The Eternal Body by Neville Goddard - Original Lecture

The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. That is the divine body that we speak of as Jesus Christ. Your own wonderful human imagination. No, Blake tells us that man has no body distinct from his soul. That called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses. The chief inlets in this age. The chief inlet of the soul in this age. Now, when he uses the word soul, he is speaking of your own wonderful human imagination. When he speaks of your imagination, he is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is speaking of the Lord Jehovah. So you, as you're seated here, Jesus is here. Now, how is this brought about? I have no body that is distinct from my soul. I drop dead right now, Take the body out. In a few days, it's turned to ash and you scatter it. So here I have no body distinct from my soul, from thy reality. Then what is this? How did it come about? The independent soul, in its descent into this age, this world of death penetrates and annexes the the brain of a physical body, which is part of the eternal structure of the universe. And in penetrating and annexing the brain of a physical body, it embodies itself, entombs itself in that body. That is how Jesus is buried. That's how he is crucified. He is crucified on the body. He is entombed in the body, and there he dreams the dream of life. Now, this alliance as you and I descended into these two, this alliance with the brain of a physical body where we are now entombed is not less wonderful than that alliance which you and I will realize and experience when we ascend and penetrate and annex the brain of the heavenly man. As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. We are the reality, we are the God. We are the gods that came down into this world. And here we are now entombed in the very bottle that we penetrated and annexed its brain. And there we are dreaming this dream of life. If I know I am dreaming it, I can control the dream if I know I am dreaming it. But a man dreaming doesn't know that he's dreaming. The minute he knows he's dreaming, he wakes. You can prolong a dream if you know how to control it. But usually when a man discovers he's dreaming, he wakes and he returns fair. And he will say to himself, oh, it was only a dream. The day will come, you will know this is a dream. And you will awake, but that waking will be something entirely different from the kind of awaking when you wake up on a morning and find yourself on the bed where you fell asleep the night before. That other waking would be something entirely different when you actually awake within yourself to discover that you really are the Lord Jesus Christ. I am telling you what I know from experience, Spirit. Everyone in this world is going to have that experience. For your true being is God, not something on the outside. The God in you now entombed in the body that you, in your descent, penetrated and annexed its brain. And do not let anyone tell you that the descent as you descended. What an adventure. And annex the brain of the body you now wear. That that is less wonderful than what you're going to experience when you ascend and you penetrate and annex the brain of the heavenly man. That ascent is as real as anything you've ever dreamed in this world. It comes the moment that you are torn in two in scripture. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And then he took with him not the blood of an animal, the blood of a goat, a lamb, a sheep. He took his own blood through the curtain into the holy of holies. And he tells you how it happens. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. And when you are split in two from top to bottom, and that curtain, which is your own flesh parts, and you see the two halves of your body, and you are the observer. And when you look at it and you see at the base a golden, living, liquid light, and you know it is yourself, that's the. The blood that you had shed to come down here. And you fuse with it. And then like some fiery serpent, up you go into the brain. You penetrate it. And here you annex it. And you become one with that heavenly man. And you wear it as your own body, you are then the risen Lord. And everyone's going to enter into that one body by one spirit. And he will be the one God and Father of all. And everyone will be that one God and Father of all. You and I, who came down as brothers in this fantastic venture. I tell you what I know. I'm not speculating. The day will come if tonight you think you're completely insane. It would make no difference to me whatsoever. Because I know you're going to have the experience. And you're going to know how true it is everyone in this world. But while we have penetrated and annexed the brain of the body we now wear, we are now, confronted with all the vicissitude entailed by that annexation, it contains within itself certain restrictions, certain horrors. But we penetrated it, reappropriated it. We annexed it. When America annexed California, it had to accept the happenings in California as incidents within itself. Just a few weeks ago you thought maybe America regretted it and tried to shake it off into the Pacific. It tried to burn it last year, then try to flood it out, and then try it now to wind it out and then to shake it out. But it is still part of that body. They annexed it and they must now actually accept all the happenings in it as incidents within itself. And so, as long as I wear this body with all the weaknesses of my so called forefathers, anything built into it based upon what the physical so called descent entails, I have to endure everything. Because I benefited it, annexed it and I wear it. And now it becomes a temporary part of my soul. And I am so. I am all imagination. I am the being spoken of in scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the being spoken of in scripture as Jehovah, and so are you. Every child born a woman is the same being. Not one is greater than the other. We are the sons of God who came down into this world. And we ventured and we penetrated and annexed the brains of the bodies we now wear animating them. Or they're all dead now. I tell you, they were dead. It seemed as though they were not. What? They were dead. If you saw them as I see them, they're all still like statues. Now, let me share with you a letter that came to me yesterday. The lady and her husband are here tonight. They're here all the time. She said you close on the 11th of December. Well, this happened on the 7th, the lecture before the last. It was a Monday night. And you are Simply using the 14th chapter of the Book of John. And suddenly, at almost the very end of your lecture, I found myself standing in a huge temple. Standing at the entrance. I was about to leave and I thought I would simply take one more look at the interior of this temple, because I was about to depart. As I looked in, every wall had two columns and then a door leading through the columns. They're all equally spaced. And in front of the doorway which led out there was a statue. And I knew, she said, that I could put that statue on as I would a garment. But I knew if I did, I would have to experience all that was contained within that statue. But I also knew I had already done it. All these I had played, they were all individual statues at the doorway between the two columns. And there are simply many doorways within the interior of this huge, huge temple. And then I felt what enormous satisfaction that I have done it. I have completed the work that I came to do. And then I came back to the lecture. And then the lecture was almost over. That night when we went home, my husband and I put on the taste. And I knew when I had dropped from hearing you audibly here and found myself standing at the entrance, departing from this enormous, huge temple. Well, I make notes as you speak. And the last note I made was this. He is not the God that he wore. That's the last thing I wrote down. All is spirit. And then I came back. You spoke beyond that, but I had no notes beyond that. That was my last note. So when you said, he is not the garment that he wore, it was then that I found myself standing in the entrance to this huge, huge temple and these statues. And every one was something I could have worn as easily as I now wear a dress. And then I realized I have worn them. I have played all this. I don't have to replay them. I played them. I have experienced everything that they can give to anyone, leaving them there for anyone else to experience it. I can't thank you enough for that. What a wonderful vision. I mean, I tell you how true it is when you see these things in eternity. The whole thing is done. It's a play. But you and I are the actors. God only acts and is in existing beings or men. Well, the actor in you is your own wonderful human imagination. That's the actor. That's God. And God only acts. Now, he actually puts on these garments. He puts them on by penetrating and annexing the brain of the garment he's going to wear. But within that garment, there are limitations and horrors and all kinds of things. And then I am confronted with all the vicissitude entailed by that annexation. And so I've got to go through it. So my mother died at 61. My father died at 85. Say he drank heavily and she didn't drink and all these things. And all of a sudden, the scientists tell you that this is your background physically. All right, let them tell me all they can. I am actually in tune in this, wearing the restrictions of this garment. But having discovered who I am, I can modify it. I have seen a dozen hamlets, and no two are played alike. All they stick to the script and they depart on time. They take their cue and they enter on time, but they interpret it differently. And so I can take apart. I'm knowing who I am, that I am the actor, that I am not the thing that I am playing. I am the act of playing a part. Well, if I know I am, then I can modify the drama, I can interpret it differently without changing the words of the author. I will coming on cue, as I did, and I will depart on cue. And no one could extend my days one Ioto. As we are told in scripture. Who, by taking thought, can add one hour to his span of life? Not one hour. It used to be interpreted not in a temporal sense, but in a spatial sense. Who by taking thought, could add one cubit, which means 30 inches, to his statue? It isn't that any longer. We have discovered that was not the true interpretation of it. It is who, by taking thought, or who, by being anxious, could add one hour to his span of life. You come on time, you depart on time, but in that interval you can make it a rich and wonderful life. So I say to every one of you, you are the Lord Jesus Christ. You are God. If you don't want to believe it, it's perfectly all right. If when I use the word Jesus, the mind thinks of something external to yourself, I tell you, got the wrong one. If I say God, Jehovah, and the mind jumps out and you see an existing presence, something that is external to yourself, you got the wrong God. When I use the word. And suddenly I am calling you to your own attention as to who you are. And you think of just your own being, your imagination. You've got the right one. Then I'm joing you then what are you now doing? Because God creates by imagining. God imagining is creating. And so what are you creating at that moment? I'm calling you to attention. Then what are you now creating? You're doing it by what you're imagining. Because you are the only reality in the world. You are God. So I ask you to imagine the loveliest things in the world. I don't care what it is, how confining the present state doesn't really matter. You are God and all things are possible to God. So you begin to imagine the loveliest things in the world. Begin with self. Then you widen the circle. You take in your family, you take in your friends. You go beyond that to take in a larger circle, only imagining the best. Because you're bringing into pass into this world all that you're imagining. So here, the eternal body of man is man's own wonderful human imagination. One day, as you came down and penetrated and annexed the body you wear one day, and I'm telling you what I know from experience, you will ascend like fire. It's a fiery serpent. That's tell you the third chapter of the Gospel of John, you will go up just like a fiery serpent. And when you everyone's going to do it. But start to think about it now, start to develop. Physical death is not breaking the two. You are in tune in these bodies. Physical death is not departure from the tomb. You will find yourself clothed in a body just like this, only young, in a world just like this terrestrial. And when you break the tomb, you break it alone. There is no one to assist. You don't need assistance. You find yourself awake, completely awake, in the tomb of your own skull. And then you push your own stone away. No one pushes away for you. You know exactly what to do and you push it away, the base of your skull. You need no midwife to deliver you. You deliver yourself. You push your head out of that hole and there you push like a child coming out of the womb of a woman. And your own hands you use to pull yourself out of that skull. You don't need any midwife. And when you come out, the witnesses are there. They can't see you because you are spirit. But they see the evidence of your birth. To see the infant bearing witness to the fact that something is born. You shall find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying on the floor. The child is there and they find him, but you they cannot see, because you are God and God is spirit. You are born. You came down, entombed yourself deliberately as we are told. No one takes away my life. I lay down myself. I have the power to lay down and the power to lift it up again. And so it's you of whom the prophet wrote. It is you, the one spoken of in scripture called Jesus Christ. And it is you saying, no one takes away my life. I lay down myself. I have the power to lay down. Which you did when you became what you are. When you attached yourself to this body, penetrating it, annexing the brain, you entombed yourself in it. No one put you there. You did it yourself. And when the time has fully come for the breaking of the shell of that skull of yours, you will break it and you'll come out unassisted. And you'll come out and no midwife is necessary. You draw yourself out born all by yourself but your spirit now. And no one sees you but to see the evidence of your birth. And so everything said of Jesus Christ in scripture is said of you, because you are the one spoken of. They're writing all about you. So the eternal body of man is his own wonderful human imagination. That's God. That is the Jesus Christ of scripture. So when you read it, keep these words in mind as you come to the word. Let it sort of awaken you, Jones, as to who you really are. Now, while you are here and still dreaming the dream of life and you have not yet broken the tomb and pushed away the stone and you have not yet been born from above, you can change the dream you're dreaming now. Oh yes. You will have the things that your body must encounter. All the weaknesses, you are going to have them. All the strength, you will have them. But you can change the dream and modify the dream. If you're dreaming now, recessions, dreaming, depression, dreaming this, that or the other, you can stop that dream. What would it be like if you asked yourself a simple question? What would it be like if I were now the man that I would like to be? Dare to assume that you are that man. And to the degree that you are self persuaded that you are, though reason denies it and your senses deny it, if you are self persuaded, it will happen in your world because it's a dream. It doesn't seem like it's a dream. I tell you it is a dream. The whole vast world is a dream and you are the dreamer of the dream. But now if you let tomorrow morning's paper suggest the kind of dream that you should dream, and they seem to cover the entire world to get some story that is frightening. They're not satisfied to print what is happening here. It is scary enough they've got to go all over the world to find something that is more frightening, to put it as a headline. And so they feed you that with your coffee in the morning. And so man is given the kind of thing they want is a dream. It's a scare philosophy. They sell things based upon fear. Well, they don't accept it. Know what you want in this world and only that, and feed yourself that. What would it be like if my friend, my family, I. Well you name it. If we were now what we would like to be and then persuade yourself that it is. How do I persuade myself when reason denies that I am, when my senses deny that I am? Well, if I know that I am all imagination, can't I imagine it? Can you conceive of any hypothesis in this world that our great scientists have ever conceived? It wasn't sheer fancy. Every hypothesis of science began with fancy. Suppose it were True. It seems as though it ought to be true, they would say. But they have no evidence of the issue. It began with fancy. Then they experiment. I wonder if it's true. Well now you try the same thing. I wonder if it is true. If I assume that I am what I would like to be and sustain that assumption if it would harden into fact. Try it. You're told in scripture that it will. You're told that whatever you believe, believe that you have received it. Whatever you desire. Believe you have received it and you will. It didn't say providing it's good. Providing it's this, that and the other that the priesthoods of the world tell you you should. You asked no one permission. Can you believe? Well then try it. Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will. That's telling you that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact. That's what it's telling you. Well, now I'll go to bed. In the assumption that I am. That those I love are what I would like to be. I like them to be. I. And then see if my persistency will prove it to be a fact. Well, if it proves it, well then what does it matter what others think? If I have evidence for a thing, does it matter what the world tells me? I will tell it to others in the hope that they'll believe it and become free. But if they don't believe it, at least I did done my duty. I've told them so. May I tell you you are infinitely greater than you could ever entombed as you are, know yourself to be. There's so many. Only when you break the tomb and come out do you really realize who you are. And when you read the book of Books, the Bible, and you see that all that has happened to you, it was all there, what it was said of another. And you are taught to believe that he was another. He. He is the pattern man. Jesus Christ is the pattern man. So when you actually experience all that is said of him, you realize who you are. He is the pattern. And you are following a pattern. And it's a perfect pattern. Everything said of him you're going to experience of yourself. You want to tell it to someone, tell it. If they don't believe it, it doesn't really matter. They can't undo it by their disbelief. They can only simply delay their own awakening. Well, I tell you what I know, what I have experienced. That your eternal body is your imagination. It's immortal. It cannot die. Cut your head off now. They cannot reach the immortal youth and the body that is burned and cast away that burned it. You reproduce it until you actually awake in the tomb. For the body is a tomb. You are entombed by your annexation of its brain. And you will not get out of it. You'll reproduce it over and over, no matter how often they cut off the head, until you yourself awaken in it. And you'll awaken in it, and unassisted by anyone, you'll come out of it. You come out of the tomb as recorded in scripture. And they came in their soul, and the tomb was empty. And they went and they told the story and they said, he is risen. But the words seemed the words of an idle tale. And they did not believe it that perpetually, so they did not believe it. And so to this day it is still told in a erroneous way. The churches are not telling the story of the gospel. They're telling a secular history. And it isn't, it's salvation history. The whole thing is contained within you, the immortal you. And you saw it all before you set forth. All was foretold, and then you drank, as we all do, that juice of forgetfulness. And we forget who we are as we come down and entomb ourselves and take all the weaknesses and the restrictions and the limitations of the body that we have annexed. And we have to suffer with it as we are told in scripture. O foolish men, and slow of heart to understand. Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory? He comes down into speaking of you now. You come down into the restriction called man. You take upon yourself the limitation of contraction, opacity. When you reach that limit that all of a sudden you dream the dream of life in the fullness of time. You break the shell like a chick coming out of the shell. And then you come out, and then you ascend. And the very one that came down is about to go up. Only he who descended can ascend. So you will ascend and you'll do the same thing. But now you will penetrate and annex the brain of the heavenly man. This was only a temporary annexation, so that the body here becomes a temporary possession of the soul, but only temporary. And then you go up and you annex the brain of the heavenly man. And that's permanent. And you are the living God. And everyone's going to go up and become that same living God. And then there'll be only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God, and Father of all. And you and I will be one without loss. Of identity. No loss of identity. Now here was another one that came this week. Both came yesterday. I woke and the words were so clear. Here a voice is dictating to me. And the voice said, a prophet sees. An apostle is sent. An apostle experiences. An apostle sees prophesies and experiences. Then the voice says, the key is the words will and set. And then came the boys poking. I came out to do his will. He who sent me, I and he are one. How altogether wonderful. The prophet Sent, sees an apostle experiences. The apostle is sent. The very word means to be sent. But the sender and the saint are one. He and I are one. So when he's sent into the world and he knows he's sent, he's still in the presence of his own being. But it seemed objective to himself. It was all love. Love embraced him and love sends him. But although in the world he is so restricted, while he tells the story and makes the confession, I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I. He's only telling us that the office of the saint is less than the office of the sender. Yet he is the sender. Therefore, as his essential being, he is not less than. Only the office of the saint is left. So in the world he's still restricted. This is the world of death, where everything dieter. So she heard the words clearly, as you're told in Scripture. All the prophets were hearing Isaiah, he heard the word of God, Elijah heard the word of God. Every prophet is hearing the word of God. There she was, as she's hearing it, she got up and she wrote it down. Then she closed her letter by saying hallelujah. She heard it so clearly. And then she said, every word was so distinct. And she got up as though some quake had awakened her and wrote the entire thing down. The prophet sees the apostle experiences. Bear in mind what an apostle is. Do you know in Hebrews, the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus Christ is called the Apostle. No mention of anyone else. So the apostle is Jesus Christ. You think I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I. In my present office as the saint, I seem to be less than myself the sender, but I am returning to myself the sender, When I am through with the experiences of the one that is sent, as I will tell you what happened to me as the one that is sent, I came to fulfill what I prophesied. I inspired the prophet to say what I would do when either word made flesh would appear. And so I have come to fulfill and to experience my own Prophecy. Having experienced it, I now return to myself. The Father. I tell you I am going to my Father and to your Father and to my God and your God. And to whom is he speaking? He said, go to my brothers and say to my brothers, I am ascending to my God and your God, to my Father and your Father. But I am returning back to the Father as himself. Because he who sees me sees the Father. And he calls us brothers to all are moving back to the one source. There's only one Source, and it is God the Father. So here you chose what you are wearing. And today we have all this nonsense of the world trying to stop the children of the world because we don't have enough food and we are burning food. We have more food in the world could ever use. We have enough means to make all the things in the world to satisfy numberless more than we have in the world. And we have all the nonsense about no more children. And the pressure of the sons of God coming down to penetrate and annex a physical body that it may entomb itself and then return to its source having the experience of the entombment. We are trying to stop it. I mean, I tell you, you just don't stop. Just happens. Or you can have all the abortions in the world, but when the time comes for the explosion of population, you aren't going to stop it. You'll become one of those foolish virgins, as the story said. I thought you said you're a virgin. I said yes, but I'm one of the foolish ones. And so there'll be foolish versions all over the world bringing forth babies, because sons of God are coming down and you aren't going to stop them annexing the brains of these little physical garments. So tonight you take me seriously. Because I know what I've told you. You are going to experience. I'm prophesying for you. You will not avoid it because you are the Lord Jesus Christ. But you are now in tune. The crucifixion is over for your concern, but the resurrection has not taken place. That's taking place and may take place in the not distant future for everyone who is hearing me. But it's going to take place regardless. No one can fail, but no one. For we are the immortals. And you can't cease being the immortal, no matter what is done to you in this world. And the day will come, you'll break the tomb, roll away the stone and come out unassisted. And then all that is said of him you're going to experience and then you'll know who you are. So he comes to us as one unknown, yet one who, in the most wonderful, mysterious manner, lets us explain experience who he is. And when we experience who he is, we experience it in the first person singular. And then we know who we are. For there is only the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, let's go into the silence. Good. So, are there any questions? Please, dear friends? The question is, is there any way of shortening the interval to break that tomb? My dear, I do not know of any. I do not know of any. I would say believe as we are told in Scripture. Believe in me. What must I do to be doing the work of God? Believe in him whom he has sent so that one stops believing in their prefabricated misconception of Him. It's a difficult thing to give up, I know. But one has to give up that strange concept that they hold of Jesus Christ and bring him, as he really is, within one. Because he's buried in man, he is actually entombed in every child born of woman. So he has to believe then in himself. If he turns out to see something on the outside where he worships, then he is not really doing the work of God. What must we do to be doing the work of God? And the answer is, believe in him whom he has sent. Now he tells you, I am with you always, even to the ends of time. If he is with you always, even to the ends of time, why go on the outside if he is with you always? And then Paul asked the question, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? If he is in me, I should make every effort to find out where he is and who he is. And I am telling you will come to the conclusion when you find him, that he is your own wonderful human imagination. No Hills in Burnde yes, my dear. Why, certainly. When you wake in the morning after the most horrible dream where you violated your moral code, your ethical code, you don't condemn yourself. You try to analyze the significance of the dream. It has some meaning. What is it trying to tell me? But you certainly aren't going to condemn yourself because you will say, why, that was a dream. May I tell you, when you awake one day, you're going to say, this whole thing is a dream. It's a dream. The whole thing is a dream. And you will not condemn yourself. When you wake in the morning after the most horrible dream, if you are unfaithful as a wife and actually did everything that you would not in a rational state, do you would say to yourself, that was only a dream. I didn't do it. Well, the day will come, no matter what you have done in this world, when you awake, you didn't do it. It was all a dream. Did you read that little thought expressed last Wednesday in the LA Times concerning Keats? This is the 150th anniversary of his death, who died in Italy 150 years ago? And they quoted what Shelley said about him, his farewell word to Keats. When Shelley heard of his death and Shelley wrote, he lived. He wakes. His death is dead, not he. And so when you wake, it is death. You came down into the world of death, entombed yourself. Your skull is an actual tomb, but there, you being alive, you dream you're entombed, and you are dreaming in the state of death and projecting it on the screen of space. And it all seems so objectively real and so completely independent of you. It's like an author and a play, he conceives a play, and suddenly he's beginning to lose control of his character. They're becoming independent of him. And that's what's happened. Here you are dreaming a dream, and all of a sudden your dreams are becoming independent of you. You're losing control of it.