Inner Voice
Simulated Conversations
Neville Goddard:
"The One Habit That Will Change Your Life"
Our inner conversations have profound impact on our external reality.
Inner Conversations Shape Reality: Everyone indulges in inner conversations. These inner dialogues are responsible for the circumstances of our lives. The conversations color the lenses of our external perspectives.
Power of Assumptions: Our assumptions, even if they are false, if persisted in, can become reality. For instance, if someone assumes their employer is unfair, their interactions will tend to reflect that belief. Question your expectations, leave room open for better alternative explanations.
The Word of God: Neville likens our inner conversations to the "word of God." They have the power to create and shape our experience. Our experience reflects our inner dialogues.
Change in Inner Talking: To change our circumstances, we must change our inner talking. This is akin to putting on the "new self" and shedding the "old self."
Imitating God: God calls things into existence by speaking them. Similarly, we can manifest our desires by aligning our inner conversations with the circumstances those thoughts and desires require.
The Present Moment: The present moment is crucial. Our current inner conversations shape our future. We must consciously choose positive and affirming dialogues. Pruning out and rejecting negative dialogues which cannot be overcome.
Imagination: Your imagination is powerful and is your gateway to the reality you dream of. Through imagination, we can realize our desires by feeling and believing in them as if they're already fulfilled. What would you feel like if you got all those things you think you wanted?
Active Use of Imagination: We must actively and consciously use our imagination to bring our desires to fruition. This involves feeling, sensing, and believing in the reality of our desires through regular meditation.
Loving and Noble Thoughts: We should feed our minds with loving and noble thoughts. Love should be the foundation of our inner dialogues.
The Power of Words: Words, whether spoken aloud or internally, have immense power. They can create or destroy, bless or curse. We must choose them wisely.
Goddard emphasizes the importance of aligning our inner dialogues with our desires and the reality we wish to create. By doing so, we can manifest our dreams and transform our lives. He recommends implementing these ideas by actively controlling and directing our inner conversations towards positive and fulfilling outcomes.
How often have you found yourself arguing with someone in your mind? With your boss? Your friend? Parents? Siblings? I’m certainly guilty of this, I want more than anything to convince you to see what I see, to hear what I hear, to feel as I feel about the multitude of worldly challenges we face. I want to convince you to expend at least some amount of thought and energy to gain more insight into some of the largest issues. As well as to fix some of the smallest, personal challenges, that you would fix if you recognized them.
When we more closely align our visions together, the hope compounds, so that when enough people thinking about solutions, examining their problems, and reviewing the history of policy and decisions which lead to those outcomes. We’ll be better one step and one day at a time.
We have the chance to ensure our future is powered by fission! We choose what we allow to persist in our minds eye, what we listen to, what we consume, and what we want out of life. Spend a couple minutes thinking about what our future would hold, if you gave it your best. (Otherwise your best is lost)
I hope you’re having the enlightened conversations in your imagination with me that I am having with you! I find these regular writings keep me going week after week. Though I’m not sure what I’m going to write about next week. Suggestions are welcome.
Talking to Oneself as a Habit: Talking to oneself is a habit everyone indulges in. We could no more stop talking to ourselves than we could stop eating and drinking. All that we can do is control the nature and the direction of our inner conversation. Most of us are totally unaware of the fact that our inner conversations are the causes of the circumstances of our life.
The Power of Inner Conversations: We are told that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," but do we know that man's thinking follows the tracks laid down in his own inner conversations? To turn the tracks to which he is tied in the direction in which he wants to go, he must put off his former conversation, which is called in the Bible the old man, and be renewed in the spirit of his mind.
Changing One's Life Through Speech: Speech is the image of mind; therefore, to change his mind, he must first change his speech. By speech is meant those mental conversations we carry on with ourselves. The world is a magic circle of infinite possible mental transformations, for there are an infinite number of possible mental conversations.
The Creative Power of Inner Talking: When men discover the creative power of inner talking, he will realize his function and his mission in life. Then he can act to a purpose. Without such knowledge, he acts unconsciously. Everything is a manifestation of the mental conversations which go on in us without our being aware of them.
The Cause of Circumstances: A man's mental conversations attract his life. As long as there is no change in his inner talking, the personal history of the man remains the same. To attempt to change the world before we change our inner talking is to struggle against the very nature of things.
The Effect of Negative Inner Talking: Man can go round and round in the same circle of disappointments and misfortunes, not seeing them as caused by his own negative inner talking, but as caused by others. This may seem far-fetched, but it is a matter which lends itself to research and experiment.
The Story of the Girl and Her Employer: One day, a girl told me of her difficulties in working with her employer. She was convinced that he unjustly criticized and rejected her very best efforts. Upon hearing her story, I explained that if she thought him unfair, it was a sure sign that she herself was in need of a new conversation piece.
The Power of Imagined Conversations: She imagined that he had congratulated her on her fine work, and that she, in turn, had thanked him for his praise and kindness. To her great delight, she soon discovered that her own attitude was the cause of all that befell her. The behavior of her employer reversed itself; it echoed, as it had always done, her mental conversations with him.
The Habit of Inner Conversations: I rarely see a person alone without wondering to what conversation piece is he tied. On what mysterious thread is he walking? We must begin to take life consciously, for the solution of all problems lies just in this. The second man, the Lord from heaven, in all of us, is trying to become self-conscious in the body, that he may be about his Father's business.
The Mission of Inner Talking: What are his labors? To imitate his Father, to become master of the word, master of his inner talking, that he may mold this world of ours into a likeness with the kingdom of love. The prophet said, "Be imitators of God as dear children."
Imitating God Through Inner Speech: How would I imitate God? Well, we are told that God calls things that are not seen as though they were seen, and the unseen become seen. This is the way the girl called forth praise and kindness from her employer. She carried on an imaginary conversation with her employer from the premise that he had praised her, and he did.
The Importance of Inner Conversations: Our inner conversations represent in various ways the world we live in. Our individual worlds are self-revelations of our own inner speech. We are told that "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof; for by their words they shall be justified, and by their words they shall be condemned."
The Power of Words: We abandon ourselves to negative inner talking, yet expect to retain command of life. Our present mental conversations do not recede into the past as man believes; they advance into the future to confront us as wasted or invested words.
The Creative Power of the Word: "My word," said the prophet, "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." How would I say my word to help a friend? I would imagine that I am hearing his voice, that he is physically present, that my hand is on him.
The Act of Imagination: I would then congratulate him on his good fortune, tell him that I have never seen him look better. I would listen as though I heard him. I would imagine that he is telling me he has never felt better, he has never been happier. And I would know that in this loving, knowing communion with another, a communion populous with loving thoughts and feelings, that my word was sent, and it shall not return unto me void, but it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
The Present Moment: Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. It is only what is done now that counts, even though its effects may not be visible until tomorrow. We call not aloud, but by an inner effort of intense attention, to listen attentively as though you heard, is to create.
The Manifestation of Inner Talking: The events and relationships of life are your word made visible. Most of us rob others of their willingness and their ability to be kind and generous by our fixed attitudes towards them. Our attitudes unfold within us in the form of mental conversations.
The Creation of Circumstances: Talking from premises of fulfilled desire is the way to consciously create circumstances. Our inner conversations are perpetually outpictured all around us in happenings. Therefore, what we desire to see and hear without, we must see and hear within.
The Reflection of Inner Speech: For the whole manifested world goes to show us what use we have made of the word. If you practice this art of controlled inner speaking, you too will know what a thrill it is to be able to say, "And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe."
The Limitless Process: You will be able to consciously use your imagination to transform and channel the immense creative energies of your inner speech from the mental-emotional level to the physical level. And I do not know what limits, if any, there are to such a process.
Matching Inner Talking with Aims: What is your aim? Does your inner talking match it? It must, you know, if you would realize your aim. For as the prophet asked, "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" And of course, the answer is no, they cannot.
The Agreement of Conversation and State: The two who must agree are your inner conversation and the state desired. That is, what you desire to see and hear without, you must see and hear within. Every stage of man's progress is made by the conscious exercise of his imagination matching his inner speech to his fulfilled desire.
The Conscious Exercise of Imagination: As we control our inner talking, matching it to our fulfilled desires, we can lay aside all other processes. Then we simply act by clear imagination and intention. We imagine the wish fulfilled and carry on mental conversations from that premise.
The Right Inner Speech: The right inner speech is the speech that would be yours were you to realize your ideal. In other words, it is the speech of fulfilled desire. Now you will understand how wise the ancient was when he told us in the Hermetica, "They are two gifts which God has bestowed upon men alone and on no other mortal creature. These two are mind and speech, and the gift of mind and speech is equivalent to that of immortality."
The Gifts of Mind and Speech: If a man uses these two gifts rightly, he will differ in nothing from the immortals. And when he quits his body, mind and speech will be his guides, and by them, he will be brought into the troop of the gods and the souls that have attained to bliss.
The Creation of Conditions and Circumstances: With the gift of mind and speech, you create the conditions and circumstances of life. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The word, said Hermes, is son, and mind is father of the word. They are not separate one from the other, for life is the union of word and mind.
The Oneness of Mind and Inner Talking: You and your inner talking, or word, are one. If your mind is one with your inner conversation, then to be transformed in mind is to be transformed in conversation. It was a flash of the deepest insight that taught Paul to write, "Put off the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; put on the new man."
The Renewal of the Mind: "Put on the new man and be renewed in the spirit of your mind" is to change your inner conversation. For speech and mind are one, a change of speech is a change of mind. The prophet Samuel said, "The Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue."
The Word in the Tongue: If the Lord's word was in the prophet's tongue, then the Lord's mouth that uttered the word must be the prophet's mind, for inner conversations originate in the mind and produce little tiny speech movements in the tongue. The prophet is telling us that the mouth of God is the mind of man, that our inner conversations are the word of God creating life about us as we create it within ourselves.
The Framing of the Worlds: In the Bible, you are told that the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil, blessings and cursing. Choose life. The conditions and circumstances of life are not created by some power external to yourself. They are the conditions which result from the exercise of your freedom of choice, your freedom to choose the ideas to which you will respond.
The Accepted Time: Now is the accepted time. This is the day of salvation. Whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things, for your future will be formed by the word of God, which is your present inner talking. You create your future by your inner conversation.
The Framing of the Worlds by the Word: The worlds were framed by the word of God, that is your inner talking. See, on the fields, the sesamum was sesame, the corn was corn. The silence and the darkness knew. So is a man's fate born. For ends run true to origin.
The Origin of Success: If you would reap success, you must plant success. The idea in your mind which starts the whole process going is the idea which you accept as truth. This is a very important point to grasp, for truth depends upon the intensity of imagination, not upon facts.
The Truth of Assumption: When the girl imagined that her employer was unfair, his behavior confirmed her imagination. When she changed her assumption of him, his behavior reflected the change, proving that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.
The Behavior According to Assumption: The mind always behaves according to the assumption with which it starts. Therefore, to experience success, we must assume that we are successful. We must live wholly on the level of the imagination itself, and it must be consciously and deliberately undertaken.
The Test of Religion: It does not matter if at the present moment external facts deny the truth of your assumption. If you persist in your assumption, it will become a fact. Signs follow; they do not precede. To assume a new concept of yourself is to that extent to change your inner talking or word of God and is therefore putting on the new man.
The Inner Talking as the Word of God: Our inner talking, though unheard by others, is more productive of future conditions than all the audible promises and threats of men. Your ideal is waiting to be incarnated, but unless you yourself offer it human parentage, it is incapable of birth.
The Definition of the Desired Person: You must define the person you wish to be and then assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled in faith
