I think you’ll find this a very practical night. I must incorporate certain things that I might have missed through the years. I tell you this because a very dear friend of ours — he’s not here tonight. He just — had he known that I was closing on the last leg tonight, which is tonight rather than the last Friday of the month, he would have been here. But he said, “I’m greatly disturbed over something you said just about two weeks ago,” and that is about the ranks, the heavenly ranks, the heavenly ranks, and he said, “I will not give up my divine right, my power, to anyone. I will not make others little that I may seem to myself superior.” I said I might have misunderstood you, and I wish you would answer this from your platform, and I will get a tape from someone and hear your answer to my question. For I spoke of the ranks, the spiritual ranks.1092 ¶1

I will not retract one word. He failed to see the difference between the individual and the state in which that individual was for that moment. There’s a vast difference between states and the immortal you. The immortal man is God. Man is all imagination. And God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. God is playing all the parts. God alone acts and is in existing beings or men. There is only one actor in the world. There is only one author. It is God. And that God of whom I speak is your own wonderful human imagination. That is the operant power in the world. If I speak of your God, the chances are you will think of an existent someone outside of yourself. But if I speak of your imagination, I am certain you will think only of yourself. For that is the God of whom I speak. Playing all the parts.1092 ¶2

And the lowest part is the multiple tongues. We’re not linguists, but we’re all speaking our language — two hundred million of us — and find it difficult to understand each other, because we are moving towards a prejudice, a superstition, a fixed idea. And so we may say anything, but we have to get through that barrier, even though we are talking the same language, using the same English tongue. So here, let me start with a quote from the eighth chapter of Nehemiah. “And they read from the law of God, with interpretation, and the people understood the reading.” They read it with interpretation and the people understood the reading. Paul claims in his letter — the first letter to the Corinthians, you’ll find it in the 14th chapter — “I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may instruct others, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” Five words just to instruct others. Well, that has been my hope since I started teaching back in 1938 — to make it so clear that there is no misunderstanding.1092 ¶3

Let me state it clearly now. The spiritual states of the soul are eternal. You do not change them. You pass through them like a traveler. And you start at the very lowest, the tongues, the confusion of tongues called Babel in scripture, where we do not understand each other and so we war over strange confusions. The second one is the administrator, the organizer — you organize the confused states for personal gain, that is the second. And then Paul goes up to eight. He finds the last one, the apostle. Now, the one who played the part in the very lowest is still the same one who is going to play it when he is called as an apostle. I’m sent to tell the true story. The same being. Do not identify with the state called the apostle. While he is in it, he is going to play that part, but he is not that. He is the immortal self, which is the same one seated right here in everyone who is here. So the judge and the one that he is judging are both played by the same being, and that being the world calls God. But they do not know he is the only actor in the world. Only one actor. God only acts and is in existing beings or men.1092 ¶4

You and I, learning how to create — we create states to deliver others forevermore. But what we can make we can unmake, so we do not make permanent states. We create a state and take a fragment of what he was expressing and put it into the state that we create for him. So, tell me what you want. All right, you named it clearly. It’s up to me now to create the state and put you in that state. What would it be like if he were now what I wish he were? I try to persuade myself that you are that being. To the degree that I am self-persuaded that you are, I have put you in that state. And in that state, while I am faithful to it and you are in it, you are going to externalize the contents of that state. But what I made, I can unmake. I cannot unmake the eternal states. These eternal states are all within the human imagination. They culminate in redemption, and redemption is preceded by apostleship. That’s when you are called, and the word apostle means one who is sent.1092 ¶5

So I am finding myself in a state where I’m called. The night I was called, back in 1929, I had no idea I had arrived at that state. But here I am, called into the presence of infinite love, and it’s man. Having answered his question correctly, that love was the greatest thing in the world. He embraced me and we fused and became one body, one spirit. For he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with the Lord. At that moment it was not enough to be called and to be incorporated into the body of God, but to be sent on a mission. And I did not know that mission until it unfolded itself within me, and it took thirty years. Thirty years later, suddenly it erupted within me, and the entire story of Jesus unfolded itself within me, casting me in the central role of the story. And then I knew who I am. Then I knew who the one called Jesus of the story is. He is the culminating point of God in man. So when man actually completes the journey and comes to the fullness of it all, he discovers he is the one he’s been seeking all through his journey. But he comes to that at the very end.1092 ¶6

So do not let him brag. Do not let him boast that he is an apostle. Apostle is a permanent state. He is infinitely greater than all the states. He created these, and they are permanent within man, within the human imagination. But when he arrives at that state, it’s the last of the journey. And then he awakens and he knows who he is. And these experiences give him the certainty that he is God. He reads now the word that he read when he was a child. And before he could read it, his mother read it to him. And then he went to school and he read it in school. And when he could read for himself, he picked up the book. He couldn’t quite understand it, but he read it. Now he reads it as something entirely different. He knows the book is all about himself. It’s not about any being but God. And he’s found God within himself. And he is God. But that God of whom I speak is your own wonderful human imagination.1092 ¶7

Now tonight, to show you how easy this thing is — it’s based purely upon motion. The first creative act in Scripture that is recorded: “And the Spirit of the Lord moved.” He moved. Well, the Spirit of the Lord is in man. Do you not realize that ye are the temple of the living God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you, as we are told? He dwells in me — where? As my own wonderful human imagination. Now I go back to see how he first created. He created by emotion.1092 ¶8

I move from one state into another state. If it is a state desired, then I have a sense of relief when I get into the state desired. If tonight I was up against it financially, and then suddenly I came into a fortune, what would be the outstanding feeling that I would have? Would it not be relief? So I insist, of all the pleasures that man could ever experience in this world, relief is the most keenly felt. The child is late. You say, be home at ten o’clock. So, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, and there is no child. You think you are in control. You love her dearly and you think you’re in control. Oh yes, I can control my mind, my imagination, it’s easy. But then comes eleven, and there is no child. And internally you conjure a thousand and one things that could happen. Then you hear the little knock on the door, or the key in the door, and she comes through the door. What is your emotion? One of relief. Just one of relief. So of all the pleasures of the world, relief is the most keenly felt. It comes in the creative act. Relief — call it by another name if you will — but it is relief at that moment of explosion.1092 ¶9

But the same thing is true when I move into a state. What would the feeling be like if it were true? And I work myself into that state as though it is true. If I am in that state I can suppress — I have the sense of relief because I’ve done it. Now what do I do after that? Nothing. Remain in the state. It has its own appointed hour, and it ripens, and it’s going to flower. Don’t be concerned, you’re in the state. Now let it unfold itself in its own wonderful natural way, past finding out. So I move myself into a state. I don’t remain in the state that I want to leave behind me and push a button and think something is going to happen. I move. I move from one state into another state.1092 ¶10

But these states I am creating — I do not consciously move in these spiritual states. They are automatically determined by my journey in this world, so no one can sit down and conjure the spiritual state; if you think he is going to, he’s only kidding himself.1092 ¶11

These happen automatically as man, who is God, moves through these eternal spiritual states, completely marked out in the twelfth chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians. And you are not going to change them. So I say to my friend, when he hears this, I do not intend to set myself up as someone who is other than you, better than you. I have reached a state called the apostle. I was called and incorporated into the body of the living God. He is a living God. He is not the God of the dead. Nothing dies in God, everything is alive. Today millions went to the cemeteries. They aren’t there. That’s an organized big business, completely organized on the fears of people. That’s not where anyone goes. You drop now — all right, maybe they’ll put you away tomorrow, maybe in a week from now — but at that very moment you are restored to life, in a world just like this, real just like this, and the unfinished work you’re going to finish it. No one is going to fail, because God is the operant power, and God is that individual’s human imagination, and he’s moving towards self-redemption, and he goes through these states. Infinite states.1092 ¶12

But you and I, we’re intelligent enough to create a state. So someone comes to you and says, “You know, I do not know exactly what I want, but I don’t like what I have.” All right, let him tell you what he has. Well, you wouldn’t like it either, if you listen carefully. No, I wouldn’t like that either. Well, let us reason together. What would you like? Would you like this? Would you like that? And then he comes upon something he would like. Well, then, if you are a friend of his, you create a state to deliver your friend from his former state.1092 ¶13

And so you see him in that state. Well, how do you do it? Bring before your mind’s eye your friend, and have your friend with a nice big smile on his face, and have him actually thanking you for what you did for him. Now the thing has not happened yet, but you go beyond the present moment, and you are appropriating now subjectively the objective hope. You hope he will stand before you objectively with a smile on his face, and you hope you’re going to hear his words. And the words you’re going to hear is, “Oh, thank you so much. It worked just like a charm. You know, when I saw you the last time, I was up against it. Today, it’s simply rolling and rolling in my direction. Everything is perfect.” That’s what you want to hear for a friend. Well, now you hear that. So if you’re hearing that, you move him out of his former state into the state that you have now created for him. Do this and you cannot fail.1092 ¶14

So prayer is not petition. Prayer is giving thanks. You don’t get on your knees and petition any being outside of yourself. There is no intermediary between yourself and self. You need no priest. You need no so-called healer. You need nothing on the outside. It’s all within self. What would the feeling be like if it were true? With that, I catch that feeling, and then I work myself into that state. What would it be like? All right, I know what it would be like. Well, feel it, and keep on feeling it, and keep on feeling it, until all of a sudden, you’re relieved. There’s a release within you. And then it’s done. You can’t do it a second time. It’s done.1092 ¶15

So I say, I’m looking at the world from a spot. At every moment in time, I’m always viewing the world from a place. That place could be from a financial position in my world. It could be from a physical position in my world. It could be, you name it. I’m looking from a certain state, and I’m seeing confirmation of that state by what I am seeing. Now, how will I know that I have moved? Well, it’s a very simple test to know that I have moved. Unless there is a fixed frame of reference, no one will know that something moved. If I started moving from here to the end of the room, and everything started moving with me at the same time, I have no reference to prove that I have moved. Motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to a fixed object. It must be fixed relative to me, that I may know that I have moved. But all my friends know where I am, who I am, what I am. If I desire a change, my friends, my fixed reference, they should know it. So I don’t ask anything of them. I simply assume that I have changed. But if I have changed, then I have a fixed reference — the faces of my friends. Now let me conjure them in my mind’s eye, and let me look at them. Do they see me as a changed person? Or are they still seeing the one who would like to be changed? Are they congratulating me on my change? Well, then I’ve changed. I saw it reflected in their faces. I heard it in their voices. I saw a change on their faces, which change revealed to me that they noticed in me a change. That’s what I want. Now, that proved that I moved.1092 ¶16

Nobody saw me move physically. I’m still seated in the same chair. But I moved. And so the whole thing is based upon motion. It’s a psychological motion. We’re living in a world of imagination, and this whole vast out-pictured world was first imagined. There is nothing you see here that wasn’t first imagined. And yet, close as he is, you still can’t find him. Why? Why can’t I find him as something objective? Because he is the reality I call imagination. I see the fruits of my imaginal acts, but I do not see the actor as I see the outpouring of his activity, for he is the reality I call imagination — that is God. That’s the one. When you completely awaken you’re going to know that’s what man basically is hungering for: the awakening of imagination, which is the awakening of God within him. That is the only God of which the Bible speaks. There is no other God.1092 ¶17

“I will go down to the potter’s house.” And I went down to the potter’s house, as the Lord said to me. And there he was working at his wheel, and the vessel in his hand was spoiled. But he didn’t discard it. He reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Now that’s the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, which word Jeremiah means “Jehovah will rise.” He’ll rise, all right. He’ll rise in you as you, because he is you. There’s no one else to awaken but God, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. And the word potter in Hebrew means imagination. It means to determine. That’s what the word actually means by definition in Strong’s Biblical Concordance — it means the potter, which means imagination. So I go down to imagination’s place, where he’s working at his wheel. What potter? My own imagination. “What are you doing, Neville?” “Well, I’m just spending a few minutes here, there, and...” “Well, then, it’s spoiled. You will admit what you are doing isn’t quite what you want done. Don’t discard it. Rework it.”1092 ¶18

Reworked, up against it — will he be satisfied, say, with X number of dollars? No, don’t limit it. Put no limit upon the power of belief. Can you believe that he doesn’t have that pressure on him anymore, that he’s above it, that it is something behind him? Well, put him in that state. It doesn’t cost you any more to put him in that state than to put him in a little modified state. You didn’t pay anything for it. “Come, eat and drink without price. Buy wine, buy milk without money.” It didn’t cost you a penny to do it, so why modify it? Why make it little for him? It’s not exactly what he would want for himself — it’s better than what he has. But you want something bigger than that for him. And there is no limit.1092 ¶19

When you meet people of great wealth in this world, and you’ll judge them because they have money, just talk to them for a little while. Money hasn’t altered their other states. They’re just as stupid as they were before. In fact, I’ve gone to parties where this one was a millionaire, that’s a millionaire, that’s so-and-so, and then the lady would point out another one: “See that one? Oh, she’s not just rich, she’s stinking rich” — in her language that meant multiple millions. And if you walk out of that place — I’m speaking of a club, I will not mention the name, a club in New York City, a ladies’ club — they’re all multimillionaires. Walk out on the street, but don’t leave, just walk out and stay there. And then watch them come out after their big heavy lunches and their three or four martinis or whatever it is, and watch them. And if you didn’t know these are members of that club with all the millions in the world, you would say to yourself, “Poor souls.” You would think maybe they came out, they’re cleaning up after the guests left. That’s exactly what they look like. But they feel they don’t have to put on anything because they’re above it all.1092 ¶20

My father would say, when they were coming — and they were very, very rich, and he ran his store, and when they all became very, very, later, with a fabulous wealth — he would turn to one of us and he would say, “You know, God is really merciful. Suppose she didn’t have money.” He never completed the thought. He left it for us to use our imagination. “Suppose she didn’t have money” — she’s a merciful goddess, he would say, and then you go on dwelling upon what your father did not complete; he wanted you to complete it.1092 ¶21

So I tell you, prayer will be answered. All prayers are answered if you know how to pray. And to pray is not to beg. You don’t petition. You give thanks. Well, you aren’t going to give thanks to something that isn’t, but you must actually believe in God, as you are told: he who comes to God must first believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek him. But you must first believe that he exists. Read that in the 11th chapter, the 6th verse of Hebrews: all who will come to God must first believe that he exists. Well, I know he exists. I hope that everyone here knows he does exist. But as Blake said, “Why stand we here trembling around, calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?” So why turn on the outside to call upon a God when he dwells in me? For he dwells in me as my imagination. So I will commune with my own imagination until I am satisfied that it is done. And you get into the habit of feeling that it’s done — the feeling of relief. And then you go about your business and let it take its own course. It will take its course and it will come out perfectly.1092 ¶22

So you don’t beg anyone. You don’t petition anyone. And it has nothing to do with so-called holiness. That is such an abused word. “He is a holy man.” May I tell you, if anyone introduces you to a person as a very holy man, turn and run. They’ll fleece you. And I’m not fooling. They come over here from India and all — you see them on the TV. Next thing you know, they’re getting $500 for a special course on people who have more money than brains. They pay all that. Then off to India he goes with his multiple fortunes that he’s simply taken from those who aren’t given to thinking. So money doesn’t care who owns it. So they have it, and so they’ll give it out to anyone who is called a holy man. Well, I have had my experience with these so-called holy men.1092 ¶23

One little fellow, you all know him, you saw him on TV, and some reporter asked him, “Why do you advertise so much? You’re always advertising, building up your own little personality, and Jesus never did.” And in the little high-pitched voice of his, he started laughing. He said, “That’s why it took him so long.” Well, I mean, after all, you sit down in your living room and you turn your little set on to listen to that nonsense. But people do it, and they pay him for it.1092 ¶24

Now here, may I tell you, you have everything that it takes to be the man, to be the woman that you want to be. Don’t pass them up. You’re right here this very night. Know what you want to be. Be definite. When you know exactly what you want to be, don’t ask anyone if it’s possible. You simply feel that you are it. What would the feeling be like if it were true? Would my wife, my husband, my friends know it? Let them know it — not verbally. Let them know it all in your imagination. Let them see you as they would have to see you if it were true. Just let them see you. And go to sleep in that assumption. For I know from my own experience that an assumption, though denied by my senses and therefore called by the world false, if persisted in, will harden into facts. That I do know. An assumption, the same simple little assumption — if you will persist in it, it will harden into facts. That is a law.1092 ¶25

How else would you interpret this statement from the 11th chapter of the book of Mark: “Whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believe that ye receive it, and ye shall have it.” How are you going to interpret that? Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and you will. No limit is placed upon the power of belief. It doesn’t even say it has to be good for you. It leaves you entirely free to make your choice and take the risk, because when you reap that state, you’re also going to reap the consequences of that state. So take your choice, but also be willing to take the consequences of the state.1092 ¶26

And you could go through life just simply knowing the states. You see a person in the gutter today, he need not be in the gutter forever. Take him out of the gutter in your mind’s eye. Here was a friend of mine, Freedom Barry, that I sent to San Francisco to teach this law. He hasn’t had the experience of the promise, so he can’t teach the promise, but he teaches the law. Before he opened, he saw a man crossing the street while he was airing his little dog. The man came over. First of all, he passed nice complimentary thoughts about the dog, which Freedom enjoyed, and then he said, “Could you let me have a little money?” And Freedom said, “I’m sorry, but I do not have any money.” A gentleman evidently, and he went his way. And Freedom, before he made one step, he remained right there on that sidewalk and saw that man gainfully employed. He said to Freedom he hadn’t worked, he was out of work. And Freedom saw him gainfully employed and felt the thrill of his employment.1092 ¶27

A month later, Freedom is out walking the little dog, and this man crosses the street, comes over to Freedom, and he said, “I don’t suppose you remember me?” And Freedom said, “Oh yes I do, very well.” He said, “Well, I want to thank you for not giving me money one month ago when I asked you. Had you given it to me, I’d be asking you for money today. But I got so mad with myself, to be placed in that position, to ask a total stranger for money, I went home determined I am going to get a job.” He didn’t know what Freedom had done, but Freedom did that which pushed him out of that state of asking for money into a state of earning it. He went out the very next day after he met Freedom and got himself a job that paid well. He said, “I’m on the job that I got the day after I asked you for money. I’m still on it, and there is room for growth in that job, and I’m sticking with the job. So again, thank you for not giving me the money.” If Freedom had done what most people would do — would have walked away and said, “No, I don’t have any money for you,” or “I don’t have money,” without explaining why — but Freedom did something about it. He put the man in an entirely different state. And having put him in a different state, the man got a job the very next day.1092 ¶28

So I say to anyone, you can try it. Don’t pass the buck, and help everyone in this world. You create states to deliver individuals evermore — these are states that you create, and you can drop them. But the other states of which I spoke earlier, the spiritual states of the soul, are forever, and no one is going to change them.1092 ¶29

But to make myself clear: when you are in the final state, the apostle, it doesn’t mean you’re better than you yourself when you’re in that multitude of confusion, for God was playing that as he’s playing the state of the apostle. But God is above all states, and are God, so you’re not an apostle forever — you play that, and that’s the final part of the journey, and you come out redeemed. When you hit that state and you know that you are the apostle, because you’re sent, and the apostle is one who is sent — it’s only then you know you’ve been chosen for a definite reason, and you’re sent to tell what’s going to happen to you. Well then, thirty years later, in my case, it happened to me that I could then speak with authority. I was not quoting anyone. I was not in any way speculating or theorizing. So when I tell you David is the Christ, I speak from authority, from experience, and therefore I speak with authority. When I tell you he is the only son, which is a resultant state of the journey you made through those eternal spiritual states — and when you hit the last one, you are born.1092 ¶30

Listen to these words. In the King James Version, and Moffatt’s Version, and others that I have at home, it’s correctly translated. The Revised Standard Version, the New English Version have added a word that confuses the entirety. This is now the 8th chapter, the 11th verse of Romans: “If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, he will also raise Christ.” Two entirely different ones. But if you say “also raise Jesus Christ,” you’re going to confuse the entire thing. So the King James Version leaves off the word Jesus when it comes to the second raising, which is Christ. And it happens just like that. Jesus comes first. It’s the I Am of man — that’s the Father. He is awakened first. Five months later, then comes David. A hundred and thirty-nine days after, the Father awakens within the sepulcher. Then comes an explosion — a hundred and thirty-nine days later, and then David stands before you. He is the resultant state.1092 ¶31

Now, when you read the Bible in the future, and I hope you all will, always bear in mind the characters mentioned there and depicted there are not individuals as you and I are. They are states of consciousness, from Adam to the very end. These are all states of consciousness. So the name signifies the state, if you know the meaning of the name. But do not think when you use the word Abraham you’re speaking of a man. As when I speak of Bill, Bill is a man, he’s an individual. It’s God wearing that mask called Bill. But when I speak of Abraham, that’s a state of consciousness. But when you meet these states of consciousness in vision, they are personified, and you see a man, but it is not man as you are man. All these are contained within the human imagination. So when you encounter Abraham, well, you’re going to see a man, and you know he’s Abraham. When you encounter David, you meet a youth, an eternal youth, but it’s a resultant state. You are above all states. You are God.1092 ¶32

Every being in this world is God, and God is one. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And never get away from that. That is fundamental. The minute you have two gods, you’re going to get confusion. Two will become four, and four eight, and eight sixteen, and you’ll get confusion in the world. Only one God. And that God is named forever, and forever is I Am. That’s the being. So when you awaken within the sepulcher, you know who awoke — I. You say, “I. I Am.” There’s no one present, just yourself, and you come out without the help of anyone. And then comes the imagery of scripture that surrounds you, bearing witness to the truth of the story. But you are cast from then on in the central role. And so everything unfolds within the imagination of man, and that is God.1092 ¶33

As you leave here, go out knowing you have the power and the right to become the man, to become the woman that you want to be, without hurting any person in this world. You don’t need to hurt anyone to gain anything in this world. You go out and play your part fully, and let no one pull any rank, for all ranks are only states of consciousness. The king and the one who is amusing him, the court jester, are both played by the same being, and that being is unseen by the two masks — the mask of the king and the mask of the court jester. For behind the mask is God, and God is simply I Am. So one plays the part of the court jester and one plays the part of the king, and we honor the mask and bow before the king, and that court jester may be nearer to apostleship. Do not judge by appearances, as you are told.1092 ¶34

When they saw this giant of a man stand before him, Samuel thought, well, certainly he is the Lord’s chosen. For the Lord said to Samuel, “Go down to the house of Jesse, for I have chosen one of his sons to be king of Israel.” And when the first son came in he was a majestic creature, and Samuel said to himself, “Surely he is the Lord’s choice.” And the Lord said, “I have rejected him. The Lord sees not what man sees; man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart.” Then he brought the second, and he brought the third, and finally he brought the last, which was David, and David was tending the flocks. Now this is all a story — you must extract the meaning from that story.1092 ¶35

So he brings the little one in. He was just a youth. And as he came in, no one thought for one moment he would be the one. And the boy came to the prophet Samuel. “Rise and anoint him. This is he.” And in the midst of his brothers Samuel anointed him with the holy oil, and then the spirit of God came upon him mightily from that day forward, never left him. Therefore he never lost the battle — the victorious one, David. So in the end he stands before you, for he played all the battles. You were the Lord of Lords with him, but you didn’t know it. And he is the Father’s only son. And then he stands before you, and he is your son. And then, and then only, do you know you are God the Father. You gain all the assurance that you need when you see David, for he is God’s son and he is your son; therefore you must be God. And that’s the story.1092 ¶36

Now, this being our last night, I suppose we go into the silence and give you ample time for questions if you have any. Good. Harry, I didn’t see this, but I could have used it an hour ago. I didn’t see it. I would have — and regretted it, too. Now, are there any questions, please?1092 ¶37

And I think you’ll find this a very interesting series. As usual, it’s all about you — but I mean the true you, your immortal self, your true identity, not the little garment that you wear, for which you are so identified that you think it to be yourself. No, I’m not speaking of that — I’m speaking of the truth, being — it has no beginning and will have no end. That’s the Bible. So our textbook is really the Bible.1090 ¶1

Biblical language evokes rather than describes. It is all about another world, and all about the sons of God who purposely, deliberately, came down into this plane — an outburst into humanity — and the plan, the promise, before ever the world was, for their return. That’s the experience, the feasting of death, for this is the world of death. So the plan is contained within you, the true you, and you are it in the mind — you think you are the man, and you without that — the man at all — it’s only a garment, like a suit of clothes that you wear.1090 ¶2

Now tonight my subject is “I Say You Are Gods.” This is taken from the 82nd Psalm. In 1888, Thomas Cheyne, who was the editor of what the dispensers considered the most scholarly of all the higher criticisms of the Bible, called the Encyclopedia Biblica, and he wrote: no poem makes severer demands than this upon the historic imagination of the interpreter — the ideas may be perennial, but their outward forms are no longer understood. Now let me quote the passage that he could not understand, and to this day, if you take the historic imagination of man, preaching the Bible as secular history, they all will blunder over what it is. “And God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he judgeth.” And now he passes the judgment: “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” But if you read it, this implies that those addressed were not men — otherwise the forecast that they would die like men would be meaningless.1090 ¶3

The New Testament tells us we are the ones addressed. To return to the tenth chapter of the Book of John, the central figure makes the claim, “I and my Father are one.” And they took up stones to stone him, and he said to them, “For which of my good works do you stone me?” And they answered, “For no good work, but for blasphemy, for you being a man make yourself God.” And then he said to this: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘Thou blasphemest,’ because I say I am the Son of God?” There is one in whom the pattern awoke, and he gained the presence that he was God — only as a person awoke within him — and he tries to tell his brothers that we are the ones addressed in that 82nd Psalm, but they would not believe it.1090 ¶4

If you’ve ever seen anyone suffering from amnesia, and I have, it’s almost impossible to describe it. You’ll feel like crying. You’re looking at the face of a friend that you know well, and he cannot remember. You bring his closest kin, his parents — maybe he has a wife, his children — and he cannot recognize him. He does not know them at all, and he is not fooling — he cannot remember them. Complete amnesia. That’s what has happened to us. We have completely forgotten who we are.1090 ¶5

And I am here to tell you that you are the Lord Jesus Christ. He is buried in you, and until the story of Christ repeats itself in you, he remains buried in you. That’s the story. Now, how do I know? I know from my own personal experience. That’s how I know — I am not theorizing, I am not speculating. When it happens in you, you can pick out a circle that will experience your unfolding. I know you to be the Lord. You will know it, he will know it, they will know it, and you do not have to pick out the day — they’ll know it, they will all know it. But everyone will know it, or this is going to happen to every being in the world. Everyone.1090 ¶6

Now we are told: though he was in the form of God, he did not think it a thing to grasp, but emptied himself and became man — took upon himself the form of a slave, and was born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death upon a cross. Well, the only cross on which Christ was ever crucified is the human form — this is his cross, and that I do know from experience. Every child born of woman is the cross on which Jesus Christ is crucified, in which he is dead, and from which he will rise.1090 ¶7

Understand — where he was before his descent into this world — but the language used in Scripture, it doesn’t describe it, it is an attempt to describe it. The third chapter of John: he is now discussing with one of the Sanhedrin — well, a member of the Sanhedrin, the most learned council, the wisest of Israel, the great teacher, Nicodemus. He explains to Nicodemus that a man must be born again. Now this is not reincarnation — it has nothing to do with reincarnation. You are now individualized, and you remain so forever and forever, until whatever greater individualization comes — there’s no such thing as reincarnation, though it’s held by a very large section of the world and believed in by a number of millions. That’s not what he’s teaching. You must be born again, but the word is anothen, which means “from above.” We’re all born from below, from the womb of a woman. Everyone must be born from above — from the buried man, where God is buried, is the birth of God. That’s the birth from above.1090 ¶8

Now he said, “No one ascends into heaven but he who descended.” Now he names the Son of Man — that which comes out of man, that is now buried in man; it cannot ascend unless it first descended. It descended into man. When the little child is conceived, it brings the breath of God, which is God himself, in that child — for the word “breath” and the word “spirit” are one in the Hebrew — and he breathed into them, and they became living beings. But we are destined to be not only living beings, like automatons — we are destined to be life-giving spirit, “for as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself.” By this act of the crucifixion — crucified on this cross — I will then rise, and you will rise to exaltation, to the Father, not to see him as something other than yourself, but to be the Father. And you too will be able to say, “I and the Father are one.”1090 ¶9

Our descent into division, and our resurrection into unity; our descent into the generation of decaying death, and gain our regeneration by our resurrection from the dead. That is the statement of the 82nd Psalm in the most beautiful way. “To those in great eternity, met in the council of God as one man; for by contracting, the exalted senses behold multitude, as you and I do; for expanding, we behold one — one man, all the universal family contained in one” — and that one man we call, in Scripture, we call him Jesus the Christ, and they in him, and he and them, live in perfect harmony, in Eden, the land of light.1090 ¶10

You are indwelling in everyone in the world — or you couldn’t even perceive them — and they all dwell in you. You are being spoken of in Scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ, but until the story repeats itself in you — not as an observer observing it, but you, the actor, playing the central part — not observing it as you would observe a theater unfolding before you, but actually the actor, the actor called Jesus Christ, without loss of your identity. You still maintain your own identity and get cast in the central role of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the energy of Scripture unfolds within you, and only then do you really know who you are. So I tell you tonight, you are the ones addressed in that 82nd Psalm, that is still considered the most difficult of the 150 psalms, for the historic imagination of the interpreter to grasp. Yes, the ideas are perennial, they’re forever and forever.1090 ¶11

And we read the word of Paul. Paul was determined not to know any Jesus Christ after the flesh, as he himself confessed in his second letter to the Corinthians: “Henceforth I regard no one from a human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” He was determined not to conceive of this cosmic being from some little single man in this world. He bursts into humanity, and yet he is not divided — he is a total, he is one. And because he’s the whole, you’re not divided, you are one. And when you awaken, you’ll see the whole vast world as yourself pushed out; every being in your world lives within you, and all that you behold, though it appears without, is within — in your own wonderful human imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow. And that human imagination is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ is your own true identity.1090 ¶12

So when they say, “We crucify you” — no, we do not crucify you for blasphemy, no, not for good works — he’s telling you, from his experience, it’s going to happen to you. And you dare to tell your vision, even to your most intimate friends, they will think you insane. If they should hear the news that you have actually experienced within yourself the entire story of Jesus as described in Scripture, they will begin to think that man is insane, and they will say, “Why listen to him? He has a devil and is mad” — read it in the Gospel of John — “why listen to him?” Any man who has gained the certainty from the experience within himself which parallels the story in Scripture, if he tells it, they think he’s insane. For man has been taught to believe in some little tiny physical flesh-and-blood man that is called Jesus, and the word Jesus means Jehovah — the same word is Jehovah, it is the Lord God, the Savior of the world. But he is buried — a man in every man, not a chosen little crowd, but every man.1090 ¶13

You want to know his name? His name is I Am. You can’t go anyplace and not know that you are. You may forget this very moment and suffer total amnesia concerning your present physical state, and not know who you are, where you are, or even what you are, but you can’t forget that you are. No man can be unaware that he is. He can be unaware of who he is and what he is and where he is, but he can’t be unaware of being. And that is the name of God, forever and forever. So my name is I Am. And because of that, you are immortal.1090 ¶14

So we are the sons who came down, not because we did anything that was wrong — it is not a fault, as taught by some prophet of the world — this was a deliberate descent into this world of death and decay, to prove our own creative power, that we could die — literally die, not pretend. If you are a god pretending that you’re a man, you would know who you are, and it could not do anything for you. You have to completely empty yourself of all that you are, your wonderful divine form, your heavenly state, and actually come down and suffer, and believe that you’re a man, to experience death, for all men die. So I say you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of them; nevertheless you will die, you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes — one man, God’s, containing all. He came down, and now, through this act of the crucifixion, we are now transformed, and from the crucifixion we are exalted to the Father.1090 ¶15

So when you rise, you’re not rising as the Son of God — you’re rising as God the Father. And what is the Son then? If we all think God the Father, and if he’s a father, then where is his son? Humanity is transformed, and the whole of humanity is symbolized in the single youth called David. And David is the son of the Father. You are the father of David — you do not know it yet, but you will know it. When you see him, there is no uncertainty as to this relationship between you, God the Father, and your son David. You might think the whole thing is a legend — well, it is. Man can fall in love with a legend — he fell in love with David, I mean David the son of Jesse. And Jesse means “Jehovah exists,” is the son of Jehovah, who is, or any form of the verb “to be,” which is I Am. And the day will come when you’ve completed the journey, you will stand before him and call him Father, and you will know you are his father, and you will know he is your son. There’ll be no uncertainty as to this relationship between you, God the Father, and your son David — who is the essence of humanity.1090 ¶16

If you took all the generations of men and all of their experiences, and simply condensed them into one single being, and personify that being, he will come out as David. So having gone through the gamut of all that man could ever conceive of, and having played all the parts, then you come out. Now, when you come out, you’re God the Father, and your son is David, the essence of all that you went through as man. And that is the story of the Bible. It cannot spell it out, because how can you find words to describe it?1090 ¶17

I started to tell you earlier how he tried to tell it in the third chapter of John, and when Nicodemus could not understand — these are the words that are used, it’s all beautiful imagery, but true. You’ll find, if you can, a more beautiful image for one to use to express this expression. He said, as the Son of Man — thinking first of all, he said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” And you will wonder, what on earth is he talking about? What can that do for me? Here he’s trying to explain how men are saved. But I tell you, having died, I know how it’s done. You cannot do it by taking thought — it just happens, in the fullness of time it happens, and this is how it’s done.1090 ¶18

First of all, you are told you are the temple of the living God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. If I am the temple of the living God, and the Spirit of God dwells in me, and the curtain of that temple must be torn in two from top to bottom, it can only be a part of my body that is torn — it can’t be a piece of cloth like that. Many think that some little curtain in the synagogue was meant — it has nothing to do with any curtain in the synagogue. If I am the temple, and the curtain’s in the temple, there must be something in me that is torn in two, from top to bottom, to reveal the holy of holies.1090 ¶19

Well, it is — without any thought whatsoever, not knowing the moment it’s going to happen, not even knowing though he wants it to happen — the day will come that you will be torn into from top to bottom, from the top of your head to the base of your spine, and it will separate. And at the base of the spine you will see golden, pulsing, liquid light — “I am the light of the world” — you’ll see it, and, as an observer, you will know you are what you are, that you’re actually beholding yourself. It has no face, it’s simply golden, golden discs of light, and as you contemplate it, you fuse on it, and as you fuse with it to become one with it, like a fiery serpent, up you go, through that same body of yours, into heaven. And heaven is not up there with the stars — heaven is within you. You go up into your skull, and it reverberates like thunder. He ascends into heaven, and you’re told the kingdom of God is within you. So if I’m to go into the kingdom of God, where can I go but into myself, right into my own skull? So “no one ascends” — but he who first descended. And then I see what I am — that is the thing that came down in the generation, at the base of my spine, but I fell into generation, and therefore decay and death; and now I behold it, and I fuse with it, and up I rise, like a fiery serpent.1090 ¶20

The imagery is perfect — how else could you describe it? So in the third chapter of John, he makes every attempt to explain what he means when he calls himself the Son of God who is the Son of Man. It comes out of man, but he redeems himself out of man. So man is not your true identity — God is your true identity. You are the Lord Jesus Christ.1090 ¶21

Tonight you may want to throw something at me if you were trained differently, and think I am blaspheming. I am not blaspheming, I’m speaking the same word — the one he used in the gospel — he said of himself, “You say I blaspheme because you, being a man, make yourself God.” He knew he was not a man, for I cannot address things and say to them, “You are the sons of God, sons of the Most High, all of them, nevertheless you will die like men” — for if I’m going to die like a man, I cannot be a man when I was addressed. I’m something other than man. But he tells you what I was — he was the Son of God. If I am the Son of God, then I must be like whatever God is, and God isn’t man — he comes down and he redeems man.1090 ¶22

But who came down? The sons of God, and always are the sons of God. And all of us together — not one must be missing — make up God the Father. And each, as he returns, will be that God the Father, the totality. He will be the one God and Father of all, and he will have the one son, and that son will be the sum total of all of the experiences of humanity, fused into a single whole and personified. And his state, as he stands before us, he is just as he’s described in the book — an eternal youth, for eternity is not an old man, eternity is personified as a youth.1090 ¶23

Eternal Youth is my son, and he wears the form — yes, I can tell you, the face is human, the voice is human, the hands are human, but do not ask me about the body. I could not describe the body, I have no image on earth to tell it. How someone could embrace you whose face is human, whose hands are human, whose voice is human, but don’t ask me the question. And yet, when he embraced me, our bodies became one. In this world, you see, one plus one equals two; in Divine mathematics, one plus one equals one — he became one. So in the end there’s only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all — they will not be two of us, you and I are one, because if you have the same son that I have, and you become fully conscious of it, then you and I must be one. And if we are the same son, then we are the same father, yet without loss of individuality, without loss of our identity. I will know you in eternity — I’ll know you as God the Father, I know you as the one whose son is my son, and if your son is my son, then we are one.1090 ¶24

And this is the story of the Bible. Its language evokes, does not describe — or, it does not describe things of this world. And all of our evangelists are trying to prove that they know, from the Bible, the world is coming to an end, and all this nonsense — the little world is not coming to any end. The age comes to an end to the individual, when the individual has completed the journey, and he finds himself unfolding within himself the entire story of the Gospel of Jesus, and his world has come to an end.1090 ¶25

So when people call him dead, he is not restored to life in a world like this, where all people are — no, he is in a new age altogether, an entirely different age, called the Kingdom of Heaven, which is a body — it’s not a realm. Wherever he is now, clothed in that heavenly body, is heaven, for nothing can remain imperfect in his presence, because he is perfect. Nothing can remain dead — you walk through the desert and it blossoms like the rose, he walks through a petrified forest that bursts into blossom, because he is life, he is the one true living being. Nothing remains dead in his presence, because he is the Living God.1090 ¶26

And those who die without the experience are instantly restored to life in a body that is human, just like this — young, in a world terrestrial just like this — to continue the journey until the story of Jesus is reenacted within him. He has come to the end of the age, which is what the world is speaking of today, of the world coming to an end — no, the world is not coming to an end.1090 ¶27

And here you find all these things — it’s almost embarrassing. I gave a small ad in last Saturday’s paper, and I saw these fantastic claims on the same page where my little ad was — I almost blushed — “come and see this,” multimillion, oatmeal of gold, and all the nonsense and all the silliness that you read, all in the name of the Bible. And the Bible has nothing to do with this — it’s talking about you, the true you, not the little god that you shave in the morning — that is simply something that hides you, it hides the being that you really are. It’s talking of your true, essential being, that the Deity came down and emptied himself of his divine right, and took upon himself the form of a slave — now listen to the word — took upon himself the form of a slave, and was born in the likeness of men.1090 ¶28

He entered slavery with men, and being found in human form — the three of them he equates, he identifies the three as the same. But a man may be rich, living in a fabulous world — he has homes all over the world, and maybe he can sign a check tonight, and it will be honored tomorrow morning for ten million dollars without batting an eye — but he’s a slave of the body that he wears.1090 ¶29

Possessing all the money in the world, and if he has millions under his control, like any dictator of a fabulous land which has people under his control, to put them into slavery with impunity — yes, the dictator who could give the order to execute this one or that one, he cannot command one of his slaves to perform the natural functions of his body — he has to do it all for himself. He has to eat and drink, he has to assimilate what the body can assimilate, and he has to expel from that body what it cannot assimilate, and he has to do it all by himself — he’s not free. This body enslaves us all, no matter who we are in this world. We drive through with our wonderful chariots, and all the police leading us and following us, and everyone waving to the crowd, and maybe she is dying, or he is dying, to get beyond it, because no one can do for her or for him what she has to do for herself, and the time has come — isn’t that slavery?1090 ¶30

So, being found in human form, and he calls it a slave, he became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross — this is the only cross. And may I tell you, it’s not a painful cross. When I experienced the crucifixion, it was the most ecstatic, the most wonderful feeling — they were vortices that held me here, not nails as seen in pictures. How they arrived at those pictures, I do not know, because there is no description, no personal description of Jesus in the Bible. You cannot go through the sixty-six books and find one simple little personal description of Jesus, yet we have all these paintings and all these things with nails made of wood or made of iron.1090 ¶31

There is a vortex — that’s the vortex, the vortex, a vortex, and by my two feet. And when they actually enter, it’s sheer ecstasy, for you made the decision to give up your divine right and take upon yourself this garment. And the act of taking it was not a painful act at all — you deliberately did it, and took upon yourself the form of a slave. And being found in human form, you became obedient unto death — yes, the death on this cross.1090 ¶32

There is no other God. In spite of all that has been said to the contrary, that they have a little piece of wood from the cross here, a little piece of wood there — if you put all the little pieces of wood together, it would build this house. And one man carried that cross. One church has a little piece of cloth — this came from his robe — another church has a piece of cloth, another church has a piece of cloth — take all that cloth together that he wore as a robe, it would clothe an army. It has nothing to do with it.1090 ¶33

As you are seated here tonight, no one is more holy than you are, because the Lord Jesus Christ is buried within you, and you do not have to bow before anyone in this world — no one is more holy than you are. He may be richer, he may be stronger, maybe wiser, he may have all these qualities and you do not possess them, but he is not any holier than you are. And in the end, when you awake, he cannot be any wiser, because when you complete the awakening, you are the wisdom and the power of God, as defined in Scripture.1090 ¶34

So don’t think anyone on earth, regardless of his accomplishment, will transcend you, or that’s the being of whom I speak, and will continue to speak throughout the series, or we will interlace it — is what many would like to hear, concerning the use of the law while we are waiting for redemption, how to use it wisely in this world, and achieve certain objectives, certain goals in this world — that can be done, no question about it.1090 ¶35

Here in this audience — I said to the gentleman, the involvement of the law that he said to me: “I go home, I sit in my garden, in my patio, and I dream, but a controlled dream.” He worked in the city, Culver City. He did not have the educational qualifications for the job that was vacant — he had to have a college education to qualify, he did not have one — went to high school, and that was the last of his education. I saw the gift that came down from the powers that be — he is now, in spite of the so-called qualifications by law he has to fulfill — didn’t fulfill it at all, did it all in his imagination, and now he is the purchasing agent of the city of Culver City, and that money is funneled through his hands every year. I asked him, and he brought me down the other day — he took me down. I said, “How much do you have to spend in the course of the year?” He said, “My budget runs about eight hundred thousand dollars a year.” It all comes through his fingers, everything must come through his hands, that the city needs, he orders.1090 ¶36

So here is a complete violation — thousands of dollars of purchases — they’ll all violate the rule, if you apply the divine principle of imagination. If you know who you are — if you don’t know who you are, you’re going to abide by all the little rules and regulations of the world.1090 ¶37

I had a friend of mine, and he always used to say — well, I would remind you of a sign, and say — no, so-and-so, he said, he didn’t say it positively. Okay, and so he went through life that way. Didn’t I say — the sign said “only those who are boarding the plane can go down,” not passengers — didn’t say it positively. He flew with me — I’m flying out of New York City, and here he came out, bringing a friend with him too. I said, “No smoking” — it said “no smoking” — didn’t say it positively — and he comes aboard smoking a cigarette, and bringing a friend aboard the plane to see me off — not once, several times, but that was his favorite remark: it didn’t say it positively.1090 ¶38

Well, in the law, as we will teach it to you through the weeks to come, for I’ll be here every Monday and Friday until the tenth of December — if you know exactly what you want, and you dare to assume that you are what you want to be, and that you have what you want, and walk faithful to that assumption — though at the moment of your assumption your senses deny it and reason denies it — if you are faithful to it, it will harden into fact, because the being that is doing it is within you. You assume this — that seemed an impossible thing for God to assume, this little thing, but nothing is impossible to God, and he gave up his divine rank and assumed the human form. While in it, he is still God — he’s forgotten that he’s done so, he can’t pretend he is and play the part — well, he has to actually believe that he is man, but he’s not man. You are the being of whom the gospel speaks, you are that central character, Jesus Christ. Now let’s go into this.1090 ¶39

Tonight’s subject is “The Secret of Praying.” He who has learned how to pray has learned the greatest secret of a full and happy life. You’re told in scripture that his followers said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” He gave him a prayer. But that is not teaching man how to pray. So we’re told in other passages that he told it in the form of a parable, “And he told them a parable that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” Then he told the story of persistency. “There was a judge and he neither feared God nor regarded man. In that city there was a widow and she came to him and asked him to exonerate her, that these enemies of hers were persistent. At first he did not respond, but then he said to himself, ‘Although I neither fear God nor regard man, yet I will exonerate her, because by her much coming she bothers me and she’ll wear me out’”. And so all parable is like a dream. Every dream has a single jet of truth, so when you read the story we see the necessity of persistency in prayer until you master it. When you master it, the most effective prayer in the world is “Thank you, Father,” the most effective prayer in the world, after mastery. But until mastery then there is a technique. And persistency is like an art. You must practice any art in this world. First you must find a good method and try to find the best method. When you’ve found it, then it requires daily practice, any art in this world. If you don’t practice, well, then you become rusty. So find a good method first and then practice.1088 ¶1

After you’ve practiced you’ll find it so easy that it’s automatic, all through the day. And it’s simply one of thanksgiving, “Thank you, Father!” For the most effective prayer recorded in scripture we’ll read in the 11th chapter of John, when he gave thanks to his Father: “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. For thou always hearest me”. And here, something that is dead, something that is gone from the world, but nothing is dead if you know how to pray, but nothing, I don’t care what it is. Even those who are gone beyond and you cannot touch them, you cannot see them with mortal senses, you can, if you know how to give thanks, move from this body of darkness into the world of light and encounter them. You can. I am telling you from experience. So he who has learned how to pray has learned the greatest secret of a full and happy life.1088 ¶2

Now, here tonight, we’ll take a technique of prayer and show you how it works. All the prophets orient themselves towards Jerusalem when they pray. Now, every name in scripture has a great significance. So what is Jerusalem? It first appears in the 33rd chapter of the Book of Genesis, under the name of Shalem. And here in this 33rd chapter, Jacob comes safely into the city of Shalem, which is in the land of Canaan, and he erected an altar. And then comes a Hebrew word, which simply means…the word is El-Elohe-Israel. So you find it capitalized in your Bible, and you find a footnote giving an interpretation of the word, which means “God, the God of Israel.” So he comes to that. So the first appearance of the word is in that 33rd chapter of Genesis.1088 ¶3

So every prophet orients himself towards Jerusalem. Well, the word literally means “to direct; the true direction.” So I direct truly with the hand, Yod. Then comes the name, which is translated “to be safe in mind, body or estate.” I point out safely and then I realize it. So we find in the Book of Daniel, he orients himself through the open window and looks towards Jerusalem. We find in the Mohammedan world they always point towards what they call Mecca. But here, you point towards Jerusalem. Now I’m telling you Jerusalem is within you. This whole drama takes place within man; it’s not on the outside. I don’t prostrate myself and look toward some eastern point in space. I simply adjust myself mentally inwardly.1088 ¶4

Now, how do I do it? Now, you listen carefully. It’s a simple technique, but it will take practice on your part to master it…yet it’s simple. When I have a desire…now that’s my desire, I know exactly what I want—I’m pointing directly at it—that’s my desire. I’m pointing…so, to point, the true direction. I’m thinking of it when I have desire. But now I must transform it from thinking of to thinking from. I stand here and all doors are open to me if I walk with my Imagination as my companion. My Imagination is really my companion. I speak of my Imagination until finally I know I am what I formerly called my Imagination. But in the beginning, man still speaks of my Imagination, it’s all your Imagination, it’s all so and so. So I could say…it’s like my hand, you can amputate my hand. You can’t amputate my Imagination. Amputate my arms, my legs, all kinds of parts of my body. You can’t amputate my Imagination, for you can’t step on me. That’s the eternal self. But to make it practical, I would say, that all doors are open in this world to the one who walks with Imagination as his companion. I’ll show you what I mean.1088 ¶5

I stand here and I desire to go elsewhere. Name it. I say New York City. But time will not allow it, and maybe finances would not allow it, maybe my commitments will not allow it. But I do desire to go to New York City. While standing here I dare to assume that I am, right now, in New York City. That act of assumption is a departure from this body of darkness…the very act of assumption. I assume that I am in New York City. Well, were I in New York City I would think of those I know here and love here, wouldn’t I? Well then, if I think of them, where are they? Down the street, over here in the hills, or are they 3,000 miles away from where I am standing? If I am in New York City, then anyone I think of in this area that I know would have to be relative to where I’m assuming that I am. That’s my test. Have I really succeeded in moving towards New York City?1088 ¶6

Now the word prayer means, literally, “motion towards, accession to, at or in the vicinity of.” These are the definitions you’ll find in your biblical concordance. So, motion is orienting myself towards, first of all…now, accession to, at or in the vicinity of. So, I’m in New York City. And were I in New York City, to locate myself and prove I am there, I would think of my world. This is part of my world. I know it. I have so many lovely friends here. I have friends north of here. I have friends south, friends east-south of New York City, friends in London. Well, I would see it, all the friends, and I would have to see them relative to New York City. If I am in New York City, well then, that’s how I would see everything in this world.1088 ¶7

Now, let me have full confidence in the being who made this motion. Well, who made it? Well, I did it in Imagination. May I tell you that “Man is all Imagination, and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man, that immortal body of man, is the Imagination, and that is God himself”. So I will take this toward anything, not just motion in space, motion in anything in this world that I desire for myself or for another. It doesn’t have to be confined to this person called self. I have a daughter, a son, wife, friends, it could be relative to their desires. If I heard them now tell me that they have what they want, well, how would I feel? How could I see them when I make a motion from where they desired the thing to where they now tell me that they have it? It’s a motion. All things are movement. The first creative act recorded in the scripture is motion, “And God moved upon the face of the waters.” The whole thing is a motion.1088 ¶8

As a friend of mine, who is here tonight, when he had that fantastic vision. In it I appeared in his vision and after [...]—most of you have heard it, so I won’t repeat it—and he said, “Did I learn anything?” I said, “Yes, you learned how to move. You’ve been there in the year of conflict, two, two years.” Well, two doesn’t mean two years of twelve-month periods but during the form of conflict. Two is conflict, it’s divisions, opposites. So during that state you learned how to move. And then, the whole thing was transformed in his mind’s eye and what was a barn and a conflict and a war, and a shooting war, a horrible thing, turned itself into a castle. And then he was led graciously, safely into the castle and taken to his quarters…his eternal home. He learned how to move.1088 ¶9

Well, prayer is motion towards. It’s learning how to move. So I stand here and I can move towards anything in my world. I moved toward a change on that bank balance. That’s motion. Any change is motion. I can’t see any change that does not alter include motion. I change this, that’s motion. I move from here to there, that’s motion. I go home tonight, that’s motion, and I change my position relative to where I was. And so, it’s all a matter of mastering this technique of moving, the first creative act in scripture. After he moved, then things began to rise out of the deep. So here, the technique of prayer is mastering this inner motion, how to move. If I could only move this night from where I am, where I am seeing certain things in my world that I would like to change, to that position that I would occupy after they are changed. Well, after they are changed, how would I see it? Now, that’s the change in motion.1088 ¶10

So a change…not only a safe change bodily, mentally, and in my estate. I completely move towards the change relative to others in my world, because everything in my world is myself pushed out. So any regrets coming from without has to be listened to by me, I can’t ignore it, it’s myself, the whole vast world. When man comes down into this world from a world of light, and actually confines himself and limits himself to this body, it becomes a spark from his infinite world of light. Then he remembers that he has to exercise it while he is here. He remembers the infinite world of light, but he is here. And while he is here he sees everything hatched within himself, because in the world of light all things were contained within himself. So how could he now see and hear when he is completely shut out, and see it as other than himself, when he knows that when in that world all things were contained within himself? Now here he masters a technique, which is called in scripture prayer, which is the art of motion. It’s psychological motion. The whole thing is moving…how to move from where I am now. I see an argument, I hear an argument. Now how to move to the solution of that argument?1088 ¶11

A friend called this morning, in the wee hours of the morning, concerning a problem confronting her in New York City. I was sound asleep. I heard the phone, my wife answered. It must have been two in the morning, therefore, it must have been five o’clock there. She was greatly disturbed. She had just attended a meeting, a long, undoubtedly a long meeting through the night, and she was really disturbed and frightened concerning the outcome of this thing. Well, my wife tried in her best way to explain to her that she, of all people, should know how these things are done. But when you are completely moved, you turn to someone in whom you have faith, and then you call and ask for help. But all my wife could do at the moment, which is two in the morning, this morning, she told me would be to see her as she would be seen were she now telling me an entirely different story. So I move from one state into another state, and listen to the same lady talking to me telling me that the whole thing has been solved, that it’s been perfectly resolved.1088 ¶12

Now, this past week, a friend of ours, who is here tonight, Benny, came home last Saturday afternoon and told me this wonderful story. He said in his dream he came upon a wonderful scene, like a garden scene, and what appeared to be a love area where lovers meet. He saw me standing looking through some of the lattice, sort of a framework, and he came up to me and began to tell me of all his desires, all the things he desired. I said to him, “Don’t desire, live it!” Then he woke and wrote it down and brought it to me. Well, that’s exactly what I mean to everyone. Desiring is thinking of; living it is thinking from. Don’t desire it, live it! I go to bed tonight desiring? No, go to bed living it. Sleep as though you were now the man that you formerly desired to be, just as though it were true. Well, I tell you from my own personal experience that an assumption though false if persisted in will harden into fact.1088 ¶13

So in the beginning when we are learning, persistency is necessary. And so he tells the story of the man who comes at night and said, “A friend of mine came and could you give me three loaves of bread?” The man said that it is late, that the door is closed, my children are in bed with me, and I cannot come down and serve you. But, because of the man’s importunity he came down and gave him what he wanted. Well, importunity is the most, well, the most wonderful way of translating the word would be “brazen impudence.” Yes, it would be said repetition. He repeated and repeated the request and repeated the request, so [...], but I would say brazen impudence. A man comes over and over and over and he will not take no for an answer. And so that is one of the parables told us: he doesn’t take no for an answer. Then comes the widow, she will not take no for an answer. And these are the parables told to illustrate prayer. So they aren’t words.1088 ¶14

Maybe the Lord’s Prayer is given us for a purpose, something to contemplate, and maybe the more you contemplate it the more you will come to believe we really are one. It begins with “Our Father.” Well, if it’s our Father, then we are brothers. We have to be brothers and sisters if we have a common Father, regardless of race, regardless of nations, regardless of anything. If I said “Our Father” we have to have a common brotherhood, regardless of all the races and nations of the world. So that is to get over into man’s way of thinking that we are really one if we have a common Father. Eventually, we are going to be the Father and we’ll know it. But in the meanwhile, he gives us a technique in the form of a parable. And so, we are the one coming asking, asking for a change in life, asking for more income, asking for this, asking for that. Well, then it doesn’t work by tomorrow, it doesn’t work the next day, it doesn’t work the next month… but he said persist. And so, persistency will actually pay off, and prayers will be answered if man will persist. But to give up is like someone saying, “Well, I tried it and I can’t make it come out in a harmonious way.”1088 ¶15

And, so you want to play the piano? Well, go and start to play. But get a good method. And so you get a good method and you practice for a day and you can’t give a concert. Well, I mean, that’s just about praying. Learn how to pray, and so devote some time every day. When I was with my old friend Abdullah…I would have an exercise. And daily I would sit in New York City where we lived in this apartment for fourteen years, almost fourteen. In the living room you could not see the hallway towards the telephone. I’m seated in my easy chair in the living room. I would assume that I was seated at the chair at the telephone. And so assume it that I would actually, in my mind’s eye, I couldn’t see the living room and that I couldn’t see myself seated there. I could see it in my mind’s eye only. I had to think, “Well, now, he’s in the chair.” I so made myself sit here at the telephone that I could not and I wouldn’t let myself see the chair. Then I would feel myself back into the chair. Then go back to the telephone, go back to the chair, and try this feeling of changing in motion. May I tell you, it’s very, very helpful, you get loose as it were.1088 ¶16

And the day will come that you will think of something and then all of a sudden the very act of imagining will detach you from this dark garment and you will be exactly where you are imagining. So much so you will be seen by one who is there…you will actually be seen. I have had that experience, where I would imagine myself elsewhere and someone present at the time saw me. Then they were startled not to see me there physically, because they saw me as something physical. See, man is all Imagination therefore he must be wherever he is in Imagination.1088 ¶17

So if I go and prepare this place, then I come back, and then I walk across some bridge of incidence, some series of events that will lead me up to that place where I placed myself. I put myself there then I bounce back here. But I’ve gone, having gone and done it, now I return here; and remain in confidence that in a way unknown to me this being that can do all things, that knows all things, will lead me, physically, across the bridge of incidence up to the point where I have placed myself in Imagination. So you can place yourself in Imagination as any person and dwell in that state as though it were true. Even though at the moment reason denies it and your senses deny it, you dwell in that state and sleep in it just as though it were true. This is the art of praying.1088 ¶18

So it’s not some palaver where you go in and you sit down and you get on your knees. And then you may think this is a little bit dusty and so you just brush it off because you don’t want to soil your dress or soil your socks or soil something else. That’s how people pray in church. They go in, the first thing they do, they bend over and mumble. You see them…let us be perfectly honest about it. They go to church, maybe because it’s considered the thing to do, they drop on their knees or bend forward, and then there they mumble a few words, and up they get, and they think they’ve done what they should do. Hasn’t a thing to do with this fabulous world of reality.1088 ¶19

A few years ago my wife had this wonderful vision. She found herself in a grove, and here in this wonderful grove of heavenly trees, in this clear passage, there was an altar at the very far end. There were people present and then two ladies entered, one from one side and one from the other. One came in from one side with a book and it was titled The Credence of Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins According to Judaism. She went up to the altar and she read it. Another one came on in, the same volume, The Credence of Faith and the Forgiveness of Sins According to Christianity. This lady went up and she read from a book, seemingly the same book but read differently. And my wife said in the vision until that moment she always thought it was infinitely more difficult to be a Jew than to be a Christian. Suddenly she realized that it was infinitely more difficult to be a Christian than to be a Jew, that the whole thing was psychological. Not a thing that you do on the outside matters at all. Everything is from within…it’s what man is doing from within. And then we find how hard it is to be a Christian.1088 ¶20

So Browning begins his wonderful poem Easter Day, “How hard it is to be a Christian.” Chessman said, “Christianity has been tried, has not been tried and proved wanting, it has been tried and found difficult and therefore given up”…because I can’t pass the buck. If I think I’m a Christian I can’t pass the buck. I can’t blame anyone in this world, for the foundation of it is that we are one. I’m only drawing confirmation in the thing that I am doing within myself, that everyone who comes to me only bears witness of the mental activity within me. So they are only telling me what I am doing to myself and therefore to my world, for they only mirror me. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, to live that way. You mean, to accept that challenge that no matter what happens to me I did it to myself? No man comes to me save I call him? That is Christianity. “No man cometh unto me save my Father, who sent me, calls him.” But, “I and my Father are one” therefore I called him, if I and my Father are one. And I called him only to reveal to me the activity taking place in me. What am I doing? And so, I will then learn how to pray. For if I learn how to pray and master it, I can change my world, really change it, and make it conform to the ideal that I would like to experience in this world.1088 ¶21

So, as I said to Benny [...], “Do not go on desiring it, live it!” Stop thinking of it and start thinking from it. To think from the wish fulfilled is to realize it, and to continue thinking of it, well, you keep on forever and forever. You’ll never realize what you’re thinking of; you only realize what you’re thinking from. So you put yourself into the state of the wish fulfilled and think from it…that’s praying. And in a way that no one knows—the conscious reasoning mind doesn’t know—it simply unfolds in your world, and becomes a fact. So here, you can be the man you want to be. You can be the woman you want to be. You can be anything you want to be if you know how to pray. For all things are possible to him who believes. Therefore, it’s the art of believing: how to persuade myself.1088 ¶22

Well, this is a way of persuading yourself. Because, when you do it one day and a friend writes you from afar and tells you, “You know, I saw you at a certain hour in my room.” And then you allow the difference in time between…because we have differences in time. We are now three hours different from New York City and four from my little island of Barbados, and so we differ two more hours from Hawaii. So if someone sees me now in Hawaii and I look at my time, it’s almost nine, then I say they saw me at seven. So if they say in their letter, “At 7:00 tonight I saw you” and it was 9:00 here when I imagined that I was there, well then, it encourages me to know that I really am all Imagination. Well, I’ve done it. And people have confirmed it in their letters. “I saw you” and they named the time, the day, and then they write. Therefore, I know I am truly all Imagination. This is not poetry. I know that Blake told it so beautifully, because the poets are the real inspiring ones of the world. In fact, the whole Bible when it’s really understood is all poetry. It’s all written, truly that whole Old Testament is written in poetry, but we haven’t yet mastered that ancient manuscript to put it in its proper form. But it’s all poetry. It’s the inspired Word of God. They give enlarged meanings to words, different meanings altogether to normal words. And so, you find it in this light.1088 ¶23

So when I put myself on the bed and assume I am elsewhere, and that elsewhere is an hour difference in time, and then someone writes me that I saw you at a certain day, a certain hour, and it’s exactly what I told my wife when I did it. So that I didn’t have to think afterward that I did it, I went in and told her what I did. Then comes the letter confirming that this one to whom I tried to appear saw me. Well, am I not then all Imagination? So, in the act of imagining I departed from this dark cavern of the body and appeared where I imagined that I was, and viewed the world from there. And so, you are exactly what you are imagining, because that is God. God is all Imagination and you are all Imagination. Therefore, you can’t die. Man cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die. Your immortal being is Imagination. I’ve proved it. You go all over in this wonderful, wonderful body. And one day you will know that you are the very central being spoken of in scripture, the one called Jesus Christ, the one called the Lord God Jehovah, that you are that being. You are here for a purpose.1088 ¶24

While you here for this fantastic purpose, you still have to pay the price of Caesar. You have to live in the world of Caesar. And so, you can criticize our politicians from here to the end of time but you aren’t going to stop them raising taxes. All you have to do is make more, because they are going to tax you and tax you and tax you in spite of your protests. So all you have to do is learn the art of prayer and make more. I think of that story told of the late President Kennedy when his father who had made in his one generation something like $400 million; and he gave them all independence, tremendous independence, they all have it. He had nine children, each had a million settled on him. But he was complaining that his children were spending too much money and the late president said at this banquet, “Well, the only solution to this problem is Father has to make more.” I thought that was delightful. He made $400 million, he had nine children, so if he gave them each ten million apiece he’d still have far more than he could use. So eventually they’re going to get it anyway, so why not spend it and enjoy it. So they are all great spenders and he said, “Alright, Father has to make more. That’s the only solution to this problem because he’s conditioned us to spend and to make money.” Not to make it, but to spend it. Because all their lives they’ve had everything that money could buy. They’ve never known what it is, really, not the present generation. But I’m not against that at all. If I had a billion dollars tonight and left it to my wife and my children so what? And if tomorrow they went out and spent it and threw it away what does it really matter? I do wish that they would know and understand this wonderful art of prayer. Then after they’ve thrown it away they could rebuild it…because many of them throw it away and can’t reproduce it. But if you know how to pray, then, again my friend who is here tonight and I quote a wonderful thing she said to me one day—we were driving toward the racetrack, and, of course, we’re all thinking in terms of, naturally, winning. You have fun if you’re going to win. And she said, “My father, when we were children, said to me, ‘You know, if you had but a dollar and it were necessary to spend it, do so as if it were a dried leaf and you the owner of boundless forests.’” Spend it, if it were necessary, as though you were the owner of boundless forests, and that but a dry leaf. So, if one really knows how to pray, let me spend it, and then by praying reproduce it. This whole vast world is brought into being by man’s imagining. Learn how to imagine. This is the great secret.1088 ¶25

So as I told it to Benny, I tell it to you. If tonight you’re still desiring, stop it right now, and then occupy it, live it. What would it be like were it true? That’s living it. How would it feel? What would the feeling be like were it true that I am now that one that I would like to be? What would it be like? The minute you catch that mood you’re living it. You’re not just thinking of it, you’re thinking from it. And the great secret is thinking from, rather than thinking of. See, man is anchored here in this body. He’s always in a little state and he knows his bank balance and he knows this, he knows that, he knows the other…and all this is thinking from this state. Now, that’s a marvelous thing. But now having known this, how real things are “from,” well then, learn how to move and then think from. Because thinking from is very, very real. And so, I think from my present world. I know exactly where I live, my bank balance, my this, my that, and the other, and how real that thinking from makes it. Well now, can I move from this to another state and give to that other state the same sense of from-ness, the same sense of reality that I give to this? Yes. Try it. But if I do and it works, then I’ve found the secret. I’ve found how to always then be free, no matter what happens in my world.1088 ¶26

So tonight, you take it to heart. Take it home and live by it and daily practice it. Practice it for yourself and for yourself-pushed-out called by another name. It’s all yourself anyway. Take anyone and just practice it. It’s an art and it must be practiced daily until that day comes when you find the most effective prayer is “Thank you, Father!” I can feel this being within me as my very self, and yet address it as love, an I-Thou relationship. There’s nothing strange in that. I can speak of it as Thou, and then know, at the same time, it is I. And so I can have this Thou-I relationship, and that is, saying “Thank you, Father.” So if I wanted something now, it comes from him because all desires spring from him. Then, as it comes, I would reach that point where I could say “Thank you, Father” without effort. I’m right in the mood. You gave me the urge? Well, “Thank you, Father, thank you for it!” as though it were true. And then walk by it [...], waiting in confidence that he gave it to me through the medium of desire; and now he will clothe it in bodily form and I will encounter it in the world of flesh.1088 ¶27

Now, tonight, when you go home…and tomorrow and the next day and the next day…keep on trying it, practicing it. May I tell you, it won’t fail you. It won’t fail you. And then let everyone do what they want in this world. You read of someone that you love dearly or you respect and you hear some unkind things about them? Oh, forget it! What does it matter? What does it matter what they did or it is said that they did? It doesn’t really matter. I tell you, in the end, because they did it, you did it. Because, in the end there’s only God, and not one being could have played any part in this world that God didn’t play it, because there’s nothing but God. So if I hear this night of any unlovely thing said of one, I can say I did it. Either did it deliberately or did it unwittingly, but I did it. Because there can’t be another if I am he. So don’t get in the mood of judging and criticizing and doing all these unlovely things. [...]. Just leave them. You have desires and you want to live nobly in this world. Who doesn’t? May I tell you, it’s so much nicer to be noble. It’s so much nicer to be generous. It’s so much more wonderful just to love…infinitely lovelier in this world. Life is better. Love it. Let no one tell you that she or he, that is, they are not worthy. Forget it. It’s easier living in a loving, generous way. And so, if others want to condemn, let them do it, but it’s still yourself, that aspect of yourself you haven’t quite overcome yet. But don’t you fall into that picture. And practice it over and over and over. Because, in the end, when the curtain comes down on this whole wonderful drama, the supreme actor will rise from it all and we are he. All of us play our parts, play them beautifully, but the actor who clothed himself in these forms is God. And we are the supreme actor.1088 ¶28

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *1088 ¶29

One came and asked him to name the greatest commandment, and he said: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your might, with all yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these,” he said. Now the psalmist tells us: “those who choose any other God multiply their sorrows” — you’ll read that in the sixteenth Psalm — “those who choose any other God multiply their sorrows.”1085 ¶1

Now what is the God of whom we speak? All translations are paraphrases. Hear, O Israel — the Lord, that word translated “the Lord” is I AM. That’s the definition in Scripture. Your God is the same I AM. So Hear, O Israel, the Lord — that is the I AM, that is your I AM — is the only God; there is no other God. Now, to ask you to love your I AM — how can I love my very self? That is the very core, Almighty. I am aware before I am aware of being Neville; I am aware. But can I really believe that this sensible I is the cause of all that I’m going to experience? Because I’m going to become aware of something; becoming aware of it and accepting the state of which I am aware as fact, I then must experience it. And there is no other cause in my world.1085 ¶2

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is — what he’s quoting is the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy. He shall only come to fulfill scripture; there’s no other purpose for my being. So here I am, fulfilling scripture. Will I really choose this God, the only God? Or am I going to have something in my world that I think now is very important, or is it merely informed opinion — all that a nation holds, isn’t it important? Or am I going to go back to the only God in the world, which is my own wonderful human imagination? That’s the God that creates my world, and sustains my world, and changes the conditions of my world.1085 ¶3

Now the Bible speaks of three great earth-shaking movements. The first is the Old Testament — it’s all prophecy, it’s an active prophesying; everything is simply “shall be” — these things shall be. Then comes the New Testament, where it makes the claim that these things have taken place. It’s based on the affirmation that a series of events happened, in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. But that God is man’s own wonderful human imagination — it happens in man. So the one in whom it happened told the story, and he was rejected, because they knew the earthly history of the man in whom it happened. They were looking for it to come in some other way, not through a man — a simple man whose parents we know, whose brothers we know, whose sisters we know, whose background has done nothing to warrant what he is claiming happened in him. Yet he claims it happened in him. And then, in his most unknown manner, he takes scripture and shows in scripture what was foretold, that it happened in him. Now the last great earth-shaking moment is how it happened. What’s going to happen — that’s the Old Testament, it’s all in the future. The New Testament is what happens. And then comes the third great movement of the earth’s magnitude, which is how it happened, and I am telling you how it happened.1085 ¶4

Everyone in this world is going to express it, and I’m qualified today to tell you how it happened. Here you will have a shake, so to say — there’ll be unnumbered shakes; there were three great earthquakes, but it all takes place within man. You should rejoice that it took place, that you’re living to take part in this — because the whole thing was shaking from within man. There isn’t one event in this world that is in itself causative; causation is spiritual, causation is all mental, it’s all within man. And the effect on the outside is — if you know what is actually produced by something that took place within man — here, the whole vast world on the outside only reflects that which is taking place on the inside of man. And man is the only reality. God is man; that man is God.1085 ¶5

In 1960, December the twenty-first, I had a series of visions in one night. And here I am, and here is the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Mark — but you know the story. He came out of the temple; as he came out of the temple, one disciple said to him, “Look, teacher, what great stones, what great buildings!” And Jesus said to him, receiving his great building, “Not one stone will be left standing upon another; but all will be thrown down.” And in my vision I saw this city, and I knew in advance which was going to fall, one after the other. They fell one after the other, all symbolic of the beliefs within me by which I lived. I lived in the belief of a historical Jesus; I was raised and trained that way. And then it collapsed, as indeed in the story of Paul — for Paul said, “I no longer regard anyone from the human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” He saw the whole mystery unfold within himself. And these huge buildings represented the beliefs by which I lived, and I thought these would last forever. I believed in the historic Christ; I believed in this, I believed in death, I believed in the other — everything outside of myself. And suddenly the whole thing collapsed, one building after the other, and I could spot it — that’s going to go next — and before my eyes it collapsed. Not one stone was left upon another. I saw that one collapse, the other one collapse, every building came down, but everything was done, and not one stone was left upon another that I had built in this world. And here was the thirteenth chapter of Mark completed within me: I have come only to fulfill scripture — fulfilling what I thought was so simple.1085 ¶6

Now, in the same chapter, if any man tells you, “Look, there is Christ” — hear me, do not believe it. Many will come in my name and say “I am” — the word Christ is added — many will come and say “I am”; forget it, there’s nothing outside of you. If I say “I am,” and I mean something other than yourself, it’s yourself — hold to nothing other than that. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God — that is the I AM — is the only I AM. The Supreme I AM is one with the “I” that is seated here now, who is calling itself Neville, calling itself whatever it calls itself — that which is now calling itself this is one with what you already believe to be a supreme being outside of yourself. And there is no other God that is the cause of everything in your world — it is nothing but God.1085 ¶7

So here there are three great earth-shaking events in the world: one was the Old Testament, the second is the New — one tells what’s going to happen, one told us what happened, and the third is how it happened.1085 ¶8

When I was a little boy — just a little one — this weird, strange woman, no one knew her background, had come up from England and lived in a little tenement, and money came to her from the bank. Who sent it, no one really inquired, or if they did, the bank would never divulge it. It was a small amount. But she lived in a windswept area in Barbados, where a constant breeze from the sea brought the salt in, and hardly anything could be done with metal there — all the nails were wooden nails, all the shingles were nailed with wood, the hinges were all wood. If you drove a car in those days — if people really had cars in those days, even a carriage — any metal would corrode itself. The trees were big, always bent at an angle from the wind. And one day — I was maybe seven or eight — this weird creature said to me, “You know, you’re going to leave this island and make your home far off, in another country. You’ll be the first to be married” — I’m one of ten children, and it was to be the first marriage among us — “and you’re going to have two children. And then you’re going to tell a story, and the story will reach enormous crowds.” She thought I was telling her something — that I was going to sell something. “But long after you’re gone from this world” — she’s talking to a child only seven, telling him what is to come at his exit from this world — “and long after, at your entry into God, they will tell a story, and you’ll be numbered among the three who have told the story” — or indeed the same thing.1085 ¶9

I know now what it is: one tells you what’s going to happen, one told you what happened, and I’m telling you how it happens. It’s going to happen to everyone in this world — that is what I came to tell you. Well, I was the first to get married; I do have two children; and I have been telling this story since 1938, to tens and hundreds of thousands of people. A small little audience tonight — that means nothing. Some feet of film on television, I reached quite a few million; and many times on radio, who knows what number; through the books I’ve written, who knows what number — when one alone has gone over a hundred thousand in print, who knows how much now. But it’s not finished now — it’s still unborn — for I’m telling you how it happened.1085 ¶10

This earth-shaking thing has nothing to do with — all this is shadows on the outside. So if it shakes again tonight, it’s been shaking all day anyway; you must have felt it. But that has nothing to do with the real earth-shakes of the Bible. In that thirteenth chapter of Mark, it is telling us there will be earthquakes, there will be wars and rumors of wars — all these things must be — but don’t let anyone point you to someone outside of you and say that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the true identity of every child born. Let no one tell you “there he is,” or point to anyone. He is within, and one day there will be a quake within him — a real thing, and this Tuesday morning’s is nothing compared to that. When it takes place, you wonder what on earth is happening — your head vibrates as not a thing in this world could ever vibrate you, you shake all over, and you think, “now this is it.” In my own case, I thought this is a massive earthquake and I can survive it — that’s what I thought — that was almost twelve years ago, come this July — and I thought that every little bone in my body was going to separate. Instead of that, I walked within my body, and then I realized: what I have been here, how long, I do not know; who put me here, I do not know. But here I am in a tomb, and my thought — the head was the tomb, my skull the depository — I had the innate wisdom to do what I had to do, to come out, as you will have it, the moment you shake off the dead state. It’s called in scripture “the last trumpet,” and the word trumpet means a reverberation, it is so intense that you can’t withstand the vibration, and it is the cause, and you wake within you. And then you come out, and then everything said of him you are going to express, and then you’ll know who Jesus Christ is.1085 ¶11

So anyone who tells you of another Christ, forget it. If they point to the greatest man in the world, granted — he is nothing compared to the being that you really are; that being is God. And no man in this world ever walked who could compare to the awareness of that man. So do not believe anyone who tells you “there he is” or “there she is” — forget it. It is all within you, and he’s dreaming this dream of life. So those who choose another God multiply their sorrows. So tonight, if you think that the cause of what happened is in something outside of yourself — well, then you have another God, and you’re multiplying your sorrows. There is not one thing in this world that is caused by another God; it is God in you causing everything in the world that you are experiencing and will experience, and it’s not caused by any other causation in the world. So name the greatest: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.1085 ¶12

Now, I heard some very famous archbishops say that any man who could actually put himself up as such is mentally deficient, he needs a psychiatrist, he needs this — and it goes on and on, a long talk about it. That’s what they said of the one in the tenth chapter of John: “Why listen to him? He’s mad. He has a devil, he must be a devil” — because he dares the claim that God is my father, and I and my father are one. He dares the claim that only by the father, and I am, the true and living way to the father, and no one could ever come to the father except by this one and only true and living way — there is no other way.1085 ¶13

So look upon Jesus Christ not as a person, but as a way. The early Christians were known as the people of the Way. It was a way; you are the person who travels the way. And so I meet you, and you say, “Do you know the way?” And I say to you, “Pray, and then it shall be shown you.” Well, if I know the way, I will tell you. Now, in this case, they wanted to know the way to the father. He said, “Well, I will show you the way; there is no other way but the one way — they are not two ways, only one way.”1085 ¶14

One day you will feel an earthquake — an earthquake that no one on earth has ever heard or felt before. It’s not an eight-point-five or a ten — it’s something that no one has ever experienced until he has felt it, for every little bone of your body vibrates, especially the head, and you think it’s going to explode. It begins with an earthquake, and it is known within, too — that’s the beginning of it. And then you come out of your own tomb, which is your skull, and when you come out, the story has told you it in Matthew and Luke — it surrounds you, the story of the birth of God, and you are the God that is being born, for there’s nothing but God in this world; you’re being born now to a higher level of your own being; this is only God expanding himself, and the symbolism around you is that which is told you in scripture.1085 ¶15

And then the next step on the way to the father is a glorious death. And you think, this one — this is it, you’ve had the other one, the earthquake, was it — but when this happens, your hair is completely gone, it’s an explosion, a new one — something has come upon the inside of you — and your head explodes, it literally explodes, all your sensations out. I’ll withhold describing the explosion, and then — it is quiet, and you find your son, and the son is God’s son, and his name is David, and he calls you father, and then you know who you are, then you know the word: “And David will be their prince forever.”1085 ¶16

David died — David said, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave.” So he raises up his son for the purpose of God — he cannot do otherwise, for the experience of God is made up of all his sons, and we are the son, and the person is his expansion — and the purpose now is to give himself to this level of himself. He’s giving himself — how could he give me himself? Because he gives himself: his father is to extend beyond the present level; he has to make me the father, and then everyone becomes the same father. Hear, O Israel, the Lord — that is, the I AM — our I AM is one. You’re going to prove it now: he has a son, the son of David, and I’ve got to become aware of actually being the father of David. Well, if David is my prince, then I am king. In that day, the Lord will be king over all the earth, and his name will be one, and the Lord one — that’s the day.1085 ¶17

And the third one, the fourteenth chapter of Zechariah, tells it in the most glorious manner. Because when you go back to the thirteenth chapter of Mark, he comes out of the temple — this is not taking place in the temple, he comes out of the temple, he’s in the courtyard — but he turns and looks up at the buildings; he’s on the outside of the temple. “See those great stones, and the great buildings” — and, “not one stone will be left upon another.” Now it goes into the third verse of that chapter, and as he answers his followers, he’s standing on the Mount of Olives — and of course, opposite the Mount of Olives there was the temple. So we go back to Zechariah, the fourteenth chapter.1085 ¶18

Here: “I am standing on the Mount of Olives” — the Lord is standing on the Mount of Olives — and the mount was split, from east to west, and a great valley divided it. And one who knows it — and then he said, and the Lord, and all the holy ones with him — it is to follow him; the Hebrew word is “you,” not “him,” and your footnote in the Revised Standard Version will show you the pronoun is not, as used in both the King James and the Revised Standard Version, it is you — all the holy ones will follow you. And then it goes on: in that day the Lord will be king over all the earth, and then the Lord will be one, and his name one. It is I AM as one. I am fulfilling only scripture, now.1085 ¶19

On that day, when the mount is split, in this place you are standing, looking at it, and your body is split from top to bottom, from the head to the base of your spine. I’m telling you — look at the base of your spine, and you see this golden, lovely, pulsing liquid light, and you know it’s yourself. It is your own wonderful Redeemer and Creator, and it is yourself, redeeming yourself — no one else — no one has created you, it’s only God, and you fuse with it. And, like a fiery serpent rising, you move up into heaven, and again it reverberates as you rise, and the angel puts upon you such force as speaks in the Bible. And that is another stage in the way to the father.1085 ¶20

You find, in the second stage — the first is the explosion, when you have the vibration which is an earthquake; the second is the fantastic explosion; then comes the third, like a fiery serpent, you go up; and then the fourth stage — this is the final thing — is when the seal of approval is upon you in the form of a dove. And then the dove descends upon you and remains upon you and smothers you with love. And there you see the seal of approval of the work you have done — you did it. There is nothing but you; there is nothing but God in this world.1085 ¶21

So the first is what’s going to take place; the second, the earthquake, is what took place; and the third is how it takes place. And I’ve been sent to tell you how it takes place, and to ask you to put your faith completely, not on anything external, not on any external God, but on the pattern. Christ is the pattern man; Christ is the way. So, “Show me the way to the father,” and I’ll show you: one night, when you least expect it, he will come with a sudden shock, just as an earthquake will take place within you — not on the outside, as the one at two in the morning, but within you — and that will seem like a little nothing compared to what’s going to take place. For that is a shadow, the foreshadowing, of what is to be.1085 ¶22

All these things are taking place because we are on the verge of the awakening, and all are going to awaken, and when they awake, they’re awake as God. Everyone who awakens is God; there’s nothing but God, there’s no room in this world for anything but God. But it seems such a horrible thing to accept — so, sixty-two people got killed as well — all right, it’s part of an unfolding plan; they are already restored to life, in a world just like this, to continue the journey. One day the quake will not kill them and crush them; the quake will take place within them, and they will awaken. And all that took place here this past June, when fifty-two were killed, will be as nothing.1085 ¶23

You’ve gone through it, I’ve gone through it, all the horrors of the world — you and I have gone through it — a joy unknown, a fabric woven for the soul divine. Everyone has gone through it, and we’re going through it. But in the end, a canvas painting beyond the wildest dream of anything known to man.1085 ¶24

And Apollo — that no one here foresaw — we sent a man to the moon on three occasions, we’ve done it — as a feat elsewhere — that is nothing compared to the power that you will exercise tomorrow. You will have the power to stop time — actually stop time, nothing could move when you stop it — and then, when you stop it, you can change the motivation of the things that you observe, rearrange the entire thing, and change the motive, and then release time and see it come out differently. That’s the power that you will exercise tomorrow, for you are the power of God, because you are God. And you are the wisdom of God, because you are God. And Jesus Christ is defined in scripture as the power of God, and the wisdom of God. You want to read it: the first chapter of First Corinthians — “Jesus, the power of God, and the wisdom of God” — and all the promises of God find their yea, which means fulfillment, in him ().1085 ¶25

But all the promises — and the promises are all in the Old Testament — are all written of the future, and he comes only to fulfill it. And in a simple, simple manner he fulfilled it, but it was not what the world was expecting, so they denied that this thing had been fulfilled. All right, so he fulfilled it, and he told them who could relate it, and who could tell it, so that they released the experience of the one in whom it happened. And now will come one who will tell you how it happened.1085 ¶26

For Jesus Christ is simply the way to the father, and when he went to the father, he prepared the way for himself to go back, and the way back is called Jesus Christ. And people think it is simply a little man on the outside of himself — no, it is a way. They were called the people of the Way. And there’s only one way back.1085 ¶27

And so it’s not through diet, it’s not through being good, it is not from being rich or being socially prominent — all the nonsense of the world. I have a friend of mine back east, and she comes out of the so-called family of the Adamses, who was our president — his kind of president. And so her son is named Adam. But the word Adam, to me, is foreign. Well, his name isn’t Adam, his name is Adams — his forefather is a president of our country, and so he’s named after his forefather. All right, I thanked her — her name’s Ruth, by the way — so I thanked her for it. But of course, again I called him Adam; again she corrected me: “His name is not Adam, Neville — the name is Adams.” And she’s so proud of that ancestry.1085 ¶28

And I am telling you: you are the father of God’s son, and his name is David. Can you conceive of any greater ancestry? Is there anyone walking the face of this earth with any greater ancestry than you, when I tell you who you are? You are the father of God’s only begotten son, and his only begotten son is David. And when you see him, after that second stage in the journey back, and you know who you are — is there anyone on the face of this earth greater than the being that you discover yourself to be, when you discover the pure God? So, she wants to be an Adams — I’m telling you, you surpass all the greatness and all the things of earth, for you are God. And one day, the second stage back to the source will reveal the truth of what I’m talking about — you’re going to find, if you really are God, because you’re going to find you’re done, and your son is the Son of God, and there is only one God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one Lord, not two. So when you see the son — the only one — and you know he is your son, you know who you are, and you know — there is nothing but God in this world.1085 ¶29

So this is the story I’ve been sent to tell you. And should I stop now, the thirty seconds makes no difference, I’ll tell you: you’ve recorded it, and it is here, and someone will have the capacity and the ability to write it, as they wrote the story two thousand years ago and told it all. Well, forget the word Neville — just know it is to tell the story, and to tell you how to go back to the source, for you are the source, you are the cause of the phenomena of life. For man is all imagination, and God is man, and exists in us; and within him, the eternal body of man is the imagination — and that is God himself, that’s your immortal being. There is nothing but God.1085 ¶30

So when you read it through — when you read it tonight — bear in mind what you heard this night: those who choose another God multiply their sorrows. I don’t care what name you give it — you call it Jesus Christ, if it’s something other than you, you’re multiplying your sorrows. Call it God, and don’t mean yourself — you’re multiplying your sorrows. Call it Jehovah, and it’s not yourself — you’re multiplying your sorrows. Call it by any name, no matter how sacred the name is to you — if it means something other than yours, and you hear the word God, the word Jehovah, the word Jesus, the word Jesus Christ, and it conveys the sense of something existing outside of man, you’re multiplying your sorrows. It has to convey your own wonderful imagination — that’s God, the holy God.1085 ¶31

And all these little shakes — and friends of mine in the audience tonight, they have these shakes prior to it, and in the wake of it, and they’re all perfectly wonderful, their faces are perfectly radiant — I can’t thank them enough for sharing it with me. But here, if you read it tonight — that’s the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Mark; the related chapters are the twenty-fourth of Matthew and the twenty-first of Luke, but I like the one as Mark presented it — he does it in a very primitive manner, but it’s all beautiful; so in Mark it’s simple and very, very clearly stated.1085 ¶32

As to Jesus Christ — is there anyone who says, “Look, there he is,” or “here he is” — believe it not. But many will come saying, “I am he,” do not believe it. Let no one make the claim, and you believe it; let it be revealed if he really has had the experience, so that those within his world will see it. He doesn’t have to ask anyone to see it, he doesn’t care — he knows it has to be seen by those within his world who are related to the picture. He knows Peter must come — and in my case, be the same — she’s a beautiful, beautiful Peter too, and she saw it. Everyone will see it, so I don’t have to ask anyone to see it or try to persuade you.1085 ¶33

So don’t believe that it is Neville — I am not speaking of Neville, I am speaking of the source. I’m speaking of a series of events man must experience to take him back to the source, and that series of events that takes him back to the source is called the way. So when you read, in the fourteenth of John, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes unto the father except by me” — he is telling you of the only way back to the father, which is the soul, the cause of the phenomenal life. So forget the man, and simply see the way — it is called the way, the true and living way, and there is no other way.1085 ¶34

But the most difficult thing in the world for man is to completely give up his thousand and one fixed beliefs, when he has been trained — as he has been trained — to believe in creatures outside of himself. And so he believes in a historical Jesus, in a historical Moses, in a historical Jacob, and all these things — when the Old Testament is simply an active prophecy, and the New an active fulfillment. And what I’m telling you is act two. But I’m telling you what I know from experience. And I’ve been sent to tell you the way, to tell you how you go back to discover the only one who is God the Father. And there is no other way.1085 ¶35

So tonight, you can put it to the test — the power of which I speak. You’re going to assume that you are now the one that you would like to be, and remain faithful to your assumption; and to the degree that you are faithful to that assumption, you will become it, because you really are the creator of all the things in your world, and you create by simply assuming a certain state, entering into that state, living in the state, feeling it to be natural, and then you project it on the screen of space. No matter what you project, it is nothing to the thing you really are, who is doing the projecting.1085 ¶36

But in the world of Caesar, one would like more money, more this, more the other — you can do it. One day, you’ll get tired of all the things you’re projecting, and then you will remember that statement in the Book of Amos: “In that day, I will send a famine upon the land — not a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but a hunger for hearing the word of God.” You get so tired of things, yet unappreciated, and you want to hear the word of God. But you are God — you want to hear what you foretold in the beginning, and what you meant by it, and what someone claims fulfills itself in the things that happen. And you become so hungry, not a thing on the outside will satisfy you, only this: the word of God. And you let everything drop, and put all of your interest simply in the word of God.1085 ¶37

For you really are not only God, but you are his word, because the Word and God are one: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So he sent it, and his word cannot return void; it must accomplish that for which it was purposed, and prosper in the thing for which he sent it — well, he sent himself, he had no one else to send.1085 ¶38

Can you conceive of a moment when a father — you are all now his sons, billions of us — but because he is omnipresent, he’s present to all; because he’s omniscient, and he’s omnipotent — and he tells us a story: that he is going to become invisible. “There, a good look at me now — I’ll become invisible,” he tells us, for one purpose: “In becoming invisible, I have become you, and you will become as I am.” The drama is over — you will be as I am. And my father tells me that, and he showed me the result — tells me it’s the one dearest and nearest to his heart. And then my father becomes invisible, and I think, as I start the journey, I nevermore will see my father — not knowing it is built in, from eternity, within me. But he is faithful, and, sure enough, he keeps his promise to me. And one day — I don’t see him, I see his son, and it is my son, and I know he kept his promise.1085 ¶39

The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. That is the divine body that we speak of as Jesus Christ, your own wonderful human imagination. Now Blake tells us that man has no body distinct from his soul. That called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlet in this age, the chief inlet of the soul in this age. Now, when he uses the word soul, he is speaking of your own wonderful human imagination. When he speaks of your imagination, he is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is speaking of the Lord Jehovah. So, you, as you are seated here, Jesus is here.1076 ¶1

Now, how is this brought about? I have no body that is distinct from my soul. I drop dead right now, take the body up, and in a few days it’s turned to ash, and you scatter it. So here I have no body distinct from my soul, from my reality. Then what is this? How did it come about? The independent soul, in its descent into this age, this world of death, penetrates and annexes the brain of a physical body, which is part of the eternal structure of the universe. And in penetrating and annexing the brain of a physical body, it embodies itself, entombs itself in that body. That is how Jesus is buried. That’s how he is crucified. He is crucified on the body. He is entombed in the body. And there he dreams the dream of life.1076 ¶2

Now, this alliance, as you and I descended into these tombs, this alliance with the brain of a physical body, where we are now entombed, is not less wonderful than that alliance which you and I will realize and experience when we ascend and penetrate and annex the brain of the heavenly man. As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. We are the reality. We are the gods. We are the very body that we penetrated and annexed its brain. And there we are, dreaming this dream of life. If I know I am dreaming it, I can control the dream. If I know I am dreaming it. But a man dreaming doesn’t know that he’s dreaming. The minute he knows he’s dreaming, he wakes. You can prolong a dream if you know how to control it. But usually when a man discovers he’s dreaming, he wakes and he returns fair. And he will say to himself, oh, it was only a dream. The day will come you will know this is a dream, and you will awake. But that waking will be something entirely different from the kind of awaking when you wake on a morning and find yourself on the bed where you fell asleep the night before. That other waking will be something entirely different, when you actually awake within yourself to discover that you really are the Lord Jesus Christ.1076 ¶3

I am telling you what I know from experience. Everyone in this world is going to have that experience. For your true being is God, not something on the outside. The God in you, now entombed in the body that you, in your descent, penetrated and annexed its brain. And do not let anyone tell you that the descent, as you descend it — what an adventure! — and annexed the brain of the body you now wear, that that is less wonderful than what you are going to experience when you ascend and you penetrate and annex the brain of the heavenly man. That ascent is as real as anything you’ve ever dreamed in this world. It comes the moment that you are torn in two. In scripture: “And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” And then he took with him not the blood of an animal, the blood of a goat, a lamb, a sheep — he took his own blood, threw the curtain into the holy of holies. And he tells you how it happens: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” And when you are split in two, from top to bottom, and that curtain which is your own flesh parts, and you see the two halves of your body, and you are the observer. And when you look at it and you see the base, a golden living liquid light, and you know it is yourself. That’s the blood that you had shed to come down here. And you fuse with it, and then, like some fiery serpent, up you go into the brain. You penetrate it, and here you annex it. And you become one with that heavenly man, and you wear it as your own body. You are then the risen Lord. And everyone is going to enter into that one body, by one spirit. And he will be the one God and Father of all, and everyone will be that one God and Father of all.1076 ¶4

You and I, who came down as brothers, in this fantastic venture. I tell you what I know. I am not speculating. The day will come — if tonight you think you’re completely insane, it will make no difference to me whatsoever, because I know you’re going to have the experience, and you’re going to know how true it is, everyone in this world — but while we have penetrated and annexed the brain of the body we now wear, we are now confronted with all the vicissitudes entailed by that annexation. It contains within itself certain restrictions, certain horrors, but we penetrated it, we appropriated it, we annexed it.1076 ¶5

When America annexed California, it had to accept the happenings in California as incidents within itself. Just a few weeks ago, you thought maybe America regretted it and tried to shake it off into the Pacific. It tried to burn it last year, then tried to flood it out, and then tried now to wind it out, and then to shake it out. But it is still part of that body. They annexed it, and they must now actually accept all the happenings in it as incidents within itself.1076 ¶6

And so, as long as I wear this body with all the weaknesses of my so-called forefathers, anything built into it based upon what the physical so-called descent entails, I have to endure. Everything, because I benefited it, annexed it, and I wear it, and now it becomes a temporary part of my soul. And I am soul. I am all imagination. I am the being spoken of in scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the being spoken of in scripture as Jehovah, and so are you. Every child born of woman is the same being, not one is greater than the other. We are the sons of God who came down into this world, and we ventured, and we penetrated and annexed the brains of the bodies we now wear, animating them, for they’re all dead. May I tell you, they were dead? It seemed as though they were not, but they were dead. If you saw them as I see them, they’re all still, like statues.1076 ¶7

Now let me share with you a letter that came to me yesterday. The lady and her husband are here tonight. They’re here all the time. She said, “You close on the 11th of December. Well, this happened on the 7th, the lecture before the last. It was a Monday night. And you were simply using the 14th chapter of the book of John. And suddenly, at almost the very end of your lecture, I found myself standing in a huge temple, standing at the entrance. I was about to leave, and I thought I would simply take one more look at the interior of this temple, because I was about to depart. As I looked in, every wall had two columns, and then a door leading through the columns. They were all equally spaced. And in front of the doorway, which led out, there was a statue. And I knew,” she said, “that I could put that statue on as I would a garment. But I knew if I did, I would have to experience all that was contained within that statue. But I also knew I had already done it. All these I had played. They were all individual statues at the doorway between the two columns. And there were simply many doorways within the interior of this huge, huge temple. And then I felt what enormous satisfaction, that I have done it, I have completed the work that I came to do.”1076 ¶8

“And then I came back to the lecture, and the lecture was almost over. That night when we went home, my husband and I put on the tape. And I knew when I had dropped from hearing you audibly here and found myself standing at the entrance, departing from this enormous huge temple (for I make notes as you speak), and the last note I made was this: ‘He is not the garment that he wore.’ That’s the last thing I wrote down. ‘All is spirit.’ And then I came back. You spoke beyond that, but I had no notes beyond that. That was my last note. So when you said, “He is not the garment that he wore,” it was then that I found myself standing in the entrance to this huge, huge temple. And these statues, and everyone, were something I could have worn as easily as I now wear a dress. And then I realized, I have worn them. I have played all this. I don’t have to replay them. I have played them. I have experienced everything that I can give to anyone, leaving them there for anyone else to experience. I can’t thank you enough for that.”1076 ¶9

What a wonderful vision. And may I tell you how true it is: when you see these things in eternity, the whole thing is done. It’s a play, but you and I are the actors. God only acts and is, in existing beings, or men. Well, the actor in you is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s the actor. That’s God. And God only acts. Now, he actually puts on these garments. He puts them on by penetrating and annexing the brain of the garment he’s going to wear. But within that garment there are limitations and horrors and all kinds of things. And then I am confronted with all the possessiveness entailed by that annexation. And so I’ve got to go through it.1076 ¶10

So my mother died at 61, my father died at 85 — he drank heavily and she didn’t drink — and all these things, and all of a sudden the scientists tell you that this is your background physically? All right, let them tell me all they can. I am actually in tune in this, wearing the restrictions of this garment, but having discovered who I am, I can modify it. I have seen a dozen Hamlets, and no two are played alike. They all stick to the script, and they depart on time. They take their cue and they enter on time. But they interpret it differently. And so I can take a part, knowing who I am, that I am the actor, that I am not the thing that I am playing. I am the actor playing a part. Well, if I know I am, then I can modify the drama. I can interpret it differently without changing the words of the author.1076 ¶11

I was coming on cue, as I did, and I will depart on cue. And no one could extend my days one iota. As we are told in scripture, “who by taking thought could add one hour to his span of life?” Not one hour. It used to be interpreted, not in a temporal sense, but in a spatial sense — “who by taking thought could add one cubit, which means 30 inches, to his stature.” It isn’t that any longer. We have discovered that was not the true interpretation of it. It is, “who by taking thought, or who by being anxious, could add one hour to his span of life?” You come on time, you depart on time. But in that interval, you can make it a rich and wonderful life.1076 ¶12

So I say to every one of you, you are the Lord Jesus Christ. You are God. If you don’t want to believe it, it’s perfectly all right. If, when I use the word Jesus, the mind thinks of something external to yourself, I tell you, you’ve got the wrong one. If I say God and Jehovah, and the mind jumps out and you see an existing presence, something that is external to yourself, you’ve got the wrong God. When I use the word, and suddenly I am calling you to your own attention, as to who you are, and you think of just your own being, your imagination, you’ve got the right one. Then I’m jolting you.1076 ¶13

Then what are you now doing? Because God creates by imagining. God imagining is creating. And so what are you creating? At that moment I’m calling you to attention. Then what are you now creating? You’re doing it by what you’re imagining. Because you are the only reality in the world. You are God. So I ask you to imagine the loveliest things in the world. I don’t care what it is, how confining the present state. It doesn’t really matter, you are God, and all things are possible to God. So you begin to imagine the loveliest things in the world. Begin with self, then you widen the circle, you take in your family, you take in your friends, you go beyond that to take in a larger circle, only imagining the best. Because you’re bringing into pass, into this world, all that you’re imagining.1076 ¶14

So here, the eternal body of man is man’s own wonderful human imagination. One day, as you came down and penetrated and annexed the body you wear — one day, and I’m telling you what I know from experience — you will ascend like fire. It’s a fiery serpent. I’ve told you the third chapter of the Gospel of John. You will go up just like a fiery serpent. And when you enter heaven, you will take it and it will reverberate dust like thunder. Those who enter, enter it violently. You penetrate it and annex the brain of the heavenly man, and that heavenly man you become, as you penetrate it and annex the brain of the earthly man, the man of dust. So just as we bear the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. Everyone’s going to do it. But start to think about it now. Start to develop on it.1076 ¶15

Physical death is not breaking the tomb. You are entombed in these bodies. Physical death is not departing from the tomb. You will find yourself clothed in a body just like this, old and young, in a world just like this, terrestrial. And when you break the tomb, you break it alone. There is no one to assist. You don’t need assistance. You find yourself awake, completely awake, in the tomb of your own skull. And then you push your own stone away. No one pushes it away for you. You know exactly what to do, and you push it away at the base of your skull. You need no midwife to deliver you. You deliver yourself. You push your head out of that hole, and there you push, like a child coming out of the womb of a woman, and your own hands you use to pull yourself out of that skull. You don’t need any midwife. And when you come out, the witnesses are there. They can’t see you, because you are spirit. But they see the evidence of your birth. They see the infant bearing witness to the fact that something is born. You shall find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying on the floor. The child is there, and they’ll find him, but you they cannot see, because you’re God, and God is spirit.1076 ¶16

You are born, you came down, entombed yourself deliberately. As we are told, “no one takes away my life, I lay down myself. I have the power to lay down and the power to lift it up again.” And so it’s you of whom the prophet wrote. It is you, the one spoken of in scripture, called Jesus Christ. And it is you saying, “no one takes away my life, I lay down myself. I have the power to lay down,” which you did when you became what you are, when you attached yourself to this body, penetrating it, annexing the brain, you entombed yourself in it. No one put you there. You did it yourself. And when the time has fully come for the breaking of the shell of that skull of yours, you will break it. And you will come out unassisted, and you’ll come out and no midwife is necessary. You draw yourself out, born all by yourself, but your spirit now. And no one sees you, but they see the evidence of your birth.1076 ¶17

And so everything said of Jesus Christ in scripture is said of you, because you are the one spoken of. They are writing all about you. So the eternal body of man is his own wonderful human imagination. That’s God. That is the Jesus Christ of scripture. So when you read it, keep these words in mind as you come to the word. Let it sort of awaken you, jolt you, as to who you really are.1076 ¶18

Now, while you are here and still dreaming the dream of life, and you have not yet broken the tomb and pushed away the stone, and you have not yet been born from above, you can change the dream you’re dreaming now. Oh yes, you will have the things that your body must encounter. All the weaknesses, you are going to have them. All the strengths, will have them. But you can change the dream and modify the dream. If you are dreaming now recession, dreaming depression, dreaming this, that, and the other, you can stop that dream. What would it be like if you asked yourself a simple question: what would it be like if I were now the man that I would like to be? Dare to assume that you are that man. And to the degree that you are self-persuaded that you are, though reason denies it, and your senses deny it, if you are self-persuaded, it will happen in your world, because — it’s a dream, it doesn’t seem like it’s a dream, I tell you it is a dream — the whole vast world is a dream and you are the dreamer of the dream.1076 ¶19

Now, if you let the morning paper suggest the kind of dream that you should dream — and they seem to cover the entire world to get some story that is frightening. They’re not satisfied to print what is happening here. It is scaring you out. They’ve got to go all over the world to find something that is more frightening to put it as a headline. And so they feed you that with your coffee in the morning. And so man is given the kind of thing they want. It’s a dream. It’s a scare philosophy. They sell things based upon fear. Well, this — don’t accept it. Know what you want in this world, and only that, and feed yourself that. What would it be like — my friends, my family, I — well, you name it — if we were now what we would like to be? And then persuade yourself.1076 ¶20

That is, how do I persuade myself when reason denies that I am, when my senses deny that I am? Well, if I know that I am all imagination, can’t I imagine it? Can you conceive of any hypothesis in this world that our great scientists have ever conceived? It wasn’t sheer fancy? Every hypothesis of science began with fancy. Suppose it were true. It seems as though it ought to be true, they would say, but they have no evidence that it is true. It began with fancy. Suppose it were true. It seems as though it ought to be true, they would say. But they have no evidence that it is true. It began with fancy. Then they experiment. I wonder if it’s true.1076 ¶21

Well, now you try the same thing. I wonder if it is true, if I assume that I am what I would like to be and sustain that assumption, if it would harden into fact. Well, try it. You’re told in scripture that it will. You’re told that whatever you believe, believe that you have received it. Whatever you desire, believe you’ve received it, and you will. He didn’t say providing it’s good, providing it’s this, that, and the other, that the priesthoods of the world tell you you should. You ask no one permission. Can you believe? Well then, fire. Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will. That’s telling you that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact. That’s what it’s telling you. Well, now I’ll go to bed in the assumption that I am, that those I love are what I would like to be and like them to be. And then see if my persistency will prove it to be a fact. Well, if it proves it, well then what does it matter what others think? If I have evidence for a thing, does it matter what the world tells me? I will tell it to others in the hope that they’ll believe it and become free, but if they don’t believe it, at least I’ve done my duty, I’ve told them so.1076 ¶22

May I tell you, you are infinitely greater, entombed as you are, than you could ever know yourself to be. And so only when you break the tomb and come out do you really realize who you are. And when you read the book of books, the Bible, and you see that all that has happened to you, it was all there, but it was said of another, and you are taught to believe that he was another. He is the pattern man. Jesus Christ is the pattern man. So when you actually experience all that is said of him, you’ll realize who you are. He is the pattern, and you are following a pattern, and it’s a perfect pattern. Everything said of him, you’re going to experience of yourself.1076 ¶23

If you want to tell it to someone, tell it. If they don’t believe it, it doesn’t really matter. They can’t undo it by their disbelief. They can only simply delay their own awakening. Well, I tell you what I know, what I have experienced: that your eternal body is your imagination. It’s immortal. It cannot die. Cut your head off now, they cannot reach the immortal you. And the body that is burned and cast away, let them burn it, you reproduce it, until you actually awake in the tomb. For the body is a tomb. You are entombed by your annexation of its brain. And you will not get out of it. You will reproduce it over and over, no matter how often they cut off the head, until you yourself awaken in it. And you’ll awaken in it, and unassisted by anyone, you’ll come out of it. You’ll come out of the tomb.1076 ¶24

As recorded in scripture, “and they came and they saw, and the tomb was empty. And they went and they told the story, and they said, he is risen. But the words seemed the words of an idle tale, and they did not believe it.” That’s perpetually so. They did not believe it. And so to this day it is still told in an erroneous way. The churches are not telling the story of the gospel. They’re telling a secular history. And it isn’t. It’s salvation history. The whole thing is contained within you, the immortal you. And you saw it all before you settled. All was foretold you. And then you drank, as we all do, that juice of forgetfulness. And we forget who we are as we come down, that juice of forgetfulness, and we forget who we are, as we come down and entomb ourselves and take all the weaknesses and the restrictions and the limitations of the body that we have annexed. And we have to suffer with it. As we are told in scripture, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to understand, was it not necessary for Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”1076 ¶25

He comes down into — speaking of you now — you come down into the restriction called man. You take upon yourself the limitation of contraction, of opacity. And when you reach that limit, then all of a sudden, you dream the dream of life. In the fullness of time, you break the shell, like a chick coming out of the shell. And then you come out, and then you ascend. And the very one that came down is the one that goes up. Only he who descended can ascend. So you will ascend, and you’ll do the same thing. But now you will penetrate and annex the brain of the heavenly man. This was only a temporary annexation. So that the body here becomes a temporary possession of the soul, but only temporary. And then you go up and you annex the brain of the heavenly man, and that’s permanent. And you are the living God. And everyone’s going to go up and become that same living God. And then there’ll be only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all. And you and I will be one, without loss of identity. No loss of identity.1076 ¶26

Now here was another one that came this week. Both came yesterday. He said, I woke and the words were so clear. Here a voice is dictating to me. And the voice said, a prophet sees, an apostle is sent, an apostle experiences. An apostle sees, prophesies, and experiences. Then the voice says, the key is the words will and sent. And then came the boy quoting: “I came, he who sent me. I and he are one.” How altogether wonderful: the prophet sees, the apostle experiences, the apostle is sent — the very word means to be sent, but the sender and the sent are one. He and I are one. So when he sent into the world, and he knows he sent, he stood in the presence of his own being, but it seemed objective to himself. It was all love. Love embraced him, and love sends him. But although in the world he is so restricted, while he tells the story and makes the confession, “I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I,” he is only telling us that the office of the sent is less than the office of the sender. Yet he is the sender. Therefore, as his essential being, he is not less than. Only the office of the sent is less. So in the world, he is still restricted. This is the world of death, where everything dies here.1076 ¶27

So she heard the words clearly, as you are told in scripture. All the prophets were hearing. Isaiah, he heard the word of God. Elijah heard the word of God. Every prophet is hearing the word of God. There she was, and she’s hearing it. She got up and she wrote it down. Then she closed her letter by saying, “Hallelujah.” She heard it so clearly. And then she said, every word was so distinct. And she got up, as though some quake had awakened her, and wrote the entire thing down. The prophet sees. The apostle experiences.1076 ¶28

Now bear in mind what an apostle is. Do you know, in Hebrews, the letter of the Hebrews, Jesus Christ is called the apostle? No mention of anyone else. So the apostle is Jesus Christ. He is sent. He says, “I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I.” In my present office as the sent, I seem to be less than my self, the sender, but I am returning to my self, the sender, when I am through with the experiences of the one that is sent. And so I will tell you what happened to me as the one that is sent. I came to fulfill what I prophesied. I inspired the prophets to say what I would do when I, the word made flesh, would appear. And so I have come to fulfill and to experience my own prophecy. Having experienced it, I now return to myself, the Father. And I tell you, I am going to my Father and to your Father, and to my God and your God.1076 ¶29

And to whom is he speaking? He said, “go to my brothers and say to my brothers, I am ascending to my God and your God, to my Father and your Father,” for I am returning back to the Father as the self, because “he who sees me sees the Father.” And he calls us brothers. So all are moving back to the one source. There is only one source, and it is God the Father.1076 ¶30

So here you chose what you are wearing. And today we have all this nonsense in the world, trying to stop the children of the world, because we don’t have enough food and we’re burning food. We have more food than the world could ever use. We have enough means to make all the things in the world to satisfy numberless more than we have in the world. And we have all the nonsense about no more children. And the pressure of the sons of God coming down to penetrate and annex a physical body, that it may entomb itself and then return to its source, having the experience of the entombment — we are trying to stop it. Now, may I tell you, you just don’t stop it. It just happens. Oh, you can have all the abortions in the world, but when the time comes for the explosion of population, you aren’t going to stop it. You’ll become one of those foolish virgins, as the story is said: “I thought you said you were a virgin.” “I said, yes, but I’m one of the foolish ones.” And so there’ll be foolish virgins all over the world bringing forth babies, because sons of God are coming down, and you want to stop them annexing the brains of these little physical garments.1076 ¶31

So tonight you take me seriously, because I know what I’ve told you, you are going to experience. I’m prophesying for you. You will not avoid it, because you are the Lord Jesus Christ. But you are now in tune, the crucifixion is over, for your concern. But the resurrection has not taken place. That is taking place, and may take place in the not distant future, for everyone who is hearing me. But it’s going to take place regardless. No one can fail, but no one, for we are the immortals. And you cannot cease being the immortal, no matter what is done to you in this world. And the day will come, you’ll break the tomb, roll away the stone, and come out unassisted. And then all that is said of him, you’re going to experience. And then you’ll know who you are. So he comes to us as one unknown, yet one who in the most wonderful, mysterious manner lets us experience who he is. And when we experience who he is, we experience it in the first person singular. And then we know who we are. For there is only the Lord Jesus Christ.1076 ¶32

Now let us go into the silence. Questions, please.1076 ¶33

Yes, ma’am. What is the way of raising the captives to the grateful creatures to keep themselves as they are in the fire? The question is, is there any way of shortening the interval to break that tomb? My dear, I do not know of any. I do not know of any. I would say, believe, as we are told in scripture, “believe in me.” You see, “what must I do to be doing the work of God?” “Believe in him whom he has sent” — so that one stops believing in their prefabricated misconception of him. It’s a difficult thing to give up, I know. But one has to give up that strange concept that they hold of Jesus Christ, and bring him as he really is within one, because he’s buried in man. He is actually entombed in every child born of woman. So he has to believe then in himself. If he turns out to see something on the outside where he worships, then he is not really doing the work of God. “What must we do to be doing the work of God?” And the answer is, “believe in him whom he has sent.” Now he tells you, “I am with you always, even to the ends of time.” If he is with you always, even to the ends of time, why go on the outside? If he is with you always. And then Paul asks the question, “do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” If he’s in me, I should make every effort to find out where he is and who he is. And I am telling you, you will come to the conclusion when you find him that he is your own wonderful human imagination.1076 ¶34

I have a question. No. I’ve heard that when we breathe in this way, when we breathe through this way, that all the other experiences that we do experience in this body — Yes, my dear, by certainty. When you wake in the morning after the most horrible dream, where you violated your moral code, your ethical code, you don’t condemn yourself. You try to analyze the significance of the dream. It has some meaning. What is it trying to tell me? But you certainly aren’t going to condemn yourself, because you will say, well, that was a dream. May I tell you, when you awake one day, you’re going to say, this whole thing is a dream? It’s a dream. The whole thing is a dream. And you will not condemn yourself when you wake in the morning after the most horrible dream. If you are unfaithful as a wife, and actually did everything that you were not in a rational state do, you will say to yourself, that was only a dream, I didn’t do it. Well, the day will come, no matter what you have done in this world, when you wake, you didn’t do it. It was all a dream. Did you read that little thought expressed last Wednesday in the LA Times concerning Keats? This is the 150th anniversary of his death. He died in Italy 150 years ago. And they quoted what Shelley said about him, his farewell words to Keats, when Shelley heard of his death. And Shelley wrote: “He lives, he wakes, his death is dead, not he.” And so, when you wake, it is death. You came down into the world of death. Entombed yourself, your skull is an actual tomb. But there, you being alive, you dream. You’re entombed, and you are dreaming in the state of death and projecting it on the screen of space, and it all seems so objectively real and so completely independent of you. It’s like an author and a play. He conceives a play, and suddenly he’s beginning to lose control of his characters. They’re becoming independent of him. And that’s what’s happened here.1076 ¶35

Tonight’s subject is eschatology. The term “eschatology” has been used only since the nineteenth century — something entirely new. But in the religious world they’re taking the word and throwing it all over the place, each thinking that they know when the end is coming, when the word really means the doctrine of the end of history. But it has nothing to do with secular history.1075 ¶1

Salvation history has already been brought to its climax and fulfillment, so it’s not a thing to do with this world, and the stars falling, and all these things that people are talking about. So when all these religious leaders get up and believe it, and say the signs are on us for the end of the world — that’s nonsense. It has nothing to do with anything about moons and stars and what not. It’s all about salvation history, and God has already brought that to climax and fulfilled it in the story of Jesus Christ. It is in the individual that the great dramatic events in the life of Jesus happened. The story of Jesus is an active parable which I can tell you, and you can tell another, in the hope that they will believe it, for the story needs to take place in the individual.1075 ¶2

Everything said of him actually happens in the individual. And when it happens, that is the abrupt end between this world — you can call it the supernatural world of God. They’re telling us — and this is funny — where men occur in the world, they wax, they wane, they die. There is total life, and they wax, they wane, and vanish, seemingly forever, until this salvation history takes place. And then they are cast in the central role; they are the star of the drama, and they will experience the story of Jesus Christ in a first-person-singular present-tense experience, and then they will know who Jesus Christ really is.1075 ¶3

So he is not coming from without. He is looking, dreaming the dream of life, and he will awaken and be that man. This is the Christ of whom I speak, and I am speaking from experience. I am not theorizing — than the speaker, when it erupted in me and completed itself in that same number of days as is stated in scripture, and it would take twelve hundred and sixty days for the four major events to take place. Earlier events take place too, yet they’re all related to scripture — in scripture. He said, even himself, “I have come to fulfill scripture.” What scripture? Concerning God’s plan of salvation.1075 ¶4

Now, you want to read this story of eschatology in the Bible — you’ll read it in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Mark, and the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Matthew. In these chapters, they look at the buildings — these lovely buildings — and one calls his attention to the fact that these buildings were beautiful, and he said, “You see these buildings? They shall not leave one stone standing upon another; every stone shall be cast down.” “When will this be? When will it take place?” And he told them that there will be false prophets, false teachers who were coming into the world and say, “I am Christ.” Do not believe them, though they perform wonders, in the hope that they will mislead and lead astray, if possible, even the elect. “I have told you all things beforehand.”1075 ¶5

At the end of the play, I intend to pay [play?] for you, and I tell you that you saw it as something from without, and that I tried to persuade you that what you have just seen is a play that will unfold in you, and you will be cast in the starring role, whether you believe it or not. That’s entirely up to you. But I’ll show you the play, and having seen the play, then I will try to tell you what it means.1075 ¶6

This is God’s plan of redemption, God’s plan of salvation, and everyone will be redeemed, because it is only God redeeming himself. It is God who came into the world of death, and it is God who departs from this world after his purpose has been fulfilled. And the purpose of the descent into the world of death is to expand himself. His wisdom must expand. He is not omniscient — there would be no way to live if he were everything now. His power will be expanded, because he is not omnipotent. Therefore everything is an expansion, and to reach that expansion he first must contract and limit himself to the state called death. And this is the mystery of life through death: the seed falls into the earth and dies. It falls to be made alive. If it doesn’t, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much, and the bringing forth is the expansion of God, for we are the gods who fell through God.1075 ¶7

So every child born of woman is a son of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God, but completely forgetful of that fact, because he had to put on these garments of death. And then he will know that it’s about to be caught up in this world by these signs, and when the signs begin — and they are not spectators of the signs, they are the distinctive figures, they are the star in the entire play, and everything surrounds them — then they know who Jesus Christ is. “If anyone says to you, ‘Lo, here is Christ,’ do not give heed, because that is another Christ. If I say, ‘Look, there it is,’ I’m showing you another; there is no other Christ than the Christ in you.”1075 ¶8

God actually became man that men may become God. So if there is any Christ other than that universal Christ — that he was crucified and done to death within man — that Christ is a false Christ, and a false peace, taught by those who tell you of a Christ who is going to come from without, and tell you of another Christ who came two thousand years ago. The story is an active power.1075 ¶9

So when it erupted in Paul, these are his words to the Galatians, and scholars all agree that the Letter to the Galatians is the first New Testament book written, approximately fifty years A.D. They consider that letter the oldest of the New Testament writings. And in it he turns to the Galatians and says, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” Well, the whole vast Christian world, and those who hear the Christian history, have ended with the flesh, for they think in terms of a fleshly Jesus Christ. And this is not a question of being at all.1075 ¶10

While I walk this earth as a being of blood and flesh, in me, in an entirely different realm, the plan of salvation erupts, which abruptly cleaves this space-time section from an eternal world of salvation. When these signs occur in you, we all know this is the end of your history in this world — no more dying, no more being restored alive, having gone through the gate of death only to wax and wane and then to be restored again and continue the journey. In reality, when these things begin to happen in you, you are at the end of history.1075 ¶11

But everyone will be redeemed. I don’t care what he has done in this world, foreign or otherwise — killed millions of innocent people and erupted the whole world, or a monster like a Stalin — he still is God, playing that part in the great investment of this world. So we all forget who we are. We look upon ourselves projected and see others, and we find them as enemies to our little ones, our little desires. But every soul served as these characters did, but they are redeemable — not one can remain unredeemed, for it would be God losing himself.1075 ¶12

God is the greatest power in the universe, and that God is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. But man doesn’t know it while he’s in the state, and moves through event after event in the secular world. He hears the story, and the men who are now self-appointed to tell it do not know it, and they teach a Christ of the flesh. And he tells you, “I am born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” This second birth that will take place in you is born in that manner — it is born from above. And then you were actually placed in the tomb, and until one priest placed you in the tomb — no one took your life; you gave it up yourself. You were the God who made the decision, and you and I collectively agreed on this adventure for the expansion of ourselves, which is simply the human skull, an immense cave we lie down in, and there we entered — collectively — this great dream of life. We are the gods who came down, and we are the gods who will one day enact the drama of salvation within us.1075 ¶13

Now, when will it happen? “Of your children — of that scripture — no one knows, no, no one.” No need to talk about the quality is yourself, but you don’t believe us yet, because when it begins to happen you will discover you are the Father — you are God the Father. It is something entirely different. We are departing from this world again by reason of these events that unfold within us. And it only takes three and a half years from the first eruption, which is resurrection, until you find yourself — this describes it: “We shall all be changed, in a moment — not a few of us, all — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and we shall awake from the dead.”1075 ¶14

Well, that’s totally a beautiful imagery — no one is sounding a trumpet. The word “trumpet” means, by definition, reverberation. If you think you’ve had a vibration in your body, you might not have felt this — one moment an electrical current, you might have had, and survived it, and you might have had the experience of an intense vibration that you survived. But wait until this happens. When this happens, you have never in eternity had such a reverberation — your whole being reverberates. And that this is it — this must be a massive reverberation. This is what they mean when one actually dies. Instead of dying, for the first time you begin to live, or you begin to awake. And when you awake, you awaken in your skull to discover that your skull is a tomb — a sepulchre in which you will be buried, and you entered it voluntarily. “No man takes away my life; I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and the power to take it up again.”1075 ¶15

This is your story. You volunteered for the experiment, and you actually, deliberately, entered Golgotha, which is your own skull. And you don’t know that you’re there. You think you’re on the outside. You wash your body, and you look into the mirror, and the other man is reflected, and you do everything for another man — if you help him make a dollar, that he may have something tomorrow — and you struggle in this world, this outer world, and yet you are dreaming it. You are in your own skull. You are the immortal God in your own skull, dreaming this dream of life.1075 ¶16

And when you decide that you have finished the dream, you play all the parts — oh, you play everything in the world. You play the decent person, all right, and the one who is not considered the decent person. You played the harlot, and you played the lovely mother superior. You’re a bishop, the wonderful pope, or the bishop, the holy man in a new place — your favorite priest, and the judge who is passing judgment on the people. You’ve played any big part in the world, and no one is going to escape playing them all — the gods. No one can hear you asking what is the last part you want to play, because no one knows the order in which you play them, but you will play all the parts, and only so many forms. And he brings it to a limit of one hundred and forty-four thousand modifications of the twelve major characters. But you’ll wake up, and if you haven’t played them, you’re going to play them, because you will not be awakened from this life until you have played them. But no one is going to keep you in this world beyond that last character. And when you reach it, suddenly you know who Jesus is, and he never was another.1075 ¶17

So if anyone ever tries to tell you, “Look, God is Jesus Christ,” don’t believe them. Well, here it is — they could perform wonders, do all kinds of things, but don’t believe anyone who points outside of you as Jesus Christ. In you is your own wonderful human imagination. So don’t go by any sign in the world. This is a marvelous thing — in our land today, looking forward to our boys landing on the moon, I think it’s true, and I am concerned, and I placed myself right next to that TV on Sunday to watch that boy descend, or the two of them. And that’s my thrill, to watch it, probably because I’m an American by adoption, and my wife and my children are Americans, but I am of the human race — that’s man.1075 ¶18

But that’s not eschatology. It has nothing to do with the coming to the end of this — you and I are redeemed from this world by a series of events, and these events are recorded as events in the life of Jesus Christ. But it is in the individual that these majestic dramatic events in the life of Jesus happened — happen in us, but individually.1075 ¶19

You are too wonderful to have it happen collectively. You are a unique being, and no one can take your place in the eternal temple. And that temple is not something that looks like this — it is a body, a person, a real man, a living man, not of humanity, believe it or not. It is a man, and that man is full of love. Behold his presence, and it’s a man, and you can’t think of anything but love in the presence of this man.1075 ¶20

And that man is the risen Lord, and we are called out of this world, one by one, to be incorporated into that body. But then we are living stuff — we are returned from the world of death, and in us we are life-giving spirits, without loss of identity. We are taught: forever there is one living body, that is one Spirit, that is one law, that is one God and power of all. It’s a mystery, and the world teaches it as secular history, and it’s not secular history. So when you hear these names, you’re highly amused, hearing someone speaking of this, and it looks like the aim, and he hopes you’ll be here when Jesus comes, when we come to know who Jesus is.1075 ¶21

And so when some lady told me the other night that I was most cruel to mention a certain person’s name — a person who is highly regarded in his own eyes — I mentioned him, saying, I thought of the words of Lincoln, and Lincoln said, “To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men.” And she thought what he has to say must be true, but she doesn’t know the first thing about the mystery of Jesus.1075 ¶22

So his friend spends fifteen or twenty million dollars a year publicizing himself and his work, so his name is well known, and there are leaders who believe in him. But he was, in his cause, a three-dollar vehicle, and why must I restrain the impulse to tell you he doesn’t know Jesus Christ? And his ministry — Jesus Christ is an active parable, I could play. We have no such research; we have found no evidence for the historicity of a man called Jesus, and yet it’s the truest story ever told. It happens in man, and our evangelists are all unknown. These days they are anonymous — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — there are no records as to who Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John really were.1075 ¶23

It was their own experience: when the time fully came, that which was planned before the world began, to erupt in man — and by “man” I mean generic man, male and female — it began to erupt, and then they knew the mystery of salvation, the mystery of redemption. So I’m telling you what I know from experience, and if you should forget it, read the Gospels, and everything said of Jesus you will need to experience in a first-person-singular present-tense experience, and that is eschatology — that is the end of the journey in this world.1075 ¶24

You were told in scripture: “You are in a world that is strange to you, and you will be enslaved for four hundred years,” and then they shall come out with great possessions. Now, that’s all — that’s a foreshadowing, not altogether conclusive or immediately evident, so I tell you that story, but what does it mean? These are words spoken in scripture as being uttered by the Lord to one called Abraham, the father of the volunteers. So he goes into a land that is not his own, a strange land, and he’s a stranger there, and he’s enslaved there for four hundred years. My four hundred years — you must first understand that in the Hebrew alphabet every letter has a numerical value as well as a symbolic type. Well, the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Tav — there are twenty-two letters, and then there are five finals that repeat five of the original twenty-two, but basically there are twenty-two — Tav has the numerical value of four hundred, and the symbol of that letter is a cross.1075 ¶25

And the only cross on which the Lord was ever crucified is this: the human fall — that is the cross. And this is a strange world to God, in the sense that it is a world of guess, and God is the God who is living — but there was the challenge: not to pretend that he had died, but to die actually, coming and taking the form of death, which is man, and to go through the gate over there and experience that, and still be restored, and continue, and die again, and die again, and then finish on his predetermined plan to rise from it all, enriched beyond what he was prior to that — greater power, greater creative power, greater wisdom, greater everything than he had previously.1075 ¶26

So this is the plan, and the only Christ is that Christ, not a single little being that was born of a woman who didn’t know a man. They will repeatedly say, “I must take on the weaknesses of the flesh and all the limitations of that.” If I came in here and my earthly father didn’t know my earthly mother, that was something entirely different — I can’t teach anyone what I haven’t experienced. I had to be conceived, and so I came in just as every child, and at the end of the journey I had to awaken within my own skull, and then experienced the entire story of Jesus in the first-person-singular present-tense experience. Yet doubt that? Not one momentarily — no. You are, and one day you’ll awaken, and when you return at the end of the journey, you and I knew each other before we came down — we will be brothers then again, and in spite of what we think of each other in our dream land, we are still in love with each other, full of love, as sons of the Most High.1075 ¶27

And it takes us all, as sons of God, to form God. God is the leader of the gods, and we are the gods — we are the sons of God who came together by a definite, voluntary decision to enter into it. And then completely forgotten the power that is ours, and the reason that is ours. And many of us plead — choose to die of starvation rather than steal what we thought we didn’t have — when all along, all along, taking without any consciousness of stealing, for the real part of the thief and praise the Father of everything in this world. So — what of a man who’s done everything, forgiven, completely forgiven?1075 ¶28

I saw today’s New York Times — this survey was just completed, and they brought in their conclusions. These professors at some university received grants from some great foundations, and they investigated further ex-convicts — those who are now in small business, confessing what they’ve earned, net, ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand a year. That’s their confession. And then they said, you know, they have what all great business leaders need.1075 ¶29

They didn’t go so far as to say the great business leaders have it, because not all about to please anybody, there couldn’t be presidents, there couldn’t be this — now banks are asking nine and a half percent for a big loan, ten million dollars — but that’s nothing, they also want a piece of the action. They carry their own risk, and in the piece of the action they’re going to get their nine and a half percent on their ten-million-dollar bill — all that the enormous, usual — in other words, for one who takes no risk. And there are the big giants — adults — from the real singularity, as follows.1075 ¶30

So may I tell you: forgive everything, being — when you come to the very end and you see the plan, and see the entire thing as a pleasure, you too will say, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Or, I could not now have experienced the drama of the idiot if I hadn’t played the part of the user, where I demanded not only nine percent, but I got a hundred plus pieces of the action, and so I can forgive it.1075 ¶31

And so the present conclusion is: there had to be — and they are in business, in a small way, and today a small business is the most difficult thing in the world. How will you survive? But they have new help because of their ex-convict contacts, and they have that power to be independent, like all big businessmen — they want to be independent, they want to stand on their own feet, and venture, and take chances. The average person won’t take a chance, and anyone who won’t isn’t qualified to lead big business — to lead big business or a big country, you’ve got to be willing; you have to have that courage to take a chance, and go broke, and then come back, get off the wheel, and work with someone else. But these ex-convicts, and the only difference between the ex-convicts that are investigated, whose story is now reported in today’s New York Times, and the big leaders of industry, is — one was caught, and the others were not.1075 ¶32

And these are the dramatic events in the life of Jesus, and all these events take place in the individual, as the individual’s personal experience. Taking note of who Jesus is: the word “Jesus” is the same as the word “Jehovah.” You spell it, God as out — but the root is Jehovah. So this is eschatology, in the truest sense of the word, and no one who misleads you by telling you that they’re seeing the stars, the signs of the age of the world — no, it is not the end of the world.1075 ¶33

This world is going on. This is a world of educative darkness, and you are going to take a soul and improve it to make it whole. This remains, as Scripture teaches, a world of educated darkness. So when you spend effort to make it easier for people, and it begins to make people good, could there yet be an equal apportion of good and evil in this world forever? So write it in this world — the living room — and you’ll get unbalanced; so you make all these good, but then others come, causing evil to balance it, for the name of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That’s why we’re here, and we have to be, in order to be here — that we judge in our blindness, and do all these things in the world.1075 ¶34

If the world was all good, and everybody was so all together asleep, you wouldn’t be here. And then I tell you there’ll be no contrast whatsoever — a new note of the experience properly, and experiencing it, is not only a very pleasant one, than those who think themselves so good and so holy and so sweet, and you wonder what it’s all about. No — give me another — sometimes you have to watch the look in someone’s eyes. They’re more excited, or more fun in the world. You keep your mind high and dwell on noble things, and keep the noble things going, but don’t try to rub off on others.1075 ¶35

It’s all part of a school system; we are here to make this happen. It’s for the reading of it, and everyone will come to believe it — everyone is going to come out.1075 ¶36

I will become to them ugly, odd, a stranger — you take off the mask, I take off the mask, and I notice — I knew him — it doesn’t matter, I mean eternity, and we really love each other as we could never know or love on earth, because we will love — itself we were God, and God is all God. So no one on earth can ever love anyone through these masks comfortably, because a lot we have — when the mask comes off, because Mark came first — the Bible’s second book in the New Testament, but chronologically it was the first of the gospels — let us read the twenty-fourth chapter — “the beautiful, now see the buildings,” he said — “not one stone will be left standing upon another.”1075 ¶37

Beautiful imagery — “one of these buildings” — no, but on the twenty-first day of December in the year nineteen fifty-nine, came my discovery of the fatherhood of God. This vision was mine. I saw all the buildings, beautiful buildings, tall buildings, and one is going down before my eyes, are falling, are falling to the ground, leaving not one stone upon the other, and I know that’s really next — that’s going next — and I saw three, three, four buildings in my imagination, my vision, and everything started leaving not one stone. It is imagery — beautiful images — but what were the buildings, what did they signify?1075 ¶38

The beliefs by which I lived. When all of these — the beliefs by which a man lives — these temples fall to the ground, I related, in a physical Jesus, that’s what my father taught me. I loved the dear He’s-gone from this world, but the love has not decreased because of his physical absence. I think of Mother dear, I can’t conceive of a day that he enters into my mind in the same loving way that she did when she was here in the flesh — they’re alive to me. My mother taught me that story, but I didn’t realize that the story was only an active parable, and my mother didn’t — she would have deceived me, but she hadn’t experienced it. So when it happened in me, I understood that the story is not a secular story, it’s a supernatural story marking the end of man’s journey in the world. And when it happens in him, he knows who Jesus is. Therefore all these beliefs by which you live symbolize structures — powerful structures — and these are the buildings, the beliefs by which I lived. But I can no longer accept these external concepts of scripture, then the external world collapsed, leaving not one stone upon the other — everything came tumbling down, and that all took place where they needed.1075 ¶39

So the chapter begins: “they see these buildings, these beautiful buildings,” and then he responds, “not one stone will be left standing upon another.” And then they tell him, “when will these things happen, Lord?” And then he tells them about false prophets and the false teachers that will come, claiming, “I am Christ” — do not believe them. And they will come with all strange tricks and will perform certain miraculous events in the world. I assume this: anyone who turns you to the outside and points to someone on the outside as Christ, forget it — he doesn’t know Christ.1075 ¶40

So when you take a picture of him, there is not one account in scripture; the person of the individual is not described, there is no description of Jesus in scripture. Why? Listen to these words: “he does not yet appear, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” Does he look like — the word “picture,” the people think, or the painting you see on the wall, or the little icons — and if you’re honest with yourself, you will say, “no, that’s not me.” It is not just like you — that is not Christ.1075 ¶41

It is you that is Christ, and there is no other public life. That is the great story of scripture. So when you find him, you’re going to find yourself. And everything — the Son of God who revealed you as God the Father — he was standing for you, and you will know you can be his son, and he will know that you are his father, and when you see him, you go back into the scripture and find the true Son of God, that is the personification of all the generations of my ancestry, and all its princes — it has been a way that one being stands before you who represents all the generations, and all these ancestors. And then, as a result of that convention, he stands before you a father, and you know you’re his father — he is the result of your journey.1075 ¶42

And so when we do it for them, you’re God the Father, but no one can take it and convince you that you are — you have to experience it. So I’m counting on the signs that will come, and you will act up because you cannot possibly deny them. There they are — I mean, if I let them go forward and teach their false doctrines about the coming of Jesus, and appoint some sign in heaven saying “this is the time for it to come” — no one knows the hour, only the Father.1075 ¶43

And what is the Father? “Call no man on earth father,” because you have but one Father, and he is in heaven, and the kingdom of heaven is within you. That’s where it is: “call no man on earth father.” And he is invisible, and the kingdom of heaven is within — have you read the words yet? All these people, these false teachers, insist on your calling them Father, and therefore — but you see, I can speak — because I can speak with authority, because my authority is based upon experience. I have experienced the mystery of Christ, and so I am not theorizing, I do not speak of it secondhand. So when someone challenges — my wife would say, “well, go on and charge it” — you’re only listening to a false doctrine when you point to some Jesus as a being of flesh born — not the best; it’s an entirely different birth. It’s a supernatural birth.1075 ¶44

Your return to heaven can only be accomplished by a birth to come, as told us in scripture: “except a man be born from above, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” It’s impossible to return where — it is the government of flesh and God. Your day — no, I got it, at the very moment they call you — today you are restored to life in the garment, just like the other one, only young, not older, twenty years of age, nothing — no deep listening, no fear missing, no eyes — listening perfectly, restored. And you cannot express yourself in the sexual world — you marry virtue, just as you marry him, and you get over there too, until the time of the end. And when the time of the end comes, these eternal stories unfold within you.1075 ¶45

So there’s no speculation about this; sacred history has already reached this climax, and it’s been fulfilled. It’s not being changed — things are being changed, but not sacred history. That’s all done, and you will one day experience this sacred history, and you will know exactly who you are, and you are done.1075 ¶46

Now, I will not take back one word I’ll tell you, because I know what I’m talking about.1075 ¶47

It reads in the book — I like how he said, “no one told it to me” — never heard it, ever — “but it came through revelation of Jesus Christ.” That’s what he said — he was the very one who went up to destroy the entire concept, but it happened in him, and then he understood it was not the external worship of the law, the rituals and all the things that the churches teach. The will of you — I got nothing to do with that. When you come to connect with it, there’s no acquiring merit to getting to the kingdom — just wait for that moment. He died upon the grace that is coming to you, and the revelation of Jesus Christ, for this is the whole message, that it actually makes it wisdom to accept the burdens of this long dark night of time.1075 ¶48

So it seems a long life — yes, it is a long, dark night of ideas. I’ve been slain for about four hundred years, by four hundred equivalent years, just as long as I were, because — but I’m promised that at the end of the four hundred, in the ending of the [wedding — reckoning] of the cross, I will come up with enormous possessions, far greater than what I possessed when I first volunteered into the world. And everyone is going to come out. Doctors, when you return, as the Lord — about any questions?1075 ¶49

So I would not say that he can’t recover — I wouldn’t say that, no, I would not say that at all. I never led a modest life today, quiet, modern, love, small income, from my interests, in what I’m doing, for I’m self-employed. I take off, voluntarily, between three and four months a year, because I find that I need this — on a lease, the corporation pays it, so it’s paid — I’m completely on my own, must take off any time, and I am simply self-supporting.1075 ¶50

Well, all right, I’m in a modest, very quiet, and modest inside, and yet I have a reminiscence of an experience — beautifully furnished, everything in it was a museum piece, and yet, conscious that I was up there just for a minute to say it was functioning, a full complement of service. I can see my daughter, I can see all the gardeners that I had, I can see my secretary and his assistant, I can see the chefs — I was a bachelor — I can see it even — I will tell you, in my imagination, see all these things always taking place.1075 ¶51

So I return, in my imagination, to this — and although we believe so beautifully, and they always have — the Lord is back — not meaning God, they call me by the title, “oh, lord” — this is how people speak, people here in the world, “lord” so-and-so. Well, today I was their master, their lord — not in the sense of being God, just completely a man with a title called lord. And I recall all the wonderful things that I possessed, and it was decadent — I didn’t grow with all my wealth, I simply could indulge myself, and no matter what I wanted, I could grant it, because I had it.1075 ¶52

And that I recalled deliberately walking out of that place and not returning, and left it all behind me. If I had everything that money could buy, and I bought only the best, and my servants were beautifully trained, they’re not a disturbance — they were the highest, either secretary, everybody, in their own department, got there with my service, and I had a full complement of servants in my home, a full staff in my garden. I walked out and never returned.1075 ¶53

So I have a bigger memory in this world, and a season of having happiness, meant that I came back in this time. I came here, in a world of poverty, a father of the world, and raised in Germany. There were twelve, or two died at work, and so our family always at thirteen, because my grandmother lived with us, and he had little, and so I came into that environment. I needed that environment, and that was the last environment. In my British life, I played across before — I thought in this world to return to my office, and I’ll return, like the prodigal son, to find that I am, in defense, beyond my wildest dreams, by a recent adventure.1075 ¶54

Now, all the sons came up, by the way — the first one who came down represents the Elohim — is unaware of limitation. The second one volunteered and took a chance of remaining, grandly living in a world of death, but if he didn’t — and he survived, and could get back — he would be enhanced beyond the wildest dream. Those who did not come out do not share that though — he then used on a higher level of creativity.1075 ¶55

So I have a very vivid life, and see it so clearly in my mind’s eye — modest, but fortunate for me, my wife goes along with me, she makes no excessive demands on my purse. In fact, I don’t have any debt, so if I have anything, she knows what I don’t, because she has everything in itself. I can’t really run away — when I leave home, I said, “now, may I have too long?” “Yes.” Thank you. A week, and then that’s why — I said, “what have I done? Nothing — this is love.” Oh, this is a shock — I said, “what am I going to do for money next week?” Then rent — “you know that’s not my problem.” So — but continue the argument — he said, “well, now, I can see he doesn’t understand the facts of life.”1075 ¶56

So bring your nephew — “you’re full of courage, and do all kinds of things,” I was saying — seventeen. So he gave me an advance, spring over — Macy’s, he said — “he doesn’t understand America’s rules, so give him a challenge.” So I was getting, I think, twenty-two, at the store — and then from then on I worked for myself.1075 ¶57

So I became, under the heading of these ex-convicts, that refused to work for another — they had it all within themselves, and they wanted freedom and independence, all the qualities that the same big business leaders need — and it helps. I was against them.1075 ¶58

I ran an elevator, worked as a bus boy, putting things away, and I saw all the little tricks of the trade. I saw how they operate, because, as a bus boy, you see things. And so, unfortunately, I didn’t have really white honey on display — I should have kept the bin filled, but I didn’t have it. So the salesman who took the order came back and said, “the lady of the house, she can’t have any honey but Lizzy brand white honey, and you didn’t do your job by keeping the bin filled.” So, get one up quickly.1075 ¶59

Well, the little white container, and the restaurant funny thing was the same body, brought unmarked by the carload, and the girls rolled in the mini bike, which I was — ten cents four rolls in the red star and shone senseless, so it took off one red star and rolled into the right to decide, and she was satisfied, because you paid ten cents more for it, and that’s how big business operates. For some customers who cannot buy a decent copy, because they put up happy in themselves — the inmate knowledge of taste, their taste buds are gone.1075 ¶60

Someone once told a story: if you make a ring in England, and you took a galaxy and jammed it until a piece of cut glass, and put on it the price of a great diamond, and then put that tag on the cut glass or the diamond, the average person, not understanding, in Europe, having no gem knowledge at all, would buy it based upon the tag — the rich would attack us and say, “the price of the great diamond,” because they do not know values, they can only see tags.1075 ¶61

And business operates upon that — business: one is fifteen cents more than this one, because someone wants to pay more, who cannot afford a hundred dollars a day, they can afford a hundred a day. So they come to these places — we supply them all, so they get no better meal than the place that charges ten dollars a day. So when you go to their dinner, well, it’s a nice dinner, no question about it, but you’re paying me a hundred dollars, and we are the suppliers of all the levels.1075 ¶62

And people, knowing their weakness — in the human heart, they’re capable — I saw them, darlings, come down from L.A., and they come down with all their big dark glasses on, and they’re incognito, and there’s no one in Barbados near the mainland who did not become aware, though incognito — but there’s a source of it, before the day was out, that everyone knew who the real person was. They couldn’t stand being not known — with all their big black glasses and all these things, I remember these visitors, but “don’t tell me you don’t know who I am.”1075 ¶63

Anyway, my dear, this earth does not terminate at the point where my senses cease to respond when I am dreaming tonight. And the world calls it gone in this world, and this cremated one has turned to dust — this frequency is gone, no — the world is just like this, it’s terrestrial, solidly real, and the body that we will live in is flesh, and God will put on the new garment. That’s not wrong, either.1075 ¶64

We spent thousands of years in the journey — four hundred resulting in the symbolic freedom of the cross, but it consisted of four hundred years — thousands of years we have evolved into the flesh, and this earth appeared in sections of time. We are restored to life in bodies of flesh and blood, and they’re real, solid, and then go through the struggles, just as the people here, and there is meaning, thinking all things there, and we know — and died. It’s not just a photograph on the moon, as we see a section in time — that section in time only represents at the moment, time, but this earth is purpose, and they’re all taking place here, now.1075 ¶65

This earth — the millions will die, and the friends who seem unreal, on earth, is this earth, but a different section of time. For instance, that is still taking place. It seems crazy — we think that’s gone, but it hasn’t gone.1075 ¶66

A friend of mine wrote me a letter this week and stated something that happened to her. Having read it and reread it, I thought it would be quite a lesson for tonight. She said that having tried to change others and failed, she thought the whole thing over and thought, “Well, after all, I’ll change myself, for the other is only myself pushed out. The whole vast world is myself personified.” So she began to work on freedom, that I am free. And she and a friend of hers who is here tonight too discussed freedom. Then she said a vision developed soon after that which was very disturbing. It came unexpectedly, and here I found myself flat on the ground, stretched out like a cross, face up, and all in chains. And here is my body, my physical body, chained to the ground. It would come without warning. It was not a pleasant vision to see myself there, all chained and anchored to the ground with these iron chains. And one day when it happened, I thought I would look closer, take a closer look, to find that it was not only chains, but there were locks. The whole thing was completely anchored and locked to the ground. Then I felt myself rise out of this body while it began to sink into the ground. And I rose up and up out of the body. I realized then that the body was part of the earth. It belongs to the earth; of the dust it came, and to dust it returned. And I rose up out of it. And from that day on I have never had that vision again. I feel myself free.1073 ¶1

Now she said, I had this on the morning of the 14th of February, this one. Should I return to this world from a profound dream? I knew that it was profound, but I could not move to write it. Here I am, cataleptic. I couldn’t move to write it. I tried to struggle with myself to remember it in detail, and the end began to fade. So I asked myself to reveal to me a vision, some vision that will hold it. And then I saw a serpent emerging out of its skin, and there was its dead skin. And here was a serpent completely out of the skin that it had just shed. Then I saw two serpents, a pure white serpent and a black serpent, and they became one serpent, the white one above and the black below. But it was one serpent, a black bottom and a white top. And then someone spoke to me and said to me, “This is the fulfillment of scripture. You will find it in the eighth of—” and she said, “I thought I heard John, but it could have been Luke, or it could have been some other. I couldn’t quite grasp it, that I thought it was John or Luke.”1073 ¶2

Well, I can assure her it is John. It is not any other chapter. It is John. If you are familiar with scripture, you will find that John the 8th chapter, when you read the sayings of the Lord, they are so condensed. Everything is so condensed that the meaning seems sometimes almost impossible for one to follow, unless of course you have experienced that chapter. If you’ve experienced it, it is easy to follow it. But I have read so many strange, peculiar interpretations by the great scholars concerning that chapter. There are men without vision, brilliant men. They know their Greek backwards. They know their Aramaic. They know all the tongues into which it was translated. But they do not have the vision. They haven’t had the experience. So to them it is something that is like a closed book. So tonight we will take that chapter and show you what is in store for you. She hasn’t experienced it, but she’s on the verge of it. For she was told, “This is the fulfillment of scripture, the whole scripture.” And the fulfillment of scripture is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, for that was the Old Testament at the day that this was written.1073 ¶3

Now, it begins not on the first verse. The earliest manuscripts omit the first eleven verses. Somewhere along the way, some scribe inserted into that chapter eleven verses that you cannot find in the early manuscripts. The last verse of the seventh chapter is omitted, and the first eleven verses are omitted in the Revised Standard Version. They will quote it in a little tiny print and give you the reasons why you cannot find it in the really early manuscripts of the text. But some overly zealous scribe put it into it. If you’re not familiar with it, it is the story of the one taken in adultery — that’s omitted, that was definitely added. So it begins on this note: “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall walk in light.” Here is one of the great “I am” sayings of this gospel. For the gospel of John is full of “I am.” I am the bread of life. I am the living bread. I am the resurrection. I am the light. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the door. I am the true vine. So these mighty “I am” sayings are all through the gospel of John. It’s the most profound book in scripture.1073 ¶4

So here it begins, “I am the light of the world.” In that statement he is telling us that he is the consciousness of humanity. For we are told in the gospel of John, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Were he not in you as your own wonderful I AM, you would not be animated. You would not be conscious. And I know from my own experience that there is in man that life, and one day he will be in control of it, and he will actually know from experience that the whole vast world is himself pushed out. He will arrest that activity within him and everything that he observes will stand still, proving that he is the light, the consciousness of men. They have no consciousness before your own eyes; they appear as deadly, completely dead, made as though they were made of wax. You release the activity within you that you only a moment before froze, and everything becomes once more reanimated. So you know where the source of all things is — it’s all in you, your own wonderful I AM. That’s God. There is no other gods. So you can change the outer world as you change the inner world. You can freeze it and then stop it. You can freeze it, change the internal you, and then watch it and see the whole vast world execute the change in you. So he said, I am the light of the world. That’s your destiny.1073 ¶5

I know back in 1926 or ’27, in Larchmont, New York, I went to sleep hearing this wonderful orchestra playing below, but I was not allowed to join the crowd. They were all guests and members of the club, and I was only a guest of the manager. So I went to sleep on the early side hearing the orchestra below. And in — well, that year I was only 21, in ’26 I was 21 years old. I’d have loved to have gone downstairs and danced. I was then a professional dancer. I had just returned from London, having danced for four months in London. But he thought it unwise for a guest of his, the manager, to join the members and their guests. So I went to bed, and I did what I rarely do — read in bed. I took a book, and here I’m reading a book. It was the life of Buddha. And then, as I read it, I must have fallen into a deep, deep sleep, a profound trance. Because when I woke, it was about 9 in the morning, the light was still on, and the book was on my chest, proving I had not turned in that sleep — for if I had turned, the book would have fallen to the floor or on the bed. So in that interval, whether it lasted eight hours or more I do not know, but I went into a deep, profound trance, and in that trance I became the light of the world. I could easily have said, I am the light of the world. There was not a thing in the world but myself, and I was light — infinite light without any circumference. There was no boundary to this light. No sun, no stars, no moon, only infinite light, and I was it, a living, pulsing light, the light of the world.1073 ¶6

Then I woke, and here I am once more congested into this tiny little garment that I knew as Neville — a little garment that she saw in her vision, anchored to the earth in chains, iron chains and locks, and it would sink into the earth from which it was taken, while she who was in it would rise above it. For she is the seed of God, as you are. And a seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive. If it doesn’t fall into the ground and die, then it remains alone. But if it dies, having fallen into the ground, then it brings forth much fruit. So here she saw it perfectly. And here she is told, this is the fulfillment of scripture.1073 ¶7

Now let us take some of these profound sayings. They’re so completely condensed, unless you’ve experienced it, you wonder what on earth is the recorder who records the words talking about. So we’ll take as many as we can tonight. He discusses the father. They do not know he’s talking about the father. They said, “Who is your father?” He answered, “If you knew me, you would know my father also, but you know neither my father nor me. If you really knew me, in the full sense of that word, you would know God. For he and I are inseparable. If you knew me, you would know God.” That’s what he’s saying in this eighth chapter when he tells them, “You will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” Here it is stated the fundamental sin of the world is lack of faith in “I am he.” So we are told in the Psalms, the 46th Psalm, “Be still and know that I am God.” Man finds it difficult to believe that he has a God stuck in the heaven someplace on the outside. He can’t bring himself to believe that his own wonderful human imagination is God. So in spite of the words “be still and know that I am God,” unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.1073 ¶8

Now you tell them. Now we go back to Ezekiel, the third chapter, and we’ll read it in the 17th and 18th verses. “I call you the son of man. The son of man, I have made of you a watchman for the house of Israel. And when you hear anything spoken from my mouth, you tell it to the house of Israel. You tell it to the wicked, to remove them from their wickedness that they may live. If you do not tell it, they will die in their iniquity, which is in their sin, but their blood will be upon your hand. If you tell it and they persist in their iniquity, they will die in their iniquity, but the blood will not be upon your hand.”1073 ¶9

So Paul could say, in the 20th chapter of the book of Acts — he is now addressing the Ephesians, and these are the elders — he said to them, “I am innocent of any blood that is of yours.” Innocent completely of all the blood that is yours. “For I did not shrink from declaring the counsel of God.” He told it just as his vision happened to him. As he said before the king, “O King Agrippa, I am not disobedient to the heavenly vision.” He kept the divine vision in time of trouble. Even though it meant jail, even though it meant persecution, meant beating, he kept the vision and he told it to those who would listen. So that if they would not listen and then abide by what the Lord had said through him, it was not upon his hand that would be their blood when they died in their own iniquities. So here is one who tells the story just as it happened in him. You only tell what you have experienced. I have experienced the entire story, so I tell it whether you believe it or not, knowing that if you do not believe it, then the things that happened to you — it’s not upon my hand anymore. I am faithful to the divine vision. I kept the vision in time of trouble. Though people would leave me and never return again, those who would condemn, those who will criticize — it doesn’t really matter. Once I keep the vision and tell it, so here in the story there is statement after statement, so completely condensed. If you had not experienced it, you would wonder what on earth is it all about.1073 ¶10

Now he makes the statement, “As the son of man is lifted up.” When the son of man is lifted up, you will know that I am he. He tells you earlier, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” If you were not lifted up like that fiery serpent, you would not understand that statement. It’s so completely condensed, the meaning would escape you. But having ascended like a fiery serpent after my body was split in two from top to bottom, and seeing that living, pulsing light, that golden liquid light fusing with it, and then, like a fiery serpent, moving up this staff — for we are told the serpent moved up on a rod. Well, the rod is your own spine, and into your skull you go in violence, you return into the heavenly world, all within you. For the kingdom of heaven is within. And so as the serpent was lifted up on the staff in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. I have heard these brilliant scholars say it meant when he was lifted up on the cross of wood and crucified. It has nothing to do with that. Has not a thing to do with any wooden cross in the world. The only cross that the Christ of the universe ever bore is your body. This body is the cross he bears. There is no other cross. He is actually nailed on this cross, on your body. These are the crosses the universal Christ bears, and he will wake himself in you and rise in you. And when he rises in you, you will know that I am he. For it’s not another that rises, it’s yourself. You fuse with the light, and fusing with that living, pulsing light, you make one quick circular motion, and up you go on that staff of your spine into your skull, and it vibrates just like thunder. So when the son of man is lifted up, you will know that I am he.1073 ¶11

Bear in mind, this is completely egocentric. He is not talking to people as I am talking to you. He is speaking now to himself. This body is of the earth. So now he makes the statement, “I am from above. You are from below. I am not of this world. You are of this world.” So who is the “you”? It’s the body that you wear that is anchored by these chains that you saw and the very locks that you saw, to this earth, and to earth it will return and must return. But you, occupying these garments, you are not of this world. You are not of this earth. You are from above, but not yet aware of it, not yet awakened within that garment, not yet born from above — but you will.1073 ¶12

Now he makes the statement, and now he’s discussing freedom. Now she in her letter started off by telling me about how she wanted to be free. I will not mention the characters in her life that she felt were holding her back, how she tried to change them without any help. She didn’t see the chains that she thought she would see, and she worked on herself to be free. Then came the vision of the anchored body to the earth and herself rising above it. And then the whole vision faded from then on when she felt free. Now he’s discussing freedom: “If you abide in my word and my word abides in you, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Well, they answered, “Well, we are the children of Abraham, and we have never been in bondage to anyone.” And you say that we must be made free. They did not realize that they were enslaved any more than the whole vast world knows it is enslaved. You are enslaved to the body that you wear. No matter how much money you have in this world, what power you have in this world, you cannot order anyone in this world to perform the natural functions of your body for you. You do it yourself. No matter where you are in the world, you could be sitting on a throne, and you cannot order anyone in your world to perform the normal natural functions of your body for you. You’ve got to go to your own bathroom and perform them yourself. You have to eat your own food and assimilate it, and what you cannot assimilate, you must expel it yourself. And no slave in the world can do it for you. So are you not a slave of the cross that you wear? So here is the world in which we live. They thought they were free, and he tells them you will only be free if the Son sets you free. “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” All these are taken from the eighth chapter of John.1073 ¶13

Now, he’s only fulfilling scripture, and scripture spoken of is the Old Testament. We go back to the 17th chapter of 1 Samuel, and the king has made a promise that the one who brings down the enemy of Israel, “I will set his father’s house free in Israel.” Well, the one who brought them the giant was David. David brought down the giant and severed his head from his body. And when he stood before the king, the king is not inquiring about David — it’s obvious that he brought down the giant, he has the head in his hand — but “whose son are you?” He has to fulfill his promise and set his father free. The father is bound in you, and not until the son appears are you set free. When the son appears, he will call you father, and you will know he is your son, and he will know that you are his father, and that son is Christ, and Christ is David.1073 ¶14

Now I am telling you what the world will throw stones at me, who call themselves Christians or even call themselves Jews. They will think that’s blasphemous. Yet I am telling what Paul said: “I am not unfaithful or disobedient to the heavenly vision.” It happened to me, and I cannot modify it to satisfy the preconceived misconceptions of scripture and tell them of some other being. It was no other being. It was David who set me free. You’re only free when you discover that you are God. For there’s nothing in this world that is free unless it is God. God is the only one that could be free. So I tell you that you are God. His name forever and forever is I AM. That’s God. But you do not know it when you say “I am.” You say, “I am Neville.” You say, “I am Jim. I’m Bill. I’m Peter. I’m Stan. I’m Jan.” That’s not setting you free. When you know “I am God,” you are set free. And you will never know you are God unless his son stands before you and you know he is your son, and that son is David. Then you are set free — free forever.1073 ¶15

The body will return to the dust from whence it was taken, but you who are buried in that earth, you died, and then you were made alive, and then you became free, and you are free as God the Father. So in the end, the Son set man free by revealing to man that he is God. As long as he thought himself Mrs. Brown’s son or Mrs. Jones’s son, and he was back on a physical background, he is not free, because nothing physical can be freed. We are wearing a slave garment and it’s physical, it’s flesh and blood. But when I’m set free, I am freed of that garment. I’m not looking for my genealogy based upon some physical tradition. I am through with that. Whatever happened to the generations numbered centuries ago, it doesn’t really matter — those that I know I love dearly, my father, mother, and my brothers and sister. Beyond that, I do not know them. I do not care what the ancestry was. Makes no difference to me whatsoever. My only real ancestor is God, and I must awaken as God. Everyone must awaken to discover himself the author of it all, and that is God.1073 ¶16

So now he comes down and they say, “You are mad and you have a devil.” He said, “I am not mad.” Said, “You are a Samaritan and you have a demon.” Said, “I am not, I do not have a demon.” Didn’t deny he was a Samaritan. That was the lowest of the caste to be a Samaritan. So they denied he was a Jew when he claimed he was a Jew, but he did not argue the point when he was called a Samaritan, which meant the very lowest of the caste.1073 ¶17

Then he said to them, “If you follow me, you will never die.” Well, he said, “After all, Abraham our father died, and the prophets died, and you are saying that if we follow you, we will never die.” He’s telling them, “I am the resurrection and the life.” If you follow this footstep that I’ve just laid down in these concentrated statements, if you follow them and they awaken within you, you will never die. You will awaken completely. And when you awaken here and people call you dead, you will not return anymore to a little garment that is restored in a world just like this. You will enter the new age, the age of eternity.1073 ¶18

Then he said to them, “But your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day. He saw it and was glad.” They said, “You saw our father Abraham? Why, you’re not yet fifty. Did Abraham see you, or you see Abraham?” And then he answered, he answered now in this manner: “Before Abraham was, I am.” Behold, before the whole vast play was conceived, I am. I am the author of it. And they took up stones to stone him, but he hid, for that is the verdict — if anyone blasphemes the name of God, he must be stoned to death, as told us in the law of Moses. So they only fulfill scriptures.1073 ¶19

He is telling them that he is the being of whom the prophets wrote. He is the being of whom Moses in the law spoke. He is the Lord God Jehovah. That’s what he’s telling them, that there is no other God. But they see a man, not knowing that the man is only the part in which that seed is unfolding. And in this case, it completely unfolded. But they have not yet internal eyes. They do not have the inner eyewitness to see eternity. He opens the eye from within that you may look into the immortal worlds, look into eternity, into the worlds of thought, and see reality. They have not yet had the eye open from within. When the eye is open from within, the man you know as your friend, with whom you dine and wine and have fun — when he has completely awakened from within, if your eye is open, though you knew him and still know him as a friend, or he still wears the garment, you will have moments of experience in that world where you will see him as he really is to be seen. And you’ll see God. You will see that burning one, for he is the burning one. He is radiant light. That’s what he is. And he is not — I wouldn’t say not anything, but he’s not what the world thinks him to be. Human face, yes. A human voice, yes. Human hand, yes. Don’t go beyond that. You’re a fiery being, yet human. The face is human. The voice is human. The hands are human. But don’t go beyond that. That’s the being that you are. The being that you are destined to be.1073 ¶20

The being that’s going to come out of this body that must go back to the dust. That’s why we use the symbol of the butterfly and the caterpillar. The butterfly has wings and takes off into an entirely different element from the caterpillar. So the caterpillar must die, that that which is buried within it, unknown to itself, must come out. And that is God himself. That’s only a symbol of what’s going to take place in everyone in this world. Not one will fail.1073 ¶21

So, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and yet you’re not yet fifty. All right, so you’re judging appearances, and before Abraham was, he saw my day and he rejoiced, and he was glad. What day? The day of eschatology, the end of the journey. We begin with Abraham. Abraham was the man of faith, and biblical faith is faith in God, and God’s only name is I AM. So he had faith in I AM, and a promise was made to him, in spite of your years, “You will be a father of a son and his name will be called Isaac.” And the word Isaac means “he laughs.” You wait, you’re going to have it at the appointed hour, and when you hold him, he’s going to laugh. A little infant just born, and suddenly breaks into the most heavenly smile. He laughs, laughs out completely. And that promise will be held true. It’ll be proven true in time, because every word of God proves true.1073 ¶22

So Abraham saw it, as you’re told in Galatians, that the scripture — and now the scripture becomes a person — the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham. So if the scripture preached, that the scripture becomes now a person — it becomes, but it is a person because it is the word of God. It is God made manifest in the written form, and it preached the story of the gospel, the good news, beforehand, to whom? To Abraham. So he saw my day and he rejoiced that he was to see my day and he was glad. He actually saw it and walked by faith only. Faith in what? Faith in God. He heard it said that he actually would have that child, and so he walked with faith in God, and that is faith in himself.1073 ¶23

So everyone here should rejoice at one in this audience should have had a vision of that nature. I am telling you, you’re all going to have it. You would not be here as consistent as you are, night after night, month after month, if you were not on the verge of these experiences. Others may say, “So what about the other millions? What does it matter?” Everyone will have it in time. This is the most precious, the most unique thing in the world, and you do not take that which is unique and throw it to the swine. They’re not swine as pigs, but they’re not ready for it. They’re really not ready for it. The day will come they will be. Then they’ll be called one by one into a circle just like this. And maybe you will be the one telling the story from experience.1073 ¶24

When you speak from experience, you speak with authority. You’re not speaking from hearsay. You’re not speaking by speculating as to what it ought to be, as so many brilliant minds do. If I could show you even in what is called the grandfather of all biblical interpretations — and here these scholars, when the son of man is lifted up, they all say it means when he was lifted up on the cross. What about the other two on the cross? They ignore that completely. This is the cross. There never was another cross. When a little child is born, at that moment of birth he is crucified. That is the Lord who became man. Why? That man may become God. And so that was the actual seed of God, that which is imperishable, but it has to fall into this ground, this cross, and die before it is made alive. And when it’s made alive, it bears much fruit.1073 ¶25

Now, you can take what you heard tonight, profound as it is in a spiritual sense, and apply it to the most practical thing in this world, right here, because you’re only dealing with one cause. If you’re going to turn to another cause, you have two gods. There is only one God here. “O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The minute you have a second god, you have a devil. You’re going to blame something outside of yourself for the things that happen in your world. And the minute you blame another, you give him the power to create confusion in your world. And there is no other. This whole thing is egocentric. The whole vast world is God pushed out. Well, do you see a world? Well, it’s God pushed out. Pushed out from where? From wherever you are — that’s where it is, wherever you are.1073 ¶26

So I say to you tonight, if you know what you would like to be, dare to assume that you are it. Don’t wait to become it. Sleep as though you were already the one that you want to be, and in that assumption, fall to sleep. And then have faith in that — that is faith in God. Have faith in no one on the outside. They’re only things bearing witness to you.1073 ¶27

For “in him was life, and the life was the light of men.” So men are made conscious and animated in your world because of the life in you. The day will come that life in you will make itself known. You will feel it, and you will arrest it, and all those who seem so alive and independent of your perception of them will stand still. You will arrest it and they’ll all stand still, as still as things in a museum, all the sculptures in a museum, all stand still — it’s all within you. You release it and they all become reanimated, and they continue to do what they intend to do. But you can change that intention when you still them. And when you release it, they will actually continue, but not to fulfill their former intention — the new intention. And they’ll believe that they initiated the new intention. Therefore, you are solely responsible for the things that happen in your life. The whole vast world stands upon God, and God is his own wonderful human imagination. That is what I’m trying to get over.1073 ¶28

And so I thank her for sharing with me this wonderful experience of hers, and to go back in time to the point where she tried to change a very dear one in her life and felt she had failed, and then turned to self to change, and changing self came a vision which frightened her. It disturbed her. Well, here she is, flat on her back on the ground and stretched out like a cross, and then chained to the ground. And then it would come without warning, and it never once came but it disturbed her. And then one day she thought, I would take a closer look, to find it was not only chained to the ground but locks on it. She was lost in it. And then she rose out of it, and as she rose, it sank down into the earth from whence it was taken. So I’ve told you, as Blake has told you, eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act of mercy. All these things are part of the eternal structure of this world of earth. It’s part of it. You bring them out.1073 ¶29

My wife one night had a vision. It’s so scary, she would not allow it to go beyond the first few paces. Here were doors, but there were not doors, there were panels. She found herself in this wonderful grove. And here the panels became animated, and out of these panels came human forms. There were only panels, and here came the dance of life. And as they came out, they were beautiful. Each figure was so altogether lovely, and each began to dance. And she — this is the dance of life. And then suddenly it changed into the most dramatic, tragic dance. She was so scared that she woke herself. She was beginning to see the mystery. The word “panel” in scripture is the same word translated “rib,” and he took a rib from Adam and out of that he made woman. Well, the word “rib” means “paddle” — it comes out and takes on human form and seems independent of your perception of it, and comes this dramatic thing, and it scared her, and she woke, but recorded what she had seen.1073 ¶30

This whole vast world came out of you. The world is yourself pushed out, because you are the God of scripture. You are the Lord God Jehovah, personified for us in the New Testament as Jesus. The word Jesus is Yeshua, the same root as Jehovah — Yeshua. It means Jehovah, which is translated “the Lord is salvation,” and he is in you. So because he is in you, find out who he is and trust him implicitly, and give all your trust to him.1073 ¶31

So what do you want? He is capable of doing anything in this world. What do you want? Name it. And then, as you name it, assume that you are it. Sleep in that assumption as though it were true. Wake in that assumption tomorrow, though it’s denied you by your senses, as though it’s true, and prepare to receive it in your world. And may I tell you, no power in the world can stop it, because there is no other power but God, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. Now let us go into the silence.1073 ¶32

In the 119th Psalm: “This is my comfort in my affliction, because thy word hath quickened me.” He said, “I will keep thy word.” “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” In the Book of Job, the 36th chapter: “by the bread of adversity” — to what end is he doing this? But let us say this description of the entire Bible — it’s all there, but it is not all put together; they are not altogether conclusive, or immediately evident. And the book begins in this manner: in the beginning there, and when it came, in a coffin — in Egypt. In the beginning that, in a coffin in Egypt — the story is all about God. The president of the world is God. I am living on, we are starting now as I live with you, and the whole thing is done by God to himself.1065 ¶1

I was pronounced before I came down into this world of death. Real divisions that might aid the understanding of this mystery — she’s not here tonight, grandparently — I was innocent of the spirit; as infinite spirit, there was nothing but myself. And I desired to go out into the world, although similarly there was no other place, no good yet, I desired to go out into the world, but I knew I had to have form, to be seen, to communicate. And I made for myself a box — a long, elongated box — of wood. And then, suddenly, there was absolute darkness. You can’t conceive of the blackness and the restriction, a complete restriction, as though you could not concentrate, or bring yourself to a greater point of restriction than that moment, as I found myself in the north, and that was the cause of the blackness and the restriction and the contraction. The problem could see a critical career to do, and then came that moment in time when I desired to leave it, its end, as experience, what it is to see and to think and to hear in this world of death. And then I found myself looking down, and what I sought to be — murdered? I thought a body was on it, but I couldn’t quite see it because of the crowd around the body. I’m at the sides of this, where people, looking on, bending over, and then one says, “he is dead.” And I thought, why, that’s impossible — they cannot die who has never lived. Only while I occupied it, only while I was in it, it seemed to me — but it cannot stop. The body is a box, and the box has never been alive; only as I occupied it, only as I inhabited that box, did it become seemingly alive. And the shock was so great that I awoke, with the marvelous reasons — we are very reverent now.1065 ¶2

The word translated “ark” in Hebrew also means “word,” and it means also a coffin. So, “in the beginning God,” “in a coffin,” “in Egypt,” “the first and the last, the beginning and the end” — so God actually became that for a purpose beyond the wildest dreams. As the rock in which he brought, he now resides. He reached the limit of contraction by becoming man, whether you may expect beyond the wildest dreams, as himself, prior to the contraction, a vaster constant expansion of the one being that is done, and you are that being. We are the One, we are the God that came down and assumed the limitation of man. And it is an affliction on himself, and then the voice, empty, so we’re not — “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” “Only believe that I have power to raise from the dead.” By further leaps in power, in universal humanity — but buried, humbled, vulnerable — is God. His name is I AM, forever and forever.1065 ¶3

But how will I know? That I will await. Let us trace the entire return to himself. You prepare the way for himself to return, and that way is described in Scripture. It is spelled beautifully in the Old Testament, but again it’s an adumbration — it’s a rough sketch. The New Testament explains it, but man sees it, he mistakes it, he thinks it’s secular history, and it’s not secular history. The house is divided. You take the story of Jesus Christ — it’s not something taking place here on earth. It didn’t take place there. It took place within man, in an entirely different sense.1065 ¶4

Now let us go back — all right — the story of Job is the story of every man in the world. If you are familiar with the story: he was innocent, he did nothing that really should have called the horrors that descended upon Job — ridiculous. But in the last chapter, Jehovah is made to say: “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.” And then God not only forgave him — he did nothing wrong — that God multiplied his gifts on earth, and all of his brothers and his sisters and all of those who knew him fell came to sympathize with him and ate bread in his house, for all the evil that God had dropped upon him. These are the words of the 42nd chapter of Job. Now the word Job means “where is my father.” Where is the source of the phenomena of life — there is a source of it all. That’s the problem, that’s the search of every person in the world. You may not know it, but he’s looking for God, the source of life. That’s Job. In the end, he sees it.1065 ¶5

Who does he see? There’s only one — you don’t know the father; you’re not in eternity. I could stand here from now to the ends of time and I could not persuade you to the point of conviction until you have the experience. In the old — as scripture puts it — thou art a father, and he singles out one person, because that one is his son. If that one is inside, and that one stands before you at the end of your journey, and then memory returns, for he is only God returning in memory. For we are the God — and it’s in the beginning there was a horror, that is, and the pride of it implies a consciousness somewhere, and there’s that son standing before you, and then suddenly memory returns, and you know he is your son, and he knows you are his father, in the fulfillment of scripture. Then, and only then, do you know who you are. I could tell you from now to the end of time that you are God — you are not going to believe me, because if I am God, why can’t I do this, that, and the other? You do not know the purpose behind the affliction, the contraction that you imposed upon yourself. You did nothing that was wrong to bring about this contraction; it was deliberate, on our own — we agreed in concert to dream the dream of life and become God, come down into the world of death, and experience death, for we could not — in the world of light, and infinite power, we constructed ourselves to experience death, and so we did.1065 ¶6

Humanity, as we see it, is part of the eternal structure of the universe. It is not a thought of destruction; we actually came down into that part of the structure called man, and entered man, and man is dead. And we turned death into sleep, and dream the dream of life. Infinite mercy turns death into sleep, and then, in due course, to work and to be. And here we are, multiplying the form that is man. But you are not the form that you are wearing — do not be disturbed. You are God. Everyone in the world is the immortal God, but this experience is essential for an expansion, and there is no limit to expansion; there is a limit only to contraction. So we took the limit of contraction upon ourselves and became man.1065 ¶7

So, here is the vision first: she saw that ark, an elongated breath. Now let us take the word “temple” in scripture. First of all, the word — or the word, as you saw, this long, elongated thing — falls apart, which is a copy, as early as the Hebrew word for heaven; and where comes the word for “repent” is the word “temple” or “tabernacle” — it also means a grave. So when I read in scripture, “know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God, and the spirit of God dwelleth in you,” I could say, do you not realize you are the grave of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you — the grave. And one day he will awaken in the grave, and one day he will resurrect from that grave, and he will come. I will be sent to you, that he has impounded upon himself, for the word is “grave.” The temple of God is man, as we are told in Paul’s statement to the Corinthians, his third chapter, 16th verse of First Corinthians: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwelleth in you?” And the spirit of God and the name of God are one, and his name is I AM. Shall you put “I am” aside from yourself? You can’t. Stand the thought, and observe: “I am,” therefore you cannot see that; you cannot see God, as you do all this in space, for you are the reality.1065 ¶8

Hold up — but you can know God when his son stands before you, and you know that you’re looking into the eyes, into the face of your son, and that son is David, our biblical — then you will know the word: “art thou from David?” — “He shall cry unto me, thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.” Then you know these words, and the words are put into the mouth of David: “And the Lord said unto me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.” So here you have seen the relationship of Father and Son, and only as this is actually experienced by the individual do you really know who he is. Until then, these are false gods — he’s represented as outside of self, and there is no one outside of self to whom you should turn. As Blake said — why, he’s saying, “We here, trembling around, calling on God for help, are not ourselves in whom God will dwell” — enough, as our own wonderful human imagination, that is — they will say there is no God, that God, of human imagination, is all delusion. But, “I know, O Lord, I know the events that arise before my weary eyes, even in this brother, in this strange, mortal form, although I behold thee not, nor can I see how I can be whole.” That reality that I am, as an object other than what I am, I can be wholehearted. From the mouth that I am the reality of being, holding on to how can I behold it, and how do I know who I am? I remain who I am only when my son — I suffered from amnesia when I came down into this world of death, as you are suffering from amnesia totally, and you have forgotten your divine being. You are God. There is nothing in the universe but God; there’s no room for anything but that.1065 ¶9

In 1926, in Larchmont, New York City, I retired early because I was a guest, as a manager — in the club, a private club. It was a Saturday night. In those days there was Prohibition, there was no alcohol, but you would always get it. People did — and this was all given over to the children, that is, the kids, say, 1920 and so on, and they had this wild diet. The manager of the club, I was his guest — he said he didn’t think it would be quite the thing for me, as his guest, to mingle among the members, but I accepted that we would speak, and so I went that day. In 1926 I was only 21 years of age, and I was a professional dancer. I would have loved to have gone on that dance floor and spent the entire evening dancing, but no — the protocol would not allow it.1065 ¶10

Now, let’s see what I read, if I ever did — I took a book, it was a book on the life of Buddha. I turned on the little night-lamp on the base, and I found, to read the book — at what hour I fell asleep, I could not tell, but I must have gone out quickly into a deep, deep trance. When I woke in the morning, and that music had been going on all through the night, until about three in the morning, so I would say, I didn’t hear anything. But when I woke in the morning, the book was on my chest — I hadn’t turned in the interval, and the light was still on, and the sun was up, and it was nine in the morning. I had fallen into a deep, deep trance, and in that trance I was infinite light. There was no universe beyond, no stars, nothing — I was in space, there was no circumference. I was the light of the world, and by will I do not need the world measured by the sun and the planets around it — I mean infinite, healthy, living, liquid life. And when I awoke, and here was this thing on my chest, and I returned to the contraction of the little body called Neville.1065 ¶11

So I know, when he teaches, “I am the light of the world,” it is a true revelation. I also know what he teaches, that God is infinite love, that God is love — that is the true revelation. And in spite of all the afflictions that you and I suffer, and others who suffer and continue to suffer, there is a love behind it all.1065 ¶12

Now listen to these words: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his master is doing, but I have told you everything that I have known from my father.” Now you go to the point where these words are put into the mouth of the one who just made that statement, and he said, “Unless I die, thou canst not live, but if I die, I shall arise again and abide with thee.” The one who never dies today will ever die, for the one who never dies — and if God died not for man, and gave not himself eternally for man, man could not exist. So God died. He died — he actually gave up the being that is, emptied himself, and took upon himself the form of man, the form of that box, and angels that rock — but his name is “I am.” But he doesn’t stop there; in the end, he calls it by a name, and he says, “I am Jim, I am Neville, I am God, I am Aina, I am this” — and so we go beyond his real name, which is I AM. We put a little tag on it. I will become so identified with the little mess that we are wearing, we don’t realize who we are. And in that eating of that fruit, we are suffering from total amnesia. And one day, in the fullness of time, we will awake, as he has plotted the entire thing before he started, yet prepared the way for his sons to return.1065 ¶13

For the father is made up of the son — the word Adam is a plural word, which means God is a plural thing, but put together it is the Lord. It is — but it’s all the name; the word, everyone in the world, puts us all together, and therefore, the one God, the one — so he’s prepared the way for all of his sons to return, but this time, when they return, they are not the son — there’s a complete transformation of the son into the father, and they are new. What is the new adventure? I do not know, I’ve never run that far beyond it. When this comes to a name, and the person comes down upon it, and we all — we are no longer sons of the father, we are the father. That is the goal of sending all of your sons to make himself into the world of death, and then we come out, and we are God the father, because we are the father of the Lord, only begotten son. And humanity was unconcerned — the forms remain the eternal structure of the universe.1065 ¶14

You are not the master over — you are God, to whom God has afflicted, for secret aid he comes, and he heals, and he falls into him. “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy word, and this is my comfort in my affliction, that thy promise gives me life.”1065 ¶15

Well, the fundamental promise in scripture is the promise made to Abraham: “I will give you a son” — it doesn’t say it is God’s son, it implies it is his son. The name is Isaac, meaning laughter — that infant is presented to you, you break into this heavenly smile, our most unusual heavenly smile, as you hold him in your arm, that infant child. And then the next one is the son, and he is the union, and he’s David. So the fundamental problem is the promise made to Abraham, and that was the promise of the son.1065 ¶16

Now, you and I — if you knew how old you are, you would say it’s impossible; the body you wear may still be typical of a tiring or a budding child, but you are not the body that you’re wearing, you are eternal. If you knew your age — and you can’t measure your age, because you had no beginning — and if you could actually know how long you’ve been on the journey, how is it possible to be so old and to have a child? But the child is part of the play, part of the drama, as we call it in scripture. And everything inside of Jesus Christ, you are going to experience in the first person, present experience, and you will know who Jesus Christ is, because everything is going to happen to you, and you will relive the entire story, and then you’ll know who Jesus is. You need not tell it to the world, you need not — you could tell it, but the written form is an attempt to tell it, you’ll get the same response with your prime description: “he came unto his own, and his own received him not.” When he came to his own, this is where the man is married, he has a demon, and he’s mad. Anyone who will tell you what I’ve told you this evening, before a larger crowd, where they’re not geared to this way of thinking, they’re thinking it is entirely mad, to tell you the view, in this century, born in the 20th century, that you are actually the father of God’s only begotten son. And that son is not flesh and blood — but if you read the story, he came in spirit, when he called him “my Lord.” And we say to him, how can I be his son when he is inspirited thought, my Lord, not in the flesh? This is not — it does not take place in the flesh, though you walk the world in a garment of flesh — it takes place in you, but in a region completely remote from this world.1065 ¶17

But I tell you, this very moment you are not all together, sitting in the place where you seem to be, before my eyes — you are infinite. But how do we describe it, how do we tell you this? At this very moment, why you seem to be all put together and collected in thought, and listening to me express — do not fall here, it doesn’t make sense — and I tell you that you are not, you are going to be.1065 ¶18

But I do believe those who come here are not far from that moment in time when the drama completely erupts within, and there they’ll prove that everything I tell you is true, everything that I’ve told — I am not speculating, I’m telling you what I have experienced, and the story of scripture is a true story.1065 ¶19

The Hebrew-Christian faith is the fundamental thing, and all the other little isms that will lead you astray, forget them — this is the fundamental faith. The Old Testament is the seed plot, it is the tree, and we have actually experienced it — we are the fruit of that faith. I could be the tree and not bear the fruit, but I can’t actually bear the fruit and not acknowledge the tree of which I came. And in studying scripture, I find the whole thing — in the Old Testament and the New — is one pattern. Now, every verse is equal in value, not to every chapter, not every book — there is a pattern all through those thirty-nine books, and the pattern unfolds itself in the story of Jesus Christ, as it unfolds itself in the Gospels. If you want to find the word — the Book of Hebrews refers to the Hebrews, so the Old Testament, in every chapter, is probably closely — all the things that occur are related to the pattern man, which we will take up next week, when we come to that title, “The Pattern Man.”1065 ¶20

When you see someone afflicted, don’t think, as the world would say, “he has done this, he’s done that.” Look into the world, and see so many perfectly wealthy people living a wonderful life, a comfortable life, and, you know, many of them, how they got their money — and their faculties, everything is wrong. So don’t judge the one who is afflicted; bear in mind the words I quoted tonight: “and this is my comfort in my affliction, that thy promise gives me life; before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep thy word.” It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might learn — I accept it. And then he delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and openeth their ear by adversity.1065 ¶21

So when we read, “he was afflicted for me, to support yourself,” in the book, it is all about me, as you are telling it for yourself. “In the volume of the book it is written of me.” And it said, “thou hast drawn me out of the earth” — dropped by adversity, for the one speaking is David, and David is the one who is speaking through the 22nd Psalm, the great Christological psalm. And you read it — the address — but in the end, the words are, see what God has lost, when he looked at what he has done, and promised himself he would do — for his adversaries, he’s saying, into nothing, “I’m wondering, you will awaken from this.”1065 ¶22

All right, I’m not saying that it’s not a difficult time, but this is the hope: if you’re told in scripture that it is worth enduring — very, to the very end — because at the end, something comes out which was before the world — what comes out in you making you God the Father. We’re all brothers, and then he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, and then comes the play, to prove his promise to us is true — he is going to give himself to us. But God promised the man is to give himself to that; and in the end, if God is the father of David, as scripture teaches, and David says, before you, I think, “without giving me,” before he calls you father, you know he’s your son — then you know that God kept his promise; in fact, he gave himself.1065 ¶23

I can tell you tonight, David is your son. I do not care how many children you have in this world, they are not — they’re all brothers, they will be male or female, that’s your brother, and each will be the father of David — so what now is your child will be your brother, and because you are God the Father, one day you will be — one day one will be — God. So in the end there is only one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one thought unfoldable — there’s no room for another.1065 ¶24

So we were chosen in the beginning, before the foundation of the world, to play this part and to be afflicted, but in the end it was seen only as a short sleep. No matter how long it seems to be, now, while we’re in it, when we awake it is though we slept but a short while, in the dream of life. When we awake to eternity, and then leave the world, the world of death is part of the eternal structure of the universe.1065 ¶25

And where was the body? But he was looked at by the crowd, looking at it from three sides, and then came a voice, “she’s dead,” and she replied to herself around, “but that’s impossible, they cannot die who has never lived.” It only seemed to be alive because I was in it — you are making this thing alive. So let it turn to dust into the real one day, but in the end you are the immortal one. That is what I’m talking about now; it does not happen before that moment in time when you decree death again — you will be instantly restored to a body, young, not a babe, young, twenty years old, just like this, nothing missing, perfect eyes, perfect teeth, perfect everything, in a world; the rest is just like this, to continue the journey until what I have shown you takes place.1065 ¶26

The end does not come to pass until what I’ve dealt with — only in the end, when you are born from above, when you ask, hold the child in your own arm, when you see David, when you are split, or you are the temple, and that grave is split into that grave from top to bottom, and you go up into the heavenly sphere within your own tower, and God is within you. As he felt it in the 17th chapter of Luke, the kingdom of God is within.1065 ¶27

The people are looking for it somewhere in space, saying there’s some central star beyond any sun known to man, the Pleiades, some physical, outside, the inspired word brought his spirit — then like God is done, and you’re still looking, boy, in some space, on the outside — you will never know it. Be yourself, until his son stands before you and calls you father.1065 ¶28

Well, I can tell you, and I will tell you, to encourage you night after night, but I can’t swim you into that partial conviction until the experience is your own.1065 ¶29

Right — the man begins to tell anyone how wonderful the Bible is until he has experienced the scripture, and he has nothing to do with what our evangelists are talking about, to see some little tiny Jesus walking around, coming out of a place restricted ahead, and doing all this stuff. Jesus Christ is within you, and when he comes, he comes from within, and when he comes from within, he comes as you, not to you, but as — and David called him my father, so David will call you my father, then you’ll know who Jesus is.1065 ¶30

Now we speak of him as Jesus Christ — that is not a true picture, that you should hope. In the 11th chapter of Revelation, we speak of the Lord, and of Jesus Christ, not “Jesus Christ” — Jesus is the Lord. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, because Jesus is your own wonderful I AM. That’s the name of Jehovah, and Jesus and Jehovah have the same root, beyond a rough translation of the Hebrew, it’s — which is I AM. Now we speak, in the 11th chapter of Revelation, of the Lord and of his Christ. What does it say? “And the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ” — Christ is the authority, for whom did the Lord anoint? David. Read the 16th chapter of First Samuel — to rise and anoint this, he is; and then he said, “thou art my son, today have I begotten thee,” but where he is the Christ, and the Lord is he, and so David in scripture calls him my Lord.1065 ¶31

Here, rather, make your enemy your question — I know when it happened to me. I can hardly believe this — spirit, I was so stunned, I was so old. I got off that day, and I told it as vivid as I could, and as clearly as I could, and yet my mind was thrown apart, because I had never been told that — I had not yet arrived at that moment in time when I could actually see the parallel in scripture.1065 ¶32

Well, I tell you, if you are afflicted, or those you know are afflicted, don’t blame them, don’t judge — secret aid to come, and he heals, and he calls himself still. Make every effort — to children, make every effort to relieve them, you’re called upon to exercise that challenge. If you are a doctor, any aspect of that profession, doctors, drink this — I don’t care what aspect of it — they all help, they relieve pain and make the body more comfortable. All right, exercise that call and seek the comfort that they offer, seek the help they offer. But don’t condemn the one who is afflicted, let anyone tell you it serves him right, or say it’s right because it is this, that, and the other — they do not know scripture.1065 ¶33

So in the end, these words: “of foolish men, and slow of heart to understand — was it not necessary that Christ should suffer these things, and then enter into his glory?” And then, beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And then he turned, and actually opened the scriptures to their understanding, beginning with Moses and the law and the prophets, and then their hearts and their minds were opened, and he vanished from their sight. This all took place in a heavenly sphere, not here on earth. We are re-enacting it here while we walk in these garments of flesh.1065 ¶34

Man’s darkest hour — for that hour when God the Father addressed us, even though we never realized it, he addressed that, and tells us his plan. And then God died — he disappeared, he became invisible, he entered these bodies and became invisible to us, because he takes on this vesture of flesh, and now we could not see him as a father — explained to ourselves, because he is enough, and he’s not even there, for nearness he’s inside. Well, in limitation, he became me — that’s why I can’t see him, unless I see him, it is done. And when I see his son, then I know who I am. Man’s darkest night was when God became invisible, and that was God becoming man — that’s terrible — but at daybreak, man becomes God.1065 ¶35

Let us move on to Andrew. We ask the question, “Where are you staying?” So that question was asked by Andrew, and the answer was given by Jesus, and He said, “Come and see.” As we told you last Monday, these characters of Scripture are states of consciousness that you and I have personified as persons, and we have mistaken the persons — for there is a state for the person. Tonight I will play the part of Andrew and show you what Andrew means in Scripture, and who is always playing the same part. All the characters play the same part over and over again, and who is always leading others to Christ, forever and forever, that character is always leading others to Christ. So when he asked the question “Where are you staying?” and Jesus replied “Come and see,” he first found his brother Peter, and then he brought Peter to Jesus. They claimed there were five thousand to be fed and there was no food. And who found the lad with the five barley loaves and the two fish? And he brought him to Jesus. When the Greeks wanted to see Jesus, they went first to Philip, but Philip thought that was the job of Andrew, and Philip went to Andrew, and Andrew then took the Greeks to Jesus. So he is always taking others to Jesus, the true Jesus.1063 ¶1

Tonight I play the part of Andrew, bringing you to the true Jesus. If, when you hear the word Jesus, or Jesus Christ, or the word God, or the word Lord, if in any way whatsoever it conveys to you the sense of something existing outside of you, you have the wrong concept of God, of Jesus, of Jesus Christ, of the Lord. I don’t care what the world will tell you — if in any way it wants you up, when you hear the word it conveys the sense of something that is really existent outside of yourself, you have the wrong concept of Jesus Christ. So I’ll bring you now to the true Jesus Christ. Through Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Now we speak of God. He said, “With God all things are possible.” Now we identify God with man. All things are possible to him who believes. I now tell you that God is man and exists in us, and we in Him. The eternal body of man is the human imagination; that is God Himself. Do I not say that you’re going to accept it? I am bringing you to the true God, to the true Lord Jesus Christ.1063 ¶2

Now I ask you to examine yourself, to see whether you have this God. “Choose this day whom you will serve,” and the prophet answers — Joshua answered, “We choose the Lord,” and then the people said, “We choose the Lord.” He said, “You are now witnesses against your own selves.” Now keep on examining yourselves to see whether you’re holding to the faith you say — you choose the Lord. I’m telling you who the Lord is. The Lord is your own wonderful human imagination; that is God, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you really accept Him, then all things should be possible to you, because with God all things are possible, providing you really, truly serve the one Lord.1063 ¶3

If the name conveys in any way something externally called Jesus Christ, you do not have the true Jesus Christ. This is what Andrew is saying, that he brings everyone to the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t mean they’re going to accept Him, for we are told most of them left, never to walk with Him again, and He turned to the few who remained, and He said, “Wouldst thou go also?” And Peter answered, “To whom would we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Who will we go to if you really have the words of eternal life? Then where would we go? It’s difficult to accept what you tell us — it’s difficult.1063 ¶4

Now this is not another being speaking; it’s all within you. I bring you to your own imagination. You can imagine anything in the world, and all things are possible to Christ, and Christ is your imagination. Do you mean that is really true? I tell you, if you really accept it as true and do not waver in your assumption — I dare to assume that I am the man that I want to be. Demand it at the moment of my assumption; reason denies it, my senses deny it — if I persist in that assumption, it will harden into fact, both tested and seen.1063 ¶5

We are told, examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test? If He is in you, then where is He? If through Him all things are made, would you not agree with me that there isn’t one thing made in this world that was not first imagined? The flowers you’re wearing had to be imagined before it became the thing you call now a dress, or the soup, the chair on which you’re seated, the house, the outhouse — everything was once only imagined. Now we call it a reality, but it began as an imaginal act. I’m bringing you to the only true Jesus, that is the Lord.1063 ¶6

Now you don’t have to accept it, and the Scripture tells us that the majority refused to accept it. Today there are one billion people who call themselves Christians, and when they hear the word Jesus Christ, they think of something outside of themselves, and to that being their turn, and they worship that being — some little thing on the wall, a picture, maybe some little statue. They do all kinds of things to something outside themselves, and I am telling you, if at any time you hear the word and it conveys the sense of something external to your own being, you have the wrong Jesus, you have the wrong Lord.1063 ¶7

Tonight I hope I can bring you to the true Lord, and that Lord is your own wonderful human imagination. Man is all imagination, and God is man and exists in us, and we in Him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself. The divine body, Jesus, that is the divine Lord, buried in this cross called the human form. He is crucified on this; he will rise in this. Not coming from without — he rises within, and the whole being begins to awaken. And may I tell you, it’s a slow awakening process. When he actually awakens within you, you awaken. It’s not another; you are actually awakening from a profound sleep. You have no idea how sound a sleep it is. It is out of the grave that man truly rises, and the grave is his own wonderful skull — that’s where God is buried. So here I bring you tonight and introduce you to yourself, and that self is Jesus Christ.1063 ¶8

Now try it tonight, try it, and see if it will not prove itself in performance in the not-distant future. There is no limit attached to it. Now let me give you one most encouraging thought from John’s first letter. We know that whatever we ask — no matter what it is, whatever we ask of Him, it will be accomplished — but who is the one of whom I ask? We know that no matter what it is in this world that we ask of Him, it will be accomplished. You want it — the fifth chapter, the fifteenth verse, of John’s first letter, “We know it.” Do you really — but how do I ask?1063 ¶9

Well, I ask of Him, or He is my imagination. I bring before my mind’s eye a scene which would imply that I am the one that I want to be, or that my friend or others are as I would like them to be. I try to confine it within the framework of the golden rule — there is doing unto others what I would love them to do unto me, and not to go outside of that rule. It’s an easy thing to practice: what I like — the good that I ask of them, yes, like it for myself, or I don’t ask it for them. Bring them before your mind’s eye and dare to assume that what you are seeing in your mind’s eye is true.1063 ¶10

Now there is a definite technique to it, a simple, simple technique, if I can share with you what I do, and it works. I bring them into my mind’s eye and I work myself up into an emotional state. It’s like a peculiar rhythm — I breathe in and breathe out, and breathe in and breathe out, and suddenly I reach a certain point, and then one deep inhalation, as though I am setting it up in a time exposure before my own mind. I set it up, and all of a sudden I have a deep, deep inhalation, and every pore of my being explodes, and then I do nothing beyond that. It’s taking that scene and setting it up in a time exposure before the eternal event, and then I explode it, and then life develops it, and life develops it, and then I get the call, or I get the wire, or I get a letter confirming that which I did, and I do nothing to make it so.1063 ¶11

I simply believe implicitly in Jesus Christ, but I have found Him — I have Him as my own wonderful human imagination. I believe that all things are possible to Him — He has reasons that the mortal mind knows not of. So I do not care if I do not see clearly how it could possibly be; it makes no difference to me. I simply bring it to my mind’s eye what I want to see, see it clearly, explode it, and then let it be. Now it could be tomorrow, it could be a month, it could be even years — I am not concerned. I have done it, and that’s all that matters as far as I am concerned.1063 ¶12

Everything has its own appointed hour. “See the vision that was my vision — vision has its own appointed hour. It ripens as a little flower; if it be long, wait, it is sure, and it will not be late.” A little chicken, twenty-one days; a man, nine months; a horse, twelve months; a little lamb, five months. And there is a time interval between that impregnation and the actual embodiment of that state, and I do not know the time intervals. I only know that all I do, I do it — unless that time interval is a day, well, it’s a day; if it’s going to be a month, let it be a month. I do not know the time intervals between my vision of you — be the one that you want to be, and you’ll be coming there — which I have assumed that you are. I do not know the time interval, but there are time intervals between the impregnation and the birth of that impregnation. But I tell you, it works.1063 ¶13

As it says in the thirteenth chapter of Second Corinthians, examine yourself to see whether you are holding to the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test? Now when you test yourself and put it to performance, you will have found Him — you’ll have found Him, that which you formerly worshipped as someone from without. You find Him not only within — you find Him — you can’t even say He is within. Scripture puts it that He said “within,” but I can’t even use the word “within,” because “within” in some strange way implies separation. I can’t even say that Jesus Christ is close to me, because that would imply nearness, and nearness implies separation. It is not enough — He is my very being.1063 ¶14

But I say, I AM, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I say I AM — I can’t say I AM and point elsewhere. That is the core of my being, and that is the name of God, forever and forever and forever. So I cannot say I AM and in any way have the feeling of nearness, for nearness implies separation, and He isn’t near me — He is my very being. He actually became as I am, that I may be as He is, and He is God Himself.1063 ¶15

So I say to everyone here, I bring you this night and introduce you to Jesus Christ. I cannot point outside of you if I introduce you to Jesus Christ. So I will find a Peter in the room, and I’ll bring Peter and introduce Peter to Jesus. I will find Thomas, our doubting Thomas, and I’ll bring him and introduce him to Jesus. I bring everyone and introduce them to Jesus. Not everyone is going to accept it. The majority will simply turn their backs upon Him and ignore Him and go their way, thinking now they must have an external something to whom they pray. Well, if you must have it, have it — I can only tell you this night I play the part of Andrew, and who is the first one who heard the words “Behold the Lamb of God” — Andrew heard, “Behold the Lamb of God,” to see — in Greek it is the same as to know — and so he saw the Lamb of God, he knew the Lamb of God, I thought. Now you know what I am talking about, but I hope you know the being that I’ve talked about, and that being is your own wonderful human imagination.1063 ¶16

So if you see me, you see Him who sent me; if you know me, you know Him who sent me, for He and I are one. “I and my Father are one. I and my Father are one, although my Father is greater than I.” He is not greater in this act, to my eyes, to my essential being — He is greater only as to the office that I have expressed, as the one that is sent, for I have sent myself. The Father contains Himself — there’s no one else, and He is only God in the world. So in the office of the sent, I seem inferior to myself, the sender — but I am not inferior in my essential being; only as to the office of the sent. And so I wear the cross of flesh, but while I wear the cross of flesh, I must know who I really am, and I am the one who sent me, and I redeem — all things are possible — and who is He? He is my own wonderful human imagination.1063 ¶17

So I do not need to ask anyone or turn to anyone. Not that I am saying to you, turn to me — if you have confidence that you can use it alone, then good; but if you are not yet aware of it, or feel that you cannot quite master it, I invite you to turn to me. It costs you nothing. I charge not one nickel for it — to me it’s a simple technique, a simple process, and I look upon it just as this: if this hand is itching, and the back of the hand — this hand is easier for me to use to scratch it and relieve the itch than to take this one and try to reach it with my fingers. I could reach it, I could get it with this one too — it’s the same body. So I call upon myself.1063 ¶18

If you cannot reach yourself, you would want to alleviate the itch — it’s maybe for money, it’s maybe for recognition, they do it for something — well then, ask the one in whom we have confidence, if you have confidence in the speaker, ask me. I tell you, I don’t charge — I do not charge one penny, neither do I accept any money. I don’t use — simply, if you feel like it, ask me, and I will, to the best of my ability, simply appropriate within myself that things are as you decide them to be, providing it comes within the code of what I call my ethical code — that it is not at the expense of another aspect of my being.1063 ¶19

Don’t ask me to hurt anyone in this world, because I could not, I would not, ask anyone to be hurt. But if you want recognition in this world, you want money in this world, you want comfort in this world, I see nothing wrong in that, because these are things I would want for myself, so I put them within the frame of the Golden Rule and ask for them. It’s a simple, simple technique.1063 ¶20

So here — “Where are you staying?” “Come and see.” But let me go first and get my brother, and I go, I get my brother, and my brother is Peter, and I bring Peter to Jesus, and then we go and we stay all day with Him, because it was the tenth hour. Now the new translation has it “four o’clock in the afternoon” — 4:00 p.m. has nothing to do with any 4:00 p.m.; when the Evangelist wrote “ten hours,” it was the tenth hour. He made it the tenth hour — every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value and a symbolic value, and that tenth letter is yod, the beginning of the name of Jehovah — God. Yod has a numerical value of ten; the symbolic value is a hand, the hand of the Creator. So we are not going to discuss how things are created — no, here it was the tenth hour, and there they stayed within that day because it was the tenth hour.1063 ¶21

So let us discuss how things are brought into being. Well, how are they brought into being? By your own wonderful and magical act, that out of nothing means, because your imagination alone — you’re imagining that is God in action. I do not observe imagining as I do objects in space, because I myself am the imagining — I can’t observe it. I can observe the effects of my imagining, but not actually the thing itself that is imagining. So I do not observe imagining; I observe only, as its external eyes, the activity of imagining, and then I know what I’ve been doing when I see things happening in my world.1063 ¶22

So I take you to meet Jesus, and I don’t take you outside of this room. I take you back into your own self, right into your own being, and you yourself are the Lord Jesus Christ, but He sleeps within you, His sound sleep, dreaming. And I know this from my own experience — I was told it so vividly one night when I fulfilled the forty-second Psalm.1063 ¶23

Here I am, walking — this enormous procession, this enormous crowd, and I’m leading them up to the house of God, and suddenly a voice rings out, and God walks with them, and then a woman at my side — she asked the voice, who showed no face, just the voice — and he said, “If God is at our side, where is Him?” The voice answered, “At your side, God walked with them.” She turned to her left, looked into my face, and she became hysterical. She said, “What? Neville — Neville is done!” And the voice answered, “Yes, in the act of waking.”1063 ¶24

And then the voice spoke within me — no one else heard it — and here was a sea of humanity, and then the voice, from the very depths of my own being, is saying, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed the dream I dreamed, and I know also that when he wakes, I...” — and so he divorced — “and to me, yes, in the act of waking” — he is God in the act of waking, and then that moment he was not awake, but he was in the process of waking.1063 ¶25

Well, that same God is in you. They aren’t a bunch of little gods running around — there’s only one God, His name is I AM, and He’s buried in you. God Himself entered death’s door, the human tomb, and laid down at the grave of man to share with man His visions of eternity until he awakes, and when he awakes, man will see that garment out of which He emerges, and it’s this garment, this garland, these are the tombs in which He sleeps. And so God is sleeping within every being in the world and dreaming the dream of life, and all that He dreams becomes experience, and then one day He awakes, and the story as told us in the gospel of love, the four Gospels, you will experience, and you will know who you are.1063 ¶26

So I introduced you to Jesus Christ, and you don’t have to go to any church, come here, go anyplace called holy — wherever you are, you could be standing at a bar, wherever you stand, that’s where He is. He is your own wonderful human imagination, that is Jesus Christ. Now this night, test — come, test me and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing so great you have no room on earth to receive it. Test me.1063 ¶27

Well now, I will take — I will name it — a lady wrote me today a series of lovely things that have happened to her family, first to herself, and her dear family, and their memory returned, and she figured, you know, it’s been four years now — “I didn’t have a nickel, and my family were so kind to me, I thought the world of them, and I know they were, and at that moment when I didn’t have anything, I thought, well, now I would love to give them something.” What did I give them? Save to give it in imagination, and so in my imagination I gave them each five hundred dollars — there was a lot of money because I had nothing — and now recently things have happened, in a series of events that I didn’t anticipate, and now I’m coming into that money, and I’m touching myself — each is going to receive from me a check for five hundred dollars. It’s not a fortune, but when you have nothing and you give five hundred dollars each, to three people, that’s fifteen hundred dollars, and you have nothing, and now four years later you can do it. And let it start — you start yourself to do it.1063 ¶28

We do not know how long it takes between the planting of the seed and the harvest. Unfortunately, most of us have a faulty memory, and we cannot relate the harvest to the planting, and we deny the harvest because it can’t be ours. “I have once did a thing like this” — no, you did it all in imagination — that’s how God creates, for God is your own wonderful human imagination, and whatever you imagine is good and comes to pass. As a man imagines, so shall he reap in this world.1063 ¶29

So here plainly we’re told, he took others and brought them to Jesus. He simply brought you, as I am bringing you tonight, introduced you to Him. But if you read the sixth chapter of the book of John, you wonder what small proportion will really accept Him — they all left Him but a handful. I’m bringing tonight, I’ve invited a handful to go — you, the voice said — “To whom would we go?” — you have the words of eternal life, so to whom will we go? It’s difficult to accept it, that full responsibility, but to me my own wonderful human imagination has gone, and I can’t turn to something else and pray to it. I can’t go to church and pray to something on the wall and go to a minister and pray and ask him to pray to God for me, that all would need mediation to take place — yes, but that’s difficult, and so only a few remain.1063 ¶30

And then they said, “We believe, and we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” It starts first with believing what I’ve told you — we’ve believed, and we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. This is the natural, inevitable series — you start first with believing it, I tell you — accept it or don’t; if you accept it, that’s how you start. It begins with faith, a faith that fancies that this is a possibility, that it may be true. But you can’t just say it’s possible that it may be true — you’ve got to apply it, you’ve got to accept it, you do it, and then something more sure than faith takes place — a knowing, based upon your own knowledge, it’s your own experience, you have experienced it now. And something far, far greater than faith comes up out of your own experience — you know what Andrew tells you is true. He brought you to Jesus, and the Jesus was not on the outside — the whole drama is unfolding on the inside, and I find that my own wonderful human imagination is the Jesus of Scripture that formerly I thought lived two thousand years ago, and now I have found is all within me.1063 ¶31

I can go to bed and commune with myself, and then I know what it means in that wonderful fourth Psalm, “Be still and commune with your own heart upon your bed” — and your communion with God, so I will commune with you, and I will appropriate what I want in this world. I appropriate it all in consciousness, then I discover faith is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of my objective hope. What did I hope for in this world? Well, my subjective appropriation of the objective hope was my prayer — that is empathy, not sympathy, that’s empathy, for if I really want it, if I’m hoping for it, I will rejoice in what I am doing — I rejoice in my appropriation. I simply appropriate the state and fall asleep in that communion with self, and that’s God. You try it before you judge it — try it, and after having tried it, you’re going to test it, and you’re going to prove it, and then you will have found the Living Christ.1063 ¶32

Today, one billion who claim they believe in God, the Christian God, and yet you mention the word “God” and they think of something on the outside. You could take fifteen million Jews — they’ve believed in God, you mention the word Jehovah, or the Lord — I don’t know whatever would conjure their minds, a sense of this Supreme — if they feel it to be something external to themselves, they worship a false god. If you take the hundreds of millions of Mohammedans, and you use the word Muhammad, and they think of a being, a prophet who lived centuries ago, something external to themselves, they have a false prophet. If the Buddhists believe that Buddha was something that lived six hundred years B.C., that was something different, they have a false prophet. Any prophet outside of the being in you, any God outside living within you, is false. If there be any Christ other than He who was crucified upon you, and who is very real, and who rose and continues to rise within humanity — He is a false Christ, and false teachers teach Him as coming from without. Any time they’re waiting for Him to come from without, He is false — simple.1063 ¶33

I’ll show you the very last words of the book of Matthew, the very last words: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” How on earth can I return when I am with you always? They expect Him to return — how can He return? The very final words, as He’s departing from a visible state into an invisible state, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” and they tell me He is going to return, when He never departed. How can He return when He is never left me? “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” — how can He return? Can’t you see it — He dwells in us, He is through us; if He’s through us, He cannot possibly return.1063 ¶34

And the word “He” — not in me — I couldn’t read — He is my breath, and survives this very moment. God comes into this world and I’m thought physically — you don’t see me, I still am not away; if I know the being that I am, I am in you. I have awakened from this dream of life; there’s no place for me to go but to be one in Him, and I’m one of those who are watching, those in great eternity who contemplate on death, this world, and those who contemplate on death say, “This what seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most grateful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torment, despair, and eternal death, but divine mercy steps beyond and redeems men.”1063 ¶35

We are the body of Jesus; there’s only one body in the world, I tell you, from my own experience — you and I are one, there’s only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all. Accept it, and you will accept the Jesus that I introduce you to tonight, if you want to test Him first — He invites you to test it. Don’t test the speaker, no — test Jesus, and Jesus is within you when you say “I AM,” that’s He, that is the Lord Jesus Christ.1063 ¶36

So when you go to bed tonight, put Him to the extreme test. Do you know what you were loved for, for yourself and for your loved ones in this world? Assume that you have it, and that assumption, though at the moment it is denied by your senses, denied by reason, if you persist in it because you believe in Him, it will harden into fact, and no power in the world can stop it — no power in the world can stop it. But I can’t tell you the interval of time between your assumption and its hardening into fact, but I promise you from experience, it will harden. In the interval, do it in love, and I tell you, whatever you are in doubt, do the loving thing, and you’ve done the right thing. If ever in doubt, ask a very simple question: “Would I like it done to me?” If you can answer in the affirmative, then do it, and you cannot go wrong if you use that as your guide.1063 ¶37

So, “Where do you live? Where are you staying?” “Come and see.” “But let me get my brother first, and let me bring my brother and introduce him to you,” and so throughout the story he’s always bringing others to Jesus, and that’s the story of Andrew. You can’t change that state — that state is forever. You can fill in this state tonight and take a friend, something that you know concerning Jesus Christ, and tell him — you are playing the part of Andrew — if you give him the Bible and interpret Scripture to him as you know it now, then you are actually taking him, and you are now Andrew.1063 ¶38

If you want to be filled with the joy, as this lady’s letter to me today, that she could be so praiseful for the little that was done to her by her children, that these three children she felt did so much for her, that she wants to show her appreciation — she did it — then she is playing the part of Asher. Asher is one of the most neglected characters in Scripture, for it means praise, it means thanksgiving. And so few people will stop to say thanks. Were they not ten cleansed of leprosy, and only one returned to say thank You — their work in who were instantly cured, and only one came back to say thank You — Asher. And so if you actually express joy, express thanksgiving for the slightest little thing done to you, you are actually exercising that talent that is known in Scripture as Asher. It’s personified as a disciple, or as the tenth one, and so neglected within us — so few people are grateful. First of all, they reflect upon what happened, and then they give all praise to the means employed rather than the actual cause of the phenomena.1063 ¶39

For here tonight we are simply presenting Andrew. So I brought you tonight to meet Jesus. I do not point to any being outside of you, do not look for Him in any face, do not look for Him in any place in the world. My point would be to introduce you to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is your own wonderful human imagination. Man is God and exists in us, and we in Him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself.1063 ¶40

Now, before we go into the silence, let me once more try to explain this simple, simple technique. You will have to practice it and use your own rhythm. You don’t have to be in church to do it. You can be sitting here tonight, you can be at home listening to nice music, you can be simply relaxing with a drink — it doesn’t matter what you’re doing and where you are. But you want to get into a lovely, quiet, relaxed frame — no so-called holy attitude, forget that. You are holy when you’re in doubt — God is love. So you would love it for someone else — that is all that you need. How wouldn’t it be wonderful if she actually had it, if he had it, if they had it?1063 ¶41

Also, you know exactly what you want, and then you imagine you’re seeing them — you can see them in your mind’s eye and see them vividly, and then work yourself into a rhythm, they’re telling you that they have it, and you’re getting yourself worked up emotionally because they’re telling you that they have exactly what you know they would want in this world, and then you reach a certain point and you explode — something actually goes out of you, its power, and you’ll read the words, “Who touched me? For I perceive virtue has gone out of me” — at that moment she was healed. “Who touched me?” And they say, “What, with the crowd — how could you tell who touched you? It was an enormous crowd.” You know you did it yourself. You work yourself up into a certain emotional state, and then suddenly explode, and you feel everything go out, and you cannot repeat it — there’s no desire to repeat it.1063 ¶42

It was an actual psychic-sexual act, but there’s no physical act — there is no evidence of any physical act, but it’s the same thrill that you would derive from a physical act. Work yourself right up into that state and then let it go, and do not raise one finger to make it so, any more than you would after impregnation — what could you do after pregnancy is taking place? Nothing — leave it alone, and let it take place in its own good time. Now that is going into the silence.1063 ¶43

The Bible is a revelation of eternal truth. This eternal truth is called in Scripture Jesus Christ. It is written without regard for secular history. It’s all about Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ defines himself as the truth. He said, “I am the truth,” and that is our subject tonight. It’s all about Jesus Christ. But I’m speaking of the power of God, or Jesus Christ, as he is described in Scripture — the creative power of God and the wisdom of God. We are told that Jesus Christ is in you. Do you not realize that Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test. So I’m speaking of a creative power buried in man, the only creative power in the world. So I completely forget secular history when you read Scripture — it’s all about a power that is in you. Now he defines himself as the truth, that “I am the truth.”1062 ¶1

But God’s truth is not so much contrasted with falsehood as it is with fickleness. “Whom will you serve?” Then we are told, he replied, “I choose to serve the Lord.” Then he asked the crowd, and they said, “We will serve the Lord.” Then he said, “You are witnesses to yourselves.”1062 ¶2

And so we are witnesses to ourselves whether we are truly serving the Lord, which is the truth. Now, who is he? I tell you, he is your own wonderful human imagination. That is the Christ Jesus of Scripture. That is God. That is the Lord.1062 ¶3

Now, I would try to explain it, and you may say, “Well, I will believe it, and to the best of my ability I will be faithful to it.” And then suddenly you turn away. You come home and you say, “I met so-and-so today, and you know what he said to me — as long as my business opens and continues, you have a job.” You’ll turn completely from your confidence and your faith in God, which is your own imagination, to a man. And all men are liars, as we are told. They’re all liars. Two months later you are fired. You came home and you were so proud that he was going to keep you forever. Who wants to be kept forever on any one job? Is there no growth, no expansion in it?1062 ¶4

And so it is — the contrast of truth in Scripture is not with falsehood, it is with fickleness. Man turns from the one true God to another — there is no other God. So I ask you tonight to believe me — the Christ of Scripture is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God, and there is nothing impossible to God if you know the true God. If you think he’s on the outside, well then you do not know the true God. Do you not realize Christ is in you, unless of course you failed to meet the test? I hope you’ll realize we have not failed in the test.1062 ¶5

Now, everything — but everything — is possible to him. Well, how do I do it, and how do I go about testing it and proving it? If I really believe it, my imagination is God, and there is no other God. That everything I will, no matter what it is — today it was first imagined. The suit I wear, the building that now houses us, everything in the world had to be first imagined and then executed, but it first had to be imagined. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.1062 ¶6

And I said, “Well, I’ll believe him. I will put all my faith in him.” Now, to what extent will I be faithful? Of truth in Scripture is the steadfastness — the faithfulness of God. As we are told, “I will make a covenant with you, my steadfast faithfulness and steadfast love to David.” That is my covenant with you. “I have made him a witness to the people.” Tonight I will tell you what it means. Yeah, I’ll tell you exactly what that covenant is with us. He is a witness to this truth of God. He called him his son. He will not violate it. He tells me now he dwells in me as my very being. He dwells in me, and he has proved to me that his covenant will not be violated. His covenant is: “I have made a covenant with you, my steadfast love for David. I’ve made him a witness to the people,” which means that he is my son, and I dwell in you. I have found him in me as my imagination, and I can’t get away from my imagination. I can’t put it over there and remain here — there’s no place where I can go and put it elsewhere. If I dream, I am the dreamer — that’s imagination. If I awake, no matter what I’m doing, I’m imagining, and I cannot separate myself from this core of my own being, which is my imagination. He became the very core of my being, and now he has made a covenant with me that I will actually prove one day that his covenant with me is kept. He is sure and steadfast love for David. I will know — and he tells me David is his son. “Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee.” And he dwells in me as my own imagination. One day, if he keeps his covenant, I must know I am the father of David, for he is the father of David.1062 ¶7

Now, can I be faithful to that being who said to me that he is faithful to his covenant with me, or will I tomorrow, or tonight, or next year, be fickle and turn from the only God to something that is not God?1062 ¶8

Now I’ll tell you a story. Take any scene in the world which would imply that you are the one that you want to be. I don’t care what you want to be — take a scene, and when you look at it, if it implies that you are the man, the woman, that you want to be, who is looking at it? God is. God is your own wonderful human imagination, and all things are possible to God. Will you now remain faithful to what you are seeing and keep that vision in time of trouble, or will you be diverted and then turn to something that is not God? If you remain faithful to God, knowing that God is your own wonderful human imagination, no power on earth can stop it from coming to pass, because there is no other power. If you turn to false gods — turn to a man who makes you all kinds of promises — you’re turning to a false god. If you remain faithful to this, and this only, God, you cannot fail in this world. That is what Scripture teaches — it is a complete revelation of an eternal truth written without regard to secular history.1062 ¶9

When you read these characters in Scripture, forget characters — they aren’t characters as you and I are persons. They are eternal states through which you and I pass. We pass through these things, coming into a climax, and the climax is called Jesus Christ, which also is a state. When you reach that state, you have found God, and everything said of him in Scripture will be said of you. Everything that is said of him, that he experienced, you will experience. David in Scripture called him “my God.” David in the spirit will call you “my God,” which means “my father,” for God is Father. He will call you “my Lord,” he will call you “my father,” and you will know that he is your father.1062 ¶10

And the account that is kept — we have to keep it on our side here as it is kept by the eternal being. The truth in Scripture does not mean what we think it means here. For instance, a true judgment on this world of Caesar means that if I say a flower is here and there is no flower to support my claim, well then it’s a false judgment. A true judgment must conform to the fact; if the fact will not support my judgment, then we call it a false judgment.1062 ¶11

That’s not what Scripture speaks about. It allows me to say that a flower is there. It allows me to say that I am seeing what my mortal eye cannot see. It allows me to see that I am actually seeing what is not there to be seen, that my mortal eye cannot see. And if I dare to persist in my assumption that it is there, and I’m still, and sleep in it as though it were true, it will become an objective fact. That’s what Scripture teaches — “when you pray, believe that you have received, and you will. Whatever you desire, believe you have it, and you will.” I must not wait for facts to believe that I am the man that I want to be. I produce the facts if I know who I am. And I am all imagination, so I’m an imagining being, and I am imagining that I am well — that I would like to be. I persist in my imagination, believing it to be true. Now, if I persist in my assumption, it will become a fact. That’s what Scripture teaches.1062 ¶12

Do I really believe in that God, or am I fickle, and am I turning from that God, the only God, to something that is not a god? That is the question asked in Scripture.1062 ¶13

So in the Book of Joshua: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” And Joshua replied, “We choose the Lord.” And the Lord really means “I.” I is the only God in the world — that is my name forever, forever and forever. I will choose to serve the Lord, and the Lord is “I am.” Then he turns to the people: “You make your choice,” and as we choose the Lord, “you are witnesses to your choice.” “We are witnesses,” said the people. But they soon forgot, and turned to some false god.1062 ¶14

Now you can, morning or night, protect yourself as to whether you’re really believing in the only true God, or placing your faith in a false one. So I’m not saying that man should not be trusted, but don’t put your hope in any man in this world. Oh, they’ll tell you all kinds of things. I have friends of mine who will say to me, “I just came back, and you know what the boss said to me — the job is yours forever.” I’m speaking of experience — two months later he was fired. He didn’t do one thing that was wrong; it was a change in policy, and his department was simply closed, and he had put all confidence, all faith, in that man.1062 ¶15

Another one, something similar — forty-odd years ago, when I was fired from J. C. Penney, running up and down the elevator, folding hats, doing all kinds of silly, stupid things — they gave me the large sum of money of twenty-two dollars a week; of course that was years ago. I asked the man, “Why do you fire me? What have I done?” He said, “You haven’t done anything that’s wrong, but there’s a little change in the economy at the moment, and so we’ve got to let out people, and you have to figure that out. You’ve been here a year, and you’ve been very good, but we simply have to economize now, and that job at the moment we have to dispense with.” I said, “Where I come from, we don’t do that — a man doesn’t steal, and he doesn’t violate the code of decency. They go through these ups and downs and keep him.” So, “We don’t do that here,” he says. “There’s something else — cut quickly, cut bait quickly. Now, this man is a greenhorn” — I was only eighteen years old — “so just take this little letter over to my friend at Macy’s.” And they gave me a little letter, and, amazing, they reduced me from twenty-two to eighteen a week, doing the same stupid things, this time in the grocery department, filling bins of all kinds.1062 ¶16

So I worked there about ten months. I figured no one’s going to fire me ever again — I’m gonna quit. And so I quit. I went to the boss and said, “I’m quitting as of now.” “But what’s wrong? Not a thing is wrong, but I’m going to work for myself from now on, not working for anyone.”1062 ¶17

Well, I do work for others, but I never considered it working for others — I was on my own. I started dancing. I couldn’t dance. There was no dancing lesson in my life; I said I contained it, and then you could do anything in this world that you want. I didn’t take any lessons, so they picked me. “All right, he’s arrogant enough to do it — let him do it.” And so I did it. I danced for eleven years, six Broadway shows, all through the country in vaudeville, nightclubs — by sheer audacity, by feeling, “I can do it.”1062 ¶18

I’m telling you, you can do anything in this world that you want to do, but you’ve got to find Christ. He is the only Creator in the world. And when people talk about Christ on the outside, forget it — there is no Christ on the outside. Christ in you is the hope of glory, and Christ in you is your own wonderful human imagination — that is Christ, and there is no other Christ.1062 ¶19

He is buried within you. One day he will rise, not as another — he will rise within you, and you are he. No loss of identity and no change of identity, same being, only all the things said of him begin to happen in you. It is said of him that David called him “my father.” He calls you “my father,” and you know he is your son, and you know you are his father. As the Son of Man was lifted up like a serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, and you are lifted up in the same manner. And I tell you, you say that the whole temple was picked apart from top to bottom, and then he said that temple was my body. Well, your body is split from top to bottom, and it happens just like a fiery service — the same thing. You pride — you are buried in a grave, and you come out of the grave. It happens to you. You are witnesses to your birth — it happens to you. A dove descended upon him — it’s called the Holy Spirit — and it remained on him. It happens to you. The whole thing actually happens in you, on you, and then you know who you are.1062 ¶20

I am telling you that you are suffering tonight — the whole vast world is suffering from amnesia, total amnesia, because they think that they are John Brown, they think that they are Mary Smith, and they are Jesus Christ. Now, if you are Jesus Christ and you don’t know it, and he does all things in the world, then you remain John Brown and worship some Jesus Christ that does not exist. If man tonight is suffering from total amnesia, and as John Smith he has a thought, but he believes he is God’s brother, and John Brown doesn’t have a penny, and you come before him and you try to convince him he is John Smith, he can’t believe it. You bring his wife, you bring his children, you bring his family, bring all the people to remind him that he is John Smith, but he can’t believe it. Hit him over the head, give him shocks, do all kinds of things to him, but he can’t believe it — he’s done, he knows he’s a genre — a man who doesn’t have a nickel, and John Smith has a fortune. You ask him to sign his name John Smith — he will not do it. That’s against his ethical code — he is John Brown.1062 ¶21

You are Jesus Christ. Believe in yourself, Mary Smith, and whatever it is you believe yourself to be — I can’t persuade you that you are Jesus Christ — you are suffering from complete and total amnesia. One day you will awake, you will awake within the grave of your own skull, and remember who you are. It’s only a matter of good memory. May I tell you, you want me to earn it, but I’ve returned to the being that I really am — I don’t earn it, it’s grace. And truth comes through Jesus Christ, and grace is a gift, unmerited, unearned.1062 ¶22

And so memory returns. So he said, “Now hold fast the pattern of the true word which you have heard from me, God the truth, that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within.” Well, who is the Holy Spirit? We are told he is our remembrance. We are told the Holy Spirit, when he comes unto you, he will bring to your remembrance all that you have heard from me. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, and what I have told you is true, and he will bring to your remembrance all that I have chosen. But who is he? He is your own remembrance that you have forgotten — you’ve completely forgotten your own identity. He will come when he comes — you haven’t earned it, it’s simply that a man is suffering from amnesia, and he awakens to what he was before he lost his memory.1062 ¶23

We lost our memory, delivered purposely, to come into this world. One day memory will return, and when that memory returns, we are the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no other Lord Jesus Christ.1062 ¶24

But in the interval I am asking of testing, if you really are — and all things are made by him, and all things are here, that I should be able to appropriate anything in this world that I desire. But if it is true, how would I test it? The first belief — in your own wonderful human imagination — at the moment when I tell you that that is Jesus, you don’t believe it, but I’m telling you it is, and all things are here. Now, if he really has all things — I can’t remember that I am the Lord Jesus Christ, but if I really am, can I, though I still think I have never guessed it, can I really now put it to the test? Suppose I’ve never got it — I’ve been just, for a moment, to believe I am what I never dared to believe. But I’ll try to believe that I am, and then I become it.1062 ¶25

Well, I become it, and then I try again, and I become it. That I try again — I’m not fighting for pretense, and all of a sudden it does produce itself in action — it produces itself in performance. Although I still don’t know that I really am Jesus Christ, because I haven’t had that memory yet, I am proving that the power of which he spoke is true, or I am proving it in performance, right?1062 ¶26

I am telling you memory will return, and you’re going to find out who you are. And when you find out who you are, I am telling you who you are — you are the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no other. Actually, you’ll be king. But you are suffering from an amnesia for a divine better, and one day you will awaken and you will know exactly who you are, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ.1062 ¶27

That’s what the Bible is all about — it’s a revelation of an eternal truth, written without regard or respect to history. So forget the story as history. Here — this is 1971. The story told of David is written 1000 BC. Who would believe that a man living today, born in the year 1905, is totally aware, as memory returns, that he who was supposed to be born 1000 BC — that’s three thousand years ago — stands before me as a youth, and I am his father, and he knows I am his father. Then where is God, where is the story, if you take it in a chronological sense, if you take it as secular history — where is it? You rub it out completely.1062 ¶28

And I am telling you what I know from my own experience. And if men should come into my world, coming in the twinkling of an eye from afar, and all of a sudden they are witnessing an experience — now is the return of my memory. Well, all of a sudden I wake in a tomb — how long have I been there, and who put me there? I awakened, and I know exactly what I must do in order to come out of it. And there are witnesses to my birth, or return of my memory. Well, that’s what it is for. I walk with a family — that’s resurrection.1062 ¶29

Who will read a story in the fifth chapter of Second Samuel — well, David took the stronghold of Zion and renamed it the City of David; we call it Jerusalem, the house where God loves most of all the dwelling places of Jacob. He loves Zion, and that’s where God dwells. And he took it by going up the water shaft, and he took it in one assault, and he built that area, by which he ascended from the outside in and up at the same time — therefore you can only build it in a survival — and he took it in one certain assault.1062 ¶30

Who would have thought for one moment that you would experience that in the only way you would ever explain it? That suddenly your body is split from top to bottom, and you look at the base of your spine — at the base is a golden, liquid, pulsing light. As you contemplate it, you know it is yourself, and you fuse with it, and at the moment of fusion, one sudden assault in a spiral, fiery manner, you were seen into Zion, and there you are, as told in Scripture, “they take it by violence, the violent take it by force.” And the whole thing reverberates — does it reverberate! Your skull reverberates, you think the whole thing is coming apart, but it doesn’t — you take it by violence. That’s how David took it, and that’s how the Son of Man ascends into heaven, and everything recorded in Scripture is literally true. The words are figurative, but the truth is different, and you do it in the same manner — everyone does it in that manner.1062 ¶31

I’m sharing with you my experience. I am telling you I am not something apart, believe me, as human as anyone here. All the weaknesses of the flesh I have had them, have many of them still, for that matter, and yet in spite of all these things, he who is spoken of in Scripture has unfolded within me. So I tell you, you are only suffering from amnesia. I can tell you now who you are.1062 ¶32

But like a person, if you’ve ever seen one — it’s a very unpleasant thing, I tell you — to meet someone you know well and love well, and they do not know you. Meet someone who may have known you at a certain point in time, and they do not know you at all — that section of time is completely gone. And then they go for maybe ten years, and there is no knowledge whatsoever in that intervening period, and all that the doctors can do to bring them back, they can’t bring them back to have any knowledge of what happened in those ten years. Our hospitals, few of them — it is not a pleasant thing — to stand before someone that you love dearly, and you always believe they love you, and they do not recognize you, they do not know you, and you can say anything in this world that you want, they cannot relate it to anything.1062 ¶33

People say it’s amnesia, or partial amnesia — you and I are suffering from total amnesia until Christ returns within and awakens, because you’re only Christ — there is nothing but Christ in the world, there is nothing but God. He became as we are, that we may be as he is.1062 ¶34

And so I’m not denying that you are playing a certain part, and believe me, in a sense, you can’t quite bring back the memory that you are Jesus Christ. You can exercise the power that is Jesus Christ, and I tell you, he is your wonderful human imagination, and you can take your imagination now — see what you would like to see, believe in the reality of what you would like to receive, persist in that assumption, and it will harden into fact. Now, if all things were made by him, and then you know what you need to make it, try it again, and then try it again. And if it works, as it will work, then at least you do know that in some strange way — I cannot bring back the identity of being the Lord Jesus Christ, I can prove a power easily of which I was formerly unaware.1062 ¶35

And one day, suddenly, it will happen to you, and you will awaken, and when you awaken you are the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and I will be one, equal — no one telling you, “Ah, because he came before you in the awakening process, he received you in rank” — no, you can’t receive rank because there is only one Lord Jesus Christ. So should you tonight awaken — and I awoke almost twelve years ago this coming July — I will not precede you in rank. No one will precede another — we’re all one.1062 ¶36

And when you know it, you don’t want it to feed another impulse, “For the Lord is one, and his name is one,” and the day will come when he will be king over all the earth, and in that day the Lord will be one, and his name one, and all this will form one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God, unfolded within us all.1062 ¶37

The truth of Scripture is not a conflict between what we call truth and error, or truth and falsehood, so much as it is between the true God and our selfless love for him, and our fickleness. So we pick our fickleness as we move away from the true God and worship the false god.1062 ¶38

For tonight, believe me, and see if we cannot, in the immediate present — I do not mean next year, I do not even mean next month — it’s only a little way away — but now try. “He said, who will believe our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Now you think there’s pure poetry, beautiful imagery, may I assure you that is true, just as the prophet Isaiah wrote it: “Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” The arm is called in Scripture the power of God, and the power of God is called Christ.1062 ¶39

And I tell you it is an actual story. He is jealous, for it happened to me. Here I am in a room, not as big as this, but square like this, and I’m sitting on the floor talking to my pupils of the world — call them disciples — explaining the word of God. And suddenly one of these listening, seated on the floor, rises quickly and departs the room. And I knew instantly what he was going to do — he is going to tell the authorities what I am teaching. I am teaching of a king — it is not Peter — I am teaching of a power unknown to mortal man. I am teaching them that in them is the king that transcends all the species of the world, all the powers known to man. And he rises quickly and leaves the room. I knew instantly the authorities would know it, what would happen. And suddenly the door opens, and this one, dressed in the most glorious robe of the finest raiment, tall, handsome man, entered. Here he comes down, and he turns at right angles, turns at right angles, turns at right angles, and comes and faces me. Now we’re all standing. Then he takes off his attendant’s mallet and a wooden peg, and he hammers it into my shoulder — didn’t hurt, but he hammers this peg into my shoulder. Then he takes a sharp instrument, and with one circular motion he removes my sleeve, and my arm is bare from my shoulder to the ends of my fingers, completely bare, the right arm.1062 ¶40

And then he extends his arms in a cross, embraces me, and kisses me on the neck — I kissed him on the neck. And then the scene is fading, and fading, and fading, and I see far below a baby-blue color as he started away.1062 ¶41

And here is Scripture: “Will you come out and betray the Son of God with a kiss?” Would you reveal him? Because the Son of God is the arm of God, for the Son of God is the power and the wisdom of God. Were you now to unveil him and betray his identity? He had to.1062 ¶42

Everything said in Scripture is true, and when you awake, these things happen — they all happen.1062 ¶43

So, if only they are certain — this arm is not as strong as the average tall man’s arm in this world, it is a normal arm. It’s only a symbol of the being that awoke within you — you are the arm of God, all the power of God, the wisdom of God, and he will now use it.1062 ¶44

In the play, just a pretty little — or, “he is nailed upon you the pain,” as you are told in Isaiah, “and for a season you will be in control, only for a season, to carry the burden — the burden of Israel — and then you’ll bear the pain and take it off, and another one will carry it, and another will tell you, but in that interval you will carry it.”1062 ¶45

And you are the power of God and the wisdom of God, and he comes in and he unveils me — unveils not the body, unveils the arm, for it is the arm that symbolizes the power of God, the creative power of God. And that happened in 1966, the tenth day of October, 1966. So I can’t forget them — these days are indelibly impressed upon me.1062 ¶46

Everything said of him I have experienced — I have been awakened within myself. And everything said of him you must experience, as your weakness within — so do not let anyone tell you of any Jesus Christ outside of you, you are not going to find him. He sleeps within you, and he dreams the life that you are now expressing — he is dreaming that you are — and one day he will awaken, and then memory will return, and you will not be gone. You will be, and you will know it was Jesus Christ.1062 ¶47

And then, go to bed at night, and you’ll put down John Brown as the world sees John Brown on the bed, but you fall asleep as Jesus Christ, and your nights are not the nights that they were prior to that moment. You are instructing, and you are teaching, and you aren’t frightened of anything, and fighting in any room — no more nightmares, just teaching. That anything happens, you’ll know exactly who you are, and you shouldn’t be alarmed if it doesn’t hurt — you’re ready, just let things move. Memory has returned, and the being who was all in the beginning has now returned.1062 ¶48

In the morning you’ll pick up the living garment called John Brown, and you’ll go through life as John Brown, not trying to disturb anyone in the world. Someone just calls “John,” you answer, “Mr. Brown,” you answer — but you know exactly who you are, and you’re playing a dual part until the end, when you take off for the last time John Brown, and you are to be you yourself, to be after you awoke from the dream of life, and that being is Jesus Christ. Now let us go into the silence.1062 ¶49