Neville Goddard Lectures: It is Within

08 Mar Neville Goddard Lectures: It is Within

3/9/65

Tonight’s subject is “It is Within.” As we are told, the kingdom of God is within you and the kingdom of God contains all; there is nothing outside of the kingdom. These words were addressed to us individually. You mean that you seated here, a small little person, within a room much bigger than yourself, and the room but a little aspect of a bigger building, and this tiny little spot on the earth, and then you go out in this fabulous world, and I’m addressing you, and you contain the whole? I mean that seriously. “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” (Blake, Jer., Plt.71).

Let me share with you an experience which I am convinced everyone must have, for I can’t see how I can persuade anyone that what I have just told you is true.; it can only come to the individual by an experience. I can’t for one moment believe I could take this platform forever and persuade others that all that they behold which seems so real and so objective is really within them. But an experience could do it. So let me share with you an experience. I found myself on a crowded subway, crowded more so than the little eggs in a shad roe. If you’ve ever had a shad roe, or the roe of a sturgeon, or the dolphin, and these numberless little dots, each a potential fish, whether it be the dolphin or the shad or whatever it would be. And the subway, many, many cars, and the train is as long as the station would allow, and every car as crowded as the little eggs of the shad roe.

But when I say crowded, I mean crowded with people. And here are these perfectly lovely ladies, beautifully gowned. I could hardly believe they were on their way to work…they seemed that they must be on their way to some fashion display, beautifully gowned! I turned to my friend David, (David Morton who’s here tonight) and I said, “Can you believe that all this is within us?” How could I persuade anyone in this world that all this, not only all these lovely ladies beautifully gowned, but here is now the conductor trying to get through and he can’t, it’s too crowded. He’s screaming to the people pushed against the doors to be careful, because there could be an accident. The doors would simply fly open by the mere pressure. But they couldn’t help it, it was simply crowded. David agreed with me that it’s almost impossible if not completely impossible to persuade oneself that this could be the out-picturing of one’s inner activity. But how to persuade another that all that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in one’s own wonderful human Imagination? And so we agreed that in spite of Blake’s wonderful vision that nothing could really reveal it to man but an experience. That’s all that could do it.

Then came that moment when David and I got off the car. He had a big letter envelope and in it he had many letters, and he asked me to post them for him, so he gave me the letters. Then that meant that we would simply separate and go our separate ways, he to some other place, and I either to the post office or to some mailbox and post these letters for him. I took the letters and I didn’t read the addresses, but I simply looked at them to see if they were properly, I would say, stamped. Well, I was satisfied that they were stamped. As I turned to him and promised him I would mail them, I awoke and here I am on my bed.