Neville Goddard Radio Lecture 9 | AFFIRM THE REALITY OF OUR OWN GREATNESS

Radio Talk, Station KECA, Los Angeles

In the creation of a new way of life, we must begin at the beginning, with our own individual
regeneration. The formation of organizations, political bodies, religious bodies, social bodies is not enough. The trouble we see goes deeper than we perceive. The essential revolution must happen within ourselves.

Everything depends on our attitude towards ourself – that which we will not affirm within ourself can never develop in our world.

This is the religion by which we live, for religion begins in subjective experience, like charity, it begins at home. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” is the ancient formula and there is no other.

Everything depends upon man’s attitude toward himself. That which he cannot or will not claim as true of himself can never evolve in his world. Man is constantly looking about his world and asking, “What’s to be done? What will happen?” when he should ask himself “Who am I? What is my concept of myself?” If we wish to see the world a finer, greater place, we must affirm the reality of a finer, greater being within ourselves. It is the ultimate purpose of my teaching to point the road to this consummation. I am trying to show you how the inner man must readjust himself – what must be the new premise of his life, in order that he may lose his soul on the level he now knows and find it again on the high level he seeks.
It is impossible for man to see other than the contents of his own consciousness, for nothing has existence for us save through the consciousness we have of it. The ideal man is always seeking a new incarnation but unless we, ourselves, offer him human parentage, he is incapable of birth.

We are the means whereby the redemption of nature from the law of cruelty is to be effected.
The great purpose of consciousness is to effect this redemption. If we decline the burden and
point to natural law as giving us conclusive proof that redemption of the world by imaginative love is something that can never come about, we simply nullify the purpose of our lives through want of faith. We reject the means, the only means, whereby this process of redemption must be effected.

To change the present state we, like Dr. Millikan, must rise to a higher level of consciousness.
This rise is accomplished by affirming that we are already that which we want to be; by
assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The drama of life is a psychological one which we
bring to pass by our attitudes rather than by our acts. There is no escape from our present
predicament except by a radical psychological transformation. Everything depends upon our
attitude towards ourselves. That which we will not affirm as true of ourselves will not develop in our lives.

We hear much of the humble man, the meek man – but what is meant by a meek man? He is not poor and groveling, the proverbial doormat, as he is generally conceived to be. Men who make themselves as worms in their own sight have lost the vision of that life – into the likeness of which it is the true purpose of the spirit to transform this life. Men should take their
measurements not from life as they see it but from men like Dr. Millkan, who, while poor and
unproven, dared to assume, “I have a lavish, steady, dependable income, consistent with integrity and mutual benefit.” Such men are the meek of the Gospels, the men who inherit the earth. Any concept of self less than the best robs us of the earth. The promise is, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

In the original text, the word translated as meek is the opposite of the words – resentful – angry. It has the meaning of becoming “tamed” as a wild animal is tamed.

After the mind is tamed, it may be likened to a vine, of which it may be said, “Behold this vine. I
found it a wild tree whose wanton strength had swollen into irregular twigs. But I pruned the
plant, and it grew temperate in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted as you see into these clean, full clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it.”

A meek man is a self-disciplined man. He is so disciplined he sees only the finest, he thinks only the best. He is the one who fulfills the suggestion, “Brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

We rise to a higher level of consciousness, not because we have curbed our passions, but because we have cultivated our virtues. In truth, a meek man is a man in complete control of his moods,and his moods are the highest, for he knows he must keep a high mood if he would walk with the highest.

It is my belief that all men can, like Dr. Millikan, change the course of their lives. I believe that
Dr. Millikan’s technique of making his desire a present fact to himself is of great importance to any seeker after the “truth.” It is also his high purpose to be of “mutual benefit” that is inevitably the goal of us all. It is much easier to imagine the good of all than to be purely selfish in our imagining. By our imagination, by our affirmations, we can change our world, we can change our future. To the man of high purpose, to the disciplined man, this is a natural measure, so let us all become disciplined men.

Next Sunday morning, July 15th , I am speaking as the guest of Dr. Bailes at 10:30 at the Fox-Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard, near La Cienega. My subject for next Sunday is “Changing Your Future.” It is a subject near to the hearts of us all.

The Fox / Saban theater in Los Angeles

I hope you will all come on Sunday to learn how to be the disciplined man, the meek man, who “changes his future” to the benefit of his fellow man. If you are observant, you will notice the swift echo or response to your every mood in this message and you will be able to key it to the circumstances of your daily life.

When we are certain of the relationship of mood to circumstance in our lives, we welcome what befalls us. We know that all we meet is part of ourselves. In the creation of a new life we must begin at the beginning, with a change of mood. Every high mood of man is the opening of the door to a higher level for him. Let us mould our lives about a high mood or a community of high moods. Individuals, as well as communities, grow spiritually in proportion as they rise to a higher ideal. If their ideal is lowered, they sink to its depths; if their ideal is exalted, they are elevated to heights unimagined. We must keep the high mood if we would walk with the highest; the heights, also, were meant for habitation.

All forms of the creative imagination imply elements of feeling. Feeling is the ferment without which no creation is possible. There is nothing wrong with our desire to transcend our present state. There would be no progress in this world were it not for man’s dissatisfaction with himself. It is natural for us to seek a more beautiful personal life; it is right that we wish for greater understanding, greater health, greater security. It is stated in the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, “Heretofore have ye asked for nothing in my name; ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

A spiritual revival is needed for mankind, but by spiritual revival I mean a true religious attitude, one in which each individual, himself, accepts the challenge of embodying a new and higher value of himself as Dr. Millikan did. A nation can exhibit no greater wisdom in the mass than it generates in its units. For this reason, I have always preached self-help, knowing that if we strive passionately after this kind of self-help, that is, to embody a new and higher concept of ourselves, then all other kinds of help will be at our service.

The ideal we serve and hope to achieve is ready for a new incarnation; but unless we offer it
human parentage it is incapable of birth. We must affirm that we are already that which we hope to be and live as though we were, knowing like Dr. Millikan, that our assumption, though false to the outer world, if persisted in, will harden into fact.

The perfect man judges not after appearances; he judges righteously. He sees himself and others as he desires himself and them to be. He hears what he wants to hear. He sees and hears only the good. He knows the truth, and the truth sets him free and leads him to good.

The truth shall set all mankind free. This is our spiritual revival. Character is largely the result of the direction and persistence of voluntary attention.

“Think truly, and thy thoughts shall the world’s famine feed;
Speak truly, and each word of thine shall be a fruitful seed;
Live truly, and thy life shall be a great and noble creed.”