12/16/68

The same technique that you and I use to achieve our objectives in this world is the technique that God the Creator uses to achieve his objectives, same technique. Now listen to these words taken from Milton, that is the poem by William Blake: “When he entered into his shadow, himself, his real and immortal self, he appeared to those who dwell in immortality as one sleeping on a couch of gold. But to himself he seemed a wanderer lost in dreary night” (1st Book, Plt. 15). A complete abandonment of Self to the shadow, and in that shadow he sleeps and he dreams his predetermined pattern until it becomes reality.

So in his poem called Europe which is a prophecy—has not a thing to do with Europe as you and I understand Europe—it is a prophecy, and it’s all about you, it’s all about man. So in this prophecy he said, “When I woke, I knew not that I had slept and 1,800 years were fled as if they had not been.” Now he doesn’t say, I am putting it in the first person, for I speak from experience; he told it in the form of a story and he uses a name called Enitharmon, which is an emanation. Well, your dream, your desire is an emanation. You desire to be…and you name it…that’s an emanation from you. It’s an image, and he’s calling upon everyone to enter into the image and dwell in it, occupy it, make it alive. So Enitharmon is the emanation of Los and Los is Imagination. Los has the similitude of the Lord…it is all Imagination. So he enters into the image and remains in that image, and he will dream it. When it becomes real, then he woke and knew not that he had slept. Then he mentions 1,800 years were fled.

In my case I would say 1,959 years were fled as if it had not been; and I had no idea that I, myself, had entered into that image and made it real. And so, I entered into my shadow. I was in love with the image that I cast and so I entered into my shadow. To those who are in immortality who contemplate on death—for I entered death, the shadow was dead—I seemed to them as one sleeping on a couch of gold; but to myself I seemed a wanderer lost in dreary night. But I kept the divine vision in time of trouble and still kept on dreaming that I am Neville, and did not for one moment wander from it, did not turn from it. Then eventually I woke and did not know that I had slept…and yet 1,959 years had fled as though they had not been. So Blake tells us that in that very beginning all of us were united with him in a death like his, all of us, and then we heard the story.

For, this shadow that he speaks of —I must enter into my shadow, right into it. He calls it an image in one passage, he calls it a shadow in another—but a shadow is a representation either in painting or in drama in distinction from the reality portrayed. So in scripture when Paul tells the Galatians: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Gal. 3:1). To see it as something like a little drama on the outside? You heard a story, the most fantastic story imaginable and you’re called upon to enter into that story as the central character and remain in that story until it externalizes.

So, “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:5). Well, here is his image and he enters his image. Well now, he tells us he does it through Jesus Christ…and Jesus Christ is the pattern. If I stand here now and I conceive a scene…first of all, I know what I want. Having decided what I want I construct a scene that if the scene were true it would imply I had what I want. So that scene now becomes the pattern. It must unfold. Well, when it unfolds I have achieved what I really want. It’s not the scene, it’s my objective. So I will now conceive a scene which if true would tell me that I am the man that I want to be…that I’ve achieved it. So Jesus Christ is the pattern. He said, “He’s revealed unto me the purpose, that is, the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time” (Eph. 1:9 RSV). Well, Jesus Christ is the pattern man, it’s the plan.

If I could enter my shadow, my image, and really make it real so I am it and we are one, then this pattern must unfold. The pattern is: I will wake. They will call it resurrection, and I will know not that I have slept, and 1,800 years or 2,000 years or 3,000 years were fled as though they had not been. So, how long does it take? For, we all were one, gathered together at one moment. “If I have been united with him in a death like his, I shall certainly united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5). So Blake tells us, in his own case, in the 18th Century—for he wrote these words in the year 1794, which is almost the end of the 18th—and said he, “Enitharmon woke.” That is Blake telling you he is Enitharmon, he is the emanation, he is the shadow. God entered him and identified himself with his shadow, with his image. Then he tells us, the image woke: Enitharmon woke and knew not that she had slept. He used the feminine because the emanation is always feminine: Eve came out of Adam. So it’s always the feminine, the radiation…what I desire. I being man I desire that woman. Well, the woman could be a house, it could be a business, it could be money, could be anything…my emanation. I am the male now desiring to possess it, but I must now leave everything and become one with it until we are one. Leave everything and cleave to my emanation until we are one. But to actually make it one I must enter into her, so I enter into my shadow. When I am in it, I’m not conscious of the fact that I ever was other than this that I am now part of. I am part of the being, and I call it Neville. So I enter into and play the part. Then I wake and I knew not that I had slept and 1,959 years were fled as if they had not been.

Well now, in this world of Caesar it could take an hour, it could take a day, it could take a week, a month. But will I enter into the image and do there as God in the foundation of time did to make me himself? For, when I woke in the tomb, I did not know that I had slept. I did not know for one moment that I was even placed there. Here I find myself in a tomb, and here I find myself awake in a tomb, and totally unaware of the fact that I was ever in that grave, ever in that sepulcher. I woke…well, who awoke? I said, “I am awake,” well, that’s his name. He so loved his image, he entered the image and became one with the image.

So we are told in this book of Milton he actually entered into his shadow; and when he entered into his shadow, then he appeared to those in immortality as one that is asleep, sleeping on a couch of gold. But not to himself…to himself he was a wanderer, just a wanderer lost in dreary night. Well, is not that the story of everyone in this world? He’s lost, he’s confused. But he is faithful to an image. Well, what image? You are faithful to the image that you are Ray, that you are Jan, that you are David…call it by any name. You’re faithful to that image. Who is faithful to it?—God. Why? Because you are saying, “I am John, I am Ray, I am Natalie.” That’s God being faithful to the image. He fell right in love with his image and he entered right into that image.

Now, I am in the image of the being that I fell in love with, which is my emanation, my image, my shadow. And I’ve been faithful to it. Many a time I thought myself a wanderer in dreary night, confused. Where would I turn for a dollar? Where would I turn, well, to do anything, completely lost in this dreary night? But those who contemplate on death saw me as one asleep on a couch of gold, because they knew the purpose behind my entering into the state of sleep; and they did not know what I am experiencing in that state of sleep.

Now, I take the same technique right here in this world, and finding myself the image with which I am in love…I’m in love with being that I am. Well, you may say, “Isn’t that a stupid thing!” You’ve been taught to love others more, when, may I tell you, it’s impossible for thought a greater than itself to know. Don’t let anyone tell you that they love someone other than themselves more than themselves, they don’t. They do not! It is impossible for thought a greater than itself to know, and, therefore, you find yourself in an image. You are in an image. Yes, you want companionship, you want security, you want all these things that belong to that image with which you are in love…and you’ve entered that image. That’s why you are alive in this world, for you, the living being, entered the image and you made it at first a living being. You’re going to transform it into a life-giving Spirit because you are a life-giving Spirit, the being that you really are.

Now in this world a man sits down and he wants to be a success in business. If he were…now he maps out a pattern that if true would imply he is a success in business. He maps the whole thing out; then he enters into that image and believes himself to be a huge success long before anything in the world would confirm it. He has no reason to believe and to persist in that image, but he’s got to persist in that image as you and I persist in the image that I am Neville, you are Jan, you are Ray, you are John and so on. We’ve got to persist in that image that I am successful if that’s what I want to make real in my world…just as I have persisted in the image that I am Neville. The day will come that you will awake into a world where you are expressing the success that you desired and entered into that image believing yourself to be it…as you persisted in the image believing yourself to be whatever you are now.

So here, he entered into the image. When he entered into the image, himself, his real and immortal self, was to those who dwell in immortality as one sleeping on a couch of gold; but to himself he seemed a wanderer lost in dreary night. And the day will come that he will awake and he will know not that he had slept, and reflecting there were 1,800 to 2,000 years that were fled as if they had not been.

So the same technique that God used to become me…for he fell in love with his image and entered right into the image. His name forever is I AM, and I know that I am, so he is occupying his image; and that was what intrigued him and he entered it. Well, to enter it he had to dream that he is Neville, he had to. God himself laid himself down within me to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream, and it took him nineteen hundred and fifty-nine years to dream. Then he woke and knew not that he had slept. Then having discovered that he’s in a tomb and in that tomb he spent 1,959 years and knew not that he had slept. Reflecting, it was as though it had not been…all time vanished then. He achieved his objective: His objective was to awake conscious of the fact that he was the one he loved. They were not two any more, they were one. He broke down in that interval all the barriers that separated the two, he and his image (Eph. 2:14). It’s not any more he and his image; he is Neville. And that’s the story.

That’s the story of the whole vast world that we’re now about to celebrate in a matter of a week or so. This is God awaking in man…so man is awaking as God…and we call it Christmas. This is not the incarnation. The incarnation is when he entered into his image, when he entered into his shadow and made the shadow a living being. It would take in Blake’s case 1,800 years. So you ask, “Well, why did it take this one 2,000 and another one only a thousand?”—each in its own order. To what degree am I lost in believing that I really am the man that I want to be? How long should it take me to be the success, if that’s what I want in this world, judged by human standards? Well, to what degree can I persuade myself that I am? For the whole vast world is my dream pushed out. So to what degree can I actually enter…what intensity to make myself believe that I really am the man that prior to my entering into that state I only desired? But now I must completely forget it was only a desire that I am it, and walk in this wild, wild state as though I am. For that’s how God became me.

So in 1,959 years then he woke and knew not that he had slept. Yet I had an adumbration many years ago where in this vision I heard him say, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream.” That was simply a foreshadowing of the end, when he had pre-determined a certain plan, which is called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the plan of redemption which is: You first awake and the awakening is a resurrection. You rise within the very tomb that God himself entered. Well, you were dead and therefore you were the tomb. You’re only a shadow…a shadow has no life…and he enters the shadow and makes it alive by his entrance. So God himself enters death’s door, which is his shadow, his image, and lays down in the grave of that image in visions of eternity until he awakes (Blake). So, “Rouse thyself, O Lord. Awake! Why cast us off forever?” (Ps. 44:23)…and then the Lord does awake. When the Lord awakes, he is one with what he fell in love with. He fell in love with being you, individually, and when he awakes, you are God. And that is Christmas: That is man becoming God. The incarnation was when God became man, when he fell in love with his image.

So Blake states the whole thing at that moment in time when time was divided between B.C. and A.D. It all started there in Blake’s strange and wonderful vision, and in his case it took 1,800 years for God to wake, and in my case, 1,959 years, and in another case, well, different. So the Bible tells you each in his own order. Now, whether this order was pre-determined…for he destined us in love. That’s what we are told in Ephesians, “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (1:5). Well, the same God that dreams in me is the God that dreams in you. So is it really an order where I could not have awakened before 1959? I leave that in abeyance. I only know that was the year in which he woke and knew not that he had slept, because when I woke I didn’t know that I had fallen asleep there. Hadn’t the slightest idea that I had slept; but I did know that I was waking and waking and waking, and finally I was completely awake…and knew not that I had slept. Certainly not in that skull, certainly not there, and I wondered who put me there? Then when I emerged from the area where I fell asleep, it was God emerging, because the symbolism that surrounded me moments later is the symbolism revealing the birth of God. So God was born right after waking…he was born into a higher region of his being. Who was born? Well, he had so identified himself with what he loved, it was that loved one that was raised and was born…but it was God.

So here, he’s in love with his image, in love with his shadow, and the image and the shadow, the reflection on water or in a mirror, is dead, it has no life. But he so loves it, he enters into this shadow, and there he dreams he is. Being a life-giving Spirit he first animates it, so the shadow becomes real…and it seems so solidly real in this world. And so here he travels and walks around and it is all his dream. One day, when it is completed and he is truly what he loves and what he believes himself to be, then he has a pattern by which he will know that he did arrive at the end that he has predetermined. The first segment of that pattern is to wake. The waking is his resurrection; now he’s designated Son of God in power through his resurrection from the dead. Then comes his discovery which he set up in the beginning that he is the father who entered into that shadow. If he is a father, there must be a son. And so the son calls him Father; now he knows who he is. Then comes a third, his ascent as a fiery serpent…but it cannot precede the cutting of himself in two; that’s his sacrifice for this wonderful accomplishment. And it is his blood that is at the base, and he and that blood are one, and they ascend as a fiery serpent. Then comes the final sanctification of the dove; and the dove descends upon him and smothers him with love…for, he has accomplished what he had set out to accomplish.

So it took him 1,800 years in Blake’s case as he claims in Europe, and in my case 1,959. What does it matter? When you awake it is as though it had not been. So we can’t measure…we can measure in the world of Caesar the length of time. But the end…it was still the wonderful dream that resulted in the fulfillment of what he wanted in this world. So we do the same thing in the world of Caesar; you want to be and you name it. A great artist, if you were a great artist, would you be acclaimed? Do you desire that? Well, you map out the plan as God mapped out the plan which he called Christ Jesus. For, he set it forth in you as a plan for the fullness of time, and the plan is called Christ Jesus. There is no other plan that leads you back to the being that you really are which is God the Father. There is no other plan! Here you will have multiple plans that would imply that you are what you want to be. Now if I want to be, and I name it, well now, I map out something that would tell me that I really have achieved it. If I map it out, when that unfolds, I know that it has worked.

And then I enter into the shadow that I conceived and walk the earth. And others may see me as dreaming on a golden couch, yet to myself, I may seem to myself a wanderer, wondering where the next dollar is coming from while I’m still faithful to my vision, keeping the divine vision in time of trouble. So, walking without any money in my pockets, none in the bank, no food, I still walk faithful to the vision…and I’m in my shadow. Then I will awake because a shadow will take on reality. When it takes on reality, it will seem to me as though there was no time lost at all. I’ll completely forget all the horrors of bringing this thing to birth. For, she is in labor while she is bearing it, and the pains are there, but after the child is born she forgets, in her joy, all that she went through. So man completely forgets.

Now the same technique that God used to bring us into being and make us real is the same technique that you and I use to bring something into being here. “If the Spectator,” said Blake, “could only enter into the image in his Imagination, approaching it on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if he could only make a friend and companion of one of these images…well then, he would know he would rise from the grave, then he would meet his Lord in the air and then he would be happy” (Vis. of Last Judg., pp. 82-84). But he emphasizes entering into the image, and entering into the image is what God did to make us alive. He wants us more than to be alive; he wants us to be just as he is, a life-giving Spirit. So he mapped out the pattern in the end that would make us a life-giving Spirits…which is himself. Then, though we are the Son of God, the Son of God and God the Father are one. So we are really are God when we completely fulfill the pattern that he had predetermined. For, he will continue the dream no matter how horrible the dream, until that pattern arrives. When that pattern arises and he goes through it and we go through it then that barrier between the two is completely torn down, and we are he.

So this is what our Christmas means to us. We will celebrate it as something that took place, something on the outside, and that is not Christmas. It must take place on the inside. Christmas is simply that series of events beginning with the resurrection where he awakes, God awakes, within the tomb of man; for man was the death, the shadow that he entered. And one day he awakes and knew not that he had slept. Then finding himself entombed, his desire is to come out. And all things are possible to God and God is infinite power, so he pushes what seemingly is an unbreakable seal and it breaks and rolls away, and he comes out.

For, he was sealed in the tomb and could never rise and get out, but he gets out because he is infinite power. Then the symbolism he had predetermined must be there to prove it. And if it isn’t there, then all visions related to it are foreshadowings, adumbrations, which simply, again, a definition of the shadow—“a representation in pictorial form in painting or in the form of a drama, in complete distinction from the reality portrayed.” But, a foreshadowing is what you are on the heels of it, for this is what you had predetermined in the beginning and you are coming nearer as you foreshadow it. And then suddenly, you actually coincide with the actual vision as he had predetermined.

That is given to us in the most beautiful form in the gospels. Now, the gospels…there are four of them, but we find in John…and the earliest date of John no scholar puts earlier than the very end of the 1st Century, but the majority of them put it 150 A.D. Well now, that was rewriting the story, for he had all the others to draw on. Then he completely eliminates the story of a genealogy for it is not anything on earth. He completely eliminates the virgin birth, that’s not mentioned in John, and this is the latest of the gospels. He does emphasize the need and the essential part of being re-born. He doesn’t tell you how it is done, but he does use a word meaning it has to be from above, “anothin.” So you must be born and born not from below from the womb, but from above…that’s essential. You must rise like a fiery serpent in the same manner that the serpent rose in the desert with Moses (Jn. 3:14).

So he does state these facts that are essential to this pattern, the pattern man. He claims that God himself became what you are, because he uses the word “Word” for God. He said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1). Now, “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us” (1:14). So God became flesh and that’s incarnation. Well, you’re flesh and you say “I am,” so God is incarnated. But now he tells us that that is not enough. That’s an animated being, but now to be a life-giving Spirit which is God, this pattern must be fulfilled. Then when you reach that pattern, then you never return to this world, you simply enter an entirely different sphere. But you did it all by entering the thing you loved…you fell in love with your own image, and actually entered that shadow, and made the shadow alive. To do it, you slept and did not even know that you fell asleep and now are dreaming. You’re dreaming that you are…and you name it, the name that you have today. That’s the being that you’re dreaming that you are.

Don’t tell me that you’re not in love with it. When people will say, “No, I’m not in love with what I am. No, I’m not in love with being poor”…but that’s not what I am. I could be rich if that’s my desire. But don’t tell me I’m not in love with being Mary if that’s my name. I would not give it up for any other being. I would not mind having what they have, but I don’t want to give up my own identity. No man wants to give up his identity. He would like to possess what others possess, but he certainly doesn’t want to give up his own identity, and that you call by a certain name. Alright, call it Mary, call it John, call it Ray, call it Judith, call it by any name. No man wants to give that identity up because he’s in love with it. But, at first it was only a shadow, only an image; and God himself entered that death’s door, it was dead, and animated it by his entry and made it something alive, a living being. But that’s not enough. God wants it to become as he is, and God is a life-giving Spirit.

So he remains as long as it takes in that dream. But when God awakes in that, the two have become one. Then if it is true and not just a foreshadowing, if it’s a true awakening, then the drama will take one thousand two hundred and sixty days (Rev. 11:3). That was predetermined in the beginning. The whole thing will unfold just as foretold in scripture. So if you have any doubts, count the days and if the days are not 1,260 to the end, they are wonderful foreshadowings, marvelous foreshadowings. And hold on…because I tell you, you have kept the vision in time of trouble. You might have denied that you were like Peter, “No, I do no know him.” You might have denied it, because under the threat of pain you could deny that you are the being that you are. If they’re looking for you and they find you, they’re going to torture you, so to avoid the torture you could deny. I would say, “No, I’m not Neville.” “Aren’t you Neville?” “No, I am not Neville.” “Don’t you know that man?” “No, never saw him before.” Yet I do know I am Neville and I do know I did see him before. And so, I don’t want to lose my identity but I want to avoid the pain, and so I would lie concerning that.

But I’m still keeping the vision. I fell in love with being Neville, as you fell in love with whatever you are. You kept on dreaming; you dreamt poverty at one time, you dreamt wealth at one time, you dreamt of being loved at one time, of being ignored at another. Well, these things are all still related to the being that you know that you are…you have never lost that vision. And you won’t lose it. You’ll come on back to it, because that is the one that you really fell in love with. In the end, you will awake and you’ll awake as the being that you are but it will be God…God individualized forever and forever. That individuality will never cease to be. You’ll be individualized as the life-giving Spirit, and you will tend forever and forever towards ever greater individualization. That was the purpose of the entire drama.

That is what Christmas means. So Christmas is simply the image that he fell in love with and became to the point where it now became himself, a life-giving Spirit that he wakes, and he is it. And then that is Christmas. For, God who became one with his image, now the image becomes one with God…and that’s Christmas.

So you will not fail I assure you, not in eternity. Why it isn’t tonight I do not know…and maybe it is tonight…I have no idea. Because Blake in his symbolism is using the overall picture of 1,800 years, but that is…a poet is allowed that. They can take liberties. He was certainly not 1,800 years judged by the world of Caesar. He was born in 1757 and this was now 1794, but he is speaking that “If we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5). So he looked upon this division of time between A.D. and B.C. as the beginning of all; and, therefore, he was one with God in that death when God fell in love with his images, this universally diffused individuality. He started then as we did and then the God in him, which is the same God diffused in all, took 1,800 years to complete the dream and go through all that it took to awaken.

So he’s telling us that he awoke. And then he wrote Europe and people think it means Europe as we understand that area in the world. It hasn’t a thing to do with Europe. If you will read it carefully, he speaks of “the cavern man” and he speaks of these five openings of the cavern man. He speaks of the eyes that see only a small section of infinity, and the ears that will hear the music of the heavens. Then he speaks of the breath and of the mouth. But the fifth one he mentions as another one, but he doesn’t tell you where that opening is, because there are only truly four openings in the head. They are double here (eyes), double here (ears), and double here (nostrils), but these form the same function. These form the same and so the nostrils form the same function, so they can’t be six, they’re only three. And the mouth is one. But he speaks of five, he said that through this one he may leave at any time, but he doesn’t choose to leave.

Well, what is that one but Imagination and he doesn’t tell you where the opening is. It’s obvious where the openings are, the four, but he doesn’t tell you where the opening of the fifth one is. He can leave at any time and return, but he doesn’t choose to leave. I sit here or stand here and imagine myself elsewhere, what opening was it that I used to imagine myself elsewhere, and so real when I imagine it that I think of this and I’m not here. Others see me standing here and yet I am not here. So what opening did I use when I imagined myself to be elsewhere? So he speaks of the cavern man and these five that contain him. And he mentions the four and they are so obvious.

So here, we’re facing a week from Wednesday this wonderful mystery completely misunderstood. But it doesn’t matter…one day the individual will actually experience scripture and he will know the mystery of Christmas. Whenever he knows it, he too can say, I woke and knew not that I slept. He didn’t know. But the sensation is one of waking. It’s not one of resurrecting, it’s waking, that peculiar feeling of waking. As you wake, you find that, well, somebody put me here. I don’t know who but someone must have placed me here because they could not have placed me here unless they thought me dead, for you only put the dead in tombs. And this is a tomb, a sepulcher, and you know exactly where you are; the sepulcher is your skull. Then you completely awake and you come out just as it is told. Only people tell us when they teach the Bible that the stone was rolled away on the outside. It isn’t, it’s rolled away from the inside. You push from the in and the stone rolls. No one comes on the outside and does anything for you at all. The whole thing is contained within yourself. Man brings into this world, because God is in man, innate knowledge, and it’s all there, so he knows exactly what to do. Everything comes seemingly from without, but it’s all being conjured from within.

The witnesses come…two to deny it, but one affirms it. You are the one who experiences the whole thing; so two witnesses are present plus a third which is the written Word of God, for you are fulfilling scripture. And where two or more different persons agree in testimony then it is conclusive. So one declares who the father of the child is and you, the father, witness the whole thing, and scripture tells you, so you have three witnesses. They agree in testimony and they’re three different witnesses, the Bible, you and the third. So this is the story of Christmas.

But now, we can take the same principle and in the world of Caesar we must enter our image, enter right into the image and believe you are it, because God had to enter an image, a shadow and believe himself to be it. In order to believe it, he had to empty himself of his wisdom and his power and fall asleep. He emptied himself completely and took upon himself the form of a shadow, called a slave, and became obedient unto death—for that is the world of death as told us in the 2nd chapter of Philippians—completely dead (verse 6). Then one day he finds himself in the place where only the dead are placed, but he felt himself waking. So they thought him dead, but he really only fell sound asleep. So, awake, you sleeper and rouse yourself from the dead. And he’s speaking to the Lord: “Rouse yourself, O Lord. Awake! Do not cast us off forever”; that’s the 44th Psalm (verse 23).

Now let us go into the Silence and enter into any image that is the most desirable image. Doesn’t matter what it is.

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Now I want to thank you for your visions that you shared with me and your experiences, for they’ve been very, very helpful, many this week. I can’t use them all, I used none tonight, but I still want to thank you. Don’t because I didn’t use them stop writing them. They are all true, all your visions are true. One that came this week, she said, “I saw this shaft of light that stretched up into the heavens. On each side it began to unveil angels, and they seemed to be on the ascending, like steps to the very end leading into, well, into heaven. Then before me sat a man and his dress suggested that he was of the ancient world and one who lived in the desert. Then I heard a voice and the voice said, ‘Who will believe his report? Who will believe what he has said?’ and the same voice answered itself, ‘None’ and after a pause, ‘save but a few.’” And then I appeared beaming. Then she said, “This wonderful singing began and they were singing to me about myself. But it seemed not so much singing as a conversation all about myself. Then I heard the voice again and it said, ‘They all heard it on different levels.’ Whatever he said, his report, they heard on different levels.”

Well, that’s true. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah, “And who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Verse 1). Well, we hear it on different levels. Tonight, if the world of Christianity heard what you have heard, they would think me insane or a horrible monster, blaspheming the Word of God. We heard it on different levels. What I told you, I’m speaking now from experience, I’m not theorizing. I know the mystery of Christmas having experienced it. I am not for one moment theorizing. So I heard it on one level and I shared it with those who are willing to accept it on that level. But the same story will be told and read as I have written it, and they will receive it as they read it on different levels.

Yesterday, we had a little party, fifteen, many of them children, all relatives of my wife. Cousins and their wives and husbands and their children and grandchildren and what not…and it was fun. Well, one chap, who is in his last year at college here and he got interested in something, he said, “I heard someone say something about you and would you tell me.” So I began to tell him the story, the story of the birth from above. He was completely enthused about it all, but as I progressed and he saw that I’m getting to the point where I am actually claiming by experience that I am that central figure, his mental hands come up this way. Not his physical hands, but you could almost see him, “No, no, don’t go any further…that’s far enough…because that’s blasphemy.”

So the lady heard it correctly, we hear it on different levels. If it was only a wonderful dream reflecting the truth of something that took place once and for all unnumbered years ago, that’s wonderful, but don’t come so close as to identify yourself with that figure. But to say that God actually became man that man may become God, no that’s too much. If God became man to save the poor blighters, how would he save them? Leave them where they are? No, he can’t save them unless they become as he is, how else could he save them? Save them for what, to be slaughtered? He is saving them by bringing them into his own being as himself. But the hands went up this way mentally. So her vision was perfect.

And then another one, based on this level. His daughter, thirteen years old, won this wonderful prize which was Disneyland, the whole day, because of her wonderful work in a certain project. It was Wednesday of last week, but all the reports…rain, rain, rain, rain. Well, that would certainly not be a good day for Disneyland. So when she came home she said, “Daddy, do you think that imagining could influence the weather?” He said, “Why certainly it could.” Then he again repeated what he would do were he in her position leaving her to her own choice and her own use of imagining. Well, he said, “The next morning when I got up here was the rain coming.” She did leave and go to her own room and she imagined a lovely day. And he told her what he would do: “It is now Wednesday. This is not Tuesday night, it’s Wednesday and you are at Disneyland. You are so happy that you did your English report last night on Tuesday, because it has to be in tomorrow Thursday. So this is Wednesday, it isn’t Tuesday night, it’s Wednesday, and it’s a lovely day, and you’re thoroughly enjoying it.” That’s how he presented to her what he would do if he was presented with the same or similar problem. And told her he knows a man who will use this weather condition just to keep his mind exercised and with great success.

But he said, “When I got up I despaired because here is the rain. But before I left to go to the office, it began to really get softer and softer. By the time I got to the office—my office is on the fourteenth floor—crystal clear atmosphere. You could see for fifty miles…this wonderful atmosphere on Wednesday with all the prophecy of rain and what not. Well, she went off to her Disneyland and she came back and she had a heavenly time.” It wasn’t as bright as his because he was on the fourteenth floor and it was a wonderful expanse of clarity. But he said, “I’m not discussing it with her. I know she has many other projects which she’s working on, and, after all, it is coming Christmas-time, and there are certain things she should keep to herself and not share with anyone else. So she has many projects, but she is using Imagination and I encourage her every day to continue in the use of it.”

If we fail, what does it matter? Try and try again…it costs you nothing. And so, in my case so it took me…how often did I fail? I never failed to keep the vision, for I fell in love with the image and I entered that image. I always kept that image and never lost my identity, but I certainly was distracted time and again in the interval. So what is 1,959 years and when you wake it is as though it were not?

Q: You said he emptied himself into us so we became as he is. So now, when he emptied himself in us and we say “I am” that’s God, your Imagination that’s God. So when he emptied himself in us, what was he? Is that the life-giving Spirit or the unconditioned awareness or how would you define that?

A: Well, if God emptied himself as he did, as told us in the 2nd chapter of Philippians: “And he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave, and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross” (verse 7, 8). Well, the cross is this, no other cross. The cross of man, humanity, he’s crucified on. Have you ever seen one who suffers from amnesia? Well, I have…total amnesia and some partial amnesia. I have a very nice friend of mine who today is in a place here. He was an actor, struck over the head about six years ago, and a section of time has vanished from him. He talks about being wounded in Trinidad. Well, he played in a picture and it was set in Trinidad, and he was in the picture wounded. Now a man who always envied him…both are from Vienna…and it is not proven by law but all the evidence leads to the fact that this one person who always despised him struck him. He had this concussion, and when they found him unconscious and he was revived, that section of time between the picture and the present moment when they found him had vanished. He believes that he was wounded in Trinidad and so they can’t release him. He is forever now in this place with a section of time missing.

Well, God purposely produced within himself amnesia, knowing that a certain thing will bring it back to memory. And the pattern, called the pattern man, will bring it back to memory, and he’ll remember when he wakes as his image.

Q: Well, what is that, a life-giving Spirit, awareness before you’re conditioned?

A: You know, when you were born a little tiny girl, long before you knew her name, knew anything, you were aware of being. One day you became aware of a hand…but you were not a hand…and then the hand would vanish suddenly and you wondered where it came from and where did it go? But you are always aware. One has to first be aware before he can be aware of anything. To be aware you are saying “I am” and that is God. Now, as you begin to awake—because he actually emptied himself of everything save awareness—he’s going to be aware of being you. He emptied himself to become aware of being you, and it took him whatever time it will take to awake in you. And then you are God.

Good night.