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Neville Goddard (1905-1972) offered a compelling explanation of the human condition and an intriguing and empowering path of self-discovery. Join your host Ed to explore from the ground up this most essential mystery: the human imagination.
[edited for clarity]
Episode 22 Lay Aside All Other Processes
This is a re-editing and reposting of episode 22. It should be an improvement over the one that I had first put up.
Before we get started, recall that in the last episode we had discussed a political or social problem. And if you want to continue that line of thought, I want you to consider these questions: When you're imagining the world that you want to bring into existence, when you're contemplating the sort of society that you desire, do you see a blue sky? And I mean that quite literally. When was the last time you looked up and saw a natural, deep, deep blue sky? Or if you recall, seeing one, how soon was it ruined? Well, if you don't know where I'm going with this, just check one or two of the links that I'm putting in the show notes for today's episode. And now let's go ahead with episode 22.
The essential message is to find a way to stop wasting energy and to go directly to what we want. Now here's Neville's formulation, which I find simple and confident. It comes from chapter five of the book Awakened Imagination. Here's the quote.
“As we control our inner talking, matching it to our fulfilled desires, we can lay aside all other processes. Then we simply act by clear imagination and intention.”
I'm going to divide today's episode into two parts. The first part is to consider the problem. Well, Neville complains that the mind of man has to complicate everything. I guess I'm no exception because I'm going to discuss the problem in its different aspects. Now, what is the problem? Well, it's a whole series of contradictions in our minds, contradictions of different types, and they are so confusing and so oppressive. That's why I feel I have to take them one by one. Then in part two, I'll go to different ways to formulate the solution. In other words, different ways to take Neville's advice to heart and to lay aside all of their processes and go straight to the imagination.
1. Internal versus external.
So in the maddening play of contradictions in our mind, the first one that I want to talk about is this fundamental contradiction of internal versus external. I'm a walking example of this contradiction. On the one hand, I talk about the psyche, the spirit, the imagination. And yet in the last episode, I talked about a political philosophy, external action. And in today's episode, I urged you to follow up links on the problem of a blue sky versus a ruined sky. Now that's an external issue. Should I not be operating solely from within?
Maybe you can give me some advice on this, but from my point of view, I'm trying to erase the contradiction between the internal and the external. If the external world is ourselves pushed out, if it's simply a reflection of our own psyche, then action is not negated, it's not denied. But Neville does give clear advice on this. He says any action in the external world without the preceding appropriation of the consciousness of the end that you desire is nothing but the “futile readjustment of surfaces.”
In the last episode, I urged you to resist socialism in all of its manifestations. In today's episode, I'm asking you to look at this issue of our skies. But I have to fight to remember that everything that we involve ourselves in in an external fashion is nothing but the reflection of the psyche, and we have to take responsibility for it primarily in a psychological sense.
What's the result of all this for the listener? You might find yourself in a situation where you're putting your entire faith, your whole mentality, your whole belief system is oriented towards trying to create something in the outside world, trying to make an effect. And yet you forgot Neville's advice.
The renewal of ourselves, the psychological reversal that we talk about all the time, I believe, has to do with obliterating this hard division between the internal and the external.
2. Emotional contradictions.
This is another kind of contradiction that seems to fog the mind. In episode three, I already talked about the vicissitudes, the ups and downs. The Fourth Way characterizes this phenomenon as the pendulum. We swing back and forth between opposite emotions in sort of a pendulum-like motion. And because we're so caught up and identified with any particular emotion at any given time, we don't see this motion.
People end up thriving on the contradiction between this emotion and that emotion, whereas what we want to do is locate ourselves in the middle, so that we can actually do something.
3. Contradiction in terms of our identity.
This is a contradiction that underlies the whole premise of the podcast series. Neville gives us the advice that God is within us, and yet on the surface level, we consider ourselves self- abased, powerless. I believe this fundamental contradiction in our identity is continuing at a background level in our psyche, but it's entirely self-defeating.
4. Faith versus doubt.
I think it's possible to capture the essence of this whole problem of contradiction in our minds. It really is fundamentally the problem between faith -- that is, certainty and understanding, combined with faith -- versus doubt and uncertainty.
The maddening part about this is the continual movement back and forth between these two states, and the first step in defeating that contradiction and resolving it is, first of all, to see it.
In ‘Prayer, The Art of Believing’ Neville says: “The essence of prayer is faith, but faith must be permeated with understanding to be given that active quality which it does not possess when standing alone.” The biblical reference is: “Therefore, get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding.”
Well, what is this understanding that we're referring to? Of course, it's Neville's worldview. His instruction that we are -- our creative imagination is -- the creative source itself.
Now, the outside seeming hard reality of the physical world doesn't have ultimate reality. What does have ultimate reality? It's oneself in the moment, psychologically -- consciousness. The psyche has a higher place in the order of things. But because this goes against our natural materialist worldview, it's difficult to internalize.
All right, so there I've set out the problem in terms of a series of contradictions that are somehow always at play within the mind. We have this continual shifting back and forth between an internal versus an external orientation. We have the emotional contradictions. We have an identity contradiction. In sum: Do we have a well informed faith and confidence, or do we have doubt and uncertainty?
Let's transition now to the second part where we're considering many ways to lay aside all of the processes and go straight to the imagination.
5. The midpoint.
In other words, the midpoint in the swing of the pendulum that we mentioned above. The first challenge is to notice when you're actually there. You probably remember in previous episodes when we talked about arriving at a strange, unrecognizable place of stillness or flatness. It's from that place where a new direction is possible.
Here is Neville's advice along these lines from ‘At Your Command’, chapter three:
”...you say silently, but feelingly to yourself, I am. Do not condition this awareness as yet. Just declare yourself to be, and continue to do so until you are lost in the feeling of just being -- faceless and formless. When this expansion of consciousness is attained, then within this formless deep of yourself, give form to the new conception, by feeling yourself to be that which you desire to be.”
I'll continue on this point for a moment, on recognizing where we are in ourselves, finding this midpoint.
We've talked about self observation, but I want to emphasize this idea of a very careful and attentive vigilance -- over what? -- over what's taking place on the inside. Emotions, thoughts, feelings. But then again, take care to notice what's going on in the background. What is the feeling tone? What is the undercurrent that is informing all of your thought and all of your mental activity? Is it some sort of an assumption that is detrimental, that is undermining you?
Now, this is the kind of thing normally doesn't come to conscious realization. It doesn't come to light unless you pay strict attention. But once you've found something that is undermining your identity, from there, well, you’ve found the midpoint. You can go wherever you want.
6. Being ruthless.
Back in episode 18, I talked about being ruthless in the sense of being uncompromising towards the “old man” (the false persona), being able to drop at a moment's notice all of the usual associations, identifications, and so on, without compunction.
That's not an act of iron will. That's an act of conscious realization, and it's immediate -- but take care to notice that it is a sacrifice. Now, along these lines, Gurdjieff gave an observation on human psychology (in paraphrase): People will give up whatever you like; they'll sacrifice all kinds of things; they'll go through all kinds of privations. But there's one thing that they will not let go of, and that is their own suffering.
In the next three points, I want to offer some visual images. They are abstract analogies that illustrate what's going on in the action of the mind.
7. The drive belt of impressions.
It's possible to think about the activity of the mind being driven incessantly, just like a motor drives a machine with a drive belt. Now, that is arguably our habitual state. We're constantly reacting, reacting to whatever stimulus is coming at us from outside or even from within.
Now, self remembering, self consciousness, as we discussed back in episode one, it's stopping that motor. It's only from that place of stillness where you can most effectively choose the state that you want to go to as a desired end.
8. The law of least action.
We first discussed this back in episode 20. Neville says, to move from your present state to the state desired, you must use the minimum of energy and take the shortest possible time.
Now, the visual image that Neville calls to mind to illustrate this is a planet following its orbital path around the sun. It's hard to imagine a motion that is more powerful and inexorable and yet more effortless.
9. Another visual image in the form of the Searl Effect Generator.
This is something that we introduced back in episode 16. You would have had to follow up and watch the documentary to see the video animation of the generator that this man created. But it's a perfect analogy for consciousness, because tremendous energy is developed from a place of absolute stillness, a zero point.
Physicists say that there's an extraordinary amount of kinetic energy that is contained within only a cubic inch of space, but it's not accessible, because it's in a random state. But if all the mechanical, or indeed mental, elements are set up in proper resonance, then all of a sudden you start to tap into this infinite potential.
10. Escape from the release phenomenon as described by Nicoll.
We first discussed this in episode 14, so I'm going to draw your attention to it again. Maurice Nicoll, psychologist, says that we have to consider ourselves from the point of view of being disintegrated and not integrated individuals. He said,
“We cannot say that the range of internal experience of oneself is necessarily limited to either dream states or ordinary consciousness. We have to consider the possibility not only that there is a level above our ordinary level of consciousness, to which we are only occasionally awakened, but that our ordinary consciousness becomes integrated into a larger system when this happens.”
All right, so in other words, we go deliberately and consciously to the awakened imagination. Now you probably recall the illustration that I gave back in episode 14. It was the case of the care patient who had an attention disorder, which actually illustrated sort of an amplified version of our own state -- our own habitual, disjointed, and fragmented state of mind -- unless we invoke a higher principle.
11. Disciplined Denial.
In episode five, we talked about the twelve disciplines of mind. One of the most pertinent for today's discussion is disciplined denial. Now, this is a triggering, in a positive sense. In the face of facts, situations or circumstances that are unacceptable, it triggers you. It reminds you to go straight into a self-aware state, with clear, vivid intention.
This involves the understanding that what you see before you in the physical world does not have ultimate authority, it does not have ultimate reality. So, as Neville points out, it seems very strange because only the insane believe in the absolute reality of their own subjective states, and yet that's pretty much exactly what we're trying to do. We want to assert the psychic activity as being of a higher order than what manifests in the physical world.
Now what's the difference between that and a person who is insane? It must be that instead of a wild, reckless, unconscious activity in the mind, it's a conscious, deliberate, grounded activity, emanating from an integrated consciousness.
12. Courage.
This is yet another one of the twelve disciplines of mind. Courage is called up immediately when you're trying to put into operation discipline denial. The point here is that courage would not be courage unless it were embraced and lived in the face of something absolutely horrible and unacceptable; or in believing something that goes completely against reason and so called common sense; or yet again, in the face of others’ beliefs, others’ behaviours -- against the censure of ordinary society.
In conclusion, the whole point of this episode was to review how we are training ourselves to stop wasting energy, in reacting to whatever presents in the external world. That's the great virtue, that's the thread that ties together all of the disciplines of mind that Neville talks about, as well as the other techniques that we listed. It's the conservation of energy and directing it towards what you believe to be the proper thing. I think that's an important part of awakening.
With sufficient understanding and appreciation of the problem, that is, all the various contradictions that we discussed, experienced in a moment of difficulty, then we can “lay aside all other processes” and “act by clear imagination and intention.”
I hope this was a helpful review of techniques. And please don't forget to review the show notes for specific references to the blue sky problem, and we'll talk to you soon.