Tonight, I trust, will be a very practical night and all will see it clearly…I hope so. We are told in the Book of Nehemiah, the 8th chapter, the 8th verse, that “They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood it clearly.” As they read it, they interpreted it. So, tonight we will take a passage and attempt to interpret it that you may apply it this very night. We go back to the 2nd chapter of the Book of Genesis, and he said, “This is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh”. Here is someone making a bold, bold claim, and he’s called a man. And then we are told, “And now a man leaves his father and his mother, and he cleaves to his wife, and they become one body.” In this passage he makes the claim that she came out of me, completely out of me, and I will cleave to that which came out of me until we become one body.791 ¶1

Blake makes the statement that “Man has no body distinct from his soul; that called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age”. He further states that “Thou art a man, God is no more. Thine own humanity learn to adore”. So here he identifies man as soul and that his body is but his own emanation: “My emanation, yet my wife ‘til the sleep of death is past.” So here is my body…it seems to be that I am wearing a body distinct from myself…and he claims that it is not, that he has no body distinct from his soul, that that called body is a portion of the soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age.791 ¶2

So, destroy the body, well now, how will I simply bring it back? It was always a part of me and I’ll bring it back by the seed of contemplative thought. I will contemplate myself as I would like to be, and reproduce that which was seemingly destroyed in the world, and the world would call it dead. No, I pass through the gate called death, and you cremate it, and here is a little dust, nothing but dust. But, I, by the seed of contemplative thought, reproduce the being that I am. It is my image. Here is a union so wedded it is connubial. I am so wedded to the image that I wear that you can destroy it a thousand times and I’ll reproduce it. I’m in love with it. There is nothing but my wife. This is my wife—a male, yes, the father of children, a husband—and yet this is my emanation. Regardless of your sex, that is your wife, your emanation yet your wife ‘til the sleep of death is past. When you completely awake from the entire dream, you and your emanation are one, and you are enhanced by reason of that experience where you emanate your own likeness.791 ¶3

In other words, as though you said to a beautifully cut stone “If it had dreams, I think this is what it would dream itself to be.” Did you ever go into a home, a beautiful room, and you can’t see anything that you would change you so love it…the library…everything about it is so perfect. And you say to yourself, if it had dreams I’m sure this is what it would dream itself to be. Whether it is inanimate stones, inanimate books, inanimate anything, this…but some human Imagination conceived it and produced it.791 ¶4

Well now, this body that I wear and the body that you wear, no matter what you think of them, that’s what you, the real you, the God in you, is dreaming itself to be. It’s in love with its emanation. You are the emanation of God, and you are God, and there’s nothing but God. Destroy it and you will once more reproduce it by the seed of contemplative thought, bring it back into being.791 ¶5

Now we are told, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” Well, is that what he did? He contemplated himself and out of his own being he produced this garment?—yes. And this is what he loves more than anything in the world?—yes. “Naught loves another as itself.” You can’t conceive of loving another as yourself. You may think you do, and you will deny what I have just said and say “Oh no, I love this one and that one and my country more, my flag more”…you’re only kidding yourself. You’re lying to yourself. “Naught loves another as itself, nor venerates another so, nor is it possible to thought a greater than itself to know”. You can’t conceive of something and think that it is greater, and you revere it, and you reverence it. Oh yes you may…but if God wants me, if I am his emanation and God in me is my own wonderful human Imagination, if he wants me to know him, he has to raise me to himself. It is impossible to thought a greater than itself to know, so how would I know my Creator if this thing is created unless he raises me to his level? He has to actually lift me to his level that I may know him as he is. If I do not know him as he is, he will never have me as one who can see him beyond what I am capable of seeing myself to be.791 ¶6

So God becomes as I am that I may be as he is. If he doesn’t actually become as I am, he can’t lift me to the level that he is so that I may actually know him as he is. So everyone here is but an emanation of the God within them.791 ¶7

Now, I would take it from here on this level. I desire and I name it, I don’t care what it is, I name it. Where did it come from? It came out of me…I desired it. Now I must actually do the same thing, I must become an imitator of God as a dear child. God became me that I may become God. I must actually…something comes out of me, it’s a desire, and I must actually become it so that it may become as I am. I name it, health, wealth, call it by any name, it comes out of me. I desire to be and I name it. I must go into that and actually wear it as God wears this. God is wearing this garment tonight; he’s wearing your garment tonight. His name is I AM forever and forever.791 ¶8

Now, something comes out of me…I would like to be and I name it. As I name it, I must go in unto it and actually possess it and become it…as God became me that came out of him. And I must actually wear it until it seems natural, it seems normal. Reason denies it, my senses deny it. So what! Let them deny it. But in time if I go in unto the state and wear it as though it were true, and make it natural and make it normal to me, then I will externalize it in the world. It will become real in my world.791 ¶9

So I will take a cue from scripture, and “The man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me, taken out of Man”. “And now a man leaves his father, his mother, and he cleaves to his wife, and they become one body.” Now I take it from this level and I put it into my Caesar’s world. It comes out of me…my emanation yet my wife. In this case, my wife now becomes a state called health, called wealth, called fame, called by any name. All right, call these names. Do I so love it? It came out of me, it’s bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. I must leave everything in my world and now yield to it, and assume that I am it.791 ¶10

I dare to assume I am what at the moment of my assumption reason denies and my senses deny. As I move into it, it becomes bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. It came out of me and it is my wife, my emanation. Yet, although it is my emanation, it is my wife until the sleep of death is past. When I reach the very end of the journey, we are no longer two, we are one.791 ¶11

I raise it up to my own level that it may understand me and see me as I am…for it is impossible to thought a greater than itself to know. So if God would have me, his emanation, know him as he is to be known, he has to become me and raise me up to his level, for I cannot know anything greater than myself. I may simply worship some little icon and I may think, well, he is a wonderful man, he’s a richer man than I am, he’s a wiser man than I am, and he is so and so. Do I want to really change my identity for him? What man in this world would give up being what he is for any man in this world? He should be completely rubbed out. A man who would so want to give up his own identity for another…that man isn’t. No, you would like his wealth, like his intelligence, like this, but you don’t want to change your identity and give it up for some other identity.791 ¶12

So God is in man. Man’s own wonderful human Imagination is God. There never was another God and there never will be another God. And so he became as I am that I may be as he is, and he is raising me slowly through all the pains of the world that I may actually know him as he is. When I really know him, I’ve got to be him. I can’t be another knowing him. So I am his wife and he leaves everything and becomes as I am, his emanation, and raises me that I may know him as he is. In that day, we are one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all…can’t be another.791 ¶13

I can take that same thought and take it on any level in this world. So you want to be…and you name it…I don’t care what it is. As you name it, it came out of you, it’s your emanation. Well, you’ve got to do the same thing as you are told in scripture. So I will read the book and read it with understanding so that the people who hear it will understand it. So you give it meaning, you give the sense to what you read. So here, “As the man said, ‘At last this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she came out of Man. Therefore, man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and they become one body.’”791 ¶14

Well, you know in the world of marriage we don’t really become one body. Oh, she’ll bear my name and my children will bear my name, but don’t tell me that my wife is my very self. She’s an independent individual with opinions of her own and she doesn’t reflect mine. We are not one body. We have together born a child and that child is as independent as a hog on ice. You can’t tell her anything that is in conflict with what she wants to hear. She is an independent being, so she is certainly not one with us, any more than my wife is one with me. Then what is the wife spoken of?—this body. “Man has no body distinct from is soul. That called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age.”791 ¶15

So you destroy it…tonight I drop and the body is cremated and you think, well now, he is gone. No, I restore it by the seed of contemplative thought. I’m only contemplating myself and I reproduce my image. I’m in love with it. God is in love with his image. I don’t want any other image.791 ¶16

Well, I’ve seen it. I saw the being in contemplation. One afternoon, sitting in the Silence, not thinking of anything in particular, and here all of a sudden I see a stone, a quartz. Suddenly the quartz fragmented itself into unnumbered little pieces, and then it quickly gathered itself together into one being and the being is seated in the lotus posture contemplating the deepest contemplation. I’m looking at it…I’m looking at myself…here I’m looking at the very being that I recognize as myself. And it began to glow like the sun, and it glowed and glowed, and it reached the intensity of the sun and then exploded. Then I awoke in the room where I was seated. I saw the being meditating me. This is his image with which he is in love, and when he awakes from his meditation, I am he…it is God.791 ¶17

In everyone there is God, the Son of God meditating himself, and he projects himself upon the screen of space and puts himself through all the fires of the world, shaping that image into the perfection that he is. For he is perfect and you must be perfect as he is perfect. When it’s perfect, you are superimposed upon him and you are one; and he is enhanced by reason of the experience in this world of death.791 ¶18

So here, we take it from there and come down to this level. We’re still living in the world of Caesar. And if that’s how he does it, then while I am here I start to try it in the world of Caesar. Now out of me comes not an expression of myself—I know what I look like when I look into the mirror, it’s not that that I want to bring about—but in the world of Caesar you want to bring about a better way of living, a greater security, a greater this, a greater that. That’s out of you, too. But in the same way we must become imitators of God as dear children as told us in the 1st verse, the 5th chapter of Ephesians, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.”791 ¶19

So I find myself desiring. That’s how it begins, “Let us make man in our image”…that’s the primal wish. Well now, as man, I want now to be other than what I am as a man. So that’s my wish. I must do the same thing that God did to make me himself: God became as I am that I may be as he is. As man I must become conscious of being wealthy if that is what I want, conscious of being healthy if that’s what I want, conscious of being famous if that is what I want, I don’t care what it is. Ask no man his permission to be anything in this world…you simply go right into the state desired. It came out of you, but you’ve got to occupy it and actually become it in the same way that God had to become you to make you God. So you have to become the state to make that state yourself.791 ¶20

So what do you desire in this world? You name it and ask no one in this world if it’s possible. All things are possible to God and God dwells in you: your own wonderful human Imagination that’s God. There never was another God and there never will be another God. So God became as I am that I may be as he is. And while I’m playing in this world of Caesar he tells me to imitate him. Imitate the same principle which he adopted in order to make me as he is.791 ¶21

So, something comes out of me. What came out of me?—a desire, all of a sudden. But I can’t do it, I have no one to help me, I have nothing in the world. I have not the educational background, the social background, any background worthy of this that I now desire. All right, you desire it. It came out of you, didn’t it? Well, do the same thing; imitate God as you are told in scripture to imitate him.791 ¶22

How could I imitate him? He became me. If he didn’t become me, he could never raise me to himself. It’s impossible to thought a greater than itself to know, therefore, he has to become me, and lift me up that I may know him as he is. When I know him as he is, I have to be God, because I can’t know him as he is unless I am he. So I can’t know this now as it is unless I become it. So I move right into that state: what would the feeling be like if it were true? How would I feel if…and then I look at my world mentally and I see my world as I would see it if it were true. When I mentally see it as I would see it if it were true, I dwell in that state, I live in that state.791 ¶23

Then that state in a way no one knows crystallizes and becomes a concrete reality in my world. How? I do not know. It has ways and means that my little conscious mind cannot fathom. If I dwell in it, one person or 10,000 people may be used to bring it to pass. It doesn’t really matter how many are used. They’ll be used either knowingly or unknowingly to bring about that which I have assumed that I am. So my assumption though at the moment seems false if I persist in it, it will harden into fact, it will become a reality.791 ¶24

Now, do I know that from experience?—unnumbered times. I could not enumerate and tell you how many. It’s simply a law by which I live…and hope I can persuade others to live by the same law. If you accept this law then you are free and you’re no longer a slave. You are as free as the wind. No matter where you are this night…you could be bound. If you actually believe this, you’ll become loosed, and you’ll be set free to fulfill whatever you are assuming though you be in a dungeon. If you don’t believe it, then you’re going to accept the facts of life and limit yourself to what your senses dictate, and there you remain, remain in prison, and remain bound in this world.791 ¶25

But if you believe it, that all things are possible to God and God is our own wonderful human Imagination, well then, you’ll go out of here believing it, and live by it, and become an imitator of God as a dear child. Because you are destined, everyone is destined to one day awaken as God himself.791 ¶26

It seems the height of vanity, but why did God say, “Let us make man in our image”? Not the image of another. He’s in love with his image. Analyze it. “Let us make man in our image after our own likeness.” Well, to do it he had to become me. That’s the story of Christianity. He actually had to become man. So God became man…that’s what we are told in the Christian faith…that man may become God. And man has been taught to believe that one little man called Jesus…no, that is not it. Humanity is Jesus, humanity is the Christ. He became all of us.791 ¶27

What child in this world doesn’t know that it is? If it knows that it is, it is saying “I am” and that’s God. That is God becoming man. Now, it takes it from there and actually raises that being through all the horrors of the world to itself. One day it awakes and when it awakes it is God, and there’s nothing but God. So he’s in love with his image.791 ¶28

Now, something came out of you. It’s only a desire, you say, but you fall in love with it. You may not really be interested in the ultimate at the moment; the hunger is not upon you. That thirst for God may not be upon you, but it could be a thirst for something in the world of Caesar. All right, so you take it from there, and you move right into it, and wear it just as you would wear a suit of clothes and make it natural. As it becomes natural it’s going to personify itself, externalize itself on the screen of space, and you will bear witness to the fact that this is how it works. It actually works in a simple way.791 ¶29

That man knows what he wants to be, reason tells him he can’t be it, his senses deny it, he dares to use his Imagination and assumes that he is it. His reason now denies his assumption, but his assumption if persisted in hardens into fact. If it once hardens into fact and he sees it, then from there on he picks it up and continues…and eventually he falls in love with the ultimate which is to awaken as God himself! And he will…because God in man has determined to raise man to the level of himself, and when he does, he is God. There is nothing but God.791 ¶30

So in this fabulous, wonderful world of ours there is nothing but God. You can forgive every being in the world when you know this. It doesn’t matter what he’s done, whether it’s good or evil. What does it matter if you know the struggle that is taking place in him? You can completely forgive him, because God in him is raising him to the level of God.791 ¶31

And may I tell you, we are all brothers…every one of us is a brother. And we came down into this world of death and limitation and we took upon ourselves these garments. We are the sons of God, all of us, and collectively we form God, the only God. But in this wonderful division we are the sons of God. As we are told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, “There are no more people in the world than there are sons of God.” Limit them today as the world wants to limit production and stop the multiplication of children. All right, if you multiply them a thousand times over, or reduce it, still no one can be born who is not a son of God.791 ¶32

By any pigment of skin, by any sex, it doesn’t matter, a son of God occupies that little body…whether it be warped, whether it be shrunken, whether it is demented…it’s a son of God and he’ll take it from there. All things are possible to God. So he’ll take it from there and raise it through unnumbered experiences to the level of himself that it may know himself. He wants to be known. As he is known by his image, he and his image fuse and they become one. Through the experience he is enhanced beyond what he was when he descended into these bodies of flesh and blood.791 ¶33

So you take it tonight and test it. “Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you?” There is no Jesus Christ outside of the Christ in you. That’s the only Christ and this is the cross that he bears; he is tied to this body of flesh and blood. He will rise not on the outside; he’ll rise here, for he’s buried in this garment. So you destroy it and I will by the seed of contemplative thought reproduce it and he’s still buried in it. So I go through this little gate called death and once more I find myself clothed in a garment just like this, young, healthy, and Christ is buried in it because I am saying “I am”; and that’s his name forever and forever. I’ll continue my journey, go through another gate called death, finding myself once more restored as a physical being until that moment in time comes when I awake within this garment, and I am he.791 ¶34

So this is the eternal story. Tonight you put it to the extreme test; just as we are the emanation of God, his wife ‘til the sleep of death is past, and he has to leave everything and cleave to his wife and they become one body, for there’s only one body. Now something comes out of you in the world of Caesar. There must be only one body. It can’t be you and your desire…you must go into your desire and occupy it as God came in unto his wish and occupied it: “Let us make man in our image.” He had to come into me. He couldn’t in any way make me from the outside; he had to actually become as I am that I may become as he is. So in the same way I must imitate him: “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.”791 ¶35

In the same way I will do the same thing now. I will desire, and I name it. Now I must go in unto it and wear it as he wears me. He wears this garment and he says “I am Neville.” I must go in unto health and say “I am healthy.” I must go in unto wealth and say “I am wealthy.” I must go in unto the state called “I am known” and say “I am known.” Whatever it is that I desire, I must go right in unto it and wear it in the same way that God came into me and wears this garment and he says “I am Neville”…in the same way. So we must become imitators of God as dear children.791 ¶36

So they read from the book as you’re told in Nehemiah, but they read it and gave sense to the Word so that the people understood the reading. How many on a Sunday morning when they go to church take any passage and really give it meaning? No, they take the pulpit and all of a sudden they start off on all kinds of political things in the world of Caesar. No one takes the Word of God and actually gives meaning to it. They’ll take one little thing and call it the text of the day. Then ask anyone who comes out of the church, “What did he say?” Well, he said, “You know what? I don’t think Nixon is doing such a good job.” That’s all that they heard. Not one word concerning the text or the Word of God, because not one gives meaning to the Word of God.791 ¶37

But you can forgive them, you know why? They don’t understand it…and that goes from the pope down. They don’t understand it. If they understood it, you could not read what they say in print. It’s something entirely different from the Word of God. We have the Word of God in the Bible from beginning to the end. Well, take any passage and try to give it meaning, because without meaning what does it matter? What would life be to us if it had no meaning? If at the end of one’s journey no matter what he has accomplished in the world and that was the end and there was no meaning…well, horrible…cut the child’s throat when it’s born. That’s the best thing you could do to it if life has no meaning.791 ¶38

But find meaning, find a purpose, then everything falls into place. There is meaning to it all and the meaning of life is that we in this world become God. We only become God because God becomes us. If he did not become as I am, he could not raise me to what he is; and it’s impossible for thought a greater than itself to know. So I can’t know him unless he actually becomes me and lifts me to himself. How else would I know him?791 ¶39

And in spite of the fact that we think, “Oh, I love him more than I love myself”…well, I would not deny for one moment that this night if you gave me no alternative and you said either you die or your daughter, I wouldn’t hesitate to say I die. But it doesn’t mean that I do not love myself, the image that I am. I’m confident of restoration, confident of a complete change in my world when I leave this world. I would, without hesitating for one moment, say, “Save her. She hasn’t gone through my experiences, give her the chance.” But that does not mean that [...] because I say take me now, shoot me now but leave her and let her have the experiences that I’ve had. For, I’ve gone through these experiences…I have fulfilled scripture. I know exactly what the whole thing is about, because I’ve fulfilled it. Everything promised in scripture has happened within my soul, not on the outside for human mortal eyes to see…but it doesn’t mean that there is still another that I love more. You may want to say that there’s someone I certainly love more. You analyze it.791 ¶40

“Nought loves another as itself, nor venerates another so, 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? I love you like the little bird that picks up crumbs around the door.” Now, read the entire poem, very short, five or six verses. And the priest heard the little boy say this and then he picks him by his hair, and he burns him, tortures him and the poor parents heard the screams of the child but could not help him for he is the authority. That’s the world over. Here is this mighty one who knows right and wrong, good and evil, not knowing that it’s eating of the tree of good and evil that displeases God. If my mother, whom I love dearly, or my father, committed any crime in this world, I wouldn’t care what he did; I would still want him set free. I wouldn’t care what he did because I love them. But the priest couldn’t see this. It’s called A Little Boy Lost in Blake’s wonderful poem of The Songs of Experience…A Little Boy Lost.791 ¶41

He’s having this fantastic experience and he knows he can’t possibly love another as himself or in any way reverence another more. He knows he can’t. Since, how can I love Thee or my brothers more, because he knows it’s impossible to thought a greater than itself to know. He knows that. How can you? You can admire an Einstein’s mind. You can admire the great artists of the world. You can admire all these things, but don’t tell me because you admire them that until you are raised to that level that you can really understand them. But even when you can’t understand them—because it’s impossible to thought a greater than itself to know—don’t tell me because of their greatness that you love them more than self, because you don’t! We’re only lying to ourselves when we say I know someone I would like to change places with and lose my identity completely and become that one. I can’t conceive of someone wanting to completely lose their identity in the identity of another. Can’t be!791 ¶42

So tonight take it. As you’re told in scripture, God became man that man may become God. Now, be imitators of the same principle. Is God setting a pattern? Yes. He became as I am that I may be as he is. Well, finding myself in the world of Caesar, something comes out of me, but it’s something different. For I must live in the world of Caesar and Caesar demands taxes, so I want more money to pay his taxes, his demands, and Caesar demands this, so I must want that. It comes out of me. So I must do the same thing that God did in becoming me: he became me that I may become God. So I must become wealthy so that the state called wealth may become as I am, and so I become one with it. I move into it and say, what would the feeling be like if it were true? How would I feel if it were true? How would I see the world if it were true? What would I hear my friends say to me and what would I say to them if it were true? Then I carry on these mental conversations with myself from the premise that it is true and I walk in that state as though it were true. Then if it crystallizes into fact, well then, I’ve found the principle. Now I pick it up from there and I move into all kinds of states as I desire to make them real in my world. Knowing that he who became me is slowly raising me to his level, and eventually he will unveil himself, and I am he.791 ¶43

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *791 ¶44

First of all, may I thank you for your letters and please keep them coming, giving me your dreams, your visions and your experiments on this principle. One wrote this past week, he found himself in an egg, a huge egg. He felt himself completely awake, like a waking vision. There was a very thick wall and he knew that he had to break through that wall. He knew that when he broke through that wall he would awake from this state in which he found himself, which was like a waking dream. And then he woke.791 ¶45

Well, that is an adumbration. We’re all like encased within an egg, and when we break that shell, we will come out. The shell is our skull. That’s where we’re all buried and that’s the egg. So this is nothing more than a foreshadowing of that day when he will come out, and he will be the being who fell asleep in that egg, and that being is God. So thank him for his wonderful experience and sharing it with us.791 ¶46

A lady wrote one concerning finding herself moving into another world. “I’m going into another world, another place.” But before she left for the other world she investigated the present world and it was all old buildings. Many of them had no furnishings and filled with bugs, but she knew she was going into another world…and carrying with her her child.791 ¶47

Then she saw in this room devoid of furniture, save a rocking chair, a man in the chair rocking, and she went over to him and felt him and he was solidly real, as solid as any person she has ever known in this world. He was real, he was solid. Then she looked away and when she turned back he and the chair vanished. Then she went into the other world and someone said to her, “Let us see your baby” and she presented the child.791 ¶48

For the child is the sign of one’s birth from above: “And this shall be a sign unto you, you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes”. That is a sign. It is not you; it is a sign of your birth. So she’s moving into a new world. Now, this is a most wonderful adumbration, a foreshadowing in the symbolism of scripture. Moving into a new world, for you have to go, and the sign of your birth from above is a child wrapped in swaddling clothes.791 ¶49

So thank you so much for your letters and keep them coming, please. Now, are there any questions, please? Yes sir?791 ¶50

Well, until the next one…which is Friday. Thank you.791 ¶53

[...] it starts with the crucifixion and ends with the resurrection. But today unnumbered millions attended service and they were taught the story or told the story of God dying to save man. Hundreds of millions undoubtedly attended. I know I did it year after year for unnumbered years, taught the same story, the same cry on the cross. It’s so very difficult to change the meaning of an event once certain interpretations are given to that event and become fixed in the public mind. So here, this event was so fixed in my mind I must confess it was difficult to dislodge it, and only revelation could really dislodge it.790 ¶1

And so, I hope I can share with you my actual experience in the hope I can dislodge from you that fixed idea that has become fixed in the public mind, and put in its place that which came to me by revelation. You’ll find it in the Bible, it’s all in scripture; but, unfortunately, although we read the book over and over, we seem to fail when we try to find the one of whom the prophet spoke. We can’t find him. We’re looking for him in time, although we are told that he’s not in your time, it was not for your time. It’s for the time to come that this prophecy was made.790 ¶2

So let us now look at it—-and you follow me closely—-and if you can’t remember the words that I’m quoting, I’m quoting from the Book of Romans. You go home and you read the first six verses of the very first chapter. It’s Paul’s longest letter, his book, or rather, his epistle to the Romans. He starts it with this note, he said, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ”—-that’s how he starts it—“called to be an apostle.”790 ¶3

Let us stop right there. We’ll take the entire few verses…we’ll take the first great revelation: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” Nothing is said in scripture of Jesus Christ having servants. The word, really, properly translated is “slave”—-a slave of Jesus Christ. So he confesses in the beginning, Paul, a servant. You’ve been led to believe, and I was led to believe, that anyone who ministered on the Christian faith, who was a priest, who’s a teacher of the Bible, is a servant of Jesus Christ. That’s not the interpretation.790 ¶4

Now we turn over to another letter of his, to the Philippians, the 2nd chapter of his letter to the Philippians: “Jesus Christ, though in the form of God, emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of man, finding himself in the form of man, became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross”. Paul is confessing that he has discovered the wearer of the garment that is Paul. Listen to the first few words, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ…Jesus Christ being in the form of God…emptied himself” of an infinite splendor “and took upon himself the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of men, and finding himself in the form of men, became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross.” So Paul is telling us that he discovered the wearer of the garment that he was calling all along Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ.790 ¶5

Now he goes on. Called by God himself and set apart for the gospel of God. And now he tells us what this gospel is. The gospel of his son who was born according to the flesh, born of David; on the human level descended from David; on the spiritual level according to the Spirit. Here, he was designated Son of God, but he tells us why he was designated Son of God: By his resurrection from the dead, designated Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.790 ¶6

You are wearing the same being, or the same being is wearing this garment. When you say “I am” you named it. I am Neville. You say I am John, I am Robert, I am Grace, I am Mary, so you say I am so-and-so. And you may just as well write this letter and say, “John or Mary, servant of Jesus Christ”; for I am now the slave being worn by Jesus Christ.790 ¶7

Now, as I move across the surface of this world, going from experience to experience, at one moment in time I am going to be designated Son of God. Why?—-by my resurrection from the dead. I wasn’t born that way through the womb of my mother. I didn’t know it, and mother didn’t know it, my father didn’t know it, my brothers didn’t know it, no one knew it until it happened in me. So walking across this world, having all the experiences of normal man, one day it happened. And so we are told, he was designated Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. You aren’t born from the womb of woman as a Son of God; that’s the descendant of David.790 ¶8

Now we are told this came to man, as he tells us in these first six verses, it was given to man through his prophets in the holy scripture. His promise to man came through his prophets in the holy scripture. Well, where did it come? I start reading the scripture and go back to find, if I came out of David as a man, and you came out of David as a man, where was David ever promised that something coming out of David would in some strange way be adopted as the Son of God in full power? So you go back and you read all about David, and you find that it is said to David by the prophet Nathan. And Nathan said to David from God that “The Lord God has said unto me to say unto you, that when your days are fulfilled”—when it is the end as far as this world goes—-“when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son”.790 ¶9

Here is man, humanity. On the human level we all came out of David. David is the personification of all the generations of man. So we all come out of the human level, on this human level, out of David. And while we walk the earth wondering, “When is this promise ever going to be fulfilled?” “For ever since the fathers fell asleep all things have continued as they were from the beginning” of the world. So, when, O Lord, when? And we all wait, expecting some peculiar thing to come out of space, and it doesn’t come that way. Suddenly one day it comes. It comes in the unique way that no one ever suspected, and to this day they still don’t expect it.790 ¶10

So, this day hundreds of millions were told the story incorrectly. They were told of a man, born of a woman; came into this world as the Son of God from the womb of a woman; and then he was crucified on a wooden cross for the redemption of humanity. It isn’t so at all. Everyone is the cross that God is nailed to, but everyone. Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ—and Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, your own wonderful I-am-ness, and you’re nailed on it. But you don’t know it. So you walk the earth misled, all are misled, battling everyone in this world until one moment in time, just like a thief out of the night, it happens to you.790 ¶11

Now go back to the story told this day. He was placed in a tomb that was hewn out of a stone in which man had never yet been laid: It’s your skull. No one was ever laid there but you. It’s an entirely new stone completely carved out all for you. And God entered that stone. Now let us show you the difference between survival and a hundred thousand people die in our world every day. A hundred thousand every day, but none cease to be, all survive. But survival is continuity; resurrection is discontinuity.790 ¶12

Now here is the story. Possibly you’ve had this experience. I know many who have had it, but I will now quote one. No one need know who she is or who he is or they are, because it’s a story that many have had. I have told you in the past that every dream is a parable. Its earthly story is secondary to its meaning. But every dream is a parable. And God speaks to man through the medium of dream; he communicates some profound message to the individual. So an individual finds himself clothed in the garments of those who walked this earth 2,000 years ago. Then someone comes towards him…he thinks it may be a play and so he treats it lightly. The man points a gun at him and he said, “Go ahead and shoot.” So he shoots and it goes right through his brain and he falls. At the very moment he falls he sees the thing on the floor, just like a costume, and he has survived.790 ¶13

The ridiculousness of the whole thing that he hasn’t been killed yet. Here is the body with the bullet through its brain. Now, two thousand years ago there were no guns. Right away you can rub that out, the literal story, you can take it apart. There was no gun powder known then. So he wore the costume, yes, of, say, 2,000 years ago. Purposely the depth of his soul is trying to show him something. It could not be reincarnation, because 2,000 years ago you could not have been shot by any bullet. We didn’t have bullets. We didn’t have guns. Well, what is the central jet of truth in this story? Survival is continuity. There was no change in the consciousness of the one who saw the event. He rose and he saw the body that was just blasted and, in the eyes of the world, dead. He came out of it a living being but the identical being that he was one second before. You can discount a bullet; there were no bullets 2,000 years ago. No such thing as, well, dynamite 2,000 years ago. We didn’t know it. But he finds himself in an ancient world, so it’s trying to show him regardless of unnumbered deaths in this world, there is continuity.790 ¶14

But tonight I am speaking of discontinuity. It’s an entirely different picture and everyone is destined towards discontinuity. And resurrection is God’s mightiest act, the one act that sets it apart from all other acts, and reveals God as a God of the living, not the dead. We all become sons of God by God’s mightiest act, the act of resurrection. So we are told, “He was designated Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.” No one comes into this world from any holy womb in this world as a physical womb, no one—all of this is descended from David. So forget the story as told this day of Mary’s son, and know the being that is really here, present in this audience tonight, wearing all these garments.790 ¶15

And you may say…use your name, don’t say Paul, whatever your name is…and “from Paul”—you say from John, from Robert, from Neville—-“a slave of Jesus Christ,” because he, the Jesus Christ in my own I-am-ness, emptied itself. Being in the form of God, it emptied itself of this wonderful splendor, and took upon itself the form of a servant, or a slave, and being born in the likeness of man, and finding itself in the form of man, it became obedient unto death, unto death upon the cross. And this is the cross.790 ¶16

May I tell you, I have had the experience of the crucifixion, and it’s the most ecstatic state in the world, the most glorious sensation in the world, no pain whatsoever. For this night I was one of an unnumbered crowd walking toward some invisible Mecca, the fulfillment of God’s promise, all together an ancient world too, all dressed in Arabic costumes. A voice out of space came and the voice said, “And God walks with them.” A woman at my side questioned the voice—no one saw the face; we all heard the voice—she said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” The voice replied—we all heard the reply—“At your side.” This woman in her Arabic costume turned to her side, literally, looked into my face, right into my eyes, and then she became hysterical it struck her so funnily. And she asked, “What? Is Neville God?” and the voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the same voice, but this time in the depths of my soul, heard only by me, by no one else. She heard the reply to her question: “Yes.” That would have been true of anyone at her side. If Grace is at her side, Jack at her side, Bob at her side, anyone, the question would have been yes. We’re all in the act of waking.790 ¶17

And then, in the depths of my soul I heard this voice and it said, “God laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream. He dreamed…” and then I knew the completed sentence. I became so emotional that I began to waken, but in the waking process my hands became vortices, my head a vortex, my feet vortices, and my right side a vortex. I was nailed by these vortices right upon this body. I woke on my bed in New York City thrilled beyond measure, for I was one of this infinite sea of humanity moving towards, I would say, an invisible goal. I called it Mecca, then, because we were all like Orientals, moving towards what would be in that Arab world the world of Mecca. We’re all moving towards it…and that was my vision to share with the whole vast world.790 ¶18

I was the same being then as I am now, no change in identity. Any more than the one who was shot through the head had any change in identity. So that after this event takes place you are still that same being. Now let me share with you what I mean. This happened years ago, many years ago…and then four years ago, back in 1959, this intense vibration at the base of my skull and I began to awake. Now the voice I heard that night “Yes, he is God in the act of waking” and I began to awake.790 ¶19

Well, morning after morning I have awakened in this world in my fifty-nine years; I am quite conscious of waking every morning and I thought this was a similar waking, for it was waking, no question about it. I began to awake. As I became fully awake and alert in a way I’ve never known before, I am in my skull. Now, today, if you were in church you heard the story: “And when they came to the place of the skull, there they crucified him.” I awoke within my skull. My skull, if I can put it, put it the size of this area of the stage. I am standing in my own skull, but there is no opening, no eyes, no ears, no nostrils, no opening; it’s completely sealed. But the vibration began at the base of my skull. I’m completely awake. I’ve never known such alertness in my life, but I am completely sealed in the sepulcher of the skull. It’s the tomb in which I who wore this body am now laid. Then I began to move and I did it without knowing consciously, I did it automatically, and I pushed at the base of the skull. Something rolled away, just rolled away, like a stone, and then I came out, head down, inch by inch by inch, of this skull of mine. When I was almost out, I pulled the remaining portion of me out of my skull, and for a few seconds I lay on the floor.790 ¶20

Then I got up, looked back and saw that out of which I came. It [...] the size of this; it was the normal size of this body now, on the bed, ghastly pale, ghastly pale. And then a wind, an unearthly wind holds my interest from the far corner of the room. As I looked over, only took me a few seconds, wondering if this thing is so strong it will blow the whole place down, an unearthly wind; as I returned to my focus on the bed the body is gone.790 ¶21

Now, here’s the story. They went to the tomb and the body was gone, and they said, He is risen…but the words seemed to them the words of an idle tale and they did not believe it. The body was gone! I personally did not see anyone remove it but it is gone; but in its place sat now the witnesses to the event, three men. You’re told in the story as you read it in Luke that they sat at both the head and feet of where the body was—for there is no body—but where the body was they sat at the head and the feet. I didn’t know what’s going to happen now. I could discern all of their thoughts. I’m so alert I can see thoughts; there’s nothing concealed, everything is to my mind like an open book. And then the wind disturbs them, as it disturbs me, and one got off the bed and started towards what seemed to be the cause of the disturbance, where it originated. He hadn’t gone more than two paces when he looked down and then he announced, “It’s Neville’s baby.” The other two asked, “How could Neville have a baby?”…that’s an impossible statement. He doesn’t argue the point; he places the evidence on the bed. It’s a little child, a little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. I lifted it, looked into its eyes and asked, “How is my sweetheart?” It smiled the most heavenly smile, and while I’m looking at this heavenly smile, the whole thing dissolves.790 ¶22

Now go back to the 1st of Romans: “I’ve been set apart,” said he, “for the gospel of God that was promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scripture”. So you go back and you search the scriptures for intimations and foreshadowings of this event. Is it in scripture?—for they’re looking for it in some peculiar strange way—-and you come upon the passage where it is in scripture. The question is asked…aside from that which is said of David, when he comes out of David, he’s going to raise out of David a son that will come forth from his body, but (he the Lord is speaking)—-“I will be his father and he shall be my son.” But now this incident…and you go back and you read it: “Can a man have a child?” He doesn’t wait for the response and he goes forward now, “Why then do I see every man”—-not a particular man but every man; this is a prophecy for all men, and by men it means humanity, male-female—-“Why do I see every man with his hands pulling himself out of himself, just like a woman in labor? Why does every face turn pale?” Then it goes on, never has such a day been seen in all Zion. Never has such a thing been seen in Zion, because no man can understand it, no man can appreciate it, and all would deny it until it happens in the man.790 ¶23

For he foretold this by his prophets in the holy scriptures. The prophets who received it didn’t understand it, and they asked the question, “O Lord, when, when is it going to take place?” They were told, “It is not for your time but for our time.” The time had not yet fully come for this germination to take place, to unfold itself in man. So you go back and you read it. You who want to read it go back to Jeremiah, the 30th chapter, and read the story in the first two verses, down, say, to the 6th and 7th verse. Read the entire six or seven verses where the prophet was told to go and ask, in fact, he’s asking the question, how can it happen? So it happened in man. Not in Jerusalem on the surface of this earth; it happens in this body in every body in the world.790 ¶24

Now comes this great event this coming Sunday and the world will be told that he is risen. They will look in the hope of his return and they don’t know how he comes to man. His return is: He’s coming to man, the resurrection is taking place. The crucifixion is over, everyone has been crucified with God, everyone. There isn’t a child born of woman who has not already been crucified with God. As we are told in the 6th chapter of Romans: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his”.790 ¶25

See the difference in tense: We have been united with him in a crucifixion, in a death like his; now, we shall be—see the change in tense—-we shall be resurrected with him in a resurrection like his. We shall be one with him, a union with him in our resurrection with him, because we are sons of God through our resurrection. No child born of any woman in this world by that birth no matter how holy it is—-you could call it a eugenic birth—-well, that’s not a holy birth. Every birth is holy in the eyes of God. I don’t care how the child was conceived; every child conceived is God conceived. But that is the descendant of David, the human form, the slave that God then assumed. While God walks the earth, unknown even to himself that he is God, then he is born from above by a way foretold by God through his prophets in the holy scriptures.790 ¶26

And when it happens to man, man is dumbfounded. He’s the same man. He hasn’t changed his relationship to society. He knows he’s the same husband, the same father, the same son, the same brother, the same friend, he knows he is. But he walks with this knowledge of what has happened to him. Having studied the ancient scriptures he sees in the scripture all the foreshadowings, all the intimations of that which now he has experienced, and he’s dumbfounded. He sees now that the prophets when they foresaw it, their vision was, like all prophets, foreshadows; and they saw as present what was future, they saw as near what was far. And then we go on the far journey and while we’re on the journey, like a thief in the night, it comes to us suddenly. And then we know now— to go back to the scripture—we are departing from this world. For this is not continuity anymore, this is discontinuity.790 ¶27

So the question is asked, “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” The answer comes back, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage”. You do not know the scriptures or the power of God, for he is now a son of God, all because he’s a son of the resurrection. No more a part of this world that moves upon its wheel, and therefore not a thing changes in this world; it is simply continuity. If you’ve had the experience of continuity, to see the body drop with a bullet through its brain and see no change in self, you’ll know the difference between survival being continuity and resurrection being discontinuity.790 ¶28

Because then you go back to the form that you emptied yourself of, when you wore for educative reasons the garment that is a slave. These are the slave garments and every male in this world, every man in this world, female in this world, these are garments that God wears. As he puts it on, he first must empty himself of his infinite being, his glorified form, to assume the form of a man, and walk the earth as a man for educative reasons in this educated darkness. This, believe it or not, is very important for in this contraction of infinity to a point where it can’t contract any more, which is this slave, it expands its luminosity, it expands its glory by such contraction. There is no limit to translucency, but there’s a limit to contraction and the limit is the garment that God assumed as a slave when he put it on by first emptying himself of the being that he really is who is God. So you read it and he confesses it is Paul who had the experiences. For Jesus Christ is the I-am-ness of every child born of woman. It is Paul who is telling you the story. It is Paul who is confessing the great secret of Christianity.790 ¶29

And so tonight at sundown the Jewish world is telling the story of their freedom, their freedom from slavery. The freedom from slavery is always associated with the serpent rising on a pole. Tonight, they may not tell it that way, but they ask four questions, there are four glasses of wine, and there are four of everything on the table. They don’t really answer these questions correctly at all. The four is a symbol, just a symbol. The four is a door, the Daleth, and the Daleth is I AM. Well, Daleth is the door; he said, I am the door; don’t come in or try in any way to come in (in any other way) save through the door. “I am the door”. And the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Daleth. It’s the symbol of the door and he tells you “I am the door.” No one tells you that at Seder tonight. No one tells you why the fourth was the fourth son who was Judah, praise. No one tells us.790 ¶30

Tonight…a story came to me this past week. It’s one of the most delightful stories. The man is here tonight and if anyone can end his letter to me as he did…he said, “Forty years ago in the state of Washington, I was then seventeen years old and while saddling a horse on our farm, we had a wheat farm, the horse just simply stepped on my big toe, and my big toe was injured seriously. I not only lost the toenail but it ruined or injured the root of that toenail and from then until this past few months I had an odd nail. It wouldn’t grow in as a real nail, only a piece of it would come in. It was always sore and a very bothersome thing in my foot, this part of a nail. For forty years from the time I was seventeen until today.” He confesses he’s fifty-seven. He said, “I read your book The Law and The Promise. I saw where a lady who was injured at a very tender age went back in time and replayed it where she was not injured. So I went back and saw my toenail as it was before it was injured. I did it every night for only three nights, and then in a couple of days after I stopped it I noticed a little yellowy goo around the nail, and then the nail came out, and a complete new nail came out, and for the first time in forty years I had a perfect big toenail.”790 ¶31

Now, he ends his letter this way, “But, Neville, what amazed me is this, for so little I was given so much!” If you could only catch that mood…that’s Thaddeus, the tenth disciple. He’s only mentioned in the disciples; not a thing is said about him. So few people are so faithful. He could close his letter to me by saying, “But, Neville, what amazes me, for so little I was given so much.” He only did it and it cost him nothing to do it. Three nights he saw what he saw when he was seventeen years old, forty years ago. He saw it and accepted that as the norm for that toe. A few days later something happened. A little goo, he said, a little gooey matter appeared around the nail, it came out, a new nail came, and it’s a perfect nail. Now he has a perfect nail and he hasn’t had one in forty years. But I love his ending of his letter: “So much for so little.”790 ¶32

Well, what is the divine measure in the Bible—pressed down, shaken together and running over. That’s how God gives to man for his “little.” So you and I, only a little, and then he brings it back multiplied a thousand-fold. So I tell you, this great mystery is the mystery of life through death. God died that you and I would become alive forever in his presence.790 ¶33

Now listen to these words from Hosea, it’s a promise made by the prophet, dictated to the prophet by God: “And after two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us, to be alive in his presence”. After two days he revives us; on the third day he raises us to be alive in his presence. Well, the third day from today is Sunday. In the mystical language it is the eighth day, for the Sabbath is the seventh day; the Sabbath is tomorrow in the Hebraic world. So, Sunday is the first of a new day, a new week, and it’s called the eighth, the sign of resurrection. But three is also resurrection, because on the third day the earth rose up out of the deep. So on the eighth day he brings up his son and he redeems his son.790 ¶34

And everyone will be redeemed and all of us will be wearing that body that God himself wears, which he emptied to become us. It was God and God alone, God himself, who emptied himself of his infinite hu-form, his divine form, and took upon himself the slave of John Brown, Neville Goddard, and all these in the world. He wore it, and after two days…two days does not mean two twenty-four-hour periods. All that happened to you happened in the tomb. Everything happened in the tomb and in the tomb you were buried. Then infinite mercy, divine mercy turned death into sleep, and so you slept. So everything that happened and is happening now is a dream. Everything in the world is a dream while you are entombed in God’s holy sepulcher, which is the skull of man.790 ¶35

If you don’t think it is a dream, ask the man who wrote me the letter. He only imagined that. He saw in his Imagination what he knew he experienced when he was seventeen years old. Before the great mare, and he called her Pansy, he said, “I was standing on a plank and she dropped her big foot onto my big toe, and the plank was so rigid that it was simply the whole weight of that foot came on my toe.” And so, he only imagined and that’s a dream, isn’t it? That’s a waking dream. And so today he has the tangible results of this dream. Now he has a nail, a perfect nail, having not had one in forty years. And so, I say it is a dream.790 ¶36

And the whole thing that happens to man on his pilgrimage of 6,000 years takes place in the second day. That second day is when man is entombed, which tomorrow the Christian world will now relive as Saturday, which is to their calendar the day before the resurrection. So, on that day before the resurrection—and they tell it as a twenty-four-hour period; no, it is the six-thousand-year period—he is crucified and entombed at sundown. And sundown tomorrow night ends the 6,000-year dream of man. They will come early in the morning and they can’t find the body, because they’re looking for it where it isn’t. For the body is in man. And when he awakens, it will be taken away and he, himself, who wore it will not even know how it was taken. Because it was so well worn and beautifully worn by him, it is in the eyes of God divine; for it played the perfect part while he wore it. It was taken away and he was invisible to those who came to bear witness to the story.790 ¶37

So who then was the little child that was found? Is it not Isaac? So in the [...] tradition it is stated that Isaac is not to be thought of as begotten of generation but simply the forming of the unbegotten. God is forming himself; he, the unbegotten, forming himself in us, in this sepulcher, the skull of man. And when his job is complete and to his satisfaction it is perfect, it is his image, well, then he awakens that image which is himself and it’s you. “Let us make man in our image” and when the image is perfect and alive, just like him, that it can wear his glorious form, he awakens it in that sepulcher. He awakens to find himself completely entombed, and did not know for one moment in his entire pilgrimage that he was ever entombed or ever asleep. And then he awakens and he comes out, and here comes the fulfillment of the promise—I will give you one, you call him Isaac (which means “he laughs”), you hold him in your hand and he laughs—-and the whole thing is completed.790 ¶38

So the prophecy of scripture is brought to its fulfillment in this series of experiences. So I tell you it is from death to life, rather than from life to death, as we experience it on this level of our being. And so, in these three great experiences the whole mystery of Christianity is contained.790 ¶39

So remember, 100,000 this day made their exit normally. I hope that they all know—-of course they now experience it—-there is no death. Survival is automatic. But survival is continuity. I am speaking this night of God’s mightiest act, which brings about a discontinuity and breaks this invidious bond, and brings us out as his sons.790 ¶40

So listen to the words. He was not designated Son of God by his birth from the womb of woman, in spite of what the churches taught you. Read it carefully. The earliest Christology accepted that. It was only in the later centuries that the churches organizing around the mystery that they did not understand then claimed it to be something that happened when the little child was born. No, it happened when he was born from above, and the birth from above comes on the heels of his resurrection. For resurrection comes first in a tomb; and he comes out of a tomb, so he’s born from the grave, his resurrection from the dead. He’s resurrected in the tomb and he comes out of the tomb. No one speaks of a woman’s womb as a dead spot. But anyone who awakens in his skull to find himself entombed would know it’s a place where only the dead are placed, so he comes from the dead.790 ¶41

It’s the mystery of life through death: The mystery of the little grain of corn…unless it falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much. So God buried himself in us, and then we dream, and in our dream we have the illusion of motion and travel all over this vast, wonderful earth of ours. One day we awake to discover we have never really left this place.790 ¶42

So when I was told, many years ago, you do not move in waking any more than you move on your bed in sleep—it’s all a movement in mind. You only believe you moved in waking as you believe you move in sleep. Well, then I woke, and how could I understand when that very day I had dates that would take me out of my apartment in New York City? I was on the road traveling around, and yet here is the voice telling me, “You do not move in waking any more than you move on your bed in sleep.” That I do not move on my bed in sleep that’s obvious. I get up in the morning, I’m still in the bed after an experience of vast travels, but now he compares that to this—that I think I move. And so, when I awoke in my skull to find myself in a tomb, I realized that the voice was telling the truth. Even though tonight I’m going to drive home and tomorrow travel around, I still must know the whole thing here is taking place in a dream. And so the great Shelley was right: “He has awakened from the dream of life. ’Tis we who lost in stormy visions keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife.”790 ¶43

Now, you learn what that gentleman who told me this story tonight has already learned. You can imagine something that was injurious forty years ago, go back and see it as it ought to have been seen through the forty years. Don’t do much! He said, “I did so little and received so much.” Treat it just as lightly as that, and see how you can dream all these lovely things into being. For it is a being. Now let us go into the Silence and dream nobly.790 ¶44

* * * [...] Jack has all of my books and books that I recommend.790 ¶45

Well, the time is up. And then after tonight we go back into a norm of the law. So we’ll start next week. I’m quite sure the subject, whatever it is, will be on the law. Please send me your letters and tell me how you use it and how wisely you used it. I hope you have fantastic results in your world. So, ’til next Tuesday. Thank you.790 ¶52

I think that most of you know we will be here every Tuesday and Friday until the end of this month, closing on the 29th. We’re off to other points, and today it’s been decided that we return sometime late October. But you will know…sometime in late October…but every Tuesday and every Friday until the end of this month. Tonight’s subject I would title “Memory,” taken from the Book of John, really taken from the entire Bible, but, say, from John. For we’ve received the promise that he will send what is described in scripture as the Holy Spirit who will bring to our remembrance all the words that were told us in the beginning. Evidently we have forgotten, we’ve all forgotten what was told us; but having experienced the truth of scripture, I see that no man who has experienced it can escape the responsibility of telling its message to his fellow men. So I can tell you the story is true.789 ¶1

How many of you saw the demonstration of the Earlybird satellite? I do not know. I saw it. And all the capitols of the Western world were really together. We heard it in London, Paris, Washington, [...]. They were all really together, as though they played in concert. If you could imagine just such a state, raised to the nth degree of perfection, and you are just as near the storyteller as the camera is to his face. No matter where you sit in the world you’re just as near to the storyteller as that camera is before his face. So, in the Bible the storyteller is God and he tells a story to all of us. Now, think not in terms of just the three billion who exist just now, but think in terms of all of the generations of men, past, present and future, all co-existing in what I would call a new tense, the mystic tense. Not just the past or the present or the future; bring them all together into the new tense, the mystic tense. And he tells us a story.789 ¶2

He tells us his plan and the purpose behind the plan and then the promise, the law that will sustain us while we go on a journey. Then having told us everything, he tells us, to bring it to pass he has to die, he has to disappear. These are the words he used in the 14th chapter of the Book of John. He said, “I will pray the Father and he will send you another Comforter, who will be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, because he dwells with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.”789 ¶3

In that day—this is eschatology—“in that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you, in that day” . But the journey, this long, long journey that seems so long and so horrible and so disordered, he shows us there is order in the seeming chaos; the end is already predetermined; and in that end you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Now, he tells us, I am the Father. Just imagine just such a story being told to all of us, everyone present, all chosen in him before the world was; and then he tells us in detail the entire plan. And tells us, when we start we will be the incarnated tragedy and glory. But we must not forget the glory in the tragedy, and try to remember that the good tithings are the tithings of the victory of God that is assured. Try to remember the good tithings, and don’t be completely lost in the tragedy. It will be a tragedy, but try to remember the glory in the tragedy. Then he’ll bring to our remembrance in this last day the truth of all that he said. Now, he said, the Holy Spirit will come, he’ll teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Every word will be true.789 ¶4

Now, to take it and analyze it, he equates the Holy Spirit with the Spirit of truth. In the same chapter, he said, “I am the truth,” so he tells you he is the Holy Spirit, he is the Comforter, for he equates the Comforter with the Holy Spirit. So what is this other Comforter? “I will pray the Father and he will send you another Comforter, who will be with you forever.” It’s simply that the visible presence of the storyteller departs and in departing he takes up residence in us, and becomes to us an invisible being; and we do not know him because we cannot see him. Because I can’t see him, I say I don’t know him. He departs from me as a visible presence as he enters me as the invisible reality: my own wonderful human Imagination. That’s he. That’s the Comforter, that’s the Spirit of truth that is Christ Jesus…enters me and then starts this long wonderful journey that’s full of tragedy. And only at the very end will he reveal himself to me.789 ¶5

He said, “The world will not see me…yet a little while and the world will not see me, but you will see me. Then in that day you will know”— how will I know?—“you will know that I am in my Father, and that I am in you, and you in me.” Only at the very end will I know that the Father told the story, and became me, and that I am the Father. No power in the world can reveal me to myself as father save a child. So that was set up in the very beginning…the only child that could ever reveal me as the Father. It comes only at the very end when the drama as far as the individual is concerned is over.789 ¶6

When it is over, this comes rapidly into consciousness, one after the other, the whole series. At the very end he departs into a new heaven. As we are told in the Old, I now create a new heaven and a new world, and the former things will not be remembered or called into mind anymore. I will blot out all of your shortcomings, all of your transgressions, all of your sins—nothing will be remembered. It’s a new world, a new creation . So you will not carry this horrible tragedy with you. The whole thing will be wiped out at the very end, and you will be an entirely different being. And who will you be?—God the Father. This is the story as told in scripture.789 ¶7

Can man believe it? We are told that you will forget it, but in the end he will come who has been with you all the time. He’ll come and he’ll be with you forever, never to leave you. And he will lead you gradually into all knowledge, into everything. There is nothing he doesn’t know, for he is the storyteller, he is God the Father. Then he enters man and reveals in man everything in the world. Then in the end, he brings back to man the memory of the being who spoke, who vanished from sight but took up residence in man, and fused with man until they became one, one man, and that man is God.789 ¶8

So when you tell anyone today—rather, I wouldn’t say anyone, because many of you here wouldn’t smile at it or think me insane—but I’ve had the experience with many when you tell them that you actually stood in the presence of the risen Christ and talked to him, and communed with him, and was embraced by him, and fused with him, and became one with the risen Christ, they say, “How can an intelligent person like that man be so naïve?” I’ve heard their remarks at a dinner party, at a cocktail party, “How could he be so naïve? Can he make a living? Can the man afford even to pay rent? That he could actually tell me in the year 1965 in the 20th Century that he stood in the presence of the risen Christ and communed?” And really, it is to them a shock of shocks that you seem to be intelligent, you seem to be a likable person, but don’t ask me in this 20th Century to believe that nonsense, that myth. I stand here before you to tell you every word is true. But it doesn’t unfold itself and memory does not return until the end.789 ¶9

You are told you will go into the world and you will completely forget all that I have told you, and you’ll go astray, and you’ll make idols, and you’ll worship idols, and call them the causes of the good fortune in your world or the misfortune in your world. You will completely forget me. But, he tells you, I am the Lord; beside me there is no God, I know not any. I will now disappear, become invisible to you; can’t see me because I am in you. I’m not even near, for nearness implies separation; so I’m not even near, I become you. In becoming man, he can’t be near man, he is man; and walks in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So when man makes the statement “I am,” that’s he. There is no other God. Their wonderful I am, that’s God.789 ¶10

Now, what else did he tell us in the beginning? He told me that as I start on my journey whatever I dare to desire, believing that I have it, I will have it . Whatever I desire, believing that I have, I will have. Now, put it to the test. He tells you: Come test me and see…if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great there is not room on earth to receive it. Test me and see. “Do you not realize that I am in thee?—unless, of course, you fail to meet the test” .789 ¶11

Well, how would I this night take that test? First of all, I must desire: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will.” So, I start with desire. I must want something. Well, if I had it, how would I see the world? Would I see it as I saw it prior to desire? No, certainly not. If I desire this night to be in San Francisco, really desire to be there, would I sleep this night seeing San Francisco to the north of me, say, 500 miles? How could I if I desired and believe I have received what I have desired? Would I not sleep as though I slept in San Francisco? And if I thought of it, it would be all around me and under me. If I thought of Los Angeles, I would see it to the south of me 500 miles. That’s what I am taught to do in the word of God. When I know what I want, believe that I have received it and I will. But I can’t desire something and believe I’ve received it and still think of it in the way I thought of it when I desired it; for now desire is fulfilled, it’s been realized. So, if I apply it in this light, I put him to the test. So, that’s what I’m told to do. Test me and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great there isn’t room on earth to receive it.789 ¶12

But, if one really desires, he can do it. I read a story this past week of a Canadian, Lord Thompson, I think was his name. He’s supposed to be the richest [...] in the world. He, himself, does not know his multiple millions. This was an interview with a very intelligent reporter, and I’ll tell you, I read it in the Times. He had no money, a very poor boy, started off behind the eight-ball, but desired with all of his heart money. He wanted money, money and still more money. He’s now seventy years old. And so, he didn’t go into the details of how he made money, but he has multiple millions—over 250 publications, newspapers in our land here, in Canada, in England, Europe, all over the world, with his magazines as well. He said to the reporter, or the reporter said to him, “Now you are a lord, do you like being a peer?” He said, “I love it!” “You like being very, very rich?” “Tremendously so!” he said. Now, he said, “I have great blessings in this world. I have three children, my wife Di, I have two daughters and a son, and they all have multiple millions. My grandchildren each have multiple millions. But I’ll tell you what runs in the family. My granddaughter was at the club and she called her mother (my daughter) and said, “Stop by the club and pick me up, because I haven’t transportation, my car is out of order.” The mother suggested to the daughter, well, take a taxi, and she replied (with all of her millions), “That costs too much.” And that amused the grandfather. He’s seventy and he still wants to make more millions. He said he made more between sixty-five and seventy than he did in his first sixty-five years. But he has, he thinks he has, ten more years, so he hopes to make more in the next ten years than he did between sixty-five and seventy. Alright, he can do it if he wants to. May I tell you, he can do it if he has that sort of hunger.789 ¶13

You must want in this world. Desire is the mainspring of action. God speaks to man through the language of desire. The day will come to every child born of woman when the hunger will not be for money, it will not be for fame. He has his fame; he’s Lord Thompson, honored all over the world by those who honor people who are wealthy. But the day will come, when I do not know, that God will send upon him a hunger, a famine. “It will not be a famine for bread and not a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God” . Not a thing in this world can satisfy that kind of hunger but an experience of God. So when that comes upon you—it’s a desire, it’s a hunger; desire is hunger—when it comes, there is no temptation in this world that could divert you even for a moment, couldn’t. When you have that hunger for God that only the experience of God can satisfy, no bait in this world is tempting—recognition by the world, fame, great wisdom, as the world would call it. No, for in the end when this hunger comes you are destined to awaken as God. What man could instruct you?789 ¶14

All of the wisdom of the world, we’re told in Corinthians, is as foolishness in the eyes of God. For in the end, not one thing that the wise man now sees and believes to be true will be true, not one. This morning’s paper brought out the new theory—they change it every year—it used to be that the earth and the whole vast world of ours took billions of years to grow gradually, and is receding. The new theory today goes back to what they had twenty years ago—it’s all a bang, it came into being by a bang, a solid bang, one moment…and another kind of theory. And all this will play into nothing when the Spirit of truth comes upon man and leads him to truth.789 ¶15

How could I tell anyone to persuade that individual that the day will come, you will taste of the power of the age to be before you enter it? Here is a tasting of that power. You come upon a scene just like this. You are in Spirit, no one sees you, but you are more real to yourself than anyone that’s visible to you. They’re all within range of your sight, but they’re not as real as you feel yourself to be, and you are invisible to them. You know, and there is no uncertainty as to this knowledge, that if you now arrest within yourself a certain activity that you feel everyone here would freeze. Everyone would stand still and they couldn’t move. You do it; you arrest within your own Imagination this activity. A waitress walking walked not, and the bird flying flew not, and the diners dining dined not, and every being froze. And then you examined them, and they could be made of marble or clay, but they were dead. The life that seemed so independent of your perception of them isn’t there at all. The life was all in you, in an activity of your own wonderful human Imagination. It wasn’t there at all. You go back into the scripture, does it support it? Yes, the scripture supports it, in the 5th chapter of John: As the Father has life in himself, so he gives the Son to have life in himself also …that the whole vast world is simply animated bodies. They are living souls but not life-giving spirits. So I tasted that night of the power of being a life-giving spirit; for I arrested the activity that I saw and it arrested, everything stood still. Then I released it in me and it all moved on. The bird continued to fly when I released it; and the waitress walking, she continued to walk to serve the diners; and the diners whose actions I arrested when I released it they continue to dine. Every one was dead, every one frozen.789 ¶16

So, I would say to these great scientists today, it isn’t a bang and it isn’t any of this expansion that the other scientists who oppose it believe. I go back to the one who I quoted earlier, “Hear the voice of the bard, who present, past and future sees, whose ears have heard the Holy Word that walked among the ancient trees.” Here he sees everything as one, all standing still, and this is what he said, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of Creation, which was an act of mercy.” Everything in the world exists, and Creation is an act of mercy…that man didn’t come out of the swamps as evolutionists teach. The birds were not once some little wiggly thing in the swamp; it always was the bird building its nest. It was ever part of the eternal structure of the universe.789 ¶17

And then the storyteller decides on a new creation, something entirely different, and he fragments himself and talks to himself. And here we find the one God talking to multiple aspects of himself called the Elohim—the Elohim is a plural word—so one being talking to himself, all in communion with self. And then this personified one disappears. But now it is in the entire vast aspect of its own being, and passes through what the storyteller told. That is the eternal story. And you come out at the end. When you come out at the end, all that I told you in the beginning, said he, that would be done to me you will know; because it will be done to you, for I am in you; therefore, it was done to me, for I am the life of you. So everything I tell you in the story that will be done to me, like dying and shedding my blood for all, it’s done to you because I am in you. And so, he becomes man that man may become God.789 ¶18

So this wonderful story was told us in the beginning. And now I’ve told you, said he, before it takes place that when it does take place, you may believe . So everything was told—not 2,000 years ago—everything was told at the beginning of the journey. It is still being told, as aspects of his infinite being begin the journey, and the journey is going on and going on to the very end. When the end comes in the true sense of the word all are gathered together, one by one, into one man, and that one man is God.789 ¶19

So I say, I stood in the presence of the risen Christ, and it’s man. He’s infinite love, may I tell you. I felt no other emotion in his presence, nothing but love, infinite love. The simple question asked and the simple answer given prompted an embrace, and he embraced me, and I fused with the body of the risen Christ. So I tell you it’s true, the story is true. So let the whole vast world laugh at it. They can’t stop it. They can’t turn it aside. They can’t stop the unfolding order. So no matter what threats we have in the world today, God and God alone is actually controlling the destiny of man. The outcome is predetermined—no one’s going to alter it—and the outcome is to awaken as God.789 ¶20

Now we’re told in the 78th Psalm, “I will open my mouth in a parable and utter dark sayings of old” . Then the psalmist repeats the entire history of Israel—all the wonders of God, the glory of God, the might of God, everything. It’s a long psalm, seventy-two verses. When it comes to almost the end, the 65th verse, it is said, “And the Lord awoke as from sleep.” The whole thing took place in the grand dream of God; and the Lord awoke as from sleep and then scattered and routed all of his enemies. Then he chose Judah; and chose David and then he brought him from the flocks, and the psalm comes to its glorious end. He chose David…that’s the son who will come at the end to reveal you as God the Father. “And he said unto me,” in the 2nd Psalm, “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee” . These words are spoken to David.789 ¶21

So, in the end you will realize who Jesus Christ really is. And he tells us—but who will believe it—he is God the Father. “When you see me, you see the Father. How then can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” Philip wants to see the Father. He said, “I’ve been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who sees me has seen the Father” . Then how did David appear in the picture? Have we any contact between the two? They didn’t…it is told us, or the question is asked, “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” Well, they could have said Joseph, they could have said Mary, could have said something else. No, the answer comes back, “The son of David.” Then he makes the statement, “Why then did David in the Spirit call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” .789 ¶22

The word Lord is Adonay, means “my father.” It was always used by a son of his father; he always referred to his father as “my Lord.” So here, we get the confession that David called him, “my father.” The day will come David will call you “my father.” When David calls you “my father,” scripture is fulfilled. You come to the very end: it was the Holy Spirit who took you through all these things and led you into all knowledge, all wisdom and then brought to your remembrance everything that Christ the Father said to you before you started the journey. So he succeeded in his purpose to give you himself. For that’s the purpose of God: to so give himself to you that there are not two but one.789 ¶23

Then we go back to the beginning of the Bible, the 2nd chapter of Genesis, “A man must leave all and cleave to his wife until they become one, one flesh” . So, we are then considered the emanation; this fragmented being, this is the emanation of God; and he must cleave to you, his emanation, who is really his wife, until you become one flesh, not two. So this is the whole wonderful story as told in scripture. Then you read, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” . So, to feel that he so loved me, this fragmented being, loved me individually, loved you individually—you’re so unique in his love that he cleaves to you and there aren’t two of you just one; you are he. You become God, for you wear the name of your Maker and his name is I AM. And because he is your husband and he is father, there must be a son to bear witness of that position called father. So he addresses him as Father, claims himself to be Father, and the only one that can reveal you as God the Father is David of biblical fame.789 ¶24

So the story of David, it’s so far forgotten that when rabbis and priests and ministers talk about it today they see him as a being who lived 1,000 years B.C. No, his mission is spiritual; it’s not historical at all. So look upon the Old Testament as sacred memory and the New as sacred reality—the same memory but now brought into a reality where a man, within himself, experiences it, it’s now reality. But the whole Old Testament is only memory—the story that was told us before we started the journey—it’s sacred memory. And then, man goes through the journey. At the end of the journey he experiences it; it now becomes sacred reality…and that’s the New Testament. So here, I tell you, as one who has experienced it, put all your hope in the truth of this wonderful story.789 ¶25

In the meanwhile, while you live in the world of Caesar, apply the law, apply it wisely. Don’t let anyone tell you you shouldn’t want a home or a suit or a better job or more money…all of this is part of the play. But you must want it, and when you really want it, find out what to do to really get it. You hit no one over the head to get it, you hurt no one. You simply assume that you are already the one that you would like to be. Assuming that you are what you would like to be, you sleep in that assumption as though it were true. Sleeping in the assumption that I am the man I want to be, I reshuffle my world and make it reflect this change of attitude in me. For a man by the changing of his internal attitudes toward life can change the outer aspects of his life, and make them respond and conform to this change if it is a sustained change. I don’t mean some little change and then one second later go back to my old self. I mean a radical change that I sustain. If I want to be other than what I seem to be, let me know what I really want to be and hunger for it, and then dare to assume I am it.789 ¶26

Well, how will I know that I’ve really succeeded? That very moment that I’ve assumed it, think of my friends, wouldn’t they see me were I not that person? Were I that person, would they not see me, or are they going to see me in my former light? If they see me in my former light, well, then I haven’t changed. I must let them see me as they would see me were it true; and so fall asleep just seeing the faces of your friends, all seeing you as the transformed person that you really are…and wait for it. It comes into your world. You can’t stop it if you are faithful to your assumption. No man in the world can stop it, others can’t stop it.789 ¶27

All I ask anyone [...] is to try it, just try it. And after you tried that and you become hungry for something else, try it for that. And try it for others until that moment in time when you’re coming to the end of the journey and your hunger changes. Then you get that hunger for an experience of God that only an experience of God can satisfy. When you have it, you’re at the end of this age and you enter an entirely different age, not related whatsoever to anything here. It’s between, well, you might say, the butterfly and the caterpillar; you wouldn’t think that one came out of the other. So what is about to come out of man which is God-in-glory is housed in these incarnated, limited garments of flesh and blood. For when it comes out, you are tuned to an entirely different world. And in the end, you and I will know we really are one—that I am in my Father, and my Father and I are one, and I am in you, and you are in me. In the end, everyone was brought back but as one magnified beyond the wildest dream. That was the reason for the story.789 ¶28

So he leaves the world just as it is, and then tomorrow resets the stage for an even greater adventure. And so, it isn’t once and for all that we come out as God. No, he’s a creative God. He will conceive an even more fantastic dream, and then tell the story to himself again. Not replay this; a new story…he’s a creator…and then he’ll bring himself out beyond what he was when he conceived the new play. So Tennyson could say in his poem, “Be patient, the playwright will show us in some fifth act what this wild drama means.” Well, here this is in four acts; he’ll show us in a fifth act. So don’t be afraid, because you’re coming out of this whole vast horrible dream as Jesus Christ where everything is subject to your imaginative power, only to find you are desiring once more to transcend that state, glorious as it is. And you will conceive a still more wonderful play, and tell it, and we’ll all be present, because we are the teller and the ones hearing it; only one God.789 ¶29

That’s why it’s called the greatest of all Commandments: “Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord” . Don’t forget it. Put everything into that one grand Commandment. There’s only one God. “I am the Lord,” said he, “the Lord your God; and besides me there is no God. I know not any.”789 ¶30

So when you take this into your dream this night, tonight, if you’re desirous of something other than what you have here, assume it. Assume that you are the lady, that you are the gentleman that you want to be, I don’t care what it is. The promise is completely open, wide open. It does not say in this promise—but you can read it in the 11th chapter, the 24th verse, of the Book of Mark—it doesn’t say that it need be good for you. It doesn’t say that the priesthoods of the world should sanction it, that you should tell them. No, do you desire it? “Whatsoever you desire, believe you have received, and you will.” That’s the Word of God.789 ¶31

So when you go to bed tonight, you want something good for a friend, how would you see them if they had it? Well, then mentally persuade yourself that they have it—and don’t raise a finger to make it so. See them as having it. See everyone as the one that you want them to be, and just go to sleep just as though it were true…until that day comes when the hunger moves you from these things, and then you awake as from a sleep. Then you will know what it is that he shouted as a strong man filled with wine when he woke. He was taking it all along—the wine and the bread—he was eating the body, drinking the blood of his own being. In the end he woke from his own self-imposed dream, and then all of the enemies would love him. [...] God and God alone.789 ¶32

So believe me when I tell you the story is true. I have experienced it. The story of Jesus Christ as told in the gospels is a true story, but not as it’s taught in the world: it happens to the individual. Everyone must experience scripture. So we are told, scripture must be experienced in me; really, that’s what he’s telling us. “This scripture must be fulfilled in me,” that’s what he said. “Then beginning with Moses and the law and all the prophets and all the psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” . For he said, Moses wrote only about me: “In the volume of the book it is all about me” . So the whole vast book is all about man, and the whole of scripture must be experienced by the individual. When it’s experienced by him he is fulfilled and made real all of the wonderful promises of God. That which was only sacred memory, which he forgot in the meanwhile (he suffered from amnesia)—then memory returned, because the Holy Spirit will bring back to your remembrance all these things that I have said.789 ¶33

Do you know what the word tomb in Greek means?—“the place of remembrance.” That’s what it means. It’s a cenotaph, the place of remembrance, the word tomb. And so, he was put in a tomb. Now, where is the tomb? On Golgotha, that’s where he’s crucified, and Golgotha means skull. So, your wonderful skull is where he’s buried and there is where the remembrance returns. All things return to that tomb, which is called “the place or the sign of remembrance.” Gradually all things come here. So Blake could say in confidence: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your (own wonderful human) Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” So you will actually know it is all in you: I dwell in them, they dwell in me, and we are one. And you will say that, in that moment, I am this one…for all will be in you. Now let us go into the Silence. * * *789 ¶34

Now if there is anyone present who would like to be on the mailing list and is not, may we have your name and address? We do not use this list for any purpose other than to notify you when we’re in town and where we’re lecturing. If you would like to receive a notice when we open in October…I think the date is the 19th of October, that’s the day. We take an ad in the paper, but not everyone reads the paper. If you would like to be notified, may we have your name and address? You’ll find cards and pencils at the desk. Now, are there any questions, please?789 ¶35

Tonight’s subject is “It is Within.” As we are told, the kingdom of God is within you and the kingdom of God contains all; there is nothing outside of the kingdom. These words were addressed to us individually. You mean that you seated here, a small little person, within a room much bigger than yourself, and the room but a little aspect of a bigger building, and this tiny little spot on the earth, and then you go out in this fabulous world, and I’m addressing you, and you contain the whole? I mean that seriously. “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”788 ¶1

Let me share with you an experience which I am convinced everyone must have, for I can’t see how I can persuade anyone that what I have just told you is true. It can only come to the individual by an experience. I can’t for one moment believe I could take this platform forever and persuade others that all that they behold which seems so real and so objective is really within them. But an experience could do it. So let me share with you an experience.788 ¶2

I found myself on a crowded subway, crowded more so than the little eggs in a shad roe. If you’ve ever had a shad roe, or the roe of a sturgeon, or the dolphin, and these numberless little dots, each a potential fish, whether it be the dolphin or the shad or whatever it would be. And the subway, many, many cars, and the train is as long as the station would allow, and every car as crowded as the little eggs of the shad roe. But when I say crowded, I mean crowded with people. And here are these perfectly lovely ladies, beautifully gowned. I could hardly believe they were on their way to work…they seemed that they must be on their way to some fashion display, beautifully gowned!788 ¶3

I turned to my friend David (David Morton who’s here tonight) and I said, “Can you believe that all this is within us?” How could I persuade anyone in this world that all this, not only all these lovely ladies beautifully gowned, but here is now the conductor trying to get through and he can’t, it’s too crowded. He’s screaming to the people pushed against the doors to be careful, because there could be an accident. The doors would simply fly open by the mere pressure. But they couldn’t help it, it was simply crowded. David agreed with me that it’s almost impossible if not completely impossible to persuade oneself that this could be the out-picturing of one’s inner activity. But how to persuade another that all that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in one’s own wonderful human Imagination? And so we agreed that in spite of Blake’s wonderful vision that nothing could really reveal it to man but an experience. That’s all that could do it.788 ¶4

Then came that moment when David and I got off the car. He had a big letter envelope and in it he had many letters, and he asked me to post them for him, so he gave me the letters. Then that meant that we would simply separate and go our separate ways, he to some other place, and I either to the post office or to some mailbox and post these letters for him. I took the letters and I didn’t read the addresses, but I simply looked at them to see if they were properly, I would say, stamped. Well, I was satisfied that they were stamped. As I turned to him and promised him I would mail them, I awoke and here I am on my bed. And that experience was just as real as this experience right here now. Was it not all within me—-this entire train, as many cars as the station would hold, each car crowded to the gunnels? And here is David agreeing with me as we quoted Blake—we quoted Blake from beginning to end-—he and I agreed that not only we couldn’t persuade ourselves of the reality of something inside, for everything seemed real on the outside. Here are these lovely ladies, beautifully gowned, everything beautifully done, everything perfect. I touched him, I got his letters; that was something objective to me. And then, we agreed that not a thing in this world could truly convince us of the reality of the statement of Blake that “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” So there I stood…taking his letters. I waved to him as he departed towards his place and I toward the mailing of his letters; and holding these letters, seemingly, I awoke. I woke on my bed. That happened yesterday morning.788 ¶5

So here, a perfectly wonderful experience of the reality of all within, it isn’t without at all. As Blake tells us, “I am in you. In your bosoms I reside, and you in me. I in you and you in me, mutual in love divine. But the weary traveler could not believe it and so he turned down the valleys dark.” What man will believe it?788 ¶6

So you tell a man I’ll show you how to try to prove it…and you see what isn’t there to be seen, and you look at it, it isn’t there, but in your Imagination you can see it. And you persuade yourself of the reality of what you’re seeing in your Imagination, and to the degree that you are self-persuaded of the reality of what you are imagining it will take on an objective form. Well, it may take it on in twenty-four hours or two years if you really believe in the reality of what you are imagining. Well, when it takes on that objective form and becomes an objective fact, between your imaginal act and the objective fact so many things happen that seem to you outside of yourself and so natural and so real that it’s outside, you can’t relate it to your imaginal act. And so, you deny your own harvest. You can’t believe that what you’re doing there, what you now see on the outside, is in any way related to what you did on the inside.788 ¶7

Yet all ends run true to origins, and you and I today are bearing the fruit of some forgotten blossom time. We don’t remember it. What child in this world did not as a little child—-I know I did—-dream noble dreams of saving people, of doing all kinds of things? Just running in…if you were born, as I was, on a little farm—-they wouldn’t call it a farm in Barbados—-but to me it was a farm because we had all the animals. And so we had bulls and we had stallions and we had these things and I would see them breeding. Then we knew the power of these beasts, and I entertained the thought of one day saving someone from the bull, or from the stallion, where some little girl got away and found herself in the stall, and instead of being injured I would just simply take that beast by its horns or take the stallion by the halter and then save her. Didn’t you do that? Everyone does that. These so-called dreams of childhood they lead us into other things in our world. So I don’t go out and take a bull by the head, or the stallion, but you go out and take other things equally powerful and divert them from some disaster in this world. All these go back to these childhood dreams, where man as a little child dreams.788 ¶8

A little girl dreams and she changes her name. So her name is Miss Brown, Mary Brown, but she can’t be Miss Brown if she wants to be married for the rest of her life. She wants to be married, so she writes all kinds of names next to her name. So she loses herself in this wonderful act of writing another name and trying to feel what it would be like if I were Mrs. John or Mrs. something else. All this…and you think it silly.788 ¶9

I can see my mother now coming over my shoulder when we were all around…and this is a way back, I was born in 1905…and we didn’t really study, but we had to appear as though we did. So there were nine brothers and a sister and she would come occasionally over our shoulder and wonder what we were doing. This night in question, she came over my shoulder, she read, she said, “Neville, what are you doing?” I couldn’t deny it, there it was. She picked up the paper and I’d just written out “I wonder who’s kissing her now?” Well, that was my homework…I was dreaming of something entirely outside of that world. And so, it was a piece of the time, and I simply heard it, loved the little thought behind it, and I wondered, “Who is kissing her now?” Well, mother smiled for a moment…she didn’t smile in my presence, but she went to the veranda and told my father what I had just written out. They both had a hearty laugh over that statement. All that was within me, it wasn’t on…at least, I wrote it on the paper.788 ¶10

What I’m getting at it this. David and I, yesterday morning…but David was in me. He’s here physically tonight, objective to my presence, and yet yesterday morning he was as real as he is now sitting in this room. And he and I agreed that we can’t become self-persuaded by argument; we can only become persuaded by an experience. And it will take an experience of God in man to reveal the statement of Blake that “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”788 ¶11

We are inwoven into these cruel roots of the brain to die the death of six thousand years. At the very end, after we have died the death of six thousand years, we will come out and we will be God himself. That God is each man and each man is that very God, but he doesn’t know it, he doesn’t know it now.788 ¶12

So when we’re told, “The kingdom of God is within you,” how can man looking out not only on this little world of ours but into the heavens—-you mean the sun, the planets, the moon and all of the galaxies beyond the wildest dream of man—-all are contained within me? It must be true if I am God. But you mean that everything in the world, all the galaxies, I don’t need some little airship to take me there, it’s all contained with me? It’s the most fantastic concept in the world…and yet it is true.788 ¶13

Now let me share with you an experience. We read in the story in the 9th chapter of the Book of Mark: “And then he took the little child into his arms, embraced him in his arms, and he said to them, ‘Whoever receives such a one as this little child receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but receives him who sent me’” . Now you look up the word “child” and it means “an infant”—-not a little thing that could walk, not articulate—-it’s the inarticulate little child, an infant. It also means “a term of endearment,” that’s what it means. Not only is it a little infant, but it’s a term of endearment.788 ¶14

Now, just as I had this experience yesterday morning, think of the entire story of Jesus Christ as such an experience, where it is only an acted parable; that every act of Jesus Christ is an act of truth that etches itself upon the soul of man. This is something that you experience in the depth of your soul in what I would say now was a subjective state—-the whole thing was dramatized. So an infant was placed …just like a story on a stage…and an infant was taken and put in the midst of you. Then you were told one day you will receive it in your arms and you will express the most wonderful feeling of endearment for that which is placed in your arms. When it happens, you will know you not only receive me, the little child, but you received him who sent me. Who is it?—-God the Father.788 ¶15

So you receive God the Father with that act. So I say, subjectivity and objectivity are wholly determined for the individual by the level on which the individual’s consciousness is focused. Here it is focused here and this seems so real. The experience of yesterday morning is now subjective and I recall it as I would a dream; but when it was happening, it was as real as this moment now. That was to me objective and everything else was subjective…only when I shifted consciousness. And instead of posting the letters, as he gave them to me he said, “Take these letters and post them for me.” So I started to post them for him, and we parted, he his way, and I my way. My way was to another level of consciousness. So I came back here to discover that was subjective but a moment before it was objective; and this, if I had remembered it, it would have been relative to it, it would have been subjective.788 ¶16

So the story of Jesus Christ was told man in the depth of his soul. And the little infant was placed in his midst and he was told, the day will come you’ll take it in your hands at the end of the journey. When you take it in your hands, you will speak to it in the most endearing terms. For the word child not only means “infant,” this word, there are seven words used in the Greek for child, but this one is “the tiniest of tiny, inarticulate, the infant.” You’ll find it in your Concordance, and here not only “infant” but the most “endearing of terms.” If you use the same term that I did, you will say, “How is my sweetheart?” You will hold it in your hands, wrapped in its swaddling clothes, and you will ask it, “How is my sweetheart?” And then you will know who you are, for you’re told in this 9th chapter of Mark that after you hold it in your hands and you embrace it, you will know you have received me, but not me but him who sent me, for he’s always the little child. So Jesus Christ must always be spoken of and thought of as the little child, the symbol of your own entrance into the kingdom of God. But your entrance into the kingdom of God is accompanied with the power of God. So you received not only me, the little child, but received him who sent me.788 ¶17

Well, who sent me?—-God the Father. And so you will know this entire mystery: The whole vast world is within you. It appears without, but it really isn’t without at all. The so-called center, yes, they call it the selfish center, that’s without; but the circumference, that which includes all things, that’s within.788 ¶18

Now try it, try it this night. You can’t quite grasp it until something similar happens to you. But you can try it and prove it. Well, I want to be…and you name it. I want to be bigger in my profession, I want to hold a bigger job, make more money, I want to live in a better place…you name it.788 ¶19

I say everything is within you. Well, now see it as you would see it were it true, and bring someone who seemingly now exists without—but they don’t, really, they all exist within—-bring them into your mind’s eye and let them witness this accomplishment. Bring everyone who would actually rejoice with you were it true. So you bring them in your mind’s eye and you talk with them inwardly as though you talked with them outwardly. Believe in the reality of this imaginal act. This assemblage is implying something, and whatever the assemblage implies it will create. So you take this wonderful assemblage of friend or friends and then their conversation, whatever that conversation would imply, but you make it, you control it, and you make it imply the fulfillment of your desire. When it comes to pass and it is objectified on the screen of space, you may forget what you did. It’s going to happen so naturally and so normally you may not relate it to what you’ve done. But try to remember what you do that you may know that the whole vast world is within you.788 ¶20

Little as you are, small as you are judged by these standards, you contain the whole vast world. As Jeans says, “Having studied the stars”—-he was a great astrophysicist—-“I have come to the conclusion that the whole thing is nothing more than an infinite mind and we are but brain cells in the mind of the dreamer.”788 ¶21

Here is an astrophysicist, Sir James Jeans. Well, I’ll tell you, you are God. Every being in this world is God, very God, and contains within himself everything in this world…but he doesn’t know it. As Blake said, “It takes six thousand years of this experience of horror, inwoven into the cruel roots of the tree of life,” and the tree of life is in your own brain. For as he also said, “The gods of the earth and the sea sought through nature to find this tree, but their search was all in vain, there grows one in the human brain.” This tree is turned down into generation. The day will come you’ll hold that little child, that infant, and you will speak some endearing term to him, and soon thereafter the tree will turn up. All that went down into generation will turn up into regeneration, and start to grow beyond the wildest dream of man. And it’s you.788 ¶22

On this level it doesn’t make sense, but I tell you, it is true. Every word that I’m telling you this night is true. For when David said to me…and it was so real…we’re discussing Blake and quoting him, word for word. Not just Jerusalem, but quoting him as he wrote in his Milton, as he wrote in all his poems, and we knew it intimately. Then I said to David, “How can one…look at these beautiful ladies, look at them, each more beautiful than the other, and all lovely, and yet so crowded that you couldn’t move…and yet you could see exactly what they were wearing. It seemed strange…every one was apart and yet the train and the cars so crowded that the conductor, who couldn’t get through, is calling on us to please not push any more towards the door because some accident could take place. And David and I are discussing the beauty of these women, and how could I believe this one here that I could touch—-I wouldn’t touch her, I touched David, I wouldn’t touch these lovely ladies, I just looked at them—-how could I believe that she is in me? And he agreed with me, you can’t. How could I be persuaded that everything that I am seeing now is actually taking place within me? We both agreed that would be an impossible thing. But, if impossible to us, how would I persuade another that it’s taking place in them? That, we gave up completely.788 ¶23

And then he gave me his letters, I departed from him to wake to discover how true Blake was. Was it not all within me? Did not everything that I see take place in me? So you come back and you put him to the test. So when I came back into this world, the world in which I woke, which is this world was no more real than that world from which I had just departed. There was a change of consciousness from one level to another. That world that to me when I was on it was objective faded and became subjective; and this world to which I returned, which was relative to it subjective, became objective.788 ¶24

Now, if it is true that everything that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my Imagination, and all these things that seem so real are but shadows, then I can throw a shadow, can’t I, if I know who the light is. He said, “I am the light of the world.” If I am the light of the world, all I need is an object to cast a shadow. But he doesn’t stop there, he said, “We are the light of the world.” We are the light of the world. So all I need is simply an object or a combination of objects which would imply something, and being the light I can cast a shadow and throw it on the screen of space. Well then, try it. All you have to do is simply test it, just try it. So bring into my mind’s eye that which would imply the fulfillment of my dream either for myself or for another. Then having seen it clearly in my mind’s eye, let me breathe it in just as though it were true, and let me feel the thrill of fulfillment, of accomplishment. And just let it rest. See if it doesn’t objectify itself on this level.788 ¶25

For you and I are living on this level most of the time. At least two-thirds of our life we are on this level; one-third we live in an entirely different level, we call it sleep. And everyone has to sleep one-third of his life on earth. Just imagine a man lives ninety years, like Churchill, and thirty years of his life was lived in sleep. We know that. Knowing the old boy as I have read about him, the chances are he spent more than thirty years in sleep. Forget the early days when he spent eighteen, nineteen hours in sleep. But he made it a habit of going to bed in the afternoon, taking off all of his clothes, and actually retiring for sleep, and would spend three hours in a state of unconsciousness. He was told it revived him. Well, take another three hours of seven days a week out of that and then you will see maybe he spent of his ninety years, maybe he had forty years of his life in sleep…who knows.788 ¶26

But I will say to all here, the difference between one level and the other is only determined by the level on which our consciousness is focused. I was focused so clearly on that level and David was on that level. Well, David was in me. He can’t get away from me, not in eternity. You can’t get away from me.788 ¶27

So what I want to bring out now is this: If you reside in my bosom (“within my bosom you reside”) and I reside in you, may I tell you, I have awakened from the dream of life, but I reside in you, so in you one aspect of your being has awakened from the dream of life. I reside in you, you reside in me. I have held the Christ child in my hands. I expressed that wonderful endearing expression, “How is my sweetheart?” and this heavenly smile broke upon its face, in fulfillment of the 9th chapter of the Book of Mark.788 ¶28

Well, I reside in you; I have experienced it, so in you, though you may be totally unaware of it, there’s an aspect of your being that has held the Christ child. You are told that he who holds me holds not me but him who sent me. And the purpose of it all is that God’s purpose is to give himself to man, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you. That’s the purpose.788 ¶29

So “Be still and know that I am God.” That’s what we’re told. Look upon the entire story of God made man, called Jesus Christ, as an acted parable. That everything that’s said about him, everything he states in scripture that is recorded, look upon it as an acted truth; which because it took place in the depth of the soul of man is being etched deeply, indelibly upon the soul of man. Man goes on denying preexistence, denying the truth of scripture, and then one day this that is etched upon him begins to unfold and blossom, and then bursts into flower within him.788 ¶30

So I tell you, every word of the story of Jesus Christ is true. I’ve experienced it. Every word of it is true. Forget the crucifixion; you have already been crucified with Jesus Christ. As you’re told, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” And so, you have been crucified with God in a death like his and you shall rise with God in a resurrection like his. When you rise, the symbol of your rising is the Christ child.788 ¶31

So always think of him as the Christ child. So when you read the story of a man…don’t think of a man, always think of Jesus Christ as the little child, that’s the child. If a man played the part and took from the crowd a little infant and set it in the midst and then tells the story…now here he tells a story to the little child, puts it in the midst, and then he takes a little child into his arms and embraces the child, and makes the statement, “Whoever receives such one, the little child, receives me; yet he who receives me, receives me not but receives him who sent me.” You receive God himself when you touch and hold the little child; for that’s the eternal Christ, not any man that walks the face of this earth at all. For when you see him, you will know him. You know why you will know him?—because you are like him. “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall know him, for we shall be like him” . If you‘re not like him, then you haven’t seen him, haven’t seen him at all. It’s just like you, only raised to the nth degree of beauty, of majesty, of a strength of character that you could not conceive that you on this level could ever attain. But I tell you, it’s all true, every word of it is true.788 ¶32

So think this night of you seated…maybe you’re unemployed, maybe you have debts, maybe you have, well, all kinds of problems…and the whole vast world is contained within you. But the whole vast world, not some little aspects of it. The kingdom of God is within you; it contains all. And if there are three billion walking the face of the earth today, and if tens of billions will walk tomorrow, all are contained in you. But everything is contained within you—-all the races, all the nations, all the continents, the mountains, the seas, the rivers, all are human, and it’s all you. So don’t think for one little moment you’re a tiny little thing. And if I could persuade you this night to assume greatness…far greater is it to be conceited than to have a little tiny stupid opinion of yourself. You’re God! God became man that man may become God . Let no one tell you that you must walk in some stupid humble way, like a worm. God became man in the most literal sense of the word, and becoming man God contains all. You contain all!788 ¶33

With whom did I talk yesterday morning? It was about six thirty. Well, David teaches at UCLA, the chances are he was awake, making himself a cup of coffee, getting things done. He has a house to take care of, he has lessons to get together because he has a class, a very large class, waiting for him, he has all of these things to get together. He might have been up at six, I don’t know. I got up at six thirty right on the heels of this experience. He was just as real there as he is tonight, as he ever has been in my world. He talked with the same tone. He and I are quoting, quoting, quoting one after the other, all Blake. We’re in agreement. How could I persuade myself that all of this is within me? How could I ever think for one moment these beautiful ladies, all completely lovely…like going to some fashion display…I could hardly believe they’re dressed for work, but lovely…and yet crowded…he agrees with me. Then we both agreed only an experience of God could convince us that it is within us. Then he gives me his letters, he said, “Post these for me.” And then it meant he’s going one way, I’m going the other way, we’re leaving in different directions, and so I started in a different direction from David. I’m waking, I’m on the bed; the familiar objects of the room anchor me now and locate me, and I know where I am and what level of consciousness now, with this vivid, vivid experience. Only an experience of God could convince me it is all within me. And here, he isn’t present. My wife is sleeping in her bed. I look at the watch, it’s six thirty, and for fifteen, twenty minutes I am lost in contemplation of what I have just experienced. How true these dictated words of Blake are.788 ¶34

For Blake made the statement in his marvelous poem Jerusalem that he is not the author. He said, “I can praise it because the authors are in eternity; I am only the secretary.” It came through me, dictated twelve, twenty, thirty lines at a time, and what should be the labor of a lifetime came as though it came without labor. This enormous poem of a hundred plates, that you couldn’t buy an original today for love or money. Yale has the one copy that is illustrated and colored, but you couldn’t buy it from Yale for a million dollars. They wouldn’t sell it for any price. He only left five copies behind him. One that Yale has is completely illustrated and all beautifully done in color; the others are illustrated but not colored. These are these five I would call the originals and you couldn’t buy Jerusalem for any money in this world. He claimed he did not write it. He claimed the author was love, the spirit of love. Well, the spirit of love is God. God is love. So every morning the spirit of love would wake him, spreading his beams of love over him as he dictated the words of this mild song, and it came twelve, twenty, thirty lines at a time. These are the words: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”788 ¶35

Blake uses the word “bosom” as you would Imagination; they’re interchangeable. Then we’re told, “In your bosoms I exist, I reside”—-then he tells us, “Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination.” The bosom of God is simply Divine Imagination—there’s no limit to expansion—and you and I with our human Imaginations, one substance with divine imagining, we are expanding forever with divine imagining. No limit whatsoever to translucency, to expansion. We reached the limit of contraction when we became man here. Then comes that turn around where the tree turns up and we hold the child in our hands, the symbol of the reversal of the powers within us. Then that endearing term and you call it…what you will call it, I don’t know…but I know in my own case when I took that Christ child in my hand, automatically (I can hear it now) “How is my sweetheart?”…these are the words that I used…and this heavenly smile broke upon the infant’s face. Then the whole thing dissolved and I was back on this level, this mortal level, where man cannot beget a child. He can sire one, but he can’t beget one. And yet, here I begot one.788 ¶36

So in the midst of us he took the child…listen to the words, “And he took a little child and placed him in the midst of them, and then he lifted the child into his arms, and then said to them, ‘Whoever receives one such as this child receives me; but he who receives me receives not me but him who sent me.’” It’s a drama…as though I went this night to the stage, to the theater, and a man came on among the people and took a little infant. And you would think a little infant and a man, that’s not it at all. He’s putting that infant in the midst of every person in this world. Who is playing the part? God is playing the part. He tells you he is the little child. I will now drop myself in you as the seed, the creative power of the universe; and in you I now place the little child, and he and I are one. God is speaking. And the day will come and you and I one day, like Abraham, having heard the story we arose with the distance in our eyes. All the stain, stagnant nearby we brushed aside as of no importance, and then moves on through these six thousand years to that far-seen objective: the little child. So he could say, “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” . Then, Job could say, “I’ve heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee” . So we rise and you can see it, the distance catches fire in the eye, and all these things mean nothing as you move on to that far-seen objective.788 ¶37

Then comes that moment in time when suddenly it happens, it happens in you, because the whole drama is taking place within. Everyone will awake one day to hold the Christ child as his child. That Christ child is the child of God; therefore, you who hold him must be God. That’s the story: He gives you himself.788 ¶38

Now let us go into the Silence.788 ¶39

Tonight’s subject is “Be Master of the Mood.” First of all, I want to thank you for your perfectly wonderful letters. Another windfall this week…one gentleman enclosed eight pages thick, another six, a lady two, and so it goes. Perfectly marvelous, really! The gentleman with eight said he only started coming here when I returned this past November and gave me this perfectly wonderful epistle. Tonight we will tie them in—-not all of them, we can’t use all—but tie a few with the deep part of the story which is taken from the 42 nd Psalm, and how we read the Bible.787 ¶1

First of all, we are told the three-fold cord is not quickly broken. The first strand is that which anyone who can read will discover when they read the story. What you can’t read you can listen to the story, and the one who can read it for you can tell you. If he can tell it with understanding so you understand the story, that’s one strand. Then there’s a second strand—for that is simply a story, but it’s secondary to his meaning—and you try to extract the meaning of the story told. Then you must put it to the test because you are the operant power. If you can take what you extract or think you’ve extracted and test it and it proves itself in performance, you have the second strand. And the third comes by revelation, and you’ll find every passage of the Bible autobiographical. Every chapter of the Bible will be seen eventually in an autobiographical manner. So we’ll take the 42 nd tonight and show you how it is seen after one has had the experience as an autobiographical chapter: He’s experienced it.787 ¶2

On the surface it’s called a Maskil. Well, a Maskil…there are thirteen Maskils in the Psalms…this is the second of the thirteen so called. A Maskil is simply special instruction, that’s really what it is. Unlike all the other psalms, read the Maskil, you’ll find that they are telling you something very, very deep. And don’t let go, just read it, and ponder it, and simply scrutinize it carefully, for it has something very profound in it. That’s a Maskil.787 ¶3

Take the Psalm, a psalm of loneliness, and here it is trying to give us instructions concerning the overcoming of loneliness.787 ¶4

So here, as you read it, everyone suffers eventually, if not in the past or today, some time in one’s life they have a sense of loneliness, where it may be through the loss of some human company. But in this case it isn’t, for the beginning of it is a thirst for God that nothing in this world can satisfy but an experience of God. You could be among millions of people, and he’s alone, because he can’t be entertained by things outside of himself; he wants to find God. And so, here in this thirst…he said, “As the hart panteth after the waterbrook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God. When will I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me and they say continually, ‘Where is your God?’”787 ¶5

And so, here is this bruised body as it were. The scoffers knowing his interest in God, his belief in God, and he can’t prove the existence of God, and they throw it up at him. He has not a thing to prove the existence of God, the reality of God, yet he cannot quench the thirst with anything that happens on the outside. It’s a thirst for God that only an experience of God can satisfy.787 ¶6

So here, first of all, he confesses his own sorrow, and then he tries to urge his soul to find rest and hope in the certainty of God. But he himself is not sure of this reality of God. He believes in God, he hasn’t had the experience of God, so he’s urging his soul to really find rest and hope in the reality of God. So he makes the statement, “Hope in God!” after he tells himself, “Why is this soul of mine cast down?” “Why art thou cast down, O soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for yet again I will praise him, he who is my help and my God.”787 ¶7

Then he gives us a cue. If you can take tonight as one of my friend’s said in a case history, maybe totally unaware of what he did, but he was using this Psalm. So in this he gives us a cue: that in his self-communion I find no rest, I cannot in some strange way find the peace that I seek; then I could by consultation with the past find it. And so he said, “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul,” and then he itemizes the things that he remembers. The first one he remembers: “How I went with the throng, and how I led them in procession to the house of God. And then the crowds, they were gay crowds, and they sang these songs of praise and thanksgiving and it was a multitude—not just a few— a multitude keeping festival” He remembers that, so he claims. But that was not the satisfying experience that he wanted of God. And everyone wants it.787 ¶8

Well, here I’ll tell one story and how this gentleman used this unwittingly. For if I cannot by self-communion find the peace that I seek then I can employ this communion with time, consultation with the past. So he writes this story. I can only take three of his stories. The first one, he said, “I wanted really seriously to have my son say to me, ‘You’re the greatest dad in the world!’ and so that night before I retired I simply imagined that I heard his voice and he said to me, ‘You’re the greatest dad in the world!’ I did it twice. I told no one and then dropped it. On Christmas morning when I opened the presents, and opened my son’s present to me, he had bought it himself with his own money, a present he wanted only for me. It wasn’t something that could be shared with my wife, just my present. It was a gold-plated cup on a wooden bowl and on the wooden bowl there was brass for some inscription, and on it he had it inscribed ‘The World’s Greatest Dad!’ Now, he said, he kept it to himself. He didn’t mention it to anyone, not even to his wife, just simply inwardly he imagined it. He assumed that he heard it, told no one, and did it twice.”787 ¶9

Then he said, “The same month of December, I went to the grocery store and as I went through the door here was a friend of my son. This chap is called Gary. He was selling mistletoe. He didn’t look very happy about it, and so I said, ‘Gary, how are sales going?’ He said, ‘They aren’t going very well.’ When I got outside by myself I went into the Silence and I heard my son say to me that Gary sold all the mistletoe and he made a profit of fourteen dollars.” So, he said, “I can’t tell you why I picked out fourteen dollars, other than the boy is only twelve and I thought fourteen dollars profit was good for this time. It’s enough for a lad of twelve. And so I just said, I heard my son say he sold all the mistletoe and he made a profit of fourteen dollars. Well, two days before Christmas when I came into the living room I noticed among the decorations some holly, and I inquired, ‘Well, where did the holly come from?’ My son said, ‘Well, Gary had some left over and he gave me some holly.’ So then I asked, ‘What happened to the mistletoe?’ Oh, he said, ‘He sold all the mistletoe and he made a profit of fourteen dollars.’”787 ¶10

Well, now these are two. Now this is where his consultation with time comes in. He said, “At my home looking from my dining room, I could see in the past a beautiful landscaped hillside, about a quarter of a mile away. And then the neighbor next door grew bamboo, and the bamboo came up six to eight feet above my hedge and blocked off completely this lovely view of mine. And all the benefit I got from the bamboo, when the wind blew I got all the leaves. And so, I didn’t want to do anything about it physically or say anything to my neighbor, but I sat at my dining room table—-again I did not tell anyone what I am doing or what I did—-but I saw the past. That is, I saw that hillside as it used to be seen by me, sitting just where I’m sitting now. I saw it clearly in my mind’s eye, because I closed eyes to the obvious, and in my Imagination I recalled the scene of the past and felt satisfied in seeing that same wonderful, beautiful scene of the past. Ten days later when I came home my wife said to me, ‘Have you heard the news?’ and I wondered, ‘What news?’ She said, ‘Our neighbor is going to cut down the bamboo.’ Well, in the immediate present the neighbor took down the bamboo. And, he said, strangely enough, it was so detailed in keeping with my image, where mine would go over now and take my vision and put it over the fence. There is still bamboo out there, lots of it, but only the bamboo that blocked my vision, only that was removed, in keeping with exactly what I did seated at my dining room table.”787 ¶11

Then he goes on and gives me another five perfectly marvelous ones. But here, these five prophets, he’s telling us to consult with the past. He said, “These things I remember” and they’re only joyful things among the things that he remembered, not one sad note in the things remembered. So if I by communing with myself cannot dispel the loneliness, then I can just fall upon another aid and remember something lovely in my life, something perfectly marvelous, and once more consult with the past and put myself into that state; for I’m just moving from one state into another state. And so, that’s what he did in this third case history.787 ¶12

But here’s another one…and you watch this because you must get intense about it. A gentleman, who is in the audience tonight, he writes this, that he finds…of course, he’s an artist and so maybe he has to fire his Imagination with some peculiar twist, as he said, a negative twist. And so, “This is what I do. I stand in a long line for a deposit in the bank and the very last, and I’m annoyed. I’m annoyed that I have to wait in this long line to make a big fat deposit. And so I get a kick out of my own annoyance, because I’m annoyed that I have a big fat check in my hand to deposit at the end of this long line.” He said, “That’s the twist in my mind.” “And so, I’ll go back eight years. I was new to TV eight years ago. And so, one day I discovered my house needed painting when at the moment I didn’t have the funds for a real job of painting the house, and so this is what I did. I imagined the house painted. I was annoyed with the painters at the window; they could see me taking a shower. That annoyed me that they could look right on me and see me taking a shower. And then I saw and could smell the wet paint. Then I took my hand, all in my Imagination, and put it on the paint. I didn’t trust the sign and it was wet. So I got more annoyed that I had paint on my hands.” Well, he said, “The very next morning after I did this, I had written a pilot which was under consideration back East, so I called my agent and I asked the agent if he had any news about the pilot. He said, “No, but I was just about to call you because” (he mentioned this person by name) “he just called me and asked me if you would take twenty-one thousand dollars cash for your residuals? Well, he said, “At the moment, I didn’t know I had residuals. I was so new in the business I didn’t realize I had residuals coming from things already shot. But this man appeared, bought out his partner (he’s a producer undoubtedly), he bought out his partner and was trying to buy out everyone connected with this series and hold it all for himself; and was trying to get it for fifty cents on the dollar. So my agent said to me, ‘Knowing this man’s attitude towards money and how he operates, I’m going to suggest that you take this $21.000 and just run like a thief…because, just take it, take the twenty-one thousand.’ So, he said, I did, and to my knowledge I don’t think anyone else in the series ever received anything from their residuals. But he said, I was so new in the business I didn’t realize I had residuals. So the house was painted.”787 ¶13

So he annoys…if you want to, get annoyed. If it will make you annoyed to put your hand on wet paint when you can’t afford the paint…but if you put your hand on wet paint, the paint must be there. And if you’re going to get annoyed because you have a long line waiting for a deposit of a big fat check, well then, if that will do it, intensifying your imagination, then do it. For the thing is to get your Imagination worked to the point where it becomes real to you. But he did it and he made it real. He used his sense of sight—he could see the man watching him while he was taking a shower. He could smell the paint, that’s another sense. He could feel the wet paint, that’s another sense. And with his very annoyance took these senses and raised them to the nth degree. And then it worked and worked quickly. So in twenty-four hours there was twenty-one thousand cash waiting for him which he took.787 ¶14

Now this is a cute one. I hope she’s here tonight. But she wrote, she said, “I’m a grandmother and last fall I made arrangements to go to the South Pacific and to the Orient. So I said to my little granddaughter, two years old, ‘What would you like Nanny to send you?’ Well, she discussed it with her mother and together they came up with this request, a kangaroo, but a stuffed kangaroo. I said, ‘Alright, a stuffed kangaroo.’ So when I got to Australia I looked at all the toys and I didn’t like the kangaroos, so I sent her a little polar bear. I wrote the mother what I had done. So when the mother read the letter to the little child, only two years old, she said, ‘I don’t want a bear! I want a kangaroo!’ In the meanwhile she had been talking all the time about her little kangaroo. She told her mother, her friends, anyone who would listen to her only about the kangaroo. So when this lady came back, she heard anew that her granddaughter was greatly disappointed in this little bear, in fact, wouldn’t want it, really. But the bear hadn’t yet arrived. Two weeks later the bear came and the little girl didn’t want it. She would have not a thing to do with it. And forty-eight hours later, a package addressed to this little girl arrived, it was a stuffed kangaroo. And the little girl said, “I knew that Nanny bought me a kangaroo.” The grandmother said to me in her letter, “I never did, I never bought a kangaroo for her. I only bought and paid for one thing and that was the little bear. Now while I was gone, she in her Imagination only accepted the kangaroo.”787 ¶15

So six thousand miles away some stock clerk is trying to explain the loss of a kangaroo, and the culprit is a little two year old girl right here in the city. And so, these are the stories that came in the week’s mail, all sheer fantasy, all based upon this conscious use of one’s Imagination to create reality.787 ¶16

But we are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself. When you know what to do, well, then you do it.787 ¶17

Now we go back to the great Psalm. He paints this most wonderful story of something that he remembered, this thing he remembered. “These things I remember…” and then he said, “as I pour out my soul.” And he starts with joining this enormous crowd and he led them: “I led them to the house of God.” He led a procession to the house of God, and they were all joyful, singing praises of gladness and thanksgiving to God. And then he saw this enormous multitude, a huge multitude in a festive light, keeping festival. I tell you, the day will come and you open that Bible and look at it, you will be looking at it through the eyes of one who experienced it. That’s autobiographical. This comes first, long before the kind of experience he wanted. But not a thing could satisfy him; he wanted an actual experience of God. But in this you don’t see God. He wants to see God, he said, “When will I come and behold the face of God?” That experience you do not see God; you only hear God’s voice.787 ¶18

And so, in this wonderful festive mood where there are unnumbered, you can’t number them, multitudes, and all moving towards the house of God, this wonderful sanctuary; and you, having the experience, you will lead them. You will actually be the leader, the dominant character in that entire drama. And you will hear a voice and the voice is the voice of authority, the voice of God. And the voice will say, “And God walks with them.” One of the crowd of this wonderful gay, praising crowd will ask the voice—-you don’t see the face—-“If God walks with us, where is he?” And the same voice will come back, “At your side.” And this one, who is only a projection of yourself; the whole vast world is yourself made visible—-and this one will only respond and echo that which is taking place in you. Because the voice is now going to answer…because she is going to look right in your eyes and she’s going to call you by name—the name that you respond to here, John, Robert, whatever the name is—-and she’s going to say, “What? Is Robert God?” And the voice will respond, “Yes, in the act of waking.” And she’ll be hysterical.787 ¶19

You now why? Because you are, you can’t believe it, it is too great. You can’t conceive that you really are God in the act of waking. And so, she had to respond in kind; because you doubt and so she has to doubt. And she only reflects that theme, not concern so much as unbelief that is so great.787 ¶20

And then the voice will speak from the depths of your own soul and this is what you will hear: “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and then you will know the end of the sentence: he’s dreaming that he’s you. That’s why all of this is taking place. He’s taking you towards his holy place. And you will wake with an experience of the crucifixion. Your hands, your feet, your head and your side will be whirling vortices, each a vortex; and you will be nailed upon this body; and awake on your bed where you had left it when you started the journey.787 ¶21

So when you re-live that you will see it autobiographically—whole thing is talking about your own experience. Ten years later will come the experiences the psalmist wanted. But bear in mind, he wasn’t asking for it, because the psalmist only received the dictation. As we’re told in the Book of Peter that no prophecy of scripture ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So men are organized by divine providence for spiritual communication, and these are called the prophets. They take it down, not knowing what they’re taking down.787 ¶22

So on one level you can read the story and much of it doesn’t make sense. Then you read it and read it and try to extract its meaning, and that’s when you take the meaning extracted, and put it to the test, and make it prove itself in the testing—as the gentleman proved it without destroying anything. He didn’t ask the neighbor to cut the bamboos down; the neighbor had the impulse so he thought. But the neighbor’s desire to cut them down originated in the vision, the imaginal vision of his neighbor, who saw clearly, sitting in the dining room where before he was obstructed by these, well, about six or eight feet tall bamboos above his fence.787 ¶23

Now, here is another one. [...]. This gentleman writes me that in 1933 going down the Danube from Vienna to Budapest that he fell in love with the sight of Budapest, the lights of the night, and pledged himself that someday he would have a view just like that. So when he came back to America he came straight to California and sought a home that would have a view comparable to this view; and he found one in the hills of Hollywood. He bought it for the view, just for the view. Well, he said he lived there for years and recently someone planted poplar trees, and they grew up to the point where they just were blocking his lovely view which he lived for. Well, he saw the view and not the trees. He said, “Neville, did I misuse my Imagination? Was it selfish of me? The trees died…not all the trees, only the poplar trees that blocked my view. Every tree in that area that blocked my view, they died.” And he had an orange tree and, for reasons not explained to me, the man chopped the orange tree down. Now, he said, “I just noticed another little tree planted and the leaves are coming out. But knowing what I did with the poplar trees, I’m not concerned.” He said, “I know having had the experience of God that God can’t kill God, and God being love, God can’t kill love. It only rearranges the furniture of the mind and lets something come in to conform to the structure of my imaginal act. For you can’t kill love. And God created all things, as we are told: ‘Never would you have made anything had you not loved it.’ And so, you don’t kill the tree when you burn the tree. You don’t kill anything as you think you destroy it, really.’”787 ¶24

So that was blocking his view…and this thing in his mind’s eye was so vivid when he came down the Danube on his way to Budapest, and that vision of Budapest was to him so thrilling that it influenced his choice of a home. Then to have someone block it, he couldn’t stand it. So he, too, went forward and communicated with the past: He saw the city as he always saw it. He would have no trees block it, and so they died. He didn’t ask the man to cut them down, and that could have been an argument, because they grew on the man’s property, not his property. That could have started some unpleasant conversation. And so, without asking anyone’s permission he saw clearly that clear, wonderful vista that he’s always enjoyed.787 ¶25

So when you go back and when you read it, see it in three levels, like the ark. The ark is built on three levels. On the lowest level is where man’s senses, with intelligence, can read the story. But bear in mind that the story is like a dream. For these were taken down practically in a dream state. And so, every dream is a parable, for these are all parables. But the story is secondary to the meaning of the story, so you get the meaning. Don’t change one word of the story as it is. If it’s a good translation of the original text, leave it, for you’re going to experience it. And that’s the depth. One day you will experience this enormous journey toward the house of God, and you will hear the voice, and you will know, with a thrill you’ve never known before, who you are! For you are destined to awake as God: for the voice will say, “Yes, God…in the act of waking.” Then the voice will speak to you from the depth of your own soul, and you will hear it, and pass through the sensation of being nailed on this cross of flesh and blood. Then will come all the others; for you are told, “Now we’re going to go up to Jerusalem…and all that is written about the Son of man will be accomplished.” I am going to Jerusalem. That’s where you’re headed when you find yourself in this enormous crowd and all that is said of the Son of man—-that’s you—-will be accomplished as you start this journey. By the time you get there, it is all accomplished. What was accomplished there in that grand city? It’s birth. Weren’t you resurrected there? Who was resurrected there? That’s where he’s resurrected. And was it there that you saw David? It was David; it’s called the city of David. And all these things will unfold within you.787 ¶26

But here, on this mastery of moods, it is so important that you actually observe yours and use anything to get out of a bad mood, but anything at all. If you want to use an irritation, like you’re in a long line waiting to put in a huge big check, use it as an irritant if that is going to get you out of the mood of want into the mood of affluence. Because if you can deposit a huge big check and annoyance goes with it, just be annoyed. Not a thing wrong with that. And so you want to have it painted and you can’t afford it, and then you put your hands on wet paint and you get annoyed, then put your hand mentally on wet paint and get annoyed. And so, he has that quirk. And so, he’s creative and yet maybe he needs that peculiar quirk of negation to spur his Imagination to create, maybe he does. But if you can use that…that’s a contribution of that to each who will accept it…to bring here and share with me what they did. And then you can use that and apply that to business. If something annoys you in business, it’s so big that you didn’t have time to handle it, would something annoy you? If the oil for [...] that you could fill, well, then get annoyed. It’s far better that way than not have any oil. And so, you take this and apply it wisely. It’s a simple, simple technique.787 ¶27

But I tell you the story of the lady who sits for one week and bathes herself emotionally with the feeling that she had security. “But I have security!” and she feels the way she would feel after she has confirmation of what the feeling is implying. Then one day after her six days of vigilance she gets confirmation that she receives now $540 from this fixed annuity and then her Social Security. For she’s entitled to it, so together she has over six hundred dollars a month for the rest of her earthly days. She just spent the winter in Barbados. She called me long-distance, she called me this past week, to bring me news of the family in Barbados. And that was an extra gift that didn’t come out of her $600 a month, because she couldn’t afford that for the time she spent in Barbados. But he who gave her this money, that pays $540 a month, said to her, “I’m going to give you for a Christmas present your two months in Barbados, and that would mean I’m going to pay all expenses, including your hotel and your transportation.” So that was additional. She has accepted that way of living now.787 ¶28

And this lady before this never earned more than seventy-five dollars a week at any time in her life. Now that was a mood; that was a controlled mood. She was simply a receptionist in a beauty parlor. And so, before she left for work in the morning she took her morning tub, as she told me, and while seated there she would feel the way she would expect to feel after she had confirmation that she had financial security. She bathed in it as it were.787 ¶29

Then on Saturday night of that very week she was informed by this man who did not entertain this thought until Wednesday of that week. She started on Monday morning and this man had said to her all through the years that he knew her: “I will never give you a nickel, so don’t look forward to any money from me.” They were friendly, they were friends, but he always said to her, “We have had fun together. I’ve paid for all the expenses in this world, like the theater and all these things. That’s all you’re getting from my world.” And she believed it until I said to her the previous week, “Don’t you read my books? Go back and read the story of a lady in the book called The Law and The Promise , and turn to the chapter called ‘Moods.’ That lady was just about your age, she is fifty-six, and you tell me sometimes you’re fifty-five, the next time you’re sixty-five, I don’t know. So I would say you’re both the same age. So you go back and read that book. But if you don’t have time to read it, let me tell you what she did.” So I told her exactly what the lady did. This is now on a weekend. The following Monday morning she began to put it into practice. So I made it very, very clear to her, you are the operant power. Knowing what to do and doing it are two entirely different things. So she did it religiously for five mornings.787 ¶30

On Saturday night he said to her, “I don’t feel like going out to dinner tonight, suppose we have dinner sent upstairs?” and so they had dinner sent upstairs. And then he told her, “I took one look at you Wednesday night and I said to myself (calling himself by name) it’s later than you think.” So the very next day he went down to his factory in Pennsylvania, called in his legal department, and said to them, “I don’t want any if, ands or buts. I don’t care what it costs, I want so much money, $540 a month paid to this lady, and I want it now! I don’t want it next year; I want it to start immediately!” So he figured out all that it would cost, after the lump sum of money. He said, “But your taxes alone will be $28,000.” “I don’t care…it must be tax free. This gift is a tax-free gift, so add the $28,000 to it, whatever it costs for this lady’s age to receive for the rest of her earthly days. And furthermore, the money is a gift in the sense she does not have to pay it back to my estate should she precede me in death. She can throw it away. She can will it to a kennel. She can will it to anyone she wants in this world. It is her money, but she cannot touch the principal while she lives. I put that proviso only to protect her, because I know when someone has that sort of principal, someone will know of it, and then get it from her. So that is one proviso: she cannot dispose of principal while she lives. But she can give it away or tear it up in a Will of hers when she’s gone from this world. And so, he paid the $28,000 extra to make it tax-free gift.”787 ¶31

That’s a mood. If you haven’t read that chapter, it’s the chapter called “Moods” in The Law and The Promise . You catch a mood…and what would the feeling be like were it true? Well, then ask yourself the question, “Suppose I had so and so, well, what would the feeling be like if it were true?” Then you catch the feeling and you put on that feeling as you would wear a suit of clothes. You know, if you really put on a new hat for the first time, you think nobody knows it’s new, but you think that everyone knows it and you feel uncomfortable in that hat until you wear it. Well, the feeling of affluence when you don’t know what it is, is so new a feeling that you feel just as uncomfortable in that feeling as you do with a new suit on. You walk down the street…and a man buys a new suit for the first time, he has to walk around in it for a little while, and he actually has the mood that everyone knows it’s new. He feels uncomfortable in that new suit until he breaks it in, like a pair of new shoes. Nobody really knows or cares if you have a new suit, but you care and you know, and you wear it until it seems natural. Well, you wear a mood until it seems natural, and when it seems natural it has taken root, and it will grow and bear fruit in your world. So these are the moods. You can make a mood very natural in a little while. But you must wear it.787 ¶32

And so, you just dwell upon it and see how…you read the Bible and each chapter is telling you that below the surface is a message for you to increase your joy in this world. Don’t change it, leave it just as it is; and one day you’re going to experience that message in the depths of your soul. For, who on looking at the 42 nd Psalm would think for one moment that it’s self-communion that’s done it? So he communes with himself in this Psalm. And it didn’t work…he communed with himself but he didn’t feel the relief that he sought. And then he took up time, past time, and then he said, “These are the things I remember”…and then there was a joyful remembrance, everything about it was happy and joyful. He tuned in on it and said, “I will seek and praise the Lord, even though at the moment the soul cannot and the soul is cast down.” “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?” Then, asks you to have hope, “Hope in God,” and then try to repose and try to find some rest in this hope. Because, first of all, he asks you to hope in God long before you hear him or you see him or experience him. And then try to find rest in that hope and that sympathy of God…and some day you will.787 ¶33

So I never despair when someone tells me he’s an atheist, makes no difference, one day he will have the experience of God; and it doesn’t make any difference now what’s said after the experience of God. Khrushchev will one day experience God, Stalin will one day experience God, and in the end all of their hands dripping in blood will be washed clean. No matter what he’s done, it will all be washed clean. But today, he brags about the fact that there is no God. He says there is no God therefore it makes it so. But I tell you, I know from experience not only there’s God but God is love, infinite love, so you can always approach him. And the day will come there’s no one to approach because he has completed his gift, and his gift is to give you himself. Not some little piece or part of him, he’s going to completely give you himself; that you can’t then commune with him, you are he. It’s self-communion from then on. And yet it doesn’t rob you of the joy of knowing that infinite presence that once embraced you and made you one with himself. And you knew by that experience the joy of wearing the divine form of light; for love truly is the human form divine, and you once had the joy of wearing it. And you know, although you can’t see it and mortal eye can’t see it, still it will never detach from you. You are incorporated into that human form divine. An eye can’t see it but you feel it. And you’ve never been, I would say, at any time unaware of the fact that you wear it. From the very moment you are incorporated into it, you are fully conscious of the fact that you wear this form.787 ¶34

And things seemingly, well, they may be more sensitive than man, but many a bird has sensed it, many an animal has sensed it, and made you fully conscious of the fact that they are aware of it. And you can’t even breathe it because it doesn’t make sense to any normal person. But then, something that is actually a flying being, a bird, and that bird will be arrested in its tracks. That makes it very, very conscious of the fact, fully aware, of the being that you are, and then you’re [...]. I’ve had it happen time and time again, even to a little thrush. When I lived in Beverly Hills, this little thrush, every day of its life—-I was there ten months—-it would bring me its gift. Its gift was a sprig, come right up, follow my steps, look at me first to get my attention, and then drop it before me. Then one day it got what it wanted. It wanted to get into my house and so I let him. It walked around, perfectly tame, and then I opened the door and out he went again. But not one day did it fail to bring me a gift. The gift was to him a marvelous gift, a sprig. I didn’t feed the bird, I didn’t encourage it, I didn’t feed it, but I was fully aware of its knowledge and what it knew.787 ¶35

So Blake made the statement, “How do we know but every bird that cuts the airy wind is an infinite world of delight closed by our senses five.” He was not alone in his vision of the bird, the bird world. Victor Hugo saw it and described it beautifully. Many a mystic sees it and describes it beautifully. But we think they are just simply birds. And every bird that cuts the airy wind is an immense world of delight closed by our senses five. Man has no idea what is prepared for him when the gift is completed and his eye is opened and he’s wearing the human form divine.787 ¶36

But in the meanwhile, use these moods wisely. Take any person and put yourself in a good mood relative to them, help them. Help every being in this world and do it lovingly, costs you nothing. Get into the mood that someone told you good news concerning himself, wonderful news; and don’t wait for confirmation, believe in the reality of that imaginal act, and go your way.787 ¶37

There’s a lady tonight in this audience. I haven’t seen her in the longest while. In fact, I often encourage her not to come. She comes alone, comes from a far distance, and she finds driving at night not the easiest thing in this world. But I know this problem because her husband had it, and every medical doctor confirmed the other doctor, that this open wound in his side could never heal. It could never heal! He’d been going back to the hospital from time to time for further treatment, but everyone assured him that it would never heal—no tissue would grow, none whatsoever.787 ¶38

Two months ago she said to him, “Now look here, let us stop this nonsense. You and I know this principle, we know how it works. You look into my eyes and you see the expression on my face when I know that that thing is cured; and I’m going to see on your face when you tell it.” And he went to work doing it and he did it daily. This was religious practicing.787 ¶39

He said to her here recently, “I’ve got to go to the hospital. Call up and make a date for me today. This thing will not stay in my side.” So they made a date, went to see the doctor, the family doctor. He took a look at it. “Why isn’t this remaining in the side?” Then he examined it, x-rayed it, he said, “This is a miracle! No one is going to believe this but tissue has grown, that’s why it can’t remain in. And you don’t need any operation to clean up what is there now. We can leave it just as it is. The tissue has started to grow in the most marvelous way, and not a thing can remain in there because the tissues will push it right out. It’s all growing.” And he’s had that like a thorn in the side of Paul, a constant reminder of his own mortality. Now the doctors saw it and the x-rays confirm it. There’s a new case history [...].787 ¶40

Well, isn’t that marvelous! All by the use of Imagination! So I ask you to simply treat it naturally but seriously, and believe when I tell you that an imaginal act creates the fact. And all day long you and I are creating all the confusion in the world or the joy in the world depending upon what we experience. Just like the little girl, 6,000 miles away, simply caused some person to fill an order that wasn’t there. That’s exactly what she wanted and it came.787 ¶41

So I’ll hold the other stories for the next time. But still because I have so many now, don’t stop. Write them and write them and write them that I may share them with everyone who comes here. I want them by the hundreds. I have a few more weeks left and I still want as many as I possibly can get confirming the truth of what I’m talking about here. Now let us go into the Silence.787 ¶42

Tonight’s subject is about one’s delusions: “Purified by the Death of Your Delusions.” You may find it, well, I don’t say you will find it profound, no, but I’ve always felt that whatever is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical, and you’ll find this very practical. But, it does take us into other areas.785 ¶1

Possibly the most…if I could choose among the Beatitudes, I would choose the sixth, if I could choose. But it seems arrogant on anyone’s part to choose among the great Beatitudes. The sixth Beatitude is “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. This is a profound statement because man becomes what he beholds, and no man becomes God until he can see God. It’s God and God alone who unveils himself that man can see him. But it’s an everlasting expansion of the unveiling, as we are told so clearly in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the 3rd chapter of 2nd Corinthians: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this is by the Lord who is the Spirit”. So he unveils himself in our presence and we at that moment are transformed into the image of what we behold. We invariably become what we behold. The veil that we wear is this garment, and so he simply lifts it and exposes himself, and we behold him as we become him.785 ¶2

But, we are told there’s a condition imposed upon it. And you might think, can I meet the condition? Let me repeat it, the condition is: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” You might wonder which is the more difficult, the condition or the promise, purity of heart, or seeing God? Well, let me tell you from my own experience, God is infinitely merciful. He initiates the process by which you and I are purified. You could sit from now to the end of time and you couldn’t purify yourself. God initiates the entire plan of purification, and then devises the means by which we are purified. It happens so suddenly; you’ll never dream in eternity how it happens.785 ¶3

So let me share with you a story told to me this past year in the city of San Francisco, this past fall. He’s one perfectly marvelous chap. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the only child of parents who came here from Ireland, raised in a very rugged environment where he thought if he fought daily he was a man. Come home with bloody noses, black eyes, and he thought that was the way to live. He went through life that way. Then came the 2nd World War, and so he went off to war. He was a sergeant in this company and he found himself in New Guinea. The Japanese had pinned them down, the entire company was flat on their faces, dug in, and they couldn’t move.785 ¶4

He said, “Neville, let me now make a confession. Raised in my limited environment, in an Irish environment in Boston, Massachusetts, I had two extreme hates in my life, not dislikes, hates: I hated Jews and I hated Negroes.” You can’t justify a prejudice, because you can’t. There’s no reason in God’s world why one should hate anything. But he hated; that was his confession. He said, “I as a sergeant gave this Jew, who was a private, every dirty thing in the world to do when I was his superior. And here we are now pinned down in New Guinea by Japanese machine gun fire. We couldn’t move. If I barely raised my head I would feel on my steel helmet the bullets ricocheting off my helmet. You couldn’t budge; they had us completely pinned down. And this Jew to my left said to me, ‘Sarge, do you have any hand grenades?’ and I said yes, and I detached three from my belt, and could get them to him without being detected. And this Jew jumped up suddenly and completely wiped out the entire nest of Japanese snipers with their machine guns. He was severely wounded, but it wasn’t mortal. At that very moment, I overcame all of my prejudices for the Jew. All the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, all of these ancient evils in me collapsed. And then I understood that statement which I had read but I didn’t understand it before: You see these buildings and you’re so proud of them—as I was proud of my prejudices—I was an Irishman and I was Catholic, better than any other religion in the world, better than any person in the world, and all these were things that I hated. And then suddenly I remembered this statement: You see these buildings? Not one stone will be left standing upon another that will not be thrown down. And the ancient prejudice, the ancient evil, crumbled within me, and I not only did not hate the Jew, I loved them. So when I came back to this country and worked myself into a position where I had my own business in masonry—bricks, mortar, everything that went into the building of a building using masonry I supplied in San Francisco—and the Jew got the first chance at any job available.”785 ¶5

“Then came something that happened by accident seemingly and some explosion took place in the factory and I am burning. My body is aflame, my overalls are burning, and all of the Caucasians in the place they didn’t rush to save me. A Negro rushed forward, threw me on the floor, rolled me over, and put it out, burning himself in the process. I was lit, burning, but he was burned. At that very moment, my hate turned to love. So today in my business in San Francisco, you want a job, you either must first be a Jew or a Negro. My hate turned into love. For I could not have plotted that, I couldn’t have planned it. It just happened that it happened this way.”785 ¶6

Well, I’ll tell you, it happened that way because God planned it that way. God became man that man may become God. There is nothing but God in this world. And so, when you sit there this night and you say “I am” that’s his name. That’s his great name, his only name. So, I am what? I am prejudiced? Alright, that’s the wall he is going to tear down. I am prejudiced against this, that or the other? He will bring it down. As he brings it down, he unveils himself at a certain level, and lifts your veil, and you behold him, and you become what you behold. So, as we are told: And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this is by the Spirit of the Lord who is the Spirit. And so, don’t plot it, it’s going to happen. If tonight you’re prejudiced, may I tell you, you are not outside of salvation. God has plotted the way of salvation for you, and will place you into a situation just like this chap. His name is Bill Donovan…you can’t get a more Irish name…well, here is Bill, and today you couldn’t meet a nicer person.785 ¶7

But to show you how he was really searching for God, when he came West he went alcoholic, with all of his prejudices, he went alcoholic, completely blind. He was searching for the Spirit and he saw the false spirit in the form of alcohol. He didn’t know it. And then he joined AA, and for the last dozen years Bill hasn’t touched a drop. Took me out to dinner, he knows I take a drink, he said, “Neville, you have all you want, but Becky and I (his wife) we never touch a drop. We both were AA and met in AA because of our problem.” I didn’t tell him then that he was searching. He knew it in the depth of his soul he was searching for God and saw God in some spurious form of alcohol. That’s really what it is; it’s simply another form. It’s spirit, the same word spirit, spirit is alcohol. And so, he was searching for it and saw it in a form that was false. And then, joined it, and now today you couldn’t in any way tempt him to take one little drop, he just doesn’t want it. But he overcame the prejudice and then all these things crumbled within him.785 ¶8

So I say, if today you are prejudiced, don’t be concerned. Everyone in this world is prejudiced, and these things are built around them that God may awaken. So you are placed into an environment where you don’t know it. He was brought into this little environment in Boston, surrounded with a certain prejudice, a hatred, and he grew into it. And then God placed him in a certain environment where the two he hated most were his saviors in this world. The Jew saved his entire company and the Negro saved his personal life, and today the two are the most employed in his very successful business. So I say it works this way. So don’t be, if you have it this night, don’t be concerned. God will plot it; God will plan it. The initiative for man’s salvation is with God, and, may I tell you, it isn’t prompted by any good deed that man has done.785 ¶9

Man’s salvation is by grace and grace alone. No one can earn it. No one in this world is good enough to earn salvation. Salvation is becoming God: God became man that man may become God. And it’s a series of unveiling, unveiling, unveiling, where suddenly man awakens to find himself transformed: this finite, fallible being transformed overnight into an entirely different being. And yet, the veil has not been completely lifted…another veil, and still another veil, for Truth is an ever-increasing illumination. But, it is all man. So here, man is purified by the death of his delusions.785 ¶10

But listen to this carefully, for this is from the greatest, in my mind, the greatest mystic that ever walked the face of this Earth, William Blake. He claimed that the entire poem Jerusalem was dictated by God, so he claimed. I wouldn’t question Blake’s right to make that claim. He makes it not only in the poem itself but in his letters to his friends, and they’re all on record. Well, here is his statement, he claims it was dictated: “Then those in eternity who contemplate on death said thus.”785 ¶11

Who are they in this great eternity who contemplate on death and what is the death on which they contemplate? May I tell you, the beings contemplating are those who said, “Let us make man in our image,” the Elohim, the gods. Let us make man in our image by the same process of unveiling ourselves; and because man becomes what he beholds, they’ll become us, as I unveil them, as they become pure in heart. “And those in great eternity said thus…” and what did they say? They are contemplating on death. You might think of death when you see someone go into the grave. That’s not death—this is the grave. Everyone seated here seems so animate, so alive; these are the sepulchers of God. God is buried in every child born of woman, and that’s the grave that these in great eternity contemplate. “And those in great eternity who contemplate on death said thus.”785 ¶12

Now listen to it carefully, what did they say? “What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, and despair, and eternal death; but Divine Mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus”. And then the whole vision returns to its perfection: length, breadth, and height take on the original divine vision.785 ¶13

Come back to the statement that he is now saying. What did he say? “What seems to be.” To Bill Donovan, it seemed that a Jew was a coward and he proved himself the bravest of them all in New Guinea. To Bill Donovan what seemed to be, is, to those to whom it seemed to be: the Negro was below him in courage, and in intelligence, and in everything—and he was his savior. When no white man came to save him, the Negro walked forward, threw him on the floor, and rolled him over, burning himself in the process, and saved him. And he overcame at that very moment all hatred.785 ¶14

So go back, “What seems to be, is, what it seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torment.” Wasn’t that torment? A man living with a prejudice, isn’t he tormented? Anyone in this world with a prejudice, isn’t he really living in hell? And doesn’t he despair, can’t get out of it? And it is eternal death… and they are contemplating on this eternal death. But, and this is our great comfort, the “Divine Mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus.” He plots a play by which man overcomes his prejudice, where the walls of Jericho fall and the ancient evils crumble. And suddenly, he can unveil you, and that moment he unveils you, you see him who unveils you, and you become what you behold, one step higher. And then another play, and still another play, and we go on forever and forever becoming God; for God actually limited himself to man; he became man that man may become God.785 ¶15

So all of us in this world are one; there’s only one. There’s only one God; there aren’t two Gods. As we’re told in Zechariah: “And the Lord will be king over all the earth; on that day his name will be one, and the Lord will be one,” only one. And he set up the only way in this world that he could reveal the oneness of us all.785 ¶16

There is only one way that he could ever reveal that you and I are one. I answer to the name of Neville. You say “Neville” and I will say yes. Then all of a sudden I say “Charlie” and someone present, “Charlie,” you’ll say, yes, I’m here. And we seem so different, so distinct; and we are, we’re unique in the eyes of God as separate visions of God. And yet I tell you we are one, we’re actually one, because we’re all being unveiled as God. God only has one Son, only one Son, and that one Son’s name is David. At the moment of the unveiling he unveils David, and then you see the relationship between yourself and David. And you look right into the eyes of David and he calls you Father; and you know, there’s no doubt in your mind of this relationship, we are father-son. You go back into the ancient scripture and you read that “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee”. It’s to David these words are spoken. And you know in the depths of your soul every being in this world will one day be unveiled in the presence of David and David will call him Father. If David calls you Father, and he’s already called me Father, are we not one? There is no way in the world that God could ever reveal the unity of humanity save through a son.785 ¶17

And so, “God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son,” not to walk with me as a friend but to reveal me to myself. God is unveiling himself in us: “For let us make man in our image.” If I am the image of him, and I am he, then I am the father of his son. He can’t make me less if he fulfills his purpose, and it’s God’s purpose to give himself to man; and so completely give himself to man that there is no one in the world, simply God and that man. And finally only that man: God completed the gift and he is God. So God becomes man that man may become God, and it’s the unveiling process. And the only way in the world he can reveal the gift is through his Son. So we are told: “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”. So when the Son chooses to reveal himself, the relationship is Son-Father. It will happen to every being in this world.785 ¶18

So, until it happens we have our prejudices, we have our superstitions, we have our grand buildings and we’re so proud of the buildings. But God sees the heart. So, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” We think a man because of his greatness in this world—he may be a very good soldier, a very good banker, a very good scientist, a very good and you name anything in this world, artist—and he need not be a good man. Well, God isn’t seeing the status symbol on the outside, with the medals on you because you are a good scientist; and maybe you’ll win the prize this year and get $50,000 from some great foundation, and the world will hail you because you did in the eyes of the world appear as a very good and great scientist. But God sees not the outward appearances; God sees only the heart.785 ¶19

As we’re told in the 16th chapter of the Book of Samuel, 1st Samuel, and they brought before the prophet the first son of Jesse. And he said to himself, Surely this is the Lord’s Anointed—look at his height, look at the beauty, the greatness of this man. His name is Eliab: Eli means, my God, and Ab is father, so “my God is father,” and surely he is the Lord’s anointed. The Lord said to the prophet, “I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as man sees; man sees the outward appearance, and God sees the heart”. Then he brings another; I’ve rejected him. He brings a third; I’ve rejected him. And he marches seven before him; I rejected them. And then comes David, he said, “Rise and anoint him.” So David was the anointed.785 ¶20

And then we come into the unfolding of the story. When Paul tells the story of David, he said, he put these words into the mouth of God, “Here is a man after my own heart”. So here he sees a man after his own heart; and so, you behold David (you are he). David is his Son, yet you are his father. For listen to these words, “the Son of man, who is called the Son of God”…but the Son of God is also God the Son, don’t forget that. The Son of God is also God the Son, for “I and my Father are one.” So he sets up a Son, called David, and he is your son, therefore, you are his father—and the Father of David is God. But you are the one that he brought out of humanity called David. David symbolizes the whole vast world of humanity, and he draws you out, and reveals himself, glory after glory after glory. It’s himself being revealed.785 ¶21

So, as you are brought out you are the Son of God. Now listen to the words: “I will raise up after you your son, who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son”. So you’re brought forth as the Son of God; for the Son of God is also God the Son, one, “I and my Father are one”…“though my Father is greater than I”. For the thing symbolized in this world is greater than the symbol.785 ¶22

So, I come symbolizing him who unveiled himself before me, and then I became him. Then he sent me back into the world, once more encompassed in my prejudice; and then he will tear it down, and unveil himself with a still greater glory, and send me back again. For there’s no limit to the expansion of God unveiling himself in me, no limit. So Truth is an ever-increasing illumination, forever and forever. And every being in this world is one; there’s nothing but God. God and God alone became us that we may become God; and he had set up the means by which he unfolds it in this world.785 ¶23

So I know we are purified that we may see God through the death of our delusions. When someone has numberless delusions… what is a delusion? Well, the dictionary defines it as a mental error, a false belief; especially that belief that is persisted in, that when one goes through it becomes, that’s a fixation. Well, don’t despair. Love them dearly, because God has plotted the means by which he’s going to tear that building down. That building will crumble.785 ¶24

Whether it be someone who thinks himself because he has a billion dollars he’s better than someone else, and there are those who have it, God will tear it down. And don’t despair when it crumbles. Someone who could not give them one penny to add to their fortune will be their savior; and then he sees that not the rich came to his support but the poor one. He will see. He may be prejudiced this day against rich people, you know. That’s a prejudice too. That comes down. You can be very, very poor and you may have a frightful prejudice against those who have things; and those who have things, have no reason to save you will save you. That’s how God plots it, that’s how he plans it.785 ¶25

I speak from experience. When my father had the blow of blows in Barbados and no one came to see him because he was accused, wrongfully, but accused. Those who were playing it safe…no one came home even to say “How are you feeling, Joe?” Joe sat alone. And a man came, a very wealthy man, a very prominent person socially, financially, intellectually. He came to Barbados for his health years ago and made a fortune. But he came out as a perfectly trained gentleman from England; he was cultured, he was a great athlete, he was a Blue at Cambridge, he had all that it took. He was the only one that came home to see my father, and he said to Daddy, “Well, Joe, what can I do?” Well, he said, “I have all these children to feed and the servants to feed and I have no money.” Well, he said, “What do you want to do?” He said, “All I know is simply what I’ve done before, a grocery business…just what I did before. I did a good business and I was falsely accused. They took everything from me by the false accusations, and if I had money I’d go back into the business and run it as I did before, successfully.” He went back to his office and he said to his people, “Mr. Goddard will open up in the next month or so a business and I want you to extend credit to the limit. Whatever he orders you fill the order and no bill must be sent to him. When he has it he’ll pay.” And so, we opened up a little business and he stocked us to the tune of about $40-50,000 in merchandise. We had no money, and when we sold it we paid him. And when he died and his son took over, if his firm had a match to sell and it was a cent more per box than any competitor, don’t come near the Goddards. He and he alone sold us the match. And so, when, say five, six years ago, I know this much, they were doing with us in excess of $500,000 a year business. That was their initial investment.785 ¶26

And so, if my father had any prejudice of the wealthy people of the world, for he had nothing as a boy, he certainly…that building collapsed and crumbled, that ancient prejudice, because one very wealthy, cultured gentleman came into his life and made it possible to once more start in a marvelous way.785 ¶27

So your prejudice need not be against a certain race or religion, it could be against wealth. Those who have none could be prejudiced against the wealthy and the wealthy may be prejudiced against something else, and it goes all over the world. These are the buildings spoken of in the 13th chapter of the Book of Mark, “You see these great buildings? I tell you not one stone will be left standing on the other but all will be thrown down”.785 ¶28

So, if today you have it, I know God has plotted and planned your redemption and no one will be unredeemed. And so, he will plot it and plan the scene by which the prejudice collapses in your presence and you fall in love with that formerly which you hated. And so, you actually fall in love with it. And then eventually the whole veil is lifted and God’s only begotten Son calls you “Father.”785 ¶29

You know, as he does it, you are not alone. He’s going to call every being in this world Father; therefore, really, you are one with every being in the world. Then you understand the poet: “All things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle.” All things by a law divine. So every being in this world is actually interwoven.785 ¶30

And so, when Dunne wrote the words: “I am involved in mankind. Every man’s death is the death of me. Never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for me.” You read that something happened today across the water and someone was killed violently, don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for me. Well, I’m involved in mankind and every man’s death is the death of me. For there’s nothing but God buried in these graves in the world.785 ¶31

So “Those in great eternity who contemplate on death said thus”—and listen to it because it works in the most practical way on this level: “What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments and despair and eternal death.”785 ¶32

Let us stop it there now. If it does this with torments and despair and eternal death, it will do it with joy and everything else in this world. So “What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be.” I wonder what the feeling would be like were I the man that I want to be? Suppose now that I had, and I name it, x-number of dollars a year…and I name it. All things being relative, suppose now I took just an outside figure, I had $35,000 a year. Well, living modestly as I do, wouldn’t that be wonderful, $35,000 a year! Well then, what seems to be, is, to those to whom it sees to be, and is productive of that which it seems to be. If I dare to assume that I am it and walk this earth just as though it were true, if I could live just as though it were true, then I would prove that statement.785 ¶33

Now Blake claimed that these words were dictated to him by the Spirit of love who is God. Blake makes that bold statement and I trust him implicitly, “What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be.” But could I persuade myself that I am what at the moment reason denies? I’m taking this word “delusion” in a different manner, because “delusion” is to entertain a false belief, well, could this now prove true?785 ¶34

Well, when a man may have a false belief that the Jew is not his equal, and until this thing happened he acted so that he proved it to his own satisfaction; and when he did it to the Negro, did he not prove it to his own satisfaction?785 ¶35

Well now, we take the same principle: What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and take it in a different light and prove it…though the whole thing will fade in the end. For in the end all will fade and only God remains. You will remain but everything else will go. All your buildings will collapse, whether they be made of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or stubble. All will collapse, but you will remain, the builder.785 ¶36

So, I can now build using the same principle: What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be. Well, can I not assume that things are as I would like them to be, for myself, for you, for anyone else in the world?785 ¶37

And as I do it…a friend of mine this night before I came on the platform, he said he’s been working on himself towards actually feeling the good of another. After all, he’s working with others…it’s up to him as a good man in his company to congratulate a salesman who brings in a big deal. But he said, “You know, in the past I must confess there was a certain envy on my part when I heard of a great sale on the part of another. I wanted to congratulate her or congratulate him, but I couldn’t deny in my heart I wish I had done it. But when I could really let go and sincerely mean it, and say…I’m doing it all in my mind’s eye; I didn’t do it physically, I did it in my mind’s eye, and really felt it. This past week a lady comes in having closed a $50,000 contract.” Now, he said, “I know that’s a tremendous amount of money for her, and I said to her, thrilled, I am not envious, I am thrilled that she could close that deal. In the past there was a reservation, I wish I had done it, and so my congratulations were not completely from the heart to the point where I was really pure in heart.”785 ¶38

But now he knows. You can congratulate every being in this world for every good thing they do, because it’s yourself. There’s only one in this world, only one God, and one God became the seeming many. The stone became fragmented into unnumbered parts with different pigments. Some wear white pigments, some red pigments, black pigments, brown pigments; but only one in this world, all fragmented. And in the end, the Lord will be one and his name one.785 ¶39

And may I tell you, that name, although the grand name is I AM, which is called Jesse, there is another name given to it, a glorious name, and that name is Jesus Christ. People don’t believe it, but that name is Jesus Christ. It is I AM, granted, but if you read the story carefully he reveals the grand I AM—“I am the door, I am the true vine, I am the way, I am the life, I am the truth, I am the resurrection”—it’s the same grand I-am-ness, but the name is a glorious name, and the name is Jesus Christ. Don’t make a fetish of it, for he became you, he’s unveiling himself in you, and when he completely unveils himself you are Jesus Christ. That’s the story.785 ¶40

Now let us go into the Silence, and let us believe that what seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be. And may I suggest that this night you take the most glorious concept of yourself, I don’t care what it is, make it bigger than you now even hoped to realize, because all things are possible to God. Whatever is your present ambition make it a noble ambition but make it bigger; and then try to persuade yourself, as we go into the Silence, that it is true. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and then view the world from that assumption—that you can see reflected on the faces of these imaginary friends that expression which implies that they see in you the man that you are assuming that you are. Now let us go. * * *785 ¶41

Now first, may I call your attention to the book table. As you know, every book on that table I recommend. My books are there, my friend Freedom Barry’s is there; any book on that table has my endorsement. And so, may I call your attention to it. On the way out please stop and look them over. If you have one and you want to share your good fortune with another if you loved it, then you may get one for a friend. Now, are there any questions, please? Yes, sir.785 ¶42

Any other questions, please?785 ¶45

Tonight’s subject is “The Sower.” You’ve all read about it in scripture. And a sower went forth to sow. He scattered his seed on a variety of soils and some were fertile, some were barren, some were highways, some were rocks, and so on. Tonight, let me say that every physical effect has a spiritual cause and not a physical. The physical cause only seems; it is a delusion. Everything that happens in our world comes into being because of a spiritual cause. And by spiritual let me say, not some strange thing that you’ve been taught to believe is spiritual…just sit quietly and imagine; that’s a spiritual act. You may not know that’s causation but that is causation. And when it happens in your world, because of the shortness of memory you may relate it to some physical event that preceded it and think that was the cause of it; and it isn’t so at all. Every physical event in the world has a spiritual cause and not a physical. But our memories are short and we do not relate the physical effect to the unseen and possibly forgotten spiritual cause.784 ¶1

But, as we are told, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he reap”.784 ¶2

Let me tell you, as far as your promise goes which is God has promised man to give himself to man, that is already planted. You can’t stop that. That’s completely unconditional. Every child born of woman is destined to be God. That’s already done. For if all ends run true to origins and our origin is God, the end is God. That’s already done. The promise came first and no one in the world can deprive you of the fulfillment of that because it’s unconditional. Hasn’t a thing to do with your position in this world—-what you’ve accomplished, what you are now doing, what you hope to do—it’s completely unconditional. So every child born of woman is destined to be God…completely unconditional. But while we’re here in the world of Caesar we’re given a law and the law is conditional: As we sow, so we reap.784 ¶3

Memory is short and memory is almost a decaying thing in this world…we can’t remember. A chap called me day before yesterday and asked me to call a friend of mine who has lost a section of his memory—the whole thing is gone. He remembers me, he talks about me, and asked me to call him. So I called him…he’s an actor, a man sixty-two years old…and every time he came home in New York City, which was once a week, he would come to cocktails, until finally he felt he couldn’t have any more and then he became a teetotaler and I had his Cokes for him and whatever sweet drinks he wanted. But he was always a glum, heavy, heavy picture—-the world was coming to an end, everything was wrong. He had a show on Broadway that ran two years, and while it was running for two years the world was coming to an end, the whole vast world. So I called him and he remembered me, just all excited, ”Oh, Neville, so nice of you to call. I was wounded.” I said, “You were wounded? When?” He said, “I was wounded in Trinidad.” Well, he made a picture called An Affair in Trinidad with Rita Hayworth. He had nine days work and they paid him quite a lot of money for his nine days. He flew out here. I had friends of mine meet him, who would get him rooms, and then he had his nine days. He was here about three weeks and then he returned to New York City. But here, recently, he went on another picture and I haven’t heard the details of it, but in some strange way he was beaten and they found him unconscious. When they picked him up, they put him in this place, and here, no memory between the Affair in Trinidad and now. He asked about my little girl, is she still in grammar school? Well, my little girl that he knows so well is graduated from college.784 ¶4

But he did it to himself. His whole vast world was one of tragedy. He came from Vienna, and every moment that I met him I couldn’t pull him out. I would try to pull him out. I would say, “Walter, what are you doing? Don’t you believe what I’m talking about? Imagining creates reality! That’s my premise, and every time you come home you talk about Hitler, you talk about this, you talk about the other. I don’t care what he has done; we have to revise everything. Imagining creates reality.” He would say yes to that and in one second go back to the other, like a record playing it over and over. And here comes this picture in his world.784 ¶5

I say to everyone, I don’t care how factual, how horrible the facts of life, imagining creates reality. You either believe it or you don’t. That is God in man.784 ¶6

The promise to man is unconditional; that’s coming up in its own good time. No one will fail to be God, but no one. Everyone will bring forth the Christ child, everyone. The story’s all laid out in scripture. The minute you bring that child forth you go all the way back, and nothing came before you. Christ came before all. The minute Christ is born in you the whole vast past is not past at all. You simply come upon one scene after the other and it’s all within you. Not a thing is without you; the whole thing is within. God became man that man may become God. So the whole thing is contained within man, so that “All that we behold seemingly without, it’s within, in our Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”784 ¶7

But while we’re living in the world of Caesar we begin with a single, simple thought and we are the sower. “Sow a thought and reap an act. Sow an act and reap a habit. Sow a habit and reap a character. Sow a character and reap a destiny.” So you want to feel sorry for yourself and feel morbid? Alright, if that’s what you want to sow, sow it. While you are having a Coke and having a few little hors d’oeuvres and you want to feel morbid and sorry for yourself in spite of what you’ve heard over and over, well, sow it. It will come. So you sow it and feel sorry for yourself…go into the backyard and eat worms, perfectly alright. Then all of a sudden you are eating actual worms and you wonder “Why did it happen to me?” So in the world of Caesar we are the sower sowing thoughts.784 ¶8

God the great sower sowed his seed in us and no one can stop it from maturing and that comes to fulfillment. The most glorious fulfillment!784 ¶9

But in that interval of that journey…and we’re told it’s a horrible journey…read it in the 15th chapter of the Book of Genesis: “All your descendants,” said he to Abram, “will go into a strange land, a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved in that land for 400 years; at the end they will come out with great possessions” after 400 years.784 ¶10

It doesn’t mean 400 years as you and I measure time. Four hundred is simply the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is Tau, and the symbol of it is a cross. So this body is the cross…while I wear this garment of flesh and blood. Though I may only be seventy years in this little section, doesn’t mean that’s my end. I die here, restored to life still on the cross, finding myself still in a world just like this, and move all again. That’s my 400 years.784 ¶11

It may take, as Blake claims, 6,000 years in that journey for God’s seed that was planted on me to mature. That’s coming regardless. But in that interval, I could be happy, I could be comforted, I could be cushioned, I could be all these things. But whether I have money or not is not stopping the work that is being done in me by that initial seed that God planted in me which was himself. He actually fertilized me with himself, and that’s growing, growing into maturity. And what is the fulfillment of it?—-God’s gift of himself to me. He gives me the power of his love and God is love, infinite love. That’s what he gives me. And there’s no power in the world comparable to love. Infinite love God gave me; but he gave it to me in just simply a journey, and it grows in me, and then it matures into the first thing, of the child.784 ¶12

But while waiting to hold that child in my hand that I may know it’s been born—-from then on expansion after expansion—while I’m waiting he gave me a law and we’re told the law comes 400 years after the promise. So the promise, everyone has received it…and the law we’ve all received. And teachers are sent into the world to stimulate interest in the law.784 ¶13

The law is inward, it’s not outward. It’s not going to church and giving ten percent to the church. It’s not going and burning some little incense. It’s not doing anything on the outside. Listen to these words that show it so quickly, instantly, the inwardness of the law: “You’ve heard it said, ‘You should not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, anyone who looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery with her,” any one. It’s an inward act.784 ¶14

Now you take this into anything in this world. I can contemplate a state and if it seems desirable I may be inclined to do it. But if I contemplate it along with its consequences, I may restrain the impulse. I may contemplate the idea of stealing, and then I think of the consequences, suppose I’m caught. To get all that may seem good, but to get it and then be put in jail may seem not quite what I want, so I restrain the impulse. But I am told to contemplate the state even though I restrain the impulse was in itself the act. The inwardness of the law is revealed to man.784 ¶15

So tonight you can contemplate being a wonderful person, a successful man, a successful woman, a happy man, a happy woman, one that is secure, exactly as you want in this world, and you contemplate it. But don’t ask yourself how; that is part of this wonderful law that imagining creates reality. You contemplate the state, and you wonder what the feeling would be like were it true. Then you feel yourself into that state as though it were true, and you view the world from that state as though it is true. Now, one second later something could break the spell and you’re back to where you were when you began to contemplate it. But you planted it! At that very moment when you felt yourself in it you planted it. Now when it matures in your world, it may come through so many strange ways you may forget that moment in time when you planted it…and then give all people in your world credit for the thing that has happened to you, forgetting completely that causation is spiritual, that the physical effect is not causative at all. It hasn’t any physical causation, it’s all spiritual; that that mental act when you lost yourself in the state that was the time you planted the seed. And then, all of a sudden, you come upon it and you reap it.784 ¶16

If man could only remember that causation is spiritual and it has never been and never will be physical!784 ¶17

So tonight, you’re free. You can plant. You’re a sower. You have ideas, so you plant the thought, you sow the thought, and if you sow the thought tonight, then you’re going to reap an act. You can’t help it. Then you reap the act. You’re going to find you plant that, sow that, and it’s become a habit. Then you plant the habit, you repeat the habit, it becomes a character. Then your character becomes your destiny and that you can’t stop. So, my tomorrow will be determined by the thought that I sow today. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked, whatever a man sows, that—-not something else—-that shall he also reap.”784 ¶18

And this law comes to us at the end of the 8th chapter of the Book of Genesis. A new world begins to appear, and “seedtime and harvest shall never come to an end. All things will bring forth after their kind; it will never come to an end”. This is seedtime and harvest.784 ¶19

I tell you from experience, as far as the promise goes, just think of this simple wonderful thing, in that same 8th chapter: The ark is floating on a world that is flooded; everything is dead but the contents of the ark. Well, who is that ark? “Man is either the ark of God or a phantom of the earth and the sea.” I tell you, he is the ark of God, he contains everything. It rained for forty days, forty nights. Forty is the numerical value of the Hebrew letter Mem, and Mem has the value symbolically of both the womb and water. For when a womb begins to bear, there is water in it, and the water must break for that content to come out. Until the water breaks, it doesn’t come out; the water subsides and then it comes out. He who floated in it was 600 years old. Six hundred is the numerical value of the final letter of Mem. There are two Mems in Hebrew. The first is forty, the thirteenth letter; and then we get the 600, the final Mem, and that is water. So Noah was 600 years old. And then God caused a great wind to move over the face of the water to dry it up so that it would subside. You read these words and you think, well, what is “face”? God caused a great wind, at the beginning of Genesis, “And the Spirit of the lord moved upon the face of the water”. The word “Spirit” and the word “wind” are one in Hebrew. So the wind moved upon it and drew it up; it subsided.784 ¶20

Then you read the words: The dove went out, and then the dove returned, for the water hadn’t completely subsided; and Noah put forth his hand and received the dove and brought it into himself in the ark.784 ¶21

You read that and you think, well now, what a silly, stupid story. And how true that story is! When you hear the wind, the wind comes first, and then comes the birth and you hold him in your hand. Then the months move forward and you move back into time as it were. Then comes that moment in time that the dove is floating…dove doesn’t float, but when you look at the dove it appears to be motionless and floating, just actually floating. And what do you do? You raise your hand and the dove descends gently upon your hand, and you bring the dove to your face and it smothers you in kisses. You actually put forth your hand and the dove, the Holy Spirit, descends upon it and smothers you with affection. And the story is so true. But not until someone has actually experienced it does he understand it.784 ¶22

But while we are waiting for the first motion of the wind—-for the wind precedes the birth of the child—-we simply practice God’s law. God’s law is based upon a simple premise, that whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will. That’s the story. So every day I am a sower and I go out to plant my seed. I plant it with my imaginal acts. But memory being a very, I would say, short thing in man, he doesn’t remember between this moment and that moment what he planted. And he’s always surprised when the harvest appears and doesn’t recognize his own harvest.784 ¶23

One thing we’re given in scripture is the 16th chapter of Luke for everyone to help them. It’s the story (it’s a parable) of an unjust steward. The unjust steward was highly commended for falsifying the record. Now, no one here would be commended if today you are a bookkeeper and you falsified the record. We see such things in a morning’s paper day after day people who were trusted who took over and betrayed that trust. That’s not the story. Every parable in scripture has one central jet of truth. Don’t try to get all the little pieces, just one central jet. Well, the central jet is this: It’s falsifying the record mentally.784 ¶24

So the day tells me what I am, who I am, where I am, what I am, that’s the record. I don’t like it. Well then, let me falsify it in my mind’s eye. Let me now see the man that I would like to be, the man I want to be, where I want to be, everything in this world, and then persuade myself of the reality of this fact. So when I’m completely persuaded of the reality of this falsified record, I’ve planted a new seed in this garden. If I remain faithful to this falsified record, I will reap it. I may not even remember having planted it, because memory comes afterwards.784 ¶25

Memory comes when man begins to awake; the returning memory of the whole vast world is his. But until the child is born, memory is very short. We speak of total recall…I question it seriously. We speak of this one having a wonderful recall, alright, marvelous if he has a good recall. But does he recall not a passage in a book, not some little thing that he’s read, all that is marvelous, to train the mind to recall—but does he recall the moments in time when he planted the seed? The man who has some horrible situation in the world, does he remember—-though he’s a brilliant mind, with all the honors in the world—-does he recall when he went forth as a sower and planted that seed? That’s what I mean by recall.784 ¶26

Everything in this world you and I planted it. So someone comes into our world that we’ve known over the years and here comes a horrible state…or a lovely state. Do we recall when at some moment in the past we entertained just such a future for that person? Do we recall that we entertained it for that person? Of course we will justify it, we’ll say, well, when I recall that past (if I do) the situation at the time was so and so and so, and so I will justify my impression of that moment. It was that impression at that moment in time that I planted relative to that individual. “All that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow”. For he gave me himself and there is nothing but God, so I can’t pass the buck. I can’t say, well, he did so and so, she did so and so or they did so and so. I can’t pass the buck. It all takes place within me.784 ¶27

So everyone this night if you really believe it…he said you’re either for or against me, there’s no lukewarmness. “Were that you were either hot or cold; but because you are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm, I spew you out”. So when you hear the story, that imagining creates reality, either be cold to it and reject it, or be warm to it and accept it and live by it. But to be lukewarm and say, “I’ll play it safe, I’ll accept it, but I’m not going to sell my stocks and my bonds and things of that sort, I make no radical change in my world, because in the event it doesn’t work I want so and so as a cushion.” So you either accept it or you don’t accept. So, he who is not for me is against me…no lukewarmness at all.784 ¶28

And man is invited to go out and simply take his record and falsify it. So it doesn’t really matter where we were born in this world. It doesn’t really matter what limitations were imposed upon birth. For tonight, should anyone here make their exit from this world, you will be restored to life and find yourself in a world that is an automatic projection of all that is unreaped here to reap it there, while God still is playing his part within you. For “He who began a good work within you, he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”. So do not for one moment think it will not be completed; it’s being completed in us.784 ¶29

But while it’s being completed we are inserted into the same time series best suited for the fulfillment of the unfulfilled desires that we have planted, good, bad or indifferent. So then everyone here is actually free if he knows he is the being spoken of in scripture—-that he can be any man, any woman in this world, really, if he really believes it.784 ¶30

When this call came through I could hardly believe my ears, because my wife and I discussed this being so often, and to find that here it has all come upon him. His successful shows on Broadway, he’s had several pictures, several TVs, but no matter how successful he was he was always a way down in the dumps. He’d come to my lectures in New York City, come to my home, and always, you’d almost go to the door expecting a shroud. He’d come week after week, and we could never seem to pull him up. If you said it once—-and you said it a thousand times in the course of an evening—-“But, Walter, imagining creates reality.” “Yes, Neville but…” and that was the “but.”784 ¶31

And so there is an aspect in my life I’ve got to work on. He reminds me of something in me that is that “but,” because he still is an expression of myself and so I’ve got to work on this aspect. Over the years, he was a friend who came home. I can just contemplate the lovely aspects of my life that really came into flower (who accepted it), but I can’t deny that aspect and I can’t rub it out. I’ve got to revise it…I’ve got to really work on it.784 ¶32

Now where he is, I don’t even know. Maybe you’d know if I told you the name because when the voice answered it said “Gateway.” But where Gateway is I don’t know. It’s some home for this strange, peculiar thing that happens to people where the doctors simply experiment. They simply go into all kinds of investigations as to why memory should be cut and a little block within it that runs over a period of years. A normal person…goes back to me…but passages beyond it…can’t remember my little girl in grammar school who’s graduated from college. Doesn’t remember my son at all. Doesn’t remember anything but he was wounded in An Affair in Trinidad. So that’s his picture.784 ¶33

So I say, don’t—-and many of us do, if not all of us do—-feel sorry for ourselves. Something happened and we feel sorry for ourselves. That’s a wasted moment. That one moment of feeling sorry for yourself has actually planted a horrible seed that tomorrow is going to grow frightful fruit in your world. Don’t spend one second of your life feeling sorry for yourself, don’t! Don’t justify failure; don’t justify any limitation in this world.784 ¶34

At that very moment plant the lovely seed by assuming that the world is as it ought to be in my world and that the world sees you as you would like them to see you. Spend your time planting this wonderful seed. If it doesn’t come now and you should die this very night in the eyes of the world, you don’t really die; you’re restored to life to reap the seed you planted. It’s only one wonderful circle. You’ll reap it. Regardless of what the world will tell you, you’ll find yourself in a world just as real as this and reap it, the fruit that you planted here, I promise you. I see it so clearly; not just in speculation, I see it.784 ¶35

Everything told us in our scripture is true. As we told you earlier, that simple little gesture when it appeared before me and above me, why should I raise my hand? And why should it be my left hand? I raised the left hand and the left is always descent. He was descending upon me. I raised my hand automatically; and here came this hand and this finger projected; and then the symbol of the Holy Spirit rested upon it and then smothered me in kisses, just as told us in scripture.784 ¶36

Then comes this eternal promise: “As long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest shall not cease.” And so you and I…if there is seedtime there must be a sower, and then there will be a harvest. It shall not cease.784 ¶37

So you and I can plant in this interval while we wait for the unfolding of the picture within us when we go back, and then we rise into a world completely subject to our imaginative power. But everything is put under our power, as told us in the 9th chapter of Genesis, but everything. Not one thing is left out. Everything is given into the hands of the individual after the flood subsides, after the new world appears.784 ¶38

It begins with the birth of the child, and then everything said in scripture goes backwards. You realize not a thing came before you, it all came after you. Nothing comes before God, and God gave himself to man. So when God appears in the birth of the child, then everything foretold in scripture begins to unfold in man, and the whole thing unfolds in man.784 ¶39

Then he waits for that little interval between the last which is the dove, that’s the last. So the full measure of his heavenly inheritance cannot be actualized by him, or not fully realized by him so long as he’s still in the body. So he waits patiently for the removal of the body. And then he comes into his entire inheritance where everything is subject to his imaginative power. And he who walked the earth in a limited way, using this law to the best of his ability, suddenly comes into this fantastic power which is the power of love. Everything is done in love. But there is no power comparable to the power of love. I saw it so clearly.784 ¶40

So I ask you to try it and to do it now. I go back to 1925, in London, I said to this young chap, [Matthew?], “Why aren’t you interested in these thoughts?” I became so completely aroused at the age of twenty that I couldn’t conceive of anyone not being interested. His father and mother were. And he said to me, “Well, I’m too young for such things. Just let me wait…when I reach my father’s age.” The father was then in his fifties, he was twenty-one, I was twenty. I said, “But, Matt, how could you wait, this exciting concept of life of the mind, this new world?” “Oh, no, I must live first,” said he. When I came back to America—-I was four months in London—-I came to America and he went off to India, to the tea company, and died six months later. He was too young for this interest, much too young; he has to live first. His father and mother outlived him by almost thirty years. The father was very on in years when he died, and she went even beyond the father. Here was Matt at the age of twenty-one, he was too young to show any interest in such thoughts…he has to live first.784 ¶41

So, many people say the same thing, “Jut let me live first.” Well, I’ll tell them how to live: Use the law. Use the law. You want a home? You want a job, a better job, more money? Use the law. That’s still applying this principle.784 ¶42

But don’t forget the promise. Dwell upon the promise, and “Set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”. When he comes and the veil is lifted and the whole thing begins to unfold, you go all the way back and realize that in the volume of the book it was written of me. There’s nothing but my very Being spoken of in that scripture. It was God dictating his promise to me and giving me, after his promise which was unconditional, giving me a law by which in my exile I could cushion the inevitable shocks. For these are shocks…and I can cushion them and live well if I live by his law.784 ¶43

The law is not external; the law is internal: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7(KJV)). The whole thing is within myself. What am I entertaining morning, noon and night? May I tell you, that when you begin to really take hold of it, it goes into your dreams. That you live by it in what is called the uncontrolled state of a dream—you find yourself not the victim of your Imagination but the master. You’re controlling it. You are it. You don’t let it move you. You find yourself reasoning in dream just as you would reason here, if you really begin to live by it. So the dream of the night ceases to be the dream of the night. In fact, night after night you look forward to sleep—not to comfort the body because you’re tired—you welcome it, you look forward to it for the experience. You find yourself in that world behaving as you would here if you really take hold of the law of God. I promise you from my own personal experience that’s how you do it.784 ¶44

But you will find the promise unfolding in you automatically, and the whole thing will begin with the most fantastic wind. Some will labor longer, as women labor here; some go into labor for hours. In fact, I have a sister-in-law that she was in labor, I think, for two days. I have another sister-in-law, she yawns, and it comes out. She’s borne three daughters and before she could say boo the child was born. The other has two children and she labored and labored. So I’ll tell you, the labor begins when you feel in your head the wind. Just like that it’s the most terrific wind. And that labor may last hours. In my own case, I was like the sister-in-law who simply yawned and out it came. But it will start in your head, like the most fantastic vibration, but you will interpret it as a wind, like a hurricane; and out will come the symbol of your birth. Then will start all the entire Bible unfolding, series after series after series. And you’ll go back in time to find that not a thing came before you; it all comes after the birth of Christ Jesus.784 ¶45

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *784 ¶46

I think you will find this very practical tonight. But to me the most practical book in the world is the Bible. We are told they found one whose name was Simon and they laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus. Well, the word Simon in scripture means “to hear with understanding and then to consent to what you have heard.” You may hear it and deny it, that’s not Simon. Simon is one who hears and consents, he agrees to what he has heard. Now, who is Jesus? For he carries the cross behind Jesus. The gospel tells what happened in the soul of Jesus…events that were seen and heard by none save by him. Through these experiences he gained the certainty that he was the Son of God and eventually God himself. The story is told and few will accept it, for his interpretation of scripture of the secret of Messiah as against the interpretations of the priests were poles apart. But Simon understood what he heard and could follow it, and now he carries the cross. I hope tonight that everyone in this room could call himself or herself a Simon.783 ¶1

Now who is the Simon? He said, “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” . Well, the law of Christ as described in the Sermon on the Mount is imaginal, it’s wholly psychological. “You’ve heard it said of old ‘You should not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act in his heart” . Well, the word “heart” and the word “self” are synonymous in the Bible. When we speak “And he said in his heart” he is saying to himself. When we are told, “He communed with his own heart upon his bed” he is communing with himself. He has already committed the act when he looks lustfully on another. So the whole law of Christ is mental, it’s imaginal.783 ¶2

Now he carries the burden, for “In as much as you do it to one of the least among one of these, you do it unto me” . So Paul makes the statement, “From now on, we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer” . He saw the meaning of Christ: that Christ was the pattern buried in every child born of woman. That is the pattern. So he could not see a little Christ; he saw the universal Christ, the cosmic Christ, buried in everyone in the world. There’s only one Christ, so when you do it to anyone, you’re doing it unto me.783 ¶3

Now the one who heard and believed he’s called Simon. So he goes out now to bear the cross and lift the burden from the back of the one being who has taken the entire cross, for every child born is the cross and collectively they form the cross that the cosmic Christ bears. So the one who hears the story and believes it, he goes out in his belief to lift the weight of that cross. He sees someone who is struggling—can’t pay rent, can’t buy food, he’s embarrassed financially or he may be this, that or the other in the world, ostracized—and he lifts the cross. He knows he’s doing it only to himself…it can’t be another. And because he does it psychologically, he represents the other to himself as he would like to see that other were he that other, knowing that he is that other. To the degree that he is self-persuaded that this that he is imagining is so, it becomes so. He is the Simon who bears the cross; not moving it toward any little point in space, no, all through life he’s bearing the cross, lifting the weight.783 ¶4

And many a man today is behind the eight-ball, because no one ever believed he would be anything other than what he is. Fortunately in my own case I had a mother who…and she would take us separately, which we did not know until I went back after twelve years in America. Having cocktails on the veranda this evening it came up for the first time. But she took me and persuaded me that I was her favorite, and that I would never let her down. “Well, no, mother, never.” “You’re going to make mother very proud of you, aren’t you?” And naturally you say, “Yes, mother.” She would curl my hair, because I had long white curls, and she would curl them up and push her finger in the curl, kiss me, and send me on my way. Then the next one came to have his hair combed or curled. She told the same story to everyone, but because it was mother’s secret you couldn’t violate mother’s secret, and each grew into manhood believing he was the favorite. We were not going to set a little enmity among the brothers and tell the others that we were the favorite. We couldn’t betray mother’s trust. Then I returned after twelve years in America and we’re having cocktails on the veranda and it came out in some spontaneous way, and everyone told the same story. Mother just sat there and chuckled. She had simply accomplished her purpose. She got over to us the feeling of being important, because we were her favorite and we couldn’t let her down. Everyone had to be simply right. She didn’t expect us to make a fortune in the world, but to be something of which she would be proud. Well, she was a very wise mother, so that we became in our own separate spheres a success in her eyes before she departed this world.783 ¶5

And many a man today is what he is, in the gutter, because no one ever believed he would be anything other than where he is today. So I say, if we really hear the story and believe it, that there is only one being—there seems to be three-and-a-half billion—but there’s only one being and there’s one real cross made up of all the bodies in the world. So every child born of woman is that cross, and the being that animates that child is Christ Jesus. So I can’t do to any child in this world— whether it be a little infant or one departing this world—that I am doing to another. “So bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For in as much as you do it to one of the least among one of these, you have done it unto me.”783 ¶6

Well, if you believe it then you are bearing the cross, because you put it into practice. If you hear it but you don’t really believe it and you’re so engrossed in your own little world so that “let him take care of himself,” you see him as another. You don’t see him as a projection of yourself. If you really believe the story, you’ll become Simon and Simon bears the cross. He is the one who finds the child. For Simon in the Spirit comes into the temple, and as the parents bring the little child into the temple, Simon takes him up in his arms and said, “Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for my eyes have seen him, the salvation of God” . Well, read now the 52nd chapter of Isaiah, where the little child symbolizes the unveiled arm of God. The unveiled arm is the symbol of his creative power and the child symbolizes that power . So he takes it up in his arms and now he wants the promise to be kept: “Now let me depart in peace, for I have seen the salvation of God.” And in this wonderful 52nd chapter it speaks of the unveiling of “the arm of God,” which is the salvation of the world.783 ¶7

So here, as the arm is unveiled —and you’ll have this experience—where the entire arm is unveiled. And it would seem to you that one betrayed you, because someone came in following the betrayal and unveiled the arm. What did Judas betray? He betrayed the Messianic secret of Jesus and the place where he might be found; for he heard the secret and he betrayed it, and he betrayed where he might be found if you could still find him there. Well, they found him there: it all takes place within us. So there must be someone who must first hear the secret and tells the secret. I have betrayed it by writing my book called Resurrection. I have betrayed it from beginning to end, so I have played the part of Judas. I experienced it and that was the part of Jesus. Then I told it in print so that everyone coming behind, when I’m gone from this sphere, and the unborn generations coming in if the book is still available that they will see the secret. So who did he betray? He betrayed the secret, the Messianic secret, which was unlike what the priesthoods of the world believe. They believe in a man, a little man coming from without who is going to save them. And it isn’t so at all.783 ¶8

He comes from within because he’s a pattern. The pattern erupts within man, unfolds within man, and as it erupts within man he knows by this experience he is the Son of God. Because he knows his scripture, he goes back and he searches to find that here it dovetails with all that was foretold. He continues the experience to discover that he’s not only the Son of God, he is God himself; for, now the Son David calls him Father. And now he tells it to everyone who will listen.783 ¶9

The one who hears it with understanding and accepts it, consents to it, he becomes the Simon who will now pick up the cross and ease the burden from the back of the cosmic Christ. So you meet someone in the world who is unemployed, instead of passing the buck and passing by, stop in your tracks and represent him to yourself as being gainfully employed. Persuade yourself that he’s gainfully employed. You meet someone who is in some way limited, then represent him as being exactly what you would like him to be…to set him free from what he seems to be. Then you are bearing the cross.783 ¶10

So, bear ye one another’s cross and so fulfill the law of Christ. For, there is a law and the law is all imaginal. So everyone goes out to fulfill…if he hears it with understanding and having heard it with understanding he consents to it. Well, I can hear something I understand, but I may not agree with it. I may say that it’s stupid, it’s silly. Well, this is the most incredible story that could ever be told man, so when you hear it if you’re a brilliant mind, it doesn’t mean that because you’re a brilliant mind that you’ll accept it. You’ll understand it if you have intelligence, but you may completely discount it. And the more brilliant men are today, it seems the more they discount it as a myth. They can’t believe for one moment this story is true…and yet it is true.783 ¶11

Everyone who accepts it will one day experience the entire gospel unfolding within himself, for the gospel is nothing more than that which happened within the soul of Jesus. Well, Jesus means “Jehovah” and Jehovah is the Lord. Well, Jehovah is in man, which is I AM, so that everyone when he hears it with understanding and experiences it is Jesus. If I use the word Jesus and you think of a man 2,000 years ago and you don’t see the Jesus in everyone…he’s sound asleep and carrying a tremendous burden while he’s asleep. If you have accepted the story and you’re beginning to stir, you’re beginning to awaken, you will lift the burden from the back of Jesus and you will carry it because he walks behind Jesus. So you’re told, they seized Simon and having seized him they placed upon him the cross that he would carry it behind Jesus. So he carried the cross.783 ¶12

It only means the individual in the world, any individual who hears with understanding and consents to what he has heard. Well, if I really consent to it, I can’t pass by anyone and not do something to lift the burden. So they come to the door and you might say to them, “No, I don’t have what you ask me” or “I don’t need your books.” So they come to the door and want to sell you $100 worth of books or $100 worth of magazines. All right, that’s their little game…they’ve got to make a living. They’ve got to pay rent…maybe they’re married and they have an obligation to their family. So you say no physically to their appeal, but as they leave you, inwardly you see them successful, and as they leave your world, you persuade yourself that they are as you represent them to you. To the degree that you are self-persuaded they will be. But they don’t know that you’ve done it. They need not know that you lifted the cross for them. They will go on and things will happen in their world and they will actually become what you have seen them to be. They will not have the slightest idea who did it.783 ¶13

Well, who did it? Christ did it, because there is only Christ in the world. You take no credit because you’re only doing it to yourself…the whole vast world is yourself pushed out. So representing anyone to yourself as you would like them to represent you then you are simply lifting the entire burden of the world. So when he comes in and he picks up the little infant, which is called a sign in the Bible, it represents the creative power of God, the unveiled arm of God. And that arm creates everything in the world and when it’s unveiled in you, you can’t fail. Whatever you imagine will come to pass, I don’t care what it is, for the arm has been unveiled. The entire sleeve has been severed, leaving the arm from the shoulder to the finger tips free to carry forward your sword of victory. And you see everyone as you want to see them and they become it.783 ¶14

So I ask you tonight to just dwell upon it and see if you fit the pattern of Simon. See if you, in the course of a day, if for only one person, you can lift the burden. Maybe tomorrow you’ll do it and you will lift the burden. Don’t let it remain, because you’re only letting it remain upon your shoulders…there is no other. So as you simply lift it you are lifting that burden off your own shoulders…for there is only Jesus Christ in the world. There is nothing but God.783 ¶15

The play begins with the call of Abraham, and it comes to its climax and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Everyone has to come to that climax. The curtain comes down on it. And when you reach that point, the curtain comes down and you depart and join the heavenly brotherhood who contemplate this world of death. “And those in eternity who contemplate on death,” as Blake says, “they say thus ‘What seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be’” . Well now, can you assume any state for another and it seems to be? Then, it seems to be and it will become so…“Even of torment, despair, and eternal death. But divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus.” For in the end there is Jesus Christ, only one body, only one Lord, and you are Jesus Christ. The one risen body you will wear as your own body; and the one Spirit that inhabits it you will be that Spirit; and the Lord that is the Lord of all you will be that Lord.783 ¶16

So today, we aren’t aware of it, but Paul makes it very, very clear in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians: “If we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” . You see the difference in tense? That we have all died with Christ; but we will all live with Christ…that’s in the future. Well, it comes when the pattern contained within man erupts, when it unfolds and the story as told in the gospel unfolds within a man; and he is Jesus Christ. Now, whenever he tells this there’s always a sneer, the laughter because they know him by reason of his physical origin; they do not know him by reason of this spiritual birth. They only see the outside man and the judge from appearances. They know him and they can trace his origin right back to his little beginning, so what is he doing making these bold claims, for that’s blasphemy, the claim he must make for having had the experience? So he tells it and a few will believe him; and of the few who will believe him, he will get a number of them who will become Simon…to lift that burden and transform lives as he meets them in this world…no matter what it is.783 ¶17

So you want x-number of dollars or you want so-and-so, this, that or the other…he simply hears…that’s all that he does. He hears as though you told him that you had what you really asked him to hear, and he goes his way believing that what he has heard mentally is a physical fact to confront you in the not distant future bearing witness to that state. Or maybe he will hear it through the grape vine that it has worked. But he doesn’t seek praise, no thanks. He knows it must come into being. So he’s lifting the burden, lifting the cross.783 ¶18

So he carries the cross behind Jesus. He hears the pattern and he believes in the pattern and that’s believing in Jesus. Not a man; you believe in the pattern, the pattern of salvation. Then you believe in Jesus. Well then, if you really believe it and everyone contains that pattern and everyone is Jesus, you can’t leave anyone distressed. Yet you do not give them one nickel from your pocket, you do it all in your Imagination. Because you could give from now to the ends of time and not give yourself. No, this is giving yourself when you imagine a state and simply go your way believing in the reality of what you have imagined. So in this case, you are lifting the cross, lifting the burden. “So bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” That’s told us in the 6th chapter of Galatians . You can actually feel it, the joy of having done what you’ve done. You don’t wait for the phone to ring, you don’t do anything.783 ¶19

A friend of mine, last night, told me a story. Well, he knows that quite awhile ago he told me of some work that he had done for one that he likes very much. It’s an artistic work. But they never paid and it was an agreed contract, not a written contract, between two friends who trusted each other that this money was due and therefore it was paid. Well, he knows that we discussed it and that after we discussed it I certainly heard that he was paid. And we never discussed it following that. Last night he told me the money’s in the bank. Out of the blue—he didn’t persuade her by argument—this one came forward, she’s an artist, and gave him a very large check.783 ¶20

Now, I would say to him, that check or a similar check should be coming quarterly, and that multiplied by many. Because she is only one artist and there should be many artists needing your talent. And it would be a joy, as far as I’m concerned, to see many artists seeking his artistry, his talent that they may improve theirs. It’s only one being playing it, and then a check similar to that coming from many sources quarter after quarter. Don’t say it can’t be done…the minute that you say that you’re going to limit someone. Don’t say that someone because of his background, his financial background, social background, political background or anything, that he can’t make it. You’re going to limit him. Don’t put the cross that heavily upon him. Lift the cross because we are in a world of horrors, really.783 ¶21

But as Blake said and Blake understood it so perfectly: “Don’t let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Follow this path and you will receive from your own ego a deeper insight into the eternal beauties of reality. You’ll also receive an even deeper release from all that now seems so sad and terrible.” But if you know this story, you will lift the burden. Yes they’ll carry it, because they have to carry it. But why must they carry it when you yourself are carrying it because, you’re carrying all the crosses of the world. You can’t meet a stranger in this world; there isn’t one being that is a stranger. Regardless of the pigment of his skin, regardless of his tongue, regardless of anything, we’re all one…for God is one. As we’re told in the great shema of the Hebrew confession of faith, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God the Lord is one” . And never forget it! If he’s one, there can’t be a second. So in the end you and I will be the same being, the same Father, and we’ll have the same Son.783 ¶22

Now, I have been sent into this world to convey one thought. I have conveyed it and I’ve recorded it. I’ve recorded that the true Son is David. It’s been 2,000 years since the unveiling of the mystery of God. It has never been done before, and I have not much to convey now. I’ve completed the work I was sent to do, because the priests do not know the mystery. They do not know it, they’re men without vision and they’re arguing from a book that they do not understand. My mother used to say to me, “But after all, Neville”…a priest to her was the wisest man in the world…“and you can’t contradict him.” Well, I wouldn’t contradict my mother and I wouldn’t argue with my mother. She was simply to me something altogether wonderful, so I could not discuss it with mother. But I knew they were stupid anyway. I heard it discussed with the priests, discussed with the other ministers, and I overheard these conversations and I knew this whole thing was stupid, it wasn’t so at all. Because from the time I was a boy I had visions, and I knew it wasn’t what they were talking about. They didn’t have the slightest concept of what they were talking about. But I couldn’t tell that to mother, because mother would not have understood her little boy who was uneducated and a very limited background, how could he challenge what she considered the wise, wise priest? Because he could speak Latin or maybe he could read it too, and maybe he could read Greek…that meant he was intelligent. A lot of learned nonsense! He didn’t know what I knew from vision, for mine was all vision, it wasn’t from study.783 ¶23

Then as I matured I was called and sent. I know today the reason for the call and the reason for being sent and that was to reveal the true Son of God…the one Son that unifies humanity. Because if all have that one Son as his Son then we are one; the Father Jesus Christ is God the Father, and David is his Son. Jesus Christ is in you and David is his Son. The day will come he will awaken in you, he will rise in you, and you will meet David; and David will call you Father. Then you will have this certainty beyond anything in the world. You know what you had for dinner tonight, and maybe I could contradict you and tell you and get you to change what you believe you had. But you can’t get anyone to change when you have the experience of being the Father of David. There’s a certainty beyond the wildest dream of man when you meet him. There’s no uncertainty in it whatsoever. Well now, if everyone has this identical experience, then are we not one? If we all have the same Son, we are the same Father.783 ¶24

So tonight, the practical side of this is to go out and to the best of your ability play the part of Simon. May I tell you, you aren’t neglecting yourself, because the one you are helping is yourself. But aside from that, it comes back to the center from which it came. As the story of Job tells us, when he prayed for his friends his own captivity was lifted. So while he was locked in his own little desire to free himself of the sores and the pox and all the things that befell him, when he forgot himself completely and prayed for his friends, all these things disappeared; and then all that he lost returned to him a hundred-fold. So when I pray for my friends my own captivity is lifted, the cross becomes lighter, and finally it’s just light itself. “So take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” he said, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light” . If you really put it into practice, it will become very light. You ask no praise, no thanks from anyone, no financial gain; just the joy of seeing the cross lifted, for it’s being lifted from your own shoulder.783 ¶25

So if I actually hear a man’s need and instead of ignoring it I represent that man to myself as one who has had that problem solved, and become self-persuaded that it is solved, and then I find that in the not distant future that it is, I don’t have to tell him what I did. I have the joy and the satisfaction of knowing that this law of Christ never fails, that it works! So believe in the reality of your own imaginal acts. For faith is really loyalty to unseen reality. I must have faith, and I have faith not in things seen but things unseen. I don’t see the unseen imaginal act as an external fact now, but I must remain loyal to the unseen reality, and then in time the unseen will become seen and the world will see it.783 ¶26

So this is the practical side of this night…how you and I can lift the cross from our own shoulders. If I’m lifting it from yours, I’m lifting it from mine. And in a way I do not know blessings fall upon me to the degree that I am lifting the weight from the shoulders of myself-pushed-out. For, everyone I meet is myself made visible; there is nothing but myself and there is nothing but God. So when you read these passages and put them together into a mosaic, it tells the most beautiful story. It’s simply the most marvelous picture…if you take it that when you do it unto the least among one of these, you’ve done it unto me. You mean the little one that everyone ignored? Yes, if you did it to him you did it unto me. Well, who are you? “I am he the world is seeking, I am the Christ, the Lord,” he said. And the little one, you mean the insignificant little one, that’s Christ? Yes. “So lift his burden, because you’re lifting mine…you’ve done it unto me.”783 ¶27

You try it. May I tell you, it pays dividends beyond measure, just beyond measure, when you least expect it. And now you may never recognize your own harvest, because quite often our memory fades and we don’t recall that maybe five years ago someone asked a favor, and you did it in your Imagination. Then five years later you encounter that person and you’ve forgotten completely. You only know that, well, aren’t you lovely and things are going in a marvelous way for you. And you don’t realize that five years before they sought you out and asked you to help them, and you did, in your own wonderful spiritual way, and it worked. Maybe even they have forgotten. What does it matter? The burden has been lifted.783 ¶28

So we go forward to lift the cross playing the part of Simon. The day will come, you, too, will play the part in the most tangible manner of taking that little sign called the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lifting it up in your arms; he only symbolizes the power of God that has just been unveiled. Here is the power of God. You read it in the 52nd chapter, I think it’s the 10th verse of Isaiah…the whole thing is unveiled. What is it? The arm of God has been unveiled and it’s the power of salvation, symbolized as the child.783 ¶29

When it happens I can’t tell you the thrill when the entire scripture unfolds within you. You see it not as secular history at all; the whole thing is supernatural from beginning to end. From the call of Abraham to the climax in the story of Jesus Christ the whole thing is supernatural. Hasn’t a thing to do with history as we understand history here. They were not telling any event that took place on earth; it was taking place in the soul of a man as he walked the earth. And no one believed him, because they knew his parents, they knew his brothers, they knew his sisters, and how could he make these claims for that was sacrilege and the priests did not believe that. They turned to the priests; they were the authorities, they were the ones who should know. So they turned to the rabbis and the rabbis said, “No, he’s an imposter.” So he goes and he tells it, and finally he finds a small, little circle that believes him to the point of putting it into practice. Then he came to them first and unveiled himself, and they began to be unveiled too. And the God in them that was the God in him begins to unveil in them. And the rabbis remained veiled. So even to this day when Moses is read a veil is on their mind…they don’t see it. I pray for all of them, no criticism, because it’s myself blinded; and they refuse to accept any change in that fixed belief of theirs.783 ¶30

So I have come to do one thing, and I’ve done it, and I’ve recorded it: that is to make clear to the entire world who will listen who the true Son of God is who will unify the entire world: Jesus Christ is God the Father and his Son is David. When David calls you Father, you will know you are Jesus Christ the Lord. For if I am a father, there must be a son to bear witness for that relationship. Well, he comes and he comes into one’s world. So I’ve told it and so far there are a few thousand books in print and sold, and a few thousand more back in print and they’ll be sold. So at least it will reach in the English speaking world a certain segment and they’ll know. Whether they will accept it or not I do not know. But I have told what I came to tell, that the Son of God is David and David is not a physical being. It is in Spirit that he called him Father. So, “David in the spirit called me Lord,” he said, “How then can I be David’s son?” . So he called me Father in fulfillment of scripture; and everyone is going to be called Father by the one being that is David. When he calls you Father as he has called me Father, then you and I are the same being: we are God the Father. There’s only one God the Father; without loss of identity we are one.783 ¶31

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Now are there any questions, please?783 ¶32

Any other questions, please? I knew you were going to come up with one.783 ¶37

Well, until Friday.783 ¶40

[The first few sentences lost due to room’s sound-system malfunction.] [...] tonight if you have a desire, an intense desire that you can clothe as you would a dream, and then imitate God by actually losing yourself in it as though it were true. Well, that’s what I’m told in scripture that he does; he does not turn away from side to side. “He began the good work in me, and he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Well, Jesus Christ reflects the glory of God and bears the express image of his person. If he will not stop until that wish is completely realized, well then, I must be equally persistent and not stop in spite of things to the contrary until my dream is completely realized.782 ¶1

Now here, if I take the story of Jesus Christ as it ought to be taken and see it as the story of God, it is a plan, it’s a complete plan. And if I read it correctly, I will see this in it…it’s only concerned with the risen Christ. He only makes himself manifest as the risen Christ. Judas said to him, “Why do you manifest yourself to us and not to the world?” How will you manifest yourself to us and not share it with others? And then he gave the reasons for it, “Any man who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word I speak is not my word but the word of the Father who sent me.”782 ¶2

He speaks of the word…well, everything said in scripture as I read it is his word. They are given to us first of all in paragraphs, each paragraph is complete in itself, and does not depend upon any other paragraph for its own explanation. It exists in itself. So I come to you and I give you, say, a pile of paragraphs…these are complete individual expressions of the risen Lord…and I ask you to put it into a story form, and you take it and write a story. So, much is editorial and little of it would be the paragraphs that I gave you. But you’re going to tell it in the form of a story. There is not a thing in the paragraph to lead you to the chronological set-up of the paragraphs. But you tell it to the best of your ability and you make a story of it.782 ¶3

Now here, we will take one tonight where it fits a letter that I received this week. In her letter she said, “My daughter and our mutual friend Jan had a vision, separate visions. They wouldn’t tell me the vision but told me to ask for confirmation of the vision. I went to bed and I thought of you and I brought you forth at least in my Imagination, asking for confirmation, and then I slept. When I woke quite early in the morning, I could not remember that I had dreamt, which is unusual for me, for I remember in detail my dreams, and if perchance I do not remember the dream, I know that have dreamt. But in this case, I could not remember having had a dream. Because it was early I turned over and slept and instantly you came before me and I knew you were the risen Christ. In a way I do not understand you gave me the number twenty-six and I toyed with it for awhile…adding the two and the six together to make eight; and then I took the twenty-six itself and added it to the day where the vision took place and brought it to November the 13th. I kept on doing all kinds of things with the number twenty-six.”782 ¶4

Now, that’s where we get off. I gave you twenty-six. Yes, you can total it and it comes to eight. Eight is the number of the risen Lord; he rose on the eighth day, the first day of the new week. Eight is always associated with resurrection, regeneration, and the number of the Lord, but twenty-six is what I gave you. In the Hebrew alphabet there are twenty-two letters, but there are five finals. There are five letters of the twenty-two that are repeated and they are called “finals.” Their numbers change, all but this one. We have Kaph as twenty; when you find it as a final, it is 500. It’s not a two toned, it’s 500. We have a Mem that is forty; when we encounter Mem as a final letter in the alphabet, we find its numerical value is 600. We have Nun that is fifty and when we encounter it as a final, it is 700. Now we have Pe, a P-e or P-h, and you pronounce Phe. That, when you first encounter it is eighty, and when you encounter it as a final, it’s 800. So you do not change the tone of the number. The symbolical value of this letter is the mouth, it’s the mouth of God: “And my word that goes forth from my mouth…it shall not return unto me void, but it must accomplish that which I purposed, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it”.782 ¶5

Now he speaks of sending a word…well, you are the word. Christ is the word, and “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” Christ in you is God’s plan to make you his perfect image, possessing all that God possesses. The word cannot return void. I gave her twenty-six. Well, this lady said just recently, she wondered, “Why do I have certain intuitive states which I know to be true and hesitate to voice? I seem to hesitate…I do not feel confident and yet I know it’s true.” I gave her…she saw me as the risen Lord…I gave her a voice of authority, twenty-six, to speak out regardless of what others might say. Do not go beyond twenty-six. Don’t add it to the day of the month to make it Nov. 13. It hasn’t a thing to do with that, it’s twenty-six: It’s the Pe, the final word, because twenty-six is the final Pe.782 ¶6

You can only see the risen Lord. I can tell you from this platform from now ’til the ends of time that I have had the experience of being ascended from earth into the highest heaven. I can tell you that I have, but I can’t persuade you. And no one in this world will see me as I’ve told you that I am unless it’s revealed to you from within by the Father. “Who do men say that the Son of man is?’ ‘Well, some say John the Baptist come again, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, some say one of the prophets of old.’ ‘But who do you say that I am?’ And Peter answered, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the risen Lord.’ He said ‘Flesh and blood could not have told this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, he has revealed it to you’” . No one can see the risen Lord but one who loves him.782 ¶7

Now, others will say “I love him.” Only one who loves him…loves who…a man called Neville, the flesh and blood? No, loves the teaching, for he’s only expressing what he is in the form of a plan, the form of a pattern. He tells you that he is simply an erupted pattern that God had placed within him. All that he is is simply a complete eruption of that pattern. One who heard it, loved it, loved the idea of containing such a pattern, in the hope that one day it would erupt within her. So she’s in love with the pattern. If she’s in love with the pattern and I am the pattern, she’s in love with me…not me, flesh a blood, for flesh and blood cannot tell her to the point of convincing her. She has to see it from within. So in this moment she asks for light and instantly I appear and manifest myself to her, and give her twenty-six, the number twenty-six. But as I manifest myself to her she not only knows me but she knows I am the risen Christ.782 ¶8

Now, no one of flesh and blood could tell her that to convince her. She would have to have the experience that Peter had. Peter heard it and Peter loved what he heard. Others heard it but they did not love it, so they did not have the experience. So how can you manifest yourself to these, just a few, and not to the world, the unbelieving world? And he answered that such is granted to the discernment of love: those who can see it and fall in love with it, they love it.782 ¶9

Well, people will say, “But I love Christ!” Well, they have an icon they call Christ; they have some little idol that they call Christ. That’s not Christ! Christ is the plan of God, the plan that was in the beginning: “Let us make man in our image”. Well, he is called the image of God: “He reflects the glory of God and bears the express image of his person”. That’s Christ. Well, can I find that image in scripture? Search it…search it and see if you can find in the search from these paragraphs such an image. And you’ll find it. I have told it to you in the most simple manner I am capable of telling. I have told it in a more chronological manner than recorded in the Bible, because they were given these paragraphs and they did not know which came first. They wrote a beautiful story…they all disagree. We speak of the synoptics because they do have something in common, but, oh, what a difference in the very genealogy between Matthew and Luke! If you find these things, they all differ.782 ¶10

But those who actually fall in love—not with Neville, not with Neville a man—but when he tells you the whole story awoke within him, in detail, and he tells you the chronological order in which it did, well then, I instruct those who fell in love with what they heard…not the man. One departed last July, she saw it. She didn’t say she knew Neville, but as she saw him she knew he was the Lord. Another one (who is here tonight, in fact, two), she saw it but didn’t think for one moment she should even write the letter to tell me until the one who departed made her write the letter. So she saw the risen Lord. Not a man, for you see a man of flesh and blood…and you know this man’s father is Joseph…we know him, we know the limitations, we know all these things…and he’s not speaking of that.782 ¶11

So, just as he loses himself in a dream to bring it to fulfillment, on this level we can be imitators of God as dear children. And while we wait for the work of God to be finished in us so that the whole thing explodes and the pattern unfolds within us, we can have our dream. If we are equally persistent in that dream, no power in the world can stop it from coming to fulfillment, but no power. But we cannot deviate, we cannot turn from the dream to see what others are thinking, what they think of us. We have to actually lose ourselves in it.782 ¶12

But no man who comes into this world, flesh and blood…if anyone ever tells you he is Christ, don’t go. That he is something different, don’t go. You’re told that so clearly in the 13th chapter of the Book of Mark: “If anyone should say, ‘Look, there is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ believe him not”. But you will know and this knowledge that comes to you from within is without uncertainty. No one has to tell her tonight the truth of what she saw. She saw it and she knew it. The man that is talking to her now that man is full of weaknesses, full of all the limitations of flesh and blood. She could tomorrow hear of some unpleasant thing in his life, but it would not disturb what she saw, what she heard. She may hear tomorrow, as it is recorded in scripture, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a lover of sinners, and one who keeps the company of harlots. Well, she could hear that, but it would not disturb her in what she saw when he appeared to her not as flesh and blood but as the risen Lord, who could give her then the number twenty-six and give her a voice that from now on will speak with a far greater authority and will not ask others, “Should I say it or do you think it’s right?” She will now have the courage to speak out when intuitively she knows it is right.782 ¶13

That’s why I ask you for your visions, for your dreams, for in this manner I know. Now you may lie to me, that I have no control over, but you’re not lying to me, you’re lying only to yourself if perchance you think now I will simply tell a nice little white one, and then get into a circle, feeling I’m part of it. You’re only deceiving yourself. That’s why I say tell me just what happened and don’t augment it. Don’t go beyond twenty-six…well, you did, you went to the eight, well, that’s all right. But don’t go into all the other things. You’ll get so confused and you’ll be so wrong. By adding that to make Nov. 13th you’re completely out. You just simply stop right with what I gave you, and I gave you a voice, I gave you twenty-six. The day will come you will know Hebrew. You will know these letters, you’ll know these things, and then you can interpret beyond where you can now. Until that day, write me and I’ll interpret for you.782 ¶14

So here, everything said of him you will experience, but everything. The day will come you, too, having experienced it, will say to your friends, “You know this is what happened.” Ninety-nine point ninety-nine will turn their backs upon you, because they’re looking at you through the eyes that are mortal, and they’re seeing the mortal man with all the weaknesses that they know. You will not impress them. You don’t tell it to impress them; you tell them only to show them the truth of God’s word. Well, they could never see that in you. But, there will be a remnant who will believe it when you tell them that that whole thing is in you. And the day will come the whole thing will unfold within you, too, and others will know that what you said is true, because they will know you are the risen Christ.782 ¶15

So, not one person saw him as the risen Christ until after the ascension. Read it carefully, not one saw him. People think the ascension means he died and then he rose. No. While you’re walking this world in a body of flesh and blood, you have the experience of the ascension. That’s why I told you I’m not here…my nights are certainly not here, and if I am anchored here during the day to complete a certain passage of time, all well and good. But on the 8th day of April, 1960 (well, that’s eight years ago) I ascended. And from that day on everything in me was turned around, and from that day on I have been seen, not only here, up north, east, all over, by a few. They’ve told me, “I saw you, Neville but strangely enough I saw you as the risen Lord.” Now, they were the ones who were in love not with Neville they were in love with what they heard. The hope I held out to them: That the same Neville that now is so weak carried within him God’s plan of salvation and the plan to unfold it. They were in love with what I told them concerning that plan that God placed in every man born of woman, a plan of redemption, and when the time is fulfilled, that plan awakens within man. Then they fall in love with that…that was the Christ that they loved.782 ¶16

Because no man born of woman, from the womb of woman, is Christ: it’s what he contains within him. If there is another Christ other than he who was crucified and buried within us, that Christ is a false Christ. I don’t care what they tell me about that Christ, he is a false Christ. And false teachers teach him as coming from without. So if there is any Christ that anyone talks about other than that Christ who was crucified and buried within us, that Christ is false. Don’t go to listen to him and pay no attention to those who will tell you all about him—they do not know Christ. Christ is the plan of redemption. Listen to the words, “He has made known unto me the mystery of his will, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time”. He set it forth in Christ as a plan…he is the plan. He is the word, and the word and the one who speaks it are the same. So he speaks it and remains constant, and he doesn’t deviate from it.782 ¶17

If tonight I would imitate God as a dear child, have a dream. Not the dream where I am not in control, a day dream, something where I am absolutely in control. I say, I want this, that and the other and I make a composite picture of it. I want to be this, I want to be that, and I ask no one to aid me. I ask no one if it is right for me. I’m living in the world of Caesar, would that make life to me full? All right, then I take it, and then I do exactly what God does to bring man to the fulfillment of his dream: He doesn’t turn from left to right. “He will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intent of his will. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.” So when you go through the mill and go through the furnaces, you’ll understand in the end that it was essential to bring out the image that could reflect the glory of God, and express the very image of his person. Then he endows it with life in itself; therefore, then it becomes one with God, who inherits God so that whatever God was now this one is…whatever he was. He was a father…just a father or the Father? He was the Father with the Son. Well then, I am that. Whatever claims made for God must be made for the one when the work is finished within him. And this is how it’s finished.782 ¶18

So I tell you, if you haven’t read it, you don’t have it, get the book…that last chapter, Resurrection. I have told it in the chronological order. I know of no other book, including the Bible, which has told it in this order. And the Bible when you see it in its manuscript form, it was only given to the individual who wrote it, the evangelist, in paragraphs. I bring you a pile of paragraphs, each complete in itself, not dependent on any other paragraph for its explanation, it’s complete in itself! Well, you take them and you go over them. I ask you to tell a story, tell a story because those who were eyewitnesses to it are passing out of this world of Caesar and therefore you can only have an oral tradition from now on. With an oral tradition and nothing written but these, you are going to simply have confusion. So try to put it into as orderly a form as possible.782 ¶19

So Luke gave us in his first four verses: “In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been occurring and have happened among us by those who are eyewitnesses from the very beginning and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also to write an orderly account for you, dear, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed”. So he puts it down for Theophilus. Well, who is Theophilus? The word means “one who loves God,” the one who is going to see the risen Lord…for that is the condition. Who will he appear to?—the one who loves me. “The one who loves me will keep my word, and my word is not mine but the word of the Father who sent me.” And so, if you love what I have told you, you will keep it and put your hope on it that it will unfold within you. So he writes an orderly account for the individual who loves the Word.782 ¶20

Now he does not claim that he has made a more exact chronological presentation of the source material. What Luke is claiming is that he has made a better use of the source material; it is better presented than those who preceded him in the attempt to tell the story. For he begins by saying, “In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative…”, therefore, he tells you many tried it. We only have four records, but many tried to compile from these paragraphs a story of God’s plan of salvation. Well, Luke did a marvelous job, but he incorporated what St. John didn’t. John tells us that “we must be born again, born from above,” but he gives no such thing as the story of man’s birth. He tells you, you must be born from above, but he doesn’t bring any of the symbolism into it. And Luke, by bringing it in, the world has taken it that you’re born as a little baby from the womb of woman. Anyone who reads the story will think that’s how the Savior was born…from a woman. Came in the same normal manner that all children come, with one exception, she didn’t have a husband. Matthew even goes beyond that. Luke takes it in its normal state, because he takes shepherds rather than kings. And today, scholars are convinced that the story as Matthew tells it is definitely inserted…he with his three kings.782 ¶21

But, it’s a simple thing, and normal men will witness it, not kings, but three normal people will witness the event. And the child is only a sign of the event, and the event is your birth from above, that could happen when you’re fifty, when you’re sixty, when you’re eighty. It doesn’t happen at the so-called appearance in this world when you came through your mother’s womb. While you’re walking the earth as a normal, natural individual, suddenly it happens; and there is no preparation for it, it takes you by surprise. When it takes you by surprise, you simply record the event.782 ¶22

Now I know that many have had the experiences and they never once recorded it. Put it down next to the parallel passage of scripture. When mine happened, instantly I wrote it in the Bible against that parallel passage. Just like the scripture tells us, that paragraph was complete in itself. If I never had another experience, I wouldn’t know there were other experiences. And so, when on the 6th day of December the other one came, I put it against its parallel passage. But the first one did not depend upon the second to exist. That first one is a complete paragraph within itself. And the second is complete in itself and does not require the first or the third or the fourth for any explanation of itself. So when the third happened, I didn’t realize the third was coming. It came just as unexpectedly as the first and the second…and then the long interval. Then comes the fourth…I certainly didn’t expect it. I put it down. So when I could tell the story, I could tell them in the chronological order how they appeared.782 ¶23

Now others came in between, but I did not put them down…like the unveiling of the arm, the nailing of the peg into the shoulder; the betrayal by one who I taught, who I thought really loved what I was teaching. He in turn rose quickly and departed, and I knew exactly what he was going to do…he was going to betray what I am teaching. And I thought while I taught him he loved the teaching—the teaching being myself, because I am one with the teaching, for I’m only telling what happened to me. And this came after the four events as recorded in my Bible. So we can see where the whole betrayal took place: It’s the unveiling of the power of God.782 ¶24

So I ask everyone here to believe it and fall in love with it. If you really fall in love—not with the speaker, doesn’t matter a thing about him; but in him it did awake, in him Christ rose; in him the Father appeared, all as self, not another. Then you hear the story and then you know it’s going to happen in me? I said yes, it’s going to happen to you, and you’ll be cast in the central role as the being that is called in scripture Jesus Christ. For you are that plan, you are the word of God that cannot return to God void and it must accomplish that which it was sent to accomplish. So in you the whole thing is going to unfold and you too will tell it, and they’ll fall in love with what you tell. Those who fall in love with what you tell in the hope that it will unfold within them will have the privilege and the joy of seeing you as the risen Lord. For in the end there is only going to be the risen Lord.782 ¶25

If we have different gifts…as we are told in scripture that the gift depends upon the nature of the grace that he bestows. Some are apostles, some prophets, some teachers, some healers, some helpers, and therefore they all differed in the kingdom as to the gifts. But the gift was unmerited, the gift was not due to any…it was completely unearned. But the measure of the gift will determine the nature of the part you play in the body of the risen Lord. All are important and all are right and all are good. The least there makes one greater than the greatest here. So what does it matter what part we play in the kingdom!782 ¶26

But I tell you, the prophets—and many of you are those who see clearly and record it clearly—they are so high in the kingdom. They’re really the voice of God himself. They hear it as coming from within. And as he makes the statement, “When they are dictated to by the Spirit of Christ within them”…and the Spirit of Christ within them is themselves. How closer to God can you get than to be his voice, than to be his mouth? And that’s what the prophet is. But he’s not granted the right to interpret what he hears and sees; that belongs to another aspect of being.782 ¶27

But tonight, imitate God by having a most glorious dream of the man, of the woman that you would like to be. Don’t ask anyone if it’s possible; all things are possible to God. Don’t ask anyone if you should want it…you simply want it. Because there is no death in the true sense of the word, unfinished business here will be completed. So start your dream. What does it matter, you could be ninety and still have a dream, things you have not experienced that you want to experience, things you have not realized here and you want to realize them. Well, start it.782 ¶28

I, personally, would say to the whole vast world, “set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”, but I would not set myself up as the criterion of what they ought to want. Let them tell me what they would want, and if I can aid them in constructing a scene which would imply the fulfillment of that dream, I will aid them. But I will not say you should have this above all things. I can suggest such a hope, but I can’t say it’s the one thing you should want. If someone has never known or has no memory of affluence, no real memory of security, and they want a taste of that in the world of Caesar, what’s wrong with it?782 ¶29

When people say, after all, it’s a difficult thing. No, not in this world. The majority of people today who are very, very wealthy are not living on inherited wealth. We have the publicized, this one and that one, the Tommy Manvilles and the Barbara Huttons, but they are little compared to the great wealth earned right here in one generation. We see tonight on TV or on radio, tomorrow morning’s paper, and he started with sixty dollars and he claims he’s sixty-two. Others say that they know from experience that he is sixty-nine, all the better. But in his own little lifetime, a short interval…started when he was twenty with sixty dollars and now worth a half-billion. And so, he is not alone, there are others with their half-billion who started with a dream and they were not diverted. They say he is ruthless. So what! Maybe if you have that sort of a dream, you appear in the eyes of others as ruthless. And those who are not ruthless in the eyes of others are without a dream, so they have no one to offend. They are not offending anyone because they are not even known to exist in the world. But there are those who like this fellow had to dream to realize it.782 ¶30

So I would say to anyone, if you haven’t tasted something that you still have a hunger for, well then, make it part of your dream. Let no one tell you, you shouldn’t want it. Make it part of the dream. One day you will fall in love with what today you will only give a passing glance at. Don’t think for one second the billion Christians in the world are in love with Christ, the true Christ of scripture. No, they’re in love with other things and they pay attention certainly not to Christ but to theological substitutes…for certainly that is not Christ.782 ¶31

When tonight, here, a voice from the Vatican, he cannot now take the sacrament, because not until the highest order of the Greek Orthodox Church admits that the first union was terminated in a way that would make her children and his children bastards. For if it is annulled, the marriage never took place, and if the marriage never took place and they’re confronted with two physical children that they admit are theirs, well then, the children are bastards. So to please the Vatican to make the children bastards to keep the traditions of the church alive? Of all the nonsense in the world! Of course, I do believe she’s big enough to simply say, “Take your little nonsense your side and I’ll take my half-billion my side”…that’s what she has and live fully in her own wonderful world.782 ¶32

So you don’t have to ask anyone. You’re going to hurt someone? Don’t hurt anyone. Dream nobly. What do you want? When you know what you want, take the Bible literally: Imitate God as a dear child. How did he do it? Well, he had to start with a wish, for he said, “Let us make man in our image.” That’s a wish. Well, if it’s going to take time, well then, it’s going to take time. He has then to start with a wish and persist in his wish as though it were true. Well now, I have to take a wish and persist in my wish, if I’m going to imitate God, as though it were true and not deviate. Just continue in my wish as though it is true. In the end, I will unveil my wish projected on the screen of space as he unveils his wish and it is Christ Jesus. And the man in whom he unveils it always thought himself John Brown; not for one moment did he believe he was that glorified being who reflected the glory of God and bore the very stamp of his nature. That he was as perfect as his Father and he didn’t earn it; holy as his Father and he didn’t earn it. It was all a gift, because it was the wish of his Father that he have it.782 ¶33

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Are there any questions, please?782 ¶34

You fall in love with the story. As Mark begins it, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Well, that kingdom of God which is the gospel of God is simply the story of salvation. Fall in love with that story that is contained in man. And when it happens, it will possibly happen in one that you would think, “Well, that’s the last person in the world that I would ever expect it to happen.” For we judge from appearances and we think, “Why did it happen to him, for I am more holy than he is…I go to church.” I hear that all the time.782 ¶37

I have friends of mine back east, every Sunday morning whether it shines or snows, whether they feel well or not, they must be in church. Two hours on Good Friday, Easter all day—with a new hat, of course, a new dress—and they give their time to the Altar Guild, they see that fresh flowers are there and they give their time. To them that’s Christianity.782 ¶38

I was saying to a very dear friend of mine two days ago on Saturday, “I’m so happy that the Rev. So-and-so has been appointed the new rector of the church here in Beverly Hills.” Well, she wasn’t at all happy. I said, “I heard him twice speak at Westlake when my daughter was there, and I thought him a very able speaker and a nice man. He has love, he has tenderness.” She said, “Well, he doesn’t draw the people.” In other words, he can’t raise the money.782 ¶39

The one they had there never wrote one of his own lectures but had a lecture bureau back east in Philadelphia to which he subscribed, and they would send him his weekly lecture. Well, if I depend upon someone 3,000 miles away to write a lecture for me for Sunday morning, I should at least go to school and learn how to read it. He wasn’t a good reader and he couldn’t commit it to memory. He didn’t have a good memory. So here, from 3,000 miles away comes his lecture that he’s going to give on Sunday morning, and this went on all the years that he was there…twenty-odd years. Well, now they have retired him and his assistant’s been appointed.782 ¶40

She meant every world she said, “No, I have to think in terms of the church, not the individual.” I said, “I think in terms of the individual. He’ll serve well, he has a heart, he loves people. I know he loves people. So he can’t raise huge sums of money, because that doesn’t interest him. Well, let other people get out and raise it if the church needs it. The other one was an administrator and could get out and browbeat these people into giving large sums of money, when he himself is as dead as the chair you’re seated on. Hasn’t the slightest concept of the mystery of Christ. Fortunately for anyone who has to go there he has reached the age of retirement.”782 ¶41

That’s true all over the country. If you can really raise large sums of money, wonderful! You can go after and be a cardinal, but you may have the mystery backwards. You may have experienced it and could tell it in detail; but without that other ability you can’t get off the floor. Not that you want to. The others go off with all their robes and paraphernalia and persuade themselves that they’re really very holy people. And the unthinking masses believe it.782 ¶42

I tell you that the only Christ, the only Christ of which the scripture speaks, is in you as a plan, as a pattern. And if anyone teaches any other Christ, he is a false teacher and his teaching is false. There is no other Christ! And one day, he erupts and it will seem to you the most marvelous thing that could ever happen to man.782 ¶43

The night that it happened to me, I lived a very normal day, had my usual two or three martinis before dinner, had a lovely roast beef dinner and a baked potato; and didn’t turn in for several hours after. So it was not the result of some undigested piece of beef, for I had my dinner at five and it was eleven when I doused the lights. Well, certainly anything in my stomach at five should have been a way down by eleven, so it was not any undigested food in my stomach that prompted this miraculous experience. Yet, here is a perfectly normal, natural man in the world of Caesar.782 ¶44

And I thought, well, this is in itself complete, and I didn’t realize for one moment it was one of a series, and each in the series was in itself complete and needed no other experience to interpret it or to explain it. But put them together, and then turn to scripture and you see where that was the hidden book, the Old Testament. So when Paul writes that the things have been hidden for generations and ages and now made manifest to his saints, he is speaking of the Old Testament. Then after it was broken, then man could understand the Old, because now they had the key provided by the experiences of man, a normal man.782 ¶45

And they said to him, “Well, what does he know? He has no learning for he’s never studied, and his brothers don’t believe in him, and we know him well. We know he’s seen in the [...] all the time, and we know he’s never studied. What learning has he that he would confront the Sanhedrin and confront those who consider themselves the last word in understanding the law of God?” And he’s transcended it, because he has the key now. It erupted in him, not in them. And they knew nothing of what they read, yet they wrote volumes about it.782 ¶46

We can only have in the Red Letter edition a matter of a few words…the words attributed to the one who had the experience there are only so many words. They’re all in red, if you have a Red Letter edition and they put them on a few pages. He left nothing written. It’s all about him. There’s no description of the personal appearance of the man, not a thing. So it happens to normal man.782 ¶47

People are always looking for it to happen in the palace or in the Vatican or in some holy spot as they consider these places holy. It happens to one…as it is said of him, he was a drunkard and a glutton and one who loved sinners, harlots, tax collectors, stopping at a home of a sinner and asked to be lodged for the night. He didn’t go to palatial homes, just stopped at the home of a sinner. One who never washed his hands before eating, one who did not wash the feet before…all these were traditional things that made you a sinner if you did not do these things. He stopped in there and he found a receptive heart in these homes who could love him. Love who? Love the pattern that was unfolding within him and believed it, and therefore to them he presented himself for what he was. But no one can see him unless he manifests himself, so he has to manifest himself and he manifests himself in what he is. The individual has no doubt when they see him as the risen Lord.782 ¶48

So you fall in love with the story. And the day will come, the one in whom it has already happened will present himself to you and you will know him as the risen Lord. He knows it whether others know it or not, so it doesn’t really matter. But these happen not after the physical departure of the man, it happens after the ascension of that man. So the ascension comes while he is walking the earth. Mine happened eight years ago and still I am waiting for physical departure. And since then I have been presenting myself to those who love me…love me, the one in whom it happened, not the thing, but that which has happened.782 ¶49

I certainly have not presented myself to any member of my family, for they love this but not that which I talk about. They heard that I was not feeling well. The phone rang last Friday morning and here is my brother and sister on the phone from Barbados. Then I tried to shut them up, I said I feel fine. “Well now, look here, don’t cut me off, I’m paying the bill!” and they kept on talking and talking and talking. You would have thought they were calling from next door. Well, that’s how they feel toward this, but not towards what I am talking about tonight. That doesn’t interest them at all. But if anything should happen to this little body of flesh and blood, they’re right there to respond. And so, they got just a normal letter from my wife, just saying the normal things, not asking for sympathy; just stating the facts that he has been feeling a little weak. That’s all they needed…long distance phone from Barbados…and goes on and on and on. But they’re in love with what they see, a brother.782 ¶50

But you’re in love not with this that you see, you’re in love with what you hear concerning the mystery that has already awakened in him. That is your love and for that I manifest myself. And so he will come to all who love to that degree. Good night.782 ¶51

Tonight’s subject is “God Only Acts.” You may be familiar with that statement from Blake, “God only acts and is in all existing beings or men.” We’re told that what is impossible to men is possible with God, if we can only find God; for what is impossible with us as men is possible with God. I am confident I can locate him for you right this night. And it’s very simple. There are unnumbered things that you and I can think of that are truly impossible with us, unnumbered things you can think of them. Now, could you imagine the thing that is to you impossible solved? Can’t you imagine it solved? Think of something that you cannot, I defy you to think of something that you cannot imagine. Think it over. And so you say, I can’t go because I haven’t a passport. I can’t go, say, to Russia. They wouldn’t allow me to go to Russia. I couldn’t get a passport. Can’t you imagine that you have a passport? Can’t you imagine that you’ve been to Russia and that you’re back? You may say, well, that’s a lie; there is no evidence to support that imaginal act. But can’t you imagine? Can you imagine it? Well, that’s God. That’s God in action. If you can imagine, all I ask you do now is to hold God trustworthy. You’ve found him, you’ve found something that can imagine anything in this world, well, that’s God. For with him all things are possible, and with men there are unnumbered things that are not possible. So you found in yourself a power that makes everything possible. But all God intends from us is to accept the imaginal act with faith, that’s all. Faith is being loyal to unseen reality. You remember what you did, that’s an imaginal act. All it takes from us now is to be loyal to that imaginal act. For through faith we made all things. An imaginal act is one thing and that’s self-determining, that’s causative. Everything on the outside moves under compulsion, but everything, and no one really knows the unseen, hidden, causal act. Once in a while you can trace it…the individual may be able to trace it back to something that he did. But between the imaginal act and its unfoldment in the world, in this whole vast world, unnumbered things come out, all contributing. And much of it we condemn. We condemn this act and that act and that act, and harshly condemn it. But it all is moving towards the fulfillment, the bloom of what each in the Silence did back here. And yet we sit in judgment of all the unfolding picture of that act, right up to the bloom of the act.781 ¶1

Now let me share with you a story that was shared with me. About two weeks ago or three weeks ago I told you a story—it was unfinished, it wasn’t yet completed—about the lady who had carried this tremendous burden on her shoulders as it were for twenty-five years, and suddenly, that very day, it was washed out of her life, completely washed out. But I didn’t know the nature of the burden; it wasn’t yet told me; in fact, it wasn’t yet told him. He just wanted me to know, to encourage me to encourage you of this story. Well, this is the story.781 ¶2

It’s all about his mother, who lives in St. Louis; that’s, maybe, 1,500 miles away. So take that in to consideration when you hear the story. She has a very important position. She is executive secretary to an organization similar to our Bowl here. You might have seen these great shows in the summer. They produce…every summer twelve musicals are produced, and you either take them, or you’ve read about them, or you’ve heard about them. And so, she has been, and still is, for many, many years, executive secretary of this organization.781 ¶3

But in spite of the glamour of the job and all the wonderful things she enjoys on the outside of her home…because in that capacity, and as I’m told in his letter, that one of the great status symbols in St. Louis is to be a member of that board. And so, they all love her, all respect her, they all admire her, and she enjoys their friendship, and so all the lovely social graces and friendships are hers outside of her home. But in her home, she’s not been able to entertain any of these people who entertain her. Because twenty-five years ago, her father, just moving like the old man of the sea, fell. Well, being her father, she didn’t want to do anything to simply dispossess him as it were. He said, “In a strange and wonderful way he is a very remarkable man, because not very many men have reached the advanced age of ninety-five without ever having done one day’s work in his life.” Well, that happens to be her father, and he said to me, “a remarkable accomplishment, ninety-five and not once ever having done a day’s work.” So there he sat.781 ¶4

Well, when he became aware of my books, the first thing he did, he packed off a set to his mother, in the hope that she would read them and apply the technique as described in the books. When she came home this Christmas, he discovered she hadn’t really applied it and he would like to know why. Well, she confessed she could see no out to this but death of her father, and if she applied it in the way that the book teaches, she might produce a death, and then she’d have to live with that on her conscience for the rest of her days. And although she would love the freedom of living alone in a nice lovely home, where all things were lovely, she still would persist in this horrible sacrifice and carry this burden rather than face the only out that she could think of, that the man would die.781 ¶5

Then he told her the story that he heard from this platform, that when I found myself in love with the girl who now bears my name, I was terribly involved. I mean, so many complex facts confronted me. I had a dancing partner the world thought I should marry and everyone thought I should marry her. I was not yet divorced from my first wife, and yet here I’m in love with this girl. Well, I knew I could not be happy in this relationship of marriage if it caused any distress to my dancing partner. Yet, I postponed and postponed the joy of mine by not doing something about it, not acting. One night I said to myself, “If I am now blissfully happy in this new relationship of marriage, then it could not be really a happy state if I knew that my dancing partner was injured in any way by this act of mine. So I will simply forget all of that and assume that I am blissfully happy, which would include that she’s happy.” I did it night after night for six nights. And then she confronted me and told me she didn’t know how to tell me, she didn’t want to hurt me, but I was to her like a brother. She couldn’t think of me in terms of her husband and that she had found a doctor—she mentioned his name, a friend of mine, a very dear friend of mine—and that she and this doctor had been, well, lovers for the longest while and that she hoped one day to marry him, and she thought I should know it now. Well, here I had been going for the longest while not wanting to hurt her and she not wanting to hurt me, and we both robbed each other of the joy that was really in store for us.781 ¶6

So he told his mother of this story. He said, “I saw in her eyes a certain glimmer of interest, so I said it over and over in the hope that she would actually apply it. But she didn’t tell me when she left here that she was going to apply it. So what I did was this, I imagined that she had done it and done it successfully. So I imagined that she had applied this principle towards that end and that she had been most successful in the application of the principle.” Then a telephone call came that…she didn’t mention what the father did, but he did something to outrage the neighbors. It was something that really outraged the entire neighborhood. And then she said to him, “I must make a decision,” and her decision was to move. Then he said to her, “I’ve decided, too. I’m going back to my home fifty miles from here, from which I originally came.” Then came a letter, which he enclosed to me, in which he told me that she saw the place—he has a beautiful room, and she saw the meals he’s having, and so he has wonderful meals and living in a beautiful room. Now for the first time in twenty-five years without the man dying she can have her own lovely apartment and do what she’s been wanting to do for the last twenty-five years.781 ¶7

So, you see, you hurt no one when you apply this law and really act. “God only acts and is in all existing beings or men.” So he has found God, definitely found God, for he found the cause of the phenomena of life. And back here, I think he knows it tonight, that whatever that grandfather did, whatever he did—he could have done something that if he were not ninety-five could possibly it would go very hard with him today—he may, I don’t know. But you know who did it?—the one back here. He wasn’t quite sure that the mother did it, and so he was taking no chances, and so he imagined that the mother had imagined herself in this new wonderful place, and that it was successful. And so, now that thing was causal. And everything that had to take place to bring about the fulfillment of that imaginal act took place, including a man performing some kind of an act or saying something or doing something that outraged the neighbors. Now you judge the act and the old gentleman would be harshly judged, and yet he was compelled. For every outer act moves under compulsion, and that compelling force is in man as an imaginal act. It’s the only creative force and that is God. “By him all things were made and without him was not made anything that is made.”781 ¶8

So you’ve found God in that wonderful act; therefore, why go elsewhere when you’ve found exactly how this thing works? When you know what you want, you hurt no one; you simply go to the end. But, may I tell you, you may cause many things to be, well, on the surface, to be very distressing. Not to you alone but to others, and sometimes never to you. But that’s why in the end you’ll understand the words, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” For everyone is acting in a way he doesn’t really know why he’s doing it. He thinks he initiated it; he doesn’t, he’s under compulsion, because someone removed not only in space, removed in time, is treading out the winepress and they’re only instruments to bring about the fulfillment of that unseen imaginal act.781 ¶9

So here, he has shared with me that I in turn may share with you. I am convinced that if you take me seriously and do it, I will get before I close on the 26th of May one hundred percent. I will have everyone who could testify to the truth of God’s law, I mean that seriously. I don’t mean ninety-nine percent, I mean 100%. If you treat it seriously and act: “God only acts and is in all existing beings or men” and if he starts with the premise that with men things are impossible but with God all things are possible. They couldn’t understand how a rich man, who is denied the right to enter the kingdom of heaven because he couldn’t—“it’s easier for the camel to go through the needle’s eye.” And then they asked him, “Then who can get the kingdom of heaven?” His reply was, “With men, it’s impossible; but with God all things are possible.” So now you know that you can’t conceive of something…no one can tell you something that you can’t imagine. No one has ever gone to the sun, but can’t you imagine it? No one has ever gone beyond the sun, beyond our sphere into some other sphere altogether, but can’t you imagine it? There’s nothing you can’t imagine, therefore, all things are possible with God. Therefore, God must be my capacity to imagine…that’s God. And if I try it and it proves itself in the testing, then I have found him. I try it again and it proves itself in performance, so I have confirmed that I have found him. Then I share it with others and they try it and it works. Then we have found him, haven’t we?781 ¶10

So I say, we can get from this group here 100% success that you can actually testify to the truth of God’s law. I’d be satisfied and thrilled if one percent could testify to the truth of God’s Promise. But that is unconditional…not a thing you can do about it, it just happens. But you can do everything about testing his law, because his law is conditional: We are the operant power. For when it comes to his Promise…that is something that thrills me beyond measure when I hear anyone confirm the Promise.781 ¶11

So now let me share with you what was given to me in the same letter. He said, “Last week I began to write you a letter.” He was going to tell me how about a month ago he met God. He said, “It was then, at that meeting, soon after that meeting, that I began to write to you. But my experience in meeting God is not identical to yours. First of all, there was no meeting of an infinite might, only love…a mixture of light, joy and love; that was the mixture.” He said, “Unlike your experience it was not a person, but fuse with it I did. And after so many years of being confused, it was a thrilling relief to be fused, for a change.”781 ¶12

So he met God. Even though he didn’t see God presented in bodily form, he was fused with God. You know what fusion is? Where things are gathered together and actually gathered together as though by melting. That’s an actual experience: you are fused with God and no power in eternity could ever put you apart. Read the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans. No power in the world could ever, after such a fusion, ever bring about a separation of you two. And therefore, when we are fused with God we have the same body, that same glorious body of God. And, here we have unity and equality in diversity. He and I do not look alike, we’re both men, I’m older, but we do not look alike, and yet we are both fused with the same body of God. So here we have equality in that body, we have union in that body, and yet diversity. That’s the great mystery: when all are gathered together, one by one, not collectively but one by one into the body of God. And eventually all will be in that one body, and it’s our body, and the individual’s body. That’s your resurrected glorious body. You can’t describe it.781 ¶13

In this man’s case it appeared to him as a mixture of light, that’s right, of joy, that’s certainly right, of love, absolutely right…so all mixed together. But it was not a person. It did not come and present itself in bodily form. In my own case, it was just as described in the 7th chapter in the Book of Daniel, the Ancient of Days, right before me. Clothed as he’s clothed, looking just as he’s described, and I’m presented to him as described in that book. And the very open book as described in that chapter was present. Only three characters stand out in my mind; there were others, but three stand out. Infinite might…and they’re sitting in what I would call a carriage drawn by the most glorious horses. And then, a woman, an ideal, like an angel, like a recording angel, writing at a table and an open book, as told us in the Bible. She wasn’t composing, she was recording, the most glorious angelic being but woman, just simply recording. Then I’m presented to the Ancient of Days and it is infinite love.781 ¶14

In this same chapter, they speak of the animal, the beast that was slain. It doesn’t tell you how it was slain. That was an experience of mine that came about the same time. It wasn’t the same night, but whether that experience preceded this presentation or followed it, it was not too long before or after. But that was the beast. And may I tell you I’ll share with you how the beast is slain. It is not said how the beast was slain, but love that night slew the beast. For here, I found myself in the presence of the most horrible monster, and then I looked up and this glorious being, not unlike the recording angel of that vision of the night. The same person, really, only this one was standing and looking at me; and this one was down below and calling this glorious creature “Mother.” As this hairy animal, hair from the head to the toe, like an ape, and the hair was reddish, sort of a reddish brown, and as it called this glorious woman, “Mother,” I banged it. And then it kept on calling it, “Mother, Mummy,” and I pummeled it, I was so annoyed with it.781 ¶15

And it gloated. It spoke and it gloated in my blows, violent blows, as though it were a masochist. It simply loved to be beaten. And then, something on the inside of me, from the very depths of my soul, knew—I can’t tell you I heard a voice—but I knew that that was my creation and so was she. Both are my creations. She embodied every noble thought that I have ever entertained, and it embodied every ignoble, horrible, monstrous thing I have ever entertained, and both were my offspring. I knew that if this monstrous hairy beast had no right to exist, that I was the cause of its existence. I pledged myself—there was no one to whom I could turn—I didn’t pledge with another, all with myself. I swore to myself that if it took me eternity I would redeem it.781 ¶16

I had no sooner made the decision to redeem it, regardless of the cost to me in pain or in time; and when my decision was made—without anyone looking on, so it was all within me—before my very eyes it melted. I have never in my life felt such compassion for anything as I did for this. No hate, nothing but sheer compassion, that I could bring into this world such a monstrous thing and allow it to live when it really shouldn’t live. I didn’t kill it in the sense of cutting off its head. I had compassion for it. And because it was the embodiment of all of my misspent energies, as it melted before my eyes leaving not a trace behind it, all the energies that I saw embodied there came back to me. They actually came through me. I have never felt so powerful in my life.781 ¶17

Everything that throughout the centuries, how long I don’t know, unnumbered ages went into this monstrous creature. Invisible to me with my mortal frame of it, it whispered into my ear repetition of the deeds that fatten it, on which it would grow. So any opportunity to “take advantage of” would be encouraged by the whispering of this unseen monster that I, myself, had created. And every attempt to be noble in my world came, and encouragement would come, from this noble creature that I had created. And so, at that very moment then I discovered what I had done with sheer energy; for I gave it life, I brought it into being. It was my dweller on the threshold, and I faced it one night and sheer compassion wilted it, and it melted before my eyes and vanished. But in vanishing, all the energies—they weren’t dissipated—they returned to me who had put them into that horrible monstrous form.781 ¶18

So the beast spoken of in that chapter…and you’ll find it in Revelation, you’ll find it in many chapters. The open book you find in many chapters, all through the Psalms, Isaiah. These are true visions. And so, he did not see the human form, but he was fused with the same being, for that being is love. When you fuse with it, the joy is beyond the wildest dreams. So he felt joy and life…you can’t measure the life. For, “In the Father there is life, and as the Father has life in himself so he’s granted the Son also to have life in himself” . So fusion with it; the Father, he’s become the Son who is one with the Father, and, therefore, has life in himself. So I can say to him, that in this fusion there is no Jew, no Greek, no slave, no free, no male, no female, only one in Christ Jesus. And all the powers of the world can not ever divorce you from that fusion. He’s one with it. So I can’t tell him the thrill that was mine when I got that letter and began to read it.781 ¶19

He said in his letter—which is irrelevant for the evening but still it’s part of the picture—he was writing a story when his wife happened by and said, “Oh God, what, another letter to Neville? You want to monopolize all the meetings?” She said, “Read it.” She didn’t say it unkindly…at least, not too unkindly…and so, he said, “I promised at the moment that I would delay writing any more letters for the next few weeks. But Mother’s note came this morning and because I had mentioned it to you in a previous letter, I thought I should share with you the conclusion, and that you tell others as I have told you.”781 ¶20

So I want to thank him and I want to ask her, please don’t stop him from writing anymore letters! So everyone, I want to get the letters and really get them in. I say everyone can bring me letters on the condition, which is the law. I hope most of you can send me something comparable to that fusion. For now that’s done, they could shoot him now, chop off his head, and they can do nothing to separate him from the love of God. He was called into that state; he didn’t earn it any more than I did. What was God’s secret of his elective love that night when he was, about a month ago, when he was called? He was called and he saw love, only love, for God is only love, really. But the love is so ecstatic you can’t deny the joy that is with it. And you can’t deny the life that you feel when you are fused with it, you can’t. But in that union, oh, what joy! what life! So all of the qualities he expressed perfectly.781 ¶21

I still say to him, it may be this night, who knows, that you will see him, presented just as the 7th chapter of Daniel presents him. Just as Daniel presents him that’s exactly what he looked like to me. And then you are that Son of man who is brought and presented to the Ancient of Days. The recording angel, yes, she’s there. Infinite might, yes, he’s there. They do not look alike, but you can’t deny infinite might when you stand in his presence.781 ¶22

It was infinite might who sent me, and the words ringing in my ears were the words, “Time to act.” Time to act…I had to discover how to act. It was time to act. “Drink no more water; take a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your many afflictions.” I had been absorbing, absorbing, absorbing all the psychological truth I could get by attending all the lectures, reading all the books, and going mad trying to adjust the conflicts with all the so-called different aspects of Truth. And the words are, “Drink no more water; take a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your many afflictions.” Certainly wasn’t to take wine in a physical sense—although I must confess I enjoy it—but that was not the suggestion. Wine is how to apply it. You’ve been absorbing the psychological truth; that’s symbolized by water. So I filled myself ’til I almost became waterlogged. And now, don’t take any more, start to apply it by drinking a little wine: put it into practice.781 ¶23

I then had to put it into practice, and putting it into practice I found God. For if by him all things are made and without him was not anything made that was made, and I found out what I did and how I got something in result, well then, I’ve found him. I tried it again and it worked again. I kept on trying it, sometimes a long delay, sometimes shorter. I can’t quite bring it down to the point of why the delay, other than it’s not a delay, it is simply the seed takes a different interval of growth, interval of time. One would come over night, one would come while I’m doing it, and some would come the next day, the next month, the next year.781 ¶24

But, looking back, as I told you a week ago tonight, a story from which I have [...], and I tried to explain that night that I was the cause of her misfortune. The things she did for which she was criticized and sentenced and suspended, I did it. Had I not done the imaginal act, she would not have done what she did; and if she did do it, she would not have been discovered in the act.781 ¶25

But she had to be discovered because she had to come forward that I could serve her with papers. She was hidden in the eight-odd million people in the city of New York. There are over eight million. Buried in that enormous crowd, how are you going to find her when she leaves her address and gives no forwarding address? But she had to be found even as like a needle in a haystack. She had to come out of hiding, because I had performed an act. Performing the act I compel her to perform a certain act for which society condemns her. So, who did the act? I did it.781 ¶26

And so, I only told the story to show you, don’t judge anyone harshly. You may be the very one treading the winepress that is causing that act, then you now sit in judgment and condemn. But when you awaken you will say exactly what is said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” They’re all moved under compulsion. You awake, you are moving from the inside, and that’s self-determining. You know exactly what you are doing, and you watch what you are doing on the inside, and you do it constructively, lovingly.781 ¶27

But even a loving act as it was in his case—he loves his mother and wanted her to be free of a burden. He didn’t want that grandfather to die, but he wasn’t concerned as to how the mother would be set free. But he knew from the story that you’ve heard that if he felt her joy in her new home that something would happen without hurt to her. Well, the old gentleman did something that outraged the neighbors. And that she said to me…“Mother has not yet mentioned what he did, and as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t really matter what the old gentleman did. He could have done one in a thousand different things that would have caused the neighbors to rise and in some great fiery [...] against him.” It doesn’t really matter. But the cause of whatever he did was fifteen hundred miles removed in an imaginal act of a son who so loved his mother he wanted her to be free from this horrible burden that she’d carried for twenty-five years.781 ¶28

So I tell you, everyone do it and then share with me. But bear in mind God only acts and is. He is not a passive spectator at this passage of history, he is the supreme actor, the supreme actor. So in everyone God is acting, and he’s acting every time you sit down and imagine a thing with faith. That’s how God acts. If you imagine and think, oh, well, that that’s nothing, that isn’t real, well then, you’ve already cancelled it at the very moment of saying that it was unreal.781 ¶29

Do you recall the story we told you quoted from the great Carl Jung that only when he credited the fantasy with reality did the thing work? For you who were not here, Carl Jung who died in ’61, and the book came out in ’61, which is really a form of biography. And this night he was contemplating the death of a friend whose funeral he had attended that day—the man had died suddenly without warning the day before and was buried that very day—when Jung, in his bed, was seriously considering the man and his present state. Whether Jung believed in the afterlife or not is irrelevant to the story. But he’s contemplating the friend and suddenly he senses the presence of the friend at the foot of his bed.781 ¶30

As a great scientist he said to himself, “Well, I know [...]. I know, I went to his funeral, the man is dead so he can’t really be here.” Then he arrested his thoughts. He said, “What right have I? Wouldn’t that be the most abominable thing to do to a friend! If the friend were here, and I treated him as though he were not, and I was indifferent to him, wouldn’t that be a horrible thing to do to a friend! So now I will credit him with reality.”781 ¶31

And so the minute he decided to credit him with reality and assumed he was there and real, the friend became very, very real in his Imagination, turned around, walked through the door and beckoned him to follow, which he did. As he followed through the door the friend went through the garden and he in his Imagination followed onto the street. And then the friend walked several hundred yards up to his home, where now only the widow lived, and he, in his Imagination, followed the friend. He went to the friend’s home, the friend went right through the first room into his library, mounted a little stool that was there, up to the second shelf from the top, and pointed out four volumes bound in red. Then he pointed to the second volume. And then, as he pointed to the second volume—and that was the one he wanted to bring Jung’s attention to—he disappeared. And, of course, Jung broke the spell…back on his bed.781 ¶32

The next day, he physically went to the home and asked the widow for permission to see the library. As he entered the library here is the little stool that was in his vision of the night before. He mounted the stool and there, second shelf from the top, are four volumes in red. He picked up the second volume and its title, the title of it The Legacy of the Dead, Zola’s translation into the German, Zola’s work translated from the French into the German. But it was titled The Legacy of the Dead. That’s all the man wanted to convey to Jung.781 ¶33

Jung, the great giant in the mind, might believe that with the dissolution of the brain there is no man. He might, because Freud believed that and he was Freud’s great student. So many psychiatrists believe that without the brain there is no being, no entity; it vanishes with the dissolution of the brain. How they can conclude that I don’t know, but many of them do. Well, Jung might have been on that verge. Well, here is a man who is dead now—he went to the funeral—he returns to convince him of the reality of a post-death state, and takes him to the place and points out a book where the title bears a great significance, The Legacy of the Dead. And so, Jung could take that in 1944, I think that happened; but he would not allow it to go into print until after his death. He died in ’61 and the book came out in ’61 after Jung himself had made his exit from this world.781 ¶34

So the story is that when he gave reality to the so-called unreal state it became so real it could guide him to show the reality of an after-death state. So if you would now imagine something and give to it a same credit of reality, the thing would then become embodied and become real in your world. You can’t take an imaginal act and treat it as unreal. Take your imaginal act and treat it as reality. Really believe it’s real and have faith in the unseen reality, that it will externalize itself in your world. So you take it and try it. And trying it, I know from experience you’ll prove it. And then, if you’re not the one in ten, or if you’re not the nine, I should say, you’ll write me a letter. Because not everyone who gets it ever writes a letter. And may I tell you, it doesn’t really matter how well you write. If you just can barely print but you can’t express yourself in writing, tell me in the first person. I want to hear it that I may in turn share it, as I’ve been sharing this gentleman’s story with you.781 ¶35

But when I read the beginning of that letter…and he started the letter that he may explain to me how a month ago he met God, and then drew the story so vividly. It was not a parallel of mine—although I did meet infinite love and permitted myself to speak from that—he met love only. It wasn’t infinite might. That doesn’t matter. Might is but an aspect, an attribute of God. God is infinite love. Almightiness and omniscience they’re only attributes of God. But God himself is all love. So you are fused not with almightiness—that’s an attribute he’ll use—you’re fused with the reality and that’s God. So he’s right, he was fused with love. And when you’re fused with love you can’t deny it’s a delight, sheer joy that is present, and the sheer life that you feel…life in yourself.781 ¶36

Now having had that experience I can prophesy for him: All the things that I have told in my books that I’ve had as mystical experience happened after that experience. And so, he can look forward to all these experiences. Where he’ll come upon a scene like this and he will know, for now there’s life in him, and he will arrest an activity in him and arrest as it’s seen on the screen. He will arrest it and not a thing can move while he holds it still within him. Then he’ll release it; then all will continue on its way. And he will prove for himself that he has life in himself. That’s going to happen to him, as surely as I’m standing here. For everything that I have recorded happens after the fusion with God. Early dreams as a child, they were all preliminary, preparatory; but that was really the beginning of it all, that fusion with God.781 ¶37

And the night that I was called and brought into that state I certainly didn’t expect it. If anyone had told me that very day of coming in the very presence of God and seeing God as man, I might have smiled, I might have. Therefore I can’t blame anyone who smiles when I tell them that I met God, and God in presenting himself to me presented himself in the human form. And that the human form is truly love divine, it’s all love. And the fusion is so intense it’s a melting right in him, without loss of identity. So, every one of us will be one day united in that body, so we will have union and equality and diversity…no loss of identity whatsoever.781 ¶38

So you hear this night that God only acts. I do not know your background, not all of you, your religious background, what you believe in. As far as I am concerned, true religion is really a devotion to the most exalted reality of which one has experience. So this experience of this gentleman with the fusion with God is something he could never forget. And no priest in this world, or rabbi in this world, could in any way divorce him from that union. He will listen like a gentleman, occasionally, to any argument they have to present, but they could never persuade him to give up the notion. It’s not a notion. This is a reality beyond anything that one who has not had it could ever conceive. So you couldn’t present any argument to divert a man after the union with God. You will allow any argument, listen to it carefully, but you can’t listen to the point of being deflected. First of all, you can’t get out of the union; you’re part of God. Fused with God, you could never in eternity ever be separated from God. There’s no power in the world that could do it, because God is more powerful. And no power could take you out of the body of God, after you’re invited into it and fuse with it.781 ¶39

So tonight, you take that. At least one person here, others have told me too, they’re all coming towards the grand, really, the only end, which is the fulfillment of God’s promise. But, that you must wait for and wait for it patiently. He said, “Wait for the promise of the Father.” Just wait, because you can’t earn it. When it comes it’s a gift, a complete gift. And then all the other things, they’ll come with it.781 ¶40

But in the meanwhile, his law being conditional, you need not remain as you are if you don’t like what you are for one second beyond hearing the law. You can take the law this night knowing who God is. If God is doing it and all things are possible to God, well, then it’s done. I don’t care what it is, it’s done if it’s all God doing it. If a “little” you is doing it and you take someone you know, can’t do it.781 ¶41

But the minute you know that imaginal acts are God’s acts; that God actually became you that you may become God and that you are all Imagination; and God and you are one, therefore, if he actually became you and he acts in you—the only thing in you that is completely…that you could say all things are possible to it, is your Imagination. You can’t think of anything in this world outside of your Imagination that you can say of it “with it all things are possible” because almost everything else is impossible. You think of the things that you would like to do, and how many things are impossible if you take the little you of flesh and blood; but take yourself as Imagination, can’t you imagine anything in this world, but anything? If you can imagine it and actually accept the imaginal act as fact and wait in confidence that the imaginal act has all the power necessary and the plan wrapped within itself to externalize itself.781 ¶42

And while he was here, 1,500 miles away, this imaginal act was taking the old gentleman and making him do something that would outrage the entire neighborhood. The old gentleman and his daughter would be totally unaware that an unseen imaginal act was cause of his behavior. Because they would say, “What on earth is he doing?” Or, “what, in a household of that sort, with a daughter who is so gracious and so noble, and to have a father like that, how could he possibly do it?” We would judge him harshly. The real culprit, if there’s a culprit, was hidden 1,500 miles away. And he did it through love. He so loved his mother he wanted his mother free and be separated without killing the grandfather.781 ¶43

And so, you do it this way. Do it in love. Every time you exercise your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another as he did, you’re mediating God to that other. And so, he mediated God to his mother, and only that act of the grandfather would have forced her to the decision.781 ¶44

So she told him, “I have to make a decision and I’m going to move.” Then he comes forward and says, “I’ll make a decision, too. I am moving, I am moving back to my home of my origin, really, fifty miles from here. Well, that’s near enough, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not the only ones [...].” Fifty miles is a long way to walk at ninety-five years. And so she can go visit him and see him, and leave him just where he is with his friends. All the meals are good, she said in her letter, for I read her letter. He was very gracious and loaned his mother’s letter to me, and just as I’ve told you what he told me the mother told him. And he need not be that curious to find out what he did…that is unimportant. Whatever he did he outraged the people to the point where something had to be done, and a move was in order, and the move became a fact.781 ¶45

So, I’m asking you to take me seriously. And when you sit down this night in the Silence or when you go home and you are with yourself and gathered together and you imagine anything, do it lovingly. Of a friend, do it lovingly and believe it’s done! That’s God in action and with God all things are possible. You don’t have to aid it, leave it alone. It’s going to actually move itself through all, and all things being interwoven they will take anyone in the world that it can use to embody itself.781 ¶46

And, therefore, forgive all when you become the man or the woman you want to be. All those who seemingly tried to oppose you on your forward motion were aiding you, but you didn’t know it. Therefore, forgive them all in the end. A bird couldn’t fly unless opposed, a fish couldn’t swim unless opposed, a plane couldn’t take off, you couldn’t walk, nothing in this world could really move unless opposed. So if you have opponents, then they’re only playing the part. Because you dared to assume that you are the man, the woman, that you want to be, they had to come to give the necessary opposition. Without that you wouldn’t move.781 ¶47

Now let us go into the Silence.781 ¶48