IF ANY TWO AGREE…
Neville Goddard
Concerning the Law, I can only acquaint you with the Law and leave you to your
choice and its risk, but we have Scripture for it – to tell it, regardless of what they
do with the Law. In the 18th chapter of the book of Matthew you read these words,
“If any two of you agree on earth about any request that you must make, that
request will be granted by my Heavenly Father.” (Matthew 18:19)
Find two who agree, and that request will be granted. Well, can you conceive of
something greater? If two agree on earth concerning any request – it doesn’t have
to be good, it doesn’t have to be this, that or the other, but any request – “that you
must make, that request will be granted by my Heavenly Father.”
Here we are told the greatest secret in the world concerning the human
imagination. We are told that, “With God, all things are possible.” Then we are
told: “All things are possible to him who believes,” so he equates God with the
human imagination: that God is the human imagination, and all things are possible
to the human imagination.
Now, a friend of mine called me today, and I tell you the story that you may see.
It’s entirely up to you. I’m quite sure that she was perfectly innocent in the
wonderful work that she did. She has exercised this talent of hers, which she has
learned, as you have, from this platform, and she has done a remarkable job in the
world of Caesar in dollars and cents. But one has to learn something outside of this
and govern everything by Love. Everything must be governed by Love. Everything
must be governed by Love. She was quite concerned, and really quite disturbed.
She said, “Neville, what have I done? Have I done something that is wrong? A
neighbor of mine – a male neighbor – asked me if I would play back his record for
him.”
Now let me explain to you what she means by this. She has a very keen ear. If you
speak to her – make a sentence, and then you stop, she can hear you as distinctly as
anyone could ever hear you. If you put it on a record, what she is hearing is just as
accurate as that recorded record.
So, she wants you to make a statement in a positive manner, like the great
Professor1 who said: “I have a lavish, steady, dependable income, consistent with
integrity and mutual benefit.” This he said long before he had a nickel, and he
persuaded himself of the reality of what he was hearing.
So, she wants you to put it into a positive statement just like that – “but tell me
what you want.” Well, the neighbor wanted to be free of a disturbing element in the
neighborhood, which was also a neighbor – a couple with three children. So she
heard him distinctly say that he was free of this disturbance, that they were gone.
Her ability to hear distinctly is so keen and wonderful that she heard him affirm
what he had affirmed. In a matter of days the parents were killed on the highway,
leaving three children: two little ones and a demented boy in his early teens. So she
wondered, “What did I do?”
I tried to persuade her, “You did nothing that was wrong. You simply exercised a
principle. The lad who asked of you – did you ask him anything concerning his
motive behind it all?” Well, she didn’t ask that.
But I say, whatever you do, do it in love. She is completely exonerated as far as I
am concerned. She simply applied the principle. So I tell you, I acquaint you with
a principle and leave you to your choice and its risk. She is fantastic in hearing
what she wants to hear in the world of Caesar, but may I tell you, you can go
beyond that and take it into the world of Promise. If someone can say to you, “I
have a lavish, steady, dependable income, consistent with integrity and mutual
benefit,” and your ear is so sensitive that you can hear exactly what the other one
says – there are two witnesses now. “If two agree on earth about any request that
they might make, that request will be granted by my Heavenly Father.”
Well now, that’s a request. It doesn’t limit it there. Could I say to you, I have had
the experience? I have had the experience of which he speaks, the experience of
the resurrection and the birth from above, the experience of the discovery of the
fatherhood of God, the experience of the ascent into the heavenly sphere, and can
you hear with me that, because what I said before was as much a lie based upon
this level as the other, and so I am telling you now of another level. Can you find
agreement on this level where I will tell you, as I have told you on this level, that
my neighbors are gone, and now I am free of that disturbance, and you heard it
with me; you heard my voice? You listen to my voice. And then, having heard my
voice distinctly, you now – in my absence – you hear my voice actually state what
you heard it state physically. And here are two agreeing: you heard the voice, and
now you have heard this.
Now, can you go into another level and have someone who really sincerely desires
to have this spiritual experience of the Promise as that lad wanted to be free of a
disturbing neighbor?
So, the parents are dead; they’ve been killed in some freeway accident. Now you
may say, “Did she do it?” No, she didn’t do it. She had only heard – may I tell you,
we are one body. There’s only one spirit, only one lord, only one God and Father of
all.
“All things, by a law divine,
In one another’s being mingle.”
[Shelley, from “Love’s Philosophy”]
We are only one! So, if these two parents are now gone from the world, leaving
behind little children – two little tots in their swing – they are totally unaware that
their parents are gone, and the other one, the early teens – he’s a little bit demented,
and he’s not quite aware of what has happened.
So, I say to you, I am telling you of a principle – a Law that cannot fail. You don’t
have to do anything on the outside, and you don’t even need another one. You can
say to yourself, and then listen; the two could be within yourself. It need not be
someone as sensitive as she is to the human voice. She has been trained that way.
She was in the telephone business for quite a while as the head of her department
on long-distance calls, and she knew voice after voice after voice.
And she could actually register that voice. So, she knew these voices. Before you
could even announce who you are, she knew who you were because she knew the
voice. She has been so trained to hear sound, and so, you come to her. She asks you
simply, “State it in a bold, positive manner what you have” – which is really what
you hope to have. “I hope to have it” – don’t state it as a hope. State it as a fact,
because we are living in an imaginal world. This world is one’s own imagination
“pushed out.” The whole vast world is all imagination; that all these so-called
objective realities were simply first imagined, and then they become what you and
I call realities.
So, “All things are possible to him who believes,” and “With God all things are
possible.” Therefore, the human imagination is equated with God! God and the
human imagination are one.
Now tonight she is faced with this. I tried to persuade her today that she didn’t do a
thing that was wrong. You are telling a principle; you are exercising a law, but not
until man is incorporated into the Body of Love will he actually be able to exercise
this Power where he can stop time and then start time. Because, what horrors he
would do in the world!
Their two parents are gone? All right, so they are gone. They go all the time
anyway. But here, a little man who wanted freedom from the disturbance of what
he called a disturbing neighbor –three little children playing all the time, and it
disturbed him, so he didn’t want that. She didn’t ask reasons beyond; she simply
got his request, which was perfectly all right, perfectly normal, because she is a
delightful, lovely lady – a lady who would not, for one moment, hurt anyone, but
her whole interest has been on the world of Caesar: getting security, dollars and
cents. The Promise does not interest her. As far as I am concerned, it has not
interested her. I can’t see any interest in the Promise when I talk to her, but I can
see a great interest in the Law, and she has discovered the Law, and she works it
beautifully.
There is another friend2 of mine back in the east, and the Promise means nothing to
her, but the Law does, and she has made millions – but millions. When you own
buildings on 57th Street between Fifth and Sixth you are “in the money.” When
you have businesses all over the world, you are in big business, and that’s her
business, and she started with not one penny in this world when she first heard me,
but she believed what I told her. She believed that imagining creates reality, as I
am telling you now it does. It does create reality.
So here, treat it, may I tell you – and I plead with you – treat it lovingly. If
someone asks of you this night to hear good news for them, certainly hear it, but
try to find out something behind the reason why they are asking it of you, that you
may do it in a loving way. That whole family could have been removed without the
destruction of the parents. It could have been removed in a thousand little ways,
but it was removed in that manner.
So, I tell you, your own wonderful human imagination is the only cause of the
phenomena of life. There is no other power! That is the God spoken of in Scripture!
That is the only God – your own wonderful human imagination.
Do you know what you want tonight? All right. Don’t minimize it. It doesn’t
matter how big it is, state it, and then listen in your own wonderful manner to your
own voice for that matter. Or, tell a friend without his knowledge; you can hear a
friend of yours tell you that he heard the good news about you. You know what you
want. You actually write it out in your mind’s eye, and then have a friend whose
voice you know well – and listen to his voice as he is confirming that you have it.
These are the two who agree. You don’t need another’s voice in the sense that you
let him come into your world, as she did, and have him first state what he wants.
The Professor didn’t do that. He did it all within himself. He said, “I have a lavish,
steady, dependable income, consistent with integrity and mutual benefit.” He didn’t
ask another to state that; he did it unto himself, and he became the two. So, I don’t
need any other to do it. If I have a desire to help you, or to help anyone, all I need
do is simply to imagine that I have heard them, then I actually hear them tell me
what I wish they would tell me. Then there are two: this one that I am hearing and
I, the one who is listening and hearing; and these two agree. If two agree in
testimony, then it is conclusive, and because imagining creates reality, it must
externalize itself in my world.
The whole vast world is only the imaginal act “pushed out.”
And so, we are told, “With God, all things are possible,” and “All things are
possible to him who believes.” Well, am I not equating God with the believing
one? And the believing one, isn’t that one’s own human imagination? That’s all
that it is.
Well, you put it to the test, and you can go to any extreme in this world. There is no
limit set upon this Principle – but none whatsoever. I can’t find one limit in
Scripture, whether it be a violent thing or a lovely, pleasant thing, there is no limit.
“I kill, I make alive; I wound, I heal; I do all things, and none can deliver out of
my hand,” as I am told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy. “There is none that
can deliver out of my hand.” And I do everything; “I kill and I make alive; I wound
and I heal.”
So, you be the judge. I am telling you from my own personal experience that only
when you are incorporated into the Body of Love will you exercise the Power that
can stop and release time. If you could stop time without love, what a horror you
could create in this world! But you will not for one moment exercise that Power
until you are first incorporated into the Body of Love.
So, I say to this lady – she’s not here tonight; a friend of hers is here tonight who
will see her – she did not do one thing that was wrong. She simply accepted a
person’s request, and she heard it distinctly, and in a matter of days they are gone –
rubbed out, leaving behind three little children.
Now, I tell you, if we were not one, it would be entirely different, but it was only
done to herself, because:
“All things, by a law divine,
In one another’s being mingle.”
We are all one. And the day will come that everyone will know it.
That’s what I’ve been trying night after night to convince everyone who is here:
that you, one day, will discover that you are actually, literally God the Father!
The central theme of the Christian faith is the Fatherhood of God. That’s the
central theme. And one day you will discover from your own experience that you
are God the Father, and there is no power in the world that can persuade you that
you are until a son – and because He is Father, there must be a son, and it is His
Son who stands before you and calls you “Father.”
Here in Scripture you are told, “If the son sets you free, you are free indeed.” And
people wonder, “What on earth is that all about?” “If the son sets you free, you are
free indeed.”
A demented king stands and he looks at the head of the “enemy of Israel,” and he
wonders, Who is the father of the man who brought that head here? The king’s
name is Saul, and he’s insane, and he asks his lieutenant, “Abner, whose son is that
youth?”
And Abner said, “As your soul liveth, O King, I cannot tell.” He said, “Inquire
whose son the stripling is.”
No one knows, so the stripling – the young lad – comes holding the head of the
giant in his hand, and the king said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?”
And he said, “I am the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite” – because the king had
sworn to set the father – not the son – to set the father of the man who destroyed
the enemy of Israel free. And he destroyed the enemy of Israel. He would not put
on the garment of the king. He took it off. He only carried five stones with him.
They weren’t five stones. It’s all beautiful imagery. Five is simply grace. The
number five is grace, and grace is God’s gift of Himself to man. So, he took only
the grace of God, the gift of God. Grace is equated with the power of God. “For
my grace is sufficient unto thee, and my power is made perfect in weakness.”
So, you are the little weak one. You go forward, and you have my grace – you have
my power – not five little stones as told in the story. Here is God’s gift of Himself
to man; so he stands before him, and the king does not understand who is standing
before him. He is suffering from amnesia. The king is everyone in this world. He
didn’t recognize his own son.
Paul’s first name was Saul, and Saul was converted into Paul. When he was Saul,
he went out to destroy the entire story as he heard it, and then he heard a voice
saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”
And then he answered, “Who are you, Lord?”
“I am he whom thou persecutest. I am the Lord.” And then he changed his name
from Saul to Paul. The whole vast world is Saul. He looks into the face of his own
son and he cannot recognize him because he is actually suffering from amnesia.
Then comes a complete return of memory, and he remembers he has promised to
set the father free of the man who destroys the enemy of Israel. And so, memory
returns, and he is the Father, and he is set free!
“No one can set me free but the Son that I have forgotten.” So, my Son returns, and
all of a sudden I am set free! This is the story of Scripture. The day will come; you
will actually see Him. He will be the one who is standing before you. You will
recognize Him. You will know Him to be your son, and knowing your Scripture that
He is the son – the only son of God – and that he’s your son, then you know Who-
You-Are. You are God Himself, limited for a little while in a garment of flesh and
blood to tell the story to encourage others who are still in the demented state of
Saul.
Now, to go back to the story, if she could hear that which was not true and then it
becomes true, why limit it to the world of Caesar – of getting rid of a neighbor?
Why limit it to the dollars and cents of making a fortune? Why not take it into the
Promise, and have someone within your own Self say, “I have experienced the
Promise – I have actually experienced the Resurrection, and the birth from above,
and the discovery of David, and the ascent of myself into heaven, and the descent
of the dove,” and then listen as though you actually heard it?
If you can’t do it that way, then take a friend, and hear the friend say to you, “I
heard that you” – and then let that friend’s voice be the voice that you are hearing,
and you are reveling in what the friend is saying concerning what you have
experienced, and have the two agree. “If two agree in testimony, then it is
conclusive.”
So, do not limit it to the world of Caesar.
So, when she called today at 10:00 this morning, my heart went out to her because
she was quite disturbed – frightfully disturbed – with the thought, What have I
done? For really, she would not kill – well, a butterfly. That’s the kind of a lady
that she is. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She wanted money; she has money. She
really wanted that beyond all things, but she has it now. She got it, and for the rest
of her earthly days that’s done. It is all in trust, and she has it. I would ask her to go
outside of that now. If she could only become hungry for It, as she was hungry for
money.
But do not dwell upon what has happened concerning the death of these two
people. Forget it. They have gone from this little world, but they are still in a world
just like this, and as far as the little children are concerned, they will be taken care
of. They will grow into this wonderful world of ours, and everything will be
perfect.
But I am telling you, your own wonderful human imagination is creating all the
realities of your world. All the objective things in the world are but the outpouring
of your imaginal acts. That’s what Yeats meant when he said:
“I will never be certain that it was not
some woman treading in the wine-press who
started the subtle change in men’s minds,
or that it was not some little shepherd boy
lighting up his eyes for one moment before
this little power ran upon its way.”
He was dreaming of being a hero, and he simply – in his own strange way – dreamt
of violence, because today it seems that man feels only – if he were a hero in a
military sense that he really is a hero. He must be this, that or the other in some
fantastic manner. But he does it, and then he is influencing the entire world,
because we are all one.
“All things, by a law divine,
In one another’s being mingle.”
We are all actually one. So, if I stand here now and lose myself in an imaginal act,
I am influencing the entire world – influencing everyone who can be used to aid me
in the objectification of what I am imagining. So, do it lovingly.
Whatever you do, do lovingly – I don’t care what it is. And if you are ever in doubt,
do the loving thing, which is called by the simple, simple term the “Golden Rule.”
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
So, if you are ever in doubt, use that as your rule, and you can’t go wrong, and then
the day will come that you and I will meet “on high.” Then you will be able to
understand Scripture. Here’s the one who said, “I am from above, and you are from
below. I am not of this world; you are of this world.” Do you think one man is
talking to men? No, it is one Being speaking to Himself.
Here is the “outer man” called Neville who came into the world first. This is the
Esau of Scripture. And then after that, comes another one – my own wonderful
human imagination, and that’s the “Jacob.” This is the twin that comes into the
world. They aren’t two separate little boys. This is the story; this is an adumbration
of that which comes later into the New Testament, that the one who could say, “I
am from above and you are from below; you are of this world; I am not of this
world.” So the Being that is speaking is your own wonderful human imagination
that in Scripture is called “Jesus Christ.” And the “thing below” is the body that
you are wearing, and that is “of this world.”
Now, you are anchored here. I will show you how I need not be anchored here,
because these two, as we are told in Scripture:
“In thy limbs lie nations twain,
rival races from their birth;
one the mastery shall gain,
the younger o’er the older reign.”
That’s from the 25th chapter of the book of Genesis (Genesis 25:23, Moffatt’s
translation).
Now we are told in the first book of Corinthians, the 15th chapter, that the “Second
Man” is the Lord from Heaven. So, the second one who is mentioned in Genesis as
Jacob, who became Israel as he wrestled successfully with the Lord – his name was
changed from Jacob to Israel; he is that “Second Man.” He came second; Esau
came first. Well, this [indicating the body] is the Esau, and it’s limited to its senses.
It can only accept as true what the senses dictate – what reason allows. But there is
something outside – far beyond this, which is the “Second Man,” and he is the Lord
from Heaven. He is called in Scripture the Lord Jesus Christ.
So I stand here. I only accept as real what my senses now dictate – the room, but I
don’t want to be here. Is there something in me that could dominate this little man
that insists that this is the only reality? Well, certainly! It’s my own wonderful
human imagination!
Can I, while standing here, assume that I am elsewhere and see the world from that
elsewhere-ness, and see it as I am now seeing this from this platform? I can do it.
Well, if I do it, what would happen? I’ll go there. Man, not knowing that, he is tied
to his little body Esau – morning, noon and night. He never gets away from it. But
these rivals – within man – the second one eventually will become superior.
They are rival races from their birth, yet that younger one is destined to be the
master, and the younger, which is the second, is the Lord from Heaven. And he will
actually dominate when he comes awake within this wonderful story that is
Scripture. And that second one is your own wonderful human imagination.
So, I will stand here, and reason denies it, my senses deny it; my pocketbook will
not allow it, and my time will not allow it, but I want to go elsewhere. Everything
in this world tells me I can’t go. Well, where would I go? I know exactly where I
would go. Well now, let me in my imagination go. I don’t travel; I bring there here,
and here vanishes. I take there and make it here, and I take then and make it now.
And with my eyes closed to this world, I simply envelop myself in my wish
fulfilled, and see the world as I would see it if it were physically true. And when it
seems to take on all the tones of reality and all the sensory vividness of reality, then
I open my eyes, and this world returns. That’s what we are told in the book of
Genesis. Esau came back from the hunt, and as he came back Jacob vanished, but
his father Isaac said, “Even though he deceived me into believing he was you, I
cannot take away my blessing. I gave him my blessing. I gave him your birthright.
I cannot take it back. I gave him the right of birth to come into this world and be as
real as you seemingly are. So, now you must vanish, and he must take it even
though he deceived me.”
It was a self-deception. I deceived myself into believing that I am what one
moment before reason denied and my senses denied. Try it! And if it proved itself
in performance, does it really matter what the world thinks?
You see, we are dealing with the most fantastic mystery in the world – the mystery
of imagining. That’s what Fawcett said:
“The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which
every man should aspire, for supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lie
in the far-off solution of this mystery,” [from “The Zermatt Dialogues”] – because
you are actually solving the problem of God. If you can solve the problem of
imagining, you are solving the problem of God!
So, even though you make a mistake and people are injured, like tonight two are
dead, no regrets. They are awake in a world just like this to continue their journey,
and the three will be taken care of. So, I do not stand in judgment, and no one
should stand in judgment of what she did. She exercised a Law that she heard. She
heard it from me. I only ask you: when you hear it, mix it with love. Never do unto
another what you would not want them to do unto you – never do it. So ask, “Why
do you want the neighbors to go?” All right, they will go in their own wonderful
way. They may want to go without violence. They will want to go and you hear it
in that way.
So, make them rearrange their words to fit a pattern of love. Then you hear that,
too, and it will all come to pass.
Let’s go into the Silence.
Neville Goddard, Summa Theologica, Manly P Hall, A Course In Miracles
