Neville Goddard Lectures: “Become Like a Child”

02 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “Become Like a Child”

3/27/67

Easter is over and a billion Christians believe that they celebrated the resurrection of Christ. May I tell you, 99.99% haven’t the slightest concept of who Christ really is, not the slightest concept. (Microphone problem) Let me repeat, we say that this great day is over, Easter, and one billion Christians celebrated the resurrection of Christ. I say that almost all of them, almost without exception—but when you take a small number it makes no dent in a billion—they haven’t the slightest concept of who Christ really is. I tell you Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination…that is Jesus Christ. “The eternal body of man is the Imagination and that is God himself, the divine body, Jesus Christ” (Blake, Laocoon)…and we, fragmented as we are, we are his members.

Now, what do I mean by this? I mean it in a simple, simple way. Let me now quote scripture. They’re all arguing as to who will be the greatest in the kingdom. It happens all over the world, who is better than the other one, just who is better? And these are the words, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mat.18:3). Unless you turn and become like children, you’ll never enter the kingdom of heaven. They are all asking about who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean turning and becoming like children? The word “turn” is translated sometimes “conversion, repentance.” It’s the Greek word metanoia, which means “a radical change of attitude.” I must become like a child? Yes.

A month ago, two little boys, my nephew’s sons, one four, one two and a half, on their way back to Thailand where he’s a flyer in the Marine Corp, they came out to spend the Christmas vacation with my family in Barbados. On their way back they were home. The little one, two and a half, Roger, and so I said to him one morning—it was only about four days on the way back, say five days—I said, “Roger, you know, this morning it was quite dark. You know what happened? The sun came down and got under my bed. Well, I didn’t want that, I wanted you to have a sun today, shining all over the world. You know what I did? I ran him all over the floor. He ran from me and ran all over the house. But I took him on the outside and I hurled him into space and put him back where he ought to be, so he could shine all over the world. Do you know that?” You know what he said? “I do.” He could believe anything in this world that you tell him. That’s what man has to become.

Man is actually weaving a body within himself that transcends all the limitations of the senses, completely transcending everything that man has ever heard of and yet capable of manifesting itself within the order of the senses. That is the body of Christ Jesus; that is the body that I speak of night after night. This little one…unless you become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, not in eternity, no matter how good you are. Good what?—so many of us will be good for nothing. We’re so good, we’re trying so much to be good, to be this, to be that, and it hasn’t a thing to do with entering the kingdom of heaven. It’s all your own wonderful human Imagination.