The Beatitudes, spoken by Jesus at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12), are often read as gentle moral encouragements or promises of reward for good behaviour. But Neville Goddard approached them as psychological signposts—each one marking a shift in the state of consciousness, leading the individual inward to the discovery of their own I AM.
To Neville, these are not rules to follow in the hope of future reward. They are inner conditions—states you pass through when you begin to take your imagination seriously as the creative power of God.
Notice that each bearitude begins with the word "happy".
The First Step: Recognising the Inner Lack
Happy are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Matthew 5:3
This is the beginning of awakening. “Poor in spirit” doesn’t mean lacking virtue—it means the recognition that nothing external can truly satisfy. It is the moment you stop depending on the world and begin to seek the source within. Neville would say this is when you realise you are not your circumstances—and that consciousness is the only reality.
Letting Go of What Was
Happy are those who are sad: for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4
Mourning here is not just grief—it’s the inner sorrow that comes when the old self begins to die. When you awaken to the power within, you begin to mourn the illusions you once lived by. You let go of identity built on fear, shame, or limitation. And as you do, you are comforted by the truth of who you are: I AM.
Power Without Force
Happy are the gentle: for the earth will be their heritage.
Matthew 5:5
Meekness, far from weakness, is the ability to restrain the reactive mind. Neville often described the meek as those who can guide the subconscious by assumption. They do not fight the world—they assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, knowing the world will mirror it. The earth they inherit is not literal land, but the outer world transformed by inner conviction.
What Do You Truly Long For?
Happy are those whose heart's desire is for righteousness: for they will have their desire.
Matthew 5:6
This hunger is the intense longing to live in alignment with the truth—to be done with secondhand beliefs, and to experience life as the outpicturing of imagination. Righteousness here is not moralism, but right perception—a clear, focused inner state. Neville would call this living from the end, and promises that once the desire is fully felt, its fulfilment is guaranteed.
Revision is Mercy in Action
Happy are those who have mercy: for they will be given mercy.
Matthew 5:7
To show mercy, in Neville’s psychology, is to revise. To look at others not as fixed beings, but as reflections of states—and to change the picture lovingly in imagination. As you do, you free yourself from judgement and live in a state where you continually reap what you’ve lovingly sown. Mercy is self-directed, because everyone is yourself pushed out.
The Undivided Heart Sees Clearly
Happy are the clean in heart: for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8
To be pure in heart is to have a single, undivided focus. No cross-purposes. No split between desire and belief. When the heart is pure, you no longer look outside for God—you see Him clearly as your own I AM-ness, your imagination. “To see God” is not a mystical event. It is the clear recognition that you are the operant power.
Harmony Between the Seen and the Unseen
Happy are the peacemakers: for they will be named sons of God.
Matthew 5:9
Peacemakers are those who resolve the conflict between the ideal and the apparent. They bring harmony between the seen and the unseen by holding to the assumption until it hardens into fact. These are the “children of God” because they understand the principle: you become what you assume. They are no longer at war with the world—they command it.
The Cost of Inner Conviction
Happy are those who are attacked on account of righteousness: for the kingdom of heaven will be theirs.
Matthew 5:10
When you begin to live by inner conviction, the old state of mind will rise up in protest. Neville said that the former self cannot comprehend the one who no longer reacts, no longer explains, but simply assumes and receives. The new assumption feels foreign to the patterns of the past—and so it is mocked, questioned, and resisted within. Yet those who remain faithful to the state of fulfilment, even in the face of this inner rejection, inherit the kingdom: they dwell in the new identity, not the old.
A Final Beatitude: The Hidden Blessing
To read the Beatitudes as psychological states rather than moral instructions is to reclaim them as a map—a living progression through the awakening of the divine imagination.
You don’t earn these blessings by being “good.”
You pass through them as you learn to live from within.
As Neville once said:
“You do not change anything by fighting the existing reality. To change anything, you go within and assume the state desired. Persist, and the outer must conform.”
And that is the secret beatitude behind them all.
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