Neville Goddard (Date Unknown)
Tonight’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 it had 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 your son.
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.