Today I want to talk about the meaning of prayer as explained by Neville Goddard in his lecture, “The Secret of Prayer” (see Neville’s lecture in full at my site at Neville Goddard: The Secret of Prayer — NINA FERREYRA)

Any attempt to change the outer world before he changes the inner structure of his mind, is to labor in vain. Everything happens by order. Those who help or hinder us, whether they know it or not, are the servants of that law, which constantly shapes outward circumstances in harmony with our inner nature.

And, may I tell you, in the not-distant future in the immediate present...it will work. If you don’t falter and do not change the assumption...if you remain faithful to the assumption, it will harden into fact, because imagining creates reality. It does!

Well, you can prove it in the not-distant future, but you are the operant power. It will not work itself. If you dare to assume this very night that you have a better job than you now hold or that you have a  larger income...you may be fired tomorrow. Don’t be concerned! On  reflection, you’ll see it was necessary to move you towards the fulfillment of your assumption.

No one knows, but you can sit down and imagine, and no one can stop you from doing it, but can you give reality to the imagined state? If you do, yes, a bridge of incidents will appear in your world, and you’ll walk across some series of events leading up to the fulfillment of the imaginal state. But  don’t give causation to any physical step that you took towards the fulfillment of it.

Well, if that precept is true...literally true...to be accepted literally and fulfilled literally...well, then, what am I doing not believing? I should actually know exactly what I would like to be, and, discovering what I would like to be against what I seem to be, dare to assume that I AM it! And my assumption, though false, if persisted in, would harden into fact. [Anthony Eden]

That I know from my own experience, and I know it’s a law, therefore, if someone is not becoming the man that he would like to be, and they tell me, “Well, I once imagined it and it didn’t work,” then what are you doing now and still not imagining it?

Can you really conceive a scene...a scene, which if true, would imply the fulfillment of your dream? Just imagine it. Certainly you can imagine it, but the problem is: will you believe it? Will you believe in the reality of the thing imagined?

If I could this very moment imagine myself into a state...any state at all...and dwell in it, well now, what is “dwelling in it”? Well,I’m dwelling in it. Well, that’s Christ! And that is the resurrecting power of the universe. So, if I remain in a state, I will resurrect it and objectify it in my world. But I have to select it and enter the state.