Neville Goddard (Date Unknown)
Tonight’s title is, “Where Are You Staying?”
This is taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. If you are not familiar with it, John the Baptist has just made the statement that Jesus is the Lamb of God. And in his presence were two of his disciples and they followed him, and they said to him, “Where are you staying, Rabbi?” and he replied, “Come and see,” so they followed him, and they remained with him because it was the tenth hour. (See John 1:35-39)
Some Bibles translate this as 4:00 p.m., but it really is not 4:00 p.m. . . it is the tenth hour. These numbers have a great significance in Scripture. Ten is the numerical value of the letter “yodh,” which begins the name YOD HE VAV HE. Its symbol is that of a hand, the creative hand of God. This whole drama takes place in us, not on the outside.
Following this, he turns to one called Philip and said to Philip, “Follow me.” And then Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.” (John 1:43-45) The word “Nazareth” means an unpruned vine. If you are a Nazarite, you are an unpruned vine. That’s the one they had found. They found the Savior of the world . . the Creative Power of the world! They found their own wonderful human imagination. That is the Christ of Scripture.
When you find Him, you will find Him an “unpruned vine.” It’s quite a shock.
“Behold this vine. I found it a
— Anonymous [quoted by Neville in his book, “The Power of Awareness,” pages 65 & 66]
Wild tree, whose wanton strength
Had swollen into irregular twigs.
But I pruned the plant and it
Grew temperate in its vain expense
Of useless leaves, and Knotted
as you see into these Clean full
clusters to repay the Hand that
wisely wounded it.”
When you find your own wonderful human imagination to be the Creative Power of the world, you will find it a “wild vine,” where you have misused this talent and imagined every unlovely thing in the world. Now, when you find it, you must prune it, and, so, you prune it by the proper use of it, and you stop misusing the power that is Christ-in-you.
For, the Christ of Scripture is not a little man who lived two thousand years ago.
“God became as we are, that we may be as He is.”
[Wm. Blake, “There Is No Natural Religion]
He is not pretending that He is man; He became man . . so much so that you can’t get away from being aware that you are, and this awareness that you are is God. That’s the Lord Jesus.
So, you remain with Him the tenth hour and learn all that He has to teach, and He teaches all about Himself. Now, He said, “I AM not of this world…” That’s obvious. “.. .and you are of this world.” (John 8:23) This conversation takes place within me. My rational mind, my surface mind, is “of this world.” It is called the “outer man.” He says, “You are of this world; I AM not of this world.” “You are from below, I AM from above.” The same Being, but speaking to Himself.
So, here, the thing called “Neville” . . the outer man belongs to this world. It is part of the structure of the outer world. In Scripture the “outer” and “below” are the same, and “above” and “within” are one and the same. So, when He says, “I AM from above,” I AM within . . I AM within you, yet I AM the core of your own Being, and that Being Scripture calls “Jesus Christ.”
Now, he said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself, that where I AM there you may be.” (John 14:2, 3)
Here in this room is the outer world, with the thing speaking to you called “Neville,” but there is that in us that is Jesus . . our own wonderful human imagination. There are no barriers to this Being-Within-Us. Standing here, I can assume that I AM wherever I would like to be. Standing here, fully aware of my weaknesses and my limitations, I can assume that I am the man who has no weakness and no limitation. If I do that, I AM preparing the place. I go and prepare the place.
I let this thing vanish from my consciousness . . this room, the city, everything, and in my imagination I dare to assume that I AM the one that I want to be. I give it all the tones of reality. I give it all the sensory vividness that I am capable of giving it and make it real. Then I open my eyes. When I open my physical eyes upon the world that I have shut out for a moment, it returns. So, “I go and prepare a place” for the lower man, and when I go and prepare the place, “I will come again and I will take you to myself.” Once more there is a fusion between the man that I left behind standing here while I proceeded elsewhere, and then I went and prepared the place. Then I come back to the being I left behind me, and we fuse once more.
Having prepared it, I will now build . . not in my conscious, rational mind . . I will build a bridge of incidents across which I will take this garment that I left behind and bring it forward towards the fulfillment of what I have done for it.
So, man can take a dream . . whatever the dream is; it seems an impossible dream to him, but it can’t be to the Being within him, which is Jesus. And Jesus is your own wonderful human imagination.
So, when you know exactly who you really are, then nothing is impossible. You do not have to rationalize as to how it is going to work; you simply do it. Have complete confidence in God! And God is your own wonderful human imagination. “Man is all imagination, and God is man, and exists in us, and we in Him.” [Wm. Blake, from “Annotations to Berkeley’s ‘Siris’”] “The eternal body of man is the imagination; and that is God Himself.” [Blake, from “Laocoon”]
It may come as a shock to you, but it comes as a shock to everyone of us raised in the Jewish. . Christian faith. I was raised in the Christian faith. Those who were raised in the Jewish faith, one day they will hear the same story, for Christianity is nothing more than the fulfillment of Judaism. It’s the complete flower . . the fulfillment, all adumbrated in the Old and fulfilled in the New. But man has taken these personifications for persons. They are not persons. Your reality is your own wonderful human imagination. I speak of it as a person, yes, because imagination, to me, is not some vague essence. It is a being . . a living being, an immortal being. It’s the core of your being. I speak of it as Jesus. That is the Being that you really are!
“Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (II Corinthians 13:5) That is what we are asked to believe in Scripture. The Christ-in-you is the hope of glory.
So, here, if He is in me, then He’s the one spoken of in Scripture as the One of whom Moses spoke. “I have found him.” (John 1:45) Found what? “Found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.” (John 1:45) When I found Him, I could hardly believe that that really was Jesus! It was an awful shock. You mean, my imagination that all day long I misuse? That I thought the unlovely things of people? And I’ve made every effort, and then failed, but yet He was within me as my imagination, and I didn’t know it? All that He said, it is all about me?
Well, then, I am telling you, after you get over the shock; you start doing something about it. Now, He said, “I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” (John 15:1) Well, He tells you, “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) So, “When I go and prepare the place, I will come again and take you unto myself, that where I am in consciousness I will take you across the bridge of incidents, and you will be there in the flesh. And they said, “Where are you going? We do not know the way.” Well, “I AM the way, I AM the truth, I AM the life.” (John 14:3-6) “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 1:32)
If “I AM the truth,” and “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” then as you know Me you will be set free . . only to the degree that you know Me, for “I AM the truth.” Well, if the truth makes you free, only as you know Me are you free.
Then they said to him, “Lord, show us the Father” and He said, “I have been so long with you, and yet you do not know me? He who sees me sees the Father.” (John 14:8, 9) “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
So, if my Father is the vinedresser then I am the vinedresser. I can’t have another do it for me; I have to actually prune this vine, for my Father is the vinedresser, and I AM the Father. That’s what he tells you. So, here I sit, and I try my best to simply overcome these fixed beliefs within me, and these prejudices within me, because I must prune them from this vine if I will grow these full, clean “clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it.”
I start with my own wonderful human imagination, and then clean the tree, clean the vine, and grow lovely things in my world, for the whole vast world is but the outpouring of my imaginal activities. So, if I do not do it . . well, all right, I will leave the leaves . . the useless leaves growing upon the vine.
Now, this I know from my own experience. When I found it, after the shock was over, I had to do something about it, so I started to prune the vine, and started to assume that I am the man that reason tells me that I am not. My senses deny that I am, but I dare to persist in my assumption that I really am the man that I want to be, so I no longer wanted to be . . I felt that I am it. Though at the moment, reason denied it, in time I became that man. In time I moved into the environment, which that man would find himself living in, with all the things at the moment denied by my senses . . then in time I fulfilled.
So, where are you staying? Well, I will tell you where you are staying. That state of consciousness to which you most often return constitutes your dwelling place. You can watch it. Morning, noon and night you keep moving psychologically back to a certain state. You think you overcome it, and then you watch. Observe what you are doing. You will find yourself coming back time and time again to that same state with your same problems.
Now, in this world of ours there are unnumbered states. “In my Father’s house, there are many mansions” (John 14:2) . . numberless mansions; these mansions are states of consciousness. “Were it not so, would I have told you … and now I go and prepare a place for you, and when I go I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am [in consciousness] you shall be [in the flesh also].” (John 14:3) So, I find I do not like this state any longer, and if I don’t like this state, there are unnumbered states. What would you like now to experience? You name it. Having named it, then I must enter that state. As Blake said, “If the spectator could enter into these images in his imagination, approaching it on the fiery chariot of his own contemplative thought, if he could make a friend and companion of one of these images, then he would rise from the grave and they would meet in the air, and he would be happy.” [From “A Vision of the Last Judgment”]
You have to enter into the state, and not just see it as something on the outside. It’s actually entering into the state. Well, I entered into the state by bringing the state to me. I make there, here. I make then, now. Standing here . . everyone here can do it, and do it now, but do not do it lightly, because it will work! If you desire to go to some place in this world new . . maybe you can’t afford it or maybe you cannot afford the time, or maybe problems at the moment would deny that you should actually do it now. Well, don’t consider these things. Assume that you are in that place now. Assume that you are now in the position that you desire to be in business. Suppose, now, you want a promotion in your business, how would you see the world if you were promoted? Where would you sit in the company if you were promoted? What office would you occupy? Well, occupy that office! What desk would be yours? Sit at that desk. You are not robbing anyone of the job. The chances are they will be promoted, too.
So, don’t try to take from another what you feel that no one should do to you. No, the Golden Rule will guide you. You do not take from anyone. You simply promote yourself, and if you are guided by the Golden Rule, doing unto others what you would like them to do to you, you cannot go wrong. So, do not concern yourself with anything on the outside. Just know what you want.
You want to be promoted; you want more income . . well, assume that you have it. To prove that you do have it . . all in imagination, you look at your world and let the world see you as it would have to see you if it were true. You talk with your friends in your imagination as though it is true. You don’t tell them anything about it. You do it all in your imagination, and you sleep in that assumption just as though it were true, and then see how it works, I tell you from experience that, without any conscious effort on your part, some series of events will appear, and you will walk across this series of events that will lead you to the fulfillment of your assumption.
So, I know from experience that the assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact. I just simply assume that it is, and having assumed it, the Being in me . . I’ve found Him; He is Christ . . well, all things are possible to Christ. If Christ is something other than the One of Whom I speak, it’s an entirely different matter. But I am convinced that the Christ of Scripture is the human imagination. And having convinced myself that He is, I will believe implicitly in His power. As we are told in Scripture, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians 1:24) Well, if He is the power of God and He is the wisdom of God, and He is my imagination . . well, I do not need anyone else! For that is the Creative Power of God. So, what do I need of anyone? I do not need their help if I can imagine.
So, can I dare to assume that I am the one that I would like to be? Can I dare to assume that a friend of mine is as I would like him to be, and persuade myself that it is true? Well, then, I do not look for confirmation; I simply assume that it is, and then let it happen, for that thing “has its own appointed hours it will flower. If it seems [to me] long, well, I must wait, for it is sure, and it will not be late.” (See Habakkuk 2:3) Not for itself. That seed that I just planted may ripen tomorrow; it could be next week, or it may take a year . . I do not know. But I am confident that it must come into being if what I am talking about is true. Simply believe it! Then let it come to pass.
If you do it, you will find no opposition in the world. You do not need the help of anyone in the world . . none whatsoever. All you need is complete faith in God, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. So, faith in your own wonderful imagination is faith in God! For, if God is in me, I should really make every effort to find Him just where He is; and having found Him as the One Who creates all the things in my world . . as I am told in Scripture, “By Him were all things made, and without Him was not anything made that is made.” (John 1:3)
Well, I look at my world and I try to remember if I ever imagined that. Sometimes I remember vividly that I once imagined that. Well, then, if “all things were made by Him,” and I catch it even once . . but if I catch it, say, a dozen times, and I can relate the things that I am now about to harvest to something I once only imagined, then I have found Him, for I have found the secret.
Man has a very poor memory, and he can’t quite remember when he set in motion that imaginal act, but he is doing it morning, noon and night. All day long he’s imagining, but he forgets what he is imagining, and when it comes up for harvest, he denies his own harvest. But if I can sit down and deliberately write it out if I must, and say I’ll do this, I’ll do that, I’ll do the other, and then in my imagination I do it and give it the tones of reality, and having done it, I simply wait for the result. I go on about my Father’s business imagining more lovely things and still more lovely things, and then when it comes up, I know all things must be after their kind. That is the law of life. All things bring forth after their kind. So, it can’t be something that I have planted and something different comes up.
So, if I plant security by assuming that I am secure . . that is a relative term, I grant you . . to me, what I consider being secure, in time it comes. Someone said, “Well, after all, Neville, you didn’t earn it.” Someone said to me this past week, “Your father gave you security . . your earthly father. You didn’t earn it.” I said, “All right, but I had the wisdom to draw the right father, didn’t I?” So, I assume that . . all right, he is my father, and my mother . . I chose them. Nothing happens by accident. I am not just the result of two people who loved each other, and then I came as an accident. I came into this world by a certain law, according to principle. They started out without one penny in the world, and then they could in time give ten children independent wealth, each one, when they departed this world. But they say, “You didn’t earn it.” Well, I wouldn’t say I didn’t earn it. I earned their love, respect. I certainly loved them to the very last moment of their lives, and that didn’t stop when they departed this world. My love for them is just as deep today, even though they are unseen by the world, as it was when I could see them and touch them. I have their pictures in my living room; I talk to them daily, whether the picture is there or not. They are still alive in my world! Everything about my world is simply the result of my parents. My brothers and sister . . they do the same thing. So, I would not say I didn’t earn it, but you don’t have to earn it. You simply appropriate it, for you are told it’s all God, and if God is in you, what does God have to earn?
We are told in the 50th Psalm, “Were I hungry, I wouldn’t tell you, for the world is mine and all that is in it.” (Psalm 50:12) “The cattle on a thousand hills are mine,” (Psalm 50:10) so why should I tell you if it’s all mine? I will slay and eat, for if it is mine, I only then appropriate it. But if I don’t know it’s mine, I could die of starvation for the want of a dollar and still own the world. But if I have found Him and He is the owner of all . . well, then, I have found all.
All I need do, then, is simply . . without asking the permission of anyone . . appropriate it. We all have our problems . . we all have them, but the solution is always there. I simply, then, appropriate the solution. I am not trying to deny the problem because this is a school of educative darkness and we are here, not to turn it into some home, but leave it as a school and just simply use it as a school. So, when the problems come, we simply solve them as we solve problems in school. That is why we are here, to use this talent.
The talent is God. He actually, literally gave Himself to us,
[Blake, from “There Is No Natural Religion”]
That we may be God.
“He [literally] became as we are, that we may be as He is.”
Now, I ask everyone just to try it. Don’t take my word for it, but try it, and if it proves itself in the testing, what does it matter what anyone in the world will say. If you have the evidence for a thing, all right, so you have the evidence. It may seem insane to the world. But what does it matter?
I find in Scripture confirmation of all that I am talking about. But, you see, the Bible is written, not as secular history, but the world has taken it as secular history. It’s not secular history; it’s salvation history. The Old Testament is an adumbration; it’s a foreshadowing of God’s plan of redemption, but man has completely mistaken these characters for persons. Why, they are simply personifications of these eternal states.
Tonight we spoke of Moses. Well, that is a name, but a name in the Bible doesn’t mean some little identification tag. You say the word “Neville.” You say, “Neville,” and I will turn around. I respond to the name “Neville,” for it is a tag. But not in Scripture; these are simply states of consciousness, and the word “Moses,” as I use it tonight, means, “to be born.” It is the old perfective of the Egyptian verb “to be born.” So, that which is to be born comes into the world, and no one recognizes it, for it is not as the world thought it should be born. It is born in man, for God is buried in man, and He unfolds in man. So, when He unfolds in the individual and the individual tells the world what happened to him, he can’t share it with the world, for that which was born in him does not belong to this world. So, it is said of Him, He was born unnaturally. He had no earthly father, for the mother conceived without the aid of a man. That is the whole story. It is something in man. It’s already there. It was there “before that the world was.” (Ephesians 1:4) God is actually, literally buried in the skull of man, and in that skull one day He will awaken from the dream . . the dream of life. Well, when He awakes, the one in whom He awakens will know himself to be God. And he has all the symbolism to confirm it, for the story of Jesus will be your story, and you will know you are He, for you are told, “Unless you believe that I AM He, you will die your sins.” (John 8:24)
So He comes into the world in man, and the man hasn’t changed outwardly. His friends know who he is; they say, “We know this man. We know his father, we know his mother, we know his brothers,” and they named the brothers. There were four brothers named in the book of Mark, so the boys are named. And they speak of sisters, in the plural, so here was a man of a normal family with at least four brothers and then at least two sisters, and he will be the seventh of a family of seven.
Well, “I know his parents, I know his brothers, I know his sisters. I know his background. Why does he say he came down from heaven? How does he now say that he is not of this world? What is he trying to make out of himself?” Well, when this happens in a man, he realizes that his birth was not from the womb of the earthly mother that he loves so dearly; that the body here was from him mother . . yes. And undoubtedly the one he calls “father” sired that woman he calls “Mother.” He loves them dearly on this level, but something happened in him, which convinces him that he is the one spoken of in Scripture. It will happen to everyone. And everyone in whom it happens will be convinced that he is the one spoken of in Scripture, because he is born in an entirely different manner.
And when it happens to you, I can’t tell you the thrill of it when you go back and read Scripture and see it parallel and confirm all that has happened to you! You find yourself awakening within your skull, and your skull is a tomb. It’s actually sealed; there is no opening. And then you rise within your skull, and you have an innate wisdom because Christ is not only the power of God, He is the wisdom of God. So, you have an innate wisdom of what to do, and you do it. You push the base of your skull, and something gives, and out comes your head, out through the base of your skull. And then you pull yourself out just as a child coming out of the womb of a woman. Only instead of out of the womb of a woman, it is out of the skull of yourself!
When you come out of the skull of yourself, the whole drama unfolds before you; the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, as told you in Scripture, and the average person would say, “Now that is the Christ child.” No . . read it carefully. “This shall be a sign unto you, you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying [on the floor] lying in a manger,” (Luke 2:12) . . the very lowest point. That is not the thing that is born; it is the symbol of a birth that you cannot see. No one can see it. You’ll find the babe all right, but the babe only symbolizes the God . . and You are God.
So, you come out of your own skull where you were buried throughout the ages, and then you awaken. And then the witnesses come to bear witness to the fact that you are born, but they can’t see you. Why? Because you’re God and God is Spirit. You are more alive than ever before, yet you cannot be seen by mortal eye. So, they are present all right. They are present, and they know what the child is. One of them will say . . calling you by name. If your name is John, they will say, “Why, it’s John’s baby!” And the others, in my own case they asked, “How can John have a baby?” In my case my name was Neville, so they asked, how could Neville have a baby, in the most incredulous manner.
Well, one of them who actually found the child picked up the infant from the floor and brought it and put it upon the bed. And then I took that infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and looking into its face I said, “How is my sweetheart?” And the child broke into the most heavenly smile. Then the whole thing vanished. And that was the birth of God from above. And every child is destined to have that experience.
Then from that one came three mighty experiences, ending on the twelve hundred and sixtieth day. One thousand two hundred and sixty days later came the dove . . the symbol of the dove. Everything said of Him in Scripture I’ve experienced. I am the same Neville with the same parents, the same brothers and the same sister, with the same weaknesses of the flesh and the limitations of the flesh, yet I cannot deny that something in me that I call the “I” of me . . my true identity . . went through these experiences.
So, Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed Himself in action for the salvation of man, and these are the events. So, these events I’ve actually experienced, and now I share them with you that I may encourage you that the story is the truest story ever told. But it is not as it is told. It is told as secular history. It is not secular history; it is salvation history. And every child born of woman is going to have this experience, and only as we have the experience, do we escape from this world of death.
This is a world of death. God literally died. In the most literal sense, He dies. “For unless I die, thou canst not live, but if I die, I shall arise again, and thou with me.” [Wm. Blake, from “Jerusalem”] So, man rises as God, for God died for man. He actually became one with you, and then through these frightful experiences in the world, he broke down that partition between the two, and you became one, not you and God. The partition came down, and you are God! And then you rise as God.
Now, I have brought a message to the world, which I have never seen in any book or ever heard it from any lip, but I know from my own experience that it is absolutely true. I was raised, as I have told you, in the Christian faith, and still consider myself one hundred percent Christian . . not in the orthodox sense of the word because I cannot any longer concede that orthodox Christianity . . that is, organized religion . . is the repository of Christian truth or spiritual experience. I look upon it as a tremendous power . . organized religion. It is an enormous secular power, stranded on form . . vested interests. I do not hold eighty billion dollars in a portfolio, as I read in 1967 in Life magazine, Time magazine, the L.A. Times and the New York Times . . they all confirmed it, that the portfolio of the three great religions in the country, the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths . . between them they hold in excess of eighty billion dollars. And that is tax-free money! But nothing is tax free; the tax-payers have to carry it, for that has to be carried, but they aren’t paying it.
Fifty-one percent of the Bank of America . . the greatest bank in our world . . is owned by one religious group . . fifty-one per cent. And they named it. They named the group as the Jesuits that own fifty-one per cent of the stock, and they control the interests of Phillips Petroleum. Well, that runs into a fortune. Well, you do not have any time with a portfolio of that size for any so. . called spiritual experiences. So, when they make the claim that they are the repository of Christian truth, I just simply turn my back. It’s nonsense, because they cannot be. They have no time in their secular world for spiritual truth.
I am sharing with you now what I have never heard from the lips of another. I have never seen it in a book, save the Bible. I didn’t even see it there until it happened. It was there all along, but I didn’t see it.
So, someone will say, “Now, tell me, if God is a father, and He is a father; the final revelation of God to man is that of a Father. “I have made known unto them thy holy name, O Father.” That is the final revelation of God to man. Well, if He is a father, then He has a son, and you have been told that He has a son, and the son is Jesus Christ. No, it’s not! Jesus is the Lord! That is the Lord God, and Christ, His Son, is David.
Now, you may not believe it. You may laugh at it, or think it blasphemous. But I am telling you, David of Biblical fame is the personification of Humanity. If you took all the generations of men and all of their experiences and fuse them into one grand whole, that concentrated time into which they are all fused and from which all spring, personified, comes out as the youth called David . . the eternal youth. And there is no doubt in your mind when you see him. You know exactly who he is. He knows who you are, and he calls you “father,” and you know he is your son. He is not just a David; he is the David . . David of Biblical fame. And you are his father, in the fulfillment of Scripture.
For, in Scripture you are told . . and David is speaking, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee… (Psalm 2:7) If you want to read it, read it in the 2nd Psalm. Then in the 89th Psalm we read these words . . these are the words, now, of the Lord, “I have found David, and he is crying unto me, “Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.’“ (Psalm 89:20, 26)
So, here you find confirmation of the experience. When it happened to me, I hadn’t the slightest idea that this thing was literally true. In fact, I didn’t even know it. But I could not deny the experience. So, the end of man’s journey in this world comes with a bang . . but not of matter, but a bang of mind. My mind exploded. It began to vibrate. My whole head began to vibrate, and at the apex of the incident it exploded, and when it all settled, there stood David before me. There he stands looking at me, the most beautiful creature that man could ever behold . . a lad of about 12 or 13 years old, just as is described in the book of Samuel, leaning against the side of an open door and looking out upon some pastoral scene. There he is looking at me, and I am feasting on the sheer beauty of my son, just as told in Scripture.
So, everyone is going to have it, because He is in you . . because the explosion took place within my mind. I felt the whole head coming apart; therefore, He has put Eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out from the beginning until the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) In the meantime the explosion takes place and here comes the one that was buried in you all along . . the essence of Humanity. And Humanity is the Son of God! But Humanity personified with all its experiences comes out as David.
You look at him, and here you are, the Father . . the father of David. His father in Scripture is called Jesse. Well, “Jesse” is any form of the verb “to be.” The word literally means, “Jehovah exists,” that is what the word “Jesse” means.
So I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.” (Acts 13:22) So, Humanity has done the will of God, because God is man’s own wonderful human imagination. Every imaginal act that man has ever set in motion, man performed . . good, bad or indifferent, for he did the will of God. God allowed man to make mistakes, but then the man had to pay the price. He allowed man to imagine anything in the world, and man paid the price! Therefore, everyone has done the will of God. “For I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.” (Acts 13:22)
So, when I ask, “Where are you staying? And then He said to me, ‘Come and see,’” (John 1:38) then following that He calls Philip, and then Philip tells Nathanael, “I have found him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth” (John 1:45) . . Jesus the Nazarite, an unpruned vine. And what a shock it is to man when he expects some external Jesus and he thought that Jesus is looking down on him, and at that moment when he thought maybe he was being observed, he tried to be good, and hoped he could hide from Him the things when He was not good, and get an external savior. Then he discovers there is no external savior; it is all within him. That Savior within him is his own wonderful human imagination, who is ever aware of every imaginal act, and allows him to make every mistake in the world and suffers with him.
So, I assume that I am unwanted, and then I become unwanted. And then I forget that I assumed I was unwanted and I wonder why did it happen to me? I try so hard to be good, and here I am, shot or neglected. Why? Because I myself did it!
I assumed that I was little, unknown and unwanted, and then I dared to assume that I was contributing to the good of the world, even though at the moment I had not a thing to offer, but I felt I was. Things happened, and I did have something to offer. And then I assumed that I was pulling my own weight in this world, and I pulled my own weight. And then I assumed all kinds of things that at the moment of the assumption seemed an impossible thing. How could I ever do it? But I did it by merely assuming that it was done, and living in the assumption as though it were done. In the meantime, it happened.
Now, when you reflect upon how it happened, you are inclined to give full credit to the means employed, but the means came into being because of the assumption. The assumption created the means employed.
The world will tell you, “Do you know why it happened?” You met So-and-So . . were introduced to So-and-So, and then conditions changed in the world, and that’s why it happened. It isn’t so at all! It happened because you dared to assume what you did assume, and your assumption created the means to fulfill itself.
So, if you want to know where you are staying, you ask yourself to what state of consciousness you most often return.
Now, the Being of which I speak . . to show you how altogether wonderful He is . . haven’t you said any day of the week, Why this feels like Sunday? It could be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but it feels like Sunday. Well, how could it feel like Sunday? You have some association with something.
And when you say, It feels like the Fall of the year, or it feels like Christmas . . you don’t have to wait for Christmas to feel Christmas, but at some moment in your life you felt, It feels like Christmas. You can conjure that feeling, and then when you conjure the feeling of Christmas, feel that something has happened that you desire, say, in the month of July, and then drop it. And as you go forward towards Christmas, when Christmas comes by, the thing that you actually felt that was yours at Christmas, when Christmas comes . . in a way we do not know . . it happens! The thing comes into being. That is what He means by, “I will go and prepare a place for you, and when I go I will come again and take you to myself, that where I AM.” (John 14:3) Where I AM? Where are we? At Christmas . . that’s where I AM “.there ye shall be also.” He will take you forward through the months . . you are not going to skip them. Things will build themselves until when we get to Christmas . . you and I together, for I can’t divorce you . . when we get to Christmas, the thing will happen.
You can take a day, take a month, take anything; but if you can say, “This feels like Sunday.” You have several associations with the day called Sunday. So, it’s entirely up to you to use your own imagination wisely. And if you are ever in doubt, use it lovingly, and you are never wrong. Always use it lovingly.
You don’t have to take anything from anyone in this world. Leave them just as they are. You do not rob them; leave them as they are. If you desire . . or if they desire through you to transcend their present state, you assume that they have transcended it. They may never thank you for it. They may never turn back to say, Thank you. It doesn’t really matter. You saw the evidence of your action, and that satisfies you enough. You don’t need their thanks. They would be wise if they did thank you; it would be good for them to say, Thank you, but if they say it or not, it really doesn’t matter.
So, here, I am telling you that the Being that the world is totally unaware of . . they speak of Him as something that lived two thousand years ago. I did not hear a lady tonight before I took the platform. That’s not my “cup of tea.” But she told me that last night he said, in a huge auditorium . . that is, the Coliseum . . that if we do not stop sinning, God is going to take all of us and drop us into a lake of fire. And some reporter reportedly has said, “I wonder if Billy Graham . . he’s a nice fellow; he seems like a nice fellow . . I wonder if he would do that?” Well, certainly if he would not do that, why would he think that a God of Love would do it? What strange concepts they have of God.
I am telling you, God did not test Love as we are told in Scripture. I know from experience, He’s Infinite Love! I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord, and He’s Infinite Love, and yet He is Man. Let no one tell you it isn’t man. “God is man! And man is God, and exists in us, and we in Him. And the eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself,” [Wm. Blake] . . the Divine Body of Jesus.
I do not speak of imagination as some vague essence. I speak of imagination as a Being . . a majestic Being, a Being of Infinite Love, but a person, “one body… one Spirit… one God and Father of all,” (Ephesians 4:4, 6) and one day you will be incorporated into that body, and it will be your body. You will be incorporated into that, and it’s your Spirit, and you will actually exercise the power that is God, for you, then, are God! He became you, that you may become Him.
Now, tonight in a simple manner, when you go home . . or you can do it now in the Silence; if you know what you want, either for yourself or for someone that you know, assume that you are the one that you want to be or that your friend is as you want him to be, and then commune with your friends in your mind’s eye. Make a mental picture of them, and then allow them to congratulate you on your good fortune, and accept it, and then carry on your conversation from the premise of fulfilled desire. The thing is done. Now, don’t doubt. Don’t feel embarrassed. Believe it. Believe in the reality of the imaginal act. For the Being that is doing it is “not of this world.” This thing [indicating the body] is of this world. “You are from below. I AM not of this world. You are from below. I AM from above.” And “above” and “within” are the same. “I AM within you.” You can’t see Me as you see objects in space, for “I” am the Reality that the world calls “imagination.”
You can’t see imagination, but you have proof of imagination. You can’t see Me . . the real Me, but you see the evidence . . the proof of my activity; so do not look for Me as something objective to you, because “I” am within . . your own wonderful human imagination.
Now, let us go into the Silence.
I am doing the same normal things that I would have done as a man . . having my martinis before dinner and enjoying them perfectly, enjoying a nice big roast beef dinner . . that is what I had tonight. The night that it happened to me I had a roast beef dinner and had a couple of martinis before it.
Now, the so-called “holy men” will say you can’t be holy. No, I’m not holy. It just happened that the drama of life called the story of Jesus unfolded in me. So, they also accused Him of being a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of sinners, a friend of publicans, a friend of tax collectors. They say, “Why do you listen to him? He’s mad.” Or, “He has a spirit,” “He has a demon.” All that he talked about seemed to them irrational. There was not a rational statement that he made. To “eat my body and drink my blood” . . “unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” And he said, “I came down from Heaven,” yet they knew his parents, they knew his brothers, they knew his sisters, and he makes the claim that he isn’t one of them.
So, everything he said was in conflict with the rational mind. And they called him a glutton and a drunkard, a winebibber. They couldn’t call him “alcoholic” because in those days they had not yet discovered how to distill liquor; they could only ferment it. So, he was a winebibber. That’s what they said. For distillation didn’t come in until the 12th or 13th century. But then they knew how to let apples ferment and grapes ferment. So, they could only get fermentation. Then came man’s know-how, and they found out how to do it in a little better way.
No one is in any way “holy” in the eyes of God. We are told in Scripture, “All the ways of men are perfect in his own eyes, but God weighs the heart.” Everyone tries to be good, tries to be this, that and the other. Only God sees your motive. It is your motives, your intentions; these are the things that the Father-in-you is seeing. What is your intention? What are you doing this for? What is your motive behind the act? And He sees motives; He sees intentions . . not the act.
A gentleman: When you meditate, do you meditate in words and sentences?
Neville: If words come naturally, if I am asking some good for another, then I bring the other before my mind’s eye and I tell him how thrilled I am because of his good fortune and try to persuade myself of the reality of that conversation, based upon what I would consider fact. For I look upon my imaginal act as fact. Before it becomes an objective fact, to me it just a fact . . it’s a subjective fact which I have just appropriated prior to its becoming an objective fact. So, if words are natural at the time, I use words. But they are all internal. No one is going to hear them. God is not deaf and I don’t have to scream at Him. You go to church, and all of a sudden the minister says, “Let us pray.” Well, you can’t do that in prayer. He’s going to lead you in prayer! He is not what I want, and he starts to lead people, and your mind goes on constantly by his idle words. Now, that is not praying. When you pray, you are told, “Go within and close the door, and he who sees and hears in secret, he will reward you openly.” Yet a minister dares to lead me in prayer! How can he lead me in prayer? Let me go into the Silence by myself. They don’t want the same things you want. When we went into the Silence . . how many there are here I don’t know, but each had a different desire . . a different want in this world. How can I lead you in prayer? I do not know what you want, unless you tell me. But you yourself know what you would like. You may appropriate it. You feel yourself into the situation of the wish fulfilled. That’s praying! I feel myself right into the state of the wish fulfilled, and then feel the naturalness of it. Give it all the tones of reality. Give it all the sensory vividness that you can muster. Then when I open my eyes, the world returns, and the world tells me that I am self-deceived. But I’ll say to the world, Wait . . just wait a second, and we will see who is deceived.
And then when it happens, the world will always say, Well, it happened so naturally, it would have happened anyway. They always say that.
Well, the time is up. Thank you.