How to Pray Better by Thinking Right

Praying is not always successful. A lot of what I want doesn't get 

here. How about you? I have been looking for a more "fruitful" way 

to pray. My search has led me to the books and lectures of Neville 

Goddard. Neville (1905-1972) digested a lot of esoteric teachings 

and, having many corresponding mystical experiences, devoted his 

life to preaching his particular spiritual perspective and method 

of praying. 

Neville's spiritual perspective is important. It is called 

non-dualism. It is simply the Oneness of God, which means that 

absolutely everything in the universe is in the "One" that is God, 

and all without division. This does not mean that we are "in" God; 

it means that we are God. This is a marked variance from 

traditional "orthodox" Jewish and Christian views. 

It turns out, though, that this non-dualistic view is indeed what 

the Bible teaches. I believe Jews and Christians have seriously 

and severely misread the Bible, and because we misread it, we 

believe ourselves to be entirely separate and distant from a god 

who is "Wholly Other". So we pray as unto a god who is entirely 

separate and distant from ourselves, and there isn't one! Our 

prayers go, quite literally, to nothing. No wonder they are not 

often answered. If our prayers are answered at all, it is because 

we accidentally do something right while praying. 

The one, true Ineffable God would say, "I have become everything." 

As he has become us, he cannot be separate and distant from us, 

nor we from him. Neville frequently said, "God is playing all the 

parts." If we would pray successfully, we must pray to God as 

though he were our very being, because he is. God is himself our 

salvation -- the provider of our needs -- and is our anointing -

- our constant connection with him and his universe. He is "the 

the kingdom and the power and the glory," and he works through us.

The Bible tells us how to "God". Godding (David A. Cooper: God is 

a Verb) includes proper praying, in which we do as God that which 

we want God to do as us. 

How does one God? Jesus Christ is the pattern. The Ineffable 

desired form and intended its form to become though Man -- the 

Man Jesus Christ. "Before the beginning, (the Ineffable) created 

God, the Heavens and the Earth," which is code for the Man 

(Genesis 1: 1; combining Cooper's and Alexander's translations). 

Imagining the Man he intensely desired, the Ineffable became the 

Man. That Man, Jesus Christ, is the face God whom we can know -

- because he has become us. We are the manifestation of Jesus 

Christ, the manifestation of the Ineffable.

Everything has come into being through the Ineffable's imagining. 

Praying is his imagining, or at least it should be. We mentally 

"create" what God wants by imagining. Perhaps our incidental 

imagining what we want while praying is why we have "answers" to 

our prayers at all. 

While you pray, vividly imagine the "end" you desire. Mentally 

experience whatever would result from your desire having been 

fulfilled. That is, if you now had what you desire, what would 

imply that you do now have it? Experience this resultant "end" 

as though it were your present. 

Feeling is the secret to successful praying. The evidence 

which would imply that your desire has been received, you 

need to imagine as though you really, physically, and 

presently have. "Believe ye receive, and ye shall have"  

(Mark 11:24). Tactually feel, see, hear, etc., that 

reality in your imagination as though you were there.  

"Imagine it over and over again until it takes on all 

the tones of reality, until you are thinking from it 

instead of thinking of it," Neville repeatedly stressed. 

"Enter the dream. When you come out of the dream it 

should shock you that you are actually here and not there." 

Neville likened the process to the creation of a play. You are 

the producer, the author, the director and the actor of the play. 

As the producer, you select the theme of the play. A play about 

what? Well, what do you want? That is your theme. "Wouldn't it 

be wonderful if . . . ," and you finish the sentence. What would 

be wonderful? Remember, this is going through the filter of God's 

nature, Jesus Christ, so aim high. Have wonderful, noble and 

glorious thoughts. Good things. What would be great, beneficial, 

peaceable, relieving, satisfying, empowering? "Shoot for the 

moon," as they say. 

As the play's author, you create the last scene. Just the last. 

What would imply that you now have what you want -- that your 

desired end has been fulfilled? Would you do or see or hear or 

touch something? Would someone congratulate you or thank you? 

Create a scene which implies your desired end has come to pass. 

In it do, see, feel, and hear those things. 

R. H. Jarrett (It Works!) suggests writing out the whole thing so 

you can read it. Include in your last scene all the conditions you 

would desire to exist in it. That is, you might desire a good job, 

yes, but also to receive good pay for your work; you might want a 

good spouse, yes, and also a happy and harmonious home in a good 

environment, with good relations with in-laws, pride, satisfaction, 

relief, etc. Write it all out so you can read it, and then read 

it morning, noon and at night before going to sleep.

Neville gives as an example his desire for an early discharge 

from the Army during World War II. He imagined himself sleeping 

in his own bed at home, which he would certainly do if he were 

discharged, and he added to the scene the feeling that he was home 

permanently and honorably discharged and not just home on a 

temporary furlough or discharged under less than honorable 

conditions. Mentally paint in your scene all the tones you want 

in your reality. 

Gregg Braden describes such an authoring. As I recall, there was 

drought in Colorado, and Gregg's friend, an Indian, offered to 

pray for rain. His friend took him to a place that was sacred to 

his family and stood there for a moment, and then said, "Okay, 

let's go." "I thought you were going to do something. Aren't you 

going to pray?" Gregg asked, expecting something more like a rain 

dance. "I did," his friend replied. "I remembered my ancestors and 

our connection to this place. I remembered what it is like to feel 

the rain: I felt the drops falling on my face, I smelled the 

fragrance of the wet earth, the coolness on my skin and the mud 

squishing up between my toes. That's it. I'm done." By morning the 

drought was over -- a man smelling imaginary wetness and feeling 

mud squishing up between his toes had changed the world. 

As the director of the play, you control the mind to keep it 

faithful to the scene you have written. You keep the attention 

focused and rehearse the actor in the scene over and over until 

it is played right and becomes real to the senses. You make the 

actor "get there", as it were. 

The actor is your imagination. Imagination, our sense of being, 

is our link, our continuity with God. (It is God, in fact: the 

Spirit of God who "flipped" into becoming our consciousness also 

then became our imagination, but thinking that it was us.) The 

imagination enacts the drama, performing all of the predetermined 

actions and experiencing the associated feelings over and over 

until the scene feels right. Faith is the evidence that it is 

real. Be loyal to your unseen reality. You may not yet see it yet, 

but you know that you have it. The seed is now planted, and in 

God's time it will blossom into physical reality. 

Neville suggests achieving this "sensory" consciousness of your 

desired end and then falling asleep in it -- while you are still 

in the dream. "Time, times and half a time" (Daniel 12: 7), that 

s, find the theme and last scene, rehearse the scene over and over 

till you are conscious of thinking from it, and then fall asleep 

in that state. 

When you are satisfied that you are granted what you desire, 

you do not need to keep drumming it up. If God has given it to 

you, no power in the universe can keep it from manifesting in 

time. Be grateful and appreciative to God for it, and get ready 

to receive. And when it does come, you know that you have 

found him, the one who loved you and gave himself for you, Jesus -

- in you! 

This reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Bible, Genesis 

22: 14: "In the mount of Jehovah it shall be seen," which can be 

translated, "Jehovah will see to it" or "Jehovah will provide", 

the literal meaning of 'Joshua' and 'Jesus'! In the margin of my 

Companion Bible, Bullinger gives the literal translation of the 

Hebrew: "In the mount Jehovah will be seen." Enjoy praying in 

the "mount."

Now, let's see if it works!

P.S.

Strong's says that 'Israel' means "he will rule as God," or "he 

prevailed with God." Bullinger, though, in his note on Genesis 

32: 28 (page 47) in the Companion Bible, observes that "out of 

forty Hebrew names compounded with "El" or "Jah", God is always 

the doer of what the verb means (cp. Dani-el, God judges)" 

(emphasis mine). Would that not mean that 'Israel' really means 

"God will rule as he" or "God prevailed with him"?