Neville Goddard
GOOD FRIDAY – EASTER
Lecture by Neville
You know the story of Good Friday. A man is in a garden. It’s night time. And one called Judas comes in
search of him, seemingly to betray him. He comes into the garden, and it’s dark, so he asks the simple
question, “Where is Jesus?” Then the voice in the dark answered, “I AM HE.”We are told in the story they
all fell to the ground. When they regained their composure they asked the same question, “Where is Jesus?”
Again the voice answered, “I have told you that I AM HE.” This time Judas kisses him and the voice said to
him, “Now that you have found me, let all else go, but do not let Me go, and what you have to do, do
quickly.” Then Judas goes out and commits suicide.
Now when you read the story youmight think that that drama took place in a garden. No. That drama must
TAKE place in the mind of man. For this is all about re-birth. I t takes a man, a normal man, a man of sense,
but hidden in that man and bound hand and foot is the second man that rebirth loosens and lifts up, and that
second man is God. So the mystery is all self, and he uses the word “mystery” no less than 18 times. He
asked those in the Corinthians to esteem him as a steward of mystery. Then he said, “Great is the mystery,
God was manifest in the flesh.” Then he spoke of the greatest of all mysteries, the one hidden from the
foundation of the world, “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” Christ IN man. Not Christ in the pages of
history, but God IN manmust be awakened, and this is the technique by which he is awakened.
Now come closely with me and let me take you into the garden of your own mind. Right now just imagine
you are in a sick room of some wonderful hospital, a ward. You see the case history. You heard the verdict
of the doctor, and the man, seemingly, is dying. What would save that man from such a verdict? What would
save him? A state of health by which he would rise from that bed and become a normal, healthy person in this
world; that would save him. Now, look into your mind’s eye and define carefully the solution of a particular
problem. When you define the solution to the problem, do you know what you are actually seeing? You are
seeing Jesus, for Jesus means “to save.” So the state that would save that man from what he is, is the state of
health. That is his savior.
The story is, “Now that you have found ME, let all else go, but do not letME go.” In other words, let go of
everything you have ever believed, but do not let go of this concept — that the man is well in spite of the
evidence of your senses to the contrary. No matter what reason dictates, you hold onto Jesus, Jesus being
that the man is healthy. You hold onto it, and you touch it by becoming intensely aware of it; that’s the only
way to touch a thing.
Let me tell you of something that happened only last Friday. I have a friend in this City who I met recently
and he gave me a very sad story. He was up against it. He had borrowed money, and he can’t pay it back.
Things are just going from bad to worse. While shaving… you don’t have to go into some church to find
Him… while shaving, I thought of him and I instantly, while in the act of shaving, imagined I was speaking to
my wife, and I said to her, “Isn’t it wonderful, the good news concerning George.” Then I allowed her, inmy
imagination, to say, “Yes, isn’t it wonderful.” Three hours later, he called me to tellme it’s so good he doesn’t
know what, really, to take. He said that in the immediate present two, wonderful jobs are offered to him.
Jobs he can do and do well. Both are great and he doesn’t know which one to take. Now he has another
problem. I will now assume that he has taken the right one, the best one, and I know that in the immediate
future, George will again callme and tellme that, on reflection, he could not have chosenmore wisely.
So, you look into your ownmind’s eye and know exactly what you want in this world. When you know what
you want in place ofwhat you are, then you are seeing your savior, your Jesus. The story is, don’t let Himgo,
but let all else go. Disengage yourself fromthe whole vast belief that you formerly entertained, and hold on in
your imagination to the concept that you ARE the man that you want to be. That will lead you toward
Calvary. Calvary means fixing in your own mind’s eye that state, and that will lead towards Easter or this
wonderful day that we speak of as the Resurrection. For you will resurrect and make alive the state that
began only as a concept. If you remain faithful to the concept you will be led right into the fulfillment of that
state. It is called, in the Bible, re-birth.
Now here is the story. He said, “Except you be born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” The
wise man said, “How is it possible a man my age may once again enter my mother’s womb and be born
again?”He said, “You, a master of Israel and you do not know? Except you be born of water and the spirit,
ye can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.” Then he gives this clue, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the son ofman be lifted up.” …As Moses lifted up the serpent… do you think a
man lifted up a brazen serpent as told in the story and that everyone who looked on it was instantly healed
and those who would not look were not cured? It’s not any serpent. A serpent is a symbol of the power of
endless self-reproduction. For the serpent sheds its skin, and yet does not die. Man must be like the serpent,
who grows and outgrows. So I must now learn the art of dying that I may live, rather than, I would say killing
that I may survive. I die, by laying down all that I now believe, and I lift myself up to the belief that I amwhat
I want to be. That’s how I do it.
Now this is how a man is born ofwater and of the spirit. If I told you now that an assumption, though false, if
persisted in, will harden into fact, that is a truth, that is water. But water is not enough. You must catch the
spirit of it and apply that truth. Well, if I know that if I assume that I am the man I want to be and persist in
that assumption, I would gradually become that. If I have that knowledge, that’s marvelous. But not to DO it
is to try to bring this being to birth by water only. We are told this is the one who came by water and the
blood. Not by water only, but by water and the blood. In other words, I have the knowledge, but I cannot
bring to birth my ideal by bare knowledge. I must put it into action, I must DO it. Then when I DO it, I take
my savior and I crystallize himby the doing. This is the story of our wonderful Easter.
Today, our churches are bursting with new finery, but not bursting with new men, and we are told in the
story, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on the New Man.”Well, how will I put on a New Man? It’s like
saying to the boy, put on manhood, or saying to the tree, put on foliage. It comes from within, out and man
puts it on from the outside. You can’t put it on from the outside, for He is within you. For great is the
mystery. The one hidden from the foundation of the earth, Christ in YOU is the hope of glory. Not some
Christ external to yourself, but the one in you, that is your hope; that is your only glory.
So, the great mystery is that at BethlehemGod became as we are that at Calvary we may become as He is.
And Calvary is the opportunity that comes very day in the life of a man. When you walk the earth and you
see anyone in need, ask yourself what would be the solution to that individual’s problem, just what would it
be? You can grant it. If you know who you REALLY are, you can grant it, just as I granted it to George. I
didn’t raise one finger to get George a job. I didn’t send him on a job; I didn’t give him anything. I simply
turned in my own mind’s eye to my wife, who was not physically present, and simply stated, “Isn’t it
wonderful, the news concerning George,” and I allowed her to say, in my imagination, “Yes, isn’t it
wonderful,” and then I continued with my project of a simple shaving. That is simply lifting up the serpent in
the wilderness. For I raised myself from the knowledge that George was unemployed and struggling to the
knowledge that he is employed. I did nothing more. I shed the skin, like a serpent. I dropped off all that I
formerly believed concerning George, and began to LIVE on a higher level concerning George, and I so lived
it and so made it real that in three hours, he called and gave me this exciting news.
You can do the same thing with anything in this world. When you do it daily, you die daily as the prophet
said, “I die daily.”Man waits for some little event called death, and he thinks that is dying. That isn’t really
dying for the simple reason that that kind of death does not bring about a transformation. For there is no
transformation in a physical death, but there is transformation in mentally dying and dying daily. So, if you
have learned the art of dying, you have learned the art of living. For man is immortal and he must die
endlessly. For life was a creative idea, and it will find itself only in changing form. If I do not change and grow
and outgrow, and grow and outgrow, then I know nothing of the mystery of Easter, for Easter is really the
greatest of all mysteries. It’s when man awakens within himself from his birth at Bethlehem and he awakens
as God. That’s the story of Easter.
So, let us not perpetuate this thing by our finery, which is lovely. There is not a thing wrong with getting new
clothes and new hats and all the lovely things in the world, but today it has become almost a parade ofwhat is
new rather than the new man. So, when I put on the new man, I put him on by daily exercising him in this
way. By becoming intensely aware. You could at this verymoment, extend your feelings and trust your touch
and participate in all the flights of your imagination, and do not be afraid of your sensitivities. When I become
intensely aware that I am hearing what I want to hear and am actually touching what I want to touch, virtue
goes out of me, and the thing touched takes on the blessing which was determined by the mood that
possessed me as I imagined that I touched it. If I now touch anything, it must become crystallized in my
world, bearing witness to the mood that possessed me at the moment that I touched it.
So, unless we be born of this knowledge and the application of this knowledge, we cannot enter this eternal
state called the Kingdom of Heaven. So, now you have a little of the knowledge, go out and apply it. When
you apply it, this is what happens, and this is a mystical fact. It was said of this one called Judah, “Who is this
one who comes with his garments dyed in the sap of wine. Who takes his vestage and bathes it in the blood
of grapes and takes his colt and ties it to a choice vine, and his eye red with wine, and his teeth white with
milk?” You are told in the very last act, “They placed a wine-colored robe upon Jesus.” You are told that
Judah took his robe and bathed it in the blood of grapes.
Now when I took what I did for George, I was actually weaving my wine-colored robe. I must weave that
robe if I would awaken. It’s called, in the Bible, the wedding garment. It is called the wine-colored robe. It is
called the amethyst in the New Testament, the amethyst in the Old Testament. It’s not an amethyst. It’s not a
robe I weave on the outside, but when I live a life according to these truths, I am actually weaving a
wine-colored aura around my being which then enables me to function consciously on higher levels of my
own being. Without such a robe, I cannot function beyond my present physical state. But when I live this life
according to these truths, you can’t see it with the physical eye, but I weave my robe and those who have the
eye opened will see me as one of their own, and I’mnot going to carry some little insignia to tell them who I
am. I radiate who I amwhen they see my garment.
So, when we are told, “Judah comes and he takes his wonderful robe and he bathes it in the blood of grapes”
it’s not a man who takes off a robe, for the garment in the Bible is what a man wears mentally. So, if I take
my mind and I apply it, actually all day long but not confining it to one simple little thing as I did for George,
but in the course of a day I have unnumbered opportunities to weave this wonderful robe by simply hearing
good news for others. If I hear only good for others and trust what I hear as though I heard it, I am actually
takingmy robe and bathing it in the blood of grapes.
You wonder why he called himself the vine? He said, “I AM the vine and ye are the branches. Unless the
branch be rooted in the vine, it has no life.”Well every man in the world is a branch, rooted in me, the vine,
and he ends inme as I amrooted in and end in God. Now that can be said of every man in the world. While
you look at me and can hear me, you too can say it. Although I have just made the claim, “you are rooted in
me,” you can claim that I am rooted in you and I end in you as you are rooted in and end in God. If you
know it, then it is your duty to lift up everyman in this world. Not one must be discarded. Everyone must be
redeemed and your life is the process by which this redemption is brought to pass. Discard no man. Every
man can be changed. And you have the power to change him by taking the man and seeing him as he
seemingly is and then asking what he would like to be instead ofwhat he seems to be. When you know what
he would like to be, then you imagine that he is that being already. Turn to a loved one and commune with the
loved one concerning this man, just as though it were a fact. When you do it, trust it, touch it and believe it,
and I will tell you that man will become the embodiment ofwhat you have imagined himto be.
This is Easter, and Easter comes not once a year, Easter is a daily opportunity to simply die that youmay live.
For here it is said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and
follow me.” Anyman. Well, how would I take up my cross and follow after this idea? First, I amtold I must
denymyself. Usuallyman thinks that means giving up something he loves, giving up the pleasures of the table,
or giving up something ofwhich he is especially fond. It hasn’t a thing to do with giving up external things. It
is: a manmust deny himself, and a man’s true self is made up of the sumtotal of all that he believes, all that he
accepts as true, all that he consents to. So, if I consent to a man dying, then I must deny that concept, that
self, and put in its place the embodiment of a healthy being. When I do that, I can follow after this idea. You
can take this principle and apply it to everything in this world. If it’s not some tangible thing on earth you
want, take some noble concept of a man, take a man that you would love to see in this world. Dream of that
man actually walking this earth and identify yourselfwith that man. Associate yourself in your own imagination
with that as if you were he. When you actually feel that I am he, and continue in that state, then things begin to
unfold to bear witness to the truth of your assumption. You try it.
So, remember, Easter is the art of dying that youmay live, and this reminds me of that wonderful poemof the
death of Abdula and what he said at the end of it all. He appeared among all the mortals and they were
weeping and kissing his worn-out body and he turned to them and said, “I am not the thing you kiss, cease
your tears and let it lie. It was mine, it is not I.”
Good-bye.
Neville Goddard, Summa Theologica, Manly P Hall, A Course In Miracles
