Neville Goddard Lectures: “Out of This World” Chapter 1 – Thinking Fourth Dimensionally
30 May Neville Goddard Lectures: “Out of This World” Chapter 1 – Thinking Fourth Dimensionally
By Neville Goddard
“And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe,” [John 14:29]
MANY persons, myself included, have observed events before they occurred; that is, before they occurred in this world of three dimensions. Since man can observe an event before it occurs in the three dimensions of space, life on earth must proceed according to plan, and this plan must exist elsewhere in another dimension and be slowly moving through our space. If the occurring events were not in this world when they were observed, then, to be perfectly logical, they must have been out of this world. And whatever is there to be seen before it occurs here must be “Predetermined” from the point of view of man awake in a three-dimensional world.
Thus the question arises: “Are we able to alter our future?”
My object in writing these pages is to indicate possibilities inherent in man, to show that man can alter his future; but, thus altered, it forms again a deterministic sequence starting from the point of interference—a future that will be consistent with the alteration. The most remarkable feature of man’s future is its flexibility. It is determined by his attitudes rather than by his acts.
The cornerstone on which all things are based is man’s concept of himself. He acts as he does and has the experiences that he does, because his concept of himself is what it is, and for no other reason. Had he a different concept of self, he would act differently. A change of concept of self automatically alters his future: and a change in any term of his future series of experiences reciprocally alters his concept of self.
Man’s assumptions which he regards as insignificant produce effects that are considerable; therefore man should revise his estimate of an assumption, and recognize its creative power.
All changes take place in consciousness. The future, although prepared in every detail in advance, has several outcomes. At every moment of our lives we have before us the choice of which of several futures we will choose. There are two actual outlooks on the world possessed by everyone. A natural focus and a spiritual focus. The ancient teachers called the one “the carnal mind,” the other “the mind of Christ.”We may differentiate them as ordinary waking consciousness—governed by our senses, and a controlled imagination—governed by desire. We recognize these two distinct centers of thought in the statement:
“The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned.”
The natural view confines reality to the moment called now. To the natural view, the past and future are purely imaginary. The spiritual view, on the other hand, sees the contents of time. It sees events as distinct and separated as objects in space. The past and future are a present whole to the spiritual view. What is mental and subjective to the natural man is concrete and objective to the spiritual man.
The habit of seeing only that which our senses permit, renders us totally blind to what we otherwise could see. To cultivate the faculty of seeing the invisible, we should often deliberately disentangle our minds from the evidence of the senses and focus our attention on an invisible state, mentally feeling it and sensing it until it has all the distinctness of reality. Earnest, concentrated thought focused in a particular direction shuts out other sensations and causes them to disappear.
We have but to concentrate on the state desired in order to see it. The habit of withdrawing attention from the region of sensation and concentrating it on the invisible develops our spiritual outlook and enables us to penetrate beyond the world of sense and to see that which is invisible.
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.”[Romans 1:20]
This vision is completely independent of the natural faculties. Open it and quicken it – Without it, these instructions are useless, for “the things of the spirit are spiritually discerned.” A little practice will convince us that we can, by controlling our imagination, reshape our future in harmony with our desire.
Desire is the mainspring of action.