Blake refers to as God. You, human imagination, did not begin in your mother’s womb and will not end in the grave. As a pre-existing Being, you emptied yourself of memory for a divine purpose. Tonight I will try to touch on that purpose.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he speaks of God in action as “Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it something to grasp, but emptied himself, took upon himself the form of a slave and was born in the likeness of men. Being found in human form he humbled himself and took upon himself the cross of death.” Your body of flesh is your cross of death which you took upon yourself when you who existed before the foundation of the world lost your memory. Now Paul continues as though he is speaking to another, saying: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name Jesus every knee should bow on earth, in heaven, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God.”

You may think Paul is speaking of another here, but I tell you: there is no other. It is you who completely emptied yourself of your glory, your power and your wisdom, for you could not pretend to be nailed to the cross called Man. You deliberately took upon yourself the humility of your garment of flesh and blood which enslaves you. You must cater to it constantly feeding it, washing it, and after eliminating what it cannot assimilate, you must clean the body again.

Christ (Imagination’s power and wisdom) is crucified and buried in man. When he rises in man he is called the Risen Christ and conferred with the divine name, Jesus as the New Age is ushered in. The word “Jesus” is the same as “Jehovah”, the savior, whose name is I AM. Jesus is not a being separate from you. He is you, but you have forgotten you are He. You had to completely forget your power, your wisdom, and your glory to become what the world sees as a little man (a little woman) born from the womb of a woman, who plays a little part an then departs. But there is an immortal play that is imminent and buried in all. That immortal being is the one Blake referred to when he said: “Why stand we here trembling around calling on God for help and not ourselves, in whom God dwells.”

Everything you can think of is present, now. You cannot conceive of something that is not already worked out in detail; but it is a shadow if you do not dwell in it. It is just a possibility, but when you enter that shadow it seems the only substance. I have seen a world in my imagination that is not like this. Prior to my entrance it as a mere possibility, an image, but when I entered that world and allowed my consciousness to follow vision, it was more real than this room is now. At the moment I am in this room and it is real. When I depart, this will become a memory image, and wherever I am at that moment will be more real than this room or any part of my world. My home was real when I left it and will be real when I enter it again, but now it is a memory image. This room has reality to me because I am in it.

I tell you: everything exists and can be just as real as this room. The job you desire exists. The home of your dreams exists. The man or woman who is perfect for you exists. You cannot conceive of a state that is not already worked out in detail, waiting for someone to occupy. As a desire it is only a dream, a mere image, but when the state is entered, it is the only reality.

In order to come into this world you had to completely empty yourself of your creative power, your wisdom, and glory. The day will come when, having gone through the gamut, God in you (who is your very self) will rise in you. Then your memory will return and the divine name Jesus will be conferred upon you. And when this name is heard (in you) every knee shall bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, because you will know you are God. You have always been God, but in order to take on your garment of limitation you had to become limited. You could not pretend you were man; you had to take upon yourself this cross called man, with all of its weaknesses and limitations.

Does the Bible in any way suggest this? Yes. In the Book of John we are told: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwells within us.” If you were with God and were God you pre-existed. “Before Abraham, was I AM.” Does that not imply pre-existence? “Tell me, Master, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? I tell you, neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” Isn’t that pre-existence? Either the man sinned in his mother’s womb, and this is the result, or he pre-existed. Blindness is state which must be experienced. No one will avoid any experience, but must (and will) play every part known to man.

Now in the 17th [chapter] of John, the Risen Christ asks the Father (who he knows himself to be) to make everyone be where he is, “That they may see my glory which thou gavest me, and the love with which thou loved me before the foundation of the world.” You and I were loved (for we are part of the body of love which existed before the foundation of the world) before we came down to expand our power, our wisdom, and our glory. To do this, we had to reach the limit of contraction – which is man, the limit of opacity – which is doubt. We had to completely forget the being we really are and doubt that we ever existed. Here we are experiencing the limit of contraction and opacity; but the moment will come when He who is within us, sound asleep and appearing to be dead, will be awakened by a storm wind to find himself encased in a tomb. Rising, Christ (God’s creative power) comes out of his tomb from above and is conferred with the greatest of all names, which is Jesus. So in the end there is Jesus only.

You, collectively, are the Cosmic Christ who is buried in all. And when He rises in you, individually, memory will return and you will know you are Jesus, the Lord God Jehovah. Then who is Christ? I AM. What is God’s name? I AM. What is David’s Father’s name? I AM. The essence of all that you have experienced as man will stand before you. Personified as the crown of your journey, your Son will bear witness to your victory over death. That Son is David, of Biblical fame. You had to die to enter the world of death, but you will rise out of death to be transfigured to wear the divine body of Jesus. Everyone will be gathered into that one body called the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this world things are what they appear to be, but – as Blake said so beautifully:

Those in great eternity who contemplate Death
Said thus. What seems to Be: Is: To those to whom
It seems to Be, and is productive of the most dreadful
Consequences to those to whom it seems to Be: even of
Torments, Despair and Eternal Death: But Divine Mercy
Steps beyond and Redeems Man in the Body of Jesus.

When it seems that everything is lost, you begin to awake within yourself. You will not see another, for the drama takes place in a first person, singular, present tense experience. You are the Christ written of in scripture. You are your own hope of glory. Jesus Christ is in you as your human imagination, so why call upon another for help? Why not call upon yourself in whom imagination dwells? I tell you: there never was another Jesus Christ other than he who dwells in you as your human awareness.

A short time ago a friend told me she would love to visit Norway, but felt she could not afford it. I suggested that she dwell in Norway by seeing the world from Norway. She was not going to look at Norway from Los Angeles, or ask how she was going to get there, but to simply sleep as though her bed was in Norway and it was the only substance. I received a card from her today, from Norway, where she confessed that she dwelled in the state as though she was there and she received a call from a casting office requesting her to make a picture in Norway!

You can move into any state, for all states are already completed. All you need to do is step into the state, for it to be transformed from a shadow to the only substance. Think of your desire and it’s a shadow lacking form. Enter it and it is the only reality.

I tell you: the being who is aware of being you, now, was in the beginning with God and was God. You are God’s power, wisdom, and glory suffering from amnesia, for you could not pretend to enter this graveyard called earth. The unnumbered bodies observed here are graves which your immortal presence animates. Your flesh-and-blood garment could not breathe without you, for you are its breath. Believing yourself to be the fleshly body you animate, you do not recognize your brothers when you see others. Rather, you war against the seeming others as though they were your enemy; yet you are told in the 2nd [chapter] of Philippians: “Let each of you think not only of his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, the mind which you have with Christ Jesus. It’s the same mind. Paul couldn’t have said it better. Your interest should be to the interest of all, because basically all are one. When these garments are finally taken off and we reenter the one body that fell, we will be that glorious being who is the Lord and Father of the entire journey.

I received a letter this week from a man who shared a series of dreams which occurred one night. The final one is the clue to the dreams. In it he saw a huge, horrible monkey which clung to his back. It felt unclean and strange, and when it began to make love to him he tore it off his back, and as he did, he awoke. This was a perfect vision. He saw the symbol of the misuse of his creative imagining.

Everyone has such a dweller on his threshold of thoughts which is fed by imagining something unlovely. And everyone also has the complementary side as a glorious, angelic being whose beauty is beyond measure. She is the personification of every lovely imaginal act the individual has ever committed. One day they will be together.

When the vision came to me, my hairy monstrous ape called my angelic being “mother”. I became so annoyed. I began to beat it, until I realized that it grew on my violence. It became stronger with every blow as it loved every violent act of mine, even when it was on itself. Then I made myself a pledge, that if it took eternity I would redeem this monstrous being which had a right to live. The moment I made the pledge it dissolved, leaving not a trace behind. Then the energy I had wasted returned to me. Power cannot be wasted. It returns to the one who used (or misused) it, and as I felt the power return I watched my angelic being glow like the sun, and I awoke.

Everyone will one day confront these two personifications of thought: noble and ignoble. One grows on violence and the other grows on love. Remember: God in you creates and sustains your world by the use (or misuse) of your human imagination. There never was another God and there never will be, for Imagination is the only God.

So while you are still unmindful of the God who gave you birth, you can hear the voice of the one who has risen from the grave and test me, as this lady did fulfilling her desire to visit Norway. I urge you not to discount this principle, but test it; for as Paul tells you in the 13th chapter of 2 Corinthians, Jesus Christ is in you. Paul knew what he wanted and entered the state which finally took on substance and became real to him. I have done the same. I have gone into world after world after world, and when I enter they are the only reality, while my apartment where my physical body sleeps was only a shadow. But when I returned, my apartment wrapped itself around me once more and took on the tones of reality, as the other world became the shadow.

At the moment this room is far more real to me than any place I have ever visited. Where I am, although only an image, takes on substance as I enter it. This I can do physically or in my imagination, and the body that I wear there is real. Where did it come from, if not from my imagination? I sleep in the nude, so where do the clothes come from? When the power begins to awaken it clothes itself, for it is protean. Your identity will remain unchallenged, yet in the end we will all bear the divine name which is above every name. That name is Jesus.

No one can see Jesus here, but everyone will know him because we will all be him. In the meanwhile, Christ – the power, the wisdom, and the glory of God – is buried in us and will be raised in us. You are a pre-existent being. You did not begin in your mother’s womb and you cannot die in the grave. You were before the foundation of the world, for you are the being of whom Paul speaks when he wrote to the Philippians. His letter is addressed to posterity, for he was writing from experience.

I have had all of the experiences that are now recorded in scripture concerning the Lord Jesus Christ – and I mean all of them; yet I am in a weak garment and will remain there until the day I take it off to return to my former state, glorified beyond what I was before I began the journey into death and decay. So now I say: “Return unto me the glory that was mine. The glory that I had with thee before that the world was, for I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do.” God proclaimed the work through his servants, the prophets, and only God can fulfill it; so He emptied himself of his wisdom, power and glory and assumed the opacity and concreteness of death.

Finishing the work by completing the journey, God is victorious over death, and his power, wisdom and glory are multiplied, for God has expanded and is greater than He was prior to his entrance into death.

Let no one scare you, for you are a pre-existent being. You were before the foundation of the world. Let the scientists put any number of zeros next to a number to denote the earth’s existence and I will tell you: before that number you, imagination, existed. So now I ask the Father to return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had before the world was. I ask, that all may know who I am and see my glory that was given me. That glory I now radiate as the Father, for I am His reflection. And I now go beyond that and ask for the love which I knew I was before the foundation of the world.

God’s infinite love loved us all. Foreknowing us, he chose us all in his one being. Together we fell as one man and entered the world of death. Bear in mind what you are told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy: “He has set bounds to the people of the world according to the number of the sons of God.” If God is not in you, you could not breathe, for he is your breath of life. And when he no longer breathes life into the garment you wear, your friends will cry over your body, not knowing its occupant was God himself. Your child – be it a boy or a girl – is Christ who is destined to be designated son of God in power through Christ’ resurrection from the dead. While here on earth your child may be a carpenter, a musician, or professor. It matters not what part he plays here, but the moment Christ in him resurrects into that one body, he has returned to his power, his glory, and his wisdom and is designated Son of God, in power and joins the glorious brotherhood of divine love.

Love is the human form divine. When that indescribably body of love stands before you and embraces you, a mood possesses you which carries with it an ecstasy beyond all ecstasies. Everyone must return to that body of love, because all were loved before the foundation of the world, and not one will be lost because God would be lost. And in the end even the cutthroat, the murderer, and the thief are vindicated, for – like the blind man in the 9th chapter of the book of John – no one sinned. Everyone played their part in order for the works of God to be made manifest in all.

One day I saw every part I had ever played. Every costume I had worn was waiting for me to redeem it, and as I walked by everyone was made perfect, because I was perfect. Then the chorus sang out the last cry on the cross: It is finished. Now I remain here to tell my story to everyone who will listen. Eventually all will hear it. I will depart and others will pick up the story just where I left off. They will have similar experiences, tell their story and depart and other will continue from there. Don’t expect one hundred per cent acceptance. There are those who will believe because you use scripture to support your argument, and those who will disbelieve – but it doesn’t really matter. Leave them just as they are and go about your Father’s business, telling exactly what has happened to you.

When I tell you what has happened to me I can speak more convincingly than if I were theorizing, for the truth that you know from personal experience is known more thoroughly than you can know that same truth in any other way. I can tell you what I have experienced. Trusting me, you will believe my story, but you cannot tell it with authority until it happen to you. You cannot go into court and be a witness unless you have experienced the event. And there must be two witnesses: The written word in scripture and its parallel, the Living Word of interpretation. He sent you, His Living Word, to interpret and verify the written word which he gave to his servants, the prophets. When you have interpreted this written word by unfolding it within you, the kingdom is yours, for you will have fulfilled the only purpose for living.

Paul tells us that the lord Jesus Christ who – though he was rich – yet for your sake he became poor that by his poverty you may become rich. In dollars and cents? No. He was rich in power, for he was the power of God. He was rich in wisdom, for he was the wisdom of God. He was poor in wisdom, poor in power, and poor in glory to enter the world of death that by his poverty you may become rich. And when you awaken, everything you lost will be found and multiplied, for you will know yourself to be the Lord Jesus Christ of whom there is no other.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GODS PLAN OF REDEMPTION

Neville Goddard 03-24-1969

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityGod’s plan of redemption for us is the most incredible, exciting, and amazing story ever told It is the story of the creator of the universe, who so loved us he became us; and how he is transforming us into himself, so that we are no longer the created, but the creator No longer the made, but the maker.

The gospel tells us how this is accomplished In the Book of John, we read: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God He was in the beginning with God All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made In him was life and the life was the light of men,” Here we see the Word was not only with God but was God and then personified

Let us continue: “He was in the world and the world was made by him, yet the world knew him not” It has been established he is the Word, for: “The Word was made flesh and dwells within us.” (The Greek word translated “among” is the preposition “in” or “within”) John completes this statement as: “He dwells within us full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-18) Suddenly now the name Jesus Christ is introduced into the narrative, and the secret is revealed, for “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” So the Word, full of grace and truth, is Jesus Christ He who was in the beginning with God and was God, now dwells in us, transforming us into himself that we may become as he is We are told: “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” If your maker is your husband, are you not his emanation, his wife, until the work that he began in you is brought to completion?

In Genesis, we are told: “Woman came out of Man; therefore, Man must leave father and mother and cleave to his wife until they become one flesh” The Man spoken of here is the Word, out of whom all things come Having come out of the Word, we are his emanation, his wife, which he must cleave to until we become one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all How can we, the made, be transformed into the maker? Through the story of the transformation.

One of our great poets said:
“There is an inmost sense in us all
Where truth abides in fullness
To know, consists of opening a way
Out of which the imprisoned splendor may escape
Which, in effect is an exit for a light that Is supposed to be without.”

If grace and truth abide in Jesus Christ in their fullness, and Jesus Christ is in you, is not truth in you in its fullness? Your splendor is imprisoned within, waiting to unfold himself in you. And when he does, you will tell it knowing not everyone will accept your story. Knowing your earthly parents as well as your educational, financial and social background, they cannot believe that God has unfolded himself in you.

But God did not just become you to the point where you are two – you and God. He left everything to become one with you. Although I am a male, what you see when you look at Neville is God’s emanation, which is made. Regardless of your sex, you are God’s emanation, yet his wife; for God is your husband, your creator, called the Word.

The same Word that was with God and was God, became you when, full of grace and truth, he clothed himself in flesh. You can test him and find out for yourself that Jesus Christ is in you. I have tested him and know from experience that this presence who created the universe, is my own wonderful human imagination.

Called Jesus in the New Testament and Jehovah in the Old, his revealed name is I am. I am is he who was with God and is God I am is an eternally abiding presence. When I am imagining, God is acting, sending Jesus; for when you imagine, you send yourself into the world to fulfill what you have imagined.

God has imagined himself as you He has taken upon himself a garment of flesh and blood for a purpose. Having sent himself, God cannot return to himself empty, but must accomplish his purpose and prosper in the thing for which he was sent God died in order to transform that which was his emanation into himself. When God awoke within me there were not two of us, only one I am.

I am he who had the experience. I am he who pushed that stone away and came out of my tomb. I am he who held the child in my arms and heard God’s son call me father. I am he who experienced the complete severance when my body was torn from top to bottom. And when the dove descended and smothered me with love, I am he who experienced it.

Jesus, your I am, is the Word that was sent to transform you into himself. He is the creator of it all, for although you seem so limited and unable to create anything here, you can see everything made perfect in your imagination. You can imagine a state, remain faithful to it and it will be made alive for you.

Now, if I am made everything and you know you imagined it before it appeared, and it appeared because you imagined it, then you have found Jesus Christ to be your own wonderful human imagination.

I am interested in sports. I do not go to the races often, but I do enjoy watching the feature race on TV every Saturday. Last week a young jockey by the name of Angel Cordova was interviewed after winning the feature race. Wearing gay colors and looking almost like a circus clown, he was asked about his riding ability, and answered: “The ability to ride has nothing to do with winning. It is all in feeling lucky.

I could ride the best horse there is, but if I do not feel lucky he won’t come in first.” This chap came to the track feeling lucky. Was he not imagining that he was lucky when – at the end of the day – he took home maybe $10,000 just for running the race? He may not know that his ability to imagine and feel “lucky” is Christ, but it is, for by him all things are made and without him is not anything made that is made.

The jockey imagined himself a lucky man. He would not have been lucky if he lost the race. Only by feeling lucky could he bring the horse in first. Anyone who has succeeded in applying this principle will have felt that same emotion, for feeling causes action, and no power can stop that action called Jesus Christ, the human imagination.

John begins his prologue in the 18th verse as: “No one has ever seen God, but his only begotten son who is in the bosom of the Father he has made known.” Our scholars claim that this Greek passage should have been translated thus: “No one has ever seen God. He (no name to it) who is in the bosom of the Father has made him known.” In the 1st verse of this first chapter of John it is established that the Word is Jesus Christ, who is one with God the Father.

So we know that Jesus Christ is not the one in the bosom of the Father; so who is this only begotten? I have searched the scriptures and found him in the form of David. In fact, he can be found all through the Psalms, as that only one who can reveal you to yourself as God the Father.

I can tell you this from now until the end of time, but you will not believe me with certainty until David stands before you and reveals you to yourself. Although, after this experience you will remain limited in your garment of flesh, you will know who you are. And you will continue to wear your garment of limitation until your ministry is over.

Scholars have tried to estimate that ministry, claiming it to be from a few months to twelve years. No one seems to go beyond 12 years, from the moment of resurrection to the end of the ministry. They are not referring to the physical birth from a woman’s womb, but to the second birth out of the skull of Man.

Now let us return to the beginning, which is the Word – the meaning behind the plan. That meaning was with God, and actually was God. By him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made. He was in the world. The world was made by him, yet the world knew him not.

How many people today can pinpoint their success or failure to their imagination? The average man will say: John Brown did it, or the storm, or the president. Only a few will confess that their success or failure was created in their imagination. But I tell you: Christ in you creates your life, for you are all imagination and your imagination can be used for good or for evil.

When you think of God as a man of imagination, you are recognizing the power behind the mask God wears. Rather than giving credit to the mask, praise the wearer, who is Christ. It is Christ who erupts from within us. It is Christ who comes out of the skull of the mask he wears. Christ is the one who bears the name I am, which is what the words Jesus, Joshua, and Jehovah really mean.

When union is complete there is no one else, just you, and you are all alone. Having cleaved to you – his wife – until you become one flesh, you are that one and only body; and in becoming one body there is only one Spirit, for God’s name and your name are now the same I am. When you think of another you say “we are”, but there is no other when you say “I am.”

You are all alone when you awake and you are aware, therefore you are silently saying I am. You are aware of pushing the stone away and coming out of that tomb, and your awareness is I am. Truth is within us It takes no rise from outer things what`ere you may believe. To try to effect some entry from without cannot be, for truth comes from within.

The world is blessed, but they do not know it and think they must earn salvation; however, it cannot be earned. Salvation is grace, which is God’s gift of himself to every child born of woman. God died in the most literal sense of the word by forgetting that he was the one who created the universe. He had to do it in order to become you, the created.

His love for you was so great he left all to cleave to, and become one with, you. And when his work is complete, God, now individualized, will awaken. I know, for I awoke to find myself completely entombed where the Word – called the seed of God – fell. A seed must fall into the earth and die in order to be made alive, for unless it does it remains alone; but if it does, it bears much fruit God’s fruit is to individually awaken as God Himself.

The first 18 verses of the first chapter of John is the prologue. If you will start with the first four verses, then skip a few verses which speak of John the Baptist, to the 10th verse, you will be able to weave the story together. The 10th verse begins: “He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not”

Do you know that imagination made the entire world? Do you know that a change in imagination will change the entire world? Do you realize that if you would begin to imagine something entirely different concerning your life instead of accepting that the so-called wise people say it must be, your world would rearrange itself to reflect the change? You, all imagination are in the world which you made; yet the world does not know that imagination made it.

Now, the next couple of verses tell of the kind of birth which will be yours: “Born, not of blood or of the will of man, or of the will of the flesh but of God.” Here we see an entirely different birth, which will take place in the one who finds Imagination, believes in him, holds onto and trusts him implicitly.

To prove that imagination causes change, you must first change your imaginal structure; and when your world outpictures your thoughts, you have found him. Then you will realize the truth of that 14th verse, for you will have found the one called the Word. Having become flesh, the Word is dwelling in you full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ is not some historical being on the outside.

He became flesh and dwells in us. Ten years ago this coming July, he who so loved me – his creation – took upon himself all of my afflictions, awoke in me, and when he did he wasn’t another. Imagination is the light which is the life of every man.

In the 18th verse, the name “Father” is used for the first time: “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” It doesn’t say who that begotten one is; but if you will wait, he will appear. And when you find David, you will know he is your son; and he – knowing you as his father – reveals you as God the Father.

Then you will perform your ministry for the allotted time, whether it be a few months or years, before you take off your garment of flesh. No longer a part of this world, you will find yourself in the world of God; for being one with God you are part of that one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

Isn’t that the most exciting story you could ever hear? That a man who, although finding it difficult to pay rent, buy food, and clothe his family, discovers he created this fabulous universe. That’s the incredible story which every child born of woman is destined to fulfill.

The creator of this world and all within it, so loved you he became you, bringing with him his plan of redemption, which will erupt to reveal you as God the Father. I am convinced that not one will fail. A warning is given in many passages of scripture that one must be watchful and not turn back, but there is no mention of an ultimate failure.

Our priests accept this story as something that happened to another. They see Jesus as a savior on the outside: but he is the eternal Word of God, full of grace and truth, who took upon himself our garments of flesh and blood. Even though he dwells in us, he is abiding forever and will continue to do so, even though we turn back, for “My Word shall not return unto me empty.

It must accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” With the Word being in you as God Himself, although you are free to turn aside, you will be brought toward your predetermined purpose, which is to make you himself, so no one can fail. I cannot conceive of anything greater than this. No mystery story or play could even begin to compare to this concept.

Here is a love so great that he died to give that love to his beloved, thereby giving it life; yet it does not even know that he exists. He is in the world, the world was made by him, yet the world knows him not. Man, walking the streets, is imagining the world around him; yet he is unable to recognize his own harvest.

Let me tell you of two ladies who came to my meetings, one here on the West Coast and the other in New York City. Both ladies were financially embarrassed. They had no money and no one to turn to. All I asked them to do was assume the feeling of financial security. One lady immediately began to search for the feeling of security.

Every day she imagined having all the money she needed to take care of her desires. Then one day she visited a friend, where she met a man she had known intimately 30-odd years ago. When he learned she was penniless, he set up a trust fund for her, providing her with more than she needed to live graciously.

When the other lady heard the story she, too, began to assume she had plenty. She told me that in the matter of one week, money began coming in. What did they do? They used their human imagination.

I tell you: all things are created by Jesus Christ. Without him there is not a thing made that is made, be it good, bad, or indifferent. It is Jesus Christ who kills, makes alive, wounds, and heals. If he could not kill or wound, he is not a creator.

If Jesus, the I am, is absolute as a creator, then he has to create everything. We are told in the 32nd [chapter] of Deuteronomy, “I kill, I make alive, I wound, I heal and none can deliver out of my hands” Who else could kill but the creator? Who else could heal or wound? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ – not as you were trained to believe, but as your very self. Pray to some statute or picture on the wall, and you are praying to that which is dead.

Nothing on the outside is alive, for life is within. The Word became flesh and dwells in you. If this is true, then you should find out where he is and how to reach him. Is he your human imagination? Test him and see.

When I was told I could not get out of the island of Barbados I said to myself: all things are possible to Christ who became me and dwells in me, so right now I believe I have the passage.

Feeling the ticket in my hand, I walked up the gangplank and onto the ship, Within a few hours the company called, and I sailed just as I imagined I would, If Jesus Christ makes all things, then he made that passage available to me, I tested him, and now I know exactly who he is, He is my own wonderful human imagination.

Now, I tell this to everyone who will listen. I do not get acceptance from many, because they still want to believe in and pray to a little Jesus on the outside. In my vaudeville days my dancing partner had a picture she called Jesus. Wearing very thick grease paint, she would kiss that picture three or four times a day for good luck.

And when she could no longer see the face she would tear the picture up and get another one just like it. That was her little Jesus Christ. She is not alone, Hundreds of millions of people believe in an external Christ, and therefore are unable to believe my words.

I urge you to commit those 18 versus of the first chapter of John to memory for everything is woven there. They are the prologue, the preface to the plan. The play begins with the 19th verse and ends with the 20th chapter, leaving the 21st chapter as the epilogue.

Read the words carefully and you will see that Jesus Christ is the Word, full of grace and truth. That Word dwells in you. You do not have to look for truth on the outside, for grace erupts suddenly from within.

The world will never see the Word through your garment of flesh; but you will know that God kept his promise when God’s plan of redemption unfolds itself from within.

Now let us go into the silence

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD’S PROMISE TO MAN

Neville Goddard 2-08-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThis is one of the most difficult subjects I have to tell. Had I not experienced it I wouldn’t dare attempt it. God’s promise is true; he who promised it is faithful, and is being fulfilled in every being in this world and the unnumbered beings to come. The first statement of it, you find in Genesis 17.

We are told on the surface that Abraham was ninety-nine and he was promised an heir, a son. If you are familiar with the story, he had a son who was described as a “wild ass” in the 16th chapter. That one was born of a servant of the household of Abraham, born of Hagar, born of a slave; and the Lord said unto her: “You will have a son and his name will be Ishmael (“God hears”).

He shall be a wild ass of a man; his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him. Abraham wanted a son born of Sarai. He was ninety-nine and she was ninety. This is all symbolism. He was told he would have a son and his name would be Isaac (“he laughs”).

Then we are told that God fulfilled his promise, and he who was ninety-nine and she ninety brought into this world a son called Isaac. That is the first suggestion of God’s promise to man. Prior to that everything was preparatory, how to prepare man. To prepare us for this moment in time that we would become receptive enough, sensitive enough, to receive this promise.

We are told in the book of Galatians that the one promised was Jesus Christ. Listen to the words carefully: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘and to your offspring,’ which is Christ.” Here we see the one promised was Jesus Christ. Your offspring, Jesus Christ.

Now we turn to Acts 26. Here Paul is brought enchained before King Agrippa. And the king said to him: “You may plead your own case, you may defend yourself.” And he said: “Here I stand on trial for my hope in the promise God made to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, and eagerly, earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king.

Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead.” Here is our hope: if the dead is not raised, what does it matter if you build the greatest monument in the world to yourself; if you made billions and you are not raised from the dead, what does it matter; or all the accomplishments of the world, if it wears out like a garment and that is his last moment? “And here I stand on trial for my hope in the promise, made by God to our fathers.” Why am I on trial? I believe it. So, here is Paul’s plea before the king: “Why am I on trial?”

Now let me tell you my own personal story about it. I heard it, as you have heard it. I was raised in the Christian faith, as many of you were, and I heard it as my mother and father heard it, and I didn’t understand it. No priest, no rabbi, no minister tells it. They spoke of the Bible, or you go to a medium to hear and commune with someone who is supposed to be dead, and they all bring voices back. It hasn’t a thing to do with it.

It hasn’t a thing to do with any medium and extra-sensory perception – it’s something entirely different. Here I move across space in this world, and then a moment when I least expected it – in fact I didn’t expect it, I hadn’t the slightest idea what this was all about. That is why I am so encouraged, because I did not expect it; I did not look forward to it in this life, therefore I know the promise will be kept and everyone will receive it. I did not earn it. No man is good enough to earn it. The promise is unconditional.

So, here I am, a normal man with all the limitations and weaknesses of man. If I had to go back to my fifty-eight years, all the things I would judge harshly, if I sat myself in judgment. And I, who could not conceive myself worthy to receive this fantastic gift!

One night I went to sleep quite normally in the city of San Francisco, and in the wee hours of the morning a most intense vibration was taking place in my head and I begin to awake. Instead of awakening on the bed in my hotel room, I am awakening in my skull to find my skull not a room – my skull is a sepulcher, a tomb, and I am fully awake in my skull – alone.

For the first time in eternity I really was awake. There was one moment of panic, and after that moment of panic I began to feel around, and I felt the base of my skull and I pushed and something gave, and out I came, head first, just like a child being born, and down I came, inch by inch by inch. I pulled myself out of my skull and there I lay on the floor for a few seconds.

Then I arose, and looked back at the bed and there was my body on the bed. It was ghastly pale, tossing my head from side to side. Then I heard this wind – a fantastic wind, as described in the book of Acts – and here came a sudden wind from heaven.

I looked over to the corner of the room because it came from that direction, and then I looked back to the bed where the body was and the body was gone; they removed the body, a body that was so real only a few seconds before. But here sat three witnesses, three men; they didn’t see me and I am more real than I have ever been in eternity.

I suddenly became aware of the reality of my own invisibility. I am more real than anything in eternity, and yet no one sees me. I can see them, I not only see them, I can discern their thoughts. Their thoughts are to me [as] objective as you are. They are all curious about the wind, but one is the most curious and he got off the bed and started toward the same direction that I thought the wind originated. As he started over he looked at the floor and he said: “Why it’s Neville’s baby!” And they together asked in the most incredulous manner: “How could Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point; he lifts an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and places that infant on the bed.

Then I took that infant in my hands, looked into its smiling face – it does that – and I asked it: “How is my sweetheart?” And this heavenly smile broke upon its face – and then the whole thing dissolved, and I am on my bed in the hotel in San Francisco. That is the beginning of the unfolding of God’s promise: “I will give you a son.”

Now the son is not some little son that I have, say who is now thirty-eight years old. Let us now go back to the interpretation of that son as we find it in the book of Luke, for Luke interprets this picture for us. Tradition has it that there were three men in the field, and he said to them: “This night God is born, a savior is born who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you; you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:11) They say: “in a manger” – I tell you from experience: lying on the floor. The babe is not the thing that happened, the babe is a sign: “This shall be a sign unto you.”

An event took place this day in eternity: the fulfillment of God’s promise to man. “And this shall be a sign unto you, you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.” And they went and found as they were told, the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes.

You who know certain protocol concerning the navy or our government, who will be concerned about our President who we know as Washington, and we want to know whether he is in the White House or not. If you understood this protocol you will look to see a displaying sign, and if the presidential flag is flying you will say to your friends: “He is in residence.” If it is not flying he is not in residence. It doesn’t mean the flag is the president, it only signifies his presence.

This is a sign unto you: “You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.” It signifies the event that took place this day in eternity; it is not the event. The event is invisible to mortal eye, for no one saw me. I saw them and read their thought but they could not see me.

They only found the sign. They came to find the sign, as they were told in the spiritual world: “You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying on the floor.” And they came and they found it exactly as they were told; but they couldn’t find the event, for the event was invisible to eyes on this level.

So here is God’s promise to man that he will bring forth, out of man, himself. He is buried in man. And here is a sign he has succeeded in bringing himself out, individualized as you. It’s a little sign, the sign is that of “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.”

Let us go back to the Book of Samuel. We are told that something happened in man. It is the second event of God’s promise. First, we will take Ecclesiastes 3:11, the most disputed verse in that book and possibly in the Bible: “God has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he shall not find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” The word translated “eternity” in the Revised Standard Version is “Olam.” In the King James Version that world is translated “world.” “He put the world into man’s mind.”

Follow me closely. Now go back to the Book of Samuel. A king – his name is Saul – turns to his lieutenant, Abner, and he sees a very handsome youth standing before him whose name is David, but he doesn’t know who he is. He said to Abner: “Abner, whose son is that youth?” and Abner replied: “As your soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell.” He said: “Inquire whose son that stripling is.” No one knows. Then David comes in from his conquering mood and he brings the Philistine’s head in his hand, Goliath. And the king turns to the youth now, he said: “Tell me, whose son are you, young man?” And he replied: “I am the son of thy servant Jesse.” (We’ll come to that in a moment, but we’ll go back.) “Abner, whose son is that young man?”

The word “young man” is “Olam” (translated “eternity”). “Inquire whose son that stripling is.” The word “stripling” is “Olam.” He turns to the boy himself: “Tell me, whose son are you, young man?” The word “young man” is “Olam.” What did God put in the mind of man? The Bible tells us, but because we can’t understand it, that God put eternity into man’s mind, but the word translated “eternity” means “young man, stripling, youth.” So, what did he put in man? I will tell you from experience what he put into man’s mind: he put David.

He put David into the mind of man. It’s the second act of the fulfillment of God’s promise; because he promised in the previous chapter (1 Samuel 17) to set the father of this youth free in eternity.

He took eternal youth (symbolized as David) and put it into the mind of man, and promised that anyone who conquered the enemy of Israel (the Philistine) that his father – not he, but the father – would be free. So he is looking for the father.

Listen to the words: “Whose son are you?” I’m not asking you about the boy. “Whose son are you?” If I ask you “Whose son are you?” I am curious about your father, not concerned about you. For the promise is: the father must be set free. So, here is the great mystery.

Now, a few months later, a similar vibration from that which preceded my own birth from above took place. This time there was an explosion, an expansion beyond the wildest dream, and when the dust settled, as it were, I am looking into the face of David. There is no doubt in my mind I am seeing David and there is no doubt in our relationship.

He is my son and he doesn’t have any doubt in his mind that I am his father, and he calls me “Father” (fulfilling scripture, the 89th Psalm): “Thou are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.” So David has been hidden in the mind of every being in the world. At a moment in eternity when man is ripe for it, there is an explosion, and he sees David and David is his son.

No one knows who the father is except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Now what is the significance of this? It is God’s purpose to give us his son. There is no way in the world that he can give us his love- if God is a father – unless God be a father, unless he gives us fatherhood. I can’t be a father unless there is a child and his only begotten son is David. Psalm 2: “You are my son, this day I have begotten you.”

He looks upon David and calls David his only begotten son. He takes his only begotten son, translated in the Bible as “Olam”, buries it in the mind of man, and then gives to man himself – giving to man his son. If I am the father of God’s only begotten son, I and God are one.

In the world where I still must wear a garment of flesh, that full inheritance is denied me. It has not yet become actual, or at least not fully realized, so long as I wear this garment of flesh; but my visions reveal the fulfillment of his promise in me, complete inheritance of the world when the garment – which is the veil hiding me from my inheritance – is taken off. So here: “Whose son are you young man?” “I am the son of thy servant Jesse.”

The word “Jesse” is the root of the word “I AM.” It is any form of the verb “to be.” It is the root of the word JOD HE VAU HE [pron. yod hey vav hey] which we translate, “Jehovah.” He is telling you that his father is Jehovah, the only God. All scholars are agreed that the genealogy given to David in the Book of Ruth and Chronicles has been added. They try to give sense to the scripture, but the most [comprehensive of all the] works on scripture in existence is the Encyclopedia Biblica.

The Encyclopedia Biblica claims that in the earliest of all known manuscripts, there is no father beyond Jesse. David has the father, Jesse, and Jesse has no father. There is no genealogy of Jesse in the earliest known manuscripts in the Hebrew tongue, but men trying to give sense to this have added a genealogy. They go back from Jesse all the way to Adam, which we now have in our Book of Luke and Matthew, but the earliest known manuscripts start with Jesse.

He has – like Melchizedek – no background, because God has no father. So the father of David is Jesse, which means “I AM,” and “I AM” has nothing behind it. It has no origin of ties in itself. So when you see David, God has completed himself and has given you himself.

There is no way he could give you himself and yet not give you his son. If he restrains his son and didn’t give you his son, he didn’t give you himself, for he is a father. If I give you fatherhood, then where is my child? And then the child comes before you and reveals your fatherhood.

Eternal youth was put into the mind of man, and then comes that moment in time when men discover who he is – and it’s all God. So the promise, I tell you from experience, is true. We are told in 2 Corinthians 1:20, speaking of Christ Jesus: “In him are all the promises of God fulfilled.

All the promises of God find their affirmation, their fulfillment, in him. Well, who is Christ Jesus? Christ Jesus is God the Father. How do I arrive at that point? Scripture, plus experience. In John 14:8, the disciple Philip said to him: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him: “Have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father, how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?'” But no one asked him: “Where is your son?” Read the story.

No one dared ask him anything. A child bears witness of fatherhood. So no one asked him anything, so he brings up the question – not in the same chapter, because the Bible is a mystery, you have to dig and search. So when no one would ask him a question, he turned to them and said: “What think ye of the Christ, whose son is he?” And they, based upon tradition, began to speculate, and they asked him and made all kinds of statements. They said: “The son of David.” He said: “Then why did David in the spirit, call him ‘Lord’? If David thus calls him ‘Lord,’ how could he be David’s son?'” The word translated “Lord” is “Adoni” and every child referred to his parents as “Adoni,” (meaning “my father, my Lord”).

He tells you he fulfilled the 89th Psalm. If David thus calls him, “Father,” how could he then be David’s son? I tell you the story is all wrapped in you, unfolding in you, and in the end you are heir to the universe, because you are one with God and all of us together have the same son.

Now I am individualized and so are you, and every being in this world is destined to be Christ-like, without losing his individuality, not in eternity; and yet you and I are one because we have the same son. You are destined to be David’s son – you are destined to be David’s father. Right now you think he lived 3,000 years ago; I tell you he is buried in you.

He is raising his son, lifting up his son out of you, and when he lifts his son out of you, at the same time he resurrects you as himself. So he resurrects you and his son and gives you the relationship of father-son – you being father, and his son – his only begotten son – is your son.

Therefore, who are you, but God the Father? We are all destined to be God the Father, and yet individualized. I know I will never lose my individuality and you will never lose yours, and yet we are one. We are one because we have the same son, and the son’s name is David.

Now his power-laden work really began at the descent of the dove. Everything before that was simply preparatory. This is a true experience, the descent of the dove. All this symbolism is true; it will happen to you. I will tell you how it happened to me.
No one sees it outside of the one to whom it happens, as told us in Mark 1:10). It will come just as unexpectedly as all the others come. You go to bed quite innocently, as I did, a perfectly normal day, no excitement – and then in the wee hours of the morning this will happen.
You will suddenly see the strangest transparency – transparent beyond the wildest dreams, translucent. Then suddenly twenty or thirty feet over your head you will see a beautiful dove, a light beige like natural linen. [Lecture PROPHETIC BLUEPRINTS, p. 2, and p. 7.] The olive-skinned dark woman implied that man’s future was relative to his present large bowel – like the caterpillar, whose future is the butterfly.

Man’s future is so fantastic you can’t describe it in words. He is not the caterpillar that feeds upon the leaf; relative to it he is the winged creature, as described in the Book of Ezekiel and Isaiah; this winged seraphim, whose body is one of light; face human, yes, hands human, feet human, but the body – no. He has no need for the large bowel; he doesn’t need any food to sustain himself, for now he is a life-giving being, life within himself.

Therefore he is a being of radiant light, although he does have human features, hands, and feet. As she said that to me, I am still holding the dove; then I felt myself crystallize once more, and I am back in my bed.

All the others preceded it. It started in 1959, on the 20th day of July, in San Francisco. Then came the revelation of David in the month of December 6, 1959; then came the splitting of the temple (which is the body) on April 8, 1960. Then came that interval of a few years until the first of this year, January 1st, where the dove descended. Knowing my scripture, I knew then that his work really began. That power laden-work started at the descent of the dove, which symbolized the Holy Spirit.

What I have told you this night is true one hundred per cent. I can promise you, as you are promised in scripture – having realized it in myself – you will realize it. You do not earn it; it is a gift, it is all grace. God’s promise is unconditional; God’s law is conditional. If you want to apply God’s law toward anything in this world, it is all conditional. You can’t be in one state and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state. So, if I would be in the state of being healthy I must assume that I am. We are told: “Call upon his name.” That phrase: “Call upon his name” is not properly translated. It is: “Call with his name.”

How will I call with his name? His name is “I AM.” If I would call with his name, and his name is “I AM,” I would say: “I am healthy.” As we are told: “Let the weak man say “I am strong.” I am calling with his name. Don’t call upon his name, as you are taught in the churches. “In the name of Jesus Christ give me so and so.” It won’t work but if you will call with his name as to finances: “I am wealthy.” – His name is “I AM.”

If I stood here as a judge, and took Neville and threw him over there and sat him before me and asked him to defend himself, knowing what I know about him, I could not give him what has been given to me – which thrills me beyond measure, because I know everyone will get it. If I really felt in my heart of hearts good and clean and wholesome and all these things in the world, then I might feel sorry for the rest of the world, but I don’t feel that way.

I know what I have done, I know what I am capable of doing, and because I know these things are not me and yet I was called and given this gift, I know everyone will be given it. As you are told in scripture: “If it comes by law then it is not by grace.” It did not come by law, it came by grace. “The law was given us by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Everyone will be called in God’s own good time and given fatherhood, and fatherhood is given you through his son. No fatherhood – no son. Who is the son? The son is David; and Jesus Christ, as you have been taught to believe is the son – He is not the son; Jesus Christ is God the Father. “When you see me, Philip you see the father, how then can you say, ‘show us the father.'” People can’t quite understand that mystery, but he really is God, the Father.

Anyone who becomes the father of David is Jesus Christ, even though he does not lose his own individuality. And everyone in the world is destined to be the father of David, as Jesus Christ is the father of David.

He can’t be a father and not have a son. When he tells us: “I am the father,” then where is the son? So he brings it up: “What say ye of the Christ, whose son is he?” “The son of David.” “Then why does David call him father?” If David thus calls him father then how can he be David’s son? That’s the story.

Everyone is destined to be the father of David, and being the father of David they are Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ – himself the father. That is God’s promise to man. If we try to rationalize it on this level it will not make sense. The priesthoods of the world do not know the Bible, so they teach it differently.

He sent me to tell you. Either you haven’t heard it or maybe you have forgotten it. I have come to remind you, because in some peculiar way it does rest upon your hearing it and your acceptance of it. So man must first hear it and man must accept it, as told us in the Book of Hebrews.

There is quite a difference between receiving the promise and receiving what was promised to you. What promise? When you receive the promise, you are declared heir to the kingdom; when you receive what was promised, you obtain the inheritance – that is the difference.

When you write a will and the attorney records it – you hear I have written a will and so you are now heirs to my estate, but you are not yet in possession until my will is executed.

So I tell you in effect: God’s promise is faithful and true, and everyone who has received it must continue for a while. He can’t restrain it; he has to tell it in the hope that many who hear it will believe, for it is based upon the belief in the promise. So I tell you what is going to happen, in the hope you will believe it.

On the other hand, if you are wanting God’s law, and you want money, or things, or something else in this world – apply it. You’ll get it. “What would it profit a man if he gained the whole vast world and suffered the loss of his soul?” You know that story.

He had more grain than he could possibly put into the barn. “O foolish man, do you not know that your soul is required of thee?” (Luke 12:16-20) But man does not care. He does not believe God’s promises.

So, tonight, as small [an audience] as we are, may I ask you to believe. Every word I have told you this night, I have experienced. It happens to every being in the world. Believe it. Yet, I am as fragile a man as you are. But in spite of the weaknesses of the outer man, God’s promise has been fulfilled in me.

Now let us go into the silence.

QUESTION: If we do not experience the birth in this present embodiment, will we still experience it in the future?

ANSWER: It is difficult for man to believe it, but the most denied book in the Bible is Ecclesiastes. In the 1st chapter, we are told: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already, in ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen….” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11) Time is bent, curved; it is much larger than seventy years, and man cannot go back and really remember things seventy years ago. The scripture is much larger than that.

Each fulfills his destiny within that time wherein he was sitting. You will realize the part with modification, and then God, in one moment – his mightiest of all acts – will resurrect you. You are lifted out of the grave – for this (the body) is the grave where man is encased – and man is God. Golgotha means “skull.” The priesthoods of the world try to justify it by trying to find a little area in the Near East where they claim they have found it.

They tell the faithful around the world, and they believe it. “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” Christ will be resurrected, and you and he are one. “Jesus Christ is your Maker” and he is your husband, and he has to leave all and cleave to you.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD’S WISEST CREATURE

Neville Goddard 9-20-1968

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told that because of an act of disobedience man fell, thereby separating himself from God. But scripture tells us that God consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy upon them. So we see: the fall was a deliberate act, a plan for expansion, for greater existence, and an ultimate birth.

Scholars consider the 82nd Psalm as one of the most difficult of all the psalms to interpret, stating that although the idea may be perennial, its meaning has vanished.

Here are a couple of verses from that psalm: The Lord speaks, saying: “I say, ‘You are gods, Sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall as one man, O princes.’ ” These words are addressed to every child born of woman regardless of race or nationality. I say to you right now, you are gods, Sons of the Most High, all of you!

Evidently when these words were first spoken we were not men, otherwise the forecasting of our death like men would have no meaning. As a man, you know you will die; so what is being said here?

First called a son of God, you were told of the grand experiment in the statement, you shall die like men. Here is the plot for expansion and an ultimate birth. But what were we prior to the fall? I cannot describe that body, but I will use scripture in the hope that you will use your imagination, although I urge you not to come to any definite conclusions.

The fall, in symbolism, is associated with the serpent. As God’s wisest creature, he said to generic man (in the form of woman): “Did God say you would die?” and she answered: “Yes, if I ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then he made this statement: “God knows you will not surely die, but your eyes will be opened and you will become like the gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3)

The serpent has now become man! This serpent is described by Isaiah as the seraphim [sic]. Describing his vision, Isaiah said: “I beheld the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. Above him were the seraphim.” In Hebrew, the word means glorious celestial being, fiery serpent, noble one, prince.

Our friend, Marta, departed this world on the 19th of July. Within a week after Marta’s departure, her friend who was with her when she died had this vision. She saw Marta, the same dear girl we all loved. She was in a cage, heart-shaped but inverted so that the base was wider than the top, with a line of division between the two sections. Marta was on one side, with an enormous serpent on the other, with rings of color from its tail to its head. Questioning her, Marta said: “How much longer will it be until we will become one?” Picking up a book, the lady read aloud: “After six thousand years, man and the serpent become one. You can tell the age of the serpent by the number of rings.” Approaching Marta, preparing to count the serpent’s rings, she said: “If Neville says it is so, it is so” and awoke.

Now, God speaks to man through the language of dream and makes himself known in vision. Here is a vision. My friend has come to the end of the road. She has completely finished the drama and the two are now becoming one. Think about it. What would you get if you blended man and the serpent? A glorious, fiery being which Isaiah described as having six wings – two covering the face, two the feet and two used for propulsion.

You cannot describe the heavenly being you really are; yet you are gods, sons of the Most High, O princes. One being, containing all within himself, fell into division and resurrects into unity, into a holy temple of the Lord in whom you also are built in.

The act of resurrection is God’s mightiest act, for he must awaken his sons, who deliberately fell into this world of decay and death. Dwell upon your true being, for although you have forgotten it, you are a son of God. You had to forget this truth in order to assume the limitations of this cross called man.

But before this assumption, our one grand hope was for expansion and ultimate birth. Having fallen into division, we will return to a unity far greater than we knew prior to the descent.

Without defining exactly what you look like, suppose you are now the being spoken of as the son of God. You certainly are not a man, because you must fall into man and die like men. Knowing that no man takes your life, you lay it down yourself. You have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again.

You agreed to take upon yourself this garment of anatomy called man, which is filled to overflowing with passion. Now, believing yourself to be human, you have emptied yourself of your power and wisdom. You cannot restrain the impulse to act, even though you were told that if you entertained one concupiscent thought you would die. Can you now see that the drama is psychological and not physical?

The moment you contemplate an act, it has been committed. Whether it is pleasant and you may be inclined to do it physically, or you restrain the impulse to act upon that which you are contemplating, the act is already done!

“You have heard it said of old: ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that any man who looks upon a woman lustfully has already committed the act with her in his heart.” Here you see the whole drama put into a psychological frame. It is not good enough to restrain the impulse. You can’t even have it! God consigned you to disobedience by giving you a garment of passion and then telling you that if you entertained one concupiscent thought, you would die.

There is not a thing you -as man – have ever done that God has seen something to be blamed in the act. And in the end, God in his infinite mercy will step beyond and arouse you. Having tasted what it is to be man in a world of death, you – a son of the Most High – will add what you have extracted from being man, to God’s glory.

Before you fell into this world of men, you were infinitely greater than any man who ever walked the face of this earth. You have no ancestor comparable to the being you really are. Although you emptied yourself of your divine power and wisdom, it is still awaiting your return. And you will return expanded beyond the wildest dreams of what you were prior to the fall.

One Man, containing all men, fell into division, and all men are gathered one by one and redeemed into the unity of the one Man who fell. “This structure is slowly built as a holy temple of the Lord in whom you also are built in.”

Let no one tell you that you did anything wrong to cause your descent. It was because God challenged himself to literally die and overcome death. This you will know to be true when you begin to stir within yourself. Then your brain will become alive, and you will awaken in the tomb of your skull, from which you will come out.

Now we are told: “He is designated son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead.” If you read scripture carefully, you will discover that the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes is not a birth, but a sign of the birth. And when it is said that Jesus was twelve years old, I ask you: twelve from what? Not from a little garment of flesh, but Jesus Christ is a wholly supernatural being. He is the son who fell when he wasn’t man to begin with. Jesus is the someone buried in you that is you!

One day he will awaken and you will see others, but they will not see you, as you will be invisible to them. But you will know yourself to be sheer power and sheer wisdom.

So resurrection is identified with birth, for at that moment you are designated son of God, with power by your resurrection from the dead. Man is born anew through the resurrection of the son of God, who died to give life to his little body which appears in the world. Regardless of your physical age, the moment you are called you are resurrected to experience your ultimate birth, which was the hope before the fall of the one Man who fell.

Although this may seem too spiritual, I am telling you of your true background. You do not have any ancestor who is a son of God – you are! You have deliberately forgotten it for a little while, but no one here can come close to the nobility of the being you really are. You are the seraphim! A glorious flaming celestial being! The noble one! Even though our association with the serpent is one of fear, the seraphim are those who are around the throne of God.

What we are dealing with here is creativity. Having eaten of the tree of good and evil, man judges, but God sees neither right nor wrong. Allowing man to do what he wills, God knows that man will be redeemed and return more glorious, more luminous, than before his descent.

Let no one tell you that because of your disobedience you are separated from God, for your separation was both a tragedy and a triumph. A tragedy because you fell into death, and a triumph because you will rise into life everlasting.

Now, every mystic sees the journey as one of six thousand years. Blake beheld the visions of his deadly sleep of six thousand years as dancing around his skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold – which he knew to be himself. How can I describe my vision other than to say that when my body was split from top to bottom, I did not see a form, only golden, liquid light, which I knew to be myself. Then I fused with it and rose, just like a serpent, into my skull.

Now, I know from experience that when you are born from above, you are designated son of God and given the power to raise the dead. “The dead will hear the voice of the son of God and rise. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself.” (John 5)

The son of man has the power of judgment on earth, but the son of God has the power to call his brothers out of their graves. No hydrogen bomb can raise the dead. It can kill them, but nothing can arouse them but this power. When it is applied to one who has been asleep for six thousand years, it will cause him to awake and rise from the grave of his own body, in which he has been sleeping all these years.

Now I would like to tell you a little story. As a man called Neville, I was born into a large and very poor family. We had no educational, social, or financial background, but my mother was very wise. If she saw anything she thought unbecoming in her children she would say: “Have you forgotten that you are a Goddard?” (That was our surname.) We were too young to know anything about backgrounds, but the mere fact that mother said it, made us realize that we must have forgotten we were Goddards or we would not have done what we did.

By the time we discovered that we had no background, the idea was so ingrained in us that we made the name important, with the result that the Goddards in Barbados today are the outstanding business people of the island. Year after year, our family-owned corporation does a gross of over $30 million and it grows and grows; yet it all started with mother saying: “Have you forgotten you are a Goddard?”

You can take any little thought like that and make the tree of money grow for you in this world. Then just imagine what you could do if you go beyond this world of Caesar.

You could imagine that the Elohim – a compound unity of one made up of the redeemed – has taken his place in the divine congregation. In the midst of the gods he pronounces judgment, saying: “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you: nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall as one man, O princes, O seraphim, O’ glorious celestial beings! You will empty yourself of your glory, your wisdom and your power and take upon yourself a garment of death and decay. Then, after a journey of horror for six thousand years, you will be restored having expanded your wisdom and your power by reason of your descent into decay and death.”

So let no one tell you that you did anything which was wrong to be expelled and separated from the Father. Yours was a deliberate act for your expansion and ultimate birth.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOD’S WORD

Neville Goddard 11-13-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are here in this world for one purpose and that is to fulfill God’s Word, which is scripture. Oh, you can accomplish miracles while you are here, but God sent you – his Word – into the world, saying: “My Word shall not return unto me void.

It must accomplish that which I purposed and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” You are that Word, and you are destined to fulfill scripture.

This past week a lady wrote me, saying: “Recently I have been having difficulty remembering my dreams, but this one was the most difficult I have ever encountered. I knew I had to surface to tell it to you, but it seemed like an endless depth of utter darkness from which I came. Holding onto the memory image of what I had experienced, I felt as though I were a diver who had plunged too deep and would never make the surface, but I did and this is my experience.

“I stood before Jerusalem’s gates. They were enormous wooden gates with high, high walls. I was so thrilled to be there, but my thrill quickly vanished when I realized that the gates were closed. Then I found myself on a high hill, clothed in a body of light, which radiated from me in all directions. In the distance I could see the whole of earth with its curvature, and felt as though I stood in some space ship and shed my light on all. I knew that if I so desired I could rearrange everything I saw, yet I also knew that everything was ordered and as it should be. Then I began this terrific struggle to return to my earthly body, for I wanted to share what I had experienced.”

In a book called, Looking at Modern Painting, there is a chapter on Max Beck, a modern symbolic artist. In it he said: “I awoke and yet continued dreaming, for I was William Blake, that noble emanation of English genius. Looking like some super-terrestrial patriarch, he waved friendly greetings and said to me, ‘Do not be intimidated by the horrors of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Seek this path and you will receive from your own aid, a deeper perception of the eternal beauty of creation. And you will know an ever increasing release from that which now seems so sad and terrible.'” Just like William Blake, this lady knew that everything is ordered and perfect and as it should be for man to experience.

Now let me share an experience of mine. When I was in my twenties I found myself in the presence of the most beautiful woman I could ever perceive, and a horrible, hairy monster which resembled an ape or a gorilla. The monster looked at the heavenly being and speaking in a guttural voice, he called her “mother”. Well, I lost my temper, and as I pummeled it the monster began to grow. Thriving on violence, I realized that this was my emanation. He was the embodiment of every evil thought I had ever had and all of my violent acts, while the heavenly woman represented every noble, kind deed I had ever committed. Looking from one to the other I vowed to myself (since there was no one present with whom I could make a contract) that if it took me eternity I would redeem this monster. As I made this commitment, the monster began to melt before my eyes. And as it dissolved, all of my misspent and misused energy that went into the shaping of this monster as I traveled the path of time, returned to me. Feeling like infinite power, I watched the radiant creature begin to glow like the sun as I awoke.

Now let us take these two experiences from scripture. We are told in the 8th chapter of the Book of Mark, that when the blind man’s eye was opened, he said” “I see men as trees, walking.” And in the 4th chapter of the Book of Daniel, the king – while lying on his bed – had a vision of the tree of life, a tree which fed the world, housed the birds of the air, and sheltered the animals. Then a man appeared, saying: “Hew the tree down, cut off its branches, strip the leaves and scatter its fruit. But leave the stump of the roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron.” The pronoun is now changed to: “Let him be watered with the dew of heaven, let him make his abode with the beasts of the field. Let his mind be changed from that of a man and let the mind of a beast be given to him. Let seven times pass over him until he learns that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he wills.”

In the creation of both the wonderful being and the monstrous one, I wore the heart and the mind of the beast, as we all do while covered with this animal body of flesh. I am the tree of life that was felled to become man. This lady experienced the tree of life, as she gave life to every object she looked upon. She saw that the gates of Jerusalem were locked, and she saw correctly, for there is only one way into the city of God called Jerusalem, and that is up the water shaft. In the 5th chapter of 2 Samuel we are told that David captured the city of Zion by moving up the water shaft, which he built from the outer, inward and up at the same time. Well, the only way you can ever build from the out, in and up at the same time is to build in a spiral. The city of God is entered only up the spiral ladder of your spine into your skull.

Have you ever seen pictures of man with his skin off, exposing all of his veins, arteries, and nerves? That’s the tree of life, which is rooted in the brain and inverted. Having gone down into generation, you have taken your power there to generate sex and animate forms. The day will come when your creative power is resurrected and you enter the world of regeneration, to create without a divided image. Knowing yourself to be the creator of all life, in the resurrection you are above the organization of sex.

How many times during the history of the world have men done violence to themselves trying to bring this power about. Many of the early fathers of the Christian faith castrated themselves in the hope that they could produce it, but it happens only when you are turned around. In my own case, I felt myself being split in two from top to bottom. Then I saw that golden liquid light which had gone down into generation and knew it to be myself. Fusing with that which I beheld, I went up the water shaft in a serpentine motion and entered Jerusalem, the city of love, and no one can enter any other way. So she saw it perfectly. That was a foreshadowing of the power that is in store for her.

We are told in the Book of Revelation: “I beheld the city of God, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Well, “Your maker is your husband, the Lord of Host is his name.” You are the maker of this beautiful creature, creating her out of every noble act that you have ever committed. She is your emanation, yet your wife, till the sleep of death is past.

And you are the maker of this monstrous thing that is unseen until that moment in time when you reach the threshold and must wake the decision to redeem your misused energy or not. He is the embodiment of every unlovely, vile thing you have ever imagined. Feeding on violence, he whispers in your ear morning, noon, and night, urging you to violate everything you love. Thoughts you think are hidden, feed this monster and make him stronger and stronger. In the 8th chapter of the Book of Ezekiel we are told that they went into their chambers, saying: “No one sees me,” and they carve every abominable beast on the walls of the temple. All right, “I am the temple of the Living God.” I carve all these thoughts on the inside saying, “No one sees what I am doing,” but I am seeing and hearing it as I am doing it, and there is no other God besides me.

Housed in you, God put upon himself the garment of an animal, the mind of an animal and the heart of an animal when the tree was felled. Man thinks the tree of life is going to be found on the outside, but it is not there. Blake said it so beautifully in his wonderful poem, “Sons of Experience, The Human Abstract”:

“The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree,
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.”

Fifteen or sixteen years ago, in vision, I saw these wonderful men walking like stallions. Such magistery, with antlers coming out of their heads so high they disappeared into the sky. Then I saw a man who at that time was third in the government of England. (A very controversial figure, he disliked aristocracy, wealth, or anything that he considered noble. He tried to nationalize all industry, and in the trying he nearly broke England.) This man took a tree from the outside and put it on his head, stood on the highest hill, jumped, and fell flat. Getting up again, he climbed the hill, placed the tree on his head, jumped, and fell again. He was trying to wear the tree of life on the outside, trying to change the structure of the world by spending money, and not changing self. Just like someone covered with tar offering to help you clean the house, a man with unclean hands cannot make things clean!

You cannot give another that which you do not have. As a nation we have just sent millions of dollars to nations, thinking we are going to change them, but change does not come that way. There is no power on the outside. The power that lifts you up so that you can remove mountains comes from within, and it doesn’t turn up until your spiritual body is split. Then and only then are you turned around, and the energy that went down into generation is turned up into regeneration.

Castrating yourself or signing the vow of celibacy means nothing. You can be celibate from now to the ends of time, but you will dream of sex. You will end up with a cesspool for a mind and condemn every lovely girl and boy who go to the altar in marriage, and claim their offspring is sin. Of all the nonsense in the world! If that is true, then they – the offspring of a sinful act – are the embodiment of sin are they not? I tell you: you can’t bottle this energy. Sex is natural when your energy is turned down, but one day it will be turned up, and you will know a creative power greater than anything you could ever imagine while your imagination is divided.

Believe me when I tell you: everyone must face their monster and their heavenly being, for no one is devoid of lovely thoughts. The love you felt for your mother when you were a child, or when you gave from the heart – these are the acts that go into making your lovely ideal. When a friend of mine died, Kathleen Norris wrote her husband, saying: “I have never known a more giving person. She never wrote me a letter but what she enclosed a recipe, a poem, a clipping from a paper, or a handkerchief. She never waited until Christmas to give in the hope she would receive as generous a gift (as most people do) but gave all through the year.” This lady has been feeding her heavenly being, and one day she, too, will face her monster just as you will, because you are the God who created it and what God has made he can unmake.

God is not made and therefore cannot be unmade. He is the maker. He makes his new Jerusalem, his emanation yet his wife till the sleep of death is past, and he also makes his Hell through his mistaken use of energy. One day you will stop feeding it and vow to yourself that you will redeem it, even if it takes eternity. But it doesn’t take eternity; right before your eyes he gets smaller and as all of the energy that it embodied returns to you to now use wisely and lovingly.

Any time you use your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you are building your new Jerusalem, and one day she will descend attired as a bride. You are building her out of your noble thoughts; that’s why I say: “Live so that your mind can store a past worthy of recall, for the mind whose contents vanish suffers loss, though you yourself cannot be lost, but only as through fire will you awaken.”

So I want to thank this lady for sharing her perfectly marvelous experience with me that I may share it with you. She saw the perfect vision, the beautiful imagery of Jerusalem. But the city is a bride, an emanation of beauty that returns to you to become one, making you infinitely greater because of that union. Having emanated both, when your misspent energy returns to you, you wear it, not as two but as one. Then leaving all, you will cleave to your emanation of beauty to become one being; thereby you are enhanced in beauty, enhanced in love, enhanced in wisdom and power by reason of your journey. So do no violence to these bodies of yours in the hope of entering Jerusalem. As Blake said:

“I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball:
It will lead you in at Heavens gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.”

The body you wear is not the gate. It is only the shadow. You must go to the center where the king dwells, for it is there that you know you are the king. Then all the blind and lame thoughts who kept you out while you struggled to find the truth, are destroyed.

Man is the tree of life. I have seen them walking. One day a friend of mine in San Francisco who is an artist was waiting for me at the Palace Hotel. As I came through the door into the three to four storied lobby, she saw my 5’11” body as a stallion with antlers reaching up to the sky and drew a picture of them, even to the same suit I wore. Now, the lady whose vision I shared tonight saw them as radiations from every part of her body, but my artist friend saw them as antlers. They both saw that which is not of this world.

Your ultimate goal is not to become a millionaire or to be famous, but to fulfill the Word of God. “My Word shall not return unto me void, but must accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the Word who cut yourself down and left just the roots. You placed bands around you so that you would grow and reach the sky and the birds would come and nest. The tree of life is not in some little garden of God on the outside; you are that tree whose energies have gone down into generation. One day the power that you are will be regenerated, and your invested tree will stand erect and bear the fruit of life.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GOOD FRIDAY – EASTER

Neville Goddard

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

Lecture by Neville

(Circa 1954 Edited by Jan McKee)

 You know the story of Good Friday. A man is in a garden. Its night time. And one called Judas comes in search of him, seemingly to betray him. He comes into the garden, and its dark, so he asks the simple question, “Where is Jesus?” Then the voice in the dark answered, “I AM HE.” We are told in the story they all fell to the ground. When they regained their composure they asked the same question, “Where is Jesus?” Again the voice answered, “I have told you that I AM HE.” This time Judas kisses him and the voice said to him, “Now that you have found me, let all else go, but do not let Me go, and what you have to do, do quickly.” Then Judas goes out and commits suicide.

 Now when you read the story you might think that that drama took place in a garden. No. That drama must TAKE place in the mind of man. For this is all about re-birth. It takes a man, a normal man, a man of sense, but hidden in that man and bound hand and foot is the second man that rebirth loosens and lifts up, and that second man is God. So the mystery is all self, and he uses the word “mystery” no less than 18 times. He asked those in the Corinthians to esteem him as a steward of mystery. Then he said, “Great is the mystery, God was manifest in the flesh.” Then he spoke of the greatest of all mysteries, the one hidden from the foundation of the world, “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” Christ IN man. Not Christ in the pages of history, but God IN man must be awakened, and this is the technique by which he is awakened.

 Now come closely with me and let me take you into the garden of your own mind. Right now just imagine you are in a sick room of some wonderful hospital, a ward. You see the case history. You heard the verdict of the doctor, and the man, seemingly, is dying. What would save that man from such a verdict? What would save him? A state of health by which he would rise from that bed and become a normal, healthy person in this world; that would save him. Now, look into your minds eye and define carefully the solution of a particular problem. When you define the solution to the problem, do you know what you are actually seeing? You are seeing Jesus, for Jesus means “to save.” So the state that would save that man from what he is, is the state of health. That is his savior.

 The story is, “Now that you have found ME, let all else go, but do not let ME go.” In other words, let go of everything you have ever believed, but do not let go of this concept — that the man is well in spite of the evidence of your senses to the contrary. No matter what reason dictates, you hold onto Jesus, Jesus being that the man is healthy. You hold onto it, and you touch it by becoming intensely aware of it; thats the only way to touch a thing.

Let me tell you of something that happened only last Friday. I have a friend in this City who I met recently and he gave me a very sad story. He was up against it. He had borrowed money, and he cant pay it back. Things are just going from bad to worse. While shaving you dont have to go into some church to find Him while shaving, I thought of him and I instantly, while in the act of shaving, imagined I was speaking to my wife, and I said to her, “Isnt it wonderful, the good news concerning George.” Then I allowed her, in my imagination, to say, “Yes, isnt it wonderful.” Three hours later, he called me to tell me its so good he doesnt know what, really, to take. He said that in the immediate present two, wonderful jobs are offered to him. Jobs he can do and do well. Both are great and he doesnt know which one to take. Now he has another problem. I will now assume that he has taken the right one, the best one, and I know that in the immediate future, George will again call me and tell me that, on reflection, he could not have chosen more wisely.

 So, you look into your own minds eye and know exactly what you want in this world. When you know what you want in place of what you are, then you are seeing your savior, your Jesus. The story is, dont let Him go, but let all else go. Disengage yourself from the whole vast belief that you formerly entertained, and hold on in your imagination to the concept that you ARE the man that you want to be. That will lead you toward Calvary. Calvary means fixing in your own minds eye that state, and that will lead towards Easter or this wonderful day that we speak of as the Resurrection. For you will resurrect and make alive the state that began only as a concept. If you remain faithful to the concept you will be led right into the fulfillment of that state. It is called, in the Bible, re-birth.

 Now here is the story. He said, “Except you be born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” The wise man said, “How is it possible a man my age may once again enter my mothers womb and be born again?” He said, “You, a master of Israel and you do not know? Except you be born of water and the spirit, ye can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.” Then he gives this clue, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.” As Moses lifted up the serpent do you think a man lifted up a brazen serpent as told in the story and that everyone who looked on it was instantly healed and those who would not look were not cured? Its not any serpent. A serpent is a symbol of the power of endless self-reproduction. For the serpent sheds its skin, and yet does not die. Man must be like the serpent, who grows and outgrows. So I must now learn the art of dying that I may live, rather than, I would say killing that I may survive. I die, by laying down all that I now believe, and I lift myself up to the belief that I am what I want to be. Thats how I do it.

 Now this is how a man is born of water and of the spirit. If I told you now that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact, that is a truth, that is water. But water is not enough. You must catch the spirit of it and apply that truth. Well, if I know that if I assume that I am the man I want to be and persist in that assumption, I would gradually become that. If I have that knowledge, thats marvelous. But not to DO it is to try to bring this being to birth by water only. We are told this is the one who came by water and the blood. Not by water only, but by water and the blood. In other words, I have the knowledge, but I cannot bring to birth my ideal by bare knowledge. I must put it into action, I must DO it. Then when I DO it, I take my savior and I crystallize him by the doing. This is the story of our wonderful Easter.

 Today, our churches are bursting with new finery, but not bursting with new men, and we are told in the story, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on the New Man.” Well, how will I put on a New Man? Its like saying to the boy, put on manhood, or saying to the tree, put on foliage. It comes from within, out and man puts it on from the outside. You cant put it on from the outside, for He is within you. For great is the mystery. The one hidden from the foundation of the earth, Christ in YOU is the hope of glory. Not some Christ external to yourself, but the one in you, that is your hope; that is your only glory.

 So, the great mystery is that at Bethlehem God became as we are that at Calvary we may become as He is. And Calvary is the opportunity that comes very day in the life of a man. When you walk the earth and you see anyone in need, ask yourself what would be the solution to that individuals problem, just what would it be? You can grant it. If you know who you REALLY are, you can grant it, just as I granted it to George. I didnt raise one finger to get George a job. I didnt send him on a job; I didnt give him anything. I simply turned in my own minds eye to my wife, who was not physically present, and simply stated, “Isnt it wonderful, the news concerning George,” and I allowed her to say, in my imagination, “Yes, isnt it wonderful,” and then I continued with my project of a simple shaving. That is simply lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. For I raised myself from the knowledge that George was unemployed and struggling to the knowledge that he is employed. I did nothing more. I shed the skin, like a serpent. I dropped off all that I formerly believed concerning George, and began to LIVE on a higher level concerning George, and I so lived it and so made it real that in three hours, he called and gave me this exciting news.

 You can do the same thing with anything in this world. When you do it daily, you die daily as the prophet said, “I die daily.” Man waits for some little event called death, and he thinks that is dying. That isnt really dying for the simple reason that that kind of death does not bring about a transformation. For there is no transformation in a physical death, but there is transformation in mentally dying and dying daily. So, if you have learned the art of dying, you have learned the art of living. For man is immortal and he must die endlessly. For life was a creative idea, and it will find itself only in changing form. If I do not change and grow and outgrow, and grow and outgrow, then I know nothing of the mystery of Easter, for Easter is really the greatest of all mysteries. Its when man awakens within himself from his birth at Bethlehem and he awakens as God. Thats the story of Easter.

 So, let us not perpetuate this thing by our finery, which is lovely. There is not a thing wrong with getting new clothes and new hats and all the lovely things in the world, but today it has become almost a parade of what is new rather than the new man. So, when I put on the new man, I put him on by daily exercising him in this way. By becoming intensely aware. You could at this very moment, extend your feelings and trust your touch and participate in all the flights of your imagination, and do not be afraid of your sensitivities. When I become intensely aware that I am hearing what I want to hear and am actually touching what I want to touch, virtue goes out of me, and the thing touched takes on the blessing which was determined by the mood that possessed me as I imagined that I touched it. If I now touch anything, it must become crystallized in my world, bearing witness to the mood that possessed me at the moment that I touched it.

 So, unless we be born of this knowledge and the application of this knowledge, we cannot enter this eternal state called the Kingdom of Heaven. So, now you have a little of the knowledge, go out and apply it. When you apply it, this is what happens, and this is a mystical fact. It was said of this one called Judah, “Who is this one who comes with his garments dyed in the sap of wine. Who takes his vestage and bathes it in the blood of grapes and takes his colt and ties it to a choice vine, and his eye red with wine, and his teeth white with milk?” You are told in the very last act, “They placed a wine-colored robe upon Jesus.” You are told that Judah took his robe and bathed it in the blood of grapes.

 Now when I took what I did for George, I was actually weaving my wine-colored robe. I must weave that robe if I would awaken. Its called, in the Bible, the wedding garment. It is called the wine-colored robe. It is called the amethyst in the New Testament, the amethyst in the Old Testament. Its not an amethyst. Its not a robe I weave on the outside, but when I live a life according to these truths, I am actually weaving a wine-colored aura around my being which then enables me to function consciously on higher levels of my own being. Without such a robe, I cannot function beyond my present physical state. But when I live this life according to these truths, you cant see it with the physical eye, but I weave my robe and those who have the eye opened will see me as one of their own, and Im not going to carry some little insignia to tell them who I am. I radiate who I am when they see my garment.

 So, when we are told, “Judah comes and he takes his wonderful robe and he bathes it in the blood of grapes” its not a man who takes off a robe, for the garment in the Bible is what a man wears mentally. So, if I take my mind and I apply it, actually all day long but not confining it to one simple little thing as I did for George, but in the course of a day I have unnumbered opportunities to weave this wonderful robe by simply hearing good news for others. If I hear only good for others and trust what I hear as though I heard it, I am actually taking my robe and bathing it in the blood of grapes.

 You wonder why he called himself the vine? He said, “I AM the vine and ye are the branches. Unless the branch be rooted in the vine, it has no life.” Well every man in the world is a branch, rooted in me, the vine, and he ends in me as I am rooted in and end in God. Now that can be said of every man in the world. While you look at me and can hear me, you too can say it. Although I have just made the claim, “you are rooted in me,” you can claim that I am rooted in you and I end in you as you are rooted in and end in God. If you know it, then it is your duty to lift up every man in this world. Not one must be discarded. Everyone must be redeemed and your life is the process by which this redemption is brought to pass. Discard no man. Every man can be changed. And you have the power to change him by taking the man and seeing him as he seemingly is and then asking what he would like to be instead of what he seems to be. When you know what he would like to be, then you imagine that he is that being already. Turn to a loved one and commune with the loved one concerning this man, just as though it were a fact. When you do it, trust it, touch it and believe it, and I will tell you that man will become the embodiment of what you have imagined him to be.

 This is Easter, and Easter comes not once a year, Easter is a daily opportunity to simply die that you may live. For here it is said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Any man. Well, how would I take up my cross and follow after this idea? First, I am told I must deny myself. Usually man thinks that means giving up something he loves, giving up the pleasures of the table, or giving up something of which he is especially fond. It hasnt a thing to do with giving up external things. It is: a man must deny himself, and a mans true self is made up of the sum total of all that he believes, all that he accepts as true, all that he consents to. So, if I consent to a man dying, then I must deny that concept, that self, and put in its place the embodiment of a healthy being. When I do that, I can follow after this idea. You can take this principle and apply it to everything in this world. If its not some tangible thing on earth you want, take some noble concept of a man, take a man that you would love to see in this world. Dream of that man actually walking this earth and identify yourself with that man. Associate yourself in your own imagination with that as if you were he. When you actually feel that I am he, and continue in that state, then things begin to unfold to bear witness to the truth of your assumption. You try it.

 So, remember, Easter is the art of dying that you may live, and this reminds me of that wonderful poem of the death of Abdula and what he said at the end of it all. He appeared among all the mortals and they were weeping and kissing his worn-out body and he turned to them and said, “I am not the thing you kiss, cease your tears and let it lie. It was mine, it is not I.”

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

GRACE vs. LAW

Neville 03-12-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWe are told in the first Chapter of John: “The Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Unnumbered columns have been written about this grace vs. law. Tonight I am speaking not from theory, I am speaking from experience. We are called on to pass on to other generations, succeeding generations, our testimony.

We are told in the First Epistle of John 1:1-3: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes . . . that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us.”

These are the two births that take place in every individual in the world. No one brings about his own physical birth. He is born by the action of powers not his own. And so, no one brings about his own spiritual birth. He is born by the action of powers beyond his own.

The first – we admit we are here, clothed in this garment of flesh. We find ourselves here but we know we had not a thing to do about it. We simply found ourselves.

You will find yourself born spiritually in the same miraculous manner. You will be born from above, just as you were born here from below. Then there will be God’s mightiest act, and you will be begotten and born from above, by the action of powers not your own.

We turn first to the law. In the very beginning God established the law of identical harvest: “And let the earth put forth vegetation, trees yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its own kind.” Here we find that the harvest is nothing more than the multiplication of the identical seed. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows so shall he reap.” That is this world, this law. Tonight I will show you what I have found about this sowing.

Causation in our world is really mental. It was not always known as a mental state; it was believed (in the beginning) to be spiritual. And so laws were instituted and men abided by these laws. Outwardly they observed the laws. Then came the great revelation of “grace” that interpreted the law, thus bringing grace. For, says he: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And then he interprets law for us and puts it on a mental plane. “You have heard it said by men of old, ‘Thou shalt not'” and then he states it.

“But I say unto you,” and then he puts it on an entirely different level and not one statement conveys it more graphically than this one: “You have heard it said of old ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you, to look on a woman lustfully is to already have committed the act with her in your heart.'”

To restrain the impulse, that is not good enough; but not having the desire, for then you haven’t committed the act. But to have the desire, and because of the consequences of your act you restrain the impulse, that is still not good enough – the act was committed with the impulse.

Here, we are on an entirely different level, a mental level, and this is what I have discovered about this level. I can stand here physically, and be in any part of this world mentally by assuming that I am there, then, viewing the world from that assumption rather than thinking of that state. Standing here, if I desire to be elsewhere, though at the moment my reason tells me I can’t afford it, my senses tell me I haven’t the time – you are committed, you will be here next Friday, you couldn’t get there and be back so here you are stuck.

Well, I know from my own experience that if I dared to do it, though everything in this world would tie me here, there will be a reshuffling of the events of life and compel the journey on my part, and it worked. That assumption of mine would build a bridge of incidents across which I would move to the fulfillment of that state. No power in the world could stop it. I will walk across a series of events from the moment that I do it.

Things would happen to compel me to go, and I, physically – the man – could not resist it. That would compel the journey.

Now the same thing is true not only of a physical journey but a journey into other states, like wealth, faith, like anything in this world. Suppose at this moment I desired certain security that I do not now enjoy – I hunger for it. What would it now be like if I were in possession of security? Let me now make the same psychological motion – all in my imagination – and then view the world from that assumption, just as though it were true.

If I dare to assume that it is so – I can acquaint you with this law and then leave you to your choice and its consequences. Many a person who had nothing, who hungered for wealth, and they got it, but oh! what things happened to them when they got it! They wanted it and if you want it, take it. You can always give it up, but here is the law by which man moves in this world.

So, I will acquaint you with the law and show you how I operate it and how it works. But may I tell you: no matter how good you are in this world, no matter how wise you operate the law, it doesn’t in any way qualify you for the second radical change in your mind, which is called “grace” – that is the second birth: the twice-born man has received “grace.”

And grace is God’s gift of himself to man. That is grace. No matter how wise you are, you are on a wheel with the first birth. Play it as wisely as you can, and I hope you will play it wisely when you hear the law and how to operate it. But it cannot in way qualify you for the second birth. That is grace, that is the gift, and you cannot bring that about anymore than you brought about the first.

Now the second birth is sheer fantasy. It is called, not salvation – grace is salvation. “What must I do?” they asked. For he made the statement: “What if you own the whole vast world and lose your life?” Then he said: “It is so much easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” And they said to him: “Well, then who can be saved?”

He said: “With men it is impossible, but nothing is impossible to God.” With man, yes, it is impossible; he can’t save himself. When man tells you he is a self-made man he is not speaking of any knowledge of this mystery. No self-made man. For this is the gift, the second is a complete gift.

And what is the secret of God’s election? I do not know, I can’t tell you. I can share with you what I have experienced and tell you how it comes. It is a process, something that happened so suddenly. It comes without warning – no one knows the moment it is going to come, and suddenly you are born. You are actually born. You are consciously born.

I have no conscious memory of being born from my mother’s womb, none whatsoever. I was born on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year, and on a certain little island in the West Indies.

I had no knowledge of it, and then gradually consciousness possessed me, and when I was four (or not quite four) I began to function consciously with memory – but memory didn’t go back to my birth. But the second birth is something as though you were actually doing it yourself, and every moment of time is conscious and so vividly alive.

The whole thing you are doing, and the very moment to the end of birth is taking place in you, and out of your own wonderful being you are coming, and until that moment you didn’t know you were dead.

You took it for granted you were alive and that one day your body would die. And so, whether you survived or not, you didn’t know, but that would be death and those who saw you put away, whether cremated or in the earth, they would speak of you as someone who was dead, but not while you walked the earth with them. And yet, there comes the moment in time when suddenly a power beyond your wildest dreams is taking place in you. And you aren’t doing it, you have no control.

It is being done to you and as the power is intensified, you awake. And you always thought prior to that moment, you were awake, you were alive and walking about the earth. And here for the first time in eternity you are awakening in a tomb, and the tomb is your skull. And you find this being completely sealed and entombed in your own skull and you are fully awake for the first time in eternity.

Then begins the work and you come out as one being self-born, truly begotten by yourself, and out you come. The entire drama as described for us in the gospel you are enacting – you are being self-born. The witnesses become present and they are here to witness this event in eternity. They can’t see you because you are invisible, but you are more real than they are, more real than anything in the world at that moment and yet, you are invisible.

Then you know what it means: “God is Spirit and those who worship Him worship in spirit and in truth.” “And as God has life in himself – God the father – so now he grants the son to have life in himself.” All of a sudden you awake, and the force – the intense power you feel coming from you that now seems to be in the corner of the room – is centered all over.

All of a sudden it comes to the end and you return once more, fully clothed, in this simple little garment out of which you have just for a moment emerged. It is the most fantastic garment in the world.

That was grace but it comes in stages. It has three fantastic parts to it. That first one is simply your birth from above to fulfill the 3rd [chapter] of John: “You must be born from above, for unless you be born from above you cannot in anywise enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” which fulfills that chapter.

Then comes the second, when God really gives you himself. Suddenly a similar power possesses you and you can’t stop it, not a thing you can do about it. Suddenly as you are tied with it, your whole being explodes, and here he presents you with his son.

Now the 17th verse of the 1st chapter [of John], after you are told: “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (we are told how it comes through Jesus Christ), we are told: “No man has ever seen the Father; the Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” And you didn’t know you contained within you the son of God, and suddenly there is an explosion and he is standing before you and he calls you “father.”

You don’t see yourself; he calls you “father” and you know he is your son. Here the father-son relationship is established forever. He calls you “father” to fulfill the 89th Psalm: “I have found David, my servant. . .” and he has “cried out to me ‘Thou art my Father, my God, the Rock of my salvation'” – the fulfillment of the great messianic 89th Psalm. You look at him and there is no doubt in your mind who he is and there is no doubt in his mind who you are.

In the 3rd chapter [of John], in the great gift, he explains: Out of the blue you are torn in two from top to bottom and then you are sent, a living being, something that is fire and alive, and you ascend right into Zion, which is yourself. These three parts mark the great gift. No one in this world is good enough to earn it, therefore all will get it.

God actually expresses to man a mercy with which man is incapable, with his conscience, of ever judging himself as worthy of. No man in this world with conscience and mercy could ever judge himself as mercifully as God judges him.

So what man has done – I certainly have done it, you have done it, the whole vast world has done it, and we are so fearful while we are here in this world of law, of doing it – and in spite of our limitations, in spite of our weaknesses, God’s infinite mercy brings about the second birth. And we are all taken up in this eternal place where we are put into the everlasting temple which God is making out of us, making out of himself.

For he gives himself to man before man can be free to begin the everlasting temple. No one can fill your place. No one can fill my place. Not one can be displaced. Not one in any way can be rubbed out. The temple will be unfinished. I know from my own experience not one can be unsaved, I don’t care who he is, no matter what he has done in this world, everyone will be saved. What must I do to be saved? Believe the Gospel.

Now we are told we can delay it; that is why I find it difficult to believe that. But still it is Scripture. Hebrews 4:2: “And the good news preached unto us was also preached unto them; but it did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith in the hearer.” Tonight some of you could reject it, and that may appear on the surface to delay your call. It may, I do not know.

I have no assurance that you can delay it; but it would appear that rejection on the part of one – because he heard it but did not accept it, because it didn’t make sense to him -though you reject it and maybe by your rejection delay your call, eventually you will be called, because he puts you through all the paces of the world until finally you have no power to reject the story when you hear it.

But while we are here in this world of law, let me now quote you the 1st Psalm. It is a marvelous benediction: “Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord, who meditates on it day and night . . . for in all that he does, he prospers.” “In all that he does,” not a few things. And the law is so simple. If you go to the foundation it is mental, not physical.

Go to church, as people who practice it outwardly thought would in some way bring good for them. That wasn’t it. It’s mental. Causation is mental, so the law is mental. Find the law: “Blessed is the man who delights in the law, mediating on it day and night, for in all that he does he prospers.”

Walk now by faith, not by sight. Romans 17:4: “He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen.” “For the things that are seen,” we are told, “were made from things that do not appear.” We see a man – well what made him what he is?

He once assembled certain states and knowingly or unknowingly he fell into it, and falling into it he remained long enough to take on that initial statement of God: “All things must bring forth after their own kind.” The law of identical harvest. The harvest is only the multiplication of the identical seed.

So I fall into a state. I do it wittingly or unwittingly, but I fall into a state. Remaining in the state, suddenly the stump comes out. Someone begins to appear in my world who is instrumental in making me move forward in the direction in which I should go.

I may on reflection think he, the instrument that moved me forward by certain contacts, was the cause of my being forward. No, the cause was unseen. As you are told: “Things seen were made by things that do not appear.” He appears, so he can’t be the cause. If that is true then I will thank him for what he did but I can’t claim he was the cause of my good fortune, though he introduced me to the right people and all things added up to the thing that I was doing.

But the cause of it all was my assumption and my faithfulness to that assumption. So, I dare to assume that I am, or that you are what I would like you to be, and assuming that you are what I would like you to be, and feel that you would like to be it, I am unmoved in that assumption and you become it, without your knowledge or your consent. I don’t need your consent or knowledge if causation is mental.

So I warn you of the law and leave you to your choice…and its risk, because you can use it unwisely. But my hands are now washed of that. I cannot stop it. I can’t be like a mother over you, stating that you should not do this. As you are told in the Book of Deuteronomy: “I place before you this day good and evil, life and death, blessing and cursing; choose life.”

He suggests you choose life but he can’t take from you the right, having set you free, to choose anything you want; it is all spread before you. If you imagine something unlovely of another, he’ll come to that. It will boomerang too, but it will come to pass, for you are entirely free to imagine anything in this world, for imagining creates reality. A man imagined – if he imagines it and persists in that imaginal act, it will come to pass. And that’s the law.

If there were no other than the wise use of law – to own the whole vast world and yet not to be redeemed from that wheel of recurrence – this would become the most horrible hell in the world. Fortunately God started in the beginning a plan of redemption, and its grace, where he saved us from the wheel of recurrence.

And what is his greatest secret, where he picks you at one moment of time, picks another at another moment of time to put him into that eternal structure, the everlasting temple not made with hands? I do not know. I only know he promised us to build a temple for us, anonymous.

We are the temple, “We are the temple of the living God,” a temple in which God will dwell, and yet we are free beyond the wildest dream of man. For we are God himself in the spot we call the “New Jerusalem.”

So, here, use it wisely for yourself and for others. Every time you use your imagination lovingly on behalf of another you are literally mediating God to another. Do it.

But even if you are the most loving, the most generous, the kindest being in the world, you still cannot by your own effort be born from above. It is a gift, an unearned gift and you can’t be good enough. To me that is the most exciting thought in the world, because no man can look me in the eye and tell me he feels himself worthy of such a birth. With a memory and a conscience he couldn’t possibly do it. And yet with my memory of the past I would say: “Neville, you are unworthy of it.”

Therefore, because I know in my heart I am unworthy, I can say to every being in the world: you are going to get it. If I felt I was worthy of it, then I would have to go out and try to make everyone good, as I conceived myself to be. But I don’t conceive myself to be good, as the world calls good.

I have done unnumbered things of which I would be ashamed, and still feel I am capable under stress of doing things of which I would be ashamed. And yet, I have had the grace of God, the second birth from above. I can’t conceive of anything more encouraging in the world than to share with others your own experience and tell them that they cannot lift themselves by their own bootstraps.

This is an act of mercy, and mercy is God in expression because God is love and mercy is God in action. And the mightiest act of God is when you, the sound sleeper, he awakens and you don’t know you are asleep.

No child born of woman could cross the threshold that admits to conscious life without the death of God. He died to make me alive – the mystery of life through death, and then this mighty act of resurrecting himself as you.

Then you know the mystery of the Epistle of John: “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know when he appears we shall be like him.” We shall be like him, for there is no change in your identity.

All of a sudden you awaken to the full glory of your inheritance. You have inherited heaven, but the full glory of that inheritance is not fully realized in you – or for the moment is not fully grasped by you while you are still in this body.

You must then play the part of the apostle, and share it with those who will listen to you, until that moment in time when he takes off the garment. Then that which ascended is completely displayed to you and to the heavenly host, but you have played and shared with the others all that you have experienced.

It is called the apostolic testament: “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard and seen with our eyes. That which we have seen and heard we now proclaim unto you that you may share with us this fellowship.” And then that fabulous passage that always closes the Anglican service (which in our country is the Episcopal service), Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” What a benediction!

What a benediction to say to a gathering like this: “That may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” (that is the second verse) “which comes from the love of God, that through whose birth you may have and share the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and may he be with you all.”

That is how all Anglican services close, in the hope that someone, or maybe all, will in the not distant future share in that fellowship. To me it is the most inspiring just to read it and just try to feel it.

So grace vs. law is not really in conflict. For he said: “I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them.” Peter, in his first Epistle, (1:10) identifies grace with salvation: “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation.” So he associates grace with salvation.

The minute it is given he is saved, he’s been redeemed. But because no one can play your part, you will be redeemed. Don’t go back in memory and try to find other things you could undo towards salvation. Do that toward this world, to make yourself happier and free in this world, but not toward salvation. Because if it was not for God’s infinite mercy to hide your past from you, you couldn’t live with yourself.

No man in this world could live with himself if he could now bring back into memory the past. He couldn’t because you’ll play all the parts. You have been a long, long time in coming and at the very end you will have played all the parts. Therefore, in the end you can say: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

There is a purpose to God’s play, a fabulous purpose. As Blake said: “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horrors of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to achieve perfection.” So we have all played it. Had I not played all the horrible parts in the world I could not be merciful when I read about them in the papers.

I could not in my heart feel that some mercy should be stressed nor have the impulse for mercy had I not played it. But in the end, having played all you will forgive all. And so, everything in the world, you’ll have played all and therefore fitted yourself for God’s use in the building of His temple.

I can’t get away from a sense of predestination when I read Scripture. Romans 8:28-30: “We are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” You cannot take these five terms: foreknowledge, predestination, called, justified, and glorified, and interpret them in any way to avoid the conclusion of predestination. I don’t see how you can.

“You were with me in the foundation of time,” you are told. He called us in the beginning before the world was. And now he calls us according to his purpose when this section of his fabulous (you can’t conceive of it) living structure is about to be completed. And only you can fit one portion of it, so he calls you. And the one he calls he has predestined, but he calls. And the one he calls he justifies.

You can’t be justified by your actions; he justifies you. And then he glorifies you. And glorification is the gift of himself as told us in John 17:5: “Father, glorify me with thine own self.” So, he glorifies the individual with himself. The entire five terms leads to one conclusion of a predestined, foreknown state. He foreknew the entire thing and is building towards it.

Now the opposite of grace is disgrace. The Bible speaks of it as the “wrath of God,” the “anger of God.” We know what it is to be in disgrace. Grace is the unearned gift, the greatest thing in the world, the gift of God himself. And the opposite would be almost the absence of God.

Jeremiah 23 makes this statement: “The anger 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.” It seems that God has forsaken us when we go through a war, when we are going through some horrible disgrace where the world has collapsed upon us.

A child has gone astray and society frowns upon us because we are the parents of that child. Or maybe my husband or wife has done something to disgrace the family, the community.

God has forsaken us. So I pass through the fires of affliction, these horrible fiery ordeals, displaced (the opposite of place) where once he was with me and guided me. But “He will not turn back until he has accomplished the intents of his mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.” And you will forgive all and be happy that he in his infinite wisdom and mercy could put you through that fiery ordeal to bring you out qualified to fit in his eternal temple.

So no one will be condemned in the end. No one will be unsaved. When they ask you: “What must I do to be saved?” go to the Scripture and show that with man it isn’t possible. (That is the 10th chapter of Mark, 26-27.) With man, no, it isn’t possible, but with God all things are possible.

They couldn’t understand how a man could be saved after he told them what he had, about the camel and the rich man. The rich man does not necessarily mean a man with money. The 1st Beatitude tells you: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall receive the kingdom.” The poor in spirit is the one who is not complacent. Not everyone who has money is complacent. You could be socially prominent and very complacent.

You could be intellectually a star, have your PhD’s or your degrees behind you, and you are above it all. You know everything because conferred upon you is the degree given by man. In this world of ours there is so much of real learned ignorance. I am not saying that all who have degrees are snobs. You cannot by these earn the kingdom, no matter what you do. For the “Wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God.” Not a thing that man knows here through his efforts will in any way function where he is destined to be. For he is rising into a world that will be completely subject to his imaginative power.

Everything in the world will be under his control. Because God, having given himself to man, God being all-wise he’ll be all-wise. God being all-powerful, all-loving, he’ll be all-powerful, all-loving, for he gives himself to man. And so, you will not be replaced by anyone and all will be equal in the eyes of God, because it is himself. He can’t be more than what he gave you. And one will not be greater because you can’t get more than what God gave you, for he gave you himself, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you. And finally only you.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

HAVE YOU FOUND HIM?

Neville Goddard 9-15-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityTonight’s subject is: “Have you found him?” In this question I am asking if you have found the source, the cause of the phenomena of life. I can tell you from experience that he is a person as I am, as you are. Called “the Father,” he is the one of whom I speak tonight.

I have met the Father. He embraced me and incorporated me into his body, so I wear (not to the mortal eye, but to the Spiritual eye) the human form divine, the body of infinite love. On this level this statement sounds insane, but it is true. Tonight I am going to try to show you how he will appear when you find him.

In the wonderful poem by Robert Browning called “Saul”, Saul is demented due to an evil spirit which was sent from God. David, having been anointed and made the Lord’s chosen one, plays and sings to Saul, restoring him to perfect health. In the story, David prophesies the coming of the messiah, saying:

“O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives 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! See the Christ stand!”

No one could have written this statement unless he had experienced it. But no one! Browning was raised in the environment where the matching of words and thought was an art in their practiced form, and being a poet he could tell of his experience so beautifully.

Now I will tell you mine, for I know from experience that Browning’s words are true. When you see David you will see the face of the Risen Lord. If you have not seen the Risen Lord (for only the apostles see him, at which time they are incorporated into his body and sent) when you find David, use your imagination and mature his face, and you will see the face of the Risen Lord reflected there. David is the eternal youth who is buried in your mind, and when he comes forth and calls you Father, he will reflect your glory and bear the very stamp of your nature!

May I tell you: when I looked at David, I felt I was the Risen Lord. I am not the little garment I wear here and neither are you. In the 27th Psalm we are told to seek his face: “My heart says to thee, Thy face, Lord do I seek. Hide not thy face from me.” I have found his face, yet I cannot take any credit for it. Having searched my entire soul I cannot find anything that I have ever done to make me worthy to behold the face of the Risen Lord; but when I was brought into his presence in the Spirit, I was incorporated into his body, into the one body, to become the one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all. So I have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth. The word “Jesus” means “Jehovah; Savior” – that’s all it means – and there is only one Savior in the world. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no Savior.”

Now let me share with you a wonderful experience of a lady who is here tonight. This lady is very much a lady, yet last spring she heard a voice within her say: “You are David, my dear, and I want to love you with all of my heart.” Then the voice proclaimed: “I am God and I am you!” – fulfilling the 10th chapter of John: “I and my Father are one,” and the second Psalm. In this Psalm, David is speaking, saying: “This is the decree of the Lord: He said to me: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.'” This lady was called David by one who proclaimed: “I am God and I am you.” I and my begotten are one!

Now, on the 24th day of May (two months after this fantastic vision) this is what she heard: “I am God himself! I am he who brings you into this world and takes you out! I AM! I AM! I AM God forever! I will never leave you. You are me, my Son, my Son, my Son! I am speaking to you from the depth of me, and I know you, Virginia. I AM! I AM Jesus Christ, your world.”

In the first verse of the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, the Lord says: “I have redeemed you, for I have called you by name. You are mine.” When you reach the point where you are called by name, you are redeemed. No matter what she must experience in the time to come, she can always lean against this experience of hers and relate it to this parallel verse of scripture. “I have redeemed you, for I have called you by name. You are mine.”

May I say to all of you: if you haven’t found him, don’t despair. When I found him it just happened, and if it happened to me it will happen to everyone. But in this heavenly order there are certain levels, as there are in this world.

Back thirty years ago I was called into the presence of the Risen Lord, in Spirit. I was asked to name the greatest thing in the world and I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” At that moment he embraced me, I was incorporated into his body, and since that time I have felt no divorce from that body. I walk the earth as Neville, the garment I shave in the morning, but at night I assume my heavenly one. While walking the earth as Neville I am just as normal as you are, yet I have never felt any estrangement from that spiritual body, for “He who is united to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him.” Since that day back in 1929 I have done things you might say the Lord wouldn’t do, but if anything is done the Lord had to do it, because there is nothing but God in the world!

So in this wonderful statement of hers she was told: “Jesus Christ is your glory.” Described in scripture as the power of God and the wisdom of God, Jesus Christ is your glory, and you are He! By his glorious power all things come into your world, so your world is Jesus Christ! Now, if your concept of Christ is smaller than the universe, then you don’t know him, for this world in its completeness is created by and sustained by Christ. The being in the depth of this lady proclaimed the most profound thing, when she was told: “Jesus Christ is your world.” He is, and he is you, for it is you who brought everything into existence.

The other day I read this little statement of James Dean, one of the greatest astrophysicists of all ages. He said: “On this planet man cannot raise his hand and not disturb the farthest star.” It is here that the drama is taking place. You cannot raise an arm, you can’t think, without affecting the furthest star. That’s how great you are, because God became you that you may become God.

You are told in the first [chapter] of John: “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The word “logos” (translated “Word”) is “plan” and the plan itself is God. And “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us, and we beheld his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father.” So the Word – which is God himself – became flesh when he gave himself to you. That is the mystery of scripture. God actually became as you are, that you may be as he is!

In the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the Greek word “en” is translated “among,” but the word is “within,” as in the statement: “Within you stands one whom you do not know.” It is not someone who walks “among” you, but who dwells “within” you. The word “en” also means, “to give self wholly to.” Emptying himself of his divinity, he took upon himself the form of a slave and became the obedient unto death, even death upon this physical cross of man. The body you wear is the cross upon which God is crucified, and from which God will rise, taking you with him. Then you will know that you and he are one.

I was sent to tell you the true story of the mystery of Christ. While we are here on this inferior level of awareness, we have lost sight of our maker, but I have been sent to tell you how the drama of Christ unfolds within you, as it is the Father’s will that not one be lost, not one in my holy mountain.

Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that, like in the army, there are various levels of awareness. He puts the apostles first, the prophets second, the teachers third, and the miracle workers fourth. Why he does this I do not know. I do know that I used the words of Paul when the Risen Christ asked me to tell him what was the greatest thing in the world, and after he embraced me and I fused with his body, I was sent with the words: “Down with the bluebloods.”

People may think this has something to do with the social order, but the word means “church protocol; the traditions of men, as opposed to the commands of God.” The world is full of the traditions of men, which change as fast as they are created. Wanting to sell more fish, tradition dictated that it was a sin to eat meat on Friday. Now that tradition has changed, and you are allowed to eat meat on Friday once more. The early fathers were all married; then one came along who was ignorant and wanted everyone to be as ignorant as he, so he made an order that they marry no more. Now the men are rebelling and it will only take a few years before it will all be back to the way it was. These are the traditions of men, while I was sent to fulfill the command of God.

Christianity hasn’t a thing to do with that which is made by the human hand. The “church” of scripture is “the assembly of the resurrected.” The resurrected are those who are incorporated into the body of the Risen Christ, and – may I tell you – it is a body just as real as yours is now. Everyone will be incorporated into that one body, yet there are orders there just as there are here in this physical body. The eyes perform a function, the ear another, the nose another, as each perform their own special function.

Paul takes eight (which is the number of Christ) and gives eight orders within the body, but what determines this order I do not know. I only know that I beheld his face, he embraced me and incorporated me into his body, and when I found David he was simply a young impression of the Ancient of Days I had beheld.

That is why Browning made David say:

“O Saul it shall be
A Face like my face that receives 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! See the Christ stand!”

And you know, you cannot earn this experience. It is all grace, grace, and more grace. So begin now to live a wonderful life and exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of everyone. And one day you will be called to enter that one body, and it will not matter whether you play the part of the teacher, the miracle worker, the helper, the administrator, or the speaker in tongues. If one is playing the part of the apostle, it is not because he earned it. It’s a play, and the part he is playing was God’s choice in the beginning, before that the world was.

So learn to exercise your creative power by applying the law, for you may have anything you want! You want to be wealthy, you may have it. You want to be known, you may have that too. Anything you want you may have, but when it comes to God’s promise – it will be fulfilled. It is my hope that it is now, but don’t think you can make it happen – you can’t. But you will find Him when you see David and he calls you Father; and he will, for there is only one God and Father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all.

In the meantime remember: everything is a state of consciousness. You want security? Then assume that you are secure, and things will happen and you will bear the fruit of the tree of security. Get out of that state, and its fruit will vanish. You may wonder what happened and think someone deceived you – the market went down or your product is no longer wanted – but you can only eat the fruit of security when you know you are its tree. Any state occupied bears its fruit, and your world is forever bearing witness to the state you are in. But you will never find the cause of the phenomena of life until the David of Biblical fame (who is my son) calls you Father, and then and only then, will you know that you and I are one.

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

HE DREAMS IN ME

Neville Goddard 03-13-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityThe Old Testament calls upon God to awake, saying: “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever! Having hurled Himself into time/space, God is dreaming he is man and sees Himself as enslaved and cast off.

But in the New Testament, God succeeds in awakening in man, and in the Book of Ephesians calls upon man to “Awake and rise from the dead and Christ will give you life.” Tonight I will take the two and try to show you who this presence really is.

Your own wonderful human imagination is God. It is your imagination who is calling upon you to awake, for you are all imagination and God is you and you in Him. Your external body is the imagination, and that is God Himself.

Let me begin by telling you what happened to me last Tuesday morning. Early in the morning, desiring to check the time I switched on the television to the “Today Show.” Hugh Downs, the master of ceremonies, having been giving a cue to ad-lib for the next thirty seconds or so, said: “Let me tell you of a dream I once had. In the dream I was viewing a tape of one of my shows, when I said to the producer: ‘Do you know, I don’t remember having seen any of these people,’ and the producer replied: ‘That’s understandable, for this show is to be taped next Friday.’ When the following Friday arrived, the show I had dreamed of only a few days before was taped.” In his dream, Hugh Downs merged with the future and lived an experience he did not remember.

Now, let me tell you [of] one who merged with the past and lived an experience of long ago. The lady writes: “I am seventy-two years old. In my dream I am a ten-year-old girl, asking my father to write in my autograph book. Having memorized a verse I wanted him to write, I dedicated it to him as he recorded it in my book. Then the dream ended.

Although I could not remember the poem prior to the dream, upon awakening I recalled every word in detail. A few days later, while visiting my daughter I told her of the dream; and when I recited the poem my daughter went to her library and – removing an old autograph book I had given her many years before – turned to the page where the verse was autographed by my third grade teacher.” Returning sixty-two years, this lady merged with a fact and remembered an experience of long ago.

The she told me of a little boy of four, who – living next door – comes to see her often. One day he told her he had always known her and that there would never be a time when they did not know each other. Describing an incident of long ago, he looked out of the window and said: “Do you see that bush? As many leaves as are on that bush are the years, and I will know you when my head grows and reaches the sky.” Then one day he told her he had a dream that everything was nothing.

Modern man now concludes that the entire history of the world is laid out, and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively. That you can merge with a section of the beginning or future relative to this moment, and experience that portion of history. How can that be? Because you are now merged with a dream.

Awakening in the morning, you think you had a wonderful dream last night; yet while you were dreaming, the experience was a reality. Awake, the dream becomes subjective. Why? Because you have once more merged with this section of time. While you are experiencing the dream, it is objective and real.

If you would only realize that the depth of your own being (which is your human imagination) is trying to instruct you, trying to persuade you, to get you aroused, as my friend’s dream of the other night. Starting from the center God is working towards the surface, so it takes a while for Him to awaken and reach your surface mind. But while he is moving He is influencing your surface mind, and when He arrives you and He are no longer two, but one! You can tell when He is moving toward the surface, for He begins to question the reality of the world in which he lives.

If a lady can return and so merge with the past that she can relive an experience of long ago in detail, and a man can advance into the future and interview those who will be taped the following Friday – where is the experience of the past and where is next Friday’s show? Is everything already finished and we simply tune in on certain states? Yes, for this is a dream which you can modify or radically change. In fact you are called upon to revise every day of your life and sometimes even to eradicate it.

This is a world of death and everyone here is dead, dreaming the dream of life. In the beginning we all agreed to dream in concert and no one has ever violated that agreement. There are those, however, who would not agree to this cruel experiment, as told us in the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the form of the parable of the prodigal son.

All through scripture you are told that God loves the second son. He loves Jacob and hates Esau. He loves Isaac and banishes Ishmael. The second son – he who enters the world of death to become a slave, hungers, awakens, and – coming to his senses – remembers the Father who gave him birth. And when he returns the Father gives him the ring, the robe, and kills that fatted calf, for “Your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.” You and I, while living in this world of death are that second son, destined to awaken and remember the Father who gave us birth.

Now let me share a vision of a lady. She said: “While gazing at the fish in our pond and thinking of nothing in particular I heard a masculine voice say: ‘You have run the race. You have fought the good fight.’ That night as I fell asleep I heard the voice again, but this time the pronoun was changed to: ‘I have run the race. I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith.’ May I tell you: having had that experience, this lady is at the end of the journey. She has kept the faith made in the beginning.

Listen to these words: “Among you stands one whom you do not know.” The word translated “among” is “en” meaning “radiating from within.” So, radiating from within you, stands one whom you do not know. And the word translated “stands” means “a covenant.” from within you is the covenant you made with yourself, which is: you will keep the faith, and you will not turn until the race is finished. And what a race it has been!

We suffer because we are sharing in creation’s cruel dream. In the beginning as the gods in scripture, we agreed to do it. As the Elohim we came down into the world of death by entering death’s door, the human skull. Laying yourself down in the grave of man, you took upon yourself all of his limitations and weaknesses, and – although you will die from this section of time – there is no final death. You and I are heirs to the universe, destined to join that one being that is called the Lord.

There is not a thing you can imagine but what already is. Eternity exists. When you imagine, you claim that which already exits by identifying yourself with the state you desire to dream into objective reality. Just as the lady slipped into a section of her past and relived it as though it happened for the first time, you can slip into any section of time and live an event you desire to externalize here. We are dreaming the dream of life until we awake. So I say, advisedly: God – your own wonderful human imagination – dreams in you.

The 44th Psalm is a Maskil of the Sons of Korah. The word “Maskil” means “a special, very serious instruction.” The word “Korah” means “one who removes the hair on his head.” (Some of our priesthoods do that today to imply that they have divine instruction which others do not possess.) But the special instruction stated in the 44th Psalm is that which one gives to one’s self: “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever!”

Now listen to the words of Blake. Claiming that the poem, “Jerusalem” was dictated by the brothers on high, he begins it in this manner:

“Awake! Awake, O sleeper of the land of shadows, awake!
Expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:
I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
Lo! We are One; forgiving all Evil;
Not seeking recompense!”

Then he tells us that you and I turned away down the valleys dark, by saying: “We are not One: we are Many.”

God, speaking in this great poem, calls upon man to awake, saying: “I am not a God afar off. Within your bosoms I reside and you reside in me; Lo! We are One.” This I know from experience. Without loss of identity you and I are One being. We are the brothers who collectively form the Lord. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one compound unity one made up of others. There is only the one Lord, who is our own wonderful human imagination. It is He who is dreaming this world in which we find ourselves.

Now let me share with you a very precious experience of a gentleman who teaches at UCLA. In his dream he encounters a teacher he has little or no respect for; but when he discovers the man to be the great examiner, his feelings change from apathy to warmth and respect.

Suddenly the exam had begun, and my friend must write his name, the date, and the hour. As he recorded his name, Monday, and the time of 4:10, a thrill ran through him; and he heard a deep masculine voice say: “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ enters in, but he who does the will of the Father who is in heaven.” (You will find this statement in the 7th chapter of the Book of Matthew). When one begins to hear the words of the Father as recorded in scripture, that one is beginning to awaken from this dream of life.

In the 1st chapter of John, it is said that when Andrew found Jesus, he remained with him because it was the tenth hour. A day is counted from 6:00 o’clock. Broken down into three four-hour watches of the day or night, 4:00 o’clock is always the tenth hour.

Now, this is all symbolism. Ten does not mean 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon, but that moment in time when the creative power of God is being explained. The number ten whose letter “Yod” begins the name of God (YOD HE VAU HE) [pron. YOD HEY VAV HEY] carries the symbol of a hand, the creative hand of God. Man is separated from all other animals by reason of a hand. That which looks like a hand in the monkey or ape can convey food to the mouth but it cannot fashion, make, or create. Give a man a hand and you have a creator. You have formed in the image of his Father who is God. So here in the tenth hour the creative power of God is being revealed to my friend.

As the dream began, my friend saw the world he disliked symbolized as a person who became the great examiner to test his ability to overcome it – to modify or radically change it. And the test began at 4:10. Going over my notes, I recalled that last October, while in a dream at night, I was teaching, when I glanced at my wristwatch to discover it was 4:10 o’clock. Then I continued to explain the word of God for what appeared to be an hour or so, looked at my watch again only to find that it was still 4:10. Believing my watch had stopped, I awoke to discover it was not on my wrist, nor was it 4:10 in the morning.

Here is a vivid experience of a duplicate dream, and scripture tells us that if the dream repeats itself the thing is fixed, and the Lord will shortly bring it to pass. God’s creative power is now unfolding in my friend. Now he knows his own wonderful human imagination is God. That the great I AMness in man is God and that all things are possible to Him. Now the challenge is his. Whatever he wants is! All he has to do is adjust his thinking to the state desired until it becomes alive within him, and at that moment the state will objectify itself in his world.

A subjective desire reflected upon becomes objective. Just like the dream last night. Although subjective when you awaken and once more merge with this section of the dream, during the night it seemed the only reality.

You can take off this section of the dream, and as you merge with another, it will seem to be the only reality. The whole vast world is finished, and you and I are merged in a dream from which we are awakening.

The lady, while in a waking dream, heard the voice as she watched fish – the symbol of those who accept the gospel of salvation. Those who call upon themselves to awaken rather than call upon a god to awaken them.

So in the Old Testament, God is called upon to “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake, O sleeper and rise from the dead.” God is urged to awake in the Old Testament, because God became man that man may become God, while in the New Testament the plea is for man to awake. As you test your creative power you will discover who you are. All of these acts of scripture will come to you in audible form, and you will awaken to find yourself moving into complete fulfillment of the story of Jesus Christ.

Everyone has kept the faith. No one can come down into this world and violate that agreement. You and I agreed to dream in concert before we entered death’s door, the human skull. And one day we are going to awake as the poet said:

“He has awakened from the dream of life.
‘Tis we who lost in stormy visions
Keep with phantoms the unprofitable strife.”

God dreams in you and you can test him any time if you are alert, for He steals into your conscious mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy. Sit down and think of a friend and watch this wonderful, moving being create mental images of him. The God of the universe is one with your wonderful human imagination.

He works in your depth, underlying all of your faculties, including perception. Then suddenly you find him moving in a serpentine manner in the form of creative fancy. When you think of someone you can catch Him; and then you will discover who God really is, for He is all within you.

Tonight take a mere wish and see it in your mind’s eye as fulfilled. Contemplate it. Merge and lose yourself completely in it. Allow your wish to take on objectivity, all the various tones of reality, so that it seems now to be the only reality. Then break it and return once more to merge in this section of your dream, and reflect upon that which was so real only a moment before. Do that and no power on earth or in the universe can stop that which you have imagined from objectification.

Simply rest in confidence that it will be objectified, and keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is simply that moment when you do not make any effort to make it so, because you know it is already so! Do not labor to add to it or take from it. It is going to happen just as you judged it as good and very good.

You try it. If all things were made by God, and without Him was not anything made that was made, and you imagined and it came to pass – then you must come to the conclusion that what is done grows from what is finished. In the beginning it was only a wish, but in the end it became a fact. So what is done grows from what is finished.

The creative power of the universe stems from imagination – the real man – 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. Imagination is not a God afar off, but a brother and a friend.

As the Elohim we were brothers, not strangers, but – as the parable tells us – not all left our heavenly home. We ventured forth, agreeing to dream in concert or we wouldn’t be here; and failure is inconceivable, for the end is simply to awaken from the eternal dream of life.

We have suffered because we are sharers in creation’s cruel dream. The story is told us in the Book of Job. Everyone plays the part of Job. It’s a crude experiment, but the end is so glorious that one forgets the pain, as told us in the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans: “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing to the glory to be revealed in me.” We all share in the suffering, because we are dreaming in concert, dreaming the most cruel dreams; but it takes all to awaken, and in the awakening we are greater than we were prior to the beginning of the dream.

I know people see an absolute God but if God could not — [text corrupt] — it would be eternal darkness. God is a creator, ever creating, ever transcending whatever He created prior to that moment when He made the commitment and entered the world of death to overcome it. That is the challenge.

Now, in the Old Testament you are calling upon God to awake, for when He awakes you are redeemed. And in the New, God did awake and is telling the world that man must awake. To no longer call upon God to awake but man, for man and God are one. God became as you are that you can become as He is. So no longer call upon a god in some remote place and time, but call upon self – the one and only creative power of the world. Nothing can be created without creative power. But nothing!

If you start to imagine that things are [as] you desire them to be regardless of reason and your senses denial and lose yourself in that end just as though it were true, by feeling the thrill of accomplishment; and rest in confidence that it is done; and your desire projects itself on a screen of space so you can see it in your world – then you are the one they are talking about in scripture. Are you not told that by him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made?

And God is a person! It is a person who stands among you, not an impersonal force. Find that person and you will find him to be yourself. You are a person, and when you know what you did and see the results thereof, then you will have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David.

Christ is not another! Christ in you is the hope of glory! Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? That’s what the apostle asks in the 13th chapter of 2 Corinthians. Well, ask that of anyone in the world and if he is brutally honest with himself he will tell you he cannot know it until it has been experienced by him, yet here is the challenge: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?”

Now, if Christ is the one quoted as radiating from within you, and by him all things are made and without him is not anything made that is made (even the bad), then you must find him. If there is only one maker, is it not He who made your awful day, your awful month, your awful year? If you are brutally honest with yourself, you will admit that what happened was related to your imaginal acts.

When you recognize and acknowledge this, you have found him. And because He is a person and you are a person, you know exactly who He is. Now, walk with your head up high, knowing that you have learned from your mistakes; and from now on try to imagine the best as you perceive the best to be, knowing that these acts must project themselves in this world. Then you will awaken and rejoin the brothers, for “I am not a God afar off, in me lo we are one, forgiving all evil and seeking no recognition.” If we are one, why should I demand recognition? Why not forgive all, for they know not what they do.

So I tell you: the God that you formerly dreamed in you was your own wonderful human imagination. Put him to the test. Conceive a scene implying the fulfillment of your desire and – to the best of your ability – merge with it. If you succeed in moving right into the scene, do you know it will become objective before it is seen in this section of time? It will become as objective as this world. Then when you break the spell, that which was objectively real only a moment before will be to you as a dream, but you will know it to be. Then wait in confidence that it will happen here, and when it does share it with others, that they may believe or not believe you; but tell them, because we are all one, so in the end you are simply telling yourself. That is the eternal story.

Now let us go into the silence.

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

TRUST IN GOD

Neville Goddard  10-13-1967

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityAsk any religious person if he believes in God, and he will say yes. But if you ask him who God is, everyone you ask will give you a different answer. So when I ask you to trust in God, I want you to know who God really is, for if you trust in him, your world will change.

Speaking to God, Moses asked: “When I go to the people of Israel and tell them that the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob sent me, and they ask me your name, what shall I tell them?” Then God replied: “Say this, I AM has sent me to you. This is my name forever. Thus shall I be known throughout all generations.” Here we discover God’s name to be I AM, the same name you use when you identify yourself! Now I ask you, do you believe in that God?

The word translated “Lord” in the statement: “I am the Lord” is YOD HE VAU HE, [pron. YOD HEY VAV HEY] which means “I AM”. So this statement could read, “I am the I AM.” It is impossible to say I am and speak of another; and your awareness – your I am – is he who declares: “I am the Lord, and my glory I will not give to another.”

During your lifetime, I am sure there have been those you thought greater than yourself. I remember when General Eisenhower returned from his successful campaign. There was a big parade for him, and thousands of people bowed before him, giving him their glory by worshiping a false image.

There is no other God, other than he who is housed within you. When you say, “I am” you are speaking God’s name, the God I ask you to trust – for there is no other. We are told to “Make no graven image unto me.” If you make an image out of marble or metal in the shape of another and worship it, you have created a false God.

A friend recently shared a wonderful experience with me. It seems a neighbor was forever dropping in on her, constantly telling horrible stories about her friends. She tried to tell the woman how to change things by using her imagination, but she would not listen. And although she imagined her as a fine, positive, happy person, she remained in her negative state.

Realizing the lady was a character my friend had to overcome, she began to change her thoughts. In her imagination she told the neighbor that she loved her. This she persisted in doing, until one day she realized she really did. That night she had this dream.

She found herself sitting in the shade of a beautiful tree. A figure approached, looking like a goddess, in a long white gown with loose sleeves and a silver belt. Suddenly she realized it was her friend, who came to say goodbye. They embraced and she felt a surge of love for that woman like she had never known for anyone before.

The next day this lady came to her door and said: “I gave my notice this morning and have come to say goodbye.” Then my friend added this thought: “If I could fall as much in love with the being within me as I did with this lady, I would be completely transformed – which in turn, would produce great changes in my outer world of effects, for now I know my friend’s transformation took place within me.”

Scripture tells us to love God because he first loved us, and that we should imitate him as a dear child. How is this done? By falling in love! Whether your desire be for wealth, fame, health, or marriage, you must fall in love with the state. My friend fell in love, and so transformed the lady she will never again encounter that state.

God uses man to express love and hate, for man is the agent to express the qualities of I AM. There is no other God! You will find other characteristics of God, but those who know his name put their trust in I AM!

Put your trust in God’s name. Knowing what you want, believe that your assumption will make it a fact. Believe that you need no one on the outside to aid you, for all things are possible to God. Assume things are as you want them to be, for an assumption, persisted in will harden into fact!

Another lady found herself, in dream, with her sister, mother, brother-in-law, and a man she knew to be her first husband. Having agreed to cross the desert on foot and return, they began their journey as the sun blistered her body and the sand burned her feet. At one point she fell, struck her head on a rock, and knew excruciating pain. But at the journey’s end she found her Father. Then she returned to the group and they began their journey home.

Again they encounter everything they had experienced before, but this time she fell madly in love with her first husband. As her love for him grew he became younger and younger, and by the time they returned he was a youth.

She was told that the entire trip took four days – two days to go and two days to return. As she contemplated this period of time, she saw her husband stretched out on the top of a hill. Filled with a great love for him, she was about to throw herself upon his body when she awoke.

This experience is one hundred per cent scripture. In Genesis it is said that: “As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo a dread and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘Know of a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves there and oppressed for four hundred years. Afterwards, they shall come out with great possessions.”‘ (Genesis 15)

In Biblical language the number is important, not years or days. Every letter of the Hebrew tongue has a numerical and a symbolical value. Four-hundred has the numerical value of the last letter, taf, whose symbol is a cross – the cross of Man. In her vision it took two days to enter and two to return, making a total of four. The number two is opposition, division. The journey was that of oppression, fear, and hardship; but in the end she found her first love, who guided and helped her return.

Isaiah tells you: “Your Maker is your husband; the Lord of hosts is his name. He has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, and will love you with everlasting love.” (Isaiah 54)

In spite of everything you do, have done, or will do, God will forgive you – for you are his emanation, his wife till the sleep of death is past. Regardless of the garment you wear, be it male or female, you are God’s wife in this world. In symbolism however, God’s wife appears in the form of a female.

Blake tells us that He is God only, and She is God in you. As you journey you are God’s emanation. But when the journey comes to its end you will know only God as your Maker, your husband, for you will inherit God. You will no longer be two, but you will become one being as you inherit yourself!

Remember: you have only one lover, only one husband. He is your own wonderful Human Imagination, called God. It is he who gives you everything you fall in love with. But if you pray to a little statue made by human hands you are serving a false God.

One day you will know that this world, which seems so real, is a dream. That you were never a rich, poor, white, or black man, as these were only states you dreamed when you entered the state called Abram to become Abraham, the father of multitudes.

God revealed himself to Abraham as El Shaddai, God Almighty, then to Moses as I AM. God’s final revelation will come to you when God’s only begotten son, David, calls you Father.

It is said that David died and his sepulcher is within us to this day (Acts 2). It is within you, God’s sepulcher, that David will rise.

Appealing to the Lord to awake, David cries: “Rouse thyself, why sleepest thou O Lord. Awake! Do not cast us off forever.” For only as the Lord awakes can David rise from the sepulcher and find his Father. Having been promised that his soul would not be left in hell, David awakes; and as he calls you Father, your soul is released from hell.

Asleep to your true identity, you are dreaming the horrors of life for a divine purpose. “Only through many tribulations will you enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Acts 14)

Do not be concerned with the horrors of the world; simply remember that all is ordered and correct. Instead, fall in love with the I AM within you and change your world. God made it as it is now and he can change it, for your husband is a creator. Everything in your world can be traced back to your own wonderful human imagination, who is God.

“Man is all imagination, and God is Man. He exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of Man is the imagination and that is God Himself.” (William Blake). Fall in love with the state you now desire to occupy and to the degree that you are self-persuaded, you will enter it.

Don’t believe in anyone outside of your own wonderful human imagination! Every coin is inscribed with the statement: “In God we trust” yet I wonder how many trust in God – and not the coin! If you really believe in God, you can be penniless, yet walk in the assumption of wealth and be wealthy. Learn to trust your own wonderful human imagination, for he is the only God. Do that and you will never go wrong!

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

TRUTH, THE WORD OF GOD

Neville 11-24-1967

neville goddard imagination creates realityIf truth could ever be told so that it is understood, it will be believed. It is my hope that I can make the truth of scripture so understandable you will believe it. But whether you do or not, one day you will; for scripture will fulfill itself in you and then you will understand it perfectly.

Scripture speaks of two baptisms, baptism with the water of repentance, and baptism with the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us: “I baptize with the water of repentance, but there will come one after me who is mightier than I. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”

Now, repentance means a radical change of attitude towards life. If you change your thinking, and things in your outer world change, then you have been baptized with the water of repentance.

A friend recently shared these experiences with me saying, “I am in the computer business. Every year we hold a convention, and this year our company chose to demonstrate a million dollar computer. It was delivered on a Friday, giving us three days to be ready for the show’s opening the following Tuesday. On Sunday we discovered that some of the parts were not functioning and others were missing.

“Knowing that our subcontractors were scattered all over the nation, when I arrived Monday morning everyone was in a state of panic. Controlling my thoughts, I began to apply my imagination by claiming it was Tuesday morning and the computer was working perfectly. Then I checked the missing parts list and discovered that the company who manufactured the parts was located only fourteen miles from the Center. They delivered the parts that afternoon and by Tuesday morning the computer was functioning perfectly, just as I had imagined.

“One day an old computer which had been stored in our warehouse for sometime, was sold. No one had checked to make sure it was operating properly, so on the day of the delivery I imagined everything was perfect. But as I checked it out, I discovered that two vital parts were missing and could not be found.

“That afternoon the salesman came in, picked up a little package not more than ten feet from the computer and said, ‘Here are the parts.’ And he was right! Inside this little brown package were the missing parts that seemingly were not there before.” Here is a man who has been baptized with water by psychologically applying the truth!

Truth first appears as a stone. That is when everything is done literally. The head of a bull is cut off, and sacrifices are made to a God on the outside. Water comes from the stone when the literal facts take on psychological meaning. Then the water turns into the wine of spiritual truth, through experience.

One must see the whole vast world as a psychological drama. You may think you have never committed adultery, but the moment you lust after anything, the stage is set by your imaginal act. Restraining the impulse is not good enough. The moment you have the impulse to steal, the act is committed. The impulse to hurt is the act of hurting. You may be afraid to carry out any act, but when the impulse appears, the act is committed. Once you understand this, you will forgive all, for there is only one son (who you are), doing your Father’s will.

In the third chapter of the book of Matthew, John states, “I baptize with the water of repentance.” Repentance tests your ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite. When you see another in want, you repent by persuading yourself he is affluent. To the degree you can believe this truth you bathe in the baptismal prime waters. Only when you act and prove repentance, in performance, are you baptized in the true sense of the word.

The baptism with the Holy Spirit is something entirely different. While living by the law of repentance, you will be called to unite into a single body, who is God. In the 12th chapter of 1st Corinthians we are told that, “By one spirit we are baptized into one body.”

When this baptism happened to me, I had the sensation of being taken for a long, long journey. I found myself standing in front of the Risen Lord, who asked me the simple question: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I answered as though promoted from some depth of my own being, saying, “Faith, hope and love. These three, but the greatest of these is love.” With these words, the Risen Lord embraced me and we became one being.

No mortal eye can see the body of God I wear, but I feel it, for I wear it every moment of time. Now, when I tell my story some will resist me, for they are still filled with their own preconceived misconceptions of Christ. But I know that one day everyone will be embraced by this one spirit, thereby being baptized into the one body of Christ.

My wife’s oldest sister is a darling. We love and respect each other, but she cannot believe what I teach. Although she believes in the Bible, and calls herself a good Christian, she could not believe me when I said she would not die. That even the little flower which blooms once blooms forever, for I am a God of the living, not the dead.

Now, Alice would not believe me on this level, so I reached her on another level. In 1948, my secretary, Jack Butler, died quite suddenly. Six or seven months later, fully awake and aware of where I was and what I was doing, I visited Jack. Although he was 50 when he died here, he was a young man in his twenties, there.

Standing beside me, Alice said, “You know, I still don’t believe what you teach,” and I replied, “How can you say that when you see Jack here?” “What does he have to do~ with it?” she asked and I replied, “Don’t you remember, Jack died in August of last year.” With that remark Alice’s face took on an expression of complete amazement. Knowing I was telling the truth, seeing Jack denied her belief in non-survival.

Then Jack spoke saying, “Who’s dead?” and I said, “Jack, you are not dead, but you died. I gave you a good Catholic funeral and your body is buried in a Catholic cemetery.” “Oh” he said, “You’re stupid. You say I’m not dead but I died. That can’t be.” Then I said to Alice, “Come over here,” and I placed my hand on Jack’s thigh and said, “See, my hand doesn’t go through his flesh. It’s solid. If I cut him right now he would bleed. He would hurt as you would hurt.”

With this remark Jack took my hand and slapped it saying, “Get your hand off me,” just as he would do were he here. You see, there is no transforming power in death, and Jack did not know he had died. Not everyone knows of the transition. Some take years to discover it.

Although Alice was with me at the time, she didn’t remember the incident. If she had, it would have taken on the form of a dream, to her. But, being fully awake, I know exactly what I am doing every moment of time. Today Alice believes in survival, although she doesn’t realize that that experience was the beginning of the subtle change in her.

When you are sent, you will carry the message of the one who sent you. You will tell all who will listen that there is only one body, one spirit, one love who embraces and incorporates the individual into a single body who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the meantime, as you test yourself, you are being baptized with the water of repentance. Always creating on this level, when you change your attitude and allow it to become fixed, your outer world will reflect your change. Then one day you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

“Among you stands one who you do not know. I, myself did not know him,” said John. “But I saw the Holy Spirit descend as a dove and remain on him. He who sent me said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”‘

The word “with” used here, is the preposition “in.” You are not sprinkled with water, but are incorporated into the Spirit of Love Himself; thereby being baptized in the Holy Spirit. At that moment you are no longer another, you are the body of Christ. He who is baptized into Christ puts on Christ and wears this body as his own.

As scripture unfolds in you, you feel yourself to be the being who first called and incorporated you into his body. Then God’s only begotten son calls you father, and you understand the wonderful story of baptism. And when you tell it with understanding, some will believe you, while others will disbelieve. Perhaps, because of prejudice, the engrafting will not be accepted at the moment, but it will come.

Now, if I dwell in you and the Father dwells in me, is not the Father in you? And if you are in me and I am in everyone, is not the Father in everyone? Are we not the same being? Will not the same infinite son call us father? Those who believe that Jesus Christ was a man who lived 2000 years ago cannot comprehend a cosmic Christ, dwelling in all, who is God the Father. But God, the Father of all life, is housed in every individual. And one day He will unveil Himself, not as another, but as the one in whom He reveals Himself!

In D. H. Lawrence’s poem “The New Heavens and Earth,” he said,
“I was so weary of it all and when death came, I died, to discover
I am in a body as of before, only
with a newness beyond the knowledge
of newness, and unaccountable.”

This is true, for if you do not know that the story of life is psychological, you cannot account for its newness. My friend Jack died at fifty, looking much, much older. But when I saw him six or seven months later, Jack was a young man of twenty, in a body with a newness beyond the knowledge of newness. The decomposition of Jack’s body which he wore while here, had advanced by then, yet Jack did not know he had died.

The body of a two-hundred pound friend can be turned into ash in the matter of an hour; yet when you meet him, he will not understand how he was renewed, for to him his body is solid and real. It breathes and grows old just as yours does here. It has problems there, as you do here; and if he doesn’t hear the story of baptism and awaken there, he will repeat the experience all over again.

While here, Jack did not know the story of life was psychological, and he doesn’t know it there. He attended my meetings only because he was interested in meeting people. He refused to assume any obligation of society. He wouldn’t get married, but loved all the ladies and they all loved him. He still loves them all, and has yet to realize that life is psychological and ever renews itself by the seed of contemplative thought.

Mr. Lawrence called his experience resurrection, but the word is restoration. He spoke of being restored to life with a newness beyond the knowledge of newness. This is true, for teeth or hair that are missing here are instantly renewed, but people do not stop to reflect upon this fact. They do not stop to realize that they were ninety when they died. That they didn’t go through the womb of a woman, yet are restored to life at the age of twenty. And, because life’s problems are upon them, they go blindly on trying to figure out how to pay the rent, eat, and care for their bodies’ needs just as you do here. They are in a terrestrial world, just like this one, but not in this section of time.

But when you are resurrected, you are born into the one body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is heaven! And when you leave this body of darkness and decay, you enter an entirely different world, wearing a body endowed with creative power. You will no longer wear the limitations of the flesh or have need for food as you understand it. The normal functions of this body no longer exist, as you will wear a body of radiant light – the body you wore before that the world was!

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

WALK BY FAITH

Neville Goddard 11-06-1967

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Neville Goddard 10-30-1967

neville goddard imagination creates realityMany times I have heard someone say: “I believe that imagining creates reality, but I once imagined something and it never came to pass.” Then I ask: “What are you doing, saying: ‘I once imagined it’ and not imagining it now? For God’s name is I Am, not I did! Always thinking of God as someone outside of himself, man finds it difficult to keep the tense, but God is the human imagination and there is no other God.

When you imagine you may include others, but do not think in terms of influence. Rather, think only in terms of clarity of form.

Perhaps a friend would like a better job, more money, and greater responsibility. Before you imagine, take a moment and clarify the form your imaginal act will take. Are you giving the celebration party or is he? Who will be there? Fill the room with those who would want to share in the celebration. Raise your glass and say: “Here’s to your fabulous new job, your salary increase, and the challenge of your greater responsibility!” Don’t think in terms of trying to influence the friend’s boss, for he could die or be discharged. Just go to the end. Toast the event, and do not think of influencing others.

The law, to be effective, needs feeling with form. Build a structure that would imply your desire is already fulfilled, and enter its form with feeling. You do not have to be concerned about influencing others, as they are not the cause – your imaginal act is! Those who have a billion dollars are not causing your world. You and you alone are doing it, as your imaginal acts influence people. Everyone is yourself pushed out, so when you imagine, you are influencing yourself!

Knowing what you want, place your attention on its clarity of form, and then watch what you are imagining. Are you remembering when you imagined something greater than what you have? If so, you are confessing you are not now imagining your desire fulfilled. If imagining creates reality, you must change your memory and become aware of what you are imagining right now.

Let me now tell you of a series of dreams I received from a friend. The series began one night when she found herself with a group of children, trying to find something that was lost. Seeing a brown paper bag tied with string, she opened it and removed a watch, as one of the children said: “That is a treasure,” and the dream ended.

The next night she found herself moving as if on wheels, with everything she sees moving with her. Then she said to herself: “This is not what I want. Everything is moving, while I still have the sense of longing,” and she awoke.

The following night, she felt herself walking with an enormous crowd across fields, on roads, and sidewalks. She went up hills and down stairs, attending my lectures in many places. Listening attentively, she was thrilled to hear the revelations which were being shared. Entering a beautiful, old, ivy-covered building, she tried to mentally remember every word I said; but when she awoke on her bed, their memory was gone.

The next night she entered an expansive white house, which she knew her father had built. All of the rooms were empty, except the one in which I was teaching and the adjacent room where her father was. (Don’t forget this aspect of the dream, as the father is unseen.) Addressing all of my remarks to her, she is filled with joy. Then, with profound authority I announced: “My name is Friday.” Recognizing its tremendous significance, she said: “Yes! And that means, O my darling.” I smiled, nodded, and she awoke.

My friend heard and saw correctly, for my name is Friday, as I am the God of love. In mythology (which is only part vision) love is a goddess. But in vision, love is man. Having been incorporated into the body of the Risen Lord, I am the embodiment of love; I am one with that one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

The word “yachid” is used only ten or twelve times in scripture. It is defined as “my darling, my only son”. Anyone who is incorporated into the body of love is yachid, and called my darling. The word first appears in the 22nd chapter of Genesis, when the Lord – speaking of the promised child – says to Abraham: “You did not withhold your only son (yachid),” Then, in the Gospel of John, when the crucifixion and resurrection had taken place, this passage from Zechariah is quoted: “They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child (yachid).” (John 19 & Zechariah 12) I have experienced scripture. I now tell its truth to those who will listen. Those who believe my words will encounter me as I teach night after night. My friend could not recall the words I spoke, but she did remember my name, for my name is Friday, as I am the God of love.

The first definition given to the word yachid is unity; sole (in the sense of being unique); the only one. Everyone incorporated into that one body is unique and the only one, for there is only one body, only one Spirit, only one Lord, only one God and Father of us all. In that body there is a unity, yet an individuality; and when you wear it you are Friday, the God of love.

On this level no one sees that body, but she saw it in the spirit and brought the memory of the experience back with her. In the ivy-covered walls I instructed others, but in the white house there was only one door to the room occupied by her unseen father and where I spoke to her alone. Do you see the symbolism?

Now a dream is egocentric, with every aspect of it taking place in the individual. Although the dream unfolds in one, that one contains all. In her dream the father is unseen, but projects himself into the teacher – who tells her that her father is the God of love.

Returning to this level, the first words given us by the one who comes to reveal this truth – that imagining creates reality – are: “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Repentance, which is a radical change of attitude, can cause your powerful imagination to burst through this world of death. So I ask you to repent. To test this wonderful law by changing your attitude towards life and watch what happens.

A gentleman recently dreamed he was peeling his head, bringing the skin down to his neck then pulling it back again. As he did, he realized that he was generating light from the inside and knew that the outside was completely dark. This gentleman saw the truth. Blake said it so beautifully: “All that you behold, though it appears without it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” Now he knows that the outer world is being lit by the light of awareness which comes from within.

While listening to a taped lecture of mine, this gentleman fell asleep and was awakened by two terrific blows on the right side of his head and saw the index finger of the right hand extended. Having peeled his head, he has removed the outer skin of Esau. Knowing he must continue to wear it while here, this gentleman will put it back on; but now he knows the world is made alive from within – and that in itself is quite a blow. This man has been coming to hear me for only a short time. He has appeared at the eleventh hour and is receiving the same fruit as those who came at the first hour. Everyone receives the same message and the same blows, as they are essential to the awakening of the sleeping one within all.

In his wonderful hymn, Isaac Watts says: “Wrapped within the silence of the tomb the great redeemer sleeps. Hail and death combined their force to hold our Lord, but the great conqueror arose and broke the fragile chain.” Your heavenly Father sleeps within you as your own wonderful human Imagination. One day He will break the chain and you will rise as He! But in the meantime, put him to the test, and you will discover that neither hail nor death combining their force will keep your desires from being fulfilled.

Now, there is an eternal brotherhood and fatherhood, for every individual is the father of the same child. How would I ever know that you and I are one were it not for this symbol? God placed eternity (his only son, David) in the mind that man may know he is his father. And if you know David to be your son, and I know I am his father, are we not one? There is no other way of proving our brotherhood, save through our common fatherhood.

If you had a son and I had another, we could question this common fatherhood; but there is only one son, who is loved by all. We are all one, but we will know it only as we are gathered into that one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

Always think in clarity of form, for as you do, you are influencing others. When I wanted to get out of Barbados, I didn’t think of influencing anyone. I simply used clarity of form and walked up the gangplank in my imagination. That act caused someone five thousand miles away to cancel their passage. And although there were hundreds ahead of me waiting for passage, the one who had the power to distribute the tickets chose us, so I did influence others. I imagined, and we came back, while thousands who preceded us in applying for passage continued to wait their turn.

Do you know that the moment you draw a line you encompass energy? That without an outline, everything is nothing? Draw your outline and make your picture as clear as possible. Perhaps you are giving a party to honor one who is present. Sit at the table with friends and raise your glass. Congratulate your friend on his new position, his greater salary and more responsibility. Stick to that thought, and it will not matter to you who is influenced.

The moment you think of influence, you reduce a miracle to magic. All the people in the world are only yourself pushed out. No one has the power to hold you back or promote you, for you are self-promoted or self-restricted.

Blake tells us to enter into – not just observe, but enter into – images in our imagination. To approach them on the fiery chariot of contemplative thought. To make a friend and companion of any one of these images of wonder, for if we will, we will rise from the grave and meet the Lord in the air and be happy.

Let us say you are in Los Angeles and want to be in New York City. You could enter the city on the fiery chariot of your contemplative thought by thinking from it, and no longer thinking from Los Angeles. You enter New York City by rising from your grave of flesh and blood in Los Angeles and meeting your Lord (your I AM) in the air. Do that and you will be happy in the doing, for that is how reality is created.

When you enter the state you desire to express and believe it is true, no earthly power can stop it from objectifying itself. And although you do not deliberately influence others, you influence everyone. As Sir James [Frazer?] said: “A man on this planet cannot raise a hand without influencing the farthest star in the heavens in its unified form.”

Practice the art of imagining, and you will discover you can go anywhere and enter any time without the aid of anyone. Move in your imagination, and people will respond because of your action. Dare to assume you are wealthy, and watch everyone play their parts to provide you with the wealth you claim to have. They will, for they are only yourself pushed out.

The world goes on and on, as the actors – playing their numberless parts – desire more and more things that vanish. Man is forever fighting for something that passes away; yet he is told: “Do not lay up treasures on earth where thieves can take and the moth corrupt, but lay up treasures in heaven where no man can take from you.”

The treasures of earth can be withdrawn at any moment, but the treasures in the instructions I am giving you now are forever. Only one being was pierced, and that is Jesus Christ, your true identity. The crucifixion is over. You have been crucified with Christ, and your resurrection will take place in you, in its own wonderful time.

I ask you to test your imagination! Go all out and believe in what you have imagined. Do not try to influence anyone. Instead, put all of your energies into clarity of form.

If a certain desk designates that you are occupying a desired position, occupy that desk. Enter into the image, and you will realize your vision. Sit in the chair behind that desk and view the room. Persist in thinking from that point of view. If you do not physically occupy that chair tomorrow, and begin to doubt, ask yourself: “What am I doing, remembering and not imagining?” Then return to your chair behind that desk!

Now let us go into the silence.

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 Is Reality

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

Neville Goddard 12-13-1963

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityWhere are you from? This you will find in the 19th chapter of the Book of John. And the rabbi said to Pilate: We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, for he claims he is the Son of God. And their law would not allow that, for we know where this man is from, know all about him; and when Messiah appears no one will know where he is from. So his claim is false. When Messiah appears it will be mysteriously done. And yet we know exactly where this man is from. Even his own brothers do not believe in him. And he said to his brothers, My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. And then he repeated it, but qualified it: My time has not yet fully come. He knew his time. He is speaking of two entirely different times, two entirely different worlds, two different ages. So: My time has not yet fully come, but your time is always here. But my time had not yet fully come.

So Pilate said to him: Where are you from? And Jesus gave no answer. Pilate said to him: You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the power to set you free and power to crucify? And Jesus answered him: You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. He does not answer Pilate’s first question, but he corrects Pilate’s misunderstanding of power. He does not answer: Where are you from? He doesn’t answer him because Pilate would never understand; and he corrects Pilate’s misunderstanding – which is the world’s misunderstanding – of power. Pilate thought he had the power to set him free or to crucify him. He was simply telling him he had no power whatsoever unless it has been given from above.

For, one day you will have this experience, and you will taste of the power of the new age. You will see a scene just like this. As you taste of the power of this new age, you will know it is all animated, and you are the power animating it. You will arrest within yourself an activity that you sense, and at that moment of arrestment everything stands still and is dead; it’s made as though it were made of clay. Not just the outer aspect, but your brain, that is so fluid and so alive and so pulsing – that, too, if you opened up the skull would be like clay. The heart that pumps – that too would be like clay. The whole thing including all the inner works would be frozen. Then you would release within yourself the activity which you have arrested and everything once more would become animated and would continue in its course and would perform its intention. Then you will know what he means by this time, which is forever – as against His time, when he said to him: Brothers, my time has not yet fully come, but your time is always here.

Now, man’s conventional view of time – including our great scientists – is that the future develops continuously out of the past; but that is not the Biblical view of time. The Biblical view of time is: what appears to be so new in our world is only the appearance of the return of phenomena already old. The whole vast world is moving on a circle, and all of this is already so, so that the entire space-time history of the world is laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it sequentially. But it is on a curve, and therefore what seemingly is past isn’t really; from the Biblical view, it is your tomorrow. It hasn’t receded into a past; it’s advancing into a future and it is forever.

Now listen to these words: What had been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, See, this is new? It has been already, in the ages past. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who will come after. (Eccl. 1:9-11).

Well, who would accept that! The conventional view completely denies it, it couldn’t possibly be. He is telling me that I have a memory of my youth. I can’t quite remember the moment of my physical birth. I vividly remember the moment of my spiritual birth. But he is telling me it has been – that I do know. And everyone here – without memory of that physical birth – they can’t deny by observation of other people being born, that they, too, must have been born in a similar manner; so they say it has been. Now he tells me: that which has been done (which is my birth) is that which will be done. That I am moving towards that same thing on a wheel of recurrence, that same thing in this world of Caesar, and only divine mercy can redeem me from the wheel. That: What seems to be, Is, To those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to Whom it seems to Be, even of torments, despair, and Eternal Death; but then Divine Mercy steps beyond and Redeems Man in the body of Jesus. (Jerusalem, 36 William Blake) So here the wheel returns.

Now, let me share with you a story told me last Tuesday night – the lady is present. She gave me a letter just before I started. I had no time to read it before my meeting, and had no time until just before I retired that night – so about midnight I read the letter. It was dated Nov. 23rd, which as you know was a week ago last Saturday, the day after the great event in this world that took place on the 22nd. She states in the letter: This is my experience of ten days prior to the 22nd of November (that is the 12th of November). I go from my office home and back always in a certain manner, a certain road. It is my habit when I get into a certain intersection that I turn and read the headlines at a newsstand. Quite often a red light is with me, and so I have a moment to turn and read the headlines.

This night on my way home it was dusk, the sun was setting. I am moving west into the setting sun, and a few cars moving. I turned to read the headlines of the day. As I turned, I saw four papers on the rack – three the usual black and white, and one was a green sheet and this enormous black type as a head mat read: KENNEDY SHOT. This is the 12th day of November. I almost put my foot on the brake to turn, but I was in the intersection. Then reason prevailed. I said, No it’s the headlight, it’s the dusk, it’s the sun that is setting; and surely above all things in my office where I work, the radio goes all day long, and such horrendous news would be on the radio. So that capped it, reason prevailed, and I knew I had not seen correctly; but I saw on this green paper: Kennedy Shot. Well, I kept going across the intersection. How long does it take – 2 or 3 seconds? And so at the end of the three seconds I crossed the intersection and kept moving. It wasn’t one block before I completely forgot the incident.

In my office ten days later, on Friday the 22nd, I came to the office late. Two radios were blasting, a TV is going, and nothing but this news on the air. Some are crying, many are talking, others are cursing, and I wanted some quietness to do work. I am at the typewriter. 3:30 in the afternoon I am still trying to remember a dream, a dream that is related to what I am hearing. I couldn’t call back the dream. I know that something I dreamt is related to what I am hearing on the radio. What is coming across TV too, but I couldn’t bring back the dream. A co-worker leaves the office. He is gone not more than a few minutes, when he returns bringing in a folded paper. He comes in my direction and he calls me by my name. He comes over to my desk and he slaps it down on the table and said to me: Isn’t it amazing how fast these papers can move? and he intended that I should have the paper. I took the paper and opened it and here is a green sheet, the outer covering is green; and only two words as the mat head: KENNEDY SHOT. Then suddenly what had happened to me ten days before springs into my mind, and here I am seeing the entire scene as I drove home going west and watched this headline on this newsstand.

I took that letter, because it meant a tremendous thing to me. I read it over and to my wife. She and I reacted as I would expect her to react – I knew how I would react. But last weekend a friend of mine who sponsors my meetings in San Francisco came home, and so I invited four mutual friends that knew her well, to dinner. There were the seven of us. I took the letter and read it and gave it to each to read and see the letter and hold it in their own hands. There was only the moment of surprise of a strange coincidence – no more. Within a matter of seconds – just as the lady said in three seconds she had completely forgotten the incident and tried to bring it back to memory like a dream; for the event is now turning something in the depths of her soul, that she experienced it. But she couldn’t bring it back until the fact was presented when the paper was put before her in a physical manner, and then she saw it. Through the evening they discussed all kinds of things relevant to the great drama; but they thought that the FBI, the Secret Service, the local police – all these people should have done what they did not do. And here it is, stated so clearly in the first chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes.

So in her letter she said to me, at the very end: When the man looked at me, having given me the paper and I saw it, black type on green, I must have turned green myself, because he said to me: What’s the matter? and I couldn’t answer him; because how could I tell him that creation is finished? How could I tell him that this is a drama, and it is finished? That because it is animated, blood flows instead of tomato juice (as it does on the stage). But having had the experience of arresting in me an activity which animated the scene I saw, I know that it is no more than that on the stage.

But it is for a divine purpose, and the purpose is that God is individualizing himself. He individualizes himself through this play; and when he comes out individualized, that’s Jesus Christ, the only name that the individualized God bears. So in each, as he comes out individualized, he is incorporated into the one body; for the Lord on that day, the Lord will be one and his name one and the Lord will reign as King over all the earth.

Then, said she at the end of her letter: Could my reason – that is, my refusal to recognize as true what I actually saw – be the lines spoken in the 30th chapter of Isaiah? Then she quotes the 9th – 11th verses: For they are a rebellious people, lying sons, sons who will not hear the instruction of the Lord: who say to the seers, See not and to the prophets, Prophesy not to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more of the Holy One of Israel.

Yes, I can answer her. They are these lying sons – your reason. They took everything that night – the setting sun, the dusk, the absence of the news from the radio, everything, the headlight – to persuade you that you had not seen what you actually saw. And it went so deep into your being that even when the news began to blare at the office, you thought it was related to a dream. This was a waking dream, just like another dream, and you tried to bring back memory – and you couldn’t recall what you actually had experienced.

But it also struck me in a very forceful manner, because in the same 30th chapter of Isaiah I took the verse I wanted for the title page of my latest book, The Law and the Promise. I took the 8th verse, and she took the 9th 10th, and 11th: And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. And so I took that verse for my title page, that I would inscribe it in the book, whether one believed it or not. For I know it is more true than anything being discussed this day concerning what happened in Dallas, for they think it should not have happened. They don’t know this time against that time.

So he said to his brothers, who did not believe in him: My time has not yet fully come, but your time is always here. These garments are part of the eternal structure of the universe; and this thing here (the body) I will one day vacate it, but it remains as part of the eternal structure of the universe – like Hamlet remaining after Lawrence Olivier makes his exit from this world. And so he remains, as part of the eternal structure of the play called Hamlet. Tomorrow another one – unborn today – will put on the costume of a Hamlet and play Hamlet as conceived by God, because I will have vacated it for the last time. But the time here is to be worn forever and forever until he completely individualizes himself. And more than the sands of the sea we are told. He is the great Abraham of scripture, the father of the multitudes, individualizing himself. There is a series of events by which he breaks this invidious bar, and then causes the individual whose shell he breaks to separate and escape from this strange, wonderful wheel of recurrence. At that moment in time, this series of events begins to appear within you – that’s his secret.

But everything is here and that bullet in the brain of Kennedy is part of the eternal structure of God’s world, and God conceived it. And so is the one who pulled it [the trigger] – God conceived it. And that’s a part to be played – and played over and over and over. And man can’t quite see the garment, because it doesn’t make sense, because he thinks it’s here. It isn’t here. This is forever, as the play. But he is speaking of the other time: my time has not yet fully come. My time belongs to a world where I am then really free – where I am in a world where everything is subject to my imaginative power – but everything! And I too, will be part of that world, animating this, seeing it differently, so that the bullet and the one who pulled it [the trigger], and those who weep will not really disturb me from that level.

So Blake made the statement: Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past, and Future, see; whose ears have heard the Holy Word that walks among the ancient trees. He is telling you the experience of that 3rd chapter of Genesis: And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And then in the 4th chapter of Daniel – and this Holy One who walked in that garden gave the command: Hew down the tree. We were the tree in that holy garden, but innocent trees. And we had to fall into experience to awaken into the world of imagination, where everything is subject to our imaginative power, awakened as God. So here: Hew down the tree and cut off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. But leave the stump of its roots, let him be wet with the dew of heaven. (Dan. 4:14-15) Take from him now, (it’s a tree and suddenly becomes a person). Let his mind be changed from a man’s and let a beast’s mind be given to him; and let seven times pass over him to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will, and sets over it the lowliest of men.

So here the tree is felled. And again with Blake: The Gods of the earth and sea sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree; But their search was all in vain; There grows one in the Human Brain. (from The Human Abstract.) So it is turned down into generation, and suddenly it becomes an animal. This (the body) is an animal. This is an animal form. Everything we call human – that’s animal – is related to the animal world. It has the animal heart, the animal mind. And seven times pass over him. What is a time in the language of scripture? Blake implies approximately 900 years. So seven times must pass over him. Blake leaves off the little additional 300 years and speaks of a solid number, 6,000 years. He says: I behold the Vision 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 my Divine Creator and Redeemer. (Jer. 96 [sic])

So here he saw the whole thing clearly. The Holy One he heard – the Holy One walking in the cool of the day – in this world called the Garden of Eden. And he tells us by implication that he actually heard the command: Hew down the tree. So said he in this very opening to what he started as a series – but only gave us one. He calls it, The First Book of Urizen, but he deleted the word First afterwards because he only wrote the one. But in this one he addresses the Holy One, the immortal, and he calls them Eternals. Eternals! I hear you call gladly. Dictate swift winged words and fear not to unfold your dark visions of torment.” This I am quite willing when I see the result of passing through this horror – I am quite willing that I seek in my mind’s eye the vision, which is your vision for me, when you complete your dream and you individualize yourself.

So Los beheld the vision, and he was faithful to the vision in time of trouble. So when you go through it [trouble], know it has happened and happened and happened, but you have no memory. In some strange way, this lady in ten days, within one block – it so passed from memory that even when the radios began to blare and the TV, and even the weeping and cursing and talking, she is prodding herself to remember a dream. And only when the facts of a paper were placed before her and she saw the green page with the headline: KENNEDY SHOT did the whole thing run into her mind like some photographic plate. And she remembered the intersection where she saw these four papers on a rack, three the normal black and white, and the fourth one the green with this headline; then the struggle with herself as she crossed the intersection which only took two or three seconds. Then all of sudden it rushed into the mind.

And our theologians for centuries have been trying to delete from our Bible the Book of Ecclesiastes, because it doesn’t make sense. Because the normal view of time is that the future develops continuously of the past: I was born as a babe and so I will grow as any person in this world, grow to manhood, and then – having waxed – I will then wane and vanish. That is the normal progression of this linear motion of time, but that is not the Biblical view of time at all. It is something entirely different, and he separates the two times. He speaks of your time that is always here, and my time when I chose the words I wanted for the title page of my book: Inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come For that is what it is. I am not speaking of this.

The Law – yes. I still say, within the framework of God’s grand dream there is another dream – my dream, your dream. And these that have unnumbered experiences – we aren’t going to change His dream for us, but we can modify and change within the framework of His dream the things that we will encounter. And if I use the Law wisely I will avoid repetition tomorrow when the wheel turns again. I won’t break the foot the next time; I won’t have the distorted arm the next time; I won’t have anything the next time if now I revise it. So I say: if there is one thing I have been brought into this world to tell you, it is the secret of revision: that if something today is unpleasant, you don’t like it, don’t let it slip by.

The Bible speaks of redeeming the time. Every moment, if it is unpleasant, it should be redeemed, because you are going to meet it tomorrow as the wheel turns. So don’t let the night descend and catch you with the unredeemed day. Take the day and redeem it. You may produce the results now, in the immediate present. But if you don’t redeem it, when the wheel turns because you haven’t yet hatched out (or as Blake says, For hatching ripe he breaks the shell,) – but if the shell isn’t yet broken by the series of events which detaches you from this wheel of recurrence, then revise the day. So that next time when the wheel comes around you aren’t going to relive the unpleasant thing of this moment in time.

But I tell you: your time is always here, my time has not yet fully come. It takes one more link to break it, for it is all only hanging by a link. To be part of the world, where – having once tasted of the power of the age to come, then to return to the world where you are part of this age and be animated – as he confessed: You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. Here is one who is confessing he is only at the very brink of leaving it. But while he is in the world of Caesar – having tasted of the world to come and the power that belongs to that world – while in the world of Caesar, wearing an animal garment, then no one has the power over him unless it was given him from above. So the one who gave it to you, he has the greater sin. If now he sends you to the gallows because he sends you to perform an act that is condemned by society, you have the greater sin, for it is part of the great play.

And this dual time is so difficult for man to grasp. But I am only quoting scripture. He speaks so often of time, and he separates these two times: this time which belongs here forever, and that time; this world and that world. So he speaks of two ages: this age where there is rebirth, but he doesn’t mean reincarnation, for that which had been done is that which will be done. Were you once born of your present mother? You will be. It is happening all over again, at the moment in time when the wheel turns, and we will get the same surprise that is conceived of reincarnation, being born in the same manner of the same mother. Because they can’t see these garments and they think these are themselves, and these are garments that God wears.

And so, the whole vast world will say: O yes, I believe in reincarnation. It justifies the inequalities of life. Nothing justifies the inequalities of life – as you are told of the blind man in John 9:2, 3: And his disciples ask him: Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. All these are the experiences through which God goes: the blind, the lame, the withered, the halt – everything. It is not any justification, because the God of whom I am speaking is not a God of retribution. In spite of the horror of the play, he is a God of Love; because in the end, he individualizes himself, and you are he. If it took 6,000 years of horror, the end results justify the means he conceived as a play to bring it out.

I ask you: don’t forget the lady’s letter. Don’t do what my friends of last Saturday night did. So when they departed and I started washing dishes in the wee hours of the morning, I said to my wife: What a strange reaction. Now, that lady sponsors me, she has sponsored me for the last seven years, and prior to that she came to my meetings when she was not my sponsor. She sells all of my books, and all of my other friends have known me here on the West Coast for the last fifteen years. And so it was like reading a nice little mystery and then throwing it into the ashcan – that’s it – and then we go back to discuss the facts of life. Why were not the FBI on the job, and not these people on the job? And they just got through reading, that ten days before he was actually shot by the human standard, he was already dead.

But time with a larger focus, you see a larger focus, you take a larger section of time. And she, in some wonderful way, the green light is with her, she hadn’t time to really focus, so she is moving forward with the green light, and in the intersection, she is almost on it, but habit possessed her and she turned to see – she is in the right-hand lane – and here on a green paper the headline, Kennedy SHOT. But then it fades. But are we not told in Eccl. 1:9: There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after. And so she is trying, when it does happen, that we on this level will appreciate it. She is trying to remember what she called a forgotten dream. She thinks it’s a dream and she is wondering: When did I dream this? but she cant bring back to memory, can’t recall it -until the paper is brought and the voice said: Isn’t it amazing how fast these papers can move? Even then she didn’t – and she opened up and saw the same headline on the green page. Then the whole thing rushed into the brain. Being a student of the Bible, she searched the Bible for something that caused her to lie to herself, and she found the 3 verses of the 30th chapter of Isaiah: Lying sons, sons who will not hear the instruction of the Lord They will not listen to him. And they say: O seers,” those who see like a Blake, tell us not. Do not look. Don’t tell us any more. Tell us smooth things, pleasing things. And so thats the world.

But I am not sent to tell you the smooth things or the pleasing things. But I can tell you – through the one thing I have brought to tell you, which is revision – it isn’t hopeless. You can, if the day is unpleasant, revise it. And if tomorrow the results are not before you, and the next week and the next month, they are not before you, I know that by your revision you will change the events, when once again you must come to that moment in time. And so you will change the pattern, for the wheel is turning and you can’t stop it.

I saw it. For one moment in time I was part of it, and I stopped it within me, and they all stopped. Not one could move, not even the bird in flight. The birds couldn’t fall. There was no gravity – gravity was in me. And I thought (as I was taught in my little school) that Sir Isaac Newton discovered it; and I almost thought he made it, because the whole thing was Sir Isaac Newton. I heard it, and so no one was as great in my mind as the great Sir Isaac Newton. As a child I really believed that he determined how things should fall and how they should go on. Then one day I came into a taste of the power into which tomorrow I would inherit – for I will inherit the kingdom of God, with all the power that goes with it.

But I tasted of that power before the last link was broken. And so the birds couldn’t fly, the leaves couldn’t fall, and the grass that was moving in the wind couldn’t move; and people walking couldn’t walk, and the diners dining couldn’t dine, and everything was frozen. I looked at them. I was moving; I was not frozen. I froze in me an activity which froze them. I went over and looked at them, and these were dead things, part of the eternal structure of the universe. Forever these are garments to be worn by God. And then I released it and they all moved. The birds continued in flight, and the leaves began to fall, and the grass began to wave, and the diners dined, and the waitress walked, and everything continued to fulfill its purpose. Then I knew of a different time, a different age, of a different use of power – and that here we are only an animated world.

So, to repeat: You have no power over me, unless it has been given to you from above. The word is “anothin,” the same word used in the 3rd chapter of John. When he said, Except you be born from above (anothin) you cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You are still part of the wheel of recurrence, still part of this time – which is forever. But God in his infinite mercy, having put seven times over you, will move beyond, and redeem you in the body of Jesus. Because there is only one body, you are redeemed in the body of Jesus. Jesus, believe it or not, is God. People won’t believe it. They smile at you and they laugh. But Jesus Christ is the only God, but so are you when you enter his body and become incorporated into it. Because there is only one name, only one Lord, and that one name is Jesus Christ. And all will be redeemed in the body of Jesus and all will have the same power, the same being; everyone will be Jesus.

Now it doesn’t make sense. But what I told you earlier doesn’t make sense. The lady is here and I must tell her that one of my friends who read the letter knows her quite well, and she said: You know, having seen the name of the one who signed it, I believe every word of it. Were it not that she wrote it, I would question it. So the questioning mind already was there, but she read the one who sent it and – trusting her implicitly – she said, I believe every word of this letter. But still, only three or four seconds, right away she is discussing the possibilities of changing God’s play and changing it radically so that he would still be here as our President. And they can’t see these wheels within wheels within wheels that Ezekiel spoke of.

So I tell you: it is not reincarnation, as the world teaches to justify the inequalities of life; you can’t justify them. For man didn’t sin. He didn’t gouge his eyes out, he was born blind. And his parents didn’t sin? And this only so that the works of God may be made manifest? What a horrible God! And that is the word of God speaking? He didn’t sin and his parents didn’t sin? It is only that the works of God be made manifest. Therefore, revision – which in scripture is called repentance (but the word is tarnished) It was taught – the very first word used in the earliest Gospel, which is Mark – that first word spoken by the embodiment of God is repentance. The time is fulfilled he speaks of time, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel. (Mk.1:15)

Well, repentance really is the ancient word for the word I use today of revision. For repentance is a radical change of attitude toward life. And if in the revolution of this world there is really a revolution, it’s not what took place in Cuba or in Russia or this country – or in any part of the world. The real revolution is when man discovers that by a radical change of his own mental attitude towards life he can change the outer aspects of life. When man makes that discovery, there is a real revolution in the world. A man discovers that by his own change of mental attitude he changes the outer aspects of his life! For I can’t conceive of any greater revolution in the world – and that is repentance.

But the churches have put barnacles on it, and they teach us to be remorseful, to be regretful; and to this very day you turn on the radio or the TV, they are still talking of the event that should not have happened. They all sit in judgment of God. And here is the whole grand wonderful play unfolding. When one really sees it in the end, and when one completely awakes, he, too, will be able to say to all of the characters who played the part: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. How could you tonight – if you really believed the vision that was written to me ten days ago – how could you today condemn anyone who had a part, whether his part was to play a part in not properly arranging protection, or the one who has gone berserk and bought his gun, and then hate, as he did, if he did it; and then the one who came and did all these things to hush the very voice that might be able to throw light on it? All these things in the wonderful drama. And then this fantastic pageantry that we had in our country, where the whole vast world – with the aid now, of this Telstar – saw it all at the same time. Russia saw it, all of Europe. If there are TV sets in China, they could see it too, because by this new beam the whole vast world could see it. And what drama! A tremendous pageantry that she actually saw ten days before this level could receive it.

So where are you from? I came out from the Father, said he. And I have come into the world. Again I am leaving the world and I am going to the Father. (John 16:28) In four short phrases he states his prenatal existence, his incarnation, his breaking of the wheel – he’s going to die leaving this wheel – and return to the Father. But he said to the others: Where I go you cannot now come, but you will. Where I now go you cannot now come – not now. He tells you he is breaking the wheel, and therefore he departs for the last time; but he did incarnate and took human form.

He tells us by the words, the little phrase: I came from the Father – that is a confession of a prenatal existence. I came into the world from the Father. But when you see me you see him who sent me. And who sent you? The Father. When you see me you see him who sent me. Well, how could that be? But if God is individualizing himself and God is Father, when he is individualized that individualized presence must all be Father. That is why he is saying these are the ways to the Father. You will never know that you are father unless God’s only begotten son appears and calls you Father – no uncertainty when you look into his eyes and he into your eyes and he calls you Father. And so God is Father. When he begets you as himself, you can’t be less than God; and, therefore, he is father of the same child, not another child.

And so this is the way by which this invidious bar is broken – this envious bar. For, someone who has wealth, they may envy someone who has more; one who is poor envies the one who has some; one who is known is not envious of the unknown, but they are envious of the known. All this strange, peculiar enmity in the world is part of God’s play, these unequal discriminations in the world. And the world thinks it is going to change it in some strange way. You will change it only in one way; if you know the art of revision. But you will change it only to the extent when you reach that point in time – which is forever – you do not encounter (again) what to you was unpleasant. When you encounter that moment in time, it’s the completed circle.

Now let us go into the silence.

Question and Answer:

About two months ago (a psychic) saw it, tried to get in touch with the President to persuade him not to go. But, first of all, no one could persuade the President not to go. He would not have listened for one second. Today he is now woven closely in the tapestry of martyrs because he died in office a violent death. Already they are building up the idea of a Lincoln concept. And so given the choice of living another few years with a painful back or going this way without pain – he didn’t know it. And then to go down in history believing undoubtedly as he does in the linear concept of time, he would have chosen exactly what happened to him.

But may I tell you: that was only the part – God played the part. God through this is individualizing himself. Don’t get off now to a man who is called John Fitzgerald Kennedy or one who called himself Oswald. It is the all-together preciousness of the whole vast fragmented state that produces the individualized God. This body is going to be worn as it has been worn by many people – many actors -the actors all are God. It’s a great mystery. When I leave the stage, it is dusted off and hung up for the next occupant; and the next occupant and the next occupant will always be God.

You could not have changed his (JFKs) values. First of all he prided himself on being a very intelligent gentlemen and he was very learned. He would have looked upon Dixon’s suggestion as superstition. It would have annoyed him to think that anyone could have persuaded him to cancel a political visit, thinking in terms of next year, by some superstitious concept. He would have thought the Republicans have pulled that on me. He would have found it in the one who wrote the letter – a nice Republican – because if she succeeds in persuading me to go, then I have missed an opportunity to challenge the state of Texas. He would have justified it, just as the lady justified it with the oncoming lights and the setting sun and the absence of the news on the radio.

Reason steps in; and reason is the lying son who refused to hear the instruction of the Lord, who said to the seers see not – she was a seer, she saw it – and said to the prophets prophesy not to us what is right, speak to us smooth things. Speak to us and tell us of the prophesies of illusion. So he doesn’t want to hear unlovely things. Everyone in high office surrounds himself, invariably, with yes-men. So there are no seers who surround many prominent persons. If you said anything that displeased Hitler, you got your head removed. If you told the truth that they would lose the war and that millions would have suffered as a result of his attempt to conquer the world and that he himself would have an ignorable end, he’d have you removed because he didn’t want anyone to speak to him of anything other than smooth things. It is said of Stalin.

But they fulfill scripture, scripture is the eternal drama and man is trying to rewrite it. He’s always trying to rewrite it. Then say: He didn’t really mean this. And you say; Who didn’t mean it? Well, the one who wrote it. Don’t you believe God wrote it? Don’t you believe God dictated it to the prophets – men organized by divine providence for that communion? They will seriously confess that maybe. Well, if God dictated it, doesn’t it contain his word? Aren’t you one who mustn’t tamper with the word of God? Well, they all tamper with it.

I read from a new Bible today, and they tried their best to give meaning to that which I quoted tonight and it is so far removed. It is the Modern English Bible; only the New Testament is out so far. And what they did to that wonderful 19th [chapter] of John in trying to give meaning, because (they think) he can’t possibly mean what the Word says, what he says -but he said exactly that.

To the first question he does not answer – Where are you from? and Jesus gave no answer. He would not. The priest: Do you not know I have the power to set you free and the power to crucify you? You would have no power over me had it not been given to you from above. Well, that’s stupid to Pilate, who represents Caesar. Caesar is the power of the world in today’s business – and he represents Caesar. You dare to say to me – you whose background, whose origin is well known to the world He had a large family. Four brothers are named and sisters and he comes from a simple little family. And you dare to say to me – Caesar’s right arm – that I have no power over you except that it be given me from above? Is there something above Caesar? And he says from above meaning “anothin” – from God. Therefore, he (meaning God) therefore God determined who delivered me into your hands. He has the greater sin – if it’s sin.

Goodnight.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

WHO IS THE REAL MESSIAH

Neville Goddard June 11, 1971

neville goddard Imagination Is RealityIt is in us as persons that God is revealed. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,” [Philippians 1:6]. To say “Jesus Christ” is the same as saying “Jehovah’s Messiah.” Christ is Messiah.

This will not shock you because you have been coming – maybe all of you – for quite a while. It certainly would be a shock to the outer world to learn who Messiah is. But I am telling you from my own personal experience Who-He-Is. We are told in Scripture, “He is the Son of God,” [Acts 9:20]. I am telling you tonight who the Son of God really is; and you will never in Eternity find another Son – not in Eternity!

You and I were taught as Christians that Jesus Christ differs – is something entirely different from that of the Old Testament. Yet he is made to say, “I have come to fulfill Scripture,” [Matthew 5:17]. “Scripture must be fulfilled in me,“ [Luke 22:37]. “Then beginning with Moses and the law and the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself,” [Luke 24:27]. He came only to do the Will of God.

Now, in the 40th Psalm we are told:

“I delight to do Thy will, O God.Thy law is within my heart.” [Psalm 40:8]

This is the Psalm of David. It’s the 40th Psalm.

“I delight to do Thy will, O God.”

In the 13th Chapter of the Book of Acts, by the same author that gave us the Book of Luke, we are told – and this is the Lord speaking: “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will,” [Acts 13:22], — confirming the 40th Psalm, which is the Psalm of David: “I delight to do Thy will.”

Well, I am telling you from my own experience, the day is coming – and I hope it’s in the immediate present – that you will be set free. You’ll be set free only as you find David. “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed,” [John 8:36]. Well, who are you? You are God the Father. That’s Who-You-Are.

You came down and became man; but before you came down and became man, you had prepared a way for your Self to return, and only your “son,” which is the result of your experiences in manhood – the result is David; and when you see the result of your experiences, and know then – like memory returning – Who-You-Are – you are set free as told us in the Book of Samuel: He has promised to set the father of the one destroying the enemy of Israel – to set that father free.

So he inquired. But who inquired? The king. But the king was insane; his name was Saul. He couldn’t even remember that he met the lad and met the father of the lad prior. Here in the 16th Chapter, he has asked the father of the lad to let the lad serve him. In the 17th Chapter he is inquiring: “Whose son are you, young man?”

“Inquire whose son – whose lad – the stripling is.”

No one knows, because Saul is an insane man, as we are! You are not confined in some institution; but if you have lost your memory as to Who-You-Are, you are insane. You are suffering from amnesia. And in this case, although we are not violent, we are suffering from total amnesia, because we do not know our only “son.” That only son is David, named in the New Testament as Jesus Christ, which is Jehovah’s Messiah. And David is the Messiah. “Rise and anoint him, for this is he, and then the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that moment forward,” [I Samuel 16:12, 13]. He never lost a battle, because the Spirit of the Lord was with him. But to find David, what else is worthwhile in this world?

Maybe tonight you could use, — and who cannot use, — a fortune? Any one of us tonight could use an extra sum of money, no matter what it is. If I had tonight millions, I could still use another few. If you had only a few thousand, you could use a few thousand more. Every one can use it. But what is that, compared to the finding of the Son? “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed,” as told you in the 8th Chapter of John.

If the Son – and man is looking for the Son, and he is complacent – he is satisfied, because he has been taught to believe one called “Jesus Christ,” born two thousand years ago is the Son. He has completely accepted that; he believes that, and he thinks that is going to set him free. It will not in Eternity set you free. You must find, in the spirit, David; and David, in this spirit, is going to call you”Father.” And when he calls you “Father,” your whole memory returns. And that is God-awakening!

You rise from the grave first, and still you do not know the Son. You are born from above, “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God,” [John 1:13] – born of your Self. You came out all by yourself. Yet, you are not free – not until you find the Son. And when you find him, it’s told you in the form of a parable. “For this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and he is found.” [Luke 15:32]

And the one who complained never left home. He remained in the land of Innocence; he never entered the world of Experience. You entered the world of Experience; and having gone through all the fires of this world, you come out as God the Father. To be a father, there must be a son; and the son, may I tell you? Is David. I will state it a thousand times over: there is no other son. “God and His Son” is the drama in this world. You – sound asleep and completely oblivious as to Who-You-Are, suffering from total amnesia – only one thing in this world can ever bring back to you your memory, and that is the discovery of David. And when you find him, suddenly memory returns, and the whole thing unfolds within you. And you are the One who conceived the play, and did not pretend that you are man. You actually became as we are, that we may be as You Are. So you became man that man may become God! but prepared the way for your return to your own Godhood.

Now we are told, “Be ye perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect,” [Matthew 5:48]. The word “perfect” is “telos,” which means “the end.” It comes at the climax. It means to reproduce faithfully the original. Well, God is the original. He comes down into this world, and in man reproduces faithfully Himself in man. And then He awakes having reproduced it, so that His Son “in the beginning” recognizes it, and brings back into His Eternal Being all of us.

So every one will awake. I can’t conceive of failure. I can’t conceive of one being in this world failing, because God the Father is in Him! Even if he dies as a little child, he once breathed. That breath was God. “Nothing is impossible to God,” [Luke 1:37]. The most horrible beast that walked the face of this earth in the form of man cannot fail to awake! I do not care what he is. Every being in this world, male and female, will awaken; and when they awaken, it’s because the Son appears.

“No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal it.” [Matthew 11:27 and Luke 10:22]

So in the fullness of time, He sends His Son into our hearts crying “Father.” And then, in that moment in time, the Son appears. He was always within us. The whole vast thing takes place within the Immortal Head of man. So when you depart, having found the Son, you will be part of the watchers, watching every one in the world; and they are all your brothers. And you will know that:

“What seems to be, Is, to those to whom It seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, eternal death; but the Divine Mercy steps in and redeems Man in the one body called Jesus.”

[William Blake, from Jerusalem]

And “Jesus” is “Jehovah.” “Jesus” is the word that means “Jehovah.” “Christ” is “Messiah,” the Son. So “Jesus Christ” is simply “Jehovah’s Messiah.” That Messiah is David. Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah. His Son – if he is a father, he has a son, and the Son is David. There is no other Son.

“So David in the spirit calls Him “My Father” [Matthew 22:43] – my rock – “the Rock of my Salvation” [Psalm 89:26] – he calls Him “my God.”

So Jesus is the man that is “born from above,” and the man “born from above” is Jehovah. He is God the Father; and if he is a father, there must be a son. “Where is my son?” Then the Son comes, and he’s David; and David brings back your memory, and you are set free. For: “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” This is the great mystery of the Christian faith.

It’s a mystery, not to be kept secret, but it is mysterious in character. Scholarship is not enough to grasp the mystery of Scripture. In fact, when Paul sets out the eighth rank in the Kingdom of Heaven, he puts the wise, wise men at the bottom. People completely misunderstand what it means to be one who speaks in many tongues. That’s the scholar. It hasn’t a thing to do with all this nonsense where people throw themselves into a trance, and then utter – bringing saliva into their mouth; it hasn’t a thing to do with that.

He mentions eight divisions, and you read it in the 12th Chapter of First Corinthians [I Corinthians 12:8-10]. The first is the apostle: that’s always the first. Then the prophet; then the teacher; then the miracle worker; then the healer; then the helper; then the administrator; and then those who speak in diverse tongues, — the scholar who will take our scripts and, year after year they will bring them back into their original position, because men invariably interfere with them. More so in the past then today, because today we have print; and we can set a type and reproduce a thing over and over. But in the past, until the middle maybe of the Fifteen Century, everything was script; everything was copied. Well, a man couldn’t take these volumes and copy them accurately; so he not only mis-copied, but he also inserted his own opinion. So the scholars who understood the vast background of language could take them and bring them back to their seeming original form. Yet they are the last in the ranks in Heaven.

The first is the Apostle. Well, who is the Apostle? The one who is called and sent. That’s the Apostle. You are called into the presence of the Risen Lord. You answer the questions He asks you, which is the highest of all; it’s above all the ranks, for Love is the greatest of all.

You could be the Apostle, you could be the Prophet; you could be any of these mentioned in the eight ranks, just as we have in Government. You come down from the head to the very lowest. In the Army, we start with the General down to the Private. We have it in the social world. But above all these ranks stands Love. And so, every one, one day, will be embraced by “the One Body, the One Spirit. . . . The One Lord. . . . the one God and Father of all,” and that Being is Love. So all will be equal, in spite of the parts we play in the world. So let no one “pull his rank” on you.

So he has been sent? Well, that’s all right; he is sent, and maybe he is a Prophet, and maybe he is a healer, and maybe he can work miracles; but let no one “pull any rank” on you, because eventually you are going to be part of the Body of God, and Body’s Immortal Body is LOVE. All will then be members of the Body of God: “the one body, the one spirit. . . . The one lord. . . . one God and Father of all.” So let no one “pull his rank” on you.

I have been called, and I have been sent. I am an Apostle. I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord, and He asked me to name the greatest thing in the world, and I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.” [I Corinthians 13:15] At that, he embraced me, and our bodies fused and we became one body without loss of identity. I was not absorbed into some world soul. I was one with that body of Love, one with that spirit, one with that God and Father of all – but no loss of identity. Then I was “sent.” To be “called” is to be “sent.” But it was the embrace of Love that was the important thing, for that is above all ranks in the world.

So here, the day is coming – and I do hope it’s soon for every one here – when you will find the Son; and when you find him, he is David — David of Biblical fame, the David mentioned in the Book of Samuel and the Book of Chronicles, the David of the Psalms; that is the David of whom I speak – the one who could say:

“I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said unto me, ‘Thou are my son, today I have begotten thee.” [Psalm 2:7]

This is the David of whom I speak, and he is the Son of God; and Jesus Christ – Jesus is Jehovah, and “Christ” means “Messiah.” That is the “Anointed One.” And who was anointed? Was it not David?

“Rise and anoint him. That is he. And from that moment forward, the Spirit of the Lord descended upon him and possessed him;” and he lost not a battle, for the Spirit of God went with him.

So this is our destiny. You and I are destined to awaken as the Being that we really are. Now the word called “perfect” is “telos.” It simply means the “end,” the “climax;” it always comes at the end. And you will be saying these words, “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,” [John 17:4, 5]. That’s what you will say! You are only asking for the return of what you gave up to come down into the world of “death.”

“I have finished the work,” – that is what the word “telos” means: to finish it, to accomplish it; “and having finished it, I am only asking for the return of what was mine before that the world was.”

And “glory” means God Himself. “Glorify Thou me with Thine own Self, with that glory which I had with Thee before that the world was.”

So what on earth could any one ask for that would be comparable to the discovery of the Son which brings his memory back? Well we are all suffering from amnesia. If I could only remember that I am the Father! And there, as father, there is a son – and find the son that could I some way call me and then bring back my memory. And he does! He calls you, and your memory returns; and here you stand before your own “son” – your only “son,” and then you know exactly Who-You-Are.

And you know how you did it! “Before that the world was,” you prepared the way for your Self to return. And he – your “son” – did everything that you willed him to do. And now you would not leave his soul in hell. You redeem him, and you bring him back. And you and your “son” return.

Now the “son” is the sum total of all the experiences of humanity, fused into a single whole and projected – personified, and it comes out as David. And that is David. You cannot blame any one for not completely accepting the false concepts that we have given to the world as we teach Scripture. Those who are grounded in the Old Testament, you can’t blame them for not – unless they have the experience. When they have the experience, they will not go along with the traditional Christian concept; they will see their own wonderful state unfolding: that the Old Testament actually is true – it unfolds. And it is true in the New, but not as taught by those who teach it. They teach it entirely differently. It’s not so at all.

God is the only Reality. There is nothing but God. And God is Love, and God is the Father; and as a father, there must be a child, and that child happens to be a son, and that “son” happens to be David.

So I am telling you what I know from my own experience. I am not speculating; I am not theorizing.

If today we go back two thousand years, we think the most important people who lived in the First Century A.D. would be the Caesars and the mighty powers of that day. They were the unknown fishermen. Name the others. The unknown fishermen of that Century were the most important.

So he comes into the world; and man, by his wisdom, did not know God. “So it pleased God by the foolishness that I preach” [See I Corinthians 1:21], said Paul, “to tell you of the mystery of God. And the weakness of man,” – he uses that – “and the humbleness of man,” – and he uses that – “and not all the false pride of the world.” Today we give awards to this one for being the best dressed. Well, she can afford a hundred thousand a year for dresses. The other one can afford another fortune for something else. And we give all these awards every year.

Ask me next year who was mentioned this year. They fade just as shadows fade. But we go back two thousand years when the unknown fishermen were the most important people who walked the face of the earth. And he called them, one by one; and as he called them one by one, he embraced them and sent them. No one can be sent unless he is first called; and when he is called, he is embraced. But who embraced them? While he was on earth? No. After he departed this world. It’s the Risen God that calls them. The Risen Lord calls them; and when you are called into this, may I tell you? The story is so altogether true: There is here the angelic being with a recording book. How on earth could that be seen by Daniel? But it is true. Here is a book that tall [indicating] – a book that wide; and here she stands – or rather, she is seated at a desk not unlike this, but it’s a big one, and she is recording – the Recording Angel. And when you are called into this Divine Assembly, you stand at her side, and she looks at you. She doesn’t say one word to you; she just simply records your name. She checks you off. Then you are taken, in spirit, into the presence of the Risen Lord, the Ancient of Days – that’s who he is – as described in Daniel. And he asks you the simple question: “What is the greatest thing in the world?”

And you answer automatically, as though you were divinely prompted: “Faith, hope, and love – these three: but the greatest of these is Love.” Then he actually embraces you. He has hands, he has a face, he has a mouth – he asks you a question. And here, he embraces you and you fuse as though you took a drop of water and dropped it into a bowl of water. It disappears in it without loss of identity. It becomes the bowl, and yet it is still individualized.

I did not cease to be aware that I am the being that I thought myself to be; yet I felt the ecstasy of the union. That was union. That was the true baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And then I was placed in the presence of another, who was Infinite Power; and it was he who sent me. He is the same one who embraced me, for God is a protean Being. He assumes any form that suits the purpose of the moment. So when I was sent, Power sent me; when I was embraced, Love embraced me. That is for Eternity, as told in the 8th of Romans: “Nothing in Eternity can separate us from the love of God” [Romans 8:39]. So not a thing that I will go through, having been sent, can separate me from that union with Love. But I was sent, not by Love; I was sent by Power. He seemed to be Almighty Power when he sent me. “Down with the bluebloods,” – not the social structure. Down with all external worship – it simply is an expression meaning all church protocol: everything that is something on the outside – down with it. It hasn’t a thing to do with Reality.

All the things you see when you go to church – all the crosses and all the things — down with it! Do not tear it down – ignore it. It hasn’t a thing to do with Reality.

So, Power sent me to tell you what I am telling you; but Love first embraced me, and therefore I am persuaded that not a thing in this world can separate me from the Love of God. No matter what I go through, it can’t separate me from the Love of God.

But I am telling you, you are God the Father. You will not awake until the Son appears. At that moment in time when he appears, your memory returns, and you recognize him in the most intimate, marvelous manner; and no power in the world can shake your confidence in this union of father-son. It’s the return of memory. Amnesia vanishes, and your Godhood returns. But you know every one is going to have the identical experience. You cannot boast, as you are told in First Corinthians, the 4th Chapter:

“What have you that you did not receive? If you received it, where can you boast?” [I Corinthians 4:7]

Of what could you boast? How could I stand before you and boast that I was embraced by God when it was a gift? God gives to Himself! So I can’t boast. I am not better than – if I precede you in a chronological order, I can’t precede you in importance, because we are all one. Every one is God! So if I preceded you – undoubtedly I have by a few years – it’s twelve years this coming month that it happened to me. It could happen to you tonight. It may happen to you at the end of a section of time. But when it happens, you have been one with me. I can’t be better than – and time will mean nothing if I preceded you in time. It hasn’t a thing to do with taking precedence over you, because we are one. God is one.

So here, the whole unfolds within man – the skull of man, the Immortal Head of man. That’s where the whole drama is.

If you dwell upon this, may I tell you? You will have such courage to face everything in this world. If business is slow, what does it matter? If someone that you love dearly is fading before your eyes – all right, you know, she or he is still the Being the you are. Nothing dies in this world. And so, it really doesn’t matter. If they fade and they disappear from your world, it still doesn’t matter because you are love, and he or she is love; and all, in the end, are one. All are one.

So you are encouraged to go through all the fires of the world – all the hell that one can put upon you, because we are all one, and we cannot come out until we are perfect. You must be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect. And that “perfect” means simply “fully made,” “fully grown,” a full man; and that full man is God. God is man. Let no one tell you that He is not.

He is not some impersonal over-soul. God is man! Man not knowing this on this level, he thinks He is some peculiar impersonal force. He is not an impersonal force; He is very personal: “One body, one spirit. . . . . one lord . . . one God and Father of all” – all are contained within this “One.”

So I ask you to be patient. And if you can’t completely grasp all that I am trying to say, believe me. I am telling you what I know from my own personal experience. I am not speculating; I am not theorizing. I have no intention whatsoever to set up some workable philosophy of life. I have no –ism, no desire to set anything in motion to perpetuate what I am talking about.

If any one has that desire, let them have it; but I have one. I do know that it will last and last and last, and grow, just as it grew two thousand years ago. For the time has come to tell you the truth concerning the Son. We have had it now for two thousand years – a misconception of who God really is. Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah. And the Lord God Jehovah is a father; and the Father has a Son, and that Son is David. That is the David of Biblical fame. And one day you will know it, and you will be so thrilled, you can’t conceive of the ecstasy that is yours when you see David, and David calls you “father!”

And then you go back into your own words because you dictated the words of Scripture and fell asleep. You are the Author of the Book! “In the volume of the book, it is all about me. I delight to do Thy will, O My Lord,” [Psalm 40:7, 8]. It’s all about me: the Father and the Son. This is the relationship.

And when it happens to you, you will tell it. And I am – telling you from my own experience that unborn generations will take what you hear tonight and tell it and tell it and tell it. I mean unborn generations throughout the centuries, for I’ve been sent to tell it.

The year was 1929 when I was called. In 1929 I was called and sent, and I did not understand anything concerning the mystery that happened that night. But He takes the lowest of men, the humblest of men – not the scholars. He takes those that no one would ever suspect; and if He takes you, well then, He is with you, and He unfolds Himself within you. So, in due time, thirty years later He unfolded Himself within me – in 1959. It took Him thirty years in preparation within me, like a gestation; and then suddenly He rose within me. Then I knew who He was.

He came to me as one unknown, yet one who in the most wonderful, miraculous manner allowed me to experience Who-He-Is. When I experience who He is, I realized I am He. There were not two of us then – just one. I was all alone in the tomb wherein I was buried, and I didn’t realize throughout the years that I was the One spoken of in Scripture – that I was the buried one.

Now let me comfort you. “We have been crucified with Christ” – not just a single being – “we have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, it is Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live, I live by the faith of that Son of God who loved me,” – his Father “gave Himself for me” [Galatians 2:19, 20]. He “died” to bring his Father back. This is part of the drama. The Father and the Son. Only God could do it! There is nothing but God in the world.

God is playing every part in the world; and in the end, when He awakes, his beloved David stands before him – the sum total of the Father’s experiences through death. And he conquers death. He comes out of death, as the Immortal Being that he is.

Now if you know of anything in this world worthwhile more than what I have told you tonight, name it for me. If tonight you owned the earth, and death, may I tell you? Is inevitable, what would it matter what you owned? If you were the most famous person in the world, what would it matter if death terminates it? I tell you that you are an Immortal Being, infinitely greater than any outside man in the world. No position could ever be given you comparable to the Being that you really are. You are the Immortal God. You are God the Father

If any one should doubt me tonight, I would not question you. You only know this much: I’ll meet you in Eternity, and we will laugh at your doubt! I would not care if you doubted or not, we will meet in Eternity. There will be no need for forgiveness, because we will simply be hilarious that in your present state of consciousness you could doubt that you are the Being I am telling you that you are. Having awakened from the dream of life, I am telling you Who-You-Are. And so, should you doubt it, I will only have to wait; and I will wait patiently and then embrace you lovingly as my brother, for we are all brothers. It takes all the brothers to form God the Father.

Every one is a Brother; and together, collectively, we form God the Father. You see, the word “Elohim” is a plural word. It’s a compound unity: one made up of others. We are the “others.” We are the Brothers.

So, “In the beginning God” – that word is “Elohim” a plural word –“said, ‘Let us make man in our image.’” That is a plural word, and the word is Elohim.” So we are the ones who make it in our image. It must be faithfully reproduced. What? The original. We are the original. It must be faithfully reproduced to expand the glory that is ours! When it is faithfully reproduced, then it is perfect, when you awake; but you have expanded by reason of the experience of coming into the world of “death.”

Now, if this is not practical tonight, may I tell you? It’s far more practical than anything that you would ever hear in the world. In the morning’s paper you read of prominent men. It’s always prominent if it is in the theatrical world and big, or if it has money. It doesn’t ask you how you got the money; but you could leave, say, fifty million tonight, even though you stole the fifty million, and you are going to get a long, long obituary tomorrow; but you aren’t going to take it with you. You will leave your fifty-whatever-it-is for others to either spend or invest as they do; but they aren’t going to take it with them.

I ask you to live nobly, because now you know Who-You-Are. Live so that you mind can store a past worthy of recall. Well, you are simply going to leave the little things behind you, but you will take over your past. I will know – you will know – when you go beyond. In my own case, I am not going beyond. I have finished the race. I can actually say with Paul: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me the Crown of Righteousness” [II Timothy 4:*]. So, I am not continuing the race, continuing the fight; I will only continue it for a little while, to get off all that I am told I must get off before the curtain comes down, which in my own case – without being sad about it – I personally hope it isn’t too long. Personally, I hope it’s not beyond the immediate present. That is my personal hope. But I do know we all come in on time, and we go out on time. So I cannot tell anyone because no one knows that hour, that moment, but the Deep, and He doesn’t reveal it to the surface mind. He simply reveals it at that moment when you go.

But I as a being still living on the surface for a little while –it would be my wish that it would not be long delayed, because I have finished it. I have done all that I am called upon to do. “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.” That is my prayer tonight.

I do hope that you will be encouraged, no matter what happens to you in the present or the future, to remember these words that you really are God the Father. If you are beaten down and you are ostracized and you are alone, remember: You are God the Father!

And remember my words: You are going to find your “son” who is God’s Son, and God’s Son is going to call you “Father,” and you will know you really are God the Father! And whatever clothes you have worn – how tattered they might have been in the world, when you hear it, you will be clothed in your Immortal Body.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

WHO IS THE SON OF MAN

Neville Goddard

neville goddard Imagination Is RealitySo, the Tonight’s subject is: “Who is The Son of Man?” In the 16th chapter of the Book of Matthew, the question is asked of the Disciples: “‘Who do men say that the Son of Man is?’ and they answered, ‘Some say John the Baptist come again, others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets, others say Elijah.’ And then he said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” [Matthew 16:13-15]

So here He equates the Son of Man with I AM. It is the one title that is most used concerning Jesus in Scripture. We find it in Ezekiel throughout the entire book, and the 7th chapter of the Book of Daniel, we hear “one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him is given dominion and glory and kingdom.” [Daniel 7:13].

Dominion is supremacy in determining and deciding and directing the actions of others. It is really ascendancy over human and unhuman forces, such as assures being obeyed.

Now, let me give you an experience of mine that you may taste of this power that is in store for you. You will only taste of it before you have complete possession of it. You may not get complete possession of it until you are completely permeated with Love, or you can wreck the world. This is the Power. You will come upon a scene like this:

To give you my own experience, I came upon a scene that I felt to be about two hundred years ago in the New England States of our Country. Somehow I thought it was a Sunday afternoon, and they were all dining. My attention was attracted to a family of four: the father, mother and what appeared to be their two sons in the early 20’s – say, 21 and 22 or 21 and 23. As I stood watching them, I felt within myself that I could stop an activity that I was feeling, and that if I succeeded in arresting this activity within me, everything would stand still. Well, I did it. I arrested an activity within me, and everything stood sill. A bird was flying and it flew not. The waiter was coming in with the next course, and she walked not. They were dining; and one, as I looked at him, he had the soup spoon just about here (indicating a spoon approaching the mouth) and he couldn’t bring it any further. He dined not. The leaves falling, like the Fall of the year, and they fell not. The grass was waving, and it waved not. Everything was frozen, as though made of clay. I looked at them, and one second before they were all alive and seemingly independent of my perception of them; and now I knew they were not – that the whole vast world was dependent upon an activity that took place within me, of which I was totally unaware until that moment.

When I released that activity within me, they all continued to fulfill their intentions. The bird flew to the branch where it intended. The waitress continued walking towards the table where she would serve the second course; and the leaves began to fall to the earth, and the little green grass waving continued to wave, and the boy brought the soup to this mouth. Everything continued as it intended to when I stopped it.

I know now that I could have changed their intention; and had I changed their intention and then released it, they would have thought they had initiated the change, and they would have done exactly what I had ordered. That is dominion – complete control over the actions of others so that they must obey you. What enormous power is in store for man when man awakens from the dream of life! That’s dominion.

Then comes glory. Well, “glory” in the Bible is equated with God. “I will make my glory to pass before you,” [Exodus 33:19], and “…as I pass….” [Exodus 33:22]. There He equates “glory” with “I”, so He gives Himself to you – actually, literally gives Himself to you, so that you become God!

And the kingdom. What is a kingdom but a realm, subject to an anarchical form of government by a king? Therefore, you become the king as spoken of in Scripture. This is in store for every child born of woman. That One, in scripture, is called the “Son of Man.” We speak of Him in Scripture as the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is in every one, and that One, one day, will awaken as the one in whom He awakes; and then you will have dominion, and then you will have glory, and then you will have the kingdom. That’s what is in store for every one in the world.

Not a thing in this world will die, but that which has no right to live. Only that which has no right to exist will be brought to an end, and it is not any child born of woman. Any child born of woman has a right to live, a right to exist; so I show you now – or tell you rather – what must die, what must be brought to an end.

One day you are going to have this experience. You will suddenly be confronted, in vision, with the most monstrous thing that you have seen. It’s an animal, but it speaks. It speaks in a guttural voice. You will see two: a beautiful angelic being, radiantly beautiful, and this monstrous thing covered with hair. In fact, I would not offend the gorilla by likening it to a gorilla, for a gorilla is made by God. But this is made by man. You will confront these two: one, the embodiment of all your misused energies in the world, every unlovely thought formed it. Every violent act of yours formed it, and it thrives on violence.

As I looked at it, I did not realize at the moment that I had created it, and it called this lovely angelic being “Mother;” and I struck it, and it gloated. It loved being struck! And I pummeled it, and it grew bigger and stronger through my violence. And as I looked at it, something within me knew that I was the father of it. I brought it into being by my own violence, my own misused of energy, as I brought this glorious being into being by my loving use of the same energy. As I looked at it, I pledged myself that if it took me eternity I would redeem it.

I had no one to whom I could turn as a witness to my pledge. I pledged myself to redeem it if it took me eternity. At that very moment of my pledge, which I meant beyond all doubt, the whole thing melted before my eyes, and all the energy that went into it returned to me. Not one little drop was lost. It all came back to me, the one who misused that energy and formed this monstrous thing out of my misused energy. And this other one glowed – glowed like the sun. She simply personified my loving use of the same energy.

So the only thing that dies is that which has no right to live. The only thing that comes to an end – ceases to be – is that which has no right to exist. And it is simply made up of energy; so the energy is not lost, but it returns to you who created that monstrous thing. And though unseen by your mortal eyes, unheard by mortal ears, it whispers into your ear the moment in time to be violent, to be unkind, and to be unlovely, for it can feed only on violence. It feeds only on hypocrisy – on every unlovely thing in the world. So you have a constant companion urging you to commit some unlovely act, to entertain unlovely thoughts, that it may be fed. Then when you confront it, you will pledge yourself – without being told by any one else – you will know how it came into being, and you will know what you should do, and you’ll do it. And you will mean every word that you say to yourself, “I will redeem you if it takes eternity.” And it only takes a matter of moment – only moments, and the whole monstrous thing melts before your eyes, leaving no trace of every having been present, when all that energy returns to you, and you’ve never felt so strong in your life. That is the being returning to the Son of Man, who now has dominion and has glory and has kingdom.

So then we are told: As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in himself,” [John 5:26]. You are that Son! Before we came out from the Father, we were part of the Eternal Being called God the Father, just as a bud or a spur or a little graft becomes a part of the tree and takes its nourishment from the tree. When it is detached and then grafted onto some solid stock, as you and I were – we were grafted onto the stock called Humanity; and then we, the graft, become a father in our own right. So when the graft takes and we begin to grow and produce fruit, we can only product the fruit of the tree from which we were taken, and we were taken from the Tree of God – The Eternal Tree of Life.

So grafted onto these bodies as we are, we penetrated these bodies and annexed the brains of these bodies, and the graft took; and then as it took, because the Father has Life in Himself, that spore – that graft called His Son – now has Life in Himself and becomes, in his own right, a father – one with The Eternal Father. And that’s our destiny!

Everything said of this character in Scripture called Jesus Christ you are going to experience, and it will be said of you. Do not be embarrassed. That is the “play.” That is the plan of the entire Mystery of Being. You are destined to awaken as God the Father!

So in the end there is only God. For we came out from the Father, and we became one with Humanity; and when the vow takes place and we begin to bear the fruit of our Father, we return to the one Father, and are reincorporated into the One Being, and there is only “… one body and one Sprit… one Lord… and Father of all…” [Ephesians 4:1-4], and you will be that one body and spirit and Lord and Father of all, and yet I will know you! You will not lose your identity. I will know you are the being I know now as my friend, and yet I will know you as God! You are destined to awaken as God.

It’s a shock to the world to hear this. It seems blasphemous; so they accused Him of blasphemy. He said, “Why?” They said, “Because you being man make yourself God.” He said, “Is it not written in your Scripture, ‘I say ye are gods, all of you, sons of the Most High? Why, then do you accuse me for blaspheming because I say, ‘I am the Son of God’?” [John 10:33-36]. He said that was in their scripture, and Scripture cannot be broken.

Man has been trained to believe that he is a little worm – that he is some little outcast that is no good, and that, for most people in the world today, death ends it all, because more than half of the people in the world are under an atheistic regime. They will number far in excess of half of the people in the world; and they claim that death ends it all. And the other half claims that death does not end it all, but they still think of themselves as worms. Any one making the bold claim that they are destined to awaken as God sounds like blasphemy. But I tell you that you will awaken as God! And you will know that you are God.

I got a letter today from a friend of mine in L.A. I have been teaching this Law since 1938, but I did not know the Promise of God until twelve years ago in this City when it happened to me. From then on, all my lectures have been – I would say – geared toward the Promise. So he has been coming to my meetings twice a week in L.A. over the period of the last three years. As I have told them, and I tell you, before I depart this world physically I will appear to you as the Man I know myself to be, for He awoke within me. But he said to me in this letter which I got today: “Last Tuesday morning, early in the morning, I had a vision; and a woman said to me, ‘Neville has risen. Look down there,’ and she pointed down to the end of the corridor. As I looked at the end of the corridor, there as an effulgence of glorious golden light, and I said to myself, ‘My friend, a man called Neville! And I know he is the Lord. I know as a friend of his I could always go to his home unexpected, uninvited, and be welcome; and yet at this moment I have not been invited specifically to come, but he told me – and I remember vividly – that he will show himself to me before he departs. And I knew at the end of that corridor in the effulgence of glorious golden light, out of sight was the Holy of Holies, and there He was, and He was the Lord. And I was overcome with an emotion – a mixed emotion. My emotion was one of fear, one of joy, and one of awe. Knit these three emotions together, and that is what I felt. He promised that he will appear to me, and so now I will wait. I know he is there, I see the radiation of him, and it was a woman who told me, ‘Neville has risen. Look!” and she pointed to the end of the corridor, ‘and there you will see him.’”

I am only telling you what I know. Not only this one, but hundreds must witness before I take off this garment for the last time in this world. For in this City twelve years ago I awoke from the dream of life. I awoke to find myself buried in my own skull, as every one is but he doesn’t know it. And I came out of that tomb – out of that sepulcher, the only sepulcher in which Jesus was ever buried, and Jesus is the Lord Himself! The Lord actually became as we are — literally, that we maybe as He is. [See “There is No Natural Religion” by William Blake]

So, when we were detached from the Infinite Being called Father and started a journey of tribulation, it was for a divine purpose. But we, by detachment, depending on our Father for our own support, or own supply, will now become a being having life in itself, “As the Father hath life in Himself, He has granted the Son also to have life in himself,” [John 5:26].

The only way it could be done was to detach his spore – detach the graft and implant it to this sturdy stock called Humanity; and then it produces, not humanity, it produces that from which it was taken, just as you do with a tree. You take a bud that can propagate itself, and you graft it onto a sturdy stock; and when it takes hold, it does not produce the fruit of that tree on which it is grafted, it produces the fruit of itself, and it brings forth what it is. So we are sons of God bringing forth all the fruit of God! Then we have life in ourselves.

So I say to every one in this room, as to every one in the world, I do not care what you have heard in the past; this is the greatest of all mysteries which is the Christian faith. I am telling you what I know from experience. I have experienced the Christian faith. I am not speculating. I am not theorizing. It is true from beginning to end, but not as it is taught in the world. It’s taught in the world as secular history, but it is not secular history; it is salvation history. The whole thing is based upon God’s plan of saving His own sons that He brought out of His own body and transplanted and engrafted into the stock called Humanity.

So the Son of man – the name given the Lord Jesus – the name that He used most about Himself – is said of every one seated here, regardless of your six. When you say, “I am,” that’s He. When you say, “And who do you say that I am?” you are discussing the Son of man. And now He equates the Son of man with “I AM.”

So as you are seated here, that is the Lord Jesus. As told you in Scripture, you must test yourselves to see whether you really believe it or not [see II Corinthians 13:5]. “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not believe Jesus Christ is in you?” When I say, “Jesus Christ,” if you thought of some being external to yourself, at that very moment you failed the test. “Do you not believe that Jesus Christ is in you?” So, you failed if at that moment that I used the term “Jesus Christ” you mind conjured some existence external to yourself in time and space. He is in you; and in you, He awakes. And when He awakes in you, you are He. And everything said of Him in Scripture you will experience. “All the things that I have done,” said He, “you will do, for now I am returning to the Father. I have accomplished the work He sent me to do, which was to fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me.” And having fulfilled Scripture, now He returns to the Father, and He said, “Return unto me the glory now –“ What glory? “—the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.” [John 17:4] And glory is God Himself.

So return unto me – I was one with you – well, return that same Unity, for I have completed the job that you gave me to do; and I have told them who you are. I have made known unto them Your Name, and I will make it Neville. And the name He made known to us was Father. So God is Father. If I complete the job that He gave me to do, I must arrive at the point where I, too, am the Father – not just a father, for there is only one Father. So I must arrive at the point where I am the Father! So I found out His Son and the Son’s name, and I must find that Son and have that Son call me, “Father.” Well, he did. So, I know the truth of Scripture, for the Son’s name is David. It is David. That is the Son of God as told us in Scripture, “for David in the spirit calls him ‘My Lord’.” [Matthew 22:43]

So Jesus is the Father. Jesus is the Immortal Father; and David, which is the symbol of Humanity, calls Him “father.” So here we find in the last book of the Bible, the 22nd chapter of Revelation: “I am the root and the offspring of David.” [Rev 22:16]

The modern translation of the word “root” is “scion,” which means a graft. I am the graft, and yet I am the offspring of that graft! I am the scion and the offspring of David – David being Humanity. Engrafted onto Humanity is the Son of God, and He brings forth all that was in God. So if God is a Father, He brings that forth; and because He is one with the Father, He brings forth the Son. The Son calls him “Father.” Now we know who the Son of man is!

The Son of man in Scripture comes before the Ancient of Days – and may I tell you? That’s a true story. I stood in the presence of the Ancient of Days, and He asked me to name the greatest thing in the world, and I quoted from the words of Paul in the 13th chapter of I Corinthians, and I said as he asked me the question: “Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” [I Cor 13:13] At that moment, Infinite Love embraced me, and may I tell you? Love is a man! The Ancient of Days is a man, and you can’t think of anything in his presence but love. I answered “Love,” and he embraced me; and as we embraced, we fused, and I became one with the body of the Ancient of Days. I became one with the Spirit of God, and then he sent me – sent me to do what I am doing now – to tell you of the true story of the Christian father. It hasn’t a thing to do with rituals, hasn’t a thing to do with form; it’s entirely a mystery hidden within man, which in the fullness of time will unfold within man. And when it unfolds within man, the man in whom it unfolds is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything said about Him, you will experience in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience. As David, as told you in Scripture, called Him “Father,” David will call you “Father.” And as David confessed in Scripture, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said unto me, Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” [Psalm 2:7]

Well, you will know when you see him that he is your son; and that day that you see him as your son is that day that you have finished the drama. All the tribulations of humanity you’ve gone through; and having gone through all of them, at the very end He stands before you and calls you “Father.”

Now we are told: They asked him, “When will the hour be? When is it going to happen?” You can read this in the 13th chapter of Mark [Mark 13:4] and the 24th chapter of the Book of Matthew [Matthew24:3]. And he said to me, as he said to the world: “As the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” [Mark 13:27]

What does that mean? The lightning shines from the east and as far as the west, and “so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” He comes only to fulfill Scripture. Well, the only scripture that he could fulfill would be the Old Testament. There was no New Testament. Now where is this in the Old Testament? Where is this splitting of the veil spoken of in the New Testament? Where is this splitting of the veil spoken of in the New Testament – where is it in the Old Testament? Where is the serpent spoken of in the New Testament that is in the old? He said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” [Matthew 3:14] And he said, “I am the Son of man.” Now where do we find it?

Let us turn, now, to the book called Jehovah Remembers; it is called by us Zechariah, for the “Zechariah” simply means “Jehovah remembers.” The last chapter: “On that day he shall stand on the Mount of Olives . . . and the Mount will be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley: and one half will withdraw northward, and the other half will withdraw southward . . . and then living water will flow out from Jerusalem . . . and on that day the Lord will be king over all the earth; and the Lord will be one, and his name one.” [Zechariah 14: 4, 8, 9]

Now when you read it, unless you’ve had the experience, you ask yourself, what on earth does it mean? Well he is telling you exactly what it means. The drama takes place within man, not on any place called the Mount of Olives in the Near East. The whole drama takes place right here in man. And like the lightning, it will come just as unexpectedly as the bolt of lightning; and it will split you in two from top to bottom. He calls it east and west – from the top of your head to the base of your spine. And they will part leaving a wide valley between the two halves of your body; and at the base of your spine you will see a living pulsing, vivid light. It’s liquid. “Living water will flow out of Jerusalem.” And you will contemplate it; and when you contemplate it, you will fuse with the water – the living water that you contemplated, for you will know it is your Self. And as you become one with it, like a fiery serpent you will ascend your spinal cord into the only heaven that there is, right back within your own wonderful skull. And when you enter, it will reverberate like thunder, as you are told in Scripture: they take it violently. “And the violent take it by storm.” [See Matthew 11:12 and Luke 16:16, especially the Revised Standard Version]

So the only mountain that is split is not the mountain in the Near East, but this mountain [indicating the physical body] right down the middle from the top of your head to the base of your spine. At the base of your spine is the Living Water that will flow out of Jerusalem; and you will contemplate it and know it is your Self, and you’ll become one with it. At the very moment of fusion, like a fiery serpent you will ascend into heaven; and you will know what it means that you stood on the Mount of Olives. And it is split in two from top to bottom. And one withdrew northward and one withdrew2 southward; and then the living water flowed out of Jerusalem. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted dup.” [Matthew 3:14] That’s how you are going to be lifted up, like a fiery serpent.

You will still be human. I will know you in Eternity, for I will know you as my fiend and my brother; but I will know you are God! I will know you as the Lord – every one in the world, for nothing in Eternity will die but that which has no right to live; and that is simply the embodiment of your mis-spent energies – all your hates, all your unlovely thoughts, unlovely actions – everything whipped into the creation of a monster. I will call him the dweller-on-the-threshold. No one sees him with mortal eye, but he is ever present, whispering in to the ear of man to be violent. He simply thrives on violence. He loves violence. He loves deceit – everything that is unlovely in the world, and can only feed on the unlovely thoughts, when the other one feeds only on loving thoughts. Feed her with Love. So every time you do anything lovingly, you feed her, and she glows; and when you do anything unlovely, he is fed, and he gloats with it all. And the day will come, he will leave her alone forever. She is made of the substance of God, which is Love. And here was the embodiment of hate and violence, and you will dissolve him without thinking for one moment that he is going to dissolve. When I made the pledge, I had no idea it would work like this. I thought I would have to spend Eternity to change it and work with it and make something good out of it. I had no idea it was simply the embodiment of misspent energy.

As we are told in Scripture, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” [I Corinthians 1:24] I was not wise in my use of that power, and I made that monster. But every one has made it, and every one will redeem it. Every one will be forgiven for his misuse of the power.

So you are not going to any so-called lake of fire, as so many evangelists talk about and our ministers and priests from the pulpits talk about. There is no hell. You are in it right now! This is hell right now. The sufferings of men and women in our hospitals tonight, the sufferings of those who must look for food, not knowing where the next meal is coming from, those facing possibly dispossession and know not where to turn – all these; isn’t that hell? But our priests are not satisfied with that even; they try to make an even more horrible hell than that is. This is hell. Our boys in Vietnam – that’s hell. Those who come back with arms missing, feet missing – isn’t that hell? For the ret of their earthly days, these young men in their 20’s are going to go through life, many of them, with all arms missing and their feet missing, and they are basket cases for the rest of their days, just vegetating. There is no greater hell. It’s right here in this world. This is the world of death where everything appears in this world; it simply waxes, it wanes, then it vanishes. And the only escape is out of this world – not to make it a better world. When they talk about making this a better world and getting all our energies together to make it something wonderful – no. This is a school – a school of educative darkness, and you don’t turn a school into a home. It is escape from this world, and God has planned the escape for His sons. He has built that bridge of escape, and that bridge of escape is the story of Jesus Christ. There is no other way out.

“I am the Way.” [John 14:6] I am the true and living way. To what? To the Father. We all go back to the Father. We came out from the Father and we came into the world. Again, we are leaving this world, and we go back to the Father – but not until the job is done. So we came here to fulfill a certain job; and when the job is accomplished that which He gave us to do.

So the Son of man in Scripture, who is brought into the presence of the Ancient of Days, is seated right here in his audience in garments of male and female. And the day will come, you consciously stand in the presence of the Ancient of Days, and you will answer as I did, as thought you were divinely prompted. You don’t have to be concerned as to what you are going to say. In that day you will know what to say. You say it automatically. You will not make a mistake. Don’t be concerned. No one is going to make a mistake in the presence of Infinite Love, for you cannot think of anything but – in the presence of Love, you can’t think of any thing; so when he asks you the greatest thing in the world, you answer automatically, as thought were divinely prompted. And then he embraces you. At that embrace, you are fused with the Ancient of Days.

So you must learn to discriminate between Christ-in-us and we-in-Christ. Christ-in-us is simply – I would say – proof of being sons of God, for Christ in us – Christ being the Son-in-us, we are sons of God.

We-in-Christ are incorporated into the body of the Ancient of Days. That is the grand transition. So, thee Son wakens, and he is embraced by the Ancient of Days and incorporated into the body of the Ancient of Days, Infinite Love. And then you are sent.

So to be called is to be sent, and then you tell the story. You tell it from experience. You don’t theorize, you don’t speculate; you tell it as you have experienced it. And having experience it, you can’t change it. You do not modify it to please others. If they are not pleased, you are not concerned. You can only tell what has happened to you, and you go forward and you tell it. As told in Scripture, “They related their own experience.” When they came back, they simply told what happened. To whom? To themselves. “They related their own experience;” and that is our Scripture. We are only telling the drama as we have experienced it. And then they went back into the ancient scriptures and saw confirmation of the experience. They found it there; but finding it there, it was adumbrated. The whole Old Testament is an adumbration. It is a foreshadow in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way, but there it is, foreshadowing the story of standing on the Mount of Olives, and then a bolt of lightning splits it in two form east to west, and one side moved northward, the other side moved southward. Who would have thought for one moment that was going to take place in man and that he is the great Mount of Olives? And the Being stands in you. And that Son of God, which is the Son of man, is you. And He becomes the fiery serpent, and moves up into heaven. After it happens, you say it was always there but I didn’t have eyes to see it – my eyes were not open. He had not yet opened the ears that I could hear. He had not yet opened the eyes that I could see.

So if this seems something other than what you came to hear, again let me repeat myself. Whatever is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. You will find things coming into your world of which you are totally unaware at the moment; they will come because your Father knows your need far better than your conscious reasoning mind does, and it will come. Without any effort on your part it will come. Just be about your Father’s business and “set your hope fully upon the glory, upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” [I Peter 1:14] And when He comes, He unveils Himself in you, as you; and then you know who Jesus Christ is! You will never know Him if you look for Him as coming from without, and the whole vast world is looking for Him to come from without.

He can’t come form without because He is buried, and buried in the Holy Sepulcher. And the Holy Sepulcher is the skull of man. Until He comes, He remains buried in the grave – the grave of the human skull. And when He wakes, He wakes as you in the grave. And when He is born from above, as we are told is essential to be born again or you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven; so when He is born from above, He is born out of your skull.

The very night when He awakens within you, which is the Resurrection, He is born and He comes out. And then you will find who you are. And then the whole drama unfolds before you, just as it is recorded in Scripture concerning one called Jesus. So Jesus is the Pattern Man. It’s the pattern that every one will follow; and as you follow that pattern, the whole thing unfolds within you.

So we are told in Scripture, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” [Ephesians 5:1] Well, here is the pattern of God. Imitate that. You can’t do it deliberately or consciously; it is going to happen in this pattern. When it happens, you will tell it, as every one in whom it happens tells it. And you will meet with the same response. Some will believe you and some will disbelieve you. Don’t make any effort to force those who disbelieve you to believe you. To try to suppress opinions which you do not share – you will find it far less profitable than to tolerate them. So they don’t believe you; so do not try to persuade them. You simply leave them. You do not share their disbelief, for you’ve had the experience; so you leave them just as they are. And do not try to suppress that disbelief, as the world does. Today we are trying to suppress at a fantastic cost opinions of other governments that we do not share, and they are spending billions to suppress our free enterprises. They can’t suppress it with all of their billions, and we cannot suppress theirs. So it is far wiser to tolerate it than to try to suppress it, just as it is far wiser for me, at any opposition to my experience, to simply tolerate it, and not try to suppress it. Leave them alone. Eventually every one who now opposes it will be brought to experience it; and when a man experiences it, then he can’t deny the experience. So having the evidence as something he himself experienced, all arguments cease.

So the Son of man of Scripture is in you as your own wonderful I-AM. Your own wonderful human imagination is the Christ – the Lord Jesus Christ of Scripture; and the Lord Jesus is God, the Father. And His Christ is humanity personified as the single being called David. David will call you, one day, Father, and you will know you are his father! And David only represents Humanity, that sturdy stock on which the sons of God were engrafted.

No let us go into the Silence.

Now, are there any questions, please?

A Gentleman in the Audience: Did I understand you to say that we should not concentrate on trying to improve the world?

NG: I did not say that. I said this is a schoolroom of educative darkness, and you do not change a schoolroom into a home. It remains a school filled with problems to be solved. Let us solve the problem, but you still are not going to turn the school into a home. It remains a school for all who are coming into it to face the problems – if not similar problems, more problems. So make any effort you want; but you will not enter heaven by reason of any gift you make to society or any changes you seem to bring about in the world. You can only enter heaven by being reborn, “For unless you are born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” [John 3:3] No matter what you do in this world, you have to be born again, for “flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven” as told us in the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John. Here was a member of the Sanhedrin and he did not know it. He said, “You are a master of Israel and you do not know?” {John 3:10] Unless you born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He did not know it! He thought that by doing good things in the world and giving some fabulous sum of money to some foundation and giving his name to some hospital, that that would earn him some little niche. No, no; you aren’t in any other little niche. You are still flesh and blood. He said, “You cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” That which is flesh remains flesh, and that which is Spirit is Spirit. [See John 3:6] And if I would enter that Spirit, it must be Spirit; and that comes out of the skull of man, not from the womb of woman.

These garments [indicating the body] are born from the womb of woman. The second birth is from the skull – a literal birth out of the skull. You come out just as a child from the womb, but you come out of your own skull; and you ease yourself out inch by inch by inch; and all the story of the birth of Christ as recorded in the Books of Luke and Matthew surround you. You are wrapped in swaddling clothes as the sign of your birth, a birth from above. The witnesses to the event, as they appear out of the nowhere. They witness the infant, which is a sign, for the child is not the thing that is born, as we are told: “And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall fin a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.” [Luke 2:12] This was not the birth, but the sign of the birth.

Well, what was born? God was born! The Savior was born. And man has completely misunderstood the entire mystery of the story. When you are born from above, no one is going to see you with the mortal eye, but they will see the sign of your birth, the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Lady in the Audience: Neville, will you explain what you by the Kingdom of Heaven?

NG: The Kingdom of Heaven? To me, the Kingdom of Heaven is not a realm. To me, the Kingdom of Heaven is when man is clothed in his immortal body. Wherever he is, that’s the Kingdom of Heaven. When I am clothed in my immortal body, if I move through the petrified forest, it will instantly burst into foliage. If I move through the desert, it will blossom like the rose. Wherever I am, clothed in my immortal body as the Risen Christ, everything is perfect. You cannot move in any sphere that could remain imperfect; in my presence, it is perfect. That’s the kingdom of Heaven – not a realm.

If I walked through Hell, it would cease to be Hell, clothed in my immortal body.

I know in my own case, in 1946, traveling through the Caribbean on my way to Mobile, Alabama, on a freighter carrying this red dust for Alcoa – it’s an aluminum dust we call Boxite; and I retired early, because it only carried a few passengers. I think twelve was the maximum. It was really a cargo boat. We were down to the very gunnels with this Boxite. So I retired early; in the wee hours of the morning this happened to me. I heard this heavenly chorus singing, and it is saying, “Neville is risen;” and I felt myself twisted out of my skull like a corkscrew, and here I am clothed with a garment of light – living light, and I felt myself a conqueror in a conflict with Death. Here I am, completely clothed in something entirely different. Well I was light unto myself. I didn’t need the sun, the stars, the moon, or anything to illuminate my world. It was light enough.

And then I saw this enormous sea of human imperfection, and I was moving in the direction of it. I didn’t walk; I simply glided above the surface of the earth. Well, when I got to this enormous crowd, feet were missing, hands were missing, limbs were missing; they were simply halt, lame, blind, withered. Not one asked me to help. I did not do what I did out of compassion. I simply glided by, and every one was made perfect as I glided by. Eyes out of the nowhere reappeared in the empty sockets. Arms out of the nowhere fitted the empty armpits, and those were crippled ceased to be crippled. Everything was made perfect as I glided by. And the chorus accompanied me singing, “Neville is risen.” When I got to the very end and this was all made perfect; the chorus exulted, “It is finished!” Then I felt myself crystallize back into this little garment which was asleep on the bed in the stateroom.

So I know from experience that Heaven is not a realm, but it is the body of the Resurrected Christ-in-you. When you awake and you are risen, you are clothed in an entirely different garment, and that garment is perfect; and nothing can remain imperfect in its presence. So you don’t need a realm called “heaven.” You don’t need anything, just your body. And wherever you go – if you walk this very moment into the petrified forest – these trees that have been long dead and turned to stone will burst in to foliage, because you are a God of the Living. “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” [John 11:25] Nothing can remain imperfect in the presence of (this document ends incomplete)

neville goddard imagination creates reality

WHOM DO YOU SEEK?

Neville Goddard 04-02-1968

neville goddard imagination creates realityThe Bible, from beginning to end, is the vision of the Lord God Jehovah, yet the message given there can be applied in a most practical manner.

In two weeks the Western world will be told the story of Good Friday. They will hear of a man who was in a garden with those who believe him, when a band of soldiers came looking for a certain person. Then it is said: “Knowing what was to befall him, Jesus came forward and said, ‘Whom do you seek?’ and they answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Then he said to them, ‘I am.’ (The pronoun “he” is not in the original manuscript.) When they heard that, they drew back and fell to the ground. Again he asked, ‘Whom do you seek?’ and again they replied, ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ and he said, ‘I told you that I am; so if you seek me, let these men go.'”

That is the story and when man first hears that the one who is speaking is his own wonderful I AMness, he falls to the ground in shocked disbelief. You see the word “Jesus” means, “I am.” Recorded in the Old Testament as “Jehovah the Lord”, when the name is revealed, it is “I am.” This is true all through scripture. When those who are seeking a savior on the outside hear that their own wonderful human imagination is Jesus, they draw back in shock, for they simply can’t believe it.

Now let me tell you a story I recorded in one of my books. The year was 1950 and the man is my brother-in-law. Having graduated from Harvard, he entered the banking business, where he remained for many years. Now, in the banking profession a promotion occurs only when someone dies, is fired, or resigns. Qualified to hold the finest job, he wanted the best for himself, his wife, and their two children. He was a pillar of the Episcopal Church in New York City, sitting on the planning committee, advising them as to the care of their money, yet he knew nothing of the art of prayer or the secret of Christ.

One day he came to the house, and telling me of his financial desires, he asked what he should do. When I asked him if he would like to be in the investment business, he replied: “I want it more than anything in the world.” Then I said: “Go to bed tonight knowing you are now investing large sums of money. Do that night after night and the position you desire will be yours.”

Shortly after his visit my family sailed to Barbados, where we remained for three months. When we returned, my brother-in-law and sister came for dinner and this is the story Sam told me. Three weeks after our previous visit he attended a meeting on Wall Street. After the meeting was over a man he had known for years came over to him and asked if he would consider leaving the bank and joining him. He then quoted a salary which was twice what Sam was presently making, as well as promising him a five week paid vacation every year. Well, Sam was stunned beyond measure. He went home, discussed the offer with his wife, and they agreed it was a marvelous opportunity. That day he began his investment career representing the Rockefeller brothers – not the foundation, but the five brothers and their sister. He never bought stock, only suggested it. One day he told me he worked with one portfolio for $394 million, and that’s just one of many! Sam remained there for eight years, leaving to become a junior partner in a brokerage firm.

I wrote his story in one of my books and gave him a copy. A short time later while visiting them I discovered my book had found its place on a top shelf, completely out of reach. They had read the book, but as a pillar of the church with its orthodox concept of things, they could not associate the Jesus they worshiped with what they did, and the next time I went to their home, my book was completely out of sight. As a Harvard man, he could not believe that one who had never seen the inside of a college had helped him.

So whom do you seek? Is it not Jehovah, the savior of the world? The one who created all things, and without him there is not a thing made that is made? Sam knew what he did to get the job, but he could not believe that what he did was Jesus. Through the years we have remained close and dear friends, but never has one word been said concerning this. At dinner he gives grace and thanks someone on the outside for their food, doing it by rote. He can’t help it, for it is part of his training, but the day will come when he will discover who Jesus is. He found him, but – unable to recognize him – he turned his back upon the one and only one [who] is Jesus Christ. We are told: “He who is not with me is against me and he who will not gather with me, scatters.” At the present time Sam is not with me, but continues to worship something on the outside. Now you see how practical this story is.

Do you seek Jesus? Say “I am” and you have found him. Man finds it so difficult to understand that his own wonderful human imagination is the being he is seeking, but the day will come when he will find him. On that day Jesus’ Son will stand before him and call him “Father”. Jesus is not Jehovah’s son as you were taught. Jesus is Jehovah. Now, if Jehovah has a son and Jesus is Jehovah, is not David the Son? One day the veil will be lifted and God’s Son, David, will stand before you and call you “Father”. Until then, although many will listen to my words, they – like my brother-in-law – will not accept it.

Everything came about as Sam desired it to be. They are now living in a beautiful apartment. Their children have graduated from Smith and Harvard and in two more years he plans to retire and travel throughout the world. Sam found Jesus but did not recognize him. He is still looking for something on the outside – but may I tell you: no physical man is Jesus.

If anyone comes to you saying he is a holy man, do not believe him. Jesus is holy, for Jesus is Jehovah, he who can only be recognized through his Son, as it takes God’s Son, David, to reveal your true identity, that of being the Lord God Jehovah. Jesus Christ, that’s who you really are, and only God’s Son can reveal it to you. I know the truth of which I speak, for it has happened to me. The world teaches that everything is on the outside. That your success or failure depends upon where you live, the church you attend, your school or college education. This they believe because they do not know Jesus Christ, who is their own wonderful human imagination!

When I asked Sam, he told me that regardless of how disillusioned or tired he was, he imagined every night, and that although he had known the gentleman for many years, he had never been approached until three weeks after he had applied this principle. Sam saw the results of what he did. He knew he did it, but he could not believe that what he did was Jesus Christ!

So I ask you: whom do you seek? Do you seek Jesus, the savior of every being in the world? Jesus can save you from whatever you are. He can save you from missing your mark in life. “His name shall be called Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins,” and to sin is to miss your mark. Who is he? Your I am! Can you believe that? Is that idea so shocking to you that like those recorded in scripture you fall to the ground, then rise again to ask the same question: “Whom do you seek?” Jesus? I have told you he is your I am. And if you are really seeking me, then let the idea of a man go!

You aren’t seeking a man, a new president to lead you. You don’t need any leader. All you need is Jesus! It doesn’t matter who is the president tomorrow. A few years ago our president was voted in by an enormous majority, and tonight everyone is disillusioned, for they sought a man. Don’t seek a little man of flesh and blood, for flesh cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is Spirit. While walking in a garment of flesh and blood, Jesus will awaken in you!

This is the story that will be told on Good Friday, but not as you have heard it this night. And Sam will be ushering the people into that grand old church, just as he has done for years. He was married in that church. His children were baptized there and he has been active all these years, but he does not know Christ. I introduced him to Christ, for by him all things are made, and without him was not anything made that was made. I brought him to the only living Christ and he proved himself in the testing, yet Sam continues to believe in a false Christ – a Christ he will meet on the outside, not knowing that Christ dwells within.

I have been quoting the 18th chapter of John, the 4th to the 8th verses. As you read this you see they first play the garden scene and then it is said: “Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him…” The phrase “to befall him” in the Revised Standard Version, is translated in the King James Version as “to come upon him.” This phrase in Greek means: “a pressure from above that is mental or emotional which causes changes in the world.” So Jesus said to Pilate: “You could do nothing to me were it not given you from above.”

You see you are really not here in the true sense of the word. The being that is externalized here is putting on pressure, and you are willingly playing the part. And when everything is done that scripture says you will do, you will awaken as the one who placed the pressure on yourself. That is why I have no power over you were it not given me from above; therefore I who deliver you into the hands of another have the greatest sin. But as you move through the play, he who is pressing himself upon you, forcing you to do everything you have ever done, will be forgiven. “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Then you will awaken to the realization that your I am is God. See how practical the story is?

Now let us go back to the three manuscripts which make up what is called the Law of Moses. The manuscripts only have initials, which are J, E, and P. Although scholars tell us “J” means “Jehovah”, “E” the “Elohim” and “P” the “Priestly Code”, no one really knows who they are. J and P begin: “In the beginning God” But “E” begins on the 15th chapter of Genesis, stating: “After these things…” (In other words, after what is called the creation, the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.) After these experiences, one is found who will do these incredible things. Then it is said: “The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. And the Lord said to him, ‘Fear not Abram, I am your shield; great shall be your reward.'” Then comes a discussion between the two concerning the child. Abram wants a child to be his heir and the promise is made: “Your own son shall be your heir, and not one born into slavery.” Then it is said: “A deep sleep fell upon Abram and a great darkness fell upon him” as the Lord told him of the horrors that would take place, and promising him that after his journey is over he would awaken with great possessions.

Now, in the New Testament it is said: “The Lord spoke to Joseph in a dream,” and there is no record, either in the Old or the New, of their awakening! May I tell you: Abraham – he who believes, and Joseph – the dreamer, awaken when God in Man rises. Then Man, who has been searching for salvation on the outside, awakens to discover that he is the Lord who imposed all of the horrors upon himself. So you see: the “E” manuscript records events from Abraham on; events that take place in vision, for the drama of creation takes place in all!

Now, what I have told you this night about my brother-in-law can be applied to transcend any limitation desired, I don’t care what it is. I knew by nature Sam would do what he said he would. He had promised that even though it was not rational (and Sam is a rational man), he would sleep in the assumption his desire was fulfilled until I returned from Barbados. Then he would tell me it didn’t work! Knowing Sam would not falter in the doing, I knew by that time it would be done, and of course it was. So I urge everyone to take my words seriously and try it. When you go to bed tonight, catch the feeling that would be yours if your desire were now realized. Then fall asleep in that feeling. If you do it, you will not fail. How it is going to happen I do not know; I only know that if you do it, it will happen. And when it does, don’t forget the lesson you have learned.

Sam has money now and continues to invest it in the world of Caesar, but has forgotten the principle behind it all and is looking for a physical Jesus on the outside. May I tell you: he has a great surprise in store for him, for when he dies, there will be no Jesus there to welcome him. Instead he will be restored to life in a body the same as before. His body will be young and unbelievably new, as he finds himself in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in him. This he will continue to do until he finds and believes in Jesus.

Everyone is looking for Jesus Christ, for Jesus is Jehovah and Jehovah is the Lord God, the Savior of the world. And when you find him you discover his name is “I am.” So when you go to the people of Israel and they say, “Who sent you?” just say: “I am.” That’s all! If you do not believe you are this fabulous being, that your own wonderful human imagination is the cause of the phenomena of your life, you are still searching for its cause. But when you are convinced, you will begin to awaken and discover that there never was another God. Then you will see how practical this vision of God really is.

Your own wonderful human imagination is the Lord Jesus. Prove it! Believe in the only Jesus, for all things are made by him and without him is not anything made that is made. It is he who made the statement in the Book of Deuteronomy: “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.” The same being who wounds, heals, because imagination does it all! So you see how practical and wonderful this whole principle is?

Tonight, if you really want something – I don’t care what it is – you can have it. For your own sake I hope it will not injure another. You don’t have to hurt anyone to get what you want; all you have to do is accept it! To live as though you had it now! And when you get it (and you will) I urge you to share your good news with others to encourage all.

The other day my barber was telling of a conflict in his family and I said to him: “The problem is within you. Change your thoughts of your family and they will change.” Well, he didn’t understand me, but that’s all right. If I have to tell him seventy times seven times, I will because the story must be told. The boy who shines my shoes tells me about going to church on Sunday then having dinner with friends. He loves to be a part of that group. That’s religion! But when he asks me a question I try to tell him who Jesus Christ really is. It hasn’t gotten through, but that’s all right. Release a drop of water on a piece of granite and it will take a while to penetrate, but if you keep on dropping the water eventually it will get through. Well, water is truth and every time you tell of the true Jesus Christ you have released a drop of water.

Christ is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s an awful shock, and when you first hear it your world collapses, for there is no one to turn to but self! Formerly you could point to another as the cause of your misfortune, but you can no longer do that when you discover who Jesus Christ really is. From that moment on you must turn to yourself to blame or praise. And when you have played all of the parts, you will find him of whom you seek, Jesus of Nazareth!

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard imagination creates reality

YOU ARE A COSMIC BEING

Neville Goddard  05-02-1969

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

YOU CAN FORGIVE SIN

Neville Goddard  03-29-1963

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now let us go in to the silence.

neville goddard Imagination Is Reality

YOU CAN NEVER OUTGROW I AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now let us go into the silence.

neville goddard 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.