Neville Goddard Lectures: Experience The Mystery Of Christ

04 Aug Neville Goddard Lectures: Experience The Mystery Of Christ

11/14/69

The hostile attitude of the world to this great mystery of Jesus Christ is their ignorance of who the Father is. You will know who you really are, the heavenly being that came down into this world, to the degree that you experience the mystery of Jesus Christ. And when you experience it, you will discover you are Jesus Christ. There never was another and never will be another.

Just follow me closely in a little drama that is told us in the Book of John. The word Pilate means “closely pressed” like a contracted form, the limit, really, of contraction and of opacity. But like all these characters they are personified and these are attributes, these are qualities. To see the characters of scripture as characters of history is to see truth tempered to the weakness of the human soul. They are all states, eternal states. So Pilate is not really a person as you are a person, as I am a person; it’s the contracted state. The story is taking place within you. So Pilate said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews? And he answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others tell you about it?’” (Jn.18:33-38). Do you know this from experience or is it hearsay? You ask me the question, “Am I King of the Jews?” Now he doesn’t deny that he is…he simply is asked the question. But he wonders if this contracted state has reached the point of being broken now. It must reach the point where the shell is going to break and then it will know of its own accord.

And then he said, “So you are a king?” He said, “You say that I am.” For he had said, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” And then the contracted form asked the question, “What is truth?” Based upon this level, it is true that the pitcher is here, that the glass is here, that you are here, that I am here, but he is not speaking of this truth. The truth of which the true being that you are speaks is the true knowledge of God. He’s not speaking of anything known to the world of science. Today we’re on the way to the moon for the second time, but that is not the story of the Bible. He is speaking of the being that created the moon, that created the heavens, and that sustains the heavens. And he’s trying to tell every being in the world that the being that did it you are but you have forgotten. You came down into this limit of contraction, this limit of opacity. And so, do you know it now when you ask the question of your own accord or were you told it by another? Did one tell you about me? Well then, you really do not know it…you’ve got to know it by having experienced it. So to the degree that man experiences the mystery of Christ he understands Christ. Whether you call yourself the pope or an ordinary minister or a layman, it means nothing. You could be someone washing floors tonight who will know by experience who they really are. They’ll know that they are Jesus Christ by having experienced Jesus Christ.

Now let us turn to the poet Browning. He said, “Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise from outward things, what’er you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness…and to know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, than in effecting entry of a light supposed to be without” (Paracelsus). He took three of the mighty I AM statements in the Book of John, “I am the truth, I am the way…I am the light of the world” and incorporated them into this very short statement: there is an inmost center in us all where truth abides in fullness…not just a little bit but in fullness. He likens this to an imprisoned splendor. And then he speaks of the way and the way is from within. To think that some Christ is coming from without is to misunderstand completely the great mystery. It’s entirely within us. As you sit here now in this little room and you seem to be so small in this enormous universe, and yet you seated here in this contracted state and this contracted state is Pilate who questions your sanity when you begin to stir within you—and asks these questions. It’s all between you…the whole contest is within the individual. And then that effulgence within comes out. It arouses itself, it awakes within this little garment and the Creator of the universe comes out of the individual.