The Inner City of Praise

Neville's Inner Vision

In the Neville vision, the city of praise is not a ruin but a state of consciousness you inhabit. When the text asks how the city of joy cannot be left, it exposes the tendency to identify with outer forms—the young men and the warriors—until they fall before your attention. Yet the LORD of hosts is the I AM within you, the everlasting governor whose power remains when appearances change. The prophecy of defeat is a call to revise your identification; it is your inner selection of awareness over sensation. Exile and return become internal shifts of thought: you feel separated, then awaken to the truth that you are never truly banished from your own inner Jerusalem. This judgment is not punishment but release, undoing the belief that life depends on outward struggles. In this light, the apparent fall clears space for the restoration of the city as a living sanctuary of awareness, a throne-room of praise that endures all changing scenes. The promise is simple: awaken again to your true city, where joy is your native state and victory is inner alignment with I AM.