Enter The Dream

Enter The Dream

Neville Goddard Lecture, Nov 21, 1969

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God only acts and is in existing beings or men. Embracing the fires of experience, God was consumed by the flames, rose from their ashes, and continues to rise as Jesus Christ, or Divine Imagination. Good and evil are not conditions imposed by some benevolent deity, but states the soul must experience in order to surpass them and awaken as God Himself.

Tonight I will share with you an experience of a friend, a lady who wrote, saying: “In my dream I possessed the power to be anything I wanted to be. The moment I observed the being or thing I became it, felt its emotion, and shared its thoughts and environment. This I did throughout the night and awoke reluctantly because I was so enjoying the experience.”

Now let me tell you what Aldous Huxley wrote about his friend, D. H. Lawrence: “To be with Lawrence was an adventure, because he was not of the order of this world, but belonged to another universe. When I was with him and he shared his experiences, I felt that he knew what it was to be a tree, a daisy, a breaking wave, or the mysterious moon itself. He saw things the mortal eye could not see. He was a sensitive, intelligent man who could cook, sew, embroider, and do woodwork to perfection; yet he could sit alone doing nothing and be completely happy. He could put himself into the skin of an animal and describe in the most convincing detail its dim, inhuman thoughts.”

I am quite sure my friend never read that letter, but I gave her my immortal eyes. The eye of Imagination is now open in her and she has shared her experience of going from state to state, from things to persons, knowing their feelings and emotions. How is that possible? Because God is the only actor.

Blake makes this statement: “Eternity Exists and All things in Eternity Independent of Creation which was an act of Mercy. By this it will be seen that I do not consider either the Just or the Wicked to be in a Supreme State, but to be every one of them States of the Sleep into which the Soul may fall in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil when it leaves Paradise following the Serpent.”

Everything in the world is yourself pushed out. Every animal there can be entered by you, and you can experience its emotion, for that animal is your very self.

You are the animating power of the universe. All things were made by you and without you was not anything made that was made, for you are life itself. This I know from experience. The universe is alive in you. It has no life on the outside. It is yours to animate, to stop, to let go, and stop again. Blake was right when he said: “God only acts and is in existing beings or men,” for God is the only actor, acting imaginatively in the human imagination.

While seated here you can see your home in your mind’s eye, but it does not have the cubic reality as does this room. But one day you will think of something and see it more vividly than you now see the speaker. You will enter it, not as a shadow, but as a 3-dimensional space. I have sat in a chair or rested on a bed with my eyes closed as in sleep and seen what I could not see if the lids were open. Knowing exactly where I was and what I was doing, I allowed consciousness to follow vision and stepped into that image which closed itself around me as I set out to explore that world.

I now know the truth of Blake’s words: “If the Specter would enter into these images in his Imagination, approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contemplative Thought. If he would make a friend and companion of any one of these images which always intrigues him to leave mortal things as he must know, then will he rise from the dead; then will he meet the Lord in the air and then he will be Happy.”

Many times while sitting in my chair or lying on my bed, my inner eye has opened and I have seen what no mortal eye could see. Then I would enter into the image by allowing my consciousness to move on its fiery chariot of contemplative thought. Clothed as I am, the world calls me Neville; but I . . a conscious being . . have moved out of this body and into a world which instantly clothed itself around me; and I explored that world, clothed in a body just as solidly real as the one I left on the bed or chair. If anyone had entered the room they would have thought Neville was sleeping; yet I was fully awake, consciously aware of being separated from my external self.

Look at yourself in the mirror and you are seeing the mask God is wearing in this world of death, but you cannot see the immortal you who cannot die. Your friend or relative may appear to die, but he is not that which is put into the furnace and consumed or buried in a grave. He is that which his I AM is conscious of being, exploring other worlds just as real as this until he experiences the mystery of scripture.

You see, God only acts. Sitting in my chair and seeing what I should not see, I acted by consciously entering into the image I was viewing, to discover it was not a flat surface, but a 3-dimensional reality, complete and ready for occupancy.

My friend knows what it is like to become anything that intrigues her, and I am quite sure she never read the letter Huxley wrote of his friend D. H. Lawrence. This is the same Huxley who showed no interest when I tried to tell him of my birth from above, of David and the visions I have shared with you. He liked me as a friend but he had his own limitations, as everyone does. In a certain social world, if you pronounce a certain word differently you are cataloged as one who is not “in,” as it were, and Huxley would not listen to my visions because I did not speak as he thought everyone should. I could have told him things beyond the wildest dreams of his friend D. H. Lawrence, but because of his little stumbling block Aldous could not hear my words.

But I tell you who are seated here tonight: you are the only God. You will know this from experience, for the day is coming when . . instead of seeing your thoughts in your mind’s eye, you will see them 3-dimensionally, just as you are now seeing the speaker. When the eye of imagination opens you will instantly move into the thought, whether it is regarding something that took place ten thousand years ago or exists in what you might think to be the future. I tell you: there is nothing that is not here and now, ready for you to enter and become one with.

One day you will realize, like Blake, that neither the just nor the wicked are supreme states, and you will be able to forgive everyone for what he is doing or has done. You will know that although his action seems horrible, based upon this level, he is expressing a state and must do as the state dictates. Good and evil are simply states of experience through which the soul of Man must pass in order to awaken to the being that he really is. He must embrace the fires of experience and be consumed before he can rise from the ashes to be one with the being who sent him.

I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you when the eye of imagination opens, for only then will you be actually seeing for the first time. And when the ears are open you will hear what no mortal ear can hear, as you see what no mortal eye can see. A week or so ago I went to an office regarding my Medicare, and I was asked to prove that I would be sixty-five on my next birthday. I knew that at one time I had obtained my baptismal certificate, but I hadn’t seen it in years and had no idea where it was. Two nights ago, about 1:30 A.M., my divine brothers said to me: “Your baptismal certificate is in your wallet.” I awoke, opened the dresser drawer and there, inside a wallet my wife had given me back in 1938, was the baptismal certificate I had obtained in 1924 when I needed it to go to London during my dancing career. So I know that when the eye and ear of imagination is open, every desire of the heart will be seen and heard. That is your destiny.

I say: you are God, the only actor in this world. No matter what you imagine, God is acting. He is the only actor, acting by imagining. You can imagine anything, cover the act with faith by believing in its reality, and it will come to pass. When Blake spoke of eternity in his statement: “Eternity exists and all things in Eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy,” he was referring to the little garment of flesh and blood you wear. Your garment is. It is eternal. It is a garment that anyone can . . and many will . . wear. In my case, this is a garment in which one awakes. I am not the garment called Neville, any more than I am any part I ever played on Broadway. I was in six plays but I never was the characters I played there, but simply the actor. And so it is with God. He is the only actor in eternity and God is the human imagination. It is the human imagination who plotted the entire play before he came down and assumed these eternal bodies of limitation and death. And it is the human imagination who will rise from these eternal bodies into Divine Imagination from whence he came.

In the Book of Genesis we are told: “The serpent spoke and said to the woman, ‘You will not die for God knows that when you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, your eye will open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” This is something you must know in order to surpass and rise beyond it as Divine Imagination. The serpent knew that as you ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, although you would not die, you would embrace the fire of experience, be consumed as its victim, and rise from its ashes as God Himself. That is the story of scripture.

Blake added this wonderful thought, saying that we left paradise following the serpent. This implies that we did not begin here on earth, but left paradise following the serpent of generation who told us that when we embraced the great experience of good and evil we would be consumed in its fire and yet not die, but would rise from it. In his book, John tells it in a lovely way as: “I came out from the Father and came into the world. Again I am leaving the world and returning to the Father.” So we did not begin here, but . . coming out from the Father . . we found these garments that seemed to begin in time, but really are an eternal part of the structure of the universe. In my own case this little garment seemed to begin in 1905, but it was always so. It was always growing into manhood and departing in its sixties. Always appearing, occupied by God, moving towards a certain point and then disappearing.

All of these are but garments to be picked up and worn. People think they are the garments they wear. That is because they do not know who God is, for he is in the one who is wearing the garment. It is God, your own wonderful human imagination, who acts and is in existing beings or men. There is no other God, no other actor in the universe.

If you want to test God, you may. Your immortal eyes and ears need not be open to test your creative power. Simply assume you are the one you want to be. Remain faithful to your assumption and, although everything denies it, you will become it. It does not matter who you are or what the world thinks of you; anything is possible to the “I” of imagination. As I mentioned earlier, had Aldous only listened to my message, rather than my English, I could have told him things beyond the wildest dreams of D. H. Lawrence. But I am a Colonial in his eyes and, like all Englishmen; the Colonials are looked down upon. If you don’t speak with the Oxford or Cambridge accent, you are a Colonial in their eyes and not one of the boys.

If Aldous had only listened, I could have told him what it was like to not only be the wave, but to be the ocean. When I was but a boy, years before puberty (in fact it stopped at puberty), I would know the night it was going to happen and was afraid to go to sleep. It was marvelous to be the ocean, but to be the breaking wave (a small portion of my being) was frightening. I . . the ocean would toss myself . . the wave into the skies and then catch myself upon my own bosom as I fell. This experience would happen to me once a month over a period of years. I could have told him what it was like to be infinite light with no circumference, but my accent put barriers in his mind and he could not hear me. This is true the world over.

People judge from appearances, as the individual’s true being is unseen by mortal eyes. God comes to us unknown and unseen; but in his own wonderful mysterious manner he lets us discover who he is, and when we do it is in a first person, singular, present tense experience.

I am not trying to flatter you when I tell you that you are God. Everyone is. The one who murders is one with the one who is murdered. The rapist is one with his victim. These are all God’s experiences of good and evil in order to surpass good and evil and rise as Divine Imagination who is God Himself. You and I came down and, embracing the fire of experience, we have been consumed by it. Many a time the little garment that we wore turned to ash; and from that ash we found a new body, just like the old one, only new, healthy and wonderful with not a thing missing, to be consumed once more. And we will keep on being consumed, one after the other, until that moment in time when we rise as the Lord Jesus Christ who is God Himself, to be consumed and restored no more. So when Blake said: “God only acts,” he really meant it. God not only acts, he is the only actor. When you begin to imagine, God is acting and what you imagine will happen.

I was late getting here tonight. A friend came for lunch yesterday who, knowing the friend who brings me here every week, said: “Isn’t he unreliable?” and I immediately answered, “No! Never.” She didn’t want to hear that and is a very intense lady who knows how to reach him. Today for the first time my friend called to say he couldn’t make it. An intense imaginal act produced what the lady wanted to hear, but she will never get the satisfaction of hearing me say he was ever late or did not come.

There are people in this world whose surface veneer appears to be altogether wonderful, but below that surface there is an intensity and they do not know that they are only hurting themselves. She can’t touch me, although undoubtedly she has tried; but if she did it would boomerang in a way she would not know. I love her dearly, but she is intense and also of the same school that if you are not of a certain physical background you are not “in.”

I have told you unnumbered times that I have no feeling towards any aristocracy in the world. Though I speak of being a descendant of Abraham, it is not after the flesh, but after the spirit; for in the state of Abraham I believed the story that was told me before that the world was. There is no physical aristocracy. Only the aristocracy of the spirit consisting of those who are called and embodied into the body of the Risen Lord. I could tell her this forever and she would not understand. She believes in physical aristocracy, and there is none.

Do not allow anyone to try to impress you with his greatness relative to yours. I have never been able to feel anyone to be my superior. Physically, yes, they can knock me down with one blow. Intellectually, yes . . no question about it. Financially, certainly, but I cannot meet anyone that I believe to be my superior. He may be an intellectual giant, a mathematical giant, a musical giant, a giant in a thousand ways, but that does not mean I feel inferior to him.

I was amused today when I looked at my baptismal certificate. My father’s occupation was listed as a meat vendor. He had a butcher shop. If this lady had seen that I would no longer be socially acceptable to her. But I urge you to never allow anyone to make you feel less than, because you are infinitely greater than all of the characters of the world put together, as you are God who is playing all the parts. And you will play them all. The phony, and the decent ones, the rich man, the poor man, the known, the unknown . . you have played them all or you would not be here. The reason why you are here is because you are on the verge of awakening. And you will awaken from the dream to discover that you created the play, and finding no one to play the parts, you have played them yourself. And when you have played them all, you will awaken by a certain, definite series of events that take place within you. Then the inner eye and ear will open as mine did this morning, when the brothers told me where to find my baptismal certificate. I do not think I have looked in that wallet for thirty years. I do not carry a wallet. I do not drive and my wife carries the money and gives me whatever money I want, so what would I do with a wallet? Yet the crumpled little yellow page was there, just as my brothers said it would be.

I tell you: there isn’t a thing that does not exist now and here. We speak of the moon as billions of years old; but you cannot measure your age because there never was a time when you were not, nor will there ever be a time when you will cease to be.  You didn’t begin in time. You came down into time . . which you, yourself created . . to experience good and evil, to expand the being that you always were. Even though your birth certificate shows you began in time, you didn’t, for you are the wearer of the garment. You are its actor who is God Himself. You cannot even say God is near, because nearness implies separation. He is not near, for when you say, “I AM you are proclaiming He is your very self.

Begin now to believe in your true Being who is God, and whatever you imagine to be so, firmly believe it is so, and it will be so.

Let us go into the Silence.

v. Self Concept Versus Self

 v. Self Concept Versus Self

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43 The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to the world’s reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that suits a world of shadows and illusions. Here it walks at home, where what it sees is one with it. The building of a concept of the self is what the learning of the world is for. This is its purpose—that you come without a self and make one as you go along. And by the time you reach “maturity,” you have perfected it to meet the world on equal terms, at one with its demands.

44 A concept of the self is made by you. It bears no likeness to yourself at all. It is an idol, made to take the place of your reality as Son of God. The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted on. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good within an evil world.

45 This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good. This aspect never makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation and at last to open insult and abuse.

46 The face of innocence the concept of the self so proudly wears can tolerate attack in self-defense, for is it not a well-known fact the world deals harshly with defenseless innocence? No one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it. The other side he does not want to see. Yet it is here the learning of the world has set its sights, for it is here the world’s “reality” is set to see to it the idol lasts.

47 Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this: “I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me, you stand condemned because of what I am.” On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept and those who walk on them will not escape.

48 Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned eternally. For what you are has now become His sin. For this is no forgiveness possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved and kept in darkness where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. You can be neither blamed for what you are, nor can you change the things it makes you do. And you are each the symbol of your sins to one another, silently, and yet with ceaseless urgency condemning still your brother for the hated thing you are.

49 Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning, they do not exist. They are not given, and they must be made. Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of his own? Concepts maintain the world. But they can not be used to demonstrate the world is real. For all of them are made within the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways, and finally “maturing” in its thought. They are ideas of idols painted with the brushes of the world, which cannot make a single picture representing truth.

50 A concept of the self is meaningless, for no one here can see what it is for and therefore cannot picture what it is. Yet is all learning which the world directs begun and ended with the single aim of teaching you this concept of yourself, that you will choose to follow this world’s laws and never seek to go beyond its roads nor realize the way you see yourself. Now must the Holy Spirit find a way to help you see this concept of the self must be undone, if any peace of mind is to be given you. Nor can it be unlearned except by lessons aimed to teach that you are something else. For otherwise you would be asked to make exchange of what you now believe for total loss of self, and greater terror would arise in you.

51 Thus are the Holy Spirit’s lesson plans arranged in easy steps that though there be some lack of ease at times and some distress, there is no shattering of what was learned, but just a re-translation of what seems to be the evidence on its behalf. Let us consider then what proof there is that you are what your brother made of you. For even though you do not yet perceive that this is what you think, you surely learned by now that you behave as if it were. Does he react for you? And did he know exactly what would happen? Could he see your future and ordain before it came what you should do in every circumstance? He must have made the world as well as you to have such prescience in the things to come.

52 That you are what your brother made of you seems most unlikely. Even if he did, who gave the face of innocence to you? Is this your contribution? Who is, then, the “you” who made it? And who is deceived by all your goodness and attacks it so? Let us forget the concept’s foolishness and merely think of this— there are two parts to what you think yourself to be. If one was generated by your brother, who was there to make the other? And from whom must something be kept hidden? If the world be evil, there is still no need to hide what you are made of. Who is there to see? And what but is attacked could need defense?

53 Perhaps the reason why this concept must be kept in darkness is that in the light the one who would not think it true is you. And what would happen to the world you know if all its underpinnings were removed? Your concept of the world depends upon this concept of the self. And both would go if either one were ever raised to doubt. The Holy Spirit does not seek to throw you into panic. So He merely asks if just a little question might be raised.

54 There are alternatives about the thing that you must be. You might for instance be the thing you chose to have your brother be. This shifts the concept of the self from what is wholly passive, and at least makes way for active choice and some acknowledgment that interaction must have entered in. There is some understanding that you chose for both of you, and what he represents has meaning that was given it by you. It also shows some glimmering of sight into perception’s law that what you see reflects the state of perceiver’s mind. Yet who was it that did the choosing first? If you are what you chose your brother be, alternatives were there to choose among, and someone must have first decided on the one to choose and let the others go.

55 Although this step has gains, it does not yet approach a basic question. Something must have gone before these concepts of the self. And something must have done the learning which gave rise to them. Nor can this be explained by either view. The main advantage of the shifting to the second from the first is that you somehow entered in the choice by your decision. But this gain is paid in almost equal loss, for now you stand accused of guilt for what your brother is. And you must share his guilt because you chose it for him in the image of your own. While only he was treacherous before, now must you be condemned along with him.

56 The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts. It does not concern itself with content of the mind, but with the simple statement that it thinks. And what can think has choice and can be shown that different thoughts have different consequence. So it can learn that everything it thinks reflects the deep confusion that it feels about how it was made and what it is. And vaguely does the concept of the self appear to answer what it does not know

57 Seek not your Self in symbols. There can be no concept that can stand for what you are. What matters it which concept you accept while you perceive a self which interacts with evil and reacts to wicked things? Your concept of yourself will still remain quite meaningless. And you will not perceive that you can interact but with yourself. To see a guilty world is but the sign your learning has been guided by the world, and you behold it as you see yourself. The concept of the self embraces all you look upon, and nothing is outside of this perception. If you can be hurt by anything, you see a picture of your secret wishes. Nothing more than this. And in your suffering of any kind, you see your own concealed desire to kill.

58 You will make many concepts of the self as learning goes along. Each one will show the changes in your own relationships as your perception of yourself is changed. There will be some confusion every time there is a shift, but be you thankful that the learning of the world is loosening its grasp upon your mind. And be sure and happy in the confidence that it will go at last and leave your mind at peace. The role of the accuser will appear in many places and in many forms. And each will seem to be accusing you. Yet have no fear it will not be undone.

59 The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question and been recognized as made on no assumptions which would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:

60 I do not know the thing I am and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself. Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will tell you of Itself

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Source

A Course In Miracles,

Chapter 31, The Simplicity of Salvation,

Course in Miracles Society