All Imagination by Neville Goddard - Original Lecture

Christianity has to be continued, redeemed, confess to the history. For Jesus Christ is the human imagination. As Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God that we might understand the gifts bestowed upon us by God. So tonight we will show you one of these gifts. If you really understand who Jesus Christ is, I tell you he is your own wonderful human imagination. Death is Christ. It comes as a shock when you first hear it if you are raised in the tradition as the speaker one I was raised in a Christian home and naturally, like the hundreds of millions of Christians, we would taught it a secular history. A little boy who was born of a woman who knew not a man and that his father was God. He was a son of God. And that was the story as I was storied. But I was searching and speaking from the time I think I can remember. I believe the story is mother caudishism. I did believe it and I can't tell anyone the shock that was mine. And sometimes maybe I wondered if it would not have been better to return back like Israel in the desert and go back into slavery. But I couldn't any more than they could. They had to keep moving towards the promised land. For when you are distribution, having been taught the story as we all have enjoyed it, to discover that he is not something in history. He is nearer than your breathing. In fact, he can't even be there. He is your very self. He is your own wonderful human imagination. It comes as quite a shock. Well, I can tell it best by telling you a story. The year was 1933. Roosevelt was elected. I had been in this country for 11 years. I never really wanted to go back to Barbados. My parents came up in that era and they pleaded with me to come to Barbados and join the family, become a member of the family. And I declined. I said no. I saw them off at the boat and strangely enough, as they sailed and they were on the deck and I waved goodbye to them, a peculiar feeling came over me and I had a desire I never had in 11 years to go to Barbados. I have just said goodbye to them and said no to their request. They would have paid all expenses and brought me back and everything would have been perfect. Then come the boat. I went to my old friend Abdullah. He was born, so I am told, in Ethiopia. He was a black man raised in the Jewish faith but really understood Christianity as few men that I ever understood it. He understood the law, not the promise. He understood the law. So I went to him and I told him the feeling that came over me that I wanted to go to Barbados. I just waved at my parents and a peculiar feeling possessed me. And he said to me, you are in Barbado. Well, that did not make sense to me. I'm standing in his place on 72nd street, off Hindley Park. That's where he lived. He lived at 30 West 72nd Street. There I am in this place and he is telling me that I am in Barbados. He didn't explain what he meant. So as the days went by, I say this woman, as I am known. Nearer to Barbados than I was when I spoke to you. And he said to me, if you are in Barbados. You cannot discuss the means of getting to Barbados. You must actually live in Barbados in your imagination. As though you were there, just out there and view the world from Barbados. If you sleep in Barbados and view the world from Barbados. The means will appear and you will go to Barbados. But as far as I am concerned, you are already in Barbados. Because you're anxiety. But in principle, all you have to do is simply to enter it. And you enter it now in New York City. Even though that's 2,000 miles across water. And you aren't going to walk across water. But you enter Barbados and view the world from it. If you see the world from Barbados, then you have to be in Barbados. He did not explain to me then. I learned later that man being all imagination. Man is wherever he is in imagination. And imagination is the God in man. That is the eternal body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all things are possible to Him. And by him all things were made. And without him was not anything made that was made. That what is now was once only imagined. These things I did not know then. He simply talked in the overall picture. But I did my best and I stepped mentally in Barbados, in my mother's home. I looked at the world and saw it some Barbados. I saw New York City 2,000 miles to the north. The north wind. For we are on a certain latitude 13 north. New York is 42 north. We are the 59th longitude. New York is the 74th. I thought northwest. As I could imagine it. I heard the tropical noises. We call this land tropical. It really isn't tropical in the true, really true sense of the word. When you go into the tropics, it's something entirely different. I was born in the tropics, almost on the equator. It's an entirely different odor. Sunset go like this. You look at a sun and the sun Disappears suddenly a ball of red light becomes green. You're looking at the sun and suddenly, in a matter of a split second, you're seeing a green sun. You're seeing the complement of. So we have no twilight in Barbados. The sun goes down rapidly from a red ball to a green ball and receive a green ball. So the whole atmosphere differs. When I put myself into death and felt that my mother and father were in their room and that my brothers, those who were not yet married, were in the house of a huge big old home of ours, and there I slept. This was now late October. When it came to the end of November, I said to earth, I said, earth, I am no nearer Barbados. He said, you are in Barbados. Then he turned his back on me, walked over to his bedroom and slammed the door, which was not an invitation to follow him. If you understood that, you were teaching me a lesson, the lesson of faith. If I am actually sleeping in Barbados, nor power in the world could interfere with my journey to Barbados. This is now late November. The last ship out of New York City sailing for Barbados was the 6th of December. I wanted to get there by Christmas, and so I could not raise the question anymore. But on the morning of the 4th or 3rd December, I got a letter from my brother Victor. I did not ask him or any member of my family to bring me to Barbados. He wrote a letter, and he justified the taunting in this manner. He said, we are, you know, a large family, nine brothers and a sister. We have never been united around our Christmas table at Christmas since we were a family. For there was an interval between my sister Daphne and the last few boys of eight years. By that time, my oldest brother had left for Demerara in Vivostiera. And by then, when he came back, my brother Lawrence went off to McGill to study medicine. And we were always moving around. But this time everyone was present but your story. And he said, I'm encouraging a small little gram. $50. But in 1933, when there were 17 and a half million unemployed and we didn't have 204 million citizens, we only had 120. Oddly, it was an enormous thing. If you're not old enough to know it. May I tell you, it was really a horror. But I was numbered among the unemployed. And so he knew that I could come if the terms were there, that I had my patches paid. So he enclosed a $50 gap to buy a suit. Well, you could buy a suit in those days for $12. $10, you could buy her shoes. McCann Shoes for $3. And so I went down to the teamship company because in the letter he said, I've notified the company to issue a ticket. And then the little $50, you buy what you need for the trip and then sign the chips. And when I the ship comes in, I'll meet the ship and pay all the things that you have incurred all the debt. So I went down to the ship. They take me. I'm sorry, Mr. Goddard, but we do not have a first class passage for you. We can accommodate you third class. You have the first class accommodation for meal. And you can have all the other areas of the first class. But for sleeping you have to go to the third class. I said, perfectly all right with me. I'll take it. I went back to Abdullah and I told him. Know what he did when I said, I am going prayer class to Barbados, but I have the accommodations of the first for the daylight hours. He said, who told you you're going pray class? You are already in Barbados and you went first class again. He closed the door on him. I went down to the ship the morning it sailed on the 6th of December. And the ticket agent said to me, Mr. Goddard, I have good news for you. We have a translation. And now you can go first half. But we'll share it with two others, the three in the cabin. Perfectly all right with me. And so I went down first class. Abdullah said to me, you know, Neville, when you return from Barbados, you will have died. Never explain a statement of that nature. You would have died. I'm coming back from Barbados, but I will have died. He spoke with his cryptic manner. Well, I did. I went down to Barbados. I was a strict secretarian. I had not eaten one piece of meat or fish or foul in seven years. No smoking, no alcohol, no sense. Disillusioned in my first marriage and the whole thing was simply I became a celibate. I came back from Barbados and in Barbados I was the same being that I was when I arrived to the annoyance of my family, for they made all their money in grocery, selling meat, fish, alcohol, everything. And I am enjoying a trip based upon their effort. And here I am not pick what they're offering. On my way north, I did everything I had not done in seven years. He was right. I died. That state of consciousness died. That's what died. Neville is the immortal being. That is, the inner man is immortal. I was locked in a state. This state I departed from. So as far as I am concerned, I died to that state. You see, life is nothing more than a hunger. This whole vast world is a hunger, and there are unnumbered states of consciousness from.