I have just finished listening a book by Neville Goddard called ‘The Infinite Potential’. It had such a profound impact on me that I wanted to share it here and back it up with my personal experience.
Most people (me included until now) tend to treat imagination as something that has nothing to do with reality. I am sure you heard a quote, “An idle mind is the devil’s playground.” And this is what I was raised to believe. Even with my own kids, especially my son, I would tell him to stop daydreaming and get busy.
I was wrong. My parents were wrong and their parents were wrong. Like Einstein said ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge‘. It is the door to possibilities where creativity and thinking outside the box take place.
Neville’s book has stirred memories inside me which were buried deep inside for over 30 years. I was shocked to realise that what he teaches in his book, I naturally practiced as a child, completely oblivious to the Universal law.
I grew up in Russia in 80’s and as both my parents worked, I was left to my own devices most of the time. School holidays were usually spent playing tennis against our living room wall or wondering around the street looking for friends to play with. The times when nobody was available to entertain me and the wall paper in the living room has peeled off from constant pounding, I would make up my own games trying to make the day go faster.
One of my favorite games was where I would stand in front of the mirror in our entrance hall, staring intensely into my eyes. After a while I would start speaking in the language I did not understand but presuming it to be English. I would submerge myself into a world where everybody around me spoke the same language and our communication was natural and effortless. After speaking ‘English’ with the imaginary crowd, I would continue looking at myself in the mirror for a little while, before going to the kitchen and continuing with the second part of this game.
Growing up in Soviet Russia in the 80’s were happy times for me. We ran around with friends, unsupervised; playing “war” with some children in the role of Russians, others Germans. As my grandparents lived through the war, I could not get enough stories of their experience and struggles through these times. I loved to read, listen, play anything to do with WW2, always imagining myself to be that fearless Red spy.
My grandmother, on my father’s side was an amazing story teller and through her I learnt about the food shortages, the hunger and fear they faced during those times.
So the second part of my game involved me making a ‘war’ meal which would be dry bread ‘Suxariki’ and smidge of butter. I would distribute it evenly among my ‘friends’ and then put a pretend gas mask on. I am still not sure why there was a gas mask but at that time it felt like an extra safety measure.
I played this game for a while until my parents put new wall paper on, told me to stop burning bread and Russia opened up their boarders, enabling us to immigrate to Israel.
We arrived to Israel in the Spring of 1990 and it was nothing like I imagined. I still remember the smell of bananas in the air as we descended from our airplane. I was so excited to be in this Promised Land despite the fact that I could not understand anyone around me.
In January 1991 the Gulf War has started with Iran firing missiles into Israel. Our school closed and each family were given gas masks. I remember the sirens going off in the middle of the night and 3 of us would gather in the smallest room (we only had 2!) with our masks on. Sometimes the air raid will continue for a period of time, so I would always bring food with and we all nibble on pieces of bread to calm our nerves down.
In December of 1991 we moved to South Africa. I was devastated to leave Israel behind, most of all, my Navy school and fencing club. In South Africa, with the help of Jewish community I was accepted into a school with kids from Israel which helped to speed up the process of learning English language.
In the space of one year, my imaginary game has became my reality. I never thought about it until now. I am sure that there are so many of us who had similar experiences and just dismissed it as coincidence or completely forgot about the. Writing this now, I am getting so excited thinking of how to start my creation process, knowing that whatever our minds can believe, they can perceive.