#111: The Triune God

The Triune God

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You have been taught that creation is a process, that desire must be followed by effort, that assumption must be followed by waiting, and that expression belongs to some future day when conditions permit. But tonight you are shown that there is no process, no waiting, and no future day in the creative act itself. There is only one movement, and this movement is the triune God in action. Awareness, assumption, and expression are not three separate steps taken in time; they are three aspects of one indivisible creative movement taking place now in you.

The Bible opens with the statement, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The churches have named this plurality the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet they have looked for these three outside of man and have therefore remained in darkness concerning the mystery. You who have discovered that your awareness of being is God can now see the trinity as it truly is: three conditioned aspects of the unconditioned awareness that you are. The Father is your awareness of being before you are aware of being anything in particular. The Son is the assumption you make, the state you feel yourself to be. The Holy Spirit is the expression of that assumption in the only world you will ever know—your world.

These three are not persons. They are the three ways in which the one creative power moves. Your awareness of being is the Father, the pressing, conceiving aspect. When this awareness assumes a state—when it feels itself to be the rich man, the free man, the known man, the healed man—that feeling is the Son, the impression made, the child conceived. And the inevitable out-picturing of that feeling in your experience is the Holy Spirit, the expression, the son bearing witness of his father. Because these three are one movement, the moment the assumption is established in consciousness the expression has already begun. There is no gap between them save the gap your doubt creates.

You who feel stuck in any area of your life have been living as though these three were separate. You have been aware of your desire, you have perhaps tried to assume the feeling of its fulfillment, yet you have looked upon the world as something that must still be changed by time or by another or by some effort not yet made. In that separation you have denied the unity and have therefore delayed the expression. But when you see that awareness, assumption, and expression are one, you cease from all anxious striving. You make your assumption, and you know that the expression is already moving, for consciousness is the only reality and your world is your consciousness out-pictured. What you feel yourself to be, you have already expressed in the place where all expression begins.

Consider the nature of this movement. Before you are conscious of being rich or poor, you are conscious of being. This pure awareness, this I AM, is the Father. It is unconditioned, changeless, the source. When you decide what you would like to express or possess and then close your eyes and take your attention away from all that denies it, you are assuming the receptive attitude. This receptive attitude is the womb, the Mother aspect of the same awareness. Into this receptive state you impress the claim: “I am now that which I desire to be.” That claim, that feeling, that assumption is the Son. It is the impression made upon the receptive attitude, and it is immaculately conceived, without the aid of any man, for it is conceived by the Father within you.

As you continue in this feeling, you will notice a quiet thrill, a quickening, a sense that something has been released within you. This thrill is the sign that the impression has been made, that the Father has impregnated the receptive state with the Son. In that moment the three are one. Awareness has assumed, the assumption stands as the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the expression—has already moved to bear witness. You open your eyes and return to your daily affairs, yet you return as a pregnant being. You carry within you the child that must be born. All that remains is for you to walk in secrecy and in joy through the necessary interval of time, knowing that doubt alone can disturb the seed.

Doubt arises only when you forget the unity. You assume the new state, yet you continue to look upon your present world as the only reality and upon your assumption as something that has not yet expressed itself. In that looking you separate the Son from the Holy Spirit, and the child is threatened with miscarriage. But when you remember that assumption and expression are one, you do not look back. You do not question the how. You do not wonder when. You rest in the knowledge that the movement is complete. The world you see is the likeness and image of your former assumptions; the world you are now assuming is already taking form as the new likeness and image. There is no power that can prevent this, for there is nothing in the universe to oppose the movement of your own consciousness.

This is why the statement is made that you shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass. The decree is the assumption. The coming to pass is the expression. When you know that these two are one with the awareness that decrees, you no longer decree in hope; you decree in knowledge. You assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and you know that the wish is already fulfilled in the only place where fulfillment can be—in consciousness. The outer world must follow, for it has no choice but to bear the image of that which you are now conscious of being.

You who have felt powerless before conditions can now see that power is not something you must acquire; it is something you already are. The triune God is not a distant deity to whom you pray; the triune God is the very movement of your awareness assuming a state and expressing that state without help and without delay. When you assume that you are now free, the assumption itself is the expression of freedom in consciousness, and the Holy Spirit moves to make that freedom visible. When you assume that you are now known and loved, the assumption is the Son, and the world must rearrange itself to bear witness. You are not asking an external god to do something for you; you are performing the only creative act there is—the act in which awareness, assumption, and expression are revealed as one.

The senses will bear witness in their own time, but they are never the cause. They are the effect. They can only reflect what you are in consciousness. Therefore you do not judge after the appearance of being. You do not wait for the world to change before you assume the new state. You assume the new state, and you know that the world is already changing because it can do nothing else. This is the faith that moves mountains—not a faith that hopes, but a faith that knows the unity of the creative movement. The mountain is the seemingly immovable condition; the faith is the assumption that the condition is already dissolved in consciousness; the removal is the inevitable expression of that assumption.

As you live with this knowledge, you will find a quiet change taking place within you. The anxiety that once accompanied desire begins to fade, for you no longer desire something that is absent; you assume the presence of the thing and rest in the knowledge that assumption and presence are one. The effort that once seemed necessary to bring about results is seen to be unnecessary, for the results are already moving the moment the assumption is made. You walk through your days no longer as one who is trying to create a new world but as one who has already created it in consciousness and is now watching it appear. This is not passivity; it is the profound activity of one who knows that the triune God is at work and needs no assistance from the outer man.

The interval between the assumption and its visible expression is not a time of waiting but a time of gestation. It is the time in which you remain faithful to the assumption you have made, refusing to be swayed by appearances that still echo the old state. These appearances have no power save the power you give them by your attention. When you withdraw your attention from them and rest in the new assumption, they fade, and the new state hardens into fact. You do not fight the old; you simply assume the new, and in that assumption the old loses its substance because you have ceased to feed it with your consciousness.

This is the mystery hidden in the words “Let us make man in our image.” The “us” is the triune movement of your own being. You, the awareness, assume a state; that assumption is the Son; and the world, which is the Holy Spirit, expresses the nature of the Son. You are the trinity meeting in a spiritual conclave, and the world you experience is the image and likeness of the state you have assumed. There is no other creator. There is no other power. There is only this one movement, and you are it.

Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, decide what it is you would most like to express or possess. Close your eyes and assume the receptive attitude. Listen as though the very space around you were telling you that you are now that which you desire to be. Then impress the claim upon yourself until the feeling becomes natural. Feel the joy of it. Let the thrill of being it course through you. And in that moment know that the three are one. Awareness has assumed its rightful state, the assumption stands as the Son, and the expression is already assured. You need not look for signs. You need not question the manner of its coming. You need only to walk in the knowledge that the movement is complete.

When you rise in the morning, carry this knowledge with you. If the old state reappears in thought or in circumstance, do not argue with it. Simply remember that you have assumed the new, and that the new is already expressing itself. The appearance of the old is but the shadow of a former assumption, and it will dissolve as you persist in the new. You are not two beings; you are not a man trying to become something else. You are the triune God in action—the awareness that assumes, the assumption itself, and the expression of that assumption. And because you are these three in one, your world must conform to the image of that which you are now conscious of being.

This knowledge sets you free from the sense of personal impotence. You are not impotent; you are the creative power itself moving as awareness, assumption, and expression. You are not dependent upon time or upon another; the movement is instantaneous in consciousness, and the visible proof must follow. You are not a victim of conditions; conditions are the expression of your former assumptions, and they change as you change your assumption. All that is required of you is that you see the unity where before you saw separation, and that you remain faithful to the assumption you have made.

The world will call this teaching mystical, yet it is the most practical truth you will ever know. It requires no money, no influence, no special talent. It requires only that you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and know that in this assumption the triune God has moved. The rest is not your concern. The expression belongs to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit never fails to bear witness of the Son.

You are the triune God. Your awareness is the Father. Your assumption is the Son. Your world is the Holy Spirit bearing witness. And these three are one creative movement, forever expressing the image and likeness of that which you are conscious of being.