AWAKE O SLEEPER
Neville Goddard – 07/25/1968
Neville Goddard
Whenever you and I use our imagination unwittingly, we are asleep. We have to
awake to God’s Law and His Promise. We are told in the very first chapter of
Genesis, “And God said, Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed
and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And it
was so.” (Genesis 1:29) Here we see the Law of the Identical Harvest, and you
and I will not in Eternity violate it. We try to. Man has tried through the years to
break this law.
We are told, “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows,
that he will also reap.” (Galatians 6:7, RSV1)
“Therefore, do not grow weary in well doing,” (Gal 6:9) for if we persist in it, in
due season we will reap if we faint not, or lose heart.
Now, everything brings forth after its kind. If you really believe that you are the
child of God, you will rest confident in that knowledge – in that seed, knowing that
it can bring forth no more – no less – than God. If I really believe what Scripture
teaches – “know ye not that ye are the sons of God, sons of the Most High?
Nevertheless, you will die like men, and fail as one man, Oh princes.” (Psalm 82) –
I will accept that. As a son of the Most High, what can I bring forth but God?
Whatever He was prior to my being planted – for I am planted in death. All seeds
must first die before they can bring forth. This is the great mystery. So, if I’m His
seed, His sperm, His son, His child – whatever you will – then I’m quite willing to
go through this Eternal world of death, knowing in the end I must emerge as
Eternal Life – as God Himself.
In the meanwhile – while I am here – don’t try to violate the law. You can’t do it.
Man has tried it, and he only produces a mule. We have taken – well, the horse and
the donkey. We have millions of them in the world – mules. We cannot produce in
the mule that which can bring forth its kind. It’s sterile. It’s impotent. I have seen
the crossbreed between the lion and the tiger, but it, too, is a mule – beautiful to
look at, but it is impotent; it’s sterile. I have seen birds that men mated. Normally
they would not mate, but men forced them into mating and they have brought forth
beautiful offspring; but the offspring is a “mule.” It will not reproduce itself. So,
God has placed a limit to man’s mis-creation, so that you and I may speak in the
world of Caesar of man’s evolution, and we think it’s part of God’s creation. It is
not part of God’s creation. God finished it, and it’s perfect. The seed contains
within itself all that parents have contained. If the seed is of God, well, then, it can
only unfold as God.
I can see evolution related to man and his affairs. Instead of digging the earth with
my hand, I turn to a hoe, and then from the hoe, I turn to a plow, and from the plow
to a tractor. Well, I can see the evolution in that, concerning the affairs of man.
Instead of moving across a body of water on a raft then I took a sail, and then I
took a paddle, and then I took a steam, and now we take atomic energy. And
instead of walking a distance, now I know I can fly and go almost as fast as man
can imagine. So, I can see the evolution in the affairs of man, but not in the
creation of God!
So, in the beginning it was established that all things will bring forth after their
kind. [Someone enters the room a little late]. All right, come right in. We’ve only
just started, trying to establish in us the awareness of God’s Law; that we cannot
violate it, we can’t change it − to awake, as we are told. “Awake, O Sleeper, and
rise from the dead.” So, Paul equates death with the sleep of man, when man is
unaware of what he’s doing. So, when we are told in Psalms – the 44th Psalm:
“Rouse thyself. Why sleepest thou, O Lord” – it’s addressed to God-in-man. Well
God-in-man is man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So, every time that I
imagine, and I am unaware of what I am imagining, well, then, I will not recognize
my harvest when it appears in the world will deny I had anything to do with it, but
if man is as I think and I know he is – all imagination, and if God and man are one,
then God is all imagination. So, we say Man is all imagination and God is man,
and exists in us, and we in Him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and
that is God Himself − the eternal body Jesus. We are His members.
So, everyone can imagine. The thing to do is to become aware of what we are
imagining, and put no limit to the power of imagining. Do not put any limit to
God’s power.
Here is a simple, simple example. This friend of mind down south, Benny Gould −
a friend called him and said, “You know, our little daughter, six months old − the
doctor says she will not live the week; that she now has meningitis, and the crisis is
now.”
My friend Benny, instead of sympathizing with this father − he bawled him out.
He said, “Didn’t you tell me that you are a good Christian? You go to your Baptist
church, and you consider yourself a good Christian? I don’t go to the Baptist
Church. In fact, I don’t go to church, but I consider myself a good Christian. What
are you doing accepting the verdict of the doctor? Why can’t you now accept the
teaching of Scripture and believe in your heart that the little girl that I saw a matter
of moments after she was born is now alive and thriving?”
After he bawled his friend out, Benny put the receiver up and then sat down and
heard that man’s voice, as though he called him on the telephone; and the he heard
the man tell him that the child has miraculously recovered. That’s all that Benny
did.
That night a lady had a dream, and because it was related to Benny, she called
Benny the next day and told Benny the dream, and this was the dream. She said, “I
had a strange dream last night, Benny. I dreamt I was in a hospital, in the lobby,
and two nurses were discussing a certain case of a friend of yours, a little girl, and
one said to the other, ‘But who paid for the operation? Who paid the expense of the
hospital?’ And one nurse said to the other, ‘Benny did.’”
That was only a dream. Well, Benny did pay for it – not in dollars and cents, he
said the price. The price was that he represented the father to himself in a different
way altogether, not complaining, not feeling sorry, not feeling sad at heart, but he
heard that man’s voice with a joy in it telling him that the little girl had recovered
miraculously. That’s all that Benny did. Well, that’s paying the price.
You are told, “Come, eat and drink without price. Buy milk – buy it all without
money.” Well, the price that Benny paid was to exercise his talent wittingly,
knowingly, on behalf of another, and to do it lovingly.
So, every time you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you
are actually mediating God to that other. So, if you become awake, you are awake
to God’s Law. You can’t violate it. “Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for
whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” (Galatians 6:7) And, then, we are
asked to not give up; if it seems long, wait anyway, because the harvest will come.
In due season we will reap if we faint not – if we do not lose heart.
So, anyone here tonight who has a problem – I don’t care what the problem is, the
problem will yield its own solution. You don’t have to discuss the means. That’s
not the solution. If I needed money, knowing the right people – knowing people of
money, knowing people with means – that is no solution. The solution is having
what I want in this world. That’s the solution.
If I were unsheltered tonight, what’s the solution? Knowing a friend who has a
huge mansion with rooms not occupied? That’s not my solution. My solution is to
be sheltered. So, no matter where I sleep, I sleep as though I am sheltered.
If I were in need of raiment, I would sleep as though I am well clothed. I am in
need of money, I would sleep as though I had all that it takes, that I am affluent. I
will do it in that manner. If I know what I am doing well, then, “faint not.” I did it.
I planted it. Well, now, in due season I will reap it.
So, every man should become awake to this law. So rouse yourselves. “Why
sleepest thou, Oh Lord?” (Psalm 44:23) Well, His name is “I Am,” so are you
aware of what you are doing? I am speaking, then, to you. “Why sleepest thou, Oh
Lord?” And just to be addressed as “Lord” – and I mean it when I say I address
you as “the Lord,” for you are the Lord. If you are a son of God, you can’t develop
in any other way, other than into God! So, we are destined to grow up into Him,
the head, Jesus Christ the Lord. If I grow up into Him, the head, well, then, I am
He. So, then everything, then, said of Him I must experience.
So, here I must awake to the Being that I really am – not just to hear it, but to
really believe it to the point where I act upon it. Well, if all through the day I act
upon it – do you know that even in dream you’ll act upon it? A dream, supposedly
is something where man’s imagination – rather, his attention is the victim, and not
the master. It follows all the phenomena of Life, but in dream you will get to the
point that you do not find yourself the victim; you find yourself guiding your
attention. And you’ll find yourself, in dream, modifying and changing a situation.
The normal person in a dream doesn’t. He simply – his attention is the very slave,
and follows everything, one after the other. But when you become awake here.
You take it into the depth of your own being, in what the world calls sleep.
So, when I say “Awake, O Sleeper,” I’m simply appealing to everyone here to
awake to God’s Law. For it is a law established in the beginning – the Law of the
Identical Harvest. You can’t plant one thing and reap another. You could now sit
here tonight in the assumption that you are – well, exactly as you want to be. I
would not define for what you ought to want; I will ask you: What do you want?
When you know exactly what you would like to be, and you deliberately assume
that you are it, you’ve planted that seed. And in due season you are going to reap
that harvest. Therefore, if you’re going to reap it, reap it wisely by planting wisely.
But all day long you’re doing it anyway. Man is doing it, but he’s doing it asleep;
and therefore when it comes into being and he harvests this marvelous – well,
whatever it is, he doesn’t recognize that he had anything to do with it. And the
purpose of life is to become awake – to wake everything in this world. So, I know
exactly what I did. I sat down and I dreamed myself as affluent. I dreamed myself
is this, as that, as the other, and having done it, I have confidence in God’s Law.
No man can divert it. I can’t plant one thing and reap another.
“You see yonder fields? The sesamum was sesamum; the corn was corn; the
silence and the darkness knew, and so is a man’s faith born.”
So, I can sit down and actually do it.
Here, Marion Anderson was denied the right to sing in the famous hall in
Washington. She was not a member, and she was denied the right. She did not
oppose it. She didn’t fight it. These are her words. She said, “They had a right.
These are the Daughters of the American Revolution. That was their right. They
are all members of that club. They are proud of it. Why shouldn’t they be proud of
it? I simply would like to have sung in that hall. So, what did I so? I didn’t fight it.
I didn’t argue it. I didn’t tell the press. I made no issue. I simply in my imagination
sang in that hall. I stood on that stage and sang to a full house – an appreciative
house. They loved all that I did, and I was invited to sing in that hall.”
Now you will say, “Well, Mrs. Roosevelt heard about it, and she then took issue
with those who were the members, saying, ‘After all, this is tax-exempt property,
and all of this is something that is on the backs of the taxpayer, and I feel that we
should occasionally open the doors to some great artist.’” She might have given
them any argument, and she was then the First Lady of the land. You will say,
“Now that’s why they invited Marion Anderson.”
I say, “It was not.” Mrs. Roosevelt had to act as she acted because Marion Anderson
acted first, and if one could only see what she did – not what Mrs. Roosevelt did;
she was only the means to the end. The cause of the entire thing was one who did
not argue, who did not protest, who did nothing; who, in her own
heart, simply imagined that she had done it. And if you do it this way, you don’t
have to fight in this world. You don’t have to argue with anyone in this world. Just
do it.
I have seen people say, “No, it can’t be done. I am not going to let this go.” Well,
all right, it’s your privilege. It’s yours. If you don’t want it, unload it. And then
someone who really thought of something far bigger than they could have
conceived imagined it. Then they come, asking the very one to whom they turned
and said, “No, it can’t be done, and we do not wish any part of it” – then they came
and they got far more than in the beginning they were willing to take for it.
I know these cases. So, you don’t have to argue. You don’t have to fight. You
simply know what you want, and if you had it, what would it be like? How would
you feel if it were true? What would you see in the world mentally if it were true?
How would your friends see you if now you were the man, or the woman, that you
want to be? Well, then, let them see you. That imaginal act – letting them see you,
as they would have to see you, were it true – is the imaginal act being planted.
You are sowing the seed at that very moment. And in due season, it must come to
pass, for that vision of yours, as told us in Habakkuk: it has its own appointed hour,
It ripens, it will flower;
If it be long, then wait,
For it is sure, and it will not be late.”
— Habakkuk
So, you don’t have to rush it, dig it up and see if it’s growing. You did it in
confidence that God’s Law never fails. “Let the earth bring forth vegetation, plants
yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to
its kind. And it was so.” (Genesis 1:29) And as long as earth endures, seedtime and
harvest shall not cease.”
Now, the seedtime is when you imagine a state – that’s the seedtime. That’s when
you sow. And, then, in due season, you’re going to reap exactly what you sowed,
so do not be deceived. You can’t sow the unlovely act and expect something other
than the unlovely act to appear in your world. You can’t do it.
If you want someone in this world to be big in your world, treat him as though he
were; not by flattering him, but in your mind’s eye treat him as though he were big.
Think of him as important if you want him to be important.
I know, in my own case, my family had really no financial, social, intellectual or
any other background of mention, but my mother did not allow her ten children to
know that. And if any of us did anything that Mother – well, she wasn’t exactly
ashamed of it, but she thought it could be better, and it was something that we
really should not have done, she would then say to us, “Have you forgotten that
you are a Goddard?” She made the name important. It had no importance
whatsoever, but she made it important. So, she treated us as though we as a family
were important. The result is that she lived long enough to see her family grow into
importance in the community, all pulling their weight and being very important in
their community.
Now, you can start it with any family in this world and treat the family as though
they were important. Unfortunately, our parents think they are doing the right thing
when they compare us to a neighbor and find us wanting. “Why can’t you be like
So-and-So?” Right away it implies you are not as good as – and, so, if that’s the
seed she is planting for the child, the child has to do that. But if you will take any
child, and then – not flatter it, no – but in your mind’s eye see it as important, and
treat it in your mine’s eye as though it were. See it successful.
I read here, oh, maybe eight or ten years ago the famous men in the theatrical world
whose mothers always looked upon them as most important. Clifton Webb was one
whose mother, from the time he was a little baby, treated him as most important,
and they mentioned about eight or ten or twelve of them. Each rose to stardom in
the theatrical world, because they had mothers who treated them in a different
manner. And, so, the story came out in the magazine I read. I know it’s only based
upon a single law, if the mothers knew it. Well, whether they knew it or not, that’s
how they acted, and it’s simply putting into effect God’s Law.
So, when I say, Awake, O Sleeper, I mean that we are asleep if we are not aware of
what we are doing – we are asleep. So, “Awake, O Sleeper, and rise from the
dead.” And the sleep in most of us is so profound, we might just as well be dead.
But become aware of the Law, and become aware of the Promise, and the Promise
is that you are a child of God! As a child of God, you can’t grow into anything in
Eternity other than God. You can’t possibly become anything but God if you are a
seed of God.
So, if you believe it – if I believe that I truly am, as the 82nd Psalm tells me that I
am, “Know ye not that ye are gods, sons of The Most High?” – all of you, not a
few, no little elect, but all of you. Then he tells us what we must first encounter in
order to do it. “You now will die like men. You will fall as one man, O princes.”
Well, if I am a prince, then my father must be a king; and if I am destined to
become and take his place, then I must become one day, king – king in my own
mind’s eye, and if he’s a father, I must become father. And that’s the entire story of
the Scriptures.
So, to become aware of it is, then, begin to act upon it. You’ll find yourself acting
upon it consciously, deliberately. You refuse to accept the negative suggestion of
the press, TV, radio, or a friend; you will not accept it, any more than Benny did.
Benny simply put the receiver down, brought his mind upon the same voice, but
changed the conversation. And it was confirmed in the not-distant future. That
entire thing changed in the outer world to conform to what Benny had done in the
inner world, all in his imagination.
So, this is simply becoming awake, rousing the God-within-us. And then, one day
to your – well, surprise is not a good word for it because you are so shattered by
the experience – that thereafter you can’t rub it out of the mind.
In my own case it happened in ’59 – almost ten years, and, yet, every moment of
time I dwell upon it. I could hardly believe that this thing was so literally true –
Gods’ Promise to man – that every child born of woman would one day actually
discover that he is the Lord Jesus Christ! And when it happened to you, and the
whole thing begins to unfold within you like a flower, one after the other – well, I
can’t tell anyone the thrill. You don’t boast, within you like a flower, one after the
other – well, I can’t tell anyone the thrill. You don’t boast. You don’t brag.
You’ve not a thing to brag about, because the whole thing was contained in the
germ, in the seed, in the sperm, of God; and it was placed in you. Well, if the
whole of God is contained in His seed, and the seed is in us, when it unfolds, how
can we brag? We can only be thrilled beyond measure, and be filled with awe and
praise and thanksgiving that God so loved me that He actually became me, that I in
turn may become God! And, so, I dwell upon that and let it happen. It unfolds like
a flower. So, to everyone, no matter what you are tonight, you can start tonight to
plant the world differently, but do dwell, above all things, upon the fact that you are
the child of God. And as the child of God, you can only grow into the likeness of
God – into God Himself! You have no other way to go. But we are warned in
Scripture, it’s going to be quite a journey. But Paul said, “I consider the sufferings
of the present time not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.”
Not to us – the preposition is “in.” It is revealed in us.
So, all the sufferings, as told us quite clearly in the book of Genesis – we have
three major manuscripts from Genesis known only by letters: the letter J, the letter
E and the letter P. No one knows what they mean, but we’ve given meaning to
them. We speak of the J as the Jehovahites, we speak of the E as the Elohim, and
we speak of the P as the Prophets. But no one really knows if whoever put the J, E
and P there really intended that, but scholars have given that meaning to these
letters. That’s all we know concerning the authorship of these manuscripts.
But in the E it does not begin with the first verse. The E manuscript begins with the
15th chapter; it begins with civilization – with Abram, and Abram complains to the
Lord that he has no offspring, “and one born in my house of a slave will be my
heir. And God said to him, That man will not be your heir, but your own son will
be your heir, and then God caused a profound sleep to descend upon him and then
said to him, in sleep, Your descendants shall be strangers, sojourners in a strange
land, and there they will remain enslaved for four hundred years, but when they are
brought out, they will have much.” An abundance will be theirs, but they must first
go into slavery for four hundred years.
Well, the four hundred years is not four hundred, as you would measure years. Each
letter in the Hebrew alphabet has, not only a numerical value, but a symbolic value.
And four hundred is the last letter, the 22nd, which symbol is a cross. It is Taw,
and the numerical value of the cross is four hundred. So, I will wear the cross of
man – this is the cross that I wear. It’s four hundred years; it is a far, far longer time
than that.
Blake – time and again he said, “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six
thousand years dazzling around Thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and
gold. I know it is myself, Oh Lord, my Redeemer and Creator.” So, he always
speaks of the vision of his deadly sleep that lasted six thousand years, but in
Scripture it is called 400 years, because they are speaking of the symbolism of the
number and of the symbol called the cross. So, as long as I wear a body of flesh
and blood, I am wearing this cross of 400 years.
So, as long as I do it, I am enslaved. I am enslaved by this body, by its passions, by
its ambitions, by its needs. I have to bathe it, shave it, wash it; and then it has all
the normal functions. I must take care of the normal functions like a slave. I’m a
slave of the body! The day will come, at the end of my long journey, that I will
take off the body of flesh and blood and put on my body of glory, which will not
need any of these cares whatsoever, for it will be spirit, and not flesh and blood.
So, I’m quite willing to accept what Scripture teaches me. Yes, I am a slave here. I
know it, and I will continue. But while I am a slave, He awoke within me –
completely awoke within me, with all the symbolism in Scripture surrounding me.
And then came the next one and the next and the next, and the whole Scripture
begins to unfold within the man who is still, as yet, a slave, as told us in Scripture.
Then comes that end of the journey when he can say, “It is finished.” And the
whole thing is done.
For, here, not only these Four Mighty Acts become yours, but so many lovely
passages of Scripture, in the interval they are yours – to feel yourself one day lifted
up and to hear a heavenly chorus sing – unearthly chorus, and here it is singing,
calling you by name. When I wrote the story and called the little thing “The
Search,” I was persuaded by the one who read my manuscript to use the pronoun
he and tell it in the third person. But I did not hear the chorus say he, I heard the
chorus call my name, Neville. And they said, “Neville is risen, Neville is risen,”
and how can you take that simple little phrase, “Neville is risen,” and repeat it –
this enormous heavenly chorus singing it, and get out of it what they did, I could
never tell you. They never used other words, and yet the melody – the change –
everything about it – the majesty of all that they are singing on three little words!
A
nd, then, I found myself clothed in a body of light. It seemed to be a body of air
and light. I didn’t stand on the ground, and I didn’t walk. I glided. I did it
automatically, as though it was an innate knowledge of what to do, and I came
upon an infinite sea of human imperfection: blind, lame, halt, withered – all of
them, and I knew intuitively that they were waiting for me. And as I came by I had
no compassion – none whatsoever. I didn’t stop to inquire. It was obvious that this
one was blind, that one was lame, that one had no arms, that one was missing some
other limb, and, yet, strangely enough, as I glided by, I did not raise a finger to
change them, but they were automatically changed in harmony with the perfection
I felt springing within me. Because I walked by as the Perfect One, everyone had
to be in harmony with me, and everyone was made perfect. And the chorus is
singing. And when the eyes came out of nowhere and fitted into these empty
sockets, and when arms came out of nowhere and fitted into the empty socket, and
legs, and everything was made perfect at the very end of this enormous journey,
then the chorus exulted, and they cried out, “It is finished.” From repeating,
“Neville is risen, Neville is risen,” in their own marvelous way, now they change it
to, “It is finished.” And then I felt myself actually condense into this little garment
here called Neville. I was actually the most imprisoned being imaginable, from that
wonderful exalted state of freedom.
So, I can’t tell anyone what’s in store for you – that body of glory when you put it
on. I simply tasted of it for that moment, that right coming through the Caribbean
Sea from Port of Spain to Mobile, Alabama. We were at sea about seven days, and
this happened one night while I was at sea.
So, I know exactly the feeling of the risen body – that feeling of the glorious body,
where everything that you touch or see must conform to you because you are
perfect. “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” And, so everything in
your world is going to be changed. You don’t stop to change it; you don’t do a
thing. It simply changes as you go by.
So, everything in Scripture, you, one day, will prove literally – prove it to be true,
but not on this level. You are going to prove it in some remote area of your own
soul. So, first of all, believe in His Promise. Believe that you really are the Son of
God, and as the Son of God, you cannot grow up into anything other than God –
not in Eternity. But while you are enslaved in this world, in a place that is really
not home – everyone feels a stranger here. They try build something to feel secure
– to feel not a stranger, but they are still strangers, and all through the day and
night, they are leaving, dropping out, and departing out from this sphere – leaving
you behind. Then you’ve got to depart and leave others behind. The whole thing is
a strange world. It is not home. So, we are strangers in a strange land, enslaved in
the strange land. Therefore, while we are here remember His Law – the Law of the
Identical Harvest, that you can’t fool God, so “be not deceived. God is not mocked,
whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.” And, then, because you are going to reap
it, do not grow tired – do not grow weary in well doing. Do it every moment of
time, though you do not see the immediate harvest; do it anyway because you
cannot fail to reap that harvest.
So, do it. Spend a little moment every day, and deliberately plant loving thoughts,
loving seeds. Bring before your mind’s eye those that you know as friends.
Represent them to yourself without their knowledge, without their consent, in some
lovely manner. When they conform to that in the outer world, you don’t need
praise. You don’t need to tell them, “That’s what I imagined for you.” You know.
You have the satisfaction of knowing what you did; therefore they will conform to
it, and you will see them, and you will reap it, and you’ll have the satisfaction,
without having them feel obligated. If you tell them what you did, they will feel
almost obligated to do something for you in turn. You don’t want anything in
return. You simply do it because you enjoy the doing. And as you do it, it becomes
more and more a habit, and every moment of your conscious life you’ll be doing it,
instead of wasting your time with all the unlovely and negative things. You ignore
that and do it deliberately in the loving things. And when you read in the book, that
40th Psalm “In the volume of the book it is written about me.” Believe it. It’s all
about you. Man doesn’t know it, but the whole book is about the individual, that’s
your biography. So, in the volume of the book, it is all about me. Then when you
read it, you will realize it’s going to unfold in you and, and you’re going to scream
it from the housetops and tell everyone without boasting – because it’s about them,
too. Everyone can speak in the first person, present tense. It’s all about me, and
then one day he’ll experience it and know it really is all about me. And the book
was simply a foreshadowing. The whole thing was a blueprint – a prophetic
blueprint of your life. And you enter the world of death, that world of slavery.
So, when Blake, in his greatest of all poems – he said, “The poem is not mine. The
authors are in Heaven; they are in Eternity. I’m only the secretary. It was dictated.
It came to me twelve, twenty and thirty lines at a time, and what should have taken
a lifetime of labor came in no time at all.” That is his great poem “Jerusalem.”
First of all, he begins it by first stating the theme. He tells us “Of the sleep of Ulro!
And of the passage through Eternal Death and of awaking to Eternal Life.” Then
he says, I in them and they in me – all in One. Here it is “the sleep of Ulro.” What
is “the sleep of Ulro”?
But we pass through Eternal Death, he makes that statement – but we will awaken
to Eternal Life. He’s quite willing to admit it’s going to be a hard passage – a
difficult passage, but because we are the Seed of God, we cannot fail, and one day
you will erupt, and it’s God erupting – all in you, and you are He.
If you dwell upon it, I tell you from my own experience what it will do for you.
You will not be arrogant, but you will meet not one person in this world that you
will bend the knee to. You refuse to accept any being in this world as an aristocrat
beyond you by the simple descent of the flesh. No, the only aristocrat that you will
admit is the aristocracy of the Spirit – no other aristocracy whatsoever, no line of
the flesh, for you are not flesh. You are wearing a garment of the slave – that’s
flesh, but you are Spirit. You are the child of God, and God is Spirit. That is the
only aristocracy that you will admit. And the day will come that you will prove it
to yourself, and you will enter a heavenly sphere, and, strangely enough – from my
own experience – when you enter this sphere consciously you’ve always known
them! You know them more intimately than you know anyone here on earth.
When you meet the Brotherhood, you know them more intimately than you know
anyone here. I knew my mother, my father, my brothers, my friends, my wife, my
children, and yet I know none of them as intimately as I know my Brothers in
Eternity. And they are all Eternal beings.
So, when I take this off for the last time, there will be no waiting between the
taking off and the putting on of that garment which, for one fleeting moment
through the night, I was allowed to wear. I tasted of the joy to come that one night
in ’46 coming through the Caribbean. So, I know exactly what is waiting when
they say, “Neville is dead.” Far from dead, he will be clothed in his glorious body.
Yes, the little garment will be dead, and they will cremate it and turn it into dust,
and what they do with it, I don’t really care. I only hope my wife will be wise
enough not to allow the morticians to burden her with all kinds of nonsense,
keeping a little urn alive and paying rent on it. I told her, “Just have a little fun.
The law demands that you’ve got to put it in a box. Well, get the cheapest box in
the world – any box. They will burn it up anyway. Get the cheapest little box and
burn it up, and don’t you pay rent on the little ash. If they will not allow you here
to dispose of it, well, then, make some excuse and say, “Well, it must go to
Barbados,” and then they will allow it. When it goes to Barbados, they will throw
it into the sea, or throw it in the dust. That’s where it belongs – right there in the
dust! But don’t make some little icon of it – no place where you can go and say
‘This is Neville,’ for I’m not there at all.
I’m clothed in my glorious body, a body that is eternal – it’s immortal. And I know
what the body feels like, and I know what it is to be in it. I can’t describe to anyone
the exaltation of just wearing the body. You feel infinite power, and yet you are
man. You are a man. And here everything turns into beauty as you glide by, and
you need no light, you need no sun, you need no moon, you need no stars, for you
are light unto yourself. Not a blinding light, but a radiant light – enough to
illuminate anything you want in this world as you go by. There’s no need for the
sun, no need for the stars, no need for the moon, no need for any external light.
You are the light of the world. That I do know from my own experience.
So, here tonight, when I say, “Awake O Sleeper, and rise from the dead”, I’m
appealing to you to become more and more aware of what you are imagining, for
as you become more and more aware of what you are imagining, you are
awakening. And, so you become every moment of time aware, and you refuse then
to allow your imagination to entertain the unlovely things in the world, and you
simply put it on the lovely you do it, and that moment that you do it you plant it,
and then you have confidence in God’s unbroken law that it must come up, that
you may harvest it. In due season it will rise, and in due season you will harvest it.
It’s a law established in the very first chapter; read it in the 11th verse. It’s stated so
clearly and so perfectly that no man can break it, and then it is captured in the last
verse of the 8th chapter: that as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest
shall never cease.
So, seedtime – you have it. Every time you imagine anything, that’s seedtime.
And the harvest must follow; it can’t precede it. So, you have seedtime and harvest
established forever and forever as long as the earth endures. And you are the one
spoken of in 8th chapter. It is to you that the whole thing is addressed, for the
whole thing is about you.
Now, let us go into the Silence.
Good. Now, are there any questions, please?
Question: What about prophecy?
Answer: Prophecy? As far as I am concerned, prophecy is over – true prophecy.
Fortunetelling, I do not go in for it teacup leaves and cards, astrology – all that is
simply – well, abracadabra. But if one believes it, it will come to pass, because
you’re working on the Law of Belief. But when it comes to prophecy, prophecy is
over. The Bible, the entire Old Testament is one of prophecy, and the one in the
New is the one who came to prepare the way – John the Baptist. That is the end of
the prophecy. Now it’s fulfillment. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and now is
the time of fulfillment of the Kingdom. We’re entering the Kingdom – all of us,
because the whole thing is over and has been proven true. The first to rise from the
dead opened up the door, and all are rising into the Kingdom, clothed in bodies of
glory. No more prophecy.
But if someone wants to sit down and read you the cards, be amused, but the
chances are they are always so negative. They sit down and tell you the strangest
things, and you are all carried away emotionally, and you are planted. Right there,
you are planting. And then you will say, “How wise they were! It came to pass.
Because it’s going to come to pass, if you accept it and give credence to the thing,
it will come to pass.
Question: What about some one like Jean Dixon?
Answer: They never tell you when they fail. They will always tell – if I prophesy a
thousand things, I’ve got to get one. If I take all the nominees now, and I tell each,
“You are going to get it” – well, there are only about five or four. I will omit the
last three, the Communist fellows – they haven’t any chance. So, I won’t tell them,
but I will tell the other parties – the three parties – each, “You are going to get it.”
Well, I will guess one out of the three anyway; that’s a good mark. So, you can’t
fail. If I get one out of three, that’s a tremendous percentage. So, tell them all.
That’s what the world does. So, she comes out, and what she said to one person,
she publicized because it came to pass, but she wouldn’t tell you all the others that
didn’t.
Question: [Inaudible on tape]
Answer: Well, my dear, always do everything in the present, as though you had it.
Always go to the end, as though you had it. The end is where I start from. The
minute you say, “Yes, but –“ then you don’t believe it. You say, you need the
money now.” Well, I say, “Assume that you have it now.” “Ah, but – “Well, then,
you haven’t assumed it at all! Walk through the door just as though you had it. You
might stumble on it out there. Walk as though you had it. Live in the assumption of
the wish fulfilled. Live in it as though it were true.
[Question inaudible on tape]
Answer: Well, I tell you one thing. We have a vivid, vivid example of it right now.
No one wanted the White House more than Johnson, but he had to take a second
place, but he got the White House, and not by election the first time. He went down
to that convention convinced that he was going to get it, and then Kennedy got it.
Kennedy lasted three years, and made his exit at the hand of the assassin, and then
he stepped right into the breach within a matter of hours -–well, minutes, really.
Then he got the election on his own the second time. But no one wanted it more
than he did. So, here you find a perfect example that, although he didn’t get it, he
got it. So, I will say to anyone – I wouldn’t say, “You can’t get it” – I would say to
anyone, “Assume that you are sleeping in the White House.” But will they believe
me? The chances are, they wouldn’t. That’s why they are running for office. They
go to church as people wear a cane; they feel better dressed. When my father was a
young man, he wore spats if he came to a cold climate, and a cane. That was in
order. He felt undressed if he didn’t have that. My father-in-law wouldn’t be seen
dead without a cane and spats. He died in ’42, but until he died, was dressed only if
he had his cane – he had about twenty of them – and his spats. Well, now, people
go to church in the same way. They don’t believe it. Why, Johnson goes three and
four times on a Sunday morning. He goes with one daughter to the Catholic
Church, with another daughter to the Protestant church, and he goes over with
King to the Baptist church. For what purpose? That he may be photographed.
Why a camera at every place that he goes? They have to be there, that the paper the
next day can show how holy he is.
Question: Neville, as you went gliding across this group of people with these
infirmities, did you have the feeling that you recognized these people – that they
were people that had passed you in this life, or were they strangers?
Answer: No, Bob. As far as I am concerned, they were simply the unknown. Not
one face did I recognize, and not one person interested me. I simply walked by
identified with perfection, and they were made perfect.
Yes, Betty?
Question: [Inaudible on tape]
Answer: I would try it. I would definitely try it. I believe in taking God at His
Word and trying anything. The mere fact that I can become aware of desiring to
have the revelation, I will then take His Law, which is fundamental, and assume it
– assume that I’ve had it. I doubt the average person really wants the revelations. A
friend of mine dropped dead suddenly here three years ago. He was an author, a
writer. He used to write for TV. In the old days of vaudeville, he had all the big
shots, and Jean would say to me, “Neville, I love all the things that you do and all
the things that you stand for, but I’ve got to live first.” He meant living – just
playing the field. That’s all he meant: playing the field, and he thought that was
really living. Well, one day, sitting in his room – he finally got married, and, sitting
in the suite of rooms at the hotel in Los Angeles, he said to his wife, “Do you want
to go shopping?” She said, “No, not yet.” “Well,” he said, “I won’t shave until you
want to go out.” So, he was watching the TV – the early show. He got off the chair
and fell right on his face. He was gone. It never interested him to the point of
wanting to have the experience, yet he’s gone.
I say, don’t wait. Desire it now. Now, Jean loved me dearly. Another chap, when I
got out of the Army by the application of this law, without hurting anyone –
honorably discharged, I wrote a friend of mine who was in the Army. He’s a
Freudian, and he teaches it. Now he’s in L.A. So I wrote him exactly what I did. I
did not hurt anyone. I didn’t go A.W.O.L. I was called in and honorably discharged
by the very man who said to me, “No. I disapprove.” My Colonel. The same one
called me in and approved it, and I didn’t raise a finger. I simply applied it –
applied the law. So, I told him. He ignored me completely – wouldn’t answer my
letter. So, he remained in for the duration, and he got out at the end as the other
millions got out, but he used to come to my meetings in New York City, and one
day he said to me, “You know, Neville, I love coming and listening to you. It
interests me. But you know what I do? I stick my feet into the carpet, and I hold
onto the sides of my chair to keep my sense of profundity and the reality of things.
You turn my daily bread into the substance of theory. I’ll have none of it.” He
wants to be right down here on earth. Well, he was there on earth for the entire
duration. I told him what I did. A simple, simple thing: I went to bed in the
barracks, with all the other men around me, and I dared to assume that I was home
in New York City, and that right before my eyes came that same sheet of paper –
or similar – that my Colonel had sent back saying, “Disapproved.” And it came
down this way, and then a hand from here – I didn’t see the face; I saw the hand,
and the hand took a pen and scratched out the word “Disapproved” and boldly
wrote in script, “Approved.” And a voice said to me, “That which I have done, I
have done. Do nothing.” I awoke. I was wearing this watch that my wife gave me
when I was drafted. It was 4:15. I did nothing. At the end of nine days the Colonel
calls me in, and I was honorably discharged, and that same signature – his name
was Bilbough, Colonel Theodore Bilbough, Jr. – his father was Senator from
Mississippi. And that’s my experience. So, with the experience, I am sharing it
with a friend, but he wouldn’t take it. So, I could tell Nixon tonight, or I could tell
H.H.H. tonight or tomorrow, but they would say, “Do you have a PhD?”
The other day I went over here to the hotel – the St. Francis – Sunday morning for a
late brunch. A lady came in – she and her husband came in. Well, I don’t talk to
strangers. All of a sudden, she looked over at me, and she said, “Are you a native?”
I said, “I come from Los Angeles” “Oh,” she said, “isn’t that nice? Isn’t that nice,”
and she started talking. You couldn’t shut her up – just one word after the other.
Then she said to me, “What do you do?” Well, what could I tell her? I said, “I
write.” “Oh,” she said, “you do? Novels?” I said, “No.” “For magazines?” I said,
“No.” “Well, then, what do you write?” I said, “Metaphysics.” Well, she didn’t
quite know that. That was something that didn’t quite penetrate. When I said,
“Metaphysics,” the word struck her because in the word there is the word
“physics” – meta – physics. “Oh,” she said, “You must have a PhD.” Of all the
things – I said, “No, I don’t have a PhD”; and then she kept on talking, talking,
talking, and the poor husband was this way, and he didn’t know what to do. He
couldn’t shut her up. Unfortunately I ordered something that takes a long time. I
ordered broiled mushrooms and crisp bacon on toast. Well, that’s not on the menu;
that’s a special order. So, I regretted that I ordered it. If I had only known, I would
have ordered quick scrambled eggs. And, then, when I got up to go, she said,
“Well, I’m going to pray for you that you win the Nobel Prize.” That’s an actual
fact last Sunday morning in this City.
So, I will say to anyone, don’t ask me about my PhD’s or any other degrees. Just
believe it. I am telling you what is true concerning my own experience. There isn’t
one person named in Scripture as an author. Yes, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
but that’s all anonymous. No one knows who they are. No one knows who wrote
the 39 books of the Old Testament – no one. And, so, did they have PhD’s? Were
they Doctors of Divinity?
Any other questions, please?
[Question inaudible on tape]
Answer: No, I would not give up. I’ll say this much: Be as the widow of Scripture.
And she came and came and came, and the judge finally vindicated her. He said, “I
don’t like the woman. I don’t care about the case, but she’s bothering me, and
because she bothers me, I will vindicate her.” Only to get rid of her. Well, then
treat God in the same way. He’s the Big Judge – and bother Him. You keep on
assuming, “You told me, Father, to ask for it. I’ve asked for it in the way You
taught me to ask for it. Did you send a man called Neville? He tells me that you
sent him. Or is he lying? He tells me that if I dare to assume that I am what at the
moment reason denies and my senses deny, that I’ll get it. Well, is he lying, or did
You really send him? Well, if you sent him, then he’s your messenger. Well, then,
why don’t you answer me?” Just bother Him, just as she bothered the judge, and let
it come into your world.
A man comes at the midnight hour, and he wants something because a friend calls
suddenly, and the man said, “My children are in bed and it’s late, and I can’t come
down,” but because of his brazen impudence, he came on down and gave them to
him. He wouldn’t take No for an answer – just wouldn’t take No. And people will
take No. Don’t take No, because he tells you, “Whatever you ask, believing,”
you’ll get it. Well, if He tells you that, hold Him to it. But people will pass the
buck and say, “Oh well, it wasn’t God’s will.” Right away they say that, they’ve
divorced themselves from God! God became you, and His name is “I Am.” Do you
say “I Am?” That’s He. Don’t let Him get away with it, because the minute you
say He on the outside – well, then, you are not believing.
“Unless you believe that I am He, you die in your sins.” That’s the story. I’ve got
to believe that I am the being spoken of as He. Well, now, I will sleep tonight
again and again and again and bother Him.
Question: The lady said, How do you find out what you are doing wrong?
Answer: Well, not the main question, exactly, why the delay? If she is doing what I
am telling tonight to all people then she isn’t doing wrong! She’s not doing wrong.
I went to the Colonel. I was 38 years old, and in the Army, and a regulation came
down from Washington that any man over 38 was eligible. It didn’t say he would
get it, but he was eligible for discharge. That rested purely with his commanding
officer. He could not appeal it to the divisional commander. It has to rest with the
battalion commander. Well, I went to my battalion commander. He allowed as
much as: Yes, you are 38 years old, and therefore you can apply, so I applied.
Four hours later it was sent back to my company commander – the captain, and the
captain called me in and said, “I am sorry for your sake, Goddard, but the Colonel
has disallowed it,” and he showed it to me. So I saw the signature and saw the
paper. I didn’t protest for the simple reason, you couldn’t. This is the Army, and
you can’t go beyond what they say is the regulation. So, the battalion commander
had the final word. If he felt he needed me in the Army – why, I wouldn’t know
but he thought he did, and so he said, No. That night I simply slept in my
imagination in New York City, almost two thousand miles away, for I was down in
Camp Thorpe, Louisiana; and here I’m sleeping on Washington Square in New
York City, and that night, in my imagination, as I told you earlier, this is what
happened. I still did nothing. Nine days later he calls me in, and after he gives me a
tongue lashing for wanting to get out, he said, “Do you still want to get out?” I
said, “Yes, Sir.” You can’t just say Yes to the Colonel, so I “sirred” him to death –
Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir. “You still want to get out?” “Yes, Sir.” “Do
you know the best dressed man in this country today is the man who wears the
American uniform?” I said, “Yes, Sir.” “You still want to get out?” I said “Yes,
Sir.” And I kept on “yessing” him to death, and then he got up and signed a piece
of paper. He said, “Sign that other form,” and then that evening I was honorably
discharged, and he came out to me – a nice chap – a big, tall, strapping fellow, and
put his hand forward and he said, “Goddard, I will meet you in New York City
after we” – and the emphasis was on we – “have won this war.” I said, “Yes, Sir.”
No regrets. So I went off to my train and to New York City. He was doing his job.
If I had to be in the Army, I would like to follow a man like that. He was a real
leader – no question about it. I don’t imagine that man would have asked me to do
something that he himself would not willingly do. I don’t believe he would. He
was a real man – Colonel Theodore Bilbough, Jr.
Neville Goddard, Summa Theologica, Manly P Hall, A Course In Miracles
