Neville Goddard: "The Awakened Imagination" [FULL BOOK] (1954)

For Bill

«"Imagination, the real and eternal world, of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow. What is human life but art and science?"»

— William Blake, "Jerusalem"«

«"Imagination is more important than knowledge."»

— Albert Einstein, "On Science"«

CHAPTER ONE: WHO IS YOUR IMAGINATION?

I do not rest from my great task of opening the Eternal Worlds,

open the immortal Eyes

Man inside the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity,

that Eternally Expands in the Bosom of God,

Human Imagination.

— Blake, Jerusalem 5:18-20

The multifaceted nature of the term "Imagination"«

Some words, after prolonged use, acquire so many strange connotations that they almost cease to mean anything. Such a word is imagination. This word is created to serve all sorts of ideas, some of which directly contradict each other: fantasy, thought, hallucination, suspicion.

For example:

• We ask a person to "use their imagination" when their worldview is too limited.
• We say that ideas are «pure imagination,» implying their incorrectness.
• We call the jealous person "a victim of his own imagination.".
• We pay the highest homage by calling someone a "man of imagination.".

So, the word "imagination" has no clear meaning. Even the dictionary defines it contradictory: as a creative principle, a phantom, an irrational belief, or intrigue.

Imagination as a Divine Essence

I identify the central figure of the Gospels with the human imagination—the power that makes the forgiveness of sins and the achievement of our goals inevitable.

«All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that was made.» (John 1:3)

There is only one thing in the world - Imagination and all our deformations of it. Imagination is the very gateway to reality.

Blake's definition: «The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination: that is, God Himself, the Divine Body. [yod, shin, ayin; right to left]: Jesus: we are His Members.» I know of no better or truer definition. Through the imagination we have the power to be anything we want.

The mystery of Christ within us

Our most intimate relationships become visible as we awaken to the «mystery hidden from ages» [Colossians 1:26], which Christ in us is our imagination. Only by living in imagination can we truly say that we are living at all.

The imagination is our Savior, the "Lord from heaven," born of man, but not born of man. Every man is Mary, and must give birth to Christ.

From the letter of the law to psychological experience

If the story of the Immaculate Conception seems irrational, it is only because it is misconstrued as biography or history. Modern researchers are also mistaken in calling the imagination simply "unconscious.".

The birth and growth of imagination is a gradual transition from the God of tradition to the God of experience. When imagination is revealed as the first principle of religion, the "stone of literal understanding" pours out the "water of psychological meaning." He who lives by this truth transforms the water of psychological meaning into the wine of forgiveness.

The Son of God is not in history. He can only be found as the imagination of someone in whom His presence is clearly manifested.

«"Oh, if your heart were not a manger for His birth! God will become a child on earth again." (Angelus Silesius)

PRACTICAL TESTS AND QUESTIONS

The test of forgiveness

The ultimate test of Sonship is the forgiveness of sin. The test of your imagination being Christ Jesus is your ability to forgive sins.

• Sin means a failure in life, not achieving the ideal.
• Forgiveness means the identification of a person with his ideal. It is the work of an awakened imagination.

«Let the weak say, »I am strong.’” (Joel 3:10)

Possibilities of self-realization through imagination

Is imagination powerful enough to realize an idea on its own?

• Can I, by imagining myself in another place, evoke his physical awareness?
• Is imagination enough if financial status contradicts desire?
• Does the imagination recognize the external world of facts ("reason")?

The Law of Assumption and the Power of Belief

Experience has convinced me: an assumption, even if false, if followed will become a fact. Continuous imagination is sufficient for everything. Clever plans will never compensate for the lack of continuous imagination.

• «"Believe that you receive, and you will receive" (Mark 11:24) is the same as "Imagine that you are, and you will be.".
• Truth depends on the intensity of the imagination, not on external facts. Facts are only the fruit.

AWAKENING TO REALITY

The imaginative person does not deny the external world, but knows that the internal world of continuous Imagination is the causal force. He sees external events as projections of the internal world.

• We must imagine better than the best we know.
• Waking up, we discover that to imagine something is to make it so.
• A real man is a great imagination.

«Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.» (Ephesians 5:14)

Final conclusion

A person must firmly believe that reality lies within them, not outside. Although others have bodies and lives of their own, their reality is rooted in you, as yours ends in God.

SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

«"The first force that meets us on the threshold of the realm of the soul is the power of imagination."»

— Dr. Franz Hartmann

Realizing the power of imagination

I first became aware of the power, nature, and salvific function of the imagination through the teachings of my friend Abdullah; and from subsequent experiences I learned that Jesus was a symbol of the coming of the imagination to man, that the test of His birth in man was man's ability to forgive sins; that is, his ability to identify himself or another with his purpose in life.

Without a person's identification with his purpose, forgiveness of sin is impossible, and only the Son of God can forgive sin. Therefore, a person's ability to identify himself with his purpose, even though reason and feeling deny it, is evidence of the birth of Christ in him. To passively submit to appearances and bow to facts is to admit that Christ has not yet been born in you.

Transition from traditional to spiritual understanding

Although this teaching at first shocked and repelled me—for I was a convinced and sincere Christian and did not then know that Christianity could not be inherited by accident of birth, but had to be consciously adopted as a way of life—later, through visions, mystical revelations, and practical experience, it penetrated my understanding and found its interpretation in a deeper mood. But I must confess that these are difficult times when those things are shaken, and have always been taken for granted.

«Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.» (Mark 13:2)

After you drink the water of psychological meaning, there will be no stone of literal understanding left. All that has been created by natural religion is thrown into the flames of mental fire. But what better way to understand Christ Jesus than to identify the central character of the Gospels with the human imagination—knowing that every time you lovingly use your imagination for another, you are literally mediating God to man and thereby feeding and clothing Christ Jesus, and every time you imagine evil against another, you are literally beating and crucifying Christ Jesus?

Every human imagination is either a cup of cold water or a sponge of vinegar to the parched lips of Christ. Let none of you imagine evil in your heart against his neighbor, warned the prophet Zechariah [8:17]. When a person heeds this advice, he will awaken from the imposed sleep of Adam in the full consciousness of the Son of God. He is in the world, and the world was created by Him, and the world does not know Him: Human imagination.

The omnipotence of imagination and the law of states

I have asked myself many times, «If my imagination is Christ Jesus, and all things are possible to Christ Jesus, are all things possible to me?» I have learned from experience that when I identify with my purpose in life, Christ awakens in me. Christ is sufficient for all things.

«I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.» (John 10:17,18)

What a comfort it is to know that everything I experience is the result of my own standards of belief; that I am the center of my own network of circumstances, and that as my external world changes with me, so must my external world! The world appears differently to me according to the degree to which our states of consciousness differ. What we see when we are identified with a state cannot be seen when we are no longer one with it.

By the state is meant everything that a person believes and agrees to as true. No idea presented to the mind can be realized unless the mind accepts it. It depends on acceptance, the state with which we identify, the way things appear. In the combination of imagination and states lies the formation of the world as it appears. The world is the revelation of states with which the imagination merges.

Internal transformation versus external reforms

It is the state from which we think that determines the objective world in which we live. A rich man, a poor man, a good man, a thief - they are what they are because of the states from which they look at the world. The distinction between these states depends on the distinction between the worlds of these people. Individually, this world is so different. It is not the act and behavior of a good man that must correspond, but his point of view.

External reforms are useless if the internal state does not change. Success is achieved not by imitating the external actions of the successful, but by the right internal actions and internal conversations. If we separate from the state, and this is possible at any moment, the conditions and circumstances to which this unity gave rise disappear.

Abdullah's Lesson: Thinking "From the End"«

In the fall of 1933, in New York, I approached Abdullah with a problem. He asked me one simple question: «What do you want?» I told him I would like to spend the winter in Barbados, but I had no money. I literally had not a penny.

«If you imagine yourself in Barbados,» he said, «thinking and looking at the world from that state of consciousness, and not from Barbados, you will spend the winter there. You need not concern yourself with the ways and means of getting there, for the state of consciousness already in Barbados, if occupied by imagination, will find the means best suited to self-realization.”

Man lives by giving himself over to invisible states, merging his imagination with what he knows not only of himself, and in this union he experiences the effects of this fusion. "You must imagine yourself in the state of your fulfilled desire," Abdullah told me, "and fall asleep looking at the world from Barbados."«

From a journey in the imagination to physical reality

Our imagination connects us to the desired state. But we must use our imagination skillfully, not as an observer thinking about the end, but as a participant thinking from the end. We must be there in the imagination. If we do this, our subjective experience will be realized objectively. «It is not just a fantasy,» he said, «but a truth that can be proven by our own experience.»

I began right then and there, focusing my thoughts beyond the senses, to the feeling of already being in Barbados and seeing the world from that perspective. He emphasized the importance of the state from which one views the world when one falls asleep.

«In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbers upon their beds; Then he opens the ears of men, and seals up their counsel.» (Job 33:15,16)

That night and the next few nights I fell asleep thinking I was at my father's house in Barbados. Less than a month later I received a letter from my brother with a ticket for a parasailing trip. I sailed two days later and spent a wonderful winter in Barbados. The experience convinced me that a person can be anything if they make conception a habit and think from the end.

Freedom of choice and the purpose of life

A person who is free in his choice acts on the basis of ideas that he freely, though not always wisely, chooses. All possible states await our choice and stay. The ultimate goal of imagination is to create in us the "spirit of Jesus," that is, the permanent forgiveness of sin, the permanent identification of man with his ideal.

«In my Father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you.» (John 14:2,3)

Sleeping in my father's house in my imagination, I merged my imagination with this state and was forced to experience this state in the flesh. A person can be seen where he is in the imagination. A decisive imagination that thinks from the end is the beginning of all miracles.

The creative principle of life

We must transform vision into Being, thinking about it into thinking. Once a person accepts thinking from the end as a creative principle in which he can cooperate, then he is saved from the absurdity of ever trying to achieve his goal by simply thinking about it. Construct all goals according to the pattern of the realized desire.

It is important to have a purpose in life. Without a goal, we drift. «What do you want from me?» is the implicit question of the Gospels. It is the lack of a passionate direction in life that leads to human failure. We must mentally shift from thinking about the end to thinking from the end.

Life is a controlled thing. You can feel what you desire when you realize that you are His Son, and that you are who you are because of the state of consciousness from which you think and see the world.

«Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.» (Luke 15:31)

HIGHWAYS OF THE INNER WORLD

«And the children struggled within her… and the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other; and the elder shall serve the younger.»

— Genesis 25:22,23

The duality of human nature

DUALITY — is an essential condition of life. Everything that exists is dual. Man is a dual being with opposing principles embedded in his nature. They war within him and create antagonistic attitudes towards life. This conflict is an eternal affair, a war in the sky, an endless struggle of the younger or inner man of the imagination to assert its superiority over the older or outer mind.

• «The first will be last, and the last first.» (Matthew 19:30)
• «He is the One who comes after me, who is preferred before me.» (John 1:27)
• «The second man is the Lord from heaven.» (1 Corinthians 15:47)

Man begins to awaken to imaginary life the moment he feels the presence of another being within him. In your limbs lie two nations, rival races from birth; Whoever gains power, the younger the older, the more he rules.

Natural and spiritual man

There are two distinct centers of thought or worldviews that every person possesses. The Bible speaks of these two views as natural and spiritual.

«The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.» (1 Corinthians 2:14)

The inner body of man is as real in the world of subjective experience as his outer physical body is real in the world of external realities, but the inner body expresses a more fundamental part of reality. This existing inner body of man must be consciously practiced and guided. The inner world of thought and feeling, to which the inner body is attuned, has its own true structure and exists in its own higher space.

Causality of internal motion

There are two kinds of motion: one corresponds to an internal body, the other to an external body. The motion that corresponds to an internal body is causal, and the external is forced. The internal motion determines the external, which is connected with it, bringing into the external a motion similar to the actions of the internal body.

Internal motion is the force by which all events are accomplished. External motion is subject to the coercion applied to it by the motion of an internal body. When the actions of the inner body coincide with the actions that the outer body must perform to satisfy desires, that desire is fulfilled.

Practical Technique: Drama in the Imagination

Build a drama in your mind that signifies your desire being fulfilled, and make it one that involves movement of yourself. Immobilize your outer physical self. Act as if you were going to take a nap, and begin the predetermined action in your imagination.

A vivid image of the action is the beginning of that action. Then, as you fall asleep, consciously imagine yourself in that scene. The length of the sleep doesn't matter, a short sleep is enough, but the transfer of the action into the dream turns the imagination into reality.

At first your thoughts may be like sheep wandering without a shepherd. Do not despair. If your attention wanders seventy times seven, bring it back seventy times seven to the predetermined course until it wears itself out and follows the appointed path. The inner journey should never be without direction. When you embark on the inner path, it means doing what you have been doing mentally before. You are going after the prize that you have already seen and accepted.

Difference between Fantasy and Imagination

In the book The Road to Xanadu, Professor John Livingstone Lawes says:

«But I have long felt… that Fantasy and Imagination are not two forces at all, but one. The real difference that exists between them lies not in the materials with which they operate, but in the degree of intensity of the operative force itself. Working at a high voltage, the imaginative energy is absorbed and transmuted; Under a low inclination, the same energy gathers and draws together those images, which at the highest level it inseparably merges into one.»

Fantasies gather, imagination merges.

The Blind Girl's Story: The "Thinking from the End" Experience«

Here's a practical application of this theory. A year ago, a blind girl living in San Francisco faced a transportation problem. A change in bus routes forced her to make three transfers between her home and her office. This extended her journey from fifteen minutes to two hours and fifteen minutes.

She thought seriously about this problem and came to the conclusion that a car was the solution. She knew she couldn't drive a car, but she felt she could drive a car. Testing this theory that "when the actions of the inner self correspond to the actions that the outer, physical self must perform to satisfy a desire, that desire will be fulfilled," she said to herself, "I'll sit here and imagine that I'm being driven to the office."«

Sitting in the living room, she began to imagine herself in the car. She felt the rhythm of the engine. She imagined smelling the gasoline, feeling the movement of the car, touching the driver's sleeve and feeling that the driver was a man. She felt the car stop, and turning to her companion, she said, "Thank you very much, sir." To which he replied, "My pleasure." Then she got out of the car and heard the door slam shut as she closed it.

She said she focused her imagination on being in the car and, even though she was blind, looked out over the city from her imaginary ride. She wasn't thinking about the trip. She was thinking from the trip. and all that it meant. This controlled and subjectively directed purposeful journey fired her imagination to full capacity.

Emotional continuity and outcome

She always kept her goal before her, knowing that there is integrity in purposeful inner movements. In these mental journeys there must be emotional continuity—the emotion of desire fulfilled. Expectation and desire were so closely linked that they passed from mental state to physical act in an instant.

Two days in a row the blind girl set out on her imaginary trip. A few hours after the second imaginary trip, an opportunity arose through a man who was interested in the blind. The very next day the stranger agreed to give her a ride. And on that first trip to her office, she turned to her good Samaritan and said, "Thank you very much, sir," and he replied, "My pleasure."«

So, the objects of her imagination were for her realities, of which the physical embodiment was only a witness. The defining principle of animation was the creative journey. Her triumph could come as a surprise only to those who did not know about her inner journey.

The Law of the Inner Path

These inner movements not only generate corresponding outer movements: it is a law operating under all physical phenomena. He who practices these bilocation exercises will develop extraordinary powers of concentration and calmness and will inevitably attain consciousness in an inner and measurably larger world.

To fulfill your desire, the action must begin in your imagination, in addition to the evidence of sensations, which includes the movement of the self and hints at the fulfillment of your desire. When it is an action that the external self performs to satisfy the desire, that desire is fulfilled.

Conclusion: A journey within oneself

The movement of every visible object is caused not by objects outside the body, but by things within it, acting from the inside out. The journey is within yourself. You travel the highway of the inner world. Without inner movement, nothing can be caused. Inner action is an introverted feeling.

If you build a drama in your head that signifies that you have achieved your goal, and then close your eyes and turn your thoughts inward, focusing on a predetermined action and participating in that action, you will become a self-determined being. Inner action orders everything according to its nature.

Try and see if the desired ideal formulated is possible, for only through this process of experimentation will you be able to realize your potentials. Ideas only work when they are felt, if they awaken an inner movement.

• «Every place where the sole of your foot treads, that I will give to you.» (Joshua 1:3)
• «And remember: The Lord your God is in your midst, the Almighty.» (Zephaniah 3:17)

PRUNING SHEARS REVISION

«"The second person is the Lord from Heaven."»

— 1 Corinthians 15:47

«"He will never say about caterpillars. He will say, 'There are many butterflies on our cabbages, Pure.' He will not say, 'Winter.' He will say, 'Summer is sleeping.' And there is not a bud small enough or sad enough that Kester will not call it the beginning of a blow."“

— Mary Webb, “Precious Bane”

The essence of the audit and the change in attitude

THE FIRST act of correction or healing is always to «look.» One must begin with oneself. One must change one’s attitude. «What we are, we alone see» (Emerson).

This is a very useful and productive exercise - to experience the day every day as you would like to live it, revising the scenes so that they match your ideals.

Practical application: How to rewrite events

For example, suppose today's mail brought disappointing news. Review the letter. Rewrite it in your mind and make it correspond to the news you would like to receive. Then, in your imagination, reread the updated letter over and over again. This is the essence of revision, and it leads to cancellation.

The only requirement is to arouse your attention with such intensity that you are completely immersed in the renewed action. Through this mental exercise you will experience an expansion and refinement of the senses and eventually reach sight.

Revision as the Spirit of Forgiveness

But always remember that the main purpose of this exercise is to create in you the "Spirit of Jesus," that is, the permanent forgiveness of sins. Revision is of the greatest importance when the motive is to change oneself, when there is a sincere desire to become something different, when the aspiration is to awaken the ideal active spirit of forgiveness.

Without imagination, man remains a creature of sin.

A person either moves forward into the imagination or remains imprisoned in his feelings. To move forward into the imagination is to forgive. Forgiveness is the life of the imagination. The art of living is the art of forgiveness.

Daily Easter Exaltation

Forgiveness is, in fact, reliving a new version of the day in your imagination, reliving in your imagination what you would like to experience in your own life. Every time a person truly forgives—that is, every time they experience an event as it was meant to be experienced—they are reborn.

«"Father, forgive them" is not a request that is made once a year, but a possibility that arises every day. The idea of forgiveness is a daily possibility, and if it is done sincerely, it elevates a person to higher and higher levels of being. He will experience Easter every day, and Easter is the idea of elevation in an altered state.

Freedom and inner peace

And it should be an almost continuous process. Freedom and forgiveness are inextricably linked. Not to forgive is to be at war with ourselves, because we are freed according to our capacity to forgive.

• «Forgive, and you will be forgiven.»​—Luke 6:37.
• Forgive not only out of a sense of duty or service; forgive because you want to.
• «Your ways are ways of pleasantness, and all your paths are peace.»​—Proverbs 3:17.

You must enjoy repetition. You can forgive others effectively only when you have a sincere desire to identify with their ideal. Duty has no momentum.

Victory over "enemies of one's own house"«

Forgiveness is a conscious distraction from the unchanged day and giving it full force, and with joy, a renewed day. If a person begins to revise even a little his worries and concerns of the day, he begins to work practically on himself. Each edit is a victory over himself, and therefore over the enemy.

«A man’s enemies will be those of his own household» (Matthew 10:36), and his house is his state of mind. He changes his future by reviewing his day.

A radical change of "heart"«

When a man practices the art of forgiveness, of revision, however factual the scene upon which his gaze is then resting, he reinterprets it in his imagination and looks upon a scene unseen before. The magnitude of the change implied by any act of editing makes such a change utterly incredible to the realist—the unimaginative; but the radical change in the fate of the Prodigal [Luke 15:11-32] was brought about by a «change of heart.».

The fighting man is led in his own imagination. The man who will not review the day has lost the vision of that life, in the likeness, the real work of the "Spirit of Jesus" is to transform that life.

Artist's Story: A Healing Experience

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law (Matthew 7:12).

This is how an artist friend forgave herself and freed herself from pain, irritation, and hostility. Knowing that nothing but forgetting and forgiving will lead us to new values, she threw herself into her imagination and escaped the prison of her feelings. She writes:

«On Thursday I taught art school all day. Only one little thing ruined the day. When I went into my afternoon class, I found that the cleaner had left all the stretch marks on the desks after cleaning the floor. When I picked up the chair, it slipped from my hands and hit me sharply on the sole of my right foot. I immediately reviewed my thoughts and realized that I had criticized the man for not doing his job properly…

That night she experienced severe pain and swelling. When she tried to use her imagination to heal, her inner self commanded: «"Go to bed and review the day's events"».

She replayed the incident with the man who hadn’t greeted her for a year, changing the scene in her mind as if they had greeted her warmly. Then she imagined the perfect concert for her friend. The next morning her leg was completely healed. She had won through the art of replaying what she could never have won through force.

Conclusion: Creating Paradise through Revision

In heaven the only art of life is to forget and forgive. We must take our lives not as they seem, but from the vision of this artist, from the vision of the world made perfect, that is hidden beneath all reason—buried and waiting for us to revisit this day.

You can review the day to please yourself, and by experiencing in your imagination, the altered speeches and actions not only change the trend of your life story, but also transform all its discords into harmonies.

Expectations and desires must become one. Your outer world is only the actualized inner movement. Do not blame; Only determination. This is not man and earth in their most beautiful form, but you, practicing the art of revision, create paradise.

The proof of this truth can only lie in your own experience. Try changing the day you watch. That's pruning shears revision we owe our main fruit.

HEAVENLY COIN

“Does a firm conviction that something is so make it so?” And the prophet answered: «All poets believe it to be so. And in the ages of imagination this firm conviction has removed mountains: but many are unable to be firmly convinced of anything.»

Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"«

“Let every man be fully convinced in his own mind.”

Romans 14:5

The essence of belief and inner language

CONVINCEMENT is an inner effort of intense attention. To listen attentively, as if you heard, is to awaken, to activate.

By listening, you can hear what you want to hear and convince those beyond the outer ear. Speak it only in your imagination. Make your inner conversation correspond to your satisfied desire. What you want to hear outside, you must hear inside.

Accept the outside within and become one who hears only what signifies the fulfillment of his desire, and all external events in the world will become a bridge leading to the objective fulfillment of your desire.

The relationship between the inner and outer worlds

Your inner language is constantly written around you in the events of events. Learn to connect these events with your inner language, and you will become a self-taught person. By inner language we mean those mental conversations that you have with yourself. They may be inaudible when you are awake, due to the noise and distractions of the external world of becoming, but in deep meditation and dreams they are quite audible. But whether they are audible or inaudible, you are their author and create your world in their image.

“There is a God in heaven [and heaven is within you] who reveals secrets and makes known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. Your dreams and the visions of your head on your bed are these.”

Daniel 2:28

Inner language from the premise of a fulfilled desire is a way to create a world that is understandable to you. Watch your inner language, because it is the cause of future actions. Inner language reveals the state of consciousness from which you look at the world. Make your inner language correspond to your fulfilled desire, because your inner language manifests itself in events around you.

The power of words and language

“If any man offend not with word, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the mouths of horses, that they may obey us; And we turn their whole bodies… And yet the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, what great work a little fire doth!”

James 3:2-5

The entire manifested world shows us how we have used the Word – the Inner Language. Uncritical observation of our inner conversation reveals to us the ideas from which we view the world.

Our inner conversation reflects our imagination, and our imagination reflects the state with which it merges. If the state with which we merge is the cause of the phenomena of our life, then we are freed from the burden of wondering what to do, because we have no choice but to identify with our purpose. Since the state with which we identify is reflected in our inner language, to change the state with which we merge, we must first change our inner language. It is our inner conversations that shape the facts of tomorrow.

“Put off the old self, which is corrupt… and be renewed in the spirit of your mind… Put on the new man, which is created in righteousness.”

Ephesians 4:22-24

Practice changing your inner language

Our mind, like our stomach, is nourished by the change of food (Quintilian). Stop all the old mechanical negative self-talk and start a new positive and constructive self-talk from the premise of a satisfied desire. Self-talk is the beginning, the sowing of the seeds of future actions. To determine action, you must consciously initiate and control your self-talk.

Make a sentence that predicts the achievement of your goal, for example:

• «"I have a large, stable, reliable income that is consistent with honesty and mutual benefit";
• «"I am happily married";
• «"They want me";
• «"I contribute to the good of the world.".

Repeat this sentence over and over until it affects you internally. Our internal language reflects the world we live in in different ways.

The law of cause and effect

“In the beginning was the Word.”

John 1:1

“What you sow, you reap. Look at those fields! Sesame was sesame, corn was corn. Silence and Darkness knew! Thus is the destiny of man born.”

«"The Light of Asia" [Edwin Arnold]

Ends follow their beginnings. Those who seek love only manifest their own lovelessness. And the unloved never find love, only lovers find love, and they never have to look for it (D. G. Lawrence). A person attracts what he is. The art of life is to maintain the feeling of fulfilled desire and to let things come to themselves.

The art of self-observation

Watch your inner self-talk and remember your goal. Do they match? Does your inner self-talk match what you would say out loud if you achieved your goal?

Through uncritical self-observation of your inner communication, you are where you are in the inner world, and where you are in the inner world is who you are in the outer world. You put on a new man when ideals and inner language coincide. Only in this way can a new man be born.

Inner speech ripens in darkness. From darkness it penetrates into light. The right inner speech is that which would be yours if you had realized your ideal. “I am that” (Exodus 3:14).

Mind and Language as Gifts of Immortality

There are two gifts that God has bestowed upon man alone: reason and speech. This gift is equivalent to immortality. If man uses these two gifts correctly, he will be no different from the immortals… and when he leaves the body, they will receive him into the company of gods and souls who have attained bliss (Hermetica).

The circumstances and conditions of life are reflected in inner conversations. Inner speech brings events into existence. Everything a person believes and agrees to be true is manifested in their inner speech. This is their Word. Try to notice what you are saying to yourself right now. They are perfectly woven into your tapestry of life.

The path to freedom through imagination

Every stage of human progress is achieved by conscious imagination. The persistent assumption of the fulfilled desire is the means of the realization of the intention. When we control our inner conversation, we can postpone all other processes. Then we simply act with clear imagination and intention.

The future becomes present and manifests itself in our inner language. To be held by the inner language of fulfilled desire is to be securely anchored in life.

The secret to success: frequency and habit

It is frequency, habitual busyness, that is the secret of success. The more often we do it, the more natural it becomes. Every situation can be resolved by the correct use of imagination. Our task is to get the right sentence that hints at the fulfillment of our desire, and to ignite the imagination with it. All this is closely connected with the secret of the "still, small voice.".

“He calls things not perceived as they were.”

Romans 4:17

Correct inner speech is essential. It is the greatest art and the path to freedom. Ignorance of this art has made the world a battlefield, when it should be a place of delight and contemplation.

Investment vs. Cost: The Revelation of 1953

On the morning of April 12, 1953, my wife was awakened by a voice: "You must stop wasting your thoughts, time, and money. Everything in life must be an investment.".

• Spend — is to waste, to plan without return.
• Invest — is to plan with the goal of expecting profit.

What we desire is not in the future, but in ourselves right now. Thought is the coin of heaven. Money is its earthly symbol. Every moment must be invested.

Be more interested in what you are «saying» internally than in what you «said.» When we feel like we are who we want to be, we invest. When we feel misunderstood, suspicious, or scared, we spend.

Final word

“My word will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I desire and prosper in the place where I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:11

The circumstances of life are the muted utterances of the inner conversation. The mouth of God is the mind of man. Feed God only the best. Whatever is helpful… Think about it (Philippians 4:8).

Choose life. Make your inner language blessed. Change your inner language and your world of perception will change. When inner language and desire conflict, inner language inevitably wins.

“The tongue… ignites the course of nature.”

James 3:6

IT IS INSIDE

Rivers, mountains, cities, villages —

all this is human, and when you enter

their embrace, you walk

in heaven and earth, as in your own

In your womb you carry your sky

and the earth, and all that you see; though he

and appears Outside, he Inside,

In your imagination, for whom this World is

Mortality is only a Shadow.

Blake, "Jerusalem"«

The reality of the inner world

THE INNER world was as real to Blake as the outer earth of waking life. He took his dreams and visions as the reality of the forms of nature. Blake reduced everything to the basis of his own consciousness.

“The kingdom of heaven is within you.”

Luke 17:21

The Real Man, the Imaginary Man, has endowed the outer world with all its properties. The apparent reality of the outer world, which is so difficult to dissolve, is only proof of the absolute reality of the inner world of his own imagination.

“No one can come to Me except the Father who sent Me… I and my Father are one.”

John 6:44; 10:30

The world described by observation is a manifestation of the observer's mental activity.

The discipline of imagination and the power of habit

When a man discovers that his world is his own mental activity, visible, that no man can come to it unless he paints it, and that there is no one but himself, his own imagination, his first impulse is to transform the world into the image of his ideal.

But his ideal is not so easily realized. The moment he ceases to submit to external discipline, he must impose a much stricter discipline on himself— self-discipline, from which the realization of his ideal is based.

The imagination is not entirely free and free to move as it pleases without any rules to restrain it. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The imagination moves according to habit. It has a choice, but it chooses by habit. Whether awake or asleep, man's imagination is limited by certain laws. It is this oppressive influence of habit that man must change; if not, his dreams will fade under the paralysis of custom.

Freedom of choice and responsibility

The imagination, which is the Christ in man, is not subject to the necessity of creating only that which is perfect and good. It exercises its absolute freedom, giving the external physical self free will to choose to follow good or evil, order or disorder.

“Choose today whom you will serve.”

Joshua 24:15

But after the choice is made and accepted in such a way that it shapes the individual's habitual consciousness, the imagination manifests its boundless power and wisdom, shaping the external sensory world of becoming in the image of the individual's habitual inner speech and actions.

The path to realizing the ideal

To realize one's ideal, one must first change the model that one's imagination has followed. Habitual thinking is an indicator of character.

The way to change the outer world is to make the inner language and action correspond to the outer language and action of the fulfilled desire. Our ideals are waiting to be realized, but unless we ourselves match our inner language and action with the language and actions of the fulfilled desire, they are incapable of birth.

Inner speech and action are the channels of God's action. He cannot answer our prayer unless these avenues are offered. The outward behavior of man is mechanical. It is subject to the compulsion applied to it by the behavior of the inner self. Any change in the behavior of the inner self will bring about corresponding outward changes.

Mystical death and resurrection

The mystic calls the change of consciousness «death.» By death he does not mean the destruction of the imagination, but the dissolution of the union with the old state.

“I die every day.”

1 Corinthians 15:31

Blake on death: “There is nothing better than death. Death is the best thing that can happen in life; But most people die so late and die so pitilessly. God knows their neighbors never see them rise from the dead.”

When a man has a sense of Christ as his imagination, he sees why he must separate his imagination from his present state and compare it with a higher idea of himself if he is to rise above his present limitations and thus save himself.

A story about the testimony of the resurrection (A real-life example)

Here is a story about a mysterious death witnessed by a «neighbor.» A woman received a letter from a friend offering her house for the holidays, but added a postscript with a harsh description of an unpleasant character trait in the letter’s author.

The author's reaction: Instead of depression, she saw this as «good news.» She noted that the description was in the past tense («was,» «felt»).

“It was all in the past. What I had been trying to fix for so long was done. I suddenly realized that my friend had witnessed my resurrection. I chanted, «It’s all in the past! It’s done. Thank you, it’s done!»”

She found her Savior—her own imagination—and took full responsibility for embodying the ideal.

Conclusion

There is only one reality - it is Christ - the Human Imagination, the legacy and ultimate achievement of all Humanity.

“That we…speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”

Ephesians 4:14, 15

CREATION COMPLETED

I am the beginning and the end, there is nothing that was not and is. > — Ecclesiastes 3:15 ERV

Identity and States of Consciousness

BLAKE SAW all possible human situations as «already made» states. He saw every aspect, every plot and drama, already thought out as «mere possibilities» while we were not in them, but as overwhelming realities when we were in them.

He described these states as «"Sculptures of the Los Halls"».

So, distinguish between states and individuals in those states. States change, but individual identities never change or cease... Imagination is not the State. Blake said:

This is the very essence of Human Existence. Affection or Love becomes a state when separated from imagination.

How important it is to remember this is almost impossible to say, but the moment a person first realizes it is the most important in their life, and encouraging them to feel it is the highest form of support that can be given.

This truth is common to all men, but the realization of it—and, much more, self-awareness—is another matter. The day I realized this great truth—that everything in my world is a manifestation of the mental activity going on within me, and that the conditions and circumstances of my life reflect only the state of consciousness with which I have merged—is the most important day of my life.

Liberation from the “Second Cause”

The experience that led me to this certainty is so far removed from ordinary existence that I hesitated to tell it for a long time, because my mind refused to acknowledge the conclusions to which it led me. But it revealed to me that I am supreme in the circle of my own state of consciousness, and that it is the state with which I identify that determines what I experience.

Therefore, it should be shared with everyone, because to know it means to be free from the greatest tyranny in the world, the belief in a second cause.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. > — Matthew 5:8

Blessed are those whose imaginations have been so purified of beliefs in second causes that they know: imagination is everything, and everything is imagination.

The Stop the World Experience

One day I quietly left my apartment in New York City for some remote village in years gone by. When I entered the dining room of a large hotel, I came fully to my senses. I knew that my physical body was still on the bed in New York City.

But here I was, as alert and aware as I had ever been. I knew intuitively that if I could stop my mind from working, everything in front of me would freeze. As soon as the thought came to me, I was overcome with the desire to try. I felt my head tighten, then become still. My attention was focused in crystal-clear concentration, and the waitress who was walking wasn't walking. I looked out the window, and the leaves that were falling weren't falling. And the family of four were eating, but not eating. And they were picking up their food, but not picking it up. Then my attention relaxed, the tension eased, and suddenly everything was moving on. The leaves were falling, the waitress was walking, and the family was eating. Then I understood Blake's vision of "The Sculptures of Los Halls.".

Creation as Activation of the Already Existent

I sent you to reap what you did not labor for. > — John 4:38

The creation is complete. The world of creation is complete, and its original is within us. We saw it before we set out, and since then we have been trying to remember and activate the individual parts. There are an infinite number of views of it. Our task is to get the right view and, by a certain direction of attention, to make it a procession before the inner eye. If we put together the right sequence and experience it in our imagination until it takes on the tone of reality, then I consciously create circumstances.

This inner procession is an activity of the imagination that must be consciously directed. We, through a series of mental transformations, become aware of growing parts of what already is, and by combining our own mental activity with that part of creation that we seek to experience, we activate it, resurrect it, and give it life.

Mansions in the House of God

Imagine the world as containing an infinite number of states of consciousness from which it can be viewed. Imagine these states as rooms or mansions in the House of God [John 14:2], and, like the rooms of any house, they are fixed in relation to one another. But think of yourself, the Real Self, the Imagined Self, as a living, moving inhabitant of the House of God.

Each room contains some of the Los sculptures, with endless plots, dramas and situations that are already thought out but not activated. They are activated as soon as the human imagination enters and merges with them. To enter the state, the person must agree to the ideas and feelings that he embodies.

Conformity to the beliefs of the state is a search that finds, a knock to which it opens, a request that is received [Matthew 7:8; Luke 11:10]. Go in and possess the land [Exodus 6:4; 8]. The moment a person conforms to the beliefs of any state, he merges with it, and this union leads to the activation and projection of its plots, plans, dramas, and situations.

Awakening of the Son

It is for this purpose, to teach us to create images, that we have been subjected to the limitations of the senses and clothed in bodies of flesh. It is the awakening of the imagination, the return of His Son, which our Father awaits.

This creature was subjected to vanity not voluntarily, but because of the one who subjected it. > — Romans 8:20

We have been subjected to this biological experience, for no one can know imagination who has not been subjected to the vanity and limitations of the flesh, who has not taken his share of Sonship and become prodigal. And the confusion will continue until man awakens and the fundamentally imaginative vision of life is restored and recognized as basic.

Practical Guide: Mental Diet

Remember that The Christ in you is your imagination.

Choose wisely the state you serve. All states are lifeless until imagination merges with them. Hold fast to your ideal. Nothing can take it from you except imagination.

• Don't think ABOUT the ideal, think FROM it. Only those ideals from which you think are realized.
• Watch your mental diet. You light up or darken your life with the ideas you agree to. If the world remains the same, it is a clear sign that you lack loyalty to your new mental diet.
• The feeling of a wish fulfilled. Teach yourself to feel your wish fulfilled more often. This is creative magic. Once you have felt it, don't close this experience like a book, but carry it with you like a fragrant scent.

Habitual moods show the state with which you have merged. You must imagine yourself in the state of the fulfilled desire, in your love for that state, and thus live and think from it, and think of it no more.

EYE OF GOD

What do you think about Christ? Whose son is he? — Matthew 22:42

When this question is asked of you, let the answer be: «"Christ is my imagination"», and although I

Don't look at everything under Him yet. — Hebrews 2:8

but I know that I am Mary, from whom sooner or later He will be born, and in the end

Do everything through Christ — Philippians 4:13

The nature of the birth of Christ

The birth of Christ is the awakening of the inner or Second Man. It is the awareness of the mental activity within ourselves that continues whether we are aware of it or not.

The birth of Christ does not bring a person from afar and does not create anything that did not exist before. It is the revelation of the Son of God in man. The Lord «"comes in the clouds"» (Mark 13:26, Luke 21:27) — this is the prophet describing the pulsating rings of golden liquid light on the head of the one in whom He awakens.

The Advent comes from within, not from without, as Christ does in us:

• Romans 8:10
• 2 Corinthians 13:3
• Galatians 2:20; 4:19
• Colossians 1:27

The Great Mystery and the Temple

This great mystery:

God was manifested in the flesh — 1 Timothy 3:16

begins with Advent, and it is fitting that the cleansing of the Temple,

What kind of temple are you? — 1 Corinthians 3:17

stands at the forefront of Christian mysteries:

The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. — Luke 17:21

Advent practice

Advent reveals the secret of your being. If you will practice the art of editing a life lived by the wise, imaginative use of inner language and inner actions, you are sure that by the conscious use of «"the forces that work within us"» (Ephesians 3:20), Christ will awaken in you.

If you believe this, trust it, act upon it; Christ will awaken in you. This is Advent.

The great mystery is that God was manifested in the flesh. — 1 Timothy 3:16

From Advent He who touches you touches the apple of God's eye.

— Zechariah 2:8