For the benefit of those who were not present last Sunday, just let me give you a quick summary of the thought expressed here. We claimed that the world was a manifestation of consciousness, that the individual’s environment, circumstances and conditions of life were only the out picturing of the particular state of consciousness in which that individual abides. Therefore, the individual sees whatever he is by virtue of the state of consciousness from which he views the world. Any attempt to change the outer world before he changes the inner structure of his mind, is to labour in vain. Everything happens by order. Those who help or hinder us, whether they know it or not, are the servants of that law, which constantly shapes outward circumstances in harmony with our inner nature.980 ¶1

We asked you last Sunday to distinguish between the individual identity and the state the occupy. The individual identity is the Son of God. It is that I speak of you or to you, or speak of myself, I mean really our imagination. That is permanent. It fuses with state and believes itself to be the state with which it is fused, but at every moment of time it is free to choose the state with which it will be identified.980 ¶2

And that brings us to today’s subject, “Changing the Feeling of I”, and I hope I will not get the same reaction that is recorded in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. For we are told that when this was given to the world they all left him, leaving just a handful behind. For when he told them there was no one to change but self, they said this is a hard, hard teaching. It’s a hard thing. Who can hear it? For he said, “No man cometh unto me save I call him.” And then it’s recorded when he repeated it three times they left him, never again to walk with him.980 ¶3

And he turned to the few who remained and asked them, “Would you also go?” And they answered and said, “To whom would we go ? You have the word of eternal life. ‘I In other words, it’s so much easier when I can blame another for my misfortune, but now that I am told that no man cometh unto me save I call him, that I am the sole architect of my fortunes and misfortunes, it’s a difficult saying, and so it’s recorded “It’s a hard saying. Who can hear it? Who can grasp it? And who will believe it?”980 ¶4

And so he said, “And now I sanctify myself that they also be sanctified through the truth, for if this is the truth, then there is no one to change, no one to make whole, no one to purify but self.” And so we start with the “I” .980 ¶5

Most of us are totally unaware of the self that we really cherish. We have never taken one good look at the self, so we don’t know this self, for the “I” has neither face, form nor figure, but it does mold itself into structure by all that it consents to, all that it believes, and few of us know really what we do believe. We have no idea of the unnumbered superstitions and prejudices that go to mold this inner, formless “I” into a form which is then projected as a man’s environment, as the conditions of life.980 ¶6

So here, read it carefully when you go home, “No man cometh unto me save I call him. You didn’t choose me; I have chosen you. No man can take away my life; I lay it down myself. There is no power to take from me anything that is part of the inner arrangement of my mind. All that you gave me I have kept and none is lost save the son of perdition or the belief in God, and because nothing can be lost but the belief in loss, I will not now assume loss of anything you have given me that is good. And so I sanctify myself that they be sanctified through the truth”.980 ¶7

And now, how do we go about changing the “I”. First of all, we must discover the “I” and we do this by an uncritical observation of self. This will reveal a self that will shock you. You will be altogether, I wouldn’t say afraid, but ashamed to admit you’ve ever known such a lowly creature. And had it been God Himself who drew near in this despicable form, you would have denied him a thousand times before a single cock would crow. You couldn’t believe that this is the self that you’ve carried around and protected and excused and justified. Then you start changing this self after, by an uncritical observation, you make the discovery of that self. For the acceptance of self is the essence of the moral problem of the world. It is the epitome of a true outlook on life, for it is the sole cause of everything you observe. Your description of the world is a confession of the self that you do not know. You describe another, you describe society, you describe anything, and your description of the thing you observe reveals to one who knows this law the being you really are. So you must first accept that self. When that self is accepted, then you can start to change.980 ¶8

It’s so much easier to take the virtues of the Gospel and apply them as the word of life, to love the enemy, to bless those who curse us, and to feed the hungry. But when man discovers the being to be fed, the being to be clothed, the being to be sheltered, the greatest enemy of all is that self, then he is ashamed, completely ashamed that that is the being, for it was easier to share with another something that I possess, to take an extra coat and give it to another, but when I know the truth it’s not that. I start with the self, having discovered, and start with change of that self.980 ¶9

Now, let me tell you a story. A few years ago in this city I was giving a series of lectures down near that lake – I can’t even recall the name of the lake but it was some Parkview Manor was the place where I spoke, and in that audience was a gentleman who sought an audience before the meeting. And we went across the street into the little park there, and he said to me that he had an insoluble problem. I said, “There is no such thing as an insoluble problem. “But”, he said, “you do not know my problem. It’s not a state of health, I assure you; it is look at the skin that I wear” . I said, “What’s wrong with it; it looks lovely to me”. He said, “Look at the pigment of my skin. I, by the accident of birth, am now discriminated against. The opportunities for progress in this world are denied me just because of the accident of birth, that I was born a coloured man. Opportunities for advancement in every field, neighborhoods that I would like to live in and raise a family I couldn’t move in, where I would like to open up a business I couldn’t move into that area.”980 ¶10

Then I told him my own personal experience, that I came to this country. Well, I didn’t have that problem but I was a foreigner in the midst of all Americans. I didn’t find it difficult. “Yet”, as he reminded me, “but that’s not my problem, Neville. Others have come here speaking with an accent, but they haven’t my skin, and I was born an American” .980 ¶11

Then I told him an experience of mine in New York City. If I were called upon to name a man that I would consider my teacher, I would name Abdullah. I studied with that gentleman for five years. He had the same colour skin, the same pigment as this gentleman. He would never allow anyone to refer to him as a coloured man. He was very proud of being a negro, didn’t want any modification of what God had made him.980 ¶12

He turned to me and he said, “Have you ever seen a picture of the Sphinx?” I said, “Yes”. He said, “It embodies the four fixed quarters of the universe. You have the lion, the eagle, the bull and man. And here is man that is the head. The crown of that creature called the Sphinx, which still defies man’s knowledge to unriddle it, was crowned with a human head. And look carefully at the head, Neville, and you will see whoever modeled that head must have been a negro. Whoever modeled it had the face of a negro and if that still defies man’s ability to unravel it, I am very proud that I am a negro.”980 ¶13

I have seen scientists, doctors, lawyers, bankers, from every walk of life seek an audience with old Abdullah, and everyone Who came thought themselves honoured to be admitted to his home and to receive an interview. If he was ever invited out, and he was, he was always the honoured guest. He said, “Neville, you must first start with self. Find self, don’t be ashamed ever of the being you are. Discover it and start the changing of that self”.980 ¶14

Well, I told this gentleman exactly what Abdullah had taught me, that there was no cause outside of the arrangement of his own mind. If he was discriminated against, it was not because of the pigment of his skin, though he showed me signs as large as all outdoors denying him access to a certain area. The sign is there only because in the minds of some men such patterns are formed and they draw unto themselves what now they would condemn; that there is no power outside the mind of man to do anything to man, and he by the arrangement of his own mind, by consenting to these restrictions in his cradle and being conditioned slowly through his youth, waking into manhood believing himself set upon would have to be set upon, but “no man cometh unto me save I call him”.980 ¶15

So then someone comes to condemn or to praise. They couldn’t come unless I call them. Not a man called Neville, but that secret being that is not called Neville. The secret being that is the sum total of all of my beliefs, all of the things that I consent to, that form a pattern ofstructure, that secret being draws unto itself things in harmony with itself.980 ¶16

Well, that man went away and wrestled with himself. He couldn’t believe everything I told him, not that night, but last Sunday morning in the lobby, he came forward and we renewed the friendship. He took me next door to show me the fruit of this teaching. He said, “Neville, it took me almost three years to really overcome that fixed idea that I, by the accident of birth, would be a secondary citizen, but I overcame it. Now here is my office on Wilshire Boulevard. I picked this one not because it was the only one offered; four equally wonderful spots were offered me. I took this one because it had greater telephone facilities, but the others were equally good. Now here is my office. Now you couldn’t judge my income from this office, lovely as it is. Everything is nice about it, but, Neville, this year I will net a quarter of a million dollars”.980 ¶17

Well in America that is still a fabulous sum of money. It would be staggering in any other part of the world, but even in fabulous America a man to net a quarter of a million is really up in the very highest of brackets. And that was the man that a few years ago told me the whole vast world was against him by reason of the accident of birth. He knows now he is what he is by virtue of the state of consciousness with which he is identified, and the choice is his to go back to the restrictions of his childhood when he believed the story or to continue in the freedom that he has found.980 ¶18

So you and I can be anything in this world we desire to be if we will clearly define our aim in life and constantly occupy that aim. It must be habitual. The concept we hold of self that is noble must not be put on just for a moment and taken off when we leave this church. We feel free here; we feel that we have something in common, that’s why we are here, but are we going to wear the noble concept we now hold of self when we go through the door and enter that bus, or are we going to return to the restrictions that were ours prior to coming here?980 ¶19

The choice is ours and the hardest lesson to learn is that there is no one in this world that can be drawn into your world unless you, and you alone, call him. So do not do what they did thousands of years ago, for that is the beginning of the secession of the great truth. So we are told they turned away from it, never again to walk with it, and the few who remained didn’t like it either, but where would they go if this is the word of eternal truth? Not that it’s true for this day and age, but if this is the law of being, and in all the dimensions of my being it holds good, if this is eternally true, then let me learn the lesson now, though I wrestle with myself as he did for three years.980 ¶20

So, the changing of the feeling of “I” is a selective thing because unnumbered states are infinite states, but the “I” is not the state. The “I” believes itself to be the state when it enters and fuses with it, so he was presented with a state and without the faculty of discrimination in his youth, he fused with the state and believed these restrictions were true, and it took him three years to disentangle the “I” from these fixed ideas with which he had lived for so many years. Now you may take only a moment or you, too, may take your three years. I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take you, but I’ll tell you this much. It can be measured by the feeling of naturalness. You can wear a feeling until it’s natural. The moment the feeling becomes natural, it will begin to bear fruit within your world.980 ¶21

So I told this story at a small gathering here in the city, and not very many asked questions about it, but three people asked, “But he must have had money before. He must have known the right people. He must in some way have had some substance to start it, because how can you go out to loan a hundred million dollars and call that a real fact of being that you have that to loan and tell me you didn’t have some one who had it or you, yourself, didn’t have it”.980 ¶22

I did not ask the gentleman about the individual facts of the case. I went into the office, I saw it, I didn’t look at his books; he volunteered this information, and gave me the figure of a quarter of a million net for the year. I have not checked or in any way verified the statement; I believe it implicitly.980 ¶23

But I will not go along with those who believe that unless you have certain things to start with you can’t apply this law. You can start now from scratch and choose the being you want to be. You aren’t going to change the pigment of your skin but you will find your accent or the pigment of skin or your so-called racial background will not be a hindrance, for if a man is ever hindered it can only be the state of consciousness in which he abides that hinders him. Man is freed or constrained by reason of the state of mind in which he persists.980 ¶24

If you persist in it, well, then I will say, “persist in it”, but I warn you no one cares and that is an awful blow when a man discovers that no one, no one but himself really cares. So we find ourselves weeping with ourselves in the hope of getting others to weep with us. And what an awful shock when the day arrives we discover that no one really ever cared. They will give us some little listening ear for a moment just as they were passing by, but they really didn’t care. When we make that discovery we shake ourselves out of it and boldly appropriate the gift our Father gave us before that the world was.980 ¶25

So let me show you the gift. You’ve read your Lord’s Prayer possibly daily, but you read it as a prayer from a translation of a translation which does not reveal the sense of the evangelist. The real translation, you will find in Farrar Fenton’s work where in the original it is written in the imperative passive mood, which is like a standing order, a thing to be done absolutely and continuously. So that you can look now upon your universe as one vast inter-knit machinery where all things happen. There isn’t a thing to become; all things are taking place, so it is written in this manner, “Thy will must be being done. Thy kingdom must be being restored.” It is the only way you could express it if you would express the imperative passive mood. But from the Latin from which our translation was made there is no first aorist of the imperative passive mood. So we have it in the way we have it but it does not reveal the intent of the mysteries.980 ¶26

If you will see all things are now, you don’t become, you simply select the state that you would occupy. Occupying it you seem to become but it is already a fact, every aspect of that state in its most minute detail. It’s worked out and taking place. You by occupying the state seem to go through the action of unfolding that state, but the state is completely finished and taking place. So now you can choose the being you want to be and by choosing a being other than what you are now expressing you start the change of the feeling of “I”.980 ¶27

Now, how will I know that I have changed the feeling of “I”? By beginning first with an uncritical observation of my reactions to life and then noticing my reactions when I think I am identified with my choice. If I assume that I am the man that I want to be, let me observe my reactions. If they are as they were, I have not identified myself with my choice, for my reactions are automatic and so if I am changed I would automatically change my reactions to life. So the changing of the feeling of “I” results in a change of reaction, which change of reaction is a change of environment and behavior.980 ¶28

But let me warn you now. A little alteration of mood is not a transformation; it’s not a real change of consciousness. Because as I change my mood for the moment it can quickly and rapidly be, I would say, replaced by another mood in the reverse direction. When I say that I was changed, as that gentleman changed his mood, his basic mood, his state of consciousness, it means that having assumed that I am what the moment denied, what my reason denied, that I remain in that state long enough to make that state stable. So that all of my energies are flowing from that state. I am no longer thinking of that state. I am thinking from that state. So that wherever a state grows so stable as to definitely expel all of its rivals, then that central, habitual state of consciousness from which I think defines my character and is really a true transformation or change of consciousness.980 ¶29

Whenever I reach that state of stability, watch my world mold itself then in harmony with this inner change. And men will come into my world, people will come to aid and they will think they are initiating the urge to help. They are playing only their part. They must do what they do because I have done what I did. Having moved from one state into the other. I have altered my relationship relative to the world round about, and that changed relationship compels a change in behavior relative to my world. So they have to act differently toward me.980 ¶30

So in changing the “I”, you start with desire, which we will unfold and elaborate on tomorrow night. For it starts with desire. Desire is the spring of action, for you must want to be other than what you are. We fail because we do not fall in love enough with an idea. We aren’t, I would say, moved enough to want to be other than what we are. If I could get you to be completely in love with some state to the point where it haunted the mind, I could almost prophesy that you would in the not distant future externaliSe that state within your world. And the reason we fail we aren’t hungry enough to change. For either we do not know the law or we haven’t the urge or the hunger to really bring about the change. For the changing of the feeling of “I” results in the change of reaction, which change of reaction results in a change of world.980 ¶31

If you like your world and you are complacent about it, you haven’t started on the road of the mysteries, for the very first beatitude appeals to one who is not complacent. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. You must be poor in spirit, not complacent, not satisfied. The man who thinks that by reason of birth, the religion that he inherited at birth, is good enough for me, that he is not dissatisfied, he is not, I would say, moved. That being is complacent and therefore he is not poor in spirit; he is very rich in spirit. Theirs is not the kingdom of God. For if I could stir you, make you dissatisfied with self, then you will recognise that self and set about to change it. For the only field of activity for man is within himself and on himself. You do not work on the other. The day you change self, that day you change your world.980 ¶32

Now I see my time is going to its quick end. And so in the remaining minute I have left here, let me not urge you, because if you come to the meeting tomorrow night not really hungry, you wouldn’t benefit, but I do hope that many of you are there. Even if you are stirred to the point of trying to, I would say, disprove what I told you, I would accept that challenge for in the attempt to disprove it, I know if you were sincere in your attempt, you would prove it. So I hope many of you will come and take this feast with us.980 ¶33

We are here in the city at the Ebell for 15 nights, Monday thru Friday, as Mr. Smith told you, for three consecutive weeks. If you can’t take all, and I do hope many of you will take all, then pick out the title s that appeal to you. Tomorrow night to me is basic; it is the importance of defining an aim in this world, having a goal, for without an aim you are aimless. And you were warned in the Book, or I would say, in the Epistle of James that “the double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not such a man believe that he shall receive anything of the Lord; for he is like a wave that is driven and tossed by the wind.” That man never reaches his goal.980 ¶34

So you must have an aim, and tomorrow night we will show you the importance of defining desire. There are certain schools who teach you to kill out desire; we teach you to intensify desire and show you the reason for such teaching, show you what the Bible teaches about desire.980 ¶35

And now we will come to the help that many of you have asked for today. Those who were not here on Sunday, let me remind you it is a very simple technique. As I told you on Sunday, any time that you exercise your imagination, and do it lovingly on behalf of another, you are mediating God to man. So we sit quietly and we simply become imitators of our Father. And He called the world into being by being the thing he would call. And so we sit and we listen as though we heard someone congratulating us on having found what we seek. So we go to the end of the matter and we listen just as though we heard, and we look as though we saw, and we try in this manner to feel ourselves right into the situation of our answered prayer, and there we wait in the silence just for about two minutes, and so they will lower the lights to aid you.980 ¶36

And let me remind you, if you want to clear your throat, please do so. If you want to shift your position in the chair, do so. Feel as though you are alone at home, because if you don’t and you try not to disturb the neighbour, you will not be able to exercise your imagination on behalf of anyone. So now I will take the chair and just simply listen attentively, just as though you heard. I’ll make you this promise – the day you are very still in mind and really become attentive, you will hear as coming from without what really you are whispering from within yourself.980 ¶37

Tonight’s subject is “Speaking from Experience.” There’s a conversation that takes place in the Book of John between Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, and Jesus. It’s the 3rd chapter, and he said to Nicodemus, “We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we see, but you do not accept our testimony. If I tell you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”776 ¶1

So here is one who is a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest order in the Jewish faith, and he came at night asking certain questions. Now he did not really ask…he called him “rabbi”…and Jesus admitted the fact that he was a teacher (that’s what a rabbi is); and then proceeded to instruct him concerning a great mystery and said to him, “You must be born from above.” “For unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of God” . And he replied, “Can a man who is old enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” And this was answered in a strange way, he said: “That which is born from the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” . But unless you be born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. “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” .776 ¶2

Then he goes on after the next interruption. This turns into a discourse, really, began as a dialogue and finally the whole thing is moving into a discourse, like an argument. Then he said, “How can this be? You, a master, a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this? I tell you, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up; no one has ever ascended into heaven but he who descended” . All this is compact in a few verses, which you will find in the first few verses of the 3rd chapter of John.776 ¶3

He takes it literally, on a physical level. The Greek word translated “anew” or “again” or “from above” is Anothin. Scholars claim that you can give no other meaning to the word, especially when you read the context, than “from above, begotten of God, begotten from above.” That birth can be considered either from the father’s side in which case the verb is “to beget” or from the mother’s side in which case the verb is “to bear.” The word here is from the father’s side: “to beget”; it’s “begotten from above, begotten of God.”776 ¶4

Now I tell you from experience this is literally true. He thought you couldn’t take it on the physical level, it could not be literal; but he explained that which is begotten; that which is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Nicodemus didn’t understand it, he just didn’t understand it. Because, what man in this world could understand it unless he had the experience or he believed the one who had the experience?776 ¶5

So here, the story is literally true. He’s speaking of an entirely different age, an age that is not this age at all; where one must have a body equal to that age to exercise a power completely unknown to any man or by any man in this world; an entirely different thing where he’s exercising a creative power that is the power of God. So he has to have a body to exercise that power, to use that power, and this body comes from his birth from above.776 ¶6

Now he makes the statement: “I came out from the Father and I came into the world; again, I am leaving the world and ascending to the Father” . In these four little phrases he admits of a pre-existence: “I came out from the Father…” Well, to come out from the Father is to die. Like a prodigal son he departed from his Father and the Father thought him dead, thought him lost, and said, “My son who was lost is found; he was dead and now he is alive again” . So he admits in that departure, “I came out from the Father,” that he died. “I have come into the world,” that’s incarnation. “Again, I am leaving the world and ascending to the Father” and this is also literally true. Man finds it difficult to understand, but in the course of the evening we will explain it from actual experience.776 ¶7

Well now, let us get down to this level, from experience. I have asked you to join with me and share with me your use of the law, that I in turn may encourage everyone who is here to use the law lovingly to expand their world and make it a wonderful world. Because you can be anything in this world that you really want to be if you’re willing to be vigilant, to be faithful to the assumption that you are already such a person…if you’re willing.776 ¶8

Well, a gentleman wrote me this past week and he said, “On Sunday when we discussed, you reminded me of something that in the interval I had forgotten, that when I discussed possible stories with my producer…and he gave me all these stories…I went home boiling I was so mad. Because I knew I could conceive of many more wonderful stories than the stories that he suggested. I was so mad when I got home, I just simply raged. And I said to myself, audibly, screaming it out—-my wife didn’t hear me—-but I went upstairs and to the mountains I spoke, ‘I don’t have to write for TV, I can write for Broadway shows, write for Broadway plays, I can write books, I can write for pictures. I don’t have to write TV scripts!’ And then I thought, well now, I’ll take his most stupid story, but the most stupid of all the ideas that he gave me, and then I’ll work on it.” So he said, “I gave him the challenge. And so, that story that I worked on was nominated for an award that year. Of all the stories that I’ve ever done, it was the one story nominated for an award as the best story of the year. It was his most stupid story but it was a challenge. So you reminded me on Sunday that a challenge is necessary in this world. So on Monday morning I felt calm and passive, and I was walking on my usual walk, and I was in a mood of “thanking Father” when suddenly I remembered what you had said the day before, on Sunday, about a challenge when I took the most stupid story and developed it into what was nominated for an award. And suddenly I heard the loudest, the most authoritative voice I have ever heard before. Never heard anything as loud as this, with such authority, and I heard it from the depths of my soul; and it is saying to me, and this is what it said, ‘Feed me with challenges! How else can I grow?’”776 ¶9

You think it over: “Feed me with challenges! How else can I grow?” As I’ve told you, God actually became man. Man is the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity; there is no limit to translucence, no limit to expansion. But he took upon himself the limit of contraction, which is man, called Adam, and now Adam has to feed him with challenges that he may create, that he may expand his creative power. For the purpose of the whole thing is simply to create and to develop one’s creative talent, one’s creative power. So, “Feed me with challenges! How else can I grow?” You wouldn’t think that God is growing. God grows, God grows forever and forever. God is truth and truth is a limitless expansion, forever and forever and forever. So it simply comes down to the limit of contraction, assumes the challenge that it can give, and then creates.776 ¶10

He said, “I came out…and the day before I had a story which my producer accepted and liked, and instantly I threw it into the ash can. I want a bigger and a better story, more alive, something more vital, and in one hour I had it. I took the challenge!” And then, in a very sweet way thanked me for reminding him of what he had told me about this stupid story that he developed to the point of receiving at least the nomination for an award. But, in the interval he had forgotten what he did with that challenge.776 ¶11

And now he said to me in the letter that a challenge changes man’s consciousness from the passive state into the active state. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world to lift man’s consciousness to higher and higher levels, a challenge in this world. So I ask you to take what he has given to me, which I am now sharing with you, and use it, and then grow. In growing, God grows. It’s all God; God is playing all the parts. So he very generously gave me in letter form his reaction to our conversation on Sunday, which tonight then I can share with you.776 ¶12

Now, he knows this now from experience, for he got his story in one hour. And a truth that man knows from experience he knows more thoroughly than he knows anything else in this world, or than he can know that same truth in any other way. For instance, I tell you the story and you believe me. Alright, so you believe me, but you don’t know it as you will know it after you’ve tested it and you’ve proved it in the testing. So what you know from experience you know more thoroughly than you know anything else in this world.776 ¶13

So today he knows that a challenge took his consciousness and turned it from the passive state into the active state; that he had the courage to take a story that was already accepted and liked by his producer and discard it, and in one hour come up with a story infinitely better than the one he had discarded. He had the courage to discard one already accepted. Well, that was already money in the bank when you’re getting that sort of money for a half-hour script; but he discarded that and took the challenge, and then rose to a higher level. So I share it with you. You take the challenge.776 ¶14

Now, another lady (she is here this night) and she said this past week to me, “I was talking to some friends and I said, ‘You know, I remember when…’ and as I said ‘I remember when’ it dawned upon me, these are Neville’s words, the words he used to describe a vision of his. And then I said to myself but I am not using it. Here the man shared with us his vision and I haven’t used what he gave me. He gave it to me! I’m now talking to my friends telling them ‘I remember when’ and I myself have not done it.”776 ¶15

She said, “I’ve just written a letter to my landlord to explain to the landlord that I would be unable this month to meet the rent on time. I’ll pay, I’ve always paid, and I will pay, but this month things are difficult. I cannot pay this month, that is, not on time.” Then suddenly ‘I remember when’…then she began to remember when she cleaned a motel room, a hotel room, a private home fourteen dollars a day. Then she lost herself in the mood ‘I remember when’, therefore, that implies she’s not doing it now. The phone rings and a former employer who formerly employed her at ten dollars a day employed her that day at fifty dollars a day. He said, “You put in your bill as long as it will take you to organize a certain something (which she did not explain in her letter) and it’s fifty dollars a day for the work you’re going to do to set this thing in motion.” I remember when…776 ¶16

As I’ve told you, that vision was so clear to me, just as clear as this room here, when I slipped. I’m on my bed here in this city, and suddenly I am in this huge mansion on Fifth Avenue, one of these enormous sixty and seventy-room mansions. And there were three families present, one was grandfather, one was the next generation, and then the third generation. Grandfather was invisible, but the other two generations they were present and always discussing grandfather. And they would say…I heard them, I came in, in Spirit…and I heard them discussing grandfather, who made the fortune that they now enjoyed, the mansion and the income from this entrenched wealth they were now enjoying; but they themselves did not make it. They told the story of grandfather and grandfather said while standing on an empty lot, “I remember when this was an empty lot” and then grandfather would paint a word picture of his desire for that lot, and paint it so vividly that everyone saw it as grandfather saw it. That’s how he made his fortune: He lived from that moment on in his wish fulfilled. “I remember when.”776 ¶17

I woke, it was about three in the morning, and I wrote the entire vision out. Then I went back to bed and re-dreamed the dream, but this time as I re-dreamed it I was grandfather. I had so completely absorbed the message that I found myself in the same mansion with the same people and I told them that I remember when I’m standing on an empty lot, “I remember when this was an empty lot.” Then I would paint the word picture of my desire for that lot and paint it so vividly, so graphically they all saw it. And then I woke.776 ¶18

Well, the 41st chapter of the Book of Genesis tells us that if the vision is double, the doubling of the vision means this, said Joseph to Pharaoh, that God has fixed it and it will shortly come to pass. God has fixed it. This is fixed now if the vision is doubled. God has fixed it and it will shortly come to pass. So I shared it with you.776 ¶19

And now, this lady has been coming faithfully over the years, but like all of us, we hear it, it’s a thrill at the moment, but we don’t carry it into action. She didn’t apply it. But the very day she applied it the phone rings and she is offered fifty dollars a day, not ten dollars a day. So it was a challenge. She took the challenge that “I remember when I only earned ten dollars a day.” Now you can take that same thing, “I remember when my income was only”…any kind of income, a thousand dollars a week, you can make that. You think it’s crazy? Nothing is impossible to God. Feed me with challenges, how else can I grow? That’s the story of God to a friend who is here this night. Feed me with challenges, how else can I grow? And so, if your challenge is that you want…and you name it.776 ¶20

I know in my own case, when I was opposed by my teacher in elocution it was her opposition to my voice and her statement that I could never in eternity earn a dollar using my voice; and she used me as the guinea pig, one of a class of forty, and she made me step forward, and then pointed her finger at Neville and said, “You see Neville? Listen to him. He will never be able to use his voice to earn a dollar, so just watch all that he does, listen to him, and avoid it.” I am the only one of the class of forty using a voice and thoughts behind it to earn a living, and the other thirty-nine are elsewhere. What they are doing, I don’t know, but not one of them ever entered the theater, not one. Not one entered any other part of life where the voice would be used, and she was the great teacher of elocution. But she challenged me…and that was my challenge. I would not allow myself to waste my father’s 600 dollars. He could ill-afford to give me 600 dollars to go to a dramatic school for six months and then come out and be a failure. I knew in my heart I couldn’t do that to him, and so I just would not allow it.776 ¶21

So I say to everyone, everything in this world is possible if you will now accept the challenge. Because, who is accepting it? God is accepting it, because God is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s God. God actually became man that man may become God.776 ¶22

Now, we’ll take you through the book from now to the end of the series (the 26th of this month) and show you how the book is so true, every word of it is true and literally true on deeper levels of the soul. Here is a friend tonight (he’s in the audience) and this happened last week. You’ve heard this story time and again of the crucifixion and the voice that said, “Behold, I say unto you today, you will be with me in paradise” . Well, this lad (he’s just a lad) he found himself in vision in a theater, and here was this huge big screen. To the left of the screen is a cross almost his height or a little bit more than his height. Then a man suddenly appeared out of nowhere, walked to the cross, turned around and faced the audience, and then stretched his hands out, and fused with the cross. Then a voice said, “I say unto you today, you will be with me in Paradise…for a little while.” I can’t throw any light on it…but at least he’s honest and he’s telling me exactly what he heard.776 ¶23

And when a vision breaks into words then deity is present. The very presence of deity is confirmed as the vision breaks into words, as told us in the 3rd of Exodus . Here from the bush…and suddenly the vision breaks into words and the very moment it breaks into words, the revelation begins: “Say I AM has sent you” . And the presence of deity is always confirmed whenever the vision breaks into words. So in this case the vision broke into words.776 ¶24

Now what that tag-line is, which is not recorded in scripture, “for a little while,” I do not know. He wrote me this letter just a few days ago and I do not know. It has not been revealed to me why the tag-line. But it’s obvious what the first part of it is, “Behold, I say unto you today, you will be with me in Paradise.” But why “for a little while”? Yet it does tell us that because of the instant, or rather, forever expansion of God, all things are only for a season. It’s always a growth and a growth and a growth, forever and forever. So he has shared that with me and I have shared it with you.776 ¶25

But I tell you from my own experience everything in scripture is true. I have had almost every experience that is recorded in the gospels concerning Jesus Christ, from the birth through to the very end…every one. I have not had the story of Lazarus, no, I haven’t had that one. But I’ve had the dove. I’ve had all the stories of scripture as recorded. They take place in the soul of man; they don’t take place on the outside at all. For it is said of him, We know where this man came from, we know his origin, and when the Christ comes no one will know where he comes from. So they rejected him because they knew his origin. But when Christ comes, so they thought, he will emerge in some strange mysterious way. And he does, but he comes in a mysterious way in man that man himself did not know.776 ¶26

Now listen to the words that we started off with the meeting. He tells us he’s only talking of things that he knows: I tell you what I know and bear witness to what I’ve seen, and you will not accept my testimony. He’s only testifying to what he’s actually experienced, what he’s seen, and they will not accept his testimony. “Now if I tell you of earthly things and you will not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”776 ¶27

So he tells them earthly things—all the signs of earthly things; all the signs of health; transforming a man who’s poor into a man who is rich; a man who could not sell a material into one who sells all that he can write; a man who was unwell into a man who never felt better in his life. So he transforms all this, and they will not believe what he tells them of how he did it. He only did it in his Imagination, for he said, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you’ve received and you will”; that’s all that you do . Well, if he could convince himself of the reality of what he’s now imagining, then it should externalize itself if that principle is true. Well, it did. But he told them how he did it. They couldn’t believe that; they wanted some other kind of a trick. And he’s telling them that this is all that you do: When you know what you want, believe that you have it and you will have it. And if one can get to that point of belief, then everything would come into this world based upon the great law of Israel.776 ¶28

So he recited the entire story for them. In the 78th Psalm the whole history of Israel is recorded. He said, “Lend me your ears”—or let me have your ears, your understanding, your attention—-“and I will open my mouth in a parable and speak in dark sayings as of old” . And then he tells them he will tell them all the things that the fathers said that everyone should hear, and then carry it on to the next generation and the next generation and the next generation, and all the unborn generations, all the wonders that God wrought.776 ¶29

And the very end it comes to David, in the very end of this very long chapter the 78th, which is a chapter by Asaph and Asaph means “the gatherer.” He gathers all these things together. We have twelve psalms by Asaph, the 73rd through the 83rd. And then the 50th, and that 50th is the one where: “If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you; for the earth is mine and all that is in it. The cattle on a thousand hills they’re mine” . And were I hungry I would slay and eat, why should I tell you when it’s all mine? That’s the first psalm that he gave us, the 50th. Then he gave us the other eleven, the 73rd through the 83rd, and the name simply means “to gather together.” He gathers all the traditions, all the stories of the fathers, and he tells them to the next generation, and tells them to tell it to the next generation and keep on telling it until one day they experience it.776 ¶30

And so, we tell you, and then one after the other has an experience. The one this day was the cross; he’s experienced it. He knows how true that story is. But what are we told in scripture? “Oh you foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?” Isn’t it a drama vicariously done? “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by the working of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” . It takes place in Spirit, not in the flesh. No one was crucified physically. Yes, undoubtedly in this barbarous world of ours tens of thousands of men undoubtedly by some tyrant, some sadist, were crucified. But that’s not the story.776 ¶31

The crucifixion is in Spirit, and I know from my own personal experience it is in Spirit, for I was; and it’s the most glorious sensation in the world. You can’t conceive of the thrill, the joy when the vortices nail you to this garment; when each hand, each foot, side and the head become a vortex, and these vortices, six of them, nail you to this body. And the thrill! It’s sheer ecstasy when you have it done, and you hear the words which means God’s presence is here. And then God speaks from the depths of your soul: “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, yes, I dreamed that I’m you.” He’s dreaming that he’s you.776 ¶32

Now to come back to our friend: “Feed me with challenges.” I’m dreaming that I’m you; I’m your very being, your own wonderful I-am-ness is God. Now, God can do anything, all things are possible to God, so feed me with challenges, how else can I grow? And so be bold enough to take something that you have written, that you have presented, that was accepted and liked, and you know that’s money in the bank, and throw it in the ashcan, not good enough. And then take a challenge, something more vital, something more wonderful, something more thrilling and write it, and in one hour get it. Get something far better than what you’re quite willing, just for money’s sake to accept, because there’s money for you. So you take it this night and take a large sum.776 ¶33

If anyone had told me when I worked at Macy’s for, what, eighteen dollars a week and did everything in the place for eighteen bucks, if anyone told me then that I would in the not too far future be making five hundred dollars a week, why, I would have laughed at them. But I did. One day I quit Macy’s. I don’t mean fired. I was fired from Penney, J. C. Penney. So I worked for J. C. Penney and they gave me twenty-two dollars a week, and one day they fired me. I asked them why, what have I done that’s wrong? They said, “Nothing wrong, but we have an economy in this country that when things are slow we let people off. You’ve been working here for a year and a half, and so we just simply have to economize, and so you have to go.” I said, “Where I come from you fire a person because he’s done something that is wrong…that if I’ve stolen or if I’ve done something that is wrong causing the company loss, fire me, but don’t fire me because of certain strange trends in this world.” “But that’s how we operate,” they said to me. Well, they thought, well, this man, he’s a boy and he’s stupid and he’s foolish, we’ll give him a letter, and send him over to Macy’s. So they did. He wrote me a little letter and sent me to his friend who was the employment agency at Macy’s, so I moved to Macy’s and gave my little letter. They said, “We can’t start you at any twenty-two dollars and fifty cents a week, we’ll start you at eighteen.” So alright, I have to pay rent, so they started me at eighteen. So I worked there for a year, and one day I said to myself, “You’re getting nowhere fast, still making eighteen dollars a week, and doing everything that they ask you to do because you don’t want to be fired.” So I had the courage to quit without a nickel in my pocket, and six months later I was making five hundred dollars a week as a dancer. Went off to England; five hundred bucks a week. I never danced in my life before, save ballroom dancing. I told my dancing partner when she said “Can you dance?” “Certainly I can dance!” She said, “Alright, let me see.” Well, I said, “I danced with someone else, I’ll dance with you.” And so, that’s how it started. So off to England; we got a hundred pounds. In those days, a pound was worth four dollars and eighty-four cents, not today’s two, eighty; and I got a hundred pounds a week dancing in London for three months…from Macy’s eighteen dollars a week. So I say, you take a challenge, you simply throw yourself out completely and walk on the water, and either go down and drown, or simply live better.776 ¶34

So here, I am speaking from experience—I am not theorizing—when I tell you I’ve done it. I have taken God’s word just as he told me, and then stepped right out and did it. When no power in this world could have taken me out of our Armed Forces, God took me out, with an honorable discharge. No power in the world could have taken me out, but God took me out. I simply assumed that I was out and slept night after night in the assumption that I am home as an honorably discharged civilian. In nine days, the very man who refused it called me in and then discharged me. Then I was on my train back to New York City. So again, I’m speaking from experience, I am not theorizing when I tell you that God can do anything in this world if you’ll trust him. Hold him responsible, hold him trustworthy.776 ¶35

And so in your wonderful field this night, dream the most noble dream in the world for yourself and for others. Take a challenge, a real challenge, and then fall asleep in the assumption that you are already such a person, and then let it work. It’ll work, work like a charm. Not one person in this world need you call or write to ask to help in any way. If a thousand are necessary, a thousand will respond; and you don’t have to seek the thousand, they’ll come. Whatever it takes will come.776 ¶36

So here, in this speaking from experience, he said his brothers did not believe him because they knew him. He said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here” . Now there’s a profound statement and who will believe it: “If I tell you earthly things and you won’t believe it, how would you believe it if I told you heavenly things?” Your time is always here, he said, but my time is not yet come. You know what it means?776 ¶37

This whole vast world of ours is forever, just as it is now at this moment in time. What took place last year, in the month of November, on the day of the 22nd of November, is always taking place, forever and forever in time. It is always taking place…everything in the world is taking place on this level. So your time is always here, but my time is not yet come. He’s telling you of an entirely different world, with a different use of power, different creativity, where man is lifted off this world of recurrence and he enters that world that is creative, one with God. But who understands it? If you did not slip in time and see that it hasn’t passed away, that the present is not receding into the past, this present is advancing into the future…the future has already passed? It’s a wheel. You’re only coming upon phenomena that’s already old, and therefore “your time” is always here but “my time” has not yet come.776 ¶38

Then he repeats it and he uses it a little bit differently, and he said, “Not yet fully come.” He knows he is moving into an entirely different world because he’s had the experiences foretold in scripture. And so, all these were foretold: the birth; the awakening; the descent; the discovery of the Fatherhood; the ascent; the dove—all of these are the signs of one’s departure from this time.776 ¶39

So when Paul made the statement that “The time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight and I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,” he knew from the experiences in himself . For he said in his confession in the Book of Galatians, “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood” . It pleased God! What a statement! What pleases God? If you read the Bible carefully, only one thing in this world displeases him—-you read this in the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrews—-without faith it is impossible to please him . So you can’t please God by any act of yours if it is not an act of faith. So, challenge me, bring me challenges, how else can I grow? Have confidence in me, in my ability to create, and bring me a challenge, something big, something terrific! How else can I create? So without faith it is impossible to please God. So when he said, “And when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood,” he confesses that the Son was unveiled in him and he saw the mystery. Then he asked all those who listened to him to look upon him as a steward of the mysteries of God, for they all awoke within him.776 ¶40

So tonight, please God. How would you please God? Take the most fantastic dream that is not yet realized, that seems impossible, and then hold God trustworthy. Assume that you’ve realized it and hold him trustworthy. Challenge God to use his creative talent to create that dream in your world so that you have experienced it. That’s how you please God. So, when it pleased God…and so through faith one day he will take the veil and tear it apart; and then unveil within you the series of mystical experiences which series will reveal to you who you really are. For when it’s unveiled he’s only unveiling himself. He’s reached the end of his creative power, what he intended when he contracted himself and became you. So he uses you, puts you through all the furnaces in the world, because you and he are one, you are his contraction. So when this comes to the end you awake as God. Everyone eventually will awake as God.776 ¶41

So here, let us take what others have given us and in their generosity use it. My friend was wise enough and generous enough and modest enough with herself to say while she was telling the story it dawned upon her that she had never really tried it, “I remember when”; and yet the very moment she tried it, the phone calls, and she’s getting fifty dollars rather than ten. And so don’t just hear it, put it to the test. This chap who wrote, and got all that he wanted, a nice acceptance and a feeling that the man liked it, and then threw it in the ashcan, “that wasn’t good enough.” And then he took a challenge and in an hour the whole thing inflamed his mind and so he was raised from the passive state into the active state, and the whole thing came through in one hour.776 ¶42

I know in my own case, I brought back a manuscript that thick from Barbados, 1946, and while at sea this vision happened. Here I was lifted up and I saw this fantastic sea of humanity, and when I walked by they were all transformed from their unlovely states into the most perfect, most beautiful states imaginable. I took my manuscript and tore it up and threw it away. Didn’t even bring it back with me, and I labored on it for months. I spent five months in Barbados. And so, I labored on this manuscript and I brought it back, thinking I’d have a nice manuscript for my publisher. After this experience I took that manuscript and threw it overboard, didn’t redeem one page of it. And then, in one hour—of course, it isn’t a long thing, it’s a little tiny pamphlet—but in one hour the whole thing poured through me. I sat down and wrote the whole thing in an hour and then sent it off and it was published. It just came that fast. I couldn’t possibly have gone to press with what I’d brought back after five months of labor. This whole thing just came like fire, and that had to be it. Just a little tiny thing called The Search, but it poured out. And if you ask my wife what she thinks of all my books, the first one she would pick is The Search because it came that way.776 ¶43

The same thing is true of Your Faith is Your Fortune. I took care of a doctor; he was a dope fiend, a brilliant surgeon and told me that when he was under the dope he did his best surgery. For seven years he had this most fantastic private hospital with about a dozen doctors under him. Then he took the needle and became a victim of his own practice. And I took him. Because he was a very prominent doctor they allowed me to do what I could with him. So with the consent of New York City’s head of the dope ring, that is, the Police Department, they allowed me to take him to a hotel. So I did, and took him there for two weeks. He was stark raving mad. If you left him for one second, he’s in the nude, down the hallway, on the street…and we’re on the twentieth floor. So this day, watching him, I was completely [...] just watching him, because he was on the bed. I didn’t know what he would do the next second. Here I am with my yellow papers and pencils and I wrote Your Faith is Your Fortune. It came out in a matter, I would say, forty-eight hours, the whole thing, talking on the inside. The voice is talking and dictating, and everything is being dictated, and came out that way. So Your Faith is Your Fortune is simply from the depth, I only put it down. I wasn’t concocting it, it simply poured out, the whole thing poured out. When I took the manuscript and turned it in to my chap to correct it, there was practically nothing, not a thing he had to do with it…simply poured out…all because I took the challenge to take care of a friend who was a dope fiend. And Scotty was a wonderful man, grand fella, but he simply became the victim of his own practice. So I watched him, and while I’m watching him and getting more and more sleepy—-because day in and day out you just can’t get any sleep—-and so, suddenly this thing began to pour out of me. And I could hear the words in the depths of my soul, dictating, something on the inside talking. I simply wrote down what they were telling me. And Your Faith is Your Fortune came that way and The Search came, after five months of labor on a large manuscript, which I discarded.776 ¶44

So my friend is sharing this with us this night: “Feed me challenges! How else can I grow?” So tonight you take a challenge as we go into the Silence. Take the most wonderful challenge, and then hold God trustworthy. Now let us go.776 ¶45

Now are there any questions, please?776 ¶46

Now, we think we’re going to change poverty in this land. You can’t change states, can’t do it. If you took all the money in the world, divided it up equally, in twenty-four hours Rockefeller would still be rich and the other fellow would still be poor, go right down again. There used to be a lecturer and he had a system, he had a huge big glass bowl and he’d fill it with all kinds of nuts. He had walnuts and other kinds of nuts, all kinds of nuts. And then he would take the bowl and he would say, “Life is like this: it’s a constant rhythm, you can’t stop it.” And he would take the biggest nut, the big walnut, and put it at the very bottom. He would show it to you in his hand and take it and put it right at the very bottom. But he said, “You can’t stop life” and he started shaking this bowl and in no time up came the walnut, the big walnut, to the very top again. And all the little fellas…of course, he had a wonderful line, he would say, “I hear someone squeaking down below” and he would say, “The little one down below is saying, ‘You started me there in life. If you’d only start me at the top I would be alright. Well, so you started me at the bottom; start me at the top.’” So he goes all the way down to the bottom of the bowl, brings a little nut up, puts it obviously before all eyes at the very top. But you can’t stop life; life is a rhythm, it’s a shaking, and the little fella will go all the way down to the bottom. So why pick out the little one? Pick out something noble in this world, something grand in this world, and remain faithful to it. Goodnight.776 ¶55

I think you know how thrilled I am to be back here, for this is the one platform that grants me complete freedom. You know that. Dr. Bailes has never once restricted me or even suggested any condition. He gives me complete freedom of this platform, and for that I am really very happy, for I couldn’t be here unless he did. Now I have brought you this year an entirely new series. I have named this first one “The Power of Awareness” because it is the foundation stone on which the entire structure rests. Not a thing has happened in the past year to shake that foundation. Many things have happened, many revelations, many experiments, and yet the foundation remains intact.17 ¶1

For those not familiar with this foundation, we make the claim that conscious ness is the one and only reality. So, if you call God the ultimate reality, that is the name we give to this ultimate reality. So we say Consciousness is God. We say consciousness in action is imagination. And if consciousness in action, or God in action, is the Son bearing witness of his Father, then we come to the conclusion that imagination is that son. We have had nothing this year, as I tell you, to disturb that deep conviction.17 ¶2

We look upon the world as, I would say, a manifestation of consciousness; and the whole vast conditions of men but revelations of individual states of consciousness. We distinguish between the individual identity and the state of consciousness that it occupies. You are an eternal being. The real you is the imaginative you, personified for us in our Gospel as Christ Jesus, but man doesn’t know it. But this is your real being. This being is your wonderful imagination. When we speak of the revelation of state, we simply mean that the state in which the real you for a moment abides, objectifies itself as the condition and the circumstances 0£ your life.17 ¶3

If you are dissatisfied with the conditions of life, there is no possible way of changing them unless you first change the state from which you view the world; for the state from which a man observes the world determines the world that man describes. For the world that is described from observation must be, as thus described, relative to the describing observer.17 ¶4

In a very simple way, were I to ask you now “Where is San Diego?” and you answered “About, I would say, approximately 130 miles from here.” And then I ask another question, “Where is Santa Barbara?” and you replied “Approximately 100 miles from here.” Well, I do not have to be an Einstein to tell you where you are, for if you tell me where these two are, and one is a hundred miles from here relative to you, and the other is a hundred and thirty miles from here relative to you, I know you must be somewhere within the vicinity of this City 0f Los Angeles.17 ¶5

Now the same law holds good in any description you make of the world. If I ask you to describe your world socially, and I listen attentively to your description of the world, you are revealing your position in the social world to me. If I ask you to describe it intellectually, financially, spiritually, you may not know it, but the description that you offer of the world is revealing to me who listens - or to yourself if you are attentive - that particular state of consciousness from which you view the world. And you will continue to see the world as you now see it, unless you change your state of consciousness.17 ¶6

Now, there are certain words that in the course of long use gather very many strange connotations. And so, in the course of time, they cease to mean anything at all. Such a word is the “sub-conscious”. Such a word is, too, - and do not be shocked - such a word is “Christ Jesus”. No two have the same opinion of the word, the same definition or mood of the word.17 ¶7

Let us now take a look at the word “sub-conscious” and see how it is defined for us. This is the definition as given to us in any good dictionary. It is that portion of mental state not directly within the focus of consciousness, but capable of being called into such focus by the proper stimulus. Now that is the definition of this fabulous realm.17 ¶8

Now let us look at the claim made for this realm. Our mental scientists, psychiatrists and psychologists of today refer to this region as the creative power in man; that everything in man’s world is determined by the activities of the subconscious mind; that man himself has absolutely no control over the activities of this region unless he first gets into a relationship with it. For here is a region that they call the sub-conscious; others call it the “unconscious” , and still others speak of it as the “collective unconscious”, but they claim for it a creative power that molds the outer world in harmony with the inner arrangement of its self. So they give it structure, they give it reality, they give it form, and they claim its structure determines the outer structure we observe and call the only reality: that any modification in the internal structure of this deep region results in corresponding changes in the outer objective world. But then they leave us at the mercy of IT, unless we can find the trick of entering into a relationship with it.17 ¶9

Now, let us turn to the Gospel. What is said of the central character of the Gospel - the one I refer to as Christ Jesus? It is said of this central figure that “All things were made by Him, and without Him there is nothing made that is made.” All things, not a few things, all things - it includes all.17 ¶10

I read my Gospel carefully and I find that from within out is the order of the Universe. In the 7th Chapter of Mark “Not what goes in defileth the man, but what proceeds out of the heart”, either for good or for evil. Not just the good comes out, but the evil can come out too. All things come from within out; what goes within cannot defile the man; only the thing that proceeds out of the heart of man can bless him or defile him; that there is some creative power in man that constantly molds the outer world in harmony with itself, and this Creative Power is described for us as Christ Jesus .17 ¶11

Now, let us take another look at what they teach us: that there is a method they use to pry into the deep of this region; that when a man is asleep, they use the method of dreams to pry into the deep. For the Bible tells us that from cover to cover. “In a dream, when deep sleep falleth upon men, then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.” You are told that God speaks with his prophets chiefly in dreams. It was a dream that prompted them all to bring about their great revelation. Your are told that this wise man, the wisest of all, was promised riches and long life and great power, and behold, Solomon awoke, and it was a vision in the night! You are told the birth of the central figure was prophesied in a dream, and everything was but the dream.17 ¶12

Now we discover there is another way of looking into the deep, and the waking way of looking into the deep is through man’s imagination; that imagination is now the waking method used to pry into this great mysterious deep. For the ancients discovered that if they would ever discover really the ultimate reality, it could never be by any instrument made by man. In order to discover the ultimate reality, they would have to set Mind to observe itself, and then to accurately record those observations. For they concluded that no description of Mind made by any science known to man could be an adequate description of the Mind which made that science. So when today we are speaking of taking the imagination to look into the deep, it is looking at itself. You set imagination to observe self and then to accurately record those observations.17 ¶13

And you must come to the conclusion: imagination is the central figure 0f the Gospel. When you will read your Gospel with this in Mind, the whole thing becomes a luminous book. One simple little passage, take it from any passage - if this was an open meeting I would challenge you now to ask me anything concerning the central figure, and taking the simple little technique of identifying that figure with my own imagination, the answer will be automatic .17 ¶14

So here is one. “Peter, lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Then feed my sheep.” And three times the same question is asked and three times a similar answer is given. And the last answer brought about a certain rebellion for it was asked three times. But now you take it as imagination asking itself, “I have discovered my savior, I discovered my shepherd, and what would be the sheep, for our minds are like rambling sheep, or our thoughts like rambling sheep that have no shepherd. Now that you have found me to be your shepherd, to be your savior, your own wonderful imagination to be the central figure; ‘Now, do you love Him?’ You answer “Yes!”. Well, then feed my sheep.17 ¶15

“Well, then did I not feed the sheep? At any moment when did I not feed the sheep? “When you did not do it unto the least among one of these”. Any time you imagine any unlovely thought against another, you walked me in the mud. And then you said you loved me, but any time that your imagination was ever exercised on behalf of another, and it was not lovingly exercised, you did not feed me. You walked me in the mud.17 ¶16

And yet man goes blindly on believing he serves the Master; believing he truly understands Christ Jesus; that he understands and loves his Savior. And morning, noon and night he imagines the unlovely things against his neighbor, not knowing at that very moment he was walking his Master in the gutter.17 ¶17

And so we are told “I sought water, and you gave me not to drink. I sought food, and you gave me not. I sought shelter and you took me not in. I needed raiment and you clothed me not.” But when did these things happen? I don’t recall ever turning you away. When you did not do it unto the least among one of these, you did not do it unto me. And then when did I do these things ? Whenever you did it to the very least among one of these, you did it unto me.17 ¶18

And the day will come when man will discover the “least” spoken of is himself. When man discovers that the greatest of all the tyrants, the one who is the most impudent of all the offenders, the one who is the greatest of all the beggars is himself. Then he will discover that he stands in need of the alms of his own forgiveness and instead of railing against himself, he will start with self to ennoble his own thoughts, to lift himself up by imagining the best first of himself and then he will share that with the world round about him. For he will look out on a world and describe it relative to himself and he will not now see the unlovely things that formerly he saw.17 ¶19

For this is what we mean by this foundation stone that so far has not been shaken. A very wise man, Emerson, said that whenever a true theory appears it will be its own evidence. Its test is that it will explain the phenomena of life. I am convinced we have that true theory, for this theory we give you here, that your consciousness is the only reality and that the particular state of consciousness in which you abide is the sole cause of the phenomena of your life, cannot be shaken.17 ¶20

I ask you to test it, even if the test is motivated by the determination to disprove it. I will ask you to try it, for I know you will not disprove it. That this wonderful consciousness of yours is the ultimate reality, and you are free to choose the state into which you will go. But most of us have chosen, but unwisely. Not a thing is wrong with the state; the state is all right but it’s giving effect to it that makes it either right or wrong as far as we are concerned.17 ¶21

Now our theory, I assure you, has not been suddenly conjured out of the nowhere and the stories I have told you here for the last seven years, the case histories I have recorded in my last book, ‘The Power of Awareness’, were not fabricated to fit this theory. But this theory was slowly built up by careful observation of the facts. For when someone would come into my world and describe their world to me, they revealed the being that they really are.17 ¶22

When I ask the simple question, “What do you want?” and they named it and they told me they really want it with all their heart, and then I asked them how would they see the same world had they realized their objective? Looking at the same world they began to describe it differently. I said, “Now, that is the description you must make of the world. You must weave that into your mind, for in so doing you move into the state where that world becomes real relative to that state.” So if you now know the world you would see had you achieved your aim, then that is the world you must begin to see in the mind’s eye. And if in time that state becomes an objective fact, then the theory as you see was not made to fit it; it formed itself by a careful observation of these facts.17 ¶23

So if I could repeat that time and time again, and each time by moving this permanent “I” into the desired state and let it occupy that state long enough to make it natural, at the moment of naturalness the state becomes visibly objective to them, then we have a true theory. For it does explain the phenomena of life.17 ¶24

So here, in this series we have brought you many revelations. One that I want to stress throughout the entire series is the wide difference between thinking from an end and thinking of an end. Right now I am thinking from Los Angeles; every part of this world, if I should think of it, I’m thinking of it. But I am thinking from Los Angeles, and the difference between the two, as you can see, one is reality and one is a dream not yet made real, because imagination is the central figure of the Bible, and no power in the world can stop his travel.17 ¶25

He can go into any mansion and there abide. There is no power on the face of the earth that can stop me now from imagining myself into the state desired. So I begin to think from it. As I begin to think from it, all former states vanish and that is the great Son of God that can move into any mansion of his Father’s house and there occupy. If he ever goes in and occupies it, then I shall be there in the flesh also. So in this Father’s house of mine are the unnumbered states that are already existent and I, discovering who the son really is, and only the son can go into these mansions, so discovering the son to be my own imagination, I will dwell in imagination as though I dwell in the flesh, and then living in that state I will take my body also, that I may confirm that state. For dwelling in the state long enough clothes the state in flesh.17 ¶26

So here: every one of us, if you will accept it; can from this day on be as free as the wind. It’s entirely up to you to choose what mansion you will enter, for you are the only architect of your sufferings or your good fortune. There is no power outside that has caused anything to happen to you; it’s simply your choice, as I said earlier, your unwise choice.17 ¶27

Knowing who you are now, and not being ashamed to lay claim to this bold, bold assumption that Christ in man is man’s imagination, then you will stop calling on some external force for help. As the Prophets say, why stand we here calling on God for help and not on ourselves in whom He dwells, as our imagination? So why call elsewhere, when He dwells here where I stand as my imagination? For is there any power to stop me from imagining that I am the man I want to be?17 ¶28

So that I actually clothe it with a feeling of reality? If I can so clothe this imagined state with all the vivid sensitiveness of reality, then I will ultimately actually clothe it in flesh, for that’s the Law, from within out. If you are bold enough to take it, you will free yourself today.17 ¶29

If you are still timid, may I suggest you go back and read the seventh chapter of the Book of Mark, where you must then still keep alive the traditions of men and ignore the Law of God. So men wash the cups, and wash the pots, and pay all outside obeisance to things known as the traditions of men, that they may be seen of men and be considered holy. But I bring, said He, the Law of God and no man seems to hear it. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?” Have you ever heard these words, “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” Not some Christ without, but Christ in you is. But if we aren’t bold enough to lay claim to it, for we are told “Ye have the mind of Christ,” not a mind that you are going to earn in time to come, you have it now, so lay claim to it, and begin to exercise this giant of the mind that is called the Son of God in the Bible, and you will see who your savior really is.17 ¶30

Now, may I give you a few of his titles, for these are all taken from the Bible. He is called the Redeemer; He is called the Savior; He is called the Passover; He is called the Second Man; He is called The Desire of all Nations. Now take it and see how it fits your wonderful imagination.17 ¶31

The man you don’t know to exist - that Second Man - is the imaginative you; the one you hold captive by accepting the evidence of sense and only that which reason dictates. If you will now free the Second Man, you will see how he is the Passover. He can pass now from this present state into any desired state in the world, for no power can stop you from dwelling in imagination where you desire to dwell. So, placing yourself there, you begin to think from it, and not constantly starve yourself by thinking of it. So I will go and prepare it, and preparing it I will dwell in it, and begin to think from it.17 ¶32

Now, I assure you, unnumbered similar stories have been told me in the past year by those who took me at my word and began to awaken Christ within, for He had been asleep while the senses dictated their every step, and then completely denying the evidence of sense and boldly imagining themselves to be what they desired to be, they have found their savior, and what man the world could turn them back to the traditions of man? They are free from all traditions of men, and so no man can appear before them and call himself the intermediary between man and God. So they are turned from all intermediaries, having found the only Redeemer, and the Redeemer is the only intermediary between man and God.17 ¶33

So then you know that any time that you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you are literally mediating God to man. So you don’t need any of the traditions of men and keep them alive, hoping that you will be considered by some invisible power, some holy being.17 ¶34

So, let us turn back and freshen up again this word which has been so abused, which now is your imagination, which people, without defining, call the “subconscious” as though it was some appendage. People go around speaking of “my subconscious mind”, or “My unconscious mind”, not knowing what they are referring to. Well, this fabulous series of mental states is your imagination. And may I tell you it has form, it has structure, just as real as the visible objective world; that the inner world is a world of reality. Call it by any name. I call it my wonderful imagination, and it assumes the form of all that I accept and consent to as true.17 ¶35

It actually assumes the form of the sum total of all of my beliefs, and my beliefs need not be true. They need not come near the truth. My beliefs could be prejudices; they could be superstitions. It doesn’t care. It will take all the stripes of men and wear them. So it will assume the form of the sum total of all that man consents to in this world, and then mold the outer world in harmony with the inner arrangement of itself. Therefore, to change the outer world, I must modify or change, in some way alter, the structure of the inner or second man - the second man being my imagination. So I set myself to observe myself and to watch how my imagination works.17 ¶36

And here is something that will interest you. I observe it always moves according to habit; that it is a being of habit, and so if I get into the habit of thinking the unlovely thoughts, it becomes very natural, so I listen only to that which is critical of another. I listen only to that which is not full of praise, that which judges harshly, and so according to habit it moves along these pathways.17 ¶37

Now, if I don’t like the outer world, and I really believe it is caused by the structure of the inner or second man, I then must change his likeness, change his form, by observing how I react to all the unlovely, and how I am not interested in the praise of another, and then begin to feed my sheep, begin to change my thoughts, my feelings, my moods concerning others, and as I begin to change my reactions to people, I find I am changing the structure of the Son of God. And then I automatically produce corresponding changes in my outer world.17 ¶38

If you really like it, and you are bold enough to take it, I promise you a world that is undreamed of by our wise men, for even sleep will no longer be the unconscious that it is to the majority of people in the world; that sleep becomes only a doorway into the world where this real you - the second man - really lives and moves and has its being. It is a dimensionally larger world, and you enter it quickly in meditation, or night after night in sleep, and you will find opportunities that would dwarf the wildest dream of men here.17 ¶39

So I ask you to really believe it, and try in the short interval of four weeks while we are here to so prove it that you can tell me of the things that have happened to you by putting into practice this Power of Awareness. Learn to become aware at any moment of time of your fulfilled desire. Assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled and learn to become intensely aware of the state fulfilled, that you may look upon your world and describe it relative to your fulfilled desire. And learn then to sustain that mood. You will find in time through the habitual motion of your inner you, after a little while, because it always travels according to habit, it will move through habit into the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and the moment it is a natural wearing to itself, it starts to change the outer world to reflect the inner change of your mind.17 ¶40

Now, I hope you will take it, but there is no power in the world that can compel you to take it. You are as free as the wind to take it or not to take it.17 ¶41

If you would rather persist in the belief that your Savior lived years ago and died for you and through his death, external to yourself, you are saved; you are entitled to believe it. As I told you earlier, because the inner you is molded in harmony with the sum total of all your beliefs, you will continue to have visible proof of the truth of that belief. For you will find millions believing with you, and you will believe that the numbers make it right, and so you will contribute to the whole vast traditions of men.17 ¶42

If you want to come out and be apart and find your savior where you will only find Him, within yourself, by setting your imagination to observe itself, you must come to the same conclusion - that this ultimate reality that men call God, that the Ancients defined as I AM, is your own wonderful consciousness and that IT in action, or the Son, or Christ Jesus, is your imagination. And then, having discovered, you start really to feed the sheep and you will stop, as of now, this walking of your Savior in the mud.17 ¶43

Now I see my time is up, and so at this moment I’ll take the chair and let us all join in exercising our imagination lovingly on behalf of another. Simply imagine that they are talking to you, and they are telling you what they wish they could tell you, and you listen as though you heard, and then you will put into practice that first verse of the fifth chapter of the Book of Ephesians: “Be ye imitators of God as dear children” - for how would I imitate my Father?17 ¶44

“He calls things that are not now seen as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen.” That is the way my Father called things into being, and I am called upon to be an imitator of my Father as a dear child.17 ¶45

For now I will call the imaginary voice. I will listen as though I heard what I want to hear. I will look as though I am seeing what I want to see, and if I persist in my listening and my looking, I will then be imitating my Father as a dear child, and he will not fool me. He will call into flesh, into objective reality, that which I have assumed that I have heard and I have seen.17 ¶46