I daresay that everyone here would say, “Yes,” to the statement of Scripture, “With God, all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27)
I don’t think you’d be here if you did not believe in God, and the God to whom all things are possible. But maybe we stop right there, and we separate man from God, and my purpose is to show you that we are not two, that we are One . . that God actually became man, that man may become God.
So, let us, now tonight, give you my reasons for my claims. We turn to the book of John . . the Gospel of John, and we are told that, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” (John 1:14). Well, that’s a mistranslation. The word translated “among” is the Greek preposition “in,” “within.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt within us” . . “in us.” (John 1:14)
John used the plural “us” for the nature whereof we consist, that the Word of God, which is defined in Scripture as the creative power of God and the Wisdom of God, did not take upon Itself someone person among men, for then that one assumed would have advanced, and no more; but Christ, to save all, did not make this man or that man his habitation, but “dwelt in us.”
That same creative Word that created the universe, and sustains it, dwells in us! Therefore, “with God all things are possible,” (Mark 10:27) and therefore with Man all things are possible. So, he states it in one book, Matthew, “With God all things are possible” but in Mark he states it, “All things are possible to him” . . meaning man . . “who believes.” Can man believe?
So, this Creative Word is in us. Well, what is this Creative Word? It’s your own wonderful human imagination! That’s Christ in man. 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 Christ Himself the divine body Jesus; and we are his members.
So, when you say, “I AM,” that’s He. Now, can you believe that you are now the man that you would like to be, though at the moment of your assumption, reason denies it? And your senses deny it? Can you really conceive a scene . . a scene, which if true, would imply the fulfillment of your dream? Just imagine it. Certainly you can imagine it, but the problem is: will you believe it? Will you believe in the reality of the thing imagined?
If I could this very moment imagine myself into a state . . any state at all . . and dwell in it, well now, what is “dwelling in it”? Well, I’m dwelling in it. Well, that’s Christ! And that is the resurrecting power of the universe. So, if I remain in a state, I will resurrect it and objectify it in my world. But I have to select it and enter the state. If the spectator could enter into any of these states in his imagination, approaching the state on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought . . what would it be like if it were true? How would I feel if I were now the man that I would like to be? How would I know that I could become it? . . Well, first, as I assume that I AM it, let me think of my friends . . those who really would rejoice with me were it true. Let me imagine that I am seeing them in my mind’s eye. How do they see me? If what I am assuming is true, they should see me as I am seeing myself, and if they are friends, they should rejoice with me. So, let me now assume that I am seeing reflected on the face of a friend that which, if I saw it, would imply he sees in me that which I have assumed that I AM. Will that work? Try it! I tell you, from my own personal experience, it works.
As we are told in Corinthians, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail to meet the test.” (II Corinthians 13:5, Moffatt’s translation) Now we are challenged. He says, “Come, test yourself and see.” (II Corinthians 13:5, Moffatt)
Well, this is how I test myself: If Christ is in me, and all things are possible to Christ, then I must find out who he is. Well, I have found him as my own wonderful human imagination, and because he dwells . . not only in me, he dwells in us . . everything is possible to everyone in the world. And, so, you help man best by telling him who Christ is. You could give him all the things in the world that he needs, he’ll come back for more tomorrow unless he knows who Christ is.
You can give the entire world to anyone of them: they’ll spend it . . waste it . . if they don’t know who they are. But tell him who he is . . and he doesn’t need anything more than the knowledge of who he is and the application of that knowledge, for we are the operant power. It doesn’t work itself! I can tell you that your imagination is Christ, and maybe you’ll believe me, but unless you actually take it to the point of working upon it and operating it, it means nothing.
Well, if, this night, I really believe it, I would not allow the sun to go down in my sleep unless I feel myself right into the situation of the wish fulfilled. It need not be a wish for myself; it could be a wish for a friend, for everyone in the world, because Christ dwells in all, and Christ is the true identity of every man, then everyone must be myself “pushed out.” There can’t be another if God is one, therefore, I tell myself, as the seeming other, what I would do if I were you, and instead of giving him the thing that he needs physically, tell him how to get it for himself.
What would you feel like if now you were the man that you want to be? How would you see the world if things were as you desire them to be?
Now, this is what I mean by “living in the end.” Robert Frost, just the year before he departed this sphere, wrote this story for Life Magazine; and he said, “The Founding Fathers did not believe in the future” . . what a shock, that they did not believe in the future! They “believed it in.” He said, “We are always imagining ahead of our evidence,” and the most creative thing in man is to believe a thing in. They had no evidence to support their claim to democracy. They were under a king when they threw the king away and began to simply build a concept of the future. They did not believe that the mere passage of time would bring them that dream; they believed it in, and these men believed implicitly in the Word of God. And they believed that if I know what I want when I pray, believe that I have received it, and I will. Well, if that precept is true . . literally true . . to be accepted literally and fulfilled literally . . well, then, what am I doing not believing?
I should actually know exactly what I would like to be, and, discovering what I would like to be against what I seem to be, dare to assume that I AM it! And my assumption, though false, if persisted in, would harden into fact. [Anthony Eden] That I know from my own experience, and I know it’s a law, therefore, if someone is not becoming the man that he would like to be, and they tell me, “Well, I once imagined it and it didn’t work,” then what are you doing now and still not imagining it?
If imagining creates reality, what are you imagining? For, if Christ is the only creative power in the universe, and I identify Him with my own imagination, well, then, my imagination is creating reality. So what am I imagining?
Pick up the morning’s paper, and I am fed with everything I should not feast upon . . all the horrors of the world, all the negative states of the world; after having read it for an hour, then I must either regurgitate or in some strange way rub it out, because I can’t go through life feeding upon such nonsense. But if I really know what I want, what you want, what we want, and persuade myself that we have it . . if my premise is sound that imagining creates reality, I should in the not-distant future hear you tell me that it’s worked for you, and another one tells me, and I in turn tell you, and go through life sharing this marvelous news to others.
So, I say, live as though it were true . . just as though it were true. That passage of Shakespeare . . we have been taught from the primal state that he which is, was wished until he were. Here we find it in Caesar, “He which is was wished until he were.” [Julius Caesar, by Wm. Shakespeare] He wasn’t born Caesar, the king, but here was an ambition fulfilled, because he was wished into it. He desired it, lived in the state, and everything reshuffled itself to conform to that state to which he was faithful.
I see it in my immediate circle: those who you would not even think for one moment would become prominent, but they desire to be prominent; those who desire to be successful, as they conceive success . . no two see success in the same manner. Some see it through the eyes of wealth, others through rising in some profession, others in some other manner . . well, whatever they conceive it to be, they now realize it, if night after night they sleep in the assumption that they are now what they would like to be. So we go back: if the Word is truly the Word that creates the system in which we live, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) “By Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” (John 1:3) . . no, not even the so-called unlovely things, for if all things were made, he has to be responsible for the unlovely things as well.
So, we are told in Scripture, “I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal,” (Deuteronomy 32:39) . . I create the blessing; I create the curses, but, now, I must choose life. Choose the lovely things but don’t say there’s another creator, for if there is another creator then we are in conflict. So, my own imagination can conjure unlovely things if I dwell upon them, or the lovely things, but there can’t be two gods. There can’t be two creators. And if I can find that Creator and identify Him with my own wonderful human imagination, then I can’t pass the buck. I can’t turn to anything and blame it for the things happening in my life. . . I know many of us are not discriminating, and when we see our own harvest, we don’t recognize it. We can’t conceive that we, in some strange manner, permitted these things to be entertained by us. But we did! It could not have come to pass in any other way. So, if I believe it and accept it . . well, then I will live by it, and then when I know what I want for anyone . . and this goes for everything in this world.
Well, then, now . . this very instant, you desire happiness in marriage. You say, “Well, there’s not one person in my world that is eligible. I know no one.” You don’t have to know anyone. All you have to do is to decide within yourself what you want. Now, what would you do if it were true? Would you wear a ring on the one finger that would imply that someone placed it there? one that you admire? Well, then, wear it there. Don’t wear a physical ring. Put it on just as though he had placed it there, and sleep feeling that which you are feeling is real. Don’t say, “It’s all imagination.” Certainly it is, because all imagination is Christ, therefore, it’s all reality. So, when you say, “That’s only my imagination,” well, you are just saying, “That’s only a thing called Christ when you treat imagination that way.
Is there anything in this world that wasn’t first imagined? Name one thing or point at one thing in this world for me that is now considered to be real that wasn’t first only imagined. What is now proved was once only imagined. Therefore, this is a true statement, “All things were made by Him.” (John 1:3) and He is your own wonderful human imagination. All objective reality is solely produced through imagining. The clothes you wear, the chairs on which you are seated, this in which we are now placed . . everything was once only imagined.
Now tonight, find out exactly what you . . not what they think you ought to want . . what you want. Ask no one’s permission. You don’t need anyone’s permission; you only need your own decision. What do I want? Now, what would it be like if it were true? Now catch the mood, and try to give that mood all the sensory vividness of reality . . all the tones of reality, and then sleep in it just as though it were true. And then await the inevitable.
The inevitable is that you are going to resurrect it and objectify it on the screen of space, and then the world will call it real, and they may not believe you. It doesn’t really matter. If you tell them it came to pass because you simply imagined it . . no, they will point to the series of events that led up to it, and they will give credit to the bridge of incidents, across which you walked towards the fulfillment of that state, and they will point out some physical thing that was the cause. No, the cause is invisible, for the cause is God, and God is invisible to mortal eye.
Who knows what you are imagining? No one knows, but you can sit down and imagine, and no one can stop you from doing it, but can you give reality to the imagined state? If you do, yes, a bridge of incidents will appear in your world, and you’ll walk across some series of events leading up to the fulfillment of the imaginal state. But don’t give causation to any physical step that you took towards the fulfillment of it.
You imagine yourself having a marvelous business, and then comes the day a building is for sale and you haven’t a nickel towards it, and a total . . not a total stranger, but a man comes in and asks you quite in a friendly manner, “Are you going to buy it?” And knowing you don’t have a penny, you say to him, as would a friend to a friend, “With what?” And then he says, “Well, I have money. It’s only in the bank drawing nothing.” You say, “Well, I have no collateral.” But he says, “I’ve watched you. You are an honest person, your family . . they are honest . . I think they are. Would you like me to buy it for you and get my lawyer to bid for it? If they knew that I am bidding, they know that I have money, they will bid me up, and so I’ll get it at the very lowest price by getting a lawyer who represents more than one client, and they do not know whom he represents, and he’ll bid for it. Are you willing to take it, regardless of the price?” and you say, “Yes, I’ll take it, but I have no collateral.”
“All I need is your signature that you will simply pay six percent of whatever the price is, and then reduce that principal over a period of ten years. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, sign this, and we’ll see if we can buy it.”
That day you own the building, and you don’t have one nickel when you own the building that day! You only had your signature on a piece of paper. At the end of 10 years you repay the man his principal; you reduce it every year, pay him six percent on the remaining principal, and reduce the entire thing at the end of ten years.
The man died twenty years later and leaves you $150,000 in cash, tax free, and a couple of homes, many personal belongings. In the meanwhile, you continue in that business, and it multiplies and multiplies, and that year was 1922 . . and 1924. This is now 1968. That building . . I’m speaking factually . . that building in 1924 is now gone. He paid only $50,000 for it. It was repaid and repaid. A bank . . three years ago bought the property . . the building was rotted . . bought the property for $840,000 in cash, and no capital gain . . from $50,000 to $840,000. Meanwhile, the business has expanded into all the other islands, so that today you couldn’t buy them for $15,000,000. All in imagination! And this goes back to the imagination that preceded this man’s offer to buy the building; for the young man, seeing this building and entertaining the thought that the present owners deceived his father, and through deception got him out of a partnership . . a junior partnership. And he was moved . . not to get even, but to prove that he really had something within him and could be a success in spite of this deception.
So, every day he would see on that marquee, not their name, but his own family’s name, and he would see it in his mind’s eye, because you could not take their name and transliterate it and make it spell this man’s family’s name, but he saw it. In his mind’s eye he saw that name, which if true would imply the family owned it. He did it every day, twice a day, for two years, and then came this sudden . . out of the nowhere, and the whole thing was made possible, and today they are all over the islands, and they have no partners. They have never taken in one partner, never sold one bit of stock outside of the family ownership. All by imagination!
Now, I know what I’m talking about because I’m a member of that family. I am speaking of my own family. This is not hearsay. I know it. My second brother, Victor, in whose imagination this whole thing began to bloom . . and he still works all by imagination, he knows what he wants . . and then, after having decided in himself, “That’s what I want, and that’s good for the business, he then, in his mind’s eye, appropriates it, and then lets things happen.
As told us in Scripture,
“The vision has its own appointed hour,
It ripens, it will flower; if it be long, then wait,
For it is sure, and it will not be late.”
Habakkuk 2:3 (Moffat’s translation)
Read that in the book of Habakkuk. Here is the true translation of that passage in Habakkuk.
So, when you know what you want, remain faithful to that assumption, and the assumption, though at the moment it is denied by your senses, and denied by reason . . if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. Are we not told that God calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen, and then the unseen becomes seen? (See Romans 4:17) He calls everything from the unseen into the seen in this simple manner, for He is the resurrecting power.
So, if I assume that I AM, I don’t have to have evidence to support it . . I assume that I AM. Am what? Well, I name it, and having given it a name . . given it form, given it definition . . remaining in it, I resurrect it. And if it takes a thousand men to aid the birth of that state, a thousand men will play their parts, and I don’t have to go out and look for them, any more than my brother had to go out and look for this man. He would not have known where to start looking for one the day of the sale. So far as he is concerned, he had done it in his mind’s eye, and he allowed everything to happen, and he comes right in like a joke. He really thought it was a joke, and he said to this man, “Are you fooling me?
He said, “No.”
He said, “Well, then, wait. Let me call my father. He’s at lunch.” He called him on the wire. He said, “Daddy, come on up. Leave everything and come.” And then he said, “Now, you tell my father what you told me.”
My father’s name is Joseph, and my father said, “You really mean it?”
He said, “Yes, Joe, I mean it. I’ll have him bid today. You put your signature here and your son Victor put his signature . . that’s all I need.”
That was a lifetime friendship. So, when that man died, he didn’t owe my brother Victor anything. He so loved the friendship and the feeling of . . well, decency, that he had with my brother Victor, he gave him $150,000 in cash, and that was tax free, and the homes . . everything was tax free. And that building which he bought for $50,000 was sold three years ago to the Bank of Nova Scotia. They tore it down and built a lovely structure, but they paid our family $840,000 for that building, and there was no capital gains tax. The whole thing was simply free.
So, I know what I’m talking about. All I need from you is the acceptance of it. Will you believe it? Will you believe that with God all things are possible? (Mark 10:27) Will you believe that all things are possible to man?
Well, you can prove it in the not-distant future, but you are the operant power. It will not work itself. If you dare to assume this very night that you have a better job than you now hold or that you have a larger income . . you may be fired tomorrow. Don’t be concerned! On reflection, you’ll see it was necessary to move you towards the fulfillment of your assumption. You could be fired! And I wouldn’t bat an eye if you told me tomorrow, “Well, I did what you told me. You know what happened? I was fired.”
I have seen that. It takes someone to fire you to get you into a better job. I have seen that time and again. I wouldn’t go out and quit the job. You may be promoted in the job, or you may be invited by some other concern that is competitive to join them . . I do not know how it happens; I only know: if you remain faithful to the assumption, it’s going to happen, and you are going to be promoted towards the fulfillment of the state that you’ve dared to assume that is yours.
I could tell you unnumbered stories of this nature. So, here, I say: dwell in the end. The end is where we begin, for if I’ve seen my name on the marquee, that’s the end. I don’t wait for the incident to take place in my world to move from one to the other to another, leading up to that; I dwell in the end. So, if I go to the very end, what would it be like were it true?
A health case: not how it’s going to become better, but you go to the end, and you say to someone who isn’t well . . in your mind’s eye you say to them, “You know, I’ve never seen you look better,” and have them say to you, “I’ve never felt better.” Well, now, that’s confirmation for what you are seeing. You say, “I’ve never seen you look better,” and hear them say to you, “Well, I have never felt better.” But you may say to me, “I can’t hear people.” Oh, yes, you can! You can hear anything you want to hear. You don’t have to hear it audibly.
Listen this very moment. You may not be able to whistle a tune. Maybe you can’t carry a tune in any manner whatsoever. You can’t play an instrument, you can’t whistle, you can’t sing. Well, can you now imagine that you are hearing The Battle Hymn of the Republic? Listen! Can’t you hear it? Can’t you augment it a thousand voices, ten thousand voices? Did you hear it at the funeral of Senator Kennedy? Did you see it on TV? Wasn’t that moving when the organ began to peel, and suddenly that lovely soft voice singing it, and the whole thing became . . well, the whole vast TV world was filled with it. I doubt there were very many dry eyes when he got through singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Well, I can’t sing; I can’t whistle a tune, but I can just right now stand here and listen and hear the entire thing swell. If I try to duplicate it with my voice, I couldn’t do it, but I can hear his voice as he sang it. You can hear anyone’s voice; you can hear the speaker’s voice. Tonight, alone, you can hear my voice, and you can put upon my voice what you want to hear, and I, unknown to you, will find myself telling you, “Something will happen to confirm what you’re hearing.”
So, you can do this for good or ill. I advise you: Do it for good. But the choice is yours. You can hurt and you can bless, but don’t hurt. Use your imagination always lovingly on behalf of others. But to tell you that you could not do it to hurt is stupid, because you can hurt. It’s entirely up to you.
So, you imagine what you want. Believe that you have it, and see how it works in the world. Those who scoff at it . . well, let them scoff. Five years from now, when you are on the top, they may be working for you, and may even have forgotten that they sat in the same audience with you when you heard and believed, and they also heard, but they didn’t believe, and so, you moved on, and they remained behind. That’s life.
But there’s only one creative power in the universe. Scripture names that power as God . . Jesus Christ, the Lord . . the same Power. Because there aren’t two Gods, there aren’t two Lords . . there’s only one. And that one Christ dwells in us. He did not appropriate a single man, as the priesthoods of the world teach. They tell you of a single man, and they single out a man that differs from all men. He isn’t dwelling in this man or that man. His desire was to save humanity, and so He dwells in us . . not in that particular man. He didn’t become this one man . . dwelling in one man. Let no one tell you that the Christ in you differs from the Christ . . and let them name any man they want. He cannot differ.
If there is a Christ other than that Christ who is crucified within us, and who rose and continues to rise in humanity, he’s a false Christ. And the teachers who teach of an external, objective, different Christ are false teachers. Christ is within, and He rises within. So, you go out and put it to the test. Put it to the extreme test. Christ in us . . not “out there,” is the hope of glory.
So, this word of which I speak . . and the word, by the way . . its true definition is, “meaning.” In the beginning, there was meaning to the whole thing, and that meaning was with God, and God Himself was the meaning. (John 1:1) There is a purpose, there’s a plan behind it all. He planned everything as it has come out, and as it will be consummated. And the purpose of it all is to awaken in us, so that we and he are one. So, He actually became us, that we may become God. It seems incredible, but it’s true. That’s the purpose of life: to take humanity and lift it to God so it becomes God. So, He became man, that man may become God.
Now tonight, you need not confine it to yourself. Take a friend, without the friend’s consent . . without the friend’s knowledge, and lift him up. Do you know a friend who is unemployed? Well, then, see him as gainfully employed, and don’t tell him, that you may brag tomorrow. Don’t boast. Just see him gainfully employed.
Here is a friend of mine in L.A., and this man was unmercifully bawled out by his supervisors, and told that he was no earthly good, and they are considering letting him go. They are going to fire him. Well, the man had no support outside of the job, and he had a family. He told my friend. Well, my friend lives by this law, so he said to him, “All right, go your way.” He didn’t tell him what he was going to do.
He sat quietly at his desk and heard the man tell him that they praised him beyond measure for something that he had done. It wasn’t 48 hours that they had a complete reversal of their attitude towards this man in their praise for something he did in the advertising world. But the blow left its mark, and he said to my friend, “Yes, they’ve reversed it, but I don’t feel easy on the job, because they could not have said the unlovely things that they said and forgotten them, so it will come back, and I’m going to quit. I have no money. I’m giving them two weeks’ notice. I am going to ask them to give me one week of the two, that I can get myself together and maybe take off a few days and just get my thoughts in order.”
Well, at the end of two weeks he didn’t have a job. My friend . . when he told him what he was going to do . . my friend knew he could not afford to quit and not work, so he saw him gainfully employed and earning twenty-five percent more than the present job. He took off the second week. When he came back at the end of the first week, he came into my friend’s office and said, “Only yesterday I got the offer, and I start Monday. I do not lose one day’s salary, and I start at twenty-five per cent more than I received on the past job.
What did it? My friend’s imagination, a loving use of the imagination on behalf of a friend! Had he gone without that imaginal state, he would have walked into the place, and the man would have said, “We have nothing,” or, “We can’t use you,” “Why are you quitting?” He didn’t ask anything; he simply wanted the man.
So, if you precede your visit by an imaginal act, they will see you as you see yourself. If you walk in knowing that you’re no good, they will see you exactly that way. But if you walk in the assumption that things are as you desire them to be, they are going to see you that way. And this is life.
Now, what greater claim can anyone make than to acclaim that he is God? And when He claimed it, they said, He is blaspheming, for here is a man, and the man claims he is God.
The 10th [chapter] of John, “And he said, ‘Is it not written in your law,’ I say ye are gods, sons of the Most High?” (John 10:34)
If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came, would you say of the one that he anointed and sent into the world that he is blaspheming? Do you know of any greater claim in the world than for a man to identify himself with God and walk as though he were, and not be ashamed to admit it? He doesn’t go bragging about it, but he knows in his heart he is one with God, for if his imagination is God . . and he imagines . . well, then, that’s God! And if he imagines a state and it comes to pass, then he knows the creative power that is God. He doesn’t have to brag about it and be ashamed of it. He sleeps in a noble state, because he is one with God.
Well, let everyone take that attitude, and the world will change . . not be beaten, but you can take the whole vast world, if they feel themselves slaves, and give them the world; they will want it again tomorrow. Unless a man has self-respect, you can give him all the money in the world, and it means nothing. That goes for the individual, it goes for a family, it goes for a race of people; it goes for a nation. As our late President Hoover said, “The rise and fall of ideas will determine the rise and fall of men, the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of communities.”
So, tell me the idea that a community entertains of itself, and I’ll tell you that community. But now change that idea of itself, and you’ll change that community. Let a family feel important in itself . . it doesn’t have to have a background. Who has a background? So, you can go back far enough, and almost everyone who now claims importance would be ashamed of that background.
So, don’t go back; start just where you are. And don’t pay anyone to look up your family tree, because you are going to pay them to forget it. Just, all of a sudden, start right now and assume the dignity that is God. That’s your real background . . it’s God, and so assume it!
And, then, with that assumption . . and if you have children, I hope you do . . well, then, instill that into the child. Instill it into all within the environment, and have them feel important.
I have no background, judged by human standards . . either intellectual, financial or these things . . we made it. But Mother instilled in us, when we did something of which she was ashamed she would say to us, “Have you forgotten that you are a Goddard?” Well, we didn’t know. That must have been very important, because Mother said, “Have you forgotten that you’re a Goddard?”
Well, I never heard that we had any background, but all of a sudden you begin to feel that you must be important. So, Mother instilled it into our mind’s eye. She made the name important, so today it is important. Where we are, in the business sense, in every sense, it’s important; but Mother did that, and she married a man who had no background, and took his name, but she made it important.
All right, who has any background? As far as I am concerned, I refuse to accept the aristocracy of any being in this world, other than the aristocracy of the Spirit. What other aristocracy? Give me the aristocracy of the Spirit, but don’t come to me with any physical descent. I’m not an animal. I’m not a horse, where you develop it by one horse after the other. I’m God! We are all God! You can’t go back beyond God. So, if that is the start of all of us, well, then, that is our root, and, so, claim it now. At any point in time, claim it, and you’ll find yourself being washed clean of anything you might have thought the family tree held. You don’t have any family tree.
The true Israelite is not a descendant after the flesh, but the Elect of God, of whatever nation. That’s the man of God. So, you simply dare to assume that you are that man of God, and then apply what I’m telling you tonight. And, may I tell you, in the not-distant future . . in the immediate present . . it will work. If you don’t falter and do not change the assumption . . if you remain faithful to the assumption, it will harden into fact, because imagining creates reality. It does!
Now, let us go into the Silence.
Good.
Now, are there any questions, please?
Question: Last night you said you didn’t believe in reincarnation. Then how do you explain the fact that . . .[? inaudible on the tape].
Neville: My dear, there is a man in this state today by the name of Krishnamurti. He was a member of the Theosophical Society when Annie Besant and Alcott and that entire crowd ran it. That book is still in print. They brought out a book without his consent. They tried to make him a Christ . . the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t go against it. He allowed it. And that book came out, and there are literally hundreds of full-page pictures of his so called reincarnations of the past . . one the male, female, male, female, Chinese, Indian, Oriental, Caucasian . . all these. I don’t think they included the Negro; they hadn’t quite integrated them in this setup. And here he went all the way back, but not into the Negro . . he was something different. Then when he got big enough and courageous enough to deny it, he denied it, but they had printed those books, and they are still in the library and they are still in the homes of individuals; and now he will go from the world as they have departed this world, and those who will come tomorrow will not know that it was refuted, and will go along and believe it.
I tell you, my dear, stick to the Bible. All these are simply theories . . man-made theories for one purpose, to make a buck. It’s cruel to say that, but I cannot let it go by. Ninety-nine percent of them are in it only for the dollar. It seems cruel, but I’m telling you what I know. I’ve gone through these many -isms. It hasn’t a thing to do with spirituality. You are individualized, and you tend forever towards greater and greater individualization. You will never lose your identity. You will awaken one day, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ Himself . . without loss of identity! That’s the great mystery. I will know you, and when you awaken and you are “born from above” and you behold the Fatherhood of God, you being the Father, I will know you. You will not lose your identity, and yet I will know you to be God. I will know you to be Jesus, as I know you as you are now, and it will not seem strange to you that you are Jesus. You will not bow your head in shame, and yet you will not lose your identity.
Question: What about women [rest of question inaudible on tape]?
Neville: I have had these men . . and women, too . . who make these claims. You can induce it; you can actually induce it by an assumption. I will give you my own personal experience of the Crucifixion, and it’s so unlike what the world teaches. I have experienced Scripture. Scripture has been fulfilled in me.
I found myself this night in the fulfillment of the 42nd Psalm, which is, “And he went with them in a throng to the house of God.” (Psalm 42:4) He led them in a gay procession to the house of God. Well, here I am, in this enormous crowd . . all like the Arab world, and as I am walking with them, a voice out of the blue sings out, and the voice stated, “And God walks with them.”
A woman at my right asked the invisible voice, “And if God walks with us, where is He?” and the voice answered, and all heard the voice . . and the voice said, “At your side.”
She turned to her left, looked me full in the face, and began to laugh; and she said to the voice, “You mean Neville is God?” and the voice answered, “Yes, in the act of waking.”
Then the voice spoke, but from within me. No one but the speaker heard it then, and the voice said within me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed . . and I knew exactly what the end of that sentence would be. He’s dreaming that He is I!”
With that, I became so emotionally thrilled, I felt myself drawn into this body that was on the bed, for this took place in the spirit world. I felt myself drawn into this body, and this hand was a vortex, this hand was a vortex, my head a vortex, my feet vortices, and my side . . the right side a vortex, and I knew then what the Crucifixion was. It was sheer ecstasy. It wasn’t painful at all. You can’t describe the thrill of these six vortices nailing me to this body.
So, we are told in the 10th chapter of John: “No one takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to lift it up again.” (John 10:18)
And in spite of that statement, they teach, year after year, that a group of men murdered him, and nailed him to a wooden cross. He is not nailed to any wooden cross. The Universal Christ is “nailed” on Humanity. This is the cross. And He did it willingly. “I lay it down myself.” No one took it from me. And I experienced that that night.
So, you can bring all the arguments in the world about this little stigmata, that little stigmata; there was no blood running there. The whole hand . . both hands whirling vortices, and the head a whirling vortex, and the side a whirling vortex, and both feet . . the soles of my feet vortices. And there are six.
Yes, Sir?
Question: I was going to ask you how you interpret the role of Judas Iscariot.
Neville: Judas? I am self-betrayed. No one knows me but myself. No one knows the thoughts of a man but the spirit of man who dwells in him. Likewise, no one knows the thoughts of God but the Spirit of God. Therefore, if I betrayed God, I would have to be the Spirit of God . . one who has the secret, and so it is self-betrayed. One night in a room about the size of this . . here I am, sitting on the floor with twelve men before me sitting on the floor. We’re all dressed in robes and I am teaching the Word of God. A man, one of these twelve, jumps up quickly, and the moment he jumped up, I knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to tell the authorities what I was teaching. He went to the only door. As he went through it, I knew what would happen. A tall, handsome man about six feet four, in most costly robes, came in . . erect, a man of about 40 or 44. He walked straight down the side, turned at right angles, walked down the side, turned at right angles, and walked down the middle, but as he entered, he was one of such authority, we all rose. He was one of tremendous authority in that community, and we all stood at attention, I facing my eleven men. He came on down, and he turned towards me, and he took a wooden mallet and a wooden peg, and he hammered it into my right shoulder . . blow after blow into my shoulder. Then he took a very sharp instrument, and with one circular motion like this, he severed my sleeve, and then pulled it, and pulled off the sleeve and discarded it; and I saw it, a lovely shade of light baby blue. Then he stretched his arms out this way and he embraced me and kissed me on the right side of my neck, and I kissed him on the right side of his neck; and as I kissed him, still embracing him, the whole scene faded.
Here is the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Isaiah 53:1) It’s all symbolism, but the whole thing is true. That was the betrayal. For you are now nailed . . the peg goes in, for as you are told, “I will now put upon you all the authority of Israel, and you will rule it for a season. Then I will break the peg, and that weight that you carry will be taken from you. But who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1)
He unveils the right arm, which is the symbol of power, at that moment in time when He rises in you, and you are going to rule as He rules, and that’s the story.
So, the whole story is true, but it’s all vision. It’s not secular history; it’s salvation history, and the world treats the whole Bible as secular history, and it’s not secular history at all. The whole thing takes place above. He said: “I AM from above, and ye are from below. You are of this world; I AM not of this world” (John 8:23). And, so, the whole drama is unfolding from above. It’s a mystical drama.
Any other questions, please?
[Question inaudible on the tape]
Neville: Well, freedom is “That Age.” No one is free by dying here, because death here is restoration in a world just like this. No one . . I don’t care who you are . . you could be ninety years old now, and if you dropped this very moment, you are restored to life, not as an infant, some are 20 years of age, you are not old, you are young, and any missing part: teeth, hair, limbs are all restored . . unbelievably new and unaccountably new. You can’t account for it.
How can someone cremated, turned to dust, stand before me twenty years old? When they dropped, they looked like a thousand; they were so old and withered. And here suddenly before me stands this beautiful . . either woman or man . . twenty years old, in a world terrestrial just like this, in a body that is physical just like this . . cut it, it will bleed, and they age there as they age here, and they die there as they die here. And, so, there’s no escape from this until Resurrection, and Resurrection comes to the individual. It doesn’t come collectively. It comes while we are walking this earth. The individual is raised and set free from this bondage to decay, and becomes, then, one with the Risen Lord, because there’s only One Body, One Spirit, One Lord, One God and Father of all. (See Ephesians 4:4-6)
Question: What about a child, when a child dies?
Neville: It continues to grow . . continues to grow. He is the God of the living, not the god of the dead. This world is the world of the dead. People won’t believe it. Everything here is dead. If you see it from above . . well, you’d have to see it to understand what I am talking about. If you see this from above, everything here is like . . well, something that is dead, and you can come down . . you can’t change it from above, strangely enough. I have tried to change it from above.
Look at the body . . it’s on the bed, and it looks like something . . like a carcass that is dead. Well, you know exactly the wisdom is from above; if you could only do with it now while you are there, with the clarity of vision, but you can’t do it. You’ve got to come down and occupy it, and then you forget. This is the world of death.
[A question about animals, not audible on the tape.]