Inner Exile and the Vineyard

Neville's Inner Vision

That which the world calls exile is the changing of inner states. Nebuzaradan appears as the outward consequence of a belief that life can be taken away for good. Yet the captain of the guard leaving the poor to be vine-dressers is a mercy in disguise: your inner faculties—humility, steadiness, daily labor—are not destroyed but assigned to cultivate a living vineyard within. The city on the map represents a story you have believed about limitation; the flight and removal signify the relinquishing of an old identity. The remnant is the still, small part of you that remains when outer circumstances seem to fail; this remnant is not abandoned but set to tending what endures. Providence is not a punitive brand but a reshaping of consciousness, a new arrangement of inner causes and effects. When you accept that you are the I AM, you can revise the scene: you are now the caretaker of your inner vineyard, and from that soil comes fruit beyond the apparent exile. The external commentators depart; your inner field remains, watered by attention, belief, and the feeling that abundance is your natural state.