Consciousness Is the Only Reality - Neville Goddard
I have heard time and time again that people find Neville's teachings to be too complicated to understand. I wanted to share some of my notes on his lectures and books as I re-read them. The point of this is to make it as easy to understand and accessible as possible. I linked the lecture above in case you want to read the actual lecture and you can use my notes as a guide if anything seems too convoluted or confusing.
All quotes are taken directly from the lecture.
Introduction
Before we begin, it’s important to mention that Neville bases his teachings on the Bible, which he says is meant to be interpreted as a metaphorical/allegorical text, rather than a historical text.
The Name of God
This lecture begins with Neville explaining the meaning of God’s name.
In short, it contains references to your I AM-ness (awareness), your imagination, your ability to feel as you desire to be and to take your desire out of the imaginary and reflect it onto the physical.
When you break down the name of God, it explains the foundation of reality, your consciousness.
“As you assume that you are that which you want to be, you have completed the name of God”
You have the power of creation within you.
“The question arises: What is God? God is man’s consciousness, his awareness, his I AM-ness”
You Become What You Are Conscious of Being and Dying to the Old State
Since your consciousness is the cause or the foundation of reality, then what you are conscious of being must be impressed upon the physical reality.
You have the power to leave behind your current state/undesired reality.
Your current reality has been created through consciousness, and you can leave it behind and recreate a new reality with anything that you desire.
You can die to the old state and create a new one. (You no longer become conscious of the old state--redirect your attention)
Story of Isaac and His Sons Esau and Jacob
The story of Isaac and his sons Esau and Jacob expresses the idea that your brain cannot tell the difference between what you experience in imagination and what you experience in the physical world.
For example, your brain expresses the same physiological and psychological reaction to you imagining a hug and hugging someone in real life.
If you place reality upon your imaginal acts and feel as though you are truly experiencing that which is taking place solely in your mind, then your brain believes that you are truly experiencing that.
Leave the physical alone, do not take action, and do not reason.
You leave the physical world alone and simply use your imagination to change your life
You do not have to worry about the physical manifestation of your desire, that is not your job. Your only job is to imagine that you have what you desire.
“In other words, you remain faithful to this subjective reality [that which you desire to manifest] and you do not take back from it the power of birth. You gave it the right of birth and it is going to become objective within this world of yours. There is no room in this limited space of yours for two things to occupy the same space at the same time. By making the subjective real, it resurrects itself within your world.”
You cannot occupy two opposing states -- you cannot believe one thing and also believe the opposite at the same time (ex. You can’t simultaneously believe the statement “I am rich” while also believing the statement “I am poor.”)
The only way you can stop a manifestation from being reflected in the physical is by not being faithful to your new reality (failing to die to the old state/continuing to be double-minded).
You will die to the old state simply by remaining faithful to the new one.
“Do not ask yourself how this thing is going to be. It does not matter if your reason denies it. It does not matter if all the world around you denies it.”
You never have to worry about how it will come to be, because that is not your responsibility. It will happen without any effort on your part. Your only job is to believe in the fulfillment of your desire. Everything else will be taken care of for you. You do not need to reason with it, you cannot let external circumstances get in the way of it, and you don’t need to think about what actions you need to take to “make it happen.” You do not need to do anything but remain in that fulfilled state.
SATS and Lullaby
State akin to sleep - the creative act.
A sensory experience that implies the fulfillment of your desire.
Remove your attention from the physical world, go into your imagination fully, and grant your imaginal act reality.
Don’t let the mind wander, make the imaginal act short and sweet, at the point of the fulfillment of your desire.
Minimal effort is the key, it should not cost you too much energy to fully experience your desire fulfilled.
Lullaby method
When you are nearing sleep, repeat a short phrase that implies fulfillment of your desire.
2-3 words that can easily be repeated without too much focus.
The point is to fall asleep while saying it over and over in your mind.
You No Longer Hunger For It When It Is Fulfilled
“When satisfaction is yours, you no longer hunger for it”
If you have successfully fulfilled the desire in imagination and you believe that it is yours, you no longer feel want of it, because you already have it.
You no longer think of it as separate from you.
You have granted it to yourself in imagination, then it is already yours, and there is nothing else to do but persist in that state.
Your Imagination Is The Cause
“Know that your consciousness is the only reality. Then know what you want to be. Then assume the feeling of being that which you want to be, and remain faithful to your assumption, living and acting on your conviction.”
Consciousness is the only reality -- it is the source of everything in the physical
“You draw from within yourself that which you now want to express as something objective to yourself”
All your manifestations come from you. You are drawing the fulfillment of your desires from within yourself, from consciousness.
If you can imagine it, then it is possible.
“Your consciousness is the mother-father, there is no other cause in the world”
Everything that happens in the physical world is caused and created by your consciousness.
There is no other cause than your I AM-ness/your imagination.
Since your imagination is the only cause, then the only way to change the outer world is through imagination itself.
“As I stand here, having discovered that my consciousness is God, and that I can by simply feeling that I AM what I want to be transform myself into the likeness of that which I am assuming I am; I know now that I am all that it takes to scale this mountain”
Neville says that you don’t need anything other than your consciousness/imagination to achieve anything you want. You don’t need money, luck, power, etc. You only need imagination.
How to Manifest
“Take the idea you want to embody, and assume that you are already it. Lose yourself in feeling this assumption is solidly real. As you give it this sense of reality, you have given it the blessing which belongs to the objective world, and you do not have to aid its birth any more than you have to aid the birth of a child or a seed you plant in the ground”
Define your objective (your desire), create an imaginal act that suggests the fulfillment of that objective, grant it reality, and persist in that new state.
You do not have to take any kind of physical action for it to manifest, you trust in your imaginal act and allow it to come to be on its own.
Do not wait to die to the old state and embody the state that you desire. If you desire something now, change your state now. Fulfill it within imagination the moment you feel it.
“When my world conforms to my assumption the prophecy is fulfilled”
You were always meant to use your consciousness to manifest your life. In this lecture, Neville is basically saying that the entire point of the Bible is to teach you how to manifest through allegory and metaphor.