Neville Goddard Your Faith Is Your Fortune Chapter 5
WHO AM I?
But whom say ye that I AM? – Matt. 16:15
“I AM the Lord; that is My name; and My glory will I not give to another” [Isaiah 42:8]. “I AM the Lord, the God of all Flesh” [Jeremiah 32:27].
This I AM within you, the reader, this awareness, this consciousness of being, is the Lord, the God of all Flesh. I AM is He that should come; stop looking for another. As long as you believe in a God apart from yourself, you will continue to transfer the power of your expression to your conceptions, forgetting that you are the conceiver.
The power conceiving and the thing conceived are one but the power to conceive is greater than the conception. Jesus discovered this glorious truth when He declared, “I and My Father are one, but My Father is greater than I” [John 10:30 & John 14:28]. The power conceiving itself to be man is greater than its conception. All conceptions are limitations of the conceiver.
“Before Abraham was, I AM” [John 8:58]. Before the world was, I AM.
Consciousness precedes all manifestations and is the prop upon which all manifestation rests. To remove the manifestations, all that is required of you, the conceiver, is to take your attention away from the conception. Instead of “Out of sight, out of mind”, it really is “Out of mind, out of sight”. The manifestation will remain in sight only as long as it takes the force with which the conceiver – I AM – originally endowed it to spend itself. This applies to all creation from the infinitesimally small electron to the infinitely great universe.
“Be still and know that I AM God” [Psalm 46:10]. Yes, this very I AM, your awareness of being, is God, the only God. I AM is the Lord – the God of all Flesh – all manifestation.
This presence, your unconditioned awareness, comprehends neither beginning nor ending; limitations exist only in the manifestation. When you realize that this awareness is your eternal self, you will know that before Abraham was, I AM.
Begin to understand why you were told, “Go thou and do likewise” [Luke 10:37]. Begin now to identify yourself with this presence, your awareness, as the only reality. All manifestations but appear to be; you as man have no reality other than that which your eternal self, I AM, believes itself to be.
“Whom do you say that I AM?” [Matthew 16:15, Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20]. This is not a question asked two thousand years ago. It is the eternal question addressed to the manifestation by the conceiver. It is your true self, your awareness of being, asking you, its present conception of itself, „Who do you believe your awareness to be?”
This answer can be defined only within yourself, regardless of the influence of another.
I AM (your true self) is not interested in man’s opinion. All its interest lies in your conviction of yourself. What do you say of the I AM within you? Can you answer and say, “I AM Christ”? Your answer or degree of understanding will determine the place you will occupy in life. Do you say or believe yourself to be a man of a certain family race, nation etc.? Do you honestly believe this of yourself? Then life, your true self will cause these conceptions to appear in your world and you will live with them as though they are real.
“I AM the door” [John 10:9]. “I AM the way” [John 14:6]. “I AM the resurrection and the life” [John 11:25]. “No man (or manifestation) cometh unto My Father save by Me” [“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me”, John 14:6].
The I AM (your consciousness) is the only door through which anything can pass into your world. Stop looking for signs. Signs follow; they do not precede. Begin to reverse the statement, “Seeing is believing”, to “Believing is seeing”. Start now to believe, not with the wavering confidence based on deceptive external evidence but with an undaunted confidence based on the immutable law that you can be that which you desire to be. You will find that you are not a victim of fate but a victim of faith (your own).
Only through one door can that which you seek pass into the world of manifestation. “I AM the door”. Your consciousness is the door, so you must become conscious of being and having that which you desire to be and to have. Any attempt to realize your desires in ways other than through the door of consciousness makes you a thief and a robber unto yourself. Any expression that is not felt is unnatural.
Before anything appears, God, I AM, feels itself to be the thing desired; and then the thing felt appears. It is resurrected; lifted out of the nothingness.
I AM wealthy, poor, healthy, sick, free [or] confined were first of all impressions or conditions felt before they became visible expressions. Your world is your consciousness objectified. Waste no time trying to change the outside; change the within or the impression; and the without or expression will take care of itself. When the truth of this statement dawns upon you, you will know that you have found the lost word or the key to every door. I AM (your consciousness) is the magical lost word which was made flesh in the likeness of that which you are conscious of being.
I AM He. Right now, I am overshadowing you, the reader, my living temple, with my presence, urging upon you a new expression. Your desires are my spoken words. My words are spirit and they are true and they shall not return unto me void but shall accomplish where unto they are sent [“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it”, Isaiah 55:11]. They are not something to be worked out. They are garments that I, your faceless, formless self, wear. Behold! I, clothed in your desire, stand at the door (your consciousness) and knock. If you hear my voice and open unto me (recognize me as your savior), I will come in unto you and sup with you and you with me [“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me”, Revelation 3:20].
Just how my words, your desires, will be fulfilled, is not your concern. My words have a way ye know not of [John 4:32. Their ways are past finding out [Romans 11:33]. All that is required of you is to believe. Believe your desires to be garments your savior wears. Your belief that you are now that which you desire to be is proof of your acceptance of life’s gifts. You have opened the door for your Lord, clothed in your desire, to enter the moment you establish this belief.
“When ye pray, believe that ye have received and it shall be so” [Mark 11:24]. “All things are possible to him who believes” [Mark 9:23]. Make the impossible possible through your belief; and the impossible (to others) will embody itself in your world.
All men have had proof of the power of faith. The faith that moves mountains is faith in yourself.
No man has faith in God who lacks confidence in himself. Your faith in God is measured by your confidence in yourself. “I and My Father are one” [John 10:30], man and his God are one, consciousness and manifestation are one.
And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters” [Genesis 1:6]. In the midst of all the doubts and changing opinions of others, let there be a conviction, a firmness of belief, and you shall see the dry land; your belief will appear. The reward is to him that endureth unto the end [“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved”, Matthew 24:13]. A conviction is not a conviction if it can be shaken. Your desire will be as clouds without rain unless you believe.
Your unconditioned awareness or I AM is the Virgin Mary who knew not a man [Luke 1:34] and yet, unaided by man, conceived and bore a son. Mary, the unconditioned consciousness, desired and then became conscious of being the conditioned state which she desired to express, and in a way unknown to others, became it. Go and do likewise; assume the consciousness of that which you desire to be and you, too, will give birth to your savior. When the annunciation is made, when the urge or desire is upon you, believe it to be God’s spoken word seeking embodiment through you. Go, tell no man of this holy thing that you have conceived. Lock your secret within you and magnify the Lord [Luke 1:46], magnify or believe your desire to be your savior coming to be with you.
When this belief is so firmly established that you feel confident of results, your desire will embody itself. How it will be done, no man knows. I, your desire, have ways ye know not of [John 4:32]; my ways are past finding out [Romans 11:33]. Your desire can be likened to a seed, and seeds contain within themselves both the power and the plan of self-expression. Your consciousness is the soil. These seeds are successfully planted only if, after you have claimed yourself to be and to have that which you desire, you confidently await results without an anxious thought.
If I be lifted up in consciousness to the naturalness of my desire, I shall automatically draw the manifestation unto me. Consciousness is the door through which life reveals itself. Consciousness is always objectifying itself.
To be conscious of being or possessing anything is to be or have that which you are conscious of being or possessing. Therefore, lift yourself to the consciousness of your desire and you will see it automatically outpicture itself.
To do this, you must deny your present identity. “Let him deny himself” [Mark 8:34]. You deny a thing by taking your attention away from it. To drop a thing, problem or ego from consciousness, you dwell upon God – God being I AM.
Be still and know that I AM is God [Psalm 46:10]. Believe, feel that I AM; know that this knowing one within you, your awareness of being, is God. Close your eyes and feel yourself to be faceless, formless and without figure. Approach this stillness as though it were the easiest thing in the world to accomplish. This attitude will assure your success.
When all thought of problem or self is dropped from consciousness because you are now absorbed or lost in the feeling of just being I AM, then begin in this formless state to feel yourself to be that which you desire to be, “I AM that I AM”.
The moment you reach a certain degree of intensity so that you actually feel yourself to be a new conception, this new feeling or consciousness is established and in due time will personify itself in the world of form. This new perception will express itself as naturally as you now express your present identity. To express the qualities of a consciousness naturally, you must dwell or live within that consciousness. Appropriate it by becoming one with it. To feel a thing intensely, and then rest confidently that it is, makes the thing felt appear within your world. “I shall stand upon my watch” [Habakkuk 2:1] “and see the salvation of the Lord” [2Chronicles 20:17]. I shall stand firmly upon my feeling, convinced that it is so, and see my desire appear.
“A man can receive nothing (no thing) except it be given him from Heaven” [John 3:27]. Remember, heaven is your consciousness; the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. This is why you are warned against calling any man Father; your consciousness is the Father of all that you are. Again you are told, “Salute no man on the highway” [Luke 10:4; 2Kings 4:29]. See no man as an authority. Why should you ask man for permission to express when you realize that your world, in its every detail, originated within you and is sustained by you as the only conceptional center?
Your whole world may be likened to solidified space mirroring the beliefs and acceptances as projected by a formless, faceless presence, namely, I AM. Reduce the whole to its primordial substance and nothing would remain but you, a dimensionless presence, the conceiver.
The conceiver is a law apart. Conceptions under such law are not to be measured by past accomplishments or modified by present capacities for, without taking thought, the conception in a way unknown to man expresses itself.
Go within secretly and appropriate the new consciousness. Feel yourself to be it, and the former limitations shall pass away as completely and as easily as snow on a hot summer’s day. You will not even remember the former limitations; they were never part of this new consciousness. This rebirth Jesus referred to when he said to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again” [John 3:7], was nothing more than moving from one state of consciousness to another.
“Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do” [John 14:13; similarly, John 15:16; John 16:23]. This certainly does not mean to ask in words, pronouncing with the lips the sounds, God or Christ Jesus, for millions have asked in this manner without results. To feel yourself to be a thing is to have asked for that thing in His name. I AM is the nameless presence. To feel yourself to be rich is to ask for wealth in His name. I AM is unconditioned. It is neither rich nor poor, strong nor weak. In other words, in HIM there is neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, male nor female. These are all conceptions or limitations of the limitless, and therefore names of the nameless. “To feel yourself to be anything is to ask the nameless, I AM, to express that name or nature”.
“Ask whatsoever ye will in My name by appropriating the nature of the thing desired and I will give it unto you”.