3 Core Neville Goddard Lectures

Change The Feeling of “I”, Catch The Mood, By Imagination We Become

Neville Goddard Lecture – Changing The Feeling Of “I” . . 1953

For the benefit of those who were not present last Sunday, just let me give you a quick summary of the thought expressed here. We claimed that the world was a manifestation of consciousness, that the individual’s environment, circumstances and conditions of life were only the out picturing of the particular state of consciousness in which that individual abides. Therefore, the individual sees whatever he is by virtue of the state of consciousness from which he views the world. Any attempt to change the outer world before he changes the inner structure of his mind, is to labor in vain. Everything happens by order. Those who help or hinder us, whether they know it or not, are the servants of that law, which constantly shapes outward circumstances in harmony with our inner nature. We asked you last Sunday to distinguish between the individual identity and the state they occupy. The individual identity is the Son of God. It is that I speak of you or to you, or speak of myself, I mean really our imagination. That is permanent. It fuses with state and believes itself to be the state with which it is fused, but at every moment of time it is free to choose the state with which it will be identified.

And that brings us to today’s subject, “Changing the Feeling of I”, and I hope I will not get the same reaction that is recorded in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. For we are told that when this was given to the world they all left him, leaving just a handful behind. For when he told them there was no one to change but self, they said this is a hard, hard teaching. It’s a hard thing. Who can hear it? For he said, “No man cometh unto me save I call him.” And then it’s recorded when he repeated it three times they left him, never again to walk with him. And he turned to the few who remained and asked them, “Would you also go?” And they answered and said, “To whom would we go ? You have the word of eternal life. ‘I In other words, it’s so much easier when I can blame another for my misfortune, but now that I AM told that no man cometh unto me save I call him, that I AM the sole architect of my fortunes and misfortunes, it’s a difficult saying, and so it’s recorded “It’s a hard saying. Who can hear it? Who can grasp it? And who will believe it?” And so he said, “And now I sanctify myself that they also be sanctified through the truth, for if this is the truth, then there is no one to change, no one to make whole, no one to purify but self.”

And so we start with the “I” . Most of us are totally unaware of the self that we really cherish. We have never taken one good look at the self, so we don’t know this self, for the “I” has neither face, form nor figure, but it does mold itself into structure by all that it consents to, all that it believes, and few of us know really what we do believe. We have no idea of the unnumbered superstitions and prejudices that go to mold this inner, formless “I” into a form which is then projected as a man’s environment, as the conditions of life.

So here, read it carefully when you go home, “No man cometh unto me save I call him. You didn’t choose me; I have chosen you. No man can take away my life; I lay it down myself . There is no power to take from me anything that is part of the inner arrangement of my mind. All that you gave me I have kept and none is lost save the son of perdition or the belief in God, and because nothing can be lost but the belief in loss, I will not now assume loss of anything you have given me that is good. And so I sanctify myself that they be sanctified through the truth”.

And now, how do we go about changing the “I”. First of all, we must discover the “I” and we do this by an uncritical observation of self. This will reveal a self that will shock you. You will be altogether, I wouldn’t say afraid, but ashamed to admit you’ve ever known such a lowly creature. And had it been God Himself who drew near in this despicable form, you would have denied him a thousand times before a single cock would crow. You couldn’t believe that this is the self that you’ve carried around and protected and excused and justified. Then you start changing this self after, by an uncritical observation, you make the discovery of that self. For the acceptance of self is the essence of the moral problem of the world. It is the epitome of a true outlook on life, for it is the sole cause of everything you observe.

Your description of the world is a confession of the self that you do not know. You describe another, you describe society, you describe anything, and your description of the thing you observe reveals to one who knows this law the being you really are. So you must first accept that self. When that self is accepted, then you can start to change. It’s so much easier to take the virtues of the Gospel and apply them as the word of life, to love the enemy, to bless those who curse us, and to feed the hungry. But when man discovers the being to be fed, the being to be clothed, the being to be sheltered, the greatest enemy of all is that self, then he is ashamed, completely ashamed that that is the being, for it was easier to share with another something that I possess, to take an extra coat and give it to another, but when I know the truth it’s not that. I start with the self, having discovered, and start with change of that self.

Now, let me tell you a story. A few years ago in this city I was giving a series of lectures down near that lake . . I can’t even recall the name of the lake but it was some Parkview Manor was the place where I spoke, and in that audience was a gentleman who sought an audience before the meeting. And we went across the street into the little park there, and he said to me that he had an insoluble problem. I said, “There is no such thing as an insoluble problem. “But”, he said, “you do not know my problem. It’s not a state of health, I assure you; it is look at the skin that I wear” . I said, “What’s wrong with it; it looks lovely to me”. He said, “Look at the pigment of my skin. I, by the accident of birth, am now discriminated against. The opportunities for progress in this world are denied me just because of the accident of birth, that I was born a colored man. Opportunities for advancement in every field, neighborhoods that I would like to live in and raise a family I couldn’t move in, where I would like to open up a business I couldn’t move into that area.”

Then I told him my own personal experience, that I came to this country. Well, I didn’t have that problem but I was a foreigner in the midst of all Americans. I didn’t find it difficult. “Yet”, as he reminded me, “but that’s not my problem, Neville. Others have come here speaking with an accent, but they haven’t my skin, and I was born an American” . Then I told him an experience of mine in New York City. If I were called upon to name a man that I would consider my teacher, I would name Abdullah. I studied with that gentleman for five years. He had the same color skin, the same pigment as this gentleman. He would never allow anyone to refer to him as a colored man. He was very proud of being a negro didn’t want any modification of what God had made him. He turned to me and he said, “Have you ever seen a picture of the Sphinx?” I said, “Yes”. He said, “It embodies the four fixed quarters of the universe. You have the lion, the eagle the bull and man. And here is man that is the head. The crown of that creature called the Sphinx, which still defies man’s knowledge to un-riddle it, was crowned with a human head. And look carefully at the head, Neville, and you will see whoever modeled that head must have been a negro. Whoever modeled it had the face of a negro and if that still defies man’s ability to unravel it, I am very proud that I am a negro.” I have seen scientists, doctors, lawyers, bankers, from every walk of life seek an audience with old Abdullah, and everyone Who came thought themselves honored to be admitted to his home and to receive an interview. If he was ever invited out, and he was, he was always the honored guest. He said, “Neville, you must first start with self. Find self, don’t be ashamed ever of the being you are. Discover it and start the changing of that self”.

Well, I told this gentleman exactly what Abdullah had taught me, that there was no cause outside of the arrangement of his own mind. If he was discriminated against, it was not because of the pigment of his skin, though he showed me signs as large as all outdoors denying him access to a certain area. The sign is there only because in the minds of some men such patterns are formed and they draw unto themselves what now they would condemn; that there is no power outside the mind of man to do anything to man, and he by the arrangement of his own mind, by consenting to these restrictions in his cradle and being conditioned slowly through his youth, waking into manhood believing himself set upon would have to be set upon, but “no man cometh unto me save I call him”. So then someone comes to condemn or to praise. They couldn’t come unless I call them. Not a man called Neville, but that secret being that is not called Neville. The secret being that is the sum total of all of my beliefs , all of the things that I consent to, that form a pattern of structure, that secret being draws unto itself things in harmony with itself. Well, that man went away and wrestled with himself. He couldn’t believe everything I told him, not that night, but last Sunday morning in the lobby, he came forward and we renewed the friendship. He took me next door to show me the fruit of this teaching .

He said, “Neville, it took me almost three years to really overcome that fixed idea that I, by the accident of birth, would be a secondary citizen, but I overcame .it. Now here is my office on Wilshire Boulevard. I picked this one not because it was the only one offered; four equally wonderful spots were offered me. I took this one because it had greater telephone facilities , but the others were equally good. Now here is my office. Now you couldn’t judge my income from this office, lovely as it is. Everything is nice about it, but, Neville, this year I will net a quarter of a million dollars”. Well in America that is still a fabulous sum of money. It would be staggering in any other part of the world, but even in fabulous America a man to net a quarter of a million is really up in the very highest of brackets. And that was the man that a few years ago told me the whole vast world was against him by reason of the accident of birth. He knows now he is what he is by virtue of the state of consciousness with which he is identified, and the choice is his to go back to the restrictions of his childhood when he believed the story or to continue in the freedom that he has found.

So you and I can be anything in this world we desire to be if we will clearly define our aim in life and constantly occupy that aim. It must be habitual. The concept we hold of self that is noble must not be put on just for a moment and taken off when we leave this church. We feel free here; we feel that we have something in common, that’s why we are here, but are we going to wear the noble concept we now hold of self when we go through the door and enter that bus, or are we going to return to the restrictions that were ours prior to coming here? The choice is ours and the hardest lesson to learn is that there is no one in this world that can be drawn into your world unless you, and you alone, call him.

So do not do what they did thousands of years ago, for that is the beginning of the secession of the great truth. So we are told they turned away from it, never again to walk with it, and the few who remained didn’t like it either, but where would they go if this is the word of eternal truth? Not that it’s true for this day and age, but if this is the law of being, and in all the dimensions of my being it holds good, if this is eternally true, then let me learn the lesson now, though I wrestle with myself as he did for three years.

So, the changing of the feeling of “I” is a selective thing because unnumbered states are infinite states, but the “I” is not the state. The “I” believes itself to be the state when it enters and fuses with it, so he was presented with a state and without the faculty of discrimination in his youth, he fused with the state and believed these restrictions were true, and it took him three years to disentangle the “I” from these fixed ideas with which he had lived for so many years. Now you may take only a moment or you, too, may take your three years. I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take you but I’ll tell you this much. It can be measured by the feeling of naturalness. You can wear a feeling until it’s natural. The moment the feeling becomes natural, it will begin to bear fruit within your world.

So I told this story at a small gathering here in the city, and not very many asked questions about it, but three people asked, “But he must have had money before. He must have known the right people. He must in some way have had some substance to start it, because how can you go out to loan a hundred million dollars and call that a real fact of being that you have that to loan and tell me you didn’t have someone who had it or you, yourself, didn’t have it”. I did not ask the gentleman about the individual facts of the case. I went into the office, I saw it, I didn’t look at his books; he volunteered this information, and gave me the figure of a quarter of a million net for the year. I have not checked or in any way verified the statement; I believe it implicitly. But I will not go along with those who believe that unless you have certain things to start with you can’t apply this law.

You can start now from scratch and choose the being you want to be. You aren’t going to change the pigment of your skin but you will find your accent or the pigment of skin or your so-called racial background will not be a hindrance, for if a man is ever hindered it can only be the state of consciousness in which he abides that hinders him. Man is freed or constrained by reason of the state of mind in which he persists. If you persist in it, well, then I will say, “persist in it”, but I warn you no one cares and that is an awful blow when a man discovers that no one, no one but himself really cares. So we find ourselves weeping with ourselves in the hope of getting others to weep with us. And what an awful shock when the day arrives we discover that no one really ever cared. They will give us some little listening ear for a moment just as they were passing by, but they really didn’t care.

When we make that discovery we shake ourselves out of it and boldly appropriate the gift our Father gave us before that the world was. So let me show you the gift. You’ve read your Lord’s Prayer possibly daily, but you read it as a prayer from a translation of a translation which does not reveal the sense of the evangelist. The real translation, you will find in Farrar Fenton’s work where in the original it is written in the imperative passive mood, which is like a standing order, a thing to be done absolutely and continuously. So that you can look now upon your universe as one vast inter-knit machinery where all things happen.

There isn’t a thing to become; all things are taking place, so it is written in this manner, “Thy will must be being done. Thy kingdom must be being restored.” It is the only way you could express it if you would express the imperative passive mood. But from the Latin from which our translation was made there is no first aorist of the imperative passive mood. So we have it in the way we have it but it does not reveal the intent of the mysteries. If you will see all things are now, you don’t become, you simply select the state that you would occupy. Occupying it you seem to become but it is already a fact, every aspect of that state in its most minute detail. It’s worked out and taking place. You by occupying the state seem to go through the action of unfolding that state, but the state is completely finished and taking place. So now you can choose the being you want to be and by choosing a being other than what you are now expressing you start the change of the feeling of “I”.

Now, how will I know that I have changed the feeling of “I”? By beginning first with an uncritical observation of my reactions to life and then noticing my reactions when I think I am identified with my choice. If I assume that I am the man that I want to be, let me observe my reactions. If they are as they were, I have not identified myself with my choice, for my reactions are automatic and so if I am changed I would automatically change my reactions to life. So the changing of the feeling of “I” results in a change of reaction, which change of reaction is a change of environment and behavior. But let me warn you now. A little alteration of mood is not a transformation; it’s not a real change of consciousness. Because as I change my mood for the moment it can quickly and rapidly be I would say, replaced by another mood in the reverse direction. When I say that I was changed, as that gentleman changed his mood, his basic mood, his state of consciousness, it means that having assumed that I am what the moment denied, what my reason denied, that I remain in that state long enough to make that state stable. So that all of my energies are flowing from that state. I am no longer thinking of that state. I am thinking from that state. So that wherever a state grows so stable as to definitely expel all of its rivals, then that central, habitual state of consciousness from which I think defines my character and is really a true transformation or change of consciousness. Whenever I reach that state of stability, watch my world mold itself then in harmony with this inner change. And men will come into my world, people will come to aid and they will think they are initiating the urge to help. They are playing only their part. They must do what they do because I have done what I did. Having moved from one state into the other. I have altered my relationship relative to the world round about, and that changed relationship compels a change in behavior relative to my world. So they have to act differently toward me.

So in changing the “I”, you start with desire, which we will unfold and elaborate on tomorrow night. For it starts with desire. Desire is the spring of action, for you must want to be other than what you are. We fail because we do not fall in love enough with an idea. We aren’t, I would say, moved enough to want to be other than what we are. If I could get you to be completely in love with some state to the point where it haunted the mind, I could almost prophesy that you would in the not distant future externalize that state within your world. And the reason we fail we aren’t hungry enough to change. For either we do not know the law or we haven’t the urge or the hunger to really bring about the change.

For the changing of the feeling of “I” results in the change of reaction, which change of reaction results in a change of world. If you like your world and you are complacent about it, you haven’t started on the road of the mysteries, for the very first beatitude appeals to one who is not complacent. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. You must be poor in spirit, not complacent, not satisfied. The man who thinks that by reason of birth, the religion that he inherited at birth, is good enough for me, that he is not dissatisfied, he is not, I would say moved that being is complacent and therefore he is not poor in spirit; he is very rich in spirit. Theirs is not the kingdom of God. For if I could stir you, make you dissatisfied with self, then you will recognize that self and set about to change it. For the only field of activity for man is within himself and on himself. You do not work on the other. The day you change self, that day you change your world.

Now I see my time is going to its quick end. And so in the remaining minute I have left here let me not urge you, because if you come to the meeting tomorrow night not really hungry, you wouldn’t benefit, but I do hope that many of you are there. Even if you are stirred to the point of trying to, I would say, disprove what I told you, I would accept that challenge for in the attempt to disprove it, I know if you were sincere in your attempt, you would prove it. So I hope many of you will come and take this feast with us. We are here in the city at the Ebell for 15 nights, Monday thru Friday, as Mr. Smith told you, for three consecutive weeks. If you can’t take all, and I do hope many of you will take all, then pick out the title s that appeal to you. Tomorrow night to me is basic; it is the importance of defining an aim in this world, having a goal, for without an aim you are aimless. And you were warned in the Book, or I would say, in the Epistle of James that “the double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not such a man believe that he shall receive anything of the Lord; for he is like a wave that is driven and tossed by the wind.” That man never reaches his goal. So you must have an aim, and tomorrow night we will show you the importance of defining desire. There are certain schools who teach you to kill out desire; we teach you to intensify desire and show you the reason for such teaching, show you what the Bible teaches about desire.

And now we will come to the help that many of you have asked for today. Those who were not here on Sunday let me remind you it is a very simple technique. As I told you on Sunday, any time that you exercise your imagination, and do it lovingly on behalf of another, you are mediating God to man. So we sit quietly and we simply become imitators of our Father. And He called the world into being by being the thing he would call. And so we sit and we listen as though we heard someone congratulating us on having found what we seek. So we go to the end of the matter and we listen just as though we heard, and we look as though we saw, and we try in this manner to feel ourselves right into the situation of our answered prayer, and there we wait in the silence just for about two minutes, and so they will lower the lights to aid you. And let me remind you if you want to clear your throat, please do so. If you want to shift your position in the chair, do so. Feel as though you are alone at home, because if you don’t and you try not to disturb the neighbor, you will not be able to exercise your imagination on behalf of anyone. So now I will take the chair and just simply listen attentively, just as though you heard. I’ll make you this promise . . the day you are very still in mind and really become attentive, you will hear as coming from without what really you are whispering from within yourself.

Let us go into the Silence

Neville Goddard Lecture – Catch The Mood . . Date Unknown

You will find tonight’s message a very practical one. I don’t think it will disturb anyone, but there are adjustments to be made concerning what man believes God to be, and what God really is. We are told in Scripture, in the birth of the twins, which begins the great drama as told in Scripture, “In your limbs…” and I am speaking now, not of anyone, but of you individually:

“In your limbs lie nations twain, rival races from their birth; one the mastery will gain, the younger o’er the elder reign.” (Genesis 25:23, Moffatt translation)

These are in you individually. We are told that the younger, which naturally is the second . . the “second man” . . is the Lord from Heaven. That’s the Second Man; He sleeps in you. You will rouse Him, and He will become the Master. He will reign. At the moment, in the majority of the world, they are totally unaware of it. So, He sleeps, and so He doesn’t reign. That one known in Scripture is called Jesus Christ; The Lord Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God!

Now, the whole vast world, and all within it, is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. That’s the whole of life: the appeasement of hunger. And there are infinite states from which the Lord may view the world to appease that hunger. The “first man” can’t do it. He can only feed upon what his senses dictate. Wherever he is, he feeds upon the facts of life as he sees the facts.

It takes the “Second Man” to disengage Himself from that restriction and enter into a state . . any state in the world . . and feed upon it, and then . . in time . . bring the “first man” to feed upon it.

We are told in the 14th chapter of John: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither be afraid. Ye believe in God, Believe in me also.” (John 14:1) Now, this is not a man talking to you from the outside. “Believe also in me.” “You believe in God, believe also in me.” In the same chapter He is going to tell you He is God! But what man would actually believe that this Presence within himself is God?

Now, He tells you: “Be still and know that I AM God.” (Psalm 46:10) This is not another man speaking to you, other than yourself, “Be still, and know that ‘I AM’ is God.” Can you believe that? If you can believe that, then all things are possible to you. For, “all things are possible to God.” (Matthew 19:26) Can a man really believe that? That’s what I AM told in the 46th Psalm, “Be still, and know that . . I…”. Put the little word is in there now.

Now we are told, He sleeps, and then came the call, “Rouse thyself. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Do not cast us off forever.” (Psalm 44:23) This one sleeps in man. Man has to rouse Him. He doesn’t know that his own wonderful human imagination is God!

Now, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? When I go I will come again, and I will receive you to myself, that where I AM, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2, 3) Now, this conversation takes place in you individually, between the two.

I am speaking now to myself, “In my Father’s house” . . I AM the Father “…are unnumbered mansions” . . states of consciousness. “Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again, and I will receive you to myself, that where I AM there ye may be also.”

I am standing here, and my senses tie me here in this room but I don’t want to be here. I want to be elsewhere. I know my bank balance. I know my obligations to life. I’m tied by what I know. The “outer man” feeds upon that, but he wants more than that. There is something in me . . the “Second Man” who is born from Heaven . . who is telling me there are “unnumbered mansions” into which I can go . . you can’t go . . I can go and prepare it for you. But, “when I go to prepare it for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I AM, there ye shall be also.” Now, how do I do it?

I take a look at my world, and I am very restricted. Everything about me is something I would like to break through . . transcend it, become a bigger person, a more secure person, where I’m doing a greater job in the world. All these things I would like to do but reason tells me I am not doing it, and my senses confirm my reason. Now, is there something in me that is my True Self that can do it? Yes, my imagination can do it.

In my imagination, I go and prepare the state. I actually go into the state and fill that state with my own being, and view the world from that state. I don’t think of it; I think from it. When I think from it, I’m actually preparing that state.

Then I return to where I left this . . “the outer man,” and once more fuse with it, and we become one, once again. Now I take him across a bridge of incidents . . some series of events . . that takes me towards the thing that I’ve prepared, and I take him with me and enter into the very state itself. He feeds now, literally, upon that state. This is what I call prayer. I don’t vote for it; I don’t petition, I ask no being in the world . . no one, including what the world would say is God. For, when you find God by being still, and know that “I AM” is God, then to whom can you turn for anything in this world, if you really believe Scripture, “Be still and know that I AM God”? (Psalm 46:10) If you are not familiar with Scripture, read it in the 46th chapter of the Psalms of David, the 10th verse “Be still, and know that I AM God,” . . then, to whom could you turn? It’s an inner communion with Self. But man talks to an outside god and pleads with an outside god, and begs an outside god.

This reminds me of a dinner party that William Lyons Phelps gave. If you do not know who he is . . in fact, who he was, he was one of the truly great educators in our country in this twentieth century: William Lyons Phelps. He and Mrs. Phelps entertained Edna Ferber, the writer. As they sat down to dinner, Mrs. Phelps said to him, “William, will you please say grace.” He closed his eyes, bent his head, and after maybe ten or fifteen seconds he said, “Amen.” And she said to him, “Why, William, I did not hear one word that you said”; and he said to her, “I was not talking to you, my Dear…”.

People sit down to say grace as: “Bless the hands that prepared this food,” all these words meaning nothing. You go within, and you don’t petition: you appropriate. Prayer is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I hope for so-and-so; I want it as an objective fact. Now, I must go within and appropriate it subjectively..

So, prayer is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. That is what I call “faith in God,” which is nothing more than faith in my Self, for the Self of man . . the true identity of man . . is God! That is the “Jesus Christ” of Scripture..

“Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourselves and see.” That is what we are told to do in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Read it in the 13th chapter, the 5th verse, of II Corinthians. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (II Corinthians 13:5, Revised Standard Version).

Well, if He is in me, then where will I go to meet Him? How will I address Him? He is in me. He is in my very Self. I simply commune with my Self..

There are unnumbered states in the world, so I single out the state that I want to express in this world, and I don’t ask you or anyone else in the world if it is good for me. I don’t consult anyone. Does it come within the frame of the Golden Rule? What I am now asking, would I ask it for another? Would I ask another, if what I am seeking now for another is something I would ask for myself? Well, the Golden Rule is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you keep that in mind, you cannot go wrong..

What’s wrong with asking for anything in this world for another that you would ask for yourself? Is there anything wrong in being secure? Nothing. Anything wrong in being clean and wholesome and decent? Anything wrong in being one who contributes to the world’s good? What’s wrong with that? Is there anything wrong in being happily married, proud of the girl who bears your name, or she proud of the man whose name she bears? What is wrong with that?.

Forget that. The whole vast world is a field to reap. You don’t pick out this woman or that woman. Pick out the state. I want to be blissfully happy, and if I were, how would I see the world? And how would the world see me? Well, shut out the world and go within and appropriate that state. And from within, you let your friends see you, as they would have to see you if what now you are assuming that you are is really true..

That is why I have titled tonight’s talk, “The Mood” . . catching the mood. This whole thing is based upon that mood. The 25th chapter of the book of Genesis: and she brought forth twins, for in her limbs were these rival races . . rival races from their birth, called in Scripture “Esau” and “Jacob”; and you think they were two individuals who lived thousands of years ago. No, they are right here in everyone in this world! These are the eternal states of consciousness personified in Scripture as two little boys..

Scripture is not secular history. It is salvation history. And, so, they did not live thousands of years ago; they live now in you, and you have to give birth to both of them. You have given birth to the first one. The first one is your “outer man,” the man who is now a man of the senses . . a man who is covered with hair, as we are told. Esau came out first, and he was covered with hair all over. Whether you be female or male, you are covered with hair all over. That is the external you, the man of the sense world..

Then in comes the “Second Son,” and he is the smoothest skin lad, called Jacob. The name “Jacob” means to supplant. He is going to supplant his brother; he is the second, but he will come first. The Second Man is the Lord from Heaven, and the Second Son is your own wonderful human imagination. When you stir it and rouse it and make him come into being, you can do wonders in this world..

Try it right now. You sit here in this room . . I stand here; I could, in the twinkling of an eye, put myself outside of this room and view it from there, and see the interior of this room, not from this lectern, but see it from the outside. That is exercising the Inner Man. Go outside mentally, not physically, and view this room from the outside. While seated here, I can put myself in my hotel room downstairs, and then view this room and think of it, but thinking from my room downstairs. I can put myself in any part of the world and think from it, and think of the world and everything else. That is the secret: thinking from what I want, instead of thinking of what I want..

When I know what I want in this world, when I am thinking of it, it is always beyond me. When I know what I want, I enter into that state and think from it. Put yourself mentally into your own home tonight now, and view this building . . this club . . from your home, and you see this building, not from it; you think of it, and you are viewing it from your room..

Now, the state of consciousness to which you most constantly return is the place you really dwell . . that habitual state from which you view the world. Do you view it from poverty, saying, “I AM poor?” Do you walk the street feeling, “How poor I AM?” You are then viewing the world from the state of poverty. Am I viewing the world from the state of one who is completely unknown and unwanted? Well, that’s my home. The place to which I habitually return constitutes my dwelling place. I need not dwell there..

“In my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” And when I go and prepare the place, I will return again and take you with me, that where I AM . . in that state prepared . . you shall be also. So, I now take a state. I want to be known. I want to contribute to the world’s good. I want also to live well . . and I mean well. I want to feel secure, not only financially, but secure socially, that when I enter a room I am not embarrassed, no matter who they are. They can have all the degrees in the world. They can come from all the great universities in the world and be honored by the world. But I want to stand in their presence and not feel little. I want to feel a man. I am not to bow my head in shame because of any restriction in my past. If I were born “behind the 8-ball” socially, financially, intellectually, it doesn’t matter. I want to feel important; I want to feel great. I want to feel right..

All right, what state would that be if it were true? I conceive a state that, if it were true, that would make all my wishes come true. I go into that state. Now, the first time I enter the state and view the world from it, it is wonderful, but I may never reenter that state. Therefore, it is not my home. I want to make that state my perpetual home, so I automatically dwell in that state, and if I dwell in it so that automatically I am in that state, it becomes my dwelling place. So, “I will go and prepare a place for you.” I am not talking to you; I am talking to myself: “I will take you, Neville, born behind the 8-ball . . born unknown, unwanted, poor . . everything that is simply behind the 8-ball, and I am going to take you, Neville . . now that you have found me, the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven, your own wonderful human imagination . . now that you rouse me, I will go.”.

And I will dwell in the state and feel myself to be Neville . . that “outer man” I just left on the chair or left on the bed, and I will see the world as Neville would see it if he were with me now. I view the world from that state. And, then, when it seems natural to me, I return to the physical “outer man” that I left on a chair . . that I left on the bed and as I return, we fuse and become one person, not two. Then I move across a bridge of incidents that I don’t really, rationally build . . it simply appears, and I move across a series of events that I do not reasonably determine . . they simply happen. I will move across this bridge of events up to the state where I entered and now dwell. But when I get there, it seems so natural!.

The man that thought, because of his past limitations, he could never enter that state . . now he finds himself in that state. No matter whom he meets, he meets them from that state, and it is perfectly natural to him. This is the story that Scripture teaches to you, to me, and to everyone in the world. But until you find God, which is your own Self, you aren’t going to do it. “Be still, and know that ‘I AM’ Is God.” There is no other God!.

And you think that’s blasphemy? All right, the one who teaches the story was also accused of blasphemy, for he said, “I AM God,” and they picked up stones to stone him. It doesn’t mean a man is making a bold statement on the outside. The “outer man” takes the facts of life . . these are the “stones” . . to stone him, and then he quotes Scripture, and he quotes the 82nd Psalm:.

“Is it not written in your scripture that I say, ‘Ye are gods, all of you sons of the Most High’? If, then, I say that I AM the Son of God, and the Son of God and God are one and the same Being, why do you stone me when scripture teaches you, you are the sons of God?” (See John 10:34-37).

So they could not stone him then because he was only quoting their book. Well, I am only quoting tonight your book, which is my book. It’s the book to set every man in this world free if you know Who-You-Are. Your true identity is Jesus Christ! And Jesus Christ is not a being who came two thousand years ago and then departed. He said, “I AM with you always, even unto the very ends of time.” (Matthew 28:20).

If He is with me always, where is He? He said, “I AM with you always, to the very ends of time.” Then where is He? I surely know where He is..

The conversation now . . I am quoting from the 8th chapter of the book of John. It is taking place in you. No one else is hearing it. I am only now quoting from a passage from the 8th [chapter] of John, “You are from below, I AM from above; you are of this world, I AM not of this world. I say you will die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I AM He.” (John 8:23, 24) I am only quoting from the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John..

In Scripture, above and within are the same; below and without are the same. So, when you read, “I AM from above,” he’s telling you, “I AM from within”, for he tells you, “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:21) So, I AM from above, therefore I AM from within. You, the ‘outer man’ . . you are from without, therefore you are from below. You are of this world. I don’t have to remain anchored to what my senses dictate and tell me that I AM. I need not be here. You, looking at me from the outside, as the “outer man,” will say, “Neville is on the platform.” Knowing my complete outer world, you would know my restrictions, my limitations. You do not know my ambitions, my dreams, my wishes. I, and I alone, know my ambitions and my wishes. The “Inner Man” knows them, and He knows how to enter these states and prepare a state for the “outer man” to fulfill it. The “outer man” can’t do it. The “outer man” is completely anchored by his senses and confirmed by his reason..

Now, let me share with you a simple story. At the time that it happened, it seemed an impossible thing. Right after the war was over, I took the first trip out with my wife and little girl to the Island of Barbados in the West Indies. I made no preparation for return. I sailed from New York. I thought I would go and stay a few months in the island with my family, who were all in Barbados, making no preparation for my return..

Then it came time for my return, for I had a schedule in New York in the first week of May. I arrived in Barbados the last of December and had these four heavenly months . . or almost four. When I went to the steamship company, they showed me a list which was as long as from here to there [indicating] of people waiting to get on the boat. That was only in the Island of Barbados. There were lists equally long in all the other islands: Trinidad, St. Vincent, Grenada . . all the islands, and only two ships servicing all the islands: one little one taking sixty passengers, and one taking a hundred and twenty-five passengers; and hundreds and hundreds in each island waiting..

Well, they said, “Why, Mr. Goddard, you couldn’t get out of this island until the month of October at the earliest.” I said, “Is that your final verdict?” They said, “Why, that’s final. Look at the list, and this is only in Barbados.”.

This is the month, now, of April. I never thought of applying before that. My brother Victor said, “How on earth could you have left New York, the capitol of the world . . the financial capitol of the world . . they know everything there how to do these things. Why didn’t you arrange there when you left for return?” I said, “It never occurred to me. It doesn’t really matter.”.

I sat in my hotel room in Barbados and got comfortable, and then I assumed that I was in a little boat . . a little tender, taking me off to the waiting ship in the bay. I could feel the rock of the little boat. In that boat I placed my family . . a few members of my family: my brother Victor, my sister Daphne, and one or two others, and naturally my wife and my little girl. Then I felt the ship come alongside the main ship that would take us back to New York. And, then, in my imagination I assumed that my brother Victor took my little girl and stepped on the gangplank and walked up with her and I aided my wife next, and then my sister Daphne, and then I got on, and we went up. When I got to the top of the gangplank . . all in my imagination, giving it all the sensory vividness, giving it all the tones of reality . . I have no committed stateroom, so I could not go down to the stateroom. I simply turned at the top of the gangplank, walked three or four steps, and then put my hands on the rail, so I could smell the rawness of the sea, I could feel the salt driven by the wind. I could feel it on the rail, and then I looked towards the island with nostalgia. I was leaving a perfectly lovely island with so many members of my family, and yet it was a divided feeling. I was happy to be leaving because I had to get back to New York on my way to Milwaukee, and then, at the same time, I was split in my emotion because there was a sadness . . like a sweet sadness leaving them and still happy to go. And that’s the mood that I caught. I caught that feeling. I can’t tell you if you haven’t had the experience of going any place being divided between wanting to go and yet reluctantly so, because you are leaving something precious behind you. Well, that was my mood. I caught the mood. And then I kept on looking at the island, and then I broke it and here I am, sitting in my chair in the room in the hotel in Barbados!.

The next morning the phone rang. As I answered, it was the Alcoa Steamship Company calling: “Mr. Goddard, we’ve Just received a cable from New York canceling a passage sailing on the next ship, which could put you in New York on the first day of May. Would you like it for you, your wife and your daughter? It’s a smaller stateroom, really, there are only two bunks, but your little girl is only three years old, and so she could sleep either with you or with Mrs. Goddard, but there are two bunks, and there is a private bath. Everything is perfect but you know; the ship is small. It will only carry sixty passengers.”

I said, “I’ll be right down.” So, I went down, and I thought I would find out some more details. I asked the agent, “Why the cancellation?” “Well,” she said, “I could only speculate. They didn’t tell us: they cabled us. There was a cancellation for the return trip.” I said, “All right, it’s canceled. Why didn’t you give it to any of the others waiting?” There were hundreds and hundreds waiting. “Well,” she said, “we have one lady here . . an American lady who has been bothering us week after week to get her out of Barbados back to New York, so we called her first, and she said, ‘It’s not convenient for me to go now.’ So, then we called you because you have three to go, and I thought you could use the room for the three of you. And we will not notify any of the other hundreds waiting.”

So, I asked no further questions. I took it and got back in time for my place in New York and then my place in Milwaukee.

When I first tell that story, the usual reaction is: Was that a fair thing to do? Can you imagine that! Was that a fair thing to do with all the others who were waiting? I wasn’t running the Alcoa Steamship Company. I was applying the principle of God. I wouldn’t care if one million people were there; I’d jump over one million. That’s not my concern. I am simply applying the Law of God: “When you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will,” as I am told in the 11th chapter of the book of Mark, 29th verse, and whatever you do, whatever you say, if you do not doubt that it will come to pass, it will be done for you. Well, I did what I’m told in Scripture I ought to do, believe that I had received it, and act upon that belief. So, I acted upon the belief. What would I do if it were true? I would go up the gangplank.

In those days, back in 1945, we did not have a deep-water harbor; we have one now. But then you had to go out to the ship by a little tender, so I did exactly what I would have to do if I went aboard the ship. So, I got aboard the little ship, and then, as we got to the big ship, strangely enough, my brother Victor went up with my little girl in his arms . . the very first one to step off. And then here came my wife, here came my sister, just in the order that I had imagined it. I wouldn’t care if that order was broken or not, but it did happen in the order that I imagined it. So, I tell you, I have found Him. Who? Found who? I have found the Lord Jesus Christ. You did? What does he look like? He looks just like me! Have you found Him? Well, don’t look at me, because when you find Him, He’s going to look just like you! That’s the Lord Jesus Christ . . just like you. There is no other Lord Jesus Christ.

He actually became you, that you may become the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you see Him, He is just like you.

So, do not turn to anyone in this world and say, “There he is,” for that’s a lie, or, “Here he is” . . that’s a lie. So, anyone telling you that Neville is the Lord Jesus Christ . . your Jesus Christ, deny it! Deny it completely. Neville is not the Lord Jesus Christ for you. But I have found the Lord Jesus Christ in me as my own wonderful human imagination. And I share with you what I have found. One day you will find Him as your own wonderful human imagination. Then will come the day that everything said of the Lord Jesus Christ in Scripture, you are going to experience in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience . . everything said about him. Then you will know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Then you will know who the Father is, who . . really . . God is!

Meanwhile, test him. Go to the extreme test. I tell you, you will find Him never failing. He’s your own wonderful human imagination.

Well, in this story that we started tonight, the two sons are brought now to the father. The father is Isaac, and Isaac is blind. There were two sons; the first one is Esau. He is covered with hair. That’s every child born of woman; that is the “outer man,” for hair means the most external, objective thing in the world. In man, the hair comes first, then you get the skin, then you get the fat, then you get the bones, but the hair is the most external part of man. So, he is covered with hair. The next one has no hair. He is hairless. He is Jacob, The word means supplanter.

The father has requested a meal. That is why I told you earlier the whole vast world . . the whole of life is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. So, the father is hungry, and he wants venison properly prepared as he always loves it and he gives that command to his first son, Esau. Esau was a hunter. He goes hunting for the venison, and prepares it to please his father.

Jacob overhears the request of his father. Remember, his name is supplanter but the command was given to his brother Esau, So, he slays a goat and skins it, and puts the skin upon his body to deceive his father into believing that he is Esau. He prepares the goat and brings it to his father, and he says, “Father,” and Isaac answers, “Yes, my son.” Then Isaac said, “I am blind, my son. I cannot see. Come close that I may feel you, that I may touch you.” And covered with the skin of the goat, he comes close, and Isaac stretches forth his hand and touches him. He said, “You know, your voice sounds like my son Jacob, but you feel like my son Esau,” and then he gave him the blessing. And, then, having been given the blessing, Jacob disappears.

Then his son Esau comes with the venison, and he said, “Who are you?” He said, “I AM your son Esau.” “Well,” he said, “it must have been your brother who came, and I thought him to be you, and I gave him the blessing; and I cannot reverse it. I cannot take it back. I have blessed him, and the blessing remains his.”

So, you close your eyes, and you are Isaac; you cannot see. Isaac is blind. Shut your eyes, and you can’t see the room. Now, inwardly you have the two sons. The outer room is your Esau. You shut it out completely, and they both go hunting. Esau comes after; Jacob comes first, and he gives the tones of reality to his father. His father is his own wonderful “I AM.” Well, that’s God! God’s name forever is “I AM.” So, I AM is waiting to feel the tones of reality of what he wants, and he feels it to be so real, so natural.

Now, he knows this thing is subjective, so he said, “You sound like Jacob, but come closer, my son, that I may feel you”, and he feels him as I felt the rail on the ship, as I could smell the salt of the sea in the wind, as I could see mentally the island, as I could feel the ship rolling a little under my feet. All this was the tone of reality. This, now, is Esau; it seems real, and so I am giving a reality to this state . . I am giving a blessing to it.

Then I open my eyes to find I am sitting on a chair in my hotel room. Well, suddenly Esau returns. Well, Esau was the place that I left. The room that I sat in was my Esau; that was the objective world. It comes back. And I say, “What have I done?” I went into a state and I clothed it with reality. I gave it all the tones of an objective world, and it seemed so real to me that I gave it the blessing to be real . . to be born. Now this comes back, and without one word spoken, it is telling me, “You deceived yourself. You were deceived by my brother, the subjective state called Jacob.” And I say to myself . . knowing who God really is, He can’t take back His blessing. He gave it the right to be born . . the right to become objective . . the right to become real, and in 24 hours it was born, . . it was real.

And, then, three weeks later I sailed on that ship and completed the entire journey. I’ve repeated it over and over again, and it never fails. And those who will believe it and who will put it to the test cannot fail. They cannot fail. This is the principle of Scripture.

So, will you actually give it the tones of reality? Will you actually, first of all, believe that the God that you now worship as something without, actually exists within you as your own wonderful human imagination? If you will believe that, and not think me blasphemous for telling it and think me something accursed for having spoken it . . but may I tell you, I hope for your sake you will believe it. But really, in my heart of hearts, whether you believe it or not, I am not concerned, because the day will come you will have to believe it, because you will experience it. If only I can aid you to hasten the day . . that’s why I am here. But to actually say I am going to hit you over the head and make you believe it . . no. I am not indifferent to your believing it; I can only appeal to you to believe it for your own good, that you may take whatever you have and transcend it by the use of this Law. Whatever you have in this world, may I tell you, no one is really satisfied! I dined well today, but tomorrow I am going to be hungry. And hunger is forever with man, and God is the ultimate satisfaction of hunger, but that hasn’t yet come upon the majority.

He tells us in the 8th chapter, the 11th verse, of Amos: “I will send a famine upon the world; it will not be a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” Now, that comes at the very end, for the average man is not hungry for the word of God. He is complacent. He will say, “I AM a Christian!” So, what! “I AM a Christian. I go to church. I contribute to the church,” and so he thinks that means all that he does as a Christian . . it stops right there.

Well, the hunger is not satisfied, because when He sends that hunger upon the individual, nothing but an experience of God can satisfy that hunger. Well, until He sends that hunger, all the other hungers can be satisfied, like the hunger for security, the hunger for a better job, the hunger for a raise in authority in your present position, the hunger for . . you name it. Every hunger can be satisfied if you apply this principle. But then will come that day He will send the famine upon you, for you are the earth of which He speaks. It hasn’t a thing to do with the world, the famine in the world, or whether there is famine all over the world, because they don’t know how to satisfy their hunger. There is famine, but that is not the famine of which he speaks. He says it’s not a hunger for bread; it’s not a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the Word of God!

So, I am giving you the Word of God as I personally have experienced it. So, tonight you try it. Close your eyes to the obvious. That’s Esau; send him hunting. And, then, become self-deceived. In his absence, bring in the “second son,” who is the Lord from Heaven, and clothe him in the tones of reality, and feel how real it is. Give him all sensory vividness, and when it takes on the tones of reality, open your eyes! Then Esau comes back from the hunt, and then you tell him what you’ve done, and he cries out because your son . . the “second man” . . has deceived you and betrayed him the second time.

Every day you can apply this principle and become self-deceived, but it works. But always keep it within the frame of the Golden Rule, so that no one will be hurt. I do not care who did not get the passage north. I do not care what prompted the woman not to take it. I do not care what prompted the passenger from New York to cancel it. I have no complaints, no words; I simply did what I was called upon to do. I wanted to get out. I found myself locked in . . locked in until October at the earliest, with my commitments in Milwaukee going. I couldn’t do that. I had to get back, and get back, I did!

So, I tell you, this principle cannot fail you. But we are the operant power. And you do not get down on your knees and pray to an external god. Do exactly what the great William Lyons Phelps did, and say to the whole vast world, “I am not talking to you, my Dear,” . . I am communing with my Self. And if I give thanks for what has happened, I don’t give it to you; I give it to the Being-within-me . . constant praise for this miraculous power that is housed within me. And you walk in the consciousness of being constantly praiseful for this miraculous power that became you, that you may become It! And that power is the Lord Jesus Christ who is in you, and there is no other.

So, when the whole vast world is looking for Him to come from without, as the great evangelist today has said, “It is imminent. He is on us. He is coming. I am here to greet Him.” He will wait forever in vain. For when He comes, He is not coming from without. When He comes, He rises from within, and you are He! So, he’s reaching millions of people, but he’s in kindergarten. And what do you expect? He cannot give them more than milk. But in time, you have got to be weaned from milk, and take meat, and then the true meaning of the great mystery of the Christian faith.

So, the world has accepted it in a little story. All well and good, but don’t forever and forever go on seeing only the little story. Learn to extract the meaning of the story, and hope it unfolds within you.

Meanwhile, you apply what you have heard tonight, and before I leave the City at the end of next week, you should be able to tell me that what you tonight desire you have.

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville Goddard Lecture – Radio Talk . . By Imagination We Become . . 1951

Radio Talk 2, 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 “Ideas 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, I reminded her, as I am reminding you, that men can only echo to us that which we whisper to them in secret.

I had no doubt but 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. I 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, I 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 I 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 I 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.

I 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.”