Chapter 1 of Freedom For All – Neville Goddard
HEAR, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord. Hear, O Israel:
Hear, O man made of the very substance of God: You and God are one and undivided! Man, the world and all within it are conditioned states of the unconditioned one, God.
You are this one; you are God conditioned as man. All that you believe God to be, you are; but you will never know this to be true until you stop claiming it of another, and recognize this seeming other to be yourself.
God and man, spirit and matter, the formless and the formed, the creator and the creation, the cause and the effect, your Father and you are one.
This one, in whom all conditioned states live and move and have their being, is your I AM, your unconditioned consciousness.
Unconditioned consciousness is God, the one and only reality.
By unconditioned consciousness is meant a sense of awareness; a sense of knowing that I AM apart from knowing who I AM; the consciousness of being, divorced from that which I am conscious of being. I AM aware of being man, but I need not be man to be aware of being.
Before I became aware of being someone, I, unconditioned awareness, was aware of being, and this awareness does not depend upon being someone. I AM self-existent, unconditioned consciousness; I became aware of being someone; and I shall become aware of being someone other than this that I am now aware of being; but I AM eternally aware of being whether I AM unconditioned formlessness or I AM conditioned form.
As the conditioned state, I (man), might forget who I am, or where I am, but I cannot forget that I AM.
This knowing that I AM, this awareness of being, is the only reality.
This unconditioned consciousness, the I AM, is that knowing reality in whom all conditioned states . . conceptions of myself . . begin and end, but which ever remains the unknown knowing being when all the known ceases to be.
All that I have ever believed myself to be, all that I now believe myself to be, and all that I shall ever believe myself to be, are but attempts to know myself . . the unknown, undefined reality.
This unknown knowing one, or unconditioned consciousness, is my true being, the one and only reality. I AM the unconditioned reality conditioned as that which I believe myself to be.
I AM the believer limited by my beliefs, the knower defined by the known.
The world is my conditioned consciousness objectified. That which I feel and believe to be true of myself is now projected in space as my world. The world, my mirrored self, ever bears witness of the state of consciousness in which I live.
There is no chance or accident responsible for the things that happen to me or the environment in which I find myself. Nor is predestined fate the author of my fortunes or misfortunes. Innocence and guilt are mere words with no meaning to the law of consciousness, except as they reflect the state of consciousness itself.
The consciousness of guilt calls forth condemnation. The consciousness of lack produces poverty. Man everlastingly objectifies the state of consciousness in which he abides but he has somehow or other become confused in the interpretation of the law of cause and effect.
He has forgotten that it is the inner state which is the cause of the outer manifestation . .
“As within, so without”
and in his forgetfulness he believes that an outside God has his own peculiar reason for doing things, such reasons being beyond the comprehension of mere man; or he believes that people are suffering because of past mistakes which have been forgotten by the conscious mind; or, again, that blind chance alone plays the part of God.
One day man will realize that his own I AM-ness is the God he has been seeking throughout the ages, and that his own sense of awareness . . his consciousness of being . . is the one and only reality.
The most difficult thing for man to really grasp is this:
That the “I AM-ness” in himself is God. It is his true being or Father state, the only state he can be sure of. The Son, his conception of himself, is an illusion.
He always knows that he is, but that which he is, is an illusion created by himself (the Father) in an attempt at self-definition.
This discovery reveals that all that I have believed God to be, I AM.
“I AM the resurrection and the life”
is a statement of fact concerning my consciousness, for my consciousness resurrects or makes visibly alive that which I AM conscious of being.
“I AM the door … all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers”
shows me that my consciousness is the one and only entrance into the world of expression; that by assuming the consciousness of being or possessing the thing which I desire to be or possess is the only way by which I can become it or possess it; that any attempt to express this desirable state in ways other than by assuming the consciousness of being or possessing it, is to be robbed of the joy of expression and possession.
“I AM the beginning and the end”
reveals my consciousness as the cause of the birth and death of all expression.
“I AM hath sent me”
reveals my consciousness to be the Lord which sends me into the world in the image and likeness of that which I am conscious of being to live in a world composed of all that I am conscious of.
“I AM the Lord, and there is no God beside me,”
declares my consciousness to be the one and only Lord and beside my consciousness there is no God.
“Be still and know that I AM God”
means that I should still the mind and know that consciousness is God.
“Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
“I AM the Lord: that is My Name.”
Now that you have discovered your I AM, your consciousness to be God, do not claim anything to be true of yourself that you would not claim to be true of God, for in defining yourself, you are defining God.
That which you are conscious of being is that which you have named God. God and man are one. You and your Father are one.
Your unconditioned consciousness, or I AM, and that which you are conscious of being, are one. The conceiver and the conception are one.
If your conception of yourself is less than that which you claim as true of God, you have robbed God, the Father, because you (the Son or conception) bear witness of the Father or conceiver.
Do not take the magical Name of God, I AM, in vain for you will not be held guiltless; you must express all that you claim yourself to be. Name God by consciously defining yourself as your highest ideal.