Inner King and Abishag

Neville's Inner Vision

Within every life, the king is the I AM, the sovereign center of awareness. The search for a fair damsel across the land is the wandering of consciousness seeking a fresh adornment of presence. Abishag represents a beautiful inner quality—care, service, gentleness—that one would like to crown with recognition. Yet the verse's decisive note, that the king knew her not, signals a failure of inner recognition: a beautiful appearance without immediate, intimate communion. In Neville’s terms, the transformation comes when you revise the scene from seeking someone outside to affirming that the self already enjoys, recognizes, and embraces this guest as your own essence. Imagine the king now welcoming Abishag as the living image within you, not as a distant visitor. When the I AM acknowledges this guest, the ministering becomes an inward aliveness—purity, integrity, and the dignity of Imago Dei—flowing through your consciousness, and the boundary between self and guest dissolves into unity.