Spiritually Known

The studies of the Bible concern themselves exclusively with the power of imagination. The Bible has no reference at all to any person that’s ever existed on earth or any event that ever took place on earth. But we throughout the centuries have mistakenly taken the personification for person, allegory for history — the vehicle that conveys the instruction for the instruction itself, and the good earthy sense for the ultimate sense intended. For throughout the centuries, scholars have studied and watched eagerly for bits of evidence that might be related to the happenings described in the Bible. But while most people believe that the characters existed, no evidence whatsoever has ever been found to support that meaning.1123 ¶1

Then what is the Bible? I tell you, it’s the only book in the world — really the only one. It’s eternal truth, completely above the limitations of secular history. It’s all about you. The immortal you. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. It’s all about you. That which cannot die, that which is forever, that which deliberately came down into this world and identified itself with the structure that is really a permanent structure, and experienced death which it could not, because it cannot die. It clears all the things related to this flare.1123 ¶2

Now there’s a vast difference between knowing a thing mentally and knowing it spiritually. We know a thing mentally by looking at it from the outside, by comparing it with other things, by analyzing and defining it. Whereas we know a thing spiritually only by becoming it. We must be the thing itself to actually know it spiritually. We must be in love to know love. We must be God to know God. Oh, intellectually I can take the book and try to tear it apart. I can analyze it and try to come to certain conclusions, but I will never in eternity know God until I become God. I must be God to know God. The Bible sets out the entire pattern of how man actually will know God. And it’s told in the story that we call the story of Jesus Christ. When man actually becomes God and knows himself as God through the one being in eternity that ever revealed him, and that is God’s son. There is no way in eternity that you ever know that you are God until confronted by his son, and his son reveals you.1123 ¶3

Now it’s not something that you earn. You gave up all that you were to come down here. You knew it before the world was. You only remember. And then you will remember who you are and redeem yourself out of this world into which you actually came. You came down into this eternal state, for this is eternal.1123 ¶4

Now let us show you. I think I — well, I probably do anyway. Jesus Christ comes once. You speak of the second coming of Christ. There is no second. He comes once, and he comes at the end of time. What do I mean? He comes at the end of time. Time is a facility for changes in experience, for all changes take time. You will have this experience. It will be afority. You will come into a scene just like this. And you will know intuitively, innately, that the whole thing is animated by you. It’s part of the eternal structure of the universe, and it’s all animated by you, and you will know it. And to prove that you do know it, and that it’s true, you will stop an activity within you — not in what you behold. And as you stop it, as you arrest it, everything stands still. That is time standing still. For time is a facility for changes in experience, for all changes take time. The most insenterable little point in time — if it takes it, it’s still time in order to produce a change. Without time, you can’t conceive of change. Space is a facility for experience. Time a facility for changes in experience.1123 ¶5

So when you stop time and you stop it within yourself, everything is frozen, completely dead. And you know now what is about to take place. For Christ comes only at the end of time. He begins to awaken in man, for Christ — which you and I accept through faith, which is our own being that we actually gave up — Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And we emptied ourselves of the power of God and the wisdom of God and came right down into a world of eternal death. Here, that power that we gave up is returning, returning to us. It was part of a plan that you and I agreed on before we started the entire I AM experiment.1123 ¶6

In scripture, the Holy Spirit, which means the remembrancer — for when the Holy Spirit comes he will bring to you all the things that I have said unto you, he will bring to your remembrance. He is the remembrancer. So remembrance begins to return. Memory returns. And suddenly I know the whole thing was always this way. And I started, and I see everything standing completely still. And it comes just before the birth of yourself to the higher level where you really belong.1123 ¶7

In my own case, I saw children playing in the street, as told us in the Book of Zechariah. Little boys and girls running around these fabulous feet, enormous feet. And here were people playing music, playing on these lovely concert grand pianos. And I saw music. I actually saw the geometrical patterns produced by the sound of music, and these beautiful patterns, and the little boys and all the girls and all the people around the musician. And as I saw it, I knew I could stop it, and I stopped it. I froze music. I froze the pattern of that music from that day on. At that very moment, it went into a deeper level within me. And then came the storm wind. And then came my awakening from the dream of life. But it came right on the heels of my freezing music. Here’s a man playing this grand piano. Beautiful, perfectly marvelous things coming out of it. And they’re all geometrical patterns out of the sound. And they’re all colored, beautiful colors and beautiful form. And I froze it. As I froze it, everything stood still. He stood still, the music stood still, everything stood still. From that moment, I dropped into a deeper level. Then came the storm wind. At that moment of the storm wind, I am waking from within myself. In the very place where in the beginning I was placed. I was placed in the tomb, in the sepulchre, where only God is placed. Only God now is going to awake. Only God is going to be born to a higher level. Born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of himself, born of God. And you actually awake within the Sephirah, and the Sephirah is the immortal son, and you come out of that state.1123 ¶8

I say he comes once and only once. He comes at the end of time, and time does not mean what the world thinks. Time is only a facility for changes in experience. And when you stop all changes, that’s the end of time. Then you realize who you are. This whole vast world, with every conceivable possibility within it, is. You can’t conceive of something that is not now. It all is. You animate it. But to animate it, you come down into the very world of death and take upon yourself a body. And in that body you become subject to time, to its progress, its decay, its vanishing, its restoration — progress, decay, restoration — and you go on and on and on until finally you reach the end of time. When you reach the end of time, and the whole thing all was in you and you control it, then you are on the verge of waking from the world of death. Yet it remains the garment of death. It doesn’t vanish. You escape from the world of death when you come to the end of time.1123 ¶9

So this Bible, the greatest of all books, is not a thing in the world comparable to the book. Everything else is comparatively just simply commentary, and it’s all about you. It’s not about any being mentioned in the Bible. These are not characters — as you are a character, as I am a character — although the whole vast world believes that they are. And to this day, the wisest of the wise, if they believe in the Bible, they believe that these characters actually existed. And they believe that the events recorded are events that took place. And they did not. They’re all adumbration. And only after you experience scripture do you know the interpretation of the adumbration. The whole thing is adumbration, foreshadowing, and only when you reach the end of time and experience scripture do you understand scripture. Scripture has to be saved from the externals of history, persons and events.1123 ¶10

But I was sent to do what I am doing. The voice rang out, “Done with the blue blood.” In the mysteries, the blue robe simply means the external, the ceremony, all the things that men actually are slaves to in this world. Rub it out completely in your own mind’s eye, and tell those that I have sent you to meet, for he is drawing unto me — and I say he, I am — I draw unto myself all those who are coming towards the end of time, where they will actually experience it, and tell them of the rubbing out of all external ceremony, external rituals, all the external things concerning the historicity of scripture. There is no history in scripture as we understand history. This is about the complete organization of this world. So when you are drawn here to the point of completely accepting and listening to the point and believing it, you are free, and you’re moving towards the end.1123 ¶11

You will actually have the thrill — and I can’t tell you the thrill — when you can stop it. When you come upon a scene just like this and you are proved to be the one you think you are, and I know you are, you seem to be completely independent of my perception of it. And in one day you know they’re not. Not one thing in the world is completely independent of your perception of it. While you are lost in the body that you are wearing, they are. And then something happens within you and you realize they are not independent of your perception, and you stop it — where you stop it within you — you find this whole vast world is like a machine, and you simply release it and it continues to express its intention. You change within yourself its intention. You don’t discuss anything with the object. You simply decide the change, and within yourself you command the change, and it thinks it initiated the change if it remembers its former intention. The chances are it will, and it will give every excuse in the world to justify the change of attitude, and it’s all coming from within you. You are awakening from the dream of night. And as you change within you the intention of the object that you are perceiving, it executes that change as you commanded it. This is called in scripture the end of time.1123 ¶12

He comes to us at the end of time. And the world thinks — or those who are talking about it today, our great evangelists, the highly publicized ones — we’re coming to the end of the world. You aren’t coming to any end of any world. You are coming to the end of time, where time is arrested in you and you realize who you are. Now Christ comes of faith, for it comes only on faith. This universal power, which is the power of God — and it’s your power, the power that you gave up to come here. You emptied yourself of your own power and your own wisdom, and you are God the father who came down. Now your power will return at a certain time, having experienced the whole thing. And to experience the whole, you had to become man and limit yourself to all the limitations in this history of man, and then go through every sorrow in the world. And you’ve gone through it. You’ve all gone through it, or you wouldn’t be here. And then comes the end of the journey. And it happens so suddenly. And I tell you, you will not remember my words, because they’re — it — within you. It will not be — never once said this. No, you will know it in the depths of your own soul, because you were the one who said it in the beginning. And in the very beginning, you said it. You committed yourself, emptied yourself of the power, and came down into the eternal structure of the world, which is man, and played the part that you’re playing now. And suddenly it all comes back. Memory returns. I will send the comforter. Who is the comforter? I will send the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, and he will bring unto your remembrance all the things that you have heard from me.1123 ¶13

And then all these things come back — it’s from yourself, because you are the one who spoke it in the beginning — and suddenly the whole thing comes back and you know you’re only looking out on a projection of the whole being that you are, for the whole thing is contained within you, and you simply stop it there. You stop, interfere, and everything stands still. It’s dead. It can’t change. Therefore, time has come to an end. He comes at the end of time. And time is only the facility for changes in experience. And not a thing can change. It cannot have another experience beyond the moment where you stop it.1123 ¶14

A bird flying, flew not. And this comes — unfortunately they’ve deleted it from the Bible. It is the book called the Epistle of James. You’ll find it in the Apocrypha. For our Bible today contains 66 books. It did not always have only 66. There were 80 books up to the turn of the 19th century. 14 books have been deleted, and they’re now printed separately as the Apocrypha. But up until the 19th century, there were 80 books in our Bible. And then they deleted the 14 and kept 39 of the Old and 27 of the New, making a book which is a library really, because there are 66 books in it.1123 ¶15

But here in the book known as the Epistle of James: the night of the birth of the mysterious child, Joseph steps forward in search of a midwife, to bring this midwife to aid in the birth of his child. And as he set forward, there are the shepherds, and the shepherds are watching their flocks by night. And there are others who are laborers in the field of the leading shepherd. And they came upon these men, and they were eating, all moving into a common dish, and their hands dipped into the dish, all of the hands in the dish, and they were bringing the food to their mouths. Others had seeded them and had it in their mouths. And those dipping, dipped not. And those chewing, chewed not. And the land with their mouths to the running sele. And there were mouths on the stream, and drinking, they grank not. And the grass waving, waved not. And everything stood still, including the heaven, at that moment of the birth of the mysterious child.1123 ¶16

Now this is deleted from our Bible. It was once part of our Bible, but for reasons known only to those who decided it, they took out what is now called the Apocrypha. The New English Bible has put back many books that were deleted previously. But still, we only have our 66 now.1123 ¶17

But I tell you, from my own experience, the first experience that I had concerning the stopping of time was when the waitresses walking walked not, and the diners dining dined not. So it’s not limited to a certain fraction of time. The authors are completely unknown, and it’s not written about any one point in time. It’s completely universal, and it is forever. It’s a contemporary book. So whether you’re dressed in the dress of today or the dress of what we call the ancient days, or prior to that day, makes no difference. It’s simply a contemporary book. It’s always contemporary.1123 ¶18

And here in my own case, there were — only about 150 to 200 years ago in our land, in the New England states — that’s where I saw them. I could tell from the way she was dressed, the way the family of four were dressed, that it was about 200 years ago. And here a father, mother, and two sons, the ratious, and the little swinging door like a little Dutch door, and the wind blowing the leaves, the wind blowing the grass, and the bird flying, and everything stood still.1123 ¶19

Then years later, not so many years later, came the actual birth. That was a forerunner. It was telling me something which at the moment I didn’t quite understand. I was amazed that I had this power, but I didn’t realize what that power, which was returning to me, was leading up to. I hadn’t the slightest idea what it indicated. I could only recall what I experienced.1123 ¶20

And I experienced that power — that within me I could stop the whole vast world, and it stopped, and it stood still. Then, within me, I released it, and it continued on its way and fulfilled its intention. Then came another experience when I not only stopped it, I could change its intention, and then it would move on and justify the change that it intended to execute. And the whole thing was within me and not within the things that I was observing. And prior to that moment, I thought that everything in my world was completely independent of my perception of it. To discover it wasn’t so at all. It was all within me. And all here came down with the same intention. For before we came down, we agreed in concert to play these roles, and we came down.1123 ¶21

So here the Bible has no reference whatsoever to any person that ever existed on earth, for any event that ever occurred on earth. But we have unfortunately mistaken the personification for person, and the allegory — as told in scripture. It is an allegory, in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He tells us succinctly that we began, say, with the story of Abraham and brought it to a climax in the birth of this promise, and that the story of Abraham and Isaac and Sarah and Hagar is an allegory. He tells it so distinctly in the fourth chapter — it is an allegory. Well, if it is an allegory, then discover the great secret behind the allegory. For an allegory is a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its fictitious character and learn its lesson.1123 ¶22

So here in my own case, the second time I could change something, and I saw it change as I released the activity in me. From then on, you become incapable of blaming anyone in your world for anything that they’re doing. You can receive a request from the extended self, because everyone in my world is but an extension of myself. And I can receive a request from an extended self and grant it, as I would receive a request now from the itching back of this hand. And then, because this also is part of me, also extended, I freely grant the request and ease the itch where it, of itself, cannot do it. But this can do it if it’s all part of me. All this is by itself, and one is itching. Itching for what? Itching for more money. It needs it. Itching for something of this will.1123 ¶23

And so within me I have to grant it, and I grant it in the simplest way, without any effort, and I do not raise a finger to make it so. After I have granted it, I let it be so, because I have changed it within myself. And it’s a simple thing, and I do hope you’ve been practicing. It’s a simple, simple thing, but you’ve got to learn the technique, because you are unique. I can tell you what I do, but when you begin to do it yourself, you would find probably some little change in your own, because you are unique. You’re not a duplicate of anyone in this world.1123 ¶24

In my own case, I take a man. I bring him before my mind’s eye. It’s a simple thing. And I hear him tell me what he would like to tell me. And then I become excited, emotionally excited, because I want to hear exactly what he’s going to tell me. It’s all about his own good fortune. And I work myself emotionally to a certain pitch. And as he brings it to the climax with one deep inhalation, I feel a thrill — a thrill that goes through my entire body. There isn’t one atom of my body that has not been stung in a thrill. All I do is like taking a picture. I take it as though I set him up in this eternal state, and then I photograph him instantly, and then let life now develop.1123 ¶25

He may, on the heels of what I have done, go through a disappointment. Time will prove that that was necessary to the fulfillment of what I did within me. He might have gone through some fine — a great disappointment — and yet that is the turning point in the fulfillment of what I did within me. He could be fired from his job right after I did what to me was the thrill. I empathize with him and he’s fired. Time will prove that the firing was a blessing, because he was fired out of that limitation, he went beyond anything he ever hoped to do. It works that way.1123 ¶26

I can only tell you what I do. And I tell you, it’s a thrill. It cost you nothing. It doesn’t cost you a nickel. At what time? Questions of a second. Cost you really about a moment. That’s all. When you really begin to put a point — bang — it’s all done, and all within you. And then you release it, and you do not hold yourself responsible for one moment for its fulfillment, because it will be fulfilled.1123 ¶27

When you know scripture — oh, what a book! You will never exhaust it. You sit down and you read it, and it’s afresh when you see that these are not characters. These are the eternal states through which man must pass. And man is the immortal one that I’m talking about. You are God. Man is all imagination, and God is man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. It cannot die. It did not begin. There is no beginning to man.1123 ¶28

People think, “Well, man began.” You did not begin. Beginning was when you came down and began an experiment in that which is part of the eternal structure of the universe. But you, the one who actually took possession of a garment, you did not begin. You preexisted. “I came out from the Father, and I came into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and returning to the Father.” And the Father is without beginning or end. He has no genealogy, and I am one with the Father, coming into the world. I gave up my fatherhood and came down and assumed this for a purpose. I have now returned, living, limiting myself for a little while longer to tell it. I will tell it until the day that it drops. But at the moment that this thing drops, this garment, is still part of the eternal structure of the universe. Neville does not vanish. It never — still is as a garment to be worn. But I, the wearer of the thing called Neville, depart. And I am that which you knew before we came down, which we will know after we return from this fabulous experiment, and we will be brothers.1123 ¶29

The relationships on earth of father and children — that will cease to be. Husband and wife — that will cease to be. They belong only to this level. We are above the organization of family life as you see it here, and we’re only brothers, all equal, and together we form God — only God. There is nothing but God.1123 ¶30

But while we are here, try it. I hope you tried it, and if you have, let me know. It’s simple if you can really believe in the reality of what I’m talking about — that your imagination is the only reality. But now it’s a mystery, and the greatest of all secrets, which must be unraveled, which must be solved, is the secret of imagining, because in that secret, if you unravel it, supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight will lie in the solution of this problem. And I can tell you the thrill, and you can do it with anything in this world. And don’t feel guilty. Do it with anything.1123 ¶31

Bless everyone in the world, but bless individuals. Don’t make it a general picture. Take an individual that you may see the proof of it. Take someone, bring them before your mind’s eye, without his knowledge, without his consent. You do to another as you would have them do to you. So if you ever do it in that light, it doesn’t matter if they know it or not. You don’t have to consent or consult anyone in this world — it’s to use the golden rule. If you would have it done to you, well, do it to another, and do it without their knowledge.1123 ¶32

They’ll never know that you brought the blessing. What does it matter? You delight in hearing it and seeing it in the world, and they may never know, as told us through scripture: “It was I who saved them and they knew it not. It was I who saved them and they knew it not.” Read it in Isaiah. Here they all are, totally unaware of who is doing it.1123 ¶33

A friend of mine — she’s here tonight. She said, “After last lecture, last Friday night, my husband and I went home and we read a passage of the Bible, as you mentioned, and I kept on reading and reading and reading from one to the other, and so did he. And when I went to bed, your name seemed to crowd my head. It seemed to crowd it — Neville, Neville, Neville. And then I found myself, as I fell asleep, clothed in this lovely white robe. And I had on a crown, a golden crown. And here I wore the golden — it was not a belt but just like a cord — and I was going up the stairs with my head held high. Others were moving too, but not in the same sense of majesty. At the top there was this light, a pulsing light, and it pulsed and pulsed and pulsed, and all of a sudden, here in the midst of the light as it unfolded, you stood, and I knew: I am looking at Neville, and I knew I am looking at God. And then it cast a shadow and you would vanish, and then it pulsed and faded, and all of a sudden there you were again. And then it cast the shadow and you were not. And then it opened up, and everybody — here you are. I know I’m looking at Neville, and yet I’m looking at—”1123 ¶34

You are born from above, and you are God — not born of anything of blood or flesh or the will of man, but of yourself. It’s only a returning of memory as to who you were before you came down. And this lady believes, and believing, she has to have the experience of what I know I have experienced. I told her the truth and she has to experience it. Well, she has.1123 ¶35

Another one wrote me. She said, “Here I found myself, Mr. O’Neal.” Now here’s a lady — very much a lady. And she speaks of a friend of hers who is very much a lady. She says, “I am Mr. O’Neal, and my friend is Mr. O’Sullivan. I wonder, how on earth can this be? I am Mr. O’Neal, and she is Mr. O’Sullivan. I wrote it down, went back to sleep, and here I am in a body, and the body is frozen, and I stepped out of this body into that body, and it seemed so normal and natural that the body was Mr. O’Neal.”1123 ¶36

You see, her own body was like an actor playing the part of Hamlet. Tonight there is a performance where a lady, a very able actress, she’s playing the part of Hamlet. Hamlet, as the story goes, was a boy. And yet here is Judith Anderson playing the part of Hamlet tonight — she is not alone. All over the Oriental world, all the actors play the part of the actor. Until recently, there were no actresses playing the part — all men played the parts of male and female.1123 ¶37

Well, behind it all are the brothers playing all the parts. And here, with the divided state, we have male, female. But behind it all, there is only God, and God is playing all the parts, and the parts will remain just as they are, with all the relationships in the world. And when you completely awaken, you return to that brotherhood that forms God. We are the Elohim, the plural word, which is a compound unity, one made up of others.1123 ¶38

I know it’s an awful blow to man who believes in the historicity of scripture. And man has been trained, as we all were trained, to believe that these characters lived, and that Jesus Christ was a little boy who was born in a unique manner of a woman, as you and I were born, but not without a father. He was born without a father. No, the story is true in the sense that he is the Father. He is the grand mazdc, without beginning, without end, without genealogy. So he has no father, because he is the Father — but not from the womb of a woman.1123 ¶39

You actually are the being that never began. You have no beginning. You are eternal, and being eternal, you cannot begin. But you could experience beginning, which is time. So you came down into the world of time. And here time is only the facility for changes. Are you going to have a change? It’s a changing experience. And then you will come to the end, and you’ll be able to stop time.1123 ¶40

I can tell you the thrill in store for you when you can stop time, and it’s not difficult when it happens. You simply stop it, and when you stop it, everything stands still, and it cannot change because you have stopped time.1123 ¶41

Now, to the whole vast world it seems insane — you stopped it, and you are on the verge of birth, from about after you have stopped, dying. For this happened to me before my experience in 1959. This happened to me back in the ’40s in New York City, when suddenly I stopped time. And that night I told my friend how I stopped time. What did they think? Now, I know I have been funny in the past and strange, but this one really takes the cake. But I am telling you, I stopped it, and I have to share it with everyone after I have the experience. I can’t wait for the next moment to tell it. I can tell it to my wife in the morning, but I want to share it with more than one. And I can tell it to those when I have a platform to tell it. Even though you may think me insane, but I tell you it is true.1123 ¶42

And why they ever took it out of scripture, that wonderful Epistle of James, I do not know. But that story is so altogether true. And long before someone gave me that book — or I was given that book by a lady who is now gone from this world. She departed about a year ago. She always came and sat in the front row. She was almost 90 when she departed, and now she’s gone. It was she who gave me the book, but I never read it in my Bible because it was deleted.1123 ¶43

And so all of a sudden, here is the story of the Epistle of James, and it’s the story of the night the child was born, and Joseph goes in search of the midwife.1123 ¶44

Now, remember, Joseph in scripture — his name is changed to that of Jesus. He is called Joshua, and Joshua means Jehovah, and Jehovah and Jesus are the same. You’ll find the story in the 13th chapter of Numbers, where Moses renamed him Joshua.1123 ¶45

And so here he’s going in search — Joseph is going in search of someone to aid in the birth of this mysterious child — when he comes upon a scene. It’s a pastoral scene. And the little lambs drinking, drank not. And those whose hand went into the dish, said their dips did not. And those who were ready chewing, chewed not. And everything stood still, including the heavens — the night the child was born.1123 ¶46

For in my own case, it was not the night. It was an adumbration. It was a foreshadowing of that night. For that night did not come in my own case until the 20th of July, 1959. This came in the ’40s. This peculiar, innate knowledge that I could arrest within me a power.1123 ¶47