Neville Goddard Lecture, Faith

Faith

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FAITH

The Bible defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, Revised Standard Version) What is seen is made out of things that do not appear. Faith does not give reality to things that are not seen. It is loyalty to reality that makes things appear. Can I see the facts the world sees and still believe in the unseen state? If I can remain loyal to the unseen state, in some way I will get confirmation of it. John 14:1-3: “ . . . ye believe in God, believe also in me. “In my Father‟s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” This is not Jesus Christ talking to a disciple on the outside; it is I talking to myself. If all things are made by God, and without Him is not anything made that is made (John 1:3), then where is God? In my Imagination! You aren‟t called upon to make the things. All things already are. The whole, vast creation is already finished; I am only becoming aware of it. Any state that I can imagine can be occupied.

 The whole thing is finished, and all I do is adjust to it and “feel” myself there until it becomes natural. You don‟t give reality to the unseen; it is loyalty to the unseen reality that gives it objectivity. You can revise the past. We, you and I, are here, born by the Grace of God, and yet we dare to put a limit on the power of God. Our “sin” is our doubt of God. “Some men see things as they are and say: Why? I dream things that never were and say: Why not? (George Bernard Shaw). Sen. Ted Kennedy used this quotation in his eulogy of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy without giving credit to the author, however Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was known to quote it many times, giving credit to George Bernard Shaw I know that I must be whatever I am in Imagination. So don‟t treat this principle lightly. You truly move yourself into states mentally, wittingly or unwittingly. A bridge of incidents will develop, over which you will pass until the [state is fulfilled] like pure imagining in us, and that He works in the very depths of our soul, underlying all of our faculties, including perception; but He streams into the surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy, like a daydream – just a simple daydream. I think of someone who is maybe a thousand miles away. Well, that act – that perceptive act, unseen by any one, that was God-in-action. Well, can I believe in the reality of that act? Can I represent him to myself as I would like to see him in the flesh? Can I see him successful? Can I see him, well, as I want to see him, and believe in the reality of that unseen state?

If I can remain loyal to that unseen reality, I will have confirmation that he is the being that I am assuming that he is. Some one will write me or maybe I‟ll meet him in the flesh, but in some way I will get confirmation that what I think I see in him or desire to see in him, and persuade myself that I do see in him, [that] it will come to pass. Now, one day, in reading the 14th chapter of the book of John, having been told that Christ is in me, and here is Christ now speaking to the disciples, (well, if he is in me, what is he trying to tell me? He is speaking to the disciples)…he said: “You believe in God, believe in me also. In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you? Would I have told you that I go prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye shall be also.” (John 14:1-3) Well, it came to me as I read it, from some peculiar intuitive depth, that I am not talking to a disciple (something on the outside). I‟m talking to myself! This whole conversation is something within myself. I take the body called Neville –this visible thing that is weak and limited and fragile, and I‟m talking to it. You can‟t go; you‟re limited. It will take time to get there; it‟ll take money to get there. Maybe you can‟t afford either the time or the money. But it will take me – if I‟m Imagination – to go any place in this world without money, and I don‟t need time.

 I can sit in a chair and put my body, cumbersome as it is, on a chair or on a bed, and if I am all Imagination, and God is in man as man‟s own wonderful human Imagination, then I can be any place in this world that I desire to be. So, I can go and prepare a place. So, I tried it. I tried assuming that I am where reason would deny it, my senses deny it, but I remained in that state until it seemed natural to me, just seemed natural. Well, then, I went there. And, then, I opened my eyes upon the world that I had shut out, and it was a shock to find myself back in the chair. Well, I if I analyze it, it seems stupid. What I did – it seemed real while I did it, and then one second later, here I am on my chair, and everything I see in my room denies that I did anything that the world would call real. But I did it! And, then, in the not-distant future, I was forced across a series of events, which led up to the fulfillment of that state. Now, I did it on a very cold winter night in New York City. I had brought out my first book, called Your Faith is Your Fortune, in the month of February in 1941. It was so cold – twelve or fourteen inches of snow on the ground – and I expected in those days simply a voluntary offering on the part of those who came. And many came just for contacts. They didn‟t care what I had to say. They came to meet people, and they would go out for their coffee klatches and all these things after the meeting. I didn‟t care. It was a crowded house – over a thousand people – in a little old church off Times Square. I expected that night, when I brought out my book, Your Faith is Your Fortune, that there would be the usual thousand, and this night because of the weather they couldn‟t get through the snow, I think we had a hundred and fifty people, and there was a certain personal disappointment, because here was my first effort in bringing out a book. And, so I had my books there and a hundred and fifty came, not prepared to buy the book, and so, we packed up at the end of the talk.

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