Where are you from? This you will find in the 19th chapter of the Book of John. And the rabbi said to Pilate: We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, for he claims he is the Son of God. And their law would not allow that, for we know where this man is from, know all about him; and when Messiah appears no one will know where he is from. So his claim is false. When Messiah appears it will be mysteriously done. And yet we know exactly where this man is from. Even his own brothers do not believe in him. And he said to his brothers, My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. And then he repeated it, but qualified it: My time has not yet fully come. He knew his time. He is speaking of two entirely different times, two entirely different worlds, two different ages. So: My time has not yet fully come, but your time is always here. But my time had not yet fully come.
So Pilate said to him: Where are you from? And Jesus gave no answer. Pilate said to him: You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the power to set you free and power to crucify? And Jesus answered him: You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. He does not answer Pilate’s first question, but he corrects Pilate’s misunderstanding of power. He does not answer: Where are you from? He doesn’t answer him because Pilate would never understand; and he corrects Pilate’s misunderstanding . . which is the world’s misunderstanding . . of power. Pilate thought he had the power to set him free or to crucify him. He was simply telling him he had no power whatsoever unless it has been given from above.
For, one day you will have this experience, and you will taste of the power of the new age. You will see a scene just like this. As you taste of the power of this new age, you will know it is all animated, and you are the power animating it. You will arrest within yourself an activity that you sense, and at that moment of arrestment everything stands still and is dead; it’s made as though it were made of clay. Not just the outer aspect, but your brain, that is so fluid and so alive and so pulsing . . that, too, if you opened up the skull would be like clay. The heart that pumps . . that too would be like clay. The whole thing including all the inner works would be frozen. Then you would release within yourself the activity which you have arrested and everything once more would become animated and would continue in its course and would perform its intention. Then you will know what he means by this time, which is forever . . as against His time, when he said to him: Brothers, my time has not yet fully come, but your time is always here.
Now, man’s conventional view of time . . including our great scientists . . is that the future develops continuously out of the past; but that is not the Biblical view of time. The Biblical view of time is: what appears to be so new in our world is only the appearance of the return of phenomena already old. The whole vast world is moving on a circle, and all of this is already so, so that the entire space-time history of the world is laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it sequentially. But it is on a curve, and therefore what seemingly is past isn’t really; from the Biblical view, it is your tomorrow. It hasn’t receded into a past; it’s advancing into a future and it is forever.
Now listen to these words: What had been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, See, this is new? It has been already, in the ages past. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who will come after. (Eccl. 1:9-11).
Well, who would accept that! The conventional view completely denies it, it couldn’t possibly be. He is telling me that I have a memory of my youth. I can’t quite remember the moment of my physical birth. I vividly remember the moment of my spiritual birth. But he is telling me it has been . . that I do know. And everyone here . . without memory of that physical birth . . they can’t deny by observation of other people being born, that they, too, must have been born in a similar manner; so they say it has been. Now he tells me: that which has been done (which is my birth) is that which will be done. That I am moving towards that same thing on a wheel of recurrence, that same thing in this world of Caesar, and only divine mercy can redeem me from the wheel. That: What seems to be, Is, To those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to Whom it seems to Be, even of torments, despair, and Eternal Death; but then Divine Mercy steps beyond and Redeems Man in the body of Jesus. (Jerusalem, 36 William Blake) So here the wheel returns.
Now, let me share with you a story told me last Tuesday night . . the lady is present. She gave me a letter just before I started. I had no time to read it before my meeting, and had no time until just before I retired that night . . so about midnight I read the letter. It was dated Nov. 23rd, which as you know was a week ago last Saturday, the day after the great event in this world that took place on the 22nd. She states in the letter: This is my experience of ten days prior to the 22nd of November (that is the 12th of November). I go from my office home and back always in a certain manner, a certain road. It is my habit when I get into a certain intersection that I turn and read the headlines at a newsstand. Quite often a red light is with me, and so I have a moment to turn and read the headlines.
This night on my way home it was dusk, the sun was setting. I am moving west into the setting sun, and a few cars moving. I turned to read the headlines of the day. As I turned, I saw four papers on the rack . . three the usual black and white, and one was a green sheet and this enormous black type as a head mat read: KENNEDY SHOT. This is the 12th day of November. I almost put my foot on the brake to turn, but I was in the intersection. Then reason prevailed. I said, No it’s the headlight, it’s the dusk, it’s the sun that is setting; and surely above all things in my office where I work, the radio goes all day long, and such horrendous news would be on the radio. So that capped it, reason prevailed, and I knew I had not seen correctly; but I saw on this green paper: Kennedy Shot. Well, I kept going across the intersection. How long does it take . . 2 or 3 seconds? And so at the end of the three seconds I crossed the intersection and kept moving. It wasn’t one block before I completely forgot the incident.
In my office ten days later, on Friday the 22nd, I came to the office late. Two radios were blasting, a TV is going, and nothing but this news on the air. Some are crying, many are talking, others are cursing, and I wanted some quietness to do work. I am at the typewriter. 3:30 in the afternoon I am still trying to remember a dream, a dream that is related to what I am hearing. I couldn’t call back the dream. I know that something I dreamt is related to what I am hearing on the radio. What is coming across TV too, but I couldn’t bring back the dream. A coworker leaves the office. He is gone not more than a few minutes, when he returns bringing in a folded paper. He comes in my direction and he calls me by my name. He comes over to my desk and he slaps it down on the table and said to me: Isn’t it amazing how fast these papers can move? and he intended that I should have the paper. I took the paper and opened it and here is a green sheet, the outer covering is green; and only two words as the mat head: KENNEDY SHOT. Then suddenly what had happened to me ten days before springs into my mind, and here I am seeing the entire scene as I drove home going west and watched this headline on this newsstand.
I took that letter, because it meant a tremendous thing to me. I read it over and to my wife. She and I reacted as I would expect her to react . . I knew how I would react. But last weekend a friend of mine who sponsors my meetings in San Francisco came home, and so I invited four mutual friends that knew her well, to dinner. There were the seven of us. I took the letter and read it and gave it to each to read and see the letter and hold it in their own hands. There was only the moment of surprise of a strange coincidence . . no more. Within a matter of seconds . . just as the lady said in three seconds she had completely forgotten the incident and tried to bring it back to memory like a dream; for the event is now turning something in the depths of her soul, that she experienced it. But she couldn’t bring it back until the fact was presented when the paper was put before her in a physical manner, and then she saw it. Through the evening they discussed all kinds of things relevant to the great drama; but they thought that the FBI, the Secret Service, the local police . . all these people should have done what they did not do. And here it is, stated so clearly in the first chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes.
So in her letter she said to me, at the very end: When the man looked at me, having given me the paper and I saw it, black type on green, I must have turned green myself, because he said to me: What’s the matter? and I couldn’t answer him; because how could I tell him that creation is finished? How could I tell him that this is a drama, and it is finished? That because it is animated, blood flows instead of tomato juice (as it does on the stage). But having had the experience of arresting in me an activity which animated the scene I saw, I know that it is no more than that on the stage.
But it is for a divine purpose, and the purpose is that God is individualizing himself. He individualizes himself through this play; and when he comes out individualized, that’s Jesus Christ, the only name that the individualized God bears. So in each, as he comes out individualized, he is incorporated into the one body; for the Lord on that day, the Lord will be one and his name one and the Lord will reign as King over all the earth.
Then, said she at the end of her letter: Could my reason . . that is, my refusal to recognize as true what I actually saw . . be the lines spoken in the 30th chapter of Isaiah? Then she quotes the 9th . . 11th verses: For they are a rebellious people, lying sons, sons who will not hear the instruction of the Lord: who say to the seers, See not and to the prophets, Prophesy not to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more of the Holy One of Israel.
Yes, I can answer her. They are these lying sons . . your reason. They took everything that night . . the setting sun, the dusk, the absence of the news from the radio, everything, the headlight . . to persuade you that you had not seen what you actually saw. And it went so deep into your being that even when the news began to blare at the office, you thought it was related to a dream. This was a waking dream, just like another dream, and you tried to bring back memory . . and you couldn’t recall what you actually had experienced.
But it also struck me in a very forceful manner, because in the same 30th chapter of Isaiah I took the verse I wanted for the title page of my latest book, The Law and the Promise. I took the 8th verse, and she took the 9th 10th, and 11th: And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. And so I took that verse for my title page, that I would inscribe it in the book, whether one believed it or not. For I know it is more true than anything being discussed this day concerning what happened in Dallas, for they think it should not have happened. They don’t know this time against that time.
So he said to his brothers, who did not believe in him: My time has not yet fully come, but your time is always here. These garments are part of the eternal structure of the universe; and this thing here (the body) I will one day vacate it, but it remains as part of the eternal structure of the universe . . like Hamlet remaining after Lawrence Olivier makes his exit from this world. And so he remains, as part of the eternal structure of the play called Hamlet. Tomorrow another one . . unborn today . . will put on the costume of a Hamlet and play Hamlet as conceived by God, because I will have vacated it for the last time. But the time here is to be worn forever and forever until he completely individualizes himself. And more than the sands of the sea we are told. He is the great Abraham of scripture, the father of the multitudes, individualizing himself. There is a series of events by which he breaks this invidious bar, and then causes the individual whose shell he breaks to separate and escape from this strange, wonderful wheel of recurrence. At that moment in time, this series of events begins to appear within you . . that’s his secret.
But everything is here and that bullet in the brain of Kennedy is part of the eternal structure of God’s world, and God conceived it. And so is the one who pulled it [the trigger] . . God conceived it. And that’s a part to be played . . and played over and over and over. And man can’t quite see the garment, because it doesn’t make sense, because he thinks it’s here. It isn’t here. This is forever, as the play. But he is speaking of the other time: my time has not yet fully come. My time belongs to a world where I am then really free . . where I am in a world where everything is subject to my imaginative power . . but everything! And I too, will be part of that world, animating this, seeing it differently, so that the bullet and the one who pulled it [the trigger], and those who weep will not really disturb me from that level.
So Blake made the statement: Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past, and Future, see; whose ears have heard the Holy Word that walks among the ancient trees. He is telling you the experience of that 3rd chapter of Genesis: And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And then in the 4th chapter of Daniel . . and this Holy One who walked in that garden gave the command: Hew down the tree. We were the tree in that holy garden, but innocent trees. And we had to fall into experience to awaken into the world of imagination, where everything is subject to our imaginative power, awakened as God. So here: Hew down the tree and cut off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. But leave the stump of its roots, let him be wet with the dew of heaven. (Dan. 4:14-15) Take from him now, (it’s a tree and suddenly becomes a person). Let his mind be changed from a man’s and let a beast’s mind be given to him; and let seven times pass over him to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will, and sets over it the lowliest of men.
So here the tree is felled. And again with Blake: The Gods of the earth and sea sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree; But their search was all in vain; There grows one in the Human Brain. (from The Human Abstract.) So it is turned down into generation, and suddenly it becomes an animal. This (the body) is an animal. This is an animal form. Everything we call human . . that’s animal . . is related to the animal world. It has the animal heart, the animal mind. And seven times pass over him. What is a time in the language of scripture? Blake implies approximately 900 years. So seven times must pass over him. Blake leaves off the little additional 300 years and speaks of a solid number, 6,000 years. He says: I behold the Vision of my deadly Sleep of Six Thousand Years dazzling around thy skirts like a Serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is my Self, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer. (Jer. 96 [sic])
So here he saw the whole thing clearly. The Holy One he heard . . the Holy One walking in the cool of the day . . in this world called the Garden of Eden. And he tells us by implication that he actually heard the command: Hew down the tree. So said he in this very opening to what he started as a series . . but only gave us one. He calls it, The First Book of Urizen, but he deleted the word First afterwards because he only wrote the one. But in this one he addresses the Holy One, the immortal, and he calls them Eternals. Eternals! I hear you call gladly. Dictate swift winged words and fear not to unfold your dark visions of torment.” This I am quite willing when I see the result of passing through this horror . . I am quite willing that I seek in my mind’s eye the vision, which is your vision for me, when you complete your dream and you individualize yourself.
So Los beheld the vision, and he was faithful to the vision in time of trouble. So when you go through it [trouble], know it has happened and happened and happened, but you have no memory. In some strange way, this lady in ten days, within one block . . it so passed from memory that even when the radios began to blare and the TV, and even the weeping and cursing and talking, she is prodding herself to remember a dream. And only when the facts of a paper were placed before her and she saw the green page with the headline: KENNEDY SHOT did the whole thing run into her mind like some photographic plate. And she remembered the intersection where she saw these four papers on a rack, three the normal black and white, and the fourth one the green with this headline; then the struggle with herself as she crossed the intersection which only took two or three seconds. Then all of sudden it rushed into the mind.
And our theologians for centuries have been trying to delete from our Bible the Book of Ecclesiastes, because it doesn’t make sense. Because the normal view of time is that the future develops continuously of the past: I was born as a babe and so I will grow as any person in this world, grow to manhood, and then . . having waxed . . I will then wane and vanish. That is the normal progression of this linear motion of time, but that is not the Biblical view of time at all. It is something entirely different, and he separates the two times. He speaks of your time that is always here, and my time when I chose the words I wanted for the title page of my book: Inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come For that is what it is. I am not speaking of this.
The Law . . yes. I still say, within the framework of God’s grand dream there is another dream . . my dream, your dream. And these that have unnumbered experiences . . we aren’t going to change His dream for us, but we can modify and change within the framework of His dream the things that we will encounter. And if I use the Law wisely I will avoid repetition tomorrow when the wheel turns again. I won’t break the foot the next time; I won’t have the distorted arm the next time; I won’t have anything the next time if now I revise it. So I say: if there is one thing I have been brought into this world to tell you, it is the secret of revision: that if something today is unpleasant, you don’t like it, don’t let it slip by.
The Bible speaks of redeeming the time. Every moment, if it is unpleasant, it should be redeemed, because you are going to meet it tomorrow as the wheel turns. So don’t let the night descend and catch you with the unredeemed day. Take the day and redeem it. You may produce the results now, in the immediate present. But if you don’t redeem it, when the wheel turns because you haven’t yet hatched out (or as Blake says, For hatching ripe he breaks the shell,) . . but if the shell isn’t yet broken by the series of events which detaches you from this wheel of recurrence, then revise the day. So that next time when the wheel comes around you aren’t going to relive the unpleasant thing of this moment in time.
But I tell you: your time is always here, my time has not yet fully come. It takes one more link to break it, for it is all only hanging by a link. To be part of the world, where . . having once tasted of the power of the age to come, then to return to the world where you are part of this age and be animated . . as he confessed: You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above. Here is one who is confessing he is only at the very brink of leaving it. But while he is in the world of Caesar . . having tasted of the world to come and the power that belongs to that world . . while in the world of Caesar, wearing an animal garment, then no one has the power over him unless it was given him from above. So the one who gave it to you, he has the greater sin. If now he sends you to the gallows because he sends you to perform an act that is condemned by society, you have the greater sin, for it is part of the great play.
And this dual time is so difficult for man to grasp. But I am only quoting scripture. He speaks so often of time, and he separates these two times: this time which belongs here forever, and that time; this world and that world. So he speaks of two ages: this age where there is rebirth, but he doesn’t mean reincarnation, for that which had been done is that which will be done. Were you once born of your present mother? You will be. It is happening all over again, at the moment in time when the wheel turns, and we will get the same surprise that is conceived of reincarnation, being born in the same manner of the same mother. Because they can’t see these garments and they think these are themselves, and these are garments that God wears.
And so, the whole vast world will say: O yes, I believe in reincarnation. It justifies the inequalities of life. Nothing justifies the inequalities of life . . as you are told of the blind man in John 9:2, 3: And his disciples ask him: Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. All these are the experiences through which God goes: the blind, the lame, the withered, the halt . . everything. It is not any justification, because the God of whom I am speaking is not a God of retribution. In spite of the horror of the play, he is a God of Love; because in the end, he individualizes himself, and you are he. If it took 6,000 years of horror, the end results justify the means he conceived as a play to bring it out.
I ask you: don’t forget the lady’s letter. Don’t do what my friends of last Saturday night did. So when they departed and I started washing dishes in the wee hours of the morning, I said to my wife: What a strange reaction. Now, that lady sponsors me, she has sponsored me for the last seven years, and prior to that she came to my meetings when she was not my sponsor. She sells all of my books, and all of my other friends have known me here on the West Coast for the last fifteen years. And so it was like reading a nice little mystery and then throwing it into the ashcan . . that’s it . . and then we go back to discuss the facts of life. Why were not the FBI on the job, and not these people on the job? And they just got through reading, that ten days before he was actually shot by the human standard, he was already dead.
But time with a larger focus, you see a larger focus, you take a larger section of time. And she, in some wonderful way, the green light is with her, she hadn’t time to really focus, so she is moving forward with the green light, and in the intersection, she is almost on it, but habit possessed her and she turned to see . . she is in the right-hand lane . . and here on a green paper the headline, Kennedy SHOT. But then it fades. But are we not told in Eccl. 1:9: There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after. And so she is trying, when it does happen, that we on this level will appreciate it. She is trying to remember what she called a forgotten dream. She thinks it’s a dream and she is wondering: When did I dream this? but she can’t bring back to memory, can’t recall it . . until the paper is brought and the voice said: Isn’t it amazing how fast these papers can move? Even then she didn’t . . and she opened up and saw the same headline on the green page. Then the whole thing rushed into the brain. Being a student of the Bible, she searched the Bible for something that caused her to lie to herself, and she found the 3 verses of the 30th chapter of Isaiah: Lying sons, sons who will not hear the instruction of the Lord They will not listen to him. And they say: O seers,” those who see like a Blake, tell us not. Do not look. Don’t tell us any more. Tell us smooth things, pleasing things. And so that’s the world.
But I am not sent to tell you the smooth things or the pleasing things. But I can tell you . . through the one thing I have brought to tell you, which is revision . . it isn’t hopeless. You can, if the day is unpleasant, revise it. And if tomorrow the results are not before you, and the next week and the next month, they are not before you, I know that by your revision you will change the events, when once again you must come to that moment in time. And so you will change the pattern, for the wheel is turning and you can’t stop it.
I saw it. For one moment in time I was part of it, and I stopped it within me, and they all stopped. Not one could move, not even the bird in flight. The birds couldn’t fall. There was no gravity . . gravity was in me. And I thought (as I was taught in my little school) that Sir Isaac Newton discovered it; and I almost thought he made it, because the whole thing was Sir Isaac Newton. I heard it, and so no one was as great in my mind as the great Sir Isaac Newton. As a child I really believed that he determined how things should fall and how they should go on. Then one day I came into a taste of the power into which tomorrow I would inherit . . for I will inherit the kingdom of God, with all the power that goes with it.
But I tasted of that power before the last link was broken. And so the birds couldn’t fly, the leaves couldn’t fall, and the grass that was moving in the wind couldn’t move; and people walking couldn’t walk, and the diners dining couldn’t dine, and everything was frozen. I looked at them. I was moving; I was not frozen. I froze in me an activity which froze them. I went over and looked at them, and these were dead things, part of the eternal structure of the universe. Forever these are garments to be worn by God. And then I released it and they all moved. The birds continued in flight, and the leaves began to fall, and the grass began to wave, and the diners dined, and the waitress walked, and everything continued to fulfill its purpose. Then I knew of a different time, a different age, of a different use of power . . and that here we are only an animated world.
So, to repeat: You have no power over me, unless it has been given to you from above. The word is “anothin,” the same word used in the 3rd chapter of John. When he said, Except you be born from above (anothin) you cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You are still part of the wheel of recurrence, still part of this time . . which is forever. But God in his infinite mercy, having put seven times over you, will move beyond, and redeem you in the body of Jesus. Because there is only one body, you are redeemed in the body of Jesus. Jesus, believe it or not, is God. People won’t believe it. They smile at you and they laugh. But Jesus Christ is the only God, but so are you when you enter his body and become incorporated into it. Because there is only one name, only one Lord, and that one name is Jesus Christ. And all will be redeemed in the body of Jesus and all will have the same power, the same being; everyone will be Jesus.
Now it doesn’t make sense. But what I told you earlier doesn’t make sense. The lady is here and I must tell her that one of my friends who read the letter knows her quite well, and she said: You know, having seen the name of the one who signed it, I believe every word of it. Were it not that she wrote it, I would question it. So the questioning mind already was there, but she read the one who sent it and . . trusting her implicitly . . she said, I believe every word of this letter. But still, only three or four seconds, right away she is discussing the possibilities of changing God’s play and changing it radically so that he would still be here as our President. And they can’t see these wheels within wheels within wheels that Ezekiel spoke of.
So I tell you: it is not reincarnation, as the world teaches to justify the inequalities of life; you can’t justify them. For man didn’t sin. He didn’t gouge his eyes out, he was born blind. And his parents didn’t sin? And this only so that the works of God may be made manifest? What a horrible God! And that is the word of God speaking? He didn’t sin and his parents didn’t sin? It is only that the works of God be made manifest. Therefore, revision . . which in scripture is called repentance (but the word is tarnished) It was taught . . the very first word used in the earliest Gospel, which is Mark . . that first word spoken by the embodiment of God is repentance. The time is fulfilled he speaks of time, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel. (Mk.1:15)
Well, repentance really is the ancient word for the word I use today of revision. For repentance is a radical change of attitude toward life. And if in the revolution of this world there is really a revolution, it’s not what took place in Cuba or in Russia or this country . . or in any part of the world. The real revolution is when man discovers that by a radical change of his own mental attitude towards life he can change the outer aspects of life. When man makes that discovery, there is a real revolution in the world. A man discovers that by his own change of mental attitude he changes the outer aspects of his life! For I can’t conceive of any greater revolution in the world . . and that is repentance.
But the churches have put barnacles on it, and they teach us to be remorseful, to be regretful; and to this very day you turn on the radio or the TV, they are still talking of the event that should not have happened. They all sit in judgment of God. And here is the whole grand wonderful play unfolding. When one really sees it in the end, and when one completely awakes, he, too, will be able to say to all of the characters who played the part: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. How could you tonight . . if you really believed the vision that was written to me ten days ago . . how could you today condemn anyone who had a part, whether his part was to play a part in not properly arranging protection, or the one who has gone berserk and bought his gun, and then hate, as he did, if he did it; and then the one who came and did all these things to hush the very voice that might be able to throw light on it? All these things in the wonderful drama. And then this fantastic pageantry that we had in our country, where the whole vast world . . with the aid now, of this Telstar . . saw it all at the same time. Russia saw it, all of Europe. If there are TV sets in China, they could see it too, because by this new beam the whole vast world could see it. And what drama! A tremendous pageantry that she actually saw ten days before this level could receive it.
So where are you from? I came out from the Father, said he. And I have come into the world. Again I AM leaving the world and I AM going to the Father. (John 16:28) In four short phrases he states his prenatal existence, his incarnation, his breaking of the wheel . . he’s going to die leaving this wheel . . and return to the Father. But he said to the others: Where I go you cannot now come, but you will. Where I now go you cannot now come . . not now. He tells you he is breaking the wheel, and therefore he departs for the last time; but he did incarnate and took human form.
He tells us by the words, the little phrase: I came from the Father . . that is a confession of a prenatal existence. I came into the world from the Father. But when you see me you see him who sent me. And who sent you? The Father. When you see me you see him who sent me. Well, how could that be? But if God is individualizing himself and God is Father, when he is individualized that individualized presence must all be Father. That is why he is saying these are the ways to the Father. You will never know that you are father unless God’s only begotten son appears and calls you Father . . no uncertainty when you look into his eyes and he into your eyes and he calls you Father. And so God is Father. When he begets you as himself, you can’t be less than God; and, therefore, he is father of the same child, not another child.
And so this is the way by which this invidious bar is broken . . this envious bar. For, someone who has wealth, they may envy someone who has more; one who is poor envies the one who has some; one who is known is not envious of the unknown, but they are envious of the known. All this strange, peculiar enmity in the world is part of God’s play, these unequal discriminations in the world. And the world thinks it is going to change it in some strange way. You will change it only in one way; if you know the art of revision. But you will change it only to the extent when you reach that point in time . . which is forever . . you do not encounter (again) what to you was unpleasant. When you encounter that moment in time, it’s the completed circle.
Now let us go into the Silence.
Question and Answer:
About two months ago (a psychic) saw it, tried to get in touch with the President to persuade him not to go. But, first of all, no one could persuade the President not to go. He would not have listened for one second. Today he is now woven closely in the tapestry of martyrs because he died in office a violent death. Already they are building up the idea of a Lincoln concept. And so given the choice of living another few years with a painful back or going this way without pain . . he didn’t know it. And then to go down in history believing undoubtedly as he does in the linear concept of time, he would have chosen exactly what happened to him.
But may I tell you: that was only the part . . God played the part. God through this is individualizing himself. Don’t get off now to a man who is called John Fitzgerald Kennedy or one who called himself Oswald. It is the all-together preciousness of the whole vast fragmented state that produces the individualized God. This body is going to be worn as it has been worn by many people . . many actors . . the actors all are God. It’s a great mystery. When I leave the stage, it is dusted off and hung up for the next occupant; and the next occupant and the next occupant will always be God.
You could not have changed his (JFKs) values. First of all he prided himself on being a very intelligent gentlemen and he was very learned. He would have looked upon Dixon’s suggestion as superstition. It would have annoyed him to think that anyone could have persuaded him to cancel a political visit, thinking in terms of next year, by some superstitious concept. He would have thought the Republicans have pulled that on me. He would have found it in the one who wrote the letter . . a nice Republican . . because if she succeeds in persuading me to go, then I have missed an opportunity to challenge the state of Texas. He would have justified it, just as the lady justified it with the oncoming lights and the setting sun and the absence of the news on the radio.
Reason steps in; and reason is the lying son who refused to hear the instruction of the Lord, who said to the seers see not . . she was a seer, she saw it . . and said to the prophets prophesy not to us what is right, speak to us smooth things. Speak to us and tell us of the prophesies of illusion. So he doesn’t want to hear unlovely things. Everyone in high office surrounds himself, invariably, with yes-men. So there are no seers who surround many prominent persons. If you said anything that displeased Hitler, you got your head removed. If you told the truth that they would lose the war and that millions would have suffered as a result of his attempt to conquer the world and that he himself would have an ignorable end, he’d have you removed because he didn’t want anyone to speak to him of anything other than smooth things. It is said of Stalin.
But they fulfill scripture, scripture is the eternal drama and man is trying to rewrite it. He’s always trying to rewrite it. Then say: He didn’t really mean this. And you say; Who didn’t mean it? Well, the one who wrote it. Don’t you believe God wrote it? Don’t you believe God dictated it to the prophets . . men organized by divine providence for that communion? They will seriously confess that maybe. Well, if God dictated it, doesn’t it contain his word? Aren’t you one who mustn’t tamper with the word of God? Well, they all tamper with it.
I read from a new Bible today, and they tried their best to give meaning to that which I quoted tonight and it is so far removed. It is the Modern English Bible; only the New Testament is out so far. And what they did to that wonderful 19th [chapter] of John in trying to give meaning, because (they think) he can’t possibly mean what the Word says, what he says . . but he said exactly that.
To the first question he does not answer . . Where are you from? and Jesus gave no answer. He would not. The priest: Do you not know I have the power to set you free and the power to crucify you? You would have no power over me had it not been given to you from above. Well, that’s stupid to Pilate, who represents Caesar. Caesar is the power of the world in today’s business . . and he represents Caesar. You dare to say to me . . you whose background, whose origin is well known to the world He had a large family. Four brothers are named and sisters and he comes from a simple little family. And you dare to say to me . . Caesar’s right arm . . that I have no power over you except that it be given me from above? Is there something above Caesar? And he says from above meaning “anothin” . . from God. Therefore, he (meaning God) therefore God determined who delivered me into your hands. He has the greater sin . . if it’s sin.
Goodnight.