Neville 06-16-1969
ALL THAT IS DIVINE
Neville Goddard
In the nature of things it is impossible for any child born of woman to go unredeemed, for the moment he
says, “I am,” he is proclaiming all that is divine in his flesh. Therefore, God cannot cast away that which
constitutes the “I” of man without casting himself away, and that is impossible.
Scripture teaches in the form of parables, and we must learn to distinguish between the parable told and its
message. In the 18th chapter of the gospel of Matthew we read that he placed a child in the midst of them
and said, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always
behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.” The word ‘‘angel’’ means ‘‘a messenger; to bring forth,’’
and the word translated “child” means “an infant; a term of endearment.” Here we find a child is always
beholding the face of the Father who is in heaven and bringing forth his message by becoming what he
beholds.
The reality of man is symbolized as that of the Christ-child, the incorruptible seed which is always beholding
the face of the Father, molding man’s reality into the Father’s image that he may become one with his Father.
Casting his shadow into a certain role, we judge the role, not knowing that the innocent child is doing it as he
molds himself into the image of the Father. In the world we play our parts by saying, I am rich, I am poor, I
am known, I am unknown; yet all the while the innocent Christ-child (this incorruptible seed) is beholding the
face of the perfect one, molding itself into the image of that which it beholds. It is my desire to constantly see
truth so clearly that I become its image and share it with everyone who will listen.
Not understanding the horrors of the world, man thinks he is damned and not saved; but I tell you, every
child born of woman is already redeemed. The being that is the child’s reality is molding himself into the image
of the Father and becoming what he beholds. But in the world he is casting himself into the many parts to be
played. At the moment he may be playing the part of a rich man or perhaps a poor man; still he is free to
choose yet another state by applying the precept, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have it and you
will.” You are always molding yourself into the image of what you are beholding, whether in this world of
death or that world of life. But your Christ-child is always beholding the face of your Father and molding
himself into his likeness, that you may know who you are and say within yourself, “I am He!”
This seems fantastic, but it is true, for I am telling you what I know, not what I am theorizing or speculating
about. No one can fail. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he could not let his people go. Then giving
them blow after blow, he again hardened his heart – so who is responsible? The child is dreaming he is Job as
he casts his shadow and plays the many parts. But in the end you will understand why you put yourself
through hell, and you will be given a hundred times more than you had before.
You are playing a role now, and have played unnumbered roles in the past. Many of you here are playing the
last role, but every role was for the purpose of molding you into the image of that which you are beholding.
Always beholding the perfect image, hopeful that you will not deviate from it, you will become an image of
truth.
Now he tells you, “If you abide in my Word you will know that I am the truth.” You will know this when
God’s son sets you free, and when your son sets you free, you are free indeed. In the meantime you are
molding your face into the image of that which you are beholding. Now you see only the shadow world, but if
you believe me and remember my words in your moments of despair, they will support you in your times of
trouble.
In the 8th chapter of Proverbs, the little child tells us, “In the beginning, when the Lord created the universe, I
was beside him as a little child. I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always. He who finds me, finds
life. He who misses me, injures himself; all who hate me, love death,” for they are in love with this world of
death.
When you view consciousness you must see the two relationships: the pure, unconditioned I AM, and the
conditioned I AM. Now conditioned, I am aware of being Neville, a speaker and teacher. Another condition
placed upon pure awareness is that of a banker, a lawyer, or that of a thief. These are all conditioned states
of being the little child has cast you into, and you are playing your part perfectly.
You do not see that little child until the end of the play, at which time you will hold that infant in your arms and
your intense feeling towards him will come forward into speech. In my own case I said, “How is my
sweetheart?” The child calls forth a term of endearment, for when you find that child, you find life. You find he
who was beside the Lord when he created the world, and you will know that. He who misses me, injures
himself, and he who hates me is in love with the world of death.
Everything here is mortal, and in time the billionaire will leave his billions and the honored general will leave his
medals. The billions will decay and the medals will tarnish. Everything here will vanish and leave not a trace
behind, but he who played the part of the millionaire and the general cannot vanish. He is that little child
within, who was one with God, and is God. It is he who watches and changes the image until he is as perfect
as his father in heaven is perfect. He is building the same image and when he reflects and radiates it, you will
find that child and speak words of endearment to him.
The child is but a sign of your true being who is casting himself into these many roles. He cast me into the role
of a poor boy, in a family with no intellectual, social or financial background. Then he brought me out as the
perfect image of the Father for me to discover my own being. That is the story of everyone in this world.
Now, he gives you a cushion by telling you that, through the act of assumption, you can fulfill every desire of
your heart. Knowing what you want, you must assume that you have it in the same sense that the Christ child
is assuming he is what he is beholding. You must behold yourself as secure if that is your desire. You must
behold yourself as healthy if that is what you want. You must feel yourself into the state desired with the same
persistence as Christ in you is feeling himself into the image of the Father, for he never deviates from that
wish.
When you know who you are, you will discover that you are free to be anything, go anywhere and possess
every desire of your heart. You will also know that, no matter what you have gone through, what you are
going through or what you may go through, you will be redeemed, for he, in you, will not falter watching the
face of the Father. As Blake said so beautifully, “You will see from what I teach, that I do not consider either
the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be everyone of them states of the sleep into which the
soul may fall in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it left paradise following the serpent.”
It was the serpent, the symbol of eternal life, that said, “Did God say you would die? I tell you, you will not
really die, but will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Eating of the tree of good and evil, you remain in the
world as you judge another; but behind your mask is the Christ child, who is molding you into the image of
the Father. If you find yourself in a state you do not like, apply this principle and assume you are free from all
encroachments, knowing in the depth of your soul that you are seeing the face of your Father. When you first
see him you do not know he is the Father. Just as a child knows its parents before he knows they are his
parents, you will know God before you know he is the Father, and you know the Father before you know he
is yourself. This is how consciousness awakens in the world.
The son of man comes to save those who are lost by their wandering consciousness. You simply wandered
from the state, that is all. You are not lost. When you say, “I am” you are in, of and moving towards the I
AM. Always in him and of him, you are moving towards consciously thinking from being the one I AM.
Everyone is moving towards being that I AM, for everyone is in imagination, of imagination, and moving
towards knowing consciously that he is all imagination.
Everything in this world invites you to wander away from the I AM. Urged to believe in that pill, this diet, a
man, you move away from your true identity and become lost as your consciousness wanders. But it doesn’t
really matter, for you cannot be lost, as the son of man will come. He is the one in whom the ideal has been
realized. Called Jesus, he is the personification of the incorruptible seed which awoke, budded, flowered, and
bore its fruit. And in that state you move towards Fatherhood when your son David reveals your true
identity.
Last lecture night I tried to make my message clear, but there were those who did not understand, so I shall
repeat it briefly now. The message is simple. In scripture, the expression “Christ” is used of the human race
and of the human who has achieved the ideal. The human race, with all of its generations and experiences, is
personified as the eternal youth, David. Now the being in whom the ideal is realized, is called Jesus, who is
God the Father, whose son is David. Everyone in whom the ideal is attained is Jesus, and in the end there is
Jesus only, who is the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God, and Father of all. You, individually, will
attain the ideal when you are confronted by your son who bears witness to the fact that you are God the
Father.
This may not be the easiest thing to grasp, but you dwell upon it. Lean against this truth in time of trouble.
That is what Paul meant when he said, “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing to
the glory that is to be revealed in us.” Paul never doubted this heavenly vision was the promise God made to
the fathers, but he didn’t spell it out. I am trying my best to make it as clear as possible. The sum total of your
experiences in this world of humanity – no matter how cruel they may have been – when fulfilled, produce
David; so in the end you will say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” On this level we
judge and condemn, but these parts must be played by you, an individual, before you can produce David,
and when you see David you know you are God the Father and that is Jesus.
Now, he calls a child and puts him in the midst of them saying, “Let no one despise one of these, for I tell you
that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father, who is in heaven.”Why? Because a man
always becomes what his “I” beholds. You can take anyone and represent him to yourself as the man (or
woman) you would like him to be and, if you do not waver in that representation, he will conform to it. If you
want someone to be big in your world, you must make him big in your mind first, and treat him that way
morning, noon and night. If you see him as that being, he cannot fail, because he must become what you
behold. But you cannot waver. The moment you listen to a rumor, you change the picture, and you cannot.
Many years ago I read the story of famous theatrical mothers and their sons. One was Milton Beryl. He was
her only child and she built her world around him. She would join the group of boys playing ball and tell them
that Milton was the star, and whatever he said, they were to do. If they did not, she would take their ball and
bat away. The story listed a dozen such children whose mothers held that ideal of their sons in their mind’s
eye. They did not falter and therefore their sons could not fail. They had to become what their mother beheld
of them. If a mother compares her son to another child and finds hers wanting, she has broken the image. She
sees him less than, but she must see him as great and never falter in her image of him if she really wants him to
be great.
Now, there is something in you that has never taken his eyes off the face of the Father and will not deviate
until you are perfect. In the meantime, it casts its shadow and you play the part of a bum, a part necessary to
bring the image into focus. Then it will cast another image and yet another until you are perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect. But what is the reality of your flesh? “I am.”When you say “I am” you are proclaiming
that which is divine and cannot be cast off unless God is willing to lose himself, for the “I” in you is God.
Therefore, God cannot fail to achieve his predetermined goal, which is to fashion himself into and eventually
become the Father.
What a mystery! Just think, before that the world was, you were predestined to become its author, its actor
and the one who supports and sustains it. You, who have played many horrible parts, are Jesus. And when
your image is perfect, you will awaken as he who is God, the Father of humanity. And when humanity is
gathered together into a single being and projected, you will see your son David. That is the mystery.
What the next play will be I do not know. I only know that, until everyone has awakened, this play is not
complete. So, don’t criticize, or condemn, because – from above – we will aid every being here to come
home. We are the ones called, “Those who came to save the lost.” First we seek him, then save him by
bringing that wandering consciousness back to the vision of the Father. Now my one consuming desire is to
see truth so clearly that I become an eye-witness and can tell my experiences just as they happened to me.
I am not asking you to stop giving your money to charity if – in the giving -it gives you pleasure; but giving to
the poor and needy is not going to save you. Only that which is in you, whose face is focused on the eternal
Father, can save you by becoming what he is beholding. As he sees it, he casts its shadow. Knowing you
need a certain experience embodied, he casts its shadow, yet gives you a cushion, telling you that whatever
you desire, if you will but believe you have received it, you will. You may now be cast in the role of a poor
man, but you need not anchor yourself there by claiming you cannot become rich. Rather, you can cast
yourself in the role of a rich man by believing you are rich. You can cast yourself, consciously, into any role
you desire to express while you are molding yourself into the image of the Father.
The Bible is filled with wonderful stories which the scholars have misunderstood. Like the one I quoted
today. “He put the little child in the midst of them.” Scholars wonder who the little child was and what became
of him, for they read it as a secular story and the Bible hasn’t a thing to do with any happening on earth. Jesus
is not a man of secular history. He is a representative of every man within whom that incorruptible seed
blossomed and bore its fruit. The resurrection, the birth, the discovery of the Fatherhood – all of these are the
fruit you are bearing.
There is nothing comparable to this truth. If you owned the world, what would it matter if tomorrow you died
and left it all? What would be the point of living if there were no end to this mortal life? But what I am telling
you is true. You are an immortal being who cannot die. Dead though the body seems, you, its reality, cannot
die for your I AM is God. There never was another God and there never will be another God.
You are slowly awakening to the realization that you are the God who created everything and that no one is
greater than the other. In this world we all try to be better than the other, but when the truth is revealed, we
will know that there is only one son and only one Father. And, if I am the father of David, and you are the
father of David, are we not one? Then we will understand the great Sh’mah: “Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord, our
God, the Lord is one.” He is the one Father, and cannot be two, but if he is a father there must be a son to
bear witness to his fatherhood. If you have the identical experience as I do are we not one? So in the end
there is only one God, one Father, and one son. The one fell asleep and is dreaming this scattered, divine
state into being. In the end we all will awake as the one who fell asleep, yet we will not lose our identity. I will
love you dearly as a seeming other, yet know that we are one. It’s a peculiar mystery. We are all God the
Father, for there is no other being. God first reveals himself as almighty power, then as “I am” and finally as
infinite love, the Father.
So, why are we here? Blake put it beautifully: “We are put on earth a little space that we may learn to bear
the beams of love.” In your present state you could not stand the beams of love, for God’s infinite love is
sheer power. We see power used in going to the moon, and we contemplate going to Venus and Mars, but
the power to get us there is as a firecracker compared to your true being who brought the world into being
and sustains it.
One day the play will be over and, I don’t care what a man has ever done, he will awaken as God. Put
yourself now, in the part of a father whose son is accused of a horrible act. Loving your son, would you not
want him to go free? I know I would. I would regret that he did it, but I would forgive him and want him to
go free. Read David’s story carefully and you will find that there is not a thing that man could do that David
did not do. He sent Urias into battle, knowing he would be killed so David could have Bathsheba. Although
he had a thousand wives of his own, he stole a man’s wife because he wanted one more; yet he was called
the perfect man, the Lord’s son, “A man after my own heart who will do all my will.”
David is not a little man born of a woman. He is spirit. Personified as an eternal youth, David is the result of
your journey into the world of death. When the Christ child, in you, has put you through all the generations of
men and you have experienced everything you agreed to in the beginning, you are perfect as your Father in
heaven is perfect, and you have formed David, your son, to reveal you to yourself. The world thinks Jesus
Christ is the son of God, but I tell you Jesus is the Lord. This is a mystery. David comes in the spirit and calls
Jesus “Father.”Humanity is Christ, the son and Jesus is God the Father.
I cannot open your skull and force the solution to this mystery into it. I can only give it to you in words, but I
can tell you that the day is coming when you will experience my words. Your skull will explode and you will
experience everything said of Jesus Christ in the first person, singular, present tense. Cast in the major role,
you will know you are he, even though you will remain a very limited being in this world of mortality. You
came into this world of death to overcome it, bringing with you the incorruptible Christ seed who is beholding
the Father, transforming you into his image. And since the Father cannot beget another, he is begetting
himself.
But while you are here, take his wonderful precept and believe that you can have anything you desire. There
is no restriction placed upon the power of belief. There is no need to first consult some holy man to see
whether you should have it or not. You be the judge. Choose your desire and, to the degree that you are
self-persuaded that you have it, you will get it. And, because we are all one, if it takes one million people to
aid the birth of your assumption, they will do it, without their knowledge or consent, so you don’t have to ask
anyone to aid you. They will do it not even knowing that they are. All you are called upon to do is to assume
that you have it. An assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact. That is the principle.
Behind this fantastic play where you are awakening as God, we have a secondary state. In it youmay be cast
into the role of a poor man and need Caesar’s coins to meet his demands of taxes, rent and food. So you can
render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s by assuming that you have that which Caesar demands, and
remain faithful to that assumption. In the meantime something else is taking place in you which is infinitely
greater than Caesar’s world, for this world will come to an end, but the kingdom of heaven is forever as it is
eternal. Caesar’s world is one of death, but the human imagination is eternal life. It is the human imagination
who will reveal your true identity to you when you are perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Then you
will see David, the sign that you have reached the end of the journey. Having played all the parts, you are the
conqueror and your crown is waiting for you as your son reveals your Fatherhood. If the Lord tells David,
“Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee,” and David calls you Father, are you not the one called God in
scripture?
It seems so silly for a little man, one of billions, to make these extravagant claims, but they are true. Einstein
was a man of small stature, but he conceived an idea that has changed the thinking of the entire world. So
God, wearing the mask of a little man, takes it off to reveal his true identity, and the little man’s words,
believed, will change the world.
So the little child was brought and put in the midst of everyone. Don’t despise him, for he is the one who was
with me in the beginning of time. When I laid out the foundations of the world he was beside me as a little
child. He was daily my delight, delighting forever in the affairs of men. He who finds him, finds life. He who
misses him injures himself. He who hates him, loves death.
The little child is a symbol of you, molding yourself into the image of the Father. You are casting yourself into
these shadow worlds and when you are perfect you will radiate your Father and bear the very stamp of his
nature. Then David will stand before you, in the Spirit, and call you “Father.”
Now let us go into the silence.
Neville Goddard, Summa Theologica, Manly P Hall, A Course In Miracles
