Philippians 2: The Mind That Emptied Itself

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Quick Insights

Consciousness moves from self-concern to a shared identity when imagination chooses humility and compassion.
True change is an interior drama of willingly relinquishing ego priority so a larger reality can be lived and seen.
Suffering and service are not accidents but deliberate inner acts that reconstruct identity and therefore external experience.
Peaceful authority and influence arise after the psychological surrender that refuses complaint and adopts creative obedience.

What is the Main Point of Philippians 2?

This chapter is a map of inward transformation: to create a renewed life you must shift your attention from self-aggrandizement to an imaginative unity with others, practicing a humble letting-go of personal claims so that a higher, creative state of consciousness can inhabit your being and manifest outwardly.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Philippians 2?

The opening plea for like-mindedness is an invitation to align inner narratives. Minds that habitually rehearse separation feed rivalry, complaint, and fragmentation; but when imagination deliberately rehearses unity and tender concern, the felt reality of companionship grows. This is not moralizing; it is a description of how inner attention constructs relational continuity. When the heart adopts a posture that esteems others, the formative images that populate experience change, and the world responds as if reshaped by that inner law. The passage about taking on the 'form of a servant' is the psychological drama of self-emptying. One stage of consciousness believes in status and entitlement; another chooses to set those beliefs aside, not from weakness but from a sovereign decision to become available to a creative current. That voluntary diminishment is the paradox by which imagination makes new outcomes possible: relinquishing the small identity dislodges the block to a larger presence. When the inner actor submits to an obedient humility, it endures crucifixion to the old story so a resurrected identity can rise—an identity that names and governs experience differently. Obedience with 'fear and trembling' describes a disciplined reverence for the creative power that moves within you. This is not slavish dread but a focused seriousness about how thought, desire, and feeling align to produce reality. Inside, a tension exists between wanting and willing; peace comes when attention surrenders to the will that envisions and follows through. Removing murmuring and disputing clears the channel; in the silence that remains, imagination works unimpeded and the person becomes an unrebuked light in a crooked environment. That light is the visible evidence of an inward reconstruction—life shaped by chosen images rather than habitual complaint. The episodes about companionship, sickness, and return show how inner states ripple outward. Concern for another person is a creative act that sustains networks of meaning; when one imagines service and loyalty, those images animate both parties and often lead to tangible healings and reconciliations. Mercy experienced inwardly becomes an instrument for softening hard circumstances. Thus the spiritual path described is practical: it trains the imagination, disciplines attention, practices humble service, and watches reality tilt in response.

Key Symbols Decoded

The repeated calls to 'mind' and 'likemindedness' are invitations to harmonize inner dialogue; they point to the mental tuning fork that sets the frequency of experience. The 'form' and 'likeness' language indicates the shape consciousness takes—roles are patterns of thought and feeling that, when adopted, produce an outer form. To 'empty' oneself is to release the habitual mental posture that insists on being first; it is a clearing of the stage so a different actor can appear. The 'cross' speaks to the necessary death of old identity patterns: it is the dramatic symbol for surrendering narratives that no longer serve, a painful but essential dismantling of the ego's sovereignty. Names, knees bowing, and tongues confessing are symbols of inner recognition and acceptance rather than coercive domination. They depict the moment when fragmented parts of the psyche acknowledge a harmonized center; every kneel is a yielding of resistant thought, every confession a recalibration of identity. Exaltation that follows humility describes how imagination elevates that which it consecrates: put simply, what you assume and live becomes authoritative in your world and is reflected outward as honor and influence.

Practical Application

Begin by watching the running commentary in your mind and gently redirecting it toward concern for others and gratitude. In private practice, imagine specific scenes where you esteem another's needs before your own: feel the posture, note the sensations of softening, and hold the scene until it becomes more real than the old rehearsals. Let this rehearsal be the deliberate work of creating a new internal script; repeat it until your automatic responses begin to shift. When resistance arises, treat it as an old role pleading to be acknowledged and released. Offer it attention, then imagine laying it on a cross—visualize its dissolution and the space that remains. Move afterward into a practice of steady obedience to the images you desire: set a single nurturing image each morning, carry it through the day, and refrain from murmuring by anchoring to breath and gratitude. Over time this disciplined imagination will alter relationships, health, and circumstance, because a mind shaped by humble service becomes the living seed of a transformed world.

The Inner Stage of Humility: Philippians 2 as a Psychological Drama

Philippians 2 read as a drama of consciousness reveals a map of inner states and the way imagination transfigures the human scene. The letter stages an inner descent, a voluntary emptying, a terrifying crucifixion of ego, and a culminating exaltation that is the natural consequence when imagination assumes a higher identity. Every person, place and action in the chapter is a psychological event; the language of love, humility, service, death and exaltation names shifts in attention and self-concept that occur in the theatre of the mind.

The opening appeal to be 'likeminded' and 'of one accord' is an appeal for coherent attention. Psychologically it is the command to harmonize discordant inner voices into a single stream of feeling. The 'comfort of love', 'fellowship of the Spirit', and 'mercies' are not external consolations but qualities of sustained feeling in which imagination willingly abides. When the mind chooses to dwell in that single, loving frequency, it ceases to fragment and the drama of contradiction—competitiveness, jealousy, self-advancement—loses its grip. To 'let nothing be done through strife or vainglory' is to refuse the reactive mind; to practice 'lowliness of mind' is to let the dominant self stop inflating itself around fear and need. In practical terms this means rehearsing the state of being that esteems others: an imaginative discipline in which one assumes goodwill toward others and thereby dissolves the antagonistic scenes that have been playing.

The famous poetical profile of Christ functions here as an inner psychology lesson. 'Being in the form of God' names the latent, unmanifest identity of awareness—an innate sense of wholeness, creative power, and unlimited self. Yet that consciousness 'made himself of no reputation' and 'took the form of a servant'—psychologically this is the creative Self intentionally entering humiliated states of ego to bring transformation. The inner Self does not cling to its omnipotent prerogatives; it descends into wounded roles and accepts roles of obscurity so that those limited states may be transformed from within. This is not a historical biography but a program: the infinite faculty that imagines is willing to become particular, to be small, to be identified with human condition, so that it may reveal itself and be known.

The 'being found in fashion as a man' and 'humbled himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross' dramatize the psychological crucifixion. The 'cross' is a symbol of the meeting point of opposing interests—the vertical axis of imagination and the horizontal field of personal history. Crucifixion names that moment when the person in the present surrenders the tyrannies of willful selfhood, when pride and self-interest are nailed down by a chosen act of attention. Death here is not bodily but mystical: the old self-concept must be killed. This dying is terrifying because it seems like annihilation; the mind experiences absence, a hollow place. Yet this is the sacred clearing in which the new identity is revealed.

'Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him' describes the natural outcome of imagination fully assumed. The creative power operating within consciousness cannot remain hidden once assumed; exaltation follows as the inner fact asserts itself and the outer world rearranges to reflect that which has been assumed. The 'name above every name' is the assumed state itself; when the imagination dwells in the new name, every knee in the theater of the world bows—every limiting state yields, not by force but by recognition. 'Every tongue confess' is simply the report of inner states aligning with the assumed identity: language, choices, and outward conditions change because the ruling sensory feeling has shifted.

Paul's injunction to 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling' is a stern psychology: salvation is not a passive receipt but an active cultivation. Fear and trembling are honest descriptors of the mood that accompanies deep inner transformation; the unknown that the mind enters is fraught, and humility is required. Yet the text immediately balances this with 'for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure'—meaning the creative faculty both inspires the desire and supplies the enactment. Imagination plants the intention; consciousness moves the will to embody it. There is cooperation between disciplined feeling and the operative creative power.

The plea to 'do all things without murmurings and disputings' is a practical application: cease inner complaining and argumentative rehearsals. Complaints are imaginary dramas that reproduce lack. When the mind stops entertaining these scenes and instead rehearses the end-state—peace, generous action, rejoicing—the outer circumstances begin to reflect the inner rehearsal. 'Holding forth the word of life' is the active projection of a chosen scene: speak, imagine and live as if the desired reality is already real. This is not magical formula but the psychology of assumption: steady imaginative acts restructure attention and, therefore, experience.

The chapter also stages the psychology of companionship and delegation. The absence of Paul's physical presence and his desire for Timothy's arrival express the need for likemindedness within the self. Timothy represents an inner ally, a part of consciousness aligned with the higher aim. When one has such allies—inner voices that maintain the assumption of goodwill and courage—the work proceeds more easily. The complaint that 'all seek their own' names the common egoic tendency to fragment into competing programs; it is the mental habit of prioritizing separate interests over unified imaginative purpose.

Epaphroditus, who 'was nigh unto death' for the service of others, personifies the risk of self-exhaustion when one gives attention carelessly. Psychologically, to be 'sick nigh unto death' is to have a part of consciousness so identified with outer tasks and anxieties that it collapses. Mercy restored to him stands for rebalancing attention—returning the devoted imagination to a safe, restful center so it may be used again. The instruction to 'receive him with all gladness, and hold such in reputation' is the counsel to honor those inner manifestations which have risked themselves for the work of transformation; validate the parts that serve, and care for them so they do not burn out.

Throughout the chapter the dynamic is clear: imagination creates and transforms reality by the quality of attention it sustains. The mind that freely lets go of self-exaltation, that assumes service, that rehearses the resurrected identity, will be 'highly exalted'—not as reward from some external agency, but as the inevitable reflection of an assumed state. Conversely, clinging to fragmentary wants, litigating with others, and living in complaint keeps the world in its smaller image.

Finally, the broad cosmic language—every knee bowing in heaven, earth, and under the earth—maps to levels of consciousness: the highest ideals, the habitual daily mind, and the submerged complexes. When the imagination assumes its rightful creative identity, all these levels register and acknowledge the change. Confession by 'every tongue' is the harmonization of inner speech with the new assumption. The chapter ends in a practical ethics of practice: unite your inner landscape, empty the small self, assume the greater identity in feeling, and let imagination carry the form into appearance.

Philippians 2 thus functions as a manual for inner alchemy. It guides toward inner unity of feeling, enjoins humility as the method of transformation, presents the death of the ego as both necessary and voluntary, and promises the natural exaltation that follows the full assumption of a new self-concept. Read psychologically, the text maps a path from fragmentation to creative wholeness, reminding us that the most decisive work is not done in external struggle but in the quiet, persistent discipline of imagination.

Common Questions About Philippians 2

How can Philippians 2 inform a Neville Goddard practice of 'living in the end'?

Philippians 2 supplies the posture for living in the end by directing the mind to the inner reality of Christ’s humility and exaltation; you assume the end by mentally occupying the role of the fulfilled self who thinks and acts with that mind. In practice, imagine scenes where you have already achieved the desired unity, humility, or restoration, feeling the inner authority without pride, echoing the passage that Christ, being in the form of God, humbled himself (Philippians 2:6–8). Work out your salvation with reverent persistence (Philippians 2:12), trusting that the imaginative assumption will be carried into being by the divine activity within you (Philippians 2:13).

What does Neville say about the kenosis (emptying) in Philippians 2 as a consciousness technique?

Kenosis, the "emptying" described in Philippians, becomes a practical technique: willingly lay aside your habitual self-image so imagination can prevail. Neville teaches that to be emptied is not annihilation but the removal of limiting self-concepts so you may assume the Christ-mind within; you release the outer claims of sense-consciousness and enter the inner conviction that you are the desired state. The passage about making oneself of no reputation (Philippians 2:7) shows the method — give up the pretense of the present reality in feeling and thought, then inhabit the chosen inner scene until the assumed state produces its outer counterpart, letting God accomplish the will and doing in you (Philippians 2:13).

Are there Neville-style guided meditations based on Philippians 2 for assuming Christ-consciousness?

Yes, many guided practices follow the technique suggested by Philippians 2: sit quietly, relax the senses, and imagine a short, vivid scene in which you already possess the Christ-like mind: acting from humble authority, serving with compassion while inwardly knowing your divine oneness. Begin with a scriptural anchor (Philippians 2:5) and create sensory detail, speak inner affirmations, and feel the state as present reality; end with gratitude and release. Such guided meditations, modeled after Neville Goddard’s method, emphasize living in the end and persisting in the imagined consciousness until it becomes fact, fostering unity and inward transformation that manifests outwardly.

How does Neville Goddard interpret Philippians 2:5 'Have this mind in you' for manifestation practice?

Neville Goddard reads Philippians 2:5 as an instruction to assume the inner state of Christ as the operative consciousness for creating experience; to "have this mind" is to dwell intentionally in the imagination where you are already what you desire to be, feeling and thinking from that fulfilled state until it hardens into fact. Using the Bible as inward instruction, you enter the state of consciousness described in the passage, not by outward striving but by living mentally as the humility and divine equality of Christ (Philippians 2:6–7) until the world reflects that assumption; persistent, embodied imagination aligns with God working in you (Philippians 2:13).

What practical exercises does Neville-inspired commentary recommend for Philippians 2's humility and unity themes?

Practice begins with evening revision and short, lived assumptions: before sleep, replay events where you behaved from the Christ-mind — gentle, service-minded, unresentful — and reimagine them as you would have preferred, feeling the new state as real. During the day, pause and silently assume a brief scene of serving another with inward sovereignty, holding others' good as real (Philippians 2:3–4). Use a daily five-minute imagining where you speak and act from the humble, one-mind position Philippians urges, and persist until the feeling of unity replaces reactive self-interest; this steady inner discipline effects outward change as the Scripture promises.