Tonight’s subject is “My Husband.” Man’s historical life is really a dramatic story which presses towards the fulfillment of God’s purpose. God himself is active in this great struggle, guiding and directing all the affairs of men towards his own purpose; and so the subject, “My Husband”…that “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name.” That is the 54 th chapter of Isaiah, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name.” In this chapter, we’re told, “I called,” that is, the Lord called you, “like a forsaken wife.” Then he goes on to explain what he will do for this wife that he himself forsook. He said, “I forsook you for a brief moment.” Well now, a brief moment in the eyes of God is not a moment in our eyes on earth. “I forsook you for a brief moment. For a little moment I’ve hidden my face from you, but now I will redeem you.” And he will bring this one that he forsook, bring it back to an everlasting union. We are told in the Book of Hosea: “And the day will come you will call me, ‘My husband,’ Ishi, and no longer, ‘My Baal’” (or my owner, my Lord). “Then I will betroth you to me forever.”884 ¶1

This so-called “day of the Lord”—where he only simply sent us out and forsook us for a day—is 6,000 years in the language of scripture. We speak of a day, which is simply a watch in the night. A thousand years, we’re told, is only a watch in the night. Well, there are three watches in the night—that would be 3,000 years—and there are three watches to the day, the visible day. So we have six watches in a day and each watch is equal to 1,000 years, altogether 6,000 years. So he forsook us for this short interval of time, which in the eye of God was simply a moment. But for us passing through the darkness of the day of God… for we are told, a day of God is not light but darkness. As we are told in the Book of Amos, “Is not the day of God darkness, and not light? Is it not gloom, where there is no light in it?” For this is the world in which we live, and we are the forsaken; but tomorrow at the end of this moment in time—a short moment in the eye of God, but a very long, trying one in the eyes of man—“He will then gather us together, one by one, and become betrothed to us forever and forever.”884 ¶2

So we are told in the Book of Genesis, a man must leave all things and cleave to his wife until they become one. You and I do not believe it on a certain level that he is cleaving to us and he, himself, is suffering with us as he takes us through this day of the Lord, called the day of darkness, but he is. So when we are told by the great mystic, “God became as we are that we may be as he is” we may be inclined to think these are simply the words of the poet. But they are not just the words of the poet, they are true. God actually became man that man may become God, and in the end we are not two, we are one. He gives up, “He empties himself and takes upon himself the form of a slave and was found in the form of man”. But in the end, man will not call him “my Baal,” for Baal means “my owner.” If he is my owner then I am his slave. You will not call me “my Baal,” you’ll call me, “My husband.” And the husband and the wife in that day will be one, they will not be two.884 ¶3

And so he cleaves to me and takes me through to the very end. In the very end, he has already all the signs by which he will prove to himself that he’s redeemed me, and he and I are one. Now we are told the New Testament interprets the Old, not the other way around. No one understood this story of the Book of Isaiah, “My Maker is my husband, the Lord of hosts is his name.” What does it mean that the Lord called me like a wife forsaken, like someone that is grieved in Spirit? For a moment, a brief moment, I forsook you, but I will gather you with great compassion, and after one little moment I will bring you into my everlasting Father. Only for a moment I forsook you, really. Now, in the 16 th chapter of the Book of John: “In a little while you will see me no more; but then in a little while you will see me” . Now he likens this departure from us and his return to us to a woman in travail. In this same chapter he now takes this story that when a woman is in travail she is in sorrow because her hour has come, but when she is delivered of the child she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a human being is born in the world. So you are in sorrow now…but you will see me again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take from you your joy.884 ¶4

So in this interval we are all concerned, horribly concerned. And we find out certain techniques by which we can realize our objectives. Then comes the whole thing pounding in on us again, not only our individual lives but the lives of those we love…a telephone call, the morning’s mail, or just a contact. And you don’t want them to go through the struggle, and so you wonder why can’t things be just as they ought to be as you see them, as all things are crowding in on you.884 ¶5

This is called the day of the Lord, the day of darkness, not the day of light . In the end, you come out and you are one with God, for there is only God. Before me there was no God, nor shall there be any God after me. In the 43 rd of Isaiah, “There was no God before me, nor shall there be any God after me” . There’s only God…God actually emanating himself, and I am, and you are, the emanation of God. We are his emanation, his bride ‘til the sleep of death is past. When the sleep of death is past, then I am the very being that brought the whole thing about. So I’m not doing it on the outside apart from the begetter. The begetter became me—God actually became me that I may become God. He became me. He shattered himself and lost himself in that [...], individualized it completely…not less than himself because he wedded himself to it; and on the return, I am one with him. He brought us all back together, a far greater being than it was before that fragmentation.884 ¶6

Now, here we are told, “You have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you will appear also with him in glory” . My life is hid with Christ? But he tells me first “you are dead.” The King James Version says, “You’re dead”; the Revised Standard Version states, “You have died.” Paul in his letter…this is from Colossians…Paul in his letter to the Galatians makes the statement, “I have been crucified with Christ” . I have been crucified with Christ, and only Christ rises? Yes. Well, if I say to you now, who are you? You will say to me, well, “I’m Bob, I’m Bill, I’m Herman, I’m Mary, Judith,” and you name all these names and you really believe it. So tonight when you go to bed, that’s the being you take to bed—-Bob, Herman, Judith, Mary—and any name that you claim is your identity. If I tell you that is not really your identity, if I tell you that you are Jesus Christ, would you believe it? If you don’t take Jesus Christ to bed with you as though you were he, well then, you will take the limited being called Neville, John, Mary, any other being in this world.884 ¶7

Then I tell you “I have been crucified with Christ”…and in his letter to the Colossians, “You have died and your life is hid with Christ, and when Christ appears you appear with him in glory.” Now Peter tells us in the 1 st epistle, “We are reborn through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” . There is no other way for man to be born from above, born of God, begotten of the Spirit, not of the flesh. If I am begotten of the flesh, it is from below; if I’m begotten of God, it is from above. He tells me I’m reborn through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I am told I am crucified with him. But I always thought, until it happened to me, that he rose 2,000 years ago…something not in any way associated with me save as a concept I should adopt and believe that he came with a special mission. The story was told me by my mother first, and then my Sunday school teacher; and then as I read the book, I always thought, until it happened to me, that it happened 2,000 years ago. I never identified it in any way with me. So when I tell you now, I’m not theorizing, I’m not speculating, I’m speaking from experience. The story is true: You are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead in you .884 ¶8

For if you have died…now this is the letter…someone writes me a letter, I open the letter and I’m reading it, and it begins, “You have died.” Well, I’m alive, I think I am. So I read the words “You have died and your life is hid with Christ.” I died. Here I am alive, I’m reading a letter, for this is the letter. I don’t understand how could I be dead? For I walk, I eat, I dress, I do all these things and yet I am told I’ve died. And then comes this experience suddenly. You must have died, but you never knew it in what is called the day of the Lord which is all darkness. You had no knowledge of it. “Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light?” said Amos. Is it not darkness and not light, all gloom and no light within it whatsoever? Well, I didn’t know that. I thought this was all light. I had intelligence, I could actually bargain, I could do all kinds of things and act like an intelligent being, and therefore it seems light to me. And I am told “Is not the day of the Lord all darkness?” I was totally unaware that I was dead, totally unaware that I was buried, until that moment in time when God decided to unite me with himself. He took me through the furnaces, through the long, long journey of 6,000 years. At the end of 6,000 years, he said, “Now you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘my owner,’ ‘my Baal.’ I will betroth you to me forever” in fulfillment of my promise in the beginning that I will leave all and cleave to you, my emanation, my wife until we become one being, one form, one flesh.884 ¶9

And I didn’t know this. So if I am born from above through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and when I rose in the tomb I saw no one but myself, then I know who Jesus Christ is. So I say to you, before the experience, you are Jesus Christ. He is not pretending that he’s you; he became you. When you read it in Galatians, you think a man became one single little being, born of a woman, 2,000 years ago. I am not speaking of that being; I’m speaking of the cosmic Christ, the universal Christ that became every being. And it rose…had to rise in one first. When all the time was fulfilled, then one broke the seal. And then from that moment on the door is open and one after one: “I will gather you one by one, O my people of Israel.” So he gathers us all, one by one, as his bride.884 ¶10

But gathering us one by one as his bride, he cannot put me on the side. He is my husband; but there is no more he and then the one called wife…we fuse. For we are told in the beginning, he must leave all and cleave unto his emanation, his wife, until they become one . So there aren’t two in the end, only one.884 ¶11

Then he brings before the vision of the one (to whom he is now fused) the series of events which reveal to the one who now awakes how true the word of my husband is. So here, everyone this night…and may I tell you from experience…you try it. When you go to bed tonight—it may seem arrogant, it may seem blasphemous—no matter how wonderful you are in this world, forget it! All the honors of this world, all the possessions of this world are as nothing; that when you are really one with this being you own the world. As you’re told in the 50 th chapter of the Book of Psalms, here, “If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you, for everything is mine…the cattle on a thousand hills are mine…and were I hungry, I would slay and eat” . I wouldn’t ask permission to take what is mine. In the 24 th Psalm, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” .884 ¶12

So it’s all yours. But it isn’t yours as John Brown, it isn’t mine as Neville Goddard, it isn’t yours as Mary Smith; it is only yours as Jesus Christ. So if tonight you dare to assume “I am Christ”…I don’t care what the world will tell you, let them speculate. I am not speculating; I am speaking from experience. So you say “I am Christ” and don’t bat an eye…and feel what it would be like to be this Christ. For I know in my own case when that power possessed me and I rose within myself, entombed; and if, as Peter said in his 1 st letter, the 1 st chapter, the 3 rd verse, “We are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” and only Jesus Christ is resurrected, well, if only Jesus Christ is resurrected, I was sound asleep and dead to the reality that I am he. I didn’t know it until it happened. For if only Christ resurrects and I know I resurrected…I didn’t know he was the universal Christ. I was taught by my mother, by my teachers, it was a unique little experience that happened in a strange, fantastic way 2,000 years ago. No one told me this was a cosmic Christ rising in every being in this world but rising in such a unique way it could only rise one by one. We are so unique in the eyes of this presence that we can’t be called even in pairs…must be called one by one. And so here, he rose within me, but I thought at that moment, or prior to that moment, that he was another. Well, if I am born from above only through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and he rose in me because I rose, then I am he.884 ¶13

So to go to sleep in the consciousness that I am Christ is all the difference in the world to your night, to your day, to your entire life. It doesn’t matter what others think, it doesn’t really matter. You don’t go out and take an ad in the paper. You don’t go and make any kind of promotion, any scheme as to who you are. You don’t care what the world thinks, because it doesn’t really matter. All you know is that you simply take this consciousness with you into your waking day and that moment just before you retire at night. You try it.884 ¶14

Now let me share with you a simple, simple technique. It’s very simple for those who cannot meditate more than a matter of seconds, more than a matter of moments, and can’t dramatize anything. This works like a charm. You sit quietly, close your eyes, turn your attention only into your skull, from the outside into your skull. In a little while, with practice…it may not come the first day…but I don’t think it will take too long before suddenly your skull and all the dark convolutions of the brain will begin to grow luminous, and you will see golden liquid clouds forming all over your head. And while in this state, think of anyone in this world, but anyone, and when you think of them think of them with empathy. Not sympathy, empathy. Bring them into your mind’s eye and rejoice with them because of their good fortune. Empathize, don’t sympathize. Sympathizing is the acceptance of their lack whatever it is. If they are unwell and you feel sorry for them, you only reinforce what they seem to be to you. If they are in need and you sympathize, you are simply accepting that limitation and make it all the more real in your world. Learn to actually bring to pass through empathy whatever would give you joy concerning them. Empathize! Try it. Sitting in a quiet, simple way, not bursting one blood vessel, not making any physical effort to do anything, just simply losing yourself in the joy of the other’s good fortune. Try that. But always do it in empathy. If you do it in empathy, you’re doing it in love. You cannot empathize with another and not be in love…you can’t do it. Therefore, you are doing the right thing.884 ¶15

So tonight, when you retire (and I would not mislead you, I assure you), when you retire, change your identity. Though you have not yet had the experience of the resurrection and the birth from above, speaking from experience, I tell you, you are going to be resurrected in that wonderful skull of yours, called Golgotha. You alone will be born. And if, as told in scripture, we are born from above through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and you and you alone are resurrected when you are resurrected, and only Jesus Christ is resurrected, then you must be he. So before you have the experience, believe it, and therefore begin to identify yourself with him. Don’t wait for the experience but identify yourself with him now and share the power that is Christ before you have the experience of the resurrection and the birth from above.884 ¶16

The day will come you will actually be able to have this experience of saying “my husband” rather than “my owner, my Baal.” “Then I will betroth,” as he said, “you to me forever.” No longer will there be any division; the forsakenness is over. But I did it for a purpose, said he…preparing us to prove to us there is no other power. So in the wilderness we went, not an aimless wandering but a purpose—[...] towards this union where we were forsaken. Now you can see the words “I forsook you.” I didn’t do a thing that was wrong that caused me to be banished into this wilderness. As told us in the 8 th chapter of the Book of Romans that “the creature was made subject unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of him who subjected the creature in hope …” . So, I didn’t do it, you didn’t do it, we didn’t do it; we were banished, and the words are “I forsook you for a brief moment.” A brief moment through the eyes of man is 6,000 years. That isn’t to us a brief moment, but in the eyes of God it is a brief moment. Only six watches…each watch being a thousand years. So in the 90 th Psalm, “A thousand years in thy sight is as a watch in the night” and there are three watches in the night and three watches of the day. So put them together, there are six-thousand-year watches. Together they form the day of the Lord. And is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom and no brightness…no light within? Yes. This is the world in which we live.884 ¶17

Tonight, a man with one billion dollars…and there are men living in this world with a billion dollars who are about to make their exit from the world. They will leave it to those who don’t care for one moment that they ever lived, may I tell you, especially when you get beyond the second generation. Go beyond the third, who cares what grandfather or grandmother ever looked like? Today they are waiting eagerly for mothers and fathers to die. You mean they are going to prolong their lives another year? I must wait another year before I get their fortune? That has been the history of the world, and so, all of this is darkness, complete darkness.884 ¶18

You can’t do a thing about it. We were subjected unto this futility and being prepared to prove one thing, that there is no Baal, no other God, one God. “Before me no God existed, nor shall there be any God after me,” sayeth the Lord of hosts. You read it carefully, the 43 rd of Isaiah . Only one God, and that God became us in the most literal sense that we may become God. But we didn’t initiate it and we don’t consummate it. God initiated it, emanated himself and fragmented himself; we are the fragmented beings. But, he buried himself in the entire world that he emanated and then redeems it all, one by one, and brings it all back, all to himself, this time augmented beyond the wildest dream. This fragmented world became the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity; and when he brings it back, there’s no limit to translucence, that expansion that is God. And you and I being one with God, not two, we enjoy that translucence.884 ¶19

I had just a glimpse of it in 1926 in Larchmont, New York. I was the guest of a manager of the club, but with the line of demarcation between the manager and his guests and the members of the club. And this was a Saturday night and all the young boys and girls came to dance. ’26 was Prohibition, as you know, well, all these lovely young boys and girls and they brought their own homemade hooch, and it was quite a party. [...] and management thought it unwise that I, a guest of management, should attend the dance along with those who were members and their guests. So I retired early, got in my bed, I was reading the book of the life of Buddha, and I turned the light on. A thing I rarely do is to read in bed. This night I did, and as I was reading the book I fell into a trance. It was quite early in the evening and the noise was going, all this music from below, but suddenly I heard nothing. I was in one deep trance, and when I awoke from that trance the next morning, it must have been nine or ten, the sun was out, party was over, the book was on my chest, proving I had not turned in the interval; for had I turned one moment the book would not be on my chest. The light was still burning and the book was on my chest, open, and [...].884 ¶20

So in that interval of maybe eleven hours, I fell into this deep, deep state of infinite pulsing light. There was no circumference, there was no world, there was nothing; I was the only reality. There was nothing but infinite pulsing light, a beauty and an ecstasy you cannot describe in words. So I tasted of the union of this that is spoken of in scripture. Call me now…the day is over, and call me “my husband” and call me no more “my owner.” And in that night I simply became one with infinite light and there was nothing but a joy and an ecstasy. I know there is in store, in spite of the union, the oneness, and all will experience it. There will still be a union interpersonally, I know that. That was not fully revealed to me, but that I do know. But I’ve experienced the union, that oneness of infinite pulsing ecstasy [...]. So here, I am not theorizing.884 ¶21

So I’m asking you this night when you go to bed, identify yourself—not you and Christ—say “I am Christ.” If the word offends you, say “I am God.” If you can’t do it, come as near to it as you can. But don’t take your present identity forever with you into that deep, for you will limit yourself by that association. For you’re called upon in this to simply bring about a change. He likens us to a woman in labor, and when we are in labor we are in sorrow because the moment for our delivery has come, the moment is upon us. But after the child is delivered…but only after the child is delivered do we rejoice because a human being has been born into the world. Now, there’s a difference in the words in the 16 th of John . The first one is translated correctly “child”: After the child is born, that’s right. Now, the King James Version will say, after that, and use the same word “child” again. It’s not, it’s an entirely different Greek word meaning “a human being,” which the Revised Standard Version gives us as a footnote. They use the word “child” not to offend the mind, but they give you a footnote saying the Greek word is “a human being.” You are that human being. First, you are in labor. Now a human being is born and now you rejoice because of that, and there is no more sorrow.884 ¶22

Then he reappears in your world. He disappears for a while then he reappears. So God disappeared from our world. We thought he was in the stars, we thought he was in the sun, we thought he was in something else. He disappeared because he hid his face from us for a short season. We didn’t know he so became us that that was his hiding. He is so close, so much our very being that he is to us a hidden God. But he was never so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. That’s what he was. He so became us that he was to us like a hidden God, and we thought he might be even near and we approached him as though he were near. He isn’t “near.” He can’t even be near, for that does imply separation, and he isn’t separated. He actually became what I am, what you are…and he isn’t pretending. That’s why he seems to be a hidden God. But if only God resurrects and when you resurrect it’s only you, then now you know who he is and, therefore, who you are. Because, if I am born from above only through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and I was resurrected—I didn’t see any Jesus Christ on the outside—I was the only one resurrected in that sepulcher of my skull. And then I came out as one being born to find the symbol of my birth, wrapped in a swaddling cloth, called a little child. And I took him in my arms just as you’re told in scripture: And he held the child in his arms and said, you must receive the kingdom as a little child, and he held him in his arms, and it broke into the smile…called Isaac. Well, if this thing happens in this way, well, I can tell you from experience, before it happens to you, start this very night to identify yourself with Jesus Christ.884 ¶23

No matter what you did today that would be unbecoming to such a character, it doesn’t matter… all things are forgiven. Everything is forgiven—I don’t care what you have done—in the end everything is forgiven. So tonight, identify yourself with him and feel I am Jesus Christ. And may I suggest, if you do, your dreams will change, your visions will change, because only Christ would have such visions. So to identify yourself with Christ, as Christ you will automatically change the nature of the vision. God is speaking to himself from the depth of himself through vision, so you’ll see a far different future for yourself. But if you go to bed this night as John Brown, who is in pain or who is in want or who is distressed in a thousand little ways, that’s what you’ll bring back tomorrow morning.884 ¶24

To go back to that simple little technique…and I can’t tell you even if you don’t think of anyone, but how you can stop that impulse of thinking of someone with sympathy, I don’t know. But, just to sit in the Silence…and have the dark convolutions of the brain burst into light, and they do, this pulsing, golden liquid light. And while you observe it it’s a thrill just to observe, and then in that think of someone and empathize. Feel the joy that is their joy because things are as they ought to be for them, and bathe them in it as it were. This is a very easy thing and very…not only easy, it’s not tiring at all. There is no effort to this technique, none whatsoever.884 ¶25

So here, the Promise is fulfilled when man can say “my husband” (meaning God), for God promised him from the beginning he would leave all and cleave to his wife until they became one being. So they become one being, so there aren’t two. Two can’t resurrect, only one can resurrect. Two are not through the skull, only one comes out. When the witnesses come to bear witness to that which has happened, they only mention one name and you are that name. You’re the being. So the whole thing unfolds within you, the whole drama of life. People are looking for it in some other way; it doesn’t work that way. It’s not secular history. As we said earlier, the whole drama of life, the whole of life’s dramatic struggle is moving towards the fulfillment of God’s purpose. His purpose is to so fuse you to himself that there aren’t you and God, just God, and you are God. So it’s his purpose to give himself to us as though there were no other, and when it’s accomplished, then I am he.884 ¶26

So I tell you tonight, I have experienced it. We told you last Tuesday night he gave you two children. As you’re told in the 8 th chapter of the book of Isaiah, “And behold my children whom the Lord has given me,” then he named the two children . They are not really what scholars believed them to be at all. They’re jawbreakers if you want to sound the names. And they claim it means the first child, the eldest child; means “the return or the remnant returns.” But you’ll find a footnote in the Revised Standard Version that the word really means “a remnant will repent.” A remnant will repent.884 ¶27

Well, we can tell the whole vast world today this story, only a very small section would really believe it to the point of practicing the art of repentance. Repentance being a return, yes, fine, it’s a return, a remnant will return. For I start from a certain project and then I decide to change my mind…not doing that. I’ll change my mind and return. So, a remnant will return or a remnant will repent. So I tell you, by a change of attitude, instead of saying I’m John Brown going to bed, I’m Christ going to bed…that’s a return, that’s a remnant. How many of those who hear me will do it? There’s just a few of us. But suppose I said the same thing tonight over radio or over TV to the whole vast world, what percentage would think I was sane? An nth part of one percent would listen to the point of applying it, so only one nth part would become the remnant that would return, or repent, or turn back, and actually identify themselves with being Christ. So that’s the first child, the Christ child, the little child that comes through one’s effort to, say, practice the art of repentance.884 ¶28

For the first words put into the mouth of Christ, in the earliest gospel which is Mark, is “The time is fulfilled; repent and believe the gospel” . So the first words in his mouth “repent and believe the gospel.” And the second child is the one who conquers the enemies of Israel and the one who conquers the enemies of Israel is David. David conquered the enemy of Israel, and took the stronghold of Zion, and renamed Zion the city of David . We are born in the city of David, and we’re told that the Lord’s home is Mt. Zion. So, the second one that comes—he gave me two children—and the second one is the proof of the overcoming of all these false beliefs of the world.884 ¶29

So no longer can I say “my Baal,” I can only say “my husband.” So I can’t turn to teacup leaves and ask anyone to read my future for me, or astrology, or numerology, or any other, or monkey bones. They have all kinds of things in the world.884 ¶30

Sitting in the bus coming home the other day in Beverly Hills, an old gentleman got on, a strange, weird looking creature, and a beautiful little girl was seated in the bus with her mother. She must have been about two years old, pretty little beauty, and she was moving back and forth on the bus, and the mother was trying to make her quiet. Her mother was so young that she was irritable with the child. With a parent my age [...] holding her. But this was a young mother, and so she didn’t care that the child was pretty or not. So the old gentleman said, “I am a prophet, I can foresee the future. Want me to tell the future of this child?”884 ¶31

Of course, the whole bus, they were alive, the future! But the little child was so pretty, it was a beautiful little child, and all of them heard him. He said, “I will tell you the future of this child. She will not die a spinster.” Well, it was so obvious! She would not die a spinster, not this little child. Of course, they all looked for something else. They thought she would become a queen or a duchess or a fabulously wealthy person. No, she was a sweet little child and being a humorous old gentleman, he said, “She will not die a spinster.” But they were not going to live with that, they wanted prophecy, as these people go to these gypsy tearooms all over the world. We have them in New York City. You’d be amazed how many people go and come out believing too. Oh, really believing!, and if they are really believing now it will come to pass, and they will think the power was in the leaves that the little old lady poured out for them. Hasn’t a thing to do with that.884 ¶32

In the end you will not say “my Baal”; in the end of the Lord’s day when the darkness has come to an end and light breaks upon you, you will say “my husband.” Then the two will become one and you will have no other God to whom you will turn. You can’t turn to any other God, and he is so fused with you, you can’t turn to anyone in this world.884 ¶33

How, night after night or day after day, through my entire well-matured years, a strong imagination begets the event. Biblical faith is essentially faith in God as Savior. But this God of whom the Bible speaks is your own wonderful human imagination. Your own imagination is God, the immortal you. That is the divine body, Jesus. Imagination is not some vague essence, as one would be led to believe — it is a person. And that person is Jesus in you. That is your own wonderful human imagination. It is this being in you that must be raised. He’s buried in you.882 ¶1

Now, I took that theme from the current issue of Time magazine. You might have read it — it’s in the current issue. The man who said it was quoting Montaigne, the great French essayist, who lived in the 16th century. He undoubtedly has influenced the thinking of most thinkers of the world. And he quoted it in Latin when he presented a product that he had, and then translated it forward, which is: a strong imagination begets the event. Now this is his story.882 ¶2

At the age of 36, in 1946, he inherited a business from his father. He became president of the company. It made photocopies of things. It was in Rochester, or into the company, began to be cut back. The government cut it down to practically nothing. He had to look around for something else. And someone suggested that he look into a certain invention that came out in the 30s, but was never commercialized. It was offered to IBM, and they turned it down. It was offered to Kodak, and they turned it down. Offered to the AB Dick Company, and they turned it down. So he took it home and looked it over, and to him he thought it had much in its favor. For the next 12 years he simply imagined, just imagined. Of course he did put money into it. His company was making money, and what they made in 12 years, he put all that they had made in 12 years plus what he could borrow. So he invested $75 million — half of that his company in 12 years had made — and he borrowed loans and issued stocks in order to get this thing moving. In 1960, 12 years later, he brought out the first tangible evidence of this machine. He took no salary in that interval. He took stock in lieu of salary. He persuaded his executives to do the same thing, and just take stock if they could live. Well, he and 300-odd became multi-millionaires. That thing was zero. Today, it’s 1,700,000,000 a year. One of the giants in our country — 1 billion 700 million a year. Last week he died, having lunch with Governor Rockefeller and his wife, and sitting at the table having lunch he simply collapsed, at the age of 61. He was chairman of the board of trustees of his alma mater, the University of Rochester. And in that capacity he persuaded the board to put $196,000 of their money into his stock. In less than 10 years, that $196,000 was worth $120 million. That’s what it was worth last week. $196,000 became $120 million. And when he died, he left his alma mater $20 million outright, and millions more in trust. And under his picture, if you have a copy — it’s this week — it has: imagine, imagine, imagine. And when he made the first sales pitch for his machine, he quoted this Latin phrase of Montaigne, which translated simply means: a strong imagination begets the event.882 ¶3

So, when I’m told to believe in God — if I believe in God, but not as some vague essence, I believe in God as a person. I am a person. I do not speak of my imagination as something on the outside that I am manipulating. That’s my reality. I am all imagination. Man is all imagination. And God is man, and exists in us, and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself, the divine body we call the Lord Jesus. It is buried in these garments of flesh, and the true and full awakening of the human imagination is what everyone aches for. So here, my whole concept of life is based upon this concept of God — not something on the outside, but that which is buried within me, my own wonderful human imagination. That is God.882 ¶4

Now I contest it — test yourselves and see, I am told, come and test him and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test? Test yourselves and see if you’re holding to the faith. Do I really believe that Jesus Christ is in me? If I believe he’s in me, then find out where he is. Don’t just say he’s in my skull, but in some strange way try not only to locate him but to identify him. And so I have identified him, because by him all things are made — good, bad, and indifferent — and if all things are made by him, I must watch what I am doing to catch him, to find out who he is that makes things in my world. I’ve found him to be the dreamer, the dreamer in me that fashions the dream — that’s the beam, that’s God. That beam, in one twinkle of an eye in the morning, brings me from a deep, deep sleep to the surface mind by building a bridge of incident in no time flat. He builds a bridge of incident through which, or across which, I travel to come to the surface of my being.882 ¶5

Only some majestical, magical being could do that. Who is he? He is the dreamer. The dreamer in me. The same dreamer that daydreams. The same dreamer that took this man, Joseph Chamberlain Wilson. And he took this little thing that was turned down by the giants — IBM turned it down, Kodak turned it down, AB Dick turned it down, all giants — but he had faith in it. He had faith in his own imagination. That is the story behind the entire article, as you will see it in the current issue of Time magazine: a strong imagination begets the event.882 ¶6

So I tell you, you can start now. It’s never too late to start, if you know who God is. God is your own wonderful human imagination, and you can take any goal in this world if you are willing to be as consistent as he was. And he took no salary. “Give me stock” — others would call it plain paper, meaning nothing. All right, give it to me. But you can take $196,000, and in less than 10 years, in pieces of paper called stock, and that piece of paper today is worth 120 million. Do you know what he left? When he took it over the years only in stock, and he was chairman of the board, there were 300 who all became multi-multimillionaires who believed what he said.882 ¶7

I ask you to simply test it, test it, to see if you’re holding to the faith. If I use the word Jesus Christ, or the word God, or the word Lord, or the word Jehovah, and it conveys in any way whatsoever the sense of some existent something outside of man, you have failed the test. You have the wrong God. You have the wrong Lord, the wrong Jesus Christ. For the Lord God Jehovah is your imagination, and that is Jesus Christ.882 ¶8

Now, who is the dreamer in the Bible? His name is Joseph. Read the 37th chapter of Genesis when you go home — it’s a beautiful chapter. It begins with the history of the family of Jacob — that’s how it starts. And then — now Jacob’s name is Israel, for Jacob wrestled successfully with the Lord, and he changed his name from Jacob, which means a supplanter, to Israel. And the word Israel, if you break it down, is simply the man who rules as God — not like a God, as God, his God. That’s Israel. Now, Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age. Well, he wasn’t the last one, for Benjamin was — he was the 11th, Benjamin was the 12th. But then he said the son of the old age — you can see this whole picture now, with Abraham and Isaac, the son of his old age, he is a promised child has come. Now Joseph’s name was changed to that of Joshua. Moses changed his name from Oshea to Joshua. Well, Joshua is the Hebraic form of the word Jesus, and Jesus means “Jehovah his salvation” — that’s what the root of Jesus is, which is the root of Joshua. Jehovah is the root of the word. So his name really is Joshua, which is Jesus. So he changed the name to Joshua. He had a dream, already interpreted the dream. The brothers hated him. Then he had a second dream, which also now included the father and mother. When the father heard of it, the father kept it to himself. Jacob kept it to himself, because the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed before him, which meant the parents and brothers would all bow before him as the ruler — he would be the Lord. Then we are told in the 37th chapter of Genesis that as he approached, the brothers said, “Behold, this dreamer cometh.” Here comes the dreamer — and it was Joseph — and they sold him into slavery. So you’re told in the New Testament that Jesus emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave. That’s the same story told differently. Took upon himself the form of a slave, and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross. This is the cross. This is the garment of slavery. This is the garment of forgetfulness. And I actually became one who completely forgot who I am, when I assumed this form of the slave. But who assumed it? The dreamer. And who is the dreamer? Joshua. And who is Joshua? Jesus. And who is Jesus? The Lord God Jehovah — that is your own wonderful human imagination. That is Jesus.882 ¶9

Now we are told all things are possible to him. So when Paul speaks now of things that he believes — listen to him carefully. He’s writing his final letter to Timothy. And in this letter to Timothy he says, “I know whom I have believed” — not what. Everyone will tell you what he believes: “I believe this, that, and the other.” You ask a Christian who knows anything about the creed, he will say and repeat the creed, the Apostles’ Creed — this is what he believes. That’s what Paul says. That’s all theology, that’s all the ceremonies of the outer world. He says, “I know whom I have believed.” It’s a person. Now he turns to Timothy — he said, “Thou follow the pattern of the true words which you have heard from me, the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” He dwells within me.882 ¶10

He is the Holy One, and he is the dreamer dreaming this life of mine. He waits on me just as indifferently, and as swiftly, when the will in me is evil as when it is good. It doesn’t really matter, for out of him springs forth good and evil. Listen to the words in the 45th of Isaiah: “I form the light and I create the darkness, I make peace and I create evil, I am the Lord who do all these things.” Yes, out of me all things come — good, bad, or indifferent, whatever I imagine. But let anyone imagine anything that’s going to come out into this world, ring about it and project itself on the screen of space, to bear witness to his own creative power. He is creating it, morning, noon, and night. So watch what you are imagining, for that is God in action, and there is no other God.882 ¶11

So as you imagine, so your life is going to be. You want to be other than what you are? You can’t be, if you know who God is. Because by him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made. Now here is the secret. This fabulous world of ours is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. The whole vast world is for that purpose, to appease your hunger. And if you know who you are, you can view the world from any state in this world, from infinite states, and these states are purely a means to satisfy this hunger. So if I want to be other than what I am at the moment, first of all define what I want to be. What would I want to be, what would I like to be in this world — now begin to imagine as if it were true. I know what I want to be. Well then, if I want to be it, cease wanting to be it, and appropriate it. Make the feeling something that is real now. Suppose it were true. Begin now to imagine the thing as if it were true. That is subjectively appropriating the objective hope. “I hope it will be true” — well, now appropriate it first subjectively, as though it is true. So I appropriate it subjectively. As I appropriate it subjectively, what am I appropriating? I am appropriating the objective hope. That’s what this man Wilson did.882 ¶12

That’s what he had in view. He wanted to have this thing because what he had before — the war came to an end, the whole thing would fall apart. He had to find something new, a new product, and the big giants turned it down, but that didn’t faze him. They turned it down — they had all the money in the world to get behind it — but he bought the rights to it, and then for 12 years he imagined and kept on. He never faltered. He simply persisted in the imaginal act. To change my world I have to change the imaginal act. Every natural effect in this world has an imaginal act as the cause. It is not caused by things wrong about you — it’s the unseen cause, the imaginal act, that produces it. The so-called outside causes are all delusion, based upon our own faulty memory. We can’t remember when we imagine. Few people can go back over 12 years and imagine, and remember when he imagined that 12 years ago, when others thought him stupid and wasteful. As he said in this article — it takes a young man to make these decisions, because he is naive enough to make these decisions. “If today, at 61, I were asked would I do the same thing, I think I would have to be psychoanalyzed.” But he was only 36 then — he called that the young man. At 61 he thinks, “I might have to be psychoanalyzed to make that decision — to spend 75 million that I didn’t have, for it took 12 years to make half of that from my company, and I invested all of that, plus what I could borrow, and what I could raise by floating new stocks, and taking stocks in lieu of salary, and persuading my executives to do the same thing” — and 300 of them became millionaires, multimillionaires.882 ¶13

So I say to you tonight, if you have a goal — I’m not here in judgment as to what your goal is, you be the judge of what is your goal — if you have a goal, you can attain it. You can attain it by the use of your own wonderful human imagination, for that is God. There is no other God. Let the world speak of all kinds of gods on the outside — perfectly all right, they have them, but they do not exist. There are the little things on the wall that people make with their hands and then worship them. These concepts of God are not God. The true God — don’t have a concept of him. He’s a person, and that person is your reality, and that reality that is immortal is your own wonderful human imagination. It cannot die. That is the immortal you.882 ¶14

If you should drop now, it survives — it’s restored to life in a world just like this, but not yet awake. There’s a vast difference between awakening from this dream and continuing the dream. And you do not end where your senses seem to pass away, as it will — so the world comes to an end. When my father died, my mother died, my brother died — but they did not cease to be, where my senses cease to relish in them. They will restore the life, but not resurrect it. The day will come each will be resurrected, which means that they will awaken from the dream of life. For who is awakening? Imagination. It is the Lord Jesus in you who will awake from this dream of life, and when he awakes, he is God himself.882 ¶15

So thinking from the end is the secret of it all. Always go to the end. We are always imagining ahead of our evidence, and the most creative thing in us is to imagine and to believe a thing into existence. As we are told in the letter to the Romans: “And God calls things that are not seen as though they were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.” That’s the fourth chapter, the 17th verse of Romans. That is the Catholic translation — I prefer it to the Protestant translation, which is: God calls a thing that does not exist, and the thing that does not exist comes into existence. Well, that’s all right, but I prefer the Catholic translation: he calls the thing that is not seen.882 ¶16

You do not see with your mortal eye the man that you want to be — not yet — but you will call it as though it is seen. But how would you call a thing as though it is seen? You walk in the assumption that you are that man. But how will I know that I am really walking as that man? Well then, think of friends of yours who never knew this man before, and then let them see that man. So when they pass you by in your mind’s eye, they’ll see the man that you’re assuming that you are, and they will say of you, “I knew him when” — that would imply that you are not what they formerly knew. “I knew him when he didn’t have a nickel.” “I knew him when he lived on the other side of the street.” “I knew him when” — let them say these things. All that would imply you are not that, that they knew, but they know this man now, the new man. So you dare to trouble yourself with the new man, and you dare to tell yourself with a new man, and you walk as if it were true, and that’s the way to success.882 ¶17

As Shakespeare puts it so beautifully: “It hath been taught us from the primal state, That he which is was wished until he were.” He which is was wished until he were. So let us become man, and remain man until man becomes God. That’s the story. So become man — that is, male, female — and remain in man until man awakens, man being all imagination. And then you are God.882 ¶18

So tonight, take the most marvelous concept you could hold of yourself, or of a friend, and dare to assume it, not only for yourself but for the friends, and walk in that assumption as though it were true, and though at the moment your reason denies it and your senses deny it, if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. This is what the Bible teaches.882 ¶19

But we have gone so far astray with all the theology and all the ceremonies and all the ecclesiasticals. That is not religion. That’s not true religion. That’s not what the Bible teaches. If you read — you read it carefully — you take the story and it presents itself as history, secular history. It’s not secular history. It’s the story of salvation.882 ¶20

So I will tell you now the history, said he, the history of the family of Jacob. And then you read it, and how he loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a long and wonderful robe with sleeves. One day you’ll find out why the sleeve — why that sleeve is severed, that the arm of the Lord may be revealed, which means the might and the power of God. And these things happen after you are born from above. That sleeve is torn away from your garment, and it’s a beautiful color, lovely color. So you’re told of this garment, he made a multicolored garment, but the sleeve that comes off is the most beautiful baby blue when he tears it off. He who seems to be the authority, he severs it, and then pulls it off, and your arm is bare from here to there. And then you know the words, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Then you see how literally true scripture is. It’s not just only figurative, but it is literally true. Actually you go through that experience, where your sleeve — or he made him a long robe with sleeves. Your Joseph, and who did be clothing? He clothed Joseph, and Joseph’s name is Joshua, and Joshua is Jesus. So whose arm has been unveiled? The Lord himself. Then you’ll know who you are.882 ¶21

All these things add up to your knowledge of God, and you find God not as something external to yourself, you find him as yourself. You are the Lord, you are God, and there is nothing in the world but God.882 ¶22

So if you take it seriously and test it, you’re proven. Don’t say no to it before you test it. And if there is evidence for a thing, it doesn’t really matter how stupid it seems to be. On the surface, this little machine called Xerox seems stupid, and all the brilliant minds that they employ, giving them fabulous salaries to bring new things into their company, and they pass their judgment: that is not good. You go to another firm with millions behind them to invest — Kodak — that’s no good. And here he calls it Xerox because it’s the Greek meaning dry writing, and so he named it perfectly. At first it was called xerography, dry writing, condensing, Xerox. Now, wouldn’t those who now have stock in IBM, who are the big giants in IBM, would they not like to have their few thousand shares of Xerox when it was nothing? How rapidly, in 12 years, that thing grew from $196,000, that produced $120,000. It doesn’t make sense, does it? But there are the facts, and the facts stare you in the face. So here are the facts: $196,000, investing for his alma mater their money, and today they have $120 million out of that $196,000. And he hadn’t made — so multi, multi millions — he leaves them $20 million plus millions in trust, because he wants to pay back what he felt they did for him as a graduate of the University of Rochester, and he persuaded all others to do the same thing for their alma maters if they had really applied this principle of imagining.882 ¶23

Well, I tell you, God is your own wonderful human imagination. Others may tell you that he’s something in the sky. I turned on this evangelist the other night, and it was raining, all the rain coming down on him, and he had to plug his father-in-law. His father-in-law got up and spoke in Chinese — I can understand Chinese — then he interpreted for us in Chinese, English. Then he plugged his book. Then he tells this vast audience, 65,000 of them over there, plus the millions who were looking, and I was one of them, and he makes a big pitch for money — this cost an awful lot of money, he said, so let us hear from you. Well, he spent the first 15, 20 minutes on plugging for money, publicizing his father-in-law. The father-in-law takes the mic and publicizes him. So the first 20 minutes went into self-congratulations. Then I turned it off.882 ¶24

I couldn’t wait any longer. Where’s the message? What message is he going to give me concerning scripture? And I could think of nothing but that word of AE, George Russell, the great Irish mystic, poet and painter. And all the priests met in Dublin one year, and he wrote his friend in America. He said, “A thousand priests are here for some great convention, and it has started to rain,” said AE, “and I do hope the good Lord shows his displeasure and grounds the back of him.” Well, here the rain is coming down on him, and he is telling us how he is suffering in the rain. All the others are under shelter, but he is rough, all right. But he is going to receive fortunes that night from his crusade, and that is called the work of Christ.882 ¶25

And he is pointing on the outside to him. He’s going to come from someplace on the outside. He’ll wait forever and never find him until he finds him within himself. And when he finds him, it’s his son who reveals him. And his son is David. And David stands before him and calls him father. Then he will know who the Lord Christ Jesus is. He will know Christ who stands before him, and he will know himself as the Lord Jesus, who is the Lord God Jehovah. Only then will he know it.882 ¶26

But now you take it and try to feel — I hope you can actually identify yourself with the dreamer. Can you come to some identification with this dreamer? So you not speak of something on the outside creating it, but your own being is creating the dream, the dream of night, and this is the dream of day, for this is just as much a dream. People ask you, never, “What is a vision?” But this is a vision, right now, this is a vision — oh no, I don’t mean that, I mean when you close your eyes and you see something. I said this is the vision, this is just as much a vision as the vision of the night. To me, my visions of the night have cubic reality, just like this, solid, real. This whole vast world is vision.882 ¶27

But Blake said to his friends who wondered, “What must I do to do what you do, to see as you see?” He said, “You only have to raise imagination to the point of vision, and the thing is done. But,” said he, “the nature of visionary fancy or imagination is very little known.” People do not know it. They can’t be intense about it and raise it to something just like this. It is just like this. This is vision. The whole vast world is vision, and you are the one creating it all.882 ¶28

So this is the dream of life when you’re awake, and it’s a dream when you are asleep, and you call that the dream. This is just as much the dream. And if you catch yourself dreaming, your chances are you’re going to wake. But if you catch yourself dreaming and decide not to wake, you can control the dream and make it come out as you want it. The same thing here — if you know this is the dream, you can change the nature of the dream. And so you can simply assume that you are what you would like to be, and that friends of yours are what you would like them to be, and walk in that assumption as though it were true. And to the degree that you are faithful to that assumption, having faith in God who is your own wonderful human imagination, to that degree it will externalize itself in your world.882 ¶29

Now that is my story to you, and to everyone who will listen to me. I would not take back one word or alter one word. The whole thing has been explained to me in the depths of my own being. It’s been revealed to me. I am not speculating. I’m not trying to set up any workable philosophy of life. I have no desire to set up a little church — we have too many already, all the little isms, run for self-help, really, of the individual who runs them, not for the help of those who come. It’s just a personal little thing of those who set up the little organization. Well, I have no desire to set up any organization. Just to tell it to you in the hope that your memory is good enough to retain it. Now, at least your memory is aided by these things here — if you’ve forgotten, you can always stick the little thing and play it back, and then try to refresh your memory.882 ¶30

All I ask of you is don’t change it. There are those who attempt to change what I have said to make it conform to what they think I ought to have said. No — I say exactly what happened to me, so don’t try to change it. As I told a friend tonight, a lady in San Francisco, she thought I should not mention certain things. She was a strict vegetarian and a strict teetotaler, and she altered my script to say that I say a man should be a vegetarian and a teetotaler. Well, I’ve never said that. I take my martinis every day. I don’t do it six days a week and not on Sunday — I have no Sunday, every day is my Lord’s Day, so I take it on Sunday, Saturday, Monday. But every day I have a few martinis before my evening meal, and a nice bottle of wine for my lunch — that, and a little cheese, is my lunch, but a bottle of wine. I thoroughly enjoy it, and she dares to take what I said and then rub it out and put in her own little concept, and says, “This is what Neville teaches.”882 ¶31

So I’m asking you one thing: do not change what I am saying. If you approve or disapprove, leave it just as it is. I am telling you who I know to be God. And I tell you over and over again, God is your own wonderful human imagination, and all things are possible to God, therefore all things are possible to your imagination. Everything you see in this world was first only imagined. It had to be first imagined. This little thing called Xerox — this man called Carlson invented it. No one showed any interest. And in the 1930s he brought it out. He was a physicist, and he knew it would work. But no one showed any interest. But he first had to imagine it, and then he executed it. Still they would not accept it.882 ¶32

Then comes one with real imagination who was awake — only 36 years old, in a business that he inherited from his father — and he saw the potential, and he was willing to take all the earnings of 12 years, that’s what he could borrow in loans, and what he could get in issuing new stocks, and he put $75 million into a project because he imagined it and believed it. He saw the reality.882 ¶33

If I begin to imagine now, and suddenly before my eyes comes the solid reality of what I’m imagining, who is going to tell me it isn’t real? Else, but to me it’s real, I saw it. Well then I will go all out and sell everything I have to prove it to the world. If I had interest in business — my father did that: every morning after breakfast he would sit down in what we call the Berbice chair, and put his feet out on the arms of a chair — it’s a chair made in the West Indies — and there he would simply, with his eyes partly shut, he would see the day as he wanted it to be. He would carry on mental conversations with many he had to meet that day from his premises, and brought them to his conclusion, and that’s how he worked. And my brother Victor did the same thing. It doesn’t matter what things look like in the world. You see that he wants to see it, and things come up, and now they’ve made millions — but millions in a little tiny place like Barbados. Put him here, he will be the Xerox setup, because he has a vivid imagination and he knows how to use it.882 ¶34

But as Blake says, the nature of visionary fancy or imagination is very little understood. They don’t understand it. He said, everything I see in my world is vision. The tree is vision. You think it’s a solid reality? I can bring it before my mind’s eye, it is just as solid as that. So I can make everything real. I know from my own experience. But I have no interest in business. I certainly could actually take a business concept and bring it to the point where I could seem to be real, but I have no desire whatsoever to go into business. So my visions are based upon someone asking help of me, or the Bible, bringing it out from its so-called state and actually seeing it as something real into my world. And it’s real. All these things are real. The Bible is reality from beginning to end, but it’s all vision. From Genesis to Revelation, the whole thing is vision. It’s not any little concept that our churches tell you about.882 ¶35

So I ask you to catch this, and put it into essence: is this — believe in God. You believe in God, believe in your imagination, for that’s God. So when you’re told in the 14th of John, “You believe in God, believe in me also” — he’s telling you, he and the Father are one. He tells you later on in that same chapter, “You see me, you see the Father.” So, you believe in God the Father, believe in me also — I am your imagination. Now believe in that and you can’t go wrong. Believe in the reality of your imaginary acts, and they all become facts, every one of them.882 ¶36

And I do hope you will start now, if you haven’t started. I ask nothing of you in the way of Caesar’s will, not one penny, but I would like confirmation in the form of a letter. I love to feel that you’re getting the results — that you don’t have to share with me the fruit of this principle, I’m not asking you for that at all. I’ve never asked for it. I’ve been doing this since 1938, and I’ve never made an appeal for my platform, or in any other form, to raise money. I have never. And today I would quit and go elsewhere before I would ask you for one greasy penny outside the price you pay when you come here — I have to pay for this place, and so it has to be defrayed, expensive, but I have never appealed to anyone for a penny. I started on the second day of February 1938, and anyone who can go back far enough will know I have never once asked for one nickel. I either had to prove it to myself, or else let it fall by the wayside.882 ¶37

And so I tell you, it works. It will not fail you, but we are the operant power — it doesn’t operate itself. If I know what to do, do it. If I do not do what I know I should do, that’s sinning. I’m going to miss the mark, not anything else. If I know what is right to do and I don’t do it, well then, that’s sin. So let us now go into the silence and see ourselves as we would like to be seen by the whole vast world. And when we break the silence and go home tonight, walk in the assumption that we are that person. Now let us go. Thank you.882 ¶38

You will find tonight very practical, and yet I assure you, very, very spiritual. Christianity has to be continually redeemed from secular history, for Jesus Christ is the human imagination. As Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed upon us by God.” Now tonight we’ll show you one of these gifts if you really understand who Jesus Christ is. I tell you, He is your own wonderful human imagination. That is Christ.881 ¶1

It comes as a shock when you first hear it if you were raised in the tradition as the speaker was. I was raised in a Christian home; and naturally, like hundreds of millions of Christians, we were taught it as a secular history: a little boy who was born of a woman who knew not a man, and that his father was God, and he was the son of God; and that was the story as I was taught it. But I was searching and seeking from the time I think I can remember. I believed the story as Mother taught it to me. I did believe it. And I can’t tell any one the shock that was mine; and sometimes, maybe, I wondered if it would not have been better to turn back, like Israel in the desert, and go back into slavery; but I couldn’t, any more than they could. They had to keep moving towards the Promised Land. For when you are disillusioned, having been taught the story as we all have been taught it, to discover that he is not something in history, — he is nearer than your breathing, — in fact, he can’t even be “near”; he is your very Self; he is your own wonderful human imagination, — it comes as quite a shock.881 ¶2

I can tell it best by telling you a story. The year was 1933. Roosevelt was elected. I had been in this country for eleven years. I never really wanted to go back to Barbados. My parents came up in that year, and they pleaded with me to come to Barbados and join the family – become a member of the family; and I declined. I said, “No.” I saw them off at the boat; and strangely enough, as they sailed, — and they were on the deck and I waved “goodbye” to them, — a peculiar feeling came over me, and I had a desire that I had never had in eleven years to go to Barbados. I had just said “goodbye” to them, and said “No” to their request. They would have paid all expenses and brought me back, and everything would have been perfect. Then from the boat, I went to my old friend Abdullah. He was born, so I am told, in Ethiopia. He was a black man, raised in the Jewish faith, but really understood Christianity as few men that I ever met understood it. He understood the Law, not the Promise. He understood the Law.881 ¶3

So, I went to him and I told him the feeling that came over me: that I wanted to go to Barbados. I had just waved at my parents, and a peculiar feeling possessed me; and he said to me, “You are in Barbados.” Well, that did not make sense to me. I am standing in his place on 72nd Street, off Central Park West; that’s where he lived. He lived at 30 West 72nd Street. And here I am in his place, and he’s telling me that I am in Barbados! He didn’t explain what he meant. So, as the days went by, I said to him, “Ab, I am no nearer to Barbados than I was when I spoke to you.” And he said to me, “If you are in Barbados, you cannot discuss the means of getting to Barbados. You must actually live in Barbados in your imagination as though you were there – just as if – and view the world from Barbados. If you sleep in Barbados and view the world from Barbados, the means will appear, and you will go to Barbados. But as far as I am concerned, you are already in Barbados, because you desired it with intensity. All you had to do was simply to enter it; and you enter it now in New York City even though it is two thousand miles across water, — and you aren’t going to walk across water; but you enter Barbados and view the world from it. If you see the world from Barbados, then you have to be in Barbados.”881 ¶4

He did not explain to me then, but I learned later that man, being all imagination, man is wherever he is in imagination; and imagination is the God-in-man. That is the Eternal Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and “all things are possible to Him,” and “by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” – that what is now proven was once only imagined. These things I did not know then. He simply talked in the over-all picture. But I did my best, and I slept mentally in Barbados in my mother’s home. I looked at the world, and saw it from Barbados. I looked at the world, and saw it from Barbados. I saw New York City two thousand miles to the north of me – northwest, for we are at a certain Latitude 13 North; New York is 42 North. We are the 59th Longitude; New York is the 74th; so I saw it northwest, as I could imagine it. I heard the tropical noises. We call this land tropical. It really isn’t tropical in the really true sense of the word. When you go into the tropics, it’s something entirely different, and I was born in the tropics – almost on the Equator. It’s an entirely different odor. Sunsets go like this: you look at the sun, and the sun disappears suddenly. A ball of red light becomes green. You are looking at the sun, and suddenly, in the matter of a split second, you are seeing a green sun. You are seeing the complement of red. So, we have no twilights in Barbados. The sun goes down rapidly from a red ball to a green ball, and you see the green ball. So, the whole atmosphere differs. Well, I put myself into that, and felt that my mother and father were in their room, and that my brothers – those who were not yet married – were in the house. It’s a huge, big, old home of ours. And there I “slept.”881 ¶5

This was, now, late October. When it came to the end of November, I said to Ab, I said, “Ab, I am no nearer Barbados.” He said, “You are in Barbados.” Then he turned his back on me, walked towards his bedroom, and slammed the door, which was not an invitation to follow him, if you understood Ab. He was teaching me a lesson, the lesson of faith. If I am actually sleeping in Barbados, no power in the world could interfere with my journey to Barbados. This is, now, late November. The last ship out of New York City sailing for Barbados was the 6th of December. I wanted to get there by Christmas, and so I could not raise the question any more. But on the morning of the 4th or the 3rd of December I got a letter from my brother Victor. I did not ask him or any member of my family to bring me to Barbados.881 ¶6

He wrote a letter and justified the contents in this manner: He said, “We are, you know, a large family” – nine brothers and a sister. “We have never been united around our Christmas table at Christmas since we were a family,” – for there was an interval between my sister Daphne and the last two boys of eight years. By that time, my oldest brother had left for Demerara in British Guiana; and by then, when he came back, my brother Lawrence went off to McGill to study medicine, and we were always moving around. But this time, every one was present but yours truly. And he said, “I am enclosing a small, little draft” — $50. But in 1933 when there were seventeen and a half million unemployed, and we didn’t have two hundred and four million citizens, we only had a hundred and twenty-odd million, — it was an enormous thing. If you were old enough to know it, may I tell you? It was really a horror! Well, I was numbered among the unemployed; so he knew that I could come if the terms were there, that I had my passage paid; so he enclosed a $50 draft to buy a suit. Well, you could buy a suit in those days for $12, $10. You could buy a pair of shoes, McCann shoes, for $3.00. So, I went down to the steamship company because in the letter he said, “I’ve notified the Company to issue you a ticket; then with the $50 you buy what you need for the trip, and then sign the chips; and when the ship comes in, I will meet the ship and pay all the things that you have incurred, all the debts.” So, when I went down to the ship company, they said to me, “I am sorry, Mr. Goddard, but I do not have a first-class passage for you. We can accommodate you third class. You have the first-class accommodation for meals, and you can have all the other areas of first class; but for sleeping, you have to move into the third class.” I said, “That’s perfectly all right with me. I’ll take it.”881 ¶7

I went back to Abdullah and I told him. Do you know what he did when I said, “I am going third class to Barbados, but I have the accommodations of the first for the daylight hours?” He said, “Who told you you’re going third class? You are already in Barbados, and you went first class.” Again, he closed the door on me. I went down to the ship the morning it sailed, on the 6th of December; and the ticket agent said to me, “Mr. Goddard, I have good news for you. We have a cancellation, and now you can go first class, but you will share it with two others. There are three in the cabin.” “That is perfectly all right with me.” So, I went down first class.881 ¶8

Abdullah said to me, “You know, Neville, when you return from Barbados, you will have died!” He never explained a statement of that nature. “You will have died.” I am coming back from Barbados, but I will have died! He spoke in these cryptic manners. Well, I did. I went down to Barbados. I was a strict vegetarian. I had not eaten one piece of meat or fish or fowl in seven years. No smoking, no alcohol, no sex; disillusioned in my first marriage, and the whole thing was simply — I became a celibate. I came back from Barbados – and in Barbados, I was the same being that I was when I arrived, to the annoyance of my family, for they made all their money in groceries – selling meat, fish, alcohol – everything; and I am enjoying a trip based upon their efforts, and yet I am not taking what they are offering. On my way north, I did everything I had not done in seven years. He was right: I “died.” That state of consciousness died. That’s what died.881 ¶9

Neville is the Immortal Being, — that is, the Inner Man is immortal. I was locked in a state. The state I departed from: so, as far as I am concerned, I died to that state. You see, life is nothing more than a hunger. This whole vast world is a hunger, and there are unnumbered states of consciousness from which you and I can view the world to satisfy that hunger. So, we get out of one state into another state; and we do it in the same way I went to Barbados: sleeping physically in New York City, in my imagination I slept in Barbados; and my brother was moved to send me a ticket, and justified it by telling me the story of the family who had never been together at Christmas, to make it easy for me to say, “Yes,” for I did not request it. I did not ask it. He simply wrote the letter and enclosed a little draft, and told me to go and get my ticket.881 ¶10

So, I was there for three months, and I came back; and then, I tell you, to discover the creative power of the world was my own imagination was an awful shock! It was easier in the past to believe in an external Christ – much easier to believe in an external God to whom I could pray; and then if He didn’t answer I would say, “Well, all right; so He doesn’t want me to have it.” I could justify failure. But then I had no escape, and that is a very difficult thing. I couldn’t turn to the left or the right and praise or blame any one, for I had found the Cause of the phenomena of life, and that Cause was my own wonderful human imagination, and that is what Scripture calls “God” and calls “Jesus Christ.”881 ¶11

Then I would read it differently. I would go to the pictures with him. I recall the day I took him to see a certain picture; and he said, “Neville, tell me, did you get anything out of it?” So, I began to interpret it for him. It was the Count of Monte Cristo. He said, “Interpret it for me;” and when I did, he was so excited and so thrilled that I had learned the lesson that everything is teaching us the same lesson in this world: there is nothing but God in the world.881 ¶12

So here, I one day took up the 14th chapter of John, and I interpreted this for him, because he would have me rise, and not more than, say, a dozen or twenty of us came to the meetings; he taught Hebrew. That’s where I learned my Hebrew. And when I took the 14th of John and began to explain it in this manner, now again the excitement that came over him! “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you shall be also.”881 ¶13

And I explained it to him in the lines of what I have just told you about my trip to Barbados. I prepared a place for this outer man that could do nothing but be anchored by his senses. Here I was, living in a basement on 75th Street, and my senses dictated the fact that I had no money – but none, and unemployed. I couldn’t possibly get to the Bronx without borrowing the nickel, and yet I wanted to go to Barbados! The Inner Man is my imagination, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and “All things are possible to Him,” if I can believe in Him. So, now, I go and prepare a place for you, Neville, — the outer man. So, I slept in Barbados, and I saw the world as I would have to see it, were I in Barbados; and in a short six weeks the means came, and I made the most heavenly trip to Barbados, spent three months in Barbados, and had a lovely trip back, bringing back adequate sums to tide me over for a while – all a gift of my family, which I did not solicit.881 ¶14

So, I then discovered who the Christ of Scripture was. He was my own wonderful human imagination. But by tradition, I fought along the way, and went back to the traditional concepts and the belief in my senses and the belief in the evidence of my senses, and what they dictated, until finally you break through from the traditional “god” to the God of experience. I experienced God on that trip, because who did it? I did it all in my imagination, and it came to pass; and if “by Him all things are made, and without Him is nothing made that is made,” and I know exactly what I did, — well, then, I’ve found Him. I found Him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets wrote; but I found Him and I still called Him “Neville!” I didn’t call Him by another name. The Bible calls Him “Jesus Christ,” which means “God the Savior.” I found the Savior, and He was my own wonderful human imagination; and that was an awful shock, because here is a normal man, with all the weaknesses of the world, all the limitations of the flesh, — things I had done of which I was not proud and possibly still capable of doing; and yet that was God! So, your own wonderful human imagination, I know from experience, is God. That’s the Christ of Scripture.881 ¶15

Now, imagination plus faith is the stuff out of which we fashion our world. We are told that “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Read that in the 11th chapter, the 6th verse, of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.” Now, what is faith? It’s described in that same 11th chapter. Well, let me give you another definition: Faith is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I hoped to go to Barbados. I subjectively appropriated it. Physically, I was in New York City on 75ht Street. Subjectively I was in Barbados. And then to prove that I was in Barbados, I simply looked at the world. If I could see the world as I would have to see it were I in Barbados, then I subjectively appropriated that state. If I sleep in New York City and still know I am in New York City, I will remain there forever. There’ll be no change in my world. I had to subjectively appropriate my objective hope. My objective hope was to be in Barbados. Now, whatever one has as an objective hope, they must now subjectively appropriate it and sleep in that subjective appropriation. You want to be – and you name it. All right, you simply subjectively appropriate it. And that was the beginning of my transition from a” god” of tradition to a God of experience.881 ¶16

And when I came back to New York City, friends of mine who knew me in the days when I never touched alcohol or smoking, — I never acquired smoking. I tried it, and I couldn’t seem to get it. Alcohol I got! Other things like, — well, you name it; all these things I do, I trust not to excess. Sometimes to excess, yes; but nevertheless, I did it, to discover it didn’t hurt me at all concerning my spiritual advancement. Yet they accused Him – the human imagination – of being a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of sinners, — one who loved the company of harlots and tax collectors and all the things in the world that people shun; and here was the Human Imagination in the midst of it all, trying to show every one Who-He-Is: that He is actually buried in man, and He will rise one day in man as the man in who He rises. And when it did happen to me in ’59, what a shock! But it was back in 1933 that this thing actually began to unfold within me, when old Ab would not explain what he meant when he said to me, “You are in Barbados.”881 ¶17

So, if you said to me right now, “I would like to have a hundred thousand dollars,” if I were now telling you as he would tell it to me, I would have to say, “You have it.” And if you do not sleep tonight in the possession of it, you are not doing what I have told you. If you want anything, you simply sleep in it as though you had it. The secret of feeling as if it were true – that’s the secret.881 ¶18

And so, “We receive not the spirit of the world,” – the spirit of the world is doubt. The body of doubt is Satan. And as Blake so clearly and beautifully stated it: “Oh, My Satan, thou art but a Dunce, And dost not know the Garment from the Man.” It was the “garment” limited by its five senses, limited by what reason dictated to it. At night when I go to sleep, reason tells me, “You are now sleeping at 1025 Carol Drive;” and reason is telling me what I have in the world. But suppose I don’t like what I seem to have and reason dictates? I must dare to assume that I am that which I would like to be, and “sleep” in that state, rather than the state that my reason and senses dictate. If I dare to do it, I know from the experience of 1933 that it works.881 ¶19

I have taught that law to everyone who will listen to me. Many will listen, yes; many have proved it. But we are creatures of habit; and when all day long and every moment of time Reason is dictating, we tend to go back to what Reason dictates and what the senses dictate. But the Being who is speaking in you is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He’s your own wonderful human imagination.881 ¶20

So, He is telling you, “Be not afraid. Let not your heart be troubled, for in my Father’s house there are many mansions.” “Mansions” means states of consciousness, and these are all for the purpose of satisfying the hungers of a man. I hungered for Barbados. It was a state to satisfy that hunger. The day will come there will be a hunger that not a thing in this world can satisfy but an experience of God. That’s a state of consciousness. There is a hunger for money that nothing can satisfy but money. There’s a hunger for fame, and nothing but fame, — trivial as it is, not a thing will satisfy it but fame as you understand fame. So, these are all states; so you enter into the state of the hunger and view the world from it and satisfy your hunger. If you are now known as you want to be known, then the hunger to known is satisfied. If you want to be anything, then you view the world from that state; and the world viewed, although subjective, confirms what you are actually seeing and experiencing subjectively, — well, then, your hunger has been satisfied.881 ¶21

Now, having done it, in my own case a bridge of incidents was built without my conscious reasoning mind. I didn’t write my brother’s letter. I didn’t buy the $50 draft. I didn’t notify the shipping company to issue a ticket to me. All that came by mail. He was influenced two thousand miles away by my assumption. I dared to appropriate subjectively my objective hope.881 ¶22

So, take your hope – your objective hope, and then appropriate it subjectively, and “sleep” in it as though it were true. If you dare to sleep in it as though it is actually true, in a way that you do not know, that bridge of incidents will appear, and you will be compelled to walk across that bridge to the fulfillment of the subjective appropriation. But when you get to the end, it is now the fulfillment of the objective hope.881 ¶23

This is what, this night, I would share with you. I tell it from experience; and then, from then on, when I have found a crisis in my life, I have applied it. I do not live by it every second of time because I am fairly satisfied with the life I live; and so there is no need for constant change in my life, but there are moments in the lives of all of us where we reach a crisis, and then you have to take action if you know who Christ is. For, bear in mind: “By Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”881 ¶24

So, do not become so completely anchored to the outer garment which you think is yourself – it’s only a garment – and forget the Inner Man, the imaginative man, who is the Immortal You. That Imaginative Man is God Himself!881 ¶25

And the day will come that He will be born, for his whole vast drama – I could break it into three patterns: Innocence, Experience, Imagination. And when you reach that stage – the third stage of Imagination, you are going towards the end, for we came out of a world of innocence into the world of experience, and move towards an awakening imagination, which is God Himself! So, we are told: “All things are possible to God.” Then we are told: “All things are possible to him who believes.” So, the 19th chapter of Matthew tells us, “With God all things are possible.” The 9th chapter of Mark tells us: “All things are possible to him who believes;” so he equates God with the man who can believe. You can’t get away form that equation. If all things are possible to God and all things are possible to the one who believes, hen he equates the one who believes with god.881 ¶26

No, I know the difference between thinking from my wish fulfilled and thinking of it. I am always thinking from where I am, and of where I am not. Right now, I am thinking from this room, and of my home, where my wife is now. But this room is more real now than where she is because I am thinking from here, and I am thinking of there. The secret is thinking-from. When you enter into a state and think from it, you give it all the tones of reality, you give it all the tones of reality, you give it all the sensory vividness that you can muster; and then when you open your eyes and you break the spell, you think, “Now, what have I done?” That was all imagination, the world would say. That’s all it need be, for imagination is God! You set in motion a reality; and you do not have, now, to devise the means which will be employed to take you from where you are physically to where you are in imagination.881 ¶27

So listen to the words carefully: “And now I go to prepare a place for you; and when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to my Self, that where I am, there ye shall be also.” He is speaking to this “garment.” This garment can’t go. You sit it on a chair, put it on a bed, throw it on the floor; but He – the Inner Man – can be any place in this world; and viewing the world from where He is in imagination, which is Reality, He returns to the “ferment” that He left behind and takes it to Himself. So, I will return, having gone and prepared the place, — I’ll return and take you to myself, that where I am – Where? – in consciousness, in my imagination – which is the only Reality, there ye shall be also. So I went to Barbados in my imagination, and that was Christ, but I left the little “garment” that I wore on 75th Street in New York City. Then I returned the next morning and took it up.881 ¶28

All right, six weeks passed by and seemingly nothing happened, but it came with sudden shockingness – out of the nowhere, the letter under my door, because in those days, what on earth would you do getting up early when there were seventeen-odd million unemployed, and I was a dancer? Who wanted a dancer? When they couldn’t eat, how could they pay to go to see a dancer? If I could find a job in a restaurant dancing for nothing but just for the food, I would have taken it. People who are not my age have no idea of the Depression of those days. We speak of a “recession” today, where there are six million unemployed with two hundred and four million in our country, and there were seventeen-odd million, and that was not quite the true figure, and we only had a hundred and twenty-odd million. If you know New York City, there is a place called Gimbel’s, and Gimbel’s moves all the way through to Penn Station; and the hallway walking through from Gimbel’s to Penn Station would be from here to about here (indicating). I have seen men seven deep all the way sleeping at night, — no place to go. At least, they had it heated for them. That’s where they slept. They slept all over the place; and what they could beg or eke out, that’s what they got. We had no Social Security in those days, no welfare aid in those days; and we had seventeen and a half million unemployed. So, I know what it is to go through that experience. And without one nickel I could make a trip to Barbados that cost someone – it cost the family – well over a thousand dollars. In those days a dollar was really two or three dollars when it comes to buying things.881 ¶29

But I did have fun. I got on that ship, and these two elderly men – for that was 1933, and I was born in 1905; so you know my age. I was the young one of the three. One was a Nazi of the extreme – a traumatic fellow, making his trip down south; and one was an Orthodox Jew. And what a combination, the three of us! So, the Orthodox Jew, a little fellow, he saw my new suit, — I had paid $12.50 for it, — and he said to me, “How much did you pay for this?” I said, “Twelve-fifty.” He said, “They robbed you!” I said, “They robbed me?” He said, “Yes, they robbed you; and let me tell you something. If it starts to rain, run! Or you’ll never get out of it. It will shrink right up to here on you.” Here was this other fellow – both elderly gentlemen, the Nazi; he was ranting all day long how Germany is going to take over all the West Indies, and eventually take over America; and the two of them were at it. The little Jewish Orthodox man was reading his Bible most of the time in Hebrew, but would talk to me about my suit or things of that sort; and the other fellow was all science. By “science,” he meant astrology. He believed in astrology. He believed in all these –isms. Well, that was my ten days at sea. What an experience! You see, it all adds up. In the end, it all adds up. So I had the most fabulous trip all the way down, and came back to fulfill my friend’s prophecy: “You will have died,” and I did. I “died” to a state. The Immortal Man cannot die, but I didn’t realize I was locked in state until I began to sleep in another state; and sleeping in another state, that state became the reality, and the old state that could not eat fish or fowl or meat or eggs or anything, — delighted in eating fish and fowl and all the things that the other one couldn’t do.881 ¶30

Every state is right for itself. And so, until one gets out of a state, don’t try to hit him over the head. He can’t hear you. He knows what he is doing is the only truth, the only reality. If he really believes that clams are going to poison him, do you know? They’ll poison him. You and I will sit down and eat the most glorious bunch of clams; he will sit and eat the same from the same dish and they will poison him.881 ¶31

I had that experience when I was a strict vegetarian. I went to Toronto. A friend of mine invited me – we were house guests. She could ill afford the salmon that she prepared – a beautiful salmon, but I was not eating fish or meat or fowl or anything in those days; but as a guest, I was trained never to offend a host, and so I forced myself to eat what was put before me. That was the first time I broke my fast in these many years. Do you know? There were seven of us at the table: my host and hostess, my dancing partner, her mother, and then two sons – there were a bunch of us around; and I was the only one with Ptomaine Poisoning. I came down – I was poisoned and poisoned beyond measure that night, and every one ate the same fish. But I was eating against the grain of my own being. I knew I was doing wrong by my own – at the moment – my own ethical code, and I was poisoned, and they all survived. Well, my body survived, too; but I mean, I was really sick.881 ¶32

So, the most marvelous thing in the world will poison you if you think that it is wrong in what you do. So, where is it? All in your own wonderful human imagination. That is God! And we ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and came down into the world of experience. And there are only two things in the entire sixty-six books of Scripture that displease God. You can read from beginning to end, and you will not find more than two that truly displease God; and one is lack of faith in “I am He;” and the other is eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now, we all have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I know I have. But the whole vast world shuns and turns away from that belief that “I am He.” So, the lack of faith in “I am He” and eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are the two things that displease God as mentioned in Scripture. I cannot find a third one. I find no third, only those two. So, “Be still and know that I am God.” As we are told: “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” So, the “I AM” in you is your own wonderful human imagination, and you can put it any place in the world. You need not be anchored to where your senses tell you that you are.881 ¶33

Now, let me speak candidly to a lady who is here. She wants to sell her home. You can’t sell the home if night after night you sleep in that home. You have to “sleep” elsewhere – mentally – I do not mean physically. Physically, I slept in a basement on 75th Street in New York City, but in my imagination, I slept in my Mother’s home in Barbados; and within six weeks I was in my Mother’s home in Barbados. And then I had not a nickel towards the venture, which cost well in excess of a thousand dollars. It was all made available as a gift. It was not a loan. It was a gift. If you want to sell that home seriously, you have to actually let it go in your imagination and “sleep” as you would sleep and where you would sleep if you had sold it. And then, night after night, sleep in that state. Where would you sleep if you had sold it? Unless you want to re-rent a room in your place, which is not what you want to do.881 ¶34

So, I say to everyone: If you know who Jesus Christ is, you are free. The day will come, you will know he really is the Father; and that day is the most thrilling day imaginable, when David in spirit calls you “Father.”881 ¶35

From the tenth chapter of the book of Romans, they ask this question: “And how can men call upon him? And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by preaching Christ.” Let us take it apart and show you what Paul is trying to say: how can men call upon him in whom they do not believe? So today there are a billion Christians in the world, and some fifteen million Jews, and we have the same God — but do we really call upon him? Do we know this God? How can man call upon him in whom they do not believe? Well, one billion Christians and fifteen million Jews will say, “I do believe in God.” Then how can you say I cannot call upon him? It’s because it’s not the true God — they do not believe in themselves. Man’s faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself, for the self of man is not God. God’s eternal name is I AM — that’s it. So when I use the word God, or I use the word Jehovah, or Lord, or Jesus Christ, and it arouses in you the distinct sense of an existing something outside of self, you have the wrong God, and you have not yet heard from this God — no one has preached it to you. That’s what he’s telling them, and therefore you cannot call upon him — nothing in which you do not believe. So today I may want this, that, or the other — must I pray to God for it? Or can I dare call upon the only true God, which is my own wonderful human imagination? Can I believe in that God? So how can I call upon him in whom I do not believe, and how can I believe in him of whom I have never heard? Or, today you can say to the billion Christians and the fifteen million Jews, they have not heard of that God. And how can I hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? You are not self-appointed. You are drafted. You are called, incorporated into the body of the Risen Lord, and sent. Then you will not preach from a theory — you will preach from your own inner experience, what you’ve experienced about God, and then you can tell it. Therefore faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the preaching of Christ — nothing else.877 ¶1

To preach today, from all the pulpits of the world, that we must become involved, find a way to change society, change the world — that’s not preaching Christ. He said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Yet today all the pulpits are still simply saying we must become involved in changing society — that’s not preaching Christ.877 ¶2

Let us now turn to the great confession of faith, of the Jewish faith. It is called the Great Commandment. You’ll read it in the sixth chapter, the fourth verse of Deuteronomy, and then it goes on — I’ll quote the fourth and just a little bit of the remaining three. It is here: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is—” Now, what are we told? “Tell it, teach it fervently to your children. When you sit down, when you rise, talk about it. When you walk by the way, talk about it. When you retire at night and rise in the morning, let it be with you. Write it upon your heart. Wear it on your hand, between your eyes — make it a part of you.” Make what a part of you? That the Lord my God, that Lord is one. Now, all translations are really paraphrasing here. “Hear, O Israel” — the Lord, that means I AM. Our God, our I AM, is that one I AM. In the Hebrew text, the first word, which is “you shall hear,” Shema, which means to hear — Shema Israel — the last letter of the word “to hear” is enlarged; in other words, it is larger than the other letters in the word. And the word “one” — that too has a letter larger than the other letters in the word. So the two letters that stand out in the sentence, put them together, it’s ayin-dalet, and ayin-dalet means, in Hebrew, “witness.” They are calling man’s attention to the fact there’s something important here in what is called the Great Commandment: you shall be a witness to this statement, that the Lord our God, the Lord, is one Lord.877 ¶3

Then you are called — and you are called individually — and you are sent to experience the truth of this first and great commandment. So when you are called, you’ll read now the biography — in scripture, one called Jesus Christ. Then you are sent, and you will have that experience — it’s your biography. Then another is called, and he is sent, and he has the identical experience — it is his biography. And the whole vast world, everyone will be called and sent — everyone will have that identical experience. Therefore everyone is that one. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Now preach that — don’t talk about changing the world. Leave Caesar’s world alone, just as it is, and you go only to fulfill scripture. So when he comes into the world — meaning you, the individual — you will say, “For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Thy word is true, and this is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”877 ¶4

God himself comes into this world, into human history, in the person of Jesus Christ. He not only came, he comes — he is forever coming, the same being coming, for he is buried in everyone in this world. So God himself came, and comes, into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. And then you tell it — that exactly what happened to you is exactly what is claimed in scripture happened to one called Jesus Christ. But now that’s your story — you don’t change your earthly name; you remain John, you remain Jack, you remain Ethel, whatever you are — but you know who you really are. You can tell it to a limited number, but you don’t go and bring it on the crowd; they would not accept it, they would not believe it, because they have their own prefabricated misconception of this eternal story.877 ¶5

So how can man call upon him in whom they do not believe? But I’m asking you to believe in yourself, for the true self of man is Jesus Christ. Before you have the actual experience of Jesus Christ, I am asking you to believe in yourself, for the self of man is Jesus Christ. And before you actually awaken him within you as your very being, you can still call upon him — call upon him and prove to your own satisfaction it is the only one you can really call upon and get results. You can preach now and call upon anything on the outside — you aren’t going to get results. How would you feel if now you were the man that you would like to be? Would it work? We’ll try it. How would you feel now if you had what you’d like to hear? Well, they tried it.877 ¶6

And then he wrote me a letter — I got it this week; he’s here tonight. But she found herself in a very large class, and I was giving the instructions — it was a time of testing. Many of you present tonight were present in her vision — but she was only concerned with her answer to the question. And I came by and gave her a piece of paper and drew a straight line, and the question was this: “What is the most important thing in me?” She said, “That’s easy.” No — I didn’t say what is the most important thing in me — the question is, “What is the most important thing in me?” You contemplate it as though it’s coming from within you; the teacher appeared as coming from without, and he appeared as the teacher — now on the platform. It was never she who was asking the question, never taking the exam — but she was the one, and she had to contemplate this from within herself: what is the most important thing in me? Now she answered, and she wrote in big capital letters: “I AM.” He said, “That’s right — go to the top of the class, straight A.” Then she had a further vision that same night, and everyone had the same theme, I AM. Then she had another one, and she thought her mother was against her getting married, and she was in doubt, and this individual who lifted her up — she rested her head upon his shoulder and she began to weep because she felt that the mother didn’t want her ever to get married. And he said to her, “Your faith is your love.” “Is that right? Your faith is your love.”877 ¶7

Let me give you the last words on the cross. You read them in the Book of Luke: “Into thy hand I commit my spirit.” The completed birth — in the thirty-first Psalm, it happens in this manner: after you make the statement “into thy hands I commit my spirit” comes the words, “thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” These are the words: “Into thy hands I completely commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord.” “Thank you, O God” — this is the cross on which he’s crucified. He redeemed me by proving to me that his word is true. “Thy word is true.” He told me I would actually prove to my own satisfaction that we are one — that he and I are one, that he is the father of David, and therefore if he is the father of David, and he and I are one, I must have the satisfaction of knowing I am the father of David. But he tells me, “A son honors his father.” This thing I hear, “Father, where is my honor?” Now you tell me we are one, and now prove to me that we are one — and then David comes, and I know there’s no uncertainty of what I’m seeing and knowing — he is my son. So he proves that first and greatest commandment: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The I AM we speak of as the Lord Jehovah, and my I AM — there are not two, we are one I AM, and I shall be a witness to it. So he takes the two letters and simply enlarges them, and puts the two letters together, and therefore the word is “witness.” And so I will now be a witness to the truth of his great commandment, that we really are one. “So for this I was born, for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Thy word is true.”877 ¶8

Do I say God himself not only came, but comes, into human history in the person of Jesus Christ? You come down to the whole story — he only leads things into the world — Jesus Christ, he is the one that is sent. Now he tells you, in the very end, in the previous chapter of the Book of John, “As the father has sent me, even so send I you” — after I return to the father and we are one, you will be brought and you shall stand before me, and I’ll send you into the world, for we are one. And so the one thing is always Jesus Christ — so in the office of the sent, he seems to be less than he really is as the center, but the sender and the sent are one. He is not inferior as to his essential being, only as to the office — that is, but not as to himself, the sender.877 ¶9

So in the end, that Shema, that great confession of faith of the Hebrew, was for all time forever and forever. But man has completely misunderstood it, and they think an Israelite is a descendant of Abraham after the flesh — not so at all. An Israelite is simply the elect, the chosen, of any race of any nation. And when you are called, you are incorporated into the body of the Risen Lord, and then you are, at the moment, one who is sent — that’s Jesus Christ — but you don’t know it yet, and you’ll go through all the suffering that you’ve gone through before. And then you will know: “Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” So what does he ask for, after he has accomplished the work that he was sent to do? He said, “I have finished, I have accomplished the work thou gavest me to do; now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory that I had with thee before the world was” — we were one before, only separated for a purpose. “But we were one before — return unto me the glory that was mine before the world was.”877 ¶10

And now he’s going to send everyone within his world — we are all given a certain number to call when we are sent. And then when the one disappears, he returns to the source, which is the father, and then he calls them one by one, and then they are incorporated into the source, which is himself — he is one with the Risen Lord. And he’s sending them with no promise that they would not suffer, no promise that they will escape anything in the world of Caesar. He didn’t send him to change the world of Caesar and to become involved, as all the preachers of the world today are teaching we must become involved. No — you’re sent to preach Christ, nothing else. But what would it matter if you owned the whole vast world and didn’t know the plan of redemption? What would it matter if you owned everything in this world and knew nothing of the plan of redemption? You know nothing of him that you could call about. “And how can men call upon him in whom they have not believed?” Because they were never told of that one. “And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard?” They never heard about it. “But how can they hear about it without a preacher, and how can men preach unless they are sent?” Because you can’t make some little ism — as they do all over the world. We have so many isms today, little man-made isms, not based upon anything of the revelation of Christ. They’ll call it Christianity, they’ll call it by this name, that name, the other name — all referring to Christianity, not one knowing anything about Christ. If you dare to remind them that Christ in you is the hope of glory, they say, “Yes, but—” and “but” covers a multitude of nonsense.877 ¶11

Christ in you is the hope of glory — do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail to meet the test. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you’re holding to the faith.” What faith? Did you hear about it? Do you believe it? Do you believe he is in you, and that with him all things are possible? Well then, call upon him. You can’t now deny that you heard about it. I will tell you, from my own experience: I am sent. And so you are hearing it from one who has been sent to tell you. I will not say I am in this world to teach economics — I know nothing about it, I wasn’t sent to this world to teach anything other than to preach Christ. I danced for a living for eleven years, but I couldn’t teach you one dance step — I’m not a dancer. You do far, far better going to someone else who is an expert. I wasn’t sent to do anything but to preach Christ, and to tell you who he is. And I tell you, he is your own wonderful human imagination. And I tell you, the only Christ of scripture is buried right this very moment in everyone that is seated in this room tonight — completely buried. And he’s going to rise in you, not as another, but rise in you as you, and everything said of him in scripture you are going to experience, and you will know that scripture is all about you. In the role of the book, it is all about me — and what was said of him, instead of “you,” after you’ve had the experience.877 ¶12

Then you will be called, having completed the work, and you’ll be brought into the presence of the most high, and you return to the source. But before — after the disappearance of the one who is talking to you now — you will be called and sent. “As the father sent me into the world, so send I you” — but wait until I go, wait until I disappear, for there’s no place for me to go save back to the source, and I am one with the Risen Lord. I’ll call you one by one, and one by one you will be incorporated into the source. May I tell you, the form of God is a living form, a truly molding form, that fashions the individual he calls into himself, into the likeness of himself. It’s a living, molding form — not just something on the outside. When you enter it, you are molded into the likeness of the being that you fuse with. It’s a molding form. Everyone will be molded into the identical form, and that form is God the Father. So in the end, there is only one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all, and everyone is going to have it.877 ¶13

So I tell you, I will not attempt to tell you anything in this world but Christ. I am a novice when it comes to economics; I am a novice when it comes to politics — just a babe in the woods concerning anything outside of Christ. And so if I ever get off on a limb and try to give you any advice concerning what people ought to do, forget it — that’s all done. When it comes to the story of Christ, I cannot go wrong, for I only speak from experience, not speculating, not theorizing. Let them talk about Christ on the outside, and I simply smile — that is not Christ at all. He came here tonight in the body of everyone who entered this room, and I’m trying to convince you that he’s with you all — to call upon him in the spirit, call upon him under all circumstances. And you can’t deny you’ve heard of him, and you’ve heard of him from the one that he sent. “And so faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from preaching Christ” — nothing else to talk about. “So the word became flesh, and dwelt” — well, I say “dwells” — “in us, and we behold his glory.” I tell you, it is only beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man, when you see it, what you really are. And one day you will see it, and clothed in that body of glory, everything is transformed into beauty. But everything — you couldn’t go into hell and remain there for one second in disorder, in some unlovely state; everything is completely transformed as you walk by, closed in that garment of glory. So heaven is not a realm, heaven is a party — the body of glory I’m clothed in — no matter where you go, if you make your bed in hell, hell itself becomes heaven. Things long dead burst into flower, the very desert begins to bloom if you walk by, because they cannot remain dead where you are the Living God, the immortal you.877 ¶14

So you came down into the world of death, and you left behind you your blood, but by coming down and being victorious in the world of death, you’re overcoming the entire world of death. You rise from it enhanced beyond your wildest being, by reason of your conflict in the world of death — it was an adventure. I know what a glorious pension. So let no one tell you you did wrong, but do begin to stir yourself and call upon him. Don’t pray to any external God — pray to him. And you pray to him by communing with self. Be still upon your bed and commune with your own heart, your soul, and what you want. Dare to appropriate — dare to actually appropriate the feeling of the wish fulfilled.877 ¶15

Years ago, when I wrote my book, Your Faith Is Your Fortune, in the flyleaf I made this statement, that faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself. Well, it’s gone into many, many printings, but no revision. So the last one that came out — I forget what number that is, and I mentioned it this week — a lady who was present, she hasn’t been back since, said, “Have you revised it?” I said, “No, I see no reason for revision, I wouldn’t change one word of it.” You could add to it, but why add to it? The whole thing is based upon “I AM He” — that’s the entire story of Your Faith Is Your Fortune. So why would I change it? It is simply stating, over and over, page after page, that basic fact, that “I AM” is the only reality — “Hear, O Israel, the I AM, our I AM, that I AM, is one” — as the story of the faith of Israel. So how would I change it, and why should I change it? You could add all kinds of nonsense to it, but the book was written — I would say — in less than forty-eight hours.877 ¶16

It was a very brilliant surgeon in New York City, a brilliant surgeon who became a victim of his own practices, and it was found out he was writing the name of his patients and then actually going to the drugstore himself and filling the order, and he became a victim of heroin, taking his own. And then they caught him, and then they asked me if I would keep him for two weeks in a hotel suite. I said I would. But may I tell you, I hardly slept in those two weeks — he was as mad as mad people could ever be, not violently mad, but mad. I closed my eye for a second, he’s in the hall summoning the street — we lived on the twenty-fourth floor — he was getting the elevator, in the mood, and now he would go to the street — now they’re going to get him. So there I was, completely out of my mind, as they were, from sheer exhaustion, and the words were pouring through me as I wrote that book. On long yellow pages I wrote, word after word, as though being dictated, word after word as it was dictated. When I turned it over for correction, there was little he could find — seven occasional thoughts, why do we not use another word here instead of a repetition of this word — and if I agreed with him, I would change it, but it was practically not necessary to change that book.877 ¶17

When I took it down to Harper’s, they wanted to publish it. They said, “We have an enormous sale of the Bible, and I doubt that this is going to help the sale of the Bible — to put our name to it, they will question our right to publish this book.” And then the head of the department of philosophy said it is unethical, but he would like to publish it himself, and he wondered if they would give him permission. So he got permission from the publisher to publish it himself and use their sales force to sell it. After considering it for another six weeks, he thought that was unethical, because he was the head of the department of religion and philosophy. And then, finally, when they all turned it down, I published it myself. And so it’s gone into, I think, fifteen printings, but no change in the format — I saw no reason for any revision of the book.877 ¶18

So I’m telling you what I know from experience — then I did not know the promise, I only knew the law; that’s all based upon law. But then came the fulfillment of the promise, when he called me in 1929, embraced me, I fused with him, and then he sent me. And then, in the fullness of time, when he sent me to accomplish, unfolded within me — he only sent me to fulfill his word. So, as we are told in the nineteenth of Revelation, he was actually in a robe, and the robe was dipped in blood, and the name by which he was called is the Word of God. He is the living word interpreting the written word. So now you are the living word — he sends you, and you go into the world, and in the fullness of time the written word unfolds within you, becomes a living word, and you know how true the word of God is. So he said, “Thy word is true,” of God. Now his last words for those who followed him, at the very end, he said, “As the father has sent me, even so send I you” — and so they were all brought one by one; and then he is one with the father — not he and the father, he is the father. And then he said, and then in time you become one with the father, and then you will send, and it goes on and on until the whole vast world is redeemed.877 ¶19

So why not preach this — morning, noon, night? But they cannot preach it, because they have not yet been sent — they’re speculating. And this thing that you brought — a moral code, you can bring any moral code — “in him there is no condemnation, in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.” So you are what you are — he doesn’t try to make you anything other than what you are; he receives you as you are. And this one is something else, receives him just as he is; that one is something else, receives him just as he is. He’s only telling you of the plan of redemption, how, inspired by what you’ve done, what you are doing, and what you are made — this is the plan by which you will return to the source. And in returning to the source, all is forgiven — a call of forgiveness — they know not what they do.877 ¶20

So my friend was perfectly right in answering that question that I asked her: “What is the most important thing about me?” And she contemplated it, and she knew instantly, and then she wrote her answer on the paper in big bold letters: “I AM” — that’s the most important thing about me. I must first be, before I can be anything in this world. For me, not knowing that, the most important thing about me is that I have a million dollars, or that I have a certain wonderful social background, or a certain financial background, or intellectual background, or something else — he takes the thing made in spite of the things that make. Give us the thing made before the maker, and the maker is the only important thing in the world. So “I AM” is the maker — “I AM that I AM,” that’s the maker. So she answered correctly in the class, and she mentioned in her letter to me — a few were here tonight who were present, but she did not know what you wrote down; she only knew what she wrote down on that paper. But it was a test: what is the most important thing about me? She wrote, “I AM.”877 ¶21

When you read it tomorrow, if you read it — and I wish you would read it — and you turn to that tenth chapter of Romans, only a few verses, the fourteenth through the seventeenth, and then read how man cannot call upon him, because they do not believe in him, and then they haven’t heard about it, and then they haven’t — no one who has been sent has informed them, who would talk about him with real intelligence. They can speculate, but they do not know him, or they have not been sent. And then he tells you how it comes — they come through hearing. So in that other letter, you know, to the Galatians, he said, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” You heard the story, and you accepted it on faith, from one who was sent — for he tells you he was sent, therefore he is telling you he is the Lord Jesus Christ, for only the Lord Jesus Christ is sent. So he tells them, in that same letter to the Galatians, “Did you not accept me as Jesus Christ, and if need be, would you not have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me? Now what has happened to you, who has bewitched you, that now you are turning from the spirit that you heard, and turning to the flesh, and seeing him now as something after the flesh, and not the spirit, of which I told you?”877 ¶22

Well, I tell you, he dwells in you as your own wonderful human imagination — that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is buried in everyone in the world, and in every one of the world he will rise. And when he rises in a man, that man is transformed, for that man is the one who is rising, and he is the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he will return to himself, the father, and those who heard him, who believed him, who followed him, he will call — in due time he’ll call them, when he is once established as the father, incorporate them into himself, and send them, and they will fulfill scripture, for man is only sent to fulfill the word of God. So do not get away from that foundation stone, which is the Shema: tell it to your children, he said, diligently, and when you awake — that’ll be with you when you sit down, talk about it, when you walk by the way, talk about it, carry it on your heart, between your eyes, write it on your heart, and let it be forever with you — no debate — that there is no other God. “I am the Lord thy God.” “I AM.” Nobody sent you — “I AM. I AM has sent me to you.” There is no other being.877 ¶23

Now tonight, you’ll doubtless want something — nothing wrong with that. Call upon him, but the true one — don’t ask any being on the outside. Call upon him, and he is your own wonderful human imagination. Well, how do I call upon my imagination to get a better job, or an increase of funds? By daring to assume that I have it — I assume that I am already the man that I would be, and fall asleep in that assumption, and rise tomorrow in the same assumption. That which I formerly desired to be, I no longer desire, because I am it, and then I walk in it. In the fullness of time, they project themselves on the screen of space, and I become — and you will not have to violate any of your code, may I tell you — not one of your wonderful ethical codes by which you live do you have to violate; it will all come into your world just as I’m telling you, because he is in control of everything.877 ¶24

Another lady wrote me once, she said, “I was in this huge, huge place, at the back of the room there was a man, and I knew that years, years, ages and ages ago I loved him, and he loved me — I knew it. But in the interval I had gone into other fields, other loves. And then came this return of memory, and he haunted me, and I knew that he was in control of all the actions of everyone in that room, and everyone that I’ve ever encountered. And I came to the end, and I knew he was the one I originally loved. Now I still love him, and I couldn’t get away from his love, and yet I’ve gone through all these things to return to the original love, and here was this man controlling everything in my world, and I return to my original love.” What a wonderful, wonderful vision — a true vision. Well, that’s true of every one of us — we go into the world, sent into the world, before the true sending we depart from our love and go through hell, go through all the things of the world, then comes that moment when he calls us back, and then he embraces — he’s really true love — and then you send it to fulfill now what he was playing in the beginning, and you go and you fulfill it, and now you ask him to return unto you the glory that was yours before there was one — the glory that you had with him before the world was — and he returns it, because you and he are one.877 ¶25

So when you read about the Word, does anyone tell you of something on the outside of you? “The Word became flesh, and dwells in us” — walking among us, he dwells in us, and that being in you, you can call by any other name, but if you call it by any name that causes you to have a sense of an existing something outside of you, then that name is not the name. You’ve got to get to the point where it is only you that you can call upon. You can call upon any being in the world, but only the true Lord — and that true Lord is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s what I’m trying to get over, night after night, to anyone who will hear.877 ¶26

I know, years ago, my wife said to me, before I had the promise revealed to me, before I had experienced that — I was only working on the law — and she said, “You know, the one unfortunate thing about you is that you don’t have faith in anyone but yourself.” Well, she was perfectly right. And then my dancing partner, when she knew that Bill and I would get married, she said, “I hope she understands that you’re always reading the Bible.” I hope she could take that, because my dancing partner couldn’t take that interest in the Bible, because — to encourage him — she said, “You’d better brush yourself up on things like the Bible if you want to really know what you are; dress yourself up like the Bible” — because then she would examine me. But long before that she said, “Well, you have no faith in anyone but yourself,” and she was perfectly right. I could not turn to the left or the right, because I knew I had found him, and he was my own consciousness, my I AM, and I could not turn to anything on the outside.877 ¶27

And then came that wonderful blessing of blessings, when his information, which I didn’t understand, came into birth, and then the whole thing unfolded within me. And then I realized that the book was all about me — it’s my biography — and that Jesus Christ not only came, but he comes into human history in the person of Jesus Christ, though your name is John, or Mary, or Jan, or whatever these names are, but he comes into your personal history. But in the person of Jesus Christ, it’s God himself who came, and who is coming, and he continues to come into human history in the person of Jesus Christ. So they’re waiting for him to come — they’ll wait forever if they look for him on the outside. He can only come to the individual, and Jesus Christ comes to us as one unknown.877 ¶28

[...] only the indolent mind would fail to rise to the challenge of a riddle. Isn’t it strange that the greatest of earth’s great is he who was never mortal born or lived, as you and I understand the term, in this secular world? I could say not only him but I could use the plural, they, who were never mortal born. But tonight we will confine ourselves to the greatest of the great of earth, the one that is worshipped by all and really was never mortal born. Therefore, who is he? A riddle as defined in the dictionary is “a mysterious object or person; that which is difficult to understand.” It is also “sieve; to separate the chaff from the wheat; or to raise [...].” So who is this greatest of the great of earth who was never mortal born?—as far as I am concerned, Jesus Christ. That is the greatest of the great of earth.876 ¶1

I think that you and I would agree that you did not…that is, I know I didn’t; maybe you think you did…I know I did not choose the environment in which I found myself at birth. But I quickly adjusted to everything that I found there, in that section of space/time, the habits, the customs, the religion, the doctrines in which I found myself. So here, we find the entire world adjusting to that environment in which they find themselves at birth. If they’re honest with themselves, they did not choose that environment; they found themselves there. So here, God the Father placed me, placed you, in that particular age best suited for the work he was doing on himself in us, that self in us; for he was quite willing and prepared to accept all the consequences of this confused world of his, with all of its tangles and its enigmas. This he did and took it in Jesus Christ in us. Jesus Christ is his power, is his wisdom, his own power buried in us.876 ¶2

Now here we turn to scripture, “He blinded their eyes and hardened they heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts, and turn and be saved.” There, he the Lord God, as told us in the 6th chapter of Isaiah, he blinded my eye, he hardened my heart, lest I should turn and be saved. So when someone now sifted becomes the big potato by reason of the long, long journey that he’s made and just ready to break, and all of a sudden the whole drama unfolds in him, and he tells it, there are few who believe him, few to accept it. For they see him; he’s mortal born and they see him in the world of men. They know his father, his mother, his brothers, his sisters, they know everything about him, and so they reject him: That is not what we are seeking. So he tells them exactly what has happened in him and he unriddles the riddle. For the object which is the most riddle of riddles is the Bible, and he experiences scripture, and he tells them exactly the key of how the whole thing unfolds in man. And they reject it and will not believe it. So his whole story is completely discounted, but he tells it. Others hear it and they record it. They, too, experience it and then they pass it on, and from mouth to mouth as one experiences the whole drama. It is still denied by the mass, because he has blinded their eyes, he’s hardened their hearts that they should see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and turn and be saved.876 ¶3

Now, do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me, that the words that I speak are not my words but the words of him who sent me? Believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me, for truly I say unto you that which I experience—in scripture it is called “that which I have done, the work that I have done”—you shall do and even greater works than these. If you don’t believe me, believe it for the sake of the works themselves. The Father is not on the outside; I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Believe he’s not on the outside. If I turn, I would see him; and because I can barely become that which I behold, I could vanish from sight. You will see the thing disappear before your face. It’s only a shadow made real by the world. I tell you this from experience.876 ¶4

I have a little boy in New York City who bears my name. He’s now about thirteen. Before he was born, I had this vision. This lad stood before me and I felt I was his father. His name was Neville Mark; he was about four. We talked and I said, “When are you coming?” He said, “On the 10th of November”…this is now September. So the next morning I said to my wife, “You know, a little boy is coming to us on the 10th of November.” Well, she said, “I believe in miracles and I believe in you and all the things you talk about, but, really, this is impossible, for I’m not pregnant.” I said, “Well, he’s coming on the 10th.” A friend of mine, who was pregnant, expecting her baby in December—and she wanted a little girl, because she had a little boy. And I said, “Well now, when this child comes”—she could not conceive of a boy, it has to be a girl—I said, “Alright, should it be a boy and should the boy come on the 10th of November, his name is Neville Mark.” But, she knew the child wouldn’t come until December and late December. Well, she was rushed to the hospital on the 10th of November and little Neville Mark came. So she named him Neville Mark.876 ¶5

About five years ago, in their home in New York City, the little lad was home, he’s very [...]. The father and mother were present but he wasn’t addressing them, he was talking to me. He said, “You know, Neville, I feel that if I could turn around I could see who I really am. I know I am wearing a mask, but I can’t turn around. I didn’t dream this, no one told me, I didn’t read it, but I know if I could turn around, I would really see the being that I really am. And I can’t wait to die to turn around and see who I am.” The mother stopped him right away. She was a very, very poor girl who married great wealth, and anything of death frightened her. She’d lose her diamonds, her home, and all these things, that scares her to death. No death. And so is the husband. He has money, he has possessions and he can’t think of the thing called death. He’s seventy-five…the lad was then ten…so he wasn’t yet…he was only seventy-one. Now the lad is growing up…undoubtedly diverted…but that is what he said to me.876 ¶6

Now let me give my own experience. Lying on the bed, on the left side, and here’s a force seemingly from beyond my head but near the head, and centered at the back of my head, a force so powerful I wanted so much to turn around and see who was applying the force. I felt someone, not an impersonal force, I felt someone is applying this force. I tried my best. I said, now am I paralyzed, for I can’t turn? I used my fingers…they were all animated and moveable. I moved my feet. I moved my shoulders. I moved my whole body. I was not paralyzed. My body was just as alive as it is now, but that force at the base of my skull, the back of my head, was so intense I could not turn around. I wanted so much to see the one who was applying it. Had I turned that day in my bed, I would have seen the being that I am, and instantly I would have been gone from this world.876 ¶7

Now here, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their hearts, and turn and be saved.” The same word is used but in the Greek sense, the Prodigal Son came to his senses and he turned. He remembered his Father and turned and went home; and received the great robe, the ring, the fatted calf…the kingdom was his. So you and I are in a world where we have been purposely blinded by the Father in us. Our hearts have been hardened by the Father in us. So the words are important. When one reaches the end, he can say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I can tell you tonight that God himself, God the Father, uses the tyrants of the world for ends beyond their goals. You played all the parts, and every being will be saved. For this is the same Father who wills not that any man should perish, not one being in the world should perish and can’t perish; for he’s only the mask in this world of one that he does not see, for his eye has been purposely blinded and his heart purposely hardened. He plays these parts based upon that environment into which he was placed, not by his own choice. For, we were made subject unto futility, not willingly, but by the will of him who subjected us in hope, and we cannot turn back until his predetermined goal is reached.876 ¶8

He takes us to the end. When we reach the end, then we turn, and go through the series of events called the story of Jesus Christ. When it happens in you, Christ is born in you, not of mortal birth. But those in the environment into which they were placed believe he was born from the womb of a woman and they have no ears for you when you tell them who Christ really is, when you tell them who the Father really is…that he who sees me now sees the Father. For the summation of all the experiences of man personified as a youth calls me, Father. And he, too, was not born of mortal birth. And yet the greatest of the great of earth have no mortal birth. Isn’t that strange? Call it Abraham, call it Isaac, Jacob, David, Jesus Christ. And you and I clothed hare in these garments that are mortal, very fragile, the whole drama is in us.876 ¶9

It’s the Father and the Father alone playing all the parts, quite willing to take all of the consequences of this strange, peculiar, horrible experiment. And he does. He takes it on himself in Christ and you think Christ is other than the one who sent him. “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” And so, the Father in me sent me. He clothed himself in this garment of flesh and placed me in a little, tiny island in 1905 in among brothers, many brothers, one sister, in a limited environment, no social, intellectual, financial, or any other worthwhile background. That was the job he had to do in me. And then, unlike the majority, because I was simply prior to that moment of 1905, and the sifting was the riddle and it was separating and breaking [...]. I couldn’t stand the environment after being adjusted to it and felt the restlessness from a boy to get going in the search.876 ¶10

So my one outstanding corporeal punishment in this world was for the Bible. I said, “Take up thy bed and walk” and my master said, “Bring your Bible” and I didn’t have the Bible. He said, “My Bible said, ‘Take up your couch and walk.’” Because I couldn’t produce my Bible, he was allowed to beat me. It was allowed then. I presume it is still allowed in Barbados, corporeal punishment. So he brought in this cane this long, you could bend it all around, placed me over the place, and beat me until he brought blood. I was bleeding from my buttocks down to my knees for the Bible. So, as a boy of nine, that happened to me.876 ¶11

But I was restless…all for the search of the word of God. And so I came all the way across the ocean to here, all in the search. Joined the theatre, for it would prepare me to stand before you and talk to you, as I would talk to you were you alone at home in a little social gathering. So there’s never any fluttering when I meet you or a thousand or a million. A billion could not disturb me, for I’m speaking from experience, I’m not speculating. I don’t have to ask, is it true? I know it from experience that it is true.876 ¶12

If a man could only turn around, he would cease to be blind and his heart wouldn’t be hard, then he would see the very being who sent him into the world. And he and that being are one; “I and my Father are one.” I would see myself in a most radiant being, the only begotten God, the only God, and see myself just as I really am.876 ¶13

Now here, Paul tells us all who were baptized into Jesus Christ—listen to all the prepositional [...]—into Jesus Christ have put on Christ, and all are one in Christ. You meet and you are baptized. He is infinite love who sends you through this horrible, horrible world. Love did it. Infinite love sends you through and you’ve burned it and you’ve been burned, you’ve raped and you’ve been raped, and you’ve been mutilated and you mutilate. You’ve done everything in this world. Then you turn and all is forgiven. And you give a banquet…and everything that was mutilated because you wore that part is made perfect when you walk by. For “Be ye perfect as Father in heaven is perfect” and in that moment you are one with the Father and you are perfect and perfection walks by, and everyone you pass by is made perfect. The blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb shout for joy, everything is made perfect, all the parts that you played.876 ¶14

I’m telling you what I know, I am not speculating, for it’s the end of my journey, right at the very end. So here I say be of good cheer. No matter what you have gone through and your memory does not bring it back, which is merciful, what you may still have to go through, bear what I tell you this night, bear it in mind. One day you will be baptized into God, the risen Christ, when you turn around and you face him and you are incorporated into his being. To be baptized is to be completely covered within. Doesn’t mean water, because it’s Messiah, it is Christ, and the Messiah is simply the [...], the one who is, well, anointed with oil. What man does here with royalty, puts oil on their chest, hasn’t a thing to do with it. What the pope does, gets a little oil that has nothing to it. Here is living, living fluid before you, living water. And when he embraces you, you simply merge in it, just as though a drop fell into the ocean, and you are not only the drop, you’re the ocean, without loss of identity of the drop.876 ¶15

So all are one in that state, as told us, and all who are baptized into Christ—into, the preposition is “to enter right into.” Have put on…to put on, look it up in the Hebrew, and it means “to simply wear the garment, to fall into the garment and clothe yourself with it.”876 ¶16

As you’re told in the very last words of Christ in the Book of Luke, “Remain in the city until you are endued with power from on high.” Well, power is Christ, wisdom is Christ. To endue is “to clothe.” “Wait until I clothe you with myself.” Then he clothes you with himself and you may actually say and literally say, “I am in Christ and Christ is in me.” Not out there when I say Father, not a thing out there. When I say Christ, he’s not out there. God, he’s not out there. The whole thing is taking place within me.876 ¶17

Believe me when I tell you I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Don’t you believe it? He asks. “But, if you don’t believe it, then believe it for the sake of the works themselves. For truly, truly I say unto you the works I do ye shall do and greater than these shall ye do.” Why?—because I go unto the Father: “I came out from the Father and I came into the world; again I am leaving the world, and returning to the Father.” So the whole vast drama unfolds in us. Hasn’t a thing to do with any being that was ever mortal born. He’s born from above and does not walk the earth as one who came from the womb of woman, save in the knowledge of one who came from the womb of woman what happened in him. And he bears the knowledge of Christ.876 ¶18

So who is Christ? Here is the riddle of riddles. As you’re asked all through scripture—so many riddles are given to us—“Who has established all the ends of the Earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Canst thou tell?” Here in the 30th chapter of Proverbs , “What is his name, and what is his son’s name?” I tell you the son’s name, the son’s name is David. I’ll tell you his name; for if he has a son then he’s a father…his name is Father. What is his name? Well, give me the next question, what is his son’s name?…you gave me the name of the first one. If he has a son, then he’s Father. Don’t call him God, don’t call him this, just Father. He has the heart of a father, the heart of infinite love, and David is the son. He was the one who established all the ends of the earth and sustains them, all from within you. And you are his suffering servant, who is himself.876 ¶19

In that wonderful…it’s the last of the songs of the suffering servant, by the way, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah ; it’s called the last of the suffering servant’s songs: “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” [...]. And so you tell it as it happened to you, completely revealed, completely unveiled, before those that you try to tell the story: When one betrayed you and went and told the authorities; when he came in and simply unveiled the arm, and then embraced you; then stretched that cross and embraced you and kissed you. So your arm was then unveiled. And you tell it. But who would believe this power is now resident in you, to be exercised not here, not to demonstrate anything in this world, but at the moment of death to be one at the right hand of the Father…and you are the Father. You are then his right hand.876 ¶20

So here, the whole vast drama unfolds in man. There is nothing but God. Not God-man, just God. You’ll find this diversity in unity, as well as unity in diversity. So here, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” Here is a compound unity, one made up of others. Diversity in unity, I AM; as well as unity I AM in them, diversity. I dwell in them and they dwell in me, and we are one. You get it? He said, “I am in you and you in me. Just as I am in the Father and the Father in me, I am in you (plural) and you (plural) in me (singular).” So here, diversity in unity: I look upon myself and see my world pushed out, and now I see this diversity in unity all in me. So “All that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my own wonderful human Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” .876 ¶21

So I tell you, go on, regardless of what is in store. It’s been planned, it’s been determined what the masks will do, how they will think and how they will be moved. Those, based upon what they have gone through so far, will become separated and they will listen, for they are coming close to the end. Without flattery, you are at the end. Your letters reveal it, every one of you. I’m not saying this to hold you here, because whether you come or not makes no difference to my way of life. None whatsoever, I assure you. Close tonight and live as well as I now live, for I have no desire to live at San Simeon. That is a way in the past of me, a way, way back, when one tried earthly things and thought it would keep him here forever. That’s a way, way back in my experience. My needs are little. I have no desire for any things as things, none whatsoever.876 ¶22

To shine? What, among what, shadows? When the greatest of the great never walked the earth and was never mortal born? What, am I trying to establish something here, for shadows to say how wonderful he was? No, all this is moving forward towards the inevitable end, when we turn, and then we see and the heart perceives. Who?— the Father. And then he embraces us, for the son, the prodigal son, has returned. For he went…he was sent. He returned, the Father embraced him, and he becomes the Father. So you go out, sent, and return as the Father; and, therefore, you can say at the very end, “Forgive every being in this world.” “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”876 ¶23

So Blake’s poem, I tell you, it is true. Every word of it is true. I’ve experienced scripture. I can tell you these characters…what character walking the earth today or what character that has ever walked the earth that you and I have in the books of history dominates Abraham? I heard Ben-Gurion the other day on, I think it was, Meet the Press. He’s a grand old fellow, he’s now eighty, but here he takes the whole thing literally on this secular world…a little area called Israel…and he speaks of all these things just as though it’s writing a little history book. A grand, grand fella, undoubtedly he is, hasn’t the slightest idea of scripture. Oh, he can quote it from cover to cover.876 ¶24

But he’s not alone. I have…my sister’s intimate servant, she has many servants at home, but this one served her when her children were beginning to be born. She brought this one into her household and she’s now an old lady but she simply is there…doesn’t do very much, but she wouldn’t retire, she doesn’t want to retire. My sister would retire her today, retire her fifteen years ago, but no, she doesn’t want to retire. She’s there all day, have to force her to take days off, but she can quote the Bible from beginning to end. Doesn’t know a thing about Christ…but she’s on her way…she doesn’t know…she can quote it like Ben-Gurion quotes it. Oh, he quotes it, Hebrew, it’s only the Old Testament, but he hasn’t the slightest concept of who Abraham really is, or Isaac, or Moses, or Jacob, or any of these who were never mortal born.876 ¶25

They are eternal spiritual states through which men pass; and he starts in the state of Abraham, the friend, the companion, of his own Father, who is now buried within him. And he whispers into your ear in that state, which is called the state of Abraham. He tells you of the gospel, his story of redemption, and you start your journey. He promises you no easy going. You’ll be enslaved as long as you wear the cross, 400 years. Not 400 as you understand years, but as long as you wear the cross, this body. Then he’ll bring you out and you’ll have much, much more than you had before you entered. For God’s power and God’s wisdom will be enhanced by reason of this challenge which he put upon himself. He created the entire thing, a world of death, and buried himself in it, as a challenge to come out of it alive. And died…and died and died and died, as he made his journey. In the end he returned, turned around, and saw himself, the Everlasting Father. Now he could fuse into it and he’s one with the Everlasting Father. So everyone who turns is one in this wonderful unity that is God. So here is the diversity and yet there is unity in diversity, as there is diversity in unity.876 ¶26

Now, you dwell upon what I said tonight. It’s a riddle and riddles are difficult things to understand…and the riddle of riddles is Christ. There is no greater riddle. I tell you a story, the most incredible story in the world, of one who was born, who would influence all eventually, who has told you the only truth in the world, and yet he was not mortal born. Yet he was born. I tell you the one who died and yet he rose from the dead, incredible stories, all summed up in one person called Christ Jesus. He was not mortal born. He never walked the earth as a separate individual; but he rose in the individual and man experienced everything that was said in scripture. The key was then given to the one in whom he unfolded, and he unriddled the riddle that is the Old Testament. For the Old Testament is a riddle, it’s a sealed book, and Christ awakes in the individual and he unriddles the riddle. And when he tells of this unriddled riddle, they don’t believe him.876 ¶27

Those who knew him intimately, judging him by human standards, not knowing that the sifting took place before he came into the world, though he appeared in the world among brothers and a sisters and among others, he was not the same potatoes and had been sifted a long time ago. So he came in to be stirred early in life and he could not be satisfied with the environment into which he was placed at that moment in time. At that secular space and time, that particular age, he became restless because he knew in the depths of his soul something different, and started his search to complete the un-riddling that he had started prior to that. Then it unfolded in him and now he is telling the story. And he tells it to the best of his ability, but he knows from tradition that a few will hear it and the mass will reject it.876 ¶28

There will be a few who will hear it and believe it, but they will be afraid of the reactions of the society in which they live, and, therefore, they will be silent and not mention it, not forcefully. They’ll listen to his thoughts or read what he has to say in private and hide the book because it may be seen by those who are still of what is considered the upper crust of the world in which they live. That is told in scripture in the 12th chapter of the Book of John. Here, they heard, many believed him, but they were afraid of the Pharisees and afraid they may be put out of the synagogues.876 ¶29

Well, the synagogue of the ancient world is still with us today in all denominations of churches, and they’re always excommunicating. Anything that disagrees with their traditional concept of a secular world they excommunicate. And then, of course, they go blindly on and tomorrow they’ve revised it, taking him back into the fold. Now the Lutherans are asking (as though Luther cared) the present Pope Paul the 6th to bring Luther back into the fold, for he was excommunicated hundreds of years ago. The modern day Lutherans would be very happy if both Paul the 6th would redeem Luther and once more bring him back into the fold. Have you ever heard such nonsense? Isn’t that Alice in Wonderland in the extreme?876 ¶30

Well, this is this present world in which we live. I tell you forgive them, they know not what they do. And that goes from the Pope down…all the way down to the one who shines his shoe and thinks he’s blessed because he shines his shoe. Let him awake in you. One day you will turn around and the joy that you returned! I was taken straight into the presence of the risen Christ. I didn’t turn around. Had I turned around, I would not be here. I was taken into his presence, answered the questions asked, and incorporated into his body that I may complete the journey. At any moment between now and the inevitable departure from this world, I would turn around and you will read of Neville’s obituary and it’s the end of my journey. I’ve finished it…that I know from my own personal experience.876 ¶31

So here I hope this night I have helped in a measure in un-riddling the riddle. The greatest riddle in the world is Jesus Christ. Who is he?876 ¶32

Now next Monday, we only have one lecture next week, which is Monday night. We have nothing on Friday and then the following Monday we’re back again on the same schedule of Monday, Friday until we close the end of April. Next Monday my subject will be “He Dreams in Me”; the following Monday, “He Stirs in Me”; and then the following Friday, “He Awakes in Me.” So these are the three scheduled for Monday, then the following Monday, and then the Friday just before Easter.876 ¶33

So, he dreams in me…and I have some lovely dreams to share with you sent me by those who are here, where scripture flows through the mind in the normal setting of the workday. As you are told, as I quoted tonight, “Believe me. The words that I say unto you are not mine; they are his who sent me.” Well, here’s one in his own workaday building and he’s hearing what he knows he didn’t write. They are words said by another. Who?—the one who sent him into this world to do what he is now doing. Well, I have many things to tell you concerning the dreams of those who have shared them with me, little children and adults, and the children of [...]. So, next Monday we are here and the subject is “He Dreams in Me.”876 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *876 ¶35

If you give a book, I know of no better book than my present one. I speak of the last chapter—it’s the true story of Easter. Some are in the habit of giving books at Easter. Well, that last chapter, which I have titled Resurrection, is the true story, not based upon hearsay, but on my own personal experience of the resurrection and all that goes with it. Alright, Ben?876 ¶36

Blake tells us that all of his vision—his poems, his drawings—are all vision from the same source as the Bible; they are eternal. Let us turn to one of them tonight. He tells us that “It is impossible to thought a greater than itself to know.” And then he asked the Father, “And, Father, how can I love you or any of my brothers more?” The initiative must be then with God. And the Bible teaches that it is. We love Him because He first loved us. To the degree that God wants me to know Him—to that degree, He has to raise me to that level in consciousness that He desires me to know. If He desires me to know Himself in His fullness, well then, He has to raise me to that degree of Himself in fullness, for “it is impossible to thought a greater than itself to know,” or you dwell upon it. But that is his vision. I do not think anyone could ever deny it. He may think through our personal effort we can expend it, but the initiative is all with God the Father. If I would love Him to the degree that He loves me, I love Him.873 ¶1

Now, “No greater love has man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.” No greater love. “I call you ‘friend.’ No longer do I call you slave, for a slave does not know what his master is doing. So I call you ‘friend,’ for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known unto you.” So here is the glorious statement of, well, life itself. God actually became as we are that we may be as He is. That’s the story that I do know from my own personal experience.873 ¶2

Now, we will turn to the Psalm. It is stated in the Psalm, for he said, “I have come only to fulfill Scripture.” There is no index that I have found so far that remotely relates this statement to Scripture. And yet, here is another statement in the 11th chapter of John—a cynical statement in the mouth of the high priest. And the high priest turns to the people, and he says, “It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and gather together into one all the children of God who are scattered abroad.” Here is a cynical remark, as the reasoning mind would analyze it, and yet, that’s all Scripture.873 ¶3

I go back now to the 82nd Psalm, which is considered the most difficult of all the Psalms, called the interpreter Thomas Cheyne, who was the editor of the most critical of all the scholarly works on the Bible, and that work is the Encyclopedia Biblica. And he said of this, “We can only guess at its meaning. Whatever it meant originally has long passed from us. We can only guess and hope we come near the meaning of what the psalmist intended.” For here are the highlights of the Psalm. It’s not a long one. “And God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the gods, He holds judgment.” The word translated “God” and “gods” is the same word. It’s a plural word, but in the beginning, it’s translated in the singular. “I’m God.” Then it comes “gods” in the plural. Now, he goes on, “I say you are God—Sons of the Most High—all of you. Nevertheless, you will die like men.” Now, he gives us an alternate translation in the footnote, which is preferable to what is commonly accepted: “You will fall out one man, oh, you princes.” One man falls and then becomes scattered. All these scattered ones are the children of God. One man fell. One man will rise and gather together into one all the children of God.873 ¶4

One man is buried in each man. That one man is God. It was God and God alone who actually sacrificed Himself to raise his sons to the level of Himself, that they may know themselves as the Father, for the purpose in life is to find the Father as the cause of the phenomena of life. Until that is found, man hasn’t found anything. He is in conflict with himself. He has to raise himself to the level of the Father, but only the Father can do it. So the Father actually became as we are.873 ¶5

You see, now, the cross is an act of love and not of human sin, as is taught in the world. It’s an actual act of love. “No greater love as man than this, that he laid down his life for a friend. And I call you ‘friend.’ No longer do I call you slaves, for a slave does not know what the master is doing. But all that I have heard from my Father I have made known unto you.” Now, we are friends. And He lays down his life for his friends. He takes upon himself the cross. He is actually crucified upon this cross.873 ¶6

Now this I do know, not because it is in Scripture. It is in Scripture. “We are the temple of the living God. And the Spirit of God dwells in you.” That is stated in the 3rd chapter, the 16th verse of 1st Corinthians. But my experience back in 1950, when this night, as it is said in the 42nd Psalm. And people say to me continuously, and all my adversaries taunt me, saying, “Where is your God?” But these things I remember, as I pour out my soul. I went with the throng, and I led them in procession to the House of God, for that night, I took this enormous crowd. It seems to be an Arabian crowd, a Jewish-Arabian crowd. And I am going, leading this crowd to the house of God. They thought it to be an external house, as the whole vast world goes to a cathedral, and call it the House of God. Or they go to Mecca every year, and many of them are trampled to death in the great procession, as they go off towards Mecca and all these great religious celebrations.873 ¶7

But this night, I am leading them in procession to the House of God, and the voice rings out, and God walks with them. At my side is a woman—very attractive, olive skin, dressed in the robes of the Arab woman. And she answered the voice and said, “If God walks with us, where is He?” And the voice answered, “At your side.” And she looked at her side, and looked into my face, and the most derisive laughter, hysterical laughter. It struck her so funnily. And then she said to the voice, “What? Is Neville God?” And the voice answered, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then that was spoke in the depths of my own soul, and no one of the crowd heard it. I alone heard it. And the voice said to me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep.” And as I slept, I dreamed the dream. I dreamed, and I knew exactly the end of that sentence, He is dreaming the desire. And when He awakes, I am He. I knew it.873 ¶8

But before I was brought back into this body, I was brought back in the crucifix. My two hands, the palms of my hands, my head, the right side, and the soles of my feet were vortices. That’s how God was nailed upon this cross, for God’s name is “I Am.” I felt myself nailed, and it was sheer ecstasy. It wasn’t painful. It was ecstatic. I can’t describe the joy in being self-sacrificed upon this cross. And then I woke on my bed.873 ¶9

That’s back in 1950, nine years before the actual awakening that was promised that night. He said, “Yes, in the act of waking.” It took nine years later before He awoke within me and confirmed what He had said. That same woman that was on my right that night was on my left on the first day of January 1963, and she was the voice—the same woman—when the dove descended. And she was the voice of God—Bat Kol. She was that voice spoken of in the Talmud. I hear a divine voice, like the sound of the cooing of a dove, and she said to me, “The birds just simply avoid man, because man gives off the most offensive odor. But He loves you, and He penetrated that ring of offense to demonstrate his love for you.” That same woman that was derisive in her laughter when the voice announced that “I am God in the act of waking,” she didn’t hear what I heard after that: “I laid myself down within you to sleep.” He was present then, not only at the awakening. He was present at the descent of the dove, which was the descent of the Holy Spirit, acknowledging and confirming all that He had proclaimed, back when she derisively laughed at me. So that is the whole vast world. And the whole vast world is passing through me in the same story, and the struggle is within us.873 ¶10

Now, let me share with you a letter that came this week. The three parties mentioned in the letter are here tonight. Now, a dream has only one simple main point. Any attempt to give all the little things meaning is stupid. You get away completely from the main point. This dream is a dream within a dream. Therefore, there are two main points, only because it’s a dream within a dream. Were it not so, it only would have one main point.873 ¶11

And this young lady writes me. She says, “I haven’t told this to my mother. I haven’t told it to anyone. I am writing to you in the hope it has meaning. I can’t see any significance to it, but I must tell it. It was so vivid that in my dream, my mother wanted to comb and brush my hair and style it. And we had an argument—a violent argument—because I wanted to comb my own hair and style my own hair, and it differed from her concept of what I should have.873 ¶12

“And the argument progressed to the point of explosion. And then, when she went off to get the comb and the brush, I simply hid from her, and I went into a closet. The closet, instead of being a closet, was a small room. And there, reclining on an upholstered chair in a very comfortable manner, was my teacher. He appears so often to me in my dreams. He is a kind, wonderful, comforting teacher—very helpful, very gentle, and very good as a teacher.873 ¶13

“He heard every word of the argument, but he said nothing. He was perfectly silent, but I knew he had heard everything. Then I sat next to him, and I took some oil, and I rubbed it into my skull, the left side of my head. And then my mother came with the comb and the brush, and she found me. And when she came in, I took more oil and put it into the right side of my skull, so she could not comb and brush my hair or style it, and she was furious. I mean, it was violent.873 ¶14

“And I say to her, ‘You cannot stop it. It is my life. It is my right, and you can’t stop it.’ Then the scene changed, and I’m floating. And I am floating in the air, but I’m not alone; there are others with me. And we’re over the ocean, and we look down, and I hear a lady’s voice. And the lady’s voice is describing the ships as they go by. And each ship, as it goes by, is an improvement over the last ship in the way that it cuts the water. Each one was a great improvement in structure. And then I found myself standing on the deck of the ship. And then here is my mother and my stepbrother standing on the deck with me. At that very moment, the memory of what transpired—that violent argument—returned, and I thought that was last night’s dream, for here now was a dream within a dream. For I think this is a reality now. I am on a ship, and it’s real. And what I now remember concerning the argument to me seems to have been a dream. So it was a dream within a dream.873 ¶15

“That was the first part of the dream. But there are two separate parts. At that moment, here you are approaching, walking on the water. And you walk up to the ship on the water. You still are standing on the water, and you take my stepfather’s hand. You take my mother’s hand. You shake it. She bends over, and she kisses you on the cheek. And my father blushes, or rather, he’s embarrassed. And he says, ‘Sorry about that.’ He gave a kiss. And then I turned and took her hand. She held it to her chest, and then she said, ‘I knew at that moment you were my teacher. You were the one reclining on that chair. You had always been my teacher. But I didn’t know it until now. There you were, my teacher, always.’ And then you whispered into my ear, and then you said to me, ‘Do not call me homeless.’873 ¶16

And then, at that moment, you started off. And as you started off walking on the water, you turned around and turned to my parents, and you said to them, ‘Last night, she heard her music. She heard the depth of her music.’ At that moment, I awoke.” And she said, “I don’t quite understand it. If there’s any meaning to it, tell it to me. But please believe me, I have never thought you homeless.”873 ¶17

Well, thank you. That is irrelevant. What the father said about, “Sorry about that.” It’s a sort of British expression: “Sorry about that, old chap.” “Sorry about that, old man.” I mean, I’ve said it so often. It’s so—it’s automatic in the British world that you apologize in a strange little way by saying, “Sorry about that, old man.” And whatever. She did—she kissed me, and then she apologized. It’s a typical British manner. And so I could have said to her, instead of “homely,” I could have said “homily” in a British manner, that you are thought to be homeless. Well, “homily”—the meaning quite differs from “homely.” “Homely” is not only unattractive, but “homely” also means, you know, it means cozy and friendly and benevolent. But “homily” means a lecture, a discourse on a religious or a moral theme. And this is not any moral theme.873 ¶18

Now, there are two main points in this. A lad does not—until he casts off that mother image—he does not mature. He does not become a man. One must cast off the mother image to become a man. He is in search of the father. And this conflict that seems so violent on the outside to the outer air—the discord—was music of despair to the one in that closet who was hearing the conflict, for he knew this is going to be victory for his pupil. I was her teacher. I was only a symbol. She is seeking her father, for quite often, the same one in her dream appears, not only as her teacher, but as her father. So she is seeking the father image. And you must cast off the mother image. You cast that off if you are going to mature. And I knew in the depths of my soul, which is her soul, that here is now victory. So the discord is now being resolved into the most harmonious victory.873 ¶19

And to him that conquers, I will give him the Morning Star. What is the Morning Star? He gives you himself. But is he not the Morning Star? I am the root and the offspring of David—the great Morning Star, that wonderful star. So he gives you the Morning Star because you conquer. Well, by casting off the mother image, you have conquered, and then you have matured. From now on, here is maturity. It doesn’t mean she loves the mother less. She loved that mother more than ever before, for now, there are two individuals respecting each other as individuals and loving each other as individuals. And the love will increase and increase and increase. But it has to reach that point where you cast off the mother image.873 ¶20

And then, when I said in the second—the second part, the main theme of the second part—last night, which was the conflict, she heard her music. It was music to my ears. She heard the depth of her music, for what seemed to be discord on the outside—a fight and a furious conflict—was, to the one in the closet who heard it all, the music of his prayers. So when you pray, go into the closet and close the door. And your Father, who is in that closet, sees in secret, and He hears in secret, and He’ll reward you openly.873 ¶21

And she comes out, and she is floating over the ocean. And now what is that floating over the ocean? And here the ship’s going by. Are we not told in Scripture, “Drink no more water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your many infirmities”? Don’t forever and forever gather only psychological truth. You go as a student, and you simply absorb all the psychological truth that you possibly can. That’s water. Turn it into wine. The very first act in John, called the Great Act, is the conversion of water into wine. And what did he say? “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” That’s the turning from the mother image. So the mother said to him, “We have no wine.” And he said to the mother, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” and turns his back upon the mother. And then she said to the servants, “Whatever he tells you to do, do.” And then he said to the servants, “Fill the stone jars with water, and then draw.” And when they drew, it was wine. “So drink no more water,” said Paul in his first letter to Timothy, “but use a little wine, for your stomach’s sake and your many afflictions.” And so take what you know now as truth, and convert it into wine by using it. Don’t just forever absorb it, and have more and more water, but apply it.873 ¶22

Now, having matured, she will take the truth she knows: love her mother more than ever before, and her mother will prove that. She will see a far greater devoted daughter than she’s ever known before—a far more loving daughter, but a more independent daughter, one who now could actually stand up on her own feet, and comb her own hair, and style her own hair—not going to run off and become a hippie. That’s not—that’s a false attitude towards turning from the mother. That’s completely false. It has to take place in the soul of man; it doesn’t take place on the outside. When people by the thousands or hundreds of thousands are running off today from their parents, they aren’t running away from their mother. That conflict takes place in the depths of the soul. That’s where it takes place, and it did in hers. And she wrote it so beautifully and so clearly. Just as I’ve told you, that’s how she wrote the letter to me.873 ¶23

So: “It is impossible to thought a greater than itself to know; ‘nought loves another as itself, nor venerates another self.’ You question that. “Oh no, I so love my child, and I love my daughter.” Telling me now is either you or your daughter. One must die now. I could not hesitate for the nth part of a second to say, “Take my head off first.” Square heard, I’ve lived; I have fulfilled the drama of life in its fullness. Not for one second could I hesitate, but it still does not alter that vision of Blake: “‘Nought loves another as itself, nor venerates another self, nor is it possible to thought a greater than itself to know. And, Father, how can I love you or any of my brothers more?” It is impossible for thought other than itself to know.873 ¶24

Well then, raise me in thought to the level you want me to know you. If you want me to know you in the fullness of your being, then raise me to that fullness—what he did; for my Father is Father. God is a Father. And He raised me to the level of fatherhood and showed me His son, who called me “Father.” There was no possibility of man making that effort. He had to be raised to that level. And my Father so loved me: “No greater love as man than this, that he lays down his life for a friend.” And He called me “friend.” And then He gave Himself to me. And God absolutely, literally became as I am that I may be as He is.873 ¶25

And that vision of the 42nd Psalm proves it beyond all doubt. When the voice said within me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep,” and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed. I knew exactly what He was dreaming. He was dreaming of His “I.” And when He wakes, He is I, and I am He. Well, He woke within me on the morning of the 20th of July, 1959. That’s when He woke. And then, five months later, He revealed Himself as Father—not a Father out there, but in me as Father. And His son stood before me and called me “Father.” And then I knew what it meant: that one man must die, and save all the people, and gather together into one all the children of God who are scattered abroad.873 ¶26

And that lovely poem of Robert Graves comes to mind: “Hold fast with both hands to that royal love, which alone, as we know certainly, restores fragmentation into true being.” The fragmented one is then gathered together into one. And that one is the one who died for all. So that is the story of Scripture. Everyone in the world will be redeemed; everyone in the world will be raised to that level; and everyone will find the love that is God. But only that infinite love could have done it, for “no greater love of man than this, that he laid down his life for his friends.” And he called us “friends.” We are the sons that came down, and He wanted His son to be one with Him. And it’s the Father who died.873 ¶27

So, far from being the image and the symbol of human weakness and human sin, it is the symbol of God’s love—that which we call the cross. It’s a beautiful symbol. I never tire of seeing a beautiful cross. I love it. As far as a piece of art goes, it’s perfectly beautiful—the cross. But it’s not to me a symbol of suffering, although He does suffer in wearing this garment. To me, it is the symbol of love. That’s what it is—not any human weakness or human sin at all.873 ¶28

So I thank her for sharing with me her wonderful vision, for now, she has reached maturity. And from now on, go on. Love both of them more than ever before. And to the degree that you love them, they’ll respond. For the story is: “We love Him because He first loved us.” That’s the story, as told us in the first letter of John, the fourth chapter. “We love Him because He first loved us.” So the initiation and that initiative starts with God. So, “it is impossible for thought a greater than itself to know.” And so God desired that you and I know in His fullness. And so He sacrificed Himself and actually took upon Himself this garb.873 ¶29

This is the tree, as we are told in the story, and they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. This is the tree. There is no other tree. In the 13th chapter of the Book of Acts, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. Have you ever seen the human form on a chart when the skin is removed and the veins and all the things are there? It’s like an inverted tree where the roots are here, and the tree is going down. And the day will come—it will all turn up. And that day will come when the serpent rises from the lake, then the whole tree turns up. And what was done into generation has turned into regeneration. And that’s then the Tree of Life. And this is the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. He ate of it and came down. And it was God and God alone who actually did the sacrifice. And then all of his sons were scattered. And now He calls them one by one and gathers them all together into one—all the children of God that were scattered abroad.873 ¶30

I’ve told this in that cynical remark in the 11th chapter of John. And when you read it in the service, you will think, “What a horrible high priest.” But here, he turns to the crowd and says, “You do not know anything. You do not know that one man must die for the people. And in his death, that that one man who died for them, his death would gather together into one all the children of God that are scattered abroad.” It seems so cynical, doesn’t it? See, behind every statement in Scripture, there is that hidden, symbolical meaning. A man reading it on the surface, he doesn’t see anything, because he sees it in the outer air, as my friend who had the vision.873 ¶31

She heard the conflict. And she said, “I couldn’t dare tell my mother. And so I’m going to write it to you first in the hope it has significance,” because undoubtedly, she would never have argued that way with her mother. And so she could not—even though in dreams—she could not tell the mother that a dream of this nature took place, because, physically, she wouldn’t do it, and then to have that in dream. But in the depths of the soul, seemingly, you have no control—not the rational mind. But He who is in the closet listening, He heard the music of this world. He heard all the glorious things of the world. On the outside: conflict. And He knew this conflict must now be resolved into the most glorious, harmonious victory for His pupil, for a disciple is a pupil, a learner. And now, she no longer becomes the learner. She floats over the water now, hangs up on the deck. And from now on, she’s going to stop drinking all the water and convert it into wine, and put into practice what she has heard, and live it, and love her mother all the more. No matter what happens from now on, she’ll love her all the more, for she knows, “Only as I love her can she love me.” That is the story.873 ¶32

If I would have someone important in my world, I must treat them as though they are important. I don’t care who they are. If I want them to be big, treat them as though they are big, and think of them as big, and talk to them in my mind’s eye as though they are big, and treat them that way. And then to the degree that I actually practice that—turning this water into wine—they become that in my world. And this is the world in which we are living.873 ¶33

So, “drink no more water, Timothy. Take a little wine for your stomach’s sake and it’s many afflictions.” How many a wino stood before a judge and quoted that and got off? The judge toddled. I’ve read many a case where he goes before the judge; he said, “Well, the Holy Word says this, Your Honor.” He said, “What holy word?” He said, “In the Bible, Your Honor. It tells me not to drink any more water.” And so he comes in with his bottle hanging from his pocket, and he’s all plastered, and he turns to the judge. He said, “The Bible tells me to drink no more water and drink wine.” But the judge never heard that before. He picked up his own Bible, because he’s got the square on the Bible. And the wino could tell him exactly where to find it: in the fifth chapter of 1st Timothy. And here, he looks at the fifth chapter of 1st Timothy, and the judge reads it. “Case dismissed. You can’t swear on a book and then not go by it.” So he dismisses the wino.873 ¶34

But that’s not what it means. It means to take this wonderful psychological truth, which is symbolized as water, and then stop just simply absorbing it and pouring it in, and apply the truth that you know. And so when someone is in need, represent them to yourself, as though they were not really in need at all, but they were affluent. And see them now exactly as they would like to be seen by you and by everyone in the world, and persist in that assumption. And if you persist in that assumption, you’re turning water into wine, and making it become alive in your world.873 ¶35

This is the first act in the Book of John—the first what is called “sign.” “Woman, what have I to do with you?” That is the getting rid of the mother image. He’s talking to His mother. And as He rubs out the mother image, here comes what you ought to do: he’s going to turn it now into wine—no more water in his life. So the whole thing behind every saying is this wonderful hidden meaning that is in the Bible—each a hidden symbolical meaning.873 ¶36

You are destined—each one of you—to awaken one day as God the Father. And God the Father so loved you, He actually became you. That was the great sacrifice: “Unless I die, thou canst not live. But if I die, I shall arise again, and thou with me.” So God dies—completely gives up His darkness, His glory, and takes upon Himself the weakness and the limitation of the human nature. And there, He suffers from the beginning to the end. And in the end, you awaken. And when you awaken, you are God. And you only know that you are through His Son calling you “Father,” for no one knows who the Father is except the Son. No one knows who the Son is except the Father. So no one has ever seen God. But the Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. So all of a sudden, He appears. And this glorious, heavenly Son, who is the Son of God, calls you “Father.” And then you know who you are.873 ¶37

In your remaining days, you simply tell it. And you tell it to everyone who will listen. Some will listen, and some will not. Some will believe, and some will disbelieve. But it’s not your concern. You simply tell it. And remember, as you tell it—although there may be a very small crowd in a world of 3.5 billion—remember the Parable of the Mustard Seed: the smallest of all trees, and yet in time, it grows into a lovely, wonderful bush where the birds can nest. Give it time, and then it becomes a tree, and the birds can feed upon it and nest upon it. But it seems so insignificant when first dropped into the ground. So do not judge by numbers. Do not judge by the few who hear it, for it will be just like the mustard seed, and it will grow. And when it grows, it will house the birds of the air; and they will come, and they’ll feed upon it and nest upon it. It makes no difference if there be ten million listening or the few who are here tonight. Always bear in mind the Parable of the Mustard Seed.873 ¶38

And don’t—as you are warned—not to count the crowd. And David would count the number. He was warned not to count it, for “I am with you.” And one with God is a majority, so it doesn’t really matter. Do not put on the armament of sword. Take it off, and go knowing you only have the five stones. And five is the symbol of grace. And all you need is the grace of God. And the grace of God is power: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” So you are weak, unarmed. You go with your five little stones. That’s My grace, and My grace is My power. And what can stand against the power of God? So you go in the power of God.873 ¶39

And don’t come haste, and don’t say anything to anyone. It doesn’t matter. Someone would say, “So few tonight, aren’t they?” What does it matter? Suppose there were ten thousand tonight, and no one understood me. And suppose there were ten thousand ten thousand, and I spoke nonsense, and they all understood it. I came down to the level of the pit and talked about secular history, and now we should go out and get involved in society, and try to change this and change that? That’s not Christian. Go and tell them that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Repent, change your attitude towards life, and believe in the Gospel. What Gospel? The earliest Gospel tells: it is the Gospel of God, the good news of God. So go and tell them.873 ¶40

And that begins with a baptism and ends with a resurrection. And he’s right—it does begin with a baptism. But a baptism is not taking place in a little church, a little water. That baptism takes place the moment that you stand in the presence of love; and love incorporates you into His body. That’s fusion. That’s baptism—when you emerge to become one with the body of God. And the end, which is the beginning of the unfolding supernatural event, does begin with the resurrection.873 ¶41

So Mark is perfectly right in beginning it with the baptism in the first chapter and ending it with the resurrection. He was the foundation of the synoptic Gospel—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They drew upon his book. They enlarged upon it and magnified it and beautified it, but he stuck to the simple, primitive tradition. And he began with the baptism, which is right. They come to the end—it’s resurrection. But in the end, the end is eschatology, and that does begin the end: the resurrection. The first step, then the birth, then the sonship and fatherhood of God, and then comes the ascension at a fiery surface. And then comes the descent of the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove.873 ¶42

And that same derisive laughter and the same woman who stood on my right is now standing on the left, and she is explaining to me how they avoid man, because of the offensive odor that man gives off. But now He so loves you; He penetrates that ring of offense and descends upon you to demonstrate His love for you—the same, same woman. All is clean—the same face—but no more that derisive laughter, that solemn voice of God. And I hear the divine voice calling and calling like the sound of a dove cooing. And the dove comes down.873 ¶43

So this whole drama unfolds within us, may I tell you, and everyone is going to experience it. I’m sent to tell you: you’re going to experience it. That’s why I’m here. And I have finished the telling. I can only, from now on, repeat it.873 ¶44

And then, like tonight, take a friend’s vision and incorporate it into the night picture; and to show you how you must cast off the woman, the mother image, for you’re in search of the Father. And it does not mean that you’re going to not love your mother anymore. You love her all the more. But now you’re mature. You’ve become a woman now; you’ve become an adult by casting off the mother image. And you’ve found the Father walking on the water, for He is the only one that did it. When Peter did it, he went down. As he started looking at his feet as to how it’s done, he went down. But here, He stood next to the boat; He was standing on the water. He walked away, standing on the water, turned back and said, “Last night, she heard her music. She heard the depth of her music.” When others thought that furious, violent argument was horror, He was in ecstasy.873 ¶45

Tonight’s lecture will be devoted to clarifying certain points which undoubtedly I have taken for granted, for these questions came this week, quite a few letters, and came from those who really understand and practice this principle. So coming from them I feel that tonight is the time to simply clarify certain points. This teaching is essentially a revelation of the risen Christ. I am not interested in the events of the life of any man between his physical birth and his death…it’s only about the risen Christ. And when I speak of Christ, I do not speak of another. I have no mental image of a being outside of you, your life, outside of myself, my life. So when Paul says to all of us in his letter to the Colossians : “You have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Here he equates your life with Christ. Well, you are alive. You can’t deny that you’re alive. So what does he mean that you have died? In all of his letters he equates death with sleep, but it’s not the normal sleep that you will enjoy tonight. To him, sleep is amnesia so profound it’s a complete forgetfulness of the past. That’s the sleep of which he speaks and he calls it death. So when he calls upon man to rouse yourself, “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead” …what he calls sleep and death in this verse. So here, your life is actually the one and only Christ; but it sleeps in man, it will awaken in man, and it can’t awaken as another…it’s your life. He rises in you. Well, when he rises in you it’s you yourself rising in yourself…and that is Christ. Now, he defines Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” , so here is the power of God and the wisdom of God sleeping in man that is man’s own life. So the power that God gives to us is the power of his love, and God is love so he gives us himself. He gives us his creative power. When we say our inheritance—not a home, not a fabulous land—the power to create the fabulous land, the power to create anything in this world that you desire. So let us take now sections of the many points that have confused.871 ¶1

I’ll start first with this, it’s a series of questions, and the gentleman asked me if I could fit it in to take the fourth one first. Well, the fourth one is this. He said, “I do not have your notes before me, I’m writing from the office, but if memory serves me well this is what you said, or what I thought you said, that others have bodies and lives of their own, but their reality is rooted in you as your reality is rooted in God.” “Now,” he said, “I have a project. It is a desire that I cannot rub out, but it does involve others. I wonder if the others would like to be involved in it? I have a feeling that they would not. What right have I—although you do say do not concern yourself with influence, don’t be concerned with influencing another; the whole vast world rooted in you will play the part they must play if you are faithful to your objective. Which individual or individuals—it may take a thousand of them—and without their knowledge or consent they will play the part that they must play for the fulfillment of your goal.” Now he said, “I have started a project in my Imagination, for my premise is imagining creates reality. If it creates reality, then there is no fiction. I start on a premise that has not a thing in the outer world to support it. But if the premise that imagining creates reality is fact, I don’t need any external evidence at the moment, I will get it in time.” So he said, “In the midst of my project I then turn aside. I cannot influence these men. I now wonder if it is not their hidden desire, too, and they don’t want me in it. It could be that they themselves, because it’s so intense with me. Now what should I do? You say when I am exercising my Imagination on behalf of another if I do it lovingly I am mediating God to that other. Well, I do it for the benefit of all, yet should I continue to do it when I have a doubt as to whether they want to be involved in it?”871 ¶2

Well, I would say to him, take just the objective. If you really have an objective and you would like them as partners—you may single them out now as partners because of their talent, because of your love for them, and it would be nice to go through with this venture having such talent and such partnerships—but if they all vanished, if they all went elsewhere, thousands of miles away on other projects, would you still have the desire? Would it still be something you would want regardless? Well, if it is, then they’re not essential. But the desire, all right, someone equally talented and maybe more so will come seeking you in the project. If you put yourself in the end, and start in the end, and rejoice in the end, you will draw the necessary individual either into partnership or in some way to play the part they must play to aid the birth of what you are doing.871 ¶3

Now, you wonder if all things work for good. Well, the Bible teaches that it does. In the 8th chapter of Romans we are told, “Everything works for good” . This is dramatized for us in a little story in the last chapter of Genesis, the 50th chapter. If you’re not familiar with it, here is a man, one of twelve sons, his name is Joseph. He had the capacity to dream vividly…his visions were true. He could interpret dream, interpret vision. And his brothers became envious of him, so much so that one day they plotted to sell him. First they were going to kill him and Judah interceded and said, “Do not kill him and have his blood upon us. Let us sell him. Here comes a caravan on its way to Egypt, so we will sell him as a slave.” Well, they bought Joseph, and then Joseph rose to the heights of Pharaoh. He had the same power as a Pharaoh, his word was law. He interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh when everyone else failed. As a result, Pharaoh made him equal with himself. Whatever he said had to be executed. Then came the famine that he foretold. His brothers came seeking wheat, for everyone was starving. They all came down to discover that the one they sold was the one now that sat on the throne, Joseph. Joseph recognized them and these are the words of Joseph to his brothers, he said, “Fear not. You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”871 ¶4

With my talent—this is not recorded but it’s what he’s implying—“With my talent to interpret the dreams that no one else could interpret, knowing that God was going to give Pharaoh a series of dreams, his astrologers would fail, the magicians would fail, everyone would fail to interpret, I could interpret it. So I am in jail, and his butler, his baker are in jail with me. I interpret theirs and they promise to speak for me. But they don’t when they get out, and everything came to pass in their case as I foretold. One day the one who was set free, the butler, turned to Pharaoh and said, ‘There was one in jail with me, a Hebrew, who can interpret dreams.’” “Bring him.” Well, his interpretation was so accurate that he made him equal with himself. So he knew one could interpret the dream of God, others couldn’t. And by this one he meant him to be sold as a slave, then I can reach him to interpret the dream of the one I’m going to give it to, but he can’t interpret it for himself. His magicians can’t interpret it. “So you who sold me meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good.” So everything works for good, but it takes time to reflect upon the act.871 ¶5

I could go back to my own small family. There came a moment in our life as a family when we thought the world came to an end, for we seemingly were deceived by partners of my father. They intended getting control of the little he had as equity in the business, and the day they attempted it and succeeded, our world collapsed. We had nothing! What we thought were friends made themselves scarce not knowing if the accusations would stick. Well, from then on what appeared to us to be an evil against us as a family turned out to be a blessing; for by detaching ourselves from this partnership, which was a small partnership in the sense they couldn’t think big, everything was a little tiny thing. If they could buy something this morning and sell it today, that’s the way they lived and they thought that way. Then by detachment from that little pigmy mind, starting on our own as a family with boys who could actually imagine, they took it from nothing, way behind the eight-ball, into what it is today, which is quite a big enterprise of all kinds of businesses. Not just one, but multiple businesses. And yet we have no outside partnership, it’s only the family. It dwarfs anything we could have thought of forty years ago when it happened.871 ¶6

So that my father’s partners intended evil against him but God intended it for good…but it took time. And to reflect upon what happened in the interval, it took time to see that it really was for good and not the evil we thought it was. So, everything moves for good…but it takes time.871 ¶7

Now he said, “I had a dream. I received a letter and as I opened the letter there was a card, a report card. It’s about my son and they mention four subjects in which he must show a decided improvement in order not to fail this semester. One subject is Algebra and the other is history and two others.” Now he said, “My son has always been tops in math and when I saw that this was the one that was the lowest mark, with emphasis on this, I was annoyed. But instantly I started revising, revising my son’s report card, revising him and putting him where he ought to be. And then I got annoyed, I said, “No, I am tired of the responsibility of this power that I possess when there are so many needs of revision, and all day long there are numberless people to be revised in my world and I’m tired of the responsibility.” So he said, “My son’s a big boy now; let him do it for himself because he knows this law and he practices this law based upon the premise that imagining creates reality.”871 ¶8

Now in scripture, may I say, Peter said, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him, seven times?” He said, “I did not say seven, but seventy times seven” . It doesn’t mean 490 times that I would count off, but seventy is the numerical value of the Hebrew letter Ayin, which symbol is an eye. Seven is the numerical value of the Hebrew letter Zayin, whose symbol is a sword. I do it until my eye is fixed as though I had nailed it with a sword. I may do it the first time, or it may take me a thousand times to persuade myself that things are as I desire them to be, and not as they appear to be. So, to the degree that I am self-persuaded that this state is true, to that degree I have done it, and it then must build an outer world in harmony with what I have done within.871 ¶9

You might have heard and you might know the works of William James. William James is one of our great educators. He was a great professor of psychology at Harvard. In fact, his works have influenced the entire world…he made so many experiments at Harvard. You might know his work which is A Variety of Religious Experiences. It’s a fantastically marvelous work. Well, he said and these are his words: “The greatest revolution in my generation was the discovery that human beings by a change of inner attitudes could produce outer changes in harmony with these inner changes.” He said that was the greatest revolution in his generation…to make this discovery. Well, that’s in the Bible. I can take you back to the very Book of Genesis and show you where inner attitudes produce inner states. And the one who discovered it even took it with the animals. When the animals came to the watering hole and he knew this is the time the animals were excited, and they would be actually producing themselves, that they were all ready for the act of creation. He made a bargain with his father-in-law that these brown animals and the black animals they would all breed, the black with the black and the brown with the brown. There was no possibility of an offspring being striped or being spotted. But he knew that man becomes what he beholds, therefore, he also knew that the same thing would apply to the animal world. So he took the poplar tree, trees that were striped, and put them right at the watering hole, and only allowed the healthy animals to come here. All of the weak animals he let go in their normal way…the brown with the brown, the black with the black. But he took the poplar tree and he striped it so they saw only the striped. When the females came to the watering hole and they were sired, they looked up and they saw what…the stripes. So when the offspring came into the world, they were striped . They actually produced what they beheld. So he showed the lesson in the beginning: What am I beholding in my mind’s eye? Then we find it in the New Testament: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will” . Well, that is telling me to the degree that I am self-persuaded I will become that which I have assumed that I am.871 ¶10

So in his case, you do it, yes, as often as it takes to be self-persuaded, for, this was a dream simply, not really related to his boy. But he is the closest thing to the man’s life, for the simple reason if anyone wants a thing revised, no one would get his attention quicker than his son. So here is his own son, the boy is bright and he wants him to go the top, where he is anyway. So it is simply using something that is dear to him and telling him, revise it, revise it, revise it, and don’t be afraid of the responsibility of this tremendous power that you have, which is the power to imagine. For life itself is nothing more than an activity of Imagination—that I know from my own experience—so when we speak of Christ being my life, he has to be my Imagination. He can’t be anything but if he is my life, for life is an activity of Imagination. So what am I imagining? For, “by him all things are created and without him there is not a thing created that is created” ; and all things that I now see created were once only imagined. There isn’t a thing that is now formed in my world that I call fact, well, I can take it back to its origin which was only an image…an image in the mind of someone who persisted in that image, and it projected itself onto the screen of space. So in his case, do not give up that responsibility. And as to influencing others, it doesn’t really matter, you can’t help it. I walk the street, you walk the street and we unwittingly influence people in this world. You can’t stop it.871 ¶11

Now another point I want to bring up is this. Those who wrote the Old Testament, the prophets, the servants of the Lord, they did not understand what they saw or what they heard, they put it down. Every true prophet’s vision is foreshortened. They see as present what if future, and, naturally, they enquired, “Well, when is it going to happen?” for to them it has happened. They were present in vision when it is taking place. So we are told, “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and they inquired…as to what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you in the things that are now being revealed” .871 ¶12

So I say to you who are having these wonderful visions, don’t attempt to interpret it in this world of Caesar. You fall right into a pattern trying to interpret something concerning another individual in a world of Caesar. His departure…it hasn’t a thing to do…you are told, only the Father knows. No one knows the hour, no one knows the day, no one knows the season…only the Father. It remains his secret. So it doesn’t make any difference how perfect the vision, it was foreshortened. You saw it as taking place now. As you start searching scripture and try to make it fit what you think it ought to be, you’re going to go astray. It may happen now, this very moment, happen tomorrow, but you can’t foresee it. You saw the vision.871 ¶13

And may I tell you, being a good prophet as you are, in the true sense of the word, only recording God’s word, not trying to interpret it. For, the prophet does not interpret. He can’t interpret what he sees or what he hears, he can only record it. And he stands amazed that he cannot actually date it and tell things because it’s not his time. It was not for your time that it was done but for ours. So you’re still prophet and you’re bringing these lovely visions into being. Put them down just as they happen in the most perfect detail, but don’t attempt to interpret. You’ll go so far afield from what the message really is in the vision. Leave it alone.871 ¶14

Now that brings me to another question which has puzzled him. When God—and I speak of God because God in you is your own wonderful human Imagination, which is called Christ in scripture—when asked to name the greatest of all the Commandments, he doesn’t name any one of the ten, but he names Israel’s confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” . This oneness of God, oneness made up of many, for the word is Elohim and the word Elohim is plural. The first word is Yahadonai, Yod He Vav He, which we interpret as I AM; the second one, God, is Elohim, it’s a compound unity, one made up of others, one made up of many.871 ¶15

Now listen to these words carefully. “They shall have no inheritance; I am their inheritance. Give them no possessions; I am their possession” . Do you know what that means? That instead of God inheriting us, we inherit God! “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” —not pretending, but a voluntary act of complete abandonment of self for those he loves, that we inherit him.871 ¶16

Well now, we search the scriptures. What is he that we inherit? We are told that he is the light of the world. Well, is that true? Yes…one day you will have the experience of being the light of the universe. There will be no stars, no sun, no moon, nothing but light, infinite light, and you are it. There’s nothing but infinite pulsing, living light, and you are it, and there’s no circumference. You inherit God and God is light. You will inherit God as love, infinite love, and you can’t describe the infinity of love and you inherit it. Whatever God was before he became man that man may become God, the individual experiences that as himself.871 ¶17

Was he a father before he became me? Well then, when he succeeds in giving me himself so that I inherit him, then I must be the identical father. Do I know from scripture the Son that was his before he became me? Well, scripture reveals that Son in the 2nd Psalm. Then, am I really that Son’s Father? Well, no one knows but the Son. “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” . Where is that Son? One day there is an explosion within you and standing before you is David of biblical fame…not a David, the David. And there is no uncertainty within you as to this relationship between David who stands looking at you, calling you Father, and you the one called Father. You know it. And it didn’t just happen. Because of the gift it was always so. So when you inherit God, you inherit his infinite past. Whenever David was his Son, you go back to that and beyond it. You know you are David’s Father and he knows he is your Son.871 ¶18

So then you see scripture differently. You see that the signs, the events in the life of Jesus are the signs of the initiative of God in man’s redemption…how he gives man himself. They’re only signs. So here, you count the signs in John; he gives you eight signs, four major ones. In fact, many a scholar will take them and make them four: takes the first and the last together; the second and the seventh; the third and the sixth; and the fourth and the fifth. He goes on making out of eight he makes four by simply taking two at a time…the first and the last, the second and the 7th and so on. Then you come down to these four major signs as recorded in John. He has six that only John records, and then two that Mark and Matthew mention. One is the feeding of the 5,000 and the other is the walking on the water. But the other six are unique to John, and they form four if you take them in pairs, and these are the four mighty signs. When they begin, count the days: 1,260 days from the first to the last as scripture foretells.871 ¶19

So man inherits God. You are not some little thing where one day he animates it and then gives us life in ourselves and then we are owned by him. No, he gave himself for us in the ultimate sense of the word. “So they shall have no inheritance; I am their inheritance. Give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession.” Well, if I possess God, whatever God is I must be. Is he light? Yes. Is he love? Yes. Is he…what is he? Whatever scripture states then I am he. So every being in his world…just dwell upon it. The passage I have just quoted is Ezekiel, the 44th chapter . There you will find that man inherits God, that man possesses God. And what a thought to dwell upon!871 ¶20

Stop being the little pygmy that man has been taught that he is. All this nonsense that we see in the papers, well, don’t let it roil you…and don’t react to it, forget it! All this belongs to the surface man, and what happens to the surface man between the cradle and the grave should not interest you. Whether he be a cook or whether he be a billionaire or whether he be the best dressed man of the year or she the best dressed woman of the year, the most highly publicized, that’s all irrelevant. That hasn’t a thing to do with the essential of scripture which is the risen Christ. And Christ in man is man’s life. Well, that life one day awakens, and to your amazement you didn’t even know you were asleep, because every morning you got up and said, “Well, I slept a very nice night, six to seven hours. Maybe I had a dream, maybe I didn’t. The unbroken night without dream, they’re so restful, and so I had a wonderful sound sleep, not a dream, feel so refreshed. So I slept last night, but now I’m awake and this goes on from the cradle to the grave.871 ¶21

Then he dies and he’s restored to life and continues his same pattern in a world terrestrial just like this, a body same as before but young, unaccountably young, in a world where he battles the elements just as he does here, where he struggles for a living just as he does here; and he goes through and he dies again, he’s restored, and the same thing continues for this long, long journey.871 ¶22

Then one day, he awakes in the tomb where he was placed in the beginning. And to his amazement he didn’t even know that he was ever asleep. He didn’t know that he was ever in a tomb, and never thought for one second that his skull was that tomb. He only thought of tombs in church yards, tombs in some place in the outer world where his descendents would go and say, “Grandfather is buried here or grandmother is buried here” and he thought that was the tomb, a tomb in which they placed what he thought once was something other than himself, called Jesus Christ. Then one day, he discovers everything said of Jesus Christ he is now about to interpret in himself in the first-person singular, present-tense experience. That everything said, in detail, is happening now and he is the actor. He is the central actor in the divine drama of descent and ascent. And no one can ascend but he who descended, and we’re told only Christ descended. Well then, when he ascends he must be Christ; he must be that Son of man who descended because he finds himself ascending. If only he ascends who first descended, then he is the same one who descended, and the one who descended was Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God .871 ¶23

So, there is a hope that makes it wisdom to endure the sufferings of this long dark night of time, if you dwell upon that hope, which is the grace that is coming to you; and that grace is the unveiling of Christ in you as you. There never was another, there is no other Christ. Christ is your life. Read it carefully, the 3rd chapter, the 3rd and 4th verses of Colossians: “You have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, you also shall appear with him in glory,” because you are he. His appearance is his rising, is his waking in you…that’s what it means. When he manifests himself in you (the word translated “appearance” means “manifest”), so when he manifests himself in you he manifests himself as you. So, the birth is your birth; the discovery of the fatherhood of God is your discovery and you are the Father. So now the 44th chapter of Ezekiel is true: “I am their inheritance.” They inherit the Father, they inherit light, they inherit love; they inherit everything that I am, for “I am their inheritance; I am their possession” .871 ¶24

So tonight, you take the little rough points that we try to rub out…and know that everything we see, though it appears without, it is within. You don’t have to influence individuals; you take goals, just goals. If in the world of Caesar you want x-number of dollars a year and you say I don’t have the talent, I’m not qualified, I haven’t, well, anything to make that sort of money, dream it anyway. This one that is getting all the publicity now because of a marriage, if you read it in a paper, born a poor boy in Turkey of Greek parents, taken to the Argentine when he was sixteen, and no schooling, and began to import tobacco. He had sixty dollars…he started life with sixty bucks. He’s forgotten those days completely, and also the one who would marry, because of ambition for greatness and name, would have him forget the lowly beginning. Shakespeare had a word for it, “He denies the ladder by which he did ascend.” So, today with half a billion, or maybe a billion dollars (he started with sixty dollars) just dreaming. I would not ask him how he stole it, doesn’t really matter. I ask no one how did you steal it? It doesn’t matter…it all works for good in the end.871 ¶25

But it doesn’t interest us, or shouldn’t, what he does with his life between the cradle and the grave in the outer world of Caesar. What is happening within the man? Is that life that animates that body is it being stirred, is it beginning to rise, is it rising in him? It has to rise in everyone in order to inherit God, for only Christ inherits God. So Christ, your life, has to rise within you; when he rises within you, you inherit God the Father. So it doesn’t really matter if you play the part of a cook tonight or a maid, carpenter; this external state means nothing.871 ¶26

There are men walking this world who are already redeemed, and they know it, because no one is redeemed who doesn’t know it. There are many who claim it who have not any parallel experience of scripture to support their claim. But those who know it and can point to passages of scripture and say, “In the volume of the book it is written about me”—this is one, that is one, these I have experienced—such men walk this earth playing the part of a cook, a good cook, playing the part of a carpenter, possibly a good one, not known by the outer world at all, waiting patiently for that moment in time when for the last time he takes off the garment of flesh and blood. And so he knows that he can’t take it off himself, only the Father knows that moment in time when it will be taken off. So let no one speculate as to when. They can speculate from now to the end of time. Let them if they have vision record the vision. Too many on recording the visions instantly try to interpret them, and may I tell you, we are past masters at misinterpretation, past masters at misinterpreting the great vision of God to us. Put it down just as it is. If you are a good prophet, you’re vision has been foreshortened and you’re in it now and you think it’s now, because the vision which you see as present is related to the future. That future may be a day, a week, a month, a year, but you do not know. No one knows, only the Father, so don’t speculate.871 ¶27

But now, do not let me discourage you, because I do not mean this in criticism. Keep the visions coming…I love to have them, I love to read them. I had bunches and bunches this week, and I must confess I just love them. So I invited you in the beginning and I invite you to continue the visions.871 ¶28

For the speaker, as far as the speaker goes as a man, he has already risen. He is in this world but he is not of the world. His dreams are certainly not here; they’re not related here at all. His experiences of the night are not related here at all, and so he plays a double life. While he’s here, there’s work to be done to continue to encourage everyone who sits here that can be encouraged by the true story of redemption.871 ¶29

Here tonight, a bulletin that the highest office in Christendom frowns upon this little act, because the first marriage was a divorce rather than an annulment. If you can bring about an annulment, then that makes this a holy marriage…when the Bible tells you that in heaven they neither marry nor are they given in marriage . So what are they talking about? Man in the resurrection is above the organization of sex. He is neither male nor female; he is man, and God is man…not a male, not a female. He is completely above the organization of sex. And they’re talking about a sex act and because it was based upon a divorce and not an annulment. Yet with two children, mind you, they can get an annulment; for he has two children from the first union. But if he can only arrange it with his millions to get an annulment, that makes it a sanctified act. Well you know, if this isn’t Alice in Wonderland! We don’t have to go to the theater to actually experience Alice in Wonderland. That’s modified compared to what actually takes place in our world, the nonsense multiplied by the nth degree, and people will actually believe it.871 ¶30

Now, you just simply take this wonderful story. Take it to heart…it’s a true story. But Christ is your life. The events are wholly supernatural; they’re not of this world at all. The birth is supernatural; the discovery of the Father is supernatural; the ascent and the tearing of the temple from top to bottom, that curtain of the temple, that’s supernatural; and the descent of the dove is supernatural. It hasn’t a thing to do with any physical dove that comes down upon the shoulder of one. It is a supernatural experience, but it is a true experience, just as recorded in scripture. But man—as Tennyson said, “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors”—so they take this fantastic truth and embody it in a tale that man could understand. Because, to tell him that it’s supernatural, then he’s going to go next door to find a natural story. He wants something he can worship.871 ¶31

You’d be amazed how many telephone calls I got in this short little interval since this announcement. I thought these people were intelligent. “Aren’t you disillusioned in her?” In what? Then they tell me that their idol has fallen. I said, “Was that your idol? You’re told to make no graven image unto me, and you actually believed in this story of Camelot? That, here is this child, a perfectly normal child of thirty-nine, feeling all the passion that any woman of thirty-nine feels…she’s still a woman seeking a companion… and you think she shouldn’t, that she’s something different. What makes you think she’s different?” Well, his whole world collapsed and he spoke then for is wife, that her world collapsed. He said, “I can tell you that millions of us in this country feel like it.” I said, “Well now, isn’t that sad. Isn’t that a sad, sad state.” He felt…he wanted me to cry with him. Of all the nonsense in the world that their little idol collapsed when she’s doing a perfectly normal thing in this world. But quite often it takes something just like that to shatter these little icons that we build and stick on the mental wall and then worship it as something different.871 ¶32

But tonight, you take what you have heard. Forget influence! Take objectives. Conceive a scene which would imply the fulfillment of that dream. If they are friends in business or take friends in our social world who would congratulate you on your good fortune, and then revel in it. All right, maybe they will be drawn into it. Maybe they will propose it and think they initiated the whole drama, but don’t be concerned concerning influencing them. You just take the end and dwell in the end, be faithful to the end, and it will come to pass. For these assumptions, though false in their beginnings, if persisted in will harden into fact. And for those who have great vision, who are the truly gifted in this department, record them in detail, and just leave them for me…no comment.871 ¶33

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *871 ¶34

Are there any questions, please? None? All right. I hope it was clear as your silence implies. If there aren’t any questions, then until Monday…thank you.871 ¶35

The name of God is the key to the understanding of the biblical doctrine of God. In biblical terms, the religious question is not “Does God exist?” but “Who is God?” What is his name? What is his Son’s name? And with this riddle you and I wrestle from the beginning of the journey to the end. I will tell you tonight. I am hopeful that you will believe me, but it comes from self-revelation. When it’s revealed to you, then there is no argument; you know. Until it’s revealed, you search the scriptures and there it is. It is in scripture, but man conditioned as he is hardly ever sees it. When he sees it, it’s such a surprise he won’t believe it…so he goes on, because of his conditioned mind. But, here it’s in scripture.870 ¶1

Now we turn to my pal—I call him my pal, for we are separated in time in Caesar’s world, but we are closely and very closely woven in the tapestry of life—and that is Blake. Blake had this argument with his friend—I call him a friend—the Rev. Dr. Trussler. Trussler didn’t like Blake’s interpretation of scripture; and made it very obvious that he didn’t care for Blake’s work, any of it, and said to Blake that you need someone to elucidate your ideas. Blake answered it…Blake said, “You say that I must have someone to elucidate my ideas? You ought to know that what is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men.” He hoped that would put him in his place. Then he said, “What can be made explicit to the idiot isn’t worth my care. The ancients considered that what was not too explicit was fittest for instruction because it rouses the faculties to act.” Then he asked the question, he said, “Why is the Bible more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding or reason?” To Blake man was all Imagination. He saw the parable…but revealing this revelation of his: That all things existed in the human Imagination. So to him the Bible was the most instructive and the most entertaining book in the world. There was nothing comparable to it.870 ¶2

So tonight, we’ll take that book, only sections of it, because how could we cover sixty-six books? The Bible is constructed in three layers. We’re told in Ecclesiastes, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken” . We’re told the ark must be constructed with a lower, a second and a third deck . The whole Bible is written in that manner. Anyone who can read can read the lower level, the literal level. It’s symbolized in scripture as a stone or a rock. Anyone who will dwell upon it, who may be blessed with a vision or some mystical experience, may see that rock (like a Moses) giving water, actually see the inner meaning behind the story. Then one who sees the meaning behind the story, who has the courage to test it, will then find the third symbol and that is wine…so it is stone, water, wine.870 ¶3

So here we are told the shepherds go into the field to water their flock, and when all are gathered together, the shepherd rolls away the stone and waters his flock. After he has watered the flock, he must roll the stone back to the mouth of the well. You will say that’s a very kind act if you took it in that form, for men walking over the field not seeing the well, and there’s no protection, could fall into it. But that’s not it at all. You always put back…leave it just as it is…don’t change the words of God. In other words, you leave it just as the story is told. So then you leave it without an attempt to re-write scripture—and so many are always attempting to re-write it to give it sense—leave it just as it is.870 ¶4

So that well is there forever and it’s always covered. If you’re a good shepherd and you have a flock and you know how to roll that stone away, then quench their thirst. For man who is sent is the shepherd; or one who has been trained by one who is sent is the shepherd, and he has those who are thirsty for truth. He can read the book, or he can listen to someone who can read the book, and listen to it with understanding.870 ¶5

But he will say, what is it all about? Why tell this story in a book called the Book of God? God’s Word must never be altered. Why? Here’s why. Here is a story and it has a meaning, and the meaning is symbolized in the form of water. I am thirsty for something more than the facts of life. Because I was born in a certain limited environment, must I accept these facts forever? Must I accept the limitations of birth and go through life with them until the grave? This story is telling me that I need not. The shepherd who comes who knows will show me how to take the stone and convert it—roll it away and draw forth water, psychological meanings, from the stone. So every story has a hidden meaning, a lovely meaning, and it’s all to set man free, every story.870 ¶6

So you come to me and you tell me the facts of life, what you’re earning, your obligations to life, everything about you, you’re giving me the stone. Then I tell you it doesn’t really matter. Could you now believe me when I tell you that you can be anything that you want to be, but anything? Could you go that far with me? Well, do you believe you could improve your lot if you can’t go that far? Do you really believe you could improve if you can’t go that far? Do you really believe that if I told you of a certain trick…call it a trick…and you applied it, that it would work? Well, this is what the story tells me: I’m going to quench your thirst. If you go away from me thirsting, I haven’t helped you; I have left you with the facts. But I’m not going to tell you that you are suffering because of some past karma, that you’re reaping the fruit of some past, I forget that. I’m going to tell you right now you can be what you want to be in spite of your past, in spite of your present.870 ¶7

In this past Sunday’s paper, you might have read it, the science editorial, and he wonders why man has gone all out for psychoanalysis, analyzing the mind of man. For, he said, “The greatest of them all is called Freud, and those who follow him are the fanatics of the world. And so they will say, my neighbor on my right is polite because he has an inferiority complex; my neighbor on my left he is rude because he has an inferiority complex.” So, said he, if I take this theory of complexes and turn it around, I find that the inferiority complex can produce either politeness or rudeness. That’s not scientific. That’s not what I call a theory that proves itself in performance. You tell me that I am rude because of the same thing that the other fellow finds himself being polite. No, the Bible doesn’t teach that.870 ¶8

It teaches definite outcome of drinking that water. If you would now in spite of what you told me—you’ve given me all the facts—if you would dare to assume that you are now what you want to be, and mentally see the world as you would see it were it true, and dare to believe in that imaginal act, in a way that no one knows, and you need not raise a finger to ask the help of anyone, that imaginal act will crystallize and become a fact in your world, a fact that you can share with others.870 ¶9

So you come asking for water, I give you the water. You believe it? If you don’t have to drink it, you will never turn it into wine. You’ll never know the first great mystery as recorded in the gospel of John. He has these signs and the first one is the marriage feast. He turns to the servants—now he is the Lord so they have to obey his command—he said, “Fill the stone jars with water,” (the stone). So the servants filled the stone jars with water. He said, “Now withdraw some of it and give it to the steward of the feast.” When the steward tasted it, it was the best wine; and all the guests asked of the host, how did you save the best wine for the last? He took the knowledge that he knew…and used it. So he could write through his servant to his friend called Timothy, he could write, “Do not continue to use water only, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent infirmities”.870 ¶10

In other words, this doesn’t cure you forever. You come here today with one problem and so I ask you, what do you want in place of what you have? What would be the solution? So you tell me the solution. I ask you to assume that you have it, just as though you had it, and walk the earth just as though you had it. No breaking any blood vessels…just as though you had it. And watch the thing crystallize and become objective fact. But, I’m not saying that that’s the final thing. You’ll come back tomorrow, another problem. Because man grows in this world, he grows and he outgrows. When I earned eighteen dollars a week, oh, my dream was to earn twenty-five. If I could only earn twenty-five dollars! So I earned the twenty-five. It was not enough. Then I earned the seventy-five…not enough. And I earned the $100…that was not enough. No matter what I earned it’s not enough, because new obligations to life.870 ¶11

You move out of one environment, you grow, as you grow you outgrow, and as you outgrow, you need more of everything to simply live comfortably in this world. And that’s life. You aren’t going to simply accumulate and live in your little home; you’re going to grow with it in mind, and you’re going to grow in your environment. So he said, “Your frequent infirmities.” Don’t use this water only. Use the water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent infirmities. You’ll always have them…up to the very end when the name of God unveils itself and reveals itself in you.870 ¶12

So, all these stories all the way through are on three different levels. The stone is the literal level. And strangely enough, what is literal and stone, the rock, when you experience these stories in depth they are literal. The strange thing about it, you experience it and it’s never as you thought that they would be. You always thought that they belonged to the past and that scripture is the record of some past events. One day you are blessed with the unveiling of God within you, and you have the experiences—what you always thought when you discover the stone, the water, the wine and you could apply it to this world of Caesar—but you never thought that it was still literally true in depth.870 ¶13

Who would have thought that the story of Jesus Christ must be experienced by everyone in this world? And that he himself goes through the experience? That the story is simply an acted parable that every child born of woman will one day actually experience? He will be born from above, he’ll be resurrected. And that last question which we proposed the very first moment we took the platform, “Does God exist?” You don’t ask that question, but “Who is our God?”…we ask that. Then we ask, “What is his name?”…we ask that. Then we ask, “What is his Son’s name?” and there is the cue. When that comes, everything else is revealed.870 ¶14

When the Son reveals you as God the Father, here is the most, I would say, simple, clear and concise expression of the doctrine of the logos, as we find it in the beginning of the prologue of John: “I and my Father are one”. Who will take that literally? And yet it is literally true: I and my Father are one. If that is literally true, then I am my Father; and if I am my Father, then I am self-begotten. Well, how on earth can I be my Father? Wait for the Son, and you’ll find his name, and then you’ll know you are the Father. He reveals you as God the Father.870 ¶15

Scripture tells you he did have a Son, but the name of the Father is Jesse. Well, we’re not all scholars in the Hebrew tongue. You can look it up…and Jesse is simply “any form of the verb to be.” In other words, it’s “I am.” But scholars added to it to give sense to it and wrote the book called Ruth. So we have a genealogy in Ruth that is not found in the ancient manuscripts. We have a genealogy in other words not found in the ancient manuscripts. So you go back to the earliest known manuscripts and there is no ancestor for Jesse. How can I AM have an ancestor? Because I AM is the name of God.870 ¶16

I can tell you I AM is the name of God, but do you know I cannot turn you into love by that knowledge. You can use it as power, real power! As we are told in the 16th of John, “And the hour is coming that they’ll put you out of the synagogues”. Well, the word synagogue you have associated with only one kind of temple: every church made by man. Well, that was the only church of the day. So today it would be all the churches of the world. “They’ll put you out of the churches; and whoever kills you will think he is doing God a service. This they will do because they have not known the Father, nor me”—God believed in, yes, and revealed as I AM. He takes it, I AM, and he works it beautifully, but he doesn’t know that that is Father. Until it is revealed as God the Father love doesn’t burst through. I can be I AM and not turn to anyone in this world. As we’re told in the Book of Kings, “Why do you walk around all the time limping on two different opinions? If the Lord is God, serve him; if Baal, serve him”. Then Joshua comes forth, “Choose this day whom you will serve. We choose the Lord. And then he said to them, ‘You are witnesses against yourself that you have chosen the Lord’; and they replied ‘We are witnesses.’” Well, the word translated Lord is I AM. I’ve chosen that and only that to serve; I will not be misled, I will not turn outside. It doesn’t make me want to love.870 ¶17

And nothing reveals it but God the Father…until I find him as the Father, and not another but myself. Not a power in the world can convince me that I am the Father but the Son who calls me Father. When he stands before me and calls me Father, it is only then that I know how I really am. That comes at the end of the search, the end of the journey. So here, the name of God is secret in this biblical mystery. Find the name. The name also is his nature, and he unveils, one after the other, his nature. He first unveils it as power, El Shaddai; he unveils himself as infinite power. In the very end what a thrill when he unveils it as love! Here you stand before your very being, a radiant being, and it’s infinite love. He embraces you; he has ceased from that moment on to be two, you’re one, one with the body of God who is love. You still don’t know yet that you’re the Father.870 ¶18

Then comes the final revelation when he unveils himself again within you, and he stands before you. Who stands before you?—your Son. You had hidden him in you at the beginning of the journey for the purpose of remembering at the end of the journey who you really are, God the Father. So they will kill you. And why will they do it?—because they have not known the Father, nor me. So God…could believe in; and Father…could ignore.870 ¶19

Today, you ask one million Christians of the world about God the Father, they put him out there some place and put his Son out there some place in time and space, and call the Son Jesus Christ, and call his Father by some name, God, some other name, the Lord. Yet there is one who tells you, “The Father and I are one”. How could you say it more clearly or concisely? How can you in eternity find a sentence so short to reveal so much? I and the Father, therefore, I am the Father! Well, don’t tell me you’re the Father, because then you must have a son…at least, you have a child. What Christian in the world would not think you’re blaspheming if you said that Jesus Christ has a Son? What in this world would they do to you if the law allowed them? Why, they would skin you alive for such blasphemy. And he tells you, I am the Father…when you see me you see the Father. Well then, show us the Son.870 ¶20

Now this is the riddle that’s propounded in the 30th chapter of Proverbs: “Who laid out the foundations of the earth, who did it all? What is his name and what is his son’s name, surely you know?” You don’t know ‘til the end. In the very end you know because he reveals you…when he reveals the Son’s name. I’ll tell you the Son’s name, if you will accept it: The Son’s name is David. And David is [...] although personified as a youth, an eternal youth, beauty beyond measure, you can’t describe the beauty of David, who calls you Father, in fulfillment of scripture; for we are here only to fulfill scripture. In the 89th Psalm: “I have found David, he’s cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’”870 ¶21

So after he has told them of the two ages—this age where we procreate and are born, and that age where we neither procreate nor are born for we are of the resurrection—we have been raised from this world of procreation and birth. Having explained the difference between the two ages, that a man walking this earth while in history he’s resurrected and lifted out of this age, out of this section of time; and when he makes his exit, having been raised while he walks the earth his death is a coronation. In that age to which he passes, he is above the organization of sex; he doesn’t need a divided image, male-female to create. He is one with himself, wearing the body of God, which is love. So he explains the entire thing…read it in the 20th chapter of Luke. Then he raises a question that was not asked, and as you read the entire chapter it’s not related …so he raises the question, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” repeating the son again. And they answered, “The son of David.” Then he replies, “Why then did David in the Spirit call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?”870 ¶22

And I know that when I was writing the last chapter of The Law and The Promise, when I came to that experience of mine I wrestled with it for days. I finally concluded I would say man matures when he becomes his own father’s father. I was sticking to scripture, yet he matures when he becomes his own father. But the Bible begins, in the New Testament, “This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David.” But then when David calls you Lord—which is the name used by every son of his father, “my lord”—having seen David and David calls me Father, and scripture tells me I was his son, well then, I use the expression “I became my father’s father.” Getting as close as I could get to scripture…and yet I would be quite clear I hope if I said that man matures when he becomes his own father; because David really comes out of humanity.870 ¶23

If I took all the generations of humanity, and all of its experiences, and fused them into a single whole, this concentrated time into which all the generations are fused and from which all generations spring, is personified in scripture as “eternity.” And eternity is personified as a youth—that youth is David. So you bring forth, after your journey is over, a son that is the quintessence of all generations and all the experiences of humanity. So, in the end you did all and can forgive all, because your son is the quintessence of all the experiences of humanity…that’s David.870 ¶24

So memory has been taken for a purpose, so that you cannot remember. If man could remember the horrors through which he has passed, if he could remember the horrors to which he lent a hand, he couldn’t live with himself. So the veil has been lowered, and memory has been taken for a while. In the end, the whole thing will be unveiled and we well see that everything worked for good, but everything worked for good. There wasn’t one little thing that seemed so horrible that when I see it in retrospect and see it at the very end, it was part of the entire unfolding drama…and it all worked for good. In that end, you are God the Father.870 ¶25

And it doesn’t really matter how your exit is made from this world or what moment, after your resurrection. The other important experiences will come quickly in three and one half years. After the final one, what does it matter? The final one is the descent…where you are sealed with the Holy Spirit…sealed with it as he descends upon you in the form of a dove, and smothers you with kisses. And then you know who you are. That seal will be broken when they call you dead, and at that very moment no restoration to life. So that’s the seal, that’s this age, and that death is your coronation.870 ¶26

You can say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness”. “Now I bear on my body the marks of Jesus”. Everyone will bear the marks of Jesus, because everyone is going to be God the Father. Not because someone tells him that he is, but he’ll know it. Therefore, he knows in the end there’s only one Father and he is the Father; he only has one son: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee”.870 ¶27

So if our priesthoods of the world have misunderstood this mystery, all right, forgive them, they don’t know it. Now they’re railing all over with this new concept, should the priests marry? Some can’t stand the burden of celibacy. And so, I think it’s the current Time magazine, at some age, I think it’s the 14th or 15th Century in a certain town in Italy, these are statistics, half of the illegitimate children in that town were sired by the clergy. They couldn’t get married, but they could sire children all over the place. Then who knows the popes that were fathers? Alexander the 6th had four children. Have you ever heard of Caesar Borgia? Lucretia Borgia? Their father was Alexander the 6th, Pope Alexander the 6th. Henry the 2nd was married when he was pope. So what’s all the palaver about when his very first command is multiply, replenish the earth. It was never rescinded; it was never taken back. All through the Psalms, the blessing of man is the multiplication of his family. Fill his cradle with these arrows.870 ¶28

So I say, forget all these little isms on the side. Just keep your mind straight and make your choice tonight. We have chosen to serve the Lord. What is his name?—I AM. And I believe he will unveil himself within me, and eventually I will stand in my own presence and know it to be infinite love. I’ll know it to be God the Father by revelation, not by persuasion, not by argument. I will know it because he unveils it. Who unveils it? You unveil it…it’s all you. You became this for a purpose, and the purpose is hidden until the end. In the end, you see it.870 ¶29

So you live by the name of God. Don’t turn to the left, don’t turn to the right. Become a witness against yourself that you have chosen to serve the Lord, and the Lord’s name is I AM, that’s his name. He’ll take you through all the things, yes, infirmities, yes, but use a little wine. When you come up against these things, use a little wine. I’ll also take a bottle of wine…take what you know concerning the psychological truth and use it. As you use it you are turning it into wine. So his first great marriage feast was jars made of stone filled with water, and the water turns to wine. So here you have the literal truth, the facts of life.870 ¶30

So when he said the Father and I are one, they took up stones to stone him. Read it carefully. He said, “For what good works do you stone me? For no good works but for blasphemy; for you being a man, make yourself God”. We know your background, we know where you came from, and when the Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from. And they’re right, because you don’t see him; you only see the mask, and you know the history of the mask. You either believe that presence wearing the mask and what he tells you, or you don’t believe. So you never see him. When you see Christ, you’re going to see yourself.870 ¶31

So no one…he said, “Look here, here’s Christ! Don’t believe him.” Why? “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, and see him just as he is”. You shall be like him. Well, if I’m not like him in my own mind’s eye, well, then I haven’t seen him. But if David called him Father and he called me Father; and if he is the one who is resurrected from the grave, and I was; and if he is the one who is born from above and had witnesses to the birth that came from above, not from below, not the womb of woman but the skull of man, and I was; and if the Son of man who is God himself must rise in the form of a serpent—that’s the only way he can rise—and the one who rises must be the one who descended, for no one will ever ascend to heaven but he who first descended, and I did; and if the dove descends only on Christ Jesus, well, then he descended on me, so I know who I am. Everyone will have these experiences.870 ¶32

So if you say it’s blasphemy, he’s a man, we know his background, we know all about him, and he’s blaspheming to say these things, well, go back and read the scriptures. The central figure made the bold assertions, for they were happening in him. And they called it blasphemy; for their concepts of God would not allow this completely startling thing to take place within a man unless their mortal eyes could see it. Can’t see it! So they took up stones to stone him, and the stones they threw at him were the facts of his life. We know when you were born, your brothers, your sisters, your neighbors, your father, your mother…we know them all…and you dare to claim what you have claimed? Then he disappeared from their sight.870 ¶33

So this is the story of our great Bible, which Blake claims is the greatest book in the world, and he’s right. It’s the most entertaining and the most instructive. But bear in mind it’s on three levels: the stone level or literal; the water level or the psychological meaning behind the stories; and then the wine level, when you experience scripture and you can take the water and turn it into wine to benefit yourself in the world of Caesar, and wait patiently for the Promise when you’re all wine. Did they not call him a wine bibber, a glutton and a wine bibber filled with wine? For that’s what he gave. He completely fulfilled scripture.870 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Are there any questions, please?870 ¶35