The Game of Life

Tonight’s subject is “The Game of Life.” The first thing we do in the playing of a game, we must learn the rules, and then we play the game within the frame of rules. Any violation of the rules carries a penalty. Now, this is the game of life and you and I play it from the cradle to the grave and beyond because the grave does not end our game of life. So while you’re in this age, you can really learn how to play it.53 ¶1

Now first of all, we are told “Even in your thought, do not curse the king, nor in your bedchamber curse the rich; for a bird will carry your voice, or some winged creature will tell the matter.” That you will find in Ecclesiastes in the 10th chapter . Now we turn to the positive side, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will” . Here we are taught to start at the end; the end is where we begin. When I know my goal that’s where I start, for in my end is my beginning. I feel myself into that end, and I’m promised if I do and if I’m persistent, it will come to pass.53 ¶2

Now we are told, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days” . Don’t be concerned, just cast your bread upon the waters. I know that many people have interpreted that as “to do good”…to go out trying to do good to build up a certain merit in the world, a certain credit in the book of God. Hasn’t a thing to do with it.53 ¶3

My friend the other night, when he asked me concerning the word carpenter, and I told you in the last meeting but he wasn’t here, and for his benefit we’ll tell him what the concordance, the biblical concordance tells us about it. The word means “to produce from seed, as a mother, a tree, the earth, to bring forth, to be born, to be delivered.” So the seed of the Old Testament, which is the Promise, has to be born. So the carpenter called Christ Jesus brought it to birth, for in him all the promises found their fulfillment. He didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them . He was the carpenter who produced from seed, the seed being the promises, as made through the prophets, and he simply fulfilled them.53 ¶4

Well now, this cast your bread upon the waters…and people go out to do good and give to charity. All these are lovely things and I wouldn’t stop anyone from giving anything in this world that they really wanted to give, but that is not casting your bread upon the waters. The word bread means in the biblical concordance “to devour, to consume” and waters is a euphemism for “semen,” that living water that carries the seed, the sperm of man. It’s a psychological creative act; it’s not a physical act. But it’s the same intensity raised to an nth degree. You speak of a man who is consumed with hate or he could be on fire with love, but this is the passion of which it speaks; and that is casting your bread upon the waters. An intense imaginal act will draw to itself its own kin, its own affinity.53 ¶5

Now here we have one who has departed this world at the very peak of success. You all know him…this age could not forget him. He had so many failures and then he made a discovery which he put into print, and his words are these, “The mood decides the fortunes of people rather than the fortunes decide the mood” . It is to those who continually compare what is within with what is without who have this certainty. Those who do not change in mood, who are consumed all day in anger, see not change and recognize no law. If there are changes of mood, there will be changes of circumstances. And then because of a change in circumstances related to the change of mood you recognize a law behind it, behind all these changes.53 ¶6

But if all day long you are depressed…and there are people who from the cradle to the grave are depressed. I know of many. I go back to New York City where I was closer to people because the thing is smaller…this is a vast area in Los Angeles and I don’t drive…but in New York City I would walk miles every day and encounter many friends. Well, I could spot a couple of dozen who when you met them you wanted to cross the street (if they hadn’t seen you) because you’re going to get the most depressing story. They’ll tell you all about their wife or their husband or their children and it was always depressing. Over years the same thing…you never heard any change in mood. So they saw no change in their world; and therefore recognizing no change they saw no change in their world. And therefore, recognizing no change they recognized no law between the inner world that they maintained and the outer world that came in response to it.53 ¶7

But if I know this law I could predict that by the uprising of new moods within me that I would soon meet people of a certain character…and I met them. Even inanimate objects are under the sway of these affinities. I have gone with a mood to my library and taken from the library a book that I have not touched in years, and opened it casually to find the answer confirming that mood, something beautifully stated, a book of poetry that I haven’t touched. But something…you see a table differently for the first time based upon the mood, yet the table was there all along. And you see everything in the world reflecting the mood.53 ¶8

For here we are told, the mood decides the fortunes and it’s not the fortunes decide the mood. You can think, “If only I had a million dollars, oh, would I feel great!” Not knowing if they feel as though they had it, they would actually attract that state in their world, because we contain within ourselves “the lamp of the world.” We are told in the Book of Proverbs “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord” . The lamp of the Lord would be the light of the world. We are told we contain it, we actually contain it within ourselves. And nature, the genii, is slave of that lamp and must fashion life about us as we fashion it within ourselves. It has no choice. And when I say “nature,” I’m not speaking only of the plants; I speak of humanity, I speak of the animal world, I speak of the plant world, I speak of the mineral world. I speak of everything that is seemingly on the outside that is slave of the lamp that is on the inside. But I must first fashion it on the inside and then this slave of the lamp will fashion it in harmony with that which I have done within. And no power in the world can stop it.53 ¶9

If I am aware, I will recognize a law between my mood and circumstances which surround me. I don’t have to go in search of it. I don’t have to seek it. I could predict without search that I will meet certain characters, certain things in harmony with the mood…and I invariably do…whether that character is a living being or a book or something else. It’s something that must bear witness.53 ¶10

So here, the game of life is to find out the rules. And the rule in the positive way to play it beautifully is to have a goal: you must know what you want. You can’t just complain because you don’t like what you have; you must know what you want in place of what you have. When you know what you want, you must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and although at the moment reason would deny it and your senses deny it, you must persist in that assumption, and if you persist in that assumption, that assumption will harden into fact. It will objectify itself upon the screen of space.53 ¶11

Now, I ask you to play it along that way. If you say, “Well, it doesn’t work,” you haven’t tried it. You may say it’s stupid. All right, maybe it’s stupid. But the man who made his departure from this world a few years ago at the very top—no one achieved such greatness—and here he tells it in his own wonderful English that the mood decides the fortunes of people, and it’s not the reverse, that the fortunes decide the mood. Well, you either believe him or you don’t believe him, but he certainly proved it in his own life. Although he was born to greatness he failed in Parliament. He was a washed up man in the Second World War. When Chamberlain was put aside after the conflict started, they called upon Churchill, and then Churchill was the one who galvanized the Western world by his words. He was putting into practice exactly what he told us, that the mood does it. And in spite of all the bombing of London and all the horrors, he sustained the mood, the mood of victory. Not for one moment did he waver even in the darkest days. He sustained it when his opponent didn’t know the law and put his trust in armaments and numbers, all these things, and Churchill put his trust in the mood. He knew that the mood would fashion life around him, and it would externalize itself upon the world.53 ¶12

He went to his grave leaving behind this wonderful statement. How many saw it, I don’t know. I read it in the New York Times when he spoke to the Guild Hall in London and the New York Times printed his entire speech. That thing simply jumped off the page when I came to it. So I made a record of it and recorded it as I do all these things that hit me…for I am in search of principle. If I find the law, if I find the principle and abide by it, it should prove itself in performance. Well, it has proved itself in my case in performance by simply catching the mood and then I teach others how to catch it: what would the feeling be like if it were true? Well, you toy with that idea, you play with it for awhile and then all of a sudden the mood comes upon you. Well, keep that mood…just stay in that mood.53 ¶13

I can tell you of many who by playing on the mood are being secure…starting with nothing, not one penny in the world. And, here is a lady in her middle sixties, she confessed to that (I’m inclined to believe she is even older than that) but she had nothing and all of a sudden she began to put this into practice. “Something wonderful is happening to me now! Something wonderful!” and she kept playing upon it and playing upon it. Within that very week she received her first great return. A friend who had known her, and they were intimate for twenty-odd or maybe thirty-odd years, he often said to her that he’d never give her a nickel, not one nickel; that they had fun together and they saw every show that came to Broadway, all the operas, all the concerts, and they dined high, wide and handsome every night in some fabulous restaurant. He felt that was enough for her company of thirty years. But he had a change of heart within that first few days after playing this part. She actually felt in the morning before she went to her job that paid her seventy-five dollars a week gross, that is before taxes, and she a single girl, living in a hotel room, and you know what you could take home…practically nothing. Luckily he did pick up all the checks when it came to food, but that is not what any woman wants in this world. Well, he settled on her a $100,000 trust fund. The trust is hers and she can will it away to anything in the world. She can give it to a dog kennel; he didn’t so set it up that at her death it returned to his estate. It was detached from his estate and she receives the investment. He didn’t give her the $100,000 because he thought she might go out and spend it, so he set it up in a trust to pay her the interest from that trust for the rest of her days.53 ¶14

Again she began to apply it beyond that. He set up another $100,000…and the same lady. Now she has $200,000 and she can’t spend the income. I know where she lives; I know what she pays in rent. It’s a lovely place, a modern apartment, and I know her rent is $165 a month and utilities…what would they be…I mean all the utilities in the place? It would be practically nil. I know how she lives…well, she can’t spend the income. Then, of course, at her age she has a certain check from the government. All of that together, she must have, maybe, $1,500 a month, and she was making seventy-five dollars a week before taxes. She still isn’t satisfied.53 ¶15

Now, she knows the law. I tell her, I don’t give a darn what you want, I’m telling you only a principle and I leave you to your choice and its risk. So you simply apply the law and apply it wisely. Now the old gentleman has a little hardening of the brain…and they’ve parted company. Because he refuses to see her—with advice of his nephews and nieces and all the others—she now curses him as we are warned not to do. “Even in your thought, do not curse the king, and even in your bedchamber, do not curse the rich; for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tells the matter.” So she calls me every week from New York City to tell me she is overcoming the cursing of him, but has she? It will not take from her the trust fund—that is something established—but other things can come into her world that will hurt her beyond anything such as money. But unnumbered things if she continues to curse him, the rich man, because he didn’t now put another million on her back as it were.53 ¶16

So, I’m just warning you of the law, the positive side of it and the negative side of it, and leave you to practice. It takes practice, for if you are in the habit of thinking negatively morning, noon and night you are not going to start tonight to go through the door and think that you are all that you want to be and sustain it. You can hold it for maybe a few seconds and then because it hasn’t proved itself in performance in a matter of a minute, you may forget it and completely turn away to some other state. But the game of life is to first know the rules and when I know the rules I must then apply the rules. But I must see both sides of it, for in every game there are rules that are laid down and violation of the rules will cause a penalty.53 ¶17

Now, “Be not deceived,” we are told, “God is not mocked, for as a man soweth, so shall he also reap” . So in the world I can play a certain game and I may get away with a violation that the referee didn’t see and I may do it several times, but this referee sees everything; for he is the lamp within us, for the “Spirit of the man is the lamp of the Lord.” I cannot get away from that observer within me, for he and I are one. Do I know it? Then he knows it because I and my Father are one . So do not be deceived…I can’t mock him. So whatever I do that’s a violation of this, like feeling sad for myself and feeling very sorry for myself, it is going to be recorded and as it’s recorded there is no excuse that I can make, it’s going to mold itself in harmony with my world.53 ¶18

Now here, a letter came today (and this gentleman is here tonight). He said, “A friend of mine last Monday night after your lecture asked me for help…the help being an imaginal help…that I would imagine the good for him that he wants to hear. So when I went home I spent a half an hour on him. I imagined exactly what I think I would hear if his desire had been realized. I heard it distinctly and then I retired. Just before I woke in the morning I saw in my dream his wife and the wife is thanking me profusely over and over for the help, the great help that I gave to her husband. It was such a vivid, vivid dream. When I awoke I knew she had no knowledge of what I had done and the help could only be my response to his request; so I began to think in some strange way she knows of the request because she certainly doesn’t know of the help. Then during the day I thought maybe it has already been realized, could be, and in the deeper level of my being in dream she has thanked me for it. Well, that night, which is Tuesday night of this week, while listening to music in my living room, suddenly he appears in my reverie and he uses the identical words that I used the previous night to hear him confirm the fulfillment of his desire. He spoke with such authority, such power, with such joy. But he used the identical words that I had formulated purposely to hear him tell me. I do hope that in the immediate present he will get confirmation from this man of the fulfillment of that imaginal act which he put in play for that man. But he heard it from both man and wife on two separate occasions, one in the dream and one in reverie. She came in the dream in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, and while he was listening to music on Tuesday evening then he came and spoke using the same words that he had used to hear.53 ¶19

Now, I can tell him from another part of his letter that this other one is a perfectly marvelous one. I won’t go into all the details. In a dream he had to go to a certain city and when he registered he said to the man, “I want to be called at seven in the morning.” The man said, “Yes sir,” and made out a card and put seven. He looked at it and saw a big bold seven over his name. Then the man showed him what he did. He takes these cards and puts them in certain slots so when the operator comes on he will take [...] different times and those at this time he calls the different rooms to notify them that the time is up. So he was assured that he would be called at seven. And then he woke. It’s a marvelous vision. Seven is the numerical value of spiritual perfection. It also has much to do with gestation, incubation in all the worlds; in the insect world, in the animal world. Well, we are part animal, so in the animal world of man I am told that 280 days is the time between actual conception and birth. Well, that is a multiple of seven. We know the hen egg takes, if properly incubated, twenty-one days, a multiple of seven. So we find all these are multiples of seven and it has much to do with incubation. But in this case it is incubation of spiritual perfection. So I can say to him from this experience he’s right on the verge. He sleeps one night and then the morning comes and he’s called, for it is the Spirit within him. It is the Father calling him, and that cannot be far away for an actual conscious knowledge of the experience. So I say the conscious knowledge of the experience cannot be far away.53 ¶20

Another lady (she is here tonight) said, “I saw myself lying in state, ghastly pale like one that is dead, and then suddenly out of my body rises a giant of a man. I can see his feet now standing out of me. And that was it, this man.”53 ¶21

Well, let me tell a story of a mystic, a very able wonderful artist who was a great mystic. You know him best as A.E, the initials A. E. His name was George Russell and George Russell said, “I will tell this vision, but where it happened I will not say. It was a hall, vaster than any cathedral and its columns were made of living opal, as though you took the colors of dawn and eve and blended them into something alive…the columns were like that. In between the columns were thrones on which sat fire-crested kings. One wore the crest of the dragon, the others like plumes of fire. And in the middle of this place was a body, a dark, dark body stretched out on the floor as though in a trance, a deep trance. At the far end, on a throne higher than the others a being undoubtedly raised above the others, and behind him like the sun glowing. Then two of these crested kings came and passed their hands over this dark body on the floor. Where their hands passed over the body out came sparkles of light; and then rising out of this dark body was a figure as tall, as majestic as these fire-crested kings on the thrones. He looked around and recognized his kin and raised his hand in salutation. Then they all jumped from their thrones in the same wonderful greeting, and like brothers they altogether walked toward the end and disappeared into the sun” .53 ¶22

Both were visions of what will take place; for he perceived it as coming from another; she saw it as coming from her own being as it was placed in space. It was an adumbration, a wonderful forecast, a foreshadowing of what’s going to take place, for housed in man is that crested king, the Son of God. Whether you be woman as she is or whether it be man, the dark man as he saw the dark man, no matter what pigment of the skin, no matter what sex, within each is the Son of God. And that is the great lamp of the Lord, for these radiate his glory and they bear the express image of his person. So in each will rise one day these majestic beings that will come out of every being in the world.53 ¶23

But while we are here, encased in these garments, let us learn the game of life. Learn the rules and play it. Now here is a simple, simple statement of causation: it is the assemblage of mental states which occurring creates that which the assemblage implies. Simple…you simply assemble in your mind’s eye a scene, as my friend did for the gentleman who asked him for help. Then he mentally heard only what he would hear if the man had received the desire fulfilled. So it’s the assemblage of mental states which occurring creates that which the assemblage implies.53 ¶24

So after you have done it, you don’t have to repeat it. That intense moment, having done it, is casting your bread upon the waters. May I tell you, when you do these things, although you do not have a physical expression in a sexual manner, there is a relief that is comparable, and of all the pleasures of the world relief is the most keenly felt. You are intense…someone is late…it could be someone you love dearly. You expect them at six and here it is seven and they aren’t here and no telephone call to tell you what has happened. You are waiting anxiously. Then when the doorbell rings and it’s their voice, the relief that comes when the one you so love suddenly appears. Well now, that of all the pleasures of the world, that is the most keenly felt.53 ¶25

When you’ve done something of this nature, you feel a sense of relief and you don’t have to do it a second time. This business of treating and treating and treating every day, you aren’t casting your bread upon the waters. You may do it, but you only are going to impregnate once. Do what you want, but an impregnation is an impregnation. And if you reach the point of relief, well then, you’ve done it and you’ve cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return after many days . Well, many days need not be days as we measure it, it could be in the matter of an hour. I have had the phone ring…having done it and the phone rang I would say within minutes to thank me for something that just happened when it was only a matter of moments before that I actually did it. That’s when they got confirmation of it. I’ve done it when it took a day, took a week, took a month and sometimes it takes months. But I will not go over a thing…I did it! Having done it, what more can I do?53 ¶26

So this game of life is something that is serious, because you’re playing it anyway. But you may never practice enough to really learn to master it, and you’ll be complaining to the very ends of time. I’m quite sure tonight the million who are on relief in New York City—for over one million, just imagine, are on relief—and they’re complaining as though the government owes them. There is no government; we are the government. So we aren’t paying enough in taxes for them to get more, that’s what they’re saying. Because the government has no money, the government’s money that they are putting out must first be taken from our pockets. And the million on relief are complaining they aren’t getting enough out of our pockets. They think it’s really due them, that it’s theirs. The mood persists all through their day and they never change it. Changing nothing, they see no change and recognize no law between the mood that they are sustaining and their outer world that they dislike so heartily. They dislike everything about it. If I told them that they are the cause of the phenomena of life, they would resent it and dislike me. No one wants to feel that he is solely responsible for the conditions of his life. And yet there is no other cause outside of God, and God is in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So here, when I say human Imagination, I’m speaking of God. That’s the God in man.53 ¶27

And there are two sides to Imagination, imagining and contents. Contents are about what imagining is about. So there are only two sides…an imagining and imagining something. Well, the thing that I’m imagining I’m creating. God imagining creates. Well, don’t think of something outside of yourself. When I say God imagining creates, man imagining is creating what he is imagining. Same God! Keyed low, yes, I haven’t the same intensity when I’m clothed in a garment of flesh and blood, but it’s the same God.53 ¶28

So tonight I do hope that this is clear, that there are rules, the positive side of it and the negative side of it. Don’t curse anyone. They use the word king and they use the word rich, because there are more poor people in the world than there are rich, and you’ll find the poor man is inclined to curse the rich. He is envious of the rich. You need not be a millionaire to have someone envy you; you could be simply a little bit better off than he is. You could live, possibly, in a better neighborhood. You pay more rent because you can afford it. And maybe you can go into a better restaurant because you can afford it; and maybe you can buy a better suit because you can afford it. Even though you’re not rich in the eyes of the world, there are those who are not as well off as you are and they will envy you the things that you can do. So you are warned even in your thoughts do not curse the king nor in your bedchamber curse the rich.53 ¶29

Don’t think for one second you are going to conceal it, for all things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle. We are completely one. Though you seem to be completely scattered on the outside, but I don’t have to ask you to aid the change of my world if I change it on the inside. If you are necessary to bring about the change, you will be used whether you consent to it or not. You’ll be doing it unwittingly, but you’ll be doing it if you can be used. I don’t have to single out the individual as to who will play the part in bringing about the change in my world. You will play the part if you can be used, because we’re all intermingled. All I have to do is know that I start at the end: “That place to which I would travel, I myself must there become.” I know it from experience.53 ¶30

If I would travel on a boat and they say you can’t get on that boat, not for at least seven months, and I want the next trip—I don’t want it today, I want the next trip—I’ll get on that boat. Well, if I would go on that boat, then I on that boat must become. [...] on that boat. I may view the place where I’m departing from the boat. When that boat comes, in a way I do not know and I couldn’t devise it, I’ll be on that boat…that I speak from experience. If I would go any place in this world and they wouldn’t give me permission to go and I sleep there, I’ll go there. They may even try to get me to go there, those who now deny it. That I know from my own experience of getting out of the Army honorably discharged. I didn’t have to run away and then have to face a court martial as one who ran away, and be dishonorably discharged possibly with a few years in jail at hard labor. I got out in a very short space of time honorably discharged by simply putting myself where I would be if I were there.53 ¶31

Well, anyone can do it. This is not something that takes a really fantastically disciplined mind. You can take in your mind’s eye this much. Do you know some object where you would be that you desire to be? Could be a piano, it could be a lamp, it could be, well, anything. Do you know one object in that room? Well then mentally hold it, just hold it, and feel it until it takes on sensory vividness; but not any lamp that lamp; not any table that table, just hold it. That chair, just sit in it and feel it all around you and feel that chair, not just a chair. Now view the world from that chair. Well, if you see it as you would see it were you there, you’re there; for man is all Imagination and he must be wherever he is in Imagination. So you’re there. You do nothing…you cast your bread upon the water. And then this genii, which is nature, that is the slave of this lamp which is your own wonderful human Imagination will now without the consent of anyone build a bridge of incidence, and take you wherever you are and lead you across that bridge to sit in that chair, or to hold that lamp, or do whatever you did to anchor yourself there.53 ¶32

As you are told in Genesis: “Come close, my son, that I may feel you. Your voice sounds like my son Esau…but come close that I may feel you” . Well, he came close and he felt him and he felt the hair which Jacob didn’t have, so that must be Esau. And it had all the qualities of objective reality, for Esau simply means “the objective world.” So he gave to this imaginary state, which is purely subjective, the objective tones, the objective reality.53 ¶33

Now, you can prove it right now. Sit here and see the difference between a simple little object like a ball. Take for instance a tennis ball, take a billiard ball, take a baseball, take a football, and you can discriminate between all these different balls. Well, you can’t discriminate between nothing. If they’re all nothing because they’re not objective to your senses now, you couldn’t discriminate. But if you can discriminate in texture and you can feel the difference between a tennis ball and a billiard ball, and between these two and another ball, a baseball or a football, if you can discriminate between these different so-called un-realities, well then, they are not unreal. They are real, but not yet made objective to your senses. But now you make it real in your own mind’s eye and then it becomes real.53 ¶34

You can try it just for fun…but don’t do it to hurt another. Never hurt the other! You can take it with a flower. It gets to the point where you don’t do it any more, because although the one who sent you the flowers took pleasure in sending it, you are almost embarrassed because it cost money. You figure, oh well, why do I do it? So you stop doing it because the flowers come…the impulse is there to send you lovely flowers and it was just a thing that you had envisioned and saw and gave thanks for. You didn’t thank the individual; you thank the being within you for presenting you with the flowers. Then the one on the outside even without an occasion sends flowers. And you have flowers, because you simply could get the odor or the looks or the feel and you simply did it. After a while you just don’t do it…at least not as often.53 ¶35

So here, in this game of life…it’s a game. Paul calls it a race, he said, “I’ve finished the race, I’ve fought the good fight, and I’ve kept the faith” . But you can call it a race or you can call it a game. Both are competitive, but the competition is with self, not with another. There is no other. You’re not trying to get beyond the other fellow; grant him the right to use the same law to achieve his goal. His goal may be something similar to mine. But I have a goal. Then I simply apply this law toward my goal, giving him complete freedom to get his goal even though it’s similar and may even be a duplicate.53 ¶36

Well, let him have it. So you can tell the law to anyone and it’s not going to rob you. You can tell it to everyone in the world, anyone who asks for your secret, tell the law, that my end is where I begin, my beginning is my end. That’s where I start…I go right to the end, the thing desired, and I feel myself right into it. As I feel myself into the wish fulfilled, I drop it, and that is casting my bread upon the water when I feel satisfied. Then these two words balloon: “bread” which is “a complete, consuming, devouring thing, like a battle,” and then comes the word waters which is simply “semen.” Look it up in your concordance. But the word offends people if they saw the original word in scripture, so to avoid offense then they use a euphemism.53 ¶37

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Now are there any questions?53 ¶38