24 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Dreamer”

9/19/69

Tonight’s subject is about the Dreamer: “Behold this dreamer cometh” which you will read in the 37th chapter of Genesis (37:19). It’s the story of Joseph, the one that his father loved the most. He made him a long robe with sleeves. He was a dreamer, he could interpret dreams, and all of his dreams came true. So you ask the question, “Who is Joseph?” Joseph is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. Joseph is your true identity. The historical evidence for Christ the man is non-existent, yet he is the only reality. He is the true identity of very child born of woman. Just say quietly to yourself, “I am”: that is Jesus Christ, that is the Lord, that is God, and that is Jehovah…just I am. And this whole vast world is a dream. One day you will discover we are the dream of God, and smoothly pass their pleasure in a long immortal dream. They brought it into being by dreaming it and they sustain it by the dream. You and I are inserted into the dream…we came down into the dream. We must dream the dream of life, and one day we will awaken from that dream of life. Then it will be said of us, “He hath awakened from the dream of life; ‘tis we who lost in stormy visions keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife” (Shelley). We will continue the dream until we awaken, and when we awaken we are the dreamer, and the dreamer is God himself.

It’s not an idle dream; it’s for a divine purpose. It’s to extend our power, our creative power. For if God could not extend his creative power it would be horrible. If he could not expand beyond what he is in every department of being, then there would be no living. God is potentially infinite, but expands and expands by coming into his dream, as you are here, as I am here. And everyone will awaken from the dream because there is only God. For, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God the Lord is one” (Deut.6:4)…there aren’t two. You and I seem to be divided and there are billions in the world, and there will be billions; but in the end, it will be resolved and it will only be one. That one is the Lord God Jehovah who in scripture is Jesus Christ.

So in this story he could dream and dream correctly and interpret the dreams of others. Not every dream was a simple dream. There are certain dreams that are so simple it needs no interpretation, but most of our dreams are symbolic and few understand the language of symbolism. He understood it and he could take a dream like his brothers’ dreams of the sheaths and tell them what it meant. Then he had a dream of the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowing down to him. When his father Jacob heard it, Jacob said, “What? Your father, your mother and your brothers will bow down to you?” He didn’t criticize him, but he kept these things in his heart and he pondered them.

Now here, Joseph’s name was changed…Moses called him Joshua. He took the name of Joseph and simply changed it into Joshua. For the word Joshua is the Hebraic form of the Anglicized word Jesus. It means the same thing as Jehovah: “Jehovah saves.” So here, the dreamer is going to become the savior, because he’s going to awaken from the dream and tell his brothers what this whole vast world is all about and that it is nothing more then a dream. Here you think this is real and tonight when I sleep, oh, maybe perchance I’ll have a dream, and maybe I’ll remember it. That’s the dream, but surely this is reality. Well, if to dream is to dwell in unreality not knowing it is such, what is the life of many but an uninterrupted dream? What is it? Until you have certain experiences, you will question my sanity, but may I tell you, you’re going to have these experiences and then you will know that this which seems to be so consistent and so all together real is no less a dream than the dream of the night.

You say this is consistent …it doesn’t simply jump around like the dream of the night. If you could see the mind of a man in the morning as he reads the morning’s paper. Starts the first page, all violence, that gets the reader—an air crash, a war, a holdup, a murder, an embezzlement—all these on the first page. Then you go through…sometimes a beautiful wedding, and they describe a wedding and who was there, how much money he has, how much money she has. Turn the pages over and then come the deaths, all the people who died. Then come the financial pages and those who are making money and those who are losing money, then the sports…through all these things in one hour. And if you could see the mind of the one who is reading it and he’s lost in what he’s reading, you would see the out-picturing of all that he’s thinking as he reads, isn’t that disjointed? They go from the first page which is always violence to the lovely page concerning weddings and all the beautiful brides and those who attended; and then who is living with whom; the columnists depending on what paper you read; and then the ten or twelve individual opinions of single men writing columns. So they write columns and a hundred papers depending upon their success, and maybe 600 will carry their columns. And here, one man’s opinion…and millions reading it and lost in all the things that he’s describing. He’s just as false as anyone else, but he’s dreaming, too.

So how do I know it’s a dream? I know from experience. I know that God laid himself down within me to sleep and as he slept he dreamed a dream…he dreamed that he’s I. And when he woke he was I. But how do I know that I am he? I knew it the day that his only begotten son David called me Father (Ps.2:7). For when his only begotten son—as told us in scripture and this is simply the play, the plan—and I looked into his eyes and knew—no one told me, I knew—he is my son. He knew that I am his Father. When he called me Father, I knew that I was the dreamer of the entire picture, and the dreamer was God. But while I remained clothed in a garment of blood and flesh, I must abide by the restrictions and the limitations of this flesh yet remembering that it is a dream, and therefore if I know it is a dream, I can change the dream. If it’s reality, I can’t change it. But if it’s a dream and I am the reality I can change it relative to myself…if I am the dreamer. Well, I know I am the dreamer and so I can suggest a change of the dream and produce corresponding changes in the outer world, which is the dream. For, I can change the dream if I know it’s a dream.

This I do know as he told me in the depth of my own being, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream…I dreamed that I am you.” Yes, he dreamed that he is I. And he awoke within me…and when he woke he was I. Then a few months later he revealed that mystery to me by bringing before me his son David, and David called me Father. I knew him. He wasn’t simply a boy coming into my world and calling me Father with my knowledge not corresponding to it; there was innate wisdom. I knew exactly that he was my son, and he knew that I was his father. So here, God awakes within man. In every child in this world born of woman he will one day awake; and when he awakes he is the same God. There aren’t two Gods; therefore, you and I are really one. So in the end, although we seem now to be billions in this world, in the end we are one being, one God. This was a pre-determined plan to expand the power, the creative power of God and the wisdom of God.

Here, a dear friend of mine (in the audience tonight) and I am so thrilled for him and for myself. For anyone who comes who has an experience similar to this thrills me beyond measure. You can’t give me anything in this world concerning money or things that money could buy that compares to a letter that I got from him last Monday night. How could you put it into the terms of dollars and cents? He was in his own house, sitting in the living room watching TV, and he felt drowsy and he drowsed. But he knew he was drowsy and he knew that he would actually fall asleep. He allowed himself to go to sleep, but he remembered that he was watching TV. Instantly he finds himself behind the wheel of his car, he’s driving his car, and his wife is at his side. He had a sense of fear, a sense of impending disaster like an accident, and she grabbed the wheel. He knew it was a dream and he was awake in his dream…a dream just like this. You can be awake right in the dream, because this is a dream and you are awake in this dream. So he became awake in that dream.

He finally succeeded in getting her away from the wheel. He came toward what seemed to be a pile-up, a great accident. He remembered who he was and he proclaimed inwardly “I am.” At that moment he not only remembered where he was when the whole thing began but who he is. And as he woke, he woke back seated in his chair and looking at the TV. Then he said, “You know, this is the first time that I fully became awake in a dream to know who I am and where I was.” Then he thanked me profusely and said, “You know, I can’t help feeling a little bit pleased with myself.” Well, he should be. All these are simply the breaking of the little threads that bind us to the dream, which means he is on the verge of waking. He will awake from the dream.

I’ve done it unnumbered times…sit on a chair and suddenly find myself slipping into what I’m seeing, which reason tells me I should not see. Then I step into the thing that I’m seeing and the world closes behind me and here I am in a world as real as this, a world that is terrestrial. I’m as solid as I am now. I am talking to people and they’re solid, they’re real. Here I am in an entirely different world, a different section of time, and yet I knew exactly where I was when it started. But there’s no way to get back by taking a road. You can’t go back by a road, because what road would I take tonight if suddenly I stepped into the year 1900? Where would I come back to find myself here if I slipped into the year 2000? You see, all things are taking place now: “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of Creation which was an act of mercy” (Blake, Vis. Last Judg.).

So the whole thing’s taking place now. You and I enter certain sections of the dream, and as we enter it we animate it, and the part becomes real to us. We only become aware of increasing portions of that which already is…everything is! I can slip back in time or forward in time, and the past has not ceased to be. It is taking place as it took place and still takes place when anyone enters that section of time. The year 3000 is, and is taking place when anyone enters it. It is all taking place, as the year 1969 finds us standing on the moon. It always has been so. The whole vast world is and we are in a dream, dreaming all these lovely dreams and horrible dreams. But we are placed on this little space called earth to learn to bear the beams of love. We could not where we were stand the beams of love, for God is love, infinite love. And to stand in the presence of infinite love…we came down and “we’re put on earth a little space, to learn to bear the beams of love” (Blake, Little Black Boy). I know it from experience.

Here you enter almost like a wraith, like a specter, a shadow, and to the degree you learn to love you take on substance. Only as you love do you take on substance. I was given an instruction not long ago in this section of time…another section of time…and there I said to maybe a dozen men around me, “Here is this wraith, a shadow, a specter, a shadow of a man, but only a shadow. I could take it and do what I wanted with it as a little piece of cloth. Then I said to the wraith, ‘Go, go and love without the help of anyone on earth, just go and love. To the degree that you love you will acquire substance, and only as you acquire substance can you really take part in the entire drama and then one day awake with life within yourself.

Now you’ll only be an animated being, but not a life-giving spirit. One day you will acquire substance, which is love, and then you’ll become one with life in yourself.’” To complete that thought, which is the 3rd verse of the 1st chapter of John, “All things are made through him, and without him was not anything made.” That which has been made was life to him: that is the creative act…so all things exist. But this creative act truly is an act of mercy…to bring us into these states where suddenly we take on a power and we become life-giving spirits and all return to the one being. Not lost in the one being, we are that being and still we retain our own identity. I have acquired identity and I will not in eternity lose it, but gain ever more and more individualization, as you will. Yet although we become individualized still we are one, one being. There’s only God.

In San Francisco on the very last night this chap told me a story just before I took the platform, and I asked him to tell it to those who were present. This is the story. He said, “It was a hot summer’s day this past summer and I stopped into a bar to get a nice cold beer.” Only one seat seemed to be available, because the seat next to him that was not occupied had a lit cigarette in an ashtray and a hat on the stool, so he knew that someone had reserved it, someone had left. In a little while this one came back and took off the hat from the stool, and then as men do at a bar began to talk. He said to my friend, “You know the strangest thing and it haunts me…I was in the Korean War and I was wounded and I was shipped to Japan. I was in a hospital in Japan and here I am on a bed in the hospital. I know I’m an American soldier, I’m wounded, and I’m in Japan. Suddenly consciousness fades from the room, but I remember I am an American soldier, wounded, and recuperating in Japan.

“Suddenly I am in Europe. It’s a different age. It’s not this century, it’s the last century, and I am dancing and the ladies are all dressed in huge hoop skirts. But I know I am a wounded American soldier in Japan and I was wounded in Korea. So I said to my dancing partner, ‘You know, this is all a dream!’ She became a little bit uneasy…she thought maybe I am unbalanced. And people began to get around us as I began to proclaim more and more, ‘This is a dream. I am an American soldier living in the year’” and he mentioned the year 1950-something. Well, 1950-something hadn’t yet arrived to these people. That certainly would put him down as an entirely mad person. That he is now alive living in the year 1950-something, how could it be? So as they began to crowd in upon him he thought, “Well now, this is time to awake” and so he awoke in Japan on the bed with the vivid memory of what had happened. He hasn’t yet completely awakened, but it’s loosening. He has awakened all right to an extent. Well, one day he will awaken from this dream that seems so consistent and every precept in scripture you are going to experience in what the world would call dream.

For instance, you’ve read in 1st Timothy, the 6th chapter, “The love of money is the root of all evil” (6:10). You’ll find it in the epistle to the Hebrews, “Keep your life from the love of money.” When I was a little boy in the island of Barbados, where I was born, we had a little jaunt every Sunday, and I’d go to my grandmother with my brothers. There were many of us…there were eight boys when I was…seven boys and one sister, and then two boys came later. So there were many in my family. But four of us would go down in a little gig and a huge big jack. That’s the male donkey if you don’t understand the language of the farm. That’s a huge animal used to sire the horses for mules…they produce mules. But here we had this enormous jack and the four of us would go down. As we left, my grandmother would always give us a coin and she gave me a penny. A penny in those days, a British penny, was worth two cents. She gave two others a penny and she gave my oldest brother a threepence that was six cents. He had six cents; the others always had the same as I had, two pennies.

But as we got out of sight of my grandmother, this man always met us with a female donkey. So he would get on the back of this donkey and for my penny he would ride right in front of our jack and the jack would go wild chasing this female donkey. We just simply held on for our lives, for we knew that after about say three or four hundred yards in this enormous race that he’s going to turn that little female off at a certain angle, almost a right angle, and our jack would follow it, and all would go over and break our necks. So at a certain point we all held the rein on this side, the four of us, to hold his mouth up so he couldn’t get away. So the next morning my brother had a thruppence, the others had tuppence, and I had nothing…and this went on for a few years. Mother found it out, and one day she said to me, “You know, Nev, you aren’t going to have anything in this world; you give everything away.” I knew it intuitively that the love of money was the root of all evil, I knew it.

Well here recently…to show you how these things come into scripture…I found myself in a waking dream just like this, a world just like this. But I knew where this body was, in what century it was, and the century was ’69, and the body was in California. I knew exactly where I left it. Here I am with a huge pile of money. I held it together by sheer pressure. There were hundreds and hundreds of hundred dollar bills, fifty dollar bills, twenties, tens and fives, and just a small amount of ones, and I’m holding it together by sheer pressure, about that far. An awful lot of money! A woman passed by, about forty years of age, a round fat face, and she saw this money and she grabbed it. She pulled out maybe forty or fifty bills. I simply suddenly squeezed and held what was left…still an awful lot left. And in her eagerness to steal this about twenty of these pieces just simply fluttered away from her, and men and women passing by seeing the money fluttering all grabbed for it. She lost her temper and got as mad as the devil…they’re stealing her money. She just stole mine and now it becomes hers…she’s just stolen it. Well, isn’t that life? So a man traces his ownership of property to the one who stole it. He inherited it after four, or five, or six generations and now he lives in great comfort, and he would be mad as a hatter if anyone took a yard of his property that was stolen by his forefather. And that is life!

So here, she took this money and as she found others taking it, she became incensed. But I kept on moving through…after all it’s a dream. So where am I moving? The whole thing is objective just like this, but I am moving through a labyrinthine way of my own mind. For where else would I find it save in my own consciousness: I am objectifying what I am encountering all within me. So, the whole vast world, “Tho’ it appears without it is within, in my Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” (Blake, Jer.,Plt.71). So the whole thing is projected in my world on the screen of space; and it seems so real, and yet it’s all within me. So finally I came to an opening, a huge big square, still holding the money and a man approached me. I knew exactly what he intended, he was just the thief of thieves. He offered me his taxi. I said, “No thank you, I don’t live very far from here” but I wouldn’t tell him my address. I wouldn’t take his taxi because I knew exactly what he intended, to take it all from me and to kill me if necessary. Then the crowd began to come around me and they intended to take everything from me, including my life. I knew if I woke I would defeat their intention, but also mine. Because if I awoke now holding all this money they wouldn’t get it, but neither would I. So at that very last moment my decision was made. Here’s a dilemma…I’m holding on to the money, but if I wake I’m not going to have the money…but neither will they. So I robbed them and myself, and came back to bed. And that is life.

So when a man piles it up here, he doesn’t have the experience, possibly, of knowing that they’re going to take it from him. But when he dies, doesn’t he leave it behind? So he piles up one billion and he has all the glory while he lives. The papers tell you all about him, for he is assured of a large, large obituary because he has money. All the papers always mention those who leave a million, but if you leave a billion you’re going to get three columns and your picture and all the nonsense about you. No one’s going to tell how you stole it, no one—that’s all hush-hush—because the others who are publicizing it for you stole theirs, too. Who wants to know about the other thief…so they all keep going. But I didn’t know how I got all this money, I simply had it…an enormous amount of money…when you consider that much squeezed together like a vice. And here, the one who stole it from me lost her temper when others took the fluttering pieces and called it theirs because they found it in space, and she was claiming it to be hers. It was an obvious stealing from me.

Now that is life. So when that is inserted in the 13th chapter of Hebrews and the 6th chapter of 1st Timothy, you think, well now, that is some little thing that the writer to Timothy, who is Paul, and the unknown writer in what’s called the epistle to the Hebrews, that they were simply summing up life itself and that the root of evil is simply the love of money. No, it’s based upon vision. The whole thing is based upon vision. This vision of mine is part of the eternal structure of the universe, and you’ll find yourself having a vision just like that only after you’ve lost all desire to pile it up. That it has no interest for you whatsoever. That you have to meet the needs of Caesar, yes pay rent, yes pay taxes, yes that’s inevitable…buy food, buy clothing, all these must be met. But you don’t need a billion to meet them, that’s all…just don’t need any billion to meet them. And those who are hungry beyond measure for more and more of the same shadows, all right, they are sound asleep. So sound asleep that if they came through the door now and heard even one minute of what I’m talking about, they’d say, “I’ve entered an insane institution, get me out of here!” Because I would tell them that their greed is simply a far deeper insanity, for they’re sound asleep and believing their dreams to be reality.

So here is a dream. Joseph was the dreamer. And his father so loved him he made him a long, long coat with long sleeves. You wonder why add the sleeves? That’s all part of scripture and one day you’ll have the experience. You will be actually teaching the great mystery of God and telling those who will listen to you that they are God, God dreaming the dream and that one day they will awake from the dream to discover themselves the dreamer, and the dreamer is God. Someone will enter and then sever your sleeve and throw it away and expose your arm from here to the finger tips. Then you will turn back to the scriptures and you will read the Book of Isaiah, “Who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Is.53:1). For your arm has been revealed, and the arm means “the power of God, the wisdom of God” and Christ is defined in scripture as “The power of God and the wisdom of God” (1Cor.1:24). So you have been exposed to those who heard you. You are telling them who they are; and before their eyes it happens, who you are…that you are the power of God and the wisdom of God, and you are the dreamer of the dream. The whole vast world is but a dream. You know it and you’re trying to convince others, and ask them to try it to prove it. If this is real, well then, you can’t change it; but if it is a dream, you could modify it, you could change it. Well now, suppose things were…and you name it. You just simply suggest to yourself that things are as you would like them to be. Well, if it’s a dream it should take objective fact and others will see it’s real. But you know how it started, the origin of it was a dream, and although it seems to be objective and real don’t be lost in it. You know it’s still a dream, and like all dreams they will fade away.

Everything in this world comes into being, it waxes, it wanes, and then it vanishes, everything. Man comes, he waxes, he wanes, and he departs. A tree comes, even the Sequoias. So they may be 4,000, 5,000, 8,000 years old, but they will go, everything will go. The stars are melting away. So you take trillions of light years…but they are melting away. Everything is melting away. Because the whole thing is the dream of the gods: “Real are the dreams of gods and smoothly pass their pleasure in a long immortal dream” (Keats). So they brought it into being, they sustain it while this grand experiment is taking place, and we are the sons of God; collectively we form God. No child is born that is not a clothing for a son of God as told us in the 32nd chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy: “He has put bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God” (32:8). No child is born…how could he be born…he couldn’t breathe were it not for the entrance of God into him. So “God himself enters death’s door, the human skull, and lays down in the grave with man in his vision of eternity, until he awakes and sees the linen clothes lying there that the females had woven for him and the gate of his Father’s house” (Blake, Milton, Plt.32:40).

So when I entered this little thing that my mother, a female, wove for me, God himself entered with me. Well, what was his name? Mother called me Neville, but what was his name?—I am. And then she began to tell me that I must say that I am Neville. At first I was only Neville, but then I am Neville, and finally it became one, they coalesced, and he made of two one new being (Eph.2:14). Then one day he awoke within me and I am he. Then to prove that I am he, he gave me his Word called the Bible and in the 2nd Psalm it is recorded: “The Lord said to David, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’” (2:7). Then David, the eternal youth appeared before me and called me Father, and then I knew I am he. But I’m restrained by the body that I wear, limited and weak by it, until that last moment when I take it off and the world calls me dead. So they will call me dead and that’s when I really rise in the true sense of the word, back to the one being out of which I came. “I came out from the Father and I came into the world; again I am leaving the world and returning to the Father” (Jn.16:28). And in the end there is only God the Father.

So if you know this, what does it matter what the world does? They’re dreaming a horrible dream, and some a noble dream, but the dreamer is unblemished, untouched by his dream. To think that a being like a Stalin, who murdered millions, and a Hitler, who murdered millions, still, as a dreamer he remains untouched by the dream. All things in the end will work towards the awakening of God. So then we are told in the 44th Psalm, “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake! Do not cast us off forever!” (44:23). So the appeal to awake is directed to God: “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake!” Well, he’s struggling to awake. And so when my friend Bill had that experience driving down, knowing that he was seated—at the same time he was driving down—in his own home watching the TV, that is a breaking of the threads that bind you. And it can’t be long after these begin to break before he awakes. And how does he awake? He will awake within his own skull, for that’s where the whole drama is taking place.

As you are told, when Joseph came they said, “Let us kill him and throw him into a pit.” Then Judah, his brother, pleaded for his life and said, “No, he’s our flesh and blood. Do not let his blood be upon us; let us sell him into slavery. Here is a caravan coming on the way to Egypt, and they’re carrying three items, gum, incense and myrrh, taking them into Egypt.” So they agreed instead of killing him that they would simply take him and strip him of his long robe and his sleeves, the under ___(??) which he wore, and throw him into the pit. So they did. As the caravan came by they sold him. And they bought him and took him into Egypt. Then he rose to the power of Pharaoh and it was he who saved civilization from starvation. So they threw him in, and when the brothers complained because they felt remorseful that they had done this, he said, “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen.50:20). So everything works for good with those who love the Lord. His name was changed from Joseph to Joshua, which means “Jesus.” And here the whole thing’s unfolding within us.

So they threw him into a pit. Now in the 40th Psalm, which is so often used in the New Testament concerning Jesus, in the 2nd verse, “Thou hast raised me from the pit, thou did not leave me in the miry bog. You took me from the miry bog and placed my feet upon a rock, and made my steps secure.” The miry bog…the mire is defined in the dictionary as a “wet, spongy earth.” Do you know of anything that more ___(??) represents the human brain, a wet, spongy earth? For man is called “the earth”…Adam means “the red earth.” You took me out of it, raised me completely out of that miry bog and took me from the pit. The word “pit” means “the dungeon.” So you threw me into a prison, a dungeon, and I was locked into that dungeon: it was my skull. One day you woke, woke within me, and when you woke within me, you and I were one. Then we came out of that pit, out of that miry bog, and then we were born from above.

So man must be born twice: once physically and again spiritually. He is born spiritually through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Well, when Jesus Christ awakes, he awakes as the one who is born…you are Jesus Christ. There is no other Jesus Christ. So when you are raised from the dead, it’s within yourself that you awaken to find your skull a tomb, a sepulcher, a grave. And you come out…then you are born, come out in the same manner as a child is born. So you are born from above through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, you look around, there is no one else, and you are all alone. As you’re told in that verse, and it was empty…when they threw him into the pit, the pit was empty. You are alone. So when you awaken in the pit, there’s no one else, therefore, who are you but Jesus Christ. For, the whole story is about the dreamer and the dreamer is Jesus Christ. And then you come out, and all the story as told in the New Testament concerning Jesus Christ, how he was born and the little sign of the child, all surrounds you. Everything said there is true, but not as the world understands it. The world sees it as history and it isn’t secular history. It’s divine history.

So do not look upon this earth for any evidence of an historical Christ. You’ll never find it. Bishop Pike went looking. He rose to the highest position in the Episcopal world and he didn’t know it…a man rising to the highest position in our established church. The pope goes on his pilgrimage every year looking for these so-called holy places and they don’t know it. Hundreds of millions of people turn to them as guides: they’re the blind leaders of the blind. You’ll never find it, because the historical evidence of Christ the man is non-existent. And yet he is the only reality, the true identity of every child born of woman. You are Jesus Christ. But while he sleeps, all right, he can have horrible dreams or he could have lovely dreams or a combination. But in the end, you will awake from it all and when you wake, you are Jesus Christ.

You have just a little while left to tell it, but to a small minority. There will always be a small minority, a remnant. You will tell it to those who are willing to be disillusioned and shake that little tapestry of the past and let all the false ideas fall. Then you go on, just a little shadow that walked across the earth; but in eternity you are God. You leave no trace behind you…what does it matter…what trace? Leave that for the shadows. So you walk by leaving not a thing behind you, but just in the mind of those who heard you, and hesitated long enough to listen and to believe. As they believed it took root, and then it grew within them, and then this wonderful story erupted in them. The whole thing unfolded within them and then they knew that they were Jesus Christ. And because there’s only one Jesus Christ and only one Son, if God’s Son calls me Father and the same Son calls you Father, and there’s only one Father and one Son, even though we are individualized, are we not one? That is a fantastic mystery: how we, retaining our individuality, are one.

Now let us go into the Silence.

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Now are there any questions, please?

Q: What is the symbology of the three objects that the caravan was taking into Egypt?

A: Nan, my dear, I can’t tell you. But don’t discount them…there were three. In my case, there were three men…the caravan has taken three. Three is a symbol of resurrection. The actual objects like myrrh, frankincense, they are not in themselves important, but the number three is important. For on the third day the earth rose up out of the deep. On the third day he rose from the grave. Not three days as we measure time, but three is significant in the sense it is significant of resurrection. So they were taking the resurrection into Egypt. But what the actual things called myrrh and gum and frankincense, I wouldn’t know. I really haven’t studied it. But the three…in my own case three men were present at my birth from above, as we are told in the Book of Luke, “And three appeared.” So the story is true, it’s everlastingly true, and it will come with such shocking suddenness. Don’t think it’s going to come tonight, tomorrow night, or now, but when it comes it’s with such complete unexpectedness. It’s an awful shock to find that you are the being that you were led to believe existed in time and space 2,000 years ago, that Jesus Christ is contemporary and cannot be put into one little pocket in time.

Q: (inaudible)

A: The substance would be life is in God: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (Jn. 5:26). So the shadow would have no reality. It could be moved by your mind and made to do all kinds of things that the shadows do here. And then suddenly, by love, they take on substance, and then they become beings with life-giving power, life in themselves.

Q: You said there were two births and unless man had the birth from above he is reinserted each time in another dimension in time. Does he die in each one of those? So there are a number of deaths and two births?

A: Two births. But the death is not to the one who seemingly dies; it’s only to those who observe his departure. If I drop now, to you I’ve died but to myself I have not. Therefore, a man who has not been born from above departs this world, or any section of time, and is instantly restored to life in the dream. So that he isn’t born again; he’s restored. All things are restored; nothing passes away, because the gods restore it all by the seed of contemplative thought. The tree we cut down and burn it and all things are cut down. The little lamb is slain by the knife, but by the seed of contemplative thought the lamb reappears in the world. And so nothing disappears permanently…a temporary disappearance. But the one who disappeared and is called dead, to itself it hasn’t died.

So, there’s a physical birth and then there’s a spiritual birth. The physical birth, well, we all know that, and we are born physically by the actions of powers not our own. We are born spiritually by the action of powers beyond our own. Theologians have argued over this spiritual …what part does God play and what part does man play? As far as I’m concerned the initiation is all God’s. In my own case, I slept that night as I had the previous fifty-odd years of my life, and then this sudden vibration in my head to awaken me from a dream. For, I was dreaming all along and I didn’t know I was dreaming. I was in my skull all these years, and I didn’t know I was buried in my skull. Hadn’t the slightest idea that was the tomb in which God was buried; that God is buried in the skull of every man in this world and that’s the only Golgotha in the world. So let us stop looking for Golgotha in the Near East…you’ll never find it. They think they’re going to find it in the Near East and they build this holy sepulcher and they build this holy church and they build this holy thing—that is big business. They’ve done it through the centuries and they’ve made fortunes out of the gullibility of people by misrepresenting the eternal story.

Q: Neville, is there a fourth dimensional world in dream, too?

A: My dear, I’m not a mathematician so I really don’t know what they mean by fourth dimension. I see three dimensions here and as far as I am concerned in the world of dream it’s a three-dimensional world. Time may seem different, but the duration is the same. In a dream, what would take here centuries and centuries I experienced—but in the actual appearance and the experience of it it seemed centuries—in just a matter of moments. So time varies; nevertheless, the experience is the same.

Q: (inaudible)

A: My dear, that question was answered in this manner in the Bible, “Eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, the things already prepared for those who love the Lord” (1Cor.2:9, KJV). Because, if I answered you I would have to use the images of a three-dimensional world, a world that you and I know, a world that we experience, and yet it could not possibly describe that world. It’s a new age, a new world. This is one age and that is another age, and you couldn’t possibly describe it. Even in this world it would be difficult for people living in a certain environment to understand a man that’s trying to explain the concept of higher mathematics. If I sat in the presence of Einstein and asked him a simple question, to explain to me what he meant by energy is equal to mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, he would answer me and say, well, “That’s exactly what I mean.” But I don’t understand it. He’d say, “That’s exactly what I mean, Neville.” Well, if he tried to tear it apart and show me all the little pieces, I still wouldn’t follow him, because I am not qualified to follow him in higher mathematics. And that is true of almost anything in this world.

So if the mind has to be prepared, well, if that’s an entirely new man that enters that world, then that new man has new faculties, new powers, new everything. He’s a new man. The fundamental issue of scripture is metamorphosis. How are you going to explain to the caterpillar the delight of the butterfly? Can’t do it! The caterpillar could not understand what it is to move in an entirely different element like air. He clings to the leaf, clings to the branch, and he couldn’t understand if you told him that there is an element that is lighter than all these and you move with swiftness of the wing. He’d call you a liar. So to try to explain a new world where a new man lives, or even try to describe the new man…I can tell you the new man has a human face and it has a human voice and has human hands, but beyond that I could not go. These three I do know, but I wouldn’t venture to describe the body.

Q: Here is an individual who is considered insane by the people on this plane, and is he really insane because he is living in a dream, in this wonderful Imagination, that he is what he appears to himself to be? It’s been a blockage for me for quite a time.

A: Well now, sir, I’ll tell you, many of them that we call insane are not at all, not at all, but they can’t get through and they can’t communicate their experiences. They call William Blake insane, and yet here a man who is insane…he never went to school, never saw the inside of a formal school in his entire life, and yet you ask anyone familiar with English literature, ask them to name the six greatest users of the tongue, no one understanding English literature could omit the name of William Blake…in six, not thousands or tens of thousands who murder the tongue every day. All day long we have all this complete misuse of words. He was very perfect in his use of words. We describe someone as disadvantaged because he’s stupid…he couldn’t enter college by taking the exam that is required and so he is “disadvantaged”…he must be ___(??). What a complete misuse of the word disadvantaged. Every word…you listen to the plugs on radio, plugs on TV they’ve taken every word in the English tongue and completely destroyed it. But here is one William Blake who never saw the inside of a school; and he thanked his father for not sending him to school to be flogged into memorizing the works of a fool.

Q: (inaudible)

A: What is the distinction between insane or not insane in this man’s case? Well, he thought himself a banker on the outside; another one thinks himself and is recognized by the world as a banker. The one on the outside signs a check for a million dollars and it’s honored. The one on the inside signs it for a penny and it bounces. Both go through the little gate called death, and the million dollar check will bounce after he is gone, and the penny will bounce the day before. So, both left behind them a world of shadows. But while we’re living in this world of shadows, we call this section of it real, a certain section of it, and the other we call unreal. Yet so many of our great poets, all through the ages, who inflame the mind when we read them were called insane, how will you draw the line? You know that if we had…a few hundred years ago the men who gave us the things we now enjoy like electric lights and telephones and television and atom bombs, if they voiced their opinions 200 years ago in Salem they all would have been burned as witches. We used to burn people because they disagreed with our opinions. If any of them lived at that one section of time they all would have been burned.

So when I tell you I sat in a chair or I laid on my bed and suddenly I am seeing a world that I should not see, it’s in conflict with what I ought to see, and consciousness follows vision, and I step into that world and I explore it, and the world is just as real as this…that’s insane. But because I have so many other aspects of life, they call me sane and it over-balances and they don’t put me away because I’m not violent. I haven’t committed any violent acts. So if I forgive a friend for doing violence to me that also is considered an insane act, for the world is an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But if I don’t seek out the man who did violence to me and try to get even, well, that’s just simply a stupid act. Therefore, when you balance them all together—I do pay my rent, I don’t steal my food or steal my clothes, I pay all the things, all the bills are paid, so that makes me sane enough. But so many things I say from this platform would be accounted insane…but they balance. And they find more on what they call the sane side than the insane side, so they leave me alone.

So I can’t tell you what is sane and what isn’t sane, because so many things that the world calls insane I have experienced. Read the works of Blake. I have experienced all of Blake. Read the stories of the Bible, I’ve experienced them all. And all of sudden I know that they’re not in this section of time or in this age. It doesn’t belong in this age; it belongs in an entirely different age where the true drama is taking place. But we have to experience it here. People think that resurrection will come at the end of history; it doesn’t come at the end of history, it comes within history. While I’m walking the earth, it suddenly possesses me and then I wake within myself to discover that the whole story is true…but not here. If I went out tonight and I told the whole outside world that you came here at your own risk, but if I told the outside world that there is no historical evidence for Christ the man, well, the average person, the orthodox person would slap me in the face.

They just had some luncheon for Mr. Graham down in Anaheim. 6,000 ladies attended and all thought themselves in a holy atmosphere. Now he’s going to start a campaign. He needs a half-million dollars to put it on, and he has one outstanding subject to publicize…and the name of the subject is Billy Graham. He thinks he’s publicizing Christ; he hasn’t the slightest concept of the mystery of Christ. But tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands will listen to him and give him money to support the campaign of Billy Graham.

I said that in San Francisco and one lady rose and she was incensed beyond measure, oh so incensed. She said, “I think that was most unkind of you to mention that of Mr. Graham, ah, Dr. Graham.” Every time she said Dr. Graham I said, “You mean Billy?” He had one who came just before him and his name was Billy, too, but his name was Billy Sunday. He used to get down on the stage and wrestle with the devil, and beat the devil. Every Sunday he would beat him, but the next Sunday the devil was back. Take off his coat, take off his tie, and beat him and beat him and wrestle with him, and the crowds went wild…so Billy is getting the better of the devil. He did it! Well, this one is not acting that way but he’s doing the same thing. Hasn’t the slightest concept of this great mystery: Christ in man is the hope of glory. “Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you” (Col.1:26, 27; 2Cor.13:5). Well, you say that to him, he will want to straighten up, “Where is he?” and start looking all over the stage for him. I tell you, Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, believe it or not.

Good night.