2/23/68

Few are teaching this wonderful principle, many others will join, so I thought tonight a certain point should be clarified, because you’re going to get this question over and over again. “Do you not believe that a man called Jesus Christ walked the earth?” You’re going to get it and you’ll be up against it if you do not know how to answer such a question; for the whole vast Christian world believes in a man, a man, and they will pin you down and try to get an answer, yes or no. Just like saying, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” if you try to answer yes or no to such a question.

So here, we’ll turn to scripture, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). “Thy word is truth, and his name shall be called The Word of God.” How do I reconcile it? Here, “his name”…that’s a person…but I’m speaking of a word that will set a man free. We are told in scripture in the 6th of John, “And this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” (verse 40). As you read it you think it’s a man and you say he sees the Son…instantly you think of a man. Well, why? There is not an error but it has a man for its agent, that is, it is a man. There is not a truth but it has also a man for its agent. It takes man to express either a lie or a truth, because God is man…and there is only God. So when we come to this story in scripture concerning Jesus Christ that is called the truth, well then, they say, “Don’t you believe a man, one man, a unique man, was born say four B.C. or say one B.C.?” And then you’re called upon to answer that question.

Well, first of all, you cannot answer it yes or no. But you answer it in this way: it is not a man—Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation. It’s a plan. Here we turn back now to one of the saddest and yet poignant statements in the entire Bible. You read it in the Book of Samuel. Samuel loses his son, Absalom. And here, when they bring news, the battle is on, he always inquires about his son. Now the son revolted against him, tried to take over the kingdom. Then finally he said, “Tell me, how is it with the lad Absalom?” When he gets the news, he puts on a coat, covers his head, takes off his sandals, and sits in the gates of Jerusalem and weeps, and they can’t console him. Then that cry of his: “O Absalom, Absalom my son, my son! Would that I had died instead of thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2Sam. 18:33). Well, here is a forecasting of a great story. It’s a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way, which we find in the New Testament.

Now, there’s only God, nothing but God. Here now we find in the New, God the Father does that which David longed to do: He longed to give his life to restore his son. David couldn’t do it; only God could do it. So then in the words of Blake, put into the mouth of Jesus, “Fear not!”—speaking now to humanity—“Unless I die thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. Wouldst thou love one who had never died for thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist” (Jer., Plt.96). So God dies; he empties himself completely of his divinity, and doesn’t pretend, he actually becomes man. He becomes man, every one born of woman. But, while he walks in this forgetfulness as man he has a plan. He has prepared a plan for himself to return, bringing with him the redeemed…every one redeemed.

But strangely enough, everyone here must be told the story of redemption. The story of redemption is Jesus Christ—the story is personified and man has taken the personification and made an icon out of it. He has taken the great vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction itself, and the agent that expressed the great truth for the truth. So man, an individual, it takes man to express it. Suddenly out of the nowhere this story that is eternal unfolds in him, and he tells the story.

Now, you are told, this is my Father’s will, everyone who sees the Son and believes in him…well, to see the Son, the word “to see” and the word “to know” are the same in Greek. So if tonight I paint a word picture and show you the plan of salvation, you are seeing the Son because you will know it. It doesn’t necessarily follow that you will believe it. So you’ll find the statement that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him. You may understand what I talk about…I hope I can tell it so clearly that everyone can follow, that everyone will understand what I intend…but not everyone will accept it and they will reject it. So not everyone who sees it clearly in his mind’s eye could follow it, they can’t believe it. It’s the most incredible story ever!

So Jesus Christ is not a man, he is not a person; he is the plan of salvation. The plan…so what is that plan? The plan is that the individual hears a story that there is not only one birth in this world—for flesh and blood, which is this, cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; that that which is of the flesh is of no avail, only that which is of the Spirit. And my words are Spirit. So if I tell you a story and only one… But tonight in this audience many have fulfilled what I’ve told you that I myself experienced. So if many have duplicated it right to the very end, and going off into other aspects in scripture fulfilling the Word in themselves, well then, it is the truth. “You will know the truth and truth will set you free.” No man is going to set you free…this man called Neville is simply the agent expressing truth. If what I tell you is true, you should if you accept it. It’s not enough just to understand it. I hope I can make it clear and you can understand it, but after you understand it, comes acceptance of it, belief. So you believe not in Neville; you believe in the truth that he is expressing from this platform or from his books. If you believe it and I lied, well then, you can’t prove it…you’ll simply be misled. And oh, the pain that is promised in the Book of James for the teacher who lies and sets his following amiss in this world; people don’t realize what is imposed upon the teacher if he dares to lie and mislead those who would trust him.

I know I am telling you what I have experienced so it can’t be a lie. I have actually experienced it. In the audience tonight many have experienced it: The birth; the discovery of the Son of God who is David; the splitting of the temple which is one’s body; the ascent of the Son of man into heaven; and then the descent of the dove upon that individual who has gone through Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ is simply the story of salvation. Now, man will not accept that, when I say man, I mean the majority. They don’t want that. They want a person on the outside as a personal Savior, and tonight many of them who are facing the inevitable departure form this world are hoping to meet what they call their Savior. Their Savior is simply a plan of salvation and the plan is God himself, for when it unfolds in you it is God unfolding…and you and he are one.

So here, they will ask you the question because you started to teach it and you will continue to teach it, and they will insist on the yes or no answer, and you just can’t do it. Will they come with you and then let you reason with them? And now start it in this manner, “You believe in scripture?” Well, you’ll get the affirmative answer, “Oh, yes!” Well, we’ll turn now to the 11th of Matthew. If you think Jesus Christ is a man of flesh and blood, we’ll turn to Matthew. He’s now talking of John the Baptist, “Of those born of women none is greater than John the Baptist; yet I tell you the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (verse 11). Now, is Jesus Christ flesh and blood? That’s what you want? Then he is not greater than John the Baptist if you admit that, for these are the words of the one you call Jesus Christ. They aren’t your words; they are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, he said, no one born of women is greater than John the Baptist. Well, if you insist that Jesus Christ is born of a woman and therefore is in this world as flesh and blood, he tells you he is not greater than John the Baptist. He also tells you, the least in the kingdom then is greater than he. Well, if he is no greater than John the Baptist and the least in the kingdom is greater than John, then he is greater than Jesus Christ…if you insist that he is a man of flesh and blood. Isn’t that clear?

So, just bring your Bible up and expose the words of God to man. It is an entirely supernatural drama. It hasn’t a thing to do with any child that came from the womb of a woman. This is entirely different; it is out of an entirely different area. It’s born from above…man comes out of his own skull…that’s the birth from above. There is a peculiar and wonderful hidden-ness of Christ in the gospel of John. You’ll find it in the 6th chapter, the 8th chapter, the 18th and 19th chapters. Let’s just give you highlights: “Isn’t this Joseph’s son? How is it he has just said, ‘I came down from heaven’?” He is Joseph’s son in the eyes of the hundreds of millions of people in the world, but he doesn’t make that admission. He said, “No, I just came down from heaven” (John 6:38). Heaven is above. Well, how can he come from heaven and he is Joseph’s son…we know him? Now they ask him a question in the 8th of John, “Who is your father?” He said, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me you’d know my Father” (verse 19). And if you really knew me in the true sense of that word, you wouldn’t ask, because you would know that if you knew me you would know God, for he and I are one. That’s what he’s saying in the 8th of John. “Only I know my Father whom you call God; but I know my Father and ye know not your God.”

So you find the hidden-ness of Christ all through John…not seen by mortal eye. But you can grow to see him by knowing him as it is explained to you that Jesus Christ is the plan of salvation and not a man, though it takes a man to express that plan. Only man can express either truth or error. So everything in this world is God and it takes God to express it, no matter what it is.

So here comes the other one. He stands now before Pilate and Pilate said to him, “Who are you?” and he refused to answer, he gave no answer. He said, “Where are you from?” No answer (John 19:9). Then he said to him, “Do you not know I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?” Now Jesus answers—man now is expressing truth—“You have no power over me unless it were given you from above” (John 19:11). That same word “from above” is the word “anothin” defined in the 3rd chapter “you must be born from above” (verse 3). He said, “My world is not of this world. I am not in this world.” The drama is unfolding in an entirely different age, an entirely different world. It isn’t here at all. So I share with you what I know from another world, an entirely different world.

Now, let me share with you what was shared with me this week. This lady writes, “Last Sunday night I felt your presence so strongly in my home. It was so strong I sat down expecting to see you. All I saw was simply lights, like fireflies, lights, lights, lights, but I didn’t see you. And then I went to bed and this is my dream. I dreamt that I saw my tape recorder the wheels going over and over and I was waiting for the end of that little end. Then I remembered your teaching and you said if I could arrest the activity in my own mind as I observe anything that the thing observed would freeze. And so I thought I would try it. I arrested the activity in my Imagination and the scene stopped and it was frozen. Now this is what happened, Neville. As I arrested it, something in me opened and expanded above my head. It was my head but above, and it simply opened and expanded. Then when I once more decided to let it go by releasing the activity, it closed. As it closed, I contracted and then it started. I did it several times. I stopped it and started it, stopped it and started it, but every time something in me opened and expanded. I could not start it with the open and expanded state; I had to first close it and contract to get it started. Then I awoke. And at the moment I was disappointed because I did not stop and start people…it was simply a wheel. And then I realized in a flash the significance of the symbolism of the wheel, and then I was elated and sat down to write you this letter.”

The wheel is “divine union” as you will find it in Bayley’s Lost Language of Symbolism. Here, it’s a foreshadowing of her divine union with herself. There’s only God, God in the eternal state of existence, God in procession, and God in return. And here is a foreshadowing of her return to union with herself. She’s been into the world and she’s played her part. I can tell her, from this you’ve tasted of the power of the age to come. That’s the power that you and I exercise in the new age. It’s something so far removed from anything known to man. Man here hasn’t the slightest concept of power. They’re frightened of their own little devices and they think they’re going to blast the whole universe apart with their little firecrackers.

You might have seen yesterday’s L. A. Times…the scientists are meeting at Cal Tech. These are the astrophysicists who dwell upon outer space with all their concepts of what makes it all go and how did it come into being. They do not agree as to the origin of it, but they agree quite a lot on its structure. Now these figures are staggering…they claim we have in our universe 100 billion galaxies and each galaxy contains 100 billion stars. Yet, they admit that no matter how they search, there is no evidence that there is anything comparable to our small little system in the whole vast universe. The only thing in this whole vast universe that could cradle this biological experiment called man is right here with our small system of a sun and these planets. The only thing in the planet that could do it is earth and we’re on it. This solid little piece called earth, so small, a hundred billion galaxies, each containing a hundred billion stars; and only one solar system could actually cradle this experiment called man…and we’re here.

If you dwell upon it, you should feel so proud, you should feel so great that this whole vast infinite universe can’t contain it. And it was all done to produce this one, this one little system…an orgasm of God. The orgasm of man, under the microscope, billions in the attempt to reproduce the likeness of the man, and only one comes out. Well, here is God’s orgasm…and one comes out…one system that could actually cradle the grand plan: His experiment to make man in his own image. Nothing in this world could do it but God himself becoming man: So, “Unless I die thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me” (Blake, Jer., Plt. 96, Ln.14). “If God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist.” So he actually becomes man and there is a plan of salvation, and the plan is called Jesus Christ. Churches have organized around it, personified it, and made a little god, and stuck it on the wall. That is not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s eternal plan of salvation…and that plan has to be expressed by man.

Well, who knows? No one knows the authors of the gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are anonymous. No one knows who they are. They are actually relating their own experiences, that’s what they’re doing. They are telling you exactly what they experienced. So when they personify the plan they call it “the Son,” they call it Jesus, they call it Jesus Christ, they call it the Lord. It is all of this, but man not knowing this he can’t discriminate between the state and the occupant of the state, and so he takes the state and personifies it and worships the personification. But Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation.

So here, you’ll be asked it. For, I’ll be gone and you will carry on and you’ll tell it. They’re going to ask it of you: “Don’t you believe that a man called Jesus Christ was born of Mary, and lived, and they crucified him and did all these things?” The answer to that is no. That Jesus Christ…you are now the witnesses of this plan, for many in this audience have witnessed it. You’ve been born from above; and you’ve found David who calls you Father; you’ve been split in two; and you’ve ascended; and the dove has descended. You’ve had all these experiences, so you are witnesses to the truth of God’s word. Now, as witnesses you are the fruit of the tree on which Jesus Christ as God’s eternal plan was crucified. His plan was crucified upon the eternal tree. Now they’re looking for that tree out in time and space. All the scientists are looking in the laboratory for it. But as Blake so beautifully stated: “The gods of the earth and the sea sought through nature to find this tree; but their search was all in vain; there grows one in the human brain” (Songs of Experience, Human Abstract). That’s where he is nailed. That’s where Christ or the plan of salvation is embedded; that’s where it is engrafted and there it grows.

As it grows it erupts into these major events, one after the other, until finally you reach the climax. After the climax, which is the descent of the dove, you simply linger to tell it to encourage your brothers…for we are all one. Then you depart, not to be restored to life in this terrestrial world, but you enter “that age” called the kingdom of heaven, where you exercise a power beyond the wildest dream of man. Everything known to man is as nothing compared to the power you will exercise when you enter there, for you are simply returning to yourself, divine reunion. “I came out from the Father”—and I and the Father are one—“I came into the world; again I am leaving the world and I’m returning to the Father” (John 16:28). There’s only God the Father. And this is not some accident, this fall is not a disgrace, this is no…not a thing was wrong…it was a plan to create and expand the creative power of God. For, there’s no limit to expansion; there’s only a limit to contraction. He placed a limit and the limit is man. He took the limit of contraction and that is man, and that’s the limit of opacity, it is man. Then comes the unfolding of this in man and then there is no limit to translucency, no limit to expansion.

So here, Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation. That plan is offered to man that he may see it clearly in his mind’s eye. When he sees it clearly in his mind’s eye, he is looking at “the Son of God,” God’s plan. He may reject it, alright, that’s his privilege. He may reject it and if he rejects it, well then, he does not believe it. And throughout the entire gospel of John and practically the entire teaching of Jesus simply is all about faith and the belief in himself the whole teaching. You either believe it or you don’t believe it. He tells you a story and it’s all about himself, that he is expressing truth and truth is personified as a man. But it’s not the man that you should worship, it’s the truth. You simply hold onto the truth, for the truth will set you free (John 8:32). For if you accept the Word of God and abide in it, well then, the Word abiding in you, which is the plan, will make you free. So you’ll know the truth and the truth will set you free. But you first must know it, and then having seen it clearly in the mind’s eye you can say, “Oh, silly…I want the wisdom of this world. If I could only find out what he knows to make his millions, I would delay this for a little while. Come back tomorrow. I will simply take the millions first”; not knowing, “O foolish man, your soul is required of thee tonight” (Luke 12:20). Just tonight, so come back tomorrow. I’ll put it in your lap in the next little sphere for you. And so, your greed of today you’ll have it tomorrow, but you start shining shoes for it.

And don’t think for one moment that we do not move from here in a noble part into such other parts. Don’t think for one moment…any more than the actor playing today’s king on a stage doesn’t play tomorrow’s culprit. He’s simply an actor cast in roles and so we are the actors. “God only acts and is in existing beings or men” (Blake). And so you’re cast in role after role, the role best suited for the work yet to be done in us. So regardless of what we do now and the position in the social world or the intellectual world or all of these other worlds, we are cast in our appropriate role. This I see as I meet people. And it’s all perfect, everything is done perfectly. God planned it as it has come out and as it will be consummated.

So to you who are teaching it now and to those who are going to follow, you mark it clearly, you’re going to be asked, “Don’t you believe in Jesus Christ as a man whose mother was Mary?” and they’ll ask all these questions as I have been asked over the years. A gentleman about, I think just before I closed last December, he was here and he sat just there, and he took issue with me when I was trying to explain just what I explained to you tonight. Well, it was in conflict with his concept of Jesus Christ. He has him as something on the outside of flesh and blood. And he’s never been back since. But that is fulfillment of the 6th chapter of John, “That’s a hard saying and they left him, never to walk with him again” (verse 60). I am only fulfilling scripture. You tell the truth as you’ve experienced it and those like this gentleman will not walk with me again. He cannot walk with me in that atmosphere when my concept of Jesus Christ is simply the personification of truth; and that truth is God’s plan, his eternal plan of salvation.

That truth must be expressed by a man, yes, so a man comes, expresses it; but leave the man alone and hold on to the truth. As you find the truth you hold the truth, but you just let everyone else go. But do not let go of the truth and the truth will engraft itself upon you, and then it will unfold within you. Then you will know who he is, because when he unfolds within you, everything said of him is now experienced by you and you know who you are. What is said of him is that he is God; then you know who you are. If only to God this thing happens and it happens to you, then you must be he. You have no other conclusion. If it is to God that David said, “My Father,” and he says it to you, well then, you must be God. If it is to God that the temple is struck from top to bottom, and it was his body that was split from top to bottom, well then, it is to you.

Then the whole Bible opens up differently…and you will see the wisdom of Blake when he said, “Rivers, mountains, cities, villages all are human for in eternity all are men.” So last Monday when we brought out that the great mountain that was divided, it’s called the great Mount of Olives, but it is man that is divided. It is my own body that was divided, and one part moved northward, one part moved southward after it was split from east to west. So all the mountains become man and you are that man. You are the river Jordan, you are everything in the Bible…there’s nothing but man. And so, the mountains, the villages, the cities all are human. When you enter into their bosoms you walk in their heavens and their earths, as in your own bosom you walk in your heaven and earth. And “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” (Jer., Plt. 71). So this whole thing is unfolding within you. So all the mountains of the scriptures are all within you…whether you call it by this name or that name or the other name…all the cities, all the villages, Jerusalem, it’s all in you and every one is personified. And so, you will come to Jerusalem as the bride, do you not? Coming down at dawn like a bride, the great Jerusalem. So each is simply personified…and there’s nothing but man.

So I want to thank this lady for her marvelous letter to share it with us. I can tell her from her experience that you have tasted of the power of the age to come; and because the vision of the wheel is simply divine reunion…going back into your own being out of which you came. You can’t return until the work is finished…but you would not have had that experience were you not on the last days.

Now let us go into the Silence.

*           *           *

Q: (inaudible)

A: Well, you start with twelve, then you have your seventy, then you have 144 and you magnify it ’til they become beyond measure; but basically there are twelve and the magnification of the twelve. The twelve disciples will give you the twelve attributes. I tried to define them to a certain extent in Your Faith is Your Fortune. These are qualities of the mind that man is simply playing with. He thinks he believes, but does he? He thinks he has faith. Now tonight I asked you to have faith not in a man but faith in God’s plan of salvation, so that you can yield completely to it and believe in it…not in a man. “What went you up for to see, a reed shaken by the wind, a man, a prophet greater than the prophet?” The prophet of prophets was John, John the Baptist, and he wore outer garments of hair and leather. But he said, “He who is in the king’s house has soft raiment” so he tells you it cannot be anything on the outside. “What did you go out to see?”…so all are looking for something on the outside. Well, the most perfect of all was John the Baptist and he did violence to his appetite by suppressing all desires in the hope of gaining the kingdom of heaven. Locusts and wild honey and dressed in his camel’s hair and leather girdle, all symbolized external things. There are people who go to church for the ceremony…that’s all external. Those who are in king’s houses wear soft raiment and that means the interior.

Men are always looking. Here is this fellow who is teaching people all over now…gets’ a week’s salary from them*…especially the names that he’s supposed to have drawn so far. And I take my hat off to him. That’s the world in which he lives and he is no more phony than they are, and so, like begets like, and they draw each other and off they go. So they’ll fool the public with their publicity as to how wonderful they are and how talented, and he’ll fool them, and simply they all go together. Then finally they start climbing the mount and they drop away. So leave them to themselves and don’t criticize them, leave them just as they are. They’ll wake up one day to find out that he had not a thing to offer…there was no such thing as his “bleese” as he calls it. I can’t quite get that high voice that he calls it. He’s going to give them bleese at a nice piece of money. But they won’t get any bliss; it doesn’t come that way. Hasn’t a thing to do with vegetarianism or non-smoking, non-drinking. If you get any pleasure out of not doing these things, well then, don’t do them. But the non-doing doesn’t mean a thing. Again, you’ll find it in scripture.

Q: (inaudible)

A: Everything is in God’s plan, my dear. It’s God’s orgasm, believe it or not! I am made in his image and I know what an orgasm is. Well, just imagine, multiply that to the nth degree and see God’s orgasm. If man’s is that exciting, just imagine multiplied to the nth degree. But he planned the whole thing and man’s got to bring forth. And here comes this small, little system…vast by our standards. We are, what, ninety million miles from the sun. It seems so vast…but they speak of these galaxies as hundreds of billions of light years. Yet he said the whole place is so empty…only one little atom to a cubic foot in the whole vast area. It’s almost an empty universe with all the hundred billion galaxies and each containing a hundred billion stars. But only one earth…only one planetary system like ours.

And so, we’re going crazy, perfectly alright. At least we can go crazy trying to destroy each other, doing all these things, but nevertheless, it’s still in the control of he who planned it, and he allows all the silly things to go on, all the plots and plans.

Q: (inaudible)

A: My dear, when the plan unfolds within you then you are gathered. It’s the 27th chapter of Isaiah, “And I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel.”

Q: (inaudible)

A: No. Then it is perfectly fulfilled; you are God himself then. Because then there’s only one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all. You’re actually the one body. It’s a strange thing. It’s a mystery, granted, but you are that body that is the body of God, and it’s man. I don’t care what the world will tell me about over-souls and all these other things—it’s man, infinite man. Not big like filling the universe. It is man and that man is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient…and yet man. It’s a power that no one here limited to this sphere can even grasp. You taste of it…but as the lady said, when she could start that universe once more, the wheel, she had to contract, had to return here to see things in motion. To stop it, she simply exploded and expanded. It was an exercise in expansion and contraction.

Well, the night is young. Class dismissed. Thank you.

*Most likely Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Indian guru who founded the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. His central teaching of “Bliss Consciousness.” Payment structure of the Transcendental Meditation movement in the late 1960s, the donation required to receive a mantra and initiation was often calculated as one week’s net salary. Massive celebrity following the Maharishi attracted in 1967–1968 -The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Mia Farrow, and Donovan etc.