"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."–Neville Goddard
For my first blog post of the new year, I decided to share one of my favorite lectures from Neville Goddard, Catch the Mood.
Relating the story of Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis, Neville describes how awakening the "Second Man," Christ in us—which is our wonderful human imagination—enables us to fulfill our desires, whatever they be.
Neville also shares in this lecture how he used his imagination to book a return trip from Barbados to the states for him and his family in time for him to meet a speaking engagement, after being told there was no availability on any of the ships out of the islands until several months after the date of his commitment.
Enjoy and have a prosperous and healthy New Year!!
Children really are wonderful teachers. As adults, we think it’s our job and responsibility to teach them, but children are precious gifts sent to teach us, or rather remind us of who we are and of what we are capable when we allow ourselves to simply imagine and BE.
Keeping in line with the theme of my musings of the past few days about the joys of rediscovering childlike wonder, I received the following feedback from the Universe today via author Pam Grout:
“When it comes to creativity, all you have to do is channel your inner four-year-old. Preschoolers don’t sit in front of a pail of legos thinking, “Nah! Not feeling it today.” They don’t wonder if they’re talented enough. They don’t question their ability, worry what someone will think. They plunge in, unhindered, free, happy.”
I particularly enjoyed Pam sharing a story about her friend’s granddaughter. While dancing with great abandon one day, the young girl was asked if she wanted to be a dancer when she grew up, to which she replied: “I already am!”
I was once that young girl. I so imagined being a dancer, undeterred by my parents’ refusal to let me take dance lessons, I spent hours dancing in the living room and basement of our home as if I already were one.
My desire was so strong that at age of 6, I attracted into my life another 6-year old, one of my best friends until about age 18, who was studying ballet. During recess she and her older sister would “teach” me everything they were learning in ballet class, which I’d later practice at home. We even devised a plan to convince my parents to let me take lessons, but it didn't go very well.
Years later, as an adult, when I finally took my first formal dance lesson, I plunged in, albeit nervously, and it was among the best things I ever did for myself. Not only have I participated in and won awards at numerous competitions, I've also formed relationships with some pretty awesome people. Best of all, I feel my most happiest and free when dancing just like I did when I was four!
For several weeks, I’ve been diving deeper, and deeper still, into the teachings of Neville Goddard. Admittedly, I don’t agree entirely with his interpretation of Biblical scriptures, yet his interpretations resonate with me as being for more closer to truth than many of those offered by the vast number of Biblical scholars, ministers, philosophers, New Agers and New Thought teachers, past or present.
This evening, I happened upon this awesome nugget from Neville. In one his lectures from 1968, Live the Answer Now, he shares how he helped a woman gain relief from her stomach ailment:
One day a lady in New York City came to see me regarding her stomach problems. While she was there we talked of higher things, and after the silence she returned to her home on Staten Island. Arriving there, she went into a favorite German restaurant and ate all the food she hadn't been able to eat in years, with no ill effects. I didn't give this lady any pills. I don't even know what a stomach looks like! I simply got this lady to move from the state that had the bad stomach!
And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect as I have for about two days now been experiencing stomach discomfort that was preventing me from fully enjoying my food. Despite what one might assume based upon my slim physique, I enjoy great tasting food, even some rich and fatty foods, and believe that food should be enjoyed.
The entire lecture is pretty awesome. I highly recommend reading it. A quick Google search will yield several sites offering free versions of the lecture. Or, you can search YouTube for an audio of the lecture.
Dream nobly. Dream better than the best you know. Neville Goddard
Flowerhorn fish I saw at a local aquarium."Hey there, gorgeous!"
I'm a Dr. Seuss fan and have been since, well... before I could read. Among the first Seuss books I remember being exposed to are Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat.
I don't know that I fully grasped the life lessons he was sharing in his books, but they were so much to fun listen to, and eventually read, when I was a child. "I do not like green eggs and ham! I do not like them, Sam-I-am."
Now, whenever I have the chance to share Dr. Seuss' books with the little ones in my life, I do. And I feel as much joy now reading them to children as I did hearing them as a child with the added advantage of being able to appreciate the life lessons they contain.
For a bit of fun and encouragement, here are 15 more of my favorite sayings from the master of storytelling and poetic meter.
My 15 Favorite Seuss-isms
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. (From "Oh, the Places You'll Go")
You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them! And you may!! (From "Green Eggs and Ham")
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It is not. And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed! (From "The Lorax")
You're off to great places. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way. (From "Oh, the Places You'll Go!")
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent.
(From "Horton Hatches the Egg")
Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere. (From "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish")
If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good! (From "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish")
Why fit in when you were born to stand out?
It's not about what it is. It's about what it can become. (From "The Lorax")
I learned there
are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come
from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my
troubles are going to have troubles with me! (From "I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew")
He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe, Christmas, he thought doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. (From "How the Grinch Stole Christmas")
In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends! (From "On Beyond Zebra!")
You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
Think and wonder. Wonder and think.
You find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax. All you need is a book. (From "The Cat in the Hat")
For added fun, maybe I'll have some green eggs and ham for breakfast tomorrow. (Such is the magic you can make with food coloring!)
"Know
that anytime we exercise our imagination lovingly on behalf of another,
we're actually and literally mediating God to man. So we can sit
quietly in the darkness and listen as though we heard the good report we
want to hear." - Neville Goddard
Every day I set about looking for at least one magical moment and one of today's moments is truly special.
I was browsing the Freeneville website to see if the site's creator, Mr. Twenty Twenty, or Neville Goddard offered any insight on channeled teachings, many of which I’m beginning to suspect are loads of BS and not to be fully believed or relied upon. The only article he has posted on the subject is in response to a woman named Theresa who’s mother was suffering from dementia in a way that is/was similar to the experience of my parents. She had asked his insight on whether it was okay to imagine her mother being healed or if she should accept her sickness as some new age teachings suggest because it may be the path by which her mother has chosen to exit this life. Mr. Twenty responded by offering the Neville Goddard quote noted at the beginning of this post, adding that by taking the time to imagine her mother at peace she was giving both of them a gift.
I actually posted a response to the article in September 2013, sharing my own story as follows:
Thank you so much Theresa for sharing your situation with your mom. I had been going through something very similar with my mom (and dad) where she went from being the most pleasant, jovial, sweetest, generous, peaceful and strong woman I know to someone I hardly recognized. Similar to your experience, the words that would come out of her mouth sometimes were hateful and foul. She's complaining and paranoid and the doctors, friends, my siblings kept saying this is something we just have to accept and deal with. I chose from the beginning, like you, not to accept this, but there were days when I thought I might cave. But, I can see in my mother’s eyes who she desires to be—peaceful, loving, calm, gentle, content, trusting—and I can see her looking for someone to help set her free. And there have been more moments recently where she is the person she wants to be. Hearing your story and your belief “that it doesn’t have to be this way” and then reading Mr. Twenty Twenty’s response only strengthens my resolve that things don’t have to be the way the doctors say for “all things are possible.” I love the statement of Jesus you mentioned from the Greatest Story Ever Told movie. I think that pretty much sums up the attitude I want to have when I see sickness and lack around me. Thank you Mr. Twenty Twenty for your teachings on Neville and your response to Theresa. You are helping so many people like us become the people we want to be by holding fast to our dreams for ourselves and those we love until they are fully realized.
My dad had only recently been "diagnosed" as having dementia when I posted the above. I may no longer be able to help him, although I gave it everything I could up until the very end. I clung to hope like a woman adrift in an ocean clings to a life preserver until the rescue ship comes. Even after I received initial word of his death, my inner being still chose to believe the words Jesus spoke at Lazarus’ tomb: “I am the resurrection and the life...” I will continue to believe for my mom: "He sent His word and healed them….”
I needed this magical moment today. So did my mom.
As for the movie quote referenced in my reply, according to Theresa there's a scene in which Jesus heals a blind man and then rebukes an observer for asking what if the man he just healed of blindness wanted to be blind: “the man
lives in darkness and while I am on this earth he will see!”
My belief is that Jesus being fully aware of the power within him lived in such a state of perfect faith that sickness simply couldn't exist around him, nor could lack, in the same way that darkness can't exist in the place light is shone.
"He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions." - Psalm 107:20 "We possess the same Spirit, the same power, the same authority; we don't use it, but we possess it." - My dad, Leon Don King, said in remarks given during a Christmas service held in 2006 "God give unto me the grace to accept the things I cannot change. And grant unto me the power to change the things I cannot accept!" - Richard Bartlett, author of "Matrix Energetics"
It's the first day of a new week. How's your day going? Is it so far all that you hoped, planned, intended?
If not, don't accept it. Stop what your doing right now and revise it. In your mind's eye imagine that your day is exactly as you want it to be. Really allow yourself to feel, touch, hear, experience all that you want to feel, touch, hear and experience.
I learned this principle or revising my day from Neville Goddard. He spoke of it numerous times in his lectures and his books. And, while I don't use it consistently, which would be helpful to me if I did, I do use it and have found it does work wonders not only for my mood, but in helping to transform my day so that I do experience more of what I would like.
In Neville's own words...
If you take me seriously today, tonight do not let the sun descend upon any vexation of the day. Just look at it, don't deny it, don't duck it, look at it that you may prune it and then reshape it. Take the conversations with your friends today, were they pleasant, were they arguments, no matter what it is, were they negative? Then rewrite the script and just imagine the conversation to have taken place that now you are rewriting for the first time. And it will take place, for everything in your world that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination. And this wonderful imagination of yours is Christ Jesus. Imagination is the actual habitation of every created thing. No matter what you see in the world, it springs from your imagination. So that's where you go, that's the workshop, the garden of God.
I can't say that I understand fully how or why it works, I only know that it does work, much in the same way that I know when I put my foot on the gas pedal of a car, the car will move (provided there's gas in the car). I don't understand all the mechanics or physics behind it, I just do it and the car goes. You don't always need to know how something works to benefit from it's working.
So just try it—revise your day your way. Even if your day isn't transformed, I believe it will be, you will absolutely feel better.
I borrowed the title for this post from a lecture given by Neville Goddard that I was listening to you this evening. It’s among one of my favorites. He shares about a woman who wrote to him of a vision in which she was taking a test and asked the question:What is the most important thing about me?
I pondered the answer myself as I listened and reached the same conclusion as the woman of whom Neville spoke: I AM!
To the unenlightened this might sound like an egotistical claim; however, the truth is that before I, or you, can be anything, do anything, have anything, or create anything in this world, we must first BE.
The most important thing about you and me is that we exist—we simply are. Sit with that thought for just a moment. How does it make you feel? I live. I move. I have being. I have awareness. How wonderful is that?
Hear more of what Neville has to say about your wonderful I AMness.
I'm a big fan of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie musicals—I'm pretty certain that I've watched all of them, multiple times since childhood. I could easily and quite happily spend hours watching a marathon of their musicals. Watching Fred and Ginger movies with my mom and older sister, along with seeing Mikhail Baryshnikov in the Nutcracker, is what ignited my love of dance. Often after watching their movies as a child, I would retreat to the basement of our home and try to mimic their routines. In fact, several years later after I began taking ballroom lessons (another story for another time), I had someone design/make a gown for me to look like my absolute favorite Ginger Rogers' gown, which she wore in Follow the Fleet.
It's no wonder then that today when I was feeling a bit discouraged about recent events in my life and that of my family that the song "Pick Yourself Up," which Rogers sings in Swing Time to an awkward dancing Astaire, should suddenly pop into my head. I had only moments earlier been practicing a dance variation in between care giving duties for my parents. Curiously, it was during my quiet time while I was reading about Neville Goddard's method for "revising" unpleasant or negative events to help pick up my mood when I heard the song. The song along with Neville's revision method, which he taught as a way to help prevent negative patterns from repeating in your life by changing the way you perceive events, did a lot to help me pick myself up from what could have been an all-day funk.
Believing as I do that our thoughts, emotions, and words have creative power, I certainly don't want to spend an entire day in a funk and risk repeating more of the same experiences that I'm not enjoying. I appreciated and needed the reminder that I have the power within myself to choose my thoughts, feelings, and focus in the moment to create better experiences and outcomes for myself going forward.
I've been learning to do this when practicing my dancing. Even the best dancers occasionally stumble or misstep. I've been trained that when I do stumble or misstep (or God forbid, fall), sometimes the very best thing to do is keep dancing through to the end of the variation or routine. My instructor and I will, of course, pause afterward to assess what happened—did I lose my frame, were my feet or hands not in the right position, did I lose my focus. We will then make the necessary corrections and start all over again. However, I've learned that if I remain fixated on the problem or whatever it was that caused the mistake, I'll keep repeating it—usually to the frustration of my instructor. The key to success in my starting over is to focus on dancing the variation correctly, actually seeing and feeling myself dancing correctly over and over again in my mind until suddenly (sometimes to my surprise), I discover I'm actually doing it.
And so it is, I'm learning, in life. In the face of challenges, obstacles, setbacks, and disappointments that knock you on your butt, you can choose to let fear, frustration, and misplaced focus keep your butt on the ground and your goals and heart's desires out of reach, or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.
Did you know?
Fred Astaire, considered an icon of old Hollywood Glamour and whose name is practically synonymous with dance, failed early in his career to attract any interest in Hollywood. Regarding his initial screen test, at least one studio executive wrote, "Can't sing. Can't act. Slightly balding. Can dance a little." (Source: Biography.com)
Let me begin my stating that I was going to call this post " An Ode to Neville Goddard," but that would have required me to actually write a poem, which I’m not in the mood to do. I did feel inspired today to pay tribute to this great teacher whom I’ve never met, yet consider a mentor—a very beloved mentor.
I discovered Neville Goddard’s teachings about four years ago while reading Wayne Dyer’s book, Wishes Fulfilled. Dyer makes several references to Neville Goddard and how his teachings helped to inform his philosophy of life. Intrigued by some of the quotes included in the book, I decided to learn more about Mr. Goddard and his teachings.
It didn't take very long as there was plenty of information readily available all over the Internet. He taught over 475 lectures and published 10 books beginning around the 1950s until his death in 1972. There are numerous websites devoted to sharing his teachings that were created by people who are/were influenced by him. He is in fact considered by many to be among the greatest New Thought leaders of his day, and even now.
Neville Goddard’s teachings have certainly for over four years informed my own transformation and my views about life and what is possible for me. Through his vast lectures, many of which can be heard on YouTube, I’ve come to understand a great deal about the powerful role my thoughts, imagination, and feelings have in shaping my circumstances. I have as a result learned to pay more attention to the thoughts I’m thinking, what I am feeling and what I am imagining at any given moment.
His teachings have helped me to create some pretty amazing experiences by shifting my thoughts, feelings and emotions away from what I’m not enjoying to what I would prefer. They have also helped me to release years of buried guilt and shame—emotions that will absolutely prevent you from living your best life. For better or worse, our thoughts create our feelings and beliefs, which determine our choices, which determine our actions, which determine our experiences. As Neville would put it: “Nothing comes from without; all things come from within.”
Among my favorite Neville quotes are the following:
“Man, if he is in control of his own imagination, is in control of the phenomena of his life. He is not the victim of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of himself.”
"Do not compromise. Decide exactly what you want and assume you have it. If your world would change, determine what it would look like; then construct a scene which would imply you are there."
“Disregard appearances, conditions, in fact disregard all evidence of your senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you already are what you want to be. For in that determined assumption, you and your infinite being are merged in creative unity. And with your infinite being (God) all things are possible.”
The last one, which Wayne Dyer quotes specifically in Wishes Fulfilled, is one that I meditate on day and night and especially in those moments where I began to feel like life’s victim. It isn’t as some might conclude an invitation to ignore what is happening around me, like an ostrich with her head in the sand. It is an invitation to remain focused on my desired destination or outcome in spite of what I am seeing or experiencing. My current circumstances, problems, challenges may be real now, but reality isn’t static—it is constantly changing. Focusing on the problem only serves to keep me stuck in the problem, exactly where I don’t want to be. Maintaining laser-like focus on my aim will move me towards it.
I recommend all of them with the caveat that you will 1) need to read through them multiple times to grasp the meaning of what he’s saying, yet it’s worth it, and 2) need to keep an open mind. If you think your way, or your parents’ way, or your pastor’s way of understanding scripture or the Bible is the only way it can be understood, or perhaps you aren’t Christian and not open to discussions of scripture, your mind will simply not allow you to glean from Neville’s work the valuable insight that he offers. It is my personal belief that his teachings can benefit anyone, regardless of religious affiliation or even if you don’t adhere to any.
Neville’s teachings offer the opportunity to stop playing victim and take responsibility for your life. If your life is a hot mess and you accept that you’re the one who created the mess, then that means you also have power to create something better and it doesn’t matter how the economy is doing, who gets elected president, or whether your boss is a jerk. Your “savior,” Neville would suggest, is within, not without. What could be more empowering than that?
Below are a couple of my favorite Neville Goddard videos. I sometimes listen to these as I’m going to sleep.
Facts Have Over Flowed the World
How Abdullah Taught the Law
Neville discusses what he learned from his mentor Abdullah, an Ethiopian Jew, about the power of imagination.
