5/26/64
I want to thank you for your case histories. As far as I’m concerned they are tops, not only in the working of the law but in your visions which you have shared with me and allowed me in turn to share with others. Well, tonight’s subject is “Call the Next Witness.” Everyone in the world will be called as the next witness. We are told in the Book of Isaiah: “And now go, write it upon a tablet and inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever” (30:8). So the first witness is the book, that book is our Bible. It is a witness forever. But our Bible, in this instance, is the Old Testament, that’s the witness. That is the external witness. But, as we are told in the Old Testament, in the Book of Deuteronomy, the 19th chapter, that only on the evidence of two witnesses, or three witnesses, can a charge be sustained (verse 15). So here we have one witness, the external witness of scripture, and there must be a second witness to sustain the charge. This is God’s promise to the whole vast world. And then we are told we are called one by one: “I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel” (Is. 27:12). Everyone is called and the one who is called is the witness, the next witness; and he has to parallel by his own experiences this that is the external witness, recorded in scripture.
So when the first one comes into the world who has the witness of scripture, it is said of him he is the first-born of the dead, the faithful witness. You read this in the Book of Revelation, the 1st chapter, the 5th verse: “And he is the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead.” But no one believed him, or few believed him because they expected a different kind of a witness. They thought some mighty giant would come from outer space and be their leader, to enslave those who had enslaved them, and raise them to some victorious state in the world. And that’s not the picture of scripture. You and I will be, one by one, called as we can parallel that testimony as described in scripture.
So we are told, if two persons who differ, like two witnesses, if they agree in testimony it is conclusive. And so we have the Old Testament and we read it carefully—that is the external witness. Now, I differ from that, for I will say I didn’t write it but I was told about it or I read it. Now, can I actually have an experience that parallels that which is recorded in the external witness? So there must be an external witness of scripture and the internal witness of the Spirit. So here comes one who makes the statement: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me. For all that was written about me has its fulfillment, and beginning with Moses in the law and the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself ” (Luke 22:37; 24:44). Every passage in the Old Testament that was in any way related to himself he showed them where this had to be experienced by him. He couldn’t share it with them, for the experiences take place in the soul of man. It doesn’t take place that the mortal eye could see. And then he began to tell them what had happened to him. Then we are told the one who really believed it in this world, though he fought him in the beginning, that in the end of his days he expounded the matter from morning to night, trying to convince them of the reality of Jesus, using all the scripture as his argument; and some believed while others disbelieved. And that’s the entire story.
I can tell you this night, you may believe it or you may disbelieve it, but the story is this: It’s not enough to hear the testimony of Jesus, one must hear it with faith. For we are told that those who heard it heard it as we hear it; but it did not profit them who heard it, because it was not received with faith in the hearers (Heb. 4:2). Let us not now fail as they failed by not mingling what we have heard with faith. So I can’t take you with me into the depths of my own soul and show you the moment in time and the experience that was my experience when it happened to me, I can only tell you. But we are told when this was made aware, they asked, “When is this going to happen to us?” and he said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons, seasons fixed by the authority of the Father.” Wait for the promise of the Father, “For you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you” (Acts 1:8). But I can’t tell you the time or the season. Everyone here this night would ask me, “When is it going to happen to me?” I can’t tell you. I do not know. It’s not given to us to know the times or the seasons. They are fixed by the Father by his own authority. I can only ask you to wait for the promise of the Father because I know from experience that you shall receive power when this is given to you when the Holy Spirit descends upon you.
You’ll have the power, the most fantastic power in the world. Nothing in this world…you speak of nuclear energy…there’s nothing comparable to the power that is given you. Here you come into a room like this, you could take a bomb and blow everyone up and destroy it. You think you could. You could destroy it, but that moment prior to the moment of destruction remains forever, so you can’t really destroy more than the instant that you think you did, and that instant remains in time. But with this power of which I speak, you come into this room, and you could turn off from within yourself that which allows everyone to be aware of being alive. And turning it off, they will believe themselves no…as a lady present knows from being turned off…that they are nothing, but absolutely nothing. That there’s nothing, they are nothing. And then you turn it on and then wherever you stopped it, they simply pick it up at that moment in time, and they go on, and they become someone again. So you know the power that you can really exert, you can turn off. You can not only turn it off, may I tell you, I’ve done it. Not on this level, I have done it. You turn it off and then you rearrange the structure of the intentions of those that you turned off. When you turn it on again they have not the intention they had when you turned it off, and they move in an entirely different direction.
You could take the whole vast world, may I tell you, if you were so given…but you would not be given this power were you not completely immersed in love. For were you not completely immersed in love, you could turn it off and rewrite the script on the minds of men and march them, without effort on their part, into the ocean beyond their height, and fill it with humanity, and therefore drown them. You could; that’s the power. There’s nothing in this world comparable to the power that is yours when you awake from this dream of life. So you’re told, wait for the promise of the Father, for you shall be given power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. That’s the kind of power, for “as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself ” (John 5:26).
Now, this is the witness of which I speak this night. The Bible is the first witness, it’s the external witness. Now “bring me the second witness,” and you one day will be called that second witness because you will have all the experiences as prophesied in scripture. For scripture is only talking about you, your biography. Everything said in scripture you must experience, and then you’ll know beginning with Moses and all through the prophets and in the psalms, that everything said about you must have its fulfillment. You will interpret to those who will listen. They may not listen, but you’ll interpret for them.
Now let us begin with the witness, “Bring me the next witness.” Now we are told in scripture “God has taken his position in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment” (Psalm 82:1). Is that true? I know from experience that it is true. I was taken in Spirit into the divine council and presented to the Ancient of Days. And God, may I tell you, is man. When you stand in his presence, you stand in the presence of infinite love. Infinite love! And he’s going to ask you a question and you will answer based upon scripture. I am not going to say tonight that the question asked me will be the same question asked you. A friend of mine, who is present tonight, was asked a different question, but he answered it based upon scripture. He did it just as automatically as I did it. I was asked the question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and my answer came from the Book of Corinthians, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the 13th chapter, “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love” (verse 13). At that, infinite love in the presence of man, embodied man, embraced me. As he embraced me our bodies fused and we became one body. I have no consciousness of any separation after that embrace. I have never felt such joy in my life when he embraced me and I became one with infinite love. And then I was sent to do what I’m doing, to tell the story, a command that I could not resist: Go and tell the story.
Well, this is the 82nd Psalm. So I’m a witness to the truth of the statement in the 82nd Psalm that God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. The gods are simply you, the whole vast world, awakened. When man awakes he becomes a part of the gods where God holds judgment. He doesn’t judge you and then gives you some sentence. He’s not a God of retribution; he’s a God of love. He’s only asking you a question, and then you are divinely prompted to make a confession of faith. So he’s not going to condemn you. You, first of all, couldn’t possibly make a mistake because you are prompted by God what you ought to say. So when you are brought into the divine council, don’t be concerned what you are going to say; for you are going to be prompted and you’re going to be prompted what you ought to say.
Here’s one. I can say now that wonderful chapter of the 42nd Psalm…I can testify to that (verse 4). For I, too, found myself in a moment of a sadness of heart…and who hasn’t…when you are sad and you wonder, “Why am I so down within me, why is it?” And then you turn to memory and suddenly this thing happens. I can say with the Psalmist today, these things I remember, when I joined the throng in this grand procession and I led them in procession, and there was joy, a multitude keeping festival—that I recall vividly walking in an enormous crowd. I can’t measure the number, but in that crowd, I walked with them. The 42nd Psalm tells us, I remember these things when I joined this crowd and led them in procession to the house of God. Well, we were moving toward some invisible Jerusalem, invisible Mecca, it was the house of God, when a voice rang out and the voice said, “And God walks with them.” Then a lady at my side said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice answered, “At your side.” Then she turned to her left and looked into my face, my eyes, and then she became hysterical. She said, “What, is Neville God?” and she was really hysterical with laughter it struck her so funnily. The voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.”
And then that same voice heard only now by me—not by the multitude, this festive multitude— heard only by me, and it came from the depths of my soul; and the voice said to me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and I knew exactly what the finish of the sentence was: He was dreaming that he’s me. But at that moment when I heard it, the thrill, the joy! Then I was nailed upon this body as though nailed on a cross, but unlike what the world talks about the crucifixion it was sheer delight. My hands, my feet, my head, my side were vortices, and each vortex was joy beyond the wildest dream of man. And so, he nailed himself upon me (the dead). And so “I have been crucified with Christ; it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). So to that statement of scripture, I bear witness…I have experienced it.
Now we come to the series of events which is God’s plan of salvation. God’s plan of salvation was made very, very clear from the scripture, once the key was given to us by the testimony of Jesus. No one believed it. And you can’t really blame anyone for not believing it. Because a man, a normal man as I’m a normal man, you’re a normal man, walking the earth not knowing the time is now fulfilled, at this moment in time it is fulfilled, like an egg coming to its ripeness. You don’t know the contents of the egg and suddenly this little thing breaks. You look at a caterpillar and it seems to you nothing, and suddenly it breaks and out comes the butterfly. Out comes from the egg this glorious feathered being. Out comes from this concept of God, which is man, the being you cannot describe: It is God coming out.
And so, who could actually believe a man who was born a normal person, one of many brothers, who had sisters, who lived in a normal environment, who had no background whatsoever, and suddenly out of this, when the time was fulfilled, that the prophecy is really true? That man who was made an animal, as told us in the 4th chapter of the Book of Daniel: He took himself and put himself in the form of an animal, gave himself the mind and the heart of a beast, and allowed seven times to pass over him until he knew that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gave it to whom he would, even to the lowliest of men (verse 16). So he takes the lowliest, a man who has no qualifications whatsoever for the claim that he could possibly be the fulfillment of all that was prophesied in scripture; and suddenly it begins to happen in him. It didn’t happen in some little physical manger in the Near East, no three shepherds came out of the night to see the event; all of this takes place in the soul of man. So he tells what happened to him. He goes back into scripture and searches the scripture and finds where it was prophesied. He tells them this is what it meant. No one believed him. He believed it. And then came a second event, the third event, the fourth event, and event after event, as he found it in scripture, it is taking place in the soul of an individual. He is the first-fruit of those who slept, the first-born from the dead.
And so, he comes into this world, as you came into this world, and maybe you this night will be that witness, I do not know. For no one knows the time: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons fixed by the Father by his own authority. But wait for the promise of the Father, for you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” And no one in this world knows and no one can prophesy for you. Let no one tell you that they can read some horoscope or some chart to tell you when that time will arrive. It could come this very moment to anyone in this room or the world. But, when it comes, you are then the witness that is called; so only God sees the second witness. Man judges from the outward appearances, but God judges from the heart.
No one in this world unless he believes me could actually know what I have experienced. My most intimate person, my wife, where I’ve shared it with her and tell her these experiences, I believe that she believes me one hundred percent, but I can’t share with her the experience. Neither can I tell her that she will be the next in line, I cannot. Much as I love my daughter, I can’t tell her that she will be the next in line. She may be a way down the line to be called to witness to the word of God. So bring me the next witness. And only God knows when he calls them: “I call them one by one, O ye people of Israel” (Is. 27:12). And so he’s calling everyone in his own good order, but I don’t know the order that he calls them. I only know that he called me. He called me and everything said in scripture concerning Jesus Christ I have experienced in the soul of my being, beginning with the first one. All the others were preparatory, like finding myself in the divine council where God was holding court and being welcomed, embraced, and then sent, like an apostle. That preceded… all the other things preceded it. My finding myself in that section of the book of the (??), where I’m in this enormous multitude keeping festival, that preceded it. But the real beginning of the awakening began with the resurrection, where suddenly a power that I’ve never felt in my life was applied to my head. And I don’t know, I can’t tell you how it was applied. I only know it was applied to my head—and I who thought up to that very moment I was always awake found myself waking. I’m waking and I thought this is a normal waking, and it isn’t a normal waking; I’m awaking in my skull. My skull is not just a skull if one woke in the skull, but at the moment that I awoke, I knew it was a tomb. That’s the strange part of it, my skull was a tomb. Here was a tomb, and suddenly I’m being born out of the tomb, so the tomb becomes a womb. And this begins the birth of God in man. I come out as one that is being born, and everything said in scripture concerning the birth of Jesus Christ I experienced.
So I came out of it. The three men were present to witness it. And then comes the most unearthly wind that man could ever experience. And so we’re told, “All was foretold me, naught could I foresee. But I learned how the wind would sound after these things should be.” I couldn’t envision the wind. I didn’t know. I was told it as you were told it, everyone was told the story of God before we set forth; and so, all was foretold me but I couldn’t foresee it. But after the event, I knew what that wind would be. And so, here I heard this fantastic wind. And then the whole thing was over; that was the fulfillment of scripture of the birth of God which he promised: “I will bring forth out of man a son, but that which I bring forth will be my son and I will be his father” (2 Sam. 7:12). May I tell you, you are the one brought forth. You’re not something that you remain here and something else comes out of you, you are pulled out of yourself. This thing here was the dead, this was the sepulcher; this was the tomb into which God immersed himself. He is extracting himself individualized as you. So when he brings himself out, you are he.
To prove now that you are he, he gives you the next event. For he only extracts himself. God could not emerge from man in whom he was not present. Christ Jesus could not come out of one in whom he’s not present. And so, he draws himself out of you. When he draws himself out of you, to prove it is himself, the next event is the one that reveals it. And the next event is when he shows you his son, and his son is your son. So you look into the eyes of God’s only begotten son (Psalm 2:7) and that only begotten son calls you Father, as told you in the 89th Psalm. “I have come only to fulfill scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me” (Luke 22:17). So the 89th Psalm: “I have found David and David has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and he Rock of my salvation” (verse 26). So you find him, and there’s no uncertainty in this discovery: He was always your son. So if he is your son and he is God’s only begotten son, well then, God succeeded in his purpose in extracting himself from that tomb into which he had entered.
He enters the tomb of man; man is dead, and then extracts himself multiplied a thousand-fold beyond what he was when he buried himself in the tomb called man. He comes out, and to prove it, comes the third event. The resurrection is first, the birth second, and this one is the third: The discovery of the fatherhood of God where he succeeded in giving himself to you as father because you have a son. Then comes the fourth event where he raises himself into Zion: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must man be lifted up” (John 3:14). So man, you, you are lifted up in the same manner that Moses lifted up the serpent—-which is only a symbol, all the outside things were simply symbols—but now inwardly you must experience what outwardly was only a sign. Inwardly you become alive and you lift yourself up in the most miraculous manner, right up like a serpent into your skull. So that’s the next one.
And the final one is when he succeeds now in really giving you the power, which you will not exercise save governed by love. There is no temptation in this world that could make you turn a stone into bread, or cast yourself down to prove to anyone that his angels would bear you up, or in any way take any temptation of sleeping humanity. That’s why he now gives you…and the last gift is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which descends upon you in bodily form as a dove, and smothers you with love, but completely smothers you with affection. And while he is enveloping you in love, the whole thing vanishes, and you awake on the level of Caesar. You’re here, endowed with the power that he gave you, but you could not in eternity use it save governed by love.
So when you first encounter love, you first see the one that is infinite might. And then you know, as the years go by, that you will have infinite power in proportion to your capacity to love. For love is the greatest in the world. That no one in this world could ever have infinite might until he’s first embraced by love, for what would he do with it if he was not actually embraced by love? He would destroy the universe; he would destroy anything in this world. So he asked this little question: Who told you of things from of old? Ask him and let him tell you of what is yet to be. Did I not tell you the things from of old? And so, the old is that Old Testament, the 44th Book of Isaiah I’m quoting, 44th chapter (verse 8): “Did I not tell you these things from of old?” If there’s one who can tell you, let him tell you the things yet to be. I have told you all the things to come, and then he closed the book. But the time has not yet fulfilled. When it is fulfilled, I will come forth, and then it will never end; my salvation shall never have an end. My redemption shall never come to an end. So one by one by one I call them.
So the witness is simply when you suddenly—-maybe this night, it’s my hope it is this night—-that it will break. For, may I tell you, you could have a billion, and you may, you could have all the glamour in the world, and if you were not awake, what does it really matter? You’re tied to the wheel of recurrence. And tomorrow…as my friend saw his mother, radiantly beautiful and moving through the year 1953, suddenly finding herself in the year 3804. But no transforming power in that transition, the same lovely lady, this time more beautiful, married, (??), with the same fear of death that she had here prior to her own death at the age of seventy but now at the age of thirty and beautiful beyond measure. As happy as any beautiful lady would be here with means, at the age of thirty, but in fear of death. Death follows man forever on these wheels within wheels within wheels. It is only when we are lifted out of the wheel of recurrence that we have conquered death, for we die no more. So what does it matter if you owned the earth and you were not extracted from the wheel of recurrence?
All you have to do is to turn on the radio or the TV and hear the junk that is on today in this election year. Someone will quote a man, doesn’t tell you who he’s quoting, but he quotes the most marvelous things concerning a person; and he tells you everything about this wonderful man, that he really should be our leader of leaders, as I got it exactly before I came out. And then you heard… I’ve just quoted you the words of Nelson Rockefeller, what he said two years ago about Goldwater, the most marvelous things… that’s two years ago. They’re only quoting, they’re quoting exactly what he said when he introduced him at this party, but you could never improve upon the joy of that moment. But now this is two years later…now he wants the same job…because the other fellow was less fitted for it…and so now we have Rockefeller today. But all of this is part of the wheels within wheels of a deadly sleep.
And so I tell you, I come here to bear witness, the second witness—“Call me the next witness”— and I’m telling you what happens. You can hear what happened to me, but it will not benefit anyone who hears me unless they accept it with faith. If you think this is all hallucination, if you think, well, this is a strange dream the man had, and you don’t believe it is true concerning you as of tomorrow, well then, you heard it but you did not mix it with faith; and the word of God falling upon the mind, which is the soil, did not receive the necessary fertilized and prepared soil, and you’re simply tied upon the wheel, the wheel of recurrence. I can only hope that when I talk to you that I will actually receive from you a certain receptivity that it may bury itself in you and grow; for unless it is accepted by you it can’t grow.
So how long you remain on the wheel, may I tell you, is irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter. It is only when it is accepted—after he sends one as his witness to tell you what has happened to him, and you hear it and accept it—will it grow. How long that interval of time between acceptance and fulfillment? That I do not know. I only know until he is accepted that the wheel…it doesn’t really matter. But may I tell you, when you see the wheel and you stop it, and see that the whole power is turned off within you…and they are nothing, they’re dead, I mean really dead. It doesn’t matter what you do to the dead, it doesn’t really matter, any more than they took off that head of the mermaid in Denmark. It was dead. You desecrate something and they were all annoyed that someone would dare take a lovely piece of art and do it…but it didn’t hurt her. So when you see the whole vast world and you turn it off and everything stands still. And you can turn it…I have turned it and changed the pattern, and it moved in an entirely different direction. I’ve done it with a train. It seems so fantastic to tell you this, but you can not only turn it, you can turn it backwards. You can do anything with this wheel; it’s a machine. But out of this machine, God is bringing himself, extracting himself from the wheel of recurrence which is the wheel of death.
And the day will come every word I’ve told you you will know is true. So let me go back to the Book of Acts, You “wait for the promise of the father…for power will come upon you when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:4,8). You, everyone in this world, will be a witness to the truth of what I told you this night. I don’t care who you are and what you are. Your social position, intellectual position, financial position means nothing in the eyes of God, but nothing; for you are destined to inherit the kingdom of God. You are destined to inherit God: “Give them no inheritance. I am their inheritance” (Ezek. 44:28). That’s what we’re told. So man himself inherits not only the kingdom of God, he inherits God. He inherits the power that is God, the wisdom that is God. And so, out of this fabulous world of ours we’re extracting the being that is buried in it.
So believe me, I am a witness to the truth of all that is recorded in scripture, first in the Old Testament and then in the New where the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Listen to it carefully, there is nothing more important for any of us than to hear that testimony and then respond to it. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. If you’ve been horrible, brutal, unkind, you may be sorry for it, but, may I tell you, these things in themselves, that’s not important. Hear the testimony and accept it, for it grows, it grows within you. You may be kind and generous and wonderful and not believe in the testimony. Until you hear it and respond to it with acceptance, it can’t take root and it can’t grow. So here, we go back to our premise, only on the evidence of two witnesses can a charge be sustained. The first witness is the external witness of scripture; the second witness is the internal witness of the Spirit. If these two agree in principle, in testimony, it is conclusive. I don’t care what the world will say if they agree. So when you have an experience go back and see if the external witness of scripture in any way parallels what you had. If they agree then it’s conclusive. Read the scripture and see if it is something that parallels your own experience.
Now before I close tonight I want to tell you, the Promise is a gift, you don’t earn it. God’s law you operate. I’ll be back in October and everyone here could be any being that they want to be, really they could be if they were really faithful to the law. He said, “I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets…I have come to fulfill them,” to tell you what the law really means (Mat.5:17). So he reinterprets the law and shows us that the law is mental, it’s not physical, that causation is imaginal. So when a man imagines himself to be what he wants to be and remains faithful to that imaginal state as though he were, he becomes it. There’s no power in the world that can stop him. That, when you know what you desire, “When you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will” (Mark 11:24). If you can really be faithful to the imaginal act, knowing that you are what you want to be, the whole vast world would reshuffle itself to mirror the fulfillment of your imaginal act. Everyone in this room if they are faithful to it could give you not one but dozens of case histories when I return in October as many of you have given me in the past few months. If you are faithful to it! You could this night assume that you are the man, the woman that you want to be, and believe it implicitly, that you really are, and view the world mentally as you would physically, and see it mentally as you would see it physically were it true. Night after night, sleep in that assumption just as though it were true and it will become true. You’ll become the man that you want to be, you’ll become the woman that you want to be. That is God’s law.
His Promise comes in its own good time, for it’s not for us to know the times and the seasons when it comes. So I can tell you because the Promise has been fulfilled in me I am a witness to the truth of scripture. I only hope that you will believe me and accept it, that in the not distant future you, too, will be a witness to the truth of scripture. For everything said in scripture concerning Jesus Christ, the first witness—-he is called the firstborn from the dead, the first-fruits of those who slept—-there isn’t a thing said in that book concerning him I have not experienced in the deep of myself. So it doesn’t really matter now when my physical departure takes place, for that has happened in me. I know it will happen in every child born of woman. But we may delay the planting, for the word falls upon man and man rejects it. I hope that you will not reject it.
So tonight, when we call the next witness, we’re simply asking anyone who had the experience…as my friend Tom did today and Larry the other day…all this is scripture, all these visions that they gave me. That’s part of the preparation for the grand events that begin to unfold the Promise of God. All things come just before it, and so both of them really are fulfilling scripture. But Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a certain series of events happen in which God revealed himself in action for the fulfillment of his promise to man. So what they have brought forth or through, they come prior to the unfolding of that definite series of events, beginning with the resurrection and ending with the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.
Now let us go into the Silence.
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Q: Will you tell us again why God became man so that man might become God?
A: Why God became man that man may become God? First of all, there’s only God, there’s nothing but God in the world. And when we say God became man, man as we see man is an eternal part of the structure of the universe. God buries himself in man for, I would say, creative purposes, to develop his creative power. Because when we speak of Jesus Christ in the Bible, bear in mind what Paul said about Jesus Christ: “Jesus Christ is the power and wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). So he buries his power and his wisdom in his own creation, animates it, puts himself through all the hell of the world, then extracts himself. So that God is not a static state, God is not an absolute, which would be static and therefore dead. God is an ever-increasing illumination, an ever-increasing power of creativity. When a man thinks that God is finished, it couldn’t be this infinite power, seemingly infinite potential. And so it limits itself to man: He took upon himself the form of man and became obedient unto death, even the death upon the cross of man (Phil. 2:7). And so here is the limitation of the power, the creative power of God, and then creates it, animates it.
I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you the night that you are moved in Spirit, and come upon a scene, a very simple scene, undoubtedly it will be, and you will know intuitively that you can shut off, turn off, a power within yourself by arresting it. And you know what’s going to happen if you succeed in doing it. You will know that if you do it, the animated world that you perceive will stand still. It doesn’t have power in itself; it’s only an animated you, that your perception animates the world that you perceive. People don’t realize that. But you’ll know it one night and when you do it, well, I can’t describe the thrill. And then you will turn it on again and the intentions unfulfilled will continue and they’ll be fulfilled, like eating what it intended to eat, flying where it intended to go, moving where it intended to go, and all these things. You’ll have other experiences of turning it off and turning it on; and then you’ll begin to experiment and you will change the pattern of the intention. And you will see what’s going to happen. They who intended to do this, when you change the intention, they don’t do that, they simply fulfill your changed pattern. And you realize what man is. Then you come back to scripture, “You have no power over me were it not given to you from above” (John 19:11). You are operating then when you have this motion from above.
Well, a lady who is not here this night could tell me that ten days before Kennedy was assassinated that she saw the headline on the same color paper that it was brought out ten days later. And we think this is something altogether initiated by the individual who played the part? They’re like puppets, as you’re told in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Nothing frightens man more than that Book of Ecclesiastes. The priesthood rejects it, the scientists reject it. Because they say, “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already, in ages past. There is nothing new under the sun” (1:10). And man can’t believe it… he doesn’t want to believe it. He thinks all of his efforts are simply in some strange way changing things. You don’t change it this way, you change it only by an inner attitude of mind, and you change patterns by a simple change which is called in scripture, well, I call it reversing, I call it revising. Scripture calls it by some other name, which is not remorse as the world would call it, which is not regret, but the word is repentance. Repentance is not remorse; it’s a complete radical inner attitude of mind that is changed. You change radically and then you do see it here on the surface.
But then will come the moment in time when you don’t do it this way. You know you can do it and you stop it, stop the whole thing. Then as you stop it, you’ll change it, deliberately, and then turn it on again and watch what they do. Suppose I could take you this very night and stop you and change your intention and send you elsewhere in this world. You could go astray, couldn’t you? Well, that’s life. It doesn’t make sense but it’s true.
Q: Neville, in conjunction with that, do you consciously work toward this, or does this just happen at an appointed time?
A: The Promise happens at a point in time. But until the Promise is given you which is God’s grace we’re called upon to use his law. And use it, use it lovingly, but use it. Don’t accept a drifting state in this world. In other words, interfere with the stream of life, interfere with it. If you’re moving toward a certain end, don’t accept that; interfere with it by a radical change of attitude towards life. It doesn’t mean because you change it time and time again that you’re any nearer the Promise. The Promise is not for anyone to know when God gives it. It’s his grace. We’re told to put our hope fully on the grace that is coming to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3). So set your hope fully upon it. But you can’t ask when it’s going to happen because no one knows the times or seasons…that’s fixed by God’s own authority.
But, nevertheless, believe in it. And while you’re waiting for the Promise to be fulfilled, use his law. His law is that you can be any man, any woman you want to be in this world by controlling your own inner attitudes of mind: Seeing what you want to see and only what you want to see. If you will remain faithful to that inner change of your mind, it will objectify itself, it will come to pass. But it doesn’t mean that because you are successful in the use of this that you are in some way closing the gap towards the Promise. The Promise is something that is in God’s own hand: I call the children of Israel one by one (Is. 27:12) and no one knows when he’ll be called. You may be called tonight! And no one in this world can tell you how near you are to that call. Because they all ask the same question, Lord, when? Will you now this day restore the kingdom to Israel? It’s not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority (Acts 1:7).
But you simply remain faithful and wait for the Promise of the Father. You shall (which is a promise), you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Until it comes upon you, wait for the Promise. The Promise comes in a peculiar, strange unfoldment of a series of events: resurrection, birth, the discovery of the fatherhood of God, the ascension into heaven, and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. It comes that way, there is a sameness to the unfolding picture. Until it happens (and it happens suddenly) use your talent that God gave you, that imagining creates reality. So imagine only the best for yourself and don’t…because it costs you nothing to imagine good for others, doesn’t take it from you, imagine the best for others. Imagine the best for everyone in this world and see it come to pass. It will come to pass. No power can stop it.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Lynn, my dear, everything in this world has been shown you before you set forth, everything. We saw the Promised Land before we left it and went into exile—this is the exile. We have forgotten it but we were shown it. And while we are in exile, the story is told to man that he may accept it with faith. You did not a thing in this world that was wrong to cause the exile. God himself exiled himself; it’s only God playing all the parts. “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom. 11:32). No man in this world is responsible for the exile, it’s God. God conceived it and God is playing it, playing all the parts. The purpose of the play is to develop his creative talent, his creative power; and when he extracts it, you are he. The day will come you’ll actually know this, you’ll see it. You’ll see yourself in the depths of your soul in deep, deep meditation. And you will say, as Carl Jung said, “So it is he who is meditating me: and you will know that when he awakes from his sleep, you, on the surface, will no longer be, because you are he. When he awakes, you on the surface will vanish but you are he.
I saw it so clearly. I saw this when I came upon myself in deep meditation, profound meditation, a glowing being like a Buddha in the lotus posture. I looked at it and I was amazed to see myself in this profound state. If I struck it over the head it wouldn’t move. It was in such a deep sleep no blow from me, the surface, could ever disturb it. As I looked at it and saw myself, it glowed like the sun. But I didn’t use the words that Jung used. But when Jung came upon a similar situation Jung was frightened, and when he came back to the surface he said, “So it is he who is meditating me, and when he awakes from his sleep I will no longer be” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections). So God placed himself into a profound state of sleep—this is the dream of God—and when he awakes in you, you the surface will vanish but you will be he who was the dreamer, who is now awake, that is God.
So no one can fail. How could you fail? Nothing can fail! I only ask everyone to recognize it for what it is and dream nobly. So I would say to everyone tonight, regardless of headlines and all the rumors in the reports, if you have a real urge to bring about a certain objective, don’t give up because of rumors. Just simply persist in your controlled waking dream.
Until October…thank you.
