Neville Goddard (October 17, 1966)
Christ is the reality, the God that is in Man. It is he who breaks down the dividing wall between himself and Man and makes of the two, one new Man. Is this all done on the other side of the veil, or is there something that we can do on this side of that dividing wall? Let me share with you a story of a very dear friend of mine, one who has had most of my experiences. Listen to me carefully, for God speaks to man through the medium of dream and unveils himself through revelation. This is his letter.
“I awoke at 6:00 o’clock in the morning. It was too early to get up, so I decided to lie in bed and do some purposeful imagining. Then this thunderous voice came from within me declaring, ‘I AM GOD! I AM SELF-CONTAINED! I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!’ It kept repeating these words over and over and over until finally I said to it, ‘I know, and I’m trying to do something about it, but you are speaking so loudly I cannot imagine.’ But the voice continued ‘I AM GOD! I AM SELF-CONTAINED! I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!’ over and over again. It seemed to me like rape, if you can’t prevent it, relax and enjoy it, so I did, and fell asleep enjoying this declaration.
“Then I found myself in a vast desert of nothingness. Not a blade of grass, not a shrub, not a cactus, nothing but an infinite desert. I am holding some golf balls in my hand. I throw one and instantly a beautiful home and yard appear in technicolor. I throw another and a second home and yard appear, this time with people around it. Taking another ball I threw it across the way and a wonderful putting green appeared. Then a man at my side said, ‘Isn’t that terrific. You put the ball right next to the hole.’ And I answered, ‘No, I don’t do it that way. I put the ball down and put the hole next to it!”
“Then I created a huge gate and we walked through it into a miserable scene of dilapidated house and a streetcar in the last stage of decay. I took a ball and tried to throw it, but no matter how I tried to release it, it would not leave my hand. Then I said to myself, ‘Maybe it is beyond my power.’ And as I contemplated this scene the ball was released and the house was transformed into an ultra-modern hotel as the streetcar became a streamlined bus which quickly moved away.”
It was so easy for me to create out of nothing, but when I came upon a scene out of the past, that I know to be a fact, I couldn’t change it, for I couldn’t let go of the past. But I persisted and persisted and I was eventually rewarded, as the house was turned into a glorious new hotel and the streetcar into a streamlined bus.
“Then” he said, “I came upon a scene which resembled the Miracle Mile on Wilshire Boulevard with an island up the middle. But, in place of the usual well-dressed men and women, I saw young boys in messy pants and girls in bikinis. So I decided to throw another ball, and as I did they were transformed into beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen, dining under umbrellas and served by elegantly dressed waiters. Then I turned to my friend and said, ‘You know, maybe I should have left them as they were.’ Now, he’s a very humorous man, may I tell you, and he always ends his letters to me on a humorous note, so he added, “and I awoke not a moment too soon.”
Now, God speaks to man through the medium of dream. Although there were no golf courses two thousand years ago, the word “ball” appears in the 22nd chapter of Isaiah. When you read it you think God rejected a man, but all of these are states of consciousness. God rejected the state, not its occupant, for God is playing all the parts, but we are in states. Then he turns him into the one whose shoulder the peg will be nailed. And on him will rest the burden, the responsibility of the house of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the 10th chapter of I Samuel, the prophet Samuel speaks to Saul saying, “The spirit of the Lord shall come upon you and you shall be turned into another man.” God rejects the state of Saul and turns him into an entirely different state.
Now listen carefully to what you can do on this side of the veil to break down that wall between the two, and make of two, one new man. “Jesus came into the world preaching the gospel of God saying, ‘The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.’ Repent and believe in the gospel.” Believe my testimony, for all the promises of God have found their fulfillment in me. Believe my gospel and repent, for the story of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness, and forgiveness tests man’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite.
When you see anything in a dilapidated state it is a past state, old and fixed. But you can change it by throwing the ball. If, at first the ball will not leave your hand because of the obvious facts before you, persist. “How long, O Lord, must I forgive the brother who sins against me? Seventy times seven.” Do it and do it and do it until you succeed in letting go of the past and seeing what you wish in its place. Persist and persist and persist until you can actually let it go.
Jesus tells the parable of the woman who comes to a constable who, although he didn’t fear God or respect man, rose and gave her what she wanted because of her persistence. Her constant comments forced him to give her what she desired. The story is also told of a man who came at midnight wanting something to feed a stranger in his house. The man from above said, “It is late and my children are in bed and I cannot come down and open the door,” but, because the man persisted, he was given what he wanted.
You may think there is no way out of your present turmoil, but I don’t care how fixed that seeming turmoil is, if you persist and persist and persist, he who is from above has to come down and grant your request. Practice repentance on this side of the veil while the work is going on in a hidden manner on the other side, and the wall will become thinner and thinner until the shell is broken and Christ is born. And who is he? I AM. After you break the shell it’s not Jesus and you, there is Jesus only. And on that day the Lord shall be one and his name One.
It was so easy for my friend to create out of nothing. When he threw the ball in the vast desert of emptiness a beautiful home and lawn instantly appeared in technicolor. Another ball and another beautiful home and yard with people all around, then a golf course and a gate through which he and his friend passes. Now he views pictures of the past – a home decayed beyond repair and an ancient streetcar. Desiring to change them he discovered that he couldn’t let go of the past. But he persisted and eventually succeeded. He realized that it only took five seconds for him to create out of nothing, but it took so long for him to change the past. Although the ball had left his hand, he felt that it wasn’t going to work, but it did, as the house became a beautiful hotel and the streetcar a streamlined bus. Then the transformation was easy along Miracle Mile, for he had succeeded in taking that which was ancient and having transformed it, he changed the boys and girls into ladies and gentlemen without hesitation. That’s what you and I are called upon to do.
In the earliest gospel, the book of Mark, we are told that after John (reasoning consciousness) was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” What he is saying is, “Believe my testimony, for all that I tell you is but the fulfillment of scripture.” Standing before you tonight I can say, unschooled, unlettered, unknown, uneducated by human standards, yet scripture, the only reality in the world, has been fulfilled in me. Everything in this world will pass away, but God’s Word is forever and his Word is being fulfilled in everyone.
God is not condemning any man, for they are only states, and we must learn to distinguish between the occupant of the state and the state he occupies. God does not reject man, but the state, and puts man into another state. I know that since this man heard my message years ago he has been daily practicing revision. Revision is repentance and revision results in repeal. When you revise a memory that is fixed you have repealed it. He repealed the dilapidated home and streetcar. Here is the new man fulfilling the 22nd chapter of Isaiah. Although the word “golf ball” is not there, the word “ball”, that which turns upon itself and repeats a memory image, is. But, holding the ball in his hand (the symbol of God’s power and wisdom) he persisted and exercised his power.
You have that power. Test it by bringing a seemingly hopeless case before your mind’s eye and revise it. Persist in revising it until you can let go of that ball by feeling the breath of relief because it is done. If tomorrow does not bring the confirmation, or next week, wait, for it is done. And in a way that no one on earth could devise, it will come into your world and you will see the results of what you did.
So I ask everyone to practice revision. Revise the past. I don’t care what it is, revise it and the past will conform to your dream of what it ought to have been and appear before you. Then the new man will rise within you and it will no longer be you and Christ, but only Christ. We are told in the 9th chapter of Ezekiel to follow the man who is clothed in linen. He will go through the city and leave a mark on the foreheads of men, women and children. “Follow after him, and everyone who does not bear the mark, whether he be an old man, an old woman, a maiden, a young boy or a child, slaughter them and your eye must have no pity.” Then, in the 22nd chapter of Revelation he turns and those who have the mark come before him. They see his face and his name is on their foreheads.
That name is Jesus and Jesus means Jehovah. He only redeems himself. Don’t think because of this strange imagery that there are those who are lost. Everyone, at a certain moment in time, is slaughtered because of the state he is in, but the play goes on and he plays other parts and still, more parts, until finally he plays the part of the selected one. And in that final part the mark is on his forehead and the name Jesus is his own. So in the end there is Jesus only. Everyone will be redeemed. Infinite mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus. There is only one body, only one God, only one being, so when you are redeemed you are He.
So tonight, begin to practice the art of repentance, for everything can be redeemed. Now, repentance is not to feel remorseful or regretful. I don’t care what you have done; you don’t have to feel remorseful about it. You had to do it because of the state you were in at the time. Repentance is practicing the art of moving into the opposite state. You don’t feel sorry for yourself and wallow on some weeping wall when you repent. Your sins may be as scarlet, but through repentance they shall be white as snow.
It does not matter what a man has ever done, he is only expressing a state. When in the state of murder he must murder, or in the state of the robber he has to steal. We condemn the occupant as though he did it, but he is in a state, which he entered wittingly or unwittingly. So Blake said, “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them in the state of sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it left paradise following the serpent.”
Scripture tells us there are two things, which God finds impossible to forgive. The first is our failure to believe that I am He and the second is the eating of the tree of good and evil. Man’s unwillingness to believe that I am He is the fundamental sin; for God, whose name is I am, became man that man might become God. My unwillingness to believe that I am he who causes me to breathe, to think and to move, as well as going through life condemning good and evil as I see it is unforgivable to God. But then comes this wonderful revelation, “I know from the Lord Jesus Christ that there is nothing unclean in itself, but any man who sees anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” And as he lives with it, his state allows it to be seen as unclean. That’s life.
On this side of the veil let us practice repentance and transform any unlovely past. Let the mind store a past worthy of recall, for eventually everything that is unlovely is going to be destroyed, and although the mind seemingly vanishes, man does not, for man is God. In the real sense of the word, there is no death for really nothing dies. The actor leaves the stage and seems to be gone, but he isn’t dead, for the supreme actor is God and he is playing all the parts. “The deceiver and the deceived are his.” I have deceived and I have been deceived; therefore I am both. After I have played every state I am called upon to believe the testimony of one who has experienced scripture, then to constantly practice this wonderful art of repentance.
Repent and repent and repent. As you see someone in need, change him. That’s repentance. You could argue with him, tell him it serves him right, that if he hadn’t done what he did he wouldn’t be paying the price, but do not condemn him. He is in a state and must reap the results of the state into which he has entered. It is only a state and since the occupant is immortal, as you are, you can repent and place him in a different state.
It does not matter what you have done, you are immortal and one day you will hear the same words my friend heard. “I AM GOD! I AM SELF-CONTAINED! I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!” Right now that same voice is screaming in the depth of your soul. It hasn’t stopped since the beginning of time, but the wall is too thick for you to hear it. But when the wall becomes very thin, you will hear it. He heard the words as the wall was breaking, making of the two one new man, thus bringing peace. That’s what you are told in the 2nd chapter of Ephesians. “I bring peace by breaking down the wall that separates the two.”
Have you ever lived in an apartment where the walls are so thin you can hear your neighbors whisper? Practice repentance and you wall will become so thin you will hear God, the eternal I am in you; proclaim what He is. “I am the everlasting! I am eternal! I am self-sufficient! I am self-contained! I am God!” He heard the voice so loud and so persistent that he decided to test this power, which symbolized itself as the hand where the ball was placed. Then he created, changed and revised all demonstrations of God’s power that he now knows himself to be.
Revise, then drop it as he dropped the ball. Release the past and hold onto the vision of what you want in its place. With this power you can completely redeem the past, “And God requires the past.” And, although your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow.
Now let us go into the silence.
Questions & Answers
Question: What does it mean in the book of John when it says, “Salvation is of the Jews?”
A: Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. Bishop Pike said, “I am a Jew because I am a Christian. I could be a Jew and not be a Christian, but I cannot be a Christian and not be a Jew.” Christianity comes out of Judaism. It was revealed through the prophets and the Judea-Christian Bible, to me, is the only true revelation of God’s plan of salvation. All the others are based on secular history. But scripture is not secular, but salvation history describing eternal states through which man passes.
Salvation is of the Jews, as it was revealed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New. “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day. And the scriptures preached the gospels to Abraham beforehand.” Having had a preview of what the fulfillment would be, you entered the state of faith called Abraham, by believing the most incredible story in the world. Then the dream descended and amnesia possessed you. You entered a deep and profound sleep and are now dreaming the dream of life.
Good night.