Neville Goddard Lectures: “I AM the Vine”

One day, you hit the last point and then comes that enormous power of creativity, which was resting at the base of the spine. It was enormous power and you were it. It was God all along, God in descent. And there you saw it, and you can say to yourself, “I know it is myself, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” And you, as it, moved up in a circular manner, in the most perfect manner, just like a serpent. But up you went in a circular manner right into Zion to present yourself before the Lord of hosts, the God of gods, and you are he. Everyone has to make the motion.

So I tell you, you started by seeing your world. And if you look at the world, everything seems in a circle. Everything really is blind. Who can see tomorrow? They’re speculating; they’re all plotting and planning tomorrow. All the great leaders of the world are plotting and planning for us. Our political leaders are plotting not tomorrow; they’re plotting next year’s elections. Not this November, but a year from November. They’re more concerned about a year from this coming November than they are about any crisis in tomorrow, as far as they are concerned. They aren’t concerned about that, they’re thinking of a year from November. That’s a year and a half away. They’re more concerned about the results then than they are about things here now, all plotting and planning and scheming.

I tell you, forget it. Look upon your world, and you start doing it. Take a simple one in your world, maybe your servant, and maybe you have because of changes in your life you must let the servant go, let the employee go. But don’t let him go or her go into the vacuum; see them gainfully employed before you let them go. When you give them their severance pay, bring them into your mind’s eye and see them more gainfully employed than you employed them. As you do that, you are moving up this way on the inside. Let the whole vast world deride you; I don’t care what it does. They will still be plotting for tomorrow’s election unnumbered centuries from now. But you will be in Zion.

Everyone must move into Zion, and you move into Zion in a definite technique. Listen to the words, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” And may I tell you, the true vine of eternity is the human Imagination; that’s Christ. Christ is really your own wonderful human Imagination. It is he that is doing the work that must move up, and that’s how he moves up. He moves up by transforming every being through the medium of love in this world, but every being, no matter who he is. And when I tell you the story, you may at this moment find this vine a wild tree. I found it a wild tree. Whenever I heard the story—whenever you hear it—at that moment it’s a wild tree. And so the poet said, “I found it a wild tree, whose wanton strength had swollen into irregular twigs. But I pruned the plant and then it grew temperate in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted as you see into these full clean clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it” (Browning).

And so, if you look, it’s a wild, wild tree. I had brought in everything in this world based upon the blind and the lame on the outside. They’re all blind. They couldn’t see where they’re going. They’re all complaining, doing all kinds of things, criticizing, and they were lame. They were in need of help, and I allowed it because to me that was fact. Then I was told it doesn’t exist independently of your perception of it, all this blindness and this lameness; it’s all you pushed out. And so when I found it, it was a wild tree. I hadn’t pruned it, and I had allowed it over the unnumbered years of time to go into useless leaves.