1/13/69

Tonight’s title is “The Mystery of Forgiveness.” The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. We are so apt to attribute our ills and our troubles to outward causes, to our environment, to the conditions that surround us, to things—desirable things lacking, or undesirable things that are present—while all the time the real cause is sin. Now, sin is simply “missing the mark.” You have an objective and you haven’t realized it, and after a while you’re frustrated…that is sin. The gospel teaches that all ills, all troubles can be traced to sin.

Now let us take the story as told us in the Book of Mark: “After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel’” (Mk. 1:14). Now this drama takes place in the individual. This is not something on the outside; it’s all on the inside, after John was arrested. So we read the story of John, this is John the Baptist, who wore camel’s hair and a leather girdle and did violence to his appetite, living on locusts and wild honey, believing that he could acquire merit by this violence to his body, to himself. As millions today really believe…if I can restrain these impulses and I do this, that and the other, well then, I’m acquiring merit and this will get me into the kingdom of heaven after this state of mind in us is arrested. Having tried it, having gone on, say, an extreme vegetable diet—no meat, no fish, no fowl, no not even eggs, no liquor, no tobacco—and I think by these restraints that some being on the outside is seeing my goodness, and will simply chalk it up in my favor…and here, I’m doing violence to my being. Then a man goes through that and discovers that’s not the way and arrests that state of mind, arrests it within himself. He doesn’t criticize others for indulging in it or for practicing it…leave them alone. But you the individual who has gone through it, you realize that’s not the way.

So, “After John was arrested” then comes the new man, one that is waiting in man to be awakened, to be born. Then he makes the proclamation that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But he puts a condition now, “repent and believe in the gospel.” He is the gospel; this is the pattern man. He has experienced scripture, experienced it in detail, and he knows that he is the central figure of scripture. So Jesus now interprets the Old Testament with himself as the very center of it. Now, to the rabbi that is not merely shocking that’s blasphemy! For he said, “In the volume of the book it is written about me” (Heb. 10:7). “Everything said, all the things prophesied were all about me.” Now he calls himself the “Son of man.” You will never find this title on the lips of anyone outside of Jesus, and you’ll find it scores of times in the gospels.

Now, they bring him a paralytic. Well now, a paralytic need not be a physical being that is incapacitated; you could have a paralysis of business where the merchandise is not flowing. If it does not flow and become alive, there will be bankruptcy, and therefore you’re dead as far as your business is concerned. You could have a paralysis in your social world where you’re now ostracized, you’re not invited as you were, and then all of a sudden that can continue and then you are not the being that you were, there’s a paralysis. You can have a paralysis in the art world where a man loses inspiration. The painting isn’t coming, the poetry isn’t coming, the writing isn’t coming, the architecture isn’t coming. If it is not coming, there is a paralysis there. Now this being represents this paralysis in our world.

So all the miracles are parables, and a parable is a story told as if it were true leaving the one who hears it to discover the fictitious character of that parable and then learn its meaning and apply it. So they bring him a paralytic and he said to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven” (Mat. 9:2). Well, the scribes and the Pharisees who heard this statement said, “Why does he speak thus, its blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And he discerning their hearts said to them, “Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins—I now say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and go home’” (verses 3-7). The man rose and went out, and they had never seen anything comparable to it.

Now, how do I put that into practice as an individual? What am I called upon to do? He started off by saying, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Repentance and faith are the conditions of forgiveness. I can’t forgive without repentance. Repent means “a radical change of attitude, a change of mind, a reversal of my thinking, or a revision of my thinking, or a reformation of my thinking. I need not go down to the root, I can change a portion of it, but I must change my attitude. A change of attitude will then be repentance.

If I can actually change my attitude towards anyone in this world, I can forgive them. So someone stands before me and he is unemployed. He is a family man…he has not only himself to support, but he has a wife and he has a family and he’s unemployed. I represent that man to myself as one who is gainfully employed, and I persuade myself that he is gainfully employed. To the degree that I am self-persuaded he becomes employed. Now I need not the man’s consent or the man’s permission or his knowledge that I am doing what I’m doing. I see the need and seeing the need, and moved by this authority within me, I simply act as the Son of man is called upon to act. Well, if I do it and I get the result that I desired then I have found who the Son of man is.

Now, the Son of man is Christ and Christ is God. Well, I didn’t pray to any outside God, I didn’t go to any individual and ask them for help, I simply tried it. I did what I believe should work. Having interpreted scripture correctly, I tried it and it worked. I tried it again and it worked. Then I kept on trying it and it kept on working like a charm. Well, if it works, then I know who the Son of man is. So are we not told, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourselves and see.” We’re called upon to make a test…to test ourselves and see. I trust that you will realize that we have not failed to meet the test. Now this is Paul’s letter to us, the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, and he’s calling upon man to test himself. For in him is the Son of man, and the Son of man is the title most often used by Jesus of himself. Yes he confessed that he was the Christ. He confessed that he was the Son of the Blessed; he confessed that he was the Son of God. He also confessed that he was God, that “He who sees me sees the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (Jn. 12:45). So he said, “I am the Father” and so the Son and the Father are one. He confessed these, but the title most often on his lips and only on his lips is that of the Son of man.

So the Son of man has authority to forgive sins. Well now, you can forgive sin. And sin is simply a man missing the mark. You don’t ask the man’s permission, you don’t ask his consent, he doesn’t know what you’re doing, but you are moved by some emotion. Instead of sympathizing with him and keeping him in that state, you empathize with him. You do it in your own Imagination. Having done it in your Imagination, you’ve found out who Christ is…and Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. There never was another Christ and never will be another. So, the cry on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Here is one asking forgiveness for what they are doing to him. Well, you are doing it to your own wonderful human Imagination every time you misuse it. So I misuse my Imagination by indulging in some unlovely thing concerning myself or another, that is a misuse of Christ. So I am saying, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing or they would not do it. So I’m crying out to my own self to forgive every man for his misuse of the being that I am; for I am in you just as you are in me. We are one and our Imagination is this one universal Christ.

So, “Father, forgive them!” the cry on the cross. Well, this body is the cross. There is no other cross that he bears. He became man that man may become God. So while he’s here, I’ve proven where he is; I have proven that he is my Imagination. For what did I do but represent the individual to myself as I would like to see him in the world and I persuaded myself that this representation was true, that it was real, and in time it became real. Well, he doesn’t know that I did this so there is no praise, no thank you. I don’t expect any thanks for it. My thanks is to see the law work. Well then, if I see it work I know who I am, that I am he.

So this is the paralysis, the paralytic being that was brought into his presence. Anyone who is missing the mark is paralyzed, he’s frustrated. But he invariably blames outside causes and he points to his environment, he points to conditions round about him, he points to things…always things. These things may be, as I said earlier, desirable things that are not now present, they are lacking, or undesirable things that are now present in my world. But still they are things. But that is not the cause of man’s ills, not the cause of his troubles; the real cause is man’s sinning…he is missing the mark. After a while he’s frustrated and frustration is sin, because frustration is simply missing the mark.

So the glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. If I can practice it morning, noon and night, I’m putting into practice what the whole story of Christianity is all about. While I am here on this earth I have an authority, my authority is to forgive sin while waiting for that moment in time when I will fulfill in myself the sacred history of Israel, and bring it to climax and bring it to fulfillment in myself. When I do, I will know that the Bible is all about me; it was not written about any other, just about me. But who is this me, Neville? No my own wonderful human Imagination. It was all written about Christ and Christ is my Imagination; Christ is the Son of man that is my own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other Christ.

So this is forgiveness and throughout the scripture it is all about forgiveness. Peter said to him, “Lord, how often must I forgive my brother, as many times as seven times?” He said, “I do not say seven times, but seventy times seven” (Mat. 18:21)…in other words until it happens. It is an endless number. You are self-persuaded that the thing is done. If you are self-persuaded, forget it; you will see the evidence in your world. But until you are self-persuaded of what you’re doing you haven’t yet succeeded in forgiving.

Now, to forgive is also to forget. Man cannot forgive and not forget. So as Blake said, “In heaven the only art of living is forgetting and forgiving.” There is no other art. In hell everything is self-justification; there is no forgiving and no forgetting. So when our priesthoods of the world forgive you and meet you on the street an hour later and still remember your confession, they haven’t forgiven at all. They have not represented you to themselves as the woman or as the man that you would like to be; they see you as the one who confessed. Well, that’s not forgiving, because it’s not forgetting; and where there’s no forgetting there is no forgiving. So when I see someone who is gainfully employed, you forget he was ever unemployed. You represent him to yourself just as you want him to be. Well, how often, Lord?—seventy times seven. Doesn’t really matter how often he sins and becomes frustrated…practice the art of forgiveness and go through life simply forgiving every being in this world, for they’re not really to be condemned. They are in states and the state is the thing, not the man.

So a man falls into a state and that state is undesirable. He didn’t know he’s falling into it. He could be persuaded to move into it by what he reads in the paper and he reacts to things that he shouldn’t. Nevertheless, he falls into a state. Well, the state is the thing. You lift him out of the state by representing him to yourself as being in another state, and you persuade yourself of the reality of this other state in which your friend is placed. So you’ll see, if you do it this way, there’s no condemnation. A man has to be in the state of violence to commit violence. He has to be in the state of anything to express that state. So if the state expressed is undesirable, it’s the state, not the one who is in it. He who is in it is the agent expressing the state. Well, if you know this, you will not condemn anyone. If he is in an undesirable state, you represent him to yourself as being in a desirable state. And to the degree that you can persuade yourself that he is—forget all the past, how long he’s been in that horrible past state—he will come out of it and find himself expressing the state that you represented to yourself that he is now occupying.

So the story…all these miracles are parables and they’re simply conveying a certain story. Well, the story of Jesus Christ himself is an acted parable. It is an acted parable, the whole story from the beginning to the end, dramatizing God’s plan of redemption. Well, if you see the story and know that now that is an acted parable, well then, one day you are going to experience that parable. But when you experience it then you know the reality of it. The whole thing will erupt within you, like a flower erupting upon a vine and you will know the truth of the gospel. For he took the entire Old Testament (there was no other story) and having read the entire Old Testament, he then interpreted the Old Testament with himself as the central figure.

Well, that simply shocked every rabbi in the world who heard it, for that’s not what they were looking for…that’s not the Messiah. They were expecting something entirely different from a normal man moving on the streets of the world, not educated, not anyone to hail, not anything. But all of a sudden, it happened in him, and being familiar with the Old Testament, which was the only scripture, he realized “Well, this is what is taking place in me.” And then he begins to tell it. Those who followed him were also the uneducated as told us in the Book of Acts…that John and Peter began to do fantastic things in the name of Jesus. The Sanhedrin, the great leaders of the day, stopped them and with their great political power threatened them and told them never again to teach in the name of Jesus and not to mention anything concerning Jesus. Then they said to those who would stop them, “Whether it is right in the eyes of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot but speak of anything other than what we have heard” (Acts 4:19). So, we have heard it, we’ve experienced it, what else can we talk about?

If the whole vast world rose tonight and told me that what I am saying is misleading and that I must no longer talk about it, well, how could I ignore what has happened? I could no more deny what has happened to me than I could the simplest evidence of my senses, I couldn’t. I know what I had for dinner tonight, but that is not as graphic in my mind’s eye as the unfolding of scripture within me. That happened back in 1929, but here in 1959 the dramatic scenes began to unfold. In the short interval of 1,260 days they all unfolded. They are more indelibly impressed upon my mind than yesterday’s meal. I couldn’t tell you what I had yesterday…it doesn’t interest me. I ate, I know I ate, and I know that I read, and know that I studied, I know that I lived a normal life, but I couldn’t tell you the details of yesterday. But I can give you the details of these dramatic scenes as they unfolded within me, all from scripture. So how could I now deny them? I can’t deny that anymore than the simplest little evidence of my senses.

So Peter and John said, “If it is right in the eyes of God, you be the judge. I cannot do other than speak of what we have heard and seen” and so they went through life forgiving. Forgiving was simply putting into practice repentance and faith, for repentance and faith are the conditions of forgiveness. I repent by simply changing my attitude, reforming the being before me. You are unemployed? Well now, not in my mind’s eye. You are gainfully employed. You’re missing your mark in life? You haven’t found your goal? Not in my mind’s eye, you’ve found the goal. Now, to the degree that I’m self-persuaded you should conform, for I have a new form for you, a new state. You should come into that state if I am faithful to that state and faith is simply remaining loyal to unseen reality. The world hasn’t seen it as yet, but I’ve seen it. So this unseen reality I am loyal to it. I will not violate this pledge: I pledge myself to remain loyal to a state relative to you or to myself. And to that degree you should conform to this state if I am loyal to it. But repentance came first, because it meant changing or reforming what I saw with my senses. In my mind’s eye I changed it.

Well, if it works—and I have all the evidence in the world that it does work if we the operant power will operate it—well, if it does work, I have found Christ. And there is no other Christ because “By him all things are made, and without him was not made anything that is made” (Jn. 1:3). Well, if this thing is made and made without effort, made without appealing to anyone in the world, it just happens, yes, they can reflect and say, well, it happened in this way, that way and the other way, and give all credit to the means because the cause remains hidden. The cause was in the mind of someone, in one’s Imagination, so that was the hidden side, the real cause. Now when it begins to unfold they will look at the means that was used in order to unfold it and objectify it, but that was not the cause. The cause remains hidden because Christ is hidden. Who sees your Imagination? So, he is the unseen being in the midst of us. “You know him not. There is one in the midst of you, one within you whom you do not know, whose very buckles you are not worthy to untie” (Jn. 1:26).

Here is the one who will one day actually baptize you with the Holy Spirit. He’ll be so satisfied with what he’s accomplished in you that he’ll actually come down in fullness and possess you and wear you as a garment. Then you and he are one. But we are invited in the earliest gospel, which is Mark, to start practicing repentance. This comes after the outer man is arrested, when I no longer think I can get into the kingdom of heaven by doing violence to my appetites. Someone will say, you can’t smoke and get in. I’ve heard these arguments, “Can you imagine Jesus smoking?” Well, I see him smoking all day long…everyone who does…who else do you think is doing it? Can you imagine Jesus eating meat? Well, everyone who eats meat, that’s Jesus. There is nothing but Jesus; there is nothing but God in this world. Can you imagine him doing this, that and the other? Well, any man who does anything, that’s what Jesus is doing, so “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” They’re doing violence to me because they don’t know who I am. But forgive them for whatever they do to me. Eventually, I will not give up, I’ll persist to the very end, and I will awaken in them. When I awaken in them we are one, we aren’t two.

So this is forgiveness and if you’ll practice it you start with repentance and it’s simply a lovely change of attitude. Change it towards anything that is undesirable, and then represent to yourself what you would like in the place of what you see. Now, can you believe in the reality of what you have done in your Imagination? So you have the two conditions and you’ve met them: One is repentance and the other is faith. To believe in this rearrangement of your mind and to really believe in it, that’s faith, in the rearrangement which is repentance. Now these two conditions will result in forgiveness and it’s always the forgiveness of sin, it’s nothing else. The cause of every ill in the world, of every distress, of all the problems in the world is nothing more than sin. It has no outer cause; the cause is sin. And you’ll find it all through the Bible: “Your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven.” Well, they’re all different requests. One came paralyzed, one came talking adultery, one came and it was dead, and no matter what it was, he said, “Your sins are forgiven.” He represents them to himself as they would like to be seen by themselves, and persuaded himself that this representation was true, and they became exactly what he in his mind’s eye believed them to be.

Well, having found the Son of man and knowing that the Son of man is Christ Jesus, then one should expect that all that is said of him in scripture one should realize, one should experience. For if you can prove by this drama that you can actually change the life of one person in this world, without his consent, without his knowledge, and change it into the ideal state that you know he would like, or she would like to be, you only need one. If you do it once, you’ve proven who Jesus Christ is, who the Son of man is. Now everything said of the Son of man who is Jesus must be experienced by you. When it’s experienced by you, well then, who are you but God the Father? So he said, “Who sees me sees the Father.” Oh yes, in the world of men I am the Son of God, I’m the creative power of God, the wisdom of God. But “I came out from the Father and I came into the world; again, I am leaving the world and I am going to the Father” (Jn. 16:28). I return to myself having come into the world, with all the limitations imposed upon me, and proven who I really am, with all the limitations, and then I take off the limitations and return to the being that I am.

So the glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness…that’s the glory. Hasn’t a thing to do with your giving fortunes to the world. Foundations will give two million, ten million, fifty million…wonderful! Let them all give it, perfectly alright. But that doesn’t do a thing for the individual in his giving of that. Let him take an individual and change the individual in his mind’s eye and see that change take place in his world. Then he should know who he is. But if I have all the millions in the world and I give it to charity and give it impersonally, that’s not it. God is a person and we are treated as persons by God. Let no one tell you that God is not a person. I tell you God is a person. You stand in the presence of the risen Lord and it’s man: “Thou art a man, God is no more, thine own humanity learn to adore” (Blake). So I say, you will one day actually stand in the presence of the risen Lord and it’s man. Infinite love yes, but man. So don’t think of God as some over-soul, some impersonal force; think of God as man. He actually is man and that’s why you are man: he became you. Now he’s raising you to his glory, to his love, to his power, to his wisdom, to all the things that he is.

So you practice forgiveness. That’s the first thing in the earliest gospel, the Book of Mark, that man is called upon to do. These are the first words of Jesus. And after the outer man is arrested…well, I know in my own case I was seven years a strict vegetarian, teetotaler, a celibate, and all when I was in my twenties. Here, when the sap of life is running rampantly in my body for expression, and because of my own frustration in my first marriage, which was like a living hell, I then assumed the vows of celibacy. For seven years that was my vow. No meat, no fish, no fowl, no liquor, no smoking. I thought I was acquiring merit. One day I discovered I wasn’t acquiring any merit so I arrested John. I arrested that attitude of mine within me and then did everything I had not done in seven years without any self-condemnation, without any self-blame. Then here came this marvelous unfolding of the entire story of Christ within me. So when I speak to you I speak not from theory, I speak from experience. I tell you what I know that I have experienced. I have experienced the entire story as recorded in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s the most dramatic thing that one could ever imagine, and it happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly.

So tonight, when you go out you practice forgiveness. And you start with a simple change of attitude, that’s repentance. Believe in the reality of that change…that’s faith. Remain loyal to that unseen reality. That’s your real trust, your real faith. Walk in that state as though it were true, and in a way you do not know, you could not devise, it becomes true. Let no one then call you up to say “when?” It’s not your concern as to when…you’ve done it. I imagine it so to be, I am still imagining it so to be, I will continue to imagine it so to be until what I have imagined is externalized in my world. And so I’m not concerned. Don’t ask me any questions, I’ve done it! If I’ve done it, well then, let it come into being in its own fullness of time. It’s not for me to do it.

Today a lovely little booklet came to my wife to comfort her in her present distress and the back page was…one of the little thoughts recorded in it was from Thoreau. If one would advance confidently in the direction of his dreams—just advancing confidently in the direction of his dreams—what he imagines will come to pass. “If one would advance confidently in the direction of his dreams, endeavoring to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with the success unexpected in common hours.” Just imagine that was Henry Thoreau. I have a dream and then I advance confidently in the direction of my dream, endeavoring to live the life that I have imagined, dwelling in it, though reason denies it and my senses deny it, I will then meet with the success beyond that of common hours. So here was this glorious concept that Henry David Thoreau gave to the world. And this lady and her husband sent it off today as a little comforting thought to Bill. But it was quite an impressive thing…in fact, the entire booklet…but this last one was by Thoreau.

So, if in heaven the only art of living is forgetting and forgiving, we might just as well start practicing that now on earth. So we go forward simply putting it into practice. It costs nothing and only takes a moment of one’s time, but it actually costs you nothing to do it. Because you don’t sit down and burst a blood vessel trying to do it, you simply imagine that all things are possible to one’s Imagination and you imagine it done, knowing that Imagination is God, that is Jesus Christ. Well, if that is Jesus Christ and I’ve imagined it and believed in the reality of what I’ve imagined, it should come to pass; because all things are possible to God and my Imagination is God, the only God. So if I imagine it and I do not swerve from what I’ve imagined, it should come to pass.

Well now, in your letters not only your mystical experiences which are the most glorious things ever but things concerning forgiveness share that with me…how you took someone who was in great need. That need could be anything. It need not be financial need, it could be a physical condition, it could be a marital condition, a family condition, whatever it is, and then you resolved it. When you resolve it without their knowledge or consent and you get results then write me about it. Write me that I may share it with those who are present and encourage all by our mutual trust.

Now let us go into the Silence.