12/10/65

….but suddenly before me came a quartz, I would say about that big. As I looked at it, it broke; it became fragmented into numberless pieces, and then quickly it was assembled into a human form seated in the lotus posture. As I contemplate it, I noticed I am looking at myself. Here is the very being that is contemplating and the being contemplated, and they are one. It was only a moment before, a rock, and the rock fragmented, the rock gathered into human form, and a living, breathing being not made of rock. Here it is now living. It’s breathing. It’s flesh. It’s alive. Then as I became interested it began to glow, and it began to glow with increasing intensity. When what seemed like the apex or limit of such intensity the whole thing exploded and here I am, still seated, pondering over this strange, peculiar vision.

I say God actually achieves his limitless purposes by self-limitation. The word rock is defined as “to compress, to confine, to restrict; to take on the limit of contraction, the very limit of opacity.” So we’re told in the Book of Philippians: And being in the form of God he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave, and was born in the likeness of man. And being formed in the image of man became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross (Phil.2:7). Now, the cross I know from experience is not outside upon a tree of wood but man himself is the cross; that man himself is the tree of life; that here on this cross God is crucified. That I know from experience. I am not theorizing, I am not speculating. I know this experience to be fact. And this is the limit of contraction that God assumed. As the poet Blake said, “God himself enters death’s door and lays down in the grave with those that enter, and shares with them their visions of eternity ‘til they awake and see the linen clothes lying that the females had woven for them.” Here again is the linen cloth. The word linen means “white as snow, bleached, blanched.” And that’s exactly what you see the very day of your resurrection. You’ve never seen such a ghastly whiteness on the face on the body out of which you’ve just emerged. Talk of death…there is really the appearance of death…really bleached.

So here, this is the Rock. The occupant is your own wonderful I am, that’s God. Your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God. And he shares with you all of these wonderful visions of eternity. Most of them are nightmares, horrible dreams. But to you they aren’t dreams, they are objective, they are facts. But if the day will come that you will awake, then the experiences preceding waking must have been a dream. So he lays down in the grave with them and shares with them their dreams of eternity ‘til they awake. So when they awake, all that preceded it seemed so real. Just like the dream of the night, it seems so real when we are in it, and only on waking and reflecting on it does it seem like a subjective experience, a dream. Well, this whole vast experience of man when God awakes in man will be to him a dream. But it had a purpose, an infinite purpose: for man to expand as God. God became man so that man may become God. There is only God in the world…there is nothing but God.

So this Rock that begot us…one day you will have an experience of seeing that Rock. Beautiful imagery, marvelous symbolism, and yet all through scripture it is all about this Rock—the Rock from which man drank, the supernatural Rock, the Rock was Christ. You who do not have the Concordance, you’ll find that in Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, the 10th chapter: “The Rock was Christ” (verse 4). He equates now the Rock with Christ. As we find in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, the word God being equated with Rock; “And the Rock that begot you, you are unmindful, and you forgot the God who gave you birth” (verse 18). The Rock begot me and God gave me birth, and Rock and God are one. And his name is I AM. But in this wonderful unfolding of scripture, for it’s “And scripture must be fulfilled in me” (Luke 22:37), well, what is written about me has its fulfillment, and everything written about me is in scripture. The whole book is a prophecy of what must be experienced by every child born of woman.

So we are told, Call the next witness…call witness after witness…to do what? To testify to the truth of God’s word. So the first witness is external and we reject it. It is to us like myth…it’s a rock. We will not accept that as the building cornerstone on which to build our world. And so the more intelligent man becomes, the more he looks upon the Bible as myth. I tell you it’s the only reality. The Hebrew rabbi was uttering the truth when he said, “What is not written in scripture is non-existent.” Everything will pass as a dream, but his word will not pass. This is simply a prophecy of all that man will, one day, experience.

So we take it literally and wait for that day when we are called upon to be the witness to the truth of God’s word. You can’t force it. So what one should really believe in is simply the testimony of Jesus. As we are told, He is the first witness…he is the first born of the dead. Well, listen to his witness, listen to his testimony: “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev.19:10). What prophecy? The whole Bible is prophetic. Not who is going to win or who is going to become prominent in the world…hasn’t a thing to do with secular history. The Bible is sacred history brought to climax and fulfillment in the story of Jesus Christ. You may look upon Jesus Christ with certain liberties, but in a sense just as though you were a divine reporter giving an account of that which is of infinite concern to man. Well, what is the concern of man ought to tell him his future, and his real future is to fulfill scripture.

I can tell you of a secondary future, which is entirely up to you, and anyone can become what he wants to be. That’s scripture too, but that belongs to the world of Caesar. If you know what you want to be in this world, it’s not difficult to become it. If you dare to assume that you are now the man, the woman that you want to be, and believe in the reality of that assumption, not knowing how it’s going to happen, you’ll become it. But that belongs on this level, to this world; and in the end you will leave behind, yes, your record, but it will fade. No one will know you in the next few generations. I only have to look back upon the great stars of forty-odd years ago when they were so majestic in the eyes of all. You mention their names to my daughter, she doesn’t know them. She doesn’t know one of them. I speak of Wallace Reed. She said, “What?” And yet when I was a boy Wallace Reed the name itself was magic. You mention all of these names, she knows nothing of it. And now what would be her child and her children’s children, they would know nothing of the so-called glittering ones of today. But here is the Bible forever going right through, still remaining contemporary. And I can’t tell anyone who has not experienced scripture the thrill that is in store for them when they begin to experience it.

Now if you just read this one simple little statement, you could no longer conceive of Jesus as a man. You speak of the universal cosmic Christ buried in every man, and that cosmic Christ is God. Take the very last verse of the simplest and yet the most profound book in the New Testament, the gospel of John, read it. Only a few things are recorded, he tells us, that you may believe…but if everything that he did and said were recorded, the world itself would not be big enough to contain the books. Well, can you conceive of a life of a few years doing things that you could not write about in all the volumes and so many the world couldn’t contain them? But, if you see him as a cosmic Christ from the beginning of history up to the very end, and everyone in the world lives because Christ lives in him, and everyone does what he does because Christ does it in him. Christ is the slave of man, and if you have the most horrible thoughts, he’ll execute them. Yet he is love, infinite love. But being your Imagination he does not question your right to imagine the unlovely…he will do it. For he laid down the law in the very beginning: All things must bring forth after their kind, everything. So you will know when you reap, don’t be surprised, that was corn that’s why you’re reaping corn. And you’re reaping sesamum? It was sesamum when you planted it. So I will say the law…the law of identical harvest. When you reap it, it’s only the multiplication of the identical seed. So he will actually take upon himself all of the sufferings of the world. Who? The cosmic Christ, your Imagination. So he doesn’t question your right to want to hurt; he carries the burden. And he is your own wonderful human Imagination. When you know that, you become extremely selective, extremely discriminating.

For I tell you, in the end there is no other; there is nothing but yourself made visible, for the self of man is God. As he wakes in man, you know you are the God that begot you; you are self-begotten. When you have the experience you realize how could it be: out of death came life. Here is the mystery of the seed: “Except that it falls into the ground and dies and rots, it remains alone. But if it falls into the ground and dies, it brings forth much.” So we’re told, God died, in the most literal sense, and yet it is not death as the world sees death. The Bible equates death with sleep: “Awake you sleeper and arise from the dead” (Eph.5:14). So when God puts himself into this self-imposed restriction called man, it is, relative to what God is death. He emptied himself of his glory and took upon himself the form of death which is man (Phil.2:7). He animates it by being present…he animates this, the dreamer.

Now, we are told, and the voice said: Come, and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lord, the wife of the Lamb. Well, the lamb is the symbol of the Lord. “Come, and I’ll show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And so, “In Spirit he took me (always in Spirit) and there I saw the new Jerusalem descending from heaven” (Rev.21:9). And here, the King James Version translates what he sees now as “the most priceless stone adorned like a bride.” The other, that is, the Revised Standard Version, calls it “a radiant light.” Well, both are correct. It is a stone, a stone capable of assuming human form, becoming alive and breathing, and then radiating beyond the wildest dream of man, more brilliant than the sun, more brilliant than the stars. And that’s you, because you’re looking at yourself. And here you are contemplating your own being and it began, as far as you see, a stone, just a quartz.

He said, “Come, I’ll show you the Bride.” Well, what bride? Am I the bride of God? Yes, I am the bride of God. So the story from beginning to end is all about Christ, and man must leave everything and cleave to his wife, cleave to the woman, until they become one. So you see it when you become one. When you become one and not two, one new man is formed and the new man is Christ. He’s being formed in us as it were by cleaving to us. As Blake brought out so beautifully: “His emanation yet his wife ‘til the sleep of death is past”; his emanation yes, and yet his wife. He becomes it and individualizes himself as you. When it happens, we are told, he gives us a new name and he writes it on a white stone, the luminous radiant thing. It’s a new name known only to the one who wears it. I’ll tell you the name—but you won’t believe it until you are called by it—the name is Jesus. In the end, Jesus only; everything disappears and there is Jesus only.

As we are told in Isaiah, the 27th chapter “And I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel” (verse 12). I know from experience why we are gathered one by one: because of our uniqueness you can’t bring two together. One by one, to unite into a single body which is God. Christ awake, the risen Christ is God. And everyone, as you’re told, for the translation is, “And he will transform (or change) our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil.3:21). But the phrase “to be like” literally means “of one form with” his glorious body. So you will wear the body of love, which is the body of God.

These experiences are literally true, and you’ll have them. So when you’re told “You must be born again” that’s literally true, and you will. But not in the world of flesh and blood; for God is Spirit, and if you’re born into the world of God, you’re born in Spirit, and you’re born from above, not from below from the womb of woman. And everyone will have this experience. If you’re here for the first time and just aren’t quite familiar with the teaching, you might say, “Well, suppose I die tonight without having had the experience?” May I tell you, I know this too from experience, you are instantly restored to life, instantly. You’re still in this world, this world and this time called “this age.” You enter the new world through that new birth which is preceded by a matter of moments by what is called in scripture the resurrection. So we are resurrected one by one; and then as we are resurrected we are born of the Spirit into an entirely new world wearing the body of God. And in the end there is only God, nothing but God.

So if you are here for the first time and you’re concerned about improving your lot in this world, may I tell you, it is very easy to do it…it’s simple…if you could only believe in the reality of your unseen invisible imaginal act. If you could sit here right now and contemplate what you would be like were it true that you are already what you want to be. Well, how would I know that I’m doing it correctly? Well, I knew the frame of reference. I take a certain friend, a friend so close and so concerned that they would be conscious of the fact of my transformation. If I shared with them my secret, what I wanted to be, when I become it they would know it. So I let them know it, all in my Imagination. I bring them into my mind’s eye and let them see me as they would have to see me were I the man that they know I want to be. So should I become that man they would be aware of it. I let them become aware of it, and I believe in the reality of what I’ve done. Because who did it? Christ did it, and all things are possible to Christ.

Did he really do it? Well, he must have done it, because I did it: and we’re told, “By him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John1:3). Well, I did it, I made it. It’s unseen as yet, it isn’t clothed in three-dimensional form, but I did it. He is the one who does everything, and all things are possible to hm. So my reasoning mind would tell me, “Well, you don’t know how it’s going to happen.” As far as I am concerned it has happened; I’m only awaiting confirmation. It has happened! Like scripture, all this is foretold, as we’re told in the 44th of Isaiah. Everything is foretold; there is not a thing that I haven’t shown you, but who will believe it (verse 8). And here everything is shown.

Now you become a witness. To prove how true, all that was hidden comes into your being through experience and you become the witness. I must have two witnesses___(??); the outer witness is the Bible, the inner witness is the Spirit. So when two agree in testimony it’s conclusive. I have my Bible, that’s the permanent record, and if my experiences parallel the Bible, then I am the internal witness. Then I don’t need anyone else. I stand before the one who judges which is myself in the depths of my soul. I can’t lie to myself. And so, if I know that I have experienced this, that or the other, I know it because I can’t fool myself, I can’t lie to myself. So when we are told, “And God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment” (Ps.82:1). ___(??) connects with this. So he comes in, and when he comes in his very life, his very being, gets ___(??) to the truth of the fact that he has witnessed and experienced scripture. That’s all that we are here for.

But in this wonderful world of Caesar—and it’s for a purpose—it’s the world of educated darkness. So you and I simply can change our environment regardless of where we were born in this world. Don’t complain because you were born behind the 8-ball, born on the wrong side of the tracks, it doesn’t really matter if you know God’s law, and you’re willing to trust God. God acts in you through your imaginal acts. Well then, single out what you want your friend to be, what you want yourself to be, and believe that they are. You can start doing this now with a friend in your office. If you’re having any problems with him, treat it as kind…as though he were…treat him as though he were generous, treat him as though he had intelligence, treat him as you would like to see him. Do you know, he will conform to it. He may be the same rascal to others, but to you he wouldn’t be. He has to conform to what you actually persuade yourself that he is; and in your presence and in your world he is such a person. You can take anyone in this room. You’re not the same person to any two, far less any twelve. They see you differently, because they are seeing through their concepts of you. They see you through their assumption of you. No one is right.

So tonight, you take…take yourself, start with self, and try it. See if you do not in the immediate future actually change your world to conform to these changes that take place within your mind. As I change it within, I change it without. And how I do it, I don’t know…I only know I believe in the reality of the imaginal act. Then, if it takes one person or a thousand people to aid the birth of this imaginal act, they’ll take one or take a thousand. And really it’s only an extension of myself…they’re all arms of myself. They seem to be detached and another, but in the end they aren’t. So they will do their part to bring about the birth of what I have assumed that I am. And may I tell you, as you’re told in scripture, that the evil intended to be evil, that they even intended to hurt me, but time, on reflection, will prove that God intended it for good. Because I did it and I intended good. But I did it.

Their intention may be evil. When the brothers sold Joseph into Egypt into slavery, and they came and they were filled with remorse, he said, “You didn’t sell me into slavery, it was God. You intended evil against me, but God intended that it work for good.” Well, you know the story. He became equal with Pharaoh in the building of Egypt, and he could interpret dreams, the medium through which God speaks to man. So he interpreted the dream. Without his interpretation of the dream the world would have starved to death, for it lasted seven years. The famine was so great that no one remembered any time in history when they ever had anything. That’s how intense the famine was; their very memory faded. They couldn’t remember a moment in time when they had anything. So he prepared, from seven years of plenty he prepared; he filled the barns. Every year a certain amount had to be put aside, so when the famine came, as foretold, it lasted seven years, he had enough to take care of civilization. His brothers came down and they simply were filled with remorse. But he knew they only played parts. He had a job to do, and forgetting the reason he was sold there and the brothers were moved to play the parts they played. So someone may want to hurt you and time will prove their hurt was used—“for all things work for good for those who love the Lord.” And so, everything that was done to him moved and worked for good, and he became equal to Pharaoh in power, equal to Pharaoh in might, and yet transcending all in his wisdom; for he was in communion with God and could interpret the language of God.

So here, don’t be concerned if someone tomorrow on the heels of your assumption that things are perfect accuses you, well, falsely. You will prove in time on reflection it contributed to what you are, and you are moving toward the fulfillment of your assumption. I come from a very small little island. My family is a large family. The day that my father had this terrific blow in business, we all despaired and thought this is the end, this is really the end, the whole bottom of the world has fallen out. Here he had ten children to feed, educate, clothe, a wife, mother-in-law, and the usual help that you need in the Indies, and he had no money but none. Total strangers, not strangers, but people that we did not entertain at home and who never entertained us, they came to his help. One said, “Joe, what can I do?” He said, “All I need is money and I have none. I have no collateral.” He said, “Alright”—he was a commission agent—“You want to go back into the same kind of business?” My father said, “I know nothing else but. I know how to be a good grocer, meat vender, liquor salesman, and so these things I can do.” “Well,” he said, “find a place. I’ll take care of the rent and I’ll stock you.”

We found a place on a little side street. He gave orders to his clerks that every order that came from Mr. Goddard must be filled, no compromise. Fill it, without any questions asked, and send no bill until Mr. Goddard pays you. When he feels like paying, he’ll pay. And so we had what was to us unlimited credit, in that sense, and as the merchandise moved we paid. Then, on reflection, from that little beginning…the greatest day in my family’s life in the world of Caesar was the day he was wrongfully accused and eased out of this junior partnership in a grocery store. Because, had he not been eased out he would have simply gone through for the next years of his life doing what he did for the first nineteen in that partnership, working hard and getting nowhere. Then he started with just the help of two friends who never came home for a cup of tea.

And so, on reflection, what day in our life as a family could compare to that day? My brother, being not superstitious but being, well, a very practical, down-to-earth businessman, because this happened on the 13th day of the month, and he opened his new business on the 13th of the month, he got married on the 13th of the month, the new building was bought for him out of nowhere and only took his signature on the 13th of the month. No one can come to him and tell him thirteen is unlucky. He waits for the day! Thirteen, as far as he is concerned, that’s the greatest day of the year, certainly of the month. And so all of the major things in his life fell on the 13th, and in spite of his knowhow and really a terrific businessman, like so many people in the world they carry one little superstition, he carries that.

So here, don’t fall for the 13th, 14th or any other day. All days are God’s days, all equal. But the thing you must watch is what you are doing in your Imagination, for your every imaginal act is God in action, and all things are possible to God. It’s because of our shortened memory we don’t recognize our own harvest when it appears in the world. We don’t see it. But here the whole thing comes up to confront us, to fulfill God’s law that all things bring forth after their kind. You can’t plant an apple seed and grow something other than the apple. That happens to every one of us in this world. Who knows that his partners had to do what they did because he was ambitious for his family, and in his daydream he was dreaming of something bigger, something better to leave his family, to give his family. He never shared that secret with us, but he could undoubtedly dream these things. And so having dreamt these things, they played their part. And so, he never condemned them. In the very end, if one wanted help, he helped them. They all went to work for other people eventually and he was the only one when he died—of course the others died before him—when he died he could leave his family financial independence. He had a large family, nine sons, one daughter, and he didn’t do this as a unit, individually, we were all independent. It was all from that little beginning where he started behind the 8-ball. So what was the end of the world as a family became the beginning of a glorious future for the family.

So if tomorrow your world collapses after you assume that you are what you want to be, look upon it as a contributing factor. Time will prove that it is. Don’t get on the phone and call someone and say, “I asked you to help and look what happened…I was fired.” Best thing in the world! The day I was fired I went to my boss and I said, “Why did you fire me?” I was making the large sum of twenty-two dollars a week working for J. C. Penney, busboy, putting hats in bins and all kinds of things. Any moron could have done what I did. I worked for a year, and one day they fired me. When I asked them why, what have done that’s wrong? “Not a thing, but you come from a little island where you don’t have the same concept of business that we have. When business declines, we simply let people go. And so, business has taken a little dip and so we have to watch our expenses, and so, you have to go.” Well, I said, “What am I going to use for rent, food?” He said, “That’s not my concern.” Well, he must have felt sorry for me, so he gave me a little note to a friend of his who employed people at Macy’s and said, “He’s a greenhorn, just up from the West Indies, help him out.” I went over to Macy’s and so they gave me eighteen a week. One day, instead of being fired I quit.

That was the beginning of my world. I had the courage to quit. And when I quit and didn’t depend upon Macy’s to feed me or pay my rent, I never worked for another person. Oh yes, I had six Broadway shows, but I never considered myself working for Mr. Schubert. I was an artist and he employed me. And so, when he employed me I never thought that he was my boss. I tore that word up completely in my vocabulary and threw it through the window. From then on I simply was on my own. If I starved, no one would know it; I would know it, that’s all. And so, on reflection, my wonderful day was when J. C. Penney fired me; for I might be today the captain of the elevator operators, could easily be. If I had gone just for security and only security, then longevity would have given me something there. For that’s going all the way back to 1922. So I say, don’t be concerned if tonight you have a blow, a horrible blow, a great disappointment, after you’ve assumed something big and wonderful for yourself. For that assumption is coming into being and has to break down all these things to make a break for its birth. When you grow in this world, you outgrow. You can’t grow and not outgrow, and the growing pains are painful sometimes.

But I tell you, everyone in the world will witness to the truth of God’s word, everyone. And the most impossible statement in scripture will one day be experienced by you, and you’ll see how literally true it is. Who would have thought that the statement “Of the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and you forgot the God who gave you birth,” that Rock and God are the same in scripture? The Rock from which you drank as you went through the wilderness, that supernatural rock was Christ? But I saw the Rock, a fragmented being, gathered together, and it wasn’t any picture I’d ever conceived of as Christ. Then I understood the epistle of John, “If anyone says, ‘Look! Look here, look there that’s the Christ,’ don’t believe him!” Don’t believe it. Why? Because, though it does not yet appear what we shall be, we know when he appears we shall know him. Because why?—“We shall be just like him.” So when you see that Rock which is Christ assemble into human form it’s you…and then you know who Christ is, that it’s you self-begotten. That God achieves his limitless designs by putting upon himself these self-imposed restrictions, and becoming obedient unto death on the cross that is man.

So when you leave here tonight don’t forget it. Try to remember it every moment of time. As you walk the street, no matter what you’re doing, just bear in mind that you are actually creating your future here. Your real future, as I told you earlier, is to fulfill scripture, and that you will do. Your secondary future is to use God’s law wisely while you are in the world of Caesar. And don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have the talent, you don’t have this, that and the other; you have all that it takes because you can imagine. If you can imagine, I ask you to imagine the loveliest things in the world, not just for yourself, but for everyone you know. And see how everyone conforms through your Imagination to what you have imagined them to be. You’ll prove it. (Tape runs out.)