I Am the Truth

I’m just a little bit different tonight. But I feel the time has come for me to tell it. To be speaking of the Bible as though it was written, say, this year. And people will go to war over the interpretation of a word or the interpretation of a sentence. And here we have a book — speaking now of the New Testament — but the oldest known text of the New Testament has only recently been discovered. Well, 1929. And they are the letters of Paul. And they are not original. They are copies made in the 3rd century. No original autograph of any New Testament text is known by man today. We have copies, and we have copies of copies. But not since the third century have we found anything that resembles, or rather that could be claimed to be near the original. And when you think that prior to the invention of the printing press, which was in the 15th century, all these were copies, and so you had scribal errors. And you had editorial emendations. And editors are very quick with their pen to change, to alter a text. Although they were not present, they were not eyewitnesses, but they’ll make it conform to what they want. And so we have these editorial emendations, and we have the normal, natural, scribal errors.1152 ¶1

I know in my own case, my wife is a very well-educated girl, went to Smith College, and she wrote me when I was in the army, once a day anyway, and sometimes two or three times. I would always put them in my pocket and read them when I was alone, so I could decipher them. I have taken a letter of hers — it’s been written, say, five, six years — and it’s old, and I say to her, darling, read this for me. She can’t even read her own handwriting. Now that happened in this century. Those scribes are making copies. Well, scribes wrote copies, and we have — there are no two copies that really are identical, and we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of copies, and we have translations mostly of the Latin Vulgate. And these were written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Translations into the Greek, but that’s one removed. And then from the Greek into Latin. And most of these copies are translations from the Latin, which could not properly express the thought of those who spoke and thought in the Hebraic tongue.1152 ¶2

Now, to get beyond what we have, to find what really was written — for tonight you’ll find this a little bit different. Here we are looking for the truth, trying to find out what is God’s intention for us. We are told in scripture, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” But no one — this one is made to say, “I came into the world to bear witness to the truth.” “And you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” We are told that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. We are told that “in him was life, and the life was the light of men.” So he makes the statement and puts them all together — that he is the true and living way: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” I’ll tell you from my own personal experience — and it’s not in scripture that you can see it, you can’t read it that way. As I’ve just told you, we do not have any original. I am quite sure if the original is ever found, you would have found the story that I have told in Revelation — if it is ever found — but we have none. As I said, the oldest manuscript is a copy made in the third century, and that’s only of the letters of Paul, not of the gospel.1152 ¶3

Now here, I’ll tell you from experience that truth is a fiery spiral stairway. What looks true on one level may not be true on the next higher level — entirely different on another level. Vision, a complete vision, must extend to include the vertical as well as the horizontal. We only think of the horizontal, and think of the relationship of parts to others. It must include all the different levels of true vision.1152 ¶4

Now let me take a statement which you’ll find most disturbing. It’s taken from the book of Revelation, the third chapter, the first verse: “I know your works, you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” The very thought that a man can be dead without knowing that he is — that’s disturbing enough. But the possibility of man being dead while he was alive, that’s really startling. Without the experience that I have had, it just doesn’t make sense. But after you’ve experienced it, there’s not a thing in this world that looks as it looked prior to that experience. I meet friends of mine whose funerals I attended. They do not know that they did, because they’re not really — they are independent of my perception of them. They argue with me, and I can’t persuade them that I went to their funeral. I can tell on this level, my friends who know me: Do you know Jack? Oh yes, I knew him. Do you know that I attended his funeral? Oh yes, he died. So tell me the day, the month, the year. Well — he tells me that he didn’t. So on this level I know those who died, and I can’t persuade those who are not aware that they did depart, because they have not died — not to themselves. They’re very much alive and young and healthy and about their business, trying to make a dollar, trying to do all the things they tried here — the same person, no transforming power in death.1152 ¶5

And so, on one level, here you’re told: “you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” So he did not believe that he had died. But just imagine the possibility of being dead while you were alive. That I have experienced. To come upon a scene just like this, and everything is so real and so alive. All the people are enjoying the moment. They’re dining, looking through this enormous window, a huge, big, glorious bay window. And here everything is animated — the leaves are falling, the grass is moving, the bird is flying, the diners are dining, the waitress is walking, and everyone is animated, and they’re all dining and having fun. But now I’m on a different level. They don’t see me. I’m seeing it from an entirely different level. “In him is life, and the life was the light of men” — that is the consciousness of man. And I stopped that activity within me, which was life, which made them appear to be alive. And they all froze. They were all dead. So they were dead while they were alive. They were not animated by anything — they thought the beating of their heart was because they ate proper food, or they were doing this and doing that and doing the other — and I knew at that moment that one of them lived outside of me. I knew that I was the light that animated those bodies, all of them. As I released the activity within me which I had arrested, they all continued to fulfill their intentions. I knew I could have changed the intention while I had them frozen, and when I released it — which is only an activity — they would have thought that they had initiated a change of heart, and they would have gone on to do what I had commanded, and it was not anything that they had originated. I didn’t change it. I simply allowed it to go on.1152 ¶6

So I know — this fiery spiral way, that is truth. For he said, I am the truth. He identifies himself with the Son of Man, and as the Son of Man is lifted up — but how is he lifted up? In the same manner that Moses lifted up that fiery serpent in the wilderness. It’s a spiral, fiery motion. It’s a stairway leading from the depths of generation into regeneration. And when you travel it, there is nothing in this world that really is what it appears to be. But here we are, as we think we are alive — and here I say, you have the name of being alive and you are dead. Those who go beyond into the world called the world of the dead — I would say ninety-nine percent of them do not know that they experienced the event that you and I called death, because they did not. Nothing dies. The little flower that I put in my lapel — all of a sudden it withers, at the end of the day it’s withered, and I take it out and I discard it. The flower that blooms once, blooms forever. Can’t die. Nothing can die.1152 ¶7

So how could it be told, if it had the intelligence to understand, that it died? It’s blooming. How can you say to something that is blooming that he died? How could I convince Jack that I came back from San Francisco — from Los Angeles, rather — and attended his funeral in Haverstraw, New York, and paid for his funeral and gave him a good Catholic funeral, because his sister demanded it? She didn’t pay for it, but she demanded that kind of a funeral. I would have cremated him and taken his ashes and thrown them away, but now she wanted a good Catholic funeral in holy ground. All right, I paid for it — he’s in holy ground. And the priest and all came by, and the sister got down and kissed that dead body — got down on her knees, never saw the man for years. They never spoke to each other. In fact, they disliked each other. On her knees, and she embraced her brother, she kissed that dead body. And I walked by, not stopping, because that’s not Jack. He discarded that little garment, as I will discard this suit one day. But he doesn’t know that he died. He shirked all obligations in this life. He refused to assume any responsibility, and he died just as he lived here — just a child. He died at the age of 50. I would say to Jack, here’s the money, take Vicky out to the park and show the monkeys and show the animals in the little zoo in Central Park. We lived on 50th Street and the park began at 59th. Take her in and show the things. I would walk down the street, he came on back. Many a time I saw this — took her into a little drug store, and he ordered up, say, a milkshake, chocolate milkshake, asked the man for straw. There was always two straws in one little container. He would break the thing out, give her one, he would take the other and play a game — see who can finish it first. Well, he drank the whole thing, give her one little straw. And little Vicky, about three years old, she with one straw, and this big man in his forties, and he is putting his mouth there and he’s drinking the whole thing. That’s Jack. He’s the same Jack. No transforming power in death whatsoever.1152 ¶8

So that statement in the third chapter is true. We haven’t found the original. If you ever find the original of this marvelous book, then a complete radical change must take place in this world concerning what man worships as Jesus and as the Christ. I have told my best, or the best that I can tell it, my own personal experience. That must be found in one of those original documents — the true Son of God: that resultant state that reveals God as your own wonderful being. And that is the Lord Jesus. No change of identity — you’re still the being that you are, but you are I AM. That’s the being that you really are. And that Son that comes to reveal you as God the Father is the eternal David — the resultant state of all your experiences as man. Just imagine this fabulous world. We wake in the morning, we see this man died or that one died, and so many were killed, so many were shot — and here they were dead anyway.1152 ¶9

Now it frightens people to entertain the thought, but you are an immortal being. You are on all the levels, but you are sung to sleep on this level, the level of generation. And when you awake on this level, you will have that fiery spiral stairway, and you’ll do it in the twinkle of an eye when you go up. And then you’ll have these experiences that nothing in your world, as you are saying, remains imperfect, because you are perfect. No matter where you go, everything is transformed instantly. You don’t work upon it. You do not think. You don’t raise one finger to make it perfect. You are perfect. And everything in your world is made perfect for everything. You can conceive the beauty that’s in store for you because of your beauty, because you’re glorified, and wherever you go everything is very perfect without its consent. That’s heaven. Heaven is simply the radiation of yourself. If you walk into hell, it turns into heaven, because you are perfect, and you’re wearing the immortal garment which is forever and forever.1152 ¶10

And so you have the name of being alive, and you’re dead. And I’ve read a number of comments on it, all these commentaries — not one understands what it’s all about, because they’re made without vision. And our Bible today is nothing more — you can’t find two copies preceding the invention of the printing press that are duplicates. They could be done in the same day, the same month, but by different scribes, and here — scribal errors, plus that habit of editors, and that editorial emendation which is always changing. You can’t get it alone; he has to take your script, and you are the eyewitness — no, he’s not going to take you as the eyewitness, he is going to become the eyewitness and tell you what you ought to have seen, what you ought to have heard, because he brings to that script his own prefabricated misconception of the theme, and you’re telling him exactly what happened to you. I’m quite sure that my present revelation, in my book called Resurrection, if put into the hands of any editor today, he would go right through the whole thing with his great pencil, because he knows David is not the Son of God — he’d turn the whole thing out. And he knows that the Father is not Jehovah, because the Father’s name to him is Jesse, and to him the word Jesse is simply a name, like his own name, which could be any other name. And all these names have peculiar, marvelous significance — it’s not a name like a little tag that you answer to because someone called the name; the name conveys the character of the wearer of that name. And so Jesse is simply Jehovah exists — it is the eternal I AM, and that’s the Father of David. And David is not just a little person — he is the eternal personification of the sum total of all the parts that the Father played. For God played all the parts. He’s playing all the parts.1152 ¶11

So the story I told the other night about this lady in the swimming pool — I’ve been waiting for confirmation of that experience, so it came this past week. When floating on her back, and suddenly she felt my presence — she didn’t see me, I could have made myself manifest to her, I could have appeared to her, but that would have spoiled the entire picture, she then would have seen two — she would have seen Neville and herself. But no, she felt that she was Neville. And yet she didn’t lose her own identity. So she felt, I am Neville, and yet I am Laura. I am the same being. And now, from now on, said she, I will no longer use the plural — not we were present, but I, for I am you. And then she floated, filled with wine, to overflowing with wine, which is the Spirit, as told in Scripture. He turned the water on which she was floating into wine, and she was filled with the wine of the Spirit, as she felt now my presence, and I am the very one who is floating, and yet she didn’t lose her identity. That’s what I tell you — when I depart, where would I go? I have no place to go but within — heaven, and heaven is within you. I can make myself visible if it is necessary, but there is no need for it. My presence will be there, for in the end only one being is returning from the entire story, and that is God. God plays all the parts, and in the end there is only God — nothing but God, and his Son, called in scripture Jesus Christ.1152 ¶12

Now, when these early ones were lost, I do not know. No one knows. We only know, if we are honest about it, that we cannot find them. And only as late as the year 1929 did we find the letters of Paul in one body, and there are copies — copies made in the 3rd century in Egypt — and that’s our oldest manuscript in the New Testament. And between that date and the beginning — when you think of Paul, scholars are agreed that he wrote his letters between the year 50 and 61 A.D., and that at his age he must have departed this world before the turn of the first century. Not a word is said concerning anything in the second century. And here are copies and copies of copies — it is all that we have to go by. And any two have such variations, and you can see why: normal, natural, scribal errors. I know I would make it — you get tired, in those days they didn’t have nice lights, and so you’re working under all kinds of handicaps while you make your copy. But fantastic variations. So we have hundreds of them. How to go through these numberless variations and find the truth. The truth can only be discovered if you find these originals, or if someone comes into this world sent to take the barnacles off and tell, by his own personal experience, what the story is all about. Well, I have told it to the best of my ability, and that the story told in scripture is all about you.1152 ¶13

The God of scripture, both Old and New Testament, is your own wonderful I AM. That God there is no other. God — his name forever and forever — that is the eternal being placed into the mind of man, and he brings with him the resultant state, and that resultant state is David. And when you’ve played all the parts and there are no other parts to play, you’ve reached the end, and then the brain explodes, if they were — and here he stands before you. And without any word — although he does call you Father — without the use of a word: I don’t need my daughter to come home and say, hello Father, to remind me that that’s the then girl that I said goodbye to the day before. As she comes through the door, whether she speaks to me or not, I know she is my daughter. So if David speaks or not, when you see him, you know he is your son. There is no doubt he is your son. And in his mind, you are his Father. And there is no uncertainty as to this relationship.1152 ¶14

So here I tell you, it’s in store for you. Everyone is going to experience it, and I can’t wait to hear confirmation after confirmation. And I am so thrilled with this experience of Laura’s, where she actually could feel the union, that unity of the two without loss of identity, for all the identity of person. Now, there is a radical discontinuity of form — that’s why that one form could house both, as we are told in his letter, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: there is only one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all. So that one body allowed Laura to feel the unity, for I wear that body, and she at that moment she was wearing that body, or she could not have felt it. So it’s the one body in the end, without any loss of identity.1152 ¶15

That’s the mystery. How can we — billions of us in this world, and billions to come — and yet they’re all numbered? It’s not just a matter of numbers coming in. Everyone is numbered, as told us in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy. Read it in the 8th verse: He has set bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. Some translate the word sons of Israel, but the word Israel quite often in scripture is used of God. Or the word, if you break it down, Ish-ra-El, the man who rules as God — that is Israel. So man all of a sudden awakens, and he is God. And the only way he will ever know he is, is that resultant state who stands before him, and he knows who he is — he’s David. And he is his Father. And that is his son.1152 ¶16

So a form or anything on one level may not be true — true as it is on this level, it may not be true on the next higher level. For Jack, on one level, was my secretary, and the one who, in spite of his age, played with my little girl and would throw across the carpet — I thought he’d break her neck one day, because he treated her just as though they were the same age. He would sit down with me, and I would have martinis. He always didn’t like licking his head. But if it was free, he wanted it, so he took his martini. I would have two or three martinis before dinner. He wanted just as many as I did. He couldn’t hold them. But with it all, he wanted a huge big box of candy next to him, so I supplied him with candy — martinis and candy — and Vicky would come by and take one of his candies, and he pushed it right straight across the carpet. That was Jack. He couldn’t help it. That was his mind.1152 ¶17

So naturally, when I met him in the world — the world called the dead — there’s no dead, it’s a terrestrial world just like this — it didn’t take him any time to awaken in a young body in his twenties, but he is the same Jack, he hasn’t changed one iota. And then to tell Jack why he was here — it’s maddening — to tell him that he died and that I actually gave him a good funeral. But to tell him why he was here — do you know that you died? Can you imagine his reaction? Well, even the intelligent person of the world today, the brilliant minds of the red scholars — to tell them, you have the name of being alive and you’re dead, they’d laugh at you. Yet that’s the first verse of the third chapter of the book of Revelation. But until you have the vision and the actual experience, it doesn’t make sense.1152 ¶18

And yet I have seen room just like this on many occasions — I’ve done it. It’s fun to see it all animated and all alive and all carrying on this marvelous conversation, each trying to outdo the other one in bragging. And suddenly you know exactly what they’re doing, and you arrest — not them, leave them just alone — you arrest an activity in you, for in him is life, and the life was the light of men, the consciousness of men. So you arrest the life in you, the activity, and all of a sudden the light goes out in men. There’s no consciousness — they’re dead. You go over, you examine them, and everyone is as dead as though they’re made of clay or marble. Look at them — all — they can’t see you, because they’re dead, and even before you did it they couldn’t see you anyway, because you are on a higher level. You do it from a higher level, and on that level they can’t see you. Your spirit is more alive than anything in the world below you. And all of a sudden they all stand still. And then, to your own amusement, while they’re perfectly still and dead, you release the activity in you. As you release it, they all continue animated once more, continuing their lives, and they’re bragging. And that’s life.1152 ¶19

For in him is life, and the life was the light of men. So he came bringing truth. So they asked him the question concerning the truth. He said, for this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. And then Pilate said, what is truth? And he was silent. How could you tell Pilate that he was dead? How could you tell the judge who was the extended arm of Caesar that he is dead? You couldn’t tell him that. Yet these words, as dictated in Revelation, are attributed to the risen Lord through his voice called John. And so he sends John to the churches, and the first church is Sardis. And these are the words given to Sardis, to the angel of Sardis: You have the reputation, you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.1152 ¶20

Now who is going to explain it? I have many, many commentaries at home. I have the grandfather of them all, called the Interpreter’s Bible — they are 12 volumes, 6 of the Old and 6 of the New, and 4 of dictionaries, and you can read that backwards, and they cannot throw any light on it, because it doesn’t make sense. How can you say to someone that there’s a possibility that a man is dead while he was alive? And that those who are dead are dead, and they do not know that they are dead — because I tell you, they’re not dead, but they died. And when I said to Jack, you know, Jack — no, you’re not dead, but you died — he said, oh, stupid Neville, I mean, I am not dead, but I died. How is that possible? I said, Jack, I went to your funeral and buried you, gave you a marvelous Catholic funeral.1152 ¶21

But I did persuade my sister-in-law, who, as a pillar of the Episcopal Church, could not understand my teaching. She still can’t. But since then, she has changed her attitude — it comes slowly, from the depth of her own being. Now she is willing to believe in immortality outside of the extension of herself to her children and grandchildren. Up until then she felt you could only have immortality through the bearing of children, and the children bearing children — but that you yourself know, you will live in your offspring. And when I said to her, you, a Christian, don’t you know the foundation of Christianity? The fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and life everlasting. And you’re going to take one of these and throw it away, called life everlasting? You don’t know Christianity, Al. Well, she just wouldn’t argue with me.1152 ¶22

But since then she is now — either because of advancing age, or she is now 70, or a change in some strange way — but it was that change that took place in the depth of her soul. So it’s coming up slowly, it takes time, and then suddenly it will all dawn within her, and one day she will be able to understand me. She came to two of my lectures, and I might as well have been speaking in Greek. She doesn’t understand me, but she’ll go to church every Sunday morning because it’s a thing to do. And so she’ll go and hear the man — couldn’t tell you what he said, which is not really important, because the Chancellor — he didn’t say anything anyway. Talked about getting involved, possibly, and doing this and doing that and doing the other — has nothing to do with religion.1152 ¶23

Involved is telling God’s purpose. Does he have a purpose? Well, he has a purpose, and he has made it known in Christ Jesus. That’s the pattern. It’s a pattern, man buried in man, and it has been unfolded in me. Well, I’m just telling exactly what happened to me. If one understands it all, well and good. If they don’t understand it, take it anyway and dwell upon it, because I tell you it is true. And the day will come — when I have written in my book, which I call Resurrection, when they find those old scripts, if they ever do, they’re going to find that story. But we have no script in the New Testament that is beyond the one just found in 1929, a copy made in the third century.1152 ¶24

Now, when you consider all these copies, and such discrepancies in the copies, and man makes it fit what he thinks it ought to be — I read here recently, in fact it is in the Interpreter’s Bible, our great college of Jesuits here, Loyola, and the founder of that college said that to be a good Jesuit — and therefore, he means, that’s the foundation of this Roman Catholic world — to be a good one, if the church tells you that a thing is black, when you know that it is white, to you it must be black. That’s the foundation. Don’t question the authority of the church. No matter how stupid the statement is, no matter how far afield it is of truth, if they say that is it, that is it, and you do not question.1152 ¶25

And here — this is a searching mind in this world, and you’re asking questions. When the vision first happened to me as a boy, I wondered, what on earth is it? Why am I — I am not qualified, I don’t have the attributes, I have nothing. And here I stood in the presence of these exalted beings, in the very presence of the risen Lord, and he embraced me because I answered correctly. But my answer was automatic — it came just as though I were prompted. I heard no voice, but I might just as well have been prompted, it came automatically. When he said, what is the greatest thing in the world, and I answered in the words of Paul: faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. And then the Ancient of Days embraced me, and we fused and became one body — just one body — yet I didn’t lose my identity, and I’m quite sure he didn’t lose his. But I was baptized at that moment. Death baptism — to enter into the body, to actually submerge oneself in the body. Now we have it here where you push them into the water, they’ve got to go right down into the water, they think that’s doing it. Many of them get dunked that way. I wasn’t dunked. I was simply embraced by infinite love — that was my baptism.1152 ¶26

And then I was sent into the world, wondering, what on earth am I going to talk about? I am not qualified, I do not have the educational background, I have no background to do what undoubtedly I am under compulsion to do. But in time the whole thing began to awake within me, and I was moved by compulsion to tell it. And my first night, I think six people came, and from then on it grew and grew and grew, as I grew in understanding of what it meant. But that was indelibly impressed upon my mind. I could — I can see it now, in my mind’s eye, I can see the recording angel before the book, looking at me, and then checking off my name — undoubtedly. But she didn’t speak, she simply looked, and then took that quill and checked it, as told in the 12th chapter of the book of Daniel. And then I came back into the presence of this Ancient of Days, and I could think of nothing but love, infinite love. And then he embraced me. Then I stood before infinite might, and it was he who said to me, time to act. And I was whirled out of that wonderful assembly back at one night, little babe, and the room filled with light, and for the longest while it didn’t subside. But what must I do? Time to act — what? I had no money, no name, no reputation, no education, and do what? But as time went on, it unfolded within, and then it began to erupt, and erupt, and erupt. So he selected me to do it.1152 ¶27

And when the time comes — I am quite sure, if it is ever discovered, if they ever find those scripts, they’re going to find my story in that book. For that’s the true story of the birth from above. You’re not born by a change of consciousness, as the world teaches, that you’re going to feel something different, and that’s your birth. No, it’s an actual birth from above. And the child is only a symbol of your birth. And you are born from above, which means from God. The word is anothen — it is from above, but it means from God. Those who are born of God are not born from below, which is of blood, or of the flesh, or of the will of man. But no, this is of God. And who is born? It’s an expansion of God, that’s all — his sons are expanding the One, for God — the One — is made up of all of his sons, and together they form God, and he’s granting to each God, each himself, the Father.1152 ¶28

So here, what is true on this level, or any level for that matter, may not be true on a still higher level. Everything here is completely independent, seemingly, of your perception of it, and they go their way without asking your permission, and they do all the things that they want to do, and they do not consult you at all. And the day will come, after you ascend that fiery stairway, that you are in control and you live in the same world, and you don’t ask them permission — you simply arrest them, arrest an activity in yourself, which is life, for as the Father has life in himself, he is granted a son also to have life in himself — and that’s the life, and the life is the light of men, the consciousness of men. And you simply arrest it, and it goes out — the light goes out, and there is no light in their eyes, no light in their body. They’re dead, just as dead as that table. You go and you look at them, and they’re made of clay, just like clay. And then you release the activity in you, and suddenly they all become alive, and they don’t even know there was an interval of time between that moment that you arrested them and the moment when you released them. And if you had arrested them for one million years, when you released it, they would start off at that moment and not know that a million years had passed — you would have no knowledge of it.1152 ¶29

But the startling one — to be alive and be dead, to die, and you’ll meet them one day, because this is going to happen to you, and you can’t persuade them that they’re dead. But that’s all right, because they’re not — they’re very much alive. So the thought that a man can be dead, not knowing that he is, that is a startling thought, but not compared to the possibility that a man is dead while he was alive. You develop on it. This may not seem practical to you tonight, but may I tell you, whatever is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical.1152 ¶30