3/17/69

I think you will find this very practical tonight. But to me the most practical book in the world is the Bible. We are told they found one whose name was Simon and they laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus. Well, the word Simon in scripture means “to hear with understanding and then to consent to what you have heard.” You may hear it and deny it, that’s not Simon. Simon is one who hears and consents, he agrees to what he has heard.

Now, who is Jesus, for he carries the cross behind Jesus? The gospel tells what happened in the soul of Jesus…events that were seen and heard by none save by him. Through these experiences he gained the certainty that he was the Son of God and eventually God himself. The story is told and few will accept it, for his interpretation of scripture of the secret of Messiah as against the interpretations of the priests were poles apart. But Simon understood what he heard and could follow it, and now he carries the cross. I hope tonight that everyone in this room could call himself or herself a Simon.

Now who is the Simon? He said, “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal.6:2). Well, the law of Christ as described in the Sermon on the Mount is imaginal, it’s wholly psychological. “You’ve heard it said of old ‘You should not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act in his heart” (Mat.5:27). Well, the word “heart” and the word “self” are synonymous in the Bible. When we speak “And he said in his heart” he is saying to himself. When we are told, “He communed with his own heart upon his bed” he is communing with himself. He has already committed the act when he looks lustfully on another. So the whole law of Christ is mental, it’s imaginal. Now he carries the burden, for “In as much as you do it to one of the least among one of these, you do it unto me” (Mat.25:40). So Paul makes the statement, “From now on, we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer” (2 Cor. 5:16). He saw the meaning of Christ: that Christ was the pattern buried in every child born of woman. That is the pattern. So he could not see a little Christ; he saw the universal Christ, the cosmic Christ, buried in everyone in the world. There’s only one Christ, so when you do it to anyone, you’re doing it unto me.

Now the one who heard and believed he’s called Simon. So he goes out now to bear the cross and lift the burden from the back of the one being who has taken the entire cross, for every child born is the cross and collectively they form the cross that the cosmic Christ bears. So the one who hears the story and believes it, he goes out in his belief to lift the weight of that cross. He sees someone who is struggling—can’t pay rent, can’t buy food, he’s embarrassed financially or he may be this, that or the other in the world, ostracized—and he lifts the cross. He knows he’s doing it only to himself…it can’t be another. And because he does it psychologically, he represents the other to himself as he would like to see that other were he that other, knowing that he is that other. To the degree that he is self-persuaded that this that he is imagining is so, it becomes so. He is the Simon who bears the cross; not moving it toward any little point in space, no, all through life he’s bearing the cross, lifting the weight. And many a man today is behind the eight-ball, because no one ever believed he would be anything other than what he is.

Fortunately in my own case I had a mother who…and she would take us separately, which we did not know until I went back after twelve years in America. Having cocktails on the veranda this evening it came up for the first time. But she took me and persuaded me that I was her favorite, and that I would never let her down. “Well, no, mother, never.” “You’re going to make mother very proud of you, aren’t you?” And naturally you say, “Yes, mother.” She would curl my hair, because I had long white curls, and she would curl them up and push her finger in the curl, kiss me, and send me on my way. Then the next one came to have his hair combed or curled. She told the same story to everyone, but because it was mother’s secret you couldn’t violate mother’s secret, and each grew into manhood believing he was the favorite. We were not going to set a little enmity among the brothers and tell the others that we were the favorite. We couldn’t betray mother’s trust.

Then I returned after twelve years in America and we’re having cocktails on the veranda and it came out in some spontaneous way, and everyone told the same story. Mother just sat there and chuckled. She had simply accomplished her purpose. She got over to us the feeling of being important, because we were her favorite and we couldn’t let her down. Everyone had to be simply right. She didn’t expect us to make a fortune in the world, but to be something of which she would be proud. Well, she was a very wise mother, so that we became in our own separate spheres a success in her eyes before she departed this world. And many a man today is what he is, in the gutter, because no one ever believed he would be anything other than where he is today.

So I say, if we really hear the story and believe it, that there is only one being—there seems to be three-and-a-half billion—but there’s only one being and there’s one real cross made up of all the bodies in the world. So every child born of woman is that cross, and the being that animates that child is Christ Jesus. So I can’t do to any child in this world— whether it be a little infant or one departing this world—that I am doing to another. “So bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For in as much as you do it to one of the least among one of these, you have done it unto me.” Well, if you believe it then you are bearing the cross, because you put it into practice. If you hear it but you don’t really believe it and you’re so engrossed in your own little world so that “let him take care of himself,” you see him as another. You don’t see him as a projection of yourself.

If you really believe the story, you’ll become Simon and Simon bears the cross. He is the one who finds the child. For Simon in the Spirit comes into the temple, and as the parents bring the little child into the temple, Simon takes him up in his arms and said, “Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for my eyes have seen him, the salvation of God” (Luke2:28). Well, read now the 52nd chapter of Isaiah, where the little child symbolizes the unveiled arm of God. The unveiled arm is the symbol of his creative power and the child symbolizes that power (52:10). So he takes it up in his arms and now he wants the promise to be kept: “Now let me depart in peace, for I have seen the salvation of God.” And in this wonderful 52nd chapter it speaks of the unveiling of “the arm of God,” which is the salvation of the world. So here, as the arm is unveiled —and you’ll have this experience—where the entire arm is unveiled. And it would seem to you that one betrayed you, because someone came in following the betrayal and unveiled the arm.

What did Judas betray? He betrayed the Messianic secret of Jesus and the place where he might be found; for he heard the secret and he betrayed it, and he betrayed where he might be found if you could still find him there. Well, they found him there: it all takes place within us. So there must be someone who must first hear the secret and tells the secret. I have betrayed it by writing my book called Resurrection. I have betrayed it from beginning to end, so I have played the part of Judas. I experienced it and that was the part of Jesus. Then I told it in print so that everyone coming behind, when I’m gone from this sphere, and the unborn generations coming in if the book is still available that they will see the secret. So who did he betray? He betrayed the secret, the Messianic secret, which was unlike what the priesthoods of the world believe. They believe in a man, a little man coming from without who is going to save them. And it isn’t so at all. He comes from within because he’s a pattern. The pattern erupts within man, unfolds within man, and as it erupts within man he knows by this experience he is the Son of God. Because he knows his scripture, he goes back and he searches to find that here it dovetails with all that was foretold. He continues the experience to discover that he’s not only the Son of God, he is God himself; for, now the Son [David] calls him Father.

And now he tells it to everyone who will listen. The one who hears it with understanding and accepts it, consents to it, he becomes the Simon who will now pick up the cross and ease the burden from the back of the cosmic Christ. So you meet someone in the world who is unemployed, instead of passing the buck and passing by stop in your tracks and represent him to yourself as being gainfully employed. Persuade yourself that he’s gainfully employed. You meet someone who is in some way limited, then represent him as being exactly what you would like him to be…to set him free from what he seems to be. Then you are bearing the cross. So, bear ye one another’s cross and so fulfill the law of Christ. For, there is a law and the law is all imaginal. So everyone goes out to fulfill…if he hears it with understanding and having heard it with understanding he consents to it. Well, I can hear something I understand, but I may not agree with it. I may say that it’s stupid, it’s silly. Well, this is the most incredible story that could ever be told man, so when you hear it if you’re a brilliant mind, it doesn’t mean that because you’re a brilliant mind that you’ll accept it. You’ll understand it if you have intelligence, but you may completely discount it. And the more brilliant men are today, it seems the more they discount it as a myth. They can’t believe for one moment this story is true…and yet it is true.

Everyone who accepts it will one day experience the entire gospel unfolding within himself, for the gospel is nothing more than that which happened within the soul of Jesus. Well, Jesus means “Jehovah” and Jehovah is the Lord. Well, Jehovah is in man, which is I AM, so that everyone when he hears it with understanding and experiences it is Jesus. If I use the word Jesus and you think of a man 2,000 years ago and you don’t see the Jesus in everyone…he’s sound asleep and carrying a tremendous burden while he’s asleep. If you have accepted the story and you’re beginning to stir, you’re beginning to awaken, you will lift the burden from the back of Jesus and you will carry it because he walks behind Jesus. So you’re told, they seized Simon and having seized him they placed upon him the cross that he would carry it behind Jesus. So he carried the cross. It only means the individual in the world, any individual who hears with understanding and consents to what he has heard.

Well, if I really consent to it, I can’t pass by anyone and not do something to lift the burden. So they come to the door and you might say to them, “No, I don’t have what you ask me” or “I don’t need your books.” So they come to the door and want to sell you $100 worth of books or $100 worth of magazines. All right, that’s their little game…they’ve got to make a living. They’ve got to pay rent…maybe they’re married and they have an obligation to their family. So you say no physically to their appeal, but as they leave you, inwardly you see them successful, and as they leave your world, you persuade yourself that they are as you represent them to you. To the degree that you are self-persuaded they will be. But they don’t know that you’ve done it. They need not know that you lifted the cross for them. They will go on and things will happen in their world and they will actually become what you have seen them to be. They will not have the slightest idea who did it. Well, who did it? Christ did it, because there is only Christ in the world. You take no credit because you’re only doing it to yourself…the whole vast world is yourself pushed out. So representing anyone to yourself as you would like them to represent you then you are simply lifting the entire burden of the world.

So when he comes in and he picks up the little infant, which is called a sign in the Bible, it represents the creative power of God, the unveiled arm of God. And that arm creates everything in the world and when it’s unveiled in you, you can’t fail. Whatever you imagine will come to pass, I don’t care what it is, for the arm has been unveiled. The entire sleeve has been severed, leaving the arm from the shoulder to the finger tips free to carry forward your sword of victory. And you see everyone as you want to see them and they become it.

So I ask you tonight to just dwell upon it and see if you fit the pattern of Simon. See if you in the course of a day if for only one person you can lift the burden. Maybe tomorrow you’ll do it and you will lift the burden. Don’t let it remain, because you’re only letting it remain upon your shoulders…there is no other. So as you simply lift it you are lifting that burden off your own shoulders…for there is only Jesus Christ in the world. There is nothing but God. The play begins with the call of Abraham, and it comes to its climax and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Everyone has to come to that climax. The curtain comes down on it. And when you reach that point, the curtain comes down and you depart and join the heavenly brotherhood who contemplate this world of death. “And those in eternity who contemplate on death,” as Blake says, “they say thus ‘What seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be’” (Jer., Plt.36). Well now, can you assume any state for another and it seems to be? Then, it seems to be and it will become so…“Even of torment, despair, and eternal death. But divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus.” For in the end there is Jesus Christ, only one body, only one Lord, and you are Jesus Christ. The one risen body you will wear as your own body; and the one Spirit that inhabits it you will be that Spirit; and the Lord that is the Lord of all you will be that Lord.

So today, we aren’t aware of it, but Paul makes it very, very clear in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians: “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). You see the difference in tense? That we have all died with Christ; but we will all live with Christ…that’s in the future. Well, it comes when the pattern contained within man erupts, when it unfolds and the story as told in the gospel unfolds within a man; and he is Jesus Christ.

Now, whenever he tells this there’s always a sneer, the laughter because they know him by reason of his physical origin; they do not know him by reason of this spiritual birth. They only see the outside man and the judge from appearances. They know him and they can trace his origin right back to his little beginning, so what is he doing making these bold claims, for that’s blasphemy, the claim he must make for having had the experience? So he tells it and a few will believe him; and of the few who will believe him, he will get a number of them who will become Simon…to lift that burden and transform lives as he meets them in this world…no matter what it is. So you want x-number of dollars or you want so-and-so, this, that or the other…he simply hears…that’s all that he does. He hears as though you told him that you had what you really asked him to hear, and he goes his way believing that what he has heard mentally is a physical fact to confront you in the not distant future bearing witness to that state. Or maybe he will hear it through the grape vine that it has worked. But he doesn’t seek praise, no thanks. He knows it must come into being. So he’s lifting the burden, lifting the cross.

So he carries the cross behind Jesus. He hears the pattern and he believes in the pattern and that’s believing in Jesus. Not a man; you believe in the pattern, the pattern of salvation. Then you believe in Jesus. Well then, if you really believe it and everyone contains that pattern and everyone is Jesus, you can’t leave anyone distressed. Yet you do not give them one nickel from your pocket, you do it all in your Imagination. Because you could give from now to the ends of time and not give yourself. No, this is giving yourself when you imagine a state and simply go your way believing in the reality of what you have imagined. So in this case, you are lifting the cross, lifting the burden. “So bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” That’s told us in the 6th chapter of Galatians (6:2).

You can actually feel it, the joy of having done what you’ve done. You don’t wait for the phone to ring, you don’t do anything. A friend of mine, last night, told me a story. Well, he knows that quite awhile ago he told me of some work that he had done for one that he likes very much. It’s an artistic work. But they never paid and it was an agreed contract, not a written contract, between two friends who trusted each other that this money was due and therefore it was paid. Well, he knows that we discussed it and that after we discussed it I certainly heard that he was paid. And we never discussed it following that. Last night he told me the money’s in the bank. Out of the blue—he didn’t persuade her by argument—this one came forward, she’s an artist, and gave him a very large check. Now, I would say to him, that check or a similar check should be coming quarterly, and that multiplied by many. Because she is only one artist and there should be many artists needing your talent. And it would be a joy, as far as I’m concerned, to see many artists seeking his artistry, his talent that they may improve theirs. It’s only one being playing it, and then a check similar to that coming from many sources quarter after quarter.

Don’t say it can’t be done…the minute that you say that you’re going to limit someone. Don’t say that someone because of his background, his financial background, social background, political background or anything, that he can’t make it. You’re going to limit him. Don’t put the cross that heavily upon him. Lift the cross because we are in a world of horrors, really. But as Blake said and Blake understood it so perfectly: “Don’t let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill it’s destiny in order to attain perfection. Follow this path and you will receive from your own ego a deeper insight into the eternal beauties of reality. You’ll also receive an even deeper release from all that now seems so sad and terrible.” But if you know this story, you will lift the burden. Yes they’ll carry it, because they have to carry it. But why must they carry it when you yourself are carrying it because, you’re carrying all the crosses of the world. You can’t meet a stranger in this world; there isn’t one being that is a stranger. Regardless of the pigment of his skin, regardless of his tongue, regardless of anything, we’re all one…for God is one. As we’re told in the great shema of the Hebrew confession of faith, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God the Lord is one” (Deut.6:4). And never forget it! If he’s one, there can’t be a second. So in the end you and I will be the same being, the same Father, and we’ll have the same Son.

Now, I have been sent into this world to convey one thought. I have conveyed it and I’ve recorded it. I’ve recorded that the true Son is David. It’s been 2,000 years since the unveiling of the mystery of God. It has never been done before, and I have not much to convey now. I’ve completed the work I was sent to do, because the priests do not know the mystery. They do not know it, they’re men without vision and they’re arguing from a book that they do not understand. My mother used to say to me, “But after all, Neville”…a priest to her was the wisest man in the world…“and you can’t contradict him.” Well, I wouldn’t contradict my mother and I wouldn’t argue with my mother. She was simply to me something altogether wonderful, so I could not discuss it with mother. But I knew they were stupid anyway. I heard it discussed with the priests, discussed with the other ministers, and I overheard these conversations and I knew this whole thing was stupid, it wasn’t so at all. Because from the time I was a boy I had visions, and I knew it wasn’t what they were talking about. They didn’t have the slightest concept of what they were talking about. But I couldn’t tell that to mother, because mother would not have understood her little boy who was uneducated and a very limited background, how could he challenge what she considered the wise, wise priest? Because he could speak Latin or maybe he could read it too, and maybe he could read Greek…that meant he was intelligent. A lot of learned nonsense! He didn’t know what I knew from vision, for mine was all vision, it wasn’t from study.

Then as I matured I was called and sent. I know today the reason for the call and the reason for being sent and that was to reveal the true Son of God…the one Son that unifies humanity. Because if all have that one Son as his Son then we are one; the Father Jesus Christ is God the Father, and David is his Son. Jesus Christ is in you and David is his Son. The day will come he will awaken in you, he will rise in you, and you will meet David; and David will call you Father. Then you will have this certainty beyond anything in the world. You know what you had for dinner tonight, and maybe I could contradict you and tell you and get you to change what you believe you had. But you can’t get anyone to change when you have the experience of being the Father of David. There’s a certainty beyond the wildest dream of man when you meet him. There’s no uncertainty in it whatsoever. Well now, if everyone has this identical experience, then are we not one? If we all have the same Son, we are the same Father.

So tonight, the practical side of this is to go out and to the best of your ability play the part of Simon. May I tell you, you aren’t neglecting yourself, because the one you are helping is yourself. But aside from that, it comes back to the center from which it came. As the story of Job tells us, when he prayed for his friends his own captivity was lifted. So while he was locked in his own little desire to free himself of the sores and the pox and all the things that befell him, when he forgot himself completely and prayed for his friends, all these things disappeared; and then all that he lost returned to him a hundred-fold. So when I pray for my friends my own captivity is lifted, the cross becomes lighter, and finally it’s just light itself. “So take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” he said, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mat.11:30). If you really put it into practice, it will become very light. You ask no praise, no thanks from anyone, no financial gain; just the joy of seeing the cross lifted, for it’s being lifted from your own shoulder. So if I actually hear a man’s need and instead of ignoring it I represent that man to myself as one who has had that problem solved, and become self-persuaded that it is solved, and then I find that in the not distant future that it is, I don’t have to tell him what I did. I have the joy and the satisfaction of knowing that this law of Christ never fails, that it works!

So believe in the reality of your own imaginal acts. For faith is really loyalty to unseen reality. I must have faith, and I have faith not in things seen but things unseen. I don’t see the unseen imaginal act as an external fact now, but I must remain loyal to the unseen reality, and then in time the unseen will become seen and the world will see it. So this is the practical side of this night…how you and I can lift the cross from our own shoulders. If I’m lifting it from yours, I’m lifting it from mine. And in a way I do not know blessings fall upon me to the degree that I am lifting the weight from the shoulders of myself-pushed-out. For, everyone I meet is myself made visible; there is nothing but myself and there is nothing but God.

So when you read these passages and put them together into a mosaic, it tells the most beautiful story. It’s simply the most marvelous picture…if you take it that when you do it unto the least among one of these, you’ve done it unto me. You mean the little one that everyone ignored? Yes, if you did it to him you did it unto me. Well, who are you? “I am he the world is seeking, I am the Christ, the Lord,” he said. And the little one, you mean the insignificant little one, that’s Christ? Yes. “So lift his burden, because you’re lifting mine…you’ve done it unto me.”

You try it. May I tell you, it pays dividends beyond measure, just beyond measure, when you least expect it. And now you may never recognize your own harvest, because quite often our memory fades and we don’t recall that maybe five years ago someone asked a favor, and you did it in your Imagination. Then five years later you encounter that person and you’ve forgotten completely. You only know that, well, aren’t you lovely and things are going in a marvelous way for you. And you don’t realize that five years before they sought you out and asked you to help them, and you did, in your own wonderful spiritual way, and it worked. Maybe even they have forgotten. What does it matter? The burden has been lifted. So we go forward to lift the cross playing the part of Simon.

The day will come, you, too, will play the part in the most tangible manner of taking that little sign called the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lifting it up in your arms; he only symbolizes the power of God that has just been unveiled. Here is the power of God. You read it in the 52nd chapter, I think it’s the 10th verse of Isaiah…the whole thing is unveiled. What is it? The arm of God has been unveiled and it’s the power of salvation, symbolized as the child. When it happens I can’t tell you the thrill when the entire scripture unfolds within you. You see it not as secular history at all; the whole thing is supernatural from beginning to end. From the call of Abraham to the climax in the story of Jesus Christ the whole thing is supernatural. Hasn’t a thing to do with history as we understand history here. They were not telling any event that took place on earth; it was taking place in the soul of a man as he walked the earth. And no one believed him, because they knew his parents, they knew his brothers, they knew his sisters, and how could he make these claims for that was sacrilege and the priests did not believe that. They turned to the priests; they were the authorities, they were the ones who should know. So they turned to the rabbis and the rabbis said, “No, he’s an imposter.” So he goes and he tells it, and finally he finds a small, little circle that believes him to the point of putting it into practice. Then he came to them first and unveiled himself, and they began to be unveiled too. And the God in them that was the God in him begins to unveil in them. And the rabbis remained veiled. So even to this day when Moses is read a veil is on their mind…they don’t see it. I pray for all of them, no criticism, because it’s myself blinded; and they refuse to accept any change in that fixed belief of theirs.

So I have come to do one thing, and I’ve done it, and I’ve recorded it: that is to make clear to the entire world who will listen who the true Son of God is who will unify the entire world: Jesus Christ is God the Father and his Son is David. When David calls you Father, you will know you are Jesus Christ the Lord. For if I am a father, there must be a son to bear witness for that relationship. Well, he comes and he comes into one’s world. So I’ve told it and so far there are a few thousand books in print and sold, and a few thousand more back in print and they’ll be sold. So at least it will reach in the English speaking world a certain segment and they’ll know. Whether they will accept it or not I do not know. But I have told what I came to tell, that the Son of God is David and David is not a physical being. It is in Spirit that he called him Father. So, “David in the spirit called me Lord” he said, “How then can I be David’s son?” (Mat.22:42). So he called me Father in fulfillment of scripture; and everyone is going to be called Father by the one being that is David. When he calls you Father as he has called me Father, then you and I are the same being: we are God the Father. There’s only one God the Father; without loss of identity we are one.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Now are there any questions, please?

Q: Does David ever become a father?

A: David? No. Out of David comes the Son who is the Father, as told us in the 7th chapter of 2nd Samuel (7: 12): “Go unto my servant David and say unto him that when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son.” For David is the culmination of the journey. When you come to the very end, though you wear the name of John or Neville or any other name, at the end of the journey David is the very last. He was all anyway, because he’s played the part that you willed him to play, because all that you’ve done you did it, and David is the culmination. Then out of David comes one who rises within him. So you rise within your own body called John or call it what you will, but you’re coming out of David. So what comes out of David is the Son of God, and the Son of God and God are one. So, “I and my Father are one” (Jn.10:30). So you awake within yourself and you come out of a body and that is David. But David is the one who does all the Father’s will: “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will” (Acts13:22). So every part that you have played was subject to your will. And it went through hell because you put it through hell as you in your dream entertained unlovely thoughts or lovely thoughts; and the David, which is the part that you played, had to go through all the horrors. Well, in itself it was dead. You, the God dreaming in these bodies, had horrible dreams; but in the end, you come out of the state into which you have placed yourself to dream. So David is the Son and he’s always young, always the youth.

Q: You said that Jesus Christ was in you. And you said what David was…I didn’t catch that.

A: Well, the “you” in which is Jesus Christ is David, you. In you is Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ wakes in you it’s I am…it’s you waking. But he wakes in you that which you think yourself to be. That which you think yourself to be is the David. But remember, the drama is not taking place in flesh and blood; it’s taking place in the soul of man. The soul of man that is animating all that is David…it’s something that makes the body alive. In that that dreams it, the being that is dreaming it, is God who is Jesus Christ.

Now, if I became this body and it refused to obey my will, it isn’t David. It must obey my will. So “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart, who will do all my will” (Acts.13:22). So I come into the world and I think that you are terrible, well, I’ve got to see in you the terror or he hasn’t done my will. I come into the world and I see you are lovely, and I see you are lovely then he’s done my will, because everything that I imagine it must do. So when I imagine that you are successful then you must become successful, he’s done my will. Because no one sees me; I am Spirit, I am Spirit invisible to mortal eye. But when I actually assume that this is so-and-so and that is so-and-so, it must become so-and-so for it to do my will. But man not knowing his own imaginal acts, he denies that he is doing the things that he reaps in the world. He’s totally unaware of his own harvest and denies that he had anything to do with it. You hear it from numberless lips, “Why should this happen to me?” And you say, “Well, why shouldn’t it?” “Well, look here, I’m a good person.” “By whose standards?” They will tell you, “I’m so good, I’m so kind and I’m so wonderful.” They’ll give you all this praise for themselves. That’s all right…so they’re making all these claims, and then something happens.

A lady wrote me from Florida the other day. She had the crust to rewrite the Book of Revelation. So she gave me a copy of it and it was just trash, nonsense beyond nonsense. Well, her husband died at the age of eighty-four and she wondered, “Why should this happen to me?” Meaning that she rewrote the Book of Revelation and she is a very wise person, a very kind person, a great teacher. Well, what can you say to a person like that? How can you answer her letter without offending? “Why should it happen to me?” Now she’ll turn right around and become an atheist because he died at eighty-four. She told me in New York City only four years ago the man is eighty-four, so he was then eighty, and she was telling me of his physical and sexual power. At the age of eighty, “Just imagine Neville that he is just as though he were forty…” and I am wondering am I in an insane institution or not? She is thinking of the sexual power of a man eighty and she is my senior in years, and you wrote Revelation, that you dare to change the Word of God! And you think of a man eighty who satisfies you at eighty and you are now seventy, what on earth are you two doing? It took place in my lobby in the hotel in New York City. She came on a Sunday morning and she had to see me. I went down stairs to see her—Bill wasn’t dressed for anyone to come upstairs to our room—so I went downstairs and spent an hour. I wondered, really, if I’d come into some insane institution. And she’s teaching “the truth”…she has her own center in Florida. He was teaching music. As she told me all these things, I wondered what am I here for? Here is a sheer waste of one beautiful hour; I could be upstairs sitting in a robe. I had to get up early and shave and come downstairs to hear that nonsense.

If I told her that in heaven that man is above the organization of sex, she’d drop dead! What, no sex in heaven? She wouldn’t want that at all. I said, no there’s no sex in heaven as you understand sex, but there is a creativity that makes sex as we understand it look like nothing. There is an emotion and a thrill that takes anything here that we call sex and makes it look like a little fizz. That’s the thrill of creation in heaven compared to what we think the thrill is here. But if you told her that in the resurrection men are above the organization of sex, she wouldn’t want it, and she would close the book. Then she writes me that he died at eighty-four, so what? So he died…now he finds himself twenty and more virile than ever.

Any other questions, please? I knew you were going to come up with one.

Q: My grandmother’s ninety-two and sick. How do I know whether I should…what should I do?

A: My dear, your grandmother is ninety-two and she’s ill. I have had many of these, and what I do I simply assume they have never known such freedom in their lives. And quite often they close their eyes and go. My dancing partner’s father was sick a week, he was sixty-six years old, and he had a suite of rooms. I went into his bedroom at the hotel and he said, “Nev, help me to the bathroom.” So I raised him off the bed and I held my arms around him this way. He said, “Oh, I’m so tired!” I said, “Pop, what would you like?” He said, “Just to be free.” I said, “Close your eyes…close your eyes” and I closed mine and felt he was as free as the wind. He fell in my arms and he was gone.

Another one in New York City, she was very wealthy and he is very wealthy, but for four years he was in a coma, knew nothing, with three nurses around the clock. But that meant no problem to them because they had money, oodles of money…but three around the clock to watch him. In four years they never spoke because he was always unconscious. She came to see me and her problem was her little vanity. She also had a little center and she was talking on things. She hid this thing from her people, that they wouldn’t think for one second that her husband was four years in a coma. So she came to my meeting one night and sought an audience backstage and she did. I said, “Why don’t you let him go? It’s all vanity on your part, trying to hold him here.” She said, “How would I let him go?” I said, “Assume that he’s free…that he has never known such freedom.” One week later she went into the room—which was not often that she did because he was always unconscious. As she went into the room he regained consciousness for fifteen minutes and dictated the terms of his will in the presence of the nurse, and he could sign it. For four years he was not conscious…and then he died, just like that.

We’re holding on to things. Your grandmother’s ninety-two years old? Well, if I thought I had to live until I’m ninety-two, I would say he really doesn’t care for me. What, ninety-two? At that age most of them…well, Churchill lived to be ninety, but did he live? In the last few years of his life the mind was gone. When the mind isn’t there, where are you? He was a dotty old man, but no one on the outside knew it. I read a story told by Mountbatten and when Mountbatten came to see his old friend Winston, Winston was completely a gone man. He rambled and rambled and took things that he never experienced and blended them with things that he had and made a story out of it. What he read in the papers and books to him became facts as he had experienced them. When Mountbatten left his presence he said, “I felt so sad, for here was this giant of a man who today is simply an idiot.” But the world didn’t know that. So you want to just simply vegetate? If your grandmother is ill and she’s in pain and she’s ninety-two, well, let her go back to the age of twenty, which she will when she takes off this old garment. She’ll find herself radiantly happy at the age of twenty. And everyone does until they reach the end and they are resurrected. Only the resurrected transcend the return and enter the new age.

Well, until Friday.