2/2/65
Tonight’s subject I would call “The Smile.” There’s a poem of Blake’s and in this poem he speaks of many smiles, and you and I have enjoyed or witnessed the smiles. There’s the smile of love, and there’s the smile of deceit, and there’s a smile where the two smiles meet. And he speaks of the many smiles. But then he comes to the one smile which comes within the cradle and the grave, and when this smile—-and only this smile once—-and when this smile is smiled once there’s an end to all misery. So the whole vast world has been on a journey moving towards this one smile, and when it takes place, then the journey is at an end and he enters an entirely different world…but not until he finds that smile. So tonight, we’ll take it from here.
If I said to you, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” if you are brutally honest, the chances are you would say, No, I really don’t. I would like to believe it, I hope so, but no, I have no assurance that he is in me…if you are honest in your answer to my question. And if I quoted from scripture from the Book, say, of Luke: And the angel came to Mary and said, “You have found favor with God…and you will conceive in your womb and raise up a son, and you’ll call his name Jesus.” And she said to the angel, “How can this be, for I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most Holy, of the highest, will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (1:28-36). Now here we are told he came to one and said to her that she found favor with God, and finding favor with God that God himself would come upon her, overshadow her, and what is to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. Well, the Son of God is called Jesus Christ. So if I said to you, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” and you don’t know it, you are totally unaware of the fact that you are Mary. You’re totally unaware of the fact that he’s already come to you and overshadowed you. Overshadowed in scripture means “to superimpose,” and so here, he superimposed himself upon you, and that’s his image.
Well, how did he do it? In the same way that…today our scientists cannot discover how a sperm so easily passes through the surface of an egg, although the outside of the egg has no holes in it, either before or after the fertilization. So how did he pass through me? I am totally unaware of it; I have no knowledge that this thing happened, and yet scripture can not be broken. And so I’m told that he actually found me to the point where I was favored by him, and then he passed through me, and that’s his imprint. Just as a sperm passes through the egg…and there are no holes on the surface of the egg…passes through, fertilizes, and then something entirely different comes out from that egg. Well, the same thing happens here with us. That’s what we’re told in scripture. Well, do you believe it? Do you really believe that the Holy Spirit came upon you, because it found you to the point where it favored you, and then passed through, left its imprint, and that imprint, which is the image of God, is called Jesus Christ? Well, Jesus Christ is the power and wisdom of God. It’s the sperm of God.
Now, that shocks man to hear that. To think that God would actually impregnate man, I mean generic man, and leave his imprint upon man, and have it develop within man, and then have it brought forth from man. And when it’s brought forth, it comes forth with a smile. And when it comes forth with a smile, you who bore it, you hold it in your hands, and you see it in your hands. You hold it and it smiles, it really smiles. So this story of Blake in a simple little, I think four or five verses, in his little statement called Pickering Manuscript, that’s where he wrote it—-it’s called The Smile. You can’t miss it. And he tells it so beautifully that when this smile is beheld by you all miseries come to an end, for it’s an entirely different world that you enter after the smile.
Now, I tell you, you are bearing the Son of God, and when he comes forward and you hold him in your own hands, he will smile. It’s the most heavenly smile! And you will know you hold in your hands Christ Jesus… he’s always a child. But then, if you are holding in your own hands and you gave birth to him then you must be Mary, for this story is given to Mary. I never thought I was Mary. But here, if I gave birth to Christ Jesus and held him in my own hands and he smiles, and I saw this heavenly smile that freed me now forever from all the miseries through which I have passed, well then, I must be Mary, and as Mary I must be the wife of God for the Lord came upon me. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, well, that’s God. But did he not promise me in the beginning that if he took me as wife he would never leave me? That he would cleave to me until he became one with me, one person? But I don’t see him, I don’t feel him; I see the child that I bore. And is it a shame that I who did not have a husband bore the child? Is it a shame, am I being disgraced? I have the child, it’s my child, and I can’t find the father of the child. It must have a father, for I am the mother; I bore the child.
Now, where is the father? All I have to do is wait, for this is the beginning of an entirely new age. We think of the ancients that came a way before us; the prophets, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, all these came a way in the past. Nothing comes before this event: “Before Abraham was, I am”…this is the child speaking. Before the whole world was, I am. Is it true that not a thing in this world preceded Christ? Yes, nothing came before Christ. “I am the first of his acts of old.” The first act is to produce his creative power in that of a child, Christ. But now I must wait. I have seen the child…am I a harlot? For here I brought forth…I can’t find the father…but I did give birth to him and I don’t know how I became impregnated. But here is the child. And so I wait, and then in a few months suddenly there’s an explosion within me, and there stands before me the one that can tell me the name of the father.
We have to go back now to John…we started with Blake and we went to Luke…we go to John, it’s the 1st chapter of John: “No one has ever seen God; but the only begotten Son, in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (verse 18). There are many translations of this text, but the most ancient of the script speaks of “the only begotten Son,” something that is not born, something that is begotten. To beget is of the Father. There are two ways in which we can consider birth, either from the side of the father, in which the verb is “to beget”; or we can consider it from the side of the mother, in which the verb is “to bear.” In this case John uses the verb “to beget” which is from the Father, and so, it’s a begotten Son. That no one knows the Father, no one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he has made him known.
And so, from the beginning, when Christ appears in man, you hold him. Then man who is all Imagination begins to expand. Can’t stop it…he’s reached the limit of contraction, the child is born and he begins to expand. As he begins to expand, the next expansion is a complete explosion and here stands the begotten. It isn’t born, it’s a begotten son. So I search all over the scriptures and there is only one place I can find any son that was begotten: And here, in the 2nd chapter, the 7th verse of Psalms, you see the words “And he said to me, ‘You are my son, this day I have begotten you.’” “I begot you”…how did I beget you? In the same way that fame begets envy. I reach a certain degree of expansion and automatically at that moment of expansion, then I beget. It’s automatic, just as one becomes famous in this world and envy rises in the world. So fame begets envy. And my degree of spirituality at a certain degree of power, of outstanding power, then the Son appears, he’s begotten, and here stands in my presence David. David looks at me and there’s no doubt how I begot him: he’s my Son and I am his Father.
Then I start…I thought David preceded me. Today, 1965, I thought he preceded me by 3,000 years. And now I realize the truth that no one preceded me: Before the world was, I am. And David whom I thought was a character 3,000 years ago suddenly is a contemporary; and he’s not only contemporary, he’s my son. Then I go back in time, as I begin to expand, and suddenly…I thought the temple, the ark of old, was 4,000 years ago, and I find that it wasn’t. I find that suddenly the ark is my own being, and it’s torn in two from top to bottom. And I thought that Moses was something unnumbered years ago, who took a rod and made it into a serpent and lifted it up, that he certainly was my ancestor by unnumbered centuries, and he wasn’t. Finally, I am actually enacting all these things within my being. I thought when the dove went out of the ark and it made three trips; and the first, it came back and Noah took it into the ark. Then it was sent out again and it came back with an olive leaf…olives grow only at low altitudes, therefore, the water is subsiding. And then he sent out the third time and it doesn’t come back; therefore, he knows that the earth has been brought up; for on the third day the earth rose up out of the deep, so it doesn’t come back. I thought the dove was something that was unnumbered years ago, centuries ago before the world as we understood it, and it wasn’t so at all. So I know before Abraham was, before the world was, I am.
But it only begins with the smile of the child. Not until that child appears in your world do you really begin to unfold, and not a thing preceded you. And so he sends his angel Gabriel (“the hero of God”) and he tells Mary “You have found favor with God, and you will conceive in your womb and you will bear a son and call his name Jesus (Jehovah saves).” And she enquired, “Well, how can this be, for I have no husband?” He replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and that which will be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:26). She doesn’t understand it. For if I am told in scripture, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” then I must be Mary… for Jesus Christ contains…or, rather, Mary contains Jesus Christ. But she doesn’t understand how it happened. When did it happen? When did he overshadow me? When did he superimpose himself upon me and left his imprint that I had then to develop within me and bring forth as a child? I don’t remember. And no one really remembers, but were it not for that imprint no one would be alive.
So God impregnated you, individually, with his own impression, his own image…and that is Jesus Christ. And the day will come, you will actually give birth to Jesus Christ, and he’s always a little child. Don’t think of him as any great big man; you are the being. It’s always the little child wrapped in swaddling clothes and you are holding. And when you hold him and look into his face you will say whatever you will say in some sweet, wonderful, endearing manner…and a smile you’ve never known before. How beautifully Blake caught it in that short little poem, The Smile: And when once it is smiled then all miseries come to an end. For this is the journey of labor; this is the journey where you and I as the bride of the Lord, like slaves, bearing his son, and when the moment of delivery is upon us and we bring forth the son we are set free to bring forth this son, the infant child. And a heavenly smile…that you’ve never seen a smile like it. Oh, there are all kinds of smiles, as he said, the smile of love, yes. ___(??) the smile of love. We also smile the smile of deceit, and we mix them together, and smiles where the two smiles meet. But this smile is something entirely different, that no one but the one who has experienced it, holding the infant that smiles into his face, could ever describe. And even he cannot with his limited words describe what actually takes place when he holds the infant Christ.
But from then on, he’s started…he’s reached the limit of contraction now…and then he starts to expand. The first expansion is the birth of the smiling child, and then comes the begotten. This is born, you bore it; but the next one is begotten: “Thou art my son, my only begotten son,” and he tells you who you are. You have no knowledge of who the father of that child was until a further expansion, and there’s the Son, the begotten Son. When he comes and you look at him, you ask no words; you know exactly who he is and you know who you are. You know the relationship. Now you know if God is the Father of this only begotten Son, and you are his father, then you know who you are. So “No one has ever seen God; but the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of God, he has made him known” (John 1:18). Now we understand these words of Blake, “Ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination.” Imagination reaches its limit of contraction and then at that minute it begins to expand, and the first result of that expansion is the Christ child. And the second is the begotten Son of God, and you know who you are. And then from then on you grow forever and forever.
And yet all these things you’ve thought a way back in time are all contained within you, so nothing came before Christ. So the stories of the past of our wonderful prophets…and we think Moses lived unnumbered years ago…and I know from my own experience he didn’t live before me. I know from my own experience that Abraham and David came after me. Nothing comes before Christ, nothing. So when Christ appears in one’s world it’s the beginning of the expansion of the individual in whose world he appears. And then everything comes after that. It’s the most fantastic picture but it’s true. Nothing comes before Christ. So we speak of B.C., before creation, alright. “Eternity exists,” said Blake, “and all things in eternity independent of creation which was an act of mercy.” So comes the act of creation and he chooses me, as he’s chosen us, and then he superimposes himself upon us, and leaves his imprint…that’s the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. And then it develops within me, within us; and when it reaches that moment where it is completely formed, the Christ child, at that moment I explode, I begin to expand. I reach the limit of contraction and then I expand.
And then, from then on I find that all that was recorded of the past isn’t past at all, because nothing preceded me. I was in the beginning; I am the first of his acts of old. What first?—his creative power. It shocks man to think that God impregnates us, as his bride, it shocks us to hear it, but it’s true. Jesus Christ is the sperm of God, the creative power of God, bearing his image, and it actually penetrates and passes through the surface of this being, the soul of this being, even though on the outside there aren’t any holes, either before or after the penetration of that sperm that fertilizes the being that I am. And I become a fertile being, and the being that penetrated me is the image of God and it matures within me. When it reaches that complete perfection, like an egg it breaks and out it comes; and I, its mother, I hold in my hands the infant child, the Christ child. I can’t understand it, when did it happen? And so I wonder and I ask questions, how is it possible? I do not know a man and I have no husband. I don’t understand how this thing works. And I wait…if really this is my child, well, show me his father. And I don’t know…I can’t find the father until a further expansion. And then, five months later another terrifi c expansion and here I am looking at what was always there. Just as I said earlier, as fame begets envy, this expansion begets my son David—and, “Thou art my son”—who reveals me as a father. And I didn’t know the father of that Christ child until I reach this degree of expansion which brought David into view; and David reveals me as God the Father, and therefore I know now who was the father of the Christ child.
So, scripture fulfills itself. He will cleave to me, his bride, and not leave me until we become one person. At the moment of David, we become one person. There aren’t two of us any more, not God and his wife, just God. So we are told we’ll make David the prince forever. If David is prince and I am his father, I must be king. And so we are told, “In that day, the Lord will become king over all the earth; and the Lord will be one and his name one” (Zech. 14:9). So here, as I stand here a fragmented being and one little aspect of my fragmented state returned to that unity, I know that every being in this world must return to that unity. And so in the end, we’ll have one prince, it will be David. And we’ll be king, and we’ll be Lord, we’ll be the God, and our name will be one. So I can say I AM. I can say I am a multitude. But do I say I’m a multitude? A multitude it takes then to make what I am. So when the whole is brought back, I am still I AM, and I AM is always one. I can’t say I am and think of two. So the whole is brought back to one.
So here in this fabulous picture of the smile…it begins with the smile. But there are numberless smiles in the world and I’m not thinking of any smile I’ve ever seen on the human face with my mortal eyes. For there are smiles of love and there are smiles of deceit, and there are smiles where the two smiles meet. But I’m speaking of another smile. It’s something entirely different. When you hold him in your arms and he breaks into this heavenly smile…and then all miseries come to an end. For your pregnancy is over, your labor is over, your travail is over, and all that you have done— and you’ve done it for unnumbered centuries—comes to an end when you bring forth the Christ child. And if you mark a few moments, what’s a few moments judged by human measurements, a few years. And then you take off the garment and you are one with the being which you were before you started it, for one purpose: For the expansion of your creative power. The only reason for it was to expand your being beyond what it was when you first decided on this play.
So I am telling you a story that I know from experience: Mary is right in this room. Every child born of woman is Mary. And every child born of woman though it’s just an infant was favored by God, and having been favored by God it bears the imprint of God. God has already fertilized it, and when he makes him impression upon it, overshadows it and it bears that image, then it goes through the furnaces of experience, and passing through all these furnaces that child is being fashioned out of the pain and the horror of the world. And when the whole thing is finished within the individual, then comes that moment when you least expect it—-it could happen tonight—-when you least expect it, suddenly this terrific pressure in your skull and out comes the child. And you didn’t know you were bearing the child. You didn’t know you were pregnant. And you simply will know that this offspring of yours…and you can ask as Blake asks, “What ere is done to her she cannot or does not know. And if you ask her she’ll swear it so. Whether it’s good or evil there’s none to blame, no one to take the pride and no one the shame.” She can’t find any husband of this child. And she can’t tell anyone in the world that she didn’t know a man, because you have to know a man to have a child. She can’t find the man.
But the expansion is on. Two months later, she’ll find the father…find it to be herself. And then she ceases to be mother; she is father of it all. There is only God and God is father. So it’s a self-imposed limitation and then it begins to expand after the reaching of the limit of contraction. And as he expands, the entire drama as recorded in scripture unfolds within him; and he realizes, and can say with authority, Before the world was, I AM. “Before Abraham was, I AM.” For suddenly you living in the year 1965 look out on a lad that history records as having died in the year 1,000 B.C.; and you know in your heart there is no B.C. History records it, 1,000 years B.C. And then comes the dove, well, that’s 4,000, 5,000 B.C., and here comes the dove bringing his little leaf to prove that the earth has risen, the whole vast world that you ___(?? from the flood has come, a new world altogether.
It is said of Charles Elliot of Harvard that when he was retiring and all these honors were repeated at the last day, and he had all these wonderful honors conferred upon him by all the universities of the world, all the countries, he said, “The greatest honor that I have ever received came from a friend in Boston, a simple envelope in which he enclosed just a laurel leaf, not a note, not a word, a laurel leaf, the symbol of a victorious life.” That’s all. Here came the envelope addressed to him, the great Elliot of Harvard, and all it contained was a laurel leaf, not one little word of explanation. And being the great man that was Charles Elliot he knew the significance of the laurel leaf, the crown of victory—his life was a victorious life.
So here comes the Spirit of God in the symbol of a dove bringing the little leaf, that the new world was resurrected; for the old world was inundated and the new world began. So you and I are really entering the new world. We think the first took place; the flood is on. We are completely inundated in this world of ours, and tomorrow as it begins to expand within us we, too, send out our own Spirit to find that little leaf. Our hope has been realized and a new world rises out of the old.
So this is our smile on that little poem of Blake. Read it, it’s from his Pickering Manuscript. It’s just before his little poem…his marvelous poem, I should say…of The Mental Traveler. And in this Mental Traveler he makes the statement: And there the babe is born in joy that was in strange and peculiar power begotten really. And here this child comes out after horrible states. Well, the same thing is true of this smile that comes up after these horrible states.
Now let us go into the Silence.
* * *
Q: (inaudible)
A: ___(??) and you can ask for anything in this world, may I tell you, before the child is born because he’s in you and he is the creative power of God. You can ask anything in this world and get it, because it’s the same Christ. Before you see him and hold him in your hands as a child, may I tell you, it’s the same power of God. It’s that creative power of God that in a way unknown to the world it permeated the ancient man— just as a sperm unknown to our scientists goes through the surface of the egg; and yet the outside of the egg has no holes before or after fertilization. So the same thing happens with man and the sperm of God goes through man; and the sperm of God is Jesus Christ, his creative power. It enters man and it forms itself in man, like a child forms in a woman; and when it’s completed it comes out, just like that. So that’s the limit of your contraction and the beginning of your expansion. So that same power is better before it’s born. So before it is born, you can use it right now by assuming that you are now the man, the woman that you want to be. And if you dare to believe in the reality of your assumption, may I tell you, that power will externalize it.
Q: (inaudible)
A: He laughs, really, smiles, because Isaac is a prototype of the Christ child. It’s begotten; it’s not born…it’s really begotten. Isaac in the sense, you should think of Isaac not as one that is generated but rather the fashioning of the unbegotten. That’s what Isaac really is…it’s the forming of the unbegotten. Because, God being the unbegotten he forms himself in man. Because God has no beginning; it’s Melchizedek, no father, no mother. It forms itself in man by leaving an impression, which is called overshadowing. And to overshadow simply means to superimpose. A superimposition is the overshadowing of scripture. And you will take two, and if they really conform and become one, you have a perfect one. Two must actually mate and become one. So you must not leave…you must cleave and they become one person. This fantastic world in which we live, we are all one. In the end, we will see it. But you will hold that Isaac, the prototype of the Christ child. And when you hold it you’re moment of departure from this age has come. And so, when the curtain is torn in two which separates—the curtain separates this age from the future age—then you leave this age. But you don’t crow, because everyone still in this age is your being and everyone must be rescued.
So he’s prepared the way for his fragmented self to return, and that return passage is so clearly stated in scripture: “No one comes to the Father save by me.” So we have to be brought into the world first. So don’t think of Jesus Christ as a fully grown man talking…always the little child. That’s how you start towards the Father. Some people think of Jesus Christ as a man with a beard, a man with a long white robe. Always think of Christ as the little child, and that’s when the individual who gives birth to Christ starts toward the discovery of the Father. And the Father is discovered in his begotten Son who reveals him.
It all comes by expansion. The individual begins to expand and there’s no limit to expansion; there’s only a limit to contraction, to opacity. When you reach the limit of opacity and the limit of contraction—and it takes tremendous pain to do that and the pains are the horrors of the world—-at that point then comes a reversal and you start to expand. And the first resultant expansion is the Christ child, and he leads you to the Father; for the next one is David and David reveals the Father. Then comes the splitting of the temple. Then comes the story of Moses and we thought Moses lived a thousand years ago, no, here is a rod and you are it. And you thought, well, the dove came out of an ark unnumbered centuries ago. No, all of a sudden the dove is on you. And so the whole thing unfolds and not a thing preceded you. You are God…nothing preceded God…so in the end there is only God. And the purpose of it all was for an increase of his creative power.
Any other questions, please?
Q: Neville, would you restate this proposition about the birth—to beget, to bear.
A: I said that there are…you can concern a birth from two angles. One from the father in which the verb is “to beget” and John uses it in all the gospel of John and the epistles of John. In the 13th verse of the 1st chapter of John—-“born not of blood nor of the will of man nor the will of the fl esh, but of God”—-that verb is “to beget.” In the 3rd chapter when he speaks with Nicodemus and “that you must be born from above” that is “to beget.” That is not as the present state would be. So that you can take it from the father’s side, which is always “to beget,” or from the mother’s side in which the verb is “to bear.” So here, Mary, that’s female, that’s feminine, so she bears. So ___(??), well, the child is there, it’s been declared yours, as others told you it’s your child, so you bore it. But when it comes to David, no one tells you anything…it’s begotten. The little infant, the Christ child is discovered by the wise men and they proclaim that you are the parent. They don’t call you father, they don’t call you mother, they call you by your name; and they will say “It’s John’s child.” Others will ask a question, “How can John have a baby?” Nevertheless, it’s something born.
But when it comes to David, there’s no one to tell you that it’s your child; it’s an obvious relationship, so that’s begetting. So he said unto The Wonder Working Power of Imagination 119 me—-who said?—-“The Lord said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee,’” begotten. Well, in the Book of Matthew—-not in the present book but in the King James Version—-they use the word “begat,” all fathers, no mother is mentioned. Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob and Jacob begat and so it goes through the entire thing. So these are simply states expanded, and as they expand, the automatic result stands before them. Just as we said earlier, you get big in this world power and by your power you beget envy. It isn’t born of you; you automatically conjure by the power and the fame that is yours. Unless you in your own mind’s eye, in spite of what the world thinks that is, you feel bigger. Then you aren’t envious of anyone in this world who the world would envy, if you yourself feel bigger. What man in this world could rise that I would envy having seen David the Lord’s only begotten Son as my Son? Could I envy any person in this world of the position that they hold? But there are people in the world who because they have a million or several millions or they have great publicity behind them, are envied by those who have not yet begun to expand. But after you begin to expand and you hold the Christ child in your own hand as your own child, and then after that expand beyond to behold God’s only begotten as your own son, who could you envy? Could God envy anyone in this world?
Goodnight.
