Neville Goddard Lecture, The Foundation Stone – Imagination

The Foundation Stone – Imagination

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THE FOUNDATION STONE – IMAGINATION

We believe that man can create anything he desires. We believe the Universe is infinite response and the one who causes it is the individual perceiver. Nothing is independent of your perception of it. We are so interwoven we are part of the machine, but as we awake we detach ourselves from this machine and make life as we wish it to be. “For man is all Imagination and God is man and exists in us and we in him.” “The eternal body of man is the Imagination: that is God himself.” You can imagine and I can imagine, and if we can be faithful to the state imagined it must appear in our world. This is not new. This was given centuries ago, for we have it in the Bible; but people do not know how to read the Bible, so they got together and organized it into an “ism.” It is not an “ism,” but it is the great plan to free man. The Bible shows this plan in detail. We will turn to a few passages and show you what those who wrote it intended we should see. Isaiah 28:16: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: He who believes will not be in haste.’” Now, we are told in the Book of Psalms that the world rejected the stone. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” “You cannot lay any other stone.” “On this stone you may build gold, silver, hay or stubble and the day will reveal it.” I tell you that this stone is your Imagination, and it is called in the Bible: Christ Jesus, or God, or the Lord.

It is your Imagination, which is one with the Divine Imagination which created, sustains, changes, and even destroys parts of the creation. This is the stone that is tested and it is a sure foundation, and he who believes in it will not be in haste. If I can but imagine and know that imagining creates reality I will not be impatient or lead a superficial life. When a man does not live in his Imagination he will become impatient of the outcome of what he desires, and finally he will become violent in his effort to get things. Here is one who asks the question: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” Some said this and some that, but again he asked: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:13) “And Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in Heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” The churches tell you that it means a man called Peter. It is not an individual. The whole thing takes place in the mind of you the individual. You imagine a certain state and it is called Peter. If it were a man called Peter, you would not find what you find six verses later. For there he turns to the same character, Peter, and says to him: “Get behind me Satan: You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” That is what every man in the world does. He gets a revelation and he realizes the foundation stone is Imagining. He sees a friend who needs help and he imagines he has what he wants. If he believes it, he is not in haste. He is imagining what he wants and he is not violent, and he is not concerned, and he does not give suggestions to the friend as to what to do physically to bring his desire to pass.

If the foundation stone is true, there is only one power to support it. If he knows that, he will not allow himself to be turned; he will remain faithful to his assumption. But we are told in the Bible story that the one who had been commended, Peter, turned and became violent, and then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan.” You turn back to the ways of men to get things to go as you want them to go. You pull all the wires and therefore you have turned from the only foundation in the world, and that is Christ Jesus, which is human Imagination. If you believe this you will not reject the stone. “Stone” is “even” [in Hebrew] and it means to create, or build, or beget children. Here is a stone in “Zion” (which means a high pinnacle or a barren place). That is man, before the stone is sunk in him. He is the waste, the desert. Sunk in man as his Imagination is the only foundation stone, for [there is] no other foundation of the living God and he has sunk himself in me. Therefore, I am the son of the living God, for there is only one and I Am he. If I believe this, I will not be impatient. “He who believes it will not be in haste.” This is the Lord’s way. I ask you to test it. Bring before your mind’s eye what you want to see in this world. It may be business or a friend’s good fortune. It can be anything, for on this foundation you can put stubble, or wood, or hay. You are building with hay when you say of someone: “I know – he was no good.” They lived in that state concerning another and then it came to pass – and they say: “I always thought he was like that.” Some of us build strange things for another. We were imagining on the only foundation, but we have put stubble on it instead of gold or silver, and the day revealed it, and then we cannot relate what happens to anything we have done. The Hebrew meaning of the “stone” is to beget children. All the events of my life are my children.

Everyone can build on this one foundation. “I am laying in Zion a stone.” What stone? God is burying himself in everyone in the world. It is a true stone, a precious cornerstone, and one who believes will not be in haste. I have seen an imaginal act take two years to come forth, but when it appeared – what a giant! I have seen it come in an hour. But do not be in haste or think there is any other foundation and – like Peter – turn to another foundation, growing violent toward those who would lead Jesus to the cross. But Christ said: “I came to move toward the cross. Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me.” If I am still in the machine, I think the good things come only by accident or chance. Let the wheel turn, for each must go through all the furnaces until he awakens and sees the whole universe as infinite response. The day will come when every person, at a certain degree of awakening, will freeze an activity within himself, and as it comes to a stop within him, that whole section is “dead.” The laws of nature are only free action, repeated until they become accepted as a law. Yet you will see leaves in mid-air not falling, and people moving in space will cease to move but will not fall, for as you stopped the action within yourself the whole thing stopped. And you will see the whole thing as Zion – the desert – and the only thing that makes it alive is the stone buried in it. But man becomes lost in the things he has made and gives to them the power. For example, through the use of his Imagination he brings money into his world; then he forgets that it was the activity of his mind that did this, and he sees in the money itself the power to get what he desires. But when he awakes he will no longer lose himself in his own creation.

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