Neville Goddard Lecture, Seedtime and Harvest 1956

Seedtime and Harvest 1956

Complete Neville Goddard Lecture Audio Available in Members Area

SEEDTIME AND HARVEST

As you have been told, this morning’s subject is Seedtime and Harvest. Although it bears the same title as my latest book, it is not to be found in that book, for that book is an attempt to interpret some of the more difficult passages of the Bible. I have given you in the nine chapters a mystical view, and also a certain approach how you yourself may approach the interpretation of the Bible, for, as you know, it is not a book of history. And so, when I became aware of deeper meanings in the passages than those normally assigned to them, I began to see them or to apprehend them mystically, and so I have given you a mystical interpretation of many of the darker passages. For instance, when Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon, he made himself – no one made it for him. That’s what you must do – that’s what I must do – that’s what everyone must do – and in that chapter, I showed you the wood is not wood as you know wood. It means the wood of Lebanon is the incorruptible mind. But you make it for yourself, and we showed you the sides, what they were made of and what the meanings really are. Then we took that very strange passage, the instruction to the Disciples to take off their shoes or provide no shoes when they travel, and we showed you the word “shoe” is not just the thing I wear on my foot; it is the symbol of the spirit of ‘let me do it for you’. For the shoe takes upon itself not only the dirt and the muck that would normally fall upon the wearer’s foot, but it protects the wearer from any contact with the outer world, and so anyone who offers to do for us what we should do, and could do far better ourselves, is offering himself as our shoe, and if I would awaken spiritually I must do it for myself. I must take my own mind and control it – take my wonderful imagination and actually control it and set it to noble purposes and not have some intermediary come between myself and God. For the God of this world is an internal God. He is that inevitable force that expresses in outward facts the latent tendencies of the soul, and so, if I would discover that God I cannot have you do my work for me. I cannot have you eat my spiritual food and expect to grow spiritually. So that is really the attempt of the nine chapters in the book “Seedtime and Harvest”. But this morning’s subject – I want to approach it differently. This statement is taken from the Book of Genesis, the 8th chapter of Genesis – it is a promise made to man that “while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, hot and cold, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.

” We are told that man was placed in a garden – the garden was completed – every tree was bearing fruit – everything in the world was finished – and he was placed in the garden to dress it and to keep it. He doesn’t plant it, he doesn’t do a thing but dress it and keep it. He is not called upon to make trees or to grow new trees – everything is finished! As we are told in John – “I have sent you to reap that whereon you bestowed no labor”- for Creation is finished. Every conceivable human drama, every little plot, every little plan in the drama of life is already worked out, as mere possibilities while we are not in them, but they are overpoweringly real when we are in them. So man can get in touch with that particular state of his choice, for my imagination can put me in touch inwardly with the state desired so I and in it. If I am in it I will realize it in my world. The states in which we find ourselves are the seed time. The harvest is simply the encountering of events and circumstances of life. But man’s memory is so short he forgets the seedtime, but all ends run true to origins, so if the origin, say is misfortune the end will be misfortune. But when you reap misfortune, you wonder “Why should it happen to me? When have I set a thing like this in motion? Haven’t I given to the poor? Haven’t I attended service? Haven’t I prayed daily, and why should these things happen?” But you see my God never forgets because He always gives the end in harmony with the origin, and you and I are selectors: we don’t make; we are not creators; – creation is finished, the whole vast world of creation, as told us in Ecclesiastes “I am the beginning and the end. There is nothing to come that has not been and is.” So look upon creation as finished – and you and I are only selectors of that which is.

By selectors I mean that you and I have the privilege (we may not exercise it) but it is our privilege to select that aspect of reality to which we will respond, and in responding to it, we bring it into existence for ourselves. Not knowing that we are so privileged, we simply go through the world reflecting the circumstances of life, not realizing we have the power to create or to out-picture the circumstance of life. So now let us now analyze what I personally mean by seedtime. If everything is finished and completed, then why the promise there shall be seedtime and harvest as long as the earth remains ? Now seedtime, to those who are here this morning, as we should really know, we are not taking it literally, our seedtime is that moment in time when you and I react to anything in this world. It may be to an object, it may be to an individual, it may be to a bit of news that we have overheard, but the moment of reaction, that emotional response, is our attitude. Our attitudes are the seedtimes of life, and although we may not remember the seedtime or the moment of response, nature never forgets, and when it suddenly appears in our world, that suddenness is only the emergence of a hidden continuity. It was continuous from the moment of reaction until it appeared in the world. Its appearance in the world is harvest so you and I may harvest anything we desire but we must first have a seedtime.

It must be preceded by a moment of response or an attitude. How often you say, “I approached it in the wrong attitude” or “He is in the wrong attitude” or “You must change your attitude if you would get on in this life”. I have said it – you have said it – maybe we have said it to each other – but we know the importance of right attitude. We know this much: that I can change my attitude if circumstances change – that’s automatic. We know that if something happens suddenly in my world of which up to that moment I was not aware, I, becoming aware of a change of circumstance would automatically produce in myself a change of attitude. We all do that, morning, noon and night, but that’s not important, that is a reflect of life. Ninety-nine percent of the world reflect life.

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