Live in the End - Neville Goddard 7/19/1968 I dare say everyone here would say "yes" to the statement of Scripture: "With God all things are possible. " (Mark 10, verse 27) I don't think you would be here if you didn't believe in God and the God with whom all things are possible. But perhaps we will stop there and separate man from God, and my purpose is to show you that we are not two, that we are One.
. . that God actually became man, so that man could become God.
Therefore, tonight, let's present to you the reasons for my statements. Let's go back to the book of John. .
. to the Gospel of John, and we are told that "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1, verse 14). Well, that's a translation error.
The word translated as "between" is the Greek preposition "in", "within". "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us". .
. "in us". (John 1, verse 14) John used the plural "we" because of the nature that constitutes us, that the Word of God, which is defined in Scripture as the creative power of God and the Wisdom of God, did not take upon Himself a person among men, for then that assumed person would have advanced, and no further; but Christ, to save all, did not make this or that man his dwelling, but "dwelt in us.
" The same creative Word that created the universe and sustains it lives in us! Therefore, "with God all things are possible" (Mark 10, verse 27) and therefore with man all things are possible. Therefore, he states in one book, Matthew, "With God all things are possible," but in Mark he states, "All things are possible with him".
. . that is, the man.
. . "who believes.
" Can man believe? So, this Creative Word is in us. Well, what is this Creative Word?
It's your own wonderful human imagination! This is Christ in man. Man is all imagination, and God is man, and exists in us, and we in Him.
Man's eternal body is the imagination, which is Christ himself, the divine body of Jesus, and we are its members. Therefore, when you say, "I AM," it is He. Now, can you believe that you are now the man you would like to be, although the moment you assume it, reason denies it?
And your senses deny you? Can you really conceive a scene. .
. a scene that, if true, would imply the realization of your dream? Just imagine it.
Surely you can imagine it, but the problem is: will you believe it? Will you believe in the reality of what was imagined? If I could, right now, imagine myself in a state.
. . any state.
. . and dwell in it, well, what is "dwelling in it"?
Well, I'm dwelling in it. Well, that's Christ! And that is the resurrection power of the universe.
Therefore, if I remain in a state, I will resurrect it and objectify it in my world. But I have to select him and get to state. If the spectator could enter any of these states in his imagination, approaching the state in the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought.
. . what would it be like if this were true?
How would I feel if I were now the man I wanted to be? How would I know I could become this? Well, first, since I assume that I AM this, let me think of my friends.
. . the ones who would actually rejoice with me if this were true.
I will imagine that I am seeing them in my mind. How do they see me? If what I am supposing is true, they must see me as I see myself, and if they are friends, they must rejoice with me.
So let me now suppose that I am seeing reflected in a friend's face that which, if I did, would imply that he sees in me what I have assumed I AM. Will this work? Try!
I tell you, based on my personal experience, it works. As we are told in Corinthians, "Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail the test.
" (II Corinthians 13, verse 5, Moffatt translation) Now we are challenged. He says, "Come, test yourself and see. " (II Corinthians 13, verse 5, Moffatt) Well, this is how I test myself: If Christ is in me, and all things are possible with Christ, then I need to find out who he is.
Well I found it as mine own wonderful human imagination, and because it dwells. . .
not just in me, it dwells in us. . .
everything is possible for everyone in the world. Therefore, the best way to help man is to tell him who Christ is. You could give him all the things he needs in the world, but he will come back for more tomorrow unless he knows who Christ is.
You can give the whole world to any of them: they will spend it. . .
waste it. . .
if they don't know who they are. But tell him who he is. .
. and he will need nothing more than the knowledge of who he is and the application of that knowledge, for we are the operating power. It doesn't work alone!
I can say that your imagination is Christ, and perhaps you believe me, but unless you really take it to the point of working on it and operating it, it means nothing. Well, if tonight I really believe this, I will not allow the sun to set during my sleep unless I feel myself in the situation of wish fulfillment. It doesn't have to be a wish for myself; it may be a wish for a friend, for everyone in the world, because Christ dwells in everyone, and Christ is the true identity of every man, so everyone must be "pushed out.
" There can be no other if God is one, therefore I tell myself, as the apparent other, what I would do if I were you, and instead of giving him what he needs physically, I tell him how to get it for himself. How would you feel if you were now the man you want to be? How would you see the world if things were the way you want them to be?
That's what I mean by "living in the end. " Robert Frost, a year before he left this sphere, wrote this story for Life Magazine and said, "The Founding Fathers didn't believe in the future". .
. what a shock, they didn't believe in the future! They "believed in Him.
" He said, "We are always imagining before our evidence," and the most creative thing in man is to believe in something. They had no evidence to support their demand for democracy. They were under the command of a king when they threw away the king and began to simply build a concept of the future.
They did not believe that the mere passage of time would bring them this dream; they believed in Him, and these men believed implicitly in the Word of God. And they believed that if I know what I want when I pray, believe that I will receive it, I will do it. Well, if this precept is true.
. . literally true.
. . to be literally accepted and literally fulfilled.
. . well then, what am I doing by not believing it?
In fact, I should know exactly what I would like to be, and by discovering what I would like to be compared to what I appear to be, I would dare to assume that I AM that! And my assumption, although false, if it persisted, would become fact. I know this from experience and I know it is a law, so if someone is not becoming the man they want to be and they say to me, "Well, I imagined that once and it didn't work," then what are they doing now that they haven't?
If imagination creates reality, what are you imagining? For if Christ is the only creative power in the universe and I identify Him with my own imagination, well, then my imagination is creating reality. So what am I imagining?
I pick up the morning paper and am fed everything I shouldn't eat. . .
all the horrors of the world, all the negative states of the world; After reading for an hour, I have to regurgitate or, in some strange way, delete it all, because I can't spend my life feeding on such nonsense. But if I really know what I want, what you want, what we want, and I convince myself that we have it. .
. if my premise is sound, that imagination creates reality, in the not too distant future I should hear you tell me that it worked for you, and someone else tell me, and I, in turn, tell you, and spend my life sharing this wonderful news with others. So, I say, live like it's true.
. . like it's true.
This passage from Shakespeare. . .
we were taught from the primordial state that he who is, was desired until he was. Here we find it in Caesar: "He who is was willed until it was. " [Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare] He was not born Caesar the king, but here was an ambition fulfilled, because he was willed to it.
He desired it, he lived in the state, and everything rearranged itself to suit that state to which he was faithful. I see this in my closest circle: those who would not for a moment imagine that they would become prominent, but who desire to be prominent; those who desire to be successful, as they conceive of success. .
. there are no two who see success in the same way. Some see it through the eyes of wealth, others through advancement in some profession, others in some other way.
. . well, whatever concept they have, they now realize it, if night after night they sleep in the assumption that they are now what they would like to be .
All things were made, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1, verse 3). No, not even the so-called unpleasant things, for if all things were done, he must be responsible for the unpleasant things too. Therefore, the Scriptures tell us: "I kill, and I make to live; I wound, and I heal" (Deuteronomy 32, verse 39).
I create the blessings; I create the curses, but now I must choose life. Choose beautiful things, but don't say there is another creator, because if there is another creator, then we are in conflict. Therefore, my own imagination can conjure up unpleasant things if I insist on them, or pleasant things, but there cannot be two gods.
There cannot be two creators. And if I can find that Creator and identify Him with my own wonderful human imagination, then I cannot outsmart Him. I can't turn to anything and blame him for the things that happen in my life.
I know many of us don't make distinctions, and when we see our own harvest, we don't recognize it. We cannot conceive that we, in some strange way, allowed these things to be entertained by us. But we allow it!
This could not have happened any other way. So if I believe it and accept it. .
. well, then I will live by it, and when I know what I want for someone. .
. and that goes for everything in this world. Well then, right now, at this very moment, you wish for happiness in marriage.
You say, "Well, there's not a single person in my world who's eligible. I don't know anyone. " You don't need to know anyone.
All you have to do is decide within yourself what you want. Now, what would you do if that were true? Would you wear a ring on a finger that would imply someone put it there?
Someone you admire? Well then, use it there. Don't use a physical ring.
Place it as if he placed it there and go to sleep feeling like what you are feeling is real. Don't say, "It's all imagination. " It certainly is, because all imagination is Christ, therefore, it is all reality.
So when you say, "That's just my imagination," well, you're just saying, "That's just a thing called Christ," when you treat imagination that way. Is there anything in this world that hasn't been imagined before? Tell me the name of one thing or point out one thing in this world that is now considered real and was previously not just imagined.
What is now proven was once only imagined. Therefore, this is a true statement: "All things were made by Him. " (John 1, verse 3) and He is your own wonderful human imagination.
All objective reality is produced exclusively through imagination. The clothes you wear, the chairs you sit in, this place we are in now, everything was once just imagined. Now tonight, figure out exactly what you want, not what they think you should want.
Don't ask anyone for permission. You don't need anyone's permission; you just need your own decision. What do I want?
Now, what would it be like if that were true? Now take the mood and try to give that mood all the sensory liveliness of reality, all the tones of reality, and then sleep in it as if it were true. And then wait for the inevitable.
The inevitable thing is that you will resurrect it and objectify it on the screen of space, and then the world will call it real, and they may not believe you. It doesn't really matter. If you tell them that it happened because you just imagined it.
. . no, they will point to the series of events that led to it and give credit to the bridge of incidents by which you walked towards the realization of that state, and they will point to some physical thing that was the cause.
No, the cause is invisible, because the cause is God, and God is invisible to the eyes of mortals. Who knows what you're imagining? No one knows, but you can sit and imagine, and no one can stop you from doing so, but can you give reality to the imagined state?
If you do this, yes, a bridge of incidents will appear in your world and you will go through a series of events that will lead to the realization of the imaginary state. But do not attribute causality to any physical step you have taken toward achieving this state. You imagine yourself having a wonderful business, and then the day comes when a building is for sale and you don't have a dime to buy it, and a total.
. . not a total stranger, but a man walks in and asks in a very friendly way, "Are you going to buy it?
" And knowing that you don't have a penny, you say to him, as if you were a friend to a friend: "With what? " And then he says, "Well, I have money. It's just in the bank on deposit.
" You say, "Well, I don't have any guarantees. " But he says, "I've watched you. You're an honest person, your family.
. . they're honest.
. . I think so.
Would you like me to buy it for you and ask my lawyer to bid? If they know I'm bidding, that I have money, they'll bid higher, and then I'll get the lowest possible price with a lawyer who represents more than one client, and they don't know who he represents, and he'll bid. Are you willing to accept, regardless of the price?
" and you say, "Yes, I accept it, but I have no guarantee. " "All I need is your signature saying you will simply pay six percent of whatever the price is and then reduce the principal over a ten-year period. Is that okay?
" "Yes. " "Well then, sign this and we'll see if we can buy it. " That day you own the building and you don't have a dime when you own the building that day!
You just had your signature on a piece of paper. At the end of ten years, you repay the man the principal; you reduce it each year, pay him six percent on the remaining principal, and reduce it all at the end of ten years. The man died twenty years later and left him 150 thousand in cash, free of taxes, and some houses, many personal belongings.
Meanwhile, you continue with the business, which multiplies and multiplies, started between 1922 and 1924. Now we are in 1968. That building in 1924 no longer exists.
He only paid 50 thousand for it. He was refunded and reimbursed. A bank three years ago bought the property - the building was rotten - for 840 thousand in cash, no capital gain, from 50 thousand to 840 thousand.
Meanwhile, the business has expanded to all the other islands, so that today it would not be possible to buy them for 15 million. All in the imagination! And this goes back to the imagination that preceded this man's offer to buy the building; for the young man, seeing this building and thinking that the current owners deceived his father and, through deception, took him out of a society, a junior society.
And he was moved, not to take revenge, but to prove that he really had something inside him and that he could be successful despite this deception. So every day he saw on the marquee, not their name, but his own family name, and he saw it in his mind, because it wasn't possible to take their name and transliterate it and make it spell out this man's family name, but he saw it. In his mind, he saw that name, which, if true, would imply that the family owned it.
He did this every day, twice a day, for two years, and then suddenly it happened out of nowhere, and everything became possible, and today they are on every island, and they have no partners. They never accepted a partner, they never sold a piece of stock outside of the family property. All by imagination!
Now, I know what I'm talking about because I'm a member of that family. I'm talking about my own family. This is not hearsay.
I know that. My second brother, Victor, in whose imagination all this began to blossom, he still works with his imagination, he knows what he wants. So, after he has decided within himself, "This is what I want, and this is good for business," he then, in his mind, takes ownership of it and lets things happen.
As we are told in Scripture, "The vision has its own appointed time, If it ripens, it will blossom; if it tarries, then wait, For it is certain, and it will not be late. " (Habakkuk 2, verse 3) - Moffat translation. Read this in the book of Habakkuk.
Here is the true translation of this passage in Habakkuk. Therefore, when you know what you want, remain true to that assumption, and the assumption, although for the moment it is denied by your senses and denied by reason, if you persist in it, it will become a fact. Have we not been told that God calls a thing that is unseen as if it were seen, and then the invisible becomes visible?
(See Romans 4, verse 17) He calls everything from the invisible to the visible in this simple way, for He is the resurrecting power. So if I assume I AM, I don't need to have evidence to support it. I assume I AM.
What am I ? Well, I give it a name, and after I name it, give it shape, give it definition, abide in it, I resurrect it. And if it takes a thousand men to help bring about this state, a thousand men will play their roles, and I don't need to go out and look for them, just as my brother didn't need to go out and look for this man.
He wouldn't know where to start looking for one on the day of the sale. As far as he was concerned, he had made it up in his mind and allowed it all to happen, and he went into the business as if it were a joke. He actually thought it was a joke and said to this man, "Are you fooling me?
" He replied, "No. " He said, "Well then, wait. Let me call my dad.
He's having lunch. " He called him on the phone. He said, "Daddy, come up.
Leave everything and come. " And then he said, "Now, tell my father what you told me. " My father's name is Joseph, and my father said, "Are you really serious?
" He said, "Yes, Joe, I'm serious. I'll give you a bid today. You put your signature here and your son Victor puts his signature, that's all I need.
" It was a lifelong friendship. So when this man died, he didn't owe my brother Victor anything. He so enjoyed the friendship and the feeling of.
. . well, decency, that he had with my brother Victor, who gave him 150 grand in cash, and that was tax-free, and the houses, everything was tax-free.
And the building he bought for 50 grand was sold three years ago to the Bank of Nova Scotia. They tore it down and built a beautiful structure, but they paid our family 840 grand for that building, and there was no capital gains tax. very distant, but you are the operating power.
This won't work alone. If you dare to assume, this very night, that you have a better job than you have now or that you have a higher income, you could be fired tomorrow. Don't worry!
Upon reflection, you will see that this was necessary to bring you to the realization of your assumption. You might get fired! And I wouldn't look back if you told me tomorrow, "Well, I did what you told me.
Do you know what happened? I got fired. " I've seen this.
Someone needs to fire you so you can get a better job. I've seen this several times. I wouldn't quit and quit my job.
You may be promoted at work, or you may be invited by some other competitive company to join them. I don't know how this happens; just know that if you remain true to the assumption, it will happen, and you will be promoted toward the realization of the state you dared to claim as yours. I could tell you countless stories of this nature.
So here I say: stay at the end. The end is where we begin, because if I saw my name on the sign, that's the end. I don't wait for the incident to occur in my world to move from one to the next and the next until it comes to that; I remain at the end.
So if I go all the way, what would it be like if that were true? A health case: not how it's going to get better, but you go all the way and tell someone you're not well, in your mind you say to them, "You know, I've never seen you look better," and they say to you, "I've never felt better. " Well, that's a confirmation of what you're seeing.
But you might tell me, "I can't hear people. " Oh yes you can! You can listen to anything you want to hear.
You don't need to hear it audibly. Listen right now. Maybe you can't whistle a tune.
Maybe you can't sing a song at all. He doesn't know how to play an instrument, he doesn't know how to whistle, he doesn't know how to sing. Well, can you imagine now that you're listening to the Battle Hymn of the Republic?
Listen! Can't hear it? Can't you increase it by a thousand voices, ten thousand voices?
Did you hear him at Senator Kennedy's funeral? Have you seen him on TV? Wasn't it moving when the organ started playing and then suddenly that beautiful soft voice sang and everything became.
. . well, the whole wide world of TV was filled with it.
I doubt there were many dry eyes when he finished singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Well, I can't sing, I can't whistle a tune, but I can stand here and listen and hear all of this. If I tried to reproduce it with my voice, I wouldn't be able to, but I can hear his voice as he sang it.
You can hear anyone's voice; you can hear the speaker's voice. Tonight, alone, you can hear my voice and you can put into my voice what you want to hear, and I will unknowingly be saying to you, "Something will happen to confirm what you are hearing. " So you can do it for better or for worse.
I advise you: Do it for good. But the choice is yours. You can hurt and you can bless, but don't hurt.
Always use your imagination with love for others. But saying you can't do it to hurt is stupid, because you can hurt. This is entirely up to you.
So imagine what you want. Believe you have it and see how it works in the world. Those who scoff at this, well, let them scoff.
Five years from now, when you're at the top, they may be working for you and they may have even forgotten that they were sitting in the same audience as you when you listened and believed, and they also heard but didn't believe, and then you moved on and they fell behind. Life is like that. But there is only one creative power in the universe.
The Scriptures call this power God. Jesus Christ, the Lord, the same Power. Because there are not two Gods, there are not two Lords, there is only one.
And this one Christ dwells in us. He did not appropriate himself to a single man, as the priesthoods of the world teach. They speak of a single man and highlight a man who is different from all men.
He is not dwelling in this man or that man. His desire was to save humanity and therefore He dwells in us, not in that particular man. He did not become this one man, dwelling in one man.
Let no one tell you that the Christ in you is different from the Christ, and let them name any man they want. He can't be any different. If there is a Christ other than the Christ who was crucified in us and who has been resurrected and continues to be resurrected in humanity, he is a false Christ.
And the teachers who teach about an external, objective and different Christ are false teachers. Christ is within us and He is resurrected within us. So, you go out and put it to the test.
Put him to the extreme test. Christ in us, not "out there," is the hope of glory. So this word I speak of, and the word, by the way, its true definition is "meaning.
" In the beginning, everything had a meaning, and that meaning was with God, and God himself was the meaning. (John 1, verse 1) There is a purpose, there is a plan behind everything. He planned everything as it happened and how it will be consummated.
And the purpose of all this is to awaken within us, so that we and He may be one. Therefore, He actually became us, so that we can become God. It sounds incredible, but it's true.
That is the purpose of life: to take humanity and elevate it to God so that it becomes God. Therefore He became man, that man might become God. Now tonight you don't have to limit yourself.
Take a friend, without his consent , without his friend's knowledge, and lift him up. Do you know a friend who is unemployed? Well, then, see him as if he were employed, and don't tell him, so he can boast about it tomorrow.
Don't boast. Just see it successfully employed. Here's a friend of mine in Los Angeles, and this man has been mercilessly reprimanded by his supervisors, who have told him he's no good and they're thinking about firing him.
They will fire you. Well, the man had no support outside of work and he had a family. He told my friend.
Well, my friend lives by that law, so he told him, "Okay, go your way. " He didn't tell him what he was going to do. He sat silently at his desk and listened to the man tell him that he had been highly praised for something he had done.
Not 48 hours passed before their attitude towards this man was completely reversed, praising him for something he had done in the world of advertising. But the scam left its mark, and he said to my friend, "Yes, they turned it around, but I don't feel good about the job, because they couldn't have said the nasty things they said and forgotten about them, so it will come back, and I'm going to quit. I don't have any money.
I'm going to give them two weeks' notice. I'm going to ask them to give me one week out of two, so I can get myself together and maybe take a few days off and get my thoughts in order. " Well, at the end of two weeks, he didn't have a job.
When he told him what he was going to do, my friend knew he couldn't afford to quit and not work, so he saw him gainfully employed and earning twenty-five percent more than his current job. He took the second week off. When he came back at the end of the first week, he went to my friend's office and said, "I got the offer yesterday and I start on Monday.
I won't miss a day's salary and I'll start with twenty-five percent more than I was getting at my previous job. " What happened? My friend's imagination, a loving use of imagination on behalf of a friend!
If he hadn't gone through this imaginary state, he would have entered the place and the man would have said, "We have nothing," or "We can't stay with you," "Why are you leaving? " He didn't ask anything; he simply wanted the man. Therefore, if you precede your visit with an imaginary act, they will see you as you see yourself.
If you come in knowing you're not good, they'll see you exactly that way. But if you go in with the assumption that things are how you want them to be, they will see you that way. And that's life.
Now, what greater statement can someone make than to claim that they are God? And when He affirmed this, they said: He is blaspheming, for here is a man, and the man claims that he is God. The tenth [chapter] of John: "And he said, Is it not written in your law, I say, that ye are gods, sons of the Most High?
" (John 10, verse 34) If he called those to whom the Word of God came gods, would you say he is blaspheming the one he anointed and sent into the world? Do you know of any greater claim in the world than for a man to identify with God and walk as if he were, without being ashamed to admit it? He doesn't brag about it, but he knows in his heart that he is one with God, because if his imagination is God, and he imagines it, well, then, that's God!
And if he imagines a state and it comes true, then he knows the creative power that is God. He doesn't need to brag or be ashamed of it. He sleeps in a noble state because he is one with God.
Well, let everyone adopt this attitude, and the world will change, it will not be defeated, but you can take the whole wide world, if they feel like slaves, and give them the world; they will want it again tomorrow. Unless a man has self-respect, you can give him all the money in the world, and it won't mean anything. This is true for the individual, it is true for the family, it is true for a race of people, it is true for a nation.
As our late President Hoover said , "The rise and fall of ideas will determine the rise and fall of men, the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of communities. " So tell me what a community's idea of itself is and I will tell you what that community is. But now change this idea of yourself and you will change this community.
Let a family feel important in itself, it doesn't need to have a past. Who has a past? So you can go back far enough , and almost everyone who now claims to be important would be ashamed of that past.
So don't go back; start right where you are. And don't pay anyone to research your family tree, because you'll pay them to forget it. Simply, suddenly, start right now and assume the dignity that is God.
This is your true origin, it is God, so embrace it! And so with that assumption, and if you have children, I hope you do, well, then, instill that in the child. Instill this in everyone in the room and make them feel important.
I have no training, judged by human standards, whether intellectual, financial or those things. . .
but we managed. Mom drilled into us, when we did something she was ashamed of, she would say to us, "Have you forgotten that you are Goddard? " Well, we didn't know.
That must have been very important, because Mom would say, "Have you guys forgotten that you're Goddard? " Well, I had never heard that we had any history, but suddenly you start to feel like it must be important. So Mom drilled it into our minds.
She made the name important, that's why it's important today. Where we are, in a commercial sense, in every sense, matters; but Mom did it and married a man who had no background and took his name but she made it important. All right, who has any history?
As far as I am concerned, I refuse to accept the aristocracy of any being in this world but the aristocracy of the Spirit. What other aristocracy? Give me the aristocracy of the Spirit, but do not give me any physical descendants.
I'm not an animal. I'm not a horse, where you develop it through one horse after another. I am God!
We are all God! You cannot go beyond God. So if this is the beginning of us all, well then this is our root and so claim it now.
At any time, claim it and you will find yourself free from anything you may have thought the family tree contained. You have no family tree. The true Israelite is not a descendant according to the flesh, but the Elect of God, from any nation.
This is the man of God. So dare to simply assume that you are this man of God and then apply what I am telling you tonight. And, let me tell you, in the not-distant future, in the immediate present, this will work.
If you do not waver and do not change the assumption, if you remain true to the assumption, it will become fact, because imagination creates reality. And truth! Now, let's enter the Silence.
