The Man Within (Lecture-2) (Unresolved ASR Witness)

Tonight’s subject is “The Man Within.” The man within is Jesus Christ. How will I know that Jesus Christ really is within me? I hope tonight to make it just as plain and as clear as I possibly can, I hope. I tell you this, because last Monday night I thought it was clear, and the next day a very dear friend of mine called me and told me that her phone had been busy all morning where so many who have been coming over the years were disturbed. It was not clear to them. Something said simply disturbed them and she herself was disturbed by an answer I gave to some question asked after the meeting. I thought I had made it clear. So tonight, again, I hope I can make it clear.1221 ¶1

How do I know that he is within me? Well, here, let me first turn to a small little poem of Blake, it’s called A Little Boy Lost. You’ll find it in Songs of Experience: “Nought loves another as itself, nor venerates another so, nor is it possible to Thought a greater than itself to know: And God, how can I love you or any of my brothers more? I love you like the little bird that picks up crumbs around the door.” When the priest heard this, he went into a rage and took the little boy by his hair and led him up to the altar high, and burned him as he had many burned before.1221 ¶2

Here, it is impossible for man a greater than himself to now. So if I would know God and God is greater, then God has to become me that I may discover myself as God. There is no possibility of my knowing greater than myself. Therefore, if the Lord God who created the universe is greater and he wants me to know him, I can know no greater than myself; therefore, God becomes as I am that I may be as he is. So Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ”—I no longer live—“it is not I but Christ who lives in me; and the life I know live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and became me” .1221 ¶3

He wanted my love, well, I couldn’t love something greater than myself —“Nought loves another as itself.” Now I know the so-called holy people of the world will scream like the priest in the little poem, because they aren’t honest with themselves. Oh, they will say, I love my country so I’ll die for it…if you draft me and I have no choice in the matter. I love so and so, so I’ll die for him…and all this palaver. No one really looks right into the mirror of his own mind and is honest with himself. Blake was: “Nought loves another as itself, nor venerates another so, nor is it possible for thought a greater than itself to know.” So, O Father, you want my love? Well then, you’ve got to become me, because I don’t know you…I can’t know anything greater than myself. So, will I know you? Well then, become me and let me discover you as myself. I’m discovering self.1221 ¶4

So he plotted and planned the whole thing when he became me. He brought the plan within himself; and then as I discover self, I discover it through the plan, and I reveal myself as he who became me.1221 ¶5

So this is the mystery of discovering this inner man. “I am crucified with Christ.” It’s the past tense, really—“I have been”—for that is over. Now anyone who teaches, Paul tells us, he said it in his 2nd letter to Timothy, “There are those who teach that the resurrection is over and past. They’re upsetting the faith of some” . It is not over…it has started, it is continuing, but it’s not over. It’s taking place in all whom he became and he became all; for he chose us in himself before the foundation of the world…and then came the descent.1221 ¶6

Now, let me illustrate it with a picture of Blake. You might have seen this, I have it at home. It’s a fifteen by twelve almost—not quite fifteen, not quite twelve. Unfortunately, mine is black and white. It’s simply the Ladder of Jacob. Well, Jacob is lying flat on his back, eyes closed, head turned to the right and resting lightly on his shoulder, but the arms are outstretched in the form of a cross. There he’s stretched out, flat on his back, and then arms stretched out in the form of a cross. Then comes the dream, and he has the ladder drawn in a circular stairway…the whole ladder is a circular stairway. There are those descending and ascending as told in the 28th chapter of the Book of Genesis (verse 10). It is said in one of the ancient manuscripts, it was the God, the gods descending and ascending. But that’s the E…because we only have three manuscripts, the E, the J, and the P. The E manuscript has it “the gods ascending and descending”; the others have “the angels of God.” But call it what you will, the gods ascending and descending. All the gods descending are bringing something. One has a basket on its head. I tried with my magnifying glass to see the contents of the basket. You could see something in it, but what it is I do not know, but a wicker basket. One has a pitcher on his right shoulder, a beautiful pitcher that holds, well, fluid. It’s like Rebecca at the well…that beautiful pitcher. One has a scroll, one has a volume. But each coming down has something…a talent they’re bringing down into this world. But each going up has a child. Here’s a little child on the shoulder, a child in the arms, a little child being held by the hand and being led. Each has a child on the ascent; but all have a talent on the way down. That is Blake’s wonderful picture of Jacob’s ladder.1221 ¶7

Now here, let me share with you what was given me this past week from my friend Bill Machgan. He said, “I found myself”—this is only a week ago that he had this experience—“I found myself in a dream and I was lying at the base of a huge tree. Above me, up the roadway, was an enormous dog, a big dog, and it was barking at me but it was leashed to a post. I said to myself, ‘I’m alright because my friend has him.’ Then I looked up and I couldn’t see the form but here was the outline of a fiery being of light and he started down with the dog, and the dog and he came down. I still could not see the actual form, but there was an outline of this fiery being of light. As he came down, they went past me then he unleashed the dog, and then melted into me. At that, as he melted into me and became me then I thought to myself, I must now get up as fast as I can and like lightening I went up to the very top most point. There I said to myself, ‘If the dog started after me I am now in the top room and so I am safe.’ The dog came, and as the dog came in he came over a licked me on the face. And then I woke feeling thrilled beyond measure because I knew it had tremendous significance.”1221 ¶8

Well, Bill, if you haven’t read The Hound of Heaven do so, Francis Thompson. It’s a very small tiny little poem. It’s considered his best…some people think it is the best he’s ever written…I don’t, but I think it’s perfectly marvelous. It’s the hound of heaven which is Caleb. But the hound of heaven is God, it is God himself. He starts it off with these words, “I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind. And in the midst of tears I hid from him, under running laughter.” Then the hunt continues as he is running, and in the very end the voice now is the Hound of Heaven which is God and speaks to him. He said, “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am he who now seekest. Thou bravest love from thee who bravest me.” That’s how it ends.1221 ¶9

It’s simply the pursuit of God. What is he seeking? He’s seeking your love. But he cannot receive my love that he wants unless he who is infinite love becomes me for I am incapable of knowing a thing greater than myself. So he who is the greater must become me, actually become me, if he would have my love that would satisfy hm. For if God is infinite love he’s a lover, and a lover without a beloved is unthinkable, so he needs the beloved. So we are told, “I no longer call you slaves. I call you friends, for a slave does not know what his master does.” So you are now my friends, he said, “For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known unto you” .1221 ¶10

So here, he becomes as I am that I may be as he is. In the descent he brought me down with him, and I went through all the fires, all the afflictions, all the tears, all of everything. But I could not begin the ascent until I was “born again.” I had to be born from above: “Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Then Nicodemus said to him, “How is it possible? One who is old, can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” He answered, “You, a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand this? Except you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of God” .1221 ¶11

Now he gives him the cue, “As the wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.” The Spirit and the wind are the same words both in Hebrew and in Greek. So he tells us what is going to happen: you are going to hear it, it will come as a wind, this fantastic wind, an unearthly wind. Then you’ll know this is it. But it is so much a part of you, you don’t know until after the event…then the infant…and so you take your infant up. It’s the sign of your birth from above, where now you discover who you are. You begin to discover God, for you are God…but not until God actually fuses with you and becomes one with you.1221 ¶12

So I can say to Bill, Christ is now your intimate companion with your soul. He’s now within you and now all that is said of him you’re going to experience: the birth, the resurrection, the discovery of Fatherhood. All these things will happen in you. They must for he is fused with you. And you saw Caleb, the hound of heaven, and he comes over as a friend and kisses you. That’s what a dog does when he licks you on the face, he kisses you, and he kisses only his friend. So you are told, not in scripture but the way it’s interpreted, that he died for sinners, he died for his friends, he died for those that he loved. God is infinitely merciful.1221 ¶13

So here, man is made a living being, but he sleeps we are told. He’s dead but “mercy turned death into sleep; and then the sexes rose to work and weep.” But not until mercy turned death into sleep did the sexes rise and they rose to work and weep until that birth takes place from within.1221 ¶14

There’s a little poem by [Wilkin?] and he said, “Behold, O man within, the maiden within you; creature, one from a thousand natures; creature, only just one, but never as yet beloved.” She hasn’t yet brought forth the child in fulfillment of the promise that here the Lord himself will give you a sign: a maiden will conceive and bear a child, and she shall call his name Immanuel, which is “God with us.” So you brought her forth through a thousand natures—all the horrors you’ve gone through. You suddenly discover her. You haven’t yet really turned her into your beloved. For you’re told, it’s the woman from above that brings this child into being; and the woman from below brings in these garments of flesh, these things that are slave garments. But there is a woman in man called “the Jerusalem from above,” and she brings children into freedom. The Jerusalem from below is Hagar and she brings them into slavery.1221 ¶15

So here, the woman within you is created by the life that you lead. I saw it so clearly when I saw this angelic being—you never saw such beauty in your life. At the same time, I saw this monstrous being. One was the result of all my misspent energies, all of my violence went right into this monster. All of my ideals and my faith that I kept when I was faithful to the vision in time of trouble, it all went into this noble creature. And then came that moment in time when both confronted me, this beauty beyond measure and this monster. When I discovered that the monster was my own creation, I made a pledge to myself, not to another, I’d redeem him. If it took me eternity, I’d redeem him; and before my eyes he melted and the energy returned to me who had misused it. My energy felt so great at that moment! At that moment I never felt such intensity, such power. And this one glowed. She’s not going to be destroyed; she is the maiden within me who brought forth the child. So everyone is actually this story as told by [...]: “Behold, O man within, the maiden within you— creature now one from a thousand natures.”1221 ¶16

Now this is the inner man and the inner man has powers beyond the wildest dream of anything on earth. So let me share with you now another one. A friend of mine who is here tonight, Sharon, and she said it happened to her here recently. She got a new edition of the book called The Lost Books of the Bible and Forgotten Books of Eden. She said, “I sat there and began to read from the beginning. When I got to the 13th chapter, the third through the seventh verses, suddenly I went cold, for here I am reading in a book supposed to be the lost books of the Bible and Eden, and I’m reading an experience of myself that happened to me when I was fourteen years old. When I was fourteen, here I sat at the dinner table with my father and mother and my sister. My mother had occasion to go to the kitchen. I could see her through the door open the refrigerator and she called from the kitchen to me and said, ‘Sharon would you like a glass of milk?’ I said I’d love it, thank you. I saw her pour it into the glass and I saw her put the container back. Then she came in and at the moment that she offered me the milk, at that moment time stood still. I looked at my mother and here she is completely unaware of what is taking place. Not a thing has moved, it’s all frozen. My father, my sister was like a blur, but everything is frozen and time stands still. Suddenly it all began to move. My father was beginning to chew something when he couldn’t, and suddenly he continued the action. My mother continued action, my sister…and I jumped from the table, ran to my bedroom, threw myself on the bed and I could not stop the tears. I cried and cried and cried. My parents justified it by saying teenage emotionalism, all little girls go through it, she’s fourteen years old, boys go through it…just a teenage explosion. She said, “At the moment I thought I was crying for everyone in the world, because they didn’t understand it.”1221 ¶17

The world is dead. It’s animated by the Lord Jesus Christ, who became us. And in her, she is tasting of the powers that will be hers in the new age. So one moment, and it could have been several moments, but all things continued as though these moments did not stand still. To them, they did not stand still. She said, “When I asked my mother recently about it, she said, no, she had no memory of that, just an upset. And she asked, “Is that similar to your experience of entering into a place in Spirit where everything stood still?” I said, “Yes, identical with that. You’ve tasted of the power of the age to come.”1221 ¶18

Now here, she said, “As I read the book, I was so frozen to see that here recorded in what is called The Lost Books of the Bible and Eden an experience of my own that happened when I was fourteen that I quickly turned the whole page over and all the pages to the very end…just to get away from it. And here before my eyes this is what I read, “A cup of milk was offered to me: and I drank it”—a cup of milk was offered to me and I drank it—“in the sweetness of the delight of the Lord. The Son was the cup; he who was milked is the Father”— Ode 19 of the Odes of Solomon. Then she underscores the thought “There is no escape.” No there isn’t.1221 ¶19

How will you tell the world that this whole vast world truly is dead, and we descend into it, animate it, for we descend with Christ. We animate it and the whole thing goes on and on, and we play our parts. At intervals, as we begin to awake, we stop it. We stop a few moments of it to see the whole thing is dead, and then become lost in it once more, and play the game. At another moment we stop it again…maybe a year later, maybe ten years later. For I’ve had these moments scattered over the years, and it’s fantastic! You almost forget that you did it before and all of sudden you stop it again, to bring back to memory the death this is here. So when Blake speaks of this as “eternal death,” he knows what he’s talking about. He said, “Here it is of the passage through eternal death, and of the waking to eternal life.”1221 ¶20

So the question that disturbed the other night was when my friend [...], who’s here tonight, asked concerning the one birth through the womb, for I quoted from the 9th chapter of Hebrews, that “it is given to men to die once, then comes judgment.” Then we are told, “Christ was offered once, but he shall come a second time—not concerning any sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” . His return is when he awakens in us. That’s his return…no being coming from without. For if there be a Christ other than he who is crucified on us and who rose and continues to rise in us, he’s a false Christ. There is no other Christ but the Christ who is crucified on us.1221 ¶21

He rose in John Brown, in Mary Smith, in so and so…but he’s rising and continues to rise until all are resurrected. So the re-birth is through the resurrection of Christ in us as we are told in Peter: “Man is born from above through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” . Well, if you aren’t born from above, is the resurrection over? You have to say no; therefore, “Those who teach the resurrection is past and over are upsetting the faith of some.” It took place, yes, but it is taking place in every one in the world. When it takes place in the individual, there is no doubt as to what happened: he found himself rising within himself.1221 ¶22

Now here, take the story of Jacob and the ladder. He came to a place, it was late, and he took a stone and used it for a pillow, put his head upon it. Now you think a man took a little stone. Every night when you go to bed you put your being on that pillow; the skull is that stone on which you rest night after night; when I lie down at night, I’m on the stone. Then we are told he saw this ladder that was set up from earth to heaven with the gods ascending and descending on the ladder, and the Lord God stood above it. Now it said “stood above it.” Well, the word translated “above” literally means “top”; it actually means “the highest point.” Well, the highest point…the drama is taking place in me…that serpentine ladder is my own wonderful back. That is how I go up; so the top of it is my skull. So when the Lord stood at the top, above it, where is he standing? The Lord entered death’s door, my skull, with me when I entered and laid down in the grave with me to share with me my visions of eternity, my dreams, until I wake. And when I wake I will know who I am: I am he. I will see the linen clothes. It’s not these things here but the garment which I discard. It was my emanation, but now I discard it as I begin to ascend. And in the ascent I will take the sign of my birth, I’ll take the child; for in that ascent of Blake’s, all had the child, every one a child, and it fades into the distance. You can’t paint it in that form. But how would you paint it within a man? So you’ve got to use your Imagination when you see the wonderful picture. So you see a man lying flat on his back, and then you see this wonderful circular stairway, and you think it’s something on the outside. It’s all within himself that the drama is taking place.1221 ¶23

So this man within is your own wonderful human Imagination. It’s the awakening of the Imagination. But if I am incapable of knowing a greater than myself and there is a greater than myself, that greater self if it desires me to know him or it, it must become me if I would know him; for it is impossible for thought a greater than itself to know. If I cannot know greater than myself and there is a greater than myself who desires that I should know him, well then, let him become me. So he becomes as I am that I may be as he is. So this is our story concerning the inner man.1221 ¶24

Don’t be concerned about it, don’t be frightened. It’s the most fantastic play in the world, the greatest play ever…completely misunderstood. When certain little isms claim that they have all the Truth, Truth is an ever increasing illumination. So when I say it in one way, I said, I only die once; I am born twice. I am born into this world and then I am re-born from above which allows me to enter the other age. There are two ages altogether.1221 ¶25

But I use the word “die” in my ways. Paul said, “I die daily.” Well, he doesn’t mean it in another sense. For instance, he said, “I die daily.” I die daily too if I change my ideas concerning anything. If an experience of tonight forces me to change, sometimes only in a little way, but quite often a radical change of the ideas that I sponsor, well then, am I honestly not to face the same audience and confess the change? I must be that honest if tonight an expansion in consciousness forces me to modify or radically change the ides that I championed. As I expand and expand I’ve got to, for I’m ever expanding, therefore growing and outgrowing. So Paul said, “I die every day.”1221 ¶26

Blake made the statement that “death is the greatest thing in life, there’s nothing like death. But most people die so late and take such an unmerciful time in dying, God knows their neighbors never see them rise from the grave.” [...] concept he had of death. He had an enlarged meaning for the word death. He wrote his own obituary, his epitaph, the year before he died, and this is what he said: “William Blake, who is very much delighted to be with good company, born the 28th of November, 1757, in London, and has died several times since.” Well, you read the man’s epitaph and that’s what he said. He was growing from the time that he became aware that the world was all Imagination.1221 ¶27

So one day all these scientists sat around and were discussing about the vastness of the universe, this enormous immensity of space, and they’re speaking of light years, and he said them, “It’s all false. Last evening I went to the heath and put my finger upon the sky. You doubt it? I know the whole thing is within you; the whole vast universe is contained within man. ‘All that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.’” And so, he would have none of it.1221 ¶28

God is not a mathematical design, a diagram; God is your own wonderful human Imagination. He became you that you may actually know the infinity of his own being which is your being. For unless he became you, what could you do? You could never in eternity know more than yourself, not in eternity. It is impossible for thought a greater than itself to know; therefore, if I cannot know anything greater than myself, and there is a greater being and he desires me to know him, I can’t know him unless he becomes me. So God becomes as I am that I may be as he is; and therefore from then on it’s only self-discovery. So people speak of discovering God…I’m discovering only myself.1221 ¶29

But I will read the story and what did they say of God? Well, they said he was born differently. In what way was he born differently? Well, the one who begot him, who brought him forth, didn’t know a man, and it is said she conceived of the Holy Spirit. Then when those who came to bear witness of this birth, they were told a sign would be given to them, and the sign would be a little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. That would be a sign. But he would be born. That was the sign of his birth, only a sign.1221 ¶30

Well then, all of sudden it happens, happens to you. And, what else did he say? He said, “Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee.” Who’s speaking?—the Lord God. To whom did he speak?—to David. And David recorded it in the 2nd Psalm: “I will tell of decree of the Lord, he said unto me ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’” (verse 7). Then comes an explosion, where?—in your head where the whole drama takes place. And what happens? Here stands David and he is calling me Father, and I know I am his father; and there is no other way to know that I am God the Father other than his own Son calling me Father. So he is not compromising his gift: he gives me his entire being.1221 ¶31

Now what comes next? He tells me that he’s going to take his own blood as a sacrifice of his journey…not the blood of another. And all of a sudden, the veil we are told is split from the top to the bottom. And then I find the veil is my own body as told us in Hebrews: “And the veil…he rent the veil from top to bottom…and the veil of the temple was his own flesh” (Mat. 27:51). I found my own body split in two and parted, and I see the blood, living blood, and I am it. For life is in the blood and I am life: the life is an activity of my imagining. Because I have discovered it, I imagined and stopped it and things froze; I released it and they continued working. I froze it again and they stopped. And so, I fused with my own blood. I didn’t take the blood of a bull or a goat or any other blood; I took my own blood and up I went in the form of a serpent. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14) in the same serpentine manner. Well now, I know that happened to the Lord, so he calls himself the Son of man, well, I’m a Son of man, and so up I went in that manner.1221 ¶32

Then we are told of the Lord that it was said, “Anyone on whom you see the dove descend, rather, the Holy Spirit descend and remain upon him, that’s he, the Lord’s Anointed; and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” . Well, the day came that the dove descended in bodily form, which is simply the form which the Holy Spirit presents as himself; and it remained and smothered me with kisses. So then I knew that the whole drama was unfolding within me.1221 ¶33

Now, go and tell it, tell it to everyone. If they turn their back upon you, I’ll make your forehead like a flint, and so you will keep it, and will not turn back and modify it because they will not accept it or understand it. So you keep going and it doesn’t matter what they do. If they are like flint, I’ll make yours even more so. And so let the whole world say it isn’t so…it doesn’t really matter. I’m telling you the drama is not outside of you; the drama is in you and that goes for everything in your world. Your business is not on the outside; your business affairs are taking place within you. You’re going to be a success or a failure, it’s all within you. The minute you turn on the outside and think he will help me, she will help me, they will help me. You’re lost. God doesn’t need anything, because he became you, and he’s your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s who God is.1221 ¶34

And so here, when the priest took him by the hair, and then took him up and said, “What a fiend have we here!” The little boy—not a child—it’s every person in the world, it’s you, it’s me. But we come to this conclusion based upon vision. And man without vision, trying to keep alive the traditions of his earthly parents, he will call us a fiend, and if the day allows him to burn us he’ll burn us. There were days when they were allowed to burn them and call them heretics. But that day has passed for a moment, only a moment, it’s a circle so it will come again, and it will take over and they’ll burn.1221 ¶35

But, “Those whom God afflicts for secret ends he comforts and heals and calls them friends.” So the minute you are called a friend that’s important. So when the dog came up, the Hound of Heaven, and kissed him, he only kissed a friend…and so he’s called a friend. So in him tonight Christ is his intimate companion, and he will never leave him, not in eternity. So he will lean against it in time of trouble and he will remember this experience. If things go wrong, he’ll remember it shouldn’t, but nevertheless it has; therefore, I’ll get back and recognize the one who loves me. Who not only loves me, but he became me, he melted into me. He took off the leash from the Hound of Heaven, turned around and melted into me, and he hasn’t left me. Does he not kiss his Son?1221 ¶36

Well, when you read scripture, you’ve got to be so careful because translations are strange. For instance, here is the one I started off tonight. In the King James Version they will put it in the present tense “I am crucified with Christ.” The real translation is “I have been crucified with Christ,” that’s found in the Revised Standard Version. But as we go on, the King James has a far clearer expression and it is this: the same word translated “of” in Son of God is the word that comes just before it which in the Kg. Jas. Ver. is translated “of” but in the Rev. Std. Ver. is translated “in.” That’s false. For instance, let me quote it: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me” (Gal. 2:20) and became me. Not my faith in him. It’s all the difference in the world. And the identical word translated “of” (Son of God) is the word that precedes it. Therefore, the Kg. Jas. Ver. gives us the right translation, not the Rev. Std. It is not my faith in God, I don’t know he exists; it is God who desires me to know him and to love him; therefore, it is his faith that sustains the whole. When he becomes me, now I take on this quality of faith and apply it on this level in the world of Caesar, but I am sustained by his faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. How did he do it? He became me, he died, he forgot his infinite being, and took upon himself the form of this slave, this servant. And then I begin to expand, discovering more and more of myself which would be impossible if that greater had not become me. I hope that is clear tonight. And whatever I said in answer to my friend Jack’s question that confused a few of you I regret it, but I hope this has made it clearer.1221 ¶37

So there are two births, one death. The death is not when my father so-called died; he didn’t die to himself. He died to the family who he left behind him, but he did not die to himself. He was instantly restored to life in a body same as before only new, unaccountably new, terrestrial world, same as before, and new and young, twenty years old. So to him he didn’t die…and he didn’t. The death has taken place: “I have been crucified with Christ”—that was the death. But now comes birth here in this section of time; the most important thing is birth in this world…that’s the first birth. Then comes the second, which is different, it is “from above”; for God is Spirit, and if I would be born as God, I must be born as Spirit, not as flesh and blood. “For that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit” . So there are two births, but one death.1221 ¶38

In spite of all the teachings of the world there are hundreds of millions of people who believe in reincarnation in the literal form, where this little flesh called Neville was once a little girl called Jane, and before that it was a little boy called Peter, and before that…all losses of identities. Forget it! There is no loss of identity. Man is individualized, and he tends forever towards ever greater and greater individualization…no loss of identity.1221 ¶39

So here I find myself in a garment of flesh and blood. This will come to an end to those who love me, and they will drop a tear and say, well, Neville died. But Neville is not to himself dead. And this time he is not going to be re-clothed and restored to a world like this in a body same as this. No, his journey is at an end, it’s over. But we’ll all meet in “that age” after each has brought forth the birth.1221 ¶40

The birth is essential to consciousness in heaven. “You must be born from above, for unless you are you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:3). It’s just like that. But the wisest of the wise called Nicodemus did not understand it, and he said, “You a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand this?” For we have it he was a member of the Sanhedrin. Well, you can’t go any higher in the theology of the Hebrew. To be a member of the Sanhedrin…can’t go any higher. But with all his knowledge concerning the promises of God as recorded in the Old Testament, all the prophecies, he did not understand them…not until they unfolded themselves in Christ. And Christ in man unfolds the promises, for all the promises of God find their yes in him. So everything foretold unfolds in Christ in you. And Christ in you is the inner man.1221 ¶41

Now tonight, suppose you had the whole vast world and you didn’t really understand this mystery, and when you leave here, you’re told in scripture, you take nothing with you but your identity. You just take your identity and you leave the billion behind you. Or if you are a dictator and you could murder millions because you had the power to, and you leave that entire power behind you, it means nothing in the new world. Your identity remains, but you have none of the power that you wielded when you’re a dictator. You’re simply an identity that cannot be rubbed out, and you find yourself in a section of time best suited to the work yet to be done in you. And so, what would it matter if you piled it up in a few short years of three-score and ten and had to leave it behind you, because all will leave it behind? As we’re told, we brought nothing into the world and it is certain we will take nothing out. We’ll go out clothed in a body same as before, young and new and fresh, with no part missing, but with none of the things that we thought so important while we were here.1221 ¶42

So you want things? I wouldn’t say not to get them. There’s a principle by which you can get anything in this world; but don’t forget the purpose of life and the purpose of life is to awaken. To awaken is to be born from above, that’s the purpose.1221 ¶43

There is a purpose. You come into this world and it seems to have no purpose. It seemed to have, well, it’s endless it seems. But there is a purpose and the purpose is expansion, an ultimate birth, something entirely different, a further existence, a new age. And may I tell you, all will get it. Not one will fail, because he so loved all he became all. Can you conceive of someone that he didn’t become? May I tell you, the one that you think he couldn’t become that one couldn’t even breathe, for he is the breath of life, and the breath and the Spirit are one and the same.1221 ¶44

So now let us go into the Silence. * * *1221 ¶45

Now Monday night we will take up something on this practical level. If I gave it a name, I would say, “Live the Answer Now.” Now are there any questions, please?1221 ¶46