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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]
This is episode 15, How to Meditate.
In this episode, I want to explain my concept of meditation, understood as a practice that's entirely compatible with Neville's instructions. Obviously meditation has many different definitions and practices, and what we want to do here is make clear what the underlying concept is, so that we don't feel any sort of confusion or ambivalence, but rather go into the practice feeling confident, knowing exactly what we're about to do. This should all be consistent with information I've given in previous episodes, notably in E4 [and E12].
1. Meditation as equivalent to Neville's explanation of prayer.
Neville explains his biblical interpretation, which is that prayer to be effective is not begging in nature. Prayer to be effective is claiming, it's demanding. He further explains that this is what he calls brazen impudence. It's having the brazen impudence to actually deny the evidence of your senses and to go ahead and assert the power of the human imagination, to visualize, affirm, and claim what it really wants.
The question immediately arises, well, what is it that you want? And is that a worthy thing? We've already discussed this. Neville asserts that the progression of states is like going up a ladder; it's evolving. And if you break the golden rule, if you wish for someone else that which you would not want done to yourself, it's simply going to come back on you. So that is the guiding principle. Aside from the notion of progressing and wishing the ever higher, ever nobler things for yourself and for others, the other aspect of prayer that Neville insists upon is the fact that you would not be able to conceive of something as desirable as a goal were it not already in existence in creation, that is, were it not already existing in potential.
As far as technique is concerned, Neville talks about going out into deeper waters, remaining in awareness of being, and claiming the consciousness of the thing desired. This is all in, for example, At Your Command. In this episode, I'm going to give more detailed instructions that are consistent with those.
Along with being consistent with Neville's idea, we want to make meditation consistent with Rolf Alexander's instructions. He distinguishes himself in the literature by making consciousness pure, objective consciousness, not only the ultimate goal, but also the modus operandi. It's the thing that you need to cultivate and practice in order to enter into meditation. He issues a warning. He says, you have to become adept at self remembering, proficient at invoking objective consciousness, because if you don't, you run the risk of getting swept along, swept aside and actually controlled by the subconscious. So with the understanding that you've read the introductory exercise back in E1 and that you're practiced at self remembering, then we can go ahead and discuss meditation in full.
So to summarize, just so far what we've talked about in the underlying concept of meditation, we can see that looking at Neville's idea and looking at Alexander's idea, the whole thing rests on pure consciousness, awareness of being, as the operative element that is instructing, directing, and addressing the subconscious. Now that might seem counterintuitive, because as Alexander explains, consciousness awareness of being is wordless. And yet in using affirmations, in using instructions to the subconscious, we're going to be employing words, at least mentally or even spoken. But I think we just have to allow ourselves there the idea that it's the conscious intent that is really in control. So that's the underlying concept.
2. Make clear in your mind not only your present state and your consequent desire, as we were just discussing, but also, as a result, your aim. What is your definite aim now?
I think there are three possibilities. The first one is a heartfelt desire in the personal sphere, but it could be a rather trivial matter. It could be a matter of just trying to locate your car keys or to have something happen on a small scale.
The second thing is to have a heartfelt desire again in the personal sphere, but hear something of greater importance. It could be acquiring a state of health. This could be also a wish for someone else where you want something in life to turn out for the better, and it has more import, more weight.
The third possibility I feel is again a heartfelt desire, but it's for the broader social sphere. The target of your whole visualization of your whole desire is to bring about some change in the broader social structure.
Now in discussions along these lines, I think you'll find the assertion that it doesn't really matter to the imagination what the magnitude or what the scope of the desire is. It's all the same for the imagination. Maybe the difference comes in for us when we can more easily believe in our own power to manifest something when it's something of small or a trivial nature, as opposed to affecting society at large.
3. How to approach multiple desires and goals.
I think you're going to come into a situation where you actually want to work on many things at once, and this becomes problematic because you just get too confused. So the answer there is simply to make some notes that you can refer to during your meditation session. Or as I mentioned before, you can create a graphic symbol.
Let's say you could create a four sided figure and each side of that figure represents [each of] four different categories of affirmation or desire that you have in mind -- that you want to address during your meditation session. And in that case, instead of having to refer to written notes, you can simply visualize the four sided figure and bring those things into mind.
4. Procedure. Now, let's get into the heart of the actual method.
Well, to start out, it's no surprise that we want to set aside some dedicated time. We want to have privacy, and we want to have relative quiet. On that point, absolute silence is not really necessary because it's quite easy, once you get into this, to simply acknowledge that ambient sounds will be kind of floating by, but they need not interrupt your train of thought.
On the other hand, having some dedicated time and an understanding that you won't be disturbed, that becomes quite important.
5. Continuing on in our procedure, the first thing is to invoke, in a seated position (where you're comfortable and yet sitting straight) self remembering self awareness -- the highest possible conscious focus that you can muster in the moment.
6. Relaxation.
What you want to do is, as I recommended in a previous episode, try to get some instruction, even using some discipline like yoga or something like that, to invoke in yourself progressive and deep relaxation.
Now, the reason relaxation is kind of elusive and at the same time very important is that you might think that you're being completely relaxed, and yet there's something that you're holding on to. We discover that, through habit, certain tensions are held in the body almost on a permanent basis, even in sleep, and as a result, certain psychological aspects are held onto. So it's really important to discover these gradually, progressively, and release them. At this point, we have a situation where you're sitting comfortably, relaxed, and yet maintaining a high point of conscious awareness. Notice that the idea is not to drift into what they call hypnotic sleep.
7. Quick induction.
This means inducing in oneself a mild state of hypnosis. Notice that it's not another person who's going to be putting you into a hypnotic state. It's your own conscious self -- your own wakeful, highly conscious self -- that is inducing in the rest of your psyche, as it were, a state of passivity, so that it is open to suggestion. At all times, you remain in conscious control.
I say quick induction because it's not necessary to resort to a lengthy procedure where you've got, let's say, a metronome going back and forth or some sort of pendulum, nor a long involved script where you're trying to put yourself into deeper and deeper states. No, the whole thing can be done almost instantaneously. Once you're relaxed, closing your eyes and count backwards slowly from five to zero [even visualizing the numbers]. When you hit zero, with a little bit of practice, you'll find that you're left in a state of vivid awareness, and yet the rest of you is completely relaxed, passive and ready to receive your conscious affirmations.
Now, if any of this procedure concerns you -- and I don't pretend to be a professional therapist -- take this to a professional. Take this to your hypnotherapist, or psychologist or someone else who's qualified and find out whether this is an appropriate procedure. Of course, that professional will have to have some idea of what it is to have conscious self remembering, awareness of being, and in all likelihood, they may not even have that level of skill.
8. While remaining perfectly awake, you address the passive part of your being.
Now notice, I'm going to list a series of modalities.
The first one is to actually do words, speak words mentally or aloud. These are your affirmations, whether in short form or in a longer form.
The second thing is visualization. You could either have static images or a mental movie.
The third thing is to bring in all the sensory modes. Now, other authors in hypnosis have suggested this. Lee Pulos, for example, talks about bringing in all of the different senses so that you sort of get a whole brain approach to your visualization.
Finally, the whole idea is that in some mysterious way, in a deep way, you're already aware of the desired end, and you don't necessarily have to dwell upon the words or the visualization. So you dwell upon instead the pure meaning.
So there we've progressed from words and affirmations, to visualization, to sensory modes, to pure meaning. The point with all of this is to appropriate the state of the wish fulfilled. That is, you go to the end. You imagine what it would be like if the desired condition were already fulfilled. And that is the state of mind that you have to find within yourself and dwell in. So that's most important, because it's the essential feature of Neville's teaching about the creative process.
9. Gratitude.
Gratitude flows naturally from the previous point. Once you're in a state where you can feel sincerely and fully that the desired thing has already been acquired, then you feel quite naturally, a state of thankfulness, and you want to increase that to a full experience of joy and gratitude.
10. The remainder of the day. The question then arises, well, when you come out of your session, how do you comport yourself in the remainder of the day?
Neville gives a few explanations. He says, “walk in that assumption”. He says, as long as you “remain faithful to that assumption”, then the thing is going to manifest.
So connect this instruction -- to walk in the assumption, to remain faithful to the assumption -- with the state of mind that I discussed back in E 14. Instead of abandoning ourselves to what is called a release phenomenon; that is, released into a fragmented, harassed, worrying and doubtful state of mind, instead, bring yourself to the higher single point of consciousness and faith where you are walking in the assumption that your desire is already fulfilled.
Summary
Well, in summary, now it'll be an interesting sort of internal dialogue that goes on within you when you debate with yourself about what degree of faith are you placing in your outer action after your meditation, as opposed to, as Neville suggests, “laying aside all other processes” and having complete faith in the inner action, the creative power of the human imagination.
Your faith in the creative power that you have within is going to be based on at least two points of understanding.
First of all, everything is possible. Whatever you can conceive of is already existing in potential creation is complete within the psyche of man. And the second point is that the creative power is the state itself. The state that you work so hard to work yourself into and flood your mind with -- that is the creative principle. Once that thing, the mental state, is attained, then the thing itself in manifestation is, as Nettle puts it, “compelled to appear”.
Well, this is a learning process and we are living in a seeming material world. But the whole thing is in constant decay and it's subject to a time process. The realization of our desires is also subject to a time process. Arguably, the deeper and more intense your faith and your belief, the shorter the time.
But what we have to do, in Neville's words, is to “cross a bridge of incident”. In other words, we have to go about our business in a normal, natural way while holding as best we can to the perfect faith, that the desired end must manifest.
In doing so, we're going to be met with things which appear to deny and disprove our faith in the imaginative creative process. And yet, if you think back on it, even in our experience so far, can we say that we really acknowledge and recognize our successes? Do we really acknowledge and recognize our own harvest?