Tonight’s subject is: Many Mansions. You may be familiar with the subject from the 14th chapter of the book of John: “Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3, Moffatt’s translation) Now, who is this one speaking? Scripture tells us it is Jesus Christ. The chapter affirms it.
Arthur Chamber, who won the Nobel Prize in literature [Ed. Note: We found no record of such an award.], said: “It takes a great imagination to follow Jesus Christ, and I, for one, have been lacking in such imagination.” At least, he was big enough to confess it. I have met many, when you begin to discuss Scripture with them, who will always ask one simple question: “Have you read the New Testament in Greek?” Well, my confession is always: “No, I do not, and cannot, read Greek.” Then, of course, they have that supercilious attitude: “Well, then you haven’t read it in Greek! Isn’t that strange?”
This happened just about three months ago, and I said that is one of the questions that Aldous Huxley asked me. He read it in Greek. I said to him what I said to this gentleman who asked me: “Isn’t it peculiar? Aldous read it in Greek from the original. You read it in Greek in the original.” (In this century he is really tops. He is gone from this world now.) I said to him: “You know, Aldous, you read it in Greek and you read it in English, and yet you don’t understand it.” So, you ask me: have I read it in Greek? No, I can’t read it in Greek, but I’ve read it in English, and I understand it . . understand it because I’ve experienced it, and you haven’t. Well, the last time that question was asked me was three months ago. He was perfectly still after I said to him: “You don’t understand it.” So, what did his Greek do?
So tonight, we will go into this great mystery . . for it is a mystery. Paul uses the word “mystery” concerning this story of Christ no less than twenty-odd times. He said: “Great is the mystery . . .” All through his letters he is speaking of the mystery. It is not history, for history is not a mystery; it is simply a record of the facts. Well, this is not a record of the facts of a secular nature, for the Bible is not secular history. It’s salvation history.
So here, what are these “mansions” spoken of? They are states. All states are eternal, and they exist now. All states exist in the human Imagination, and the human Imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s God. There is no other God. And all things exist in him now!
We have to make the adjustment: think of an infinite number of states . . anything you can think of . . it exists now. Man passes through states, like a traveler who passes through places, through cities. Well, the man who is passing through a state, like the traveler who is passing through a place, may suppose that the place that he has passed through exists no more, as a man passing through a state thinks the state through which he has passed exists no more. Wouldn’t it be silly when I leave this city to feel that because I have departed, that the city has ceased to exist? They remain for anyone to enter, and when they are in it, it seems to be the only reality and everything else in the world seems a mere shadow. When you enter into a city or a state, that state seems to be the only substance. Every state in the world exists now.
Now, the first creative act recorded in Scripture is in the second verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis:
..and the Spirit of God moved… ” Whatever takes place is that movement within God.
And God is our own wonderful, human Imagination. So whatever takes place is simply movement within God. How does He now move? That’s the secret: how to go into these states and make them real, make them alive in our world. It’s a very simple process . . very simple . . but you and I have to act to do it. It won’t do it itself; we have to do it. When we move into the state and clothe ourselves with the state, the state then takes on an external tone and becomes objective to our sight, as this room is now objective because we’re in it. All these states are just as real as this room once we occupy them. So, “in my Father’s house are many mansions,” numberless mansions. “Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go. I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye shall be also.” (John 14: 2, 3)
As I stand here, my adjustment is only in my Imagination. I don’t walk into the place . . I don’t travel into it. I simply adjust it here: close my eyes to the obvious, and then assume that it is here and clothe myself with the reality of the state of my selection. Now, I open my eyes upon this room and this room denies the reality of what I’ve done in my Imagination. But wait . . just wait! I can’t forget it and I can’t rub it out. It will take the place of this. But why don’t I remember it? Every natural effect in this world has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems; it is a delusion of the perishing vegetable memory. Man’s memory fades, and when he’s confronted with his own harvest he doesn’t recognize his harvest. He denies that at any moment in time did he entertain vividly, with emotion, such things that are happening in his world, because his memory fades and he doesn’t remember. So, he questions the law (if he ever heard of it). He questions: “How could this thing happen to me?” (Haven’t you heard that time and again?) Or have your heard the statement: “Why should it happen to him? He is so nice. He is an altogether wonderful chap. Why should it happen to him?”
Here’s a question, just before I left L.A. “Why should these things happen to Dad and to Mother? Certainly you know, above all people, they don’t deserve it.” It’s not a matter of deserving. These are states. At one moment in time they entertained this with feeling, with intense feeling, and then these things happen. And they might have passed judgment on one who had a similar condition, and relate the condition to some unlovely thing they know of that person and think God was getting even. Yet, they are ardent churchgoers, members of the church. One is on the altar guild; the other is a trustee of the church. He’s a banker by profession. They really devote themselves to the service of the church. Well, what has that to do with one entertaining these emotions with feeling, intense feeling, and then forgetting it, not knowing that the effect (when it takes place . . and it is a natural and a real effect) that it is related to a spiritual cause, and the spiritual cause is nothing more than a motion within themselves. Within themselves they move, and having moved, they are going to project that state into which they fell, either wisely or unwisely. And when it comes into the world for recognition they don’t recognize their own harvest. But there is no other way that it could come into the world. So, “The Spirit of God moved…” and then the whole vast world began to appear. He moved. Now, motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. If this very moment we were hurtled into space, all in the same motion, I wouldn’t know, and you wouldn’t know, that we were moving. I can only detect motion if I can observe a motion relative to an object that seems to be stationary relative to me. And so, I must have a frame of reference against which I move. So, the frame of reference: I stand here . . I have a frame of reference. I have friends who know (or think they know) where I stand in the world. They think they know what I stand for, how I live, and that’s what they believe. Well, in my mind’s eye I see that frame of reference, and then I let them see me differently. I didn’t go anyplace . . I allowed them to see me differently. Well, if they see me differently then I must have moved. So in my mind’s eye I construct a scene implying the fulfillment of my dream, and then as I see it, I accept it as true and believe that they accept it as true of me. So I change it. If I change it within myself and use that frame of reference, and the same reveals a change in me, well then, I have moved. That is the secret of all creation in the world: “And the Spirit of God moved.” And the minute He moved, things appeared. “Let there be light.”
Let everything now that this is implying appear in my world, for the potency is in its implication. Well, what does it imply . . this motion? Well, it implies that they now see in me what I would like them to see. As they see me in that light, I am actually saying (without the use of words): “Let there be light on it now. Let it come into the world that the whole world may see it.” See what? See the motion that I produced within myself. For when we are told: “The Spirit of God moved,” that’s no more than your own wonderful human Imagination moving relative to a frame of reference, and so you move.
How is this taught in Scripture? It’s taught in the most beautiful manner. It’s told as a story. These are not secular stories; these are profound truths.
Now, Rebecca conceives; she’s pregnant. Isaac prays that his wife will be given a child . . given a son . . and the Lord responded, as we are told, and she conceived. Well, then there was trouble within her womb, and she wondered: “Why should these things be? If this is so, why should I live?”, for, there was a conflict within herself. And the Lord said to her: “Two nations are within your womb, and two manners of people, born of you, shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” (This is told us in the 25th chapter of the book of Genesis.) Now, as the story unfolds, the one comes out second, and he has no hair. His name is Jacob, which means a “supplanter.” He supplants, he takes the place of the other. The one that came out first was covered with hair all over. He is called Esau. Jacob supplants him by deception. He deceives his father into believing that he was his son, Esau. How did he do it? He clothed himself with hair and came to his father, and the father said: “Your voice is the voice of Jacob. Come close, come near, that I may feel,” for the father was blind. Isaac was blind, and he could not see. So he came near, and as he came near and the father felt him, he said: “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau,” and he blessed him. And when he blessed him he gave him the birthright that belonged to the first son. When the first son came in from the hunt, bringing what the father had requested . . venison . . he said: “Who are you?” He said: “I am your son, Esau.” “Well,” he said, “I have just blessed my son Esau.” He said: “That was Jacob,” the deceiver. (This is the second time he has deceived him.) Then the father said, “I have blessed him, and I cannot take back the blessing. You have to serve him.”
Well now, tell that story and what does it mean? Here is my Esau. You are my Esau. This room is Esau. This is stronger than my subjective state. How stronger? This to me is the utmost: I am here, and everything in my world that I can touch and see now and sense. This is the strong, strong son . . my surface. The subjective state is what? I can paint a word picture of it, but that’s not real. But I’m going to make it real. So I shut my eyes, and . . closing my eyes to the facts of life, to the obvious things . . I am blind. So, Isaac was blind. I close my eyes; I don’t see it. Then I persuade myself that I am what I would like to be, instead of what reason dictates and my senses dictate. Well, in that projected state, I clothe myself with the other [although] I can’t accept it right now.
Imagination is spiritual sensation. Now, take an object. I will just lead you in words. Take a tennis ball in your imaginary hands and feel it. You can feel it. To show you the difference, take a baseball. Can you discriminate between the two? Well now, take a ping-pong ball. Can you discriminate between the three? If these are non-existent, you couldn’t discriminate. How can you say that these do not exist and say that you can tell the difference between non-existent things? They do not, at the moment, exist in your outer mind’s senses . . they don’t. But they exist! All things exist now in the human Imagination. That’s where you felt it; you felt it in your Imagination, and Imagination is spiritual sensation. Well then, what does that mean? “I saw it in my mind’s eye, and I felt the three different kinds of balls.” Well, what does it mean?
Well, now to test one. Take this and apply it to anything in the world. Apply it to mountains; apply it to anything, and if you accept what you’ve done to test it in your Imagination, just wait. “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, Moffatt’s translation) It will come on time!
Let me share with you an experience of just a few months ago [of] this friend of mine . . a very marvelous chap . . an executive in a very prominent advertising agency in Los Angeles (he comes to all the meetings). Here are two short ones: He said, “I was driving home, and then it dawned upon me: You know that April the fifteenth is just around the corner, and you could do with some cash for Uncle Sam.” Now, he receives a very large salary, but he spends it and he lives a lovely, generous life. He has a lovely home and three children. He maintains a beautiful home, but he never thought in terms of these moments in time when we are confronted with Uncle Sam’s outstretched hand and he wants a part of what you earn. Well, you can’t say “No” to him; you’ve got to pay him. So here comes around the corner the fifteenth of April, and he could use some cash.
“Riding home,” he said, “this is what I did. I simply imagined, and I made a game of it. I imagined that it was raining gently, but the rain was little green pieces of paper. It was money coming gently upon me, and I could feel it . . actually feel the gentle rain of paper money dropping upon me, and I had stopped. I had done this for about two or three minutes, [and] then the traffic demanded all of my attention and so I broke it. When I went home that night I thought it was great fun and I’d try it again. I could feel it actually descending upon me like a gentle rain. The next day was the fourteenth of April, and sitting at my desk (not paying any attention to it, really) the boss comes in, and he said to me: ‘You have a ten per cent raise and it’s retroactive as of the first of the month,’ and gave me a check for a ten per cent raise.” And he makes a very big salary. So, ten per cent of a very large salary, and it was retroactive to the first of the month . . here, within a matter of moments, his feeling was granted as an actual fact! He didn’t have it before he started, and now he has it. The vision came to flower at the appointed hour. He needed it on the fifteenth and here, just before the fifteenth, a man comes through with a check and tells him that it is retroactive to the first, at ten per cent beyond what he got last month.
Now, this is a story that I have at home (at the hotel) in his own hand. He didn’t confine me to some secrecy. He told it to me . . not in confidence, but that I may share it with others to encourage them to try it. “Now,” he said, “I went home a couple of months before, and my wife began to tell me a very unlovely story . . unlovely in the sense that we love the little girl. She’s fourteen months old, and we know her grandmother well. Of course we know the mother, but we are closer to the grandmother, and the grandmother told my wife that the little girl began to develop bumps in her neck . . little swellings. So they took her to the hospital for observation. They made a biopsy and five doctors brought in the negative verdict that it was malignant; it was cancer.” Well, in a child of fourteen months that is fatal, because you are developing. You can arrest cancer if you are my age because you are not building any more . . and they drop from this world by some other means . . because at my age if I was told I had cancer, it doesn’t mean that that will be the cause of my future departure from this world. For I am not building any longer; I am just holding my own. Well, a little child of fourteen months builds rapidly, so whatever is in her is building rapidly. With cancer, in no time they are gone. So the grandmother was scared; the mother was scared.
But as his wife was telling my friend, he said: “I allowed her voice to tell me completely different. I heard just enough. She kept on talking, but she didn’t know from my expression that I wasn’t listening. I didn’t hear one word after I heard what she said, and as she kept on building the picture, her voice faded from me. And then I reconstructed what she said, and I had her tell me that the whole thing was false. Although there were five doctors, each agreeing that this thing was malignant and therefore fatal, I let it fade completely and brought in a complete reversal of that verdict.”
Now the grandmother asked that they keep the child a little longer at the hospital that they could still bring in another. So, they made another biopsy from a different section of the neck. A sixth doctor was brought in. “I am sorry to disagree with my men in the profession, but it is not malignant and it is not cancer.” They then were called in to make a third, and they confessed that they were wrong because she couldn’t possibly have had cancer and today not have cancer. So they had to justify it. They could not for one moment; they confessed they were wrong. He said: “That’s all right with me. The child now lives and she has no cancer. Why should I go out and tell them: No, they were right in the first time, but prayer to the only God that exists can make all things possible? With God, all things are possible, but you don’t know who God is, so you believe in your technique. It’s perfectly all right.”
He said: “Now, my wife told me exactly what I knew.” The grandmother is now telling it all over the neighborhood, and now they look upon me as a miracle man . . which is unfortunate, because it will make life difficult for me in the neighborhood.” He said: “I’m no miracle man; I simply learned through you who God is. And if all things are possible to God, and God is my own Imagination, can’t I imagine what I want to imagine and persuade myself of the reality of the state imagined? Well, I did, and the child now is free of what they called cancer. But to justify their own decision and not say: ‘Well, we were wrong,’ they now say it could not have been cancer or therefore she could not have overcome it.”
So, here is that story I’ve just told you, plus the raise in salary, and unnumbered things the man lives by. He is not interested in the Promise. Well that’s all right. He’s a businessman, and he has to pay rent, buy clothes for his children and his wife and himself. And he’s more interested in the Law, and so he’s always writing these stories concerning the Law. If perchance I get off and week after week, I’m stressing the Promise, I can see Dick . . that night he isn’t going to come. Well, it doesn’t interest him but it’s perfectly all right, because we’re living in the world of Caesar, and we’ve got to master this Law and not pass the buck and blame others for the things that are happening in our world, for in my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions. It sets me now on my feet to become discriminating, to become selective. Into what mansion will I go this night? Into what state of consciousness will I go this night? For, if I occupy it, even though I forget it tomorrow, it will not be forgotten. I have planted the seed, and in time . . and on time . . it will come up as a harvest. Whether I recognize my own planting or not, it’s coming into my world. So, why not devote some time every day to planting lovely things in this world?
People will say: “Well, all right . . thorns are real, aren’t they?” Oh, yes, thorns are real, but aren’t roses real too? Do you want to go out and really pluck thorns . . or roses? If I am going to dwell on the thorns, well, I will trade it and leave it for a flower for the Son of Man. Why can’t I think in terms of roses? I’m not denying that thorns are real. The things you see in the headlines, all these things -“Nixon declares war,” or something, why couldn’t they’ve told that same story differently, for in man’s mind the word war has a certain association? Big headlines: “Nixon Declares War” on something. Another paper more modestly tells it, and they will say: “Nixon Takes Issue” with this, that, and the other. But no, we have to simply frighten the reader to make him buy the paper. If he’s declared war, you will read the second line in smaller print, because you might think he’s declared war on Russia. So, the big headline, and then you read what he is really concerned about . . some little issue.
So here in my Father’s house are these unnumbered mansions, numberless states of consciousness. Learn to discriminate between the man and his present state, so that you meet someone and he’s a wonderful being, and in your eyes he seems so just and so honest. Another one is despicable. But when you know they are only states, you will actually see that you “do not consider either the just or the wicked to be the supreme state, but to be, everyone of them, states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” (Wm. Blake, from “The Last Judgment”)
So the one who is now so just . . he may not be conscious of the fact that he has moved into that state literally, and therefore really is a just man, for he is only expressing the state in which he has placed himself. He might have been placed in that state deliberately, or accidentally. If it is done deliberately . . good! Then he’ll know how to get out of it and to continue in all the lovely states in this world. But if he fell into it, appearing as a just man, he could easily fall out of it, and then tomorrow you will read in the paper where he is not so just after all.
So when I know that these are only states.. .you don’t save men, for in every man there is God, and God-in-man is man’s own wonderful, human Imagination. But if he doesn’t know that he will say, as most people say, “Oh, it’s just my imagination. It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing. I can imagine whatever I want because I didn’t do it,” . . he doesn’t know he’s going to do it. You dwell upon a thing for a long while and make it real, so you’re always coming back to it. That state to which I most often return constitutes my dwelling place. You’ll find a certain person . . after a little while, he’s always talking on a certain subject, and he’s coming back to it and back to it and back to it. He may be talking about poverty, and always talking poverty. Well then, follow him. He moves his home, he moves his job . . he moves everything, because the state to which I most constantly return constitutes the place where I dwell. So follow my Imagination. Where does it dwell most often in the course of a day? That’s my dwelling place.
Well, you can start now, and for twenty-four hours dwell in security . . not security from the government, because. no, you have it, you’ve earned [it], either through your talent or in some normal but dignified manner. You didn’t steal it; you have it in a marvelous way. Well then, you dwell upon that state and feel what it would be like if it were true. For you see: when the man was blind, he emphasized the one thing, which seemed to be the easiest of all senses actually to apply: that’s feeling. He said: “Come close, my son, that I may feel you.” He couldn’t see him; he was blind. He did use another sense, called “smell.” He said: “You smell and you feel like my son Esau.” Esau had hair all over him. Well, isn’t that the most external thing in the world? The first thing you encounter of a man is hair. You may not even see it, but under the microscope we are all, like a monkey, completely covered with hair. Now, the other one had no hair. He’s left completely subjective. So one comes out into the world covered with hair, and you have a lengthy [word] picture of a boy with hair all over. It hasn’t a thing to do with a little child who came into this world covered with hair! It means the external world, for that is the most external thing in the world.
When you read that John the Baptist came and he had a girdle made of leather and he wore a shirt of hair, it isn’t a man with a girdle of leather and a camel’s hair coat. That tells you that his story is external. All that he has to say is completely external: “Thou shalt not.” In other words, he came neither to eat nor drink, and his whole world was one of bias against his own appetites. So he felt that by doing violence to himself he could gain the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we are told by the one who had no hair: “Christ in you is subjective,” and he said: “John the Baptist and all those born of women, none is greater than John the Baptist: nevertheless, I say, the least in the Kingdom is greater than John.” (Matthew 11:11) He was the greatest of all. He was pure beyond measure, doing violence to his appetites. In his own mind he was a just and noble man, but “the least in the kingdom is greater than he,” because he represents the external world.
And we are told Elijah was. [Ed. text missing in transcript] but Elijah was John, who was Elijah-come-again. Well, Elijah clothed himself with the camel’s hair, and he, too, wore the girdle of leather, for he represents that state of mind. And you’ll find people in the world who are trying to get into the kingdom by doing violence to their appetites. They are strict vegetarians. They are strict this, strict that, and they really feel they should become a celibate or should order themselves so that they will not become disturbed, as so many priests have done . . and that means that they are now pure people. Pure nothing.
In this world of ours, live a noble life in the garment that God gave you. Whatever it is, live it. And in your mind’s eye, appropriate all the lovely things in the world. You have to pay rent, you have to buy clothes, to buy food; and if you get married and have a family, they are your responsibility while they are young. All right . . all that is yours. There’s no need to blame anyone if you don’t have enough. Appropriate it, for all the states exist now. But where? They all exist in your own wonderful, human Imagination. And all you do is adjust. Well, where do you go to adjust? Standing just where you are, you adjust. Wherever you are, you adjust to the state desired. So, he’s riding home in his car and money is falling on him . . gently falling, green money . . and then in a matter of moments he gets a raise. Why did that man have the impulse to give him a ten per cent raise? Because he appropriated it. You can work for a firm, as you know, all your life and it would never occur to the boss to give you a raise. And going in and begging him for it isn’t going to do it. You’ve got to appropriate it first, and then let him think that he initiated it and give it to you.
I had a mother who understood this law beautifully. Mother wanted to come to this country on a vacation, and she would appropriate it. She would actually. in those days you didn’t buy dresses. You brought your dressmaker home and you selected the cloth and she would make you dresses. She had all her dresses made. My father was busy in the business world. He knew nothing of this daily activity of my mother . . having all these dresses made. And she appropriated the trip to New York City while physically she was in the little island of Barbados. Then my father would come home and say: “You know . . I don’t want you here. You don’t look very well. You look tired, and so I’ve just booked you for New York City, and you are sailing next week. All you have to do now is go and get a visa, because you are sailing next week and you are going to be there three months.” She would protest: “Oh,” she said, “No, Joseph, that’s so expensive. You shouldn’t do it.” Well, she already did it! She knew exactly what she was doing, but he wanted that feeling of one who was being generous, and she knew that he was the man of the house and if he did all these lovely things for her it would be nicer . . it would make him feel that he was so generous. And so she pleased him by protesting, when in her heart of hearts she knew exactly what she was doing.
So I say: Do it all in your wonderful Imagination. She would not have done it, if for one moment she thought he couldn’t afford it, because she loved him and she loved the children she bore him. But why deprive him of the ability to do it or the desire to do it? Allow him full freedom to have the money to pay for it and the desire to do it. He could have had much more and not have the desire to do it. But she didn’t argue with him. She simply appropriated the trip and “lived” in New York City. And as she did it, he had the brilliant idea to send her to New York City. And you wonder: How did it happen? It couldn’t happen unless someone moved in Imagination. Whatever takes place is but movement within God, and God is your Imagination! So you can move from one state to another in the twinkling of an eye. You don’t need to sit down and burst a blood vessel; you simply do it in the twinkling of an eye. And if you do it with acceptance . . with complete acceptance, no doubt as to your Imagination’s ability to externalize it . . it will externalize it. As we told you last night, the definition of faith is simply the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. You appropriate it subjectively and then it becomes the objective fact.
So, these are the stories told us in Scripture. So when Chambers said: “It takes great imagination to follow Jesus Christ, and I, for one, have been lacking in such imagination”.. .but he was right, in spite of his own position in his own town, a French town. And he made his exit from this world as a young man. Many of the great liberals of the world already quote him, but they will not quote that passage from his works, that he was inadequate to follow the mystery of Jesus Christ. It takes a great Imagination to follow him, because Jesus Christ is your Imagination, not something external to you. He’s in you. “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” is what we are asked in Corinthians. (II Corinthians 13:5) Do you not know it? As though it would have changed! Man, whose life is Jesus Christ, doesn’t even know the source of his own life, that the foundation of his own being is Jesus Christ. That’s the reality of man. And he doesn’t know that reality. Well, I’ll tell you who he is: his own wonderful, human Imagination. And you accept it, and you will know all these mansions are only states of consciousness. They are all states of consciousness.
Now, when you go into any state and dwell in it and return to it often in the course of a day, you are dwelling in it, and you will find yourself dwelling there, not only for today, but it will become a habit. And as it becomes a habit, it becomes externalized, and that’s the world. That then becomes your Esau. That then becomes your reality. That becomes the stronger of the two sons. It was once the weak one, and the minute you clothe him with reality and he becomes real, then you may forget it. As it becomes real, you may forget that that was once only a subjective state. As it takes on now objective tones, you may not remember how you got out of the former state into this if you desire it and never despair, for we started with the statement: “Let not your heart be troubled.” (John 14:1) Quite often you will find these words appearing in different . . as we say . . guise: “Be not afraid”; “Fear not”; “Be not troubled”; “Be not anxious.” If you could remove fear from that, you remove all the titles of the world. If you are not afraid (and they couldn’t make you afraid; if you know who God is, they can’t make you afraid) . . if you know who you really are, no man can make you afraid. For within you the power of powers is present, and that power is Jesus Christ. Is he not described in Scripture as the “power of God,” in the very first chapter of I Corinthians? “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians 1:24) Paul saw no other. He only saw the power of God and the wisdom of God. As the poet said:
From the first . . Power One –
I knew. Life has taught me
That; but for a closer view
Love were as close as He.
Yes, this I knew: Power One. That I knew, and in my own vision, I can tell you, they come together.
When love embraced me, there was man . . infinite love as man. When I was commissioned and sent into this world to tell the story, it was power that sent me. But your being, your Imagination, is a protean being. It can assume any shape, any form, in the twinkling of an eye. So the one who embraced me as love was the very one who sent me, but when he sent me, he wore the garb of might. He wore the garb of power. His first revelation to man was as power: El Shaddai, God Almighty. He said: “I made myself known unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, God Almighty; but unto you, I have made myself known as I AM.” (Exodus 6:3) Then, in the end, he makes himself known as the Father. But he first reveals his nature as power, and that’s what he was when I was sent. I looked into his eyes and he didn’t move his throat . . didn’t move his lips . . but I heard every word that he thought as he looked into my eyes. He looked into my eyes and thought, and his thought was: “Time to act.” And then with these words: “Time to act,” I was whirled out of that wonderful assembly and back upon my bed in this little garment of flesh, with these words ringing in my ear. But it was infinite might that sent me and yet infinite might was God Almighty, who was one with the infinite love who embraced me. But he did not command me as love; he commanded me as power. And so it is the same being; he is a protean being. Proteus is simply the mythological god in the service of Neptune, who could assume any shape that would serve the purpose of Neptune. He could be a fish; he could be anything, if it served Neptune.
And so he could assume anything, as you do in a dream.
How do you manufacture all the symbolism of a dream? That’s you! You are assuming all these wonderful symbols, all the images of a dream. It’s yourself doing it; and you are clothing yourself in all the symbolism . . whether it be animals, the fish, different names, or even of a different sex, because you are protean and you can clothe yourself in anything in the world.
But in my own case, it was power that commanded me, and I can still hear the words ringing in my ear . . and yet I can see before my eyes infinite love that embraced me. When I fused, I fused . . not with power, I fused with love, one with him, and I’ve never been separated from that power that is love . . never! When I feel myself, it is always that same being that I saw. And I am quite sure that anyone who could see (not through mortal eyes, but through the awakened eyes of the risen Lord) would see that being as he looked at me, because he who becomes one spirit with the Lord becomes one body, becomes one spirit. He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with him, and there is no divorce or separation from that moment on. But that body that he wears in the spiritual world cannot be seen by mortal eyes. Yet I can feel it and sense it and know what it is, but it’s not this garment [indicating the body]. This little garment will slowly wither away and depart this little life, but he within me, who now wears it, will be that being with whom I fused back in 1959, for here in my wonderful world are unnumbered mansions.
So you don’t have to condemn anyone who is in a state that he finds difficult to divorce himself from. Tell him how to do it. Teach him how to do it. Don’t sympathize with him, because if you sympathize with him, you are fixing that state all the more; but tell him how to get out of the state. It is only a state! Whether he be just or wicked, he’s only in a state, and if you could only take the so called wicked man and persuade yourself that he is now a generous, kind, wonderful person, he would have a change of heart and not know why he has it. Something will happen within him, and he will become the kind and generous person that you have imagined him to be. If you want him to be that kind of a person, imagine him to be it, and persuade yourself of the reality of your own imaginary act, and he will conform to it.
My wife, back in 1945, when she left the Music Hall (she worked at the Music Hall for eleven years as a costume designer, and the head producer used to treat her unmercifully) .but I told her one day: “Darling, he couldn’t do anything for you unless you allowed it. You actually feel that he is no earthly good. You feel that you are a cultured American lady. You went to Smith College. You were born and raised in a lovely environment. You never heard unkind things in your home. You never saw anything that was cheap. Your mother had lovely taste, beautiful things.” The interior was a beautiful, a huge, enormous home, with eight fireplaces, with every floor beautifully furnished, and she was raised in that environment. She went only to private schools, then off to Smith College, and then she worked in the Music Hall. Well, her father was managing director of the Music Hall, so when she went in there, she did not ask any favors because of her father’s position, and this man simply lorded it over her. She would say within herself (this she confessed to me): “Oh, you foreigner!” because he came from Russia. And she mentally would remind him that she is an American by birth for at least six or seven generations, and he came from Russia, and is now acting this way. Well, that’s wrong. Whether he be a Russian or American, or English, or anything else, we are all one.
“Now, stop it, and allow him to praise you for your work. He’s always condemning and always criticizing. Walk to work. You only walk five blocks from where you live to the Music Hall. Just imagine that he is not only praising you for your work, but he wants to use all of your designs, and the budget will not allow it, so he goes to your father and asks your father to increase the budget, that he may be allowed to use all the designs. Your father’s a businessman, and he’s not going to do it. He’s going to cater neither to you nor to him, but he has to run that at a profit for the Rockefellers. So, let him do it. But in your Imagination assume that he does!” How long do you think it took for him to actually change his attitude towards her? I’ll tell you: twenty-four hours! When she came downstairs with this wonderful collection of designs, he raved about them, and he actually went to her father and begged him to increase the budget, that he may use them all. Her father would not allow it. And from that day on, he changed his attitude toward her radically for the better. Why? Because she changed hers towards him.
Are we not told in Scripture: “We love Him because He first loved us”? (1 John 4:19) You want to be quite fair? Well, start it here. Start it in your own Imagination, and you’ll find it responding on the outside, for the outer world only reflects the inner world. Start it there first, or you will never see it in the outer world! So, as she walked the street she simply imagined he walked with her, praising her for the work that she had done. And in twenty-four hours he praised her, and [she] hoped her father would increase the budget, that he could use all of them. And then she retired. And after she retired in 1946, he begged her to come back and do special shows. She went back and I think she did about six special shows for him. Who would have dreamt that he would ever ask her to come back and do one, after the treatment that she received? She has overcome it; completely overcome it. She knows that it is all within her. She doesn’t turn to anyone to blame; she knows it’s within her. She tries to find out where, in her, she’s been carrying on these unlovely conversations, and then . . changing the conversations within her . . she changes the world in which she lives.
So, “in my Father’s house,” (which is your Father’s house, for we have but one Father and we are that Father) are the unnumbered states of consciousness . . and they dwell in the Father, and the Father is our own wonderful human Imagination. The adjustment is made wherever you are. If you are off to bed, just about to retire, make the adjustment there. If you are sitting in a cocktail lounge, make the adjustment there. It doesn’t matter where you are; you can do it within your Imagination in the twinkling of an eye.
What would it feel like if.. .and set your frame of reference. Your frame of reference.. .everyone has a frame of reference. Go down to the street tonight where people are lying in the gutter, and they have a frame of reference. They know what their parents or their friends think of them. They would know now what the same people would think of them, if they saw them differently. If they only knew that within their mind’s eye they could appear to themselves as one of [the] dignified beings pulling their own weight in this world (and their parents would be proud of them and not ashamed of them) and persuade themselves as they drop off into sleep that is how they are appearing to Caesar . . they will rise from that gutter and be disgusted with themselves and the gutter and the environment, and go right on . . go right up and do something that is worthy of a real man of this world. They would!
But who is going to reach them to tell them it’s all within them? You can tell them because you know it. Don’t go out and talk about it, but you’ll have an occasion to turn someone from that state into another state . . and you will find yourself knowing they are only states . . and it’s so easy to forgive one, knowing it’s only a state. You will pull him out of the state because you learn to discriminate between the man and his present state. The present state may be most unlovely, but it’s only a state; so instead of condemning the man, it’s the state. You take him out of that state. He’s the same being. The man who is rich today but formerly was poor . . it’s the same being. The state of poverty did not vanish because he left it. It remains a state for anyone to fall into. And you move him into a state of wealth. Well, the state of wealth is a reality. It’s fixed forever, and the day that he moves into it he’s going to become wealthy, and no power in the world is going to stop him. As long as he remains in the state of wealth he’ll reproduce it over and over and over, and you can’t take it from him. If he doesn’t know it’s a state and he loses it all (he might not know it was only a state) and he’ll remain out of that state in a state of poverty. But if he knows it was a state to begin with, he can always go back into that state. Any man can do it.
So, you know that it’s a simple, simple technique, but you cannot be sure that you have moved unless you can see motion relative to a fixed object . . some other object. You always have faces in your mind’s eye of those who know you. How do they know you? If you like it, that’s fine, if you don’t like it, how would you like them to know you? Well then, you name it and then let them know you. All you do is: “Let there be light.” (Genesis 1:3)
Let the face become luminous, reflecting that thing in you. As it is changed in you, you’ll see it on their faces. Believe it! Believe in the reality of this subjective state. That is your hope, and this is the subjective appropriation of this hope. What hope? The faces are reflecting what you really want to see. And in a way that no one knows, you will become that man, and these faces actually will appear just as you have seen them in your mind’s eye. And they will be proud of you, as you are proud of yourself.
Now let us go into the Silence.
Good!
Now, are there any questions, please?
Q. What is the highest use to which one can apply this imaginal power?
A. What is the highest use to which one can apply his imaginative power? There is no limit. Tomorrow morning you will see what the world will call the first sign in eternity: a blast-off towards an inter-stellar object. We have all the faith and confidence in the world that these boys will make it and they will actually land on that object in space, 500,000 miles from earth, and that is only the beginning. There is no limit, because God is all, and we are God! In this world, there is no limit to what man can do. Whoever thought, when we discovered this land four hundred years ago, that we would have done with it what we’ve done? Water was running unnumbered of years . . and then man harnessed it. See what we’ve done with this barren valley right here in our state through irrigation. The water was always there, but no one believed it could be done. So don’t put any limitation on what man can do . . none. And yet, in the end he will awaken from it all, and he is God who conceived it all. He is destined to awaken as God the Father! That’s what man is destined to.
Any other questions?
Q. Do you think that sometimes the things we may desire may not be the best things for us, to qualify our creative Imagination in that way?
A. Some things we may desire may not be the best things for us. Naturally, I’ll agree with that. But I am free to choose. And my choice may be a wrong one, but I cannot say in advance that I would regret it. If it’s my choice, I must be big enough . . having made the choice and discover afterwards that it’s not what I want to perpetuate . . to drop it. It’s a state, and only a state. We have all kinds of ways of detaching after our choice has been proven wrong. Today many a person is planning his retirement . . planning all sorts of things. You can go off to Mexico, or you can go to Greece, go some place where you think you can live better and cheaper . . to discover after a year of it that he’s homesick; he wants to return to his native land. But that was his choice, if he is big enough to admit to himself: “I planted it” and then replant his seed.
A friend of mine has just retired at the age of sixty-three from Standard Oil of California. He has two children, now grown and happily married, and they have their own little families. He and his wife have a nice home in Fairfax, completely free of all debts . . no mortgages. And he thought, as he told me last year, that he could retire on $1,200 a month . . a comfortable retirement for the two of them. Well, he retired in May and departed on the sixteenth of June. He was sitting at his desk looking over the papers, and had a massive hemorrhage and he was gone instantly. Well, that was his plan . . and then a sudden departure. Plans and plans and plans! However, she is left with a fair amount of the money. So, plan away. Don’t think in terms of anything of that nature. Just plan. If you depart now, all well and good; you are restored to life anyway. Nothing dies. Not a thing dies. And you continue the journey until you awake. The whole thing is moving towards an end, which is predestined, and that departure from this world is called in Scripture resurrection. When man resurrects, he departs forever from this world of death (for it is dead here).
Q. The fact that you were embraced first by love, and then power . . does that prove that love is more important?
God is Love.
Q. That goes before anything?
A. The foundation is love. God is love. Power is an attribute of God. Wisdom is an attribute of God. But God is Love. It’s not an attribute. It’s the foundation for the “human form divine,” and the “human form divine” is love. Peace is an attribute; power is an attribute . . all these are attributes. Mercy is an attribute. But love is the reality of God. So when John said: “God is Love,” he spoke from experience. All these evangelists are unknown to the world because these are all anonymous names. They were relating their own experience. And I can tell anyone that I know from experience that God is love. You don’t have to ask who you’re looking at. It’s nothing but love, and it’s man . . infinite love. If man would exercise power in the true sense of the word, he would agree that he loved. Just imagine man endowed with this enormous power without love! What a power to contemplate. But we do not awaken until we are first baptized in the body of love. That is baptism of the Holy Spirit, of which all little baptisms on earth are but a shadow. That’s not really baptism, but it’s a shadow . . keeping alive the hope for baptism with the Holy Spirit. Then he embraces you and you fuse with it and merge into the body of God forever and forever.
Any other questions, please? If there aren’t any, we are here through Friday. Every night we begin at 7:30, and then next week, Monday through Friday till we have the series of ten. I hope I’ll see you often.
Thank you.