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The Neville Goddard Podcast is dedicated to bringing Neville's timeless ideas into a modern, immersive format you can return to again and again. This is a modern faithful interpretation of Neville Goddard's most powerful teachings.
No Other God
A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard,
Can man look for his good in the world round about him and ever find it there? Most decidedly he cannot, for there is no other God. The awareness that you are, the I AM that stirs within you at this very moment, is the only power, the only savior, the only cause of all that appears in your world. Beside this awareness there is none else. Every time you turn your eyes outward, seeking in things, in persons, in conditions, in money, in health from without, or in any power apart from yourself, you are entertaining another God. And in that moment you rob yourself of the being that you truly are.
The command was given long ago: “Thou shalt have no other God beside me.” These words were not spoken to a people in some far-off time. They are spoken to you now, in the stillness of your own soul. They are the eternal reminder that your own awareness of being is the Lord God Almighty, and there is no other. Not the man you appear to be, not John or Mary or any name the world has given you, but the faceless, formless I AM that you are before you are conscious of being anything in particular. This is the everlasting Father upon whose shoulders the government of your world rests. This is the power that sustains and directs all things that it is aware of being.
When you believe in the potency of drugs to heal, you have made a God of the drug. When you believe in diets, in exercise, in money, in influence, in the goodwill of another, or in any condition of the world to secure your good, you have fashioned a graven image and you are bowing before it. These beliefs are the money changers in the temple. They rob you of your rightful consciousness of power. The temple is not made with hands. You are the temple of the living God. And the living God is your own awareness of being. When you transfer the power that you are to anything outside yourself, you are casting the money changers into your own holy place, and your temple becomes a den of thieves. You rob yourself of the dominion that was yours the moment you knew yourself as I AM.
There is only one power. There is only one savior. I AM He. Your belief in the thing is what aids you, never the thing itself. The drug has no power save the power you give it by your belief. The money has no power save the power you give it by your belief. The condition has no power save the power you give it by your belief. Stop transferring the power that you are to things round about you. Claim yourself to be the power which, in your ignorance, you have given to another. This is the great restoration. This is the cleansing of the temple. When you do this, the thieves and the robbers are cast out, and you stand once more in the holy place, knowing that the Lord is in his holy temple and that temple is your own consciousness.
It is easier for the camel, burdened with all the treasures and opinions of the world, to pass through the needle’s eye than for the opinionated man, the man filled with human values and reasons, to enter the kingdom of heaven. The rich man in the parable is not the man who possesses much of this world’s goods. He is the man who is rich in his own opinions, rich in his belief that causes lie outside himself, rich in his conviction that power resides in things. Such a man cannot enter. He is too burdened with the many values he has created. He must become the poor man, the foolish man in the eyes of the world, the man who has no reason for anything happening other than that it is perfectly expressing that which he is conscious of being. When you become this poor man, you throw out the money changers. You establish one value only: consciousness. You know that the consciousness of wealth produces wealth, that the consciousness of health produces health, that the consciousness of freedom produces freedom, and that all things express, without the aid of another, that which they are conscious of being.
The Lord is in his holy temple. Consciousness dwells within that which it is conscious of being. I AM man is the Lord and his temple. When you know this, you forgive all men for being what they are, for you see that every man is expressing, without the aid of another, that which he is conscious of being. You no longer sympathize with the beggars of life who stand at the temple gate asking for silver and gold. You declare, as the disciple declared, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee.” And what you have is the consciousness of freedom, the consciousness of health, the consciousness of abundance. You give this by claiming yourself to be that which you formerly begged for. You stir up the gift within you. You stop begging and you claim. And in that claiming the crippled world from which you cried is left behind, and you walk in the new world, singing praises to the Lord, I AM.
Far greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. This is the cry of everyone who finds his awareness of being to be God. Your recognition of this fact cleanses the temple and restores to you that dominion over things which you lost the moment you forgot the command, “Thou shalt have no other God beside me.” Dominion is not something you acquire. It is something you remember. You remember it the instant you cease to look for power in the world and turn to the only place it has ever been: your own awareness of being. The world is your consciousness objectified. It has no power to do anything to you. It only tells you, moment by moment, who you are. Stop trying to change the world. It is only a mirror. Change the image in the mirror by changing the consciousness that looks into it, and the mirror will show you a new world.
Begin now to realize that I AM is the Lord God Almighty and beside this awareness there is no other God. Not the man you appear to be, but the awareness that you are, is God. The man you appear to be is only the present limitation, the present conception of the limitless I AM. To change the expression, change the conception, but do so in truth, not in words. Turn your attention completely away from your present limitation and place it upon the new conception until the awareness, your true being, is lost in the conviction that I AM that I AM. This is the reclothing, the rebirth of your formless, nameless self. Your true self is a self who no man sees, and who sees not itself, but sees only its conception of itself. At this very moment you are resurrecting or expressing that which you are conscious of being. I AM the resurrection and the life. You are out-picturing, as a living reality, that which you are now aware that you are, and you shall continue to do so until you change your conception of yourself.
There is no other cause. The foundation of all expression is consciousness, and other foundations no man can lay. Man thinks he has found the cause of disease in germs, the cause of war in conflicting ideologies, the cause of lack in economic conditions. All such discoveries are foolishness in the eyes of God. There is only one power, and this power is God, your consciousness of being. It kills, it makes alive, it wounds, it heals, it does all things good, bad, or indifferent. A prisoner must have a jailer. A slave must have a master. A nation that feels itself imprisoned will create its dictator. You could no more destroy a tyrant by destroying the man than you can destroy your reflection by destroying the mirror. The consciousness of the nation produces its leaders. The consciousness of the individual produces his world. Man moves in a world that is nothing more nor less than his consciousness objectified. Not knowing this, he wars against his reflections while he keeps alive the light and the images that throw the reflections. I AM the light of the world. That which you are conscious of being is the image. The world is the mirror magnifying all that you are conscious of being. Stop trying to change the mirror. Change the image, and the mirror must change.
When you ask yourself the question, “How would I feel if I were free, if I were healthy, if I were secure, if I were the man or woman I long to be?” the answer comes automatically. That feeling or thrill is the Father state of consciousness, the foundation stone from which the thing felt will come. No man can tell you how you would feel. Everyone knows for himself. The moment you sincerely ask, the answer is given. Make that feeling natural by wearing it. All things express their nature, so you must wear this new feeling until it becomes your nature. It may take a moment or a year. It is entirely up to you. The moment all doubts vanish and you feel I AM this, you begin to bear the fruit of the nature of the thing you are feeling yourself to be.
The problem that seems so real, so long-standing, so impossible of solution, will vanish in the twinkling of an eye if you will faithfully follow this. Ask yourself how you would feel if the problem were already solved, if the desire were already realized. The very moment you sincerely ask, the feeling comes. Wear that feeling. Do not look back upon the problem as Lot’s wife looked back upon Sodom. Do not become hypnotized again by its seeming reality and naturalness. Leave all and follow me. Let the dead bury their dead. Your problem may have you so hypnotized by its naturalness that you find it difficult to wear the new feeling, but wear it you must if you would have results. The stone which the builders rejected, the consciousness which the world will not wear, is the chief corner stone, and other foundations no man can lay.
Every desire is the savior’s knock at the door. Every urge that springs within you is the I AM seeking to express a greater measure of itself. When you say, “I shall be well, I shall be free, I shall have the thing I desire,” you are confessing that you are not that now. You are denying the savior who is with you always. You are saying, “We are not saved.” Stop looking for your savior to appear in the future. Claim yourself to be saved now. Claim yourself to be the thing desired now. The signs of your claims will follow, for signs follow, they do not precede. Before they ask, I have answered. Before you have time to think, the solution of your problem is given you in the form of your desire. Your desire, though invisible, is the spoken word of God telling you of that which is. God calls those things which be not as though they were. The claim “I AM He” is letting your savior in. Every desire is the savior’s knock. Open the door by claiming I AM that which I desire to be.
There is only one door through which that which you seek can enter your world. When you say “I AM,” you are declaring yourself to be, first person, present tense. Consciousness is the only door. Unless you are conscious of being that which you seek, you seek in vain. If you judge after appearances, you will continue to be enslaved by the evidence of your senses. To break this hypnotic spell you are told to go within and shut the door. The door of the senses must be tightly shut before your new claim can be honored. It is done without effort. It is impossible to serve two masters at the same time. The master you serve is that state of consciousness with which you are identified. When you place your attention on the claim that you are now that which you desire to be, the door of the senses automatically closes against your former master. As you become lost in the feeling of being this which you now claim yourself to be, the doors open again and permit only the present, that which you are now conscious of being, to enter. You behold your world expressing that which you are conscious of being.
Follow the example of him who realized that as man he could do nothing to change his present picture of lack. He closed the door of his senses and went to his Father, to whom all things are possible. Having denied the evidence of his senses, he claimed himself to be that which, but a moment before, his senses told him he was not. Knowing that consciousness expresses its likeness on earth, he remained in the claimed consciousness until the doors of the senses opened and confirmed the rulership of the Lord. Remember, I AM is Lord of all. Never again use the will of man which claims “I will be.” Be as resigned as he was, and claim “I AM that.”
Not my will, but thine be done. This is not blind fatalism. It is the illumined realization that “I can of myself do nothing. The Father within me, he doeth the work.” When man wills, he attempts to make something appear in time and space which he knows does not now exist. He consciously states, “I do not possess the capacities to express it now, but I will acquire these capacities in time.” In short, “I AM not, but I will be.” Such struggles are doomed to disappointment, for only the present expresses itself. God’s will is the recognition of that which is, not of that which shall be. See the saying not as “Thy will be done” but as “Thy will, be done” — it is done. The works are finished. In your formless awareness, I AM, lies buried all that you will ever conceive yourself to be. The recognition of this truth transforms you from an unskilled laborer who tries to make it so, into a great artist who recognizes it to be so. Your claim that you are now that which you want to be removes the veil of human darkness with its “I will be” and reveals your perfect claim: I AM that.
God’s will was expressed in the words of the widow: “It is well.” Man’s will would have been: “It shall be well.” To state “I shall be well” is to say “I AM ill.” God, the eternal now, is not mocked by words or vain repetition. God continually personifies that which is. The resignation of him who made himself equal with God was the turning from the recognition of lack, which the future indicates with “I shall be,” to the recognition of supply by claiming “I AM that.” Let the weak say, “I AM strong.” Man in his blindness will not heed the prophet’s advice. He continues to claim himself to be weak, poor, wretched, and all the other undesirable expressions from which he is trying to free himself by claiming that he will be free from them. There is only one door. Unless you are conscious of being that which you seek, you seek in vain.
Your awareness never asks permission to express that which you are aware of being. It does so naturally and without effort, in spite of the wisdom of man and the opposition of the armies of both heaven and earth. Salute no man by the way. This is not a command to be insolent. It is a reminder not to recognize a superior, not to see in anyone a barrier to your expression. None can stay your hand or question your ability to express that which you are conscious of being. Do not judge after the appearances of a thing, for all are as nothing in the eyes of God. When you judge after appearances you forget that all things are possible to God. Hypnotized by the reality of appearances, you cannot feel the naturalness of your desire. The only way to avoid such failure is to constantly bear in mind that your awareness is the almighty, all-wise presence who, without help, effortlessly out-pictures that which you are aware of being. Be perfectly indifferent to the evidence of the senses so that you may feel the naturalness of your desire, and your desire will be realized. Turn from appearances and feel the naturalness of perfect health, perfect freedom, perfect abundance, and these qualities will embody themselves. Your desire is the solution of your problem. As the desire is realized, the problem is dissolved.
Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, do not petition any power outside yourself. Do not look to the world for that which you desire. Close the door of the senses gently and turn within. Feel yourself to be the very thing you long to be. Do not struggle. Do not argue with the evidence of your senses. Simply assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and let that feeling fill your consciousness until it becomes natural. In that naturalness the I AM that you are will out-picture the new state without effort, without struggle, without the aid of another. There is no other God. There is no other power. There is no other savior. Your own wonderful awareness of being is the Lord, and beside him there is none else. Claim it tonight. Feel it tonight. And in the days to come you will know, by the unmistakable evidence of your senses, that the temple has been cleansed, the dominion has been restored, and the command has been kept: Thou shalt have no other God beside me. I AM that I AM, and beside me there is no other.