Neville Goddard

I can feel and sense my environment to be able to determine if what I am doing is in contribution to my definite chief aim

Introduction

• The great secret is a controlled imagination and a well-sustained attention firmly and repeatedly focused on the object to be accomplished
  • It cannot be emphasized too much that, by creating an ideal within my mental sphere, by assuming that I am already that ideal, I identify myself with it and thereby transform myself into its image
• He calleth things that are not seen as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen [Romans 4:17]

Transformation + Self-Image

• To reach a higher level of being, I must assume a higher concept of myself
  • I must first assume the higher concept. This could be done by explaining to myself how I am already my higher self. Listening to this over and over will eventually convince myself for it to be true
  • I must paint my mind with the ideal vision of how I see my higher self to be. Articulate the story in vivid detail, speak it in the present tense to myself, and imagine it with feeling and emotion
• To be transformed, the whole basis of my thoughts must change. But my thoughts cannot change unless I have new ideas, for I think from my ideas
  • All transformation begins with an intense, burning desire to be transformed
  • The first step in the "renewing of the mind" is desire
  • I must want to be different [and intend to be] before I can begin to change myself
  • Then, I must make my future dream a present fact. I do this by assuming the feeling of my wish fulfilled. By desiring to be other than what I am, I can create an ideal of the person I want to be and assume that I am already that person. If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes my dominant feeling, the attainment of my ideal is inevitable
  • The changes which take place in my life as a result of my changed concept of myself always appear to the unenlightened to be the result, not of a change of my consciousness, but of chance, outer cause, or coincidence
  • All transformation is based upon suggestion, and this can work only where I lay myself completely open to an influence. I must abandon myself to my ideal as a woman abandons herself to love, for complete abandonment of self to it is the way to union with my ideal
• Self-Image
  • Everything depends upon my concept of self. That which I do not claim as true of myself cannot be realized by me
  • I become according to my resigned will, and my resigned will is my concept of self and all that I consent to and accept as true
  • If I would change my life, I must begin at the very source with my own basic concept of self

Attention

• When the imagination is not controlled and the attention not steadied on the feeling of the wish fulfilled, then no amount of prayer or piety or invocation will produce the desired effect
• My assumptions determine not only what I see, but also what I do, for they govern all my conscious and subconscious movements towards the fulfillment of themselves
• When I know what I want, I must deliberately focus my attention on the feeling of my wish fulfilled until that feeling fills the mind and crowds all other ideas out of consciousness
• Concentrated observation of one thing shuts out other things and causes them to disappear
• My attention must be developed, controlled, and concentrated in order to change my concept of self successfully and thereby change my future
• Attention is developed by repeated exercise or habit
• Concepts determine the route that attention follows. Here is a good test to prove this fact. Assume the feeling of my wish fulfilled and observe the route that my attention follows. I will observe that as long as I remain faithful to my assumption, so long will my attention be confronted with images clearly related to that assumption
  • For example; if I assume that I have a wonderful business, I will notice how in my imagination, my attention is focused on incident after incident relating to that assumption
• My imagination is able to do all that I ask in proportion to the degree of my attention. All progress, all fulfillment of desire depend upon the control and concentration of my attention

Action + Freewill

• The question is often asked, "What should be done between the assumption of the wish fulfilled and its realization?"
  • Nothing. It is a delusion that, other than assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled, I can do anything to aid the realization of my desire
  • I think that I can do something, I want to do something; but actually I can do nothing. The illusion of the free will to do is but ignorance of the law of assumption upon which all action is based
  • Everything happens automatically
  • All that befalls me, all that is done by me - happens
  • My assumptions, conscious or unconscious, direct all thought and action to their fulfillment
• The principle of "Least Action" governs everything in physics, from the path of a planet to the path of a pulse of light. Least Action is the minimum of energy multiplied by the minimum of time. Therefore, in moving from my present state to the state desired, I must use the minimum of energy and take the shortest possible time
  • My journey from one state of consciousness to another is a psychological one, so, to make the journey, I must employ the psychological equivalent of "Least Action" and the psychological equivalent is mere assumption
• The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the ship that carries me over the unknown seas to the fulfillment of my dream
  • The assumption is everything; realization is subconscious and effortless
• It is impossible to do anything. I must be in order to do
  • If I had a different concept of self, everything would be different
  • I am what I am, so everything is as it is
  • The events which I observe are determined by the concept I have of self
• If I change my concept of self, the events ahead of me in time are altered, but, thus altered, they form again a deterministic sequence starting from the moment of this changed concept
  • I am a being with powers of intervention, which enable me, by a change of consciousness, to alter the course of observed events, in fact, to change my future

Faith

• I must imagine that I am already experiencing what I desire
  • That is, I must assume the feeling of the fulfillment of my desire until I am possessed by it and this feeling crowds all other ideas out of my consciousness
• Form a mental image, a picture of the state desired, of the person I want to be. Concentrate my attention upon the feeling that I am already that person
  • First, visualize the picture in my consciousness. Then, feel myself to be in that state as though it formed my surrounding world
  • My imagination that which was a mere mental image is then changed into a seemingly solid reality

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