Neville Goddard – Unlocking The Secrets Of The Bible
“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 In telling the story of the soul, they personified this impersonal principle in the form of a historical document both to preserve it and to hide it from the eyes of the uninitiated.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.
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Prayer, like sleep, is also an entrance into the subconscious.
“When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret and your Father which is in secret shall reward you openly.”
Prayer is an illusion of sleep which diminishes the impression of the outer world and renders the mind more receptive to suggestion from within. The mind in prayer is in a state of relaxation and receptivity akin to the feeling attained just before dropping off to sleep.
Prayer is not so much what you ask for, as how you prepare for its reception.
“Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray believe that you have received them, and ye shall have them.”
The only condition required is that you believe that your prayers are already realized.
Your prayer must be answered if you assume the feeling that would be yours were you already in possession of your objective. The moment you accept the wish as an accomplished fact, the subconscious finds means for its realization.
To pray successfully then, you must yield to the wish, that is, feel the wish fulfilled.
The perfectly disciplined man is always in tune with the wish as an accomplished fact. He knows that consciousness is the one and only reality, that ideas and feelings are facts of consciousness and are as real as objects in space; therefore he never entertains a feeling which does not contribute to his happiness, for feelings are the causes of the actions and circumstances of his life.
. . . . . .
Moses stated,
“I AM that I AM.”
Now here is something to always bear in mind.
“You cannot put new wine in old bottles or new patches upon old garments.”
That is; you cannot take with you into the new consciousness any part of the old man. All of your present beliefs, fears and limitations are weights that bind you to your present level of consciousness. If you would transcend this level you must leave behind all that is now your present self, or conception of yourself.
To do this you take your attention away from all that is now your problem or limitation and dwell upon just being. That is; you say silently but feeling to yourself, “I AM.”
Do not condition this ‘awareness’ as yet. Just declare yourself to be, and continue to do so, until you are lost in the feeling of just being, faceless and formless.
When this expansion of consciousness is attained, then, within this formless deep of yourself, give form to the new conception by feeling yourself to be that which you desire to be.
You will find within this deep of yourself all things to be divinely possible. Everything in the world which you can conceive of being, is to you, within this present formless awareness, a most natural attainment.
The invitation given us in the Scriptures is “to be absent from the body and be present with the Lord.”
The ‘body’ being your former conception of yourself and ‘the Lord’, your awareness of being. This is what is meant when Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“Ye must be born again for except ye be born again ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
That is; except you leave behind you your present conception of yourself and assume the nature of the new birth, you will continue to out picture your present limitations.
The only way to change your expressions of life is to change your consciousness. For consciousness is the reality that eternally solidifies itself in the things round about you.
Man’s world in its every detail is his consciousness out pictured. You can no more change your environment, or world, by destroying things than you can your reflection by destroying the mirror.
Your environment, and all within it, reflects that which you are in consciousness. As long as you continue to be that in consciousness so long will you continue to out picture it in your world.
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There are two distinct centers of thought or outlooks on the world possessed by every man.
The Bible speaks of these two outlooks as natural and spiritual.
“The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness
unto him: neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned.”
Man’s inner body is as real in the world of subjective experience as his outer physical body is real in the world of external realities, but the inner body expresses a more fundamental part of reality. This existing inner body of man must be consciously exercised and directed. The inner world of thought and feeling to which the inner body is attuned has its real structure and exists in its own higher space.
There are two kinds of movement, one that is according to the inner body and another that is according to the outer body. The movement which is according to the inner body is causal, but the outer movement is under compulsion.
The inner movement determines the outer which is joined to it, bringing into the outer a movement that is similar to the actions of the inner body. Inner movement is the force by which all events are brought to pass. Outer movement is subject to the compulsion applied to it by the movement of the inner body.
Whenever the actions of the inner body match the actions which the outer must take to appease desire, that desire will be realized.
Construct mentally a drama which implies that your desire is realized and make it one which involves movement of self. Immobilize your outer physical self. Act precisely as though you were going to take a nap, and start the predetermined action in imagination.
A vivid representation of the action is the beginning of that action. Then, as you are falling asleep, consciously imagine yourself into the scene. The length of the sleep is not important, a short nap is sufficient, but carrying the action into sleep thickens fancy into fact.
At first your thoughts may be like rambling sheep that have no shepherd. Don’t despair. Should your attention stray seventy times seven, bring it back seventy times seven to its predetermined course until from sheer exhaustion it follows the appointed path.
The inner journey must never be without direction. When you take to the inner road, it is to do what you did mentally before you started. You go for the prize you have already seen and accepted.
