If I tell you a story for amusement, where you and I can laugh together, that is not deceit. But if I tell it for personal gain, say in politics, in government, in religion, or in business - anytime I plot and plan a little scheme to get the better of another for my own personal gain - then I am not pure in heart.
THE PURE IN HEART : Neville Goddard – 1st March 1963
I think you are all familiar with the 6th Beatitude:
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
I daresay it would be unwise to pick and choose among the beatitudes, and yet I daresay most people look upon this beatitude as the particular star in the heavens. It really seems the most inaccessible – not only the promise, but the conditions that must be met in order for the promise to be fulfilled. We must be pure in heart to see God – and what wouldn’t man give to see God. Yet, all he needs do in this world is fulfill this condition: to be pure in heart. What do we mean by “pure in heart?” Just what is it?
First of all, may I tell you: you need not think of moral perfection, and certainly it does not refer in any way to sexual purity, for we are told by the same one who uttered the beatitude that the harlot given to lust will go into heaven before the Pharisee.
The Pharisee was perfect in keeping the outward law – the washing of the outside of the cup, of the hands, of the feet – and he abided by the law outwardly. Yet he was told that the harlot given to lust would go into heaven before he did. So it is not that.
What is the purity spoken of? “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
The Bible is a mystery. On the surface it seems simple and anyone should be able to understand that simple statement. Well, the Bible is not that simple. So what is this purity and what is the heart?
The word “pure” is “katharos” ([Gr.] “to cleanse”), which means, “clear; unalloyed; pure, pure gold.” It was used on a tract of land completely cleared of all trees – no obstruction, none whatsoever. Here it is pure gold. To understand it we must go all over the Bible to get it.
In Psalm 73:1 we are told:
“Truly God is good to the upright (Israel), to those who are “pure in heart.”
So right away we set up Israel as the pure in heart. And then in the 1st chapter of John, Philip sees Nathaniel (which means “gift of God”) and says:
“We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
Nathaniel looks at him, and at the moment is not quite sure that anything good could come out of Galilee. Jesus, looking at Nathaniel, said:
“Behold, an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile.” (John 1:45-47)
That is an Israelite – one in whom there is no guile, no deceit, incapable of duplicity. That is the true Israelite, “that is the heart.”
Now, in Psalm 24:3-4 the question is asked:
“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” Then comes the response:
“He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”
Then you are told in the next line exactly what it means,
“who does not lift his soul to what is false, who does not swear deceitfully.” “He will receive the blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of his salvation.”
So we bring the whole thing down to one simple, simple point: a man incapable of deceit for personal gain.
If I tell you a story for amusement, where you and I can laugh together, that is not deceit. But if I tell it for personal gain, say in politics, in government, in religion, or in business – anytime I plot and plan a little scheme to get the better of another for my own personal gain – then I am not pure in heart. So, he is looking for one who is pure in heart because no one but such a one can see God. No one can be brought into the presence of the Ancient of Days and be presented to him but the pure in heart. He may have no intellectual background or social background or financial background – nothing the world would recognize – but he is incapable of deceiving another for his own gain. That one has the heart of the Israelite.
At the moment it is observed by God, he brings him into his presence and you see God. When you see God you see that only reality, and you become what you see. In that very moment, like a seal upon wax, the impression is made and you bear the image of God. Not on this physical garment, but you bear it on your eternal garment which was waiting for that moment in time when the heart was pure gold.
You start with this homogeneous substance called the body. This simply contains all the minerals, all things. Then we are put through the furnaces of affliction – I speak of them as furnaces of experience. Every test in the world is given the individual by himself (but he does not know it) to do what is called – not the right thing, but the loving thing, where you could never deceive. And when you have been put through all these tests and you know, in spite of your own poverty or need, you would rather die than take advantage of another, then that heart becomes pure gold. Only it can receive the imprint of the King of kings.
How he finds such a person (and this is the mystery – he has been looking and looking) he finds him and he calls him David, after putting himself through all the furnaces of affliction. He extracts the pure gold that can take his imprint and that he calls “David.” “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart.” (Acts 13:22-24).
Here, for the first time, I have brought forth exactly what I want. “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart,” of which posterity God has brought forth a savior, Jesus, as he promised. The word “Jesse” actually means “I AM.” He is the father of David, so who is begetting that heart? I AM.
You put yourself, unknowingly on your present level, into every situation in the world, to test that gold. For here you are imbedded in this homogeneous substance containing all things, but you have to extract only pure gold, and that pure gold is David.
“I have found in David, a son of Jesse” (the son of I AM) “a man after my heart.” So I bring it out, and out of it now I make myself a pledge, and this is the pledge, as told us in 2 Samuel 7:12: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will be his father, and he shall be my son.”
Now the process begins. He has found him and from him he is going to bring forth his own likeness. He has found David, his only begotten son – pure gold – and now God begins the process of making what he has brought forth into his own image.
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
But you cannot make man until you first produce this pure metal, this pure gold. So God became imbedded in what is called a garment of flesh, and in it he moves through all the furnaces of experience until he can produce out of it the pure gold, and then from it – he now brings forth himself. He is going to make himself – and making himself, he is making us individually.
Now, it does not make sense, but listen carefully: In Isaiah 44:28, we are told: “What is said of Cyrus is said of David.” And the name only appears twice in the book – in the 44th and beginning of the 45th [chapters] of Isaiah. Cyrus is called “my shepherd,” and that is what David is called. “He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill my purpose.” David will do all of my will, so you see, the two are as one.
Now in a wonderful manuscript, which is used in the Apocrypha and also in the traditional books of our Bible, Cyrus is made to say (and we are supposed to have this manuscript, this parchment): “I am Cyrus, the king, the great king, the mighty king. I am the son of Cambeses, the great king. I am the grandson of Cyrus, the great king, exalted according to the beneficence of their hearts.” Here we find, Cyrus – Cambeses – Cyrus. I make the claim that man awakes, matures completely, when man becomes the father of his own father.
He is Cyrus, his father is Cambeses, his grandfather is Cyrus. So Cyrus awakes. He says: “I am Cyrus the king, the great king, the mighty king. I am the son of Cambeses, the great king. I am the grandson of Cyrus, the great king, exalted according to this love of their hearts.”
Now, here we come back – David seems to be something that I begot. I promised myself I am going to extract this gold, my very being:
“I will raise up out of your body” (out of your very body) “your son who will come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son.”
Now, we are told he buries this in the mind of man. The word “mind” and the word “heart” are the same in Hebrew. We are told in Ecclesiastes 3:11:
“God has put the world into the heart of man, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”
That word translated “heart” and the word translated “world” are now changed in the Modern Version of the Bible, and the word “heart” now becomes “mind” and the word “world” becomes “eternity.”
So God has put eternity into the mind of man so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. The same word translated “world” is now translated “eternity,” and the word translated “heart” in the King James Version is now translated “mind.” It is the identical thing.
What did he put into the mind? The heart, the whole personality of man. It is that gold. He had to first make him.
When man becomes incapable of deceit or duplicity, he has the gold. And the gold is in that man, and now that is placed in man by whom? The one who brought it into being. Who? Jesse. Jesse is producing David, and David is pure gold. “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart.” Now out of him I am going to actually extract my own being. I cannot extract it from anything but pure gold. Now he begins to make man in his image, after his own likeness. And it takes that gold to take the imprint of God Almighty, of Jehovah himself.
Everyone in the world will do it, because Jesse is buried in your own wonderful I Amness, and if you should drop dead this very second, it makes no difference. The play goes on and you will be put into situation after situation until finally you become incapable of deceit. What you do sexually is not his concern, unless it is to deceive someone for personal gain. You marry someone with all the outer appearances of love, when basically you really want to get with them in twenty-four hours for what they have. That is marrying for personal gain – that is deceit. If you marry a thousand or live without marriage to a thousand people, that has nothing to do with it. No matter how you are given to lust, you will get into heaven before the Pharisee. (Matthew 21:30)
In Matthew 21:28, the question is asked to lead up to it: I ask you a question, said he.
“A man said to his first son, ‘Go into the vineyard and work,’ and he said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he repented and went into the vineyard.
And he said to a second son, ‘Go into the vineyard and work,’ and that son said he would, but he did not. I ask you, who obeyed the will of his father?
And they said, ‘The first.’ I tell you; the tax collectors and the harlots will get into the Kingdom of Heaven before you.”
For you are like the second son. You say: “I will do it,” but you do not. The first one repented and said: “I will not,” but after repenting, he went. He changed his mind – he did it. So everyone in the world is brought into these unnumbered situations where they are faced with it, and though you starve, you cannot take advantage of another. You would rather be dispossessed of everything in the world than take advantage of another for personal gain or go through all the things in the world rather than seemingly dishonor anyone. You cannot do it.
When man comes to that point, he is the pure in heart. It has nothing to do with the moral code of the world. Don’t think of this in any way as moral perfection that is attained by an individual, and don’t think of it as the world would naturally think of it – as sexual purity. It hasn’t a thing to do with it. It has all to do with duplicity. Can you really be double-minded and say one thing as a promise when you intend another – which intention is to get personal gain at the expense of another, whether it be a party, an individual, a family, or a government?
So, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
And that pure in heart is that when the gold is actually there, being put through the furnaces of experience and finally when I arrive at the point, just say: “Let me die but I cannot take advantage of another for personal gain.” At that moment (and I am speaking from experience), you are taken into the presence of the Most High.
For my experience I go back to the days of the deep depression. I mean, I did not know where to find a nickel. There is a lady in the audience tonight who – along with my wife – came to my very first meeting, and she knows the truth with which I speak. I would walk from my little place in the village in the hope of finding a friend fifty blocks away. I could not ride the subway; I did not have the nickel. I would walk these fifty blocks in the hope of finding a friend who would give me a quarter, in the hope that eventually I could pay it back.
I had four mouths to feed: my dancing partner and her parents. Could I find a quarter, I would buy some vegetables and a little olive oil and then walk back the fifty blocks. And many a day I could not find a friend who had a quarter. I would pass the places where these things were displayed and I could not take one piece of lettuce. I could not take anything from these trays all exposed. I would go back hungry and tell them of my experience. But I could not lift a thing from anyone; it was theirs, not mine.
I know exactly how this thing works, and while I was in that state – when I was incapable of stealing and I could not deceive for personal gain – one night I was taken in the spirit right into the presence of the Ancient of Days. And he asked the eternal question:
“What is the greatest thing in the world?” and I was, by him, prompted what to say, which I ought to say:
“Don’t be anxious how or what you are to answer, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 12:12)
And so in that moment what I ought to say I said, that “the greatest thing in the world is Love.” You could not steal from one you love. If you ask them for it and they had reasons for not giving it, you could not condemn them for their reason or their action, or reaction. You accept it. So when you are brought into that state it is because the heart is guileless. And so he finds an Israelite –
“Behold. An Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile.” No guile whatsoever. He is guileless and then he can see the face of God. We are told in the same book, the 14th chapter: “When you see me, you see the Father.” He saw the father because he was without guile and his face was unveiled.
Now we are told in 2 Corinthians 3 – so take heart, not one will fail:
“We all, with unveiled face, beholding the [glory of the] Lord, will be changed” –
or rather, it is said in the present active tense:
“into His likeness from one degree of glory to another, by the Spirit.”
We are actually being changed, by beholding the face, from one glory to another glory. It is actually the present active tense, “being changed” from one glory to another. We all, unveiled, beholding the Lord, are being changed into his image from one glory to another glory.
So I tell you: don’t despair. If today you think it is easier to get away with it than to face society and you get away with it, do it. But tomorrow you will be faced with a similar situation, whether in this world of ours or another, for there are worlds within worlds. But you will not come out of the furnaces until the heart is pure gold. No one in the world gets away with anything -but no one. We are told in the 6th Beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Believe it. Nothing but the unalloyed gold can come out.
I love all the Beatitudes, but I must confess this one excites me. There are eight, if you read them one way, or you read them another way, nine, and a maximum of ten. Some are inclined to read it as ten, as it gives them a feeling of a new Torah, a new Ten Commandments. It is stretching it a bit, but you can. But there are definitely eight. But it is a new code, a new law where causation becomes mental and not physical.
You are told: “You have heard it said, ‘thou shalt not kill’ but I say unto you… Thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you, any man who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act in his heart.”
The whole thing is raised from the physical level of the Pharisee – where he does not do it physically but he does it mentally – and it is raised to the level of the mind, where if you do it mentally you have done it. To plot and plan to take advantage of another and you restrain the impulse – you think of the consequences to yourself, your friends and family, and because you could not stand the embarrassment if you were caught, then you restrain the impulse to do it.
That was not good enough. You should not have entertained the thought. To entertain the thought is to perform the act, with the new code.
Until you cannot even entertain the thought – if I contemplate an act and it seems pleasant, I might be inclined to do it if I could get away with it. But if I contemplate the act, along with the consequences to myself and others, and restrain the impulse if the act is to take advantage of another for personal gain, I am told that is not good enough.
Maybe you have had the experience and you would rather die than steal. If you have not had it, may I tell you: you will not avoid it. Don’t think that man is judged today because of his fabulous wealth.
Sometimes I think that God starts on his play at the top of the ladder. All the honors given to the world, and they receive all the mortal honors – things that vanish – and how they love them. And then the play unfolds because they are not strong enough as yet to withstand the temptations if they are up against the pressure of things and if they have more than their own mouth to feed. When there are others that you love and they depend upon you to find that quarter, and you will not steal and come back without it, and you all have to amuse yourselves with fun, just simply play the game until that moment in time when pure gold comes out – and he found David.
Having found David of pure gold, he sees David in you, and out of you he brings himself. Who was the being he is bringing out of Jesse? Who is Jesse? He is the father of David. He is pulling Jesse out of his own being, and Jesse is “I AM.” Who is the one he placed in the mind in the beginning? In the beginning was when the gold became pure unalloyed gold.
He leaves it in the mind of man and then he pulls out his own image and the image is Jesse, for his name is “I AM” and Jesse’s name is “I AM” and Jesse is the father David, so he pulls himself out of himself. And he sets up in himself a son called David – pure gold – “A man after my own heart.”
This is the mystery. It is not the easiest thing to reveal. May I tell you: it is the most glorious thing when you contemplate it. Here God himself – and his name is “I AM” – decides to take his own being and bring forth himself, the image of himself. He sinks himself in this we call “the tent.”
In the Bible it is called a tent of flesh and blood – all the passions, this complete state that contains everything, all the metals, all the fires of the world. He cannot use them. He has to extract them from the pure gold and that pure gold is David. He cannot start his work until he brings David out. He brings David out, only David.
“I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all of my will; and I will bring forth from him a savior, Jesus, as I promised.”
So he starts the work of bringing him forth. And he brings forward himself, the father of David. He first creates David (Psalm 2:7) “Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.” Out of this I am going to bring that which is my own being, and he brings his own being out, who is the father of the son, and that father is Jesse. He is the father of David, and Jesse is “I AM.”
All of a sudden this begins to unfold within you, but it will not start until you reach that point where the pure gold is producing in you – through all the fires of experience, where you are guileless.
Let no one tell you that your excessive energies expressed in anything in this world are wrong. They are not wrong, unless expressed falsely. Let me quote:
“Who will ascend the hill of the Lord, and who will stand in his Holy Place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart and does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”
Any deceitful act on your part – and there are still more fires you must pass through and experiences you will pass through, until you are faced with everything, with all the world against you. You cannot violate your code of guilelessness.
You find when you cannot raise a finger to take anything, then that heart is the heart he is looking for. Now he starts to mold it in his own image – as in the 1st [chapter] of Hebrews – and it takes on the imprint of God himself.
So don’t be concerned – it will work. Because the one who does it is doing it in you – your wonderful I Amness. That is the great Elohim who sank himself in you and began the process of extracting pure gold that he may work on it – this gold – to mold his image upon it. And that is you. So, you believe it. Read the 24th Psalm. It is a short one, but what a beauty.
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”
It tells who you are. For right now you are going to come into his presence if you are one who cannot lift up your soul to that which is false. And he tells you who he is: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”
You will find it one day. The whole vast world is yours. You are heir to it. Then if you can fit that bill where you can rise into the presence of the Lord, it is because you do not swear deceitfully, regardless of the temptation.
Then you are brought, and when you take off this little garment, after that moment in time you will take it off for the last time. Then you will read in that wonderful 5th chapter of 2 Corinthians, what is waiting for you – what body of glory is waiting for you. And so you will fit it. It is all perfect.
But don’t despair and don’t be concerned; you will not fail. No one in the world will fail. If today we seem to be on different levels, forget it. We will all pass through similar levels, moving to the time we will be fitted to come into the presence of the Holy of Holies.
“Who will stand in His Holy Place?” You will. When you stand there you will see him and you will be just like him. You will take the imprint of the being you behold. And at this moment you become one with the being you behold. When you put on the veil once more and return to this world, no one sees it. They see the being they have always known. You are veiled, as all are veiled. But when it is taken off after the experience, it is taken off for the last time.
So when we are asked the question, after the statement is made that –
“the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
The son of man is waiting for just such unalloyed gold in the heart of man, because literally a nest means: “this moving tabernacle,” this thing called the flesh. He is waiting for it to be just right, and when it is right – when he least expects it – he is taken to the Presence, where he receives the imprint, like a seal of wax, and he returns once more veiled and no one knows him. He knows what he saw and he knows what he became at that moment. He was like molten gold, but no one knows him because he is the being, he was prior to that.
So I tell you: don’t seek the opportunity, because he in you is working it out for you. He will take you through all the experiences necessary to reduce you to pure gold, and the chances are the majority of you have reached that point. But don’t test yourself. No, life does that. All this is moving, and the day will come you will have these experiences, and when you can meet them and it does not matter whether you die or not (but you cannot be double- minded about it) then it is done, and he sees in you the David he has been looking for.
He is always looking for David. “I have found David and he cried unto me, ‘Thou art my father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’” (Psalm 89) All these things are unbelievably true. Suddenly you are actually having an experience that was written 4,000 years ago. These words were written and put on parchment thousands of years ago, and you thought they were relating to some little incident of 4,000 years ago.
But they were telling you God’s eternal story, and in everyone it happens, and suddenly you find “I AM.” Where was he all along? He was in you after he had made his David. Now he finds him in the one in whom he made him. As told, you in Ecclesiastes 3:11, he hides it right into the mind of that man, and he so does it, that man cannot find out what he did from the beginning to the end, until that moment in time when he finds him, and it is David. And who is he? Your son. And if your son is his only begotten son, who are you? Jesse. And who is Jesse? “I AM.” That is the name of God.
Now let us go into the silence.
Audience Questions
QUESTION: Do we have a responsibility towards purification of the heart – are we responsible in any way towards purification of our heart?
Neville: The name of the being who is doing it is “I AM.” I ask you a question now: tell me your name? You would first respond: “I AM,” before you would give the name, don’t you? That is the being that is doing it. He is buried in you and has gone through unnumbered ages purifying that homogeneous substance, separating it so he could bring out the unalloyed gold. So all the mixtures cause one to act in unnumbered ways that they do.
So, the answer to your question, in a sense, is the being who is doing it, you named before you gave me your earthly name that you, now at the moment, bear. Is that clear? Therefore, I say we will never in eternity fly from that homogeneous substance into which he sank himself when he decided to make man in his own image. But he has to make him, first of all, pure gold. I tell you; it is really pure gold – when you see it one day after the temple has been torn from top to bottom (as you are told in the Book of Hebrews). He identifies the spiritual body with the curtain of the temple. The curtain was torn from top to bottom and then he entered into the Holy of Holies forever. No intermediary there.
When it is torn you see molten gold, moving liquid gold, and you know this is yourself. And you will say, with Blake: “I behold the Visions of my deadly Sleep of Six Thousand Years Dazzling around thy skirts like a Serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is my Self, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” Then suddenly you will say: ‘I know it is myself, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” At that very moment, the being who created you, you are he.’ He made you into his own being and succeeded in giving you himself. So you are looking for pure gold. And then, as that molten gold, up you go right like a serpent to fulfill the statement of John 3:
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.” And, suddenly, and you are really molten gold then, and up you go. The incorruptible element, which will not corrode in all eternity – gold. The pure gold is incorruptible, and this is only the symbol of the true spiritual gold which you are. Therefore, Paul was right when he said the body you will wear is imperishable – incorruptible, immortal. But you first have to get that metal out of this very alloyed state into the unalloyed state. And when you see it, may I tell you: you will know at that moment you have always known it.
So, to come back to your question: it is the being that is in you, your own I Amness, that is doing it. Having heard it, believe it. The question is asked: “What must I do to do the will of him who sent me? What must I do to do the works of him that is called God?
Believe in him whom he has sent.” Believe it. It is true. I am speaking from experience. None of this is theory. All I have told you this night I have experienced it. And, so, the great I Amness sunk in us is God, the Elohim. Genesis 1:26:
“Let us make man (us is plural – and the word “Elohim” is always plural, like the word “gods”) in our image, after our likeness.”
Well then, he sinks himself in us and forgets who he is, and the journey begins and he is burning himself, and finally he reaches the point – and bear in mind, don’t forget what I told you tonight, it has nothing to do with the sex angle. What you do in your life sexually, I do not know or care, and God doesn’t – maybe some moral angle, who cares? But that is not God, and so it is not that. That is not your judge. It is not any moral purity, as the world understands that word. If you promise one, intending when you promised not to keep it but to fulfill another state for personal gain, that is what I am getting at.
The 6th Beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they, only they, shall see God.” And that purity hasn’t a thing to do with what the world will tell you. It is all based on guilelessness, for he is the true Israelite. “Behold. An Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile.” And that is called Nathaniel, which means “gift of God.” Pure gold. And “Who will ascend the hill of the Lord and who will stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” You know about the clean hands and the pure heart now: to murder is better than the other, to murder for personal gain is full of guile.
Moses murdered the Egyptian who killed the Hebrew boy, and yet he saw God. For even murder – in the heat of passion when it is someone you love, in a moment of violence – that, in the eyes of God, is not comparable to deceiving your neighbor. If you murdered for personal gain, as some do, as many do, and you go into battle – and those who plotted and planned the destruction of millions for their personal gain and their individual governments – but in the heat of battle, as we are told, Moses murdered the Egyptian when he had killed the Hebrew boy, and yet Moses saw the face of God.
David was chosen, yet he slew Goliath. So, deceit is that one little bit of alloy left among the gold that must be burned away before it becomes unalloyed gold. This seems to be the most difficult thing when man is under pressure to eat, to pay rent, to do these things, that he would take from another for personal gain. That is what is called “guile” in the Bible. That person cannot see God. They cannot see God and they cannot receive the impression of God. He cannot make you into his image. When you are brought into his presence, at that very moment it is like a seal upon wax and you are one with him – you take on the whole impression of God. Forever is your immortal body, your indestructible body. You cannot be brought into his presence until you are pure gold in His eyes – the one he calls David.
You dwell upon it and upon the answer to the lady’s question: Who is doing it? I AM doing it. He dwells in you.
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