07 Mar Neville Goddard Lectures: Where Are You Staying?
2/26/65
I think we’re all familiar with the theme here. And may I tell you, we must make daring experiments in Jesus Christ, we must. Brood upon it, put it to the extreme test, that’s what we’re called upon to do, and I promise you that you’ll pass on to your friends and to your successors what you discovered in Jesus Christ. You will one day discover the true Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ of history, in your own wonderful scriptural experience…that’s how you discover him. Everything said about him you will experience, and you’ll know who Jesus Christ is.
Now tonight, if I were called upon to name or give a title to this, I would say “Where are you staying?” That would be the title. It’s taken from the first chapter of the Book of John (verses 32-39). We are told that the Spirit descended upon him as a dove, and John, standing next to two disciples, seeing Jesus walk by, said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard what he said and so they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned around and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said, “Where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, because it was the tenth hour. We read that in the first chapter of the gospel of John. If you would take only that and would dwell upon it for the rest of your days, what things you could extract from it. Don’t change one word of it; leave it just as it is.
Well, who is this being that is the Lamb of God? The first time the word appears in scripture is back in the 22nd chapter of the Book of Genesis. Here is the promised son, called Isaac, and he said to his father Abraham, “We have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” His father said to him, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering” (verse 8). God is the lamb: Here is the presentation of God as man. God becomes man that man may become God…he becomes man. How could he become me? Well, he is my own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God. That’s the lamb of God that he provided. He provided himself; he became me. My Imagination is God, this lamb that is the burnt offering.
Now here in this story, “Well, where do you dwell?” “Well, come and see.” Where do I dwell? I am all Imagination. Where do I dwell?—-that state to which I constantly return constitutes my dwelling place. Where do I constantly return in the course of a day? Do I dwell in poverty? Do I dwell upon this, that or the other? Whatever is my most constant state to which I return that is my dwelling place. So come with me and see where I dwell and he reveals his dwelling place. They stayed with him that day, for it was the tenth hour. Now, the latest translation of the Bible which is called the New English Bible translates this phrase, “And it was four in the afternoon.” Hasn’t a thing to do with any four in the afternoon. But they want to give sense to the scripture, because if you start with their six in the morning and you add ten hours, it would be four PM. But it hasn’t a thing to do with four PM. It’s tenth hour…they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.
Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical as well as a symbolical value. The tenth hour is Yod; its symbolical value is the creative power, the hand of God. Every letter of the entire alphabet of the Hebraic world is made up of Yod. You start, a Yod, if I took any letter, Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, He, any letter, they are only combinations of Yod. You take the entire alphabet…if you have the Bible, the King James Version will give you the 119th Psalm and at the beginning of every psalm is a Hebrew letter, the value…every little letter is only simply different arrangements of Yod, that’s all that it is. It’s the creative power of God, that’s all that it is.
So he said, “The tenth hour…so they remained with him, because it was the tenth hour.” He is revealing the power, the creative power of God that is himself; for Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God (1Cor. 1:24). So, come, where do you dwell? I’ll tell you where I dwell. Come with me and I will show you where I dwell, and he reveals the power and the wisdom of God in Yod. Hasn’t a thing to do with four o’clock in the afternoon and yet that’s the latest translation of our wonderful ancient script. I tell you, it’s all to do with this power and you and I are dared to put it to the extreme test. I don’t care what the test is, put it to the test. He who made the eye, shall he not see? He who made the ear, shall he not hear? He who made anything, shall he not continue making it and make it perfect? Well, who made it? The creative power of God, and that’s Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ. There is no other power, no other creative power.
When we turn our attention to ideas we’re captivated by them, or at least we run the risk. We turn our attention this night to the idea of Jesus Christ in the hope that you will be captivated by this idea. If I could only get everyone present to be captivated by the idea of Jesus Christ! I tell you, in spite of what the churches have told you and what they still tell you, and what all the isms tell you, it isn’t that at all. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, and the day is coming that you will actually discover in your own wonderful experience the truth of scripture. You’ll find who Jesus Christ is, all within you. You will go through all the experiences in scripture, and you’ll find who he is, and know he is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ
Now last Tuesday, I told you an experience of mine, a simple experience. But don’t discount it; God speaks to his prophet through the medium of dream. I asked for it, and it came to me that very morning, Tuesday morning. I told you who were here last Tuesday. Not everyone present came last Tuesday, so for the benefit of those who were not here and for those who did hear it, because, may I tell you, it is profound. The more I dwell upon it the greater significance it has. For last Tuesday morning when I woke at 4:15, it was too early to rise, and I said to myself, “Favor me with an experience…it could be a dream, it could be a vision, an ecstasy…but favor me with some wonderful experience that I can share with the whole vast world who will listen to me.” So I went back to sleep and I found myself in New York City in my old apartment house where I lived for thirteen years and eight months. The superintendent was the same superintendent, everything was as it was before, but when I took the elevator up to the 6th floor I discovered I didn’t live there. I not only didn’t live there, but I could not remember where I’m dwelling, I couldn’t. I made every effort to remember where I am dwelling now, and I couldn’t. That was my past dwelling place.
But the question is, “Where are you dwelling?” “Come and see.” And so, they came and they saw where he was dwelling and stayed with him that day, because it was the tenth hour. The past I remember. Usually when people have amnesia they forget the past, can’t remember the past. But this amnesia was not of past; I remembered the past. I couldn’t remember the present, and that is the problem of the whole vast world. For the revelation of God’s name, forever and forever, is I AM (Ex. 3:14). Man has such difficulty in remembering the tense. He can’t seem to keep alive within himself the tense: I AM. I can’t seem to remember I am wealthy, remember I am healthy, because the verdict of the doctor tells me I am not. I can’t bring it into this present tense and always remain alive and awake to God’s name. So I couldn’t remember where I am now at this moment living. I remembered the past, it was in New York City, and that was years ago, and I lived there for thirteen-odd years. But where do I live now? And when I came to, where did I come to? I was sleeping in myself, that’s where I came to. I came to into the present by trying to feel myself to be in somewhere dreaming of this state. For were this a dream, I am somewhere in this world sleeping, and if I am sleeping, where am I sleeping? I tried to locate it in space, but when I really located it, I located it in myself…I am sleeping here. That’s where I am sleeping and that’s where I am dreaming. I am dreaming of a past.
Now, what about my present? Here is the present and so if man could only dwell upon the present. What do I want in this world not only for myself but for every one that I know in this world? If I could only now take that into my consciousness and dwell upon it now as something that is taking place now…that’s where I’m dwelling. For that state to which I most constantly return constitutes my dwelling place if I could only remember that. So in the course of a day, to what state do I return frequently? To the unemployed friend, to the unemployed this, to the horrible that? If I do that constantly that’s where I dwell. I’m always dwelling in the state to which I constantly return. But if I will remember this technique, forget now that past. I have no amnesia concerning the past. Man is always dwelling either in the past or the future; he doesn’t dwell in the present. He’s always thinking of what happened or what may happen, but he doesn’t live in the present. So they ask the question, “Where are you living, where are you staying?” “Well, come and see.”
Now the entire gospel of John dwells only with I AM, that’s all that it dwells on. He tells us, the fundamental sin is “the lack of faith in I am he,” that’s the fundamental sin. And the entire gospel of John is the most Hebraic of all the gospels; in fact, it is the most profound of all of the new scripture. And here in this, “I am the door”—-not I was or I will be—-“I am the true vine, I am the shepherd, I am the life, I am the truth, I am the resurrection, I am the way.” Word after word, I am. “Except ye believe that I am he, you die in your sins” (John 8:24). Anyone in this world that doesn’t believe that I am now that which I would be, then you remain what you were and you die in your sins. Remain just thinking of it, instead of thinking from it. Well, the difference between success and failure is thinking of it and thinking from it. If I think from it, it’s I am. I can think of and it’s something entirely different. If I think from it, well, then I am it and I’m thinking from it. This subtle little subjective change in man produces the success that we are seeking in this world.
So, tell me, “Master”—-he called him Rabbi which means teacher—-“where are you staying?” “Well, come and see.” And so they came and they saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day, because it was about the tenth hour. He instructed them in the way of the creative power of God in the tenth hour, which means Yod. He told them all about the Yod. ___(??) Yod He Vau He. The name Jesus is Yod He Vau Shin Ayin, just like Joshua, the one who actually went into the Promised Land. So the foundation, the root of the word is Yod He Vau. It begins with Yod and every letter in this alphabet is simply a combination of Yod. No matter what letter you bring before me, if I had a blackboard here and drew the entire twenty-two and the five finals, I would only use the letter Yod. Simply use them in such formations that they’re simply different combinations of Yod, and they all form the entire alphabet of the Hebrew alphabet. And that is the Yod. But man, not knowing that, these brilliant scholars dare to take it and say that it was the four in the afternoon. Hasn’t a thing to do with any four in the afternoon. It has all to do with this creative power that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the creative power and the wisdom of God.
If this very moment…I take a simple, simple woman…here is a simple, a very simple woman—-and I am no critic of one’s behavior in this world, I don’t care what you do—this woman by profession was one who, I would call, well, a lady of the evening, that was her profession. She said to me one day in New York City, “Neville, I would love a new hat!” “Alright, you have a new hat. Put it on. What hat do you want?” Well, she didn’t know at the moment, but she would like a new hat. “Alright, put it on, wear it just as though it were true.” She lived at the Ansonia Hotel on 73rd and Broadway. She came out of that hotel one night and walked up Broadway and passed a millinery shop and there were the hats. Something struck her fancy; it was seventeen dollars and fifty cents. These were pre-war days. Today that seventeen-fifty hat possibly would be a normal priced hat, but in pre-war days seventeen-fifty was an exceptionally high hat. But she saw the hat, she remembered what I told her, and she put in on mentally and felt the thrill of wearing the hat and walked up Broadway with the hat. And when she walked back, instead of looking into the window to become disillusioned she didn’t look; she went by the window and went home and took off the old hat and stuck it on the top of the shelf. Well, the next day she put on the old hat. There was no hat that she had put on that day. Ten days later, a friend called and the friend asked her if she was busy or not, but she said, “Well, I am free.” So she said, “Will you come home? I have something to give you.” So she went to this lady’s home and she said, “Anne, I don’t want to offend you, but I bought a hat just about eight or nine days ago. Why I did it I don’t know, I wouldn’t really wear it to a dogfight. But I thought of you and, strangely enough, I think it would look lovely on you.” And she brings out the hat…not a hat, the hat. Anne puts it on. It’s the hat that Anne had put on that night.
Anne said to me, “Well, now tell me, Neville, why didn’t God give me the money to buy the hat instead of giving it to me in this manner? So, God gave me the hat alright, I have the hat, but why couldn’t I have had the money to buy the hat?” Well, knowing Anne’s profession…and I am not against any profession in this world, I don’t care what your profession is, you could be a thief; as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care. God plays all the parts. So I said to her, “Anne, what price hat do you usually wear?” “Oh,” she said, “about three-fifty or four-dollar hats.” I said, “What did the hat cost?” She said, “Seventeen-fifty.” I said, “Now, Anne, tell me, do you owe any rent?” She said, “You’re too nosey!” I said, “Honestly, do you owe any rent?” She said, “Yes, two-weeks rent, and I pay seventeen-fifty a week rent, and I owe two-weeks rent.” “So you owe two weeks rent? If you found a hundred dollars on the floor while you’re looking at the hat, would you have bought the hat?” She said, “No.” I said, “You would have gone in and paid the two-weeks rent, wouldn’t you? And you would have put down three times seventeen-fifty of the hundred dollars you found on the street. Well, how much money would God have to give you to get you to buy that seventeen-fifty hat? So he gave it to you the only way that you could ever get it. You would never have bought it, no matter what sort of money you found, because you’re not in the habit of spending more than three-fifty or four dollars for a hat. So you would never have bought that hat. You put it on, didn’t you? And you got the hat. So what!” She just looked and smiled. She went her way and I went my way.
I say we must be daring in our experiments in Jesus Christ. That was Jesus Christ. So she was a harlot, so what? His friends were harlots, his friends were all the harlots of the world, the winebibbers, the gluttons, and the tax collectors. He came not to save those who felt they were already saved; he came to save those who were “missing the mark” in life. His name is Jesus which means “Jehovah saves.” He saves those who are missing marks in life so that they may know how to hit the bull’s-eye…didn’t come to judge people and to criticize them. So that’s her part that she’s playing in this world. But she wants a hat and Jesus Christ, her own wonderful human Imagination, gave her that hat. Gave it to her in the only way she could ever get the hat, because if she found a thousand dollars, she would not have bought the hat. You don’t jump from a three-fifty hat to a seventeen-fifty hat overnight; it takes time to acquire the feeling of spending.
You go in and you buy a suit…I used to buy twelve dollar suits. I haven’t bought a suit under $175 for the last twenty-odd years, but I remember buying suits that were, alright, twelve-fifty. I ran into a fellow on a boat one day, “What did you pay for this suit?” I said twelve dollars. He said, “They robbed you.” Then he said to me, “If it starts to rain, start running. You’ll never get it off.” Well, that was the days of Depression, 19…I can see it… 1933. When I went to Barbados I bought a twelve dollar suit, that’s all that I had, and I thought it was the most wonderful suit in the world. Then I had to push myself out beyond that to thirties, forties, fifties, and now I haven’t had a suit that has cost me less than 175 and many 225 and 250, in the last twenty-odd years.
So I tell you, put Jesus Christ to the extreme test. And one day you’re going to see the Christ of Israel in the light of your own scriptural experience of him. You’ll never see him otherwise. You’ll never see him coming from without, with some beard or some glow around him and wearing some lovely robe. He doesn’t come that way; he comes in the unfoldment of scripture in you, and suddenly everything said of him you are experiencing. You experience Jesus Christ and then and only then do you know who he really is. You know him from your own personal experience who Jesus Christ is. Not something that comes from without at all, it comes from within, and that’s where you’ll find him.
So, he started, started the entire drama. The dove descended. When the dove descended that’s when Messiah’s power laden work begins. When that descends, the individual upon whom the Spirit descends as a dove, his power laden work begins. And he doesn’t care what the world would say or what it thinks about his interpretation of scripture. He isn’t speculating anymore, he’s speaking from experience. He’s not trying to speculate, he’s not going to say it’s four in the afternoon. He doesn’t read Greek, he doesn’t read Hebrew, doesn’t read these ancient tongues, but he knows it’s not any four in the afternoon. And that’s the latest translation by the greatest scholars in our world, and it hasn’t a thing to do with it. It was the tenth hour, the Yod…and he was the Yod.
He is the seed of God, the creative power of God, and he explains to all who will listen to him what he discovered about the creative power of God…how he told the woman, a simple woman, how to get a hat. How he told someone how to get a book, a book that was out of print. And then one day in the very bookstore…I was there with Hannah, she came into the bookstore on 49th Street in New York City and she couldn’t find the book. The lady said, “It’s completely out of print. I’ve had many requests for it, but you can’t get the book.” I stepped forward, I said, “You want the book?” She said yes. I said, “Well, will you please assume that you have the book and leave your name right here, leave your name and address right here with this lady. But you assume that you have this book, could you do that?” She said “Yes sir.” Didn’t ask my name, just simply thought it was a strange, strange thing to happen…a weird creature would come forward and tell her to simply assume that you have the book. Well, I was in that bookstore two weeks later when a box of books came from Florida to the bookstore. No price on the books. She was a widow, the husband made his exit from this world leaving a library and she wanted to unload and get some money in, and hearing of this Harley Bookstore on 49th Street, she packed up a box of books and sent it off, asking the lady, Mrs. Zimmerman, at the bookstore to pay her anything she thought that the books were worth. Among the books was that book, so she got the book.
There’s nothing impossible to the power of Christ, but nothing! But you and I must dare to put him to extreme experiments. Brood upon him, night after night, brood upon this power; then having brooded upon him, try to find out more and more about this working, creative power of God. And then share him…then pass it on to our successors…to anyone who hears you that they in turn may pass it on to others. Don’t keep it to yourself. Pass it on to everyone in this world, who Jesus Christ really is. He doesn’t hang on any wall in this world. He’s not some little icon stuck in some little place, that’s not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ. The day will come—-and may it come this night if it hasn’t already come to you—-that you will actually see and know Jesus Christ by your own experience as scripture unfolds within you. You will know him. Then you will tell others what happened to you and they will smile. What does it really matter? You’ll tell your family and they’ll go into hysterics, because they know your weaknesses, they know your background, they know everything about you. So you’ll tell them what happened to you; but they have the traditional concept of Jesus Christ, and they could not believe in that concept or ever believe that you, their brother, their sister, could be the one spoken of in scripture that is Jesus Christ.
But it doesn’t really matter to you. As far as you’re concerned it makes no difference whatsoever. You’ve experienced it, you’ve told it, and you’ll disappear from this world when your moment in time comes to depart. Then there will be no more revival; you’re not restored to life any more, for you are the resurrection and the life. You are in an entirely different age of an entirely different world. Not this world or any part of this world, an entirely different world where all things are subject to your imaginative power. For you are all Imagination, all power, all creative power, and you are the resurrected Jesus Christ. There is nothing in this world but Jesus Christ. He’s buried in everyone, yes, in the skull of everyone. Where did they put him? Well, they took him to Golgotha. Well, what is Golgotha? It’s Calvary. And what is Calvary?—the cranium. Well, what is the cranium?—the human skull. You mean that’s where they dropped him? Yes, that’s where the creative seed of God fell: the mystery of life through death. It fell into the skull. Is there any symbol in this world that is more representative of mortality, of death, than the human skull? We’ve all see it when the flesh is off, when the skin is off, and here is this thing, just the brain into which the seed of God fell. Here it grew from within into this glorious being that is Jesus Christ. And everyone grows into that being.
So I’m telling you what I know, I am not speculating; I am telling you what I know from experience…the only Jesus Christ in the world. And so, you will see him, you will know him, not as coming from without but your own wonderful scriptural experience of Jesus Christ. That’s how we know him, and he unfolds within you. You stand amazed at this pulsing, living being that you are. Then you know the great mystery that is told in scripture which is not understood by all these great scholars. There is such a thing in this world as “learned ignorance.” ___(??) you think because you read Greek and you read Latin and you read Hebrew and all these wonderful tongues that you are a great scholar. Well, no question about it, you are a great scholar. But there is learned ignorance in this world. When I saw that this morning, I just simply thought I would take four Bibles and just simply compare them. So I took my Revised Standard Version, which doesn’t alter the King James Version, and I turned to the New English Bible, well, I could hardly believe my eyes, went back and read it over and over. Here it is, “it’s the tenth hour.” To give it sense…they’re going to give it sense, it was four in the afternoon. Hasn’t a thing to do with any four in the afternoon. He’s talking of the great sperm. If you see the Yod, it’s like a little sperm, like a little comma, a bulbous head and a little tail that is turned. And you take that same little bulbous head and a turned body and you make every letter of the Hebrew alphabet out of it. It’s only the Yod, that’s all that it is.
So it begins the name of God: Yod He Vau He. The symbol is a hand, and the hand is the one part of man that separates him from the whole vast world of creation. With the hand I can create. Take a hand from me and give me the brain of the wisest of men and I would only be a smart monkey. Couldn’t make anything…I couldn’t fashion anything…I could mold nothing…just a brain. But give me the hand and you make me the sculptor, the painter, the artist. I become a creator with the use of a hand. So this is the hand, the Yod is a hand, and it begins the name of God—-Yod He Vau—-it’s a window. The window is to the house what the eye is to the body. And so I see. Having conceived—-that’s the Yod—then I see, He. Then the same Yod pulled out is a Vau, it’s called a Vau, a nail, and I join myself to that which I see by an inner adjustment and feel that I am that which I would be. The final one is an He which is the objectification of the subjective state. Yod He Vau—-that’s all subjective; the final He is objective. The whole vast world reveals this activity of the Yod He Vau that takes place within man. And so I assume that I am the man that I would be. Reason denies it, my senses deny it, but I dare to assume that I am it. Having assumed it, I have nailed it up, joined myself, and then I wait in patience, in confidence. Then it comes into my world, externalized, and I see my world bearing witness of my inner creative activity. That’s the story. So everyone here can do it. So don’t go looking for Jesus Christ…you’ll never find him in eternity outside of yourself. But you will find him one day not as something coming from without or coming as another, but coming in light of your own scriptural experience. That’s how you find him…can’t find him any other way.
And so, “Where do you dwell?” “Where do I dwell? Well, come and see.” If I could take you with me and be honest with you, I would show you that state to which I constantly return. For the state to which I constantly return is my dwelling place. I could return to wealth. I have a brother who thinks constantly in terms of the expansion of money; that’s where he dwells. This doesn’t interest him. He goes to church…it’s all the churches in the world…gives generously to the churches. Comes to New York City, he runs my feet off going to churches. Every time he goes to a church he puts a huge big bill into the box. If there’s no collection taken up, why he goes to the box by the door, he drops a huge big bill into it. He feels he is doing the right thing by whatever he thinks God is to be…I don’t know. But he sits in the silence and feels the atmosphere of these wonderful churches and he likes that…and I’m bored. I sit with him because that’s what he wants to do; but he can’t conceive of this kind of Jesus Christ, not yet. At the moment, he thinks God has been so very kind to him because he has made millions, and so he wants to repay God. Put in a twenty dollar bill, a fifty dollar bill into the little box and that’s repayment for the great comfort that he now enjoys because he has millions. I go right behind him and I put in a dollar bill. So I have to show some kind of thing with him. So that’s the picture.
But to talk to him of this that I’m telling you tonight of Jesus Christ, he couldn’t believe it not for one second because God has been so kind in giving him all these millions. I tell him I’m here for the last time. I told him this past year in Barbados, I said, “Vic, this is my last time around, but the very last. And I know, I’m not speculating. When I close my eyes here…I’ve already made my will out, so it’s all there…but as far as I am personally concerned, I have left the stage. I have left the stage for the last time, Vic. Until it happens to you you’ll be restored to life instantly, given the opportunity for another angle of the grinding that must take place, until it takes place in you.” Well, because in his eyes the only wealth I have is simply inherited wealth from my father, it doesn’t make any sense to him whatsoever. Because he can’t conceive that such a person who only inherited wealth, who doesn’t earn it, could really be at that station in life. Can’t persuade him…leave him just as he is.
But I tell you, I know this is my last time around. Whenever it comes, it doesn’t really matter. If it came now it would make no difference whatsoever…it’s the last time around. But I’ll share it with everyone in this world who will hear me. I tell you, Jesus Christ will be seen and known by you in your own scriptural experience of it. That’s how we know…there’s no other way.
Now let us go into the Silence.
Q: Neville, what do you think is the point of the taxpayers, tax collectors? Is there any symbol of that, or is it just an archaic thing?
A: No, no. Strangely enough, we think that taxes are only here today; it has always been in the world of Caesar, this world of Caesar. “So render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. And so, whose inscription is this?—-Caesar’s.” Well then, give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s” (Mark 12:15-17). This tyranny called taxation, called our governments of the world, it always has been and always will be. We are in a world of Caesar, so we don’t try to get away from it. Get enough to pay them what they demand and still have enough to live and go on in your own wonderful way. The dream is always: May he awake within me. Let that be the dream. It doesn’t really matter what happens in the world. So people want fame, they want power, they want this, let them have it. But let your dream be “May he awake within me.” That wonderful prayer of Solomon: “And the Lord appeared unto Solomon and said to him, ‘Ask what I should give you.’ And Solomon said, ‘O God, let thy promise to David my father be now fulfilled’” (2 Chron. 1:9). That was his one grand prayer. In the inauguration address Mr. Johnson did not quote that, he quoted another portion of it. He went beyond into another portion, but the real thing was what was his request. He didn’t ask for the destruction of his enemies, he didn’t ask for wisdom, he didn’t ask for power, he didn’t ask for these things. He asked for that: “Let thy promise to David my father be now fulfilled.
Well, the promise to David is: “I will bring forth from you your son, who will come forth from your body; I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (2 Sam. 7:12). Well, humanity is David. So bring forth from me your son, because if you bring him forth from me, the son and the father are one. So bring yourself forth from me…that’s what Solomon asked him for. So I can’t conceive of any greater desire than “bring forth from me”; for until that is done, nothing else is done. I could be a king today…Stalin was the tyrant in the world and all of a sudden a little brain cell collapsed and he was gone. Khrushchev struck all over the world, hammering with his shoe on the desk, and now he’s out and no one knows where he is. So he is just simply completely behind the scenes, as though he never existed. As foretold by George Orwell, they all become in that land “un-persons.” They’ve already begun to take the name of Stalin out of all the books, all the textbooks. They’re now beginning to take the name of Khrushchev out of the books as though he never existed, as though he never was born. It’s a peculiar concept that they have of life; take it right out and they become “un-persons.” Well, really, all in the end will be “un-persons” but that which comes out of humanity and it’s the Son of God who is one with God. So let that be the prayer of everyone here: Grant this day your promise to David my father be fulfilled.
Q: When you’re praying like that, what do you have in mind…where is the God you are praying to?
A: Prayer in the true sense of the word…the word prayer means “motion towards, accession to, nearness at.” Now, in the true sense of the word, it is to stretch out and touch the thing. Well now, I can stretch out and touch a friend. I can pray for this. Suppose now that it happened to me. There is someone in my world with whom I would share it, so I would turn to my wife, to my family, and I would say, “This is what happened to me today”; then I would get close to the picture and share it verbally, all in my Imagination actually. That’s praying. I go beyond and accept the fact that God’s promise is true; and I would share it with a friend, and then let God bring it into being.
Q: When you asked for that experience that night…?
A: I communed with myself. For instance, I woke, it was 4:10, 4:15, and I said, “It’s too early to get up, and I don’t want to remain here for the next two hours just simply contemplating on things. I will go back to sleep and become one who sleeps, but I would like to be favored with an experience that would be to me significant, something that would have deep meaning. It could come in the form of a dream, but it must have deep significance. Or it could come in the form of an ecstasy.” So I went to sleep confident that it would come that way, when this happened. Well, to me it’s greatly…I mean it’s of great significance: Amnesia was not of the past, amnesia was of the present. If I could only get over to everyone here tonight that the message of that parable, which came in the form of a dream, is that we are always losing the feeling of I-am-ness. In other words, we find it so difficult to keep the tense. I think of the past, I think of the future, and man is lost between past and future. The two thieves at the cross were past and future…he was present. He is I AM. One is past, one is future, and they’re always stealing from me, I am.
So the story is: Go and tell them to try to hold onto I-am-ness with all of their might. So that, if you would be well even though the past tells you you have a history of unwellness…and the future is going to tell you that because of the past…for man really is a culminative unity as it were. In other words, I’m always what I have been and shall be what I am. Therefore, repent! Repent is changing the present. For if I’m simply the culmination of all things now, what I have been, I am and shall be what I am, well then, change what I am. I must! And that’s repentance. And so, I was told go and tell them that they are losing themselves in not holding onto I am. I remembered…I had no amnesia of the past…I couldn’t remember the present. That present state was the most important in this world. I found myself sleeping in myself, for the voice said to me, “He laid himself down within you to sleep”—not out there to sleep, in you to sleep. He didn’t lay himself down in your bed to sleep or in New York to sleep or in Barbados to sleep or in London to sleep or in California, “He laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept, he dreamed a dream…and he dreamed he is you.”
So it is there that is my present. What am I dreaming? What am I holding onto to which I return most often? It is that state that is my dwelling place. So I simply commune with myself and ask to be favored. I didn’t ask for anything outside of myself…I didn’t turn to any God outside of myself. While simply in that state, let me now have a wonderful dream or ecstasy that should be significant so I can share it with those who come to my meeting. I was favored…my request. So I commune with self, really—there’s no one else—his name is I AM. And it frightens man to dare to make that bold claim, because man finds it easier to light a candle and to cross himself before some man-made little icon. And they do all these things. I was told so vividly and so clearly that all ceremony, all outside activity, is anti-Christ, but all of it. No matter how they justify by telling you that it has a certain significance, forget it, there is no reason for it. I only communed with myself and I was rewarded with the most glorious experience to tell to the world. That is you, for you are my world when you come here. So I tell you that here it is all within your own wonderful being that it takes place, doesn’t take place on the outside. Go and tell them of this strange amnesia, not of the past, for man remembers it…amnesia of the present. He can’t seem to hold onto the reality of I am. The present tense escapes him, and he’s always thinking of thou art or he is, and not I am.
Goodnight.