2/25/66
___(??) closing night for awhile and I’ve been thinking through the day, rather days, what should I say were I leaving permanently? What would I like everyone to remember? Well, these are my thoughts to leave with you things I’ve told you over the years. It is God’s purpose to give himself to all of us, to each of us, as if there were no other in the world, just God and you, God and I. Believe this and the most unbelievable story in the world which is the Bible becomes possible and believable.
And it is the Son who makes us sure that it is really true. You dwell upon it: “In many and various ways he spoke to our fathers through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken through his Son” (Heb.1:1). The fathers spoken of…we are the fathers. You didn’t begin in the womb of your mother and you are not going to end in the grave. You’ve been coming a long, long while; it’s a long journey. The fathers spoken of are right here this night. And, in many ways he spoke to the fathers. You’re told in the Book of Numbers he spoke to us through the medium of a dream, he spoke through the medium of a vision; he is still speaking through the medium of a dream and that of a vision (12:6). The Bible recognizes only one source of dream and vision and that source is God. A daydream does not diff er from a night dream save in this one little aspect—in the night dream we are servants of our attention, it leads us anywhere. In the daydream, we should be masters and guide it where we want it. If you remember that in my absence, you can take this world of Caesar and make it conform to your dreams.
A lady wrote me, I got the letter yesterday, and in this letter she said she sat in her dining room and she was reading my book The Power of Awareness, the chapter on attention. In it I give her a certain exercise where you take the entire day, just one day, from the last event at night to the first in the day, and you try to hold your attention and put it back, move it back, one event after the other going backwards. It may seem easy but try it. She said, “I failed many times, but finally I succeeded in going back, event after event.” You don’t change it, this is not revision, this is only an exercise to concentrate the mind where you want it. So she said, “I finally succeeded in taking it all the way back to the first event of the day, when my eyes fell upon spots, ugly spots on this lovely carpet of ours that leads from the kitchen to the dining room. We had tried to remove these spots using all kinds of things, things that were suggested, but they are still there. I closed my eyes and I wondered what it would be like if this carpet today looked just as though it were new when we put it down, and so I just simply imagined it new, clean and said thank you. And that was it…I completely forgot.”
In a few days the phone rang. There’s a phone upstairs and a phone downstairs. She was downstairs in the bedroom. The phone downstairs unless you are in the bedroom you can’t hear it. It’s a very, very small bell so as not to disturb, so much so that her husband who was upstairs did not hear it. A total stranger soliciting business over the phone asked if he could come around and give an estimate for cleaning rugs. Well, she said, “These calls come through all the time and at first my impulse was to say no, but on second thought I said why not? I accepted his suggestion. So he came, he cleaned it, and the rug today is just as though it were put down for the first time.” So what I want you to remember from that little scene: imagining creates reality. “Man is all Imagination and God is Man and exists in us and we in him; the eternal body of Man is the Imagination, and that is God himself” (Blake, Annotations to Berkeley). Every time you exercise your Imagination lovingly or unlovingly that is what you are doing to God. Use it lovingly, for I tell you from experience God is love. These are not idle words.
So this is what I want you to remember. We were told, the day will come the Holy Spirit will come upon you and lead you into all knowledge, and bring to your remembrance all the things that I have told you; and now I tell you before it takes place that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he (John14:26). This is not a being on the outside of you talking to you; it’s your own, own being. When it takes place it takes place in you, and you will know that you yourself are the being you formerly thought to be God as something on the outside. Now what would he tell you, what would he show you? There is a rabbinical principle that what is not written in scripture is nonexistent. So he leads you into all things; he isn’t taking you outside of scripture. He isn’t showing you what’s taking place now in the world of Caesar. This will all vanish as though it never took place. He will not show 184 Neville you any part of human history in this secular world, but he will show you the eternal truth of God’s Word. When he shows it to you, he takes you through it as your own personal experience.
Every word of scripture is true and you will experience it. You will know how true it is. You will experience it in the very depths of your soul and it is literally true in depth. On the surface it doesn’t make sense. But he will come and when he comes and moves you, he moves you only into truth and truThis scripture. Here is a simple, simple statement: He moved triumphantly into Jerusalem. What a gay, festive occasion! Who would have thought it would end in the crucifixion? That experience you will have. And may I tell you, don’t be afraid, it is joy from beginning to end, from the very beginning. Then you will experience the 42nd Psalm, “And I led them in procession, in a gay procession to the house of God” (verse 4). You will lead them. It was the most festive occasion. Everything about it was one of joy. And yet the Psalm itself is one of sadness, “Why is my soul cast down?” He turns to memory, trying to get memory to bring back something to support a joy.
Well, this is what you’re going to have. You, too, will lead a crowd. May I tell you, a crowd which you’ve never seen before, an enormous crowd, as vast as your eye can see; a sea of human beings all clothed in their gay attire and it’s festive. A voice will ring out and you will hear the voice and everyone will hear it: “And God walks with them.” You will turn to your side and there, if it’s a duplicate of my experience, it will be a woman, a very attractive woman in her thirties in Arab robes. She becomes the voice of questioning the voice and she said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice answered, “At your side.” She in the crowd takes it literally so she turns to her left. I am standing at her left and she looks into my face and she becomes hysterical it strikes her so funnily. For the voice said “At your side” and she was questioning the statement “God walks with them.” Then she said, “What? Is Neville God?” and the voice rang out that all could hear, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the same voice heard only by me from the depths of my soul, and this is what it said, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and then I knew the completed sentence and I became so excited, so emotionally moved that I didn’t wait for the completed words, I knew he is dreaming that he’s me.
At that moment I experienced a memory of the crucifixion, for I was on the outside of this enormous crowd and then I was sucked into this body. This became a vortex, this a vortex, my head a vortex, my right side a vortex, and my two feet, the soles of my feet, were vortices. Here were these five, these six vortices nailed to this cross and I knew this was the crucifixion. And may I tell you, the crucifixion far from being a sad event it is sheer ecstasy! I can’t put into words the thrill that was mine that night when I experienced the crucifixion! You and I were all crucified with God. As we are told in scripture, we give all and we bear on our bodies the death of Christ. “If we have been crucified with him, if we have union with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom.6:5). So the crucifixion is over and was joy beyond measure. The resurrection is taking place. It has begun…the whole thing is in process now…and one by one we are being resurrected. But all have been crucified with God.
So you will experience scripture. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, he leads you into all truth…and what is not written in scripture is nonexistent, therefore, it’s a lie. He’s not leading you into what science today knows about the heavens; they will pass away. All we think we know now about outer space it will all pass away, everything we think we know and we’ve proved it, because imagining creates reality. We can take the lie of lies and prove it, but it isn’t true. God’s Word is true and when you’ve experienced it, you know the whole of truth was confined right here. And the purpose of it all is to awaken all of us, every one of us; not one will fail because he became all. God became as we are that we may be as he is. God became man that man may become God. And that is the entire story.
So I tell you this for a reason. Our memories are short and some very wise man will come into your sphere and in no time lead you astray with his wonderful, wonderful words and he knows so much. He can tell you all the things to lead you astray and you go into blind alleys. Try to remember these words. Try to remember that the whole vast Bible is all about you, as told you in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book it is all about me” (verse 7; Heb.10:7). He didn’t realize it and so now as he searches scripture, as the Spirit moves him, possesses him, and takes him through these experiences that are recorded in scripture: the final revelation is always by the Son.
So let me repeat, it is his purpose as we are told in Isaiah, “As I have planned it, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand…and my will shall not turn back until I have accomplished and executed the intents of my mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly” (14:24; Jer.23:20). In the latter days he reveals himself to you through his only Son. Here is a universal language that all can understand. I could tell you from now to the ends of time that you and I are one because God is one and God became us; and when he completes his work in us, there aren’t two, there’s only one, and it’s God. You haven’t lost your identity, you haven’t lost your individuality, and yet you’re God. I can tell you that in words and tell you that I know it, but how to persuade you that you and I are one when you are so completely individualized and I am so completely individualized? There is no way in eternity that anyone will know the unity of being save through the Son, but no one.
So he said, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he speaks unto us through his Son” (Heb.1:1). So his Son comes; he only has one Son. If he’s a father, there’s a son somewhere, bring him. What person in this world, 1966, would believe in any way that they are related to David of biblical fame? Yes, Haile Selasie claims he is descended from Solomon, and Solomon of scripture, son of David. But they don’t understand these mysteries. Anyone here, would you ever include David in your world, one who is supposed to have lived 1,000 B. C.?” Did it ever occur to you that the day will come you will know you have no beginning, you have no origin, no father, no mother, because you’re God, no genealogy? And that David is the very essence, the quintessence of all the generations of humanity and their experiences brought forth and personified as a single youth? That’s David…all the generations of humanity, all of man’s experiences, fused into a single whole, and that whole personified as the eternal youth that is God’s begotten Son (Ps.2:7).
The day will come you will look into the face of David and David will call you Father. Well, I can call you Father but you wouldn’t believe it. But when David calls you Father, there is no uncertainty. You don’t have to question the honesty of the words of the lad, you know, you’ve always known. Here he stands before you. I think I know that I am the father of my daughter Vicki. I’ve never doubted for a second that I am the father of my son that I call Neville, never doubted for a moment. But when it comes to David, there is no uncertainty. You don’t have to ask anyone, there is an innate knowing that you are the father and he is your son. In the fulfillment of scripture and the Lord is looking for David, the 89th Psalm, and then the Lord cries out, “I have found David. He has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation’” (verses 20, 26). He finds what he sets up in the beginning as a plan, as a purpose. He’s brought to climax and fulfillment, and here he finds his Son. He went through all the generations of humanity, all the suffering, as told us in Isaiah: “I’ve tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake I did it, for my own sake, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” (Is.48:10). And so to come forward as Father and there’s only one Father, only one Son. In the 2nd Psalm, “Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee” (verse 7). Now you take the Book of Hebrews, considered next to the Book of John the most profound in the New Testament. Every chapter, almost every verse, he supports by some scriptural passage—by scriptural passage I mean the Old Testament—and asks all these questions, “To what angel did he ever say, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’” (Heb.1:5). He starts it that way, and all the passages are related to David and he’s speaking of the cosmic Christ.
So I tell you, everything in scripture you are going to experience. I don’t care who you are; I don’t care what you have done. In his infinite mercy he has hidden from us our violence and the horrors to which we have been subjected and the horrors that we ourselves initiated. But in the very end it’s all vindicated, everything is forgiven, but everything; for it took all these furnaces of experience to bring out David. And so in the end, I tell you, you, regardless of your present sex…for these are only garments that God wears. He’s not a man in the sense not a male, not a female, he’s God and God wears these garments. So I say to my own mother who is not in this sphere anymore, I say to my wife, to my daughter, you are the father of David, I know I am the father of David, therefore you and I are one. In the world of Caesar we are three. Here you are my wife, you are my daughter, I am your father and your husband, and yet in the depth of our being we are one. And the only proof of the oneness of us, of the unity of our being, is our one Son…and he calls you Father. There is no uncertainty in you when you see him. He has already called me and there’s no uncertainty.
So these things I would have you remember. Dwell upon them. In the world of Caesar you can have exactly what you want. It’s based upon this simple, simple principle: “Whatever you desire,”—no limit to that statement—“when you pray believe that you have received it and you will” (Mark 11:24). Well, if I must believe that I’ve received what at the moment reason denies and my senses deny, how could I come to any other conclusion than that imagining creates reality? I can’t reach any other conclusion. You mean, that I want something now intensely and all I need do to bring it to pass as a concrete objective fact is to persuade myself that I have it? The secret then is how to persuade self. But if I find that secret…as the lady sitting at her table just simply closed her eyes, saw the carpet clean, as perfect as it was when she bought it, and she felt so completely relieved she could say “thank you” and then forgot it. A total stranger, drumming up business…then she said to me, “There are two telephone numbers in the book; the one he called is the second one. The second belongs downstairs and the bell is almost, well, you can’t hear it.” She happened at that moment to be in the room. Were she not there, she wouldn’t have heard it, but she was there when it rang. And the impulse would be no, why must I be disturbed? For the phone rings like this all the time, people soliciting some work in your home. Then she said, “Yes, come over and take a little survey of the place and clean the rug” which he did. She said, “The thing is just as new as the day it was put down.”
So I say to everyone here, try to remember these words that I have told you. Every one is true. I’ve been telling you what I know from experience; I’m not speculating, I’m not theorizing. I am not an erudite person, I just tell you what I know and my knowledge is based upon what I have experienced. What a man has experienced he knows more thoroughly than he knows anything else in this world, or than he can know that same thing in any other way. If I know it because I trust someone who told me, well, it’s hearsay. But when I know it because I’ve experienced it, well, then I know it. If the whole vast world rose in opposition, it would make no difference to me. I know scripture is true. I know Jesus Christ is the reality of every child born of woman. That he is related—not related, well, like a brother, sister—he is the actual being, the inner being of everyone in the world, but he’s asleep. But contained within him is the plan of awakening. When he awakens, you are God, for you are he, regardless of what you have done in this world prior to that awakening.
So in my absence…how long it will be I haven’t the slightest idea. I’m going…I did buy a roundtrip ticket but the return is undated. There is no need to date it…I’ll come when I feel like it. But in that interval, people get tired, they move away, they hear of some wise, wonderful person and they go to hear him, or go to hear her, and then they lead them into all kinds of strange blind alleys, all in the name of religion. You dwell upon these words. He didn’t become the other, so “If anyone says, ‘Look, here is Christ!’ don’t believe him’ or ‘There he is!’ don’t believe him” (Mark 13:21)—why?—“For when he does appear we shall be like him” (1John 3:2). Does he look like you? You will never know Christ who is not the Christ who is looking just like you. So his second return is when he unfolds in you all that is recorded of him in scripture so you know you are Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ as told in scripture is the Father. He is the father of God’s only begotten son, who is David. If you want the scriptural passages, the 14th of John: And one said to him, “O Lord, show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied. He said, I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how then can you say, ‘Show us the Father’” (verse 8)?
Now comes a passage, and he has just explained the difference between this age and that age, two entirely different ages, where this age we generate and procreate, we’re born, and keep it up over and over. And so those who did not believe that man ever resurrects asked him, to trip him up, he said: “Master, Moses in the law says that if a man marries and he dies leaving no off spring, his brother should marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Well, there were seven brothers and there was this first one who married her. He died; he left no off spring. The second married her, he died, no off spring. The third, the fourth and finally the seven married her, all died, leaving no children. In the end she died. Tell me, whose wife is she in the resurrection? And he answered, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage”—well, that Greek phrase in other Bibles that I have at home reads “the sons of this age procreate, they generate and they are born—“But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrections from the dead”—he looks upon this whole age as “the dead”—“they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die any more” (Luke 20:28- 36). Two entirely different ages!
Now he’s discussing that and now comes a questions he raises that is not related to anything in that chapter. So he turns to the same crowd who questions, he said, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” and they answer, “The son of David.” He replies, “Why then does David in the spirit call him Father?” The word is Adonai, translated “my Lord,” but in the ancient world every son referred to his father as “my Lord.” So he called him, my Lord. “If he calls him my Lord, how then can he be David’s son? And they asked him no more questions” (Mat.22:42). He is telling you he is God the Father, and God’s only begotten son has called him “my Father” in fulfillment of the 89th Psalm. For he said, “I have come to fulfill scripture; scripture must be fulfilled in me” (Luke22:37). “And beginning with Moses and the law and the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke24:27). That’s all that he came to do.
So your only purpose here while you play the game that you must play is to fulfill scripture. Everyone will fulfill scripture and prove the truth of the Word of God. In the meanwhile, while we are fulfilling scripture let us use God’s law wisely, lovingly, and live as graciously as we desire to live in this world. You can be…everyone can do it. I invite you to try it and make it just as simple a thing as my friend did with the rock. As the little girl (whose father is here) what she did with her trip, just simply closed her eyes, communed with self, in harmony with the 4th Psalm (verse 4), and within herself she thanked him for the fulfillment of what she wanted. Then in a matter of moments she got it…and three times, one after the other. Try it! Don’t burst a blood vessel, do it lightly, just as easy as she did, and see how it works while you wait patiently for the fulfillment of scripture in you.
As I stand before you, I can honestly say everything recorded in the gospel concerning Jesus Christ, from the birth to the descent of the dove, but everything recorded in those four gospels I, in the Spirit, have experienced… but every one of them. Yet I am a man as you are, with all the weaknesses, all the limitations. Everything that is man and that man is heir to I am. So it happens in the depths of the soul of man that is unblemished, untouched by the world of Caesar. It certainly didn’t happen here…this body was on the bed and sound asleep, and yet I, a conscious being, experienced it. So that conscious being animating this is untouched by what this garment is put through.
So don’t judge yourself harshly because you’ve done so and so. You may think you aren’t qualified, forget it! You’re qualified because God wears you. Every person in this world is a garment that God is wearing, but every person, and not one is better than the other because in the end all will be God the Father. And you can’t have one greater than the other. No two will be alike save they’re individualized and yet they are one. And now we come to the greatest of the great commandments, Master, what is the greatest commandment? “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut.6:4). Hear, O Israel: The I AM our I AMs is one I AM. This one I AM fragmented into all of us, and yet together it is a unity. It’s one, one made up of others, so that no two will be alike in the sense that you’ll be absorbed and I’ll be absorbed, and yet one will not be greater than the other. For all will be the father of God’s only begotten Son, therefore, God.
Now let us go into the Silence.
* * *
If you would like to tell the story as I’m telling it, may I encourage you to start. Start! If you feel that you aren’t qualified, forget it. A man or woman who tells me that he feels or she feels qualified to do it, I would suggest to them wait awhile. It’s when you feel that you’re inadequate…as Paul said, “Why should I?” As Moses said, “Why should I?” He stuttered; the other had a thorn in his side. And no one who does this work when they start really feels that he’s qualified. So don’t wait until you think you are ready one hundred percent, just start. It will come. All it needs is sincerity on your part. If you really want to do it, do it. Don’t ask anyone to ordain you, not in this work. There was no one who ordained Moses or ordained Paul, he simply started. He believed it, he tried it, he proved it, and then he told it. I started on my wife’s birthday, the second day of February, 1938. I started on a borrowed five dollar bill to pay the rent. The War was not on and in spite of what you might read in the papers we were still in the Depression, and there was not a job in sight. I rented the place at Steinway Hall for five dollars which sat about seventy. And that’s how I started. I didn’t charge…didn’t have the courage to charge. They either gave it because they loved me or they were embarrassed, and they paid the rent that night. Th ink six came. So it started from that little, little ___(??).
And may I tell you, again I speak from experience, I had no promotion, no ballyhoo, nothing, no money, completely unknown, but I wanted to tell it. And so, dressed in my best suit which was my tux, I sat in a chair. I think I went as long as fifteen minutes before I gave out, and then we asked questions. Now today, if my voice wouldn’t give out, I could go for hours and hours and hours. It never exhausts itself anymore. So I say to you who want to tell it, don’t wait until you’re prepared. You will never feel prepared. If you don’t feel like an artist feels on a first night, don’t do it. You must always feel like the artist on first night, always keyed up, always telling the greatest story ever told. So when you are…I’ve had six first nights on Broadway and I know the feeling, what it is to step before that audience and it’s all new. Everything back stage is all afi re, all electric, and you are one with it. Well, every time you take this platform you don’t take it lightly. You simply ___(??) that same thrill. You’re telling the greatest story in the world. So to you who want to do it, and I know many of you want to do it, may I tell you, do it! If you only have one…and the one will grow and grow and grow.
Now are there any questions?
Q: (inaudible)
A: No, my dear, when I go into the Silence not to ask for anything, just to enjoy the Silence, when I come out the hands are parched, my mouth is parched, and it acts almost like a diuretic. In fact, it acts like a diuretic.
Q: And you think that has nothing to do with telling the law?
A: No, I’m just sharing with those who will listen to me my own symptoms when I go into the Silence. But the little child certainly didn’t have parched hands and a dry mouth and she didn’t rush to the bathroom. She simply closed her eyes, communed with self, felt that she was actually, she was taking her friend with her to San Diego, and so convinced was she she said, “Th ank you”; then the mother had a change of heart and said “Yes, you may take her.” So don’t look upon these as outer symptoms. I told you these things only to share with you should you have them not to be disturbed, not to get excited…it’s a natural thing.
Q: When Jesus said, “I felt virtue go out of me” that didn’t pertain to that sort of thing, in helping someone? When the woman touched him, she received help. Doesn’t that go with giving help?
A: First of all, Ina, whenever you think of Jesus Christ think of Jesus Christ as your own wonderful being, not a “he” out there, walking like a flesh and blood being. It’s your own being, your own Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ. I will not deny wearing these garments of flesh and blood that we do wear them out, they do tire. And so, I know after a day of interviews I used to be completely pooped. I would give my all…I never took it lightly. So when I would say goodbye to the last one at five thirty in the afternoon, oh, the one thing I wanted was a good double or triple Scotch. I was simply completely gone. I was giving all day, and the body simply is an emotional filter. I would go into the Silence and feel intensely the good that someone asked me to hear for them.
So when I broke the spell and I said goodbye to them, took them to the elevator, that was something going out. At the end of a day of that, if you take it seriously you were tired. That’s why I don’t have any interviews. I’m pushing a thousand…you can’t get that old and just keep on forever.
Q: In reading scripture this morning, I came across “Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you…”
A: Well, the question is, in scripture this morning he is reading the passage, “Ask, seek…” read it for me again.
Q: “Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.” At the spiritual, at the deepest level, why the differentiation between these three directions ask, seek, knock?
A: Well, put…the question is ___(??) ask, seek and knock—he wants to know why the differentiation between asking, seeking and knocking. Really they aren’t. If you take the one, knocking…knock and it shall be opened unto you…we go to Revelation now for the interpretation. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will open unto me, I will come in and sup with him and he with me.” Well, who is the door? He said, “I am the door.” So that we can knock forever, but if I don’t open, then I don’t admit the solution of my problem. It is there knocking; I have to give acceptance to it. “Seek and ye shall find.” Well, you don’t go seeking. I’m looking for something and I’m told to assume that I have what I seek and I’ll find it. So I wouldn’t really tear them apart; it’s a unity.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Oh, my dear! The question is, would I tell the story of Adam and Eve and God. Well, that’s a whole, whole series of lectures. There is only God, my dear, in the world…there’s nothing but God. There’s no room for another. So the fall was not a mistake. It’s a plot, it’s a plan where God limits himself to the very limit of contraction, of opacity called man; for the purpose of then expanding beyond the translucence that was his prior to that decision to limit himself—because, there’s no limit to God’s expansion. If we think of a God that is already limitless in all things, then it’s not a God that could ever enjoy infinite expansion, infinite wisdom. So think of the infinity without boundaries. And to reach beyond where I am, limitless as I seem to be, I must come down to contraction and wear the garment of opacity; then break through like a seed breaking through. Have you ever seen a little seed coming through granite? I’ve seen them actually come through granite. You see them come through cement sidewalks…not through the I Am Is the Way 193 little crevice but actually break the whole thing through. Well, a seed must fall into the ground and die, the seed being God and God being his Word. It’s planted in this opacity called man, and it breaks through, and it’s God. There’s nothing but God! In fact, Yod He Vau He, which we interpret as God, as I AM, which we call it Jehovah, the He Vau He, which is the verb, its original meaning was “to fall, or the one who causes to fall”; or it was “to blow, or the one who causes the wind to blow.” So here, the descent was a design. We’re told that in the 3rd chapter of John: “No one ascends into heaven but he who first descended” (verse 13). So if the Son of man who is called Jesus Christ ascends, then he had to first descend. Well, that could not have been a mistake. No one can ascend but the one who descended. Well, it was God who descended. It was God who took the fall, in the sense of he limited himself to this [body]; and completely forgetting that he is God he’s not pretending that he’s me, he became me. He’s not pretending that he’s us. He emptied himself we are told in Philippians, completely emptied himself of his divine life and took upon himself the form of man; and finding himself in the form of a man became obedient unto death even the death on the cross of man (2:5). And from this restriction he’s breaking through, and when he actually breaks through he is greater than he was prior to his descent. Truth is an ever-increasing illumination and he said “I am the truth.” For you can enjoy ___(??) infinity forever and forever, but it is God’s purpose to ever expand. So, as the poet said, “Be patient”… someone asked about these four acts of creation here in this world…“Oh,” he said, “Be patient, for the great Master, the Poet, will show us in some fifth act what this wild drama means.” Just imagine what the fifth one is going to be. Q: Neville, as in the physical body where we have some voluntary muscles and organs and other involuntary things, is that the same truth prevalent on a spiritual level as the law is always voluntary and the act of God always involuntary?
A: Bill, I don’t know…
Q: In other words, all acts of God are involuntary, there are none induced?
A: As far as I’m concerned, every mystical experience I’ve ever had was involuntary.
Q: And the law was always voluntary…
A: The law, as far as I’m concerned, it’s an act on our part. We are the operant power…unless we operate, it doesn’t work. But as far as God’s will unfolding in us, it unfolds automatically, it’s involuntary. We don’t earn it; it’s grace, grace, grace and more grace.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Well, Ben, in this case, if you desire you would desire this consciousness only because God has sent the famine upon you. He said “I will send a famine upon the world. It will not be for bread or for the thirst of water, but for the hearing of the word of God” (Amos 8:11). So when that comes upon you, you may think, well now, I voluntarily seek him. No, the time has come upon you and when it’s upon you, not a thing in this world can satisfy that hunger but an experience of God.
Q: Does the use of the law have anything to do with the revelations? I mean could a person be unaware of the law and still have a mystical experience?
A: Why certainly, my dear. The law came after the Promise. The Promise is in the beginning. Paul personified in scripture, in Galatians, how would you take a book and personify it? Paul said, “Scripture foreseeing that the gentiles would be saved through faith,” then he goes on to say “Therefore Abraham…”—the whole thing begins in the loins of Abraham, it all comes out like the sands of the sea. Therefore Abraham was given a sort of preview of the gospel so he could say in the 8th of John “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (verse 56). Abraham saw your day when he lived 2,000 years before you were born—if you take it in that light. But the whole, all of us, saw the play. We saw it in its detail and then amnesia set in. We had to forget, and then we entered a foreign land which this land and we are slaves. We may have a million dollars, we may have tonight…many a multi-millionaire is a slave of his millions, can’t sleep, who is stealing from him, watching all things, he has no rest. If anyone comes near him, he wonders if they want my money? If you take a very, very wealthy young girl who is left, say, a hundred million dollars, beautifully invested—and we have in our land dozens of them, not publicized—but if publicized would they have any assurance at any time that the boy who sought their hand really loved them for themselves? I won’t mention names but you have in your mind’s eye, you can think of a dozen who have been married seven times and they at all times had to marry say one person with a title, a prince. Of all the silliness in the world, he’s a prince, and this one is so and so, this one’s a count. What title?—the only aristocracy that I would accept is the aristocracy of the Spirit—an aristocracy of flesh and blood that cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. We’re told that no one born of woman is greater than John, yet I tell you the least in the kingdom is greater than John. Well, take the greatest man who walks the face of the earth because of his stature, his intelligence, his know-how, his everything, he is not comparable to the least in the kingdom because he can’t get in with these qualifications. So the only aristocracy is the aristocracy of the Spirit.
Well, I’m away beyond my time, Mr. Fisher ___(??).
Well, thank you so much. And when I return if you’re on my mailing list, you will know where I am and all about it. Thanks.
