CATCH THE MOOD
Neville Goddard
You will find tonight’s message a very practical one. I don’t think it will disturb
anyone, but there are adjustments to be made concerning what man believes God
to be, and what God really is. We are told in Scripture, in the birth of the twins,
which begins the great drama as told in Scripture, “In your limbs…” and I am
speaking now, not of anyone, but of you individually:
“In your limbs lie nations twain,
rival races from their birth;
one the mastery will gain,
the younger o’er the elder reign.”
(Genesis 25:23, Moffatt translation)
These are in you individually. We are told that the younger, which naturally is the
second – the “second man” – is the Lord from Heaven. That’s the Second Man; He
sleeps in you. You will rouse Him, and He will become the Master. He will reign.
At the moment, in the majority of the world, they are totally unaware of it. So, He
sleeps, and so He doesn’t reign. That one known in Scripture is called Jesus Christ;
The Lord Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God!
Now, the whole vast world, and all within it, is nothing more than the appeasement
of hunger. That’s the whole of life: the appeasement of hunger. And there are
infinite states from which the Lord may view the world to appease that hunger. The
“first man” can’t do it. He can only feed upon what his senses dictate. Wherever he
is, he feeds upon the facts of life as he sees the facts.
It takes the “Second Man” to disengage Himself from that restriction and enter into
a state – any state in the world – and feed upon it, and then – in time – bring the
“first man” to feed upon it.
We are told in the 14th chapter of John: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither be
afraid. Ye believe in God, Believe in me also.” (John 14:1) Now, this is not a man
talking to you from the outside. “Believe also in me.” “You believe in God, believe
also in me.” In the same chapter He is going to tell you He is God! But what man
would actually believe that this Presence within himself is God?
Now, He tells you: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) This is not
another man speaking to you, other than yourself, “Be still, and know that ‘I Am’ is
God.” Can you believe that? If you can believe that, then all things are possible to
you. For, “all things are possible to God.” (Matthew 19:26) Can a man really
believe that? That’s what I am told in the 46th Psalm, “Be still, and know that –
I…”. Put the little word is in there now.
Now we are told, He sleeps, and then came the call, “Rouse thyself. Why sleepest
thou, O Lord? Do not cast us off forever.” (Psalm 44:23) This one sleeps in man.
Man has to rouse Him. He doesn’t know that his own wonderful human
imagination is God!
Now, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told
you that I go to prepare a place for you? When I go I will come again, and I will
receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2, 3) Now,
this conversation takes place in you individually, between the two.
I am speaking now to my self, “In my Father’s house” – I am the Father “…are
unnumbered mansions” – states of consciousness. “Were it not so, would I have
told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again, and
I will receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also.”
I am standing here, and my senses tie me here in this rooms but I don’t want to be
here. I want to be elsewhere. I know my bank balance. I know my obligations to
life. I’m tied by what I know. The “outer man” feeds upon that, but he wants more
than that. There is something in me – the “Second Man” who is born from Heaven
– who is telling me there are “unnumbered mansions” into which I can go – you
can’t go – I can go and prepare it for you. But, “when I go to prepare it for you, I
will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye shall be also.”
Now, how do I do it?
I take a look at my world, and I am very restricted. Everything about me is
something I would like to break through – transcend it, become a bigger person, a
more secure person, where I’m doing a greater job in the world. All these things I
would like to do but reason tells me I am not doing it, and my senses confirm my
reason. Now, is there something in me that is my True Self that can do it? Yes, my
imagination can do it.
In my imagination, I go and prepare the state. I actually go into the state and fill
that state with my own being, and view the world from that state. I don’t think of it;
I think from it. When I think from it, I’m actually preparing that state.
Then I return to where I left this – “the outer man,” and once more fuse with it, and
we become one, once again. Now I take him across a bridge of incidents – some
series of events – that takes me towards the thing that I’ve prepared, and I take him
with me and enter into the very state itself. He feeds now, literally, upon that state.
This is what I call prayer. I don’t vote for it; I don’t petition, I ask no being in the
world – no one, including what the world would say is God. For, when you find
God by being still, and know that “I Am” is God, then to whom can you turn for
anything in this world, if you really believe Scripture, “Be still and know that I am
God”? (Psalm 46:10) If you are not familiar with Scripture, read it in the 46th
chapter of the Psalms of David, the 10th verse “Be still, and know that I am God,”
– then, to whom could you turn? It’s an inner communion with Self. But man talks
to an outside god and pleads with an outside god, and begs an outside god.
This reminds me of a dinner party that William Lyons Phelps gave. If you do not
know who he is – in fact, who he was, he was one of the truly great educators in
our country in this twentieth century: William Lyons Phelps. He and Mrs. Phelps
entertained Edna Ferber, the writer. As they sat down to dinner, Mrs. Phelps said to
him, “William, will you please say grace.” He closed his eyes, bent his head, and
after maybe ten or fifteen seconds he said, “Amen.” And she said to him, “Why,
William, I did not hear one word that you said”; and he said to her, “I was not
talking to you, my Dear…”
People sit down to say grace as: “Bless the hands that prepared this food,” all these
words meaning nothing. You go within, and you don’t petition: you appropriate.
Prayer is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I
hope for so-and-so; I want it as an objective fact. Now, I must go within and
appropriate it subjectively.
So, prayer is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. That is what I call
“faith in God,” which is nothing more than faith in my Self, for the Self of man –
the true identity of man – is God! That is the “Jesus Christ” of Scripture.
“Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourselves and see.” That is
what we are told to do in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Read it in the 13th
chapter, the 5th verse, of II Corinthians. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you
are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in
you?” (II Corinthians 13:5, Revised Standard Version)
Well, if He is in me, then where will I go to meet Him? How will I address Him?
He is in me. He is in my very Self. I simply commune with my Self.
There are unnumbered states in the world, so I single out the state that I want to
express in this world, and I don’t ask you or anyone else in the world if it is good
for me. I don’t consult anyone. Does it come within the frame of the Golden Rule?
What I am now asking, would I ask it for another? Would I ask another, if what I
am seeking now for another is something I would ask for myself? Well, the Golden
Rule is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you keep that in
mind, you cannot go wrong.
What’s wrong with asking for anything in this world for another that you would
ask for yourself? Is there anything wrong in being secure? Nothing. Anything
wrong in being clean and wholesome and decent? Anything wrong in being one
who contributes to the world’s good? What’s wrong with that? Is there anything
wrong in being happily married, proud of the girl who bears your name, or she
proud of the man whose name she bears? What is wrong with that?
Forget that. The whole vast world is a field to reap. You don’t pick out this woman
or that woman. Pick out the state. I want to be blissfully happy, and if I were, how
would I see the world? And how would the world see me? Well, shut out the world
and go within and appropriate that state. And from within, you let your friends see
you, as they would have to see you if what now you are assuming that you are is
really true.
That is why I have titled tonight’s talk, “The Mood” – catching the mood. This
whole thing is based upon that mood. The 25th chapter of the book of Genesis: and
she brought forth twins, for in her limbs were these rival races – rival races from
their birth, called in Scripture “Esau” and “Jacob”; and you think they were two
individuals who lived thousands of years ago. No, they are right here in everyone
in this world! These are the eternal states of consciousness personified in Scripture
as two little boys.
Scripture is not secular history. It is salvation history. And, so, they did not live
thousands of years ago; they live now in you, and you have to give birth to both of
them. You have given birth to the first one. The first one is your “outer man,” the
man who is now a man of the senses – a man who is covered with hair, as we are
told. Esau came out first, and he was covered with hair all over. Whether you be
female or male, you are covered with hair all over. That is the external you, the
man of the sense world.
Then in comes the “Second Son,” and he is the smoothest skin lad, called Jacob.
The name “Jacob” means to supplant. He is going to supplant his brother; he is the
second, but he will come first. The Second Man is the Lord from Heaven, and the
Second Son is your own wonderful human imagination. When you stir it and rouse
it and make him come into being, you can do wonders in this world.
Try it right now. You sit here in this room – I stand here; I could, in the twinkling
of an eye, put myself outside of this room and view it from there, and see the
interior of this room, not from this lectern, but see it from the outside. That is
exercising the Inner Man. Go outside mentally, not physically, and view this room
from the outside. While seated here, I can put myself in my hotel room downstairs,
and then view this room and think of it, but thinking from my room downstairs. I
can put myself in any part of the world and think from it, and think of the world
and everything else. That is the secret: thinking from what I want, instead of
thinking of what I want.
When I know what I want in this world, when I am thinking of it, it is always
beyond me. When I know what I want, I enter into that state and think from it. Put
yourself mentally into your own home tonight now, and view this building – this
club – from your home, and you see this building, not from it; you think of it, and
you are viewing it from your room.
Now, the state of consciousness to which you most constantly return is the place
you really dwell – that habitual state from which you view the world. Do you view
it from poverty, saying, “I am poor?” Do you walk the street feeling, “How poor I
am?” You are then viewing the world from the state of poverty. Am I viewing the
world from the state of one who is completely unknown and unwanted? Well,
that’s my home. The place to which I habitually return constitutes my dwelling
place. I need not dwell there.
“In my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions. Were it not so, would I have told
you that I go to prepare a place for you?” And when I go and prepare the place, I
will return again and take you with me, that where I am – in that state prepared –
you shall be also. So, I now take a state. I want to be known. I want to contribute to
the world’s good. I want also to live well – and I mean well. I want to feel secure,
not only financially, but secure socially, that when I enter a room I am not
embarrassed, no matter who they are. They can have all the degrees in the world.
They can come from all the great universities in the world and be honored by the
world. But I want to stand in their presence and not feel little. I want to feel a man.
I am not to bow my head in shame because of any restriction in my past. If I were
born “behind the 8-ball” socially, financially, intellectually, it doesn’t matter. I want
to feel important; I want to feel great. I want to feel right.
All right, what state would that be if it were true? I conceive a state that, if it were
true, that would make all my wishes come true. I go into that state. Now, the first
time I enter the state and view the world from it, it is wonderful, but I may never
re-enter that state. Therefore, it is not my home. I want to make that state my
perpetual home, so I automatically dwell in that state, and if I dwell in it so that
automatically I am in that state, it becomes my dwelling place. So, “I will go and
prepare a place for you.” I am not talking to you; I am talking to myself: “I will
take you, Neville, born behind the 8-ball – born unknown, unwanted, poor –
everything that is simply behind the 8-ball, and I am going to take you, Neville –
now that you have found me, the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven, your own
wonderful human imagination – now that you rouse me, I will go.”
And I will dwell in the state and feel myself to be Neville – that “outer man” I just
left on the chair or left on the bed, and I will see the world as Neville would see it
if he were with me now. I view the world from that state. And, then, when it seems
natural to me, I return to the physical “outer man” that I left on a chair – that I left
on the bed and as I return, we fuse and become one person, not two. Then I move
across a bridge of incidents that I don’t really, rationally build – it simply appears,
and I move across a series of events that I do not reasonably determine – they
simply happen. I will move across this bridge of events up to the state where I
entered and now dwell. But when I get there, it seems so natural!
The man that thought, because of his past limitations, he could never enter that
state – now he finds himself in that state. No matter whom he meets, he meets them
from that state, and it is perfectly natural to him. This is the story that Scripture
teaches to you, to me, and to every one in the world. But until you find God, which
is your own Self, you aren’t going to do it. “Be still, and know that ‘I Am’ Is God.”
There is no other God!
And you think that’s blasphemy? All right, the one who teaches the story was also
accused of blasphemy, for he said, “I am God,” and they picked up stones to stone
him. It doesn’t mean a man is making a bold statement on the outside. The “outer
man” takes the facts of life – these are the “stones” – to stone him, and then he
quotes Scripture, and he quotes the 82nd Psalm:
“Is it not written in your scripture that I say, ‘Ye are gods, all of you sons of the
Most High’? If, then, I say that I am the Son of God, and the Son of God and God
are one and the same Being, why do you stone me when scripture teaches you, you
are the sons of God?” (See John 10:34-37)
So they could not stone him then because he was only quoting their book. Well, I
am only quoting tonight your book, which is my book. It’s the book to set every
man in this world free if you know Who-You-Are. Your true identity is Jesus
Christ! And Jesus Christ is not a being who came two thousand years ago and then
departed. He said, “I am with you always, even unto the very ends of time.”
(Matthew 28:20)
If He is with me always, where is He? He said, “I am with you always, to the very
ends of time.” Then where is He? I surely know where He is.
The conversation now – I am quoting from the 8th chapter of the book of John. It is
taking place in you. No one else is hearing it. I am only now quoting from a passage
from the 8th [chapter] of John, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of
this world, I am not of this world. I say you will die in your sins, for you will die in
your sins unless you believe that I am He.” (John 8:23, 24) I am only quoting from
the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John.
In Scripture, above and within are the same; below and without are the same. So,
when you read, “I am from above,” he’s telling you, “I am from within”, for he
tells you, “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:21) So, I am from
above, therefore I am from within. You, the ‘outer man’ – you are from without,
therefore you are from below. You are of this world. I don’t have to remain
anchored to what my senses dictate and tell me that I am. I need not be here.
You, looking at me from the outside, as the “outer man,” will say, “Neville is on
the platform.” Knowing my complete outer world, you would know my
restrictions, my limitations. You do not know my ambitions, my dreams, my
wishes. I, and I alone, know my ambitions and my wishes. The “Inner Man” knows
them, and He knows how to enter these states and prepare a state for the “outer
man” to fulfill it. The “outer man” can’t do it. The “outer man” is completely
anchored by his senses and confirmed by his reason.
Now, let me share with you a simple story. At the time that it happened, it seemed
an impossible thing. Right after the war was over, I took the first trip out with my
wife and little girl to the Island of Barbados in the West Indies. I made no
preparation for return. I sailed from New York. I thought I would go and stay a few
months in the island with my family, who were all in Barbados, making no
preparation for my return.
Then it came time for my return, for I had a schedule in New York in the first week
of May. I arrived in Barbados the last of December and had these four heavenly
months – or almost four. When I went to the steamship company, they showed me
a list which was as long as from here to there [indicating] of people waiting to get
on the boat. That was only in the Island of Barbados. There were lists equally long
in all the other islands: Trinidad, St. Vincent, Grenada – all the islands, and only
two ships servicing all the islands: one little one taking sixty passengers, and one
taking a hundred and twenty-five passengers; and hundreds and hundreds in each
island waiting.
Well, they said, “Why, Mr. Goddard, you couldn’t get out of this island until the
month of October at the earliest.” I said, “Is that your final verdict?” They said,
“Why, that’s final. Look at the list, and this is only in Barbados.”
This is the month, now, of April. I never thought of applying before that. My
brother Victor said, “How on earth could you have left New York, the capitol of the
world – the financial capitol of the world – they know everything there how to do
these things. Why didn’t you arrange there when you left for return?” I said, “It
never occurred to me. It doesn’t really matter.”
I sat in my hotel room in Barbados and got comfortable, and then I assumed that I
was in a little boat – a little tender, taking me off to the waiting ship in the bay. I
could feel the rock of the little boat. In that boat I placed my family – a few
members of my family: my brother Victor, my sister Daphne, and one or two
others, and naturally my wife and my little girl. Then I felt the ship come alongside
the main ship that would take us back to New York. And, then, in my imagination I
assumed that my brother Victor took my little girl and stepped on the gangplank
and walked up with her and I aided my wife next, and then my sister Daphne, and
then I got on, and we went up. When I got to the top of the gangplank – all in my
imagination, giving it all the sensory vividness, giving it all the tones of reality – I
have no committed stateroom, so I could not go down to the stateroom. I simply
turned at the top of the gangplank, walked three or four steps, and then put my
hands on the rail, so I could smell the rawness of the sea, I could feel the salt
driven by the wind. I could feel it on the rail, and then I looked towards the island
with nostalgia. I was leaving a perfectly lovely island with so many members of
my family, and yet it was a divided feeling. I was happy to be leaving because I
had to get back to New York on my way to Milwaukee, and then, at the same time,
I was split in my emotion because there was a sadness – like a sweet sadness
leaving them and still happy to go. And that’s the mood that I caught. I caught that
feeling. I can’t tell you if you haven’t had the experience of going any place being
divided between wanting to go and yet reluctantly so, because you are leaving
something precious behind you. Well, that was my mood. I caught the mood. And
then I kept on looking at the island, and then I broke it and here I am, sitting in my
chair in the room in the hotel in Barbados!
The next morning the phone rang. As I answered, it was the Alcoa Steamship
Company calling: “Mr. Goddard, we’ve Just received a cable from New York
canceling a passage sailing on the next ship, which could put you in New York on
the first day of May. Would you like it for you, your wife and your daughter? It’s a
smaller stateroom, really, there are only two bunks, but your little girl is only three
years old, and so she could sleep either with you or with Mrs. Goddard, but there
are two bunks, and there is a private bath. Everything is perfect but you know; the
ship is small. It will only carry sixty passengers.”
I said, “I’ll be right down.” So, I went down, and I thought I would find out some
more details. I asked the agent, “Why the cancellation?” “Well,” she said, “I could
only speculate. They didn’t tell us: they cabled us. There was a cancellation for the
return trip.” I said, “All right, it’s canceled. Why didn’t you give it to any of the
others waiting?” There were hundreds and hundreds waiting. “Well,” she said, “we
have one lady here – an American lady who has been bothering us week after week
to get her out of Barbados back to New York, so we called her first, and she said,
‘It’s not convenient for me to go now.’ So, then we called you because you have
three to go, and I thought you could use the room for the three of you. And we will
not notify any of the other hundreds waiting.”
So, I asked no further questions. I took it and got back in time for my place in New
York and then my place in Milwaukee.
When I first tell that story, the usual reaction is: Was that a fair thing to do? Can
you imagine that! Was that a fair thing to do with all the others who were waiting?
I wasn’t running the Alcoa Steamship Company. I was applying the principle of
God. I wouldn’t care if one million people were there; I’d jump over one million.
That’s not my concern. I am simply applying the Law of God: “When you desire,
believe that you have received it, and you will,” as I am told in the 11th chapter of
the book of Mark, 29th verse, and whatever you do, whatever you say, if you do not
doubt that it will come to pass, it will be done for you. Well, I did what I’m told in
Scripture I ought to do, believe that I had received it, and act upon that belief. So, I
acted upon the belief. What would I do if it were true? I would go up the
gangplank.
In those days, back in 1945, we did not have a deep-water harbor; we have one
now. But then you had to go out to the ship by a little tender, so I did exactly what I
would have to do if I went aboard the ship. So, I got aboard the little ship, and then,
as we got to the big ship, strangely enough, my brother Victor went up with my
little girl in his arms – the very first one to step off. And then here came my wife,
here came my sister, just in the order that I had imagined it. I wouldn’t care if that
order was broken or not, but it did happen in the order that I imagined it.
So, I tell you, I have found Him. Who? Found who? I have found the Lord Jesus
Christ. You did? What does he look like? He looks just like me! Have you found
Him? Well, don’t look at me, because when you find Him, He’s going to look just
like you! That’s the Lord Jesus Christ – just like you. There is no other Lord Jesus
Christ.
He actually became you, that you may become the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
you see Him, He is just like you.
So, do not turn to any one in this world and say, “There he is,” for that’s a lie, or,
“Here he is” – that’s a lie. So, anyone telling you that Neville is the Lord Jesus
Christ – your Jesus Christ, deny it! Deny it completely. Neville is not the Lord
Jesus Christ for you. But I have found the Lord Jesus Christ in me as my own
wonderful human imagination. And I share with you what I have found. One day
you will find Him as your own wonderful human imagination. Then will come the
day that everything said of the Lord Jesus Christ in Scripture, you are going to
experience in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience – everything said
about him. Then you will know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Then you will know
who the Father is, who – really – God is!
Meanwhile, test him. Go to the extreme test. I tell you, you will find Him never
failing. He’s your own wonderful human imagination.
Well, in this story that we started tonight, the two sons are brought now to the
father. The father is Isaac, and Isaac is blind. There were two sons; the first one is
Esau. He is covered with hair. That’s every child born of woman; that is the “outer
man,” for hair means the most external, objective thing in the world. In man, the
hair comes first, then you get the skin, then you get the fat, then you get the bones,
but the hair is the most external part of man. So, he is covered with hair. The next
one has no hair. He is hairless. He is Jacob, The word means supplanter.
The father has requested a meal. That is why I told you earlier the whole vast
world – the whole of life is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. So, the
father is hungry, and he wants venison properly prepared as he always loves it and
he gives that command to his first son, Esau. Esau was a hunter. He goes hunting
for the venison, and prepares it to please his father.
Jacob overhears the request of his father. Remember, his name is supplanter but the
command was given to his brother Esau, So, he slays a goat and skins it, and puts
the skin upon his body to deceive his father into believing that he is Esau. He
prepares the goat and brings it to his father, and he says, “Father,” and Isaac
answers, “Yes, my son.” Then Isaac said, “I am blind, my son. I cannot see. Come
close that I may feel you, that I may touch you.” And covered with the skin of the
goat, he comes close, and Isaac stretches forth his hand and touches him. He said,
“You know, your voice sounds like my son Jacob, but you feel like my son Esau,”
and then he gave him the blessing. And, then, having been given the blessing,
Jacob disappears.
Then his son Esau comes with the venison, and he said, “Who are you?” He said,
“I am your son Esau.” “Well,” he said, “it must have been your brother who came,
and I thought him to be you, and I gave him the blessing; and I cannot reverse it. I
cannot take it back. I have blessed him, and the blessing remains his.”
So, you close your eyes, and you are Isaac; you cannot see. Isaac is blind. Shut
your eyes, and you can’t see the room. Now, inwardly you have the two sons. The
outer room is your Esau. You shut it out completely, and they both go hunting.
Esau comes after; Jacob comes first, and he gives the tones of reality to his father.
His father is his own wonderful “I AM.” Well, that’s God! God’s name forever is “I
AM.” So, I AM is waiting to feel the tones of reality of what he wants, and he feels
it to be so real, so natural.
Now, he knows this thing is subjective, so he said, “You sound like Jacob, but come
closer, my son, that I may feel you”, and he feels him as I felt the rail on the ship,
as I could smell the salt of the sea in the wind, as I could see mentally the island, as
I could feel the ship rolling a little under my feet. All this was the tone of reality.
This, now, is Esau; it seems real, and so I am giving a reality to this state – I am
giving a blessing to it.
Then I open my eyes to find I am sitting on a chair in my hotel room. Well,
suddenly Esau returns. Well, Esau was the place that I left. The room that I sat in
was my Esau; that was the objective world. It comes back. And I say, “What have I
done?” I went into a state and I clothed it with reality. I gave it all the tones of an
objective world, and it seemed so real to me that I gave it the blessing to be real –
to be born. Now this comes back, and without one word spoken, it is telling me,
“You deceived yourself. You were deceived by my brother, the subjective state
called Jacob.” And I say to myself – knowing who God really is, He can’t take
back His blessing. He gave it the right to be born – the right to become objective –
the right to become real, and in 24 hours it was born, – it was real.
And, then, three weeks later I sailed on that ship and completed the entire journey.
I’ve repeated it over and over again, and it never fails. And those who will believe
it and who will put it to the test cannot fail. They cannot fail. This is the principle
of Scripture.
So, will you actually give it the tones of reality? Will you actually, first of all,
believe that the God that you now worship as something without, actually exists
within you as your own wonderful human imagination? If you will believe that,
and not think me blasphemous for telling it and think me something accursed for
having spoken it – but may I tell you, I hope for your sake you will believe it. But
really, in my heart of hearts, whether you believe it or not, I am not concerned,
because the day will come you will have to believe it, because you will experience
it. If only I can aid you to hasten the day – that’s why I am here. But to actually say
I am going to hit you over the head and make you believe it – no. I am not
indifferent to your believing it; I can only appeal to you to believe it for your own
good, that you may take whatever you have and transcend it by the use of this Law.
Whatever you have in this world, may I tell you, no one is really satisfied! I dined
well today, but tomorrow I am going to be hungry. And hunger is forever with man,
and God is the ultimate satisfaction of hunger, but that hasn’t yet come upon the
majority.
He tells us in the 8th chapter, the 11th verse, of Amos: “I will send a famine upon
the world; it will not be a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but for the hearing
of the word of God.” Now, that comes at the very end, for the average man is not
hungry for the word of God. He is complacent. He will say, “I am a Christian!” So,
what! “I am a Christian. I go to church. I contribute to the church,” and so he
thinks that means all that he does as a Christian – it stops right there.
Well, the hunger is not satisfied, because when He sends that hunger upon the
individual, nothing but an experience of God can satisfy that hunger. Well, until He
sends that hunger, all the other hungers can be satisfied, like the hunger for
security, the hunger for a better job, the hunger for a raise in authority in your
present position, the hunger for – you name it. Every hunger can be satisfied if you
apply this principle. But then will come that day He will send the famine upon you,
for you are the earth of which He speaks. It hasn’t a thing to do with the world, the
famine in the world, or whether there is famine all over the world, because they
don’t know how to satisfy their hunger. There is famine, but that is not the famine
of which he speaks. He says it’s not a hunger for bread; it’s not a thirst for water,
but for the hearing of the Word of God!
So, I am giving you the Word of God as I personally have experienced it. So,
tonight you try it. Close your eyes to the obvious. That’s Esau; send him hunting.
And, then, become self-deceived. In his absence, bring in the “second son,” who is
the Lord from Heaven, and clothe him in the tones of reality, and feel how real it is.
Give him all sensory vividness, and when it takes on the tones of reality, open your
eyes! Then Esau comes back from the hunt, and then you tell him what you’ve
done, and he cries out because your son – the “second man” – has deceived you
and betrayed him the second time.
Every day you can apply this principle and become self-deceived, but it works. But
always keep it within the frame of the Golden Rule, so that no one will be hurt. I
do not care who did not get the passage north. I do not care what prompted the
woman not to take it. I do not care what prompted the passenger from New York to
cancel it. I have no complaints, no words; I simply did what I was called upon to
do. I wanted to get out. I found myself locked in – locked in until October at the
earliest, with my commitments in Milwaukee going. I couldn’t do that. I had to get
back, and get back, I did!
So, I tell you, this principle cannot fail you. But we are the operant power. And you
do not get down on your knees and pray to an external god. Do exactly what the
great William Lyons Phelps did, and say to the whole vast world, “I am not talking
to you, my Dear,” – I am communing with my Self. And if I give thanks for what
has happened, I don’t give it to you; I give it to the Being-within-me – constant
praise for this miraculous power that is housed within me. And you walk in the
consciousness of being constantly praiseful for this miraculous power that became
you, that you may become It! And that power is the Lord Jesus Christ who is in
you, and there is no other.
So, when the whole vast world is looking for Him to come from without, as the
great evangelist today has said, “It is immanent. He is on us. He is coming. I am
here to greet Him.” He will wait forever in vain. For when He comes, He is not
coming from without. When He comes, He rises from within, and you are He!
So, he’s reaching millions of people, but he’s in kindergarten. And what do you
expect? He cannot give them more than milk. But in time, you have got to be
weaned from milk, and take meat, and then the true meaning of the great mystery
of the Christian faith.
So, the world has accepted it in a little story. All well and good, but don’t forever
and forever go on seeing only the little story. Learn to extract the meaning of the
story, and hope it unfolds within you.
Meanwhile, you apply what you have heard tonight, and before I leave the City at
the end of next week, you should be able to tell me that what you tonight desire
you have.
Let us go into the Silence.
Neville Goddard, Summa Theologica, Manly P Hall, A Course In Miracles
