The Spirit of Truth

Tonight’s title is “The Spirit of Truth.” I do not stop every night to remind those who are present that we are not speaking of characters, persons as you are a person, I am a person, when we speak of Jesus and all the other characters of scripture; because the Bible makes no reference whatsoever to any person that ever existed or any event that ever occurred upon earth. But unfortunately we have mistakenly taken personifications for persons, the vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction, and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended; but how to tell the story…unless you take these principles and personify them? To see Jesus as an historical character is to see Truth tempered to the weakness of the human soul, unable ordinarily to bear the strong light of revelation.475 ¶1

You and I are not upset when we attend a play of Shakespeare and he personifies the morning. When the curtain goes up on Hamlet, in the very first scene he tells us, “The morn in russet mantle clad walks o’er the dew on yon eastern hill.” Well now, here he has given the morning feet and clothed him in russet and then he walks o’er the dew on the eastern hill. Well, I love it! Here is a man, the master of the English tongue with an inflamed Imagination like Blake, and he personified everything. As Blake said, “All are human.” He said, “Cities, mountains, valleys, rivers all are human, and when you enter into their bosoms you enter into heaven and earth as you enter into your own heaven and earth. And all that you behold; tho’ it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” .475 ¶2

So when I speak of Jesus I’ve got to speak of him and treat him as a person; but you must always bear in mind it’s difficult to take a principle and discuss it unless you can be allowed to personify it. Then you give him words and he makes these bold, bold claims. But first of all, bear in mind when tonight I say he stood before Pilate, who stood before Pilate? The evangelist is not writing history; he’s writing theology, theology which is simply the knowledge of God as he, the evangelist, experienced God. Then he tells it in this wonderful dramatic form.475 ¶3

So when we read in the scripture, “He stands before Pilate and Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’ he said, ‘You say that I’m a king. For this I was born. For this I came into the world…to bear witness to the truth. All who are of the truth hear my word.’” Then he goes on to explain what they will do to those who accept this truth. It will be in conflict with the traditions of men…their concepts of God not based upon experience but what they believed God ought to have done…no vision…and that is what is called the theology of the world.475 ¶4

Have I not read statements of prominent theologians discussing the great mystery of Christ and where people unquestioningly accept it as fact because some authority of the church stated it? Having been cast in the central role of the Christian mystery, and having played the entire drama from beginning to end, I see it is so remote from the facts as I have experienced them. It hasn’t a thing to do with the Christian mystery, none whatsoever…and yet these are the great theologians.475 ¶5

I recall maybe fifteen years ago in New York City a friend of mine invited me to the Bohemian Club. It’s a club that meets the first Monday in the month at Harvard University. Mostly musicians form the club. They do have painters, singers and other artists, they’re all artists, but the majority of them are musicians. This chap introduced me to Walter Damrosch as one of the world’s great metaphysicians. Damrosch said to me, “Is it the German school, the French school, the Russian school?” I said, “No, it is simply my own visions. It’s all revelation from within. It hasn’t a thing to do with any orthodox concept of the metaphysical world.” Damrosch turned his back on me in the most insolent manner. Unless I had some tag to support the claim…and that tag had to come from a recognized body of men and he expected it to say the German school. That would satisfy Damrosch. Well, it wasn’t any German school or French school or Russian school or any other school. Now Damrosch is gone from this world and so is my friend who introduced me to him. Now, death to them is a blessing, forcing them to modify or radically change the ideas they championed while they were here. He and his German school…he’ll find there is no such thing related to Truth.475 ¶6

Many sit down to compose a workable philosophy of life; these are the schools, and it hasn’t a thing to do with that. It’s all vision, one hundred percent vision.475 ¶7

And so here, when I speak of Jesus I want you to bear in mind I am personifying Truth, the ultimate in Truth. For he said, “For this I was born.” But now he tells those in the gospel of John, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world” . Can you state it any clearer? He’s a super-natural being, he comes from an entirely different world. So when you have the experience, it is not here. You walk the earth as a man and while walking this earth as a man the truth unfolds within you. Who unfolds?—the truth—well, the truth is personified as the Lord Jesus Christ. He unfolds within you not as another but as yourself. And no one is going to accept it, but no one. Some will take it under consideration, some will take it because they trust you, but they will take it only as hearsay. They do not really know it as yet from experience. They’ll take it, but the majority will reject such a person because they know him intimately. They know the man, his background, his weaknesses, everything about him, and that’s not what they are looking for.475 ¶8

When they were looking for the Spirit of truth, they thought in terms of something entirely different. Not a personification of a principle, but a man who would come and save. He was called the Messiah, called the Christ. But to say to man that Christ is simply the pattern man, it’s a pattern buried in every person in the world, and in the fullness of time that pattern erupts; as it erupts, it unfolds in man as the man in whom it erupts. It is a definite pattern told in scripture as events in the life of a man.475 ¶9

But these events are super-natural. A scriptural episode is not a record of an historical event but a parabolic revelation of truth. All these are parables…every event recorded is a parable. Can I discern the story in the parable? For one day I’m going to experience it and strangely enough it will be in some remote region of my own being. But I’m going to experience it literally.475 ¶10

We are told, “Thy Word is truth” and now he said, “I am the truth. I am your Word.” Your Word must unfold then in me, for I am the truth and therefore I am the Word. “Do not add to his word.” Now, here is the statement in the 148 th Psalm, and you will do it literally. By a storm wind he fulfills his word…by a storm wind. Well, anyone trying to write what God ought to have said is going to change that, and yet it is literally true. It is by a storm wind, a wind that possesses you and you cannot bend. You are under control and the wind clothes itself with you, and then all of a sudden the wind intensifies. You call it a vibration, and yet in the drama you interpret it as a wind. You hear the vibration…it reverberates your entire being. And yet when you stand and look at that thing out of which you had emerged—which was, first of all, in your own skull—now you come out of it and what do you feel? You feel it must be a storm, it must be a hurricane, because only wind of this intensity could do this. Where is it? You look to see where it’s coming from. Those present had the same feeling of a storm, a storm wind. And here it’s recorded, well, say 1,000 years B.C. that he will fulfill his word by a storm wind. And suddenly the Word unfolds within you and it is the storm wind. So when you’re told, “Wait until you’re clothed with power from above,” then we turn over the page which is now Luke. Luke-Acts are one book, divided for what reason I do not know, but our early fathers of the church divided them. And here we find in the very beginning of Acts, the 2 nd chapter, they’re all gathered together and this mighty wind filled the room . Their foreheads became luminous, just light on all, and they began to speak in multiple tongues so that each one heard him in his own tongue wherein he was born…this fantastic thing caused by the storm wind. Who’s going to change it?475 ¶11

There are many who attempt to change it. But I know, week after week I look forward to that little page in Time magazine to see what nonsense they’re saying now. One year, God is dead; next year, no, he’s sick; next year there’s something else, and every week some nonsense comes out where they have God buried…and all of this by the great theologians of the world.475 ¶12

So I tell you here tonight, I speak from experience when I speak of the spirit of truth, personified, yes. You’re a person and I’m a person. And I ask you to set your hope fully upon that grace that is coming to you, when?—at the revelation of this principle within you. It’s called in scripture Jesus Christ. Make no mental image of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of the Second Commandment: “Make no graven image unto me.” So make no graven image of Jesus Christ, for you are he. Jesus Christ is the pattern man; that pattern is in every man and only in the fullness of time can it erupt. When it erupts, you are he, and you carry that knowledge to your grave here with you.475 ¶13

You turn your back upon all the accomplishments that you’ve ever accomplished in this world. No matter what you have ever done, it is as nothing. If you owned the earth, you turn your back upon it, and set your vision fully upon what has happened to you. You dwell in it morning, noon and night. You go to bed dwelling in the four mighty acts of God. What the day brought in the world of Caesar makes no difference to you at all. What news you heard from friends…well, it’s joyous news, oh yes, you’re a friend, you rejoice with a friend, show a little empathy and really feel happy for him or for her or for them. But as far as you are concerned your back is turned to all the accomplishments of Caesar and his world, and you simply face the vision.475 ¶14

So here, the Spirit of truth is not something that is coming from without; it’s coming from within. So when you’re told, “I will send the Spirit of truth,” from where, “from my Father,” what will they do to me? Well, if you talk about it—and I can’t see how you can resist talking about it—you might incur the enmity of man. If they’re high in office they might put you out of the synagogue, out of the churches. There are times when death is allowed; the Inquisition proves that. Tens and tens of thousands were burned alive, because what they had experienced was in conflict with the church fathers. They were going to save their souls by burning them. And we were warned, “They will kill you and they will do this because they do not know the Father, nor me” . “Had they known the Father, they would have known me, for he and I are one” .475 ¶15

He became me when he sent me and he never left me alone. If you ever really see me, you will see my Father, for he and I are one. And you will see not this thing that you now look at, but you’ll see the Ancient of Days. That’s the one. You will see something that is infinite love, that’s what you’ll see, and yet it is man. That’s my Father, and yet he and I are one.475 ¶16

I must mark the time telling the story regardless of how this little body reacts, until that moment in time when he calls me back. At that moment, those who have been seriously following will find a freedom that they do not enjoy while I’m here. I do not know why. I tell you, you do not enjoy it while I am here, but the day I move you will enjoy it. And these things will erupt within you, many one after the other, and all that I have told you, you will know from personal experience; for you will have experienced God not as another but as yourself.475 ¶17

So you, too, will tell it, tell it with authority, because you’re speaking from personal experience. Then you will know not a thing in this world matters…it doesn’t matter what you have accomplished. When others say, “You know who I know?” it doesn’t interest you. “Know who I saw today in the restaurant?”…doesn’t really matter. “You know who wrote…?” Doesn’t really matter, for all this is the accomplishment in the world of Caesar and I’m not speaking of that.475 ¶18

Yet, I cannot leave anyone in the dark…so I speak of the Spirit of Truth. I must tell you, on this level a true judgment must conform to the external facts to which it refers. If I said, this is a lectern, if you know what a lectern is, you come up and you examine it, and you’ll agree with me it is a lectern. If I say, aren’t these lovely flowers and I name them roses. Now you say he’s gone a little bit off…where are the roses? I say a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it refers. That I know from experience!475 ¶19

In my audience in New York City I asked everyone to join with me now in putting this to the extreme test. Well, this lady could have had a fur coat, she could have had anything, but no, she said, “I’ll take roses.” When we went into the Silence, she simply embraced dozens of roses, beautiful roses, so that roses filled the air. If roses aren’t here, then why is the fragrance of rose in the air? She smothered herself in roses. She lived at the Waldorf Astoria, just a single room; she was a widow. She went home that night…no roses. The next night she went up to her floor and as she got off the elevator, here is this pungent odor of roses. She knew she had not ordered roses, she expected no rose, and she stopped at door after door to take a whiff to see if perchance it came from this room. But it got stronger and stronger as she approached her room, and when she opened her door she was smothered with the fragrance of roses, and on her bureau were three dozen beauties.475 ¶20

The night she did it they gave a huge, big banquet for the Queen of England, that is, the present Queen’s mother. They had grown that year special roses that they named after her…they were called the Elizabeth rose. Well, there were hundreds and hundreds for the occasion. It was the English Speaking Union and they met at the Waldorf Astoria. I dare say 1,500 attended this gathering. The next day, which was the day she had the roses, the maitre-de was dismantling the place for the next banquet and they asked him what must we do with the roses. He said, “Well, Mrs. Niemeyer loves roses…give her three dozen. So and so likes roses, give her a dozen, two dozen” and he simply dispensed roses. But Mrs. Niemeyer, the lady in the front row, she embraced roses, and she got three dozen. When she opened that door she was simply overcome with the fragrance of roses, which she did not buy.475 ¶21

So I say, a true judgment, when you know this principle, need not conform to the external facts to which it refers, or she never would have had roses. If I must confine myself to the human definition of what constitutes truth, well then, I’ll be stuck in my place of birth forever. I’ll never get out of it, for I am confronted every moment of time with the facts of life.475 ¶22

You have no background socially, intellectually, financially, so why butt your head against the wall? You can’t get out of the environment in which you were placed. Well, I didn’t accept that. My family did not accept that, so they climbed out of it by simply using their Imaginations and making their dreams conform to, at least for the moment, external facts. They saw the external fact in their Imagination that they were imagining, and they remained faithful to this imagined state, and in time they became what they imagined. That is law.475 ¶23

So I say to everyone here, although I ask you to set your hope fully on the grace that is coming to you at the unfolding in you of Jesus Christ, the pattern man, the perfect man who is God, use this principle towards beautifying all your world, getting all the lovely things that you feel you need. Don’t ask any man’s permission for them. You appropriate it in your own wonderful human Imagination. Do it and live by it morning, noon and night. It will not fail you, but remember you are the operant power.475 ¶24

To know it, that is one thing; to do it is another. And we are called upon to “Be doers of the Word, and not just hearers only, deceiving ourselves” . Well, I can say, I heard that, I read that book, but did I ever see anything in it that moved me to apply it? So I can say ten years from now I read that book, but it never occurred to me to take it up and read it with understanding and to apply it. If I apply it, it should prove itself in performance. So I call upon you to prove this in the testing. It will work! And this is the Spirit of Truth.475 ¶25

Not a person that was born physically from the womb of any woman in this world; I discard completely such a concept of Jesus. Jesus is the immortal man that is buried in mortality; and that immortal man erupts in man, and moves that man from darkness to light, from death to life eternal. Those who are not awake to this principle before they die here, they don’t really die, they are restored to life and they will continue their journey; for the work has been started in them. Nothing dies…no not even the little rose dies…everything lives in God’s world.475 ¶26

But you are destined to move out of a world in which things appear to die, where you go through the gate called death, and you’ll move out of that world of Caesar into a heavenly world. Well, heaven is a completely super-natural state, and all of its occupants are completely super-natural. They are not made of flesh and blood; they are immortal beings, beings who have life in themselves. They are not animated bodies; they are life-giving Spirits.475 ¶27

So you are destined for that. Dwell upon it! If you still have ambitions to shine in the world of Caesar, apply this principle. Well, I prophesy for you, the day will come you’ll turn your back upon it…when it will make no difference whatsoever what you have accomplished in the world of Caesar.475 ¶28

Look around…there was a Stalin. He named a certain city and a certain river after himself, Stalingrad. He wasn’t cold before they renamed it Volgograd. They are waiting now for another one…it used to be called St. Petersburg, now it’s Leningrad. The day will come and they’ll rub that out, too, and put it back into an entirely different name.475 ¶29

In little Santo Domingo, this little thing that stole a half-million dollars out of the treasury of a little tiny island, and he named a city after himself, Trujillo. It was called Santo Domingo when Columbus discovered it, who named it after the saint. He now calls it Trujillo and for twenty-five or thirty years he stole everything in sight, and renamed all the streets after himself. You got confused because every street was Trujillo. One day they caught up with him and used him as a little pincushion, only they used bullets instead of pins. Then, he wasn’t cold before they renamed it Santo Domingo. Now his little family, who had generals uniforms and all kinds of things, they are living on stolen funds in Switzerland…can’t get back. Here they are children of the thief of thieves, but while he strutted, he was so important in his own mind’s eye. Take a little Hitler…all these things he was going to lay out for 1,000 years, so he strutted for a few years and then there was no Hitler. Talk about thieves…all the art works of Europe they stole, and they had to give them back. So these accomplishments mean nothing—it’s what God does in us.475 ¶30

Now, the 22 nd Psalm throughout the centuries has been identified as the psalm of the Messiah. We use it on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Almost the entire psalm is on that note; but in the end that triumphant note, “And they will tell of the Lord to unborn generations…”—what will they tell—“that he has wrought it.” That which in the beginning was his plan, that in the end in spite of all the suffering, he has wrought it. So they tell of him and tell that he did accomplish that which in the beginning he swore he would. And you will one day say, “I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory I had with thee before that the world was” . There’s nothing but God. I had it with him, you had it with him before the world was, and for a divine purpose the one became the many.475 ¶31

But now we are gathered one by one to unite into a single being who is God. And these furnaces of affliction will turn into not furnaces but rivers of joy. So eventually we will all meet and remember who we were before the fall, only we will be enhanced, our beauty increased, our luminosity greater, everything greater as a result of our fall. And then all is forgiven.475 ¶32

So the Spirit of Truth is God’s plan of salvation, and it’s buried in every child born of woman. In the fullness of time it will erupt and all that is said in scripture of Jesus Christ can be said of you in whom it erupts. You will awaken within your skull and you will come out from that tomb to find that the symbol of your birth from above is present; then comes the second, the third, and finally the fourth mighty act of God. Now let us go.475 ¶33

* * * Are there any questions, please? None?475 ¶34

Sharon, I want to tell you that your vision is true. Even though the fact does not support it, it was true!475 ¶37