Neville Goddard Lecture, An Inner Conviction

An Inner Conviction

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AN INNER CONVICTION

I tell you that imagination creates reality and I ask you to imagine a state, any state, which would imply the fulfillment of your desire. It doesn‟t really matter what anyone else thinks; it‟s what you think that matters to you! If you create a scene which implies the fulfillment of your desire and dwell in it until you have an inner conviction that it is real, what does it matter what another thinks? In the Book of Habakkuk (which means “to embrace”) the prophet speaks to the Lord as: “Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold evil.” Then he asks the question: “Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up the righteous? I will take my stand upon the watchtower, to see and hear what people say to me and what I will answer.” Now the Lord speaks, saying: “Write the vision plain upon the tablets so that he who runs may read it. For the vision has its own appointed hour; it ripens and it will flower. If it be long, then wait, for it is sure and it will not be late.” There are those who try to rush everything into being.

 They try to force birth from conception, but it cannot be done. There are many experiences not recorded in scripture, and I am not here to stand in judgment of anyone as to whether they have experienced scripture or not. But I do know from experience that on this level, if you dare to assume you are what you want to be, your inner conviction, your feeling of certainty will bring it to pass. When you embrace the desired state, you have assumed its impregnation, and its fulfillment has its own appointed hour. It will ripen and flower. If the state is slow in objectifying itself wait, for it is sure and will not be late. I know that when I was told I could not get out of the island of Barbados for at least six months and I desired to leave immediately, I assumed I was walking up the gangplank of the ship. I felt the dampness of the rail and tasted the salt air of the sea with the feeling of certainty that I was leaving for America. I made that gangplank so real that I hadn‟t even broken the spell before the phone rang and I was offered passage for the following week.

Although I had been told that I was on the bottom of a list of over two thousand names, my family and I were singled out to board that ship. So I know that the truth of any concept is known by the feeling of a certainty, a peculiar knowingness that it is true. You can take this same concept into all levels of your being, for any desire is a concept. You can move into any desire and express it. Ask no one if you are entitled to it or if you did it – only you know what you did. It happened to you. Now wait for the vision (the desire‟s fulfillment) for it has its own appointed hour. It ripens, it will flower. If it seems long then wait, for it is sure and it will not be late. Returning to the overall picture of God‟s rising in Man, let us go back to the Book of Exodus, where we are told: “The time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, on that very day all the hosts of the Lord departed from Egypt. It was a night of watching by the Lord.” Then Moses is told to keep this night in memory. Scripture teaches a mystery. “Great indeed is the mystery of our religion.” The word “mystery” is defined as “a religious truth revealed by God that man cannot by reason alone discover.” Here is a doctrine of revealed truth. We are told in the 15th chapter of Genesis that “You and your descendants will be enslaved for four hundred years.”

Now, the number four hundred is the twenty-second letter of the Hebrew alphabet whose symbol is the cross. Your body (of beliefs) is the cross referred to as four hundred, and as long as you wear it you are enslaved in a land that is not yours. But in the end you will be brought out with great possessions! In the 12th chapter of Exodus, thirty years has been added to the four hundred, and in the New Testament it is said that Jesus began his ministry when he was about thirty years of age. In this world you are enslaved, and here you remain playing your part until you are embraced, impregnated, and thirty years later Christ is born in you and your trials and tribulations are over! So four hundred does not mean years, but thirty does. Four hundred records the length which Blake calls 6,000 or 8,500 years. Call it what you will, it is the period of time man plays his part in this world. Then comes the moment when, as Man, you are selected, called and embraced, and told to stand upon your watch; for the sign has its own appointed time to ripen and to flower, and that time is thirty years! My friend, Benny, does not remember the embrace, but I remember it well. It was in 1929. I was fully aware of the embrace, just as I was fully aware of its fulfillment in 1959, so I can tell anyone from my own experience how it happens, but I can‟t tell you when if you cannot remember the embrace. Only after impregnation can I prophesy as to what, and when these things will come into being. But I do know that God‟s law reflects all the way down to this world of Caesar. I do not know how long it takes for each egg to hatch in a nest, but I do know each one will hatch in its own time. And so it is with an assumption. If I desire to be wealthy, I may not know how long it will take me to reach the conviction that I possess great wealth, but when I feel wealth is mine I have conceived. Conception is my end.

The length of time between my desire and its conception depends entirely upon my inner conviction that it is done. A horse takes twelve months, a cow nine months, a chicken twenty-one days, so there are intervals of time; but it comes down to the simple fact that the truth concerning every concept is known by the feeling of its certainty. When you know it, not a thing can disturb your knowingness! In my own case, as I felt the gangplank under my feet and the salt mist on the rail of the ship in Barbados, the phone rang and passage was mine. There have been other times when it has taken longer. Unfortunately we do not keep an account to see how long it takes to come about after we have done it. But a concept is an egg and remains so until occupied. Occupy your desire! Feel its certainty and you can prophesy its fulfillment.

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