Oil of Inner Reproof

Neville's Inner Vision

Imagine that the 'righteous' who smite and reprove are not external judges, but the inner standards of awareness—the I AM that corrects thought, diverts passion, and settles the mind. To let them smite you is to welcome inner discipline; to let them reprove you is to accept a cleansing oil that does not bruise, but anoints the head with clarity. In Neville's terms, every correction is a revision of consciousness, a refining of your state until it becomes immune to the emotional storms. The line about their calamities means your prayers are still offered from the center of your being, unaffected by outer turmoil; your petition travels through the inner atmosphere until it settles in the heart of God within you. When your 'judges' are overthrown in stony places—i.e., the hardened beliefs of the old self—your words, formed from sweetness, reach even those who seemed deaf. So the entire scene is not about others' punishment but about you becoming a state in which what you say carries the power to heal and transform.