QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Neville Goddard – 1970's part 2

 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Neville Goddard – 1970's

Here is part two of Neville Goddard answers questions. These are taken from lectures Neville gave in the 1970s.

QUESTION ASKED FOLLOWING LECTURE, 22 July 1970

Question By A Lady: Neville, in the restoration you say everybody is the same. I have never heard you say there were births from the womb of woman in the restoration. [Question was not altogether audible on the tape.]

Neville: The Bible teaches that if you are not resurrected in this section of time, then all the things that you now do in this section of time you will continue doing.

That is stated so clearly in the book of Luke when ‘the wise men of the day, the Sadducees, ask the very simple question, “Whose wife will this woman be in the Resurrection?” (Luke 20:33) because she married seven brothers and they left no offspring. And the answer is quite clearly stated, that “the children of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are accounted worthy to obtain to That Age, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, for they are sons of the Resurrection. Being sons of God, they die no more,” (Luke 20:35-36) which would imply that all they do here they will do there unless resurrected.

So, if they die here, they find themselves restored to life there in that section of time into which they go. But they will age there too, as they age here. But they do not start there from the womb of woman; they start there from the grave. But you don’t go to any grave; you are already in the grave when you are here. These bodies are our graves.

The Lady: Well, this being the lowest form – [not audible].

Neville: This is the most important one. It’s the limit of contraction. This is the complete limit of contraction, the limit of opacity. Here is contraction. Men die.

And you and I watch them die. We see them die. We cremate the body. It’s all dust.

And, yet, that Being never died – not to himself, not to herself. They are restored instantly; and many of them do not even know that they have departed this world, because to them they haven’t died.

How can you think of a person who is very much alive – you talk with him, he talks with you – and you tell him that he is dead? I don’t tell them they are dead. I will tell them – “You died at a certain point in time and I went to your funeral, and what you wore when I first knew you is now buried or cremated,” depending on what I know of it. They will deny it because they aren’t dead, and they cannot associate what I am saying with anything that they are experiencing, because they never experienced death.

The only ones who ever experience death are those who watch them die. I can watch a man die, and bury him or cremate him. I experience his departure and call it death, but he who went through that state – he didn’t die! When he is restored, he does not know a thing about having died. So, no one ever really experiences death, except those who watch the other one depart, and many of them don’t even know they are gone. They are amazed at me when I say, “I went to your funeral.” They think, Why, he’s insane.

But, you know in Scripture, “The man is mad.” “He has a spirit.” “He has a demon.” (See John 10:20) And there are areas in which all visionary men are accounted mad men, but this is not new to me. I’ve been all over that. When I first started, I came to a book store where they had my books displayed, and two ladies, looking at the picture in the window and my books – a few of my books – one said to the other, “You know who he is?”

She said, “No.”

“Well, he is the mad mystic of 38th Street. You must go and hear him. He’s as mad as a hatter,” she said. She didn’t know I was standing right next to her. She said, “You should hear that man. He is mad, but he isn’t violent.”

It’s perfectly all right. So, I have been called mad, and having a demon from the time that I started in with this work, because it is mad if I deny the evidence of my senses and say I will not accept the dictates of my senses. I will not accept reason; it is in conflict with what I want.

I will accept my senses if they are confirming what I want in this world, but if they don’t confirm it, I ignore them and assume a state where I want to know all my senses do confirm. And I turn to the Knower, which is my imagination. So, a man who denies his senses, certainly he is a little bit touched.

So, they said of him, “This man, we know his father, we know his mother;”  we know his brothers and we know his sisters, and he tells us he came from heaven, and he tells us God was his father, and that he and God the Father are one. Well, the man is insane, and he doesn’t know it. Read it in the book of John. It is clearly stated.

QUESTION ASKED FOLLOWING LECTURE, 23 July 1970

Question By A Lady [inaudible on my tape] concerning restoration to life in different time segments.

Neville: You see, we think that death ends something and birth begins something, but time is bigger than the little, small spectrum we call “threescore and ten.” It’s the same world, just like this, and is this world. The Year Three Thousand exists now, and the Year One Thousand did not pass away. It still exists now. I have gone into sections of time that the world thinks have ceased to be and others the world thinks do not yet exist.

But, read the book of Ecclesiastes, “Is there a thing of which it is said, See, this is new? It has been already in ages past. But there is no remembrance of former things, nor shall there be any remembrance of things to come after among those who will come later.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:10, 11)
In other words, it has already come. The “Play” is over. The whole thing is finished and has been brought to a climax.

And, so – we came, and come, into human history in that strange, mysterious being we call “Jesus Christ.” And in the end, there will only be Jesus, and you are He.

We think, now, this is 1970, and we are looking forward to the Year Two Thousand, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if you lived in the Year 2000, and celebrated the turn of the century? But it is now!

You may depart here, say, in the year 1990. I have no desire to reach any 1990. As far as I am concerned, it could come tonight. But I have no desire, honestly, to go far beyond this moment in time – none whatsoever.

I know, in my own case, I will not be restored to life. I am entering the New Age, clothed in that body with which I am very familiar, which is a perfect body, where – in its presence – nothing will remain imperfect – nothing. You are in need of nothing in that body, and everything is made perfect, because you are clothed in that body of the Risen Lord. But everyone who has not had the experience will be restored, and need not find themselves, if they go tonight, in the year 1970 a day later. They could find themselves in the Year One Thousand, as the environment best suited for the work yet to be done in them, because it can be done better in that environment than it can in the year 1971.

The whole thing is the most glorious, wonderful play, and in the end everyone is perfect. And because “there is only one body, one spirit… one lord… one God and Father of all,” (Ephesians 4:4-6) we can’t brag and beg to be placed one above the other.

And I tell you that your face will be like yours, but raised to the nth degree of beauty. Imagine it, a character that you would never dream of possessing in this world! You will have the human face, as you have. You will have the human voice.

You will have human hands. Don’t ask beyond that. I couldn’t describe the form. It is light, fire; it has nothing to resist it. It is, in itself, the life of everything round about you. You give life to it. Nothing remains dead in your presence. A Petrified Forest would burst into flower if you entered the forest. A barren desert would erupt into glorious bloom because of your presence. You are life.

But the body itself – well, you can’t describe it. But it will have a human face, human voice, and human hands.

QUESTION ASKED FOLLOWING LECTURE, 23 July 1970

Question By A Lady In The Audience: Will you please interpret the Scripture, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Neville: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34) It appears only in the books of Matthew and Mark; it doesn’t appear in the other two Gospels. Well, it is in the 22nd Psalm. (Psalm 22:1) In other words, God is not pretending that He is you. If He knew that He is God and playing the part that is your part, then He could not be a Savior. He had to completely empty Himself of His entire wisdom and His power and everything to
become you!

So, He can’t pretend; He’s not an actor playing the part. He is The Only Actor, but He is so much the part that He ceases to be an actor knowing that He is playing a part. He became you in the most literal form.

So, that’s the cry. But Luke does not use the 22nd Psalm. Luke uses the 31st Psalm; only the whole verse is not quoted. Luke says, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” (Psalm 31:5, RSV)

So, he cried out, knowing that he is already redeemed because he has had the experience of redemption, but the Crucifixion is the first act. It took place in the beginning. It doesn’t come at the end of the drama, as we are told in the story. We are told in Scripture, “We have been united with Him in a death like His; therefore we shall be united with Him in a resurrection like His.” (Romans 6:5, RSV) In other words, see the change in tense. We have been united with Him in a Crucifixion like His; we shall be united with Him in a Resurrection like His.

So, the Crucifixion is over. The Resurrection is taking place. So, he warns Timothy of those who teach that the resurrection is over and past, that they are misleading the people and turning the people from the true faith. He says, Anathema to them for the teaching of the resurrection as already finished.

No, it is taking place in one after the other. But the Crucifixion is over, because that was the beginning of the drama, when God literally became Humanity – not just you individually, but Humanity. He is crucified on the Cross of Man, and individual man is redeemed. Because he was once crucified with The One, he is now redeemed in The One. One after the other, he is drawn back into “the one Body, the one spirit… the one lord… the one God and Father of all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)

So, that cry is a wonderful cry, and it should not be removed from Scripture, but it is only in Matthew and Mark. Of the seven cries on the cross, Matthew and Mark only considered one, and this is the one. John considered three, and Luke considered three, and Mark and Matthew considered the same words on the Cross.

We speak of the “seven last words” – “words” being not a single word, but a sentence, a thought. They considered one thought which is the prayer that God actually, literally became man to the point where He had to forget He was God, and suffered total amnesia, for if He remained aware that He is God, He couldn’t play the part – a complete and total giving of Self.

As Blake said it so beautifully, “Unless I die, thou canst not live; but if I die, I shall arise again, and thou with me.” [From “Jerusalem”]

He will rise, and you will rise as Him. But He has to die just as a seed. Unless it fall into the ground and die, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. So, He actually became you, and then He rises in you, and He cries out on the cross of you – for you are the cross that He wears.

I must confess, there isn’t a person in the world that could actually say to me honestly, until he has the resurrection, that he knows he is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, he is totally unaware of his true identity, and he is crying out to a god outside of himself. Therefore, he is actually saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Because he doesn’t know He is God until the Resurrection.

And when He breaks the bonds of the tomb, He knows Who He is. Until then, He too is saying, without the use of words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Every mother who says good-bye to a little child at the gate of death wonders why God did not answer her prayer. You say goodbye to your mother, your father, your brother, your friend, and you wonder, Why God, why –calling to another god.

Therefore, that is the cry on the Cross – because this [referring to the physical body] is the Cross. And I will wear this Cross – until the very end, and then, during the wearing of the Cross; I am resurrected from it.

And I tell the story. Some believe it; some disbelieve it, but I will continue to tell the story until He takes it off for the final time, and then I’m clothed in the Divine Body.

QUESTIONS ASKED FOLLOWING LECTURE, 24 JULY 1970

Question By A Lady: When you say “coming down,” descending,” “below,” what do you mean?

Neville: Well, these are just figures of speech. Certainly not from heaven, because heaven is within you, as we are told in the 17th chapter of the book of Luke, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:21)

In Scripture, “above” and “within” are the same, and “below” and “without” are the same. If I point there [indicating], that’s without, and that is, in Scripture, “below.” He said, “I am from above” – therefore I am within you – “you are from below,” (John 3:23) therefore, you are “without.”

So, wherever I point in the world outside, that is below where He stands. He stands “within.” God is within you. His name forever and forever is “I AM.”

When I speak of “coming down,” I mean descending in consciousness to lower and lower and lower levels of awareness to the level called, in Scripture, “death”; because God is infinite in power and can overcome even death. And to become man, the limit of contraction, God assumes the grave to prove the Infinite power that is God, because there is no limit to His expansion. He set a limit to His contraction, to his opacity, but no limit to His expansion or translucency. So, when you reach the limit of contraction, then you start to expand.

If God could not expand beyond what He is, there would be eternal failure, but God is forever expanding, and in His own plan. He creates the plan, fulfills His own plan, and expands. That’s the joy of creation. God is a Creator.

So, I do not mean “coming down” in the sense of coming from the stars – for all the stars, infinite as they are, and trillions of light years away – they are still “without,” therefore, they are “below.” God is “within.”

Question By A Lady [inaudible on the tape, but having to do with the “linen clothes.”]

Neville: The “linen clothes” are the physical body in Scripture. He ran away and he was still naked. He had not yet been clothed with the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. They can take from you your body, and you will be naked as far as that world goes. You must be clothed. To be really clothed in the “wedding garment” in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; you must be clothed with the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the end, there is only “one body, one spirit… one Lord… one God and Father of all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)

So, today many people suffer for the Word of God, and they will take from them their physical bodies, like many of our missionaries who have been martyred. They took from them the “linen clothes” that the mother wove for them, and left them, in a way, naked, because they are not yet clothed with the Body of Jesus Christ, but they will be. They will be.

Question [inaudible on my tape, but referring to the angels, witnesses, et cetera, present at the birth of the Christ Child]

Neville: This is all beautiful imagery. When I rose from the skull and came out from the “linen clothes” – and when I came out, the three brothers appeared, and there were the angels; they came from afar. If you took it literally, they were five thousand miles from here.

If you took the story literally in the Bible, it would be almost impossible for the shepherds to have made the journey in the short interval between the appearance of the angel and the discovery of the child, so they came “in spirit,” as told in the 2nd chapter of the book of Luke when Simeon “came in the Spirit to the temple,” (Luke 2:27) for it all takes place in the Temple of God. You are the Temple of God, because all things exist in the human imagination. So, they came – humanly –“from afar,” but they are always in you anyway.

When the drama is ready to erupt within you, they will come, and the story will reenact itself within you. So, do not give credit to this one or that one or the other; the whole story is within you.

Question By A Lady [inaudible on the tape] about Repentance.

Neville: My Dear, you are invited in Scripture – the very first word put into the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ in the earliest Gospel, which is the book of Mark.

In the canonical setup, Matthew comes first, but in the actual, chronological order, Mark is the earliest of the Gospels. So, the first word put into the mouth of Jesus in the book of Mark is, “Repent.” The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

Well, the word “repent” does not mean to feel remorseful. It hasn’t a thing to do with regret. The word is “metanoia,” which means, by literal translation, a radical, radical change of attitude; a radical change of mind, which tests the individual’s ability to enter into the very opposite of what he sees with his senses.

Now, do it, for you are invited. The very first words of the Lord are to get the individual to use the talent which is in himself, which is his imagination, therefore, use your imagination to bring about a radical change of attitude towards effects – towards the world in which you live. And to the degree that you are successful in changing this attitude of mind, the world will change to confirm it.

That is “repentance” as known by the mystics. It has not a thing to do with regret or remorse. He never demands penance of anyone. The whole secret of Christ is forgiveness. That is repentance. He conquers by repentance. He conquers by forgiveness. That is the secret of Christianity.

You see someone and they are not well. You don’t blame them. You don’t bawl them out because of a former state, which has resulted now in their illness. You simply represent them to yourself in your mind’s eye, as you would like them to be. Suppose that individual who is now a total stranger were your mother, you wouldn’t criticize her, because you love your mother, and you would do for your mother what maybe you would not do for a stranger. Well, learn to do for the stranger what you would do for your mother.

If Mother asked anything of me, she would not ask anything that would not come within the Golden Rule – she wouldn’t! Why, she couldn’t conceive of asking of her son that she loved to do anything that would embarrass her, or in some way bring shame to the name. So, it would always come within the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Well, then, is it a stranger or your mother? Do it, and to the degree that you are self-persuaded of the reality of what you’ve done in your imagination, to that degree they are changed, and the environment in which they live will be changed to conform to the change in them.

You do it, and you will bring it about by your imagination and faith.
Faith is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. What do I want? What do I hope for, for my mother? Well, then, let me subjectively appropriate it, and that is practicing “repentance.” He tells the whole vast world, “Repent,” but believe the story – the Good News, which is called the Gospel. Believe the good news of salvation, for it has come to the world, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mark 1:15)

So, the climax has been reached. You can forget what the world is talking about. The climax – redemption – is upon us. It has been done, God has completed the act of redemption, and therefore there is no possibility of failure for anyone in the world, because He became all.