The Father

THE FATHER : Neville Goddard – 23rd Sept 1968

The Bible begins with Abram, a character whose name means "exalted father."

Abram was placed in a profound sleep, told of the trials and tribulations he would pass through, and  the  length of time which he would suffer. Then the Lord God said to him:

"Behold  my covenant is  with you.  No longer shall your name  be Abram, but Abraham for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations."

The insertion of the letter "he" [pron. "hey"] (the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is "grace") changed  the name  from Abram to Abraham.

Now, grace is Jesus Christ, for we are told: "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." So into the name of Abram goes the letter "he" and grace is inserted into the exalted father. Then the journey begins.

Scripture tells us that God speaks to man through the language of dream and makes himself  known in  a vision. If God speaks to me in a dream and makes himself known to me in a vision, there is nothing more important than to record that vision.

Here is a vision I had in 1934. I was alone in my living room. My eyes were closed and I was meditating, but not on anything in particular. I love to just turn my eyes inward and watch the liquid, golden clouds form.

If you try it you will find it very easy to do. Simply turn your eyes inward, close the lids as though asleep, and suddenly all of the dark convolutions of the brain will grow luminous. They will pulse and form themselves into clouds around your head.

Here I am, not thinking of anything in particular, simply observing these golden forms, when suddenly before my vision appears a large, rough quartz. As I watch, it fragments itself into numberless  little  pieces.  Then some magnetic hand or invisible force took all of these pieces, and gathering them together, molded them into the human form.

Here is a man seated in the lotus posture in deep, deep meditation. As I looked at him I saw myself. Here I am observing myself meditating myself. As I watched, it began to pulse with life. Then it began to glow like the sun, and when it reached the limit of intensity it exploded. I broke the silence and returned once again to the normal state in this world.

That was an adumbration, a forecasting of my last days in this age. I saw my exit. When the moment comes for this garment to be taken off for the last time in this age (which will be this present little  stretch of time)  I will explode into eternity. There was no form. The form preceded it.

That meditating figure in the lotus posture was perfect. It could not be improved upon. It’s difficult to conceive such perfection,  yet I was looking at myself. I knew he was meditating me, and that I do his will. I came to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work, which is to fulfill scripture. And when that is completed he will explode and we will be one.

We are told:

"Call no man on earth Father, for you have but one Father who is in heaven, and the kingdom of heaven is within."

You have a being just like yourself, meditating you! What you think  is  an original thought, an original desire, is nothing more than the will of your Father, the one meditating you. So in the end no matter what you have done, you are forgiven because you only played the part he willed you to play. To him you are David, the son of Jesse (I am) a man after his own heart who will do all his will. You have always done his  will and you will always do it, and in the last days, to you alone he will appear.

We are told:

"Scoffers will come in the last days scoffing and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming, for ever since the fathers fell asleep all things have continued as they were from the creation of the world."

Man is looking for the Father to come from without and not to resemble the one who is looking for him, but when he finds him he finds himself. You are God the Father meditating your projection for  the  experience  of this world, and you will redeem yourself in the last days.

Let me show you how scripture reveals this. Bear in mind the Bible is a mystery, not as something to be kept secret, but mysterious in character.

You must search the scripture to find the Father. When the letter "he" [pron. "hey"] was placed in the name of the exalted Father, he became Abraham, the father of a multitude of nations. "And the scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham." The gospel is the play.

Let us see how this is revealed to us. At the end of the journey, one that should know better said: "Master, show us the Father and we will be satisfied." He then replied:

"I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’"

They do not believe he took upon himself the form of Man and became obedient unto death upon the cross of Man. But I know that the being I saw meditating me as my very self was Christ, who is God the Father.

Now, if God is a father he must have a son, and if he was the Father before he began to meditate this projection of himself, then he had a son before he began this projection. So he asks the question: "What think ye of the Christ? Whose Son is he?" And when they answered, "The son of David," he said, "Why then did David, in the Spirit, call him my Father?"

(The word "adonai" is translated "Lord," as every son referred to his father as "my lord"). But David called him Father in the Spirit, and not in the flesh!

Here he reveals who the Father is and  who  the Son is, but no one understood it. The evangelists recorded it. I read it over and over, but didn’t see it until I experienced it. Not until David stood before me and I experienced the relationship of Father/Son did I really understand that passage.

I have talked to priests, rabbis, ministers, and truth teachers, but none see it, and because of their fixed belief they will not see it. They do not believe that the character in scripture called  Jesus Christ is  God the Father, and the character in scripture called David is the Son of God, even when they  read the  2nd Psalm, where David says:

"I will tell of the decree of the Lord, he said unto me, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee." In spite of that, they still cannot see it.

Now, I say the Bible is completely consistent in imagery and symbolism. I saw the rock, and the meditating figure who is the cause of my behavior. The thing that is cause is Father, for he is the source of all. I saw a man who did not just resemble me but was me, raised to the nth degree of perfection – alive, breathing and radiating until it exploded like the sun.

We find the same symbolism in the 89th Psalm:

"I have found  David,  he cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation!"

The Rock, the Father, and God. This meditating being has me in his power. There is not a thing I can do but fulfill his will. And in the end when he explodes, we are one, and he has gathered from the experiences he has put me through, that which was necessary for his own personal expansion, his own personal luminosity, going beyond what he was prior to the deep sleep into which Abram, the exalted Father, was placed.

So a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and as he slept the Lord God said to him:

"Your descendants shall be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and they will be slaves there for four hundred years."

In the Hebrew world (especially in the mysteries) every letter was a numerical value as well as a symbolical value. The last letter, tau [pron "taf"] has a numerical value of four hundred. Its symbol is the cross. Four hundred does not mean years as you and I count them. It means as long as you wear the cross of Man.

At the very end, when you take off the cross, you will explode into a new being – a new body, a new age, a new world. The exalted Father had to take upon himself the limitation of Man to enter the world of three dimensions, but when he has completed his journey, he and his projection which he put through hell – explode, and they are one.

We are told:

"No one comes unto me unless my Father calls him, and I will raise him up at the last days."

Now, this is a difficult passage for anyone to understand. No one comes to me unless my Father calls him. Well, I saw my Father, and he calls everyone into my world; but he is calling a certain remnant in the last days and these, with my explosion, will be raised.

The day you hear Neville is dead, far from being dead I will be in an entirely new age, and I will raise with me those that my Father designates. I cannot name one of them.

When they said: "John and James, let them sit at your right hand," he said: "It is not mine to give, but my Father’s who is in heaven." He knows who he is calling. And when the real end comes, far from being restored into a world just like this with my Father still in meditation, still putting me through the paces, I will explode and return to the Father, expanded, greater than that which I was before that the world was. I came out from the Father and came into the world. Again I am leaving the world and returning to the Father, taking with me everyone my Father calls.

The Father is not something you are going to find in some cathedral, some retreat, or holy place; he is wherever you are. The Father is within you, and one day you will be sitting quietly, not thinking of anything in particular, when the symbolism will take place. The rock (the quartz) will shatter into pieces, then reassemble itself into the perfect statue of you as a meditating Buddha. Then it will begin to glow like the sun, brighter and brighter, until it explodes and you return to the awareness you were when the vision possessed you.

So do not go beyond where you are in search of the Father. When you see a picture drawn by an artist who claims it is a picture of Christ and it doesn’t resemble you, don’t believe him. Every Sunday  morning sculptures and paintings are sold in all the churches in the world claiming they are in the likeness of Christ, yet they don’t look like anyone you know – or like anyone in this world, for that matter. Those who buy them have forgotten that Christ is God’s Power and Wisdom which was put into the Father as the Father when he fell asleep to dream the sons of God into being.

Carl Jung had a vision similar to mine about ten years after I did, but it frightened him, which indicates to me that he is not at the end of the journey. When he saw himself in the lotus posture he was afraid, because he knew when he awoke he, Carl Jung, would be no more.

But the Father does not see the projection that is the dream of himself, the real self who could not enter the sphere. He must dream it and make it real. He cannot pretend, for complete incarnation is essential to individualization. It’s a tragedy, yes. It’s a separation from the Father, for I was looking at him. It’s a fall into decay and death, for that is what this world is. It’s a fall into hell, for this world is hell, but the end will justify the means. Paul said:

"I do not consider the sufferings of the present time worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us."

No matter what you have gone through and still have the memory of, or what you are going through, or may go through, no suffering can compare to the glory that will one day be yours. That glory is the unveiling of God within you as you. You are not going to see him as another. You are God.

But the one passage I quoted earlier is still puzzling, for I tell you: your  Father is  meditating you and  yet here is a passage saying that my Father has called a certain number which I will raise at the last moment. Are they to be exempt? Will they be freed by reason of the fact that I will raise them up? I do not know. I only know that scripture cannot be broken. We are told:

"You must be born again, for unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of God."

The same one who made that statement claims that when he is raised, he will raise all that his Father (which is himself) calls in the last days.

But while he, the Christ in you who has come only to fulfill scripture, projects himself on the screen of space, he has no choice but simply executes his Father’s will. "My meat is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" and the only work he  came to accomplish was to fulfill scripture. He never attempted to change Caesar’s world. If there was slavery he left it in slavery.

All of the things that are happening today, you and I think never happened before, but it has always happened. Cruelty there, cruelty here, slavery there, slavery here, and he never attempted to change one thing. He said: "You want to pay taxes? Give  me  the coin. Whose inscription is this? Caesar’s? Then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,  and unto God the things that are God’s."

Now this happened to me in 1934, and the mighty acts of God did not start to awaken me until 1959, so my Father knows all. He knew in ’34 that regardless of what happened (wars or  rumors of wars) I would  be here in a garment of flesh and blood in ’59, for in the interval of time between ’59 and ’63 he knew what he was going to do to his projected image. He also knows the moment of my departure. I only know it is this interval of time, for I have finished the race. I have fought the good fight and I have kept the faith, but the day of my departure I do not know. That hour only he knows. Whenever it comes  I know an explosion awaits  me and I will awaken as the very being that I saw, only it will not be man as we know man, but an entirely different being.

Your Father resembles you. He looks like you and is in love with you because you do his will. If you did horrible things in the past it is because he willed it. If today you do lovely things, he wills it, but you will not escape the doing of one thing in the play. Before we fell asleep we all agreed to dream in concert,  that we may enter this world of three-dimension, this world of dream.

May I tell you: the dreamer cannot be destroyed by his dream because he is dreaming in a remote region of the soul.

Not a thing that happens in this world can ever touch him. If you blew the whole earth apart you couldn’t touch the Father who is dreaming, and because he can restore the dream, he will restore the  earth.  He will restore anything.

His projected self dies at the age of eighty. She looks old and is old, when suddenly she is formed into a lovely girl of twenty. She is totally unaware of how it happens, but her Father is doing it. He is all powerful. Having dreamed and projected her, his dream for eighty years, he simply restores her to youth with everything in place. Nothing is missing and she is twenty and no longer eighty. Now, isn’t that a miracle?

I see this constantly. They are not babies or children, but young men and ladies, twenty years of age. They procreate there and have their children too. They work there as they do here. The world is terrestrial just like this and solid just like this, and they do not know the Father. So he said:

"If you knew me you would  know my Father also, but because you know not my Father, you do not know me."

If you only knew me you would not kill, but you kill because you do not know me or the Father. That’s what he is saying.  That’s the one who is dreaming us into being.

I hope that this will be your experience in the not distant future, for you can mark it down. From ’34 to ’59 was the time allotted in my case. Then from ’59 to ’63 the four mighty acts unfold.

The first is  your resurrection and birth from above.

The second is the discovery of David, who calls you Father.

The splitting of the temple (which is your body) from top to bottom and your ascent like a serpent into heaven is the third.

The descent of the dove which smothers you with love is the fourth and final mighty act of God.

Now the first word uttered by the figure called Jesus Christ was when he was twelve years old. Appearing in the temple he turned to his earthly parents and said: "Do you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?" At the end of the journey he is still speaking of the Father when he announces:

"Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit. Thou hast redeemed me."

(If he completes the verse of the 31st Psalm which he is quoting he would add: "O Lord, faithful God.") Then he commits himself into the hands of himself, for he has withdrawn and the race is over.

Tonight, don’t even feel the nearness of the Father, for the Father is never so far off as even to be near, as nearness implies separation. When you fall asleep this night remember his name is "I AM." That’s the one on the pillow. And may it be this night that he will seem to be another, but that’s the way it has to be done in the language of symbolism and imagery.

Now let us go into the silence.