Sunday, October 4, 2015

Feeling is The Secret by Neville Goddard



Feeling is The Secret
by Neville Goddard



                                                 Foreword
THIS book is concerned with the art of realizing your desire. It gives you an account of the mechanism used in the production of the visible world. It is a small book but not slight. There is a treasure in it, a clearly defined road to the realization of your dreams.
Were it possible to carry conviction to another by means of reasoned arguments and detailed instances, this book would be many times its size. It is seldom possible, however, to do so by means of written statements or arguments since to the suspended judgment it always seems plausible to say that the author was dishonest or deluded, and, therefore, his evidence was tainted. Consequently, I have purposely omitted all arguments and testimonials, and simply challenge the open-minded reader to practice the law of consciousness as revealed in this book. Personal success will prove far more convincing than all the books that could be written on the subject. – NEVILLE

Feeling Is The Secret

Chapter 1 – Law and Its Operation
THE world, and all within it, is man’s conditioned consciousness objectified. Consciousness is the cause as well as the substance of the entire world.
So it is to consciousness that we must turn if we would discover the secret of creation.
Knowledge of the law of consciousness and the method of operating this law will enable you to accomplish all you desire in life.
Armed with a working knowledge of this law, you can build and maintain an ideal world.
Consciousness is the one and only reality, not figuratively but actually. This reality may for the sake of clarity be likened unto a stream which is divided into two parts, the conscious and the subconscious. In order to intelligently operate the law of consciousness, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious.
The conscious is personal and selective; the subconscious is impersonal and non-selective. The conscious is the realm of effect; the subconscious is the realm of cause. These two aspects are the male and female divisions of consciousness. The conscious is male; the subconscious is female.
The conscious generates ideas and impresses these ideas on the subconscious; the subconscious receives ideas and gives form and expression to them.
By this law – first conceiving an idea and then impressing the idea conceived on the subconscious – all things evolve out of consciousness; and without this sequence, there is not anything made that is made.
The conscious impresses the subconscious, while the subconscious expresses all that is impressed upon it.
The subconscious does not originate ideas, but accepts as true those which the conscious mind feels to be true and, in a way known only to itself, objectifies the accepted ideas.
Therefore, through his power to imagine and feel and his freedom to choose the idea he will entertain, man has control over creation. Control of the subconscious is accomplished through control of your ideas and feelings.
The mechanism of creation is hidden in the very depth of the subconscious, the female aspect or womb of creation.
The subconscious transcends reason and is independent of induction. It contemplates a feeling as a fact existing within itself and on this assumption proceeds to give expression to it. The creative process begins with an idea and its cycle runs its course as a feeling and ends in a volition to act.
Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling.
No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt – be it good, bad or indifferent – it must be expressed.
Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious.
Therefore, the man who does not control his feeling may easily impress the subconscious with undesirable states. By control of feeling is not meant restraint or suppression of your feeling, but rather the disciplining of self to imagine and entertain only such feeling as contributes to your happiness.
Control of your feeling is all important to a full and happy life.
Never entertain an undesirable feeling, nor think sympathetically about wrong in any shape or form. Do not dwell on the imperfection of yourself or others. To do so is to impress the subconscious with these limitations. What you do not want done unto you, do not feel that it is done unto you or another. This is the whole law of a full and happy life. Everything else is commentary.
Every feeling makes a subconscious impression and, unless it is counteracted by a more powerful feeling of an opposite nature, must be expressed.
The dominant of two feelings is the one expressed. I am healthy is a stronger feeling than I will be healthy. To feel I will be is to confess I am not; I am is stronger than I am not.
What you feel you are always dominates what you feel you would like to be; therefore, to be realized, the wish must be felt as a state that is rather than a state that is not
Sensation precedes manifestation and is the foundation upon which all manifestation rests. Be careful of your moods and feelings, for there is an unbroken connection between your feelings and your visible world. Your body is an emotional filter and bears the unmistakable marks of your prevalent emotions. Emotional disturbances, especially suppressed emotions, are the causes of all disease. To feel intensely about a wrong without voicing or expressing that feeling is the beginning of disease – dis-ease – in both body and environment. Do not entertain the feeling of regret or failure for frustration or detachment from your objective results in disease.
Think feelingly only of the state you desire to realize. Feeling the reality of the state sought and living and acting on that conviction is the way of all seeming miracles. All changes of expression are brought about through a change of feeling. A change of feeling is a change of destiny. All creation occurs in the domain of the subconscious. What you must acquire, then, is a reflective control of the operation of the subconscious, that is, control of your ideas and feelings.
Chance or accident is not responsible for the things that happen to you, nor is predestined fate the author of your fortune or misfortune. Your subconscious impressions determine the conditions of your world. The subconscious is not selective; it is impersonal and no respecter of persons [Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11]. The subconscious is not concerned with the truth or falsity of your feeling. It always accepts as true that which you feel to be true. Feeling is the assent of the subconscious to the truth of that which is declared to be true. Because of this quality of the subconscious there is nothing impossible to man. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and feel as true, the subconscious can and must objectify. Your feelings create the pattern from which your world is fashioned, and a change of feeling is a change of pattern.
The subconscious never fails to express that which has been impressed upon it.
The moment it receives an impression, it begins to work out the ways of its expression. It accepts the feeling impressed upon it, your feeling, as a fact existing within itself and immediately sets about to produce in the outer or objective world the exact likeness of that feeling.
The subconscious never alters the accepted beliefs of man. It out-pictures them to the last detail whether or not they are beneficial.
To impress the subconscious with the desirable state, you must assume the feeling that would be yours had you already realized your wish. In defining your objective, you must be concerned only with the objective itself. The manner of expression or the difficulties involved are not to be considered by you. To think feelingly on any state impresses it on the subconscious. Therefore, if you dwell on difficulties, barriers or delay, the subconscious, by its very non-selective nature, accepts the feeling of difficulties and obstacles as your request and proceeds to produce them in your outer world.
The subconscious is the womb of creation. It receives the idea unto itself through the feelings of man. It never changes the idea received, but always gives it form. Hence the subconscious out-pictures the idea in the image and likeness of the feeling received. To feel a state as hopeless or impossible is to impress the subconscious with the idea of failure.
Although the subconscious faithfully serves man, it must not be inferred that the relation is that of a servant to a master as was anciently conceived. The ancient prophets called it the slave and servant of man. St. Paul personified it as a “woman” and said: “The woman should be subject to man in everything” [Ephesians 5:24; also, 1Corinthians 14:34, Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, 1Peter 3:1]. The subconscious does serve man and faithfully gives form to his feelings. However, the subconscious has a distinct distaste for compulsion and responds to persuasion rather than to command; consequently, it resembles the beloved wife more than the servant.
“The husband is head of the wife,” Ephesians 5[:23], may not be true of man and woman in their earthly relationship, but it is true of the conscious and the subconscious, or the male and female aspects of consciousness. The mystery to which Paul referred when he wrote, “This is a great mystery [5:32]… He that loveth his wife loveth himself [5:28]… And they two shall be one flesh [5:31]“, is simply the mystery of consciousness. Consciousness is really one and undivided but for creation’s sake it appears to be divided into two.
The conscious (objective) or male aspect truly is the head and dominates the subconscious (subjective) or female aspect.
However, this leadership is not that of the tyrant, but of the lover.
So, by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective, the subconscious is moved to build the exact likeness of your assumption.
Your desires are not subconsciously accepted until you assume the feeling of their reality, for only through feeling is an idea subconsciously accepted and only through this subconscious acceptance is it ever expressed.
It is easier to ascribe your feeling to events in the world than to admit that the conditions of the world reflect your feeling. However, it is eternally true that the outside mirrors the inside.
“As within, so without” ["As above, so below; as below, so above; as within, so without; as without, so within", "Correspondence", the second of The Seven Principles of Hermes Trismegistus].
“A man can receive nothing unless it is given him from heaven” [John 3:27] and “The kingdom of heaven is within you” [Luke 17:21]. Nothing comes from without; all things come from within – from the subconscious.
It is impossible for you to see other than the contents of your consciousness. Your world in its every detail is your consciousness objectified. Objective states bear witness of subconscious impressions. A change of impression results in a change of expression.
The subconscious accepts as true that which you feel as true, and because creation is the result of subconscious impressions, you, by your feeling, determine creation.
You are already that which you want to be, and your refusal to believe this is the only reason you do not see it.
To seek on the outside for that which you do not feel you are is to seek in vain, for we never find that which we want; we find only that which we are.
In short, you express and have only that which you are conscious of being or possessing. “To him that hath it is given” [Matthew 13:12; 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18; 19:26]. Denying the evidence of the senses and appropriating the feeling of the wish fulfilled is the way to the realization of your desire.
Mastery of self-control of your thoughts and feelings is your highest achievement.
However, until perfect self-control is attained, so that, in spite of appearances, you feel all that you want to feel, use sleep and prayer to aid you in realizing your desired states.
These are the two gateways into the subconscious.

Chapter Two

Feeling Is The Secret – Sleep

SLEEP, the life that occupies one-third of our stay on earth, is the natural door into the subconscious.
So it is with sleep that we are now concerned. The conscious two-thirds of our life on earth is measured by the degree of attention we give sleep. Our understanding of and delight in what sleep has to bestow will cause us, night after night, to set out for it as though we were keeping an appointment with a lover.
“In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction”, Job 33.
It is in sleep and in prayer, a state akin to sleep, that man enters the subconscious to make his impressions and receive his instructions. In these states the conscious and subconscious are creatively joined. The male and female become one flesh. Sleep is the time when the male or conscious mind turns from the world of sense to seek its lover or subconscious self.
The subconscious – unlike the woman of the world who marries her husband to change him – has no desire to change the conscious, waking state, but loves it as it is and faithfully reproduces its likeness in the outer world of form.
The conditions and events of your life are your children formed from the molds of your subconscious impressions in sleep. They are made in the image and likeness of your innermost feeling that they may reveal you to yourself.
“As in heaven, so on earth” [Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2]. As in the subconscious, so on earth.
Whatever you have in consciousness as you go to sleep is the measure of your expression in the waking two-thirds of your life on earth.
Nothing stops you from realizing your objective save your failure to feel that you are already that which you wish to be, or that you are already in possession of the thing sought. Your subconscious gives form to your desires only when you feel your wish fulfilled.
The unconsciousness of sleep is the normal state of the subconscious. Because all things come from within yourself, and your conception of yourself determines that which comes, you should always feel the wish fulfilled before you drop off to sleep.
You never draw out of the deep of yourself that which you want; you always draw that which you are, and you are that which you feel yourself to be as well as that which you feel as true of others.
To be realized, then, the wish must be resolved into the feeling of being or having or witnessing the state sought. This is accomplished by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The feeling which comes in response to the question “How would I feel were my wish realized?” is the feeling which should monopolize and immobilize your attention as you relax into sleep. You must be in the consciousness of being or having that which you want to be or to have before you drop off to sleep.
Once asleep, man has no freedom of choice. His entire slumber is dominated by his last waking concept of self.
It follows, therefore, that he should always assume the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction before he retires in sleep, “Come before me with singing and thanksgiving” [Psalm 95:2], “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise” [Psalm 100:4]. Your mood prior to sleep defines your state of consciousness as you enter into the presence of your everlasting lover, the subconscious.
She sees you exactly as you feel yourself to be. If, as you prepare for sleep, you assume and maintain the consciousness of success by feeling “I am successful”, you must be successful. Lie flat on your back with your head on a level with your body. Feel as you would were you in possession of your wish and quietly relax into unconsciousness.
“He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” [Psalm 121:4]. Nevertheless “He giveth his beloved sleep” [Psalm 127:2].
The subconscious never sleeps. Sleep is the door through which the conscious, waking mind passes to be creatively joined to the subconscious.
Sleep conceals the creative act, while the objective world reveals it.
In sleep, man impresses the subconscious with his conception of himself.
What more beautiful description of this romance of the conscious and subconscious is there than that told in the “Song of Solomon”: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth [3:1]… I found him whom my soul loveth; I held him and I not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me” [3:4].
Preparing to sleep, you feel yourself into the state of the answered wish, and then relax into unconsciousness. Your realized wish is he whom you seek. By night, on your bed, you seek the feeling of the wish fulfilled that you may take it with you into the chamber of her that conceived you, into sleep or the subconscious which gave you form, that this wish also may be given expression.
This is the way to discover and conduct your wishes into the subconscious. Feel yourself in the state of the realized wish and quietly drop off to sleep.
Night after night, you should assume the feeling of being, having and witnessing that which you seek to be, possess and see manifested. Never go to sleep feeling discouraged or dissatisfied. Never sleep in the consciousness of failure.
Your subconscious, whose natural state is sleep, sees you as you believe yourself to be, and whether it be good, bad or indifferent, the subconscious will faithfully embody your belief.
As you feel so do you impress her; and she, the perfect lover, gives form to these impressions and out-pictures them as the children of her beloved.
“Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee” [Song of Solomon 4:7] is the attitude of mind to adopt before dropping off to sleep.
Disregard appearances and feel that things are as you wish them to be, for “He calleth things that are not seen as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen” [Approx., Romans 4:17]. To assume the feeling of satisfaction is to call conditions into being which will mirror satisfaction.
“Signs follow, they do not precede”.
Proof that you are will follow the consciousness that you are; it will not precede it.
You are an eternal dreamer dreaming non-eternal dreams. Your dreams take form as you assume the feeling of their reality.
Do not limit yourself to the past.
Knowing that nothing is impossible to consciousness, begin to imagine states beyond the experiences of the past.
Whatever the mind of man can imagine, man can realize. All objective (visible) states were first subjective (invisible) states, and you called them into visible by assuming the feeling of their reality.
The creative process is first imagining and then believing the state imagined. Always imagine and expect the best.
The world cannot change until you change your conception of it. “As within, so without”.
Nations, as well as people, are only what you believe them to be. No matter what the problem is, no matter where it is, no matter whom it concerns, you have no one to change but yourself, and you have neither opponent nor helper in bringing about the change within yourself. You have nothing to do but convince yourself of the truth of that which you desire to see manifested.
As soon as you succeed in convincing yourself of the reality of the state sought, results follow to confirm your fixed belief. You never suggest to another the state which you desire to see him express; instead, you convince yourself that he is already that which you desire him to be.
Realization of your wish is accomplished by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. You cannot fail unless you fail to convince yourself of the reality of your wish. A change of belief is confirmed by a change of expression.
Every night, as you drop off to sleep, feel satisfied and spotless, for your subjective lover always forms the objective world in the image and likeness of your conception of it, the conception defined by your feeling.
The waking two-thirds of your life on earth ever corroborates or bears witness to your subconscious impressions. The actions and events of the day are effects; they are not causes. Free will is only freedom of choice.
“Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve” [Joshua 24:15] is your freedom to choose the kind of mood you assume; but the expression of the mood is the secret of the subconscious.
The subconscious receives impressions only through the feelings of man and, in a way known only to itself, gives these impressions form and expression.
The actions of man are determined by his subconscious impressions.
His illusion of free will, his belief in freedom of action, is but ignorance of the causes which make him act. He thinks himself free because he has forgotten the link between himself and the event.
Man awake is under compulsion to express his subconscious impressions. If in the past he unwisely impressed himself, then let him begin to change his thought and feeling, for only as he does so will he change his world. Do not waste one moment in regret, for to think feelingly of the mistakes of the past is to reinfect yourself. “Let the dead bury the dead” [Matthew 8:22; Luke 9:60]. Turn from appearances and assume the feeling that would be yours were you already the one you wish to be.
Feeling a state produces that state.
The part you play on the world’s stage is determined by your conception of yourself.
By feeling your wish fulfilled and quietly relaxing into sleep, you cast yourself in a star role to be played on earth tomorrow, and, while asleep, you are rehearsed and instructed in your part.
The acceptance of the end automatically wills the means of realization. Make no mistake about this. If, as you prepare for sleep, you do not consciously feel yourself into the state of the answered wish, then you will take with you into the chamber of her who conceived you the sum total of the reactions and feelings of the waking day; and while asleep, you will be instructed in the manner in which they will be expressed tomorrow. You will rise believing that you are a free agent, not realizing that every action and event of the day is predetermined by your concept of self as you fell asleep. Your only freedom, then, is your freedom of reaction. You are free to choose how you feel and react to the day’s drama, but the drama – the actions, events and circumstances of the day – have already been determined.
Unless you consciously and purposely define the attitude of mind with which you go to sleep, you unconsciously go to sleep in the composite attitude of mind made up of all feelings and reactions of the day. Every reaction makes a subconscious impression and, unless counteracted by an opposite and more dominant feeling, is the cause of future action.
Ideas enveloped in feeling are creative actions. Use your divine right wisely. Through your ability to think and feel, you have dominion over all creation.
While you are awake, you are a gardener selecting seed for your garden, but “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” [John 12:24]. Your conception of yourself as you fall asleep is the seed you drop into the ground of the subconscious. Dropping off to sleep feeling satisfied and happy compels conditions and events to appear in your world which confirm these attitudes of mind.
Sleep is the door into heaven. What you take in as a feeling you bring out as a condition, action, or object in space. So sleep in the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

Chapter Three

Feeling Is The Secret – Prayer

PRAYER, like sleep, is also an entrance into the subconscious.
“When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret and your Father which is in secret shall reward you openly” [Matthew 6:6].
Prayer is an illusion of sleep which diminishes the impression of the outer world and renders the mind more receptive to suggestion from within. The mind in prayer is in a state of relaxation and receptivity akin to the feeling attained just before dropping off to sleep.
Prayer is not so much what you ask for, as how you prepare for its reception. “Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray believe that you have received them, and ye shall have them” [Mark 11:24].
The only condition required is that you believe that your prayers are already realized.
Your prayer must be answered if you assume the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective. The moment you accept the wish as an accomplished fact, the subconscious finds means for its realization. To pray successfully then, you must yield to the wish, that is, feel the wish fulfilled.
The perfectly disciplined man is always in tune with the wish as an accomplished fact.
He knows that consciousness is the one and only reality, that ideas and feelings are facts of consciousness and are as real as objects in space; therefore he never entertains a feeling which does not contribute to his happiness, for feelings are the causes of the actions and circumstances of his life.
On the other hand, the undisciplined man finds it difficult to believe that which is denied by the senses and usually accepts or rejects solely on appearances of the senses. Because of this tendency to rely on the evidence of the senses, it is necessary to shut them out before starting to pray, before attempting to feel that which they deny. Whenever you are in the state of mind “I should like to, but I cannot”, the harder you try, the less you are able to yield to the wish. You never attract that which you want, but always attract that which you are conscious of being.
Prayer is the art of assuming the feeling of being and having that which you want.
When the senses confirm the absence of your wish, all conscious effort to counteract this suggestion is futile and tends to intensify the suggestion.
Prayer is the art of yielding to the wish and not the forcing of the wish. Whenever your feeling is in conflict with your wish, feeling will be the victor. The dominant feeling invariably expresses itself. Prayer must be without effort. In attempting to fix an attitude of mind which is denied by the senses, effort is fatal.
To yield successfully to the wish as an accomplished fact, you must create a passive state, a kind of reverie or meditative reflection similar to the feeling which precedes sleep. In such a relaxed state, the mind is turned from the objective world and easily senses the reality of a subjective state. It is a state in which you are conscious and quite able to move or open your eyes but have no desire to do so. An easy way to create this passive state is to relax in a comfortable chair or on a bed. If on a bed, lie flat on your back with your head on a level with your body, close the eyes and imagine that you are sleepy. Feel – I am sleepy, so sleepy, so very sleepy.
In a little while, a faraway feeling accompanied by a general lassitude and loss of all desire to move envelops you. You feel a pleasant, comfortable rest and not inclined to alter your position, although under other circumstances you would not be at all comfortable. When this passive state is reached, imagine that you have realized your wish – not how it was realized, but simply the wish fulfilled. Imagine in picture form what you desire to achieve in life; then feel yourself as having already achieved it. Thoughts produce tiny little speech movements which may be heard in the passive state of prayer as pronouncements from without. However, this degree of passivity is not essential to the realization of your prayers. All that is necessary is to create a passive state and feel the wish fulfilled.
All you can possibly need or desire is already yours. You need no helper to give it to you; it is yours now. Call your desires into being by imagining and feeling your wish fulfilled. As the end is accepted, you become totally indifferent as to possible failure, for acceptance of the end wills the means to that end. When you emerge from the moment of prayer, it is as though you were shown the happy and successful end of a play although you were not shown how that end was achieved. However, having witnessed the end, regardless of any anticlimactic sequence, you remain calm and secure in the knowledge that the end has been perfectly defined.

Chapter Four

Feeling Is The Secret: Spirit – Feeling

“NOT by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” [Zechariah 4:6]. Get into the spirit of the state desired by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already the one you want to be. As you capture the feeling of the state sought, you are relieved of all effort to make it so, for it is already so. There is a definite feeling associated with every idea in the mind of man. Capture the feeling associated with your realized wish by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of the thing you desire, and your wish will objectify itself.
Faith is feeling, “According to your faith (feeling) be it unto you” [Matthew 9:29]. You never attract that which you want, but always that which you are. As a man is, so does he see. “To him that hath it shall be given and to him that hath not it shall be taken away…” [Matthew 13:12; 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18; 19:26]. That which you feel yourself to be, you are, and you are given that which you are. So assume the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your wish, and your wish must be realized.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him” [Genesis 1:27]. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” [Philippians 2:5,6]. You are that which you believe yourself to be.
Instead of believing in God or in Jesus – believe you are God or you are Jesus. “He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also” [John 14:12] should be “He that believes as I believe the works that I do shall he do also”. Jesus found it not strange to do the works of God, because He believed Himself to be God. “I and My Father are one” [John 10:30]. It is natural to do the works of the one you believe yourself to be. So live in the feeling of being the one you want to be and that you shall be.
When a man believes in the value of the advice given him and applies it, he establishes within himself the reality of success.

The End




Editors Note: If you are not familiar with Neville Goddard then you are in for a spiritual treat. He published 10 books in his lifetime and countless lectures. We are the largest repository of Neville Goddard material on the internet, with all 10 books published as well as over 475 lectures, 344 we recorded in our studios and 129 in Neville’s own voice. Enjoy “At Your Command” and take advantage of all our additional resources.
AT YOUR COMMAND
NEVILLE
SNELLGROVE PUBLICATIONS
NEW YORK
1939
At Your Command
By Neville
This book contains the very essence of the Principle of Expression. Had I cared to, I could have expanded it
into a book of several hundred pages but such expansion would have defeated the purpose of this book.
Commands to be effective – must be short and to the point: the greatest command ever recorded is found in
the few simple words, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’”
In keeping with this principle I now give to you, the reader, in these few pages, the truth as it was revealed to
me.
Neville
At Your Command
Can man decree a thing and have it come to pass? Most decidedly he can! Man has always decreed that
which has appeared in his world and is today decreeing that which is appearing in his world and shall continue
to do so as long as man is conscious of being man. Not one thing has ever appeared in man’s world but what
man decreed that it should. This you may deny, but try as you will you cannot disprove it, for this decreeing
is based upon a changeless principle. You do not command things to appear by your words or loud
affirmations. Such vain repetition is more often than not confirmation of the opposite. Decreeing is ever done
in consciousness. That is; everyman is conscious of being that which he has decreed himself to be. The dumb
man without using words is conscious of being dumb. Therefore he is decreeing himself to be dumb.
When the Bible is read in this light you will find it to be the greatest scientific book ever written. Instead of
looking upon the Bible as the historical record of an ancient civilization or the biography of the unusual life of
Jesus, see it as a great psychological drama taking place in the consciousness of man.
Claim it as your own and you will suddenly transform your world from the barren deserts of Egypt to the
promised land of Canaan.
Every one will agree with the statement that all things were made by God, and without him there is nothing
made that is made, but what man does not agree upon is the identity of God. All the churches and
priesthoods of the world disagree as to the identity and true nature of God. The Bible proves beyond the
shadow of a doubt that Moses and the prophets were in one hundred per cent accord as to the identity and
nature of God. And Jesus’ life and teachings are in agreement with the findings of the prophets of old. Moses
discovered God to be man’s awareness of being, when he declared these little understood words, “I AM
hath sent me unto you.” David sang in his psalms, “Be still and know that I AM God.” Isaiah declared, “I AM
the Lord and there is none else. There is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. I
form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.”
The awareness of being as God is stated hundreds of times in the New Testament. To name but a few: “I
AM the shepherd, I AM the door; I AM the resurrection and the life; I AM the way; I AM the Alpha and
Omega; I AM the beginning and the end”; and again, “Whom do you say that I AM?”
It is not stated, “I, Jesus, am the door. I, Jesus am the way,” nor is it said, “Whom do you say that I, Jesus,
am?” It is clearly stated, “I AM the way.” The awareness of being is the door through which the
manifestations of life pass into the world of form.
Consciousness is the resurrecting power – resurrecting that which man is conscious of being. Man is ever
out-picturing that which he is conscious of being. This is the truth that makes man free, for man is always
self-imprisoned or self-freed.
If you, the reader, will give up all of your former beliefs in a God apart from yourself, and claim God as your
awareness of being – as Jesus and the prophets did – you will transform your world with the realization that,
“I and my father are one.” This statement, “I and my father are one, but my father is greater than I,” seems
very confusing – but if interpreted in the light of what we have just said concerning the identity of God, you
will find it very revealing. Consciousness, being God, is as ‘father.’ The thing that you are conscious of being
is the ‘son’ bearing witness of his ‘father.’ It is like the conceiver and its conceptions. The conceiver is ever
greater than his conceptions yet ever remains one with his conception. For instance; before you are conscious
of being man, you are first conscious of being. Then you become conscious of being man. Yet you remain as
conceiver, greater than your conception – man.
Jesus discovered this glorious truth and declared himself to be one with God – not a God that man had
fashioned. For he never recognized such a God. He said, “If any man should ever come, saying, ‘Look here
or look there,’ believe them not, for the kingdom of God is within you.” Heaven is within you. Therefore,
when it is recorded that “He went unto his father,” it is telling you that he rose in consciousness to the point
where he was just conscious of being, thus transcending the limitations of his present conception of himself,
called ‘Jesus.’

At Your Command, Part 2

In the awareness of being all things are possible, he said, “You shall decree a thing and it shall come to
pass.” This is his decreeing – rising in consciousness to the naturalness of being the thing desired. As he
expressed it, “And I, if I be lifted up, I shall draw all men unto me.” If I be lifted up in consciousness to the
naturalness of the thing desired I will draw the manifestation of that desire unto me. For he states, “No man
comes unto me save the father within me draws him, and I and my father are one.” Therefore, consciousness
is the father that is drawing the manifestations of life unto you.
You are, at this very moment, drawing into your world that which you are now conscious of being. Now you
can see what is meant by, “You must be born again.” If you are dissatisfied with your present expression in
life the only way to change it, is to take your attention away form that which seems so real to you and rise in
consciousness to that which you desire to be. You cannot serve two masters, therefore to take your attention
from one state of consciousness and place it upon another is to die to one and live to the other.
The question, “Whom do you say that I AM?” is not addressed to a man called ‘Peter’ by one called ‘Jesus.’
This is the eternal question addressed to one’s self by one’s true being. In other words, “Whom do you say
that you are?” For your conviction of yourself – your opinion of yourself will determine your expression in life.
He states, “You believe in God – believe also in me.” In other words, it is the me within you that is this God.
Praying then, is seen to be recognizing yourself to be that which you now desire, rather than its accepting
form of petitioning a God that does not exist for that which you now desire.
So can’t you see why the millions of prayers are unanswered? Men pray to a God that does not exist. For
instance: To be conscious of being poor and to pray to a God for riches is to be rewarded with that which
you are conscious of being – which is poverty. Prayers to be successful must be claiming rather than begging
– so if you would pray for riches turn from your picture of poverty by denying the very evidence of your
senses and assume the nature of being wealthy.
We are told, “When you pray go within in secret and shut the door. And that which your father sees in secret,
with that will he reward you openly.”We have identified the ‘father’ to be the awareness of being. We have
also identified the ‘door’ to be the awareness of being. So ‘shutting the door’ is shutting out that which ‘I’
am now aware of being and claiming myself to be that which ‘I’ desire to be. The very moment my claim is
established to the point of conviction, that moment I begin to draw unto myself the evidence of my claim.
Do not question the how of these things appearing, for no man knows that way. That is, no manifestation
knows how the things desired will appear.
Consciousness is the way or door through which things appear. He said, “I AM the way” – not ‘I,’ John
Smith, am the way, but “I AM,” the awareness of being, is the way through which the thing shall come. The
signs always follow. They never precede. Things have no reality other than in consciousness. Therefore, get
the consciousness first and the thing is compelled to appear.
You are told, “Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all things shall be added unto you.” Get first the
consciousness of the things that you are seeking and leave the things alone. This is what is meant by “Ye shall
decree a thing and it shall come to pass.”
Apply this principle and you will know what it is to ‘prove me and see.” The story of Mary is the story of
every man. Mary was not a woman – giving birth in some miraculous way to one called ‘Jesus.’ Mary is the
awareness of being that ever remains virgin, no matter how many desires it gives birth to. Right now look
upon yourself as this virgin Mary – being impregnated by yourself through the medium of desire – becoming
one with your desire to the point of embodying or giving birth to your desire.
For instance: It is said of Mary (whom you now know to be yourself) that she know not a man. Yet she
conceived. That is, you, John Smith, have no reason to believe that that which you now desire is possible, but
having discovered your awareness of being to be God, you make this awareness your husband and
conceive a man child (manifestation) of the Lord, “For thy maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his
name; the Lord God of the whole earth shall he be called.” Your ideal or ambition is this conception – the
first command to her, which is now to yourself, is “Go, tell no man.” That is, do not discuss your ambitions or
desires with another for the other will only echo your present fears. Secrecy is the first law to be observed in
realizing your desire.
The second, as we are told in the story of Mary, is to “Magnify the Lord.” We have identified the Lord as
your awareness of being. Therefore, to ‘magnify the Lord’ is to revalue or expand one’s present conception
of one’s self to the point where this revaluation becomes natural. When this naturalness is attained you give
birth by becoming that which you are one with in consciousness.
The story of creation is given us in digest form in the first chapter of John.
“In the beginning was the word.” Now, this very second, is the ‘beginning’ spoken of. It is the beginning of an
urge – a desire. ‘The word’ is the desire swimming around in your consciousness – seeking embodiment. The
urge of itself has no reality, For, “I AM” or the awareness of being is the only reality. Things live only as long
as I AM aware of being them; so to realize one’s desire, the second line of this first verse of John must be
applied. That is, “And the word was with God.” The word, or desire, must be fixed or united with
consciousness to give it reality. The awareness becomes aware of being the thing desired, thereby nailing itself
upon the form or conception – and giving life unto its conception – or resurrecting that which was heretofore
a dead or unfulfilled desire. “Two shall agree as touching anything and it shall be established on earth.”
This agreement is never made between two persons. It is between the awareness and the thing desired. You
are now conscious of being, so you are actually saying to yourself, without using words, “I AM.” Now, if it is
a state of health that you are desirous of attaining, before you have any evidence of health in your world, you
begin to FEEL yourself to be healthy. And the very second the feeling “I AM healthy” is attained the two have
agreed. That is, I AM and health have agreed to be one and this agreement ever results in the birth of a child
which is the thing agreed upon – in this case, health. And because I made the agreement I express the thing
agreed. So you can see why Moses stated, “I AM hath sent me.” For what being, other than I AM could
send you into expression? None – for “I AM the way – Beside me there is no other.” If you take the wings of
the morning and fly into the uttermost parts of the world or if you make your bed in Hell, you will still be
aware of being. You are ever sent into expression by your awareness and your expression is ever that which
you are aware of being.

At Your Command, Part 3

Again, Moses stated, “I AM that I AM.” Now here is something to always bear in mind. You cannot put new
wine in old bottles or new patches upon old garments. That is; you cannot take with you into the new
consciousness any part of the old man. All of your present beliefs, fears and limitations are weights that bind
you to your present level of consciousness. If you would transcend this level you must leave behind all that is
now your present self, or conception of yourself. To do this you take your attention away from all that is now
your problem or limitation and dwell upon just being. That is; you say silently but feeling to yourself, “I AM.
Do not condition this ‘awareness’ as yet. Just declare yourself to be, and continue to do so, until you are lost
in the feeling of just being – faceless and formless. When this expansion of consciousness is attained, then,
within this formless deep of yourself give form to the new conception by FEELING yourself to be THAT
which you desire to be.
You will find within this deep of yourself all things to be divinely possible. Everything in the world which you
can conceive of being, is to you, within this present formless awareness, a most natural attainment.
The invitation given us in the Scriptures is – “to be absent from the body and be present with the Lord.” The
‘body’ being your former conception of yourself and ‘the Lord’ – your awareness of being. This is what is
meant when Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again for except ye be born again ye cannot enter
the kingdom of Heaven.” That is; except you leave behind you your present conception of yourself and
assume the nature of the new birth, you will continue to out-picture your present limitations.
The only way to change your expressions of life is to change your consciousness. For consciousness is the
reality that eternally solidifies itself in the things round about you. Man’s world in its every detail is his
consciousness out-pictured. You can no more change your environment, or world, by destroying things than
you can your reflection by destroying the mirror. Your environment, and all within it, reflects that which you
are in consciousness. As long as you continue to be that in consciousness so long will you continue to
out-picture it in your world.
Knowing this, begin to revalue yourself. Man has placed too little value upon himself. In the Book of
Numbers you will read, “In that day there were giants in the land; and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers. And we were in their sight as grasshoppers.” This does not mean a time in the dim past when
man had the stature of giants. Today is the day, the eternal now when conditions round about you have
attained the appearance of giants (such as unemployed, the armies of your enemy, your problems and all
things that seem to threaten you) those are the giant that make you feel yourself to be a grasshopper. But, you
are told, you were first, in your own sight a grasshopper and because of this you were to the giants – a
grasshopper. In other words, you can only be to others what you are first to yourself. Therefore, to revalue
yourself and begin to feel yourself to be the giant, a center of power, is to dwarf these former giants and
make of them grasshoppers. “All the inhabitants of the earth are as nothing, and he doeth according to his will
in the armies of Heaven and among all the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, nor say unto
him, “What doest thou’?” This being spoken of is not the orthodox God sitting in space but the one and only
God – the everlasting father, your awareness of being. So awake to the power that you are, not as man, but
as your true self, a faceless, formless awareness, and free yourself from your self imposed prison.
“I am the good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. My sheep hear my voice and I know
them and they will follow me.” Awareness is the good shepherd. What I am aware of being, is the ‘sheep’
that follow me. So good a ‘shepherd’ is your awareness that it has never lost one of the ‘sheep’ that you are
aware of being.
I am a voice calling in the wilderness of human confusion for such as I am aware of being, and never shall
there come a time when that which I am convinced that I am shall fail to find me. “I AM” is an open door for
all that I am to enter. Your awareness of being is lord and shepherd of your life. So, “The Lord is my
shepherd; I shall not want” is seen in its true light now to be your consciousness. You could never be in want
of proof or lack the evidence of that which you are aware of being.
This being true, why not become aware of being great; God-loving; wealthy; healthy; and all attributes that
you admire?
It is just as easy to possess the consciousness of these qualities as it is to possess their opposites for you have
not your present consciousness because of your world. On the contrary, your world is what it is because of
your present consciousness. Simple, is it not? Too simple in fact for the wisdom of man that tries to
complicate everything.
Paul said of this principle, “It is to the Greeks” (or wisdom of this world) “foolishness.” “And to the Jews” (or
those who look for signs) “a stumbling block”; with the result, that man continues to walk in darkness rather
than awake to the being that he is. Man has so long worshipped the images of his own making that at first he
finds this revelation blasphemous, since it spells death to all his previous beliefs in a God apart from himself.
This revelation will bring the knowledge that “I and my father are one but my father is greater than I.” You are
one with your present conception of yourself. But you are greater than that which you are at present aware of
being.
Before man can attempt to transform his world he must first lay the foundation – “I AM the Lord.” That is,
man’s awareness, his consciousness of being is God. Until this is firmly established so that no suggestion or
argument put forward by others can shake it, he will find himself returning to the slavery of his former beliefs.
“If ye believe not that I AM he, ye shall die in your sins.” That is, you shall continue to be confused and
thwarted until you find the cause of your confusion. When you have lifted up the son of man then shall you
know that I AM he, that is, that I, John Smith, do nothing of myself, but my father, or that state of
consciousness which I am now one with does the works.
When this is realized every urge and desire that springs within you shall find expression in your world.
“Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him
and sup with him and he with me.” The “I” knocking at the door is the urge.
The door is your consciousness. To open the door is to become one with that that which is knocking by
FEELING oneself to be the thing desired. To feel one’s desire as impossible is to shut the door or deny this
urge expression. To rise in consciousness to the naturalness of the thing felt is to swing wide the door and
invite this one into embodiment.
That is why it is constantly recorded that Jesus left the world of manifestation and ascended unto his father.
Jesus, as you and I, found all things impossible to Jesus, as man. But having discovered his father to be the
state of consciousness of the thing desired, he but left behind him the “Jesus consciousness” and rose in
consciousness to that state desired and stood upon it until he became one with it. As he made himself one
with that, he became that in expression.
This is Jesus simple message to man:Men are but garments that the impersonal being, I AM, the presence
that men call God – dwells in. Each garment has certain limitations. In order to transcend these limitations and
give expression to that which, as man – John Smith – you find yourself incapable of doing, you take your
attention away from your present limitations, or John Smith conception of yourself, and merge yourself in the
feeling of being that which you desire. Just how this desire or newly attained consciousness will embody
itself, no man knows. For I, or the newly attained consciousness, has ways that ye know not of; its ways are
past finding out. Do not speculate as to the HOW of this consciousness embodying itself, for no man is wise
enough to know the how. Speculation is proof that you have not attained to the naturalness of being the thing
desired and so are filled with doubts.

At Your Command, Part 4

You are told, “He who lacks wisdom let him ask of God, that gives to all liberally, and upbraideth not; and it
shall be given unto him. But let him ask not doubting for he who doubts is as a wave of the sea that is tossed
and battered by the winds. And let not such a one think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.” You
can see why this statement is made, for only upon the rock of faith can anything be established. If you have
not the consciousness of the thing you have not the cause or foundation upon which thing is erected.
A proof of this established consciousness is given you in the words, “Thank you, father.” When you come
into the joy of thanksgiving so that you actually feel grateful for having received that which is not yet apparent
to the senses, you have definitely become one in consciousness with the thing for which you gave thanks. God
(your awareness) is not mocked. You are ever receiving that which you are aware of being and no man gives
thanks for something which he has not received. “Thank you father” is not, as it is used by many today a sort
of magical formula. You need never utter aloud the words, “Thank you, father.” In applying this principle as
you rise in consciousness to the point where you are really grateful and happy for having received the thing
desired, you automatically rejoice and give thanks inwardly. You have already accepted the gift which was
but a desire before you rose in consciousness, and your faith is now the substance that shall clothe your
desire.
This rising in consciousness is the spiritual marriage where two shall agree upon being one and their likeness
or image is established on earth.
“For whatsoever ye ask in my name the same give I unto you.” ‘Whatsoever’ is quite a large measure. It is
the unconditional. It does not state if society deems it right or wrong that you should ask it, it rests with you.
Do you really want it? Do you desire it? That is all that is necessary. Life will give it to you is you ask ‘in his
name.’
His name is not a name that you pronounce with the lips. You can ask forever in the name of God or Jehovah
or Christ Jesus and you will ask in vain. ‘Name’ means nature; so, when you ask in the nature of a thing,
results ever follow. To ask in the name is to rise in consciousness and become one in nature with the thing
desired, rise in consciousness to the nature of the thing, and you will become that thing in expression.
Therefore, “what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall receive
them.”
Praying, as we have shown you before, is recognition – the injunction to believe that ye receive is first person,
present tense. This means that you must be in the nature of the things asked for before you can receive them.
To get into the nature easily, general amnesty is necessary. We are told, “Forgive if ye have aught against any,
that your father also, which is in Heaven, may forgive you. But if ye forgive not, neither will your father forgive
you.” This may seem to be some personal God who is pleased or displeased with your actions but this is not
the case.
Consciousness, being God, if you hold in consciousness anything against man, you are binding that condition
in your world. But to release man from all condemnation is to free yourself so that you may rise to any level
necessary; there is therefore, no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, a very good practice before you enter into your meditation is first to free every man in the world
from blame. For LAW is never violated and you can rest confidently in the knowledge that every man’s
conception of himself is going to be his reward. So you do not have to bother yourself about seeing whether
or not man gets what you consider he should get. For life makes no mistakes and always gives man that
which man first gives himself.
This brings us to that much abused statement of the Bible on tithing. Teachers of all kinds have enslaved man
with this affair of tithing, for not themselves understanding the nature of tithing and being themselves fearful of
lack, they have led their followers to believe that a tenth part of their income should be given to the Lord.
Meaning, as they make very clear, that, when one gives a tenth part of his income to their particular
organization he is giving his “tenth part” to the Lord – (or is tithing). But remember, “I AM” the Lord.” Your
awareness of being is the God that you give to and you ever give in this manner.
Therefore when you claim yourself to be anything, you have given that claim or quality to God. And your
awareness of being, which is no respecter of persons, will return to you pressed down, shaken together, and
running over with that quality or attribute which you claim for yourself.
Awareness of being is nothing that you could ever name. To claim God to be rich; to be great; to be love; to
be all wise; is to define that which cannot be defined. For God is nothing that could ever be named.
Tithing is necessary and you do tithe with God. But from now on give to the only God and see to it that you
give him the quality that you desire as man to express by claiming yourself to be the great, the wealthy, the
loving, the all wise.
Do not speculate as to how you shall express these qualities or claims, for life has a way that you, as man,
know not of. Its ways are past finding out. But, I assure you, the day you claim these qualities to the point of
conviction, your claims will be honored. There is nothing covered that shall not be uncovered. That which is
spoken in secret shall be proclaimed from the housetops. That is, your secret convictions of yourself – these
secret claims that no man knows of, when really believed, will be shouted from the housetops in your world.
For your convictions of yourself are the words of the God within you, which words are spirit and cannot
return unto you void but must accomplish where unto they are sent.
You are at this moment calling out of the infinite that which you are now conscious of being. And not one
word or conviction will fail to find you.

At Your Command, Part 5

“I AM” the vine and ye are the branches.” Consciousness is the ‘vine,’ and those qualities which you are now
conscious of being are as ‘branches’ that you feed and keep alive. Just as a branch has no life except it be
rooted in the vine, so likewise things have no life except you be conscious of them. Just as a branch withers
and dies if the sap of the vine ceases to flow towards it, so do things in your world pass away if you take
your attention from them, because your attention is as the sap of life that keeps alive and sustains the things of
your world.
To dissolve a problem that now seems so real to you all that you do is remove your attention fromit. In spite
of its seeming reality, turn from it in consciousness. Become indifferent and begin to feel yourself to be that
which would be the solution of the problem.
For instance; if you were imprisoned no man would have to tell you that you should desire freedom.
Freedom, or rather the desire of freedom would be automatic. So why look behind the four walls of your
prison bars? Take your attention from being imprisoned and begin to feel yourself to be free. FEEL it to the
point where it is natural – the very second you do so, those prison bars will dissolve. Apply this same
principle to any problem.
I have seen people who were in debt up to their ears apply this principle and in the twinkling of an eye debts
that were mountainous were removed. I have seen those whom doctors had given up as incurable take their
attention away from their problem of disease and begin to feel themselves to be well in spite of the evidence
of their sense to the contrary. In no time at all this so called “incurable disease” vanished and left no scar.
Your answer to, “Whom do you say that I AM”? [sic] ever determines your expression. As long as you are
conscious of being imprisoned or diseased, or poor, so long will you continue to out-picture or express these
conditions.
When man realized that he is now that which he is seeking and begins to claim that he is, he will have the
proof of his claim. This cue is given you in words, “Whom seek ye?” And they answered, “Jesus.” And the
voice said, “I am he.” ‘Jesus’ here means salvation or savior. You are seeking to be salvaged from that which
is not your problem.
“I am” is he that will save you. If you are hungry, your savior is food. If you are poor, your savior is riches. If
you are imprisoned, your savior is freedom. If you are diseased, it will not be a man called Jesus who will
save you, but health will become your savior. Therefore, claim “I am he,” in other words, claim yourself to be
the thing desired. Claim it in consciousness – not in words – and consciousness will reward you with your
claim. You are told, “You shall find me when you FEEL after me.” Well, FEEL after that quality in
consciousness until you FEEL yourself to be it. When you lose yourself in the feeling of being it, the quality
will embody itself in your world.
You are healed from your problem when you touch the solution of it. “Who has touched me? For I perceive
virtue is gone out of me.” Yes, the day you touch this being within you – FEELING yourself to be cured or
healed, virtues will come out of your very self and solidify themselves in your world as healings.
It is said, ‘You believe in God. Believe also in me for I am he.” Have the faith of God. “He made himself one
with God and found it not robbery to do the works of God.” Go you and do likewise. Yes, begin to believe
your awareness, your consciousness of being to be God. Claim for yourself all the attributes that you have
heretofore given an external God and you will begin to express these claims.
“For I am not a God afar off. I am nearer than your hands and feet – nearer than your very breathing.” I am
your awareness of being. I am that in which all that I shall ever be aware of being shall begin and end. “For
before the world was I AM; and when the world shall cease to be, I AM; before Abraham was, I AM.” This
I AM is your awareness.
“Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.” ‘The Lord,’ being your consciousness,
except that which you seek is first established in your consciousness, you will labor in vain to find it. All things
must begin and end in consciousness.
So, blessed indeed is the man that trusteth in himself – for man’s faith in God will ever be measured by his
confidence in himself. You believe in a God, believe also in ME.
Put not your trust in men for men but reflect the being that you are, and can only bring to you or do unto you
that which you have first done unto yourself.
“No man taketh away my life, I lay it down myself.” I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it
up again.
No matter what happens to man in this world it is never an accident. It occurs under the guidance of an exact
and changeless Law.
“No man” (manifestation) “comes unto me except the father within me draw him,” and “I and my father are
one.” Believe this truth and you will be free. Man has always blamed others for that which he is and will
continue to do so until he find himself as cause of all. “I AM” comes not to destroy but to fulfill. “I AM,” the
awareness within you, destroys nothing but ever fill full the molds or conception one has of one’s self.
It is impossible for the poor man to find wealth in this world no matter how he is surrounded with it until he
first claims himself to be wealthy. For signs follow, they do not precede. To constantly kick and complain
against the limitations of poverty while remaining poor in consciousness is to play the fool’s game. Changes
cannot take place from that level of consciousness for life in constantly out-picturing all levels.
Follow the example of the prodigal son. Realize that you, yourself brought about this condition of waste and
lack and make the decision within yourself to rise to a higher level where the fatted calf, the ring, and the robe
await your claim.

At Your Command, Part 6

There was no condemnation of the prodigal when he had the courage to claim this inheritance as his own.
Others will condemn us only as long as we continue in that for which we condemn ourselves. So: “Happy is
the man that condemneth himself not in that which he alloweth.” For to life nothing is condemned. All is
expressed.
Life does not care whether you call yourself rich or poor; strong or weak. It will eternally reward you with
that which you claim as true of yourself.
The measurements of right and wrong belong to man alone. To life there is nothing right or wrong. As Paul
stated in his letters to the Romans: “I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean
of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” Stop asking yourself whether
you are worthy or unworthy to receive that which you desire. You, as man, did not create the desire. Your
desires are ever fashioned within you because of what you now claim yourself to be.
When a man is hungry, (without thinking) he automatically desires food. When imprisoned, he automatically
desires freedom and so forth. Your desires contain within themselves the plan of self-expression.
So leave all judgments out of the picture and rise in consciousness to the level of your desire and make
yourself one with it by claiming it to be so now. For: “My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made
perfect in weakness.”
Have faith in this unseen claim until the conviction is born within you that it is so. Your confidence in this claim
will pay great rewards. Just a little while and he, the thing desired, will come. But without faith it is impossible
to realize anything. Through faith the worlds were framed because “faith is the substance of the thing hoped
for – the evidence of the thing not yet seen.”
Don’t be anxious or concerned as to results. They will follow just as surely as day follows night.
Look upon your desires – all of them – as the spoken words of God, and every word or desire a promise.
The reason most of us fail to realize our desires is because we are constantly conditioning them. Do not
condition your desire. Just accept it as it comes to you. Give thanks for it to the point that you are grateful for
having already received it – then go about your way in peace.
Such acceptance of your desire is like dropping seed – fertile seed – into prepared soil. For when you can
drop the thing desired in consciousness, confident that it shall appear, you have done all that is expected to
you. But, to be worried or concerned about the HOW of your desire maturing is to hold these fertile seeds in
a mental grasp, and, therefore, never to have dropped them in the soil of confidence.
The reason men condition their desires is because they constantly judge after the appearance of being and see
the things as real – forgetting that the only reality is the consciousness back of them.
To see things as real is to deny that all things are possible to God. The man who is imprisoned and sees his
four walls as real is automatically denying the urge or promise of God within him of freedom.
A question often asked when this statement is made is; If one’s desire is a gift of God how can you say that if
one desires to kill a man that such a desire is good and therefore God sent? In answer to this let me say that
no man desires to kill another. What he does desire is to be freed from such a one. But because he does not
believe that the desire to be free from such a one contains within itself the powers of freedom, he conditions
that desire and sees the only way to express such freedom is to destroy the man – forgetting that the life
wrapped within the desire has ways that he, as man, knows not of. Its ways are past finding out. Thus man
distorts the gifts of God through his lack of faith.
Problems are the mountains spoken of that can be removed if one has but the faith of a grain of a mustard
seed. Men approach their problem as did the old lady who, on attending service and hearing the priest say,
“If you had but the faith of a grain of a mustard seed you would say unto yonder mountain ‘be thou removed’
and it shall be removed and nothing is impossible to you.”
That night as she said her prayers, she quoted this part of the scriptures and retired to bed in what she
thought was faith. On arising in the morning she rushed to the window and exclaimed: “I knew that old
mountain would still be there.”
For this is how man approaches his problem. He knows that they are still going to confront him. And because
life is no respecter of persons and destroys nothing, it continues to keep alive that which he is conscious of
being.
Things will disappear only as man changes in consciousness. Deny it if you will, it still remains a fact that
consciousness is the only reality and things but mirror that which you are in consciousness. So the heavenly
state you are seeking will be found only in consciousness, for the kingdom of heaven is within you. As the will
of heaven is ever done on earth you are today living in the heaven that you have established within you. For
here on this very earth your heaven reveals itself. The kingdom of heaven really is at hand. NOW is the
accepted time. So create a new heaven, enter into a new state of consciousness and a new earth will appear.
“The former things shall pass away. They shall not be remembered not come into mind anymore. For behold,
I,” (your consciousness) “come quickly and my reward is with me.”
I am nameless but will take upon myself every name (nature) that you call me. Remember it is you, yourself,
that I speak of as ‘me.’ So every conception that you have of yourself – that is every deep conviction – you
have of yourself is that which you shall appear as being – for I AM not fooled; God is not mocked.
Now let me instruct you in the art of fishing. It is recorded that the disciples fished all night and caught
nothing. Then Jesus came upon the scene and told them to cast their nets in once more, into the same waters
that only a moment before were barren – and this time their nets were bursting with the catch.
This story is taking place in the world today right within you, the reader. For you have within you all the
elements necessary to go fishing. But until you find that Jesus Christ, (your awareness) is Lord, you will fish,
as did these disciples, in the night of human darkness. That is, you will fish for THINGS thinking things to be
real and will fish with the human bait – which is a struggle and an effort – trying to make contact with this one
and that one: trying to coerce this being or the other being; and all such effort will be in vain. But when you
discover your awareness of being to be Christ Jesus you will let him direct your fishing. And you will fish in
consciousness for the things that you desire. For your desire – will be the fish that you will catch, because
your consciousness is the only living reality you will fish in the deep waters of consciousness.
If you would catch that which is beyond your present capacity you must launch out into deeper waters, for,
within your present consciousness such fish or desires cannot swim. To launch out into deeper waters, you
leave behind you all that is now your present problem, or limitation, by taking your ATTENTION AWAY
from it. Turn your back completely upon every problem and limitation that you now possess.
Dwell upon just being by saying, “I AM,” “I AM,” “I AM,” to yourself. Continue to declare to yourself that
you just are. Do not condition this declaration, just continue to FEEL yourself to be and without warning you
will find yourself slipping the anchor that tied you to the shallow of your problems and moving out into the
deep.
This is usually accompanied with the feeling of expansion. You will FEEL yourself expand as though you
were actually growing. Don’t be afraid, for courage is necessary. You are not going to die to anything by
your former limitations, but they are going to die as you move away from them, for they live only in your
consciousness. In this deep or expanded consciousness you will find yourself to be a power that you had
never dreamt of before.
The things desired before you shoved off from the shores of limitation are the fish you are going to catch in
this deep. Because you have lost all consciousness of your problems and barriers, it is now the easiest thing in
the world to FEEL yourself to be one with the things desired.
Because I AM (your consciousness) is the resurrection and the life, you must attach this resurrecting power
that you are to the thing desired if you would make it appear and live in your world. Now you begin to
assume the nature of the thing desired by feeling, “I AM wealthy”; “I AM free”; “I AM strong.” When these
‘FEELS’ are fixed within yourself, your formless being will take upon itself the forms of the things felt. You
become ‘crucified’ upon the feelings of wealth, freedom, and strength. – Remain buried in the stillness of
these convictions. Then, as a thief in the night and when you least expect it, theses qualities will be resurrected
in your world as living realities.
The world shall touch you and see that you are flesh and blood for you shall begin to bear fruit of the nature
of these qualities newly appropriated. This is the art of successful fishing for the manifestations of life.
Successful realization of the thing desired is also told us in the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Here, it is
recorded that Daniel, while in the lion’s den, turned his back upon the lions and looked towards the light
coming from above; that the lions remained powerless and Daniel’s faith in his God saved him.
This also is your story and you too must do as Daniel did. If you found yourself in a lion’s den you would
have no other concern but lions. You would not be thinking of one thing in the world but your problem –
which problem would be lions.
Yet, you are told that Daniel turned his back upon them and looked towards the light that was his God. If we
would follow the example of Daniel we would, while imprisoned within the den of poverty of sickness, take
our attention away from our problems of debts or sickness and dwell upon the thing we seek.
If we do not look back in consciousness to our problems but continue in faith – believing ourselves to be that
which we seek, we too will find our prison walls open and the thing sought – yes, “whatsoever things” –
realized.
Another story is told us; of the widow and the three drops of oil. The prophet asked the widow, “What have
ye in your house?” And she replied, “Three drops of oil.” He then said to her, “Go borrow vessels. Close the
door after ye have returned into your house and begin to pour.” And she poured from three drops of oil into
all the borrowed vessels, filling them to capacity with oil remaining.
You, the reader, are this widow. You have not a husband to impregnate you or make you fruitful, for a
‘widow’ is a barren state. Your awareness is now the Lord – or the prophet that has become your husband.
Follow the example of the widow, who instead of recognizing an emptiness or nothingness, recognized the
something – three drops of oil.
Then the command to her, “Go within and close the door,” that is, shut the door of the senses that tell you of
the empty  measures, the debts, the problems.
When you have taken your attention away completely by shutting out the evidence of the senses, begin to
FEEL the joy, (symbolized by oil) – of having received the things desired. When the agreement is established
within you so that all doubts and fears have passed away, then, you too will fill all the empty measures of your
life and ill have an abundance running over.
Recognition is the power that conjures in the world. Every state that you have ever recognized, you have
embodied. That which you are recognizing as true of yourself today is that which you are experiencing. So be
as the widow and recognize joy, no matter how little the beginnings of recognition, and you will be generously
rewarded – for the world is a magnified mirror, magnifying everything that you are conscious of being.
“I AM the Lord the God, which has brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou
shalt have no other gods before me.”What a glorious revelation, your awareness now revealed as the Lord
thy God! Come, awake from your dream of being imprisoned. Realize that the earth is yours, “and the
fullness thereof; the world, and all that dwells therein.”
You have become so enmeshed in the belief that you are man that you have forgotten the glorious being that
you are. Now with your memory restored DECREE the unseen to appear and it SHALL appear, for all
things are compelled to respond to the Voice of God, Your awareness of being – the world is AT YOUR
COMMAND!






 

Seedtime and Harvest by Neville Goddard



Seedtime and Harvest

Neville Goddard
THE END OF A GOLDEN STRING
“I Give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall.”
. . . Blake
In the following essays I have tried to indicate certain ways of approach to the understanding of the Bible and the realization of your dreams.
“That ye be not slothful, but followers
of them who through faith and
patience inherit the promises.”
. . . Hebrews 6:12
Many who enjoy the old familiar verses of Scripture are discouraged when they themselves try to read the Bible as they would any other book because, quite excusably, they do not understand that the Bible is written in the language of symbolism. Not knowing that all of its characters are personifications of the laws and functions of mind; that the Bible is psychology rather than history, they puzzle their brains over it for awhile and then give up. It is all too mystifying. To understand the significance of its imagery, the reader of the Bible must be imaginatively awake.
According to the Scriptures, we sleep with Adam and wake with Christ. That is, we sleep collectively and wake individually.
“And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept.”
. . . Genesis 2:21
If Adam, or generic man, is in a deep sleep, then his experiences as recorded in the Scriptures must be a dream. Only he who is awake can tell his dream, and only he would understand the symbolism of dreams can interpret the dream.
“And they said one to another,
Did not our heart burn within us,
while He talked with us by the way,
and while He opened to us the
Scriptures?”
. . . Luke 24:32
The Bible is a revelation of the laws and functions of Mind expressed in the language of that twilight realm into which we go when we sleep. Because the symbolical language of this twilight realm is much the same for all men, the recent explorers of this realm – human imagination – call it the “collective unconscious.”
The purpose of this book, however, is not to give you a complete definition of Biblical symbols or exhaustive interpretations of its stories.
All I hope to have done is to have indicated the way in which you are most likely to succeed in realizing your desires.
“What things soever ye desire” can be obtained only through the conscious, voluntary exercise of imagination in direct obedience to the laws of Mind.
Somewhere within this realm of imagination there is a mood, a feeling of the wish fulfilled which, if appropriated, means success to you.
This realm, this Eden – your imagination – is vaster than you know and repays exploration.
“I Give you the end of a golden string;” You must wind it into a ball.

Chapter Two

Seedtime and Harvest

THE FOUR MIGHTY ONES
“And a river went out of Eden
to water the garden; and from
thence it was parted, and became
into four heads.”
. . . Genesis 2:10
“And every one had four faces: . . .”
. . . Ezekiel 10:14
“I see four men loose, walking
in the midst of the fire, and they
have no hurt; and the form of
the fourth is like the Son of
God.”
. . . Daniel 3:25
“Four Mighty Ones are in every man.” . . . Blake
The “Four Mighty Ones” constitute the selfhood of man, or God in man. There are “Four Mighty Ones” in every man, but these “Four Mighty Ones” are not four separate beings, separated one from the other as are the fingers of his hand.
The “Four Mighty Ones” are four different aspects of his mind, and differ from one another in function and character without being four separate selves inhabiting one man’s body.
The “Four Mighty Ones” may be equated with the four Hebrew characters: [Yodh, He, Waw, He, from right to left] which form the four-lettered mystery-name of the Creative Power ["Yahweh" or even occasionally as "Jehovah"] from and combining within itself the past, present and future forms of the verb “to be.”
The Tetragrammaton is revered as the symbol of the Creative Power in man – I AM – the creative four functions in man reaching forth to realize in actual material phenomena qualities latent in Itself.
We can best understand the “Four Mighty Ones” by comparing them to the four most important characters in the production of a play.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women
merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays
many parts . . .”
- As You Like It Act II, Scene VII
The producer, the author, the director and the actor are the four most important characters in the production of a play.
In the drama of life, the producer’s function is to suggest the theme of a play. This he does in the form of a wish, such as, “I wish I were successful”; “I wish I could take a trip”; “I wish I were married:, and so on. But to appear on the world’s stage, these general themes must somehow be specified and worked out in detail. It is not enough to say, “I wish I were successful” – that is too vague. Successful at what?
However, the first “Mighty One” only suggests a theme.
The dramatization of the theme is left to the originality of the second “Might One”, the author.
In dramatizing the theme, the author writes only the last scene of the play – but this scene he writes in detail.
The scene must dramatize the wish fulfilled. He mentally constructs as life-like a scene as possible of what he would experience had he realized his wish. When the scene is clearly visualized, the author’s work is done.
The third “Mighty One” in the production of life’s play is the director. The director’s tasks are to see that the actor remains faithful to the script and to rehearse him over and over again until he is natural in the part.
This function may be likened to a controlled and consciously directed attention – an attention focused exclusively on the action which implies that the wish is already realized.
“The form of the Fourth is like the Son of God” – human imagination, the actor.
This fourth “Mighty One” performs within himself, in imagination, the pre-determined action which implies the fulfillment of the wish. This function does not visualize or observe the action. This function actually enacts the drama, and does it over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality.
Without the dramatized vision of fulfilled desire, the theme remains a mere theme and sleeps forever in the vast chambers of unborn themes. Nor without the co-operant attention, obedient to the dramatized vision of fulfilled desire, will the vision perceived attain objective reality.
The “Four Mighty Ones” are the four quarters of the human soul. The first is Jehovah’s King, who suggests the theme; the second is Jehovah’s servant, who faithfully works out the theme in a dramatic vision; the third is Jehovah’s man, who was attentive and obedient to the vision of fulfilled desire, who brings the wandering imagination back to the script “seventy times seven”. The “Form of the Fourth” is Jehovah himself, who enacts the dramatized theme on the stage of the mind.
“Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be
equal with God: . . .”
- Philippians 2:5,6
The drama of life is a joint effort of the four quarters of the human soul.
“All that you behold, tho’ it appears without,
it is within, in your imagination, of which this
world of mortality is but a shadow.”
- Blake
All that we behold is a visual construction contrived to express a theme – a theme which has been dramatized, rehearsed and performed elsewhere. What we are witnessing on the stage of the world is an optical construction devised to express the themes which have been dramatized, rehearsed and performed in the imagination of men.
The “Four Mighty Ones” constitute the Selfhood of man, or God in man: and all that man beholds, tho’ it appears without, are but shadows cast upon the screen of space – optical constructions contrived by Selfhood to inform him in regard to the themes which he has conceived, dramatized, rehearsed and performed within himself.
“The creature was made subject unto vanity” that he may become conscious of Selfhood and its functions, for with consciousness of Selfhood and its functions, he can act to a purpose; he can have a consciously self-determined history.
Without consciousness, he acts unconsciously, and cries to an objective God to save him from his own creation.
“O Lord, how long shall I cry, and
Thou wilt not hear! Even cry out
unto Thee of violence, and
Thou wilt not save!”
- Habakkuk 1:2
When man discovers that life is a play which he, himself, is consciously or unconsciously writing, he will cease from the blind, self-torture of executing judgment upon others.
Instead, he will rewrite the play to conform to his ideal, for he will realize that all changes in the play must come from the cooperation of the “Four Mighty Ones” within himself. They alone can alter the script and produce the change.
All the men and women in his world are merely players and are as helpless to change his play as are the players on the screen of the theatre to change the picture. The desired change must be conceived, dramatized, rehearsed and performed in the theatre of his mind.
When the fourth function, the imagination, has completed its task of rehearsing the revised version of the play until it is natural, then the curtain will rise upon this so seemingly solid world and the “Mighty Four” will cast a shadow of the real play upon the screen of space.
Men and women will automatically play their parts to bring about the fulfillment of the dramatized theme. The players, by reason of their various parts in the world’s drama, become relevant to the individual’s dramatized theme and, because relevant, are drawn into his drama. They will play their parts, faithfully believing all the while that it was they themselves who initiated the parts they play. This they do because:
“Thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, . . .
I in them, and thou in me.”
- John 17:21, 23
I am involved in mankind. We are one. We are all playing the four parts of producer, author, director and actor in the drama of life. Some of us are doing it consciously, others unconsciously. It is necessary that we do it consciously. Only in this way can we be certain of a perfect ending to our play. Then we shall understand why we must become conscious of the four functions of the one God within ourselves that we may have the companionship of God as His Sons.
“Man should not stay a man:
Hs aim should higher be.
For God will only gods
Accept as company.”
- Angelus Silesius
In January of 1946, I took my wife and little daughter to Barbados in the British West Indies for a holiday. Not knowing there were any difficulties in getting a return passage, I had not booked ours before leaving New York. Upon our arrival in Barbados I discovered that there were only two ships serving the islands, one from Boston and one from New York. I was told there was no available space on either ship before September. As I had commitments in New York for the first week in May, I put my name on the long waiting list for the April sailing.
A few days later, the ship from New York was anchored in the harbor. I observed it very carefully, and decided that this was the ship we should take. I returned to my hotel and determined on an inner action that would be mine were we actually sailing on that ship. I settled down in an easy chair in my bedroom, to lose myself in this imaginative action.
In Barbados, we take a motor launch or rowboat out into the deep harbor when we embark on a large steamer. I knew I must catch the feeling that we were sailing on that ship. I chose the inner action of stepping from the tender and climbing up the gangplank of the steamer. The first time I tried, my attention wandered after I had reached the top of the gangplank. I brought myself back down, and tried again and again. I do not recall how many times I carried out this action in my imagination until I reached the deck and looked back at the port with the feeling of sweet sadness at departing. I was happy to be returning to my home in New York, but nostalgic in saying goodbye to the lovely island and our family and friends. I do recall that in one of my many attempts at walking up the gangplank in the feeling that I was sailing, I fell asleep. After I awoke, I went about the usual social activities of the day and evening.
The following morning, I received a call from the steamship company requesting me to come down to their office and pick up our tickets for the April sailing. I was curious to know why Barbados had been chosen to receive the cancellation and why I, at the end of the long waiting list, was to have the reservation, but all that the agent could tell me was that a cable had been received that morning from New York, offering passage for three. I was not the first the agent had called, but for reasons she could not explain,those she had called said that now they found it inconvenient to sail in April. We sailed on April 20th and arrived in New York on the morning of May the first.
In the production of my play – the sailing on a boat that would bring me to New York by the first of May – I played the four most important characters in my drama. As the producer, I decided to sail on a specific ship at a certain time. Playing the part of the author, I wrote the script – I visualized the inner action which conformed to the outer action I would take if my desire were realized. As the director, I rehearsed myself, the actor, in that imagined action of climbing the gangplank until that action felt completely natural.
This being done, events and people moved swiftly to conform, in the outer world, to the play I had constructed and enacted in my imagination.
“I saw the mystic vision flow
And live in men and woods and streams.
Until I could no longer know
The stream of life from my own dreams.”
- George William Russell (AE)
I told this story to an audience of mine in San Francisco, and a lady in the audience told me how she had unconsciously used the same technique, when she was a young girl.
The incident occurred on Christmas Eve. She was feeling very sad and tired and sorry for herself. Her father, whom she adored, had died suddenly. Not only did she feel this loss at the Christmas season, but necessity had forced her to give up her planned college years and go to work. This rainy Christmas Eve she was riding home on a San Diego street car. The car was filled with gay chatter of happy young people home for the holidays. To hide her tears from those round about her, she stood on the open part at the front of the car and turned her face into the skies to mingle her tears with the rain. With her eyes closed, and holding the rail of the car firmly, this is what she said to herself: “This is not the salt of the tears that I taste, but the salt of the sea in the wind. This is not San Diego, this is the South Pacific and I am sailing into the Bay of Samoa”. And looking up, in her imagination, she constructed what she imagined to be the Southern Cross. She lost herself in this contemplation so that all faded round about her. Suddenly she was at the end of the line, and home.
Two weeks later, she received word from a lawyer in Chicago that he was holding three thousand dollars in American bonds for her. Several years before, an aunt of hers had gone to Europe, with instructions that these bonds be turned over to her niece if she did not return to the United States.
The lawyer had just received word of the aunt’s death, and was now carrying out her instructions.
A month later, this girl sailed for the islands in the South Pacific. It was night when she entered the Bay of Samoa. Looking down, she could see the white foam like a “bone in the lady’s mouth” as the ship ploughed through the waves, and brought the salt of the sea in the wind. An officer on duty said to her: “There is the Southern Cross”, and looking up, she saw the Southern Cross as she had imagined it.
In the intervening years, she had many opportunities to use her imagination constructively, but as she had done this unconsciously, she did not realize there was a Law behind it all. Now that she understands, she, too, is consciously playing her four major roles in the daily drama of her life, producing plays for the good of others as well as herself.
“Then the soldiers, when they had
crucified Jesus, took his garments,
and made four parts, to every soldier
a part; and also his coat; now the coat
was without seam, woven from the
top throughout.”
- John 19:23

Chapter Three

Seedtime and Harvest

THE GIFT OF FAITH
“And the Lord had respect unto Abel and in his offerings; But unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect.” – Genesis 4:4, 5
If we search the Scriptures, we will
become aware of a far deeper
meaning in the above quotation than
that which a literal reading would give
us. The Lord is no other than your
own consciousness “. . . say unto the
children of Israel, I AM hath sent me
unto you.
. . .Exodus 3:14.” “I AM” is the self-definition of the Lord.
Cain and Abel, as the grandchildren of the Lord, can be only personifications of two distinct functions of your own consciousness. The author is really concerned to show the “Two Contrary States of the Human Soul,” and he has used two brothers to show these states. The two brothers represent two distinct outlooks on the world possessed by everyone. One is the limited perception of the senses, and the other is an imaginative view of the world. Cain – the first view – is a passive surrender to appearances and an acceptance of life on the basis of the world without: a view which inevitably leads to unsatisfied longing or a contentment with disillusion. Abel – the second view – is a vision of fulfilled desire, lifting man above the evidence of the senses to that state of relief where he no longer pines with desire. Ignorance of the second view is a soul on fire. Knowledge of the second view is the wing whereby it flies to the Heaven of fulfilled desire.
“Come, eat my bread and drink
of the wind that I have mingled,
forsake the foolish and live.”
- Proverbs 9:56
In the epistle to the Hebrews, the
writer tells us that Abel’s offering
was faith and, states the author,
“Without faith it is impossible to
please Him.”
. . .Hebrews 11:6
“Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. . . Through faith we understand
that the worlds were framed by the word
of God, so that things which are seen were
not made of things which do appear.”
- Hebrews 11:1, 3
Cain offers the evidence of the senses which consciousness, the Lord, rejects, because acceptance of this gift as a mold of the future would mean the fixation and perpetuation of the present state forever. The sick would be sick, the poor would be poor, the thief would be a thief, the murderer a murderer, and so on, without hope of redemption.
The Lord, or consciousness, has no respect for such passive use of imagination – which is the gift of Cain. He delights in the gift of Abel, the active, voluntary, loving exercise of the imagination on behalf of man for himself and others.
“Let the weak man say, I am strong.:
- Joel 3:10
Let man disregard appearances and declare himself to be the man he wants to be. Let him imagine beauty where his senses reveal ashes, joy where they testify to mourning, riches where they bear witness to poverty. Only by such active, voluntary use of imagination can man be lifted up and Eden restored.
The ideal is always waiting to be incarnated, but unless we ourselves offer the ideal to the Lord, our consciousness, by assuming that we are already that which we seek to embody, it is incapable of birth. The Lord needs his daily lamb of faith to mold the world in harmony with our dreams.
“By faith Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain.”
- Hebrews 11:4
Faith sacrifices the apparent fact for the unapparent truth. Faith holds fast to the fundamental truth that through the medium of an assumption, invisible states become visible facts.
“For what is faith unless it is to believe
what you do not see?”
- St. Augustine
Just recently, I had the opportunity to observe the wonderful results of one who had the faith to believe what she did not see.
A young woman asked me to meet her sister and her three-year-old nephew. He was a fine, healthy lad with clear blue eyes and an exceptionally fine unblemished skin. Then, she told me her story.
At birth, the boy was perfect in every way save for a large, ugly birthmark covering one side of his face. Their doctor advised them that nothing could be done for this type of scar. Visits to many specialists only confirmed his statement. Hearing the verdict, the aunt set herself the task of proving her faith – that an assumption, though denied by the evidence of the senses, if persisted in, will harden into fact.
Every time she thought of the baby, which was often, she saw, in her imagination, an eight month-old baby with a perfect face – without any trace of a scar. This was not easy, but she knew that in this case, that was the gift of Abel which pleased God. She persisted in her faith – she believed what was not there to be seen. The result was that she visited her sister on the child’s eight-month birthday and found him to have a perfect, unblemished skin with no trace of a birth-mark ever having been present. “Luck! Coincidence! Shouts Cain. No. Abel knows that these are names given by those who have no faith, to the works of faith.
“We walk by faith, not by sight.” – II Corinthians 5:7
When reason and the facts of life oppose the idea you desire to realize and you accept the evidence of your senses and the dictates of reason as the truth, you have brought the Lord – your consciousness – the gift of Cain. It is obvious that such offerings do not please Him.
Life on earth is a training ground for image making. If you use only the molds which your senses dictate, there will be no change in your life. You are here to live the more abundant life, so you must use the invisible molds of imagination and make results and accomplishments the crucial test of your power to create. Only as you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and continue therein are you offering the gift that pleases.
“When Abel’s gift is my attire
Then I’ll realize my desire.”
The Prophet Malachi complains that man has robbed God:
“But ye say, Wherein have we robbed
thee? In tithes and offerings.”
- Malachi 3:8
Facts based upon reason and the evidence
of the senses which oppose the idea seeking
expression, rob you of the belief in the
reality of the invisible state. But “faith is the
evidence of things not seen”, and through
it “Good calleth those things which be not as though they were . . .
Romans 4:17.”
Call the thing not seen; assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled.
“. . .that there may be meat in mine house,
and prove me now herewith, sayeth the
Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the
windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing, that there shall not be room
enough to receive it.”
- Malachi 3:10
This is the story of a couple living in Sacramento, California, who refused to accept the evidence of their senses, who refused to be robbed, in spite of a seeming loss. The wife had given her husband a very valuable wristwatch. The gift doubled its value because of the sentiment he attached to it. They had a little ritual with the watch. Every night as he removed the watch he gave it to her and she put it away in a special box in the bureau. Every morning she took the watch and gave it to him to put on.
One morning the watch was missing. They both remembered playing their usual parts the night before, therefore the watch was not lost or misplaced, but stolen. Then and there, they determined not to accept the fact that it was really gone. They said to each other, “This is an opportunity to practice what we believe.” They decided that, in their imagination, they would enact their customary ritual as though the watch were actually there. In his imagination, every night the husband took off the watch and gave it to his wife, while in her imagination she accepted the watch and carefully put it away. Every morning she removed the watch from its box and gave it to her husband and he, in turn, put it on. This they did faithfully for two weeks.
After their fourteen-day vigil, a man went into the one and only jewelry store in Sacramento where the watch would be recognized. As he offered a gem for appraisal, the owner of the store noticed the wristwatch he was wearing. Under the pretext of needing a closer examination of the stone, he went into an inner office and called the police. After the police arrested the man, they found in his apartment over ten thousand dollars worth of stolen jewelry. In walking “by faith, not by sight”, this couple attained their desire – the watch – and also aided many others in regaining what had seemed to be lost forever.
“If one advances confidently in the
direction of his dream, and endeavors
to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected
in common hours.” – Thoreau

Chapter Four

Seedtime and Harvest

THE SCALE OF BEING
“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder
set up on the earth, and the top of it
reached to heaven: and behold the
angels of God ascending and descending
on it. And, behold, the Lord stood above it. . .”
- Genesis 28:12, 13
In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep fell upon Jacob, his inner eye was opened and he beheld the world as a series of ascending and descending levels of awareness. It was a revelation of the deepest insight into the mysteries of the world. Jacob saw a vertical scale of ascending and descending values, or states of consciousness. This gave meaning to everything in the outer world, for without such a scale of values there would be no meaning to life.
At every moment of time, man stands upon the eternal scale of meaning. There is no object or event that has ever taken place or is taking place now that is without significance. The significance of an object or event for the individual is a direct index to the level of his consciousness.
You are holding this book, for example. On one level of consciousness, it is an object in space.
On a higher level, it is a series of letters on paper, arranged according to certain rules. On a still higher level, it is an expression of meaning.
Looking outwardly, you see the book first, but actually, the meaning comes first. It occupies a higher grade of significance than the letter arrangement on paper or the book as an object in space. Meaning determined the arrangement of letters; the arrangement of letters only expresses the meaning. The meaning is invisible and above the level of the visible arrangement of letters. If there had been no meaning to be expressed, no book would have been written and published.
“And, behold, the Lord stood above it.”
The Lord and meaning are one – the Creator, the cause of the phenomena of life.
“In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.” – John 1:1
In the beginning was the intention – the meaning – and the intention was with the intender, and the intention was the intender. The objects and events in time and space occupy a lower level of significance than the level of meaning which produced them. All things were made by meaning, and without meaning was not anything made that was made. The fact that everything seen can be regarded as the effect, on a lower level of significance, of an unseen higher order of significance is a very important one to grasp.
Our usual mode of procedure is to attempt to explain the higher levels of significance – why things happen – in terms of the lower – what and how things happen. For example, let us take an actual accident and try to explain it.
Most of us live on the level of what happened – the accident was an event in space – one automobile struck another and practically demolished it. Some of us live on the higher level of “how” the accident happened – it was a rainy night, the roads were slippery and the second car skidded into the first. On rare occasions, a few of us reach the highest or causal level of “why” such an accident occurs. Then we become aware of the invisible, the state of consciousness which produced the visible event.
In this case, the ruined car was driven by a widow, who, though she felt she could not afford to, greatly desired to change her environment. Having heard that, by the proper use of her imagination, she could do and be all she wished to be, this widow had been imagining herself actually living in the city of her desire. At the same time, she was living in a consciousness of loss, both personal and financial. Therefore, she brought upon herself an event which was seemingly another loss, but the sum of money the insurance company paid her allowed her to make the desired change in her life.
When we see the “why” behind the seeming accident, the state of consciousness that produced the accident, we are led to the conclusion that there is no accident. Everything in life has its in-visible meaning.
The man who learns of an accident, the man who knows “how” it happened, and the man who knows “why” it happened are on three different levels of awareness in regard to that accident. On the ascending scale, each higher level carries us a step in advance towards the truth of the accident.
We should strive constantly to lift ourselves to the higher level of meaning, the meaning that is always invisible and above the physical event. But, remember, the meaning or cause of the phenomena of life can be found only within the consciousness of man.
Man is so engrossed in the visible side of the drama of life – the side of “what” has happened, and “how” it happened – that he rarely rises to the invisible side of “why” it happened. He refuses to accept the Prophet’s warning that:
“Things which are seen were not made of
things that do appear.”
- Hebrews 11:3
His descriptions of “what” has happened and “how” it happened are true in terms of his corresponding level of thought, but when he asks “why” it happened, all physical explanations break down and he is forced to seek the “why”, or meaning of it, on the invisible and higher level. The mechanical analysis of events deals only with external relationships of things. Such a course will never reach the level which holds the secret of why the events happen. Man must recognize that the lower and visible sides flow from the invisible and higher level of meaning.
Intuition is needed to lift us up to the level of meaning – to the level of why things happen. Let us follow the advice of the Hebrew prophet of old and “lift up our eyes unto the hills” within ourselves, and observe what is taking place there. See what ideas we have accepted as true, what states we have consented to, what dreams, what desires – and, above all, what intentions. It is from these hills that all things come to reveal our stature – our height – on the vertical scale of meaning. If we lift our eyes to “the Thee in Me who works behind the Veil”, we will see the meaning of the phenomena of life.
Events appear on the screen of space to express the different levels of consciousness of man. A change in the level of his consciousness automatically results in a change of the phenomena of his life. To attempt to change conditions before he changes the level of consciousness from whence they came, is to struggle in vain. Man redeems the world as he ascends the vertical scale of meaning.
We saw, in the analogy of the book, that as consciousness was lifted up to the level where man could see meaning expressed in the arrangement of its letters, it also included the knowledge that the letters were arranged according to certain rules, and that such arrangements, when printed on paper and bound together, formed a book. What is true of the book is true of every event in the world.
“They shall not hurt or destroy in all
my holy mountain: for the earth shall
be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.”
- Isaiah 11:9
Nothing is to be discarded; all is to be redeemed. Our lives, ascending the vertical scale of meaning towards an ever increasing awareness – an awareness of things of higher significance – are the process whereby this redemption is brought to pass.
As man arranges letters into words, and words into sentences to express meaning, in like manner, life arranges circumstances, conditions and events to express the unseen meanings or attitudes of men. Nothing is without significance. But man, not knowing the higher level of inner meaning, looks out upon a moving panorama of events and sees no meaning to life. There is always a level of meaning determining events and their essential relationship to our lives.
Here is a story that will enable us to seize the good in things seeming evil; to withhold judgment, and to act aright amid unsolved problems.
Just a few years ago, our country was shocked by a seeming injustice in our midst. The story was told on radio and television, as well as in the newspapers. You may recall the incident. The body of a young American soldier killed in Korea was returned to his home for burial. Just before the service, his wife was asked a routine question: Was her husband a Caucasian? When she replied that he was an Indian, burial was refused. This refusal was in accordance with the laws of that community, but it aroused the entire nation. We felt incensed that anyone who had been killed in the service of his country should be denied burial anywhere in his country. The story reached the attention of the President of the United States, and he offered burial with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. After the service, the wife told reporters that her husband had always dreamed of dying a hero, and having a hero’s burial service with full military honors.
When, we in America, had to explain why progressive, intelligent people like ourselves, not only enacted but supported such laws in our great land of the free and the brave, we were hard put for an explanation. We, as observers, had seen only “what” happened, and “how” it happened. We failed to see “why” it happened.
That burial had to be refused if that lad was to realize his dream. We tried to explain the drama in terms of the lower level of “how” it happened, which explanation could not satisfy the one who had asked “why” it happened.
The true answer, viewed from the level of higher meaning, would be such a reversal of our common habits of thinking that it would be instantly rejected. The truth is that future states are causative of present facts – the Indian boy dreaming of a hero’s death, with full military honors, was like Lady Macbeth transported “beyond this ignorant present”, and could “feel now the future in the instant.”
“. . . and by it he being dead yet
speaketh.”
- Hebrews 11:4

Chapter Five

Seedtime and Harvest

THE GAME OF LIFE
“I can easier teach twenty what were
good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching.”
- Shakespeare
With this confession off my mind, I will now teach you how to play the game of life. Life is a game and, like all games, it has its aims and its rules.
In the little games that men concoct, such as cricket, tennis, baseball, football, and so on, the rules may be changed from time to time. After the changes are agreed upon, man must learn the new rules and play the game within the framework of the accepted rules.
However, in the game of life, the rules cannot be changed or broken. Only within the framework of its universal and everlastingly fixed rules can the game of life be played.
The game of life is played on the playing field of the mind.
In playing a game, the first thing we ask is: “What is its aim and purpose?” and the second, “What are the rules governing the game?” In the game of life, our chief aim is towards increasing awareness – an awareness of things of greater significance; and our second aim is towards achieving our goals, realizing our desires.
As to our desires, the rules reach only so far as to indicate the way in which we should go to realize them, but the desires themselves must be the individual’s own concern. The rules governing the game of life are simple, but it takes a lifetime of practice to use them wisely. Here is one of the rules:
“As he thinketh in his heart, so is
he.” – Proverbs 23:7
Thinking is usually believed to be a function entirely untrammeled and free, without any rules to constrain it. But that is not true. Thinking moves by its own processes in a bounded territory, with definite paths and patterns.
“Thinking follows the tracks laid down in one’s own inner conversations.”
All of us can realize our objectives by the wise use of mind and speech.
Most of us are totally unaware of the mental activity which goes on within us. But to play the game of life successfully, we must become aware of our every mental activity, for this activity, in the form of inner conversations, is the cause of the outer phenomena of our life.
“. . . every idle word that man shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day
of judgment.
For by thy words thou shall be justified,
and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”
- Matthew 12:36, 37
The law of the Word cannot be broken.
“. . .A bone of him shall not be broken.”
- John 19:36
The law of the Word never overlooks an inner word nor makes the smallest allowance for our ignorance of its power. It fashions life about us as we, by our inner conversations, fashion life within ourselves. This is done to reveal to us our position on the playing field of life. There is no opponent in the game of life; there is only the goal.
Not long ago, I was discussing this with a successful and philanthropic business man. He told me a thought provoking story about himself.
He said, “You know, Neville, I first learned about goals in life when I was fourteen, and it was on the playing field at school. I was good at track and had a fine day, but there was one more race to run and I had stiff competition in one other boy. I was determined to beat him. I beat him, it is true, but, while I was keeping my eye on him, a third boy, who was considered no competition at all, won the race.”
“That experience taught me a lesson I have used throughout my life. When people ask me about my success, I must say, that I believe it is because I have never made ‘making money’ my goal: ‘My goal is the wise, productive use of money’.”
This man’s inner conversations are based on the premise that he already has money, his constant inner question: the proper use of it.
The inner conversations of the man struggling to ‘get’ money only prove his lack of money.
In his ignorance of the power of the word, he is building barriers in the way of the attainment of his goal; he has his eye on the competition rather than on the goal itself.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
- Julius Caesar: Act I, Scene II
As “the worlds were framed by the Word of God”, so we as “imitators of God as dear children” create the conditions and circumstances of our lives by our all-powerful human inner words.
Without practice, the most profound knowledge of the game would produce no desired results.
“To him that knoweth to do good” – that is, knoweth the rules – and doeth it not, to him it is sin”. In other words, he will miss his mark and fail to realize his goal.
In the parable of the Talents, the Master’s condemnation of the servant who neglected to use his gift is clear and unmistakable, and having discovered one of the rules of the game of life, we risk failure by ignoring it. The talent not used, like the limb not exercised, slumbers and finally atrophies. We must be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only”. Since thinking follows the tracks laid down in one’s own inner conversations, not only can we see where we are going on the playing field of life by observing our inner conversations, but also, we can determine where we will go by controlling and directing our inner talking.
What would you think and say and do were you already the one you want to be? Begin to think and say and do this inwardly. You are told that “there is a rod in heaven that revealeth secrets,” and, you must always remember that heaven is within you; and to make it crystal clear who God is, where He is, and what His secrets are, Daniel continues, “Thy dream, and the visions of thy head are these”. They reveal the tracks to which you are tied, and point the direction in which you are going.
This is what one woman did to turn the tracks to which she had been unhappily tied in the direction in which she wanted to go. For two years, she had kept herself estranged from the three people she loved most. She had had a quarrel with her daughter-in-law, who ordered her from her home. For those two years, she had not seen or heard from her son, her daughter-in-law or her grandson, though she had sent her grandson numerous gifts in the meantime. Every time she thought of her family, which was daily, she carried on a mental conversation with her daughter-in-law, blaming her for the quarrel and accusing her of being selfish.
Upon hearing a lecture of mine one night – it was this very lecture on the game of life and how to play it – she suddenly realized she was the cause of the prolonged silence and that she, and she alone, must do something about it. Recognizing that her goal was to have the former loving relationship, she set herself the task of completely changing her inner talking.
That very night, in her imagination, she constructed two loving, tender letters written to her, one from her daughter-in-law and the other from her grandson. In her imagination, she read them over and over again until she fell asleep in the joyful mood of having received the letters. She repeated this imaginary act each night for eight nights. On the morning of the ninth day, she received one envelope containing two letters, one from her daughter-in-law, one from her grandson. They were loving, tender letters inviting her to visit them, almost replicas of those she had constructed mentally. By using her imagination consciously and lovingly, she had turned the tracks to which she was tied, in the direction she wanted to go, towards a happy family reunion.
A change of attitude is a change of position on the playing field of life. The game of life is not being played out there in what is called space and time; the real moves in the game of life take place within, on the playing field of the mind.
“Losing thy soul, thy soul
Again to find;
Rendering toward that goal
Thy separate mind.”
- Laurence Housman

Chapter Six

Seedtime and Harvest

“TIME, TIMES, AND AN HALF”
“And one said to the man clothed in linen,
which was upon the waters of the river,
How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?
And I heard the man clothed in linen, which
was upon the waters of the river, when he held
up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven,
and swear by him that liveth forever that it shall
be for a time, times, and an half.”
- Daniel 12:6, 7
At one of my lectures given in Los Angeles on the subject of the hidden meaning behind the stories of the Bible, someone asked me to interpret the above quotation from the Book of Daniel. After I confessed I did not know the meaning of that particular passage, a lady in the audience said to herself, “If the mind behaves according to the assumption with which it starts, then I will find the true answer to that question and tell it to Neville.” And this is what she told me.
“Last night the question was asked: ‘What is the meaning of “time, times, and an half” as recorded in Daniel 12:7?’ Before going to sleep last night I said to myself, ‘Now there is a simple answer to this question, so I will assume that I know it and while I am sleeping my greater self will find the answer and reveal it to my lesser self in dream or vision.’”
“Around five A.M. I awakened. It was too early to rise, so remaining in bed I quickly fell into that half dreamy state between waking and sleeping, and while in that state a picture came into my mind of an old lady. She was sitting in a rocking chair and rocking back and forth, back and forth. Then a voice which sounded like your voice said to me: ‘Do it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality.’”
“I jumped out of bed and re-read the Twelfth Chapter of Daniel, and this is the intuitive answer I received. Taking the sixth and seventh verses, for they constituted last night’s question, I felt that if the garments with which Biblical characters are clothed correspond to their level of consciousness, as you teach, then linen must represent a very high level of consciousness indeed, for the ‘man clothed in linen’ was standing ‘upon the waters of the river’ and if, as you teach, water symbolizes a high level of psychological truth, then the individual who could walk upon it must truly represent an exalted state of consciousness. I therefore felt that what he had to say must indeed be very significant. Now the question asked of him was ‘How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?’ And his answer was, ‘A time, times, and an half.’ Remembering my vision of the old lady rocking back and forth, and your voice telling me to ‘do it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality’, and remembering that this vision and your instruction came to me in response to my assumption that I knew the answer, I intuitively felt that the question asked the ‘man clothed in linen’ meant how long shall it be until the wonderful dreams that I am dreaming become a reality. And his answer is, ‘Do it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality’. ‘A time’ means to perform the imaginary action which implies the fulfillment of the wish;
‘Times’ mean to repeat the imaginary action over and over again, and ‘an half’ means the moment of falling asleep while performing the imaginary action, for such a moment usually arrives before the pre-determined action is completed and, therefore, can be said to be a half, or part, of a time.”
To get such inner understanding of the Scriptures by the simple assumption that she did know the answer, was a wonderful experience for this woman. However, to know the true meaning of “time, times, and an half” she must apply her understanding in her daily life. We are never at a loss in an opportunity to test this understanding, either for ourselves or for another.
A number of years ago, a widow living in the same apartment house as we, came to see me about her cat. The cat was her constant companion and dear to her heart. He was, however, eight years old, very ill and in great pain. He had not eaten for days and would not move from under her bed. Two veterinarians had seen the cat and advised the woman that the cat could not be cured, and that he should be put to sleep immediately. I suggested that that night, before retiring, she create in her imagination some action that would indicate the cat was its former healthy self. I advised her to do it over and over again until it took on the tones of reality.
This, she promised to do. However, either from lack of faith in my advice or from lack of faith in her own ability to carry out the imaginary action, she asked her niece to spend the night with her.
This request was made so that if the cat were not well by morning, the niece could take it to the veterinarian’s and she, the owner, would not have to face such a dreaded task herself. That night, she settled herself in an easy chair and began to imagine the cat was romping beside her, scratching at the furniture and doing many things she would not normally have allowed. Each time she found that her mind had wandered from its pre-determined task to see a normal, healthy, frisky cat, she brought her attention back to the room and started her imaginary action over again. This she did over and over again until, finally, in a feeling of relief, she dropped off to sleep, still seated in her chair.
At about four o’clock in the morning, she was awakened by the cry of her cat. He was standing by her chair. After attracting her attention, he led her to the kitchen where he begged for food. She fixed him a little warm milk which he quickly drank, and cried for more.
That cat lived comfortably for five more years, when, without pain or illness, he died naturally in his sleep.
“How long shall it be to the end of these
wonders?. . . A time, times, and an half.
In a dream in a vision of the night, when
deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings
upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of
men, and sealeth their instructions.”
- Job 33:15, 16

Chapter Seven

Seedtime and Harvest

BE YE WISE AS SERPENTS
“. . .be ye therefore wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves.”
- Matthew 10:16
The serpent’s ability to form its skin by ossifying a portion of itself, and its skill in shedding each skin as it outgrew it, caused man to regard this reptile as a symbol of the power of endless growth and self-reproduction. Man is told, therefore, to be “wise as the serpent” and learn how to shed his skin – his environment – which is his solidified self; man must learn how to “loose him, and let him go” . . . how to “put off the old man” . . .how to die to the old and yet know, like the serpent, that he “shall not surely die”.
Man has not learned as yet that all that is outside his physical body is also a part of himself, that his world and all the conditions of his life are but the outpicturing of his state of consciousness.
When he knows this truth, he will stop the futile struggle of self-contention and, like the serpent, let the old go and grow a new environment.
“Man is immortal; therefore he must
die endlessly. For life is a creative idea;
it can only find itself in changing forms.”
- Tagore
In ancient times, serpents were also associated with the guardianship of treasure or wealth. The injunction to be “wise as serpents” is the advice to man to awaken the power of his subtilized body – his imagination – that he, like the serpent, may grow and outgrow, die and yet not die, for from such deaths and resurrections alone, shedding the old and putting on the new, shall come fulfillment of his dreams and the finding of his treaures. As “the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” – Genesis 3:1 – even so, imagination is more subtile than any creature of the heavens which the Lord God had created. Imagination is the creature that:
“. . .was made subject to vanity, not willingly,
but by reason of him who hath subjected the
same in hope. . .For we are saved by hope:
but hope that is seen is not hope: for what
a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do
we have patience wait for it.”
- Romans 8:20, 24, 25
Although the outer, or “natural”, man of the senses is interlocked with his environment, the inner, or spiritual, man of imagination is not thus interlocked. If the interlocking were complete, the charge to be “wise as serpents” would be in vain. Were we completely interlocked with our environment, we could not withdraw our attention from the evidence of the senses and feel ourselves into the situation of our fulfilled desire, in hope that that unseen state would solidify as our new environment. But:
“There is a natural body, and there is
a spiritual body.”
- I Corinthians 15:44
The spiritual body of imagination is not interlocked with man’s environment. The spiritual body can withdraw from the outer man of sense and environment and imagine itself to be what it wants to be. And if it remains faithful to the vision, imagination will build for man a new environment in which to live. This is what is meant by the statement:
“. . .I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again, and receive you unto
myself; that where I am, there ye may
be also.”
- John 14:2, 3
The place that is prepared for you need not be a place in space. It can be health, wealth, companionship, anything that you desire in this world. Now, how is the place prepared?
You must first construct as life-like a representation as possible of what you would see and hear and do if you were physically present and physically moving about in that “place.” Then, with your physical body immobilized, you must imagine that you are actually in that “place” and are seeing and hearing and doing all that you would see and hear and do if you were there physically. This you must do over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality. When it feels natural, the “place” has been prepared as the new environment for your outer or physical self. Now you may open your physical eyes and return to your former state. The “place” is prepared, and where you have been in imagination, there you shall be in the body also.
How this imagined state is realized physically is not the concern of you, the natural or outer man.
The spiritual body, on its return from the imagined state to its former physical state, created an invisible bridge of incident to link the two states. Although the curious feeling that you were actually there and that the state was real is gone, as soon as you open your eyes upon the old familiar environment, nevertheless, you are haunted with the sense of a double identity – with the knowledge that “there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” When you, the natural man, have had this experience you will go automatically across the bridge of events which leads to the physical realization of your invisibly prepared place.
This concept – that man is dual and that the inner man of imagination can dwell in future states and return to the present moment with a bridge of events to link the two – clashes violently with the widely accepted view about the human personality and the cause and nature of phenomena. Such a concept demands a revolution in current ideas about the human personality, and about space, time and matter. The concept that man, consciously or unconsciously, determines the conditions of life by imagining himself into these mental states, leads to the conclusion that this supposedly solid world is a construction of Mind – a concept which, at first, common sense rejects. However, we should remember that most of the concepts which common sense at first rejected, man was afterward forced to accept. These never-ending reversals of judgment which experience has forced upon man led Professor Whitehead to write: “Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow be demonstrated truth.”
The creative power in man sleeps and needs to be awakened.
“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise
from the dead.”
- Ephesians 5:14
Wake from the sleep that tells you the outer world is the cause of the conditions of your life. Rise from the dead past and create a new environment.
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you?”
- I Corinthians 3:16
The Spirit of God in you is your imagination, but it sleeps and needs to be awakened, in order to lift you off the bar of the senses where you have so long lain stranded.
The boundless possibilities open to you as you become “wise as serpents” is beyond measure.
You will select the ideal conditions you want to experience and the ideal environment you want to live in. Experiencing these states in imagination until they have sensory vividness, you will externalize them as surely as the serpent now externalizes its skin.
After you have outgrown them, then, you will cast them off as easily as “the snake throws her enamell’d skin”. The more abundant life – the whole purpose of Creation – cannot be saved through death and resurrection.
God desired form, so He became man: and it is not enough for us to recognize His spirit at work in creation, we must see His work in form and say that it is good, even though we outgrow the form, forever and ever.
“He leads
Through widening chambers of delight to where
Throbs rapture near an end that aye recedes,
Because His touch is Infinite and lends
A yonder to all ends.”
* * * *
“And, I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me.” – John 12:32
If I be lifted up from the evidence of the senses to the state of consciousness I desire to realize and remain in that state until it feels natural. I will form that state around me and all men will see it.
But how to persuade man this is true – that imaginative life is the only living; that assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled is the way to the more abundant life and not the compensation of the escapist – that is the problem.
To see as “though widening chambers of delight” what living in the realms of imagination means, to appreciate and enjoy the world, one must live imaginatively; one must dream and occupy his dream, then grow and outgrow the dream, forever and ever.
The unimaginative man, who will not lose his life on one level that he may find it on a higher level, is nothing but a Lot’s wife – a pillar of self-satisfied salt. On the other hand, those who refuse form as being unspiritual and who reject incarnation as separate from God are ignorant of the great mystery: “Great is the mystery, God was manifest in the flesh.”
Your life expresses one thing, and one thing only, your state of consciousness.
Everything is dependent upon that.
As you, through the medium of imagination, assume a state of consciousness, that state begins to clothe itself in form, It solidifies around you as the serpent’s skin ossifies around it. But you must be faithful to the state. You must not go from state to state, but, rather, wait patiently in the one invisible state until it takes on form and becomes an objective fact.
Patience is necessary, but patience will be easy after your first success in shedding the old and growing the new, for we are able to wait according as we have been rewarded by understanding in the past.
Understanding is the secret of patience.
What natural joy and spontaneous delight lie in seeing the world – not with, but as Blake says – through the eye! Imagine that you are seeing what you want to see, and remain faithful to your vision. Your imagination will make for itself a corresponding form in which to live.
All things are made by imagination’s power. Nothing begins except in the imagination of man.
“From within out” is the law of the universe.
“As within, so without.” Man turns outward in his search for truth, but the essential thing is to look within.
“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, what e’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness .. . and to know,
Rather consist in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”
- Browning: “Paracelsus”
I think you will be interested in an instance of how a young woman shed the skin of resentment and put on a far different kind of skin. The parents of this woman had separated when she was six years old and she had lived with her mother. She rarely saw her father. But once a year he sent her a five dollar check for Christmas. Following her marriage, he did increase the Christmas gift to ten dollars.
After one of my lectures, she was dwelling on my statement that man’s suspicion of another is only a measure of his own deceitfulness, and she recognized that she had been harboring resentment towards her father for years. That night she resolved to let go her resentment and put a fond reaction in its place. In her imagination, she felt she was embracing her father in the warmest way. She did it over and over again until she caught the spirit of her imaginary act, and then she fell asleep in a very contented mood.
The following day she happened to pass through the fur department of one of our large stores in California. For some time she had been toying with the idea of having a new fur scarf, but felt she could not afford it. This time her eye was caught by a stone marten scarf, and she picked it up and tried it on. After feeling it and seeing herself in it, reluctantly she took off the scarf and returned it to the salesman, telling herself she really could not afford it. As she was leaving the department, she stopped and thought, “Neville tells we can have whatever we desire if we will only capture the feeling of already having it.” In her imagination, she put the scarf back on, felt the reality of it, and went about her shopping, all the while enjoying the imagined wearing of it.
This young woman never associated these two imaginary acts. In fact, she had almost forgotten what she had done until, a few weeks later, on Mother’s Day, the doorbell rang unexpectedly.
There was her father. As she embraced him, she remembered her first imaginary action. As she opened the package he had brought her – the first gift in these many years – she remembered her second imaginary action, for the box contained a beautiful stone marten scarf.
“Ye are gods; and all of you are children
of the most High.”- Psalms 82:6
“. . .be ye therefore wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves.”
- Matthew 10:16

Chapter Eight

Seedtime and Harvest

The Water And The Blood
“…Except a man be born again he cannot
see the kingdom of God.”
- John 3:3
“But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced
his side, and forthwith came there out blood
and water.”
– John 19:34
“This is he that came by water and
blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water
only, but by water and blood.”
– I. John 5:6
According to the gospel and the Epistle of John, not only must man be “born again” but he must be born again of water and blood. These two inward experiences are linked with two outward rites – baptism and communion. But the two outward rites – baptism to symbolize birth by water, and the wine of communion to symbolize acceptance of the blood of the Savoir, cannot produce the real birth or radical transformation of the individual, which is promised to man. The outward use of water and wine cannot bring about the desired change of mind. We must, therefore, look for the hidden meaning behind the symbols of water and blood.
The Bible uses many images to symbolize Truth, but the images used symbolize Truth on different levels of meaning. On the lowest level, the image used is stone. For example:
“… a great stone was upon
The well’s mouth. And thither
were all the flocks gathered:
and they rolled the stone from
the well’s mouth, and watered
the sheep…”
…Genesis 29:2, 3
“…They sank into the bottom
as a stone.”
…Exodus 15:5
When a stone blocks the well, it means that people have taken these great symbolical revelations of truth literally. When someone rolls the stone away, it means that an individual has discovered beneath the allegory or parable its psychological life germ, or meaning. This hidden meaning which lies behind the literal words is symbolized by water. It is this water. In the form of psychological Truth, that he then offers to humanity.
“The flock of my pasture are men.”
… Ezekiel 34:31
The literal-minded man who refuses the “cup of water” – psychological Truth – offered him, “sinks into the bottom as a stone.” He remains on the level where he sees everything in pure objectivity, without any subjective relationship he may keep all the commandments – written on stone – literally, and yet break them psychologically all day long.
He may, for example not literally steal the property of another, and yet see the other in want. To see another in want, is to rob him of his birthright as a child of God. For we are all “children of the most high.”
“And if children, then heirs;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs
with Christ…”
…Romans 8:17
To know what to do about a seeming misfortune is to have the “cup of water” – the psychological Truth – that could save the situation. But such knowledge is not enough. Man must not only “fill the water pots of stone with water” – that is, discover the psychological truth – into wine.
This he does by living a life according to the truth which he has discovered.
Only by such use of the truth can he “taste the water that was made wine…” – John 2:9
A mans birthright is to be Jesus. He is born to “save
his people from their sins”… Matthew 1 : 21.
But the salvation of a man is “not by water only, but by water and blood”.
To know what to do to save yourself or another is not enough; you must do it.
Knowledge of what to do is water; doing it is blood.
This is he that came not by water only, but by water and blood.” The whole of this mystery is in the conscious, active use of imagination to appropriate that particular state of consciousness that would save you or another from the present limitation. Outward ceremonies cannot accomplish this.
“… there shall meet you a man
bearing a pitcher of water; follow
him.
And wheresoever he shall go in,
say ye to the goodman of the
house, The Master saith, Where is the guest-chamber,
where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples?
And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared:
there make ready for us.”
Whatever you desire is already “furnished and prepared”.
Your imagination can put you in touch inwardly with that state of consciousness. If you imagine that you are already the one you want to be, you are following the “man bearing a pitcher of water”. If you remain in that state, you have entered the guest-chamber – Passover – and committed your spirit into the hands of God – your consciousness.
A man’s state of consciousness is his demand on the Infinite Store House of God, and, like the law of commerce, a demand creates a supply.
To change the supply, you change the demand – your state of consciousness.
What you desire to be, that you must feel you already are. Your state of consciousness creates the conditions of your life, rather than the conditions create your state of consciousness. To know this Truth, is to have the “water of life”.
But your savior – the solution of your problem – cannot be manifested by such knowledge only.
It can be realized only as such knowledge is applied.
Only as you assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled, and continue therein, is your side pierced; from whence cometh blood and water”. In this manner only is Jesus – the solution of your problem – realized.
“for thou must know that in the
government of the mind thou art
thine own lord and master, that
there will rise up no fire in the
circle or whole circumference of
thy body and spirit, unless thou
awakes it thyself.”
God is your consciousness.
His promises are conditional. Unless the demand – your state of consciousness – is changed, the supply – the present conditions of your life remain as they are.
“As we forgive” – as we change our mind – the law is automatic.
Your state of consciousness is the spring of action, the directing force, and that which creates the supply.
“if that nation, against whom
I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
If it do evil in my sight, that it
obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I
said I would benefit them.”
… Jeremiah 18:8, 9, 10
This statement of Jeremiah suggests that a commitment is involved if the individual or nation would realize the goal – a commitment to certain fixed attitudes of mind. The feeling of the wish fulfilled is a necessary condition in mans search for the goal.
The story I am about to tell you shows that man is what the observer has the capacity to see in him; that what he is seen to be is a direct index to the observer’s state of consciousness.
This story is, also, a challenge to us all to shed our blood” – use our imagination lovingly on behalf of another.
There is no day that passes that does not afford us the opportunity to transform a life by the shedding of our blood”.
“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”
… Hebrews 9:22
One night in New York City I was able to unveil the mystery of the “water and the blood” to a school teacher. I had quoted the above statement from Hebrews 9:22, and went on to explain that the realization that we have no hope save in ourselves is the discovery that God is within us – that this discovery causes the dark caverns of the skull to grow luminous, and we know that: “The spirit of man is the candle of the lord”… Proverbs 20:27 – and that this realization is the light to guide us safely over the earth.
“His Candle shined upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness”
… Job 29:3
However, we must not look upon this radiant light of the head as God, for man is the image of God.
“God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in Night;
But does a Human Form display To those who dwell in realms of
Day.”
Blake
But this must be experienced to be known. There is no other way, and no other man’s experience can be a substitute for our own.
I told the teacher that her change of attitude in regard to another would produce a corresponding change in the other; that such knowledge was the true meaning of the water mentioned in I. John 5:6, but that such knowledge alone was not enough to produce the re-birth desired; that such re-birth could only come to pass by “water and blood”, or the application of this truth.
Knowledge of what to do is the water of life, but doing it is the blood of the savior.
In other words, a little knowledge, if carried out in action is more profitable than much knowledge which we neglect to carry out in action.
As I talked, one student kept impinging upon the teachers mind. But this, thought she, would be a too difficult case on which to test the truth of what I was telling her concerning the mystery of re-birth. All knew, teachers and students alike, that this particular student was incorrigible.
The outer facts of her case were these: The teachers, including the principal and school psychiatrist, had sat in judgment on the student just a few days before. They had come to a unanimous decision that the girl, for the good of the school, must be expelled upon reaching her sixteenth birthday. She was rude, crude, unethical and used most vile language. The date for dismissal was but a month away.
As she rode home that night, the teacher kept wondering if she could really change her mind about the girls, and if so, would the student undergo a change of behavior because she herself had undergone a change of attitude?
The only way to find out would be to try. This would be quite an undertaking for it meant assuming full responsibility for the incarnation of the new values in the student. Did she dare to assume so great a power – such creative, God-like power? This meant a complete reversal of man’s normal attitude towards life from “I will love him if he first loves me”, to “He loves me, because I first loved him.” This was too much like playing God.
“We love him, because he first
Loved us.”
… I. John 4:19
But no matter how she tried to argue against it, the feeling persisted that my interpretation gave meaning to the mystery of re-birth by “water and blood.” The teacher decided to accept the challenge. And this is what she did.
She brought the child’s face before her mind’s eye and saw her smile. She listened and imagined she heard the girl say “Good morning”. This was something the student had never done since coming to that school. The teacher imagined the very best about the girl, and then listened and looked as though she heard and saw all that she would hear and see after these things should be. The teacher did this over and over again until she persuaded herself it was true, and fell asleep.
The very next morning, the student entered her classroom and smilingly said “Good morning”. The teacher was so surprised she almost did not respond, and, by her own confession, all through the day she looked for signs of the girl’s returning to her former behavior. However, the girl continued in the transformed state. By the end of the week, the change was noted by all; a second staff meeting was called and a decision of expulsion was revoked. As the child remained friendly and gracious, the teacher has had to ask herself, “Where was the bad child in the first place?”
“For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, Our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and
Love Is man, His child and care.”
(The Divine Image) – Blake
Transformation is in principle always possible, for the transformed being lives in us, and it is only a question of becoming conscious of it.
The teacher had to experience this transformation to know the mystery of “blood and water”; there was no other way, and no mans experience could have been a substitute for her own.
“We have redemption through his blood.”
… Ephesians 1:7
Without the decision to change her mind in regard to the child, and the imaginative power to carry it out, the teacher could never have redeemed the student. None can know the redemptive power of the imagination who has not “shed his blood”, and tasted the cup of experience.
“Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears!
Man gets no other light, Search he a thousand years.”
… Matthew Arnold

Chapter Nine

Seedtime and Harvest

A MYSTICAL VIEW
“And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.
But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.”
… Mark 4:33, 34
This collection of parables which is called the bible is a revelation of Truth expressed in symbolism to reveal the Laws and purposes of the mind of man. As we become aware of deeper meanings in the parables than those which are usually assigned to them, we are apprehending them mystically.
For example, let us take a mystical view of the advice given to the disciples in Matthew 10:10. We read that as the disciples were ready to teach and practice the great laws of mind which had been revealed to them, they were told not to provide shoes for the journey. A disciple is one who disciplines his mind that he may consciously function and act on higher and higher levels of of consciousness. The shoe was chosen as a symbol of vicarious atonement or the spirit of “let-me-do-it-for-you”, because the shoe protects the wearer and shields him from impurities by taking them upon himself. The aim of the disciple is always to lead himself and others from the bondage of dependency into the liberty of the Sons of God. Hence the advice, take no shoes. Accept no intermediary between yourself and God. Turn from all who would offer to do for you what you should do, and could, do far better yourself.
“Earth’s crammed with Heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”
… Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my breathren,
Ye have done it unto me.”
… Matthew 25:40
Every time you exercise your imagination on behalf of another, be it good, bad or indifferent, you have literally done that to Christ, for Christ is awakened Human Imagination. Through the wise and loving use of imagination, man clothes and feeds Christ, and through ignorant and fearful misuse of imagination, man disrobes and scourges Christ.
“let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against your neighbor” … Zechariah 8:17, is sound but negative advice. A man may stop misusing his imagination on the advice of a friend; he may be negatively served by the experience of others and learn not to imagine, but that is not enough. Such lack of use of the creative power of imagination could never clothe and feed Christ. The purple robe of the Son of God is woven, not by not imagining evil, but by imaging the good; by the active, voluntary and loving use of imagination.
“Whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
…Philippians 4:8
“King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of
purple, the midst thereof being
paved with love…”
… Song of Solomon 3: 9, 10
The first thing we notice is “King Solomon made himself”. That is what every man must eventually do – make himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. By chariot, the writer of this allegory means Mind, in which stands the spirit of Wisdom – Solomon – controlling the four functions of Mind that he may build a world of Love and Truth.
“And Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father.” “What tributaries follow him to Rome to grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?” If man does not make himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon, then his will be like Queen Mab’s: “She is the fairies’ midwife; … her chariot is an empty hazelnut.”
The wood of Lebanon was the mystic’s symbol of incorruptibility. To a mystic, It is obvious what King Solomon made himself. Silver typified knowledge, gold symbolized wisdom, and purple – clothed or covered the incorruptible Mind with the red of Love and the blue of Truth.
“And they clothed him with purple.”
… Mark 15:17
Incarnate, incorruptible four-fold wisdom, clothed in purple – Love and Truth – the purpose of man’s experience on earth.
Love is the sage’s stone;
It takes gold from the clod;
It turns naught into aught,
Transforms me into God.”
… Angelus Silesius