David Christ

Man must understand and experience scripture for himself before he can begin to actually, in the wildest, wildest manner, fully appreciate what it is. It is so different in prospect from what it comes to be seen in retrospect. Now tonight I’m going to do something I haven’t done since I started lecturing thirty-four years ago. I started on the second day of February, 1938, and I’ve never taken a piece of paper to the platform to read. Whether I am here before a living audience or radio or TV, I have always spoken extemporaneously, which I will tonight, but for just a short interval of time that I may not misquote, I’m confining myself to only one Bible, the Revised Standard Version. I have many Bibles at home, but that you may look it up — those of you who take it, um, on tape — that you may turn to the one Bible, the Revised Standard Version. Tonight it is my joy in showing you the correspondence between the David of the Old Testament and the Christ of the New. The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint. The New is its fulfillment. David of the Old is the Christ of the New. Jehovah of the Old is the Jesus of the New. The whole drama is the drama of Father and Son. It’s all about you. It is seen so differently after you experience it.1184 ¶1

Now, that I may not misquote, I’ve made just one page to show you the parallels, and then I will discuss it. So here we’ll start with what David claims first. But I always put the Old Testament first, because that comes first. Now here I am quoting from the 40th Psalm, the seventh verse. This is called a psalm of David. “In the roll of the book it is written of me.” John 5:39 — these are the words now of the Christ of the New. “You search the scriptures, and it is they that bear witness to me.” Each makes the claim that the Bible is all about them.1184 ¶2

Now, in the 22nd Psalm, David makes the claim, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The first words on the cross, in the New Testament, from the 27th chapter, the 46th verse of Matthew: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”1184 ¶3

Now, Psalm 22, the seventh verse: “All who see me mock at me, they wag their head.” The 27th chapter of Matthew, the 39th verse: “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads.”1184 ¶4

The 22nd Psalm, the 8th verse: “He committed his cause to the Lord, let him deliver him.” Matthew 27:43: “He trusts in God, let God deliver him now, for he said, I am the son of God.” David said, “I will tell of the Lord: he said unto me, thou art my son.” That’s the seventh verse of the second Psalm.1184 ¶5

Now, in the 22nd Psalm, 22nd verse, these are the words of David: “I will tell of thy name to my brethren.” In the 17th chapter, the 26th verse of the Gospel of John, these are the words of Christ: “I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”1184 ¶6

Now the 22nd Psalm, the 18th verse: “They divided my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.” The 27th chapter of Matthew, the 35th verse: “They divided his garments among them by casting lots.”1184 ¶7

The 69th Psalm, the 21st verse: “And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” The 19th chapter of John, the 28th through the 29th verses: “He said, to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. They put vinegar to his mouth.”1184 ¶8

The 31st Psalm, the fifth verse: “Into thy hand I commit my spirit.” The 23rd chapter, the 46th verse of Luke: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”1184 ¶9

The 132nd Psalm, the first verse: “Remember, O Lord, in David’s favor, all the hardships he endured.” The 24th chapter, the 25th and 26th verses of Luke: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things, and enter into his glory?”1184 ¶10

The 34th Psalm, the 20th verse: “He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” The 19th chapter of John, the 33rd and 36th verses: “When they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, for these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled: not a bone of him shall be broken.” Now we are told — and these are the words of Christ, in the 10th chapter, the 35th verse of John — “and scripture cannot be broken.” The body spoken of is not this little garment of flesh. Both claim that the scripture is all about them. That’s their body. And not one statement can be altered. It must be fulfilled. It cannot be broken. Scripture cannot be broken.1184 ¶11

Now the 118th Psalm, the 22nd verse: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” The 20th chapter, the 17th verse of Luke: “The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.”1184 ¶12

Now, from the book of Zechariah, the 12th chapter, the 10th verse: “I will pour out on the house of David a spirit of compassion, so that when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn.” Now, in the 19th chapter, the 37th verse of John: “And they looked on him whom they have pierced.”1184 ¶13

Now the 89th Psalm, the 27th verse: “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” The first chapter, the fifth verse of Revelation: “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.”1184 ¶14

Anyone, unless he’s prejudiced beyond repair, could not hear what you have heard tonight and not see the correspondence between the David of the Old and the Christ of the New. As I said earlier, until man experiences scripture, it’s to him a closed book. Man has to actually experience scripture to understand how altogether wonderful it is. And when it happens, it happens not as the world thought it would happen. It’s so different in prospect from what it comes to be seen in retrospect. You read a book and you expect it to happen on the outside, and everything happens — a child comes into the world, it’s born on the outside, and you see the baby, you see the parents, you see everything on the outside. Here it is not on the outside. The whole drama unfolds itself within the individual.1184 ¶15

So when a man born of a large family — as we are told in the book of Mark he had four brothers by name, and at least two sisters — and they knew his simple, humble background, so when he claims he is the fulfillment of scripture, they laugh, and they’re mocked when he tells them that he actually is the father of the son of God. For he said, in scripture, David in the spirit called me father. If David calls me father, how can he be my father? He is my son. So David in the spirit calls him my God, my Lord. David is the anointed one. The anointed one means the Messiah. The Messiah means the Christ.1184 ¶16

I can’t tell anyone the shock that was mine when it unfolded itself in me. I was raised in a Christian home and considered myself, and still do, a Christian. I feel that Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. You can’t separate them. It’s a hyphenated word, and you cannot separate them. When someone takes the New Testament and gives one the New Testament and says, “That’s all you need,” it’s stupid. It’s like giving me the solution of a problem and telling me, “Now just write down the solution — that’s all that the teacher wants from you,” and I do not know what I’m writing. Here is the problem: how are these things to be fulfilled? For this is God’s plan of redemption, and it’s all in the Old Testament. “I will meet David, and David will call me father,” as you’re told in the 89th Psalm: “I have found David, and he shall cry unto me, thou art my father. I have anointed him with my holy oil.” Now, to anoint with the holy oil is to make him Messiah. He is the elect, the chosen one.1184 ¶17

Now, unlike David — David is a permanent, resultant state, the same David — but the “I am” of man, you say, “I am John.” Well, that is the one who is going to be aware that he is the father of David. The “I am” of man, no loss of identity. When you meet him, he is the same resultant state. David is the fulfillment of all the experiences of humanity. He really personifies humanity. And when you, the individual, play all the parts that man is capable of playing, it comes out in the end. You awaken from the dream of life, and that which comes out as a resultant state is David, the David of scripture, the Old Testament. And then, if you had any doubts whatsoever as to who you are, you have none anymore. You’re exactly who you are.1184 ¶18

If you had any prejudice against the Jew, it all simply goes off into nothing. If tonight anyone who is prejudiced against the Jew, or anyone who is prejudiced against the Christian, and if he is a Jew, should have this marvelous experience, he can no longer be prejudiced against Christian or Jew. He sees it as a hyphenated name, the Judeo-Christian religion. It’s all one, and you can’t have one without the other. You could have the Old Testament and not have it fulfilled — in that case I can say I am a Jew, if I had not realized what it promised. But if I realize what it promised, well then I can’t cease to be a Jew, but now I’ve become a Christian. I can bear apples, but then if I bear apples, I am an apple tree. But I could be an apple tree and not bear apples. But I can’t bear apples and not be an apple tree. So if I bear the fruit as told me in the Old Testament, well then it’s the Christian. So Disraeli, the outstanding Jew of his day, prime minister of England — he said Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. Coming from someone other than Disraeli, one might question that. You cannot question it after you’ve experienced it, for the whole thing is right here in scripture, as you heard it this night.1184 ¶19

It has nothing to do with some little ism on the outside — not a thing. I can stand here tonight and quote through the night into tomorrow night, and in fact I would drop from exhaustion before I could exhaust the parallels between the Christ of the New and David of the Old. It’s one being. But Jesus is not, as the world thinks — we speak of “Jesus Christ” and separate them. Jesus is Jehovah, the same root: that is, salvation. The Lord is salvation.1184 ¶20

But no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is when the dove descends upon you. When you are incorporated into the body of God, that’s baptism. When the dove descends upon you and smothers you in affection, kissing you all over your head, all over your face, all over your neck, that is the descent of the Holy Spirit. Now these events of which I speak — they are separated in time, not by a wide separation, but they’re all part of a single complex.1184 ¶21

It begins with resurrection. The night that you are awakened within yourself, that’s the resurrection. You awake within your own skull, and your skull is the holy sepulcher. And you awake — not another — and you see no one but yourself. You awake. Well, you say, “Who’s awakening?” Well, I am. Well, that’s God. That’s his name, forever and forever. That’s the being that awakes. But you haven’t lost your identity — no, it’s the same I-amness. I’m aware that I am the man that I was, the man that I was just a moment before. But now I awake in a way I have never been awake before. Something entirely different from this daily awakening in the bed in the morning. This is something entirely different. And here I am, completely sealed within my skull. But I have an innate wisdom of what to do, and I push the base of my skull. Something gives, and then I push myself out, inch by inch by inch, like a child being born — only I’m an adult. And when I come out, the symbolism of scripture surrounds me: the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, three men bearing witness to the fact that I am born from above. They do not see me, for I’m spirit. They see the sign, which only signifies that something was born. But that which was born, although they know who it is, they can’t believe it. For one announces the fact — Neville’s child, Neville’s baby — but the others could not bring themselves to believe that a man was capable of having a child. I didn’t have any child. The child symbolized my birth from above, my birth into the kingdom of heaven, where only God dwells and those who are called and awakened. For it takes all of us to form the God — the Elohim, simply, it’s a plural word, a compound unity, one made up of others — and all of us one day will simply be called, and we will awaken within our skull, and we will go out of that skull and find the symbolism of scripture surrounding us, and we are the central character, the very one spoken of in scripture.1184 ¶22

But now we are father, but we do not know it yet. It takes the son to reveal the father, and the child did not reveal it. I didn’t feel any different. I knew it was all part of scripture, but I did not feel different. There was no change in consciousness. I saw the infant, I held him, and here is this wonderful child in my arm, and I called him sweetheart. But I did not, after I wrote the story down and mailed it to my wife — I still did not have a change in consciousness. But one hundred thirty-nine days later, when the head exploded and David stood before me, a radical change within me — then, for the first time in my long journey of unnumbered centuries, did I remember. It’s like memory coming back after amnesia, total amnesia. Comes my son, the resultant state of my long, long journey.1184 ¶23

So, as you are told in that Psalm, the 132nd: “Remember, O Lord, David, in all of his sufferings.” Remember him — he suffered. And is it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things, and then enter into his glory? So you’ve suffered, but your father — who you really are, in the depths of your own soul — in his infinite mercy, he has concealed the memory from you, that you may continue the journey. When you know your background of suffering, you’d want to cut your throat, but you’ve gone through it — that’s why you are here, and you’re not far from the end, when you will awake, and when you awake with the same son — that is my son, you and I, one — that’s the unity of God. For God is one. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Can’t be two. So in the end, though, you will not change your identity, and I will not change my identity. We have the same son, and that son is my son, your son — therefore we are one. This is the one in the many, an infinite number forming the one God, all equal, because we have the same son, and that son is the son of the Lord, and therefore we are the Lord when we come down to the very end of it.1184 ¶24

So here, when you read it in the future, bear in mind that the David of the Old is the Christ of the New, and the father is your own wonderful human imagination. When you say “I am,” that’s God. And the day will come that you will know it from an actual experience. And when you know it, you search the scriptures and you find confirmation of it there.1184 ¶25

The whole thing has been told you through the years, but a fixed, prefabricated misconception of scripture blinds you to what you’re looking at. You look at it and you still can’t see it. A man can see the most generous act in the world and admire the man for it, and then, if that man, politically speaking, is say a rabid Republican or a rabid Democrat, and he learns that that one is the opposite, it modifies the judgment of the man right away. He’s so fixed in his belief that a Republican — if he’s a Democrat — could not be good, and the Democrat could not be good if he’s a Republican. And instantly they go right down into the gutter because of some prefabricated misconception of what one is, even though he’s looking at it. So you read scripture and a veil is over your head. You still do not see it until it happens. And one day it’s going to happen — it’s going to happen in the individual.1184 ¶26

So, “in the roll of the book it is written of me,” and I can say that with authority, for I have experienced it. The day is coming, and maybe this night, you will be able to say, “In the roll of the book it is written of me, and my son is David, and I am his father, and his father is the Lord God Jehovah.” No, you don’t call yourself Jehovah, and you don’t call yourself Jesus — you still are John Stanley, whatever that name is, you are that. But you know you’re the father of God’s son, therefore you have to be God. That’s how you know it. No change of name — simply you are what you are, and you tend forever towards an ever greater and greater individualization.1184 ¶27

Your glorious body — you’ll pick it up when you take off this garment, after this series of events. When these take place, this body will come to its end, the inevitable end, and men will cremate it or throw it into the ground — do what they want with it, makes no difference. You are no longer of this sphere. You are of an entirely different sphere, clothed in an entirely different body, a body that is immortal — it has no end. So when David said, “Lord, give me life,” and then he answered, “Not only gave me life, he gave me days and days without end.” Here comes the eternal David.1184 ¶28

Something is taking place in eternity now, without respect to position in time, without respect to duration, without respect to repetition, and it simply enters man, and it erupts within man, and that is the eternal story. When that eternal drama unfolds within man, then that man is redeemed from this world of death. For this is the world of death, where everything that appears in this world waxes, wanes, and then disappears — it all dies. You will disappear, but you will not die in the true sense of the word — you’ll be restored to life. But there’s a vast difference between restoration to life and resurrection. Restoration to life is to find yourself in a world just like this, to continue the journey. Resurrection is an entirely different world — it’s the world of the kingdom, an entirely different world.1184 ¶29

Clothed in that immortal body, everything is perfect. No matter where you go, clothed in that immortal body, all things are made perfect before your eyes. It couldn’t remain imperfect when it is in your presence. If you walk through hell, hell will become heaven. No matter where you are, everything is made perfect.1184 ¶30

And that — these things really are the miracles of scripture. When I came upon that sea of human imperfection, I was completely indifferent — made no difference to me whatsoever what they looked like as I approached. They were blind, they were lame, they were halt, they were withered, they were deaf, limbs were missing, as I came by, clothed in this immortal body, not touching the ground, just simply gliding — but gliding above the ground. Everyone was made perfect in harmony with that perfection I felt myself to be. And I didn’t raise a finger to make it so. I showed no compassion. I knew they couldn’t remain that way. I didn’t have to stop and work some little scene out as to what I should do to make them so. No. As I walked by, they were transformed into perfection. Eyes that were missing came out of hiding and refilled the empty sockets. Arms missing came out of hiding and refilled the empty socket. Those who could not stand, stood. And everyone was made perfect. And when it came to the very end, and the last was made perfect, this heavenly chorus sang out, “It is finished” — the last words on the cross, in the book of John.1184 ¶31

And then I felt myself crystallized once more into this, like a straitjacket. This is like a straitjacket compared to that heavenly body that you will wear one day, and everyone will have it. And you do not earn it — it’s all a gift. You took it off before you came down. It is yours to return to. “Return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.” Here is preexistence.1184 ¶32

You came down, and the gift you gave up was memory. You had to completely forget that you are God, to become man. You can’t pretend that you are man. God became man, that man may become God, and there is no pretense in it — a complete and total amnesia. But now you return to the glory that was yours before that the world was. And this experience will simply enhance you beyond the wildest dream by becoming man and experiencing death, for you knew nothing of death until you entered this fall, because you couldn’t die. And now you come down and you’ve tasted of death, you’ve experienced death, but you cannot really die. And so in the end you’ll return — I have returned, the world return — and we’ll know each other more intimately than we could ever know each other behind these masks here on earth. We are all brothers, as he said in that story: “Now I told the name to my brother.” Now in the New Testament: “Go to my brothers and tell my brothers, I am ascending unto my father and their father, to my God and their God” — the very words of David: “I have made known thy name to the brothers.”1184 ¶33

Here — if you took just the psalms, one hundred fifty of them, well, you are stunned, if you know the New Testament, as you read it. You are stunned, moment after moment, to see the parallels between these and what is now the words of the cross. The seven last words of the cross, lifted bodily out of the Psalms — “Into thy hands I commit my spirit” — but the psalmist completes the thought; it is not completed in the New Testament, he only uses the very first line of the verse. The verse is: “Into thy hands I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. He will never take his doubt — his steadfast love — from David. He made him a king forever, and king of kings.”1184 ¶34

And so now they say of Jesus Christ, “Are you a king?” He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He did not deny he was a king — he said it was not of this world. And David said, “And they placed a crown of gold upon his head.” And read it then in the book of Revelation: “I saw one sitting on a throne in the cloud, and on his head was a crown of fine gold” — the identical one.1184 ¶35

He was called the firstborn: “I will make him the firstborn,” said the Lord. “And scripture cannot be broken.” So when we are told, in the first chapter of Revelation, “he is a witness, the firstborn from the dead” — who are they speaking of, when scripture cannot be broken? So he quotes the 82nd Psalm as he talks to them, in the book of John: “Is it not said in your scriptures that I said, you are gods? If he calls them gods to whom the word of God came, do you say of him whom the father consecrated and sent into the world, that he blasphemes, because he said, I am the son of God? He called you sons of God, and you say that I blaspheme because I say I am the son of God.” And then he adds, “And scripture cannot be broken.”1184 ¶36

But now we see the broken bone — it could not be broken. So they came to him, and the bone could not be broken. He was already dead, so they could not break the legs. And I read these commentaries that give the real reason why they broke the legs — so that if they were not dead, they could not run away — of all the nonsense in the world. And these are ministers writing these things — these are supposedly scholars, learned men, but men without vision. They have no vision whatsoever. But they dare to interpret scripture based upon their prefabricated misconceptions of scripture. But you can’t blame them, because it blinds man. Man is as blind as a bat when it comes to a fixed idea. He’s looking at it and he can’t see it. You see all around it and he will see confirmation of his own prejudice, but he can’t see what is there to be seen.1184 ¶37

But I am telling you, not to encourage you to some false hope — I am telling you from my own experience, you are the gods of scripture, as you’re told in the book of Deuteronomy, the 32nd chapter, the 8th verse. Today, you find it all over the world — people are trying to set limits to the birthrate, trying to have — China trying to find some means of curtailing the birth rate, our country, India — now listen to these words, the 8th verse, 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy: “He has set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God.” He has set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God. For no child can be born if it survives, for what it knows is that it is — to be aware of being, without uttering the word, is saying I am, long before it can utter one word. It is aware that it is, and to be aware that it is, is actually saying I am. And that’s God’s name forever and forever and forever. So he has set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God. So no one could be born here who is not now the temple of the son of God. And the father and the son are in everyone born of a woman, for the son is there, and at the end of the journey he will come out and confront him, and only when he confronts the father will the father’s memory return, and the father will know who he is. Until the son comes out, the father doesn’t know that he is the father. He doesn’t know his thought.1184 ¶38

Everything said in scripture is going to be fulfilled in you. But man could never have guessed how it would be, and so as it happens in you, you have to be honest with yourself, and you will confess that it appeared in prospect so different from what it now seems to be and is in retrospect. No longer can you think of David as some secular figure who was limited to a few years on earth — you see him as an eternal being. That being who has no end of days. He is the resultant state, and the same being comes out when you complete the journey. And you are the father completing the journey. But how long, how vast, how severe the anguish — there we find the father will long to tell how we come through and how we come out of these furnaces. Only the one who has gone through it will know.1184 ¶39

You come through it the day you awaken within your own skull. And that is the only holy sepulcher in the world. There is no holy ground in any cemetery — it’s a money-making scheme, a very good one. If you had bought stock in Forest Lawn, you’d be a very wealthy person today, if you got in on the ground floor. All these so-called holy places, they’re not holy places. Wherever you stand, that’s holy. If you’re standing at a bar tonight, because you stand there, you are holy — not the bar, you are. Wherever you go, God is dwelling within you. So wherever you are, God is there. You can’t get away from God because God is I am.1184 ¶40

But you will not know your God until his son David appears. David is the anointed one: “With my holy oil I have anointed him. Rise and anoint him.” And then the spirit of the Lord came mighty upon David from that day forward, and he never left him. Therefore all of his battles were predetermined — they had to be victorious, even though he suffered in the end. All the victory.1184 ¶41

So here — one day, and again I repeat, I hope it is soon, but it will come so suddenly — and I’ve asked myself this question: the one in whom it first came, did he have any prospect of it coming? It is not recorded in scripture. There was no prospect. It just happened suddenly. And when he told the story, they denied it. They would not believe him, because they knew his earthly parents, his earthly brothers, his earthly sisters, his social background. And they could not believe that this man could be the one chosen in whom God would erupt and realize himself in that man. So he tells his brothers, “This is what’s going to happen to you.” And then it happened to them. Then he told them to go forward and tell others. So they all experienced this, but it happened in one, and he had no prospect of it. It came, as I would say, as all-inspiring to him as it will come to you.1184 ¶42

When I was sung to sleep in my hotel room in San Francisco, no one could have told me that night, when I went to bed, that such things were even possible. I only knew the law, and I taught the law. I knew nothing of the promise. I had not the slightest concept that the promise was something to be actually experienced by the individual, here, that God himself not only came but comes into human history in the person of Jesus and his Christ — Jesus being that being that man’s I am, and Christ being David. He came, and he comes into human history, into the person of the Lord and his Christ.1184 ¶43

But who would have thought for one moment a man guilty of all the things that man is guilty of — whether he actually has the courage to do them openly or not, he entertained the thoughts, therefore if he entertained it, he was doing it psychologically — and a man unclean by his own standard, he never could have judged himself clean. And suddenly, at that very moment, it happened in him. Well, it’s unbelievable, but it’s true.1184 ¶44

You don’t have to purify yourself with diet. You don’t have to purify yourself by giving to charity. Give if you want to — it’s a very lovely feeling to give — but don’t think for one moment you’re buying yourself into heaven. You can’t get in in any other way other than through experiencing scripture. It’s the only way. And you are called unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. He comes, and then in one short little interval of forty-two months the whole thing unfolds and it’s over. And then you continue having other experiences, but the forty-two months — they actually congeal at twelve hundred sixty days, right on the very day when the dove descends, and then the seal of approval is upon you, and you simply are smothered with love, with a descent in bodily form in the form of a dove, and it’s all in spirit.1184 ¶45

Now, some will believe you when you tell it. Others will disbelieve you, and that will go on and on and on and on, because those who know you well will say, “Well, after all, it couldn’t happen to him because I know him, I know the man.” A friend of mine tried to convince someone back in the East about the experiences that I have had, and then something was dropped, and she said, “I know your second wife, I know her very well.” And then she asked, very simply, “It means his first wife died.” And she said, “No, he divorced her.” Closed the book mentally. “Tell me no more about that man, because no man divorced would ever have these experiences.”1184 ¶46

In Barbados, one day, quite innocently, I was talking to a man, an artist and a chef, a dear close friend of the family. And wherever he wanted to go, some member of the family — a very large family — would take him, ’cause he had no money, little money, and we would take care of many of his needs for him. And sitting on the veranda, the waves coming in, and I said to Jim, “Jim, I had these experiences.” And he said to me, in his own sweet, gentle way, “But Neville, how could you have these experiences? You are a Goddard.” I said, “What on earth has that to do with it?” “But you are business people, you’re all business people, and how could you have this experience?”1184 ¶47

Well, he was born and raised in the Catholic faith, gave it up in his prime when he became a good artist, and remained a non-Catholic until the very end, but he sensed the end and went right back into his little fold. He could only have this experience if he were a Catholic, and he wasn’t going to miss it — right back into the little fold. Now, if I was born into a family that had a priest in it, or had a nun in it — but all businessmen, and very successful businessmen — that put the whole damper on it. And Jim just said to me, quite innocently, “But you are a Goddard.” And what I asked him, and what has that to do with it, then he explained: “You’re a businessman, all businessmen.” And so here was a blind spot, and he could not actually — listen — he couldn’t let it get through.1184 ¶48

So Jim, today, he had only one eye in his last few years of his life. He has a good eye now, perfect eyes, back once more doing his work, but totally unaware of the mystery of Christ, because he didn’t have ears to hear. But we are told that in scripture — it begins in the sixth chapter of Isaiah — “and their eyes, but they see not, and their ears, but they hear not, lest they turn and be saved.” So go and tell them.1184 ¶49

And so, in the very end of the 28th chapter of the book of Acts, the story of Paul — and Paul, from morning to night, is expounding this mystery to those who will listen to him. And some believed and others disbelieved. And then he quotes the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the very passage that you find quoted in the gospel, but it all came out of the Old Testament. He quotes the sixth chapter. So you have ears, you think you have ears, and yet you hear not, and you have eyes and you see not, because there it is, but you will not see it. And you have ears — if someone should tell you about it, but you hear not.1184 ¶50

And so I’ll tell you the same thing over and over, night after night. What else can I talk about? I try to mix it up. Maybe on Monday I will talk about states of consciousness, and how you are free if you know they’re only states, and you are free to the point where you don’t condemn another because he is in a state and he can’t help it, either wittingly or unwittingly — he fell into a state of consciousness and he has to express that state into which he’s fallen. But if you know he’s in a state, you can’t condemn him, for while he remains in that state he has to express that state, be it good, bad, or indifferent. So I may pick that up on Monday night and expound that.1184 ¶51

But I can’t get away from the promise. The thing haunts me morning, noon, and night. I go to bed at night, and yet through the night I’m teaching — through the night, of an entirely different sphere — coming back down to this in the morning, and it’s just like putting on a straitjacket. You’re teaching, but you’re teaching not only those who are in that sphere now, but you’re going beyond it, because they — they are in a world just like this. Though they die here, they have restored there. They are old here, they’re young there.1184 ¶52