Order Your Conversations Aright

Neville Goddard

Tonight’s subject is, “Order Your Conversations Aright.” As we are told in the 50th Psalm: “To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.” (Psalm 50:23, KJV1)

Have we any instructions in Scripture concerning how we order our conversations aright? We do have it in the 4th chapter of Ephesians. We are told, “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former conversations … and put on the new nature,”(Ephesians 4:22, 24, RSV2) except for the word “conversations,” which occurs only in the King James Version.

If the “old Nature” belongs to the “former conversations,” then the “new nature” has to have new conversations. “Put on the new nature, created after the image of God.” (Ephesians 4:24 RSV)

Well, now, what is this nature? “Nature is that principle upon which we depend for sameness of form in transmitted life.”

If my conversations determine the things that project themselves upon the screen of space in my world – until I change my conversations, I cannot change the forms. For that is the principle upon which man depends for the “sameness of forms in transmitted life.” If these forms that come out – good, bad and indifferent – are the results of my conversations, then I must change my conversations.

We are told in an ancient book – a book written in the First Century – I have a translation by Walter Scott; it is called “The Hermetica,” and in it is said, “God has given two gifts to man alone, and to no other mortal creature. These gifts are Mind and Speech. And these gifts, if used rightly, will differ in nothing from the Immortals.” Now, when man takes off the body – when he quits the body, they will be his guides, and by them he will be led into the Troop of the Gods, and into the souls of those who attain to bliss.”

Only to man is the gift given of Mind and Speech. Now I could tell you the story of how easy it is to do, but in the doing, may I tell you, it really is difficult. You will think, “Why, certainly I can change my conversations, and then remain faithful to the change.” But we are such creatures of habit.

So, Shakespeare could say, in “The Merchant of Venice,” where he put the words into the mouth of Portia: “If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, then chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.” [Act I, Scene II]

So, it’s simple on the surface, but in practice it is not as simple as it appears to be. But if man could only take an inner conversation and control it – a conversation which implies the fulfillment of his dream – and remain faithful to that inner conversation, this inner dialogue – a controlled inner dialogue – possibly could be the most fruitful conversation in your life.

Man talks all day long inwardly. He may restrain the impulse to say it outwardly. He may feel like saying it, but he has cultivated – he’s an educated person; he feels himself under restraint. He might feel like telling you to go to the devil, but he restrains the impulse to say it audibly. But he has said it! It was born with the impulse.

If I could only now take my objective in this world and dare to assume that I’ve achieved it, and then carry on conversations – inner conversations – from the premise of that assumption, I should put this to the test and prove it. Would it really achieve a change of form in my world? I am telling you from my own experience, it does. It absolutely does!

As we are told in Isaiah, the 55th chapter: “And the word that goes forth from my mouth shall not return unto me void; it must accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)