Today’s subject is “Sound Investments.” I want to share with you today what I consider one of the truly great revelations of all time. On Sunday morning, April 12th, my wife woke from what was really a deep, profound sleep and as she was waking a voice distinctly spoke to her; and the voice spoke to her; and the voice spoke with great authority and it said to her: “You must stop spending your thoughts, your time and your money; everything in life must be an investment.” So she quickly wrote it down and went straight to the dictionary to look up the two important words in the sentence, ‘spending’ and ‘investing’: the dictionary defines ‘spending’ as “to waste, to squander, to layout without return.” To ‘invest’ is to “layout for a purpose, for which a profit is expected.”977 ¶1

Then I began to analyze the sentence – “You must stop spending your thoughts, your time and your money, for everything in life must be an investment.” As I dwelt upon it, I saw where everything is NOW; that through the portals of the present all time must pass, and this psychological NOW, the state in which I find myself now, does not recede into the past. It advances into my future. So, what I do NOW is the all important thing, and thought is the coin of heaven; it is the money of heaven; and so the thought I entertain now, the thought to which I consent, as told us in Ephesians “All things when they are admitted are made manifest by the light, and all things when they are manifested are light,” and the word ‘light’ is defined as consciousness. So the state to which I now consent must be made manifest, and when it is manifest, it is only that state of consciousness made visible, coming to bear witness of the state in which I abided. So, every moment of time, I am either spending or I am investing.977 ¶2

Unfortunately most of us spend the coin of heaven, and morning, noon and night we live in negative states for which there is no return, when we could easily have spent, not spent, but invested that moment, so at the end of that day we really would have a wonderful portfolio. The religious minded person invests possibly on Sunday morning. Through the service he is lifted for a moment; if he is not overly critical he might be carried away with the hymn; he might be carried away with the solo, the organ music, the address from the pulpit, and for a moment he is investing; but the rest of the week he spends.977 ¶3

Now you know from experience if you put all your money into one great concern, it may be wonderful, it may be sound, but at the end of a year the directors may decide to reorganize and therefore decide to pass the dividend, and if you depended on a dividend check for your daily needs, though it is a good, firm, wonderful concern, when they passed the dividend, then you must either sell some stock or raise or borrow on it. While every moment of time you could have a most marvelous portfolio and if one passes a dividend check it does not matter.977 ¶4

If you devoted every moment of time to positive thinking, constructive thinking, by not accepting any rumour that does not contribute to the fulfillment of your desire, no matter what it is – it could be the most obvious fact in the world – if it does not contribute to the fulfillment of your dreams, do not accept it. If you do you are spending; if, not by denying, but by complete indifference, complete non-acceptance, you turn to what you wish you could have heard instead of what you heard, you are investing. It’s not the hearing that matters, it’s the admitting the truth of it that matters. All things when they are admitted, not all things when they are heard, but if you give consent to it, if you accept it as true; then you either spend by acceptance or you invest depending on the nature of the state accepted.977 ¶5

So, this revelation which came through my wife to me is one of the greatest that I have heard; had it been told in our Bible, it would have been told in its strange meter “And the Lord God spoke unto her this day and said to her, his servant” and they would have told what revelation would have come in that manner but it came to a normal natural wife, came in a normal natural manner to instruct not only her, but to instruct her husband, for I was the first one to whom she told it and I can’t tell you what it has done to me since I heard it on the morning of the l2th April, for it made me more aware of the moment, made me far more conscious of every moment of the day so that I am not spending; I must invest – time is too precious and because these moments do not recede. They do not pass away; they are always advancing into my future to either confront me with a waste or to show me some wonderful return; if I invest it’s for a purpose and, therefore, I hope, not only hope, I expect a reward: I expect a profit on my investment. So a moment spent now, this very day, could tomorrow pay you great dividends.977 ¶6

Now I told a story here two weeks ago of Jimmie Fuller. Well, I didn’t have all the details of the story, but after the meeting; dozens of you said to me, not only after the meeting that day, but after my meetings at the Ebell Theatre, that Jimmie Fuller to have made the fortune that he made, must have had great capital. Well, I could neither affirm nor deny your bold assertion, for you spoke as though you knew and many of you almost convinced me that he had great capital and that’s why he turned it into great returns. So on Friday night I asked him to tell me more of the details.977 ¶7

He said, “When you came here four years ago, Neville, I came to hear you. My wife asked me ‘Why do you come to hear Neville? Who told you of Neville?’ He said, I turned the radio on one night and I heard Dr. Bailes. I had never heard of the man before. At the end of his lecture, which I thoroughly enjoyed, he said Neville is coming to speak for us and it’s a MUST. Well the next night, I so liked Dr. Bailes that I turned him on the next night, and for the next two weeks he kept on promoting you, and he was so generous in his praise, I thought I’ve got to hear this man. So when I came, I enjoyed what I heard on Sunday morning, and then you announced you were speaking the following night at this place, but it was two dollars. Well, he said, between myself and the next I actually had Fifty-four dollars. I had a wife and a little boy; we couldn’t leave the little child alone; he was a babe: it meant a sitter-in, but my wife and I came to everything you gave and one night we could not pay the sitter-in; we just didn’t have it, but we took our last which was fifty-four dollars and came to your every meeting – the two of us – and one night we didn’t have it to pay that sitter-in. Three years later, Neville, I had not proven your theory. You know my problem, as I told you before.”977 ¶8

Perchance there is someone here who did not hear it – the man is a negro, and his problem was that because he was a negro, all the marks and stripes of the world were against him. I tried to convince him it was only in his own mind that these stripes were placed; his acceptance of that as restriction made it restriction, but if he could only drop it by non-acceptance, by complete indifference, to the pigment of skin he could accomplish his every dream by acceptance of it now. Well, in the last year, Jimmie Fuller by complete acceptance, investing his moment, his now, has turned the year into a net profit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He did not have one penny when he started; he did not raise large capital; he didn’t have it. He only invested God’s coin. God gave it to him. He gave him the moment, which is time. So instead of spending his thought, which everyone has, and spending his time, which everyone has, he had no money, but he knew that thought was money; so he invested his thought in the now, knowing that it was not going to recede and vanish from sight; that was an investment: it would advance into his future. Well it did. It so advanced that he tells me now everything he touches turns to gold.977 ¶9

Now he has three children; they come here every Sunday to Sunday school: he doesn’t want his children to start with his stripes, so he wants them to feel what this Church gives. So every Sunday, Jimmie tells me many a Sunday he feels like taking off for the beach or up to the mountains with his wife, but he will not go because he wants his children to have an opportunity he didn’t have.977 ¶10

He says, “My people were very religious, but they must have worshipped a very poor God, for they were steeped in poverty. So I just wouldn’t go near the churches of my mother and my brothers and these people, because I couldn’t conceive of such a God doing that to us; yet they never missed service. For when I found in this what I found here in this Science of Mind Church, I brought my children to Sunday School. Now this is what happened to them. Here God is love, and love surrounds them and they know nothing but love, that God is love. For one day my little girl which is the youngest of the three, was quite sick, a beastly cold, and that night when the little boys said their prayers, these are the words they used ‘Thank you God, that sister is perfect tomorrow.’ They could not look at the little girl, sick as she was, and say ‘Thank you God that sister is well now,’ but they said ‘Thank you, God, that sister is perfect tomorrow.’ Neville, it was a miracle. The next day that child was perfect; there wasn’t the sign of a cold – a complete absence of all that we saw the night before, and these two little brothers simply gave thanks.”977 ¶11

“Now, he wanted a watch. I wouldn’t give him the watch. I could have bought a thousand watches for him. I want my little son to learn a law which I didn’t know until recently. So he filled his mind with the possession of a watch, and he spoke of the watch as a ‘live’ watch – one that ticks, one that is alive, not a toy watch. So then he fills his mind with the possession of the watch. On his way to school he found a ‘live’ watch. Now he knows the working of law – that the complete acceptance of the state in consciousness must result in an externalization of the state accepted. So if he accepts the watch he need not turn to his earthly father, as the medium through which the watch will come. I don’t want to think for one second he has to point to his mother or his father as the only channels through which his good will come. I want him to recognize an Infinite Father – the Father of US all – who gave to him as he gave to me everything that I will accept. I want my children to learn it as I have learned. Yes, I could shower him with gifts, but then he would look to me as the only channel through which it will come. That I must not accept. So you should see the little boys and little girls actually live by this law. God to them is love and the only reality and love surrounds them. So they never miss the Sunday School here.”977 ¶12

Then he goes on to tell me all other wonderful things that have happened by the mere acceptance of this law. He said, “The getting of my car, this convertible Cadillac – I treated it loosely, I sat quietly in my living room and drove my Cadillac, and I simply treated for this loosely,” he said, “I didn’t put real effort into it, I accepted it and then when I decided to get it I simply put in three telephone calls and that day I was driving this car, Neville. Now everything happens just like that. Today, instead of going to my office and working in the office I work behind the scenes. I sit all day and I hear the report that is good from my employees; my entire office staff must tell me good news, the only thing I will allow myself to hear. I ride my car; I’m in the office; I am at home; I’m in the office but I am only hearing good news, and seldom do I go to the office physically to do office work, so I am behind the scenes only hearing good news. So I have completely forgotten the so-called pigment of skin and, Neville, honestly I can tell you today I feel that I am blessed beyond all men because I was born a negro. I am so proud to be born a negro; I am so proud I’m one.”977 ¶13

And here is a story that will interest all of you; he said, “I had some property to dispose of, I had certain things in investments for those who had money, and so I advertised it and a man called me on the wire. He saw the ad, and asked me if I was the gentlemen, so I told him I was the one who had the property. The first thing he said to me, “I don’t want any nigger property.” Jimmie said, “I didn’t answer, as if I hadn’t even heard the word. If he wants to be prejudiced, he may be prejudiced, that’s his right. He wants to be silly about it, that’s his right. He can spend; he need not invest. So I said, “It is perfectly all right, sir, I have all kinds of property, I have all kinds of things for your investment.” A week later he called me up and said, “Would you come and see me.” He said, “I went to see him. When I got out of my car his knees almost buckled, for he didn’t know a negro was coming to see him, and a negro walked up his stairs into his living room.” He said within a matter of minutes he purchased $37,000 worth of mine that I had to offer. He said the first $25,000 that he bought he simply bought that to buy back his face, and then the remaining $12,000 he bought that because it was a very good investment. Well, since that time this gentleman has spent tens of thousands of dollars with me and constantly calls me to thank me because they are such wonderful investments. Now here is a man who is proud of his skin; he has no prejudices because that’s spending his time, he can’t afford to spend.977 ¶14

So in harmony with the revelation given to my wife, let us all now stop spending our thoughts, our time and our money. For everything in our life must be an investment. We know the truth. This platform radiates the truth. You are told that everything proceeds out of your own consciousness, but what you and you alone accept as true, that will externalize itself and mold itself in your environment. All the conditions that you will encounter will simply bear witness of the state you have accepted. Well, if you don’t like what you are encountering, then stop spending and learn the art of investment for every moment of time is an opportunity to invest, not to spend; yet on the other hand, you and I are free, we are free to waste every coin in the world. For that we have a right, we are free beings, we can spend, we need not invest, but if you know you can invest, why not choose the wiser way.977 ¶15

Now we are told in the thirtieth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, “The commandment I command you this day is not hidden, and it isn’t far off. It’s near unto thee; it is in thy mouth and in thy heart. Now, I set before you this day, life and good, death and evil, blessings and cursings. Choose life, choose blessing.” But the choice is ours for we are free. He sets before us this day, this very moment, a commandment. He sets everything before us; it’s not far away, it’s in our tongue right now.977 ¶16

And before me now is a blessing or a curse; I can accept the fact you don’t like me; it doesn’t matter, you may love me; but if I accept the fact that you don’t like me, don’t like the teaching, I’m spending my time. Tomorrow you’ll prove to me that I have spent my time by your behavior relative to me. On the other hand, if I accept the fact that you do like it, because you are proving it, then I would have no doubt in my mind that you could not do anything other than contribute to this teaching. So it is up to me to either bless myself or curse myself. I can choose life or I can choose death. I can choose the good, but I am free, I can choose the evil. It’s entirely up to me.977 ¶17

But if you and I loved this, accept it and believe it, then we are wise indeed if, knowing the whole is before us, we go out determined to become investors, not spenders, not wasting and squandering our substance, but laying it out for a purpose.977 ¶18

Every moment become conscious of the moment. What are you doing? I am accepting now the fact that I am a noble, dignified, wonderful being, that my father is proud of the son who is like him. So I will not hear or accept as true anything other than that which contributes to that noble concept I will hold of myself. For I will see that I am secure, and maybe a headline would startle the world but I will not accept it, for if I don’t admit to it, it can’t proceed out of me. For all things when they are admitted are made manifest, not unless they are admitted. So if I now will admit that using this moment as my moment to invest, if I am what reason denies, what my senses deny, and I proceed in that assumption, knowing that even though it doesn’t confirm itself tonight or tomorrow, I will still live in the assumption that I am what I want to be and all day tune in and listen only for the good report. I know these are investments and tomorrow these dividend checks must come. They must come. That’s the law of our being.977 ¶19

So everyone here, take it to heart, and though you don’t need money, and so I say to the hundreds of you who say to me in private, “He must have had money,” I tell you I know the story now; I didn’t know it when you boldly claimed that he had money but now I have it from the source. He only had $54.00 and the $54.00 he spent coming to my meetings, even when he couldn’t spend a dollar on a sitter-in; so I tell you he didn’t have it; he has it today.977 ¶20

But you don’t need even $54.00. All you need is time and you have it, it’s now. All you need is the thought, that’s money. So instead of spending that now, and spending the thought in the now, invest it now, for your now, this very moment as I stand here and I will get off the platform in a little while – and you will think, well now this is gone, he’ll come back next year – this is not gone. What I am doing now is not going to slip away; it’s going to move forward and embody itself as a condition, embody itself as the circumstance of my life. So that my now’s, my reactions to what I am hearing and saying and seeing, all of my reactions are in the now, and my reactions are spelling out my tomorrow.977 ¶21

So I will repeat it – through the doorway of now – because he said, “I am the door,” I am is always first person present. Not I was the door, or I will be the door; “I am the door,” “I am the resurrection,” so what I do in the present, now, is not going to recede, it is going to advance into my future for through the door of the present, of the now, all time must pass. Now don’t spend it as it passes; as it passes through the door of the now, invest it. Every moment of your life see that it is a positive, constructive, noble moment. I promise you a wonderful, healthy, radiant future if you will invest the now.977 ¶22

Now this being my last talk for a little while, I would like while I have this opportunity because the theatre, the Ebell, can’t take all of you, I hope that many of you will come this coming week and make it a really fruitful, wonderful week, but I know you can’t all get into the Ebell; so here, one lady as I came through the door said, “Neville, you made it so clear on Friday night; something I’d not seen before, for you told us this year you brought a wonderful revelation and that is the wide difference between thinking from an end and thinking of an end. For you emphasized that time and time again since you’ve been here this time, but I didn’t get it until Friday.” I said, “Well, how did you get it?” She said, “Your picture of the balcony and the stage.”977 ¶23

Well, now we have the same situation here. We have a balcony, so we have a stage. Well, if she having heard it so often didn’t get it, the chances are many of you didn’t get it. Well, now she got it by my illustration, so I will repeat the illustration that all may get it.977 ¶24

I said that when a man learns the art of thinking from the end, that man is master of his fate, for he defines his end, he formulates an aim in life, and then feels himself right into the situation of that end. So he thinks from it instead of thinking of it. The average man defines his dreams but he remains back here looking at them before he’s thinking of them. The wise man occupies the state of his dreams, so he radiates from it, he thinks from it.977 ¶25

And then to use this little illustration. I’m standing here looking out at the auditorium, and I would describe this theatre based from this angle, for I am seeing it from the stage. You, sitting in the auditorium, or sitting in the balcony, you are looking at it from that state, so you would see the screen and the speaker. So the difference between us we see the same theatre from different angles. I would define it from here; you would define it from there. If I desired to get your point of view, while standing here I would assume that I am seated where you are and therefore within my imagination look from that position. I would then have to see the stage, not the auditorium; I would see the thing behind me, this cyclorama, and I would describe the theatre from that position which I am assuming that I am.977 ¶26

Now, if that position represents, say one of security and this one of insecurity I would then assume by physically standing here assume that I am now secure. And to prove that I am, I would then look from the state of security, so I would describe the world relative to my assumption. If I am still seeing what I saw when I was insecure, I have not succeeded in occupying that desirable end; I am still only thinking of it. So the wide difference between thinking from and thinking of must be clearly seen and then see the wisdom in learning the art of thinking from a desired end.977 ¶27

So here, look out at your world, formulate your lovely aims in life and just ask yourself, “What would it be like were it true that I now embody that state? How would I feel?” And in response to that question would come a feeling, a feeling that corresponds to that end. Learn then to think from that end, though reason denies it, though everything denies it, you occupy that end. It’s now, you’re investing it and these will become real within your world.977 ¶28

Now another thought that I tried to make clear and it’s this which again Jimmie Fuller told me was one of the cues in his success. When the action of the inner man corresponds to the action the outer man must take in order to appease his desire, he will definitely realize his desire. There are two of us; there is an inner man and an outer man. The outer man is always made to say, “I of myself can do nothing; the Father within me, this inner one, He doeth the work. What I see him do, that, I, the outer do also.” So there is an inner you. If I now sat here and immobilized my body by relaxing it and then imagine what the outer would have to do in order to appease his desire, and with the outer relaxed, just let me imagine that I am actually it now, so I keep the body immobilized but I imagine that I am actually experiencing it now. I would experience in my imagination that which I would have to experience in the flesh to appease desire, and then imagine that state over and over and over, so that the actions of the inner man correspond to the actions the outer must take in order to realize desire. When that is done – I promise you it’s going to be done in the flesh; no power in the world could stop it when these two actions coincide. But let it always be from the inner you.977 ¶29

And now at the end of the silence, this is what we do. Knowing that any time that we exercise our imagination lovingly on behalf of another, we are actually and literally mediating God to man. So we can sit quietly in the darkness and simply listen as though we heard the good report that we want to hear. We look into the darkness and imagine we are seeing what we want to see. This is then investing this two minutes; we have taken the moments that go to make up two minutes and really are investing it now. So when I take the chair and the lights are lowered let us listen and let us look as though we are hearing and seeing what we want to hear and see. And we are actually fulfilling the command of that wonderful voice that spoke to my wife when it said to her, “You must stop spending your time, your thought, and your money. For everything in life must be an investment.” Let these two minutes be your greatest investment.977 ¶30

We are told in Isaiah, the 55th chapter, that “My word goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return unto me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” This is the same Word spoken of in the beginning of John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” and “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us.” It’s translated “among us,” but that is a mistranslation and leads man astray. If I said tonight that there is one among us who will speak to us, you look around and you think of another. But the preposition is in, not among. And so, the Word became flesh and dwells in us. John uses the plural “us.” He did not assume a man, a person, but man’s nature. It is not this or that person that was assumed but our nature; and by putting on our nature he became the type on which it is molded.976 ¶1

The whole thing is God, for the Word is God: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The word translated “word,” the word logos, means “a pattern, it’s meaning, it’s a plan.” So here is a plan…there’s a purpose behind the whole vast creation, and that is the forming of Christ in man. For it’s called in the scripture, “And his name shall be called The Word of God” and they’re speaking of Christ Jesus. So forget Christ Jesus as a man that you call a being on the outside that you worship, and think of him as this Word, this plan, this pattern man, that took upon itself our nature. Having put upon itself our nature, it now becomes that type on which our nature is being fashioned, is being formed, and when it’s completely formed, well then, it unveils itself, and we are it. So he didn’t become John or Peter or Neville or Grace, he simply took human nature and then unveiled himself, and we are he. So that is the story as I see it in scripture and as I have experienced it in my own personal life here.976 ¶2

Now, here is the story of indentured labor. Indentured labor is labor that is simply a contract binding one to work for another for a given period time, like an apprentice. An apprentice worked for the master craftsman for a given period of time, then was free to even compete with his master. I know in the West Indies in Trinidad and British Guiana, a couple of hundred years ago we had indentured labor from India. These Indians were sent out as really slaves for fourteen years only. They were not permanent slaves; they were simply slaves for a definite period of time. Having served fourteen years they were set free and given a certain acreage and a home in which they lived and they were free to compete with the one who had them working for him, or them, for that given period of time.976 ¶3

So in scripture we read, “And the Lord God said unto Abram, ‘Your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be slaves, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years’”—that means indentured labor; there’s a definite term attached to this labor—“After that they will come out with great possessions.” After they have served their slavery and frightful oppression, but it will not go beyond that time. Well, 400 is simply the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Tau. It has a symbol and the symbol is a cross. So we bear and wear the cross, and this body is the cross. When we take off this cross at the very end, when that Word unfolds itself within us then we are set free, we are redeemed.976 ¶4

Now, redemption in scripture meant what today people do not realize…in fact, it has almost wholly lost its primary sense. It originally meant “the regaining of an article which was put in pledge by repayment of the loan for which it was given in pledge.” So, we were sent in, not willingly we are told in the 8th of Romans: “And the creature was made subject unto futility, not willingly but by the will of him who subjected him in hope…that he would be set free, that he would obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” Now you and I can be alive and have no consciousness of why we are just simply alive, living animated bodies, but not life-giving spirits. To make us life-giving spirits we are subjected and sent into slavery for a definite period. He who sent us will redeem us, for he put us into slavery and he redeems us by his own blood. There’s no other way to redeem us. The price of the ransom is the blood of God.976 ¶5

And so, he actually becomes us, and all of us are playing the part, moving towards a definite goal, a definite end, and there is no change in that end. “My Word shall not return unto me void; it must accomplish that which I purpose”—that’s his purpose—“and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” When it returns, what is it but myself. Here are my sons equal to myself; for they are my Word made real…and the Word is God. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” So if his Word is in us—“for the Word became flesh ad dwelt in us”—if it dwells in us, the Word and the Word is God, when it unfolds itself in us what is it other than God, but now God with life in himself. So now we are one with God as we return. And the whole plan is revealed to us in scripture…how the Word unfolds.976 ¶6

Now here, we go to Ecclesiastes. In Hebrew thought eternity is not what the world thinks that it is. This is a closed circuit, it’s a plan. When we speak of history, history is simply “all of the generations and all of their experiences, fused into one single grand whole; and the concentrated time into which the whole is gathered and from which all the generations spring is called eternity.” Now we are told, “He has made everything perfect in its day and he’s put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what he has done from the beginning to the end”…only at the end. That he put into man. Man goes through all of these generations, all of them; he doesn’t avoid any, he doesn’t escape any. At the very end, when he comes out he sees the result of his journey. The result of his journey is the discovery of himself as God, and that discovery is revealed to him by God’s only Son David calling him Father.976 ¶7

For the word Olam translated “eternity” means “the youth,” means “the lad,” means “the young man.” These are the terms used concerning David. “Whose youth is that? Enquire whose stripling he is.” Nobody knows. And, “Who are you, young man? Whose son are you?” So here we find the king is asking a question, and this king is Israel’s first king made by people. His name is Saul. He is rejected by the Lord; Jehovah rejects him. Because man judges by appearances…they think a man, because he’s tall and he’s majestic and he’s all these things and he’s prominent, he’d be the perfect king. So man picks a leader based upon outward observation. But the king is now rejected by the Lord who sees not the outward appearance, he sees only the heart. He selects a youth, and so David becomes Israel’s first king by divine choice…while Saul was the first king by human choice. So he is the second king but the first by divine selection, that’s David. He brings him out after all the generations that I go through and you go through.976 ¶8

At the very end we are confronted with a being, a youth, a lad, and he is what we brought forth as a result of our journey through it all. He is the result of that journey and no one is going to fail in the journey: “For my word cannot return unto me void; it must accomplish that which I have purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” It cannot come back void. At the end of the journey the result is that you are God. And you do not know that you are Lord unless God’s Son calls you Father. So, “I have found David and he’s cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’” Here is my anointed one, the firstborn of every creature, we are told. We only have one firstborn and that firstborn is always David…he’s the only one. Everyone is bringing him at the end of the journey, but only at the end are you going to find him. You’re not going to find him before the end. You may want to find him tonight, and I do not blame anyone for wanting to find him tonight, but you cannot find him until the end. When the end is reached, David comes forth as the automatic result of the journey, and it takes the whole vast journey to bring him out.976 ¶9

This is like one grand Creator, The Word, actually possessed me, and so by actually putting me on, my nature, not Neville, putting human nature on, he becomes then the type on which my nature, which is human, is fashioned, where it is molded, where it is formed. When it is completed and the work is done, he unveils it. Then before me I see the result of my frightful pain and that is simply David calling me Father.976 ¶10

Benny came home on Saturday, and with all this confusion in the atmosphere about racial conflicts…and two days before, he had this experience, this vision. He said, “I found six Negroes, men with knives, and they were violent, and they were coming. Their whole bodies were all lacerated but healed, these scar tissues all over their arms.” One person arrested his attention and he said to him, “Don’t you know this whole thing is wrong? This is stupid, this violence of yours, it is evil, it is wrong.” For one moment the face was arrested as Benny held him in his mind’s eye. He said to Benny, “Even if I wanted to stop it, I couldn’t.”976 ¶11

Man is under compulsion…it’s a play. How are you going to stop a play and change it because you don’t like the lines given to you at this moment, the part to be played? Because you do not like violence, are you going to stop murdering Hamlet tonight and change the play? Hamlet is murdered every night that the play goes on, and when the curtain comes down he’s taken off the stage. You can see them lift him up and take him off the stage, and the whole thing is one of violence. Well, you can’t alter the play. Within the framework of the play we can find out what this Word means and change our way of life here by the same principle that animates this world.976 ¶12

Now, the Word did not assume itself to be this or that particular man as its habitation. It dwelt and dwells in us. So I do not assume that I am Rockefeller to feel wealthy, I do not assume a particular man but the nature of wealth is what I assume—the nature of this, the nature of that, the nature of the other—but not a man.976 ¶13

“What brings you out to see a man shaken by the wind?” That question is asked so vividly in the Book of John. Did you go out to see a man? Everyone’s looking for a man. Stop looking for a man. There is no man in this world that really you should bow before, but none. I have yet to find the man that I feel is my superior. I can find a man that I respect greatly for his great talent as an artist…that I cannot duplicate or come near what he does. I can pick all the arts…for I cannot…I’m not qualified to pass an opinion on his work, whether it be musical, whether it be in painting, whether it be in any other form of art. But because of his great accomplishment in art, it has never occurred to me because I respect his ability and his accomplishments that I feel he is my superior. I respect Einstein’s great mind in Physics, respect it beyond measure, but do you think for one moment standing in the presence of Einstein I would feel him my superior?976 ¶14

Today, I went to the dictionary to look up the word “person,” just to get it clear in my mind’s eye, because I have a certain concept, and here is the definition of the use of “person.” It didn’t say who said it, but they quote it as though someone had written it. And the word “person” is used in this form, that “in my estate, in my station in life, I could never know a person of the trade socially.” So that’s how it’s used…“could never know in my social world anyone of the trade socially,” a person that is taboo.976 ¶15

But, strangely enough I had that experience at a cocktail party one night. The lady who gave the party apologized profusely that she had invited two people who lived in the same building, who had a haberdashery store on Madison Avenue, and who were doing very, very well. But she had unearned income…in other words, wealth which she got from a huge, fabulous settlement in divorce, and because it’s completely unearned and she’s a member of all the exclusive clubs in the city of New York, she actually felt that she was above this couple who earned a living and had their lovely business on Madison Avenue, as haberdashers, and she apologized to me. Well, what am I going to say under the circumstances? So she expressed how this book, which is Webster’s, defined the word “person.” Of course, there are many definitions.976 ¶16

The first and primary definition of it is simply “an actor, a mask, persona, playing a part.” That’s all that it means. So, here is a part, a person. What part are you playing? Well, she could not associate herself with that part because of her part that she’s playing…but she didn’t know that. She actually felt that she was something detached and something apart. Well, she couldn’t help it, and to this day she can’t help it…with all of her millions she just can’t help it.976 ¶17

So I say to you, God is playing all the parts…but all the parts. He’s a protean being, and there’s only one being playing all the parts in the world. So when Benny saw this violence and he was aware enough to explain he was actually seeing himself, but in this case of the past. This is all the past to Benny, for he’s come to the end of the road. He saw these six and he’s trying to tell them, but they couldn’t stop it. He could only arrest the attention of one and that one was bewildered for a moment. Just for a moment he realized that Benny was speaking the truth, and he said to Benny, “But even if I wanted to I can’t stop it.” He is cast in the role of violence and a violent one he will be, and he’ll go through to the very end. At the very end of the road, David will come out as the Son bearing witness to that will of God who went through the entire drama to bring out sons that are like himself, having life in themselves…not just animated souls but life-giving spirits. It takes this entire horrible drama to bring it out.976 ¶18

Well, we aren’t taught that. We’re taught about all the little niceties…you do this and you do that, as though you were going to change the play. You aren’t going to change the play: “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” That is the play. And you’re wanting to take these five terms, from foreknowledge to glorification, and in any way interpret them other than a certain measure of predestination?976 ¶19

I can find myself tonight behind the eight-ball financially, and take the same technique and use it not as the world uses it (I am a certain personality other than this). No, I take the nature of wealth, the nature of health, the nature of whatever it is I want to express…but not a person who seems to express it and embody it in my world. So we forget a person called Jesus as a man outside of self, for if his name is called the Word of God and the Word became flesh and dwelt in us, well then, stop it right there and do not look on the outside for anything that is a particular being that he assumed himself to be. He never assumed a person, he never assumed he was a person; he assumed that he was the nature, man’s nature.976 ¶20

So you’re told he was not concerned with the nature of angels, but with the descendants of Abraham. Now the word translated “descendants” is the word semen—the Hebrew word which is translated in the King James Version is “seed.” It is seed…he took upon himself the seed before it took on any personality; for it is the very first original element of our nature, semen. That is the first, the very first, the original element of our natures. Well, he took upon himself that, not a personality. Before it becomes human in the form of being a personality, he takes it and now he molds our nature upon himself and he is the very image of God. He is The Word which is one with God. He is the pattern man. So in the end, it unveils itself, and here comes the perfect unveiling of God…and it’s you.976 ¶21

But may I tell you, in his infinite mercy he has hidden from us all that we have done, what we have been put through, the horrors of it all. But God wrote the play and God plays the play, and in the end everyone comes out and he is the author of the play…enhanced beyond the wildest dream of man as to power, a creative power, as to wisdom…because he tasted death. For, God is life, and he assumed this state which would allow him to actually taste the experience of death. So he tasted death.976 ¶22

Now, a lady writes…and here is this perfectly marvelous experience. It’s a very short dream. Here, “I saw myself. I came out of myself and the one that came out was an old, old woman. I was astonished at my age.” Now this is a young lady, her baby is only now just an infant, a year old, maybe less than a year, and she is an old, very old woman, and she’s astonished at her age. The old woman delivers a baby. She doesn’t do the actual delivery in a physical sense, but she delivers a baby and holds the baby in her arms. She knows she is this old woman who has just delivered the baby.976 ¶23

That’s the perfect, perfect vision of the 18th chapter of Genesis, for Sarah was an old, old woman; it long had ceased to be with her after the manner of women, and she brought forth the promised child. I can tell her she is on the verge.976 ¶24

In this 18th chapter it turns from the first-person into the third-person, and God is speaking to Abraham and telling Abraham of the Promise. Then in the same chapter as it goes on, when she laughed as though it couldn’t happen because of her age and his age, then the same one who stands before him, which he didn’t recognize to be the Lord, said, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”…speaking of him in the third-person. He didn’t recognize him. He spoke of the Lord in the third-person. Then after the whole was over, she recognized it is the Lord who stood before me and I did not know it. For, it is man, and man is not looking for the Lord in human form, but in some peculiar abstract image, and it isn’t. God is man.976 ¶25

And so when this vision came to her, I can tell her that in the story he said to her, “I will be back in the spring of the year…at this time,” he said to her, “at this time next year I’ll be back in the spring and you will have a son.” Now, he’s telling her that; that’s how I would interpret this vision that she’s on it, she’s right within a matter of the immediate present of the birth of the child. There was simply the picture that is Sarah, an old, old woman coming out of herself, and she knows it’s herself and she delivered the child. She knows the woman holding the child is herself…that’s Sarah…a perfect, perfect vision of scripture, my dear.976 ¶26

Then she said, “I wasn’t asleep. I simply closed my eyes for a moment when I saw a huge ear and knew it was related to my ear. Then I saw a hammer and a spike. Didn’t see the hand, but invisible hands drove that spike right through the ear, and I knew it was my ear but it didn’t hurt.”976 ¶27

Well, that’s the 40th of the Book of Psalms. If you read the footnote, you will see in the footnote that he bored ears for man—not that he made ears, you’ve got the ears—but it must be bored that you may hear. So the voice will come uninterrupted from within you, for you saw it being bored.976 ¶28

So everyone here is waking. But all in eternity will awake, even though they are going through hell tonight in many parts of this world. It’s not just South Vietnam or North Korea, but all over the world there’s violence. We have it in our city. And they do not know what they do: “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” Just as this one said to Benny, and Benny trying to plead with him, and he said, “Even if I wanted to, I can’t stop it.” So if he must burn, he’ll burn, and if he must burn down cities he’ll do it, and our politicians can’t do a thing about it.976 ¶29

But you and I in our sphere, forgetting people, forgetting individuals and looking to anyone as a leader, who is a leader? But take the nature of everything in this world that you want to express, the nature…for you are The Word. Then you take the nature. What is the nature? What would it feel like were I healthy? What would it feel like were I wealthy? What would it feel like and I catch the nature. I don’t have to feel that I am any individual who is healthy or wealthy or famous in order to personify it. For that’s not how it is done. He did not assume that he is this or that being as his own habitation…he dwells in us. Who?—God. Because he’s The Word and the Word became flesh and dwelt in us…not among us, dwelt in us.976 ¶30

So you take it to heart and you apply it. Dwell upon it. As you dwell upon it the whole begins to unfold within you.976 ¶31

But I am confident the people who are here in this group are all on the verge of waking…they’re all on the verge of waking. You couldn’t stand it…you could not come here were you not on the verge of waking. It would have not a thing for you…it would be simply talking in a foreign tongue. You would leave it, you’d depart. So, unnumbered heard him but few followed him because they could not follow him. It was not what they wanted. They wanted someone they could see on the outside to worship. They want to worship him.976 ¶32

I tell you from experience everything in scripture you are going to experience, and then you’ll know that you are he. He will simply awaken in you, and you are the being spoken of in scripture. Everything said in scripture is all about you. When that Word completely unveils itself, you stand amazed when it takes this David to reveal it. For, he is simply the result, the essence of the journey through these 400 years, and then you are redeemed.976 ¶33

How am I redeemed? Well, the one who put me into bondage has to redeem me, and the only way he can redeem me is to give me himself. For, “life is in the blood” and he has to redeem me with his life. When I am split right down the middle, there I see that sacred drop of blood—that golden, liquid living symbol—I fuse with it, I am that, and I bring it back…so I redeem his blood. He gave his blood for me; I become it, and I return as his drop of blood; into the Holy of Holies I take it. So I must be redeemed and he who redeems me gave a pledge. So it really means “to regain an article that in some wonderful way was put in pledge, and you redeem it by simply repayment of that loan for which you gave it in pledge.”976 ¶34

So he sends me into slavery not willingly, but that I become as he is. To become as he is, he has to give me himself…and his life is in his blood, and he gives me his blood. So in the world I was in generation and division, and then I’m split; I move up into regeneration and union, into the one being who fell.976 ¶35

So you dwell upon it, and you’ll see how the whole vast world, even as it is, it’s a lovely world, wonderful world…with all of its horrors it’s still marvelous. You don’t have to be frightened in this world. You are The Word now made flesh. You’re flesh, aren’t you? And something is going on in you of which you may be totally unaware; and that is, that pattern man is the type on which you nature is being molded. So, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” When it’s completed he unveils it, and you are he.976 ¶36

In the meanwhile, take the same technique concerning this world, and how he didn’t take a certain character, a certain person, to assume it…for having done so, then he would have advanced beyond all measure but no one else. He didn’t do that. He dwelt in us, not in this or that particular man but in us. And so, take the same technique and now what would it be like if I were…you name it…now you’re taking the nature of things.976 ¶37

But don’t forget it! The minute they become wealthy they think it’s in the person and they forget the nature that produced wealth. When they become anything then they completely forget how it happened. Then you’ll find all these obituaries in the papers. And read tomorrow morning’s paper, they always pick out someone who is either very, very wealthy or very famous. He could be infamous but they pick him out. When Stalin died, one who was responsible for the murder of tens of millions of people, he had a huge obituary. When Hitler died having murdered millions, he had a huge obituary. So they always pick out people, persons…and no mention of this principle.976 ¶38

They go unsung, for they don’t care, because they awake within the whole vast dream and willingly depart leaving it all behind. They willingly leave it all behind knowing that they can’t change it; for it was a play and still remains a play and continues to be a play until he redeems everyone from the play.976 ¶39

Now let us go into the Silence.976 ¶40

So I think you all know that today is Lincoln’s birthday, and here we celebrate the day of one who is supposed to have freed the slaves of our land. On Monday we will celebrate the birthday of one who will free us all, including the slaves, from British tyranny or control. And yet today, after these many, many years, we find the entire nation rising up demanding freedom. Freedom now. Freedom now. You see all these scholars and their demonstrations. That goes not only for the minority group, but for the entire country. They want freedom, thought by worldly men, where there’s exemption from all external restraints, can be realized only by union with that pattern man who achieves full and complete freedom. Without union with that pattern man, there is no freedom. No matter how they’re screaming for it, and they’re all screaming for it, they will not find it, they will not get it until union with the pattern man. For freedom is the gift which he, by union with him, bestows upon his brothers. And there is no other way out of the maze.975 ¶1

So you and I are blessed at this moment because we are on the verge, if we have not received union with him, we are on the verge of receiving union with the risen Lord. There are those today who are only starting the game, talking the game, for the game is from innocence through experience to freedom, for innocence is simply defined as lack of the acquaintance of good and evil, that can’t discriminate. Lack of any understanding of good and evil.975 ¶2

You see it today in our midst, where a girl, white-skinned, in spite of all the so-called evolutionists, who cannot discriminate between good and evil. She could murder eight people in cold blood, cut them into pieces when they pleaded for mercy, and they couldn’t spray it. And she said, but she didn’t do wrong. Whatever she did, it was right. If she did it, it was right. No concept of good and evil. She only begins the journey now. And yet she’s in a garment — white skin, long, long straight hair, not kinky — and people think she is an evolution out of the dark skin. What nonsense. Here is a child beginning the journey. She hasn’t the slightest concept of good and evil. She has thousands of years of a journey before her, where she has to go through the furnaces and experience all the things that you have experienced. But in the end, as we are told so beautifully by Blake, whom God has fixed for secret age, he comforts and heals and calls him friend. So in the end, she will be redeemed. She will have union with the risen man, the pattern man. And she will experience the entire story as told us in the gospel.975 ¶3

So when today they’re all demanding freedom, demanding this, demanding that, they will never know what freedom really is until they have union with the pattern. And when that pattern is by taking a seal and impressing it upon the wax prepared to receive the impression — pressing it upon wax prepared to be sealed with its impression. And so when he embraces you, or in whatever form you have union with him, he leaves his imprint upon you just like the seal upon wax or clay. And then that imprint unfolds within you. As it unfolds within you, you are set free.975 ¶4

And you aren’t really set free until you find the Son. For “if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.” Whose son are you, young man? Go find out whose son that you are. For I want to find his father. And so the son one day is found and stands before you, and you know without any uncertainty he is your son, and he knows you are his father. Then you are free. Free indeed. So it doesn’t really matter what happens thereafter.975 ¶5

But it starts from plain innocence, where a complete lack of any acquaintance of good and evil. Then we pass through experience. Well, experience is actually living, living through something so that we now know it firsthand rather than by hearsay. We all live through that experience.975 ¶6

Left to the morning now, our things call — if we had, fell calls, from the East, New York, Cincinnati, Jersey — and fill up to ask about that, so we can tell them nothing happened. A few things were broken, not much. No damage to the house. A couple of pieces of china, a few badges, and of course the things that fell off the walls, of all of us and bags. But there’s really no damage. But he had the experience of the shake. And we all had it. I can tell them, but that’s hearsay. As far as they’re concerned, tell them, but that’s hearsay. As far as they’re concerned, we have the truth. They only know it from hearsay. So experience is something that one has to live through. To experience is to actually live through something so that you have a first-hand knowledge of it, rather than have someone tell you about it, so that your knowledge of it is only hearsay. You’re not a witness if it’s hearsay.975 ¶7

And freedom is simply liberating the slave. It’s really self-realization. It is a complete self-fulfillment in a spiritual sense. When I speak of self-realization, I’m not speaking of any organization that calls itself a self-realization. I’m speaking about actual self-realization. When you discover who you are — and you will never in eternity discover who you are until the Son stands before you. And then you know who you are. And then you are set free.975 ¶8

For bear in mind it was God who was crucified. It was God who was buried. It was God who rose from the dead. It was God who was born from above. It was God who found David. And it was God David called my brother. He was God whose body was split in two from top to bottom. And he was God who ascended into heaven like a fiery serpent. And it was God on whom the dove descended. There is only God in the world.975 ¶9

So when we go back into scripture and the journey begins in the third chapter of Genesis, and we read the story of the serpent, and the serpent is asking a question of Eve: “Did God tell you that you should not eat of the trees of the garden?” And she said, “No, that I should not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, but all the other trees.” “Did he tell you that you would die? Because you will not die. But if you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will know good and evil. You will become a god, knowing good and evil, if you eat of it.” And it seemed good to her to eat of it, so she ate of it, and then had the experience of good and evil.975 ¶10

If you look at the definition of the word serpent, it is defined as to learn from experience — as to learn from experience. It is in your concordance. If it’s a good one, I am quoting from James Strong’s concordance. It’s a different word from another serpent used in scripture. This serpent is to learn from experience. There’s no other way to learn it. The other time the word serpent appears, it is the seraph, the seraphim, which means a fiery being, a being set on fire. That’s when you ascend into heaven. That’s the fiery being that comes down. The entire Old Testament is nothing more than a shadow. It is an adumbration, the foreshadowing of things to come.975 ¶11

The New Testament is an acted parable. For a parable is a story told as though it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its specific character and then learn its message and either accept it or reject it. So the story told of Jesus Christ — Jesus Christ is the pattern man. It’s an actual pattern.975 ¶12

And when in 1 Timothy, Paul implies, if he ever wrote that first letter to Timothy — some scholars question that he wrote it — Paul is a state of consciousness. So whoever wrote it is talking about Paul. That’s the state. And he tells you that “I am the former; it was first in me that the example was set forth.” And here he tells you, but he doesn’t spell it out, the actual pattern. But he tells us that it was in him. He was the former in which this pattern, this example — he used the word example, but the King James Version uses the word pattern. I prefer that. While the Revised Standard Version uses the word example. In him was the first, the former, where this example took place. Now, the foremost, the most example took place.975 ¶13

Now, the fact is, as I told you earlier, that God and God alone was the one who was crucified. “I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I; I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” So I am alive by a certain sacrifice — that’s the thought — because God and the Son are one. And gave himself for me. So I am alive, by a certain sacrifice. That was God, because God and the Son are one, in this sense.975 ¶14

So here I am that Son, because all the sons form God. And we, the sons, came down into this world. And here I am crucified, on this garment — the only cross that God ever wore. And I am buried in the tomb of this garment. And in that tomb, as told me in the eighth chapter of Ezekiel, I have made — oh, what horrible images I have engraved upon the interior of that tomb. If you read the eighth chapter of Ezekiel, he said to the son of man, “Son of man, make a hole.” And so I made a hole. Now he said, “Go in. Go in and see what the elders of Israel are doing.” I went in, and I saw all these engravings upon the interior of this wall, and they made horrible things, and they worshiped beasts, birds, and horrible things — what everyone does in this world rather than fall in love with the pattern. But they didn’t know the pattern.975 ¶15

Now the pattern has been sent to you. The pattern has appeared. In actual living reality, will you accept the pattern? And the pattern is: give up all these things that formerly you worshipped and thought would save you, that they would do this for you, and fall in love with the pattern. For Jesus Christ is the pattern man. One day you are embraced by the pattern, which would be male. The other could be in another form of embrace, but it’s the same impression left upon the one embraced, left upon the one that was embraced in love. And so when the act is over, he is sent into the world, and then during the journey this impression unfolds within the individual who was embraced, upon whom that impression was made, that just seemed unwelcome. And then you know who Christ is, for Christ comes to us as one — some picture, I made — yet one who, after the embrace, it’s not a “he” anymore. “I am.” So the whole thing is all within the individual, and he unfolds the entire story as told us in Scripture. That’s the only freedom that man will really ever truly enjoy.975 ¶16

So you can have a Lincoln’s birthday to set slaves free, and a Washington’s birthday to set all Americans free, and yet all Americans still crying out for freedom, for liberty. And all the minority groups, blacks, Chicanos, everything else, crying out to be liberated. And you will not in eternity be liberated save through union with the pattern man, the pattern man who has achieved complete freedom. So when you’re embraced by him, you’re embraced by freedom itself. And that imprint then unfolds within you, and you are as free as the being. And you find the one being that really sets you free is the Son of God. And he stands before you and you know who he is, or you know who you are. Therefore it’s a complete self-realization. It’s a complete spiritual fulfillment. And then you know.975 ¶17

So it doesn’t matter what happens thereafter — earthquakes, volcanoes, wars, anything in the world. You have reached the end. And your only feeling then will be for those who are now talking to Germany. Instead of condemning and asking for the gas chamber, you look upon this little thing — it’s like a thing just started, only now tasted of the fruit of good and evil, and can’t quite discriminate as yet. It doesn’t know, and here it is, say, for six thousand years, a horrible thing.975 ¶18

But as Blake said, “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct. It must fulfill its destiny in order to achieve perfection. Follow this path and you will receive from your own genius a deeper perception of the eternal beauty of creation. You’ll also receive an ever-increasing relief from that which now seems so sad and terrible.”975 ¶19

So, he starts it, and you and I are in it. And we’ll wait for her, after the unnumbered years that she has to travel, for she has to go through all if you’ve gone through. But God, in his infinite mercy, has hidden it from your memory — hidden it — and still allows you to condemn and do the things that normal men will do when they read these things in the paper. Why did it happen to me? Why did it happen to so-and-so? And do the things that normal men will do when they read these things in the paper. Why did it happen to me? Why did it happen to so-and-so?975 ¶20

And yet we all shared a common experience that Tuesday morning. Some had a greater blow than others. But we all shared the experience, and you can’t deny it. Well, that is something to be grateful for. You experience it, and you’re made up of what you’ve experienced. Others cannot be witnesses to these things; they could only be those who say, “Well, I heard it said.” So I heard there was, as the saying goes, our sister-in-law from the east, my niece from Cincinnati, others from different areas, and they’re all calling. I’m quite sure one from Greece will come next week — you’ll be writing in, you can’t get through by telephone. And you’ll be asking all kinds of things, because people go out and they try to scare you all the more.975 ¶21

One call from a New Yorker says he just heard on the TV and he’s been trying all day to get you, and some are sorry, they’re all sorry, cranking up, and he says this is only the first one, the big one is coming. And of course it puts her right into a tizzy, as though this little thing knows what he’s talking about. He didn’t predict this one, but he’s going to predict the next one. And then he gives his name and all the little degrees behind his name, and he teaches over at Caltech. So he is an authority. No one knows. No one knows. And whatever comes, let it come. And I tell you, let it come. You have experienced what only a very small section of our country experienced these last few years. And life is made up of experiences. So the serpent simply means to learn by experience. And we listened well, and the fruit tasted to it, and we came out into a world of experience. Because the journey is from innocence through experience to freedom. And that freedom is to awaken as God himself.975 ¶22

So we’re being plucked from a garden. As I saw it so clearly one night — this infinite field of human flowers, flowers like sunflowers. And yet I knew as I looked at them, and they were so beautiful, I knew that I enjoyed a far greater measure of freedom than all of them put together. For there they were, beautiful and seemingly perfect forever. If one smiled, all smiled. If the wind moved one, it moved all in the same direction. Whatever one did, all did. And I felt myself free to do what I wanted to do. I could walk if I wanted to. I could turn around if I wanted to. I was not moved by a chorus. And there was simply a chorus, all moving in unison. And I had been plucked before all. And I ate of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, and came out into a world.975 ¶23

And started, and the first act was murder, and Cain killed Abel, and he did it through jealousy. And here is an act of jealousy: he envied his position in the world, envied his wealth, envied what he had, and felt no remorse in killing him. But none whatsoever, even to this moment. But he’s a citizen of the tree of knowledge. And our great anthropologist will tell us, she is so advanced beyond the black man from Africa, or the great unknowns of, say, Peru, the great Indians that are still in their dark ages, like Ponzi. He is only just a player in these garments that are forever. For all these things are forever. This is part of the structure of the universe. And he simply assumed a certain dominance. And for the first time he appears in the world. Came from the world of innocence. Came to the world of experience. And now he is faced with thousands of years of sorrow.975 ¶24

But in the end, that merciful God will step beyond and redeem her into his body by union. And there will be union. And then the infant will be left. And that infant is the way of escape. And it begins with a waking within the grave, the grave being your soul. And then coming out of that soul, and that is your birth. And then discovering God’s son as your son, and that’s your freedom. And then comes the great splitting of your own body from top to bottom. And then your ascent as a fiery serpent back into heaven from which you descended. And then comes the seal of approval to the saint of the dust, which smothers you in love because it approves your entire journey. And all will be good. For here, you are at the end. I can tell you that. You are at the end. And that is at the beginning. And so all that you can really call out for is nothing but compassion, because he’s beginning what now you’re ending. You’ve gone through it, you’ve done the same thing.975 ¶25

And so what I told you earlier, from that statement of Blake as he revealed it to one called Matt Beckman — in a vision, Matt Beckman saw him and hailed him, he said, “There was that great genius,” and he waved to him and hailed him. And then he said, “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world.” And then he told him why: for everything is ordered and corrected; it must fulfill its destiny in order to achieve perfection. And then he asked him to please follow this path. And if you follow this path you will receive from your own genius a deeper perception of the eternal beauty of creation. You will also receive an ever-increasing relief from all that now seem so sad and terrible.975 ¶26

So here we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday, but you and I are searching for, and some of us have already found, the real one who sets us free. For he didn’t set the minorities free, for they’re still begging for freedom. And Washington didn’t set us free, because we’re still asking for, well, at least financial freedom. We’re burdened with taxes. We’re burdened with this. We’re burdened with everything. And so he didn’t set us free. And not a thing in this world can set us free but union with the pattern man who has already achieved true freedom. And union with him is an impression on us, like the seal on prepared wax. And the perfect impression is there, then we wear the express image of the invisible God.975 ¶27

And it’s rare when we think into the world to tell what happened to us; in that interval, that impact begins to unfold within us. And we know who we are. We are the God who was in the beginning crucified, who was in the beginning buried in the human soul, and who rose from that grave — the human soul — and who rose from that grave and who came out, and they called him born from above, and who found God’s only begotten son that was nearest to his Father, did all his will, and his name was David, and David called him Father. And whose body was David, and David called him Father. And whose body was split from top to bottom, and then who, after the split, ascended like a fiery serpent, came to heaven. And then that dove descended upon him, and that he knew exactly who he was. He bore the burden for the allotted time, as you have borne it for the allotted time. And then the long lost rank is now restored. And the God you were before you descended is the God that you have returned to, only augmented by the experience, but you could not know without the experience.975 ¶28

For you are immortal, and you would not know a thing concerning death unless you experienced death. How would you know it? Say it to a certain. So I could tell all the gods of the world about death — what was the noble death — they are immortal, they cannot die. But you and I came down and experienced death. We go back augmented beyond the wildest dreams of what we were prior to our descent, for we have experienced death. We aren’t speaking from hearsay. We are experiencing things, and therefore we will speak as true witnesses. I can’t be a witness unless I can speak from experience. I go back as a witness to my victory over death. So that’s what we are this day, in this wonderful world of ours.975 ¶29

So, this symbol of freedom — and everything in the world is a symbol anyway — Lincoln is but a symbol of the freedom of minorities. What a symbol of the freedom of minorities. Washington a symbol of the freedom of a nation from a foreign control. For Jesus Christ is the pattern man that is the true liberator of the world. And until one has union with him, he cannot find freedom, for he cannot find the Son. And when the Son says he is free, he will be free indeed.975 ¶30

So we are told in Hebrews, “although he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered.” Although he was a Son, he learned obedience by the things he suffered. You are the ones spoken of. For the entire Old Testament is simply the shadow, the copy of the eternal dream. And the New Testament is its fulfillment but told in the form of a parable. And you and I have to print the true story of that parable. And when we tell it, those who are still along the way, they’ll reject it. They can’t quite grasp it. They can’t believe it. So they’re rejected. That’s all right. Don’t give up. You tell it because you speak from experience. If you’re speaking from experience, you tell it.975 ¶31

A friend of mine called me from Cincinnati. Because he tried to get through and tried to get through, and I couldn’t — no one got through to me. As far as I’m concerned, no one was calling. He said, “I’ve been trying for two days to get through.” When he finally got through, he asked me to explain. Well, I said, as far as I’m concerned, I am perfectly all right. I woke just about one minute before six. I went to the bathroom. I was only there a minute, less than a minute. Before I could get back to my bed, the thing started. And as you know, it’s brilliant how intense it was. It came so suddenly. It was no rumble, just one solid mass of shaking, but from every direction. So I said, as far as I’m concerned, somebody held our house and shook it in all directions, like a doll — taking a little rag thing and shaking it. And so I could barely touch the bed when I heard my wife say, “Don’t walk, don’t get off the bed” — she didn’t know I was off the bed — “don’t get off the bed.” So, guess where you are, don’t come in here, you can’t walk — you know you can’t walk, it’s some north, south, east, and west, all together, some other direction. And so here you’re helpless, you can’t find the one who’s doing it, you can’t find anyone to get even with. You have to sit and take it. You’re taking something, and you can’t find that culprit who’s doing it. And then all of a sudden you start picking up the glasses, picking up the glasses, picking up the dishes, picking up the things that he did, seemingly, and it’s all prepared for. So I can speak from experience, and I can tell him over the phone, but he can only repeat what I say, and it’s only hearsay. He doesn’t know from experience. Give thanks that you now know from experience.975 ¶32

Nearly, one day, will return the entire horrible drama that you’ve gone through, playing the actor in it all — sometimes the victim, sometimes the culprit. You pay them all, and at the end you come out, and because you pay them all, you forgive all. But it is all to awaken you to the being that you really are, for the purpose of this whole journey is to awaken us, the Son, to fatherhood. That’s how the Father rises to a higher level, by taking his Son who confides him to thought of it — that’s how the Father rises to a higher level by taking his Son who comprises him, and putting him through the horrors of the world, which is himself, because he’s made up of his Son. And then, putting us through all that we go through, he, the one Father comprised of the Son, is lifted to a higher level, and we have expanded beyond the wildest freedom by the experiences in this world of horror.975 ¶33

So when they are seeking freedom, and you’ll see them tomorrow morning in the State of the Party, you’ll find another demonstration and another demonstration. And this one wants freedom and that one wants freedom. And you’re asking, what do you mean by freedom? They can’t tell you. That means freedom from external restraints. Freedom to do anything they want without any restraints. And the result of freedom? Untill. There is no such freedom until union with a pattern man who is all love, who would hurt nothing in the world. Until that union takes place, you will never enjoy the freedom that you are seeking, which is complete freedom from all external restraints. And you will find them whether you are a minority group or any other group in the world.975 ¶34

Fortunately for me, I have never called myself one among the minorities. I came here as a stranger to America, but not from the day I landed did I ever think myself other than one with America. I never called myself an American Barbadian or an American West Indian. It never occurred to me to have this hyphenation in my world. I either am an American or I’m not one. As long as I’m living here and became an American, I’m an American. But to call myself a Mexican American, or a black American, or a white American, that’s to be stupid. And so I am, while I’m here, by adoption, I’m an American equal with anyone born here, as far as the outer garment that I wear. So when all these call themselves by their name — a Japanese American, a Chinese American, a Mexican American — I can’t see why. Why don’t we drop the little hyphenation and just simply be an American?975 ¶35

And then find this wonderful story concerning the only one that can set you free, and love him beyond all things, and don’t substitute some little thing for him. The whole vast world has substituted these, a worshipful image that made all kinds of images, and it was a gift. Instead of speaking of all things, this internal word which is only a pattern.975 ¶36

Now let us go into the silence. Thank you. Good. Good.975 ¶37

You have any questions, please? Any questions? Yes, sir.975 ¶38

Any other questions, please? If there aren’t any other questions, then we’ll call it a day. Thank you, good night.975 ¶41

Paul is the greatest and most influential figure in the history of Christianity. After you hear his story you may judge just who he is. After his credentials have gained him public confidence, Paul begins. Paul wrote 13 letters, if you take the double letters as two: like 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, and 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. He first appears in scripture in the Book of Acts – and bear in mind the Book of Acts was once part of the Book of Luke. The same author who wrote the Book of Luke wrote the Book of Acts. They were once one volume, or one book in two volumes. Our early fathers divided the two and placed the Gospel of John between them. He first appears in the book that we will call the Gospel of Luke, only we now call it the Book of Acts. He was present when the first Christian martyr, Stephen, was stoned to death – and Paul consented unto Stephen’s death. Those who stoned Stephen placed their coats at the feet of Saul. (His name was then Saul. ) In the 9th chapter, he starts the great journey to Damascus, and he carries with him letters to the high priest in Damascus. He pledges himself if he finds anyone belonging to “the Way,” be he man or woman, he will bring them bound to Jerusalem. All who believed it were called “followers of the Way,” not Christians. On the way to bind those who belonged to the Way, he was blinded by the light, and then the whole thing was revealed to him, and his name was transformed from Saul to Paul. The remaining portion of the Book of Acts is devoted almost exclusively to Paul, at least the last 16 chapters, which would begin with the first verse of the 13th chapter to the 28th, where he ends his days still propounding this mystery and trying to persuade everyone of the truth of Jesus. Beginning with the law of Moses and all of the prophets, he explained to them in all the scripture the truth concerning Jesus. Some were convinced by what he said, while others disbelieved him. That’s the story.972 ¶1

If I would read Paul and take one of his letters that will really explain Paul to me, I would go to the letter of Galatians for in Galatians (which scholars claim to be the first book of the New Testament – it came before the Gospels, it came before any book, so they say) in this letter, he makes the claim: “I Paul, an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” Here is a declaration of complete religious independence from all men, and dependent on God, repudiating in this letter all authority, institutions, customs, and laws that interfered with the direct acceptance of the individual to his God. No intermediary between the individual and his God, none, called by any name.972 ¶2

Then he said: “The Gospel which I preach is not the Gospel of man, for I did not receive it from a man, neither was I taught it. It was given to me by revelation of Jesus Christ.” () “For when it pleased God to reveal his son in me, then I conferred not with flesh and blood.” ()972 ¶3

You ask the question of Paul: “Was he or Christ once really a man?” If you asked that of Paul, he would say: “Was?” “He is the heavenly man.” Well, does that answer you? You are asking the question: “Was he really ever a man?” and you’ll reply: “Not was – he is the heavenly man.” “As we have borne the image of the man of dust, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly man.” That still doesn’t satisfy. “Was he really a man as we understand a man?” He doesn’t respond, in time. Then you read his words: “From now on we will regard no one from a human point of view, even though we formerly regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.” ()972 ¶4

Then he makes the statement in the same chapter: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting any trespasses against them, and entrusting us with the message of reconciliation.” () You will see later on what Paul is trying to tell us, if I would substitute the word “imagination” for “God,” and “imagining” for “Christ.” Imagining means the activity of imagination – that imagination was imagining, reconciling the world to himself and not counting any trespasses against them, and then entrusting to us this message of imagining.972 ¶5

Now we will go to this great Book of Galatians, 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Bear in mind imagining being that son, imagination being God the Father.972 ¶6

Now let us go to the first two verses of the 3rd chapter: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” Listen to the words carefully: “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Do you know what “portray” means? I think we all know, but let me refresh your memory: “To depict in a drawing or painting; or in some verbal description; or as an action on a stage,” a play on the stage.972 ¶7

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?” Answer me only this: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” “Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you ending with the flesh?” Do you get it? The whole vast world has fallen victim to believing in the flesh of Jesus. Have you, having begun with the spirit – are you falling now, actually blind, and a victim of the flesh?972 ¶8

You were shown the whole thing like a play going on a stage tonight, and someone moved across the stage and they played the perfect play of God’s only salvation, the only way that man could be saved. And he walks across the stage and he plays it, and every scene he enacts is a mystical scene to be experienced by the individual. That was all done. Now are you going to confuse it? Can’t you now have that little spirit of observance and separate the action of walking across the stage from what he is trying to portray? For he is portraying it.972 ¶9

If you go to a play and someone is shot, you know he will go home after being shot and have the most wonderful time – for their day begins at night. But you will weep, sitting in the audience, as you see him being shot, being abused. But he wasn’t shot and he wasn’t abused, save as an actor – but not the being who put on the mask, who played the part. So, let me repeat it: “Whose eye beheld Jesus Christ publicly portrayed as crucified.”972 ¶10

The world thinks he was flesh and blood. No, he wasn’t flesh and blood. This is the fulfillment of all that was told in the Old Testament, but no one understood it, except the one to whom it was revealed (you call him Paul now). “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood, and the Gospel that I preach to you is not man’s Gospel. I did not receive it from a man nor was I taught it but it was revealed by Jesus Christ.” The whole thing was revealed and I saw the mystery of it all, the mystery of salvation: that Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man.972 ¶11

The thing happened, for the play said it did. I went to the play and I saw it and I was part of the gathering, and they hoped I would have the spirit of discernment to separate the action of the actor from what he was acting, and see the spirit, not the flesh. Did I see the spirit?972 ¶12

Then after a while come the teachers, who did not participate, and they tell you he is flesh and blood. He was born of a certain woman, on a certain day, in a manner that you were born – only he didn’t have a physical father. And that isn’t true at all. This birth is something entirely different, as told us in the Book of John: “He is born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” An entirely different birth takes place, which is all explained as the play unfolds. You saw the spirit – but don’t go back, not to the flesh.972 ¶13

Now the story begins. We are called the followers of “the Way.” Is that the way of salvation? I’ll believe it. I will wait patiently until it unfolds in me, for that is the way of salvation. Then in the 14th chapter of John, we are told: “And now you know the Way.” And Thomas said: “We do not know the way. We do not know where you are going, so how do we know the way?” He said: “I am the way, and the truth and the light.” It is not a man, “follow me home.” All that you will see me do upon the stage, – that is the way – so, “I am the way.” He didn’t say I am this, that or the other – “I am the way.” You follow the whole thing – that spirit that moves before you and you will see the way of salvation.972 ¶14

They still didn’t understand him. They said a way to what? A way to everything, but primarily “the Way to the Father.” “For no one comes to the Father but by me.” So, don’t look upon me as flesh and blood – “I am the way.” Follow my story through this series of events and you’ll come to the Father. So the state unfolds on the stage and they all see the spirit, but many could not discern and discriminate between the action of the actor and what the actor was portraying.972 ¶15

We come back to Galatians: “Before whose eye Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” There you see it. The whole thing is unfolding on a stage, but man cannot lose himself to the point where he gets beyond the action of an actor. And he cries and weeps with the actor. He’s portraying something, but they can’t get what he is portraying. Read the story of Jesus and don’t think of Jesus as flesh and blood. He is God himself, unfolding it before you in the form of a man that can see a man walking across the stage.972 ¶16

So, is Paul the initial awakened being? You judge it – I don’t know. I am led to believe he is, that Paul is the most influential, the most important figure in the history of Christianity, that he was the one to whom it was revealed. He was fiery in his destruction of everything other than the outer observation of the law, and then to him it was revealed.972 ¶17

So take courage. If you are violent today in supporting something that is external that you must observe, it doesn’t matter. Paul did the same thing and suddenly he was blinded by the revelation and he saw the mystery of life. And he saw that Christ was within him. “And when it pleased God to reveal his son in me, then I conferred not with flesh and blood.” To whom would I turn and ask them to throw light upon an experience that is not understood by mortal mind? But having known the Bible as he did – he was well grounded in it – he could return to his Bible and see where it was all foretold, but he could not on that level understand it. It had to be unveiled. As it was unveiled he saw the interpretation of the ancient Scripture.972 ¶18

Then in the end of Acts, when he stands before King Agrippa, he says: “Here I stand before you chained, condemned for hope in the promise made by God to our fathers. Here I have hope in that promise and stand in chains before you because I know it is true.” And then he spent the rest of his days expounding the story concerning – what he called then – Jesus. And the whole world of Christendom thinks it is a man of flesh and blood. Jesus means, “Jehovah saves,” “Jehovah is salvation.” There is nothing in the teaching of Paul but God and man – no intermediary. So God himself is inwoven in man and unfolds himself in man in a series of events. And as he then unfolds, as he unfolded in Paul, then he knew the mystery of the scripture. When he tries to tell it, those who followed him in the past (because he condemned and allowed the death of others for believing in it, then he himself fell victim to his belief) – well, who’ll believe it?972 ¶19

As I go across this country the one question that is always asked me, whether it is a social gathering or any place: “Well, don’t you believe in a physical Jesus?” No matter where I go, I get it. I go to a small little dinner party of four or five – “I know what you say Neville, but don’t you really believe that he did live, that he walked this earth 2,000 years ago and was called Jesus, and his mother was Mary and his father was Joseph – or maybe it wasn’t Joseph?” To the unprepared mind, how can you explain what Paul said in the first three verses of the 3rd chapter of Galatians: “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?” For they went astray to some physical sense: “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Now I ask you one thing: Did you receive the spirit from those works of the Lord, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun with the spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” For the whole vast world today is ending with the flesh and they can’t see the spirit which is Christ Jesus.972 ¶20

Christ Jesus is in man, us, the way, “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” And in 2 Corinthians 13, Paul says: “Do you not realise that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test.” I hope you realise we have not failed. If Jesus Christ is in me, then I should start looking to find out where he is. I have found him by a search and an experiment. When he said “God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding any trespasses against them and entrusting to us the spirit of reconciliation,” so then, God is Christ and Christ is in me, then who are we? And I discovered that God is my own wonderful human imagination. God in action is Christ, and imagination in action is imagining. So, imagination imagining is reconciling the world to itself. Now to those who discover it, he entrusts this great secret of reconciliation.972 ¶21

So, you take every being in the world – all right, let them go astray, it doesn’t matter. If with God all things are possible and he works and creates only through Christ, and Christ is now imagining – I could imagine you are what I want you to be, if I really believe in Christ, for “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” And though at the moment you don’t respond, and tomorrow you still do not respond, I’ll persist, for that is the attribute of patience. Read the fruit of the spirit. It is not only love and joy and peace – it is patience, it is persistence. In the end of the book of Galatians he gives you the proof of the spirit. So, I can persist, I can be patient. I will imagine they are as they ought to be, though at the moment reason denies it and my senses deny it, and everything denies it. But this is the fruit of the spirit. I’ll be patient. I will imagine things are as I would like them to be. That is God in action, and God in action is Christ. I like what I am doing there, for the spirit bears the fruit of love, joy, and peace. These are the first petals that come out. Then come the other attributes and among them you will find there is patience, there is persistence.972 ¶22

So, Paul, to me, is the first in whom the vision took place. It came to one of the smallest tribes, Benjamin, a child of Abraham. Abraham is faith. It was all shown to Abraham and he believed it, and waited patiently for the fulfillment of what was shown him. He saw the play, too. It was all portrayed to Abraham. “And Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day.” Then he went into the foreign land, as he was led by the spirit, but he still remained faithful to what he had seen in the play. The play unfolded before him and God played the part and God was Christ Jesus.972 ¶23

You say: “How could this Lord, this exalted Lord become human?” Again Paul answers, in his letter to the Philippians 2: “He emptied himself and became obedient unto death, even death upon a cross.” Again he is speaking in a mystery, for Paul is very fond of using the word “mystery” – in fact he uses it no less than eighteen times. This – the body- is the cross. To him the cross was not the grievance of God but the love of God, and that crucifixion is the most delightful state. It is not a painful state, as the churches portray it. They don’t portray the true thing at all.972 ¶24

It happened to me right in this present embodiment, where it was shown me so vividly how it was done. And the thrill that was mine the night my hands became vortexes, and my head a vortex, and my side a vortex, and the soles of my feet vortexes. I was in a pilgrimage over some invisible Mecca with some thousands of people, and a voice out of the blue announced: “And God walks with them.” “ I have been crucified with Christ, it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”972 ¶25

Listen to these words: “If we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The resurrection has taken place, but it is also taking place. It took place, and that first one – whether you believe it or not – is Paul, and from that moment on it is taking place in every being in the world, as we march toward this invisible Mecca. And along the way we are pulled out of the crowd one by one, and he awakens in the individual. And that one, without losing his distinctive individuality, is God. So, Jesus Christ is God himself.972 ¶26

The play is on. God became man and played the part and showed us all before we started the journey, but we can’t quite discriminate between the action and what the actor is actually trying to portray. Go back and read the words carefully: “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” An actor depicts the thought, but man can’t quite discriminate between the thought depicted and the actor depicting the thought, and he thinks now the thing is flesh and blood – and it isn’t.972 ¶27

You dwell upon it, and one day you will find yourself in that journey. The most colourful crowd in the world. Nothing on the screen compares to it in the color and the joy as you move towards this invisible Mecca, and you will hear a voice in the crowd, and the chances are it will always repeat itself in the same way. Someone will be at your side, and you will ask and they will ask: “But if God walks with him, where is he?” and the voice will come back: “At your side.” And they will look into your face and become hysterical, it will strike them so funny that you – a normal man, with all the weaknesses of a man – could be God. And the voice will come back and all will hear it: “Yes, in the act of waking.”972 ¶28

Then, from the depths of your soul will come the same voice, and no one but you will hear it. And you – I put it in words that the world will understand, but the words differ: “And God laid himself down within you to sleep.” It isn’t that. “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream, I dreamed” – he is going to complete it -“I dreamed I am you.” That is what you are going to hear.972 ¶29

Then, at that moment you are going to find yourself being crucified in the most unique manner in the world. You will be sucked back into the body that is on the bed. Your hands are real vortexes, your feet vortexes, your head a vortex, and the right side a vortex. It’s a whirling joy as you are nailed once more to this body. Then you will know Paul’s words: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” And the Son of God, in whom there is life, is your own wonderful human imagination. Imagining is life itself. What you imagine becomes animated, it takes on life, it takes on motion, vibration.972 ¶30

Read the whole book of Galatians and that wonderful 3rd chapter, and see Paul’s confession. No one taught it to him, he didn’t receive it from a man – it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. “And when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” God will reveal his Son in you in an explosion and you will see him standing before you and you will see that Son as your Son. Then you will know the meaning of the words: “No one comes unto the Father but by me, for I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light.” Not a man called Jesus, or Neville, or Peter, or any other name. No. “I AM the way.” The Way is a series of mystical experiences. And you come to the Father in no other way save by me.972 ¶31

So, watch this picture as it unfolds, for before you unfolded is the story. Before your eyes, Jesus Christ was publicly revealed in this garment. So, that is the play. If you heard my story, that is the Way. There is no other way. Not a man called Neville – what he experienced is the Way to come to the Father. And you will be brought by this series of experiences, for Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. We are told in Luke of a series of events, and you are the being spoken of and you are brought right up to fatherhood. But “no one comes to the father but by me.” “I am the way.”972 ¶32

You go back and you see the first appearance of the Way is the story of Paul (). He went through the experience of the Way, and he comes back and goes through hell, but not for one moment could he relinquish his experience. So, he closed his days explaining to everyone who would listen to him the story of the Way. And some believed him while others disbelieved him.972 ¶33

Now let us go into the silence.972 ¶34

The Bible is not a product of human beings; it is not constructed by man. It is the history of man’s discovery by God’s revelation of the changing name of God, and it increases in its value to man. In Genesis 4:26 we are told that a child was born whose name was Enosh, born to Sarah, and men began to call upon the name of the Lord. That is the first time that man began to call upon the name of the Lord.971 ¶1

The word Enosh means “mortal man,” something that is fragile, something that simply wears out and disappears. Mortal man began to ask concerning his origin: Why am I here, what is the cause of the phenomena of life?971 ¶2

The next time we see it is in the 32nd chapter of Genesis. This is the night, we are told, a man called Jacob (the supplanter) wrestled with God, and when it came to the breaking of the day God said to him: “Let me depart.” And he said: “I will not let you depart until you bless me.” And God blessed him. Then he said to God: “What is your name?” and God answered: “Why do you ask my name?” He would not tell him, so Jacob called the spot where God touched him “Peniel,” which means “the face of God,” for said he “I have seen God face to face and yet my life is preserved.” Then as the sun rose Jacob faltered because where God had touched shrank. It was the sinew upon his thigh. That is what man at that level of consciousness believed to be the creative power of the universe.971 ¶3

Today, 1963, you and I are witnesses to the most fantastic things that man has conceived. Missiles in space that can reach the sun, these IBM machines, electronic brain - but nothing that man has ever devised or brought to birth can compare to a child. Nothing in this world that man can conceive is comparable to the brain of a child. For the child conceived the instrument that now frightens us. We have a bomb, nuclear bomb, but that can’t compare to the brain that conceived it, no matter what we do with it. Read Genesis 32, where man once thought the sex act was God. The very act of producing the most sensitive thing in the world is the form of a child. (There isn’t a part of the world that someone hasn’t erected phallic images in its worship of God.)971 ¶4

Now we turn to the Book of Exodus, where the name changes because it wasn’t yet revealed. Man began to call upon the name of the Lord, but they didn’t know what to call upon; they thought it was sex. Read Exodus 3:13-15, how God reveals himself to his chosen vessel, Moses. And Moses said to the Lord: “When I come to the people of Israel and I say to them, ‘the Lord, your God, has sent me unto you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say?” And the Lord answered: “I AM who I AM.” The words are every form of the verb “to be” - “I AM that I AM” - I will be what I will be. “Say unto them, ‘I AM has sent me unto you.’” So when you come to the people of Israel, say to them the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me unto you, and this is my name forever: “I AM.” No other. And this will lead you out of the wilderness into the promised land.971 ¶5

That was the second grand revelation of the name of God. Man thought it was the creative act. Who could deny that nothing in this world that man has ever created was comparable to that of a child - nothing. And he has to trace it back to his origin of the act, and all of a sudden it came out of this fantastic organism. And then comes a revelation of another kind, that the name is “I AM.” Then comes the final revelation, which we find in the New Testament, and he brings something entirely different that man has not seen before. He reveals the name as “Father.” “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given unto me, that they may be one as you and I are one.” He gave them the name that was his name and the name was “Father” - the final revelation of God to man concerning who he really is, his father.971 ¶6

“So in many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son.” If he has spoken by a son, then he is a father. And so God speaks to man in his final days through his son, and the son reveals to that man that he is the father of that son, and then - and only then, does man know who he really is.971 ¶7

But until that day comes take the second revelation of the name of God, which is “I AM” and use it and use it wisely.971 ¶8

You can use it for anything in the world. You are told if you blaspheme against his name you must be stoned to death, as told us in Leviticus 24:16: “Anyone who blasphemes against the name I AM,” and the name has already been revealed in Leviticus 3. Exodus 2 revealed the name. Now if you blaspheme against this name, stone him to death. One who was born of a Hebrew woman who knew an Egyptian man, cursed the name of God, and they listened to see what God would say to do to such a man: stone him to death.971 ¶9

Stone does not mean that you take stones and throw at him, as people will do. The stones are the literal facts of life. How could I blaspheme against the name of God? With God all things are possible, so his name is “I AM.” And I dare to say: “I am unwanted; I am poor; I am ill; I am completely ignored in this world.” Well, this is blasphemy against God. For it is not what I really want in this world, or for anyone else that I love. So here I am blaspheming against God. I am told in John 8: “Except you believe that I am he you shall die in your sins.” “Sin” is missing the mark. If I don’t believe that I am the man I want to be, I remain where I am at that moment of not daring to assume that I am the man that I want to be, and remain in that limitation, so I die, missing the mark.971 ¶10

So the being you really are - if the second revelation is true (and I can tell you it is true, that his name is “I AM”) - it doesn’t mean you worship something on the outside when you say, “I am.” And the day that you actually contact it as though the “I-thou” concept was within yourself, you feel who you really are.971 ¶11

Now here is a true story which I heard this last Saturday. I am not a member of the Turf Club, but I go occasionally when I am invited and someone takes me. So last Saturday I and my wife were taken to the Turf Club. I was introduced to this little man who sat just one row below. Strange, weird little fellow, and then they told me his story. He had come here penniless from Kentucky. How he got the money necessary to buy a small little plot of land, I do not know, that was not told me; but he bought a small little plot of land in Ventura County.971 ¶12

He wanted to have oil, so he would sleep on the land itself. He didn’t build some little shack - he slept right on the ground. With his head to the ground he would hear oil coming in, he would smell oil, and he would come home sometimes in the morning at 6 A.M. and his wife was distraught. “What has happened to you?” He was sleeping on the land bringing it in.971 ¶13

Today the man - I would say he is ten years my senior, which is 68, pushing 70 - he has no financial problems. He has given away fortunes. He is worth over six million, so he told me himself, but now he has another problem, and he has forgotten the name of God.971 ¶14

His present problem is boredom. He goes to the track five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. If he drops ten thousand, it’s no problem, if he drops twenty thousand, that’s no problem. But he is bored and he is not physically well, and he doesn’t remember how he brought oil into being by the name of God. When he put his head on that earth and began to listen, who was listening? If you would say to him: “What are you doing?” “I am smelling oil.” That’s what he would say. You have called the name of God. “I am smelling oil. I am hearing oil,” is what he would say. He brought it all in, but he doesn’t remember the name of God. Now he is saying: “I am unwell.” He is blaspheming the name of God. You are told: “The man who blasphemes the name of God, stone him to death.” The stone is “showing the facts of life,” so he is showing the facts of life. “You aren’t feeling well, are you?” So you see all the things in the world wrong with him, and you tell him. These are the stones, but he has forgotten and those around him don’t know.971 ¶15

He once used the name of God wisely and brought wealth into this world. He could bring health into this world if he would use the name of God. “It is my name forever,” said God in Exodus 3. But I will reveal a still greater name as man begins to awaken, and the final name is “Father.” And so: “Show us the Father,” and you’ll be satisfied. “I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Phillip? He who has seen me has seen the Father, how then can you say ‘show us the Father?’”971 ¶16

So here, I tell you, I am the father, and no one knows he is the father. “Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one even as we are one.” There is no way in this world that you and I will know we are one, save through this last act of God revealing himself, when he gives you his last name, which is “Father.” I am the Father, that I do know, and you will be the Father of the same and only begotten Son of God. And when you see him, as I have seen him - and you will see him, and you are his Father - then you and I are one. For I can’t be the father of your son and not be you. And that is God’s final revelation to man on this level.971 ¶17

So, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.” And the son reveals the nature of the father. No one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Until that day comes, use the second revelation - which is forever his name - and use it wisely, as we are told in the 9th Psalm, 10th verse: “Those who know thy name trust in thee.” If you know the name. The name is the individual himself. God’s name is I AM and that is God. So tonight if you know the name, believe it, trust in his name. And you listen as though you heard what you would hear, were you the man you want to be, and trust in his name, and he will never forsake you.971 ¶18

Here the name changes as man begins to awaken as God, and the final revelation - I know of no greater chapter than the 17th of John, where he reveals himself and gives himself to man. “Holy Father glorify me with thine own self.” He doesn’t want any other glory. It’s God himself giving himself to man, for that is his purpose. And when he succeeds in his purpose the man to whom he has given himself is God and God is “Father,” the final revelation. Therefore, there must be a child. Where is the child if I am a father? And here comes the child into being and he is David, God’s only begotten son. “David, thou art my son, this day I have begotten thee.”971 ¶19

That is concealed in man until that last moment when the veil is lifted and the fatherhood is revealed to man through the nature of the son. There you see David, and David tells you who you are. You are his father, he calls you father, and calling you father, then the 89th Psalm is fulfilled: “I have found David” and his cry unto me: “Thou art my father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.” And you see him and yet there is no change in your I AM-ness. The self that becomes his father is the same self that it was before, only a far greater self. It includes fatherhood, but the same sense of I AM-ness. You haven’t changed your distinct individuality, but now it is enlarged to include fatherhood, and that father is God.971 ¶20

And you tell it to the world in the hope you can make it as clear as it is to you. Whether you accept it or reject it, it is true and the day must come, in time, when each individual will have the same experience and he will pass through it all. Until that happens use his name wisely, as revealed to us through his prophet Moses in the 3rd chapter of Exodus. Use it for wealth, health, or recognition, but don’t blaspheme against the name of God.971 ¶21

“Unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” So, we are told: “They took up stones to throw at him, because he had offended them, that he had blasphemed the name of God for he claimed ‘I am God.’” That was blasphemy on their level and they took up stones to throw at him. What stones? They told him they knew his father. They knew his earthly mother, his brothers, and his sisters, and they named them. They said: I know your father and mother, Joseph and Mary, and they named the four brothers. They implied multiple sisters. And then they began to show him the facts of life, and the facts contradicted his claim. Therefore they were stoning him with the facts of life. These were the stones.971 ¶22

Then he disappeared out of their midst. He could not argue with that mind, because they knew exactly his physical background, and he is telling them: “If you will receive what I tell you, I will give you power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” This verse is something entirely different in Greek physiology. “To be born of blood” they meant that the seed of man mingled with the blood of woman, and from this union came a child. To be born of the “will of the flesh” is by sexual impulse. It wasn’t born that way. To be born of man is to have human parentage. It wasn’t born that way. It was born of God.971 ¶23

Something entirely different, where man suddenly awakes within himself and he steps out of his own skull to find out that all along he has been sleeping. Then you read these words in Revelation 1:18: “And he thought himself alive and he was dead.” Here a man was dead, and all along he believed he was alive. The whole vast world, the sleep is so profound, it is so deep, he doesn’t know he is sleeping. And the sleep is so deep he is likened spiritually to a dead man. Then one day, in God’s own wonderful time, he awakens himself in man and brings him forth, and then he awakes for the first time to realize all through the ages he has been dead but he didn’t know it. But now he is resurrected by the mercy of God.971 ¶24

He thought he was asleep while he thought he was awake, and yet he was dead. In the meanwhile, you who think yourself alive, try this principle by the use of God’s name. It will not fail you, I promise you it will not. For one thing bear in mind this: you may have wealth tonight and have it heavily insured - furniture, jewelry, furs, but you left it when you came here tonight, left it wherever you have this outside wealth. You may have stocks and bonds, they may be insured, but you left them wherever they are, maybe in vaults, your homes. Standing here just about two years ago I left this platform and looked out and saw these enormous flames and all these beautiful homes burning. They were all left behind wherever the people were, all consumed in a matter of moments.971 ¶25

But one thing you can’t leave behind, and you always take it with you after you find the name. Can you go any place where you can leave behind your “I AM”? Where can you go in this world where you will leave behind you the only power in the world, “I AM”? “Those who know thy name put their trust in thee.” Not in the bank, not in their social position, their financial, intellectual, or any other position. “Put their trust in thee,” Who are you? “I AM.” So everyone who came here tonight brought that name with them. When you leave here you are going to take it with you. Maybe you don’t know you carried it with you. You can have a treasure and not know you have it. If I had a billion dollars deposited in the bank but I didn’t know it, I could die of starvation for want of a dollar; and yet I could sign a check if I knew I had it, and would withdraw it for my earthly need. You can’t leave behind you God’s name. He’s put himself into you, your very being, your own I AM-ness - that is God.971 ¶26

And because it is God, don’t blaspheme against the name. Use it wisely, use it lovingly, and I tell you: “What are you hearing?” And you tell me: I am hearing so and so, or I am thinking so and so. Well, see to it that what you are hearing, feeling, what you are thinking, is in harmony with your highest ideal. For you will draw it out just as this man drew out his oil from this little bit of dirt, and today he is worth millions - but bored. You will be able to use it wisely through your earthly days, and maybe in this embodiment the final one will be revealed to you, but only God knows when he reveals the final one.971 ¶27

I can talk about it and tell you about it but I cannot lift the curtain for you -only the son himself can reveal you as the father. I can tell you: you are going to be the father, that I do know, but I have no power to tear that curtain and show you David. He and he alone will reveal you as the father. “No one knows who the son is except anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.” But I will tell you: one day he is going to tear that curtain from the mind and stand before you and call you father. You will know exactly who he is; there will be no doubt in your mind whatsoever. You are looking at your only begotten son. Begotten not by any woman in this world. Begotten out of your own wonderful being - your mind, and it’s David. And he will be just as he is described in the Book of Samuel, no doubt about it. I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you after it happens. You are so excited you can’t think of anything but. You may bore your friends, you may bore everyone that you meet, because you can’t think of anything but this enormous event that has happened to you, this heavenly thing that has taken place.971 ¶28

You may be a single man, a man who has never known a woman in this world, but all of a sudden you are a father, and you are a father in the true sense of the word. Then you will know he was “not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” and he calls you father, and you know God is his father. He tells you exactly who you are. Then you have to walk the earth for the remaining years shut out, because you are still wearing the garment of flesh.971 ¶29

And although you are now heir to a present and to a promise that has already been fulfilled, you still cannot share it with others, so that it cannot become to you actual or fully realized in you until you take off the garment for the last time. And then you are one with the heavenly host. Everyone is destined - you can’t brag about it, you can’t crow about it, because you didn’t earn it. It was all God’s plan from the beginning: “He who began a good work in you” at that moment brought it to completion “at the day of Jesus Christ.” And Jesus Christ is God the Father.971 ¶30

Therefore, if Jesus Christ is God the Father, and David calls him “Lord,” who are you? Are you not then Jesus Christ? Then you realize the words: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee, unless of course you fail to meet the test.” I hope you realize that we have not failed in our effort. Eventually you will read the words: And the whole thing disappears, and there was Jesus only. Moses was present, Elijah was present, they all saw the glory of God, and when it all subsided there was Jesus only.971 ¶31

For at the name of Jesus Christ every knee will bend and every tongue will confess that he is Lord, the glory of God the Father. It is only Jesus and he has one son and he is sharing his son with you - not walking the street with you as a friend, but as your son. He gives himself to every being in the world, and there is no way he can prove that he actually gave that gift of himself to you, save as David, his only begotten son, as your son. The Bible in miniature is in John 3:10. “And God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son.” People think he gave his only begotten son and his name is Jesus Christ.971 ¶32

No! Jesus Christ by his own confession is God the Father. “You see me Phillip and yet you do not know me. He who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say show us the father?” So the son given could not be that being who calls himself father, and the father is Jesus Christ. Who called him father? David. So he asked the question; nobody asked him. He said: “I am the Father.” Then where is the child? So he brings up the question: “What do you think of Christ?” and they said: “The son of David.” Then why does David in the spirit call him Lord? If David calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?971 ¶33

And no one asked any further questions. David in the spirit calls him “Adonai,” a word used by every child when it refers to its father. Every child spoke of its father as “Adonai,” translated in the English: “My Lord.” So David called him “My father.” So he tells you who he is and who David is relative to himself. So David is going to call every being in this world: “my father.” And because God is one and his name is one, and at that name every knee must bow, you are destined to know yourself to be Christ Jesus, or God the Father. But until it is revealed to you, use his name as revealed through his prophet Moses. “And when you go to them just tell them ‘I AM’ has sent me unto you.” Lead them out of the wilderness into light by my name.971 ¶34

When you can lead yourself today, no matter where you are, whether you are now bewildered, whether you are unwanted (as you think you are), or unemployed, (as you may be) - lead yourself from these states of barrenness into states of fruition, a fruitful state, in the name. Just simply assume “I AM”, and you name it, hear it, smell it, see it to the best of your ability, and to the degree that you remain loyal to what you are imagining and hearing, you will actually externalize it in your world.971 ¶35

Don’t judge it before you try it. Now if what I have said this night offends, should it be in conflict with what you believed when you came here, again I go back to Scripture: “And he offended them and then they sold him for thirty pieces of silver.” Let me go back into the Book of Leviticus. Here we are told: “If an ox gored a slave, male or female, then the owner of the ox must pay to the owner of the slave thirty pieces of silver and then the ox must be stoned.”971 ¶36

The symbol of Christ is that of an ox. If the Christian doctrine offends, well then he has gored you by whatever he has to say. And now, having gored it, the slave will be censured, that he must be sold for thirty pieces of silver. So, you always fulfill Scripture. The word will always be fulfilled. The prototype of Jesus the Christ was Joseph, and he was sold for twenty pieces of silver. Twenty means “disappointed expectancy.” Thirty is divine perfection. Reduce it to a three and three is also associated with resurrection. On the third day the earth rose up out of the deep. So here, if I should offend you by what I say, then make me sorry for my thirty pieces of silver, for Scripture is all about me. For “If the ox gores and in any way hurts a slave” . . . then the ox must be stoned with the facts of life.971 ¶37

People will always throw the bricks at you and remind you of “When they knew you,” or even as they know you - for we are all limited as we wear these garments. No man in this world can tell me while he wears the garment that he is not limited. President Kennedy is frightfully limited in his office as President. Bricks are coming all over the place - what he promised in his campaign to get the office, and what he has delivered. And the conflict between what he promised and what he has delivered so far, you could throw all the bricks in the world at him. And he is fully aware of it. You can throw it at the Pope, throw it at the Queen of England, throw it at any person in this world for the lack of getting any ambition of theirs. If I took you into my secret and told you my ambition, and you as a friend know I have not realized it, and you throw at me all the rocks in the world, and remind me of what I told you against what I have accomplished - that is true of every being in the world.971 ¶38

Nevertheless, whether you accomplish them or not, go back and apply this principle towards the fulfillment of your dreams. I can tell you: in my own case, small as it has been, it has all been when I was faithful to the use of God’s name. When I dared to assume that I am what at the moment reason denies and my senses deny it, and I remained faithful to it, then I invariably realized it. There have been unnumbered times when I have not been faithful to it. I coasted, as we all coast after a while. Then we are jacked up suddenly and we have to go back to the use of the name.971 ¶39

And so, “Those who know thy name put their trust in thee.” Not in anything outside of thee. And your name is “I AM,” and it is your name forever and forever. So put your trust in the name of God by walking out of here tonight in the belief that you are already the man, the woman you would like to be and see the world as you would see it, were it true. And to the degree you remain loyal to that assumption, to that degree you will externalize it and reap it as fruit within this world. Now let us go into the silence.971 ¶40

This is one of the most difficult subjects I have to tell. Had I not experienced it I wouldn’t dare attempt it. God’s promise is true; he who promised it is faithful, and is being fulfilled in every being in this world and the unnumbered beings to come. The first statement of it, you find in Genesis 17. We are told on the surface that Abraham was ninety-nine and he was promised an heir, a son. If you are familiar with the story, he had a son who was described as a “wild ass” in the 16th chapter. That one was born of a servant of the household of Abraham, born of Hagar, born of a slave; and the Lord said unto her: “You will have a son and his name will be Ishmael (“God hears”). He shall be a wild ass of a man; his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him.” Abraham wanted a son born of Sarai. He was ninety-nine and she was ninety. This is all symbolism. He was told he would have a son and his name would be Isaac (“he laughs”). Then we are told that God fulfilled his promise, and he who was ninety-nine and she ninety brought into this world a son called Isaac. That is the first suggestion of God’s promise to man. Prior to that everything was preparatory, how to prepare man. To prepare us for this moment in time that we would become receptive enough, sensitive enough, to receive this promise.970 ¶1

We are told in the book of Galatians that the one promised was Jesus Christ. Listen to the words carefully: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘and to your offspring,’ which is Christ.” Here we see the one promised was Jesus Christ. Your offspring, Jesus Christ.970 ¶2

Now we turn to Acts 26. Here Paul is brought enchained before King Agrippa. And the king said to him: “You may plead your own case, you may defend yourself.” And he said: “Here I stand on trial for my hope in the promise God made to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, and eagerly, earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king. Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?” Here is our hope: if the dead is not raised, what does it matter if you build the greatest monument in the world to yourself; if you made billions and you are not raised from the dead, what does it matter; or all the accomplishments of the world, if it wears out like a garment and that is his last moment? “And here I stand on trial for my hope in the promise, made by God to our fathers.” Why am I on trial? I believe it. So, here is Paul’s plea before the king: “Why am I on trial?”970 ¶3

Now let me tell you my own personal story about it. I heard it, as you have heard it. I was raised in the Christian faith, as many of you were, and I heard it as my mother and father heard it, and I didn’t understand it. No priest, no rabbi, no minister tells it. They spoke of the Bible, or you go to a medium to hear and commune with someone who is supposed to be dead, and they all bring voices back. It hasn’t a thing to do with it. It hasn’t a thing to do with any medium and extra-sensory perception – it’s something entirely different. Here I move across space in this world, and then a moment when I least expected it – in fact I didn’t expect it, I hadn’t the slightest idea what this was all about. That is why I am so encouraged, because I did not expect it; I did not look forward to it in this life, therefore I know the promise will be kept and everyone will receive it. I did not earn it. No man is good enough to earn it. The promise is unconditional. So, here I am, a normal man with all the limitations and weaknesses of man. If I had to go back to my fifty-eight years, all the things I would judge harshly, if I sat myself in judgment. And I, who could not conceive myself worthy to receive this fantastic gift!970 ¶4

One night I went to sleep quite normally in the city of San Francisco, and in the wee hours of the morning a most intense vibration was taking place in my head and I begin to awake. Instead of awakening on the bed in my hotel room, I am awakening in my skull to find my skull not a room – my skull is a sepulcher, a tomb, and I am fully awake in my skull – alone. For the first time in eternity I really was awake. There was one moment of panic, and after that moment of panic I began to feel around, and I felt the base of my skull and I pushed and something gave, and out I came, head first, just like a child being born, and down I came, inch by inch by inch. I pulled myself out of my skull and there I lay on the floor for a few seconds. Then I arose, and looked back at the bed and there was my body on the bed. It was ghastly pale, tossing my head from side to side. Then I heard this wind – a fantastic wind, as described in the book of Acts – and here came a sudden wind from heaven. I looked over to the corner of the room because it came from that direction, and then I looked back to the bed where the body was and the body was gone; they removed the body, a body that was so real only a few seconds before.970 ¶5

But here sat three witnesses, three men; they didn’t see me and I am more real than I have ever been in eternity. I suddenly became aware of the reality of my own invisibility. I am more real than anything in eternity, and yet no one sees me. I can see them, I not only see them, I can discern their thoughts. Their thoughts are to me as objective as you are. They are all curious about the wind, but one is the most curious and he got off the bed and started toward the same direction that I thought the wind originated. As he started over he looked at the floor and he said: “Why it’s Neville’s baby!” And they together asked in the most incredulous manner: “How could Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point; he lifts an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and places that infant on the bed. Then I took that infant in my hands, looked into its smiling face – it does that – and I asked it: “How is my sweetheart?” And this heavenly smile broke upon its face – and then the whole thing dissolved, and I am on my bed in the hotel in San Francisco.970 ¶6

That is the beginning of the unfolding of God’s promise: “I will give you a son.” Now the son is not some little son that I have, say…who is now thirty-eight years old. Let us now go back to the interpretation of that son as we find it in the book of Luke, for Luke interprets this picture for us.970 ¶7

Tradition has it that there were three men in the field, and he said to them: “This night God is born, a savior is born who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you; you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” They say: “in a manger” – I tell you from experience: lying on the floor. The babe is not the thing that happened, the babe is a sign: “This shall be a sign unto you.” An event took place this day in eternity: the fulfillment of God’s promise to man. “And this shall be a sign unto you, you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.” And they went and found as they were told, the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes.970 ¶8

You who know certain protocol concerning the navy or our government, who will be concerned about our President who we know as Washington, and we want to know whether he is in the White House or not. If you understood this protocol you will look to see a displaying sign, and if the presidential flag is flying you will say to your friends: “He is in residence.” If it is not flying he is not in residence. It doesn’t mean the flag is the president, it only signifies his presence. This is a sign unto you: “You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.” It signifies the event that took place this day in eternity; it is not the event. The event is invisible to mortal eye, for no one saw me. I saw them and read their thought but they could not see me. They only found the sign. They came to find the sign, as they were told in the spiritual world: “You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying on the floor.” And they came and they found it exactly as they were told; but they couldn’t find the event, for the event was invisible to eyes on this level.970 ¶9

So here is God’s promise to man that he will bring forth, out of man, himself. He is buried in man. And here is a sign he has succeeded in bringing himself out, individualized as you. It’s a little sign, the sign is that of “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.”970 ¶10

Let us go back to the Book of Samuel. We are told that something happened in man. It is the second event of God’s promise. First, we will take Ecclesiastes 3:11, the most disputed verse in that book and possibly in the Bible: “God has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he shall not find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” The word translated “eternity” in the Revised Standard Version is “Olam.” In the King James Version that world is translated “world.” “He put the world into man’s mind.” Follow me closely.970 ¶11

Now go back to the Book of Samuel. A king – his name is Saul – turns to his lieutenant, Abner, and he sees a very handsome youth standing before him whose name is David, but he doesn’t know who he is. He said to Abner: “Abner, whose son is that youth?” and Abner replied: “As your soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell.” He said: “Inquire whose son that stripling is.” No one knows. Then David comes in from his conquering mood and he brings the Philistine’s head in his hand, Goliath. And the king turns to the youth now. He said: “Tell me, whose son are you, young man?” And he replied: “I am the son of thy servant Jesse.”970 ¶12

(We’ll come to that in a moment, but we’ll go back.) “Abner, whose son is that young man?” The word “young man” is “Olam” (translated “eternity”). “Inquire whose son that stripling is.” The word “stripling” is “Olam.” He turns to the boy himself: “Tell me, whose son are you, young man?” The word “young man” is “Olam.” What did God put in the mind of man? The Bible tells us, but because we can’t understand it, that God put eternity into man’s mind, but the word translated “eternity” means “young man, stripling, youth.” So, what did he put in man? I will tell you from experience what he put into man’s mind: he put David. He put David into the mind of man.970 ¶13

It’s the second act of the fulfillment of God’s promise; because he promised in the previous chapter to set the father of this youth free in eternity. He took eternal youth (symbolized as David) and put it into the mind of man, and promised that anyone who conquered the enemy of Israel (the Philistine) that his father – not he, but the father – would be free. So he is looking for the father. Listen to the words: “Whose son are you?” I’m not asking you about the boy. “Whose son are you?” If I ask you “Whose son are you?” I am curious about your father, not concerned about you. For the promise is: the father must be set free. So, here is the great mystery.970 ¶14

Now, a few months later, a similar vibration from that which preceded my own birth from above took place. This time there was an explosion, an expansion beyond the wildest dream, and when the dust settled, as it were, I am looking into the face of David. There is no doubt in my mind I am seeing David and there is no doubt in our relationship. He is my son and he doesn’t have any doubt in his mind that I am his father, and he calls me “Father” (fulfilling scripture, the 89th Psalm): “Thou are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.”970 ¶15

So David has been hidden in the mind of every being in the world. At a moment in eternity when man is ripe for it, there is an explosion, and he sees David and David is his son. No one knows who the father is except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.970 ¶16

Now what is the significance of this? It is God’s purpose to give us his son. There is no way in the world that he can give us his love- if God is a father – unless God be a father, unless he gives us fatherhood. I can’t be a father unless there is a child and his only begotten son is David. Psalm 2: “You are my son, this day I have begotten you.” He looks upon David and calls David his only begotten son. He takes his only begotten son, translated in the Bible as “Olam”, buries it in the mind of man, and then gives to man himself – giving to man his son. If I am the father of God’s only begotten son, I and God are one. In the world where I still must wear a garment of flesh, that full inheritance is denied me. It has not yet become actual, or at least not fully realized, so long as I wear this garment of flesh; but my visions reveal the fulfillment of his promise in me, complete inheritance of the world when the garment – which is the veil hiding me from my inheritance – is taken off.970 ¶17

So here: “Whose son are you young man?” “I am the son of thy servant Jesse.” The word “Jesse” is the root of the word “I AM.” It is any form of the verb “to be.” It is the root of the word JOD HE VAU HE which we translate, “Jehovah.” He is telling you that his father is Jehovah, the only God. All scholars are agreed that the genealogy given to David in the Book of Ruth and Chronicles has been added. They try to give sense to the scripture, but the most comprehensive of all the works on scripture in existence is the Encyclopedia Biblica. The Encyclopedia Biblica claims that in the earliest of all known manuscripts, there is no father beyond Jesse. David has the father, Jesse, and Jesse has no father. There is no genealogy of Jesse in the earliest known manuscripts in the Hebrew tongue, but men trying to give sense to this have added a genealogy. They go back from Jesse all the way to Adam, which we now have in our Book of Luke and Matthew, but the earliest known manuscripts start with Jesse. He has – like Melchizedek – no background, because God has no father.970 ¶18

So the father of David is Jesse, which means “I AM,” and “I AM” has nothing behind it. It has no origin of ties in itself. So when you see David, God has completed himself and has given you himself. There is no way he could give you himself and yet not give you his son. If he restrains his son and didn’t give you his son, he didn’t give you himself, for he is a father. If I give you fatherhood, then where is my child? And then the child comes before you and reveals your fatherhood. Eternal youth was put into the mind of man, and then comes that moment in time when men discover who he is – and it’s all God.970 ¶19

So the promise, I tell you from experience, is true. We are told in 2 Corinthians 1:20, speaking of Christ Jesus: “In him are all the promises of God fulfilled. All the promises of God find their affirmation, their fulfillment, in him.” Well, who is Christ Jesus? Christ Jesus is God the Father. How do I arrive at that point? Scripture, plus experience. In John 14:8, the disciple Philip said to him: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him: “‘Have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father, how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”970 ¶20

But no one asked him: “Where is your son?” Read the story. No one dared ask him anything. A child bears witness of fatherhood. So no one asked him anything, so he brings up the question – not in the same chapter, because the Bible is a mystery, you have to dig and search. So when no one would ask him a question, he turned to them and said: “What think ye of the Christ, whose son is he?” And they, based upon tradition, began to speculate, and they asked him and made all kinds of statements. They said: “The son of David.” He said: “Then why did David in the spirit, call him ‘Lord’? If David thus calls him ‘Lord,’ how could he be David’s son?” The word translated “Lord” is “Adoni” and every child referred to his parents as “Adoni,” (meaning “my father, my Lord”). He tells you he fulfilled the 89th Psalm. If David thus calls him, “Father,” how could he then be David’s son?970 ¶21

I tell you the story is all wrapped in you, unfolding in you, and in the end you are heir to the universe, because you are one with God and all of us together have the same son. Now I am individualized and so are you, and every being in this world is destined to be Christ-like, without losing his individuality, not in eternity; and yet you and I are one because we have the same son. You are destined to be David’s son – you are destined to be David’s father. Right now you think he lived 3,000 years ago; I tell you he is buried in you. He is raising his son, lifting up his son out of you, and when he lifts his son out of you, at the same time he resurrects you as himself. So he resurrects you and his son and gives you the relationship of father-son – you being father, and his son – his only begotten son – is your son. Therefore, who are you, but God the Father? We are all destined to be God the Father, and yet individualized. I know I will never lose my individuality and you will never lose yours, and yet we are one. We are one because we have the same son, and the son’s name is David.970 ¶22

Now his power-laden work really began at the descent of the dove. Everything before that was simply preparatory. This is a true experience, the descent of the dove. All this symbolism is true; it will happen to you.970 ¶23

I will tell you how it happened to me. No one sees it outside of the one to whom it happens, as told us in Mark 1:10. It will come just as unexpectedly as all the others come. You go to bed quite innocently, as I did, a perfectly normal day, no excitement – and then in the wee hours of the morning this will happen. You will suddenly see the strangest transparency – transparent beyond the wildest dreams, translucent. Then suddenly twenty or thirty feet over your head you will see a beautiful dove, a light beige like natural linen.970 ¶24

The olive-skinned dark woman implied that man’s future was relative to his present large bowel – like the caterpillar, whose future is the butterfly. Man’s future is so fantastic you can’t describe it in words. He is not the caterpillar that feeds upon the leaf; relative to it he is the winged creature, as described in the Book of Ezekiel and Isaiah; this winged seraphim, whose body is one of light; face human, yes, hands human, feet human, but the body – no. He has no need for the large bowel; he doesn’t need any food to sustain himself, for now he is a life-giving being, life within himself. Therefore he is a being of radiant light, although he does have human features, hands, and feet. As she said that to me, I am still holding the dove; then I felt myself crystallize once more, and I am back in my bed.970 ¶25

All the others preceded it. It started in 1959, on the 20th day of July, in San Francisco. Then came the revelation of David in the month of December 6, 1959; then came the splitting of the temple (which is the body) on April 8, 1960. Then came that interval of a few years until the first of this year, January 1st, where the dove descended. Knowing my scripture, I knew then that his work really began. That power laden-work started at the descent of the dove, which symbolized the Holy Spirit.970 ¶26

What I have told you this night is true one hundred per cent. I can promise you, as you are promised in scripture – having realized it in myself – you will realize it. You do not earn it; it is a gift, it is all grace. God’s promise is unconditional; God’s law is conditional. If you want to apply God’s law toward anything in this world, it is all conditional. You can’t be in one state and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state.970 ¶27

So, if I would be in the state of being healthy, I must assume that I am. We are told: “Call upon his name.” That phrase: “Call upon his name” is not properly translated. It is: “Call with his name.” How will I call with his name? His name is “I AM.” If I would call with his name, and his name is “I AM,” I would say: “I am healthy.” As we are told: “Let the weak man say, ‘I am strong.’” I am calling with his name. Don’t call upon his name, as you are taught in the churches. “In the name of Jesus Christ give me so and so.” It won’t work, but if you will call with his name as to finances: “I am wealthy.” – His name is “I AM.”970 ¶28

If I stood here as a judge, and took Neville and threw him over there and sat him before me and asked him to defend himself, knowing what I know about him, I could not give him what has been given to me – which thrills me beyond measure, because I know everyone will get it. If I really felt in my heart of hearts good and clean and wholesome and all these things in the world, then I might feel sorry for the rest of the world, but I don’t feel that way. I know what I have done, I know what I am capable of doing, and because I know these things are not me and yet I was called and given this gift, I know everyone will be given it. As you are told in scripture: “If it comes by law then it is not by grace.” It did not come by law, it came by grace. “The law was given us by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”970 ¶29

Everyone will be called in God’s own good time and given fatherhood, and fatherhood is given you through his son. No fatherhood – no son. Who is the son? The son is David; and Jesus Christ, as you have been taught to believe, is the son – He is not the son; Jesus Christ is God the Father. “When you see me, Philip, you see the father, how then can you say, ‘show us the father.’” People can’t quite understand that mystery, but he really is God, the Father. Anyone who becomes the father of David is Jesus Christ, even though he does not lose his own individuality. And everyone in the world is destined to be the father of David, as Jesus Christ is the father of David. He can’t be a father and not have a son. When he tells us: “I am the father,” then where is the son? So he brings it up: “What say ye of the Christ, whose son is he?” “The son of David.” “Then why does David call him father?” If David thus calls him father, then how can he be David’s son? That’s the story. Everyone is destined to be the father of David, and being the father of David they are Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ – himself the father. That is God’s promise to man.970 ¶30

If we try to rationalize it on this level it will not make sense. The priesthoods of the world do not know the Bible, so they teach it differently. He sent me to tell you. Either you haven’t heard it or maybe you have forgotten it. I have come to remind you, because in some peculiar way it does rest upon your hearing it and your acceptance of it. So man must first hear it and man must accept it, as told us in the Book of Hebrews.970 ¶31

There is quite a difference between receiving the promise and receiving what was promised to you. What promise? When you receive the promise, you are declared heir to the kingdom; when you receive what was promised, you obtain the inheritance – that is the difference. When you write a will and the attorney records it – you hear I have written a will and so you are now heirs to my estate, but you are not yet in possession until my will is executed.970 ¶32

So I tell you in effect: God’s promise is faithful and true, and everyone who has received it must continue for a while. He can’t restrain it; he has to tell it in the hope that many who hear it will believe, for it is based upon the belief in the promise. So I tell you what is going to happen, in the hope you will believe it.970 ¶33

On the other hand, if you are wanting God’s law, and you want money, or things, or something else in this world – apply it. You’ll get it. “What would it profit a man if he gained the whole vast world and suffered the loss of his soul?” You know that story. He had more grain than he could possibly put into the barn. “O foolish man, do you not know that your soul is required of thee?” But man does not care. He does not believe God’s promises.970 ¶34

So, tonight, as small an audience as we are, may I ask you to believe. Every word I have told you this night, I have experienced. It happens to every being in the world. Believe it. Yet, I am as fragile a man as you are. But in spite of the weaknesses of the outer man, God’s promise has been fulfilled in me. Now let us go into the silence.970 ¶35

Well, my first proposition is this one. The individual state of consciousness determines the conditions and the circumstances of his life. The second proposition is that man can select the state of consciousness with which he desires to be identified; and the third follows naturally–therefore, man can be what he wants to be. If the first proposition is true that the individual’s state of consciousness is the sole cause of the phenomena of his life, then the normal, natural question that is asked, “Why doesn’t he change it to a more desirable state if he could change it?” Well, that is not as easy as it appears. Today we hope to give you a technique to make it easier, but man finds it very hard to leave the things to which he has grown accustomed. We are all grown stuck in the habitual.968 ¶1

It may seem strange but a very sordid cartoon appeared years ago, that is during the last war; you might have seen it, it came out in the “New Yorker” and it was one by George Price. In it is one single little room, a sink piled high with unwashed dishes, plaster falling from the walls, and these two middle-aged people, she sitting on a chair reading a letter, disheveled, matted hair, and he with torn clothes and feet stuck upon the table and socks exposing holes, and the caption of the picture is this. She is reading a letter from her soldier son abroad: “He says he’s homesick.” Now you should see the interior of this house–one room, completely disheveled-but the lad was homesick! Now man finds it difficult to detach himself from the habitual; so this morning we have brought you these three propositions, and I hope I can make it clear that you can with this knowledge apply it so that you can realise your every objective.968 ¶2

It is the height of folly to expect changes to come about by the mere passage of time, for that which requires a state of consciousness to produce its effect could not be effective without such a state of consciousness. So if I must be in the consciousness of the thing that I am seeking before I find it, then the only thing to do is to acquire that state of consciousness.968 ¶3

Most of us do not even know what we mean by state of consciousness. To those who are here for the first time it is simply meant by state of consciousness the sum total of all that a man believes and accepts and consents to as true. Now it need not be true; it may be, but it need not be true, it could be false, it could be a half truth, it could be a lie, it could be a superstition, it could be a prejudice, but the sum total of all that a man believes constitutes his state of consciousness. It is the house in which he abides, and as long as he remains in that house similar problems will confront him, the circumstances of life will remain the same. He may move physically across the ends of the earth but he will encounter similar conditions; he can’t get away from the house in which he abides. The Bible speaks of these houses as mansions of the Lord, it speaks of them as cities, it speaks of them as rooms, as upper rooms, all kinds of words are used to describe individual states of awareness. And the appeal in the Bible is always to move out and occupy the upper story, meaning to move up to a higher level within one’s self.968 ¶4

Now, if you do not know the state in which you abide, it’s a very simple technique you may employ to discover that state: for the man dwelling in a state, and we all dwell in states, could easily discover the state by listening within himself and observing his own internal mental conversations, for the state is singing its own song and it reveals itself in man’s inner speech. If you will listen attentively and uncritically to what inwardly you are saying, you will discover the state. And it will not surprise you that things are as they are for you will hear within yourself the cause of the phenomena of life. So that what you are inwardly saying and doing is far more important than what you outwardly know or seemingly outwardly express; so when a man knows what inwardly he is doing then he can change it. If you have never uncritically observed your reactions to life; if you are totally unaware of your subjective behavior, then you are unaware of the cause of the things in your world. But if you become aware of the state, then you simply go about changing it.968 ¶5

Now here is a technique I have found most helpful and I find that it works like a miracle; anyone can do it. I know that some of you here possibly come from extreme orthodox walks of life and it may seem strange to you even to be here, but I assure you you are not alone, many of your leaders in the orthodox field seek an audience with the speaker; many a rabbi has been in my home, many a priest, and many a Protestant leader. Many of them. They come to my home for interpretations of the book that publicly they wouldn’t dare give any interpretation other than the most extreme literal interpretation. So don’t be surprised if you hear things here that might startle you; your leaders are startled; but this is a technique I have found most helpful.968 ¶6

First of all, man stands forever in the presence of an infinite and eternal energy, from which energy all things proceed but it follows definite patterns: it just doesn’t move out of man and crystallise in things in some strange haphazard manner. It follows a definite track and the track it follows is laid down by the man himself in his own internal conversations. So though man is called upon to change his thinking that he may change his world, for we are told “Be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind”, man can’t change his thinking unless he changes his ideas for he thinks from his ideas. So if I would change and become transformed, I must lay new tracks and the tracks I lay are always laid down in my own internal conversation.968 ¶7

So what am I saying now when seemingly I am alone? I can sit in that chair, or stand here, or walk the streets and I can’t stop talking. Man does not realise that he is talking, because he is never still enough to listen to the voice speaking within himself, but inwardly he is whispering what outwardly is taking place as conditions and circumstances. Most of the things he whispers are negative in justifying his behaviour. There is no need to justify. He is excusing delay or excusing failure, or he is arguing, or he is judging harshly or he is condemning. Many of us have secret affection for hurts: we don’t want to be liked by certain people; we just wouldn’t like it if they liked us. We just don’t want certain things to take place in our world even though they may bring a greater comfort and a greater satisfaction. Man has a peculiar, strange feeling, a little affection for the feeling of being unwanted or the feeling of being hurt, and he likes to talk about it. Well, try to pull that man out of that habitual state: it would be just as difficult as to keep that soldier boy away from that sordid room; he goes back into the sordid rooms within himself. You don’t see dishes unwashed within your self, but if you could only see the internal psychological state in which most of us abide, we would see a room far dirtier than the one that George Price illustrated in the “New Yorker” magazine. They are all unwashed plates within us: on the outside we wash them but we are told in the Bible, we leave the inside unwashed and we become whited sepulchers.968 ¶8

Now, if I sincerely desire to change my world there is no one in my world I need change but myself, so that I don’t need to change you as an individual but I do need to change my attitude towards you. If you dislike me or if I think you dislike me, or if your behaviour offends me, the cause of my offense is not in you and your behaviour but I must look for that cause within myself. Now if I seriously and I am honest about my search, I will find it and I will find that inwardly when I think of you it is never a pleasant conversation that I carry on with you. So let me sit down now and bring you before my mind’s eye, and as I bring you before the mind’s eye let me imagine a conversation which would imply a radical change in my world; let me bring you up and change my attitude toward you by laying new tracks relative to you. These tracks will then become the tracks across which this eternal energy will pour, an energy which is only thinking; moving across the tracks laid down in my own inner conversations will result in changes in my outer world. Now, if I repeat the conversations and do it more often, then it becomes a habit and I will find that when I am about my Father’s business in the outer world I am inwardly through habit carrying on these changed and lovelier conversations.968 ¶9

Now, a transformation of consciousness will definitely result in a change of environment and conditions. But I mean transformation of consciousness, I do not mean a slight alteration of consciousness like a change of mood. It is nice to change a mood from some unlovely to a lovely, but I want a transformation and by transformation I mean that when one state into which I have moved and move so often that it becomes a habit and that state grows stable, so that it expels from my consciousness all of its rivals, then that central habitual state defines my character and really constitutes my new world. It spells out a transformation, but if I only do it a little bit and return to my former state, then I might have had a temporary lift but I will not notice radical changes in my outer world. I will notice these changes in my outer world if inwardly I have truly changed. Then without effort on my part I will find the outer world changing to correspond to the changes that took place within me.968 ¶10

So you bear it in mind, I can’t stress it too often, I can’t give it too great importance, this wonderful thing called man’s ability to talk within himself and without the aid of anyone in the world, sitting alone at home you can construct a sentence which would imply the fulfillment of the ideal; you can construct a sentence which would imply that a friend I blessed that she has realised her objective, that the thing you know she wants she has. So what would she say to you had she realised it? Well, you listen attentively as though you heard and you will really hear if you are still enough you will hear as coming from without what really you are whispering from within yourself. Man is this wonderful temple in which all the work takes place and the outer world is only a projection of the work done within himself.968 ¶11

This, called present man, unfortunately is asleep. It is told us so beautifully in the Bible that Adam slept, in the second chapter of Genesis. He was placed into a profound sleep from which he has not been awakened. There is no reference in the Bible where Adam was ever awakened from his sleep but there is a reference where he awoke but not as Adam; he awoke as a second man called Christ Jesus.968 ¶12

So in Christ they awake: in Adam all sleep, but a man who is totally unaware of the mental activity that goes on within him is the one who sleeps as Adam: he doesn’t know it. He walks with his eyes wide open, he may be a very important person in the world, he may be wealthy, he may be famous, he may have all the things that you admire, but if he is totally unaware of that mental activity which is the cause of the phenomena of his life, that man is sound asleep and he is personified as Adam. And he will read his Bible and think it is a literal story; he will read where Adam was put to sleep and from Adam a rib was taken and a woman was formed called Eve, but when a man begins to awake he realises that this symbolical Eve of the Bible is only his own emanation now called by the name of nature.968 ¶13

And nature is his slave, and must fashion life about him as he fashions it within himself. But if he is asleep, he fashions it in confusion, but he fashions it anyway, for he uses the very technique that his Father used to build a world. He uses speech, he uses inner talking, and that’s how this whole vast world was brought into being; so he uses the same technique, he has speech and he has mind, but in the state of sleep he brings about strange conditions, and he doesn’t know he’s the cause of the strange things round about him.968 ¶14

As he begins to awake, then he awakes only as one being, he awakes as Christ Jesus and the being called Christ Jesus personified in our Gospels is simply the awakened, loving imagination. Imaginative love, where only love guides it, is incapable of hearing anything but the lovely. When that being begins to awake he doesn’t see things in pure objectivity, he sees everything subjectively related to himself. He is incapable of meeting a stranger; he may meet one for the first time but he knows it is not really a stranger, that the man had no power to come into his world save he from within himself drew him. “No man comes unto me save I call him;” “No man takes away my life, I lay it down myself”: “You didn’t choose me, I have chosen you”. Though you seemingly come now for the first moment in my life, you still didn’t choose me, I have chosen you. I see then every being subjectively related to myself.968 ¶15

So in that state you become incapable of hurt, you’ve overcome all the violence that formerly you’ve expressed in the world when you were asleep. There is no condemnation to the sleeping man, he is dreaming confusion because he doesn’t know who he is: but he begins to awake by such techniques as given you this morning. If you take this technique and you try it consciously, for here I am appealing not to the passive mind that passively surrenders to appearances, I am appealing to the Christ in you which is the active conscious use of your lovely imagination. So when you sit down and you predetermine what you want to hear and you listen until you hear it, and you refuse to hear anything other than that, then you are using the one power in the world that awakens a man and you are using your lovely imagination, which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”968 ¶16

Here is a lady this past week; she has heard the story of revision; her husband calls her and it’s a big deal, it runs into a fortune, he had sent off 600 feet of film to Acme and they’ve returned the film, only the first 300 were good. The second three were duds, as they call it, not a thing was on it, a complete blank. Yet they were up against time, that 600 feet of film had to be on a plane headed for Chicago in the immediate present, less than twelve hours away, it had to be there, that was the contract, and 300 feet of film taken, no sound appeared, with the whole thing a blank.968 ¶17

She sat down when her husband called her, desperately called her: she sat on the bed just where she had received the call, put the receiver up, and sat in the silence until she heard within herself that phone ringing and across that wire the same voice, but now not an anxious voice but a tender loving voice, which was her husband, explaining that the whole thing had been resolved, they had found what seemingly they had lost forever. She sat in the silence for one hour and ten minutes, and there she listened and she listened until her whole body became still in hearing only what she wanted to hear. And an hour and ten minutes later, while still in the silence the phone rang; it’s her husband calling to say that Acme just called him to explain and excuse themselves, it was their mistake, they had found the missing 300 feet of film. And there was not a dud, it wasn’t a blank, the whole thing was perfect.968 ¶18

Now the average person, not knowing this law of revision or even those knowing it, would have accepted as final the evidence of sense and, receiving news that seemed so factual, they would have gone into a stew, bawled out Acme and pulled all kinds of wires to correct it. But she heard and she acted upon it, and that’s what I mean when I tell you that a little knowledge, if you carry it out in action, will be far more profitable than much knowledge which you neglect to carry out in action; now many of you present and this is no judgement, you have the same knowledge that this lady has; she’s been coming here recently but she heard, she attended all the meetings at the Ebell, and she’s been here; undoubtedly she’s here this morning, but at least she came the first two Sundays and she hasn’t missed one at the Ebell, and having heard the art of revision, she acted upon it. Others heard the art of revision: have you acted upon it? Did you last night allow the sun to descend upon your wrath? Did you sleep last night with any trouble, any vexation unresolved? Or did you last night truly go to bed having resolved every vexation and trouble of the day? All the little problems, each one must be resolved, you rewrite the play. If you didn’t rewrite yesterday’s events and make them conform to the ideal you wish you had experienced, then you heard but you aren’t a doer.968 ¶19

And so you are told in the Bible, “Would that ye be doers of the word and not mere hearers only.” For if you are a hearer and not a doer, then you are like a man who sees his face in the glass and turns and straightway forgets what manner of man he is. But if you are a doer and not a forgetful hearer, then you shall be blessed with the deed, for you will look into the law of liberty and you will liberate yourself and liberating yourself you shall be blessed with the deed. For those of you who are Bible students and want to check it, read the Book of James. You will find that story in the first chapter of the Epistle of James, where he looks in and liberates himself–well, she liberated herself by listening until she heard exactly what she wanted to hear, and she heard it one hour and ten minutes later.968 ¶20

Now the majority of people I say they would not have acted upon it: through habit they would have gone into a stew; they would have fumed and fretted, and that very day had he brought home the negative news that undoubtedly he would have, they both would have slept allowing the sun to descend upon their wrath.968 ¶21

But now you know that there’s not a thing on the outside to change, that first proposition is true, that the man’s state of consciousness, which simply means all that he accepts, all that he believes, all that he consents to, that and that alone is the cause of the phenomena of his life. Man can change his state of consciousness and therefore man can determine the conditions of his life. But the passage of time will not in itself do anything; time is only a facility for changes in experience but it cannot produce the change. It is simply that which allows changes to take place, but it can’t produce them. Space gives us the facility for experience and time for changes in experience, but of themselves they do nothing. We must operate the power, and so the individual if he doesn’t become the operator, then he will wait in vain.968 ¶22

So no one here this morning, in fact no one coming here through the year should ever allow himself to blame another, ever allow himself to justify failure, for he is only betraying his own lack of the use of this law. Anyone that you listen to who is complaining of a third party, he has no idea how he is betraying himself, he is telling you of his own unwashed dishes within himself, but he doesn’t know it. He thinks it is in the one that he is now judging, but as he talks to you listen attentively and see what must be washed within him and you aid him. In your own mind’s eye rewrite that script that you heard and when you leave him just imagine you heard a more lovely conversation than the one you did hear. Just rewrite it for him and in some strange way lift him up within you, for that’s your task; it’s my task.968 ¶23

We aren’t here to condemn, we are here to redeem; having awakened we have found Christ in us as our own imagination and so our duty, as it is said Christ’s duty is to do the will of him that sent me and the will of him that sent me is that “Of all that he has given me I should lose nothing”, but I shall raise it up again and I raise it up by encountering someone and then finding him down I raise him up ‘within myself ‘. I simply hear what I want to hear from him.968 ¶24

Now my voice you are hearing this morning, you could take the tone, listen attentively and you will hear this tone within you; when you hear the tone within you, then put upon that tone the word that you want to hear and having put it upon it, listen and do not move until you hear this tone conveying these words. But make them noble; don’t take that tone and put upon it any word outside of the word which would imply a dignified, noble state, because you are not hurting anyone but self. If you take someone and you put words upon that tone or that voice, and the words do not imply a noble spirit, then you are only allowing that being to be down within you, you are not really performing your duty.968 ¶25

So here this morning, believe these propositions and then having believed them, do something about it. Go out and take what we have told you concerning inner speech: it is truly the greatest of the arts. You listen and only hear what you want to hear. You take your imaginary hand and put it into the hand of a friend, the imaginary hand of a friend, and there you congratulate him on his good fortune. If you want one to congratulate you, you allow yourself to be congratulated. You don’t bend the head, you hold it high and accept the congratulation, and when you congratulate him, imagine that he is fully conscious of the good that is already his and he accepts that congratulation and make the contact real.968 ¶26

That is truly entering the kingdom of heaven, for you enter the kingdom and the kingdom is within you, it’s not without, and you always enter the kingdom by a loving, knowing communion. You can enter the kingdom at every moment of time, ride the street car, ride the busses, and with all the talking and gossiping, you can enter the kingdom and bless a friend by just imagining the friend is with you and you are putting your hand into his and congratulating him on the good news you’ve heard concerning him, and listen as though he answered in kind, and in that moment you have actually blessed him. He may be a thousand miles away but from that moment on things begin to stir within his world for you have brought about a change within the structure of his mind and every modification of the structure of a man’s mind must result in corresponding outer changes. So you bring about these lovely changes within you.968 ¶27

Look at the testimonial–one you heard this morning; here is a pile of letters and this is really a tight, tight pile. It is one of the biggest piles I think that you have received here. And this week’s mail I can’t begin to tell you what a thrill it is to receive, one after the other not begging for help any more but giving praise and thanks for the principle that brought the help into their world. I can’t tell you how many in the last two weeks have received an increase in income, increase of position, a better state of health; things happened because they did something about it. They were not just warming a seat here on Sunday morning and waiting for things to happen by association: they produced the thing by producing it first within themselves.968 ¶28

So here this appeals to men who are big enough to stand on their own feet: men who want spiritual meat and who have outgrown the milk given to sleeping man. So if you want the literal concept, you are still asleep and this really would not be the place to get it, for from this platform you are going to be given meat, spiritual meat, for you must go out and do something about it. If you have the greatest knowledge in the world concerning foods and you didn’t eat, you would die of starvation, and so it’s not the knowledge of it, it’s the application of it that counts.968 ¶29

Now this coming week, we start tomorrow, and it’s an interesting one for those who like their Bible, those who would like to put their mental teeth into it tonight and come tomorrow night with some intuitive knowledge of it, it’s the 49th chapter of Genesis; you’ll find many of them I’ll quote tomorrow, but in the 49th of Genesis here is what it says.968 ¶30

First of all he calls his sons together to tell them their future and there are twelve of them. It’s Jacob calling his sons, but the fifth one, when he calls the fifth one, he tells him the scepter shall never drop, shall never depart from your hand, never, not in eternity. His name is Judah, the one that fathered the line that flowered in Christ Jesus, when you read the genealogy as given to us in Matthew and Luke. Then it said of Judah that he took his foal and he tied it to a vine and he took the colt of an ass and tied it to a good vine, and then he washed his garments in wine and he washed his clothes in the blood of grapes. And his eye was red with wine and his teeth white with milk.968 ¶31

Well now, those of you who still would like to read that literally, you may get some satisfaction out of washing your clothes in wine–I don’t, I’d rather drink it, but some wash theirs in the blood of grapes and then the teeth white with milk and the eye bloodshot with wine. Well now, that was the one who fathered out of Thamar the twins that brought forth the line that flowered in Christ Jesus. So go back and read the genealogy of Judah and then see what Judah did and how he took two animals, one was a foal and one was a colt.968 ¶32

Now I won’t tell you the interpretation: you exercise your intuitive faculty and you come tomorrow night and you hear what we have to say about the amethyst, or the wine stone: how a man must make the amethyst, how a man must take his garments, a thing that clothes the mind of man and wash them in the blood of grapes, how a man not only must do it but his eye must become equally bloodshot with wine and his teeth white with milk. And we will show you tomorrow night why they placed upon him the scarlet robe and then placed upon him the most mystical of all the purple robe; so as they placed them up to the very final act was the placing of the purple robe upon the man who had awakened, who is now ready to ascend on high, to higher levels within himself.968 ¶33

But you can’t ascend until you first make the purple robe and although we have orders in this world who have scarlet robes and purple robes, no man can make it for you. And so it cannot be woven in any factory, it has to be woven from the factory within yourself. So tomorrow night for those who are vitally interested in going deeper into the mysteries, our subject is “The Twelfth, an Amethyst”. The very last act of a man, the twelfth, for there are only twelve, then comes the most, I would say, the least precious of all stones in the eyes of man, but in the eye of God it’s the most precious and it’s not the little thing you find among the stones, it’s the one you find within yourself. So that is tomorrow’s subject.968 ¶34

The Bible recognizes one source of dreams: all dreams proceed from God. In the 33rd chapter of the Book of Job we are told that God speaks to man in two ways, but man does not perceive it. Then it states the two ways: “In a dream and a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while they slumber on their beds; then he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction”. Now, you tell that to a psychiatrist, he will think you are insane. He will tell you that all dreams are from the individual dreamer, because he separates the dreamer from God. He does not understand what you are talking about. God’s eternal name is I AM, so who is dreaming? Well, I am…well, that’s God…that’s his name forever and forever. So I’m not separating the dreamer from God. All dreams proceed from God. Some are simple and you need no interpreter; others are revealed in a symbolic language which is not understood and then you need the interpreter.966 ¶1

As told us in the story of Joseph, who could take the story of the butler and the baker, and even Pharaoh himself, and interpret their dreams for them and it came to pass just as he interpreted it . The cue is given as to who he really is when they said, “We have had a dream that’s why we are disturbed,” because he looked upon their faces and they seemed so disturbed. Then he said to them, “Only God can interpret the dream. Tell it to me, I pray you.” If only God could interpret the dream, then why tell it to him? But you see he is a personification of God. His name was changed from Joseph, which really is Hosea—which means “salvation”—to Joshua; and Joshua is the Hebraic from of the Anglicized Jesus, which means “Jehovah is salvation.” So he’s telling you “Tell it to me, I will interpret it for you.” So he tells you who he is.966 ¶2

Now here, the year is 1954, the month is November, November the 28th, and waking from a dream I heard the words, “You do not move in waking any more than you move on your bed in sleep. It is all a movement of mind. And the intensity is determined by the strength of the vortex you create. This is just like a whirlwind with a center of perfect stillness. You only believe that you are moving when you are awake as you think you believe in sleep.” Well, I’m a rational being as you are and so reason could not accept that, but I wrote it down and placed it where I place all these visions in my Bible waiting for a future revelation that would in some way illuminate it, explain it. But I wrote it down…it came from God. Yes, psychiatrists will say it came from yourself and I’m not denying that. It came from a level, a depth of my own being that my rational mind could not reach; but I wrote it down just as it came, waiting for some future revelation that would explain it.966 ¶3

How on earth could that be explained to the reasonable mind? Today our three boys returned from the moon, a trip of a half-million miles. We have the record. You and I came here tonight in our cars…a friend of mine brought me here, I can’t deny that. I travel all over the world. I travel so much on earth. I have travelled in my dreams. Like Blake said, “I have traveled through a land of men, a land of men and women, too, and heard and seen such dreadful things as cold earth wanderers never knew” and then he describes this travel. Well, I travel, you travel, and here I can’t go back on what I heard, I wrote it down. You mean that I’ve never really traveled save in a dream…that this is no more than a dream? For when I woke in the morning I must confess I was still on the bed on which I fell asleep. I know I did not physically leave my room. I did not physically leave my bed, yet I heard these words. And night after night I sleep on a bed. I do not leave the bed ‘til I wake in the morning, and yet I travel. You mean this waking state is no more than a dream and there is a dreamer dreaming in the depths of my being that looks upon this as a dream, just as I at night on a little lower level of the dream wake to find I didn’t really leave the bed?966 ¶4

Well, when I was born from above, which came after my resurrection from the dead, for as we are told, we are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to discover that the Jesus Christ is the Jesus Christ in us who is God himself. There was no one else who woke…but I woke…I felt myself waking from a dream, waking from a deep, deep sleep, and a waking that I’ve never experienced before. Suddenly I began to feel myself waking. It was a vibration, it was a storm, a terrific wind, all centered in my head and still coming seemingly from without. I found myself waking within the sepulcher and the sepulcher was my own skull, where it was in my own skull that I fell asleep. And here, I awoke within my own skull. And then out of my skull I came to find the symbolism of the Christian mystery surrounding me, like the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and the witnesses to the event, and I unseen by the witnesses for I was Spirit and they could not see me. They spoke of me as the father of the child, which was only a sign. “For this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor, on the manger” . They found it as told in scripture, but calling me the father of it, “It is Neville’s baby.”966 ¶5

Now, I woke from a dream. It seemed to me that I had traveled. But I know that when I woke I woke in the same little room in the same little hotel in San Francisco in which I slept and I hadn’t really gone anywhere. But I woke this night from a far deeper level of my being to find the symbolism of my waking from the dream of life…as night after night I wake from the dream of the day. Could it really be that that revelation is literally true? Reason denies it. Reason questions it and reason doubts it and reason rejects it.966 ¶6

Well, if it is true then reason is rejecting Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ defines himself as “the truth.” He said, “I am the truth” . Well, if the revelation is true and reason rejects it then is not reason the doubting one, the devil Satan who denies the revelation of truth? But how can you logically prove that this is true? And yet I have it written down. I had completely forgotten it. But I put it in the Interpreter’s Bible…there are twelve volumes and four of the dictionary. Picking up a dictionary today…I took up one of the four volumes and there was my record back in November the 28th of 1954…that “you do not move in waking any more than you do on your bed in sleep; it is all a movement of mind and the intensity is determined by the strength of the vortex you create. It is just like a whirlwind with a center of perfect stillness. You only believe that you are moving when you are awake as you do and think that you move in sleep.” I had completely forgotten that…and there it was written recorded on the 28th of November 1954.966 ¶7

July 1959 in the city of San Francisco I had the experience of waking from a profound sleep all within my skull. That sleep was not twenty-four hours, that was an eon, an age. There are two ages: this age where men appear in this world not knowing that they are dreaming. They have no idea that God within them is dreaming the dream of life, and they’re actually experiencing motion and all these things in the world, violence, everything. They are totally unaware that the dreamer in them is sound asleep and the dreamer is God, as told us in the 44th Psalm, “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever!” . He is dreaming and he is occupying his dream, and in this dream he has the sensation of travel and motion and all the violence in the world. He will continue until he awakes from the dream of life. When he awakes from the dream of life, he really hasn’t gone anywhere. He simply deliberately fell asleep in the sepulcher and the sepulcher is the skull of man. That is where Jesus Christ is buried and it is there that he was crucified on man…no other place in the world was he crucified. He became man that man may become God. So he’s buried in man, sound asleep, and dreaming this dream of life.966 ¶8

Now, I want to clarify a few points tonight. We are told in the Book of John, “You do not and you have not heard his voice and you have not seen his form; neither does his word abide in you” . Then he gives us reasons why: “Because you do not believe him whom he has sent.” Now, many of you have had this experience…those who have completely accepted the fact that I have been sent. I have been sent as vividly and as clearly and as definitely as any apostle in the world has ever been sent. Call him by any name, I stood in the presence of the risen Lord and was embraced by him. I became one with the risen Lord— union with God, one body, one Spirit—and then I was sent. That body was infinite love that embraced me. When he sent me, he wore a different form. In the twinkle of an eye he wore the form of power; Almighty God sent me. It was not love. Love embraced me. But God is a protean being and plays all the parts. You can see him as wisdom and power, but his true being is love. That was the being that embraced me. But he wore the garment of power when he sent me to tell the story…to tell my experience. And so, I have come to tell the experience.966 ¶9

You who have actually accepted what I’ve told you, who believe it implicitly, one hundred percent, you have had an experience, and you interpreted it on this level as a physical, sexual experience. Many of you have. This is a shadow world. It is a creative act, no question about it. But complete acceptance of what I’ve told you concerning the birth of God in man will result in such a union on this level; yet I, the speaker, am totally unaware of such an act. I am totally unaware of such a creative, sexual act on this level with any of you. But your complete acceptance of the story will reveal itself to you on this level in such an ecstatic creative act…far greater than any sexual act on the physical plane. As you know from your own experience, it transcends anything that you’ve ever experienced on this level…you who have had such experiences sexually on this level. But I, the individual with whom you had it, am totally unaware of it. It only means that you have completely accepted the Word. Having accepted the Word that I bring to you, the story of Christ, then it abides in you. And now that it abides in you it will erupt within you and everything that I have experienced you are going to experience.966 ¶10

The males who have completely accepted it will find union with me not in a sexual act but in an embrace where I’m wearing the body with which I am now one. I am one with the body of the risen Lord…and he’s all love, infinite love. You, too, will be asked the same question. Because I wear that body and I wear that face, you’ll be asked to name the greatest thing in the world. You’ll name it as though you were divinely inspired and you’ll name it quoting the words of Paul from the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, “Faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” . And I will embrace you and you will fuse with me, for I am one with the body of the risen Lord. “He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with him” . So I am one body with him, one spirit with him, and that will be our union.966 ¶11

The female garment will see it in a different manner; they will see it as a creative sexual act. But let me tell you, I have no knowledge whatsoever of the event which is only a symbol. Everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. So union with the risen Lord in the female takes that form, which means that you’ve completely accepted what I have told you as the messenger who was sent from the risen Lord..966 ¶12

It’s a break with the past, a complete break with the past, as told us in the terms of the very first words uttered in the Book of Mark, “Repent and believe in the gospel” . The gospel is the “good news,” the good news of redemption…that man is not lost. Repent and believe in the gospel. So I’ve brought you the true gospel; it’s not secular history, it is divine history. It’s a story that was before that the world was. The whole thing was plotted and planned before that the world was, and then God entered his own creative play, and God is playing all the parts. It is God in man who awakes.966 ¶13

We are the sons of God, all of us, as told us in the 82nd Psalm: “I say that you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes” . I have quoted the Revised Standard Version in the marginal setup, which is the true translation of the Hebrew. You will fall as one man, one man containing all, and then you became diversified, fragmented. These are the sons of God. It takes all the sons of God to make God. So we’re all gathered together one by one into the same one body that fell, and that one body fell into humanity. Humanity is the son of God. But buried in humanity is God and he extracts himself from humanity, individually, one by one, because we are unique. You cannot be duplicated, neither can you be lost. Not one in eternity can be lost or God would cease to be what he is. He would have to leave the ninety and nine and go in search of the one. So everyone is to be redeemed, but everyone, because in everyone God is buried. The story of Jesus Christ is the truest story ever told to man.966 ¶14

All of these things that are happening…oh, they happen, certainly they happen. Today I watched the splashdown. It was exciting! Watched every little bit of it and it was most exciting, a trip of half-million miles. And then I had to go back and reread what I wrote back in 1954, November the 28th that you do not move in waking any more than you do on your bed in sleep. Now, reason can’t accept that. I saw them come back and we have a record of the journey. It was a half-million miles round trip, and yet we do not move? Well, I must confess that I do have experiences in my dreams where I travel as you do, and we travel and travel. Yet we have to admit when we wake on our bed in the morning, we have to confess we never left the bed, did we. We didn’t leave the bed. Well, could there now be a dreamer far deeper than that dreamer who is dreaming this seeming waking state? And when he awakes from the dream of life, would he not look upon the dream of life as you look upon the dream of the night and know you didn’t leave the bed? Well, I’ll tell you from my own experience when I woke within my skull to realize I had been there for unnumbered centuries, that I was buried in my skull dreaming the dream of life, dreaming violence, dreaming love, dreaming all kinds of things and thinking everything to be real as I do any dream. Then to awaken from it to discover I must have been in that skull all through the centuries; that I had been dreaming that I am a man walking this earth, dying, as told in scripture, being restored to life to die again, and keep on being restored and dying until that moment in time when I awake in the sepulcher where in the beginning I was buried. I was buried in the beginning in a skull, Golgotha, that’s my Calvary and yours. There we are buried, dreaming this dream.966 ¶15

I see myself here, I get up and shave in the morning, bathe, eat, make an effort to make a dollar to pay the rent and all these things…and it’s all a dream! There’s a purpose behind it all. God limited himself to this little thing called man: he became man, the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity, so that he may expand. For there is no limit to expansion or to translucence; there was only a limit to contraction, to opacity. He took upon himself the limit of opacity and contraction and began to dream, and he dreamed the dream of life.966 ¶16

This whole vast world is a dream. Dream noble dreams because all dreams can come to pass if you know that you are the dreamer. You can make it come to pass. It is a dream. If you believe it to be a dream, you can change anything tonight. The minute you know it’s a dream you can change anything. Course, the chances are you’ll awaken. If you find yourself dreaming, you usually wake, but do you know there are ways to prolong the dream and change it? Well, you can change it in the waking dream, really change it, and make it conform to what you want in this world. But look upon it as a dream…as a very fluid state.966 ¶17

Now, how would I change it? I bring before my mind’s eye those who know me, my inner circle of friends, and I let them see me as they would have to see me were I the man that I want to be. I let them see me, and when I am self-persuaded that this is a fact, they do see me. It hasn’t yet appeared in the world so that they see that, because it hasn’t yet become a fact. But I believe in gestation…there’s a interval of time between impregnation and birth. And so I allow them to see me as they would have to see me in that day when I become the man that I’m assuming that I am. So I dare to assume that I am. I let them now reflect by the expressions on their faces and the sound of their voices and what they say that they see in me what I want the whole vast world to see. When I am convinced that they do see me, I break the spell, having assumed the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Then I abide and wait for that impregnation to take place in the world of dream.966 ¶18

For, while I live in the world of Caesar, I must abide by the laws of Caesar. “Whose inscription is this, Caesar’s? Well, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Give to him…he has to have them—rent must be paid, food bought, raiment bought, all these things, taxes paid. So render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and this is the way that you render it, waiting for that moment in time when you awake from the dream of life.966 ¶19

And so, I’ll tell you, you who have had this experience with the speaker, don’t be ashamed of it. You are married and blissfully happy and you love your husbands, and you would not be unfaithful to your pledge to your husband. You were not! You simply believed implicitly in the story that I’ve told. I have told you my own personal experience. I am not speculating, I am not theorizing. I have told you that the whole story of Jesus Christ has unfolded itself within me, but every little part of it.966 ¶20

What I told you tonight which is not recorded in scripture is in this way the very last verse of the 21st chapter of John: “And many other things that Jesus did which are not recorded in this book, but these are recorded that you may believe.” For if all were recorded, perhaps the world itself would not be big enough to hold all revealed to me. It so does fit in with the statement of the very last verse of the epilogue of the books . And so that is not recorded, no need for it to be recorded, but it was John. Well, John ends on the 20th and the 21st is the epilogue. And all these things happen and many more, but only these are recorded that you may believe.966 ¶21

And so, what has happened to you is the most marvelous thing, for it simply means to me, when you told me the stories as you’ve written them, that you have completely accepted the story as I have told it. Therefore, union with me is only confirmation of the complete acceptance of that story, the true story of Jesus Christ.966 ¶22

For over the years barnacles have gathered around the ship. Men in the interest of their own doctrines have added to the script in the Bible. They are redactors, and in spite of the warning in scripture not to add to or take from the words of the prophecy of this book, they have added to in order to support their own traditions and their own conventions. I could go through the Bible and show you where these things have been added. It was not in the original text and it was not the intention of the author who had the vision and recorded the vision. He could not understand it, but he recorded it, waiting for that time when a greater revelation would come and he would then understand it.966 ¶23

For, in ’54 I could not understand what I heard, but in ’59 I knew that I awoke from a profound dream. And here, I’m awaking not on my bed, I’m awaking in my skull. I am alone. I come out of my skull to find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and the witnesses to the event are seeing a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. They know it is my child, but they can’t see me because I am born of the Spirit. They are of the flesh; they are not yet born of the Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit. And so, I was born of the Spirit, so how could they see me?966 ¶24

But they knew the sign of my birth: “For this shall be a sign unto you.” No, I didn’t bring forth a little baby; the child is but a sign. “And this shall be a sign unto you, you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes” . What was the sign?—that God is born. God is begetting himself, bringing forth himself that he buried in humanity. He is redeeming himself. And there’s only God in the universe…nothing but God.966 ¶25

It’s not a moral book…hasn’t a thing to do with morals as you hear from all the pulpits of the world. They get up and tell you all kinds of things about how to change the world. There is no attempt to change the world in scripture. The world is a school house and you don’t turn a schoolroom into a home. It is nothing more than a school of educative darkness, and we’re moving from darkness to light. There’s no attempt in scripture to change it: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” And we’re going all out today to make this world a nice, sweet little place in which all will be happy, have enough to eat, enough to drink, enough to do this. That hasn’t a thing to do with the mystery of Jesus Christ! There would be no struggle and there would be no effort in the world to awaken from the dream of life. You’d go into a deeper, deeper sleep.966 ¶26

So let them be. They’re all going to march along and then tell the world how to become good people, and how to become kind, and all this nonsense. You aren’t going to be, may I tell you, not while you wear these garments of the animal. He took from himself the heart of God, the mind of God, and then took upon himself the body, the heart, the mind of an animal. Read the 4th chapter of Daniel…the whole thing is an animal world. And while in this world of violence God awakes from the depth of his own being to discover he hadn’t gone any place: he only dreamed the dream of life. Then he awakes and he is the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ.966 ¶27

Were it not that Jesus Christ is in you, you couldn’t breathe. Your breath, your very breath, is his life. For the word breath or wind and the word Spirit are one and the same in both Greek and Hebrew. Your very breathing is the Lord Jesus Christ. The day will come and you will awake, and when you awake you are the Lord Jesus Christ.966 ¶28

And David, the sum total of all of humanity, all of the experiences you’ve had in your dream as man, will stand before you completely solidified as one being, a youth, and he’s David. Not a David, the David…only the one David. And he calls you Father, he calls you “my lord.” And then you fulfill scripture, the 89th Psalm: “I have found David and he’s cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation” . Then you find him and you find who the son really is. The son is humanity fused into a single youth, personified before you, for you’ve played all the parts of man and that is your son who did all your will. “I have found in David, the son of Jesse”—and Jesse means I AM; it is any form of the verb “to be,” or I am—“the son of Jesse, who will do all my will” . And so, you find him…he did all your will, for you dreamed it and you played all the parts.966 ¶29

And when you awake in your skull, which is Golgotha, you come out of that skull and you are born from above. “We are born from above” as told in Peter, “we are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” . Well, you see no one in the skull but yourself, and you know that you are waking from a dream, a profound dream. You are waking in a tomb, your skull, and you come out of that skull to find the symbolism of your birth surrounding you. And then you know who Jesus Christ is. While the world worships him as something coming from without, you’ve found him within…not as another but as yourself. There is only God in this world; there is nothing but Jesus Christ. So you come out of yourself and here you are the dreamer, the dreamer of life.966 ¶30

So the great poet saw it so clearly when Shelley said, “He has awakened from the dream of life. ‘Tis we who lost in stormy visions keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife.” That’s what the whole vast world is doing, fighting phantoms that are self-created. The whole vast world is himself pushed out and he’s in conflict with himself, until that day when suddenly in the most dramatic manner an unearthly wind possesses him, which is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and then he wakes.966 ¶31

He finds himself waking and waking, and he wakes as he’s never been awake before in his skull. He has one consuming desire to get out. He has an innate knowledge and he knows that if he pushes the base of his skull there will be an opening. He does and something moves and it opens. He comes out just like a child would come from the womb of woman, but from above, from the skull of himself.966 ¶32

The word is Anothin, “from above.” Everything that is taking place here in the world is from above. When brought before Pilate and Pilate said, “Do you not know I have the power to crucify you or the power to set you free?” He said, “You have no power over me unless it were given to you from above” . The same word Anothin. The whole thing is from within a man; he’s in a profound sleep and he is the Lord Jesus Christ dreaming the dream of life. And when he wakes, he is the Lord Jesus Christ.966 ¶33

So because there’s only one being, one Jesus, all will awake and they are Jesus. Everything vanishes and Jesus only. No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, by the holy wind. When the wind possesses you and you wake within yourself, only then do you really know you are the Lord Jesus Christ.966 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence.966 ¶35

Now are there any questions, please? Plenty of time…well, if there aren’t any, class dismissed. Good night.966 ¶36

A man’s knowledge of himself depends upon his knowledge of the revealer, so tonight we are looking for the revealer. The Psalmist said, “Those who know your name put their trust in thee” . Well, the name of God is synonymous with God himself. So if I know his name, I will put my trust in God, for the name and God are one. It is first revealed to us in the Book of Exodus, the 3rd chapter: “And when I come to the people of Israel and I say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me,’ and they ask, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say? And the Lord said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me unto you…and this is my name forever throughout all generations”’ . Now you be the judge. No one judges you…you are the judge of whether or not you put your trust in God. Or do you have something other than your own wonderful I-am-ness? Do you completely trust God or do you have some other thing? It could be, well, it could be the stars, or it could be some creation of his.964 ¶1

Now listen to the words carefully, “I am the Lord your God.” That’s like saying, “I am the I AM that is your I am”…same thing. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods besides me. Make no graven image, no likeness of anything that is in the heaven or that is in the earth or below the earth in the water; and bow before none of it” , but none of it.964 ¶2

Well, a letter came last Monday…in fact she gave it to me here. This lady was raised in the Catholic faith, a devout Catholic. She’s been exposed here to this teaching concerning Christ. First of all, she thanks me for sharing with her the story of a friend (who is here tonight) who taught his seven year old son how to revise, so when he is hurt he goes to the end as it ought to be. So she said, “On my job I lift a typewriter every day…but it’s a very normal thing. But this day there were obstructions…boxes and packages and all kinds of things…and undoubtedly I got it at a very odd angle, and it strained a muscle in my lower back, and I was in great, great pain. Remembering what this father said to the seven year old son, I revised it, completely revised it, and without any outside assistance in a little while this whole thing subsided and it was perfect.964 ¶3

“Now this part is a dream,” she said. “I had a dream. I took a little boy seven years old into a Catholic church. But instead of entering in at the front door and coming down the center towards the altar, I entered from the side and walked across the entire church to the opposite side without genuflecting. As I got there the Mass is over and they’re all leaving towards the entrance where I entered…so they are making their exit there. So I started, but I had to get in line, and I heard a voice say, ‘Now you will have to face the altar and get on your knees, because a priest is looking at you,’ and he was all robed in black. I said, ‘No I will not. I do not believe in anything on the outside; I believe only in myself!” And then she woke.964 ¶4

Now that is perfectly marvelous! To be raised in the Catholic faith…and to so hear it with understanding and belief that in the state called “dream” where attention is supposed to be the servant, really, rather than the master, so that I’m always looking and following objects as they’re presented. But here she was so alert that she remembered the teaching and put it into practice. Priest or no priest she would not as she crossed towards the exit stand before that altar and bow…again putting into practice this 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus. Here you’ll find the Commandments and here, “I am the I AM that is your I AM. I brought you out of the land called Egypt, the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods…and make no graven image unto me, whether it be above in the heavens, on the earth, or below in the waters below the earth…and do not bow before it.”964 ¶5

And millions every day walk by and they bow before a man-made object called an altar, or a little figurine that they call Jesus Christ. They do not know Jesus Christ; they do no know the Lord. If they knew the Lord, they would know his name, and the Lord’s name and the Lord are one, and his name is I AM. There is no other God, none whatsoever.964 ¶6

So when I say, “I came out from the Father and came in to the world; again I am leaving the world and I’m going to the Father,” I came out from myself, for I and the Father are one. So the full significance of the name of God is known only in light of its consummation: When he manifests the name, the one who was the Word made flesh. Well, who is this one who is the Word made flesh?—you are! Are you not flesh and blood? Don’t you say “I am”? Well, that is the Word made flesh. But you will never know the full significance of this name of God until you in the life of the entire unfolding name reach the fullness of it and you consummate it.964 ¶7

So now let us take the consummation of this Word. There are some questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, just can’t be answered. They ask a question—you’ll find it in the 10th chapter of John —“Do not keep us in the state of uncertainty…tell us plainly, are you the Christ?” That’s the question, “Are you the Christ?” Well, here is a question that you cannot answer with a simple yes or no. You will say, “Am I the Christ?” and if by that you mean the Christ of your own expectations no. No, I am not that Christ. If you mean the Christ who was buried on Golgotha, which is your skull; if you mean the Christ who rose from that state of death; if you mean the Christ who came out of that tomb unaided—no one aided him, he himself pushed the stone, and he himself came out; if you mean that Christ where witnesses came and witnessed to his birth from above; and if you mean that Christ who found David in the Spirit and David called him “My Lord” and David called him “my father”; and if you mean that Christ who tore the curtain of the temple, which was his own body, from top to bottom and then rose—for he is the son of man—and then rose like a serpent, comparable to the serpent that rose in the wilderness; and if you mean that Christ on whom the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove, then to your question I will answer yes. But if you mean by Christ your own expectations, the answer is no.964 ¶8

So do we really this night believe in God? Now the word God means so much to people and the word Lord means so much. But when they say “I am,” which is the foundation of it all, “God” is only something to cover it up like a mask. The word “Lord” is to cover it up; for the word translated God and translated Lord means I AM. So when you say “We will call upon his name” the words “call upon” mean literally “to call with his name.” So if I call with his name, I’m going to say, I am…and then I name it. Call what? What will I call? Well, anything, because with him all things are possible. Therefore, what will I call…well, I name it. The minute I name a thing, then I will call with his name, and then if all things are possible to him, it should rise in my world…it should. So I say I want wealth or I want fame or I want health or I want this, that and the other, well then, “I am”…and then I name it. For that’s actually calling with the name of what the world calls God.964 ¶9

Then we are told to not take his name in vain, for he will not hold us guiltless who take the name in vain. So you say, “Alright, I am nobody, I am unwanted, I am not this, that and the other.” Alright, you’ve taken the name and you will conjure exactly what you have assumed that you are…good, bad or indifferent. It’s entirely up to us. So, “Those who know thy name put their trust in thee.”964 ¶10

Now when you read the gospel of John you read these many bold I AM assertions. The first one appears in the 6th chapter, “I am the bread of life”. Every statement made concerning these I AMs, when you read, don’t think another being said it; just imagine from the depths of our own soul a being is speaking. You hear the voice and it seems to come from another…it seems to come from without as in the story of Moses and the voice. It seemed to him to have come from without, but how can I AM come from without? It cannot come from without! So when I hear it, it seems to come from without but it is a whispering from the depths of my own soul…it comes from within. And when you read “I am the bread of life”…it’s coming from within you… “to feed the multitudes.”964 ¶11

And one day you’ll have the experience that you actually can feed the multitudes. Not with bread made of flour, but you’ll feed them on what they need most. A blind man undoubtedly wants to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, the poor to be affluent. So you will feed them with what you are, for you are the bread of life…the bread that came down from heaven. You will have a vision, an actual experience, where thousands are waiting for you and you come by, and they’re in all different states as you glide by. As you glide by, everyone becomes re-shaped, re-molded in harmony with that which you are which is perfect. You are perfection. And they feed on you and you grant everyone whatever they desire, and before your eyes they are all re-molded in harmony with that perfection which is springing within you. When the whole thing is over, a heavenly chorus cries out, “It is finished!” and you descend to this little world once more clothed in a garment of flesh. The Word once more returns to this garment of flesh and blood to tell the story, to completely finish and bring to a climax that which was sent forward.964 ¶12

For, you sent yourself into this world; you weren’t sent: “I came out from the Father” . Well, I have found him and I have found him as myself. If I have him as myself because his Son calls me Father, and I came from the Father, then I came from myself. I came out of the depths of my own being for infinite reasons, to expand beyond whatever I am, beyond into a far greater translucency, a far greater of everything in this world. So I came out from myself…everyone did. And the day will come you’ll discover that the self that you are, is God the Father…and that is life eternal…the eternal fatherhood of God. You’ll find the Father not as another; you’ll find him as yourself.964 ¶13

You are the Father, but at the moment it hasn’t yet reached the climax, so you think of another. I’m appealing to you to turn within and think only of yourself: You are God the Father. We are the fathers that fell asleep and we are dreaming this dream of life. But you are the being spoken of in scripture as God the Father. The day will come that you will know it because your Son will call you Father, and he is not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Father. “I and my Father are one” . It is David who calls you Father; and you will see him, and he will call you Father, and you will know it.964 ¶14

In the meanwhile, test what I’m telling you. Test it by calling with the name instead of calling on the name. Tonight, millions are genuflecting before a man-made altar, a man-made little icon, and all these things, and they actually violate the Commandment, “Make no graven image…and do not bow before it.” They make the graven image with human hands and then bow before it. But this lady did not bow before it. She said, “No, I will not. I do not believe in anything that is external, I believe only in myself.” Now coming from one who was raised in the Catholic faith, that is a tremendous step. The day will come that those who are now honored in the world of men with all their robes and all their positions will come to that same conclusion. And they too will have a dream similar to this dream where they will not bow before their own man-made little altar, they will not genuflect. They will simply know who God really is and they’ll put their trust in him. Well, if I’ve found his name, as told me in the 9th chapter of Psalms: “I’ve discovered thy name and I’ll put my trust in thee,” no other being will I trust.964 ¶15

Regardless of what happens to me I will simply trust him, and walk in that state.964 ¶16

Now…when I say, “I am the bread of life”…and the second one “I am the light of the world,” you’ll have that experience. You’ll actually feel yourself sink into infinite, pulsing, golden, liquid light. There is no circumference…you are the center and there is no circumference, infinite light. You’ll have the experience and you will know you are the light of the world. You will have the experience of coming into a room where things seem to be animated and independent of your perception of them, and you will stop an activity within you, and they’ll all freeze and stand perfectly still. You will know from your own experience that you are the life of the world; so when you read “I am the way, the truth, and the life” , you will know how true these statements are.964 ¶17

The I AM is the only way to what?—to the Father—“No man cometh unto the Father except by me.” You will never find the Father as something external to yourself. You will find the Father only as his Son stands before you and you know he is your Son and therefore you are his Father. That’s the only way you’ll ever find the Father. “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one know who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” . So there’s no other way of knowing the Father.964 ¶18

One day you will see the Son, and it will be something from the depths of your own soul. You will know you are looking right into the face of your Son, who said, when you inspired him to write it, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’” . So here you’ve come to fulfill all that you said you would fulfill; for I sent myself forth as the Word. For, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God” . So if the Word was God and the Word was sent, as told me in the 55th chapter of Isaiah “And that which came forth from my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it must accomplish that which I purposed and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” . I sent myself and there was a pattern that I had to fulfill. Only as I fulfilled the pattern that I had predetermined would I return unto myself, knowing that I am the Father that in my journey I was seeking. So I came out from myself, came into the world, and return to myself as God the Father. We are the fathers.964 ¶19

And when you know it and you believe it and wholly trust in the one and only God, there is no other God. Stop all the nonsense concerning this and that and all the little isms, forget it! There is only God and there is nothing but God, and God is your own wonderful I-am-ness. So when you say “I am,” that’s God. But man doesn’t stop there; man will say, “I am poor, I’m unwanted, I’m this, that and the other” and he puts that limitation upon a being that is infinite. But he abides by his own law, and whatever he assumes that he is that he becomes. So if I dare to assume anything, I will become it; and I will live in a world of my own creation for I assumed it. And because all things are possible to me, I create and project on the screen of space.964 ¶20

So here, people are searching to find out if there is something beyond the veil, and they get a medium to interpret for them…men who are supposedly high in the Christian church, knowing about the great Christian mystery. Of all the nonsense in the world! And he asked the medium to ask his son, “Have you seen Jesus?” Can you imagine that question by a bishop of the Episcopal Church, the highest order that you can arrive at in our Christian church…“Have you seen Jesus?” and the son supposedly said through the medium, “No, they talk about him, but I haven’t.” And he believes in such a Jesus. He rose to the highest position and he is the great father who blesses and baptizes and does all the nonsense in the world. That is not the Christian faith…hasn’t a thing to do with Christianity.964 ¶21

So when the question is asked in the 10th of John, “Do not keep us in suspension, tell us plainly, are you the Christ?” “Well, if by that you mean the Christ of your expectations, no.” But if you mean the real Christ…and then you itemize the pattern, all the things in the pattern that the real Christ must experience, then if you have had these experiences you can answer in the affirmative yes. It’s not what they are looking for. They’re looking for some glamour boy, some movie star, something that looks altogether wonderful…and that is not the Christ. Christ is the pattern man, the eternal pattern that God from the beginning had established, that he himself would fulfill when he would come into the world and be himself, the Word made flesh. So he comes into the world and then unfolds within himself, and he is that being.964 ¶22

Now you can test it this night, as the lady tested it. She strained her back and applied it instantly, because she remembered what the father said to his little boy of seven. So you do the same thing. Come test me and see—that’s what we are invited to do—if I am really holding to my faith. Well, if I really believe in the name, and the only name is I AM, well then, right now test it and see. What do you want to be in this world? Just what do you want to be? Well then, test it! Dare to assume that you are now, not tomorrow, that you are now the being that you desire to be, and walk as though you were. And if this is a true doctrine, you should in the not distant future externalize it on the screen of space and you actually are that being. You become it. Well, if you prove it in the testing, then try it again…and try it again.964 ¶23

The day will come that you will actually fulfill everything said in the gospel; for you are the central figure called Christ Jesus…and there never was another one.964 ¶24

Here is the universally diffused individuality: You say “I am”…same being when I say “I am.” There’s only one God: “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” , not two. So you say “I am,” well, I can’t have a billion little “I ams” running around. There’s only God and “In that day his name is one.” When you say “I am,” it isn’t “we are,” is it? It’s I am and that’s one. Well, in that day his name is one; he is king over all the earth and his name is one; that is I am, that’s one. Therefore, you say “I am,” I say “I am,” and we say “I am,” yet it’s only one I AM. So here is a universally diffused individuality. In the end, fulfilling what it intended, it gathers itself once more into the same oneness—one body, one Lord, one Spirit, one God and Father of it all. Regardless of what parts you played here, you return to the unity, to the one, and no one is greater than the other, just one…for there is only God. So we are all gathered into the one body, the one Spirit, the one Lord, the one God and Father of all.964 ¶25

Now let others who want all the little things in the world, trying to shine one over the other, let them be if that’s what they want. You will find great comfort in this unity when you look out upon a world and see your own being and you know that everything you see is yourself pushed out and every one is going to fulfill the identical pattern.964 ¶26

The story of Jesus Christ is your story and you fulfill it in detail. It’s a definite pattern. If it does not fulfill that pattern as described in scripture, it is only a foreshadowing if you have a similar experience. Take the foreshadowing as the most wonderful promise. It’s coming, it’s on the heels, like little pains prior to birth and so, all are foreshadowings, adumbrations. So these are things…if it’s not exactly as told in scripture then accept it as the foreshadowing, and in the not distant future it will turn from that adumbration into the actual picture, and you’ll fulfill it in detail.964 ¶27

You will find from the beginning to the end there are 1,260 days. From the day you awaken within the skull (called Golgotha) to that moment in time when the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove descends upon you. Count the days…1,260 days. It comes out right on the button. And you will know you’ve finished it. Then why do I remain? You remain to tell it…how else would it be told? You become a witness: “And you shall be witnesses for me.” That is the story.964 ¶28

So everyone remains and records himself as the witness, and then he departs this world. Departed not to continue the action which is similar to this, but departed to enter the celestial sphere where all the fathers have returned and the fathers form the Father, the One.964 ¶29

So here, be encouraged. You are a divine being, an infinite being. You seem to be in the world of Caesar a little man, a little woman, struggling to pay rent, to make ends meet, and yet you own the world. You own the world because God is housed within you and the whole thing is yours. Well, start here in this world to put this to the test.964 ¶30

“Come test yourselves and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?—unless of course you fail to meet the test!” . Well then, I will not fail to meet the test: I will call with his name, and I will sleep in the assumption that I am now the man that I desire to be, as though I were that man now. Going to sleep in that assumption I firmly expect the fruit to appear in the world, for the last bold I AM saying is “I am the true vine” . That comes in the last. Here, “I am the way, the truth, the life…no one comes unto the Father except by me,” but the last one, “I am the true vine,” that completes the I AM saying in the Book of John.964 ¶31

So if I am the vine, well then, these things must grow upon my world. If I have found the name and the name is I AM, and the name is synonymous with God himself (it is a synonym for God), well then, I am…and I name it, the thing that I want this vine to grow. It must grow this in my world regardless of what the world tells me. If I dare to remain faithful to this state, it must appear within my world if this is true. Well, I tell you from my own personal experience it is true.964 ¶32

Therefore, you can go out this night and dare to claim for yourself that which you would like to experience in this world. And then, put your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the unveiling of Christ within you. For, it takes many stages, but they are consummated in, what, a short little interval of forty-two months.964 ¶33

When the first act takes place, count the days; it will take exactly 1,260 days. Then you linger to tell your story to those who will hear it. Not everyone wants to hear it, they’re not interested. They want things and things, and they think that things, little tiny things make life. Alright, let them have it. Grant them everything in this world that they want until that moment in time when they want more than anything else the Promise, where the whole thing unfolds within them and they discover they are God, they are the Father…and there’s nothing but the Father. So the climax of the entire thing is the discovery of the Father. All these names are his, but he comes to the end “I am the Father.”964 ¶34

Now tonight, you take it…just as she took it and others in this audience tonight. One (this past week or so) coming from the depth of her soul she heard “I am the resurrection and the life. She that believes in me shall have everlasting life.” Then a few days later, the word is ringing in her ear as she’s coming through into this level from sleep, and the word is “resurrection.” But all of these lovely things are taking place in those who are here. A complete transformation is taking place in the soul, where they are believing to the point where the dream world—where we’re supposed to be victims rather than the controlling factor—the whole thing is unfolding and we are still the controlling factor there.964 ¶35

So I want to thank you for your letters, because if I share them as you’ve allowed me to share them, then we’re all mutually encouraged by the experiences of those who have written me, for that is your faith made visible in the form of a letter. And when I can share them and all hear it and they see what others have done, they’re encouraged to stick to it and put it into practice… because there’s no other place to go. As you’re told in the 6th of John , it was difficult yes, and then he said, “Would you go also?”—because they all left him, so many left—and he answered, “To whom would we go? Have you not the words of eternal life?” It may be difficult to grasp, may be difficult to follow, but where would I go if these are the words of eternal life?964 ¶36

Let others hang onto their traditional concepts, perfectly alright. But when someone…as Blake said that his task in this world was to open the eternal worlds…he said, “I rest not from my great task to open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal eyes of man inwards into the world of thought, into eternity, ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination” .964 ¶37

So when you give to one that you have elected your own immortal eyes so that she may become the incurrent witness and turn inward into the eternal worlds, into these infinite states, then she brings back. She’ll bring back and bring back and bring back forever, for her eyes were gifts from the risen Lord, and she will see eternal worlds. And she will bring back all the things, whether she understands them or not, she’ll bring them back. She turns them over to me and I’ll interpret them for her. For, she was given these immortal eyes, and yet the gift did not leave the giver without eyes…and they were not loaned, they were gifts; and yet he kept the eyes that he gave.964 ¶38

So here tonight, do take it seriously and when you go out, dare to put it to the extreme test. Forget all the little nonsense around the world where they’re trying to arrive at God through the backdoor and all the other little things. There is no other way: “No man comes unto the Father except by me.” Diets will not do it, holy retreats will not do it; not a thing in this world can do it but this one and only way. “I am the way”; there is no other way. “I am the truth”; there is no other truth. For if things were true, they could not change. And if the most fantastic discovery today by man in the world of Caesar can be modified tomorrow as man expands, then it wasn’t absolutely true when it was revealed as an absolute. There are no absolutes in the world of Caesar. The only absolute is this pattern of God, and all will fulfill it. Now let us go into the Silence.964 ¶39

In Biblical language a man’s name reveals his character. His name is an expression of this essential nature of the bearer. As I have said in the past, these characters are not persons; they are eternal states, spiritual states, through which the immortal soul passes to awaken as God. To understand tonight’s subject let us go back just for a moment. As you know, I have told you the Bible is God’s plan, something to be understood only through revelation. It is revealed, it is true, but seems the most impossible thing in the world, but will prove itself true in time. The book of Genesis is the seed plot. As you remember it is the beginning: “In the beginning God” and the book ended on the note: “In a coffin in Egypt.” The one in the coffin was called Joseph. Joseph is human imagination – it is of one tissue with divine imagination, but here it is human imagination, placed in a coffin. He extracted a promise from his brothers that they will not leave his body in Egypt; they will take it up to the land that was promised by God to his forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is the end of the book, the seed plot of the Bible.962 ¶1

Then we start for the unfoldment of the seed that was planted in the book of Genesis. The next book is Exodus. That is where Moses comes in for the first time in the Bible. Now, we are told that Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses floating on the river and she named him Moses, because she drew him out of the water. I will not deny that – that is part of the name, Moses,” to draw out, to rescue, to fetch”. But it has another meaning. She was an Egyptian and the boy was raised in the courts of Pharaoh, and the word “Moses” is the root of the Egyptian word (verb) “to be born”. That is what it means – to be born. Something is now to be born and he is buried in man in the book of Genesis. It is completely contained in this ark, in this coffin or man, but now it must be awakened, it must be born. We are told he did not volunteer for the task—he was drafted.962 ¶2

Now let me stop here and tell you: this is not a man as you are, as I am; this is a state of consciousness. All these characters are states of consciousness, and so Moses is playing the part now, leading you – leading me, everyone in the world – out of the state known as Egypt, taking us out of Egypt into the promised land. Moses is true in this sense: in him – in germinal form – is the entire future of Israel. All the visions you read concerning him are contained in us. He was prophet, priest, law giver, shadow of the king (or a foreshadowing of the king), victor, exile, fugitive, man of God – all of these are stated in the state called Moses. Now he is leading us out.962 ¶3

Let us see what he has in common with the other characters named in tonight’s subject, Elijah and Jesus. No one knows the burial place of Moses, as we are told in the very last book of the five, called Deuteronomy. Moses died and he was buried. Who buried him? The Lord buried him, and to this day no one in Israel knows the burial place of Moses. We are told that Elijah – the word Elijah means “My God is Jehovah” – while talking to his disciples, they are parted by this fiery chariot and fiery horses, and he was lifted up into heaven by a whirlwind. Therefore no one knows his burial place, because he wasn’t buried – he was transported. We are told of Jesus that when they came early in the morning and they found the stone rolled away, that his body had been removed, and to this day no one knows where they laid the body: “Where have they laid the body of my Lord?” So, here we find in the end there were three – each had the same exit from this world.962 ¶4

Here is a progression leading up toward God. Moses means, “to be born”. In Hebrew it means, “to draw out”. Yes, something is being drawn out, something must be born. Elijah is “my God is Jehovah”. And Jesus, “Jehovah, is savior”, in keeping with the statement in Isaiah 43: 3,7,11: “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.” If you read it on the surface it will mean nothing to you, but we go back to find what was the great revelation, as Israel is being moved out in the exodus from Egypt. It took forty years, and forty is the numerical value of the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is a womb – something to be born, something is coming out of the womb in so-called forty years. It doesn’t mean forty years as you and I measure time, but something is coming out of man, and everything that is coming out is God, moving to the second stage called Elijah, and flowering in its fullness in Christ Jesus.962 ¶5

Moses is the first to have the name of God revealed to him. There are many names for God, but never before was it revealed as it was to him – that state – and you are in it now, I am in it. And the name revealed of God the creator is “I AM”. “When I go to the people of Israel and tell them that the God of their fathers sent me, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and they ask me, ‘What is his name? What shall I say?’ The voice answered, ‘I AM that I AM.’ Say unto them ‘I Am hath sent you.’” It was never revealed before that that was the name of God.962 ¶6

We are told in Psalm 9:10: “And those who know thy name put their trust in thee.” If you know the name! You and I have heard the name, but if you really know it, you will put your trust in the name, and I tell you the name is “I AM”. It’s not John, it is not Jesus, it’s not God, it’s not Lord – it’s nothing outside of “I AM”. The word translated “Lord”, (which is Jehovah) means, “I AM”. When I say I am the Lord thy God, I really should say – if you really want to understand it – “I AM that I AM”, your creator.” For the word now translated “God” is the word “Elohim”, the word used in the first chapter of Genesis: “And God said” (that is, “Elohim” – a plural word): “Let us make man in our image.” When you read the words in the sentence: “I am the Lord thy God”, the word “I AM” is the same word translated as “Lord”. So, I AM that I AM, the God who created you in his image, and beside me there is no other God, no other creator, no other savior. That is what was revealed in the state known as Moses.962 ¶7

If you take the name of Moses, men-shin-he, – and if you turn it backwards it spells “name”, “shem.” (The common word for name in Hebrew is “shem”.) If I take the middle letter out of “Moses”, which is a “shin” and put it first of the three little letters shin-mem-he, it spells “heaven”. So, here the name means so much. I call everything out, born and reborn, to bring all things within me that are to be born, and I do it in his name. I am drawing it out of myself – that is Moses – Moshe. I turn the name around: I do it in his name (“shem”). And where do I draw it from? Shin-mem-he, out of heaven. And where is heaven? Heaven is within you. Out of my own being I am drawing everything, but I draw it in his name. There is no other name under the sun by which this is done.962 ¶8

And so, how do I draw anything? I draw it only in his name. We are told he draws it all out – but he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven – the promised land, called Canaan. The one who will take the Israelites in is Joshua. The word “Joshua” is the identical word as Jesus, spelled the same way. He cannot go in; he is only the power that draws it out – Jesus does, whose name is Joshua. Before we reach that state called Joshua (which is Jesus), we pass through the state of Elijah.962 ¶9

The word Elijah, “my God is Jehovah.” If I say my God is Jehovah, I think in terms of some external Lord. If I say “My God is I AM” then you might think me arrogant, think me blasphemous, yet that is exactly what the word means. His story is told us in the Book of Kings. In the Book of Kings there is nothing but sheer unadulterated power. When a man feels it and knows what he can do, untempered by love, he does everything. That is what Elijah did. He called down the fire and destroyed the sacrificial bull, turning it to ash. Destroyed the children who criticised him and then the 450 prophets of Baal who could not bring down any fire; he did in the twinkle of an eye. He ordered the destruction of all the prophets of Baal. Violence in the extreme. Then we move from this state to the Joshua (which is Jesus) where the same power – infinite power – is tempered with love.962 ¶10

Let me give you my own personal experience concerning these states. When you meet these states they are personified as men. Thirty odd years ago I was taken in the spirit into a divine council, a divine society, and the first one to meet me was the embodiment of infinite might. He was seated (and the symbolism is perfect) in a chariot, and hitched to this chariot was this perfectly marvelous pair of beautifully harnessed horses, and seated in the chariot was infinite might – eyes of steel, not an nth part of love came from that face to mine. As he thought, I heard what he thought. He looked at me eye to eye, but no emotion of feeling concerning love or mercy or tenderness came from his eye to mine – just sheer might, sheer power. No power on earth can compare to the embodiment of that power.962 ¶11

And just as we are told: “When he ascended in his fiery chariot leaving no trace behind…” It seems such a stupid statement to make, that not a thing on earth could lead one to believe that it could be literally true. And yet, my mystical experience confirms the truth of that statement, for there is the perfect embodiment of the chariot and the horses, beautifully harnessed, and the charioteer is Elijah himself –infinite power. The horse is always the symbol of the mind; in this case the mind is harnessed, disciplined, and directed by the charioteer, the one who is in control of that disciplined mind, but no feeling, no emotion of love.962 ¶12

Then I was taken into the presence of infinite love, infinite mercy, and here I stood in the presence of Christ Jesus – a state, yes, a living state – and talked and communed with him. He asked me: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” And I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three abide, but the greatest of those is love.” At that moment he embraced me and I became one with infinite love. I have never known such joy in my life, never known such peace and mercy, such anything concerning these attributes.962 ¶13

While in this embrace came this voice out of space, and I found myself once more in the presence of infinite might – and he is called Elijah. Another name for him in the Bible is Elias, God Almighty. No mercy there as yet, no love, just sheer power, and it was he who sent me back to where I am today with the command: “Time to act.”962 ¶14

All this was done in the state of Moses, that state that I entered not voluntarily; I was drafted, as I was drafted into God’s army without my permission, my consent, for a purpose: to lead me out of Egypt into the promised land. But I have to pass through these states. Everyone passes through these states. So, Moses is the mediator, the state of all the things that happen to him, and he in turn then shares with those for whom it happened. And so, it happened to me, that state of Moses. Then I in turn prepare to share with you the things that happened to me, for they happened because of you, to tell you it is all true.962 ¶15

You say: “A little handful like this and three billion of us in the world?” It doesn’t matter if only one came and heard of God’s word and the truth of that word; it would be infinitely greater than the three billion who didn’t hear of it. For we enter the kingdom of God one by one. We do not enter in pairs. I can’t take the dearest soul in this world to me with me into that state. We have to go alone, singly. We are known singly and loved singly and no two can go together. So, it doesn’t matter if I speak to a hundred or to one, or speak across the nation on radio to two million – it makes no difference.962 ¶16

Do they believe it? The story is: “Tell the story as you experienced it, in the hope, yes, that they will believe it.” But no one has any assurance that it will be believed, but only as it is believed and accepted by the individual do we start the journey out of Egypt. Egypt is not in the Near East; you are Egypt. Joseph – which is your own wonderful human imagination – is buried in Egypt, (the body). He contains within himself the whole vast world, and now it has to be led out. It is led out by the true revelation of the true name of God. In the fifty chapters of Genesis the word is not revealed, not used, and then comes the revelation of the 3rd and 6th chapters of Exodus: “Go and tell them ‘I AM’ sent you.” All through the entire book, when you read this strange translation, “I AM the Lord” is simply “I AM the I AM.” Why take the second “I AM” and then call it ‘Lord”? The average person reading it can’t quite understand it, but the identical words that begin the sentence: “I AM”, which is Yod He Vau He is the word that comes just two words removed: “The Lord” – “I AM the I AM”, your God and besides the “I AM” there is no God. I AM your maker, therefore you are really self-begotten in the true sense of the word.962 ¶17

So, these are three fantastic states through which man moves, and the day will come when you, too, will be taken by a whirlwind into heaven and you will be brought into the presence of a state; but to you it is something completely independent of your perception of it. When you look at him he is a power, I mean a power beyond the wildest dream of man – and it is man. I could paint a picture for you, could I draw. I can see him so clearly and it was thirty-odd years ago. More vividly than anything that happened to me – today it is so indelibly impressed upon my mind – and yet it is a state called Elijah. And one passes through that state where it is nothing but sheer might.962 ¶18

You see it in the world today. It could be economic power, where there is no feeling whatsoever but simply to get a new power. It could be a military power, social power, intellectual power, or any other kind of power, without feeling or compassion, just sheer might. We see it describing the world in the morning paper. Not a bulletin on the radio or TV that doesn’t describe this sheer might. If I can get the better of that nation or nations without feeling it doesn’t matter – that’s Elijah.962 ¶19

Read this story in the Book of Kings, where it passes from that to God himself, and that is Christ Jesus. When you stand in his presence, again he is no other than you. He communes with you, he asks you questions and you answer the question, and he embraces you and it all seems so much the two of you – and yet you are told in Zechariah 14:7: “His name is one.” He seems to be another, he embraces you, but at that moment of the embrace you become one and the Lord – the “I AM” – is one and “His name is one.” Then you find yourself fused with God himself and there aren’t two of you – not you and God – you are the very being that you have been seeking, you are he.962 ¶20

And then comes the sentence to recall all the means to be sent, for you are called and then sent to reveal all that has happened to you, in the hope that those who hear it will accept it. We are told many rejected it and many accepted it. That is how it is all singled out. Eventually all will accept it. It is a form of preparation leading up towards the fulfillment of his purpose, which is to give himself to us. For it is God’s purpose to give himself to you individually, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you. And because God is one and his name is one, there can’t be God and you. For you stand in his presence as you answer the questions. You will – you’ll answer it automatically: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” You say “love”. Then you are embraced by love himself and you aren’t you and love – you are love. You are the embodiment of love and you never felt such mercy, such compassion, such love, and you are one with it, but there aren’t two of you, you are God.962 ¶21

And while in the very embodied state of infinite love, you are sent – sent to do what you will be doing right in this world, because everyone must be led out of Egypt. “Bring my people out of Egypt,” even though I will harden the heart of Pharaoh and keep them back in Egypt, I will still tell you to bring them out of Egypt.962 ¶22

If the heart is hardened because of what we have to say (because in this audience we are Christians and Jews, undoubtedly all of us) there may be one who does not call himself a Christian or a Jew, who thinks I am neither -I’m an agnostic, or I’m an atheist, or maybe I’m some other creed. But I would say that on a whole as I go across the country I speak to hundreds of Christians and Jews. The word “Moses” to the Jew is a sacred name, the one who was a leader, chosen by God to lead his chosen people out of Egypt into the promised land. And Elijah, the great prophet. To the Christian, what more sacred name than the name of Christ Jesus? I tell you these are infinite states, eternal states, through which the immortal soul passes, and he awakens in the very end and is confronted by God himself, the Ancient of Days. Then you will know.962 ¶23

On the Mount of Transfiguration these were the three who appeared. There was Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. “They all shone until their faces were like the sun.” That is true. We are told that when Moses came down from the mountain, they all were afraid because he shone so, and he covered himself with a veil so he could talk to the people while he was veiled. The veil is the human body. This garment is the veil to talk to man, for if you saw him unveiled you couldn’t stand the light. But when he went into the presence of God he took off the veil, and he is one with him. He comes down and before he could put on the veil there is a light that dazzles the eye of mortal man.962 ¶24

May I tell you: whether you believe it or not, the morning it first happened to me I was alone in my own room on 49th street in New York City. It was four in the morning. There was no moonlight, no reason for light in my room, no light was on—but here was this unearthly light that filled the room and it did not subside until the sun came out. The room was completely radiant with light but no one could see it but myself.962 ¶25

So, I tell you this symbolism is true and it is all about you. Everything in the book is about you. As we are told in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book” – some translate it: “In the volume all about me.” It is the whole book is about you, and these fantastic characters are the eternal spiritual states through which you move. Everything is planted in you and recorded in that first book of Genesis. Then comes the beginning of Exodus where man is making his exit from the world of slavery, the world of Egypt (and it’s not in the Near East) this where I go. This (the body) is the world of Egypt and I am pulling myself out, and there are series of signs which will accompany my exit from Egypt.962 ¶26

One of the signs you are told about only occurred in connection with Israel’s departure from Egypt, and that is the serpent. Moses throws the serpent to show you, and no one understood it, no one. Today how many people understand the symbolism? It is true. It is recorded for us in John 3, that it must take place: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” in the same manner. You will find yourself one day actually experiencing the state of being lifted up in serpentine form, lifted up into heaven.962 ¶27

Signs follow, as told us in the book of Deuteronomy: “And Jehovah delivered his people from Egypt by signs and wonders.” Always signs and wonders, everything was a sign, but how to interpret the sign. Wait for it; all these signs will happen. At the Nativity, the angel gave a sign through the shepherds, and people have completely misunderstood the sign and think it is the event. It is only the sign, which is the deliverance of an individual into heaven from the land of Egypt. Simeon comes into the temple and looks at the Child and tells them: “This is a sign that is spoken against.”962 ¶28

Now in this audience for the last three years, I would not say there were many, but I have heard personally and through the grape-vine, those who spoke against the sign – some never to return in the interval of three years. So this is a sign that will be spoken against. How true the prophecy! Those who come home today socially – we dine together, but they will not be seen here – and when we are together socially, we never discuss the sign. And so, Simeon comes into the temple and sees the Child and makes the prophecy: “This is a sign that will be spoken against.” And those who will come – you haven’t spoken so far against it – but I know dozens who have spoken against it to the point of never having returned to this auditorium.962 ¶29

He gives us signs and wonders as he brings us out of Egypt and the story of Christ Jesus, every event, is only a sign. Not a thing takes place here on this level. Everything recorded about it, from his birth to the very end – the ascension – is a sign; and everything is going to take place in you. The birth, or the miracle, the fantastic things – yes, and the transfiguration too. And when it does take place, you too will swear those who were present to secrecy. And yet the thing is so fantastic you need not even swear them to secrecy, but you do it automatically, because like Peter, James and John, they were not asleep but they were drowsy. And they look at you and they can’t believe the wonder of it all. When they return here to this level they don’t remember, or if they remember they only vaguely remember. Peter was filled with sleep, yet he kept awake, but he was drowsy. So he couldn’t quite see the glory that was given at that moment to the one called Jesus, because in the end when the whole thing vanished, there was only Jesus.962 ¶30

These states remain behind for all to pass through, and one who is left at the very end – he is Christ Jesus. There is nothing at the end but Jesus, and Jesus means “Jehovah saved.” He is a savior and he saves you because you are he. You are self-begotten. In the end you come right out and you are one with the being who begot himself as you. These are the states through which you – the immortal you – must pass to awaken as God, and there is none but God.962 ¶31

Moses is sent. It isn’t voluntary. He is drafted, and he becomes one with the state and he brings himself out of the confusion of the state of Egypt into the harmony, the peace and the joy that is God. He has to pass the state of Elijah – sheer might and power – and he moves through that out to Jesus. So, in the end everyone is Jesus. Everyone will be Christ-like without losing his definite individuality. I will know you and you will know me, and yet you will be transformed and I will be transformed. I can’t describe what I saw, and I can’t find the words to describe what I revealed to the one and swore her to secrecy, but I am quite sure she was in a state of semi-sleep and would not – or could not – remember. Everyone is destined for it.962 ¶32

You may take it lightly and think: “Well, that’s silly,” because that is the whole vast world, and in teaching this story for 2,000 years or beyond that, they don’t see the mystery. It is all a mystery. I have been asked from this auditorium: “Is it right to tell it.” Certainly it’s right to tell it, you can’t restrain yourself, but it is something difficult to describe because it is mysterious in character. Not a thing to be hidden from the world, for you are destined to be Christ Jesus; but you will not become aware of your heavenly inheritance so long as you still wear this garment, which is a veil. But you will continue to do the work and tell your story to all who will listen.962 ¶33

So, Moses begins the great exodus. It really is the beginning of the birth of Israel. He not only attains the birth; in him the state called Israel is born. Then he is pulled out to the flower that is Christ Jesus. But he passes through that mighty state, Elijah. Then you go past him, taken by the wind, into the presence of the Ancient of Days. Then comes the most glorious thing in the world, love. All states, granted, but you will meet them, and meet them in this holy assemblage, and each will be identified, and they are all taught in the story of the scripture.962 ¶34

So, I tell you: these are not characters. The names signify the eternal states through which you and I pass. Everyone is destined to meet the same end, and the end is – God. We all awaken as God. So, “Let us make man in our image” is true, and that is Elohim. But the name isn’t really revealed until the journey starts.962 ¶35

If you believe the name, read Psalm 9:10: “And those who know thy name put their trust in thee, for thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek thee.” It should not be “O Lord” for again you get off the beat. The word “O Lord” is Yod He Vau He. He is addressing himself, and we found the name “I AM”. And your name is “I AM” for “I AM” would not forsake myself. That’s really what it means. Read it carefully. Do you believe the name I told you this night? That is the name of God. If you really do, you’ll put your trust in him. If you go out of here tonight hoping that something other than “the name” will draw you out of sickness, or poverty, or being unknown, or anything else in the world, you have not put your trust in him. If you really believe him, put your trust in his name, and trusting in his name you are moving out of Egypt into the land that was promised. For you rise into a land completely subject to your imaginative power.962 ¶36

Every man needs a state to express him. Moses is a state, Elijah is a state, but it can’t express itself, it needs an agent, and the agent is always man. So man, the pilgrim, moves into a state and then the state becomes animated, and if you saw it, it is personified – that’s man, because you occupy it. Man is the operant power. “Where man is not, nature is barren.” There is no state beyond this drama, which is Christ Jesus. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world”. Now let us go into the silence.962 ¶37