Neville Goddard Your Faith Is Your Fortune Chapter 14

CIRCUMCISION

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands;
in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by circumcision of Christ. – Col. 2:11

Circumcision is the operation which removes the veil that hides the head of creation. The physical act has nothing to do with the spiritual act. The whole world could be physically circumcised and yet remain unclean and blind leaders of the blind. The spiritually circumcised have had the veil of darkness removed and know themselves to be Christ, the light of the world.

Let me now perform the spiritual operation on you, the reader. This act is performed on the eighth day after birth, not because this day has any special significance or in any way differs from other days, but it is performed on this eighth day because eight is the figure which has neither beginning nor end. Furthermore, the ancients symbolized the eighth numeral or letter as an enclosure or veil within and behind which lay buried the mystery of creation. Thus, the secret of the operation on the eighth day is in keeping with the nature of the act, which act is to reveal the eternal head of creation, that changeless something in which all things begin and end and yet which remains its eternal self when all things cease to be. This mysterious something is your awareness of being.

At this moment you are aware of being, but you are also aware of being someone. This someone is the veil that hides the being you really are. You are first conscious of being, then you are conscious of being man. After the veil of man is placed upon your faceless self, you become conscious of being a member of a certain race, nation, family, creed etc.

The veil to be lifted in spiritual circumcision is the veil of man. But before this can be done, you must cut away the adhesions of race, nation, family and so on. „In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, male nor female” [„…a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all”, Colossians 3:11]. „You must leave father, mother, brother and follow me” [„If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple”, Luke 14:26] . To accomplish this you stop identifying yourself with these divisions by becoming indifferent to such claims. Indifference is the knife that severs. Feeling is the tie that binds. When you can look upon man as one grand brotherhood without distinction of race or creed, then you will know that you have severed these adhesions. With these ties cut, all that now separates you from your true being is your belief that you are man.

To remove this last veil, you drop your conception of yourself as man by knowing yourself just to be. Instead of the consciousness of „I AM man”, let there be just „I AM” – faceless, formless and without figure. You are spiritually circumcised when the consciousness of man is dropped and your unconditioned awareness of being is revealed to you as the everlasting head of creation, a formless, faceless all-knowing presence. Then, unveiled and awake, you will declare and know that – I AM is God and beside me, this awareness, there is no God.

This mystery is told symbolically in the Bible story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It is recorded that Jesus laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. Then, after washing his disciples’ feet, he wiped them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Peter protested the washing of his feet and was told that unless his feet were washed he would have no part of Jesus. Peter on hearing this replied, „Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head”. Jesus answered and said, „He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit” [John 13:1-10].

Common sense would tell the reader that a man is not clean all over just, because his feet are washed. Therefore, he should either discard this story as fantastic or else look for its hidden meaning. Every story of the Bible is a psychological drama taking place in the consciousness of man, and this one is no exception. This washing of the disciples’ feet is the mystical story of spiritual circumcision or the revealing of the secrets of the Lord.

Jesus is called the Lord. You are told that the Lord’s name is I AM – Je Suis. „I AM the Lord that is my name”, Isaiah 42:8. The story states that Jesus was naked save for a towel which covered his loins or secrets. Jesus or Lord symbolizes your awareness of being whose secrets are hidden by the towel (consciousness of man). The foot symbolizes the understanding which must be washed of all human beliefs or conceptions of itself by the Lord. As the towel is removed to dry the feet, the secrets of the Lord are revealed. In short, the removing of the belief that you are man reveals your awareness as the head of creation. Man is the foreskin hiding the head of creation. I AM the Lord hidden by the veil of man.