Your Faith is your Fortune, Chapter Two...You Shall Decree

Your Faith is your Fortune, Chapter Two...You Shall Decree

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“So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

Man can decree a thing and it will come to pass.

Man has always decreed that which has appeared in his world. He is today decreeing that which is appearing in his world and he shall continue to do so as long as man is conscious of being man.

Nothing has ever appeared in man’s world, but what man decreed that it should. This you may deny; but try as you will, you cannot disprove it for this decreeing is based upon a changeless principle.

Man does not command things to appear by his words, which are, more often than not, a confession of his doubts and fears.

Decreeing is ever done in consciousness.

Every man automatically expresses that which he is conscious of being. Without effort or the use of words, at every moment of time, man is commanding himself to be and to possess that which he is conscious of being and possessing.

This changeless principle of expression is dramatized in all the Bibles of the world.

The writers of our sacred books were illumined mystics, past masters in the art of psychology. In telling the story of the soul, they personified this impersonal principle in the form of a historical document both to preserve it and to hide it from the eyes of the uninitiated. Today, those to whom this great treasure has been entrusted, namely, the priesthoods of the world, have forgotten that the Bibles are psychological dramas representing the consciousness of man; in their blind forgetfulness, they now teach their followers to worship its characters as men and women who actually lived in time and space.

When man sees the Bible as a great psychological drama, with all of its characters and actors as the personified qualities and attributes of his own consciousness, then and then only will the Bible reveal to him the light of its symbology.

This Impersonal principle of life which made all things is personified as God. This Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, is discovered to be man’s awareness of being.

If man were less bound by orthodoxy and more intuitively observant, he could not fail to notice in the reading of the Bibles that the awareness of being is revealed hundreds of times throughout this literature.

To name a few:

“I AM hath sent me unto you.”

“Be still and know that I AM God.”

“I AM the Lord and there is no God.”

“I AM the shepherd.”

“I AM the door.”

“I AM the resurrection and the life.”

“I AM the way.”

“I AM the beginning and the end.” 

I AM; man’s unconditioned awareness of being is revealed as Lord and Creator of every conditioned state of being.

If man would give up his belief in a God apart from himself, recognize his awareness of being to be God (this awareness fashions itself in the likeness and image of its conception of itself), he would transform his world from a barren waste to a fertile field of his own liking.

The day man does this he will know that he and his Father are one, but his Father is greater than he.

He will know that his consciousness of being is one with that which he is conscious of being, but that his unconditioned consciousness of being is greater than his conditioned state or his conception of himself.

When man discovers his consciousness to be the impersonal power of expression, which power eternally personifies itself in his conceptions of himself, he will assume and appropriate that state of consciousness which he desires to express; in so doing he will become that state in expression.

“Ye shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass”

can now be told in this manner:

You shall become conscious of being or possessing a thing and you shall express or possess that which you are conscious of being.

The law of consciousness is the only law of expression.

“I AM the way”.

“I AM the resurrection”.

Consciousness is the way as well as the power which resurrects and expresses all that man will ever be conscious of being. Turn from the blindness of the uninitiated man who attempts to express and possess those qualities and things which he is not conscious of being and possessing; and be as the illumined mystic who decrees, on the basis of this changeless law.

Consciously claim yourself to be that which you seek; appropriate the consciousness of that which you see; and you too will know the status of the true mystic, as follows:

I became conscious of being it. I am still conscious of being it. And I shall continue to be conscious of being it until that which I am conscious of being is perfectly expressed.

“Yes, I shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass.”

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Neville Goddard, Your Faith is your Fortune

Your Faith is your Fortune, Chapter One...Before Abraham Was

Your Faith is your Fortune, Chapter One...Before Abraham Was

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“Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”

In the beginning was the unconditioned awareness of being, and the unconditioned awareness of being became conditioned by imagining itself to be something, and the unconditioned awareness of being became that which it had imagined itself to be; so did creation begin.

By this law, first conceiving, then becoming that conceived, all things evolve out of nothing; and without this sequence there is not anything made that is made.

“Before Abraham or the world was, I AM.” “When all of time shall cease to be, I AM.”

I AM the formless awareness of being conceiving myself to be man. By my everlasting law of being I AM compelled to be and to express all that I believe myself to be.

I AM the eternal Nothingness containing within my formless self the capacity to be all things. I AM that in which all my conceptions of myself live and move and have their being, and apart from which they are not.

I dwell within every conception of myself; from this within-ness, I ever seek to transcend all conceptions of myself. By the very law of my being, I transcend my conceptions of myself, only as I believe myself to be that which does transcend.

I AM the law of being and beside ME there is no law.

I AM that I AM.

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Neville Goddard, Your Faith is your Fortune

How your Mind Works

How your Mind Works

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The Book of Life is your subconscious mind, and you are always writing in that Book based on the nature of your habitual thinking and imagining. Shakespeare said, "What is in a name?" Well, when I mention your name, it indicates your particular sex, your nationality, your background, your training, your education, your financial structure, your social status, and all other things appertaining to you.

When your conscious and subconscious mind work harmoniously, peacefully and joyfully together, the children of that union are happiness, peace, health, abundance and security. The disharmonious relationship of the conscious and subconscious mind brings misery, suffering, pain, sickness and disease into your life.

Abram left Ur of Chaldea. Ur means sorcery, black magic, worship of stars, idols and all that sort of thing. Abram changed his name to Abraham, meaning the father of the multitude, indicating the one God, the one Presence and Power.

We are all children of the one God. That's the unity of all life. All men and women are brothers and sisters - same mind, same spirit and same substance. Therefore, to hurt another is to hurt yourself; and to bless another is to bless yourself.

You can write a new name, a new estimate and a new blueprint of yourself. Get a new concept of yourself. Is it great enough, noble or grand enough to redeem you, to bring about an inner transformation of your heart, your mind and your whole being? Today people have many idols just as they had in Chaldea thousands of years ago. Superstition was rampant. They still have false gods, such as "The weather is going to give me a cold," or "If I wet my feet I am going to get pneumonia." Some are afraid of germs, so that when someone sneezes, they feel they may be infected by the virus. If you ask the exposed person, "Did you get the virus this year?" the response is, "No, not yet," The infection is anticipated, though. What you expect, you always get.

Some people say, "I don't know the right congressman. I have no pull. I can't get that job." They are thus denying the Creative Power within them. They say It is omnipotent and supreme, yet at the same time they are denying It. If It is supreme and omnipotent, there is nothing to oppose It or challenge It. Therefore, you should say, 

"Infinite Spirit opens up the door for me, revealing to me my hidden talents and showing me the way I should go." 

That's exactly what the Infinite Spirit will do for you.

There are congressmen who speak and touch wood when they talk about something negative, as if wood had some power. Do you give power to other people? To the atmosphere? To the weather? All of these things are innocuous. They have no power. The power is in you.

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What do you Believe?

The Universal Presence creates out of Itself by means of It becoming that particular thing. In other words, God becomes man by believing Himself to be man. God creates a being out of Himself capable of returning glory, light, and love to Himself. Abraham knew the Creative Power. He was aware of it and he demonstrated It in his life. He believed that the Spirit would guide and direct him, which, of course, it did.

Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, etc, all spoke of God as Infinite Mind and Infinite Intelligence, but they did not tell you how to use the Presence and Power for guidance, for harmony, for prosperity, for success, or how to heal yourself with it. It was a satisfactory intellectual conclusion very interesting, but they did not tell you how to use It in everyday practice.

If you believe you are an abject worm of the dust, people will step on you and will treat you the way you treat yourself. If you are cruel and nasty to yourself, the world will be cruel and nasty to you. As within, so without. Realize you should exalt God in the midst of you, mighty to heal. How could you feel inferior if you knew that you were a daughter of the Infinite, that you were a darling of God, and that God loves you and cares for you? God is the Life Principle, or the Living Spirit within you, which created you and watches over you when you are sound asleep, because He that watches over you neither slumbers nor sleeps.

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Born to Win

There are a great many who work very hard, but they nevertheless fail in life. The reason is that they have a subconscious pattern of failure, or they believe they should fail. Sometimes they think a jinx is following them. They feel inferior. Perhaps they were told when they were young, "You'll never amount to anything. You are stupid. You are dumb." These thoughts were accepted by their impressionable mind and now these thoughts have a life of their own in the subconscious mind, and are experienced by them.

But man can change his life. These subconscious or irrational impulses act long after the events which caused them have been forgotten. Man can feed the subconscious mind with something new. He can say,

 "I'm born to succeed; the Infinite cannot fail." He can feed his subconscious life-giving patterns such as: "Divine law and order govern my life, Divine peace fills my soul, Divine love saturates my mind, Divine right action reigns supreme, Infinite Intelligence guides and directs me in all my ways, It is a lamp unto my feet and a light upon my path."

When you are angry, suspicious or full of fear, these emotions are negative and destructive. They snarl up in the subconscious mind, and they cause you to do the wrong thing and to say the wrong thing. When you want to be happy, you are sad; when you want to do the right thing, you do the wrong thing. This is true when you are under the sway of negative and destructive emotions, for, very likely, whatever you do then will be wrong.

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How to Use the Laws of Mind,

Dr. Joseph Murphy

Excerpts from 'How to Use the Laws of Mind

Excerpts from 'How to Use the Laws of Mind

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God indwells you, and all the powers, attributes and qualities of God indwell each one of us. All of us live, move and have our being in that Infinite Being which created all things and is the very life of us. "There is," says Emerson, "guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right words."...

Begin every day with your thought of God and His love for you. Remember also a simple truth: The beginning of all manifestation or phenomena in this material universe is a thought or a word; and a word is a thought expressed. Your thought is first cause. God is the Creative Power in you, and the only immaterial power you know is your thought. Your thought is creative, and you are what you think all day long...

All of us were born without any religious beliefs, prejudices or racial bias. When we were children we were highly impressionable and malleable and subject to the teachings and beliefs of all those who had any control over our lives. Children grow up in the image and likeness of the dominant mental and emotional climate of the home. The first language you spoke came from your parents.

Your subconscious mind is a book of the law, and the dominant impressions and convictions of the mind become the ruling and governing forces of your life. In talking with and counseling many people through the years, I have found that the main reason many do not advance in life and remain healthy and prosperous is that they when they were very young they had impressed on their deeper mind (the subconscious) feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness and inferiority, which governed their choices in life and their reactions, preventing them from succeeding and prospering in life. 

Sigmund Freud, the great psychopathologist, pointed out that all of us are governed by subconscious impulses which are mostly irrational, which means that most of the religious beliefs, taboos, and strictures which were given to us when very young are illogical, unreasonable, unscientific, and completely contrary to basic common sense...

There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so, and that there is nothing evil in the universe, for good and evil are the movements of his own mind relative to the One Being - God - the Living Spirit, which is whole, pure, and perfect. Use determines whether a thing is good or evil. How do you use the Power? If you use the One Power constructively, you call it God, Allah, Brahma, peace, harmony, and prosperity. If you use the One Power negatively, ignorantly, or maliciously, you can experience lack, limitation, sickness and disease. The world calls it, satan, devil, hell, etc, all of which are states of mind. The word satan means to err, to slip, to deviate from the truth.

As you continue to read this chapter, the truth will be revealed to you about the Book of Life. Remember, when a person is fearful, suspicious or angry, he acts and reacts in an abnormal way even when there are no circumstances or conditions warranting such actions. What is written in his Book of Life (his subconscious) becomes a law governing his experiences and relationships with others...

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How to Use the Laws of Mind,

Dr. Joseph Murphy

Excerpts the Golden Key

Excerpts the Golden Key

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Scientific Prayer will enable you to get yourself, or anyone else, out of any difficulty on the face of the earth.

Stop thinking about the difficulty -- whatever it is -- and think about God instead. 

If only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will presently disappear. It makes no difference what kind of trouble it is.

God is Wisdom, Truth, inconceivable Love; God is present everywhere; has infinite power and knows everything.

You must think of God, and nothing else. Your object is to drive the thought of the difficulty right out of you consciousness, substituting for it the thought of God. 

If you can become so absorbed in this consideration of the spiritual world that you really forget for a while all about the trouble concerning which you began topray, you will presently find that you are safely and comfortably out of your difficulty and that your demonstration is made.

In order to "Golden Key" a troublesome person or a difficult situation, think, "Now I am going to 'Golden Key' that person or that threatening danger"; then proceed to drive all thought of the person or the danger right out of your mind, replacing it by the thought of God.

There is no power but God.

I am a child of God, filled and surrounded by the perfect peace of God.

God is Love, God is with me, God is guiding me now.

Each time that you find your attention wandering, just switch it straight back to God.

Do not try to think out in advance what the solution of your difficulty will probably turn out to be. 

Leave the question of ways and means strictly to God. 

You do your part, and God will never fail to do his.

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

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Emmit Fox

Murphy on Quimby

Murphy on Quimby

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PHINEAS PARKHURST QUIMBY once called on a woman who was aged, lame, bound down, and on crutches. He states that her ailment was due to the fact that she was imprisoned by a creed so small and contracted that she could not stand upright or move ahead. She was living in a tomb of fear and ignorance; furthermore, she was taking the Bible literally, and it frightened her. In this tomb, Quimby said, the presence of God was trying to burst the bars, break through the bands, and rise from the dead. When the woman would ask other people for an explanation of some passage of the Bible, the answer would be as a stone, and she would hunger for the bread of life. Dr. Quimby diagnosed her case as a mind cloudy and stagnated due to excitation and fear, caused by inability to see clearly the meaning of the scriptural passages she had been reading. This condition showed itself in her body by a heavy and sluggish feeling, which would terminate in paralysis.

Quimby asked the woman what was meant by, "Yet a little while I am with you, and then I go unto him that sent me." She replied that it meant that Jesus went to heaven. Quimby made plain what the passage really meant by interpreting that being with her "a little while" meant his explanation of her symptoms, feelings, and their cause—that is, he had compassion and sympathy for her momentarily, but he could not remain in that mental state; the next step was to go to "him that sent me," which is the presence of God in all men.

Quimby immediately traveled in his mind and contemplated perfect health, which is a part of God. He said to the woman, "Therefore, where I go, you cannot come, for you are in Calvin's belief, and I am in health." This explanation produced an instantaneous sensation in the woman, and a change came over her mind. She walked without her crutches. She had been, as it were, dead in error, and to bring her to life or truth was to raise her from the dead. "I quoted the resurrection of Christ and applied it to her own Christ or health; it produced a powerful effect on her." (The Quimby Manuscripts.)

Apply this principle of healing in your own life. Suppose, for instance, that your son were sick. Go within to him who sent you. God, or Life, sent all of us into the world. God is all bliss, harmony, peace, beauty, wisdom, and perfection. Turn within in thought, and quietly realize that the wisdom and infinite intelligence of God are right within you. The living intelligence and power of God sent you into this world, and fashioned all your organs from its own invisible pattern. You are now turning to the maker of your body. You are relaxed, at peace, poised, calm. You are full of confidence that the Creator of your body and mind can create and refashion your body according to his own divine pattern.

You have seen your son sick and in pain, but now in your meditation you are talking to the God-presence, calling forth the healing power. Think of your son, and immediately dwell on the peace, health, and harmony of God. You know that these qualities, potencies, and aspects of God are now being reflected in your boy. You are now getting into the mental atmosphere of health. As did Quimby, you are contemplating the Divine Ideal, which is perfection, wholeness, and harmony for your son. Do this frequently, three or four times daily, until you believe in the idea of perfect health. When you have mentally accepted the idea that the healing power of God is working for your son, that is a treatment.

"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me," means that others may wonder what you are doing and be unable to follow you in understanding or belief. "And where I am, thither ye cannot come." Other members of your family, or the patient himself, may be unable to rise in consciousness and enter into the feeling of perfect health, because they are wrapped up in worldly beliefs. Quimby said that man's false belief is the sepulcher in which the wisdom of God is confined, and that the truth is the angel which rolls away the stone of superstition and ignorance, healing the mind and body.

The word "treatment" used in New Thought circles means the harmonious interaction and direction of the conscious and subconscious powers for a definite, specific purpose. In treating others or ourselves, we never identify with the disease. We have compassion for the person momentarily—"Yet a little while I am with you"; then we go to God and heaven, realizing the ideal perfection of the patient. The pharisaical beliefs (fear and doubt) cannot enter where confidence in God's power is. In prayer we are one with God, the only presence and power.

Here is an instance of how a woman applied this technique in the treatment of her child. Her child was very ill, and hope of saving his life had been given up by all except the mother. She sat by the child's hospital bed and prayed as follows: "God is the life of my child, and His healing power is flowing through every atom of his being. The peace of God floods his mind and body, and through His power my child is made whole." She silently repeated this simple prayer over and over again, trying to lift up the idea of health in her mind. She knew intuitively and instinctively as she continued praying that she would reach the point of inner peace about her boy. After a few hours, the child began to cry for food. The doctor examined the child and said he had passed the crisis. She had realized the truth which set her child free.

Our reason and senses may question, ridicule, scoff, and laugh, but if we will only go within, knowing that when we feel something as true, Omnipotence moves in our behalf—then, though the whole world would deny it, we would demonstrate our desire, because we are sealed in faith. "According to your faith be it unto you."

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Dr. Joseph Murphy, Step this Way for Healing

Joseph Murphy (1898-1981)

 Joseph Murphy (1898-1981)

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DR. JOSEPH MURPHY wrote, taught, counseled, and lectured to thousands all over the world for nearly fifty years. Born in 1898, he was educated in Ireland and England. Years of research studying the world’s major religions convinced him that some great Power lay behind them all: The Power is within you!

Dr. Murphy was Minister-Director of the Church of Divine Science in Los Angeles for 28 years, where his lectures were attended by 1300 to 1500 people every Sunday. His daily radio program during all that time was immensely popular. He moved to Laguna Hills, California in 1976, where he continued to speak every Sunday until he made his transition in 1981.

Joseph Murphy, Ph.D., D.D., was a world-renowned authority on mysticism and mind dynamics. The author of more than thirty books, including The Power of the Subconscious Mind and Secrets of the I Ching, he remains a beacon of enlightenment and inspiration for legions of loyal followers.

Joseph Murphy was strongly influenced by the idea of a conscious and subconscious mind working synchronously in the happy, whole person. The "Life-Force" was God's will working within each of us. "The will of God for you is something marvelous, wonderful and beautiful, transcending your fondest dreams. God is absolute peace and cannot wish pain. God is boundless joy and cannot wish sorrow. God is boundless love and cannot do anything unloving. God is wholeness, beauty and perfection and cannot wish sickness. God is the same yesterday, today and forever." In addition, God is impersonal. "Man rewards and punishes himself based on the way his conscious mind impregnates his subconscious mind. If man thinks good, he receives good; and if he thinks evil, evil inevitable follows (How to Use the Laws of Mind).

Murphy realized that thoughts, feelings, imagination and beliefs affect prosperity and health. "When you stop and think, you realize that everything you do and that you refuse to do is previously determined by an attitude of mind - a way of thinking on your part. If you find your condition chronic, if you are leading a dull, routine, monotonous life, it is very likely that you too are dwelling on the past and repeating the same old mental patterns". Negative experiences are viewed as the Life Principle shaking us out of our lethargy to find the solution and aim for something higher.

In his ministry and radio talks, Murphy taught how to change negative thinking. He relied heavily on the Bible, particularly the Psalms as a guide to right thinking. He would often have a client who came to him in trouble rewrite a psalm or a Bible verse so that it fit their situation. They were then to say this in the way of an affirmation as a means of getting the message from the conscious to the subconscious mind.

Murphy was outspoken about popular beliefs - "superstitions". "If it is God's will." "That is too absurd for words. The will of God is a greater measure of life, freedom, expression and growth … Bring your conscious and subconscious together at one point - then you will bring your desire to pass."

Another superstition is, " 'If it's right for me.' What is not right for you? It is right for you to lead the abundant life.". He was aware the world impinged on us. "Keep prayed up," he would advise.

The riches of the world are there for all to enjoy. If you do not yet share in the opulence of the world, Murphy reminds us that "the cattle on a thousand hills are yours; the song of the birds is yours; you can enjoy the stars in the heavens, the morning dew, the sunset and the sunrise … There is enough fruit that rots in the tropics to feed all of humanity. Nature is bountiful, lavish, extravagant, and actually wasteful" (Miracle Power for Infinite Riches). The subconscious can be enriched with ideas of abundance, and abundance will follow. These are spiritual laws.

The affirmations and prayers in Murphy's books rely heavily on Bible quotations, which are then expanded upon to fit the individual situation. A reader of another orientation could still find helpful meditations in these books if they were to change the wording from God the Father, to Goddess, Creative Spirit, Universal Consciousness or something else more fitting to them. He provides many stories to illustrate how the principles worked to create financial prosperity, health, creative ideas, harmonious relationships and more. They are good as examples of the working of the laws of prosperity consciousness in the twentieth century.

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