CHAPTER 17 AWAKE, O SLEEPER

CHAPTER 17

AWAKE, O SLEEPER

In the Book of Ephesians we are told to “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” This awakening and rising comes about through an inner development, for the Bible is your autobiography. It was you who inspired the prophets to record their visions. And it is you who will fulfill their prophecies in a first person, present tense experience. As you read the Bible, get your mental teeth into it. Study its message, and your understanding will go deeper and deeper as you travel through life.

The Bible teaches self-help. Do not look to any leader on the outside, only look to self by turning within. If anyone offers to do for you what you can do for yourself, reject their offer and turn to Christ, God’s creative power in you, who is your life, your light of the world. By changing your thinking, Christ will change your world.

The “earth,” spoken of in scripture, is the “mind of man.” It is in this psychological earth that the idea of the kingdom of heaven was implanted. While in the state of sleep, false doctrines have crept in. Called tares, they grow with the wheat and will be harvested; therefore, you must become selective and clear the weeds by killing every belief in a power outside the mind.

The man who is rich is complacent. Satisfied with his social and financial positions, he is not hungry to grow. If you are complacent, your life will not change, for you will not be hungry or thirst for a higher level of awareness. You and you alone know whether the hunger has come upon you or not; but you have not begun the work you gave yourself to do until you begin to uncritically observe your thoughts. And when you do, you will discover that you are not as truthful, honest, or courageous as you thought you were.

Tonight, select a future upon which you want to work and tomorrow, be watchful. Question yourself by saying, “Am I keeping the tense? Do I want this? Is that the way my friend wants me to see him? Am I limiting myself?” Then act in your imagination, for imagination is passive while asleep and allows that which is false to take the throne. Watch your thoughts. Reclaim your throne and consciously allow your human imagination to rule your world!

Your human imagination, once activated, will awaken as a little babe. Born in violence, in a manger where the wild beasts eat, it will grow in wisdom and power as the outer you will, become passive and powerless. But, you must be watchful and vigilant of your thoughts in order to bring the outer you into passivity. Only then will you know what it is like to be in the world but not of it. The purpose of this teaching is to awaken the Christ who is asleep in man, dreaming different states into being, and bring him to the conscious circle of humanity where man is self-aware. Once you are aware of your true self, you will no longer condemn sleeping man. You will know they are machines, automatons who do not know what they are doing.

Your desires are not subjective, intangible things, but solidly real. Begin to awaken the Christ in you by clothing your subjective desires in objective reality. I promise you, the day you do this, they will become facts in your world. Have an aim that you will not lie to yourself anymore. Work on this feature within yourself. Become extremely observant and honest with yourself and watch the energy that formerly moved into negative states, flow into your greater aim. Perhaps your aim is to become a great teacher, not because you want to impose your will upon others, but because you want to awaken in others what you have awakened in yourself. The awakening begins when you feel a separation; a division of the natural and the spiritual imaginative you to which all things are possible. It is this spiritual you that clothes your subjective state in reality.

By changing the feeling of “I,” you can direct your life internally and escape the prison of your present state regardless of what it may be. By thinking from the point of view that the problem is solved, you move from the problem to its solution. This change of attitude is called the Be-attitudes. In other words, you are”being” what you want to be by assuming that you already are it. When you know what you want, consciously clothe yourself in a new concept of self by extracting your “I” from the evidence of the senses and placing it in the place you want to be. By this assumption (or be-attitude), you have journeyed from one state to another. “And I, if I be lifted up, I draw all men to me.”

Once you have lifted yourself up into the new states abide there! Do not come back to the testimonies of your, senses, but remain in your desire until a different world is established. Every change in the feeling of “I” automatically produces changes in the external world; therefore, you must learn to die daily to your old beliefs. The statement, “Those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” means letting go of all that you now consent to. If you lose it, you will find your “I” reclothing itself on a higher level of beings; thereby causing a new expression in your world.

When you go in a new direction, the journey is made in the mind. A physical journey may follow, but the journey must be made on the inside first. Where you are, is what you psychologically are at that moment. An enlightened being lives on the mountain top and the human imagination, when completely controlled, is personified as a being called Jesus Christ.

As long as you are violent, you are asleep. Awaken the spiritual you by watching your actions and reactions to life, and you will lose your impulse to retaliate. What happens to you here is not important, but how you react to what happens, is. Your reactions define you. They tell you where you are, for you attract life in its most minute detail.

The Bible does not teach reincarnation. Its central teaching is the rebirth of consciousness into ever higher and higher levels. You must be born by water and spirit, not water only. Except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter the higher level of being called the kingdom of heaven. In this series of lectures, you have received psychological instruction as to how to go about working on yourself. Your mind has been washed of certain errors, baptized and born of water. But, unless this truth is applied, you will not be born of the spirit.

The word “Mary” means “water.” Christ, the “I” in you, is born of water and of the Holy Spirit. The outer you cannot receive instructions. He is literal and takes things literally, thereby receiving nothing but stone. The righteous man, however, is conscious of being the man he wants to be, while the foolish man steals from himself by not claiming his desire. Every time you see a man less than what he wants to be, you have robbed him of The state necessary to externalize it.

Be not as the heathen who, by vain repetition hopes he can get the ear of God. Rather, when you pray, go within and close the door, and your Father who hears in secret will reward you openly. You have but to change the feeling of “I.” Close the door to the outer world and feel yourself into the state your friend desires. With a planned program, see him and talk to him from the premise that he is that person already. Keep the door of reason and logic closed and walk in faith that what you have heard and seen, in secret, will be rewarded openly, and it will.

The Bible was written by the conscious circle of humanity. (This circle you enter at the moment of wakefulness.) Not composed by men, the Bible is divine instruction with limitless interpretations. It is a test in the development of your understanding and, as you grow, its understanding deepens and deepens.

Although man wraps himself in conditions (states), the being he really is, is I AM. Anything man will consent to, he will manifest in his world. Can you accept as fact what your reason and senses deny? Or must you always bow to reason’s dictates? The same consciousness that produces health, produces sickness, wealth or poverty. Whatever you agree to be conscious of, whatever you affirm as true, you will manifest.

When you know the spiritual being within you, you will assert the supremacy of imagination and put all things subjective to it. All knees must bow to imagination. “Behold! We are transformed into the same image.” Can you behold a given situation and make it so natural that you are transformed into its image? You can when you, all imagination, feel the naturalness of the image you behold.

Divinity is not divided; therefore, everyone is but a projection of the one. You are told to love your neighbors as yourself, for there is no other. Sanctify self, not another. Working on others will not change them; only by changing yourself will the others change. Seek confirmation of your ideas and you are not growing. All textbooks are manmade and uninspired from on high. Stick to them and you will remain on their level. Believe in self! Trust your human imagination and you will grow in wisdom and in stature and, as you grow, you outgrow your former beliefs.

My ideas regarding the historicity of the Bible are not original. The Encyclopedia Biblica was published in 1888. Sponsored by Oxford University, it took twelve years for one hundred and twenty-seven brilliant minds from all faiths to complete it. These men, who knew the ancient tongues, after intense research came to the conclusion that the Bible, from cover to cover, was mythological allegory. Another wonderful book is Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. Published in 1860, it is made up of four volumes. They discovered that the writers of the Bible used a phallic frame to which they attached their psychological truths. “And when their eyes were opened, they knew him.” To know, is to have union with and become what is beheld; therefore, he vanished from their sight when they knew him.

In the 3rd Chapter of 1st John, he tells us, “See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The world does not know us because it does not know him. As God’s children, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who hopes in him, purifies himself, as he is pure.”

We are God’s children, destined to be God himself, and God creates everything he, individualized as you, consents to. Therefore, resolve only to hear what is good concerning yourself and another. If you adopt this attitude, everything that enters your mind will contribute to a noble life and you will discover the joy of feasting on higher states.

When a man dies, it is an expansion into a dimensionally larger life. If you have not awakened here, you must start awakening in the fourth dimension. Climbing a multitudinous dimensional time block, you ascend by reason of your ability to function in a dimensionally larger world. And each dimensional world is contained in a dimensionally larger world; in turn that world is contained in a still dimensionally larger world without end. But, remembering the love the Father has given you, test him, knowing that everyone who hopes in him, purifies himself as he is pure.

ABOUT NEVILLE (1905-1972):

Born in Barbados, West Indies, Neville was the fourth son in a family of nine boys and one girl. At age seventeen, he came to the United States to study drama. In 1932 he gave up the theatre entirely to devote his attention to his studies in mysticism. He began his lecture career in New York City, and travelled throughout the country, eventually establishing his home in Los Angeles. In late 1950’s he gave a series of talks on television, and for many years he lectures regularly, to capacity audiences at Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles. His books, written over a period of some thirty years, deal with creative visualization and the transformation of consciousness.

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Source

https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville/neville-goddard-the-creative-use-of-imagination-edited-by-margaret-ruth-broome-1952/

CHAPTER 16 THE WINE OF ETERNITY

CHAPTER 16

THE WINE OF ETERNITY

The human imagination and Divine Imagination are one and the same. They are not two. Your human imagination has the power to turn your water of life into the wine of eternity. This you will do when you release your imagination from its bonds of limitation, for when imagination is truly free, it can accomplish miracles.

The Bible calls imagination man’s savior and identifies this wonderful benefactor as Christ. When Christ is awakened and born in you, your human imagination becomes divine vision. Called Christ, your individual imagination is the mediator between the father of all life and the external world called Man. Having imagined wealth, it is the human imagination who walks on the water of life and denies the evidence of his senses by claiming, “I am wealthy.” His persistence mediates God to Man.

Every character in scripture lives in the mind. When you read the Bible, turn to self and ask, “What state would I be in if I were doing this?” When reading the story of Moses, claim you are he. Assume the state of faith when you read of Abraham. You are Joseph, the dreamer, and Thomas, the doubter; and you are destined to be Jesus Christ, the awakened, Risen Imagination.

Skin is the most external thing a man can wear. When you read of one who wears camel’s hair or leather, you are reading of one whose mind is tied to the outside. His philosophy of life is external and dependent entirely on others. In the 5th Chapter of Mark, the story is told of an innocent man who, being unclothed, lived among the dead and cut himself on the stones. When Awakened Imagination passed by, the innocent one cried out, “Do not cast me out,” and when asked his name, he answered, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

A being not yet individualized in a spiritual sense is innocent for he knows not what he is doing. He is Legion because he has innumerable “I’s” in him, i.e., “I am ill,” “I am poor,” “I am tired,” “I am weak,” and “I am mistreated,” to name but a few. Living among the dead and sleeping the sleep of death, his literal understanding of life and its cause are stones which cut and bruise. But the spiritual man has a personal self-determined history, a predetermined self. In the realm of the spirit, he becomes what he wills. When consciousness turns within, the spirit awakens to his true identity. Then, casting out all belief in any external cause, he is clothed in his right mind and sits at the foot of the one who cast them out.

A miracle is only the name given by those who have no faith in the works of faith. The story is told of a man named Jairus whose daughter was believed to be dead. But Awakened Imagination ignored the thought and said, “Do not fear, only believe.” Arriving at the house, he questioned, “Why do you weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.” Then he touched the child and said, “I say to you, -rise.” Immediately, she got up and walked. Then Jesus turned to the parents and said, “Give her something to eat.”

Every state, every desire, every idea is your child. Looking at the desire, it appears to be dead to you, the natural man. But your spiritual “I” knows the desire is not dead but sleeping, waiting to be touched for its resurrection. With your desire, (child) made alive within you through the power of touch, it must be fed in order to bring about its birth. This is done by turning your attention to it.

Now let us turn to the 5th Chapter of the Book of John where he speaks of the pool of Bethesda and its five porches. The story is told of a sick man who waits for the moving of the water by an angel, believing that whoever steps into the pool first, after the movement, will be healed. After asking him if he wanted to be healed, Awakened Imagination said, “Rise, take up your pallet and walk,” and at once the man was healed and, taking up his pallet, he walked away.

The word “Bethesda” means “house of mercy.” And the pool spoken of here is consciousness which must be stirred by an angel (a messenger of God). Any idea you entertain is that angel, disturbing your consciousness. The pool is entered by a mere assumption, and stirred as you bathe in it. “I am” is always first person, present tense. No one can put you in the pool by affirmation. Although seemingly impotent, you rest on the five porches, or senses when you accept their evidence and refuse to change your consciousness. No one need help you. Who could be first in the pool other than self which is your “I.” Knowing what you want, rise in the assumption that your desire is already satisfied (healed) and it will be.

In his 17th Chapter, John rejoices saying, “I have finished the work thou gayest me to do. Father, glorify thou me in thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before that the world was. I have kept them in thy name which thou hast given me and none is lost but the son of perdition. For their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be consecrated in the truth, for I dwell in them and they dwell in me and we are one.”

The work you gave yourself to do is to awaken from this dream of life. Having assumed the limitations of the flesh, you will awaken to your true identity and become your own glory when the outer you is made passive and the inner you, dynamic. Now, the son of perdition is the belief in loss. Knowing that all things exist in the human imagination, nothing can be lost. When you realize this truth, you will no longer believe in loss, thereby fulfilling scripture.

The most difficult thing to grasp is that there is no one outside of self. Believing others needed to change, I worked on them, thinking that the world would be so much better if they would be different. Then I awoke and sanctified myself, and in so doing, they were sanctified, for I dwell in them and they dwell in me and we are one. There is no one to change but self. As you control your thoughts and allow only those which conform to your ideal to flow from you, your world will reshape itself in harmony with them. Remember, you cannot be aware of a fault or greatness in another were that fault or greatness not present in you. Remove the fault from your own “I”. Place the greatness there and watch your world change as it reflects your change in consciousness.

In the 16th Chapter of Matthew, the disciples were questioned, “Who do men say the son of man is?” They said, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Then he asked, “But who do you say that

I AM?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

At the present time, you may be concerned as to what others think of you, but when you have awakened to your true divinity, it will not matter to you what others think. You will know from experience that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Flesh and blood will not reveal this to you, but your Father who is in heaven reveals it. Through this knowledge, you will have been given the keys to the kingdom, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Having found the answer to the everlasting question, “Who am I,” no man can ever take this knowledge from you. This wisdom comes from within.

Completely abandon yourself to a psychological experience. If you become one with a state in your imagination, you will rise to e compass it in the flesh. This being true, yours is a journey from innocence to imagination to experience.

You are already the person you want to be. Claim it and tomorrow y u will display it by being it. By your fruits you shall be known.

If today your life is not what you want it to be, stop blaming anyone; just keep working on changing your feeling of “I” and abide in your desired state. Persist., .persist. . .persist, for at the moment of non-reaction, circumstances change. We rise by an energy others call effort, for it takes energy to act and react. All through the day, remember your aim by constantly identifying yourself with it. Let your reactions flow into your aim. Ask for deeper and deeper understanding of that which you think you now understand. I trust everyone has an aim to be greater. Do not limit yourself to any textbook. Stop believing that any one man can write a book that is final regarding truth. Start to dig. No one can grow without outgrowing. A different attitude is the solution to every problem. By your new direction (attitude) you escape that which has been wrapped around you. There is no one to change but self, so start changing yourself today!

Luke was speaking of you when he made this statement, “When their eyes were opened, they recognized him and he vanished from their sight.”

When your “I” is awakened, you will find that which you have been searching for, and the belief in a power outside of self will disappear. In Francis Thompson’s poem, The Hound Of Heaven, he tells of how:

“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind…”

only to discover at the end that “He was my very self.”

Man’s eyes are blind, though hounded constantly by the Hound of Heaven. He cannot believe in the non-historicity of the Bible but continues to hold onto his little beliefs even though he does not know what to do with them. People do not seek truth; they seek only supports for their opinions of it. But I say to you, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, for a man’s foes are those of his own household.” When truth comes, it sets a man at war with himself, for he will discover that he can no longer consent to what he formerly believed in.

Start now and quietly listen to the words you want to hear. By a new direction, internally, you can change the course of your life and free yourself from the prisons of your mind. You can see yourself best by looking into the face of another, but you cannot judge one who has not awakened from the dream of life. Living in his physical, animal world, he reacts mechanically and automatically just like a machine.

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Source

https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville/neville-goddard-the-creative-use-of-imagination-edited-by-margaret-ruth-broome-1952/

CHAPTER 15 THE FEELING OF “I”

CHAPTER 15

THE FEELING OF “I”

Your journey into this world of decay and death began with your feeling of “I” and where you place that feeling, there you live. You can place your feeling of “I” in the mud of negation or on the lovely ground of positive assumption. Your feeling of “I” is always with you. It is your slave and your savior, for wherever you go, there “I” am also.

The 9th Chapter of Numbers begins with Moses being given instructions by the Lord as to how to erect a tabernacle, or tent of testimony and move it across the desert. He was told: “During the day a cloud will cover the tabernacle, and at night it will have the appearance of a pillar of fire. Whenever the cloud rises, the children of Israel must journey to the place where the cloud settles down, there the people must remain. It may rise once a week, once a month, or longer, but when it ascends, the children of Israel must journey.”

Now, a tabernacle is an elongated place of worship which is movable and covered with skin. You are that temple (tabernacle), and the spirit of God dwells within you as your “I.” A cloud is a garment of water (or psychological truth) which covers the “I” and that to which it testifies. The cloud does not move in time but is lifted up by the “I” it covers. According to my senses, “I” am now in the Palace Hotel. Let me lift the cloud from my testament by withdrawing the feeling of “I” from the evidence of my senses and move by placing my “I” in a predetermined state, and my whole world moves with me. Clothing myself in feeling, the cloud covers me as I testify to the state I have just entered. At this moment, you may have placed your feeling of “I” in an unlovely state and, unless you lift that cloud which covers you, you are anchored there and are incapable of changing the circumstances of your life. Now, this lifting of the cloud and placing your feeling of “I” in a more desirable state involves a death, for when the cloud rises, it breaks (or kills) the cycle of recurrence you have been on.

Motion can be detected only as a change of position with respect to another body, and all motion spoken of in scripture is psychological. Every state exists in this psychological land from which your “I” journeys. All you need do is extract your “I” from where it is now and place it in your predetermined state. But how will you know you have moved? By using a frame of reference. While sitting quietly in your chair, you can lift your cloud by placing the feeling of “IF” in an entirely different psychological state. No one can see this motion, for yours is a spiritual journey. While in the state, look for confirmation of your move on the faces of people there. Are they surprised to see you? Are they happy for you? A little jealous? Look, until you see the expressions on their faces. If there is a change in your feeling of “I,” you will find an automatic alteration in your usual expression of life.

During the day, you wear your garment of truth (the cloud); but the moment you begin to meditate, the brain grows luminous. This is the pillar of fire by night. Remember, “I AM the truth,” and wherever you place your feeling of “I,” there you must abide.

In the 34th Chapter of Deuteronomy we are told that Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Nebo, and there to Pisgah which is opposite Jericho, where he was shown all the land that was his. The word “Moses” means “to draw out.” He is not a man but your creative power which can draw out of you any state you have placed your “I,” struck the rock, and produced the water.

The word “Moab” means “mother/father” which is your “I AMness.” In your present state, your Moab may be saying, “I am beaten,” “I am sick,” “I am impoverished.” But “Nebo” means “to prophesy your longing by the feeling of I.” “Pisgah” means “to contemplate.” When you enter your desired state, observe your Jericho, for it will have a fragrant odor as that is what the word “Jericho” means. Having risen in consciousness, remain in your chosen state until you have a reaction that satisfies you. A violent reaction produces a horrible odor, while a lovely reaction indicates Jericho and a lovely odor. You see, Jericho is not a place in the Near East, but a state which produces the thrill of accomplishment within you.

In the 14th Chapter of the Book of John, Jesus speaks to Peter saying, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.”

This is not a man speaking to another, but self speaking to self. You are Jesus (Imagination) telling yourself that there are unnumbered states of awareness for you to enter, and you are inviting self to choose the state you wish to inhabit. After selecting the state, imagination will go and prepare it for you so that you may come again (as you must), for wherever you abide in imagination, there you shall reside also in the flesh. If you believe what I have told you, determine to change your feeling of “I.” There is no power that can keep you from realizing your dream, but you! And no man can compel you to enter any state. You have the power to select your state and enter it, thereby making it alive or, leave a state, thereby killing it. The decision (and its consequences) is yours and yours alone. The day you can become an observing “I,” watching your reactions and seeing the observer and the thing observed as two distinct beings, you will know you can enter any state and it will outpicture itself. You will know that all the mansions of your Father’s house are yours.

I AM (consciousness) contains the whole of creation, and out of I AMness comes imagination. Where there is no consciousness, there is no imagination. When you enter a state, your I AM is having a psychological experience. When you think about a state, you have a subject and its object; but when you experience a state, you have unification.

Tonight, mentally look at your day. Can you remember those you saw this morning? If your reaction to them is the same as it was earlier, then you have not changed your feeling of “I.” Your friends and relations are your frame of reference. Use them in your journey. The command in the 1st Chapter of Joshua is: “When you start, turn not from it to the right hand or to the left that you may prosper wherever you go, for I, the Lord your God, am with you.” Therefore abide in the state you desire until your whole being is permeated with its reaction that you may reap its reward. “I,” your consciousness, am with you, and I AM the Lord, your God.

Thee teaching of truth deals with the feeling of “I,” for only through feeling can change come about. If you continue to have the same reactions, you have not changed your feelings. Your world forever conforms to your inner assumption. Remember your aim a thousand times in the course of a day. Notice your thoughts in regard to it, and break all unlovely ones. If you are not successful, it is because you not practicing this truth and applying this law.

“You are the temple of the living God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. What has a believer in common with a non-believer? Come out from them and separate yourself from them, and I will welcome you.” Come, let us live on the mountaintop!

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Source

https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville/neville-goddard-the-creative-use-of-imagination-edited-by-margaret-ruth-broome-1952/