24 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Christian Mystery Experienced”
11/28/69
Those who experienced the Christian mystery are charged with the responsibility of telling others. The aim of their preaching is the awakening of faith in God. That is their purpose, for they have experienced God. But as Paul said, “How can men call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless there is a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!’ But not all have heeded the gospel” (Rom.10:14,16). As Isaiah says, “Who, O Lord, has believed what we have heard? Who has believed what we have told them?” (Is.53:1). So faith comes from what is heard…and what is heard comes from the preaching of Christ.
Now Christ is the most misunderstood term in the world. When you hear the word Christ you think of a person outside of yourself, some being 2,000 years ago. That is not Christ. I speak of the cosmic Christ who became humanity. He is buried in every child born of woman. God became man that man may become God. So when we hear the words, “How can men call upon him in whom they have not believed?” Well, you say to the average person in the world, which may be almost 100 percent, “Tell me, do you believe in God?” Maybe many of them would say yes to that question. And you ask them who is God and they will paint all kinds of word pictures of something other than themselves. So how can man call upon one in whom he has not believed? If I tell you the only God in the universe is your own wonderful human Imagination and when you say “I am” that is God. He’s encased in the limitation of your little garment. But that being when you say “I am” that’s God. How can I call upon him in whom I have not believed? I don’t believe that I am he…I don’t believe in him. Well, how can I call upon him then? Then how can I actually believe in him of whom I have never heard? What preacher ever told you that your own wonderful human Imagination is God? They paint a word picture of a God outside of you and so you’ve never heard of the true God.
And when someone comes and tells you of the true God, to you that is blasphemy, because you can’t believe for one moment that you are creating the conditions of your life. For God is the only causative power in the world and there is nothing but God. So everything in the world is caused by God. God is the only reality, the only causative power in the world. So how on earth can I actually believe in him of whom I have never heard? Well now, how can I hear of him unless there is a preacher and then how can there be a preacher unless he is sent?
You read in this morning’s paper that Peter’s throne is not his throne. That nonsense has been perpetuated for the last thousand years upon the gullible, the blind leaders of the blind. Here is man actually being told a thousand years ago this is the little throne upon which Peter sat. Now it’s a holy thing encased in something to protect it from decay, and now science comes and proves by their own knowledge of time that it’s only a thousand years old or 900 years old and here we are told that Peter lived 2,000 years ago. Now they have to take it out of its little cabinet and put it where it belongs. They should burn it! It was all nonsense to begin with, and it is still nonsense. And here, they perpetuate it. They’ll take it out and keep it as some holy relic when it was never any more than a piece of thing upon which some self-appointed nut sat. They call him by the name and they gave him some holy name of a pope-this and a pope-that, and a holy this, or of some emperor. Here now the whole thing has been completely revealed after one thousand years of nonsense. What are we going to do when this whole thing is perpetuated and man does not want to hear the truth? He doesn’t want to assume the responsibility that he himself is responsible for everything that happens to him. The only God in the world is your own wonderful human Imagination. That is God.
But you look out upon a world and you think if God is my Imagination, I had not a thing to do with the creation of the world. You don’t know it yet. Because for a purpose not yet revealed to you by yourself, not by another God, God assumed the restriction and the limitation of his own creation. He became his created world so that he may expand beyond it, and expand a still greater world for even further expansion of himself. For God is an ever-expanding illumination. And he takes upon himself the limit of contraction called man, the limit of opacity called man that he may break the limit and expand. That’s the glory of it all.
So anyone who has experienced it cannot conceal from anyone what he has experienced. He is under an obligation to tell it. As Jeremiah said in the 20th chapter, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in this name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (20:9). If tonight you paid me not to talk about it, well then, keep your money. I cannot stop talking about it. I must share my experience with others to encourage them to believe in God, but it is my responsibility to tell them who God is. Not to believe in God…for a billion people have different concepts of God…the little icons that someone…the little chair called Peter’s chair. And when men take the characters of scripture and believe them to be characters of history, they are simply taking truth modified to the limitation of the weakness of the human soul. The characters of scripture are not characters of history; they are personifications of the aspects of the human mind, every one from Jesus down.
Jesus is a personification of the fulfillment of the plan that you yourself set up in the very beginning of time. You planned it before the world was. The world came into being, and you and I came down into our own creation. And Jesus is the fulfillment of our plan. So when we have fulfilled it and the whole story of Jesus unfolds within us, we’ve got to tell our brothers who are still sound asleep and wean them from this nonsense where year after year they are told of some external God to whom they must turn and pray…some external God to whom they must bow and pay homage to this being. And there is no external God. It is Christ in you that is the hope of glory. There is no other Christ. Christ is the plan of redemption and it is Christ in man. It is really a pattern, the pattern that was before that the world was, and that you and I actually agreed upon, and simply became what we created, knowing that there’s a pattern that we in the depth of our own being would one day fulfill.
Now, “Unless you believe,” said the pattern man, “that I am he, you die in your sins” (Jn.8:24). Put the little word “is” in this manner, “Unless you believe that I am (is) he, you die in your sins.” And they did not believe that he was speaking of the Father. Well, the Father is the cause. The Father is the cause of you and without a Father you couldn’t be. He was speaking of the Father and they did not understand that he was speaking of the Father when he said, “Unless you believe that I am is he.” So I tell you when you say “I am” that is the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no other Jesus Christ.
Well, how do I know that he is Jesus Christ? Read his story as told in the gospel, just read it. He was born from above and he said, “I am from above and you are from below; where I am going you cannot come, not now” (Jn.8:23). And they said, “What is he going to do…is he going to kill himself, for he said that where I am going you cannot come?” No, he is returning to his own being, for he has fulfilled scripture. He’s telling every being in the world, he’s only returning to the source of it all, and he is the source. There is no other source. It isn’t that you will not come, but you cannot come now. Not until here you have fulfilled what you and I agreed upon before that the world was, for you and I agreed to dream in concert and we will not break our pledge to each other. You and I came down from heaven; we are the ones who descended. We came down right into our own creation; and this is our creation, and we’re playing the parts. Everything in the world you and I created.
Well, if I think of another God, I am sound asleep. So he who comes comes for one purpose, the one who is sent. By whom is he sent? He’s sent by himself: “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” Well, who is the one who sent you? The one you call God, but I call him Father. For I found him, and he and I are one. So now we’re told the one who really broke through, his name is called Paul in scripture, and Paul spent his days from morning ‘til evening expounding the kingdom of heaven and trying to convince all with whom he spoke about Jesus. He turned to the Old Testament, for there was no gospel, he turned to the Old Testament and from the law of Moses and the prophets he tried to convince them about Jesus. Some were convinced by what he said while others disbelieved. But he welcomed everyone who came, and teaching Jesus Christ, and some believed and some disbelieved. Well, that’s all that I can do. Having experienced exactly what he is talking about, all that I can tell you is what I have experienced…that Jesus Christ is the only reality…it is God the Father.
Where is he? He is in you, in me. In what sense? Well, say “I am”…that’s Jesus Christ… there is no other Jesus Christ. Well, how do I know that that is Jesus Christ? I’ll tell you how you will know. You will know in this manner. The day will come when some peculiar vibration will possess you. It’s called in scripture the wind: “The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell whence it comes nor whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit” (Jn.3:8). Well, the wind will possess you. Your whole body will vibrate and you will awake. You will awake in the tomb where you buried yourself; because “No man took away my life, I laid it down myself. I have the power to lay I down, and the power to lift it up again” (Jn.10:18). And I laid it down within my own creation which is man: “For eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy” (Blake, Vis. of Last Judg.). So man is part of the eternal structure of the creation of the universe, and I laid myself down within man, part of the eternal structure of the universe.
Now, what is this act of mercy? I would like to change the word “creation” to “re-creation.” It’s a transcending of my own creation. I come down into my own creation and by re-creating it I transcend it, and awaken myself from this body of death. So one day you will actually awaken within your skull, and the symbolism of scripture concerning the birth of Jesus Christ will surround you. But it’s all about you, not another; you are Jesus Christ coming out of Golgotha, your own skull. And the little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes is right there. Those who witness your birth are there, but they can’t see you. Why? Because you’re Spirit, you’re God, for God is Spirit. They can’t see you who are God-begotten. You are self-begotten and you come out. All the things told in scripture concerning Jesus Christ you are going to experience and then you will know who Jesus Christ is. It’s a pattern buried in man which one day will unfold in man, and man is the entire story of the Bible. It’s not about another, it’s all about you. The Bible is your own personal spiritual biography. That’s the story of Jesus Christ. So let them talk about all these holy relics and all these little things. Let them do it. Forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing. They are the blind leaders of the blind.
Now, someone said to me, “Is that all that you talk about?” I said, yes, I talk about Christ, always Christ. “But isn’t that limited? Doesn’t that become monotonous? Isn’t there some point where you exhaust it?” I said no, there is no end to the mystery, but no end to the mystery. I preach Christ always. I preach him crucified on humanity; not on some little piece of wood in the Near East 2,000 years ago. There was never any man who was crucified in that manner. Yes, we have insane men like our Hitlers, our Stalins, and these people who will do it man to man. In our own land we have had men who will take innocent fellows and string them up on a tree and think they’re doing God’s business. Yes, we have these insane people. But that’s not the story of Christ. Christ became humanity that humanity may become God. And the one who came down and who became this was God. See, “No one ascends into heaven but he who first descended from heaven, the Son of man” (Jn.3:13). The Son of man descended from heaven? Yes. Buried in you is that one who is going to come out of you, and coming out of you then he is the son of man. He is the one who descended from heaven and he’s the one who is God.
Listen to it carefully: “I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star” (Rev.22:16). Yes, I am the root, I am the father of David; and yet I am the offspring of David. So the father of David and the offspring of David are one and the same being. So here comes the grandfather and the grandson as one being, and as one being they are the father of David. David is the symbol of humanity, for humanity does the Father’s will. Everything in this world is doing the Father’s will. Say “I am,” that’s the Father. And whatever you are assuming that you are that you are going to do.
Now listen to these words in the Book of Samuel, “And the Lord said:—and he’s speaking now to the boy Samuel, and the word Samuel in Hebrew means “his name is God.” Sam-u-el, “his name is God.” So here, the boy Samuel is saying…and now he’s speaking because the Lord is speaking to him and these are the words, “Those who honor me I will honor and those who despise me they shall be lightly esteemed.” Now you think of a being on the outside? No, your concept of yourself is either your honor or dishonor. You feel little when you meet someone, well then, you are dishonoring God. Have you ever met anyone in this world you thought more important than yourself? Oh, he’s richer, he’s bigger, he’s stronger, and he’s more handsome. He’s everything that you think you are not. But did you feel little in his presence because he had more money, that he was wiser, that he was stronger, or that he was better dressed? Then you are not honoring God because God’s name is I AM. And when you felt less-than you were not honoring God. So, he who honors me I will honor him and he who despises me then he shall be little esteemed. Read it in 1st Samuel, the 2nd chapter, and I think it’s the 30th verse.
You read it carefully. It’s the little boy Samuel who heard the voice coming seemingly from without. For he went to the old man, the prophet Eli, which means “my God,” and he thought “my God” was another. He went to another and he said, “Go back and dream again, my boy.” So he went back and he dreamed again…dreamed the same thing. Goes back to Eli: “Go back and dream again.” He’s still dreaming the same thing and when the dream is repeated it means that the Lord has spoken and it will shortly come to pass…and it did. He became the great prophet.
So here, the Samuel in us…I heard a voice say…the voice is speaking from within me. What did he say? “Those who honor me I will honor them, and those who despise me then they will be lightly esteemed.” You talk to anyone and they say I do so-and-so and they’re embarrassed of what they do? Well, if they are embarrassed because of the job that they have then they are despising the name of God which is I AM. So someone asks you in some social gathering, “What do you do?” and because they have a Ph.D. they are so proud that they have a Ph.D.; and you have to confess, well, maybe you’re a busboy and you feel embarrassed. You say “I’m a busboy.” They are so proud that they’re a Ph.D. and so you feel little, then you’re despising the name of God by feeling that way. Don’t let anyone in this world make you feel little. Oh, they’ll try it, but they’ll only try it when you feel little. When you don’t feel little, it doesn’t matter what they are and who they are and where they are, when you don’t feel little no matter what you have—you have not a nickel in your pocket but you don’t feel little—you know who God is and God is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s God. Well, you can’t be more than God!
All right, so you’re God. So you walk the earth…not in an arrogant way…no, you aren’t arrogant. But you don’t let anyone put you down. See, I was born in a little island called Barbados. The island is just like a farm, a huge big farm. Everything is planted in order to produce a dollar. So we planted in sugar cane; and the products of sugar cane will be molasses, rum, and so on. So this is an interesting setup. From the time that I was a child we had no chemical fertilizers, none whatsoever; we only had the animal products to fertilize the fields and you and I know it is called manure. We gathered it all together, and then after about two years of gathering it, then we would simply scatter it to fertilize the fields. Do you know what we called it long before telephones were invented and radio and TVs? We called that broadcasting. Now is the time of broadcasting…which meant we took all the manure, the droppings of the animal and we broadcasted it. Well, isn’t that appropriate today of the broadcasting? It’s broadcasting. Long before there was such a thing as the telephone, we broadcasted. So, today you will drop your teeth, drop your hair, drop everything if you don’t buy this product. Well, isn’t that b.s.? Then from b.s. you go to M.S. and that’s more of the same thing, then Ph.D.…it’s piled high and deep. So that is the story.
Let no one in this world make you feel little. You are God. God is buried within you as your own wonderful human Imagination. That is God! There never was another God. Now you’re invited to test it. Well, how do I test God? You’re told in the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, “Come prove him and see. Test me and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (13:5). Well now, that’s quite a challenge. Well, if he’s in me, how do I test him? You tell me he is my Imagination and I tell you Imagination creates reality, because Jesus Christ is the creator of the world and therefore he creates reality. Well now, let me imagine that I am what at the moment reason tells me that I’m not, and my senses tell me that I am not. Can I believe that I am what they deny? For, the purpose of this preaching is to awaken faith in God and God is your own wonderful human Imagination. So it’s to awaken faith in your Imagination.
How on earth can I believe what at the moment everything is denying? Well, try it, just try it. Walk as though you are the man that you desire to be…asking no favors, asking no one anything. What would it feel like if it were true? For that feeling is brought into scripture: “Come close, my son, that I may feel you” (Gen.27:21). Come close that I may feel you, for I am blind and I cannot see what I am assuming. So the father said, “Come close, my son.” His name was called Isaac. So Isaac said, “Come close” and Jacob came close. You find all through scripture the father is the blind one and the son is called, and as he is called he said, “Come that I may feel and touch you.” So when Jacob was calling his grandsons he said, “I’m blind, I can’t see.” He called and Joseph placed his sons before him, and he crossed his hands and put one hand on the head of one boy, one hand on the head of the other and reversed it, and then he justified his act. When Isaac did it to Jacob, he did the same thing, “Come close that I may feel you.”
Well, in this what would the feeling be like if it were true? How would I feel now if I were the man that I want to be? Just what would it feel like? Well now, feel that and believe in Jesus Christ. Well, who is Jesus Christ? Just what I did…he’s my Imagination. When I say “I am” that’s the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other Lord; there is no other Jesus Christ. Well now, is that really true, are all things possible to him? Yes, all things are possible…but it takes faith. Listen to what I quoted earlier, “And it comes through faith, so hear it.” You must hear it, and then hearing with acceptance comes through faith. “How can men call upon him in whom they have not believed?” The average person does not believe in himself. So when I wrote my book Your Faith is Your Fortune before I wrote the very first chapter I wrote one little line and I said, “Man’s faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself.” I can’t tell you what criticism I’ve had because of that statement, but it’s still there, I haven’t taken it out. For, my faith in God is measured by my confidence in myself because the self of man is God. And so I put it there and it’s still there.
So, how can I call upon one in whom I do not believe…because, the average man does not believe in himself. He has faith in everyone but himself. He says, oh, I’m working for a wonderful person. “You are, for whom?” “Mr. So-and-so. And you know what, today I had lunch in a certain restaurant and what do you think? I saw Mr. So-and-so dining.” And you ask him quite simply, “Did he pick up your check?” “No.” Then what on earth does it matter? So he dined there, and he paid for his dinner and you paid for yours and you’re impressed because he came to the same restaurant? No, that is the man’s mentality the world over. And so, how can I call upon one in whom I do not believe? I don’t believe in myself, so how can I call upon him? And how can I believe in one of whom I have never heard? No one told you? No. And how can I hear unless there’s a preacher, and how can there be a preacher unless he’s sent? So the one who is sent is one who has experienced the mystery, and he doesn’t ask favors of anyone in this world. What on earth should I ask the pope or the Cardinal of England or all these so-called leaders what to say? What on earth could they tell me after they’ve dethroned the little chair of Peter? They took out all the medals last year…you can’t pray anymore to St. Christopher because he doesn’t exist. He is no longer a saint, he doesn’t exist, but he did for hundreds of years and brought in millions of dollars to the church.
So I tell you, you don’t owe anything to anyone, because God himself became you. And as you’re seated here and you say “I am”—even though tonight you can’t pay rent and you haven’t eaten well today—the being who owns the whole vast universe, who created it and sustains it is within you. When you say “I am” that is his name. So when you say call upon his name, his name is I AM. You call with the name by saying “I am…” and then you put a title on it “I am free, I am wealthy, I am healthy”…you put something on it, because the name is I AM and he is the creative power of the universe…and there is no other God. None! The story of Jesus Christ I personally, as I stand before you, I have experienced it in detail from beginning to end. So I know what I’m talking about; I am not theorizing. Christ in us is God’s plan of salvation and God in us is I AM. So when you have the experience, who’s having it, the other one? No, I am having it. So you experience the story of Jesus Christ in the first-person singular, present-tense experience. You don’t see another being born; you are the one who first resurrects and then who is born. The whole thing unfolds itself within you.
I stand before you as a witness to it all. And I spend my last days like Paul testifying from morning to night. The phone rings, letters come, and I have to answer the letters, have to answer the phone. All that I’m talking about is testifying to the kingdom of God, and trying to convince every one who will listen to me about Jesus Christ. All that I use to persuade them is simply the Bible, the law of Moses and the prophets, and my own experience which is simply the interpretation of the law of Moses and the prophets. The fulfillment of the law and the prophets is Jesus Christ. He came only to fulfill scripture…that’s all that he came to do. He comes in us to fulfill scripture.
So let no one make you feel little for one moment. You don’t feel arrogant, no. I meet no one in this world that I do not respect. I can‘t meet anyone…he shines my shoes in the barber shop, I respect him. He will come on, he’ll do all kinds of things, and he will sing and talk…to the annoyance of the boss-barber who thinks he should not be so intimate with the customer. But I’m talking to him all the time, enjoying his company, for he’s shining my shoes, so what? That’s God…I’m shining my own shoes in the being who’s shining my shoes. I respect him. So he has a wife to go home to; he has to take money home to pay the rent, to buy the food and to buy clothing. But because he plays that part, it doesn’t mean that he is less than. Others come in because they’re going to give him a quarter after he shines their shoes, and the boss-barber hopes you’ll come back…so what! That’s all the little business things. But we’re all brothers. Behind all these masks we are brothers. I knew you before that the world was; and before that the world was we were one being and that one being is God. But we were made up of a brotherhood, infinite brothers. And in spite of the infinite number we all know each other individually, distinctly, in spite of the numbers. And we formed one being. We came down and became fragmented into our own creations. We’re going back and going back to the one being that we really are. That one being is God the Father…and you are God the Father. One day you’re going to know it.
Now let us go into the Silence.
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Before we take the questions, we’re closing two weeks from tonight on the 12th, Friday night, two weeks from tonight. We re-open on the 5th of January, Monday the 5th. I do not know whether I will send out notices or not, but make a note of it in the event I do not. I’ll definitely take an ad in the paper, but you may not read the paper. I’m reopening on the 5th of January and I’m only closed for three weeks. So I’m closing two weeks from tonight which is the 12th.
Now are there any questions, please? No questions? The night is young…yes sir?
Q: I suppose by this method you can change arthritis or anything with this concept, can you?
A: Sir, I firmly believe that everything is possible to God and I do believe that your own wonderful human Imagination is God. To the degree that you can be self-persuaded that what you imagine is true to that degree it will become true. If man could only be self-persuaded. As we are told in the Book of Mark, the 23rd and 24th verses of the 11th chapter, “Whatever one says believing that it will come to pass, it will be done for him.” Followed by the statement, “Therefore, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and you will.” So all things are possible to God, but to what degree can I believe it? The only condition imposed upon man is his belief. I can imagine a state, but if reason denies it, my senses deny it, can I be self-persuaded in spite of their denial? Can I really believe in God?
That’s what I tried to bring out tonight. How can man call upon him in whom they do not believe? Well, the one that you call upon is your own wonderful human Imagination. Man does not believe in him. You hear it said day after day, “It’s only his imagination.” And so we went to the moon and that was only once an imagined act. What is now proven was once “only” imagined. And so, we went to the moon and we came back, and yet it was all done in one’s Imagination first. So, can one believe? As told us in that 10th chapter of the Book of Romans, “How can I call upon him in whom I do not believe? And how can I believe in him of whom I have not heard? Well now, that’s quite obvious, because the average person is not told that the God of whom they speak is their Imagination. What priest or minister or rabbi in the world when they take their lecterns on their Sabbath ever tells the audience who God is? They paint a word picture of an external being to whom they must turn and then they point to the wall and show these God-awful pictures of a being, in violation of the 2nd Commandment, “Make no graven image unto me.” And yet we turn and we see this bleeding heart and all these things all over the place…and that’s called God. You’re told, “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1Jn.3:2). Well, go into any of these churches and see if you look like these things. Usually they’re all painted by the strangest artists…if they can call themselves artists. What monstrosities! No one resembles what they have painted to be the Lord. No, he’s just like you! When you see him, he’s just like you raised to the nth degree of beauty, but the nth degree. And I haven’t seen any of these strange things on the walls of the churches that come near the beauty of the being that I am.
So everything is possible if you can persuade yourself that what you have imagined as a desirable state is true. So test yourselves and see, as you’re told in Corinthians (2Cor.13:5). Test it. This is something that we are called upon to test.
Any other questions, please?
Q: Yes, Neville, what does it mean to be chained and imprisoned in your dream and yet in the end of the dream to have the truth slightly awaken in you?
A: Oh, that’s a marvelous dream. Have you had that dream?
Q: Yes.
A: Well, my dear, we’re all chained right now. I’m a slave of the body that I wear. I have to bathe it, shave it, clean it, feed it, dress it. After having fed it, I can’t command anyone in the world to assimilate the food for me. I must assimilate it and what I can’t assimilate, I must eliminate, and I can’t compel anyone to eliminate it for me. Well, isn’t that a slave? The chain is a symbol of slavery. You are enslaved by the body that you wear, but in the end you’ll be free of it, and you’ll wear your immortal body. The being who is within you is clothed in an immortal body. But for purposes of his own he took upon himself the form of a slave, and became subject unto death, for all these bodies die. There is something in you that cannot die. So the imagery is perfect, my dear, if you had that, perfectly marvelous.
Q: One time you mentioned about in a dream you had a vision of falling backward… something with Blake.
A: Yes.
Q: Well, what does it mean if you actually let yourself fall backwards?
A: Well, I can tell you, try it.
Q: I experienced it in dream.
A: And did you see what I saw?
Q: I believe you said to fall back into whatever you desire to be…
A: No, no. This night when Blake said to me, “Let yourself go, fall backwards” he emphasized backwards, and so like diving off a very high platform. Well, this was not just a high platform, this was diving off into infinity. I dived like a meteor falling through space, and I came hurtling through space backwards. And then all of a sudden it came to a stillness. When I looked up, here was a man, a single man in the distance, one man, his heart was aflame, just a fiery ruby. But as he approached he contained the whole of humanity—all the races, all the nations, everything you can think of—one man containing all. In the distance it was one man, this glorious being with a heart that was simply a ruby that flamed. And all of a sudden, I am approaching him or he’s approaching me and the one man contains humanity.
So that’s what Blake told me to see…“Let yourself go” and I did, took him at his word and hurled back, as I’ve done many a time as a boy…couldn’t do it today…diving backwards, diving forward, diving all over the area where I was born. So the sensation of diving backward I’m familiar with that. But this time instead of diving into, say, twenty or thirty feet from a height, this is into eternity…just jumping off into eternity and hurtling through space. Then all of a sudden it comes to a stillness and here is a man approaching me when it came to a stillness. His heart was just one blaze like a ruby. It was simply this red, wonderful living being, all in here. As I approached him or he approached me he contained humanity, all the races, all the nations, all everything, one man containing all. He was telling me that one man fell, and I was that one man, for where did it take place but within me. As told us in the 82nd Psalm, “I say ye are gods, sons of he Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O ye princes” (82:1,6). So I was the one man falling and I saw the one man containing all. It was Blake who told me to fall and how to fall.
Man has no idea how great he is! That he who walks the earth though unable to buy a loaf of bread created the universe. And here he created the whole vast universe and sustains it. But he’s going through experiences that he pre-determined for his own purpose. But let no one ever put you below them. In our mind’s eye do not allow it. Grant them to be what they want to be, but let no one make you feel little, no one. I had that from the time that I was about this big. I recall I was in a show and the show was owned by the Shuberts. Well, they were the biggest thing on Broadway; they owned all the theaters, and they had so many millions and they were everything. This was a rehearsal and we were in Cleveland I think it was, when J. J. Shubert, one of the two boys sat in the audience, and he told me to get off the stage. Well, I didn’t know him. I knew he was J. J. Shubert, but I didn’t meet him personally. Told me to get off the stage and I wouldn’t get off the stage. He said, “Get off the stage.” I said, “I’m not leaving the stage until the director orders me off the stage. You are not the director.” I knew exactly who he was and he had to turn to the director and said, “Tell that man to get off the stage.” Then the director said, “Neville, get off the stage, please.” I got off the stage. And Shubert went through the ceiling, because he thought everyone should get down and bow to him.
So when we opened on Broadway four weeks later, it was always his habit to send back Mr. Simmons who was his outside man to ask the entire cast to take a cut. He did it every time we opened the show. So he came on back and said, “Now, we do not know what the reporters are going to say by tomorrow morning’s press, but Mr. Shubert feels he can carry the show if the whole cast will take a twenty percent cut.” They came to me and I said, “I wouldn’t take one cent cut. You can go back and tell it to Shubert.” So all took a twenty percent cut and I got paid for the next seventeen weeks, it ran seventeen weeks, at my full price…they cut nothing. It was his habit and that’s why he made millions. So, he couldn’t make me feel little. Just let him have his millions. One thing, he didn’t take it with him. They both died since. Tried his best to find some way to take it with him and he couldn’t find it, so he left it.
No, you don’t have to have it…you own the world…the 50th Psalm. If you don’t believe it, read the 50th Psalm: “The world is mine and all within it. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the cattle on a thousand hills are mine…so were I hungry I would slay and eat” (50:10-12). You don’t have to beg anyone in this world, just know who you are. “Those who honor me I will honor and those who despise me they will be little esteemed.” Well, who is speaking? Your own wonderful I-am-ness is speaking. You feel that I am little because I scrub floors? Well then, you are ignoring the name of God…you despise God because you feel that you are little and that you’re unwanted.
No, I never make anyone feel that way. I have a maid who comes home once a week and cleans for me, a colored maid, well, she’s like my sister in the household. I don’t treat her as something that is a maid. Doris to me is simply like my sister coming in, but she has to make a living and I need a house cleaning so she cleans it for me. When the boys were coming down, I said, “Doris, stop all that you are doing and come in here and watch it.” She said, “But I’ve got to do this.” I said, “Don’t do anything. You come sit right here on this couch and watch these boys come down.” So I had her sit there for fifteen or twenty minutes, and she and I sat on the couch together and watched the boys come down in the Pacific. For they left the moon, they were coming, splashing down. Well, Doris is like my sister. We’re different pigments. She is dark and I am olive skinned, call it what you will. At least it’s skin.
Any other questions, please? No? If not, let no Ph.D. get you down.
Good night.