The Master Is Here: Mary and Martha

"And having said this, she went away and said secretly to her sister Mary, ‘The Master is here and has sent for you.’"

— John 11:28

The story of Mary and Martha in John 11 is often read as a touching tale of grief and resurrection. But through the teachings of Neville Goddard, it becomes something far more intimate—an allegory of inner transformation, a movement of consciousness from mourning to manifestation.

In Neville’s interpretation, every character in the Bible is a state of being, a quality of mind, or a faculty of consciousness. And here, Martha and Mary stand as two sisters within you—the outer and inner self, the active and the receptive, the factual and the faithful.

Martha: The Outer Mind that Labours

Martha represents the outer consciousness—the part of you caught up in appearances, responsibilities, and effort. She greets Jesus first, echoing the tendency of the mind to look for solutions outside itself. But something shifts in her, and she goes inward, to her sister Mary, with a quiet message:

“The Master is here and has sent for you.”

This isn’t merely an interaction between two women. It is the moment when your outer awareness concedes to the inner truth. The outer self, having exhausted its efforts, turns inward and whispers to feeling: “Come. The I AM is calling you.”

Mary: The Inner Self that Responds

Mary hears and rises quickly. This is the swift reorientation of your inner self—the moment when feeling stirs, when stillness responds, when the heart comes alive to the presence of the I AM. Jesus had not yet entered the village. He was still in the place where Martha had met Him—not yet integrated into the old state of mind, but waiting on the edge, as potential.

The Jews who follow Mary—those who had been consoling her—represent your old belief systems, the well-meaning but lifeless thoughts that keep you mourning at the tomb of what “used to be.” They think she is going to grieve. But Mary moves not to mourn, but to meet resurrection.

And when she finds Him, she falls at His feet.

Surrendering to the I AM

“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died,” she says.

This is the cry of the soul that realises too late—or so it thinks—that it had forgotten its own creative power. But even in this lament, there is belief: that death could not exist in the presence of true awareness. If I had been consciously identified with I AM—if I had truly assumed the feeling of the wish fulfilled—then Lazarus (the desire) would not have died.

Here is the drama: Imagination stands present, waiting. The outer mind has stepped aside. The inner self rises. Feeling surrenders. And all of it leads to the precipice of resurrection.

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In Neville’s world, Mary is not a woman in history. She is your ability to feel, to surrender to the unseen reality, to respond to the call of imagination. This moment between Martha and Mary, this secret message, is the inner turning point in every act of conscious creation.

When the Master is present—and He always is—the inner self must rise and come forth. That is the beginning of resurrection.