11/7/69

In the 64th chapter of the Book of Isaiah we read, “O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay. Thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand” (64:8). Well, when you read it you might think, “All right, O Lord” and you think of another. Then you say, “Thou art our Father”…that’s the same other. We are but clay and thou art our potter. Well, it’s identified with the Lord and with the Father, so you think also of another, and we’re all the work of thy hand.

The word “potter” by definition simply means “Imagination.” The word “Lord” is Yod He Vau He, which is defined for us as I AM. You mean that my own wonderful I-am-ness is the Lord, is my Father, and is my potter? That I am actually shaping myself and shaping my world? Yes, that is exactly what it means, that the Father is the Lord and the Lord is the potter shaping my entire world. But I am the shaper shaping it into a form, molding it into a form. Now, can I prove it? Am I really all Imagination as everyone who has experienced it knows? That “Man is all Imagination and God is man, and exists in us and we in him…that the eternal body of man is the Imagination, and that really is God himself” (Blake).

Now let me share with you a story I read two weeks ago in the New York Times, the magazine section. It was written by one who was imprisoned on the island of Amorgos in the Aegean Sea. He was a Greek imprisoned by the present regime that has taken over Greece, the generals. He was under house arrest and he was watched twenty-four hours a day. He was allowed to leave the house for a restaurant and by doctor’s orders to go for a certain walk after he had signed in at 6 PM with the police. Every morning at nine he had to sign in at the police and at 6 PM to return and sign in. Then he could go for a walk. These are his words, he said, “I began to imagine the scene in the village of horror the day after I escaped.” Then he imagined, “the elderly would be drinking coffee at nine in the morning, and then the cobbler would have opened up his doors for business, and then the scent of fresh bread would come straining through the windows of the bakery. By 9:30, because I had not registered, they would inquire of the one who had always sat in the public square dressed as a civilian looking at my apartment, and he would tell them that he had not seen me…I had not come upon my balcony. By 10:00 they would come to investigate themselves and then they would knock down the door. Then by 10:30 it would be, well, the news would scattered abroad and all would know that I was not there. Throughout the day the villagers would pass in their silent way, secretly but in a knowing way look one to the other that he isn’t here. That night they would gather in secret around their little shortwave radios listening for news from abroad of my escape. And so, I began to imagine that scene. The scene that gave me the greatest happiness was the scene when they all would know that I had escaped.”

Well, it came to pass, and he wrote his letter. His name is George Mylonos. It was on the 26th day of October, this last month that that letter appeared in the New York Times magazine, the Sunday issue. It all began in his Imagination. He was there for 409 days. At first it was only a dream, only a daydream. Then in the end he began to really do something about it. Now he told a story—which I will question because he wants to save the other prisoners on the other islands, also on the mainland—concerning exactly how he did it. Oh yes, there were physical means, but the means came into being as a result of his imaginal activity. To attempt to change circumstances before you change your imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of things. For this world in which we live is a world of Imagination. You are all Imagination and God, your reality, is all Imagination. Divine Imagination has reproduced himself in the human Imagination; therefore, all things exist in the human Imagination for all things exist in Divine Imagination.

Is it really true? Well, test it! He did. I wonder how many people who read it only two weeks ago would relate his escape to his imaginal act? They would read the letter, but what percentage of them would read the letter anyway? Because the New York Times weighs pounds…it’s about that thick…and so you would spend the whole day and not cover it, depending upon your interest. Well, how many would even see it? But here, this simple letter occupying not more than a page—it’s on three pages, but only one column to a page, so put together it would only take up one page. How many would read it? And of those who read it, what percentage would relate his imaginal act to his escape? And that’s exactly how he escaped.

Now you don’t have to be a prisoner on Amorgos. You could be a prisoner financially or socially. You could be a prisoner in a thousand ways, physically in health. Now, will you do the same thing that he did and imagine the scene that would take place the day after your escape. The day after it is heard that you do not have what you thought you had and others heard that you had; the day after you are not financially embarrassed and that you have all that it takes to live graciously. The day after…and you just mention anything in this world. Always go to the end; the end is where we begin. In my end is my beginning. So I go to the end…the day after my escape. Then I imagine the scene that would take place. He thought, “Well now, the elders would be having coffee at nine, the cobbler would be opening up his doors at nine. Then the odor of the bread, the fresh-baked bread would be coming through the windows of the bakery. By 9:30 they would notice I had not signed in. By ten o’clock the police would call to ask that plainclothes man who always sat in the square looking up at my apartment, and he would say “I didn’t see him and he did not come on his balcony today.” By ten they would investigate and getting no response they would break down the door. Then the villagers would know it…and that was my greatest thrill!” That’s where he started, letting the villagers know it in his mind’s eye. This is all in his Imagination.

Now, you have friends…or if you don’t have friends, which would be a horrible thing if you didn’t…but you do have friends, and your friends know your present position in this world, the conditions that surround you. Maybe they’re pleasant and you’d like to perpetuate them. But maybe they are not pleasant, maybe they are not exactly as you would like them to be. You start with letting your friends know—not verbally, not outwardly—all in your Imagination. You see them seeing you as they would have to see you if things were as you desire them to be. You start there, the day after they know that things are just as you want them to be and then you let them see it. In your mind’s eye they are seeing it and you start there. Then ways will open that you do not devise. No one knows how it’s going to happen, but in a way that no one knows it will unfold and you will fulfill it. You’ll walk across a series of events, some bridge of incidents that you did not consciously devise which will take you from where you are in prison to your freedom whatever that end is…whether it be health, wealth, or in his case, an actual physical escape from a life imprisonment. Because, as long as the present regime reigns in Greece these political prisoners would be under house arrest.

So here, you can verify it. I read it and I now share it with you. It’s the 26th day of October in the Magazine section of the N. Y. Times. I think, if my memory serves me correctly, it begins on the 16th page. So it’s not long. It’s a very thick magazine because all these issues especially now coming into the fall when all things are being sold for Christmas, and the magazine is now three times its size and the paper is three times its size. But I get it every week and it comes on Wednesday. And here, a man, a simple man, political prisoner of the current regime, wondered what it would be like if these things were true.

So I tell you, “Man is all Imagination and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination, and that is God himself.” When this God awakes within man, that man in whom he awakes is clothed with everything said of God in the scripture. It is said of God that he is the light of the world; it is said of God that he is love; it is said of him that he is the power of the universe and the wisdom of the universe. May I tell you, when you awake (and you will) you’ll be clothed with power and wisdom and light and love. And those who have eyes that are open into the inner worlds, open into the eternal worlds of thought, into eternity, will see you clothed as God. There is only God in this world. So God is begetting himself: Divine Imagination is reproducing himself in human Imagination. And when he reproduces himself in the human Imagination, that being in whom he is reproduced awakens and he is clothed as God himself is clothed. When you see him, you’ll see him clothed in light, in love, in power, in wisdom. Everything said of God in the Bible will be said of you by the one who sees you.

But if the eye is not open, they do not see you and they only see the little garment that you wear with all the weaknesses of that garment, all the limitations of that garment. You will wear it in a world that is limited not quite fully inheriting what you really are while you’re still tied to this. For your heavenly inheritance is not completely actualized, not fully realized by you while you’re still in the world of flesh and blood and tied to a garment of flesh and blood. But at night when you sleep and you are detached, you are in the world of eternity. And those who have eyes will see you functioning in that world. You are fully conscious of what you are doing. But when you return you come back through a quick series of events, strange little things that pull you back to this waking surface of the mind. And then you continue to tell your story. Tell it over and over in the hope that all that hear it will believe it. But one day they will believe it, because one day they will all experience it. Everyone will experience it and not one in eternity will fail. Let no one tell you that anyone is going to fail. They can’t fail for the whole thing is reproduced in us. There’s no abracadabra about it. You don’t earn it, it simply awakens within you in good time.

So here, he started by simply imagining what the villages would do. And can you put yourself into that place? Here, under house arrest because you’re for the king, the legitimate ruler of the island of the place of Greece. And then came the junta; the generals who had their own ambitions, their own desires, and so they ousted the king, sent him off to Italy, him and his family. Then they took over and imprisoned all opposition. They’re all intelligent, brilliant minds, and they were all under house arrest as they are today. If they only would see the secret of the story, not the means by which he escaped. Because God is infinite in his creative power and he doesn’t have to duplicate the means: “I have ways and means ye know not of; my ways are past finding out” (Rom.8:33 KJV). So don’t try to duplicate the means; the means are not your concern.

But the technique is our concern, so listen only to his technique. Because what he said happened I question…because he is saving others who are going to read his letter and they are all tuned into the fact that he has escaped from the island of Amorgos. He is now in Europe, a free man, who undoubtedly will be given asylum in this country and tell his story to the world maybe in a book form. But forget the story of the means…that does not interest us. Give me principle! What did he do? The means follows the principle, and what he did, he simply imagined a scene which would imply the fulfillment of his dream.

I create a scene in my mind’s eye, but the scene must imply the end, not the means. “So I see faces and they’re all my friends and they’re all gathered around the little shortwave radios, and they do it in secret because these are outlawed. They must not listen to outside areas, only what they pump into their controlled press and controlled radio, but not the shortwave that would bring in the outside world to tell me what happened. So they’re all gathered together quietly, secretly, and they’re listening and here comes the news from France, from Italy, from America, saying that George so-and-so has escaped the island of Amorgos. That’s all that he wants. And the thing that thrilled him the most was when that news came through. Not the elderly people drinking coffee…that happens every day; not the odor that comes from the bakery, that happens every day; not the cobbler opening up his shop at nine in the morning, that happens every day. But this: “they all know that I have escaped…that doesn’t happen every day, for I have been there for 409 days.” But this day is different and that gave him the thrill of his life!

So I tell you, start now…don’t delay it. Start now to create the scene which if true would imply the fulfillment of your dream. And there is no power in the world that can stop it! Because our Lord is Father, and our Father is our potter, and we are all the clay in his hand. So, “‘Arise, and go down to the potter’s house’ said the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah ‘and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the thing in his hand he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand. But he didn’t discard it, he reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do” (18:1).

So someone comes into our world and you don’t turn your back because you can’t spend the time. They’re down and out, they’re up against it, they’re unwell, they’re physically limited or they’re financially limited, call it by any name. You don’t discard them. It’s in your hand, your Imagination. You take that same vessel and you rework it into another vessel as it seems good to you to do. That’s all that you do. You reshape the individual in your mind’s eye. He’s unemployed and yet he does need a job. He has obligations to life, he has a family to support, he has rent to pay, food to buy, all these things, and these are musts. Well then, in your mind’s eye you rework him into a man that is gainfully employed and he was never happier in his life, never. And you see this in your mind’s eye…that’s all that you do.

Now, the means that will be employed to bring him into that state where he is gainfully employed is not your concern. Your only concern is to be the perfect potter. So when it came into your world it was spoiled. That thing is a spoiled vessel and I don’t like it. All right, so you don’t like it. Don’t discard it! Rework the vessel into another vessel as it seems good to you to do. Read that in the 18th chapter, 2nd through 4th verses of Jeremiah. So I was told, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house and there he was working at his wheel. But the vessel in his hand he was making of clay was spoiled, so he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.” And when you know that the potter is your own wonderful human Imagination…so you encounter someone and they casually say, “Oh, I wish things were better”…it need not be for themselves it could be for someone that they love. Like tonight someone asked me concerning someone they love dearly. It need not be what you call a blood relationship. But, in the end, may I tell you, we are all related, we’re all intermingled, we’re all really one. We’re not really as separate as you or the world thinks that we are.

I couldn’t see you this very moment if you did not penetrate my brain. So, really, literally you are within me, even though at the same time you exist seemingly independent of my perception in the surrounding world. But I can’t deny that you do literally exist within me. Now if you should change on the outside and I become aware of the change, the corresponding change would take place within me relative to you. If you change in any form whatsoever, either socially, intellectually, financially or even in appearance, if I encounter this change then that penetrates me and I will rectify, modify the image of you that I held to conform to what I now see, what I now hear. But now, must I wait for that thing to change on the outside to produce in me a corresponding change? Or can I produce in me the change and then produce outwardly a corresponding change? If the change is made on the outside and that change penetrates my brain and compels me to modify my image of it to conform to what I’m seeing or hearing, well then, need I wait for that to take place first on the outside before I produce the change on the inside? No, not if I know who the potter is. The potter is my own wonderful human Imagination who is making everything take place in this world. “O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are the work of thy hand” (Is.64:8). And, the potter, the Lord, and the Father are the same being, and it is my own wonderful Imagination. When I say “I am,” that is God the Father, that is the Lord and that is the potter. If I know that and believe it and trust it, well then, I don’t have to wait for things to change on the outside. If I desire changes, I can, because they do penetrate me now, they exist in me. Because, having reproduced himself in me all things now exist in my Imagination. So I don’t have to wait for changes on the outside if I desire changes. I can produce them on the inside, and then compel the outside to conform to the changes that took place within me as I the potter brought them to pass.

Well, the only way to prove it is to try it. And we try it by simply imagining what the scene would be after the thing is done. No means…don’t consider means…do not consider anything concerning how it’s going to happen. You go to the “end.” The end is where I begin. The most creative thing in man is to imagine a thing into existence. As we are told in the Book of Hebrews, “The things that are seen were made out of things that do not appear.” You will read that in the 3rd verse of the 11th chapter of Hebrews. All of the things that you see were made out of things that are not seen and they do not appear. No one can see what you are doing when you sit in the Silence. So, you do it in the Silence and they’re unseen by the outer world. But you do it and remain faithful to what you have done, because without faith in what you have done it will not appear in the world. “Without faith it is impossible to please him,” because it is through Imagination and faith that man creates and sustains his world.

So I tell you, all that I’ve told you is based upon experience. I am not theorizing, I am not speculating…all these I have put to the test. And having awakened from the dream of life, I have told you that I have experienced all the things concerning the one spoken of in scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ. When he said, “I am the light of the world,” I know from my own experience I am the light of the world. A friend of mine gave me a letter last Monday night, she said, “I was with my friend Sharon”—they’re both here tonight—and she said, “I saw you sitting on the outside of the stage in a blue suit, and you were so thin, so pale, so weak, and the blue suit seemed as weak and worn as you. Sharon and I knew you needed some kind of strength, and so we got you a chocolate pudding and then we got you a chocolate ice cream, and then a chocolate bar to give you some substance, some energy to go onto the platform. So we led you to the platform. You suddenly disappeared and re-appeared as nothing but light, only your head was there. You were a giant of a man, towering over all, and the stage seemed to be enormous. There was no light but you, and only your head which shown like the sun. The light was so intense that it woke me. And may I tell you” she said as an afterthought, “what Sharon and I bought you, the ice cream, the chocolate bar, and the chocolate pudding cost twenty-eight cents.” So I owe you twenty-eight cents.

They gave me twenty-eight cents worth of food to get me onto the stage, and then suddenly that little garment disappeared and I became the light that filled all. I’m telling you, I know it. See, her eyes were given to her by the one to whom I gave my eyes, and so she too can see the truth of what I’m talking about. For Sharon gave her the eyes I gave Sharon. Yet in the giving you do not lose the gift; you retain the gift, and the gift becomes stronger and stronger by reason of the fact that you gave it. Every gift that you give spiritually you retain and it increases in its power, in its wisdom, in it is everything that is that gift. So she saw what only a few weeks before Sharon saw, the prince of light. But no one who has not the incurrent eyes to be an eye-witness could see it. I am telling you the truth. I have experienced it and I live in that world. And the day this little thing drops, which she saw as a little thing clothed in a dark blue suit, frail, fragile, and could hardly make the stage until she could give it some substance based upon this world. For the body that it wore was of this world and chocolate would be a quick producing energy in this world.

But as I stepped upon the stage the whole thing enlarged, and suddenly it disappeared and I was nothing but light. All she could see towering above her was a giant and the head was my head. It was all that she could see. The whole thing was radiant light and the head began to be as intense in light as the sun, and then it was so intense she woke. Then she wrote me the letter. So I must now give her twenty-eight cents…repay my debt like Socrates. He owed a rooster, owed a cock, and he asked that please before he dies after he’s taken the hemlock, please give the cock for he must not be left owing anyone in this world.

But here, may I tell you, you are all Imagination and you are not a prisoner save you are a prisoner by yourself, because you brought it all to pass and you can change it if you know who you are. So when you read the words “O Lord,” don’t think of something on the outside. The word “O Lord” is Yod He Vau He, which means by translation “I AM.” “Go to the people of Israel and say unto them I AM has sent you” (Ex.3:14). That is the word “Lord” as translated in scripture. Now, “O Lord, thou art our Father,” so the Father is the same as I AM. “Thou art our potter” is the same as I AM. And he molds everything in the world, so to him and to him alone is all responsibility for what is done in your world. But he’s not other than yourself…so it’s your own wonderful human Imagination that is the cause of the restriction or the freedom that you are enjoying in this world. There is no other cause but the Lord who is the Father who is the potter. And if he’s your own wonderful human Imagination to whom will you turn to blame for anything that is happening in your world?

So the blind leaders are leading the blind, blaming society, blaming the government, blaming one party, blaming this or that, and they’re all so blind. They are, well ninety-nine and ninety-nine percent. If you could measure beyond that that’s how many are blind, blaming everything outside of themselves for the causes of the phenomena of their lives. There is no one outside of yourself! The whole vast world is yourself pushed out, for there is not a thing in the world that does not now exist in you because divine imagining has reproduced himself in you. Divine imagining is the Lord God Almighty, who contains all things within himself, and he’s reproduced in you, therefore all things are contained within you. So do not turn to the left or the right for the cause of misfortunes in your world…it’s all within you. Everything is now penetrating your brain if you are going to perceive it; therefore, it actually exists in you and yet, seemingly, it exists independent of your perception of it in the surrounding world. But don’t wait for it to change to produce the change corresponding to that change in you. You produce the change in yourself if you desire a change and then ask no one to help you. Just simply produce that change in you and then let that change reproduce itself in the outside world, for it’s only an out-picturing of the world within you.

You try it…and change your world as this prisoner from the isle of Amorgos did it. It was a most exciting story. I could hardly wait to share it with my wife Bill, and then my friend who drives me. I couldn’t wait to give him the paper the following lecture night and have him read it. But as you read it, I wonder to what extent those who bought the paper read it and then those who read it saw what was there to be seen, for the cue was all based upon the day after his escape. And what thrilled him most in his Imagination was when the villagers knew it. Well, if they knew it then it’s a fact. Not the other things…they take place day after day…they took place every day for 409 days. But they didn’t know as they drank their coffee for 409 days and could smell the bread coming from the bakery, and the cobbler’s shop is open that the prisoner had escaped. But when they knew he had escaped, that’s what thrilled him most of all. He’s trying to tell those who are in prison, who will hear the story, the cue is in the entire story…for the cue is the day after. It’s in my end where I begin; I always go to the end and that’s where I start. What would it be like if it were true? What would you tell me if it were true? What would I see if it were true?

Before I came out tonight I got a telephone call from my friend Natalie and she’s flying tonight. She hardly misses a meeting here…not in years has she missed it…but I’m so thrilled tonight that she isn’t here for this is the answer to a prayer. She met someone that she loves and they’re flying off tonight to Mexico to be married tomorrow. So she said, “I cannot see you tonight or Monday, but I will see you a week from now.” I hope not! I hope she goes off to a nice long, wonderful honeymoon. She doesn’t have to rush back here. She has accomplished what she wants, to be married. And I do hope it’s a blissful union, I hope so, because she’s certainly altogether lovely. That’s what she wanted. She loved the man that she met and that is it, so they’re flying off tonight, wedding tomorrow, so she can’t be here tonight. So she, too, lived in the end. But it took an awful lot of jacking up, may I tell you. She’d always forget the end and come back to the moment where it isn’t. Night after night I would remind her, because I have been going along the Promise…more and more on the Promise rather than the law. Every once and awhile I felt impelled to talk about the law because people were forgetting that we are still in the world of Caesar and the law is important! As you’re told in the Book of Psalms, “I delight and rejoice in thy law day and night. It is my constant meditation, thy law. And those who rejoice in the law, in all that they do they prosper” (1:2) as we are told in the very first Psalm. Rejoice in the law! Don’t forget you’re living in the world of Caesar. Although to me the Promise is the one grand objective and the true reality of all being, we are still here and rent must be paid, clothes bought, food bought, and multiple things must be bought with the coin of Caesar. And so she would forget and every time I would jack her up from the platform. She was very sweet about it and she would always say thank you, then the next day she would go back. But by tomorrow it will be consummated. I hope she’s so busy she hasn’t time to send us a card.

So here, may I tell you, this thing cannot fail you. It will not fail you! But we are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself. So when I know what I want, don’t turn to any outside God. He is not on the outside. In fact, he isn’t even near, for nearness implies separation. He is my I AM and where could I go where I am not aware that I am? I’ve seen this body detached from myself and I could point to a body, but I could never see myself detached from myself. I know from experience that I am not this garment that I wear, for I have seen it on the bed when I am not in it. But I can never be anywhere where I am not aware that I am…so that “I am” is the Lord. And I could never be so far away as even to be near, because nearness implies separation and I can’t be separated from the Lord. “O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay”…this is the clay…but, “thou art our potter; we are the work of thy hand.” So when I entered death’s door I found a garment. But who entered death’s door?—man. “When weary man enters the cave he meets his Savior in the grave. Some find a female garment and some a male woven with care” (Blake, Gates of Paradise). So I find a male garment, others find a female. But I the finder am man, not male; I the finder am man, not female. Man that finds it is one with God. He and the Savior are one, he and the Lord are one, he and God are one, and he and the potter are one.

But we find garments when we enter the cave and the cave is the human skull, and we find a garment woven with care, woven by the female. “But alas, one is slain and one is fled.” The garment has to be slain, but the immortal man who occupied it as it walked from the cradle to the grave is immortal and cannot be slain. But he still walks asleep. The day must come when he will awake, and when he awakes he knows who he is: he is the Lord God Jehovah, the being spoken of in scripture. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Are there any questions, please?

Q: If you say everything is within you, well, what about the people who wouldn’t accept this type of teaching that you are encountering?

A: Well, my dear, it really doesn’t matter, ninety-nine percent of the people of the world would not accept it. Read the morning’s paper, everything is happening on the outside and they’re not the cause of it. Everything is happening by others. The government will notify you that you’re a little number. For instance, I’ll be sixty-five in February. Today, unsolicited came a letter from HEW. You know, they call it HEW, notifying me that I will be sixty-five in February and therefore go to a certain place in this city and notify them of my…take the letter down…that I’m now eligible for…what do you call it…Medicare. So I didn’t even know that they knew I existed. And here I’m notified that they do know and they have me computerized, I’m a number. That’s all that I am to the government, I’m just a number. And so they knew in advance I would be sixty-five the 19th day of February next year, so they notify me now to go down to a certain place in this city with my letter that I got from them and then I would be on Medicare.

Here we think that we are not numbers? We’re all numbers…that’s all that we are to them. But they’re not independent of us…we made it so. The whole vast world wants to depend upon something outside of itself. And so, it is we who brought it into being, brought the entire thing into being. And so, I am a number. Undoubtedly they have a dossier this high on me; all the things that I have said or my little throwaways that you get in the mail, they have those there too. Any claim that I make concerning that you can do it for yourself, they have that there too.

Nevertheless, I tell you, you are all Imagination and Imagination is God. There’s nothing but God. The day will come that you will awaken from the dream of life—this whole thing is a dream—and it will fade leaving not a trace behind it. You brought it into being for a purpose and when that purpose is fulfilled, it will vanish, but not until all have awakened because not one must fail. My body would be incomplete if one was missing, so I will leave the ninety and nine and go in search of the one. I cannot be missing from the risen Lord’s body. For we are the one body, the one Spirit, the one Lord, the one God, the one Father, and you can’t have one that is missing. All will be redeemed…everyone will be redeemed.

Good night.