Neville Goddard Decoded: Eternal States

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.

Right off the bat here we’re confronted with a number of heady ideas. Identity, eternity, things seen, things unseen, and more. What stands out to me the most about this opening paragraph, though, is a pretty innocuous statement: [Your beliefs] form a state, which completely controls your behavior.

It’s a subtle point being made, but Neville is commenting here on the fact that belief precedes behavior. I’d even push it a step farther and say belief precedes both behavior and thought. This is an important concept to understand because so much of what Neville’s teachings seem to encourage is the active manipulation of our thoughts and our behavior in an attempt to secure some specific outcome. But he tells us right here that our goal isn’t actually to deal with behavior (or, in my opinion, thoughts) directly – we’re to deal with beliefs directly, and our thoughts/behaviors should generate in accord with our beliefs without any conscious effort being applied to them.

We can use the terms “belief” and “feeling” interchangeably and class them both as belonging to the category of “things unseen” to which Paul referred. Belief and feeling are both noumena – they’re the essence or reality of themselves. “Outer things” like thoughts/behaviors are phenomena – they exist in reference to noumena. You can think of it like the meaning of a word versus the word itself. “Dogness” is something noumenal – it’s a state of being; the essence of what it is to be a dog. The word “dog” is something phenomenal – it’s how we communicate and interact with the essence of “dogness.”

Let’s just keep this in mind as we continue, as it’ll become important later.

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 everyone 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.

These passages from Blake can help us further make sense of noumenal versus phenomenal existence. We spoke before about the word “dog” existing in reference to the essence of “dogness.” Even a physical, living dog, though, is referential – it’s an embodiment of “dogness” but not pure “dogness” itself. A dog is phenomenal.

You may start to see now where we’re going with this. Noumena, or things as they exist in their purest essence, are inaccessible to the mind. The word “dog,” a picture of a “dog,” or even a dog itself are all things which refer to the essence of “dogness,” but none of them are “dogness” itself. We cannot access the essence of dogness directly via any form of representation; nevertheless, “dogness” must exist, for without it, none of its representations could exist.

That’s what’s meant by all things in eternity existing independently of creation. The essence of things exists regardless of whether or not representations of those essences do too. All dogs could disappear tomorrow (along with the word “dog” and its translations in every language) yet the essence of dogness would remain.

Where would it remain? Well, nowhere in space. You couldn’t “find” dogness here or there. It would just be; it would exist in that spaceless eternity where all things exist until they’re pulled out into the world of creation. Another way to conceptualize this is to think about some invention that’s yet to have been created. Where is this yet-to-exist invention currently? Technically it’s not anywhere – there are no prototypes of it, and its inventor hasn’t even thought of it yet. Still, the essence of this new invention must already exist, for without the pre-existence of its essence, its actuality could never come to be.

I know we’re getting into the weeds a bit now, so let’s ground ourselves. All Neville and Blake are saying in this passage is that creation is a two part process, and that process is precessional: Before things can exist phenomenally – before they can exist with any clear form, whether that form be a thought form or a physical form – they must exist noumenally; they must exist as the pure potential of their essence.

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.

“If Christ were not buried in you, he could not be awakened in you.” That’s exactly the idea we were just discussing! No thing could exist without the essence of that thing preceding it. I can’t eat a cookie unless there are cookies in the cookie jar. And this raises an interesting question: Where does the actual eating of the cookie occur? Is this act created once the cookie is in my mouth and I’m chewing on it? Or is the reality of my eating the cookie born from the moment the cookie exists in the jar? Once the cookie exists in the jar, though I can choose to eat or not eat it, doesn’t the possibility of both these scenarios occurring already exist?

It’s for this reason that Neville describes the scenery of life as being “dead.” Experiences are enlivened by their existence in essence, not by their existence in actuality. When I actually eat the cookie, I’m using a physical action to express an experience that is purer and more essential, but non-physical. At this point, we might be venturing into nonsensicality, but I think the point will be a little clearer when we wrap back around to where we started with the idea that belief precedes behavior.

In the same way that dogness precedes actual dogs, or the existence of a cookie in the jar for me to eat precedes my actual eating of the cookie, belief precedes behavior. By persisting in some specific state of belief, I make possible the behaviors necessary for that belief to find its manifestation in physical reality.

If I believe I can and will run a marathon, a whole cascade of behaviors will follow – I’ll buy running shoes, I’ll get up in the morning and workout, I’ll look online for marathons local to me so I can sign up, I’ll show up on race day, etc. The actual act of running the marathon is inert; it’s a “dead” thing. The life of this experience exists in its essence – The running in the marathon is in the belief that I can and will run the marathon; the running part is just how that belief plays out in reality.

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.

Now embedded in death, we resurrect into life by the act of mercy. Scripture calls this transformation Jesus Christ, for it is he who is buried in us; and when he awakens and rises, we are born from above, thereby setting us free from this body of death. Until that moment in time you can enter a state, partake of it and move on to another. This is how it is done. Although I am living here in Los Angeles, I desire to be in New York City. While lying on my bed tonight, I close my physical eyes to the room surrounding me and assume I am in New York City. Then I ask myself these questions: lf I were now in New York City, what would I see? Would I think of Los Angeles as three thousand miles to the west of me? Where are my friends and loved ones? How are my finances now that I am here? Then I would answer these questions carefully and fall asleep in New York City.

Now, an assumption is an act of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that things seen were made out of things that do not appear.” Someone looking at my physical body would see me sleeping in Los Angeles, yet I would be sleeping in New York City, for I am all imagination and must be where I am imagining myself to be. By this action I am adjusting myself imaginatively to a state I desire to objectively realize.

And if I have imagined with conviction, by giving New York City all of the sensory vividness of reality, things will immediately begin to happen to compel me to make the journey. I do not imagine lightly anymore, because I now know every imaginal act will come to pass.

All the nitty gritty details of what we’ve just covered bring us nicely to SATS and other visualization exercises. It should be clear now why we approach visualization in the way that we do when we’re trying to manifest something.

Because all things exist noumenally (or in essence) in eternity – because anything you can imagine must necessarily already exist in the shadows of imagination itself, waiting to be called into creation – we have the power, via imagination, to fire up the creation process. We can access any state of feeling or belief that we choose to, and by accessing such a state we are setting up our thoughts, behaviors, and the world itself to fall into line with that state.

It’s just like our cookie jar: the second I fill it with cookies, I’m giving life to the future experience of me eating a cookie. Unlike the cookie jar, though, the jar of imagination doesn’t need to be filled. It’s already full, and it’s full of every experience you could ever dream of. All you need to do is move toward it with the intention of pulling some specific experience out, because that experience already exists in its essence.

When I first stumbled upon this principle, I thought it was stupid. The idea that imagining creates reality was nonsense. How could anyone believe a thing into being without any external evidence to support it? How could any imaginal act be the causative fact, which fuses and projects itself? Although I did not believe it could, I imagined, and got that which I did not want! So I acquaint you now with what I know about this principle of imagining and lead you to your choice and its risk. There is always a risk, for you may not want what you have imagined after you get it, so I warn you to select wisely.

Do you know what you want from life? You can be anything you want to be if you know who you are. Start from the premise, "I am all imagination and pass through states," for eternity (all things) exist now! Having experienced a state and moved into another one you may think the former state has ceased to be, but all states are eternal, they remain forever. Like the mental traveler that you are, you pass through states either wittingly or unwittingly, but your individual identity is forever. Whether you are rich or poor, you retain the same individual identity when you move from one state into another. If you are not on guard, you can be persuaded by the press, television, or radio, to change your concept of self and unwittingly move into an undesirable state.

You can move into many states and play many parts, but as the actor, you do not change your identity. When you are rich, you are the same actor as when you are poor. These are only different parts you are playing.

When you go to the cookie jar and take a cookie out to start eating it, what happens to the essence of the experience of not eating the cookie? Meaning, by the jar being filled, the potential to eat or not eat the cookie both existed; you chose one experience, so what happened to the other?

It might be easier to answer this question using another one of our analogies. Before dogs existed, “dogness” in its essence existed. Dogs could have come into actual existence, or they could not have; the essence existed just the same. Now, dogs exist – but in hundreds of millions of years, they might not anymore.

Through all of this, though, what happens to the essence of dogness? From dogs not existing yet, to their existing, to their not existing anymore, what can we say of dogness?

Dogness exists! It exists eternally, and is totally untouched by the actual existence of any dogs.

When Neville says that the same actor plays the rich man as plays the poor man, this is his point. Imagination is untouched by what does or doesn’t come to fruition in actual, physical reality. When you’re poor, the potential of your being rich still exists. When you’re rich, the potential of your being poor still exists too. And when you’re not rich anymore, the potential for you being rich persists.

Imagination is unchanged no matter what does or does not manifest.

You annexed your physical body for the experiences you are now having, but you are not the body you wear. The day will come when you will awaken to this fact. Then, like Proteus, you will assume any shape for the part you want to play. If it takes a fish, you will be a fish. If it takes a man, you will be a man, for that is who God is. Learn to adjust your senses to what you desire to be. Just as I moved to New York City, you can move into the state of wealth, fame, or any state you desire. Determine what it would feel like, and adjust your thinking by assuming you are feeling it now.

Look at your world mentally. Your present level of objective fact may be the same as it was before, but in your imagination hear your friends congratulate you on your good fortune. Then believe in the reality of this unseen experience. Like Paul, look not to things seen, but to things unseen; for the things seen are temporal, while the things unseen are eternal. Two hundred years ago Blake made the statement, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy.” Three thousand years ago the unknown writer of Ecclesiastes said it even more beautifully: “There is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing for which it is said, ‘This is new?’ It has been already in ages past, but there is no remembrance of things to come after, among those who will come later.”

This past year one of our great physicists, Professor Richard Feynman of Cal Tech, said the same thing, yet not as beautifully as Blake or the unknown author of Ecclesiastes. This is what Professor Feynman said: “The entire space/time history of the world is laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively.” For this Professor Feynman received the Nobel Prize and maybe $50,000, while Blake, who saw it mystically and recorded it poetically, went to an unmarked pauper’s grave. Professor Feynman based his conclusion on his study of the disintegration of the atom. Noticing the peculiar behavior of a little positron when placed in fluid, he realized that the entire space/ time history of the world is already laid out, and man only becomes aware of portions of it successively.

I have seen the same thing in vision and know that the world is dead. I have entered a room such as this, to discover that I am the spirit animating it. By arresting the activity in me that caused the scene to become alive, everything froze. The waitress walked not. The birds flew not. The diners dined not. Then I knew that when I released its activity in me, everything and everyone would continue to complete their intention. Releasing my power, the waitress completed the serving, the bird flew to the limb of the tree, and the grass began to wave, as the leaf which was arrested in space fell to the ground. Now I know I am the center of creative power. The day will come when you, too will awaken and exercise your creative power, knowingly. That is our destiny, for we all will awaken as God and use this power to create in the true sense of the word.

Try to remember that there is no limit to God’s creative power, or your power of belief. Persuade yourself that things are as you desire them to be. Fall asleep in that assumption, as that is your act of faith. Tomorrow the world will begin to change, to make room for the garment of your assumption. If it takes one person or ten thousand to aid the birth of your assumption, they will come. You will not need their consent or permission, because the world is dead and what would be the purpose in asking dead people to help you? Simply know what you want, animate the scene and those playing their parts will begin to move towards the fulfillment of your desire.

Try it before you pass judgment upon it. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it will prove itself in performance and then it will not matter what the world thinks. If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what someone else thinks about it? I encourage you to try it, for if you do you will not fail.
Now let us go into the silence.

Belief precedes behavior. Feeling precedes manifestation. Just like “dogness” precedes the actual dog, the essential feeling of whatever experience you’d like to manifest precedes that experience. This essential feeling will continue to exist while you’re having the experience, and after you’ve had it and are finished with it.

Eternity exists, and it exists eternally. Everything that ever could be already is in imagination. Life is simply how eternity’s noumena look through a phenomenal lens. So, let the lesson of this lecture be to look inward toward things unseen, not outward to the world. Whatever you want already exists, and you only need to tap into the state of having it to bring it to manifestation.

As always, good luck.