Neville Goddard (October 10, 1969)
In Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians he said: “No other foundation can anyone lay then that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” And in his 2nd letter he asked: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Now I ask you: who is this Jesus Christ who is in you? He is your own wonderful human imagination – the foundation stone of your world! Your dreams create your world, and the dreamer dreaming those dreams, is your human imagination scripture calls Jesus Christ.
You may think of Jesus as someone other than yourself, someone separate and apart from you, but I tell you, Jesus Christ is in you as your wonderful human imagination. He is the dreamer, the foundation of your day as well as your night dreams. You may not be able to write a letter, paint a picture, or carry a tune, but you can dream because Jesus Christ is in you.
Now let me take you into the greatest story ever told man. It is the story of the Lord Jehovah, the being you really are. The Bible is your autobiography. You dictated it, recorded it, then came into the world to fulfill it – and you will!
People are forever looking for the coming of Christ, but he cannot come from without, for Jesus Christ is already within! He comes when the dreamer in you awakens and the dream comes to its end.
As the dreamer awakens, you awaken by a series of events which were predetermined before the world was. Let man speculate as to the age of the earth, the moon, and all the things round about him. That’s perfectly all right; it’s part of the dream, too. But when your individual dream comes to its end you – its dreamer – will find yourself awakening within your skull, the skull where Jesus was buried. You will come out of that skull, fulfilling Peter’s words: “You are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Now, no one here thinks he is dead. We think those who depart this scene are dead, while we are very much alive; but I tell you: those who appear to be dead are no more dead than an actor who leaves the stage. Rather, they are restored to life in a world just like this, to continue their dream just as you and I continue it here. They have a body just like the one they left behind, only young – about twenty, where they can continue their dream until the dreamer in them awakes by a series of events which take place in them.
The series begins with a peculiar awakening within yourself to discover you are in your skull, the skull where you were entombed. Then you come out of that sepulcher to find the symbolism described in scripture surrounding you. You do not bring forth a child; the child you find merely symbolizes your birth, for you are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, to discover that you are the dreamer who – having foretold exactly what would happen, in symbolism – awoke from the dream of life.
Those who are not awake will continue to fight shadows in this world, for everything here is imagination made visible. Shelley once said:
“He has awakened from the dream of life.
‘Tis we who, lost in stormy visions,
Fight with phantoms and unprofitable strife.”
Those who are fighting against the establishment do not realize that they are fighting against the objectified images of their own mind. But the day will come when he who is dreaming his world into being, will awake within himself to know he is its foundation, the one the Bible calls Jesus. The words “Jesus” and “Joshua” mean “Jehovah, the Lord’s salvation.” A man is saved from his dream by returning to the state he occupied before the dream began.
When Jesus told those who were listening to him that he came down from heaven, they could not understand his words, for they knew his physical father and mother, his physical brothers and sisters. Seeing only the outer man, they thought he had a demon and was mad.
Man is looking for a savior to change the establishment and society in the outside world when it is but a reflection of a dream whose reality lies deep within him. A savior will never be found in the midst of shadows. He will only be found when he who laid himself down within the individual man awakens in a wonderful series of events.
Everything said of Jesus Christ in scripture is said of you, for you are the dreamer, and the world is your dream pushed out. Fight with it if you will. Do as you like, but you will not awaken until the dream is finished. Then you will awaken to discover that you are its dreamer and creator. There is nothing but your wonderful human imagination! There is no other God. There is no other Jesus Christ. There is no other Lord. Your human imagination is the God of scripture. This I know from experience.
The series of events which will take place at your awakening begins with your resurrection. You will not resurrect from any cemetery, for every cemetery is conceived by dreaming man who desires to make money. There is no holy ground outside of where you stand, for the holy sepulcher is the human skull. That is where God is buried; and one day, when your dream is complete, you will awaken, not to find yourself in a world you like or dislike, but within your skull which is completely sealed, like an egg whose seal must be broken from within. This you will do, and coming out of that skull, you will know yourself to be the same being you were when you retired the night before.
There will be no change of identity, but the symbolism of scripture will be there. You will find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, whose birth will be witnessed by three others. Two, taking the child literally, will deny that you could bring it forth; but one witness will find the evidence and present it to you, the being who awakened from the dream of life. You will take that infant in your arms, and as you speak to it endearingly the vision will dissolve.
You will go from there into another section of scripture, for you are the Spirit of Jehovah who inspired the prophets to write the Old Testament. And you are the Spirit of Jehovah called Jesus, who controlled the lives of those who wrote the story in the New. Following your spiritual birth, you will fulfill the word you inspired the psalmist to say in the 2nd Psalm as “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, `Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.”‘ Having come into the world to fulfill your own prediction, you must find David and he must cry unto you, “Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.”
This second grand event comes when suddenly the David of Biblical fame stands before you. At that moment there will be no uncertainty as to who he is and who you are. You will know the relationship of father/son and he will know it too. David is the result of all of your experiences of humanity. He is the same David as is described in the 16th chapter of the Book of 1 Samuel. If you date David chronologically, you would discover that he lived 3000 years ago; but the Bible does not record secular, but salvation history, as the events do not take place here.
This is the hell into which God descended and dreams his dream of life. God – your human imagination, your awareness – came out from being aware of being the Father and entered the world by becoming aware of it. The day will come when the world will lose its hold and you, human imagination, will return to the Father as the Father. You entered this wonderful world of adventure for the purpose of expansion, for if the limit of expansion was already reached, it would be hell.
Just imagine if you could never go beyond what you are. That would truly be hell would it not? Omnipotence has no part of scripture. God must ever be expanding his wisdom and his power. Having limited yourself to the contraction and opacity called “man”, you will break the shell and know an expansion far beyond what you were, prior to your descent from your
exalted state into this limited one.
Yes, Christ will come, but not as the world expects, for “When Christ comes, no one will know where he came from.” They will see a man such as the speaker. The records will show that he was born in the year 1905 in a little island called Barbados; yet I tell you I am not of this world, for I came down from heaven and have only just remembered it.
Believing I was Neville Goddard, a member of a certain family and race, I have been suffering from amnesia. My memory has returned now and I know that I came out from my own being, who is God the Father, for a purpose – to wear a garment called a brother, a son, and a friend. The garment I wear has many names to many people. I wear this garment, but I am not it. I came out from myself and came into the world. Having accomplished the purpose for which I came, I am now leaving the world and returning to myself.
There are those who would question my sanity and believe I have a devil; that I am mad because I do not believe in an external God, but rather I believe that I am God. And they challenge me relative to what I can do in the world saying: “If you are God, turn this stone into bread, or fall off a cliff and let us see if he will give you support,” – but I say to this doubting Thomas: get behind me. I have told you what I have experienced. Believe me, for in time you will duplicate it. One day you, too, will know that you are God the Father, for you are he who inspired the psalmist to say: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord.” You are that Lord who inspired him to write the words: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.”
You have come here to fulfill your word. But before this dream can come to its end, you must play every part you created in the beginning, be it the part of the rebel or the conservative, the murdered or the murderer, the rich man or the poor man. Having played all, you will forgive all, because it takes every experience of humanity to beget your son David and say: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.”
A few months later another promised event will occur. It is said that: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.” The son of man is Christ, your dreaming being. When this event is fulfilled, you will find yourself split in two from the top of your skull to the base of your spine, with the parts separating about six inches. At the base of your spine you will find a golden liquid light which is pulsing and living. As you look at it you recognize yourself and consciously fuse with it. Then, like a fiery serpent you move up that spinal cord to enter your skull as it reverberates like thunder. Try as you will you cannot get out, for your skull contains the dream of which you are its life.
The final act will come as that skull becomes translucent, so transparent there is no circumference. Looking up you will see a dove floating about twenty feet above you, its eyes lovingly fixed upon you. In my own case, I raised my left hand, and as I extended my index finger the dove descended and lit upon it. Then I brought it close, and the dove smothered my face and neck with affection, as a woman at my side said: “They avoid humanity because man gives off such an offensive odor. But because of his love for you, he penetrated this ring of offense.”
At that moment I fulfilled scripture: “He upon whom you see the Spirit descend in bodily form as a dove and remain, that is he.” But I am not alone. I am only a sample. I am telling you what has happened to me and what will happen to all. Let the world continue on its way. Let the riots occur, the wars and rumors of wars, for they will go on forever. There is nothing new under the sun.
Evolution appears only in the affairs of man, but not in the creation of God. His creation occurred as one grand explosion, an orgasm which released only one place to cradle his biological experiment. That place is earth. Blake knew this; that is why he said: “We are put on earth a little space to learn to bear the beams of love.” This we are doing even though we don’t see any evidence of it. Instead we see only hate and violence of man against man as individuals set themselves up as the authorities to follow, not knowing that time moves on and one day he, too, will be as old as the speaker, then no one will trust him any more than they now trust anyone over thirty. This goes on forever, for there is nothing new under the sun.
But I am telling you what I know from experience and what is known from experience is known more thoroughly than any other way in this world. You may know something from hearsay, you may read it in a book, see it in a play, or hear it from the speaker; but you cannot know it in the true sense of the word until you have experienced it. When the dreamer in you begins to awake, then you realize that the world is a dream and you can prove it to yourself.
If this waking world is as much a dream as your sleeping world, you should be able to control it. In the dream of last night you might have been frightened and believed for a moment that the event was real, outside of yourself, and beyond your control.
Only when you awoke did you discover that it was a dream. Had you known at the time that it was a dream, you could have controlled it and made the event conform to your desire. Now awake in this world, you think it is real and outside of yourself, but I tell you: this world is a dream, too. It is every bit as much a dream as the dream of the night, only it is more difficult to control because it appears so real and independent of your perception. But it can be controlled by a simple act of assumption.
Let us assume that this is a dream and everything is perfect. You are happy and content and all is right in your world. Then persuade yourself of the reality of your assumption. Don’t do anything to make it so; just trust the dreamer in you to bring it to pass, for the power who assumed your desire is the Lord Jesus Christ, and all things are possible to him. Your assumption, though false in the sense that it is denied by your senses and reason, if persisted in will harden into fact in such a normal, natural way that you will think it would have happened anyway. That is the dream. When imagination fulfills itself so naturally, it is easy to question that your assumption had anything to do with it; but I tell you it could not have happened without your assumption, for your awareness is the one and only cause of the phenomena of your life.
Use your imagination consciously, and after a while you will stop fighting shadows. The conflict within you will cease and your world will be at peace. Let those who are still asleep dream their violence into the world. It’s perfectly all right, for in its midst you will walk knowing you are protected, for you are awake. This is your dream, too, and no dreamer can be destroyed by his dream.
You can stop dreaming violence and start dreaming peace while you are here, and share your awareness with those who will listen -but not everyone will. Instead they will call you mad and think you have a devil, just as they did of one called Jesus in scripture.
This man is mad, for he claims he came down from heaven, yet we know his father Joseph and his mother Mary. He claims that he existed before our father Abraham. How could one living in this century say that David, one who preceded him by 2,000 years, be [sic] his son?
He doesn’t believe in reincarnation, but in two births: – a physical one that never comes to an end until the second birth takes place. And only one death, which took place at the beginning of time, when he became embodied in a body of flesh and blood and became its slave. He claims he was reborn through the act of awakening from the dream he imposed upon himself in order to expand his power and his wisdom beyond what it was when he made the decision to make man in his image.
Right now you are living in a fabulous world you created, filled with those who agreed to dream with you in concert. Everyone is dreaming his own dream. One dreams he wants to change the world. They call him Hitler or Stalin and millions of people appear to be killed, but they do not die. Rather, they simply depart this section of time and move into another, not even knowing they departed. Others will come and dream their desire of change and create a world in their own image; yet I tell you the whole thing was done before the world began. You are seeing simply the unfoldment of a purposed end which, as God, we agreed upon before we began the adventure.
There is no other foundation. Our scientists will continue to find new hypothesis to experiment with, relative to life and its cause. That’s all right, for they are dreaming, too. This world began as a grand orgasm of God, with only this tiny little spot called earth capable of cradling life for the great experiment to take place.
Then the dream you and I are dreaming began. If you don’t think it is a dream, take some section of your life that seems beyond redemption and rearrange it in your mind’s eye. Make it as you would like it to be. Persuade yourself of its truth and wait, because its fulfillment has its own appointed hour. It ripens, it will flower. If it be long, then wait, for it is sure and it will not be late. It will come into your objective world to bear witness to the reality of your assumption. Then you, too, will know that the world is a dream and you are its dreamer, the Jesus Christ of the New Testament and the Jehovah of the Old.
The Old Testament is an adumbration – a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. The New is its interpretation and fulfillment. If you hear the word, “Jesus” and think of a man other than yourself, you do not know him. The priests, rabbis, and ministers are looking for his coming, but they will look in vain. Jesus has already come or they couldn’t breathe. He is their life, but they do not know it. One day, however, he will awaken in them as the being in whom he awakens.
Try it. What I have told you tonight concerning the coming of Christ is the only foundation. You will never disprove my words, for I am not speaking from speculation or theory, but from experience. When this little garment I now wear is taken away, I will no longer be a part of this age, for I have awakened from this dream called life. And one day, when your dream is over, the series of events which I have just mapped out for you will unfold within you; and you, too, will awaken and return as the one being who began the venture.
Believe me. There is no other foundation, no other God other than he who began a good work in you, and he will bring you to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.
Now let us go into the silence.