Notes on Neville Goddard

Notes on Neville Goddard

The popularity of Neville Goddard has been on the rise for the past few years; and for good reason. As The Law of Attraction gained fame, following the release of the wildly popular movie “The Secret,” LOA teachers have popped up seemingly everywhere; unfortunately for all of us, most of them are little more than charlatans. Neville Goddard has, perhaps, the most interesting and clear teachings on the subject and had the wisdom to both record his lectures and publish notes. After listening to countless hours of lectures, I’ve prepared some notes to help all of you get up to speed on the teachings of Neville Goddard.

Neville Goddard’s core philosophy was based on a sort of Christian Spiritualism that presumes that we are all God in human form; a philosophy that he often attributed to William Blake, an English poet circa 1800’s. Neville regularly affirmed that “God is our own wonderful human imagination.” It’s not to suggest that God is a figment of our imaginations but to say that we are a figment of His and we are the manifestations of His desires and intentions. The connection between man and God is in fact our imaginations. When we use our imaginations in a particular and disciplined manner, the power of God flows into our lives in miraculous ways.

Goddard taught that it is not only possible to affect the lives of others with the power of our minds, but that it’s both easy and advisable to do so. Through the late 1800’s and into the mid 1900’s, Christian Spiritualism and Christian Science were quite popular. Practitioners of these spiritual “sciences,” such as Goddard, Judge Thomas Troward, Florence Scovel Shinn and Geneviève Behrend commonly entertained requests for “treatment” from people in need of help. Neville often taught, in keeping with Blake, that it is indeed possible and advisable to use the power of consciousness to effect others; Jesus certainly did so. If all people are indeed the spirit of God in flesh, then it would be perfectly acceptable for Him, in one manifestation, to help Himself in another.

Goddard believed in the unity of spirit. Similar to Judge Troward, Neville saw creation as a playground for God and each of us as tabernacles in which He dwells. Tasting and experiencing life from different vantage points, each vantage point is a person or individual personality through whom God experiences His creation. God is not using us; He is us. Troward described it as “general” to “specific.”

God is the generalized existence of universal intelligence while each of us are the specific, localized manifestation of Him.

As a version of, or manifestation of God, it’s necessary for you to exhibit intentional amnesia regarding your actual identity; it’s the only way to enjoy the full human experience with all of its intensity. With God as the underlying source of our imaginations, any person with a heart-felt desire for change is poised to receive a magnificent gift from God; just as soon as that person engages in prayer facilitated by the imagination.

It’s a bold break from orthodoxy to see prayer as an imaginal process rather than a discussion with an aloof and heavenly god figure. It’s bold to see prayer as the function of your inner God-Spirit, making choices for itself, rather than seeing prayer as a way for a dreadful sinner to assuage the anger of God. If indeed we are each a local instance of God, Neville suggested that our individualized set of circumstances amount to our “state” of existence; God is experiencing what it’s like to be you, living in that particular state. If the state becomes tiresome, God may want you to move on to another one; His desires express themselves through you. If your current state is unsatisfactory, then you’re being cued by the spirit to change to a new state. If you’re in poverty and wish for change, then move to the state of abundance. If you’re in a state of illness, then move to the state of health. This change is accomplished in the spirit, not in the flesh.

If you struggle to change circumstances through human effort, you have not changed state; you’ve simply dug-into your current state and have chosen to fight the dragons that live there. Pastor Joel Osteen has shared the story of a married couple who both smoked cigarettes. The wife struggled to quit with great angst but was unable. The husband chose one day that he simply didn’t want to “be” a smoker anymore and he stopped immediately. The wife lived in a state as a smoker and, in her efforts to stop smoking, she simply added a new struggle into her existing state. The husband changed his state entirely, becoming a non-smoker. Consider the difference in attitude: one person fought for change while the other chose to change. If you choose to fight the dragons in your life, you can’t transfer to another state until you finish the battle that you’ve chosen to fight. So, stop playing the “knight in shining armor.” Disengage from the old state and transform into a new person who lives in a better place. This all happens in the mind through spirit.

Let’s say it a different way. Perhaps you could say it’s “your story” rather than your state. If you don’t like how your story reads, then change the narrative. After all, it’s your life. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within you, so don’t look for it outside of yourself. You have the power to make change. Don’t fight your circumstance, change your story. It’s as if you were to find a picture of a person who you consider to have the ideal face. Tape that picture onto your bathroom mirror, look at it everyday and say “that is me.” Furthermore, imagine the perfect life that should go along with that perfect face and say everyday “this is my life.” Taken literally or figuratively, the power is the same. Identify the circumstances that constitute your perfect desired state and “lock them down” in your mind as fact. With these circumstances strongly established, take them “into the silence” and make them real. Going into the silence is a figurative term that describes a specific process of prayer and meditation.

Allow me to add some of my own commentary at this point. Remember that prayer is an internal dialog used by the spirit to sort through choices regarding its own desires. When your human mind and the spirit cooperate to identify the best options, the result is a strong and motivating desire to do those things. Intentional cooperation by the conscious mind is required to move the plan forward; this is called faith and obedience. Without the obedience of the human mind, the will of God remains a seed, waiting for germination. If you prove unwilling to do the thing that God inspired, you will remain in an unsatisfying state of existence and He may motivate another person to go and enjoy the things that you refused to do.

In another place, I write about the competitive nature of the human existence and God’s part in it. All of the great inventors had rivals who nearly or sometimes did succeed in stealing their glory. When God is ready to move on to a new phase of the human experience, he waits for no one. Your deeply held desires are evidence of the things that you’ve been given to accomplish within this complex relationship. New phases in the human experience can also be called states; you must be ready to change your state when the spirit moves or you risk getting out of position.

It’s imperative to understand that your deeply held desires are not selfish, they are your holy calling and it’s the process of prayer that untangles them from the messiness of ordinary life. Prayer must amount to an honest evaluation of your desires and purpose without pragmatic compromise. Don’t downgrade your purpose by merging it with the things that now exist. During prayer, carefully think about what you like and what you don’t.Identify bogus “desires” that were born of compromise at times when you felt that you had to remodel your dreams to match the cold realities of your situation. Dump the bogus desires and find the golden nuggets of truth that have gotten buried beneath the trash heap of time. God has given you a pure vision of something new; dump the emotional and psychological trash that clouds that vision and move on to visualize the perfect fulfillment.

Neville often admonished his listeners not to interfere with the process. Identify the desired end result but don’t make assumptions about the details. If you desire a mate, for instance, then imagine being happily married to the perfect person but do not assume that you know who that person will be. Judge Troward offered the same advice; he taught us to “get into the spirit” of our desire but not to make specific demands about the material manifestation. The spirit may inspire you to ask God for a husband but it’s your assumption, and possibly your mistake, to assume it will be the person you’re dating. Goddard advised us to pray for the best possible result that matches our desire and then to let God’s systems work out the details.

Often times, when it seems that God is silent, it’s because you’ve gotten off subject. Perhaps you’ve wisely asked God for a new state but then you made an error in some specific point of order. Suppose you’ve asked God for a promotion at work; this is an example of being overly specific. If God is inspiring you toward a new career in another city but you wrongly assumed that he meant to promote you at your current job, you may struggle to manifest the wrong outcome. God gave you a desire for career advancement but your human mind misread it as a promotion in your current state. This is why Neville strongly warned of the danger of using your power to force the wrong outcome. Get into the spirit of your desire in general terms but do not force specific outcomes or assume a specific path.

When you identify the spirit of your desire, take it into “the silence.” The silence is a type of meditation that borders on self hypnosis. Neville instructed his students to find a quiet and peaceful place to relax, close their eyes and begin to imagine their desired results while being careful not to sleep. This process is predicated upon the fact that we are all God in human form and that our imaginations direct the universe to provide the type of experience that we desire according to our imaginings. The more experienced and focused you become in this endeavor, the better the results will be.

While imagining your perfect state, there are a few guidelines that will help you along; the first two seem contradictory but they are not. First, don’t be overly specific. Second, be very focused on details. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not good to be overly specific. If you are desiring a mate then you should imagine being married to the perfect person but don’t assume who that person will be. Infuse details into your image by feeling the imaginary ring on your finger and pretend to see the faces of your friends and hear them congratulate you on your beautiful wedding. The use of intense sensory information sends a strong message to the universe, instructing it how to construct your future.

Refusing to identify your future mate makes room for the universe to create the perfect outcome. If you hired a painter to decorate a room in your house, you may show him a picture of the type of room and colors that you like but you would never advise him on how to choose his brushes, prepare the surface for paint or how to do the work. To summarize: you’re telling the universe how you want to feel in your future but you must let the universe paint the portrait without your help. The universe will provide the emotional experience that you requested, complete in every detail, that fulfills your wish. Don’t interfere with the universe’s process; the universe is the painter and you are the customer.

As you visualize the pictures and generate the feelings associated with your perfect future state, the intensity of the detail that you generate will cause you to become lost in thought. You will know that you’ve had an effective meditation when two things happen: first, you lose track of time, and second, you gain an assurance that “you know” that you got it.

Losing track of time. On this subject, I would advise you to study the books written by Dr. Joe Dispenza; he has spoken on this subject in detail and has a lot to say on the order of the mind and consciousness. Losing yourself in thought disconnects the suspicious, conscious mind and allows the subconscious mind to do its thing. For example: when you thought that you’d meditated for twenty minutes but it was actually an hour and a half, you’ve successfully disengaged the conscious mind and gone to another state of existence.

Dr. Dispenza and Neville both agree on the next point: when you condition your mind adequately, there comes a point when you cross a threshold. When in meditation and prayer, there comes a moment when “you know that you have it.”For Neville, he described this as the moment when the seed is in the ground and you need only to be faithful to the vision and wait. For Dispenza, he described it in the introduction for his book “You Are the Placebo.” For him, he experienced a moment in time when he intensely visualized his shattered spine becoming perfectly healed; within days of that powerful and emotional vision, he got out of his bed and resumed his life. Joe has a lot to say about the process and the discipline involved in miraculous reversals and I recommend that you carefully study his material.

Neville and Dispenza both speak strongly on the need for discipline and focus. Consider your imagination to be like a laser beam; if you scatter your beam in many directions, it will dissipate and become worthless. Neville warns against a wandering imagination; he taught us to limit the scope of our visualizations to a small window of virtual time and to fill it with intense sensory details that you would expect to experience if it were real. Don’t visualize complex and long stretches of the future, instead, imagine a 10 minute stretch of time in the future and fill it with plenty of sensory data like smell, touch, sight and sound. Make it as real as you can then stop. The more you rehearse this process, the sooner you will cross the threshold.

Ultimately, when you’ve learned to isolate your truest desires and then learn to take them into the silence where you plant them in the soil of your imagination, you will see a shift in your state of existence. The universe will knit together a new life for you that closely matches the spirit of the thing that you felt in your heart when you prayed and imagined. “Now, let us go into the silence.”

Resources,

http://thallen.com/spirutality/spiritual-articles/notes-on-neville-goddard/

Neville Goddard's Technique

Neville Goddard's Technique

How Do I Do This?

Before we begin, it may be wise to go for a smaller intention, before you go for the “Big One”. Something that you aren’t particularly attached to, and are, more or less, indifferent to. You can, of course, do this alongside a bigger intention, but for your first time, I recommend going for something small.

Step One: What Do You Want?

Well, what do you want? It can be anything. Anything at all! So, don’t dumb it down. Of course, since this may just be your first time, it might be wise to dumb it down a little, but after that first time, expanding your vision is necessary.

Clarify what you want. Let’s say, for your first intention, you want fifty-dollars. Are these fifty U.S. Dollars? Write that down. Do you want them in cash? Write that down? Finally, the most important part of all, what do you intend to use this money for? Is there a goal that you have in mind? Or, are you simply trying to see if this process works? Again, write all of this down.

For me, I wanted a plane ticket to Siem Reap, Cambodia. So, I wrote that down, and the purpose of that ticket was so that I could move to Siem Reap.

Step Two: What Is Your “End Result”?

Let’s say that you want fifty-dollars, because you want to buy fifty-dollars worth of lotto tickets. That is the End Result of having that money, and if this is the case, then your real intention is for the lotto tickets, and not, in fact, the money, for the money is simply another obstacle that is blocking your path towards that intention of yours.

To dissolve this, focus on the End Result, which is having those lotto tickets in your hand, and feeling the feelings that come with having purchased them.

This is where things can get a little tricky, however, because there are often multiple intentions at work, and it can be a little confusing as to how we get there. So, if you want the lotto tickets because you want to win money, then you’ve created so many obstacles. Ask yourself “Why do I want the money?”, and then go for those things, instead. Of course, if you just want money to prove that this works, then money is a reasonable intention. But if it’s just to pay off bills, go straight to the paying off of the bills, rather than the part where you obtain money, for if you’ve paid off the bills, then it’s implied that you’ve received money of some sort.

If there are multiple “End Results”, then you need to create something that encapsulates all of them into the single intention.

When I set my intention for obtaining a plane ticket to Siem Reap, Cambodia, my End Result was that of having the ticket in my hand, and feeling the certainty of knowing that I was going and that it is certain. If I intended to move a lot sooner, I could’ve simply envisioned myself on the plane or touching down, but since I was merely concerned with the ticket and simply having it, I envisioned that and the feelings that came from the certainty, rather than the full “End Result”. Perhaps, however, looking back, it would’ve been better to go ahead in time, and then simply to see myself at the airport, looking at the ticket and seeing the “Purchase Date”. Nonetheless, they both work.

Step Three: What Is Your Scene?

This can be a little tricky, at first, and I recommend giving yourself two-days — out of five, for the experiment — to simply allow images and scenes to flood your mind. You can hold onto the ones you like, and discard the ones you don’t like. Simply surrender and allow them to come to you, and they will. From that, you will find a scene that implies the fulfillment of your desire.

For me, it was seeing the ticket on my computer screen, after having purchased it online, and then telling my Mother and Father that I had done so. And for my friend, it was texting me about his new girlfriend. This scene will be repeated throughout the days, and you will gradually give it more and more sensory detail and significance, as you continue to play it over and over again.

As for making the scene itself, I recommend just surrendering. Surrender, and let the sensations come to you. Don’t force anything. It will come to you, and you will know that it is a good scene, and you will, naturally, play it and repeat it and add detail to it.

Step Four: Play The Scene — Feel The Feelings

Take a deep breath. In for four, out for four. Do this seven-times, and you will feel lighter, calmer, relaxed, and content.

Close your eyes, and begin to let the sensations flood your mind. Keep your intention in focus, and then slowly build the scene. If you aren’t yet aware of the scene, continue to let sensations flood your mind, and allow the pieces to come together. Do not force it. Do not push and prod. Simply, let go.

When you find a scene that is truly magnificent and necessary for your purposes, play it over again. Edit it. Trim it down. Capture the implied fulfillment of your intention in a single phrase. And then repeat it. Play it over and over again. And as you play it over again, take the time to add sensory details to the scene.

Continue to play it until four-days have passed. Or longer, if you feel it is necessary, but four-days is just right.

When I did this, I spent eleven-minutes, each day, playing the scene over, with breaks for just visualizing and playing around with the scene and what I was creating. My friend, on the other hand, played it throughout the day, for a total of eleven-minutes. You don’t need to play it for eleven-minutes, but it’s the sweet spot for me, and it may be for you, too!

Step Five: Let Go And Surrender

Make sure to do this after each session, but on the fourth-day, it is time for you to let go and surrender. On that final day, it will be easy, for you have already done what is necessary, and you will know that there is no need to fear, to struggle, to strain, for all is well. All is well.

Resources,

https://medium.com/@maxwellakin/neville-goddards-method-for-creating-reality-556d9354f559

Prayers

Prayers in the Morning

This is the day the lord hath made, rejoice and be glad in it.

The rejuvenating, revitalizing power of God almighty flows through me like a golden river.

Revitalizing, transforming every atom of my being, so that every atom of my being dances to the rhythm of the eternal God.
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I AM the unconditioned Awareness of Being, and this unconditioned Awareness of Being becomes conditioned by imagining Itself to be something.

And this unconditioned Awareness of Being becomes that which it imagines itself to be.

Prayers at Night

I fully and freely forgive everyone, and I sincerely wish for them harmony, health, peace, and all the blessings of life. I am at peace, I am poised, serene, and calm. I rest in security and in peace. A great stillness steals over me, and a great calm quiets my whole being as I realize the Devine Presence within me. I know that the realization of life and love heals me.

I wrap myself in the mantle of love and fall asleep filled with goodwill for all. Throughout the night peace remains with me, and in the morning I shall be filled with life and love. A circle of love is drawn around me. I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. I sleep in peace, I wake in joy, and in him I live, move, and have my being.

How to Heal Yourself

My body and all its organs were created by the Infinite Intelligence in my subconscious mind. It knows how to heal me. Its wisdom fashioned all my organs, tissues, muscles, and bones. This Infinite Healing Presence within me is now transforming every cell of my being, making me whole and perfect. I give thanks for the healing I know is taking place at this time. Wonderful are the works of the creative intelligence within me.

Wealth

I am now writing in my subconscious mind the idea of God's wealth. God is the source of my supply. His riches flow to me freely, copiously, and abundantly. All my financial and other needs are met at every moment of time and point of space; there is always a divine surplus.

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Dr. Joseph Murphy

The Law, Three

The Law, Three

Leave the good and evil and eat of the Tree of Life. Nothing in the world is untrue if you want it to be true. You are the truth of everything that you perceive. “I am the truth, and the way, the life revealed.” If I have physically nothing in my pocket, then in Imagination I have MUCH. But that is a lie based on fact, but truth is based on the intensity of my imagination and then I will create it in my world. Should I accept facts and use them as to what I should imagine? No.

It is told us in the story of the fig tree. It did not bear for three years. One said, “Cut it down, and throw it away.” But the keeper of the vineyard pleaded NO”! Who is the tree? I am the tree; you are the tree. We bear or we do not. But the Keeper said he would dig around the tree and feed it – or manure it, as we would say today– and see if it will not bear. Well I do that here every week and try to get the tree – you – me to bear. You should bear whatever you desire. If you want to be happily married, you should be. The world is only response. If you want money, get it. Everything is a dream anyway. When you awake and know what you are creating and that you are creating it, that is a different thing.

The greatest book is the Bible, but it has been taken from a moral basis and it is all weeping and tears. It seems almost ruthless as given to us in the Gospel, if taken literally. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament, and it has nothing to do with morals. You change your mind and stay in that changed state until it unfolds. Man thinks he has to work himself out of something, but it is God asleep in you as a living soul, and then we are reborn as a life-giving spirit. We do it here in this little classroom called Earth or beyond the grave, for you cannot die. You can be just as asleep beyond the grave. I meet them constantly, and they are just like this. Same loves and same hates. No change. They will go through it until they finally awake, until they cease to re-act and begin to act.

Do not take this story lightly which I have told you tonight. Take it to heart. Tonight when you are driving home enact a scene. No matter what it is. Forget good and evil. Enact a scene that implies you have what you desire, and to the degree that you are faithful to that state, it will unfold in your world and no power can stop it, for there is no other power. Nothing is independent of your perception of it, and this goes for that great philosopher among us who is still claiming that everything is independent of the perceiver, but that the perceiver has certain powers. It is not so. Nothing is independent of the perceiver. Everything is “burned up” when I cease to behold it. It may exist for another, but not for me. Law of Attraction Haven Let us make our dream a noble one, for the world is infinite response to you, the being you want to be.

Neville Goddard,

From an edited lecture

The Law, Two

The Law, Two

There are infinite states intersecting the line of time. We become one with a certain state and it demonstrates itself in actual phenomena. Everyone here, it need not take you more than 30 seconds to bring about a change of state. What would it be like? And you name your desire. Remain in that state, and that state, by the passage of time, will unfold in your world. You do nothing about it once you have entered the state…for the outer must move by compulsion of the inner power…

Why not? The universe is infinite response. When you know that there is no one in the whole world could ever faze you, because he is a shadow. I have seen the whole world dead, completely frozen, and then I allowed something within me to start and everything became animated. Then you ask yourself a million questions. Who am I? What is it all about? Why? Everything here is responding to the imaginal activity within man…

If you make a fortune it means nothing. All the honors of men in a state of sleep are as nothing. You must “repent”. It has nothing to do with the so-called judgment of God. It is only a dream and man is reacting to the dream and he does not know that he is the dreamer and causing all the dream…

The literal meaning of the Greek word translated as repent means “a change of mind.” It has nothing to do with the moral picture. The churches introduced that, but it has nothing to do with it. I don’t care what a man has done, if he changes his mind in this meaning of the word “repent” things will change, for he is then on the line of vertical line of states. He stands at a point on the states. There are infinite states and we must learn to distinguish between the state and the individual occupying the state. But I can now change and move into another state. I can in Time, do it in a split second and Law of Attraction Haven rise on the vertical line of the states…

So, “I come, only to teach the cross.”, said Paul. I will rise within myself and ignore the former state, and within myself I will assume that things are as I want them to be. If I remain faithful, the passage of Time will unfold it. So, Blake said, “Eternity is in love with the productions of Time.” I tell you, do not let anyone ever convince you that because of your past accomplishments or your present state in the world that you cannot change your position by rising within yourself, and then see the whole world respond. And I mean NOW!...

The purpose of life is to awake. If the whole vast world or sleeping humanity thought her important, would she feel flattered? If in a dream everyone praised you and then you awoke and found it was all a dream, would you be flattered? One dreamer puts a medal on another dreamer, and they do not know it. It is only the awakening that is important. Awakening and doing the will of God. God’s will is in you active as your own Imagination, and His will is to realize the imaginal state. To realize something novel as this lady did or to maintain something to maintain in being, or to let things go that you feel are unlovely. I will do it all and only act, and stop re-acting. Then the whole book, The Bible, becomes alive. Leave all the “wise men to mock it or tolerate”. Let them reach the moon or the stars, they are all dead. Nothing lives outside of man. Man is the living soul, turning slowly into a life-giving Spirit. But you cannot tell it except in a parable or metaphor to excite the mind of man to get him to go out and prove it.

Neville Goddard,

from an edited lecture

The Law

The Law

The whole vast world is no more than man’s imagining pushed out. I must qualify that by saying that the world outside of man is dead, but Man is a living soul, and it responds to man, yet man is sound asleep and does not know it. The Lord God placed man in a profound sleep, and as he sleeps the world responds as in a dream, for Man does not know he is asleep, and then he moves from a state of sleep where he is only a living soul to an awakened state where he is a life-giving Spirit. And now he can himself create, for everything is responding to an activity in man which is Imagination. "The eternal body of man is all imagination; that is God himself."(Blake)…

We think everything in the world is completely independent from our perception of it, but the whole thing is dead. I see it, and come upon it, but the whole thing is dead…. frozen. Then I start an activity within me and then the world that was dead becomes alive, but not knowing I am doing it, I am sound asleep and then the whole thing takes over and it becomes a nightmare. But I must keep control and know it is dependant on me. The world is infinite response and the thing that makes it alive is the living soul called generic man (male-female). And then God wove Himself into the brain of this generic man, and then He sleeps. As man begins to awaken he controls and takes over, and is no longer a victim of his vision, so he has control of his attention. Everyone is free to create his world as he wants it – if he knows that the whole thing is responding to him…

On this level of the dream people think of getting even. It is a dream of confusion and people are reacting, but man has to awaken and become an actor. On this present level man is always reflecting life, not knowing he is the cause of all he observes. But when he awakens from the dream and then becomes an actor…

You can be anything in this world but you cannot know it or expect it to come unless you Act. If you react based on the past, you continue in the same pattern. To be the man you desire to be you must create the scene, and the whole world will be convulsed if that is necessary to bring it to pass. There is no other power but God, but God had to “forget” he was God in this state of sleep, and then He awakens and consciously determines the conditions he wants in the world…

For I, also, had to forget everything to become man. For when one goes and then returns he has to forget everything to become man. For when one goes, and then returns he has to forget everything, but he promises he will carry out his pledge and help man awaken. Then the living soul becomes a life-giving spirit, and then creates…

Take it seriously. Do not go through this with your dream un-acted. You tell yourselves, it must take time. What time? Read Corinthians 1:18, I could go before men with all the words of wisdom, but know only one thing, the cross. To the wise it is foolishness, etc. What is the cross? Think of it in this light. You began, seemingly in your mother’s womb and end in the grave. You do not, but you have that picture. Look on the horizontal line of the cross as time. Intersecting this vertical line and call that infinite states, like Jacobs ladder. At any section of time I can move up or down. Time is flowing and the state with which I am identified still unfolds…

Neville Goddard,

from an edited lecture

The Kabbalah Perspective

The Kabbalah Perspective

In Kabbalah, an individual gives up his or her quest for achieving an outcome and leaves the outcome to the invisible reality. In the life of Spirit, we are not interested in goals; we are not interested in bringing things to a head or to a conclusion. These functions belong to the domain of God. What we are interested in is opening ourselves to the invisible reality and letting it intervene for us. God said to Abraham and through Abraham to all of us: “I’ll give you everything, for the invisible reality is an endless resource. It’s limitless, it’s infinite, it’s eternal. And if you open yourself up to it, it will give you everything, but you have to open yourself up to it. And, remember, I am in charge of goals, results, outcomes.” Foregoing goals means accepting the existence – and the abundance – of Spirit.

If we are interested in an outcome, we block the path to healing because we block the invisible world from moving in to help and support us. The invisible world loves us, and it wants to give us everything, but we have to let it operate. If we are goal-orientated, we have co-opted the function of the invisible world; we have usurped the knowledge and power of God.

Intention, then is concerned with “process not product.” This is a shorthand way of framing the essence of the spiritual perspective of the kabbalistic system and of what Kabbalah sees as a key to attaining health. Product means the endpoint or goal. Process means focusing on the practice or technique you are doing. Your intention is your aim to heal, but your attention is on what you are doing to accomplish it. Your task is to focus on the process of taking charge of how you think. You approach the day with the faith that what then comes is what you need: in other words, the universe will support you.

Kabbalah For Inner Peace,
Gerald Epstein, MD