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Full text of "how-to-manifest-your-desires-neville-goddard
"
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NEVILLE GODDARD
How to
Manifest Your
Desires
Rare Lectures by Neville Goddard
“If there is something tonight that you really
want in this world, then experience in
imagination what you would experience in
the flesh were you to realize your goal, and
then deafen your ears, and blind your eyes
to all that denies the reality of your
assumption.” - Neville, 1948
For More Free PDF Books on the Law of
Attraction and Metaphysics Visit the Law of
Attraction Haven.
Click for More Free Books by Neville
Goddard.
Claim your copy of Joseph Murphy’s
lectures on wealth, health, relationships,
self-belief and universal laws.
Get instant access to 365 Affirmations for
attracting health, wealth and happiness
into your life.
Contents
Lesson 1: Consciousness Is the Only Reality....6
Lesson 2: Assumptions Harden Into Fact....... 63
Lesson 3: Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally....118
Lesson 4: No One To Change but Self.......... 180
Lesson 5: Remain Faithful to Your Idea........ 239
Brazen IMPUCENCE........ccccccesescseeeeeeeeeeeeeseees 335
Radio Lecture Be What You Wish; Be What You
Bee aeaa EA ia 357
Radio Lecture By Imagination We Become .369
Radio Lecture Answered Prayet...............06 382
Radio Lecture Meditation ...........cccccceceeeees 396
Radio Lecture The Law of Assumption........ 409
Radio Lecture TUN ressons 422
Radio Lecture Feeling is the Secret ............. 433
Radio Lecture Affirm the Reality of Our Own
A seperti catnoinaa 444
That Which Already has Been... 455
YOUtS forthe TAKING scania 480
The Foundation Stone — Imagination .......... 498
Imagination Creates Reality... 518
Fundamenta S eerren 593
Lesson 1: Consciousness Is the Only
Reality
This is going to be a very practical course.
Therefore, | hope that everyone in this
class has a very clear picture of what he
desires, for | am convinced that you can
realize your desires by the technique you
will receive here this week in these five
lessons.
That you may receive the full benefit of
these instructions, let me state now that the
Bible has no reference at all to any persons
who ever existed or to any event that ever
occurred upon earth.
The ancient storytellers were not writing
history but an allegorical picture lesson of
certain basic principles which they clothed
in the garb of history, and they adapted
these stories to the limited capacity of a
most uncritical and credulous people.
The difference between the form of the
Bible and its substance is as great as the
difference between a grain of corn and the
life germ without that grain. As our
assimilative organs discriminate between
food that can be built into our system and
food that must be discarded, so do our
awakened intuitive faculties discover
beneath allegory and parable, the
psychological life-germ of the Bible; and,
feeding on this, we too, cast off the form
which conveyed the message.
The argument against the historicity of the
Bible is too lengthy; consequently, it is not
suitable for inclusion in this practical
psychological interpretation of its stories.
Therefore, | will waste no time in trying to
convince you that the Bible is not an
historical fact.
Tonight, | will take four stories and show
you what the ancient storytellers intended
that you and | should see in these stories.
The ancient teachers attached
psychological truths to phallic and solar
allegories. They did not know as much of
the physical structure of man as do modern
scientists, neither did they know as much
about the heavens as do our modern
astronomers. But the little they did know
they used wisely and they built phallic and
solar frames to which they tied the great
psychological truths that they had
discovered.
In the Old Testament you will find much of
the Phallic worship. Because it is not
helpful, | am not going to emphasize it. |
shall only show you how to interpret it.
Before we come to the first of the
psychological dramas that you and | may
use in a practical sense, let me state the
two outstanding names of the Bible: the
one you and | translate as GOD or
JEHOVAH, and the one we call his son,
which we has as JESUS.
The ancients spelled these names by using
little symbols. The ancient tongue, called
the Hebraic language, was not a tongue
that you exploded with the breath. It was a
mystical language never uttered by man.
Those who understood it, understood it as
mathematicians understand symbols of
higher mathematics. It is not something
people used to convey thought as | now
use the English language.
They said that God's name was spelled,
JOD HE VAU HE. | shall take these
symbols and in our normal, down to earth
language, explain them in this manner.
The first letter, JOD in the name of GOD is
a hand or a seed, not just a hand, but the
hand of the director. If there is one organ of
man that discriminates and sets him apart
from the entire world of creation it is his
hand. What we call a hand in the
anthropoid ape is not a hand. It is used only
for the purpose of conveying food to the
mouth, or to swing branch to branch. Man's
hand fashions, it molds. You cannot really
express yourself without the hand. This is
the builder's hand, the hand of the director;
it directs and molds and builds within your
world.
The ancient story-tellers called the first
letter JOD, the hand, or the absolute seed
out of which the whole of creation will
come.
To the second letter, HE, they gave the
symbol of a window. A window is an eye —
the window is to the house what the eye is
to the body.
The third letter, VAU, they called a nail. A
nail is used for the purpose of binding
things together. The conjunction “and” in
the Hebraic tongue is simply the third letter,
or VAU. If | want to say, 'man and woman",
| put the VAU in the middle, it binds them
together.
The fourth and last letter, HE, is another
window or eye.
In this modern, down to earth language of
ours, you can forget eyes and windows and
hands and look at it in this manner. You are
seated here now. This first letter, JOD, is
your | Amness, your awareness. You are
aware of being aware — that is the first
letter. Out of this awareness all states of
awareness come.
The second letter, HE, called an eye, is
your imagination, your ability to perceive.
You imagine or perceive something which
seems to be other than Self. As though you
were lost in reverie and contemplated
mental states in a detached manner,
making the thinker and his thoughts
separate entities.
The third letter, VAU, is your ability to feel
that you are that which you desire to be. As
you feel you are it, you become aware of
being it. To walk as though you were what
you want to be is to take your desire out of
the imaginary world and put the VAU upon
it. You have completed the drama of
creation. | am aware of something. Then |
become aware of actually being that of
which | was aware.
The fourth and last letter in the name of
God is another HE, another eye, meaning
the visible objective world which constantly
bears witness of that which | am conscious
of being. You do nothing about the
objective world; it always molds itself in
harmony with that which you are conscious
of being.
You are told this is the name by which all
things are made, and without it there is
nothing made that is made. The name is
simply what you have now as you are
seated here. You are conscious of being,
aren't you? Certainly, you are. You are also
conscious of something that is other than
yourself: the room, the furniture, the
people.
You may become selective now. Maybe
you do not want to be other than what you
are, or to own what you see. But you have
the capacity to feel what it would be like
were you now other than what you are. As
you assume that you are that which you
want to be, you have completed the name
of God or the JOD HE VAU HE. The final
result, the objectification of your
assumption, is not your concern. It will
come into view automatically as you
assume the consciousness of being it.
Now let us turn to the Son's name, for he
gives the Son dominion over the world. You
are that Son, you are the great Joshua, or
Jesus, of the Bible. You know the name
Joshua or Jehoshua we have Anglicized as
Jesus.
The Son's name is almost like the Father's
name. The first three letters of the Father's
name are the first three letters of the Son's
name, JOD HE VAU, then you add a SHIN
and an AYIN, making the Son's name read,
JOD HE VAU SHIN AYIN.
You have heard what the first three are:
JOD HE VAU. JOD means that you are
aware; He means that you are aware of
something; and VAU means that you
became aware of being that of which you
were aware. You have dominion because
you have the ability to conceive and to
become that which you conceive. That is
the power of creation.
But why is a SHIN put in the name of the
Son? Because of the infinite mercy of our
Father. Mind you, the Father and the Son
are one. But when the Father becomes
conscious of being man he puts within the
condition called man that which he did not
give unto himself. He puts a SHIN for this
purpose; a SHIN is symbolized as a tooth.
A tooth is that which consumes, that which
devours. | must have within me the power
to consume that which | now dislike. |, in my
ignorance, brought to birth certain things |
know dislike and would like to leave behind
me. Were there not within me the flames
that would consume it, | would be
condemned forever to live in a world of all
my mistakes. But there is a SHIN, or flame,
within the name of the Son, which allows
that Son to become detached from states
HE formerly expressed within the world.
Man is incapable of seeing other than the
contents of his own consciousness.
If | now become detached in
consciousness from this room by turning
my attention away from it, then, | am no
longer conscious of it. There is something
in me that devours it within me. It can only
live within my objective world if | keep it
alive within my consciousness.
It is the SHIN, or a tooth, in the Son's name
that gives him absolute dominion. Why
could it not have been in the Father's
name? For this simple reason: nothing can
cease to be in the Father. Even the
unlovely things cannot cease to be. If |
once give it expression, forever and ever it
remains locked within the dimensionally
greater Self which is the Father. But | would
not like to keep alive within my world all of
my mistakes. So I, in my infinite mercy
gave to myself, when | became man, the
power to become detached from these
things that I, in my ignorance, brought to
birth in my world.
These are the two names which give you
dominion. You have dominion if, as you
walk the earth, you know that your
consciousness if God, the one and only
reality. You become aware of something
you would like to express or possess. You
have the ability to feel that you are and
possess that which but a moment before
was imaginary. The final result, the
embodying of your assumption, is
completely outside of the offices of a three-
dimensional mind. It comes to birth in a way
that no man knows.
If these two names are clear in your mind's
eye, you will see that they are your eternal
names. As you sit here, you are this JOD
HE VAU HE, you are the JOD HE VAU
SHIN AYIN.
The stories of the Bible concern
themselves exclusively with the power of
imagination. They are really dramatizations
of the technique of prayer, for prayer is the
secret of changing the future. The Bible
reveals the key by which man enters a
dimensionally larger world for the purpose
of changing the conditions of the lesser
world in which he lives.
A prayer granted implies that something is
done in consequence of the prayer, which
otherwise would not have been done.
Therefore, man is the spring of action, the
directing mind, and the one who grants the
prayer.
The stories of the Bible contain a powerful
challenge to the thinking capacity of man.
The underlying truth — that they are
psychological dramas and not historical
facts — demands reiteration, inasmuch as it
is the only justification for the stories. With
a little imagination we may easily trace the
psychological sense in all the stories of the
Bible.
“And God said, let us make man in our
image, and after our likeness; and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth. So, God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he
him.” (Gen 1:26, 27).
Here in the first chapter of the Bible the
ancient teachers laid the foundation that
God and man are one, and that man has
dominion over all the earth. If God and man
are one, then God can never be so far off
as even to be near, for nearness implies
separation.
The question arises: What is God? God is
man's consciousness, his awareness, his |
Amness. The drama of life is a
psychological one in which we bring
circumstances to pass by our attitudes
rather than by our acts. The cornerstone on
which all things are based is man’s concept
of himself. He acts as he does, and has the
experiences that he does, because of his
concept of himself is what it is, and for no
other reason. Had he a different concept of
himself, he would act differently and have
different experiences.
Man, by assuming the feeling of his wish
fulfilled, alters his future in harmony with his
assumption, for, assumptions though false,
if sustained, will harden into fact.
The undisciplined mind finds it difficult to
assume a State which is denied by the
senses. But the ancient teachers
discovered that sleep, or a state akin to
sleep, aided man in making his
assumption. Therefore, they dramatized
the first creative act of man as one in which
man was in a profound sleep. This not only
sets the pattern for all future creative acts
but shows us that man has but one
substance that is truly his to use in creating
his world and that is himself.
“And the Lord God (man) caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept; and
he took one of his ribs and closed up the
flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the
Lord God had taken from man, made he a
woman.” (Gen 2:21, 22).
Before God fashions this woman for man
he brings unto Adam the beasts of the field,
and the fowls of the air and has Adam
name them. “Whatsoever Adam called
every living creature, that was the name
thereof.”
if you will take a concordance or a Bible
dictionary and look up the word thigh as
used in this story you will see that it has
nothing to do with the thigh. It is defined as
the soft parts that are creative in a man,
that hang upon the thigh of a man.
The ancient story-tellers used this phallic
frame to reveal a great psychological truth.
An angel is a messenger of God. You are
God, as you have just discovered, for your
consciousness is God, and you have an
idea, a message. You are wrestling with an
idea, for you do not know that you are
already that which you contemplate,
neither do you believe you could become it.
You would like to, but you do not believe
you could.
Who wrestles with the angel? Jacob. And
the word Jacob, by definition, means the
supplanter. You would like to transform
yourself and become that which reason
and your senses deny. As you wrestle with
your ideal, trying to feel that you are it, this
is what happens. When you actually feel
that you are it, something goes out of you.
You may use the words, “Who has touched
me, for | perceive virtue has gone out of
me?”
You become for a moment, after a
successful meditation, incapable in the act,
as though it were a physical creative act.
You are just as impotent after you have
prayed successfully as you are after the
physical creative act. When satisfaction is
yours, you no longer hunger for it. If the
hunger persists you did not explode the
idea within you, you did not actually
succeed in becoming conscious of being
that which you wanted to be. There was still
that thirst when you came out of the deep.
If | can feel that | am that which but a few
seconds ago | knew | was not, but desired
to be, then | am no longer hungry to be it. |
am no longer thirsty because | feel satisfied
in that state. Then something shrinks within
me, not physically but in my feeling, in my
consciousness, for that is the creativeness
of man. He so shrinks in desire, he loses
the desire to continue in this meditation. He
does not halt physically, he simply has no
desire to continue the meditative act.
“When you pray believe that you have
received, and you shall receive.” When the
physical creative act is completed, the
sinew which is upon the hollow of man's
thigh shrinks, and man finds himself
impotent or is halted. In like manner when
a man prays successfully he believes that
he is already that which he desired to be,
therefore he cannot continue desiring to be
that which he is already conscious of being.
At the moment of satisfaction, physical and
psychological, something goes out which in
time bears witness to man's creative
power.
Our next story is in the 38" chapter of the
book of Genesis. Here is a King whose
name is Judah, the first three letters of
whose name also beings with JOD HE
VAU. Tamar is his daughter-in-law.
The word Tamar means a palm tree or the
most beautiful, the most comely. She is
gracious and beautiful to look on and is
called a palm tree. A tall, stately palm tree
blossoms even in the desert — wherever it
is there is an oasis. When you see the palm
tree in the desert, there will be found what
you seek most in that parched land. There
is nothing more desirable to a man moving
across a desert than the sight of a palm
tree.
In our case, to be practical, our objective is
the palm tree. That is the stately, beautiful
one that we seek. Whatever it is that you
and | want, what we truly desire, is
personified in the story as Tamar the
beautiful.
We are told she dresses herself in the veils
of a harlot and sits in the public place. Her
father-in-law, King Judah, comes by; and
he is so in love with this one who is veiled
that he offers her a kid to be intimate with
her.
She said, “What will you give me as a
pledge that you will give me a kid?”
Looking around he said, “What do you want
me to give as a pledge?”
She answered, “Give me your ring, give me
your bracelets, and give me your staff.”
Whereupon, he took from his hand the ring,
and the bracelet, and gave them to her
along with his scepter. And he went in unto
her and knew her, and she bore him a son.
That is the story; now for the interpretation.
Man has one gift that is truly his to give, and
that is himself. He has no other gift, as told
you in the very first creative act of Adam
begetting the woman out of himself. There
was no other substance in the world but
himself with which he could fashion the
object of his desire. In like manner Judah
had but one gift that was truly his to give —
himself, as the ring, the bracelets and the
staff symbolized, for these were the
symbols of his kingship.
Man offers that which is not himself, but life
demands that he give the one thing that
symbolizes himself. “Give me your ring,
give me your bracelet, give me your
scepter.” There make the King. When he
gives them he gives of himself.
You are the great King Judah. Before you
can know your Tamar and make her bear
your likeness in the world, you must go in
unto her and give of self. Suppose | want
security. | cannot get it by knowing people
who have it. | cannot get it by pulling
strings. | must become conscious of being
secure.
Let us say | want to be healthy. Pills will not
do it. Diet or climate will not do it. | must
become conscious of being healthy by
assuming the feeling of being healthy.
Perhaps | want to be lifted up in this world.
Merely looking at kings and presidents and
noble people and living in their reflection
will not make me dignified. | must become
conscious of being noble and dignified and
walk as though | were that which | now
want to be.
When | walk in that light | give of myself to
the image that haunted my mind, and in
time she bears me a child; which means |
objectify a world in harmony with that which
| am conscious of being.
You are King Judah and you are also
Tamar. When you become conscious of
being that which you want to be you are
Tamar. Then you crystallize your desire
within the world round about you.
No matter what stories you read in the
Bible, no matter how many characters
these ancient story-tellers introduced into
the drama, there is one thing you and |
must always bear in mind — they all take
place within the mind of the individual man.
All the characters live in the mind of the
individual man.
As you read the story, make it fit the pattern
of self. Know that your consciousness is
the only reality. Then know what you want
to be. Then assume the feeling of being
that which you want to be, and remain
faithful to your assumption, living and
acting on your conviction. Always make it fit
that pattern.
Our third interpretation is the story of Isaac
and his two sons: Esau and Jacob. The
picture is drawn of a blind man being
deceived by his second son into giving him
the blessing which belonged to his first son.
The story stressed the point that the
deception was accomplished through the
sense of touch.
“And Isaac said unto Jacob, come near, |
pray thee that | may feel thee, my son,
whether thou be my very son Esau or not.
And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father;
and he felt him. And it came to pass, as
soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing
Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out
from the presence of Isaac his father, that
Esau his brother came in from his hunting.”
(Gen 27:21).
This story can be very helpful if you will re-
enact it now. Again, bear in mind that all the
characters of the Bible are personifications
of abstract ideas and must be fulfilled in the
individual man. You are the blind father and
both sons.
Isaac is old and blind, and sensing the
approach of death, calls his first son Esau
a rough hairy boy, and sends him into the
woods that he may bring in some venison.
The second son, Jacob, a smooth skinned
boy, overheard the request of his father.
Desiring the birthright of his brother, Jacob,
the smooth skinned son, slaughtered one
of his father's flock and skinned it. Then,
dressed in the hairy skins of the kid he had
slaughtered, he came through subtlety and
betrayed his father into believing that he
was Esau.
The father said, “Come close my son that |
may feel you. | cannot see but come that |
may feel.” Note the stress that is placed
upon feeling in this story.
He came close and the father said to him,
“The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands
are the hands of Esau.” and Feeling the
roughness, the reality of the son Esau, he
pronounced the blessing and gave it to
Jacob.
You are told in the story that as Isaac
pronounced the blessing and Jacob had
scarcely gone out from his presence, that
his brother Esau came in from his hunting.
This is an important verse. Do not become
distressed in our practical approach to it,
for as you sit here you, too, are Isaac. This
room in which you are seated is your
present Esau. This is the rough or sensibly
known world, known by the reason of your
bodily organs. All of your senses bear
witness to the fact that you are here in this
room. Everything tells you that you are
here, but perhaps you do not want to be
here.
You can apply this toward any objective.
The room in which you are seated at any
time — the environment in which you are
placed, this is your rough or sensibly known
world or son which is personified in the
story as Esau. What you would like in place
of what you have or are is your smooth
skinned state or Jacob, the supplanter.
You do not send your visible world hunting,
as SO many people do, by denial. By saying
it does not exist you make it all the more
real. Instead, you simply remove your
attention from the region of sensation
which at this moment is the room round
about you, and you concentrate your
attention on that which you want to put in
its place, that which you want to make real.
In concentrating on your objective, the
secret is to bring it here. You must make
elsewhere here and then now. Imagine that
your objective is so close that you can feel
it.
Suppose at this very moment | want a
piano here in this room. To see a piano in
my mind's eye existing elsewhere does not
do it. But to visualize it in this room as
though it were here and to put my mental
hand upon the piano and to feel it solidly
real, is to take that subjective state
personified as my second son Jacob and
bring it so close that | can feel it.
Isaac is called a blind man. You are blind
because you do not see your objective with
your bodily organs, you cannot see it with
your objective senses. You only perceive it
with your mind, but you bring it so close that
you can feel it as though it were solidly real
now. When this is done, and you lose
yourself in its reality and feel it to be real,
open your eyes.
When you open your eyes what happens?
The room that you had shut out but a
moment ago returns from the hunt. You no
sooner gave the blessing — felt the
imaginary state to be real — then the
objective world, which seemingly was
unreal, returns. It does not speak to you
with words as recorded of Esau, but the
very room round about you tells you by its
presence that you have been self-
deceived.
It tells you that when you lost yourself in
contemplation, feeling that you were now
what you wanted to be, feeling that you
now possess what you desire to possess,
that you were simply deceiving self. Look
at this room. It denies that you are
elsewhere.
If you Know the law, you now say: “Even
though your brother came through subtlety
and betrayed me and took your birthright, |
gave him your blessing and | cannot
retract.”
In other words, you remain faithful to this
subjective reality and you do not take back
from it the power of birth. You gave it the
right of birth and it is going to become
objective within this world of yours. There
is no room in this limited space of yours for
two things to occupy the same space at the
same time. By making the subjective real it
resurrects itself within your world.
Take the idea that you want to embody and
assume that you are already it. Lose
yourself in feeling this assumption is solidly
real. As you give it this sense of reality, you
have given it the blessing which belongs to
the objective world, and you do not have to
aid its birth any more than you have to aid
the birth of a child or a seed you plant in the
ground. The seed you plant grows unaided
by a man, for it contains within itself all the
power and all the plans necessary for self-
expression.
You can this night re-enact the drama of
Isaac blessing his second son and see
what happens in the immediate future in
your world. Your present environment
vanishes, all the circumstances of life
change and make way for the coming of
that to which you have given your life. As
you walk, knowing that you are what you
wanted to be, you objectify it without the
assistance of another.
The fourth story for tonight is taken from the
last of the books attributed to Moses. If you
need proof that Moses did not write it, read
the story carefully. It is found in the 34"
chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. Ask
any priest or rabbi, 'who is the author of this
book?', and they will tell you that Moses
wrote it.
In the 34" chapter of Deuteronomy you will
read of a man writing his own obituary, that
is, Moses wrote this chapter. Aman may sit
down and write what he would like to have
placed upon his tombstone, but here is a
man who writes his own obituary. And then
he dies and so completely rubs himself out
that he defies posterity to find where he has
buried himself.
“So, Moses the servant of the Lord died
there in the land of Moab, according to the
word of the Lord. And he buried him in the
valley in the land of Moab, over against
Beth-poer: but no man knoweth of his
sepulchre until this day. And Moses was a
hundred and twenty years old when he
died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural
force abated.” (Deut. 34:5, 6, 7).
You must this night — not tomorrow — learn
the technique of writing your own obituary
and so completely die to what you are that
no man in this world can tell you where you
buried the old man. If you are now ill and
you become well, and | know you by reason
of the fact that you are ill, where can you
point and tell me you buried the sick one?
If you are impoverished and borrow from
every friend you have, and then suddenly
you roll in wealth, where did you bury the
poor man? You so completely rub out
poverty in your mind's eye that there is
nothing in this world you can point to and
claim, that is where | left it. A complete
transformation of consciousness rubs out
all evidence that anything other than this
ever existed in the world.
The most beautiful technique for the
realizing of man's objective is given in the
first verse of the 34' chapter of
Deuteronomy:
“And Moses went up from the Plains of
Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top
of Pisgah, that is over again Jericho. And
the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead,
unto Dan.”
You read that verse and say, “So what?”
But take a concordance and look up the
words. The first word, Moses, means to
draw out, to rescue, to lift out, to fetch. In
other words, Moses is the personification of
the power in man that can draw out of man
that which he seeks, for everything comes
from within, not from without. You draw
from within yourself that which you now
want to express as something objective to
yourself.
You are Moses coming out of the plains of
Moab. The word Moab is a contraction of
two Hebraic words, Mem and Ab, meaning
mother-father. Your consciousness is the
mother-father, there is no other cause in
the world. Your | Amness, your awareness,
is this Moab or mother-father. You are
always drawing something out of it.
The next word is Nebo. In your
concordance Nebo is defined as a
prophecy. A prophecy is something
subjective. If | say, “So-and-so will be,” it is
an image in the mind; it is not yet a fact. We
must wait and either prove or disprove this
prophecy.
In our language Nebo is your wish, your
desire. It is called a mountain because it is
something that appears difficult to ascend
and is therefore seemingly impossible of
realization. A mountain is something bigger
than you are, it towers over you. Nebo
personifies that which you want to be in
contrast to that which you are.
The word Pisgah, by definition, is to
contemplate. Jericho is a fragrant odor.
And Gilead means the hills of witnesses.
The last word is Dan the Prophet.
Now put them all together in a practical
sense and see what the ancients tried to
tell us. As | stand here, having discovered
that my consciousness is God, and that |
can, by simply feeling that | am what | want
to be, transform myself into the likeness of
that which | am assuming | am; | Know now
that | am all that it takes to scale this
mountain.
| define my objective. | do not call it Nebo. |
call it my desire. Whatever | want, that is
my Nebo, that is my great mountain that |
am going to scale. | now begin to
contemplate it, for | shall climb to the peak
of Pisgah.
| must contemplate my objective in such a
manner that | get the reaction that satisfies.
If | do not get the reaction that pleases then
Jericho is not seen, for Jericho is a fragrant
odor.
When | feel that | am what | want to be |
cannot suppress the joy that comes with
that feeling.
| must always contemplate my objective
until | get the feeling of satisfaction
personified as Jericho. Then | do nothing to
make it visible in my world; for the hills of
Gilead, meaning men, women, children,
the whole vast world round about me, come
bearing witness. They come to testify that |
am what | have assumed myself to be and
am sustaining within myself. When my
world conforms to my assumption the
prophecy is fulfilled.
If | now know what | want to be, and
assume that | am it, and walk as though |
were, | become it and becoming it | so
completely die to my former concept of self
that | cannot point to any place in this world
and say: that is where my former self is
buried. | so completely died that | defy
posterity to ever find where | buried my old
self.
There must be someone in this room who
will so completely transform himself in this
world that his close immediate circle of
friends will not recognize him.
For ten years | was a dancer, dancing in
Broadway shows, in vaudeville, night clubs
and in Europe. There was a time in my life
when | thought | could not live without
certain friends in my world. | would spread
a table every night after the theater and we
would all dine well. | thought | could never
live without them. Now I confess | could not
live with them. We have nothing in common
today. When we meet we do not purposely
walk on the opposite side of the street, but
it is almost a cold meeting because we
have nothing to discuss. | so died to that life
that as | meet these people they cannot
even talk of the old times.
But there are people living today who are
still living in that state, getting poorer and
poorer. They always like to talk about the
old times. They never buried that man at
all, he is very much alive within their world.
Moses was 120 years, a full, wonderful age
as 120 indicates. One plus two plus zero
equals three, the numerical symbol of
expression. | am fully conscious of my
expression. My eyes are undimmed, and
the natural functions of my body are not
abated. | am fully conscious of being what
| do not want to be.
But knowing this law by which a man
transforms himself, | assume that | am what
| want to be and walk in the assumption that
it is done. In becoming it, the old man dies
and all that was related to that former
concept of self, dies with it. You cannot take
any part of the old man into the new man.
You cannot put new wine in old bottles or
new patches on old garments. You must be
a new being completely.
As you assume that you are what you want
to be, you do not need the assistance of
another to make it so. Neither do you need
the assistance of anyone to bury the old
man for you. Let the dead bury the dead.
Do not even look back, for no man having
put his hand to the plow and then looking
back is fit for the kingdom of heaven.
Do not ask yourself how this thing is going
to be. It does not matter if your reason
denies it. It does not matter if all the world
round about you denies it. You do not have
to bury the old. “Let the dead bury the
dead.” You will so bury the past by
remaining faithful to your new concept of
self that you will defy the whole vast future
to find where you buried it. To this day no
man in all of Israel has discovered the
sepulchre of Moses.
These are the four stories | promised you
tonight. You must apply them every day of
your life. Even though the chair on which
you are now seated seems hard and does
not lend itself to meditation you can in
imagination make it the most comfortable
chair in the world.
Let me now define the technique as | want
you to employ it. | trust each one of you
came here tonight with a clear picture of
your desire. Do not say it is impossible. Do
you want it? You do not have to use your
moral code to realize it. It is altogether
outside the reach of your code.
Consciousness is the one and only reality.
Therefore, we must form the object of our
desire out of our own consciousness.
People have a habit of slighting the
importance of simple things, and the
suggestion to create a state akin to sleep in
order to aid you in assuming that which
reason and your senses deny is one of the
simple things you might slight.
However, this simple formula for changing
the future, which was discovered by the
ancient teachers and given to us in the
Bible, can be proved by all.
The first step in changing the future is
Desire, that is, define your objective — know
definitely what you want.
Second: construct an event which you
believe would encounter FOLLOWING the
fulfillment of your desire — an event which
implies fulfillment of your desire —
something which will have the action of
self-predominant.
The third step is to immobilize the physical
body and induce a state akin to sleep. Then
mentally feel yourself right into the
proposed action, imagine all the while that
you are actually performing the action
HERE AND NOW. You must participate in
the imaginary action, not merely stand back
and look on, but FEEL that you are actually
performing the action, so that the imaginary
sensation is real to you.
It is important always to remember that the
proposed action must be one which
FOLLOWS the fulfillment of your desire,
one which implies fulfillment. For example,
Suppose you desired a promotion in the
office. Then being congratulated would be
an event you would encounter following the
fulfillment of your desire.
Having selected this action as the one you
will experience in imagination to imply
promotion in the office, immobilize your
physical body and induce a state bordering
on sleep, a drowsy state, but one in which
you are still able to control the direction of
your thoughts, a state in which you are
attentive without effort. Then visualize a
friend standing before you. Put your
imaginary hand into his. Feel it to be solid
and real and carry on an imaginary
conversation with him in harmony with the
FEELING OF HAVING BEEN
PROMOTED.
You do not visualize yourself at a distance
in point of space and at a distance in point
of time being congratulated on your good
fortune. Instead, you MAKE elsewhere
HERE and the future NOW. The difference
between FEELING yourself in action, here
and now, and visualizing yourself in action,
as though you were on a motion-picture
screen, is the difference between success
and failure.
The difference will be appreciated if you will
visualize yourself climbing a ladder. Then,
with eyelids closed imagine that a ladder is
right in front of you and FEEL YOURSELF
ACTUALLY CLIMBING IT.
Experience has taught me to restrict the
imaginary action which implies fulfillment of
the desire, to condense the idea into a
single act, and to re-enact it over and over
again until it has the feeling of reality.
Otherwise, your attention will wander off
along an associational track, and hosts of
associated images will be presented to
your attention, and in a few seconds, they
will lead you hundreds of miles away from
your objective in point of space and years
away in point of time.
If you decide to climb a particular flight of
stairs, because that is the likely event to
follow the fulfillment of your desire, then
you must restrict the action to climbing that
particular flight of stairs. Should your
attention wander off, bring it back to
climbing that flight of stairs, and keep on
doing so until the imaginary action has all
the solidity and distinctness of reality.
The idea must be maintained in the mind
without any sensible effort on your part.
You must, with the minimum of effort
permeate the mind with the feeling of the
wish fulfilled.
Drowsiness facilitates change because it
favors attention without effort, but it must
not be pushed to the state of sleep in which
you no longer are able to control the
movements of your attention. But a
moderate degree of drowsiness in which
you are still able to direct your thoughts.
A most effective way to embody a desire is
to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled
and then, in a relaxed and drowsy state,
repeat over and over again like a lullaby,
any short phrase which implies fulfillment of
your desire, such as, “Thank you, thank
you, thank you” as though you addressed a
higher power for having given you that
which you desired.
| know that when this course comes to an
end on Friday many of you here will be able
to tell me you have realized your
objectives. Two weeks ago, | left the
platform and went to the door to shake
hands with the audience. | am safe in
saying at least 35 out of a class of 135 told
me that which they desired when they
joined this class they had already realized.
This happened only two weeks ago. | did
nothing to bring it to pass save to give them
this technique of prayer. You need do
nothing to bring it to pass — save apply this
technique of prayer.
With your eyes closed and your physical
body immobilized, induce a state akin to
sleep and enter into the action as though
you were an actor playing the part.
Experience in imagination what you would
experience in the flesh were you now in
possession of your objective. Make
elsewhere HERE and then NOW. And the
greater you, using a larger focus, will use
all means, and call them good, which tend
toward the production of that which you
have assumed.
You are relieved of all responsibility to
make it so, because as you imagine and
feel that it is, so your dimensionally larger
self, determines the means. Do not think for
one moment that someone is going to be
injured in order to make it so, or that
someone is going to be disappointed. It is
still not your concern. | must drive this
home. Too many of us, schooled in different
walks of life, are so concerned about the
other.
You ask, “If | get what | want will it not imply
injury to another?” There are ways you
know not of, so do not be concerned.
Close your eyes now because we are going
to be in a long silence. Soon you will
become so lost in contemplation, feeling
that you are what you want to be, that you
will be totally unconscious of the fact that
you are in this room with others.
You will receive a shock when you open
your eyes and discover we are here. It
should be a shock when you open your
eyes and discover that you are not actually
that which, a moment before, you felt you
were, or felt you possessed. Now we will go
into the deep.
Silence period.
| need not remind you that you are now that
which you have assumed that you are. Do
not discuss it with anyone, not even self.
You cannot take thought as to the HOW,
when you know that you ARE already.
Your three-dimensional reasoning, which is
a very limited reasoning indeed should not
be brought into this drama. It does not
know. What you have just felt to be true is
true.
Let no man tell you that you should not
have it. What you feel that you have, you
will have. And | promise you this much,
after you have realized your objective, on
reflection you will have to admit that this
conscious reasoning mind of yours could
never have devised the way.
You are that and have that which this very
moment you appropriated. Do not discuss
it. Do not look to someone for
encouragement because the thing might
not come. It has come. Go about your
Father's business doing everything
normally and let these things happen in
your world.
Lesson 2: Assumptions Harden Into Fact
The Bible of ours has nothing to do with
history. Some of you may yet be inclined
tonight to believe that, although we can
give it a psychological interpretation, it still
could be left in its present form and be
interpreted literally. You cannot do it. The
Bible has no reference at all to people or to
events as you have been taught to believe.
The sooner you begin to rub out that picture
the better.
We are going to take a few stories tonight,
and again | am going to remind you that
you must re-enact all of these stories within
your own mind.
Bear in mind that although they seem to be
stories of people fully awake, the drama is
really between you, the sleeping one, the
deeper you, and the conscious waking you.
They are personified as people, but when
you come to the point of application you
must remember the importance of the
drowsy state.
All creation, as we told you last night, takes
place in the state of sleep, or that state
which is akin to sleep — the sleepy, drowsy
state.
We told you last night the first man is not
yet awakened. You are Adam, the first man,
still in the profound sleep. The creative you
is the fourth-dimensional you whose home
is simply the state you enter when men call
you asleep.
Our first story for tonight is found in the
Gospel of John. As you hear it unfold
before you, | want you to compare it in your
mind's eye to the story you heard last night
from the book of Genesis. The first book of
the Bible, the book of Genesis, historians
claim is the record of events which
occurred on earth some 3000 years before
the events recorded in the book of John. |
ask you to be rational about it and see if
you do not think the same writer could have
written both stories. You be the judge as to
whether the same inspired man could not
have told the same story and told it
differently.
This is a very familiar story, the story of the
trial of Jesus. In this Gospel of John, it is
recorded that Jesus was brought before
Pontius Pilate, and the crowd clamored for
his life, they wanted Jesus. Pilate turned to
them and said:
“But ye have a custom, that | should
release unto you one at the Passover; will
ye therefore that | release unto you the
King of the Jews? Then cried they all again,
saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now
Barabbas was a robber.” (John 18:39, 40).
You are told that Pilate had no choice in the
matter, he was only a judge interpreting
law, and this was the law. The people had
to be given that which they requested.
Pilate could not release Jesus against the
wishes of the crowd, and so he released
Barabbas and gave unto them Jesus to be
crucified.
Now bear in mind that your
consciousnesses is God. There is no other
God. And you are told that God has a son
whose name is Jesus. If you will take the
trouble to look up the word Barabbas in
your concordance, you will see that it is a
contraction of two Hebraic words: BAR,
which means a daughter, son or child, and
ABBA, which means father. Barabbas is
the son of the great father. And Jesus in the
story is called the Savior, the Son of the
Father.
We have two sons in this story. And we
have two sons in the story of Esau and
Jacob. Bear in mind that Isaac was blind,
and justice to be true must be blind folded.
Although in this case Pilate is not physically
blind, the part given to Pilate implies that he
is blind because he is a judge. On all the
great law buildings of the world we see the
lady or the man who represents justice as
being blindfolded.
“Judge not according to the appearance
but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24).
Here we find Pilate playing the same part
as Isaac. There are two sons. All the
characters as they appear in this story can
apply to your own life. You have a son that
is robbing you this very moment of that
which you could be.
If you came to this meeting tonight
conscious of wanting something, desiring
something, you walked in the company of
Barabbas.
For to desire is to confess that you do not
now possess what you desire, and
because all things are yours, you rob
yourself by living in the state of desire. My
savior is my desire. As | want something |
am looking in to the eyes of my savior. But
if | continue wanting it, | deny my Jesus, my
savior, for as | want | confess | am not and
“except ye believe that | AM He ye die in
your sins.” | cannot have and still continue
to desire what | have. | may enjoy it, but |
cannot continue wanting it.
Here is the story. This is the feast of the
Passover. Something is going to change
right now, something is going to passover.
Man is incapable of passing over from one
state of consciousness into another unless
he releases from consciousness that which
he now entertains, for it anchors him where
he is.
You and | may go to physical feasts year
after year as the sun enters the great sign
of Aries, but it means nothing to the true
mystical Passover. To keep the feast of the
Passover, the psychological feast, | pass
from one state of consciousness into
another. | do it by releasing Barabbas, the
thief and robber that robs me of that state
which | could embody within my world.
The state | seek to embody is personified
in the story as Jesus the Savior. If | become
what | want to be then | am saved from
what | was. If | do not become it, | continue
to keep locked within me a thief who robs
me of being that which | could be.
These stories have no reference to any
persons who lived nor to any event that
ever occurred upon earth. These
characters are everlasting characters in the
mind of every man in the world. You and |
perpetually keep alive either Barabbas or
Jesus. You know at every moment of time
who you are entertaining.
Do not condemn a crowd for clamoring that
they should release Barabbas and crucify
Jesus. It is not a crowd of people called
Jews. They had nothing to do with it.
If we are wise, we too should clamor for the
release of that state of mind that limits us
from being what we want to be, that
restricts us, that does not permit us to
become the ideal that we seek and strive to
attain in this world.
I am not saying that you are not tonight
embodying Jesus. | only remind you, that if
at this very moment you have an unfulfilled
ambition, then you are entertaining that
which denies the fulfillment of the ambition,
and that which denies it is Barabbas.
To explain the mystical, psychological
transformation known as the Passover, or
the crossing over, you must now become
identified with the ideal that you would
serve, and you must remain faithful to the
ideal. If you remain faithful to it, you not
only crucify it by your faithfulness, but you
resurrect it unaided by a man.
As the story goes, no man could rise early
enough to roll away the stone. Unaided by
a man the stone was removed, and what
seemingly was dead and buried was
resurrected unassisted by a man.
You walk in the consciousness of being that
which you want to be, no one sees it as yet,
but you do not need a man to roll away the
problems and the obstacles of life in order
to express that which you are conscious of
being. That state has its own unique way of
becoming embodied in this world, of
becoming flesh that the whole world may
touch it.
Now you can see the relationship between
the story of Jesus and the story of Isaac
and his two sons, where one transplanted
the other, where one was called the
Supplanter of the other. Why do you think
those who compiled the sixty odd books of
our Bible made Jacob the forefather of
Jesus?
They took Jacob, who was called the
Supplanter, and made him father of twelve,
then they took Judah or praise, the fifth son
and made him the fore of Joseph, who is
supposed to have fathered in some strange
way this one called Jesus. Jesus must
supplant Barabbas as Jacob must supplant
and take the place of Esau.
Tonight, you can sit right here and conduct
the trial of your two sons, one of whom you
want released. You can become the crowd
who clamors for the release of the thief,
and the judge who willingly releases
Barabbas, and sentences Jesus to fill his
place. He was crucified on Golgotha, the
place of the skull, the seat of the
imagination.
To experience the Passover or passage
from the old to the new concept of self, you
must release Barabbas, your present
concept of self, which robs you of being
that which you could be, and you must
assume the new concept which you desire
to express.
The best way to do this is to concentrate
your attention upon the idea of identifying
yourself with your ideal. Assume you are
already that which you seek and your
assumption, though false, if sustained, will
harden into fact.
You will Know when you have succeeded in
releasing Barabbas, your old concept of
self, and when you have successfully
crucified Jesus, or fixed the new concept of
self, by simply looking MENTALLY at the
people you know. If you see them as you
formerly saw them, you have not changed
your concept of self, for all changes of
concepts of self, result in a changed
relationship to your world.
We always seem to others the embodiment
of the ideal we inspire. Therefore, in
meditation, we must imagine that others
see us as they would see us were we what
we desire to be.
You can release Barabbas and crucify and
resurrect Jesus if you will first define your
ideal. Then relax in a comfortable arm
chair, induce a state of consciousness akin
to sleep and experience in imagination
what you would experience in reality were
you already that which you desire to be.
By this simple method of experiencing in
imagination what you would experience in
the flesh were you the embodiment of the
ideal you serve, you release Barabbas who
robbed you of your greatness, and you
crucify and resurrect your savior, or the
ideal you desire to express.
Now let us turn to the story of Jesus in the
garden of Gethsemane. Bear in mind that a
garden is a properly prepared plot of
ground, it is not a wasteland. You are
preparing this ground called Gethsemane
by coming here and studying and doing
something about your mind. Spend some
time daily in preparing you mind by reading
good literature, listening to good music and
entering into conversations that ennoble.
We are told in the Epistles, “Whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are
honest, whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of
good report; if there be any virtue, and if
there be any praise, think on these things.”
(Phil 4:8).
Continuing with our story, as told in the 18"
chapter of John, Jesus is in the garden and
suddenly a crowd begins to seek him. He is
standing there in the dark and he says,
“Whom seek ye?”
The spokesman called Judas answers and
says, “We seek Jesus of Nazareth.”
A voice answers, “I am He.”
At this instant they all fall to the ground,
thousands of them tumbled. That in itself
should stop you right there and let you
know it could not be a physical drama,
because no one could be so bold in his
claim that he is the one sought, that he
could cause thousands who seek him to fall
to the ground.
But the story tells us they all fell to the
ground. Then when they regained their
composure they asked the same question.
“Jesus answered, | have told you that | am
He: if therefore ye seek me, let these go
their way.” (John 18:8).
“Then said Jesus unto him, that thou doest,
do quickly.” (John 13:27).
Judas, who has to do it quickly, goes out
and commits suicide.
Now to the drama. You are in your garden
of Gethsemane or prepared mind if you
can, while you are in a state akin to sleep,
control your attention and not let it wander
away from its purpose. If you can do that
you are definitely in the garden.
Very few people can sit quietly and not
enter a reverie or a state of uncontrolled
thinking.
When you can restrict the mental action
and remain faithful to your watch, not
permitting your attention to wander all over
the place but hold it without effort within a
limited field of presentation to the state you
are contemplating, then you are definitely
this disciplined presence in the garden of
Gethsemane.
The suicide of Judas is nothing more than
changing your concept of yourself. When
you know what you want to be you have
found your Jesus or savior. When you
assume that you are what you want to be
you have died to your former concept of
self (Judas committed suicide) and are not
living as Jesus. You can become at will
detached from the world round about you
and attached to that which you want to
embody within your world.
Now that you have found me, now that you
have found that which would save you from
what you are, let go of that which you are
and all that it represents in the world.
Become completely detached from it. In
other words, go out and commit suicide.
You completely die to what you formerly
expressed in this world, and you now
completely live to that which no one saw as
true of you before. You are as though you
had died by your own hand, as though you
had committed suicide. You took your own
life by becoming detached in
consciousness from what you formerly kept
alive, and you begin to live to that which
you have discovered in your garden. You
have found your savior.
It is not men falling, not a man betraying
another, but you detaching your attention,
and refocusing your attention in an entirely
new direction. From this moment on you
walk as though you were that which you
formerly wanted to be. Remaining faithful to
your new concept of yourself you die or
commit suicide. No one took your life, you
laid it down yourself.
You must be able to see the relation of this
to the death of Moses, where he so
completely died that no one could find
where he was buried. You must see the
relationship of the death of Judas. He is not
a man who betrayed a man called Jesus.
The word Judas is praise; it is Judah, to
praise; to give thanks, to explode with joy.
You do not explode with joy unless you are
identified with the ideal you seek and want
to embody in this world. When you become
identified with the state you contemplate
you cannot suppress your joy. It rises like
the fragrant odor described as Jericho in
the Old Testament.
| am trying to show you that the ancients
told the same story in all the stories of the
Bible. All that they are trying to tell us is how
to become that which we want to be. And
they imply in every story that we do not
need the assistance of another. You do not
need another to become now what you
really want to be.
Now we turn to a strange story in the Old
Testament; one that very few priests and
rabbis will be bold enough to mention from
their pulpits. Here is one who is going to
receive the promise as you now receive it.
His name is Jesus, only the ancients called
him Joshua. Jehoshua Ben Nun, or savior,
son of the fish, the Savior of the great deep.
Nun means fish, and fish is the element of
the deep, the profound ocean. Jehoshua
means Jehovah saves, and Ben means the
offspring or son of. So, he was called the
one who brought the fish age.
This story is in the 6" book of the Bible, the
book of Joshua. A promise is made to
Joshua as it is made to Jesus in the
Anglicized form in the gospels of Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John.
In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “All
things whatsoever thou hast given me are
of thee.” (John 17:7). “And all mine are
thine, and thine are mine.” (John 17:10).
In the Old Testament in the book of Joshua
it is said in these words: “Every place that
the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that
have | given unto you.” (Joshua 1:3).
It does not matter where it is; analyze the
promise and see if you can accept it
literally. It is not physically true, but it is
psychologically true. Wherever you can
stand in this world mentally that you can
realize.
Joshua is haunted by this promise that
wherever he can place his foot (the foot is
understanding), wherever the sole of his
foot shall tread, that will be given unto him.
He wants the most desirable state in the
world, the fragrant city, the delightful state
called Jericho.
He finds himself barred by the impassable
walls of Jericho. He is on the outside, as
you are now on the outside. You are
functioning three-dimensionally, and you
cannot seem to reach the fourth-
dimensional world where your present
desire is already a concrete objective
reality. You cannot seem to reach it
because your senses bar you from it.
Reason tells you it is impossible; all things
round about you tell you it is not true.
Now you employ the services of a harlot
and a spy, and her name is Rahab. The
word Rahab simply means the spirit of the
father. RAH means the breath or spirit, and
AB the father. Hence, we find that this
harlot is the spirit of the father and the
father is man's awareness of being aware,
man's | Amness, man's consciousness.
Your capacity to feel is the great spirit of the
father, and that capacity is Rahab in this
story. She has two professions that of a spy
and that of a harlot.
The profession of a spy is this: to travel
secretly, to travel so quietly that you may
not be detected. There is not a single
physical spy in this world who can travel so
quietly that he will be altogether unseen by
others. He may be very wise in concealing
his ways, and he may never be truly
apprehended, but at every moment of time
he runs the risk of being detected.
When you are sitting quietly with your
thoughts, there is no man in the world so
wise that he can look at you and tell you
where you are mentally dwelling.
| can stand here and place myself in
London. Knowing London quite well, | can
close my eyes and assume that | am
actually standing in London. If | remain
within this state long enough, | will be able
to surround myself with the environment of
London as though it were a solid concrete
objective fact.
Physically | am still here, but mentally | am
thousands of miles away and | have made
elsewhere here. | do not go there as a spy,
| mentally make elsewhere here, and then
now. You cannot see me dwelling there, so
you think | have just gone to sleep and that
I am still here in this world, this three-
dimensional world that is now San
Francisco. As far as | am physically
concerned, | am here but no one can tell
me where | am when | enter the moment of
meditation.
Rahab's next profession was that of a
harlot, which is to grant unto men what they
ask of her without asking man's right to ask.
If she be an absolute harlot, as her name
implies, then she possesses all and can
grant all that man asks of her. She is there
to serve, and not to question man's right to
seek what he seeks of her.
You have within you the capacity to
appropriate a state without knowing the
means that will be employed to realize that
end and you assume the feeling of the wish
fulfilled without having any of the talents
that men claim you must possess in order
to do so. When you appropriate it in
consciousness you have employed the spy,
and because you can embody that state
within yourself by actually giving it to
yourself, you are the harlot, for the harlot
satisfies the man who seeks her.
You can satisfy self by appropriating the
feeling that you are what you want to be.
And this assumption though false, that is,
although reason and the senses deny it, if
persisted in will harden into fact. By actually
embodying that which you have assumed
you are, you have the capacity to become
completely satisfied. Unless it becomes a
tangible, concrete reality you will not be
satisfied; you will be frustrated.
You are told in this story that when Rahab
went into the city to conquer it, the
command given to her was to enter the
heart of the city, the heart of the matter, the
very center of it, and there remain until |
come. Do not go from house to house, do
not leave the upper room of the house into
which you enter. If you leave the house and
there be blood upon your head, it is upon
your head. But if you do not leave the
house and there be blood, it shall be upon
my head.
Rahab goes into the house, rises to the
upper floor, and there she remains while
the walls crumble. That is, we must keep a
high mood if we would walk with the
highest. In a very veiled manner, the story
tells you that when the walls crumbled, and
Joshua entered, the only one who was
saved in the city was the spy and the harlot
whose name was Rahab.
This story tells what you can do in this
world. You will never lose the capacity to
place yourself elsewhere and make it here.
You will never lose the ability to give unto
yourself what you are bold enough to
appropriate as true of self. It has nothing to
do with the woman who played that part.
The explanation of the crumbling of the
walls is simple. You are told that he blew
upon the trumpet seven times and at the
seventh blast the walls crumbled, and he
entered victoriously into the state that he
sought.
Seven is a stillness, a rest, the Sabbath. It
is the state when man is completely
unmoved in his conviction that the thing is.
When I can assume the feeling of my wish
fulfilled and go to sleep, unconcerned,
undisturbed, | am at rest mentally, and am
keeping the Sabbath or am blowing the
trumpet seven times. And when | reach that
point the walls crumble. Circumstances
alter then remold themselves in harmony
with my assumption. As they crumble |
resurrect that which | have appropriated
within. The walls, the obstacles, the
problems, crumble of their own weight if |
can reach the point of stillness within me.
The man who can fix within his own mind's
eye an idea, even though the world would
deny it, if he remains faithful to that idea he
will see it manifested. There is all the
difference in the world between holding the
idea and being held by the idea. Become
so dominated by an idea that it haunts the
mind as though you were it. Then,
regardless of what others may say, you are
walking in the direction of your fixed
attitude of mind. You are walking in the
direction of the idea that dominates the
mind.
As we told you last night, you have but one
gift that is truly yours to give, and that is
yourself. There is no other gift; you must
press it out of yourself by an appropriation.
It is there within you now for creation is
finished. There is nothing to be that is not
now. There is nothing to be created for all
things are already yours, they are finished.
Although man may not be able to stand
physically upon a state, he can always
stand mentally upon any desired state. By
standing mentally | mean that you can now,
this very moment, close your eyes and
visualize a place other than your present
one, and assume that you are actually
there. You can FEEL this to be so real that
upon opening your eyes you are amazed to
find that you are not physically there.
This mental journey into the desired state,
with its subsequent feeling of reality, is all
that is necessary to bring about its
fulfillment. Your dimensionally greater self
has ways that the lesser, or three-
dimensional you, know not of.
Furthermore, to the greater you, all means
are good which promote the fulfillment of
your assumption.
Remain in the mental state defined as your
objective until it has the feeling of reality,
and all the forces of heaven and earth will
rush to aid its embodiment. Your greater
self will influence the actions and words of
all who can be used to aid the production
of your fixed mental attitude.
Now we turn to the book of Numbers and
here we find a strange story. | trust that
some of you have had this experience as
described in the book of Numbers. They
speak of the building of a tabernacle at the
command of God; that God commanded
Israel to build him a place of worship.
He gave them all the specifications of the
tabernacle. It had to be an elongated,
movable place of worship, and it had to be
covered with skin. Need you be told
anything more? Isn’t that man?
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”
(1 Cor 3:16).
There is no other temple. Not a temple
made with hands, but a temple eternal in
the heavens. This temple is elongated, and
it is covered with skin, and it moves across
the dessert.
“And on the day that the tabernacle was
reared up the cloud covered the
tabernacle, namely, the tent of the
testimony: and at even there was upon the
tabernacle as it were the appearance of
fire, until the morning. So it was always: the
cloud covered it by day, and the
appearance of fire by night.” (Num 9:15,
16).
The command given to Israel was to tarry
until the cloud ascended by day and the fire
by night. “Whether it was two days, or a
month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon
the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the
children of Israel abode in their tents, and
journeyed not: but when it was taken up,
they journeyed.” (Num 9:22).
You know that you are the tabernacle, but
you may wonder, what is the cloud. In
meditation many of you must have seen it.
In meditation, this cloud, like the sub-soil
waters of an artesian well, springs
spontaneously to your head and forms
itself into pulsating, golden rings. Then, like
a gentle river they flow from your head in a
stream of living rings of gold.
In a meditative mood bordering on sleep
the cloud ascends. It is in this drowsy state
that you should assume that you are that
which you desire to be, and that you have
that which you seek, for the cloud will
assume the form of your assumption and
fashion a world in harmony with itself. The
cloud is simply the garment of your
consciousness, and where your
consciousness placed, there you will be in
the flesh also.
This golden cloud comes in meditation.
There is a certain point when you are
approaching sleep that it is very, very thick,
very liquid, and very much alive and
pulsing. It begins to ascend as you reach
the drowsy, meditative state, bordering on
sleep. You do not strike the tabernacle;
neither do you move it until the cloud
begins to ascend.
The cloud always ascends when man
approaches the drowsiness of sleep. For
when a man goes to sleep, whether he
knows it or not, he slips from a three-
dimensional world into a fourth-
dimensional world and that which is
ascending is the consciousness of that
man in a greater focus; it is a fourth-
dimensional focus.
What you now see ascending is your
greater self. When that begins to ascend
you enter into the actual state of feeling you
are what you want to be. That is the time
you lull yourself into the mood of being
what you want to be, by either experiencing
in imagination what you would experience
in reality were you already that which you
want to be, or by repeating over and over
again the phrase that implies you have
already done what you want to do. A phrase
such as, “Isn't it wonderful, isn't it
wonderful,” as though some wonderful
thing had happened to you.
“In a dream, in a vision of the night, when
deep sleep ffalleth upon men, in
slumberings upon the bed. Then he
openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their
instruction.” (Job 33:15, 16).
Use wisely the interval preceding sleep.
Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and
go to sleep in this mood. At night, in a
dimensionally larger world, when deep
sleep falleth upon men, they see and play
the parts that they will later play on earth.
And the drama is always in harmony with
that which their dimensionally greater
selves read and play through them. Our
illusion of free will is but ignorance of the
causes which make us act.
The sensation which dominates the mind of
man as he falls asleep, though false, will
harden into fact. Assuming the feeling of
the wish fulfilled as we fall asleep, is the
command to this embodying process
saying to our mood, “Be thou actual.” In this
way we become through a natural process
what we desire to be.
| can tell you dozens of personal
experiences where it seemed impossible to
go elsewhere, but by placing myself
elsewhere mentally as | was about to go to
sleep, circumstances changed quickly
which compelled me to make the journey. |
have done it across water by placing myself
at night on my bed as though | slept where
| wanted to be. As the days unfolded things
began to mold themselves in harmony with
that assumption and all things that must
happen to compel my journey did happen.
And |, in spite of myself, must make ready
to go toward that place which | assumed |
was in when | approached the deep of
sleep.
As my cloud ascends | assume that | am
now the man | want to be, or that | am
already in the place where | want to visit. |
sleep in that place now. Then life strikes the
tabernacle, strikes my environment and
reassembles my environment across seas
or over land and reassembles it in the
likeness of my assumption. It has nothing
to do with men walking across a physical
desert. The whole vast world round about
you is a desert.
From the cradle to the grave you and | walk
as though we walk the desert. But we have
a living tabernacle wherein God dwells, and
it is covered with a cloud which can and
does ascend when we got to sleep or are
in a state akin to sleep. Not necessarily in
two days, it can ascend in two minutes.
Why did they give you two days? If | now
become the man | want to be, | may
become dissatisfied tomorrow. | should at
least give it a day before | decide to move
on.
The Bible says in two days, a month, or a
year; whenever you decide to move on with
this tabernacle let the cloud ascend. As it
ascends you start moving where the cloud
is. The cloud is simply the garment of your
consciousness, your assumption. Where
the consciousness is placed you do not
have to take the physical body; it gravitates
there in spite of you. Things happen to
compel you to move in the direction where
you are consciously dwelling.
“In my Father's house are many mansions:
if it were not so, | would have told you. | go
to prepare a place for you. And if | go and
prepare a place for you, | will come again,
and receive you unto myself; that where |
am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2, 3).
The many mansions are the unnumbered
states within your mind, for you are the
house of God. In my Father's house are
unnumbered concepts of self. You could
not in eternity exhaust what you are
capable of being.
If | sit quietly here and assume that | am
elsewhere, | have gone and prepared a
place. But if | open my eyes, the bi-location
which | created vanishes and | am back
here in the physical form that | left behind
me as | went to prepare a place. But |
prepared the place nevertheless and will in
time dwell there physically.
You do not have to concern yourself with
the ways and the means that will be
employed to move you across space into
that place where you have gone and
mentally prepared it. Simply sit quietly, no
matter where you are, and mentally
actualize it.
But | give you warning, do not treat it lightly,
for | am conscious of what it will do to
people who treat it lightly. | treated it lightly
once because | just wanted to get away,
based only upon the temperature of the
day. It was in the deep of winter in New
York, and | so desired to be in the warm
climate of the Indies, that | slept that night
as though | slept under palm trees. Next
morning when | awoke it was still very
much winter.
| had no intentions of going to the Indies
that year, but distressing news came which
compelled me to make the journey. It was
in the midst of war when ships were being
sunk right and left, but | sailed out of New
York ona ship 48 hours after | received this
news. It was the only way | could get to
Barbados, and | arrived just in time to see
my mother and say a three-dimensional
“goodbye” to her.
In spite of the fact that | had no intentions
of going, the deeper self watched where
the great cloud ascended. | placed it in
Barbados and this tabernacle (my body)
had to go and make the journey to fulfill the
command, “Wherever the sole of your foot
shall tread that have | given unto you.”
Wherever the cloud descends in the desert,
there you reassemble that tabernacle.
| sailed from New York at midnight on a ship
without taking thought of submarines or
anything else. | had to go. Things
happened in a way that | could not have
devised.
| warn you, do not treat it lightly. Do not say,
“| will experiment and put myself in
Labrador, just to see if it will work.” You will
go to your Labrador and then you will
wonder why you ever came to this class. It
will work if you dare assume the feeling of
your wish fulfilled as you go to sleep.
Control your moods as you go to sleep. |
cannot find any better way to describe this
technique than to call it a “controlled
waking dream.” In a dream you lose control
but try preceding your sleep with a
complete controlled waking dream,
entering into it as you do in a dream, for in
a dream you are always very dominant, you
always play the part. You are always an
actor in a dream, and never the audience.
When you have a controlled waking dream
you are an actor and you enter into the act
of the controlled dream. But do not do it
lightly, for you must then reenact it
physically in a three-dimensional world.
Now before we go into our moment of
silence there is something | must make
very clear, and that is this effort we
discussed last night. If there is one reason
in this whole vast world why people fail it is
because they are unaware of a law known
to psychologists today as the law of reverse
effort.
When you assume the feeling of your wish
fulfilled it is with a minimum of effort. You
must control the direction of the
movements of your attention. But you must
do it with the least effort. If there is effort in
the control, and you are compelling it in a
certain way you are not going to get the
results. You will get the opposite results,
whatever they might be.
That is why we insist on establishing the
basis of the Bible as Adam slept. That is the
first creative act, and there is no record
where he was ever awakened from this
profound sleep. While he sleeps creation
stops.
You change your future best when you are
in control of your thoughts while in a state
akin to sleep, for then effort is reduced to
its minimum. Your attention seems to
completely relax, and then you must
practice holding your attention within that
feeling, without using force, and without
using effort.
Do not think for a moment that it is will
power that does it. When you release
Barabbas and become identified with
Jesus, you do not will yourself to be it, you
imagine that you are it. That is all you do.
Now as we come to the vital part of the
evening, the interval devoted to prayer, let
me again clarify this technique. Know what
you want. Then construct a single event, an
event which implies fulfillment of your wish.
Restrict the event to a single act.
For instance, if | single out as an event,
shaking a man's hand, then that is the only
thing | do. | do not shake it, then light a
cigarette and do a thousand other things. |
simply imagine that | am actually shaking
hands and keep the act going over and
over and over again until the imaginary act
has all the feeling of reality.
The event must always imply fulfillment of
the wish. Always construct an event which
you believe you would naturally encounter
following the fulfillment of your desire. You
are the judge of what event you really want
to realize.
There is another technique | gave you last
night. If you cannot concentrate on an act,
if you cannot snuggle into your chair and
believe the chair is elsewhere, just as
though elsewhere were here, then do this:
Reduce the idea, condense it to a single,
simple phrase like, “Isn't it wonderful,” or,
“Thank you,” or, “It's done,” or, “It's
finished.”
There should not be more than three
words. Something that implies the desire is
already realized. “Isn't it wonderful,” or
“Thank you,” certainly imply that. These are
not all the phrases you could use. Make up
out of your own vocabulary the phrase
which best suits you. But make it very, very
short and always use a phrase that implies
fulfillment of the idea.
When you have your phrase in mind, lift the
cloud. Let the cloud ascend by simply
inducing the state that borders on sleep.
Simply begin to imagine and feel you are
sleepy, and in this state assume the feeling
of the wish fulfilled. Then repeat the phrase
over and over like a lullaby. Whatever the
phrase is, let it imply that the assumption is
true, that it is concrete, that it is already a
fact and you know it.
Just relax and enter into the feeling of
actually being what you want to be. As you
do it you are entering Jericho with your spy
who has the power to give it. You are
releasing Barabbas and sentencing Jesus
to be crucified and resurrected. All these
stories you are reenacting if now you begin
to let go and enter into the feeling of
actually being what you want to be. Now we
can go.
SILENCE PERIOD.
If your hands are dry, and if your mouth is
dry at the end of this meditation, that is
positive proof that you did succeed in lifting
the cloud. What you were doing when the
cloud was lifted is entirely your business.
But you did lift the cloud if your hands are
dry.
| will give you another phenomena that is
very strange and one | cannot analyze. It
happens if you really go into the deep. You
will find on waking that you have the most
active pair of kidneys in the world. | have
discussed it with doctors and they cannot
explain it.
Another thing you may observe in
meditation is a lovely liquid blue light. The
nearest thing on earth to which | can
compare it is burning alcohol. You know
when you put alcohol on the plum pudding
at Christmas time and set it aflame, the
lovely liquid blue flame that envelops the
pudding until you blow it out. That flame is
the nearest thing to the blue light which
comes on the forehead of a man in
meditation.
Do not be distressed. You will know it when
you see it. It is like two shades of blue, a
darker and a lighter blue in constant
motion, just like burning alcohol, which is
unlike the constant flame of a gas jet. This
flame is alive, just as spirit would be alive.
Another thing that may come to you as it
did to me. You will see spots before your
eyes. They are not liver spots as some
people will tell you who know nothing about
it. These are little things that float in space
like a mesh, little circles all tied together.
They start with a single cell and come in
groups in different geometrical patterns,
like worms, like trailers, and they float all
over your face. When you close your eyes
you still see them, proving that they are not
from without, they are from within.
When you begin to expand in
consciousness all these things come. They
may be your blood stream objectified by
some strange trick of man that man does
not quite understand. | am not denying that
it is your blood steam made visible, but do
not be distressed by thinking it is liver spots
or some other silly thing that people will tell
you.
If these various phenomena come to you,
do not think you are doing something
wrong. It is the normal, natural expansion
that comes to all men who take themselves
in tow and try to develop the garden of
Gethsemane.
The minute you begin to discipline your
mind by observing your thoughts and
watching your thoughts throughout the day,
you become the policeman of your
thoughts. Refuse to enter into
conversations that are unlovely, refuse to
listen attentively to anything that tears you
down.
Begin to build within your own mind's eye
the vision of the perfect virgin rather than
the vision of the foolish virgin. Listen only
to the things that bring joy when you hear
them. Do not give a willing ear to that which
is unlovely, which when you heard it you
wish you had not. That is listening and
seeing things without oil in your lamp, or joy
in your mind.
There are two kinds of virgins in the Bible:
five foolish and five wise virgins. The
minute you become the wise virgin, or try
to make an attempt to do it, you will find all
these things happen. You will see these
things, and they interest you so that you
have not time to develop the foolish sight,
as many people do. | hope that no one here
does. Because no one should be identified
with this great work who can still find great
joy in a discussion of another that is
unlovely.
Lesson 3: Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally
There are two actual outlooks on the world
possessed by every man, and the ancient
storytellers were fully conscious of these
two outlooks. They called one “the carnal
mind,” and the other “the mind of Christ.”
We recognize these two centers of thought
in the statement: “The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor 2:14).
To the natural mind, reality is confined to
the instant called now; this very moment
seems to contain the whole of reality,
everything else is unreal. The natural mind,
the past and the future are purely
imaginary. In other words, my past, when |
use the natural mind, is only a memory
image of things that were. And to the limited
focus of the carnal or natural mind the
future does not exist. The natural mind
does not believe that it could revisit the past
and see it as something that is present,
something that is objective and concrete to
itself, neither does it believe that the future
exists.
To the Christ mind, the spiritual mind, which
in our language we will call the fourth-
dimensional focus, the past, the present,
and the future of the natural mind are a
present whole. It takes in the entire array of
sensory impressions that man has
encountered, is encountering and will
encounter.
The only reason you and | are functioning
as we are today, and are not aware of the
greater outlook, is simply because we are
creatures of habit, and habit renders us
totally blind to what otherwise we should
see; but habit is not law. It acts as though it
were the most compelling force in the
world, yet it is not law.
We can create a new approach to life. If you
and | would spend a few minutes every day
in withdrawing our attention from the region
of sensation and concentrating it on an
invisible state and remain faithful to this
contemplation, feeling and sensing the
reality of an invisible state, we would in time
become aware of this greater world, this
dimensionally larger world. The state
contemplated is now a concrete reality,
displaced in time.
Tonight, as we turn to our Bible you be the
judge as to where you stand in your present
unfoldment.
Our first story for tonight is from the 5"
chapter of the Gospel of Mark. In this
chapter there are three stories told as
though they were separate experiences of
the dominant characters.
In the first story we are told that Jesus
came upon an insane man, a naked man
who lived in the cemetery and hid himself
behind the tombs. This man appealed to
Jesus not to cast out the devils that
bedeviled him.
But Jesus said unto him, “Come out of the
man, thou unclean spirit.” (Mark 5:8).
Thus, Jesus cast out the devils that they
may now destroy themselves, and we find
this man, for the first time, clothed and in
his right mind and seated at the feet of the
Master. We will get the psychological sense
of this chapter by changing the name Jesus
to that of enlightened reason or fourth-
dimensional thinking.
As we progress in this chapter, we are told
that Jesus now comes upon the High Priest
whose name is Jairus, and Jairus the High
Priest of the Synagogue has a child who is
dying. She is 12 years old, and he appeals
to Jesus to come and heal the child.
Jesus consents, and as he starts toward
the home of the High Priest a woman in the
marketplace touched his garment. “And
Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that
virtue had gone out of him, turned about in
the press and said, who touched my
clothes?” (Mark 5:30).
The woman who was healed of an issue of
blood that she had had for 12 years
confessed that she had touched him. “And
he said unto her, Daughter, Thy faith hath
made thee whole; go in peace.” (Mark
5:34).
As he continues toward the home of the
High Priest he is told that the chld is dead
and there is no need to go to resurrect her.
She is no longer asleep, but is now dead.
“AS soon as Jesus heard the word that was
spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the
synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.”
(Mark 5:36).
“And when he was come in, he saith unto
them. Why make ye this ado, and weep?
The damsel is not dead, but sleepth.” (Mark
5:39).
With this the entire crowd mocked and
laughed, but Jesus, closing the doors
against the mocking crowd, took with him
into the household of Jairus, his disciples
and the father and mother of the dead child.
They entered into the room where the
damsel was lying. “And he took the damsel
by the hand, and said unto her, Damsel, |
say unto thee, arise.” (Mark 5:41).
“From this deep sleep she awoke and
arose and walked, and the High Priest and
all the others were astonished. And he
changed them straightly that no man
should know it; and he commanded that
something should be given her to eat.”
(Mark 5:43).
You are this very night, as you are seated
here, pictured in this 5" chapter of Mark. A
cemetery is for one purpose: it is simply a
record of the dead. Are you living in the
dead past?
If you are living among the dead, your
prejudices, your superstitions, and your
false beliefs that you keep alive are the
tombstones behind which you hide. If you
refuse to let them go you are just as mad
as the mad man of the Bible who pleaded
with enlightened reason not to cast them
out. There is no difference. But enlightened
reason is incapable of protecting prejudice
and superstition against the inroads of
reason.
There is not a man in this world who has a
prejudice, regardless of the nature of the
prejudice, who can hold it up to the light of
reason. Tell me you are against a certain
nation, a certain race, a certain “ism,” a
certain anything — | do not care what it is —
you cannot expose that belief of yours to
the light of reason and have it live. In order
that it may be kept alive in your world you
must hide it from reason. You cannot
analyze it in the light of reason and have it
live. When this fourth-dimensional focus
comes and shows you a new approach to
life and casts out of your own mind all these
things that bedeviled you, you are then
cleansed and clothed in your right mind.
And you sit at the foot of understanding,
called the feet of the Master.
Now clothed and in your right mind you can
resurrect the dead. What dead? The child
in the story is not a child. The child is your
ambition, your desire, the unfulfilled
dreams of your heart. This is the child
housed within the mind of man. For as |
have stated before, the entire drama of the
Bible is a psychological one. The Bible has
no reference at all to any person who ever
existed, or any event that ever occurred
upon earth. All the stories of the Bible
unfold in the minds of the individual man.
In this story Jesus is the awakened intellect
of man. When your mind functions outside
of the range of your present senses, when
your mind is healed of all the former
limitations, then you are no longer the
insane man; but you are this presence
personified as Jesus, the power that can
resurrect the longings of the heart of man.
You are now the woman with the issue of
blood. What is this issue of blood? A
running womb is not a productive womb.
She held it for 12 years, she was incapable
of conceiving. She could not give form to
her longing because of the running of the
issue of blood. You are told her faith closed
it. As the womb closes it can give form to
the seed or idea.
As your mind is cleansed of your former
concept of self, you assume you are what
you want to be, and remaining faithful to
this assumption, you give form to your
assumption or resurrect your child. You are
the woman cleansed of the issue of blood,
and you move towards the house of the
dead child.
The child or state you desired is now your
fixed concept of yourself. But now having
assumed that | am what formerly | desired
to be, | cannot continue desiring what | am
conscious of being. So | do not discuss it. |
talk to no one concerning what | am. It is so
obvious to me that | am what | wanted to be
that | walk as though | were.
Walking as though | am what | formerly
wanted to be, my world of limited focus
does not see it and thinks | no longer desire
it. The child is dead within their world; but I,
who know the law, say, “The child is not
dead.” The damsel is not dead, she but
sleepeth. | now awaken her, | by my
assumption, awaken and make visible in
my world what | assume, for assumptions if
sustained invariably awaken what they
affirm.
| close the door. What door? The door of
my senses. | simply shut out completely all
that my senses reveal. | deny the evidence
of my senses. | suspend the limited reason
of the natural man and walk in this bold
assertion that | am what my senses deny.
With the door of my senses closed, what do
| take into that disciplined state? | take no
one into that state but the parents of the
child and my disciples. | close the door
against the mocking, laughing crowd. | no
longer look for confirmation. | completely
deny the evidence of my senses, which
mock my assumption and do not discuss
with others whether my assumption is
possible or not.
Who are the parents? We have discovered
that the father-mother of all creation is
man's | Amness. Man's consciousness is
God. | am conscious of the state. | am the
father-mother of all my ideas and my mind
remains faithful to this new concept of self.
My mind is disciplined. | take into that state
the disciples, and | shut out of that state
everything that would deny it.
Now the child, unaided by man, is
resurrected. The condition which | desired
and assumed | had, becomes objectified
within my world and bears witness to the
power of my assumption.
You be the judge, | cannot judge you. You
are either living now in the dead past, or
you are living as the woman whose issue
of blood has been staunched. Could you
actually answer me if | asked you the
question: “Do you believe now that you,
without the assistance of another, need
only assume that you are what you want to
be, to make that assumption real within
your world? Or do you believe that you
must first fulfill a certain condition imposed
upon you by the past, that you must be of
a certain order, a certain something?”
| am not being critical of certain churches
or groups, but there are those who believe
that anyone outside of their church or group
is not yet saved. | was born a Protestant.
You talk to a Protestant, there is only one
Christian, a Protestant. You talk to a
Catholic, why there is nothing in the world
that is a Christian but a Catholic. You talk
to a Jew, and the Christians are heathens,
and the Jews are the chosen. You talk to a
Mohammedan, Jews and Christians are
the infidels. You talk to someone else and
all these are the untouchables. It does not
matter to whom you talk, they are always
the chosen ones.
If you believe that you must be one of these
in order to be saved, you are still an insane
man hiding behind these superstitions and
these prejudices of the past, and you are
begging not to be cleansed.
Some of you say to me, “Do not ask me to
give up my belief in Jesus the man, or in
Moses the man, or in Peter the man. When
you ask me to give up my belief in these
characters you are asking too much. Leave
me these beliefs because they comfort me.
| can believe that they lived upon earth and
still follow your psychological interpretation
of their stories.”
| say, come out of the dead past. Come out
of that cemetery and walk, knowing that
you and your Father are one, and your
Father, who men call God, is your own
consciousness. That is the only creative
law in the world.
Of what are you conscious of being?
Although you cannot see your objective
with the limited focus of your three-
dimensional mind, you are now that which
you have assumed you are. Walk in the
assumption and remain faithful to it.
Time in this dimension of your being, beats
slowly and you may not, even after you
objectify your assumption, remember there
was a time when this present reality was
but an attitude of mind. Because of the
slowness of the beat of time here you often
fail to see the relationship between your
inner nature and the outer world that bears
witness to it.
You be the judge of the position you now
occupy in this 5* chapter of Mark. Are you
resurrecting the dead child? Are you still in
need of having that womb of your mind
closed? Is it still running and therefore
cannot be fertile? Are you now the insane
man living in the dead past? Only you can
be the judge and answer these questions.
Now we turn to a story in the 5" chapter of
the Gospel of John. This will show you how
beautifully the ancient storytellers told of
the two distinct outlooks on this world —
one, the limited three-dimensional focus,
and the other, the fourth-dimensional
focus.
This story tells of an impotent man who is
quickly healed. Jesus comes to a place
called Bethesda, which by definition means
the House of Five Porches. On these Five
Porches are unnumbered impotent folk —
lame, blind, halt, withered, and others.
Tradition had it that at certain seasons of
the year an angel would descend and
disturb the pool which was near these Five
Porches. As the Angel disturbed the pool,
the first one in was always healed. But only
the first one, not the second.
Jesus, seeing a man who was lame from
his mother's womb, said to him, “Wilt thou
be made whole?” (John 5:6).
“The impotent man answered him, Sir, |
have no man, when the water is troubled,
to put me into the pool — but while | am
coming, another steppeth down before
me.” (John 5:7).
“Jesus saith unto him. Rise, take up thy
bed, and walk.” (John 5:8).
“And immediately the man was made
whole, and took up his bed, and walked,
and on the same day was the Sabbath.”
(John 5:9).
You read this story and you think some
strange man who possessed miraculous
power suddenly said to the lame man,
“Rise and walk.” | cannot repeat too often
that the story, even when it introduces
numberless individualities, takes place
within the mind of the individual man.
The pool is your consciousness. The angel
is an idea, called the messenger of God.
Consciousness being God, when you have
an idea you are entertaining an angel. The
minute you are conscious of a desire your
pool has been disturbed. Desire disturbs
the mind of man. To want something is to
be disturbed.
The very moment you have an ambition, or
a clearly defined objective, the pool has
been disturbed by the angel, which was the
desire. You are told that the first one into
the disturbed pool is always healed.
My closest companions in this world, my
wife and my little girl, are to me when |
address them, second. | must speak to my
wife as, “you are.” | must speak to anyone,
no matter how close they are, as “you are.”
And after that the third person, “he is.”
There is only one person in this world with
whom | can use the first person present
and that is self. “I am,” can be said only of
myself, it cannot be said of another.
Therefore, when | am conscious of some
desire that | want to be, but seemingly am
not, the pool being disturbed, who can get
into that pool before me? | alone possess
the power of the first person. | am that
which | want to be. Except | believe | am
what | want to be, | remain as | formerly was
and die in that limitation.
In this story you need no man to put you
into the pool as your consciousness is
disturbed by desire. All you need do is to
assume you are already that which
formerly you wanted to be and you are in it,
and no man can get in before you. What
man can get in before you when you
become conscious of being that which you
want to be? No one can be before you
when you alone possess the power to say
| AM.
These are the two outlooks. You are now
what your senses would deny. Are you bold
enough to assume that you are already that
which you want to be? If you dare assume
you are already that which your reason and
your senses now deny, then you are in the
pool and, unaided by a man, you, too, will
rise and take your couch and walk.
You are told it happened on the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is only the mystical sense of
stillness, when you are unconcerned, when
you are not anxious, when you are not
looking for results, knowing that signs
follow and do not precede.
The Sabbath is the day of stillness wherein
there is no working. When you are not
working to make it so you are in the
Sabbath. When you are not at all
concerned about the opinion of others,
when you walk as though you were, you
cannot raise one finger to make it so, you
are in the Sabbath. | cannot be concerned
as to how it will be, and still say | am
conscious of being it. If | am conscious of
being free, secure, healthy, and happy, |
sustain these states of consciousness
without effort or labor on my part.
Therefore, | am in the Sabbath; and
because it was the Sabbath he rose and
walked.
Our next story is from the 4" chapter of the
Gospel of John, and it is one you have
heard time and time again. Jesus comes to
the well and there is a woman called the
woman of Samaria, and he said to her,
“Give me to drink.” (John 4:7).
“Then saith the woman of Samaria unto
him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh
drink of me, which am a woman of
Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans.” (John 4:9).
“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou
knewest the gift of God, and who it is that
saith to thee, Give me a drink; thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would
have given thee living water.” (John 4:10).
The woman seeing that he has nothing with
which to draw the water, and knowing the
well is deep, says: Art thou greater than our
father Jacob, which gave us the well, and
drank thereof himself, and his children, and
his cattle?” (John 4:12).
“Jesus answered and said unto her,
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall
thirst again — but whosoever drinketh of the
water that | shall give him shall never thirst;
but the water that | shall give him shall be
in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life.” (John 4:13, 14).
Then he tells her all concerning herself and
asks her to go and call her husband. She
answered and said, “| have no husband.”
(John 4:17).
“Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, |
have no husband: For thou hast had five
husbands; and he whom thou now hast is
not thy husband.” (John 4:17, 18).
The woman, knowing this to be true, goes
into the market place and tells the other, “l
have met the Messiah.”
They ask her, “How do you know you have
met the Messiah?”
“Because he told me all things that | have
ever done.” she replies. Here is a focus that
takes in the entire past at least, and tells
her now concerning the future.
Continuing with the story, the disciples
come to Jesus and say, “Master, eat.”
(John 4:31).
“But he said unto them, | have meat to eat
that ye know not of.” (John 4:32).
When they speak of a harvest in four
months, Jesus replies, “Say not ye, there
are yet four months, and then cometh
harvest? Behold, | say unto you, lift up your
eyes, and look on the fields; for they are
white already in harvest.” (John 4:35).
He sees things that people wait four
months for, or wait four years for; he sees
them as in a dimensionally larger world,
existing now, taking place now.
Let us go back to the first part of the story.
The woman of Samaria is the three-
dimensional you, and Jesus at the well is
the fourth-dimensional you. The argument
starts between what you want to be, and
what reason tells you that you are. The
greater you, tells you that if you would dare
assume you are already what you want to
be, you would become it.
The lesser you, with its limited focus, tells
you, “Why you haven't a bucket, you
haven't a rope and the well is deep. How
could you ever reach the depth of this state
without the means to that end?”
You answer and say, “If you only knew who
asks of you to drink you would ask of him.”
If you only knew what in yourself is urging
upon the embodiment of the state you now
seek, you would suspend your little sight
and let him do it for you.
Then he tells you that you have five
husbands, and you deny it. But he knows
far better than you that your five senses
impregnate you morning, noon, and night
with their limitations. They tell you what
children you will bear tonight, tomorrow,
and the days to come. For your five senses
act like five husbands who constantly
impregnate your consciousness, which is
the great womb of God; and morning, noon,
and night they suggest to you, and dictate
to you that which you must accept as true.
He tells you the one you would like to have
for your husband is not your husband. In
other words, the sixth has not yet
impregnated you. What you would like to
be is denied by these five, and they hold
the power, they dictate what you will accept
as true. What you would like to accept has
not yet penetrated your mind and
impregnated your mind with its reality. He
whom you call husband is really not your
husband. You are not bearing his likeness.
To bear his likeness is proof that you are
his wife, at least you have known him
intimately. You are not bearing the likeness
of the sixth; you are only bearing the
likeness of the five.
Then one turns to me and tells me all that |
have ever known. | go back in my mind's
eye and reason tells me that all through my
life | have always accepted the limitations
of my senses, | have always looked upon
them as fact; and morning, noon, and night
| have born witness to this acceptance.
Reason tells me | have only known these
five from the time | was born. Now | would
like to step outside the limitation of my
senses but | have not yet found within
myself the courage to assume | am what
these five would deny that | am. So here |
remain, conscious of my task, but without
the courage to step beyond the limitations
of my senses, and that which my reason
denies.
He tells these, “I have meat ye know not of.
| am the bread that droppeth down from
heaven. | am the wine.” | know what | want
to be, and because | am that bread | feast
upon it. | assume that | am, and instead of
feasting upon the fact that | am in this room
talking to you and you are listening to me,
and that | am in Los Angeles, | feast upon
the fact that | am elsewhere and | walk here
as though | am elsewhere. And gradually |
become what | feast upon.
Let me give you two personal stories.
When | was a boy | lived in a very limited
environment, in a little island called
Barbados. Feed for animals was very, very
scarce and very expensive because we
had to import it. | am one of a family of 10
children and my grandmother lived with us
making 13 at the table.
Time and again | can remember my mother
saying to the cook in the early part of the
week, “I want you to put away three ducks
for Sunday's dinner.” This meant that she
would take from the flock in the yard three
ducks and coop them up in a very small
cage and feed them, stuff them morning,
noon, and night with corn and all the things
she wanted the ducks to feast upon.
This was an entirely different diet from what
we regularly fed the ducks, because we
kept those birds alive by feeding them fish.
We kept them alive and fat on fish because
fish were very cheap and plentiful; but you
could not eat a bird that fed upon fish, not
as you and | like a bird.
The cook would take three ducks put them
in a cage and for seven days stuff them with
corn, sour milk and all the things we wanted
to taste in the birds. Then when they were
killed and served for dinner seven days
later they were luscious, milk fed, corn fed
birds.
But occasionally the cook forgot to put
away the birds, and my father, knowing we
were having ducks, and believing that she
had carried out the command, did not send
anything else for dinner, and three ducks
came to the table. You could not touch
those birds for they were so much the
embodiment of what they fed upon.
Man is a psychological being, a thinker. It is
not what he feeds upon physically, but what
he feeds upon mentally that he becomes.
We become the embodiment of that which
we mentally feed upon.
Now those ducks could not be fed corn in
the morning and fish in the afternoon and
something else at night. It had to be a
complete change of diet. In our case we
cannot have a little bit of meditation in the
morning, curse at noon, and do something
else in the evening. We have to go on a
mental diet, fora week we must completely
change our mental food.
“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are of good report; if
there be any virtue, and if there be any
praise, think on these things.” (Phil 4:8).
As aman thinketh in his heart so is he. If |
could now single out the kind of mental
food | want to express within my world and
feast upon it, | would become it.
Let me tell you why | am doing what | am
doing today. It was back in 1933 in the city
of New York, and my old friend Abdullah,
with whom | studied Hebrew for five years,
was really the beginning of the eating of all
my superstitions. When | went to him, | was
filled with superstitions. | could not eat
meat, | could not eat fish, | could not eat
chicken, | could not eat any of these things
that were living in the world. | did not drink,
| did not smoke, and | was making a
tremendous effort to live a celibate life.
Abdullah said to me, “I am not going to tell
you you are crazy Neville, but you are you
know. All these things are stupid.” But |
could not believe they were stupid.
In November 1933, | bade goodbye to my
parents in the city of New York as they
sailed for Barbados. | had been in this
country 12 years with no desire to see
Barbados. | was not successful, and | was
ashamed to go home to successful
members of my family. After 12 years in
America, | was a failure in my own eyes. |
was in the theater and made money one
year and spent it the next month. | was not
what | would call by their standards nor by
mine, a successful person.
Mind you when | said goodbye to my
parents in November, | had no desire to go
to Barbados. The ship pulled out, and as |
came up the street, something possessed
me with a desire to go to Barbados.
It was the year 1933, | was unemployed
and had no place to go except a little room
on 75" street. | went straight to my old
friend Abdullah and said to him, “Ab, the
strangest feeling is possessing me. For the
first time in 12 years | want to go to
Barbados.”
“If you want to go Neville, you have gone.”
he replied.
That was a very strange language to me. |
am in New York City on 72™ Street and he
tells me | have gone to Barbados. | said to
him, “What do you mean, | have gone,
Abduallah?”
He said, “Do you really want to go?”
| answered, “yes.”
He then said to me, “As you walk through
this door now you are not walking on 72"¢
Street, you are walking on palm lined
streets, coconut lined streets; this is
Barbados. Do not ask me how you are
going to go. You are in Barbados. You do
not say 'how' when you ‘are there.’ You are
there. Now you walk as though you were
there.
| went out of his place in a daze. | am in
Barbados. | have no money, | have no job,
| am not even well clothed, and yet | am in
Barbados.
He was not the kind of person with whom
you would argue, not Abdullah. Two weeks
later | was no nearer my goal than on the
day | first told him | wanted to go to
Barbados. | said to him, “Ab, | trust you
implicitly but here is one time | cannot see
how it is going to work. | have not one
penny towards my journey,” | began to
explain.
You know what he did? He was as black as
the ace of spades, my old friend Abdullah,
with his turbaned head. As | sat in his living
room he rose from his chair and went
towards his study and slammed the door,
which was not an invitation to follow him.
As he went through the door he said to me,
“| have said all that | have to say.”
On the 3 of December | stood before
Abdullah and told him again | was no
nearer my trip. He repeated his statement,
“You are in Barbados.”
The very last ship sailing for Barbados that
would take me there for the reason |
wanted to go, which was to be there for
Christmas, sailed at noon on December 6",
the old Nerissa.
On the morning of December 4", having no
job, having no place to go, | slept late.
When | got up there was an air mail letter
from Barbados under my door. As | opened
the letter a little piece of paper flickered to
the floor. | picked it up and it was a draft for
$50.00.
The letter was from my brother Victor and it
read, “I am not asking you to come, Neville,
this is a command. We have never had a
Christmas when all the members of our
family were present at the same time. This
Christmas it could be done if you would
come.”
My oldest brother Cecil left home before
the youngest was born and then we started
to move away from home at different times
so never in the history of our family were
we ever all together at the same time.
The letter continued, “You are not working,
| know there is no reason why you cannot
come, so you must be here before
Christmas. The enclosed $50.00 is to buy
a few shirts or a pair of shoes you may
need for the trip. You will not need tips; use
the bar if you are drinking. | will meet the
ship and pay all your tips and incurred
expenses. | have cabled Furness, Withy &
Co. in New York City and told them to issue
you a ticket when you appear at their office.
The $50.00 is simply to buy some little
essentials. You may sign as you want
aboard the ship. | will meet it and take care
of all obligations.
| went down to Furness, Withy and Co. with
my letter and let them read it. They said,
“We received the cable Mr Goddard, but
unfortunately we have not any space left on
the December 6" sailing. The only thing
available is 3 class between New York
and St Thomas. When we get to St Thomas
we have a few passengers who are getting
off. You may then ride 1% class from St
Thomas to Barbados. But between New
York and St Thomas you must go 3" class,
although you may have the privileges of the
15t class dining room and walk the decks of
the 1% class.
| said, “I will take it.”
| went back to my friend Abdullah on the
afternoon of December 4" and said, “It
worked like a dream.” | told him what | had
done, thinking he would be happy.
Do you know what he said to me? He said,
“Who told you that you are going 3" class?
Did | see you in Barbados, the man you
are, going 3 class? You are in Barbados
and you went there 1° class.”
| did not have one moment to see him again
before | sailed on the noon of December
6". When | reached the dock with my
passport and my papers to get aboard that
ship the agent said to me, “We have good
news for you, Mr Goddard. There has been
a cancellation and you are going 1% class.”
Abdullah taught me the importance of
remaining faithful to an idea and not
compromising. | wavered, but he remained
faithful to the assumption that | was in
Barbados and had traveled 1* class.
Now back to the significance of our two
Bible stories. The well is deep and you
have no bucket, you have no rope. It is four
months to the harvest and Jesus says, “I
have meat to eat ye know not of. | am the
bread of heaven.”
Feast on the idea, become identified with
the idea as though you were already that
embodied state. Walk in the assumption
that you are what you want to be. If you
feast on that and remain faithful to that
mental diet, you will crystallize it. You will
become it in this world.
When | came back to New York in 1934,
after three heavenly months in Barbados, |
drank, | smoked, and did everything | had
not done in years.
| remembered what Abdullah had said to
me, “After you have proven this law you will
become normal, Neville. You will come out
of that graveyard, you will come out of that
dead past where you think you are being
holy. For all you are really doing you know,
you are being so good, Neville, you are
good for nothing.”
| came back walking this earth a completely
transformed person. From that day, which
was in February 1934, | began to live more
and more. | cannot honestly tell you | have
always succeeded. My many mistakes in
this world, my many failures would convict
me if | told you that | have so completely
mastered the movements of my attention
that | can at all times remain faithful to the
idea | want to embody.
But | can say with the ancient teacher,
although | seem to have failed in the past, |
move on and strive day after day to
become that which | want to embody in this
world. Suspend judgment, refuse to accept
what reason and the senses now dictate,
and if you remain faithful to the new diet,
you will become the embodiment of the
ideal to which you remain faithful.
If there is one place in the world that is
unlike my little island of Barbados, it is New
York City. In Barbados the tallest building is
three stories, and the streets are lined with
palm trees and coconut trees and all sorts
of tropical things. In New York City you
must go to a park to find a tree.
Yet | had to walk the streets of New York as
though | walked the streets of Barbados. To
one's imagination all things are possible. |
walked, feeling that | was actually walking
in the streets of Barbados, and in that
assumption, | could almost smell the odor
of the coconut lined lanes. | began to create
within my mind's eye the atmosphere |
would physically encounter were | in
Barbados.
As | remained faithful to this assumption,
somebody canceled passage and |
received it. My brother in Barbados, who
never thought of my coming home, has the
commanding urge to write me a strange
letter. He had never dictated to me, but this
time he dictated, and thought that he
originated the idea of my visit.
I went home and had three heavenly
months, returned 1% class, and brought
back quite a sum of cash in my pocket, a
gift. My trip, had | paid for it, would have
been $3000, yet | did it without a nickel in
my pocket.
“| have ways ye know not of. My ways are
past finding out.” The dimensionally greater
self took my assumption as the command
and influenced the behavior of my brother
to write that letter, influenced the behavior
of someone to cancel that 1% class
passage, and did all the things necessary
that would tend toward the production of
the idea with which | was identified.
| was identified with the feeling of being
there. | slept as though | were there, and
the entire behavior of man was molded in
harmony with my assumption. | did not
need to go down to Furness, Withy & Co.
and beg them for passage, asking them to
cancel someone who was booked 1* class.
| did not need to write my brother and beg
him to send me some money or buy me a
passage. He thought he originated the act.
Actually, to this day, he believes that he
initiated the desire to bring me home.
My old friend Abdullah simply said to me,
“You are in Barbados, Neville. You want to
be there; where you want to be, there you
are. Live as though you are and that you
shall be.”
These are the two outlooks on the world
possessed by every man. | do not care who
you are. Every child born of woman,
regardless of race, nation, or creed,
possesses two distinct outlooks on the
world.
You are either the natural man who
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
because to you in the natural focus they are
foolishness unto you. Or you are the
spiritual man who perceiveth things outside
of the limitations of your senses because all
things are now realities in a dimensionally
larger world. There is no need to wait four
months to harvest.
You are either the woman of Samaria or
Jesus at the well. You are the man waiting
on the Five Porches for the disturbance
and someone to push him in; or you are the
one who can command yourself to rise and
walk in spite of others who wait.
Are you the man behind the tombstones in
the cemetery waiting and begging not to be
clean, because you do not want to be
cleansed of your prejudices? One of the
most difficult things for man to give up is his
superstitions, his prejudice. He holds on to
these as though they were the treasure of
treasures.
When you do become cleansed and you
are free, then the womb, your own mind is
automatically healed. It becomes the
prepared ground where seeds, your
desires, can take root and grow into
manifestation. The child you now bear in
your heart is your present objective. Your
present longing is a child that is as though
it were sick. If you assume you are not what
you would like to be, the child for a moment
becomes dead because there is no
disturbance anymore.
You cannot be disturbed when you feel you
are what you want to be because if you feel
you are what you wanted to be, you are
satisfied in that assumption. To others who
judge superficially you seem no longer to
desire, so to them the desire or damsel is
dead. They think you have lost your
ambition because you no longer discuss
your secret ambition. You have completely
adjusted yourself to the idea. You have
assumed that you are what you want to be.
You know, “She is not dead, she but
sleepeth.” “I go to awaken her.”
| walk in the assumption that | am, and as |
walk, | quietly awaken her. Then when she
awakens, | will do the normal, natural thing.
| will give her to eat. | will not brag about it
and tell others; | simply go and tell no man.
| feed this state | now like with my attention.
| keep it alive within my world by becoming
attentive to it.
Things that | am not attentive to fade and
wither within my world, regardless of what
they are. They are not just born and remain
unfed. | gave them birth by reason of the
fact that | became conscious of being them.
When | embody them within my world that
is not the end. That is the beginning. Now |
am a mother who must keep alive this state
by being attentive to it. The day that | am
not attentive, | have withdrawn my milk
from it, and it fades from my world, as |
become attentive to something else in my
world.
You can either be attentive to the limitations
and feed these and make them mountains,
or you can be attentive to your desires; but
to become attentive you must assume you
are already that which you wanted to be.
Although today we speak of a third-
dimensional and a fourth-dimensional
focus, do not think for one moment these
ancient teachers were not fully conscious
of these two distinct centers of thought
within the minds of all men. They
personified these two, and they tried to
show man that the only thing which robs
him of the man he could be, is habit.
Although it is no law, every psychologist will
tell you that habit is the most inhibiting force
in the world. It completely restricts man and
binds him and makes him totally blind to
what otherwise he should be.
Begin now to mentally see and feel yourself
as that which you want to be, and feast
upon that sensation morning, noon, and
night. | have scoured the Bible for a time
interval that is longer than three days and |
have not found it.
“Jesus answered and said unto them,
destroy this temple, and in three days | will
raise it up.” (John 2:19).
“Prepare your victuals; for within three days
ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to
possess the land, which the Lord your God
giveth you to possess it.” (Joshua 1:11).
If | could completely saturate my mind with
one sensation and walk as though it were
already a fact, | am promised (and | cannot
find any denial of it in this great book) that |
do not need more than a three-day diet if |
remain faithful to it. But | must be honest
about it. If | change my diet in the course of
the day, | extend the time interval.
You ask me, “But how do | know about the
interval?” You, yourself determine the
interval.
We have today in our modern world a little
word which confuses most of us. | know it
confused me until | dug deeper. The word
is “action.” Action is supposed to be the
most fundamental thing in the world. It is
not an atom, it is more fundamental. It is not
a part of an atom like an electron, it is more
fundamental than that. They call it the
fourth-dimensional unit. The most
fundamental thing in the world is action.
You ask, “What is action?” Our physicists
tell us that it is energy multiplied by time.
We become more confused and say,
“Energy multiplied by time, what does that
mean?” They answer, “There is no
response to a stimulus, no matter how
intense the stimulus, unless it endures for
a certain length of time.” There must be a
minimum endurance to the stimulus or
there is no response. On the other hand,
there is no response to time unless there is
a minimum degree of intensity. Today the
most fundamental thing in the world is
called action, or simply energy multiplied by
time.
The Bible gives it as three days; the
duration is three days for response in this
world. If | would now assume | am what |
want to be, and if | am faithful to it and walk
as though I were, the very longest stretch
given for its realization is three days.
If there is something tonight that you really
want in this world, then experience in
imagination what you would experience in
the flesh were you to realize your goal and
deafen your ears and blind your eyes to all
that denies the reality of your assumption.
If you do this, you would be able to tell me
before | leave this city of Los Angeles that
you have realized what was only a wish
when you came here. It will be my joy to
rejoice with you in the knowledge that the
child which was seemingly dead is now
alive. This damsel really was not dead, she
was only asleep. You fed her in this silence
because you have meat no one else knows
of. You gave her food and she became a
resurrected living reality within your world.
Then you can share your joy with me and |
can rejoice in your joy.
The purpose of these lessons is to remind
you of the law of your own being, the law of
consciousness; you are that law. You were
only unconscious of its operation. You fed
and kept alive the things you did not wish
to express within this world.
Take my challenge and put this philosophy
to the test. If it does not work you should
not use it as a comforter. If it is not true, you
must completely discard it. | know it is true.
You will not know it until you try either to
prove or disprove it.
Too many of us have joined “isms” and we
are afraid to put them to the test because
we feel we might fail; and, then, where are
we? Not really wanting to know the truth
concerning it, we hesitate to be bold
enough to put it to the test. You say, “I know
it would work in some other way. | do not
want to really test it. While | have not yet
disproved it, | can still be comforted by it.
Now do not fool yourself, do not think for
one second that you are wise.
Prove or disprove this law. | know that if you
attempt to disprove it, you will prove it, and
| will be the richer for your proving it, not in
dollars, not in things, but because you
become the living fruit of what I believe | am
teaching in this world it is far better to have
you a successful, satisfied person after five
days of instruction than to have you go out
dissatisfied. | hope you will be bold enough
to challenge this instruction and either
prove or disprove it.
Now before we go into the silence period |
shall briefly explain the technique again.
We have two techniques in applying this
law. Everyone here must now know exactly
what he wants. You must know that if you
do not get it tonight you will still be as
desirous tomorrow concerning this
objective.
When you know exactly what you want,
construct in your mind's eye a single,
simple event which implies fulfillment of
your desire, an event wherein self
predominates. Instead of sitting back and
looking at yourself as though you were on
the screen, you be the actor in the drama.
Restrict the event to one single action. If
you are going to shake a hand because
that implies fulfillment of your desire, then
do that and that only. Do not shake hands
and then wander off in your imagination to
a dinner party or to some other place.
Restrict your action to simply shaking
hands and do it over and over again, until
that handshake takes on the solidity and
the distinctness of reality.
If you feel you cannot remain faithful to an
action, | want you now to define your
objective, and then condense the idea,
which is your desire, into a single phrase, a
phrase which implies fulfillment of your
desire, some phrase such as, “Isn't it
wonderful?”
Or if | felt thankful because | thought
someone was instrumental in bringing my
desire to pass, | could say, “Thank you,”
and repeat it with feeling over and over
again like a lullaby until my mind was
dominated by the single sensation of
thankfulness.
We will now sit quietly in these chairs with
the idea which implies fulfillment of our
desire condensed to a single phrase, or to
a single act. We will relax and immobilize
our physical bodies. Then let us experience
in imagination the sensation which our
condensed phrase or action affirms.
If you imagine yourself shaking another
person's hand, do not use your physical
hand, let it remain immobilized. But
imagine that housed within your hand is a
more subtle, more real hand, which can be
extracted in your imagination. Put your
imaginary hand into the imaginary hand of
your friend who stands before you and feel
the handshake. Keep your physical body
immobilized even though you become
mentally active in what you are now about
to do.
Now we will go into the silence.
Lesson 4: No One To Change but Self
May | take just a minute to clarify what was
said last night. A lady felt from what | said
last night that | am anti one nation. | do
hope that | am not anti any nation, race or
belief. If perchance | used a nation, it was
only to illustrate a point.
What | tried to tell you was this — we
become what we contemplate. For it is the
nature of love, as it is the nature of hate, to
change us into the likeness of that which
we contemplate. Last night | simply read a
news item to show you that when we think
we can destroy our image by breaking the
mirror, we are only fooling ourselves.
When, through war on revolution, we
destroy titles which to us represent
arrogance and greed, we become in time
the embodiment of that which we thought
we had destroyed. So today the people
who thought they destroyed the tyrants are
themselves that which they thought they
had destroyed.
That | may not be misunderstood, let me
again lay the foundation of this principle.
Consciousness is the one and only reality.
We are incapable of seeing other than the
contents of our own consciousness.
Therefore, hate betrays us in the hour of
victory and condemns us to be that which
we condemn. All conquest results in an
exchange of characteristics, so that
conquerors become like the conquered
foe. We hate others for the evil which is in
ourselves. Races, nations, and religious
groups have lived for centuries in intimate
hostility, and it is the nature of hatred, as it
is the nature of love, to change us into the
likeness of that which we contemplate.
Nations act toward other nations as their
own citizens act toward each other. When
slavery exists in a state and that nation
attacks another it is with intent to enslave.
When there is a fierce economic
competition between citizen and citizen,
then in war with another nation the object
of the war is to destroy the trade of the
enemy. Wars of domination are brought
about by the will of those who within a state
are dominant over the fortunes of the rest.
We radiate the world that surrounds us by
the intensity of our imagination and feeling.
But in this third-dimensional world of ours
time beats slowly. And so, we do not always
observe the relationship of the visible world
to our inner nature.
Now that is really what | meant. | thought |
had said it. That | may not be
misunderstood, that is my principle. You
and | can contemplate an ideal and
become it by falling in love with it.
On the other hand, we can contemplate
something we heartily dislike and by
condemning it we will become it. But
because of the slowness of time in this
three-dimensional world, when we do
become what we contemplated we have
forgotten that formerly we set out to
worship or destroy it.
Tonight's lesson is the capstone of the
Bible, so do give me your attention. The
most important question asked in the Bible
will be found in the 16" chapter of the
Gospel of St Matthew.
As you know, all of the Bible stories are
your stories; its characters live only in the
mind of man. They have no reference at all
to any person, who lived in time and space,
or to any event that ever occurred upon
earth.
The drama related in Matthew takes place
in this manner. Jesus turns to his disciples
and asks them, “Whom do men say that |
the Son of man am?” (Matt 16:13).
“And they said, Some say that thou art
John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others,
Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
“He saith unto them, But whom say ye that
| am?”
“And Simon Peter answered and said,
Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living
God.”
“And Jesus answered and said unto him,
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it until
thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
“And | say also unto thee that thou are
Peter, and upon this rock | will build my
church.” (Matt 16:14-18).
Jesus turning to his disciples is man turning
to his disciplined mind in self-
contemplation. You ask yourself the
question, “Whom do men say that | am?” In
our language, “I wonder what men think of
me?”
You answer, “Some say John come again,
some say Elias, others say Jeremiah, and
still others a prophet of old come again.”
It is very flattering to be told that you are, or
that you resemble, the great men of the
past, but enlightened reason is not
enslaved by public opinion. It is only
concerned with the truth so it asks itself
another question, “But whom say ye that |
am?” In other words, “Who am |?”
If | am bold enough to assume that | am
Christ Jesus, the answer will come back,
“Thou are Christ Jesus.”
When I can assume it and feel it and boldly
live it, | will say to myself, “Flesh and blood
could not have told me this. But my Father
which is in Heaven revealed it unto me.”
Then | make this concept of self the rock on
which | establish my church, my world.
“If ye believe not that | am He, ye shall die
in your sins.” (John 8:24).
Because consciousness is the only reality |
must assume that | am already that which |
desire to be. If | do not believe that | am
already what | want to be, then | remain as
| am and die in this limitation.
Man is always looking for some prop on
which to lean. He is always looking for
some excuse to justify his failure. This
revelation gives man no excuse for failure.
His concept of himself is the cause of all the
circumstances of his life. All changes must
first come from within himself; and if he
does not change on the outside it is
because he has not changed within. But
man does not like to feel that he is solely
responsible for the conditions of his life.
“From that time many of his disciples went
back, and walked no more with him.”
“Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye
also go away?”
“Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to
whom shall we go?” Thou has the words of
eternal life.” (John 6:66-68).
| may not like what | have just heard, that |
must turn to my own consciousness as to
the only reality, the only foundation on
which all phenomena can be explained. It
was easier living when | could blame
another. It was much easier living when |
could blame society for my ills, or point a
finger across the sea, and blame another
nation. It was easier living when | could
blame the weather for the way | feel. But to
tell me that | am the cause of all that
happens to me that | am forever molding
my world in harmony with my inner nature,
that is more than man is willing to accept. If
this is true, to whom would | go? If these
are the words of eternal life, | must return
to them, even though they seem so difficult
to digest.
When man fully understands this, he knows
that public opinion does not matter, for men
only tell him who he is. The behavior of men
constantly tells me who | have conceived
myself to be.
If | accept this challenge and begin to live
by it, | finally reach the point that is called
the great prayer of the Bible. It is related in
the 17* chapter of the Gospel of St John. “l
have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do. (John 17:4).
“And now, O Father, glorify me with thine
own self with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was.” (John 17:5).
“While | was with them in the world, | kept
them in thy name: those that thou gavest
me I have kept, and one of them is lost, but
the son of perdition.” (John 17:12).
It is impossible for anything to be lost. In
this divine economy nothing can be lost, it
cannot even pass away. The little flower
which has bloomed once, blooms forever.
It is invisible to you here with your limited
focus, but blooms forever in the larger
dimension of your being, and tomorrow you
will encounter it.
All that thou gavest me | have kept in thy
name, and none have | lost save the son of
perdition. The son of perdition means
simply the belief in loss. Son is a concept,
an idea. Perdido is loss. | have only truly
lost the concept of loss, for nothing can be
lost.
| can descend from the sphere where the
thing itself now lives, and as | descend in
consciousness to a lower level within
myself it passes from my world. | say, “l
have lost my health. | have lost my wealth.
| have lost my standing in the community. |
have lost faith. | have lost a thousand
things.” But the things in themselves,
having once been real in my world, can
never cease to be. They never become
unreal with the passage of time.
|, by my descent in consciousness to a
lower level, cause these things to
disappear from my sight and | say, “They
have gone; they are finished as far as my
world goes.” All | need do is to ascend to
the level where they are eternal, and they
once more objectify themselves and
appear as realities within my world.
The crux of the whole 17" chapter of the
Gospel of St John is found in the 19" verse.
“And for their sake | sanctify myself, that
they also might be sanctified through the
truth.”
Heretofore | thought | could change others
through effort. Now I know | cannot change
another unless | first change myself. To
change another within my world | must first
change my concept of that other; and to do
it best | change my concept of self. For it
was the concept | held of self that made me
see others as | did.
Had | a noble, dignified concept of myself,
| never could have seen the unlovely in
others.
Instead of trying to change others through
argument and force, let me but ascend in
consciousness to a higher level and | will
automatically change others by changing
myself. “There is no one to change but self;
that self is simply your awareness, your
consciousness and the world in which it
lives is determined by the concept you hold
of self. It is to consciousness that we must
turn as to the only reality. For there is no
clear conception of the origin of
phenomena except that consciousness is
all and all is consciousness.
You need no helper to bring you what you
seek. Do not for one second believe that |
am advocating escape from reality when |
ask you to simply assume you are now the
man or the lady that you want to be.
If you and | could feel what it would be like
were we now that which we want to be, and
live in this mental atmosphere as though it
were real, then, in a way we do not know,
our assumption would harden into fact.
This is all we need do in order to ascend to
the level where our assumption is already
an objective, concrete reality.
| need change no man, | sanctify myself
and in so doing | sanctify others. To the
pure all things are pure. “There is nothing
unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth
anything to be unclean, to him it is
unclean.” (Rom 14:14). There is nothing in
itself unclean, but you, by your concept of
self, see things either clean or unclean.
“land my Father are one.” (John 10:30).
“If | do not the works of my Father, believe
me not.”
“But if | do, though ye believe not me,
believe the works: that ye may know, and
believe, that the Father is in me, and | in
him.” (John 10:37, 38).
He made himself one with God and thought
it not strange or robbery to do the works of
God. You always bear fruit in harmony with
what you are. It is the most natural thing in
the world for a pear tree to bear pears, an
apple tree to bear apples, and for man to
mold the circumstances of his life in
harmony with his inner nature.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches.” (John
15:5). Abranch has no life save it be rooted
in the vine. All | need do to change the fruit
is to change the vine.
You have no life in my world save that | am
conscious of you. You are rooted in me
and, like fruit, you bear witness of the vine
that | am. There is no reality in the world
other than your consciousness. Although
you may now seem to be what you do not
want to be, all you need do to change it,
and to prove the change by circumstances
in your world, is to quietly assume that you
are that which you now want to be, and in
a way you do not know you will become it.
There is no other way to change this world.
“I am the way.” My | Amness, my
consciousness is the way by which |
change my world. As | change my concept
of self, | change my world. When men and
women help or hinder us, they only play the
part that we, by our concept of self, wrote
for them, and they play it automatically.
They must play the parts they are playing
because we are what we are.
You will change the world only when you
become the embodiment of that which you
want the world to be. You have but one gift
in this world that is truly yours to give and
that is yourself. Unless you yourself are
that which you want the world to be, you will
never see it in this world. “Except ye
believe not that | am he, ye shall die in your
sins.” (John 8:24).
Do you know that no two in this room live in
the same world? We are going home to
different worlds tonight. We close our doors
on entirely different worlds. We rise
tomorrow and go to work, where we meet
each other and meet others, but we live in
different mental worlds, different physical
worlds.
| can only give what | am, | have no other
gift to give. If | want the world to be perfect,
and who does not, | have failed only
because | did not know that | could never
see it perfect until | myself become perfect.
If | am not perfect | cannot see perfection,
bu the day that | become it, | beautify my
world because | see it through my own
eyes. “Unto the pure all things are pure.”
(Titus 1:15).
No two here can tell me that you have
heard the same message any one night.
The one thing that you must do is hear what
| say through that which you are. It must be
filtered through your prejudices, your
superstitions, and your concept of self.
Whatever you are, it must come through
that, and be colored by what you are.
If you are disturbed you would like me to be
something other than what | appear to be,
then you must be that which you want me
to be. We must become the thing that we
want others to be or we will never see them
be it.
Your consciousness, my consciousness, Is
the only true foundation in the world. This
is that which is called Peter in the Bible, not
a man, this faithfulness that cannot turn to
anyone, that cannot be flattered when you
are told by men you are John come again.
That is very flattering to be told you are
John the Baptist come again, or the great
prophet Elias, or Jeremiah.
Then | deafen my ears to this very flattering
little bit of news men would give me and |
ask myself, “But honestly who am 1?”
If | can deny the limitations of my birth, my
environment, and the belief that | am but an
extension of my family tree, and feel within
myself that | am Christ, and sustain this
assumption until it takes a central place
and forms the habitual center of my energy,
| will do the works attributed to Jesus.
Without thought or effort | will mold a world
in harmony with that perfection which |
have assumed and feel springing within
me.
When | open the eyes of the blind, unstop
the ears of the deaf, give joy for mourning
and beauty for ashes, then and only then,
have | truly established this vine deep
within. That is what | would automatically
do were | truly conscious of being Christ. It
is said of this presence, He proved that He
was Christ by His works.
Our ordinary alterations of consciousness,
as we pass from one state to another, are
not transformations, because each of them
is so rapidly succeeded by another in the
reverse direction; but whenever our
assumption grows so stable as to definitely
expel its rivals, then that central habitual
concept defines our character and is a true
transformation.
Jesus, or enlightened reason, saw nothing
unclean in the woman taken in adultery. He
said to her, “Hath no man condemned
thee?” (John 8:10).
“She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said
unto her, neither do | condemn thee; go,
and sin no more.” (John 8:11).
No matter what is brought before the
presence of beauty, it sees only beauty.
Jesus was so completely identified with the
lovely that He was incapable of seeing the
unlovely.
When you and | really become conscious
of being Christ, we too will straighten the
arms of the withered, and resurrect the
dead hopes of men. We will do all the
things that we could not do when we felt
ourselves limited by our family tree. It is a
bold step and should not be taken lightly,
because to do it is to die. John, the man of
three dimensions is beheaded, or loses his
three-dimensional focus that Jesus, the
fourth-dimensional self may live.
Any enlargement of our concept of self
involves a somewhat painful parting with
strongly rooted hereditary conceptions.
The ligaments are strong that hold us in the
womb of conventional limitations. All that
you formerly believed, you no longer
believe. You know now that there is no
power outside of your own consciousness.
Therefore, you cannot turn to anyone
outside of self.
You have no ears for the suggestion that
something else has power in it. You know
the only reality is God, and God is your own
consciousness. There is no other God.
Therefore, on this rock you build the
everlasting church and boldly assume you
are this Divine Being, self-begotten
because you dared to appropriate that
which was not given to you in your cradle,
a concept of self not formed in your
mother's womb, a concept of self-
conceived outside of the offices of man.
The story is beautifully told us in the Bible
using the two sons of Abraham: one
blessed, Isaac, born outside of the offices
of man and the other, Ishmael, born in
bondage.
Sarah was much too old to beget a child,
so her husband Abraham went in unto the
bond servant Hagar, the pilgrim, and she
conceived of the old man and bore him a
son called Ishmael. Ishmael's hand was
against every man and every man's hand
against him.
Every child born of woman is born into
bondage, born into all that his environment
represents, regardless of whether it be the
throne of England, the White House, or any
great place in the world. Every child born of
woman is personified as this Ishmael, the
child of Hagar.
But asleep in every child is the blessed
Isaac, who is born outside of the offices of
man, and is born through faith alone. This
second child has not earthly father. He is
self-begotten.
What is the second birth? | find myself man,
| cannot go back into my mother's womb,
and yet | must be born a second time.
“Except a man be born again he cannot
enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3).
| quietly appropriate that which no man can
give me, no woman can give me. | dare to
assume that | am God. This must be of
faith, this must be of promise. Then |
become the blessed, | become Isaac.
As | begin to do the things that only this
presence could do, | know that | am born
out of the limitations of Ishmael, and | have
become heir to the kingdom. Ishmael could
not inherit anything, although his father was
Abraham, or God. Ishmael did not have
both parents of the godly; his mother was
Hagar the bondwoman, and so he could
not partake of his father’s estate.
You are Abraham and Sarah and contained
within your own consciousness there is one
waiting for recognition. In the Old
Testament it is called Jesus, and it is born
without the aid of man. No man can tell you
that you are Christ Jesus, no man can tell
you and convince you that you are God.
You must toy with the idea and wonder
what it would be like to be God.
No clear conception of the origin of
phenomena is possible except that
consciousness is all and all is
consciousness. Nothing can be evolved
from man that was not potentially involved
in his nature. The ideal we serve and hope
to attain could never be evolved from us
were it not potentially involved in our
nature.
Let me now retell and emphasize an
experience of mine printed by me two years
ago under the title, "The Search". | think it
will help you to understand this law of
consciousness and show you that you have
no one to change but self, for you are
incapable of seeing other than the contents
of your own consciousness.
Once in an idle interval at sea, | meditated
on “the perfect state,” and wondered what |
would be were | of too pure eyes to behold
iniquity, if to me all things were pure and
were | without condemnation. As | became
lost in this fiery brooding, | found myself
lifted above the dark environment of the
senses. So intense was the feeling, | felt
myself a being of fire dwelling in a body of
air. Voices, as from a heavenly chorus, with
the exaltation of those who had been
conquerors in a conflict with death, were
singing, “He is risen He is risen,” and
intuitively | knew they meant me.
Then | seemed to be walking in the night. |
soon came upon a scene that might have
been the ancient Pool of Bethesda for in
this place lay a great multitude of impotent
folk — blind, halt, withered, waiting not for
the moving of the water as of tradition, but
waiting for me.
As | came near, without thought or effort on
my part, they were one after the other,
molded as by the Magician of the Beautiful.
Eyes, hands, feet all missing members —
were drawn from some invisible reservoir
and molded in harmony with that perfection
which | felt springing within me. When all
were made perfect the chorus exulted, “it is
finished.”
| know this vision was the result of my
intense meditation upon the idea of
perfection, for my meditations invariably
bring about union with the state
contemplated. | had been so completely
absorbed within the idea that for a while |
had become what | contemplated, and the
high purpose with which | had for that
moment identified myself drew the
companionship of high things and
fashioned the vision in harmony with my
inner nature.
The ideal with which we are united works
by association of ideas to awaken a
thousand moods to create a drama in
keeping with the central idea.
My mystical experiences have convinced
me that there is no way to bring about the
perfection we seek other than by the
transformation of ourselves. As soon as we
succeed in transforming ourselves, the
world will melt magically before our eyes
and reshape itself in harmony with that
which our transformation affirms.
We fashion the world that surrounds us by
the intensity of our imagination and feeling,
and we illuminate or darken our lives by the
concepts we hold of ourselves. Nothing is
more important to us than our conception
of ourselves, and especially is true of our
concept of the deep, dimensionally great
One within us.
Those that help or hinder us, whether they
know it or not, are the servants of that law
which shapes outward circumstances in
harmony with our inner nature. It is our
conception of ourselves which frees or
constrains us, though it may use material
agencies to achieve its purpose.
Because life molds the outer world to
reflect the inner arrangement of our minds,
there is no way of bringing about the outer
perfection we seek other than by the
transformation of ourselves. No help
cometh from without: the hills to which we
lift our eyes are those of an inner range.
It is thus to our own consciousness that we
must turn as to the only reality, the only
foundation on which all phenomena can be
explained. We can rely absolutely on the
justice of this law to give us only that which
is of the nature of ourselves.
To attempt to change the world before we
change our concept of ourselves is to
struggle against the nature of things. There
can be no outer change until there is first
an inner change.
As within, so without.
I am not advocating philosophical
indifference when I suggest that we should
imagine ourselves as already that which we
want to be, living in a mental atmosphere
of greatness, rather than using physical
means and arguments to bring about the
desired changes.
Everything we do, unaccompanied by a
change of consciousness, is but futile
readjustment of surfaces. However we toil
or struggle, we can receive no more than
our concepts of self affirm. To protest
against anything which happens to us is to
protest against the law of our being and our
rulership over our own destiny.
The circumstances of my life are too
closely related to my conception of myself
not to have been formed by my own spirit
from some dimensionally larger storehouse
of my being. If there is pain to me in these
happenings, | should look within myself for
the cause, for | am moved here and there
and made to live in a world in harmony with
my concept of myself.
If we would become as emotionally
aroused over our ideas as we become over
our dislikes, we would ascend to the plane
of our ideal as easily as we now descend
to the level of our hates.
Love and hate have a magical transforming
power, and we grow through their exercise
into the likeness of what we contemplate.
By intensity of hatred we create in
ourselves the character we imagine in our
enemies. Qualities die for want of attention,
so the unlovely states might best be rubbed
out by imagining “beauty for ashes and joy
for mourning” rather than by direct attacks
on the state from which we would be free.
“Whatsoever things are lovely and of good
report, think on these things,” for we
become that with which we are en rapport.
There is nothing to change but our concept
of self. As soon as we succeed in
transforming self, our world will dissolve
and reshape itself in harmony with that
which our change affirms.
|, by descent in consciousness, have
brought about the imperfection that | see.
In the divine economy nothing is lost. We
cannot lose anything save by descent in
consciousness from the sphere where ethe
thing has its natural life.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with
thine own self with the glory which | had
with thee before the world was” (John
17:5).
As | ascend in consciousness the power
and glory that was mine return to me and |
too will say, “I have finished the work thou
gavest me to do.”
The work is to return from my descent in
consciousness, from the level wherein |
believed that | was a son of man, to the
sphere where | know that | am one with my
Father and my Father is God.
| know beyond all doubt that there is
nothing for man to do but to change his own
concept of himself to assume greatness
and sustain this assumption. If we walk as
though we were already the ideal we serve,
we will rise to the level of our assumption,
and find a world in harmony with our
assumption. We will not have to lift a finger
to make it so, for it is already so. It was
always so.
You and I| have descended in
consciousness to the level where we now
find ourselves and we see imperfection
because we have descended! When we
being to ascent while here in this three-
dimensional world, we find that we move in
an entirely different environment, we have
entirely different circles of friends, and an
entirely different world while still living here.
We know the great myself of the statement,
“I am in the world but not of it.”
Instead of changing things | would suggest
to all to identify themselves with the ideal
they contemplate. What would the feeling
be like were you of too pure eyes to behold
iniquity if to you all things were pure and
you were without condemnation?
Contemplate the ideal state and identify
yourself with it and you will ascend to the
sphere where you as Christ have your
natural life.
You are still in that state where you were
before the world was. The only thing that
has fallen is your concept of self. You see
the broken parts which really are not
broken. You are seeing them through
distorted eyes, as though you were in one
of those peculiar amusement gallery’s
where a man walks before a mirror and he
is elongated, yet he is the same man. Or he
looks into another mirror and he is all big
and fat. These things are seen today
because man is what he is.
Toy with the idea of perfection. Ask no man
to help you but let the prayer of the 17"
chapter of the Gospel of St. John be your
prayer. Appropriate the state that was
yours before the world was.
Know the truth of the statement, “None
have | lost save the son of perdition.”
Nothing is lost in all my holy mountain. The
only thing that you lose is the belief in loss
or the son of perdition.
“And for their sake | sanctify myself, that
they also might be sanctified through the
truth” (John 17:19).
There is no one to change but self. All you
need do to make men and women holy in
this world is to make yourself holy. You are
incapable of seeing anything that is
unlovely when you establish within your
own mind’s eye the fact that you are lovely.
It is far better to know this than to know
anything else in the world. It takes courage,
boundless courage, because many this
night, after having heard this truth will still
be inclined to blame others for their
predicament. Man finds it so difficult to turn
to himself, to his own consciousness as to
the only reality. Listen to these words:
“No man can come to me, except the
Father which hath sent me to draw him”
(John 6:44).
“I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
“A man can receive nothing, except it be
given him from heaven (John 3:27).
“Therefore, doth my Father love me,
because | lay down my life, that | might take
it again.”
“No man taketh it from me, but | lay it down
of myself” (John 10:17, 18).
“You did not choose me, | have chosen
you.” My concept of myself molds a world
in harmony with itself and draws men to tell
me constantly by their behavior who | am.
The most important thing in this world to
you is your concept of self. When you
dislike your environment, the
circumstances of life and the behavior of
men, ask yourself, “Who am I?” It is your
answer to this question that is the cause of
your dislikes.
If you do not condemn self, there will be no
man in your world to condemn you. If you
are living in the consciousness of your ideal
you will see nothing to condemn. “To the
pure all things are pure.”
Now | would like to spend a little time
making as clear as | can what | personally
do when | pray, what | do when | want to
bring about changes in my world. You will
find it interesting, and you will find that it
works. No one here can tell me they cannot
do it. It is so very simple, everyone can do
it.
This technique is not difficult to follow, but
you must want to do it. You cannot
approach it with the attitude of mind “Oh
well I'll try it.” You must want to do tt,
because the mainspring of action is desire.
Desire is the mainspring of all action. Now
what do I want? | must define my objective.
For example, suppose | wanted now to be
elsewhere. This very moment really desire
to be elsewhere. | need not go through the
door, | need not sit down. | need do nothing
but stand just where | am and with my eyes
closed, assume that | am actually standing
where | desire to be. Then | remain in this
state until it has the feeling of reality. Were
| now elsewhere | could not see the world
as | now see it from here. The world
changes in tis relationship to me as |
change my position in space.
So, | stand right here, close my eyes, and
imagine | am seeing what | would see were
| there. | remain in it long enough to feel it
to be real. | cannot touch the walls of this
room from here, but when you close your
eyes and become still you can imagine and
feel that you touch it. You can stand where
you are and imagine you are putting your
hand on that wall. To prove you really are,
put it there and slide it up and feel the
wood. You can imagine you are doing it
without getting off your seat. You can do it
and you will actually feel it if you become
still enough and intense enough.
| stand where | am and | allow the world that
| want to see and to enter physically , to
come before me as though | were there
now. In other words, | bring elsewhere here
by assuming that | am there.
Is that clear? | let it come up, | do not make
it come up. | simply imagine | am there and
then let it happen.
If | want a physical presence, | imagine he
is standing here, and | touch him. All
through the Bible | find these suggestions;
He placed his hands upon them. He
touched them.
If you want to comfort someone, what is the
automatic feeling? To put your hand on
them, you cannot resist it. You meet a
friend and the hand goes out automatically,
you either shake hands or put your hand on
his shoulder.
Suppose you were now to meet a friend
that you have not seen for a year and he is
a friend of whom you are very fond. What
would you do? You would embrace him,
wouldn’t you? Or you would put you hand
upon him.
In your imagination bring him close enough
to put your hand upon him and feel him to
be solidly real. Restrict the action to just
that. You will be amazed at what happens.
From then on things begin to move. Your
dimensionally greater self will inspire, in all,
the ideas and actions necessary to bring
you into physical contact. It works that way.
Every day | put myself into the drowsy
state, it is a very easy thing to do. But habit
is a strange thing in man’s world. It is not
law, but habit acts as though it were the
most compelling law in the world. We are
creatures of habit.
If you create an interval every day into
which you put yourself into the drowsy
state, say at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, do
you know at that moment every day you will
feel drowsy. You try it for one week and see
if | am not right.
You sit down for the purpose of creating a
state akin to sleep, as though you were
sleepy, but do not push the drowsiness too
far, just far enough to relax and leave you
in control of the direction of your thoughts.
You try it for one week, and every day at
that hour, no matter what you are doing,
you will hardly be able to keep your eyes
open. If you know the hour when you will
be free you can create it. | would not
suggest you do it lightly, because you will
feel very sleep and you many not want to.
| have another way of praying. In this case
| always sit down and | find the most
comfortable arm chair imaginable, or | lie
flat on my back and relax completely. Make
yourself comfortable. You must not be in
any position where the body is distressed.
Always put yourself into a position where
you have the greatest ease. That is the first
stage.
To know what you want is the start of
prayer. Secondly, you construct in your
mind’s eye one single little event which
implies that you have realized your desire.
| always let my mind roam on many things
that could follow the answered prayer and |
single out one that is most likely to follow
the fulfillment of my desire. One simple little
thing like the shaking of a hand, embracing
a person, the receiving of a letter, the
writing of a check, or whatever would imply
the fulfillment of your desire.
After you have decided on the action which
implies that your desire has been realised,
then sit in your nice comfortable chair or lie
flat on your back, close your eyes for the
simple reason it helps to induce this state
that borders on sleep.
The minute you feel this lovely drowsy
state, or the feeling of gather togetherness,
wherein you feel — | could move if | wanted
to, but | do not want to, | could open my
eyes if | wanted to, but | do not want to.
When you get that feeling, you can be quite
sure that you are in the perfect state to pray
successfully.
In this feeling, it is easy to touch anything
in this world. You take the simple little
restricted action which implies fulfillment of
your prayer and you feel it or you enact it.
Whatever it is, you enter into the action as
though you were an actor in the part. You
do not sit back and visualize yourself doing
it. You do it.
With the body immobilized, you imagine
that the greater you, inside the physical
body is coming out of it and that you are
actually performing the proposed action. If
you are going to walk, you imagine that you
are walking. Do not see yourself walk,
FEEL that you are walking.
If you are going to climb stairs, FEEL that
you are climbing the stairs. Do not visualize
yourself doing it, feel yourself doing it. If
you are going to shake a man’s hand, do
not visualize yourself shaking his hand,
imagine your friend is standing before you
and shake his hand. But leave your
physical hands immobilized and imagine
that your greater hand, which is your
imaginary hand, is actually shaking his
hand.
All you need to do is to imagine that you are
doing it. You are stretched out in time, and
what you are doing, which seems to be a
controlled daydream, is an actual act in the
greater dimension of your being. You are
actually encountering an event fourth
dimensionally before you encounter it here
in the three dimensions of space, and you
do not have to raise a finger to bring that
state to pass.
My third way of praying is simply to feel
thankful. If | want something, either for
myself or another, | immobilize the physical
body, then | produce the state akin to sleep
and in that state | just feel happy, feel
thankful. Thankfulness implies realization
of what | want. | assume the feeling of the
wish fulfilled and with my mind dominated
by this single sensation, | go to sleep. |
need do nothing to make it so, because it is
so. My feeling of the wish fulfilled implies it
is done.
All these techniques you can use and
change them to fit your temperament. But |
must emphasize the necessity of inducing
the drowsy state where you can become
attentive without effort.
A single sensation dominates the mind, if
you pray successfully.
What would | feel like, now, were | what |
wanted to be? When | know what the
feeling would be like | then close my eyes
and lose myself in that single sensation and
my dimensionally greater self then builds a
bridge of incident to lead me from this
present moment to the fulfillment of my
mood. That is all you need do. But people
have a habit of slighting the importance of
simple things.
We are creatures of habit and we are
slowly learning to relinquish our previous
concepts, but the things we formerly lived
by still in some way influence our behavior.
Here is a story from the Bible that illustrates
my point.
It is recorded that Jesus told his disciples
to go to the crossroads and there they
would find a colt, a young colt not yet ridden
by aman. To bring the colt to him and if any
man ask, “Why do you take this colt?” say,
“The Lord has need of it.”
They went to the crossroads and found the
colt and did exactly as they were told. They
brought the unbridled ass to Jesus and He
rode it triumphantly into Jerusalem.
The story has nothing to do with a man
riding on a little colt. You are Jesus of the
story. The colt is the mood you are going to
assume. That is the living animal is not yet
ridden by you. What would the feeling be
like were you to realize your desire? A new
feeling, like a young colt, is a very difficult
thing to ride unless you ride him with a
disciplined mind. If | do not remain faithful
to the mood the young colt throws me off.
Every time you become conscious that you
are not faithful to this mood, you have been
thrown from the colt.
Discipline your mind that you may remain
faithful to a high mood and ride it
triumphantly into Jerusalem, which is
fulfillment, or the city of peace.
This story precedes the feast of the
Passover. If we would pass from our
present state into that of our ideal, we must
assume that we are already that which we
desire to be and remain faithful to our
assumption, for we must keep a high mood
if we would walk with the highest.
A fixed attitude of mind, a feeling that it is
done will make it so. If | walk as though it
were, but every once in a while I look to see
if it really is, then | fall off my mood or colt.
If | would suspend judgment, like Peter |
could walk on the water. Peter starts
walking on the water, and then he begins to
look unto his own understanding and he
begins to go down. The voice said, “Look
up, Peter.” Peter looks up and he rises
again and continues walking on the water.
Instead of looking gown to see if this thing
is really going to harden into fact, you
simply know that it is already so, sustain
that mood and you will rise the unbridled
colt into the city of Jerusalem. All of us must
learn to ride the animal straight into
Jerusalem unassisted by aman. You do not
need another to help you.
The strange thing is that as we keep the
high mood and do not fall, others cushion
the blows. They spread the palm leaves
before me to cushion my journey. | do not
have to be concerned. The shocks will be
softened as | move into the fulfillment of my
desire. My high mood awakens in others
the ideas and actions which tend towards
the embodiment of my mood. If you walk
faithful to a high mood there will be no
opposition and no competition.
The test of a teacher, or a teaching, is to be
found in the faithfulness of the taught. | am
leaving here on Sunday night. Do remain
faithful to this instruction. If you look for
causes outside the consciousness of man,
then | have not convinced you of the reality
of consciousness.
If you look for excuses, for failure, you will
always find them, for you find what you
seek. If you seek an excuse for failure, you
will find it in the stars, in the numbers, in the
teacup or must any place. The excuse will
not be there but you will find it to justify your
failure.
Successful business and professional men
and women know that this law works. You
will not find it in gossip groups, but you will
find it in courageous hearts.
Man’s eternal journey is for one purpose: to
reveal the Father. He comes to make
visible his Father. And his Father is made
visible in all the lovely things of this world.
All the things that are lovely, that are of
good report, ride these things, and have no
time for the unlovely in this world,
regardless of what it is.
Remain faithful to the knowledge of your
consciousness, your | AMnhness, your
awareness of being aware of the only
reality. It is the rock on which all
phenomena can be explained. There is no
explanation outside of that. | know of no
clear conception of the origin of
phenomena save that consciousness is all
and all is consciousness.
That which you seek is already housed
within you. Were it not now within you
eternity could not evolve it. No time stretch
would be long enough to evolve what is not
potentially involved in you.
You simply let it into being by assuming that
it is already visible in your world, and
remaining faithful to your assumption, it will
harden into fact. Your Father has
unnumbered ways of revealing your
assumption. Fix this in your mind and
always remember, “An assumption, though
false, if sustained will harden into fact.”
You are your Father are one and your
Father is everything that was, is and will be.
Therefore, that which you seek you already
are, it can never be so far off as even to be
near, for nearness implies separation.
The great Pascal said, “You never would
have sought me had you not already found
me.” What you now desire you already
have and you seek it only because you
have already found it. You found it in the
form of desire. It is just as real in the form
of desire as it is going to be to your bodily
organs.
You are already that which you seek and
you have no one to change but self in order
to express it.
Lesson 5: Remain Faithful to Your Idea
Tonight, we have the fifth and last session
in this course. First, | shall give you a sort
of summary of what has gone before. Then,
since so many of you have asked me to
elaborate further on Lesson 3, | shall give
you a few more ideas on thinking fourth
dimensionally.
| know that when a man sees a thing clearly
he can tell it, he can explain it. This past
winter in Barbados, a fisherman, whose
vocabulary would not encompass a
thousand words, told me more in five
minutes about the behavior of the dolphin
than Shakespeare with his vast vocabulary
could have told me, if he did not know the
habits of the dolphin.
This fisherman told me how the dolphin
loves to play on a piece of driftwood, and in
order to catch him, you throw the wood out
and bait him as you would bait children,
because he likes to pretend he is getting
out of the water. As | said, this man’s
vocabulary was very limited, but he knew
his fish, and he knew the sea. Because he
knew his dolphin he could tell me all about
their habits and how to catch them.
When you say you know a thing but you
cannot explain it, | say you do not know it,
for when you really know it you naturally
express it.
If | should ask you now to define prayer,
and say to you, “How would you, through
prayer, go about realizing an objective, any
objective? If you can tell me, then you know
it, but if you cannot tell me, then you do not
know it. When you see it clearly in the
mind’s eye the greater you will inspire the
words which are necessary to clothe the
idea and express it beautifully, and you will
express the idea far better than a man with
a vast vocabulary who does not see it as
clearly as you do.
If you have listened carefully throughout
the past four days, you know now that the
Bible has no reference at all to any persons
that ever existed, or to any events that ever
occurred upon earth.
The authors of the Bible were not writing
history, they were writing a great drama of
the mind which they dressed up in the garb
of history, and then adapted it to the limited
capacity of the uncritical, unthinking
masses.
You know that every story in the Bible is
your story, that when the writers introduce
dozens of characters in the same story,
they are trying to present you with different
attributes of the mind that you may employ.
You saw it as | took perhaps a dozen or
more stories and interpreted them for you.
For instance, many people wonder how
Jesus, the most gracious, the most loving
man in the world, if he be man, could say
to his mother, what he is supposed to have
said to her as recorded in the second
chapter of the Gospel of St. John. Jesus is
made to say to his mother, “Woman, what
have | to do with thee?” John 2:4.
You and I, who are not yet identified with
the ideal we serve, would not make such a
statement to our mother. Yet here was the
embodiment of love saying to his mother,
“Woman, what have | to do with thee?”
You are Jesus, and your mother is your
own consciousness. For consciousness is
the cause of all, therefore, it is the great
father-mother of all phenomena.
You and | are creatures of habit. We get
into the habit of accepting as final the
evidence of our senses. Wine is needed for
the guests and my senses tell me that there
is no wine, and | through habit am about to
accept this lack as final.
When | remember that my consciousness
is the one and only reality, therefore if |
deny the evidence of my senses and
assume the consciousness of having
sufficient wine, | have in a sense rebuked
my mother or the consciousness which
suggested lack, and by assuming the
consciousness of having what | desire for
my guests, wine is produced in a way we
do not know.
| have just read a note here form a dear
friend of mine in the audience. Last
Sunday, he had an appointment at a church
for a wedding. The clock told him he was
late, everything told him he was late.
He was standing on a street corner waiting
for a streetcar. There was none in sight. He
imagined that, instead of being on the
street corner, he was in the church. At that
moment a car stopped in front of him. My
friend told the driver of his predicament and
the driver said to him, “I am not going that
way, but | will take you there.” My friend got
into the car and was at the church in time
for the service. That is applying the law
correctly, non-acceptance of the
suggestion of lateness. Never accept the
suggestion of lack.
In this case | say to myself, “What have | to
do with thee?” What have | to do with the
evidence of my senses? Bring me all the
pots and fill them. In other words, | assume
that | have wine and all that | desire. Then
my dimensionally greater self inspires in all,
the thoughts and the actions which aid the
embodiment of my assumption.
It is not a man saying to a mother, “Woman
what have | to do with thee?” It is every man
who knows this law who will say to himself,
when his senses suggest lack, “what have
| to do with thee?” Get behind me. | will
never again listen to a voice like that,
because if | do, then | am impregnated by
that suggestion and | will bear the fruit of
lack.
We turn to another story in the Gospel of
St. Mark where Jesus is hungry.
And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves,
he came, if haply he might find anything
thereon and when he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was
not yet.
And Jesus answered and said unto it, “No
man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And
his disciples hear it.” Mark 11:13, 14.
“And in the morning, as they passed by,
they saw the fig tree dried up from the
roots.” Mark 11:20.
What tree am | blasting? Not a tree on the
outside. It is my own consciousness. “I am
the vine.” John 15:1. My consciousness,
my | AMness is the great tree, and habit
once more suggests emptiness, it suggests
barrenness, it suggests four months before
| can feast. But | cannot wait four months. |
give myself this powerful suggestion that
never again will | even for a moment
believe that it will take four months to
realize my desire. The belief in lack must
form this day on be barren and never again
reproduce itself in my mind.
It is not a man blasting a tree. Everything in
the Bible takes place in the mind of man.
The tree, the city, the people, everything.
There is not a statement in the Bible that
does not represent some attribute of the
human mind. They are all personifications
of the mind and not things within the world.
Consciousness is the one and only reality.
There is no one to whom we can turn after
we discover that our own awareness is
God. For God is the cause of all and there
is nothing but God. You cannot say that a
devil causes some things and God others.
Listen to these words.
“Thus, saith the Lord to his anointed, to
Cyrus, whose right had | have holden, to
subdue nations before him, and | will loose
the loins of kings, to open before him the
two leaved gates, and the gates shall not
be shut.”
“| will go before thee and make the crooked
places straight. | will break in pieces the
gates of brass and cut in sunder the bars of
iron.”
“And | will give thee the treasures of
darkness, and hidden riches of secret
places, that thou mayest know that I, the
Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the
God of Israel.” Isaiah 45:1-3.
“| form the light and create darkness. |
make peace and create evil. | the Lord do
all these things.” Isaiah 45:7.
“| have made the earth and created man
upon it. I, even my hands, have stretched
out the heavens, and all their hosts have |
commanded.”
“| have raised him up in righteousness, and
| will direct all his ways: he shall build my
city and he shall let go my captives, not for
price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts.”
Isaiah 45:12-13.
“| AM the Lord, and there is none else,
there is no God beside me.” Isaiah 45:5.
Read these words carefully. They are not
my words, they are the inspired words of
men who discovered that consciousness is
the only reality. If | am hurt, | am self hurt. If
there is darkness in my world, | created the
darkness and the gloom and the
depression. If there is light and joy, |
created the light and the joy. There is no
one but this | AMness that does all.
You cannot find a cause outside of your
own consciousness. Your world is a grand
mirror constantly telling you who you are.
As you meet people, they tell you by their
behavior who you are.
Your prayers will not be less devout
because you turn to your own
consciousness for help. | do not think that
any person in prayer feels more of the joy,
the piety, and the feeling of adoration, than
| do when | feel thankful, as | assume the
feeling of my wish fulfilled, knowing at the
same time it is to myself that | turned.
In prayer you are called upon to believe
that you possess what your reason and
your senses deny. When you pray believe
that you have and you shall receive. The
Bible states it in this way:
“Therefore | say unto you, What things
soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe
that ye receive them, and ye shall have
them.
“And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye
have ought against any, that your Father
also which is in heaven may forgive you
your trespasses.
“But if ye do not forgive, neither will your
Father which is in heaven forgive your
trespasses.” Mark 11:24-26.
That is what we must do when we pray. If |
hold something against another, be it a
belief of sickness, poverty or anything ese,
| must lose it and let it go, not by using
words of denial but by believing him to be
what he desires to be. In that way |
completely forgive him. | changed my
concept of him. | had ought against him and
| forgave him. Complete forgetfulness is
forgiveness. If | do not forget than | have
not forgiven.
| only forgive something when | truly forget.
| can say to you until the end of time, “I
forgive you.” But if every time | see you or
think of you, | am reminded of what | held
against you, | have not forgiven you at all.
Forgiveness if complete forgetfulness. You
go to a doctor and he gives you something
for your sickness. He is trying to take it from
you, so he gives you something in place of
it.
Give yourself a new concept of self for the
old concept. Give up the old concept
completely.
A prayer granted implies that something is
done in consequence of the prayer which
otherwise would not have been done.
Therefore, | myself am the spring of action,
the directing mind and the one who grants
the prayer.
Anyone who prays successfully turns
within, and appropriates the state sought.
You have no sacrifice to offer. Do not let
anyone tell you that you must struggle and
suffer. You need not struggle for the
realization of your desire. Read what it says
in the Bible.
“To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me saith the Lord. | am full
of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of
fed beasts, and | delight not in the blood of
bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats.”
“When ye come to appear before me, who
hath required that at your hand, to tread my
courts?”
“Bring no more vain oblations, incense is
an abomination unto me, the new moons
and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, |
cannot endure iniquity and solemn
assembly.”
“Your new moons and your appointed
feasts my soul hates. They have become a
burden to me, | am weary of bearing them.”
Isaiah 1:11-14.
“Ye shall have a song as in the night when
a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of
heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to
come into the mountain of the Lord, to the
mighty One of Israel.” Isaiah 30:29.
"Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his
praise from the end of the earth." Isaiah
42:10.
"Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath
done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth:
break forth into singing, ye mountains, O
forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord
hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself
in Israel." Isaiah 44:23.
"Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall
return, and come with singing unto Zion;
and everlasting joy shall be upon their
head. They shall obtain gladness and joy;
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away."
Isaiah 51:11.
The only acceptable gift is a joyful heart.
Come with singing and praise. That is the
way to come before the Lord your own
consciousness. Assume the feeling of your
wish fulfilled, and you have brought the
only acceptable gift. All states of mind other
than that of the wish fulfilled are an
abomination; they are superstition and
mean nothing.
When you come before me, rejoice,
because rejoicing implies that something
has happened which you desired. Come
before me singing, giving praise, and giving
thanks, for these states of mind imply
acceptance of the state sought. Put
yourself in proper mood and your own
consciousness will embody it.
If | could define prayer for anyone and put
it just as clearly as | could, | would simply
say, “It is the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” If
you ask, “What do you mean by that?” |
would say, “I would feel myself into the
situation of the answered prayer and then |
would live and act upon that conviction.” |
would try to sustain it without effort, that is,
| would live and act as though it were
already a fact, knowing that as | walk in this
fixed attitude my assumption will harden
into fact.
Time does not permit me to go any further
into the argument that the Bible is not
history. But if you have listened attentively
to my message these past four nights, | do
not think you want any more proof that the
Bible is not history. Apply what you have
heard and you will realize your desires.
“and now that | have told you before it come
to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye
might believe.” John 14:29.
Many persons, myself included, have
observed events before they occurred; that
is, before they occurred in this world of
three dimensions. Since man can observe
an event before it occurs in the three
dimensions of space, then life on earth
proceeds according to plan; and this plan
must exist elsewhere in another dimension
and is slowly moving through our space.
If the occurring events were not in this
world when they were observed, then to be
perfectly logical they must have been out of
this world. And whatever is THERE to be
seen before it occurs HERE must be "pre-
determined" from the point of view of man
awake in a three-dimensional world. Yet
the ancient teachers taught us that we
could alter the future, and my own
experience confirms the truth of their
teaching.
Therefore, my object in giving this course is
to indicate the possibilities inherent in man,
to show that man can alter his future; but,
thus altered, it forms again a deterministic
sequence starting from the point of
interference a future that will be consistent
with the alteration.
The most remarkable feature of man's
future is its flexibility. The future, although
prepared in advance in every detail, has
several outcomes. We have at every
moment of our lives the choice before us
which of several futures we will have.
There are two actual outlooks on the world
possessed by everyone — a natural focus
and a Spiritual focus. The ancient teachers
called one “the carnal mind,” and the other
“the mind of Christ.” We may differentiate
them as ordinary waking consciousness,
governed by our senses, and a controlled
imagination, governed by desire.
We recognize these two distinct centers of
thought in the statement: "The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned."1 Cor. 2:14.
The natural view confines reality to the
moment called NOW. To the natural view,
the past and future are purely imaginary.
The spiritual view on the other hand sees
the contents of time. The past and future
are a present whole to the spiritual view.
What is mental and subjective to the
natural man is concrete and objective to the
spiritual man.
The habit of seeing only that which our
senses permit renders us totally blind to
what, otherwise, we could see. To cultivate
the faculty of seeing the invisible, we
should often deliberately disentangle our
minds from the evidence of the senses and
focus our attention on an invisible state,
mentally feeling it and sensing it until it has
all the distinctness of reality.
Earnest, concentrated thought focused in a
particular direction shuts out other
sensations and causes them to disappear.
We have only to concentrate on the state
desired in order to see it.
The habit of withdrawing attention from the
region of sensation and concentrating it on
the invisible develops our spiritual outlook
and enables us to penetrate beyond the
world of sense and to see that which is
invisible. "For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly
seen." Rom. 1:20. This vision is completely
independent of the natural faculties. Open
it and quicken it!
A little practice will convince us that we can,
by controlling our imagination, reshape our
future in harmony with our desire. Desire is
the mainspring of action. We could not
move a single finger unless we had a
desire to move it. No matter what we do,
we follow the desire which at the moment
dominates our minds. When we break a
habit, our desire to break it is greater than
our desire to continue the habit.
The desires which impel us to action are
those which hold our attention. A desire is
but an awareness of something we lack
and need to make our life more enjoyable.
Desires always have some personal gain in
view, the greater the anticipated gain, the
more intense is the desire. There is no
absolutely unselfish desire. Where there is
nothing to gain, there is no desire and
consequently no action.
The spiritual man speaks to the natural
man through the language of desire. The
key to progress in life and to the fulfillment
of dreams lies in ready obedience to its
voice. Unhesitating obedience to its voice
is an immediate assumption of the wish
fulfilled. To desire a state is to have it. As
Pascal has said, "You would not have
sought me had you not already found me."
Man, by assuming the feeling of his wish
fulfilled, and then living and acting on this
conviction, alters the future in harmony with
his assumption. Assumptions awaken what
they affirm. AS soon as man assumes the
feeling of his wish fulfilled, his fourth
dimensional Self finds ways for the
attainment of this end, discovers methods
for its realization.
| know of no clearer definition of the means
by which we realize our desires than to
EXPERIENCE IN THE IMAGINATION
WHAT WE WOULD EXPERIENCE IN THE
FLESH WERE WE TO ACHIEVE OUR
GOAL. This imaginary experience of the
end with acceptance, wills the means. The
fourth dimensional Self then constructs
with its larger outlook the means necessary
to realize the accepted end.
The undisciplined mind finds it difficult to
assume a State which is denied by the
senses. But here is a technique that makes
it easy to "call things which are not seen as
though they were," that is, to encounter an
event before it occurs. People have a habit
of slighting the importance of simple things.
But this simple formula for changing the
future was discovered after years of
searching an experimenting.
The first step in changing the future is
DESIRE, that is, define your objective know
definitely what you want.
Secondly, construct an event which you
believe you would encounter FOLLOWING
the fulfillment of your desire; an event
which implies fulfillment of your desire -
something which will have the action of Self
predominant.
Thirdly, immobilize the physical body, and
induce a condition akin to sleep by
imagining that you are sleepy. Lie on a bed
or relax in a chair. Then, with eyelids closed
and your attention focused on the action
you intend to experience in imagination,
mentally feel yourself right into the
proposed action; imagining all the while
that you are actually performing the action
here and now.
You must always participate in the
imaginary action, not merely stand back
and look on, but feel that you are actually
performing the action so that the imaginary
sensation is real to you.
It is important always to remember that the
proposed action must be one which
FOLLOWS the fulfillment of your desire.
Also, you must feel yourself into the action
until it has all the vividness and distinctness
of reality.
For example, suppose you desire
promotion in your office. Being
congratulated would be an event you would
encounter following the fulfillment of your
desire. Having selected this action as the
one you will experience in imagination,
immobilize the physical body and induce a
state akin to sleep, a drowsy state, but one
in which you are still able to control the
direction of your thoughts, a state in which
you are attentive without effort. Then
visualize a friend standing before you. Put
your imaginary hand into his. Feel it to be
solid and real, and carry on an imaginary
conversation with him in harmony with the
action.
You do not visualize yourself at a distance
in point of space and at a distance in point
of time being congratulated on your good
fortune. Instead, you make elsewhere
HERE, and the future NOW. The future
event is a reality NOW in a dimensionally
larger world and oddly enough, now in a
dimensionally larger world is equivalent to
HERE in the ordinary three-dimensional
space of everyday life.
The difference between FEELING yourself
in action ,here and now, and visualizing
yourself in action, as though you were on a
motion picture screen, is the difference
between success and failure. The
difference will be appreciated if you will
now visualize yourself climbing a ladder.
Then, with eyelids closed imagine that
ladder is right in front of you and FEEL
yourself actually climbing it.
Desire, physical immobility bordering on
sleep, and imaginary action in which Self
feelingly predominates HERE AND NOW,
are not only important factors in altering the
future, but they are also essential
conditions in consciously projecting the
spiritual Self.
When the physical body is immobilized and
we become possessed of the idea to do
something, if we imagine that we are doing
it HERE AND NOW and keep the imaginary
action feelingly going right up until sleep
ensues, we are likely to awaken out of the
physical body to find ourselves in a
dimensionally larger world with a
dimensionally larger focus and actually
doing what we desired and imagined we
were doing in the flesh.
But whether we awaken there or not, w are
actually performing the action in the fourth
dimensional world, and will in the future re-
enact it here in the third-dimensional world.
Experience has taught me to restrict the
imaginary action, to condense the idea
which is to be the object of our meditation
into a single act, and to re-enact it over and
over again until it has the feeling of reality.
Otherwise, the attention will wander off
along an associational track, and hosts of
associated images will be presented to our
attention, and in a few seconds they will
lead us hundreds of miles away from our
objective in point of space, and years away
in point of time.
If we decide to climb a particular flight of
stairs, because that is the likely event to
follow the realization of our desire, then we
must restrict the action to climbing that
particular flight of stairs. Should the
attention wander off, bring it back to its task
of climbing that flight of stairs, and keep on
doing so until the imaginary action has all
the solidity and distinctness of reality. The
idea must be maintained in the field of
presentation without any sensible effort on
our part. We must, with the minimum of
effort, permeate the mind with the feeling of
the wish fulfilled.
Drowsiness facilitates change because it
favors attention without effort, but it must
not be pushed to the state of sleep, in
which we shall no longer be able to control
the movements of our attention, but a
moderate degree of drowsiness in which
we are still able to direct our thoughts.
A most effective way to embody a desire is
to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled
and then, in a relaxed and sleepy state,
repeat over and over again like a lullaby,
any short phrase which implies fulfillment of
your desire, such as, "Thank you, thank
you, thank you," until the single sensation
of thankfulness dominates the mind. Speak
these words as though you addressed a
higher power for having done it for you.
If, however, we seek a conscious projection
in a dimensionally larger world, then we
must keep the action going right up until
sleep ensues. Experience in imagination
with all the distinctness of reality what
would be experienced in the flesh were we
to achieve our goal and we shall in time
meet it in the flesh as we met it in our
imagination.
Feed the mind with premises, that is,
assertions presumed to be true, because
assumptions, though false, if persisted in
until they have the feeling of reality, will
harden into fact.
To an assumption, all means which
promote its realization are good. It
influences the behavior of all, by inspiring
in all the movements, the actions, and the
words which tend towards its fulfillment.
To understand how man molds his future in
harmony with his assumption by simply
experiencing in his imagination what he
would experience in reality were he to
realize his goal we must know what we
mean by a dimensionally larger world, for it
is to a dimensionally larger world that we
go to alter our future.
The observation of an event before it
occurs implies that the event is
predetermined from the point of view of
man in the three-dimensional world.
Therefore, to change the conditions here in
the three dimensions of space we must first
change them in the four dimensions of
space.
Man does not know exactly what is meant
by a dimensionally larger world, and would
no doubt deny the existence of a
dimensionally larger Self. He is quite
familiar with the three dimensions of length,
width and height, and he feels that, if there
were a fourth dimension, it should be just
as obvious to him as the dimensions of
length, width and height.
Now a dimension is not a line. It is any way
in which a thing can be measured that is
entirely different from all other ways. That
is, to measure a solid fourth dimensionally,
we simply measure it in any direction
except that of its length, width and height.
Now, is there another way of measuring an
object other than those of its length, width
and height?
Time measures my life without employing
the three dimensions of length, width and
height. There is no such thing as an
instantaneous object. Its appearance and
disappearance are measurable. It endures
for a definite length of time. We can
measure its life span without using the
dimensions of length, width and height.
Time is definitely a fourth way of measuring
an object.
The more dimensions an object has, the
more substantial and real it becomes. A
Straight line, which lies entirely in one
dimension, acquires shape, mass and
substance by the addition of dimensions.
What new quality would time, the fourth
dimension give, which would make it just as
vastly superior to solids, as solids are to
surfaces and surfaces are to lines? Time is
a medium for changes in experience, for all
changes take time.
he new quality is changeability. Observe
that, if we bisect a solid, its cross section
will be a surface; by bisecting a surface, we
obtain a line, and by bisecting a line, we get
a point. This means that a point is but a
cross section of a line; which is, in turn, but
a cross section of a surface; which is, in
turn, but across section of a solid; which is,
in turn, if carried to its logical conclusion,
but a cross section of a four dimensional
object.
We cannot avoid the inference that all
three-dimensional objects are but cross
sections of four dimensional bodies. Which
means: when | meet you, | meet a cross
section of the four dimensional you the
four-dimensional Self that is not seen. To
see the four-dimensional Self | must see
every cross section or moment of your life
from birth to death, and see them all as co-
existing.
My focus should take in the entire array of
sensory impressions which you have
experienced on earth, plus those you might
encounter. | should see them, not in the
order in which they were experienced by
you, but as a present whole. Because
CHANGE is the characteristic of the fourth
dimension, | should see them in a state of
flux as a living, animated whole.
Now, if we have all this clearly fixed in our
minds, what does it mean to us in this
three-dimensional world? It means that, if
we can move along times length, we can
see the future and alter it if we so desire.
This world, which we think so solidly real, is
a shadow out of which and beyond which
we may at any time pass. It is an
abstraction from a more fundamental and
dimensionally larger world a more
fundamental world abstracted from a still
more fundamental and dimensionally
larger world and so on to infinity. For the
absolute is unattainable by any means or
analysis, no matter how many dimensions
we add to the world.
Man can prove the existence of a
dimensionally larger world by simply
focusing his attention on an invisible state
and imagining that he sees and feels it. If
he remains concentrated in this state, his
present environment will pass away, and
he will awaken in a dimensionally larger
world where the object of his contemplation
will be seen as a concrete objective reality.
| feel intuitively that, were he to abstract his
thoughts from this dimensionally larger
world and retreat still farther within his
mind, he would again bring about an
externalization of time. He would discover
that, every time he retreats into his inner
mind and brings about an externalization of
time, space becomes dimensionally larger.
And he would therefore conclude that both
time and space are serial, and that the
drama of life is but the climbing of a
multitudinous dimensional time block.
Scientists will one day explain WHY there
is a Serial Universe. But in practice HOW
we use this Serial Universe to change the
future is more important. To change the
future, we need only concern ourselves
with two worlds in the infinite series; the
world we know by reason of our bodily
organs, and the world we perceive
independently of our bodily organs.
| have stated that man has at every
moment of time the choice before him
which of several futures he will have. But
the question arises: "How is this possible
when the experiences of man, awake in the
three-dimensional world, are
predetermined?" as his observation of an
event before it occurs implies.
This ability to change the future will be seen
if we liken the experiences of life on earth
to this printed page. Man experiences
events on earth singly and successively in
the same way that you are now
experiencing the words of this page.
Imagine that every word on this page
represents a single sensory impression. To
get the context, to understand my meaning,
you focus your vision on the first word in the
upper left hand corner and then move your
focus across the page from left to right,
letting it fall on the words singly and
successively. By the time your eyes reach
the last word on this page you have
extracted my meaning.
But suppose on looking at the page, with all
the printed words thereon equally present,
you decided to rearrange them. You could,
by rearranging them, tell an entirely
different story, in fact you could tell many
different stories.
A dream is nothing more than uncontrolled
four dimensional thinking, or the
rearrangement of both past and future
sensory impressions. Man seldom dreams
of events in the order in which he
experiences them when awake. He usually
dreams of two or more events which are
separated in time fused into a single
sensory impression; or else he so
completely rearranges his single waking
sensory impressions that he does not
recognize them when he encounters them
in his waking state.
For example, | dreamed that | delivered a
package to the restaurant in my apartment
building. The hostess said to me, "You can't
leave that there," whereupon, the elevator
operator gave me a few letters and as |
thanked him for them he, in turn, thanked
me. At this point, the night elevator operator
appeared and waved a greeting to me.
The following day, as | left my apartment, |
picked up a few letters which had been
placed at my door. On my way down | gave
the day elevator operator a tip and thanked
him for taking care of my mail, whereupon,
he thanked me for the tip.
On my return home that day | overheard a
doorman say to a delivery man, "You can't
leave that there." As | was about to take the
elevator up to my apartment, | was
attracted by a familiar face in the
restaurant, and as | looked in the hostess
greeted me with a smile. That night |
escorted my dinner guests to the elevator
and as | said goodbye to them, the night
operator waved goodnight to me.
By simply rearranging a few of the single
sensory impressions | was destined to
encounter, and by fusing two or more of
them into single sensory impressions, |
constructed a dream which differed quite a
bit from my waking experience.
When we have learned to control the
movements of our attention in the fourth -
dimensional world, we shall be able to
consciously create circumstances in the
three-dimensional world. We learn this
control through the waking dream, where
our attention can be maintained without
effort, for attention minus effort is
indispensable to changing the future. We
can, in a controlled waking dream,
consciously construct an event which we
desire to experience in the three
dimensional world.
The sensory impressions we use to
construct our waking dream are present
realities displaced in time or the fourth
dimensional world. All that we do in
constructing the waking dream is to select
from the vast array of sensory impressions
those, which, when they are properly
arranged, imply that we have realized our
desire.
With the dream clearly defined we relax in
a chair and induce a state of
consciousness akin to sleep. A state which,
although bordering on sleep, leaves us in
conscious control of the movements of our
attention. Then we experience in
imagination what we would experience in
reality were this waking dream an objective
fact.
In applying this technique to change the
future it is important always to remember
that the only thing which occupies the mind
during the waking dream is THE WAKING
DREAM, the predetermined action and
sensation which implies the fulfillment of
our desire. How the waking dream
becomes physical fact is not our concern.
Our acceptance of the waking dream as
physical reality wills the means for its
fulfillment.
Let me again lay the foundation of prayer,
which is nothing more than a controlled
waking dream:
1. Define your objective, know definitely
what you want.
2. Construct an event which you believe
you will encounter FOLLOWING the
fulfillment of your desire, something which
will have the action of Self predominant, an
event which implies the fulfillment of your
desire.
3. Immobilize the physical body and induce
a state of consciousness akin to sleep.
Then, mentally feel yourself right into the
proposed action, until the single sensation
of fulfillment dominates the mind; imagining
all the while that you are actually
performing the action HERE AND NOW so
that you experience in imagination what
you would experience in the flesh were you
now to realize your goal. Experience has
convinced me that this is the easiest way to
achieve our goal.
However, my own many failures would
convict me were | to imply that | have
completely mastered the movements of my
attention. But | can, with the ancient
teacher, say:
"This one thing | do, forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth unto
those things which are before, | press
toward the mark for the prize." Phil.
3:13,14.
Again | want to remind you that the
responsibility to make what you have done
real in this world is not on your shoulders.
Do not be concerned with the HOW, you
have assumed that it is done, the
assumption has its own way of objectifying
itself. All responsibility to make it so is
removed from you.
There is a little statement in the book of
Exodus which bears this out. Millions of
people who have read it, or have had it
mentioned to them throughout the
centuries have completely misunderstood
it. It is said, "Steep not a kid in its mothers
milk." (King James version, "Thou shalt not
seethe a kid in his mothers milk." Exodus
23:19).
Unnumbered millions of people,
misunderstanding this statement, to this
very day in the enlightened age of 1948,
will not eat any dairy products with a meat
dish. It just is not done.
They think the Bible is history, and when it
says, "Steep not a kid in its mother's milk,"
milk and the products of milk, butter and
cheese, they will not take at the same time
they take the kid or any kind of meat. In fact
they even have separate dishes with which
to cook their meat.
But you are now about to apply it
psychologically. You have done your
meditation and you have assumed that you
are what you want to be. Consciousness is
God, your attention is like the very stream
of life or milk itself that nurses and makes
alive that which holds your attention. In
other words, what holds your attention has
your life.
Throughout the centuries a kid has been
used as the symbol of sacrifice. You have
given birth to everything in your world. But
there are things that you no longer wish to
keep alive, although you have mothered
and fathered them. You are a jealous father
that can easily consume, like Cronus, his
children. It is your right to consume what
formerly you expressed when you did not
know better.
Now you are detached in consciousness
from that former state. It was your kid, it
was your child, you embodied and
expressed it in your world. But now that you
have assumed that you are what you want
to be, do not look back on your former state
and wonder HOW it will disappear from
your world. For if you look back and give
attention to it, you are steeping once more
that kid in its mother's milk.
Do not say to yourself, 'l wonder if | am
really detached from that state," or "I
wonder if so and so is true." Give all your
attention to the assumption that the thing is
so, because all responsibility to make it so
is completely removed from your
shoulders. You do not have to make it so, it
IS so. You appropriate what is already fact,
and you walk in the assumption that it is,
and in a way that you do not know, | do not
know, no man knows, it becomes
objectified in your world.
Do not be concerned with the how, and do
not look back on your former state. "No
man, having put his hand to the plow, and
looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
Luke 9:62.
Simply assume that it is done and suspend
reason, suspend all the arguments of the
conscious three dimensional mind. Your
desire is outside of the reach of the three-
dimensional mind. Assume you are that
which you wish to be; walk as though you
were it; and as you remain faithful to your
assumption it will harden into fact.
Questions & Answers
1. Question. What is the meaning of the
insignia on your book covers?
Answer. It is an eye imposed upon a heart
which, in turn is imposed upon a tree laden
with fruit, meaning that what you are
conscious of, and accept as true, you are
going to realize. As a man thinketh in his
heart, so he is.
2. Question. | would like to be married but
have not found the right man. How do |
imagine a husband?
Answer. Forever in love with ideals, it is the
ideal state that captures the mind. Do not
confine the state of marriage to a certain
man, but a full, rich and overflowing life.
You desire to experience the joy of
marriage. Do not modify your dream but
enhance it by making it lovelier. Then,
condense your desire into a_ single
sensation, or act which implies its
fulfillment. In this western world a woman
wears a wedding ring on the third finger of
her left hand. Motherhood need not imply
marriage, intimacy need not imply
marriage, but a wedding ring does. Relax
in acomfortable armchair, or lie flat on your
back and induce a state akin to sleep. Then
assume the feeling of being married.
Imagine a wedding band on your finger.
Touch it. Turn it around the finger. Pull it off
over the knuckle. Keep the action going
until the ring has the distinctness and
feeling of reality. Become so lost in feeling
the ring on your finger that when you open
your eyes, you will be surprised that it is not
there. If you are a man who does not wear
a ring, you could assume greater
responsibility. How would you feel if you
had a wife to care for? Assume the feeling
of being a happily married man right now.
3. Question: What must | do to inspire
creative thoughts such as those needed for
writing?
Answer: What must you do? Assume the
story has already been written and
accepted by a great publishing house.
Reduce the idea of being a writer to the
sensation of satisfaction. Repeat the
phrase, "Isn't it wonderful!" or "Thank you,
thank you, thank you," over and over again
until you feel successful. Or, imagine a
friend congratulating you. There are
unnumbered ways of implying success, but
always go to the end. Your acceptance of
the end wills its fulfillment. Do not think
about getting in the mood to write, but live
and act as though you are now the author
you desire to be. Assume you have the
talent for writing. Think of the pattern you
want displayed on the outside. If you write
a book and no one is willing to buy it, there
is no satisfaction. Act as though people are
hungry for your work. Live as though you
cannot produce stories, or books fast
enough to meet the demand. Persist in this
assumption and all that is necessary to
achieve your goal will quickly burst into
bloom and you will express it.
4. Question: How do | imagine larger
audiences for my talks?
Answer: | can answer you best by sharing
the technique used by a very able teacher
| know. When this man first came to this
country he began speaking in a small hall
in New York City. Although only fifty or sixty
people attended his Sunday morning
meeting, and they sat in front, this teacher
would stand at the podium and imagine a
vast audience. Then he would say to the
empty space, "Can you hear me back
there?" Today this man is speaking in
Carnegie Hall in New York City to
approximately 2500 people every Sunday
morning and Wednesday evening. He
wanted to speak to crowds. He was not
modest. He did not try to fool himself but
built a crowd in his own consciousness,
and crowds came. Stand before a large
audience. Address this audience in your
imagination. Feel you are on that stage and
your feeling will provide the means.
5. Question: Is it possible to imagine
several things at the same time, or should |
confine my imagining to one desire?
Answer: Personally, | like to confine my
imaginal act to a single thought, but that
does not mean | will stop there. During the
course of a day | may imagine many things,
but instead of imagining lots of small things,
I would suggest that you imagine
something so big it includes all the little
things. Instead of imagining wealth, health
and friends, imagine being ecstatic. You
could not be ecstatic and be in pain. You
could not be ecstatic and be threatened
with a dispossession notice. You could not
be ecstatic if you were not enjoying a full
measure of friendship and love.
What would the feeling be like were you
ecstatic without knowing what had
happened to produce your ecstasy?
Reduce the idea of ecstasy to the single
sensation, "Isn't it wonderful!" Do not allow
the conscious, reasoning mind to ask why,
because if it does it will start to look for
visible causes, and then the sensation will
be lost. Rather, repeat over and over again,
"Isn't it wonderful!" Suspend judgment as to
what is wonderful. Catch the one sensation
of the wonder of it all and things will happen
to bear witness to the truth of this
sensation. And | promise you, it will include
all the little things.
6. Question: How often should | perform the
imaginal act, a few days or several weeks?
Answer: In the Book of Genesis the story is
told of Jacob wrestling with an angel. This
story gives us the clue we are looking for;
that when satisfaction is reached,
impotence follows. When the feeling of
reality is yours, for the moment at least, you
are mentally impotent. The desire to repeat
the act of prayer is lost, having been
replaced by the feeling of accomplishment.
You cannot persist in wanting what you
already have. If you assume you are what
you desire to be to the point of ecstasy, you
no longer want it. Your imaginal act is as
much a creative act as a physical one
wherein man halts, shrinks and is blessed,
for as man creates his own likeness, so
does your imaginal act transform itself into
the likeness of your assumption. If,
however, you do not reach the point of
satisfaction, repeat the action over and
over again until you feel as though you
touched it and virtue went out of you.
7. Question: | have been taught not to ask
for earthly things, only for spiritual growth,
yet money and things are what | need.
Answer: You must be honest with yourself.
All through scripture the question is asked,
"What do you want of me?" Some wanted
to see, others to eat, and still others wanted
to be made straight, or "That my child live."
Your dimensionally larger self speaks to
you through the language of desire. Do not
deceive yourself. Knowing what you want,
claim you already have it, for it is your
Father's good pleasure to give it to you and
remember, what you desire, that you have.
8. Question: When you have assumed your
desire, do you keep in mind the ever
presence of this greater one protecting and
giving you your assumption?
Answer: The acceptance of the end wills
the means. Assume the feeling of your wish
fulfilled and your dimensionally greater self
will determine the means. When you
appropriate a state as though you had it,
the activity of the day will divert your mind
from all anxious thoughts so that you do not
look for signs. You do not have to carry the
feeling that some presence is going to do it
for you, rather you know it is already done.
Knowing it is already a fact, walk as though
it were, and things will happen to make it
so. You do not have to be concerned about
some presence doing anything for you. The
deeper, dimensionally greater you has
already done it. All you do is move to the
place where you encounter it.
Remember the story of the man who left
the master and was on his way home when
he met his servant who said, "Your son
lives." And when he asked at what hour it
was done the servant replied, "The seventh
hour." The self-same hour that he assumed
his desire, it was done for him, for it was at
the seventh hour that the master said,
"Your son lives." Your desire is already
granted. Walk as though it were and,
although time beats slowly in this
dimension of your being, it will nevertheless
bring you confirmation of your assumption.
| ask you not to be impatient, though. If
there is one thing you really have need of,
it is patience.
9. Question: Isn't there a law that says you
cannot get something for nothing? Must we
not earn what we desire?
Answer: Creation is finished! It is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom. The parable of the prodigal son is
your answer. In spite of man's waste, when
he comes to his senses and remembers
who he is, he feeds on the fatted calf of
abundance and wears the robe and ring of
authority. There is nothing to earn. Creation
was finished in the foundation of time. You,
as man, are God made visible for the
purpose of displaying what is, not what is
to be. Do not think you must work out your
salvation by the sweat of your brow. It is not
four months until the harvest, the fields are
already white, simply thrust in the sickle.
10. Question: Does not the thought that
creation is finished rob one of his initiative?
Answer: If you observe an event before it
occurs, then the occuring event must be
predetermined from the point of view of
being awake in this three dimensional
world. Yet, you do not have to encounter
what you observe. You can, by changing
your concept of self, interfere with your
future and mold it in harmony with your
changed concept of self.
11. Question: Does not this ability to
change the future deny that creation is
finished?
Answer: No. You, by changing your
concept of self, change your relationship to
things. If you rearrange the words of a play
to write a different one, you have not
created new words, but simply had the joy
of rearranging them. Your concept of self
determines the order of events you
encounter. They are in the foundation of the
world, but not their order of arrangement.
12. Question: Why should one who works
hard in metaphysics always seem to lack?
Answer: Because he has not really applied
metaphysics. | am not speaking of a
mamby-pamby approach to life, but a daily
application of the law of consciousness.
When you appropriate your good, there is
no need for a man, or state, to act as a
medium through which your good will
come. Living in a world of men, money is
needed in my everyday life. If | invite you to
lunch tomorrow, | must pick up the check.
When | leave the hotel, | must pay the bill.
In order to take the train back to New York
my railway fare must be paid. | need money
and it has to be there. | am not going to say,
"God knows best, and He knows | need
money." Rather, | will appropriate the
money as though it were! We must live
boldly! We must go through life as though
we possessed what we want to possess.
Do not think that because you helped
another, someone outside of you saw your
good works and will give you something to
ease your burden. There is no one to do it
for you. You, yourself must go boldly on
appropriating what your Father has already
given you.
13. Question: Can an uneducated person
educate himself by assuming the feeling of
being educated?
Answer: Yes. An aroused interest is
awarded information from every side. You
must sincerely desire to be well schooled.
The desire to be well read, followed by the
assumption that you are, makes you
selective in your reading. As you progress
in your education, you automatically
become more selective, more
discriminating in all that you do.
14. Question: My husband and | are taking
the class together. Should we discuss our
desires with each other?
Answer: There are two spiritual sayings
which permeate the Bible. One is, "Go tell
no man," and the other is "I have told you
before it comes to pass that when it does
come to pass you may believe." It takes
spiritual boldness to tell another that your
desire is fulfilled before it is seen on the
outside. If you do not have that kind of
boldness, then you had better keep quiet.
| personally enjoy telling my plans to my
wife, because we both get such a thrill
when they come into being. The first
person a man wants to prove this law to is
his wife. It is said that Mohammad is
everlastingly great because his first
disciple was his wife.
15. Question: Should my husband and |
work on the same project or on separate
ones?
Answer: That is entirely up to you. My wife
and | have different interests, yet we have
much in common. Do you recall the story |
told of our return to the United States this
spring? | felt it was my duty as a husband
to get passage back to America, so |
appropriated that to myself. | feel there are
certain things that are on my wife's side of
the contract, such as maintaining a clean,
lovely home and finding the appropriate
school for our daughter, so she takes care
of those. Quite often my wife will ask me to
imagine for her, as though she has greater
faith in my ability to do it than in her own.
That flatters me because every man worthy
of the name wants to feel that his family has
faith in him. But | see nothing wrong in the
communion between two who love one
another.
16. Question: | would think that if you get
too much into the sleepy state there would
be a lack of feeling.
Answer: When | speak of feeling | do not
mean emotion, but acceptance of the fact
that the desire is fulfilled. Feeling grateful,
fulfilled, or thankful, it is easy to say, "Thank
You," "Isn't it wonderful!" or "It is finished.”
When you get into the state of
thankfulness, you can either awaken
knowing it is done, or fall asleep in the
feeling of the wish fulfilled.
17. Question: Is love a product of your own
consciousness?
Answer: All things exist in your
consciousness, be they love or hate.
Nothing comes from without. The hills to
which you look for help are those of an
inner range. Your feelings of love, hate or
indifference all spring from your own
consciousness. You are infinitely greater
than you could ever conceive yourself to
be. Never, in eternity will you reach the
ultimate you. That is how wonderful you
are. Love is not a product of you, you are
love, for that is what God is and God's
name is | am, the very name you call
yourself before you make the claim as to
the state you are now in.
18. Question: Suppose my wants cannot
materialize for six months to a year, do |
wait to imagine them?
Answer: When the desire is upon you, that
is the time to accept your wish in its
fullness. Perhaps there are reasons why
the urge is given you at this time. Your three
dimensional being may think it cannot be
now, but your fourth dimensional mind
knows it already is, so the desire should be
accepted by you as a physical fact now.
Suppose you wanted to build a house. The
urge to have it is now, but it is going to take
time for the trees to grow and the carpenter
to build the house. Although the urge
seems big, do not wait to adjust to it. Claim
possession now and let it objectify itself in
its own strange way. Do not say it will take
six months or a year. The minute the desire
comes upon you, assume it is already a
fact! You and you alone have given your
desire a time interval and time is relative
when it comes to this world. Do not wait for
anything to come to pass, accept it now as
though it were and see what happens.
When you have a desire, the deeper you,
who men call God, is speaking. He urges
you, through the language of desire, to
accept that which is, not that which is to be!
Desire is simply his communion with you,
telling you that your desire is yours, now!
Your acceptance of this fact is proved by
your complete adjustment to it as though it
were true.
19. Question: Why do some of us die
young?
Answer: Our lives are not, in retrospect,
measured by years but by the content of
those years.
20. Question: What would you consider a
full life?
Answer: A variety of experiences. The more
varied they are, the richer is your life. At
death you function in a dimensionally larger
world, and play your part on a keyboard
made up of a lifetime of human
experiences. Therefore, the more varied
your experiences, the finer is your
instrument and the richer is your life.
21. Question: What about a child who dies
at birth?
Answer: The child who is born, lives
forever, as nothing dies. It may appear that
the child who dies at birth has no keyboard
of human experience but, as a poet once
said: "He drew a circle that shut me out,
Infidel, scoundrel, a thing to flout. But Love
and | had the wit to win! We drew a circle
that took him in." The loved one has access
to the sensory experiences of the lover.
God is love; therefore, ultimately everyone
has an instrument, the keyboard of which is
the sensory impressions of all men.
22. Question: What is your technique of
prayer?
Answer: It starts with desire, for desire is
the mainspring of action. You must know
and define your objective, then condense it
into a sensation which implies fulfillment.
When your desire is clearly defined,
immobilize your physical body and
experience, in your imagination, the action
which implies its fulfillment. Repeat this act
over and over again until it has the
vividness and feeling of reality.
Or, condense your desire into a single
phrase that implies fulfillment such as,
"Thank you Father," "Isn't it wonderful," or
"It is finished." Repeat that condensed
phrase, or action in your imagination over
and over again. Then either awaken from
that state, or slip off into the deep. It does
not matter, for the act is done when you
completely accept it as being finished in
that sleepy, drowsy state.
23. Question: Two people want the same
position. One has it. The other had it and
now wants it back.
Answer: Your Father (the dimensionally
greater you) has ways and means you
know not of. Accept his wisdom. Feel your
desire is fulfilled, then allow your Father to
give it to you. The present one may be
promoted to a higher position, or marry a
man of great wealth and give up her job.
She may come into a great deal of money,
or choose to move to another state.
Many people say they want to work, but |
question that seriously. They want security
and condition security on a job. But | really
do not think the average girl truly wants to
get up in the morning and go to work.
24. Question: What is the cause of disease
and pain?
Answer: The physical body is an emotional
filter. Many human ailments, hitherto
considered purely physical, are now
recognized as rooted in emotional
disturbances.
Pain comes from lack of relaxation. When
you sleep there is no pain. If you are under
an anesthetic, there is no pain because you
are relaxed, as it were. If you have pain it is
because you are tense and trying to force
something. You cannot force an idea into
embodiment, you simply appropriate it. It is
attention minus effort. Only practice will
bring you to that point where you can be
attentive and still be relaxed.
Attention is tension toward an end, and
relaxation is just the opposite. Here are two
completely opposite ideas that you must
blend until you learn, through practice, how
to be attentive, but not tense. The word
"contention" means "attention minus
effort." In the state of contention you are
held by the idea without tension.
25. Question: No matter how much | try to
be happy, underneath, | have a melancholy
feeling of being left out. Why?
Answer: Because you feel you are not
wanted. Were | you, | would assume | am
wanted. You know the technique. The
assumption that you are wanted may seem
false when first assumed, but if you will feel
wanted and respected, and persist in that
assumption, you will be amazed how
others will seek you out. They will begin to
see qualities in you they had never seen
before. | promise you. If you will but
assume you are wanted, you will be.
26. Question: If security came to me
through the death of a loved one, did | bring
about that death?
Answer: Do not think for one second that
you brought about a death by assuming
security. The greater you is not going to
injure anyone. It sees all and, knowing the
length of life of all, it can inspire the other
to give you that which can fulfill your
assumption.
You did not kill the person who named you
in his will. If, a few days after your complete
acceptance of the idea of security, Uncle
John made his exit from this three-
dimensional plane and left you his estate, it
is only because it was time for Uncle John
to go. He did not die one second before his
time, however. The greater you saw the life
span of John and used him as the way to
bring about the fulfillment of your feeling of
security.
The acceptance of the end wills the means
toward the fulfillment of that end. Do not be
concerned with anything save the end.
Always bear in mind that the responsibility
to make it so is completely removed from
your shoulders. It is yours because you
accept it as so!
27. Question: | have more than one
objective. Would it be ineffective to
concentrate on different objectives at
different periods of concentration?
Answer: | like to take one consuming
ambition, restrict it to a single short phrase,
or act that implies fulfillment, but | do not
limit my ambition. | only know that my real
objective will include all the little ones.
28. Question: | find it difficult to change my
concept of self. Why?
Answer: Because your desire to change
has not been aroused. If you would fall in
love with what you really want to be, you
would become it. It takes an intense hunger
to bring about a transformation of self.
"As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks,
so panteth my soul after thee, O Lord. "If
you would become as thirsty for perfection
as then little hart is for water that it braves
the anger of the tiger in the forest, you
would become perfect.
29. Question: | am contemplating a
business venture. It means a great deal to
me, but | cannot imagine how it can come
into being.
Answer: You are relieved of that
responsibility. You do not have to make it a
reality, it already is! Although your concept
of self seems so far removed from the
venture you now contemplate, it exists now
as a reality within you. Ask yourself how
you would feel and what you would be
doing if your business venture were a great
success. Become identified with that
character and feeling and you will be
amazed how quickly you will realize your
dream.
The only sacrifice you are called upon to
make, is to give up your present concept of
self and appropriate the desire you want to
express.
30. Question: As a metaphysical student |
have been taught to believe that race
beliefs and universal assumptions affect
me. Do you mean that only to the degree |
give these universal beliefs power over me,
am | influenced by them?
Answer: Yes. It is only your individual
viewpoint, as your world is forever bearing
witness to your present concept of self. If
someone offends you, change your
concept of self. That is the only way others
change. Tonight's paper may be read by
any six people in this room and no two will
interpret the same story in the same way.
One will be elated, the other depressed,
another indifferent, and so on, yet it is the
same story.
Universal assumptions, race beliefs, call
them what you will, they are not important
to you. What is important is your concept,
not of another, but of yourself, for the
concept you hold of yourself determines
the concept you hold of others. Leave
others alone. What are they to you? Follow
your own desires.
The law is always in operation, always
absolute. Your consciousness is the rock
upon which all structures rest. Watch what
you are aware of. You need not concern
yourself with others because you are
sustained by the absoluteness of this law.
No man comes to you of his own accord,
be he good, bad or indifferent. He did not
choose you! You chose him! He was drawn
to you because of what you are.
You cannot destroy the state another
represents through force. Rather, leave
him alone. What is he to you? Rise to a
higher level of consciousness and you will
find a new world awaiting you, and as you
sanctify yourself, others are sanctified.
31. Question: Who wrote the Bible?
Answer: The Bible was written by intelligent
men who used sollar and phallic myths to
reveal psychological truths. But we have
mistaken their allegory for history and,
therefore, have failed to see their true
message.
It is strange, but when the Bible was
launched upon the world, and acceptance
seemed to be in sight, the great Alexandria
Library was burnt to the ground, leaving no
record as to how the Bible came into being.
Few people can read other languages, so
they cannot compare their beliefs with
others. Our churches do not encourage us
to compare. How many of the millions who
accept the Bible as fact, ever question it?
Believing it is the word of God, they blindly
accept the words and thus lose the
essence they contain. Having accepted the
vehicle, they do not understand what the
vehicle conveys.
32. Question: Do you use the Apocrypha?
Answer: Not in my teaching. | have several
volumes of them at home. They are no
greater than the sixty-six books of our
present Bible. They are simply telling the
same truth in a different way. For instance,
the story is told of Jesus, as a young boy,
watching children make birds out of mud.
Holding the birds in their hands, they
pretend the birds are flying. Jesus
approaches and knocks the birds out of
their hands. As they begin to cry, he picks
up one of the broken birds and remolds it.
Holding it high, he breathes upon it and the
bird takes flight.
Here is a story of one who came to break
the idols in the minds of men, then show
them how to use the same substance and
remold it into a beautiful form and give it
life. That is what this story is trying to
convey. "| come, not to bring peace, but a
sword." Truth slays all the little mud hens of
the mind; slays illusions and then remolds
them into a new pattern which sets man
free.
33. Question: If Jesus was a fictional
character created by Biblical writers for the
purpose of illustrating certain psychological
dramas, how do you account for the fact
that he and his philosophy are mentioned
in the nonreligious and non Christian
history of those times? Were not Pontius
Pilate and Herod real flesh and blood
Roman officials in those days?
Answer: The story of Jesus is the identical
story as that of the Hindu savior, Krishna.
They are the same psychological
characters. Both were supposed to have
been born of virgin mothers. The rulers of
the time sought to destroy them when they
were children. Both healed the sick,
resurrected the dead, taught the gospel of
love and died a martyr's death for mankind.
Hindus and Christians alike believe their
savior to be God made man.
Today people quote Socrates, yet the only
proof that Socrates ever existed is in the
works of Plato. It is said that Socrates
drank hemlock, but | ask you, who is
Socrates? | once quoted a line from
Shakespeare and a lady said to me, "But
Hamlet said that." Hamlet never said it,
Shakespeare wrote the lines and put the
words in the mouth of a character he
created and named Hamlet. St. Augustine
once said, "That which is now called the
Christian religion existed among the
ancients. They began to call Christianity
the true religion, yet it never existed."
34. Question: Do you use affirmations and
denials?
Answer: Let us leave these schools of
thought that use affirmations and denials.
The best affirmation, and the only effective
one is an assumption which, in itself implies
denial of the former state.
The best denial is total indifference. Things
wither and die through indifference. They
are kept alive through attention. You do not
deny a thing by saying it does not exist.
Rather you put feeling into it by recognizing
it, and what you recognize as true, is true
to you, be it good, bad or indifferent.
35. Question: Is it possible for one to
appear dead and still not be dead?
Answer: General Lee was supposed to
have been born two years after his mother,
believed to be dead, was buried alive.
Lucky for her she was not embalmed or
buried in the earth, but in a vault where
someone heard her cry and released her.
Two years later Mrs. Lee bore a son who
became General Lee. That is part of this
country's history.
36. Question: How could one who was
deprived in his youth become a success in
life?
Answer: We are creatures of habit, forming
patterns of the mind which repeat
themselves over and over again. Although
habit acts like a compelling law which
drives one to repeat the patterns, it is nota
law, for you and | can change the patterns.
Many successful men such as Henry Ford,
Rockefeller and Carnegie were deprived in
their youth. Many of the great names in this
country came from poor families, yet they
left behind them great accomplishments in
the political, artistic and financial world.
One evening a friend of mine attended a
meeting for young advertising executives.
The speaker of the evening said to these
young men: "I have but one thing to say to
you tonight, and that is to make yourself big
and you cannot fail."
Taking an ordinary fish bowl, he filled it with
two bags, one of English walnuts and the
other of small beans. Mixing them with his
hand, he began to shake the bowl and said,
"This bowl is life. You cannot stop its
shaking as life is a constant pulsing, living
rhythm, but watch." And as they watched
the big walnuts came to the top of the bowl
as the little beans fell to the bottom.
Looking into the bowl the man asked,
"Which one of you is complaining, asking
why?" Then added, "Isn't it strange, the
sound is coming from the bowl and not the
outside. A bean is complaining that if he
had had the same environment as the
walnut he, too would do big things, but he
never had the chance." Then he took a little
bean from the bottom of the bowl and
placed him on top saying, "I can move the
bean through sheer force, but | cannot stop
the bowl of life from shaking," and as he
shook the bowl, the little bean once again
slid to the bottom.
Hearing another voice of complaint he
asked, "What's that | hear? You are saying
that | should take one of those big fellows
who thinks he is so big and put him on the
bottom and see what happens to him? You
believe he will be just as limited as you
because he will be robbed of the
opportunity of big things just as you are?
Let's see."
Then the speaker took one of the big
walnuts and pushed him right down to the
bottom of the bowl saying, "I still can't stop
the bowl from shaking,” and as the men
watched the big walnut came to the top
again. Then the speaker added:
"Gentlemen, if you really want to be
successful in life, make yourself big."
My friend took this message to heart and
began to assume he was a successful
businessman. Today he is truly a big man if
you judge success by dollars. He now
employs over a thousand people in the city
of New York. Each one of you can do what
he did. Assume you are what you want to
be. Walk in that assumption and it will
harden into fact.
Brazen Impudence
27" September, 1968.
A new idea will not become part of your
common currency of thought until it has
been repeated over and over and you
begin to live by it.
You have been taught to believe that God
exists outside of you, but | say you are all
Imagination. That God exists in us and we
in him. That our eternal body is the
Imagination, and that is God Himself. |
mean every word | have just said, but it is
a new thought. Until this new idea becomes
a part of your thinking, every time you hear
the word, “God,” your mind will go out to
something you have conceived God to be.
When I say | am, | am speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ of the New Testament and the
Jehovah of the Old. When you go to bed
tonight and put your head on a pillow, you
are aware of being. That awareness is
God! | want to show you how to use your
awareness as brazen impudence.
In the 11" chapter of Luke, it is said that
Jesus was praying when one of his
disciples said: "Lord, teach us to pray," at
which time he gave them the Lord’s Prayer.
Now, the Lord’s Prayer that you and | have
is translated from the Latin, which does not
have the imperative passive mood
necessary to convey the meaning of the
prayer. In its original Greek, the prayer is
like brazen impudence, for the imperative
passive mood is a standing order,
something to be done absolutely and
continuously. In other words, "Thy will be
done," becomes "Thy will must be being
done." And "Thy kingdom come" becomes
“Thy kingdom must be being restored."
That is not what is being taught, however,
as he taught in the form of a parable such
as: "Which of you who has a friend would
go to him at midnight and say to him,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend
of mine has arrived on a journey and | have
nothing to set before him,’ and from within
he says, ‘Do not bother me; the door is shut
and my children are in bed. | cannot rise
and give you anything.’ Yet | tell you,
although he will not rise because he is a
friend, yet because of his importunity, he
will rise and give him whatever he needs."
The word importunity means brazen
impudence. In other words, he would not
take no for an answer!
Jesus was not teaching a disciple on the
outside how to pray. He was telling you how
to adjust your thinking so you will not take
no for an answer. In the story the friend
knew what he wanted. He assumed he had
it and continued to assume he had it until
his assumption took on the feeling of reality
and he got it. This is how you find God in
yourself, by being persistent in your
assumption.
Then this story is told to show how you
should pray and not lose heart: "In a certain
city there was a judge who neither feared
God nor regarded man. There was a widow
in that city who came constantly, asking
him to vindicate her against her enemies.
At first he refused, then he said to himself,
‘Although | neither fear God nor regard
man, yet because this woman bothers me |
will vindicate her before she wears me
33)
out.” Again we see the need for
persistence in prayer.
When you know how to pray, you will
discover that everyone in the world can be
used as an instrument to aid the birth of
your prayer. They may be condemned in
the act and pay society’s price, while you
are saved; yet you are the cause of their
action.
| will now share with you a very personal
story. | tell it to illustrate a principle. Society
blamed this lady for what she did, and she
paid the price, but | was the cause of her
misfortune. | am not going to justify my
story and if you can’t take it, I’m sorry.
When | first told it, one lady was very upset
and | regret that; but | have noticed that
when someone has recently given up
alcohol, tobacco, meat, or sex, they
invariably condemn the state. They feel too
close to it to feel secure. | am not saying
that this lady had a similar experience
where she was the victim; | am only
speaking of a principle. Now here is my
story:
When | decided to marry the lady who now
bears my name | applied this principle. At
the time | was terribly involved. | had
married at the age of eighteen and became
a father at nineteen. We separated that
year, but | never sought a divorce;
therefore, my separation was not legal in
the state of New York. Sixteen years later,
when | fell in love and wanted to marry my
present wife, | decided to sleep as though
we were married. While sleeping,
physically in my hotel room, | slept
imaginatively in an apartment, she in one
bed and | in the other. My dancing partner
did not want me to marry, so she told my
wife that | would be seeking a divorce and
to make herself scarce which she did,
taking up residence in another state. But |
persisted! Night after night | slept in the
assumption that | was happily married to
the girl | love.
Within a week | received a call requesting
me to be in court the next Tuesday morning
at 10:00 A.M. Giving me no reason why |
should be there, | dismissed the request,
thinking it was a hoax played on me by a
friend. So the next Tuesday morning at
9:30 A.M. | was unshaved and only
casually dressed, when the phone rang
and a lady said: "It would be to your
advantage, as a public figure, to be in court
this morning, as your wife is on trial." What
a shock! | quickly thanked the lady, caught
a taxi, and arrived just as court began. My
wife had been caught lifting a few items
from a store in New York City, which she
had not paid for. Asking to speak on her
behalf | said: "She is my wife and the
mother of my son. Although we have been
separated for sixteen years, as far as |
know she has never done this before and |
do not think she will ever do it again. We
have a marvelous son. Please do nothing
to her to reflect in any way upon our son,
who lives with me. If | may say something,
she is eight years my senior and may be
passing through a certain emotional state
which prompted her to do what she did. If
you must sentence her, then please
suspend it." The judge then said to me, "In
all of my years on the bench | have never
heard an appeal like this. Your wife tells me
you want a divorce, and here you could
have tangible evidence for it, yet you plead
for her release." He then sentenced her for
six months and suspended the sentence.
My wife waited for me at the back of the
room and said: "Neville, that was a decent
thing to do. Give me the subpoena and I will
sign it." We took a taxi together and | did
that which was not legal: | served my own
subpoena and she signed it.
ow, who was the cause of her misfortune?
She lived in another state, but came to New
York City to do an act for which she was to
be caught and tried. So | say: every being
in the world will serve your purpose, so in
the end you will say: "Father forgive them,
for they know not what they do." They will
move under compulsion to do your will, just
as my wife did.
| tell this story only to illustrate a principle.
You do not need to ask anyone to aid you
in the answer to a prayer, for the simple
reason that God is omnipotent and
omniscient. He is in you as your own
wonderful | Amness. Everyone on the
outside is your servant, your slave, ready
and able to do your will. All you need do is
know what you want. Construct a scene
which would imply the fulfillment of your
desire. Enter the scene and remain there.
If your imaginal counselor (your feeling of
fulfillment) agrees with that which is used
to illustrate your fulfilled desire, your
fantasy will become a fact. If it does not,
start all over again by creating a new scene
and enter it. It costs you nothing to imagine
consciously!
In my own case the scene was a bedroom
of an apartment, with my wife in one bed
and | in the other, denoting that | was no
longer living in a hotel alone. | fell asleep in
that state, and within one week | had the
necessary papers to start action on a
divorce.
This is what the Bible teaches. It is my text
book. "Whatever you desire, believe you
have already received it and you will!"
There is no limit to the power of belief or to
the possibilities of prayer, but you must be
brazenly impudent and not take no for an
answer. Try it! When | say you are all
imagination, | mean it. While standing here
on the platform | can, in a split second,
imagine | am standing on the outside,
looking at this building. Or, in another
second be in London and view the world
from there. You say that’s all hallucination?
That it is all in my imagination? All right,
now let me share another experience with
you.
| was in New York City when | heard that
my seventeen year old nephew, my sister’s
oldest child, was in a terminal state of
cancer. | knew how she felt and wondered
what | could do to comfort her to show her
that the boy she so loved was not flesh and
blood, but spirit. So while in New York City,
| went to my bedroom, closed the door, and
lay down on my bed. Knowing that my
sister lived in the old family house in
Barbados, | assumed | was on the bed
where | knew Billy to be. | assumed my
sister entered that room but could not see
her son, only her brother, Neville. | lost
myself in that assumption until my sister,
Daphne, entered the room. Looking
startled, she came forward, stared at me,
then turned and left the room. When | was
satisfied that | had seen her, and she had
seen me and not her son, | broke the
experience and returned to our living room
to be with my wife and a friend who had
come for cocktails.
Ten days later | received a letter from my
sister, in which she said: "Nev, | just can’t
understand it." Given the day and the hour
which coincided with mine in New York City
she said: "I went into Billy's room and | was
startled to see you there. | Knew you were
in New York City, yet | could not see Billy
on the bed, only you. | must confess | was
a bit afraid, so 1 left the room and when |
returned | could see Billy again. She could
see Billy because by then | had departed.
If | am all imagination, | must be where | am
in imagination. When | gave the scene
sensory vividness, with all the tones of
reality, | was seen by my sister two
thousand miles away. No, | didn’t save Billy.
He died, but my presence did convince my
sister that her son was not flesh and blood.
If her brother, in New York City, could
appear to her in Barbados, she knew there
was something that inhabits a body which
cannot go to eternal death.
| tell you: there is an immortal you that
cannot die. That night | gave my sister the
conviction of a reality in her son that would
survive when the doctor said he was gone.
Gone where? Restored to a terrestrial
world like this as a young lad, to continue a
journey that was set up for him in the
beginning. And that is to form the image of
Jesus Christ in him. When that happens,
Billy will awaken as Jesus Christ, the one
being who is God the Father.
Practice the art of movement. In New York
City, my telephone was in the hallway and
my chair in the living room. While sitting in
my chair, | would assume | was at the
telephone. Then | would assume | was
looking into the living room. | practiced this
exercise until | discovered | could move
anywhere in a split second of time. Try it
and perhaps, like my sister, someone will
have the strange experience of seeing you
where you have not physically been. Make
it fun. | do it all the time.
A lady, thinking | was still in Barbados
where she last saw me painfully thin and
weighing only 138 pounds was hoping |
was feeling better, when I instantly
appeared in her living room. | was brown
from the Barbados sun, wearing a gray suit
(which | did not own when | left here, but
purchased in New York City) when | said:
"There is no time," and vanished. Well, she
is accustomed to these things, so she was
not afraid.
| urge you not to limit yourself to a little body
of flesh and blood, for you are spirit. Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God, so one day you must take it off. And
he who takes it off is immortal. He is your
own wonderful human imagination who is
God, the Father of all life. When you learn
to live this way, life becomes so exciting.
Your days are full and you are never alone.
| spend all day at home reading the Bible
and meditating. | close my eyes and travel
the world. It’s fun and educational. It
expands me and makes me become more
aware of the infinite being that | really am.
Now, the two stories from scripture that |
have shared with you show the importance
of persistence. When you pray, do not get
down on your knees and pray to any
unknown God. Instead, go to bed and dare
to assume you are now who you want to
be. Fall asleep assuming it is true and you
will be on the road to success, for this is
how things are brought into being.
Right now imagine something lovely for
another. They need never know who was
the cause of their fortune but you will. My
first wife did not know | was the cause of
her action. Had she thought that her act
would mean my freedom and her disgrace
do you think she would have done it? She
moved under compulsion, and | was the
compelling force. When you realize this,
you forgive everyone for everything they
have ever done, because you may have
been the one who was the cause of their
action.
Blake said: "Why stand we here trembling
around calling on God for help and not
ourselves in whom God dwells." Why call
on any god, when the only God dwells
within you? He is not pretending, but
actually became you. When you confine
yourself to the little garment you wear, you
are confining God, because it is he who is
wearing it.
You need no intermediary between you and
yourself, who is God. Don’t run from this
city to another in the hope of finding
something better, because the one person
you are going to take with you is yourself;
so resolve your problems here. Do not
compromise. Decide exactly what you want
and assume you have it. If your world
would change, determine what it would
look like; then construct a scene which
would imply you are there. If your mental
construction comes close to your fulfilled
desire, your little day dream will become a
fact! And when it does, will it matter what
others think about your principle? Having
proved itself in performance, share your
experience with another that they may
share theirs. Keep sharing this principle,
because in the end we are all the one being
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. One body,
one Lord, one Spirit, one God and Father
of all. Don’t be ashamed to claim it. Man
sees the Lord Jesus Christ as some little
being on the outside; but he is in you, and
when you see him, he will look just like you!
A friend recently shared this sweet vision
with me. She said: "| saw a man in a white
robe standing on a hill, building a canopy
over the entrance to a temple. As |
approached | could see that the stripes
used for the canopy were translucent green
and | remarked how radiantly beautiful they
were. The man turned to look at me and |
realized it was you, Neville, and yet you
were Michelangelo. Then you addressed
me saying: ‘| have been working on this
throughout eternity and it still remains
invisible to others’. Taking the stripes, |
wove them into the form of a basket and
you thanked me and said: ‘Great work’ and
| awoke." That was a beautiful dream. |
have been telling the story of the
resurrection throughout eternity, but it has
never been put into living form. It still
remains dead, like Michelangelo's Pieta, or
his David made out of marble.
Let David become alive in the minds of
others. Give life to the Pieta, the crucified
one on the mother’s lap. The story is public
property, now a dead written code awaiting
life in the imagination of men. Dramatize
salvation’s story. Make it into a play ora
television show and let Michelangelo’s
Pieta become alive. | have made the story
alive because | have experienced it.
Michelangelo, with his tremendous know -
how of the human form, created the dead
forms made of marble. | came along,
unable to mold a stick, to find the dead
forms taking on life in me. It is my hope that
one day this wonderful story will be told as
it really is, against the story that we have
heard for over two thousand years.
Now let us go into the silence.
Radio Lecture Be What You Wish; Be
What You Believe
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
A newspaperman related to me that our
great scientist, Robert Millikan, once told
him that he had set a goal for himself at an
early age when he was still very poor and
unproven in the great work he was to do in
the future. He condensed his dream of
greatness and security into a simple
statement, which implied that his dream of
greatness and security was already
realized. Then he repeated the statement
over and over again to himself until the idea
of greatness and security filled his mind
and crowded all other ideas out of his
consciousness. These may not have been
the words of Dr. Millikan but they are those
given to me and | quote, "I have a lavish,
steady, dependable income, consistent
with integrity and mutual benefit." As | have
said repeatedly, everything depends upon
our attitude towards ourselves. That which
we will not affirm as true of ourselves
cannot develop in our life. Dr. Millikan wrote
his dream of greatness and security in the
first person, present tense. He did not say,
"| will be great; | will be secure," for that
would have implied that he was not great
and secure. Instead, he made his future
dream a present fact. "I have," said he, "a
lavish, steady, dependable income,
consistent with integrity and mutual
benefit."
The future dream must become a present
fact in the mind of him who seeks to realize
it. We must experience in imagination what
we would experience in reality in the event
we achieve our goal, for the soul imagining
itself into a situation takes on the results of
that imaginary act. If it does not imagine
itself into a situation, it is ever free of the
result.
It is the purpose of this teaching to lift us to
a higher state of consciousness, to stir the
highest in us to confidence and self
assertion, for that which stirs the highest in
us is our teacher and healer. The very first
word of correction or cure is always,
"Arise." If we are to understand the reason
for this constant command of the Bible to
"arise," we must recognize that the
universe understood internally is an infinite
series of levels and man is what he is
according to where he is in that series. As
we are lifted up in consciousness, our world
reshapes itself in harmony with the level to
which we are lifted. He who rises from his
prayer a better man, his prayer has been
granted.
To change the present state we, like Dr.
Millikan, must rise to a higher level of
consciousness. This rise is accomplished
by affirming that we are already that which
we want to be; by assuming the feeling of
the wish fulfilled. The drama of life is a
psychological one which we bring to pass
by our attitudes rather than by our acts.
There is no escape from our present
predicament except by a radical
psychological transformation. Everything
depends upon our attitude towards
ourselves. That which we will not affirm as
true of ourselves will not develop in our
lives.
We hear much of the humble man, the
meek man — but what is meant by a meek
man? He is not poor and groveling, the
proverbial doormat, as he is generally
conceived to be. Men who make
themselves as worms in their own sight
have lost the vision of that life — into the
likeness of which it is the true purpose of
the spirit to transform this life. Men should
take their measurements not from life as
they see it but from men like Dr. Millkan,
who, while poor and unproven, dared to
assume, "I have a lavish, steady,
dependable income, consistent with
integrity and mutual benefit." Such men are
the meek of the Gospels, the men who
inherit the earth. Any concept of self less
than the best robs us of the earth. The
promise is, "Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth."
In the original text, the word translated as
meek is the opposite of the words —
resentful — angry. It has the meaning of
becoming "tamed" as a wild animal is
tamed. After the mind is tamed, it may be
likened to a vine, of which it may be said,
"Behold this vine. | found it a wild tree
whose wanton strength had swollen into
irregular twigs. But | pruned the plant, and
it grew temperate in its vain expense of
useless leaves, and knotted as you see into
these clean, full clusters to repay the hand
that wisely wounded it."
A meek man is a self-disciplined man. He
is so disciplined he sees only the finest, he
thinks only the best. He is the one who
fulfills the suggestion, "Brethren,
whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report; if there be any
virtue and if there be any praise, think on
these things."
We rise to a higher level of consciousness,
not because we have curbed our passions,
but because we have cultivated our virtues.
In truth, a meek man is a man in complete
control of his moods, and his moods are the
highest, for he knows he must keep a high
mood if he would walk with the highest.
It is my belief that all men can, like Dr.
Millikan, change the course of their lives. |
believe that Dr. Millikan’s technique of
making his desire a present fact to himself
is of great importance to any seeker after
the "truth." It is also his high purpose to be
of "mutual benefit" that is inevitably the goal
of us all. It is much easier to imagine the
good of all than to be purely selfish in our
imagining. By our imagination, by our
affirmations, we can change our world, we
can change our future. To the man of high
purpose, to the disciplined man, this is a
natural measure, so let us all become
disciplined men.
Next Sunday morning, July 15, | am
speaking as the guest of Dr. Bailes at 10:30
at the Fox Wilshire Theater on Wilshire
Boulevard, near La Cienega. My subject for
next Sunday is "Changing Your Future." It
is a subject near to the hearts of us all. |
hope you will all come on Sunday to learn
how to be the disciplined man, the meek
man, who "changes his future" to the
benefit of his fellow man.
If you are observant, you will notice the
swift echo or response to your every mood
in this message and you will be able to key
it to the circumstances of your daily life.
When we are certain of the relationship of
mood to circumstance in our lives, we
welcome what befalls us. We know that all
we meet is part of ourselves. In the creation
of a new life we must begin at the
beginning, with a change of mood. Every
high mood of man is the opening of the
door to a higher level for him. Let us mold
our lives about a high mood or a community
of high moods. Individuals, as well as
communities, grow spiritually in proportion
as they rise to a higher ideal. If their ideal
is lowered, they sink to its depths; if their
ideal is exalted, they are elevated to
heights unimagined.
We must keep the high mood if we would
walk with the highest; the heights, also,
were meant for habitation. All forms of the
creative imagination imply elements of
feeling. Feeling is the ferment without
which no creation is possible. There is
nothing wrong with our desire to transcend
our present state. There would be no
progress in this world were it not for man’s
dissatisfaction with himself. It is natural for
us to seek a more beautiful personal life; it
is right that we wish for greater
understanding, greater health, greater
security. It is stated in the sixteenth chapter
of the Gospel of St. John, "Heretofore have
ye asked for nothing in my name; ask and
ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."
A spiritual revival is needed for mankind,
but by spiritual revival | mean a true
religious attitude, one in which each
individual, himself, accepts the challenge
of embodying a new and higher value of
himself as Dr. Millikan did. A nation can
exhibit no greater wisdom in the mass than
it generates in its units. For this reason, |
have always preached self-help, knowing
that if we strive passionately after this kind
of self-help, that is, to embody a new and
higher concept of ourselves, then all other
kinds of help will be at our service.
The ideal we serve and hope to achieve is
ready for a new incarnation; but unless we
offer it human parentage it is incapable of
birth. We must affirm that we are already
that which we hope to be and live as though
we were, knowing like Dr. Millikan, that our
assumption, though false to the outer
world, if persisted in, will harden into fact.
The perfect man judges not after
appearances; he judges righteously. He
sees himself and others as he desires
himself and them to be. He hears what he
wants to hear. He sees and hears only the
good. He knows the truth, and the truth sets
him free and leads him to good. The truth
shall set all mankind free. This is our
spiritual revival. Character is largely the
result of the direction and persistence of
voluntary attention.
"Think truly, and thy thoughts shall the
world’s famine feed; Speak truly, and each
word of thine shall be a fruitful seed; Live
truly, and thy life shall be a great and noble
creed."
Radio Lecture By Imagination We
Become
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
How many times have we heard someone
say, "Oh, it’s only his imagination?"
Only his imagination, man’s imagination is
the man himself. No man has too little
imagination, but few men have disciplined
their imagination. Imagination is itself
indestructible. Therein lies the horror of its
misuse. Daily, we pass some stranger on
the street and observe him muttering to
himself, carrying on an imaginary argument
with one not present. He is arguing with
vehemence, with fear or with hatred, not
realizing that he is setting in motion, by his
imagination, an unpleasant event which he
will presently encounter.
The world, as imagination sees it, is the
real world. Not facts, but figments of the
imagination, shape our daily lives. It is the
exact and literal minded who live in a
fictitious world. Only imagination can
restore the Eden from which experience
has driven us out. Imagination is the sense
by which we perceived the above, the
power by which we resolve vision into
being. Every stage of man’s progress is
made by the exercise of the imagination.
It is only because men do not perfectly
imagine and believe that their results are
sometimes uncertain when they might
always be perfectly certain. Determined
imagination is the beginning of all
successful operation. The imagination,
alone, is the means of fulfilling the
intention. The man who, at will, can call up
whatever image he pleases is, by virtue of
the power of his imagination, least of all
subject to caprice. The solitary or captive
can, by intensity of imagination and feeling,
affect myriads so that he can act through
many men and speak through many
voices.
"We should never be certain," wrote
William Butler Yeats in his 'l\deas of Good
and Evil,’ "that it was not some woman
treading in the wine press who began that
subtle change in men’s minds, or that the
passion did not begin in the mind of some
shepherd boy, lighting up his eyes for a
moment before it ran upon its way."
Let me tell you the story of a very dear
friend of mine, at the time the costume
designer of the Music Hall in New York. She
told me, one day, of her difficulty in working
with one of the producers who invariably
criticized and rejected her best work
unjustly; that he was often rude and
seemed deliberately unfair to her.
Upon hearing her story, | reminded her, as
|I am reminding you, that men can only echo
to us that which we whisper to them in
secret. | had no doubt that she silently
argued with the producer, not in the flesh,
but in quiet moments to herself. She
confessed that she did just that each
morning as she walked to work. | asked her
to change her attitude toward him, to
assume that he was congratulating her on
her fine designs and she, in turn, was
thanking him for his praise and kindness.
This young designer took my advice and as
she walked to the theater, she imagined a
perfect relationship of the producer
praising her work and she, in turn,
responding with gratitude for his
appreciation.
This she did morning after morning and in
a very short while, she discovered for
herself that her own attitude determined the
scenery of her existence. The behavior of
the producer completely reversed itself. He
became the most pleasant professional
employer she had encountered. His
behavior merely echoed the changes that
she had whispered within herself. What she
did was by the power of imagination. Her
fantasy led his; and she, herself, dictated to
him the discourse they eventually had
together at the time she was seemingly
walking alone.
Let us set ourselves, here and now, a daily
exercise of controlling and disciplining our
imagination. What finer beginning than to
imagine better than the best we know for a
friend. There is no coal of character so
dead that it will not glow and flame if but
slightly turned.
Don’t blame; only resolve. Life, like music,
can by a new setting turn all its discords
into harmonies. Represent your friend to
yourself as already expressing that which
he desires to be. Let us know that with
whatever attitude we approach another, a
similar attitude approaches us. How can we
do this?
Do what my friend did. To establish rapport,
call your friend mentally. Focus your
attention on him and mentally call his name
just as you would to attract his attention
were you to see him on the street. Imagine
that he has answered, mentally hear his
voice — imagine that he is telling you of the
great good you have desired for him. You,
in turn, tell him of your joy in witnessing his
good fortune. Having mentally heard that
which you wanted to hear, having thrilled to
the news heard, go about your daily task.
Your imagined conversation must awaken
what it affirmed; the acceptance of the end
wills the means. And the wisest reflection
could not devise more effective means than
those which are willed by the acceptance
of the end. However, your conversation
with your friend must be in a manner which
does not express the slightest doubt as to
the truth of what you imagine that you hear
and say. If you do not control your
imagination, you will find that you are
hearing and saying all that you formerly
heard and said.
We are creatures of habit; and habit,
though not law, acts like the most
compelling law in the world. With this
knowledge of the power of imagination, be
as the disciplined man and transform your
world by imagining and feeling only what is
lovely and of good report. The beautiful
idea you awaken in yourself shall not fail to
arouse its affinity in others. Do not wait four
months for the harvest. Today is the day to
practice the control and discipline of your
imagination. Man is only limited by
weakness of attention and poverty of
imagination. The great secret is a
controlled imagination and a well sustained
attention, firmly and repeatedly focused on
the object to be accomplished.
"Now is the acceptable time to give beauty
for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for the
spirit of heaviness; that they might be
called trees of righteousness, the planting
of the Lord that He might be glorified."
Now is the time to control our imagination
and attention. By control, | do not mean
restraint by will power but rather cultivation
through love and compassion. With so
much of the world in discord we cannot
possibly emphasize too strongly the power
of imaginative love.
Imaginative Love, that is my subject next
Sunday morning when | shall speak for Dr.
Bailes while he is on his holiday. The
services will be held as always at the Fox
Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard,
near La Cienega at 10:30. "As the world is,
so is the individual," should be changed to,
"As the individual is so is the world."
And | hope to be able to bring to each of
you present the true meaning of the words
of Zechariah, "Speak ye every man the
truth to his neighbor and let none of you
imagine evil in your hearts against his
neighbor." What a wonderful challenge to
you and to me. "As a man thinketh in his
heart so is he." As a man imagines so is he.
Hold fast to love in your imagination. By
creating an ideal within your mental sphere
you can approximate yourself to this "ideal
image" till you become one and the same
with it, thereby transforming yourself into it,
or rather, absorbing its qualities into the
very core of your being. Never, never, lose
sight of the power that is within you.
Imaginative love lifts the invisible into sight
and gives us water in the desert. It builds
for the soul its only fit abiding place.
Beauty, love and all of good report are the
garden, but imaginative love is the way into
the garden.
Sow an imaginary conversation, you reap
an act; Sow an act, you reap a habit; Sow
a habit, you reap a character; Sow a
character, you reap your destiny.
By imagination, we are all reaping our
destinies, whether they be good, bad, or
indifferent. Imagination has full power of
objective realization and every stage of
man’s progress or regression is made by
the exercise of imagination. | believe with
William Blake, "What seems to be, is, to
those to whom it seems to be, and is
productive of the most dreadful
consequences to those to whom it seems
to be, even of torments, despair, and
eternal death. By imagination and desire
we become what we desire to be. Let us
affirm to ourselves that we are what we
imagine. If we persist in the assumption
that we are what we wish to be, we will
become transformed into that which we
have imagined ourselves to be. We were
born by a natural miracle of love and for a
brief space of time our needs were all
another’s care. In that simple truth lies the
secret of life. Except by love, we cannot
truly live at all.
Our parents in their separate individualities
have no power to transmit life. So, back we
come to the basic truth that life is the
offspring of love. Therefore, no love, no life.
Thus, it is rational to say that, "God is
Love." Love is our birthright. Love is the
fundamental necessity of our life. "Do not
go seeking for that which you are. Those
who go seeking for love only make
manifest their own lovelessness and the
loveless never find love. Only the loving
find love and they never have to seek for
it."
Radio Lecture Answered Prayer
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
Have you ever had a prayer answered?
What wouldn’t men give just to feel certain
that when they pray, something definite
would happen. For this reason, | would like
to take a little time to see why it is that some
prayers are answered and some
apparently fall on dry ground. "When ye
pray, believe that ye receive, and ye shall
receive."
Believe that ye receive — is the condition
imposed upon man. Unless we believe that
we receive, our prayer will not be
answered. A prayer - granted — implies that
something is done in consequence of the
prayer which otherwise would not have
been done. Therefore, the one who prays
is the spring of action — the directing mind
— and the one who grants the prayer. Such
responsibility man refuses to assume, for
responsibility it seems, is mankind’s
invisible nightmare.
The whole natural world is built on law. Yet,
between prayer and its answer we see no
such relation. We feel that God may
answer or ignore our prayer, that our prayer
may hit the mark or may miss it. The mind
is still unwilling to admit that God subjects
Himself to His own laws. How many people
believe that there is, between prayer and its
answer, a relation of cause and effect?
Let us take a look at the means employed
to heal the ten lepers as related in the
seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of St.
Luke. The thing that strikes us in this story
is the method that was used to raise their
faith to the needful intensity. We are told
that the ten lepers appealed to Jesus to
"have mercy" on them — that is — to heal
them. Jesus ordered them to go and show
themselves to the priests, and "as they
went, they were cleansed." The Mosaic
Law demanded that when a leper
recovered from his disease he must show
himself to the priest to obtain a certificate
of restored health. Jesus imposed a test
upon the lepers’ faith and supplied a means
by which their faith could be raised to its full
potency. If the lepers refused to go — they
had no faith — and, therefore, could not be
healed. But, if they obeyed Him, the full
realization of what their journey implied
would break upon their minds as they went
and this dynamic thought would heal them.
So, we read, "As they went, they were
cleansed."
You, no doubt, often have heard the words
of that inspiring old hymn - "Oh, what peace
we often forfeit; oh, what needless pain we
bear, all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer." I, myself,
came to this conviction through
experience, being led to brood upon the
nature of prayer. | believe in the practice
and philosophy of what men call prayer, but
not everything that receives that name is
really prayer.
Prayer is the elevation of the mind to that
which we seek. The very first word of
correction is always "arise." Always lift the
mind to that which we seek. This is easily
done by assuming the feeling of the wish
fulfilled.
How would you feel if your prayer were
answered?
Well, assume that feeling until you
experience in imagination what you would
experience in reality if your prayer were
answered. Prayer means getting into
action mentally. It means holding the
attention upon the idea of the wish fulfilled
until it fills the mind and crowds all other
ideas out of the consciousness. This
statement that prayer means getting into
action mentally and holding the attention
upon the idea of the wish fulfilled until it fills
the mind and crowds all other ideas out of
the consciousness, does not mean that
prayer is a mental effort — an act of will. On
the contrary, prayer is to be contrasted with
an act of will. Prayer is a surrender. It
means abandoning oneself to the feeling of
the wish fulfilled.
If prayer brings no response — there is
something wrong with the prayer and the
fault lies generally in too much effort.
Serious confusion arises insofar as men
identify the state of prayer with an act of
will, instead of contrasting it with an act of
will. The sovereign rule is to make no effort,
and if this is observed, you will intuitively
fall into the right attitude.
Creativeness is not an act of will, but a
deeper receptiveness -— a keener
susceptibility. The acceptance of the end —
the acceptance of the answered prayer —
finds the means for its realization. Feel
yourself into the state of the answered
prayer until the state fills the mind and
crowds all other states out of your
consciousness. What we must work for is
not the development of the will, but the
education of the imagination and the
steadying of attention.
Prayer succeeds by avoiding conflict.
Prayer is, above all things, easy. Its
greatest enemy is effort. The mighty
surrenders itself fully only to that which is
most gentle. The wealth of Heaven may not
be seized by a strong will, but surrenders
itself, a free gift, to the God spent moment.
Along the lines of least resistance travel
spiritual as well as physical forces.
We must act on the assumption that we
already possess that which we desire, for
all that we desire is already present within
us. It only waits to be claimed. That it must
be claimed is a necessary condition by
which we realize our desires. Our prayers
are answered if we assume the feeling of
the wish fulfilled and continue in that
assumption.
One of the loveliest examples of an
answered prayer | witnessed in my own
living room. A very charming lady from out
of town came to see me concerning prayer.
As she had no one with whom to leave her
eight year old son, she brought him with her
the time of our interview. Seemingly, he
was engrossed in playing with a toy truck,
but at the end of the interview with his
mother he said, "Mr. Neville, | Know how to
pray now. | know what I want — a collie
puppy — and | can imagine | am hugging
him every night on my bed."
His mother explained to him and to me the
impossibilities of his prayer, the cost of the
puppy, their confined home, even his
inability to care for the dog properly. The
boy looked into his mother’s eyes and
simply said, "But, Mother, | know how to
pray now." And he did. Two months later
during a "Kindness to Animals Week" in his
city, all the school children were required to
write an essay on how they would love and
care for a pet. You have guessed the
answer. His essay, out of the five thousand
submitted, won the prize, and that prize,
presented by the mayor of the city to the lad
— was a collie puppy. The boy truly
assumed the feeling of his wish fulfilled,
hugging and loving his puppy every night.
Prayer is an act of Imaginative Love which
is to be the subject of my message next
Sunday morning at 10:30 at the Fox
Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard
near La Cienega. It is my desire, next
Sunday, that | may explain to you, how you,
like the young boy; can yield yourselves to
the lovely images of your desires and
persist in your prayer even though you, like
the lad, are told that your desires are
impossible.
The necessity of persistence in prayer is
shown us in the Bible. "Which of you,"
asked Jesus, "shall go unto him at
midnight, and say unto him: Friend, lend
me three loaves; for a friend of mine is
come to me from a journey, and | have
nothing to set before him; and he from
within shall answer and say, “Trouble me
not; the door is now shut and my children
are with me in bed; | cannot rise and give
thee.’ | say unto you, though he will not rise
and give him because he is his friend, yet
because of his importunity he will arise and
give as many as he needeth." Luke 2.
The word translated as "importunity"
means, literally, shameless impudence. We
must persist until we succeed in imagining
ourselves into the situation of the answered
prayer. The secret of success is found in
the word "perseverance." The soul
imagining itself into the act, takes on the
results of the act. Not imagining itself into
the act, it is ever free from the result.
Experience in imagination what you would
experience in reality were you already what
you want to be, and you will take on the
result of that act. Do not experience in
imagination what you want to experience in
reality and you will ever be free of the
result. "When ye pray, believe that ye
receive, and ye shall receive."
One must persist until he reaches his friend
on a higher level of consciousness. He
must persist until his feeling of the wish
fulfilled has all the sensory vividness of
reality. Prayer is a controlled waking
dream. If we are to pray successfully, we
must steady our attention to observe the
world as it would be seen by us were our
prayer answered.
Steadying attention makes no call upon
any special faculty, but it does demand
control of imagination. We must extend our
senses — observe our changed relationship
to our world and trust this observation. The
new world is not there to grasp, but to
sense, to touch. The best way to observe it
is to be intensely aware of it.
In other words, we can, by listening as
through we heard and by looking as though
we saw, actually hear voices and see
scenes from within ourselves that are
otherwise not audible or visible. With our
attention focused on the state desired, the
outer world crumbles and then the world —
like music — by a new setting, turns all its
discords into harmonies.
Life is not a struggle but a surrender. Our
prayers are answered by the powers we
invoke not by those we exert. So long as
the eyes take notice, the soul is blind for the
world that moves us is the one we imagine,
not the world round about us. We must
yield our whole being to the feeling of being
the noble one we want to be. If anything is
kept back, the prayer is vain. We often are
deprived of our high goal by our effort to
possess it. We are called upon to act on the
assumption that we already are the man we
would be. If we do this without effort —
experiencing in imagination what we would
experience in the flesh had we realized our
goal, we shall find that we do, indeed,
possess it. The healing touch is in our
attitude.
We need change nothing but our attitude
towards it. Assume a virtue if you have it
not, assume the feeling of your wish
fulfilled. "Pray for my soul; more things are
wrought by prayer than this world dreams
of."
Radio Lecture Meditation
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
Many people tell me they cannot meditate.
This seems to me a bit like saying they
cannot play the piano after one attempt.
Meditation, as in every art or expression,
requires constant practice for perfect
results. A truly great pianist, for instance,
would feel he could not play his best if he
missed one day of practice. If he missed a
week or a month of practice he would know
that even his most uninitiated audience
would recognize his defects.
So it is with meditation. If we practice daily
with joy in this daily habit, we perfect it as
an art. | find that those who complain of the
difficulty in meditation do not make it a daily
practice, but rather, wait until something
pressing appears in their world and then,
through an act of will, try to fix their
attention on the desired state. But they do
not know that meditation is the education of
the will, for when will and imagination are in
conflict, imagination invariably wins.
The dictionaries define meditation as fixing
one’s attention upon; as planning in the
mind; as devising and looking forward;
engaging in continuous and contemplative
thought. A lot of nonsense has been written
about meditation. Most books on the
subject get the reader nowhere, for they do
not explain the process of meditation.
All that meditation amounts to is a
controlled imagination and a well sustained
attention. Simply hold the attention on a
certain idea until it fills the mind and crowds
all other ideas out of consciousness. The
power of attention shows itself the sure
guarantee of an inner force. We must
concentrate on the idea to be realized,
without permitting any distraction.
This is the great secret of action. Should
the attention wander, bring it back to the
idea you wish to realize and do so again
and again, until the attention becomes
immobilized and undergoes an effortless
fixation upon the idea presented to it.
The idea must hold the attention — must
fascinate it — so to speak. All meditation
ends at last with the thinker, and he finds
he is what he, himself, has conceived. The
undisciplined man’s attention is the servant
of his vision rather than its master. It is
captured by the pressing rather than the
important.
In the act of meditation, as in the act of
adoration, silence is our highest praise. Let
us keep our silent sanctuaries, for in them
the eternal perspectives are preserved.
Day by day, week by week, year by year, at
times where none through love or lesser
intentions were allowed to interfere, | set
myself to attain mastery over my attention
and imagination. | sought out ways to make
more securely my own, those magical
lights that dawned and faded within me. |
wished to evoke them at will and to be the
master of my vision.
| would strive to hold my attention on the
activities of the day in unwavering
concentration so that, not for one moment,
would the concentration slacken. This is an
exercise — a training for higher adventures
of the soul. It is no light labor. The
ploughman’s labor, working in the fields is
easier by far. Empires do not send legions
so swiftly to obstruct revolt as all that is
alive in us hurries along the nerve
highways of the body to frustrate our
meditative mood. The beautiful face of one
we love glows before us to enchant us from
our task. Old enmities and fears beleaguer
us. If we are tempted down these vistas, we
find, after an hour of musing, that we have
been lured away. We have deserted our
task and forgotten that fixity of attention we
set out to achieve. What man is there who
has complete control of his imagination and
attention.
A controlled imagination and steadied
attention, firmly and repeatedly focused on
the idea to be realized, is the beginning of
all magical operations. If he persists
through weeks and months, sooner or later,
through meditation, he creates in himself a
center of power. He will enter a path all may
travel but on which few do journey.
It is a path within himself where the feet first
falter in shadow and darkness, but which
later is made brilliant by an inner light.
There is no need for special gifts or genius.
It is not bestowed on any individual but won
by persistence and practice of meditation.
If he persists, the dark caverns of his brain
will grow luminous and he will set out day
after day for the hour of meditation as if to
keep an appointment with a lover. When it
comes, he rises within himself as a diver,
too long under water, rises to breathe the
air and see the light. In this meditative
mood he experiences in imagination what
he would experience in reality had he
realized his goal, that he may in time
become transformed into the image of his
imagined state.
The only test of religion worth making is
whether it is true born; whether it springs
from the deepest consciousness of the
individual; whether it is the fruit of
experience; or whether it is anything else
whatever.
This is my reason for speaking to you on
my last Sunday in Los Angeles about The
True Religious Attitude. What is your
religious attitude? What is my religious
attitude? | shall speak on this subject next
Sunday morning at 10:30 as Dr. Bailes’
guest. The service will be held at the Fox
Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard
near La Cienega. | shall endeavor to show
you that the methods of mental and
spiritual knowledge are entirely different.
For we know a thing mentally by looking at
it from the outside, by comparing it with
other things, by analyzing and defining it;
whereas we can know a thing spiritually
only by becoming it.
We must be the thing itself and not merely
talk about it or look at it. We must be in love
if we are to know what love is. We must be
Godlike if we are to know what God is.
Meditation, like sleep, is 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."
Meditation 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
meditation is in a state of relaxation akin to
the feeling attained just before dropping off
to sleep. This state is beautifully described
by the poet, Keats, in his ‘Ode to a
Nightingale’. It is said that as the poet sat
in the garden and listened to the
nightingale, he fell into a state which he
described as "A drowsy numbness pains
my senses as though of hemlock | had
drunk." Then after singing his ode to the
nightingale, Keats asked himself this
question, "Was it a vision or a waking
dream? Fled is the music; do | wake or
sleep?"
Those are the words of one who has seen
something with such vividness or reality
that he wonders whether the evidence of
his physical eyes can now be believed. Any
kind of meditation in which we withdraw
into ourselves without making too much
effort to think is an outcropping of the
subconscious.
Think of the subconscious as a tide which
ebbs and flows. In sleep, it is a flood tide,
while at moments of full wakefulness, the
tide is at its lowest ebb. Between these two
extremes are any number of intermediary
levels. When we are drowsy, dreamy, lulled
in gentle reverie, the tide is high. The more
wakeful and alert we become, the lower the
tide sinks. The highest tide compatible with
the conscious direction of our thoughts
occurs just before we fall asleep and just
after we wake.
An easy way to create this passive state is
to relax in a comfortable chair or on a bed.
Close your eyes and imagine that you are
sleepy, so sleepy, so very sleepy. Act
precisely as though you were going to take
a siesta. In so doing, you allow the
subconscious tide to rise to sufficient height
to make your particular assumption
effective.
When you first attempt this, you may find
that all sorts of counter thoughts try to
distract you, but if you persist, you will
achieve a passive state. When this passive
state is reached, think only on "things of
good report" imagine that you are now
expressing your highest ideal, not how you
will express it, but simply feel HERE AND
NOW that you are the noble one you desire
to be. You are it now. Call your high ideal
into being by imagining and feeling you are
it now.
| think all happiness depends on the energy
to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled,
to assume the mask of some other more
perfect life. If we cannot imagine ourselves
different from what we are and try to
assume that second more desirable self,
we cannot impose a discipline upon
ourselves though we may accept discipline
from others.
Meditation is an activity of the soul; it is an
active virtue; and an active virtue, as
distinguished from passive acceptance of a
code is theatrical. It is dramatic; it is the
wearing of a mask.
As your goal is accepted, you become
totally indifferent to possible failure, for
acceptance of the end wills the means to
the end. When you emerge from the
moment of meditation it is as though you
were shown the happy end of a play in
which you are the principal actor.
Having witnessed the end in your
meditation, regardless of any anticlimactic
state you encounter, you remain calm and
secure in the knowledge that the end has
been perfectly defined. Creation is finished
and what we call creativeness is really only
a deeper receptiveness or keener
susceptibility on our part, and this
receptiveness is "Not by might, nor by
power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of
Hosts." Through meditation, we awaken
within ourselves a center of light, which will
be to us a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar
of fire by night.
Radio Lecture The Law of Assumption
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
The great mystic, William Blake, wrote
almost two hundred years ago, "What
seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems
to be and is productive of the most dreadful
consequences to those to whom it seems
to be."
Now, at first, this mystical gem seems a bit
involved, or at best to be a play on words;
but it is nothing of the kind. Listen to it
carefully. "What seems to be, is, to those to
whom it seems to be." That is certainly
clear enough. It is a simple truth about the
law of assumption, and a warning of the
consequences of its misuse.
The author of the Epistle to the Romans
declared in the fourteenth chapter, "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."
We see by this that it is not superior insight
but purblindness that reads into the
greatness of men some littleness with
which it chances to be familiar, for what
seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems
to be.
Experiments recently conducted at two of
our leading universities revealed this great
truth about the law of assumption. They
stated in their releases to the newspapers,
that after two thousand experiments they
came to the conclusion that, ‘What you see
when you look at something depends not
so much on what is there as on the
assumption you make when you look. What
you believe to be the real physical world is
actually only an assumptive world."
In other words, you would not define your
husband in the same way that you mother
would. Yet, you are both defining the same
person. Your particular relationship to a
thing influences your feelings with respect
to that thing and makes you see in it an
element which is not there.
If your feeling in the matter is a self-
element; it can be cast out. If it is a
permanent distinction in the state
considered, it cannot be cast out. The thing
to do is to try. If you can change your
opinion of another, then what you now
believe of him cannot be absolutely true,
but relatively true.
Men believe in the reality of the external
world because they do not know how to
focus and condense their powers to
penetrate its thin crust. Strangely enough,
it is not difficult to penetrate this view of the
senses. To remove the veil of the senses,
we do not employ great effort; the objective
world vanishes as we turn our attention
from it. We have only to concentrate on the
state desired to mentally see it; but to give
reality to it so that it will become an
objective fact, we must focus our attention
upon the desired state until it has all the
sensory vividness and feeling of reality.
When, through concentrated attention, our
desire appears to possess the distinctness
and feeling of reality; when the form of
thought is as vivid as the form of nature, we
have given it the right to become a visible
fact in our lives. Each man must find the
means best suited to his nature to control
his attention and concentrate it on the
desired state. | find for myself the best state
to be one of meditation, a relaxed state akin
to sleep, but a state in which | am still
consciously in control of my imagination
and capable of fixing my attention on a
mental object.
If it is difficult to control the direction of your
attention while in this state akin to sleep,
you may find gazing fixedly into an object
very helpful. Do not look at its surface, but
rather into and beyond any plain object
such as a wall, a carpet or any object which
possesses depth. Arrange it to return as
little reflection as possible. Imagine, then,
that in this depth you are seeing and
hearing what you want to see and hear until
your attention is exclusively occupied by
the imagined state.
At the end of your meditation, when you
awake from your controlled waking dream
you feel as though you had returned from a
great distance. The visible world which you
had shut out returns to consciousness and,
by its very presence, informs you that you
have been self deceived into believing that
the object of your contemplation was real;
but if you remain faithful to your vision this
sustained mental attitude will give reality to
your visions and they will become visible
concrete facts in your world.
Define your highest ideal and concentrate
your attention upon this ideal until you
identify yourself with it. Assume the feeling
of being it — the feeling that would be yours
were you now embodying it in your world.
This assumption, though now denied by
your senses, "if persisted in" — will become
a fact in your world. You will know when you
have succeeded in fixing the desired state
in consciousness’ simply by looking
mentally at the people you know.
This is a wonderful check on yourself as
your mental conversations are more
revealing than your physical conversations
are. If, in your mental conversations with
others, you talk with them as you formerly
did, then you have not changed your
concept of self, for all changes of concepts
of self result in a changed relationship to
the world. Remember what was said
earlier, "What you see when you look at
something depends not so much on what is
there as on the assumption you make when
you look."
Therefore, the assumption of the wish
fulfilled should make you see the world
mentally as you would physically were your
assumption a physical fact. The spiritual
man speaks to the natural man through the
language of desire. The key to progress in
life and to the fulfillment of dreams lies in
the ready obedience to the voice.
Unhesitating obedience to its voice is an
immediate assumption of the wish fulfilled.
To desire a state is to have it. As Pascal
said, "You would not have sought me had
you not already found me."
Man, by assuming the feeling of the wish
fulfilled and then living and acting on this
conviction changes his future in harmony
with his assumption. To "change his future"
is the inalienable right of freedom for loving
individuals. There would be no progress in
the world were it not for the divine
discontent in man which urges him on to
higher and higher levels of consciousness.
| have chosen this subject so close to the
hearts of us all - “Changing Your Future" for
my message next Sunday morning. | am to
have the great joy of speaking for Dr. Bailes
while he is vacationing. The service will be
held at 10:30 at the Fox Wilshire Theater
on Wilshire Boulevard near La Cienega
Boulevard. Since the right to change our
future is our birthright as sons of God, let
us accept its challenge and learn just how
to do it.
Again today, speaking of changing your
future, | wish to stress the importance of a
real transformation of self — not merely a
slight alteration of circumstances which, in
a matter of moments, will permit us to slip
back into the old dissatisfied man. In your
meditation, allow others to see you as they
would see you were this new concept of
self a concrete fact. You always seem to
others the embodiment of the ideal you
inspire.
Therefore, in meditation, when you
contemplate others, you must be seen by
them mentally as you would be seen by
them physically were your conception of
yourself an objective fact. That is, in
meditation, you imagine that they see you
expressing this nobler man you desire to
be. If you assume that you are what you
want to be, your desire is fulfilled and, in
fulfillment, all longing "to be" is neutralized.
This, also, is an excellent check on yourself
as to whether or not you have actually
succeeded in changing self. You cannot
continue desiring what has been realized.
Rather, you are in a mood to give thanks
for a gift received. Your desire is not
something you labor to fulfill, it is
recognizing something you already
possess. It is assuming the feeling of being
that which you desire to be.
Believing and being are one. The conceiver
and his conception are one. Therefore, that
which you conceive yourself to be can
never be so far off as even to be near, for
nearness implies separation. "If thou canst
believe, all things are possible to him that
believeth." Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not yet
seen. If you assume that you are that finer,
nobler one you wish to be, you will see
others as they are related to your high
assumption. All enlightened men wish for
the good of others. If it is the good of
another you seek, you must use the same
controlled contemplation.
In meditation, you must represent the other
to yourself as already being or having the
greatness you desire for him. As for
yourself, your desire for another must be an
intense one. It is through desire that you
rise above your present sphere and the
road from longing to fulfillment is shortened
as you experience in imagination all that
you would experience in the flesh were you
or your friend the embodiment of the desire
you have for yourself or him.
Experience has taught me that this is the
perfect way to achieve my great goals for
others as well as for myself. However, my
own failures would convict me were | to
imply that | have completely mastered the
control of my attention. | can, however, with
the ancient teacher say: "This one thing |
do, forgetting those things which are
behind, and reaching forth unto those
things which are before — | press towards
the mark for the prize."
Radio Lecture Truth
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
| wish to ask each one of you listening to
me today a question — a question which
must be close to the hearts of us all
concerning truth.
If a man known to you as a murderer broke
into your home and asked the whereabouts
of your mother, would you tell him where
she was? Would you tell him the truth?
Would you?
| venture not — | hope not. In the most
mystical of the Gospels — in the Gospel of
St. John we read, "Ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free."
Therein lies a challenge to us all, "The truth
shall make you free."
If you told the truth concerning your mother,
would you set her free? Again, in John we
read, "Sanctify them by the truth." If you
gave your mother up to a murderer, would
you "sanctify her?" What, then, is the truth
of which the Bible so constantly speaks?
The truth of the Bible is always coupled
with love. The truth of the Bible is that
spiritual realization of conscious life in God
towards which the human soul evolves
through all eternity.
Truth is an ever-increasing illumination. No
one who seeks sincerely for truth need fear
the outcome for every raising erstwhile
truth brings into view some larger truth
which it had hidden. The true seeker after
truth is not a smug, critical, holier than thou
person. Rather, the true seeker after truth
knows the words of Zechariah to be true.
"Speak ye every man the truth to his
neighbor and let none of you imagine evil
in your hearts against his neighbor." The
seeker after truth does not judge from
appearances — he sees the good, the truth
in all he observes. He knows that a true
judgment need not conform to the external
reality to which it relates. Never are we so
blind to the truth as when we see things as
they seem to be. Only pictures that idealize
really depict the truth. It is never superior
insight but rather, purblindness that reads
into the greatness of another some
littleness with which it happens to be
familiar.
We all know at least one petty gossip who
not only imagines evil against his neighbor,
but also insists upon spreading that evil far
and wide. His cruel accusations are always
accompanied by the statement, "It’s a fact,"
or "| Know it’s the truth." How far from the
truth he is. Even if it were the truth as he
knows the truth, it is better not to voice it for
"A truth told with bad intent beats all the lies
you can invent." Such a man is not a seeker
after the truth as revealed in the Bible. He
seeks not truth so much as support for his
own point of view. By his prejudices, he
opens a door by which his enemies enter
and make their own the secret places of his
heart. Let us seek sincerely for the truth as
Robert Browning expresses it:
"Truth is within ourselves; it take no rise
from outward things, whate'er you may
believe. There is an immortal center in us
all where truth abides in fullness.”
The truth that is within us is governed by
imaginative love. Knowing this great truth,
we can no longer imagine evil against any
neighbor. We will imagine the best of our
neighbor. It is my belief that wherever
man’s attitude towards life is governed by
imaginative love, there it is religious - there
he worships — there he perceives the truth.
| am going to speak on this subject next
Sunday morning when my title will be,
"Imaginative Love." At that time, | am to
have the pleasure and the privilege of
taking Dr. Frederick Bailes’ service at the
Fox Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard
near La Cienega. The service will be held
as Dr. Bailes always conducts it at 10:30
Sunday morning.
It is an intuitive desire of all mankind to be
a finer, nobler being, to do the loving thing.
But we can do the loving thing only when
all we imagine is full of love for our
neighbor. Then we know the truth, the truth
that sets all mankind free. | believe this is a
message that will aid us all in the art of
living a better and finer life. Infinite love in
unthinkable origin was called God, the
Father. Infinite love in creative expression
was called God, the Son. Infinite love in
universal interpenetration, in Infinite
Immanence, and in Eternal procession,
was called God, the Holy Ghost. We must
learn to know ourselves as Infinite Love, as
good rather than evil.
This is not something that we have to
become; it is, rather, for us to recognize
something that we are already. The original
birthplace of imagination is in love. Love is
its lifeblood. Insofar as imagination retains
its own life’s blood, its visions are images
of truth. Then it mirrors the living identity of
the thing it beholds. But if imagination
should deny the very power that has
brought it to birth then the direst sort of
horror will begin. Instead of rendering back
living images of the truth, imagination will
fly to love’s opposite — fear and its visions
will then be perverted and contorted
reflections cast upon a screen of frightful
fantasy.
Instead of being the supremely creative
power, it will become the active agent of
destruction. Wherever man’s attitude to life
is truly imaginative, there man and God are
merged in creative unity. Remember that
Love is always creative, causative in every
sphere from the highest to the very lowest.
There never has existed thought, word or
deed that was not caused by love, or by its
opposite — fear of some kind, even if it were
only a desire of a not very worthy aim. Love
and fear are the mainspring of our mental
machinery. Everything is a thought before it
becomes a thing.
| suggest the pursuit of a high ideal to make
a fact of being become a fact of
consciousness and to do this by training
the imagination to realize that the only
atmosphere in which we truly live and move
and have our being is Infinite Love. God is
Love. Love never faileth. Infinite Creative
Spirit is Love. The urge that caused Infinite
unconditioned consciousness to condition
Itself into millions of sensitive forms is
Love.
Love regarded as an abstraction — apart
from an object — is unthinkable. Love is not
love if there is no beloved. Love only
becomes thinkable in relation, in process in
act. Let us recognize with Blake that, "He
who will not live by love must be subdued
by fear," and set ourselves the highest of
ideals to love and to live by. But our highest
ideals do not bless unless they come down
and take on flesh. We must make results
and accomplishments the crucial test of our
imagination and our love, for incarnation is
the only true realization. Our faithfulness
must be to the sum of all the truth we know
and it must be absolute. Otherwise, that
truth lacks a vehicle and cannot be
incarnated in us.
Our concept of ourselves determines the
scenery of our lives. We are ever our own
jailers. The prison doors that we thought
closed are truly ajar - waiting for us to see
the truth. "Man ever surrounds himself with
the true image of himself," said Emerson.
"Every spirit builds itself a house and
beyond its house, a world, and beyond its
world, a heaven. Know then the world
exists for you, for you the phenomenon is
perfect. What we are that only can we see.
All that Adam had, all the Caesar could, you
have and can do."
Adam called his house heaven and earth.
Caesar called his house, Rome. You
perhaps call yours a cobbler’s trade, or a
hundred acres of land, or a scholar’s
garret. Yet line for line, and point for point,
your dominion is as great as theirs, though
without such fine names. Build, therefore,
your own world and as fast as you conform
your life to the pure idea in your mind, that
will unfold its great proportions.
The truth is our secret inward reality, the
cause, the meaning, the relation of our lives
to all things. Let the truth carry us
heavenwards, expanding our conceptions,
increasing our understanding until we know
the "Truth" and are made "Free."
Radio Lecture Feeling is the Secret
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles,
July, 1951.
Recently, | asked a very successful
businessman his formula for success. He
laughed and was a little embarrassed.
Then he replied, "I guess it’s just because |
can’t conceive of failure. It’s nothing that |
think about much. It’s more a feeling that |
have."
His statement coincided completely with
my own beliefs and experiments. We can
think about something forever and never
see it in our world, but once let us feel its
reality, and we are bound to encounter it.
The more intensely we feel, the sooner we
will encounter it.
We all regard feelings far too much as
effects, and not sufficiently as causes of the
events of the day. Feeling is not only the
result of our conditions of life, it is also the
creator of those conditions. We say we are
happy because we are well, not realizing
that the process will work equally well in the
reverse direction. We are well because we
are happy. We are all far too undisciplined
in our feelings.
To be joyful for another is to bless
ourselves as well as him. To be angry with
another is to punish ourselves for his fault.
The distressed mind stays at home though
the body travels to the ends of the earth,
while the happy mind travels though the
body remains at home.
Feeling is the secret of successful prayer,
for in prayer, we feel ourselves into the
situation of the answered prayer and, then,
we live and act upon that conviction.
Feeling after Him, as the Bible suggests, is
a gradual unfolding of the soul’s hidden
capacities. Feeling yields in importance to
no other. It is the ferment without which no
creation is possible. All forms of creative
imagination imply elements of feeling. All
emotional dispositions whatever may
influence the creative imagination. Feeling
after Him has no finality. It is an acquisition,
increasing in proportion to receptivity,
which has not and never will have finality.
An idea which is only an idea produces
nothing and does nothing. It acts only if it is
felt, if it is accompanied by effective feeling.
Somewhere within the soul there is a mood
which, if found, means wealth, health,
happiness to us. The creative desire is
innate in man. His whole happiness is
involved in this impulse to create.
Because men do not perfectly "feel," the
results of their prayers are unsure, when
they might be perfectly sure. We read in
Proverbs, "A merry heart doeth good like a
medicine but a broken spirit drieth the
bones." Orchestral hearts burn in the oil of
the lamp of the king. The spirit sings unto
the Lord a new song. All true prayer wears
a glad countenance; the good are anointed
with the oil of gladness above their fellows.
Let us, then, watch our feelings, our
reactions to the day’s events. And let us
guard our feelings even more zealously in
the act of prayer, for prayer is the true
creative state. Dignity indicates that man
hears the greater music of life, and moves
to the tempo of its deeper meaning. If we
did nothing but imagine and feel the lovely,
the world’s reform would, at once, be
accomplished. Many of the stories of the
Bible deal exclusively with the power of
imagination and feeling.
"Feeling after Him" is the cry of the truth
seeker. Only imagination and feeling can
restore the Eden from which experience
has driven us. Feeling and imagination are
the senses by which we perceive the
beyond. Where knowledge ends, they
begin. Every noble feeling of man is the
opening for him of some door to the divine
world. Let us measure men, not by the
height of their cities, but by the
magnificence of their imaginations and
feelings. Let us turn our thought up to
Heaven and mix our imagination with the
angels. The world that moves us is the one
we imagine, not the world that surrounds
us. In the imagination lie the unexplored
continents, and man’s great future
adventure.
This consciousness of non-finality in
"feeling after God" has been the
experience of all earnest Godward feelers.
They realize that their conception of the
Infinite has constantly deepened and
expanded with experience. Those who
endeavor to think out the meaning of the
experience and to coordinate it with the rest
of our knowledge, are the philosophic
mystics; those who try to develop the
faculty in themselves, and to deepen the
experience are the practical or
experimental mystics.
Some, and among them the greatest, have
tried to do both. Religion begins in
subjective experience. Religion is what a
man does with his solitude, for in solitude
we are compelled to subjective experience.
It is of the Religious Attitude that | shall
speak next Sunday morning. This will be
the last Sunday morning | shall take the
service for Dr. Bailes this season. The
service is held at 10:30 at the Fox Wilshire
Theater on Wilshire Boulevard, near La
Cienega. A True Religious Attitude is man’s
salvation.
God never changes; it is we who are
changing; our spiritual eyes are ever
getting keener; and this enlargement of
truth will bring us an ever increasing inner
peace.
The best defense against the deceptive
assault upon our mental and moral
eyesight is the spiritual eye or the Eye of
God. In other words, a spiritual ideal that
cannot be changed by circumstance, a
code of personal honor and integrity in
ourselves and good will and love to others.
"Not what thou art, nor what thou hast
been, beholdeth God with his merciful
eyes, but that thou wouldst be."
Through the veins of the humblest man on
earth runs the royal blood of being.
Therefore, let us look at man through the
eyes of imaginative love which is really
seeing with the Eye of God. Under the
influence of the Eye of God, the ideal rises
up out of the actual as water is etherialized
by the sun into the imagery cloudland.
Things altogether distant are present to the
spiritual eye.
The Eye of God makes the future dream a
present fact. Not four months to harvest —
look again. If we persist in this seeing, one
day we will arise with the distance in our
eyes, and all the staying, stagnant nearby
will suddenly be of no importance. We will
brush it aside as we pass on to our far-seen
objective.
The man who really finds himself cannot do
otherwise than let himself be guided by
love. He is of too pure eyes to behold
iniquity. Our ability to help others will be in
proportion to our ability to control and help
ourselves. The day a man achieves victory
over himself, history will discover that to
have been a victory over his enemy. The
healing touch is in an attitude, and one day
man will discover that one governs souls
only with serenity. The mighty surrenders
itself fully only to the most gentle.
Recognizing the power of feeling, let us pay
strict attention to our moods and attitudes.
Every stage of man’s progress is made
through the exercise of his imagination and
feeling. By creating an "ideal" within our
mental sphere we can feel ourselves into
this "ideal image" till we become one and
the same with it, absorbing its qualities into
the very core of our being. The solitary or
captive can, by the intensity of his
imagination and feeling, effect myriads so
that he can act through many men and
speak through many voices. Extend your
feelers, trust your touch, participate in all
flights of your imaginations and be not
afraid of your own sensitivities.
The best way to feel another’s good is to be
more intensely aware of it. Be like my friend
and have "more of a feeling" for the health,
the wealth, the happiness you desire. Ideas
do not bless unless they descend from
Heaven and take flesh. Make results or
accomplishments the crucial test of true
imagination. As you observe these results,
you will determine to fill your images with
love and to walk in a high and noble mood
for you will know with the poet:
"That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder
fields the sesamum was sesamum, the
corn was corn. The Silence and the
Darkness knew So is man’s fate born."
Radio Lecture Affirm the Reality of Our
Own Greatness
Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles
(July, 1951).
In the creation of a new way of life, we must
begin at the beginning, with our own
individual regeneration. The formation of
organizations, political bodies, religious
bodies, social bodies is not enough. The
trouble we see goes deeper than we
perceive. The essential revolution must
happen within ourselves.
Everything depends on our attitude
towards ourself — that which we will not
affirm within ourself can never develop in
our world. This is the religion by which we
live, for religion begins in subjective
experience, like charity, it begins at home.
"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind" is the ancient formula and there is no
other. Everything depends upon man’s
attitude toward himself. That which he
cannot or will not claim as true of himself
can never evolve in his world.
Man is constantly looking about his world
and asking, "What’s to be done? What will
happen?" when he should ask himself
"Who am I? What is my concept of myself?"
If we wish to see the world a finer, greater
place, we must affirm the reality of a finer,
greater being within ourselves. It is the
ultimate purpose of my teaching to point
the road to this consummation. | am trying
to show you how the inner man must
readjust himself — what must be the new
premise of his life, in order that he may lose
his soul on the level he now knows and find
it again on the high level he seeks.
It is impossible for man to see other than
the contents of his own consciousness, for
nothing has existence for us save through
the consciousness we have of it. The ideal
man is always seeking a new incarnation
but unless we, ourselves, offer him human
parentage, he is incapable of birth. We are
the means whereby the redemption of
nature from the law of cruelty is to be
effected. The great purpose _ of
consciousness is to effect this redemption.
If we decline the burden and point to
natural law as giving us conclusive proof
that redemption of the world by imaginative
love is something that can never come
about, we simply nullify the purpose of our
lives through want of faith. We reject the
means, the only means, whereby this
process of redemption must be effected.
The only test of religion worth making is
whether it is true born - whether it springs
from the deepest conviction of the
individual, whether it is the fruit of inner
experience. No religion is worthy of a man
unless it gives him a deep and abiding
sense that all is well, quite irrespective of
what happens to him personally. The
methods of mental and of spiritual
knowledge are entirely different, for we
know a thing mentally by looking at it from
the outside, by comparing it with other
things by analyzing and defining it.
Whitehead has defined religion as that
which a man does with his solitude. |
should like to add, | believe it is what a man
is in his solitude. In our solitude we are
driven to subjective experience. It is, then,
that we should imagine ourselves to be the
ideal man we desire to see embodied in the
world. If, in our solitude, we experience in
our imagination what we would experience
in reality had we achieved our goal, we will
in time, become transformed into the image
of our ideal. "Be renewed in the spirit of
your mind — put on the new man — speak
every man truth with his neighbor." The
process of making a "Fact of being a fact of
consciousness" is by the "renewing of our
mind."
We are told to change our thinking. But we
can't change our thought unless we change
our ideas. Our thoughts are the natural
outpouring of our ideas, and our innermost
ideas are the man himself. The end of
longing is always to be — not to do. Be still
and know "I am that which | desire.” Strive
always after being. External reforms are
useless if your heart is not reformed.
Heaven is entered not by curbing our
passions; but rather, by cultivating our
virtues. An old idea is not fickly forgotten, it
is crowded out by new ideas. It disappears
when a wholly new and absorbing idea
occupies our attention. Old habits of
thinking and feeling — like dead oak leaves
- hang on till they are pushed off by new
ones.
Creativeness is basically a deeper
receptiveness, a keener susceptibility. The
future dream must become a present fact
in the mind of anyone who would alter his
life. Every great out-picturing is preceded
by a period of profound absorption. When
that absorption is filled with our highest
ideal, when we become that ideal — then we
see it manifest in our world and we realize
that the present does not recede into the
past, but advances into the future. This is
essentially how we change our future. A
"now" which is "elsewhere" has for us no
absolute meaning. We only recognize
"now" when it is at the same time "here."
When we feel ourselves into the desired
state "here" and "now" we have truly
changed our future. It is this "Changing
Your Future" which | hope to explain to you
fully next Sunday morning when | am
speaking for Dr. Bailes at 10:30 at the Fox
Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard
near La Cienega. It is my purpose to stir
you to a higher concept of yourself and to
explain so clearly the method by which you
can achieve this concept that each one of
you will leave the service on Sunday
morning a transformed being.
Discouraged people are sorely in need of
the inspiration of great principles. We must
get back to first principles if we are to speak
with a voice that will kindle the imagination
and rouse the spirit. Again, | must repeat,
in the creation of a new way of life, we must
begin at the very beginning with our own
individual regeneration. Man’s chief
delusion is his conviction that he can do
anything. Everyone thinks he can do —
everyone wants to do and all ask, "What to
do?"
What to do? It is impossible to do anything.
One must be. It is hard for us to accept the
fact that "We, of ourselves, do nothing." It
is especially difficult because it is the truth
and the truth is always difficult for man to
accept. But, actually, nobody can do
anything.
Everything happens -— all that befalls man —
all that is done by him — all that comes from
him — all this happens, and it happens in
exactly the same way that rain falls as a
result of a change in the temperature in the
higher regions of the atmosphere.
This is a challenge to us all. What concept
are we holding of ourselves in the higher
regions of our soul? Everything depends
upon man’s attitude towards himself. That
which he will not affirm as true within
himself can never develop in his world. A
change of concept of self is the right
adjustment — the new relationship between
the surface and the depth of man.
Deepening is, in principle, always possible,
for the ultimate depth lives in everyone, and
it is only a question of becoming conscious
of it. Life demands of us the willingness to
die and to be born again.
This is not meant that we die in the flesh.
We die in the spirit of the old man to
become the new man, then we see the new
man in the flesh. "Subjection to the will of
God" is an old phrase for it and there is, |
believe, no new one that is better. In that
self committal to the ideal we desire to
express, all conflict is dispersed and we are
transformed into the image of the ideal in
whom we rest.
We are told that the man without a wedding
garment reaches the Kingdom by cleverly
pretending. He does not believe internally
what he practices externally. He appears
good, kind, charitable. He uses the right
words, but inwardly he believes nothing.
Coming into the strong light of those far
more conscious than himself, he ceases to
deceive. A wedding garment signifies a
desire for union.
He has no desire to unite with what he
teaches, even if what he teaches is the
truth. Therefore, he has no wedding
garment. When we are united with the
truth, then we will put off the old nature and
be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
Truth will strip the clever pretenders of their
false aristocracy. Truth, in its turn, will be
conquered and governed by the
aristocracy of goodness, the only
unconquerable thing in the world.
That Which Already has Been
6" October, 1959.
This platform is concerned only with the
great secret of life. Here we are convinced
that the Supreme Power that created and
sustains the universe is Divine Imagining,
and it does not differ from human
imagination save in degree of intensity. So
God in man is your wonderful Imagination;
that is God. We tell you that Imagination
creates Reality, but bear in mind that at this
human level on earth it takes time and
persistence. If we will persist in the image,
live in it, sleep in it, breathe in it, it will
crystallize into tangible form. Night after
night we take different facets of this truly
great secret, and as we turn to the greatest
book on Imagination in the world, we treat
it differently. So, as we turn to it, bear in
mind that the Bible is addressed to the
Imagination, not to the man of sense or the
man of reason the one that is "lost" or
"dead" or "sound asleep."
We will take a simple little verse and show
you why it is not addressed to the natural
man. Ecclesiastes 3:15: "That which is,
already has been; that which is to be,
already has been; and God seeks what has
been driven away." The "natural man"
cannot grasp that, for to him reality is based
only on the evidence of the senses. The
man of reason could justify the verse's end,
saying if it has any meaning then the writer
must mean recurrence. The sun comes up
every day and the moon completes its
cycle and the seasons come and go. If we
took a picture of the universe today, the
scientists can compute how long it will take
to return to this point in the picture. So the
intellectual man could justify the verse; but
that is not what is meant, for it is addressed
not to the man of reason or the man of
sense, but to the man of Imagination. What
is it all about? "That which is, already has
been; that which is to be, already has been,
and God seeks what has been driven
away."
We are told that he made generic man
(male female) in his own image and called
them "Man." Then we are told that this man
was driven out, and the priesthoods tell us
he was driven out because of some
"original sin." | send my child to school to
prepare her for living in the world, not to
punish her, but to do it | must send her out.
In Barbados we have a good school
system, though not beyond high school,
and when | was a boy there | would see
these children arriving from the other
islands at the beginning of the school year
with their new clothes and their new books.
They thought it was exciting, not knowing
what it was all about. But then the time
came for the parents to kiss them goodbye
and leave them in this strange place, and
many a child cried himself to sleep not just
for a night but for the whole term, such was
their homesickness and loneliness. But the
parents did it in love and left them there.
Many sent their children on to England for
still higher education at great sacrifice, and
they could not afford to bring them home for
vacations, so they had to wait years to see
them again.
But they did it in love and only love.
An infinite being of love did the same thing
to us. We were "dead." We were fully made
and perfect but we were like the statue of
Galatea. And then to quicken man and
make him like God, he had to drive him out
not in space, out in mind. So God became
man, the thing that was dead, and to do it
he had to lower himself to this level which
in comparison to the higher states would be
called "dead." This garment of skin you
wear has been long in preparation for the
Son of God. We are told: “And He clothed
them in garments of skin." It is for schooling
purposes.
Why are we here? To make images. The
whole universe is an image of cosmic
fancy. We are learning, so we begin with
the simplest things a job, a new home, a
change in environment. We do it in the
same way as our Father did it, but this is a
classroom so we make mistakes but the
fault is not ours for we are not yet awake.
There was the perfect system, existing for
its creator, and then God set free certain
portions of it, and so he “prepared the way
for his banished ones to return." God seeks
what has been driven away, so that he may
say: "This, my son, who was dead [and] is
alive again." So we are the one he is
seeking.
There is something hidden in this coat of
skin that he is seeking.
We must get beyond the senses and begin
to create. So | say to everyone that we
must start the art of creating, no matter how
simple or how big the thing is, no matter
what it is that is creating. We create by
faith, and faith is belief in the thing not yet
seen. We create by assembling an image
that implies we now have what we want in
this world, and if we are faithful we bring it
to pass, and as we do it we begin to move
through this labyrinthine way for the return
of his Son. "Whom God has afflicted He will
comfort and call his friend." So if you are
hurt do not believe that it was because of
what you did in the past. No. We pass
through the fixed labyrinthine ways that he
has prepared for the return of his Son. So
the Son finally awakens and he walks with
me through the whole roadway of these
states.
You can create anything in this world if you
know who you are, and if you do not know,
that is why these platforms exist to teach
you, for we are all interlaced. You may think
you are insignificant; you may even be in
jail but even behind bars you are creating.
And you need not remain in jail if you know
who you are.
Have you ever flown over a lake or over the
ocean? A friend recently flew in from San
Diego. He had been in the navy and he had
always owned boats, but he had never
before observed what he saw now from the
air. He was on the ocean side as the plane
took off from San Diego, and looking down
he saw this little thirty-footer coming in the
opposite direction. He noticed the wake of
this little ship and watched it widen, and
nothing interrupted it. When his plane
turned inland he was flying at three
hundred miles per hour, but looking back
he realized that this little boat doing maybe
thirty knots was troubling the entire Pacific.
As far as the eye could see this wake was
moving and nothing could stop it and the
occupant of that boat was totally unaware
of what he was doing.
We are all like that. You think you can
imagine and not affect others? It is like the
wake: in time it encompasses the whole
world. It starts as a little "v" but it grows
wider and wider. Everyone will be in some
way influenced by my pattern. If one knows
what he wants for himself or for others and
remains faithful to it, he does not have to
ask: "Who will help me?" For every person
who must play a part will play it to make
possible the fulfillment of that dream.
A lady said to me the other night: "Look at
my hands! A week ago they were blistered
as if with acid; now there is no scar, but it
took me five days of revision to bring about
what you are seeing." For unnumbered
days prior to this nothing happened, but
five days of revision brought this about.
She produced in her own body this change.
This seems stupidity to the rational man; to
the Greek it is foolishness and to the Jew a
stumbling block. It means that the man of
reason cannot comprehend it; he cannot
believe that one can create by imagination.
The way is prepared for you, for there are
unnumbered states, and we can create
states to deliver others and pull them out of
those into which they have fallen.
We are here on the earth as in a great
schoolroom. We were not sent here to be
punished, but to learn to become creators
like our Father. There is no “original sin" for
God made the decision to send me to
"school." In fact | was "dead." | existed only
for God, the creator of the perfect system,
and then came the decision to subject me
to this schoolroom in the hope | would be
set free in the glorious liberty of the sons of
God. Given the choice, what child would go
to school? But loving the child the parents
subject it to that training. How many years
are taken from children's lives and given to
learning? It is the same with us, only itis a
vaster school. So let no one tell you that
you did anything wrong in being born.
These coats of skin were prepared for us,
for they help man the invisible reality to
become conscious. And then some certain
teachers sent by God tell them of the only
value in the world and that is to awake. But
if in the awakening, you want a better
home, a finer job, better health, then try to
create it. Failure does not matter; you are
learning. If you persist you will win. You
create by faith. By faith the worlds were
made and sustained. Things that are made
are made from things that do not appear.
So what would it be like if you were the man
you want to be? See the world as you
would like to see it.
Let me define Imagination for you. It is
spiritual sensation, but the word "spiritual"
is to most of us something that is not
practical the incorporeal as opposed to the
corporeal. But Imagination is the power to
perceive what is absent from the senses.
Take a rose there is not one here but right
now could | sense it in any way? Smell it?
Touch it? | can, though it is absent from the
senses. That is Imagination. If Imagination
creates reality, such perception of what is
absent from the senses makes it so. We
have unnumbered case histories to prove
it. Imagination is the power to perceive
what is absent from the senses, and if you
persist, you go beyond the sense man and
go beyond the rational man. "The natural
man receives not the things of the spirit of
God for they are foolishness unto him."
How can | discern my home spiritually? |
cannot see it with my physical eye or touch
it with my physical hands, but in
Imagination | can do both. You may say: "I
do not have a home." Well, you do the
same thing with a home you do not yet
own. Do it with funds you do not now
possess. Nothing has quite the same smell
as money, or the same sound. If it is money
you want, use every sense to make it real.
But do not say: "I perceive it because |
know it is there." To exercise the
Imagination you see something that is not
yet there. Then we get beyond the natural
man, like the lady who in five days brought
about a complete transformation in her
hands. Everyone is here for image making
and to learn lessons, and the being who
sent you here came with you and he has
never left you. He became you and lit you
with himself. As he lit man he awoke
through the passage prepared for him into
this schoolroom called earth. And then as
he is lifted up he is embraced and given the
ring and the fatted calf. "For this is my son
who was dead and now lives again." For
the first state was death and then comes
the quickening of this state. He was lost
and now he is found again. "That which is
already has been; that which is to be
already has been, and God seeks that
which was driven away." So he drives him
out by taking him out of mind. He is seeking
Jacob in the Old Testament, and in the New
Testament, Jesus. For when he finds him,
he is Jesus. As he finds him, his is the
reality of being, which is Jesus. He will find
him in every being in the world. When this
begins to awaken in you, the old form
cannot contain it any more than new wine
can be contained in old bottles. You cannot
take this new wine of truth and confine it to
the the old dogma it will blow it apart. So it
has to take a new form as the Spirit begins
to awaken within one.
So make your image and ask no one to
help you, for like the wake of the ship it will
change the whole world, if it is necessary
to the fulfillment of your drama. "Everything
in the Pacific had to encounter that wake;
nothing could stop it." You are the ark of
God and what you are imagining is
influencing all the others who are also
imagining. So Imagination changes things.
Do not base it on facts. Truth as we see it
is not confined to facts but depends only
upon the intensity of Imagination. Everyone
can do it but often reason will interfere.
A friend told me tonight that he desired the
answer to a certain problem and it was
given to him. He said: "| prayed to the being
within me." It was a financial picture and he
got the answer, but it seemed so stupid he
did not apply it. Although he did share in it,
it brought about everything that he desired.
Reason interfered and he did not put his
money into a certain venture. Reason
stands between the man of sense and the
man of Imagination.
Have you read Prodigal Genius, the Life of
Nikola Tesla? He said there was nothing
that was not within the Imagination. He
conceived of alternating current, and when
Edison told him it could not be done he
said: "But | see it, and | am stopping it and
starting it." And when they brought his
model into the factory they did not change
a bolt of it.
A friend of mine, a violinist, cut an accurate
model of something he had seen in his
mind. It was a collapsible box such as now
used by department stores to hold dresses
and such. He had it patented and sold his
patent for $10,000. Not one person in this
country has used that kind of box. Harry
Webb got it in a vision. The manufacturer
made millions. Harry did not labor for it.
Reason was suspended and this came
through.
Apply this principle to the little things of life
and let no one tell you it is too material; the
same ones will ask you for whatever it is
when you discard it. You are here in this
schoolroom to create out of your
imagination and to do it by faith. Imagine
and create the noblest concepts for
yourself or for others and live in [them], and
in a way you do not know, you will influence
the lives of everyone in the world, and
everyone who will be needed to bring about
your dream will be drawn into it and brought
to you. Even those who seek to stack the
cards against you and think they are doing
so very cleverly will find that the very thing
they did will instead stack the cards against
themselves.
You are influencing everyone in this world
when you are imagining. Who knows what
being now in solitary is not disturbing the
whole vast world. He will never be accused,
for he is not out. They can find approximate
cause, but they cannot blame him for he
was in a cell. Yet he could cause a wave of
hate out of the depth of his own being. That
is why it is so important to imagine wisely.
There is only one being awakening and that
is God, and we were put into this
schoolroom in love even though many a
night, like the children, we cry. Loving
fathers here have sent their unwilling
children to school; a loving heavenly father
sent you here on earth. You apply it and
use the greatest talent in the world, which
is himself. That is Imagination.
| cannot begin to tell you the thrill that is in
store for you as you begin to live by
Imagination. And then you can pass
through all these states which were
prepared for the return of his banished
ones. Not a state but has been fixed before
he put his Son into the depth to rise. So as
he is the life of man, it is really God who is
rising. So we deliver ourselves from states
and at the same time deliver others from
the same state. No matter what a man has
done, he is only in a state and can be lifted
out.
When we begin to awaken we will begin to
comfort and heal, for whom God afflicts he
did it for a sound end, and that was that he
might awaken. "This is my son who was
dead and now liveth." The most monstrous
beast that ever walked the earth cannot be
lost, for God is also present in him. If one
could be lost then God could be lost, for he
became his Son that he might awaken that
Son as God.
So make your dream and live in it and it will
come true. We are told that as the sower
sowed, the seed fell on four kinds of soil.
The first is not prepared; it is the highway,
and no seed took root. These are those
who will not listen. Then you will find one
who will take this teaching, but it falls on
stony ground.
They get something new but there is no
root. The first thing they say is: "Oh, it
would have happened anyway!" The third
fell among the "thorns and thistles." It
grows deeper than the one on the rock, but
they really believe that it is only with money
they can get things and so the teaching
was choked by the thorns of their unbelief.
Then there is the well prepared ground,
and it roots deeply and produces fifty and a
hundred been prepared for your education
and that it is all interwoven in the
labyrinthine ways of your own mind. And
then you learn to walk in the feeling of your
wish fulfilled, and you can create states
from this heavenly alphabet of God, and
then we find how the entire Bible story is a
true story as seen through the eyes of
those who wrote it. It is the history of the
soul of man and some day you will know it
is taking place in you, and then it moves
rapidly and you will understand the vision
you did not understand before. Then you
can say:
"The whole Book spoke of me!"
So, speaking of the one that God is
seeking, the one who was lost, who found
him? God found him. You find it unfolding
within you. And then you see that you
cannot from now on use the old bottle or
the old frame, for the vision differs and you
cannot put new cloth on old garments, or
new wine in old bottles, [and] your friends
tell you that if you do this you will have no
listeners. But you must go blindly on,
because you have been given the new
wine. You see no one who is important and
you do not consider the wise or the foolish
to be in supreme states, but you see them
passing through these states into which we
may all fall as we are being educated, as
we move from the state of death to the
divine liberty of the sons of God.
So if you get a vision, do not let reason
interfere like my friend who lost $50,000
because he allowed reason to interfere and
did not follow through on the answer that
was given him. Reason divides the natural
man of sense from the man of Imagination.
Blake says: "Those who restrain desire do
so because theirs is weak enough to be
restrained, and the restrainer or reason
usurps its place and governs the unwilling.
And being restrained, it by degrees
becomes passive, till it is only the shadow
of desire." If you desire the recovery of a
friend, do not restrain it, for then reason will
restrain it. Let no one tell you he is suffering
because of the past. You are called on only
to forgive him. You are not the judge. Let no
one tell you that your father punishes. He
seems to, but it is for a purpose: "I kill, |
heal, | wound, | make alive," etc. Choose
life, but there must be the contrary to
awaken you. But we may choose from the
tree of life, which is truth and error.
So deliver anyone from the state into which
he has fallen. [Now] you see what the
prophet meant: "That which is, already has
been; that which is to be, already has been;
and God seeks what has been driven
away." For the schoolroom is prepared for
the awakening Son of God.
Now let us go into the silence.
Yours for the Taking
18" September, 1967.
There is only one cause for the phenomena
of life. That cause is God. Housed in you,
God is a person in the most literal sense of
the word. Believe me, for | Know this from
experience. God, the only creator, is pure
imagination working in the depth of your
soul. God began a good work in you and
He will bring it to completion on the day
God's creative power is unveiled in you!
God's creative power and wisdom is
defined in scripture as Christ. When Christ
unveils himself in you, you will know you
are God's power and God's wisdom.
God, your own wonderful human
imagination, underlies all of your faculties,
including perception, and streams into your
surface mind least disguised in the form of
creative, productive fantasy. When you ask
yourself what you can do to transcend your
present limitation of life, you are dwelling
upon the means. God does not ask you to
consider the means, but to define the end.
Speaking to you through the medium of
desire, God asks the question: "What
wantest thou of me?"
Then he tells you not to be concerned with
the ways and means, for his ways are
unsearchable. They are inscrutable and
past finding out. This statement you will find
in the 11" chapter of the Book of Romans.
So don't be concerned as to how God will
fulfill the end, only Know that He will.
Can you believe your desire is fulfilled?
Can you believe it is true? If you can, it is
yours for the taking, for nothing is
impossible to one who believes.
Now, let me share with you three stories
which came to me during the summer. The
first letter was from my friend Bennie. In it
he told of lying prone on his bed, face
down, when he felt as though someone
grabbed his shoulders; and as he was lifted
up he heard the words: "Take a stand!"
Intuitively he knew he had to make the
decision now as to whether he was going
to believe that imagining creates reality or
disbelieve it.
Scripture tells us, "He who is not with me is
against me." There is no neutral ground, for
"| have not come to bring peace, but a
sword. To set a an against his father and a
daughter against her mother." Why?
Because a man's enemies are within him.
Everyone must eventually take the stand
that imagining creates reality and swim or
sink with this concept.
Now, a few days later while in meditation,
Bennie felt himself being held from behind
by three men. As they raised him, he
watched the sun rise and heard the words:
“Look! Behold!” and “Recognition!” And he
remembered a passage from my book,
Your Faith Is Your Fortune: "Recognition of
this truth will transform you from one who
tries to make it so, into one who recognizes
it to be so."
Soon after this, a friend asked Ben to pray
for him. He wanted to be the property
manager of the company he worked for.
Although he had been passed by year after
year, Bennie told him what to do, and
imagined hearing the friend tell him the job
was now his. A few months later the job
was vacated and his friend was given the
position with an increase in salary and
greater responsibility, just as he had
imagined. What did Bennie do? He
imagined! To whom did he pray? To his own
wonderful human imagination! God, the
creator of all life, is like pure imagining in
you, underlying all of your faculties
including perception. He streams into your
surface mind least disguised in the form of
productive fantasy. Bennie took a stand. He
prayed for his friend and believed his
prayer was answered. He tested himself,
and the windows of heaven opened and
poured forth blessings for all to see. Now
Bennie knows that with God all things are
possible.
God is your mightier self. Emptying himself,
God took on the form of a slave and is now
found in the likeness of man. Abdicating his
power, Pure Imagination took upon himself
the limitations of flesh, thereby becoming
human. It is God who weaves your every
desire into cubic reality, waiting upon you
effectively and swiftly, regardless of
whether your desire is for evil or for good.
The one who conjures thoughts in the mind
of a Hitler or Stalin is the same power as
the one conjuring thoughts in the mind of a
pope or the Arch Bishop of Canterbury.
There aren't two Gods. There is only one!
The 14" and 53" chapters of the Book of
Psalms are identical, each telling us: "The
fool says in his heart there is no God, but
the Lord looks down from heaven upon the
children of the many to see if there are any
that act wise and seek the Lord." Here we
find that in the eyes of God, wisdom is
equated with seeking the Lord. And if God
is all wise and all powerful, then any search
other than for the Lord is stupid. You may
be the greatest mathematician or scientist,
the most intelligent and honored man
among men, but if your search is not for
God, you are stupid in His eyes.
Called upon to look for the cause of
creation, what are you doing losing yourself
in the phenomena of life? When something
happens, search your thoughts and you will
discover your own wonderful human
imagination to be the cause of your
experience, because God is a person. At
the present time He is wearing a mask
called Neville, but the one speaking to you
now knows himself to be the Ancient of
Days. Every being in the world is a mask
worn by God; for housed in man, is man's
imagination.
A thought acted upon is an imaginal act.
Think (imagine) a horrible earthquake and
God will give it to you. Imagine (think of) a
war and God will provide that, too. Imagine
peace and you will have it. God will give
you health if you will but imagine being
healthy. Imagine success and you will have
it. The moment you think, you are feeding
your imagination, which is a person. | use
the word person deliberately, for you are a
person. You are the mask God is now
wearing, for God became you that you may
become God.
Now let me share another letter with you.
Last year this lady, living about sixty miles
north of San Francisco, was possessed
with the desire to come to Los Angeles and
attend my lecture. Leaving word at her
office, she drove her car to the San
Francisco airport, where she took a plane
to Los Angeles. There she was met by a
friend and immediately came to the lecture.
After the lecture she joined a group of four
women and one man for coffee, where she
expressed her hunger, having missed
lunch and dinner that day. The gentleman
sitting beside her then said, "I'd like to buy
you a steak." And as she looked into his
face she heard a voice within her say, "This
is your husband."
Now, this lady has been married and
divorced four times, so she had specific
desires for a husband which she felt must
be fulfilled. She wanted to be happily
married to a man who lived by this truth.
She wanted him to love and respect her as
well as her seventeen year old son. Having
imagined such a man in September, she
attended my meeting in October, and
married the gentleman she met here the
following January.
The gentleman added his story to her letter,
saying: "Having played with the idea of
being married, | went to a pawn shop last
September and purchased a plain gold
band which | placed on the third finger of
my left hand. Every day | wore the ring and
every night | slept in the feeling of being
happily married. (My friend thought he
could not get the feeling of being married
without a physical aid, but you don't need
anything outside of your imagination to
catch the mood.)
Having been an alcoholic, this gentleman
imagined his wife never mentioned his
past; for although he had not tasted alcohol
for nine years, he had paid the price in his
search for God. You see, the alcoholic is
searching for truth. Thirsty, he finds a false
spirit in the form of alcohol, while those who
will not touch it and criticize those who do
haven't even started their search.
But | have news for them. One day they,
too, will know a hunger which will not be
satisfied by bread. They will know a thirst
so great they will make the mistake of
clothing it in the form of a bottle. But
because it will be a false thirst, the thirst will
remain. Then they will discover the true
hunger and the true thirst, which is for the
hearing of the word of God.
Now, in the third letter a gentleman writes:
"Having borrowed from the bank, every
month when I sent in my payment | reduced
the total amount in my record book. One
day, as | was writing my check and
recording its payment, | closed my eyes
and saw two zeros under the balance due
column. Then | gave a sigh of relief
because the note was paid. For the next
thee months | persisted in seeing those
double zeros and rejoicing in being debt
free. Then came an unexpected surprise!
Our company paid us all a midyear bonus
which was so large | was able to pay all of
my bills, including the bank loan, and
deposit the rest in the bank."
Now | think this gentleman and | must be
two peas in the same pod, because money
seems to burn in his pocket, too. Instead of
keeping the money in the bank as the
rational mind would do, my friend began to
think about how to spend it, so of course he
found a way. He bought a tape recorder to
bring and record my message!
To whom did my friend turn when he
wanted the bank loan paid? He turned to
God! He did not get down on his knees and
ask some outside God to do it for him. He
didn't go to church and consult a priest,
rabbi or minister. He didn't contact a so--
called truth teacher, but simply closed his
eyes to the obvious and saw two zeros in
the balance due column. Then for the first
time in the history of his company a mid-
year bonus was paid. This happened to him
because of his use of the law, \and his
knowledge of who God is.
Not everyone who seeks God finds him, but
there are those like Philip that when they
find him, they bring their brother Nathanael.
Andrew found Jesus and brought Peter.
You, too, will find Jesus when you exercise
your imagination, and bring those you love
to his awareness. If great wealth befell you,
would not your wife (or husband), your
children, as well as those in your immediate
circle benefit from your good fortune? And
if it befell them, would it not befall you?
So we benefit each other as we search out
God and test him.
Revelation tells us to be either hot or cold,
but never to be lukewarm. If you do not
believe me to the point of testing the law,
you are lukewarm. But one day, like Ben,
you will take a stand. You will either be for
me or against me. You will try to believe
that imagining creates reality, or reject it.
You will be hot or cold about it, and that is
better than being lukewarm. | have
discovered that those who hated me at first
when | took from them their idols, the icon
in their mind called Jesus, have become
my finest students. So many people claim
they believe in Jesus, but cannot define
him. Unable to place him in time and space,
they are defiant when | say: Christ in you is
your hope of glory. Full of insults, they are
cold. Some have even been violent. But
one day they will find him of whom Moses
and the prophets wrote, turn around, and
be embraced by the Lord.
| started telling this story in the 1930's and
here we are in the 1960's. During these
thirty odd years | have found those who
really opposed me those who were so
moved and disturbed they were
determined to disprove my words. But
since they couldn't do it, they too have
found God to be their own wonderful
human imagination. The Bible is addressed
only to the human imagination. In Blake's
famous letter to the Rev. Dr. Trusler he
makes this comment: "Why is the Bible
more entertaining and instructive than any
other book? Is it not because it is
addressed to the imagination, which is
spiritual sensation, and only immediately to
the understanding, or reason?"
The Bible is imaginative instruction. When
it unfolds in you it is more real than
anything here, yet it is all imagined, for God
is all imagination and so is man. The
eternal body of man is the imagination, and
that is God Himself. There is nothing but
this one body called Jesus, who is the Lord
God Jehovah.
| tell you, God became as we are that we
may become as He is. No one took God's
life. He laid it down himself saying: "I have
the power to lay it down and the power to
lift it up again. The fall into fragmented
space was deliberate. And He who fell has
the power to gather us all together, one by
one, into that single body who is all love.
His body is above the organization of sex.
In it there is no Greek, no Jew, no bond, no
free, no male, no female. When you wear it
you understand Paul's statement: "I
consider the sufferings of this present time
not worth comparing to the glory that has
been revealed in me." In that body you
know yourself to be the real Man, and this
fleshly body as nothing. You will realize that
you were never male or female, but have
always been God.
Remember, everything is yours for the
taking. If you want it, take it. If you cannot
claim it for yourself, ask a friend for help. If
you want to be happily married, do what my
friends did. You want to pay off all of your
debts? Whatever you desire is yours. All
you have to do is imagine you have it, for
everything in life is yours for the taking!
Now let us go into the silence.
The Foundation Stone — Imagination
1st December, 1959.
We believe that man can create anything
he desires. We believe the Universe is
infinite response and the one who causes
it is the individual perceiver. Nothing is
independent of your perception of it. We
are so interwoven we are part of the
machine, but as we awake we detach
ourselves from this machine and make life
as we wish it to be. "For man is all
Imagination and God is man and exists in
us and we in him." "The eternal body of
man is the Imagination: that is God
himself."
You can imagine and | can imagine, and if
we can be faithful to the state imagined it
must appear in our world. This is not new.
This was given centuries ago, for we have
it in the Bible; but people do not know how
to read the Bible, so they got together and
organized it into an "ism." It is not an "ism,"
but it is the great plan to free man. The
Bible shows this plan in detail. We will turn
to a few passages and show you what
those who wrote it intended we should see.
Isaiah 28:16: "Thus says the Lord God,
‘Behold, | am laying in Zion for a foundation
stone, a tested stone, a precious
cornerstone, of a sure foundation: He who
believes will not be in haste." Now, we are
told in the Book of Psalms that the world
rejected the stone. "The stone which the
builders rejected has become the head of
the corner." "You cannot lay any other
stone." "On this stone you may build gold,
silver, hay, or stubble...and the day will
reveal it."
| tell you that this stone is your Imagination,
and it is called in the Bible: Christ Jesus, or
God, or the Lord. It is your Imagination,
which is one with the Divine Imagination
which created, sustains, changes, and
even destroys parts of the creation. This is
the stone that is tested and it is a sure
foundation, and he who believes in it will
not be in haste. If | can but imagine and
know that imagining creates reality | will not
be impatient or lead a superficial life. When
a man does not live in his Imagination he
will become impatient of the outcome of
what he desires, and finally he will become
violent in his effort to get things.
Here is one who asks the question: "Who
do men say that the Son of Man is?" Some
said this and some that, but again he
asked: "But who do you say that | am?"
(Matthew 16:13) "And Simon Peter replied,
'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living
God.' And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed
are you, Simon BarJona! For flesh and
blood has not revealed this to you, but my
Father who is in Heaven. And | tell you, you
are Peter, and on this rock | will build my
church."
The churches tell you that it means a man
called Peter. It is not an individual. The
whole thing takes place in the mind of you
the individual. You imagine a certain state
and it is called Peter. If it were a man called
Peter, you would not find what you find six
verses later. For there he turns to the same
character, Peter, and says to him: "Get
behind me Satan: You are a hindrance to
me; for you are not on the side of God, but
of men." That is what every man in the
world does. He gets a revelation and he
realizes the foundation stone is Imagining.
He sees a friend who needs help and he
imagines he has what he wants. If he
believes it, he is not in haste. He is
imagining what he wants and he is not
violent, and he is not concerned, and he
does not give suggestions to the friend as
to what to do physically to bring his desire
to pass. If the foundation stone is true,
there is only one power to support it. If he
knows that, he will not allow himself to be
turned; he will remain faithful to his
assumption. But we are told in the Bible
story that the one who had been
commended, Peter, turned and became
violent, and then Jesus said to him, "Get
behind me, Satan." You turn back to the
ways of men to get things to go as you want
them to go. You pull all the wires and
therefore you have turned from the only
foundation in the world, and that is Christ
Jesus, which is human Imagination. If you
believe this you will not reject the stone.
"Stone" is "even" [in Hebrew] and it means
to create, or build, or beget children. Here
is a stone in "Zion" (which means a high
pinnacle or a barren place). That is man,
before the stone is sunk in him. He is the
waste, the desert. Sunk in man as his
Imagination is the only foundation stone,
for [there is] no other foundation of the
living God and he has sunk himself in me.
Therefore, | am the son of the living God,
for there is only one and | Am he. If | believe
this, | will not be impatient. "He who
believes it will not be in haste." This is the
Lord's way. | ask you to test it. Bring before
your mind's eye what you want to see in
this world. It may be business or a friend's
good fortune. It can be anything, for on this
foundation you can put stubble, or wood, or
hay. You are building with hay when you
say of someone: "I Know he was no good."
They lived in that state concerning another
and then it came to pass and they say: "I
always thought he was like that." Some of
us build strange things for another. We
were imagining on the only foundation, but
we have put stubble on it instead of gold or
silver, and the day revealed it, and then we
cannot relate what happens to anything we
have done.
The Hebrew meaning of the "stone" is to
beget children. All the events of my life are
my children. Everyone can build on this one
foundation. "I am laying in Zion a stone."
What stone? God is burying himself in
everyone in the world. It is a true stone, a
precious cornerstone, and one who
believes will not be in haste. | have seen an
imaginal act take two years to come forth,
but when it appeared what a giant! | have
seen it come in an hour. But do not be in
haste or think there is any other foundation
and like Peter turn to another foundation,
growing violent toward those who would
lead Jesus to the cross. But Christ said: "I
came to move toward the cross. Get behind
me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me."
If | am still in the machine, | think the good
things come only by accident or chance.
Let the wheel turn, for each must go
through all the furnaces until he awakens
and sees the whole universe as infinite
response. The day will come when every
person, at a certain degree of awakening,
will freeze an activity within himself, and as
it comes to a stop within him, that whole
section is "dead." The laws of nature are
only free action, repeated until they
become accepted as a law. Yet you will see
leaves in midair not falling, and people
moving in space will cease to move but will
not fall, for as you stopped the action within
yourself the whole thing stopped. And you
will see the whole thing as Zion the desert
and the only thing that makes it alive is the
stone buried in it. But man becomes lost in
the things he has made and gives to them
the power. For example, through the use of
his Imagination he brings money into his
world; then he forgets that it was the activity
of his mind that did this, and he sees in the
money itself the power to get what he
desires. But when he awakes he will no
longer lose himself in his own creation.
| say to everyone here: there is only one
stone. If tonight there is someone very ill
who needs your help and you imagine the
best for him and then you get news that he
is worse tomorrow, do not be impatient, but
remain faithful to the one stone laid in Zion.
What more can you do after you have
imagined? Someone writes to you about a
problem. Imagine for them what they desire
and then do not turn aside to do anything
to make it come true. You remain faithful,
and it will create the conditions necessary
to bring fulfillment.
You can look at someone with deep
concern and want a change. You do not
voice it, but lock it in, and then forty eight
hours later there is initiated what you set in
motion. And they wonder: "Could my
problem be traced to so and so?" Just the
very thing you had been thinking! You
entertained their problem with deep
concern, and then you will ask: “Did you
influence me or did | influence you?
When did you entertain this thought?" And
they say: "Just now," and then you say:
"Forty eight hours ago | entertained this
thought, but | did not say it aloud." That
makes no difference. All things by a law
divine in one another's beings mingle. We
all influence each other. We are all
interpenetrated, and the more one is
deeply concerned for another, the more he
is penetrated by another.
| say the universe is infinite response, but it
also gives back more than you imagine. It
is pressed down and running over.
Therefore, to be negative can be
frightening. The good will come back a
thousandfold, but so will the negative. But
if | am optimistic and do not waver, | will
bring that also pressed down and running
over. It is something wonderful; it will come
like a gusher. The world responds more
than it takes, and it gives to the individual
more than he imagines - good or bad.
| say to everyone that the greatest of books
is the Bible, but people have organized it,
and even say they have found the remains
of Peter or some other Biblical character.
Peter is not a man, but a state. You rise up
to the crown of it all and that is Christ.
States are permanent but | am not fixed; |
am a living moving being. | can be praised
for one state and then | see a morning
headline, say, and move from that true
foundation, and then the power rebukes me
as Satan, for | reacted instead of acted.
Would you like to be in the state called
Peter, the one addressed in Matthew 16?
How? Let me say, and mean it: "My
Imagination is God and there is no other."
It is one with the supreme power and let me
live in that state, and then | am being
addressed: "You are blessed, Simon Bar-
Jona." It means the depth of my being is
giving it to me. Can | do it? The day that
you do it and remember you did it, at that
moment you are relating that story. When
Peter confessed: "Thou art the Christ," that
is the stone on which the whole thing rests,
but when he got away from that and
reacted, then he was called Satan, or the
reactor.
God is begetting sons by means of the
stone. He buries himself in every man in
the world, but he is rejected. | can tell you
these things here, but if | told them across
the airways | would be immediately turned
off. People cannot believe they are
responsible for their imaginal acts. They do
not want to believe it. | cannot be free of the
results of what | imagine. Go out
determined to prove it, and having proved
it, Keep the stone alive. There is no other
stone. "No other can any man lay, which is
Christ Jesus,” But on this build anything but
build gold, do not build hay or stubble. |
want everyone here to test it. Take
someone who is really distressed, and if
you believe in the foundation you will leave
here tonight without any concern for them,
even if you receive wires stating things are
worse. It might take a week or a month, but
that which you have imagined, if you
remain faithful to the stone, will come.
| have seen a man looking at a building
which is an inanimate thing and you would
say it could not respond. How can he look
at it and see his name on it when he does
not have a nickel? But he did it. | know the
man [Neville's brother, Victor] and in a way
he could not have devised, the building
became his. Let no one tell you that
something cannot respond, but when we
are still part of the machine, we cannot
quite see that we are the cause of
everything in our world, and we hope good
fortune will smile on us. Then when you set
something bad in motion, as the machine
turns you cannot see what caused it, but
when you become awake you can control
the machine. It responds to the imaginal
acts of the awakened man, for the
awakened man is in control.
A thrill is in store for you when you can
finally stop all activity and the whole thing
will freeze. You will know what the so-called
wise men say, but you will hear only these
words: "I thank you Father that you have
you have hid these things from the wise
and pious and revealed them unto babes."
For you will know that it is the perceiver
who is making everything alive. For you will
find that nothing is independent of the mind
of the perceiver. A truly awakened teacher
could freeze certain sections for the
edification of his students if he chose. By
normal standards everything would die if
you suspended activity; but it does not die,
for there is nothing outside of your
perception of it. Take your boss or an
employee and represent them to yourself
as you want them to be, and believe in the
reality of the foundation stone, and then
you will not make haste to bring it to pass.
For Imagination is creating reality, and ina
way no one knows it will be brought to pass
if you remain faithful.
A man's son was in St Louis to be brought
up by his wife's sister. This man had tried
for seven years to get enough ahead to
take a trip to St. Louis to see the child. He
constantly tried to see himself getting a job
with more money so he could make the trip.
He was told that by the right use of this law
he should only see himself with his child
and let the way be left to God. Following
this he was given a job that took him from
Los Angeles to New Orleans. But that was
not near St. Louis. He took the job and
persisted in his dream, and in three months
he was transferred to the St. Louis run and
given a twenty-four hour layover there
every week.
The best thing that ever happened to me
was when | was fired from Macy's during
the depression. | might be captain of the
elevators if | had stayed there. My father
lost everything he owned, and that proved
to be the beginning of the great dream he
brought to pass. One person believed in
him and he started on that, and when he
made his exit last October, he had given to
his community much that no one had ever
given before. The blackest day of his life
turned out to be the bright day of his life. No
matter what you have done, forget it. You
are God and God is untarnished, for he is
all imagining.
Now, you start to imagine and make it
something of which you can be proud.
Make it big. If it is truly the stone being laid
in Zion, do not turn to any argument of man.
You be faithful, and whatever you put on
the stone as an imaginal activity will come
into your world. Of course, you may go
back to the world of men, like Peter. He
denied the stone three times but he did
then return to it again. You may do that, but
in the end you will learn, for in the depth of
your being the words are being said: "Get
behind me, Satan." But | have seen people
forget. | have seen them rise from nothing
to great heights and then say: "It would
have happened anyway." They do not
believe that their imaginal activity was the
foundation on which they built that
structure. There is only one stone and that
is your wonderful Imagination.
This works better if you do not try to aid it
on the outside, for it is not flesh and blood
that revealed it to you. You got it from the
Christ.
Now let us go into the silence.
Imagination Creates Reality
Your own wonderful human imagination is
the actual creative power of God within
you. It is your savior. If you were thirsty,
water would be your savior. If you needed
a job, employment would be your savior.
Your imagination is the power to save you
from whatever circumstances you now find
yourself. You can experience your heart’s
desire through the use of your imagination.
Nothing is impossible to your imagination.
Your imagination is unlimited in what it can
accomplish. If you can imagine something,
you can achieve it.
Let me give you an example. If you were
unable to walk and were confined to a
wheelchair, you could close your eyes and
imagine yourself running on the beach or
wading in the water. If you would imagine
yourself doing this until it took on the tones
of reality, you could accomplish a healing
that would allow you to actually walk or run.
The way to use your imagination creatively
is this. Relax in a chair or on a bed and
close your eyes. First determine what it is
you wish to experience. Then, in this state
of complete relaxation, bring to mind the
end result of what it is you desire. In other
words, if you were seeking a promotion at
work, the end result might be that people
would congratulate you on your promotion.
You might move to a larger office. You
would enjoy an increase in pay. Take any
one of these events and, with your eyes
closed, actually hear your friends
congratulate you on your promotion. Feel
their hand in yours as they tell you how
happy they are for you.
By actually feeling that you are being
congratulated, your imagination will go to
work to bring about that state in your outer
world. You need not be concerned about
how this will be accomplished. Your
imagination will use whatever natural
means are necessary to bring it about. “l
am the beginning and the end.” “My ways
are past finding out.” What you do in
imagination is an instantaneous creative
act. However, in this three dimensional
world, events appear in a time sequence.
Therefore, it may take a short interval of
time to realize in the outer world what you
have just experienced in imagination. After
you have performed this act in your
imagination, open your eyes and go about
your normal, natural affairs, confident that
what you have done must come to fruition
in your world. Make your inner
conversations conform to your imaginal
act. You have planted a seed and you will
soon see the harvest of that which you
have sowed.
When you go into your imagination, make
sure that you are actually performing the
action, hearing the words, touching the
object, or smelling the aroma in your self
conceived drama. What you do in your
imagination is not merely a daydream in
which you see events in your mind’s eye.
You must enter the dream as if you were
actually there. You must make “then” now
and make “there” here. To make this
perfectly clear, imagine that you would
experience driving a new car after you have
achieved your goal. In that case, you would
not merely see a new car in your mind’s
eye. You must actually enter the dream.
Feel yourself seated behind the steering
wheel. Smell the newness of the interior.
Feel yourself enjoying a comfortable ride.
Feel the happiness that would be yours
after accomplishing your dream.
That which you experience in imagination
is an actual creative act. It is a fact in the
fourth dimension of space and will make its
appearance in this three dimensional world
just as surely as planting a seed will result
in the growth of a particular plant. Once you
have planted this seed in your imagination,
do not uproot it by being anxious about how
it will be accomplished. Each seed has its
own appointed time. Some seeds take a
few days; others a little longer. Feel
confident that what you have planted will
appear in your world. Your imagination will
draw all that it needs to make your dream
an actual reality. It if takes others to play a
part in order to accomplish your end, your
imagination will draw that person into your
drama to play his or her part in the
sequence of events. Your only
responsibility is to remain faithful to your
imaginal act until you experience it in your
outer world. You can repeat your imaginal
act each night before falling asleep. In fact,
you may wish to enact this drama over and
over again until it feels normal and natural
to you as you drop off to sleep. Your
imagination will work out the means to
realize your dream while your conscious
mind sleeps.
Bring your five senses into play as you
perform your imaginal activity. Actually
hear a friend’s voice congratulating you or
feel yourself hugging that person. If you
wanted a new piano, run your hand over
the smooth wood, touch the keys, and
listen to the sound. If you wanted to receive
a dozen roses, actually smell the fragrance
and touch their velvety petals.
Finally, you must be persistent in attaining
your desire. Continue to imagine what you
want until you have actually obtained it. You
do nothing else to obtain your desire. If it is
necessary to take some action, you will be
led to do so in a normal, natural manner.
You do not have to do anything to “help”
bring it about. Remember that it is God,
Himself, who is doing the work and He
knows exactly how to accomplish it. If you
think of your desire during the day, give
thanks that it is already an accomplished
fact — because it is!
Dream better than the best you know.
One Cause
Nothing is impossible! There are two ways
to interpret this statement - both of which
are correct. The obvious meaning is that it
is possible to achieve anything you want. It
can also be interpreted to mean that it is
impossible for nothing to exist. Everything
we are aware of or perceive in some way is
something. It is inconceivable that
something can come from nothing or that
something can become nothing. It is a fact
that nature abhors a vacuum and always
rushes in to fill it with something. Some
force or power created all that is. According
to the Bible, creation is finished. Not only is
creation finished, but God said it was good.
Have you ever considered what God could
have used to create all there is? If creation
is finished, how is it possible to pray to God
to create something in your life that did not
exist yesterday or today? Is it difficult to
believe that God said His creation was
good? If all of creation is good, why do
people experience problems and how can
wars, crime, starvation and other
undesirable conditions exist?
The answers to these questions are
contained within the following pages. Your
understanding of these answers will enable
you to see that it is impossible for nothing
to exist. You will also see that you can
obtain anything you desire because
nothing is impossible to the creative power
that resides within you. You can be and you
can have all that you desire to be and to
have. There is no limit to what you can
accomplish for yourself and others. It
doesn't matter what your present
circumstances are. The principle you have
unconsciously used to bring about the
undesirable conditions in your life can be
consciously applied to make your every
dream come true.
Creation is finished and it is good! God
created the earth and all that is in it and
God said it was good. Man has puzzled
over these statements for centuries. If man
really understood the meanings, he would
not be confused nor would he feel anxious
about his past, present or future. The
understanding of these two statements
would enable man to realize that he, alone,
controls his actions and the circumstances
of his life.
Let us take the first statement. God created
the earth and all that is in it. God is infinite;
therefore, God must have been before any
form came into being. What substance
could He have used to create all that
exists?
There can be only one answer. God
created everything that exists from the only
substance available -— Himself. God
(thought/consciousness) spoke the Word
and brought everything into being out of
himself. Everything you perceive is made of
the one substance — God. The one
substance back of everything is energy and
that energy is God or the “Word.”
Although scientists and medical men can
analyze the various chemicals of which the
body is made, none can combine these
chemicals to form a living person. Since
God created all that is out of Himself, it
follows that God is the creator and the
creation. God is expressing life through
each and every one of us. It could not be
otherwise.
Let us take the second statement. God said
that His creation was good. That statement
has confused man who believes that if God
is good, another power must have created
that which is not good. Yet, man also
acknowledges that God is infinite,
omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.
These qualities of God must include all
forms, all events, and all situations. If it
were possible to remove all that is
discordant or inharmonious from the world,
it would not be possible to experience the
reverse of that condition.
Perhaps this statement can be understood
more easily if you will think of the principle
of mathematics. In adding the sum of five
and six, it is possible to obtain the incorrect
answer of twelve. To eliminate that
possibility, the number twelve would need
to be removed from the whole of numbers.
It would, therefore, be impossible to add six
and six and reach the correct answer of
twelve. You can see that by eliminating the
possibility of a potential wrong answer, all
numbers would eventually be eliminated
and mathematics would not be possible.
However, just as mathematics exists and
can be used by anyone who has gained an
understanding of how to use the principle
to obtain correct answers, so the principle
of creation can be understood to obtain
desired results.
Because God has given all of us free will,
you can choose the states you wish to
occupy. God does not predetermine your
fate nor does God punish you for mistakes
or misdeeds. Because a man may not
understand the law of mathematics, he
may be adversely affected when he makes
a mistake in subtracting an amount in his
check register. The law of mathematics is
not punishing him. The law simply is and
can be used correctly or incorrectly. God
has allowed you complete freedom to
choose that which you will encounter.
When you come to the realization that you
are God in form and expression, you will
seek to experience greater good and
nobler purposes for yourself and others.
“In the beginning was the Word and the
Word was with God and the Word was
God.” The Word is thought or imagination.
God imagined the world into being and
became that which He conceived. This is
the principle on which all creation rests.
Since God became man to give man life,
man must contain that same creative
principle within himself. “The Kingdom of
Heaven is within you.” We have created our
personal world through thought. If you are
experiencing lack, limitation, illness,
disharmony or any other unwanted
condition, you have either consciously or
unconsciously brought these conditions
into your experience. The majority of
people do not realize that thought, belief,
and imagination has created their
individual worlds. There is no other cause
for the conditions of your life. You may
choose to disbelieve this, but whether you
believe it or not, all that you behold in the
outer world was conceived within your own
consciousness prior to your experience of
it.
That which you think about with feeling,
that which you believe to be true and that
which you imagine yourself to be or to have
is the cause of everything in your personal
world. You may believe that there is some
other cause; you may blame others for your
problems; you may believe that the events
were wrought by fate or chance, but if you
are objective and observe your own beliefs
and thought patterns, you will see that your
world accurately reflects all that you believe
to be true of yourself and others. There is
no one and nothing to change but the ideas
from which you think. We think from ideas
that we consent to as true and we imagine
situations that match our beliefs.
Consciousness is the only reality. It is the
creative principle that brings into your
experience the exact duplicate or reflection
of that which you imagine to be true. The
world in which we live mirrors all that we
believe and imagine to be true, be it good,
bad, or indifferent.
The sooner that man rids himself of the
belief in a second cause, the sooner will he
realize that nothing happens to him except
that which originates in his own
consciousness. | do not deny that man
believes that if he contracts a certain germ
or virus that he will manifest a particular
illness or disease. If he contemplates the
cause, he may conclude that it is because
he came in contact with someone else who
had the bug. He doesn't realize that in
some way, his own feelings about health or
illness attracted the illness he is
experiencing. If viruses or germs were truly
the cause of disease, everyone who came
in contact with a particular virus would be
affected. The outer world merely reflects
that which a man is in his own
consciousness.
It doesn’t matter what you have been
taught; you can change your beliefs and so
change the circumstances of your life. The
Bible states that when you pray, believe
that you have received and you shall have
it. Most of us have read that statement or
heard it at some time. Few people have
actually prayed in that manner. Have you
ever been ill and prayed for health? If you
needed money, did you believe when you
prayed that you already had the sum you
asked for? Most people pray to God to
change something in their lives or to give
them something they do not have. If their
prayers were not answered, they think that
God had a reason for withholding that
particular thing. They think that perhaps
God didn’t grant their request because He
didn’t want them to attain their desire for
some reason known only to God. Man
sometimes thinks that God doesn’t answer
prayers because man is undeserving of
that which he seeks. Man must learn to
believe in that which he does not, at the
moment, see in order to grant himself that
which he desires to have. Man’s payers are
always answered, for he always receives
that which he believes. The law that
governs prayer is impersonal. Belief is the
condition necessary to realize the desire.
No amount of pleas or ritual will bring about
the fulfillment of your desires other than the
belief that you are or have that which you
want.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.” The full
meaning of that statement must be
understood. If the meaning were
understood, man would have no problem in
accomplishing his aims. Most men believe
that nothing is impossible to God — that
God could do anything if he chose to do it.
So man believes he has faith in God and
prays to God for that which he wants. If his
prayer is not granted, he thinks that he
either did not pray long enough or hard
enough or that God chose to withhold his
request.
However, faith is the actual substance of
that which is hoped for. It is the evidence of
the thing you want which you do not see in
the outer world. That which you want to do
or be has already been created. Therefore,
it actually does exist. It is possible to bring
into your world anything in creation by your
belief that you already have it. Faith that
what you want is already a fact is the
means by which you activate the invisible
state. That state then is later reflected in
your outer world. Creation is finished. God
can create nothing that is not already
existent. Faith or belief that you already are
or have that which you desire is the only
means by which to experience your
desires. No limitation is imposed on that
which you can have except your failure to
assume possession of the quality or thing
desired.
How the Law Works
The law of identical harvest or cause and
effect is impersonal and can be used to
bring into your experience anything you
can conceive. Since creation is finished,
every possible state already exists. Your
fusion with a particular state (imagining
with feeling what you would experience
were you in that state) causes that state to
be projected on your screen of space. This
law cannot be changed or broken and
always reproduces in your outer world the
exact duplicate of any belief you consent to
as true. If you would change your world,
you must change your beliefs. Since
consciousness is the only cause, you
cannot blame others for the conditions
which presently exist nor can fate or
chance be the cause of that which you are
now experiencing. Nothing can alter the
course of events in your life except a
change in your own consciousness.
Whatever is appearing in your world now,
although it appears real and an unalterable
fact, is a reflection of previous activity in
your own consciousness. Therefore, a
change in consciousness will reflect that
change in the future just as surely as past
beliefs reflect the present.
Man is pure formless consciousness and
that which he conceives himself to be is an
illusion or reflection of the particular ideas
he holds true. These illusions exist only so
long as man focuses his attention upon
them and gives them life.
The conscious mind forms beliefs and
opinions from the evidence of the senses
or the perceived outer world. The creative
power within each of us accepts as true
that which the conscious mind impresses
upon it. Your creative power takes those
ideas, which are thought of with feeling,
and projects them in your outer world. It is
important to remember that not all thoughts
are creative. Only those which are believed
to be true or which are joined with feeling
create the circumstances and events that
you will encounter.
Therefore, emotions such as anger, fear,
love or joy are creative. You must guard the
emotions which you allow to enter your
consciousness just as you would
discriminate in allowing a stranger into your
home. You cannot allow negative emotions
to fill your mind without suffering the
consequences of experiencing the state
with which those emotions are joined. Fear
of loss brings loss into your world. You
could take every outward precaution to
guard against loss, but if you fear loss, you
will most certainly experience it in your
affairs. Feelings of love and joy create
happy events and loving relationships.
Feeling abundant brings riches into your
life. A person who is unloving or suspicious
and feels that others take advantage of
him, draws to himself that which he
believes. No matter what he does
externally, his relationships with others will
reflect that which he accepts as true. He
may want a loving relationship but he can
draw to himself only that which he is
conscious of being.
Like literally does attract like. As within, so
without. Consciousness is reality and that
which is perceived by our senses and
appears so real is but the shadow of that
which we believe ourselves and the world
to be.
Conscious Use of the Law
t this time, I’m going to talk about who | am
and what | am doing. If that sounds ego
centered, it is. There have been 66 books
written about who | am. I’m going to quote
some statements from a few of those
books. You have heard many of these
quotes but didn’t realize that they were
talking about the being that | am. The first
quote is taken from the Book of Exodus.
Here, Moses is talking to God and he said,
“When | go back to the people, who shall |
say has sent me?” The voice answers, “Tell
them | am has sent me unto you. That is my
name forever and the name | shall be
known by throughout all generations.” The
Ten Commandments state, “Thou shalt not
use the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
“Shalt not” is a command. “Shalt not”
means you must not. It means that under
no circumstances must you do it. That
name is | AM.
Now, first of all, we have all forgotten His
name. We say, “I am” hundreds of times a
day and we don't know we are using the
name of God. Secondly, we try to break the
Commandment all day long. We pay no
attention to what we say following “Il AM.”
When we say, “| AM” and follow it with
something we would not like in our world,
we are using the Name of the Lord — but
not in vain. The Bible states we cannot use
the Name in vain. Nothing we say preceded
by “I AM” is in vain. That's his Name. It is
God Himself and because it is God, it is
creative. God gave us Himself. He is “I AM”
and that is who | am. | can never forget that
| am. | may forget who | am or where | am
but | can never forget that | exist.
Whenever | say “I AM”, | AM [is] creating
something. Prayer is believing that we have
already received that which we ask. When
| say, “I am,” | am attaching my awareness
of being to something. Now, you can lie and
not believe what you are saying, but you
cannot believe something about “I am” and
not create it. We are creating morning,
noon, and night by our “I am” statements. If
you say, “I don’t feel well” and you believe
it, you are perpetuating illness in your life.
You must change those statements to “l
feel wonderful.” We were taught, “Let the
weak man say, ‘I am strong.” But, you can’t
say it like a parrot. We have to pray (say |
am), believing that it is true, and then we
will receive.
First, we must be like the Watchman at the
Gate. We must watch every thought that
contains | Am. If you are observant, you will
see that you have created every
circumstance and experience of your life.
Another important word to watch is “if.” The
conscious mind is very subtle in expressing
doubt (Satan or the Devil). We may be able
to keep our minds focused on what we
want by using positive “I” statements. If we
are not careful, we may let a little “If? sneak
in without recognizing its implication. We
could say, “I feel wonderful” but then follow
it with “If the pain continues, however, | will
Per
see a doctor on Tuesday.” “If’s” are always
followed by something negative and that is
simply doubt creeping in to steal the good
seed we have sown. Remove the word “if”
from your vocabulary, as it is not productive
of that which you would like to reap. “If”
puts everything in the past or future tense,
and | always experience what | believe |
am. | am is not future tense. Getting well is
not being well. | must believe that | am
already what | want to be.
Remember, “Every word that goeth forth
from my mouth shall not return unto me
void.” Do you believe it? “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.” What’s his Name?
I Am. So, begin to monitor every word (I
AM) that you say. Do you see a pattern?
Don't the circumstances of your life reflect
what you have been saying? You have
been misusing the creative power that is
God (I AM). Now that you are aware of what
you have been doing, watch every word
and make it conform to what you wish to
bring into your life. Eventually, you will have
faith that what you are stating, though there
is no outward evidence to support it, is a
fact in consciousness and will shortly
project itself so that you may experience it
in the outer. Knowing that God actually
became you because He is | AM, you must
realize that you are using your power to
create every time you use that Name.
Choice — Free Will
Creation is finished and you have free will
to choose the state you will occupy.
Therefore, it is important to determine the
ideas from which you think. Any concept
that is accepted as true will externalize
itself in your outer world. Choice of what
you will focus your attention upon is the
only free will that you can exercise. Once a
thought is accepted and charged with
feeling, the creative power within proceeds
to externalize it. Whether your assumptions
are conscious or unconscious, they direct
all action to their fulfillment. It is a delusion
that, other than assuming the feeling of the
wish fulfilled, you can do anything to aid its
realization. Your own wonderful human
imagination determines the means it will
use to bring your assumptions to fruition.
Each of us is subject to a sea of ideas. We
listen to the radio, watch the news on
television, or hear some gossip. If what we
observe calls forth an emotion, we have
reacted and, thereby, planted a seed which
will sprout at some future time. Thoughts
do not recede into the past. Rather, they
advance into the future to confront us so
that we may see that which we have
planted, either wisely or unwisely.
It is a worthwhile exercise to awake in the
morning and imagine yourself at the end of
your day, having accomplished all that you
wanted and feeling happy and contented. If
there is a situation that you will encounter
later in the day that is of concern to you,
spend a few moments imagining the
outcome you wish to experience. These
imaginal activities will now advance into
your future to reveal the harvest you so
wisely planted.
Desire
Desire is a gift of God. Man is required to
do nothing more than accept the gift by
simply giving thanks for the unseen reality
before he observes it in his outer world.
Through desire, God beckons us to lift our
awareness to higher and higher levels of
consciousness. During our journey through
this dream of life, it is necessary to
experience all possible states so that we
may return as God, the Father, but
enhanced by having experienced both
good and evil. The desire to do more, to be
more, and to have more than you are
presently expressing is the urge for
expansion.
You may question whether a desire to kill
or injure someone can be inspired by God.
The answer is that no man actually desires
to kill or harm another. He may wish to be
free from that seeming other and, through
his limited understanding, he feels that the
only way he can achieve such freedom is
by destroying the other. Man does not
realize that the desire for freedom contains
within itself the power and the means to
fulfill itself. Because of his lack of faith, man
distorts these gifts from God. He does not
realize that God, the wisdom and power
within him, has ways that he, as man,
knows not of and those ways are past
finding out.
Learn to be grateful for the desires you
have been given. They already exist and
are ready for embodiment in your world.
You are not called upon to do anything to
aid their realization except to free your
mind of any doubt as to how they will come
about and completely accept them as you
would a gift from a loved one.
Be Observant
The importance of objectively observing
your thoughts cannot be stressed enough.
It is easy to slip into thought patterns that
can hinder us in achieving our desires. It
then becomes easy to blame others or
attribute our frustrations to second causes.
Being a rather impatient person, | am
usually anxious to get home after work and
| particularly dislike waiting in lines. | began
to notice that no matter what time | chose
to pick up a few items at the market, | would
encounter problems at the check stand
such as price checks needing to be done,
people writing checks who had trouble
locating their identification, and various
other kinds of delays. | found myself
dreading these occasions, and | wanted to
do something about this annoying
situation. As | began to observe my
thoughts, | found that, while standing in
line, | would say to myself, “I always have
to wait.” Then | realized that those
statements made over and over again had
created that which | did not wish to
experience. | consciously changed that
statement to, “No matter when | stop at the
market, | never have to wait.” Of course
that new statement has worked just as well
as the old negative one.
As you begin to observe your thoughts, do
not be discouraged if you find that your
inner conversations do not match the way
you would feel if you have achieved your
goal. You must first become aware of what
you are doing with your creative power
before you can begin to change it. | ask you
to go down to the “potter’s house” and see
what he is doing. If the vessel is spoiled,
then rework it into the kind of vessel that
will please you.
As you begin observing your thoughts, you
cannot avoid the realization that you alone
are the cause of all that comes into your
world. You, alone, can change it.
Appearances
That which is confronting you in your world
now is the result of your past thoughts,
beliefs, feelings and imaginal activity.
These appearances will continue in being
as long as you give them life through your
conscious awareness of them. You must
disregard the evidence of your senses as it
pertains to any undesirable condition in
your life. You must imagine and feel that
you have already attained that which you
want to experience rather than that which
you do not want to continue in being. This
may appear difficult, yet you have probably
exercised this principle unconsciously to
produce negative results.
When I was in my early twenties, | found
myself in a situation that was very
unpleasant to me and | wanted to get out of
it. After attending a lecture by Neville, |
waited to speak to him afterwards. | briefly
told him of my unhappy circumstances and
was hoping he would offer some advice as
to how to change them. He smiled at me
and said, “Don't accept it.” At that time in
my life | did not fully grasp what Neville had
been teaching. | thought he had
misunderstood my question, and | tried to
clarify my problem by stating that | had
already made the choice to be in the
situation | now found so unpleasant. Neville
again smiled and said, “Don't accept it.” |
left his presence quite frustrated, thinking
he had not understood my problem. |
continued to read the two books | had by
Neville. | gradually understood that
regardless of the circumstances which
surrounded me, | did not need to accept
them as final. | began to imagine what |
wanted rather than focus my thoughts on
my negative surroundings. An event took
place two weeks after | began my imaginal
acts that was instrumental in bringing about
my heart’s desire five months later - that of
a brand new home. Meanwhile, the
situation that had been so depressing to
me improved, and | spent the next five
months planning what | would do in my new
home.
Think about some past disappointment you
may have had. Perhaps you were looking
forward to attending a special event with
someone. In your anticipation of it, did you
think, “This is too good to be true,
something will probably happen to spoil it.”
Something probably did happen to create
conflict or to cause you to miss it entirely.
Man finds it relatively simple to disregard
the promise of something good by thinking
of all the reasons why he cannot achieve
it. People around you may be quick to point
out that you are being unrealistic when you
mention a desire that appears difficult or
impossible to reach. We should all be
unrealistic in the face of the army of doubt
if we would experience our wish fulfilled.
We are called upon to disregard the “facts”
which would deny the achievement of our
heart’s desire. Habit is the only thing that
keeps our thoughts moving along the old
familiar negative ruts. No one can change
your thought patterns and, therefore, your
life but you.
It is worth all the effort it may take to center
your attention and feel as if you already
possess that which you want in place of
things as they are. Consciousness is the
only cause and the only reality. Every
negative experience was produced by first
giving attention and feeling to that
condition. What consciousness has made,
it can unmake. Your responsibility is to
impress upon your mind with the change
you wish to express. Your imagination is
the creative power that can and will
accomplish the end without effort and in a
natural way.
Appearances confirm our former habitual
patterns of thought. That which you
imagine yourself to be today will project
itself in your world tomorrow. Persistence in
assuming that you are the person you wish
to be, despite your present circumstances,
is the only condition imposed upon you to
embody that ideal.
Inner Conversations
All of us are mentally speaking within
ourselves every waking moment. Our inner
conversations must match the wish fulfilled
if we would realize our desire. If our desire
is for a better job and we imagine ourselves
being congratulated because we are
gainfully employed in a wonderful position,
we must also make our inner conversations
conform to that end. We must be certain
that we are not saying within ourselves
something like, “That boss of mine doesn’t
believe in promoting people;” or “It would
be difficult to find any job at my age, never
mind a better one,” or similar statements
that would imply that we do not have that
which we desire. We must persist in the
feeling of our imaginal act by making our
mental conversations conform to what we
would say had we already realized our aim.
If, for instance, we wished to own a new
car, we could imagine a new car parked in
our garage or imagine ourselves driving it,
or imagine our friends admiring it. We must
then make our inner conversations reflect
the type of conversations we would engage
in were we really the owner of a new car.
Our conversations could consist of
discussing our new car with friends such as
telling them of the wonderful fuel mileage
we are receiving, or hearing our friends tell
us how much they enjoy riding in our new
car, etc.
Our inner conversations are just as creative
as our deliberate imagining of the wish
fulfilled. In fact, if they are of the opposite
nature, they can negate what we have
imagined. You must watch what you are
saying internally to make sure that these
conversations coincide with your wish
fulfilled. If you become aware that these
inner talks contradict what you would like to
achieve, revise them so that they follow
along the track that would indicate that you
already have what you desire or are
already the person you wish to be.
Revision
Your present world reflects the sum total of
all that you believe to be true of yourself
and others. That which you imagine
yourself to be today goes forward and will
confront you in the future. If you have
forgotten your imaginal activities of the
past, that which you see appearing in your
world indicates the kind of seeds you have
previously sown.
Assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled
is using your imagination creatively to bring
into your world that which you desire to
experience. You can use the art of revision
to change the effects of prior thoughts and
beliefs.
If, for instance, you had gone to an
interview for a job you truly wanted but later
learned that someone else was hired, you
can revise that news to make it conform to
what you wish you had heard. If you react
by feeling depressed or assume any other
negative attitude, you will then experience
the same type of rejection in the future.
Your reactions, whether positive or
negative, are creative of future
circumstances. In your imagination, you
can hear words congratulating you on
getting a wonderful new job. That imaginal
act now goes forward and you will
encounter this pleasant experience in the
future.
As you review your day, it is important to
revise each negative reaction so that you
can remember it as what you wished had
happened rather than storing that memory
as it did occur. What you think of with
feeling or emotion is an actual fact. That
which you experience in the physical world
is merely a shadow, reflecting the reality of
your imaginal activity. Therefore, when you
revise a conversation, an unhappy
experience, or a quality about yourself, you
are literally experiencing it in reality (your
consciousness). The outer world is a
delayed reflection of the inner and is
confined to a dimension of space where
events occur in a time sequence. Revision,
then, literally changes the past. It replaces
what occurred in the outer world with the
revised version. The revised scene then
gives off its effect by going forth to change
future events.
Dwelling on past irritations or hurts
perpetuates them and creates a vicious
circle that serves to confirm these negative
emotions. The circle can be broken by
starting now to revise anything that you no
longer wish to sustain in your world. By
revising the past, you rid yourself of any
effect it may have on your future. Revision
is truly the key, which can be used to unlock
the doors that have kept you trapped in a
particular state. “Be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind.”
States of Consciousness
All states exist and are a fixed part of
creation. Anyone can enter a state
consciously or fall into a state inadvertently.
You may move into different states
throughout your lifetime or you may occupy
a single state. Desire is what usually
motivates us to move from one state to a
higher level. Since a state is total and
complete in itself, when we enter a state we
are compelled to behave in a manner
dictated by that state. For instance, in the
state of poverty, we would find ourselves
constantly in need of funds. We would have
difficulty making ends meet and have no
way to enjoy luxuries. Should we be given
a large sum of money, if we remain in the
state of poverty (filling our mind with
thoughts of lack and limitation,) we would
soon find ourselves without funds and
again experiencing the same difficulties.
The reverse would be true if we occupied a
state of wealth.
When we are in a state we see only the
contents of that state and are compelled to
act in accordance with all that the state
entails. While in a particular state, you
believe certain things are true and would
find it difficult to understand another point
of view. In the state of poverty, it is easy to
focus your thoughts on the problems of
providing food, shelter and clothing. When
you succeed in moving out of this state, you
no longer find it difficult to acquire these
things. Most people attribute this change of
fortune to a change in circumstances.
However, unless you have moved from the
state of poverty, no change in circumstance
would be permanent. Rather, moving out of
one state and into another in your
imagination automatically creates a
change in your outer world.
The Bible has personified every type of
state and calls these states by names
known to us as Moses, Noah, Job, Peter,
Andrew, and Jesus. Throughout our
journey, we enter these states and
experience all that they offer. The last state
we will enter is the state of Jesus Christ. In
this state, we become aware that we are
God, the Father, and that we have a
symbolized as David, who personifies the
sum total of all humanity. The journey
begins with Adam, who fell asleep and
dreamed the dream of life, and then
entered the myriad states to gain the
experiences necessary before awakening.
When you enter the state of Jesus you
know yourself to be God, and your journey
into this world of death is then complete.
The Play
As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a
stage and all the men and women merely
players. They have their exits and their
entrances...and each man in his time plays
many parts.” This world, which seems so
real, is as much a dream as the dreams we
encounter while asleep. Our waking dream
seems so real because it has continuity
while our dreams at night appear to be
random sequences, taking place in
unfamiliar surroundings and situations.
God is the dreamer, dreaming the play into
existence, and God plays all the parts.
Everyone who appears in your world is God
playing that part for you, the author. “No
man comes unto me, save | call him.” Each
of us is writing his or her own script. If you
are dissatisfied with the play, it is up to you
to rewrite the script to make it conform to
your idea of what the play should be. You
cannot demand that the actors in your play
change the character they are portraying.
All changes must take place in the mind of
the author.
If there is someone in your world who is the
source of annoyance or irritation to you,
that person has no choice but to play the
part called for in your script. There is
nothing you can do on the outside to bring
about changes in another. You can use the
art of revision to change a line of dialogue,
to replace a certain character with another,
and to write happy endings to the subplots
of the play.
When you begin to view this waking dream
objectively, you will be able to verify that
you have been the author of both the
pleasant and unhappy acts in your play.
You can radically change the play by using
your imagination creatively, by assuming
your wish fulfilled. You can change the
script on a daily basis by revising the scene
that did not please you. The character who
disturbed you today will not do so tomorrow
if you write the dialogue you wish to hear
and alter that role in your imagination.
When you awaken to know that you are
God, the Father and author of this
magnificent play, you will understand that:
“each man in his time plays many parts.”
Your Real Purpose
God became you so completely that he
forgot that he was God. In becoming man,
God reached the limit of contraction and
Opacity. God totally forgets that he is God
in order to become and animate His
creation, man. God then goes through all of
the experiences of knowing good and evil
and even death, in confidence, that man
will eventually awake from this dream of life
to once again know that he is God. There
is only God in the universe, fragmenting
himself as humanity, and God plays all the
parts in this time space dream.
Your own wonderful human imagination is
God in action. | am is Christ in you (your
savior). And Christ is the Power of God and
the Wisdom of God.
God speaks to us through desire, urging us
to reach higher and higher levels of
awareness. Exercising his own wonderful
human imagination to achieve these
desires, man is actually experiencing God
in action. Through faith in his imagination,
man will eventually conclude that Christ
(the Power and Wisdom of God) is within
him as his imagination. At the end of this
fabulous journey or dream of life, man will
awaken to remember that he is God, the
Father, enhanced by the experiences he
put himself through; when he forgot that he
was God. Man’s sole purpose is to
experience scripture (all of the states of
consciousness personified as men in the
Bible).
Man’s goal is to reach the state called
Jesus Christ. Then he will know that he
really is the Father (Jesus) and that his son
is Christ (all of humanity fused into one
being). Man may have many goals in the
meantime — to accumulate possessions, to
become powerful, to become famous, or to
express anything that he desires.
Eventually the hunger to know God will
come upon him, and he will then have the
experiences that are necessary to bring to
his remembrance that he truly is God, the
Father.
Case Histories
This Story concerns a woman (who will be
referred to as Mrs. A.B). She knew that
“imagination creates reality’ and had
taught this principal to her three children,
ages 12, 10, and 6. She had practiced this
principal for years to obtain the things she
desired.
Although her husband had also heard this
teaching, he had not put it into practice and
actually was quite skeptical about results.
One Sunday afternoon, this family went for
a drive and came upon a new tract of
homes for sale. As this was a lovely rural
area, they stopped to look at the new
models. They all loved the area, and the
homes were large and beautiful with all
sorts of modern amenities. On the way
home, they talked about how wonderful it
would be to own a new home in this tract.
They already owned a home; however,
they had borrowed money on it and had
very little equity that could be derived from
its sale. The husband said that although he
would like to buy the home, it was not
possible as they could not raise the money
required for the down payment. Even if they
sold their present home, the real estate
agent’s commission would equal the little
equity they would realize.
Mrs. A.B. told her husband that the only
way they could obtain the down payment
would be to sell their home on their own,
thereby keeping the commission for
themselves. The husband was very
pessimistic about this but told his wife to go
ahead and place an ad in the paper
although he knew “it wouldn't do any good.”
He was sure that there was no chance of
selling the house in this way. The wife
placed a small ad in the newspaper
advertising their house for sale.
A few nights later when the husband had
gone to bed early, she and her children
drove to the tract of new homes. She felt
that if she could walk through the new
house and capture the feeling of actually
living there, she would obtain her “dream
home.” It was dark when they got there, but
they found one of the houses unlocked.
She and the three children walked through
the house. The children decided on which
bedroom each would occupy if they
actually lived there. The mother instructed
the children to actually sleep in the new
house in their imagination that night, and
she intended to do the same. For the next
few days, they imagined living in their new
home and taking walks in the woods that
were adjacent to the tract.
That same week, a man answered the ad
in the paper. He did not seem very
enthusiastic about buying the house but
returned later that day with his wife. He told
Mrs. A.B. that they had decided to buy the
house for the price she was asking. When
Mrs. A.B. expressed concern as to how
they would go about placing the home in
escrow, he told her that he was a real
estate agent and would go through the
company he worked for. This family
received the exact amount of money
necessary for a down payment on their new
home. The escrow was very short, and the
family moved into their new home a month
later.
Mrs. A.B. knew that if she imagined herself
sleeping in her new home, she would
eventually sleep there in the flesh. Her
children also learned how to obtain their
hearts desire through the use of
imagination.
Mrs. C.D. had recently been divorced and
needed to work to support her children as
her husband refused to pay child support.
Although her lawyer suggested taking him
to court for nonpayment, the woman did not
wish to do this. As part of the divorce
settlement, she was awarded a very old
and not very reliable car. One Friday night
as she was driving home from work, it was
raining very hard and most intersections
were flooded. She was about a mile from
her home when she stopped at a stop sign.
A truck coming toward her from the
opposite direction went through the
intersection, spraying a great deal of water
as he drove past. The engine of the
woman's car died and she was unable to
start it again. She removed her shoes
before stepping out of her car as the water
was more than ankle deep. She raised the
hood and began to dry off the distributor
cap with her handkerchief. She was crying
at this point and her tears mingled with the
rain. She finally got her car started and
managed to get home to her children. She
realized that it was necessary to have a
dependable car if she was to work and
support her children. She had no money for
a down payment on a newer car and she
did not earn enough to make car payments.
She went to work the following Monday and
a co-worker asked her to go to lunch. The
co-worker had just purchased a new
Pontiac Tempest and insisted that Mrs.
C.D. drive her new car back to the office.
Although Mrs. C.D. protested that she did
not wish to drive someone's new car, she
did get behind the wheel and drove back to
work. While she was driving the new car,
she captured the feeling that this was her
car and she felt the thrill of owning it. For
the rest of the week, while she drove back
and forth to work in her old car, Mrs. C.D.
imagined that she was driving a brand new
car of her own.
The next Friday, Mrs. C.D.’s ex-husband
called and asked if she would like to have
a new car. This was the first time since their
divorce several months earlier that he had
offered to do anything for her, including
paying child support. The ex-husband was
now working for a new car dealership and
told her that, as a salesman, he was eligible
to buy a certain make of car for no money
down and with very low monthly payments.
He said he was willing to make the monthly
payments in lieu of child support and asked
her to come to the dealership to pick out the
color she wanted. It just so happened that
the make of car eligible for this special deal
was a Pontiac Tempest, the same make
and model as the car she had driven that
belonged to her co-worker.
Mrs. C.D. was able to obtain, through her
use of imagination, what she could never
have obtained through her own efforts at
that time. Her ex-husband, who had offered
her no monetary support for months, was
the avenue chosen to provide her with the
car she needed.
This is the story of Mrs. E.F., who had a
desire to live near the ocean and used her
imagination to fulfill her desire. She did not
wish to sell her present home but wanted
to lease it for a year before making the
decision to move to the beach permanently.
Mrs. E.F. told two of her friends about her
wish. One friend, who had used the
principle of imagination, told Mrs. E.F. that
she would imagine visiting her at the beach
in her new home. One week later, Mrs. E.F.
traveled to Hawaii for a scheduled
vacation. While there, she received a call
from a friend who lived n San Diego. This
friend told Mrs. E.F. that a perfect little
house had just come on the market as a
year round rental and she thought this
house would be perfect for Mrs. E.F. Her
friend also said that this was a very
desirable rental and that Mrs. E.F. would
need to make a decision immediately as
the rental would very likely not be available
when she returned from Hawaii. Mrs. E.F.
told her friend to tell the owners that she
would take it, trusting her her friend’s
recommendation. Upon Mrs. E.F.’s return
from Hawaii, she told her grown daughter
that she had decided to rent a house at the
beach in San Diego. Her daughter called
her later that day and said that the mother
of a friend of hers wanted to lease a house.
The woman came by the next day, said she
loved the house, and would like to lease it
for a year. Mrs. E.F. gave notice at work
and was able to move within a month.
Since she was a nurse, she had no trouble
finding a wonderful new job at a nearby
hospital. Mrs. E.F. has since bought a
house near the ocean and has spent 17
happy years living at the beach.
Mrs. E.F. imagined that she was living at
the beach, and her friend imagined that she
was visiting her there. They did this for one
week. It is interesting that while she was on
vacation in Hawaii, events moved swiftly to
bring about her desire. She did nothing to
find a new home nor did she do anything to
rent her present home. Imagination was
able to draw the necessary people into her
life so that her wish could be fulfilled.
“What should be done after we have
imagined our wish fulfilled? Nothing. “You
think you can do something, you want to do
something, but actually you can do nothing
to bring it about. God, our own wonderful
human imagination, knows what things are
necessary to bring about our desires. It is
only necessary to go to the end, to live in
the end. “My ways are past finding out.”
“My ways are higher than your ways.” If we
trust our imagination, it will “accomplish all
that we ask of it.” Imagination can do all
things — have faith in it, and nothing shall
be impossible to you.
This story concerns a young man (referred
to as E.P) who was a wonderful athlete and
was good at many different sports. During
this particular time in his life, he became
interested in paddling outrigger canoes. He
joined a team and was soon competing in
local races. In his second year of pursuing
this sport, he was on a team that competed
in the 50-mile race from Molokai to
Honolulu. The Hawaiian outrigger teams
usually took first place and were
considered “unbeatable.” E.P.’s team came
in 7" and that was considered quite
remarkable considering the great number
of teams that competed from all over the
world along with the Hawaiian participants.
After this race, E.P. began imagining that
his team had won the race. He spent the
next year forming a new team, practicing,
and building his own outrigger canoe. He
was convinced that if he imagined himself
winning the race, his team would come in
first.
Next year, he, his team and at least a
dozen others flew to Hawaii from Southern
California to compete in the annual race.
There were several teams with much more
experience who were considered likely to
place in the top ten, although the
Hawaiians were still considered the
favorites. At the end of the race, E.P.’s team
finished first, ahead of the Hawaiians and
all the other teams. E.P. now holds a
paddle engraved with the words “World
Champion” which was given to him upon
his team taking first place.
After winning this coveted title, this young
man went on to coach other teams. He also
began manufacturing paddles for outrigger
canoes. His paddles are known throughout
the world and are used by outrigger teams
who are among the top teams in the world.
E.P. now makes his home in Hawaii and
enjoys coaching teams, manufacturing
paddles, fishing and sailing his own boat.
He also uses his boat as an escort craft for
the annual outrigger races.
Mrs. J.K. was living in her twin sister’s
home after having been divorced. Mrs. J.K.
had three children, a son and boy twins.
Her sister and her husband had three boys.
Needless to say, this was a crowded
household. Mrs. J.K. was very desirous of
getting married and living in her own home.
She had been dating a man but decided
that she did not wish to continue the
relationship and broke it off. Many of her
friends attempted to “fix” Mrs. J.K. up with
eligible men they knew, but she was not
interested in going on blind dates. Several
of her friends commented that if she wished
to meet an eligible man, she would need to
get out and go places. The twins believed
in the creative power of imagination, and
they had a friend who also knew of the
power of imagining. The three women
determined that they would imagine a ring
on Mrs. J.K.’s finger, which would imply that
she was married. They did this for several
weeks. During this time, Mrs. J.K. also
imagined herself living in her own home.
However, when she attempted to do so,
she found herself imagining a home exactly
like her sister’s.
One day, Mrs. J.K. received a call from a
friend who asked her to come to her home
and help her wallpaper her kitchen. Mrs.
J.K. agreed to help her friend who lived a
few blocks away in the same tract of
homes. While she was there, a male
neighbor came to visit her friend. The friend
introduced Mrs. J.K. to her neighbor. He
later called Mrs. J.K. and they began to
date. Five months later, Mrs. J.K. married
this man. The interesting part of this story
is that all of these people lived in the same
large tract of homes. There were only four
homes in the tract of 1200 that had the
same floor plan. Yes, this woman’s
husband owned one of the homes that had
the same floor plan as Mrs. J.K.’s twin
sister. Even though Mrs. J.K. imagined
herself living in her own home, she had
only been able to imagine herself living in a
house identical to her sister’s.
This is a story about the friend, Mrs. L.M.,
who had introduced Mrs. J.K. to her new
husband. During their friendship, Mrs. J.K.
had tried to explain the principle of
imagination to her friend who was very
doubtful that “it” would work. One day, Mrs.
J.K. asked her friend to come to one of
Neville’s lectures. Mrs. L.M. agreed to
attend but was not at all convinced that
imagining she had what she wanted would
result in obtaining it. But, she decided to
imagine a very simple thing — the receipt of
a handkerchief. She imagined that
someone had given her one and then
dropped the whole idea. Much to her
surprise, she received a handkerchief in
the mail from the mother of a friend who
came to her house for lunch while she was
in town for a visit. This woman sent Mrs.
L.M. a handkerchief with a thank you note.
Mrs. L.M. was not only surprised when she
received the gift she became very
frightened as she thought there was
something supernatural about it. Mrs. L.M.
had attempted to disprove that imagination
produces the thing desired. When she
received the handkerchief she had
imagined, she interpreted it to be some sort
of Black Magic and didn’t want to know any
more about this teaching.
| could relate hundreds of incidents
involving dozens of people in which
imagination was used to bring about the
desired results. | have chosen a few stories
to illustrate that imagination can be used to
solve all manner of problems and bring into
your experience your every heart's desire.
Fundamentals
From INTA Bulletin, “New Thought”
Summer 1953.
With so vast a subject, it is indeed a difficult
task to summarize in a few hundred words
what | consider the most basic ideas on
which those who seek a true understanding
of metaphysics should now concentrate. |
shall do what | can in the shape of three
fundamentals. These fundamentals are:
Self-Observation, Definition of Aim, and
Detachment.
The purpose of true metaphysics is to bring
about a rebirth or radical psychological
change in the individual. Such a change
cannot take place until the individual first
discovers the self that he would change.
This discovery can be made only through
an uncritical observation of his reactions to
life. The sum total of these reactions
defines the individuals state of
consciousness, and it is the individual's
state of consciousness that attracts the
situations and circumstances of his life.
So the starting point of true metaphysics,
on its practical side, is self-observation in
order to discover one's reactions to life,
reactions which form one's secret self — the
cause of the phenomena of life.
With Emerson, | accept the fact that “Man
surrounds himself with the true image of
himself . . . what we are, that only can we
see.
There is a definite connection between
what is outer and what is inner in man, and
it is ever our inner states that attract our
outer life. Therefore, the individual must
always start with himself.
It is one's self that must be changed.
Man, in his blindness, is quite satisfied with
himself, but heartily dislikes the
circumstances and situations of his life. He
feels this way, not knowing that the cause
of his displeasure lies not in the condition
nor the person with whom he is displeased,
but in the very self he likes so much. Not
realizing that "he surrounds himself with
the true image of himself" and that "what he
is, that only can he see," he is shocked
when he discovers that it has always been
his own deceitfulness that made him
suspicious of others.
Self-observation would reveal this deceitful
one in all of us; and this one must be
accepted before there can be any
transformation of ourselves.
At this moment, try to notice your inner
state. To what thoughts are you
consenting? With what feelings are you
identified? You must be ever careful where
you are within yourself.
Most of us think that we are kind and loving,
generous and tolerant, forgiving and noble;
but an uncritical observation of our
reactions to life will reveal a self that is not
at all kind and loving, generous and
tolerant, forgiving and noble. And it is this
self that we must first accept and then set
about to change.
Rebirth depends on inner work on one's
self. No one can be reborn without
changing this self. Any time that an entirely
new set of reactions enters into a person's
life, a change of consciousness has taken
place, a Spiritual rebirth has occurred.
Having discovered, through an uncritical
observation of your reactions to life, a self
that must be changed, you must now
formulate an aim. That is, you must define
the one you would like to be instead of the
one you truly are in secret. With this aim
clearly defined, you must, throughout your
conscious waking day, notice your every
reaction in regard to this aim.
The reason for this is that everyone lives in
a definite state of consciousness, which
state of consciousness we have already
described as the sum total of his reactions
to life. Therefore, in defining an aim, you
are defining a state of consciousness,
which, like all states of consciousness,
must have its reactions to life. For example:
if a rumor or an idle remark could cause an
anxious reaction in one person and no
reaction in another, this is positive proof
that the two people are living in two
different states of consciousness.
If you define your aim as a noble,
generous, secure, kindly individual -
knowing that all things are states of
consciousness — you can easily tell
whether you are faithful to your aim in life
by watching your reactions to the daily
events of life. If you are faithful to your
ideal, your reactions will conform to your
aim, for you will be identified with your aim
and, therefore, will be thinking from your
aim. If your reactions are not in harmony
with your ideal, it is a sure sign that you are
separated from your ideal and are only
thinking of it. Assume that you are the
loving one you want to be, and notice your
reactions throughout the day in regard to
that assumption; for your reactions will tell
you the state from which you are operating.
This is where the third fundamental,
detachment, enters in. Having discovered
that everything is a state of consciousness
made visible and having defined that
particular state which we want to make
visible, we now set about the task of
entering such a state, for we must move
psychologically from where we are to
where we desire to be.
The purpose of practicing detachment is to
separate us from our present reactions to
life and attach us to our aim in life. This
inner separation must be developed by
practice. At first we seem to have no power
to separate ourselves from undesirable
inner states, simply because we have
always taken every mood, every reaction,
as natural and have become identified with
them. When we have no idea that our
reactions are only states of consciousness
from which it is possible to separate
ourselves, we go round and round in the
same circle of problems — not seeing them
as inner states but as outer situations. We
practice detachment, or inner separation,
that we may escape from the circle of our
habitual reactions to life. That is why we
must formulate an aim and constantly
notice ourselves in regard to that aim.
This teaching begins with self-observation.
Secondly, it asks, “What do you want?” and
then it teaches detachment from all
negative states and attachment to your
aim. This last state — attachment to your
aim -— is accomplished by frequently
assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled.
We must practice separating ourselves
from our negative moods and thoughts in
the midst of all the troubles and disasters
of daily life. No one can be different from
what he is now unless he begins to
separate himself from his present reactions
and to identify himself with his aim.
Detachment from negative states and
assumption of the wish fulfilled must be
practiced in the midst of all the blessings
and cursings of life.
The way of true metaphysics lies in the
midst of all that is going on in life. We must
constantly practice — self-observation,
thinking from our aim, and detachment
from negative moods and thoughts if we
would be doers of truth instead of mere
hearers.
Practice these three fundamentals and you
will rise to higher and higher levels of
consciousness. Remember, always, it is
your state of consciousness that attracts
your life.
Start climbing!
Neville
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