11/8/68

This morning when I woke my mind was simply crowded with a single thought: The knowledge of God. For I had gone to bed dwelling on these two thoughts, one from Paul’s letters, his letter to the Corinthians, and one from the gospel of John. They parallel each other. And Paul said, “I could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. So I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you could not take it” (1 Cor. 3:1). Then to the gospel of John in the 16th chapter we read the words, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (verse 12). So with these thoughts in my mind, I slept, and coming back to the surface this morning the mind is crowded with the knowledge of God.

Well, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to tell and not the easiest thing in the world to accept, but if you are a good student of scripture, you can search it and you will see how true it is. I know from experience that it is true. You meet it first in the Book of Genesis, the 4th chapter, it begins, “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain”…but that is not the completed thought. It is said that “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain,” but the completed thought in that very first verse is that she did it with Jehovah. Now the word “knew” is a euphemism for the marriage act, the creative act. We meet its parallel in the Book of Luke, and the angel said to her that she would have a child. Mary said to the angel, “How is this thing possible seeing that I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34). Well here, we meet the same word “know”…we speak of it as know or knew or foreknowledge, foreknew, the same word and the same definitions given to us in both the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries. So here we are told that the one who performed the act was Jehovah.

Now, we meet the same word in different uses: “And this is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent” (John 17:3). Well, Jesus Christ is defined as the creative power of God (1 Cor. 1:24). But God being man his every attribute is personified…it takes a man to express everything in this world, whether it be evil or good, whether it be truth or error. Every error takes man as its agent, therefore, it is man. So here, when we encounter the creative power of God it’s personified, it is man. “So this is eternal life, to know thee, the only true God.” Now, that “knowing thee” is the same word when Mary said, “How is it possible seeing that I know not a man?”…I haven’t had the creative act.

So here, how can I know God? I must have the creative act with Jehovah, with the Lord. And when he awakens in one that is his creative power awake, sent into the world to perform not the physical act, for God is Spirit, he performs it spiritually. And in this creative act, they walk not knowing that they are pregnant, pregnant by God. And what do they bring forth? They can only bring forth his creative power personified which is himself as the Lord Jesus Christ.

So here, we find one who was with him all the time and he said, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” He said, “I have been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip?” (John 14:8). Well, the word “know” is the same word translated as I’ve just defined it for you, “the marriage act.” You’ve followed me and followed me, but you are not yet ready to receive me, followed and followed and you think you know the mysteries. You are of the inner circle, said he, but you haven’t known me. So these are the things he could not tell…these are the mysteries. He said, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” It would come as a shock.

Now, the knowledge of God involves a surrender of the self. Not only the self surrenders, but there are variations of that surrender in the person that is known. Not everyone receives the imprint of God to the full extent. It’s like a temple and not every aspect has the same significance: So one receives it to a certain degree, one to another degree, and one to still another degree. The one who can completely surrender to the full impression of the invisible Lord, that one has received the ultimate which is the apostleship, the highest order in the body of God…one that is qualified then to be sent and tell it from experience. Others will tell it from hearsay and that would be the prophets. Others will tell it and they will be then the teachers, others the healers, the miracle workers, and all these will tell the imprint based upon what has happened to them. And they are in conflict, not in conflict…but the one who comes as the apostle who will tell you, he stands in the very, I would say, in the shoes of the Lord; for he who sent me is with me, he never left me. That imprint was a complete submersion of self, a complete surrender of self. And so, if someone comes after, and they’re not completely surrendered to that one being, it is a creative act; but the creative act on the highest level is an embrace and a complete fusion of the two, where one melts into the one who embraces him. So that person that is known becomes one with the knower. So when he’s sent he says, “I’m not alone, he who sent me is with me.” Below that level, he speaks of it…he sees it in a different way.

And so, on return this morning, the mind was simply overflowing with what is called the knowledge of God. And go and tell them whether they receive it or not, whether, and you’re not to judge anyone in this world, whether they’re qualified to believe it or not. And so the time has come for those who said, “You’re not yet ripe,” and others said, “I have things to show you, but you cannot bear them now.” But I feel I am just like that story as told in Jeremiah, the 20th chapter, “If I say ‘I will not mention it or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart as it were set up a burning fire, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (verse 9). I can no more restrain the impulse when I wake in the morning and the mind is crowded with a common thought, that single thought, simply the knowledge of God.

So then you search scripture and you find the unnumbered words translated “knowledge” or “he knew.” Here is one from the 8th chapter of Romans, “Those whom he (meaning now God)…those whom he foreknew—that is, he had this intimacy before— then “he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (verse 29). Now bear in mind, the Son as told us in Hebrews “reflects the glory of God and bears the very imprint, the very stamp of his nature, the express image of his person” (1:3). Well now, if this is what I am destined to do after he knows me…he said, “Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified.” So that complete surrender of self would bring one to the point of complete glorification, which is simply reflecting the glory of God. He can’t see his face in any better way than that one that can glorify him.

So, it’s not the man of flesh, it’s something within man that I’m talking about. I’m not speaking of anything born of flesh. From the very beginning it was not spoken of flesh. In the current issue of the Saturday Evening Post there’s a story by some supposedly great English anthropologist. He makes little of the Bible…the thing means nothing…it’s so stupid based upon what today’s anthropologists know about man and his beginnings, and all about man, it goes back unnumbered years. They take us back so far in what they think man was. And then they say that the Bible in teaching cosmology—the Bible does not teach cosmology, it doesn’t teach astrology, it doesn’t teach astronomy, it doesn’t teach biology, it doesn’t teach any of these things. It’s only concerned with one thing and that is God’s story, God’s plan of salvation, of redemption—that something comes out of this biological thing called man. What comes out is the image of God, endowed with the creative power in itself. It’s not just something that is an animated body; it is a life-giving spirit. So as the Father has life in himself, he has given to that which he brings out, which is the image of himself, life in itself (John 5:26). So it can actually speak in the name of the Father…it is the Father…and goes out and begets itself. Begets itself in the sense that it can bring out of these so-called bodies, animated bodies, images of itself that are endowed with a life-giving spirit.

So, in spite of his wisdom—and he’s highly honored so I’m told as I read the story—but it hasn’t a thing to do with anthropology…whether this little body came out of the swamps as they say. And that I know it did not. I know that this little body is an eternal part of the eternal structure of the universe and it always was. Then it became animated by the Spirit of God and the whole thing is an animated form, and horrors beyond horrors could take place, and nothing could come out. But here comes a decision, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26). Well, now comes the creative act. If I’m going to make man in my image, how did I make my son in my image, how did I make my daughter in my image, so that when you meet them, they’ll say, “Yes, they look like you”? It’s because I planted my seed, my germ, in that which was prepared to receive it, and after the fullness of time it came out bearing my image but endowed with a certain independence.

Well now, that is just a shadow of what God does. For Eve said, “I begot this child, this son, with Jehovah.” It begins, “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived…and she said, ‘I have begotten a man with Jehovah.’” That’s the literal translation of the Hebrew. They have added into the Revised Standard Version of the Bible the little phrase which is not in the Hebrew, “with the help of.” That is not in the manuscript. She brought forth man, she begot man with Jehovah. Jehovah is your own wonderful I-am-ness, that is the being, and it brings out its own image. So when you awake completely you are the creative power of God. And if you are completely yielding to the God so that you are the perfect image of him, then you can be sent; for the apostle is the one who bears the image of the one that impregnated him, and such impregnations are by an embrace. Below that, may I tell you—and it shocks the world—when you are sent into the world to play the part of the creative power of God you could play it, although spiritually you play it, it is done as like the act on earth. But you know nothing of the physical side of it, it’s all spiritual. And yet it’s one in the same way that the marriage act is performed.

So there are levels within levels of the body of God. So those whom he foreknew, which means he actually impregnated, well then, he predestined. If a woman is impregnated tonight, she is predestined to bear the image of the one who impregnated her. That’s the simple way of putting it. And then those who are predestined are called, and those who are called are justified. Justification means a complete divine acquittal. No matter what that individual has ever done in this world, the most horrible thing he could ever have done, he is completely acquitted. That is justification…that is divine justification. He did it because he performed the will of God. And at the end, then he who is justified is now glorified. To be glorified, as we are told. “Return unto me the glory that is mine, the glory which I had with thee before that the world was” (John 17:5). So here, I now reflect completely the glory of God—not as a little body of flesh, certainly not—and then I bear the express image of his person. I say “person” advisedly, for God is man.

In spite of our anthropologists, in spite of all the scientists of the world who will think in terms of an impersonal force, God is man. The mystics know it, the great poets know it. “Thou art a man,” said Blake, “God is no more; thine own humanity learn to adore.” And so you stand in the presence of the risen Lord; it is not some peculiar abstract, it is man. You stand in the presence of infinite love; and that’s the moment of knowing God. You know him as you look at him but, really, you are the one known, for he addresses you. And he is the author and he asks you a very simple question and you answer quite honestly, quite simply. At that he embraces you and that’s the moment of a divine impregnation…you become one with God. “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” and you are with him (1Cor.6:17).

At that moment he sends you, but he sends you through another personification of himself. He sends you through (in my case) the personification of himself that personified infinite might, and that was the one who sent me. He sent me and he was infinite might, and his words were, “Down with the bluebloods.” Not the social order of the world, for that’s all trivia in the eyes of God. Someone believes himself important because of a physical descent, it’s all nonsense. That someone is important because of great wealth, it’s all nonsense. So all this is, but not that. It is simply all external rituals, all creeds, all ceremonies, everything that interferes with the individual’s direct access to God. So down with that! You don’t form an organization to go out and destroy it; you ignore it and things die for want of attention.

Everything in this world dies for want of attention. You get married and prior to marriage you attended, you brought flowers, you brought all kinds of gifts, and because you now have her you think you can drop these gifts. Well then, that romance simply goes and goes and finally it comes to an end. Each could kill each other, but they don’t know what to do. Rent must be paid, and it’s easier to live under one roof and then eat from the same table, and it goes that way…because the romance has gone out, because they think they can stop it. All right, so you stop it and the whole thing dissolves. If you keep it alive, the whole thing remains alive to the very end.

Here in our fabulous world God so loved you the individual—not you as a race, as a nation—you the individual that he actually gave himself to you in the most intimate, literal manner in the world: He becomes you and you become God. Then, it seems strange, how can I tell it, how can you tell someone that even though I am one with God he could send me and still be with me…and yet be the risen Lord? That is something I cannot put into words. I can’t put them down into words that would make any sense to the rational mind. How could he embrace me and I’m completely fused with him like a drop of ink in a glass of water? How will I now extract it? And so he sends me…no loss of identity. I know exactly the being that embraced me. I know exactly what he looks like, and when I’m sent I feel like him. When I stand in the presence of the symbol of his eternal Son that bears witness of the fact that I am the Father, I feel like that Father, that same one that embraced me. No one can see it, for he’s invisible to all mortal eyes, yet I feel that presence.

Well now, how can a being embrace me so that I am completely fused with him, and then send me as an individual without loss of identity and that I can go and say he is with me? I feel him not as another; I feel him as myself. And yet I know that that risen Lord, though I am sent by him and that he didn’t leave me alone, he came with me, that I am he…and yet he, too, remains the risen Lord. How do you tell it? How can you convey that mood to anyone who will try to make it something rational? You can’t do it. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t seem to get it over. So, in this sense I have many things to say, but you cannot bear them now…and so he gave them milk.

In my own case, I can’t wait for the morning to come after a vision to tell you exactly what happened to me, I can’t wait. So when someone will say to me, “Should you always throw these pearls before swine?” I say, “I don’t meet any swine. In spite of the fact that they’re all…that’s all part of scripture and you quoted scripture…I’ll throw it and if they can’t digest it, leave it, it won’t be lost. Not one thing will be lost. I’ll pick up all the scraps and put them back into the basket again.” So I cannot become the critic and say who should hear what. How do I know? How do I know who in this audience tonight is willing to completely surrender to God? For knowledge of God always involves a surrender. And so, there are varieties of this surrendering; and so as I surrender, well now, that will determine to what extent I have surrendered and that will determine the part I will play in the body of God. For, it’s all one body at the end, one Lord, one God, one body, one Father of all, only one, and all are incorporated into that one.

So here, on waking this morning when it came through the crowded mind…and it’s quite early, about four thirty. So I got up at four thirty and went out and started a research of the words “know” and “knowledge.” And here, the whole thing is crowding into your mind once more as though you hadn’t really broken off where you were a moment before. You knew you were talking about it in some depths of your soul or height of your soul, for “above” and “within” are the same in scripture, just as “below” and “without” are the same. So, if this came from within or it came from above, I brought it into this world which is a world of “without-ness” as it were. But here, as I searched the scriptures to find passage after passage after passage…and you find what it is all about. Here, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).

Well, that same word “know,” you wouldn’t think that would have a creative act implied in that sentence “You shall know the truth,” but keep on reading, “I am the truth.” So he brings you down to the personification of his Father…and “If you only knew me” he’s telling you. But how to tell it and not offend those in the world who are offended by such knowledge? It just shocks them, so how to tell it? If you know the truth, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free, and I am the truth…he is telling you that you’ll know me one day in the most intimate manner in the world. And when you know me, I have left my imprint upon you, and I am the image of the invisible God. That’s what he’s saying. When you receive it by a complete and utter abandonment of self, no restraint, utter surrender, well then, in due time, me in you, that being will come out; for I am in you, you are in the being that is speaking, and we are one.

So if I really am the image of him and there is such a thing that is a complete and utter surrender…and I don’t do the calling. He within me called Father, he does the calling. There is no selecting on my part from this level, none whatsoever. And yet I tell you from my own experience this is the most creative book in the world, but not based upon any science known to man, not based upon anything that man knows. And yet, if this is the only way to eternal life, what else is worth knowing? If you had all the wealth of the world and you were honored by all the men of the world, and you were the most handsome or the most beautiful and the strongest and everything—take all the things that are perfect concerning man, make a composite picture of it, and then you are that—but you will die, you’ll reach the end, and that’s the end of you, and that’s not eternal life, what would that amount to compared to knowing God, and in the knowing of God you’ve achieved eternal life? “This is eternal life, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ” (John 17:3)…which is a personification of his creative power.

But God being man, when he comes who personifies his creative power?—it’s man. And so you meet man, but not on this level, you meet that being on a spiritual level. And you will find an automatic surrender, but on varying degrees of surrender. This, may I tell you, will even involve objects, for nothing will be left out of the temple. He will leave his imprint on objects, leave his imprint on man, but everything in the end will be God…and God being man, the whole will be man…but on different levels based upon that willingness to completely surrender. Many are unwilling, but they will still be brought into the temple playing their part based upon the degree of surrender.

So here, if you are serious about it, and I trust that you are, follow through with a concordance the word “to know” and take nothing for granted. You will find there are many words translated “to know” and they have different meanings. But when it comes to something like “to know God is eternal life,” well, you’ll think “If I could only know him…show me God…that’s knowing him,” it isn’t so at all. To know God is to have the most intimate relationship with God, so that he buries in you his seed, his germ, his image which is Jesus Christ. As it’s buried in you, then you, as told in scripture, you are then his emanation, yet his wife, ’til the sleep of death is past. So this whole thing becomes his emanation and he falls in love with his emanation, and then he buries himself in it, as told us in the 54th of Isaiah, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” (verse 5). So if my Maker is my husband then I am his wife; and the Lord of hosts is my Maker’s name.

Well, will I surrender? Will I completely give myself over as the perfect wife? Or will I be restrained in the act? Well now, in my case, I seemed to have had no choice in the matter, for I was taken in spirit into his presence, and when he asked me to name the greatest thing in the world, without hesitation I said love. “Faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1Cor. 13:13). And at that he embraced me and I completely fused with him, and wore for that interval the body of God, which was infinite love, nothing but love. While in that oneness with God, without loss of identity, then comes the cry, “Down with the bluebloods.” And I found myself before God but this time clothed in infinite might. There seemed no compassion and the other was infinite love; this is without compassion, just sheer might. His words to me were, “Time to act”…and “God only acts and is in existing beings or men” (Blake). So time to act now—you’ve heard it and you witnessed it—now time to act.

So for thirty years I simply told the law, not the Promise for I did not know it. I had not yet brought the child to birth, which will bear witness to the fact I and my Father who men call God are one. For it takes the child to bear witness that I knew him; and if I bore the child then he is the Father. We are told in scripture he must leave all and cleave to his wife until they become one body. So he leaves all and cleaves to the one that he impregnates, and she brings forth his likeness, the infant child, the Christ child; and then she and he become one and he being the Father then you are the Father…not two sexes any more just one. You become one. And so at first you were bearing the child, not even knowing that you were, and then you brought the child forth, and then there is a complete union of the two…and the two cease to be two and they become one. So he breaks down that partition that has made two, and in making two it made conflict. And now as the partition is removed, he’s one with the one that he so loved…and brought forth his image in the form of a sign (Eph. 2:14). So this is the mystery.

May I tell you, the whole vast world could rise in opposition and it would make no difference, for this will live forever and all that took place this past week will become forgotten…not just history…because human history will all be rubbed out. Everything that man has ever accomplished in this world will prove itself in the end to be false, to be a lie. Take any great accomplishment today and then go forward in time and you’ll see that they’ll take it and they’ll have to modify it when man discovers something other than what he or she discovered. Then they go on further and what is now the last word becomes that which is not all together true, so they modify it. And in the end, the whole vast world will be completely rubbed out leaving no trace of ever having been present. So the only thing that is really forever is what God is bringing out of humanity which is his image, which is himself. So in the end, there is only God, nothing but God.

But if one wants in this world of Caesar more of the fruits of this world of Caesar, let him have it. Eight years ago when Nixon ran against Kennedy, a friend of mine sent him a record of mine, and he wrote a very sweet letter to the lady who sent him the record and said he’s added it to his library…and he will have many moments of joy in listening to that record…that’s what he said. The lady gave me the letter and I kept it, I have it at home. Well, he lost, and then he lost two years later for the governorship of this state. And here, eight years later he comes back and his dream has flowered, has come true. I am quite sure that with his background of listening to the inner voice that the record which was The Law and the Promise sparked something in him. One thing I stressed in it, the difference between thinking of what you want and thinking from it. When you think from it and sleep in it as though it were true, it becomes true, and you objectify it in the world…all the difference in the world. So he didn’t win by an enormous majority, barely sneaked through, but he’s in. He didn’t have an enormous number of electoral votes but enough to stop all questions. He still is, in spite of if he only had one vote as a majority, he still is in and here he is. I firmly believe that he has played it, and I believe having played it once he’s played it many times. I have that feeling about it. And having heard it, I believe he believes it. So with all the so-called pressures and all the things put against it—he lost and lost and lost—but he never gave up. So you may lose tonight, but don’t give up.

It’s a simple technique to get things in this world. When you know exactly what you want and you think of it, turn around and think from it. If you think from it, it’s all the difference in the world. I can think of what I want and remain thinking of it until I drop this body and still not get it. But let me think from it…and I’ll show you what I mean. I think now of San Francisco…I’m thinking of it 500 miles to the north of me. I stand here, I know where I am I’m in Los Angeles. I close my eyes to the obvious and I imagine that I am standing in San Francisco. Well, I have lived in so many hotels there I could pick out any one of a dozen. I know them intimately, their restaurants, their bars, their rooms, everything, because I use the hotel when I move into it. So I can put myself into any hotel where I’ve lived and then I think of Los Angeles. I don’t see it under me and around me; I see it to the south of me 500 miles. And so I think of … [a number of following sentences were lost due to a sound system failure].

___(??) scientists if you’ve gone off your mind, he will tell you “Yes you have” because they want to hold things just right here in this world. I once tried to help a friend of mine who was a very intelligent, wonderful man, when by this simple law I got out of the army. I was out in one week, after I began to assume it, honorably discharged. I wasn’t injured, I was a strong healthy person, I wasn’t injured yet I was honorably discharged. So I wrote him what I had done. He never answered my letter, because he thought the whole thing was insane. He came to my meetings in New York City, and one day he said to me, “You know, Neville, I just love to hear you, but do you know what I do when I listen to you? I put my feet right down into the carpet and I hold the side of the chair just to remind me of the reality and the profundity of things, because you simply take off into some dream world.” Well, I went off into a dream world, yes, but it worked, and if it works what does it matter what others think? If I have evidence for a thing, does it matter what you or they or the whole vast world thinks? So I had evidence for it and I tried to share my experience with him. He would have none of it, so he remained in the army until the other millions were discharged together. So he could have had at least the experience of proving it. Well, if it didn’t work in his case, he could have thrown the whole thing through the window, but at least try it. Would not even answer my letter.

So I will say, not everyone who hears it will believe it, even though in the eyes of the world they seem very, very wise and profound. Paul realized the limitations of certain minds and said, “I give you milk, nothing solid, because you cannot now receive it” (1 Cor. 3:2). Because you have to undo all the things you’ve done in your belief that you are wise. So all the things that you have piled up, and you’ve memorized volumes of things that are already disproved, but in order to pass to get your degrees, you have to memorize them and pass on this material that’s already been disproved. So this is naturally completely unsound and stupid in the eyes of the world. But I tell you, this works.

So when he said, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” it’s not that. That’s a simple thing. He tells that in the Book of Mark so simply, “Whatever you desire, believe that you received it, and you will” (Mark 11:24). That’s a simple thing, but when it comes to the other things, that he hesitated to say…it’s in the book but buried. So he said, “Search the scriptures for me. You’ll find me there, so search them” (John 5:39). He did not spell it out. So when I came through this morning with this thing crowded into my mind…then I had to.

You will find yourself having these experiences. Like a friend of mine (who is here tonight) said, “I came into your home as your guest, you and your wife. We were in the sun parlor and you were putting out strips of paper. Then suddenly there were unnumbered birds. They seemed by appearance to be wild birds…the chickadees and sparrows and all kinds of wild birds. But you fed them and strangely enough these birds were the tamest things that you could see. You could fondle them and play with them as you would a house cat. Here were these unnumbered birds, each in itself like a domestic bird. And then the dream ended. Has it any meaning, any significance?” he said.

It certainly has: Birds are ideas. You come into this room, and you know scripture. All right, you have ideas and they’re wild…you can’t understand them. They’re wild birds: What on earth does it mean when I am told this, that and the other? Well then, week after week and month after month and year after year these ideas become domesticated—you’ve grasped them, you understand them—and they are with you…they don’t take flight and fly away. So all these are now with this man; he actually understands them so when he picks up scripture it’s a different book. As he walks the street, these ideas that formerly seemed wild, now he understands that wonderful beatitude “Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth” (Mat. 5:5). Well, the word translated “meek” means “to be domesticated,” like a cat or an animal that once was wild and you caught it and brought it into a state of tameness. It doesn’t mean meek as we use the word meek, where a man falls on his belly and crawls before another. That being would never inherit the earth. But when one is self-disciplined so that the mind is brought under the control of the one who holds that mind, and he rides his own mind as you would a wonderful horse that is broken in, well then, that mind is called the “meek mind.”

So in his case, all these birds that should be wild could all be fondled, could all be played with and all loving. Yet, from the outside there were chickadees and sparrows. And you can’t get near the sparrow…it takes flight…but not these. So the ideas in scripture would be like sparrows, wild, wild birds. But then they’ve been brought into captivity in a loving way. So now he has an entirely different outlook on scripture, on the world. Instead of condemning and condemning as the world does, misinterpreting scripture, he doesn’t judge anyone. Goes out and lets everyone be what it wants to be. So you want to be this, be it. Don’t interfere with my being what I want to be, but I grant you the right to be whatever you want to be…only don’t interfere with me. And so, we go through life that way granting everyone…so you want to be the ladies’ man? Go ahead and all good luck to you, and may you live long in your enjoyment; but don’t interfere with me. And so, that is what he has found out in coming here, that all these ideas that disturbed him when he first arrived. For, he had a good background of Bible but it was not understood. Now he understands it.

So here, I shared with you this night what crowded the mind in the depths of my soul last night. So when I surfaced, it was still with me. Then I spent a goodly part of the day ferreting out all things related to that crowded mind when I woke, which was “What does it mean to know the Lord?” “Knowing the Lord” is a euphemism for the most intimate act with God so that you may bear his image…for you can’t bear his image in any other way. You are his emanation. But we’ve all gone after false gods and we will give ourselves to a false god…but here, “Come back to the only true God.” Now when you go home, it’s not a long book, the Book of Hosea touches on the knowledge of God…that you’ve only known God, for I am the Lord and there is no other savior (Is. 43:3, 11). So he tells that to those whom he addresses “You’ve only known…”—meaning the same word—“that intimate relationship with me, and now do not go after strange gods.” It’s always a temptation to turn to a strange god. Every morning that temptation comes in the form of an ad, come and see this one, “He’s the wisest person in the world…he just spent five years in India, sitting in the silence, and now he’s going to pour it out for you.” And man is tempted to leave the only true God which is his own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other God! So anyone who comes telling you he is it or there it is, forget it.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Now are there any questions, please?

Q: (inaudible)

A: Is the degree of willingness to surrender also predetermined? I will be inclined to believe it when I read the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans, but I will leave it as an open page. Men hear it and they resist it. It’s like a story I’ve once been told: A man goes into the great museums of Europe (this took place supposedly in Italy) and this fantastic work of the great masters…and he was one of a crowd, a tourist, and he said, “I don’t think very much of these.” The custodian said to him “Sir, these pictures are not on trial, you are.” So they hear the story of the gospel and they will say, “I don’t believe that. I think he’s a nut” and they pass their opinion. Well, I would say to those who hear what I am telling you, this story is not on trial, you are. And your reaction to what I’m saying will determine your measure of surrender.

Good night.