Chapter 2 of Freedom For All – Neville Goddard
It cannot be stated too often that consciousness is the one and only reality, for this is the truth that sets man free.
This is the foundation upon which the whole structure of biblical literature rests. The stories of the Bible are all mystical revelations written in an Eastern symbolism which reveals to the intuitive the secret of creation and the formula of escape.
The Bible is man’s attempt to express in words the cause and manner of creation.
Man discovered that his consciousness was the cause or creator of his world, so he proceeded to tell the story of creation in a series of symbolical stories known to us today as the Bible.
To understand this greatest of books you need a little intelligence and much intuition . . intelligence enough to enable you to read the book, and intuition enough to interpret and understand what you read.
You may ask why the Bible was written symbolically. Why was it not written in a clear, simple style so that all who read it might understand it? To these questions I reply that all men speak symbolically to that part of the world which differs from their own.
The language of the West is clear to us of the West, but it is symbolic to the East; and vice versa. An example of this can be found in the Easterner’s instruction:
“If thine hand offend thee, cut it off.”
He speaks of the hand, not as the hand of the body, but as any form of expression, and thereby he warns you to turn from that expression in your world which is offensive to you.
At the same time the man of the West would unintentionally mislead the man of the East by saying:
“This bank is on the rocks.”
For the expression
“on the rocks”
to the Westerner is equivalent to bankruptcy while a rock to an Easterner is a symbol of faith and security.
“I will like him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock.”
To really understand the message of the Bible you must bear in mind that it was written by the Eastern mind and therefore cannot be taken literally by those of the West.
Biologically, there is no difference between the East and the West. Love and hate are the same; hunger and thirst are the same; ambition and desire are the same; but the technique of expression is vastly different.
The first thing you must discover if you would unlock the secret of the Bible, is the meaning of the symbolic name of the creator which is known to all as Jehovah.
This word “Jehovah” is composed of the four Hebrew letters . . JOD HE VAU HE. The whole secret of creation is concealed within this name.
The first letter, JOD, represents the absolute state or consciousness unconditioned; the sense of undefined awareness; that all-inclusiveness out of which all creation or conditioned states of consciousness come. In the terminology of today JOD is I AM, or unconditioned consciousness.
The second letter, HE, represents the only begotten Son, a desire, an imaginary state. It symbolizes an idea; a defined subjective state or clarified mental picture.
The third letter, VAU, symbolizes the act of unifying or joining the conceiver (JOD), the consciousness desiring to the conception (HE), the state desired, so that the conceiver and the conception become one. Fixing a mental state, consciously defining yourself as the state desired, impressing upon yourself the fact that you are now that which you imagined or conceived as your objective, is the function of VAU.
It nails or joins the consciousness desiring to the thing desired. The cementing or joining process is accomplished subjectively by feeling the reality of that which is not yet objectified.
The fourth letter, HE, represents the objectifying of this subjective agreement. The JOD HE VAU makes man or the manifested world (HE), in the image and likeness of itself, the subjective conscious state. So the function of the final HE is to objectively bear witness to the subjective state JOD HE VAU. Conditioned consciousness continually objectifies itself on the screen of space. The world is the image and likeness of the subjective conscious state which created it. The visible world of itself can do nothing; it only bears record of its creator, the subjective state. It is the visible Son (HE) bearing witness of the invisible Father, Son and Mother . . JOD HE VAU . . a Holy Trinity which can only be seen when made visible as man or manifestation.
Your unconditioned consciousness (JOD) is your I AM which visualizes or imagines a desirable state (HE), and then becomes conscious of being that state imagined by feeling and believing itself to be the imagined state. The conscious union between you who desire and that which you desire to be, is made possible through the VAU, or your capacity to feel and believe. Believing is simply living in the feeling of actually being the state imagined, by assuming the consciousness of being the state desired. The subjective state symbolized as JOD HE VAU then objectifies itself as HE, thereby completing the mystery of the creator’s name and nature, JOD HE VAU HE (Jehovah). JOD is to be aware; HE is to be aware of something; VAU is to be aware as, or to be aware of being that which you were only aware of. The second HE is your visible objectified world which is made in the image and likeness of the JOD HE VAU, or that which you are aware of being.
“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.”
Let us, JOD HE VAU make the objective manifestation (HE) in our image, the image of the subjective state. The world is the objectified likeness of the subjective conscious state in which consciousness abides.
This understanding that consciousness is the one and only reality is the foundation of the Bible.
The stories of the Bible are attempts to reveal in symbolic language the secret of creation as well as to show man the one formula to escape from all of his own creations.
This is the true meaning of the name of Jehovah, the name by which all things are made and without which there is nothing made that is made.
First, you are aware; then you become aware of something; then you become aware as that which you were aware of; then you behold objectively that which you are aware of being.