Forgiveness: Letting Go of the Past to Free the Creative Self

A Contrast Between Traditional Views and Neville Goddard’s Revelation

In many traditional teachings, forgiveness is viewed as a moral duty — something you do because it’s “the right thing,” often for the sake of peace, virtue, or divine approval. It is typically framed in interpersonal terms: you were wronged, and you are expected to let it go, perhaps even reconcile. Forgiveness in this view is an act of mercy, an emotional release granted to another person.

But Neville Goddard approached forgiveness from a radically different angle.

To Neville, forgiveness is not about someone else — it is about you and your state of consciousness. It is not about condoning behaviour, nor about forgetting the past — it is about no longer reacting from it. In his words:

“Forgiveness is the complete forgetting of the past. When you forgive, you return to the state before the reaction.”

Forgiveness, in Neville’s teaching, is not sentimental. It is practical. It is the clearing out of the subconscious to make way for a new assumption. It is the inner re-identification that says: “I no longer see myself as the victim of this. I imagine differently now.”

If you cling to old grievances, you are still identifying with the “old man” — the former state of being shaped by reaction, hurt, or limitation. Neville taught that every state is a dwelling place, a psychological location. To forgive is to put off the old man and put on the new — to withdraw your emotional investment from a former identity and assume the one aligned with your desire.

This idea is reflected throughout Scripture:

• “Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires… to be made new in the attitude of your minds.” (Ephesians 4:22–23)

• “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

• “You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God… Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.” (Colossians 3:3,5)

Each of these verses echoes Neville’s central theme: you are always becoming what you assume to be true of yourself. But to assume the new, you must release the old. That is true forgiveness — not focused outwardly, but inwardly. Not personal sentiment, but psychological realignment.

This is why in Mark 11:25, Jesus says: “And when you stand praying, forgive.” Because you cannot move into a new state of being while dragging the emotional weight of the old one.

Traditional forgiveness says: “They don’t deserve my anger anymore.”
Neville’s forgiveness says: “I don’t identify with that version of myself anymore.”

One is moral; the other is transformational.