Neville Goddard’s Bridge of Incidents
The Bridge of Incidents is a term coined by the mystic Neville Goddard.
It explains the unpredictable process inherent in manifestation and reality creation.
There is a gap between where you are and where you want to go.
During your journey towards your goals, you travel across a bridge of incidents.
Each seemingly unconnected event helps you move closer towards your desire.
“The truth is your experiences throughout your life are determined by your assumptions — whether conscious or unconscious. An assumption builds a bridge of incidents that lead inevitably to the fulfillment of itself.”
During the act of setting your intention, you will often decide on a plan of attack.
You mentally visualize the logical process which will be needed to attain victory.
If you want to grow a business, you might imagine the product you will be selling.
You think about the marketing campaign, the brand design and a plethora of other things.
When we want to travel to a distant country, we get our itinerary ready.
We meticulously think of all the destinations we would like to see during the trip.
The mind holds a mental idea of what will be involved during the trip.
Have you ever noticed how things never seem to go according to plan?
A competitor steals your business idea or the marketing campaign flops.
Your plane is delayed, and you miss out on attending the concert you were excited about.
There are millions of variables which are often unaccounted for during our planning phase.
In many ways, life resembles a chaotic system, sensitive to small changes and at times unpredictable.
This is why project management is a failed discipline.
Projects tend to stretch past their deadlines due to unforeseen circumstances.
One of the most famous examples is the Sydney Opera House, which was originally estimated to cost $7 million and take 4 years to build.
The building ended up costing $107 million (around 1 billion dollars in today’s money when adjusted for inflation).
It also took 10 extra years to be completed.
It becomes clear Robert Burns was right when he said,
“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Murphy’s law reigns supreme.
However, in matters of manifestation, not knowing how the goal will be achieved should not be a hindrance.
You can still achieve success through the bridge of incidents.
What is the Neville Goddard's Bridge of Incidents?
According to Neville,
When you ‘assume the wish fulfilled’ and live from a place of having already achieved your goal,
The bridge of incidents will appear.
If you dare follow it, the bridge will lead to what you have been seeking.
Steve Jobs famously talked about the bridge of incidents during one of his last commencement speeches.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Jobs explained how his dropping out of college was a blessing in disguise.
“Much of what I stumbled into by following my intuition and curiosity turned out to be priceless later on.”
Jobs would take a calligraphy class and learn how to write in beautiful fonts.
This knowledge later aided him when designing the iconic fonts used in Apple’s products.
Here is another odd example from Jobs.
Jobs had a fear of buttons.
Yes, buttons.
Notice how his black turtleneck never had buttons.
This strange phobia is called koumpounophobia.
It was the alleged driving force for removing all buttons from Apple devices.
It helped create the iconic design which made the iPhone so popular.
After setting his intentions for building a successful company, things started to align for Jobs.
Various adversities were used to help him achieve his ultimate mission.
This is how all success manifests, it’s rarely ever the way we envision.
Research any success story and you will see the bridge of incidents at work.
What matters is holding the thought of the end state in your mind and allowing your subconscious to show you the quickest path to success.
The Bridge of Incidents and Synchronicities
Carl Jung popularized the term ‘synchronicity’.
Synchronicities seem to happen when our subconscious and conscious minds are aligned.
Unlikely events arise out of the ether as if an invisible hand was helping us.
‘Reality Transurfing’ author Vadim Zeland calls this power ‘outer intention’.
You set your intention to grow your business, and suddenly a mentor appears in your life.
You set your intention to find a new partner, and someone you find attractive starts working at your local coffee shop.
You read a book and see a concept mentioned, later you talk to a friend and he mentions the same concept.
These things don’t happen by ‘accident’.
They are callings.
Most people ignore these synchronicities and brush them away as mere coincidences.
The people who answer the call and take action are the ones who become masters of their reality.
Here is what Neville had to say about this process.
“I’ve done it. I have gone and prepared a place. Having gone and prepared the place, I return here; but I will now move across a bridge of incidents, a little series of events, leading from where I am physically to where I am in consciousness. And it worked. I may forget it tomorrow when I get there because on reflection, it will seem so natural I may say to myself, “Why, it would have worked anyway.”
How does Neville Goddard's Bridge of Incidents work?
Consciousness is the first cause, and it is what creates your physical reality.
But consciousness is capable of experiencing more than just the physical.
Dreams, especially lucid dreams, seem just as real as physical reality but are mystical experiences.
When you assume a state which is not consistent with your physical reality you create a disruption.
Whether the disruption is spiritual or psychological doesn’t matter.
Nature abhors a vacuum and seeks to fill in the gap.
If you see yourself as a successful entrepreneur,
You entertain only the thoughts of abundance, you read the books, and you get the mentors.
You do the work and live in alignment with beliefs about prosperity.
Your outer world will be forced to reflect your inner state.
It’s simply the result of cause and effect.
This change will be done through the ‘Mirror’ principle.
How To Use Neville's Bridge Of Incidents
In true Neville style, I invite you to try it out for yourself.
Set a goal and assume the wish fulfilled by living from the end state of the goal being achieved.
Now pay attention to what happens in your world.
Walk across the bridge of incidents to allow what is true in your consciousness to manifest in the physical.
“In my end is my beginning. And so I go to the end and start in the end. Then in a way that I do not know and need not consciously devise, I move across a bridge of incidents, a series of events that leads from where I am now at this moment to the fulfillment of that end that I had imagined and made real in my world.”
Further quotes on the Bridge of Incidents
Here are more quotes relating to the bridge of incidents from Neville with some commentary.
“...there will be a reshuffling of the events of life and compel the journey on my part. And it would; that assumption of mine would build a bridge of incidents across which I would move to the fulfillment of that state, and no power in the world could stop it.”
Just as we saw in the story about Steve Jobs, many things which on the surface would seem obstacles, will be used for the realization of our goals. Jobs could have been just another dropout given the circumstances of his upbringing. But he chose to assume the state of a successful entrepreneur and the rest his history.
“But I went forward to the future that you say doesn’t exist and I wove it there. And then whatever I did, I know it worked because when I came back here, I moved across a bridge of incidents that led me to what I wove before I arrived there.
Despite outside circumstances and the disbelief of others, hold your ideal firmly in your mind. The bridge will appear, it doesn’t need anyone’s permission but yours.
Ignore your urge to have everything figured out and rest in faith.
Do this, and you will be one step closer to living and dying well.