24 Mar Neville Goddard Lectures: Election
2/24/67
We will speak of election which is the change of the age, and a mere change of consciousness which is a change of the circumstances of life. In speaking of election, let me say election is an act of God not based on any inherent superiority of those elected but grounded in the love and grace of God and in his promises to the fathers. So let no one boast who is called, let no one boast who is elected; for, may I tell you, all will be called, but in God’s own predetermined plan. All will be called.
So tonight we have election and just a change of consciousness, to show you how they’re brought about. We’re told in scripture God speaks to man through the medium of dream and reveals himself in vision. But we are past masters at misinterpreting God’s language. A dream is simply a parable with a single jet of truth. Don’t try to give every word meaning, or every few meaning, you’ll never ___(??) it that way. It’s simply a single jet of truth. Should the dream be given, say, in part, then there are, say, two parts, three parts, then there are two or three stories or single jets. Outside of that, forget it. So don’t try to give every word or every something in the dream some important meaning; it’s just a single jet of truth.
Now here, let us share with you what was shared with me, these two. This one is perfectly marvelous, in three parts. The other, on another level, is just as wonderful. But here, on the higher level, “I find myself”—now I’m quoting this lady’s letter to me—“I find myself in an old farmhouse. It’s so comfortable, everything is so altogether right about it. On the outside there’s an old horse, and there he is in the most comfortable attitude, grazing comfortably, nothing but contentment and an old dog sleeping in the sun so contentedly. Everything is simply one of comfort, one of contentment. Suddenly there appears a man. He is immaculate in dress, ordinary dress, as we are dressed, and he tells me that I am the chosen and that I must now leave this place. For a moment there was a little panic and I wondered what would I do with the house, with the dog, with the horse? I thought for a moment I would sell them. Then I said, no, I’ll give them away. He undoubtedly read my thoughts, for he said to me, ‘You can neither sell them nor give them away. You must leave them, but you must leave this place voluntarily. There’s no compulsion; you must voluntarily leave the place. You’ve been chosen, yet you must leave the place.’ At that moment, I decided I would leave the place.
“With my decision the scene changes, and here I am now in an entirely different world, completely different world. I meet two people, I meet a man and a woman, and I am told I have to play three games. It struck me in a very odd manner I must play three games. I am instructed that I have already played two and I won them. I don’t remember playing any games, but I am told I played two and I won the games. Now I must play the third and they began to give me the rules of the game. I’m standing in this wonderful green field, no brambles, no thorns, no thistles, not an obstruction in the world; it’s a lovely green field, and an enormous mountain in the distance. I am told I must run across this field. Now these two are my competitors—I must run across this field and reach the top of the mountain. And as I go I must gather anything that I can gather and when I get to the top of the mountain I will interpret what I have gathered. That’s what I am told.
“Well, I think this whole thing is impossible. How can I interpret these things and how can I do it in the time that I have been given…ten seconds in which to do it? I must arrive at the top of the mountain and I must be there in ten seconds and then interpret all that I have gathered along the way. As I start, I pick up a few stones and then another hunk of stones. I held them close to my body and ran across. When I got there, I noticed that among the stones there were golden nuggets, and some of the stones were fused to gold, forming the base of the stones of gold, all fused. Then others were simply stones. I placed the golden nuggets and the stones that were fused to gold together at the base and then put the stones in the top. Then I said, ‘My interpretation is this. This is my mine of golden knowledge.’ They said to me, ‘You have won the race.’
“Then the scene changed into a third section. I’m standing at the side of a crib and here is a child in the crib, just a baby, lying on its side. I notice that the back of the little child was all indented, as if he’d lain for the longest time on rocks or sand or some corrugated state. I rubbed the back and smoothed it, and eased it, and it smiled. Then I took the little clothes on it and I pulled it down and made it more comfortable. As I made it more comfortable and tucked it in, he smiled. Then I took a bottle and put it in his mouth to feed it and it smiled. Then I awoke.” Now, this is the lady’s experience as God speaks to her. It’s a glorious experience. In scripture the whole thing is revealed if one would only read scripture. Here she finds herself…it’s a state, a comfortable state, “I’m very comfortable where I am.”
I’ve had a moment of disturbance…not really…but all of us go through moments of disturbance but we wouldn’t want to change it, we like it just as it is. At the moment I’m having a little circle of children and their families. They arrive on their way back to Viet Nam. He’s a flier for the Air Force and having gone back to Barbados for a couple of months, his wife who went with him follows him now, but he preceded her, back in action in Viet Nam, and they’re bringing these little children, one not yet three and one just four. Well, it’s really a family circle, I’m telling you, really a family circle. One got up this morning and he was corrected by my wife, “Don’t play with the matches!” The phone rang and she was diverted and she went to the phone, came back to find he was tearing off one, just about to scratch it, and she said, “I told you I would spank you if you did this.” So, she took the matches from him and he said, “I’m going to shoot you dead.” ___(??) his mother, “I’m going to shoot Granny dead.” Not ___(??) but shoot her dead. Well, he hears this conversation constantly with the father coming home from…he’s a flier, flying into the usual campaign in Viet Nam, a captain in the Marine Corps, and so this conversation is constantly in their household…“he’s going to shoot Granny dead.” Well, this is our present picture. Nevertheless, I have no desire to move.
Here, it’s a comfortable state. A dog, the symbol in scripture of faith, called Caleb in scripture; the only one that crossed the river with Joshua was Caleb. No one else could go with him. And so, the hound went with him, the hound of faith. Then comes the horse, always the symbol of the mind, that comfortable way of thinking ___(??). The house is the state of consciousness in which I abide. Here comes an immaculately dressed person and tells her she is chosen. Well, in scripture, the angel of the Lord is always the Lord himself. You read it carefully. He sends his angel and his name is in him, and “the name of the Lord” is a symbol for the Lord himself. So here, the Lord appears dressed as an ordinary man. Who would you expect the Lord to be, some fantastic person, some strange creature in space, some impersonal force? No, it’s always man.
And so, the Lord himself appears, dressed in a way that no one suspects it is the Lord, immaculate in modern dress…this is the age in which he appears. He tells her she is chosen. Chosen by whom?—the Lord himself. Chosen to do what?—to leave this age, to depart completely from this age. Not a change of consciousness from poverty to wealth, from sickness to health, or from any other state to another state, but this is a complete departure from this age. She’s reluctant to go. She thinks, well, she’ll sell it. You can’t sell it. That state remains forever to be occupied by anyone in this world. You can’t sell it. You can’t give it to another. You can’t dispose of it in any way. You must leave it and leave it voluntarily. With the will made up, the decision made, she departs. She finds herself, now, in a contest. Well, who are these two? We’ll see. Everything is yourself in a dream; there is no other. But this too is a dream, may I tell you, and everything here is yourself pushed out. Just as the dream the world calls subjective, this is subjective relative to it, and that is objective. Well, think of it now, this is subjective relative to it. So here, she now departs and she comes into an entirely different age. The game is over; she’s won two.
Now to the third, and this is a race across the green fields, gathering all these things. She interprets it as simply this mine of her own wonderful golden knowledge and she wins it. What more wonderful dream could one have? God in one…it’s the God in her that has devised this dream. It’s something within her, but it’s all relating to scripture. In Paul’s last letter to Timothy, when he’s about to depart this world, he said, “The time of my departure has come.” Now he names three games—“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” These are the three. She won the race because she kept the faith, and she fought the good fight. May I tell you, what a fine business in this world of ours. Everyone’s going to win. Everyone will win the fight, everyone will win the race, and all, may I tell you, will keep the faith because it’s God in you keeping the faith. So don’t be concerned, everyone will come out. And so, she won the race. And it was the golden, she interpreted it, golden wisdom. Here a mine of golden wisdom she had gathered in this structure as she fought the good fight and ran the race and kept the faith.
Now she finds an infant, a little child. It had been on its back, all now indented, and she comforts the child, and the child smiles. The 8th chapter of the Book of Proverbs, and wisdom is personified as a little child: “And before he created the heavens I stood beside him, as a little child. I was daily his delight, rejoicing constantly before him and in the affairs of men” “Listen to me carefully,” said he…he asks everyone to listen so carefully to what he’s going to tell them…now he tells them, “He who finds me finds life; he who misses me injures himself; he who hates me loves death” (Prvb.8:23,30,32,35).
She found him, she found life. I tell you we are animated beings; we’re moving towards being life-giving spirits. We must find life. The child only symbolizes life. So she has found life—having won the race, having kept the faith, having fought the good fight—and so she’s found the child. That’s the interpretation. All the little things, ignore it. All the little symbols, ignore it. Don’t try to give more to it. Here she’s found the symbol of life. That was the last in the three. She had to leave the comfort of this age…and she’s very protective. She has her children, her grandchildren, her friends, her circle. They’re very, very comforting to her. She leads a certain circle in the interpretation of scripture and it’s a very wonderful life. She has to leave it ___(??), yes, willing to leave it. She moves on now into an entirely different age. But as Paul said, the one who wrote this letter to Timothy, it is better for him to wait for awhile. He desires to depart now, this very moment, but it is better to continue for awhile, for the need is great among those that he would instruct. And so, she remains. All the others will happen within her.
Now, let us go back to the 23rd chapter of the Book of Genesis. To understand scripture you’ve got to see it entirely differently. It is not history as we understand history. These characters did not live and move across this earth as you and I do. These are eternal states, states of consciousness; not persons as you are a person or I am a person, just simply states. The state in which we all start the journey is called Abraham. In the 23rd chapter, Sarah dies and Abraham is a foreigner in a strange land. He’s promised to serve four hundred years, and then God promised him, the father of the multitudes, he’d bring him out, and bring all out of this state into which they were sent. Sarah dies in the strange land.
Now these are the words. He goes to the Hittites and explains his problem: he has no land to bury his wife. The Hittites say, these are the words: “Hear us, my Lord; you are a mighty prince among us. Take the choicest of our sepulchers; none will withhold his sepulcher from you, or hinder you from burying your dead” (Gen.23:4). May I tell you that you and I and every child born of woman, we are the fathers. We are the gods. These garments are the Hittites, called Canaan in scripture, these are the Canaanites. Not a pigment of skin ___(??), a black man is a Canaanite and not a white man. Every black man, every white man, every yellow man, every child born of woman in this world is a Canaanite. And the fathers, the gods, are buried in these. It was a deliberate act, not anything that was punishing. Listen to the words of the 82nd Psalm, And God calls the gods together—this is a compound unity; it’s called the Lord, which is God, the Elohim, called gods. And God takes his place in the divine circle and ___(??) now standing in judgment. What judgment? He said, “I say ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O princes” (verses 1,6).
Now he’s called the mighty prince. We are the ones who deliberately fell into these garments and these are the sepulchers. The sepulcher is the skull of man. In every skull is entombed a god. You are pre-existent; you didn’t begin in your mother’s womb. You are buried in that skull, buried, and from that you will be called in fulfillment of his promise. So let me repeat it, election is an act of God not based on any inherent superiority of those elected but grounded in the love and the grace of God, and in his promises to the fathers. It is to the fathers that the promise is made, and every one has been promised he will die, yes, he’ll die, but he will be raised from that state, from that age of death, into an entirely different state.
So this lady has reached the state where she was called, for it was God himself clothed as man who said, “You’ve been chosen.” I do wish when you write me in the future, any of you, don’t alter the words. She puts it in her own language by saying, “He said to me that I have been chosen.” He didn’t say that. He speaks to her and said, “You have been chosen” or “They have chosen you.” He didn’t tell me that I could write it and put it in a normal way, “I have been chosen.” He didn’t say “I”. When you’re quoting his words, quote them accurately, put exactly what comes through. Don’t try to interpret when you give me the letter. Don’t try to tell me what you think it means. Tell me exactly what the angel of the Lord said. He could not have said, “I have been chosen.” If he’s speaking to me, he addressed me as “You have been chosen” or “They have chosen you” or “God has chosen you.” Tell me exactly what you heard; not as you ___(??) tell me, and he said to me, “I have been chosen.” It stops the interpretation, it stops the flow. It stops something coming through that could come through from a far deeper level. Nevertheless, that is it. You have been chosen. And he who stood before you was the angel of the Lord, and the angel of the Lord is the Lord himself. “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” Do you get it? When you see the messenger, you see the one who sent the messenger: “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” So here, this is the most glorious picture of being chosen. Now all the others will take place in her…which thrills me really beyond measure that in this small, small audience one after the other is being called, called night after night, really.
So everyone, I tell you, in eternity will be called. They must be called, because God is doing it and God cannot fail to lift up himself. He lifted up himself in everyone. So you committed murder? So you fought the good fight. That you’ve done horrible things in this world? Certainly you have…everyone has. You played all the parts and you have played horrible parts. You’ve committed murder…you’ve done everything in this world. And then comes the end, you’ve kept the faith. What faith? It’s God keeping the faith. God in man is keeping the faith. He’s promised to lift up himself that he buried. It was a complete act of, well, an act that God himself descended to do this. As you’re told in the 10th of John, “No one takes my life; I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again” (John10:17). So he lifts it up again. So here, in this case, this is the departure of one who sits here this night from this age. She will remain for a while and tell her story.
Now another one, and he writes, and she’ll tell the story for him, for she knows him intimately. The dream begins he is riding in his wife’s car on a mountainous road. Suddenly the hair is burning the back of his head. He knows he can’t release the wheel, so he turns to his right and rubs his head against the seat and rubs out the fire. In so doing this, he loses control of the car and over the cliff they go. He sees it fall and it seems as though he’s falling in slow motion, 300 feet at the least. He struggles with the door to get out through the door. So, finally he gets the door open and as he gets the door open he jumps. As he jumps he said to himself, “This is a dream.” Then he said and he screamed it out, “No! I am!” Then he falls lightly and descends lightly to the ground, and he awakes. As he awakes on his bed, which he knew he would, he said, “I have written this story to Neville three times. This is the most complete part of it. In the past, I didn’t awake in my dream.” And then he said, “Another aspect I did not know…now this is the completed dream and three times I have had this dream and three times I have written this to Neville.” Then he tells me, “Why do you make me feel so inadequate?” I didn’t make him inadequate. “Or maybe I made myself,” said he, “feel inadequate?”
Well, what is the single jet of truth in this dream? He is driving his wife’s car. To a woman I am attached, I am wedded, I’m married; she bears my name. There are infinite states in this world and I enter a state and I play it. It could be the state of poverty, the state of luxury, the state of ill-health, the state of health…any state. The state of being ignored, the state of being famous, any state in this world, and there are unnumbered states. This is my emanation, my bride, my wife. And so I am now treading in a state. Now is my departure from that state. It doesn’t mean divorce from his present wife, leaving his home with his children. Hasn’t a thing to do with that…but the desire on his part to better himself in this world. He is wedded to a state. He may be making 10,000, 15,000 a year, I don’t know what he’s making. Maybe he wants to make 40,000 a year, and what’s wrong with that? Maybe he wants to make a 100,000 a year, and what’s wrong with that?
My little niece by marriage was home with her babies for the next week or so until she flies off to Vietnam. She brings the news…she was all excited…this one was home from this show and that one’s home from that show, all on the yacht together, the Orion, at our expense and she’s very flattered. Mind you, we’re carrying the Orion, all expenses paid, and she’s flattered to even see them. Yet she’s a member of the family and we own the yacht. She said, “Frank Cappra came down.” So he’s a friend of Claudette Colbert, who lives in Barbados, and they had this fantastic plan, all the people came to see the great Frank Sinatra. He wanted to give a huge big banquet a spaghetti party, Italian spaghetti, and he couldn’t find any spaghetti to suit his taste, his so-called wonderful taste, in little Barbados. So he had a private plane, flew in his private plane, and he sent his plane back to Miami to get “the” spaghetti, ___(??). Of all the nonsense of the world! He flies all the way to Miami to get a certain kind of spaghetti so he may have his real spaghetti party instead of ___(??). Claudette Colbert came after all it was her home, and all the so-called who’s who. So on his departure in his private plane, the Premier saw him off ___(??) that is fantastic. Alright, let them have it. It makes them feel grand to feel it’s all so important, and it makes them feel grand that the important ones even smile upon them and fly his plane to bring them spaghetti. And we use our own private yacht with our own captain and our own crew. We bed down ten comfortably and we can put twenty aboard it. Take all these people out…and those who own it are flattered that these…like barnacles on a ship…they drink up your liquor, eat all your food, and you’re flattered to give it to them. She was all flattered…and she mentioned names I’ve never even heard of. Mentioned so and so, ___(??).
They’re not written in the Book of Life. It’s all garments. Put on any garment you want. You want to be that important in the eyes of shadows? Be that important, it’s perfectly alright. You can be as important as you want to be in the eyes of shadows. But the God in you will one day be awakened and all the shadows will vanish, and you’ll return enhanced and glorified to the being that you were prior to the descent into death. This is the world of death…and everything dies here. Everything appears, it waxes, it wanes, it vanishes. And you do not die—they may call you dead—you’re still clothed in the same garment, younger than you were when you made your exit, but you still wax, wane and vanish. You die…you wax, wane and vanish.
And the Bible teaches that…tells you so vividly in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke, there are two distinct ages. While we remain in this age we go through these things, time after time after time, and finally we are called. We are called one by one, because you are so unique, no one could take your place. There is no one in eternity that can take your place. You are part of the body of God. And it is God who fell, deliberately, and reached the limit of contraction, the Hittite, and buried himself in the choicest of the sepulchers, the skulls of the Hittite, all the physical structures of the world. And from that, he rises, as promised in the beginning. So “I say that you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you—not a few of you, all of you—nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes” (Ps.82:1,6). But he calls it by the plural, O princes…for we are the princes. So when the Hittite said, “Hear, O mighty prince,” he’s speaking now to you, “take the choicest of the sepulchers.” And what did he pay for the sepulcher? He paid 400 shekels of silver, 400. In Hebrew, every numerical word, rather, every letter has a numerical value and a symbolical value. And the letter, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Toph, has the symbol of the cross, and its numerical value is 400. So I pay the price of this cross.
So when Abraham enters the world of the Hittite, the Hittite is not only a Canaanite but everyone who enters becomes a Canaanite. In other words, I am not simply playing a little part knowing I’m playing a part; I’m not pretending, I had to become man. You had to become man. So you don’t pretend when you enter the world of the Hittite; you must become it and bury yourself in it and die. And everyone is dead in the world we call so alive. It’s all the Hittites. No pretense, I had completely forgotten who I am…until I was born from above. Then memory returned. I now look out on the vast, vast world…everyone has forgotten…they can’t fool me. Until they are born from above, I don’t care what position they play in the world, they don’t know. You could be the wisest of the wise, the strongest of the strong, and you don’t know. You can’t find it by an analysis of words.
So let them all come with all their learning in the world, it’s all so much learned ignorance. They’ve all forgotten it in the world. He said he’s taken the foolish to put to shame the wise. He has taken the weak to put to shame the strong. Then he’s taken those that are low and despised; and he’s taken that which is not to put to nothing that which is. Now he says—all this is the first chapter of Corinthians—he first defines Jesus Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God. He is our source who through Jesus Christ has made him our wisdom, our righteousness and our redemption (1Cor.1:24,30). His own power is Christ Jesus, his own wisdom is Christ Jesus, and he has made Christ Jesus my wisdom, my redemption. What then is Christ Jesus? It’s the power of God, the wisdom of God buried in me. Christ in me is the hope of glory, my redemption. So who rises? Only Jesus Christ rises. He brings back his power that is buried in man. He brings back his wisdom that he buried in man. So she had all the knowledge, the golden knowledge, brought it all back. Brought it back to the mountain…that’s where she took it. And there it was “my mine,” gathered together from my experiences in this world of shadows. So God contracts himself. He reaches the limit of contraction and then expands. He reaches the limit of opacity and becomes translucent, and therefore far greater than he was prior to the deliberate act of falling into the Hittites.
So everyone offers a sepulcher for the incoming God. So when a little child is born, that is God buried in him. We call it alive, wonderful, and it’s marvelous to look at. The ones at home run me ragged, but nevertheless they’re fun. Kiss you all day long. You want to read the Bible, they come and kiss you. You push them off…they come back saying “I love you,” push the Bible apart, and you love them. All day long ___(??) a family so. So the little strip in the paper ___(??) one is calling you to take him in your arms, one is on the floor, one is on the ___(??), and one is on the desk, all over the place, and one comes to the door and says, “Mommy said I could spend the day with you.” ___(??) this whole vast world in which we live.
So I don’t want to tell you because someone is going to the gas chamber tonight that he is less than you are. Let no one pull his so-called rank and tell you he is important. There is no important person in this world, none. There’s only God. And God is buried in everyone and everyone is equal. But again let me repeat, it is not by any inherent superiority of those called, all grounded in the love and the grace of God and his promise to the fathers. Everyone was promised that he would be redeemed. Christ Jesus in me is God’s power and his wisdom, and I am he when redeemed. Because everything said of him I have experienced, the whole thing unfolds within me. And then I awaken, still wearing this same little garment called Neville, answering to it if someone should call me. If they said “Neville,” I would answer. But I have awakened from another state. Yes, I’m still the same one in this world of Caesar. I will sign the name on my check…I will write a will and sign that name…and to the shadows I will leave behind me those to whom I give them, they will get them based upon that signature. And all ___(??) shadow world. The being that is called into an entirely different world was before he came here, but enhanced now having come here. So everyone is richer for coming into this world, everyone is more powerful; your creative power has been enhanced.
So the child that she saw is a symbol of that one transformation of the creative power of the one who found the child. That is the story. So one is a change of age and other is a change of state. So she can tell him tonight it doesn’t mean he is departing this world. He has little children to be educated. He has a wife to support. He has much to do in the world, so his dropping over the cliff doesn’t mean a thing about breaking his neck here. Hasn’t a thing to do with that, so he can put his mind at rest. Hasn’t anything to do with divorce from his wife. He’s wedded not to her, he’s wedded to a state in this world, and he departs from the state. His dreams…were they more noble than what they are at the moment, it’s into that state that he goes. Were they ignoble? Into that state he goes. But he departs…he was driving his wife’s car, went over the safety ___(??), realizing the whole thing was a dream. Well, that was a dream; this is a dream, too.
Now, many of us should learn to do this in waking dreams, as my friend did it whose story I told the first night. These were waking dreams, the magazine, the money to cover the checks in excess of what he’d drawn against…all these things were done in the waking state. Learn to so control this Imagination of yours that you could dream while awake and set in motion your changes from one level to the other. You can’t change the age; that comes up the road. You can’t change the age; that comes up the road. That comes when you least expect it, like a thief in the night. No one can earn the exit from this age; that comes upon you suddenly as promised in the beginning. So let no one tell you that they earned it. They didn’t earn it at all. We are put through the furnaces for his own sake, because his name he can’t give to another. And he draws us out, as promised before we came into the world: “I came out from the Father and I’m come into the world; again, I’m leaving the world and returning to the Father” (John 16:28). That’s pre-existence, incarnation, departure, and ascension.
And it takes not just three-score and ten and you came into this world, it’s been a long, long time you’ve been traveling. Many of you may be on the verge tonight of departure and many may have a little while to go, but you’ve been coming for a long while. Regardless of the pigment of your skin or your social position or your intellectual position…that hasn’t a thing to do with your position relative to departure from this age. No skin…forget that! No social position…how you can fly your plane to get all the spaghetti in the world, that’s ___(??). Let them have it all…he’s so glorified when it happened, flew into little, tiny Barbados, it’s so small that if you overshoot it you’re in the ocean. But he came in, in a huge, big…big man in a tiny, little pocket. All were so happy that this great creature landed in this place. Why? He has a private plane and he has money and he has a press agent. But they don’t know press agents. He has press agents who tell you morning, noon and night where he is and what he’s doing and get the papers to publicize it. And they love it!
Well, perfectly alright! If that’s what they want and you want it, you may have it, too. If you want that shadow in this world, you may have it too, but may I tell you, it hasn’t a thing to do with waking from the dream. Fall in love with this that I’m talking about and give all your heart to it, so that everything centers upon “When, Lord, when, when, when?” If that could be your cry, well then, chances are that you’re on the verge of it. When that doesn’t interest you but more money interests you, well then, get more money, may I tell you. If you want more of anything, get more of anything. It’s perfectly alright. They’re all shadows. Whether you have nothing…that’s a shadow too or whether you have much…that’s a shadow too. A big hole in the sun makes an awful lot of shadows…that’s a big shadow. And so it doesn’t really matter whether you have a big hole and nothing ___(??) something else in this world.
Tonight, we can just dwell upon these two. One you can’t earn, any more than she earned it, she was called. And you can be like the other one and simply give up from the state to which now you are wedded and depart. How do you do it? It’s very easy—what would it be like were it true? Alright…what true?—my dream. Suppose it were true that I had it. Suppose it were true that I…and I name it. What would it feel like? Then try to feel all the tones of reality that would be yours were it true. What would the feeling be like were I the man that I would like to be? What would it be like? Now walk just as though it were true, and you move from one state to the other. They’re only states. And while in this other state things begin to happen.
Many, not knowing the reality of these invisible states, seeing no evidence to support it, run right back into the other state. And they’re always moving back into the old state, because we are expecting the evidence now, and we don’t see it now so we go back and wonder, “Why doesn’t it happen?” Because we don’t remain faithful to the state into which we have moved. Moving into a state and remaining faithful to it the thing takes on a naturalness, and out it pours in your world. So there is an interval of time between the state that is invisible to you and your entrance into it and it’s hatching out. Everything has an interval of time. “The vision has its own appointed hour. If it seems long, wait; it is sure and it will not be late” (Hab. 2:3). A little chicken three weeks, a little sheep five months, a man nine months, an elephant twelve months…I don’t know…some people tell me more than that. I do not know the interval for an elephant, but I do know a little chicken takes three weeks. I do know that a man takes nine months. I do know a horse takes a year, a cow takes nine months. And these are intervals and they are fixed. So I will select a state and occupy the state. But how long will it take?—as long as it is the nature of that seed to hatch out. It will hatch out in time. All it has to do is go into a state and remain there. You walk the earth…though physically you are one person, psychologically you are another person. That psychological state takes on physical tones and becomes a physical reality in your world. These are states…from state to state.
While the other, is the promise of God to himself…for we form God. The word translated in our Bible “the Lord” is a compound: It’s made up of many. The word we translate “God,” Elohim, that is made up of many, it’s a plural word. But the word translated “the Lord”, which is, well, Yod He Vau He, and sometimes we translate it Adonai, it’s all through the Bible, it’s “the Lord”, one: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Alright, that one is made up of us, and we’re gathered one by one into this one being to unite into it. The uniting has already started and also we are called one by one by one. So the first witness is called Jesus Christ, but you are just as much a witness because it’s Jesus Christ in you. You are now being called…the same…there’s only one Jesus Christ and all form the one, the Lord. One body, one Spirit, all gathered together. And in the end, I will know you far more intimately than I have ever known you through the mask that I must see you when I meet you here in this world. All of these are masks. When the masks are taken off and we are one with the infinite body that is God, it’s a reunion of the gods, after this long, long journey for this purpose of expanding beyond that which we were prior to the start of the journey, and a far greater translucency. So, all will be more intimately connected than you can be in this world.
The most intimate relationship on earth is like ___(??). I don’t care how intimate the relationship is, it’s like living in two different cells. But in that world, I can’t tell anyone the thrill when you are joined with him…when he stands in the presence of the risen Christ and is embraced. The thrill that is in store for the one who stands and is embraced I can’t explain to anyone. I can tell you my own ___(??) words; words are inadequate. I can’t tell anyone my thrill when I stood in the presence of the risen Christ and answered correctly, which everyone will, and then he embraced me and I fused. I am one with the body, only one body, one with the Spirit, without loss of identity. No loss of my identity, none, and yet I’m one with the spirit of God and the body of God. And all will be called, one by one into that same union. At the end, when all are gathered, the drama comes to an end. “Not one will be lost in all of my Holy Mountain.”
Now let us go into the Silence.
* * *
___(??)as I have told you from my own personal experience in the last chapter of that paperback [Resurrection] which you will find on the book table outside. If you know of one, you may bring it for me. I do not know of anyone who has told the story from personal experience that I have told in the last chapter of that book. So if you do give books at Easter, as many do, and it’s the story of resurrection, well then, may I suggest that book.
Now are there any questions, please?
Q: (inaudible)
A: What is the significance of one’s name called in dream? My dear, a name is so very significant. There’s no name without meaning. You heard your earthly call. I would take that of great significance because it would mean in the end that’s the name by which you will be known. I tell you that from experience, for back in 1946 coming through the Caribbean Sea into Alabama I was sound asleep, having retired quite early, with my wife and daughter in one bunk and I in another. It was a tramp ship, therefore there was no activity on the ship beyond the dinner hour. It was served at five, because it was also a union ship and they wouldn’t serve beyond six. You have a dinner between five and six. With nothing to do, I turned in and that night I felt myself turned like a serpent ___(??) and lifted up into this heavenly state. But as I was lifted up, this heavenly chorus began to sing out, “Neville is risen. Neville is risen.”
Then I went through this wonderful experience where I was actually a being of fire and air, and walked, not walked, I simply glided and came upon this infinite sea of human imperfection, blind, lame, halt, withered, shrunken, everything. But as I walked by, by some magical force—I did nothing, not consciously—but my presence was the cause of the transformation. I was one with perfection and as I glided by, every one before my face was molded in harmony with that perfection which I felt springing within me. Eyes that were not in sockets came out of the nowhere and molded themselves into eyes. Arms that were missing came back. Not a thing was lost. It was made perfect. And when I got to the every end, this heavenly chorus that accompanied me all the way, began to exult and said, “It is finished!” the last words of the cross. And then I felt myself once more crystallized, actually crystallized, into the little garment on that bed on that outboard ship, coming through the Caribbean.
So when the name is called, I would say that that name is a precious name. It is the name by which you were known in eternity and will be known when you return. I mean, that would be my interpretation of it, hearing your name. I know ___(??) the voice ___(??) what I heard. But when I came to my story, a friend of mine who read the script said, “Neville, it would seem so arrogant if you use the word Neville and people who do not know of you, therefore use the third-person singular and say, ‘He is risen.’” I very unwisely ___(??) and I used the pronoun he, when I should have used exactly what I heard. For I heard not “he,” the words were “Neville is risen.” Yet when I came to write it, someone who felt a little bit embarrassed because I make this bold claim of an experience, and they simply suggested that I use the third-person singular, rather than making it so personal. And yet, I’m telling my own story. So I did it and from then on I never really changed it. So it still remains now for four or five printings in the third-person singular. It wasn’t so at all. The words that I heard were “Neville is risen,” not “He is risen.” But we stoop to others because they’re so anchored here and they’re scholars. I took my script I had written, I went to Barbados for five months, and I brought back a lovely thick manuscript, and after this experience, I tore the whole thing up and printed this. The other was simply labored. I was writing on the law and doing ___(??). It was simply not inspired. This thing just flowed out…it happened. Then I told other experiences that predated this. But I started by listening ___(??) so instead of the third-person singular, I should really have gone right out just as it happened. So, my dear, when your name is called, I can only go back to my own experience. And I should not have done what a very wise man, many degrees to his name, and he was, oh, advisor to professors at Columbia University and when he read the script all brilliant men with numberless degrees and they suggested this. I thought, “All right, I didn’t come out of high school, so he must know better and I’ll put ‘he’ instead of ‘Neville.’” That’s where I made my mistake. Goodnight.