Lent Experiment 2023: Feb. 22 through April 6

Welcome to the LENT EXPERIMENT 2023 beautiful beings,

Thank you so much for playing.

One might consider this a consciousness makeover, while Neville would probably refer to it as us rearranging our minds.

I wish...

Was wondering 'assuming' all Neville Goddard teaches in the Power of Awareness is TRUE, on some level if you are participating in this Lent Experiment you assumed this or ASKED for it (ASK and it is GIVEN is still one of the preeminent Bible verses). Also, technically every moment of now we are asking/assuming whether intentionally, unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously. In other words, I know I have had moments where even if I may not have in exact words been like, "I wish I had more money" for instance.

One of the first 'spirituality' (for lack of a better word at the moment) books I read was way back, Deepak Chopra's Seven Spiritual Secrets of Success (nice alliteration). For whatever reason, all these years later, I remember he wrote, 'inherent in the desire is the mechanics for its fulfilment'. In other words, like the acorn it has all the intelligence in the seed to become a mighty oak.

So, in a similar way that I was thinking I was smarter by rewriting Neville's texts using 'with' instead of 'in', which just shows my ignorance of Imagination being what it is...I somewhat thought Neville's use of the word 'wish' was maybe a bit storybook. And yet...

Neville mentions it all starts with a desire. And many times we speak our desires by invoking, "I wish" often with the consciousness 'wouldn't it be nice, but...'

Well, again, according to Neville and his lectures more than simply his teachings from the Power of Awareness, God/consciousness will use whatever/whoever to assist you with actualizing/manifesting your heart's desires...your wishes. 

So...please note, as this GREAT BIG billionX GIG is basically an experiment for me, Lori Bjork, to have personal experience with putting Neville's teachings into application, on Day 35 of 44 of the GREAT LENT EXPERIMENT 2023 I was reminded that 'feeling' is not simply emotion. Feeling in imagination, where you are about 'feeling' something REAL, is 

TOUCH

In imagination a connection...my consciousness MUST TOUCH the consciousness of what I 'wish' to be and/or 'wish' to have.

In the Bible, they refer to ONLY four senses. They combine touch and taste because both require touch; whereas seeing, hearing and smelling do not. 

And also, if it is a contribution to anyone looking to do their own 44 day lent experiment (it does not have to coincide with the actual lent period, and can simply be 44 days of giving up all of some state of consciousness to move to another, more desired state of consciousness...to cross over and then resurrect), I recalled with this a different Neville lecture. Because ALL IS GOD, in alignment with the Law of ONE, that to have someone, even someone you seemingly do not know assist you with the manifestation of a wish fulfilled, is tantamount to having one of your fingers on one hand scratch the back of the other hand where there is an itch.

Everything is all part of the same BODY: GOD. 

In ways we may not actually 'know' we can also be 'scratching' another's itch simply by being who and where we are in any given moment.

Thus, it is 

I AM GOING TO ASSUME

"By creating an IDEAL in your mind, you can IDENTIFY yourself with it until you become ONE and the same with the IDEAL, thereby transforming yourself into it." --Neville Goddard

BIG PICTURE: However GREAT you imagine yourself to be in this moment, you are probably at least a million times greater in all ways. 

If, when Lent is finished, we have been able to imagine ourselves as at least 100 times greater...

Oh, BABY!

As 'doers of the work' which Neville would call this 'the work', it is a definite exercise in the true meaning of LENT in which we are called to GIVE UP as much of who we think we are (body, being, life)...as much of our NOT GREAT as possible in the moment we become aware... 

and then to immediately affirm our greatness. 

I created a visual image that makes this basically a game of either being in the consciousness of NOT GREAT or  being in the consciousness of GREAT.

With the goal to be in the consciousness of GREAT in way, way, way more moments of NOW than we have been so far in our lives. 

And pretty much it is an unapologetic, unreasonable (for no reason) GREAT because the TRUTH of Who We Are is inherently great. The TRUTH of WHO WE ARE is greater than the greatest we will ever imagine.

However bright your coal of greatness is you can generate some more heat in your GREATNESS coal. 

Why? 

Technically, you are as GREAT as the greatest being EVER. There is no being greater than you; and you are not greater than another who you may have judged for whatever reason as less than you.

As Neville taught, God has JUSTIFIED each and every one of us...meaning whatever sin, whatever bad, whatever reason we think we may have why we can't be great...

God has JUSTIFIED us, meaning: divine acquittal. 

TOTAL and 100% forgiveness. 

If God has already forgiven us, what if NOW is a great time to forgive ourselves too?

ATTITUDE OF GREATITUDE: Grateful for being GREATER in ALL WAYS in the GREAT STATE of GREAT. Multiple times in the Power of Awareness Neville states that whatever we assume is already a FACT. We become aware of a new, more desirable idea we may not have entertained before. 

Who we actually are is AWARENESS. 

We can be anything, out of all possibilities. Whoever we think we are now was once a possibility and already existed in the realm of all possibilities; just as what we imagine we would desire to be already exists. And is simply located in consciousness for our choosing of it. We make all sorts of assumptions (suppose without any evidence) and presumptions (suppose based on probability) about what is possible for us. That is the Power of Awareness...the seeming magic Neville shares...the new idea you may not have entertained previously...we have the seeming super power to assume (cause) any virtue and the ability to have it be an effect in our reality/world. 

In other words, this 100X GREATER YOU already exists in the realm of consciousness. 

• You aren't creating it. 
• You are assuming it. 
• You are choosing it. 
• You don't have to FORCE it into being. 

You simply surrender/give up yourself to your new assumption with such AWARENESS of ITS REALITY that you begin to live the life of the new assumption and no longer your own life as it was prior to the assumption/choice.  

How great is that? How grateful can we be that we have the super power to actualize more of our greatness simply by being a 'doer of this work'?

Few things:

1. God's will for us:  what does Dr. Joseph Murphy have to say about what the will of God really means?

'it's a tragic error on the part of many people throughout the world to assume that the will of God for them might be something unpleasant, such as sickness, misfortune or even death

the will of God is the nature of God and

God is life

and life can't wish death

that's absurd

a complete contradiction

how could life die

how could God die

God has no beginning or end 

You are told it's done unto you as you believe and to believe is to live in the state of being

to be alive to something... to accept something is true. 

according to your faith is it done unto you

not faith in a creed or dogma but faith in the creative laws of your own mind.

If you say the will of God is that you suffer, then that is your prayer. And of course you suffer accordingly, because you are giving the wrong instructions to your subconscious mind.

If you believe that you must suffer according to your belief it is done unto you 

Yet how could spirit suffer? God is spirit, the only presence and power, absolute bliss, absolute harmony. There is nothing to oppose it, challenge it or it vitiate it. It is the only presence in power. It can't fight itself.

The trouble is that the will of the infinite for you is something grander and greater than you could possibly conceive of.

The real truth is that the will of the infinite for you and for everyone is 

perfect health, harmony, peace, true expression, wider and more beautiful self-expression, grander experience, greater prosperity, and marvelous opportunities for service to your fellow man.

2. Neville Nugget #99:  You ALWAYS are greater in ALL WAYS than any concept you will ever have of you. 

• I AM ALWAYS GREATER in ALL WAYS than any concept I ever have of me.
• You are ALWAYS GREATER in ALL WAYS than any concept I may have of you.
• I AM ALWAYS GREATER in ALL WAYS than any concept you may have of me.

3. Lent 2023 is 44 days: Feb. 22 to April 6, the day before Good Friday

4. Surrender Self - through the MASTERY of your ASSUMPTIONS, you are in TRUTH enabled to MASTER your life. It is thus that the Ladder of Life is ascended: thus, the IDEAL is realized. The clue to the real purpose of life is to surrender yourself to your IDEAL with such AWARENESS of ITS REALITY that you begin to live the life of the IDEAL and no longer your own life as it was prior to this surrender. Each assumption has its corresponding world. If you are truly observant, you notice the power of your assumptions to change circumstances which appear wholly immutable (unable to be changed). (Chpt. XVII Power of Awareness)

Thinking from the end - this is the third step in the assumption of the wish already fulfilled. Thinking from the end with the feeling of accomplishment. The secret of thinking from the end is to enjoy being it. The moment you make it pleasurable and imagine that you are it, you being thinking from the end. (Chpt. XIX Power of Awareness)

Trees of Righteousness - NOW is the time to CONTROL YOUR IMAGINATION and give beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called Trees of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord that HE might be glorified.

• You give beauty when you concentrate attention on things as you would like them to be. 
• You give JOY when you maintain a JOYOUS attitude regardless of unfavorable circumstances. 
• You give praise when you maintain a confident attitude. In the Bible, 'tree' is synonymous with man. 
• You become a TREE of RIGHTEOUSNESS when the above mental states are a PERMANENT part of your consciousness.
• You are a planting of the Lord when ALL your thoughts are TRUE thoughts. 

5. The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the ship that carries you over the unknown seas to the fulfillment of your dream. 

The assumption is everything; realization is subconscious and effortless.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

Act on the assumption that you already possess that which you sought.

The question is often asked, “What should be done between the assumption of the wish fulfilled and its realization?”

Nothing. 

It is a delusion that, other than assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you can do anything to aid the realization of your desire. You think that you can do something, you want to do something; but actually you can do nothing. 

6. When William Blake wrote,

‘What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be’ he was only repeating the eternal truth, there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Rom. 14:14.

Because there is nothing unclean of itself (or clean of itself), you should assume the best and think only of that which is lovely and of good report. 

It is not superior insight, it is ignorance of this law of assumption if you read into the greatness of men some littleness with which you may be familiar— or into some situation or circumstance an unfavorable conviction. 

Your particular relationship to another influences your assumption with respect to that other and makes you see in him that which you do see. 

If you can change your opinion of another, then what you now believe of him cannot be absolutely true but is only relatively true. 

7. So much great stuff in the Power of Awareness...any rereading of it is always inspirational.

8. You read the Power of Awareness, you know the importance of IMAGINATION. 

9. How long? As you may know, this BIG billionX is a 70X7 experiment based on something Neville mentioned. In the Power of Awareness Neville mentions how long is a function of frequency (meaning your attention is mostly,,,is frequently focused on being in the consciousness STATE of GREAT) and naturalness.

10.  The PROMISE is  definite that if you are shameless in your impudence in assuming that you already have that which your senses deny, it shall be given unto you- your desire shall be attained. 

and 

'These go to eleven.' because you know it is one better than ten NOW isn't it? (my shameless Spinal Tap reference:  Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi : Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?) 

11.   How can this feeling of naturalness be achieved? The secret lies in one word — imagination. For example, this is a very simple illustration: Assume that you are securely chained to a large heavy iron bench. You could not possibly run, in fact you could not even walk. In these circumstances it would not be natural for you to run. You could not even feel that it was natural for you to run. But you could easily imagine yourself running. In that instant, while your consciousness is filled with your imagined running, you have forgotten that you are bound. In imagination your running was completely natural.

The essential feeling of naturalness can be achieved by persistently filling your consciousness with imagination- imagining yourself being what you want to be or having what you desire.

Progress can spring only from your imagination, from your desire to transcend your present level. What you truly and literally must feel is that with your imagination, all things are possible. You must realize that changes are not caused by caprice, but by a change of consciousness. You may fail to achieve or sustain the particular state of consciousness necessary to produce the effect you desire. But, once you know that consciousness is the only reality and is the sole creator of your particular world and have burnt this truth into your whole being, then you know that success or failure is entirely in your own hands. Whether or not you are disciplined enough to sustain the required state of consciousness in specific instances has no bearing on the truth of the law itself— that an assumption, if persisted in, will harden into fact. The certainty of the truth of this law must remain despite great disappointment and tragedy — even when you “see the light of life go out and all the world go on as though it were still day.” 

You must not believe that because your assumption failed to materialize, the truth that assumptions do materialize is a lie. If your assumptions are not fulfilled, it is because of some error or weakness in your consciousness. However, these errors and weaknesses can be overcome. 

Therefore, press on to the attainment of ever higher levels by feeling you already are the person you want to be. Remember that the time it takes your assumption to become reality is proportionate to the naturalness of being it. Man surrounds himself with the true image of himself.

Every spirit builds itself a house and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven. Know then that the world exists for you. For you the phenomenon is perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth.

‘Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours a cobbler’s trade; a hundred acres of land, or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine name. Build therefore your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportion.’ --Emerson

But WAIT!

There's more!

12. Sublime Spirit of Confidence. What if you also imagine succeeding with this? How great would it FEEL to succeed seven weeks from now? How great would it FEEL to have Neville's confidence with this information, which he referred to as the sublime spirit of confidence? To assist with your success, I include as a reference, Chapter XIX Essentials from the Power of Awareness book.

Chapter XIX Essentials

The essential points in the successful use of the law of assumption are these: 

First, and above all, yearning; longing; intense, burning desire. With all your heart you must want to be different from what you are. Intense, burning desire [combined with intention to make good] is the mainspring of action, the beginning of all successful ventures. In every great passion [which achieves its objective] desire is concentrated [and intentioned. You must first desire and then intend to succeed].

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

Here the soul is interpreted as the sum total of all you believe, think, feel, and accept as true; in other words, your present level of awareness. God, I AM, is the power of awareness, the source and fulfilment of all desire [understood psychologically. I AM an infinite series of levels of awareness and I AM what I AM in accordance with where I AM in the series]. This quotation describes how your present level of awareness longs to transcend itself. Righteousness is the consciousness of already being what you want to be.

Second, cultivate physical immobility, a physical incapacity not unlike the state described by Keats in his “Ode to a Nightingale.”

A drowsy numbness pains my senses, as though of hemlock I had drunk.

It is a state akin to sleep, but one in which you are still in control of the direction of attention. You must learn to induce this state at will, but experience has taught that it is more easily induced after a substantial meal, or when you wake in the morning feeling very loathe to arise. Then you are naturally disposed to enter this state. The value of physical immobility exposes itself in the accumulation of mental force which absolute stillness brings with it. It increases your power of concentration.

Be still and know that I am God.

In fact, the greater energies of the mind seldom break forth save when the body is stilled and the door of the senses closed to the objective world.

The third and last thing to do: to experience in your imagination what you would experience in reality had you achieved your goal. [You must gain it in imagination first, for imagination is the very door to the reality of that which you seek. But use 

imagination masterfully 

and not as an onlooker thinking of the end, but as a 

partaker thinking from the end.] 

Imagine you possess a quality or something you desire which hitherto has not been yours. Surrender yourself completely to this feeling until your whole being is possessed by it. This state differs from reverie in this respect: it is the result of a controlled imagination and a steadied, concentrated attention, whereas reverie is the result of an uncontrolled imagination — usually just a daydream. In the controlled state, a minimum of effort suffices to keep your consciousness filled with the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The physical and mental immobility of this state is a powerful aid to voluntary attention and a major factor of minimum effort.

The application of these three points:

1. Desire

2. Physical immobility

3. The assumption of the wish already fulfilled

is the way to at-one-ment or union with your objective. [The first point is thinking of the end, with intention to realize it. The third point is thinking from the end with the feeling of accomplishment. The secret of thinking from the end is to enjoy being it. The minute you make it pleasurable and imagine that you are it, you start thinking from the end.]

One of the most prevalent misunderstandings is that this law works only for those having a devout or a religious objective. This is a fallacy.

It works just as impersonally as the law of electricity works. It can be used for greedy, selfish purposes as well as noble ones. Yet it should always be borne in mind that ignoble thoughts and actions inevitably result in unhappy consequences.