Latest / Neville Goddard Mindset / Revision Rewrites Your Past, Changes Your Future

Transcript

Revision Rewrites Your Past, Changes Your Future · Neville Goddard Mindset

0:00
Everything the modern world tells you about your past is
0:02
wrong. You have been taught by
0:04
psychology, by culture, by the well meaning voices of everyone
0:08
who cares about you that your past is fixed, that what
0:12
happened to you happened, that the events of your history are
0:15
immutable facts that you carry forward, that shape you, that
0:18
explain you. I'm going to show you why this
0:21
is not true, and I'm going to give you a technique, one that I
0:25
taught for 30 years in lecture halls in New York and Lowe's
0:28
Angels, that will to demonstrate the error of this belief, not as
0:32
theory, but as lived experience. The past is not fixed.
0:36
The past is malleable, not in the way that your memory of it
0:39
can change. We all know that memories shift
0:42
and fade. I mean something far more
0:44
radical. The crystallized effects of past
0:47
events in your current life can be altered by changing the
0:51
imaginal act that corresponds to those events.
0:54
What happened to you does not determine what happens next.
0:58
What you now assume happened to you determine what happens next.
1:01
This is the teaching behind revision and in these next 30
1:05
minutes I will prove it to you. The technique I am about to
1:08
teach you is called Revision. It is, in my understanding, one
1:12
of the most powerful and underused tools in all of what I
1:16
ever offered. Most people who encounter my
1:19
teachings focus on the forward facing imaginal act, imagining
1:23
the wish fulfilled in the future.
1:25
Revision works in the opposite direction.
1:28
Revision asks what if you could go back not in time, but in
1:32
consciousness, and reimagine an event that has already occurred,
1:36
not deny that it happened, not pretend, but genuinely revisit
1:40
it in your imagination and construct a different version,
1:44
and then inhabit that different version with real feeling.
1:47
The answer is that the crystallized effects of the
1:50
original event in your present life begin to dissolve.
1:54
New possibilities open that the original event had foreclosed.
1:58
I tell you from my own experience, revision changes the
2:01
present, not because the past literally changes, but because
2:05
consciousness is the only reality, and what consciousness
2:09
holds as true becomes true. To understand why revision
2:13
works, you must first understand something about the nature of
2:16
time in consciousness. The conventional view is that
2:19
time is a river flowing in One Direction.
2:22
The past is behind you, fixed and done.
2:25
The present is this moment. The future is ahead, unknown,
2:29
potentially malleable, and so you face forward toward the
2:33
future, trying to use your imagination to create what you
2:36
want there. But consciousness does not
2:38
experience time the way a river flows.
2:41
Consciousness experiences time as a series of states, and a
2:45
state, as I have told you, is not a moment in linear time.
2:49
A state is a felt reality and inhabited assumption that
2:53
carries its own effects into the world, regardless of when, in
2:56
linear terms, the original event occurred.
2:59
When a a devastating event happens in your life, a
3:02
betrayal, a failure, a loss, a humiliation, what actually
3:07
happens in consciousness, an assumption is formed.
3:10
An assumption about what the world is like, about what you
3:13
deserve, about what is possible for you.
3:16
And that assumption formed in response to the original event
3:20
continues to crystallize its effects in your life long after
3:24
the event itself is over. The event is in the past, but
3:28
the assumption formed by the event is active in the present.
3:31
It is generating consequences right now in your relationships,
3:35
your finances, your health, your sense of what is available to
3:40
you. This is why people carry their
3:42
wounds forward, not because the wounds are in the past and
3:45
therefore permanent, but because the assumption formed around the
3:49
wound is in the present and therefore active now.
3:53
Revision does not go back and change the event.
3:56
What revision does is go back in imagination and change the
4:00
assumption formed by the event. It constructs a different
4:03
version of the event, one that would have formed a different
4:06
assumption. And when that different version
4:09
is inhabited with real feeling, the old assumption, which has
4:13
been generating consequences, begins to lose its hold.
4:17
I want you to think about a specific event in your life, not
4:20
necessarily the most dramatic one that left a residue, a
4:25
conversation that ended badly and changed a relationship, A
4:29
moment of failure that installed a belief about your own
4:32
capacity, a loss that formed an assumption about what is
4:35
available to you in this life. That event is done, but the
4:39
assumption it formed is not done.
4:41
It is operating right now, shaping what your outer world
4:45
shows you. Revision says what if you went
4:48
back to that event in imagination and this time
4:51
constructed it as you wish it had gone?
4:54
Not in anger or bitterness at what actually happened, but with
4:57
genuine, specific sensory imagination of the version that
5:01
would have served you. The conversation that ended in
5:04
understanding instead of rupture, the attempt that
5:07
succeeded, the moment that opened instead of closed.
5:11
And then this is the key. You inhabit that version.
5:14
You feel it. You let it become in your
5:17
imagination, as real as the version that actually happened.
5:21
You replay it as though it is memory.
5:23
Not fantasy, but memory, The memory of something that went
5:27
well. The subconscious does not
5:29
distinguish between an event that happened in the outer world
5:32
and an event that was fully and feelingly inhabited in
5:35
imagination. Both become, at the level where
5:38
the law operates, equally real, equally causal, equally able to
5:43
generate new consequences. This is not self deception.
5:47
This is working with the actual nature of consciousness, and it
5:51
is the technique I call revision.
5:53
Let me now tell you precisely how to do it.
5:56
We have covered the foundational principle.
5:58
The past is not fixed in the way you have been taught.
6:01
What is active is the assumption formed by past events, and that
6:05
assumption is generating consequences in your present
6:09
right now. Revision works by going back in
6:12
imagination, constructing a different version of a past
6:15
event and inhabiting it with enough feeling to install a new
6:19
assumption in the subconscious. This is not a denial of what
6:23
happened, it is a deliberate act of consciousness to change what
6:27
continues to happen as a result. Now I am going to give you the
6:31
specific steps, the precise method for performing revision,
6:35
and then we will practice it together.
6:37
Stay with me. Revision is performed in a state
6:40
of relaxation, ideally the state akin to sleep at the threshold
6:44
of sleep, but it can also be done in any moment of genuine
6:48
stillness. The key is not the hour of day,
6:51
the key is the depth of feeling you are able to bring to the
6:54
revised version. Here is the method, step by
6:57
step. Step one.
6:58
Identify the event event you wish to revise.
7:01
Be specific. Not a category of bad
7:04
experiences, but one specific event.
7:07
The argument on a particular afternoon, the rejection from a
7:10
particular person or institution, the day something
7:14
broke that changed what you believed about yourself.
7:17
Step 2. Hold the original event in your
7:20
mind briefly, not to dwell in it, but simply to locate it.
7:24
Acknowledge that it happened. Do not resist it.
7:27
Do not relive it with full emotional force, simply see it
7:31
the way you might look at a piece of furniture you are about
7:33
to move. There it is.
7:35
That happened. Step 3.
7:37
Now construct the revision. Ask yourself, how would I have
7:41
wished this to go? Not a fantasy of perfection, but
7:44
a realistic, specific, sensory version of the event as it could
7:48
have unfolded differently. The words that were spoken,
7:51
different words, the right words.
7:53
The response that came, the one that opened instead of closed.
7:57
The outcome that was reached. The one that left an assumption
8:00
of possibility rather than foreclosure.
8:03
Be specific. Be sensory.
8:05
Let it have the quality of real memory.
8:08
Not a wish, but a remembering, as though you are now simply
8:11
recalling what actually happened.
8:13
And what actually happened was this new version.
8:16
Step 4. Inhabit the revision.
8:19
Enter the state akin to sleep or whatever stillness you have
8:22
available, and play the revised scene through your imagination.
8:26
Feel it from the inside. Hear the words, feel the quality
8:30
of the air in the room, feel the change in your body that would
8:33
accompany an outcome that went well.
8:35
The ease in the shoulders, the opening of the chest, the simple
8:39
relief of a thing resolved. Step 5.
8:42
Let the revision replace the original in your imagination,
8:46
not in your conscious recollection.
8:48
You know what happened, and I am not asking you to forget, but in
8:52
your felt sense, in the imaginal version you carry, let the new
8:56
version become the one your subconscious holds.
9:00
Allow yourself to feel what you would have felt had this version
9:03
been the one that occurred. Now I want to tell you something
9:06
about the effects of revision that I have observed over many
9:10
years of teaching this technique.
9:12
When you revise a past event with genuine feeling, when you
9:15
truly inhabit the new version, the effects in your present life
9:19
do not always arrive the way you expect.
9:22
The relationship that was damaged by the original event
9:25
does not necessarily repair itself in a direct, traceable
9:29
line from your imaginal act. What happens more often is that
9:34
new possibilities simply begin to appear.
9:36
Doors that have been closed begin to open, seemingly on
9:40
their own. People who had become
9:42
unavailable to you become available again, for reasons
9:45
neither they nor you can quite explain.
9:48
This is because revision does not change the past in linear
9:51
time. It changes the assumption formed
9:53
by the past, and when the assumption changes, the
9:57
consequences which were generated by the old assumption
10:00
also change. The world rearranges around the
10:03
new assumption, as though it were always so.
10:06
I have seen people revise failures that had defined them
10:09
for decades and find them themselves within months
10:12
achieving what those failures had convinced them was beyond
10:16
their reach. I have seen relationships
10:18
declared dead revive, not dramatically, but quietly, in
10:22
the natural way that living things revive when the
10:25
conditions change. The condition that changes is
10:28
always internal, always the assumption.
10:31
Now I want to address something important about the emotional
10:34
difficulty of this technique, because revision is not always
10:38
easy. Sometimes the event you need to
10:40
revise is the one that carries the most charge, the most pain,
10:44
the most anger, the most grief. And sitting in imagination with
10:48
that event, even to revise it can feel like approaching a
10:52
fire. I want to tell you, this is the
10:54
event you most need to revise. Not to bypass the emotion, not
10:59
to pretend the pain was not real, but because the events
11:02
that carry the most charge have formed the deepest assumptions,
11:06
and the deepest assumptions are generating the most significant
11:09
consequences in your current life.
11:12
Approach the difficult event gently.
11:14
You do not have to do it all in one session.
11:17
Begin with a brief visit, locate the event, acknowledge it,
11:21
construct the first rough outline of the revision, and
11:24
then allow yourself to return to it again and again, each time
11:28
inhabiting the revised version a little more fully until the new
11:32
version has more feeling behind it than the old one.
11:35
This is how the assumption changes, not by a single
11:38
dramatic act of imagination, by the gradual accumulation of a
11:43
new feeling tone around the event until the new version is
11:46
what your subconscious reaches for when it encounters the
11:50
memory. There is also a daily practice
11:53
of revision that I taught, which operates on a shorter time
11:56
scale. At the end of each day, before
11:59
you sleep, take a few minutes to review the day that has just
12:02
passed. Identify any moment that did not
12:05
go as you would have wished, any conversation that left a
12:08
residue, any interaction that installed a a feeling of
12:11
limitation or failure or disconnection, and revise it
12:15
right there before you sleep. Construct the version that went
12:19
well. Inhabit it briefly.
12:21
Let the day end in consciousness with the version you wanted
12:25
rather than the version that occurred.
12:27
Do this consistently, and you will find that the accumulation
12:30
of unrevised painful experiences, which most people
12:34
carry into sleep each night and deepen with their attention,
12:37
gradually ceases. You stop planting new, painful
12:41
assumptions each day. The soil of your subconscious
12:44
becomes clear, and what you plant there intentionally, in
12:47
your imaginal acts, in your state, akin to sleep, takes root
12:51
without competition. Man's imagination is the only
12:55
redemptive power in the world, and revision is that power
12:58
turned toward the past, healing it, clearing it, releasing you
13:02
from consequences that no longer need to continue.
13:05
We have covered the full method, the five steps, the way revision
13:09
changes the assumption rather than the event, the way the
13:13
effects appear in ways you may not predict but which follow
13:16
from the internal change with perfect faithfulness to the law
13:20
and the daily practice that keeps the soil of the
13:23
subconscious clear. Now I want to take you through
13:26
the visualization, A guided first experience of revision
13:29
here together, and then I will close with the teaching that
13:33
contains everything we have covered today in one final
13:36
truth. Stay with me, We are at the
13:38
heart of it. Now, before I guide you into the
13:41
visualization, let me give you the practical framework you will
13:44
carry out of this conversation. First, identify your event.
13:49
Sit quietly for a moment, not during the visualization but
13:53
before this in preparation, and identify the one event you wish
13:57
to begin working with. It does not have to be the most
14:00
dramatic event in your history. Choose one that is active, one
14:04
that you can feel still has a pull on you when you think of
14:07
it. Second, write the revision.
14:10
I recommend writing it not as a diary entry about what happened,
14:14
but as an account of how it went well, present tense first
14:18
person, as though you are remembering something that
14:20
actually occurred. This way the words spoken will
14:23
receive the way you intended them.
14:25
When you parted, there was nothing unresolved.
14:28
Let the writing be specific, sensory brief.
14:32
Third, use the revision at night in the state akin to sleep.
14:36
Lie down still the body, enter the threshold and play the
14:40
written revision in your mind as though it is memory, as though
14:43
this is simply what happened and you are now recalling it. 4th
14:48
use the daily practice. Each evening before sleep, spend
14:52
5 minutes in review. Identify what needs revision.
14:55
Construct the revision quickly. Inhabit it briefly.
14:59
Let the day close in consciousness.
15:01
On a version that leaves no residue of failed assumption.
15:05
This is the practice, consistent, undramatic, patient.
15:09
Now I must address the question of whether revision erases the
15:13
lesson of the original experience.
15:15
Some people worry about this, they say, but that painful event
15:19
taught me something I learned, something I needed to learn.
15:23
If I revise it, do I lose the lesson?
15:25
I want to distinguish carefully between the learning and the
15:28
assumption, the learning, the genuine understanding that came
15:32
from a difficult experience, that stays.
15:35
It is part of you now. It has shaped your wisdom, your
15:38
compassion, your capacity to understand others.
15:41
What revision removes is the negative assumption that
15:44
accompanied the experience, the belief that you are not enough,
15:48
that the world is hostile, that what you want is beyond your
15:51
reach. That assumption is not the
15:53
lesson. The assumption is the wound, and
15:56
the wound does not need to continue generating consequences
16:00
in order for the lesson to remain.
16:02
You can have the wisdom of the experience without without the
16:05
ongoing cost of the assumption it formed.
16:08
Revision makes that possible. I also want to speak to those of
16:12
you for whom the events needing revision are very old and very
16:16
deep. The childhood experience that
16:18
formed the core assumption, the early wound that has been
16:21
generating consequences for decades.
16:24
Begin with a smaller event, not the oldest, deepest wound first.
16:29
Begin with something more recent, something more
16:31
accessible, something where the charge is present but not over
16:35
whelming. Build your facility with the
16:37
technique. Learn how it feels when revision
16:40
takes hold, when the revised version begins to carry more
16:43
feeling than the original. Then, when you have that
16:46
experience under your feet, approach the deeper events.
16:50
You will find that the technique is the same, only the stakes are
16:54
higher and the results, when they come, are correspondingly
16:57
more profound. The most important conversation
17:01
you will ever have is the one you hold with yourself.
17:04
And much of that conversation happens below the surface, in
17:07
the habitual emotional tone that runs beneath your daily
17:11
thoughts, shaped by every event you have ever lived through that
17:14
formed an assumption. Revision gives you access to
17:18
that conversation. It allows you to change not just
17:21
your thoughts, but the felt assumptions beneath them.
17:24
And when the assumptions change, everything changes.
17:27
Persist in your revision. The world must conform to the
17:31
new assumption. It has no other choice. close
17:34
your eyes. Let the body settle, shoulders
17:36
down, jaw unclenched, hands easy.
17:39
Breathe slowly once, let it go completely.
17:42
Now bring to mind a moment, not the hardest one, just one that
17:46
carries a quiet residue, a moment you would have wished to
17:49
go differently. Locate it gently, simply see it
17:53
the way you would see a room from the doorway without
17:55
entering. Now build the revision.
17:58
How did it go when it went well? Construct the first image.
18:01
You are there, the moment is before you, and this time it
18:05
goes as it should. The words are the right words.
18:08
The response is the one that opens.
18:11
Feel the ease of it, the relief of a thing resolved, the quiet
18:15
satisfaction of an exchange that leaves nothing troubled behind
18:18
it. Let this version settle into you
18:21
as though it is memory, as though this is simply what
18:24
happened, as though you are recalling it because that is
18:27
what actually occurred. This moment went well.
18:30
Breathe slowly. Let the revision be real.
18:33
Let the new feeling settle where the old one lived, not forcing,
18:37
simply allowing the warmth of the better version to occupy the
18:40
space. Stay here.
18:42
This is revision. This is the imaginal act turned
18:45
toward the past, healing it from within.
18:48
Breathe whenever you are ready. Bring this feeling with you as
18:52
you open your eyes. I told you at the beginning that
18:55
everything the modern world tells you about the past is
18:58
wrong, that the past is not fixed, that the crystallized
19:01
effects of past events in your present life can be altered by
19:05
changing the assumption formed by those events.
19:08
I want to close with the deepest truth behind this teaching.
19:12
You are not the sum of what has happened to you.
19:14
You are not the accumulation of every event that formed an
19:17
assumption, every wound that installed a belief, every
19:21
failure that created a boundary around what you allowed yourself
19:25
to desire. You are imagination.
19:27
You are the power that formed every assumption in the 1st
19:30
place, which means you are the power that can reform them.
19:34
This is what what I mean when I say man's imagination is the
19:38
only redemptive power in the world.
19:40
Not redemption in a future life, redemption now, redemption of
19:45
the present from the consequences of the past.
19:48
The freedom to build a new assumption and watch the world
19:51
rearrange itself to conform to it.
19:53
You have always had this power. You have been using it
19:56
unconsciously by default to crystallize the assumptions
20:00
formed by what has happened to you.
20:02
Revision gives you the choice to use it deliberately.
20:05
To change not the past, but what the past continues to cost you.
20:09
That is the only redemption that matters, and it is yours
20:13
tonight. Begin tonight with one event,
20:15
one revision. Write it, inhabit it.
20:18
Let the day close on the better version.
20:21
Do it again tomorrow and the day after.
20:23
Let the practice become your nightly habit, the inner
20:26
clearing that keeps the soil of your subconscious free and ready
20:30
to receive what you intentionally plant.
20:33
Consciousness is the only reality, and you are
20:35
consciousness with the deliberate power to shape what
20:38
it holds. What you desire, you already are
20:41
in eternity. Revision simply removes the
20:44
debris of the past that has kept that truth hidden from you.
20:47
Return when you are ready. There is always more to discover
20:51
here.