Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Purpose Of Life: To Fulfill The Word Of God”

02 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Purpose Of Life: To Fulfill The Word Of God”

11/13/67

I want to thank you for your many letters. I can’t tell you how helpful it is to this group that you would share with us your wonderful experiences. So tonight, I will take one and then tell you two or three of my own to add to the interpretation of it.

As you know if you come here often, we are here for one purpose: to fulfill God’s word, which word is scripture. We simply fulfill scripture. Oh, we can accomplish everything we want to, really, in this world, but the purpose in life is to fulfill the word of God. As we are told, “My word shall not return unto me void. It must accomplish that which I purposed and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Is. 55:11). Well, we are that word and so we fulfill the entire book.

Now a lady wrote this letter, which she gave me on Friday night. She said, “Recently I’ve been having great difficulty in bringing back to memory my dreams, but this one was the most difficult thing I have ever encountered. I knew that I had to surface, and it seemed like an endless depth of utter darkness through which I came, having had the experience.. I am holding onto the memory image of what I had experienced, because I felt I must bring it back and tell it to you. I knew that if I would let it go, let the memory of it go, I would quickly surface and find myself in my body lying on the bed. But I said, no, I must hold onto the memory of what has just happened. And so holding onto the memory, I seemed to be like a diver who simply plunged too, too deep, and I thought I could never make the surface. Through this utter darkness I am coming and I wondered if I would ever make it.”

This is the experience. She said, “I stood before Jerusalem’s gates, these enormous wooden gates, and naturally the high, high walls. I was thrilled beyond measure as I stood there before Jerusalem’s gates, and my thrill turned to chagrin when I realized that they were closed. Then suddenly I found myself on a very high hill clothed in a body of light. The light radiated from me in all directions. It seemed that the light was life-giving. I animated things, I gave life to things. It just simply radiated from me. It illuminated a part of a certain far distant structure of earth, and then in the distance I saw the whole earth and its curvature, as though I stood in space in some spaceship. The whole thing was curved, the whole earth. I’m looking on it and I’m radiant light giving life to objects. And I knew that I could rearrange all the things that I saw if I so desired, but I also knew that everything was ordered and as it should be. Then I said, now I must get back and tell this to Neville…and then the struggle began. I thought I would never make it. When I came back, there must have been a certain reluctance on my part to return; on the other hand, I am glad I did it because now I feel that I do not wish to depart this life until I have experienced the descent of the dove. But I knew I need not have returned…and yet everything was ordered, but everything.” And here she stood at the gates of Jerusalem.

Now, in a book called Looking at Modern Painting there is a chapter on Max Beckmann, who is a modern artist who does symbolic art. In this he said, “I awoke and yet continued dreaming, and I saw William Blake, that noble emanation of English genius. He looked like some super-terrestrial patriarch and he waved friendly greetings. And then he said to me, ‘Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Seek this path and you will attain from your own ego a deeper perception of the eternal beauty of creation. You will attain an ever increasing release from that which now sees to you sad or terrible.’” Then he finally awoke now from this state and here was William Blake telling him of the order, of the perfection of everything, and he has to experience it. It was in keeping with her experience. Everything seemed ordered and as it should be, although she knew that if she desired she could rearrange the order. But why…when everything is ordered and perfect and as it should be only for man to experience it?