Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Supreme Ideal”

01 Jan Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Supreme Ideal”

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Tonight’s subject is “The Supreme Ideal.” But really this is a misnomer, because it would have to be relative to the level on which man is placed. For what is to me today a supreme ideal would not be my ideal tomorrow after I’ve obtained it. But you can, if you have an ideal, you can realize it, and one should have an ideal. Here is a formula by which it can be realized: You sow a thought and you reap an act; you sow an act and you reap a habit; you sow a habit and you reap a character; you sow a character and you reap a destiny. So it all goes back to the thought that you sow.

Here, two stories come to mind. I think, in fact I know, you are familiar with both of them. Here is a North American Indian who had an idea, and he sowed it. I’ll show you later how to sow the idea. He wanted to be a hero, he wanted to die a hero, and he wanted to be given a hero’s funeral. To make it…to summarize it briefly…he joined the forces, went off to Korea, was killed in action, and the body was shipped back to this country. At the moment of internment a question was asked, “Is he a Caucasian?” and when it was discovered that he was not a Caucasian the minister had to execute the law by which he operated this little church, and he said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not permitted to allow it here.” Of course the whole country went up in arms. Then President Truman who was then in office, offered the widow a plot of ground in Arlington. The entire country was made conscious of it. TV had it, radio had it, newspapers had it, all the magazines spoke about it, and it was the biggest thing of the time. So here, his destiny was to be a hero, to die a hero, and to be buried as a hero. It all started with an idea when he either wittingly or unwittingly sowed that thought. Then it simply fulfilled itself, because he lived in it, it became a habit, it became his character. He had to be killed in action.

And, of course, the most recent one of a similar nature, here is now our president, the late president. I haven’t read it in a paper, I haven’t heard anyone say it, but this is the law and the law operates regardless of individuals in this world. But we know he was a very great student of history. In fact, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Profiles in Courage based upon historical characters where these were to him after investigating and doing great research, they were to him the great giants in our land when it came to courage, political courage. So he must have been aware of that strange tradition in our land that goes back 120 years, beginning in 1840, when our president died in office. And then the cycle of twenty years—twenty years later when the next one also died in office, but this time he was assassinated. Then came 1880, then came 1900, 1920, 1940, and 1960, and every president elected in the cycle of twenty years died in office. Well, no one can tell me a man as great as he was, the great student of history, wasn’t aware of it, and might have again, unknowingly, toyed with the idea of going down in history; for he certainly had a sense of destiny. So we go back to the idea that is planted, and then it becomes a habit of thinking, then it becomes one’s character, and finally it fulfills itself as one’s destiny.