NEVILLIE GODDARD LECTURE | ETERNALSTATES 1968

NEVILLIE GODDARD LECTURE | ETERNALSTATES 1968

Sit quietly and ask yourself who you are, where you are and what you are. Your answers will reveal your state of consciousness: your body of belief. Paul said, “We do not look to the outer things, but to the things unseen, for the outer things are transient, but the unseen things are eternal.” Your beliefs, seen by the mystic, are personified. They form a state, which completely controls your behavior. Any modification within your body of belief will result in a change in your outer world.Blake tells us, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation which was an act of mercy. By this you will see that I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it leaves paradise following the serpent.”

Now, Blake uses the word “mercy” only as one who sees that states are eternal; that in God’s mercy he created all things, not just a few, so that any situation which can be conceived, already exists in eternity. When Blake said, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation which was an act of mercy,” he meant that everything you see is dead, a part of the eternal structure of the universe. You are its operant power. When you enter a scene it becomes animated. Then you become lost in your own animation and think it is independent of your perception. Looking at it, you cannot believe you are causing the animation, but you are.

You and I are living souls, buried in a world of death. We are destined to be life-giving spirits through an act of mercy, but until that time we animate what we perceive. Questioning self, Blake asks: “O miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” May I tell you, no earthly power can do it, only God.

Peter tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This is true, for only by God’s act of great mercy can we be born anew. Now buried in a world of eternal death, you are animating dead forms, believing they are independent of your perception of them. This you will continue to do until God’s great mercy awakens Jesus Christ within you. If Christ was not buried in you, he could not awaken in you, and if he is not in you he could not emerge from you. Therefore, like Paul, you carry in your body the death of Jesus. It is the tomb in which he is buried. His awakening delivers you from a body of death, but until that time you must live in, and adjust to, the dead body you wear.

Now, until you are born from above, you operate the power which gives life to this world. For the world is a dream filled with dead scenery, while you are Proteus. As you enter the scene you cause the parts to be made alive. Not knowing this, you think there are others, and fight the shadows of your own being.

All things exist in the human imagination, and all phenomena are solely produced by imagining. Where there is no imagining, everything vanishes. If lack is now in your world, and you cease to be aware of it by imagining plenty, lack disappears; therefore, any modification in your body of belief will cause a change in your life.