Deuteronomy's Inner Covenant Practice

Neville's Inner Vision

Your passage speaks of a law that lives in the inner drama of consciousness. The damsel is a fresh state of being not yet united with the habitual self; the act of finding and lying with her is the inner movement by which you admit that state into your awareness. The fifty shekels paid to the father symbolize the price you are willing to pay to your inner Father—your I AM—for the protection and recognition of this new state. By humble reception, not domination, you bind the state to you with responsibility; once you have chosen it, it cannot be cast aside at whim. Therefore the marriage ensues: the new state becomes a permanent feature of your inner life, kept by fidelity and gratitude. In Neville’s terms, the outer law mirrors an inner discipline: your world responds to the reality you continually assume. If you desire a change, assume you are already united with the state you seek, and feel it as real, right now, until the feeling solidifies into fact.