1/8/65
Falsehood is prophetic. If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what others think or wish about the matter? If I could present the evidence that a lie if persisted in will become a fact? This is based upon the simple, simple claim that imagining creates reality. So you could dream this night, not based upon fact, not based upon anything the world will tell you, just based purely upon a wish; and if you can succeed in persuading yourself of the reality of the state imagined, I tell you from experience it will become a fact. That’s why I claim falsehood is prophetic.
Many of us find the greatest force in the world by dint of fumbling, but because it’s not what we expected we discard it. The greatest force in the world is called in scripture Jesus Christ. Paul describes Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). Now here, a man by the name of Douglas Fawcett, he said, “The greatest secret in the world is the great secret of imagining.” He said, “It’s the greatest of all problems to the solution of which every mystic aspires, because if you really discover its secret, you will find supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight.” That is the order in which he places it. This is the same order in which Paul places Jesus Christ: Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. But man thinks of Christ as someone coming from without, in human form, other than himself. And so when he finds this power or stumbles upon it, he can’t quite recognize this is the power of which Paul spoke. It didn’t come clothed in human form as something other than himself, and so he can’t quite recognize it.
Now let me share with you a story taken from William Butler Yeats in his essays of Ideas of Good and Evil. These are two personal stories; he swears to the truth of the two stories. And then he tells a third story, which I think many of you must have read. But the first story is this. He said, I was spending a little while in Paris. I was staying with some friends in Paris. I got up one morning, quite early on Sunday morning, came downstairs, and as I came downstairs I was telling myself one of those silly, stupid stories that man tells only to himself, that if something had happened that didn’t happen, I could have hurt my arm. So I imagined myself with my arm in a sling. As I passed by I saw the maid clearing the table for breakfast. I greeted her. I went through the door to get the morning paper, and when I came back my host and hostess met me in the door and inquired about my injured arm. They said the maid had told them that I had my arm in a sling. Well, they saw that my arm is not in a sling; either…I had my papers in one and the other free.
And then I explained to them what had happened. I had cast a spell upon that maid so vividly that she saw me as I saw myself. I had imagined myself with a broken or an injured arm, and so vividly did I assume it as I walked by just looking at her she saw me with more than the mind’s eye. She saw it as something that was real—luckily for him, because we are always reaping what we sow. He planted a seed of a self-injury. Had he not been reminded of his own stupid planting, he would have reaped it in the not distant future, but he would not have remembered that he planted it. We see our harvest and we do not recognize our own harvest. He would have stepped upon some banana peel or some other thing and injured the arm, but he would never have related it to something he had done in his Imagination. But this happened so quickly, all within a matter of hours: he came down, he saw the maid, he imagined himself with the injured arm, she saw him as he saw himself, told it to his host and hostess, so when he returned he could be reminded of a stupid, stupid thing that he had done; and therefore he ridiculed it by bringing it to light and discussing it.
Now, did he realize that very power that he set in motion that could do this to a maid was Christ? Or was William Butler Yeats still looking for a personal Christ outside of himself? I don’t think he was looking for something outside of himself. He was one of those wise, wonderful Irishmen, like the A.E.s, altogether different people, the mystics of the world. And I’m quite sure he found in that experience Jesus Christ as his own wonderful human Imagination. When he finds him in really the true sense of the word he’s going to find himself. You will never find him save you find him through the symbolism. And so, just as he was born, Yeats is going to discover he was born. And just as he discovers the fatherhood of God, Yeats will discover it. And just as he discovered the ascent of the serpent in the wilderness, he will discover it. And just as the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, in the form of a dove, Yeats will discover it. He will know who Christ really is: Christ is his own wonderful human Imagination.
Now, this is what he said, “Just about the same time, one afternoon, just after this thing happened to me, I thought intently about a fellow student. I wanted to deliver a message to him, but I hesitated to put it in the form of a letter. Then, two days later, after I intently thought of my fellow student, a letter came from hundreds of miles away from that student. He said in his letter to me that I suddenly appeared in a hotel among many, many people. He approached me and I seemed to be in bodily form; I seemed as solidly real as I’ve ever been to anyone. He asked me to leave and return later when the people had departed. That night after midnight I returned and gave him the message, which message he enclosed in his letter to me…the identical message I intended to give him.” Now, he said, “I have no conscious knowledge of that visit, but none. I do remember the incident of the injured arm. That was brought forward so vividly I could relate it to what I had done. But this, I have no conscious knowledge whatsoever. I’m going there into the hotel among numberless people, and then returning after midnight to be seen by the man, and deliver a message that he could actually write on paper, which I have in my possession. I have his letter giving me the message that he said he received from me. I have no knowledge of that.”
But, he said, “To show you that others also thought as I think, I will now tell you one more of my own personal experiences—although I could tell you things that would startle the Imagination—but I will now quote, said he, the story of The Gypsy Scholar by Joseph Vandal(?).” And he quotes the story of the gypsy scholar that inspired Matthew Arnold to write his poem about the gypsy scholar, and this is the story. There was a lad at Oxford University, but poverty drove him to stop his studies; and then the pressure grew more and more intense because he had to live, and so he joined a band of gypsies, a group of gypsies. One day, by chance, two passed by and they recognized him and he recognized them, they were friends of his at Oxford. By a sign, he asked them not to identify him in the midst of the gypsies. Then he went to one of them and said to this one, “Take your friend to an inn and I will join you shortly,” which he did. They inquired, they asked him, “Why? What is all this about that you an Oxford student living with this stupid group of people?” Well, he explained to them the reason why—the necessity was so great that he had to leave Oxford because of his poverty. “But they are not the imposters that you think they are. They have a peculiar tradition of learning, which they have taught me, and I have acquired all of it, and I have added to what they have given to me beyond what they themselves can give. It’s all about the power of Imagination.”
“Now, I will tell you best by demonstrating it to you. I will leave you for awhile, and when I return I will tell you what you discussed in my absence”…which he did. He explained in detail all that they had discussed in his absence. Well, they were flabbergasted and they asked, “How did you do it?” He said, “I did it by the power of Imagination. My fantasy led yours; you had no choice in the matter. I determined in detail what you would discuss, so you had no choice whatsoever. I learned from them that there’s a certain warrantable means by which you can heighten the Imagination, and bend another’s, and they have to echo what you do.” Now, he said to them, “When I have learned all that I can from them, I will leave them and give it to the world.” Now, this man, by the Encyclopedia Britannica, lived in the 17th Century. He died in 1680, I think it was, but I wonder where the book is that he gave to the world? I wish he had written the book, because this is supposed to be a true story. The complete control of your own Imagination influences the behavior of everyone that you encounter in this world, that everyone only acts and reflects what you are doing within yourself.
Now, I’ll go back to the second story where he appeared and he was not aware that he had appeared, but there was the evidence, the letter was the evidence. That was what he had intended to tell this student. The letter came forty-eight hours later from hundreds of miles away, telling him that he appeared, seemingly in the flesh, and he spoke because he delivered the message. He returned a second time within an interval of hours, after midnight, and made this wonderful statement.
Well, many years ago in New York City, a very dear friend of mine, an old, old lady, she was a darling, her name was Alice Bentley…we all called her Ali-Ben. She was a strange, weird creature, a friend of Gurdjeff, Ouspensky, that entire crowd were intimates of Ali Ben. In fact, they rented her studio in Carnegie Hall, which she kept until the day she died. In fact, back in 1939 when the War broke in Europe, I was spending two weeks up in her place on the Canadian border-—a weird, strange place…rows of trees where males could, if they wanted to, sunbathe in the nude on one side and the females on the other. But Ali didn’t care if they mixed. That was Ali. She walked barefoot all through the grass. And Ali would prepare these three meals a day for us. And I spent my two weeks vacation up on this strange area.
Well, Ali came to see me in my room, my apartment, and she told me that things were a little bit pressing at the moment, I mean, fi nancially. And then, the next day Ali came again, and this is her story. She said, “This morning, in the wee hours of the morning”—-and she mentioned the lady’s name who was the head of the seven restaurants in the hotel where Ali lived; she ran the restaurants and all things of that nature—-“and she said as she came into the room…she knocked on the door, rang the bell. Ali opened the door in the wee hours of the morning, and here came this lady. She took her purse and she emptied the contents of the purse into Ali’s lap and said, ‘Neville has just appeared in my room and my room was locked, bolted, no one could enter, but he appeared in bodily form. He said, ‘Go down to Ali and give her all that you have in your purse.’” She said, “It was such an authoritative voice I could not resist it, and so here I am only obeying an order, and it’s all yours!” Well, Ali needed that money at that moment to pay rent.
Now, I consciously could not have done that. In fact, I would not have done that. I would not persuade anyone in this world to give something to another against their will, or even try to persuade them that they should do it. But Ali came to me that day and told me her need, and then I assumed, that’s all that I did, that she had what she wanted. Now, what in this strange, peculiar world of man possessed me to objectify myself beyond closed doors into this woman’s room and to tell her that? She could hear every word I said, “You go downstairs to Ali and you give Ali all that is now in your purse,” which was more than adequate for Ali to pay what she needed at the moment and to have something over. That I know is an unconscious act on my part, but I have done it consciously, just as he did it consciously and he was reminded. For, 2,000 miles across water I have made myself appear to my sister, and have her see me, and actually look at me, and try to rub her eyes, saying, “It’s not…it’s a dream,” and I’m still where I assumed I was. No matter what she did she could not rub me out. Then she wrote me a letter, which I got eight days later, written that same day. So I know the truth of William Butler Yeats’ statement: You can either do it unconsciously or consciously.
Now, this comes back to the thought of the night that falsehood is prophetic. You can start on a premise that has no basis in fact, but none whatsoever, and it makes no difference. You could assume this night that you are the man that you want to be, the woman that you want to be, at any station in life; and if you are willing to assume that you are it, and remain faithful to that assumption as though it were true, I tell you, no power in this world can stop it. For you are dealing with the only power in the world. Christ is the power and the wisdom of God and Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Christ. And one day you will discover it. You will awaken—not another telling you—you will awaken, and every symbol recorded in scripture concerning his birth, his discovery of the fatherhood, his discovery of his ascent, his discovery of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, will be yours. And it will be all you, no other but yourself to witness everything in this world.
So you discover the power, and the power is your own wonderful human Imagination. But before you are born into this higher world, you exercise it here, anyway. You are called upon and invited to try it and to test it to the fullest extent. I don’t care what the world will tell you…take anyone in this world. At this very moment, suppose now my left hand had an itch on this area. The left hand can’t reach it. The right hand could, or my ___(??) could, or the table could, but the hand itself that is injured cannot aid itself. May I tell you, we are all one in this world, we’re all one: There’s only God playing all the parts. And so if one is injured in this world, and you’re made aware of it, you’re called upon to exercise your Imagination lovingly on behalf of that other. There is no other! So just as this hand comes and takes care of this itch because it cannot help itself when someone is so close to the picture—-they are impoverished or they are in pain, or they are in some way distressed and you are made aware of their distress—all you need do is to imagine that they are what they would like to be, just as you yourself would like to be. You always have a code: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You can’t go wrong. Would you have it done to you were it your position that you were distressed? Well then, do it to another. Doesn’t cost you a penny, it costs just one moment of time to imagine that things are for them as you would like it for them. And then believe in the reality of your imaginal act.
Faith is an act in which God acts. Really, if you really believe it, God is acting. Blake made the statement: “God only acts and is in existing beings or men; therefore, let us to him who only is, who walks among us, give decision.” Well, who walks among them?—-our Imagination. This is the power that walks among us, because when you speak of Christ in scripture, always think of the power of God and the wisdom of God…that’s Christ. Personified? Yes, you are a person, aren’t you, and you imagine, well, that’s Christ. You are Christ. If you do not now know it, may I tell you, you will know it. You’ll know it the day you are born; when you are born from above you will know it. And no power in this world, no being in this world, could argue you out of it. They can’t do it!
All of these strange little isms in the world that organized around this greatest of all mysteries—and made such, I would say, a mess of it—-that is not Christ. Just as you’re seated here and you’re listening, if I can fi re you to the point of making you go out and apply it, so you would try it, you would lay your hands upon Christ. Maybe you would not believe it even after you have proven it, but try it again. And try it again. But the day will come, you will have to believe it when the symbolism of scripture begins to unfold within you and you are born from above. Then no one can deny it after that moment in time. Up to that moment, there may still be a moment of hesitation…that could this really be Christ? I am telling you from my own personal experience, it is Christ. Christ is the power and the wisdom of God.
There is nothing impossible to God, but nothing. I don’t care what the verdict is today that some wise man has given you-—whether it be a medical verdict, a verdict of a bank. Here’s a silly little something that happened to me this past week. I went to the bank on Monday to make a small deposit and to get some change for Tuesday night here. From the bank I went over to Martindale’s and bought the New York Times and a couple of magazines. Then I went to Jurgensen’s and bought some small little item, on Beverly, and then I went home. I had not occasion to check monies, I don’t check money, and so the next day on my way to the barber I did feel, well, do I have enough to pay him? So I put my hand in my pocket and, alright, there’s money there. I pulled it out and I had twenty dollars more than I should have. I didn’t recall that I had that, so I asked my wife if she put twenty dollars in my pocket and she said no. Then I thought, could they have over changed, I mean, given me more money than I really should have received? I only bought a few magazines, a paper…they couldn’t have given me twenty dollars. I thought, maybe it’s the girl at the bank. So I said, well, I go to the bank on Wednesday anyway to make a deposit, so I will ask.
So when I went to the bank on Wednesday she was not on duty. So I went to another teller and I asked where the lady was. She said, “There’s no lady at that window, ever.” I said, “Oh yes, there was a lady there last Monday.” “Oh no,” she said, “Never. There’s always a man there.” I said, Well, as far as I am concerned, there was a lady there last Monday and I owe her twenty dollars. Well, that got her ears up…I want twenty dollars. So she called the manager over. The manager came over and he heard my story. I said, The lady who was there, she’s a brunette, and she was there last Monday, and I owe her twenty dollars, because I didn’t discover the mistake until yesterday on the way to the barber. It’s not my twenty dollars, it’s hers. And so, he thought that this is an insane situation. I said, Yes, I owe it; it’s not my money. I can’t keep it, it’s not mine; it belongs to her. Then, when he seemed so dumbfounded I said, you know, I have to live with myself. I don’t live with another, I live with myself, and it isn’t my twenty, it has to go to her. I had just made a deposit, so they knew who I was.
So, two hours later, when I got home the phone rang and this lady called, and this is what she said—so I don’t trust banks, they’re just as fallible as we are—“Oh,” she said, “Mr. Goddard, this is Mrs. So and So. Oh yes, when we put the thing through the IBM, we discovered the mistake.” Now, that’s a stupid, impossible situation. You can’t discover that mistake at all. I put in two checks and should have put in a twenty dollar bill? There was no way in eternity that any IBM could ever fi nd out that I didn’t put in a twenty dollar bill, none. Then she said to me over the phone, “But you must have received our notice, mailed to you on Monday night to this discrepancy.” I said, no, this is now Wednesday, my mail has already arrived, and it hasn’t come. It didn’t come yesterday. Well, who is kidding whom? See, banks can’t make a mistake, so they have to act this way. Instead of being honest about it, as I was honest about it, they’ve got to play this stupid little game that they can’t make a mistake. So this thing was out on Monday…they were supposed to have sent this to me on Monday and it was mailed post-dated yesterday, Thursday, after they discovered…yes, at the end of the day, an IBM machine can tell you if you have less than what you should have. Certainly that’s possible, but to tell you that on one deposit a twenty dollar bill wasn’t there? It can’t be done, that’s all there is to it. She knew it and they knew it, and still it would take someone who was honest about the whole thing to save her her twenty dollars. For all I was trying to do was be honest with her and give her back the twenty dollars that she stupidly gave me.
So, all of this happens in this wonderful world of ours. May I tell you, if you really wanted to live in a dishonest manner you could live that way forever. I’m not kidding you, you could forever…and not twenty, multiply it…without in any way hurting, not hurting, but I mean without in any way doing what the world does with violence. You could do it without violence. I used no violence to get twenty dollars. The whole thing is one’s own wonderful human Imagination. But be honest because you aren’t stealing from anyone in this world but yourself. Only one being plays all the parts, and that one being is God; and God and his power and his wisdom are one; and God is your own wonderful human Imagination.
So here, when you speak of a falsehood, yes, a falsehood is prophetic. You can assume at this very moment what at the moment of your assumption is completely denied by your senses, by reason, by everything. But if you are willing to live in that assumption, believing that your imaginal act is God in action—in that act God acts, and nothing in this world is impossible to God—if you are willing to assume that state, no power in this world can stop your assumption from externalizing itself within this world, but no power! Now you try it. I’m asking everyone here in this current session to try it and share with me your results. You won’t fail. But if you tell me how it worked in your case, I can tell it from the platform to others and encourage others that may be waking. You and I should be able to have the most fantastic stories. Don’t take something little, take something big, something wonderful, for yourself and for the seeming other. There really is no other, but for the seeming other. Lift everyone up to the height in your own mind’s eye, and, may I tell you, everyone will realize your every imaginal act for them. When you sit quietly and assume a certain state for another, you are literally mediating God to that other. Really! Because your imaginal act is God in action, that’s God.
So let no one tell you you’re going to meet him coming from the outside. You will never in eternity meet him coming from the outside. You’re going to meet him in yourself, in the symbolism as described in scripture. You will be the one you meet; you are he. When you meet infi nite love, yes, that’s the one being where we all are gathered one by one, into this one man who is God. But you are gathered as Jesus Christ. Believe it! I am telling you what I have experienced. I am not speculating, I am not theorizing. I am telling you what I know from my own personal experience. So let them talk about all of the outside Jesuses and all the outside this, that and the other. Listen to these words of Blake: “I know of no other Christianity and no other gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination—Imagination, the real and eternal world of which this vegetable world is a mere shadow; and in which we shall live in our eternal and imaginative bodies after the death of these vegetable mortal bodies” ( Jerusalem, Plate 77).
Now listen to this, “The apostles knew of no other gospel.” Can you imagine that statement? The apostles knew of no other gospel. And here you think they follow the man. They aren’t following any man! The fi rst expression of the earliest Christians, they were called “the people of the Way”—capital W-a-y. It was a way of life. That’s what they were called. It was years and years, generations later that they were called Christians. They were simply called “the people of the Way.” You want to check it? Read the 9th chapter of the Book of Acts, which originally was part of the Book of Luke (verse 2). They were one book, only our church fathers separated the two books and divided them by the Book of John. But Luke-Acts once formed one book. So the earliest followers of this fantastic mystery were called “the people of the Way.”
And so, this is the Way. What Way? He said, “I am the Way.” Can’t you say, “I am?”— well, that’s the Way. The way to what? The way to everything in this world, but, specifi cally, the way to the Father: “No one comes unto the Father but by me” (Jn. 14:6). I’ll tell you exactly who he is and he tells us exactly who he is: “I am the Father.” And yet, I’m going to lead me to the Father? Yes, I am the Father and I will lead you to the Father. Well, how can you lead me to the Father; you say you’re the Father? Well, you follow my Way. “I am the Way. I am the truth. I am the light” revealed. You follow it closely and the day will come it will happen in you, and you will know that you are the Father. So, I am the Father, said he, I am the way to the Father. So this is the Way that everyone comes to the Father.
What a mystery! Are we not told, “Great is the mystery of our religion.” Man thinks it is something way down here in some secular state. It isn’t so at all. It’s a fantastic mystery: Your own wonderful human Imagination is God. But man doesn’t know it. He stumbles upon it, he fumbles upon it. I couldn’t help but think this day of one that I do not know personally, but I almost look upon him as a friend because of what has been said about him. You’ve heard me-—those who have been coming over the last year—you’ve heard me speak of Eddie, haven’t you? Well, Eddie stumbled upon this, but Eddie doesn’t know it is Christ. He entered the point of being afraid that he may disturb Nature. He’s afraid of using the power that he stumbled upon. Because he doesn’t know he stumbled upon Christ, he may use some little implement, like a piece of steel to rub against another piece of steel. But he actually stumbled upon Christ. Well, millions stumble upon Christ and they are afraid. The power is so fantastic they are afraid, because they don’t think that could be Christ. They’re looking for him to come from without in some peculiar form, as artists over the centuries have painted him, and you aren’t going to fi nd him that way at all.
Just as we told you last Tuesday, he comes unknown, without a name, and suddenly you are he. You actually discover that you are the being that you worshipped in the past, and heard about in the past, and followed in the past. And suddenly you are he. For everything said about him happens to you, and you are he. There’s not one person in the world who calls you… you are all alone. Then you know why it is said, “And God is one”—not one person is in that vault, that tomb when you awake, just you. Not one aids you getting out, just you…only the symbolism of the witnesses, and they can’t see the one. The one moves up and the one in whom he descends, it’s all you.
So I tell you, you’re assumption this night need not be based upon fact. Must I wait to have confi rmation that I have security before I assume that I am secure? Well, that’s no power, that’s none. When I am not secure, when I’m insecure, let me dare to assume that I am secure. When I am unwell, as you’re told in the Book of Joel, “Let the weak man say, ‘I am strong’” (3:10). If something is going wrong, let me dare to assume that things are as I desire them to be, then I can prove this power. But to wait for things to change in the world fi rst, no, I don’t care what the world will tell you. Test it this night and test Christ in you. Jesus Christ in man is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27) and Jesus Christ in you is your own wonderful human Imagination.
It may seem blasphemous, it may seem this is the height of something that shouldn’t be in the world, but I’m telling you from my own experience, it is true. In every generation it happens to the one who has been sent. When you are called and sent…listen to the words carefully: “To the Jews it’s a stumbling block and to the Greek it is folly, but to those who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). And the wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Well, isn’t it foolish to say I am what everything denies? Well, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, so you simply assume the lie and prove that the falsehood is prophetic. If you are faithful to your assumption, no power in the world can stop it. For if Yeats told the true story…I only know that the stories I told you about myself, of Ali Ben, and of my sister, they were true. I did not keep the letter from my sister, but she is still in this world of ours. My wife was present when the letter came and a friend of mine who now lives in Florida was present the night the letter came, and so we have evidence in a tangible form that I was seen. And I deliberately wanted to be seen, 2,000 miles across water. So where am I? Am I not all Imagination? She saw me as something bodily present in her world. If I am all Imagination, I must be where I am in Imagination. So when Yeats was seen hundreds of miles away by the student, the fellow student, and he delivered the message, he spoke, there was something about it. And when this lady, only next door in New York City, how can I get through her closed room, the door was bolted? Because it was bolted and she heard my voice, and the voice spoke with authority, she was so stunned she had no choice in the matter, she had to obey the command. Well, do you see the power that is in man, what man can do? Use it lovingly! Whenever you are using it lovingly, you are using it wisely. Don’t go off…because you can use it, and use it in some strange, peculiar way. There’s nothing but God in this world and everyone is God. God is playing all the parts.
Now let us go into the Silence and use our Imaginations lovingly, and start this night with what the world would call a falsehood. I tell you it is prophetic. Take something that has not happened that you want to happen, and assume that it has. Just live in that state and may I tell you, it will become a fact. Let us go… * * *
Q: (inaudible)
A: ___(??) around any ism. I am told by those who supposedly know—-I don’t know how true it is—-that the present movement called Christian Science is so unlike the original thought as given to the world by Mrs. Eddy. That’s what some people tell me…those who’ve been in the movement for years, those who are practitioners. But, after a while a group gets around a certain thought and organizes it into big business. Now, how true that is, I don’t know. But after all, let us consider that we have a Christian faith today, but it really wasn’t organized until four hundred years after. It was only at the very end, 394 or 396, when there was an organization around the thought. Well, no one living then knew. They were not people of vision, not people who had the experience. It was all an oral tradition and a few writings, and so they simply tried to give meaning to it. From then on they got bigger and bigger and bigger, but they were not the people who had the vision. When you heard tonight’s thought from one whose whole life was vision: “The apostles knew of no other gospel”…let me go back and quote: “I know of no other gospel, no other Christianity, but none, than the arts…the liberty of both body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination.” And the apostles knew of no other gospel? Today we have churches called Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint John, Saint Andrew, as though they worshipped something on the outside and not the power and the wisdom of God.
Now, this doesn’t go easily with people who really believe in some personal external being. But there is none. I can go through my entire Bible and show you. “If anyone should ever come to you saying ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it” (Mark 13:21). Why? Well, go to the epistle of John: “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn. 3:2). Well, have you ever seen any picture in this world that looked like you that was called Christ Jesus? Have you ever seen any, anyone? Well, if you haven’t seen anyone that looked like you and they called that Christ Jesus, don’t believe it! For when he appears, you are just like him. That’s from the epistle of John, the third chapter of the 1st epistle of John. So when he comes, he comes and you are he. There is no other. God became man, became humanity, and everyone is being individualized as God. This is the story.
But you try this tonight. Take a test, the most supreme test. I don’t care how diffi cult the problem, try it. Nothing is impossible to God. If you know some problem, assume it, assume the solution, and in that imaginal act God is acting.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Well, whether it be a political system or religious system or any system, when they become so big and so organized they just simply keep alive by their sheer power. I’m not here to disturb any organized religion in the world. As far as I’m concerned it really doesn’t matter. He calls us one by one, not by groups. He singles us out, one by one, as you’re told in the 27th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “I will call you one by one, O people of Israel” (verse 12). Everyone is called singly, not called in pairs. He sees only the heart. When the heart…as he said, “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart, who will do all my will. From this posterity he has brought forth a Savior, Jesus, as he promised” (Acts 13:22, 23). So everyone that he brings forth is Jesus. In the end there is only Jesus, and you are he.
Any other questions, please?
Q: What is your perception of the relationship of Jesus to God…the same thing?
A: To me, God is Jesus. When Blake was asked, What do you think of Jesus? he didn’t hesitate, he said, “Jesus is the only God. But so am I, and so are you.” There is nothing but Jesus. Jesus is the awakened God from this, I would say, adventure, where God imposed upon himself the limitation called man, for a purpose of expansion beyond that creative power that was his prior to this venture. There is no limit to expansion, no limit to his translucency; but he did place a limit to his opacity, to his contraction. His contraction is man, called Adam; the opacity in scripture is called Satan, which is “to doubt, to disbelieve.” And so, he has placed that opacity upon man; that opacity upon man is the thing he took upon himself. He emptied himself of his primal form and took upon himself the form of man…(tape runs out) (Phil. 2:6).
