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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.
This is Episode 30. You and Your World Are One.
By now we're all familiar with that stock phrase, “the world is you, pushed out” that Neville pronounces. And like all stock phrases or ideas, it's really our associations to that idea that limit our understanding of it. Too often the associations to one core idea or some important principle or other are just too fleeting, they're superficial. It's like an established definition in our mind that we just default to. So for that reason, I want to revisit the idea of “the world is you, pushed out” in this episode and explore different aspects of it.
1. I can point you to E02. I'm circling back around now to this essential idea that started the whole series. If you go to episode two, which is called Manifesting versus Total Reversal, it's an exploration of this idea from a theoretical point of view, showing you that it's a reasonable thing, really, to contemplate and to turn over in your mind. But here today, I'm going to offer some contemplation of this idea in the hope that you will find it inspirational.
2. Years ago, I read quite a lot of C. S. Lewis. There's something that he said that strikes a chord with me. He said that in so many words, that 3D existence, the life in the world of time and space as we know it is a great gift. He characterized it as a gift. So that that tells you right away is that the whole experience is something of an artificial set up. What we take to be reality is sort of a clever arrangement in our minds, by virtue of which we're convinced that the external world is the ground of truth. It's something independently existing. And yet at the same time, we could see that CS. Lewis obviously had the idea that the spiritual endeavour was the central thing in life.
3. Well, in another reference, I can remember a friend of mine years ago when we were talking about psychological development, self growth and that sort of thing, she remarked that she had a friend who described this whole project as a great back and forth. In one phase of life or one stage, you'll focus inward and try to develop from within, from the ground of ideas, feelings and inner revelation. And then you'll transition into the next stage of your life where you're focused on doing, on accomplishing things in the outer world, the seeming outer world, and having those sorts of concerns, that frame of mind. Then you'll naturally gravitate to going back within. So there's this constant alternation.
4. Well, I kind of like that approach, except that I don't want to emphasize a schism, a division between the outer and the inner. And that leads me to call your attention to a previous episode where I was describing, in How to Enter the Creative State -- that was the name of the episode -- how to create an exercise which was saying an affirmation, but in the act of pacing, walking, in the outer world with the object of trying to diminish the division between the psyche and the seeming external world... And also to try to work up the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
So putting those ideas together, why is it that we can't simply walk in the world, be in the world, do all the things that we have to do -- and yet at the same time we're do it from the standpoint that the whole thing is a psychological projection?
I think that will not remove you from reality. On the contrary, it will get you closer, more immediately connected with reality. The same time, it will transform the feeling of who you are in the world.
5. So if we take to heart Neville's ideas, there's an artificial division. But why is it that that division seems so natural? I think there's a few reasons. First of all, we can't accept the fact that the external world is ourselves projected because there's just too much out there that we're not consciously aware of. We don't think we're responsible for it. We can't readily understand it or explain it. And this is the world of nature and all of its vast complexity and all the natural laws and all the things that we have to learn, like mathematics and so on. And the second aspect is that we have other people in the world, and we can't wrap our minds around the idea that somehow we have something, at root, in common with those people. They seem to be independently existing and to have nothing to do with us. And the third reason why we can't accept the idea is that in all that we find distasteful, unjust and negative in the world, we can't accept that it's part of us. We think it's something out there that is inflicting its conditions and its evil effects upon us.
6. The strange thing is the more you contemplate the idea that your world is your own psyche being reflected back to you, the more you're actually able to answer these objections.
So it's fairly obvious that at our level we don't consciously comprehend the totality of manifest creation. We have to use our human faculties to discover, uncover, the truths of the world.
With regard to other people, well, if we think about Neville's idea that the creative source fragmented himself and laid himself down to die within individuals, we have this paradox in mind, this blending of two contradictory ideas: there is individuality, which implies “the other”; at the same time, we all have the same source, we have unity, so that implies the “seeming other”. So in one sense, human beings all share the same panorama of experience and emotions. But in another sense, as we saw in episode 26, the idea of individuality seems to be paramount.
7. That plays out in so many different ways. You can see that in life you attract to yourself people who have an affinity with your own characteristics, with the purpose of the whole thing to recognize oneself in the other person, whether that's positive or negative and whether you're willing to accept it or not. So there we get the idea of unity and being one with the other person -- not in a sentimental or moralistic sense, but in a practical sense.
8. Finally, with regard to what we see as objectionable, evil or negative in the world, it's to realize that everything is in us. Philosophically, everything is contained within the human psyche, somewhere in the depths. So this means that there's going to be uncontemplated extremes within us. And that is what makes the universe a totality instead of just a paltry limited view of the world that is given us by scientists and communists and all the other materialists.
And yet that is not fatalism. This is what I hasten to add. This is Neville's message that whatever evil you see in the world, only if you accept it and consent to it as true does it acquire the dimensions of reality. I think in many ways Neville continually insists, asking what do you desire, what do you believe? What do you accept and consent to as true? Because the whole aspect of the outer world is susceptible to you, the creative force, the creative imagination. The biblical reference there is: “Whom do you say that I am?” The continual question that the power of consciousness is asking of the man himself.
9. This view of things has explanatory power. It explains why we experience mind as being sort of plugged into a universal source, and that's why we have all of this static going on in the mind. And all of these undesirable ideas and suggestions can easily crop up, but we need not take them personally. We just realized that this is part of the background static that, in a passive state, we're going to be susceptible to.
10. It also explains that, absolutely, we should consider the ideas, the concepts, the attitudes within the mind to be like so many pieces of furniture (I think that was a reference in one of the Seth books) that can be rearranged. In fact that's the title of one of Neville's lectures -- to rearrange the mind -- and to eliminate “in some strange way”, as Neville puts it, the things that are undesirable. We can just disregard, delete, or dissolve things that are unwanted. And this ties directly back to the disciplines of the mind that Neville explained, which we covered in episode 05.
So this way of being implies freedom. It's the freedom that we've always sought, but at the same time to take the responsibility for what you're creating.
11. Now, Neville doesn't discuss it at length and he only mentions it in passing, but he does acknowledge that you can only think and conceive things and manifest things in the world on the basis of the ideas that you have. So it's the quality of the ideas that's going to determine what you encounter in the world. And that was the motivation behind episode 21. What Type of Society do you Desire?”, even if discussing this meant giving my own personal views.
Well, to conclude, you remember that somewhere Neville suggests that the world should be a place of marvel and wonder. And thank goodness for Neville's ideas. Thank goodness for the fact that he doesn't explain away the mystery in some , dry scientific way, but rather opens out our ability to approach the mystery. Neville's ideas also so eloquently explain the nature and identity that give us the freedom that we have sought in all the systems, all the religions of the world since time immemorial.
12. So let's summarize what we covered today.
We began with the idea that the world is you pushed out and acknowledge that we've already tried to explain this, at least from a theoretical point of view, back in episode 02. That gives you a good background. In this episode, we wanted to explore the idea further.
C. S. Lewis suggested that life in time and space in 3D reality is actually in the nature of a gift. Now that implies immediately that it is in some sense some sort of clever artificial arrangement.
Then we have the idea that there's a continual alternation in life between inward focus and self-growth and then, by contrast, outer doing and accomplishment.
Well, taking that idea forward, it's not a bad one, except that we don't want to emphasize the difference between the outer and the inner, but rather want to diminish that division. There I gave a reference to the exercise that we created in episode 20.
Now why is this division between the internal and the external so natural to us? It's simply that we can't accept the vast external, complex world that doesn't seem to be in any way our responsibility. We can't accept the basic unity with other people, nor the negative and evil parts of the world. And yet, strangely enough, these objections eventually can be answered, as we continue to contemplate this strange, paradoxical idea that the world is ourselves pushed out.
Unity with others is seen not as a sentimental notion, but more of a practical, realistic notion. Similarly, although evil in the outer world is emanating from us, it is continually a question of what you accept as true.
The background static of the mind results from being plugged into the unity of mind in a subconscious way. But the elements of the mind consciously can be continually selected, arranged and rearranged as we wish. And there I gave a reference to the disciplines of mind in episode 05.
The quality of the ideas that you have, which we referred to in episode 21, will determine what you encounter in the world.
So finally today I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that we've completed 30 episodes now to date. And within those episodes you've got, I think, three things: First of all, a presentation of core ideas that Neville Goddard is offering, and an assessment on my part of their value, as well as resources and citations so you can find his work. The second thing is an interpretation and explanation of these ideas with reference to other thinkers and other traditions. And the third thing is a series of practical exercises to overcome difficulty and to strive to internalize and live by the precepts of Neville Goddard.
I want to thank you for your time and attention in listening to Neville On Fire.