I Am Reality Called Imagination - Neville Goddard

0:00We will be here every Monday and Friday through April, same place, same time. I think you will find tonight a very practical message. But to understand it, we must go back and see if we really believe the same thing. I make the claim that the eternal body of man is the imagination and that is God Himself. The one we speak of in Scripture as Jesus Christ. Now we are told in Scripture to examine ourselves to see whether we are holding to the faith. Test yourselves, said Paul, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you

1:01unless of course you fail to meet the test. Now you have just had the test and you and you alone can judge whether you failed or not. For you heard the word Jesus Christ. You heard the word God. Now if it conveyed the sense of an existence something outside of man, you fail the test. If when you hear the word God or the word Jesus or the word Christ, the word Lord and the mind jumps to something outside of you outside of man, you fail the test. Now we are told by Him all things were made and without Him was not anything made that was made and that I tell you is your own wonderful human imagination.

2:02What is now proved in the world was one's only imagined. Well this is the greatest of all secrets, the secret of imagining. Something that you and I in every one of the world should strive to understand for the secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems to the solution of which everyone should aspire. For supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lies in the solution of this mystery. When you actually discover it, you discover God, you are finding the creative power of the universe. And when you are finding He is your own wonderful human imagination. You can only really scratch the surface of this mystery. One imagination it seems will do little for our wish

3:11until we have imagined the wish fulfilled. As Shakespeare said, it has been taught us from the primal state, that that which is was wished until it were. So you and I want something and we define our objective of how to realize it. If this power is within us, then we are the operant power. We do not seek any one on the outside. It seems to be within us. Well how do I operate it? If I could put it in this simple little frame, the subjective appropriation of the objective hope is the way to success. It's imagining as if it were true. What would the feeling be like if it were true?

4:12So I start from the feeling of the wish fulfilled. I must begin by feeling that I have already arrived. I have already achieved my goal and catch the mood that would be mine if it were true. And then where that mood? If I were that mood as if it were true, I have realized it in my world. A friend of mine was here tonight. She thought that she had failed. This passed November in her visit to Bukipsi, Bukipsi, Fritz Pitzberg. Fritz reversed that she knew well and they were a little bit down because of the same seeming recession. One trend had worked for 27 years, a Jones and Lockford or the great big steel firms of our country.

5:16In the months of September and October, they let out 4,000 workers. He had to put in three more years, three years and two months to complete a 30 year service with the firm. After 30 years he could retire at a very good. I would say retirement fund, but he also had six more years ago for his social security. And there that out 4,000 and then he was rumored in the plant that they're going to close that plant. She reminded him of the use of imagination which he had used when he was successfully in her previous visit to Bukipsi, where he left it off. Those things would have happened anyway. She reminded him of six distinct requests on his spot that he thought he could not realize. Everyone came to pass as she reminded him.

6:23I think he took a vision of mine and explained it to him. She said, what I told you the last time, it never had a vision. Well, the Bible tells us that the depth for own being speaks to us through the medium of dreams and vision. So here in this dream of mine, for the dream if you will, it was just as real as this, I was taken in spirit into an enormous mansion. And here three generations were present, but one was invisible and that was the grandfather. The father was explaining to his children the secret of his own father's success. So there was the grandfather, that departed from the world, leading behind him an enormous fortune for the benefit of his son and then his grandchildren.

7:24And so the father said to the children, grandfather used to say, while standing on an empty lot, I remember when this was an empty lot. Then he would take a word picture, so vividly, of what he intended to do with that empty lot. There is cease to be an empty lot and you saw the structure that he intended to build. But he acted as though it was already a completed act. He began with the feeling of having arrived at his ideal for that empty lot. Then I woke up in my bed and I recalled the dream and I knew that the depth of my own being had constructed that scene to instruct me. There is one facet of the great use of this power,

8:26called imagination, which is God. It was too early to rise, so I went back to sleep and I re-greem the dream. This time I am the grandfather. I am not the father telling the story. I am not aneli's brother listing the story as it was told in the original dream, I am now the grandfather. Then I would say to everyone, by standing on an empty lot, I remember when this was an empty lot. So she reminded him of this technique. Now she said, you are afraid that you might be let out. After 27 years and two months in Jones and Lockton, I will now remember when you were afraid. I will remember when you thought it all came to an end. That's one. He said two years ago,

9:36I was interviewed and I thought of a very good interview, but after two years it has never appeared in the trade paper. I wondered what have they done with it. Have they simply forgotten it, mislated or deliberately not used it. She said, I will read that magazine. I will be lifted up by it. It is human sea written as you tell me, but I will take that book right now in my hand that magazine and I will read it all about you. She went into two or three others. Then she returned. Now she's here tonight. She said, in December, I received the magazine. It's very well written and very, very humorous all about this man. Then she said, I heard on the radio that Jones and Lockton had decided not to close the plant,

10:37but instead to spend $13 million on the plant in modernizing. They began January 1st to recall to recall over 4,000 workers that they had let out. Now he is walking on air, but like all of these fellows, he will still forget it. He will still turn to a god outside of himself. This to him would have happened anyway. They would have spent the 13 million, got back the 4,000. That thing that was found after two years and printed, all that would have happened and man those blindly on worship in a false god, because he does not know God. The only god is your own wonderful human imagination. The only name for ever and forever that is his name is I Am.

11:40So that is my name forever. So when you come to the people of Israel and they ask you what is his name, just to say, I am, that is who I am. And by this name I shall be known throughout all generations. There is no other name. You cannot separate I Am from yourself, that's your essential being. And when you say I Am, you are all imagination. You cannot stick imagination on the outside and point to it. So you do not observe it as you observe the fruit of imagining. You do not observe imagination as you do object in space because you are the reality that is called imagination. This is what we teach here, night after night. Now you contest it. What would the feeling be like?

12:42If it were true that I am now the man that I would like to be, what would the feeling be like? Catch the mood. For the mood determines the fortunes of people rather than the fortunes determine the mood. I input to just the opposite. If I had a million, he said, oh I will feel so good. Now feel as you if you had it. Catch the mood and the mood will create that objective hope if that is your hope. What would the feeling be like if you were now the person you want to be? When catch that mood. And where that mood as you would as to the clothes. And that mood will actually create an objective state that reflects that mood. That's what he did. He put herself into a mood. That's the feeling that you was reading a story of her friend. And here it came. It's a complete straight two four pages all about this man.

13:46And then a little news burden on the radio. And then confirmation from him. Our telephone call from his wife confirming the news burden. That they're all back on their job. And here now, as he said for years, after 27 years, I walked through that plant. I thought I'd go crazy. I wanted to climb the wall because of the noise. But I heard the hammers and the bells and the furnaces and all these thousands of workmen that constant constant din I want to climb the wall. Now, after 4,000 were let out, my footsteps echoed through the entire area. I would like to run and scream running towards my office. What he does in the plant I do not know. If he goes towards his office and Douthi has an executive position in that place and is done working at the furnaces, but you can't imagine when 4,000 were let out. How empty the place was.

14:54And everything simply echoed and my footsteps seemed like some hundredth thing as I walk through that plant towards my office. And many a moment I wanted to simply jump up and start running. It seemed so empty. She said, all right, that's something. I will remember when and she applied that technique. When your footsteps scared you and you wanted to run towards the office. Now is the crack all over again. So I tell you, I know from my own experience that these moves, you catch a move, I could tell from the move that possessed me through the day that I would need a certain character. And I met that character. It may be someone I knew or some total stranger, but I could tell from the very move that possessed me, I'm drawing into my world an affinity with that move. You catch a move and create the world that is in harmony with the move.

15:55Anyone can do it. In fact, you're doing it morning, noon and night anyway. So when you turn to some external God, you're turning to a false God. There is no external God. Examine yourself, said Paul, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you fail to meet the test? You've just had the test. So if you think of something on the outside, but I use the word Jesus Christ, you have the wrong Jesus Christ. For we are told by him all things were made. And without him was not anything made, it is made. Look into the room. All this was once only imagined. The suit you wear, the dresses you wear, the hats you wear. Everything here, the buildings, was once only conceived in the human imagination. And they're executing. And if all things were made by him, well, then I come down to find out

17:01who he is. Well, I can go beyond my own imagination. I know exactly what I imagined. I see the results. So I go back. All things made by him. Yes, good, bad and indifferent. He waits on the justice quickly and just as indifferent when the will in me is evil as when it is good. Is that in Scripture? You'll find it in Scripture. Read it in the book of Deuteronomy. I kill. I make a lie. I wound. I heal. I'm none can deliver out of my hand. I am the Lord. Read it. See that the 32nd chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. There is new of the God. I am the Lord, your God, and besides me there is no other God. I am. Is that God? As if you're told in the 46th Psalm, be still and know that I am God.

18:11A man will not believe it. And yet he has evidence morning, noon and night that his own wonderful creative power, which is his own wonderful human imagination, is producing the phenomena of life. He sees it all around him, but he's chanted away. It's easier for him to genuille like before some little thing made by the human hand. So he put him on the wall and crossed himself for luck. I think, oh, that's it. That's good. Now I've done my duty today. So he goes to church and he sings the hymns with all the others. And he thinks, no, I've done my duty and give jealousy to the church. So if you're all right, if you get any pressure out of it, do it. But that's not serving the true God. If you want a social gathering, certainly go to church. Go to the coffee breaks, follow me the service and ask one percent of those who come out of service. What was the text today? And he will look at you with a break and look, what?

19:12What was the text? What did he say? What was the theme of his subject today? They don't know. But it's a place to go on certain days of the year, especially on Christmas, on Easter and days of that nature. Others make it at a point to go once a week. They think they're doing God a favor. You're walking with God, non-ing new and night. You're taking to faith with Him because your essential being is God. And there is no other God. We're in up within you. You couldn't even breathe. Your breath is God. Every child born a woman is God incarnate. If man only knew that, there could be no war in the world. Killing man is killing God. For every child born a woman is the incarnation of God. Whether you be black, yellow, pink, white or any other color, there is no other being

20:12in this world but God. So the incarnation takes place every time a little child is born and it rees and you spank it to get it to cry. That moment was the incarnation of God. How can you kill Him? How can you hurt Him? Just teach Him and show Him what power is latent within Him. For the whole vast world aches for the awakening of the imagination in man. And the story as told us in scripture is a true story but not as it's told. The day will come, you'll actually find yourself re-enacting the entire drama as told us in the gospel. And you will know it in the first person's synchronous, present tense experience. And then you'll know who he is. He comes to us as one unknown, yet one who in the most wonderful mysterious man

21:14lets man experience who he is. And when you experience who he is, it's all about you. It's not about another. The whole vast drama is all about the individuals that you see as a little child right in this wonderful world about us. But here tonight let us keep it on this level. And on this level tonight when you dream of some wonderful objective is this world that is not yet realized, realize who the dreamer is and the dreamer is God. And by dreamer I'm in your own wonderful imagination now. A day dream. That's God. That's God in action. Now do not let your reason and your senses dictate what is possible. All things are possible to God. So, sustain for a moment your reason. So, sustain the senses that are dictating what you must accept for their demanding of you, accept the facts of life. All right? If you could accept the facts

22:20and let the reason dictate it, you'll never go beyond where you are. So, sustain them just for a moment and try this technique. What would the feeling be like? How would I feel if they were true that I am already the man that I would like to be? And if I am, how would I see my friends and how would they see me? It's all within us. So, let my wonderful human imagination see them as they would have to see me if it were true. Bring into my mind's eye and let them see me and let them talk to me and let them congratulate me on my good fortune. And don't duck, accept the congratulations of your friends. If they really mean it, actually play the part all within yourself. And then believe it 100%. As we are telling John's letter, the fifth chapter of his first episode,

23:22if we believe that he hears us, it all that we ask of him, then we know that we have obtained the request made of him. What if you get the right God? You have no doubt in your mind as to whether he heard you or not, or you know you heard it and that's God. But if you're not quite sure that he heard it, because there are three billion talking to him baking, well then you may be not quite sure that he heard you. But if you don't think you're good enough, but you can deny that you hear your own mind, you hear your own inner conversation, you hear your own inner speech, well if you know that one is God, well then you are sure he heard you. Now you are told in that fifth chapter, the 15th verse of 1st Epiperson LeBiard, if we know that he hears us, in all that we ask of him, then we know that we have already obtained the request made of him.

24:27Well all right, there's an interval between that imaginal act and its fulfillment. As there is between the creative act of a man and the birth of that child, every little thing has an interval of time between the act and its fulfillment. A horse will take 12 months, a woman takes 9 months, the little sheep will take 5 months, a chicken will take 21 days, there are intervals of time, so the Bible teaches every vision has its own appointed hour, its ripens, its will flower, if it be late, then wait for it is sure and it will not be late. Different intervals of time, so it may take me a longer time, in this case with this man, two months to bring back 4000 who were unemployed. To put his mind at rest, that he doesn't have now to feel that he's going to be fired,

25:36he can put in now the extra time, only a little while, three years and two months will complete his 30 years with Jones and Lockham, and then what's a man of his age, six more years and then social security, so he would have both, if it happened now he wouldn't have it, he would be cut on social security and he would be let out without a good retirement fund, so she goes back and she reminds him that it happened before, he couldn't afford the roof for the house and she said I will see the roof on the house, I remember when it needs a roof and so she said, remember she told him, I recall telling you I remember waiting, he needed it, but soon after something happened in his work, he got the money and the roof is on, the wife wanted an organ, couldn't afford the organ, all right, she said I remember when you didn't have one, she has the organ and she took one after

26:40the other of all these things, he's still with all the evidence in the world, he's still working on some outside God, he thinks he's doing the wrong thing, he feels that if for chance that man is simply a devil incarnate and he's taken me from my real God which means something external to himself that he passions out of his own mind and passions with his hand because all these little nonsense that you buy and stick them up as holy objects, first of all no artist really ever designed them, they said a prince to speak of an artist when you see these horrible monstrosities that we buy and stick around the place and call them religious objects, so find who he is, he's the living God, he's the dead God, you want to find either 115 Psalm about the kind of God's main worship,

27:41the whole Psalm is devoted to the false God that the whole vast world worships, chagized but he sees not, he hears not, sees any walks not, hands and he touches not, just a dead thing made by human hands when the living God is with the man as his own wonderful human imagination, so I tell you that all that you behold though it appears without it is within in your own wonderful human imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow, all things exist in the human imagination and everything you see as an objective reality was produced by imagining, think of one thing, just think of one thing that would simply deny it, you can't think of one thing, so you go to the moon, you first had to imagine it,

28:42had to imagine everything concerning the machine that took you to the moon, everything in the world first has to be imagined and then executed, all right the intelligence that will come but you take the blueprint first and conceive it and dwell in it as though it would true and no power on earth can stop it from becoming self, your visions will clarify itself, that died, it's a different kind of a night, your days are different, you see people differently, you can't walk by any man and not see him God incarnate, can do it even if he has the most horrible background and he says simply well, a murderer and it's proven that he is, you still see God incarnate but so some deceit the poor thing doesn't know, if you can only just get to it and show him that he really is God incarnate and the one he thought he killed is he is going to be stortalized, not to the

29:47senses of man but he is restored in a world just like this, still as true just like this, about his business he continues his work until he too awakens from this dream of life with all will await it eventually but why not start now, start now to tell man who you really is, God and man are one, man is all imagination and God is man and exists in us and we in him, the eternal body of man is the imagination that is God himself, nothing but God in the universe, oh God and eventually you and I will awake and because God is one not two you and I are one without loss of identity that's one the spangest mispeeds in the world without loss of identity we are one, I know that from my own

30:52personal experience we are one and yet I have individualized and you are individualized and we attain forever and forever so whatever greater and greater individualization and yet we are one and I will bring that out to the best viability as we proceed with these degrees of practice you will hear it but tonight if you are here for the first time and you want something practical you apply what I have told you first have an objective you must have a objective you can say well I don't know what I want well all right come back the next time ask yourself what would I like of life don't be ashamed to name it what would I like of life for they in fight against the objective now prayer as far as I'm concerned is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective

31:59hope that is the way to success I appropriated subjectively how do I appropriate a state subjectically well suppose now this very moment I wanted a brawl an ordinary baseball but there is no baseball in the room all right but I want one I would actually assume that I am holding a baseball in my hand until I could feel it you think you can't feel it well now try it try to feel what it would be like if you held a baseball now the proof that you have held it see what it feels like the difference now a tennis ball silly difference well I like a golf ball silly difference a piece of soap you feel any difference if you can distinguish between these many objects those they are subjective then there must exist somewhere

33:01if you could actually separate them in your mind's eye and distinguish between these objects I can begin to feel again to sense the game to smell a rose well a rose doesn't smell or doesn't actually have the odor of another flower I can detect the rose now a lily an Easter lily I can detect that for what they said do well I'm going to get them so one must be of never and send him a flower and let's go with the flower if I'm going to actually feel and touch and smell they work that way money has an odor is unlike any out of the world is more fragrant to the miser than the most marvellous perfume in the world he can tell it you put a money back to his face as like putting roses to mind he loves it he can smell money

34:04can feel it money has a distinct feel about it but a twenty dollar bill in your hand and ask you to feel it and then put another piece of paper in your hand and you can tell the difference this is different it is an odor to it all this is part of the inner man that all things are possible to him try it before you condemn it try it and if you have the evidence to support my claim but then it doesn't matter what the world will tell you if you last action so what so the last of everyone who had an idea that seemed a little bit far sent down always that they had him the last of the idea of going to the moon well now it's a the accomplished fact there still those who won't believe it happened you know because they don't want to believe it ever happened those who said you couldn't go down and actually live underwater now we have a submarine there still those who won't believe it you can present it with all the

35:05facts in the world and they won't believe so I tell you you tried first and it approves its in performance it doesn't really matter what the whole vast world thinks go about your father's business which is yourself and then live a full and wonderful life in this world of Caesar and the day will come you will actually depart this world I mean this age because those were departing it now unless they are awakened they're still find themselves in a world just like this but those who have awakened who've experienced the second birth the birth from above find themselves in an entirely different age where they're all imagination and they are perfect wherever they go everything is perfect they don't have the rate of finger to make anything perfect because they're perfect all things must conform to them for their perfect that's heaven so heaven is not an

36:09area it's not a realm it's a body and when that body is awakened within you which is the wonderful human imagination completely awake then wherever you go close in that body that is completely awake everything is perfect if you found yourself in a forest of day three that are birthed in the foliage in the desert it all blue like the roads because you are there no blind man death man no handicap man could stand in your presence he will be instantly transformed into a perfect man because you are perfect that heaven it's harmony so it's not a place where you're going to go for these feet and all that nonsense no it's just simply you in a world that is perfect because you are perfect and the day will come you will awaken that body worth in you now that body is in you but it's

37:10sun the sleep one day you will experience the resurrection and you'll know the mystery of the resurrection when you rise and rise within yourself for the grave in which Christ is buried which the Lord is buried is your own scum that's where he's buried and in that tomb where he's buried one day he will awake and he will come out of that tomb and it's you who comes out the field and you'll know who you are he is buried in every child in the world this universal being and yet one millions of us and yet only one Lord that one Lord in his fullness is buried in you individually and when you awaken you are here so tonight take a go make it a lovely go either for

38:16yourself or for another for anytime that you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another you're mediating God to that hour so bring a friend before your mind's eye represent him to yourself as the man or the woman that you will like them to be and don't tell them as for no praise just assume that they're talking to you and telling you the most marvelous news about themselves and you congratulate them on that good news and go your own way believe in the reality of that imaginal act they may happen tomorrow it may happen a day after all a week later or a month later it had its own appointed hour and it is rightening and it's going to flower so don't be concerned leave it alone and it will come to pass so this is what I mean by feeling is the secret

39:17I catch the mood the feeling that would be mine if I were what I want to be I don't have to touch something I can if I want to but it's the mood I'm speaking of what would the feeling be like if she were well if she were this and then you catch it just as though it is true you always go to the end and the end is where you begin you always imagine a head of our evidence so go to the end and feel the end and then go in that end even though reason denies it and your senses denies you turn your back upon the doubt is that is your senses and what reason dictate that's the hell or the devil or Satan in the world that's the doubt so you turn your back upon it and then you walk as those things were as you want them to be and living in that assumption it slowly hardens into fact even though at the

40:21moment of the assumption it was denied by reason an assumption so far if persisted in will harden into fact so you learn to assume and learn to persist in the assumption and it will come to pass now let us go into the silence after which we have questions

41:43but I hope you call it good mood it will work now are there any questions please any questions yes sir well to answer your question I must go back and explain it to those who are here for the first time no no no no I make the statement based upon my own experience that nothing dies that's not only true of man this true of the flowers of the animal world of the grief of everything nothing dies I am the god of the living not of the dead so nothing dies the little flower the

42:44bloom is one bloom forever it's renewed by the seed of contemplative thoughts but I had a wonderful friend and secretary he died suddenly at the age of 50 when I was out here I've then lived in New York City he was born in Havaspur New York which is upstate New York he lived in Manhattan and took care of my books and took care of all of my business affairs when I got a cable saying that he was dead they found his body on the floor the next morning when they went to clean and I must come back and take care of the funeral of affairs so I went back I have two sister-in-lawed my wife is one of three girls the other two are pillars of the a physical church the older the two lives in subitre you journey and she's always said to me you know I like to personally as a brother-in-law because you're kind to my sister and to your child

43:50and for that I like to but I don't believe one word you talk about that's not my god I said all right he's I don't believe in immortality don't believe in survival I said you call yourself a Christian she what is that to do with it I said did you realize that the Christian foundation is the fatherhood of God the brotherhood of man and light everlasting you're one of these and it's gonna collapse now she didn't say a word just still don't believe what you teach totally all right well he died in office I went back into care the funeral in the next year I presume around January or February I found myself consciously in that world where Jack is I do it time and time again this does not restrain me I can put it on a bed and

44:53find myself in another world it is not real it's right here they're penetrating each other and yet not interfering with each other and here is Jack and here is my sister-in-law Al like our our name is Alice and I said she said to me I still don't believe what you teach you know either how can you say that when you see Jack she did what has Jack to do with it like the note you know that Jack died yet then spoke to me who's dead I said you aren't dead Jack what you died I went to your funeral I paid for it I got your good Catholic funeral Jack because your sister insisted that you must be given a nice Catholic funeral I didn't cremate you I put you in holy ground Jack I got a priest and a priest did all the little things he has to do so you're very well planted