24 Mar Neville Goddard Lectures: Adam And Christ Are One

2/27/67

If I can get you to use your Imagination outside of the limit of your senses, I have succeeded. For I tell you the whole vast world in which we live is all Imagination, all God, nothing but God.

So tonight we turn to one of the mysteries of scripture, for scripture from beginning to end is a mystery. Paul stated in his letter to Timothy, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion” (1Tim.3:16). Man thinks it’s some simple little secular history. So let us turn to a thought that Paul expressed: “For as in Adam all men die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order” (1Cor.15:22). Adam is the human race and all of his descendants are in him, and all are mortal. Christ also is universal and all shall be made alive in him. Now, you think when you read this that there are two: Adam, the mortal man, and then Christ, who came to redeem man from this world of death. That’s what it appears to be on the surface. But listen carefully, “I am the first and the last. I died and behold I am alive for ever more.” Is Adam something that Christ came to redeem, something other than himself, or are these two one? If I am the first and the last, then how could Adam be other than myself? ___(??) Adam alone.

Now, we’re told in scripture that the serpent beguiled woman. To beguile someone is to deceive them, to tell a lie. Did the serpent tell a lie? These are his words, “God knows that in the day that you eat of the fruit of that tree, your eye will be opened and you will become like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen.3:5). Was that a lie? Well then, read the words in the same chapter, the 3rd chapter of Genesis, now the 22nd verse, “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” These are the words of the Lord God. The serpent said exactly these words in the early part of the chapter, confirmed now in the end by the Word of God. So who is the serpent?

I haven’t read one exegesis, not one commentary, not one scholarly work on this chapter but what they treat it as some peculiar ancient myth when primitive minds of men couldn’t understand any more. I tell you it’s true from beginning to end, but these commentaries and the great scholarly works are written by men who’ve never had vision. They do not know. Well then, who is the serpent? Well, the serpent spoke the truth. Well, who is the truth in scripture? He said, “I am the truth. Thy word is truth.” God declares himself the truth. He didn’t beguile, he is foretelling. Well, what is the serpent? The serpent means “not only to whisper but to prognosticate, and then to learn by experience.” I tell you what’s going to happen and you learn it by experience…and to gaze with wide open eyes as at something that is remarkable.

So I tell you the story and its end, for the end gives meaning to all that goes before. So I’ll tell you the end, and the end is that I will resurrect you, which is myself, for there is no other. Listen to the words, “For if we have been united with him”—meaning Jesus Christ— in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom.6:5). So if I am now united in death, I will be united in a resurrection. Well, who died? He said, Adam died and all died in him. Is Adam something separate? I say no, there is only God. There is nothing but God. The whole plan is God’s plan, a deliberate plan, for an expansion of his own creative power. You and I are his creative power, and the creative power of God can not be separated from God. If I can get you to use your Imagination, which is the creative power of God, which is Jesus Christ of scripture, then I have succeeded. If I could only get you to listen carefully to these fantastic stories and they’re all true. Every one is true and the symbolism is true.

When my friend saw that fantastic intense shaft of light open up the earth and below he sees the serpentine motion of a golden liquid light, he was looking on the nudity of God. He was seeing the creative parts of God, which are his own creative parts, symbolized in this manner and yet true that is all his own wonderful human Imagination. Having seen the creative power of God which is God himself, then he ate and drank in an entirely different world. Then he saw the symbolism that must follow: the discovery of the child, something born differently…born entirely outside of the relationship of man and woman. Something entirely different comes into the world, and he finds that child.

Maybe not everyone was here the night that I told that story, many of you were, but those who were present, you know what I am talking about, this unveiling of God, which is your own wonderful human Imagination…that is God. There is nothing but God, therefore, there is nothing but your own wonderful human Imagination. So there is no such thing as a little Adam who committed sin and therefore you and I throughout the generations must suffer as a result of his so-called sin. Sin of what? They all place it upon sex. Well now, listen to the first command of God to man, “Multiply and replenish the earth.” How could I multiply and replenish the earth with my own likeness if I didn’t know a woman? The first command of God to man: Multiply and replenish the earth. And they said that is a disobedience? That’s the command of God, is it not?

So where is this so-called serpent? May I tell you it is a true symbol. They said an ancient primitive thought of man when he did not understand and couldn’t rationalize. Hasn’t a thing to do with that. It is true. It is the serpentine power in man. And it is serpentine power, called…in one chapter it’s called the serpent, in another it is called the fish. And the fish…what is the fish? By definition, “it is that which squirms or moves by a vibratory action.” That’s what the fish is called…that which moves by a vibratory action. So something moves in man by a vibratory action.

Now we are told, this power in man, called now the son of man,` must be lifted up. You can’t lift it up by anything you will do rationally. There are unnumbered books written about the Kundalini power, that you sit down and you meditate. You could sit and meditate forever. You could be the vegetarian of vegetarians. You could be one who stepped over all the ants and not kill anything that you could see with the mortal eye. It will never in any way aid you in raising this power. This power comes, as I spoke in the very first verse tonight, the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, each in his own order. So, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order” (verse 22). So you are called, I am called, eventually all are called, but each in his own order. And when it’s called, it’s a vibratory action. You can’t stop it. You feel it in your head and your head begins to vibrate. As it begins to vibrate, you begin to awake, and you awake from this dream here; it really is death, for in Adam all died. You don’t believe that you’re dead, certainly not. Who believes he’s dead here? Let it be the other who went through the gate called death, that’s death. They don’t for one moment entertain the thought that this is death…and this is the world of death.

But while we’re in this state we dream. We dream these things and bring them into being and we think they are alive because we are ___(??) in the state. For it’s not really death, as the world calls death; nothing dies. “I am a God of the living, not the dead.” But in this world, where we are seemingly lost forever, I will awaken you, said the Lord. I will raise you and when I raise you, I will raise you in the same manner that Moses raised the serpent in the wilderness. He raised it on a staff. I tell you that staff is your own spinal cord. And he will raise you and you will know that you are raised, and you are raised just like a serpent, right into heaven. And heaven is within you. As you’re told in scripture, “The kingdom of heaven is within you” (Luke 17:21).

So it’s all from within. If I could get you to believe it and go out to try it on this level… just try it on this level. You know what you want? Well, if this thing is true that the whole thing is taking place in me, it’s all in my Imagination, and this whole vast world is myself pushed out, and there’s nothing but my Imagination, well, then I should be able to become the man that I would like to be. Well, try it. What would you see if it were true? How would you act if it were true? Don’t try to act outwardly; try to act only in Imagination, for that’s creativity, that’s the cause of it all. What would it be like were it true? All in your own wonderful human Imagination act that way, just as though it were true. If you will act just as though it were true and believe in the reality of your own internal imaginal act, it will externalize itself. You may forget the cause of that externalization and not even recognize your own harvest when you see it in the world. And you will think, “Oh well, it would have happened anyway; therefore, the cause was not my imaginal act.” And you go sound asleep again.

It’s from this sleep that God wakens us and wakens us in a deliberate wonderful manner, all recorded in scripture. He calls you from the tomb and the tomb is your own wonderful skull. As he calls you in the tomb, you awaken in the tomb, you come out of the tomb; and then you find all of the signs, all the symbols, as recorded in scripture concerning your awakening, which is called now resurrection. For this is the month that the whole vast world will now celebrate Easter or resurrection of Christ. And they haven’t the slightest concept of what it’s all about. They’re still looking all through the Near East for signs of this historicity. May I tell you no historical research can give, really, the certainty, none. I don’t care where you dig and what you think you find, you will not in eternity find anything that will give you that inner sense of security, of certainty. Religious, I would say, discoveries in a physical sense will never in any way prove or disprove the life of Jesus Christ, you could never. It hasn’t a thing to do with anything outside of your wonderful human Imagination.

You aren’t going to find any tomb in Jerusalem. You aren’t going to find anything in any part of the world. It’s all in you. This is where he’s buried and it is here that he awakens. It was in the very beginning. If I am the beginning and the end, then I didn’t come into the world at a certain moment in time and die, as the world sees it…they think 2,000 years ago he was crucified. No! I have been united with him in a death like his. What 2,000 years ago and then Adam preceded that by unnumbered ages? No. In the beginning I was united with Christ. Nothing came before me he tells us: “In the volume of the book it is written about me.” How could there be anything outside of God?

So when I speak of one God, I mean one God, one body, one Spirit, one hope. I’m not speaking of two. So don’t think of an Adam who sinned and then a Christ who comes to redeem; it is all one. I am the beginning and the end. I am the first and the last. I died and behold I am alive for evermore. So it’s not a being who sinned and a being who deceived. Deceived what? If I told the truth, I could not have deceived. And I told the truth because the Lord God confirmed that I did tell the truth. “Behold the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil.” Are these not the words that the serpent spoke? And who is now the serpent? I tell you now it’s the symbol of the Son of man, and who is the Son of man? Jesus Christ, as told us in the 16th chapter of Matthew. “What think ye of the Son of man?” And they answered, well, some say that he’s a prophet come again. He’s Elijah, he’s Jeremiah, and they named all these prophets. Then he said, “But who think you that I am?” Now he identifies himself with the Son of man. He first asks, “Who is the Son of man?” and they answered. “But who do you think that I am?” so now he’s equating himself with the Son of man. Peter answers, “Thou art the Christ.” And now he doesn’t deny that, he confesses “I am the Christ.” So here you have the Son of man identified with himself, for he asks the question, “Who do you say that I am?” and now he goes into the Christ. So he takes those three and he equates them…and they are one.

Now he tells you the Son of man must be lifted up in the same manner that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Well then, who is the serpent? Is it not the Son of man who spoke to woman, who told man that you must discover this by an experience? I tell it to you, I will whisper in your ears, that you will not surely die. Yes, you will die but not surely die. And now how would you do it? Well, then you take it, take my word for it and enter the world of experience by dying with me, because, you enter this world by dying with Christ. It is God himself that is Christ. He said, “No one takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and the power to lift it up again (John10:18). So now with me let us all fall. And we all fell into a world of experience and proved from experience that although we died we do not surely die.

So men die. But I tell you from my own experience that nothing dies, but nothing dies. So eventually one by one by one we will be gathered into one body, and that one body is the risen Christ. It’s been proven; it’s over. His death was not the end of his world, but his triumphant resurrection was the end of the world. So when we read in the 17th of John and here we’re told, he said, “I have finished the work.” Well, you will think as you read it that here is someone not yet dead. This drama takes place in heaven; it doesn’t take place here. All these words are related to an entirely different world, but recorded as though it is still taking place here, and it isn’t here at all. So the whole drama…and you’ll be called, if you haven’t been called, and we’re called one by one to unite into a single body who is God. One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of us all (Eph.4:4).

So, we are told in the beginning, “I tell you it is a mystery. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion” (1Tim.3:16). If my religion is a mystery, well then, don’t tell me that these things happen in time and space as we understand it. No, it happens in a remote region, so far remote that the human mind cannot fathom. So the wise, wise men of the world try to, well…they can’t get it and they call it a myth, and try to tell us why they wrote it in this manner because they were primitive minds. A primitive mind writing Genesis, when the most advanced mind in the world can’t write one verse of it? A primitive mind wrote Genesis and then wrote Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. Let me ask any scholar who is commenting on it, and all these who call themselves the brilliant minds of the world, to sit down and write one chapter of it. They would be appalled. They could sit down and just simply move around, but they can’t write one chapter. They couldn’t write a verse. The whole thing is vision from beginning to end, and men who had the vision simply wrote what they saw, what they experienced from on high.

Do you know that today we have no knowledge of who wrote these five books? We call them the books of Moses. And all we have are three initials. We have J, we have E and we have P. These are the manuscripts and they’re only signed by three symbols. J, there are two Js, J1 and J2. And then we have an E. And then we have P. So scholars trying to give sense to it, they say, well, maybe it means Jehovah, the first, and the second is the Elohim, and the third, the prophets. They’re speculating—only signed J, E and P. Not one letter follows the J, E, or P. Let them speculate; they’re still speculating. We have no knowledge of any authorship of scripture.

We do not know who Matthew, Mark and Luke are. There is no contemporary book of the age in which it was supposed to have been written that names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. No contemporary work mentions Paul. Who is Paul? As told in the second half of Luke, which is called now the Book of Acts; he appears in the Book of Acts, which was once part of the Book of Luke. But no one knows who Luke is. And who is this Paul that he speaks of in the Book of Acts, which was once a part of Luke? He’s not called in scripture. He is spoken of as an instrument of the Lord, but not one that is chosen, as you will be chosen, as I have been chosen, and others that I know have been chosen. But everyone here that I know is a person will be chosen, for everyone will be called in his own order. So we do not know who Paul was. He isn’t mentioned in anything outside of scripture. And yet we have churches dedicating structures to him and speaking of this church is St. Paul’s church, and St. Paul’s this, and they don’t know any St. Paul. And we have ___(??) and St. Matthew’s and all these things, and they do not know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John…anonymous names.

So I say, if I could get you to dwell with me on this fantastic mystery, it will stimulate you when you go into the world of Caesar and then you’ll realize who you really are. Then people won’t frighten you. You want a better job? You dare to assume that you have it and don’t ask anyone to aid you, that you have it. You want to be other than what you seem to be and you dare to assume that you are that, and you walk in that light because you know now who you are. Walking in this light you are simply exercising the creative power of God. That is the only purpose for becoming man. God came down and took upon himself the limitations of man. May I tell you that man not only was but is and will be forever a part of the eternal structure of the universe. So you came down and assumed the limitation of part of the structure of the universe called man. Then you rise from it. You are Christ…in the state that you challenge that you could come and assume the state called death, and overcome death, and rise from it.

You dwell upon it. They take the platform and give you some little pap…so what. If you go to any Sunday school you get that. In fact, go to any church and get it. Go in on Sunday mornings and hear all the palaver, perfectly alright. Sing the lovely hymns, puts you sound asleep and ___??) sound asleep, all about good and evil. And you can try forever to be good. You’ll never be so good that you will be awakened because of your goodness. You are awakened in your own good order. The night that you were awakened could be the very night that you got so plastered you couldn’t find your way home. Hasn’t a thing to do with your drinking or not drinking. Hasn’t a thing to do with your eating meat or not eating meat, or anything you have done in this world. You came into this world to know what?—just what they’re talking about, good and evil. And all the good and evil will not in any way give you eternal life. Listen to the words, “And this is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God.” Which God? He’s speaking now of the Father. This is the 17th chapter of John, you read this in the 3rd verse. So to know the Father is the only eternal life. You could be so good you’re good for nothing, and it will not in any way aid you in getting into heaven.

I’m not saying to go out and become a devil, no, I’m not suggesting that at all. I find it easier to be kind than not to be. I find it easier to be what the world calls good than not to be. I find it easier living with myself to be that…but don’t think for one moment that I am acquiring merit by adding to the goodness. Oh no. When it calls for bawling someone out, bawl them out. That’s part of the world in which we live. When it calls for hitting someone over the head because he’s just taken something for which he had not paid, hit him over the head. Who tells you that that is not right? This is a world of good and evil and play it fully. I only know from experience I find it easier to be kind than not to be. But don’t be a fool and think, well now, some being in outer space is watching me and therefore I must now, in spite of what I see, I must now be a fool and be good as the world calls good and now seal myself into bankruptcy. No, you play it fully.

Play a game well. But use your Imagination, that’s the important thing in this world. What would it be like were it true that I am the man that I would like to be? What would it be like were it true? Well, dare I to walk in that state just as though it were true? If I dare to walk as though it were true, may I tell you, it will become true, for this whole vast world is simply created that way. He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen. That’s what I’m told in the 4th chapter of Romans. He calls things not seen as though they were seen and the unseen becomes seen. Now I’m told in Ephesians, “Be imitators of God as dear children” (Eph.5:1). Is that how he did it? Well then, imitate him. And I start imitating him. I’ll call a thing too that is not seen as though it were seen. But I must call everything in his name. Well, what is his name? His name is I AM. “That’s my name forever…and by this I shall be known throughout all generations” (Exod.3:14).

So I will call with his name. Well, do I say, O dear I AM, make me rich? No, I say, I am rich. Do I say, O I AM, make me known? No, I say, I am known. Were I known, would the world see me? Well then, walk as though they did, just as though they did if that’s my desire. It’s my desire to be…and you name it. Well then, call with the name by assuming that you are it. That is walking in the name…just as though it were true. Walking as though it were true, you are imitating God who calls things that are not seen as though they were seen and then the unseen becomes seen. So I ask everyone to simply apply it, just apply it. Don’t judge it and criticize it and condemn it before you test it. That’s stupid. No scientist would demand proof before he is willing to make an experiment. Alright, make the experiment. And if there is evidence for it after you’ve made the experiment, does it really matter what the world thinks?

So I tell you the entire book called the Bible is true from beginning to end. And all the imagery is true. The serpent is true. The fish is true. ___(??). The other night when my friend, in her dream having these disturbed states and she said to these —which was nothing more than herself pushed out anyway, for there’s only one—and they’re really giving her quite a time, and she said in her dream, “I’m going to tell Neville about this” and they replied, “You would tell the fish.” Yes, I am the fish, the fish that swallowed Jonah. You were told it was a whale? No, the word is fish, hasn’t a thing to do with whale. It’s simply the fish. It’s a symbol—that which moves by a vibratory motion. You learn to control it and you do create by this motion.

So the fish swallowed what?—swallowed Jonah. Know what Jonah means? Jonah means “the dove.” Jonah is the Hebrew for dove, the Holy Spirit. A friend of mine, two nights ago, she had a dream that she found a little dove and it was injured. She picked up the dove and its stomach was soft and she interpreted that to mean that it was either unwell or hungry. She placed it in a little basin of water and thought she’d get some sugar for it for quick energy. She came back and she picked it up and she dropped it. It ran toward the door and got between the door and she got it again. She thought, now I will simply help it. She noticed that the beak was stuck. She got a knife and she tried to pry the beak open. As she did so, it began to bleed…and the whole thing began to bleed. It got bigger and bigger, but the beak turned into a human mouth. It wasn’t the beak of a bird anymore, it became human.

Well here, a discovery of the Spirit, which is called in scripture the Holy Spirit. It is symbolized as a dove. It is in man that the whole thing takes place. And you are told we are all sealed. Our eyes are sealed, the mouth is sealed, the ears are sealed, and we have to, actually, pry them open, and in the prying open there is always the shedding of blood. And “there is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood”…all beautiful symbolism. She has found the Spirit of the Holy Spirit, which is her own wonderful Imagination, who will now lead her into all knowledge. For he now becomes alive within her. He will lead her… not without shedding of blood, not without tears, not without hurt. We all pass through the furnaces and still are passing through the furnaces until that moment in time when we are called, and the whole drama comes to an end.

But not one will be lost. Let no one tell you that he whether it be a Stalin or a Hitler is beyond redemption. Forget it. Everyone will be redeemed, but everyone. And they all play their parts. God made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. So let no one tell you he didn’t make the evil. You want to read it? Read it in the 16th chapter of Proverbs, “He made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble” (verse 4). Man will not believe it. He thinks God didn’t make that. Well then, there’s another Creator. If God didn’t make everything, well then, there are two Gods. And there are not two Gods. The one grand Commandment, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). That’s the first and greatest Commandment, and the second, like the first, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” because if there’s only one, it’s really not another. It’s not another that you love or hate…it can only be an extension of yourself…for in the end, when we all awake, we are one, one God, one Spirit, one body. So I give you a second Commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” For, really, in the end we discover he is yourself and there never was another.

So here, he said, “For as in Adam all die”…well, Adam, may I tell you, is Christ. For, “I am the first and the last.” If I am the resurrection, I’m also the death. For, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom.6:5). And so, I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last, the alpha and omega. There aren’t two. There is no room in God’s world for another; there’s only God. So we all came down into the world of death in God, and then we are fragmented and look upon a world…we see others and we think there are others…and there is no other. The very first death recorded in scripture is that of a brother, ___(??), “And Cain slew Abel.” That’s slaying a brother. Can’t be another…the very last will be a brother. And in the end, all will awaken from this dream, this fantastic nightmare, to find that we have never really died, we have never been born, save in our dream, never.

So tonight, I tell you it is practical. It may seem not practical. You try it. Dwell upon it, as you go out, dwell upon what I’ve told you. In the meanwhile take a challenge in the world of Caesar and dare to assume that you are now what you would like to be, and walk as though you were. Challenge it. And then, I know from experience you’ll become it. You may remember my words tonight that the Adam was supposed to have been the sinning one who caused us to fall into this world, for in him all die. So we are all descendants in Adam and all are ___(??). And you think you separate that from Christ who came in then to save us from what Adam had done. Adam had no choice in the matter, none whatsoever. There’s only God that is cause; there is no other cause. No Adam caused anything.

The structure of the universe is dead. One day you’ll see it. You’ll come into a world, a room just like this, and see things, and the minute you look at them you will know that you could stop something in you and if you could only arrest it, everything would stand still. You do, and they all stand still. Those that one second before were so animated, so alive, and so independent of your perception of them, and suddenly they all look still. You look at them, they’re dead. I mean dead in the true sense of the word, like a piece of marble. Though one second before they were dining and waiting, and birds were flying, everything was moving…and all of a sudden they’re dead. You look at them and you see that they are dead. And then you release the activity within you that allowed them to move, and as you release it, they all move and continue to fulfill their intentions. Then you realize where the action was all along, where the activity was.

This whole vast world is an eternal part of the structure of the universe. In ___(??) detail. The unborn child and the child that is born and every moment always existed to what is called death…all part of the structure. “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act of mercy.” What was that creation? God is expanding his own creative power, that’s all. It is God actually burying himself deliberately. “No man takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again.” I bury my creative power in this structure that is dead, inanimate, and as I do it, it becomes animated, and I forget that I am animating it. I go berserk…and then I fight with phantoms until that moment when I fulfill my intention, which was to create something greater than it was prior to my descent into it. When I have actually done that, I extricate myself from it and I call that resurrection. I rose back to myself, out of the world of death. And then find exactly the means by which I will know that I did it: I will discover myself as the Father. So everyone will pass through the entire picture.

So tonight, you simply go out dwelling upon it. You’re not going to remember it in detail tonight, because it’s in conflict with what everyone in Sunday school has been taught. I know I was never taught it in Sunday school. I know that I never heard it at my mother’s knee. I never read it in a book. I experienced it and I’m telling you what I have experienced. I am not telling you anything that is hearsay; it is all what I know from experience. So let them tell the stories of the serpent, let them tell all these things. I tell you, this imagery is true, the symbolism is true, every bit about it is true. But you go out dwelling upon it. Take a challenge in the world of Caesar. And then share with me your experiences. Write me a letter telling me how you became the man, the woman that you really want to be

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

___(??)it is Monday and Friday with the exception of one Friday, which is March the 17th. If you cannot remember that, there’s a little program at the door. Please take it. There are many of them, take it, or give it to a friend if you have one. But this is the sequence from now on, Monday, Friday, right through ’til ___(??). So we just have two months. I presume that will give us, oh, maybe sixteen or seventeen lectures. Then we’ll close for three months. In the meanwhile you apply this. It costs you nothing to apply it, just apply it. Just what you are…if you came here running from the police, it makes no difference to me. I’m not inviting you to do that, but if you did I’m still not dunning you in any sense. I was not sent into this world to judge you. I have no judgment of man…only to tell man who he is: Every child born of woman is God. Whether he is black as the ace of spades or the blue-eyed blond child that is born in the northern parts of the world, he’s still the child of God. Everyone is the child of God. And no one, ultimately, will be greater than we are, for in the end, the ultimate end, there’s God. Can’t be greater than God…all move into God. It’s all God.

Now are there any questions, please?

Q: If there is a tiger in dreams, does the tiger have some symbolic meaning?

A: Yes, my dear. Every animal in the world has meaning. But because God is the only reality you will find that in certain parts of the world it was called the creative power of God. The tiger was one and still is, the lion was, the elephant. In Africa it would be the lion; in parts of India it would be the tiger. And so, the tiger is, like all these. One night I found myself at the top of a ladder. It was a much taller ladder than this room and I’m standing at the very top. At the bottom I notice lions and tigers and all the animals of the forest, the wild animals and they were angry. I mean, they were growling and really angry. I felt a little bit uneasy, for I was alone, there was no one but myself plus the animals of the forest. And then I realized where I was…this whole thing is taking place in me. I became aware that it was not in this world of Caesar that I am actually experiencing this thing. Then I lost my fear. As I lost my fear, they all became like domesticated kittens, all of them. And then, more than that, I realized now I was ___(??) and I stopped my own activity, some activity you feel in your head. As I arrested it, they were all still and became stone. I came down that ladder and they were just as dead as stone. Then I released it within me and they all became once more animated beings. But each symbolized in me an emotional power. I cannot look at the tiger and not see it a tremendous power.

Q: I had a dream years ago and I can’t remember it exactly, but there was this magnificent tiger and I was just amazed that I could see it so vividly. It was a huge tiger, huge and magnificent, and it got out of my house into my yard and was walking around. I was a little bit terrified about it and the feeling I had was “it’s out.” Then the dream repeated itself. The tiger never hurt me or anything…the tiger saw me.

A: Well, my dear, I wouldn’t want to take this time to analyze that dream for you, but I would say you saw your creative power personified in its almost nakedness. For an animal is unashamed of its nakedness. You don’t put diapers on them. We don’t hide them at a certain age, we just let them expose themselves…although some societies form themselves to put clothes on them, because they shouldn’t have themselves exposed this way. But the animal world is simply the nakedness of God. No one thinks it’s wrong when a dog expresses itself at the curb. They were only thinking it’s not the dog’s fault but the owner’s fault ___(??) not the curb. But we don’t think it’s wrong when it performs the sex act in the eyes of men and women. We don’t consider that a wrong thing. For here is nakedness unveiled, God unveiled, when we see the animal world. So what is more powerful than that of the rhythm of the tiger? So you saw the creative power in its naturalness, which is your own creative power, and of that you were not ashamed, neither were you afraid. So the whole vast world, the animal world, is the creative power of God.

Q: People who suffer from certain mental circumstances have a very vivid Imagination and they also feel they are certain things and imagine they are certain things, but these things don’t manifest themselves.

A: Well, I haven’t really encountered them to the point that we can talk about it. For instance, my brother, who’s just gone from this world, was the head doctor of the mental institution in Barbados for something like fifteen years, and when I’d go home to spend a little vacation, I’d always visited him at the hospital. One day in question I went through the wards and this man was standing this way with his hand in his pocket, like this. They were all lining up to meet me. My brother told them that a doctor from New York was coming down to see them. He didn’t tell them I was his brother. They would not have had the same feeling towards a less important visitor. But he said a doctor from the ___(??) hospital in New York was coming down to pay a visit. Well, he had them all lined up and this one was like this, just erect, with his hand here. My brother introduced me to him as Napoleon, and Napoleon greeted me. I was doctor…I forget what the name was…Dr. Brown, Dr. something from New York City. Napoleon greeted the great doctor from New York City. As we walked past…we weren’t gone more than six or seven feet…my brother, like this, turned around and said, “Oh, Henry?” and he said, “Yes, doctor?” Well, if he were Napoleon he would not have responded to Henry. You could pull that same line on any of them. If I’m running away from the world because I’ve committed a crime and you find me in the streets of Shanghai and I am shaved or I grew a beard and I did everything to disguise me, and I’m walking down thinking I’m disguised and someone behind me says, “That’s Neville,” I’d go like this. I have not changed my identity. In spite of the fact outwardly I thought I had escaped recognition, but inwardly I was still Neville. And he proved it to me as he walked away…he hadn’t gone more than I would say seven or eight feet from Napoleon when suddenly he said, “Oh, Henry?” and Napoleon, “Yes doctor?” A simple, quiet little fellow who wanted to serve the doctor right away; he was Henry, masquerading. We go to a masquerade ball and so Barbara Hutton comes in and she is playing the part of a pauper. She puts on a pauper’s dress that she’s paid over 4,000 or 5,000 dollars for. Goes to her friend and says make me a pauper, so her couturier builds her a pauper’s dress for $5,000, and she goes in and she’s the pauper, with her fifty or 100 million dollars well invested. You think she actually feels the pauper? She doesn’t feel a pauper at all…and she thinks that she is a pauper. Well, every year they have these crazy things in New York City at the Plaza Hotel and the Waldorf Astoria, and they’re all masquerading as something other than what inwardly they know they are.

So they all spend a fortune for the little night of masquerading, but not one feels it. If you in her presence said, “Do you know this bum? This thing is an awful mess,” well, she would take it off and tell you exactly who she is. She wouldn’t for one second stand any criticism of her concept of herself that she is a multi, multi-millionairess. She can buy men after men after men and settle millions on them. Each one, outside of one, she had to have a title with him. She thinks that’s important. Now she’s married to a prince and then she’s married to a count. Married…you can buy these things by the dozens if you have millions.

So they all are masquerading. I’m not speaking of that. I’m speaking of so becoming the part. God isn’t pretending that he’s you, he had to become you. God does not pretend. He emptied himself after ___(??) and took upon himself the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in the image of man became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross of man (Phil. 2:7). This is no pretending. The greatest actor in the world still to a degree is pretending, to a degree. The more that he can drop that pretense and become the character, the better actor that he is. If I can step into a role and completely forget Neville and become the character, then no author who wrote that character would criticize me. It’s when I’m together and Neville is playing the part… if I can just put Neville aside and take upon myself the part. An actor to play a part must to some extent feel the part, and to the best of his ability he must actually identify himself with the character that he depicts.

Well, to what extent can I identify myself with the feeling of being wealthy? There was a play that came up called The Millionairess…I think it was. I know Hepburn played the ___(??) and one line struck me, just struck me forcefully, she said, “All that a pauper has to do to cease being a pauper is to assume the arrogance of wealth.” Well, it struck me so forcefully when it came from her lips. There’s nothing in this world that a man has to do to cease being a pauper other than simply to just dare to assume the arrogance of wealth. And let no one tell you that a man who is very, very wealthy isn’t conscious of it and isn’t very arrogant about it. Oh, maybe ___(??) buys everything, buys wisdom, buys force. “Why must I study history? Why must I study anything? I can buy it!” so Henry Ford said. Of course he died ___(??) like all blithering idiots. The last two years of his life he was simply just a vegetable. And all these fellas the minute they become wealthy they think that is power, that’s wisdom. They can buy a king’s library.

I recall in New York City, J. P. Morgan, he had one of the finest private collections in the world, the library on Madison Avenue. It was a fantastic library. And this librarian…he paid a fortune to the librarian and gave him unlimited funds to get every fine book in the world. He had a collection of Blake that was fantastic. But I mean, here is this private library…and you know what he said to his librarian? He said, “You know, you have spent millions and millions for me in building this wonderful library. I would give you ten times what you will spend for it if I could only know what you know ___(??).”

Goodnight.