Neville Goddard (July 24, 1968)
Tonight’s subject is: The Man Within. This “Man Within” is Jesus Christ, the image of God, called in Scripture, “The Son of God.” Now, unless this Christ in us is raised to ever higher and higher levels, then God cannot fulfill His purpose.
Now, listen to these words carefully, from “A Little Boy Lost” by William Blake. He said:
Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so, Nor is it possible to Thought A greater than itself to know
And Father, how can I love you Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.
If God wants me to know Him as He is, He will have to raise me to the level of His own being. I must become God to know God. If He would have me to venerate Him, He has to raise me to the level of Himself. If He would have me love Him, then He would have to bring me up to the level of God – and we are told: God is love. So, I could not possibly know God, love God, and venerate God unless I am God. If He leaves me as I am, like the little bird around the door, “Well, that’s the only love I can show for God. That’s the only respect I can have for Him.
So, there’s a man in man that is God, and that one has to be raised to the level of God, for God becomes man, that man may become God.
Now, here we are told we are destined in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will. So the office of Christ, in the Gospel, is that men may become the sons of God through grace, by union with Him who is the Son of God by nature. This is spoken of in Scripture as rebirth – not reincarnation, rebirth – a higher level and a still higher level.
We have the discussion, taking place in the third chapter of the book of John. It’s introduced out of the nowhere. Nothing leads up to it. He suddenly turns to a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest body in the Hebrew world, and he said to him, “You must be born again.” The word translated “again” or “anew” means literally “from above.” Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3); and he heard it wondered, How can I, a man – an old man, once more reenter my mother’s womb and be born again? And he said, “You a master of Israel, and yet you do not know that unless you are born from above, you cannot see the Kingdom of God?”
It is not explained, and when you hear it – and I have heard ministers and priests and rabbis discuss it, and they say, “Well, you mean, it’s a change of attitude” – a change of this – a change of that. May I tell you? It is literally true! You are born from above. I speak from experience. I am not speculating; I am not theorizing. I had no idea this thing was so literally true, that man contains within himself this seed that is Christ. He is called the Word of God, and the Word is called the seed. There are three stages in the history of a seed: there is the sowing, there is the dying, and then there is the quickening.
The seed is sown upon man. Man hears it with faith, and then it’s planted – it’s sown. Man goes through the fires of hell in this world here, and that is the dying. A seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive. If it does not die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much. This is the great mystery of life through death.
So, the seed falls: it’s sown. Then it dies, and then it’s raised; it’s quickened. And this is the seed called the Word of God that is Jesus Christ. It’s actually in man.
So, you’ve heard the story of God, you’ve heard the story of the Gospel. You either accept or you reject, but unnumbered chances will be given you to hear it and to accept it, because you must accept it eventually, that God’s purpose be fulfilled. So, every one will one day completely accept it; and the acceptance will then, in him, prove that he can be raised from the level where he accepted it up to the level where the seed will take him, which is God Himself. So, God becomes man, that man may become God.
Now, here I have told it in my own way. Every one will tell it as he himself experiences it. With different people it appears differently, as everything else does in this world. Now, here is one from the south, in L.A. – how it came in his case. I’m very eager to get every one to share with me their visions and their dreams, because God speaks to man through the medium of the dream, and unveils Himself through the medium of a vision.
One finds himself at the base of a great tree, and then a winding road leading up; and here, at the top of this winding road is an enormous dog, and the dog is barking at him, but he knows the dog can’t injure him and will not, because he is held by his friend. The friend has no outline of a man, but there’s a radiant light – a fiery light, and he knows it’s his friend in the vision. The man takes the dog on the leash and brings him down and passes this man who is at the base of the tree. When he gets beyond, he looses the dog, but he himself returns to the man at the base of the tree and fuses with him. This radiant fiery being enters him and becomes him; and then he, still not quite sure of the dog, moves like lightning up this winding pathway; and when he arrives at the very top, he says, “At last I’m in the top room.” The dog comes up and licks his face, and then he wakes. This is also told us by a great poet, Francis Thompson, called “The Hound of Heaven.”
I chased him down the nights and down the years,
Down through the arches of the years
Through the labyrinthine ways of my mind.
And he paints this fantastic picture of the Hound, the pursuit of God. And when he comes to the end of the poem, he now takes a rest, and the Voice beside him speaks, and he says:
Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.
Now, you and I are seeking God, and we go into unnumbered blind alleys. We think we can find Him through diet, through meditation, through joining a certain “-ism”, through doing this, that and the other. All these are the blind alleys, for the One we are seeking is within. “Unless you believe that I am He, you [will] die in your sins.” (John 8:24)
I can tell you from now to the end of time that when you say, “I am,” that is God and there never was another and never will be another; but can I persuade you? Can I persuade you to stop looking on the outside for what is within – that Man Within, which is I Am? I can talk from now to the end of time in the hope that I will get you at least to try it; but I can’t say that I’ve succeeded. You, and you alone – like my friend who had this vision. He’s been coming for years. This happened here recently. He suddenly began to actually accept the fact that it really is within, and what seemed to come from without did penetrate him, and abides now within him. So the friend took up the place within himself. I call you “Friend.” And, now, he’s no longer a servant, seeking on the outside, now he’s found Him on the inside.
So, here this man, this Man Within that we speak of as Jesus Christ – can only be born from above if I am joined in supernatural union to Him Who is the Son of God by nature. So, when I stood in His presence, it’s an actual union; and don’t be embarrassed – we’re all adults. It’s not a sexual union; you feel no sexual act, but the most fantastic sexual act in the world is like as nothing compared to the ecstasy of the embrace of the Son of God when He embraces you. When you stand in His presence, and He asks you the simplest question in the world: to name the greatest thing in the world, and whether you knew it prior to that moment or not, you are going to answer automatically, for you are fulfilling Scripture. And you are going to say, “Faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.” At that moment, He embraces you, and you fuse – you actually become one body – one spirit. At that moment, you have had union with the Risen Lord.
Now, the seed that I contain within myself bears my image. Find the appropriate soil in which to plant it, and it will grow into the likeness of myself from which it was taken. You take a succor from a plant; try to take it from the plant. It participates in the life of the plant, but you take it from the plant and transplant it; it becomes in its turn the parent. So the seed of God is planted in man, and that seed is called Jesus Christ. It bears the express image of His person. So the seed comes to the Womb, which is man. By “man,” I mean generic man. It comes in the form of a story, which is the story of the Gospel, which is the story of God. He desires to raise us to the level where we can appreciate Him, where we can venerate Him, where we can understand Him; but I can’t understand Him on my present level, as He ought to be understood. For, to go back to the poem (“Little Boy Lost” by William Blake):
“Nought loves another as itself.”
I can’t. I could sacrifice myself tonight for some one. I would willingly, for my daughter, my wife, my friends. At my age, what does it matter? If I was given no choice but, “either your life or her life,” – no, I don’t think I could hesitate for a second to say, “Well, take this.” But it doesn’t mean because I gave my life to save my wife or my daughter or my friend that I really truly, in the depths of my soul, loved them more than I do myself.
“Nought loves another as itself, Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to Thought A greater than itself to know:
And Father, how can I love you Or any of my brothers more?
— how can I?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.”
You want to venerate You? Well, then, raise me. If You want me to really understand You and know You? Well, then, raise me to the level of Your own Being. Then I can really love you, because I can’t love anything in this fabulous world as I love myself. If we are big enough to admit it, we’ll admit it. If you say, “Oh, no, I love God more than I love myself,” then define Him for me. And you’ll give me some monstrous thing that I know full well you couldn’t possibly love. You are going to paint something that is not God at all, for God reveals Himself to man within as his own wonderful I-Am-ness.
“Go and tell them I AM has sent me unto you. That’s my name forever, and by this name I shall be known throughout all generations.”
Well, have you found Him truly as “I Am”? I tell you, the day will come you will find Him just as I Am. And His son will stand before you and call you “father.” And when the son calls you “father,” and you know the truth of this relationship, then you have found God. So, there is no other god. So, He sets up in the beginning that which, when it appears in you, reveals to you that you and the One you call God are one. Until it happens, you will not know truly that you are God. And you will know the truth of the visions of these men like a Blake and a Thompson, and you will not be cynical about it – you won’t question it; you will admit it.
Now, you dwell upon it. Do you think it’s possible for “Thought a greater than itself to know”? Can it? Do you really believe that you – the individual here this night – that you could venerate some one more than the thing that you really are? That it’s possible to love another more than to love self? I tell you, when you dwell upon it and you are brutally frank with yourself and honest, your answer is: “No, I can’t.”
Well, now, I admit that there is a Presence that created it all, and I am, relative to this Presence, like the little bird around the door. But I would like to know Him. I’d like to know Him so I can show my appreciation and my love. Well, then, raise me. Raise me up to Your level, that I may know You as You are. Raise me up to Your level, that I may venerate You as You ought to be venerated. Raise me up, that I may love You as you ought to be loved. And, so, He has a plan. God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, and destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will. “Through Jesus Christ,” – well, now, that’s the seed. He tells us that this is the Word of God, and the Word is the seed, and the seed is planted on man; but man becomes the soil to receive that seed, and he receives it; and then it dies – it dies in him. He walks the earth wondering, Where is the one that I’m supposed to find? And suddenly it erupts within Him, and that moment of eruption, no one knows when it’s going to happen. It’s like a woman taken at the very last moment – she doesn’t know it, and suddenly she gives birth. And man is then “born from above.” From that moment on, you see everything differently. You see God in an entirely different light – no longer on the outside. You’ve found Him, and you’ve found Him within, and you can tell others, and there are a few among the others that you speak to who will call you mad or call you blasphemous. It doesn’t really matter to you. You only hope they will accept Him. They may turn from you and say, “He’s the most arrogant person I’ve ever met.” It’s perfectly all right, because when you have the experience, you know in your heart that they are going to have it, too. And when they have it, you’ll be far removed from them in time and space, but eventually you will meet. There will be no bragging, no boasting because you preceded them into the Kingdom, because in the Kingdom they are all equal. So, when they come, they come as brothers; and then you will know the words: “Nought loves a brother more.” When he comes, because he’s had the same experience that he has found God, and he has found himself in finding God, and you’ve found yourself in finding God, then you are one. And you know the words of John: “And I dwell in them, and they dwell in me, and we are one, Father,” as you and I are one. And may they know that You have sent me, and love them as Thou lovest me.” Only one.
So, here, this Man Within – you actually feel Him, and you find Him, although you are clothed thereafter in the same garment of flesh, and you answer to the name they all know you by. So, they call you John, and you respond. But you know in your heart of hearts who you really are, but in the world of Caesar you bear a name, and the name is John or the name is Mary, or any other name, and to that name you respond. But within yourself, having had the experience, you know who you are!
And those who come to you, you know they couldn’t possibly come unless the Father within you called them. And, so, you are calling one after one after one because they are all beginning to awake when they are coming to you. For if you have awakened, then those whom you are calling are on the verge of waking! So, I can say number down in L.A. that dozens and dozens are having the experience of the birth from above. Every Monday and Friday are my two nights, and in that audience dozens are having it, but they have it differently, as they have everything else differently. We all are unique in this world, though the birth is the same; but when it takes place, the symbolism alters somewhat. The imagery changes somewhat. But it’s all towards the awakening and the unfolding of the God-Within-Us.
So, when we are told, “Christ in you is the hope of glory,” it’s an actual fact – when I speak of Christ in you as the hope of glory.
Now, in Scripture, when I tell ministers and rabbis and priests the story, they look at me as though to say, “What on earth did you ever study?” “Where is your theology?” “Did you go to any college to study it?” “Well, I never heard that in school when I studied theology!” Well, as far as I’m concerned, it is not something I studied in a book. I never heard it from a man, never read it in a book. It was by revelation. If it doesn’t fit what you have heard, I would ask you to consider it anyway, because you have heard it from a man. How do you know what you heard from man was revelation? Could it not be the traditions of men where men sat down to conceive and compose what they consider a workable philosophy of life, and this they considered the right thing, and then they gave it out as vision. But it isn’t a vision at all. I am telling you what I’ve actually had by revelation. By “revelation,” I mean God unveiling Himself in me as me.
And, so, when I tell you that Jesus Christ is God the Father, you will say, “No, he is God the Son.” I’m telling you, He is God the Father. And as God the Father, He has to have a son, for He would not be a father without a son. Then you say, “But Jesus Christ has no son. He is the Son of God.” And I tell you – He is God Himself. And God being a father, He has to have a son. Now, I’ll tell you who His son is. And this always startles them. His son is David. David of Biblical fame, that’s the son of the Lord Jesus Christ. They’d go through the ceiling, they are so afraid of what I’m talking about. Then I turn to Scripture and say, now to whom are these words addressed?
They are taken from the Second Psalm. “And David said, I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.” Do you want to know where you’ll find it? In the Second Psalm, the 7th verse, there you’ll find it, written one thousand years B.C. Here is a blueprint of what man is going to experience, for the whole story is the story of Christ. So, the whole thing is foretold until the time is fulfilled when God begins to awake within man.
Well, if God is a father, then show me his son. It’s stated in the Second Psalm who His son must be when he appears to reveal God to man – and he appears in man.
Now, in the books of Luke and Matthew there was no reason to bring it up if you read the chapter carefully. Take the 29th chapter of the book of Luke, or the 22nd [chapter] of the book of Matthew; and here they are discussing something entirely different. The Sadducees said to him, “Master, Moses in the law said that if a man marries and dies leaving no offspring, and he has a brother, the brother should marry the widow and raise up offspring for the brother. Now, there were seven brothers. One married. The first married, and he died leaving no offspring. The second took her; he died, leaving no offspring. Then the third took her, and eventually all married her, and finally all dies, and then she died, and there was no offspring. Tell me, whose wife is she in the resurrection?”
Now, the question was asked by the Sadducees. We are told, the Sadducees were of the ancient world what the modern agnostic or atheist, or the extreme scientist who is looking for tangible proof of the existence of God, or something in man that could survive cremation. You cremate the body, and you see it turn to dust. What on earth could survive that? So, the mind who entertains that thought is called the Sadducee in Scripture. Not believing in the resurrection, he asks the question, and this is the answer: “The sons of this age marry, and they are given in marriage, but those who are accounted worthy to attain to That Age and to the Resurrection from the dead, they neither marry, nor are they given in marriage, for they can die no more. They are now sons of the resurrection, therefore sons of God,” – implying until that takes place in man, man, as he appears to die isn’t really dead. He is restored to life to continue the journey, and he dies again; restored, continues the journey, and dies again; not reincarnation – not what the world talks about reincarnation, but simply restoration, continuing in a body just like this, just as before, in a world, terrestrial just like this, aging just as we do here, making our departure from that world as we do here, but that world is part of this world. He only speaks of two ages.
So, my world here does not terminate at the point where my senses cease to register it. So, I meet some one at this very moment. They drop dead, I go to their funeral; I see the dust. They give me a little urn. She was turned into little ashes. But I can’t touch her now, I can’t talk to her, I can’t see her; but that world does not end. It doesn’t terminate at that point in time where my senses cease to register it. She is restored in a body just as before, new – not a baby, but new – young, not a thing missing. It’s unaccountably new! She continues her journey, and she marries, as she did here and she lives her life there as she lived it here; and she matures and grows old, and she dies there as she died here, to find herself restored once more to continue the journey, just as before, no loss of identity.
Then comes this moment in time where man is “born from above.” As he is born from above, he goes through the series of events leading up to the discovery of the Fatherhood of God, which is himself! Then he departs this age forever; he no longer is restored to life. When men call him “dead,” he has entered the Kingdom of God, and his body is not the body of flesh and blood, for it cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That body is the body of Glory, his immortal body that cannot die. Every one has that body, awaiting the discovery of the Fatherhood of God, and he discovers it within himself when God’s Son calls him, “father.”
Now, after the discussion with the Sadducees, he brings up a point, and it’s not at all related to the chapter, either the 22nd of Matthew or the 20th of Luke, where you find the story. After he answers the Sadducees, he then asks the question: “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” For tradition had it that he was the son of David; so they answered, “The son of David.” Then he comes back and says, “Why, then, did David in the spirit call him, Lord? If David thus calls him, My Lord, how can he be David’s son?” so he discounts the fact that he is David’s son. He doesn’t tell them, but he does tell them, “David called him, My Lord.” Well, the ancient son always spoke of his father as “my lord,” – always referred to his father as “my lord.”
So, he is telling you in his own wonderful mystical way who David is relative to him. David is his son! That is set up in the beginning in the Second Psalm: “David calls him, Father.”
The 89th Psalm makes the statement: “I have found David,” (Psalm 89:20) and “He has cried unto me, Thou art my father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.” (Psalm 89:26) Now, these are mysteries, but the mysteries of Scripture are not matters to be kept secret. They are truths that are mysterious in character. So, when you read it and you take it as secular history you’ll never get the point.
Read it carefully, dwell upon it, and try to understand, “What is he trying to get at in this point?” Well, he is trying to reveal who he is. He tells now in the book of John when some one said to him – Philip said to him, “Master,” – or, he calls him “Lord,” – he said, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied. He said I have been so long with you, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How, then, can you say, Show us the Father?” (John 14:8, 9) He tells you he’s the Father. In spite of that, after two thousand years of theology – which is not really theology in the true sense of the word, which is the knowledge of God, for what the world would imply – it is nothing more than the traditions of men. Man has a certain set concept of what God ought to have done, and he teaches it as theology, ordaining people, and out they go to continue the lie. For it’s not based upon the truth of Scripture.
Some lady came to me once, about six weeks ago. At the end of the meeting she came forward. She said, “I will take your theories under consideration.”
I said, “Well, thank you very much.”
Then she said to me, “You know, I’m an ordained minister.” I said, “That’s very nice.”
She said, “Are you ordained?”
I said, “Not by man, no. Undoubtedly you were ordained by a man, weren’t you?” She said, “By a minister.”
“Well, was he a man?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, then, he was a man, and you call him a minister. Well, all right, he was a minister, and he’s a man. Let me tell you, they are not theories. You say you will take my theories under consideration. I speak from experience. I’m not speculating. I’m not theorizing.”
I am telling you what I know from experience; and that which a man knows from experience he knows more thoroughly than he knows anything else in this world, or than he can know that same thing in any other way. Now, you’ve heard me tonight, and you call it a theory. You can’t deny that you heard it; therefore, you can say, well I know what he said; but you know it as hearsay. You don’t know it from experience. The day will come; you will know what I’m saying to be true, because you will know it from experience. Until you have experienced it, it is still only to you theory – something that some one said, and it’s hearsay. So, you are going to go home and take it under consideration. Well, you go and take it under consideration.
Now, one day in God’s infinite mercy, He will unveil Himself within you; and you will find that you, in spite of your present sex, will be God the Father. And it will not embarrass you. Although you now wear the garment of a woman, you will find that you are really the Eternal Man, and that Eternal Man is God. God is man. And I’m telling you, I know that from experience. You stand in the presence of Infinite Love, and it’s Man. He wants me to know Him? All right, raise me as that same Man. Don’t leave me on the level of the bird, where I can only see You through the eyes of the bird and be satisfied with the crumbs – not knowing that He will throw the crumbs out, that you were grateful to get the crumbs – I’m not even grateful for them. I take them, because they are, and you gave me the appetite as a man to eat them; so I ate them, but I do not know where they came from, and I’m not concerned. I’m a bird.
So, we go into the field, and we reap our harvest; and we don’t even know how it came into being. If we planted a little corn, we have an ear of corn. We do not know the mystery behind the growth of the corn; and so I cannot know You until You raise me to His level Who grew the corn, and then I will know. Until then, I am simply the bird “feeding on the crumbs around the door.”
“For nought can know, and – Nought loves another as itself, Or venerates another so,
Nor is it possible for Thought A greater than itself to know.”
So, Father, You want me to know YOU? Lift me up.
Well, He has made a plan. The plan is contained in what He calls Jesus Christ. He has made known unto me the purpose – His purpose – which is set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. Well, if Christ is in us, then the plan is in us! For He said He set forth the plan in Christ for the fullness of time. So, when that time comes, then it erupts and the shell is broken, and all that is contained in the plan comes forward in a first-person present-tense experience, and then we know who we are.
Then it doesn’t matter after that when we depart this life. Whether we go this moment or ten years from now, it doesn’t really matter. We feel like Paul: “I wish I could, moment after moment, depart,” said he. “I desire to depart and be with Christ. That’s far, far better; but, for your sake, it is better that I remain, and tell you of the Word of God.” But he desired to depart. Having fulfilled Scripture, what else can you do? There’s not a thing in this world for man to do but to fulfill Scripture – not to build on the sands of time, for all things vanish, but to fulfill Scripture. So, when Scripture is fulfilled in man, he has not a thing left, but to tell it; and he will find those who are eager to hear it, those who will turn a deaf ear to it, but it doesn’t really matter. In the fullness of time, who don’t turn their backs upon it will eagerly seek it, and then it will come. Some one else will carry on, and, they will plant the seed and they will pick it up.
So, here, this Man Within is the same man spoken of in Scripture that carries the plan of God – the pattern, and that is Christ Jesus. “Christ in us is the hope of glory.”
And, so, he contains the pattern. He is the pattern man. Paul, in his letter to Timothy said, “Hold fast the pattern of the true word which you heard from me,” for he told the story as he himself experienced it; as he stated in Galatians, and said, “If any man changes one word of it, let him be accursed, for this is not something I composed; this wasn’t taught it by a man. It came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
So, I am telling you who you really are. You are God, keyed low – to the level of the bird feeding on crumbs; but within you is a pattern, and that pattern is contained in the seed of God, and that seed is Jesus Christ. It is as much the seed of God, in the true sense of the word, as my sperm contains my image. And finding the proper womb in which to place it, my image will come out and be projected on the screen of space. But God found in us the proper womb, and He buried through Jesus Christ His pattern.
So, I say it is His purpose, His office, to actually turn men into sons of God by grace, through union with Him who is the Son of God by nature. Now, here is the perfect seed of God, called Jesus Christ. Buried in me, it sort of takes a graft; and like the little succor of the plant, although it lives upon the tree, until detached, and partakes of the life of the tree, when once detached and transplanted, it becomes in its turn the parent. So, he takes his seed and transplants it, engrafts it into man; and then that transplant in its good time becomes the parent, and the parent is God the Father; and, therefore, the same son that called Him “father,” must call me “father.” Then I will know that I am He; and there is no other way of knowing it.
“No one knows who the Father is but the Son, and no one knows who the Son is but the Father.” Well, if no one in this world knows who the son is but the Father, then show me my son. Show me my Father, and when He comes, I’m He!
So, the Old Testament ends upon the note: “If a son honors his father, and I am a father, where is my honor?” In other words, where is my son? You read that in the first chapter of the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi. “Where is my son?”
Now, you turn over the pages, and the New Testament gives the answer, for here is the Son and he comes; but the whole book is a sealed book – completely sealed, and no one knew how to break the seal, for it’s broken from within, it’s not broken from without.
So this Being of whom I speak, which is the Being of whom you have heard time and time again as something external to yourself, is really the seed of God, the sperm God planted in you. Therefore, if Mary carries the sperm of God to bear this Heavenly creature, then you must be Mary! For, you’re carrying the sperm of God. So, in this very body – I don’t mean this body of flesh and blood, but in that Something-Within, I bear, and have borne, the Son of God. He came out and stood before me and called me, “Father.”
Now, let us go into the Silence.
Questions & Answers
Good. Now, are there any questions, please?
Question: Neville, is it necessary to understand all these things before we have the experience of them?
Answer: No, I wouldn’t say that at all. The question was: Is it necessary to understand all these things intellectually before you have the experiences? No. I do know that a hunger comes upon man that only an experience of God can satisfy. When that hunger comes, nothing diverts you; and you will find an interest in God’s book, called the Bible, that no one seems to see. Others carry it for show. You’ll find these ladies on the street in their robes, belonging to a certain Order – they always have a Bible in their hand, but it is closed. In New York City, they are riding the subway and they have the Bible in their hands. They think that’s the Word of God, and they carry it as you would a piece of paper. What do they know about a thing that is contained in the Book?
But you don’t carry it that way; you go home, and you read it. I spend six and seven hours a day, seven days a week, reading my Bible. There are only 66 books in it, but I never tire of it. I never tire of it. I brought two books here. When I went to New York City last summer, I carried two books. When I went to Barbados for three months, I carried the same two books. One was the Bible, and one was the Complete Works of Blake. That’s all that I carried, and I have found in these two a library. First of all, there are many books in the Complete Works of Blake, and there are sixty-six books in the Bible. Well, that’s a nice library.
But you don’t have to know it intellectually – it just happens, it comes; and when it breaks upon you, the whole vast world could rise in opposition, and it makes no difference to you whatsoever – none. You know what has happened, and you can’t undo it. And you also know that all the world could not undo what God has done in you, and you have assurance. It doesn’t really matter what argument they give you; they can’t undo – not in Eternity – what God has done in you. And you are told: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” When? At the day of Jesus Christ – at the unveiling of Christ within you!
Any other questions, please?
Question: What would this indicate – a fish coming out of the water and embracing someone?
Answer: A fish coming out of the water and embraces some one? Well, first of all, the fish has always been the symbol of Christ. Water has been the symbol of truth! Psychological truth. And, so, if the fish comes out, man – I wouldn’t say he has ceased to apply it psychologically, but he is going to turn it now into wine. As we are told in Timothy: “Drink no more water but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake, and your many infirmities.”
In other words, it doesn’t mean, I will stop drinking water; but there are three symbols of truth. The first is the stone. That’s the literal fact that is difficult to digest. Man can’t understand it, for the stories are all parables – they are all allegories, and an allegory or a parable is a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it or reads it to discover its fictitious character and learn its lesson. Well, the average person can’t break that stone. He can’t turn it into water and learn the lesson.
Now, if I should take a story and give you the psychological meaning, so you apply it towards the world of Caesar, I give you water. I offer you [a cup] of water in the name of Christ by showing you the psychological meaning of the story. But don’t stop there. Take it and apply it – you are the operant power. As you apply it, you are turning the water into wine. So, it’s stone, water, and wine.
So, if the fish comes out, which is the symbol of Christ, and then embraces some one – well, he comes out of the water, which is his normal, natural habitat – water being the psychological meaning – now he’s coming out into the more living state. That’s the interpretation I would give to that dream. God speaks to me, to you, and to the whole vast world through the medium of dreams, as told you in the 12th chapter of the book of Numbers.
Any other questions? We have plenty of time.
Question: What is the meaning of snakes in a dream? (Most of the question is inaudible on the tape).
Answer: The lady dreamt that snakes were chasing her. I know that man has a strange concept and feeling towards snakes, and it goes back to the story in the 3rd chapter of Genesis where the snake, the wisest of all God’s creatures, deceived woman – deceived her into believing she would not die. That’s the story that is told: “For the serpent said to her, Did God say to you that you would die? And she said, yes, if I ate of a certain tree – the fruit of a certain tree. And he said, Well, God knows you would not really die – not surely die.” You see, the snake did not deceive her at all, because if you read the story carefully, you will find that this is said: “And God said, The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil”; so he did not deceive her. He said, you’ll become of the gods, knowing good and evil if you did it. And, so, the snake is not really what the world has believed it to be. As you are told in the 3rd [chapter] of John: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.” So, he identifies himself with the serpent, for he calls himself the Son of Man; and he must be lifted up in the same way that the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, and that’s an actual, literal fact. It’s the symbol of the Son of Man; but the Son of Man, on a certain level, scares man.
If you thought this very moment that your every thought – your every emotion – was exposed to the eye of God, you’d be scared to death. You would not live. But knowing that He can’t see you, or thinking that He can’t see you, you can entertain all the unlovely thoughts of the world – thinking now that I am hidden from the eye of God. But if you actually knew that you are not hidden at all – you are completely exposed – your every thought, your every mood – to the eye of God – a man wants a shelter from God; so he runs from the Serpent. But in the end, you will find that is the perfect symbol of the Son of Man.
Any other questions, please?
Question: Is there any special significance in having seven brothers marrying the widow?
Answer: Seven is the spiritual number of perfection – spiritual perfection. All numbers have significance, and seven is spiritual perfection, because on the seventh day he finished; he rested, satisfied with all that was done. The eighth is a new beginning, the resurrection. So, seven – here is the work; it’s done. Now, whose wife is she? You can’t undo it; it’s all done, for they are all dead and she’s dead. Now, give me the answer, and He tells them, you do not understand Scripture. If you understood Scripture, you would not have asked, for only in this age do men marry and are they given in marriage; only in this age do they die. When they attain to That Age
– which is the resurrection from the dead – they cannot marry, or are they given in marriage. They are creative beings, not split into two – male and female; they are Man. Man differs from male, and man differs from female. Man is God, wearing garments of “male”, “female.” But Man, in the resurrection, is above the organization of sex; he’s neither male nor female. He’s Man.
Question: What of the unnumbered crowds in the world who are not seeking what we here are seeking?
Answer: Well, first of all, until the hunger is upon them, they cannot really seek Him. “No man comes unto Me, except my Father calls him.” And when my Father calls him, I will not cast him away. Now, we are told in the book of Amos: “I will send a hunger – a famine upon the land. It will not be a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” (Amos 8:11) And when that hunger is upon you, not a thing in this world can satisfy that hunger but an experience of God. So, until that hunger is upon you, you can have all the things thrown at you of that nature and it doesn’t appeal to you. Go into a restaurant and you have a complete hunger for a certain item, and not a thing else on the menu appeals; you want that item. Well, when the hunger of God is upon you, you only want to feast upon Him; and you are going to eat His body and drink His blood. The body, in a physical sense, is that book – the Bible, and you extract it. When you extract the life of it, you are drinking His blood; and then comes an experience, and you’ll have the experience of God. And you will know that every one is going to have it eventually; but He calls us all in His own good time, one by one by one, as He builds His living temple out of living stones – a life-giving spirit, not just animated body. But the world now – it’s all an animated body. We are destined to be life-giving spirits, where there is life in us; for we are the Father. As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted to the Son also to have life in himself. Then, you’ll be the power animating the world – not being animated by a power external to yourself.
May I suggest that my last book – it’s called “Resurrection,” – that you read that book? I’ve told it just as it happened to me. I told it in the third person most of the time because I thought that people would accept it more readily than if I told it in the first person. I could have told the entire thing in the first person present; I only told snatches of it in the first person. But I told it in the third person, that a man picking it up for the first time, not knowing me, would be more – I would say – amenable to the story if he read it in the third person. But I wish you would read it. It’s the true story of Christmas – of the Resurrection – of the discovery of the Fatherhood of God – of the ascent of the Son of Man into Heaven, as it actually takes place. I’ve told it from my own personal experience.
Well, until tomorrow night, thank you.