Neville Goddard (1953)
Today’s subject is “Sound Investments”.
I want to share with you today what I consider one of the truly great revelations of all time.
On Sunday morning, April 12th, my wife woke from what was really a deep, profound sleep and as she was waking a voice distinctly spoke to her; and the voice spoke to her; and the voice spoke with great authority and it said to her: “You must stop spending your thoughts, your time and your money; everything in life must be an investment.” So she quickly wrote it down and went straight to the dictionary to look up the two important words in the sentence, ‘spending’ and ‘investing’: the dictionary defines ‘spending’ as “to waste, to squander, to layout without return.” To ‘invest’ is to “layout for a purpose, for which a profit is expected” .
Then I began to analyze the sentence – “You must stop spending your thoughts, your time and your money, for everything in life must be an investment”. As I dwelt upon it, I saw where everything is NOW; that through the portals of the present all time must pass, and this psychological NOW, the state in which I find myself now, does not recede into the past. It advances into my future.
So, what I do NOW is the all important thing, and thought is the coin of heaven; it is the money of heaven; and so the thought I entertain now, the thought to which I consent, as told us in Ephesians “All things when they are admitted are made manifest by the light, and all things when they are manifested are light:” and the word ‘light’ is defined as consciousness. So the state to which I now consent must be made manifest, and when it is manifest, it is only that state of consciousness made visible, coming to bear witness of the state in which I abided.
So, every moment of time, I am either spending or I am investing. Unfortunately most of us spend the coin of heaven, and morning, noon and night we live in negative states for which there is no return, when we could easily have spent, not spent, but invested that moment, so at the end of that day we really would have a wonderful portfolio.
The religious minded person invests possibly on Sunday morning. Through the service he is lifted for a moment; if he is not overly critical he might be carried away with the hymn; he might be carried away with the solo, the organ music, the address from the pulpit, and for a moment he is investing; but the rest of the week he spends.
Now you know from experience if you put all your money into one great concern, it may be wonderful, it may be sound, but at the end of a year the directors may decide to reorganize and therefore decide to pass the dividend, and if you depended on a dividend check for your daily needs, though it is a good, firm, wonderful concern, when they passed the dividend, then you must either sell some stock or raise or borrow on it. While every moment of time you could have a most marvelous portfolio and if one passes a dividend check it does not matter. If you devoted every moment of time to positive thinking, constructive thinking, by not accepting any rumour that does not contribute to the fulfillment of your desire, no matter what it is – it could be the most obvious fact in the world – if it does not contribute to the fulfillment of your dreams, do not accept it. If you do you are spending; if, not by denying, but by complete indifference, complete non-acceptance, you turn to what you wish you could have heard instead of what you heard, you are investing. It’s not the hearing that matters, its the admitting the truth of it that matters.
All things when they are admitted, not all things when they are heard, but if you give consent to it, if you accept it as true; then you either spend by acceptance or you invest depending on the nature of the state accepted. So, this revelation which came through my wife to me is one of the greatest that I have heard; had it been told in our Bible, it would have been told in its strange meter “And the Lord God spoke unto her this day and said to her, his servant” and they would have told what revelation would have come in that manner but it came to a normal natural wife, came in a normal natural manner to instruct not only her, but to instruct her husband, for I was the first one to whom she told it and I can’t tell you what it has done to me since I heard it on the morning of the l2th April, for it made me more aware of the moment, made me far more conscious of every moment of the day so that I am not spending; I must invest – time is too precious and because these moments do not recede. they do not pass away; they are always advancing into my future to either confront me with a waste or to show me some wonderful return; if I invest it’s for a purpose and, therefore, I hope, not only hope, I expect a reward: I expect a profit on my investment. So a moment spent now, this very day, could tomorrow pay you great dividends.
Now I told a story here two weeks ago of Jimmie Fuller. Well, I didn’t have all the details of the story, but after the meeting; dozens of you said to me, not only after the meeting that day, but after my meetings at the Ebell Theatre, that Jimmie Fuller to have made the fortune that he made, must have had great capital. Well, I could neither affirm nor deny your bold assertion, for you spoke as though you knew and many of you almost convinced me that he had great capital and that’s why he turned it into great returns. So on Friday night I asked him to tell me more of the details. He said “When you came here four years ago, Neville, I came to hear you. My wife asked me ‘Why do you come to hear Neville? Who told you of Neville? He said, I turned the radio on one night and I heard Dr. Bailes. I had never heard of the man before. At the end of his lecture, which I thoroughly enjoyed, he said Neville is coming to speak for us and it’s a MUST. Well the next night, I so liked Dr. Bailes that I turned him on the next night, and for the next two weeks he kept on promoting you, and he was so generous in his praise, I thought I’ve got to hear this man. So when I came, I enjoyed what I heard on Sunday morning, and then you announced you were speaking the following night at this place, but it was two dollars. Well, he said, between myself and the next I actually had Fifty four dollars. I had a wife and a little boy; we couldn’t leave the little child alone; he was a babe: it meant a sitter-in, but my wife and I came to everything you gave and one night we could not pay the sitter-in; we just didn’t have it, but we took our last which was fifty four dollars and came to your every meeting – the two of us – and one night we didn’t have it to pay that sitter-in. Three years later, Neville, I had not proven your theory. You know my problem, as I told you before.”
Perchance there is someone here who did not hear it – the man is a negro, and his problem was that because he was a negro, all the marks and stripes of the world were against him. I tried to convince him it was only in his own mind that these stripes were placed; his acceptance of that as restriction made it restriction, but if he could only drop it by non-acceptance, by complete indifference, to the pigment of skin he could accomplish his every dream by acceptance of it now.
Well, in the last year, Jimmie Fuller by complete acceptance, investing his moment, his now, has turned the year into a net profit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He did not have one penny when he started; he did not raise large capital; he didn’t have it. He only invested God’s coin. God gave it to him. He gave him the moment, which is time. So instead of spending his thought, which everyone has, and spending his time. which everyone has, he had no money, but he knew that thought was money; so he invested his thought in the now, knowing that it was not going to recede and vanish from sight; that was an investment: it would advance into his future.
Well it did. It so advanced that he tells me now everything he touches turns to gold. Now he has three children; they come here every Sunday to Sunday school: he doesn’t want his children to start with his stripes, so he wants them to feel what this Church gives. So every Sunday, Jimmie tells me many a Sunday he feels like taking off for the beach or up to the mountains with his wife, but he will not go because he wants his children to have an opportunity he didn’t have. He says “My people were very religious, but they must have worshipped a very poor God, for they were steeped in poverty. So I just wouldn’t go near the churches of my mother and my brothers and these people, because I couldn’t conceive of such a God doing that to us; yet they never missed service. For when I found in this what I found here in this Science of Mind Church, I brought my children to Sunday School. Now this is what happened to them. Here God is love, and love surrounds them and they know nothing but love, that God is love. For one day my little girl which is the youngest of the three, was quite sick, a beastly cold. and that night when the little boys said their prayers. these are the words they used ‘Thank you God, that sister is perfect tomorrow.’ They could not look at the little girl, sick as she was, and say ‘Thank you God that sister is well now’, but they said ‘Thank you, God, that sister is perfect tomorrow’. Neville, it was a miracle. The next day that child was perfect; there wasn’t the sign of a cold – a complete absence of all that we saw the night before, and these two little brothers simply gave thanks.”
“Now, he wanted a watch. I wouldn’t give him the watch. I could have bought a thousand watches for him. I want my little son to learn a law which I didn’t know until recently. So he filled his mind with the possession of a watch, and he spoke of the watch as a ‘live’ watch – one that ticks, one that is alive, not a toy watch. So then he fills his mind with the possession of the watch. On his way to school he found a ‘live’ watch. Now he knows the working of law – that the complete acceptance of the state in consciousness must result in an externalization of the state accepted. So if he accepts the watch he need not turn to his earthly father, as the medium through which the watch will come. I don’t want to think for one second he has to point to his mother or his father as the only channels through which his good will come. I want him to recognize an Infinite Father – the Father of US all – who gave to him as he gave to me everything that I will accept. I want my children to learn it as I have learned. Yes, I could shower him with gifts, but then he would look to me as the only channel through which it will come. That I must not accept. So you should see the little boys and little girls actually live by this law. God to them is love and the only reality and love surrounds them. So they never miss the Sunday School here.”
Then he goes on to tell me all other wonderful things that have happened by the mere acceptance of this law. He said. “The getting of my car, this convertible Cadillac – I treated it loosely, I sat quietly in my living room and drove my Cadillac, and I simply treated for this loosely,” he said, “I didn’t put real effort into it, I accepted it and then when I decided to get it I simply put in three telephone calls and that day I was driving this car, Neville. Now everything happens just like that. Today, instead of going to my office and working in the office I work behind the scenes. I sit all day and I hear the report that is good from my employees; my entire office staff must tell me good news, the only thing I will allow myself to hear. I ride my car; I’m in the office; I am at home; I’m in the office but I am only hearing good news, and seldom do I go to the office physically to do office work, so I am behind the scenes only hearing good news. So I have completely forgotten the so-called pigment of skin and, Neville, honestly I can tell you today I feel that I am blessed beyond all men because I was born a negro. I am so proud to be born a negro; I am so proud I’m one.”
And here is a story that will interest all of you; he said “I had some property to dispose of, I had certain things in investments for those who had money, and so I advertised it and a man called me on the wire. He saw the ad, and asked me if I was the gentlemen, so I told him I was the one who had the property. The first thing he said to me, “I don’t want any nigger property.” Jimmie said, “I didn’t answer, as if I hadn’t even heard the word. If he wants to be prejudiced, he may be prejudiced, that’s his right. He wants to be silly about it, that’s his right. He can spend; he need not invest. So I said, “It is perfectly all right, sir, I have all kinds of property, I have all kinds of things for your investment.” A week later he called me up and said, “Would you come and see me.” He said, “I went to see him. When I got out of my car his knees almost buckled, for he didn’t know a negro was coming to see him, and a negro walked up his stairs into his living room.” He said within a matter of minutes he purchased $37,000 worth of mine that I had to offer. He said the first $25,000 that he bought he simply bought that to buy back his face, and then the remaining $12,000 he bought that because it was a very good investment. Well, since that time this gentleman has spent tens of thousands of dollars with me and constantly calls me to thank me because they are such wonderful investments.
Now here is a man who is proud of his skin; he has no prejudices because that’s spending his time, he can’t afford to spend. So in harmony with the revelation given to my wife, let us all now stop spending our thoughts, our time and our money. For everything in our life must be an investment. We know the truth. This platform radiates the truth. You are told that everything proceeds out of your own consciousness, but what you and you alone accept as true, that will externalize itself and mold itself in your environment. All the conditions that you will encounter will simply bear witness of the state you have accepted. Well, if you don’t like what you are encountering, then stop spending and learn the art of investment for every moment of time is an opportunity to invest, not to spend; yet on the other hand, you and I are free, we are free to waste every coin in the world. For that we have a right, we are free beings, we can spend, we need not invest, but if you know you can invest, why not choose the wiser way.
Now we are told in the thirtieth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, “The commandment I command you this day is not hidden, and it isn’t far off. It’s near unto thee; it is in thy mouth and in thy heart. Now, I set before you this day, life and good, death and evil, blessings and cursings. Choose life, choose blessing.” But the choice is ours for we are free. He sets before us this day, this very moment, a commandment. He sets everything before us; it’s not far away, it’s in our tongue right now. And before me now is a blessing or a curse; I can accept the fact you don’t like me; it doesn’t matter, you may love me; but if I accept the fact that you don’t like me, don’t like the teaching, I’m spending my time. Tomorrow you’ll prove to me that I have spent my time by your behavior relative to me. On the other hand, if I accept the fact that you do like it, because you are proving it, then I would have no doubt in my mind that you could not do anything other than contribute to this teaching. So it is up to me to either bless myself or curse myself.
I can choose life or I can choose death. I can choose the good, but I am free, I can choose the evil. It’s entirely up to me. But if you and I loved this, accept it and believe it, then we are wise indeed if, knowing the whole is before us, we go out determined to become investors, not spenders, not wasting and squandering our substance, but laying it out for a purpose. Every moment become conscious of the moment, what are you doing. I am accepting now the fact that I am a noble, dignified, wonderful being, that my father is proud of the son who is like him. So I will not hear or accept as true anything other than that which contributes to that noble concept I will hold of myself. For I will see that I am secure, and maybe a headline would startle the world but I will not accept it, for if I don’t admit to it, it can’t proceed out of me. For all things when they are admitted are made manifest, not unless they are admitted.
So if I now will admit that using this moment as my moment to invest, if I am what reason denies, what my senses deny, and I proceed in that assumption, knowing that even though it doesn’t confirm itself tonight or tomorrow, I will still live in the assumption that I am what I want to be and all day tune in and listen only for the good report. I know these are investments and tomorrow these dividend checks must come. They must come. That’s the law of our being. So everyone here, take it to heart, and though you don’t need money, and so I say to the hundreds of you who say to me in private, “He must have had money”, I tell you I know the story now; I didn’t know it when you boldly claimed that he had money but now I have it from the source. He only had $54.00 and the $54.00 he spent coming to my meetings, even when he couldn’t spend a dollar on a sitter-in; so I tell you he didn’t have it; he has it today. But you don’t need even $54.00.
All you need is time and you have it, it’s now. All you need is the thought, that’s money. So instead of spending that now, and spending the thought in the now, invest it now, for your now, this very moment as I stand here and I will get off the platform in a little while – and you will think, well now this is gone, he’ll come back next year – this is not gone. What I am doing now is not going to slip away; it’s going to move forward and embody itself as a condition, embody itself as the circumstance of my life. So that my now’s, my reactions to what I am hearing and saying and seeing, all of my reactions are in the now, and my reactions are spelling out my tomorrow. So I will repeat it – through the doorway of now – because he said, “I am the door”, I am is always first person present. Not I was the door, or I will be the door; “I am the door,” “I am the resurrection,” so what I do in the present, now, is not going to recede, it is going to advance into my future for through the door of the present, of the now, all time must pass. Now don’t spend it as it passes; as it passes through the door of the now, invest it. Every moment of your life see that it is a positive, constructive, noble moment. I promise you a wonderful, healthy, radiant future if you will invest the now.
Now this being my last talk for a little while, I would like while I have this opportunity because the theatre, the Ebell, can’t take all of you, I hope that many of you will come this coming week and make it a really fruitful, wonderful week, but I know you can’t all get into the Ebell; so here, one lady as I came through the door said, “Neville, you made it so clear on Friday night; something I’d not seen before, for you told us this year you brought a wonderful revelation and that is the wide difference between thinking from an end and thinking of an end. For you emphasized that time and time again since you’ve been here this time, but I didn’t get it until Friday.” I said, “Well, how did you get it?” She said, “Your picture of the balcony and the stage.” Well, now we have the same situation here. We have a balcony, so we have a stage. Well, if she having heard it so often didn’t get it, the chances are many of you didn’t get it. Well, now she got it by my illustration, so I will repeat the illustration that all may get it. I said that when a man learns the art of thinking from the end, that man is master of his fate, for he defines his end, he formulates an aim in life, and then feels himself right into the situation of that end. So he thinks from it instead of thinking of it. The average man defines his dreams but he remains back here looking at them before he’s thinking of them. The wise man occupies the state of his dreams, so he radiates from it, he thinks from it. And then to use this little illustration. I’m standing here looking out at the auditorium, and I would describe this theatre based from this angle, for I am seeing it from the stage. You, sitting in the auditorium, or sitting in the balcony, you are looking at it from that state, so you would see the screen and the speaker.
So the difference between us we see the same theatre from different angles. I would define it from here; you would define it from there. If I desired to get your point of view, while standing here I would assume that I am seated where you are and therefore within my imagination look from that position. I would then have to see the stage, not the auditorium; I would see the thing behind me, this cyclorama, and I would describe the theatre from that position which I am assuming that I am. Now, if that position represents, say one of security and this one of insecurity I would then assume by physically standing here assume that I am now secure. And to prove that I am, I would then look from the state of security, so I would describe the world relative to my assumption. If I am still seeing what I saw when I was insecure, I have not succeeded in occupying that desirable end; I am still only thinking of it. So the wide difference between thinking from and thinking of must be clearly seen and then see the wisdom in learning the art of thinking from a desired end.
So here, look out at your world, formulate your lovely aims in life and just ask yourself, “What would it be like were it true that I now embody that state? How would I feel?” And in response to that question would come a feeling, a feeling that corresponds to that end. Learn then to think from that end, though reason denies it, though everything denies it, you occupy that end. It’s now, you’re investing it and these will become real within your world.
Now another thought that I tried to make clear and it’s this which again Jimmie Fuller told me was one of the cues in his success. When the action of the inner man corresponds to the action the outer man must take in order to appease his desire, he will definitely realize his desire. There are two of us; there is an inner man and an outer man. The outer man is always made to say, “I of myself can do nothing; the Father within me, this inner one, He doeth the work. What I see him do, that, I, the outer do also.” So there is an inner you. If I now sat here and immobilized my body by relaxing it and then imagine what the outer would have to do in order to appease his desire, and with the outer relaxed, just let me imagine that I am actually it now, so I keep the body immobilized but I imagine that I am actually experiencing it now. I would experience in my imagination that which I would have to experience in the flesh to appease desire, and then imagine that state over and over and over, so that the actions of the inner man correspond to the actions the outer must take in order to realize desire. When that is done – I promise you it’s going to be done in the flesh; no power in the world could stop it when these two actions coincide, but let it always be from the inner you.
And now at the end of the silence, this is what we do. Knowing that any time that we exercise our imagination lovingly on behalf of another, we are actually and literally mediating God to man. So we can sit quietly in the darkness and simply listen as though we heard the good report that we want to hear. We look into the darkness and imagine we are seeing what we want to see. This is then investing this two minutes; we have taken the moments that go to make up two minutes and really are investing it now. So when I take the chair and the lights are lowered let us listen and let us look as though we are hearing and seeing what we want to hear and see. And we are actually fulfilling the command of that wonderful voice that spoke to my wife when it said to her, “You must stop spending your time, your thought, and your money. For everything in life must be an investment.” Let these two minutes be your greatest investment.